Through the Gates of Old Romance
[Illustration: THE PARK THEATRE, NEW YORK CITY, IN 1807]
* * * * *
Through the Gates
of Old Romance
BY W. JAY MILLS
Author of "Historic Houses of New Jersey"
Editor of "Glimpses of Colonial Society and the Life
at Princeton College, 1766-1773"
With Illustrations by John Rae
[Illustration]
PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1903
* * * * *
COPYRIGHT, 1903
BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
_Published November, 1903_
_Electrotyped and Printed by
J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, U. S. A._
* * * * *
TO THE FOUR MANNERS
OF MANNERS HOUSE ON
OLD BARROW STREET
* * * * *
Contents
PAGE
AN UNRECORDED PHILADELPHIA ROMANCE THE FRANKLIN
FAMILY HELPED INTO FLOWER 15
THE LOVE-STORY OF THE NOTED NATHANIEL MOORE AND
"THE HEAVENLY ELLEN," A BELLE OF CHAMBERS
STREET, NEW YORK CITY 59
A TRUE PICTURE OF THE LAST DAYS OF AARON BURR 99
THE POETIC COURTSHIP OF PHILIP FRENEAU, THE POET OF
THE REVOLUTION, AND BEAUTIFUL ELEANOR FORMAN 123
THE CHEVALIER DE SILLY AND HIS NEWPORT SALLY 159
SUSANNA ROWSON, OF "CHARLOTTE TEMPLE" FAME, AND
HER BRITISH GRENADIER 179
THE GHOSTS OF AN OLD STATEN ISLAND MANOR 197
MAJOR ANDRÉ'S LAST LOVE 213
PINDERINA SCRIBBLERUS, AN AMERICAN MONTAGU 253
List of Illustrations
PAGE
THE PARK THEATRE, NEW YORK CITY, IN 1807
_Frontispiece_
THE WEST FAMILY IN LONDON 41
Painted by Benjamin West
HOW CAN I DESCRIBE TO YOU HIS EYES, HIS HAIR, HIS
VOICE 61
A SIDEWALK FILLED WITH THE FASHIONABLES OF GOTHAM
STARTING FOR THE AFTERNOON BATTERY PROMENADE 65
NATHANIEL FISH MOORE 69
AN OLD VIEW OF STATEN ISLAND, ABOUT 1830 101
ON THE WIDE GALLERIES OF THIS HAVEN OF REST OLD
SEA-CAPTAINS COULD ALWAYS BE SEEN GENTLY DOZING
AS THEY PUFFED LONG PIPES IN THE SUNLIGHT 105
NOW, LIKE SOME SLEEPY ANTIQUE DAME BELATED AFTER
A REVELRY, IT WAITS DESPAIRINGLY BY THE TURN OF
THE ROAD 139
NEWPORT IN 1831 161
MRS. WANTON, A BELLE OF NEWPORT 167
CHARLOTTE TEMPLE IN HER GARDEN 191
From an old print
THE TOWNSEND GARDEN 217
MAJOR JOHN ANDRÉ 221
A LADY OF OLD AMBOY 259
THE WALK TO MRS. BELL'S MANSION 273
AN UNRECORDED PHILADELPHIA
ROMANCE THE FRANKLIN
FAMILY HELPED INTO FLOWER
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
AN UNRECORDED PHILADELPHIA ROMANCE THE FRANKLIN FAMILY HELPED INTO
FLOWER
It was at a musical party given by the great Franklin a few months
after he returned from London to Philadelphia, in 1762, that Betsey
Shewell first met Benjamin West and entered with him through the
ever-swaying gates of Romance. At the time she was known as a belle
of the Quaker City, and he is best described by that keen observer of
mankind, Doctor Jonathan Morris, as "a young painter of fine parts
enjoying his native haunts after the glamour of European capitals."
The modest Franklin house in the heart of the city was at that time a
Mecca for the choice spirits of the colonists. Statesmen, scholars,
and men of wealth trod the pebbly street to the philosopher's through
all hours of the day until long after candle-lighting time. Benjamin
Franklin meant many things to many people. It is small wonder that
poor Mrs. Franklin often lamented that her "Pappy," as she called
her husband, was unhappily affected with a too tender and benevolent
disposition, and that all the world claimed the privilege of troubling
him with their calamities and distress. But still the lady loved her
kind, especially those with good ears, tradition says, and the night
that "Pappy" gave this frolic for his buxom daughter Sarah she smiled
at the company with broad good-humor. And, knowing this (for otherwise
there would have been no party at Franklin's), we can raise the
curtain on the scene with impunity, and listen to the ghostly wails of
violins, the tinkles of tired spinets, and the long-lost voices of the
company.
The night-shutters before the windows of the Franklin parlor are open,
for it is the summer time. About the wide, plain room with its few
embellishments the guests are grouped in a circle. The host seems to
be in a merry mood, and is strumming away on the famous guitar, a
knowledge of which he was always ready to impart to his intimate female
acquaintances. The ever-laughing Sarah, who seldom sighed for more than
the days brought to her, is in her element. She is having a party, and
she knows that there is a spicy Madeira punch in the Staffordshire
bowl her father purchased as a gift for her mother in England, and
a high pyramid of sweet cakes their faithful Abigail made that morn
adorns the sideboard. As she flits out into the entry she nudges a
girl who is seated by the door, one of a group composed of Mr. and
Mrs. Abram Bickley and good Doctor Jonathan Morris. The girl answers
her invitation to join her with a wan and unresponsive smile. Her
rather piquant face is suffused with sadness, and she pays no heed to
the remarks of her companions. It is easy to see that Mrs. Bickley is
annoyed by her behavior. Many eyes are focussed on her fine full gown
of soft lustring, but she seems unaware of their attention, for the
lady is Miss Betsey Shewell, who is indulging herself in a fit of the
vapors.
