As I Remember Part 4

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 s.h.i.+p Sarson, from Calcutta, an a.s.sortment 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 quant.i.ty 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 inst.i.tution, 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 cla.s.ses. 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 a.s.sist 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 Sat.u.r.day. 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 G.o.d 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 grat.i.tude to those who confided in so young an instructress--for I was only twenty-two--the education of their daughters, and I pray G.o.d 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 establis.h.i.+ng 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 cla.s.ses 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 friends.h.i.+ps 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 Tallaha.s.see. 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 s.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sed 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"!

High beat their hearts, when first their fated prow Cut through the surge that boils above them now, They saw in vision rapt their fatherland And felt once more its odorous breezes bland-- The frozen North receded from their sight And fancy's dream entranced them with delight-- Oh! who can tell what pangs their soul a.s.sail'd When every hope of life and rescue fail'd, When wild despair their throbbing bosoms wrung And winds and waves a doleful requiem sung?

There stood the husband whose protecting arm 'Till now had kept his lov'd ones safe from harm.

Remorseless grown, the demon of the storm Swept from his grasp her trembling, fragile form.

Vague fear o'er children's lineaments convuls'd, But selfish hands their frenzied cling repuls'd.

When death's grim aspect meets the startl'd view To grovelling souls fair mercy bids adieu!

And thou, sweet damsel! who in girlhood's bloom Descended then to fill an ocean tomb-- What were _thy_ thoughts, when roaring for their prey The foaming billows choked the watery way!

'Tis said that souls have giv'n in parting hour A vast and fearful and mysterious power.

A chart pictorial of the past is made, In which minute events are all portray'd-- One painful glance the scroll entire surveys And then in death the blasted eye-b.a.l.l.s glaze-- Perchance at that dark moment when the maid On life's dim verge her coming doom survey'd, Such vision flash'd across her spirit pure, And help'd the youthful beauty to endure.

Her infant sports beneath the spreading lime, Her recent school-days, in a northern clime-- Her gentle deeds--her treasur'd thoughts of love-- All plum'd her pinions for a flight above!

The Croom family owned large plantations in the South together with many slaves. A short time after it was definitely known that not a member of the family had survived, there was a legal contest over the estate by the representatives of both sides of the household, the Crooms and the Armisteads. Eminent members of the Southern bar were employed, among whom were Judge John McPherson Berrien of Savannah and Joseph M. White of Florida, often called "Florida White." After about twenty years of litigation the suit was decided in favor of the Armisteads. It seems that as young Croom, a lad of twelve, nearly reached the sh.o.r.e he was regarded as the survivor, and his grandmother, Mrs. Henrietta Smith of Newbern, North Carolina, his nearest living relative, became his heir. I have always understood that this hotly contested case has since been regarded as a judicial precedent.

A few days after receiving the news of the s.h.i.+pwreck of the _Home_, I found by accident in my father's library an _edition de luxe_, just published in London, of "Les Dames de Byron." In it was an ill.u.s.tration ent.i.tled "Leila," which bore a wonderful resemblance to my best friend, Henrietta Croom. Beneath were the following lines, which seemed to suggest her history, and the coincidence was so apparent that I immediately committed them to memory, and it is from memory that I now give them:

She sleeps beneath the wandering wave; Ah! had she but an earthly grave This aching heart and throbbing breast Would seek and share her narrow rest.

She was a form of life and light That soon became a part of sight, And rose where'er I turned mine eye-- The morning-star of memory.

Another schoolmate and friend of mine at Madame Chegaray's was Josephine Habersham of Savannah, a daughter of Joseph Habersham and a great-granddaughter of General Joseph Habersham, who succeeded Timothy Pickering as Postmaster General during Was.h.i.+ngton's second term and retained the position under Adams and Jefferson until the latter part of 1801. She was one of Madame Chegaray's star pupils in music. She frequently made visits to my home, remaining over Sat.u.r.day and Sunday, and delighted the family by playing in a most masterly manner the Italian music then in vogue. A few years after her return to her Southern home she married her cousin, William Neyle Habersham, an accomplished musician. For many years they lived in Savannah in the greatest elegance, until the Civil War came to disturb their tranquil dreams. Two young sons, both under twenty-one, laid down their lives for the Southern cause during that conflict. After their great sorrow music was their chief solace, and they delighted their friends by playing together on various musical instruments.

