As I Remember
still remains the same. I am still the God-daughter of the
Virginians. By being that, may I not flatter myself I have
some claims upon their benevolence if not upon their
justice? May I not ask that State, especially you, sir,
their Governor, to fulfil in some respects the engagements
entered into by their predecessors? Your fathers promised
mine that I should become their charge. I am totally
unprovided for; for my father died without making a will. My
brothers are married, having families of their own; and not
being bound to do anything for me, they regard with
indifference my unprotected and neglected situation. Perhaps
I ought not to mention this circumstance as a proper
inducement for you to act upon; nor would I, were it not my
excuse for wishing to remind you of the claims I now
advance. I hope you will feel my right to your favor and
protection to be founded on the promises made by your own
fathers, and in the situation in which I stand with regard
to the State of Virginia. You will ask, sir, why my appeal
to your generosity and justice has been so tardy. While my
father lived, I lived under his protection and guidance. He
had incurred the displeasure of the Virginians and he feared
an application from me would have seemed like one from him.
At his decease I became a free agent. I had taken no part
which could displease my God-fathers, and myself remained
what the Assembly had made me--their God-daughter,
consequently their charge. I wish particularly to enforce my
dependence upon your bounty; for I feel hopes revive, which
owe their birth to your honor and generosity, and to that of
the State whose representative I now address. Now that my
father is no more, I am certain they and you will remember
what merited your esteem in his character and conduct and
forget that which estranged your hearts from so honorable a
man. But should you not, you are too just to visit what you
deem the sins of the father upon his luckless daughter.
I am, sir, your obt. etc.
In 1831 the small but pretty Gramercy Park in New York was established
by Samuel B. Ruggles. I have heard that this plot of ground was
originally used as a burying ground by Trinity parish. As I first
recollect the spot, there were but four or five dwellings in its
vicinity. One of the earliest was built by James W. Gerard, a prominent
lawyer, who was regarded as a most venturesome pioneer to establish his
residence in such a remote locality. Next door to Mr. Gerard, a few
years later, lived George Belden, whose daughter Julia married Frederick
S. Tallmadge. Mr. Tallmadge died only a few years ago, highly respected
and esteemed by a large circle of friends.
In 1846 I was one of the guests at a fashionable wedding in a residence
on the west side of this park, which was possibly the first ceremony of
the kind to take place in this then remote region. The bride's mother,
the widow of Richard Armistead of New Bern, N.C., who habitually spent
her winters in New York, had purchased the house only a few months
previously. The bride, Susan Armistead, was an intimate friend of mine,
and a well-known belle in both the North and the South. The groom, a
resident of New York, was John Still Winthrop, of the same family as the
Winthrops of Massachusetts. The guests composed an interesting
assemblage of the old _regime_, many of whose descendants are now in the
background. I met on that occasion many old friends, among whom the
Kings, Gracies, Winthrops and Rogers predominated. Mrs. De Witt Clinton
honored the occasion, dressed in the fashion of a decade or two
previous. Her presence was a very graceful act as she then but seldom
appeared in society, her only view of the gay world being from her own
domain. Her peculiarity in regard to dress was very marked as she
positively declined to change it with the prevailing style but clung
tenaciously to the old-fashioned _modes_ to the end of her life. Miss
Armistead was an ideal-looking bride in her white dress and long tulle
veil and carried, according to the custom then prevalent, a large flat
bouquet of white japonicas with white lace paper around the stems. In
the dining-room, a handsome collation was served, with a huge wedding
cake at one end of the table and pomegranates, especially sent from the
bride's southern home, forming a part of the repast. The health of the
newly wedded couple was drunk in champagne and good cheer prevailed on
every side. The whole house bore a happy aspect with its floral
decorations and its bright Liverpool coal fires burning in the grates.
Furnaces, by the way, were then unknown. In New York there was at that
time a strong prejudice against anthracite coal, and Liverpool coal was
therefore generally used, the price of which was fifteen dollars a ton.
I have many close and tender associations connected with this bride of
so many years ago, especially as our friendship, formed in our early
life, still extends to her descendants. Some years after Mrs. Winthrop's
marriage, and in her earlier widowhood, four generations traveled
together, and then, as at other times, dwelt under the same roof. They
were Mrs. Nathaniel Smith, Mrs. Richard Armistead, Mrs. John S. Winthrop
and her son, John S. Winthrop, who, with his interesting family, now
resides in Tallahassee.
In 1841, Lord Morpeth, the seventh Earl of Carlisle and a worthy
specimen of the English nobility, visited the United States, and while
here investigated the subject of the inheritance of slaves by English
subjects. His report seems to have been favorably received, as a law was
passed subsequent to his return declaring it illegal for Englishmen to
hold slaves through inheritance. England's sympathetic heart about this
time was in a perennial throb for "the poor Africans in chains,"
apparently quite oblivious to the fact that the "chains" had been
introduced and cemented by her fostering hand.
