As I Remember Part 22

J. HOLT.

WASHINGTON, D.C., January 21st, 1891.

Dear Mrs. Gouverneur:

I regret to be obliged to acknowledge the receipt of your welcome letter by the hand of another, owing to the condition of my eyes. For many weeks their inflammation has prevented me from reading or writing, and I fear that this condition will continue for a good while to come. So soon as I am able to do so I will either write or have the pleasure of calling on you. In the meanwhile believe me most grateful for your letter which, however, has been but imperfectly read. The darkened chambers of my life never had more need than at present of the sunshine which your sympathizing letters have always brought me.

Very sincerely yours,

J. HOLT.

WASHINGTON, D.C., Jan. 26th, 1893.

Dear Mrs. Gouverneur:

Your last two letters have been received and I thank you heartily for them. As tokens of your continued friendly remembrance they are precious to me. I am much obliged for the privilege of reading the letter of Mrs. Vance [Mrs.

Zebulon B. Vance], which is herewith returned. It is another of the many indications I have had of the subtle and wide spread circulation given to the Johnson-Speed calumny to which you refer. It seems to me that the poison is beyond the reach of any human antidote, and that I must look to G.o.d alone for shelter from it. Your generous and effective good offices in this matter, so deeply affecting my reputation and happiness, have filled my heart with an enduring grat.i.tude.

Your unflagging solicitudes, too, for my poor waning life have much added to that debt of grat.i.tude, great as it was and is. Let the good Lord be praised for ever and ever that spirits such as yours have been born into the world.

I am obliged to address you in this brief and unsatisfactory manner by the hand of another. After two years and a half of continued treatment I have as yet received no relief whatever, nor do the eminent physicians who have treated me afford me any encouragement for the future. While the world feasts, it is evident that _my_ lot is and must be _ashes_ for _bread_.

Hoping that you are drinking yourself freely from the fountain of happiness you open for others, I remain

Very sincerely your friend,

J. HOLT.

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 12, 1893.

My dear good friend:

I regret much to be obliged to communicate with you by the hand of another, but my poor life seems to be fixed by fate on the down grade, and at present there is no encouragement to believe that the future has anything better in store for me.

I send you a number of the North American Review containing the correspondence to which you refer between General Speed and myself. In it there is also a detached printed letter of Colonel Brown which is important. And I must ask that both this letter and the number of the Review be carefully preserved and after their perusal by your friend be returned to me, as I have no other copies and wish to preserve these.

I am sorry that the sad circ.u.mstances of my condition prevent me from thanking you in person for your continued interest in my reputation which has been so basely a.s.sailed, but I trust as triumphantly vindicated.

I thank you sincerely for what you have said of Mrs. Kearny.

It would be a great gratification to me to have an interview with her on the long, long ago, but this is a pleasure which I now have no encouragement to promise myself.

Believe me most grateful for the repeated calls and inquiries as to my health which you have been so good as to make. Such calls are precious fountains of consolation that will not go dry.

Very sincerely your friend,

J. HOLT.

It has been a.s.serted upon high authority that after the conviction and sentence of Mrs. Surratt her daughter Anna, as well as Catholic priests and prominent men in Washington, attempted to see the President in order to intercede for executive clemency in her behalf, but were denied admission by Preston King, Collector of the Port of New York and then a guest at the White House, and by U.S. Senator James Lane of Kansas. It has also been said that Mrs. Stephen A. Douglas succeeded in reaching the President by pushing herself past the guards, but her attempts in behalf of the condemned woman were fruitless.

I knew Preston King very well and his political career interested me deeply. He was from St. Lawrence County, New York, and in my girlhood I often heard it a.s.serted that the mantle of Silas Wright had fallen upon him. I saw much of him in 1849 when I was visiting the Scotts in Washington, and was particularly impressed by his exceptionally sensitive nature. General Scott once told me that at one period of his military career he was ordered to quell a disturbance between Canadians and Americans near Ogdensburg, the home of Mr. King, and that the latter was so seriously affected by the scenes he witnessed at that time that it was long before he recovered his normal condition of mind. During President Johnson's administration Mr. King, while Collector of the Port of New York, boarded a Jersey City ferry boat one morning, attached weights to his person and jumped into the river. When the news of his death reached me I was not surprised as I had seen evidences of his nervous temperament which might well result in acts indicative of an unbalanced mind. He was a man of big heart and exceptional ability, and in his death the State of New York lost one of her most gifted and distinguished sons.

