As I Remember Part 11

In 1844, accompanied by my father, I attended the wedding of Estelle Livingston, daughter of John Swift Livingston, to John Watts de Peyster.

At the time of this marriage, Mr. de Peyster was considered the finest _parti_ in the city; while, apart from his great wealth, he was so unusually talented that it was generally believed a brilliant future awaited him. It was a home wedding, and the drawing-room was well filled with the large family connection and other invited guests. At this time Mr. Livingston was a widower, but his sister Maria, Mrs. John C. Stevens of Hoboken, did the honors of the occasion for her brother. The young bride presented a charming appearance in all her finery, and at the bountiful collation following the ceremony champagne flowed freely.

This, however, was no unusual thing, as that beverage was generally seen at every entertainment in those good old days. Mrs. John C. Stevens lived at one time in Barclay Street, and I have heard numerous stories concerning her eccentricities. In 1849 she gave a fancy-dress ball but, as she had failed to revise her visiting list in many years, persons who had long been dead were among her invited guests. She was especially peculiar in her mode of dress, which was not always adapted to her social position. It is therefore not at all surprising that unfortunate mistakes were occasionally made in regard to her ident.i.ty. Another of her eccentricities consisted in the fact that she positively refused, when shopping, to recognize even her most intimate friends, as she said it was simply impossible for her to combine business with pleasure. In spite of her peculiarities, however, she possessed unusual social charm.

Her husband was prominent in society and business circles. He was founder of the New York Yacht Club as well as its first president, and commanded the _America_ in the memorable race in England in 1851, which won the celebrated cup that Sir Thomas Lipton and other English yachtsmen have failed to restore to their native land. Mary Livingston, the younger daughter of John Swift Livingston, was a _pet.i.te_ beauty.

She married a distant relative, a son of Maturin Livingston. I am told that her brother, Johnston Livingston, is still living in New York at a very advanced age.

Joseph Kemmerer's band was an indispensable adjunct to all social gatherings in the days of which I am speaking. The number of instruments used was always in proportion to the size of the entertainment. The inspiring airs of Strauss and Labitzky, then in vogue, were popular with the younger set. These airs bring back pleasant memories, as I have frequently danced to them. The waltz in my day was a fine art and its votaries were numerous. I recall the fact that Edward James of Albany, a witty young gentleman with whom I occasionally danced, was such a devotee to the waltz that, not possessing sufficient will power to resist its charms and having a delicate const.i.tution, he nearly danced himself into another world. Two attractive young brothers, Thomas H. and Daniel Messinger, who were general beaux in society, played their parts most successfully in the social world by their graceful dancing, and no ball was considered complete without their presence. These brothers were a.s.sociated in the umbrella industry, and Miss Lydia Kane, some of whose witty remarks I have already quoted, dubbed them the "reigning beaux!" Daniel Messinger eventually married Miss Elizabeth Coles Neilson, a daughter of Anthony Bleecker Neilson, and became a Lieutenant Colonel in the Union Army during the Civil War.

The British Consul General in New York from 1817 to 1843 was James Buchanan. He was Irish by birth, and many young British subjects visiting the United States made his home their headquarters. He had several daughters and, as the whole family was social in its tastes, I often enjoyed meeting these st.u.r.dy representatives of John Bull at his house. Those I knew best came from "the land of brown heath and s.h.a.ggy wood," as in our family we were naturally partial to Scotchmen and, as a rule, regarded them as desirable acquaintances. Many of these were graduates of Glasgow University and young men of unusual culture and refinement. I especially remember Mr. McCorquodale, a nephew of Dr.

Thomas Chalmers, the distinguished Presbyterian Divine of Scotland. He met his future wife in New York in the person of a wealthy and attractive widow. Her maiden name I do not recall, although I am acquainted with certain facts concerning her lineage. She was the granddaughter of Madame de Genlis.

