I lllT-^flilK.^TIIIK^flllK.^IF

And Their Stories

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in
cooperation with Yale University Library, 2008. You
may not reproduce this digitized copy ofthe book for
any purpose other than for scholarship, research,
educational, or, in limited quantity, personal use. You
may not distribute or provide access to this digitized copy
(or modified or partial versions of it) for commercial purposes.

BY MARION HARLAND

Some Colonial Homesteads, and Their Stories.
With 86 illustrations. 8°, gilt top . . $3.00
More Colonial Homesteads, and Their Stories.
With 81 illustrations. 8°, gilt top $
¦Where Ghosts Walk. The Haunts of Fa
miliar Characters in History and Literature.
With 33 illustrations. 8°, gilt top $2.50
Literary Hearthstones. Studies of the Home
Life of Certain Writers and Thinkers. Fully illustrated,
1 6° . . $
The first issues will be :
Charlotte Bronte. | William Cowper.

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, New York and London

Doughoregan Manor
Home of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Maryland

MORE COLONIAL
HOMESTEADS # #
AND THEIR STORIES
Bv Marion Harland

c&*,

NEW YORK 7WD LONDON
0. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
1599

C0PVR1GHT, 1S99
BY
WARY VIRGINIA TERHUNE
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London

cut H?A

Ube Tknicfcerbocfcer (press, mew Borft

MRS. J. V. L. PRUYN
AND
MISS MARGARET P. HILLHOUSE
AS A SLIGHT TOKEN OF THE AUTHOR'S APPRECIATION
OF THE VALUABLE ASSISTANCE RECEIVED FROM THEM IN
THE COLLECTION OF MATERIAL FOR HER WORK, AND THE
GENEROUS SYMPATHY WHICH HAS CHEERED HER AT EACH
STAGE OF THE ARDUOUS UNDERTAKING,
THIS VOLUME IS
CORDIALLY AND GRATEFULLY
DEDICATED MARION HARLAND
October, 1899
SUNNYDANK Pompton, N. J.

CONTENTS

PAGE

I. — Johnson Hall, Johnstown, New York, i
II. — Johnson Hall, Johnstown, New York
(Concluded) ... 41
III. — La Chaumiere Du Prairie, near Lex
ington, Kentucky ... 65
IV. — Morven, the Stockton Homestead,
Princeton, New Jersey ... 98
V. — Morven, the Stockton Homestead,
Princeton, New Jersey (Concluded), 128
VI. — Scotia, the Glen-Sanders House,
Schenectady, New York . 155
VII. — Two Schuyler Homesteads, Albany,
New York ..... 187
VIII. — Doughoregan Manor : the Carroll
Homestead, Maryland . 224
IX. — Doughoregan Manor : the Carroll
Homestead, Maryland (Concluded), 252
X. — The Ridgely House, Dover, Delaware, 285
XI. — Other "Old Dover" Stories and
Houses . . . 3JS

VI

Contents

XII. — Belmont Hall, near Smyrna, Dela
ware, . . 346
XIII. — Langdon and Wentworth Houses in
Portsmouth, New Hampshire . 380
XIV. — Langdon and Wentworth Houses in
Portsmouth, New Hampshire (Con- 412
cluded) .

•tece

ILLUSTRATIONS
Doughoregan Manor, Home1 of Charles
Carroll of Carrollton, Maryland, Frontispi,
Johnson Hall. (Begun in 1743.) . . 15
Colonel Johnson 23
Old Tryon County Jail in Johnstown. (Built
in 1772.) . 33
Joseph Brant . . 43
From original painting at Van Cortlandt Manor-
House.
Central Hall of Johnson Hall . . 53
St. John's Church, Johnstown, N. Y. . . 61
David Meade at the Age of 8 70
From original painting by Thomas Hudson. Owned
by E. P. Williams, Esq., of New York.
Everard Meade, Aged 9 . . 72
Mrs. Sarah Waters Meade 81
From painting in possession of E. P. Williams, Esq.,
of New York.
Colonel David Meade at the Age of 85 . 91
From painting in possession of E. P. Williams, Esq.,
of New York.
Wing of Chaumiere Left Standing in 1850 . 94
Meade Coat of Arms • 96
Stockton Coat of Arms 100

viii Illustrations

PAGE

Anice Stockton . . . 107
From original painting in possession of Mrs. McGill.
The Line of Historic Catalpas . . 115
Richard Stockton ("The Signer") . . 121
Morven . . . 131
Commodore Robert Field Stockton . 141
Drawing-Room at Morven . . 149
Portrait of Bayard Stockton, Esq. . . 152
The Giant Horse-Chestnut Tree . 153
Glen-Sanders Coat of Arms . . 156
Tablet in Scotia Brought from England . 161
Scotia. (Built in 1713.) . . 167
Deborah Glen's Clock . . . 174
Old China in Scotia .... 182
Old Pianoforte, Antique Chair, Robert Ful
ton's Washstand and Toilet-Set . . 184
Louis Philippe's Bedroom in Scotia . . 185
Fort and Church at Albany, 1755 . . 188
Peter Schuyler ("Quidor") . . 193
From original painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller, in pos
session of the Schuyler family.
Schuyler Coat of Arms . . 196
"The Flatts " ... . 199
Drawing-Room at "The Flatts" . . . 211
Schuyler Mansion, 1760 . . . 217
Major-General Philip Schuyler . . 222
From a painting by Col. Trumbull.
Carroll Coat of Arms . . 225
Hall at Doughoregan Manor . 231
Drawing-Room at Doughoregan Manor . 247
Charles Carroll of Homewood . 259
From original painting by Rembrandt Peale.
Charles Carroll of Carrollton, 1737-1832 268

Illustrations ix

PAGE

Ex-Governor John Lee Carroll . . 276
Interior of Chapel of Doughoregan Manor 281
Ridgely Crest  288
Henry Moore Ridgely . . . 293
William Penn's Chair and Corner of Library
in Ridgely House . 296
Table Owned by Captain Jones, 1800, in Bed
room of Ridgely House . . 301
" The Green," in Dover . . 309
Elizabeth Ridgely (Daughter of Judge
Henry Moore Ridgely), Aged 19 317
Rear View of Ridgely House from Garden.
(Built, 1728.) . 323
Woodburn, Dover, Delaware . 329
Mary Vining . 335
From old Miniature.
Ridgely Family Silver . 341
Fac-Simile Signature of C^es\r Rodney . 345
Cook-Peterson Coat of Arms .... 348
Front View of Belmont Hall 351
Vista from Porch of Belmont Hall . 355
Drawing-Room in Belmont Hall 365
Staircase of Belmont Hall . 371
Mrs. Anne Denny. (Taken at the Age of ioi.
Born 1778, Died 1882.) 377
Parlour of Wentworth Mansion, in which
Governor Benning Wentworth was Mar
ried to Martha Hilton . . 383
Governor Benning Wentworth . 387
Langdon Coat of Arms . . 390
John Wentworth, Last Royal Governor of
New Hampshire . . . 395

Illustrations

Wentworth Hall, Little Harbour. (As it is
Now.)
Old Mantel in the Council Chamber of Went
worth Hall
Governor John Langdon
From a painting by Gilbert Stuart
The Governor Langdon Mansion
Sherburne Coat of Arms .
Woodbury Langdon, 1775.
From a painting by John Singleton Copley
Window to Edmund and Catherine Langdon
Roberts in St. John's Church
Mrs. Woodbury Langdon
From a painting by John Singleton Copley.

3994°3
423 427429

433437

MORE COLONIAL HOMESTEADS

-A Jb-

«vme^&
^K'
As$i§.
'X
i8 §3
ssJ'o
T/%
§
trar^^\
life
^§ir
More Colonial Homesteads
and Their Stories
JOHNSON HALL, JOHNSTOWN, NEW YORK
SOME one of the many delvers in the strata
of colonial history may beguile the ted
ium of statistical labours by computing what
proportion of well-born pioneers were driven
across the sea by unfortunate love affairs.
The result would show that a Cupid-in-tears,
or a spray of Love-lies-bleeding, might be in
corporated with the arms of several of our
proudest commonwealths.
In the year of our Lord 1 738, William John
son, eldest son of Christopher Johnson, Esq.,
of Warrenton, County Down, Ireland, settled
in the Mohawk Valley. His was an excel-
2 More Colonial Homesteads
lent and ancient family. Sir Peter Warren,
well known to readers of English naval history,
was his maternal uncle. Another uncle, Ol
iver Warren, was a captain in the Royal Navy
in the rei^n of Oueen Anne and George I.
Sir Peter Warren owned an extensive tract
of land on both sides of the Mohawk River
and a handsome residence in New York City.
In the latter he lived for a dozen years or
more after his marriage with a daughter of
James De Lancey, at one time Lieutenant-
Governor of New York, and prominent in the
annals of the troublous times immediately pre
ceding the American Revolution.
The dwelling built and occupied by Sir
Peter, known in our day as No. i Broadway,
and used for long as the Washington Hotel,
was made an object of interest to succeeding
generations by the circumstance that General
Sir William Howe and Sir Henry Clinton
used it as headquarters during the earlier
years of the war. Here were held the confer
ences between Sir Henry and his young aide,
Major Andre, in which were arranged the
details of Andre's mission to Arnold. Under
the venerable roof he passed the last peaceful
night he was to know on earth, setting out on

Johnson Hall 3
the morrow for his fatal expedition up the
river. Sir Peter Warren's nephew, William John
son, although but twenty-three years of age
upon his arrival in the New World, had been
desperately in love with a fair one in his na
tive land, suffering such grievous torments
from the cruelty of his enslaver that he for
swore her, his home, and his country, and
fled into permanent exile. The distemper had
abated somewhat, or was a thing apart from
the workings of an uncommonly cool and sa
gacious brain, by the time he closed with his
uncle's offer to become his agent in the man
agement of his Mohawk estate. He landed
in New York in the spring of 1738. In the
autumn he was in the full tide of farm-work,
timbering, and country-storekeeping. An ad
vance of ,£200 per annum was to be made by
the wealthy Baronet to his young partner for
the first three years, and paid off afterward
in installments. Money, and whatever was
needed to keep up the stock in the " store," were
sent up the Hudson and Mohawk from New
York. This city was the quarter-deck from
which Sir Peter issued his commands to his
able first mate.

4 More Colonial Homesteads
In 1742, there was much talk between the
two of skins purchased and shipped down the
river, and Sir Peter reiterates an admonition
that the orchard be not neglected, and that
" fruit-trees of the best kinds " be set out re
gardless of expense. His far-reaching policy
included the blossoming of the wilderness and
a just return to it, although not in kind, of
the wealth the kinsmen were drawing from it.
Young Johnson, at this date, "roughed it" as
if he had been a peasant immigrant, with no
rich uncle within call. He took his grain to
mill on horseback, riding upon the sacks fif
teen miles to Caughnawaga, on the opposite
side of the river, bringing back bags of corn-
meal and flour for store, camp, and farm
hands. In these expeditions he had cast his
eye upon an eligible site for a saw-mill, also
across the river, and bought it on his own re
sponsibility and with his own money. He had
no intention of building a dwelling-house upon
it, — or so he assured his chief, who, apparently,
had heard a rumour to that effect. Yet we find
Johnson, in 1743, clearing ground in the neigh
bourhood of the saw-mill for a spacious house,
and hauling to the eligible site so many loads
of stone, timber, and pearlash as to whet the

Johnson Hall 5
curiosity of his white neighbours into the live
liest wonder and admiration.
He had done well for himself in the five
years which had elapsed since he turned his
back upon his disdainful Dulcinea and the
green shores of Erin. Sir Peter Warren's
estate was in the very heart of the Iroquois and
Mohawk tribes, then, and for many years
thereafter, the friends in peace, and the allies
in war, of the English. What Captain John
Smith had hoped to do and to become in Vir
ginia, — failing by reason of the envy of his col
leagues, the distrust of the London Company,
under whose orders he was, and, finally, through
the accident that crippled and sent him back
to England, — William Johnson did and be
came in the more northern province. Irish
wit, the light heart, quickness, and facility of
adaptation to environment and associates char
acteristic of his countrymen of the better sort,
were equipments he brought into the wilder
ness with him. He joined to these an un
bending will, resolute ambition, and personal
bravery that would have made him a leader of
men anywhere. There were more Dutch than
English settlers in the valley. In a year's
time he learned enough of their speech to

6 More Colonial Homesteads
bandy jokes with them over mugs of strong
ale and tobacco-pipes, and to outwit them in
trading. Within two years he could act as inter
preter for Dutch boers and English landhold
ers with the Indians, and in these negotiations
held the balance of justice with so firm a hand
that the most wary sachems were imbued with
belief in his integrity. Here was one pale
face who would neither cheat them himself,
nor allow others to cheat them. He improved
the advantage thus gained so cleverly that be
fore the first rows of foundation-stones were
laid for Johnson Hall in 1744, the owner and
builder had more influence with the tribes than
any other white man within an area of five
hundred miles. In the winter's hunting-parties
for moose and wolves ; in trapping for otter
and beaver ; about the council fires ; in the
wild orgies and barbaric feasts followed by
shooting-matches, races, and dances, in which
picked young men of the tribes were compet
itors, — Johnson was not a whit behind the
most notable of hunters and warriors. He
was with, and of, them. He might outbar
gain Dutch, Germans, and English. With
the Indians he was upright and generous to a
proverb, liked and trusted by all. His was no

Johnson Hall 7
ephemeral popularity. Thirty years after
ward, the eulogium spoken by a Mohawk sa
chem above the wampum -bound grave of
the friend of his race — the adopted brother of
his tribe — condensed the experience of all
these years into one mournful sentence :
" Sir William Johnson never deceived us."
As the immediate fruit of his policy, or prin
ciples, his was the first choice of the pelts
brought into the European settlement by the
Indians. Had he wished to purchase all, he
could have secured a monopoly of whatever
was available to the white traders. He vir
tually controlled the fish market of the regions
skirting the river, and had his pick of such
redskins as could be induced to work in the
fields in summer, and at logging in winter.
While he lived in a log-cabin, larger, but
hardly more comfortable than a wigwam, any
Iroquois or Mohawk was welcome to a bounti
ful share of venison, or bear-meat, hominy, and
whiskey. The host ate with him and they
smoked together afterward, over the coals or
out-of-doors, discussing tribal politics, or the
growing encroachments of the guest's hered
itary enemies, the Cherokees and Choctaws,
upon the Iroquois hunting-grounds to the

8 More Colonial Homesteads
south of the Valley. When they were sleepy,
both men rolled themselves up in their blank
ets on the floor, or stretched themselves
upon pallets of fox- and bearskin. Disputes
among- the aborigines were referred to the
wise and friendly white man, and no enterprise
of note was undertaken without consultation
with him.
When growing wealth and a growing family
led him to build, besides Johnson Hall, a less
ambitious dwelling, called Johnson Castle,
some miles farther up the river, the savage
horde was still free to come and go as will, or
convenience, impelled them. Parkman says
that Johnson Hall was " surrounded by cabins
built for the reception of the Indians, who often
came in crowds to visit the proprietor, invading
his dwelling at all unseasonable hours, loiter
ing in the doorways, spreading their blankets
in the passages, and infecting the air with the
fumes of stale tobacco."
What manner of housewife and woman was
she who could submit with any show of patience
to the lawless intrusion of uncouth savages,
and the attendant nuisances of vermin, filth,
and evil odours ?
" Begging for a drink of raw rum, and giving

Johnson Hall 9
forth a strong smell, like that of a tame bear,
as he toasted himself by the fire," — thus one
writer describes a specimen visitor.
To be consistent with his adoption of Indian
manners and usages, and to cement his authority
with his allies, the astute trader-planter should
have wedded some savage maiden and filled his
lodge with a dusky race. At a later day the
policy commended by France's king, urged by
him upon France's colonists in America, and
approved by them in theory and practice,
seemed right and cunning in William Johnson's
sight, as we shall see.
In religion, as in morals, he was catholic
and eclectic, and a law unto himself. The
fascinated student of his biography cannot
resist the conviction that, within the stalwart
body of this educated backwoodsman, lived
two natures as diverse and distinct, the one
from the other, as the fabled Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde. There were Dutch and German Re
formed churches up and down the river — one
of which, " Stone Arabia," retains name and
place unto this day. Each had its attend
ance of devout communicants, men and women
who lived godly and virtuous married lives in
lonely cabins and sparse settlements in the

io More Colonial Homesteads
clearings they had made in the primeval forest.
William Johnson was on neighbourly terms
with them all, doing many a kind and liberal
turn for them, as occasion offered ; subscribing
money to build houses of worship, giving
voluntarily fifty acres for a glebe farm upon
condition that a parsonage should be built for
the Lutheran minister, and, the next week,
making a like gift to the Calvinistic congrega
tion with a similar proviso. While calling him
self an Episcopalian, he entertained British
priests travelling from log-house to camp, in
ministry upon the few sheep in the wilderness
that owned allegiance to the Parent Church.
He enjoyed conversation with the reverend
fathers ; he fed them with the fat of lambs and of
beeves, cheered them with his best liquors,
and pressed them, with friendly violence, to
tarry for days and nights in an abode that
reeked with the fumes of raw rum, stale tobacco,
and the exhalations of unwashed savages.
While he had not had the university training
most young men of his birth and class enjoyed
in Great Britain, his education was far more
thorough than is generally supposed by those
familiar with his manner of living, and the
outlines of his career. He received and read

Johnson Hall n
letters written in French and Latin, and made
descriptive endorsements of the contents upon
them in the same languages.
When he cast an eye of favour upon a buxom
German lass, Catherine Wissenberg by name,
the daughter of a fellow immigrant, he made his
courtship brief. Whether his comely presence,
his reputed wealth, and his nimble wits and
tongue won the damsel's consent, or whether,
as was hinted, the negotiation was purely com
mercial, and her father profited by the result,
we do not know. It is certain that Catherine
Wissenberg became the mistress of the stately
new mansion on the river-slope and sharer of
the master's fortunes.
Parkman, in his delightful history of The
Conspiracy of Pontiac, says that she was a
Dutch girl whom, in justice to his children,
Johnson married upon her death-bed. Stone's
carefully prepared Life and Times of Sir Wil
liam Johnson strips the alliance of the pictur
esque element by asserting that the marriage
was in good and regular form and date, and
thus recorded in the Johnson Bible. The in
troduction of this same family Bible lends
verity to the latter story, and a smack of de
mure respectability to this important episode

12 More Colonial Homesteads
of the singular life that entitles it to a place on
the Dr. Jekyll side of the page.
In birth and social position Mrs. Johnson was
her husband's inferior, and, it goes without
saying, in education also. She was gentle of
temper, had plenty of good common sense, and
was sincerely attached to her handsome spouse.
Three children were the fruit of the marriage :
John (afterward Sir John), Mary, who, in due
time, married Guy Johnson, her cousin and the
son of another pioneer, and Ann, or Nancy,
who became the wife of Colonel Daniel Claus
— a name that declares his Dutch extraction.
Mrs. Johnson did not live long to enjoy the
dignities of the first lady in the Valley. She
died early in the year 1745. In his will, made
almost a quarter-century after the beginning of
his widowerhood, Johnson refers to her as his
" beloved wife Catherine," and directs that his
remains shall be laid beside hers. In view of
the relations which succeeded marital respect
ability, we are inclined to consider this section
of his testament as a Jekyllish figure of speech,
although the tribute to the amiable and dutiful
matron may have been sincere.
The threatening aspect of the times in which
he lived would have distracted his thouo-hts

Johnson Hall 13
from honest and deep mourning. The political
heavens were black with portents of storm. To
quote Parkman :
"With few and slight exceptions, the numerous tribes
of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi, besides a host of
domiciliated savages in Canada itself, stood ready, at
the bidding of the French, to grind their tomahawks and
turn loose their ravenous war-parties ; while the British
colonists had too much reason to fear that now those
tribes which seemed most friendly to their cause, and
which formed the sole barrier of their unprotected bord
ers, might, at the first sound of the war-whoop, be found
in arms against them."
Even the Mohawks and Iroquois living on the
confines of Canada were gradually won over
by the wily French, assisted by the powerful
influence of the priesthood.
Johnson, up to this time, had taken little
active part in the administration of public
affairs. He was too busy shipping furs to
London, and flour to Halifax and the West
Indies, farming and clearing and lumbering,
embellishing the extensive grounds of Johnson
Hall with English shrubbery, setting, in the
broad front of the mansion, the costly windows
with "diapered panes," made in, and imported
from, France expressly for him, and other
wise forwarding the interests of a fast-rising

14 More Colonial Homesteads
man in a new country, — to mix himself up with
matters which he thought would right them
selves without his interference. He would
seem to have had his first definite indication
that he might have a serious and imminent in-
terest in the popular tumults, in the autumn
after Mrs. Johnson's decease. An intimate
friend, a resident of Albany, wrote to him
from that place, entreating that he would not
think of passing the winter at Johnson Hall,
or, as it was otherwise called, " Fort Johnson."
" The French have told our Indians that
they will have you, dead or alive, because you
are a relation of Captain Warren, their great
adversary," was the reason given for the
friendly warning.
The writer went on to represent that there
was room in his own home for his menaced
friend, and as many of his servants as he cared
to bring. As no mention is made of the
motherless children, the presumption is that
they were already in Albany, or some other
safer asylum than their father's house. John
son declined the urgent invitation and fortified
the Hall with what our historian styles the
barriers of the English frontier. He knew his
Indians, and they believed in him. Through-

I s

Johnson Hall 17
out the winter they lurked and loitered about,
and in, the house on the hill, apparently as
lazy and dull as hibernating bears — in reality
alert in every sense for the protection of their
patron. In the spring his scouts corroborated the
news from Albany that the French at Crown
Point meditated an attack upon the nearest
English settlements. He had his material
ready when the request came from army head
quarters that "a few Mohawks whom he knew
to be trusty " might be sent to reconnoitre the
Valley. Sixteen picked men were despatched
upon this errand. Their report of the extent
of hostile preparations aroused Johnson to the
consciousness that his living "barrier" might
be insufficient to protect his property from
destruction, however well they might play the
watch-dog for his person. He wrote to Al
bany, asking that a small force of regular
soldiery be sent to Johnson Hall. Among
other valuables that might tempt the enemy,
he specified eleven thousand bushels of wheat
ready for the mill. The white settlers all
about him were fleeing for their lives into
forts and fortified towns. A troop of thirty
" regulars " was placed at his disposal, and,

1 8 More Colonial Homesteads
reinforced by a considerable body of militia,
composed the garrison of Johnson Hall, biv
ouacking in lawn and gardens, and feasting
at the master's expense.
Partly to show his unabated confidence in
the loyalty of his Indian allies, somewhat in
commoded now by the influx of white warriors,
partly to strengthen and establish his influence
with them, he offered himself for adoption into
the Mohawk tribe. A great council of sachems
and braves was convened, and with formalities
many, speeches innumerable, and a confusing
passing back and forth of wampum belts as
tangible punctuation points and italic dashes,
he was made a Mohawk, inside and out, and
proclaimed a chieftain, with all the rights, pow
ers, and immunities pertaining to the rank.
" In this capacity," says Stone, " he assembled
them at festivals and appointed frequent war-
dances, by way of exciting them to engage
actively in the war." He wore blanket, moc
casins, and feathered head-gear, — a garb that
became him rarely, — spoke their dialect, and
deported himself in all things as if born to the
honours conferred upon him by his " brothers."
Many of the chiefs were persuaded by him to
accept the Governor's invitation to visit him at

Johnson Hall 19
Albany for consideration of the best means of
ensuring the safety of the colony. The younger
braves were wrought upon by argument and
flattery to pledge themselves to support the
English cause in the event of active hostilities
between the English and French. All but
three of the Mohawk and Iroquois sachems
were, by these means, committed to the side
represented to them by their newly made chief.
In 1746, Johnson was made contractor for
the trading-post of Oswego, trammelled in pur
chase and sale only by the stipulation that " no
higher charges be made in time of war than it
had been usual to pay in time of peace."
He had, that same year, a welcome visitor
in the person of his brother, Captain Warren
Johnson, of the Royal Army. He brought
from Governor Clinton a letter addressed to
" Colonel William Johnson," enjoining him
to " keep up the Indians to their promises of
keeping out scouts to watch the motions of
the French," and concluding with the pleas
ant intimation, " I have recommended you to
his Majesty's favour through the Duke of
Newcastle." Neither the Governor's favour nor the pro
mise of royal patronage put money into the new

20 More Colonial Homesteads
Colonel's purse. He told the Governor plainly,
in 1747, that he was "like to be ruined for
want of blankets, linen, paints, guns, cutlasses,
etc.," which were not to be had in Albany, — all,
as will be seen, commodities for his copper-
coloured allies. The date of the letter is
March 18th, and a touch of Irish humour
flashes out in the closing paragraph :
" We kept St. Patrick's Day yesterday, and
this day, and drank your health, and that of
all friends in Albany, with so many other
healths that I can scarce write."
In May he renders a curious and blood-curd
ling report of prisoners and scalps, brought
to Johnson Hall by a party under command
of Walter Butler, a name destined to become
notorious in Revolutionary annals. Butler
was a mere youth at this date, and, as we can
but see, taking a novitiate in methods of war
fare which stamped the family with infamy
when the loyal subject of King George be
came, with no change of principle or practice,
the bloodthirsty Tory. He had been skirmish
ing in the vicinity of Crown Point, at the head
of a mixed band of whites and Indians, and
brought back his prizes to the Colonel and
chief.

Johnson Hall 21
" I am quite pestered every day," writes
Johnson to Clinton, "with parties returning
with prisoners and scalps, and without a penny
to buy them with, it comes very hard upon me,
and displeasing to them."
One speculates, in standing in the central
hall of the ancient house, in what array the
scalps were hung against the walls, and if
the master carried his conformity to Indian
customs to the length of wearing a fringe of
them at his girdle. " Pestered " is a darkly
significant word in this connection and one
which Mr. Hyde would have snarled out in
like circumstances. The rest of the letter is
in the same vein. There is a requisition for
" blue camlet, red shalloon, good lace, and
white metal buttons, to make up a parcel of
coats for Seneca chiefs." Also " thirty good
castor hats, with scallop lace for them all, —
white lace, if to be had, if not, some yellow
with it. This, I assure your Excellency, goes
a great way with them."
As he is finishing the letter, "another party
of mine, consisting of only six Mohawks," rend
ers a tale of seven prisoners and three scalps,
— "which is very good for so small a party."
The cool complacency of the comment, and

22 More Colonial Homesteads
the calm and certain conviction that his news
will not displease his Excellency , belong to
that day and generation. Let us thank God
they are not ours !
His house was "full of the Five Nations"
as he penned this despatch to his superior.
" Some are going out to-morrow against the
French. Others go for news which, when
furnished, I shall let your Excellency know."
The tenor of each communication shows
that his fighting-blood was in full flow, and
that his ways and means were dictated by the
aroused savage within him. Clinton had given
him his head in a letter written in April.
" The council did not think it proper to put
rewards for scalping or taking poor women or
children prisoners, in the bill I am going to
pass," is a crafty phrase of the official docu
ment. " But the Assembly has assured me
the money shall be paid when it so happens,
if the Indians insist upon it."
In his turn, Governor Clinton assured his
complaisant Assembly that,
" whereas it had formerly been difficult to obtain a
dozen or twenty scouts, Col. Johnson engaged to bring
a thousand warriors into the field upon any reason
able notice. Through his influence the chiefs have been

Johnson Hall

weaned from their intimacy with the French, and many-
distant Indian nations are now courting the friendship of
the English."
In the month of February, 1748, Colonel
Johnson was put in command of the Colonial
forces under
arms for the
defence of the
English fron
tiers. At one ofthe
regimental mil
itia musters, —
called by our
forefathers "trainingdays,"
— reviewed by
the Colonel in
command, h i s
attention and
that of the officers grouped with him wan
dered from the business of the day to a
" side-show," as diverting as it was unex
pected. Hundreds of spectators stood on the
outskirts of the training-ground, a large pro
portion being women and children. Conspicu
ous among the squaws in the inner circle was

COLONEL JOHNSON.

24 More Colonial Homesteads
Mary, otherwise Molly, Brant, a young half-
breed, the dashing belle of her dark-skinned
coterie, and known by sight to most of the
white officers. Her step-father, in whose
family she was brought up, figures in Colonel
Johnson's letters as " Nickus Brant," " Old
Brant," and " Brant of Canajoharie." John
son's home, when in Canajoharie, was " at
Brant's house," and the more than amicable
relations between the two men were manifested
in many ways. In 1758, Johnson records, in
his Diary, the presentation by himself of a
string of wampum to Brant and Paulus, two
important sachems of the Mohawks.
Nobody assumed that Old Nickus was the
father of Molly and her brother Joseph. They
took, for common use, the name of their
mother's husband, Barnet, or Bernard, cor
rupted by common usage to Brant. The
mother was a Mohawk squaw. Her girl and boy
were half-breeds. When J oseph became a war
rier of renown under the title of Thayendane
gea (" Two-sticks-of-wood-bound-together," — a
symbol of strength), an effort was made by
his tribe to prove him a full-blooded Indian,
and his father to have been a sachem of the
Mohawks. It is but fair to state that Joseph

Johnson Hall 25
Brant, while signing both Indian and English
names to letters and treaties, does not seem to
have attempted to support this claim. If his
mother confided to him the secret of his parent
age, he kept it for her, and for himself. Jared
Sparks — than whom we have no better author
ity upon Revolutionary history — believed the
younger of the half-breed children, Joseph, to
have been William Johnson's son. Other annal
ists of less note held the same opinion. The
hypothesis draws colour and plausibility from
Johnson's marked partiality for the lad. Al
though but thirteen years old when the battle
of Lake George was fought (1 755 ), he followed
Colonel Johnson to the field, and had there his
"baptism of fire," — in ruder English, his first
taste of blood. He was educated at Johnson's
expense in Moor Charity School, afterward
Dartmouth College. A fellow student was his
young nephew, William Johnson, the son of
Colonel Johnson and Molly Brant. Brant's
after-life belongs to a later period of our
story. Return we to the handsome Indian girl,
laughing in the front rank of the spectators of
the parade, brave in bright blanket and flutter
ing ribbons, and shooting smart sallies from a

26 More Colonial Homesteads
ready tongue at such soldiers as accosted her
in passing. A mounted officer presently rode
up closer to the lookers-on than any private
had dared to venture, and leaned from his
saddle-bow to speak to her. His horse was a
fine, spirited animal, and Molly praised him
rapturously, finally begging permission to ride
him. As gaily the officer bade her mount
behind him. With one agile spring, the girl
was upon the crupper, and clasped the rider's
waist. The mettled horse reared, then dashed
off at full speed. Round and round the parade-
ground they flew, the astonished officer able
to do nothing except keep the saddle and guide
the frantic beast into the line of the impro
vised race-course. The blanket had dropped
from Molly's shoulders as she leaped from
the ground ; her black hair streamed upon the
wind ; her shining eyes, white teeth, and
crimson cheeks transformed the swarthy belle
into a beauty. Screams of laughter, encourag
ing huzzas, and clapping of hands followed her
flight. When the discomfited victim of the
mad escapade at last regained control of his
horse and Molly slipped from her perch as
lightly as she had mounted, the first person to
salute and congratulate her upon her grace and

Johnson Hall 27
dexterity was the Colonel of the regiment, the
great man of the Valley, and, as he made her
and the lookers-on to understand, hencefor
ward her most obedient servant.
No time was lost in preliminaries. Molly
Brant became, without benefit of clergy or re
gard to the prejudices of society, the " tribal
wife " of the adopted Mohawk, and retained
the position until Johnson's death. Mrs.
Grant, in her interesting work, An American
Lady, launders the liaison into conventional
decency and polish :
" Becoming a widower in the prime of life,
he [Johnson] connected himself with an In
dian maiden, daughter of a sachem, who pos
sessed an uncommonly agreeable person and
good understanding."
Molly and her tribe undoubtedly considered
the connection as valid as if law had sealed
and gospel blessed it. It served to rivet the
already strong bonds by which Johnson held
them to his and to the English interests.
While he lived, no word or deed of his tended
to cast disrespect upon the woman who reigned
over his mighty establishment of negro and
Indian servants, German and Dutch tenants.
After he became a Baronet-General, living

28 More Colonial Homesteads
in a style befitting his rank and wealth, Molly
held her own without apparent effort.
" Nothing could have better shown how powerful Sir
William had become," says Harold Frederic,' " and how
much his favour was to be courted, than the fact that
ladies of quality and strict propriety, who fancied them
selves very fine folk indeed, — the De Lanceys and Phil-
lipses and the like, — would come visiting the widower
baro et in his Hall, and close their eyes to the presence
there of Miss Molly and her half-breed children. Sir
William's neighbours, indeed, overlooked this from their
love of the man, and their reliance in his sense and
strength. But the others — the aristocrats — held their
tongues from fear of his wrath, and of his influence in
London. " He would suffer none of them to markedly avoid or
affront the Brant squaw, whom, indeed, they had often
to meet as an associate and an equal."
Staid British matrons from over the sea,
copper-sheathed in the proprieties of wedded
virtue, accepted the hospitalities of Johnson
Hall upon like terms. Lady Susan O'Brian,
daughter of the Earl of Ilchester, with her
husband, was entertained for several days by
Sir William in 1765. The titled dame pro
nounced " his housekeeper, a well-bred and
pleasant lady," perfectly aware, all the while,
what were her relations to the courtly host,
1 /" the Valley, by Harold Frederic.

Johnson Hall 29
and whose were the children who called him
" father," and had, apparently, equal rights
with the acknowledged heir, John Johnson,
and his sisters. Lord Adam Gordon, a Scotch
peer, was domesticated at the Hall for a much
longer time than the O' Brians, and when he
sailed for England took John with him, " to try
to wear off the rusticity of a country educa
tion," as the lad's father phrased it.
With all his outward show of affection for
his black-browed mistress, and the tribute of
deference he exacted for her from high and
low, the other self of this dual-natured poten
tate set her decidedly aloof, in his thoughts and
in legal documents, from the station a lawful
wife would have taken and kept. The will,
ordaining that he should be buried by his " be
loved wife Catherine," provides for mourning
and maintenance for " my housekeeper, Mary
Brant," and scores a broad line of demarcation
between " my dearly beloved son, Sir John
Johnson," and " Peter, my natural son by
Mary Brant." Also, between his daughters,
Ann Claus and Mary Johnson, and the child
ren of "said housekeeper, Mary Brant."
There was never any blending or confusion of
boundary lines between the two personalities

30 More Colonial Homesteads
in the single body. European and Mohawk,
aristocrat and savage, — each was sharply drawn
and definite. Neither infringed upon the
other's rights, and the unities of the queer
double-action life-drama were never violated.
In the outer world the signs of the times
were ominous enough. That the Iroquois re
mained proof against the blandishments of the
wily French, backed by the threats of the In
dian allies of France, throughout the disturb
ances of i 747-49, was due entirely to Johnson's
influence. " Anyone other than he would
have failed," testifies a contemporary.
" On one day he is found ordering from London lead
for the roof of his house ; despatching a load of goods
to Oswego ; bartering with the Indians for furs, and
writing to Governor Clinton at length on the encroach
ments ofthe French, doing everything with neatness and
despatch. At the same time he superintended the mil
itia, attended to the affairs of the Six Nations, and, as
Ranger of the woods for Albany County, kept a diligent
watch upon those who were disposed to cut down and
carry off by stealth the King's timber."
Envy at his success, joined to animosity
against Clinton, moved the Assembly at Al
bany to neglect the payment of the Colony's
debt to Johnson. They even accused him of
making out fraudulent bills, and refused to

Johnson Hall 31
meet his demand for the return of ^200 ad
vanced from his private fortune for defence
of frontiers and treaties with the Indians.
Stung to the quick of a haughty nature, he
resigned his position as Superintendent of In
dian Affairs, at the same time sending word to
the tribes that his interest in all that concerned
them, would remain unabated. His resolution
to have nothing more to do with public busi
ness was opposed strenuously by the Indians.
" One half of Colonel Johnson belongs to
your Excellency, the other half to us," was
the wording of a petition sent by a council of
braves to the Governor. " We all lived hap
pily while we were under his management.
We love him. He is, and has always been,
our good and trusty friend."
After the victory of Lake George, Colonel
Johnson was created a Baronet and received a
vote of thanks from Parliament, with a gift
of ,£5000. Johnstown was founded by him
in 1760. He was the active patron of an
Indian Mission School at Stockbridge, also
of one established in Albany in 1753, and was
the father of that at Lebanon which grew into
Dartmouth College. He built an Episcopal
church at Schenectady, a Masonic lodge at

32 More Colonial Homesteads
Johnson Hall, and, the war being over, had
leisure to superintend the erection of two
stately stone houses for his daughters, his gifts
to them, together with 640 acres of ground
apiece. As years gathered upon him, his desire in
creased to educate and Christianise the race to
which " one half of him " belonged by adoption.
Upon this and other benevolent schemes he
wrought as one who felt that the time for labour
was brief. He had cause for the premonition.
An old wound, received at Lake George,
troubled him sorely. By the advice of his
redskin friends, he visited Saratoga, to test
the curative properties of waters until then un
known to the whites. When his son John,
who had been knighted (for his father's sake)
in England, brought a New York bride home
to the Hall, she was received by her august
father-in-law with all the state and cordiality
due to her position as the wife of his heir and
the prospective queen of the fair domain. For
some days the Baronet played again, and for
the last time, the courtly lord of the manor to
the throng of guests from other mansions, for
fifty miles up and down the Mohawk and the
Hudson, invited to welcome the bridal pair.

o
>-trh-

Johnson Hall 35
Satin-shod feet skimmed the oaken floors ; the
thick walls echoed all day long and far into
the night with the clamour of merry voices ;
there were feasting and dancing and song,
and much exchange of curtsies and bows and
fine speeches, and as little apparent concern
on account of the impending quarrel between
the mother country and colonies as apprehen
sion as to the cause of the ashy pallor which
had supplanted bronze and glow in the mas
ter's face.
Attended by a faithful body-servant, he set
off for New London at the end of a week, in
the hope of invigoration from the sea-air and
sea-bathing, leaving the young couple in charge
of the Hall during his absence.
Gradually one active duty after another was
demitted, Sir William spending much time in
his library, reading books he had, at last, leis
ure to study, and writing at length to the Gov
ernor of Virginia of Indian manners, customs,
traditions, and history.
True to his pledges to his tribe, he emerged
from his semi-seclusion in July, 1774, to pre
side over a congress of six hundred Indians as
sembled to confer with him upon divers and
vital affairs, big with fate in the eyes of the Six

36 More Colonial Homesteads
Nations. The gathering was in the grounds
of Johnson Hall ; the delegates were fed from
the Hall kitchen ; the floors of rooms, halls,
and porches were covered at night with
blankets, as was the turf of lawn and grove.
Sir William occupied the chief seat of honour
in the conclave of Saturday, July 9. The
peculiar pallor that betrayed the ravages of
the mysterious and subtle disease preying
upon his vitals, and the shrunken outlines of
the once powerful figure were all the indices
of failing physical strength his indomitable
will suffered to be seen. Wrapped in the scarlet
blanket trimmed with gold lace, dear to the
barbaric taste of his congeners, he sat bolt up
right, his features set in stern gravity becom
ing a sachem, and hearkened patiently to the
long-drawn-out details of the wrongs the tribes
had endured at the hands of their nominal
friends, the English. The boundaries of their
territories were invaded by squatters ; their
hunting-grounds were ranged over by lawless
furriers and trappers ; the venders of fire-water
brought the deadly thing to the very doors of
their wigwams.
The sun was nearing the zenith when the
tale began. It was not far from the western

Johnson Hall 37
hills when the last orator ceased speaking.
The presiding chief reminded them that the
day was far spent, and that the morrow would
be the Sabbath, on which their white brothers
did no work. On Monday they should have
their answer from his lips — the lips that had
never lied to them.
Johnstown was now a village of eighty fam
ilies, with shops and dwellings built with lumber
from Johnson's saw-mills, and pearlash from
his factories. In the centre of the town, named
for his oldest son, stood the Episcopal church,
a gift to the parish from the founder of the
place. We wish we knew whether he sat in
the Johnson pew that Sunday, or sought recup
eration for his waning forces in such rest and
quiet as were attainable in the solitude of his
library, with six hundred savages encamped
under the windows.
He began his oration to them at ten o'clock
Monday morning, standing, uncovered, under
the July sky. From the preamble, his tone was
conciliatory ; sometimes it was pleading. He
assured the malcontents that the outrages they
resented, and with reason, were not the act of
the government, but of lawless individuals. He
promised redress in the name of King and

38 More Colonial Homesteads
Governor ; recapitulated past benefits received
from both of these ; counselled charity of
judgment and moderation in action. He had
never been more eloquent, never more nearly
sublime than in this, the final union of the
finest type of Indian and of the upright white
citizen of the New World. He was the warrior
in every inch of his lofty stature, quivering
with energy in the impassioned periods that
acknowledged the red man's wrongs and main
tained the red man's rights. He was no less
the loyal subject of King George in the calm
recital of what the parent government had
done for its allies, and solemn pledges for the
future. He spoke for two hours. The day was
fiercely hot. When he would have resumed
his seat, he staggered and reeled backward.
His servants rushed forward and carried him
into the library. An express messenger leaped
upon his horse and galloped off madly for Sir
John Johnson, who was at his own home, nine
miles away, thankful, we make no doubt, to
escape the assembling of the tribes. The son
rode a blooded hunter eight miles in fifteen
minutes, the animal falling dead under him
three-quarters of a mile from Johnson Hall.

Johnson Hall 39
Leaving him in the road, Sir John procured
another horse and dashed on. His father still
lay in the library, supported by his trusty
body-servant. The son fell upon his knees at
his side, and poured a flood of anguished ques
tions into the dulled ear. There was no an
swer, and no token of recognition. In less
than ten minutes the last breath was drawn.
" He died of a suffocation," wrote Guy
Johnson to the Earl of Dartmouth. The re
port of the sorrowing Council at Albany said,
"a fit of some kind." He had been subject
for many months to "a sense of compressure
and tightness across the stomach," diagnosed
by his physician as " stoppage of the gall-duct."
Whatever might have been the malady, he had
battled with it long and valiantly ; he died
with his harness on, as sachem and Anglo-
Saxon should.
Two thousand whites attended the funeral,
and " of Indians a great multitude, who be
haved with the greatest decorum and exhibited
the most lively marks of a real sorrow." At
their earnest instance they were allowed to per
form their own ceremonies over the remains
when the Christian services were concluded.
A double belt of wampum was laid upon the

40 More Colonial Homesteads
body ; six rows of the same were bound about
the grave. Each was deposited as the
"Amen" of a panegyric upon the virtues and
deeds of the deceased chieftain. The preg
nant sentence I have already quoted summed
up the body and soul of the testimony :
" Sir William Johnson never deceived us."
Thus lived and thus died, in his sixtieth
year, the best friend the North American In
dian has ever had, William Penn not excepted.

II

JOHNSON HALL, JOHNSTOWN, NEW YORK
( Concluded )
THE progress of Sir William Johnson's
mortal malady was accelerated by his
grief at the rupture between the American
Colonies and the Mother Country.
Parkman says :
" He stood wavering in an agony of indecision,
divided between his loyalty to the sovereign who was
the source of all his honours, and his reluctance to be
come the agent of a murderous Indian warfare against
his countrymen and friends. His resolution was never
taken. He was hurried to his grave by mental distress,
or, as many believed, by the act of his own hand."
Dismissing the latter hypothesis with the
remark that there was nothing in the incidents
of the death-scene, as related in our preceding
chapter, to warrant the suspicion of suicide,
we cannot gainsay the evidence that the inde-
41

42 More Colonial Homesteads
cision — a novelty to him in any circumstances
— was a veritable agony. At one and the
same time we find him writing letters con
demnatory of the Stamp Act, and exhorting
his Indian allies — " Whatever may happen,
you must not be shaken out of your shoes in
your allegiance to your King." Joseph Brant
believed that he was following up the task his
great patron had laid down at the grave's
mouth, when he declared that he " joined the
Royal army purely on account of my fore
fathers' engagements with the King." The
Rev. Dr. Wheelock, Brant's preceptor at the
Moor Charity School, was deputed to remon
strate with him upon his espousal of the Tory
cause, and received a reply as suave, yet as strin
gent, as Sir William himself could have framed :
" I can never forget, dear Sir, your prayers
and your precepts. You taught me to fear
God and to honour the King / "
Sir John Johnson succeeded to his father's
title and the bulk of his estates ; Guy Johnson,
as Superintendent of Indian Affairs. Joseph
Brant was Guy Johnson's secretary. Colonel
John Butler and his son Walter were among
the Johnsons' nearest neighbours and closest
friends. In all the disrupted Colonies there

JOSEPH BRANT. EO,£SDT„

43

Johnson Hall 45
was no hotter bed of toryism than Johnson
Hall became in less than a year from the
founder's death. In 1775, Guy Johnson, ac
companied by his secretary and spokesman,
made a formal progress from tribe to tribe of
friendly Indians to confirm them in their
allegiance to the Crown. Brant, who had, in
his earlier youth, zealously " endeavoured to
teach his poor brethren the things of God " ;
who had assisted an English divine in the
preparation of an Indian prayer-book, had
help translate into the Indian tongue the Acts
of the Apostles, and a History of the Bible ;
the humble communicant in the Johnstown
Episcopal Church, — harangued his race upon
the imperative duty of resisting treason to the
bloody death, adjuring them by the memory
of his benefactor and theirs to join the Scotch
colonists and the tenantry of Johnson Hall
in the holy purpose of giving the King his
own again.
Sir John fortified the stone house, garrisoned
it with the white reserve, and surrounded it
with the living "barriers" his father had cast
about him for protection against the French.
Then he awaited the results of his determined
attitude.

46 More Colonial Homesteads
On January 19, 1776, the fort was surprised
by a body of rebels — still so called — under Gen
eral Schuyler ; the garrison was disarmed and
disbanded, and Sir John paroled. In May of
the next year news reached Schuyler's head
quarters that the paroled man was in corre
spondence with the British in Canada, sending
out and receiving spies, accumulating ammun
ition in and near the Hall, and inciting the
Mohawks to a massacre of the Valley people.
An order was issued for his arrest. He heard
of it in season to escape with a few retainers
to Canada. Before his flight he buried an
iron chest containing family plate in the gar
den, another, filled with money and valuable
papers, in the cellar, hiding-places known to
none of those left behind except Lady John
son. She was living in Albany with her own re
latives when Lafayette visited Johnson Hall in
1778. Once more the outlying slopes about
the stone house were covered with Indians,
ancl the resources of the establishment were
taxed to the utmost to provide for their enter
tainment. Five out of the Six Nations were
represented in the Council attended and
addressed by the titled Frenchman.

Johnson Hall 47
Joseph Brant convened a very different as
sembly of his countrymen in the neighbour
hood early in the year 1780. He was then a
" likely fellow of fierce aspect, tall and rather
spare," gorgeously arrayed in a short green
coat, laced round hat, leggings and breeches
of blue cloth. His moccasins were embroid
ered with beads, his blue cloth blanket was
carefully draped so as to make the most of his
glittering epaulets. His name was now a
word of terror throughout the land ; his fellow
marauders were the Butlers and William John
son (the son of his sister, Mary Brant, and Sir
William Johnson), Colonel Guy Johnson and
Colonel Daniel Claus, the husband of Nancy
Johnson. Molly Brant had lived, since Sir
William's death, at one of the upper Mohawk
Castles, with her younger children. Tradition
describes her as visiting the Hall, once her
home, when especially daring expeditions were
under discussion, sitting, as darkly handsome
and as fierce as a panther, at the council-table,
and fearlessly putting into words the project
of devastating the beautiful Valley with fire,
bullet, and tomahawk. She had secret means
of communication with her brother wherever
he was, giving him much valuable information

48 More Colonial Homesteads
as to the weak points in the defences of the
Americans, and the movements of their forces.
It was suspected that she was one of the
few dwellers in the Valley who was not sur
prised when on the night of May 21, 1780, a
horde of three hundred whites — British and
Tories — and two hundred Indians fell like a
pack of hell-hounds upon the peaceful neigh
bourhood in which John Johnson was born
and brought up. No mercy was shown to
age, sex, or former friendships. Killing, scalp
ing, and burning as they went, the invaders
pushed their murderous way up to the doors
of Johnson Hall, put the few inmates to flight,
and occupied the house and grounds. No
time was to be lost. The blazing houses and
barns would tell the story of that night's work
for many miles up and down the river, and Sir
John had known something of the colonists in
such circumstances — " the rude, unlettered,
great-souled yeomen of theMohawk Valley, who
braved death at Oriskany that Congress and
the free Colonies might be free." In hot haste
he unearthed the treasure from cellar and
garden ; forty knapsacks full of booty were laid
upon as many soldiers' shoulders, and the bloody
crew departed as swiftly as they had come.

Johnson Hall 49
" He might have recovered his plate," says
Stone, dryly and sorrowfully, "without light
ing up his path by conflagration of neighbours'
houses, or staining his skirts with innocent
blood." Sir John's raid upon his homestead and the
vicinity was followed in less than a month by
Brant's as sudden descent upon Canajoharie,
fifteen miles away. All the inhabitants who
were not killed were carried off prisoners ;
towns and forts were burned. From the porch
of Johnson Hall and the fields about Johns
town, groups of terrified men and women
watched the rise and flare of the cruel flames
against the sky, and guessed truly by whose
orders they were kindled.
The town, which is, to this day, a memorial
of the Baronet-General's fondness for his son
and heir, was better prepared to repel inva
sion in 1 78 1. Taught wariness by adversity,
the stout-hearted burghers and boers stood
ready and undismayed to receive the mixed
force of four hundred whites and half as many
Indians, that hurled themselves upon Johns
town, led by the Butlers, father and son.
A bloody fight ensued. Instead of making-
Johnson Hall their headquarters as they had

50 More Colonial Homesteads
hoped to do, the attacking party was beaten
back with heavy losses. Walter Butler was
shot and scalped in the retreat by an Oneida
chief. His violent dealings had returned upon
his own head. In connection with this ex
pedition Brant had said, when upbraided with
the cruelties committed by the invaders :
" /do not make war upon women and child
ren ! I am sorry to say that I have those
engaged with me who are more savage than
the savages themselves " — and named the
Butlers. The story goes that the Oneida who killed
Walter Butler had aided the settlers in the
abortive attempt to save their homes and
families from the Cherry Valley massacre
mentioned a while ago. When the wounded
white captain cried for " quarter," the Oneida
yelled, " I give you Cherry Valley quarter ! "
and buried his tomahawk in the wretched
man's brain. Such was the abhorrence felt by
the Indian allies of the American forces for
the slain Tory that his body was left unburied
where it lay, to be devoured by wild beasts
and carnivorous birds, on the bank of a stream
known from that bloody day as " Butler's
Ford."