The Frederick County agricultural fairs, as far back as my memory of that quaint Maryland town goes, have always been a feature of special interest not only to the farmers of that productive region but also from a social point of view. In bygone days some of the most distinguished men of the nation made addresses at these "cattle shows," as they were called by the country folk. I recall the visit of President Grant on one of these occasions when he was the guest of Mrs. Margaret Goldsborough.

He was accompanied by General Sherman and made a brief address. The evening of the day these distinguished guests arrived Mrs. Goldsborough gave a dinner in their honor, which Mr. Gouverneur and I attended. The entertainment was served in the style then prevalent among old Maryland families in that vicinity, the _pieces de resistance_ being chicken, fried to perfection, at one end of the table together with an old ham on the opposite end. To these were added "side tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs," enough to almost bury the table under their weight. President Grant was then filling his first term as Chief Executive of the nation and, although Mr. Gouverneur had known him in Mexico, it was my first glimpse of the distinguished man. As a whole we were a merry party, but Grant was a reticent guest.

General Sherman, however, as usual made up for all deficiencies in this line, and as he sat next to me I found him to be a highly agreeable conversationalist. This dinner party proved a great social success and at its conclusion a number of prominent citizens called to pay their respects to the guests of honor.

The next year Horace Greeley was the orator of the day at the Frederick fair, and it fell to our lot to entertain him. He wrote the following letter to my husband:--

NEW YORK TRIBUNE, New York, Oct. 1, 1871.

Dear Sir:

I expect to be duly on hand to fulfil my engagement to speak at your County Fair and to stop with you, if that shall be agreeable to those who have invited me. Will you please see Mr. C. H. Keefer who invites me and say to him that I am subject to his order and, with his consent, I shall gladly accept your invitation.

Yours,

HORACE GREELEY.

S. L. Gouverneur, Esq., Frederick, Maryland.

As Mr. Greeley about this time was appearing upon the political horizon as a prospective presidential candidate, much interest was naturally centered in his visit. His appearance was decidedly interesting. He was of the blond type, past middle life and in dress anything but _a la mode_. I am no student of physiognomy, but if the question had been asked I should have said that his most prominent trait of character was benevolence. He wore during this memorable visit the characteristic white hat, miniature imitations of which during his presidential candidacy became a campaign badge. I am the fortunate possessor of two of these souvenirs. They are made of white metal and are attached to brown ribbons, the color of the latter standing for B. Gratz Brown, the candidate for Vice-President upon the Greeley ticket.

This visit was the pleasing forerunner of a sincere friendship between my husband and Horace Greeley. In our intimate a.s.sociation of a few days we recognized as never before his conscientious purpose and intellectual power, and Mr. Gouverneur was so deeply impressed by his remarkable ability and sterling character that later in the same year he started a newspaper in Frederick, which he called _The Maryland Herald_, with a view of advocating his nomination for the Presidency. My husband had never before been especially interested in politics, but he now entered the political arena with all the enthusiasm of his intense nature, and, at a ma.s.s meeting in Frederick, was chosen a delegate to the National Liberal Republican Convention in Cincinnati, which resulted in the nomination of Greeley and Brown. Although this party was largely composed of Republicans who had become dissatisfied with the Grant administration, it will be remembered that its candidates were subsequently endorsed by the Democratic party at its convention in Baltimore, and that the fusion of such hitherto discordant political elements added exceptional interest to the subsequent campaign. The venerable Thomas Jefferson Randolph, grandson of the author of the Declaration of Independence, although he had reached the advanced age of eighty years, was chosen as the temporary chairman of the Baltimore Convention. The proceedings of the Cincinnati delegates were replete with interest and the enthusiasm was intense. During the uproarious demonstration in the convention hall, immediately following Greeley's nomination, Mr. Gouverneur's friend, John Cochrane of New York, of whom I have spoken elsewhere, in the excitement of the moment gave expression to his delight in an Indian war dance, and other usual scenes of boyish hilarity prevailed.

