As I Remember
Bowne. The day previous to this dinner my father received the following
note from Mr. Van Buren:
My dear Sir,
Our friend Mr. Forsyth, is with me and you must send him an
invitation to dine with you to-morrow if, as I suppose is
the case, I am to have that honor.
Yours truly,
M. VAN BUREN.
Sunday, June 9, '33.
J. Campbell, Esq.
Martin Van Buren was a political friend of my father's from almost his
earliest manhood. Two years after he was appointed Surrogate he received
the following confidential letter from Mr. Van Buren. As will be seen,
it was before the days when he wrote in full the prefix "Van" to his
name:
_Private._
My dear Sir,
Mr. Hoyt wishes me to quiet your apprehensions on the
subject of the Elector.[2] I will state to you truly how the
matter stands. My sincere belief is that we shall succeed;
at the same time I am bound to admit that the subject is
full of difficulties. If the members were now, and without
extraneous influence, to settle the matter, the result would
be certain. But I know that uncommon exertions have been,
and are making, by the outdoor friends of Adams & Clay to
effect a co-operation of their forces in favor of a divided
ticket. Look at the "National Journal" of the 23d, and you
will find an article, prepared with care, to make influence
there. A few months ago Mr. Adams would have revolted at
such a publication. It is the desperate situation of his
affairs that has brought him to it. The friends of Clay
(allowing Adams more strength than he may have), have no
hopes of getting him (Clay) into the house, unless they get
a part of this State. The certain decline of Adams in other
parts & the uncertainty of his strength in the east alarm
his friends on the same point. Thus both parties are led to
the adoption of desperate measures. Out of N. England Adams
has now no reason to expect more than his three or four
votes in Maryland. A partial discomfiture in the east may
therefore bring him below Mr. Clay's western votes, & if it
should appear that he (Adams) cannot get into the house, the
western votes would go to Crawford. If nothing takes place
materially to change the present state of things, we hope to
defeat their plans here. But if you lose your Assembly
ticket, there is no telling the effect it may produce, & my
chief object in being thus particular with you is to conjure
your utmost attention to that subject. About the Governor's
election there is no sort of doubt. I am not apt to be
confident, & _I aver that the matter is so._ But it is to
the Assembly that interested men look, and the difference of
ten members will (with the information the members can have
when they come to act) be decisive in the opinion of the
present members as to the complexion of the next house.
There are _other points of view_ which I cannot now state to
you, in which the result I speak of may seriously affect the
main question. Let me therefore entreat your serious
attention to this matter. _Be careful of this._ Your city is
a gossiping place, & what you tell to one man in confidence
is soon in the mouths of hundreds. You can impress our
friends on this subject without connecting me with it. Do
so.
Your sincere friend,
M. V. BUREN.
Albany, Octob. 28, 1824.
James Campbell, Esq.
The Mr. Hoyt referred to in the opening sentence of this letter was
Jesse Hoyt, another political friend of my father's who, under Van
Buren's administration, was Collector of the Port of New York. During my
child life on Long Island he made my father occasional visits, and in
subsequent years lived opposite us on Hubert Street. He was the first
one to furnish me with a practical illustration of man's perfidy. As a
very young child I consented to have my ears pierced, when Mr. Hoyt
volunteered to send me a pair of coral ear-rings, but he failed to carry
out his promise. I remember reading some years ago several letters
addressed to Hoyt by "Prince" John Van Buren which he begins with "Dear
Jessica."
Table appointments at this time were most simple and unostentatious.
Wine coolers were found in every well regulated house, but floral
decorations were seldom seen. At my father's dinners, given upon special
occasions, the handsome old silver was always used, much of which
formerly belonged to my mother's family. The forks and spoons were of
heavy beaten silver, and the knives were made of steel and had ivory
handles. Ice cream was always the dessert, served in tall pyramids, and
the universal flavor was vanilla taken directly from the bean, as
prepared extracts were then unknown. I have no recollection of seeing
ice water served upon any well-appointed table, as modern facilities for
keeping it had yet to appear, and cold water could always be procured
from pumps on the premises. The castors, now almost obsolete, containing
the usual condiments, were _de rigueur_; while the linen used in our
home was imported from Ireland, and in some cases bore the coat of arms
of the United States with its motto, "_E Pluribus Unum_." My father's
table accommodated twenty persons and the dinner hour was three o'clock.
These social functions frequently lasted a number of hours, and when it
became necessary the table was lighted by lamps containing sperm oil and
candles in candelabra. These were the days when men wore ruffled shirt
fronts and high boots.
I still have in my possession an acceptance from William B. Astor, son
of John Jacob Astor, to a dinner given by my father, written upon very
small note paper and folded in the usual style of the day:
Mr. W. Astor will do himself the honor to dine with Mr.
Campbell to-day agreeable to his polite invitation.
May 28th.
James Campbell Esq.
Hubert Street.