I doubt whether any of these young Scotchmen whom I met remained permanently in this country, as they always seemed too loyal to the "Land o' Cakes" to entirely expatriate themselves. Another young Scotchman, Mr. Dundas, whom I knew quite well through the Buchanans, embarked for his native land on board the steamer _President_. This ship sailed in the spring of 1841 and never reached her destination. What became of her was never known and her fate remains to this day one of the mysteries of the sea. In the fall of 1860 the U.S. man-of-war _Levant_, on her voyage from the Hawaiian Islands to Panama, disappeared in the same mysterious manner in the Pacific Ocean; and, as was the case with the _President_, no human being aboard of her was ever heard of again. There were many conjectures in regard to the fate of this ship, but the true story of her doom has never been revealed. I remember two of the officers who perished with her. One of them was Lieutenant Edward C. Stout, who had married a daughter of Commodore John H. Aulick, U.S.N., and whose daughters, the Misses Julia and Minnie Stout, are well remembered in Washington social circles; and the other was Purser Andrew J. Watson, who was a member of one of the old residential families of the District of Columbia.

CHAPTER VIII

WASHINGTON IN THE FORTIES

My first visit to Washington was in 1845. I started from New York at eight o'clock in the morning and reached Philadelphia late the same afternoon. I broke the journey by spending the night at Jones's Hotel in the lower part of the city, which was the usual stopping place of travelers who made this trip. A few years later when the journey from New York to Washington was made in twelve hours, it was thought that almost a miracle had been performed.

Mrs. Winfield Scott in 1855 characterized the National Capital as "an ill-contrived, ill-arranged, rambling, scrambling village"; and it was certainly all of that when I first saw it. It is not improbable that the cause of this condition of affairs was a general feeling of uncertainty as to whether Washington would remain the permanent seat of government, especially as the West was naturally clamoring for a more centrally located capital. When I first visited the city the ubiquitous real-estate agent had not yet materialized, and corner lots, now so much in demand, could be purchased at a small price. Taxation was moderate and Congress, then as now, held itself responsible for one-half of the taxes. As land was cheap there was no necessity for economy in its use, and s.p.a.cious fronts were built regardless of back-buildings. In other cases, when one's funds were limited, the rear of the house was first built and later a more imposing front was added. The contrast between the houses of New York, built closely together in blocks, and those in Washington, with the abundant s.p.a.ce around them, was a great surprise to me. Unlike many other cities, land in Washington, then, as now, was sold and taxed by the square foot.

My elder sister f.a.n.n.y had married Charles Eames, Esq., of the Washington Bar, and my visit was to her. Mr. Eames entered Harvard in 1827 when less than sixteen years of age, and was a cla.s.smate of Wendell Phillips and of John Lothrop Motley, the historian. The distinguished Professor of Harvard University, Andrew P. Peabody, LL.D., in referring to him many years after his death said that he was "the first scholar of his cla.s.s, and was regarded as a man of unlimited power of acquisition, and of marked ability as a public speaker." After leaving Harvard he studied law, but ill health prevented him from practicing his profession. He accompanied to Washington George Bancroft, President Polk's Secretary of the Navy, by whom he was made princ.i.p.al correspondence clerk of the Navy Department. He remained there but a few months when he became a.s.sociate editor of _The Washington Union_ under the well-known Thomas Ritchie, usually known as "Father Ritchie." He was subsequently appointed by Polk a commissioner to negotiate a treaty with the Hawaiian Islands, and took pa.s.sage upon the U.S. Frigate _Savannah_ and sailed, by way of Cape Horn, for San Francisco. He unexpectedly found awaiting his arrival in that city Dr. Gerrit P. Judd, Prime Minister of the King, with two young Hawaiian princes. After the treaty was made, he returned east and for six months edited _The Nashville Union_, when he again a.s.sumed charge of _The Washington Union_. President Pierce subsequently appointed him Minister to Venezuela, where he remained until 1859, and then returned to Washington, where he practiced his profession for the remainder of his life. It was while arguing an important case before the Supreme Court that he was stricken, and he died on the 16th of March, 1867. He sustained a high reputation as an admiralty lawyer as well as for his knowledge of international jurisprudence. I have now before me a letter addressed to his widow by Wendell Phillips only three days after his death. It is one of the valued possessions of Mr. Eames's daughter, who is my niece and the wife of that genial Scotchman, Alexander Penrose Gordon-c.u.mming. It reads:

QUINCY, Illinois, March 19, 1867.