Johnson Hall 51
The Butler homestead is still standing, a
few miles from Johnson Hall.
Sir John Johnson had left behind him, in his
first hurried flight to Canada, the Family Bible,
containing the record of his parents' marriage.
As no other documentary proof of it was extant
the act was culpably careless if he valued his
birthright as a legitimate son. The book found
its way to the hands of an Albany citizen, and
was by him restored to the rightful owner. At
the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, Sir
John went to England and remained there for
some years, returning to Canada in 1785.
There, in acknowledgment of the services he
had rendered the Royal cause in the struggle
with the rebellious Colonies, he was made
Superintendent of Indian Affairs in America
and received valuable grants of Canadian lands.
He died at the age of eighty-eight, in Mon
treal, in the year 1830. His son and successor
was Sir Adam Gordon Johnson. Their de
scendants are numerous, most of them living
in Canada.
Other of Sir William Johnson's descendants
intermarried with prominent New York families.
Johnson Hall, with the large estate surround
ing it, being confiscated by the Continental

52 More Colonial Homesteads
Government, was sold to James Caldwell, Esq.,
of Albany, for $30,000, " in public securities."
Within a week from the day of purchase he
sold it in his turn, and for hard cash, for $7,000,
clearing a handsome sum by the operation.
The place changed hands four times in the ten
years lying between 1785 and 1795.
In 1807 Mr. Eleazar Wells was married to
Miss Aken in the drawing-room of Johnson
Hall. The mansion had been so well cared
for that the paint and paper of this apartment
were the same as in Sir William's time and in
excellent preservation. Mr. Wells became the
owner of the place in 1829. It is now the
property of his widowed daughter-in-law, Mrs.
John E. Wells, and retains the reputation for
large-hearted hospitality established and main
tained by the founder.
Lossing says of it in 1848, "It is the only
baronial hall in the United States." But for
the modernising touches visible in the bay-
windows and the wing at the beholder's right,
as he faces the ancient building, the main
body of the Hall is unaltered. It is of wood,
the massive clapboards laid on to resemble
stone blocks. The front elevation is forty feet
in width, and the depth is sixty feet. Two

<
I 2OCOzXo o

Johnson Hall 55
stone blockhouses, with loopholes under the
eaves, flanked the mansion as erected by Sir
William, for nearly a century after his decease.
That on the right was burned some years ago.
These "forts "were connected with the man
sion by tunnelled passages. A central hall,
fifteen feet wide, cuts the dwelling in two, run
ning from front to back doors. The broad
staircase is fine. After the manner of their
English forbears, the colonists made much of
stairways, sometimes to the extent of cramping
living-rooms to give sweep to the ascent, and
breadth to landings. The mahogany balus
trades, imported by Sir William Johnson, are
in place, but the polished rail is hacked, as
with a hatchet, at intervals of ten or twelve
inches, all the way down. The tradition,
which has never been doubted, of the mutila
tion is that it was done by Brant in 1777, the
date of Sir John Johnson's precipitate departure
from the home of his father to escape the con
sequences of his double dealing with General
Schuyler, who had paroled him. In view of
the strong probability that the deserted house
might be entered, plundered, and fired by some
wandering band of Indians, the half-breed
leader left upon the wood hasty hieroglyphics

56 More Colonial Homesteads
which they would understand and respect. The
roof reared by the patron who had filled a
father's place to him, — whether or not he had
a natural right to the office, — must be spared
for that patron's sake.
We cannot but view the rude indentations
reverently. With mute eloquence they awaken
thoughts of the mark left " upon the lintels
and the two side-posts " of the houses to be
spared by the destroying angel on the Pass
over night. Nothing we have seen in any
other Colonial homestead appeals more strongly
to heart and imagination than these tokens of
love and gratitude, stronger than death, and
of the authority exercised by the educated
savage over his fierce followers.
The rooms are large and lofty and wain
scoted with native woods, rich with the dyes
of a hundred and fifty years. The library, in
which Sir William drew his last breath, is now
used as a bedroom.
The late General Thomas Hillhouse was
wont to say that " Sir William Johnson was
the greatest Proconsul the English ever had
in the American Colonies, and that if he had
lived, the entire course of the Revolution
might — would probably have been changed."

Johnson Hall 57
The stamp of his potent personality lingers
upon the neighbourhood he rescued from the
wilderness. Tales of a life without parallel in
the history of our country are circulated in
Johnstown and Fonda and Caughnawaga, as
of one who died but yesterday. Some are
grave ; some are comic ; many are unquestion
ably myths ; all are interesting. We may dis
credit the story, seriously retailed by Lossing,
that Sir William was the father of a hundred
children. Presumably, although our delightful
gossip does not state it in so many words,
ninety-odd were half-breeds.
We incline a listening ear to the account of the
seclusion in which Mary and " Nancy " John
son were brought up after their mother's death.
According to this, the two girls were educated
by the widow of an English officer, a gentle
woman who had been Mrs. Johnson's intimate
friend. She lived with her charges apart from
the rest of the household, training them in the
few branches of learning studied by young
ladies of that day, teaching them fine needle
work of various kinds, one with them in their
pleasures and pursuits. They are said to have
dressed after a fashion dictated by their gov
erness and never altered while they were under

58 More Colonial Homesteads
her care ; a sort of pelisse, or loose gown, —
Hke the modern peignoir, — of fine flowered
chintz, opened in front to show a green silk
petticoat. Their hair, thick, long, and very
beautiful, was tied at the back of the head with
ribbon. We are asked, furthermore, to believe
that up to the age of sixteen, the sisters had
seen no women of their own station except
their governess, and no white man but their
father, who visited them every day, and took a
lively interest in their education. When, in
his judgment, they were ready to leave the
conventual retreat, he married Mary to her
cousin, Guy Johnson, Ann to Daniel Claus.
After their marriages, they acquired the ways
of the outer world with wonderful rapidity,
and played their parts as society women
well. The tradition, if it be true, ranks itself upon
the reputable, country-gentleman side of their
father's dual nature. By no other means could
he have kept Mary Brant and her brood apart
from the fair-faced daughters of Catherine
Wissenberg, or prevented the shadow of early
equivocal associations from darkening the fame
of Mesdames Guy Johnson and Daniel Claus.
He was passing wise in his generation.

Johnson Hall 59
If the tale be not authentic, it ought to be.
Many of the incidents linked into the story
of Johnson Hall rest upon the valid testimony
of Mrs. Edwards, a sister of Mr. Eleazar
Wells. This venerable gentlewoman lived to
see her eighty-seventh birthday, and preserved
her excellent memory to the latest day of her
life. One of these anecdotes is curiously
suggestive. On a certain day in the year 181 5, or there
abouts, a party of eight or ten horsemen ap
peared at the Hall, and demanded permission
to go into the cellar. None of the men of the
family were at home, and Mrs. Wells, dread
ing violence if the visitors were refused, granted
the singular request, contriving, nevertheless,
that their proceedings should be watched. In
a dark corner of the cellar was a well, dug by
Sir William Johnson to supply the garrison
with water in the event of a siege, but now
half filled with stones and earth. The intrud
ers began at once to tear out the rubbish,
presently unearthing several boxes, which they
carried into the upper air and into a field
back of the house and orchard. In the sight
of the terrified women watching them from the
upper windows, they emptied the coffers of

60 More Colonial Homesteads
the papers that filled them and " sat on the
ground a long time," — said Mrs. Edwards, —
opening and examining them. At last, they
made a fire upon the hillside and threw arm
ful after armful of the papers into it. When
all were consumed, they remounted their horses,
and rode off " towards Canada."
Sir John Johnson was then alive. The sur
mise was inevitable that search and destruc
tion were instigated by him, and for reasons
we can never know.
At some period of its history the interesting
old landmark had rough usage from temporary
occupants. If the hall-carpet were lifted we
should see the print of stamping hoofs upon
the oaken boards beneath, proving that troop
ers — American or Tory — stabled their horses
there, tethering them to the noble staircase
protected from nominal barbarians by the
gashes of Brant's hatchet.
Sir William Johnson was buried in a brick
vault constructed in his lifetime under the
chancel of St. John's Church in Johnstown.
The corner-stone of the building " was laid in
1772 with Masonic ceremonies, Sir William
Johnson, Sir John Johnson, John Butler, Daniel
Claus, Guy Johnson, and General Herkimer

ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, JOHNSTOWN, N. Y.

Johnson Hall 63
taking part therein. . . . This church
contained the first church-organ west of Al
bany." So writes Mr. James T. Younglove, an ac
complished antiquarian and a zealous student
of the stirring history of the Mohawk Valley.
William Elliott Griffis adds that when the
church was burned in 1836, and rebuilt (with
the old stones as far as possible) in 1838, "the
site was so changed that the grave of Johnson
was left outside the new building. . . .In
1862 the rector, Rev. Charles H. Kellogg,
took measurements, sunk a shaft, and dis
covered the brick vault."
The sanctity of the tomb of the loyal subject
of King George had been invaded long before.
The leaden case enveloping the solid ma
hogany coffin was melted down and moulded
into bullets during the Revolutionary War
(to be fired at those of his own blood and
name ! ). The ring with which he married
Catherine Wissenberg was found embedded
in his dust, and is still preserved by the
Masonic Lodge he established at Johnson
Hall. After his death the lodge was removed
to the quarters it now occupies in Johnstown.
The cradle in which " Mary Brant, house-

64 More Colonial Homesteads
keeper," rocked his tawny children, is also
kept there.
The poor mortal remains of the fearless
master among men were reburied in a " hol
lowed granite block" in the churchyard. No
other grave is near it. For sixty years school
boys played and romped and shouted over it,
and passers in the streets of the now thriving
town gave as little thought to the unmarked
mound. Within the past five years the earnest
efforts of the President of the Johnstown
Historical Society, Hon. Horace E. Smith,
have been the means of enkindling new and
intelligent interest in one whom Dr. Griffis
calls " the Maker of America." A movement
is now on foot to erect a suitable monument
to the pioneer to whom Johnstown owes birth,
name, and the associations that make it an
historic shrine.

Ill

LA CHAUMIERE DU PRAIRIE, NEAR LEXINGTON,
KENTUCKY
The Travels of John Francis, Marquis de
Chastelleux, in North America, is a rare old
book from which several quotations were made
in a former volume of this series.
In a stately style, somewhat stiffened by the
English translator, the author — one of the forty
members of the French Academy, and Major-
General in the French army under the Count
de Rochambeau — describes a " dining-day," as
it was called in the region, at Maycox, oppos
ite Westover on the James River. The trav
elled Marquis had met Mr. David Meade, the
proprietor of Maycox, and his wife at Williams
burg, some weeks earlier than the date of the
foreigner's sojourn at Westover, and then and
there had a cordial invitation to visit their
plantation. 65

66 More Colonial Homesteads
After descanting, in Grandisonian periods,
upon the " charming situation" of Maycox, he
informs us that it was " extremely well fitted
up within." Furthermore, it commanded a
full view of Westover, " which, with its sur
rounding appendages, had the appearance of a
small town." Westover, the seat of the Byrds,
was still in the prime of prosperity to the casual
eye, crippled 'though the family fortunes were
by the "gaming" propensities of the late
owner, William Byrd the third. The French
nobleman saw everything through the couleur
de rose of gallant appreciation of the many
charms of the widowed chatelaine, heightened
by gratitude for the distinguished hospitality
he had received from her and other James
River landowners.
There is, then, an accent of surprise in his
mention of Mr. Meade's latent discontent with
the lot cast for him in these pleasant places.
" The charming situation," he observes, " is capable
of being made still more beautiful if Mr. Meade pre
serves his house, and gives some attention to it, for he is
a philosopher of a very amiable, but singular, turn of
mind, and such as is particularly uncommon in Virginia,
since he rarely attends to affairs of interest, and cannot
prevail upon himself to make his negroes work. He is
even so disgusted with a culture wherein it is necessary

La Chaumiere du Prairie 67
to make use of slaves that he is tempted to sell his pos
sessions in Virginia and remove to New England."
Rev. Meade C. Williams, D.D., of St. Louis,
a descendant of the nascent Abolitionist {pro
tempore f, records that Mr. (Colonel) David
Meade spent three ample inherited fortunes
upon the adornment of Maycox and the home
stead in Kentucky, to which territory he re
moved shortly after his threat to solace his
conscience by seeking an abiding-place in New
England. " It will be noted," continues the document
before me, " that the most conspicuous feature
of the Meades has been this very lack of ambi
tion in state affairs, and a love of domestic
tranquility." So far, so good, in the branch of an ancient
and honourable family to which this particular
planter belonged. The assertion is a decided
misfit when we attempt to join it to other sec
tions of the genealogical table. One of the
ancestors of the disgusted slaveholder and
amiable philosopher was Thomas Cromwell, a
pupil of Cardinal Wolsey, who, in bidding a
long farewell to all his greatness, charged his
subordinate to " fling away ambition."
Cromwell rejoins feelingly :

68 More Colonial Homesteads
" The king shall have my service, but my prayers
For ever and for ever shall be yours."
Wolsey did not doubt the "honest truth"
of his late follower, and tearful Thomas meant
sincerely enough when he called " all that have
not hearts of iron " to bear witness —
" With what a sorrow Cromwell leaves his lord."
Yet the next act finds " Thomas Cromwell
A man in much esteem with the king and truly
A worthy friend. . . . The king
Has made him master of the jewel-house
And one, already, of the privy council."
Oliver Cromwell was a nephew of Thomas.
Whatever other failings were charged upon the
Lord Protector, he was never accused by con
temporaries or by posterity with a lack of
vaulting ambition.
Running an inquisitive finger down the race-
line of the Meades, we arrest it at the name
and history of the first of the family who emi
grated to America. Andrew Meade, an Irish
Roman Catholic, crossed the ocean (for rea
sons we may be able to show presently) late
in the seventeenth century.

La Chaumiere du Prairie 69
"In the year 1745 he deceased, leaving a
character without a stain, having had the glori
ous epithet connected with his name, long be
fore he died, of ' The Honest' "
It is more than conjectured that his self-
expatriation followed close upon the accession
of William and Mary to the throne of Great
Britain and Ireland. He belonged to a fight
ing family, and such men were safer in the
Colonies than at home.
The element of "tranquility" may have
been infused into blood hitherto somewhat hot
and turbulent, by his marriage with an Ameri
can Quakeress, Mary Latham by name. He
left the bulk of his Virginia estate to his eldest
son, David (1), who married, four or five years
after his father's decease, the daughter of an
English baronet. At the date of the marriage,
the father-in-law, Sir Richard Everard, was
proprietary governor of North Carolina.
The second David Meade was born in 1744.
In accordance with the general custom of well
born and affluent English colonists, his father
sent him to England, at a tender age, to get a
gentleman's education. He got it at Harrow
School. The Head Master at that time was
Dr. Thackeray, Archdeacon of Surrey, Chap-

70 More Colonial Homesteads
lain to the Prince of Wales, and grandfather to
the great novelist of that name.
A story current in the Meade connexion,
even down to our day, is that the persons and

DAVID MEADE AT THE AGE OF 8.
FROM ORIGINAL PAINTING BY THOMAS HUDSON. OWNED BY E. i-. WILLIAMS, ESQ.,
OF NEW YORK.
characters of David Meade and his younger
and more brilliant brother, Richard Kidder, —
who joined him in England some years there
after, going with him from Harrow to a private
school in Hackney Parish, — furnished the sug
gestion of William Makepeace Thackeray's
Virginians. It is certain that David, at least,

La Chaumiere du Prairie 71
was domesticated for five years in Dr.
Thackeray's family, greatly endearing himself
to the Head Master and his "pious, charitable,
and in every way exemplary lady." Thus
David Meade described her over half a century
later. He adds that "he was bound to them
by ties much stronger than those of nature, in
somuch that the most affecting event of his
whole life was his separation from them."
What more likely than that the sayings and
doings of the brace of colonists, as handsome
as they were spirited, were passed down the
Thackeray generations until they lodged in the
imagination of the greatest of the clan ? The
tradition, too pleasing to be lightly discarded,
is the more plausible for the circumstance that
Richard Kidder Meade became one of Wash
ington's aides in the Revolutionary War and
was, in private life, his intimate friend.
Thackeray could hardly have overlooked the
association of the names in his quest for
material for The Virginians.
David (2) returned to Virginia in 1761
after ten years' absence. " The forests and
black population of his native land were novel,
but not by any means pleasing to him, and
nothing was less familiar to him than the per-

T-

More Colonial Homesteads

sons of the individuals of his family." His
sisters were married ; he had left his brothers,
Richard Kidder and Everard, at school in
England, and two younger children born in his

EVERARD MEADE (AGED 9).

absence would not be companions for him for
a long while to come.
In the ensuing seven years he saw all of
" life " — social and political — the New World
had to offer to the son of a wealthy father, the
brother-in-law of Richard Randolph of Curies,
and the near neighbour of the Byrds of West-

La Chaumiere du Prairie 73
over. In company with two of the Randolphs
he visited Philadelphia, was the guest of
General Gage in New York, sailed up the
Hudson to Albany, threaded swamps and
forests to Saratoga and Lake George, was
hospitably entertained at Ticonderoga and
Crown Point, and so on to Canada. In Mon
treal, Captain Daniel Claus, (an old acquaint
ance to the readers of our chapters upon
Johnson Hall),
" son-in-law of Sir William Johnson and deputy-su
perintendent of Indian affairs, invited them to a congress
of Indian chiefs from several nations upon the lakes, the
town being then full of Indians. The Intendant in
troduced the travellers to each of them individually as
' Brethren of the Long Knife,' who had come from the
South, almost a thousand miles, to visit Canada.
The Intendant [Clausl, after the ceremony of introducing
the Long Knives, or Virginians, opened the congress with
a speech, or talk."
The tour occupied nearly three months of
the year 1765.
In 1768 David (2) Meade married Sarah
Waters of Williamsburg, and the same year
offered himself as a candidate for the House
of Burgesses. He was elected and took his
seat in May, 1 769, although feebly convalescent

74 More Colonial Homesteads
from a recent attack of illness. The session
was short and stormy.
Ten days were spent in debates upon the
subjects at issue between England and the
Colonies, and the passage of certain resolutions
so offensive to the Governor of Virginia, Lord
Botetourt, that he drove in vice-regal state to
the Capitol and dissolved the Assembly in an
address that had the merits of conciseness and
comprehensiveness :
" Gentlemen : I have heard of your re
solves, and I augur their ill effects. You have
made it my duty to dissolve you, and you are
accordingly dissolved."
David Meade, " completely cured of his am
bition," — and it would seem, for life, — settled
down at Maycox to the congenial pursuits of
landscape gardening and horticulture and the
enjoyment of the domestic felicity which was
his from the day of his bridal until death
separated the married lovers.
The curious and interesting sketch of his life
written in the third person by himself, which
has been courteously put at my disposal by his
great-grandson, Dr. M. C. Williams, is unsatis
factory only when it deals with his own achieve
ments and virtues. It is amusing to read that,

La Chaumiere du Prairie 75
of the various branches studied by him during
his ten years of English schooling —
" he did not take enough away to impoverish the
Academy. He had a very small smattering of everything
he had attempted to learn, but less of the languages, both
dead and foreign, than of the sciences and the elegant
arts. Thus, but ordinarily qualified for the humble walks
of private life, and without natural talents, or acquired
knowledge, to move with any credit to himself in public,
he left England. . . . He was content with the
very little that was his due — the extreme humble merit
of negative virtues. . . . He was a great builder of
castles in the air ; but conscious, as he was, that he had
neither figure, face, nor accomplishments to qualify
him for an epitome of a romance here, he prudently de
termined to fall in love and marry somewhat after the
fashion of the people. Nevertheless, he was fastidious
in the choice of his subject."
All this is entertaining when we bear in
mind that David Meade was one of the hand
somest and most accomplished gentlemen of
his generation — " a day when, in the class to
which he belonged, culture was at the highest."
It is tantalising, even vexatious, that he puts
himself into the background after the brief
notice of his marriage and the purchase of May
cox, and devotes many pages to what he says
was " a subject much more interesting to the
writer," the countless virtues, personal endow-

76 More Colonial Homesteads
ments and achievements of his brother, Richard
Kidder. As has been noted, Richard Kidder
was on Washington's staff, having raised a
company in 1776-77, and been unanimously
elected as its captain. He fought bravely
throughout the war, meeting with many advent
ures, having sundry hairbreadth escapes, and
receiving signal honours from the Commander-
in-chief and Congress. After the arrest of
Andre, Richard Kidder Meade was the bearer
of a letter from Washington to Sir Henry
Clinton '' upon the subject of that accom
plished officer's case." He died in 1781, "be
loved by all who were acquainted with him,
esteemed and respected by his neighbours, and
every one that had ever heard of his worth."
The family Annals from which these excerpts
are made were transcribed in characters so
minute that the descendant who undertook the
pious duty of copying them for the press, was
obliged to hold a magnifying-glass in one
hand while writing with the other. The vol
ume is guarded by a sort of trespass-board
notice upon the title-page :
" It is to be noted that these pages are not
intended for, and never will be exposed to,
public inspection, and are intended only for

La Chaumiere du Prairie 77
the amusement and, peradventure, the edifica
tion of the House of Meade."
When these lines were penned, he had lived
for thirty years in " Chaumiere du Prairie in
the now State of Kentucky," as he says, "hav
ing landed with a numerous family from boats
at Limestone, now Maysville, and permanently
settled at the headspring of Jessamine Creek,
a lateral branch of the Kentucky River."
The formidable flitting was a removal for
life. The tract of land purchased by his eldest
son, David (3), whom the father had sent to
Kentucky "to prospect" some months before
the hegira of the numerous family, was in the
very heart of the "blue-grass country," the
garden-spot of the stalwart young territory,
old Virginia's favourite daughter. Reports of
the fertility of unclaimed fields, irrigated by
clear creeks, of virgin forests and navigable
rivers, of a climate at once mild and salubri
ous — had reached the Meade dwelling in the
midst of a civilisation more than a century and
a half old, and attracted them, as to a promised
land of beauty and plenty.
David Meade built a lodge, afterwards en
larged into a mansion, near the centre of an
extensive plain, shaded at intervals by clumps

78 More Colonial Homesteads
of magnificent sugar-maples, and forthwith fell
to work to make it what a Meade MS. declares
it to have been, — " the first lordly home in
Kentucky." Incidentally, he expended upon
the enterprise one-and-a-half of the three am
ple fortunes of which he was possessed.
One hundred acres of arable land, seeded
down with the famous blue-grass, then shorn
and rolled into velvety turf, were enclosed by
a low stone wall, masked by honeysuckles and
climbing roses. A porter's lodge of rough-
hewn stone stood at the gate set between solid
stone pillars. Upon the arch above the gate
was cut the name the immigrant had bestowed
upon it, — Chaumiere du Prairie.
The French title gave travelled visitors the
motif of the living poem embodied in the
grounds. Le Petit Trianon was evidently an
abiding memory and suggestion in the de
signer's thoughts. The serpentine walk and
the long straight alley, bordered by large trees,
the benches set at irregular intervals along the
walks, the pavilion in an embowered nook, the
waterfall and lake, the artificial island and
the rustic bridge thrown from it to the shore,
the Grecian temple, the shaded vistas cool with
deep green shadows and solemn with silence, —

La Chaumiere du Prairie 79
were reminiscences, not of terraced Westover
and Maycox, but of the half-English lad's con
tinental travels. Here, at least, he could
"materialise" one of the castles in the air he
was fond of building.
Colonel Meade's granddaughter, Mrs. Susan
Creighton Williams of Fort Wayne, Indiana,
wrote out, in her seventy-second year,, her
recollections of the holiday-home of her child
hood. The pen-picture reproduces house and
pleasure-grounds for us as pencil and brush
could not. I regret that the bounds set for
this chapter will not allow me to share all the
graphic details of the goodly scene with my
readers. Landscape and atmosphere are Ar
cadian, not the crude product of a newly made
" settlement." " The House," we read, " was what might be called
a villa, — covering a great deal of ground, built in an ir
regular style, of various materials — wood, stone, brick,
— and one mud room, which, by the way, was quite a
pretty, tasteful spare bedroom. The part composed of
brick was a large octagon drawing-room. The dining-
hall was a large, square room, wainscoated with black
walnut, with very deep window-seats, where we children
used sometimes to hide ourselves behind the heavy cur
tains. There was one large, square hall, and numerous
passageways, lobbies, areas, etc. . . . The bird-cage

So More Colonial Homesteads
walk was one cut through a dense plum thicket, entirely
excluding the sun. It led to a dell where was a spring
of the best water, and near by was the mouth of a cave
which had some little notoriety. . Beyond the lawn
there was a large piece of ground which Mr. Meade al
ways said ought to have been a sheet of water to make
his grounds perfect. This was sown in clover that it
might, as he thought, somewhat resemble water in ap
pearance. In one of our summer sojourns in Chaumiere,
when my sister Julia (Mrs. Ball) was about three years
of age, soon after our arrival the nurse took her out upon
the lawn, where she shrank back and cried out ' Oh, river !
river ! ' greatly to our grandfather's delight. He said it
was the greatest compliment his grounds had ever had."
The ingenious conceit was characteristic of
the planter-dreamer and born artist. His
aesthetic sense demanded the shimmer of water
at that point of the verdant level, flanked by
groups of sugar-maples. In the summer sun
shine the tremulous expanse of silver-lined
leaves supplied the ripple and gleam required
"to make his grounds perfect."
As the " dark and bloody ground " ex
changed her solitary wilds for cultured fields
and fast-growing towns, Chaumiere became
the show-place of the State. Lexington was
but nine miles distant, and no personage of
political or social consequence visited the
lively little place without driving out to the

MRS. SARAH WATERS MEADE.
FROM PAINTING IN POSSESSION OF t. f. WILLIAMS, ESQ., OF NEW YORK.

81

La Chaumiere du Prairie 83
hospitable country-seat of the Meades. There
were house-parties especially invited, who were
domiciliated for a week or fortnight at a time,
making excursions through the beautiful sur
rounding country, feasting, dancing, gathering
in the great "stone passage" in the purple
twilight for tea-drinking and chat, and watch
ing the shadows steal over the paradise visible
through front and back doors, while Mrs.
Meade sat at the pianoforte in the adjoining
drawing-room. She played with exquisite
taste and feeling until she was long past three-
score-and-ten. The octagon drawing-room
was all draped with satin brocade — the walls,
the windows, and the frames of the four tall
mirrors reaching from floor to ceiling.
It saw much and distinguished company
during the forty years' residence and reign of
the fine old Virginia and Kentucky gentleman.
Four Presidents of the United States — Thomas
Jefferson, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, and
Zachary Taylor — were entertained here. The
lady of the manor, — "always dressed in black
satin, to which were added handsome lace and
embroideries upon occasion," — stately and
beautiful in the standing ruff and high-crowned
cap of bygone years, had her favourites among

84 More Colonial Homesteads
the celebrities. We are surprised to learn that
she considered General Jackson the most re
markable man she had ever known, with the
possible exception of Aaron Burr. She used
to relate to her listening grandchildren what
an imposing figure he was, as, sitting tall and
straight upon his charger, he cantered up the
avenue to the porch of Chaumiere. Host and
hostess were waiting there to greet the hero
of New Orleans.
Colonel Meade, like his wife, had made no
change in the fashion of his attire for half a
century. Coat, short breeches, and the long
waistcoat reaching to his hips, were of light
drab cloth. His white or black silk stockings
were held up by jewelled knee-buckles and
a similar pair adorned his low shoes. The
buttons of coat and waistcoat were silver,
stamped with the Meade crest. The same
insignia appeared upon the massive silver serv
ice used upon the table every day whether
there were company in the house or not.
Mrs. Meade's piano was the first brought to
Kentucky. Certain handsome pieces of furni
ture were heirlooms from English houses —
notably from the Palace of Bath and Wells,
an inheritance from the Kidder who was once

La Chaumifere du Prairie 85
Bishop of that See. Another valued relic was
a souvenir of the Irish Roman Catholic Meade
whose services for the Church were recognised
by the gift of a crucifix of ebony and ivory pre
sented by the then reigning Pontiff. A gold
medal dependent from the crucifix bore a Latin
inscription said to have been composed by
Charles V., Emperor of Spain and Germany.
The dining-room buffets bore marvellous treas
ures of cut-glass and porcelain, in such abund
ance as to set out tables for one hundred guests,
once and again.
That number sat down on Christmas Day,
18 18, to an entertainment which, writes one of
the guests,
" in management, in simplicity of style, and without the
least ostentation, though all the surroundings were pro
fusely rich — surpassed anything of the kind I have ever
witnessed. The magnificent rooms are furnished
with taste and consummate art, and there was an exhibi
tion of surpassing brilliancy produced without any ap
parent attempt."
Another guest, a college president, says of a
visit paid to the Meades earlier in the same
year :
" Col. Meade is entirely a man of leisure, never having
followed any business, and never using his fortune but

86 More Colonial Homesteads
in adorning his place and entertaining friends and strang
ers. No word is ever sent to him that company is com
ing. To do so offends him. But a dinner at the hour
of four is always ready for visitors, and servants are
always in waiting. Twenty of us went one day without
warning, and were entertained luxuriously on the viands
of the country. Our drinks consisted of beer and wine.
He does not allow cigars to be smoked on his premises."
The fact noted in the last sentence is unex
pected. The most fastidious gentlemen in
America were confirmed smokers, and the cul
tivation and exportation of tobacco contributed
more largely to the wealth of Virginia and cer
tain parts of Kentucky and Tennessee than
any other industry. Of Blairs, Breckinridges,
Marshalls, Floyds, Scotts, Leighs, Routledges,
Clays, presidents of universities, and presi
dents of the United States who were made
Avelcome in turn to the lordly homestead, four
out of five must have been lovers of what
William Evelyn Byrd has taught us to call
" the bewitching vegetable." Colonel Meade's
aversion to the practices of smoking and chew
ing is referable to the punctilious neatness
which was first and second nature with him.
Not a fallen leaf or twig was suffered to litter
the velvet turf. Every day a company of small
negroes was detailed for the duty of picking

La Chaumiere du Prairie 87
up such leaves and sticks as had fallen during
the night, and the master often supervised the
work. A lineal descendant gives a vivacious ac
count of some manifestations of Colonel
Meade's exceeding strictness in the matters of
order and cleanliness. Among other illustra
tions we have this pretty picture :
" The mulberries of that day and place were of a much
finer quality, much larger, and more fruity than of the
present. Troops of boarding-school girls from Lexing
ton would come out to this enchanting place, and when
they sought mulberries, Colonel Meade would have serv
ants detailed to shake them from the trees. Out of re
gard for the white dresses (with blue sashes, perchance
— bless them !) of the maiden of that time, his instruc
tions were that the berries were to be picked up, com
mencing at the outer edge of their fall. Treading them
into the grass was unpardonable. How the old gentle
man of the old school would flame up with an amiable
oath when this order was transgressed ! Beneath the
fruit-trees was as clean and neat as any part of the lawn."
Yet we read that " kindliness was a feature
of his exalted nature." A common and beauti
ful custom of the region was that the negroes,
for miles around, came to be married in the
Chaumiere grounds. The master was indig
nant with the low-bred white who stole into

88 More Colonial Homesteads
the gardens or groves by some other way than
the great gateway that "stood open night and
day." " Courteous to all, he exacted courtesy
from others. He had great respect for the
courteous negro of the old time."
The negro of any time is an imitative an
imal. The Meade servants caught their own
er's tone and bearing with almost ludicrous
fidelity. Henry Clay was a frequent visitor at
Chaumiere, and was put upon his mettle — with
all the perfection of his breeding — not to be
outdone in grace and suavity by Dean, the
chief butler. This high functionary, with his
five subordinate footmen and the coachman,
wore drab liveries with silver buttons and
shoe-buckles. Such was the parental and judicious care
exercised over the coloured members of "the
family," that during the long lifetime of Colo
nel Meade not one case of fatal illness oc
curred on the estate.
David Meade (3) was a school-friend of
Aaron Burr, and after the latter was put under
arrest and surveillance for the Blennerhassett
treason Colonel Meade's influence with the
state authorities obtained permission for the
suspected man to spend three weeks at Chau-

La Chaumiere du Prairie 89
miere, the Colonel's son pledging himself for
his safe-keeping. He was accompanied by his
confederate and dupe, Blennerhassett. The
two were among the witnesses of the marriage
of Elizabeth Meade to Judge Creighton of
Chillicothe, Ohio ; also of the baptism of a
granddaughter, Elizabeth Massie. This child
became Mrs. W. L. Thompson of " Sycamore,"
near Louisville, one of the most beautiful of
Kentucky homes.
The damask table-cloth used at the wedding
feast, to which Burr and Blennerhassett sat
down, is still treasured in the family.
Another of the granddaughters, Mrs. Anna
Meade Letcher, has a story of a yet more val
uable memento of the memorable visit paid to
Chaumiere by the conspirators :
" There is in the family a very antique mirror before
which Aaron Burr sat, and had his hair powdered, and his
queue arranged to suit his vain and fastidious taste, before
entering the drawing-room to use all his artful fascina
tions upon the ladies, whether handsome or homely, young
or old, bright and entertaining, or dull. He never forgot
his policy to charm and beguile all who came into his
presence." Colonel Meade had passed from the home
he had made an Eden to the fairer Land

90 More Colonial Homesteads
whither his devoted wife had preceded him by
six months of earthly time, when Edward
Everett paid a visit to Chaumiere. Mrs.
Letcher's mother, then a young girl, rowed
him across the miniature lake in her boat,
" Ellen Douglas." The high-bred gentleman
paid a graceful compliment to the " Lady of
the Lake," a sobriquet she retained until her
marriage. " Mr. Everett had just returned from a long
stay abroad, where he had become quite a
connoisseur in art," says Mrs. Letcher, "and
he pronounced the art-collection of Chaumiere,
'though small, equal in merit to any he had
seen abroad."
This comprised family portraits by Sir Joshua
Reynolds, Hudson, the Sullys, and other artists
of international reputation. Some are still
treasured intelligently and reverently in the
family connexion. Others passed, after the
sale of the homestead, into less tender hands.
An anecdote whispered among the descendants
of the superb old patrician has to do with the
atrocious desecration of one historic canvas to
the ignominy of covering a meal-barrel, until it
was fairly worn out with much using.
Colonel Meade was ninety-four years of age

COLONEL DAVID MEADE AT THE AQE OF 85.
FROM PAINTING IN POSSESSION OF E. P. WILLIAMS, ESQ., OF NEW YORK.

9T

La Chaumiere du Prairie 93
when he died. His son David (3) had not
lived to see his thirtieth year. His father had
borne the terrible blow to love, pride, and hope
with fortitude amazing to all but those who
knew him best. Not even to them did he
speak of what the death of his -noble boy was
to him. Everything was to have been David's,
— " Chaumiere, paintings, and other works of
art — the magnificent silver plate, the trained
house-servants and gardeners." When his will
was opened it was found that he left it with
his surviving children to divide the property as
they deemed best. The sole proviso was that
Chaumiere should be kept as he had made it
for three years. " Dean " and other favourite
servants were manumitted by the master's will.
In a charming letter from Mrs. Letcher, we
have the rest of the story told in simple, grace
ful wise, upon which I cannot improve :
" The daughters had married, and my mother's mother,
Mrs. Charles Willing Byrd, had died years before, and
none of the family feeling able to keep up the place, it
was thought best to sell it. But it seemed to entail
fatality in one way or another upon those who have
owned it since.
The Colonel was a philosopher of philosophers, and as
my father and mother said, submitted with both dignity
and grace to the inevitable. He never was known to

94

More Colonial Homesteads

make complaint, but bore every trial with Spartan courage
and serenity — so the oft-told story that he pronounced a
curse upon the home should it pass from the family, has
no truth for foundation — 'though believed by many of
the superstitious from that day to this."
" There have been many ghost stories, but none that

' — 'ys...n»ty^
WING OF CHAUMIERE LEFT STANDING IN 1850.

were horrible, only of pleasant things that the old serv
ants and housekeeper and the superstitious around
would see and hear. The housekeeper came from Vir
ginia with Col. Meade, and was one of the most interest
ing members of that large household. She lived to be
nearly a century old, and I remember her when I was a
small child. She was devoted to my mother and stayed
with her ; her name was Betsy Miller, and Col. Meade

La Chaumiere du Prairie 95
knew her to be descended from the Stuarts of Scotland
who came to Virginia after the flight and exile of Charles
the Second. She and the servants often saw Col. Meade
and others of the family who had passed away, strolling
in the grounds ; in the hedged serpentine walk, which
wound around the grounds three miles, or rowing on the
lake, or sitting, reading ina summer-house under bowers
of honeysuckle and running roses — then, at sunset he
would be seen wending his way up the winding walk to
the ' octagon hall ' where tea was served in summer. —
These and many other stories I eagerly drank in, in my
childhood, and often, too, when with Betsy and the serv
ants who took her to the grounds when she was too
feeble to go alone, I imagined / saw my grandfather
and others, as they did.
" On the day of the sale a large crowd collected to
hear lovely ' Chaumiere ' cried off to a coarse, vulgar
man. So surprised and indignant was everyone that a
murmur of disapproval was heard, and soon after was
seen in large letters on the pleasure-houses all through
the grounds — Paradise Lost. This so enraged the pur
chaser that he determined to make these words true. In
less than a week the beautiful grounds were filled with
horses, cattle, sheep, and filthy swine. He felled the
finest trees in the grounds and park, cut down the
hedges — in fine, committed such vandalism as has never
been heard of in this country. He pulled down some
of the prettiest rooms in the house, stored grain in others
and made ruins of all the handsome pleasure-houses and
bridges through the grounds. He only kept the place
long enough to destroy it.
" The next purchaser found Chaumiere but a wreck of

More Colonial Homesteads

beauty. It seems as if Providence decreed that the glory
of the beloved beautiful old 'Chaumiere' should depart
with the name of ' Meade.' "
All that remained to the " next purchaser "
aforesaid was the octagon drawing-room given
in our picture, the hall, and heaps of founda
tion-stones where
once arose the most
lordly part of the
noble pile.
Even these have
been swept away
within the last quar
ter-century ; all the
pleasant places born
of the brain of the
founder and matured into beauty by his taste
and wealth, are laid waste. Small wonder is it
that the story of the curse pronounced upon
the place, should it ever pass into alien hands,
should go hand-in-hand with the marvellous
tales of departed splendours.
Note. — An interesting legend of the Meade family is
connected with the chained falcons seen in the coat of
arms given herewith.
According to this, a pair of these birds, — foreign to
this region, — built a nest upon a crag overlooking the sea

MEADE COAT OF ARMS.

La Chaumiere du Prairie 97
in a lonely quarter of the Meade estate. Two boys of
the house discovered the nest and, to make sure of the
young birds when they should be hatched, ensnared the
old ones with light chains. The prize was forgotten for
some days, and when the thoughtless lads revisited the
crag, they found the parent birds dead of starvation.
The callow nestlings were alive, having been nourished
by father and mother upon blood drained from their
own hearts. 7

IV

MORVEN, THE STOCKTON HOMESTEAD,
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
IN the parish register of Cookham, Berkshire,
1 England, are recorded the births and
deaths of several generations of Washingtons
and Balls, the lineal ancestors of the man who
gave independent being to this nation. From
the established fact that Augustine Washing
ton visited England in 1 729, to arrange for
the transfer of British property to which
he had fallen heir, and the almost certainty
that he then and there met and married Amer
ican-born Mary Ball, — a sojourner, like him
self, in the fatherland, — some writers assume
that their son George first saw the liofht in
English Berkshire.
The hypothesis is summarily disposed of by
our first President's written declaration, —
George, eldest son of Augustine, by the second

Morven 99
marriage, was born in Westmoreland County
( Virginia) ye nth Day of February, 173% .
John Washington, the great-grandfather of
George, was one of the malcontent loyalists
who could not breathe in the raw air of the
Protectorate. In 1657, he sailed, with his
brother Lawrence, for the still loyal Old Do
minion, and founded a new family home in
Westmoreland on the Potomac River.
One of the unexpected coincidences that
leap out at us, — as from hiding between the
pages of the history we believed was familiar
to us long ago, and which have, henceforth,
the vividness of current events, bringing us
face to face with old acquaintances, ranging
side by side people we have never until now
linked in our thoughts, — is that which syn
chronises John Washington's emigration from
Great Britain to America with that of Richard
Stockton. A backward glance along the an
cestral line of the Stocktons carries the in
teresting parallel into a yet more venerable
past. In the Cookham Parish church (per
haps the same in which Augustine Washington
was, four centuries thereafter, to espouse the
blue-eyed Virginia girl) is an age-battered
stone :

ioo More Colonial Homesteads

" Mtxcvz& to jje roemovg of Six 'g.&waxfi.
MacMau, iptjgreijraof getmsatero, nn& ®awott,
possessed of %& Ho*tse of ow* fgatfjje at
i&i&boKouQh."
Sir Edward's forbears were " anciently Lords
of the Manor of Stockton, which they held
under the Barony of Malpas, in the County of
Cheshire. David de Stockton inherited the
Manor of Stockton from his father about the
year 1250, in the reign of King Henry the
Third."1 From the many mu
ral memorials of the
race still extant in Eng
land, I select an old
Latin epitaph upon a
brass plate in Malpas
church, set above the
dust of " Owen Stock
ton, Gentleman." A
clumsy translation runs
— or stumbles — after
this wise :

STOCKTON COAT-OF-ARMS.

"1, jitocktotxws, ewe* a most jgpewtle pvo*
motes of peace, Twice laifl nn&zv the JxkvA
marfote, ett^o^ peace.
1 History of the Stockton Family, by John W. Stockton.

Morven 101
" gfee tfoirtietfe jjea* of mg foeveatremettt "
(the term of his widowerhood), " of att UXiblzXtxisUeA
reputation;, sees mjj offsprittg ftom;istott0,
mjj f atfter dead.
" gepartittjgi, % txaue left fretowd me as many
tears as tftottglt peace were about to teaxre"
(the earth).
" % otrtattx ttie promised reward itx itx*
peaceful Heauetxs.
"gfoe sow, wellborn, fats erected tlxis to
tfte f atlxer w&lUbovn lotto died gecemfter 2ud,
&.g. 1610."
Four years anterior to the demise of Owen
Stockton, Gentleman, his grandson Richard,
" the sonne of John Stockton of the Parish of
Malpas," was baptised in the Parish church.
This Richard (I.) was thirty-seven years old
when John, his father, died in' 1643. This
would make him a man of fifty when, like the
Washington brothers, he found longer resid
ence in Cromwell-ridden England unsafe or
unpleasant, — most likely both, — and embarked
with his wife and children for a freer country.
He landed in New York in 1657 or 1658.
A portion of the ample fortune he contrived
to bring away with him was invested in Long
Island, then in New Jersey, lands. A tract
over two miles in length and one in width, in

102 More Colonial Homesteads
Burlington County, was divided at his death
between his three sons, Richard, John, and Job.
Richard (II.) Stockton was a man grown at
the date of emigration, and so much his own
master, when his father removed from Long
Island to Burlington, as to act upon his pre
ference for a separate residence in another
part of the State. He lived for a short time at
Piscataway, settling subsequently upon a tract
of six thousand acres of farming lands bought
from William Penn, and nearer the north
ern part of the to-be State of New Jersey. He
called the immense plantation " Stony Brook,"
and devoted himself assiduously to redeeming
it from its native wildness. Collecting around
him a colony of fellow exiles, he set about
felling forests, clearing, draining, and cultivat
ing level reaches of virgin meadows, and erect-
ing comfortable houses for the occupancy of
European families.
Until he and his associates broke ground for
the settlement afterward renamed " Princeton,"
no white man had invaded the wilderness. The
axe of the explorer had never disturbed the
brooding stillness of the primeval forest ; not
afoot of the soil had had any other owner than
the nomads who called the continent their free-

Morven 103
hold. Richard Stockton's active pioneer life
came to a close in 1 709.
In the partition of what was, by now, a valu
able estate, he devised the house he had built
late in life as a homestead to his fifth and ap
parently his favourite child, John. This viola
tion of the laws of primogeniture threw his
eldest and name-son Richard (III.) out of the
natural order of succession. We note, further
more, with unsatisfied curiosity, that the
slighted Richard received but three hundred
acres of land, while each of the juniors had
five hundred. Tradition is silent as to the
young man's offence, and his deportment under
what, to one of English birth and prejudices,
was a more grievous cross than we, with our
free-and-easy Republican notions, can fully ap
preciate. With true feminine (and illogical)
partisanship of the child of " whose nose a
bridge was made," — to borrow a folk-phrase, —
I decline to pass over Richard Desdichado in
the enumeration of the Stocktons who bore the
Christian name more or less worthily. What
ever may have been his deficiencies, mental,
moral, or spiritual — he stands in this humble
chronicle as Richard III.
His mother, Mrs. Susannah Stockton, had

104 More Colonial Homesteads
" the use of the house and improvements dur
ing her natural life, with the use of all the
negro slaves except Daniel," who was be
queathed to the testator's brother-in-law,
Philip Phillips. " Each of his sons, as he
came of age, was to have a slave."
However warm may be our sympathies with
Desdichado, we must admit that John Stock
ton's character and career amply justified his
father's choice of a successor in the proprietor
ship of the homestead and all pertaining
thereto. No early citizen of New Jersey exer
cised a more marked and wholesome influence
upon her history then in making. He was, by
Royal appointment, a Judge of the Court of
Common Pleas ; when the project of founding
a university of learning within the precincts of
the State was bruited, he wrought with pen,
tongue, and fortune to secure the establishment
of the same at Princeton, eventually succeed
ing in the effort. As an elder in the infant
Presbyterian Church of the Colonies, he was
a power as well as a blessing.
Each of the eight children who survived him
was an honour to the father, and to the woman
who was his partner in every worthy deed.
In 1729, he had married Miss Abigail Phillips,

Morven 105
of whom we have little information " except
that she was a devoted Presbyterian," says our
chronicler. Four sons and as many daughters
lived out her unwritten biography. Presby
terian Princeton owes more than has been set
down in her annals to her ministry to him who
stood confessed in his generation as the best
friend and ablest counsellor of Church and
College. John Stockton's daughter, Hannah, married
the Honorable Elias Boudinot, a name of dis
tinction in state and national history : Abigail
became the wife of Captain Pintard, her sister
Susannah wedding his brother Louis. Rebecca
married Rev. William Tennent of Monmouth
County, a man eminent for piety and eloquence.
His extraordinary return to life and conscious
ness after a trance of four days' duration, phy
sicians and friends supposing him to be dead,
is one of the noteworthy psychological phe
nomena of the last century.
To Richard (IV.), eldest son of John, was
left the Princeton homestead with the surround
ing plantation. John, the second son, entered
the Royal Navy, rose rapidly to the rank of
Captain, with the command of a vessel, and
died at sea at a comparatively early age.

106 More Colonial Homesteads
The third son, Philip, was ordained to the
ministry of the Presbyterian Church in 1778,
and presumably engaged in the active duties of
his profession in the vicinity of Princeton, as he
bought "Castle Howard" in that town about
1785, and made it his permanent residence.
Next to Richard the Heir, Samuel Witham
Stockton, the youngest of the four sons, has
left the most brilliant record. He was gradu
ated at Nassau Hall in 1767, and in 1774 was
sent to the Courts of Russia and Austria as
Secretary of the American Commission. He
acted as Secretary of the New Jersey Conven
tion called in 1787 to ratify the Constitution of
the United States, and in 1 794 was made Secre
tary of State in New Jersey, He was killed,
a year afterwards, by a fall from his carriage.
When Richard, of the fourth generation of
American Stocktons, came to his New Jersey
principality in 1757, he was in the very prime
of early and vigorous manhood. He had been
admitted to the Bar three years earlier and
about the same time married Anice Boudinot,
sister of his brother-in-law, the Honourable
Elias Boudinot, a double alliance that linked
two chief families of the future Commonwealth
together as with hooks of tempered steel.

Morven

107

Mrs. Stockton was a striking feature in the
best society of her times. From her French
ancestors she inherited her brunette beauty
and the vivacity of speech and manner that
made her companionship a continual charm. To

ANICE STOCKTON.
FROM ORIGINAL PORTRAIT IN POSSESSION OF MRS. McGILL.
none of her friends and admirers was she more
bewitching than to the lover-husband. The
poetic ardour of a courtship conducted in the
most approved style of a romantic age, was

108 More Colonial Homesteads
never abated by time and intimate association.
Their married life was the prettiest of pastorals,
in the midst of gayeties, and in the thick of
later storms. As long as they both lived, they
used in their private correspondence the noms
de plume assumed when, as lovers, they wrote
poems dedicated to one another. Mrs. Stock
ton preferred " Emilia " to her own quaint and
sweeter appellation, and her Richard was " Lu
cius." It was a fashion of times more artificial
than ours when the language of pen and tongue
was more ornate than our realistic speech. The
custom, affected and fantastic in the abstract,
steals a mellowed grace from age and the de
tails of a life-long love-story.
The homestead erected by Richard the
Second was a commodious and highly respect
able family residence under the management
of Judge John Stockton. John's son Richard,
aided by the exquisite taste of his " Emilia,"
made mansion and grounds the most beautiful
in the State. Until " Emilia " became mistress
of the fair domain it was known as "the Stock
ton Place," — sometimes as " Constitution Hill";
the name applied to a large tract of rolling land,
including the homestead grounds. Mrs. Rich
ard Stockton gave it the name it now bears.