My husband's paper had been the first of the Maryland press, and long before the Convention, to place the name of Greeley at the head of its columns, but others followed, and for a time the movement, both in that State and elsewhere, appeared to gain strength and to a.s.sume formidable proportions. Subsequent events, however, proved that it would have been better if the newborn babe had been strangled at its birth, as it was destined to enjoy but a brief and precarious existence. Although the movement commanded the support of the united Democracy and enlisted the active sympathies of able men from the Republican ranks--such as Carl Schurz, Whitelaw Reid, Charles A. Dana, Charles Francis Adams, Lyman Trumbull, David Davis, Andrew G. Curtin and many more--the voice of the people p.r.o.nounced for Grant, and in the latter part of the same month that witnessed his defeat, poor Greeley died of a broken heart!

Greeley's defeat was a severe blow to Mr. Gouverneur. As the member from Maryland of the national committee of the Liberal Republican Party, he had engaged in the contest with his characteristic ardor, and his strenuous but unsuccessful efforts had made inroads upon his health that he could but ill afford. Under the circ.u.mstances, a change of scene and employment seemed highly expedient, and we accordingly decided to break up our attractive home in Frederick and return to Washington, where so much of Mr. Gouverneur's life had been spent and where I, too, had so many pleasant a.s.sociations. It was in the summer of 1873 that this plan was consummated, and we began our second Washington life in a house which we bought on Corcoran Street, near Fourteenth Street. It was one of a row of dwellings built as an investment by the late George W.

Riggs, the distinguished banker, and was in a portion of the city which still abounded in vacant lots. Houses in our vicinity were so widely scattered that we had an almost uninterrupted view of that part of the District boundary which is now Florida Avenue. As these were the days of horse cars, it was my habit to stand in my vestibule and wait for a car, as I could see it approaching a long distance off, although we lived half a block from the route, which was on Fourteenth Street. The entire northwestern section of the city, which is now a semi-palatial region, was also, at that time, largely a sea of vacant lots. The only house on Dupont Circle was "Stewart Castle," and the fashionable part of the city was still that portion below Pennsylvania Avenue, bounded on the east by Seventeenth Street, although the general trend in the erection of fine residences was towards the northwest. Many of the streets were not paved, but the _regime_ of Alexander R. Shepherd, familiarly called "Boss Shepherd," changed all of this, and the work of grading commenced.

It was a trying ordeal for property owners, as it left many houses high in the air and others below the customary grade, while many from the ranks of the poorer cla.s.ses, unable to meet the necessary a.s.sessments, were forced to part with their homes. In the course of several years, however, the situation righted itself. Cellars were dug and English bas.e.m.e.nts became prevalent, and it is only occasionally that one now sees a house far above the level of the street. We sometimes hear the praises of Mr. Shepherd sung, and without a doubt he made Washington the beautiful city it is to-day, but he accomplished it only at a tremendous cost--the sacrifice of many homes. Next followed the paving of the streets with wooden blocks; and I was much surprised when they were being laid on Fourteenth Street, as I recalled the time during my earlier days in New York when they were used in paving Broadway, and I also well remember how speedily they degenerated and decayed. I was told, however, that this form of block was an improvement upon the old style, and was induced to believe it until I saw Fourteenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue ma.s.ses of holes and ruts!

After we were fairly settled in our new home I made the pleasing discovery that my next door neighbors were our old acquaintances, Mr.

and Mrs. Edmund Pendleton Gaines. Mrs. Gaines was Frances Hogan, a former neighbor of ours in Houston Street in New York. William Hogan, her aged father, was living with her, and their close proximity recalled many early memories. He was a gentleman of broad culture and a proficient linguist, and at an early age had accompanied his father to the Cape of Good Hope. He formed an intimacy with Lord Byron at Harrow, where he received the early portion of his education. Byron was not then a student but was occupying a small room at Harrow, which he called his "den." Another of Mr. Hogan's daughters, who is still living, wrote me that at this time Lord Byron was a young man and her father a little boy. She says: "Lord Byron often admitted my father to his room, when he would make him repeat stories of his African life and describe the occasional appearance of an orang-outang walking through the streets of Cape Town." After his father's return to New York, Mr. Hogan attended Columbia College, from which he was graduated in 1811, and afterwards studied law. He subsequently purchased land in the Black River country and did much to develop that portion of his native State. The town of Hogansburg in Franklin County was named after him. He became a county judge and member of Congress and later resided in Washington, where he was employed in the Department of State, first as an examiner of claims and then as an official interpreter.

