As I Remember
Gin in pipes; large and small green Bottle
Cases, complete; Glass Ware, consisting of
Tumblers, Decanters, &c.; Hair Brushes, long and
short; black and blue Dutch Cloth; Flour, by
FREDERICK DE PEYSTER.
A STORE HOUSE in Broad-street to let, apply
as above. Nov. 16.
* * * * *
THE SUBSCRIBER has for sale, remaining from
the cargo of the ship Sarson, from Calcutta,
an assortment of WHITE PIECE GOODS.
Also
50 tierces Rice, 60 hhds. Jamaica Rum,
15 bales Sea-Island 10,000 Pieces White
Cotton, Nankeens,
29 tierces and 34 bls. A quantity of Large
Jamaica Coffee, Bottles in cases,
And as usual, Old
Madeira Wine, fit for immediate use.
ROBERT LENOX.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Possibly this word is "Election."
CHAPTER III
SCHOOL-DAYS AND EARLY FRIENDS
I must return to my school days. After several years spent at Miss
Forbes's my parents decided to afford me greater advantages for study,
and especially for becoming more proficient in the French language, and
I was accordingly sent to Madame Eloise Chegaray's institution, which
for many years was regarded as the most prominent girls' school in the
country. It was a large establishment located on the corner of Houston
and Mulberry Streets, where she accommodated boarding pupils as well as
day scholars. Many years later this building was sold to the religious
order of the _Sacre Coeur_. The school hours were from nine until three,
with an intermission at twelve o'clock. The vacation, as at Miss
Forbes's, was limited to the month of August. The discipline was not so
rigid as at Miss Forbes's, as Madame Chegaray, who, by the way, taught
her pupils to address her as _Tante_, governed almost entirely by
affection. She possessed unusual grace of manner and great kindness of
heart, and her few surviving pupils hold her name and memory in the
highest esteem. Her early history is of exceptional interest. She was a
daughter of Pierre Prosper Desabaye, and came with her father and the
other members of his family from Paris to New York on account of his
straitened circumstances, caused by an insurrection in San Domingo,
where his family owned large estates. Madame Chegaray commenced as a
mere girl to teach French in a school in New Brunswick, New Jersey, kept
by Miss Sophie Hay, and was retained on account of the extreme purity of
her accent.
I chance to have in my possession Madame Chegaray's own account of her
early struggles after leaving Miss Hay, from which I take great pleasure
in quoting:
Among the royal _emigres_ to this country was the Countess
de St. Memin who kept a school. As my brother Marc had
removed to New York we joined him and I was employed as
French governess in the school of Mademoiselle de St. Memin.
But I still knew nothing but to speak my own native tongue.
One day I was bewailing my ignorance in the presence of M.
Felix de Beaujour, Consul General of France to this country.
"Mlle. Eloise," he said, "quand on sait lire on peut
toujours s'istruire."
This gave me a new thought. I set seriously about studying.
I took classes. What I was to teach on the morrow I studied
the night before. I worked early and late. With the return
of Louis Philippe the St. Memins returned to France and I
became a teacher in the school of Madame Nau. Here I studied
and taught. On me fell all the burden of the school while
Madame Nau amused herself with harp and piano. For this I
had only $150 a year. To further assist my family I knit
woolen jackets. They were a great deal of trouble to me and
I was very grateful to Madame Isaac Iselin, the mother of
Mr. Adrain Iselin, who always found purchasers to give me
excellent prices. Ah, I was young then. I thought that I
earned that money. Now I know that it was only her delicate
manner of doing me a service. Madame Iselin bought my
jackets and then gave them away.
Feeling that I was worth much to Madame Nau, and that I must
do more to relieve my brother Marc, my brother Gustave
having gone to sea with Captain de Peyster, I begged Madame
Nau to give me $250. This she refused. Her reply, "Me navra
le coeur," overwhelmed me. It was Saturday. I started home
in great distress and met on the way the dear admirable Miss
Sophy Hay to whom I told my sorrow.
"Miss Hay," I exclaimed, "I will open a school for myself."
She tapped me on the forehead. "Do, dear Eloise, and God
will help you."
How all difficulties were smoothed away! The dear Madame
Iselin took charge of all my purchases, advancing the money.
They were very simple, those splint chairs and carpets and
tables, for we were simpler-minded then. On the 1st of May
1814 I opened my school on Greenwich Street with sixteen
pupils. Good M. Roulet gave me his two wards. I received
several scholars from a convent just closed and I had my
nieces Ameline and Laura Berault de St. Maurice and Clara
the daughter of Marc [Desabaye], who afterward married Ponty
Lemoine, the lawyer in whose office Charles O'Conor studied.
Thus was my school started, and I take this occasion to
express my gratitude to those who confided in so young an
instructress--for I was only twenty-two--the education of
their daughters, and I pray God to bless them and their
country....