New Orleans was represented at our school by a famous beauty, Catharine Alexander Chew, a daughter of Beverly Chew, the Collector of the Port of New Orleans, and whose wife, Miss Maria Theodosia Duer, was a sister of President William Alexander Duer of Columbia College. He and Richard Relf, cas.h.i.+er of the Louisiana State Bank, were the business partners and subsequently the executors of the will of Daniel Clark of the same city, and it was against them that the latter's daughter, Myra Clark Gaines, the widow of General Edmund Pendleton Gaines, U.S.A., fought her famous legal battles for over half a century. Miss Chew married Judge Thomas H. Kennedy of New Orleans and left many descendants. The sister of General Pierre G. T. Beauregard, Elodie Toutant, whom I have already mentioned, was also from Louisiana. She was a studious girl, and a most attractive companion. The original family name was Toutant, but towards the close of the sixteenth century the last male descendant of the family died, and an only surviving daughter having married Sieur Paix de Beauregard, the name became Toutant de Beauregard, the prefix _de_ having subsequently been dropped.

Still another friends.h.i.+p I formed at Madame Chegaray's school was with Elizabeth Clarkson Jay, which through life was a source of intense pleasure to me and lasted until her pure and gentle spirit returned to its Maker. She was the daughter of Peter Augustus Jay, a highly respected lawyer, and a granddaughter of the distinguished statesman, John Jay. She was a deeply religious woman, and died a few years ago in New York after a life consecrated to good works.

One of the brightest girls in my cla.s.s was Sarah Jones, a daughter of one of New York's most distinguished jurists, Chancellor Samuel Jones.

She and another schoolmate of mine, Maria Brandegee, who lived in LeRoy Place, were intimate and inseparable companions. The mother of the latter belonged to a Creole family from New Orleans, named Deslonde, and was the aunt of the wife of John Slidell of Confederate fame. The Brandegees were devout Roman Catholics, while the members of the Jones family were equally ardent Episcopalians. Archbishop Hughes of New York was a welcome and frequent visitor at the Brandegee house, where, in my younger days, I frequently had the pleasure of meeting him and listening to his attractive conversation. In this manner Sarah Jones also came into contact with him. Deeply impressed by his teachings, she followed him to the Cathedral, where she soon became a regular attendant. In the course of time she became a member of the Roman Catholic Church, and a few years later entered the order of the _Sacre Coeur_, at Manhattanville, where she eventually became Mother Superior and remained as such for many years.

Quite a number of years ago I was the guest of the family of Charles O'Conor, the distinguished jurist and leader of the New York bar, at his handsome home at Fort Was.h.i.+ngton, a suburb of New York. He was the son of the venerable Thomas O'Conor, editor of _The Shamrock_, the first paper published in New York for Irish and Catholic readers, and also the author of a history of the second war with Great Britain. One afternoon Mr. O'Conor suggested that I should accompany him upon a drive to the Convent of the _Sacre Coeur_ a few miles distant. He was anxious to confer with Madame Mary Aloysia Hardey, who was then Mother Superior. I was delighted to accept this invitation, as Mr. O'Conor was an exceptionally agreeable companion and his spare moments were but few and far between. Before reaching our destination, I remarked that Madame Jones, an old schoolmate of mine, was an inmate of this Convent, and that I should be very glad to see her again. Upon our arrival, Sarah Jones greeted me in the parlor and seemed glad to see me after the lapse of so many years. Leading as she was the life of a _religieuse_, our topics of conversation were few, but I noticed that she seemed interested in discussing her own family, about whom evidently she was not well informed. After a brief visit and while homeward bound, Mr.