My dear friend,

I have just crossed from the other side of the Mississippi, and am saddened by learning from the papers my old and dear friend's death.

The a.s.sociations that bind us together go back many, many years. We were boys together in sunny months full of frolic, plans and hopes. The merriment and the seriousness, the toil and the ambition of those days all cl.u.s.ter round him as memory brings him to me in the flush of his youth. I have seen little of him of late years, as you know, but the roots of our friendship needed no constant care; they were too strong to die or wilt, and when we did meet it was always with the old warmth and intimacy. I feel more alone in the world now he has gone. One by one the boy's comrades pa.s.s over the river and life loses with each some of its interest.

I was hoping in coming years, as life grew less busy, to see more of my old playmate, and this is a very unexpected blow.

Be sure I sympathize with you most tenderly, and could not resist the impulse to tell you so. Little as we have met, I owe to your kind and frank interest in me a sense of very warm and close relation to you--feel as if I had known you ever so many years. I hope our paths may lead us more together so that I may learn to know you better and gather some more distinct ideas of Eames' later years. All his youth I have by heart.

With most affectionate regards believe me

Very faithfully yours,

WENDELL PHILLIPS.

Mrs. Eames.

I think women never fully realize the strange tenderness with which men cling to college mates. No matter how much opinions or residence separate grown-up men, to have been cla.s.smates is a tie that like blood never loosens. Any man that has a heart feels it thrill at the sight of one of _those_ comrades. Later friendships may be close, never so tender--this makes boys of us again at any moment.

Unfamiliar tears obey its touch, and a singular sense of loneliness settles down on survivors--Good-bye.

The young Hawaiian princes to whom I have just referred and who, by the way, were mere boys, accompanied Dr. Judd to New York where my younger brother, Malcolm, thinking he might make the acquaintance of some genial playmates, called to see them. Upon his return from his visit his only criticism was, "those dusky princes certainly give themselves airs."

My sister, Mrs. Eames, lived in a house on G Street near Twenty-first Street in what was then known as the First Ward. This general section, together with a part of Indiana Avenue, some portions of Capitol Hill, Sixth and Seventh Streets, and all of that part of the city bounded on the north by K Street, on the south by Pennsylvania Avenue, and westward of Fourteenth Street to Georgetown, was at this time the fashionable section of the city. Like many other places in its formative period, Washington then presented the picture of fine dwelling houses and shanties standing side by side. I remember, for example, that as late as 1870 a fine residence on the corner of I and Fifteenth Streets was located next to a small frame house occupied by a colored undertaker.

The latter's business was prosperous, but his wealthy neighbor objected to the constant reminder of death caused by seeing from his fine bay window the numerous coffins carried in and out. He asked the undertaker to name his price for his property, but he declined, and all of his subsequent offers were ignored. Finally, after several years' patient waiting, during which offer after offer had been politely but positively rejected, the last one being an almost princely sum, the owner sold his home and moved away, leaving his humble neighbor in triumphant possession. This is simply a fair example of the conditions existing in Washington when I first knew it.

Two rows of houses on Pennsylvania Avenue, known as the "Six and Seven Buildings," were fashionable dwellings. Admiral David D. Porter, then a Lieutenant in the Navy, occupied one of them. Miss Catharine L. Brooke kept a girls' school in another, while still another was the residence of William Lee of Ma.s.sachusetts. I have been informed that while serving in a consular office abroad, under the appointment of President Monroe, Mr. Lee was commissioned by him to select a dinner set for the White House.

