As I Remember Part 3

James Leary bore the palm in New York as the fas.h.i.+onable 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 t.i.tle 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 pa.s.sed 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 ama.s.sed a large fortune by the manufacture and sale of oil and candles.

Miss Lydia Kane, a sister of the elder De Lancey Kane and a noted wit of the day, upon a certain occasion was showing some strangers the sights of New York, and in pa.s.sing these houses was asked by whom they were occupied. "That one," she responded, indicating the one in which the Pennimans themselves lived, "is occupied by one of the _illuminati_ of the city."

Robert L. Stuart and his brother Alexander were proprietors of a large candy store on the corner of Chambers and Greenwich Streets, under the firm name of R. L. & A. Stuart. Their establishment was a favorite resort of the children of the day, who were as much addicted to sweets as are their more recent successors. "Broken candy" was a specialty of this firm, and was sold at a very low price. Alexander Stuart frequently waited upon customers, and as a child I have often chattered with him over the counter. He never married.

The princ.i.p.al markets were Was.h.i.+ngton on the North River, and Fulton on the east side. The marketing was always done by the mistress of each house accompanied by a servant bearing a large basket. During the season small girls carried strawberries from door to door, calling out as they went along; and during the summer months hot corn, carried in closed receptacles made for the purpose, was sold by colored men, whose cries could be heard in every part of the city.

Mrs. Isaac Sayre's bakery was an important shop for all housewives, and her homemade jumbles and pound cake were in great demand. Her plum cake, too, was exceptionally good, and it is an interesting fact that it was she who introduced cake in boxes for weddings. Her shop survived for an extraordinary number of years and, as far as I know, may still exist and be kept by some of her descendants.

I must not omit to speak of a peculiar custom which in this day of grace, when there are no longer any old women, seems rather odd. A woman immediately after her marriage wore a cap made of some light material, which she invariably tied with strings under her chin. Most older women were horrified at the thought of gray hairs, and immediately following their appearance false fronts were purchased, over which caps were worn. I well recall that some of the most prominent women of the day concealed fine heads of hair in this grotesque fas.h.i.+on. Baldheaded men were not tolerated, and "scratches" or wigs provided the remedy.

Marriage announcements were decidedly informal. When the proper time arrived for the world to be taken into the confidence of a young couple, they walked upon Broadway arm in arm, thus announcing that their marriage was imminent.

A dinner given in my young days by my parents to Mr. and Mrs. William C.

Rives still lingers in my memory. Mr. Rives had just been appointed to his second mission to France, and with his wife was upon the eve of sailing for his new post of duty. I remember that it was a large entertainment, but the only guests whom I recall in addition to the guests of honor were Mr. and Mrs. James A. Hamilton. He was a son of Alexander Hamilton, and was at the time United States District Attorney in New York. It seems strange, indeed, that the other guests should have escaped my memory, but a head-dress worn by Mrs. Hamilton struck my young fancy and I have never forgotten it. As I recall that occasion I can see her handsome face surmounted by a huge fluffy pink cap. This Mr.

and Mrs. Hamilton were the parents of Alexander Hamilton, the third, who married Angelica, daughter of Maturin Livingston, and who, by the way, as I remember, was one of the most graceful dancers and noted belles of her day.

Thomas Morris, son of Robert Morris the great financier of the Revolution, was my father's life-long friend. He was an able _raconteur_, and I recall many conversations relating to his early life, a portion of which had been spent in Paris at its celebrated Polytechnic School. One incident connected with his career is especially interesting. When the sordid Louis Philippe, then the Duke of Orleans, was wandering in this country, teaching in his native tongue "the young idea how to shoot," he was the guest for a time of Mr. Morris. Several years later when John Greig, a Scotchman and prominent citizen of Canandaigua, New York, was about to sail for France, Mr. Morris gave him a letter of introduction to the Duke. Upon his arrival in Havre after a lengthy voyage he found much to his surprise that Louis Philippe was comfortably seated upon the throne of France. Under these altered conditions he hesitated to present his letter, but after mature consideration sought an audience with the new King; and it is a pleasing commentary upon human nature to add that he was welcomed with open arms.

The King had by no means forgotten the hospitality he had received in America, and especially the many favors extended by the Morris family.

Mr. Morris's wife was Miss Sarah Kane, daughter of Colonel John Kane, and she was beautiful even in her declining years. She also possessed the wit so characteristic of the Kanes, who, by the way, were of Celtic origin, being descended from John Kane who came from Ireland in 1752.

She was the aunt of the first De Lancey Kane, who married the pretty Louisa Langdon, the granddaughter of John Jacob Astor. Their daughter, Emily Morris, made frequent visits to our house. She was renowned for both beauty and wit. I remember seeing several verses addressed to her, the only lines of which I recall are as follows:

That calm collected look, As though her pulses beat by book.

Another intimate friend of my father was Frederick de Peyster, who at a later day became President of the New York Historical Society. He habitually took Sunday tea with us, and always received a warm welcome from the juvenile members of the family with whom he was a great favorite. He was devoted to children, and delighted our young hearts by occasional presents of game-chickens which at once became family pets.

In 1823 and 1824 my father's sympathies were deeply enlisted in behalf of the Greeks in their struggles for independence from the Turkish rule.

