stand the finest residences in Charleston, built in the palmy days
before the war, some of them survivals of the old Colonial times. No
two of these handsome houses are alike; each is stamped with its own
character and individuality; they are of all styles--Greek, Gothic,
Elizabethan, and nondescript, and of all pale tints of cool grey,
white, and light brown. They all luxuriate in balconies, piazzas,
verandahs, and every device for enjoying an almost tropical air in
shade and sunshine, and many of them rejoice in their own shadowing
trees. The scorching breath of the Southern summer has not yet
rusted the green of the turf and tree; the grass in the Battery
Park is the richest velvet sward that our feet have ever pressed;
the spring-leafage of the scrub-oaks is fresh and tender, though the
warmer tints of autumn linger yet here and there among the boughs. At
the further border of the long narrow slip of park is a fine sea-wall,
beyond which the sleepy waters of Charleston Harbour lap the stone of
the embankment. Here on the Battery stand various monuments, one, of
course, in memory of “the brave who are no more.” It is here, all along
this walk, that the ladies of Charleston collected in crowds, on one
memorable 12th of April, to watch the bombardment of Fort Sumter in the
distance.
[Illustration: FORT SUMTER, SOUTH CAROLINA]
Fort Sumter, of course, is the first excursion the tourist takes from
this city. A short cut through the market leads us to the wharf where
the little paddle-steamer waits to carry us thither. The sun blazes
fiercely in a heaven of dazzling sapphire blue, the little waves lap
and gurgle softly in transparent ripples of emerald, as the boat cuts
its calm way along. We pass the sunny shores, the green trees and white
villas of Mount Pleasant--well so named!--we pass Sullivan’s Island;
we near Fort Moultrie; and now we are in sight of Sumter. The deck is
crowded with excursionists, most of them Northern tourists; there are
a few Southerners, one or two Germans--we discover no English except
ourselves. We make acquaintance with some of our fellow-passengers;
all seem sociably inclined; all gather together along the bulwarks at
the first sight of Fort Sumter. Here are North and South, “Yankee” and
rebel harmoniously and amicably associating on a pleasure excursion to
the scene of the first conflict of the terrible four years’ struggle,
the spot where “twenty years and more” ago, that first shot was
fired which rang through the civilized world, which thrilled like a
bugle-call through the hearts of North and South, and “let slip the
dogs of war” to their dreadful work. Here this morning are the men who
wore the vanquished grey and those of the victorious blue, brothers
once more! In sight of the shattered walls of Sumter, no word except of
friendliness is heard.
We observe in the conversation of the various groups that they one and
all delicately refrain from speaking of the “other side” in audible
tones except as “Federal” and “Confederate,” although to each other, in
their _sotto voce_ discourse, we catch the old terms “Yank” and
“Reb” passing freely.
The Federal element, as represented on board this boat, does not appear
very well informed as to the facts and details of the siege. We inquire
in vain: How many were in the fort? What was the besieging force? How
many lives were lost? In answer to this last question, there are a
variety of answers, apparently most of them conjectural, and ranging
from “three hundred” down to “none.”
“It was from Fort Moultrie yonder that the first gun was fired,”
observes one tourist, drawing from his next neighbour the mild
correction: “Pardon me, sir, the _very_ first shot was from Fort
Johnson.”
Hereupon both parties pull out of their pockets--no, not revolvers, but
little blue paper--covered “Guides to Charleston.”
Meanwhile we are drawing nearer and nearer to the low, sandy island
that is the goal of our excursion. We wonder, as we look on that barren
sand-heap scorching in the yellow sand-glare, was _that_, once
upon a time, the lofty fort of Sumter? Could ever those fragments
of battered wall have towered up towards these blue skies in proud
defiance? In fancy, we see the pall of smoke wrap Sumter round again,
hear the thunder of the cannonade, and above the “burning battlehell”
of fire and smoke, we see streaming to the wind the ghost of the “Stars
and Bars!”