Architects, if I remember correctly, were almost unknown in Washington at this time. When a person was sufficiently venturesome to build a house for himself, he selected a residence suited to his tastes and directed a builder to erect one like it. Speculative building was entirely unknown, and if any resident of the District had embarked upon such a venture he would have been regarded as the victim of a vivid but disordered fancy.

Mrs. C. R. Latimer kept a fashionable boarding house in a large brick dwelling facing Lafayette Square where the Belasco Theater now stands.

Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton Fish boarded with her while the former was a Representative in Congress, and Mr. and Mrs. Sanders Irving, so well and favorably known to all old Washingtonians, also made this house their home. Many years later it was the residence of William H. Seward, and he was living there when the memorable attempt was made in 1865 to a.s.sa.s.sinate him. As is well known, it subsequently became the home of James G. Blaine. When Hamilton Fish was elected to the Senate, he purchased a house on H Street, between Seventeenth and Eighteenth Streets, which was afterwards known as the "Porter house." Previously it had been owned and occupied by General "Phil" Kearny.

The shops of Washington in 1845 were not numerous, and were located chiefly upon Pennsylvania Avenue, Seventh Street then being a residential section. The most prominent dry-goods store was kept by Darius Clagett at the corner of Ninth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.

Mr. Clagett, invariably cordial and courteous, always stood behind his counter, and I have had many pleasant chats with him while making my purchases. Although he kept an excellent selection of goods, it was usually the custom for prominent Washington folk to make their larger purchases in Baltimore. A little later Walter Harper kept a dry-goods store on Pennsylvania Avenue, near Eighth Street, and some years later two others appeared, one kept by William M. Shuster on Pennsylvania Avenue, first between Seventh and Eighth Streets, and later between Ninth and Tenth; and the other by Augustus and Thomas Perry on the corner of Ninth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. Charles Demonet, the confectioner, made his appearance a little later on Pennsylvania Avenue, between Seventeenth and Eighteenth Streets; but Charles Gautier, on Pennsylvania Avenue, between Twelfth and Thirteenth Streets, was his successful rival and was regarded more favorably in aristocratic circles. Madame Marguerite M. Delarue kept a shop on the north side of the same avenue, also between Twelfth and Thirteenth Streets, where small articles of dress dear to the feminine heart could be bought.

There were several large grocery stores on the south side of Pennsylvania Avenue, between Sixth and Seventh Streets. Benjamin L.

Jackson and Brother were the proprietors of one and James L. Barbour and John A. Hamilton of another, although the two latter had their business house at an earlier day on Louisiana Avenue. Louis Vavans was the accomplished cook and caterer, and sent to their rooms the meals of many persons temporarily residing in Washington. Joseph Redfern, his son-in-law, kept a grocery store in the First Ward. Franck Taylor, the father of the late Rear Admiral Henry C. Taylor, U.S.N., was the proprietor of a book store on Pennsylvania Avenue, near Four-and-a-Half Street, where many of the scholarly men of the day congregated to discuss literary and current topics. His store had a bust of Sir Walter Scott over its door, and he usually kept his front show-windows closed to prevent the light from fading the bindings of his books. The Center Market was located upon the same site as at present, but of course it has since been greatly enlarged and improved. All the stores on Louisiana Avenue sold at retail. I remember the grocery store of J.

Harrison Semmes on Ninth Street and Louisiana Avenue, opposite the Center Market; and the hardware store kept by Joseph Savage on Pennsylvania Avenue, between Sixth and Seventh Streets, and at another time between Third and Fourth Streets.

On Fifteenth Street opposite the Treasury was another well-known boarding house, conducted by Mrs. Ulrich and much patronized by members of the Diplomatic Corps. Willard's Hotel was just around the corner on the site of the New Willard, and its proprietor was Caleb Willard.

Brown's Hotel, farther down town, on Pennsylvania Avenue and Sixth Street, was a popular rendezvous for Congressional people. It was first called the Indian Queen, and was kept by that prince of hosts, Jesse Brown. After his death the name was changed to the Metropolitan.

