There appeared upon the scene in Washington toward the middle of the
seventies one of those problematical characters the fiction-mongers
delight in. This was John Chamberlin. During two decades
“Chamberlin’s,” half clubhouse and half chophouse, was all a
rendezvous.
“John” had been a gambler; first an underling and then a partner of the
famous Morrissy-McGrath racing combination at Saratoga and Long Branch.
There was a time when he was literally rolling in wealth. Then he went
broke—dead broke. Black Friday began it and the panic of ’73 finished
it. He came over to Washington and his friends got him the restaurant
privileges of the House of Representatives. With this for a starting
point, he was able to take the Fernando Wood residence, in the heart of
the fashionable quarter, to add to it presently the adjoining dwelling
of Governor Swann, of Maryland, and next to that, finally, the Blaine
mansion, making a suite, as it were, elegant yet cozy. “Welcker’s,”
erst a fashionable resort, and long the best eating-place in town, had
been ruined by a scandal, and “Chamberlin’s” succeeded it, having the
field to itself, though, mindful of the “scandal” which had made its
opportunity, ladies were barred.
There was a famous cook—Emeline Simmons—a mulatto woman, who was
equally at home in French dishes and Maryland-Virginia kitchen
mysteries—a very wonder with canvasback and terrapin—who later refused
a great money offer to he chef at the White House—whom John was able to
secure. Nothing could surpass—could equal—her preparations. The
charges, like the victuals, were sky-high and tip-top. The service was
handled by three “colored gentlemen,” as distinguished in manners as in
appearance, who were known far and wide by name and who dominated all
about them, including John and his patrons.
No such place ever existed before, or will ever exist again. It was the
personality of John Chamberlin, pervasive yet invisible, exhaling a
silent, welcoming radiance. General Grant once said to me, “During my
eight years in the White House, John Chamberlin once in a while—once in
a great while—came over. He did not ask for anything. He just told me
what to do, and I did it.” I mentioned this to President Arthur.
“Well,” he laughingly said, “that has been my experience with John
Chamberlin. It never crosses my mind to say him ‘nay.’ Often I have
turned this over in my thought to reach the conclusion that being a man
of sound judgment and worldly knowledge, he has fully considered the
case—his case and my case—leaving me no reasonable objection to
interpose.”
John obtained an act of Congress authorizing him to build a hotel on
the Government reservation at Fortress Monroe, and another of the
Virginia Legislature confirming this for the State. Then he came to me.
It was at the moment when I was flourishing as “a Wall Street magnate.”
He said: “I want to sell this franchise to some man, or company, rich
enough to carry it through. All I expect is a nest egg for Emily and
the girls”—he had married the beautiful Emily Thorn, widow of George
Jordan, the actor, and there were two daughters—“you are hand-and-glove
with the millionaires. Won’t you manage it for me?” Like Grant and
Arthur, I never thought of refusing. Upon the understanding that I was
to receive no commission, I agreed, first ascertaining that it was
really a most valuable franchise.
I began with the Willards, in whose hotel I had grown up. They were
rich and going out of business. Then I laid it before Hitchcock and
Darling, of the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York. They, rich like the
Willards, were also retiring. Then a bright thought occurred to me. I
went to the Prince Imperial of Standard Oil. “Mr. Flagler,” I said,
“you have hotels at St. Augustine and you have hotels at Palm Beach.
Here is a halfway point between New York and Florida,” and more of the
same sort. “My dear friend,” he answered, “every man has the right to
make a fool of himself once in his life. This I have already done.
Never again for me. I have put up my last dollar south of the Potomac.”
Then I went to the King of the transcontinental railways. “Mr.
Huntington,” I said, “you own a road extending from St. Louis to
Newport News, having a terminal in a cornfield just out of Hampton
Roads. Here is a franchise which gives you a magnificent site at
Hampton Roads itself. Why not?” He gazed upon me with a blank
stare—such I fancy as he usually turned upon his suppliants—and slowly
replied: “I would not spend another dollar in Virginia if the Lord
commanded me. In the event that some supernatural power should take the
Chesapeake & Ohio Railway by the nape of the neck and the seat of the
breeches and pitch it out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean it would
be doing me a favor.”
So I returned John his franchise marked “nothing doing.” Afterward he
put it in the hands of a very near friend, a great capitalist, who had
no better luck with it. Finally, here and there, literally by
piecemeal, he got together money enough to build and furnish the Hotel
Chamberlin, had a notable opening with half of Congress there to see,
and gently laid himself down and died, leaving little other than
friends and debts.