As I Remember
of more mettle than I hoped for. We will do something thro
the _Country_--We have set the Parsons to work and one
shilling a head will make a good donation. We think we can
give you 4 or 5 hundred dollars.
Mr. Bunner was over sixty years old when he went to live in Oswego, but
he soon became identified with the interests of the place and added much
by his activities to its local renown. In an undated letter to my
father, he thus expatiates upon his situation in his adopted home, and
paints its advantages in no uncertain colors:--
I am here unquestionably an exile but I will never dispond
at my fate nor whimper because my own folly, want of tact or
the very malice of the times have placed me in Patmos when I
desire a more splendid theatre. I can here be useful to my
family--to my district. I can live cheaply, increase my
fortune, be upon a par with the best of my neighbors, which
I prefer to the feasts of your ostentatious mayor or the
more real luxury of Phil Brasher's Table. Our population is
small, our society contracted, but we are growing rapidly in
numbers; and the society we have is in my opinion and to my
taste fully equal to anything in your home. We possess men
of intelligence without pretention, active men as Jacob
Barker without his roguery--men whom nature intended to
flourish at St. James, but whose fate fortune in some fit of
prolifick humor fixed and nailed to this Sinope. We have
however to mitigate the cold spring breezes of the lake a
fall unrivalled in mildness and in beauty even in Italy, the
land of poetry and passion. We have a whole lake in front,
whose clear blue waters are without a parallel in Europe. We
have a beautiful river brawling at our feet, the banks of
which gently slope and when our village is filled I will
venture to say that in point of beauty, health and variety
of prospect it has _nil simile aut secundum_.
Our house was the rendezvous of many of the learned and literary men of
the day, who would sit for hours in the library discussing congenial
topics. Among others I well recall the celebrated jurist, Ogden Hoffman.
He had an exceptionally melodious voice, and I have often heard him
called "the silver-tongued orator." It has been asserted that in
criminal cases a jury was rarely known to withstand his appeal. He
married for his second wife Virginia E. Southard, a daughter of Judge
Samuel L. Southard of New Jersey, who throughout Monroe's two
administrations was Secretary of War. In the "Wealthy Citizens of New
York," edited in 1845 by Moses Y. Beach, an early owner in part of _The
New York Sun_, the Hoffman family is thus described: "Few families, for
so few a number of persons as compose it, have cut 'a larger swath' or
'bigger figure' in the way of posts and preferment. Talent, and also
public service rendered, martial gallantry, poetry, judicial acumen,
oratory, all have their lustre mingled with this name." I regard this
statement as just and truthful.
Still another valued associate of my father was Hugh Maxwell, a
prominent member of the New York bar. In his earlier life he was
District Attorney and later Collector of the Port of New York. The
Maxwells owned a pleasant summer residence at Nyack-on-the-Hudson, where
we as children made occasional visits. Many years later one of my
daughters formed an intimate friendship with Hugh Maxwell's
granddaughter, Virginia De Lancey Kearny, subsequently Mrs. Ridgely
Hunt, which terminated only with the latter's death in 1897.
From my earliest childhood Gulian C. Verplanck was a frequent guest at
our house. He and my father formed an intimacy in early manhood which
lasted throughout life. Mr. Verplanck was graduated from Columbia
College in 1801, the youngest Bachelor of Arts who, up to that time, had
received a diploma from that institution of learning. Both he and my
father found in politics an all-absorbing topic of conversation,
especially as both of them took an active part in state affairs. I have
many letters, one of them written as early as 1822, from Mr. Verplanck
to my father bearing upon political matters in New York. For four terms
he represented his district in Congress, while later he served in the
State Senate and for many years was Vice Chancellor of the University of
the State of New York. He was an ardent Episcopalian and a vestryman in
old Trinity Parish. He was a brilliant conversationalist, and his
tastes, like my father's, were decidedly literary. In connection with
William Cullen Bryant and Robert C. Sands, he edited _The Talisman_, an
annual which continued through the year 1827. Mr. Verplanck lived to an
old age and survived my father for a long time, but he did not forget
his old friend. Almost a score of years after my father's death, on the
4th of July, 1867, Mr. Verplanck delivered a scholarly oration before
the Tammany Society of New York, in which he paid the following glowing
tribute to his memory:
In those days James Campbell, for many years the Surrogate
of this city, was a powerful leader at Tammany Hall, and
from character and mind alone, without any effort or any act
of popularity. He was not college-bred, but he was the son
of a learned father, old Malcolm Campbell, who had been
trained at Aberdeen, the great school of Scotch Latinity.
James Campbell was, like his father, a good classical
scholar, and he was a sound lawyer. He was not only an
assiduous, a kind, sound and just magistrate, but one of
unquestioned ability. In his days of Surrogateship, the days
of universal reporting, either in the multitudinous volumes
in white law bindings on the shelves of lawyers, or in the
crowded columns of the daily papers, had not quite arrived
though they were just at hand. Had he lived and held office
a few years later, I do not doubt that he would have ranked
with the great luminaries of legal science. As it is, I fear
that James Campbell's reputation must share the fate of the
reputations of many able and eminent men in all professions
who can not
Look to Time's award,
Feeble tradition is their memory's guard.