O'Conor inquired whether Madame Jones knew that her father, the Chancellor, was rapidly approaching death. I replied that apparently she had no knowledge of his serious condition, and several days later I saw his death announced in a daily newspaper. Many years after my interview with Sarah Jones I met at the residence of Mrs. Henry R. Winthrop of New York an older sister of hers, Mary Anna Schuyler Jones, who at the time was the widow of the Reverend Dr. Samuel Seabury of the Episcopal Church. We lunched together, and the conversation naturally drifted back to other days and to my old schoolmate, her sister, Sarah Jones. She told me that she had seen but little of her in recent years, but related a curious episode in regard to meeting her under unusual circ.u.mstances.

It seems that Mrs. Seabury, accompanied by a young daughter, was returning from a visit to Europe, when she noticed that the occupants of the adjoining state-room were unusually quiet. In time she made the discovery that they were nuns returning from a business trip abroad.

Upon examination of the pa.s.senger list, she discovered to her astonishment that her sister, Madame Jones, was occupying the adjoining room. They met daily thereafter throughout the voyage, and afterwards returned to their respective homes.

I especially remember an incident of my school-life which was decidedly sensational. Sally Otis, a young and pretty girl and a daughter of James W. Otis, then of New York but formerly of Boston, was in the same cla.s.s with me. One morning we missed her from her accustomed seat, but during the day we learned the cause of her absence. The whole Otis family had been taken ill by drinking poisoned coffee. Upon investigation the cook reported that a package of coffee had been sent to the house, and, taking it for granted that it had been ordered by some member of the household, she had used it for breakfast. The whole matter was shrouded in mystery, and gossip was rife. One story was that a vindictive woman concentrated all of her malice upon a single member of the family against whom she had a grievance and thus endangered the lives of the whole Otis family. Fortunately, none of the cases proved fatal, but several inmates of the house became seriously ill.

A few years before I entered Madame Chegaray's school, Virginia Scott, the oldest daughter of Major General Winfield Scott, enjoyed _Tante's_ tutelage for a number of years. She was a rare combination of genius and beauty, and, apart from her remarkable personality, was a skilled linguist and an accomplished vocal and instrumental musician. This unusual combination of gifts suggests the Spanish saying: "Mira favorecida de Dios" ("Behold one favored of G.o.d!"). Her life, however, was brief, though deeply interesting. In the first blush of womanhood she accompanied her mother and sisters to Europe, and, after several years spent in Paris, made a visit to Rome, where she immediately became imbued with profound religious convictions. Through the instrumentality of Father Pierce Connelly, a convert to Catholicism, she was received into the Roman Catholic Church while in the Holy City, and made her profession of faith in the Chapel of St. Ignatius, where the ceremony took place by the special permission of the Most Rev. John Roothan, General of the Jesuits. General Scott meanwhile had returned to the United States, having been promoted to the rank of Commander-in-Chief of the Army with headquarters in Was.h.i.+ngton. Accompanied by her mother, Virginia Scott returned to America and, after a short time spent with her parents in Was.h.i.+ngton, drove to Georgetown and, without their knowledge or consent, was received there as an inmate of the "Convent of the Visitation." Her family was bitterly opposed to the step, more especially her mother, whose indignation was so p.r.o.nounced that she never to the day of her death forgave the Church for depriving her of her daughter's companions.h.i.+p. General Scott, however, frequently visited her in her cloistered home, and always manifested much consideration for the Convent as well as for the nuns, the daily companions of his daughter. Although she possessed a proud and imperious nature, combined with great personal beauty and much natural _hauteur_, she soon became as gentle as a lamb. She died about a year after entering the Convent, but she retained her deep religious convictions to the last. She is buried beneath the sanctuary in the chapel of the Georgetown Convent. In connection with her a few lines often come to my mind which seem so appropriate that I can not deny myself the pleasure of quoting them:

She was so fair that in the Angelic choir, She will not need put on another shape Than that she bore on earth.