'o no' %•'-•/ V^^\<^ %-'--^0^ 0-^ ^V * '-^ III .-^ . ^^ ^ J '\ ^. 'o . » * ,0^ \? • " -x' " COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. Editiok de Taxe. Five Hundred and Eight copies printed for subscribers. This is Xc (AHfcrOc/ ^ftTUi J. B. Lippixcoir Company. / COLONIAL k i DAYS <^ DAMES \ i '"[ i A ^nncjlollin^s worth "^ V ' Pf^/?arton * ii. With Illustrations by E.S.HoIIoway ^ J% iJ.B.LlPPINCdTTC?; ^ /Cv V Copyright, 1894, BY J. B. LippiNcoTT Company. VV i'^"^ Printed by J B Lippincott Company, PHiiADt lphi*, U.S.A. ^ TO THE MEMORY OF AN HONORED COLONIAL DAME OF TO-DAY, DEBORAH BROWN COLEMAN, THIS BRIEF RECORD OF COLONIAL LIFE IS 3iffectfanot«Iii jQedtcatcft. I* PREFACE. While men still recall the rustic pleas- ures of an old country seat in New York whose site is now the heart of the great metropolis, or remember forest trees sur- rounding a house at the corner of Twelfth and Chestnut Streets in Philadelphia, or tell of a boyhood spent in the pretty country town of Boston where stage- coaches clattered in from the rural dis- tricts, it seems time to collect in perma- nent form memorials of a past that cannot much longer be held in the memory of the living. By talking with men and women who lived in the first quarter of this cen- tury, we not only learn how our great cities appeared before the advent of the railroad, the steamboat, and the telegraph, but also, reaching back through their 7 8 PREFACE. family traditions, are placed in touch with the scenes of the Revolution and, even further back, with those of Colonial days. To give glimpses of social and domestic life North and South, gathered from such recollections and from diaries and letters, rather than to present a full or connected story of Colonial times, have these pages been written. For manuscripts, pictures, and data placed at my disposal, I take pleasure in making grateful acknowledg- ment to Mr. Justin Winsor, of Cambridge, to General Loring and Mr. Henry Ernest Woods, of Boston, to Mr. Matthew Clark- son, of New York, to Miss Adelaide L. Fries, of Salem, North Carolina, and to Dr. Charles J. Stille, Mr. David Lewis, Mr. Edward Shippen, Dr. Charles Cad- walader, Mr. F, J. Dreer, Mrs, OHver Hopkinson, and Miss Marion Wetherill, of Philadelphia. A. H. W. November, 1894. CONTENTS. page; COLONIAL DAYS II WOMEN IN THE EARLY SETTLEMENT 6l A GROUP OF EARLY POETESSES 99 COLONIAL DAMES I25 OLD LANDMARKS 153 WEDDINGS AND MERRY-MAKINGS 1 95 LEGEND AND ROMANCE 2I9 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGB GuNSTON Hall, Virginia, once the residence of George Mason, built about 1729. From photograph taken for this -work, October, i8q4 Frontispiece. Mrs. Isaac Norris (Mary Lloyd). From portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller, original in possession of Mr. A. Sydney Logan, of Phila. . . 25 Christ Church, North Second Street, Philadel- phia. Front vietu of iitterior photographed in i8()3 . . . . 29 Chalkley Hall, near Frankford, Philadelphia. Front photograph taken for this work, October, i8g4 3^ The Copley Family. Painted by John S. Copley, from original in Boston Museum of Art, owned by Mr. Charles Amory, of Boston 91 XU LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. FAGB Nellie Custis (Mrs. Lawrence Lewis). Front miniature by Thomas Sully, in possession of Mr. Edward Shippen, of Philadelphia 94 Mrs. James Tilghman (Anne Francis), From portrait in possession of Mr. F. C. Golds- borough," Ellenborough" Maryland \\X Mrs. Samuel Alleyne Otis (Elizabeth Gray). From portrait by John S. Copley, originally full length, as a shepherdess with a crook, holding a lamb by a blue ribbon. Owned by Mr. Harrison Gray Otis, of Boston 14* Mrs. John Morgan (Mary Hopkinson). From portrait by Benjamin West, in possession of the Coale family, of Baltimore 1 46 House of Colonel Roger Morris, afterwards known as Jumel House, on Harlem River, New York. From a recent photograph 164 Robert R. Livingston, first Chancellor of the State of New York. From portrait in Independence Hall, Philadelphia 1 7 * LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Xlll PAGB British Grenadier. From life-size figure standing in the Jiall of VVister Homestead, residence of Mr. Otarles J. Wister, Germantown, Philadelphia 179 Mrs. Samuel Blodget (Rebecca Smith). From unfinished head by Gilbert Stuart, in Acad- emy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia 187 Mrs. William Lewis (Frances Esmonde, of Huntingdon Castle, Ireland). Frtnn tniniature in possession of Miss Frances Donnel, of Sunbury, Pennsylvania I<59 Lady Pepperell and her sister Miss Royal (daughters of Isaac Royal, of Medford, Massa- chusetts). From early painting of John S. Copley, in posses- sion of the Misses Snow, of Jamaica Plain, Mass. 204 Mrs. Peter Augustus Jay (Mary Rutherfurd Clarkson). From original in possession of Mr. Matthew Clark- son, of New York 210 Flora Macdonald. From painting copied from London portrait ofij^b, in possession of Miss Alice Campbell, of Fayette- ville. North Carolina 226 COLONIAL DAYS. "I SHALL call that my country where I may most glorify God and enjoy the presence of my dearest friends," wrote Governor Winthrop from Massachusetts to his absent wife; while the Rev. Francis Higginson, stronger in his expressions of renunciation for himself and others, has left the following testimony in his diary : " When we are in our graves, it will be all one whether we have lived in plenty or penury, whether we have dyed in a bed of downe or lockes of straw. Onely 12 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. this is the advantage of the meane con- dition, that it is a more freedom to dye. And the lesse comfort any have in the things of this world, the more Hberty they have to lay up treasure in heaven." Although many of the Colonists came to the shores of the New World with such words upon their lips, and, we may believe, with such sentiments in their minds, it was not long before sturdy Anglo-Saxon enter- prise and English love of home comfort led them to make the wilderness, if not to blossom like the rose of the Scriptures, at least to take upon it something approach- ing civilization. No stronger contrast is to be found in Colonial history than the sad story of the earliest Virginia settlements, wiped out one after the other by starvation and the hos- tility of the natives, with that of the Massa- chusetts Colonists, clinging with English tenacity to their rock-bound coast, defying danger, cold, and hunger, guarding their scant stores, restraining their appetites, — planting the first corn that fell in their way, showing their wisdom in that dark CXaXXSlAL DAYS. 1 3 day by provkHi ^ for a still darker cr.e. — wafiifiil alert, devout, trustfug: in ike pro- tectiofi of an imsffn Father, a bcxh* cf deephr rd%ioas men and wom^i, evsi if in the expose of titeir feidi they were often harder than the stones with wiiich tiiey ground tiieir com. Hie esquresaons <^ the New En^and settios often seem to us too ^xritoaltobe natural in an hoar when tenqxxal needs pressed sctfi^ Topon them. >-et the promise wiudi they rtrimed for thems^res — "^ Seek ye first the kii^ndom c^ God, and his right- eousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" — was destined to be ful- nlled. if not to them, to their children in the next generation, in greater comfort of If^Tiig;, in peace and prosperity, in manu- ^ctures and coounerce. Dwdhng-, meet- ing-, and schccl-hottses sfvai^ up all over the e2^:e-r ; : n <^the Colony, ari slx- : ' :tlecoicc-r ::" 7 .'.- . ?ne the iJ:; -r- ;-' 14 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. the first building raised at Han-ard, al- though there were those who pronounced it *' too gorgeous for the wilderness." In glancing o\'^r the Colonies. North and South, there seems to have been no life more delightful than that of Marj-land and Mrginia, Handsome, spadous mansions. a fertile soil, genial climate, fine horses. and retinues of serv^ants conspired to give the home life of the Southern planter many of the characteristics of English countr\- li\-ing. Yet with all its ad^-antages a dis- couraging record is that of the first efforts to colonize \'irginia. John Ouincy Adams said, in an oration delivered early in this century-, that the final success of theMrginia settlements was largely due to the example of Massachusetts. As these settlements were started long before that of Ph-mouth, and as the places of those who failed were speedily filled by others, ready and willing to tr\- the hazardous experiment it seems as if the ultimate triumph of Mrginia col- onization might be fairly attributed to the courage and perseverance of the settlers themselves. When men equal to the un- COLOXIAL DAYS. 1$ dertaking wa% sent o\'er, the setdement <^ tbe Colpny became an assured spccess, def^'te restilence. stan-ation, and the coo- 5: : ^"ing of the borders by hostile I _ - Go\-emor Dudley* 's pathetic let- :: :: ^.e Countess erf" Lincohi, writtoi r .--iter he came to Salem, finds a par- a ; expressions of Lord Dela\\-are, \s^. --.-^. ^ Loat if the *' much cold comfort," in the way of bad news of the settlements, that mei. him upon his arrival in 1610 had not beai accompanied by tidings of the cominsT o\-er of & Tliomas Gates, "it hai zr.r.e sufficient to have broke my hr :: T :; -:;:-■ :f :uir z;^ \:5 and es:ai>- lif :;_: : -:.?;.- :5 su: ;.- the same all :.-:"- :.;; ::;.r: 1:. 1 -:\:\^ .\ .\i:^ New c; ^ - ... ;. - ...„....- . .- ..:..: . . .:- hi. laem and tbe sen r:~ ::: .-...:;. jreirs. \Veread of a ^^r5 CI : i : came to Philaddph:2 .-: . .r r^f: .;.i._- ha\'ing lost her ^ on siupboard [probabh - i who was ' kft with e^^-^: : :_.-._._;„. Her com- 1 6 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. panions prepared her the usual settlement in a cave on the river-bank. So great was the sympathy felt for this lady that even the Indians brought her supplies and gifts, and later a Friend [meaning a Quaker] built a house and gave her a share of it." Yet how few complaints we find ! how sim- ply the record reads ! The chronicler of the time dwells more upon the climate, pro- ductions of the country, characteristics of the natives, and improvements made up to 1696, which included "several good schools for the teaching of youth," than upon the struggles and privations of the settlers. So much was this the case, that of the early voyages to Pennsylvania, when small-pox often ravaged the ship's company, we find almost no detailed account. Some- times the fact is mentioned in a letter to a friend, as when James Claypoole writes to Robert Turner that he hears that thirty- one persons have died of small-pox in William Penn's ship, the Welcome. There were only one hundred passengers in all. Elsewhere, Townsend and Story tell us that the Proprietary himself assisted good COLONIAL DAYS. 1 7 Dr. Thomas Wynne in the care of the sick and dying. As an illustration of the primitiveness of this early living, we find the following story of little Rebecca Coleman, who came over with the first Pennsylvania settlers. At the door of her cave, when one day sit- ting there eating her milk porridge, she was heard to say again and again, " Now thee shan't," and again, " Keep to thy part." Upon investigation it was discovered that the child's " thees" and " thous" were ad- dressed to a snake with which, in the most confiding manner, and with strict regard to justice, she was sharing her supper of milk porridge from a bowl placed upon the ground. " Happy simplicity and peaceful- ness !" adds the chronicler, for these were days when no tale was complete without its moral, " reminding one strongly of the Bible promise, when the weaned child should put its hand on the cockatrice's den." The promise was literally fulfilled in the case of little Rebecca Coleman, as she suffered no injury, and, having survived the perils of the early settlement, lived 1 8 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. to within a few years of the Revolution. Great changes was she destined to witness in her life of ninety-two years ! Philadel- phia, then a high river-bank, with a dense forest back of it, was soon to be what Gabriel Thomas found it, a " noble and beautiful city," containing " a number of houses, all inhabited, and most of them stately and of brick, generally three stories high, after the mode of London." This in 1696, while in 1744, William Black wrote that Philadelphia far exceeded all descrip- tions he had heard of it. He was specially impressed by the number of privateers in the harbor, " the Considerable Trafifick, in shipping and unshipping of Goods, mostly American Produce," and the comfort and even luxury in which dwelt Mr. Andrew Hamilton, Secretary Peters, Mr. Thomas Lawrence, and others who entertained him. Mr. Black grows quite enthusiastic over the markets of Philadelphia, from which, he says, " You may be Supply'd with every Necessary for the Support of Life thro'ut the whole year, both Extraordinary Good COLONIAL DAYS. I9 and reasonably Cheap, and it is allow'd by- Foreigners to be the best of its bigness in the known World, and undoubtedly the largest in America ; I got to the place by 7 ; and had no small satisfaction in seeing the pretty Creatures, the Young Ladies, traversing the place from Stall to Stall, where they could make the best Market, some with their Maid behind them with a Basket to carry home the Purchase, Others that were designed to buy but trifles, as a little fresh Butter, a Dish of Green Peas, or the Hke, had Good Nature and Humility enough to be their own Porter." This pleas- ing picture, even after making some allow- ance for the floridness of Mr. Black's style, suggests comfort and plenty sufficient to present a strong contrast to the minds of those who, Hke Rebecca Coleman, were able to recall the hardships of the first set- tlement of Pennsylvania; while in New England the " city-like town of Boston with its beautiful and large buildings," de- scribed by a traveller in 1649, marked rapid progress from the little companies at Salem and Charlestown drawing close together 20 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. for safety upon the three hills of Shaw- mut. The strongest reason for the final tri- umph over many and great obstacles in the early settlement is doubtless to be found in the character of the immigrants. Mr. Hollister, in his " History of Connecticut," after stating that many of those who came to New England were from the humbler walks of life, says, " The planters, the sub- stantial landholders, who began to plant those ' three vines in the wilderness,' sprung from the better classes, and a large propor- tion of them from the landed gentry of England. This fact is proved not only by tracing individual families, but by the very names that those founders of our republic bore." True as this was of New England, with its Winthrops, Saltonstalls, Endi- cotts, Winslows, Bradfords, Pynchons, and Wentworths, it was equally the case in the Middle and Southern Colonies, to which early came the Livingstons, Schuylers, Crugers, De Peysters, De Lanceys, Mont- gomerys, Peningtons, Lloyds, Rodneys, COLONIAL DAYS. 21 Calverts, Francises, Ravenels, Pringles, and Izards. If, as has often been said, and with some truth, Virginia was a Botany Bay for English criminals, it is only fair to acknowledge that many of these were political offenders, and as^ likely to be in the right as their accusers. \ England also sent to this Colony the' Washingtons, Fairfaxes, Byrds, Harri- sons, Spotswoods, Culpepers, Skipwiths, Pages, and Randolphs. One needs only to glance over these names to realize that they did not, as a rule, belong to irresponsible adventurers, although of such there were some in all the Colonies. Men who came from families of good position on the other side of the water felt it no dishonor to put their hands to any honest toil that had for its object the work of home-making and nation- building. Hence among the first settlers of Pennsylvania we find many good Eng- lish names connected with the trades of tailor, hatter, carpenter, and the like, while from early New England records we learn 22 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. that Roger Wolcott, a Colonial governor and a man of letters, worked in the field ; that Governor Leete kept a store ; while John Dunton, when he came to Boston in 1696, rejoiced to find Mr. Samuel Shrimp- ton's "stately house there, with a Brass Kettle atop, to show his Father was not ashamed of his Original." Later, when the idea of good livings to be made in a country where land was to be had for the asking and where fortunes might be gained through trade with the Indies, prevailed through Great Britain and the Continent, a different class of people came to America. Many of these were skilled workers, thrifty in their habits, good, law-abiding citizens, like the Scotch and Irish from Ulster and the Germans who settled Germantown and came in such numbers to other portions of Penn- sylvania. In the Southern Colonies there seem to have been fewer men of a practical stamp in the earliest immigrations ; hence from Virginia, John Smith, and later Lord Dela- ware, wrote home that they could not set- COLONIAL DAYS. 23 tie the Colony without " men of quality, and painstaking men of arts and practices, chosen out and sent into the business." This was William Penn's principle, so strongly emphasized in the settlement of Pennsylvania, that the learning of a trade was the fittest equipment for colonization, Mr. Douglas Campbell has recounted the debt that the New England settlers owe to their temporary residence among the thrifty Hollanders, in legislation as well as in manufactures, commerce, and other arts of life. Pennsylvania also owes something to the Dutch, as it is safe to believe that the founder of the Province derived many of the practical elements in his well-balanced character from his Dutch mother, Margaret Jasper. Simplicity of manners prevailed for many years from necessity, but the settlers of Pennsylvania surrounded themselves with whatever comforts and conveniences they could command. An extensive commerce was soon established with the Indies and the ports of Southern Europe, while the Germans and the Scotch - Irish added 24 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. much to the industrial prosperity of the Province.* Substantial and convenient houses were soon built, among these Robert Turner's " great and famous house," so often spoken of, and the Proprietary's house in Letitia Court, for which, as well as for the con- struction of his " Pennsbury Palace," the finer part of the framework was sent over from England. The ancient doorway of the latter house bore the cheerful and in- viting ornament of a vine and cluster of grapes. The first Edward Shippen is said to have " surpassed his contemporaries in the style and grandeur of his edifice and appurte- nances for crossing the water/' which latter phrase, we conclude, refers to boats used for business or pleasure, as Mr. Shippen's grounds extended to Dock Creek. This * German linen, camlets, and serges were made in Germantown as early as 1696, and Judge Samuel W. Pennypacker says that to the Germans is due the honor of establishing the first paper-mill in America, in 1690, and of printing the Bible in their own tongue nearly forty years before it was printed in English. COLONIAL DAYS. 25 house on South Second Street, afterwards called the Governor's House, had an or- chard and fine garden around it, which, says the admiring chronicler, "equalizes any I have e\'er seen, having a very famous and pleasant summer-house erected in the middle of his garden, abounding with tulips, pinks, carnations, roses and lilies, not to mention those that grew wild in the fields, and also a fine lawn upon which reposed his herd of tranquil deer." If the Friend modestly, or with an affec- tation of modesty, called his coach " a con- venience." it was none the less a coach. The Proprietary early drove his coach in Philadelphia, and from thence to Penns- bury, and Isaac Norris, the son of an Eng- lish merchant who had settled in Jamaica, sent to England for a coach, and, although a strict Quaker, did not scruple to have the three falcons' heads of the family shield emblazoned upon its side. The Norrises also had their portraits painted while in London, which was a custom objected to later by Quakers as savoring of the world. In her picture by Kneller, Mrs. 26 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. Isaac Norris appears as one of the most beautiful women of her time, nor is her costume strictly Friendly, the prevailing colors being red and green, the lovely hair rolled back from the forehead and worn ■without a cap. There was no persecution for religion in Pennsylvania ; but there was less friendli- ness between the Quakers and the Church people, as the latter came to have more authority and influence in the government. Such spicy expletives as the " Hot Church Party," and " Colonel Quarr}''s Packed Vestr}^," we find in the mouths of good Friends of the day, while William Penn, in a letter to James Logan, says that Gov- ernor Gookin has presented Parson Evans* ^\^th " two as gaudy and costly Common Prayer Books as the Queen has in her chapel, and intends as fine a Communion table, both of which charm the baby in the Bishop of London, as well as Parson Evans." * This was the Rev. Evan Evans, rector of Christ Church parish in 17 19. COLONIAL DAYS. 27 Something like uniformity of thought and purpose prevailed in Colonial New England, with the exception of Rhode Island, which, like the Provinces of Penn- sylvania and Maryland, early became a refuge for the disaffected from the neigh- boring settlements, naturally inducing a more restless religious life and a larger religious toleration. Mr. Lodge attributes the strong and sustained individuality of the New England people not simply to their Puritanism, but also to the fact that they were of English strain, with only slight admixture from other nationalities. " Race, language, religious belief, manners, customs, and habits of mind and thought were," he says, " the same irom the forests of Maine to the shores of Long Island Sound. . . . They were all pure English- men, the purest part of the race perhaps, for during a century and a half [in 1765] they had lived in a New World, and received no fresh infusion of blood from any race but their own." The Quaker who came to Pennsylvania was quite as single-minded as the Puritan 28 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. of New England, and as sincere and earnest in following the guidance of that " inner light" which stood with him for duty, con- science, all that belongs to the moral and spiritual development of man, as was his New England brother in carrying out the rules and ordinances of the religious body to which he belonged. While the New England Colonies were developing along their own lines, with scant charity for those whose ideas ran in other channels, Penn- sylvania, from her position and charter, became the home not only of the English and the Welsh Quaker, who came to it as to his birthright of freedom, religious and civil, but of the English Churchman, with his more conservative notions ; of the Scotch-Irish Presbyterian, as firmly estab- lished in his spiritual convictions as the Puritan, although less favorably placed by Providence for the direction of his neigh- bor's conscience ; of the Roman CathoHc ; of the German and Swedish Lutheran ; and of many less distinct subdivisions of Protestantism. Fourteen years after the settlement of Pennsylvania, Gabriel Thomas COLONIAL DAYS. 29 speaks of numerous places of worship in Philadelphia, — of one Anabaptist, one Swedish Lutheran, one Presbyterian, two Quaker meeting-houses, and of a fine church belonging to the Church of England people. This was Christ Church, built in 1695, be- fore the English communion had found an abiding-place in the much older city of Boston. " The place is free for all per- suasions," he adds, " in a sober and civil way ; for the Church of England and the Quakers bear equal share in the govern- ment. They live friendly well together ; there is no persecution for religion, nor ever like to be." From the various admixture of nation- alities and creeds in Pennsylvania was evolved, in less than a century, a popula- tion representing many shades of belief, political and religious, and with strongly marked differences in character and ways of living. The early Quakers seem to have been less rigid in their manners and customs than those who followed them. The simplicity in dress which gradually obtained was at first a protest against ^O COLONIAL DAYS AND D.AJdES. changes of fashion rather than to establish a garb that distinguished them from the world's people. On his first landing in Fenns\-l\-ania, William Penn w-as habited in the Ca\-alier costume of the day. the gold bullion upon the coat being left off and the broad- brimmed hat worn without feathers. There were lace ruffles at the \^Tist howe\-er, and some historians place a blue silk sash around the stalwart prop>ortions of the Proprietan.- and a light dress sword by his side. A handsome, well-built man of thirt\-- eight was Penn at this time, with courtly, gracious manners, skilled in all manly ex- ercises. With this picture in our minds, it is not difficult to believe the stor>- handed down by Mrs. Preston, of the athletic Eng- lishman entering into their games T\-ith the friendly Indians, and excelling them all in feats of agility*, or that other tale about John Ladd. " Friend John, thou art Ladd by name, and a Ladd in comprehension I"' exclaimed the Proprietarj-. when John Ladd signified his preference for readj* money rather than for lots in paj-moit for his sct- COLONIAL DAYS. 3 I \nces in la\-ing out the new cii\- oi Phila- delphia, adding, " Dost thou not know this will become a g^reat city ?" The proscriptions and admonitions that came later from leading Friends at home and 'Sasiting Friends" from abroad were issued in consequence of the large influx into Penns\-h-ania of persons of other ways of h\-ing and thinking, who brought %\ith them temptations for the younger portion of the communit}", in dress, manners, and habits. This dangerous contagion from proximity- to the world's people led the women Friends of Burlington. New Jersey, to issue a letter from their Yearly Meeting, in 1726. in which they besought their sis- ters to beware of *' divers undue Liberties that are too frequently taken by some that walk among us and are accounted of us," adding, — •• We are willing in the pure love of Truth which ha:h mercifully risited our souls Tenderlr to caution and advise our Friends against tho>e things we think inconsistent w^th our Ancient Christian Testimony of plainness in AppareL Some of which we think proper to particulari:e. — As first that immodest fashion of hooped Fettico>i3 or the imitation of them either by 32 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. something put into their petticoats to make them sit full or wearing more than is necessary or any other imitation whatsoever which we take to be but a Branch springing from the same corrupt root of Pride. And also that none of our Friends accustom themselves to wear their Gowns with superfluous folds behind but plain and decent, nor to go without Aprons nor to wear superfluous Gathers or Pleats in their Caps or Pinners. Nor to wear their Heads dressed high behind, neither to cut or lay their hair on their Foreheads or Temples. And that Friends are careful to avoid wearing striped shoes." That Friendly warnings and preachings against fooHsh fashions were not without effect we learn from a letter written by Thomas Chalkley to his wife from Tortola, in the West Indies, whither he went in 1 74 1 upon a visitation:* " I have a little more which I cant well omit and this is for those who wear hoops among us the Gover- nours wife her two Sisters Capt hunts wife & the young woman whose father turnd her out of Doors wore hoops before they were Convinced of ye principles of our friends being throughly Convinced ye Could * Thomas Chalkley owned a large tract of land near Frankford. Here he lived, and on this property his son-in-law, Abel James, built a handsome and substan- tial house, which he called Chalklev Hall. COLONIAL DAYS. 33 were [they could wear] ym no longer and Divers fine younj^ people have Left ym of Since they have ye Same Excuses hear [here] all ye year as our girls has in Sum- mer. The Grate Lord of all gird our youth with the Girdle of truth and then they will not need those mon- strous preposterous girdes of hoops I call it monstrous be- cause if almighty God should make a woman in the same Shape her hoop makes her Everybody would Say truly So according to this real truth they make themselves Monsters by art." Thrift and enterprise early insured a certain amount of substantial comfort among the settlers, while the great advan- tages offered by fine harbors all along the coast and the various marketable products of the countr}^ soon enabled them to build up an extensive trade with the East and West Indies, Spain, Portugal, and other countries. Foreign luxuries thus found their way to the Colonies, adding much to the pleasures of life, and seaport towns gained a wider outlook into the world beyond through the tales of adventure brought home by their sailor sons, such tales as Eleanor Putnam describes the Salem children enjoying upon evenings when "My Cousin the Captain" and his 34 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. old friend sailed again the voyages of their youth, disputing and agreeing again after the fashion of old-time cronies. The most notable instance of a fortune made upon the seas is that of the Pepperell family. The first William Pepperell came from Tavistock, England, to the Isle of Shoals, where he and his partner, Mr. Gib- bons, sent out their fishing smacks on the shores, and later set up an establishment on one of the islands for the curing and sale of their fish. On a visit to Kittery Point, Pepperell made the acquaintance of John Bray, from PK-mouth. whose seventeen- year-old daughter, Margery, he fell in love with and married, a successful venture on the part of the suitor having given Mr. Bray suflficient confidence in him to be willing to accept him as a son-in-law. Mr. Bray gave his daughter a tract of land upon the Point, where