Morven 109
Ossian's Poems were just then the rage in
the English reading-world. Macpherson had
set Scotch reviewers by the ears, and infuriated
Dr. Johnston to a bellow of protest by pub
lishing Temora in 1763, and a general collec
tion of the Poems of Ossian in 1765. Both
compilations are regarded by our matter-of-
fact book-lovers (who yet profess to under
stand Browning and Carlyle !) as incoherent
rubbish of dubious parentage. " Poems " and
putative author would have been forgotten
and clean out of the minds of readers and
reviewers, fifty years ago, but for half-a-dozen
phrases that flash like jewels in a dust-heap.
Ossian, the son and panegyrist of Fingal, King
of Morven, was not merely read, but quoted,
by our great-grandmothers. They hung en
tranced over, and read aloud, in summer noons
and winter midnights, what went before and
came after such lines as, 
"The music of Carryl is like the memory of departed
joys — pleasant and mournful to the soul."
Fingal, — "grand, gloomy, and peculiar" —
the, to our taste, highly bombastic hero of Te
mora and other of the unrhymed translations,
found signal favour in Anice Stockton's sight.

110 More Colonial Homesteads
She christened the home of her bridehood
" Morven," the soft music of the name com
mending it to her ears, as to ours. She gave
personal supervision to the grading of lawns,
planting of shrubbery and avenues of trees,
and the laying-out of parterres and " pleas-
aunces." During her gracious reign Morven
gained the reputation for superb hospitality it
has never lost.
Sons and daughters were born to the per
fectly mated pair, frolicked in the shaded
pleasure-grounds all day long, said their prayers
at their mother's knee, and were folded nightly
under the broad rooftree. They were nurtured,
according to Presbyterian traditions, in the
fear of Gor> and trained to fear naught else
but failure in obedience to the law of God
and the law of love to man. Twelve happy,
busy years went by, and the first separation
had to be faced and endured — this, too, for
duty's sake. Public and private business
called Mr. Stockton to England. A Presi
dent, able and learned, was wanted for the
College of New Jersey ; the subject of paper
currency in the Colonies was growing from
gravity into perplexity ; yet more serious
questions were seething in the minds of embryo

Morven 1 1 1
statesmen and incorruptible patriots on this
side of the Atlantic, and ruffling the tempers
of officials in the Home Government.
In 1766, Mr. Stockton sailed for Great
Britain after a vain endeavour to induce his
wife to accompany him. Both parents must
not leave the children, she represented mildly,
but firmly. As sensibly and heroically she
forwarded the preparations for his voyage and
long absence.
I have had the pleasure of looking over a
MS. volume of letters, written during the
separation of sixteen months that tried the
hopes and spirits of the faithful pair. They
were copied out carefully, after Richard Stock
ton's death, by his widow for their daughter,
Mrs. Field, — typewriting being among the
then-uninvented arts. The priceless archives
of wedded devotion stronger than time and
death are now in the possession of Mrs.
Chancellor McGill of New Jersey, a great-
granddaughter of Richard and Anice Stock-
ton. Addressing her " in the old, sweet way " as
" Emilia," the traveller writes of " a charming
collection of bulbous roots " he is getting to
gether to send her as soon as the American

112 More Colonial Homesteads
spring opens. "But I really believe" — he
breaks off to say proudly — " you have as fine
tulips and hyacinths in your little garden as
almost any in England."
In another letter: — "Suppose in the next
place I inform you that I design a ride to
Twickenham, the latter end of next month,
principally to view Mr. Pope's garden and
grotto, and that I shall take with me a gentle
man who draws well, to lay down an exact
plan of the whole." He has high hopes that
he has prevailed upon Dr. Witherspoon of
Paisley, Scotland, to accept the Presidency
of the College ; he has attended the Queen's
birthnight ball, and describes it in lively terms ;
he is uneasy over probable political compli
cations. " Mr. Charles Townsend, the Chancellor of the Ex
chequer, informed the House last week that he was pre
paring a scheme to lay before them for raising money
from the Colonies ; urged the necessity of sending more
troops there, and the propriety and justice of their sup
porting them. I exceedingly fear that we shall get
together by the ears, and God only knows what is to
be the issue. . . . Wherever I can serve my native
country, I leave no occasion untried. Dear America !
thou sweet retreat from greatness and corruption ! In
thee I choose to live and die ! "

Morven 113
These are sentences which forecast darkly
the coming conflict, full of fate for him
and his.
We recognise a familiar name in that of
Lord Adam Gordon in whose care, it may be
recollected, Sir William Johnson of Johnson
Hall sent his son and heir to England " to get
rid of the rusticity of a home education."
The Scottish peer would seem to have had
an especial penchant for American boys.
" He inquired very particularly after you
and your dear little boy," writes the absent
husband, making it evident that Lord Adam
had been a guest at Morven, as well as at
Johnson Hall, while in America.
The fond father bids the mother
" Kiss my dear, sweet children for me, and give rather
the hardest squeeze to my only son, if you think it right.
If not, divide it equally without any partiality.
" I am entertained with the grandeur and vanity
of these kingdoms, as you wished me to be, and, as you
know I am curious, new objects are continually striking
my attention and engaging my fancy ; but
'One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight ;
Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight.'
Let me tell you that all the grandeur and elegance that
I have yet seen in these kingdoms, in different families,

ii4 More Colonial Homesteads
where I have been received with great politeness, serves
but to increase the pleasure I have, for some years, en
joyed in your society. I see not a sensible, obliging,
tender wife, but the image of my dear Emilia is full in
view. I see not a haughty, imperious dame, but 1 re
joice that the partner of my life is so much the opposite.
But why need I talk so gallantly ? You know my ideas
long ago, as well as you would were I to write a volume
upon the endearing topic.
" Here I saw all your Duchesses of Ancaster, Hamil
ton, etc., so famous for their beauty. But here, I have
done with this subject ! for I had rather ramble 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."
After his return to America, and Morven,
he was appointed to a seat in the Royal Coun
cil of the Provinces, and to a judgeship in the
Supreme Court. These and other honours
made the severance of his allegiance to the
Crown a terrible wrench for man and public
official. The crucial test of loyalty and of conscience
was applied on the 4th of July, 1776, and sent
his name down to us as " The Signer."
His eldest daughter, Julia, was, by now, mar
ried to Dr. Benjamin Rush, of Philadelphia,
already eminent in his profession. The two
affixed their names on the same day to the

Morven 1 1 7
Declaration of Independence. Indeed, the
family connexion presented a united front in
this crisis of national history. His brothers,
Philip and Samuel, and their brother-in-law,
Elias Boudinot, were zealous and consistent
patriots throughout the war.
A New Jersey historian is enthusiastic over
the honour reflected upon Princeton by the
fact that two of her citizens are upon the im
mortal roll of honour :
" Dr. Witherspoon was the acting pastor of the Pres
byterian Church, and Mr. Stockton a member of it. Dr.
Witherspoon was president of the College, and Mr.
Stockton was a trustee and a graduate of the same.
" What other little town, in our whole country, was so>
honoured as to have had two of her citizens, and such
distinguished ones as these were, to sign the Declaration
of Independence ? "
The cloud, big with fate to two nations, was
to burst with awful fury and suddenness upon
Morven. When her master pledged " life, for
tune, and sacred honour" for his fulfilment of
the obligations entered into on our first " In
dependence Day," he virtually signed the for
feiture of the first two. After the adjournment
of Congress in Philadelphia he returned to his
Princeton home, never so fair before as now.

118 More Colonial Homesteads
In almost twenty years of proprietorship, he
had brought the interior and the environment
of the mansion to a degree of luxury and
beauty impossible in a new country unless
wealth, taste, and foreign travel combine to
accumulate pictures and furniture, and to stock
grounds with exotic trees and plants. The
line of historic catalpas set out by him along
the front of the lawn were but saplings then,
yet were in flower on that memorable July
day when Richard Stockton alighted from his
travelling carriage at his own door and told
his wife what he had done and what might be
the consequences.
Catalpas, and the long avenue of elms in
which we stroll to-day, were leafless when
news was hurriedly brought to Princeton that
a body of British soldiers was marching to
wards the town. Silver was buried in the
frozen earth ; papers and other portable valu
ables were huddled into portmanteaux ; the
horses and roomy chariot were ordered for
instant flight.
An incident related by Mr. J. W. Stockton
must not be omitted from this part of our
story. Mrs. Stockton had her husband's un
bounded confidence. His private, and yet

Morven 119
more important public, correspondence passed
through her hands for approval, for revision,
and for sealing. She was privy to the fact
that certain important documents relating to
public affairs and involving the liberty, if not
the lives, of those by whom they were written,
had been deposited in " Whig Hall," Prince
ton. In the haste, confusion, and alarm of
the flitting from Morven, the intrepid woman
recollected the papers, and taking no one into
her confidence, ran alone through byways to
the Hall, secured the treasonable correspond
ence, and with her own hands secreted them
in the grounds of her home. Some say they
were buried ; others, that they were hidden in
a hollow tree. In recognition of these and
other services rendered to the organisation dur
ing the Revolution, she was made a member
of the American Whig Society. " This is the
only instance in which a lady has been in
itiated into the mysteries of that literary
brotherhood." Richard, the eldest son, a lad of twelve, was,
singularly enough, as it appears to us, left
behind when the rest of the family quitted
Morven. " In care of a trustworthy old serv
ant," is an explanatory phrase not quite satis-

120 More Colonial Homesteads
factory to those who know nothing more than
the bare circumstance that father, mother, and
the other children sought refuge in the house
of Mr. John Covenhoven, thirty miles distant,
in Monmouth County. It may have been
that the boy's occupation of the home was
meant to cover some technical point relative
to the absolute desertion of the premises.
There was no danger of personal violence to
him. Cornwallis was with the advancing forces,
and he was too brave a gentleman to make war
upon children. One of the dramatic episodes
of the arrival of the British company at the
homestead must have been the apparition of
the always dauntless son of the house where
they had expected to see no one. Morven
was Lord Cornwallis's headquarters. He
occupied it for a month, sleeping in the spa
cious bedchamber above the drawing-room. In
leaving, he gave the place over to the wanton
depredations of his men. The stables were
emptied of stock and provender ; the wine-cel
lars were gutted ; the furniture, imported and
home-made, was hacked into firewood ; books
and pictures fed the wanton flames. The
portrait of Mr. Stockton painted by Copley,
from which our illustration is taken, was left

Morven

121

upon the wall, but mutilated. A gash in the
throat severed the head from the body, signi
fying the opinion of a humorous trooper as to
the fate deserved by the rebellious original.
The injury has been neatly repaired, yet the

RICHARD STOCKTON
" THE SIGNER "

work of the decapitating blade is still visible
in certain lights.
Princeton was occupied by the British,
December 7, 1776. The evicted fugitives'
dream of security with the hospitable Coven-
hovens was rudely dispelled, a few nights

122 More Colonial Homesteads
afterward, by the violent entrance of a posse
of armed men into Mr. Stockton's chamber.
The secret of his hiding-place had been be
trayed by neighbourhood tories, and a party
was sent to apprehend him. He was taken to a
New York jail, thence transferred to a prison-
ship, and treated like a common felon.
The Battle of Princeton was fought January
3, 1777. The British were driven out of the
town and ejected from the College in which a
regiment had taken shelter. On the same day
Congress passed this resolution :
" Whereas, Congress hath received information that
Richard Stockton, Esq., of New Jersey, and a member
of this Congress, hath been made a prisoner, and ignomi-
niously thrown into a common jail, and there detained.
Resolved, that General Washington be directed
to make immediate inquiry into the truth of this report,
and if he finds reason to believe it well-founded, that he
send to General Howe, remonstrating against this de
parture from that humane procedure which has marked
the conduct of these States to prisoners who have fallen
into their hands, and to know of General Howe whether
he chooses this shall be the future rule for treating all
such on both sides as the fortune of war may place in the
hands of either party."
The remonstrance had the effect of releasing
Mr. Stockton after some needless delays. The

Morven 123
tedious weeks of confinement in the middle
of an unusually inclement winter undermined
his health. He rejoined his family at Mor
ven, indomitable in spirit, but shattered in
constitution. The homestead was a yet more pitiable
wreck. In evacuating it, the soldiery had
fired both wings, counting upon the destruction
of the entire building. The conflagration was
arrested before the main body of the house was
reached. We see the noble halls and arched
doorways, the drawing-room, dining-room, and
the bedchambers above these, as they were
restored by the owners, grateful to find thus
much of the original edifice standing.
The news of the loss of her library was
carried to Mrs. Stockton in Monmouth. She
heard it with the fortitude of the patriot, the
composure of the thoroughbred.
" I shall not complain if only my Bible and
Young's Night Thoughts are saved," was her
remark, recalled wonderingly when, as the
story runs, these two books were brought to
her, upon her return to Princeton, as the for
lorn relics of the treasures which had filled her
shelves. But one of the three chests of valuables

124 More Colonial Homesteads
buried in the woods had escaped the marauders.
The location of the others was revealed to the
soldiery by one of the Morven servants, —
not, we are glad to be assured, the faithful
majordomo who was the custodian of the
young master left at home.
Mrs. McGill prizes, as one of her choicest
heirlooms, a silver coffee-pot, disinterred with
other plate when the coast was cleared of
robbers and traitors. On one side is the
Stockton coat of arms, but without the lion
rampant that appears in our reproduction of the
insignia. Instead of the king of beasts we
have upon the reverse side of the pot the figure
of a dove. Whether the gentle bird were an
innovation upon the conventional design, or
had a right to perch upon the genealogical
tree, is a mooted question with judges of
heraldic emblems. Anice Stockton's eyes
may have glistened tenderly in looking upon
the symbol of peace restored to heart and
dwelling by the husband's release and the
blessedness of once more gathering her child
ren in the home of their fathers.
Peace and joy were short-lived. It became
fatally evident before the ruined wings were
rebuilt and Morven was refurnished, that the

Morven 125
mischief wrought by freezing nights in a fire-
less cell, wretched fare, and the unspeakable
horrors of the prison-ship could never be
remedied. One ailment succeeded another,
each in evidence of poison the system had not
strength to expel, until a cancerous affection
laid the sufferer aside from professional labours
and social enjoyments. For months prior to
his decease he never lost the consciousness of
torturing pain except when under the influence
of opiates, and had not one hour of natural sleep.
" Not one soft slumber cheats the vital pain,"
wrote the devoted wife, his constant nurse, in
the vigil of" December jd, if 80." The im
promptu scribbled beside the death-pillow
" cannot " — says Mr. J. W. Stockton, " be
given as a specimen of her poetic abilities,"
— yet some stanzas bring scene and sufferers
vividly to our mental vision.
" While through the silence of the gloom)' night,
My aching heart reverb'rates every moan,
As, watching by the glimmering taper's light,
I make each sigh, each mortal pang my own.
But why should I implore Sleep's friendly aid ?
O'er me, her poppies shed no ease impart ;
But dreams of dear, departing joys invade
And rack with fears my sad, prophetic heart.

126 More Colonial Homesteads
And vain is prophecy — when death's approach
Thro' years of pain hath sapped a dearer life,
And makes me, coward-like, myself reproach
That e 'er I knew the tender name of wife.
Oh ! could I take the fate to him assigned,
And leave the helpless family their head !
How pleased, how peaceful, to my lot resigned,
I 'd quit the nurse's station for the bed ! "
Richard the Signer died at Morven, February
28, 1781 — is an entry in the family chronicle
directly beneath the lines from which I have
quoted. His funeral sermon was based upon a text
selected by the widowed Anice :
/ have seen an end of all perfection, but Thy
commandment is exceeding broad.
The eulogium pronounced by the preacher,
Dr. Samuel Stanhope Smith, Vice-President
of the College of New Jersey, includes this
summary of Mr. Stockton's deportment, char
acter, and attainments.
" In his private life he was easy and graceful in his
manners ; in his conversation affable and entertaining,
and master of a smooth and elegant style, even in his or
dinary discourse. As a man of letters he possessed a
superior genius, highly cultivated by long and assiduous
application. His researches into the principles of morals

Morven

127

and religion were deep and accurate, and his knowledge
of the laws of his country extensive and profound. He
was particularly admired for a flowing and persuasive
eloquence by which he long governed in the Courts of
New Jersey."

V

MORVEN, THE STOCKTON HOMESTEAD,
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
( Concluded )
" The History of Princeton, by John Freling
huysen Hageman, Counsellor-at-Law, Prince
ton, N. J.," diverges from the dusty road of
historical and statistical details to give us a
passage which is poetical in spirit and graceful
in wording :
" The long row of large, though knotty and gnarled,
catalpas, still in vigorous life, along the whole front of
Morven on Stockton Street, having survived the less
ancient pines which alternated them, were planted by
him" [Richard (IV.) Stockton].— " This row of catalpas
in front of Morven can only be viewed as a sacred me
morial to the Signer of the Declaration. The Fourth
of July is the great day in Mr. Stockton's calendar, as it
is in that of our country, and these catalpas, with the
undeviating certainty of the seasons, put on their pure
white blooming costume, every Fourth of July. For this
12S

Morven 129
reason, they have been called, very fitly in this country,
the ' Independence Tree.' For one hundred years
[this in 1876] have these trees pronounced their annual
panegyric upon the memory of the man who planted
them." Looking down the leafless vista upon the
anniversary of her husband's death-day, Anice
Stockton wrote — for her own eyes and her
children's :
" To me in vain shall cheerful spring return,
And tuneful birds salute the purple morn ;
Autumn in vain present me all her stores,
Or summer court me with her fragrant bowers ;
These fragrant bowers were planted by his hand
And now, neglected and unpruned, must stand.
Ye stately Elms and lofty Cedars ! Mourn !
Slow through your avenues you saw him borne,
The friend who reared you, never to return."
Although a handsome and brilliant woman
under fifty years of age when left a widow,
Mrs. Stockton gave her peerless husband no
successor in her heart. For her children's
sake, she took her place in the society she was
born to adorn, when the days of nominal
mourning were over. The hospitable doors of
Morven had not been closed against the hosts
of true friends who revered the master's mem
ory and sympathised in the grief of the smitten

130 More Colonial Homesteads
household. Congress met in Princeton in
1783, with Elias Boudinot, Mrs. Stockton's
brother, as President. The Fourth of July
was celebrated with much dclat by the Literary
Societies of Nassau Hall, and the orators of
the occasion, together with a number of mem
bers of Congress, dined at Morven as the
guests of the President. He was an inmate of
his sister's house during the session of the
Chief Court of the United States at Prince
ton. The fifth Richard Stockton in the direct
line of natural succession, and the fourth in
heirship, was now nineteen, and already a man
in dignity of bearing and mental development.
His environment was all the most ambitious
parent could have asked for an ambitious son.
Washington was a frequent visitor in the house
of his late friend, and on the most cordial
terms with the accomplished hostess.
What is " thought to be the most lively and
sprightly letter that is known to have been
written by General Washington," was ad
dressed to Mrs. Stockton, " Sept. 2, 1 783." It
was in answer to an " Ode to Washington,"
written by her on the announcement of peace.
The tribute to the hero is in the formal — we

Morven 133
should say, "stilted" — style of a day when
odes were en regie, and verse-making was an
accomplishment much affected by " society
people." " Emilia " had previously congratulated Corn-
wallis's victor in the columns of the New Jersey
Gazette, and received an autograph letter of
thanks, assuring the fair author that
" This address, from a person of your refined taste
and elegance of expression, affords a pleasure beyond
my powers of utterance. I have only to lament that the
hero of your pastoral is not more deserving of your pen ;
but the circumstance shall be placed among the happiest
events of my life."
In the second ode, sent direct to the subject
thereof, the fair author asks :
" Say ! can a woman's voice an audience gain,
And stop a moment thy triumphal car ? "
Although sorely tempted to transcribe all
four pages of the " lively and sprightly " prose
effusion drawn from the martial soul of the
recipient of the compliment, I must, perforce,
content myself and tantalise the reader with
the opening paragraph and the shorter flight
into the realm of fanciful gallantry that follows :

134 More Colonial Homesteads
" 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 very indulgent ghostly adviser on this
occasion, and notwithstanding ' you are the most offend
ing 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 purgatory. Nay, more ; if it rests with me to
direct your future lucubrations, I shall certainly urge
you to a repetition of the same conduct, on purpose to
show what an admirable knack you have at confession
and reformation ; and so, without more hesitation, I
shall venture to recommend the muse not to be restrained
by ill-grounded timidity, but to go on and prosper.
"You see, madam, when once the woman has tempted
us, and we have tasted the forbidden fruit, there is no
such thing as checking our appetite, whatever the con
sequences may be. You will, I daresay, recognise our
being the genuine descendants of those who are reputed
to be our great progenitors."
The charger of our hero's imagination floun
ders in the unfamiliar field as in a morass. It
would be unfair to him, and to her who in
spired the ponderous effusion, not to insert
the whole of a third letter, to which we turn
with grateful relief :

Morven 135
" Mrs. Richard Stockton,
" ' Morven,' " Princeton, N. J.
" Mount Vernon, Feb'y i8th, 1784.
" Dear Madam :
" The intemperate weather, and very great care which
the Post Riders take of themselves, prevented your let
ter of the 4th of last month from reaching my hands 'till
the ioth of this. I was then in the very act of setting
off on a visit to my aged Mother, from whence I am
just returned. These reasons, I beg leave to offer, as
an apology for my silence until now.
" It would be a pity indeed, my dear Madam, if the
Muses should be restrained in you. It is only to be re
gretted that the hero of your poetical talents is not more
deserving their lays. I cannot, however, from motives
of false delicacy (because I happen to be the principal
character in your Pastoral), withhold my encomiums on
the performance, for I think the easy, simple, and beau
tiful strains with which the dialogue is supported, does
great justice to your genius, and will not only secure
Lucinda & Aminta from Wits & Critics, but draw from
them, however unwillingly, their highest plaudits, if
they can relish the praises that are given as highly as
they must admire the manner of bestowing them.
" Mrs. Washington, equally sensible with myself of
the honour you have done her, joins me in most affec
tionate compliments to yourself, the young Ladies &
Gentlemen of your family. With sentiments of esteem,
regard and respect,
" I have the honour to be, Dear Madam,
"Y'r Most Obed'l Serv't,
" G. Washington."

136 More Colonial Homesteads
When her son Richard (V.) married, Mrs.,
now " Madam," Stockton voluntarily abdicated
the throne she had graced for more than thirty
years. Washington's last visit to her was paid
when she was boarding in a private family in
Princeton. Her four beautiful daughters were
married — Julia, as we have seen, to Dr. Rush ;
Susan to Alexander Cuthbert, Esq., a Cana
dian ; Mary to Rev. Dr. Hunter, a Presbyterian
clergyman who had served through the Revo
lutionary War as an army chaplain ; Abigail
to Robert Field, Esq., of Whitehill, Burlington
County. The mother's old age was placid and
honourable to the end. At the time of her
death, February 6, j8oi, she had resided for
some years with her daughter, Mrs. Field.
I owe to the kindly courtesy of Mrs. McGill
the privilege of inserting here a letter written
by Mrs. Richard Stockton to Mrs. Field, as a
preface to the volume of MS. letters referred
to in the preceding chapter. It rounds off
fitly the story of conjugal love, stronger than
death :
January the 12th, 1793.
" You could not, my dear Abby, have made a request
to me more mournfuly pleasing, than that of copying for
you your dear, and ever lamented father's letters. Your
tender years when he left us, prevented you from form-

Morven 137
ing any adequate idea of your loss in such a parent. In
deed, you must feel it more now, than you could then.
I am sorry that the ravages of war have left so few of his
writings. All of them would be a treasure to his child
ren, and an improvement to the world. It seems as if
some kind power, watchful over the happiness of poor
mortals, had interposed to save a very few of the many
letters he wrote to me while he was abroad. The
soldiers' straw and dirt from which I carefully collected
them with my own hand, has indeed so torn and effaced
them, together with the running hand in which they
were written, that I do not wonder that you cannot read
ily read them
" You will see in those letters, the portrait of your be
loved Father's character in the domestick point of view,
which was truly amiable, — and tho when he wrote them,
they were intended for no eye but mine, yet by them you
will be better able to judge of his character, as a friend,
a husband, and a parent, than by a volume of encomium
drawn up by the ablest hands. Had I the ability to do
his talents, his virtues, and his usefulness, justice, they
should not be buried in silence and forgotten, — but to
you, my dear, I will give a few traits of his character, —
as I know you will never sit as a critic on your Mother's
attempts to revive in your memory the sweet idea of such
a Father. Therefore I dedicate this little manuscript
book to you.
" He was a most accomplished man, adorned with such
native ease and dignity of manner as did honour to hu
man nature. His address was elegant and fascinating ;
— he had all the polish of a Court, in his conversation
and behaviour. He was a man of genius and learning,

138 More Colonial Homesteads
and appeared to understand the theory of the whole cir
cle of sciences and the practice of a great many of them
perfectly. He had the most active and penetrating mind,
with the clearest head, and the most sound judgment I
ever knew meet in one man, joined to an industry and
attention in everything that he undertook, that made him
able to accomplish what he designed, however arduous
the purpose. He was kind, benevolent, and hospitable,
ever ready to do good, both in the line of his profession,
and in the daily occurrences of life. His piety towards
God, his gratitude for all His mercies, his resignation to
His will, and his confidence in the atoning merits of his
blessed Redeemer, completed the whole round of his
character, and formed him to be the best of husbands,
the kindest father, brother, master, friend. My earnest
prayer, day and night, is that you may all tread in his
footsteps, and enjoy his reward.
" I have in my possession many letters which he wrote
to Lord North and other ministers after he returned from
England respecting this country. The cloud that after
ward poured in a storm all over this extensive continent
was gathering thick when he was in England, and he
laboured as much as he was able then for the sake of
both countries to avert it. My motive in mentioning
these letters to you is to elucidate in some degree my
opinion of his penetration, as you will see that it oper
ated there almost to prediction. Therefore I wish you
to read them, and I shall add to what I have written in
this book copies of the anniversary eulogy which I have
written to his memory almost every year since his death,
the return of which I have ever kept as a day of solitude
and retirement, and shall to the end of my days."

Morven 139
Richard (V.) Stockton, surnamed by college-
mates and townsmen " the Duke," while lack
ing his father's unfailing courtesy of mien and
affability to lofty and low, won and held the
respect of his fellow citizens. " He was a
gentleman of a lofty sense of honour and the
sternest integrity," testifies an eminent lawyer
who studied his profession in Mr. Stockton's
office. " He had a great abhorrence of every
thing mean and unworthy."
From the same authority, (Mr. Samuel J.
Bayard of Princeton,) we have a characteristic
anecdote of " the Duke." When Lafayette
made the tour of America in 1824-26, the
master of Morven was appointed by the com
mittee of reception to act as their mouthpiece
in welcoming the distinguished visitor to
Princeton. Mr. Bayard writes :
" In the morning of the day on which Lafayette was
to arrive the council assembled to hear Mr. Stockton
read his address. He commenced by saying ' Monsieur
le Marquis de La Fayette.' After he concluded, I sug
gested timidly that La Fayette had renounced his title in
the National Assembly and that he would prefer in this
country to be called ' General.' Mr. Stockton sternly
said — ' Once a Marquis, always a Marquis ! I shall ad
dress him by what was his title before the infamous
French Revolution.' And he did so address him. "

i4° More Colonial Homesteads
Mr. Stockton was elected twice to Congress,
once to the Senate, and once to the House, and
stood for a quarter-century in the front rank of
American jurists.
He died at Morven in 1828.
His eldest son Richard (VI.) who should
have come after him in the proprietorship of
the now ancient homestead, removed to Missis
sippi before his father's death, and continued
there the practice of law he had begun with
flattering promise of success in New Jersey.
He was Attorney General of his adopted
State when he was killed in a duel with a
brother judge.
Morven, with two hundred and seventy acres
of surrounding land, together with fifteen
thousand acres in North Carolina and other
tracts in New Jersey and elsewhere, composed
the fortune Robert Field Stockton, " the
Duke's " second son, found waiting for him
when called to take the place left vacant by his
father's death.
He had entered Princeton College in the
thirteenth year of his age. Mr. Hageman re
lates that " in his boyhood he was characterised
for his personal courage, a high sense of
honour, a hatred of injustice, with unbounded

Morven

141

generosity and a devoted attachment to his
friends." Added to these were ambitions that
seemed audacious in a boy, and a thirst for
adventure rarely developed in American youths
born to " expectations." These aspirations

COMMODORE ROBERT FIELD STOCKTON.
begat such restlessness in the high-spirited boy
that he left college before the time for gradua
tion, and entered the navy, a service then
mightily stimulated by the prospect of another
war with Great Britain. Robert Stockton
received his midshipman's commission in 181 1,
and was sent on board the frigate President,

142 More Colonial Homesteads
then preparing for a patrol cruise along the
coast threatened by British vessels. In the
war of 1812, his dauntless courage and keen
delight in the excitement and danger of battle
earned for him the nickname of " Fighting
Bob," a title that stayed by him all his life.
Ten years, crowded with perils and happen
ings, elapsed before he was again at Morven.
His parents were living, and had, besides him
self, seven other children. The young falcon
had tried his wings and knew their strength
and the joys of flight. At twenty-eight he
had fought under Decatur at Algiers, cruised
and explored and battled under Bainbridge,
Rodgers, and Chauncey, and risen to the rank
of Lieutenant. Philanthropy entered into the
next project that fired his ardent soul. In
1 82 1 he sailed for the coast of Africa, com
manding officer of anew vessel, and, as actuary
of the American Colonisation Society, com
missioned to select a location for the colony of
liberated negroes they purposed to establish
near the British settlement of Sierra Leone.
The history of the expedition belittles, in
stirring incident, hairbreadth escapes, and
daring enterprise, the most improbable of
Stevenson's, Hope's, and Weyman's fictions.

Morven 143
After his party of three white men and an
interpreter had forced their way through mo
rass, jungle, and forest to the village of the
African chief, " King Peter," they were con
fronted by a horde of murderous savages, in
furiated by the rumour that the object of the
strangers' visit was to convict the tribe of
supplying slavers with prisoners taken in in
ternecine warfare, and women and children
stolen from their enemies' villages. I extract
from Hageman's History a partial account of
the scene given by Doctor Ayres, an eye
witness :
" Stockton instantly, with his clear, ringing tone of
voice, commanded silence. The multitude was hushed
as if a thunderbolt had fallen among them, and every
eye was turned upon the speaker. Deliberately drawing
a pistol from his breast and cocking it, he gave it to Dr.
Ayres, saying, while he pointed to the mulatto : ' Shoot
that villain if he opens his lips again ! ' Then, with the
same deliberation, drawing another pistol and levelling
it at the head of King Peter, and directing him to be
silent until he heard what was to be said, he proceeded
to explain the true object of this treaty, and warned the
king of the consequences of his refusal to execute it,
threatening the worst punishment of an angry God if he
should fail to perform his agreement.
" During this harangue, delivered through an inter
preter, the whole throng, horror-struck with the danger

144 More Colonial Homesteads
of their king and awed by the majesty of an ascendant
mind, sunk gradually, cowering prostrate to the ground.
If they had believed Stockton to be an immediate mes
senger from heaven, they could not have quailed and
shrunk and humbled themselves to more humiliating
postures. Like true savages, the transition in their
minds from ferocity to abject cowardice was sudden
and involuntary. King Peter was quite as much over
come with fear as any of the crowd, and Stockton, as
he perceived the effect of his own intrepidity, pressed
the yielding mood only with more sternness and vehe
mence." The territory purchased for the American
Colonisation Society by Lieutenant Stockton
is now the Republic of Liberia.
As the determined opponent of the slave-
trade, he chased and captured a number of
slave-ships sailing under false colours ; ferreted
out more than one nest of pirates, and dragged
the offenders to justice. He had crowded the
events and perils of a lifetime into his thirty-
one years of mortal existence when he seemed
content to settle down to the peaceful pursuits
of a country gentleman in the home and town
his forefathers had founded. For sixteen
years he had never asked for a furlough, and
now, while holding himself in readiness to
respond to the recall to active service, he

Morven 145
engaged with characteristic energy in the
duties that lay nearest his hand. He was
the President of the Colonisation Society ;
the importer of blooded racers from Eng
land ; the eloquent supporter of Andrew Jack
son's claims to the Presidential chair ; the
largest shareholder and most active promoter
of the Delaware and Raritan Canal Company,
making a voyage to England to effect a loan
in behalf of the scheme.
Jackson's advocate was not Van Buren's.
Captain Stockton "stumped" New Jersey for
"Tippecanoe and Tyler too," in 1840, and,
when Harrison's death made John Tyler Presi
dent, was offered and declined the Secretary
ship of the Navy. " Fighting Bob's " tastes
did not lie in the direction of state-desks, port
folios, and audience of office-seekers.
One of the great honours and the great
catastrophe of his eventful life came to him
February 28, 1844. At his earnest request
the Navy Department authorised him to con
struct the first steamship-of-war ever success
fully launched. The marvel was named by
her gratified inventor — The Princeton. The
trial trip was made down the Potomac. The
passengers were the President and Cabinet,

H6 More Colonial Homesteads
many members of Congress and distinguished
residents of Washington. The two great guns
were fired amid wild enthusiasm. They were
still at table when some of the company were
seized with a desire to have one of the big guns
fired a second time. The Captain objected,
smilingly ; " No more guns to-night ! " he said,
decidedly. The request was pressed by the Secretary of
the Navy, and the Captain fired the gun with
his own hand. A terrific explosion ensued.
The iron monster had burst, and five of the
guests, including the Secretary of State and the
Secretary of the Navy, were killed instantly.
Although the court of inquiry absolved Captain
Stockton from all blame, he carried the awful
memory of the day all his life, and could never
allude to it without profound emotion.
We have not room for more than a hasty
summary of other achievements of this eminent
scion of a noble race. He took possession of
California for the United States, and formed
a provisional government there in 1846, thus
securing the jurisdiction for his nation before
the close of the Mexican War. The first
printing-press and schoolhouse in California
were his work. He resigned his command in

Morven 147
the Navy, May 28, 1850; was United States
Senator from New Jersey, 1851-53 ; was the
nominee of the " American Party " for the
Presidency in 1856, a ticket withdrawn, at his
instance, before election-day.
In 1 86 1, he wrote to Governor Olden :
" to consider the best means of preserving our own State
from aggression.
" You remember it is only the River Delaware that
separates New Jersey from the Slave States. If you
should see fit to call upon me for any aid that I can
render, it is freely rendered. This is no time to potter
about past differences of opinion, or to criticise the
administration of public affairs. I shall hoist the Star-
Spangled Banner at Morven, the former residence of one
of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, —
that flag, which, when a boy, I nailed to the frigate
President." Commodore Stockton drew his last breath
where he had drawn his first — in Morven. He
saw the July blossoming of the catalpas in
1866. Catalpas were in the sere, elms, chest
nuts, and maples in the yellow, leaf when the
keen eyes closed upon earthly change and
glory. He died October 7, 1866, in his seventy-
first year,
" full of vigour and energy. No infirmity of body had
given a premonition of his death," writes the historian.

148 More Colonial Homesteads
" His health had been preserved by his abstemious hab
its of life and general care of himself. . . . He was
impulsive, yet self-possessed, generous and noble, with
a wonderful magnetism over men when he came into
personal contact with them."
In 1824, when twenty-nine years old, he
married a South Carolina belle, Miss Maria
Potter, daughter of Mr. John Potter, then
of Charleston, South Carolina, afterwards a
prominent citizen of Princeton. Commodore
Stockton survived his excellent wife for sev
eral years.
Their sons were Richard (VII.), a lawyer
of note, and Treasurer of the Delaware and
Raritan Company ; John Potter Stockton, who
became Attorney General of the State and an
active and popular United States Senator;
General Robert Field Stockton, Comptroller
of the State of New Jersey — all men of rare
ability, and useful citizens of State and nation.
Six daughters grew to womanhood : Mrs.
F. D. Howell, Mrs. Admiral Howell, Mrs.
W. R. Brown, Mrs. Hopkins, Mrs. W. A.
Dod, and Miss Maria Stockton.
Morven lapsed out of the straight line of
succession at Commodore Stockton's death.
It remained in the family until it was bought

Morven 151
by Rev. Dr. Shields, of Princeton. His
daughter, the wife of Bayard Stockton, Esq.,
a grandson of Commodore Stockton, is now
the graceful mistress of the venerable mansion.
The venerable homestead is therefore restored
to the lineal succession of the founders.
Front and back doors of the wide hall stood
open to let in spring sunshine and airs when
I visited Morven in the present year. A
tall Japan apple-tree (Pyrus floribundcf) on
one side of the porch flamed red and clear as
the bush that burned on Horeb ; other clumps
of flowering shrubbery, pink, white, and yel
low, lighted up the grounds laid out one hun
dred and thirty years ago after the pattern of
Mr. Pope's at Twickenham. Horse-chestnuts
still stand in line to indicate the course of
ancient avenues, and the rugged catalpas,
defiant of the centuries, mount guard upon
the outskirts of the lawn. At the left of
the entrance-hall is the dining-room, where
Washington and his generals — Lafayette and
Rochambeau and Viscount de Chastellux, —
Cornwallis and his officers, grave and rever
end seigniors from every land under the sun,
and nearly every President of the United
States, have broken bread and quaffed the

152 More Colonial Homesteads
generous vintage for which the Morven cellars
have always been famous.

BAYARD STOCKTON, ESQ.
A scarf wrought by the deft fingers of the
present lady of the manor is thrown over a
sideboard, and bears this legend :
Sons of Mon-en spread the feast, and send the night awav
in song."
The drawing-room is across the hall, and we
pass up the staircase to the chamber where

Morven

i53

Cornwallis "lay" — in archaic phrase — during
the four weeks in which Washington was mak
ing ready to dislodge him. The carved mantel
in this room was in place then, and the logs
blazed merrily below when the Delaware and
Raritan were frozen over, and the deposed
master of Mor
ven was being
done to his death
in common jail
and prison-ship.
The giant
horse-chestnut at
the rear of the
house sprang
from a nut
planted by one
of the Pintard
brothers when
they were court
ing the sisters,
Abigail and Susannah Stockton, more than a
hundred and fifty years ago. The patriarch
tree is eleven feet in girth, and upbears his
crown far above the ridge-pole of the house it
has shaded for seven generations of human
life. Upon the circular platform at its root

THE GIANT HORSE-CHESTNUT TREE.'

154 More Colonial Homesteads
Commodore Stockton used to arrange dancing-
parties on moonlight nights, when the branches
were heavy with blossoms and the summer air
sweet with their odour.
"And do no ghosts walk here?" I say in
credulously, pausing for a long look at the
portrait of " the Commodore" against the wall in
the dining-room, his sword suspended under it.
The hostess, so slight of figure, so girlish in
the riante face and clear, youthful tones that
— set in the storied spaces of the old colonial
homestead, — she reminds me of nothing so
much as the poet's "violet by a mossy stone,"
makes laughing reply :
" None ! That is, none that trouble this
generation."

VI

SCOTIA, THE GLEN-SANDERS HOUSE,
SCHENECTADY, NEW YORK
UPON the 27th day of July, in the year of
our Lord 1661, a commissioner appointed
by Peter Stuyvesant, " Director-General and
Commissary of the Privileged West India
Company at Fort Orange and the town of
Beverwyck " (now Albany), countersigned a
deed of sale from " certain chiefs of the Mo
hawk country " " unto Sieur Arent Van Cur
ler of a parcel of land or Great Flat called in
Indian, Schonowa." In payment for this
tract, upon which the city of Schenectady
now stands, the Mohawks received a " certain
number of cargoes," character and value un
known. The " Flats and Islands " thus conveyed
were neither a wooded wilderness nor a bar
ren waste, but cleared lands that had been
155

156 More Colonial Homesteads

GLEN-SANDERS COAT OF ARMS.

cultivated for generations by the least barbar
ous of the aboriginal residents. The Mo
hawks had five strong
villages, or castles, be
tween the mouth of the
river bearing their name
and Canajoharie, their
upper, and great, castle
in Herkimer County.
" Schonowa," or Schen
ectady Castle, was the
second sold by them to
the whites.
Among the petitioners to the Director-Gen
eral for permission to negotiate for the tract
was Alexander Lindsay Glen, a Scotch High
lander who, like hundreds of other pioneers,
had tarried in Holland on the way to America
long enough to identify himself with Dutch
immigrants. To association with them he
owed the name by which he was known in the
early days of his residence in the Colonies,
"Sander Leendertse Glen." His original in-
tention to settle himself upon a grant of Dela
ware lands was frustrated by the unfriendliness
of the Swedes, who were in possession there
in 1643. He applied for, and received, another

Scotia 157
grant in New Amsterdam (New York) in 1646.
As a trader in Albany, then Beverwyck, he
amassed a considerable fortune,
owned lands, houses, and cattle at Gravesend, Long
Island, and in 1658, built a mansion of stone, on the
north bank of our beautiful river, under protection and
title of the Mohawks ; for which site and some adjacent
uplands, with some small islands and all the flats con
tiguous, he obtained a patent in 1665." '
That the Highlander was canny in his gen
eration these facts denote. An anecdote ex
tracted from another early history is in evidence
of other Scotch traits. An agent of the West
India Company attempted to arrest a negro
slave belonging to " Sander Leendertse Glen."
Her master resisted the official, and, when
threatened with imprisonment and confisca
tion if he persisted in his contumacy, boldly
declared himself a subject of the Patroon of
Rensselaerwyck, the determined opponent
of the West India Company's authority and
claims. " I cannot serve a new master until I am
discharged from the one I live under," he
maintained, sturdily.
And when the infuriated officer " drew his
1 Early History of Schenectady, by Hon. John Sanders.

158 More Colonial Homesteads
rapier and threatened to run his adversary
through, Glen fearlessly seized a club to repel
his assailant, who then prudently retired."
Loyalty, thrift, and courage were united, in
the staunch Presbyterian, to blameless integ
rity that earned the confidence of white and
savage neighbours. He bought lands from
the Mohawks and paid for them ; Indians and
negroes worked together in his broad mead-
ows, and ate from the same board. Beyond
the stone mansion, to which he gave the name
of " Scotia," in loving memory of his native
land, stretched away to the north hundreds of
miles of woodlands and fertile valleys, un
claimed by the whites. Between him and the
bounds of Canada the Indians held everything,
and were prepared to resist every trespass
upon their rights. While Alexander Glen
lived these rights were religiously respected,
and the foundations laid of an hereditary
friendship between the residents of Scotia
and the Mohawks which, as we shall see, bore
much fruit in after years.
" Reared in the religious tenets of John
Knox," the successful freeholder was also a
valiant churchgoer. Four times a year an Al
bany dominie visited Schenectady, to adminis-

Scotia 159
ter the sacrament of the Lord's Supper and to
baptise such infants as had helped swell the
population of the young colony since his last
services there. There was a Reformed Dutch
church in Albany, twenty-odd miles away,
and perhaps a dozen times in the twelve
month " Sander Leendertse Glen " was in his
pew in the sacred edifice, having left Scotia
early Saturday morning to accomplish the
journey by Saturday night. In 1682, he built,
at his own expense, " and presented the same
to the inhabitants of Schenectady as a free
gift," a frame building, to be used as a church
on Sundays, as a public hall during the week.
The first pastor was installed and the building
was consecrated in 1684.
Catherine Dongan Glen, the wife of Alex
ander, died at Scotia in August of the same
year, and at her husband's request was buried
in the chancel of the church. One year and
two months thereafter a grave was opened for
him at her side. There their remains were
found after an interment of one hundred and
sixty-three years, and reverently removed by
a descendant to the Scotia family burying-
ground. Of his three sons (he had no daughters),

160 More Colonial Homesteads
Jacob Alexander died one month before his
father's decease, at the age of forty. He had
lived in Albany many years, and left five chil
dren, three sons and two daughters.
Alexander, the second son, was an active
and influential citizen of Schenectady, the
captain of a company of Colonial militia, a
justice of the peace, a mighty hunter, and
a famous fisherman. He died at the age of
thirty-eight, childless.
The homestead and the surrounding planta
tion were inherited by John Alexander, the
third and youngest son of Alexander Lindsay
Glen. As a rule, the colonists married early.
At nineteen, John Alexander had espoused
Anna Peek, the daughter of the settler from
whom Peekskill takes its name, and was now
the father of six living children.
The site of the " mansion of stone " on the
north bank of the Mohawk was nearer the wa
ter's edge than the present house. Little by
little, the channel encroached upon grounds
and foundations for half a century, until the
lower courses of stone — all that remain to
mark the spot — are now under water. When
John Alexander Glen became, in the thirty-
seventh year of his age, master of the estate,

Scotia

161

he was the richest man for many miles around.
The family gift of winning popularity was his

jEyViony of
-FTvrrLAWRENrr; Sai /fiii/ifi ;
flficty </¦¦ ''Il/hdtlowsjfjhmd $l.m:L Who?
Hfbr SemionX here Preached, in delcnee
¦o£ tile l)oc Irine.S .of the Reibhnjtrioij oftl jjgi
q Chinch of England; from y:' oSrniptions.j
¦ JoCiJie Churth ol Koine.SulferediMai'-tvrdojii'i
". '' tlmA h'ds t/Qz/cr// M(f/jsi;,-/ui> (rff/yif
'*%¦ arCAi'i'stiy /'•</• A" X/X.-,, ¦ '¦ -\

TABLET IN SCOTIA, BROUGHT FROM ENGLAND.
in large measure. With the Indians and
French he was " Major Coudre," a nickname
bestowed for some reason that has not been
transmitted to us.
Says his historian-descendant, in mock seri
ousness :

" The Mohawks of Scotia's early days were always
devoted friends of the Dutch, but they were barbarous
after all, and the white population was too sparse, weak,

162 More Colonial Homesteads
and timid to interfere with the chivalric customs of
those noble knights of the tomahawk, blunderbuss, bow,
and arrow."
In pursuance of the politic tolerance ex
ercised toward the chivalric customs of the
soil, the Mohawks had been allowed to re
tain the right to torture and burn alive such
prisoners as they willed to hale to a hillock
within the precincts of the Scotia plantation.
The spot had been set aside for that purpose
through untold generations of blood-loving
warriors. Where their fathers butchered, they
would slay and burn. Nothing the Glens —
father and sons — could say had abated the
horrible practice.
When a large body of Mohawks, just re
turned from an expedition northward, swarmed
down upon their " reserve " one summer after
noon, soon after Alexander Glen's death, the
hubbub of savage rejoicing, distinctly audible
at the house, was nothing novel or alarming.
What was to be, would be. If John Glen and
Anna, his wife, had not seen with their own
eyes the frightful ceremonies set for the next
day, they had heard stories of them from their
babyhood, and comprehended the futility of
meddling with wild beasts ravening for blood.

Scotia 163
The complexion of the present case was
changed when a party of the savages brought
to their house for safe-keeping a French
Jesuit priest, the destined victim of the mor
row's sacrifice.
I quote from a descendant's letter :
" The reason of their peculiar dislike to priests was
this : The Mohawks were Protestants after their own
fashion, — ' because the Dutch were,' — and this priest,
with others, had proselyted among them, and caused
some, as a Catholic party, to remove to Canada. Now,
these rejoicing, victorious Christians soon announced to
Mr. Glen and his wife that they intended a special roast
of their captive on the following morning. So they
brought the unfortunate priest along for Glen to lock
up in his cellar until they should want him for their
pious sacrifice."
With the blanched face and quivering limbs
of the doomed man before them, the husband
and wife were coolly composed. They raised
no objection to the pious roast aforesaid. As
a matter of ordinary prudence, they declined
to take the responsibility of becoming the
captor's gaolers. They knew the tricks and
manners of these priests. Wizards they were,
to a man, and the Jesuits the wiliest wizards
of all. If the Mohawks, at all times and every-

1 64 More Colonial Homesteads
where their very good friends, insisted upon
putting the prisoner into their cellar, he must
be locked up by the Mohawks' own hands and
the key be taken away by them. In Mr. Glen's
opinion, they would find, in the morning, that
the magician had slipped out through the key
hole. This " one thing he proposed with wise
solemnity, and this just proposition Mrs. Glen
seconded." After the cellar was securely locked and the
key safe in the keeping of the captors, Mr.
Glen strolled down to the encampment with
them, and led the conversation to a journey
his mules and a trusty negro or two were to
make to Albany the next day. Scotia was
out of salt, and there was not enough in Sche
nectady to supply the plantation. Team and
negroes would set out before sunrise. The
roads were deep with sand, and the noonday
sun hot.
The savages listened indifferently. A keg
of rum had been ordered from Schenectady,
and they made a night of it. Had the Glens
been inclined to sleep they could not have
closed their eyes for the hellish screechings
and chants that could be heard all the way to
the town. It was after two o'clock when the

Scotia 165
Protestant participants in the orgies fell into
a drunken slumber. By four, a wagon drove
from the back door of the house, laden with
what assumed to be empty hogsheads. One,
in the centre of the load, was open at the bot
tom, and there were holes bored here and there
to admit the air.
When Mr. Glen, awakened by the howls of
rage and disappointment arising from the cel
lar, made his appearance next morning, he
reminded the Indians of his caution :
" I told you so ! Priests are wizards."
And they reluctantly replied : " Coudre was
right." " Nor," concludes the narrative, " was it ever
known that any Mohawk of that generation
discovered the deception. Major Glen was
always a great favourite with the Mohawks.
His sayings and doings were ex cathedrd."
The possibility that he had a duplicate key
to his cellar never occurred to their noble
minds. The good deed of that summer night was
repaid with compound interest five years after
wards. On February 8, 1690, a force of French
and Indians swooped down upon the town of
Schenectady and massacred every white per-

1 66 More Colonial Homesteads
son who could not escape, with the exception
of a few old men, women, and children, spared
through a spasm of compassion on the part of
the French commandant.
" When Coudre, who was Mayor of the .place and
lived on the other side of the river, would not surren
der, and began to put himself on the defensive, with
his servants and some Indians . . it was resolved
not to do him any harm in consequence of the good
treatment the French had formerly experienced at his
hands. Only two houses were spared in the
town— one belonging to Coudre, and another, whither
M. de Montigny had been carried when wounded."
Such is the account of the massacre oriven
by a French writer.
Brave Anna Glen died in December, 1690,
— the year Schenectady was burned. Just six
months and two days afterward her widower
married the Widow Kemp, whose first hus
band, a justice of the peace, had lost his life
in the massacre. She was a sister of Cap
tain Alexander Glen's wife, and brought his
brother, her second husband, a goodly portion.
The two wives brought him, between them,
no less than thirteen children, seven of them
belonging to Anna, six to Deborah Kemp.
In 1 713, Major Glen built a new stone

< -
I- -
o h

Scotia 169
house upon a knoll overlooking the river, and
but a few hundred yards from the old home,
which was demolished to supply part of the
material for the present homestead. The incur
sion of the current — diverted by later changes
in the banks and bed of the river — had made
Major Glen uneasy as to the permanence of
the structure, and he needed more room for
his large family. Thrift may have entered
into the utilisation of every beam and door
and balustrade in the erection of the second
Scotia. Yet he was wealthy enough to spare
the workmen the pains of the contriving and
fitting manifest to the curious inspector of the
dwelling. Doors were re-hinged and hung,
the grooves of bolt and latch remaining on the
other side, and a score of other makeshifts, or
what would have been makeshifts in a poorer
man, are to be seen throughout the building.
It is altogether likely that affectionate associa
tion with the days of his youth and the father
who had preceded him in the house which was
the northern vanguard of civilisation, moved
him to preserve the wood and stone he could
not feel were insensate.
He lived in the new house until his death,
at the age of eighty-three, in 1731.

