As I Remember
Louisa Key Norton, daughter of John Green and widow of John Hatley
Norton of Richmond, is my authority for the statement that one day after
dining with her grandfather, General Forrest, Washington walked out upon
the portico and, lost in admiration of the beautiful view, exclaimed:
"There is the site of the Federal City." Mrs. Norton's sister, Miss
Alice Green, married Prince Angelo de Yturbide, and it was their son,
Prince Augustine de Yturbide, who was adopted by the Emperor Maximilian.
One of the pleasing local features connected with the Grant
administration, which at the time made no special impression upon me,
was the fact that there were then but few, if any, social cliques in
Washington, and that society-going people constituted practically one
large family. A stranger coming to the Capital at that time and properly
introduced was much more cordially received than now. Such, for example,
was the condition of affairs when Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Jeffrey came to
Washington to spend a winter. They rented the old Pleasanton house on
Twenty-first Street below F Street and entertained with true Southern
hospitality. The Jeffrey family was of Scotch extraction and Mrs.
Jeffrey was Miss Rosa Vertner of Kentucky, where she was favorably known
as a poetess. The first wife of Alexander Jeffrey was Miss Delia W.
Granger, a sister of my old and valued friend, Mrs. Sanders Irving. As
soon as they were settled in their home, Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey gave a
large evening entertainment which Mr. Gouverneur and I attended. We much
enjoyed meeting there a number of Kentuckians temporarily residing in
Washington--among others, Mrs. John Key of Georgetown and her sister,
Mrs. Hamilton Smith; Mrs. William E. Dudley; and Wickliffe Preston and
his sister, a decided blonde who wore a becoming green silk gown. Madame
Le Vert and her daughter, Octavia Walton Le Vert, were also there and
it is with genuine pleasure I recall the unusual vivacity of the former.
This gifted woman was a pronounced belle from Alabama and had passed
much of her life in Italy, where she had much association with the
Brownings. During her absence abroad the ravages of our Civil War made
serious inroads upon her financial circumstances, and when she visited
Washington at the period of which I am speaking she gave a series of
lectures upon Mr. and Mrs. Robert Browning in Willard's Hall on F
Street. They received the endorsement of fashionable society and, at the
conclusion of her last appearance, Albert Pike, the later apostle of
Freemasonry, offered as an additional attraction a short discourse upon
his favorite theme. Madame Le Vert's maiden name was Octavia Walton, and
she was the granddaughter of George Walton, one of the Signers from
Georgia, and the daughter of George Walton, the Territorial Governor of
Florida. In 1836 she married Dr. Henry S. Le Vert, son of the
fleet-surgeon of the Count de Rochambeau at Yorktown, Va. In 1858 her
"Souvenirs of Travel" appeared, and later she wrote "Souvenirs of
Distinguished People" and "Souvenirs of the War," but, for personal
reasons, neither of the two was ever published.
My first acquaintance with George Bancroft, the historian, dates back to
the year 1845, when he came from New England to deliver a course of
lectures and was the guest of my father in New York. One of the evenings
he spent with us stands out in bold relief. He was a man of musical
tastes, and Justine Bibby Onderdonk, a friend of mine and a daughter of
Gouverneur S. Bibby, who only a few days before had made a runaway match
with Henry M. Onderdonk, the son of Bishop Benjamin T. Onderdonk of New
York, happened to be our guest at the same time. Her musical ability was
of the highest order and she delighted Mr. Bancroft by singing some of
his favorite selections. Later, when he was Secretary of the Navy
during the Polk administration, I saw Mr. Bancroft very frequently. I
am not aware whether it is generally known that he began his political
life in Massachusetts as a Whig. When I first knew him, however, he was
a Democrat and the change in his political creed placed him in an
unfavorable light in his State, most of whose citizens were well nigh as
intolerant of Democrats as their ancestors had been of witches in early
colonial days.
Upon my return to Washington I soon renewed my acquaintance with Mr. and
Mrs. Bancroft, and the entertainments I attended in their home on H
Street, between Sixteenth and Seventeenth Streets, revived pleasant
recollections of Mrs. Clement C. Hill, whose house they purchased and of
whose social leadership I have already spoken. Mr. Bancroft at this time
was well advanced in years, and in referring to his age I have often
heard him say: "I came in with the century." In spite of the fact,
however, that he had exceeded the years usually allotted to man, he
could be seen nearly every day in the saddle with Herrman Bratz, his
devoted German attendant, riding at a respectful distance in the rear. I
may add, by the way, that a few doors from the Bancrofts lived Dr.
George Clymer of the Navy with his wife and venerable mother-in-law, the
latter of whom was the widow of Commodore William B. Shubrick, U.S.N.
Colonel Alexander Bliss, Mrs. Bancroft's son and familiarly known to
Washingtonians as "Sandy" Bliss, lived just around the corner from his
mother's. His wife was the daughter of William T. Albert, of Baltimore,
but when I knew him best he was a widower. A few doors from Colonel
Bliss lived Senator Matthew H. Carpenter, a political power of the first
magnitude during President Grant's second presidential term, whose
daughter Lilian was a reigning belle. Equestrian exercise was not then
quite so popular in Washington as later, but it had its devotees, among
whom was Colonel Joseph C. Audenreid, U.S.A., an unusually handsome man
with a decidedly military bearing. He was generally accompanied by his
daughter Florence, then a child, and was often to be seen riding out
Fourteenth Street towards the Soldiers' Home, which was then the
fashionable drive.