William Pepperell built a house, which was considerably added to by his son, Sir William Pepperell. From this small beginning, in a little more than half a century, the largest fortune in New England was accumulated. The Pepper- COLONIAL DAYS. 35 ells built vessels and sent many to the West Indies laden with lumber, fish, oil, and live-stock, to be exchanged for dry- goods, wine, and salt, or to sell both vessel and cargo. Their largest business was in fisheries, however, and they are known to have had as many as a hundred small vessels on the Grand Banks at one time. While the Southern Colony of Virginia had her great planters who, like " King Carter," were renowned for the sumptu- ousness and state in which they lived. New York could boast her famous Dutch traders who lived in substantial comfort in their " Bouweries" upon the outskirts of New Amsterdam, and Massachusetts could claim such successful merchants as Elias Hasket Derby, the eccentric Timothy Dexter, and " King Hooper," whose stately home, later known as the Collins and the Peabody House, from subsequent possessors, is still standing. Robert Hooper, Esq., of Marblehead, who built his house at Danvers, once Salem village, was something of a Tory, and when General Gage found Boston too hot for 36 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. him, he removed to Danvers and took up his abode in the Hooper House, where he resided for several months, protected by- two companies of troops which were en- camped in its vicinity. Madam Knight, in her famous journey on horseback through the country that stretches between Boston and New York, doubtless gives a faithful picture of the rough and uncomfortable living of that early time ; this, however, was country liv- ing, and even then presented a great con- trast to the life in villages and towns. She records of the Indians whom she meets, that they are " the most salvage of all the salvages of that kind that I had ever seen," yet they do not appear to have molested her, and if her entertainment was so hard at one " Ordinary" that she walked out, having paid, as she remarked, her sixpence for " the smell of her Dinner," and at an- other time objected to "the Pumpkin and Indian mixt Bred, and the Bare Legged Punch," and at Norwalk to her bed of corn husks, which, " when scratched up by Lit- tle Miss, Russelled as if she'd been in the COLONIAL DAYS. 3/ Barn amongst the Husks," there were other places, as Saxton's at Stonington, the widow Prentice's at New London, New Haven, and Fairfield, where she was " well ac- commodated as to victuals and Lodging," and hospitable entertainment was offered her in the homes of the Rev. Gurden Sal- tonstall, of New London, and Governor John Winthrop, of New Haven. One of the most amusing passages of Madam Knight's diary, and one that best illustrates the crudity of the life of the time and place, as well as her own native wit, is the account of her experience at " Haven's Tavern in the Narragansett Country," where, having retired to her room, which was parted from the kitchen by a single board partition, and " to a bed which the pretty hard, was yet neet and handsome," she finds herself unable to sleep because of a dispute of some topers in the next room over the signification of the name of their country, Narragansett : " One said it was named so by y^ Indians, because there grew a Brier there, of a prodigious Highth and bigness, the like hardly ever known, called by the 4 38 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. Indians Narragansett ; And quotes an Indian of so Barberous a name for his Author, that I could not write it. His Antagonist Replyed no — It was from a Spring it had its name, w<='' hee well knew where it was, which was extreem cold in summer, and as Hott as could be imagined in the winter, which was much resorted too by the natives, and by them called Narra- gansett, (Hott and Cold,) and that was the originall of their places name — with a thousand Impertinances not worth notice, w"* He utter'd with such a Roreing voice and Thundering blows with the fist of wickedness on the Table, that it peirced my very head. I heartily fretted, and wish't 'um tongue tyed ; but with as little succes as a freind of mine once, who was (as shee said) kept a whole night awake, on a Jomy, by a country Left, and a Sergent, Insigne and a Deacon, contriving how to bring a triangle into a Square. They kept call- ing for tother Gill, w** while they were swallowing, was some Intermission." This draught having had the effect of augmenting the turmoil, or, as she says, " like Oyle to fire," increasing the flame, the philosophical traveller set her candle upon a chest and in the following lines endeavored to turn the roisterers' own weapons against them : " I ask thy Aid, O Potent Rum ! To charm these wrangling Topers Dum. Thou hast their Giddy Brains possest — COLONIAL DAYS. 39 The man confounded w*** the Beast — And I, poor I, can get no rest. Intoxicate them with thy fumes : O still their Tongues till morning comes. ** And I know not but my wishes took effect ; for the dispute soon ended w"* tother Dram; and so Good night!" It is gratifying to learn that this heroic if " fearfull female t'raiveller" finally reached her destination, New York, where she was received by Mr. Thomas Burroughs, a prominent merchant of that place, who aided her in attending to thebusiness forwhichshe had made this perilous journey, and after- wards entertained her with such pleasing diversions as a ride to witness the sleighing between New York and the Bowery,* fol- lowed by " a handsome Entertainment of five or six dishes and choice Beer and metheglin Cyder," at the house of Madam Dowes, a gentlewoman who lived at a farm * A small town on the banks of the Harlem River, which was a favorite resort of riding and sleighing parties of the time. The name Bowery was evidently derived from Governor Stuyvesant's bouwery, or farm, near by. — Valentine's History of the City of New York. 40 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. in the neighborhood. Of the sleighing Madam Knight says, " I beHeve we mett 50 or 60 slays that day — they fly with great swiftness and some are so furious that they'll turn out of the path for none except a London Cart." Mr. Burroughs also took Madam Knight to a " Vendue/' where she met with a great bargain in paper, and became ac- quainted with a number of persons, who invited her to their houses and generously entertained her. It was upon this journey that she met Madam Livingston, wife of Lieutenant-Colonel John Livingston, whose second wife was to be Mrs. Knight's own and only daughter, Elizabeth, at this time a girl of seventeen. Her impressions Madam Knight records, in a general way, as follows : " New York is a pleasant, well compacted place, situated on a commodious river which is a fine harbor for shipping, the Buildings, Brick Generaly, very stately and high, though not altogether like ours in Boston. . . ." " They have Vendues very frequently and make their earnings very well by them, for they treat with good COLONIAL DAYS. 4 1 Liquor Liberally, and the Customers Drink as Liberally and Generally pay for 't as well, by paying for that which they Bidd up Briskly for, after the sack has gone plentifully about, tho' sometimes good penny worths are got there." Surely this good dame was not lacking in shrewdness, which, with her forcible use of the English tongue, even if in writing it she was sometimes, guilty of such trifling errors as the misplacing of vowels and consonants, rendered her worthy of being the early preceptress of such distinguished men as Dr. Samuel Mather and Dr. Frank- lin, who both attended her Dame's school established in Boston after her return from this journey to New York. In another part of her journal she says of the New Yorkers, " Nor do they spare for any diversion the place affords, and sociable to a degree, they'r Tables being as free to their Naybours as to themselves," " The English go very fasheonable in their dress. The Dutch, especially the middling sort, differ from our women, in their habitt go loose, were French muches w^** are like a Capp and a head band in one, leaving their ears bare, which are sett out w*** Jewells of a large size and many in number. And their fingers 4* 42 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. hoop't with Rings, some with large stones in them of many Coullers as were their pendants in their ears, which You should see very old women wear as well as Young." Such were the life, customs, and dress of the mixed population of Dutch and English in New York in 1704, and we find equally strong contrasts occurring, a little later in Philadelphia, between the Quakers and the world's people. If the former appeared in sober attire, the gayer descendants of the early settlers arrayed themselves in long red cloaks, in an exag- gerated style of dress called " trollopes," very objectionable to quiet folk, in hoops so large that the wearer was obliged to enter a door crab-like, " pointing her ob- truding flanks end foremost," high-heeled shoes and stiff stays, which seem to have been worn by both sexes, as were the large curled wigs of the period. The very boys wore wigs, says Watson, and their dress in general resembled that of the men, which was quite as absurd in its way as the women's, including coat-skirts lined and stiffened with buckram, or set out with COLONIAL DAYS. 43 wadding like a coverlet, and sleeves with cuffs reaching to the elbows, with lead in them to keep them down. What would Nathaniel Ward have had to say to men who thus bedecked their persons ? He had already declared him- self with regard to " women who lived to ape the latest fashion" in no measured terms, denominating the five or six such in the Colony of Massachusetts as "the very gizzard of a trifle, the product of a quarter of a cipher, the epitome of noth- ing," to which he added, " It is no mar- vel they wear trails on the hinder part of their heads, having nothing it seems in the forepart but a few squirrels' brains to help them frisk from one ill favored fashion to another." The fashions of both men and women, cited by Watson, were doubtless somewhat exaggerated in the transmission from one generation to another, and in a short time " long red cloak" and "trollopes" had to give way before offensive caricatures aimed at them, a female felon being led to the gallows in the former, while the wife of Daniel Petti- 44 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. teau, the hangman, paraded the town in the latter.* A curious notice from the Pennsylvania Gazette shows that certain feminine adorn- ments, and even one of the much-derided red cloaks, had found their way into a household of such simplicity as the Frank- lins' as early as 1750. " Whereas on Saturday night last, the house of Ben- jamin Franklin, of this city, printer, was broken open, and the following things feloniously taken away, viz. a double necklace of gold beads, a woman's long scarlet cloak, almost new, with a double cape, a woman's gown, of printed cotton, of the sort called brocade print, very remarkable, the ground dark, with large red roses, and other large and yellow flowers, with blue in some of the flowers, with many green leaves ; a pair of woman's stays, covered with white tabby before, and dove-colour'd tabby behind, with two large steel hooks, and sundry other goods. Whoever discovers the thief, or thieves, either in this or any of the neighbouring provinces, so that they may be brought to justice, shall receive Ten Pounds reward; and for recovering any of the goods, a reward in proportion to their value, paid by Benjamin Franklin." It is evident that there was enough worldliness abroad in Philadelphia to lead * Watson's Annals, vol. i. p. 184. COLONIAL DAYS. 45 prominent Quakers to issue such letters as that of the Women Friends of Burlington and of Thomas Chalkley, especially as a traveller of veracity has assured us that young Quakeresses were fond of ribbons and other gayeties in attire. Watson found so many diversions to record that he devotes a separate chapter to " Sports and Amusements," in which he tells of the " High Dutch" skating of Dr. Foulke, the celebrated surgeon, and of " Ox Roasts" on the thick-ribbed ice of the Dela- ware River, in the presence of numerous skaters, the skaters of Philadelphia being pre-eminent. Mrs. Ball advertised her school for teaching French, playing on the spinet, and dancing, in Letitia Court, about 1730; and a few years later, when, in consequence of the religious fervor excited by the preach- ing of Whitefield, dancing-schools, concert- rooms, and play-houses were closed, there was strong opposition to such stringent measures from a certain portion of the community, some of the gentlemen even breaking open the doors. The famous 46 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. Dancing Assembly, whose lists run down to our own day, was established in 1749. Places in the dance were arranged by lot, and partners were engaged for the evening, " leaving nothing," says the astute chroni- cler, " to the success of forwardness or favouritism. Gentlemen always drank tea with their partners the day after the assem- bly, — a sure means of producing a more lasting acquaintance, if desirable." It is to be hoped that pretty Quakeresses were sometimes allowed to participate in the milder festivity of such tea-drinkings, even if the more exciting pleasures of the dance were denied them. If gayeties and luxuries rapidly increased in Pennsylvania, it is gratifying to know that churches, meeting-houses, and schools kept pace with the one, and that the com- merce and manufactures of a largely in- dustrial population balanced and contrib- uted to the demands of the other. The first school in Philadelphia, opened by Enoch Flower in 16S3, was soon fol- lowed by a grammar-school, established by Samuel Carpenter and other leading COLONIAL DAYS, 47 Friends. Over this school, in which the " learned languages were taught," pre- sided George Keith, a Scotch Friend, who later joined the English Church and be- came a grievous " thorn in the flesh" of good Quakers. Keith, was assisted in his teaching by Thomas Makin, who occa- sionally indulged in flights of poetry; but, finding pedagogy more popular than poetry, he finally became principal of the grammar- school in Keith's place, and carried it on with fair success. It is a curious fact that the small and now almost unknown sea- board town of Lewes boasted so superior a school for girls that Governor Lloyd sent his daughters there to complete their education, while to a little settlement in Bucks County belongs the honor of open- ing the first institution for collegiate in- struction in the Middle Colonies. The Log College, founded by the Rev. William Tennent in 1726, in which undertaking he was greatly assisted by his cousin James Logan, became the abna mater of such distinguished divines as William Tennent the younger, Samuel Finley, the Blairs, 48 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. Charles Beatty, and William Robinson, besides claiming the distinction of being the corner-stone of Princeton College, estab- lished more than twenty years later. An anecdote is told of the Rev. Charles Beatty, an early graduate of the Log Col- lege, by Dr. Franklin, which admirably illustrates the ready mother-wit of the latter. Dr. Beatty was acting as chaplain to an army of five hundred men led by Franklin to defend the frontier against the French and Indians after the burning of the Moravian mission at Gnadenhiitten, Pennsylvania. " Dr. Beatty complained to me," says Franklin, " that the men did not generally attend his prayers and exhor- tations. When they were enlisted, they were promised, besides hay and provisions, a gill of rum a day, which was punctually served out to them, half in the morning, and the other half in the evening ; and I observed they were as punctual in attending to receive it ; upon which I said to Mr. Beatty, * It is perhaps below the dignity of your profession to act as steward of the rum, but if you were to deal it out, and only just after prayers, you would have them all about you.' " The shrewd suggestion was adopted by COLONIAL DAYS. 49 Dr. Beatty, and the philosophic Franklin adds, — " Never were prayers more generally and more punctually attended ; so that I thought this method preferable to the punishment inflicted by some military laws for non-attendance on divine service." The fact that a Presbyterian minister would, under any circumstances, consent to measure out rum to his flock suggests a curious contrast between customs past and present ; but, as each man received but half a gill at a time, the reverend gentleman may have considered that, in a certain sense, he was assisting in a temperance movement. Thackeray has admirably hit off Dr. Franklin's readiness to advise upon all subjects in his picture of a dinner at Madam Esmond's, before the Braddock expedition, when General Braddock con- stantly turns to the " little Postmaster from Philadelphia" who seemed to possess much curious information and to have counsel to offer in all emergencies. Nothing seemed to be too great or too small for Franklin's c ^ 5 50 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. consideration. While abroad upon diplo- matic business, he writes his wife minute directions about making and putting dow-n the carpets which he sends her ; \-et Mrs. Franklin was herself a notable house- keeper. In a letter written to her husband in 1765. she speaks of papered walls in their new house in Franklin Court, while the Fair Hill mansion boasted paper as early as 1 717, although tlie parlors were wains- coted in oak and red cedar. Several car- pets Mrs. Franklin mentions as those in tlie blue room, the parlor, and otlier rooms, and even expresses a desire to ha\e a Turkey carpet, which sounds strangely luxurious and modem to our ears, espe- cially as the first carpet remembered in Philadelphia was seen at the house of Owen Jones, at Second and Spruce Streets, about 1750. These early carpets were not ver\- ample, being designed for the centre of the room, the chairs being set around the edges of tlie square, the middle of which was occupied by the table. Mrs. Franklin also mentions such luxuries as COLONIAL DAYS. 5 I a closet \\'ith glass doors, spaces for tlie " pier of glass." a harpsichord and harmon- ica ; while Sally's room, up two pairs of stairs, beside its regular furniture, con- tained a trunk and books which seem to be quite beyond her powers of description, as she adds, " but these you can't have any notion of" Dr. Franklin, in one of his earlier letters, speaks of such fanc)nngs of his own as a " pair of silk blankets, very fine, just taken in a French prize," which he thinks would be best to cover a summer bed, some fine damask table-cloths and napkins, snuffer-stand and extinguisher of ver}' beautiful workmanship, and some car- peting " which is to be sewed together in such a way as would make the figures match, and to be finished with a border." Carpets instead of sanded floors and wall-paper in the place of the primitive whitewash were finding their way into modest households, while much greater luxuries were to be seen in such resi- dences as those of tlie Hamiltons, Aliens, Fishers, Morrises, Jameses, and Willings; and, instead of the one maid-ser\-ant that 52 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. Gabriel Thomas speaks of in 1696 as among the comforts of tlie early settle- ment, numbers of ser\-ants were to be found in many households, some of them slaves. The " slaves" gallerj-"" is still to be seen in old Christ Church in Boston, and in Quaker Philadelphia some good citizens o\Mied slaves, and thought it no harm to ^^^ll a likely African or a neat- handed yellow girl to their children, as they left them their household furniture, horses, and carriages. The days had passed by, in 1760. when the carriages and chariots driven in this cit\- could be told off on the fingers of two hands, as in Mrs. Mcllvaine's lines : " Judge Allen drove a coach and four Of h.indsome dappled grays, Shippens, Penns, Pembertons. and Morrises, Powels, Cadwaladers, aiid Xorrises Drove only pairs of blacks and bays." Du Simitiere enumerates the carriages driven in Philadelphia in 1772 as number- ing nearly one hundred, although William Peters and Thomas Willine could lonsr COLONIAL DAYS. 53 claim the distinction of driving the only- landaus in old Philadelphia. The time was long past, even in New England, when the iron hand of law or the voice of admonition could keep back the tide of progress in religious toleration or in the gentler arts of life. If, in early- days in Plymouth, the settlers walked to the meeting, the governor and elders at their head, the men armed and equipped as for battle, the women, children, and servants well guarded from attack, the day came before the century was out when the governor rolled to the place of worship in his coach. In 1695, Judge Sewall writes that he prevailed upon " Governor Brad- street and his Lady" * to walk to his new house and wish him joy of it, " after which they sat near an hour with Mrs. Corwin and Wharton, and the Governor drank a glass or two of wine, eat some fruit, and took a pipe of tobacco in the new Hall, and finally went away between twelve and one in Madame Richard's new Coach and horses." * Simon Bradstreet's second wife, Mistress Gardner. His first wife, Anne, the poetess, died in 1672. 5* 54 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES, Joseph Bennett, coming to New England somewhat later, writes, " There are several Familys in Boston that keep a Coach and pair of Horses, and some few drive \\nth 4 horses ; but for Chaises and Saddle Horses, considering the bulk of the place [they] out do London. When the Ladies ride out to take the Air it is generally in a Chaise or Chair ; tho' but a single Horse'd one and they have a Negro ser\-ant to dri\-e 'em." The dancing of Morton and his followers at Merr}' Mount was promptly stopped and their scandalous May-pole cut do%vn: yet there were others in New England who danced before the next century was old, as we find that Charles Bradstreet in 1759 was permitted by the selectmen of the town of Salem to " teach dancing" in con- nection with French, " so long as he keeps good order." while a little later Lawrence DObleville. a native of Paris and a Prot- estant, was employed in Salem and other towns "teaching children and youth to dance and good manners." Althousrh Governor Endicott cut the COLONIAL DAYS. 55 cross out of tlie English flag because, to his mind, it savored of popen', it was re- stored to its place, and we find Samuel Sewall, fifty years later, still in doubt about this emblem in the colors, wondering whether it might not hinder his " Entrance into the Holy Land." Still greater and more grievous changes was he to behold whom Mr. Lodge signalizes as the " Last of tlie Puritans," when, under Governor Andros. the service of the English Church was permitted in Boston, and was heard wnthin the walls of the venerated Old South. With the admission of the Eng- lish Church, which meant an outward toleration for other religious bodies, there came into the very strongholds of Puritan- ism a wider liberty in manners, customs, and habits of life. Tradition tells of a spirited Colonial lady, wife of a squire in Hadley, INLissa- chusetts, who was formally excommuni- cated by the parson and elders of the meeting for the sin of being present at the Christmas celebration of two poor Ger- mans living upon her husband's estate. 56 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. Slowly and steadily, however, the new wine was working in the old bottles, and al- though Samuel Sewall records with satis- faction, as late as Christmas, 1697, " Shops are open and Carts and Sleds come to Town with Wood and Fagots as formerly, save what abatement may be allowed on account of the wether," he is forced to con- clude his characteristic entry with the dis- couraging statement that Joseph, his son, told him that " most of the Boys went to the Church," adding, " yet he went not." The old barriers were giving way, new cus- toms and observances were coming in. In Puritan New England, as well as in Quaker Pennsylvania, the joyous holiday of Chris- tian hope was being kept. In New Amster- dam the New- Year festival was a period of greater rejoicing, but in Virginia and the Southern Colonies an old-time English Christmas, with yule-log, mistletoe bough, and church services, early marked the sea- son. In Pennsylvania there were many who held aloof from the observance of the day, but with less severity than the Puritan, the Quaker's inward light being apparently in- COLONIAL DAYS. 57 tended more for his own guidance than for that of his neighbor, and Watson speaks of May-Day and Christmas celebrations in Philadelphia as of long-established usage. Of the latter he records, — " The ' Belsh Nichel' and St. Nicholas has been a time of Christmas amusement from time immemorial among us; brought in, it is supposed, among the sportive frolics of the Germans. It is the same also observed in New York, under the Dutch name of St. Claes. ' Belsh Nichel,' in high German, expresses ' Nicholas in his fur' or sheep-skin clothing. He is alv^ays supposed to bring good things at night to good children, and a rod for those who are bad." The first signs of Christmas-keeping in New England seem to picture the dawn of a brighter day for the Puritan child, whose natural and spontaneous development must have been sadly checked and hampered by the straitness of the life surrounding it, even in homes where there was full and plenty, by the dismal Sabbaths which weighed heavily upon the exuberant energy of the healthy young creature, with their sermons of such length that Nathaniel Ward him- self confesses, " we have a strong weakness 5$ COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. in New England that when we are speak- ing, we know not how to conclude, we make many ends before we make an end." In letters and diaries of the time we find small mention of the children, except to record their birth and death, or, perchance, to note when they had the small-pox. or when they were inoculated to prevent their ha\Tng it. as when Judge L}Tide \\Tites, — " Daughter Lvdia went to Boston, and was inocu- lated by Dr. Charles Pvnchon; thro' God's goodness had it so favourably as every day to be about, and in 14 days went out visiting, and on 5th May returned well to Salem, Laus Deo I" Sometimes an entr\- records the number of olive-branches upon the family vine, with a certain pride of possession, or tells of some spiritual experience marking the turning of tlie page from childhood to manhood or womanhood. Scant space %\'as found in those days to dwell upon childish jo\*s, and when sorrows are mentioned they seem strangely akin to those of the gro^\■n folks, as when little Anne Dudley, at six or seven, relates her grief, not over a fractured doll or tov. but because of her "ne-, Maryland, where Captain Neale became acquainted with her and married her."* * Later investigations incline us to the belief that Anna Gill was bom in England, and probably married Captain Neale abroad, as she and her four children WOMEN IN THE EARLY SETTLEMENT. S3 Be this as it may, Captain and Mrs. Neale were both in England during the reign of Charles I., and much trusted by the ro>-al family, the captain being sent by the king and the Duke of York on a secret mis- sion to Spain. " The relations of a poUt- ical nature," says the family narrative, " shown by this agency were such as to bring him into personal friendship with the long, and Mrs. Xeale, through her hus- band's influence, into the ser\-ice of the queen, and also warranted their asking and ha\'ing the presence of her Majesty (by proxy) at the baptism of their eldest daugh- ter, whom they were permitted to name * Henrietta Maria,' in honor of her royal sponsor. " * After the execution of the king in 164S. Captain Neale brought his family to were naturalized on coming to Maryland in 1666. One account of this ladv tells us that she was a maid of honor at the court of Anne of Austria, ■which may have been true, as Queen Henrietta Maria took refuge with her royal sister-in-law in France, whither her maid of honor, Anna Gill, may have accompanied her. * The Chamberlaine Family, by John Bezman Kerr. 84 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. Maryland, and purchased a tract of land in Charles County with Spanish coins known as " cob dollars," thus originating the name of Cob Neck, where he settled. From the union of these two romantic fig- ures in the early history of Maryland have descended Lloyds, Tilghmans, Hollydays, Haywards, Goldsboroughs, Chamberlaines, Carrolls, Blakes, and Milnors, while fair Henrietta Marias in different generations have perpetuated the name of their royal godmother. From Captain James and Anna Neale came the distinguished Arch- bishop Neale, who was educated in France, ministered to Philadelphia and Baltimore parishes, and was later President of George- town College. Another noted descendant of Madam Neale was Charles Carroll, the barrister, who acted so important a part in early Revolutionary conventions in Mary- land. His father. Dr. Charles Carroll, was of the great Irish house of Ely O'CarroU, while his mother was lovely Dorothy Blake, a grand-daughter of Anna Neale. If few women came to Virginia in the first immigration, there were in 1676 wives WOMEN IN THE EARLY SETTLEMENT. 