170 More Colonial Homesteads
Alexander, the third child and eldest son of
Major John Alexander Glen, became a ship's
surgeon, and died at sea in 1686 ; John, sixth
child and second son, also died before his
father, and unmarried ; Jacob Alexander, next
in order of succession, removed to Baltimore
at an early age and founded there a family.
" Several of the line became greatly distin
guished for wealth and legal ability," notably
Judge Elias Glen and his son, John Glen,
who, as United States Judge for Maryland,
"took his seat upon the same bench his father
had previously occupied."
Thus it came to pass that Jacob Glen, the
eighth child of Major John, and the first fruits
of the second marriage, fell heir to Scotia and
a large portion of the original estate. This
fortune he nearly doubled by judicious trad
ing and investments in the thirty-one years of
his occupancy of the mansion. He was a per
sonage of note in the town and neiehbour-
hood, a wise agriculturist, a skilful surveyor,
a member of the Provincial Legislature, and
colonel of all the militia west of Albany, — a
regiment at one time 3000 strong. Exercise
of the proverbial hospitality of the Scotia clan
proved fatal to himself and wife. Some lately

Scotia 171
arrived emigrants, sick, hopeless, and poor,
were sheltered and fed by the charitable couple
until they could obtain employment elsewhere.
Colonel and Mrs. Glen took ship-fever from
them, and died within three days of one an
other in August, 1762.
Their only child, Deborah, pretty and a
prospective heiress, was the idol of her parents
and a brilliant figure in what Schenectady by
now called society. When, at eighteen she
married John Sanders of Albany, it was a for
gone conclusion that, as our record phrases it,
he should "immediately remove to Scotia."
To "remove" the petted darling from the
homestead would be to tear the pearl from a
setting that would be worse than valueless
without her.
From the first mention of Deborah (the
family register spells it without the final h)
Glen in the pages that are more than half-
filled with italicised lists of the born, married,
and died, she seizes upon our fancy as a liv
ing personality might. There is a full-length
picture of her upstairs in " Grandma's Room,"
to which we shall mount by-and-by. It had
never much value as a work of art. With
other paintings that hang in the same room,

172 More Colonial Homesteads
it was once snatched from a burning room, and
is darkened by smoke and heat. But we take
kindly, even lovingly, to the little lady, as we
see her there. She has a sonsie, shrewd, happy
Scotch face and a trig figure laced up in a co
quettish boddice ; she carries her head a trifle
proudly, as conscious of her dignities and im
munities from rules that constrained other
damsels of her rank and age to obedience to
parents and superiors. A pair of her slippers,
flowered satin, with high heels and high in
steps, are brought to us while we look at her.
We run three fingers into the silken recess of
the instep and, in imagination, fit them upon
the tiny feet that in the painting are shod with
just such another pair. At her side is the pict
ure of a nice-looking boy, and, facing him on
the opposite wall, is the portrait of an old man,
his cheeks sunken and forehead seamed by the
ploughshare of time and care. Both represent
one and the same person — the John Sanders
whom she played with as a child, and married
when she had grown to womanhood and he
was a man of twenty-five.
Life's ironies are oftenest and most aptly
expressed by these old family portraits and
relics.

Scotia 173
Our dainty Deborah was dauntless as well.
In the lower hall we stayed to hear a story
that made us shudder, as she did not for her
self. She was reading in the library at the
left of the front door one day, when she heard
loud wrangling in the hall, and went out to see
what was the matter. Two Indians, probably
from the encampment mentioned just now,
had come to blows. One had pressed his an
tagonist up to the first landing of the stairs,
and the latter, seeing himself worsted, raised
his tomahawk. The other, unarmed, made a
flying leap down the stairs and into a closet
on the right of the hall. The tomahawk fol
lowed, just missing Deborah's head, and scal
ing a splinter from the balustrade in hissing
by. The tradition is that Deborah ordered
both men from the house, and was obeyed
without demur from either.
Mrs. Jacob Glen Sanders, of Albany has a
clock — the handsomest of its kind I ever saw
— which was one of Deborah Glen's bridal
gifts from her fond father.
The stately timepiece is in perfect preserva
tion, and ticks away the seconds — " the stuff
time is made of" — with unerring regularity,
setting the pace for watches and other clocks

174 More Colonial Homesteads

*

m

i/Ssi
t
i
1 1
^9||
DEBORAH GLEN'S CLOCK.
with the authority of a
chronometer. If the rest
of Deborah's plenishing
was in keeping, a prin
cess might have been
content with the outfit.
When John Sanders
and Deborah, his wife,
had been married twenty-
six years, and for three
years the proprietors of
Scotia, they bought out
the interests of John
Glen of Albany and John
Glen, Jr., of Schenec
tady, in the Glen estate,
vesting in themselves the
title to the bulk of the
family wealth and hon
ours, and " merging that
branch of the Glens and
the Scotia estate into the
Sanders name."
Colonel Glen died in
1 782, at the age of sixty-
eight ; his wife in 1 786,
in her sixty-fifth year.
Scotia 175
Of the five children who survived them,
John (II.) succeeded to the ownership of
Scotia; Maria married John Jacob Beekman
of Albany ; Sarah, her cousin, John Sanders
Glen of Scotia ; Elsie, Myndart Schuyler Ten
Eyck of Schenectady ; Margaret, Killian Van
Rensselaer of Albany. Noble names, all of
them, and too familiar in the history of the
Empire State to need such poor commenda
tion as these pages could give.
John (II.) Sanders also wedded a " Debora."
She was his first cousin, being the daughter of
his uncle, Robert Sanders, of Albany. They
were married in 1777, and she died in 1793.
Their children were : Elizabeth, who married
William Anderson; Barent, died in 1854;
Robert, died in infancy ; Sarah, married to
Peter Schuyler Van Rensselaer ; Catherine,
married to Gerard Beekman ; Robert, died in
1840; Jacob Glen, father of Jacob Glen San
ders, Esq., of Albany ; Peter, who died in
1850. The last named was the grandfather
of Mr. Charles P. Sanders, the present pro
prietor of Scotia.
In 1801, John (II.) Sanders married, as his
second wife, Albertine Ten Broeck. Their
eldest son, John (III.), a lawyer of note in

176 More Colonial Homesteads
Schenectady, was the author of the History of
Schenectady, from which I have drawn largely
in constructing the framework of this chapter.
The old house fell to his brother Peter in
the division of the estate ; at the death of Pe
ter, to his son Charles, who married Jane L.
Ten Broeck. Their son, Charles P. Sanders,
Jr., succeeded in his turn, and now owns the
homestead. Anna Lee Sanders, his wife, is a
direct descendant of Deborah Glen through
Deborah's daughter Maria, the sister of John
(II.) Sanders.
The troublous time through which the col
ony on the beautiful Mohawk fared to stabil
ity and peace, bore with peculiar severity upon
Mrs. Sanders's forbears. Two of them, Abram
de Graff and Captain Daniel Toll, were mur
dered about three miles north of Scotia by the
French and Indians in 1748; a third died in
captivity in Canada in 1 746.
It is given to few other American home
steads, even to such as have remained in one
family for two centuries, to contain such a
wealth of valuable relics of the elder times our
young nation is just now beginning to appre
ciate aright. Entering the house from the
river-side, and by what used to be the front

Scotia 177
door, we pass through a quaint, roomy, Dutch
" stoop," supplied with benches, where succes
sive generation of Glens and Sanderses were
wont to sit of warm afternoons, with pipe and
mug, enjoying the breeze from the water, and
looking down toward Schenectady. From the
stoop we view the " killing-ground," the hil
lock so accursed in the memory of the white
settlers that it was selected as the slaughter-
place of the plantation. Every animal butch
ered here — from beeves to chickens — was taken
to that spot to be killed, perhaps with some
unexpressed notion of the atonement of bloody
sacrifice for the crimes done there, — some
shadowy idea of washing away human blood
with the blood of beasts. The custom was
kept up until the last generation.
In his old age, John (II.) Sanders would sit
here in his arm-chair and tell his great-grand-
children how he had himself witnessed the
burning of the last prisoner who met his death
thus and there, — a Mohegan Indian, whom no
entreaties on the part of their white " friends "
could induce the torturers to liberate.
The stoop is lined with solid wooden shut
ters, working in grooves so that they can be
raised or lowered, to exclude sun or rain, or to

178 More Colonial Homesteads
admit the air. The massive double " Dutch"
door was brought from the lower and older
house ; the library on the left is filled with
books — some modern, more, ancient. Rare old
editions of German, French, Dutch, and English
classics make the collector's eyes glisten covet
ously ; piles of leather-bound ledgers, written
full — in ink that is still black — of entries of
transactions between the masters of the soil
and other settlers, near and far, are upon
shelves and tables. There is hardly a name
of repute common to Albany, Schenectady, or
New York City that is not to be found there,
and the sums total at the close of each week
and month represent, not hundreds, but thous
ands of dollars, sometimes tens of thousands,
reckoned, of course, in English pounds, shil
lings, and pence. From a great roll of yellowing
newspapers of different dates — few under a hun
dred years old — Mr. Sanders extracted for us
one headed " Printing Office, Lansingburgh,
May 6, 1789." The head-lines, in the same
type with the rest of the paper, begin in this
fashion :
" Sensible of the pleasure that an early pe
rusal thereof will afford our respectable read
ers." The article then states that the events

Scotia 1 79
to be described occurred in New York, April
30, one week ago. The extra, hurried through
the press in such haste that the reverse of the
sheet is left blank, treats of the inauguration of
Washington as first President of these United
States. A copy of his Inaugural Address fol
lows. On the back of it is written, in a good
clerkly hand, " King Washington's Speech."
Lansingburgh and the enterprising editor
had not yet mastered the nomenclature of a
republican administration.
Among the hundreds of autograph letters
stored in boxes and drawers, is a " due bill "
written upon a square scrap of paper, so ten
der and tattered it hardly held together while
I copied it :
" The Bearer, Schoyghoowate, a Young Cayouga chief,
has been upon a Scouting party in Fort Stanwix in the Be
ginning of July 77-1 where 5 prisoners and 4. Scalps were
taken, and has not received any Reward for said Service,
this is therefore to Certify that I shall see him contented for
Said Service on my first seeing him again.
" Buck Island, gth July '77.
" Dan. Claus.
1 ' Superintendent of the Western Expedition.
It is not agreeable to meet Sir William
Johnson's son-in-law again when he is about

180 More Colonial Homesteads
such work as this. When I had transferred
the inscription to my note-book, my scholarly
Schenectady host, who had escorted me to
Scotia, laid an impressive finger upon the
time-stained memorandum :
"Yet latter-day historians deny that the
British Government paid a bounty for scalps !
Daniel Claus was an officer of the Crown."
What can be said or thought except that we
hope the business of contenting the Cayouga
of the unpronounceable name was a private
venture on the part of our old acquaintance,
Nancy Johnson's husband ?
The drawing-room, and the square hall open
ing into what is now used as the front door,
are stocked with a bewildering and bewitching
array of antique furniture. The Chippendale
sideboard in the hall is in perfect preservation
and extremely handsome ; another sideboard
holds wondrous store of family plate, — coffee-
and tea-pots, tankards, and other drinking-ves-
sels of fantastic design, a tall cream-jug, grace
ful in shape and exquisite in finish, massive
forks and spoons, to make which, other and
yet older silver was melted down a half-century
ago, a bit of barbarity akin to the sale by an
economical housewife, " away back," of a ton

Scotia

181

or so of old papers, — letters, deeds, and the
like, — " that were cluttering up the garret." A
waggon-load of "the rubbish" went to the
paper-mill, and was ground into pulp.
There are chests upon chests of old manu
scripts left in the great attic. When Sir John
Johnson fled to Canada, accompanied by Wal
ter Butler, many boxes of the Butler papers
were taken possession of by the American au
thorities, and stored in Scotia for safe-keeping.
They are here now, tucked away under the
eaves, awaiting resurrection at the call of relic-
hunter or antiquarian.
To either of these the Scotia attic would be
an enchanted palace. One end is filled by the
"smoke-room," where the annual supply of
bacon, beef, venison, and fish was hung, each
in its season, and cured by the smoke of hick
ory and oak chips smouldering in the hollowed
floor. A valve in the chimney, forming one
side of the curing-room, allowed the smoke to
escape when it had done its work. Outside
of this room is a mass of antiques of all sorts
and ages. Fire-buckets, foot-stoves, warming-
pans, two immense turn-spits, still whole, and
in good working order if they were needed ;
spinning-wheels of all sizes ; chairs and stools ;

1 82 More Colonial Homesteads
candle-sticks, trays, and snuffers ; hair-trunks. —
My eye singled out from these last one about
a foot long, and perhaps eight inches high,
lettered with brass nails, " H. T. B."

OLD CHINA IN SCOTIA.

" Helen Ten Broeck," Mr. Sanders inter
preted, as I read the initials aloud.
I opened it gently. It is well finished, and still
whole and staunch. Did Helen Ten Broeck
keep her laces in it ? or, maybe, her love-letters ?

Scotia 183
Close by are two cradles, one within the
other. In one — a child's cradle — Deborah
Glen rocked her son (John 1 1.), the hum of
her flax-wheel (it stands but a few feet away
now) forming a lulling undercurrent of sound
to the Scotch song learned from her mother.
The second cradle is over six feet long, and of
proportionate width. The stout ribs and bars
are of black walnut, and it was constructed
according to the orders of the same John
Sanders in his infirm old age. For months
before the end came, he would, or could, sleep
nowhere else, and was rocked to his rest
nightly. By-and-by he was cradle-ridden, and
lay thus, swung gently to and fro by his son
John (III.) and his negro slaves, until senility
passed naturally into death.
" Grandma's Room " is a veritable museum
of curios. Upon a large round table are rows
and groups and heaps of crockery, china, and
cut glass, each piece of which would figure
anywhere else as bric-a-brac ; the washstand
on the other side of the room belonged to
Robert Fulton ; each chair, secretary, stand,
and picture has a story, mellow with the use
of a century or two. A triangular silver nut
meg-grater, " found the other day in a corner

1 84 More Colonial Homesteads
of a drawer," still holds a quarter-nutmeg, left
after the last toddy or sangaree was mixed in
tankard or tumbler, a dust of the aromatic
spice on top, and quaffed by laughing lips that

OLD PIANOFORTE, ANTIQUE CHAIR, ROBERT FULTON'S WASHSTAND
AND TOILET-SET.

have been dust — nobody knows how many
years. In the adjoining chamber Louis Philippe slept
for a night when an exiled prince. Over against
the bed hangs a mourning-piece wrought, stitch
by stitch, in black silk upon white satin, to the

Scotia 185
memory of Philip Van Rensselaer and Eliza
beth Elmendorf. A rickety church is in the
background ; a tomb in the foreground is

LOUIS PHILIPPE'S BEDROOM IN SCOTIA.
kept perpendicular by the figure of a weeping
woman who leans with all her might against it.
A map of the Colonies, made by the Eng
lish Government, of six sheets of paper pasted
together ; a picture burnt into glass (a lost

1 86 More Colonial Homesteads
art) of the escape of iEneas from blazing
Troy ; astonishing shell-work pictures, bear
ing date of 1 789, — adorn other walls. A
spinet is in one corner ; a pianoforte made in
England by " Astor," in another. Hours might
be whiled away in inspection and inventorying,
and the half remain unseen and unlisted. As
I left the room reluctantly, I caught sight of
a pair of embroidered stays, said to have been
worn by my adopted favourite, Deborah Glen.
They measure just eighteen inches around.
Scotia is built of stone and brick, covered
with concrete. Upon the front outer wall are
wrought-iron scrolls forming the date of con
struction, A. D. 1 71 3.
Attached to the scrolls are anchor-rods fast
ened deep in the wall and holding it together.
If the homestead do not stand firm for two
hundred years more the fault cannot be laid at
the door of founder or builder.

VII
TWO SCHUYLER HOMESTEADS,
ALBANY, N. Y.
The city of Albany was stretched along the banks
of the Hudson ; one very wide and long street lay
parallel to the river, the intermediate space between
it and the shore being occupied by gardens. A small
but steep hill rose above the centre of the town, on which
stood a fort, intended (but very ill adapted) for the de
fense of the place, and of the neighbouring country.
" The English church, belonging to the episcopal per
suasion, and in the diocese of the bishop of London, stood
at the foot of the hill, at the upper end of the street."
I MAKE the extracts from a curious old
book seldom found nowadays in private li
braries. The title in full runs thus : Memoirs of
an American Lady, with Sketches of Manners
and Scenes in America, as they Existed Pre
vious to the Revolution, by Mrs. Anne Grant,
author of Letters from the Mountains, etc.
From the prefatory Memoir of the author,
187

1 88 More Colonial Homesteads
we gather that she was the daughter of a
Scotch officer, a resident of the Colonies of
North America for ten years or thereabouts,
and that the Memoirs of an American Lady
were a reminiscence of the childish experi-

FORT AND CHURCH IN ALBANY (1755).
ences of Mrs. Anne Grant " of Laggan," so
called to distinguish her from another writer
of the same surname, the author of Roy's Wife
of Aldivalloch.
The recollections of the young girl were
deepened and supplemented by the observa-

Two Schuyler Homesteads 189
tions of her father and mother. Taken to
gether, they present an excellent picture of
the social life and customs of Central New
York from 1755 to 1768.1
She digresses ad libitum ; she moralises in-
consequently ; she is invariably sentimental,
and seldom graphic ; Albert de Quincey says
she was an " established wit, and received in
cense from all quarters " ; and a critic of her
day praised the description given in the rare
old volume of the breaking up of the ice in
the upper Hudson as "quite Homeric." Still,
making allowance for the out-of-date style and
want of sequence in the narrative, her book is
delightful and a mine of wealth to the novelist
and historian interested in that particular epoch
of our pre-national existence.
The setting of her discursory tale of An
American Lady is the town of Albany, " a city
which was, in short, a kind of semi-rural estab
lishment." One of the prettiest scenes she revives for
us is the coming home of the cows at sunset
from the common pasture at the end of the
1 A later edition, revised by General James Grant Wilson and dedi
cated to Mr. and Mrs. J. V. L. Pruyn, of Albany, was published in
1876.

190 More Colonial Homesteads
town, each with her tinkling bell, and each
turning in, of her own motion, at the gate of
the yard where she belonged, to be milked
in the open air, while the children waited
for their supper of brown bread and milk,
eaten in warm weather upon the front door
step. After sundry chapters devoted to the Alba
nians' gentle treatment of their negroes, Re
flections upon Servitude, Education and Early
Habits of the Albanians, First Adventures of
the Lndian Traders, Marriages, Amusements,
Rural Excursions, etc., we are introduced for
mally in Chapter XII. to Miss Schuyler, who,
by the way, is miscalled " Catalina." A page
is given to recapitulation of her heroine's
charms of mind and person before the author
is led off from what we had expected to travel
as a main line, by allusion to Miss Schuyler's
familiarity with the Indian language and her
benevolence to her Indian neighbours, into a
ten-page disquisition upon Detached Lndians :
Progress of Knowledge and Lndian Manners.
By-and-by, when we have gained the goal of our
research, we will turn back and read these and
other ten pages with lively interest. Just now
we push on to Chapter XIV. Eye and atten-

Two Schuyler Homesteads 191
tion seize upon the quaintly coy announce
ment that
Miss S." (named plainly a dozen pages back) " had
the happiness to captivate her cousin Philip, eldest son
of her uncle, who was ten years older than herself, and
was in all respects to be accounted a suitable and, in the
worldly sense, an advantageous match for her."
The reader of this page who has done me
the previous honour of perusing Chapter VII.
ofthe first volume of Colonial Homesteads, may
recall, as therein recorded, the story of a cer
tain Margaritta Van Slichtenhorst who wedded
another Philip Schuyler, and afterward, as the
widowed mother of Peter Schuyler (nicknamed
"Quidor," or " Quidder," by the Indians),
routed four of Leisler's subordinates and
"forced them to flee out of the towne," of
which her son was the rightful mayor. " Miss
Schuyler," who had the good fortune to en
snare her cousin Philip's affections, was named
for her spirited grandmother. Mrs. Grant's
memory confounds her Christian name with
that of her younger sister, Catalina. Her hus
band was the eldest son of Peter (II.) Schuy
ler and his wife, Maria Rensselaer.
Of Mrs. Schuyler's father, Johannes, or Col
onel John Schuyler, we have already heard

192 More Colonial Homesteads
several times — always favourably. His in
fluence over the Indians, while not equal to
that exercised by Sir William Johnson, was
strong and beneficial. Although but fifteen
years old at the time of his father's death, he
resembled him more nearly in character and
in the career upon which he entered almost
immediately, than any other of the great
" Quidor's " children. He was a brave fighter,
and the outspoken opponent of Government
officials whose measures threatened the wel
fare of the Colonies or the rights of their
Indian allies. It is pleasant to learn that he
" detested the infamous traffic " in scalps car
ried on by the French and Indians, and, as we
have seen, not despised by the English. His
petted daughter Margaritta was fourteen years
old when Colonel John Schuyler went to Mon
treal purposely to negotiate the exchange of
Eunice Williams (see Colonial Homesteads, p.
418) for two Indian children. His report of
the ill success of the most Christian enterprise
opens our hearts still more to him :
" Being very sorry that I could not prevail
upon her, I took her by the hand and left
her." One of the many genealogical lapses in Mrs.

PETER SCHUYLER (" QUIDOR").
FROM ORIGINAL PAINTING BY SIR GODFREY KNELLER, IN THE POSSESSION OF TNE
SCHUYLER FAMILY.

193

Two Schuyler Homesteads 195
Grant's narrative, which was penned "unas
sisted by written memorials," is her statement
that Margaritta Schuyler lost her father at an
early age, and was brought up by an uncle.
As Johannes Schuyler survived all his
brothers and his own sons, dying in 1747, and
bequeathing to his daughter " Margaritta, wife
of Colonel Philip Schuyler, a picture of him
self and his wife in one frame," we must apply
to our old friend all the good things the vener
able chronicler says of the guardian to whom
" Miss S. owed her cultivated taste for read
ing " and knowledge of the " best authors in
history, divinity, and belles-lettres." This be
comes apparent as we read on and compare
with other and careful histories of the time
such sentences as these :
" His frontier situation made him a kind of barrier
to the settlement, while the powerful influence that his
knowledge of nature and of character, his sound judg
ment and unstained integrity had obtained over both
parties, made him the bond by which the aborigines were
united with the colonists."
This is, undoubtedly, the half-length por
trait of our dear Colonel John, or Johannes,
as the Albanians called him : valiant in war
fare, tender in treaty ; his heart swelling until

196 More Colonial Homesteads

he could not speak, at thought of the news he
must bear back to his old friend, Parson Wil
liams, of his sullenly obstinate daughter, yet
withstanding to the face tyrant governors, and
detesting with the full force of his ardent na
ture the infernal barter of scalps for the white
man's gold and fire-water.
He it was who gave his daughter in mar
riage to her cousin Philip in 1 719. She was
eighteen ; her hus
band, according to
Mrs. Grant, twenty-
eight. Other au
thorities give his
age as twenty-three,
as he was born in
1696. In following the
lines of Philip
Schuyler's character
and deeds, we can
not avoid tracing in
close parallels, his
history and that of
Isaac, the estimable and only lawful son of
the patriarch Abraham, occupying, as he
does, an intermediate place between two men

4 65 6.

SCHUYLER COAT OF ARMS.

Two Schuyler Homesteads 197
of note, Peter Quidor and General Philip
Schuyler. His kinsman, George W. Schuyler, the au
thor of Colonial New York, writes :
" He held a prominent position in the province many
years. He succeeded his father as commissioner of
Indian affairs, but not to his influence among the Five
Nations. They respected him for his high character
and integrity, but did not defer implicitly to his
counsel." Mrs. Grant testifies to his " mild, benevo
lent character and excellent understanding,
which had received more culture than was
usual in the country."
" His close intimacy with the De Lanceys
made him unpopular with Governor Clinton
and his party." It might be said with more
exact truthfulness, that he was not in favour
with the governmental party, for the feeling
never grew into active hostility. He was ag
gressive in nothing.
The home of the happily wedded pair was
upon "the Flatts," a wide stretch of meadow-
land and forest, about three miles from Albany.
It was natural that the Dutch settlers should
select level ground as building-sites, and, when
practicable, set their houses near the water.

198 More Colonial Homesteads
It may have been as natural, for a contrary
reason, that the Highland-born child, Anne
MacVicar, should have treasured, all her life
long, the memory of what was to her eyes a
scene of unexampled beauty. " Colonel Schuy
ler possessed," she says, " about two miles on
a stretch of that rich and level champain."
She grows almost " Homeric " in her ecstasy
over the mingling of "the wild magnificence
of nature amidst the smiling scenes produced
by varied and successful cultivation." Besides
the Schuyler's mainland plantation they owned
an island, a mile long and a quarter-mile wide,
the haunt most delighted in by our author in
her girlhood.
" Imagine a little Egypt, yearly overflowed, and of the
most redundant fertility. It produced, with a slight de
gree of culture, the most abundant crops of wheat, hay,
and flax, and was a most valuable fishing-place. The
background of the landscape was a solemn and inter
minable forest, varied, here and there, by rising grounds,
near streams where birch and hickory, maple and pop
lar, cheered the eye with a lighter green, through the pre
vailing shade of dusky pines."
As the heart of the paradise, stood the
roomy brick house of two stories and an attic,
that yet— the reminiscent annalist admits—

I-

Two Schuyler Homesteads 201
"had no pretension to grandeur, and very
little to elegance." The " large portico, with
a few steps leading up to it and floored like a
room," known to the Dutch as a " stoop,"
which word she seems never to have caught,
was a pleasing novelty to her. She lingers
fondly upon the vine-roofed " appendage com
mon to all houses belonging to persons in easy
circumstances here." A shelf under the eaves
was built for the express accommodation of
the " little birds domesticated there."
The extension in the rear of the house was
the refuge of the family in winter when the
"spacious summer rooms would have been in
tolerably cold, and the smoke of prodigious
wood-fires would have sullied the elegantly
clean furniture." Behind the family residence
were the servants' houses, immense barns, and
stables. Such was the home over which Margaritta
Schuyler presided — a gracious queen in her
circle, the best in Albany and in the Province
• — for over twenty years, before adversity came
near enough to her to darken or chasten her
buoyant spirit. A part of each winter was
spent in New York, a month or two, in spring
and autumn, in the handsome house in Albany

202 More Colonial Homesteads
belonging to her husband. Occasionally, the
home at " The Flatts " was closed for the whole
winter. She always came back to it gladly.
The only drawback to her wedded happiness
was that she had no children of her own, but
there were nephews and nieces in such abund
ance in the large family connection that the
house, if not the great loving heart of the mis
tress, was always full and gay with young faces
and merry voices. By the time she was forty
she was "Aunt Schuyler" to scores of young
Albanians besides those who had the claim of
blood-kindred upon her. The Lady Bounti
ful of the few poor whites and the many
dusky neighbours who looked to her for help
and counsel, she shone, a star of the first
magnitude, in English assemblies, by virtue of
her perfect breeding and her sunny nature
and conversational talents. She was, par Emi
nence, the leading spirit in the homelier cliques
of Albany worthies' society, as well sketched
in Florence Wilford's Dominie Frelinghausen
as early New England coteries in Old Town
Folks. Her Scotch eulogist pays a well-merited
tribute to Madam Schuyler's grace of adapta
tion to her environment :

Two Schuyler Homesteads 203
" It was one of Aunt Schuyler's many singular merits
that, after acting for a time a distinguished part in this
comparatively refined society," — that of English officers
and New York fashionables, — " where few were so much
admired and esteemed, she could return to the homely
good sense and primitive manners of her fellow citizens
at Albany, free from fastidiousness and disgust."
The even tenor of a beautiful life was
broken up by the French and Indian War.
In 1747, while Colonel Schuyler was on duty
as a member of the Provincial Assembly in
New York City, Madam Schuyler was in peril
of life and property from marauding bands of
savages. Cattle were killed and driven away
from neighbouring farms ; solitary travellers on
the road between Albany and Schenectady
were murdered and, of course, scalped, scalps
being legal tender from the Indians to the
French Government. By the orders of the ab
sent master, The Flatts was stockaded to ac
commodate a hundred men, and a company of
British soldiers was stationed there for a few
weeks. Orders were then sent for their with
drawal that they might join other troops at
Greenbush. Madam Schuyler made a per
sonal appeal to the officers in command to
leave a guard in her house, and, when this
was unavailing, petitioned the Council in New

204 More Colonial Homesteads
York for protection until she could remove
her effects to Albany. The Council laid the
case before Governor Clinton, who "gave an
evasive reply and left the troops at Green
bush." The deserted fort at the Flatts owed
its safety to the fidelity of the Mohawks at
tached to the Colonel and his wife by years of
kindness and mutual good will.
^n 1 755, while the expedition to Crown
Point was organising, a force of three thou
sand provincials was encamped about Albany,
most of them on grounds belonging to Colonel
Schuyler. Within sight of the upper windows
of The Flatts, Sir William Johnson, in war
paint and blanket, led his Mohawks in the
war-dance about the council-fire. An ox — -
perhaps from the herds fattened upon the
Schuyler meadows — was roasted whole in the
open air, and Sir William with his sword hewed
off the first slice for the feast, or gorge, that
followed. " I shall be glad if they fight as eagerly as
they ate their ox and drank their wine ! " was
the dry comment of a New England spectator.
In 1758, the house itself was filled with sol
diers. Companies were encamped upon the
lawn and in the barns ; their officers were the

Two Schuyler Homesteads 205
guests of the widowed mistress of The Flatts.
Colonel Philip Schuyler had gone to his final
rest in February of that year. The turmoils
of wars and threatening of wars granted his
wife no leisure for mourning. Ticonderoga
was to be attacked — " Taken," said the con
fident leader of the expedition. The first
detachment quartered upon the premises, fort
unately for but one night, was led by Colonel
Charles Lee. In recalling his subsequent ca
reer as aide-de-camp to the King of Poland,
Russian officer and duelist, treasonable pris
oner in a British camp, insolent and insubor
dinate runaway at the Battle of Monmouth,
we smile grimly at our gentle Mrs. Grant's epi
gram, " Lee, of frantic celebrity." Unlike the
rest of the officers, he made no pretense of
paying for food for his men and horses, but
foraged, as in an enemy's country, and when
Madam Schuyler mildly remonstrated with
him on the spoliation of her property, swore
violently to her face.
" Her countenance never altered," the nar
rative continues, " and she used every argu
ment to restrain the rage of her domestics and
the clamour of her neighbours, who were
treated in the same manner."

206 More Colonial Homesteads
The second detachment was commanded by
the young Lord Howe, " the noblest English
man that has appeared in my time, and the
best soldier in the British army," wrote Gen
eral Wolfe to his father. " A character of
ancient times," said Pitt to Grenville. " A
complete model of military virtues." To his
indignant comments upon Lee's behaviour,
Madam Schuyler replied, temperately and
gracefully, that she " could not be captious
with her deliverers from the danger so immi
nent/' — the advance of the French — "on ac
count of a single instance of irregularity."
She " only regretted that they should have
deprived her of her wonted pleasure in freely
bestowing whatever could advance the service
or refresh the exhausted troops."
Hostess and guest grew very fond of one
another during Lord Howe's brief visit. On
the morning of his departure, Madam ap
peared in season for the breakfast eaten in
the grey of the July dawn, and served him
with her own hands. " I will not object,"
smiled the young nobleman. " It is hard to
say when I shall again breakfast with a
lady." At parting, she kissed him as she might her

Two Schuyler Homesteads 207
son, and could not restrain her tears — " a
weakness she did not often give way to."
The disastrous battle was fought July 8,
1758. Three days afterward, " Pedrom,"
Colonel Schuyler's brother, like the rest of
the household, on the feverish alert, saw a
bare-headed express rider galloping madly
along the road from the north, and ran down
the lane leading to the highway, to challenge
him for news. The messenger shrieked out
one sentence without pausing :
" Lord Howe is killed / "
" The death of that one man was the ruin
of fifteen thousand," says a historian. And a
contemporary, — " In Lord Howe the soul of
General Abercrombie's army seemed to ex-
pire. Madam Schuyler mourned for him with
bitterness amazing even to those who knew
her admiration for " his merit and magnanim
ity." She was aroused from her grief and
became her majestic, efficient self when trans
ports, that same evening, brought down the
river, and to her door, a host of the wounded,
some dangerously hurt, and among the killed
the beloved young leader. His body lay in a
darkened room in the mansion until it was

208 More Colonial Homesteads
borne away for burial. The great barn and
every other outhouse were fitted up as hospi
tals. Madam Schuyler tore up bed- and
table-linen for bandages, and scraped lint with
her young nieces, which they applied under
the surgeon's directions, while all her servants
were kept busy cooking and otherwise attend
ing to the wants of the sufferers. Lee was
among the wounded, and Madam treated
him with especial tenderness, not a word or
a look reminding him of how they had parted.
" He swore in his vehement manner," our
chronicler says primly, " that he was sure there
would be a place reserved for Madam in
heaven, though no other woman should be
there, and that he should wish for nothing
better than to share her final destiny."
In the year following the Battle of Ticon
deroga, Madam Schuyler and the city of Al
bany sustained a serious loss in the strange
departure of Dominie Frelinghausen (other
wise Frelinghuysen) for Holland. The event
was characteristic of him and of the commun
ity in which he laboured. The younger mem
bers of his flock had danced at a ball given by
the English officers quartered in Albany, and,
although warned and reprimanded by him, car-

Two Schuyler Homesteads 209
ried recalcitrancy to the wicked extent of at
tending amateur theatricals gotten up by the
same tempters to worldly dissipations. The
dominie preached openly and admonished pri
vately with such vehemence that a graceless
sinner left upon his door-step one night a walk
ing-stick, a pair of stout shoes, a loaf of bread,
and four shillings done up in paper. He in
terpreted the gift as it was meant to be taken,
as a token that his work in this cure of souls
was ended, and that he must betake himself to
some other field. Cut to the quick of a sensi
tive nature by the hint and the manner of con
veying it, he took leave of no one, but sailed
the next week for Holland, and was lost on
the voyage.
Another calamity befell the mistress of The
Flatts in 1763, in the destruction of her house
by fire. An officer, riding out from Albany
to pay his respects to her, found her seated in
an arm-chair under one of the cherry-trees that
lined the short lane, unconscious of what the
horseman had espied from the highway, the
heavy smoke rising from the roof of the build
ing behind her. When he called her attention
to it, she summoned all the servants and, still
seated, issued her orders with such directness

210 More Colonial Homesteads
and composure that nearly all the contents of
the dwelling were saved, although nothing was
left of the building except the outer walls.
As an evidence of the high esteem in which
Madam Schuyler was held by all classes, we
are told that in a few days the materials needed
for the construction of the new house were
sent to her by various friends, and the Com
mandant in Albany detailed " some of the
King's workmen " to assist in the reconstruc
tion. The new house was almost an exact re
production of the old, having been built upon
the original foundations.
"It stands a few rods from the river-bank,
facing the east, and has the same aspect as
when built more than a century ago."
Margaritta Schuyler was seventy-five years
of age when the Declaration of Independence
was signed. Mrs. Grant more than intimates
that the " war, which everyone, whatever side
they may have taken at the time, must look
back on with disgust and horror," was " abhor
rent to the feelings and principles " of her
" American Lady."
" She was, by that time, too venerable as
well as respectable to be insulted for her prin
ciples," her eulogist asserts, " for not to esteem

Two Schuyler Homesteads 213
Aunt Schuyler was to forfeit all pretensions to
estimation." Her fellow tribesman, Mr. G. W. Schuyler,
declares that " she was not a Tory in the broad
sense of the word. She took middle ground,
and hoped that a way might be found for
reconciliation." She died, full of years and honours, in 1782,
almost eighty-two years of age.
No household word is more pleasantly fa
miliar than " Aunt Schuyler's " name in the
old home still tenanted by those of her name
and blood. We link it with that of Mrs. Anne
Grant of Laggan as we stroll through the low
browed, spacious rooms. Upon the footstool
of the stately gentlewoman, there sits for us
the eager-eyed child, modulating her Scotch
accent to harmonise with the softer voice of
her idolised mentor, " whom she already con
sidered as her polar star." Each of us has an
anecdote of one or the other of the pair, oddly
matched as to age, but friends in heart, and
destined to be bound together in all of their
history that is preserved for us.
The present mistress of The Flatts is the
widow of Richard Schuyler, Esq. With her
four young daughters she leads a peaceful,

214 More Colonial Homesteads
happy life in the dear old house peopled with
august shades. Family portraits are upon the
walls ; wealth of family silver in buffets and on
tables and sideboards ; fragile treasures of old
china and glass that may have been used by
repentant — always profane — Lee, or graced
the hasty repast eaten by candle-light, where
Madam poured out coffee for the gallant
young soldier who was not to take breakfast
again with a lady this side of eternity.
Mrs. Grant is seldom caustic. She must
have been a genial, as well as a clever, old
lady. But there is a bite, and a sharp one,
in this entry in her bewitching Memoirs of
manifold things and people besides her adored
Aunt Schuyler.
" Sir Henry Moore, the last British Governor of New
York that I remember, came up this summer" (1765)
" to see Albany, and the ornament of Albany, Aunt
Schuyler. He brought Lady Moore and his daughter
with him. They resided for some time at General
Schuyler's. I call him so by anticipation, for sure I
am, had any gifted seer foretold then what was to hap
pen, he would have been ready to answer, Is thy servant
a dog, that he should do this thing ? "
General Philip Schuyler was the son of Jo
hannes (II.) Schuyler and Cornelia Van Cort-

Two Schuyler Homesteads 215
landt, and the favourite nephew of his Aunt
Margaritta. His uncle-in-law, her husband,
showed his fondness for him by leaving him
in his will (date of 1 766) a part of the Schuy
ler estate, consisting of land lying between
Albany and West Troy. Madam Schuyler
made him (1782) one of her ten legatees. Be
sides these and his patrimonial inheritance, he
was the owner of about ten thousand acres,
purchased at different times by himself, part
of this from the estate of Jacob Glen. He
was, then, a rich man, when he cast his fort
unes and his sword into the scales on the side
of American independence.
What followed is an integral part of the his
tory of our country. The simple recital of his
deeds in war and in peace would fill more than
the space assigned to a whole chapter of this
work. Mrs. Grant mentions that he had, prior to
1765, " built a house near Albany in the Eng
lish taste, comparatively magnificent." This,
the Schuyler mansion, was erected in 1760-61.
It has suffered marvellously few and slight
changes during the century-and-a-third that
has brought Albany up to its foundations, and
so far beyond that it is now in the heart of

216 More Colonial Homesteads
our beautiful capital city. Even in adapting
the interior to the usages and needs of the
Roman Catholic sisterhood that has con
verted it into a refuge for orphan children, the
size and arrangement of the rooms remain as
they were when Sir Henry and Lady Moore
were the guests of the then Colonel Philip
Schuyler, and Madam, his honoured aunt,
drove in her chariot-and-four from The Flatts
to dine with them.
From the great central hall, the lofty ceil
ings of which must have given a sense of vast-
ness to Madam Schuyler's eyes, used to her
raftered, low-pitched rooms, we turn to the
left into what is now the chapel of the sister
hood. The attendant kneels, her face towards
the altar, and crosses herself. She has whis
pered at the door, that we will " please not
speak." The caution was not needed. We
stand with bowed heads and hearts under
the weight of thoughts that met us upon the
threshold. For here, in 1777, the martial host enter
tained for days together, as guests, although
prisoners of war, Burgoyne and his officers,
the Baroness Riedesel and her children, sent
thither for safe-keeping, after the Battle of

Two Schuyler Homesteads 219
Saratoga. Here met and talked and planned,
for the public good, such leaders of the Re
volution as Washington, Lafayette, Benjamin
Franklin, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Israel
Putnam, Charles Lee, and — Benedict Arnold.
Hither came a-wooing the most eloquent of
the ambitious youths of the embryo repub
lic, Alexander Hamilton. He and Elizabeth
Schuyler must have paced the lordly rooms
times without number, and often whispered of
love in the embrasured windows, before the
evening when they stood together, where the
altar is now, to be pronounced man and wife.
That was in 1780. The next year there was
a family party here to celebrate the christen
ing of Catherine Van Rensselaer Schuyler,
the baby daughter of General Schuyler and
his wife, whose youngest born was her name-
child. General and Lady Washington were
sponsors for the wee lady, an honour never
forgotten by her down to a ripe old age.
Within our memory, Ex-President Millard
Fillmore was married here to Mrs. Mcintosh,
to whom the mansion then belonged.
None of these things move us to such grave
meditation as the, to us, central fact of Alex
ander Hamilton's marriage with the second

220 More Colonial Homesteads
daughter of the house, whom his violent tak-
ing-off left a widow, when his fame was at the
brightest. Nor do we forget that this bloody
death of the son-in-law who was as his own
child, and of whom he was, if possible, more
proud than fond, broke General Philip Schuy
ler's heart. Burr's bullet found a second vic
tim in him. The duel was fought July ii,
1804. General Schuyler died in November
of the same year, " never having recovered
from the shock."
Mrs. Anne Grant of Laggan (rest her
charitable soul !) cannot withhold a poetical
lament from him whom she labels as a " bright
exception that, after all, only confirms the rule
of a society coarse and homely, and univer
sal dulness of the new nation, unrelieved save
by the phosphoric lightnings of the deistical
Franklin, the legitimate father of the Ameri
can "age of calculation."
" Forgive me, shade of the accomplished
Hamilton ! " she cries, after the philippic
against his countrymen. "While all that is
lovely in virtue, all that is honourable in val
our, and all that is admirable in talent, con
spire to lament the early setting of that
western star ! "

Two Schuyler Homesteads 221
Above-stairs, we see the chamber in which
Burgoyne slept during his honourable captiv
ity, and, gazing into the street below, men
tally compare the scene with that which
wearied his English eyes pending his ex
change and release.
The handsome reception-room opposite the
chapel is wainscoted up to the ceiling over
the high mantel ; there are deep, inviting win
dow-seats in this and in the dining-hall. What
were the state bed-chambers are furnished
with small white cots. The " almost magnifi
cent " mansion is full of pleasant murmurings
that make one think of a dove-cote.
At the foot of the staircase we are con
fronted with yet another hacked stair-rail.
The attendant tradition, upheld by a respon
sible writer in the Magazine of American His
tory for July, 1884, is of a midnight attack by
Tories and Indians upon General Schuyler's
house, with the purpose of securing his person.
The family, awakened by the noise of their en
trance, retreated to an upper chamber, from
the window of which the General fired a pistol
to alarm the garrison in the town. As Mrs.
Schuyler reached the room she missed baby
Catherine, and was, with difficulty, held back

222 More Colonial Homesteads

by her husband from rushing down-stairs to
find her. Margaritta, the third daughter, a
young woman
twenty-threeyears of age,
slipped past her
father and flew
down the stair-
case to the
cradle on the
first floor. In
the dim light she
was not per
ceived by the
party searching
the lower part of
the house, and,
incidentally, stealing silver
and other valuables, until she gained the stairs
on her way back, the baby clasped in her arms.
Then an Indian hurled a tomahawk at her with
such good will that it buried itself in the railing.
The brave girl cried out to the raiders as
she ran, that her father had gone to arouse
the town, and escaped with her prize to the
upper room. The General, taking the cue,

MAJOR-GENERAL PHILIP SCHUYLER.
FROM A PAINTING BY COL. TRUMBULL.

Two Schuyler Homesteads 223
shouted the word of command through the
open window, and the miscreants fled, bearing
off as much of the family plate with them as
they could carry.
" Why," — asks one of us, struggling to keep
down the rising sense of the ridiculous excited
by this third mutilated rail, — "Why should a
tomahawk have an especial proclivity for
balustrades ? "
Yet, seriously, the reason is plain. The
staircase, as I have said elsewhere, was a con
spicuous feature in the colonial homestead,
and a permanent. Hacked walls and doors
have been renewed, and broken furniture
mended, or thrown away. The mute remain
ing witnesses to barbarities that curdle our
blood in the telling and the hearing are not
to be lightly esteemed. They are illustrated
history.

VIII
DOUGHOREGAN MANOR: THE CARROLL
HOMESTEAD, MARYLAND
I N the Maryland Gazette of Thursday, Feb-
*¦ ruary 14, 1765, appeared' a paragraph,
which would now figure among society items :
" Tuesday night, arrived at his father's house
in Town, Charles Carroll, Jun'r Esq. (lately
from London by way of Virginia) after about
sixteen years' absence from his Native country
at his studies and on his Travels."
The Maryland Gazette was published at
Annapolis, then an inconsiderable town. The
best house in it (still standing) was the re
sidence of Charles Carroll, Senior, generally
known in the American line as " Carroll of
Annapolis." This gentleman, in letters writ
ten to his absent son, two and three years be
fore the date set down above, gives an abstract
of the family history. The traveller had insti-
224

Doughoregan Manor

225

tuted inquiries into the pedigree of what he
knew to be a good old Irish house, and ap
pealed to his father for assistance :
" I find by history, as well as by the genealogy,"
wrote the latter, " that the country of Ely O'Carroll and
Dirguill which comprehended
most of the Kings' and Queen's
countys, were the territories,
and that they were princes
thereof. . . . Your grand
father left Europe and arrived
in Maryland, October ist,
1688, with the commission of
Attorney - General. He, on
the 19th of February, 1693,
married Mary Darn all, the
daughter of Colonel Henry
Darnall. I was born April
2nd, 1702. Your mother was the daughter of Clement
Brooke Esq., of Prince George's County ; you were born,
September 8th, 1737. This is as much as I can furnish
towards our pedigree, with the translation I obtained in
Paris." Miss Kate Mason Rowland, in her valuable
biography of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, sup
plies us with particulars which were too well
known to the young student-wanderer to need
repetition. From these we gather that Charles
(I.) Carroll was twenty-eight years of age at

CARROLL COAT OF ARMS.