We land on the little pier, and pick our way along narrow planks laid
across the heavy sand, amongst heaps of cannon balls, old guns, new
guns, up steps, down steps, underground and overground, in and out
of gloomy bomb-proofs, from the loopholes of which the “dogs of war”
thrust forth their huge, black muzzles. One of the little garrison of
the fort shows us round, and acts as general _cicerone_ to our
party. He answers our questions--the Northern tourists put quite as
many as we strangers do; is it not twenty-two years since the siege? A
whole world behind to them; but our soldier-guide has the whole story
fresh in his mind. So has a bronzed and grizzled Southerner, who now
for the first time, in the subterranean shades of a bombproof-tunnel,
comes to the fore, and thenceforth divides public interest and
attention with the lawful _cicerone_.
Somebody puts to this new authority the old question--how many lives
were lost in the opening bombardment?
“Not one, sir,” is the prompt answer, “not one by the Confederate
attack. Seems strange, but so ’tis. There was one life lost, and that
was after the fort had surrendered. A man was blown up and killed. He
laid a mine, as a trap to blow up the Confederates, and he tripped his
foot, stumbled, and touched it off, and was killed by his own mine.”
A gentle smile of contemplative satisfaction irradiated the
Confederate’s countenance as he narrated this anecdote--of which we
afterwards heard divers and contrasting versions. I was walking with a
gentleman from Massachusetts, but, as my escort did not appear able to
feed my feminine curiosity with all the details I desired, I drew the
better-informed Confederate authority to join us; and we rambled on in
an exemplarily harmonious trio.
Our Southerner was brimming over with reminiscences, all uttered in
dulcet and lamb-like tones which would well have befitted an idyllic
love-story.
“With a seven-inch bore, like this,” he observed, resting his boot-heel
tenderly on a big gun that lay half buried in the sand, “we sunk the
first monitor that came along. Hit the turret and made her careen, and
then the lower battery took her right between wind and water.”
He smiled softly, as if cherishing sweet and tender memories.
“I put a little Confederate flag on the buoy out there,” he continued,
pointing to a spot on the sunny water, “and it stayed there all the
time.”
“Didn’t we come after it?” inquired the tourist from Massachusetts.
“Oh, yes; the Federals, they came after it several times; but they
didn’t happen to get it,” the mild Carolinian replied in his soft
lingering drawl.
I do not know how much or how little correct history was current
amongst us that day; but there certainly was a good deal of information
to be had for the asking.
“Getting ready for our cousins!” observed a New York girl, patting a
fine new gun approvingly.
“What cousins?” I inquired.
“Our English cousins,” was the reply. “They might take a fancy to come
over here!”
“I don’t think we want to come over, except as tourists, as we have
come to day,” I observed, mildly deprecating.
“I guess you and the Southerners have had enough of that,” replied the
young lady contentedly.
Our bronzed Southerner was picking up a sea-shell from the sand as a
souvenir for me, and, probably by way of a coal of fire, he picked up a
finer shell for her, and polished it with his pocket handkerchief.
In every group some chapter of the story of the siege was being told--I
fear occasionally coloured according to the bias of the narrator. The
names of Beauregard, Sherman, Lee, Anderson, were echoing on every
side. Indeed it was not 1883, it was 1861, in which we all lived that
hour!
Time was up; the whistle sounded. We left the sandy isle of Fort
Sumter--deserted now, save for a little garrison to be counted on the
fingers of one hand--and returned to our boat, and to the present year
of our Lord, 1883.