85 and daughters who took sides with their husbands and fathers in the Great Re- bellion, and, like the young wife of Major Cheeseman, had courage to face the cruel and despotic Berkeley. A few years earlier the first William Byrd had brought his English wife, Mary Horsmanden, to West- over, where his son William was born. Early in the next century Lady Spots wood accompanied her husband to what must have then seemed the outermost bounds of civilization, Germanna, Governor Spots- wood's settlement of Germans upon the Rapidan, where he built the first iron fur- nace in North America. "An enchanted castle," Colonel Byrd calls Germanna, of which he writes in his entertaining " Progress to the Mines," — " I arrived about three o'clock, and found only Mrs. Spotswood at home, who received her old acquaintance with many a gracious smile. I was carried into a room elegantly set off with pier glasses, the largest of which came soon after to an odd misfortune. Amongst other favourite animals that cheered this lady's solitude, a brace of tame deer ran familiarly about the house, and one of them came to stare at me as a stranger. But unluckily spying his own figure in the glass, he made a 86 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. spring over the tea-table that stood under it, and shat- tered the glass to pieces, and, falling back upon the tea-table, made a terrible fracas among the china. This exploit was so sudden, and accompanied with such a noise, that it surprised me, and perfectly frightened Mrs. Spotswood. But it was worth all the damage, to show the moderation and good humour with which she bore the disaster. In the evening the noble colonel came home from his mines, who saluted me ver)' civilly, and Mrs. Spotswood's sister, Miss Theky, who had been to meet him en cavalier, was so kind too as to bid me welcome. We talked over a legend of old stories, supped about nine, and then prattled with the ladies till it was time for a traveller to retire." A pleasant picture Colonel Byrd has left us of this good soldier and statesman, whom he calls the Tubal Cain of Virginia. discussing a bowl of " rack punch" and his iron-making %\ith the master of Westover. or perchance unfolding to him his scheme for reducing the mail communication be- tween Williamsburg and Philadelphia to eight days !* Colonel Byrd is disposed to rally the dought}- warrior upon his great * Alexander Spotswood was Deputy Postmaster Gen- eral for the Colonies from 1730 to 1739, and it was through his influence that Benjamin Franklin was ap- pointed Postmaster for Pennsylvania. WOMEN IN THE EARLY SETTLEMENT. 8/ domesticity and devotion to Lady Spots- wood, " rubbing up his memory" upon the opposite maxims which he was wont to preach before he was married, to which the Governor repHes, Hke the gallant gentle- man that he is, " that whoever brings a poor gentlewoman into so solitary a place from all her friends and acquaintances, would be ungrateful not to use her with all possible tenderness." Although Colonel Byrd is occasionally inclined to sharpen his wits at the expense of the fair sex, remarking of the conversa- tion of the ladies at Germanna that it was " like whip syllabub, very pretty, but had nothing in it," while he discouragingly alludes to Mrs. Chiswell as one of those " absolute rarities, a very good old woman," and makes jokes that seem unsuited to so courteous a gentleman upon Miss Theky and her maiden state, which he describes her as bewailing daily in a beautiful bower upon Governor Spotswood's plantation, he is quite ready to enjoy a Michaelmas goose of the spinster's raising, and to find much satisfaction in " the good company SS COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. of Mrs. Byrd and her little governor, my son." Those were days of unsavor>' witticisms, and Colonel Byrd ^^•as only following the example of some of the elegant gentlemen with whom he had associated while com- pleting his education in England. ^Ir. John Dunton, who visited Boston a little earlier, \\'as capable of making remarks upon the women whom he met that were worthy a countr\-man of the caustic Pepys, although liis pen-pictures are usually flattering. Mrs. Stewart's face, at thirty-three, he finds " a magazine of beaut\- from whence she may fetch artiller}- enough to wound a Thousand Lovers," which makes his disapprobation of Mrs. D.. Doll S . and others stand out in stronger colors. The latter he calls " a perpetual contradiction, made up of I will and I ^vill not ;" while of another dame, whose name he prudently omits, he ob- serves that '* she takes as much state upon her, as wou'd have serv'd six of Queen Elizabeth's Countesses ; and yet she's no Lady neither. . . . She seldom appears twice in a shape ; but ever)- time she goes WOMEN IN THE EARLY SETTLEMENT. 89 abroad, puts on a different Garb. Had she been with the Israelites in the Wilder- ness, when for forty years their Cloaths wax'd not old, it had been punishment enough for her, to have gone so long in one fashion." Fashion had certainly made great strides since the days of the early settlement if a woman could thus often change her " garb and shape." Judge Sewall might well bewail the advance into favor of the de- spised periwig, and if he one day experi- ences a melancholy pleasure in recording the fact that a periwig-maker and barber has died the death of a drunkard, he is pained soon after to hear Mr. Mather, in his pulpit, inveigh against those who " strain at a Gnat and swallow a Camel," who are " zealous against an innocent fashion, taken up and used by the best of men ; and yet make no conscience of being guilty of great Immoralities." " 'Tis supposed means wear- ing a Perriwig," says Sewall. " I expected not to hear a vindication of Perriwigs in Boston pulpit by Mr. Mather." Nor per- haps did Mr. Sewall expect to see in his 8* go COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES, own town of Salem a glaring advertise- ment of elaborate wigs and coiffures for both sexes. Even in Quaker Pennsylvania such innovations began to obtain in the next century, as we find Lewis Fay and Louis Duchateau informing the public, through the journals of the day, that they were qualified to " dress Ladies in fifty different manners with their own natural hair," while those ladies who had not sufficient hair of their own, or were sub- ject to headache, were consoled with the promise that they could be " dressed with false curls so well as not to be distin- guished from their natural ones." These accomplished artists also assured their pa- trons that they " set on brilliants or flow- ers to the greatest advantage," and, not to neglect the adornment of the sterner sex. engaged "to dress Gentlemen's hair in thirty fashionable and different manners agreeable to their faces and airs." This sounds like gayety and frivolity ; yet although the dignified men in satin coats and lace ruffles who look down upon this generation from the canvases of Black- WOMEN IN THE EARLY SETTLEMENT. 9 1 burn, Smibert, his pupil John Copley,* and from those of Stuart, West, Peale, and Trumbull, were very elegant gentlemen, they were also industrious. God-fearing men and law-abiding citizens. The ladies, their pendants upon the wall, if they were grandes dames in a certain sense, and upon gala days appeared stiff and elegant in their brocades and satins, with hair tower- ing high or tortured into innumerable curls and rings, were far from frivolous as a rule, * In none of his paintings does Gjpley more fully display the grace and breadth of treatment which were the distinguishing characteristics of his best work than in the group of his own family. In this picture Mrs. Copley leans forward to caress her boy, whose hand is laid confidingly upon his mother's cheek, while the little maid in the foreground presents a charming com- bination of childish innocence and dignity. This paint- ing possesses a more than ordinary historic interest, as the older gentleman standing near Mr. Copley, his father- in-law, is the Mr. Richard Clarke who refused to return the tea consigned to him in 1774, and may thus, in a certain sense, be considered the originator of the Boston tea party, the boy whom Mrs. Copley bends over is the future Lord Chancellor of England, and the little girl, Elizabeth, is looked upon with interest by many Bos- tonians as their ancestress, Mrs. Gardiner Greene. 92 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. and if an occasional ball or play diversified the monotony of their days, the majority of them were spent as Mr. Swanwick describes the excellent Maria spending hers : "No gadding frenzy takes her choice, But strictly ruled by reason's voice She finds no bliss to roam. ***** No hideous dress this fair one wears, Not fashions but a mother's cares Engross her every hour." Indeed, domesticity was a necessity as well as a virtue in Colonial and Provincial life, and while, as Mr. Dunton remarked of Mrs. William Stewart, of Boston, " Her pride was to be Neat and Cleanly, and her thrift not to be Prodigal, which made her seldom a non-resident of her household," the Southern matron gathered her slaves about her and instructed them in cooking, sewing, and all domestic arts. The woman of the olden time was skilled in the use of her needle, in embroidery, lace-making, and all manner of fine needle-work. Little Miss Swift wrote from Boston to her papa and mamma in Philadelphia of spending WOMEN IN THE EARLY SETTLEMENT. 93 hours at her " Tam Bar frame," while a pretty picture has come down to us of the young girls sitting out upon Boston Com- mon in the afternoon with their spinning- wheels before them, industry being the fashion in Colonial days. A not unat- tractive scene this to the traveller, who was taken to witness the latest Boston device for combining the useful and the beautiful ! " The Government being in the hands of Dissenters they don't admit of Plays, or Musick - houses," wrote Mr. Bennet, but here is a series of attractive tableaux vivants en plein air, bevies of girls laying their hands to the spindle, Hke King Solomon's model housewife, or as Mr. Longfellow pictured the captivating maiden of Plymouth : •' Seated beside her wheel, and the carded wool like a snow-drift Piled at her knee, her white hands feeding the raven- ous spindle, WTiile, her foot on the treadle, she guided the wheel in its motion." These girls doubtless covered them- selves with what good Mr. Whitefield called 94 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. " The Pride of Life," and indulged in as much innocent rivalry over caps and gowns as over the number of hanks of flax and Wool spun, for young people seemed to be young even in New England, and quite as tender glances of sweethearts could be exchanged over spinning-wheels as in the pauses of the dance in gayer circles. A descendant of Thomas Jefferson's Belinda writes of the Virginia lady of the olden time, " Very little from books was thought necessary for a girl. She was trained to domestic matters, however, must learn the accomplishments of the day, to play upon the harpsichord or spinet, and to work impossible dragons and roses on canvas." Bits of embroidery still pre- served testify to the skill of olden-time ladies. Mrs. Washington was a notable needlewoman, and paintings on velvet and satin, and pictures executed in silk and chenille by her grand - daughter, Nellie Custis, prove that she was an adept in such girlish accomplishments. Nor was the busy needle applied to ornamental work alone ; it was far more useful than the pen, and WOMEN IN THE EARLY SETTLEMENT. 95 almost as powerful as the sword, in those days of early home-making. Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, in his charming retrospective study of Virginia life, tells us how, when her husband complained of the gate being broken, the industrious mistress of the household promptly replied, " Well, my dear, if I could sew it with my needle and thread, I would mend it for you." The olden-time girl, except in the home of the Puritan and the Quaker, was taught to dance as well as to use her needle, and in the Southern Colonies the former ac- complishment was considered so important a part of the education of a young lady that Mr. Jefferson insisted that his daugh- ter Martha should dance three days in the week, from eleven until one. Dr. Franklin also expressed great interest in Sally's dancing and playing upon the harpsichord, although he stipulated that she should improve her mind by reading "The Whole Duty of Man" and "The Young Lady's Library." That less in- structive literature than this sometimes fell into the hands of the Colonial maiden, 96 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. we learn from the diaries of Lucinda of Virginia and Sarah Eve. The former takes herself to task for being so fond of novel-reading, while Miss Eve pronounces " The Fashionable Lover" a prodigious fine comedy. In addition to her lighter accomplish- ments the Colonial lady was an excellent housekeeper, in days when housekeeping meant having everj-thing prepared under the supervision of the mistress of the home, from the cutting up of the pork and beef until the culminating moment when the sausages and mince pies appeared upon the table. There were in many of the old houses retinues of servants, and in the Middle and Southern Colonies slaves to do the bidding of the mistress, but everything had to be superintended by her ; conse- quently in some of the old letters that come to us we find numerous homely domestic details, and great rejoicing over any small luxury or labor-saving device that found its way into the hands of the busy cJiatelaine. When travellers wrote of sumptuous dinners in hospitable South- WOMEN IN THE EARLY SETTLEMENT. 9/ ern homes, or when Mr. William Black told how he was feasted in Annapolis, or when Silas Deane described an elaborate dinner at the house of Miers Fisher in Philadelphia, they little knew what the preparation and arrangement of such a menu meant to the mistress of the house- hold, in days when she could not send around the comer for the latest device in confectioner)^ with which to grace her board, and when the syllabubs and cus- tards were often prepared by the same dainty hands that served them to her guests. A pleasant story is told of Mrs. Clement Biddle, a worthy descendant of pioneer women of Rhode Island. Mrs. Biddle was with her husband in the Valley Forge en- campment, and when an order was issued that the officers' wives should leave the camp, she, with ready tact and skill, pre- pared so delectable a dinner for General Washington and his staff that the order was not carried out in her case, showing that the heroes of the Revolution were not insensible to the seductions of such good = ^ 9 98 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. cheer as a notable Philadelphia housewife knew how to set before the masculine de- vourer. The story' runs that as Mrs. Biddle rose from the table, she airily remarked that she had heard of the order, but felt sure that the General would not apply it to her, to which charmingly feminine speech the Commander-in-Chief, bo%\'ing low, re- plied, " Certainly not to Mrs. Biddle." ,/<^^ A GROUP OF EARLY POETESSES. Among the early settlers of the Colonies there was, occasionally, a woman of more than ordinary intelligence, and now and again a ready writer or a verse-maker. Perhaps in all the settlements, North and South, there was no woman equal in mind and spirit to Anne Hutchinson, whom even her enemies acknowledged to be " a mas- terpiece of woman's wit." Enthusiasm, unrestrained by tact or worldly considerations, a strain of head- strongness in her religious fervor, and a power of carrying with her the minds and hearts of her hearers, were apparently the leading characteristics of this devoted young woman, the latter trait being per- haps the most difficult for her persecutors to overlook. From the grim travesty of 99 lOO COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. that trial in which Winthrop, Dudley, Endi- cott, and other worthies, who had come to the New World for freedom of thought and action, sat in judgment upon one against whom the only charge made was that she exercised this coveted freedom in her life and teaching, we turn with a mingled sense of shame and regret, — shame that men who had come hither for such high purposes could stoop to deeds so unworthy, and regret that a creature of such noble spirit should have been so misunderstood. Had Anne Hutchinson found her way to America half a century later, with the fol- lowers of Penn, we can readily imagine the career of usefulness and honor that would have opened for her. The more tolerant doctrine of the inner light found no place in the spiritual furni- ture of those who had shaken off the iron hand of a State Church, and when we look back upon the dealings of the early Puritans with one another it seems as if the rule that " might makes right" was as stoutly maintained in New England as in the feudal Hfe of older England. A GROUP OF EARLY POETESSES. 101 In the same community that condemned and banished Anne Hutchinson for her teaching of " dangerous doctrine,"* we find another attractive womanly personality, Anne Bradstreet, who is spoken of in the first London edition of her poems as " The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in Amer- ica," t but who is dearer to us as our first poetess, singing like a lark in the chill New England morn. Her verses we may not care to read now ; although they are char- acterized by considerable poetic thought and by some graces of poetic treatment, besides bearing marks of an early acquaint- ance with the great English writers of the past centur}^, some of whom were still liv- ing while little Anne Dudley was " lisping * " Mrs. Hutchinson's custom seems to have been to report the discourses of Mr. John Cotton, and to impress their lessons upon her hearers. In the progress of the discussion the sermons of other ministers were com- mented upon, and finally her own views presented." — Memorial History of Boston, iv. 334. f The poetess is also spoken of by an English ad- mirer as " Mistress Anne Bradstreet, at present residing in the Occidental parts of the world in America, alias Nov-Anglia." 9* I02 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. in numbers," if dealing in numbers at all. To uncongenial surroundings and houses ill fitted to protect the settlers from the bleak winds and storms of a New England winter came Mrs. Bradstreet, from an Eng- lish home of the better class, which, if boasting few of the luxuries of to-day, was sufficiently comfortable in its appointments to form a strong contrast to the dwellings of the early settlers of Massachusetts. Sensitive, delicately nurtured, her mind always in advance of her frail body, her first American experiences being the ill- ness and death of her friend and fellow- voyager, the lovely Lady Arbella Johnson, and the drowning of young Henry Win- throp, it is not strange that one of Mrs. Bradstreet's earliest poems should have been upon " A Fit of Sickness," nor that it should have been followed a few months later by a joyous outburst of song upon the approach of spring : " As spring the winter doth succeed, And leaves the naked trees doe dresse, The earth all black is cloth'd in green ; At sunshine each their joy expresse. A GROUP OF EARLY POETESSES. IO3 " My winters past, my stormes are gone, And former cloudes seem now all fled ; But, if they must eclipse again, I'll run where I was succored." What this first spring must have been to these pilgrims when they beheld the gray hill-sides and snow-bound valleys covered with verdure and bloom, and " replenished with thick woods and high trees," we learn from the expressions of that quaint and amusing chronicler, Francis Higginson. Disposed to make the best of every- thing, this worthy divine rejoiced alike over the trials and hardships that were good for his soul, and the dainty springs, luscious lobsters, and sweet and wholesome bass that sustained his mortal body, finding here an " increase of come, which proved this country to be a wonderment, which outstript Joseph's increase in Egypt." Yet, great as was this increase, it was not sufficient to outlast the long stagnation of the winter, when the cold was so great that Judge Sewall tells of the sacramental bread being frozen upon the plate, and when Judge Lynde was in the habit of driving across I04 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. Penny's ferry on the ice. A realization of what was suffered by the youngest members of the community is emphasized by the sight of a pair of christening mit- tens worn in his babyhood by an early governor of Massachusetts, which were certainly needed in churches where fire was unknown, — except perhaps as a figure of speech in the pulpit. " The bright and at times almost tropi- cal summers of New England must have been the salvation of the colonists," says Mr. Lodge. " Nothing else broke the gloom. There were absolutely no amuse- ments of any kind, and although establish- ing great political and religious principles and founding States are the noblest tasks to which men can set their hands, yet poor humanity requires some relaxation. Nature's winter was severe, but it lasted only for a season, while the social winter was never broken until the whole system began to give way in the next century." From this chilling atmosphere, Anne Bradstreet wrote, at the age of nine- teen, — A GROUP OF EARLY POETESSES. IO5 " Twice ten years old not fully told since nature gave me breath, My race is run, my thread is spun, lo ! here is fatal Death." That her race was not run, and that Mrs. Bradstreet lived to be more than three times nineteen, and the happy mother of eight children, does not detract from the pathos of these youthful lines. Whatever gifts may have been Anne Bradstreet's possession, we may believe that they had small space for expansion in a community that fed with avidity upon such mental pabulum as " The Simple Cobbler of Agawam," and later upon Wigglesworth's " Day of Doom," with its descriptions, worthy the advanced real- ist of to-day. In the latter work the author descants upon the sufferings of the condemned and of the unelect in- fants, who, although assured that their sins were not equal to those of the hard- ened reprobate, were told, poor babes, that for the crime of coming into this world at all, there apparently being no other, — I06 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. " Therefore in bliss You may not hope to dwell ; But unto you I shall allow The easiest room in hell." That Mrs. Bradstreet should have risen above the depressing influence of her life and surroundings enough to sing at all is sufficient wonder, not that her notes should have been tinged with the melancholy of the prevailing atmosphere. It is to be re- gretted that she did not more frequently turn from the introspective studies that engaged her pen, and from such time-worn themes as the Four Seasons, the Four Ele- ments, and Ancient Monarchies, to de- scribe events and impressions belonging to the new life around her. This was a time when some picturesque personalities were abroad, and if the persecutions of Quakers and other independent thinkers have pre- sented scenes sufficiently stirring to arouse the fancy of later poets and dramatists, it seems strange that they failed to inspire this most sensitive and imaginative woman. It should perhaps be remembered that those were days when women were less A GROUP OF EARLY POETESSES. IO7 accustomed to giving their opinions upon public matters than now, while another and a stronger reason for Mrs. Brad- street's silence upon these burning ques- tions is to be found in the fact that Gov- ernor Dudley and Simon Bradstreet were both engaged in the trials of Anne Hutch- inson and of the Quakers, the latter, be it said to his credit, with far less malignity than the former.* Although Anne Brad- street's loyalty to her father and husband seems to have kept her pen silent when her spirit must often have rebelled, she had enough vigor left in her frail body to utter her protest against the carping tongues that thought a needle fitted her hand better than a pen, vindicating her woman's right to be a poet by quoting the Greeks, whose muses nine were embodied in woman's form, " And poesy made Calliope's own child." When Mrs. Bradstreet touches upon nature and life, as she occasionally does in " Con- * For some incidents in Mrs. Bradstreet's life we are indebted to Helen Campbell's charming study of " Anne Bradstreet and Her Times." I08 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. templations," and in her few domestic poems, she reveals a much finer Hterary quality, besides giving the reader a glimpse of her tender nature and passionate woman's heart. During one of Governor Bradstreet's enforced absences from their Ipswich home his wife wrote, — " My head, my heart, mine Eyes, my life, my more. My joy, my Magazine of earthly store. If two be one as surely thou and I, How stayest thou there, whilst I at Ipswich lye ?" Again she says, — "As Loving Hind (Hartless) wants her Deer, Scuds through the woods and Fern with hearkening ear, Perplext in every bush and nook doth pry. Her dearest Deer might answer ear or eye." It is pleasant to know that if Mrs. Brad- street likened herself to his " Hind," his " Mullet," and his " Dove," Simon Brad- street was in some measure worthy of his wife's devotion, being far more liberal- minded and kindly by nature than were most of those who surrounded him, and a personable man withal, if one may judge from his portrait. His affection for his A GROUP OF EARLY POETESSES. IO9 wife was so strong that after her death in 1675 he remained a widower for three years, a long period of mourning for a wife in Puritan New England. One of Mrs. Bradstreet's poems, in which she describes her children as " eight birds hatcht in one nest," is suggestive of Chaucer in its quaint simplicity and in the writer's skilful handling of homely details. This poem was written some years after the Brad.streets removed to Andover, and is, as Mrs. Campbell says, a sort of family biography. Some of the older children were married and settled in their own homes, while the younger ones still " nested" with their mother. In view of her eldest son's leaving home, Mrs. Brad- street beseeches him to " Fly back and sing amidst this Quire," while the little ones, still in the nest, she thus admonishes with tender bird-mother solicitude : " Alas, my birds, you wisdome want, Of perils you are ignorant ; Oft times in grass, on trees, in flight, Sore accidents on you may light." 10 no COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES, Through the entire poem, which is quite long, the writer never drops or mixes her figures, even when she recounts the dan- gers to which her brood is likely to be exposed, as in the lines, — " If birds could weep, then would my tears Let others know what are my fears Lest this my brood some harm should catch. And be surpriz'd for want of watch, Whilst pecking corn, and void of care They fall un'wares in Fowler's snare; Or whilst on trees they sit and sing, Some untoward boy at them do fling ; Or whilst allur'd with bell and glass, The net be spread, and caught, alas. Or least by Lime-twigs they be foyl'd, Or by some greedy hawks be spoyl'd. O, would my young, ye saw my breast. And knew what thoughts there sadly rest. Great was my pain when I you bred, Great was my care when I you fed. Long did I keep you soft and warm. And with my wings kept off all harm." If this mother, whose heart was filled with such trembling solicitude for the future of her brood, could have realized that from the home-nest at Andover were to descend such lights in literature and A GROUP OF EARLY POETESSES. Ill theology as the Channings, the Danas, Wendell Phillips, and Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, the strain with which she closed her poem might have been more exultant, but could have been no more earnest : " Thus gone, amongst you I may live, And dead, yet speak, and counsel give ; Farewel, my birds farewel, adieu, I happy am, if well v?ith you." Another New England poetess, of a much later date, was Mercy Warren, daughter of James Otis, of Barnstable, and wife of James Warren, sometime President of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts.* This lady, whom her friend Mrs. Winthrop addressed as Philo- mela, wrote a number of poems and trage- dies abounding in the classical allusions * George Sandys was writing verses and translating Ovid on the banks of the James ten years before Anne Bradstreet came to Massachusetts. Yet in the years that followed, the muse of poetry was more prone to frequent the New England Colonies than those of Vir- ginia and Maryland, although no more inspiring themes could be found than histories as romantic as that of Evelyn Byrd, and faces as beautiful as those of Mary Randolph, Anne Francis, and Dorothy Blake. 