226 More Colonial Homesteads
the date of his immigration (1688) ; that he
had been educated, for the most part, in
France ; after leaving the French university
he was admitted as a student to the Inner
Temple in London, in 1685, and, when his
term there was over, was secretary to Lord
Powis, one of the ministers of James II. By
his patron's advice he emigrated to America,
recommended to Charles Calvert, " the Lord
Baron of Baltimore." The Irishman landed
upon our shores at an unlucky time. One
month later the proprietary government of
Lord Baltimore was set aside by orders from
England, and Charles Carroll found his com
mission as Attorney-General worthless. Loy
alty to his chief and to his religion wrought
with his Celtic blood to get him into much
and various sorts of trouble in the ensuing
decade. He wrote letters to Baltimore of
indignant sympathy ; he made hot-headed
speeches against the leaders of " the Protes
tant Revolution " ; he sneered at the pettiness
of the party in power, managing by these and
other imprudences to get into prison more
than once, into disfavour with anti-Catholic
officials, and so to endear himself to the de
posed, but still wealthy and powerful, Balti-

Doughoregan Manor 227
more, that he secured for his partisan in 1699
a grant to the estates incorporated, finally, un
der the name of Doughoregan (then spelled
Doororegan) Manor. Furthermore, a part of
this grant was coupled with the remark that it
was purposely assigned as near as possible to
one of his Lordship's own manors, in order
that he, Baltimore, might have " the benefit
of Mr. Carroll's society."
His grandson-namesake of Carrollton adds
that his ancestor was, also, made " Lord Balti
more's Agent, Receiver-General, Keeper of
the Great Seal, and Register of the Land
Office. He enjoyed these appointments until,
the year 171 7, when the Government and As
sembly passed Laws depriving the Roman
Catholics of their remaining privileges."
Charles (I.) Carroll married twice. His first
wife died in 1690, leaving no issue. His sec
ond, Mary Darnall, bore him ten children in
the first twenty years of their wedded life, half
of whom died in childhood. Henry, the heir-
apparent, was educated abroad, and died on
the homeward voyage, "within about six days'
saile of the Capes of Virginia," in the twenty-
third year of his age. His brother Charles
(II.), then but seventeen, had been left at the

228 More Colonial Homesteads
Jesuit College of St. Omer's, in French Flan
ders, when Henry sailed for America. His
brother Daniel was with him. The father
wrote to them July 7, 1719, informing them
of Henry's death of April ioth. He exhorted
them to pray for the repose of their brother's
soul, saying that ten pounds would be remitted
to them to be expended in masses for the same
purpose, and alluded to their mother's design
of going abroad the next spring with two of
her daughters.
The purpose may have been frustrated by
her husband's ill-health, for he survived his
eldest son but a year, dying in July, 1720.
Charles (II.) completed his academic course
before returning to America. He arrived at
home in 1723, when he was barely of age.
During the minority of the heir-apparent, the
extensive estates accumulated by his father,
and bequeathed to his children, were managed
by their guardian-cousin, Mr. James Carroll,
and the home plantation by Madam Mary
Carroll, the widow of the first Charles. The
worthy gentlewoman lived to be the dowager
of the Annapolis house, her son Charles hav
ing married his cousin, Elizabeth Brooke, and
installed her as mistress of his home. Their

Doughoregan Manor 229
only child, Charles (III.), was born Septem
ber 19, 1737.
That they had no other offspring, instead of
moving the parents to keep him in their jealous
sight, made it the more solemnly obligatory
upon them to deprive themselves of the joy of
his society in order to give him the education
demanded by his rank and wealth. He was
but eleven years old when he was placed at
St. Omer's. His companions on the voyage
and in the college were his cousin, John Car
roll, destined to become Archbishop of Balti
more, and Robert Brent, a Virginia boy, who
afterwards married into the Carroll family.
Six years were passed at St. Omer's, one at
Rheims in another Jesuit college, an eighth
year in the College of Louis le Grand, at
Paris. We read of a visit paid to Charles,
Jr., in Paris, by his father, just before the lad
attained his majority. That same year (1757),
or the next, he was admitted as a student of
law at the Temple, in London.
The routine was hereditary, and so much
the custom with the wealthier colonists that
this part of our story tells itself. Law was
the profession, par Eminence, for a gentleman's
son. The necessity, or the binding expediency,

230 More Colonial Homesteads
that he should have a nominal profession of
some sort was already recognised in a country
where every fortune was still in making, and a
career was a matter of individual effort, not of
patronage. The correspondence between father and son
was intimate and voluminous. With just ap
preciation of the position his successor would
take in public affairs, Charles Carroll of An
napolis kept him posted as to the strained
relations, already apparent, between the Col
ony and the Home government, and dwelt
with yet more feeling upon the disabilities of
Roman Catholics. Miss Rowland sets these
before us plainly, and refrains, with the admir
able taste that characterises her work through-
out, from comments that would be superfluous :
" The discriminating test-oaths, enforced to protect
the Hanoverian dynasty from the Jacobites, excluded
Roman Catholics from the Assembly, prevented them
from holding office, denied them the privilege of the
suffrage They were not allowed the public exercise of
their religion. For this reason gentlemen of means had
their private chapels, and Charles Carroll had one in his
town house in Annapolis, as well as at Doughoregan
Manor." Mr. Carroll's letters show how the flagrant

Doughoregan Manor 233
injustice of all this ground into his haughty
soul. Ina masterly rEsumd (dated 1 760) of the
causes leading to the oppressive enactments,
he says:
" Maryland was granted to Cecilius, Lord Baltimore,
a Roman Catholic. All persons believing in Jesus Christ
were, by the charter, promised the enjoyment, not only
of religious, but of civil, liberty. . . . All sects contin
ued in a peaceful enjoyment of these privileges until the
Revolution, when a mob, encouraged by the example set
them in England, rebelled against the Lord Baltimore,
stript him of his government, and his officers of their
places. Then the crown assumed the government ; the
Toleration Act, as I may call it, was repealed, and sev
eral acts to hinder us from a free exercise of our religion
were passed.
" To these the Proprietary was not only mean enough
to assent, but he deprived several Roman Catholics em
ployed in the management of his private patrimony and
revenue, of their places. ... At last, in 1756, an
Act was passed by all the branches of the Legislature
here to double tax us, and to this law the present Pro
prietor had the meanness to assent, tho' he knew us
innocent of the calumnies raised against us.
" From what I have said I leave you to judge
whether Maryland be a tolerable residence for a Roman
Catholic." '
So active was his discontent that he actu
ally made overtures to the French king for a
1 Family Papers, Rev. Thomas Sims Lee.

234 More Colonial Homesteads
grant in what is now the State of Arkansas,
then a wilderness claimed by France. His in
tention to remove thither, and there found a
new home, if not a sort of refuge colony for
his brethren in the faith, was not relinquished
for several years. It is interesting in this con
nection to note that another branch of the
Carroll family was subsequently established in
Arkansas, and bore an important part in the
upbuilding of territory and State.
Mingled with gossip of neighbourhood and
family affairs, and explicit directions as to
his son's homeward passage, are mention of
Charles III.'s crack racer, Nimble, genealogical
details, and talk of the library the traveller was
to bring to Maryland with him. Then, in
1 764, we come plump upon a matter more
serious to both of the correspondents than any
of the subjects just named. The heir and only
son was in love, and, judging from the lasting
impression made upon his imagination, if not
his heart, by the " Louisa " of his letters — the
" Miss Baker " of the senior's — was more deeply
enamoured than at any other period in his
life. The American father hopes " Miss Baker
may be endowed with all the good sense and

Doughoregan Manor 235
good nature you say she has," gives his con
sent to the proposed alliance, and plunges
forthwith into an "exhibit" of his means which
are the son's expectations. Said exhibit is to
be laid before the prospective English father-
in-law. With "a clear revenue of at least
,£1800 per annum," and upwards of 40,000
acres of lands annually increasing in value,
not to mention Annapolis lots and houses, six
hundred pounds of family plate, and nearly
three hundred adult slaves on his various plant
ations, the handsome young colonist was a
desirable parti in a day when money was four
fold more valuable than in ours. The fair one
who had had the good fortune to attract him
was not rich in her own right, nor would her
father be able to endow her amply even
when, as he promises to do, he had made
" his daughter's share equal in his estate with
his son's."
" Mr. Baker's letter to you speaks him to
be a man of sense and honour," conceded
Charles Carroll of Annapolis, and evidently
considering the matter as good as settled,
wrote out in due form a proposal for a " set
tlement and gift " to his son and " for the
lady's jointure." She must have been hard to

236 More Colonial Homesteads
please if these had not suited her ambitions,
and singularly cold of heart had she failed to
approve of her suitor. In the prime of early
manhood, graceful in person and most fascin
ating in manner, a scholar, sweet of temper
and devout of spirit withal, a favourite " in a
circle of friends of not a little consequence and
fashion," in what respect or particular was he
adjudged deficient when weighed in the scales
of maidenly caprice and paternal reason ? Or,
was the rupture that ended loverly dreams
and fatherly negotiations to be accounted for
by the convenient formula of " fault on both
sides " ?
Miss Rowland, more satisfactory upon most
points than other of our hero's biographers, is
not a whit more explicit here :
" He was to bring over thoroughbred horses and a
gamekeeper, and, doubtless, the newest London fash
ions in dress and equipage. That he had hoped to
bring home an English bride to his Maryland Manor is
evident. But for some reason his suit failed, and the
romance came to an untimely end.
" The estate of Carrollton in Frederick County was to
be settled upon him on his return home, and he was
to be known henceforward as Charles Carroll of Car
rollton." '
1 Charles Carroll of Carrollton, by Kate Mason Rowland, p. 68.

Doughoregan Manor 237
This rapid summary of the leading events in
his early life brings us to the pregnant para
graph in the Annapolis newspaper published
on St. Valentine's day in the year of Our Lord
1765. Mistress Elizabeth Brooke Carroll was not
among those who welcomed her son's return
to home and country. She had died in 1761,
after a long and painful illness. That is a
common tale, too, but none the less pitiful for
the frequent telling. Among the sorest of the
privations inseparable from residence in a hemi
sphere where educational processes and polite
usages were without form and void, was the
rending of the tenderest ties of heart and kind
red. We sigh in futile sympathy with the
mother whose eyes, strained to watch the
glimmer upon the horizon of the cruelly vast
watery highway of the sail that bore her boy
away from her arms, were to close in their last
sleep without ever seeing him again. And
beside him she had no other child !
It would loosen the tension of our heart
strings to be assured that she accompanied her
husband in the transatlantic journey he made
in 1 75 1. She was not with him in 1757, for
Mr. Carroll writes from London to his son in

238 More Colonial Homesteads
Paris early in 1758, that a friend newly landed
in England, " saw your mother ; that she was
well and in high spirits, having heard of my
safe arrival." In 1753 the father had directed
the seventeen-year-old boy to have his likeness
taken by a "good painter."
" With your mother I shall be glad to have
your picture in the compass of 15 inches by 12."
Were her hungry eyes ever gladdened by the
sight of it ?
A letter from Mrs. Carroll, treasured by the
son, and after him by his heirs, contains this
touching clause :
" You are always at heart my dear Charley,
and I have never tired asking your papa ques
tions about you. I daily pray to God to grant
you His grace above all things, and to take
you under His protection."
Her son's lot in life was distinctly sketched
for him by circumstance, or so he supposed.
" Who is so happy as an independent man ?
and who is more independent than a private
gentleman possessed of a clear estate, and
moderate in his desires ? " are queries from
his pen that savour of the calm aspirations of
the English country gentlemen. So honest
was the utterance that he must have aston-

Doughoregan Manor 239
ished himself when he sprang into the arena
of provincial politics as one of the " Assertors
of British-American Privileges," discarded the
latest London fashions for homespun woven
upon his own plantation, and boldly predicted
the time when America would be superior to
the rest of the world in arts and sciences and
in the use of arms.
" Matrimony is, at present, but little the sub
ject of my thoughts," he said cynically to a
confidential English correspondent, when he
had for eight months sustained the battery of
matronly and maidenly eyes brought to bear
upon the " catch " of the Commonwealth. A
month later he moralised upon the emptiness
of passion " which exists nowhere but in ro
mance." He was now in his twenty-ninth
year, and of the opinion that a man of twenty
should have enough common sense to marry,
" if he marries from affection, from esteem,
and from a sense of merit in his wife."
On August 26th of the next year (1766) he
informs the same correspondent that he was
to have been married in July to "an amiable
young lady, but was taken ill with fever in
June. If I continue thus recruiting, I hope to
be married in November."

240 More Colonial Homesteads
In September he eulogises the object of his
present choice to a friend who had known Miss
Baker :
" A greater commendation I cannot make of
the young lady than by pronouncing her no
ways inferior to Louisa."
To the aunt of this friend he expatiates
more at length upon the " united power of
good sense and beauty " as exemplified in his
JiancEe, Miss Rachel Cooke, who was also his
blood relative. It is funny to our notions —
and was apparently not without an element of
the humorous to the bridegroom expectant —
that he should send the " measure of the lady's
stays" to his foreign correspondent, "and of
her skirts and robes."
" I hope," he pleads, " you will excuse any
impropriety in my expressions, for I confess
an utter ignorance of these matters."
The gown for which measurements were en
closed, thus ordered, was to be of Brussels
lace, and ornaments to match were to accom
pany it. This piece of business done with,
the writer is free to indulge in pleasurable an
ticipations or pensive reminiscences. His ma
tronly correspondent was, evidently, cognisant
of the (to us) mysterious obstacles that had

Doughoregan Manor 241
foiled the like intentions on his part in re
Miss Baker. There is fruitful matter for ro
mantic surmise in such passages as these :
" I assure you I have been more sparing in my reflec
tions, and in pronouncing judgment on that amiable
part of mankind (woman) since the opinion a charitable
lady of your acquaintance was pleased to form of me
behind my back, from little inadvertencies. And that
opinion was delivered seriously and deliberately before
a sister whom, at that time, I would have given the
world to entertain better of me."
This grows interesting, and surmise ripens
into partial knowledge as we read on in the
epistle drawn by Miss Rowland from the do
mestic archives of the Carroll connection :
" Well, then, since the subject has somehow, unac
countably [!] led me to the lady, I may mention her
name. How is Louisa ? There was once more music
in that name than in the sweetest lines of Pope ; but
now I can pronounce it as indifferently as Nancy, Bet
sey, or any other common name. If I ask a few ques
tions I hope you will not think I am not as indifferent
as I pretend to be. But I protest it is mere curiosity, or
mere good-will that prompts me to inquire after her. Is
she still single ? Does she intend to alter her state, or
to remain single ? If she thinks of matrimony my only
wish is that she may meet with a man deserving of her."
Our skeleton romance is clothed with flesh

242 More Colonial Homesteads
and instinct with life when we have finished
this remarkable communication from the man
who expected shortly to become the husband
of another than the unforgotten Louisa. It
is clear that a whisperer had separated the
lovers, and almost as clear that the mischief-
maker was Louisa's sister. As obvious as
either of these deductions is that the gentle
man " doth protest too much " as to the com
pleteness of his cure and the reality of his
indifference. The shock of a real and present calamity
awoke him from reminiscent reveries. Rachel
Cooke fell ill of fever about the first of No
vember, and died on the twenty-fifth of that
month. " All that now remains of my unhappy af
fection is a pleasing melancholy reflection of
having loved and been loved by a most de
serving woman," writes Mr. Carroll to his
English confidante, three months subsequent
to her decease. In a morbid vein, natural
and excusable in the circumstances, he de
clares that he has come to the dregs of his
life, and "wishes the bitter potion down." His
health had suffered grievously from his recent
illness and the sorrow which followed so closely

Doughoregan Manor 243
upon it. He had had " the strongest assur
ances of happiness in the married state from
the sweetness of Miss Cooke's temper, her
virtue and good sense, and from our mutual
affection." The unworn wedding-dress was laid away
reverently by the women of the household ;
Rachel's miniature and a long tress of her
hair were locked from all eyes but his own in
a secret drawer of Charles Carroll's escritoire.
The heir of a great estate, and a rising man
in the political world, could not be surren
dered to solitary musings upon the uncer
tainty of human happiness. The dregs must
be emptied from the cup of life and the goodly
vessel refilled with generous wine. The com
mission for bridal gear sent to London had
included a memorandum for a silk gown for
Mary Darnall, " a young lady who lives with
us." The lady who was to make the purchase,
upon the receipt of a letter from Mr. Carroll,
Sr., countermanding the order for what was
meant for Miss Cooke, omitted to buy the
silk frock. Charles Carroll, Jr., wrote some
what tartly, ten months after poor Rachel died,
of " my cousin Miss Mollie Darnall's " cha
grin at the non-arrival of her gown. A letter

244 More Colonial Homesteads
to another British friend two months prior to
this, shows what right he had to sympathise
with Miss Mollie's disappointment.
His third betrothal was to "a sweet-tem
pered, charming, neat girl. A little too young
for me, I confess, but especially as I am of
weak and puny constitution, in a poor state
of health, but in hopes of better."
He had always a fine sense of humour, and
a sad little smile must have stirred his lips in
adding, " Hope springs eternal in the human
breast." After he had ordered Miss Darnall's trous
seau through his London factor, and recovered
a fair degree of the health so rudely shaken by
the events of the past eighteen months, Fate,
unwearied in her pursuit of him, interposed
yet another impediment to his matrimonial
ventures. An Act of Assembly must be passed
to " impower Miss Darnall, who is under age,
to consent to a settlement in bar of dower."
The weight of the Carroll influence was ex
erted to secure this, but as the Assembly did
not meet until the early spring of 1768, the
marriage must be put off.
We cannot read the last of the letters bear
ing upon the much-vexed question of Charles

Doughoregan Manor 245
Carroll's marriage and sober settlement in life
without the conviction that his character had
gained strength and depth in his manifold trib
ulations. After the frank statement that the
" young lady to whom he was to give his hand,
and who already had his heart," was poor in
this world's goods, he goes on in an ingenu
ous, manly tone to say :
" I prefer her, thus unprovided, to all the
women I have ever seen, even to Louisa," and
cites her want of fortune as another reason
" inducing the necessity of a settlement, and
strongly justifying it. I am willing and desir
ous that all my future actions should stand the
test of those two severe judges, Reason and
Justice." From this willingness he never departed.
To this standard he remained constant to the
end of a long, prosperous, and beneficent
life. The Maryland Gazette of June 9, 1768, con
tained another important bit of society in
telligence :
" On Sunday (June 5) was married at his
Father's House in this city, Charles Carroll
Jr., Esq., to Miss Mary Darnall, an agreeable
young Lady, endowed with every accomplish-

246 More Colonial Homesteads
ment necessary to render the connubial state
happy." The bridegroom was in his thirty-first year,
the bride in her twentieth.
Pleasant murmurs of the tranquil, yet busy,
life led by the pair steal to us through the cor
ridors leading to the memorable Past which
latter-day research has cleared out for us.
Charles Carroll of Carrollton was the business
acquaintance, then, the friend and host of
Washington. He was the munificent patron
of Charles Wilson Peale and other artists.
He and his popular wife kept open house for
townsmen and visitors from other colonies
and from over the sea. Annapolis was their
home in winter ; Doughoregan Manor, in
summer. Then the famous letters, signed " First Cit
izen," maintaining the to-be-immortal principle
that taxation without representation is a pri
vate and a public outrage, " brought the mod
est, studious, and retiring planter out of the
shades of private life into the full glare of
political publicity."1
Henceforward, the lime-light that is ever
turned upon the reformer beat steadily upon
1 Miss Rowland.

Doughoregan Manor 249
him. When the Boston Tea Party of 1773
was outdone by the burning of the Peggy
Stewart that had brought into the port of
Annapolis a cargo of " the detestable article,"
Charles Carroll, Jr., was the chief counsellor
of the owner who, with his own hand, applied
the expiatory torch.
Mr. Carroll was a member of the Conti
nental Congress convened in Philadelphia in
September, 1774.
"A very sensible gentleman," says John
Adams. " A Roman Catholic, and of the
first fortune in America. His income is ten
thousand pounds a year now ; will be fourteen
in two or three years, they say. Besides, his
father has a vast fortune which will be his."
From the same hand we have this testi
mony to the very sensible gentleman's worth
in 1776 :
" Of great abilities and learning, complete
master of the French language, and a pro
fessor of the Roman Catholic religion ; yet a
warm, a firm, a zealous supporter of the rights
of America, in whose cause he has hazarded
his all."
On June 11, 1776, "Mr. Chase and Mr.
Carroll of Carrollton, two of the Commis-

250 More Colonial Homesteads
sioners, being arrived from Canada, attended
and gave account of their proceeding and the
state of the Army in that country."
On August 2d, the Declaration of Independ
ence, which had been passed on the Fourth of
July, was spread upon the desk of the Secretary
of Congress for the signature of members.
" Will you sign it ? " asked the President of
Charles Carroll of Carrollton, who was talking
with him upon other subjects.
" Most willingly," answered the Marylander,
with hearty emphasis, taking up the pen.
" There go a few millions ! " remarked a by
stander, and a rustle of applause ran through the
group about the desk and President's chair.
It is hardly necessary to add, in this myth-
destroying generation, that " Charles Carroll
of Carrollton " was the ordinary signature ap
pended to his letters and business documents,
adopted and used to distinguish him from his
father of Annapolis.
The numerous and important services ren
dered by this one of " The Signers " to his
country, the offices to which he was called and
his manner of filling them, are events in our
early history. The student of this who would
learn of these things in detail could not act

Doughoregan Manor 251
more wisely than by reading the volumes to
which I have already and repeatedly directed
his attention : Miss Kate Mason Rowland's
Life of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, 1737-
1832, with His Correspondence and Public
Papers. From the Centennial Memorial, published
in 1876 by the Maryland Historical Society,
I extract a modest summary of Mr. Carroll's
public life prepared by himself in his eightieth
year :
'' On the breaking out of the Revolution, I took a de
cided part in the support of the rights of this country ;
was elected a member of the Committee of Safety estab
lished by the Legislature ; was a member of the Con
vention which formed the Constitution of this State.
The journals of Congress show how long I was a mem
ber of that body during the Revolution. With Dr.
Franklin and Mr. Samuel Chase I was appointed a
Commissioner to Canada. I was elected a member of
the Senate at the first session of Congress under the pre
sent Confederation. . . . The mode of choosing the
Senate was suggested by me. . . .
" Though well acquainted with General Washington,
and I flatter myself, in his confidence, few letters passed
between us. One, having reference to the opposition
made to the treaty concluded by Mr. Jay, has been
repeatedly published in the newspapers, and perhaps
you may have seen it."

IX

DOUGHOREGAN MANOR: THE CARROLL
HOMESTEAD, MARYLAND
(Concluded)
UPON the morning of May 30th, Mr.
Charles Carroll of Annapolis, a hale pa
triarch of eighty, was standing upon the portico
of his town house, watching an incoming ves
sel in the harbour below. Spy-glass at his
eye, he followed her every movement until
she dropped anchor at the pier. Then, turn
ing to speak to his daughter-in-law, who stood
beside him, he made a backward step, slipped
over the edge of the portico, and fell head
long to the ground. He was killed instantly.
Mrs. Carroll's mother, Mrs. Darnall, had
died a year before, since which event her
daughter had been peculiarly dependent upon
her father-in-law's affection and companion
ship. As we have seen, she was brought up
252

Doughoregan Manor 253
in his house. Her cousin fiancE spoke of her
in his letters as " a young lady who lives with
us." Mr. Carroll, Sr., had never had a daugh
ter of his own, and treated his son's wife as
if she were his child instead of his wife's niece.
Mrs. Darnall had ministered most tenderly
to the elder Mrs. Carroll in her last lingering
illness of more than two years' duration, and
then taken her place as manager of the An
napolis and Doughoregan Manor households.
The daughter had never recovered her spirits
since her mother's decease, and her health had
suffered from her melancholy. The terrible
accident, of which she was a witness, pros
trated her utterly. She was too ill to accom
pany the remains to their resting-place under
the floor of the Doughoregan chapel, and
never left her chamber alive after that fatal
day. In just eleven days from the date of
her father-in-law's death she breathed her last,
"after a short, but painful illness."
Her youngest child was two years old when
left motherless, and outlived her but three
years. Three other daughters had died in
early infancy. Mary, born in 1770, Charles,
born in 1775, and Catherine, born in 1778,
grew up to man's and woman's estate.

254 More Colonial Homesteads
Charles, the only son among the seven child
ren given to his parents, was five years of
age at the time of his mother's death. In an
other five years he was sent to France to be
educated by the Jesuit fathers in the English
college at Liege. He sailed from Annapolis
in true princely state, commemorated by an
old picture yet extant. His guardian and fel
low-voyager was Daniel Carroll, of the Dud-
dington estate, whose younger brother was a
student at Liege.
This cousin Daniel stood high in the regards
of his kinsman of Carrollton, as is manifest
from their correspondence. The elder relat
ive defrayed the other's expenses from Amer
ica to Liege, and wrote kindly, yet decided,
counsel respecting the young traveller's con
duct abroad. He was advised to improve his
time by acquiring some knowledge of the
French language, but not to make that time
so long as to draw heavily upon an estate
which was " not very productive." He was
to polish his manners by intercourse with the
most polite nation upon earth, " observe the
cultivation of the country, particularly of the
vineyards, learn the most improved methods
of making wines, inquire their prices from the

Doughoregan Manor 255
manufacturers themselves, and endeavour to
fix some useful correspondences in France."
Mary Carroll, now a beautiful girl of six
teen, joined her father and her aunt, Miss
Darnall, in " sincere wishes for the health and
happiness" of the absentee. In ten months
more her father undertook, with obvious re
luctance, to communicate "intelligence" he
foresaw would be unwelcome :
" Although disagreeable, I must impart it to you. My
daughter, I am sorry to inform you, is much attached to,
and has engaged herself to a young English gentleman of
the name of Caton. I do sincerely wish she had placed
her affections elsewhere, but I do not think myself at lib
erty to control her choice when fixed on a person of un
exceptional character, nor would you, I am sure, desire
that I should. . . .
" Time will wear away the impressions which an early
attachment may have made on your heart," proceeds the
philosophical kinsman, " Louisa's " whilom lover, " and
I hope you will find out, in the course of a year or two,
some agreeable, virtuous, and sweet-tempered young
lady, whose reciprocal affection, tenderness, and good
ness of disposition will make you happy, and forget the
loss of my daughter."
This " intelligence " disposed of early in
the epistle, the thrice-betrothed and once-
wedded mentor passes easily on to discussion

256 More Colonial Homesteads
of business, family, and political affairs, send
ing, en passant, " Molly's kindly compliments,"
and mentioning, jocosely, that Kitty, "who
will make a fine woman," sometimes talks of
" Cousin Long-legs." A comprehensive para
graph tops off the model missive :
" I have mentioned every occurrence worth communi
cating, and therefore conclude this letter with assurances
of real regard and attachment."
We get a chance glint of light upon the fig
ure and character of " Molly " Carroll's Eng
lish spouse in a sarcastic sketch from the pen
of William Maclay, a Pennsylvania Congress
man. John Adams, then Vice-President, is
interrogating Mr. Carroll upon the latter's per
sonal concerns in a style that impresses us, as it
struck the diarist, as flippant and impertinent :
" ' Have you arranged your empire on your departure ?
Your revenues must suffer in your absence. What kind
of administration have you established for the regula
tion of your finances ? Is your government intrusted
to a viceroy, nuncio, legate, plenipotentiary, or charge
d 'affaires ? '
" Carroll endeavored to get him down from his im
perial language by telling him that he had a son-in-law
who paid attention to his affairs : I left them before
Adams had half settled the empire."

Doughoregan Manor 257
The satirist is gravely respectful in speaking
of Mr. Carroll's pleasure on reading of the
abolition of titles and distinctions of the nobil
ity in France. " A flash of joy lightened from
the countenance " of the richest man in Mary
land, two of whose granddaughters were to
marry into the British nobility, and two other
descendants in the third generation were to
espouse titled Frenchmen of high rank. He
is emphatic in the expression of Republican
and Federal sentiments in a letter to Alex
ander Hamilton, written October 22, 1792 :
" I hope the real friends of liberty and their country
will unite to counteract the schemes of men who have
uniformly manifested hostile temper to the present gov
ernment, the adoption of which has rescued these States
from that debility and confusion, and those horrors,
which unhappy France has experienced of late, and may
still labour under."
At eleven years of age, the little Kitty who
made fun of Daniel Carroll's long legs was
sent to an English convent in Liege. She ful
filled her father's prediction of growing up into
a fine woman, playing the role of leading belle
in Annapolis, Philadelphia, and New York so
ciety for several seasons before her marriage,
at twenty-three, to Robert Goodloe Harper, an

258 More Colonial Homesteads
eminent lawyer, and member of Congress from
South Carolina. This gentleman, a Virginian
by birth, removed from South Carolina to
Maryland after his marriage, and became one
of Mr. Carroll's most trusted friends. While
the devoted patriot retired nominally from
public life in 1800, announcing his intention
of devoting the rest of his life to the care
of his estates and enjoyment of home and
children, his letters to Mr. Harper and others
show how watchful was the outlook kept up
at Doughoregan Manor upon the tossing sea
of politics, how wise his judgment in the
momentous questions dividing the minds of
statemen. The marriage of his only son Charles (IV.)
Carroll, Jr., July 17, 1800, was a source of
profound gratification to the father. The
bridegroom was the Admirable Crichton of
the brilliant circle which was his social orbit.
The late Jonathan Meredith, a distinguished
Maryland lawyer, who died a few years ago at
the advanced age of ninety, used to tell of a
trial of athletic skill between some fashion
able young men of Baltimore which he wit
nessed. A fencing-match was on the floor
when he entered the room devoted to the ex-

CHARLES CARROLL OF " HOMEWOOD."
FROM ORIGINAL PAINTING BV REMBRANDT PEALE.

Doughoregan Manor 261
hibition, and his attention was at once captiv
ated by the extreme beauty and grace of one
of the contestants, who, he was told, was the
son of Charles Carroll of Carrollton.
" Nothing in Grecian art surpasses the per
fect symmetry of his figure," he would say.
"In every movement he was a study for a
sculptor. His face had not a flaw. I have
always carried the image of him in my mind
as a faultless model of manly beauty."
The picture of the athlete in the drawing-
room of Doughoregan Manor sustains the en
comium. The head is fine in shape and poise ;
the low, smooth forehead, the clear blue eye,
the perfect oval of the face, the straight nose
and delicate curves of the mouth, beguile and
feast the eye.1 After wandering through the
other rooms and listening to stories of other
portraits, all full of interest, we are drawn back
1 An inscription upon the back of the canvas (overlooked by the
family for two generations), is to this effect :
" Char Us Carroll of Carrollton funior Esq.
' ' This is his likeness which he gave to Mary Wallace, and which she
received on Monday fanuary 22,1, ijqQ. Drawn by Mr. Rembrandt
Peale when Mr. Carroll was 22 years of age, and Mary H'allace
gives this to her Daughter, Maty Wallace Ranken, at her decease:'
Beyond the mention of the names of mother and daughter in the
faded inscription discovered just one hundred years after the gift of
the portrait to " Mary Wallace," nothing is known of either.

262 More Colonial Homesteads
to this by a growing fascination enhanced by
the tale of his life and its untimely end.
He was just twenty-five when he married
Harriet Chew, a younger sister of the " Pretty
Peggy," whose acquaintance we have made
and improved in our chapter upon " Clive
den." (Some Colonial Homesteads, pp. 1 1 7—
122.) There were six of the Chew sisters,
Margaret ("Peggy") being the third of the
bevy of beauties. The star of Harriet, the
fourth sister, was in the zenith in 1796, when
Washington begfered her to remain in the room
during his sittings to Gilbert Stuart, that his
countenance should, under the charm of her
conversation, " wear its most agreeable ex
pression." Colonel John Eager Howard, who had mar
ried Peggy Chew in 1787, was a political ally
and warm personal friend of Charles Carroll
of Carrollton. It is quite possible, and alto
gether congruous with the rest of the story,
that the younger Carroll may have been
thrown into familiar association with Harriet
Chew during her visits to her sister, who was
reckoned the most beautiful woman of her
generation and country. Whispers of a former
passion, or fancy, for Nelly Custis, of Mount

Doughoregan Manor 263
Vernon, the step-granddaughter of the Pre
sident, did not prevail with sensible Harriet
against the wooing of the Admirable Crich-
ton. Nor did family history repeat itself in
the form of delaying illnesses, frustrating
deaths, and tardy settlements.
A lawyer friend and relative, Mr. William
Cooke, asked and received thirty gallons of
choice old Madeira for drawing up the joint
ure papers ; the wedding-garments were worn
by the bride for whom they were ordered ; the
marriage took place at the appointed time, and
the happy pair were installed at " Homewood,"
near Baltimore. The brick mansion built for
them by Charles Carroll of Carrollton is still
standing. The neighbourhood was all they could have
wished, and both were hospitable, fond of
amusement, and accustomed to the cream of cis
atlantic society. Mrs. Caton was bringing up
her three daughters, afterwards celebrated as
" the American Graces," at " Brooklandwood,"
near enough for the daily exchange of calls.
" Hampton," the Ridgely House, built in 1783,
than which there were few handsomer in the
State, was but a few miles farther away ; " The
Homestead," the country-seat of the Patter-

264 More Colonial Homesteads
sons, where "Betsey" Patterson and Jerome
Bonaparte spent the one and only year of their
married life ; " Belvedere," the residence of
Colonel Howard and his " pretty Peggy,"
were within easy visiting distance. The elder
Carroll's many letters to "Homewood" are
affectionate, and expressive of the thorough
sympathy existing between them upon every
subject discussed by the two. The correspond
ence is entertaining reading apart from the
insight we thus gain into the prosperous, sunny
existence led in the two homes. Both of the
Carrolls disliked and distrusted John Adams.
" Neither Jefferson nor Burr can make so bad
a president," is the opinion of the Sage of Car
rollton. Yet of Jefferson he concludes :
" If he does not think as he writes, he is a
hypocrite, and his pitiful cant is the step-ladder
to his ambition. Burr, I suspect, is not less a
hypocrite than Jefferson ; but he is a firm,
steady man, and possessed, it is said, of great
energy and decision."
A year after the marriage a letter from the
Manor-house of " Homewood" has to do with
what put presidential candidates and interna
tional complications clean out of sight and
thought. A fifth Charles Carroll had seen the

Doughoregan Manor 265
light of the world that had dealt so generously
with his forbears.
" May this child, when grown to manhood,
be a comfort to his parents in the decline of
life, and support the reputation of his family ! "
is the prayer of the happy grandfather.
The date of the congratulatory note is July
26, 1801.
In the same spirit of unaffected piety, but in
a far different tone, he writes, August 12, 1806 :
" Immediately upon the receipt of your letter I gave
orders to Harry to take up some of the pavement of the
Chapel to have the grave dug for the earthly remains of
your poor little infant. To soften the loss of this dear
and engaging .child, the certainty of his now enjoying a
glorious immortality will greatly contribute "
At seventy, Charles Carroll, Senior, writes
to his junior of a plan to visit Carrollton, and
a desire to have his son's company on the trip,
adding, jocosely, " I have but two complaints,
old age and the cholic."
He is hale and hopeful at seventy-four, with
the Harper grandchildren playing about his
knees, the two elder at school in Baltimore, so
near as " to allow them to visit the Manor every
Saturday, and return to town the Mondays
following."

266 More Colonial Homesteads
A graver despatch went from Annapolis
May 8, 1813 :
" I have sent my valuable papers, books of account,
and plate to the Manor, and baggage of different kinds
will be sent to-morrow. When I go to the Manor your
sister Caton and her daughters Betsey and Emily will
accompany me. I shall remove some pipes of wine to
my farm near this city, and some household furniture,
for I seriously apprehend the enemy will destroy the
town. It is reported a strong force is going up the Po
tomac, and they are greatly alarmed at Washington."
August 25, 1 8 14, the situation is yet more
alarming :
" The enemy are in possession of Washington ! It is
reported that they have destroyed the public buildings
and the Navy Yard. It is thought they will next at
tack Baltimore. The fire at Washington was plainly
seen by several of my people about ten o'clock last
night." " If I live to see the end of the war, I shall,"
etc., etc., is the beginning of another epistle.
He uses the same formula in effect when the
war was over, and the return of peace per
mitted the resumption of the traditional cus
tom of sending the children of the Carroll
connection across the ocean for education. His
granddaughter, Mary Harper, was sent to

Doughoregan Manor 267
France, "where she will be more piously edu
cated than at the very best boarding-school in
Philadelphia. " I may not live to see her return. Kiss her
for me. I send her my love and my blessing."
He lived to receive the news that " the dear
girl " had died abroad, and to mingle his tears
with her parents'. Another Mary, Mrs. Ca-
ton's eldest daughter, had married a brother
of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte. In 181 7,
Louisa Caton married Colonel Sir Felton
Bathurst Hervey, who had been on Welling
ton's staff at Waterloo. In 1818, Mrs. Har
per writes to her father from England of
personal interviews and distinguished atten
tion she has had from the Duke and other
great ones of the earth, and Mr. Carroll makes
inquiry as to a French school to which he
intends to send his grandson, Charles Carroll.
In 1820, Mrs. Caton brought to Doughore
gan Manor, the widow of Commodore Deca
tur, two months after his fatal duel with Barron.
" The exercise and change of air have greatly
benefited Mrs. Decatur," the host reports to
his son. "Her spirits are more composed ;
she dines with us, and converses more."
In that same summer a travelled English-

268

More Colonial Homesteads

man describes a visit to Douohoregan Manor
and the cordial hospitality of the proprietor,
" a venerable patriarch, nearly eighty-three years of age,
and one of the four survivors of those who signed the
Declaration of Independence.
" Although still an expert horseman, he seldom goes
beyond the limits of his Manor. I had, however, seen
him riding in a long procession, through the streets of
Baltimore, holding in his hand the Declaration of Inde
pendence, which he delivered to the orator of the day,
at the monument of General Washington." Three surviv-
ing signers,
James Madison,
Thomas Jeffer
son, and Charles
Carroll of Car
rollton, were in
vited to meet
Lafayette at
Yorktown on
October 19,
1824, to cele
brate the surren
der of Cornwal
lis. An auto
graph letter from Mr. Carroll to the late

CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLLTON.
1737-1832.

Doughoregan Manor 269
Robert G. Scott, of Richmond, Virginia,
pleads his "advanced age" in apology for his
declination of the invitation. He met La
fayette at Fort McHenry, October 7th, on
his way to Yorktown, and, with Colonel John
Eager Howard and "several other veterans,"
lunched with them in a tent that had been
used by Washington in the Revolutionary
War. Mr. Carroll was also a guest at the
ball given at " Belvedere " to the French
marquis. One of the most tender and confidential
letters penned by the patriarch to his son,
bears date of April 12, 1821. It contains
these solemn admonitions :
" I deem it my duty to call your attention to the short
ness of this life, and the certainty of death, and the
dreadful judgment we must all undergo, and on the de
cision of which a happy or a miserable Eternity depends.
My desire to induce you to reflect on futurity,
and, by a virtuous life, to merit heaven, has suggested
the above reflections and warnings. The approaching
festival of Easter and the merits and mercies of Our
Redeemer, copiosa assudeum redemptio, have led me into
this chain of meditation and reasoning, and have in
spired me with the hope of finding mercy before my
Judge, and of being happy in the life to come, a happi
ness I wish you to participate with me by infusing into
your heart a similar hope."

270 More Colonial Homesteads
I n a letter of later date he says, ' ' God bless and
prepare you for a better world, for the present
is but a passing meteor compared to Eternity."
And still again : " At the hour of your
death, ah ! my son, you will feel the emptiness
of all sublunary things ; and that hour may be
much nearer than you expect. Think well on
it! I mean your eternal welfare."
Other circumstances besides his own ex
treme age moved him to such meditations.
He stood so nearly solitary in the world once
peopled with his contemporaries that each
death among the remaining few was like the
stroke of his own passing-bell. Colonel John
Eager Howard had buried his beautiful wife
in 1822. Mr. Carroll's best-beloved son-in-
law, General Robert Goodloe Harper, died
January 15, 1825. The heaviest stroke that
could fall upon the old man and the old
house descended April 3, 1825, in the death of
Charles (IV.) Carroll of " Homewood." The
knowledge of what his life had meant to him
who was only son, chief pride, and dearest
hope lends awful dignity to words written in
November of that direful year :
" On the 20th of this month I entered into my eighty-
ninth year. This, in any country, would be deemed a

Doughoregan Manor 271
long life. If it has not been directed to the only end
for which man was created, it is a mere nothing, an
empty phantom, an indivisible point, compared with Eter
nity. . . On the mercy of my Redeemer I rely for
salvation, and on His merits ; not on the works I have
done in obedience to His precepts, for even these, I fear,
a mixture of alloy will render unavailing and cause to be
rejected." Mr. Carroll took part in a public pageant
on July 20, 1826, when memorial services were
held in Baltimore in honour of Ex-Presidents
Adams and Jefferson. The whole nation was
thrilled to the heart by the coincidence of the
deaths of both these men on the Fourth of July
of that year, an event which left but one sur
viving signer of the Declaration of Independ
ence. Upon the eve of the solemn celebration,
this man, in the awful solitariness of extreme
old age, sitting in the shadow of the double
decease, indited these manly and magnanimous
words to a friend :
" 'Though I disapproved of Mr. Jefferson's adminis
tration and was dissatisfied with a part of Mr. Adams's,
both unquestionably greatly contributed to the Inde
pendence of this country. Their services should be
remembered, and their errors forgiven and forgotten.
This evening, I am going to Baltimore to attend to
morrow the procession and ceremonies to be paid to the
memories of these praised and dispraised Presidents."

272 More Colonial Homesteads
He acted as chief mourner in the funeral
procession, and in the same carriage was the
friend of more than half a century, John Eager
Howard. In September of that year, Mr. Car
roll had a medal struck to commemorate his
ninetieth birthday, and received the congratu
lations of friends and neighbours at the
Manor. From the pen of one who saw him
then we have a picture of the eminent nona
genarian :
'" He was a rather small and thin person, of very gra
cious and polished manners. At the age of ninety he
was still upright, and could see and hear as well as
men commonly do. He had a smiling expression when
he spoke, and had none of the reserve which usually
attends old age "
His lively interest in what was going on in
his widening family connexion and in the
world of nations remained unabated to the
last. His widowed granddaughter, Mrs. Rob
ert Patterson, one of the fairest and most ac
complished of American-born women, was now
Marchioness of Wellesley, her second husband
being a brother of the Duke of Wellington.
Mrs. Hervey, also, was married again, and to
a British peer, the Duke of Leeds. A favour
ite grandchild, Mrs. McTavish (Emily Caton),

Doughoregan Manor 273
spent much of her time at the Manor, where
her children were joyously at home, and a
never-ceasing delight to their great-grand
father. Never was old age more painless and placid.
August 2, 1826, Mr. Carroll signed, with a
hand that scarcely trembled, this testimonial
upon a copy of the Declaration of Independ
ence, now in the New York City Library :
" Grateful to Almighty God for the blessing which,
through Jesus Christ Our Lord, He has conferred upon
my beloved country in her emancipation, and upon my
self in permitting me under circumstances of mercy to
live to the age of eighty-nine years, and to survive the
fiftieth year of American Independence, and certifying
by my present signature my approbation of the Declara
tion of Independence adopted by Congress on the fourth
day of July, in the year of Our Lord, one thousand seven
hundred and seventy-six, which I originally subscribed
on the second day of August of the same year, and of
which I am, now, the last surviving signer, T do hereby
recommend to the present and future generations the
principles of that important document as the best earthly
inheritance their ancestors could bequeath to them, and
pray that the civil and religious liberties they have se
cured to my country may be perpetuated to the remotest
posterity and extended to the whole family of man."
On July n, 1830, the faithful son of his
Church laid the corner-stone of the now splen-

274 More Colonial Homesteads
did St. Charles College, about two miles from
Doughoregan Manor. He had given the land
upon which the college was to be built, and a
handsome sum toward the erection of the same.
And so one, and yet another year glided in
and out, like the waves of a summer brook rip
pling between green pastures. The golden-
hearted old man retired early, and was abroad
betimes on the morrow. He believed and
practised his belief in cold baths, horseback
exercise, regularity in meals, and temperance
in everything. He was always present at
morning and evening prayers in the chapel,
and passed several hours of each day in the
perusal of the English, Greek, and Latin clas
sics, keeping up to the last what one chroni
cler has called " his perfect knowledge of the
French language." In his ninety-third year
he was found by a clerical guest deeply en
gaged in the study of Cicero's treatise on
"Old Age," in the original Latin.
" After the Bible," he added, with his pecul
iar earnestness and vivacity of manner, "and
The Following of Christ, give me, Sir, the
philosophic works of Cicero."1
1 Oration upon Charles Carroll of Carrollton, by Rc\ . Constantine
Pise, I).l>., delivered in iS^2.

Doughoregan Manor

-/o

The beautiful close of the long, long day
came on November 14, 1832. Propped in his
easy-chair, his daughter and her children, with
other relatives kneeling about him, he received
the last offices of the Church. These over, he
was laid upon the bed. His last words were
a courteous acknowledgment of his physi
cian's effort to make his position easier. Then
he " fell on sleep " and awoke on the Other
Side. His grandson, Charles (V.) Carroll, suc
ceeded "the Signer" in the proprietorship of
Doughoregan Manor, and he, in turn, was fol
lowed by his son, Charles (VI.), born in 1828.
His mother was Mary Digges Lee, one of the
Virginia family of that name. He married
Miss Caroline Thompson, also a Virginian by
birth. Mr. Carroll died in 1895.
The present master of Doughoregan Manor
is Hon. John Lee Carroll, Ex-Governor of the
State of Maryland. He has been twice mar
ried : first, to Miss Anita Phelps of New York,
second, to Miss Mary Carter Thompson, a sis
ter of Mrs. Charles (VI.) Carroll. Mrs. John
Lee Carroll died in 1899.
One of Governor Carroll's daughters, Mary
Louisa, married Comte Jean de Kergolay, of

276 More Colonial Homesteads

France ; a second, Anita Maria, became the
wife of another French nobleman, Baron Louis
de la Grange ; a third daughter, Mary Helen,
is Mrs. Herbert
D. Robbins, of
New York. Of
the sons, Royal
Phelps married
Miss Marion
Langdon, of
New York city ;
Charles (VII.)
married Miss
Susanne Ban
croft. The
only child of
Governor Car
roll's second
marriage, Philip Acosta, lives with his father
and his widowed aunt at Doughoregan Manor.
The short avenue leading directly from the
front of the mansion to the highway was for
many years the principal approach used by
family and visitors. It is bordered by large
trees, and affords a fine view of central build
ing and wings, that to the visitor's right beino-
the chapel built in 171 7 by the first Charles

EX-QOVERNOR JOHN LEE CARROLL.

Doughoregan Manor 277
Carroll. Mrs. Mary Digges Lee Carroll, the
mother of Governor Carroll and Charles (VI.),
a woman of much executive ability and refined
taste, designed the winding avenue turning
away from the main road a few rods beyond
the extensive grounds of St. Charles College.
After a drive of six miles over the macad
amised turnpike laid between Ellicott City
and Doughoregan Manor, on the fourth of a
series of torrid June days that taxed physical
and moral powers to the utmost, the relief was
sudden and exquisite as we entered the green
arches of the wood beyond the lodge-gates.
The crude newness of the " City " I had
left behind, made hideously depressing by the
rough thoroughfare torn up and hollowed to
receive the "trolley track," to be laid from the
railway station to the College ; the glare from
the pale hot heavens reflected from the glit
tering white turnpike until I was fain to close
my eyes upon the beauties of undulating hills
and fertile meadows stretching away for miles
on either side of the cruel road, were, for the
next delicious half-hour, as if they had not
been. Such calm, such refreshment, and such
generous breadth as had belonged to the life
of him whose story had engaged my thoughts

278 More Colonial Homesteads
all day, were about us and beyond us. The
dim depths of the wood through which we
wound ; the velvety reaches of lawn that, by-
and-by, appeared between the trees ; the ar
tistic grouping of plantations of shrubbery
and larger growths ; the glass houses and gar
dens by which we drove around to the porch
and hospitable doorway, — all were English,
and of a civilisation singularly un-American in
design and finish.
The central hall is luxurious with couches,
cushions, and lounging-chairs, and full of the
viewless, pervasive spirit of Home — a sweet
and subtle presence that meets the stranger
upon the threshold like an audible benedic
tion. The lines of the noble apartment are
not broken by the staircase which figures
prominently in the middle distance of most
colonial houses, and in the narrower passages
of modern dwellings.
Upon the wall of the inner and smaller hall,
from which the stairs wind to the upper floors,
hangs a map of the estate, as laid out in 1699
by the grandfather of Charles Carroll of Car
rollton. The primitive specification of " two
boundary oaks " is given upon the ancient
chart. The places of the departed trees are

Doughoregan Manor 279
now designated by two memorial stones.
There were 14,500 acres of arable and wood
lands in this original grant from the " Lord
Baron of Baltimore." All but one thousand
acres still pertain to the estate. A great slice,
or section, in the very heart of the domain
is known as " the Folly." Not, as it may be
needful to explain, because it was willed to cer
tain daughters of the house, Mrs. McTavish
and others. Whatever may have been the
origin of the term, it has become technical,
and occurs often in English title-deeds.
From the inner hall we enter the bedroom
in which " the Signer " died, consecrated even
more by his blameless life than by his holy de
parture. The adjoining drawing-room is rich
in historic portraits, conspicuous among them
being the Crichton of " Homewood." The
walls are panelled from floor to ceiling in rich,
dark woods, and like all else in house and
grounds, in perfect preservation.
In a niche of the dining-room across the hall
stands a tall clock that has marked the hours
of birth, of living, and of death for the Car
roll race for over a hundred and fifty years.
From the panel over the mantel the founder
of the American branch of the family looks

280 More Colonial Homesteads
majestically down upon the goodly company
of his lineal descendants who assemble daily
about the beautiful board in the middle of the
room. Near by, his son, Carroll of Annapolis,
repeats the family lineaments with marked
fidelity. The transmission of the racial type
with so few modifications from generation to
generation is consequent, no doubt, upon the
intermarriages which we have noted. We must
look to other and more occult influences to ac
count for the extraordinary resemblance to
Charles Carroll of "Homewood" that, in one
of his great-grandsons, is so exact as to be
startling to those who have studied his por
trait in the Manor drawing-room. The repro
duction of feature, colouring, and expression
in the third generation is almost eerie.
A likeness of " the Signer," taken when he
had passed his eightieth year, is in the dining-
room. It was given by him to the patroon,
Mr. Van Rensselaer, and after the latter's
death was presented by his daughter to Mr.
Carroll's family. The wainscot of this room
is valuable and curious : a sort of plaster or
concrete, of a warm cream colour, sound and
smooth, although kid on and moulded more
than a century ago. Over the doors are the

Doughoregan Manor 283
heads of wild animals killed in hunting by the
absent sons of the household ; the yachting-
cups upon the buffet were also won by them.
What is, I believe, the only private chapel
attached to a colonial homestead, is a silent
witness to the loyalty of the Carrolls to their
ancestral faith. The few changes made in the
interior have been careful restorations. We
see the sacred place as the founders planned
it, seven generations ago, an oblong room of
admirable proportions, and tasteful, yet simple,
in decoration. In passing up the aisle, my
host stayed me to show where the " poor little
infant, the dear and engaging" yearling of
Charles Carroll of " Homewood" and Harriet
Chew, was laid. Mrs. Darnall, the mother-
in-law and aunt of Carroll of Carrollton, his
father, and the wife to whose dear memory he
remained true through fifty years of widower-
hood, also lie here. " The Signer" was buried
under the chancel. Upon a mural tablet to
him, at the left of the altar, is a bas-relief of
the Declaration of Independence, with a pen
laid across it ; above this are the thirteen stars
of the original States, and, set high above all,
is the Cross, the symbol of his religion.
A congregation of from three to four hun-

284 More Colonial Homesteads
dred meets here every Sunday for worship,
coming from all quarters of the neighbour
hood. When front and back doors are open,
framing pictures of park, trees, and ornamental
shrubs ; when the birds, nesting in the ivied
curtains of the ancient walls, and running fear
lessly over the sward, join their songs to organ
and chant, one gets very near to Nature's heart
and to the Father-heart that loveth all.