I well remember a stag dinner given by my father when I was a child at
which one of the guests was Philip Hone, one of the most efficient and
energetic Mayors the City of New York has ever had. He is best known
to-day by his remarkable diary, edited by Bayard Tuckerman, which is a
veritable storehouse of events relating to the contemporary history of
the city. Mr. Hone had a fine presence with much elegance of manner, and
was truly one of nature's noblemen. Many years ago Arent Schuyler de
Peyster, to whom I am indebted for many traditions of early New York
society, told me that upon one occasion a conversation occurred between
Philip Hone and his brother John, a successful auctioneer, in which the
latter advocated their adoption of a coat of arms. Philip's response was
characteristic of the man: "I will have no arms except those Almighty
God has given me."
In this connection, and _apropos_ of heraldic designs and their
accompaniments, I have been informed that the Hon. Daniel Manning,
Cleveland's Secretary of the Treasury, used upon certain of his cards of
invitation a crest with the motto, "Aquila non capit muscas" ("The eagle
does not catch flies"). This brings to my mind the following anecdote
from a dictionary of quotations translated into English in 1826 by D. N.
McDonnel: "Casti, an Italian poet who fled from Russia on account of
having written a scurrilous poem in which he made severe animadversions
on the Czarina and some of her favorites, took refuge in Austria. Joseph
II. upon coming in contact with him asked him whether he was not afraid
of being punished there, as well as in Russia, for having insulted his
high friend and ally. The bard's steady reply was 'Aquila non capit
muscas.'" Sir Francis Bacon, however, was the first in the race, as long
before either Manning or Casti were born he made use of these exact
words in his "Jurisdiction of the Marshes."
In my early days John H. Contoit kept an ice cream garden on Broadway
near White Street, and it was the first establishment of this kind, as
far as I know, in New York. During the summer months it was a favorite
resort for many who sought a cool place and pleasant society, where they
might eat ice cream under shady vines and ornamental lattice work. The
ice cream was served in high glasses, and the price paid for it was
twelve and one-half cents. Nickles and dimes were of course unknown, but
the Mexican shilling, equivalent to twelve and one-half cents, and the
quarter of a dollar, also Mexican, were in circulation.
There were no such places as lunchrooms and tearooms in my early days,
and the only restaurant of respectability was George W. Browne's "eating
house," which was largely frequented by New Yorkers. The proprietor had
a very pretty daughter, Mrs. Coles, who was brought prominently before
the public in the summer of 1841 as the heroine of an altercation
between August Belmont and Edward Heyward, a prominent South Carolinian,
followed by a duel in Maryland in which Belmont is said to have been so
seriously wounded as to retain the scars until his death.
Alexander T. Stewart's store, corner of Broadway and Chambers Street,
was the fashionable dry goods emporium, and for many years was without a
conspicuous rival. William I. Tenney, Horace Hinsdale, Henry Gelston,
and Frederick and Henry G. Marquand were jewelers. Tenney's store was on
Broadway near Murray Street; Gelston's was under the Astor House on the
corner of Barclay Street and Broadway; Hinsdale's was on the east side
of Broadway and Cortlandt Street; and the Marquands were on the west
side of Broadway between Cortlandt and Dey Streets.
James Leary bore the palm in New York as the fashionable hatter, and his
shop was on Broadway under the Astor House. As was usual then with his
craft, he kept individual blocks for those of his customers who had
heads of unusual dimensions. In his show window he sometimes exhibited a
block of remarkable size which was adapted to fit the heads of a
distinguished trio, Daniel Webster, General James Watson Webb, and
Charles Augustus Davis. Miss Anna Leary of Newport, his daughter and a
devout Roman Catholic, received the title of Countess from the Pope.
The most prominent hostelry in New York before the days of the Astor
House was the City Hotel on lower Broadway. I have been informed that
the site upon which it stood still belongs to representatives of the
Boreel family, descendants of the first John Jacob Astor. Another, but
of a later period, was the American Hotel on Broadway near the Astor
House. It was originally the town house of John C. Vanden Heuvel, a
member of one of New York's most exclusive families. Upon Mr. Vanden
Heuvel's death this house passed into the possession of his son-in-law,
John C. Hamilton, who changed it into a hotel. Its proprietor was
William B. Cozzens, who was so long and favorably known as a hotel
proprietor. At this same time he had charge of the only hotel at West
Point, and it was named after him. If any army officers survive who were
cadets during Cozzens's _regime_ they will recall with pleasure his
kindly bearing and attractive manner. Mr. Vanden Heuvel's country
residence was in the vicinity of Ninetieth Street overlooking the Hudson
River. His other daughters were Susan Annette, who married Mr. Thomas S.
Gibbes of South Carolina, and Justine, who became the wife of Gouverneur
S. Bibby, a cousin of my husband.
As I first remember Union Square it was in the outskirts of the city.
Several handsome houses had a few years previously been erected there by
James F. Penniman, the son-in-law of Mr. Samuel Judd, the latter of whom
amassed a large fortune by the manufacture and sale of oil and candles.