112 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. SO common at that time. Political reveries in verse also engaged her pen, and spirited attacks upon the manners and customs of the day, in which " India's poisonous weed, Long since a sacrifice to Thetis made," came in for a full share of her keen satire. Mrs. Warren also left a number of admi- rable pen-pictures of the great men of the day, clear, sharp, and well drawn. It is interesting to learn from one of her letters, written during the encampment at Cam- bridge, that she considered General Wash- ington "the most amiable and accom- plished gentleman both in person, mind and manners that she has ever met with," and equally so to know that her first im- pression of Charles Lee was far less favor- able, and that she found him, with all his learning and ability, "plain in his person to a degree of ugliness and careless even to unpoliteness." Nor were the visits of the muse con- fined to the Colonial and Provincial women of New England, as we learn that down A GROUP OF EARLY POETESSES. I 1 3 in Pennsylvania Elizabeth Fergusson was composing poetry about the same time as Mrs. Warren, while Mrs. Deborah Logan, a little later, was writing both prose and verse, the former destined to survive the latter, not only because it was more ex- cellent, but also because it gives us pic- tures of the times, a form of composition whose value, like wine, increases with the years. Susanna Wright, Hannah Griffitts, a grand-daughter of the first Isaac Norris, and Mrs. Richard Stockton were among our early poetesses. The latter, born Annis Boudinot, a New Jersey woman, composed verses upon " Peace," upon " The Surrender of Cornwallis," and a triumphal ode to the Commander-in-Chief The letters in which Washington thanked Mrs. Stockton for these patriotic poems are among the most charming and play- ful to be found in his correspondence, and, if somewhat more ponderous than similar effusions in our day, are interesting as illustrations of what the great man could do upon occasions when fancy held the rein. The poetess modestly sent a h lo* 114 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. line of apology with her verses, to which the hero who inspired her muse thus rephed : " You apply to me, my dear madam, for absolution, as though I was your father confessor, and as though you had committed a crime great in itself, yet of the venial class. You have reason good ; for I find myself strangely disposed to be a verj" indulgent ghostly adviser upon this occasion, and notwithstanding ' you are the most offending soul alive' (that is, if it is a crime to write elegant poetry), yet if you will come and dine with me on Thursday, and go through the proper course of peni- tence which shall be prescribed, I will strive hard to assist you in expiating these poetical trespasses on this side of purgator)'." Mr, and Mrs. Stockton were evidently a most congenial and devoted couple. In their letters they frequently addressed each other as " Lucius" and " Emilia," after the fanciful custom of the day. Some of these letters, written while Mr. Stockton was in London in 1766, engaged with Dr. Franklin in furthering the interests of the Colonies, give us pleasing glimpses of the wife, as seen through glasses that were prone to magnify rather than to diminish her charms. Mrs. Stockton had declined to accompany her husband abroad, because A GROUP OF EARLY POETESSES. I I 5 she was unwilling to leave her children, or, as she expressed it, she felt " no particular call of Providence to venture both their parents in one bottom," and in all Mr. Stockton's letters, whether describing the royalties or such notable political figures as Chatham and Grenville, or in preparing for his wife a plan of Mr. Pope's gardens and grotto at Twickenham, there runs a thread of regret that one so fitted by taste and cultivation to appreciate Old World sights and sounds should not be enjoying them with him. After descanting upon the glories of the queen's birthnight ball, which was opened by some of the royalties and graced by the presence of the Duch- esses of Bolton, Ancaster, Hamilton, and all the other famous beauties, he concludes, " But here I have done with the subject, for I had rather wander with you along the rivulets of Morven or Red Hill, and see the rural sports of the chaste little frogs, than again be at a birthnight ball." In another letter, Lucius speaks of his Emilia's poems, desiring her to send him some of the pieces he most admired, adding. Il6 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. " I shall like much to have them to spell over for my amusement on my passage home." Although Mrs. Stockton was very modest about her effusions, and shrank from the notoriety of print, Mrs. Fergusson speaks of her, in one of her own poems, as the writer of many pleasing verses : " Here flow the good Emilia's strains In Morven's rural bowers." One of Mrs. Stockton's daughters, Julia, married the distinguished Dr. Benjamin Rush, and another, Mary, became the wife of Andrew Hunter, of Virginia, who was publicly thanked by General Washington for his gallant service in the battle of Mon- mouth, Elizabeth Fergusson did not write patri- otic verses, as she was allied by birth and marriage with the Tory side of the ques- tion, being the grand-daughter of Lady Anne Keith,* second wife of Sir William * Mrs. Fergusson was not the grand-daughter of Sir William Keith, as has been so often stated, but of his wife. By her first husband, Robert Diggs, Lady Keith had a daughter Anne, who married Dr. Thomas Graeme, of Philadelphia. A GROUP OF EARLY POETESSES. 11/ Keith, Penn's last deputy governor, and the wife of Hugh Fergusson, British Com- missioner of Prisoners. The story of Mrs. Fergusson having, in the early days of the Revolution, been a medium of communication between Gover- nor Johnson and the American authorities, with a view to the bringing about of peace negotiations, is well known, and yet her part in the affair has never been thoroughly understood. She says that she " looked upon Governor Johnson as a friend to America who wished some person to step forth and act a mediatorial part, and suggest some- thing to stop the effusion of blood which was likely to ensue if the war was carried on in full vigor." We can understand that Mrs. Fergusson's humanity, aside from any Tory proclivities, would naturally lead her to desire to bring about such a consumma- tion ; but that a woman of her mind and character should have allowed herself, with her eyes open, to engage in a trans- action in which ten thousand guineas and a good post in the British government were offered to an American general in reward Il8 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. for his services, is difficult to explain. We can do no better than accept Mrs. Fer- gusson's own interpretation of the matter, and conclude that she was ignorant of the grosser details of the transaction, and thought only of the desired result. " I own," she says in one place, " I find it hard, knowing the uncorruptness of my own heart, to be held out to the public as a tool to the commissioners. But the impression is now made, and it is too late to recall it." Much of the unpleasantness of the association of this affair with her nanie, Mrs. Fergusson was able to dispel later by her own narrative, prepared as a refutation of Governor Johnson's state- ments. The fact also that so patriotic a contemporary' as Dr. Rush spoke with unqualified praise of the woman, as well as of the writer, leads us to believe that Mrs. Fergusson's motives were under- stood and respected by those who knew her best. From this rather involved page of per- sonal history it is pleasant to turn to an earlier phase of this woman's life, when, as A GROUP OF EARLY POETESSES. II9 the young daughter of Dr. Thomas Graeme, she assisted her father and mother to dis- pense the charming hospitahty that ren- dered Graeme Park * a favorite resort of the cultivated men and women of the day, or amid its lovely groves composed the verses that made her one of the foremost Ameri- can poets of her time. Miss Graeme's tastes were distinctly literary. In addition to her original poems, she translated Tel- emachus into English verse, while of her prose writings Dr. Rush wrote that they indicated " strong marks of genius, taste, and knowledge. Nothing," he says, " that came from her pen was common ;" to which a no less capable critic than Mr. Joshua Francis Fisher added his meed of praise. Although Miss Graeme, under the pseudonyme of " Laura," sometimes in- dulged in elegiac strains, and, like most * Graeme Park is in Montgomery County, about nine- teen miles from Philadelphia; the land on which the house was built was originally owned by Samuel Car- penter. Dr. Thomas Graeme bought the estate from Sir William Keith. I20 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. young poets, sighed for sadness and soli- tude, choosing for her retreat " Some moss-grown cave, Where oozing creeping waters flow," a delicate humor marks many of her verses, especially those that resulted from her friendship with the Rev. Na- thaniel Evans, In 1764, Miss Graeme sailed for Europe with the Rev. Richard Peters, rector of Christ Church, Philadel- phia, in whose care she had been placed by her parents. While in London the young poetess met many persons of dis- tinction, among others the celebrated Dr. John Fothergill, who became her friend as well as her physician. Calling to see her one March day in 1765, Dr. Fothergill exclaimed, " Yesterday you were made a slave of, Betsey," to which she, girl-like, suspecting some raillery on the subject of matrimony, replied, " No, sir, I am a slave to no man ; my heart is my own." " No, no, heart has nothing to do with it," said the doctor, explaining that he re- ferred to the passage of the Stamp Act, A GROUP OF EARLY POETESSES. 121 which made her and her countrymen slaves of Great Britain. On her return voyage Miss Graeme met the Rev. Nathaniel Evans, between whom and herself there soon grew up a strong hking. Whether or not Miss Graeme's heart was involved in this friendship it is difficult to say. That Mr. Evans suc- cumbed to the charms of the young poet- ess his verses plainly revealed ; certainly his death, at the age of twenty-five, closed a chapter which left its impress upon her future career. Soon after his return from abroad, Mr. Evans, who was in delicate health, was advised by his kindly physi- cian, Dr. Graeme, to spend a part of the spring at Graeme Park ; hence the follow- ing verse : " Thus musing o'er the charming plains, Where Graeme the good and just retires, Where Laura breathes her tender strains. Where every graceful muse inspires." An attractive setting this for the pastoral of parson and poetess ! Even now Graeme Park has a charm of its own ; much more in Colonial days, when the fine old house, 122 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. built by Governor Keith for his own resi- dence, and surrounded by three hundred acres of wooded park, double-ditched and hedged in approved English fashion, with sheep and cattle grazing upon its verdant slopes, was the pride of the neighborhood. Although the friendship destined to end so sadly began gayly enough with jesting and good-humored raillery, there is a deeper tone in the man's verses than in the w^oman's ; and if the rhymed badinage of this couple recalls to us, as it did to the writers themselves, the friendship of Swift and Stella, we must transpose our charac- ters, as in the case of the American pair it was the woman who carrried off the palm by the keenness and brilliancy of her satire. Swift cruelly reminded Stella that her dancing days were over, and, in verses ad- dressed to her upon her birthday, wondered how an angel would look at thirty-six ; but it was Miss Graeme, " Laura," who satirized some of her reverend friend's foibles so cleverly in her " Countr\' Parson" that he was quick to recognize his own portrait in the dominie of whom she wrote : A GROUP OF EARLY POETESSES. 1 23 " Of manners gentle, and of temper even, He jogs his flock, with easy pace, to heaven. In Greek and Latin, pious books he keeps ; And, while his clerk sings psalms, he — soundly sleeps. His garden fronts the sun's sweet orient beams. And fat church- wardens prompt his golden dreams. From rustic bridegroom oft he takes the ring ; And hears the milk-maid plaintive ballads sing. Back-gammon cheats whole winter nights away, And Pilgrim's Progress helps a rainy day." These piquant lines, modelled after Mr. Pope's " Happy Life of a Country Parson," were received by young Evans thus good- humoredly : " I lately saw, no matter where, A parody by Laura fair; In which, beyond dispute, 'tis clear She means her country friend to jeer. For, well she knows, her pleasing lays, (Whether they banter me or praise, Whatever merry mood they take,) Are welcome for their author's sake." To this Laura promptly replied that the parson had no reason to flatter himself that he was the subject from which she had made her sketch ; and thus, the gage being thrown down, the merry war was waged through a number of sparkling verses. 124 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. This graceful little idyl at Graeme Park affords a pleasing contrast to the public life of the time, when heated political dis- cussions upon the respective rights and wrongs of king and colonies were be- ginning to stir men's minds, North and South. Against the dark background of war and suffering soon to follow, it stands out in the clear spring air like a bit of Ar- cadia transported to the New World. So it must have appeared in the retrospect to Elizabeth Graeme, to whose later years many troubles came, whose marriage to Hugh Fergusson, against her father's wishes, seems to have brought her little happiness, and who solaced her lonely heart by her studies and translations, in- stead of, like Anne Bradstreet, stringing together rhymes upon children who gath- ered around her knees. COLONIAL DAMES. Mrs. Knowles, the ingenious Quaker lady who outwitted Dr. Johnson in more than one tilt of words, illustrated her theories upon the education of women by citing the happy consequences of a woman's understanding the reason for the bursting of a pudding-bag, describing her as she " calms her maids by learned dis- quisitions and proceeds to make a fresh pudding out of the mixture ; whereas the ignorant housewife thinks a hobgoblin is 1 1* 125 126 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. in the pot, and gets into a perfect state of flurr}'." Placing the question upon a higher ground than pudding-making, we find a Pennsylvania pedagogue, in 1765, pro- posing to teach young ladies " true spell- ing with the rules for pointing with pro- priety," urging upon them not to be discouraged on account of their age, or through fear of obtaining a spouse, as he has had " the honour to give the finishing stroke in education to several of the re- puted fine accomplished ladies in New York, some of which were married within two, three and four years afterwards." Truly the ambitious instructor proved his right to be patronized ! All through the days of the settlement, whether learned or unlearned, women had been proving the superiority of mind over matter by the ingenuity' and fertilit)' of resource with which they overcame diffi- culties and brought comfort out of chaos. From that early and solitary Virginia witch, Grace Sherwood, who outwitted her persecutors by swimming when she COLONIAL DAMES. 12/ was expected to sink, to the high-born and patriotic dames of North Carolina who banded themselves together to drink a decoction of raspberry leaves instead of tea until the odious tax should be taken off,* Colonial women faced perils and difficulties with unfailing heroism and patience. " To find a way or make one" seemed to be the motto of the hour. Danger developed latent courage, and emergency seemed to whet mother-wit to keener edge, as when Lydia Darrach set out upon her lonely walk through a country filled with the enemy's troops, or when Mrs. Philip Schuyler, hear- ing that the British soldiers were on their *This association, formed in October, 1774, was presided over by Mrs. Penelope Barker, and joined by Mrs. Elizabeth King, Mrs. Sarah Valentine, Miss Isa- bella Johnston, a sister of Governor Johnston, of North Carolina, Mrs. Iloskins, and forty-six other women, who signed a paper which read as follows : " We the Ladys of Edenton do hereby solemnly engage not to Conform to that Pernicious Custom of Drinking Tea, or that we 'the aforesaid Ladys will not promote ye wear of any manufacture from England, untill such time that all Acts which tend to enslave our Native Country shall be repealed." — " The Historic Tea Party of Edenton," by Richard Dillard. 128 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. way to Schuylerville to secure her absent husband's crop of grain, set fire to the fields with her own hands, rather than suffer such aid and comfort to fall to the share of the enemy ; or as when Madam Hancock ordered all the stray cows on the Common to be milked because the Hon- orable John brought home to breakfast a larger company of officers than her larder could supply. Equally clever and prompt to take advantage of the situation was the Widow Nice, who, when the British officers quartered upon her at the Rising Sun Tavern complained of the butter, remarked that she could probably get better if she had a horse to ride out into the country in search of it. Being pro- vided with a horse, the good lady took the precaution to secure some of her valuables in her saddle-bags, and, thus equipped, rode off upon her confiscated steed, to return no more until Philadelphia was in possession of the Continentals. Well might Abigail Adams write from her Braintree home, where she lived in constant dread of hostilities and was often COLONIAL DAMES. 1 29 in want of the ordinary comforts of life, to her husband in Philadelphia, who was helping to " usher in the birth of a fine boy," as he playfully dubbed the Declara- tion of ''j6, — " And by the way in the new code of laws, which I suppose it would be necessary to make, I desire you to remember the ladies, and be more generous and favor- able to them than your ancestors were. Do not put such an unlimited power into the hands of the hus- bands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention are not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation." Although these remarks produced no effect upon the worthy framers of the Declaration, in which respect they remind us of a number of similar manifestoes that have followed them, they are interesting because of their independence of spirit, showing from what quarter the wind blew in Boston even in early days. " If we mean to have heroes, statesmen, and philosophers, we should have learned women," writes Mrs. Adams upon another 130 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. occasion, which looks as if she had already- grasped the favorite theory of the modern scientist, that great men are usually the sons of superior mothers. History has presented such meagre outlines of the mothers of the Republic that we turn to letters and diaries for the more intimate touches that reveal character and give the key-note to the situation ; as when we learn that Jane Randolph, the bride of Peter Jefferson, rode behind her husband to his pioneer home in the primeval forest, she having been bred in whatever luxury belonged to the Colonial life of Virginia ; or gather from family records some idea of the mingled austerity and affection of the home life of the young Washingtons. More than history reveals we wish to know of the mother who in girlhood was the belle of the countryside, but who in her early widowhood devoted all her time and thought to the training of her chil- dren and the management of the estate that had been left to them. Although Mary Washington and Abiah Franklin are chiefly known to later gen- COLONIAL DAMES. I3I erations as the mothers of great sons, it is evident that both of these women were possessed of strong character and distinct individuahty. Firmness, moderation, and deep religious sentiment were leading traits of Mrs. Washington ; while Mrs. Franklin, thrifty and hard-working, having at two- and-twenty undertaken Josiah Franklin with his brood of little children, which her own contribution of ten augmented to the goodly number of sixteen, still found time, like a true daughter of New England, to reflect upon theological ques- tions. Dr. Franklin says in one of his letters that his mother " grieves that one of her sons is an Arian and the other an Arminian, although what these terms mean I do not very well know." Mrs. Franklin probably knew what she meant, and was decided in her opinions, having been reared in an atmosphere of theologi- .cal discussion, her father, Peter Folger, being a scholar and a man far in advance of his time in religious thought. That the mother was not rigid in her ideas of life is evident from the freedom with which 132 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES, her son tells her of his own sayings and doings and of his daughter Sally's learn- ing to play the harpsichord and to dance. Writing to Dr. Franklin soon after his election to the Common Council of Phila- delphia, Mrs. Franklin begs him " to look up to God and thank him for all his good Providences," expressing her satisfaction that he is " so well respected in his town that they chose" him " an Alderman," add- ing, with a shrewdness not unlike her son's, "Altho' I don't know what it means, or what the better you will be of it besides the honor." A not unworthy daughter-in-law of the thrifty mistress of the Blue Ball was Deb- orah Reed, the wife of Benjamin Frank- lin, whose dignity, discretion, and great patience during the long absences abroad of her *' dear child" entitle her to the respect and admiration of those who revere her more brilliantly endowed husband. That she inspired both of these sentiments in the mind of the great philosopher is evi- dent from various expressions in his letters. Writing from London, in 1758, he says, — COLONIAL DAMES. 1 33 " I also forgot, among the china, to mention a large fine jug for beer, to stand in the cooler. I fell in love with it at first sight ; for I thought it looked like a fat jolly dame, clean and tidy, with a neat blue and white calico gown on, good natured and lovely, and put me in mind of — somebody." This " somebody" appears again in some characteristic verses which the husband, not to be too chary of his poetic rhapso- dies, read to the Junto as well as to his wife: " Not a word of her face, of her shape, or her air, Or of flames, or of darts, you shall hear; I beauty admire, but virtue I prize, That fades not in seventy year. " Am I loaded with care, she takes off a large share. That the burden ne'er makes me to reel ; Does good fortune arrive, the joy of my wife Quite doubles the pleasure I feel. " She defends my good name, even when I'm to blame, Firm friend as to man e'er was given ; Her compassionate breast feels for all the distressed. Which draws down more blessings from heaven. ******** " In peace and good order my household she guides. Right careful to save what I gain ; Yet cheerfully spends, and smiles on the friends I've the pleasure to entertain. 12 134 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. " Some faults have we all, and so has my Joan, But then they're exceedingly small. And, now I'm grown used to them, so like my own I scarcely can see them at all." There are no complaints or repinings in Mrs. Franklin's letters to her husband, which make her references to his absences the more touching : " Since you do so kindly inquire what things I want, I will tell you that when Mrs. Franklin * c.ime to town and went to the assembly, Salley had nothing fit to wear suitable to wait on her ; and as I never should have put on in your absence anything good, I gave Salley my new robe as it wanted very little altering. I should be glad if you would bring me a plain satin gown," etc. After explaining some household ar- rangements, Mrs. Franklin exclaims, as if the words had escaped her involun- tarily, " O my child, there is great odds between a man's being at home and abroad ; as everybody is afraid they shall do wrong, so everything is left undone." Making due allowance for the extrava- * This was the wife of Governor Franklin, daughter- in-law of Dr. Franklin, whose tablet in St. Paul's Church, New York, records many virtues. COLONIAL DAMES. 1 35 gance of the compliments which Mr. Black and Mr. Dunton were wont to lavish upon the fair sex, it is pleasant to learn from the former that the ladies of Annapo- lis and Philadelphia were as beautiful as the day, and adorned with all domestic charms, while we may believe that the Boston women possessed at least a portion of the graces with which Mr. Dunton endowed them. Of Mrs. Robert Breck, whom he designates as the " Flower of Boston," his " Chosen Exemplar of what a Widow is," he says, — " Madam Brick is a Gentlewoman whofe Head {i.e. her Husband) has been cut off, and yet she lives and Walks : But don't be frighted, for she's Flelh and Blood ftill, and perhaps fome of the fineft that you ever faw. She has fufficiently evidenced that her Love to her late Husband is as strong as Death, becaufe Death has not been able to Extinguifli it." After further extolling Madame Breck's high character, noble resignation, and beauty of person and carriage, which Mr. Dunton finds devoid of " the starch'dness usual amongst the Bostonians, who value themselves thereby so much, that they are 136 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. ready to say to all others, Stand off, for I am holier than thou," he has the hardi- hood to confess that all these virtues and charms gave him " so just a value for her that Mrs. Green wou'd often say, Shou'd Iris Dye (which Heaven forbid) there's none was fit to succeed her but Madam Brick ; But Mrs. Green was partial, for my poor Pretences to secure vertue, wou'd ne'er have answer'd to her Towring heighths. 'Tis true, Madam Brick did me the Honour to treat me very kindly at her House, and to admit me often into her Converfation, but I am fure it was not on Love's, but on Vertue's score. For she well knows (at least as well as I do) that Iris is alive : And therefore I muft justifie her Innocence on that account. And tho' some have been pleas'd to say. That were I in a fingle ftate, they do believe she wou'd not be displeas'd with my Addresses, As this is without any ground but groundlefs Conjectures, so I hope I shall never be in a capacity to make a Tryal of it." * How Iris received these expressions the journal does not relate. There have been * This lady, whose name Mr. Dunton persistently wrote Brick, as it was pronounced, was the wife of Robert Breck, of the same family as the well-known Mr. Samuel Breck. Mrs. Breck's noble resignation, for which Mr. Dunton commends her, was further shown by her taking to herself a second husband, Michael Perry. COLONIAL DAMES. 13/ those who entertained the belief that Mr. Dunton's mind was disturbed; but, al- though he often sails close to the wind, he proves himself a good sailor by his prudence in preparing for rocks and shoals ahead, always prefacing his flattering re- marks upon the beauties of Boston by compliments to his wife, and assurances that the same charms were found in her, " as 'twere in a New Edition more Correct and enlarged: Or rather. Iris is that bright Original which all good Wives fhou'd imitate." Although there were few who could enter the lists with the incomparable Madam Breck, Colonel Byrd has left, in his diary of 1732, a characteristic sketch of a charming Southern widow, Sarah Syme, soon to become the wife of the young Scotchman, John Henry, and the mother of Patrick Henry : •' In the evening Tinsley conducted me to Mrs. Sym's house, where I intended to take up my quarters. This lady, at first suspecting that I was some lover, put on a gravity that becomes a weed ; but so soon as she learned who I was, brightened up into an unusual cheerfulness 12* I3S COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. and serenity. She was a portly, handsome dame, of the family of Esau, and seemed not to pine too much for the death of her husband, who was of the family of the Saracens. This widow is a person of lively and cheerful conversation, with much less reserve than most of her countrj-women. It becomes her ver^- well and sets oft' her other agreeable qualities to advantage. We tossed oft' a bottle of honest Port, which we relished with a broiled chicken. At nine I retired to my de- votions, and then slept so sound that fancy itself was stupihed, else I should have dreamed of my most obliging landlady." In addition to whatever "gift of tongues" Patrick Henn* may have derived from his mother, he was, according to his latest biographer, entitled to an inheritance of eloquence upon his father's side, as his paternal ancestrj- and Lord Brougham's can be traced to a common stock. When full and detailed letters and dia- ries have been preser\-ed. as in the case of the Winthrops, Pembertons. Morrises, Lo- gans, Hopkinsons. Byrds, and others, we realize our privileges and scan with inter- est the quaint pictures of the period, sym- pathizing with Mrs. James Pemberton when she writes to her absent husband of the COLONIAL DAMES. 1 39 British breaking into the plantation, burning her winter firewood, and trampling down her vegetable garden ; or entering into Mrs. Hopkinson's pleasure when her son Francis writes her of the cordial reception given him by his English relatives, Mrs. Hop- kinson belonged to the Johnsons and Hydes, the latter Queen Anne's people, and Francis Hopkinson's letters from abroad are full of interesting details of life at Hartlebury Castle, the residence of his cousin the Bishop of Worcester, of English sayings and doings, and of encountering the Wests and other friends in London, Mr, and Mrs. Benjamin West naturally entertained many Americans in their Eng- lish home. Mr, Shewell, a cousin of Mrs. West, upon his return from England re- lated numerous anecdotes of Mr. West's famous Sunday dinners, when Englishmen and distinguished countrymen of his own met around his hospitable board. " Mrs. West," he says, " was always American at heart, never losing her affection for her country and its customs. One day, while at dinner, a tall flunky placed a plate care- 140 COLOXLU. D.W"^ AND DAMES. fulh" covered with a napkin bdbre Mrs. West ' Dont laugh at me. Cousin Tom !' she exclaimed, lifting the napkin and re- ^■caling a collection of corn-cobs, * These are the result of my endea>x»r to grow green com in our hot-house; but I had tile cobs boiled to get the smell, anyhow.' " Mrs. West w^as a Philadelphia Quakeress, as was her kinswoman, the mother of L^gh HunL Of his mother's lo\-eliness of char- acter the po^ writes with oithusiasm. wiiile Mrs. West seems to ha\-e possessed a charm and \-i\-acit\- all ho" own. A painting by Benjamin West, receitiy dis- co\-ered in a femily g:arret, represents his wife with her child in her arms, the cos- tume and position e\-idently in imitation of the old masters. West was an earh- patror. of the \-oungse that oi his patrcm. A quaint little sketch of Master Copl^* and his * TUs Ikde K>t v-i^ ifberinnis acade Lcsu Ltoc- kwsUMdvsstvioeLardCkuKeUQrof Ei^ud. His HiwHi^ltu, dke Hon. SofMft Qatitey, —iii.it Mr. HaMK tafB DolLcS^ ons iMioii^ aKcr SMay yens of KsracBC? COLONIAL DAMES. I4I sister is to be found among West's draw- ings, while the charming face of Mrs. Cop- ley appears in a number of her husband's paintings, especially in his Scriptural scenes. Mrs. Copley, like Mrs. West, was an ideal artist's wife, combining grace and beauty with strong New England com- mon sense and executive ability. To the brush of Copley we are indebted for such in- teresting portraits of Colonial women as that of the beautiful Lady Wentworth, in which appears the flying squirrel, which seems to have been as great a favorite with Copley as was the King Charles spaniel with Van Dyck ; and that of Mrs. Samuel Alleyne Otis, in the dress of a shepherdess, fair enough to have won the heart of any number of Florizels, and, like Perdita, to have draAvn her sheep to " leave grazing, and only live by gazing." Among Benjamin West's earlier por- traits is that of Mrs. Thomas Hopkinson, which now hangs in the rooms of the abroad, these two distinguished American famihes, the Hamiltons and the Copleys. 