X
THE RIDGELY HOUSE,
DOVER, DELAWARE
" Soon after Penn's arrival in America he conceived
the idea of a county seat in the centre of ' St. Jones
County.' In 1683 he issued a warrant, authorizing the
surveyor to lay out a town to be called ' Dover.' It was
not until 1694, however, that the land of the town was
purchased. . . . The price paid the Indians was two
match-coats, twelve bottles of drink, and four handfuls
of powder. The old court house was built in 1697.
" Dover has sent to Washington a Secretary of State,
an Attorney General, a District Judge, two Senators, and
eight Representatives. To the State she has given four
Governors, five Chancellors, five Chief-Justices, four
Associate Judges, six Secretaries of State, and six At
torneys General." '
The Green is the heart of old Dover.
It is a quiet heart, this oblong of turf and
trees, but four or five city blocks in length,
with "The King's Road" running, like an ar-
1 Ridgely MSS.
285

286 More Colonial Homesteads
tery, through it. About it on all sides stand
homesteads that were here when Dover was
a village, and the State of which it is the
capital was a dependence of the British
Crown. At the eastern end is the State
House, erected upon the site of the older and
first edifice of the same name that was here
a hundred years agone. Hard by is the
dwelling built early in the eighteenth cent
ury, and subsequently tenanted by Dr. Sam
uel Chew before a goodly slice was pared
from southeastern Pennsylvania and christened
" Delaware." (See " Cliveden," Some Colonial
Homesteads, p. 107). Here was born Chief-
Justice Benjamin Chew, who, prior to his re
moval to Pennsylvania in 1754, was Speaker
of the House of Delegates in Dover. The
building is sound and comfortably habitable
and is still known as "the Chew House," al
though it was occupied for several years by
one of the most eminent sons of Delaware,
John Middleton Clayton. Mr. Clayton was
Chief-Justice of his native State, twice U. S.
Senator, and, upon the accession of General
Taylor to the Presidency, Secretary of State.
The homestead of his brother-in-law, the late
Hon. Joseph P. Comegys, at the other ex-

The Ridgely House 287
tremity of The Green, is full of interesting
souvenirs of the lives of both these distin
guished men, and of early periods of family
and State history. Every foot of the brief
parallelogram of earth hemmed about with
ancestral houses is steeped in tradition and
romance. In the busiest noontime the place
is never noisy. After learning who lived here
and how they lived — and died — fancy easily
conjures up the figure of the Muse of History
standing beside The King's Road, her up
lifted finger warning aside the thoughtless and
sacrilegious from holy ground.
I copy again from the Ridgely MSS. kindly
placed at my disposal by Mrs. Henry Ridgely,
Jr., of Dover.
'' Here a regiment was raised and mustered by Col.
John Haslet before the Declaration of Independence. A
few days after the news of the act of Congress reached
Dover they marched to the headquarters of the army
and placed themselves under the immediate command
of Gen. Washington. They probably remained in Dover
long enough, however, to assist in the ceremony of the
burning of the portrait of the King of Great Britain,
which took place upon The Green on the receipt of
Caesar Rodney's copy of the Declaration of Independ
ence. A procession marched around the fire to solemn
music while the President of the State declared that,

More Colonial Homesteads

' compelled by strong necessity, thus we destroy even the
shadow of that King who refused to reign over a free
people.' Upon The Green, at a later date, was the final
muster of the gallant Delaware regiment before their
disastrous campaign in the South. This regiment is said
to have been in more engagements and to have suffered
more than any other troops of the army."
The Vining house is nearer the arterial road
than the Comegys mansion, and on the north
ern side of The Green. Of the family who
made it famous I shall have more to say by-
and-by. Across the road, and on the same
side of the street skirting The Green, is the
Ridgely House, one of the oldest dwellings in
Dover, and almost in
the shadow of the State
House.
The Honourable
Henry (I.) Ridgely of
Devonshire, England,
settled in Maryland in
1659, upon a Royal
grant of 6000 acres of
land. He became a
colonel of Colonial Mil
itia, Member of the As
sembly, one of the Governmental Council,
Justice of the Peace, and Vestryman of the

The Ridgely House 289
Parish Church of Anne Arundel, dying, after a
prosperous life, in 1710.
His nameson and heir, Henry (II.), lived
and died at " Warbridge," the home the father
had made near Annapolis. Although but
thirty at his death in 1699, he left a widow
and three children. With that one who bore
his name, Henry (III.), this story has little to
do. His biography and dwelling-place are
catalogued with other Maryland worthies and
homesteads. Nicholas Ridgely, the second son, was born
at Warbridge in 1694. He was, therefore,
thirty-eight years old when he removed to
" Eden Hill," a handsome plantation near
Dover, and bought also the house on " The
Green," built in 1728. Mr. Ridgely at once
took his place among the leading citizens of
his adopted State, filling with honour the of
fices of Treasurer of Kent County, Clerk of
the Peace, Justice of Peace, Prothonotary and
Register in Chancery, and Judge of the Su
preme Court of Newcastle, Kent, and Sussex
Counties, enjoying the honour until his death
in 1755-
" In 1735, as foreman of the Grand Jury, he signed a
petition to King George II. against granting a charter to

290 More Colonial Homesteads
Lord Baltimore, in abrogation of the rights of the Penn
family in the ' Three Lower Counties.'
" In 1745, he was elected by Caesar Rodney to be his
guardian ; and his papers show his great interest in, and
warm attachment to, a ward who proved to be the most
distinguished patriot of his State.
" To his training may partly be attributed the success
ful career of Charles Ridgely, his son, John Vining, his
wife's grandson, and Csesar Rodney, his ward.
" His wife was Mary Middleton, widow of Captain
Benj. Vining, of Salem, New Jersey.
" Her son, Judge John Vining, married Phoebe Wyn-
koop, and their son John was called the ' Patrick Henry
of Delaware,' a brilliant lawyer, great wit, member of
the first Continental Congress, and known as the ' Pet of
Delaware.' His sister Mary was a beautiful girl and a
great belle." '
Of whom more anon.
Dr. Charles Ridgely was born in 1738,
studied medicine, and became an eminent
physician, filling also many positions of public
trust. His son Nicholas, born of his first mar
riage (to Mary Wynkoop), was known as the
" Father of Chancery in Delaware." Dr.
Ridgely's second wife, Anne Moore, brought
him five children.
Henry Moore Ridgely, his son, succeeded
him in the proprietorship of the homestead,
1 Ridgely MSS.

The Ridgely House 291
at the father's death in 1785. He was ad
mitted to the bar in 1802. An incident con
nected with this stage of his career is of
interest, as illustrating the temper and cus
toms of that day and the fiery spirit of the
chief actor in it :
" Dr. Barrett of Dover was grossly insulted by a Mr.
Shields of Wilmington, and sought satisfaction through
the code. He desired Mr. Ridgely to bear his chal
lenge. Shields refused to meet Dr. Barrett, but chal
lenged Mr. Ridgely himself. The duel was fought, and
Mr. Ridgely severely wounded. For a time his life was
despaired of, and although he recovered, Mr. Shields
was obliged to leave Wilmington, public sentiment
against him being so strong that he could not live it
down." In strong contrast to this stormy introduc
tion, I give a rapid rEsume of Henry Moore
Ridgely's public life :
He was a member of the House in Con
gress from 18 1 1-1 3; Secretary of the State
of Delaware in 181 7, and again in 1824, per
forming a most valuable and laborious work
in this office, in collecting and arranging in
proper form for preservation the scattered
and poorly kept archives of the State.
He was repeatedly elected to the Legislat-

292 More Colonial Homesteads
ure, and framed some most important laws ;
was elected by the Legislature to the United
States Senate in 1827, where he was known,
as he had been in the House, as the advocate
of a protective tariff.
A true anecdote relative to the persistency
with which his fellow-citizens thrust greatness
upon him, their good and gallant servant,
faithful in the few and lesser matters of his
stewardship as in the many and weighty, was
told to me by a member of the family. It is,
of course, a Delaware edition of an episode of
an Athenian election day more than two thou
sand years old ; another of the million self-
repetitions of history and human nature :
Mr. Ridgely was walking through " The
Green " on the day of his second election to
Congress when a countryman accosted him
with, "Say, Mister! you can write, can't
you ? " Upon receiving a reply, he thrust a
ticket into the gentleman's hand, asking him
to " scratch out Ridgely's name," and substi
tute one which he named carelessly. Mr.
Ridgely complied, and in handing the ticket
back, inquired smilingly :
"Would you object to telling me what you
have against Mr. Ridgely? Do you know him?"

The Ridgely House 293
" Never saw him in my life ! Don't know
nothing against him. But I certainly am sick
and tired of having his name on my ticket
every election day. That 's all."

HENRY MOORE RIDGELY.

Mr. Ridgely retired from public life in 1832.
He died in the old house on "The Green"
upon his eighty-second birthday, August 6,
1847. He left fifteen children. The eldest

294 More Colonial Homesteads
of these, Henry (V.) Ridgely, is now, in a
serene and honoured old age, a resident of
Dover, although his home was, until recently,
at " Eden Hill." His son Henry (VI.), a
prominent lawyer, occupies the family home
stead hard by the State House.
The exterior is severely plain. The walls
are flush with the sidewalk, the windows of
drawing-room, library, and the master's law-
office on the ground-floor are so low that
pedestrians could rest their elbows sociably
upon the sills and chat with the occupants.
The interior is unconventional, full of unex
pectedness, and altogether captivating. The
floral designs of the low ceilings are the work
of Miss Rose Virden, a Dover artist of much
promise and a graduate of the Artists' League
of New York. The delicate tinting of draw-
ing-room walls and the artistic hangings of the
guest-chamber contrast harmoniously with the
dark panelling of the wide hall, which is also
the library. In the far corner of this last,
remote from the fire-place is the quaintest,
crookedest staircase conceivable by builder's
brain and passable by human feet. It runs
directly — or as directly as is consistent with
the tortuousness aforesaid — down into the hall.

The Ridgely House 295
On this, the second day of my sojourn in
the haunted house, I listen to a story which
adds another to the wraiths mingling with the
flesh-and-blood entities whose own the en
chanted ground is now. The romance belongs
to the school represented by The Spectator s
list of killed and wounded in Bill of Mortality
of Lovers. Such as —
" T. S., wounded by Zerlinda's scarlet stock
ing as she was stepping out of a coach,"
and —
" Musidorus, slain by an arrow that flew
out of a dimple in Belinda's left cheek."
A daughter of the Ridgely house had, among
other marketable charms, a perfect foot and
ankle. A susceptible swain, who had been
unfortunate in his wooing, paid a farewell call
to his inamorata almost upon the eve of her
marriage with another man. While seated in
the hall awaiting her appearance, he heard the
tap of her high-heeled slippers on the winding
stairway and saw appear at the last, steepest
and sharpest turn of the flight — above the
slippered foot, — slender, round, supple, swathed
in snowy silk, — the ankle !
" Whereupon," concludes the laughing nar
rator, " the poor fellow swooned away on the

296 More Colonial Homesteads
spot. It sounds very absurd, but that was the
sort of thing they did in those days."
Sitting by the window in the same place
and, for all I know to the contrary, in the

WILLIAM PENN'S CHAIR AND CORNER OF LIBRARY IN RIDGELY HOUSE.

very chair the swooning swain may have
occupied on the well-nigh fatal occasion — I
hear another tale of another sort of thing
they did in those days.
Mr. Nicholas Ridgely, as his genealogy has

The Ridgely House 297
informed us, became the guardian, in 1745, of
an orphaned youth of seventeen, Csesar
Rodney by name.
" William Rodney married Alice, the daughter of Sir
Thomas Csesar, an eminent merchant of the city of
London, and his son William died near Dover, Delaware,
in the year 1708, leaving eight children and a consider
able landed estate which was entailed, and, by the
decease of elder sons, finally vested in his youngest son,
Caesar, who continued his residence as a landed proprie
tor in Delaware until his death in 1745.
" Caesar Rodney, the eldest son of Caesar, and grand
son of William Rodney, was born in St. Jones' Neck
near Dover in Kent County, Delaware, in the year
1728. " Mr. Ridgely caused his ward to be instructed in the
classics and general literature, and in the accomplish
ments of fencing and dancing, to fit his bearing and
manners becomingly to the station in life in which he
was born." '
So well was the work done that the princely
young fellow came into his kingdom at the
age of twenty-one, well-equipped in body and
in mind for leadership in society and in State.
His brother, Thomas Rodney, has left in MS.
a picture of Delaware life at that period which,
1 Oration delivered by Hon. Thomas F. Bayard in 1889, upon the
occasion of unveiling the monument of Caesar Rodney at Dover
Delaware.

298 More Colonial Homesteads
in many features, reminds us of New England,
rather than of a Middle Slave State :
" Almost every family manufactured their own
clothes ; and beef, pork, poultry, milk, butter, cheese,
wheat, and Indian corn were raised by themselves, serv
ing them, with fruits of the country and wild game, for
food ; cider, small beer, and peach and apple brandy,
for drink. The best families in the country but seldom
used tea, coffee, chocolate, or sugar, for honey was their
sweetening. . . The largest farmers at that time
did not sow over twenty acres of wheat, nor tend more
than thirty acres of Indian corn."
Very un-New England, however, was the
jolly comradeship that prevailed in village and
country. Everybody knew everybody else.
" Indeed," says the Rodney MS.,
" they seemed to live, as it were, in concord, for they
constantly associated together at one house or another in
considerable numbers, to play and frolic, at which times
the young people would dance, and the elder ones
wrestle, run, hop, or jump, or throw the disc, or play at
some rustic and manly exercises.
'' On Christmas Eve there was a universal firing of
guns, travelling 'round from house to house, during the
holiday, and all winter there was a continual frolic,
shooting-matches, twelfth cakes, etc."
Caesar Rodney was a favourite with high and
low, the lowest class being represented by the

The Ridgely House 299
negro slaves. He was " about five feet ten
inches high," writes his brother. " His person
was very elegant and genteel, his manners
graceful, easy and polite. He had a good
fund of humour and the happiest talent in the
world of making his wit agreeable."
When it was known that he had political
aspirations, the popularity gained by the kind
heart, the pleasing personality, and the ready
wit graded and smoothed the path many found
arduous. In 1758, when he was barely thirty
years of age, he was High Sheriff of his native
county of Kent ; two years later, a Judge of
the Lower Courts. In 1765, he was a mem
ber of the " Stamp Act Congress " which was
convened in New York City. A New York
newspaper of 18 12 gives a post-mortem sketch
of " the estimable and patriotic Caesar Rod
ney, for many years the great prop and stay
of Whiggism in the lower part of his native
State." In 1766, he was one of the Committee ap
pointed to draft resolutions addressed to
George III., thanking him for the repeal ofthe
Stamp Act, and assuring him of the loyalty
of the Delaware Legislature and the constitu
ency it represented. As a member of this

3oo More Colonial Homesteads
Legislature he threw all the weight of his in
fluence into the ineffectual effort to stop the
importation of slaves into Delaware.
No man in the Province had the promise of
a brighter future than the rising statesman,
trusted and beloved by his fellow-citizens, the
co-worker of the first men in the Colonies —
when on June 7, 1768, he wrote to his brother
of a visit paid to Philadelphia for the purpose
of consulting physicians there upon " a matter
that had given him some uneasiness." The
matter proved to be a cancer in the nostrils,
" a most dangerous place." His friends strongly
advised him to " sail at once for England, and
by no means to trust to any person here."
A few days later he wrote again that he
had decided to put himself into the hands of
Dr. Thomas Bond of Philadelphia. Should
the treatment adopted by him " fail in making
a cure," he should go to England.
" But to conclude, my case is truly dangerous, and
what will be the event, God only knows. I still live
in hopes, and still retain my usual flow of spirits. My
compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Vining. Tell Mrs. Vining
the cloud now hanging over me, tho' dark and dismal,
may (God willing) one day disperse."
Mrs. Vining was the sister-in-law of the

The Ridgely House

301

woman he had loved, and whom he had hoped
to marry in the heyday of his youth and popu
larity. There is nothing sadder in the archives
of the Vining, or Rodney, or Ridgely family
than a creased and torn " returned " letter in

TABLE OWNED BY CAPT. JONES, 1800, IN BEDROOM OF RIDGELY HOUSE.
his strong, legible hand. It was written
from his guardian's house in Dover, May 27,
1761.1 " Yesterday evening (by Mr. Chew's Tom) I had the
unwelcome and unexpected news of your determining to
go to Philadelphia, with Mr. & Misses Chew — If you
1 American Historical Register, July, 1S95.

302 More Colonial Homesteads
Remember, as we were riding to Noyontown Fair, you
talked of taking this journey & mentioned my going
with you ; you know how readily I [torn] & how
willing in this, as in everything else, I was to oblige &
serve you. . . When I was last down, you seemed to
have given over all thoughts of going. This determined
me, & accordingly, gave Mr. Chew, for answer, that he
might not expect me with him ; thereby I 'm deprived
of the greatest pleasure this World could possibly afford
me — the company of that lady in whom all happiness is
placed. . . . Molly ! I love you from my soul ! In this,
believe me, I 'm sincere, &• honest : but when 1 think of
the many amiable qualifications you are possessed of —
all my hopes are at an end- — nevertheless intended
[lorn] down this week, & as far as possible to have
known my fate. . . . You may expect to see me at
your return. Till then, God bless you.
" I 'm Yrs."
Miss Mary (Molly) Vining was the lovely
aunt of a more beautiful niece who was named
for her, and was endeared to Caesar Rodney
on that account. The elder Molly — to whom
was written the letter, so incoherent and ill-
expressed that one hears all through it the
irregular heart-beats and broken breaths of
the impassioned, doubting lover — married the
Right Reverend Charles Ingles, who was first
Bishop to the Colonies. She outlived her
bridal day but a year, dying in i 764.

The Ridgely House 303
She had, then, been in her grave four years
when the horrible shadow of doom overtook
her former suitor, a cloud which was never to
be dispersed until it thickened into the night
of death. Fallacious hopes ; discouragements ;
a rally of the brave soul to sustain the
" usual flow of spirits " ; the valiant purpose to
sink selfish dreads in unremitting labours for
the good of his kind and his country — these
were the fluctuations of feeling and reason that
were to fill the next fourteen years of the life
he would not, could not, believe was irrepar
ably blighted.
In one of the deceitful lulls in the progress
of the disease, he accepted the appointment of
Speaker of the Colonial Assembly (in 1 769).
Before the session was ended he was identi
fied with the more resolute of the Colonists
who were already banding themselves together
to resist the growing aggressions of the parent
government. His name stood first upon the
committee of three deputies to the Contin
ental Congress called by the voice of the people
to assemble in Philadelphia in 1774. Another
representative to this body was George Wash
ington of Virginia.
Again Caesar Rodney's name stood foremost

304 More Colonial Homesteads
among those of the " Deputies to the general
Congress " called to meet in Philadelphia, May
io, 1776. Mr. Bayard says of him at this
crucial period in our national struggle :
" He was a man of action in an era of action ; born,
not out of his proper time, but in it ; and, being fitted
for the hour and its work, he did it well. He was
recognised, and, naturally, at once became influential
and impressive — distinguished for the qualities which
were needed in the days in which he lived on earth. . .
Moved by patriotic impulse, he had counselled the selec
tion of Washington as Commander-in-Chief of the Col
onial forces, and from the beginning to the end of the
conflict, sought to hold up his hands and sustain him
at all times and in all ways."
The distinguished orator goes on to quote
from another eminent jurist to the effect
that " to Rodney, more than to any other man
in Delaware, do we owe the position which
our State and people took in that most im
portant contest," — i. e., the War for Inde
pendence. In furtherance of the great purpose he had
at heart, he came home to strengthen the
hearts of timid constituents and to advise with
cool heads and steadfast hearts like his own,
over the final step, then imminent, to be taken
by Congress.

The Ridgely House 305
" On one side stand a doubtful experience and
a bloody war ; on the other side unconditional
submission to the power of Great Britain."
This was the situation as he put it before
himself and his fellow-citizens. If they had
much to lose, he had more : fortune, the friends
of years, many of whom, even those in the
Congress with him, were opposed to the formal
severance of the tie binding Great Britain to
her restless colonies ; probably his life, for he
was colonel of the " upper regiment of Kent
County," and pledged to bring fifteen hun
dred men into the field should war be de
clared. He was absent from Congress upon
this errand, and energetically canvassing the
counties of Sussex and his native Kent, when
Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, on June 7th,
executed his immortal coup d'Etat by offering
the resolution, " That the United States are,
and ought to be, free and independent States,
and that political connexion with Great Britain
ought to be dissolved."
The resolution was passed in secret session
by six out of seven States, on June 8th.
Caesar Rodney, Thomas McKean, and
George Read were delegates from Delaware.
McKean voted for the resolution ; Read, al-

306 More Colonial Homesteads
though Rodney's intimate friend, against it,
making a tie in the State vote. A second
vote, to secure unanimity if possible, was
taken on July ist. Nine colonies were in fa
vour of the passage of the motion into an
act ; South Carolina and Quaker Pennsyl
vania were against it. Delaware was divided,
as before. A third ballot was ordered for
July 4th, and Thomas McKean, aroused to
frantic energy by the peril of the occasion,
mounted a trusty messenger upon a swift
horse and bade him ride, as for life, to find
Caesar Rodney, and bring him to Philadelphia.
Local and family traditions give an explana
tion of his prolonged absence and silence at
this crisis which is not offered by history. Ac
cording to this, McKean had not waited until
the eleventh hour before summoning his col-
league. More than one letter had been de
spatched to Kent, describing the gravity of
the position at headquarters, and entreating
Rodney to hasten his return. Not one line
of these had reached the unconscious ab
sentee. Postal facilities were few and slow, and
Rodney seems to have rested in the convic
tion that McKean would recall him if he were

The Ridgely House 307
needed, to have and gone on with his can
vass unconcernedly, addressing public meet
ings, visiting from plantation to plantation,
and, in the interim of pressing duties, solacing
his cares by the society of intimate friends,
notably the Vinings and Ridgelys, when he
was in Dover.
Mr. Bayard opines that the express, sent,
Mr. McKean says, at his own private expense,
" must have found Mr. Rodney at one of his
farms, ' Byfield,' or ' Poplar Grove.'"
I could not forgive myself if I did not give
the afore-mentioned tradition (in this instance
as truthful as her younger and more cautious
sister, History) in the very words of the
Ridgely MSS., produced for me, at my ear
nest petition, at this point of the story :
" A celebrity of Lewes, the old seaport of Delaware,
was Sarah Rowland, who, according to tradition, almost
prevented the Declaration of Independence from having
the necessary number of signers.
" She was a beautiful Tory, for, in the first years of
the Revolutionary War, there were many friends of Eng
land in the lower part of this peninsula. The news of a
Tory uprising in Sussex County and Maryland reaching
Caesar Rodney, who was attending the Delegates' Con
vention in Philadelphia, he immediately mounted his
horse and went thundering down the State, using threats

308 More Colonial Homesteads
and persuasions all along the road. While at Lewes the
beautiful Sarah so infatuated him by her charms that he
lingered longer than his business required, and was only
aroused to a sense of his delinquencies when he was pre
sented by a loyal servant-girl in the Rowland household
with a number of letters which had been intercepted by
his enchantress. Then it was that he made his famous
ride to Philadelphia. This story adds many miles to the
length of his ride, as, in most accounts, he was at his
home near Dover when the call to Philadelphia came."
Return we to Mr. Bayard and history :
" You may know how little time there was for dainty
preparation — barely enough for tightening of saddle-
girths and buckling on of spurs — before the good horse
stood ready to be mounted, and our hero began his im
mortal ride on that hot and dusty July day, to carry
into the Congress of the Colonies the vote he held in
trust for the people of Delaware, and which was needed
to make the Declaration of American Independence the
unanimous act of thirteen united States."
From the window-seat of the old house,
which was the bachelor hero's dearest earthly
home, I see, bisecting " The Green," what is
still known as " The King's Highway," along
which the rider dashed through Dover when
the noonday sun was at the hottest. The
hostelry, " King George's Arms," stood at
that corner, facing the open square. There,

The Ridgely House 311
at Rodney's imperative shout, a fresh horse
was brought to him, and he was again in the
saddle and away at breakneck speed, riding,
not for his own, but for a Nation's life.
" He is up ! he is off ! and the black horse flies
On the Northward road ere the ' God speed ' dies ;
It is gallop and spin, as the leagues they clear
And the clustering milestones move arear." '
On the morning of July 4th, Thomas Mc
Kean, until then ignorant of the success of his
messenger, met Caesar Rodney " at the State
House door, in his boots and spurs, as the
members were assembling."
The briefest of salutations was exchanged,
and not a word as to the momentous business
before them. Not a moment could be lost,
for they were the last to enter the hall, and the
proceedings had begun. They were hardly in
their seats when " the Great Question was put."
At the call for the vote of Delaware, all
eyes were turned to the bronzed face and dis
ordered attire of him who was to break the
"tie." He arose composedly, and spoke with
calm deliberateness :
" As I believe the voice of my constituents
and of all sensible and honest men is in favor
1 "Csesar Rodney's Ride."

312 More Colonial Homesteads
of independence, my own judgment concurs
with them. I vote for Independence."
Neither romancist nor dramatist need add
to, or take away from, the thrilling incident of
Caesar Rodney's Ride. When one considers
the tremendous issue involved, the character
of the man who risked health, already infirm,
to fulfil his pledge to colleague and to con
science, and the quiet dignity with which he
redeemed it — the scene is sublime.
The Rodney coat of arms bears the motto,
Non generant Aquilce Columbas (" Eagles do
not beget doves ").
This one of the brood, albeit knowing that
he was fatally hurt, bore himself gallantly to
the last. He was General Rodney in 1777,
when ordered by Washington to " gather his
Delaware troops in close proximity to the
enemy ; to hang upon his flank, observe and
report his movements, harass his outposts, and
protect the surrounding country from maraud
ing parties." The honour was no sinecure. His
letters to Washington are models of concise
ness and comprehensiveness, yet are worded
with a sort of respectful familiarity betokening
an entente cordiale between the two men, unu
sual in the circumstances. Rodney's " usual

The Ridgely House 313
flow of spirits " had not deserted him. " God
only knows," was still his staff and strength.
" Be assured all I can do shall be done," he
assures the Commander-in-Chief. " But he
that can deal with militia may almost venture
to deal with the devil. As soon as I can set
forward I shall advise you. God send you a
complete victory ! "
All the while he suffered unspeakably in
body. Aware that the loves of home and fam
ily could never be his, he poured out his ardent
soul and great heart in a passion of patriotism.
His last important public declaration of this
absorbing devotion is embodied in a resolution
passed by the Delaware General Assembly in
1 782, when the war was supposed to be virtu
ally at an end :
"Resolved: That the whole power of this
State shall be exerted for enabling Congress
to carry on the war until a peace consistent
with our Federal union and national faith can
be obtained."
He lived to see that peace established. Just
one year after the terms of the definite treaty
were signed (in 1 783) the Legislature of Dela
ware "met at the house of Hon. Caesar Rod
ney, Esq., the Speaker, he being too much

3 H More Colonial Homesteads
indisposed to attend the usual place of
meeting." He died the next month (June, 1784).
For almost a third of his earthly existence
he had been the tortured victim of the malady
which killed him at last, an affliction peculiarly
humiliating to a proud, sensitive man who,
freed from it, would have been the possessor
of all that makes life best worth living.

XI

OTHER "OLD DOVER" STORIES AND HOUSES
MY dear young hostess of the Ridgely
homestead is still the racontett.se. She
has a story in a lighter vein to beguile me
from the reverie into which I have fallen, with
Dover Green and the King's Highway before
my eyes, and, in the ears of my imagination,
the echoes of those flying hoofs that, — to
quote for the last time from the Delaware ora
tor : " will reverberate in American ears like
the footfalls of Fate —

" ' Far on in summers that we shall not see.' "
In 1840, Lucretia Mott was advertised as
intending to lecture in Dover, and the conserv
ative, slave-holding element of the town pro
tested indignantly against the measure. When
she and her companions appeared on the day
set for the lecture, they were given to under
315

316 More Colonial Homesteads
stand that the attempt would be dangerous.
To the menace was added a demand that the
party leave Dover at once. Judge Henry
Moore Ridgely interfered boldly between the
obnoxious visitors and the rising mob.
" Not " — as he explained privately to his
family — "that I am fond of abolitionists. But
I will not have a woman insulted in this town."
He welcomed Mrs. Mott and her aides to his
own house, and invited a dozen or more prom
inent members of the Legislature, then in
session, to meet them at supper that evening.
But two of those bidden to the feast came.
Both of these men were lovers of Miss
Ridgely, the host's daughter, and neither dared
decline, lest his rival should score a point
against him by accepting.
I give the scene at the Court House in
another's words :
" When supper was over Lucretia Mott announced her
intention of speaking that evening in the Court House
at Dover ; Judge Ridgely, feeling, no doubt, that his
presence might be a protection to the Quakers, offered
to accompany them thither ; Miss Ridgely, whose heart
was quite won by Mrs. Mott's gentle manner and de
lightful fluency in conversation, begged that she might
go also, to hear the address, and Mr. DuPont, one of the
Members aforesaid offered to be her escort. Judge

-*\-

if

ELIZABETH RIDGELY, DAUGHTER OF JUDGE HENRY MOORE RIDGELY.
Caged le.)

317

Other "Old Dover" Stories 319
Ridgely took Lucretia Mott under his protection, gave
her his arm, and led the way, followed by the rest of the
Quakers and his daughter with Mr. DuPont The little
party reached the Court House in safety, notwithstand
ing that they were subjected to threatening murmurs
and surly looks from the bystanders, who wished to
prevent Mrs. Mott from speaking in Dover ; but Judge
Ridgely conducted her safely to the platform, looking
around upon the crowd and saying, ' I dare you to touch
her!' " Mrs. Mott then made an earnest and beautiful ad
dress, but without any allusion to the exciting subject of
Slavery, and all present were delighted with it."
There was more to follow before the event
ful visit was over. After the lecture the com
pany returned to Judge Ridgely's house and
sat about the drawing-room fire, in full view
of a gathering crowd without. For Judge
Ridgely had sternly refused to have the shut
ters closed, and the windows, as I have said,
opening directly upon the sidewalk, are so low
in the wall as to allow passers-by to look into
the ground-floor rooms. In emulation of her
entertainers' equanimity, the stout-hearted
Quakeress feigned not to observe the dark
faces pressed against the panes, or to hear the
hoarse murmurs from without, like the wash
of the surge upon the beach before a rising

320 More Colonial Homesteads
storm. She had never been more brilliant in
talk, or apparently more happily at her ease,
almost charming her auditors into forgetful-
ness of what might be impending should the
tempers of the rioters finally break through
the restraint of one man's influence and defy
his authority.
The scene was full of dramatic elements,
had any of the spectators been sufficiently
cool-headed to note and appreciate these. By
and-by, Lucretia Mott arose to her feet in
telling a story that demanded animated action.
A young daughter of the house, fancying that
she was weary of sitting and wished to walk
about the room, drew back Mrs. Mott's chair
to give her more space. Simultaneously with
this action, the lady sat down again, and had
a hard fall. The rival suitors were nearer to
her than Judge Ridgely. One stood stock-
still and laughed. The other sprang to the as
sistance of the abolitionist, raised her, assisted
her carefully to a seat, and begged to know if
he could help her in any other way.
Miss Ridgely spoke her mind to Mr. Du
Pont the next day, when Lucretia Mott and
her friends were safely out of Dover.
"You proved yourself a true man and a

Other "Old Dover" Stories 321
thoroughbred," said her father's daughter.
" The other is neither ! "
There are other stories — dozens of them —
lingering about the house, and stealing in with
the odour of the honeysuckles from the garden
at the back. The garden where the box-bushes
have grown, in a century and more, into great
trees and thick hedges, on the top of which one
may walk fearlessly, as upon a wall. Where
Judge Nicholas Ridgely and his family, includ
ing Caesar Rodney, liked to take tea all summer
long. " I seem to know them so well and to
have seen them there so often that I could
paint the group if I were an artist," says Mrs.
Ridgely. And I, awakened by memories of it all at
early morning, before the birds have stopped
singing to breakfast in the cherry trees, make
a picture for myself and hang it upon a nail
fastened in a sure place in my mental gallery.
The next day is filled with sight-seeing and
dreaming. The pretty town is rich in historic
shrines. We drive by the picturesque little
church, so clothed upon with ivy we can hardly
see the venerable walls of the burial-ground
in which the remains of Caesar Rodney, brought

322 More Colonial Homesteads
from " Poplar Grove " in 1887 by the " Rodney
Club " of young Delawareans, were laid with
appropriate ceremonies. In 1889, the monu
ment overtopping the churchyard wall was
erected by the same organisation, Henry
Ridgely, Jr., the descendant of the hero's
guardian, being the President.
" Woodburn " opens hospitable doors to us,
when our eyes ache somewhat with much
gazing, and the dust stirred by our wheels re
awakens sympathy with the mad rider of 1776.
There is an ocean-cave, coral-grove effect of
whiteness and shade, in the spacious hall where
Mrs. Holmes and her son welcome us. The
weight of unperformed duties slips from our
souls for an enchanted hour, while we look
and listen. The woodwork of the lofty rooms
was paid for by the Colonial proprietor by the
transfer of a valuable farm to the builder.
The toothed cornices were carved by hand,
as were the deep panels of the doors, the win
dow-casings and -seats and the wainscots. All
are as sound and whole as if they had left the
workman's hand ten, and not one hundred and
forty, years ago.
The hostess speaks when we are midway in
the easy ascent of the noble staircase : —

y yy- :>¦ ¦ X^MMSM

REAR VIEW OF RIDGELY HOUSE FROM THE GARDEN.
(BUILT 1728.)

3 = 3

Other "Old Dover" Stories 325
" Just here, Lorenzo Dow passed the ' old
gentleman, the other visitor.' "
Then we have one of the authentic ghost-
stories, such as my soul loveth :
" You will find it in Lorenzo Dow's pub
lished works. He was a guest in this house
for several days. The morning after his ar
rival, on his way down to prayers and break
fast, he overtook on the stairs an old gentleman
in Continental costume, — long coat and waist
coat, knee-breeches and long stockings. His
white hair was tied at the back of his neck
in a queue, and he moved slowly, as if in
firm, holding to the rail as he walked. Mr.
Dow bowed respectfully in passing him, but
neither spoke. When the lady of the house
requested Mr. Dow to begin family worship,
he asked : ' Are we not to wait for the other
visitor ? '
" ' Whom do you mean ? There is no other
visitor in the house.'
" ' The old gentleman I passed upon the
stairs just now,' he persisted.
" The hostess coloured painfully, and seemed
very uneasy, and the matter was dropped.
Mr. Dow learned, afterward, that others be
sides himself had seen the apparition, and that,

326 More Colonial Homesteads
for some reason, the subject was a sore one to
the family."
The ghostly visitant showed himself again,
and in broad daylight, to a guest of a later
generation than Lorenzo Dow's. A college-
boy, coming to spend some time at Wood-
burn, was shown to his room, a pleasant
chamber on the second floor, opening upon the
wide, airy hall we traverse to the scene of his
adventure. A long glass is at one end, and as
we stand before it, we see, reflected in it, the
window, and a chair set within its embrasure.
The youth was brushing his hair and arrang
ing his cravat when he beheld in the mirror
the figure of an old man, dressed as I have
described, sitting quietly in the chair and look
ing straight at him.
" Hope I don't intrude ! " said the collegian
jauntily, turning toward the stranger, who, on
the instant, vanished. A comical touch is sup
plied to the tale by another Dover resident,
who adds gravely that the old gentleman went
to pieces jerkily before the poor boy's horrified
eyes, his arms going in one direction, and his
legs in another.
Natheless — as the books used to say when
the old gentleman was solid flesh and bone — the

Other "Old Dover" Stories 327
collegian declared that he was sane and sober
when he saw the apparition, and could not be
persuaded to stay in the chamber or house
after the unpleasant dismemberment of his
roommate. A modern story-wright, George Alfred
Townsend, says of " Woodburn " :
" Built by a tyrannical, eccentric man, it passed
through several families until a Quaker named Cowgill,
who afterwards became a Methodist, made it his prop
erty. .
" The first owner, it was said, had amused himself in
the great hall-room by making his own children stand
on their toes, switching their feet with a whip when they
dropped upon their soles from pain or fatigue. His own
son finally shot at him through the great northern door
with a rifle or pistol, leaving the mark to this day, to be
seen by a small panel set in the original pine. . . . The
room over the great door has always been considered
the haunt of peculiar people who molested nobody liv
ing, but appeared there in some quiet avocation, and
vanished when pressed upon."
The present occupants are the descendants
of a Dover lawyer who bought the place about
fifty years ago.
We get no ghostly anecdote during our call
upon the Misses Bradford, who occupy a be
witching homestead built by one of the Loock-

328 More Colonial Homesteads
erman family in 1746. We are introduced,
instead, to a wealth of old china, much of it
older than the house, each piece of it an heir
loom beyond price. It is arranged in orderly
rows within corner cupboards reaching to the
ceiling, showing so many unbroken sets that
one conceives a profound, almost an awed,
respect for housewifery that must also have
been a transmitted heritage from age to age.
The curious tiled fireplaces have shared in the
care which warded off craze and crack and nick
from other fragile treasures ; there are curtained
bedsteads, solid mahogany, with twisted posts
and carved headboards, and chairs yet older,
and ancient tables of divers patterns, and a
wonderful escritoire with a secret drawer we
cannot refind after the location and way of
working have been explained and illustrated
to us twice over.
The Bradford garden is a " good second "
to the house and its plenishing. An enormous
box-tree is believed to be a century old, and
looks half as old again. It has a round poll,
green and firm, and is perhaps fifty feet in cir
cumference. Iris beds — purple, white, white-
and-purple, and yellow — line the walks ; peo
nies, pinks, cinnamon-roses, and many other

WOODBURN," DOVER, DEL.

329

Other "Old Dover" Stories 331
dear flowers planted and tended by our great-
grandmothers, grow where they were set when
the portrait of King George III. was burned
upon Dover Green, and,
" from that soft midland where the breezes bear
The North and South on the genial air ;
Through the County of Kent, on affairs of State,
Rode Csesar Rodney the Delegate."
Thoughts and talk recur to him as we pass
the Vining house on our homeward way.
We have seen, in the preceding chapter,
that Judge Nicholas Ridgely's third wife was
Mrs. Mary Middleton Vining. She was the
widow of a wealthy citizen of Salem, and, in
accordance with a pledge made to him on his
deathbed, secured her large fortune to their
three children before her second marriage.
Her brilliant son, Chief-Justice John Vining,
was the father of the " Revolutionary belle,"
Mary Vining, the name-child of the aunt who
was Caesar Rodney's first love.
A charming sketch of the younger Mary
Vining, written by Mrs. Henry Geddes Ban
ning, appeared in the American Historical Re
gister for July, 1895. Every child in Dover
has heard her name and some particulars of

332 More Colonial Homesteads
her life. Mrs. Banning, a descendant of
Thomas Rodney, Caesar Rodney's brother and
executor, is in possession of several relics of
the American beauty whose fame was carried
back to France and England by officers who
served in the Revolutionary struggle.
"Thomas Jefferson, when minister plenipotentiary to
France, was proud to assure the lovely Queen of France
that the extravagant admiration of the Delaware belle
by the French officers, which had reached her ears, was
no exaggeration, for the American lady was worthy of it
all. Marie Antoinette replied she would be glad to see
her at the Tuileries. . . . She was mentioned in
flattering terms, also, at the English Court of George III.,
and likewise at the Court of Germany." '
Besides the marriage which connected her
with the family of her step-grandfather, Judge
Nicholas Ridgely, she was related by blood to
the Ridgelys and Rodneys, and a great pet in
both families. But one of the many letters
written by her has been preserved for our
reading. The loss to the epistolary literature
of that period is inestimable, for her pen was as
facile as the tongue that gained her the re
putation of being the finest conversationalist
of her generation. She spoke French with
1 American Historical Register.

Other "Old Dover" Stories 333
grace and fluency ; her voice was rich and
flexible, her charm of manner irresistible and
indescribable. Her brother, John Middleton
Vining, the " Pet of Delaware," shared with her
the magic and mysterious gift of personal
magnetism that gives plausibility to the folk-
stories of fairy conclaves and presentations
about the cradles of certain infants, who are,
thenceforward, blessed or banned.
When Caesar Rodney was Governor of
Delaware, (in 1778) he hired a house in
Wilmington for the winter, and his young
kinswoman, Mary Vining, was the presiding
genius of every entertainment given by him
when women were present. Lafayette was a
close friend and frequent guest of the bachelor
host. " It was in the cellar of this house that, the
Governor consenting, General Lafayette stored
his little casks of gold wherewith to pay his
little army, and help the cause of freedom,"
Mrs. Banning says, and proceeds to narrate
the following pleasing incident :
" My grandfather, C. A. Rodney, was a boy at this
time, and he related this anecdote to my mother : ' I
was studying my Latin by the parlour fire when the door
opened, and Miss Vining appeared in full dress. She

334 More Colonial Homesteads
approached the mantel, looking approvingly at the re
flection in the glass. She observed my look of fixed
admiration, for she turned and said, extending her hand
to me — " Come here, you little rogue, and you shall kiss
my hand." I refused, drawing back with boyish bash-
fulness, when she replied, " You might be glad to do so !
' Princes have lipped it ' " (from Cleopatra). All the
time, I did think her the most beautiful creature I ever
saw, and I still recall her as a beautiful picture. . . ' "
The beauty was capricious — as was natural.
She was, also, spoiled and imperious, with all
her gracious sweetness of disposition and man
ner — as was inevitable. The Frenchmen
lost their heads, and told her so in ecstatic
ravings which expressed all they felt. More
phlegmatic British victims laid hearts, and all
they had of fortunes, at her feet, and meant
more than they could say. She was as often
in Philadelphia as in Wilmington and Dover,
and her conquests there were as notable. When
Philadelphia was evacuated by the British in
1778, a British officer risked character and
life by making a flying trip to Wilmington,
without leave of absence and under cover of
night, to entreat Miss Vining to reconsider
her refusal of him. Luckily, the transgression
was not discovered by the authorities, a piece
of good fortune for which he was probably

MARY VINING.
(from old miniature )

335

Other "Old Dover" Stories 337
less grateful than he should have been, being
driven from desperation to despair by the
belle's tranquilly kind repetition of her former
sentence. Louis Philippe, then Due d' Orleans, was
among her visitors and admirers. Her friend
ship with Lafayette, begun while he was
Governor Rodney's guest, lasted while she
lived. They corresponded regularly in French
after his return to France.
" Do you never mean to marry ? " asked a
wondering acquaintance after reckoning up
the offers Miss Vining had had. " Will you
never accept anybody ? "
Mary Vining was frank with herself, if with
no one else. Her reply was prompt and seri
ous, almost regretful :
"Admiration has spoiled me. I could not con
tent myself with the admiration of one man."
One of the regal fancies her great wealth
enabled her to indulge was that of never going
abroad on foot. Another was to wear a veil
whenever she appeared in the street or at
church. Her costumes, even during the Revo
lutionary blockade, were the marvel and envy
of women with equal ambitions and wealth,
but who lacked her taste and genius.

338 More Colonial Homesteads
She was still in the prime of beautiful wo
manhood when Peace sent French gallants and
English suitors back to their homes, and dis
banded her military admirers. Her Delaware
drawing-room remained a salon, herself a queen.
She was nearing her fortieth birthday, still
handsome, still gracious in her imperiousness,
when the Ridgely family was agitated by a
rumour, at first scouted as incredible, then re
ceived shudderingly.
" Is it true," writes the widow of a Revolu
tionary hero to Mrs. Dr. Charles Ridgely,
" that Miss Vining is engaged to General
Wayne ? Can one so refined marry this
coarse soldier ? . . . True " — relentingly
— " he is brave, wonderfully brave ! and none
but the brave deserve the fair."
General Anthony Wayne was now a wid
ower. Mary Vining was a child of eleven
when he, a man of twenty-two, married and
settled upon a farm in Chester County, Penn
sylvania. She was twenty-three when the
storming of Stony Point, one mid-July night
in 1779, fastened upon him the name of " Mad
Anthony." In hearing the daring exploit dis
cussed by his brother officers in her drawing-
room, she must have laughed over the one

Other "Old Dover" Stories 339
bon-mot of the Commander-in-Chief trans
mitted to us, and which Mrs. Banning revives
in our recollection :
" Can you take Stony Point ? " inquired
Washington of the fiery brigadier-general.
" Storm Stony Point, your Excellency ! I '11
storm hell if you fl plan the attack ! "
" Had n't we better try Stony Point first,
General Wayne ? " was the dryly facetious
retort. Mary Vining would have enjoyed that.
There was a decided admixture of shrewd
common sense in her composition, despite her
sybaritic tastes and habits.
The one letter from her hand alluded to
just now, was written to a cousin just after
Chief-Justice Vining's death, when the daugh
ter was fourteen years old. The grateful
tenderness of the childish heart cannot be mis
interpreted, but she takes thought of the keys
of desk and trunks sent by him in " Uncle
Wynkoop's letter to Uncle Ridgely," also,
that " among them is the key of Mrs. Nixon's
trunk, and in that you will find a canister of
very good green tea, which you will please to
use when Mr. Chew is down."
Tea was already an expensive luxury, al-

34° More Colonial Homesteads
though the letter antedates the Boston Tea
Party and the burning of the Peggy Stewart at
Annapolis by three years. Mr. Chew was an
honoured guest, for whom the best was none
too good.
"Mad Anthony" was made General-in-
Chief of the United States Army in 1792. It
is supposed that he paid his addresses first to
Miss Vining in 1794. He had been in a dozen
pitched battles, always serving with valour and
distinction. His address, in suppressing the
mutiny of the Pennsylvania troops in 1781,
and his clear counsels as a member of the
Philadelphia Legislature, proved that he had
sense as well as valour. By a dashing bayo
net charge at Green Spring, Virginia, he had
saved the liberty, maybe the life, of the well-
beloved Lafayette. Miss Vining understood
him and her own heart so much better than
her critics could know either, that she not
only promised to marry the " coarse soldier,"
but loved him ardently and proudly.
They were betrothed, and the wedding-day
was set, when General Wayne set out late in
1795, or early in 1796, to conclude the treaty
of Greenville with the Western Indians, whom
he had defeated at Maumee Rapids the year

Other "Old Dover" Stories 341
before. It was a long journey, and the nego
tiations were tedious. In the civilised Dela
ware he had left preparations went on briskly
for the marriage, which was to take place
immediately upon his return. Miss Vining

RIDGELY FAMILY SILVER.

bought a complete service of silver, and re
furnished her already handsome home. Be
fore leaving her, the bridegroom-expectant had
given her a set of India china, which is still in
the Ridgely family at Dover. It was never
used in the long lifetime of Mary Vining, but
treasured among her most sacred belongings.

342 More Colonial Homesteads
The warrior betrothed never returned from
his long journey and tedious errand. Mary
Vining's New Year's gift was the news that
he had died, December 15, 1796, at Presque
Isle, on Lake Erie, on his way home, his ne
gotiations satisfactorily completed, his heart
full of hopes of happiness and her.
Mrs. Charles Ridgely wrote to the corre
spondent who had been shocked at the news
of the projected marriage :
" Miss Vining has put on mourning and re
tired from the world, in consequence of Gen
eral Wayne's death."
Mrs. Banning adds that " Miss Vining
seems to have deeply mourned General Wayne's
death. She lived for twenty-five years longer,
but never again entered society."
This romance in real life, all unexpected to
us, the admirers of the intrepid, dashing soldier,
never named without the amused repetition of
his sobriquet — was followed by other disas
ters. The " Pet of Delaware " lost his sister's
fortune with his own. The delicately nurtured
woman was compelled to sell her chariot,
horses, servants, and home. A suburban cot
tage left to her by her mother, and a scanty
pittance for daily needs, were all that remained

Other "Old Dover" Stories 343
when the death of the brother she had idolised
revealed the wreck he had made of their
means. To quote again from Mrs. Banning :
" To the north of the eastern yard in which two huge
willows grew, arose a blank brick wall that added to the
convent-like seclusion of the shaded cottage. It be
came, indeed, her living tomb. The loss of all that
made life dear broke her proud, ambitious heart. She
only sought concealment, like a wounded deer, till she
could die."
This was in 1802. In 1806, the thorough
bred had rallied her forces to care for her
brother's orphaned boys, four in number. To
maintain and educate them the deposed queen
took boarders, " hesitating at no sacrifice to
benefit them, and devoting her time and talents
to their education."
From the eldest of these beneficiaries, then
a lad of fourteen, we have a rhyming descrip
tion of the Lady of " The Willows," as she
had called her cottage, which is creditable to
his head and heart :
" Lady Vining comes first, with her soul-piercing eye,
Let her look in your face, in your heart she will pry.
In her features sits high the expression of truth,
The wisdom of age and the fancy of youth.