The National Hotel on the opposite corner was the largest hostelry in Washington. It boasted of a large Southern _clientele_, and until President Buchanan's administration enjoyed a very prosperous career.

Subsequent to Buchanan's inauguration, however, a mysterious epidemic appeared among the guests of the house which the physicians of the District failed to satisfactorily diagnose. It became commonly known as the "National Hotel disease," and resulted in numerous deaths. A notice occasionally appeared in the current newspapers stating that the deceased had died from this malady. Mrs. Robert Greenhow, in her book published in London during the Civil War, ent.i.tled "My Imprisonment and the First Years of Abolition Rule at Washington," attributes the epidemic to the machinations of the Republicans, who were desirous of disposing of President Buchanan. John Gadsby was its proprietor at one time, from whom it usually went by the name of "Gadsby's." President Buchanan was one of its guests on the eve of his inauguration.

When I first knew Washington, slavery was in full sway and, with but few exceptions, all servants were colored. The wages of a good cook were only six or seven dollars a month, but their proficiency in the culinary art was remarkable. I remember once hearing Count Adam Gurowski, who had traversed the European continent, remark that he had never anywhere tasted such cooking as in the South. The grace of manner of many of the elderly male slaves of that day would, indeed, have adorned a court.

When William L. Marcy, who, although a master in statesmanship and diplomacy, was not especially gifted in external graces, was taking final leave of the clerks in the War Department, where as Secretary he had rendered such distinguished services under President Polk, he shook hands with an elderly colored employee named Datcher, who had formerly been a body servant to President Monroe, and said: "Good-bye, Datcher; if I had had your manners I should have left more friends behind me."

Some years later, and after my marriage into the Gouverneur family, I had the good fortune to have pa.s.sed down to me a venerable colored man who had served my husband's family for many years and whose name was "Uncle James." His manner at times was quite overpowering. On entering my drawing-room on one occasion to greet George Newell, brother-in-law and guest of ex-Governor Marcy, I found him seated upon a sofa and apparently engaged in a "brown study." Referring at once to "Uncle James," he inquired: "Who is that man?" Upon my replying, "An old family servant," he remarked: "Well, he is the most polite man I have ever met."

Some years later my sister, Mrs. Eames, moved into a house on the corner of H and Fourteenth Streets, which she and her husband had built and which she occupied until her death in 1890. I naturally shrink from dwelling in detail upon her charm of manner and social career, and prefer rather to quote an extract from a sketch which appeared in one of the newspapers just after her death:

... During the twenty-eight years of her married life in Washington Mrs. Eames's house was one of the favorite resorts of the most conspicuous and interesting men of the nation; it was a species of neutral ground where men of all parties and shades of political opinion found it agreeable to foregather. Though at first in moderate circ.u.mstances and living in a house which rented for less than $300 a year, there was no house in Washington except, perhaps, the President's, where one was sure of meeting any evening throughout the year so many people of distinction.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MRS. CHARLES EAMES, NEe CAMPBELL, BY GAMBADELLA.

_Owned by Mrs. Gordon-c.u.mming._]

Mr. and Mrs. Marcy were devoted to Mrs. Eames; her _salon_ was almost the daily resort of Edward Everett, Rufus Choate, Charles Sumner, Secretary [James] Guthrie, Governor [John A.] Andrews of Ma.s.sachusetts, Winter Davis, Caleb Cushing, Senator Preston King, N.P. Banks, and representative men of that ilk. Mr. [Samuel J.] Tilden when in Washington was often their guest. The gentlemen, who were all on the most familiar terms with the family, were in the habit of bringing their less conspicuous friends from time to time, thus making it quite the most attractive _salon_ that has been seen in Washington since the death of Mrs. Madison, and made such without any of the attractions of wealth or luxury.

The relations thus established with the public men of the country at her fireside were strengthened and enriched by a voluminous correspondence. Her father, who was a very accomplished man, had one of the largest and choicest private libraries in New York, of which, from the time she could read, Mrs. Eames had the freedom; in this library she spent more time than anyone else, and more than anywhere else, until her marriage. As a consequence, it is no disparagement to any one else to say that during her residence there she was intellectually quite the most accomplished woman in Washington. Her epistolary talent was famous in her generation.