142 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. Historical Society of Pennsylvania, in the company of her son and her son's son, the latter, Joseph Hopkinson, author of " Hail Columbia," surrounded by fair daugh- ters and daughters-in-law. One of the most attractive figures in this group is Mary Hopkinson, wife of Dr. John Mor- gan. A lady in fanciful attire with a man- dolin in her hand — the Hopkinsons were then, as now, a musical race — is what the painting reveals, while from her numer- ous letters we can form some idea of the frank, observing, and vivacious young woman, of whom her husband writes to his mother-in-law in 1775, describing their journey from Philadelphia to Cambridge, — " Had Mrs. Morgan been a Princess she might have been received with Pomp and Magnificence, but not with a heartier welcome, were even her own Mamma, the Queen Mother, to receive us, than our relations have given us, both Mr. and Mrs. Qifford * and Mr. * Probably Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Clifford, whose country place, Rocky Point, on the Delaware, nearly opposite Burlington, was so frequently visited by those gay girls, the Misses Guest and Miss Sarah Eve. The Misses Guest were nieces of Mrs. Clifford. COLONIAL DAMES. 1 43 and Mrs. Kirkbride. She is an excellent companion at all times, but if possible excells herself on the road. She is full of spirits. Our horses are gentle as lambs and yet perform most admirably and we are truly happy that notwithstanding the rain, she escaped getting wet. It would delight you to get a glimpse of us just now. Col. Kirkbride at the violin and she at the harpsichord and sings most blithely and most sweetly." Dr. John Morgan was appointed Di- rector-General of Hospitals and Physi- cian-in-Chief to the army in 1775, and it was upon this long and fatiguing journey that the husband and wife set forth so cheerfully. In one of her letters Mrs. Morgan begs her mother to write to her as often as possible, advising her to send her letters to Miss Morris, Mrs. Mifflin's sister, who had told her that " there would be an opportunity every three days." Of their reception at Cambridge she writes that there came " six or eight of the gentlemen of the faculty to wait upon Dr. Morgan and escort us to the Camp, some of them on horse back and some of them in carriages. I do assure you we had no small cavalcade. My good friend Mrs. Mifflin met us on the way in her chariot and conducted us to her house, where we are to stay till we are settled in one of our own. You may, my dear 144 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. Mamma, depend upon hearing from me by every op- portunity, and that very particularly but it must be a private one for I do not intend to put you to expense of postage. Since I have begun this letter I have had the honour of a visit from 4 Generals, Genl. Washington, Gen. PHitnam, Gen. Gates & Gen. Lee, while they were here a very interesting scene happened. There ar- rived an express of a Brig being taken belonging to the enemy by one of our vessels, it is a valuable prize as it was loaded with arms and ammunition, what delighted me excessively was seeing the pleasure which shone in every countenance particularly Gen. Gates's he was in an ecstacy, and as Genl. Washington was reading the invoice there was scarce an article that he did not com- ment upon and that with so much warmth as diverted everj'one present." Mrs. Morgan seems to have possessed the happy faculty of extracting pleasure and sweetness from all situations, conse- quently we find little or nothing in her letters of the privations of her camp life at Cambridge. Mrs. John Adams speaks of calling upon Mrs. Morgan, who, she says, '* keeps at Major Mifflin's," adding that she had the pleasure of drinking coffee with Dr. Morgan and his lady and the Major and Mrs. Mifflin, " always having been an ad- COLONIAL DAMES. 145 mirer of the latter and his delicate lady." This visiting and paying of compliments, and gossiping over dishes of tea and coffee take us back into the heart of that old- time life. Even the grim face of war is sometimes made to present a holiday side, as when the officers had a tea-drinking, or when Mrs. Morgan witnessed a review of the battalions. This last she describes most graphically, even to giving the colors of the different uniforms. Among others, she speaks of a company composed entirely of young Quakers, who were arrayed in a light blue uniform turned up with white. The " Light Infantry" she finds " as com- pleat a company as can be, all gentlemen and most of them young fellows and very handsome, my neighbor Cadwalader Cap- tain, and my brother, George Morgan, first Lieutenant." Silas Deane's account of this battalion of Associators, known as the " Greens" and commanded by John Cad- walader, agrees with that of Mrs. Morgan. He says that they wore green uniforms faced with buff, their hat a hunter's cap, and " were without exception the genteel- G k 13 146 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. est companies" he had ever seen. Of the Light Horse, later known as the Philadel- phia City Troop, Mrs. Morgan writes, — " Lastly come the • Light Horse,' Mr. Markoe their Captain — there is only five and twenty of them as yet but really they look exceedingly well, you would be surprised to see how well the horses are trained for the little time they have exercised, in short they all did exceedingly well and made a most martial appearance, what did not a little inspire them was the presence of a great number of the genteelest people of the place, among whom was collected the most pretty girls I have seen this long time." " I shall not put off writing because I happen not to be just as merry as a grig," says Mrs. Morgan to her sister. Yet through all her letters there runs a charm- ing vein of vivacity and gayety of heart which are in striking contrast to the sad tone of a letter from Francis Hopkinson to his brother-in-law. Dr. Samuel Coale, of Baltimore, in which he tells him of the death and burial of this much-loved sister. " She was buried," he says, " under the floor of St. Peter's Church near to the remains of Mr. Duche's children. The COLONIAL DAMES. 147 morning was snowy and severely cold and the walking very dangerous and slippery, nevertheless a number of respectable citi- zens attended the funeral, and the pall was borne by the first ladies of the place." This custom of young girls and women acting as pall-bearers is often alluded to in journals of the day. When Mrs. Daniel Phcenix, of New York, wife of the City Treasurer, was buried, her pall-bearers were women, and Miss Sarah Eve, in her diary, written in Philadelphia in 1772 and '73, remarks in her usual independent and vi- vacious manner, " B. Rush, P. Dunn, K. Vaughan and myself carried Mr. Ash's child to be buried; foolish custom for Girls to prance it through the streets with- out hats or bonnets !"* Miss Eve says noth- ing about wearing a veil, although we read * A curious incident is, that while reading the above, in 1890, a brother of the child buried in 1772, Mr. John Morgan Ash, came into the rooms of the Histori- cal Society of Pennsylvania. To give authority to this statement, it may be well to explain that the father of this sister and brother of such different ages — Colonel Ash, of the Revolution — was born in 1750, was married 148 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. elsewhere of the girl pall-bearers being dressed in white and wearing long white veils, as at the funeral of Fanny Durdin in 1812. Occasionally, as if to prove to us that our dear grandmothers enjoyed them- selves, girHsh laughter and frolic illuminate the pages of some old record, and we read of merry-makings or love-makings that beguiled the passing hour, as when young Mr. Porter's best man stole away his fair bride, Elizabeth Pitkin, or from a letter of Mrs. Edward Carrington, of Virginia, learn how her sister, Mary Ambler, capti- vated the learned Chief-Justice Marshall, whose wife she afterwards became. ** Our expectations were raised to the highest pitch, and the little circle of York was on tiptoe on his ar- rival. Our girls particularly, were emulous who should be the first introduced ; it is remarkable that my sister, then on\y fourteen and diffident beyond all others, de- three times, and had twenty-four children. The baby which Miss Eve helped to carry to its grave in 1772 was bom when Colonel Ash was twenty or twenty-one, while Mr. John Morgan Ash, a child of the third marriage, was born early in the present century. COLONIAL DAMES. 149 clared that we were giving ourselves useless trouble, for that she, for the first time, had made up her mind to go to the ball (though she had not even been to dancing- school), and was resolved to set her cap at him and eclipse us all. This in the end proved true, and at the first introduction he became devoted to her." In the diary of Lucinda of Virginia, who writes to her dear Marcia from " Bush- field" and " The Wilderness," we hear of country visits, tea-drinkings, and all the pleasant sociability that belonged to life in the Old Dominion. She wept over " Lady Julia Mandeville," this tender-hearted Lu- cinda, until her eyes were so red that she was ashamed to see her beaux, and then, although she had "but little time to smart herself," she " craped" her hair, put on a " Great-Coat," and considered herself " drest." She tells Marcia that one evening she and Milly Washington were " minded to eat " after they had decorously retired to their rooms for the night, and, having taxed their digestions with a dish of bacon and beef, followed by a bowl of sago cream, were about to enter upon the delights of a nocturnal " apple pye," when Mr. Corbin Washing- 150 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. ton, in his wife's short gown and petticoat, and Mrs. Washington, in her husband's coat, burst in upon the scene and gave the youthful revellers a fine fright, after which they all settled down to enjoy the " apple pye" together. Elsewhere the same chronicler tells of Mr. Newton having received " his discard" from her cousin Nancy, and, with never a regret for the disappointed lover, gleefully relates that he could not tell the difference between " The Belle's Stratagem" and " The Coun- try Cousin" when read in the distracting presence of Miss Nancy. They were sad coquettes in their youth, these fair dames, although they look so demure in their portraits, and proved such exemplary wives and mothers in later years. Duels and despairing lovers seem scarcely to have ruffled the serenity of their lovely counte- nances, or to have made their hearts beat faster under their stiff bodices. Did they realize, with a wisdom beyond their years, that heart-breaks were not of necessity fatal ? Yet how crushed and bruised the poor hearts seemed ! COLONIAL DAMES. I5I Thomas Jefferson, at the age of nineteen, filled his letters to his friend, John Page, with rhapsodies upon the form and face of his " Belinda," humbly prays for another watch paper cut by her hands, and calls upon Providence to sustain him through the trial should she refuse him at the next Apollo ball, where he designs putting his fate to the touch. That he lost we know, as Rebecca Burwell, his " Belinda," soon after became the wife of Jacqueline Ambler, of Virginia; and although Jefferson felt, poor lad, that from him the joys of life had fled forever, it was not long before he recovered and became the devoted lover of Martha Skelton, who made Monticello an earthly paradise to her young husband during the brief period of their married hfe. Another beautiful Miss Burwell, also of Williamsburg, turned the head of an earlier Virginia statesman, Francis Nichol- son, who, like an Eastern sultan rather than a Colonial governor, proposed to cut the throats of his rival, of the clergyman who performed the ceremony, and of the justice who issued the license. 152 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. " C'est I'amour, c'est I'amour Qui toume le monde ronde !" It seems as if the old couplet had been singing itself down all the years to assure us that these grandmothers and grand- fathers of ours, with all their wisdom and sacrifice and devotion to duty, were capa- ble of the same endearing follies that be- long to their children of to-day. OLD LANDMARKS. Treading the stone floors of old Christ Church, Philadelphia, under which he buried early governors of Pennsylvania and soldiers of Colonial times, we can pic- ture to ourselves President Washington, stately little Lady Washington, and lovely Nellie Custis, preceded by their footman, entering the church to take their places in the pew reserved for them between those of Bishop White and Dr. Franklin. Sit- ting in the Washington pew, in Christ 153 154 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. Church at Alexandria, where the General was a vestryman, the spare form and intel- lectual face of the present rector under the sounding-board recall Seba Smith's lines, — " That sounding board, to me it seemed A cherub poised on high — A mystery I almost deemed Quite hid from vulgar eye ; And that old pastor, wrapt in prayer, Looked doubly awful 'neatli it there." In Trinity Church, New York, once called King's Chapel, the tombs and me- morials of early American bishops and heroes almost cause us to overlook the fact that but one stone remains of the original building ; while in the older church of St. Paul's, one remembers that William Vesey, reared upon the stern doctrine of Increase Mather, turned aside from that especial way of righteousness to preach here as early as 1704. Farther north, in a region long inhospitable to churches, Cotton Mather having announced that he "found no just ground in Scripture to apply such a trope as church to a public assembly," we find our way through the winding streets of old OLD LANDMARKS. 155 Salem to the first meeting-house, erected in 1634, only two years after that of Smith- field, Virginia. As severe and unadorned in its architecture as the religious life of its founders is this little building, which proclaims Avith a certain force the doctrine for which they contended, — the right of man to seek his God and serve Him ac- cording to the dictates of his conscience. We turn from Boston's " Old South," long the stronghold of Puritanism, to Christ Church, called the "Old North," from which the signal lantern was hung aloft in the belfry arch on the night of April i8, 1775 ; or, wandering through the aisles of King's Chapel, pause before the governor's pew to remember that General Washington worshipped here long before the Revolu- tion,* or notice the square pew, once adorned with the royal arms of England, ♦Colonel Washington went to Boston in 1756, ac- companied by Captain George Mercer, to confer with General Shirley with reference to the precedence in military rank between crown and provincial commis- sions. — " Early Sketches of George Washington," by William S. Baker. 156 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. which was in Colonial days reserved for any member of the Hanover family who might be pleased to cross the water to visit his American subjects. Worshipping to- day in such ancient churches as are left to this generation, or reading familiar names from the tablets upon their walls, or from the headstones in their graveyards, that old life seems so near our own, so knit to it by strands of religious faith and domes- tic association, that we can almost see the stately throng of men and women as they once passed through the doors and along the aisles to their pews. The ladies are stiff in satin, brocade and buckram, and yet not too rigid to send forth bewilder- ing glances from beneath their overshad- owing plumed hats upon the cavaliers who attend them, and who are as brave as they in their picturesque costumes, rich with lace and embroidery. Even in New Eng- land, with all the preaching and legislating against silk, lace, embroideries, cut-works, and slashed garments, human nature pre- vailed. The Abbe Robin remarked, in view of the gaudy dress of the women in OLD LANDMARKS. 157 church, that it was the only theatre that they had for the display of their finery, while we with equal indulgence may par- don those fair ones of the olden time who allowed their eyes to wander in the pauses of devotion toward the Governor's pew where Madam, recently returned from a visit to her English relatives, was seated, resplendent in the latest London modes. Mr. Bynner has given us a picture of the first appearance of Agnes Surriage and Sir Henry Frankland at church together, the occasion being the funeral service of Madam Shirley, the kindly and generous friend of the fisherman's daughter from Marblehead. Induced to appear in public with her lover through her strong affec- tion for her benefactress, Agnes, in deep mourning, takes her place in a pew near that of the governor and his children, where she is soon made to feel the bitter scorn of the high-born dames who had once de- lighted to heap compliments upon her beauty, while Sir Henry finds that he is powerless to defend the shrinking girl from the insolent glances of his comrades. These 14 158 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. picturesque figures in the quaint setting of King's Chapel form a striking and impres- sive scene worthy of the pen which has portrayed it for this generation. Near Christ Church is still shown the house at the corner of Tileston Street, where Agnes dwelt under the roof of the austere widow, and where she tended the little garden which, from its luxuriant growth of rare flowers and plants, was the wonder of the neighborhood. Strolling through another and far more spacious garden upon the banks of the Po- tomac, whose box-bordered beds and trim parterres tell of the French gardener who laid out the grounds of Mount Vernon, or standing upon the high bluff, where Wash- ington must often have stood to enjoy the lovely sweep of the shining river, we can form some idea of the beauty and-seclusion that surrounded the home life of the stately but simple-hearted Virginia gentleman and gentlewoman. " There," says the gar- dener, " are some fine tulip- and ash-trees planted by the General, here are some hydrangeas that the Marquis de Lafayette OLD LANDMARKS. I 59 brought with him in 1824, and here is the rose-bush beside which Lawrence Lewis proposed to Nellie Custis," adding, "The negroes call it the magic rose, as it is sup- posed to insure the success of the most unpromising love-affair." Such associations ?jring the old life be- fore us with a sudden crowding upon the canvas of historic scenes and figures. The long, low house, elegant with all its sim- plicity, covered less ground in Colonial times than it now does. In early days it was the home of Captain Lawrence Wash- ington, who named his Virginia plantation after Admiral Vernon, under whom he had served in the English expedition against Cartagena, and for whom he ever enter- tained a warm friendship. A painting of Admiral Vernon before Cartagena, given to Lawrence Washington by the admiral in recognition of this friendship, is still hanging over one of the mantels of Mount Vernon, where is also a portrait of the handsome, dark-eyed owner of the estate. Its mistress, in those days, was Anne, daughter of the Hon. William Fairfax, who l6o COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. occupied the position of collector of cus- toms in Salem and Marblehead before he came to Belvoir, Virginia, to become presi- dent of the Council of that State. Mrs. Washington, the mother of George and the step-mother of Lawrence, is now at Mount Vernon more frequently, perchance, than under its later mistress, there having existed a friendship of long standing, if not a family connection, between the Washingtons and the Fairfaxes. George is coming and going, like a child of the house, between his long surveying expedi- tions for Lord Fairfax in the western wilds, where, if there were often no knives upon the table " to eat with," there seems always to have been a pen with which to record the experiences of the day. A great fa- vorite with the owner of Mount Vernon, and destined to be his heir, is the tall strip- ling, whose face and form give promise of the distinguished presence that was later to command respect at home and abroad. Something strangely interesting there is in all that relates to the youth of Wash- ington, whether in his mother's home, or OLD LANDMARKS. l6l at Mount Vernon, or as the welcome guest of old Lord Fairfax at Greenway Court in the Shenandoah Valley. Although heavy responsibilities were placed upon these young shoulders, it is pleasant to know that Washington often joined in fox-hunts, a favorite pastime of the Virginia gentry, and also that he was as capable of " sighing like a furnace" as any other love-struck swain. At seven- teen he wrote to his " dear Friend Robin," from Belvoir, " I might, was my heart disengag'd, pass my time very pleasantly as there's a very agreeable Young Lady Lives in the same house (Col" George Fairfax's Wife's Sister) but as thats only adding Fuel to fire it makes me more uneasy for by often and unavoidably being in Company with her revives my former Passion for your Low Land Beauty whereas was I to live more retired from Young Women I might in some measure eliviate my sorrows by burying that chast and troublesome Pas- sion in the grave of oblivion or eternall forgetfulness, ... as I am well convinced was I ever to attempt any thing I should only get a denial which would be only adding grief to uneasiness." The modesty of this effusion certainly adds to its attractiveness ; and as for the / 14* l62 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. spelling — vowels and consonants seem, in those days, to have been used in hap-hazard fashion by older writers than those of sev- enteen years. That Washington could not have mourned very long over this " chast and troublesome Passion," whose object is supposed to have been Miss Lucy Grymes, afterwards the mother of General Henry Lee, is evident from the fact that he was beginning to find " the Young Lady in the house," Miss Mary Gary, very agreeable ; while that he did not practise his theory of living " retired from Young Women" is proved by subsequent experiences. A New York house that naturally links itself in thought with Mount Vernon is the old Philipse Manor, where Mary Phil- ipse spent her early days. Here the Philipses presided for generations over vast estates in the counties of Westches- ter, Dutchess, and Putnam, being known among their tenantry as the Junkers (pro- nounced Yonkers), or gentlemen par ex- cellence, to which title the town of Yonkers, that gradually grew up around the old manor-house, owes its name. OLD LANDMARKS. 163 This was the home of her childhood, but it was at the house of her sister, Mrs. Beverly Robinson, that Mary Philipse met Colonel Washington. The history of this rather shadowy love-affair has never been fully told, although frequently referred to. Mr. Irving's explanation is that the young soldier, ever alert in the path of duty, quitted too soon the lists of love for those of war, thus leaving the field to his rival, Colonel Morris. In support of this theory, Mr. Irving remarks upon the great des- patch with which Washington conducted his wooing of the widow Custis, soon after, as if " he feared, should he leave the mat- ter in suspense, some more enterprising rival might supplant him during his ab- sence, as in the case of Miss Philipse, at New York." With due respect to Mr. Irving, it does not seem consistent with the character of Washington to turn aside so readily from the pursuit of anything that he greatly desired ; and from the fact that Miss Philipse so soon after mar- ried Colonel Morris, it is more natural to conclude that her affections were engaged 164 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. before she met the young Virginian, There being no positive data on the subject, and the spirit of a love-affair being about as difficult to transmit from one generation to another as the tone of a voice or the glance of an eye, we feel free to put upon the affair the construction that detracts least from the dignity of the American hero. After her marriage, Mary Philipse lived in the home which Colonel Morris built upon a high bank of the Harlem River, about a mile from the site of old Fort Washington, one of the most pic- turesque spots upon the island. This house, still standing and in good preser- vation, a fine example of a Colonial resi- dence, was long known as the Roger Mor- ris and later as the Jumel House. The best view of the mansion is to be had from the river-drive near One Hundred and Sixty- First Street, while from the portico there is a fine prospect of the Harlem River and of the great city which has grown up around it since its erection in 1 75 8. Strange to relate, Washington made his head-quar- ters here while engaged in military opera- OLD LANDMARKS. 165 tions around New York in the autumn of 1776, and barely escaped capture in the home of his former friends, as the British troops took possession of the premises a half-hour after the American General had vacated them. Here also General Knyp- hausen, unused to such surroundings, if we are to believe the strange tales told of his spreading the butter on his bread with his fingers, and of other eccentricities at table, had his head-quarters during the British occupation of New York. At the close of the war the property of Colonel Morris was confiscated and the house was for a time an inn, where par- ties from New York were entertained. Once again General (then President) Wash- ington visited the old mansion, as he re- cords in his diary of July lo, 1790: " Having formed a Party consisting of the Vice- President [John Adams], his lady and Son and Miss Smith, the Secretaries of State, Treasury and War [Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and General Knox] and the ladies of the two latter, with all the gentlemen of my family, Mrs. Lear and the two chil- dren, we visited the old position of Fort Washington, and afterwards dined on a dinner provided by Mr. l66 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. Mariner, at the house lately of Colonel Morris, but con- fiscated and in the possession of a common Farmer." The house later passed into the hands of Stephen Jumel, who with his wife, gay Madame Jumel, lived here in great state and luxury, driving their carriage drawn by eight horses, and giving entertainments as celebrated for their sumptuousness and luxury as were those of Madam Rush of Philadelphia at a later date. Here Stephen Jumel died, and here occurred that strangest of weddings, when Aaron Burr, refused again and again by Madame Ju- mel, appeared at her door one day, ac- companied by the Rev. Dr. Bogart, and insisted upon marrying her. Why the lady consented it is difficult to discover, unless Aaron Burr at seventy-eight still retained some of the attractions that had rendered him irresistible at an earlier age. Upon one occasion, at her own home. Colonel Burr had, in handing Madame Jumel in to dinner, said, " I give you my hand, ma- dame ; my heart has long been yours." The guests probably looked upon the OLD LANDMARKS. 167 expressions of the elderly man of fashion as withered flowers of speech natural to one who had passed his youth in an age of extravagant compliment, and great sur- prise w^as expressed by the friends of Ma- dame Jumel when it became know^n that she had yielded to the importunities of her aged suitor, especially when they learned of the out-of-hand manner in which the affair had been conducted. Somewhat similar to this is a story told of Colonel Nathaniel Burwell, of Carter Hall, Vir- ginia, who was so afflicted by the death of his wife, Susanna Grymes, that he went to Rosewell and requested Governor John Page to send for his young and beautiful, •widowed half-sister, Mrs. George W. Bay- lor, for him to marry. The widow came obedient to the summons, but objected, upon which Colonel Burwell exclaimed, " Lucy, you don't know what is good for you ; your brother John and I arranged it all before you came," which dogmatic as- sertion seeming to satisfy Mrs. Baylor, she acceded to the family arrangement with the meekness of a woman of the Old Tes- l68 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. tament. After the ceremony, the groom, turning to the fair bride, said, " Now, Lucy, you can weep for your dear George and I will weep for my beloved Suky !" We are not told that Colonel Burr and Madame Jumel spent their days in weeping over their respective consorts; but there is good authority for believing that tears were shed by one at least of this ill-assorted couple. Another picture remains of a scene in the old mansion, when Madame Jumel was entertaining Joseph Bonaparte. Madame refused to pass through the door to take her place at table in advance of her guest, because he was a prince. The gentleman bowed and politely declined to take pre- cedence of a lady, while the guests stood aside, waiting to see how the question of etiquette would be decided. How the matter was settled upon this occasion is not related, but two doors cut through later, and still standing side by side, show how the hostess avoided similar complica- tions in the future. The bouweries of Governor Stuyvesant, OLD LANDMARKS. 1 69 Stephen Van Cortlandt, and Jacobus Kip were in what is now the heart of the great city, the possessions of the influential fam- ilies of De Lancey and Roosevelt were in the centre of the island, while farther up the Hudson were the vast manors of the Beekmans, Livingstons, Van Rens- selaers, Schuylers, and Johnsons, where these patroons lived among and ruled over their tenantry like the feudal lords of old England. When a member of the Van Rensselaer family died, the tenants, sometimes amounting to several thou- sand, says Bishop Kip, came down to Albany to pay their respects to his mem- ory, and to drink to the peace of his soul in good ale from his generous cellars. The cannon which stood at the entrance of the Van Rensselaer manor-house, and which was always fired upon the birth or death of one of the family, is still preserved to testify to the honors paid these long dead and gone patroons. The burial of Philip Livingston, in 1749, upon which oc- casion services were performed at his house in New York as well as at the manor- H IS I/O COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. house, is thus described in a journal of the day: " In the city, the lower rooms of most of the houses in Broadstreet, where he resided, were thrown open to receive visitors. A pipe of wine was spiced for the oc- casion, and to each of the eight bearers, with a pair of gloves, mourning ring, scarf and handkerchief, a mon- key-spoon was given. [This was so called from the fig- ure of an ape or monkey which was carved in solido at the extremity of the handle. It differed from a common spoon in having a circular and very shallow bowl.] At the manor these ceremonies were all repeated, an- other pipe of wine was spiced, and besides the same presents to the bearers, a pair of black gloves and a handkerchief were given to each of the tenants. The whole expense was said to amount to ;^5oo."