Betsey Shewell had been crossed in love. Like a foolish maid, she
had given her heart where it was not wanted, and the object of her
affections, Isaac Hunt, a young gentleman from the West Indies, was
then paying desperate court to her niece, Mary Shewell, a girl of her
own age.
Isaac Hunt, the spoiled heir of an aristocratic Tory family settled at
Bridgetown in the Barbadoes, must have been something of an Adonis.
His son, the gifted gossiper Leigh Hunt, whom Charles Lamb referred to
as "The Indicator" in the famous couplet he addressed to him, wrote
of his father, "He was fair and handsome, with delicate features, a
small aquiline nose, and blue eyes. To a graceful address he joined a
remarkably fine voice, which he modulated with great effect." It was
in reading with this voice the poets and other classics that he made
conquest of the two girls' hearts.
The image of this fascinating gentleman was constantly haunting Betsey
Shewell's mind as she sat moping by the door of Benjamin Franklin's
parlor at the close of a summer's day one hundred and forty-one years
ago. That very evening she knew he was to ride over from the Red Lion
to visit Mary Shewell, then staying with Betsey Bickley at Penn Rhyn,
the Bickley country house, five miles below Bristol on the Delaware.
He was with his "shy, dark-haired Mary" now, no doubt. Try as she
would, it seemed impossible for her to forget him. Her sister Bickley,
observing her sad face, began to fidget. She looked at her with
disgust and was about to speak, when the sound of the knocker suddenly
reverberated through the house, and Sarah, hastening to open the front
door, welcomed in a party of belated guests.
"Betsey Shewell! Betsey Shewell!" resounded the voice of the
indefatigable Sarah over the babble of feminine tongues in the hall.
"Betsey, I want to present to thee Mr. Benjamin West."
The melancholy maid turned round on her clavichord stool, and as she
rose to courtesy, the color left her cheeks, for before her stood a
youth strangely like her longed-for lover, but of a finer presence. His
eyes, hair, and nose were the same, and when he spoke, the tones of
his voice--low and tender, like Isaac's--were as balm to her lacerated
heart.
It was Jonathan Morris who later in the evening fanned the flame of
Miss Shewell's curiosity in regard to the handsome Mr. West. He knew
almost every step in the round of the young painter's life. There
were many things he told her in regard to his early years passed at
Springfield, Delaware County, where he did his first drawings with
colors given to him by the Indians. How his rude paintings were the
pride of a simple Quaker community and the delight of a mother who
believed her son to be predestined for some exalted place in the world.
We can see the girl's bright eyes glisten as she listens to the tale of
the day when the youth first left his home to journey to the city and
to fame. His father and several neighbors accompanied him part of the
way on the Strasburg road, which was then unsafe to travel without the
protection of a score of muskets. In those days of pioneer life under
King George the way from Springfield township to the City of Brotherly
Love was a hazardous one, infested with bands of brigands constantly
on the watch for travellers. As he pictures West flying through the
forest pursued by outlaws, but at last outwitting them, her eyes stray
to the young painter, who is talking with her sister. She views him
with mingled emotions. Brave and valiant, he dashes before her on the
charger of courage over the rough and rocky places of life. And then
the face of Isaac Hunt comes to her mind in the guise of a handsome
weakling. Her foolish infatuation for him is flickering and dying. What
has he ever done like this man who has risen from a humble environment
to a figure of consequence through the force of his own nature? The
words of Morris have succeeded in exciting her interest.
West feels her gaze upon him and turns to look at her. She is
wonderfully lovely in her shimmering gown. Their eyes meet and he goes
to her. The vapors that Doctor Franklin's music could not dispel have
vanished, and in their place the lights of love are all aglow for
conquest.
Sarah Franklin was the life of her party that night. She even made her
mother--good jolly home dame that few Philadelphia fine madams would
have anything to do with--sing for the company. Perhaps she sang the
quaint song Franklin composed for her some years after his marriage,
called "My Plain Country Joan." If she did, she must have lingered with
satisfaction over the last verses, in which "Pappy" paid a tribute to
her worth:
"Were the finest young princess with millions in purse
To be had in exchange for my Joan,
I could not get better wife, might get worse,
So I'll stick to my dearest old Joan."
When the company rose and gathered in a group for the chorus, there
were two who stole out into the cool entry. They were Betsey and West,
the idealization of her former lover. There he finished for her the
story that his early patron had begun. She heard of his life in Italy
and the admiration his work excited. Through the great cities of Europe
she strayed with him until they came to the small town of Reading,
where, in a watchmaker's rose-embowered shop, his brother tinkered over
fusees, ratchet wheels, and main-springs. In his words peace lingered
along the village street, and she sighed over the charm of it.
When the chairs came the Franklin household stood on the doorstep
and wished their guests "good-night and good rest." West helped Miss
Shewell into her sister's vehicle, bound for Stephen Shewell's abode on
Chestnut Street, where the Bickley party were to pass the night. After
the carriers started he followed in the chair's shadow until he neared
the alley which led to his lodging-place; there he turned and threw
a kiss at it in the darkness. The girl's conquest was complete. The
lights of love had burned him.