It will be remembered that this was the cause to which Byron devoted his last energies. The public sentiment of the whole country was aroused to a high pitch of excitement, and meetings were held not only for the purpose of lending moral support and encouragement to the Greeks, but also for raising funds for their a.s.sistance. Among those to whom my father appealed was his friend, Rudolph Bunner, a highly prominent citizen of Oswego, N.Y. Although a lawyer he did not practice his profession, but devoted himself chiefly to his extensive landed estates in Oswego county. He was wealthy and generous, a good liver and an eloquent political speaker. He served one term in Congress where, as elsewhere, he was regarded as a man of decided ability. He died about 1833 at the age of nearly seventy. The distinguished New York lawyer, John Duer, married his daughter Anne, by whom he had thirteen children, one of whom, Anna Henrietta, married the late Pierre Paris Irving, a nephew of Was.h.i.+ngton Irving and at one time rector of the Episcopal church at New Brighton, Staten Island. Mr. Bunner's letter in response to my father's appeal is not devoid of interest, and is as follows:

OSWEGO, 12 Jan'y 1824.

My dear Sir,

Though I have not written to you yet you were not so soon forgotten. Nor can you so easily be erased from my memory as my negligence might seem to imply. In truth few persons have impressed my mind with a deeper sentiment of respect than yourself; you have that of open and frank in your character which if not in my own, is yet so congenial to my feelings that I shall much regret if my habitual indolence can lose me such a friend. Your request in favor of the Greeks will be hard to comply with. If I can be a contributor in a humble way to their success by my exertions here they shall not want them, but I fear the _angusta res domi_ may press too heavily upon us to permit of an effectual benevolence. If you wanted five hundred men six feet high with sinewy arms and case hardened const.i.tutions, bold spirits and daring adventurers who would travel upon a bushel of corn and a gallon of whiskey per man from the extreme point of the world to Constantinople we could furnish you with them, but I doubt whether they could raise the money to pay their pa.s.sage from the gut of Gibraltar upwards. The effort however shall be made and if we can not shew ourselves rich we will at least manifest our good will.

Though Greece touches few Yankee settlers thro the medium of cla.s.sical a.s.sociations yet a people struggling to free themselves from foreign bondage is sure to find warm hearts in every native of the wilderness. We admire your n.o.ble efforts and if we do not imitate you it is because our purses are as empty as a Boetian's skull is thick. We know so little of what is _really_ projecting in the cabinets of Europe that we are obliged to believe implicitly in newspaper reports, and we are perhaps foolish in hoping that the Holy Alliance intends to take the Spanish part of the New World under their protection. In such an event our backwoodsmen would spring with the activity of squirrels to the a.s.sistance of the regenerated Spaniards and perhaps _there_ we might fight more effectually the battle for universal Freedom than either at Thermopylae or Marathon.

There indeed we might strike a blow that would break up the deep foundations of despotic power so as that neither art or force could again collect and cement the scattered elements.

We are too distant from Greece to make the Turks feel our physical strength and what we can do thro money and sympathy is little in comparison with what we could if they were so near as that we might in addition pour out the tide of an armed northern population to sweep their sh.o.r.es and overcome the tyrants like one of their pestilential winds.

Nevertheless, sympathy is a wonderful power and the sympathy of a free nation like our own will not lose its moral effect. I calculate strongly on this. It is a more refined and rational kind of chivalry--this interest and activity in the fate of nations struggling to break the oppressor's rod, and it should be encouraged even where it is not directed so as to give it all adequate force. They who would chill it, who would reason about the why and the wherefore ought to recollect that such things can not be called forth by the art of man--they must burst spontaneously from his nature and be directed by his wisdom for the benefit of his kind.... We are all here real Radical Democrats and though some of us came in at the eleventh hour we will not go back, but on--on--on though certain of missing the penny fee. In truth this is the difference between real conviction and the calculating policy which takes sides according to what it conceives the vantage ground. A converted politician is as obstinate in his belief as one born in the faith. The man of craft changes his position according to the varying aspect of the political heavens. The one plays a game--the other sees as much of reality (or thinks he sees) in politicks as he does in his domestic affairs and is as earnest in the one as the other.

Salve--[Greek: Kai Chaire]

R. BUNNER.

8 o'clock.

I have had a full meeting for your Greeks--and found my men of more mettle than I hoped for. We will do something thro the _Country_--We have set the Parsons to work and one s.h.i.+lling 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 pa.s.sion. 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 a.s.serted 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 ac.u.men, oratory, all have their l.u.s.tre mingled with this name." I regard this statement as just and truthful.

Still another valued a.s.sociate 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 inst.i.tution 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 cla.s.sical scholar, and he was a sound lawyer. He was not only an a.s.siduous, a kind, sound and just magistrate, but one of unquestioned ability. In his days of Surrogates.h.i.+p, the days of universal reporting, either in the mult.i.tudinous 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 Mana.s.seh 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 Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 flouris.h.i.+ng 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 dest.i.tute. 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 d.i.c.kinson 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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 ill.u.s.trations. _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 advertis.e.m.e.nts, as many old New York names are represented:

FOR SALE BY HOFFMAN & SETON

Twelve hhds. a.s.sorted Gla.s.s Ware.

2 boxes Listadoes, 1 trunk white Kid Gloves, 200 boxes Soap & Candles, 60 bales Cinnamon, ent.i.tled 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

Gin in pipes; large and small green Bottle Cases, complete; Gla.s.s Ware, consisting of Tumblers, Decanters, &c.; Hair Brushes, long and short; black and blue Dutch Cloth; Flour, by