Many well-known women were educated at this school, and one of the first
pupils was Miss Sarah Morris, the granddaughter of Lewis Morris, the
Signer, and the mother of the senior Mrs. Hamilton Fish. A younger
sister of Mrs. Fish, Christine, who many years later was a pupil of
Madame Chegaray, and who is now Mrs. William Preston Griffin of New
York, ministered to Madame Chegaray in her last illness, and told me
that her parting words to her were, "_Adieu, chere Christine, fidele
amie._" In spite of her extreme youth Madame Chegaray took an
exceptionally serious view of life, even refusing to wear flowers in her
bonnets or to sing, although she had a very sweet voice. She dearly
loved France, but she was a broad-minded woman and her knowledge of
American affairs was as great as that of her own country. She rounded
out nearly a century of life, the greater part of which was devoted to
others, and I pay her the highest tribute in my power when I say that
she faced the many vicissitudes of life with an undaunted spirit, and
bequeathed to her numerous pupils the inestimable boon of a wonderful
example.
All the teachers in Madame Chegaray's school were men, with the single
exception of Mrs. Joseph McKee, the wife of a Presbyterian clergyman.
Among those who taught were John Bigelow, who is still living in New
York at an advanced age, and who in subsequent years was Secretary of
State of New York and our Minister to France; Thatcher T. Payne; Edward
G. Andrew, who became in the course of years a Bishop in the Methodist
Church; Professor Robert Adrain, who taught mathematics, and who at the
same time was one of the faculty of Columbia College; and Lorenzo L. da
Ponte. The latter was a man of unusual versatility, and was especially
distinguished as a linguist. He taught us English literature in such a
successful manner that we regarded that study merely as a recreation.
Mr. da Ponte was a son of Lorenzo da Ponte, a Venitian of great
learning, who after coming to this country rendered such conspicuous
services in connection with Dominick Lynch in establishing Italian opera
in New York. He was also a professor of Italian for many years in
Columbia College, the author of a book of sonnets, several works
relating to the Italian language and of his own life, which was
published in three volumes. Mr. Samuel Ward, a noted character of the
day, the brother of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe and who married Emily Astor,
daughter of William B. Astor, wrote an interesting memoir of him. Madame
Chegaray taught the highest classes in French. "If I had to give up all
books but two," she was fond of saying, "I would choose the Gospels and
La Fontaine's Fables. In one you have everything necessary for your
spiritual life; in the other you have the epitome of all worldly
wisdom."
When I entered Madame Chegaray's school she had about a hundred pupils,
a large number of whom were from the Southern States. How well I
remember the extreme loyalty of the Southern girls to their native soil!
I can close my eyes and read the opening sentence of a composition
written by one of my comrades, Elodie Toutant, a sister of General
Pierre G. T. Beauregard of the Confederate Army--"The South, the South,
the beautiful South, the garden spot of the United States." This
chivalric devotion to the soil whence they sprang apparently was
literally breathed into my Southern school companions from the very
beginning of their lives. Their loyalty possessed a fascination for me,
and although I was born, reared and educated in a Northern State, I had
a tender feeling for the South, which still lingers with me, for most of
the friendships I formed at Madame Chegaray's were with Southern girls.
My first day at Madame Chegaray's, like many other beginnings, was
something of an ordeal, but it was my good fortune to meet almost
immediately Henrietta Croom, a daughter of Henry B. Croom, a celebrated
botanist of North Carolina, but who, with his family, had spent much of
his life in Tallahassee. Many are the pleasant hours we spent together,
but to my sorrow she graduated at an early age, and a few months later
embarked, in company with her parents, a younger brother and sister and
an aunt, Mrs. Cammack, upon a vessel called the _Home_ for Charleston,
South Carolina, where they had planned to make their future residence.
When they had been several days at sea their vessel encountered a severe
storm off Cape Hatteras, and after a brave struggle with the terrific
elements every member of the family sank with the ship within a few
miles of the spot where the Crooms had formerly lived. This occurred on
the 9th of October, 1836. They had as fellow voyagers a brother of
Madame Chegaray, who, with his wife and three children, had only just
left the school to make the voyage to Charleston. They, too, lost their
lives. Over Madame Chegaray's school as well as her household at once
hung a pall, and gloom and mourning prevailed on every side; indeed, the
whole city of New York shared in our sorrow. The newspapers of the day
were filled with accounts of this direful disaster, but there were few
survivors to tell the tale. My late playmate, Henrietta Croom, was one
of the most popular girls at school, possessing great attractions of
both mind and person, and, although at the time she was merely a child
in years, the New Year's address of a prominent daily newspaper of the
day contained an extended reference to her which strongly appealed to my
grief-stricken fancy. Though more than sixty years have passed I have
always preserved it with great care in memory of the "sweet damsel" of
long ago. The following are the lines to which I have just referred:
Dear Home! what magic trembles in the word;
Each bosom's fountain at its sound is stirred,
Disgusted worldlings dream of early love
And weary Christians turn their eyes above--
Well was't thou nam'd, fair bark, whose recent doom
Has many a household wrapt in deepest gloom!
On earth no more those voyagers' steps shall roam
That cast their anchor at an Heavenly "Home"!