* Many interesting associations cluster round the Livingston manor, built by Chancellor Livingston. The old home- stead of Judge Robert R. Livingston and his wife, Margaret Beekman, was destroyed by the British in 1777. From this happy home, to whose mistress Judge Livingston ■* At funerals in old New York it was customary to serve hot wine in winter and sangaree in summer. Burnt wine was sometimes served in silver tankards. — " History of New York," by William L. Stone. OLD LANDMARKS. I /I writes after thirteen years of married life, " My imagination paints you with all your loveliness, with all the charms my soul has so many years doated on," came such sons as Robert R. Livingston, first Chancellor of the State of New York, Colonel Henry B. Livingston, and youngest, but not least important, Edward, the distinguished law- yer and statesman, who married the beau- tiful widow Moreau. Janet Livingston married General Montgomery, who fell at Quebec, while her youger sister, Alida, be- came the wife of General John Armstrong. Robert R. Livingston represented the United States at the Court of France, and, although very deaf, was as fluent and enter- taining in French as in English. He was succeeded by his brother-in-law, General Armstrong, who could speak no French, upon which Napoleon exclaimed, " What strange people are these Americans ! First they send me a deaf man, and then one who is dumb." In New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Dela- ware, where the patroon system did not prevail, there were extensive manors laid 172 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. out for the Biddies, Norrises, Penns, and others, and handsome mansions, as that at Belmont where William Peters and his wife, Mary Brientnal, lived before the Revolution, and where their son, the learned and witty Judge Peters, resided later ; The Hills, once a McPherson prop- erty, to which General Arnold took his lovely bride, Margaret Shippen, in the summer of 1779; and Lansdowne, the country-seat of John Penn, where, in days after the Revolution, the beautiful Mrs. Bingham held a court worthy of a princess. Mr. Breck tells an amusing story of Mrs. Bingham's attempt to introduce the foreign fashion of having her guests an- nounced. " The doctor and Miss Peggy" were the names given by the unsuspect- ing coachman to the servant in livery, who, with the literalness that seems to belong to the liveried official, repeated " The doctor and Miss Pegg>'" to the next lackey, and thus the names were sounded through the great halls to the drawing- room, where " the doctor and Miss Peggy," Dr. Kuhn and his step-daughter. Miss OLD LANDMARKS. 1/3 Markoe, arrived in a state of rather un- dignified merriment. South of Lansdowne is Woodlands, still standing, a good example of a handsome Colonial mansion. Here lived Andrew Hamilton, known all through the Colonies as a great lawyer, having won the cele- brated Zenger case in New York, which, like that of John Wilkes in England, re- solved itself into a sturdy Anglo-Saxon protest against restricting the liberty of the press, — such liberty as we now possess, and in whose exercise we sometimes feel as did the Israelites of old, that the desire of our hearts has been granted, but that leanness has entered into our souls. In a London letter to the Pcnnsylvayiia Gazette, Mr. Hamilton is spoken of as a " Goliath in Learning and Politics," while great English barristers admitted that the subject of libels had never been so well treated at West- minster Hall as in New York by Andrew Hamilton, which shows that the proverbial Philadelphia lawyer was abroad at an early day. It was the second Andrew Hamil- ton who was living at Woodlands when IS* 174 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. Mr. Black came to Philadelphia, and who, with Secretary Peters and Mr. Robert Strettell, welcomed him into the Province with old-time hospitality and " a Bowl of fine Lemon Punch big enough to have Swimm'd half a dozen of young geese." Near Woodlands, overlooking the river, is the house of John Bartram, surrounded by his famous botanical garden, the first in the country. Some of the trees are still standing under which sat such great scientists as Dr. Casper Wistar, Dr. Rush, and David Rittenhouse, or such statesmen as Jefferson and Adams. Wakefield, a Fisher homestead, and James Logan's residence, Stenton, to which the friendly Indians came in such numbers that they were obliged to encamp upon the lawn, are both in the German- town neighborhood ; while to walk along the narrow Main Street is like taking a journey into the past century, so many sober, drab-colored facades and charming white-columned doors present themselves, offering dignified rebuke to the noisy, modern trolley that whirls between them. OLD LANDMARKS. 175 Notable among the older and more spacious dwellings is Cliveden, the Chew house, which appears in Revolutionary prints emitting flame and smoke, like the dragons of fairy lore, with riflemen firing from every window and armed Continentals charging across its lawn. As the home of Coun- cillor Benjamin Chew and his bevy of gay daughters, this house has a history of its own, before the war and after ; and during the British occupation Major Andre was often there. A pleasant picture of these days at Cliveden has lately come to us from a member of the family, with some verses written by Andre upon seeing Miss Peggy's fair face framed by a spray of apple-blossoms. Love and hope were in their spring-time with this pair, and who can tell what vows were exchanged be- neath the blossoming branches of the Cliveden trees, especially as later dis- closures seem to place almost beyond question the report that the young officer was engaged to Miss Chew, whose knight he was in the famous Meschianza ? That Peggy Chew did not marry until seven 176 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. years after Andre's death is a rather sig- nificant fact in \-iew of her attractions and the early age at which women married in those days. Her marriage to General Howard, the hero of Cowpens, was sol- emnized in the Chew house on Third Street, upon which occasion Washington was present and doubtless trod a measure, as the Commander-in-Chief had a ^^•arm ad- miration for this family of bright sisters, with whose father he was upon friendly terms.* Mrs. Sophie Ho^\•ard Ward saj-s that after her grandmother's marriage she still loved to dwell upon Major Andre's charms, while her patriotic husband ^^•as wont to cut short her reminiscences by exclaiming. " He was a spy. nothing but a spy ! " Beautiful with the serene beaur^- ot old * Ahhoagb obliged to l^ve Plxiladelphia in August. 1777. being undo- anest as an officer of the Crown, Mr. Chew was allowed to c<»ne back to his home in May. 177S, no overt act being tiiaiged against him. Later, under the new goremment. he was Judge and President of the High Court of Exdse and Appeals of Pennsvlvania from 1791 until iSoS. OLD LANDMARKS. I// age, rich with many associations clustered about it, stands the Wister homestead, Grumblethorpe. Built by John Wister, who came to Pennsylvania in 1727, this was the first summer residence erected by a Philadelphian in Germantown. Vernon, another Wister house, is much more pictu- resquely situated upon what was once the property of Melchior Meng. Although Grumblethorpe stands directly upon the Main Street, the garden and grounds reach back some distance, embracing several acres, and boasting a charming garden full of old-fashioned flowers, and a pear-tree planted by John Wister, the first settler. One of the habitues of this house was Count Zinzendorf, a man of high rank and large possessions, who came to America in the interests of the Moravian Church. The Saxon nobleman was an intimate friend of ]\Ir. Wister's, who, in his later years, strongly inclined towards the religion of the Hussites. In this mansion, long known as the "Wister's Big House," General Agnew made his head-quarters, and hither, after 178 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. the battle of Germantown, he was carried mortally wounded. The spot is still shown where he died ; the blood-stains are upon the floor, like those at Holyrood which tell where Rizzio fell. Under the spell of the associations of that older time, we read, over the gallant officer's signature, tender, manly words written to his wife, telling her that the war will not last many months, when it will be his pleasure to dedicate to her the rest of his life ; and, quite forgetting that he was our country's enemy, we think of him only as a brave gentleman who died in a strange land in the honest discharge of his duty. War seems terrible — a ghastly spectre divested of all pomp and circumstance — when we think of Agnew dying of his wounds in the old Germantown house, far from his Mary and the children whom he loved, or hear the words of a British officer to his men who were burying the dead from the field of Germantown, " Don't bury them with their faces up, and thus cast dirt in their faces. They are all mothers' sons." OLD LANDMARKS. 1/9 Wedding bells were heard in the old home as well as funeral dirges. Here, under the moulded circle in the parlor ceiling, Major Lennox, an American officer who had his head-quarters in the Wister house, was married to Miss Lukens, who, like a heroine of romance, spent her honeymoon in this beleaguered castle. Passing from the parlor into the hall, we are suddenly confronted with a life-size figure of a British grenadier in full uni- form, who stands here like a sentinel guarding the memorials of the past. This wooden figure, which is admirable in out- line and coloring, has been attributed to Major Andre; but the fact that it plays a prominent part in Sally Wistcr's diary of life in the Foulkc house, at Pcnllyn, where the Wister family took refuge before the battle of Germantown, precludes this idea. Andre's scenery and drops for the little theatre in Southwark were painted several months later, and Miss Wister herself says, " We had brought some weeks ago a British grenadier from Uncle Miles's on purpose to divert us." The young girl's l80 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. description of the pranks played with this soldier of wood and paint, written for the entertainment of her friend Miss Deborah Norris, has the freshness and vivacity of a story of to-day. It had been planned by the " amiable Major Stodard" and her mischievous self to give poor Mr, Tilly a fright. After explaining that the British grenadier had been placed near a door opening into the road, another figure near by "to add to the deceit," Miss Wister relates the success of her rather severe practical joke : " Sixth Day, Night. " In the beginning of the evening I went to Liddy and beg'd her to secure the swords and pistols which were in their parlour. The Marylander, hearing our voices, joined us. I told him of our proposal. Whether he thought it a good one or not I can't say, but he ap- prov'd of it, and Liddy went in and brought her apron full of swords and pistols. When this was done, Stod- ard join'd the officers. We girls went and stood at the first landing of the stairs. The gentlemen were very merry, and chatting on public affairs, when Seaton's negro (observe that Seaton, being indisposed, was ap- priz'd of the scheme) open'd the door, candle in hand, and said, * There's somebody at the door that wishes to see you.' ' Who ? All of us ?' said Tilly. ' Yes, Sir,' I OLD LANDMARKS. l8l said the boy. They all rose (the Major, as he said afterwards, almost dying with laughter), and walked into the entry, Tilly first, in full expectation of news. The first object that struck his view was a British sol- dier. In a moment his ears were saluted, * Is there any rebel officers here ?' in a thundering voice. Not waiting for a second word, he darted like lightning out of the front door, through the yard, bolted o'er the fence. Swamps, fences, thorn-hedges and plough' d fields no way impeded his retreat. He was soon out of hearing. The woods echoed with, ' Which way did he go ? Stop him ! Surround the house !' The amiable Lips- comb had his hand on the latch of the door, intending to make his escape ; Stodard, considering his indisposi- tion, acquainted him with the deceit. We females ran down stairs to join in the general laugh. I walked into Jesse's parlour. There sat poor Stodard (whose sore lips must have receiv'd no advantage from this), almost convuls'd with laughing, rolling in an arm-chair. He said nothing; I believe he could not have spoke. ' Major Stodard,' said I, ' go to call Tilly back. He will lose himself, — indeed he will ;' every word inter- rupted with a ' Ha ! ha !' At last he rose, and went to the door; and what a loud voice could avail in bringing him back, he tried. Figure to thyself this Tilly, of a snowy evening, no hat, shoes down at the heel, hair unty'd, flying across meadows, creeks, and mud-holes. Flying from what ? Why, a bit of painted wood. But he was ignorant of what it was. The idea of being made a prisoner wholly engrossed his mind, and his last resource was to run. " After a while, we being in more composure, and i6 1 82 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. our bursts of laughter less frequent, yet by no means subsided, — in full assembly of girls and officers, — Tilly enter'd. The greatest part of my risibility turn'd to pity. Inexpressible confusion had taken entire posses- sion of his countenance, his fine hair hanging dishevell'd down his shoulders, all splashed with mud ; yet his bright confusion and race had not divested him of his beauty. He smil'd as he trip'd up the steps; but 'twas vexation plac'd it on his features. Joy at that moment was banished from his heart. He briskly walked five or six steps, then stop'd, and took a general survey of us all. ' Where have you been, Mr. Tilly ?' ask'd one officer. (We girls were silent.) ' I really imagin'd,' said Major Stodard, ' that you were gone for your pis- tols, I follow'd you to prevent danger,' — an excessive laugh at each question, which it was impossible to re- strain. ' Pray, where were your pistols, Tilly ?' He broke his silence by the following expression : ' You may all go to the D — 1.' I never heard him utter an indecent expression before." That this adventure was rather discom- fiting to Mr. Tilly may be gathered from the smart journalizer's statement that on First day night he had not " said a sylla- ble to one of us young ladies since Sixth day eve." When the silence was finally broken, Mr. Tilly showed that all bitterness had departed from his soul, as he yielded to the good-natured merriment of the hour OLD LANDMARKS. I 83 and gave the company a humorous ac- count of his own exploits. Between Germantown and Philadelphia was Fair Hill, the home of Isaac Norris, and near Frankford, upon a fair green spot in the midst of a net-work of railroads, stands Chalkley Hall. Of this country- seat and its former owner, the devout visit- ing Friend, Thomas Chalkley, the poet Whittier wrote after a stroll through the grounds, — " Beneath the arms Of this embracing wood, a good man made His home, like Abraham resting in the shade Of Mamre's lonely palms." V The old mansion, which has been in the possession of the Wetherill family since 1 81 7, was long the home of Abel James, who married a daughter of Thomas Chalk- ley. Tradition tells of a great dinner given here in Colonial days, when eighty covers were laid, and the soup was served to each guest in a silver porringer. The hall of the old house is spacious enough to admit of an even larger company ; but the story 184 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. of the eighty porringers is a trifle problem- atical, although that some such articles of plate existed members of the family are able to prove by the most conclusive of all demonstrations. Another famous dinner, spread by Mrs. Abel James, in 1777, for some ill-fed Continental soldiers encamped in the neighborhood, was unceremoniously interrupted by the sentry's cry, " The Red- coats are upon us !" A sudden shifting of figures upon the scene ensued, the in- vited guests retreating by one door, while the unbidden convives entered by the other, and, taking their places at the board, fell with a will upon Mrs. James's good cheer, for which they afterwards had the grace to thank her most politely. An- other story told of this kindly mistress of Chalkley Hall is, that during the British occupation she frequently carried a little pig under the seat of her chaise to some of her friends in Philadelphia who were greatly in need of food. The dignified Quaker lady passed the British sentinel unmolested, no person suspecting her of smuggling live-stock through the lines. OLD LANDMARKS. 1 85 Hearing an old Philadelphian recount his boyish exploits upon the cherry-trees of his neighbor Charles Wharton and de- scribe in detail his and other fine old homes on Second Street, we can form some idea of the spaciousness of these dwellings, with their terraced gardens in the rear reaching back to Third Street, and capacious cellars in which were stored hogsheads of rum from Jamaica and casks of wine from Lis- bon and the Canaries. John Cadwalader built a house on Second Street prior to 1774, as John Adams and Silas Deane both wrote of being dined and wined here at that date. The latter says, " I dined yesterday with Mr. Cadwalader, whose fur- niture and house exceed anything I have seen in this city or elsewhere." It was in his large garden, reaching to Third Street, that John Cadwalader drilled and enter- tained in great style the military company raised by him, the first formed in Penn- sylvania. This company, "the Greens," called in derision the " Silk Stocking Com- pany," most of its members being gentle- men, afterwards formed a part of General 16* 1 86 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. Cadwalader's brigade, which distinguished itself upon many battle-fields. Over this home on Second Street pre- sided Elizabeth Lloyd, the first wife of General Cadwalader, and, later, beautiful Williamina Bond, and here grew into the loveliness that afterwards distinguished them such fair daughters of the house as Maria Cadwalader, who married Gen- eral Samuel Ringgold, of Fountain Rock, Maryland, and Frances, who became the wife of David Montagu Erskine, some- time secretary to the British legation in Philadelphia.* A miniature of Frances * A daughter of Lord and Lady Erskine married James Henry Callender, and was celebrated for her beauty in England and on the Continent, Another daughter, the Hon. Mary Erskine, married, in 1832, Hermann, Count von Baumgarten, of Bavaria. A story has prevailed, and even found its way into print, that this English lady was the author of " The Initials," " Quits," etc. To correct this on-dit it is only necessary to state that Mary Erskine, Countess von Baumgarten, died March 15, 1874, while the author of " The Initials" died November 12, 1893. The latter was Jemima, daughter of James Montgomery, of Sea View, County Donegal, of the branch of the noble house of the Mont- gomerys of Eglinton, that has long been settled in the OLD LANDMARKS. 1 8/ Cadwalader, painted after she became Lady Erskine, was sent from England to her cousin, Mrs. Samuel Blodget. The portraits of the two kinswomen show that they inherited no small share of the beauty of their ancestress, Williamina Moore, of Moore Hall. Not far from the Cadwaladers', at the corner of Second and Union Streets, Archi- bald McCall, the India merchant, built a home about 1762, which is still standing. In its great garden were kept various ani- mals, brought from foreign parts by his supercargoes, making it, says Mr. Town- send Ward, the first zoological garden in Philadelphia. During the occupation of the city by the British, Sir William Howe made his head-quarters in the Cadwal- ader house, when much of the gallant soldier's good wine was doubtless en- joyed by the red-coated officers. Sir William afterwards removed his head- north of Ireland. In 1838, Miss Montgomery married the Baron Tautphoeus, of Marquardstein Castle, Ba- varia, Privy Councillor and Chamberlain to the King. — Burke's " Peerage and Baronetage," 1 89 1. 165 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. quarters to a large house on High Street, above Sixth, which was once the home of Richard Penn and his wife Polly Mas- ters, to whom the property was given by her mother as a wedding gift. Richard was the most popular of the younger Penns, and here he and his wife lived in hospitable old-fashioned style. While he had his head-quarters on High Street, Gen- eral Howe drove Mrs. Israel Pemberton's handsome coach and pair. The dignified owner of the equipage having stipulated that it should be driven to her house first, it always stood before her door an hour before being placed at the disposal of the British officer. The house at the corner of Sixth and High Streets and the one above it belonged to Robert Morris. The latter being considered the most suitable in the city for the residence of the Chief Executive, General Washington came here in 1790. Mr. Morris occupied the corner house, where, says Mr. Breck, " he did the honors of the city by a profuse, incessant, and elegant hospitality. . . . There was a luxury in the kitchen, table, parlor, and OLD LANDMARKS. 1 89 street equipage of Mr. and Mrs. Morris that were to be found nowhere else in America." To both these houses came all persons of note who visited Philadelphia from 1790 to 1 797. It was in the drawing-room of Mrs. Robert Morris that the Prince de Broglie performed his feat of tea-drinking, accepting one cup of tea after another because they were offered to him by a lady, as he after- wards explained, adding, " I should be even now drinking it, if the Ambassador had not charitably notified me at the twelfth cup, that I must put my spoon across it when I wished to finish with this sort of warm water." Among frequent guests at the Presidential mansion were Mr. and Mrs. William Lewis ; he a dis- tinguished lawyer and judge under the first administration, while she, an Irish beauty, who, from the social life abroad, to which she had the entree as the daughter of Sir John Esmonde, of Huntingdon Castle, Ireland, and as the wife of Richard Durdin, brought a charm and grace of manner equal to her beauty into the Re- publican Court of Mrs. Washington. 190 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. On Fourth Street, near Spruce, still stands the home of good Dr. Physick, the magic of whose name, in more senses than one, was enough to cure an ailing mortal, while on Chestnut Street, above Sixth, was the country place of Joshua Carpenter, later the residence of Governor Thomas, Dr. Graeme, the Dickinsons, the Chevalier de la Luzerne, and Judge Tilghman. Rec- ollections of the many notable persons who had at different times occupied this man- sion, and perhaps also of the good cheer enjoyed within its halls, suggested Judge Peters's witticism. Passing the old house one day with a friend, who called his at- tention to the fact that the windows were being taken out previous to tearing down the building, he exclaimed, "Yes, the livers are all gone, and now they are taking out the lights." In the square below stands our most revered landmark, Independence Hall, precious not only to Philadelphians, but to all Americans and to lovers of liberty everywhere. The artist and engraver have made us OLD LANDMARKS. I9I familiar with the noble and picturesque group of men who signed the Declaration. Here in 1787 was gathered another group, equally noble and quite as picturesque, — soldiers who had taken part in the long war, statesmen, governors, eminent jurists, and men of affairs, in all the bravery of their powdered heads, bag wigs, and velvet suits. Robert Morris walks to the State-House with General Washington, who is his guest. They make a fine appearance on the street, and are met with enthusiastic demonstra- tions from the people. Mr. Morris is de- scribed as a large man, and his portraits show us how kindly and earnest was his face ; while the President, in his full suit of black, wearing his dress sword with inim- itable grace, tall, commanding, and digni- fied, is always an imposing figure. There are lines of care upon his face which prove that to have been " the Father of his Country" through eight years of war and five years of unsettled political and social life was no light task. As they near the House they are met by other delegates, — James Madison, who has 192 COLONIAL DAVS AND DAMES. " the Virginia plan" safely packed away in his clever head, or perchance the more eloquent Randolph, who is to present it upon the floor ; or Rutlcdgc, from South Carolina, or John Dickinson, from nearer home ; or it may be that the General bonds his tall form to hear what Hamilton has to say as they enter the hall together, — Alex- ander Hamilton, who at seventeen made a powerful appeal to the New York mass- meeting in '74, who was Washington's aide-de-camp in ^yj, and who now shares with Madison the honor of leading this great Convention. Here are George Clymer, Elbridge Gerry, Roger Sherman, George Read, and many others who belonged to the Congress of '76, among them James Wil- son, the learned Scotchman, who, while declaring that he was not a blind ad- mirer of the Constitution, asserted that, to his mind, "it was the best form of government that had ever been offered to the world," which seems to have been the opinion of Dr. Franklin. The latter, cheerful despite the infirmities of OLD LANDMARKS. 193 age, has, as usual, a little story to tell. This time it is about a French lady who said to her sister, " I do not know how it is, my sister, but I meet with nobody but myself who is always in the right." Just what this had to do with the Constitution docs not appear, but they all laughed at the old man's joke, and cheered him heartily when he declared that he had finally made up his mind that the carving upon the back of the Speaker's chair was a " rising sun," although he had had serious doubts about it in darker days. If a painting were to be made of these statesmen gathered together in the old hall, it would seem incomplete without the scholarly and refined face of Francis Hopkinson. Although not a delegate to the Convention, he contributed much to its success by his poems, allegories, and satires, carrying in that small head, which John Adams described as not bigger than a large apple, a vast amount of literary and legal lore, and withal no end of quips and quirks and witticisms. But the pen grows garrulous with reminiscences, from I » 17 194 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES, which we turn to hope that the old build- ing may ever be preserved, an honored memorial, to which may come in all gen- erations those who would renew their pa- triotism and strengthen their faith in the best that belongs to humanity. A shrine is this, more sacred than the graves of heroes, because this is a monument to principles which are even greater than the men who fought in their defence. cm "Dut^ cStid^e xijr*a vt *«j^ JT^^^r;^ WEDDINGS AND MERRY- MAKINGS. " One did commend me to a wife both fair and young That had French, Spanish, and Italian tongue. I thanked him kindly and told him I loved none of such. For I thought one tongue for a wife too much. What ! love ye not the learned ? Yes, as my life. A learned scholar, but not a learned wife." Surely some crabbed bachelor, heavily fined for remaining in the single state from which no fair lady would help him 195 196 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. to escape, had composed this venomous doggerel for Ann Wing, aged thirteen, to perpetuate with painstaking stitches. How glad she must have been to turn from it to execute in colored silks the impossible roses and trees that illuminate her beauti- fully worked sampler ! Hannah Head, who was probably as fond of bright colors as any other Quaker child, inveighs upon her square of canvas against those who " Court to be decked in rich attire With gold spread, that others may admire," insisting in all colors of the rainbow that " They in whose noble heart true virtue dwells, Need not so much adorn their outward shells." Poor little girls ! such words seem strangely unsuited to your years and ex- perience. We can only hope that your lives were brighter than they seem to us as we look back upon them. This hope is encouraged by the fact that Miss Wins- low, a regular attendant of the Old South, was allowed to take part in an entertain- WEDDINGS AND MERRY-MAKINGS. 