344 More Colonial Homesteads
They say a bright circle her figure once graced,
The mirror of fashion and Phoenix of taste ;
But Religion soon whispered 't were better to dwell
In the willow's retreat, or hermitage cell.
Now, apart from the world and its turbulent billows,
Contentment she courts in the shade of The Willows."
Miss Vining's last visit to Philadelphia, the
scene of her proudest conquests, was made in
1809, upon business connected with the pla--
cing of this nephew with his maternal aunt,
Mrs. Ogden, of New York. She went to the
city by the urgent invitation of Caesar Augustus
Rodney, " the Signer's " nephew and heir,
in his carriage, and under his escort, remain
ing for a fortnight in his house. She received
the many faithful friends who hastened to pay
their respects to her, conversing with the old
winning grace and ease, but entered no other
house than Mr. Rodney's.
" The Willows " became more and more
like a conventual retreat as the years went by.
When the mistress went to church, — which was
seldom toward the end of her life, — she wore
the muffling cap with wide borders, assumed
after General Wayne's death, and never laid
aside or changed in fashion ; over this a pro
jecting bonnet or " calash." As face and form

Other "Old Dover" Stories 345
lost delicacy and beauty, she saw the few
visitors admitted to " The Willows" in a room
where the shutters were bowed, and the cur
tains drawn.
" But her elegance of conversation, attractive man
ners, and musical voice remained to the last, also her
fine grey eyes. She had an abundance of brown hair
that never turned grey. When the concealing cap was
removed after her death, a high white forehead, and
very smooth, was revealed." '
Of her four adopted children, her solace in
poverty and widowhood, three died in early
life, of consumption ; the eldest outliving her
by a year.
Mary Vining died in 1821. During the last
years of her life, she had busied herself in
writing the History of the Revolutionary War.
The unfinished MS., with other valuable
papers, was destroyed by fire several years
afterward. 1 American Historical Register.

Az/m/ (AA1MJ7

XII
BELMONT HALL,
NEAR SMYRNA, DELAWARE
WITHOUT disparagement to other
broods of the " Blue Hen's Chickens,"
we must admit that those sent out for public
service from Kent County were of a game
strain. Not fewer than sixteen Governors of
Delaware were born in Kent, or were residents
of the Peninsular County when elected to
office. The long line began with Caesar Rod
ney who, in 1778, was made " President of the
Delaware State," for the then constitutional
term of three years.
Another President was John Cook, a man of
wealth and influence in the Province. He
came into office in 1783. In 1772, he had
been High Sheriff of Kent County. He
afterwards became a member of the first
346

Belmont Hall 347
Assembly of the State in 1776, and of the
committee appointed in October of the same
year to devise the Great Seal of Delaware.
He also served as a soldier throughout the
Revolutionary War, after which he was one
of the Judges of the State. His landed es
tate in and about the town of Smyrna in
cluded the extensive tract of arable and wooded
land upon which now stands the fine old
homestead of Belmont Hall.
The original grant of several thousand acres
was made to an Englishman from whom it
took the name of " Pearman's Choice." A
house stood upon the site of the Hall late in
the seventeenth century. The next proprie
tor after Governor Cook was Moore, another
Englishman, who erected the rear and lower
wing of the house, as we now see it.
The body of the Hall was added by Thomas
Collins, the third Governor, or President,
given by Kent County to Delaware. He was
a brother-in-law of John Cook, and, like him,
the owner of much valuable farming land in
the lower part of the State. He bought the
Belmont Hall tract from Moore in 1 77 1, and
enlarged the dwelling to its present propor
tions in 1773. When hostilities between the

348 More Colonial Homesteads

Colonies and Great Britain broke out, he gar
risoned the Hall and stockaded the grounds
outlying it, raising, by his personal efforts, a
brigade of militia from the surrounding country
and maintaining it at his own expense while
the war lasted. In addition to his duties as a
military officer he was a member of the
Council of Safety, subsequently, a delegate to
the Convention that drafted the Constitution
of the State, and Chief Justice of the Court of
Common Pleas.
"Belmont Hall"
— we learn from a
family MS.—
"descended to Dr.
William Collins by the
will of his father, Gov
ernor Thomas Collins,
in 1789, and was sold
by Dr. Collins to John
Cloke, Esq., in 1827.
He, in turn, left it to
his daughter, Mrs.
Caroline E. Cloke Pet
erson, then the wife of
J. Howard Peterson, Esq., of Philadelphia. Mr. Peter
son died in 1875. Several years later Mrs. Peterson
married again, but is still the owner of Belmont Hall,
and the plantation connected with it."

COOK-PETERSON COAT OF ARMS.

Belmont Hall 349
The historic mansion is one of the oldest, if
not the most ancient, private house in a State
where Colonial architecture and old families
abound. Two pictures of it hang in the
Relic Room of Independence Hall, Philadel
phia. One of the frames contains, in addi
tion to this picture, a Continental specie note
made into currency by the signature of War-
Governor Thomas Collins, in 1776. The
bricks of the Hall are said to have been
brought from England. They are as hard as
flint, and rich brown in color. Nails, hinges,
door-knobs, and bolts were imported expressly
for this dwelling and bear the imprint of the
British stamp.
The facade of the Hall is imposing, and the
effect of the whole building, set in the centre
of a park and gardens twenty acres in extent,
and quite removed from the highway, is noble
and dignified. One of the most beautiful
views of the house is to be had from the
garden behind it, where a low terrace falls
away from the ornamental grounds to the
level of the surrounding fields. The stroller
in the winding alleys, looking up suddenly at
the ivied gables of the oldest part of the Hall,
framed in the broad arch of the arbour at the

35° More Colonial Homesteads
top of the terrace steps, fancies himself, for one
bewildered instant, in the Old World, in the
near neighbourhood of grange or priory, the
age of which is measured by centuries, and not
by decades. The illusion is borne out by
patriarchal trees, knobbed and hoary as to
boles, broad of crown, and with a compactness
of foliage unattainable by groves less than
fifty years old.
The balustrade enclosing the flat central
roof of the Hall was put up by Colonel Collins
to protect the beat of the sentry kept for
months upon this observatory. The officers
of the brigade were the guests of the family
while the country swarmed with predatory
bands of British and Tories, with an occasional
sprinkling of Hessians. These last were be
lieved by the peninsular population to be ogres
imported especially for the destruction of
women and children, each of the monsters
being equipped by nature with a double row of
carnivorous teeth.
While there was no regular battle fought in
the immediate neighbourhood of Smyrna, the
region was reckoned peculiarly unsafe for the
reason I have given, and skirmishes were not un
common. Colonel Collins and his home guard

m&&yw

Belmont Hall 353
were a committee of safety in themselves ;
the Hall, with its solid wall and surrounding
defences, was looked upon by the fearsome
families left unprotected while husbands, sons,
and fathers were in active service in Pennsyl
vania, New York, New Jersey, or Virginia, as
a strong tower, into which they might run and
be safe in case of peril to their persons or lives.
The conformation of the peninsula, a signal
advantage when commerce, and not war, was
the business of the inhabitants, trebled the
present dangers. " The extensive water-front
was a constant invitation to attacks, and em
boldened British emissaries and sympathisers.
British vessels patrolled Delaware Bay, hold
ing frequent communication with the shore,
landing at night, and causing terror to the
inhabitants." How imminent were the perils of the situa
tion, and how needful the precautions taken
by Colonel Collins, were illustrated by an in
cident which, thenceforward, invested the look
out upon the housetop with tragic interest. A
stray marauder — Tory spy, British scout, or a
freebooter from the coast bent upon mischief
of whatever kind — ventured near enough to
the fortified homestead one night to pick off

354 More Colonial Homesteads
the sentinel by a well-aimed rifle-ball. The
wounded man, alone on his beat, and unable
to summon aid, contrived to drag himself down
the narrow staircase to a room below, occupied
by some of his comrades, sleeping quietly, un
conscious of what was passing over their heads.
He died there, within the hour, before a sur
geon could reach him, lying in a spreading
pool of his own blood. The awful stain is
upon the boards still, a memorial to this one
of the host, which no man can number, of
unknown private soldiers who poured out
their lives like water to secure to the land
they loved " A Church without a Bishop,
And a State without a King."
Following the trail, faint but visible, left by
the unknown's life-blood upon the stairs, we
mount to the roof, and view the goodly pano
rama of teeming fields and vineyards, peaceful
hills, beautiful homes, and shining river, and
hope that they know what they conveyed to
us under so many, and such precious, seals.
In 1777, the State Council of Delaware met
in Belmont Hall by special invitation of the
owner, probably because it was a safer place

VISTA FROM PORCH OF BELMONT HALL.

355

Belmont Hall 357
than that in which the Council usually sat.
Colonel Collins was himself recalled from the
army under Washington by a special letter
from the Speaker, or President of the Coun
cil, " requiring his attendance, if consistent
with the service he owed to his chief."
No part of the State accessible by water was
secure from alarms of invasion. In August,
Thomas McKean, then executing the duties of
the President of Delaware, complained that he
was "hunted like a fox." Five times in four
months he removed his wife and children from
one refuge to another, finally hiding them in
a secluded log cabin in Pennsylvania, a hun
dred miles from Dover. This asylum was soon
deserted for fear of Indians and Tories.
George Read was probably President of the
Council when it was hospitably entertained in
the garrisoned Hall. Richard Bassett, a fut
ure Governor of Delaware and Chief-Justice
of the State, was also summoned from the
army to take his seat in the Council.
In the room where the unfortunate sentinel
died there hung, for many years, a framed au
tograph letter from General Washington to
Colonel Collins, ordering him to report with
his brigade at Morristown, for immediate serv-

358 More Colonial Homesteads
ice. This valuable relic was lent to a relat
ive, and while in his keeping was accidentally
destroyed by fire.
Mrs. Peterson-Speakman, the great-grand
daughter of Governor John Cook, is in pos
session of another autograph despatch from the
same august hand, bearing date of the same
year. The fate of the infant government was
wavering in the balance that winter, and, judg
ing from the tone of the epistle, the temper of
the Commander-in-Chief was "on the move."
A second perusal engenders the shrewd sus
picion that this was an open letter, meant for
the men, and not for their colonel. Recalling-
the personal relations of the two men, we are
furthermore persuaded that Colonel Collins
comprehended the meaning of each biting line,
if he were not in the secret of the composition.
Caesar Rodney did not scruple to say to his
Excellency, when urged to bring his men to
the front, "He that can deal with militia may
almost venture to deal with the devil." Colo
nel Collins had his militia and his experience.
He had, also, the ear of the General-in-Chief.
<i c . " Headquarters, January 21st, 1777.
" To my great surprise I was applied to this morning to
discharge your Battalion. If I am not mistaken it came

Belmont Hall 359
in on Sunday last, and it is not possible that a single
man among them can wish to return before they have
earned a single shilling. Your people cannot wish to
burden the public, and they will do so, by asking pay
without deserving any. What service have they been
of ? None — unless marching from home, when they had
nothing to do, and staying four weeks on the way can be
called service. If they would consider how ridiculous
they will appear when they return without staying a week
with me, they would continue here. This is probably
the only time they will be needed to maintain our ground
till the new army is raised. For this purpose I hope
they left home and surely they cannot think of deserting
me at so important a time. At any rate, their time of
service cannot commence till they were equipped and
ready to take the field. Dating it from thence they
ought to stay six weeks after they marched from Phila
delphia. Please mention these things to your Battalion.
If they will not stay, tell them I cannot in justice to the
States give them a discharge, and moreover, that I will
not suffer them to draw pay for the time they have stayed.
This measure being extremely disagreeable to me, I en
treat you to use your utmost influence to prevail on your
men to stay. They may render special service to their
country in a short time, and justly claim the honour of
saving it. On the contrary, should they go home, they
will not only lose their pay, but remain the scoff of all
their worthy neighbours.
" I am, Sir
" Your most obediently humble servant
"George Washington."

360 More Colonial Homesteads
The original of the testy epistle was un
earthed from a mass of other papers in the
attic of Belmont Hall less than fifty years ago,
by John Cloke, Esq., the then owner of the
homestead, and a copy of it sent to Washington
Irvine. Mr. Irvine's note of acknowledgment
is courteous and characteristic :
" SUNNYSIDE, August 27, 1S55.
" Dear Sir :
" I feel very much obliged to you for the copy of a
letter of General Washington's which you have had the
kindness to send me.
" By the date it must have been written from his Head
quarters at Morristown at a time when he apprehended
a push from the enemy, and could not afford to dis
charge a Battalion. But five days previous to the date
of this letter, he [General Washington] wrote to the
President of Congress — ' Reinforcements come up so
exceedingly slow that I am afraid I shall be left without
any men before they arrive. The enemy must be ignor
ant of our numbers or they have not horses to move
their artillery, or they would not suffer us to remain
undisturbed.' " Washington might well say that troops that could
wish to abandon him and return home at such a moment
would remain the scoff of all their worthy neighbours.
" Very respectfully, your obliged and obedient servant,
" Washington Irving."
The patriotic Delawarean and Daughter of
the American Revolution to whom I am in-

Belmont Hall 361
debted for this valuable contribution to my
story of Belmont Hall, subjoins with emphasis
that is even passionate :
" Now be it known and inscribed to the honour and
glory of these men, and of this State of Delaware, that
they did Stay all through that winter, and that Delaware
history records the fact that Brigadier-General Collins
led his native militia to Morristown, in the winter of
1777, and then and there saw active service, enduring
all the hardships of that memorable campaign."
A list of authorities in support of the vindi
cation follows.
History records a narrow escape from utter
spoliation which the garden county of Dela
ware had in 1781. Arnold was fitting out the
expedition that was to carry fire and sword up
the Rappahannock and the James, and the
wildest apprehensions were entertained of his
taking the eastern coast of Delaware en route.
In a sort of panic Congress " actually decided
that the only measure of prevention was to
denude the region in question of all its live
stock, provisions, and supplies, and starve the
inhabitants, in order to deprive the enemy of
support in case they should decide to land."
A cavalry regiment was detailed to carry
out the ruthless order, and was about to march

362 More Colonial Homesteads
when Csesar Rodney made another hurried
visit to Philadelphia, and by his determined
resistance to the vandalistic decree, saved his
home and neighbourhood.
Colonel Thomas Collins was Governor
(President) of Delaware in 1 781, when her
deputies, in solemn convention, ratified the
Constitution of the United States. To the
wisest statesmen of the infant Republic she
seemed to have passed through the dangers of
birth only to incur the equal risk of strangula
tion in her cradle.
" The Constitution, or disunion, are before
us to choose from," said Washington. " The
political concerns of the country are suspended
by a single thread."
General Collins, the loyal executive of a
loyal State, spoke out boldly :
" The new Constitution involves in its adop
tion, not only our prosperity and felicity, but,
perhaps, our national existence."
Senator Bayard might well ask ;
" May not we of Delaware, descendants of
the Blue Hen's Chickens of the Revolution,
afford to smile at sneer or jest at our scanty
area and population, and say — ' Our best crop
is Men ! men like Caesar Rodney'?"

Belmont Hall 363
He might have added — " Men like McKean,
Cook, Collins, Robinson, Sykes, Clark, Bas
sett, Clayton" — and a score of others, includ
ing those of his own illustrious line, now, as of
yore, sans peur et sans reproche.
Governor Thomas Collins was succeeded
in the ownership of Belmont Hall by his son,
Dr. William Collins. In 1827, it passed into
the hands of John Cloke, Esq., the father of
the present mistress of the homestead, Mrs.
Caroline Elizabeth Cloke Speakman. Each
one of this lady's names is a link in the history
of the old Hall in which she was born and
where she has lived her busy, beneficent life.
Her ancestor, John Cloke, emigrated to
America in the 1 7th century.
His son, Ebenezer Cloke, married Elizabeth
Cook, the daughter of the Governor John
Cook of whom honourable mention was made
in the opening paragraphs of this chapter.
His wife was a sister of Thomas Collins, and
a daughter married Hon. John Clark, another
Governor of their native State. Belmont Hall
was one of Elizabeth Cook's early homes. A
vivid scene, pictured for us by the traditions
of the place and time, is of the young wife of
Ebenezer Cloke, sitting by the tiled fireplace

364 More Colonial Homesteads
in the parlour, assisting her aunt, her cousins,
and other patriotic women to mould bullets,
while armed men bivouacked upon the lawn,
and the sentinel trod his lonely round upon
the balustraded roof. She had her own pecul
iar martyrdom to the righteous Cause. Her
husband, Ebenezer Cloke, fitted out a priva
teer at his own charges, and commanded her
in person in coast cruises against the enemy.
In one of these he was captured with his
vessel and consigned to a prison-ship.
" Here,'- says a chronicler, " overtures of release were
daily made to him and the other prisoners, provided
they would take sides with Great Britain against the
Colonies ; but he resisted this bribe of a dishonourable
freedom, and with liberty in reach, did he but choose to
grasp it, he languished and died of ship-fever, a worthy
patriot to the last." '
The tale, as sad as it is brief, is the dark
curtain against which is cast for us the fig
ure of the bullet-moulder, lighted by the red
shine of the fire. Prayers and tears went
into the shaping of the missiles that were to
defend the Cause which had cost her young
husband liberty and life ; tears for what she
1 Rev. G. W Dame, D.D. Address delivered upon the organisa
tion of Elizabeth Cook Chapter. Belmont Hall, i8q6.

FW ;S O

i m

t 5

I 1

¦I* ' s

I:1

8
. tr

Ws

O

z
'(..
<
Belmont Hall 367
had lost, prayers that the sacrifice might not
be in vain.
There is fine poetic compensation in the
facts that her son became the master of the
estate her father had once owned ; that the
Chapter of the Daughters of the American
Revolution organised beneath the ancient roof
should receive her blessed name, and that the
granddaughter who proudly bears the same
should be the honoured Regent of the Chapter.
A blood-relative and dear friend of Eliza
beth Cook Cloke was Eve Lear, the niece
of Dr. Tobias Lear, Washington's confiden
tial secretary, who attended him in his last
illness. " It is recorded of her," says Dr. Dame,
" that she gave her entire fortune in gold to
feed and clothe the soldiers at Valley Forge."
I had expected, before coming to Belmont
Hall, to find it redolent of such hallowed
memories as a potpourri of rose-gardens and
sunny bygones. My anticipations are more
than fulfilled in the cherished relics with which
it is stored. In the "winter kitchen" in the
oldest wing yawns the cavernous fireplace
where were roasted mighty barons of beef for
the officers of the Collins Brigade ; and sav-

J

68 More Colonial Homesteads

ory pastries and delicate cates were baked,
and wines were mulled, according to Mistress
Collins's choicest recipes, for the grave and
reverend Councillors who must be braced in
body if they would be stout of spirit when the
matter before their worships was the resistance
of a few and simple folk to the most powerful
government upon earth.
We are assured in our own minds, although
unconfirmed by history, that it was here, on
winter nights, when the bewigged and beruffled
Councillors occupied the parlour and dining-
room, that bravely patient Elizabeth Cloke —
and why not Eve Lear? — melted lead, and
manipulated the clumsy moulds, and talked
of the beloved of their blood and hearts, war
ring for freedom upon land and sea. Eben
ezer Cloke's writing-desk, upon which his wife
may have written her letters to him while he
was off upon his cruise, is in the dining-room.
There were no banks then — or none accessi
ble to provincial rebels. Mr. Cloke kept his
money in the double row of secret drawers
unlike any others we have ever explored.
The big spinning-wheel near by whirled all
day long for months together, spinning yarn
to be woven into cloth for uniformine the

Belmont Hall 369
Collins Brigade. I am allowed to handle the
old flint-lock musket that was used by John
Cook, " soldier, legislator, judge, senator, and
president " ; the two antique chairs on each
side of the drawing-room hearth were passed
down in the Collins family as mementoes of
the period when Belmont Hall, "in addition
to its other memories, posed as one of the
State capitals." They were part of the fur
niture of the room used as a legislative cham
ber in 1777. Caesar Rodney may have sat in
one, or Thomas McKean, or the warlike lord
of the manor, recalled from the field to open
his hospitable doors to the Council.
The fireplace is set with blue and white tiles
of the time of William and Mary. They are
unchanged from the days " when, in front of
the chimney, Governor Collins wrote his mes
sages and planned with his officers his cam
paigns against the British."
About the antiquated spinet, which has
stood for over fifty years in the great garret,
troop and hover all manner of fancies, sweet,
sad, and quaint, such as visited the mind of
one who, many years ago, left a page of im
promptu verse within the case, above the
shattered, tuneless wires :

37° More Colonial Homesteads
" In gown of white, in sunset light,
She sits and plays upon her spinet,
And falling clear upon his ear,
Come forth the dainty airs within it.
The twilight falls adown the walls,
Yet softly on her fair form lingers
A last red glow, as, loth to go,
The sun leaves kisses on her fingers.
They both are gone ! now quite forlorn,
In dusty attic stands the spinet ;
And nought remains to mark Love's pains,
Except the airs she found within it."
The tall clock on the landing of the hand
some staircase, faced by the stately peacock
upon the railing, has mounted guard there for
a century. The linen cambric sheets under
which I slept last night, — as fine as gossamer,
and trimmed with old family lace, — were a part
of the bridal gear of Mrs. John Cloke, upon
her coming to Belmont Hall in 1849. The
stately cedars on either side of the front porch
were planted upon the respective birthdays of
her two daughters, and named for them. The
vista leading from the porch to the gate is walled
and arched by the close foliage of evergreens
and deciduous trees, where song-birds build and

STAIRCASE

0F BELMONT HALL.

371

Belmont Hall 373
make music from dawn to dusk. A mocking
bird was the precentor at the matinal service
to-day. Wood-doves are cooing — and pre
sumably building — in the dim greenery, as the
day marches towards noontide. Box-trees,
syringas, roses, calycanthus, and many varie
ties of honeysuckles send up waves of warmed
incense when the breeze shakes them. The
extensive plantations are enclosed by match
less arbor-vitse hedges.
I have been graciously allowed to visit the
cellars under-running the entire building —
erstwhile filled to the ceiling with army stores
— and found them, as I had hoped I should, a
study and a joy. Cool, spacious, clean, sweet,
and in every part — walls, shelves, cemented
floor, the very barrels and boxes — white as
new-fallen snow. Our hostess is a veritable
Mrs. Rundle in the matter of pickles, pre
serves, and jellies, and this, too, is a hereditary
talent. Her beautiful grounds are ever open to the
well-mannered public, not excepting Sunday-
school picnics. Delawareans sustain the repu
tation for law-keeping and orderliness won in
the " Long time ago," by never presuming
upon this large-hearted hospitality.

374 More Colonial Homesteads
We talk of "places," not houses; "planta
tions," not farms, while lingering in the vener
able peninsula. Everybody hereabouts has
quotable ancestors, and neighbourhood gene
alogies are known, and may be read, of all
men. Each farmstead has its legend ; every
old tree its anecdote ; and none have been
forgotten. A venerable lady who passed from earth in
1882 did more than can ever be fully told
towards keeping the glorious Past alive in
the minds of this generation. The grounds
of " Woodlawn," the beautiful family seat of
George W. Cummins, Esq., adjoin those of Bel
mont Hall. Mrs. Anne Denny, Mr. Cummins's
mother-in-law, was born in Kent County, Del
aware, January 1, 1 778. She was, therefore, one
hundred and four years old at the time of her
death, and, retaining all her faculties to the
last, was a most valuable bond to the last
century. A member of the Society of Friends,
the placidity of spirit and demeanour cultivated
by them as one of the first of Christian graces,
had been brought by her to perfection through
all these years of aspiration after the highest
good. Her " household's most precious and
most highly cherished treasure, the centre of

Belmont Hall 375
attraction and light of the home," as one who
knew her long and intimately called her, she
was the pride and delight of the region blest
and dignified by her abiding.
" She was older than the Government under
which we live " ; — so runs the loving tribute to
her memory. " Her childhood was spent in the
days when our public men were noted for that
purity of life for which she herself was so
distinguished." Mrs. Denny was a woman of fine intellect,
keen perceptions, and extensive observation.
" Her memory being clear as to the events of
each successive year that had rolled over her,"
since her early childhood, conversation with
her was like drawing directly from the twin
streams of History and Tradition.
A biographer writes :
" We may mention, as one incident of her childhood,
that she and many other children gathered in Wilming
ton to greet General Washington, as he passed through
to his first Inauguration as President of the United
States. When the great man came opposite to her,
attracted probably by that sweetness of expression
which was always hers, he stooped, took her in his arms,
and kissed her."
Washington Irving never forgot that his

3/6 More Colonial Homesteads
nurse had taken him into a shop where Wash
ington was standing, and introduced her
charge to the President as " a little boy who
was named after Your Excellency," where
upon the hero laid his hand upon the sunny
head and " hoped he would grow up to be a
good man."
The little girl whom Washington embraced
and kissed told the story to her great-grand
children. Caesar Rodney was President of
the Delaware State when she was born, and
she outlived twelve of the fifteen Governors
from Kent County who were his successors in
office during the century that followed. She
had been a married woman for two years when
Washington died in 1799, and was widowed
four years after the war of 181 2. Born amid
the thunders of the Revolution, she read three
other Declarations of War, issued by as many
Presidents of these United States, and heard,
three times, the joy bells of Peace. She
marked the birth and growth of inventions we
now receive as the commonest necessaries of
everyday life, — such as steam-transportation,
the magnetic telegraph, the telephone, the
electric-car, the sewing-machine and the type
writer. Upon these, and all other subjects of

Belmont Hall

377

w

interest and benefit to the human race, she
had her opinion, always speaking out bravely
for Right and Truth. Physically and mentally
her bow abode in strength — and strangest of
all, when we consider what the wear and tear of
a century's joys, griefs, and worries must be to
brain and nerve, " None of the family at Wood-
lawn, — children, grandchildren, or servants
— e ver received
from her a harsh
word, or an un
kind look."
I account it a
privilege and a
rare honour to
hear all this from
the lips of my
hostess (who was
her loving friend
and nearest neigh
bour), while we sit
under the ances
tral trees of Bel
mont Hall in the MRS- ANNE DENNY-
i • (TAKEN AT THE AGE OF 101.) BORN 1778. DIED1B82.
summer seclusion
of shade and silence. It is a fit place and time
for listening to a letter read to the accompani-

378 More Colonial Homesteads
ment of the weak wind playing with the Nor
way firs and losing itself in the vista they
enclose :
" It seemed to me, then — and it is a deepened sense
now — as if she had been so long at the heavenly
portal that she was breathing the very atmosphere
of the New Jerusalem. As if she had had some
glimpse of the King in His beauty, and that, though
her feet wrere on the earth, yet her conversation was in
Heaven. " Do you recollect the message she gave me ?
"' Tell my friends,' she said, 'that I have a beauti
ful home here, but that I desire so to live that I may be
ready and willing to leave it when the message may
be sent to me.' "
This was upon her one-hundred-and-fourth
birthday, when, as was their custom, her most
intimate friends, Mrs. Peterson Speakman
among them, gathered at Woodlawn to pay
their respects, offer congratulations, and ex
press their desire that the wonderful life might
be prolonged yet further into her second
century. One of the company, on taking
leave, " hoped that he might meet her again
on the next anniversary."
Her answer was firm and sweet; "I neither
expect nor desire it ! "

Belmont Hall

379

In four days more the beautiful link bind
ing together three generations of mortal lives,
parted gently. The listening spirit had re
ceived " the message."

XIII
THE LANGDON AND WENTWORTH HOUSES,
IN PORTSMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE
IF geologists are trustworthy sources of know
ledge, the stony spine of New Hampshire
was the first part of our continent upheaved
from the primeval ocean.
As if in obedience to an occult law of prior
ity, the " Granite State " has consistently pressed
to the front ever since she took upon herself
the name and the dignity of a commonwealth.
The map of her brief coast was one of the
earliest charts made out by the first admiral
of New England, Captain John Smith (in
1614). From the Portsmouth Navy-yard, the
oldest in the country, was launched, in 1777,
the Ranger, ordered by the Continental Con
gress, which, under the command of John
Paul Jones, had the distinction of being the
first war-vessel to hoist the Stars and Stripes
and receive a formal naval salute.
3S0

Langdon and Wentworth Houses 381
Stark's Volunteer Brigade, that helped to
win the first decisive victory for the Americans
in the Revolutionary War, was fitted out at
the expense of John Langdon of Portsmouth,
and his was the first signature affixed to the
Federal Constitution drafted by the Conven
tion of 1778.
Portsmouth, the only seaport of the sturdy
State, was settled in 1623, and was created a
township in 1653. In 1890 — just three hundred
years after the launching of the Falkland, the
first war-vessel built in her docks — she had a
population of 10,000, with an allowance of one
church and-an-eighth for every thousand inhabit
ants, and public-school property to the amount of
$100,000. All of which shows oneness of spirit
with pioneers who marched five hundred strong
to do battle at Louisburg in 1645, and w^o fur
nished the same number of soldiers to attack
Crown Point in 1.755. Of a like strain were
the 12,500 Continental militia who answered
the call of Congress during the eight years'
struggle for the liberty of the Colonies. Some
thing of the strength and inflexibility of the
Eozoic period, to which belong her everlast
ing hills, would seem to permeate New Hamp
shire's civic, religious, and moral institutions.

382 More Colonial Homesteads
Benning Wentworth was made Governor of
the State in 1741. Most of us are more fa
miliar with his name than with that of the very
much better man who was born that same year.
History was made of John Langdon's works
and warrings. Poetry has made Benning
Wentworth's wooing and wedding famous.
The Colonial parody of the story of Lord
Burleigh and the Village Maid is musically
rendered by Longfellow. Governor Benning
Wentworth married Martha Hilton, once a
servant-girl at the Stavers Tavern in Queen
(afterward called " Buck," now State) Street,
but since promoted to the housekeeper's office
in the Governor's household. The wedding
feast was a surprise party, given upon the
bridegroom's sixtieth birthday.
" He had invited all his friends and peers,
The Pepperills, the Langdons, and the Lears,
The Sparhawks, the Penhallows, and the rest —
For why repeat the name of every guest ? "
The Reverend Arthur Brown hesitating to per
form the ceremony, was commanded, in the
name of the law, to proceed with it.
The marriage was at Little Harbour, the
gubernatorial mansion there having been built

PARLOUR OF WENTWORTH MANSION, IN WHICH GOV. BENNING WENT
WORTH WAS MARRIED TO MARTHA HILTON

383

Langdon and Wentworth Houses 385
in 1750. Until that time the Wentworths
had lived in what is known as the Went
worth- Vaughan Tavern, on Manning Street,
Portsmouth. Samuel Wentworth, the grand
father of Governor Benning, was licensed in
1690, "to entertain strangers, and to sell and
to brew beare as the law allows," in this, the
house he had built. It is one of the dozen or
more Colonial homesteads in Portsmouth that
repay the visitor to the quaint old seaport for
the time and trouble the journey hither has
cost him.
The event that gave us the poem of Lady
Wentworth, is squeezed in the Parish Register
of St. John's Church, into a space just one
inch square :
" Portsmouth, March 15th, Benning Went
worth, Gov., Martha Hilton. '59."
Another entry dated a few months after the
elderly bridegroom's death, shows that Lady
Wentworth speedily consoled herself for the
loss of her Burleigh by wedding his brother,
Colonel Michael Wentworth of His Majesty's
service. Sir John Wentworth, LL.D. was the uxori
ous Benning's nephew. He was, by three
years, the senior of John Langdon. The boys

386 More Colonial Homesteads
may have fought together on the village
green, and upon the play-ground attached to
worshipful Major Hale's school, as they strug
gled in their manhood in the arena of Colonial
politics. The Langdon family was one of the oldest
in Portsmouth and always conspicuous in her
domestic and public annals. John, the most
distinguished citizen of town and Province,
was born in 1740 or 1741.
" His boyhood was unmarked by prophecy or won
ders. He did what other boys did ; trudged to the
Latin school kept by the celebrated Major Hale, who
was one of the characters of his day, recited his lessons,
and left no gleaming legend for scholarship. Langdon
was not a genius, and sound sense always kept him
safely within bounds." '
John Wentworth, the Governor's nephew
was graduated at twenty-two from Harvard
College ; at twenty-eight (in 1 765), he was sent
by the Provincial Government to England
upon a special mission. That year, his titled
relative, Charles Watson Wentworth, Marquis
of Rockingham, was made Premier of Great
Britain. He was to become the idol of a
fleeting hour in America on account of his
1 Charles R. Corning, in A'ew England Magazine, July 1894.

GOVERNOR BENNING WENTWORTH
3«7

Langdon and Wentworth Houses 389
agency in the repeal of the detested Stamp
Act, and was always popular in the Colonies.
John Wentworth returned to Portsmouth in
1767 as "Surveyor of the King's Woods in
America and Governor of New Hampshire."
The curled and perfumed darling of Fortune —
like his uncle and predecessor in office —
" Represented England and the King
And was magnificent in everything."
Longfellow paints a street scene in that
Old Portsmouth for us : " A gay
And brilliant equipage that flashed and spun,
The silver harness glittering in the sun,
Outriders with red jackets, lithe and lank,
Pounding the saddles as they rose and sank ;
While, all alone within the chariot, sat
A portly person with three-cornered hat
A crimson velvet coat, head high in air,
Gold-headed cane, and nicely powdered hair,
And diamond buckles, sparkling at his knees.'
Ah ! the world went very well then with
the future baronet in his Great House at Little
Harbour, " looking out to sea."
The sea upon which John Langdon, who
was never to prefix or suffix a foreign title to
his honest name, was then making the fortune

39° More Colonial Homesteads

to be staked upon the result of the conflict
between his native Province and the King
represented by his former schoolfellow. After
serving an apprenticeship in a Portsmouth
counting-house, the man
without genius chose his
career. Money was to
be made surely ancl
swiftly by trading di
rectly with the Indies,
Africa, and Europe.
John Langdon was one
who ever knew his own
LANGDON COAT OF ARMS , • • . i i
mind intimately ; who
understood his own purposes and abode by
them. He meant to become rich, and that
Portsmouth and New Hampshire should profit
by his prosperity.
" Moons waxed and waned ; the lilacs bloomed and died.
In the broad river ebbed and flowed the tide ;
Ships went to sea, and ships came home from sea,
And the slow years sailed by, and ceased to be."
The world was not going so well for Gov
ernor Wentworth when the seafarer decided
to leave off roving and resume home and
mercantile life. Fortune's darling; was still
personally popular with his fellow-citizens, but

Langdon and Wentworth Houses 39 T
the King he represented was growing daily
more obnoxious. The gallant fellow had done
his best, according to the light that was in him,
toward securing the best interests of the coun
try as dear to him as to any of the malcontents.
He had given a charter to Dartmouth College,
rising superior to any small partiality for his
own Alma Mater ; he was the farmer's friend
and zealous coadjutor, and, as chief magistrate
of the Colony, encouraged immigration and de
velopment of all her resources. As the direct
result of his wise legislation, New Hampshire
had, by now, a population of 80,000, and was
growing rapidly in numbers and wealth.
With indignant pain the Governor awoke
to the truth that has confounded many another
favourite of the people, — to wit, that the dullest
yokel can dissociate men and measures when
self-interest is abraded. One and all of those
who visited the Great House, or bared their
heads as the Governor's chariot drove through
the streets of his capital city, liked and ap
proved of him, and of what he had done in the
past for town and townspeople. But resent
ments and resolves which were, in two years'
time, to crystallise into the Declaration of Inde
pendence, were as rife in New Hampshire as in

392 More Colonial Homesteads
her sister provinces. A long series of wrongs
and misread rights had aroused the loyal and
patient young giant that now knew itself to be
a nation. It was beyond the power of any
individual to quiet the tempest.
John Wentworth, too, was loyal and patient.
Loyal to his sovereign and in love for his fel
low-citizens, patient, to an extent that awakens
our affectionate and compassionate respect,
with his misguided compatriots. His policy
was conciliatory from the outset to the bitter
and unlooked-for end. It was, therefore, a
heavy disappointment and a personal sorrow
when, in the depth of a December night, in
1774, a party, headed by John Langdon and
John Sullivan — (Major-General Sullivan of
the Revolutionary War, subsequently Attorney-
General, then, President of the State of New
Hampshire) surprised and overcame the little
garrison at Fort William and Mary, New
Castle, securing the ordnance and ammunition
for the Colonial army. The expedition was a
direct assault upon the Royal Government ; the
assailants were little better than an infuriated
mob, such as no one who knew John Langdon
as a sober, law-abiding citizen would have
expected him to countenance, much less to

Langdon and Wentworth Houses 393
organise and conduct. Yet there is no record of
any effort at reprisal on the part of the King's
representative, and nothing to show that the
relations between him and Langdon were
strained by what was a crime in the eye of
established law.
On the contrary, the message sent by Went
worth to the Provincial House of Representa
tives convened in Portsmouth, May 1775, and
to which John Langdon was a delegate, was
full of kindly and moderate counsels. The
colonists were advised to bear and forbear until
the unhappy misunderstandings were cleared
up, and exhorted to continued confidence in
the Home Government which had been pater
nal in past kindnesses.
In reply, a Committee from the House
waited upon the Governor. John Langdon's
was among- the serious visages that met Went-
worth's ready smile. The two were, as we
have seen, not far apart in age, John Langdon
being now thirty-five, John Wentworth, thirty-
eight. The crisis was too grave for diplomatic
circumlocution. The Committee drove straight
to the object of their visit. The temper of the
Assembly was too fiery to allow calm discussion
of the matters set forth in his Excellency's

394 More Colonial Homesteads
message. They would not answer for the
consequences if the members proceeded forth
with to business. John Langdon was a lover
of liberty. He was also a lover of fair play,
and so far as was practicable in the present ex
cited state of public feeling, a lover of peace
and concord. He strongly recommended, and
his colleagues agreed with him, that the session
be postponed for a month. After a little par
leying the Governor acquiesced in the propos
ition. He was confident, at heart, of winning
his people back to their allegiance. Before the
month was half gone, another organised exhi
bition of popular feeling, engineered as before,
by substantial citizens, and led by Langdon
and Sullivan, heated the blood of town and
Colony. The fortifications of Jerry's Point,
one of the harbour defences, were demolished ;
more muniments of war fell to the portion of
the insurgents.
The crowning insult to King and to Gov
ernor came in May of 1775. Colonel Fen
ton, "a well-known and well-hated" British
officer, was dining with the Governor, when a
mob collected in front of the Great House,
trained a field-piece upon it, and demanded
the loyalist's person. Before the host could

Langdon and Wentworth Houses 395

interfere to prevent him, Colonel Fenton
coolly walked out of the front door and gave
himself up. He
was hurried
away under
guard to Exeter.
Stung and hu
miliated as he
was by these re
peated outrages,
John Went
worth was suffi
ciently master of
himself to essay
further concilia
tion of the turb
ulent populace.
Langdon still
held to the opin
ion that it would
be unsafe to bring the Convention together
at present, and the Governor once more post
poned the session, this time until July.
" Before the day of assembling came, the last Royal
Governor [of New Hampshire] had fled to the protec
tion of H. M. Frigate Scarborough. The people at last
were kings, responsible only to themselves."

JOHN WENTWORTH, LAST ROYAL
GOVERNOR OF N. H.

396 More Colonial Homesteads
Personally, — and I would fain believe that
my reader is with me, — I own to much and
sympathetic interest in this special Royal Gov
ernor. All that we gather concerning him
shows us a right goodly figure, debonair and
dashing, as might well be in one richly en
dowed by nature and circumstance with gifts
that captivate his fellow-men and all classes of
women. A local historian treats us to a diverting ac
count of John Wentworth's marriage, which
set gossiping tongues — hardly stilled from dis
cussion of his uncle's escapade — to wagging
hotly and furiously. The nephew and suc
cessor of Benning Wentworth was unhappy
in his first love, the lady jilting him to marry
Colonel Atkinson of Portsmouth. Two years
after Wentworth returned from England, Gov-
ernor of New Hampshire and Royal Surveyor
of the Woods of North America, Colonel At
kinson died. I copy the rest of the tale from
Rambles about Portsmouth :
" The widow was arrayed in the dark habiliments of
mourning, which, we presume, elicited an immense
shower of tears, as the fount was so soon exhausted.
The next day the mourner appeared in her pew at church
as a widow. But that was the last Sabbath of the widow.

Langdon and Wentworth Houses 397
On Monday morning there was a new call for the serv
ices of the milliner, the unbecoming black must be laid
aside and brighter colours, as becomes a Governor's
bride, must take its place."
She espoused Governor Wentworth in
Queen's Chapel exactly ten days after her
first husband's demise.
The Chief Magistrate of the Province was
gorgeously bedight in a white cloth coat,
trimmed with "rich gold lace," white silk
" stocking-breeches," and embroidered blue
silk waistcoat coming down to his thighs.
His hat was " recockt " for the occasion, and
caught up at the side with gold lace, button,
and loop. His bonny brown hair was tied in
a queue with three yards of white ribbon.
They were married by the same clergyman
to whom Longfellow introduces us in Lady
Wentworth :
" The rector there, the Reverend Arthur Brown
Of the Established Church ; with smiling face,
He sat beside the Governor and said grace."
As a sequitur to this second unconventional
performance of the Governors Wentworth,
our local chronicle relates :

398 More Colonial Homesteads
" Rev. Arthur Brown may have been excited beyond
his wont by the celerity of the proceedings, considering
the mourning so hastily put off. Perhaps he was solilo
quising on the course of human events and wondering
what might happen next. Be that as it may, he wan
dered, absent-mindedly, down the steps after the wed
ding ceremony, and falling, broke his arm."
This marriage extraordinary took place in
1 769. The new Lady Wentworth queened it
superbly in the provinces, and when she ac
companied her husband to England in 1775,
became one of the ladies-in-waiting to the
Queen of George III. She lived to extreme
old age. Their only son died before either of
the parents.
" For a' that an' a' that," we dismiss the
bold bridegroom from our pages regretfully.
Compared with Edmund Andros of New Eng
land, Berkeley and Dunmore of Virginia, and
Leisler of New York, he was a gentle and
beneficent ruler, and deserved to be held in
affectionate remembrance by those he had
served. His property was confiscated after
his flight to England ; he returned to Amer
ica as Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia
in 1792, was made a baronet in 1795, and
died in Halifax in 1820, aged eighty-three.

Langdon and Wentworth Houses 401
Although we have the story of Lady Went
worth the first at our finger's ends, we think
more, and tenderly, of Governor Benning's
nephew in visiting Wentworth Hall, at Little
Harbour. It is an irregular group of build
ings that does not warrant the poet's descrip
tion,
A noble pile,
Baronial and colonial in its style."
The several parts composing it seem to have
been thrown together, rather than arranged in
obedience to any architectural design. There
were originally fifty-two rooms ; now there are
but forty-five. Rising ground hides the house
from the road, but it is open toward the sea on
two sides. John Wentworth stabled his horses
in the extensive cellars after the era of popular
tumults began. Thirty horses could be com
fortably housed here. The ancient council-
chamber is in admirable preservation. It is
an imposing apartment, finished in the best
style of the last century. The fine mantel
represents a year's work with knife and chisel.
In the billiard-room hangs the familiar por
trait of Dorothy Quincy, the " Dorothy Q " of
Holmes's delightful verses.

402 More Colonial Homesteads
The present owner of Wentworth Hall, Mr.
Coolidge, formerly of Boston, is most hospit
able to those inquisitive strangers whose desire
to behold the time-honoured precincts springs
from reverent interest in the past it commem
orates. As we sit upon the sofa in the spacious
drawing-room, so deftly restored and so jeal
ously protected that we might be gazing upon
wainscot and ceiling with Martha Hilton's
housewifely eyes, or with the satisfied regards
of Colonel Atkinson's late relict, we hearken
to another and yet more sensational legend
than that perpetuated by Longfellow.
According to this, Governor Benning Went
worth — a widower made childless by the death
of three sons — cast approving glances upon
Molly Pitman, a lass of low degree, who was
betrothed to a certain Richard Shortridge, a
mechanic, and therefore in her own rank of
life. Her persistent refusal of the great man
so incensed him that, by his connivance, a
press-gang was sent to the house of Short
ridge and carried him off to sea. After sun
dry transfers from one ship to another, he
gained the good-will of his commanding officer,
who listened patiently to his piteous tale.

OLD MANTEL IN THE COUNCIL-CHAMBER OF WENTWORTH HALL

403

Langdon and Wentworth Houses 4°5
" Run away, my lad, and we won't pursue
you," was the practical advice of the superior.
Richard Shortridge was not slow in taking
the friendly hint. Upon his return to Ports
mouth, he found his Molly faithful, and mar
ried her.
It was after this most unhandsome behav
iour upon the Governor's part (for which we
were not prepared by Longfellow, et als), that
he espoused Martha Hilton.
As they would have phrased it, the Ports
mouth people had no stomach for diverting
tales of any kind, for gossip of marrying and
giving in marriage, of singing men and sing
ing women. All this was vanity of vanities
while the old government was going to pieces
under them, and the seafaring qualities of the
hastily constructed raft of the new were
problematical. John Langdon and John Sullivan were com
missioners to the first Continental Congress in
May, 1 775, conferring there with Patrick Henry,
Richard Henry Lee, Caesar Rodney, Samuel
Adams, George Washington, and others. Lang
don was at home again, July 3d. We are in
debted to Mr. Corning for part of a letter
which shows us the moved depths of a nature

406 More Colonial Homesteads
that, up to this time, has seemed quiet to cold
ness, self-contained to austerity :
" The low mean revenge and wanton cruelty of the
Ministerial sons of tyranny in burning the pleasant
Town of Charlestown Beggars all Description. This
does not look like the fight of those who have so long
been Friends, and would hope to be Friends again, but
rather of a most cruel enemy, tho' we shall not wonder
when we Reflect that it is the infernald hand of Tyranny
which always has, and Ever will delluge that part of the
World (which it lays hold of) in Blood. . I am
sorry to be alone in so great and important Business as
that of representing a whole Colony, which no man is
equal to, but how to avoid it, I know not. . . I
shall endeavor, as far as my poor abilities will admit of,
to render every service in my power to my Country."
In 1776, he was appointed by Congress to
superintend the building of the frigate Raleigh,
and did not return to Philadelphia for some
months. To this absence was due the mis
fortune that his name did not take its rightful
place among the Signers of the Declaration of
Independence. He was made Speaker of the
New Hampshire House of Representatives in
1776 and in 1777.
" He was no orator," says his biographer,
" and scarcely a fair talker."
The exigency of Burgoyne's march towards

Langdon and Wentworth Houses 407
New England, and the unreadiness of the
patriots to meet him induced the Committee
of Safety to recall the Provincial Assembly in
haste. The summons got the members to
gether in three days' time, but their alacrity in
obeying the call was not expressive of the
state of their spirits. Men's hearts were fail
ing them for fear. What hope of success
ful resistance had companies of raw militia,
hurriedly drawn together, and commanded by
provincial officers, when opposed by the flower
of the English army in an overwhelming ma
jority as to numbers ? A more despondent
and woe-begone set of representatives was
never collected in the Assembly Hall. Lang
don sat, silent and observant, in the Speaker's
chair until the prevalent discouragement began
to take unto itself words. Then the patriot
who was "scarcely a fair talker" sprang to his
feet, the fire of a Henry in his eyes, the ring
of Henry's eloquence upon his tongue. With
out preamble or the waste of a word, he flung
out the briefest and most pertinent speech
ever uttered in any Legislature :
" T have three thousand dollars in hard money ! I
will pledge my plate for three thousand more. I have
seventy hogsheads of Tobago rum, which shall be sold

408 More Colonial Homesteads
for the most it will bring.1 These are at the service of
the State. If we succeed in defending our firesides and
homes, I may be remembered. If we do not, the
property will be of no value to me. Our old friend
Stark, who so nobly sustained the honour of our State at
Bunker Hill, may be safely intrusted with the conduct
of the enterprise, — and we will check the progress of
Burgoyne ! "
The effect was electric. The House re
solved itself into a Committee of the Whole
and ordered the entire militia of the State to
be formed into two brigades. The command
was given by acclamation to Stark. As I
have said, John Langdon's money equipped
a volunteer battalion. John Langdon in per
son led one company at Bennington. It is
with a thrill of genuine satisfaction that we
read of Colonel Langdon's presence at the sur
render of Burgoyne at Saratoga and that to
him was committed the honourable task of bear
ing the articles of the terms of capitulation
from the American general's headquarters to
the British forces. We hear of him again,
fighting under his old colleague, General Sulli-
van, in Rhode Island. Then, to him was
1 Portsmouth distillers and merchants had just raised the price of
rum to an extravagant figure in anticipation of the demands of the
army for " the essential concomitant to war in those days."

Langdon and Wentworth Houses 409
assigned by Congress the congenial task of
supervising frigate-building, enlisting marines,
and providing guns and ammunition for the
war-vessels when built.
When the war was over, he was president of
a State convention to consider the vexed ques
tion of paper money, and again, a delegate to
the United States Congress to deliberate upon
certain points of difference between that body
and New Hampshire. I have noted as one of
the interesting coincidences in the history of
the State that his name was the first signed
to the Federal Constitution.
When the political outlook was least promis
ing, and just before the impassioned upspring-
ing of patriotic fervor that threw his worldly
all into the trembling scale of national exist
ence, he had married Elizabeth Sherburne,
daughter of John and Mary Moffat Sherburne.
Near the close of the war the Langdon Man
sion in Pleasant Street was completed, the
building having been often interrupted.
November, 1 789, Washington, who had been
inaugurated as President of the United States
in April of that year, wrote in his diary of a
Sunday spent in Portsmouth. There had
been a triumphal reception of the President on

410 More Colonial Homesteads
Saturday, in which Colonel Michael Went
worth, Lady Benning Wentworth's second
husband, was chief marshal. General John
Sullivan was Governor of the State, and, with
the marshal and ex-Governor John Langdon,
accompanied Washington to " the Episcopal
church under the incumbency of Mr. Ogden,
and in the afternoon to one of the Presbyterian
or Congregational churches, in which a Mr.
Buckminster preached."
Upon this occasion, the President was at
tired in a suit of black velvet, with diamond
knee-buckles. Tobias Lear, a native of the
important seaport town, was with his chief.
The Presidential party was entertained by
Mr. Langdon and his wife in the home we
visit in Pleasant Street, a residence his Excel
lency was pleased to pronounce the " hand
somest in Portsmouth." The toothed cornices
of drawing-room and hall, the massive doors
and thick partition-walls were the same then
as we see them now. There are bits of Colo
nial furniture in every room, each having its
story. The whole house is in splendid preserv
ation, a fit and enduring type of the estate of
the man who built and occupied it when fortune
and fame were in their zenith. No citizen

Langdon and Wentworth Houses 411
had deserved better of his compatriots, and
when he threw open for the first time the great
doors of the Pleasant Street mansion, his heart
was full of grateful appreciation of the manner
in which they had tried to recompense him for
lavish expenditure of wealth, for valour in the
field, and wise counsels in the halls of public
debate. It was his hour of triumph, glad and
full, the day of prosperity in which none could
have blamed him for thinking, if he had not
said it, — " I shall never be moved."
Those of his blood, although not his lineal
descendants, still dwell under the stately roof.
Of them and of the homestead we shall
learn more in the next chapter.