The most prominent newspaper in New York in my early days was the
_Courier and Enquirer_, edited by General James Watson Webb, a man of
distinguished ability. He began his literary career by editing the
_Morning Courier_, but as this was not a very successful venture he
purchased the _New York Enquirer_ from Mordecai Manasseh Noah, and in
1829 merged the two papers. Several leading journalists began their
active careers in his office, among others James Gordon Bennett,
subsequently editor of _The New York Herald_, Henry J. Raymond, the
founder of _The New York Times_, and Charles King, father of Madam Kate
King Waddington and Mrs. Eugene Schuyler, who at one time edited _The
American_ and subsequently became the honored president of Columbia
College. James Reed Spaulding, a New Englander by birth, was also
connected with the _Courier and Enquirer_ for about ten years. In 1860
he became a member of the staff of the New York _World_, which, by the
way, was originally intended to be a semi-religious sheet. During
President Lincoln's administration General Webb sold the _Courier and
Enquirer_ to the _World_, and the two papers were consolidated. William
Seward Webb of New York was a son of this General Webb, and the latter's
daughter, Mrs. Catharine Louisa Benton, the widow of Colonel James G.
Benton of the army, lived until recently in Washington, and is one of
the pleasant reminders left me of the old days of my New York life.
_The New York Herald_ was established some years after the _Courier and
Enquirer_ and was from the first a flourishing sheet. It was
exceptionally spicy, and it dealt so much in personalities that my
father, who was a gentleman of the old school with very conservative
views, was not, to say the least, one of its strongest admirers. Several
years before the Civil War, at a time when the anti-slavery cauldron was
at its boiling point, its editor, the elder James Gordon Bennett,
dubbed its three journalistic contemporaries in New York, the World, the
Flesh, and the Devil--the _World_, representing human life with all its
pomps and vanities; the _Times_, as a sheet as vacillating as the flesh;
and the _Tribune_, as the virulent champion of abolition, the
counterpart of the Devil himself.
During the winter of 1842 James Gordon Bennett took his bride, who was
Miss Henrietta Agnes Crean of New York, to Washington on their wedding
journey. As this season had been unusually severe, great distress
prevailed, and a number of society women organized a charity ball for
the relief of the destitute. It was given under the patronage of Mrs.
Madison (the ex-President's widow), Mrs. Samuel L. Gouverneur (my
husband's mother), Mrs. Benjamin Ogle Tayloe (Julia Maria Dickinson of
Troy, New York), and other society matrons, and, as can readily be
understood, was a financial as well as a social success. Tickets were
eagerly sought, and Mr. Bennett applied for them for his wife and
himself. At first he was refused, but after further consideration Mrs.
Madison and Mrs. Gouverneur of the committee upon invitations granted
his request on condition that no mention of the ball should appear in
the columns of the _Herald_. Mr. Bennett and his wife accordingly
attended the entertainment, where the latter was much admired and danced
to her heart's content. Two days later, however, much to the chagrin and
indignation of the managers, an extended account of the ball appeared in
the _Herald_. This incident will be better appreciated when I state that
at this time the personal mention of a woman in a newspaper was an
unheard-of liberty. It was the old-fashioned idea that a woman's name
should occur but twice in print, first upon the occasion of her marriage
and subsequently upon the announcement of her death. My husband once
remarked to me, upon reading a description of a dress worn by one of my
daughters at a ball, that if such a notice had appeared in a newspaper
in connection with his sister he or his father would have thrashed the
editor.
John L. O'Sullivan, a prominent literary man and in subsequent years
minister to Portugal, edited a periodical called the _Democratic
Review_, which was published in magazine form. I well recall the first
appearance of _Harper's Magazine_ in June, 1850, and that for some time
it had but few illustrations. _The Evening_ Post was established in
1801, many years prior to the _Courier and Enquirer_. It was always
widely read, was democratic in its tone, and its editorials were highly
regarded. While I lived in New York, and also much later, it was edited
by William Cullen Bryant, who was as gifted as an editor as he was as a
poet. I have before me now a reprint of the first issue of this paper,
dated Monday, November 16, 1801. I copy some of the advertisements, as
many old New York names are represented:
FOR SALE BY HOFFMAN & SETON
Twelve hhds. assorted Glass Ware.
2 boxes Listadoes,
1 trunk white Kid Gloves,
200 boxes Soap & Candles,
60 bales Cinnamon, entitled to drawback.
Nov. 16.
* * * * *
FREIGHT
For Copenhagen or Hamburgh,
The bark BERKKESKOW, Capt.
Gubriel Tothammer, is ready to receive
freight for either of the above places, if application
is made to the Captain on board, at Gouverneur's
Wharf.
GOUVERNEUR & KEMBLE.
* * * * *
FOR SALE