Betsey, seated by her sister in their slow-moving vehicle, was silent.
As they passed the long rows of Cheapside houses, each like its
neighbor, some new memory of the evening would come to her. Life seemed
an intangible mystery with labyrinths of intricacies. She had found a
lover strangely like Isaac Hunt in appearance, and yet so different.
As she mounted the steps of her four-poster a little later she almost
pitied her niece Mary.
Philadelphia was a gossipy place in the days before the Revolution,
and it soon became noised abroad that the young limner West was paying
court to Betsey Shewell. The Bickleys had retired to Penn Rhyn, but the
maiden still stayed on at her brother Shewell's abode. This brother
Shewell was a wealthy man, following the mercantile calling of many of
his family. It is a tradition that he desired to marry his sister to
a Water Street compatriot over twice her age, and therefore frowned on
any gentleman whose admiration was ardent enough to lead him to call
upon her. West had visited the fair sister several times before the
rumors of their love-affair reached his ears. Returning one night from
the Hat Tavern, where he had business with one Widow Cadwell, he fell
in with a meddlesome friend of Betsey's who inadvertently told him of
the tales that were floating about the town. That a saucy nincompoop of
a painter should dare set his eyes on one of the Shewells was a strange
thing to this arrogant gentleman whose days were bound with buckram.
Nevertheless, he resolved to deal summarily with all parties concerned
and sift the matter to the bottom. At first he thought of calling out
West, but decided that it would create too much scandal; besides,
although the painter's usual demeanor was most peaceable, it was said
that while in the Lancaster militia he had become well skilled in the
use of his sword. As he rode homeward his anger grew at every rod the
horse covered. He scowled at the timorous handmaiden who opened the
door of his house. His spurs beat the hard pine-wood floor as he strode
through the hall.
The family were seated at the evening repast. Mrs. Shewell, a dainty,
fluttering little woman with the air of a shy wood-pigeon, rose to
greet him, but fell back in her seat as she saw his face. Betsey
glanced at him, too. She did not quail, for she had known her brother
longer than his wife. For a moment there was a silence awesome as the
void between two thunder-claps. Then fury was let loose upon the room
and tore the story of a tender love-affair from a girl's heart.
"Love him, dost thou? Thy chamber, miss, is the place for thee until
thy mind mends." The man sputtered as he made to seize the now
thoroughly frightened girl.
The dining-room, so peaceful a few minutes before, became a scene
of wild confusion. Mrs. Shewell was taken with the hysterics, the
frightened handmaiden, having entirely lost her wits, let fall a tray
of India ware she was clutching, and in the nearby aviary a pair of
Brazilian parrots set up a screeching.
Through the hall and up the stairway Stephen Shewell forced his sister,
now grown passive, and thrust her into her chamber, locking the door
from the outside. From the landing he called in a loud voice his orders
that no one should go to her. The tongues of the household were silent,
and quiet came after the storm.
Later in the night, when the hall candles were snuffed out and the
stern lord of the mansion had fallen asleep, Mrs. Shewell crept to the
girl's door and, unfastening the lock, stole in to give her comfort.
The room was dark and the little woman's throat became parched as she
imagined all sorts of awful things which might have befallen her
sister-in-law. A chair gave an unearthly creak, and she stood still,
afraid to move, when Betsey descried her and spoke.
The girl was seated, fully dressed, by the window, gazing on the
sleeping city. Mrs. Shewell approached her, and, putting her arms about
her neck, wept softly as she thought over the past scene. Betsey kissed
her and smiled out at the night. Somewhere off over those dim roofs
just touched by a pale moon's light he was sleeping, dreaming of her.
Over the silent streets her prayer floated to him, where'er he was:
"Oh, Mother Night, fold your tranquil shadows about his couch and guide
his wanderings in that wondrous land to pleasant places." Her face was
suffused with the joy of love. They might shut her away forever behind
closed doors, but they could not destroy the memory of the world she
had found with him.
Sarah Franklin was one of the first to hear of Betsey Shewell's
incarceration and its cause.
"'Tis hard on the poor maid," she said to her father over their morning
dish. "Her love-affairs always run amuck. First 'tis her niece Shewell
who runs away with Isaac Hunt, and now 'tis that cock-a-spur of a
brother who shuts her away from Mr. West."
Mrs. Franklin was up in arms in an instant. "Pappy" should go at once
to get her out. The poor maid was no doubt languishing. Then, too,
'twas well known Mr. West was soon leaving again for foreign countries.
Franklin shook his shaggy head and bent lower over his bowl. "Would you
have me carry coals to Newcastle?" he asked. "We must bide our time,
for he that stops a little makes an end the sooner."
Sarah smiled, for she knew that when her father waxed proverbial his
mind was making a pleasant excursion.
"We must bide our time," he repeated again. Neither Sarah nor her
mother spoke, for they knew his mood.
A few hours before the Franklins began their digression on Betsey
Shewell's fate a dark-coated figure stood before the Shewell house and
threw tiny pebbles at the third-story chamber window where the girl
slept. There was no one on the street. The solitary lanternman, who had
laid aside his rattle and staff, called out in a husky voice the last
"All's well and near morning," and departed. Daylight's eyes were on
the verge of opening. Faint streaks of pink were drawn across a sombre
sky like tassels bedecking a dull brocade. It was the wonder hour when
ghosts are creeping back to their graves and the living are about to
awake.
Soon a young girl appeared at the window, opened it, and began to talk
softly with the man below. Sweet were the words that the dawn wind
caught, for the pair were the lovers Betsey Shewell and Benjamin West.
It was in this manner that they sometimes saw each other. Although the
window was at too great a height for the youth to clamber up to his
ladylove or the lady to descend to him, it still permitted soft vows
and protestations. This particular morning West brought the sad news
that he had obtained a berth on a vessel leaving port in a fortnight.
Could she not in some way escape from her prison? The heart of the
girl, so near and yet far away from her lover on the pavement, beat
wildly 'neath her quilted night-robe. Vainly she longed for the wings
of a bird that she might light by his side. For an instant there was a
faint hope, and then it was dashed away.
Below a window casement creaked softly. Stephen Shewell was listening
ensconced in the folds of the chintz window-piece. "Would thee, hussy?
Would thee?" he murmured. He could hear the voice of West imploring
his Betsey to try and fly with him. The old crone who kept his
lodging-place in Christ Church Alley would secrete her until the ship
left port. "Oh, but to have the impudent fellow by the neck!" In his
rage he clenched the soft folds of his worsted damask banyan. He longed
for something to throw,--as he ofttimes did at the vermin of the night.
Over under the shadow curtains of the bed his wife was waking. From a
happy dream the daylight led her eyes to her husband's face leering out
of the curtain. Knowing of the stolen meetings, fright overcame the
awe of her husband, and she gave one piercing shriek, prolonged and
full of anguish. The three actors in the drama each received a shock in
a different way. There was a hurry of footsteps in the street below.
Windows rattled and opened. Grave night-capped Quakers looked askance
at one another from house to house. What was the matter? Inside the
third-story window of the Shewell mansion a girl swooned.
When the sun was high a great coach drove away from Shewell's and took
the road for the Bickley house, Penn Rhyn, many good leagues from
the city. It carried a pallid maid guarded by two stout Quakeresses,
servants and aides of Stephen Shewell. The hoyden hussy was wedged
between them, disgraced and bound for the sequestered rural shades
where impecunious painters were not.
Out into the wooded country the vehicle rolled. At every jolt of the
lumbering thing the larger and stouter of the two seized a blunderbuss
from an arm-chest, in fear of possible highwaymen. The girl between
them gave no heed to their thoughts. Like one only half awake, she
gazed out at the country. Each field and fallow they skirted was
bearing her farther away from him. The sweet odor of the hay-ricks,
the clouds that seemed to be racing with them, the life of the waving
trees, and the trilling birds fluttering out of the coverts they
brushed, all spoke of him. Each whispered some message, she knew not
what.
"He will never find me again," she mused. Tears came to her eyes,
and the drops which were not to be kept back fell on the palm of the
stouter Quakeress, who was dozing.
The woman opened her sleepy eyes and gazed at her almost
compassionately, then closed them again and fell into a deep slumber.
The coach was striking level land. Now the other Quakeress was nodding.
For a moment the girl was tempted to seize the blunderbuss from its
leather bed and jump out into the road. Then fear overcame her, and
she, too, sank back and closed her eyes.
It was the ringing of an evening bell tolled in a nearby hamlet which
welcomed them into the beautiful roadway leading to Penn Rhyn. That
roadway is little changed to-day, but the house itself gazes upon its
visitors in new attire. Probably there is no mansion in Pennsylvania
that has had a more interesting history than this pile erected early
in the eighteenth century by a pompous Bickley from Buckinghamshire.
On the estate is the family tomb guarding the dust of many generations
of Bickleys--young Bickleys who faded before their perfect bloom,
old Bickleys who were glad enough to lay down the thread of life and
rest their tired bones on that moss-grown bank. A long procession of
men and women bearing a name that they all were proud of, with but
one exception. He, Robert Bickley, cursed his name and his father one
Christmas night and then threw himself into the Delaware because the
stern gentleman had told him never to darken his door in life, owing to
an unfortunate marriage. Now, every Christmas eve it is said that he
rises from the river, gaunt and slimy, and steals up the path to the
house. Sometimes a belated wanderer sees him standing in the moonlight
before the great hall door of Penn Rhyn, moaning over his unhappy
fate. Again he is heard in the corridors tapping with ghostly fingers
at each chamber door for admittance. Promptly on the stroke of twelve
weird, unearthly cries fill the house. Then every wakeful sleeper
cuddles down low under the bedclothes. Perhaps it is only the wind
playing about the chimneys, but the superstitious would have us believe
that it is the shade of poor Robert Bickley calling to his young wife
and cursing his fate and name.
Twilight, with her many fairy couriers,--the glowworms, fireflies, and
velvety night-moths,--was settling over the paths of Penn Rhyn's garden
when the two Quakeresses and the girl, stiff from their long journey,
alighted before the Bickley door. The Bickleys were overjoyed to see
their sister before brother Shewell's letter was delivered by the
stoutest of the guards, who still carried the blunderbuss. After Abram
Bickley perused the epistle with knitted brow an air of depression
fell on the group. "She is to stay in the country, guarded close, for
the summer, and the next summer until this painter fellow is filched
from her head," he read to his wife.
The figures on the porch, with their background of dim vines and
murky bricks, made a night-piece worthy of the brush of Mr. Hogarth.
To the girl, tired and distraught, the front of the house seemed to
be covered with mocking faces like the masks about the playboard of
the Philadelphia theatre. She hated them all with their looks of
compassion, scorn, and surprise. The dull-witted Quakeresses were
speaking again with her brother-in-law. Their slow-mouthed sentences
came to her ears. "I am here like some poor thief awaiting jail," the
girl thought, as she looked at them. Then the faces began to fade. She
had wandered into a world of fragrant dusk filled with the good-night
prayers of closing flowers. She would willingly go to jail for love.
There was nothing more beautiful in the world. Each prison bar she
would twine with it. Each day and night should be carpeted with it. Her
face was raised heavenward to the field of little stars.
In the course of events the world in which the Shewells moved learned
that Benjamin West had departed for England, and that Betsey Shewell
was secreted in a safe country retreat where it would be impossible for
him to find her. Sarah Franklin brought to her father's mind his half
promise to aid the lovers.
"We must bide our time," he said. "Haste trips up its own heels." That
night he penned a letter to West in London. In a few months an answer
came. When "Pappy" showed it to his family one morning, they almost
devoured him with kisses.
"Take me with you, father, when you set out for Bickleys," Sarah
implored. "I want to be in the plot."
"That you shall," he promised her. "There is much to be done first,
though, for we must get at old West."
"'Twill be like the play, and I shall wear my new mourning mitts,"
Sarah called, pirouetting in glee.
Mrs. Franklin's face was aglow with motherly pride. "Thou shalt wear a
new store silk, for the Bickleys be fine feathers at home, I hear."
She glanced at "Pappy" for assent, but he was deep in a newspaper. "I
will get it out of him," she said, nodding to the daughter knowingly.
[Illustration: THE WEST FAMILY IN LONDON]
Betsey Shewell, who was practically a prisoner at Penn Rhyn, so closely
was she watched, thought often of her lover in the weary run of days.
She was only allowed to walk as far as the terrace with one of the
family or some saucy maid well aware of her mistress's shortcoming.
Her diversions were few, and but for her cousin Betsey Bickley she
would have wasted from grief. From her she learned of Isaac Hunt,
and her lips curved with scorn at the praise bestowed upon him. Her
niece brought the news one day of a letter received by Abram Bickley
from over the sea. Both girls wondered at its contents. Could it be
from West? A closer watch seemed to be kept over the fair visitor. Many
an hour they pondered over it, surmising this and that and wreathing
it with sanguine fancies. The suspense was becoming maddening when
all hope was dashed to the ground by Abram Bickley, who read the
communication to his wife one morning as the four sat in the dreary
garden. It was from a London creditor.
Another June was upon the land,--a wet month more like some silly April
than the span of days loved for cheer and sunshine. The two Betseys
were out in the Bickley garden gathering drenched roses for the want of
something better to do. All of a sudden from the sleepy road there came
the clatter of wheels and the clink of a slow nag's feet. Then into
view loomed a comfortable chaise of the style afterwards known as the
"Postmaster-General." The pair nearly dropped their budholders in the
momentary excitement. Rising from her seat and waving a kerchief was a
girl. The face they knew well.
"Sarah Franklin, I do believe," called Betsey Bickley. "Yes, yes; 'tis
her father with the reins."
"Pappy" and his daughter had come on their long-promised visit to the
Bickleys. Sarah Franklin was radiant with happiness, and it was easy
to see that her father reflected her mood. A sight to behold she was
when she descended from the side step. Her gown, the fought-for store
silk, was garnished with a multitude of varicolored prim flowers, and
its folds tried in vain to cover her Paris shoes with red heels, which,
in lieu of paste buckles, owing to "Pappy's" hatred of gewgaws, she had
tied with red ribbons. On her head she wore a stiffened pasteboard
trimmed with "masqueraded bombazin" and adorned with a waving plume
which the wind swayed like the dancer a venturesome manager of the new
theatre had put on in the tragedy "The Orphan."
"Oh, you dear Betsey Shewell and Betsey Bickley," she exclaimed,
laughingly, as she threw herself alternately in each girl's arms. "My
heart thumps at the sight of thee!"
Her father smiled at her actions over his spectacles as he added his
greeting.
The noise of the arrival soon brought the whole of the Bickley
household to the door.
"'Tis an honor, sir, to see you here," Abram Bickley said, as he helped
Benjamin Franklin from his seat.
"There is naught of an honor about it," Sarah Franklin whispered
mockingly in Betsey Shewell's ear. "We have come for a play; but keep
it to thyself," she added, as if afraid of her words. Then she took
off her long black mitts and twirled them in the other's face.
"Won't thee make a sweet actor lady," she said, to the other girl's
wonderment, as they walked together.
There were great doings at Penn Rhyn the day the most talked of man in
Philadelphia and his daughter arrived. The largest guest chambers were
aired, the fattest goose-feather pillows were brought out, and sweet
herbs were placed in all the chimney-piece ornaments. Mrs. Bickley
prated in a grandiloquent manner to her maids. A statesman on a visit
to her abode gave her undisguised pleasure.
The whole house was soon in a bustle. Sarah Franklin, who sat with
Betsey Shewell on a bench in one of the fast-drying paths near the
doorway, heard many sounds familiar to her housewifely ears. There were
the whack and thump of duster and broom. Delicious odors soon began to
steal from the kitchen and mingle with the scents of revived flowers.
"There will be a party to-morrow night," she said to her companion.
"A party!" reiterated the other in surprise.
"Yes, a party! Wait and see. 'Tis part of the play I have writ with my
father out of our heads." Then she began to hum a tralala. "Tell not a
soul," she cautioned, and nothing the other said could get another word
out of her.
When the Franklins and their travelling chests were safely in their
rooms, Sarah opened her chamber door and went in to her father. "She
is closely watched," she said. "Did you hint at a merry-making for
to-morrow, father?"
"That I did," he answered. "And now, miss, you must lay your traps
well. Tell neither of the maids aught, for women have restive tongues.
You are proof of the maxim. Go you to Bet Shewell's room to-morrow
and have her show you her finery. Find out her clothes closet, and
to-morrow night, when the noise is on, creep to her room and do them up
in a bundle. Have them ready to give her when it is time to tell the
news. To Bet Bickley say that you have a desire to see the neighborhood
gallants, and get her to bid them all for to-morrow night. Her father
will let her if he knows it is your hanker. Lay thy plans well.
Remember, two heads and a goose make a market. It is a lot of trouble
we are going to for young West, and I don't begrudge the turn; but we
must not fall out with the Bickleys."
The famous Miss White, of Philadelphia, who lived to a great age,
repeating reminiscences of her cousin good Bishop White used often to
tell of that sometime gathering given for Benjamin Franklin by the
Bickleys at Penn Rhyn. Among the guests she always gave the names of
Francis Hopkinson, Doctor Jonathan Morris, and her cousin, who was
then a lad. No one ever disputed her, and it is safe to say that the
three celebrities were there.
Early in the evening the neighbors began to arrive from nearby
country-seats, and the house was soon filled with a great company,
for Mrs. Bickley wanted her world to know of the honor being paid
her. Along the south walk each of the boxwood grotesques was strung
with little Chinese lanterns. A bush cut in the shape of a bird
held a green dragon in the mouth. The host had planned for a garden
frolic, but a soft rain was falling. A wit suggested that the fair
ones don capuchins and repair to the lawn for a water-nymph dance. The
drawing-room was filled with the noise of gay badinage and the rustle
of silken garments. A female voice in an adjoining room was trilling
in languishing strains Mr. Vernon's new Vauxhall-garden song, "Jenny
and Chole." Between the notes one could catch the fretful murmur of
the rain. Its patter on the catalpa leaves near the windows was like
the protestations of some band of elfin children angry at the death of
moonlit hours and lost playtimes.
To all observers Franklin was in his gayest mood, and repeated funny
tales and made frequent jests; his daughter also laughed with all
the gentlemen surrounding her. But in reality their hearts were both
heavy. Betsey Shewell was upstairs locked in her chamber, and their
long-cherished plan of setting her free seemed worsted, for a servant
sat guard by the door.
Outside at the back of the house, hidden by a clump of bushes, the
father of Benjamin West was waiting patiently for the lady who was to
fly with him to England. Some distance from the Bickley grounds his
rowboat that was to bear them to a frigate at Chester was moored to a
bank. The night was far advanced and his old limbs were quaking from
the cold rain. His eyes, resting on the house, saw a candle flash from
an upper window. He knew that it must be a signal.
Sarah Franklin, as soon as she discovered the way the wind blew,
began, at her father's instigation, quietly to take goodies from the
dining-room up to the servant by the door.
"I can't let you give them to her, miss," the woman said when the girl
first approached.
"They are not for Betsey, but for yourself," Sarah answered. "You must
be tired watching. I thought you would like some cheer," she added
artfully.
Fate aided the conspirator, for it chanced that the woman was a
glutton, and she drank eagerly of the huge jug of stiff punch. She was
snoring blissfully when Sarah again came up to her. Slipping her hand
into the other's apron pocket, she found the door-key. On tiptoe she
crept to the door and, turning the lock, opened it a few inches and
went in very softly, bolting it on the inside.
A night-lamp was burning on a wall-piece and Betsey Shewell did not
shriek, as Sarah feared she might, on her entrance. She was dressed and
lying on a sofa listening to the sounds of mirth from below. She had
been pondering over Sarah's strange words of the morning and the day
before, and their meaning was now dawning on her. The Franklins were
going to help her to escape from Penn Rhyn.
The girl, in disordered party finery, seized a candle from a stand,
lit it over the lamp, and held it before the window. Betsey Shewell
ran to her and began to clutch at her skirts, unnerved at the glorious
thoughts of freedom.
"Hist!" the other said, touching her lips. "West's father comes across
the lawn."
Both girls had mounted the sill and were motioning to the man below,
who was placing a ladder before the window. Betsey began to sob in her
excitement.
"I cannot go! I cannot go!" she wailed.
Sarah shook her companion gently as she drew a heavy hooded cape about
her head.
"Hush! Hush!" she murmured. "Do you want to wake the woman by the door?
Your lover longs for you in London Town and my father and I want to get
thee to him. There is no time to stop now for your things," she added.
"Part of the play I prated of is ruined, for we did not count on your
being shut up here to-night." She was losing her breath and the din
downstairs seemed to be lessening. "Go! go!" she said.
For a moment the girls were clasped in each other's arms. "I can ne'er
repay your goodness," one of them said. From the other's eyes flashed
all manner of sweet wishes.
"Go!" she whispered again hoarsely. "Good that is too late is as good
as nothing." She was smiling alone in the darkness.
Off into the night floated the murmur of convivial voices in bibulous
cadence. Now the great Franklin was laughing. A watchful ear could
catch the patter of faint footsteps.
Outside the room the servant still snored by the door. Sarah passed her
safely and replaced the key. No one was ever the wiser for the part she
and her father had played in West's life until she told it herself in
later years.
Down to the river an old man and a girl stole through the darkness.
Off to an unknown land it bore them to bask in the sunshine of a
laurel-strewn pathway the painter Benjamin West knew through a long and
fruitful life.
Recently one of his old letters to Doctor Jonathan Morris was brought
to light, written four years after his marriage to Betsey Shewell, on
September 2, 1765, in the church of St. Martin's in the Fields. It
breathes of peace and contentment, and when that worthy read it to the
Franklin household, there was one who sighed over its sentiments, and
another, alas! over the spelling.
"DEAR JONATHAN,
"Our worthy Friend Thoˢ Goodwin being just about to imbark on his
returne to North America I could not let so favorable an opportunity
Pass without returning you my thanks for your kind favor to me by
Thoˢ Carrington. By him I intended to have answered it but his
leaving this place without giving me the least notice if his returne
(which he rather promised he would before his departure) has been the
ocasion of this omission, which I hope my dear friend will not think
an neglect. As I can asshure him his letter gave me that pleasure
which may be felt on the meeting of long absent friends, for such was
your letter to me. It revived fresh to my memory as tho I had been in
the actual enjoyment of the many Pleasing and happy hours I have spent
with you in those Rural and inocent juvenal amusements with which
America alone abounds my sighs are often intruding and vainely wishing
again for those past pleasures which I have there so often experience
in those Solitary retreats, or what they people of this side the water
call the wilds of America and which is I think a true Image of the
following celebrated lines--
"'O Solitude; blest state of life below--
Friend to our thoughts and balm to all our woe
Where lust no object for his fires can gain
And Pride wants gazers to admire her train
Where want no cravling feels no insults bear
Kind Lethe of our Passions and our care
Far from the Burse, from Casts and levels far
The crowded Theatre and wrangling Bar
O! far from cities my abode remove
To realms of Innocence and Peace and love.'
"My having had an oppertunity for the last ten years of my life from
the vast Toures I have made in visiting the great Capitals in Europe
of forming and inlarging my knowledge of Both the world and man and
thereby know that true value of America and the Boundless blessings
its inhabitance injoy. For without this oppertunity I might have
remained in Ignorance of the real Blessings they Injoy and the State
of happyness that subsists between them. For it's by comparison we
learn to know the true value of all things--And from thence arises its
real worth and esteem.
"As this is the part of the world my department in life has fixed me,
I have indeavored to accommodate and settle myself in a domestick life
with my little Famely which consists of my dear Betsey and her little
boy."
THE LOVE-STORY OF THE NOTED
NATHANIEL MOORE AND "THE
HEAVENLY ELLEN," A BELLE OF
CHAMBERS STREET, NEW YORK
CITY
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE LOVE-STORY OF THE NOTED NATHANIEL MOORE AND "THE HEAVENLY ELLEN,"
A BELLE OF CHAMBERS STREET, NEW YORK CITY
"Very far away Federal Hall seems to-day as I sit at Aunt's
window and gaze out into the street full of chaises and passing
pedestrians--The grim stone Pompeys on the garden gates seem to
mock at me a simple country girl bound in this hot-bed of fashion
for another fortnight--Oh my tenderest Diana how I long for the
fresh green of the countryside to give the balm of solitude to my
fluttering heart--Ogling and pretty spoken gentlemen New York has in
abundance but a girl in my situation no longer cares for a string
of gallants--You, my dearest consoler have guessed my secret that he
loves me--How can I describe to you his eyes, his hair, his voice,
when it is such perfect bliss to pen he loves me...."
[Illustration: HOW CAN I DESCRIBE TO YOU HIS EYES, HIS HAIR, HIS VOICE]
A great red brick mansion in Chambers Street, guarded by two
sentinel-like elm-trees and a tall iron fence; a sidewalk filled
with the fashionables of Gotham starting for the afternoon Battery
promenade; and up behind the eye-like panes of one of the haughty,
staring windows a maiden dreaming over her pen. There is the picture. A
demure little country Phyllis, visiting her august city relatives for
the first time, has found herself in two strange worlds--fashion and
love. In the extract taken from her letter written to a home confidante
is the key to a forgotten romance of old New York. Love! the key to
all the romances since the world began. "He loves me," she writes, the
time-worn phrase every true daughter of Eve has hoped to whisper to
herself or cry out to the multitudes, and we feel the thrill of those
faded but impassioned words as in imagination we open the gates of that
old-time mansion and enter into the year of 1807.
New York society, which seems to undergo a complete revision every
quarter of a century, has entirely changed since the name of Moore
meant as much to the metropolis as that of Biddle to Philadelphia
or Carroll to Baltimore. At the time of which I write, when the
first numbers of the "Salmagundi Papers" were startling North River
aristocrats, fields lay beyond the new St. John's Church, and Canal
Street was looked upon by the sagacious as the probable Mecca for
retail commerce. Jeremy Cockloft, the younger, gives us a glimpse
of the residence portion of the city in "The Stranger at Home, or a
Tour of Broadway." "Broadway--great difference in the gentility of
streets; a man who resides in Pearl-Street, or Chatham-Row, derives
no kind of dignity from his domicile, but place him in a certain part
of Broadway--anywhere between the Battery and Wall-Street, and he
straightway becomes entitled to figure in the beau monde, and struts as
a person of prodigious consequence."
In the new Chambers Street, named after one of Trinity's vestrymen,
was the home of Dr. William Moore, then the first physician of old New
York. With a wife who was a daughter of Nathaniel Fish, and a brother,
the Right Reverend Benjamin Moore, D.D., Bishop of the Protestant
Episcopal Church in the State of New York and Rector of Trinity Church,
his right to dose the aristocratic element of the city was undisputed.
It is small wonder that his morning parlor was generally filled with
patients who, tradition says, sometimes literally fought for admission
into the inner room and the presence of their "dear gentlemanly doctor."
[Illustration: A SIDEWALK FILLED WITH THE FASHIONABLES OF GOTHAM
STARTING FOR THE AFTERNOON BATTERY PROMENADE]
William Moore was a physician of the old school, and is remembered
as wearing a bob-tailed wig and wrist ruffles long after the fashion
was obsolete. No doubt this adherence to the costume of a past _régime_
gave him an additional hold over many of his patrons. Legion were the
antique dames struggling against the invasion of demoralizing French
fashions who derived momentary satisfaction watching him amble to
the family pew in Trinity, followed by numerous exponents of that
scapegrace, Napoleon's Empire.
Dr. William Moore, of Chambers Street! A long-dead king of pills and
potions. How stern looks the old figure in the bottle-green coat the
name conjures up! We can hear the voice of Thomas, the negro valet,
call out, "Dis way to de Dochtar's sanctum, missy or madam." "Not
you thar, ladies," as the circle rises. Many a humble possessor of
a backache or a heartache must have trembled before that roomful of
Crœsus's children on hearing a summons to the awesome presence. Just
over the office a maiden sat one spring afternoon in the glow of a
love-dream. She heard the dull murmur below, but her thoughts were too
beautiful to heed an interlude so closely allied to pain. Through the
garden gates the people passed in and out, and now and then the voice
of Thomas would come floating to her with his "Dis way to de Dochtar's
sanctum." Little did she imagine, as she bent over her pen, that she
would ever be called there and the closing door shut out her love-dream
forever.
[Illustration: NATHANIEL FISH MOORE]
Two years before Ellen Conover, the girl of the picture, first came
to town a youth had journeyed to her home, Federal Hall, in Monmouth
County, New Jersey, on a visit. He was Nathaniel Fish Moore, the son
of Dr. Moore. The time was a college vacation, for the young man was
a student at Columbia, the institution so closely associated with the
Moore name. Mrs. Conover _née_ Anna Fish, his mother's twin sister,
was proud of her handsome and high-spirited nephew, and encouraged
his intimacy with her sons and daughters.
On the outskirts of Marlboro, where Federal Hall lifted its white
head above the low stretches of verdant country, Ellen first met the
youth who was to be her future lover. When the great coach rounded the
turnpike curve with rumbles and groans, and the foam-flecked horses
were becoming mere specks in the gray distance, did any of that merry
party realize that in the infrangible twilit silence of an early
summer's eve two kindred souls had found each other? Up the hilly
meadow whose multitude of young green things seem awed at the shadowy
approach of night the family trudges, followed by slaves carrying the
horse-hair trunks! What a peaceful pastoral scene it is! The spring
and all her delicate children are dead, and in her place have come the
thousand charms of happier summer. We hear the mother's tender voice,
the father's deep tones, and now and then the eager questions of the
boy as he helps the maiden through tangles and over stones. The arms
of the darkness are encircling them and shutting them away. Soon they
will reach that great hall door which no longer guards the welcoming
glow of a high-piled hearth. Before it every year the summer comes and
goes. The flowers creep up to it, the wind and the rain sigh against
it, but the old-time lovers long ago joined the silent company in God's
immutable garden of rest.
Freehold, the next town to Marlboro, was the county-seat and the resort
of a gentry which closely modelled itself after the country families
of England. Racing, hunting, shooting, and fishing then comprised a
large part of the sum of existence for the Jersey squire. Every great
landowner possessed a small army of slaves, and the wheels of life ran
smoothly. Heavy silver flagons were on the oaken sideboards, old port
and sherry in Mammy Dinah's cellaret, and a strong box overflowing
with gold pieces was secreted somewhere behind the _Spectators_ on the
library shelves. On the yellow road creeping out from the court-house
stood half a hundred happy Jersey homes--Battle Hill, Violet Bank,
Cincinnati Hall, Forman Place, Mount Pleasant Hall, Wassung Vale,
Shipley, Harmony Hall, Haven Home, Lover's Port. Only a few of them
are left to-day. Mornings spent in following the hounds through dewy
coverts, afternoons in spinning or visiting, and evenings in dancing or
reading Goldsmith with some favored companion in the englenook by the
hall fire composed the daily and nightly curriculum that Ellen Conover
and the Jersey girls of her class knew.
It is said that the portrait of Ellen Conover, by the elder Jarvis,
in a white empire gown against a dull pink background, was more like
a caricature of her than a faithful rendering of her charms. Her eyes
were deep blue, her hair of a gold-brown color, and her complexion had
that fresh soft tint only to be compared to wild roses. Clement Moore,
a son of Bishop Moore, who wrote "'Twas the Night before Christmas," a
poem which has delighted so many generations of children, used to dwell
with rapture on the beauty of her arms and neck. He was one of the gay
young city sparks who looked with favor on the little country girl
when she first appeared in town, and lost his heart in the bargain,
too, if tradition does not err. This we know, that the Knickerbocker
belles were palling upon him at that period, and his muse hurled fiery
diatribes at the modish nakedness of his young country-women.