John L. Cadwalader, a cousin of Mr. Gouverneur and now one of the most
prominent members of the New York bar, was Assistant Secretary of State
under Hamilton Fish during the Grant _regime_. He was a bachelor and was
accompanied to Washington by his two sisters, both of whom lived with
him in a fine residence on the corner of L Street and Connecticut
Avenue, which has since been torn down to make way for a large apartment
house. It was while the Cadwaladers were occupying this residence that I
first made the acquaintance of Dr. S. Weir Mitchell. Miss Mary
Cadwalader brought him to see us in our Corcoran Street home and during
the visit announced her engagement to him. He was then the highly
eminent physician alone, as he had not yet entered the arena of fiction
and poetry in which he has since attained such wide-spread distinction.
It gives me pleasure to add that he suggested to me, while I was
visiting in Philadelphia many years later, that I should write these
reminiscences.
All of the large balls and parties of this date, including the
bachelors' germans, which I frequently attended, were given at Lewis G.
Marini's on the south side of E Street, near Ninth Street. Marini was an
Italian and the dancing master of the day. Twice a week he went to
Annapolis to teach the midshipmen, who, when subsequently ordered to
duty in Washington, became very acceptable beaux, as they danced the
same step that their master had taught his pupils here. The bachelors'
germans were organized among others by Robert F. Stockton, Hamilton
Fish, Jr., John Davis, and Hamilton Perkins; while soon thereafter
Seaton Munroe became one of its officers. I especially recall a german
given by the bachelors at Marini's, on the twenty-second of February,
1876, when Lady Thornton, wife of Sir Edward Thornton, British Minister
to the United States, received the guests. The decorations were
unusually elaborate, consisting chiefly of American flags draped along
the walls from floor to ceiling; while at one end of the room, in
compliment to the hostess of the evening, the stars and stripes made way
to two British flags. A small cannon and a miniature ship were placed
below the music gallery, while above them was a semicircle of cutlasses
and a _chevaux-de-frise_ of glistening spears behind which were the
musicians. In an old scrap book I find a brief notice of this
entertainment which mentions the belles of the ball, some of whom became
matrons of a later day in Washington and elsewhere. This is the
list:--Miss Zeilin, Miss Dunn, Miss Kilbourn, Miss Emory, Miss Campbell,
Miss Kernan, Miss Dennison, Miss Keating of Philadelphia, Miss
Patterson, Miss Jewell, Miss Badger, Miss Warfield, Madame Santa Anna,
Mrs. Gore Jones, Madame Mariscal, Madame Dardon, Mrs. Belknap, Mrs.
Robeson, Mrs. Frederick Grant and Miss Dodge ("Gail Hamilton").
In the old Stockton house, next door to the residence of William W.
Corcoran, lived Mr. and Mrs. Elijah Ward who probably entertained more
lavishly than any other family of that day. Mr. Ward was then in
Congress from New York. His wife possessed much grace of manner and a
subtle charm quite impossible to describe. I enjoyed her intimate
friendship and often availed myself of a standing invitation to take tea
with her. In her drawing-room one constantly met acceptable recruits
from social and political life, all of whom she charmed by her affable
conversation and unaffected bearing. Upon her return to New York Miss
Virginia Stuart, her daughter by a former marriage, married the Rev.
Alexander McKay-Smith, assistant rector at St. Thomas' Church. Soon
after his marriage he received a call to St. John's Church in
Washington, where he remained the beloved rector until in 1902 he was
elected Bishop-Coadjutor of Pennsylvania.
It was about this same period that I formed a friendship with Lieutenant
Commander and Mrs. Arent Schuyler Crowninshield. He was then Ordnance
Officer of the Washington Navy Yard and lived in the quaint old house
later assigned to the second line officer of that station. Mrs.
Crowninshield's sister, Elizabeth Hopkins Bradford, lived with her and I
attended her wedding there. She married Edmund Hamilton Smith of
Canandaigua, New York, a son of Judge James C. Smith of the Supreme
Court of that State, and the ceremony was performed by the Rev. Dr. John
Vaughan Lewis of St. John's Church, Washington. This wedding made an
indelible impression upon my memory owing to an unfortunate circumstance
which attended it. The mother of the bride-elect and the latter's
youngest sister, Louise, were traveling in Europe and had arranged their
return passage in ample time, as they supposed, to be present at the
ceremony. The ship met with an accident off the coast of Newfoundland,
however, and during the delay the wedding took place. There was much
anxiety concerning the safety of the bride's mother and sister which
naturally cast an atmosphere of gloom over the marriage feast, but in a
few days the ship came into port and unalloyed happiness prevailed.
After Mr. Crowninshield's promotion to a Captaincy in the Navy he was
ordered to command the _Richmond_ in the Philadelphia Navy Yard, and
there I repeatedly met him and his fascinating wife. He remained there,
however, for less than a year, when he was placed in command of the
ill-fated _Maine_, and about ten months before she was destroyed was
ordered to Washington as Chief of the Bureau of Navigation with the
rank, first of Commodore and then of Rear Admiral. He served as such
with marked efficiency during the Spanish-American War, and several
years later commanded the flagship of the European Squadron. He retired
in 1903 on his own application and died five years later, deeply