OLD STONE TOWER, NEWPORT
BENSON J. LOSSING
The object of greatest attraction to the visitor at Newport is the
Old Tower or windmill, as it is sometimes called. On the subject
of its erection history and tradition are silent, and the object
of its construction is alike unknown and conjectural. It is a huge
cylinder composed of unhewn stones--common granite, slate, sandstone,
and pudding-stone--cemented with coarse mortar, made of the soil on
which the structure stands, and shell lime. It rests upon eight round
columns, a little more than three feet in diameter and ten feet high
from the ground to the spring of the arches. The wall is three feet
thick, and the whole edifice is twenty four feet high. The external
diameter is twenty-three feet. Governor Gibbs informed me that, on
excavating the base of one of the pillars, he found the soil about four
feet deep, lying upon a stratum of hard rock, and that the foundation
of the column, which rested upon this rock, was composed of rough-hewn
spheres of stone, the lower ones about four feet in circumference. On
the interior, a little above the arches, are small square niches, in
depth about half the thickness of the wall, designed apparently to
receive floor-timbers. In several places within, as well as upon the
inner surface of some of the columns, are patches of stucco, which,
like the mortar, is made of coarse sand and shell lime, and as hard
as the stone it covers. Governor Gibbs remembers the appearance of
the tower when it was partially covered with the same hard stucco upon
its exterior surface. Doubtless it was originally covered within and
without with plaster, and the now rough columns, with mere indications
of capitals and bases of the Doric form, were handsomely wrought, the
whole structure exhibiting taste and beauty. During the possession
of Rhode Island by the British in the Revolution, the tower was more
perfect than now, and the walls were three or four feet higher than at
present. The British used it for an ammunition magazine, and when they
evacuated the island, they attempted to demolish the old “mill,” by
igniting a keg of powder within it. But the strong walls resisted the
vandals, and the only damage the edifice sustained was the loss of its
roof and two or three feet of its upper masonry. Such is the Old Tower
at Newport. Its early history is yet unwritten and may forever remain
so.
[Illustration: OLD STONE TOWER, NEWPORT]
There has been much patient investigation, with a great deal of
speculation, concerning this ancient edifice, but no satisfactory
conclusion has yet been obtained. Of its existence prior to the
English emigration to America there is now but little doubt; and it
is asserted that the Indians, of whom Mr. Coddington and other early
settlers upon Aquitneck (now Rhode Island) solicited information
concerning the structure, had no tradition respecting its origin.
Because it was called a “mill” in some old documents, some have argued,
or rather, have flippantly asserted, that it was built by the early
English settlers for a windmill. Thus Mr. Cooper disposes of the
matter in his preface to _Red Rover_. A little patient inquiry
would have given him a different conclusion; and if the structure is
really ante-colonial, and perhaps ante-Columbian, its history surely
is worthy of investigation. That it was converted into and used for a
windmill by some of the early settlers of Newport, there is no doubt,
for it was easily convertible to such use, although not by a favourable
arrangement. The English settlement upon the island was commenced in
1636, at the north end, and in 1639 the first house was erected on the
site of Newport, by Nicholas Easton. Mention is made in the Colonial
records of a windmill by Peter Easton, in 1663, twenty-five years after
the founding of Newport; and this was evidently the first mill erected
there, from the fact that it was considered of sufficient importance
to the Colony to induce the General Court to reward Mr. Easton for his
enterprise, by a grant of a tract of fine land, a mile in length, lying
along what is still known as _Easton’s Beach_. That mill was a
wooden structure, and stood upon the land now occupied by the North
Burying-ground in the upper suburbs of Newport. The land on which the
tower stands once belonged to Governor Benedict Arnold, and in his
will, bearing the date of 1678, forty years after the settlement, he
mentions the “stone-mill,” the tower having evidently been used for
that purpose. Its form, its great solidity, and its construction upon
columns, forbid the idea that it was originally erected for a mill; and
certainly, if a common windmill made of timber was so highly esteemed
by the people, as we have seen, the construction of such an edifice,
so superior to any dwelling or church in the colony, would have
received special attention from the magistrates and the historians of
the day. And wherefore, for such a purpose, were the foundation-stones
wrought into spheres and the whole structure stuccoed within and
without?