XIV
THE LANGDON AND WENTWORTH HOUSES
IN PORTSMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE
( Concluded)
SENATOR MACLAY, of Pennsylvaina,
whose acquaintance we made in our chap
ters upon the Carroll homesteads, was not, as
we know, an admirer of John Adams and some
other dignitaries. We have from his caustic
pen a sketch of the dinner customs of the rich
and great in the last decade of the eighteenth
century, and are grateful, even though the
tendency of the clever skit be to lower the
greatest man of the country a quarter-degree
in our imaginations. The scene was the
dining-room of the Presidential mansion in
Philadelphia, and Mr. and Mrs. John Langdon
were among the bidden guests. It is in their
company, therefore, that we witness what went
on at the state banquet. 412

Langdon and Wentworth Houses 413
" The room " — Maclay complains — " was
disagreeably warm."
Then we have the menu :
" First was soup ; fish, roasted and boiled meats —
gammon [that is, ham, probably Old Virginia ham] fowls,
etc. The middle of the table was garnished in the usual
tasty way, with small images, flowers, (artificial) etc.
The dessert was, first, apple pies, puddings, etc. ; then,
ice-creams, jellies, etc. ; then, water-melons, musk
melons, apples, peaches, nuts. It was the most solemn
dinner ever I sat at. Not a health drank — scarce a
word said, until the cloth was taken away. Then, the
President, taking a glass of wine, with great formality,
drank to the health of every individual, by name,
around the table (!)
" Everybody imitated him — changed glasses ; and
such a buzz of ' Health, Sir ! ' and 'Health, Madam!'
and 'Thank you, Sir!' and 'Thank you, Madam!'
never had I heard before.
" Indeed, I had like to have been thrown out in the
hurry ; but I got a little wine in my glass, and passed
the ceremony. The bottles passed about, but there was
a dead silence almost. Mrs. Washington at last with
drew with the ladies. I expected the men would now
begin, but the same stillness remained. The President
told of a New England clergyman who had lost a hat
and wig in passing a river called ' the Brunks,' \_qutzre,
the Bronx ?] He smiled, and everybody else laughed.
The President kept a fork in his hand, when the cloth
was taken away, I thought for the purpose of picking
nuts. He eat no nuts, but played with the fork, striking
on the edge of the table with it."

414 More Colonial Homesteads
This is delightful ! It is also seriously sug
gestive of facts which are generally ignored
when we speak of Washington's administration.
The hero ceased to be a demi-god in becom
ing Chief Magistrate of the crude Republic.
What the New Hampshire Legislature objur
gated as a " spirit of malignant abuse," walked
openly in the land, and was especially rampant
in high places. To this era belongs the anec
dote of John Adams's private ebullition of
jealous contempt when the Father of his
Country was nominated for a second term.
Chancing to be, as he supposed, alone, in a
room where the most conspicuous decoration
was a portrait of the successful nominee, Mr.
Adams is said to have walked up to it and
shaken his fist in the impassive face :
" Oh ! you d — d old mutton-head ! If you
had not kept your mouth so closely shut, they
would have found you out ! "
The connection of the profane story with
the ponderous festivities so well depicted by
Maclay that we yawn while we laugh is
obvious. John Langdon, when elected for the second
time to the Senate, was honestly opposed to
Washington's administration, and did not cloak

Langdon and Wentworth Houses 415

his hostility. The passage of the Jay treaty
was the signal for a display of partisan fury,
imperfectly suppressed until the unpopular
measure afforded
a pretext for the
eruption. This celebrated
treaty, known by
the name of the
then Minister to
the English
Court, deter
mined the eastern
boundary of the
State of Maine ;
awarded to the
United States
$ 1 0,000,000 as re
prisal for the property of private citizens
captured unlawfully by British cruisers ; and
certain Western forts occupied by British gar
risons were given up. Thus far the advantage
to the United States was unequivocal. Joined
to these provisions, however, were clauses ex
cluding United States vessels from the ports
of Canada, and restricting the lucrative
West India trade. No security against the

GOV. JOHN LANGDON
FROM A PAINTING BY GILBERT STUART

416 More Colonial Homesteads
impressment of sailors was offered, and there
was equal neglect with respect to such neutrality
laws as regulated British and French priva
teers. When the Jay treaty was approved by the
Senate and signed by the President, a wild
wave of excitement rushed over the country.
Mass indignation meetings were held in every
city, and angry mobs wreaked their wrath
upon the property of legislators who had for
warded the measure. John Langdon had
fought valiantly against it in the Senate, and
had an enthusiastic ovation upon his return to
Portsmouth. In connection with this demonstration came
the first proof to him of the uncertainty of
popular favour. Other portions of the State
saw things in a different light from that in
which they appeared in the capital. The dis
senting Senator was hung in effigy in one town,
and at the next session of the Legislature
resolutions were passed affirming the confid
ence of that body in " the virtue and ability
of the minister who negotiated the Treaty ;
the Senate who advised its ratification, and
the President, the distinguished friend and
Father of his Country."

Langdon and Wentworth Houses 417
The tide had turned. John Langdon was
a politician instead of a patriot, "a partisan,"
to quote Mr. Corning, " whose hand was against
all who did not think and act as he did. He
had taken a leading part in the political war
fare, and he must abide the inevitable hostility
of his former friends."
And again, of him at a later date of the
troublous career upon which this partisanship
had cast him :
" His ideas of civil service, as applied to
office-holders, were Draconic. He is on record
as declaring that he hoped to live to see a
change in men, from George Washington to
door-keepers." It is an extraordinary testimony to the
hold this opponent of Washington and ally of
Madison and Jefferson had gained upon the
confidence of the bulk of his fellow-citizens,
by his probity and his personal gifts, that he
was again elected to the Legislature, and for
two years served as Speaker of the House.
Moreover, he was chosen Governor in 1802,
" receiving nearly half the entire vote," and
was a successful candidate for the guberna
torial office three times afterward — namely, in
1803, 1804, and 1805.

4i 8 More Colonial Homesteads
In 1812, he declined the nomination as can
didate for the Vice-Presidency, with Madison
as President upon the ticket.
" I am now seventy-one years of age," he
wrote, " my faculties blunted, and I have lived
for the last forty years of my life in the whirl
pool of politics, and am longing for the sweets
of retirement. . . . To launch again upon
the sea of politics at my time of life appears
to me highly improper."
Less than a month later than the date of
this simple and dignified letter, he put pen to
paper in a very different spirit. He had
always been an ardent admirer of James
Madison, yet a campaign libel declared that
he had declined to run for the Vice-Presidency
" because of his disapproval of Madison's
course." In repelling the charge, John Lang
don affirmed that he considered his " great
and good friend, Mr. Madison, one of our great
est statesmen, an ornament to our Country,
and above all, the noblest work of God, an
honest man."
There is sad acrimony in one of the con
cluding sentences of the last public deliverance
of this other " honest man."
" As our patience is worn out, and we have

Langdon and Wentworth Houses 419
drunk the dregs of the cup of humiliation, if
we now act with spirit and decision, we have
nothing to fear."
Those who sigh sentimentally for the purity
and calm of those elder days of our Republic,
would do well to study the history of the ad
ministrations of our first four presidents and
the private correspondence of the men who
then ruled and fought, and who suffered " the
stings and arrows of outrageous " calumnies,
such as are not peculiar to our times, or to
any particular time.
Our oft-quoted travelled friend, the Mar
quis de Chastelleux, who seems to have left
no notable nook or family unvisited, was mar
vellously taken with John Langdon, whom he
met in 1780 or 1781.
" After dinner," he says, " we went to drink tea with
Mr. Langdon. He is a handsome man, and of noble
carriage ; he has been a member of Congress, and is now
one of the first people of the Country ; his house is elegant
and well furnished, and the apartments admirably well
wainscoted ; he has a good manuscript chart of the har
bour of Portsmouth. Mrs. Langdon, his wife, is young,
fair, and tolerably handsome, but I conversed less with
her than with her husband, in whose favour I was preju
diced from knowing he had displayed great courage and
patriotism at the time of Burgoyne's expedition. For,

420 More Colonial Homesteads
repairing to the Council Chamber, of which he was a
member, and perceiving that they were about to discuss
some affairs of little consequence, he addressed them as
follows :
Gentlemen, you may talk as you please ; but I know
that the enemy is on our frontiers, and I am going to
take my pistols and mount my horse to combat with my
fellow-citizens.' " The greatest part of the members of the Council and
Assembly followed him, and joined General Gates at
Saratoga. As he was marching day and night, reposing
himself only in the woods, a negro servant who attended
him said to him, ' Master, you are hurting yourself ; but
no matter, you are going to fight for Liberty. I should
suffer also patiently if I had Liberty to defend.' ' Don't
let that stop you,' replied Mr. Langdon ; ' from this
moment you are free.' The negro followed him, behaved
with courage, and has never quitted him.
" On leaving Mr. Langdon's, we went to pay a visit to
Colonel [Michael] Wentworth, who is respected in this
country, not only from his being of the same family as
Lord Rockingham, but from his genuine acknowledged
character for probity and talents."
We have a last view of Portsmouth's most
distinguished citizen in the diary of his almost
lifelong friend, Governor Plumer. The date
is July 23, 1816 :
" Visited L. He is so literally broken down in body
and mind that it gave me pain to behold the wreck of

Langdon and Wentworth Houses 42 1
human nature in a man who had been distinguished for
the elegance of his person and the offices he had held in
public life."
He lived on thus for three years longer,
"civil, kind, and affectionate, and tho' weak
in mind, yet not foolish," until he passed away,
in the seventy-ninth year of his age. He was
borne from his beautiful home in Pleasant
Street to his last resting-place, amid the firing
of minute-guns from the navy-yard, the display
of bunting at half-mast from public offices and
private houses, and all the other tokens of
general mourning.
" Every mark of respect was rendered to
the memory of the distinguished patriot who
had done so much for the welfare of his coun
try and the good of his fellow-citizens."
The handsome homestead in Pleasant Street
has sheltered a great companyof " honourables "
in its long day. Louis Philippe was Mr. Lang
don's guest while in America ; Washington
and his aids, Lafayette, de Chastelleux, and
every other foreigner of distinction who took
Portsmouth en route in his tour, broke bread
with the hospitable owner, and was ministered
to by his amiable and accomplished wife.
After Mr. Langdon's death it was for many

422 More Colonial Homesteads
years the residence of that kindly despot, the
Reverend Charles Burroughs, D.D.,who "ruled
like a king the little literary circle in Ports
mouth of which he was undisputed head."
Ever since the death of Dr. Burroughs's
widow, the house has been the property of
Woodbury Langdon, Esq. of New York City.
As he has another country seat near Ports
mouth where he prefers to reside, the home
stead is presided over by his sister and brother,
whose patient courtesy to curious and senti
mental visitors is proverbial.
The Reverend Dr. Alfred Elwyn of Phila
delphia, whose summer home is just outside of
Portsmouth, is a great-grandson of John Lang
don, his grandmother having been the only
child of John and Elizabeth Sherburne Lang
don, who married Thomas Elwyn, Esq., of
Canterbury, England. A daughter of Dr.
Elwyn is the wife of Woodbury Langdon,
Esq., mentioned above.
Dr. Burroughs was Rector of St. John's
Church, one of the most important features of
a city which is as redolent of ancient story as
of the sweet salt waves that bathe her feet
and send coolness, health, and strength through
her streets.

>oo

Langdon and Wentworth Houses 425
For St. John's Chapel — where it may still
be seen — was bought by Dr. Burroughs, in
1836, the "first organ that ever pealed to the
glory of God in this country."
It was imported in 1713 by Mr. Brattle of
Boston, who left it in his will to the well-
known old Brattle Street Church, provided
"they shall accept thereof, and within a year
after my decease, procure a sober person that
can play skillfully thereon with a loud noise."
No skill could draw out the loud noise
now, but the notes coaxed forth by our re
spectful fingers are, even yet, tuneful, justifying
the original owner's pride and Dr. Burroughs's
purchase. Yet, as we walk over to Queen's Chapel to
see the relic, we are amused by the story that
the "o'er-pious " Brattle Street people left the
legacy boxed up for eight months before the
more progressive could overcome the prejudice
against the use of " an ungodly chest of
whistles" in the Meeting House.
The Reverend Dr. Hovey, the present rec
tor of St. John's, is an indefatigable and most
intelligent archaeologist and antiquarian, and
within a few years, valuable discoveries have
been made in the venerable building and

426 More Colonial Homesteads
adjoining grounds. Not the least interesting
of these is a set of mural tablets recording
several donations to church and parish. One
which instantly seizes upon our attention is a
bequest from Colonel Theodore Atkinson, in
1 754, of a valuable tract of land upon which
tombs, vaults, and monuments may be erected.
He also bequeathed ^200, the interest to
be used in the purchase of bread for the poor
of the church, the distribution to take place
each Sunday. The custom is still kept up.
Another discovery made this year is of a
subterranean passage leading to the church
yard from the basement of the church.
In St. John's churchyard sleep the fathers
of what was but a seaside hamlet when they
helped to make it. The Wentworth vault
holds Benning Wentworth and his brother
Michael, with the woman whom both had to
wife. The last Royal Governor, the rollick
ing John of our liking, was buried in Nova
Scotia, severed from home and kindred in
death as in life by loyalty to the King to whom
he owed his preferment. The Reverend
Arthur Brown is here, and Colonel Atkinson,
who would have had no place in the Annals of
Portsmouth but for his complaisance in making

Langdon and Wentworth Houses 427

way for the former lover of his easily consoled
relict. The American branch of the Langdon family
has been, for over a hundred years, nobly re
presented by Woodbury
Langdon — the brother
of John — and his de
scendants. He was the
junior of John by two
years, having been born
in 1738. He married at
twenty-seven — twelve
years before his brother
entered upon the holy
estate — Sarah, the
daughter of Henry and Sarah Warner Sher
burne. Ten children were the fruit of this
union :
(1) Henry Sherburne, who married Ann
Eustis, a sister of Governor William Eustis.
(2) Sarah Sherburne, married to Robert
Harris. (3) Mary Ann, died, unmarried.
(4) Woodbury, died, unmarried. (5) John,
married to Charlotte Ladd. (6) Caroline,
married to William Eustis, M.D., LL.D., Sur
geon in the Revolutionary War; Member of
Congress, 1801-1805 and 1820-1823 ; Secretary

yy
SHERBURNE COAT-OF-ARMS

428 More Colonial Homesteads
of War, 1 807-1 813 ; Minister to Holland, 18 14-
1818 ; Governor of Massachusetts in 1823. (7)
Joshua, died, single. (8) Harriet, died, single.
(9) Catherine Whipple, married Edmund
Roberts. (10) Walter, married Dorothea,
daughter of John Jacob Astor.
Woodbury Langdon was a man of singular
personal beauty, and exquisite charm of man
ner, a family characteristic, and hereditary. He
was a delegate to the Continental Congress,
1 779-1 780 ; Counsellor of State of New Hamp
shire, 1 781-1 784; President of New Hampshire
Senate, 1784; Judge of Supreme Court of
New Hampshire, 1 782-1 791.
His wealth and taste enabled him to erect
for his private residence the building which
has been converted into the palatial Rocking
ham Hotel. The mansion cost Judge Lang
don $30,000, and was built with bricks brought
from England. It was supposed to be fire
proof, and far surpassed in dimensions, decora
tions, and general architectural beauty any
other house in New Hampshire — or indeed in
New England. It was finished in 1785 and
kept up in superb style during Judge Lang
don's lifetime. After his death and the mar
riage and dispersion of the large family that

¦ ¦
¦ ¦ .

1 ^|

*y?7 ' -\
-•

',•'

immffifi§Mii:MK^ i;' ¦ M*" ¦ ¦ r ^Hf

pP|

WOODBURY LANQDON, 1775
FROM A PAINTING BY JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY
429
Langdon and Wentworth Houses 431
had filled it, his sons sold it (in 18 10) toThomas
Elwyn, Esq., the husband of Elizabeth Lang
don, the only child of Governor John Langdon.
In 1830, it passed out of the family and since
then has been used as a hotel. In 1884, a fire
damaged the building greatly, but spared the
fine wainscots and the magnificent octagonal
dining-room, the marvel of ancient Portsmouth
and the pride of the modern city. It is still
the study of architects from near and from far ;
and an enduring memorial to the intelligence
and refinement of the first proprietor.
The portrait of Judge Woodbury Lang
don has a distinguished place in the State
House at Concord, the present capital of
New Hampshire.
The name of Edmund Roberts who married
Judge Langdon's youngest daughter is insep
arably associated with our earliest diplomatic
relations with the Far East. Born in Ports
mouth in 1784, he was offered an appoint
ment as midshipman in the United States
Navy at thirteen, but preferred a place in the
merchant service, dividing his time between
England and South America until he was
twenty-four years old. He amassed a large
fortune and became a heavy ship-owner before

432 More Colonial Homesteads
he utilised, in diplomatic life, the results of his
wide observation and deep thought respecting
our foreign commercial relations. He was
sent upon a special embassy by the Govern
ment to make treaties with Muscat, Siam, and
Cochin China in 1830, and again in 1835, "to
visit Japan with like purpose," but died at
Macao before the work was fully accomplished.
A posthumous volume under the caption of
Embassy to Eastern Courts, details his successes
during a voyage of twenty-six months.
A memorial window of exquisite design and
execution in St. John's Church, Portsmouth,
was presented to the parish by Mrs. J. V. L.
Pruyn in honour of her grandfather, the first
American diplomatist in Asia, whose unfinished
work was consummated many years later by
Matthew Perry and Townsend Harris.
One of his surviving daughters married the
Reverend A. P. Peabody, D.D., of Harvard
University ; another, Harriet Langdon, be
came the wife of the Honorable Amasa Junius
Parker of Albany.
The marriage ceremony of Judge and Mrs.
Parker was performed by Rev. Dr. Burroughs,
who had also baptised the bride. The first
ten years of their married life were spent in

WINDOW TO EDMUND AND CATHERINE LANGDON ROBERTS IN
ST. JOHN'S CHURCH

433

Langdon and Wentworth Houses 435
Delhi, New York. In rapid succession Mr.
Parker was chosen a Regent of the University
of New York, made Vice-Chancellor and a
Judge of the Circuit Court, Member of Con
gress, 1838-9 ; then, Judge of the Supreme
Court. He was one of the founders of the
Albany Law School, and for twenty years
one of the professors. His contributions to
the legal literature of the United States were
important. In 1884, Judge and Mrs. Parker celebrated
their golden wedding at the " The Cliffs," the
Newport home of their daughter, Mrs. J. V.
L. Pruyn. There were then living of the
ten children born to the honoured parents : —
Mrs. Pruyn, General Amasa Junius Parker, Jr.,
Mrs. Erastus Corning, and Mrs. Selden E.
Marvin. The fine " Holiday Window " in St.
John's Church, Portsmouth, to the memory of
Edmund Roberts and his wife was erected by
Mrs. Pruyn in honour of the golden wedding.
The figures therein depicted are those of St.
Edmund and St. Catherine, with their legends.
The harmonious family group assembled upon
the memorable occasion I have chronicled, was
broken by the death of Mrs. Parker, June 28,
1889.

436 More Colonial Homesteads
The Albany Argus, in a biographical sketch
of one who was, for forty years, a ruling in
fluence in Albany society, says :
" Mrs. Parker had strong religious convictions and
high ideals, and was possessed of great force of char
acter and the many graces and charms that are em
bodied in the character of a good woman. She was a
woman, also, of extraordinary unselfishness and always
solicitous of the comfort and welfare of others."
How far the eulogium understates the sterl
ing qualities and exceeding lovableness of the
subject, those who were admitted to her home
and a place in the true, tender heart, can best
say. Judge Parker died May 13, 1890, and Mrs.
Erastus Corning very suddenly at Easter-tide,
1899. To the rare, fine spirit whose life was a
continual benediction to church, community,
and home, the translation, upon the dearest
and most joyful of Christian festivals, was a
beautiful passing over, not a passing out.
In reviewing the history of the New-World
lines of the Langdon race, the believer in
hereditary influences in shaping and colouring
human destiny finds abundant confirmation of
what is no more theory, but a science which is
not far from exactness.

MRS. WOODBURY LANGDON
FROM A PAINTING BY JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY

437

Langdon and Wentworth Houses 439
In addition to the pure strong flood poured
by Woodbury Langdon into the minds and
souls of his descendants, Judge Parker's child
ren have drawn high principles and fine mental
traits from their mother's forbears, — Governor
Thomas Dudley of the Massachusetts Bay
Colony ; Governor Theophilus Eaton of the
New Haven Colony, and Lieutenant-Governor
Gibbins of the Province of New Hampshire ;
also, from Henry Sherburne of Portsmouth,
New Hampshire, a Judge and a member of
His Majesty's Privy Council, and a delegate to
the famous Congress held in Albany in 1754.

INDEX

Adams, John, 249, 256, 264, 271,
412, 414
Aken, Miss, 52
Albany, 14, 17, 20, 187
Anderson, Mrs. Elizabeth San
ders, 175
Anderson, William, 175
Andre, Major John, 2, 76
Anne, Queen, 2
Arnold, Benedict, 2, 361
Atkinson, Colonel Theodore,
396, 402, 426
Ayers, Dr., 143 I!
Baker, Louisa, 234, 240-242
Baker, Mr., 235
Ball, Mrs. julia, 80
Ball, Mary, 98
Balls, The, 98
Banning, Mrs. Henry Geddes,
331-333, 339. 342, 343
Barrett, Dr., 291
Barron, Commodore, 267
Bassett, Richard, 357
Bayard, Hon. Thomas F., 297,
304, 307, 308, 362
Bayard, Samuel J., 139
Beekman, Catherine Sanders,
175
Beekman, Girard, 175

Beekman, John Jacob, 175
Beekman, Mrs. Maria Glen, 175
Belmont Hall, 347, 34S, 360, 361,
3&3, 3&7, 369, 370, 377
Belvedere, 264, 269
Beverwyck, 155, 157
Blennerhassett, 88, 89
Bonaparte, Elizabeth Patterson,
264, 267
Bonaparte, Jerome, 264
Bond, Dr. Thomas, 300
Botetourt, Lord, 74
Boudinot, Elias, 105, 106, 117,
130
Bradford, The Misses, 327
Brant, Joseph, 24, 25, 42, 45, 47,
49, 55
Brant, Molly, 24-29, 47, 58,
63
Brant, Nickus, 24
Brattle, Mr., 425
Brent, Robert, 229
Brooke, Clement, 225
Brooke, Elizabeth, 228
Brooklandwood, 263
Brown, (Rev.) Arthur, 382, 397,
398, 426
Brown, Mrs. W. R., 148
Burgoyne, General, 216, 221,
406, 408
Burr, Aaron, 84, S8, 89, 264
Burroughs, (Rev.) Charles, 422,
425, 432
Butler, (Colonel) John, 42, 60

441

442

Index

Butler, Walter, 20, 42, 50, 181
Butler's Ford, 50
Butler's Homestead, 51
Butlers, The, 66, 72
Byrd, Mrs. Charles Willing, 93
Byrd, William Evelyn, 86
Byrd, William (III.), 66
Byrds, The, 66, 72
C
Caldwell, James, 52
Calvert, Charles, Lord Balti
more, 226, 227, 233, 279, 290
Canajoharie, 24, 156
Carroll, Catherine, 253, 256, 257
Carroll, Charles (I.), 225, 227,
228, 277
Carroll, Charles of Annapolis,
224-228, 230, 235, 237, 252,
253, 2S0
Carroll, Charles of Carrollton,
219, 224, 225, 227, 228, 236,
242, 243, 245, 246, 249-251,
256-258, 261-265, 267-273,
278,280, 283
Carroll, Charles of Homewood,
22q, 234, 253, 254, 258, 261,
262, 270, 280, 283
Carroll, Charles (V.), 264, 267,
275
Carroll, Charles (VI.), 275, 277
Carroll, Charles (VII.), 276
Carroll, Daniel, 228, 254, 257
Carroll, Elizabeth Brooke, 237,
238
Carroll, Henry, 227, 228
Carroll, James, 228
Carroll, John, 229
Carroll, (Governor) John Lee,
275-277
Carroll, Madame Mary, 228
Carroll, Mary, 253, 255, 256
Carroll, Mrs. Anita Phelps, 275
Carroll, Mrs. Caroline Thomp
son, 275
Carroll, Mrs. Charles (Sr.), 253
Carroll, Mrs. Charles (Jr.), 253

Carroll, Mrs. Charles (VI.), 275
Carroll, Mrs. John Lee, 275
Carroll, Mrs. Marion Langdon,
276
Carroll, Mrs. Mary Carter
Thompson, 275
Carroll, Mrs. Mary Digges Lee.
275, 277
Carroll, Mrs. Susanne Bancroft,
276
Carroll, Philip Acosta, 276
Carroll, Royal Phelps, 276
Caton, Betsey, 266
Caton, Emily, 266
Caton, Louise, 267
Caton, Mary, 267
Caton, Mrs. Mary, 263, 266,
267
Caton, Richard, 255
Caughnawaga, 4, 57
Chase, Mr. Samuel, 249
Chastelleux, Marquisde, 65, 151,
419, 421
Chaumiere du Prairie, 77, 78,
80, 84, 87, 88, 90, 91, 95, 96
Cherokees, The, 7
Cherry Valley, 50
Chew, Chief-Justice Benjamin,
286, 301, 302, 340
Chew, Harriet, 262, 263, 283
Chew, "Peggy," 262, 264
Chew, Samuel, 286
Chew, The Misses, 301
Chew House, The, 286
Clark, Hon. John, 363
Claus, (Colonel) Daniel, 12, 47,
58, 60, 73, 179, 1S0
Claus, Nancy, 29
Clay, Henry, 88
Clayton, John Middleton, 286
Clinton, Sir Henry, 2,19, 21, 22,
30, 76, 197, 204
Cliveden, 262, 286
Cloke, Ebenezer, 363, 364, 36S
Cloke, John, 348, 360, 363
Cloke, Mrs. John, 370
Collins, Dr. William, 348, 363

Index

44:

Collins, (Governor) Thomas, 347
-35°, 353, 357, 358, 361-363,
369
Collins, Mrs. Thomas, 368
Comegys, Hon. Joseph P., 286
Constitution Hill, 108
Cook, Elizabeth, 363, 364, 367,
368
Cook, (Governor) John, 346,
347, 358, 369
Cooke, Rachel, 240, 242, 243
Cooke, William, 263
Cookham, 98, 99
Coolidge, T. Jefferson, 402
Corning, Charles R., 405, 417
Corning, Mrs. Erastus, 435,
436
Cornwallis, Lord, 120, 133, 151,
153
Covenhoven, Mr. John, 120, 121
Creighton, Judge, 89
Cromwell, Oliver, 68
Cromwell, Thomas, 67, 68
Crown Point, 17, 20, 73, 204,
381
Cummins, George W. , 374
Custis, Nelly, 262
Cuthbert, Alexander, 136
Cuthbert, Susan Stockton, 136
D
Dame, Rev. G. W., 364, 367
Darnall, Henry, 225
Darnall, Mary, 225, 243-245
Darnall, Miss, 255
Darnall, Mrs., 252, 253, 283
Dartmouth, The Earl of, 39
Dartmouth College, 25, 31, 391
Decatur, Commodore Stephen,
142, 267
Decatur, Mrs., 267
De Graff, 176
Delancey, James, 2
Delanceys, The, 28, 197
Denny, Mrs. Anne, 374, 375
Dod, Mrs. W. A., 148
Doughoregan Chapel, 253

Doughoregan Manor, 227, 230,
246, 253, 258, 261, 267, 268,
274-277
Dover (Del.), 2S5, 286, 301, 315
Dow, Lorenzo, 325, 326
Dudley, (Governor) Thomas,
439
Dupont, Mr., 316, 319, 320

Eaton, (Governor) Theophilus,
439
Eden Hill, 289, 294
Edwards, Mrs., 59, 60
Elwyn, (Dr.) Alfred, 422
Elwyn, Thomas, 422, 431
Eustis, Mrs. Caroline Langdon,
427
Eustis, William, 427
Everard, Sir Richard, 69
Everett, Edward, go

Fenton, Colonel, 394, 395
Field, Mrs. Abigail, in, 136
Field, Robert, 136
Five Nations, The, 22
Fonda, 57
Franklin, (Dr.) Benjamin, 251
Frederic, Harold, 28
Frelinghausen, Dominie, 208
Fulton, Robert, 183

Gage, General, 73
Gates, (General) Horatio, 420
Gibbins, Lieutenant-Governor,
439 , „
Glen, Alexander Lindsay (" San
der Leendertse "), 156-160,
162
Glen, Alexander (II.), 170
Glen, (Captain) Alexander, 160,
166
Glen, Catherine Dongan, 159

444

Index

Glen, Deborah, 171, 173, 174,
186
Glen, Jacob, 170, 171, 215
Glen, Jacob Alexander (I.), 160
Glen, Jacob Alexander (II.),
170
Glen, John (II.) 170, 174, 175
Glen, (Judge) Elias, 170
Glen, (Judge) John (III.), 170,
,m
Glen, (Major) John Alexander,
160, 162-166, 169, 170, 174
Glen, Mrs. Anna Peek, 160, 162,
164, 166
Glen, Sarah, 175
Gordon, Lord Adam, 29, 113
Grange, Anita Maria, Baronne
de la, 276
Grange, Louis, Baron de la, 276
Grant, Mrs. Anne ("of Lag-
gan"), 27, 187, 188, 195-197,
212-215, 220
Griffis, William Elliot, 63, 64
H
Hageman, John Frelinghuysen,
12S, 140, 143
Hale, Major, 386
Hamilton, Alexander, 219, 220,
257
Hampton, 263
Harper, (General) Robert Good-
loe, 257, 258, 270
Harper, Mrs. Mary, 266, 267
Harris, Robert, 427
Harris, Sarah Sherburne, 427
Harris, Townsend, 432
Harrow School, 69, 70
Haslet, (Colonel) John, 287
Herkimer, County of, 156
Herkimer, General, 60
Hervey, (Colonel) Sir Felton
Bathurst, 267
Hervey, Mrs., 272
Hillhouse, (General) Thomas,
56

Hillhouse, Miss Margaret P.,
iii
Hilton, Martha, 382, 385, 402,
4°5
Holmes, Mrs., 322
" Homestead, The," 263
Homewood, 263, 264, 270, 280
Hopkins, Mrs., 148
Hovey, Rev. Dr., 425
Howard, (Colonel) John Eager,
263, 264, 269, 270
Howe, (General) Sir William, 2,
122
Howe, Lord, 206, 207
Howell, Mrs. Admiral, 148
Howell, Mrs. F. D., 148
Hunter, Mrs. Mary Stockton,
136
Hunter, Rev. Dr., 136

I

Ilchester, The Earl of, 28
Ingles, (Rev.) Charles, 302
Iroquois, The, 5, 19
Irving, Washington, 360, 375
J
Jackson, (General) Andrew, 84,
145
James River, The, 65, 66
Jay, John, 251, 415, 416
Jefferson, Thomas, 264, 268,
271, 332
Johnson, Ann ("Nancy"), 12,
47, 57, 58, 180
Johnson, (Captain) Warren, ig
Johnson Castle, 8
Johnson, Christopher, 1
Johnson, Fort, 14
Johnson, Guy, 12, 39, 42, 45,
47, 5S, 60
Johnson Hall, 6, 8, 13, 14, 17,
18, 20, 28, 32, 35, 36, 45-49,
51, 52, 63, 73, 113
Johnson, Lady, 46
Johnson, Mary, 12, 29, 57, 58

Index

445

Johnson, Mrs., 12, 14, 57
Johnson, Sir Adam Gordon, 51
Johnson, Sir John, 12, 29, 32,
38, 39, 42, 45, 46, 48, 49, 5L
55, 60, 181
Johnson, Sir William, 1, 3-7, g,
10, 13, 17, 19,20, 22-24, 27-30,
35-37, 40, 4L 47, 51, 55-57,
59, 60, 63, 73, 113, 179, 192,
204
Johnson, William, 25, 47
Johnstown, 37, 57, 63
Johnstown, Episcopal Church of,
45, 60, 64
Jones, John Paul, 380
K
Kellogg, (Rev.) Charles II., 63
Kemp, Deborah, 166
Kergolay, Jean, Comte de, 275
Kergolay, Marie Louise, Com-
tesse de, 275

Lafayette, Marquis de, 46, 139,
151, 268, 269, 333, 337, 340,
421
Lake George, 25, 31
Langdon, Harriet, 428
Langdon, Henry Sherburne, 427
Langdon, John, 382, 385, 386,
389, 390, 392-395, 405, 407,
408, 410, 414, 416-422, 427,
43i
Langdon, John (II. ), 427
Langdon, Joshua, 428
Langdon, Mary Anne, 427
Langdon, Mrs. Ann Eustis, 427
Langdon, Mrs. Charlotte Ladd,
427
Langdon, Mrs. Dorothea Astor,
428
Langdon, Mrs. John, 410, 412,
419
Langdon, Walter, 428
Langdon, Woodbury (I.), 422,
427, 428, 431, 43g

Langdon, Woodbury (II. ), 427
Langdon, Woodbury (III.), 422
Langdons, The, 3S6
Latham, Mary, 6g
Lear, Eve, 367, 368
Lear, Tobias, 367, 410
Lebanon, 31
Lee, (Colonel) Charles, 205, 206,
208, 214
Lee, Richard Henry, 305
Leeds, Duke of, 272
Letcher, Mrs. Anna Meade, Sg,
9°, 93
Lossing, Benson J., 52, 57
Louis Philippe, 184, 337, 421
M
Maclay, William, 256, 412-414
Madison, James, 268, 41S
Malpas, Barony of, 100
Malpas, Church of, 100
Malpas, Parish of, 101
Marvin, Mrs. Selden E., 435
Massie, Elizabeth, 89
Maycox, 65, 66, 74, 75, 79
McGill, Mrs. Chancellor, in,
124, 136
McKean, Thomas, 305-307, 311,
357, 3&9
McTavish, Mrs. Emily, 272,
279
Meade, Andrew, 68
Meade, David (I.), 69
Meade, David (II.), 65-67, 69-
71, 73-75, 77, 79, 84-90, 93-
95
Meade, David (III.), 77, 88, 93
Meade, Elizabeth, 89
Meade, Everard, 72
Meade, Mrs. David, 83, 84
Meade, Richard Kidder, 70-72,
76
Meades, The, 67, 68, 83, 85, 96
Meredith. Jonathan, 258
Miller, Betsey, 94, 95
Mohawk River, 2
Mohawk, Valley of, 1

446

Index

Mohawks, Tribe of, 5, 18, 19,
155, 156, 158, 163
Moor Charity School, 25, 42
Moore, Lady, 214, 216
Moore, Sir Henry, 214, 216
Morven, no, 113, 114, 117, 119,
120, 123, 124, 126, 128-130,
139, 140, 142, 147,148, 151, 152
Mott, Lucretia, 315, 316, 3ig,
320 N
Nassau Hall, 130
Newcastle, Duke of, 19
North, Lord, 138 O
O'Brian, Lady Susan, 28
O'Brians, The, 2g
Oriskany, 4S
Ossian's Poems, 109
Oswego, ig P
Parker, (General) Amasa Junius,
435
Parker, (Hon.) Amasa Junius,
432, 435, 43&, 439
Parker, Mrs. Harriet Langdon,
432, 435, 436
Parkman, Francis, 8, II, 41
Patterson, Mrs. Robert, 272
Paulus, 24
Peabody, (Rev.) A. P., 432
Peale, Charles Wilson, 246
Peale, Rembrandt, 261
Penn, William, 40, 102, 285
Perry, Matthew, 432
Peterson, J. Howard, 348
Phillips, Abigail, 104
Phillipses, The, 28
Pintard, Captain, 105, 153
Pintard, Louis, 105, 153
Pise, (Rev.) Constantine, 274
Pitman, Molly, 402, 405
Plumer, Governor, 420
Pontiac, Conspiracy of, 11

Poplar Grove, 322
Portsmouth (N. H.), 381
Potter, John, 148
Powis, Lord, 226
Princeton, Battle of, 122
Princeton, History of, 128
Princeton, The, 145
Pruyn, Mrs. J. V. L., ii, i8g,
432, 435 R
Randolph, Richard, of Curies,
72
Randolphs, The, 73
Ranken, Mary Wallace, 261
Read, George, 305, 357
Rensselaer, Maria, 191
Ridgely, Ann Moore, 290
Ridgely, (Dr.) Charles, 290
Ridgely, Henry (I.), 288
Ridgely, Henry (II. ), 289
Ridgely, Henry (III.), 289
Ridgely, Henry (V.), 294
Ridgely, Henry (VI.), 2g4, 322
Ridgely, Henry Moore, 290-292,
293, 316, 319, 320
Ridgely, Miss 316, 320
Ridgely, Mrs. Dr. Charles, 338,
342
Ridgely, Mrs. Henry (Jr.), 287,
321
Ridgely, MSS., 285, 287, 307
Ridgely, (Judge) Nicholas (I.),
289, 2g6, 297, 321, 331, 332
Ridgely, Nicholas (II.), 290
Robbins, Herbert D., 276
Robbins. Mrs. Mary Helen, 276
Roberts, (Hon.) Edmund. 428,
431, 435
Roberts, Mrs. Catherine Whip
ple, 428, 435
Rochambeau, Count of, 65, 151
Rodney, Caesar (I.), 297
Rodney, Caesar (IL), 287, 290,
297-299, 302-307, 311-313,
321, 331-333, 337, 346, 358,
362, 369, 376

Index

447

Rodney. Caesar Augustus, 344
Rodney, Thomas, 2g7, 332
Rodney, William (I.), 2g7
Rodney, William (II.), 297
Rowland, Kate Mason, 225, 230,
236, 241, 251
Rowland, Sarah, 307
Rush, (Dr.) Benjamin, 114, 136
Rush, Mrs. Julia Stockton, 114,
136

Sanders, Albertine Ten Broeck,
175
Sanders, Anna Lee, 176
Sanders, Barent, 175
Sanders, Charles P. (I.), 175
Sanders, Charles P. (II.), 176,
178, 182
Sanders, Deborah, 175
Sanders, Jacob Glen (I.), 175
Sanders, Jacob Glen (II.), 175
Sanders, John (I.), 171, 172, 174
Sanders, John (II.), 175-177,
183
Sanders, John (III.), 175, 183
Sanders, Mrs. Jacob Glen, 173
Sanders, Peter, 175, 176
Sanders, Robert, 175
Saratoga, 32
Schenectady, 31, 155, 156, 158
Schuyler, Catalina, igi
Schuyler, Catherine Van Rensse
laer, 219
Schuyler, Elizabeth, 219
Schuyler, George W., 197, 213
Schuyler, Johannes, 191, 192,
195, 214
Schuyler, "Madame" Mar
garitta, 190-192, 195,201-203,
205-208, 212-216
Schuyler, Margaritta (I.), 191
Schuyler, " Margaritta," (III.),
222
Schuyler, Pedrom, 207
Schuyler, Peter ("Quidor"),
igi, 197

Schuyler, Peter (II.), 191
Schuyler, (Colonel) Philip, 191,
195, 196, 198, 203, 205
Schuyler, (General) Philip, 46,
197, 214, 216, 219-222
Schuyler, Mrs. Philip, 221
Schuyler, Richard, 213
Scotia, 158, 159, 162, 164, 169-
171, 174, 175, 181, 186
Scott, Robert G. , 269
Sherburne, Elizabeth, 4og
Sherburne, Henry, 439
Sherburne, John, 409
Sherburne, Mary Moffat, 409
Shields, Rev. Dr., 151
Shields, Mr., 291
Shortridge, Richard, 402, 405
Six Nations, The, 30, 35, 46
Smith, (Captain) John, 5, 380
Smith, (Hon.) Horace E., 64
Smith, Samuel Stanhope, 126
Sparks, Jared, 25
Speakman, Mrs. Peterson, 358,
3&3, 378
Starke, (General) John, 381, 408
Stockbridge, 31
Stockton, Abigail, 105, 153
Stockton, Anice Boudinot, 107-
109, in, 118, 123, 124, 126,
I2g, 130, 135, 136
Stockton, Bayard, 151
Stockton, David de, 100
Stockton, (Sir) Edward, 100
Stockton, Hannah, 105
Stockton, Job, 102
Stockton, John (I.), IOI
Stockton, John (II. ), 102-105,
108
Stockton, John (III.), 105
Stockton, John Potter, 148
Stockton, John W., 118, 125
Stockton, Manor of, 100
Stockton, Miss Maria, 148
Stockton, Mrs. Maria Potter, 148
Stockton, Owen, 100, 101
Stockton, Philip, 106, 117
Stockton, Rebecca, 105

448

Index

Stockton, Richard (I.), IOI
Stockton, Richard (II. ), 102,
103, 108
Stockton, Richard (III.), 103
Stockton, Richard (IV.), 105,
10b
Stockton, Richard (" The Sign
er "), 106, 10S, no, in, 117,
118, 120, 122, 126, 128
Stockton, Richard (VI.), 119,
130, 136, 139, 140
Stockton, Richard (VII.), 140,
148
Stockton, (Commodore) Robert
Field, 140-148, 154
Stockton, (General) Robert
Field, 148
Stockton, Samuel Witham, 106,
117
Stockton, Susannah (I.), 103
Stockton, Susannah (II. ), 105,
153
" Stone Arabia," g
Stone, Herbert, II, 18, 4g
Stony Brook, 102
Stuart, Gilbert, 262
Stuyvesant, Peter, 155
Sullivan, (General) John, 392,
405, 408, 410
" Sycamore," 89

Ten Broeck, Helen, 182
Ten Broeck, Jane L., 176
Ten Eyck, Elsie Glen, 175
Ten Eyck, Myndart Schuyler,
175
Tennent, (Rev.) William, 105
Thackeray, Dr., 69, 71
Thackeray, William Makepeace,
70, 71
Thompson, Mrs. W. L., 89
Ticonderoga, 73, 205
Townsend, Charles, 112
Townsend, George Alfred, 327

Van Cortlandt, Cornelia, 214
Van Curler, Arent, 155
Van Rensselaer, Killian, 175
Van Rensselaer, Mrs. Margaret
Glen, 175
Van Rensselaer, Peter Schuyler,
175
Van Rensselaer, Sarah, 175
Van Slichtenhorst, Margaritta,
.I?1
Vining, (Captain) Benjamin, 290
Vining, John, 290, 331, 33g
Vining, John Middleton, 2go,
333
Vining, Mary (I.), 302
Vining, Mary (II.), 290, 331,
333-335, 338-345
Vining, Mrs. Mary Middleton,
331
Virden, Miss Rose, 294
W
Wallace, Mary, 261
Warbridge, 289
Warren, Oliver, 22
Warren, (Sir) Peter, 2-5, 14
Warrenton, I
Washington, Augustine, 98, 99
Washington, George, 98, 99,
122, 130, 135, 151, 179, 219,
251, 262, 303, 304, 312, 357,
359, 360, 375, 376, 409, 410,
414
Washington, John, gg
Washington, Lawrence, 9g
Washington, Mrs. George, 135,
2ig, 413
Waters, Sarah, 73
Wayne, (General) Anthony, 338-
340, 342, 344
Wellesley, Marchioness of, 272
Wellington, Duke of, 267, 272
Wells, Eleazar, 52, 5g
Wells, Mrs. Eleazar, 59

Index

449

Wells, Mrs. John E., 52
Wentworth, (Governor) Ben
ning, 382, 385, 396, 401, 402,
426
Wentworth, Charles Watson,
Marquis of Rockingham, 386,
420
Wentworth, (Governor) John,
385, 386, 389, 390, 392, 393,
395-397, 4°i, 426
Wentworth, Lady, 398, 401
Wentworth, Michael, 385, 410,
420, 426
Wentworth, Samuel, 385
Westover, 65, 66, 79
Wheelock, Rev. Dr., 42
Wilford, Florence, 202
William and Mary College, 69,
369

Williams, Eunice, 192
Williams, (Rev.) Meade C, 67,
74.
Williams, Susan Creighton, 79
Wilson, (General) James Grant,
189
Wissenberg, Catherine, 11, 12,
29, 58, 63
Witherspoon, Rev. Dr., 112,
"7
Wolsey, Cardinal, 67, 68
Woodburn, 322, 326, 327
Woodlawn, 374, 377, 378
Wynkoop, Mary, 2go
Wynkoop, Phcebe, 290

Vounglove, James T., 63

Historic Towns of New England
Edited by Lyman P. Powell. With introduction by George
P. Morris. With 160 illustrations. 8°, gilt top, $3.50.
Contents : Portland, by Samuel T. Pickard ; Rutland, by Edwin
D. Mead; Salem, by George D. Latimer; Boston, by Thomas Went
worth Higginson and Edward Everett Hale; Cambridge, by Samuel A
Eliot ; Concord, by Frank A. Sanborn ; Plymouth, by Ellen Watson '•
Cape Cod Towns, by Katharine Lee Bates ; Deerfield, by George Shel
don ; Newport, by Susan Coolidge ; Providence, by William B. Weeden •
Hartford, by Mary K. Talcott ; New Haven, by Frederick Hull Cogswell.'
Historic Towns of the iTiddle States
Edited by Lyman P. Powell. With introduction by Dr.
Albert Shaw. With over 150 illustrations. 8°, gilt
top, $3-5°-
Contents : Albany, by W. W. Battershall ; Saratoga, by Ellen
H. Walworth ; Schenectady, by Judson S. Landon ; Newburgh, by
Adelaide Skeel ; Tarrytown, by H. W. Mabie ; Brooklyn, by Harring
ton Putnam ; New York, by J. B. Gilder ; Buffalo, by Rowland B.
Mahany ; Pittsburgh, by S. H. Church ; Philadelphia, by Talcott
Williams ; Princeton, by W. M. Sloane ; Wilmington, by E. N. Val
landigham.
Some Colonial Homesteads
And Their Stories. By Marion Harland. Second impres
sion. With 86 illustrations. 8°, gilt top, $3.00.
" A notable book, dealing with early American days. . . . The
name of the author is a guarantee not only of the greatest possible accuracy
as to facts, but of attractive treatment of themes absorbingly interesting in
themselves, . . . the book is of rare elegance in paper, typography,
and binding." — Rochester Democrat-Chro>iicle .
Hore Colonial Homesteads
And Their Stories. By Marion Harland. With over 70
illustrations. 8°, gilt top.
Where Ghosts Walk
The Haunts of Familiar Characters in History and Literature-.
By Marion Harland, author of "Some Colonial Home
steads," etc. With 33 illustrations. 8°, gilt top, $2.50.
"In this volume fascinating pictures are thrown upon the screen so
rapidly that we have not time to have done with our admiration for one
before the next one is encountered. . Travel of this kind does not
weary. It fascinates." — New York Times.

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, New York anis London

BELLES=LETTRES

Browning, Poet and Man
A Survey. By Elisabeth Luther Cary, author of " Tenny
son ; His Homes, His Friends, and His Works.'' With
cover design by Margaret Armstrong. With 25 illus
trations in photogravure and some text illustrations. Large
8°, gilt top (in a box), $3 75.
This volume forms a companion work to Miss Cary's book on Tenny
son issued last year, and which met with such a cordial reception.
Tennyson
His Homes, His Friends, and His Work. By Elisabeth
Luther Cary. With iS illustrations in photogravure
and some text illustrations. Second edition. Large 8°,
gilt top (in a box), $3.75.
"The multitudes of admirers of Tennyson in the United States will
mark this beautiful volume as very satisfactory. The text is clear, terse,
and intelligent, and the matter admirably arranged, while the mechanical
work is faultless, with art work especially marked for excellence." — Chicago
Inter-Ocean. Petrarch
The First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters. A Selection
from his Correspondence with Boccaccio and other
Friends. Designed to illustrate the Beginnings of the
Renaissance. Translated from the original Latin together
with Historical Introductions and Notes, by James Har
vey Robinson, Professor of History in Columbia Univer
sity, with the Collaboration of Henry Winchester Rolfe,
sometime Professor of Latin in Swarthmore College.
Illustrated. 8°, $2.00.
"Petrarch is widely known as a poet of the Italian language whose
love for Laura is immortalized in a long series of sonnets. It was an
admirable idea for Prof. Robinson to translate for us a selection from the
letters of Petrarch, and to intersperse their thoughtful and scholarly, fresh
and interesting, notes and comments." — N . Y. Times.
Literary Hearthstones
Studies of the Home Life of Certain Writers and Thinkers.
By Marion Harland, author of " Some Colonial Home
steads and Their Stories," " Where Ghosts Walk," etc.
Put up in sets of two volumes each, in boxes. Fully
illustrated. 16°
The first issues will be :
Charlotte Bronte. Hannah More.
William Cowper. John Knox.
In this series, Marion Harland presents, not dry biographies, but as
indicated in the sub-title, studies of the home-life of certain writers and
thinkers. The volumes will be found as interesting as stories, and indeed
they have been prepared in the same method as would be pursued' in writ
ing a story, that is to say, with a due sense of proportion.
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, New York and London

llPWll

YALE UNIVERSITY