As I Remember
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 assume 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 pronounced 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 circumstances, 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 associations. 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 classes, unable to meet the necessary assessments,
were forced to part with their homes. In the course of several years,
however, the situation righted itself. Cellars were dug and English
basements 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 masses 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 class 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 entitled to it than
I--referring, I presume, to the associations 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.
Meikleham and I often dwelt upon this family intimacy extending unbroken
from Jefferson and Monroe down to the fourth generation. In the same
block with Mrs. Meikleham lived Mr. and Mrs. John W. Douglas, the former
of whom, some years later, during the Harrison administration, was one
of the District Commissioners. A daughter of his is the wife of Henry B.
F. Macfarland, the late Senior Commissioner of the District, who, as
well as his wife, is universally respected and beloved in Washington. On
the same street, but on the other side of Fourteenth Street, Colonel and
Mrs. Robert N. Scott resided for many years; while just around the