When, in 1837, the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries of Copenhagen
published the result of their ten years’ investigations concerning the
discovery of America by the Northmen in the Tenth Century, in a volume
entitled _Antiquitates-Americana_, the old mill at Newport, the
rock inscription at Dighton, in Massachusetts, and the discovery of
skeletons evidently of a race different from the Indians, elicited
the earnest attention of inquirers, as subjects in some way connected
with those early discoveries. Dr. Webb, who was then a resident of
Providence, and secretary to the Rhode Island Historical Society,
opened a correspondence with Charles C. Rafn, the Secretary to the
Royal Society of Copenhagen, Dr. Webb employed Mr. Catherwood to make
drawings of the mill, and these, with a particular account of the
structure, he transmitted to Professor Rafn. Here was opened for the
society a new field of inquiry, the products of which were published,
with engravings from Mr. Catherwood’s drawings. According to Professor
Rafn, the architecture of this building is in the ante-Gothic style,
which was common in the north and west of Europe from the Eighth to the
Twelfth Centuries. “The circular form, the low columns, their thickness
in proportion to their distance from each other, and the entire want
of ornament,” he says, “all point out this epoch.” He imagines that it
was used for a baptistery, and accounts for the absence of buildings of
a similar character by the abundance of wood in America. The brevity
of the sojourn of the Northmen here was doubtless another, and perhaps
principal reason, why similar structures were not erected. The fact
that the navigators of Sweden, Norway and Iceland visited and explored
the American coast, as far as the shores of Connecticut, and probably
more southerly, during the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (five hundred
years before the voyages of Columbus), appears to be too well attested
to need further notice here. For the proofs the reader is referred to
the interesting work alluded to _Antiquitates-Americana_.
ST. PAUL’S CHAPEL, NEW YORK
CHARLES HEMSTREET[24]
In the chapel of St. Paul’s, and in the graveyard that surrounds it,
there are sights enough to keep a thoughtful person busy during more
than one long day. To see the people hurrying along Broadway, without
even a glance at the dim, old building, you would never think so. Close
by the chapel door, which faces the churchyard, there is a bench which
I occupy so often that I have come to feel that it is my personal
property. It rests close by the ivy-covered wall, and, although it is
but a dozen steps from the street, the intervening churchyard gives it
relief and quiet so that all sight and sound of the bustling city seem
shut off.
Sometimes there are visitors, doubtless attracted by my at-home
appearance as I sit there, who ask me questions about the church and
the churchyard. I always like to be asked these questions, and answer
them as best I can. If the questioners are interested, I deliver a
sort of lecture, telling how very small the city was in the year 1764,
when the corner-stone of the church was laid, and how the building was
opened in the second year after that. Then I wander on and tell how
there were fields all around in those days, and how they sloped from
the church door right down to the river. Sometimes, when there is a
word of surprise at the many houses that now stand between the church
and the river, I explain that a great deal of the land has been filled
in during the one hundred and thirty odd years that have passed and
that it has become too valuable to be left as a green field.
My last inquirer was an old gentleman, who was so much more in earnest
than the usual curiosity seeker, that I asked him if he had lived long
in the city.
“I am only here for a time, from the West,” said he. “This is my first
visit to St. Paul’s although I love every stone in the old building.
My father, when he was a child, lived near here, and, although he left
the city with his parents in his youth, he often talked to me of this
church, and how he had played among the tombstones when he was a boy.
But the church seems smaller than I have imagined it.”
And then I told him that to me, too, the church seemed to grow smaller
each year, but this was, doubtless, caused by the tall buildings
growing up around it; and that the church had, in the time when his
father knew it, been considered a giant of a building.
The old man nodded his head. “Yes, yes; doubtless so,” said he. Then,
on my invitation, he gladly followed me into the chapel, and I led the
way to the pew, off the north aisle, where George Washington used to
sit when he attended service, and which has been preserved as he used
it.
“So this is the Washington pew!” said my companion, as he tenderly
tapped the woodwork against which he leaned, and looked admiringly
at the coat-of-arms of New York on the wall above.
[Illustration: ST. PAUL’S CHAPEL, NEW YORK]
“Yes, and you will remember that in 1776, when the invading British
force came, the city was fired, Trinity Church was burned, with all
its records, and the flames swept away a great part of the western
side of the city. St. Paul’s Chapel was saved, and here, during the
British occupation, Lord Howe, the English commander, and many soldiers
of the King attended service. And when the British left New York, and
the American forces came, Washington and his army took their places in
the church. And to this church, on the day that he was inaugurated as
first President of the United States, came Washington, and sat in this
pew in which we now sit. Those who visited the church in Washington’s
time have left the record that he was Commander-in-Chief, and in the
days when he was President, he always attended the church without the
slightest display, that he walked in very quietly, and that when he was
in his seat he paid not the slightest attention to anything except his
prayer-book and the clergyman. During all the time that he was in the
city, he regularly, each week made the entry for Sunday in his diary:
‘Went to St. Paul’s Chapel in the forenoon.’