Her correspondence if collected and published would prove to have been not less voluminous than Mme. de Sevigne's and, in point of literary art, in no particular inferior to that of the famous French woman.

After three or four months spent in Washington, I returned to my home in New York; and several years later, in the spring of 1848, suffered one of the severest ordeals of my life. I refer to my father's death. No human being ever entered eternity more beloved or esteemed than he, and as I look back to my life with him I realize that I was possibly more blessed than I deserved to be permitted to live with such a well-nigh perfect character and to know him familiarly. From my earliest childhood I was accustomed to see the sorrowing and oppressed come to him for advice. He was especially qualified to perform such a function owing to his long tenure of the office of Surrogate. Widows and orphans who could not afford litigation always found in him a faithful friend. With a capacity of feeling for the wrongs of others as keenly as though inflicted upon himself, his sympathy invariably a.s.sumed a practical form and he accordingly left behind him hosts of sorrowing and grateful hearts. A short time before his death I visited a dying widow, a devoted Roman Catholic, whom from time to time my father had a.s.sisted. When I was about to leave, she said: "Say to your father I hope to meet him among the just made perfect." This remark of a poor woman has been to me through all these years a greater consolation than any public tribute or imposing eulogy. Finely chiseled monuments and fulsome epitaphs are not to be compared with the benediction of grateful hearts.

The funeral services were conducted, according to the custom of sixty years ago, by the Rev. Dr. William Adams and the Rev. Dr. Philip Milledoler. Members of the bar and many prominent residents of New York, including his two physicians, Doctors John W. Francis and Campbell F.

Stewart, walked behind the coffin, which, by the way, was not placed in a hea.r.s.e but was carried to the Second Street Cemetery, where his remains were temporarily placed. There were six clergymen present at his funeral--the Rev. Doctors Thomas De Witt, Thomas E. Vermilye, Philip Milledoler, William Adams, John Knox and George H. Fisher, all ministers of the Reformed Dutch Church except the Rev. Dr. Adams, the distinguished Presbyterian divine.

I find myself almost instinctively returning to the Scott family as a.s.sociated with the most cherished memories of some of the happiest days of my life. During my childhood I formed a close intimacy with Cornelia Scott, the second daughter of the distinguished General, which continued until the close of her life. When I first knew the family it made its winter home in New York at the American Hotel, then a fashionable hostelry kept by William B. Cozzens, on the corner of Barclay Street and Broadway. In the summer the family resided at Hampton, the old Mayo place near Elizabeth in New Jersey, where they kept open house. Colonel John Mayo of Richmond, whose daughter Maria was the wife of General Scott, had purchased this country seat many years before as a favor to his wife, Miss Abigail De Hart of New Jersey, and Mrs. Scott subsequently inherited it. Colonel John Mayo, who was a citizen of large wealth and great prominence, was so public-spirited that not long subsequent to the Revolutionary War, and entirely at his own expense, he built from his own plans a bridge across the James River at Richmond. I have heard Mrs. Scott graphically describe her father's trips from Richmond to Elizabeth in his coach-of-four with outriders and grooms, and his enthusiastic reception when he reached his destination.

I have frequently heard it said that Mrs. Scott as a young woman refused the early offers of marriage from the man who eventually became her husband because his rank in the army was too low to suit her taste, but that she finally relented when he became a General. I am able to contradict this statement as Mrs. Scott told me with her own lips that she never made his acquaintance until he was a General, in spite of the fact that they were both natives of the same State. This did not by any means, however, indicate a marriage late in life, as General Scott became a Brigadier General on the 9th of March, 1814, when he was between twenty-seven and twenty-eight years of age. In the _Sentinel_, published in Newark, New Jersey, on the 25th of March, 1817, the following marriage notice appears: