the maiden was left to work her witcheries on her townsmen. Newport
was a changed place after the French departed. Many a true heart
was exchanged that morning for a golden button or some other token.
The mothers only were happy, and back to households came a troop of
long-exiled femininity, free from the fret of love. Twelve years later,
it is said, one summer dawn in Paris there rolled through the streets
a tumbril on its way to a guillotine erected near the gardens of the
Luxembourg. One of its occupants was De Silly. In the hush which always
fell on the mob when a victim reached the last step of the stairway
of death we wonder whether the fair face of Sally Church came before
the eyes of her poor Chevalier. The answer is lost in the length of
long-dead years. Over the cries of that surging mass of humanity when
the blade snapped the thread of his life we see them once again living
out their Newport romance.
SUSANNA ROWSON, OF
"CHARLOTTE TEMPLE" FAME,
AND HER BRITISH GRENADIER
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
SUSANNA ROWSON, OF "CHARLOTTE TEMPLE" FAME, AND HER BRITISH GRENADIER
Overlooking Nantasket's white beach, and guarded, as it were, by the
little hills of Hull, is a dwelling, now entirely changed, where
Susanna Haswell spent her girlhood. A quarter of a century ago it was
still as the Haswells left it when they were forced to remove to the
neighboring town of Hingham, practically prisoners of war. Then it was
described as a large one-story wooden building with a huge chimney in
the centre, one of a type to be found in hundreds of old New England
villages. In the days when the English maiden conned her lessons as her
father painted quaint stilted landscapes on the doors and mantel-pieces
of his abode the house was approached through a line of fruit-trees,
and close to the gray walls that the sea-mist loved to kiss grew
the multitude of flowers that flourished in the sweet plots of the
descendants of the Puritans.
Somehow it is with the garden of her early home that we associate
the young Susanna. Tradition says that it was her especial care, and
she helped the seeds her stepmother brought from Boston to perfect
bloom and watched each season for her fairy children. There we know,
in the autumn of 1768, when her last garden inmates were dying, she
saw the British fleet of six men-of-war enter Nantasket Roads, little
dreaming that they were to affect her life. Later in the day she
helped her father receive some of the officers. It is easy to picture
her, a simply garbed child, listening to the talk of the circle about
the fireplace. How her eyes must have glistened at the tales of the
theatres,--the sprightly new comedy "The Perplexities," which was put
on at Covent Garden; "The English Merchant," with its witty prologue
by Garrick. Then there was chatter of the new tea-gardens that were
springing up everywhere on the skirts of London Town. Wonderful they
seemed with their grottos of mystery and Chinese lanterns that rivalled
the stars. The talk of war she would not listen to, and we see her
leave the company to creep to the door and gaze out on the silent
night. Very lonely her home looked in the darkness, and off in the
distance she could hear the dull boom of the surf telling her that
London Town was far away.
A strange child was this Susanna Haswell. When the "quality maids" of
her day spent a large part of their time perusing the "Boston News
Letter" for the latest falafals and fashions,--thinking only of fine
brocades, the newest talematongues to make high their head-dresses, and
the Sweet Royal Honey Water for their fair faces,--Susanna's mind was
always with her few treasured books or dwelling on the pleasure she
gave her father in their journeyings near their home. They would wander
off over the nearby hills in search of the first wild fruits. Sometimes
he would bring his box of colors and they would linger until nightfall
in some spot that had caught his fancy.
At an early age she began to write verses, and all through her life
kept up this pastime. Her whisperings to birds, flowers, and sea-shells
helped to fill up her days. She was happy, we know, for "The Roses of
Life," written at a later period, show a brave and intrepid spirit that
feared neither isolation nor the daily trials allotted to mortals.
"Why should we complain of this life's dreary road,
Or the thorns or the thistles that in our path lay?
Has not heaven a portion of reason bestow'd,
To pass them o'er lightly or brush them away?
I'll gather life's roses wherever I find them,
And smile at their folly who dread to come near;
Who cast all its joys and its pleasures behind them,
Nor pluck the sweet buds, lest the thorns should appear."
The years flew by until after the battle of Bunker Hill, when most
of the inhabitants of Nantasket left their farms and fled to Boston.
It is recorded that the grain was left standing in the fields and
that the Haswell family were eventually left the sole occupants of
the place. Ex-Lieutenant Haswell was loyal to his king, and his house
was a constant resort for the British naval and military commanders.
Small skirmishes sometimes took place near the village, and one
day, during an action in the vicinity, a wounded redcoat, a member
of Major Tupper's brigade, was brought to the door on a stretcher by
some of his comrades, with the request that he be given shelter. Into
the southeast room the family had him carried and laid on the great
four-poster. There Susanna tended him through the morning hours,
bandaging his wounds with soft homespun and ministering to his wants.
It was a never-to-be-forgotten day, often referred to in after-years,
and it made a deep impression on the heart of the sensitive girl.
Bending over him, she received his last confidences. He was Daniel
Carnagon, twenty-six years old, the only son of a clergyman in the
north of England. When his breath grew feebler her stepmother brought
out the family Bible and read in a low voice words of comfort. Death
came to him as he dreamed of his native heath and a happy boyhood. When
the dusk began to fall Susanna helped her father dig a grave in the
garden. There they laid him to rest with the last sunbeams staining
his poor clay like a heavenly benediction. Some rose-bushes and an
apple-tree covered his resting-place. The latter is still standing
alone, a faithful watcher over dust neglected and forgotten. Little has
been written of Susanna's grenadier, but we know that she who made the
whole of her generation weep with "a tale of truth" wept over him in
the twilight of a long-dead day.
When the Revolution was nearing its close the Haswell family removed
from Massachusetts to Halifax, a favorite gathering-place for
loyalists. Susanna was then nearing womanhood, and, owing to the low
state of her father's pecuniary resources, she was forced to separate
from dearly loved brothers and sail for England. There she obtained a
situation as governess in a noble family, which she retained until her
health failed. In 1786 she married Mr. William Rowson in London. This
gentleman was then engaged in the hardware business and also acted as
trumpeter in the Royal Horse-Guards. He was the son of an armorer to
George III., and was noted for his personal beauty and accomplishments.
It has been recorded that no one who heard could ever forget "the
sublime and spirit-stirring tones" of his trumpet when he played for
the Boston Handel and Haydn Society. When he trumpeted "The trumpet
shall sound and the dead shall be raised" he thrilled his hearers into
imagining the last hour was close at hand.
Shortly after entering the bonds of wedlock Mrs. Rowson published
her first work, "Victoria," under the patronage of the Duchess of
Devonshire, the famous Carlton House beauty known to history as the
friend of Charles Fox. Among the subscribers are such names as Sarah
Siddons, General John Burgoyne, Sir Charles Middleton, and our own
Samuel Adams. The duchess seems to have conceived a warm attachment
for her, and arranged that she should be presented to no less a
personage than "Prince Florizel." Soon she found a place in the
brilliant galaxy of ladies headed by "The Blue-Stocking Club," and in
1790, when "Charlotte Temple" was published, she became one of the
leading literary lights of the day.
"Charlotte Temple" was the heart-toucher of her generation, and
countless thousands sorrowed over her fate. Her story, as Mrs. Rowson
gave it to the world, was the greatest success of the day, and it is
said that more editions were printed of it than of any other novel
written in the eighteenth century. About the life of the real heroine
the years have woven a web some parts of which can never be unravelled.
Tradition says that she was Charlotte Stanley, a young lady of great
personal beauty and the daughter of a clergyman related to the Earl of
Derby. Mrs. Rowson wrote of her that
"Her form was faultless, and her mind,
Untainted yet by art,
Was noble, just, humane, and kind,
And Virtue warm'd her heart.
But, ah! the cruel spoiler came."
Montreville, her lover, was in reality Colonel John Montrésor, an
engineer in the service of the British army. His name is given as one
of the managers of the famous Meschianza. It is said that he was a
connection of the Haswell family, and it is a significant fact that the
author's youngest brother, who distinguished himself in the war with
Tripoli, bore his name.
The story on which Mrs. Rowson founded her romance was that Colonel
Montrésor persuaded Miss Stanley to leave her boarding-school and elope
with him to America at the opening of the Revolutionary War. She sailed
in his companionship some time in the year 1774. On the same vessel was
his brother, a fellow-engineer. Arriving at New York City, Montrésor
secured a small cottage for her at Morrisania, a few miles distant
from the city proper and near to the Boston post-road. The house she
occupied--a primitive affair--is remembered as standing until 1850.
In the book we read,--
"Montreville gave her one female attendant and supplied her with what
money she wanted; but business and pleasure so entirely occupied his
time that he had but little to devote to the woman whom he had brought
from all her connections and robbed of innocence. Sometimes, indeed,
he would steal out at the close of evening and pass a few hours with
her; and then so much was she attached to him that all her sorrows
were forgotten while blessed with his society; she would enjoy a walk
by moonlight, or sit by him in a little arbor at the bottom of the
garden, and play on the harp, accompanying it with her plaintive,
harmonious voice. But often, very often, did he promise to renew
his visits, and, forgetful of his promise, leave her to mourn her
disappointment. What painful hours of expectation would she pass! She
would sit at a window which looked toward a field he used to cross,
counting the minutes and straining her eyes to catch the first glimpse
of his person, till, blinded with tears of disappointment, she would
lean her head on her hands and give free vent to her sorrow; then,
catching at some new hope, she would again renew her watchful position
till the shades of evening enveloped every object in a dusky cloud."
[Illustration: CHARLOTTE TEMPLE IN HER GARDEN
From an old print]
In one of the old editions of the work there is a quaint picture of
the neglected girl seated in a mournful attitude in a formal garden
evidently much more pretentious than the primitive spot that the real
heroine knew. The house in New York City generally accepted as the
place where she died formerly stood at the corner of Pell and Doyer
Streets and was known as the "Old Tree House." Her grave is in Trinity
Church-yard; but even that is unauthenticated, some people having gone
so far as to state that the head-stone that bears her name is a
fiction. It is still the resort of the sentimental, and it is to be
hoped that time cannot prove that Montrésor never sorrowed there over
the girl Mrs. Rowson made famous as she herself did many years before
on the grave of her British Grenadier.
[Illustration]
THE GHOSTS OF AN OLD
STATEN ISLAND MANOR
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE GHOSTS OF AN OLD STATEN ISLAND MANOR
In the green old village of Tottenville, on Staten Island, there is
still standing the antiquated Bentley manor-house, erected during
the reign of Queen Anne. It is built of stone, and reposes on a high
flowery slope overlooking the waters of Staten Island and the Raritan
River. The walls are several feet thick and the gable roof is almost
grotesquely high and steep, giving the building a very picturesque
appearance. From its quaint little upper-story casements one can gaze
over the Sound to St. Michael's Church at Perth Amboy with its quiet
graveyard, where some of the Billops are sleeping. There they rest in
peace, we hope; but, according to "Perth Towne" tradition, the fairest
in life of that silent company is an unruly shade, and once a year
during the first quarter of the spring-time moon comes back to her
neglected garden to keep a tryst and a vow.
Christopher Billop, the first owner of the house, played a very
interesting minor part in American history. When the Duke of York
conveyed New Jersey to Lord Berkeley Carteret, a question arose as to
whether Staten Island was included in the grant. To settle a discussion
which threatened to assume grave proportions, it was decided that
all islands in the harbor should belong to New York if they could be
circumnavigated in twenty-four hours. Christopher Billop, who owned
a little vessel called the "Bentley," sailed around Staten Island in
that time, and the duke gave him the tract of land, on part of which
the house is built, for his services.
This first Christopher Billop died very long ago. His only daughter
married a Thomas Farmar, who changed his name to Billop, thereby
acquiring the estate. It is with the son of this couple that the tales
of the old house deal. The Billop family, like most of the islanders,
were loyalists, and during the Revolution sided with their king. When
the war broke out the second Christopher, a man of decided views and
morose temperament, was reigning over the plantation. Many years before
1775 he had married a beautiful island belle by the name of Seaman and
taken her home to his dreary house. An interesting tradition says of
her that the month before she married she was courted by three lovers:
the Englishman she married, a Huguenot, and a descendant of the pious
Waldeneses.
The nuptial coach which bore her away did not bring her to the road
of happiness, for the love between the husband and wife was never what
it should have been. Her parents had sent her to a gilded cage. Soon
her lord and master began to neglect her for his horses and dogs or his
field work, and she was left alone in her great rooms to sigh and weep
for the happy times she knew in her girlhood before Fate bound her an
unwilling prisoner. The fine brocades and taffetas which formed her
wedding portion no longer delighted her, for there was seldom any one
but her sullen husband or the black women to gaze upon them. In vain
she implored him to receive her friends, but he would not gratify her.
Life ran smoothly enough for his liking, and he needed neither fiddles
nor the flutter of fashion to enhance his happiness. Often on clear
nights she would gaze from her chamber window on the lights in the
castles over the water. How brightly they shone! and in her imagination
seemed to beckon her. Then to her mind would come a flood of memories.
She would see herself in Love Grove, dancing on the green of a fair
day, with all the populace of the little capital assembled to behold
the frolics of the quality. Now the Governor gives her a garland of
flowers, for she is queen of a spring-time revel. In the ballroom of
Edinborough Castle, the home of the Johnstone family, she flits. Over
the memoried voices of violins would come the picture of a score of
cavaliers bending low to the belle from a sister isle, and often the
face of a boy would haunt her,--a boy more dashing and gayer than all
the others. They were in the lantern-hung Watson garden the night the
nephew of the old Scotch painter gave a fête when his penurious uncle
was away at Woodbridge, and youthful Amboy entered into the frolic with
zest. It was a sweet revenge for past injuries to feast on the miser's
hoard. When a raid on the wine-cellar was planned, she stayed on alone
with him in the garden. The laughter in his mocking eyes died away;
he was urging her to fly with him to England. Beyond the wall of green
which shut away the cliff a merchantman was anchored, and on board her
were his travelling chests, for he was sailing back to his father's
home on the morrow. He loved her, and would she go with him? Out into
the tangle of green he led her down to the road overlooking the river.
The night was very still, and through the sweet-scented darkness fresh
with the breath of June they wandered hand in hand. Suddenly before
their eyes spread the line of the town and beyond lay the sea of molten
silver. Just below them the dark ship rested in a shadowy pool. She
could not sail away with him to an unknown land. Fear overcame her
love, and later in the night she tearfully wished him God-speed on his
journey, and for a time he was forgotten.
The river before her would become a dream-river bearing her away
through the portals of the past. The commonplace fabric of her days
was forgotten. She was like one of those rare flowers that give their
greatest beauty to the night. Without her visions life would have been
a maddening monotone; and so she went about the duties of a colonial
wife.
The early portion of 1776 was a poor thing full of dreariness to Mrs.
Billop. She was leaving her girlhood far behind in her walk with
Time. Each year was a repetition of the one past. The plantation
of one thousand five hundred acres was a little world of its own,
and she rarely went beyond its gates. Most of her working hours she
spent in her garden, and under her fostering care it became a spot of
loveliness. In the circles of roses flanked by humbler flowers and the
tall line of lilies that crept like a stately band of pure-souled fairy
sentinels down to the riverside she planted some of her own fragrant
heart. Sometimes her garden was to her like an only child, and then,
again, the relationship was changed, and the garden was the tender
mother and she herself the weary thing that sought peace there on a
breast of green. But one day a wonderful thing happened. Awakened by
the sunlight gilding the narrow panes of her bedroom windows, she
heard shouts in the barley-field. "Dey am coming! dey am coming!" the
household slaves were calling in merry voices. Mrs. Billop, drawing her
curtains, saw in the path leading to the house a body of scarlet-coated
cavaliers mounted on mettlesome steeds. It came to her mind that a
horseman had dashed over from Richmond a week before, telling of
General Howe's arrival. These horsemen must be some of his officers
making a tour of the island, she thought. For the first time in many
years gentlemen were coming to stop at the manor. A smile crept over
her face as she gazed upon them, and then she softly let down the
curtain.
When the day had advanced another hour by the sundial outside the
boxwood grotto a vision stood on the landing at the top of the
stairs and spread out the panniers of a long-unused gown. The hall
below was filled with the badinage of masculine voices, and the surly
Christopher, forced into playing the host, seemed to be performing
the part with no poor grace. Black women in India print dresses were
passing bowls of summer punch, and from the kitchen came the pungent
scents of limes and the redolence of roasting corn.
From her vantage-point the wife viewed it all, and then began slowly
to descend. As the rustle of the brocade became louder and the odor of
attar of roses more perceptible, the noise stopped all of a sudden, and
every eye was focussed on the woman garbed as if going to a Franklin
ball. Little they knew that she was wearing her wedding attire that had
lain folded many years in her mother's cedar chest brought from home.
High towered her hair of the brown-red color of autumn leaves, and
rouge and black lustre helped bring out the charms of her face. White
as the white-thorn bush in the garden was her sweeping brocade, and on
her arm a love-knot caught a tiny Bambini fan.
"Good-morning, sirs," she called, in a voice that charmed all the
company, as they bowed low, save her husband, who gazed at her with
astonishment and rage. But she did not heed his angry looks. Before
her at the foot of the stairs there stood a gallant youth by the name
of Harry Fairleigh. He alone held her eyes. Where had she seen that
strong face tanned by the ocean wind? In an instant she knew. He was
the embodiment of a dream--her boy lover grown older--the cherished
girlhood vision of her true mate. The Revolution had brought him to
America again and Fate led him to her very doorstep. Something seemed
to be swaying her. She caught his eyes and read in them that he knew
her. As he came forward to kiss her hand, she seemed filled with
an awful joy,--a feeling that tortured and hurt as it swept over
her,--for she knew that he had come too late.
The islanders welcomed the British gladly. Soon General Howe's brother
arrived with an additional force of twenty thousand men, and General
Clinton, repulsed at Charleston, hurried north with a re-enforcement
of three thousand more, making the combined forces somewhere near
thirty-three thousand. At the Rose and Crown Tavern near New Dorp,
the Black-Horse at Richmond, the Ship near Prince's Bridge, and in
farmhouses from end to end of the island hundreds of the soldiers had
their quarters. In that month of July the interest of the colonists
was centred on Staten Island. Every Tory maid who dreamt of scarlet
coats and golden epaulets thought with envy of those fortunate fair
ones surrounded by such multitudes of would-be admirers. Many a modern
household descended from loyalist settlers retains tokens of that gala
period. Now it is a chair that some visiting genius made when off
duty, perhaps a paste buckle, or a miniature which witnessed some story
woven in a summer month before the wheels of the Revolution began to
move swiftly.
No longer could Mrs. Billop complain of lacking company. Her husband,
under the influence of his foreign guests, was becoming a changed
man, and the fame of his hospitality was known even in New York. All
through the war there was a constant stream of visitors. Among the
famous ones could be mentioned Major André, General Knyphausen, Sir
Henry Clinton, and General Robertson. Many times Fairleigh would ride
over from Richmond to take part in some festivity. His manly beauty
always made him a noted figure, and his admirers called him the English
Apollo. Billop, by some strange intuition, seemed to hate him, and
longed to forbid him the house. One night his rage obtained mastery
over his prudence, and he rushed into his garden, where a dance was
in progress, and demanded that he stop his minuet with Mrs. Billop and
leave the company. Those were days of hot words and flashing steel,
and soon the moon shone on the glint of crossing swords. The wife,
terrified that harm should come to the young soldier on her account,
threw herself between the combatants, and, in the face of her husband's
threats, it is said that she promised to dance with Fairleigh again
at some future time. But she reckoned not with war. Soon the drum and
fife notes sounded in every part of the island, and the gallant young
soldier marched away with his regiment, carrying what was left of the
heart of the beautiful Mrs. Billop.
On the bloody field of Monmouth Fairleigh fell in the thick of the
fight, and Mrs. Billop's promise was never to be fulfilled in life.
Evil days fell upon the Bentley manor. Christopher Billop was dragged
away to Burlington to languish chained to the jail floor, if we are
to believe Elias Boudinot's stern order to the keeper of the jail,
written in November, 1779. In one of the rooms General Howe met the
peace envoys after the disastrous battle of Long Island, and later the
Billops were forced to flee, as the property was declared confiscated
by the new government.