“And there you see the sounding-board on the pulpit, with the
coat-of-arms of the Prince of Wales on the top. During Revolutionary
days, patriots rushed through the city and destroyed everything that
suggested allegiance to England. In some way, this sounding-board
escaped destruction, so that now it is the only pre-Revolutionary
relic remaining in the place where it originally stood.
“There, beside the west wall, is a bust of John Wells, erected by the
members of the City Bar. He was a talented lawyer, who died in 1823.
Wells was the sole survivor of a large family, all the members of
which, except himself, were killed by Indians at the Cherry Valley
Massacre. That he lived was due to his being at the time away from home
attending school. He came to the city, practised law successfully for
many years, and died regretted by the entire fraternity.”
These things and others in the chapel I pointed out to my companion,
and then he followed me out into the churchyard again. We noted the
spot, close by Vesey Street, where lay the remains of George Eacker,
who killed the son of Alexander Hamilton in a duel, a few years before
the great statesman was himself killed in the self-same way. There
was another grave, almost in the centre of the yard, of a man who, in
his day, had made a name for himself, which is almost forgotten now.
It was the grave of Christopher Colles. He first conceived the idea
of the Erie Canal, and delivered lectures on the subject, long years
before DeWitt Clinton carried the project to a successful conclusion.
It was this same Christopher Colles who built a reservoir by the
Collect Pond, giving New York her first water-works, and applying steam
practically to his pumping-station ten years before Fulton applied it
to navigation. Colles died in 1821, a poor man.
The tall monument to the south of the church, erected to the memory
of Thomas Addis Emmett, the jurist and brother of Robert Emmett,
interested my companion more than anything else. He took a deep
interest in deciphering the inscription on the west side--a curious
inscription for a tombstone, for it reads,
40 42′ 40″ N.,
74 03′ 21″ 5 W. L. G.,
and tells the exact latitude and longitude in which the monument is.
When we came to the monument set in the chancel window facing the
street, my companion looked at me inquiringly. It was just after the
celebration of Decoration Day, and a wreath of fresh flowers, bound
with a trailing ribbon of imperial purple, quite hid the inscription
on this tomb. Then we talked over the story of the brave hero of
Quebec--Major-General Richard Montgomery--whose body lies beneath the
chancel; spoke of how he had fallen in that fateful battle of 1775
calling on the men of New York to follow where he led; how the men had
followed him, and how many of them had fallen with their general; of
the day forty-three years later, when the nation for which he had died,
remembering his brave deeds, had brought his body home to the city
from its first resting place in Quebec; how on that day the city had
been draped in mourning; how the streets had resounded to the tread of
marching feet, and how the body had been interred beneath the chancel,
where a monument was already set up to a great and good man, and a
reminder to all that the deeds of men live after them.
And then we reached the gate which opens into the churchyard from
Broadway. For a few moments we stood silently looking at the crowds
that hurried past. I do not know what were my companion’s thoughts just
then, but my own were of those other men who a hundred years before had
hurried along the same thoroughfare, and of whom the only reminders
now are the tombstones in the churchyard. My companion then left me,
mingled with the crowds and was soon lost to sight.
I meant to have told him that to know all the picturesqueness of Old
St. Paul’s, it should be visited on a night in early winter; one of
those dreary nights when the rain falls blurring the glare of lights
until those from each separate store-window seem to melt together.
Then all the noise and bustle settle down into a sullen roar. Wet and
dripping horses flounder past; cable cars glide along with clanging
sound of bell; people knock umbrellas together as they hurry on.
The rain, the noise, the confusion, the lights bewilder the brain.
As one passes the Astor House, where the confusion is greatest, the
lights most dazzling, the crowds largest and most in a hurry, you
suddenly come upon the churchyard. It is merely to cross narrow Vesey
Street,--but it is like stepping from day to night. The sight of the
dark old church and the quiet tombs behind the tall iron fence breathe
of silence and comfort. In the daytime the tombstones are brown and
faded, but on these rainy nights the lights creeping in through the
bars make them white as snow.
[Illustration: FANEUIL HALL, BOSTON]