1 9/ ment where there was dancing, and where the " treat was nuts, raisins, cakes, wine, punch, hot and cold, all in great plenty." The publication of the diary of this Boston school-girl of 1771 throws a more attrac- tive Hght upon child-life in New England, and leads us to believe that there were others besides Anna Winslow who filled their home letters with descriptions of their innocent pleasures and girlish vanities, even if they, like her, dutifully quoted the text and gave their opinions upon the parson's discourse. After all, girl hearts beat high then as now, and were as quick to respond to the touch of joy or love. Courtship and marriage came so early in those days that the little maids had scarcely finished their samplers and folded them away be- fore they had to take them out again to copy the letters upon the linen for their bridal outfits. With all the seeming repression of child- life, and the great outward deference shown to the wishes of parents, there seems to have been considerable independence in love- affairs among young women in Colonial 17* 198 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. days. Even Betty Sewall refused one husband of her father's choice, and kept another unexceptionable parti waiting a year for her answer to his suit ; while, from Priscilla Mullins frankly encouraging John Alden to speak for himself, to Phcebe Harrison refusing to give her cherries to any one but the lad for whom they were intended, these gentle creatures seem to have had decided opinions about their partners for life, Phineas Pemberton's " Narrative" tells, in his own words, the quaint story of his love-making : " Phoebe, with her mother as they were going into Cheshire, called at my master's shop, but I knew them not ; she, being then about nine years of age, said to her mother, having got some cherries in her apron, ' I have a mind to give one of these young men some cher- ries.' Her mother said, ' Then give to both ;' one of my fellow apprentices being then by me and on a mar- ket day, — I never having seen them before, nor they me, that I know of, and altogether strangers to them. She said, ' No ; I will but give to one,' and through the crowd of people that then stood before the counter, she pressed holding out her hand with cherries for me, be- fore I was well aware ; and I admired that a child I knew not, should offer me such kindness; but on in- quiry remembered I had heard her name, and I retali- WEDDINGS AND MERRY-MAKINGS. 1 99 ated her kindness at the same time with a paper of brown candy. About two years after that she came that way again with her mother who came into the shop but she did not ; She only stayed in the street & then again I remembered her kindness but saw not her face. About two years after that I went to Bolton to get a shop, to set up trade there and then saw her again but remembered little of what before had happened. After I was come there and had settled awhile and took notice of her discreet & modest behavior and features & per- sonage I then was taken with her; She appeared very lovely in my eye tho' then quite young & because of this I suppressed my affection for a time. Other things in the meanwhile offered on that account to me, but more & more love increased in me towards her until I could not conceal it. I then remembered the begin- nings thereof as already mentioned. Her parents and friends were very respectful to it but because of her ten- der years it was still delayed until she was of riper age ; in which time she was often not well, sometimes from home under the doctor's hands & once at London in which time many letters passed." These letters, which were devoutly re- ligious as well as tenderly affectionate, were followed by the marriage of the Quaker lovers. Soon after, being grievously per- secuted for conscience' sake, Phineas and Phcebe emigrated to Pennsylvania, where, as in Massachusetts, the Pemberton name 2(X) COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. was soon identified with important work in the Provincial government. Another Quaker courtship, of much later date, was that of Walter Franklin, of New York, and Hannah Bowne, of Long Island, of which the following record has been preserved in the Franklin family : " A gentleman riding at his leisure in his chariot [about 1774] passed the door of a thrifty farmer on Long Island. It was a well to do place, but there was nothing to distinguish the house from others in the neighborhood, and he would not have thought of it again, but at the moment a young and beautiful Quaker girl entered the yard to milk the cows that were com- ing from the pasture. He saw that she was lovely in form and graceful, and scarcely knowing what he did, he reined in his horse and asked who lived there. Without embarrassment, for the speaker was too well dressed and too gentlemanly to excite suspicion, she replied, ' My father, Daniel Bowne, wilt thou not alight and take tea with him ?' The invitation was accepted and when the stranger approached the house he intro- duced himself to Daniel Bowne as Walter Franklin. ' Thou art known to me by reputation,' said Bowne to his visitor, 'and I am glad to see thee.' Then they talked of matters that each thought would interest the other, Franklin not forgetting to praise the cows he had seen in the barnyard, but no mention was made of the maid who milked them. Presently the door opened and the young girl entered to prepare the table and set WEDDINGS AND MERRY-MAKINGS. 20I out the tea things. She was dressed in the simple garb of her people, her hair was carefully smoothed and gathered up into a knot, and a linen kerchief covered her neck and bosom. ' Hannah,' said her father, * this is friend Walter Franklin of New York.' The girl blushed deeply when she met the ardent look of the stranger, and her embarrassment was none the less when she found that no allusion was made to the previous meeting. Long they sat around the table in that quiet cosy parlor, and when the time to leave had come, the guest bade adieu to the farmer and his daughter prom- ising ere long to visit them again. The promise was faithfully kept, and after three such visits Walter sought and won the hand of Hannah, who, as his wife, rode with him in his chariot to New York. There she pre- sided over his house at the comer of Cherry and Pearl Sts.,* and from what is knovim of the establishment there were few in the city that surpassed it. Great as was the change in her mode of living, Mrs. Franklin was quite equal to her new position, for she had been taught to cultivate every housewifely virtue, and her mind was stored with learning, as was shown in after years in the rearing of her children." The daughters of this marriage were gay- girls who seem to have left Quakerism far behind them. Two of them married Clin- tons, — De Witt and his brother George, — * This handsome old house was the residence of President Washington in 1789. 202 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. while their cousin, Sally Franklin, a great belle during the British occupation of New York, married Mr. Robinson, of Newport, and went there to live. The admiration excited in the breasts of French and Eng- lish officers by the Quaker beauties of Newport has been " sung in song and re- hearsed in story," while a portrait of Polly Lawton, in the Redwood Library, smiles down sweet denial of any evil intent in her coquetry. Among other charmers were the Rob- inson sisters, who made sad havoc with the hearts of the British officers in New- port. Mrs. Robinson, alarmed by the serious attentions of two of these gentle- men who were quartered in her house, and not being in favor of a foreign alli- ance, sent off her fascinating daughters upon a visit to their relatives in Narragan- sett, forbidding their return until the Brit- ish had left the island. Later the Marquis de Noailles was quartered in the Robin- son house, — a pleasant guest, who so fully appreciated the kindness of his hostess that after his return to France he sent Mrs. WEDDINGS AND MERRY-MAKINGS. 2O3 Robinson some exquisite Sevres china, which was accompanied by a charming letter from his lovely young wife. It is not difficult to believe in the hospitality of this old mansion when we see its great fireplace, where, says tradition, two quar- relsome women cooked for years upon their separate stoves without speaking to each other. Great simplicity characterized many Colonial weddings, but, yielding to the sweet and wholesome instinct that has al- ways led parents to rejoice and make merry over their children's settling for life, the Colonists gradually surrounded their wed- dings with more ceremony and gayety. In families where large fortunes were acquired, a handsome trousseau was usually pre- pared for the bride. Before the marriage of his daughter to Nathaniel Sparhawk, Sir William Pepperell wrote to England for an outfit which included " Silk to make a woman a full suit of clothes, the ground to be white padusoy and flowered with all sorts of coulers suitable for a young woman — another of white watered Taby, and Gold Lace for trimming of it ; 204 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. twelve yards of Green Padusoy ; thirteen yards of Lace, for a woman's head dress, 2 inches wide, as can be bought for 13 s. per yard; a handsome Fan, with a leather mounting, as good as can be bought for about 20 shillings ; 2 pair silk shoes, and cloggs a size bigger than ye shoe." William Pepperell, the father of Mrs. Sparhawk, seems to have conducted his courtship of Miss Hirst in Oriental fashion, making her presents of gold rings, a large hoop, and other ornaments. " The fair lady," says the family chronicler, "was already wooed by her cousin Moody, a school-master from York, but the modest pretensions of the pedagogue were des- tined to make no headway against so for- midable a rival as the future baronet, who was even then the heir of a fortune, favored with engaging manners and the tact which fashionable life and political eminence con- fer," So the poor school-master wrote vale in the diary in which he had transcribed the charms of his Dulcinea, and the victo- rious Pepperell led Miss Hirst to the altar. An old portrait marked " Lady Pepper- ell and her sister Miss Royal," represent- WEDDINGS AND MERRY-MAKINGS. 20$ ing two demure little maidens of thirteen and fourteen seated upon a sofa together, the elder with a humming-bird poised upon one hand as if to proclaim it an American painting, attracted the attention of the writer, and led her to investigate the family- line to learn why there are no Pepperells in the New England life of to-day. It transpired that William Pepperell, the grandson of the victor of Louisburg, who married Elizabeth Royal, died without heirs. The name thus became extinct in America, the family being represented by Sparhawks, Huttons, Tylers, Snows, and others. Miriam Tyler, a granddaughter of Sir William Pepperell, married a certain Colonel Williams ; after her death he mar- ried, in turn, a Miss Wells, and for his third wife a shrewish maid by the name of Dick- inson, who treated his children so badly that they left home and finally joined the Shakers at Lebanon. Of this marital experience an epigrammatic friend ob- served, — " Colonel Williams married his first wife, Miss Miriam Tyler, for good sense, and got it ; his second i8 206 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. wife, Miss Wells, for love and beauty, and had it ; and his third wife. Aunt Hannah Dickinson, for good quali- ties, and got horribly cheated." A groom who lost his bride upon the steps of the altar was Noahdiah Brainerd. Young Samuel Selden, of Hadlyme, Con- necticut, so runs the tale, observing a no- tice on the door of Chester Meeting-House, stating that Noahdiah Brainerd and Deb- orah Dudley proposed marriage in that house on the following Lord's day, tore the notice from the door and substituted another, in which the names of Samuel Selden, of Hadlyme, and Deborah Dudley appeared as proposing marriage upon the self-same day. When the wedding-morn- ing arrived. Captain Selden came early to the meeting-house, armed and equipped according to the law, and, observing that his notice was undisturbed, took heart of grace, and when Mr. Joseph Dudley, his wife, and daughter Deborah, appeared, he advanced, addressed the latter affection- ately, and led her up the aisle to the min- ister, who married them according to the solemn forms then obtaining. What the WEDDINGS AND MERRY-MAKINGS, 20/ groom-elect, Noahdiah, was about all this time we are not informed, but, as the Sel- den family history records that Samuel took his bride across the river the same day, without objection or resistance on her part, it certainly looked as if the fair Deborah, like the love of the " young Lochinvar," was not averse to a change- ling groom, while the inscription upon the wedding-ring, still preserved in the Selden family, — " Beauty is a Fair, but Virtue is a Precious Jewel," — shows that Samuel fully appreciated the various charms of his daringly won bride. The strange sequel to this romantic wedding is that after many years of wedded life and the birth of several children, upon the death of her husband, Samuel, Deb- orah Selden became the wife of her first lover, Noahdiah Brainerd. The query very naturally suggests itself. Did she love him all the time, was she frightened into marrying her masterful lover, Samuel Sel- den ? and, equally pertinent in those days of much marrying. Did the defrauded Noahdiah remain true to his first love all ao8 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. those years, or did he marry in the interim and find himself a widower thus oppor- tunely? Somevdiat similar to this Puritan love- stor>- is one preserved in the Esling hnnfy o£ Philadelphia, although in this latter tale tiie bride was the clever strategist, as ^ipears fincMn the history of the sstsdr. Maxy Magdalen Esling was oigaged to be married to . Etajtkng was 'r Sat the ccRaHB^ to 1i^^^ Ae hridal pai^ Saddcaif Oe caadks flnsd i^tolfe ami. nnilia i of &e coaipnr. Int abea ne eaEcdoaeit hadsaisided Ae Inde hadfis^peand. Tak^ aliwtiy of the mafiriina, de had a%ped anf ftoaa &e tamfmrf, aad aO amfcd as sfe was ia iKT laidid imlaMi^had le^ed Ae rear feace of her ^deer's gar - jcg , azid mst oe tbe cotade one who^ ^te WEDDINGS AND MERRY-MAKINGS. 2O9 prized higher than her intended husband, Carroll, a waiting lover, who bore what was under the circum- stances the very appropriate nanie of Hauck, since he had not only swooped down in such an unceremonious manner on the company, but had also captured her whom we may poetically designate as the dove, though practically her conduct bespoke more of the cunning of the serpent." Some later weddings that brought with them a spice of hazard and adventure were those of Elisha Boudinot * and Colonel William Duer, which took place in New Jersey during the Revolution. At the marriage of Elisha Boudinot and pretty- Kitty Smith, of Elizabethtown, Alexander Hamilton, who was then Washington's young aide-de-camp, acted as master of ceremonies, and, in addition to his other duties, was obliged to keep a sharp look- out to prevent a surprise from the enemy. The marriage of Colonel William Duer and Lady Kitty Alexander, a daughter of Lord Stirling, was solemnized at the fine old Stirling manor-house among the hills * Elisha Boudinot was a brother of Elias Boudinot, President of Congress, and of Mrs. Richard Stockton, the poetess. o 18* 2IO COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. of Basking Ridge. To this wedding, says Emeline G. Pierson, in her sketches of old- time Jersey weddings, came such aristo- cratic families of the State as the Bou- dinots, Stocktons, Hetfields, Kennedys, Southards, Mortons, Ogdens, Lotts, and Clarkes. The manor-house being at the time the head-quarters of General Greene, and Washington's camp being at Morris- town, only eight miles distant, this wed- ding was something of a military pageant. Lady Kitty was given away by no less a personage than the Commander-in-Chief, while, in addition to the numerous officers among the guests, the house was sur- rounded by soldiers, who called for a sight of the fair bride, and, when she stepped out upon the lawn, greeted her with ring- ing cheers and hearty good wishes. A dignified New York wedding that be- longs to a somewhat later period was that of Mr. Peter Augustus Jay and Miss Mary R. Clarkson. The groom was a son of Chief-Justice Jay and his lovely wife, Sarah Livingston, the bride a daughter of General Clarkson. Mary Clarkson was WEDDINGS AND MERRY-MAKINGS. 211 evidently a charming girl. Motherless from early childhood, she was most care- fully trained by her father, over whose home she presided until her marriage.* After an exchange of letters of congratu- lation between the Honorable John Jay and General Clarkson upon the engage- ment of their children, which was evidently a source of gratification to both families, the wedding of Miss Clarkson and Mr. Jay, whose course of true love ran so smooth, was solemnized at the Clarkson house on Pearl Street. " The company assembled about half-past seven, and were received in the drawing-room, which was on the * That this exemplary parent was not lacking in a sense of humor we gather from a letter written to his daughter Elizabeth, while upon a visit to Mrs. Thomas Newbold, in Philadelphia. Miss Clarkson had evi- dently enjoyed a serenade from an admirer who was unknown to her father, as General Clarkson writes, — " Here, I can tell you, we sleep in peace and quiet- ness. No one disturbs us at night under our windows, excepting now and then Aunt Katy's cats, which occa- sionally give us a serenade. As I have informed you of the party that have annoyed me, I shall expect to be told in your next who they are that have lately dis- turbed you." 212 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. north side of the house on the second floor, its three windows looking out upon Pearl Street. Among the guests, says an eye-witness, were Governor Jay, Miss Anne Brown, the Rutherfurds, Bayards, Le Roys, Van Homes, Munroes, Wallaces, and others. Bishop Moore arrived a quarter before eight, and at eight the bride, followed by her bridesmaids, entered the room and was received by the groom and his attendants. The bridesmaids were the Misses Ann Jay, Helen Ruther- furd, Anna Maria Clarkson, Cornelia Le Roy, and Susan and Catherine Bayard. The groomsmen were Robert Watts, Jr., John Cox Morris, Dominick Lynch, George Wechman, Benjamin Ledyard, and B. Woolsey Rog- ers. The bride was dressed in white silk covered with white crape or gauze. Pearls adorned her hair, en- circled her neck, and were clasped around her arms. Her maids wore white muslin, made in the style of the Empire, and embroidered in front, and each carried a fan, a present from the bride. ' Drab flesh-colored' small clothes, flesh-colored silk stockings, white vests, and coats varying in color to suit the taste of the wearer made up the attire of the gentlemen, which corresponded with that of the groom, whose coat was of a light color. The ceremony was then performed by the Bishop, and Mrs. Jay received the congratulations of her friends. A great variety of refreshments were then handed round on trays by colored waiters, and in the dining-room below, upon a side table, a collation was spread, of which the elderly people partook. The groomsmen drank a bottle of wine together before separating, and the evening's festivities were over at twelve o'clock. On the next day Mr. and Mrs. Jay went on a visit to Ed- WEDDINGS AND MERRY-MAKINGS. 2I3 gerston, on the Passaic, a little above Belleville, the residence of the Hon. John Rutherfurd. On Saturday Mrs. Rutherfurd entertained the bridal party at a break- fast, and on Monday they returned to the city. Mr. Jay received his friends on the mornings of the succeeding Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and Mrs. Jay's re- ceptions were in the evenings of Thursday, Friday and Saturday." How dignified and leisurely this sounds ! Mr. Jay receiving his friends upon three mornings of the week, Mrs. Jay hers in the evening, with no end of breakfasts and dinners between. These prolonged nuptial festivities were undoubtedly a sur- vival of a custom prevalent in some of the Colonies of keeping open house for sev- eral days after a wedding. Watson says that weddings in old Philadelphia, even among Friends, were " very expensive and harassing to the wedded." The bride's home was filled with company to dine, the same guests usually staying to tea and supper, while for two days punch was served in great profusion. Kissing the bride and drinking punch seem to have been the leading features of these enter- tainments. For two days the groom's 214 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. friends would call at his house and take punch, and all would kiss the bride, after which for a week or more the bride and groom would give large tea-parties at their home every evening, the bridesmaids and groomsmen being always in attendance. Sometimes a coaching trip was taken to Lancaster, the bridesmaids and grooms- men still in attendance. The coach would stop at the General Wayne or the Buck Tavern, on the Lancaster pike, where breakfasts would be served to the party. This more sociable manner of conducting a wedding trip frequently led to engage- ments between the attendants, thus pro- moting and extending happiness. From Philadelphia and New York longer wed- ding journeys were occasionally made to Newport and Providence, many marriages having taken place between the young people of these places. Such marriages were usually among Friends, and were the results of the Yearly Meetings held in one or other of the larger towns. Among the Scotch-Irish in Pennsylvania, receptions, called " infairs," were held after WEDDINGS AND MERRY-MAKINGS. 2I5 the wedding, and were often prolonged through several days. In country places or small towns weddings proved delight- ful occasions for gathering a neigh- borhood together. Family coaches or stages brought numbers of guests to the ceremony, and many stayed overnight. There was gossiping, feasting, and punch- drinking galore for the older people, and for the young all the pleasant exchange of smiles and glances and gay nothings that would eventually lead to other wed- dings in the same circle. A Harrisburg antiquary says of old- time weddings, — " They were not the brief, soulless affairs of to-day. Guests sometimes arrived before breakfast and remained until the ' wee sma' hours ' of night, and not unfre- quently Aurora herself escorted them home. The hours of daylight were spent in plays full of life and spirit, such as ' Shove the Brogan,' ' The Meat's a-Bum- ing,' etc., interspersed with breathing spells for refresh- ments, when wit and humor had free scope, and such out-door sports as ' Prisoner's Base' and ' Jump the Bullies.' (The latter was purely a masculine game which offered the • young fellows' an excellent oppor- tunity to display their agility.) And when night let fall 2l6 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. her sable curtain, the halls resounded with instrumental music and dancing and the voice of song." Although we do not hear as much of "bride stealing" in the Middle Colonies as in New England, the groom was not allowed to quit the ranks of the single without a parting salute from his com- panions. A custom prevailed in Southern Pennsylvania, and among the Scotch-Irish in Virginia, of barring the progress of the coach of the newly married pair by ropes or other obstacles, which were not removed until the groom paid toll in the form of a bottle of wine or of drinks to his perse- cutors. These and other customs, which seem to us so rude, do not appear to have seriously interfered with matrimony, and the brides were as fair and as modest as those of to-day, while the grooms were equally handsome, and how much more picturesque ! An old Philadelphian who has lived long enough to recall the early years of this century describes a handsome, im- posing house on High Street, between WEDDINGS AND MERRY-MAKINGS. 21/ Seventh and Eighth, and tells of the pleasure she found in looking from the windows of her Quaker home opposite upon the gay doings in this more worldly mansion. Miss Beck, the young lady of the house, has remained a lovely picture in her memory, and she says that she can see her now as she used to come down the marble steps in her dainty slippers with their ribbons crossed and tied around her trim ankles, her long, flowing crape scarf about her shoulders, her high scoop hat with its many feathers and large veil grace- fully festooned over its brim, the clustering curls upon her forehead, and her beautiful, bright face beneath. To see her enter her carriage was always a delight ; but the day of days in the memory of this imaginative child was when the lady whom she admired so much came down the steps as a bride in her travelling-dress of rich silk, attended by the groom, who was brave in satin, velvet, and shining buckles, while her two brothers walked behind her, each holding in a leash his favorite greyhound. When the steps of the great black chariot K 19 2l8 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. with its yellow wheels were let down and the bride stepped in and the groom took his place beside her, the moment was in- tense, thrilling ; the last act in the drama of love. Are there any such weddings now? Are there any brides like those who to the children living opposite were veritable fairy princesses from Andersen's tales ? f fie last cf ^^^^ of Ju,M>ng5 of the LEGEND AND ROMANCE. The search after the truth concerning a personage or a place mentioned in fiction may be as fruitless in practical results as the pursuit of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow; yet how fascinating is such a quest, presupposing, as it does, the power of those who enter upon it to create for themselves a world of fancy, a fool's paradise, or whatever you may choose to call it, which is in itself a rare and delight- 219 220 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. ful faculty ! That this power has not been destroyed by the serious business of living in the nineteenth century appears from the fact that hundreds of pilgrims still follow Dickens through the London haunts of his characters, or visit old Salem and wan- der through its historic streets in search of the " House of the Seven Gables." This latter quest is carried on with fresh interest every year, although Mr. Hawthorne has carefully explained in the preface to his romance that his characters " have a great deal more to do with the clouds overhead than with any portion of the actual soil of the County of Essex," and that *' he trusts not to be considered as unpardonably of- fending by laying out a street that infringes upon nobody's private rights, and appro- priating a lot of land which has no visible owner, and building a house of materials long in use for constructing castles in the air." An illustration of this trait of humanity, for which no appropriate name suggests itself, is afforded by the interest shown within a few years in a controversy re- LEGEND AND ROMANCE. 221 garding the Philadelphia meeting-place of the Acadian lovers in " Evangeline." Mr. Longfellow described the almshouse as it appeared in the plague-stricken town in 1793. In view of the fact that the poet visited Philadelphia thirty years after the events narrated, and doubtless saw the two almshouses then standing, it is not improbable that he so confused them in his own mind that he was able to form an harmonious picture from the more salient features of the two. This explanation would not, however, satisfy the insatiate delver after truth. Mr. Frank A. Burr opened the discussion by stating au- thoritatively that the scene of the meet- ing of Evangeline and Gabriel was the almshouse on Spruce Street, between Tenth and Eleventh, and their burial- place the yard of old Christ Church, where he speaks of visiting the grave of the lovers and pushing aside the ivy that had grown over their imaginary tombstone. A local antiquary, Mr. Esling, who had given much attention to the subject in con- nection with the Church of St. Joseph's, 19* 222 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES, Stepped in promptly and furnished excel- lent arguments in favor of the Friends' Almshouse on Willing's Alley as the place where the lovers met, quoting a letter from Mr. Longfellow himself, in which, after thanking Mr. Esling for some photographs taken just before the building was de- stroyed, he says, — * " I cannot quite make out from the photographs whether this is the place I had in mind when writing the last scene of the poem. I only remember brick walls, an enclosure, and large trees ; a building I saw many years ago when walking the streets of your city, and whose memory came back to me as I wrote. Be this as it may, I thank you cordially for your kindness and highly appreciate this act of good will on your part. Is there not still standing in Philadelphia, in some re- mote street, an almshouse or hospital with brick walls and a garden with trees ? " If so, I may possibly see once more the very place I had in memory. If not, then I shall think that this * The last buildings of the Friends' Almshouse were not removed until the spring of 1876. Another institu- tion that has been brought into the controversy is the Friends' " bettering-house," near Second and Pine Streets. This is out of the question, however, as it was not used as an almshouse or hospital after 1767, and could not have been visited as such by Mr. Longfellow in 1824. LEGEND AND ROMANCE. 223 demolished cottage was a part of the place described in the last scene of the poem." The almshouse on Spruce Street and the quaint little building on Walnut Place hav- ing been destroyed prior to Mr. Longfel- low's visit to Philadelphia in 1876, the only individual who could speak authoritatively upon the subject was unable to decide the matter. Consequently, the readers of the poem are perfectly free to form their own opinions and locate for themselves the pathetic scene when Evangeline, after her long quest in search of her lover, enters the hospital ward with flowers in her hands, the bloom of the morning in her face, to see Gabriel lying there, " motionless, sense- less, dying." The Quaker Almshouse, covered with ivy and trumpet-flowers, and surrounded by its beds of herbs and flow- ers, certainly furnished a more picturesque setting for the last and most dramatic scene in the poem than did the Spruce Street building ; yet Mr. Longfellow's description seems to apply better to the more spacious grounds of the latter, as he speaks of en- tering through the gates, of wandering 224 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. through the grounds and sitting under the large trees with the poor, listening to their stories of the life within. These expres- sions were used in after-years in speaking to Mr. Burr of his visit to Philadelphia in 1824, when the almshouse and its sur- roundings so impressed themselves upon his mind that they recurred to him later when he wrote his poem, and led him to place the final scene " In that delightful land which is washed by the Dela- ware's waters." Dr. Charles K. Mills, in his history of the Philadelphia Almshouse, says that there is no question in his mind that this was the spot visited by Mr. Longfellow in 1824. " As it was in 1755 that the French Acadians of Grand Pr6 — nineteen hundred peaceful, happy souls — were dispossessed of their homes and began their wander- ings, the event idealized by the poet can probably be referred to the epidemic of yellow fever in 1793, and to the almshouse building at Tenth and Spruce Streets, first occupied in 1767." As there is no proof to bring forward, LEGEND AND ROMANCE. 