A short distance from our home and on the same street lived Dr. and Mrs.

Alexander Sharp with their large and interesting family of children, one of whom, bearing the same name as his father, recently died in Washington while a Captain in the Navy. Dr. Sharp's wife was a younger sister of Mrs. U. S. Grant, and her husband was ably filling at the time the position of U.S. Marshal of the District of Columbia. A few doors from Mrs. Sharp's lived her sister-in-law, the widow of Louis Dent; and in the same block, but nearer Thirteenth Street, were the residences of two agreeable Army families, Colonel and Mrs. Almon F. Rockwell and Colonel and Mrs. Asa Bacon Carey, the latter of whom was the niece of the late Senator Redfield Proctor of Vermont. I formed a pleasant friendship almost immediately with Mrs. Sharp and was always received with much cordiality in her home. Corcoran Street, in fact, from a social point of view, proved to be an ideal locality until its tranquillity was disturbed by the advent of Mr. ---- and family, the former of whom was the Washington representative of a prominent New York daily paper whose columns had been strongly denunciatory of Grant and antagonistic to his election, while they abounded in praises of Greeley.

Both Mr. and Mrs. ----were persons of much culture, but they were unfortunate in their selection of a home, as the personal and political sentiment of the neighborhood was friendly to Grant, while his family connections, the Dents and Sharps, residing in that part of the city, were deservedly popular. My own position was one of much delicacy.

Although I was especially fond of Mrs. Dent and Mrs. Sharp, I could not, in view of Mr. Gouverneur's active interest in the Greeley campaign, be quite so enthusiastic over the Grant administration as were most of my neighbors, and, therefore, when I was invited by a mutual friend to call upon Mrs. ----I had no hesitation in doing so. I was taken to task for my act, however, by some of my friends, but I survived the rebuke and am still alive to tell the tale. I was told that, several months after the family just referred to was established in its Corcoran Street home, Mrs. ----was returning unaccompanied to her residence one evening, when a colored man, carrying a bucket of mud in one hand and a brush in the other, ran after her and besmeared her clothing; but the Dents and Grants were not of the cla.s.s of people to approve of such a ruffianly act, nor were any of the other decent residents in the community. If Mrs. Sharp ever had any feeling in connection with my calling upon Mrs.

----, I never knew of it. Our relations were of the most cordial character from the first, and when her niece, Nellie Grant, was married to Algernon Sartoris she brought me a box of wedding cake, coupling with it the remark that she knew of no one more ent.i.tled to it than I--referring, I presume, to the a.s.sociations connecting the Gouverneur family with the White House. After the close of the Grant administration, Dr. Sharp was appointed a paymaster in the Army and for many years resided with his family in Yankton, Dakota. I remained in touch with Mrs. Sharp, however, and for a long period we kept up an active correspondence.

At this period Vice-Presidents were not so much _en evidence_ as later, and Vice-President and Mrs. Schuyler Colfax lived quietly in Washington and mingled but little in the social world. During his life at the Capital, Mr. Colfax repeatedly delivered his eloquent oration on Lincoln, which concluded with the lines of N. P. Willis on the death of President William Henry Harrison:--

Let us weep in our darkness, but weep not for him-- Not for him who, departing, leaves millions in tears, Not for him who has died full of honor and years, Not for him who ascended Fame's ladder so high, From the round at the top he has stepped to the sky.

Directly back of us on Q Street lived an old and intimate friend of mine, Mrs. Septimia Randolph Meikleham, the last surviving grandchild of Thomas Jefferson. She was the widow of Dr. David Scott Meikleham of Glasgow, who was a relative of Sir Walter Scott and died in early life in New York. Mrs. Meikleham was the seventh daughter (hence her name "Septimia," suggested by her grandfather) of Governor Thomas Mann Randolph of Virginia and his wife Martha, the younger daughter of Thomas Jefferson. She was born at Monticello and was familiarly known to her intimate friends as "Tim," a name in surprising contrast with her elegance and dignity. She bore a striking resemblance to her grandfather, and, although a woman of commanding presence, was simple and unaffected in manner. Strong in her convictions, attractive in conversation and loyal in her friendships, she and her home were sources of great delight to me, and it was pleasing to both of us that her children and mine should have been brought into intimate contact. Mrs.