I recall with unusual pleasure an entertainment where Lord Morpeth was
the guest of honor, at the residence of William Bard on College Place,
at that time a fashionable street in the vicinity of old Columbia
College. I have always remembered the occasion as I was then introduced
to Lord Morpeth and enjoyed a long and pleasant conversation with him.
Our host was a son of Dr. Samuel Bard, physician to General Washington
during the days when New York was the seat of government.
Mr. and Mrs. John Austin Stevens lived on Bleecker Street and had a
number of interesting daughters. They were an intellectual family and I
attended an entertainment given by them in honor of Martin Farquhar
Tupper, the author of "Proverbial Philosophy." Mr. Stevens' sister,
Lucretia Ledyard Stevens, married Mr. Richard Heckscher of
Philadelphia.
Another gentlewoman of the same period was Mrs. Laura Wolcott Gibbs,
wife of Colonel George Gibbs of Newport. The first Oliver Wolcott, a
Signer, Governor of Connecticut and General in the Revolutionary War,
was her grandfather; while the second of the same name, Secretary of the
Treasury under Washington and Adams, Governor of his State and United
States Judge, was her father. I am in the fullest sympathy with the
following remarks concerning her made at her funeral by the Rev. Dr.
Henry W. Bellows: "I confess I always felt in the presence of Mrs. Gibbs
as if I were talking with Oliver Wolcott himself, and saw in her
self-reliant, self-asserting and independent manner and speech an
unmistakable copy of a strong and thoroughly individual character,
forged in the hottest fires of national struggle. The intense
individuality of her nature set her apart from others. You felt that
from the womb she must have been just what she was--a piece of the
original granite on which the nation was built.... The force, the
courage, the self-poise she exhibited in the ordinary concerns of our
peaceful life would in a masculine frame have made, in times of national
peril, a patriot of the most decided and energetic character--one able
and willing to believe all things possible, and to make all the efforts
and sacrifices by which impossibilities are accomplished."
Mrs. Gibbs was literally steeped and moulded in the traditions of the
past; in fact, she was a reminder of the noble women of the
Revolutionary era, many of whom have left records behind them. She was
gifted with a keen sense of humor, and her talent in repartee was
proverbial. Although many years my senior, I found delightful
companionship in her society, and her home was always a great resource
to me. Her accomplished daughter, the wife of Captain Theophile
d'Oremieulx, U.S.A., was particularly skilled in music. Her son, Wolcott
Gibbs, the distinguished Professor of Harvard University, maintained to
the last the high intellectual standard of his ancestors. He died
several years ago. I was informed by his mother that at one period of
its history Columbia College desired to secure his services as a
professor, but that the Hon. Hamilton Fish, one of its trustees and an
uncompromising Episcopalian, objected on the ground of his Unitarian
faith and was sustained by the Board of Trustees. It seemed a rather
inconsistent act, as at another period of its history a Hebrew was
chosen as a member of the same faculty.
As nearly as I can remember, it was in the summer of 1845 that I spent
several weeks as the guest of the financier and author, Alexander B.
Johnson, in Utica, New York. Mrs. Johnson's maiden name was Abigail
Louisa Smith Adams, and she was the daughter of Charles Adams, son of
President John Adams. During my sojourn there her uncle, John Quincy
Adams, came to Utica to visit his relatives, and I had the pleasure of
being a guest of the family at the same time. He was accompanied upon
this trip by his daughter-in-law, Mrs. Charles Francis Adams, a young
grandson whose name I do not recall, and the father of Mrs. Adams, Peter
C. Brooks, of Boston, another of whose daughters was the wife of Edward
Everett. Upon their arrival in Utica, the greatest enthusiasm prevailed,
and the elderly ex-President was welcomed by an old-fashioned torchlight
procession. In response to many urgent requests, Mr. Adams made an
impromptu speech from the steps of the Johnson house, and proved himself
to be indeed "the old man eloquent." Although he was not far from eighty
years old, he was by no means lacking in either mental or physical
vitality. Mrs. Charles Francis Adams impressed me as a woman of unusual
culture and intellectuality, while her father, Peter C. Brooks, was a
genial old gentleman whom everyone loved to greet. He was at that time
one of Boston's millionaires; and many years later I heard his grandson,
the late Henry Sidney Everett, of Washington, son of Edward Everett,
say of him that when he first arrived in Boston he was a youth with
little or no means.
After the Adams party had rested for a few days a pleasure trip to
Trenton Falls, in Oneida County, was proposed. A few prominent citizens
of Utica were invited by the Johnsons to accompany the party, and among
them several well-known lawyers whose careers won for them a national as
well as local reputation. Among these I may especially mention the
handsome Horatio Seymour, then in his prime, whose courteous manners and
manly bearing made him exceptionally attractive. Mr. Adams bore the
fatigue of the trip remarkably well and his strength seemed undiminished
as the day waned. His devoted daughter-in-law remained constantly beside
him while at the Falls to administer to his comfort and attend to his