225 the poet's mind naturally being much more intent upon the romantic story of the Aca- dians and the broader outlines of his poem than upon definite localities, the surround- ings of the last scene in the drama are still left in the nebulous region of uncertainty, which is the most appropriate setting for a romance. With regard to the burial-place of the lovers there can be no question, for, as Mr. Esling clearly demonstrates, the only spot that answers to Mr. Longfellow's description is " the little church down the alley." " Side by side, in their nameless grave, the lovers are sleeping. Under the humble walls of the little Catholic church- yard, In the heart of the city, they lie." So in the Catholic church of St. Joseph's, set like a mosaic in the midst of dingy alleys and high buildings, we leave the dear, constant old lovers to sleep their last sleep. Little did they dream that their obscure love-story would lead so many clever peo- ple to talk about them, nor would it, had P 226 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. not the hand of the poet touched it with the magic of his genius. Two heroines who lived, not in the misty realm of fiction, but in the clear, bright light of day, were Flora Macdonald and Rebecca Gratz. The former, from the moment that she appears upon the pages of history with her heroic offer of service — " Since I am to die, and can die but once, I am perfectly willing to put my life in jeopardy to save his Royal Highness" — to the hour of her death, when she was still loyal to the memory of Prince Charlie, presents a character of singular frankness, courage, and devotion. After the escape of the prince who seemed so unworthy of the lives risked in his defence. Flora Macdonald was taken prisoner and carried to London. When it transpired that the Scotch maiden was not a Jacobite, but simply a devoted child of monarchy, she was courted and feted by the nobility, and even granted an audience by George II. " How dared you to succor the enemy of my crown and kingdom ?" was the dis- concerting query of the king, to which LEGEND AND ROMANCE. 22/ Flora replied, without embarrassment, " It was no more than I would have done for your Majesty, had you been in like situ- ation." During her sojourn in London, where her life was a round of festivities, Flora's portrait was painted for Commodore Smith, whose sloop had conveyed her to the metropolis as a prisoner. Later she left London in a coach-and-four, in company with Malcolm Macleod, a fellow-conspira- tor, and five years after married one of her own clansmen, Allan Macdonald, the young Laird of Kingsburgh, whose mother had aided in the escape of the prince. Flora became mistress of the mansion in which Charles Edward had passed his first night on the Isle of Skye. Here, in 1773, Mrs. Macdonald entertained Dr. Johnson and Mr. Boswell, the Highland hostess being described by the latter as " a little woman, of a genteel appearance and uncommonly mild and well-bred." Later, Mr. Boswell records that he slept at the Macdonalds' in the same room with Dr. Johnson, and had the pleasure of seeing the great lexi- 228 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES, cographer ensconced in the bed in which Prince Charles Edward lay after the battle of Culloden, when thirty thousand pounds were offered as a reward for apprehending him. " To see Dr. Samuel Johnson lying in that bed in the Isle of Skye, in the house of Miss Flora Macdonald (for so I shall call her), struck me with such a group of ideas as it is not easy for words to de- scribe, as they passed through my mind. He [Dr. Johnson] smiled and said, ' I have no ambitious thoughts in it' " At break- fast the next morning Mrs. Macdonald re- lated her adventures, to the great satisfac- tion of Dr. Johnson, and of Mr. Boswell, who of course made full notes of the con- versation. In 1774 the Macdonalds sailed from Cambelton, Kintyre, for Wilmington, North Carolina. Hither Flora's fame had pre- ceded her and she was received with open arms. A grand ball was given in her honor in Wilmington, and upon her approach to Cross Creek (now Fayetteville) she was greeted with strains of the pibroch and the martial airs of her native land. LEGEND AND ROMANCE. 229 For some time she remained among her friends at Cross Creek, and the site of her home is still shown, although the house is now in ruins. Later the Macdonalds re- moved to Cameron's Hill in Cumberland County, and afterwards to Anson County. During the early years of the Revolu- tion Mrs. Macdonald and her family — many of the clan having come to America — ex- erted great influence over the Highlanders in North Carolina. This influence was naturally in favor of the crown, and was of great service to Martin, the Tory gov- ernor of the State. At the battle of Moore's Creek, in February, 1776, a num- ber of loyalists led by Donald Macdonald were defeated and routed. After the bat- tle the victorious Americans found General Macdonald sitting alone on a stump near his tent, waving in the air the parchment scroll containing his commission, which he delivered into their hands. Over eight hundred common soldiers were made pris- oners, disarmed, and discharged, while a number of officers were taken to the jail in Halifax. Among these were Allan Mac- 230 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. donald, the husband of Flora, and one or more of her sons. Although she had taken no active part in the conflict, she ex- erted a powerful influence over her clans- men, urging them forward to fight for their King. Allan Macdonald, " on considera- tion of his candor and his being in a low state of health," was released on parole, and he and his wife and daughter returned to Scotland either in 1779, or in 1782, ac- counts varying as to the date. The sloop in which the Macdonalds embarked upon their homeward voyage was pursued by a French vessel, and was in imminent danger of capture, when Flora ascended the quarter-deck, and, nothing daunted, en- couraged the men to renewed efforts. The sight of this woman, so courageous in the face of danger and suffering, raised the spirits of the crew, and the French were finally beaten and Flora safely landed upon her native soil, where she passed the remainder of her days. She is said to have remarked more than once, with charming candor and good humor, ** I have hazarded my life both for the house LEGEND AND ROMANCE. 23 1 of Stuart and the house of Hanover, and I do not see that I am a great gainer by it." A heroine of eminence associated with the land of Flora Macdonald, although she never set foot upon its picturesque shores, was Rebecca Gratz, of Philadelphia. Men and women still in the prime of life can recall the face and form of an elderly- woman, slight and elegant, with gray curls and dark eyes, who was pointed out to them, in their childhood, as the heroine of " Ivanhoe." This was a marvel and a wonder past understanding, and ever after, as Miss Gratz passed along the street, she was looked upon by the children who had heard this tale with a feeling of awe and reverence, as one who had come fresh and fair from the land of romance. Hence- forth, in their minds, the face and figure of Rebecca Gratz stood forth from the en- chanting background of barbaric splendor and chivalric sentiment against which the novelist has placed the beautiful Jewess, they never doubting that she had passed through the exciting scenes of the tourna- ment at Ashby, the lonely castle of Front- 232 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. de-Boeuf, and even the final rescue from a violent death by the " Disinherited Knight." Long after these early impressions were made, it was explained how this Philadel- phia woman had come to be the heroine of " Ivanhoe." Washington Irving was a friend of the Gratz family, and often visited them in their old mansion, where he was sure of finding a warm welcome and a room to " roost in," as he expressed it. In addition to this family friendship, Rebecca Gratz was the intimate friend of Matilda Hoffman, of New York, to whom Wash- ington Irving was engaged and to whom he was devotedly attached. The sad story of that early love and loss is well known. Matilda Hoffman, fair and lovely, worthy such a heart as that of Irving, fell into a rapid decline and died at eighteen, leaving what the world seldom sees, — an absolutely inconsolable lover. Rebecca Gratz nursed her friend through her last illness and held her in her arms when she died. After the death of Matilda Hoffman, the two survivors were drawn together in a friend- ship that lasted as long as they both lived. LEGEND AND ROMANCE, 233 Miss Gratz is described in her youth as a woman of distinguished beauty. Her eyes were large and dark, her figure grace- ful, and her manners winning and attrac- tive. In addition to these charms, she was a woman of more than ordinary cultivation and force of character. During Washington Irving's visit to Great Britain in 1817 he met most of the literati of that brilliant period, among them the poet Campbell, who, well aware of Walter Scott's high estimate of Irving's genius, gave him a letter of introduction to the Northern minstrel. Irving, in one of his letters, tells of the informal and cor- dial reception given him by the poet, who came limping down to the gate to meet him and made him spend several days at Abbotsford, during which time Scott, most delightful of cicerones, visited with him Dryburgh Abbey, and pointed out to him from a mountain-top the Braes of Yarrow, Ettrick's stream winding down to throw itself into Tweed, and many another fa- mous spot. After the day's wanderings they read and talked together, and it was 20* 234 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. probably upon one of these evenings at Abbotsford that the older poet drew Irving to speak of his friends at home, and among them of Rebecca Gratz. He described her wonderful beauty, related the story of her firm adherence to her religious faith under the most trying circumstances, and particularly illustrated her loveliness of character and zealous philanthropy. Scott, who was deeply interested and impressed, conceived the plan of embodying in a romance the noble character and senti- ments of this high-souled Jewess. He was then at work upon " Rob Roy," but was already revolving in his active mind the plot of " Ivanhoe," and was desirous of introducing a Jewish female character into the story. We can readily understand how Scott's imagination was fired by Irving's glowing description of his beautiful and gifted friend, and why it is that " Rebecca the Jewess" stands out for all time as one of the finest creations of that master-hand. Lockhart tells us that Scott received letters from some of the readers of " Ivanhoe" cen- LEGEND AND ROMANCE. 235 suring him for bestowing the hand of Rowena, rather than that of Rebecca, upon the brave knight of Ivanhoe, showing that there was in this character " that touch of nature that makes the whole world kin." Laidlaw, to whom a large portion of " Ivanhoe" was dictated, relates that he became so interested in the story of Rebecca that he exclaimed as he wrote, "That is fine, Mr. Scott! Get on! get on !" To which the author, well pleased, replied, " Ay, Willie ; but recollect I have to make the story. I shall make some- thing of my Rebecca." " Ivanhoe" was published in December, 1 8 19, and Sir Walter sent a copy to Irving and a letter accompanying it, in which he said, " How do you like your Rebecca? Does the Rebecca I have pictured compare with the pattern given ?" Miss Gratz knew the source of the char- acter of Rebecca, but, " shrinking as she did from any publicity, would seldom ac- knowledge the fact, and, when pressed upon the subject, would deftly evade it by a change of topic." Belonging to a family 236 COLONIAL DAYS AND DAMES. of influence and culture, she naturally met men of superior position and abilities. Among those who surrounded her it is said that there was one man who loved Rebecca Gratz, who was worthy of her, and who gained her affection. The difference in religious belief, however, proved an in- surmountable barrier to a union, this latter- day heroine being as loyal to the faith of her fathers as was Scott's Rebecca. Greatly admired by a large circle of friends in Philadelphia, at Saratoga Springs, where she spent her summers, and at her brother's home in Kentucky, where Henry Clay paid her marked attention. Miss Gratz seems to have put aside all thoughts of love and marriage, and to have dedicated her best energies to works of benevolence and philanthropy. There was, says her biographer, Gratz Van Rensselaer, scarce a charitable institution of the day in her native city that did not have the name of Rebecca Gratz inscribed upon its records as an active officer or as an adviser and benefactress, Gentiles as well as Jews being the recipients of her unfailing kindness LEGEND AND ROMANCE. 237 and sympathy. In view of this long life of devoted service for humanity of one who, in her youth, seemed fitted pre-emi- nently for a brilliant social career, we are reminded of the words of Rebecca in her final interview with Wilfred's bride : " Among our own people, since the time of Abraham downwards, have been women who have devoted their thoughts to Heaven and their actions to works of kind- ness to men, tending the sick, feeding the hungry, and relieving the distressed. Among these will Rebecca be numbered." It seems as if the novelist had not only portrayed the character of Rebecca Gratz in that of his favorite heroine, but had also forecast the future of her prototype in these words of " Rebecca the Jewess." INDEX. Adams, John, 165, 174, 185, 193- Adams, Mrs. John, 128, 144, 165. Adams, John Quincy, 14. Agnew, General James, 177, 178. Alden, John, 198. Alexander, Lady Kitty, 209, 210. Allen, Judge, 52. Allen, Priscilla, 74. Ambler, Jacqueline, 151. Ambler, Mary, 148. Ampthill, 81. Andri, Major John, 175, 176, 179. Andros, Governor Edmund, 55. Armstrong, General John, 171. Arnold, Benedict, 172. Arnold, Margaret Shippen, 172. Ash, Colonel James, 147, 148. Ash, John Morgan, 147, 148. B. Bacon, Mary Ann, 70. Baker, William S., 155. Bank Meeting-Hoase, 74. Barker, Penelope, 127. Bartram, John, 174. Bayard, Catharine, 212. Bayard, Susan, 212. Baylor, Mrs. George W., 167, 168. Beatty, Rev. Charles, 48, 49. Beck, Miss, 217. Becket, Hamilton, 140. Beekman, 169. Beekman, Margaret, 170. Bennett, Joseph, 54, 93. Berkeley, Governor William, 85. Biddle, 172. Biddle, Clement, 97. Biddle, Mrs. Clement, 97, 98. Bingham, Mrs. William, 172. Black, William, 18, 19, 97, 135, 173- Blackburn, Jonathan B., 90 Blair, 47. Blake, Dorothy, 84, iii. Blodget, Mrs. Samuel, 187. Bogart, Rev. Mr., 166. Bond, Williamina, i86. Boudinot, Annis, 113. (See Mrs. Richard Stockton.) Boudinot, Elias, 209. Boudinot, Elisha, 209. Bowne, Daniel, 200, 201. Bowne, Hannah, 200, 201. Braddock, General, 49. 239 240 INDEX. Bradford, 20. Bradstreet, Anne, 53, 63, loi- III. Bradstreet, Charles, 54. Bradstreet, Governor Simon, S3, 63, 107, 108. Brainerd, Noahdiah, 206, 207. Brandon, 81. Bray, John, 34. Bray, Margery, 34. Breck, Robert, 136. Breck, Mrs. Robert, 135, 136. Breck, Samuel, 136, 172, 188. Brent, Margaret, 80. Brent, Mary, 80. Brett, Mary, 74. Broglie, Prince de, 189. Buck Tavern, 214. Burr, Aaron, 166, 167, 168. Burras, Anne, 80. Burroughs, Thomas, 39, 40. Burwell, Colonel Nathaniel, 167, 168. Burwell, Rebecca, 151. Bushfield. 149. Bynner, Edwin L., 157. Byrd, Colonel William, 85, 86, 87, 88, 137. Byrd, Evelyn, iii. Byrd, Mrs. William, 88. Byrd, William, Jr., 85. Cadwalader, Frances, 186, 187 (Lady Erskine). Cadwalader, General John, 145, 185-187. Callender, James Henry, 186. Calvert, 21. Calvert, Governor Leonard, 80. Campbell, Douglas, 23. Campbell, Helen, 107, 109. Carpenter, Joshua, 190. Carpenter, Samuel, 46. Carrington, Mrs. Edward, 148. Carroll, Charles, 84. Carroll, Dr. Charles, 84. Carroll, Thomas, 208. Carter Hall, Virginia, 167. Carter, " King," 35. Cary, Archibald, 81. Cary, Mary, 162. Chalkley Hall, 32, 183, 184. Chalkley, Rebecca, 183 (Mrs. Abel James). Chalkley, Thomas, 32, 45, 183. Chamberlaine, 84. Chandler, Mrs., 15. Channing, in. Charles Edward, escape of, 226, 227. Cheeseman, Major, 8s. Chew, Benjamin, 175, 176. Chew, Peggy, 17s, 176. Chilton, Mary, 62. Chiswell, Mrs., 87. Christ Church, Alexandria, 154. Christ Church, Philadelphia, 29, 120, IS3, 221. Churches, Ancient, 29, 156. Clarke, Richard, 91. Clarkes, of New Jersey, 210. Clarkson, Anna Maria, 212. Clarkson, General Matthew, 210, 211. Clarkson, Mary R., 210-213. Clay, Henry, 236. Claypoole, James, 16. Clifford, Mrs. Thomas, 142. Clifford, Thomas, 142. INDEX. 241 Clinton, De Witt, 201. Clinton, George, 201. Cliveden, 175. Clymer, George, 192. Coale, Dr. Samuel, 145. Coates, 67. Cob Neck, 84. Coleman, Rebecca, 17, 19. Collins House, 35. Copley, Hon. Sophia C, 140. Copley, John Singleton, 90, 140, 141. Copley, Mrs. John S., 91, 141. Corwen [Curwen], 53. Cotton, Rev. John, loi. Crooked Billet Wharf, 67. Cruger, 20. Culpeper, 21. Custis, Nellie, 94, 153, 159. Dana, in. Darrach, Lydia, 127. Deane, Silas, 97, 145, 185. De Lancey, 20, 169. De Peyster, 20. Derby, Elias Hasket, 35. De Vries, Margaret, 77, 78. De Vries, Rudolphus, 77. Dexter, Timothy, 35. Dickinson, John, 192. Diggs, Robert, 116. Dillard, Richard, 127. D'Obleville, Lawrence, 54. Dowes, Madam, 39. Duchateau, Louis, 90. Duche, Rev. Jacob, 146. Dudley, Anne, 58, (See Anne Brads treet.) Dudley, Deborah, 206, 207. I L 5^ 21 Dudley, Governor Thomas, 15, 100, 107. Dudley, Joseph, 206. Duer, Colonel William, 209, 210. Duncan, Mrs. Margaret, 76. Dunton, John, 22, 88, 92, 133- 137- Durdin, Fanny, 148. Durdin, Richard, 189. E. Earle, Alice Morse, 75. Edenton Tea-Party, 127. Endicott, 20, 100. Endicott, Governor, 54. Erskine, David Montagu, 186. Erskine, Hon. Mary, 186. Esling, Charles H. A., 221, 222, 225- Esling, Mary Magdalen, 208. Esmonde, Frances, 189. (Dur- din ; Lewis.) Evans, Rev. Evan, 26. Evans, Rev. Nathaniel, 120- 124. Eve, Sarah, 96, 142, 147, 148. Fairfax, Anne, 159. Fairfax, Colonel George, 161. Fairfax, Hon. William, 159, 160. Fairfax, Lord, 160, 161. Fair Hill, 50, 183. Fay, Lewis, 90. Fergusson, Hugh, 117. Fergusson, Mrs., 113-124. Ferree, John, 75. Ferree, Madame Mary, 75, 76. Finley, Samuel, 47. 242 INDEX. Fisher, 51. Fisher, Joshua Francis, 119. Fisher, Miers, 97. Flower de Hundred, 81. Flower, Enoch, 46. Folger, Peter, 131. Forrest, Mistress, 80. Fouike, Dr., 45. Foulke House, 179. Francis, 21. Francis, Anne, in. Frankland, Sir Henry, 157. Franklin, Dr. Benjamin, 41, 44, 48, 49. 51, 86, 95, 114, 131, 153. 192. Franklin, Mrs. Benjamin, 50, 131-134- Franklin, Governor William, 134- Franklin, Josiah, 131. Franklin, Mrs. Josiah, 130-132. Franklin, Mrs. William, 134. Franklin, Sarah, 51, 95, 134, 212. Franklin, Walter, 200. Friends' Almshouses, 221-224. Friends' Meeting-Houses, 29- 74. Funerals in old New York, 170. G. Gage, General Thomas, 35. Gardner, Mistress, 53. Gates, General Horatio, 144. General Wayne Tavern, 214. Germanna, 85, 87. Gerrj", Elbridge, 192. Gibbons, Mr., 34. Gill, Anna, 82, 83. Gill, Benjamin, 82. Goldsborough, 84. Gookin, Governor, 26. Governor's House, 25. Graeme, Elizabeth, 119. (See Mrs. Fergusson.) Graeme Park, 119, 121. Graeme, Thomas, M.D., 116, 119, 121, 190. Gratz, Rebecca, 226, 231-237. Green, Mrs. Samuel, 136. Greene, Mrs. Gardiner, 91. Greens, The (Associators), 145. Greenway Court, 161. Griffitts, Hannah, 113. Grymes, Lucy, 161, 162. Grj-mes, Susanna, 167. Guest, Alice, 67. Guest, the Misses, 142. Gimston Hall, 81. H. Hamilton, Alexander, 165, 192, 209. Hamilton, Andrew, 18, 172. Hamilton, Andrew, 2d, 172. Hamor, Raphe, 80. Hanck, 209. Hancock, John, 128. Hancock, Mrs. John, 128. Hard, Elizabeth, 67, 69. Hard, William, 67, 69. Hardenbrook, Margaret, 77. (ist, De Vries ; 2d, Philipse.) Harrison, Phoebe, 198. (Mrs. Phineas Pemberton.) Harvard College founded, 14. Hayward, 84. Head, Esther, 70. Head, Hannah, 196. Head, John, 69, 71. INDEX. 243 Head, Martha, 70. Head, Mary, 70. Head, Rebecca, 69, 70. Henry, John, 137. Henry, Mrs. John, 137. (Sarah Syme.) Henry, Patrick, 137, 138. Hermitage, The, 81. Hetfields of New Jersey, 210. Higginson, Rev. Francis, 11, 103. Hills, The, 172. Hoffman, Matilda, 232. Hollyday, 84. Holmes, Dr. Oliver Wendell, III. Hooper House, 36. Hooper, Robert, 35. Hopkins, Johns, 70. Hopkinson, Francis, 139, 146, '93- Hopkinson, Joseph, 142. Hopkinson, Mary, 142. (See Mrs. John Morgan ) Hopkinson, Mrs. Thomas, 139, 141-143. Horsmanden, Mary, 85. Hoskins, Mary, 127. House of the Seven Gables, 220. Howard, General John E., 176. Howe, General Sir William, 187, 188. Hull, Captain Joseph, 75. Humphrey, John, 63. Humphrey, Susan, 63. Hunt, Leigh, 140. Hunt, Mrs. Isaac, 140. Hunter, Andrew, 116. Hutchinson, Anne, 99, 100, loi, 107. Hutton, 203. Independence Hall, 190-194. Irving, Washington, 163, 232- 235- Izard, 21. J- James, Abel, 32, 72. 183. James, Mrs. Abel, 183, 184. Jasper, Margaret, 23. Jay, Hon John, 210, 211, 2H. Jay, Peter Augustus, 210-213. Jefferson, Martha, 95. Jefferson, Peter, 130. Jefferson, Thomas, 94, 95, 151, 165, 174. Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 227, 228. Johnson, Governor, 117, 118. Johnson, Isaac, 63, 64. Johnson, Lady Arbella, 63, 102. Johnston, Governor of North Carolina, 127. Johnston, Isabella, 127. Jones, Owen, 50. Jumel House, 164, 165, 166. Jumel, Madame, 166, 167, 168. Jumel, Stephen, 166. Junto, 133. K. Keith, Anne, 116. Keith, Lady Anne, 116. Keith, Rev. George, 47. Keith, Sir William, 116-119. Kennedys of New Jersey, 210. King, Elizabeth, 127. 244 INDEX, King's Chapel, 158. Kip, Jacobus, 169. Kirkbride, Colonel, 143. Knight, Elizabeth, 40. Knight, Madam, 36, 37, 40. Knox, General Henry, 165. Knyphausen, General, 165. Kuhn, Dr., 172. Ladd, John, 30. Lafayette, Marquis de, 158. Lansdowne, 172. Lawrence, Thomas, 18. Lawton, Polly, 202. Laydon, John, 80. Ledyard, Benjamin, 212. Lee, General Charles, 112, 144. Lee, General Henry, 162. Leete, Governor, 22. Lennox, Major, 179. Le Roy, Cornelia, 212. Letitia Court, 24, 45. Lewis, Judge William, 189. Lewis, Lawrence, 159. Lincoln, Earl of, 63. Livingston, Alida, 171. Livingston, Chancellor, 170. Livingston, Colonel Henry B., 171. Livingston, Edward, 171. Livingston, Janet, 171. Livingston, Judge Robert R., 170, 171. Livingston, Lieutenant-Colonel John, 40. Livingston, Margaret Beek- man, 170. Livingston, Mrs. John, 40. Livingston, Philip, 169. Livingston, Sarah, 210. Lloyd, 20, 84. Lloyd, Elizabeth, of Wye House, 186. Lloyd, Governor Thomas, 47. Lodge, Henry Cabot, 27, 55. Log College, 47, 48. Logan, James, 26, 47, 174. Logan MSS., 138. Logan, Mrs. George, 113, 179. Longfellow, Henry W , 93, 221-225. Lott, of New Jersey, 210. Lynch, Dominick, 212. Lynde, Judge Benjamin, 58, 103 • Lynde, Lydia, 58. M. McCall, Archibald, 187. Macdonald, Allan, 227-230. Macdonald, Flora, 226-231. Macdonald, General Donald, 229. Mcllvaine, Mrs,, 52. McPherson, 172. Madison, James, 191, 192. Main Street, Germantown, 174, 177. Makin, Thomas, 47. Markoe, Captain Abraham, 146. Markoe, Peggy, 172, 173. Marshall, Chief-Justice John, 148. Martin, Governor, of North Carolina, 229. Masons of Virginia, 81. Masters, Polly, 188. Mather, Dr. Samuel, 41. INDEX. 245 Mather, Rev. Cotton, 63, 64, 65, 89, 154- Mather, Rev. Increase, 154. Meeting-place of the lovers in " Evangeline," 221-225. Meng, Melchior, 177. Mercer, Captain George, 155. Merry Mount, 54. Meschianza, 175. Mifflin, General Thomas, 143, 144. Mifflin, Mrs. Thomas, 143, 144. Mills, Dr. Charles K., 224. Milnor, 84. Montgomery, 20. Montgomery, General Richard, 171. Montgomery, Jemima, 186, 187. Moore, Bishop, 212. Morgan, Colonel George, 145. Morgan, Dr. John, 142-144. Morgan, Mrs. John, 142-147. Morris, Anthony, 75. Morris, Colonel Roger, 163-166. Morris, Deborah, 67. Morris, John Cox, 212. Morris, Robert, 71, 72, 188, 189. Morris, Mrs. Robert, 189. Morris, Sarah, 74. Morton, John, 72. Morton, Thomas, 54. MuUins, Priscilla, 62, 198. Munroe, 212. N. Neale, Archbishop, 84. Neale, Captain James, 82, 83, 84. Neale, Henrietta Maria, 83. Neale, Mrs. James (Anna Gill), 82-84. Newbold, Mrs. Thomas, 211. Nice, Mrs. Anthony, 128. Nicholson, Governor Francis, 151. Noailles, Marquis de, 202. Norris, Deborah, 179. (Mrs. George Logan.) Norris, Isaac, 25, 113, 172, 183. Norris, Mrs. Isaac, 25. O. O'Carroll, Ely, 84. Ogden, 210. Old North Church, 155, 158. Old South Church, 155, 196. Otis, James, iii. Otis, Mrs. Samuel AUeyne, 141. Owen, Robert, 73. Owen's Cave, 67. P. Page, Governor John, 151, 167. Page, Thomas Nelson, 95. Patroons, 169. Peabody House, 35. Peale, Charles Willson, 91. Pemberton, Mrs. Israel, 188. Pemberton, Mrs. James, 138. Pemberton, Mrs. Phineas, 198, 199. Pemberton, Philadelphia, 70. Pemberton, Phineas, 198, 199. Penington, 20. Penn, John, 172. Penn, Richard, 188. Penn, William, 16, 23, a6, 30, 76, 100, 117. Pennsbury, 24, 25. 246 INDEX. Pennypacker, Samuel W., 24. Pepperell, Lady, 204, 205. Pepperell, Sir William, 34, 203-20S. Pepperell, William, ist, 34, Perry, Michael, 136. Peters, Judge Richard, 172, 190. Peters, Mary Brientnal, 172. Peters, Rev. Richard, 18, 174. Peters, William, 52, 172. Philadelphia City Troop, 146, Philipse, Frederick, 77. Philipse Manor, 162. Philipse, Mary, 78, 162-164. Philipse, Mrs. Frederick, 77, 78. Phillips, Wendell, iii. Phoenix, Mrs. Daniel, 147. Physick, Philip Syng, M.D., 190. Pierson, Emeline G. , 210. Pitkin, Elizabeth, 148. Plowden, Sir Edward, 80. Powel, 52. Prentice, Widow, 37. Preston, Mrs., 30. Princeton College, foundation of, 48. Pringle, 21. Putnam, General Israel, 144. Pynchon, 20. Pynchon, Dr. Charles, 58. Quarry, Colonel Robert, 26. Randolph, Edmund, 193. Randolph, Jane, 130. Randolph, John, 81. Randolph, Mary, 81, iii. Randolph, Thomas Mann, Jr., 81. Ravenel, 21. Rebecca, heroine of "Ivan- hoe," 231-237. Redwood Library, 202. Reed, Deborah, 132. (Mrs. Benjamin Franklin.) Reed, George, 192. Richards, Madam, 53, Richardson, Joseph, 74. Ringgold, General Samuel, 186. Ringgold, Mrs. Samuel, 186. Rittenhouse, David, 174. Roanoke, 8t. Robin, Abb^, 156. Robinson House, Newport, 202. Robinson, Mrs. Beverly, 163. Robinson, Rev. William, 48. Robinson, William T., 202. Rodney, 20. Rogers, B. Woolsey, 212. Roosevelt, 169. Rosewell, 167. Royal, Elizabeth, 204, 205. Rush, Betsey, 147. Rush, Dr. Benjamin, 116, 119, 174- Rush, Madam, 166. Rutherfurd, Helen, 212. Rutledge, John, 192. Saltonstall, Rev. Gurden, 37. Saltonstall, Sir Robert, 63. Sandys, George, 11 1. Sandys, Sir Edwin, 80. Saxton, 137. Schuyler, 20, 169. Schuyler, Mrs. Philip, 127. INDEX. 247 Scott, Sir Walter, 233-237. Selden, Samuel, 206, 207. Sewall, Betty, 198. Sewall, Judge Samuel, 53, 73^ 89, 103. Sewall, Mrs. Samuel, 75. Sharswood, Hon. George, 71. Sherman, Roger, 192. Sherwood, Grace, 126. Shewell, Thomas, 139, 140. Shippen, Edward, ist, 24. Shirley, 81. Shirley, Governor William, 155, 157- Shirley, Mrs. William, 157. Shrimpton, Samuel, 22. Silk Stocking Company, 185. Skelton, Martha, 151.- Skipwith, 21. Smibert, John, 90. Smith, Thomas, 74. Snow family, of Massachusetts, 205. Southards of New Jersey, 210. Sparhawk, Nathaniel, 203. Sparhawk, William Pepperell, 205. Spotswood, Governor Alexan- der, 85-87. Spotswood, Lady, 85-87. St. Joseph's Church, 221, 225. St. Paul's Church, New York, 134, 154. St. Peter's Church, Philadel- phia, 146. Stenton, 174. Stewart, Mrs. William, 88, 92. Stockton, Hon. Richard, 114, "5- Stockton, Julia, 116. Stockton, Mary, 116. Stockton, Mrs. Richard, 113- 116, 209. Stoddert, Major Benjamin, 180, 181, 182. Stone, William L., 170. Story, Thomas, 16. Strettell, Robert, 173. Stuart, Gilbert, 91. Stuyvesant, Governor, 39. 168. Surriage, Agnes, 157, 158. Swanwick, John, 92. Swift, Miss, 92. Tautphoeus, Baroness, 186. Tennent, Rev. Wilham, 47. Tennent, William, 47. Thomas, Gabriel, 18, 28, 52, 74. Thomas, Grace, 74. Tilghman, 84. Tilghman, Judge, 190. Tilly, Mr., 180, 181, 182. Townsend, Richard, 16. Trinity Chiu-ch, New York, 154- Trumbull, John, 91. Turner, Robert, 16, 24. Tyler, 205. Valentine, Sarah, 127. Van Cortlandt, Stephen, 169. Van Home, 212. Van Rensselaer, 169. Van Rensselaer, Gratz, 236. Vaux, George, 70., Vernon, 177. Vernon, Admiral, 159. Vesey, William, 154. 248 INDEX. Vow Church, 76. W. Wakefield, 174. Ward, Mrs. Sophie Howard, 176. Ward, Nathaniel, 43, 57. Ward, Townsend, 187. Warren, James, iii. Warren, Mercy, in, 112, 113. Washington, Corbin, 149. Washington, Mrs. Corbin, 150. Washington, General, 78, 97, 98, 112, 144, 153-155, 158-164, 176, 191, 192. Washington, New York resi- dence of, 201. Washington, Philadelphia resi- dence of, 188. Washington, Lawrence, 159, 160. Washington, Martha, 94, 153, 189. Washington, Mary, 130, 131, x6o, 163. Washington, MiUy, 149. Watts, Robert, Jr., 21a. Welcome, the, 16. Wenchman, George, 212. Went worth, 20. Wentworth, Lady, 141. West, Benjamin, 91, 139-141. West, Mrs. Benjamin, 139-141. Westover, 81, 85, 86. Wetherill, 183. Wharton, Charles, 185. Wharton, Mrs., of Boston, 53. Wharton, Mrs. Thomas, 74. Wharton, Thomas, 74. White, Bishop William, 153. Whitefield, Rev. George, 93. Wigglesworth, Michael, 105. Wilderness, The, 149. Willing, 51. Willing, Thomas, 52. Wilson, James, 192. Wing, Ann, 196. Winslow, 20. Winslow, Anna Green, 196, 197. Winthrop, Governor John, 11, 65, 100. Winthrop, Governor of Con- necticut, 37. Winthrop, Henry, 102. Wistar, Dr. Casper, 174. Wister House, 177-179. Wister, John, 177. Wister, Sally, 179, 180. Wolcott, Roger, 22. Woodlands, 172, 174. Wright, Susanna, 113, Wyanoke, 8i, Wye House, 81. Wynne, Dr. Thomas, 17. Yonkers, derivation of name, 162. Z. Zenger case, 172. Zinzendorf, Count, 177, THE END. H 15 88 ^91 i o_ '>^l^^/ V ^j. r V ^0' ..-, ^/'\°^^^WS ^■^^^\ \^K'° /"^% ^"^^^ ^^"^^^^^ <>^'^^ O,. * « r « '' • Ox. b-/ ,^*"\ •^•" /\ ■•^•^ .^^\ ■-•.^" -^--0^ V **Tr;.^ .<,^ >^ o. ^.^ .0^ % '^-?^f.* ^K