by Lyler & Hewitt, 39 Camp Street. Lehman published his own work at 194
St. Anne Street.... I am not half through, but I am weary of looking over
these old music books. So many memories cluster about every page—memories
of lovely dances with delightful partners. Oh! That grand _valse à cinq
temps_, the music of which was never printed, and no band but Lehman’s
band could play it, and nobody taught the whirling steps but Mme.
Angélina. Memories of sweet girls, now old and faded, or, better than
that, listening to the “Music of the Spheres.” Memories of painstaking
professors whose pencil marks are all that is left to bring forcibly to
mind their patient personality. I turn the last leaf, and lo! here is a
unique bit of music and information—“The Monterey Waltz,” by Eugene Wythe
Dawson, a little Texas boy, who dedicates it to the little musicians of
his own age (eight years) in the sister States! I do not remember anyone
who essayed to render the “Monterey Waltz”—I never did—but Eugene Dawson
was still playing the piano in Texas during the war, proving possibly our
grandfather’s dictum, “A man who plays the piano is mighty little account
for anything else.”
We don’t think so now. I would be glad for a musician, male or female, in
this house to render for me the sweet musical numbers that once made my
young heart bound.
XXII
THE SONGS OF LONG AGO
How the ballads of our youth are, in memory, merged into the personality
of those who sang them! How, as we recall the simple rhymes, the sweet
voices of departed friends clothe them in melody. The songs of my early
years come to me to-day with more freshness than the songs I heard
yesterday, and with them come more vividly to mind the voices and faces
of those long-gone friends than come the faces of those of to-day.
How many of us can recall “Blue-eyed Mary”? the little ballad with which
my mother always quieted me to rest. The pitiful little song! And in my
childhood days, too, mammy rocked me to sleep with “Ole Grimes is daid,
dat good ole man.” I never hear “Blue-eyed Mary” or “Old Grimes” now, nor
have I for more than threescore years and ten, they are both so buried in
oblivion, though I can repeat every word of each, they were so nestled
and rocked into my baby life.
When my father’s home was on Customhouse Street Duncan Hennen lived
directly opposite. Mrs. Hennen was a dashing beauty. She had a sister
from Tennessee visiting her, who had a powerful voice, and she sang “Old
Rosin the Beau” and “Life on the Ocean Wave” with all the abandon of a
professional. My father admired her style prodigiously, but my mother
thought it too robust. “The Carrier Dove—fly away to my native land,
sweet dove,” and “Twilight Dews,” she pronounced more ladylike. (How
often we used that word “ladylike.” We rarely hear it now.) I must have
been a very small “little girl” when I heard Wallace, in concert, sing
“The Old Arm Chair.” No one since Wallace ever sung that touching, homely
ballad so beautifully. Once having heard his sympathetic rendering, one
always associates the song with William Wallace.
I think it has been full sixty years since that song and “Farewell to
Tom Moore,” by Byron, have been heard. And “Twilight Dews,” oh, my! and
“Shells of the Ocean”—“One summer’s day in pensive thought,” etc. Young
girls played their accompaniments and tossed their ringlets and sang
those ditties to enraptured swains, who often stood back of them, holding
the candle at the proper angle and turning the leaves! How it all comes
back to this dreaming old lady, who never sang, but who dearly loved to
listen to her more gifted friends....
In the Cajin settlement on the border of which I occasionally visited
there was a family of Lafitons—I boldly give the name, for the two sons,
Lafiton _fils_ and Pete, never married, and all the family died years
and years ago, but there was a lovely sprig of a girl, Amenaide, who
possessed a fine voice and no doubt would have made her mark if she had
had the necessary training, but she was one of the flowers “born to blush
unseen.” I don’t think she knew one note of music. Of course, a guitar,
much more a piano, was beyond her reach. She sang the sweet old French
melody, “Fleuve du Tage,” delightfully. I wonder now where she ever heard
it. For years after when I heard the song Amenaide rose before me, and
with her the impression that she was not equaled.
There was another touching little ballad, in the days that were, “We Have
Been Friends Together,” and that tender “Good-by,” who ever sings them
now? Nobody, unless it be some old lady with quavering voice, who sings
them in her heart while she dreams of the sweet girls of “Long, long ago”
who have vanished.
“I Cannot Sing the Old Songs,” and “When Stars Are in the Quiet Skies”
were two of the songs we loved to hear in the days before “Dixie” and
“The Volunteer” and “The Bonnie Blue Flag” captured the voices of so many
of our sweet singers.
Some of us remember Mollie Haynes, who became the wife of Col. Charles D.
Dreux, and none can recall her charming personality without a thought of
the superb voice she possessed. “Ave Maria, Ora Pro Nobis”—none that I
knew could render that prayerful melody with the pathos of Mollie Dreux.
We all remember that Col. Dreux was the first Confederate officer from
Louisiana who fell in battle, and no subsequent funeral was more largely
attended than was Charles Dreux’s. “Joys That We’ve Tasted” brings to
mind a popular singer in the “Long Time Ago,” Mrs. George D. Prentice, of
Kentucky. How the names and the very people come thronging my mind as I
recall these old melodies in which they are associated.
A few years since, listening to the well-trained voice of a professional,
as she rendered some intricate, superlative kind of music, that did not
in the least appeal to me, I ventured to ask if she would favor us with
“Ben Bolt.” She graciously consented. And she rendered that simple old
ballad that every child whistled or hummed when I was a child, with so
many trills and bravuras, and I don’t know what else in the vocal line,
that I was lost in amazement. Svengali himself could not have idealized
to the same extent. Poor “Sweet Alice” was buried under such an avalanche
of sound that one could not recognize the “corner, obscure and alone,”
where she was supposed to rest under a “slab of granite so gray.”
So, perhaps, in the march of improvement, where none sing unless they
possess a voice that would electrify a whole opera house audience, it is
well the dear old songs of long ago are not resurrected and amplified
to suit the tastes and requirements of to-day. I recall though, with a
thrill of tender memory, hearing Jenny Lind sing “Home, Sweet Home”—just
the simple ballad—without a single flourish when she was in New Orleans
in 1851. I was in deep mourning and did not dream I would have the
pleasure of hearing her, but a friend secured a _loge grillée_, and
insisted upon my going, accompanied by my brother. It was all arranged so
courteously and so sympathetically and so kindly that I could not refuse,
and thus I heard that incomparable artist sing “Home, Sweet Home.”
No longer can mother sit in her “old arm chair” waving a turkey tail fan
warm summer evenings, and be comforted and soothed by sweet warblings
of her girls at the piano. No longer can the tired father call for his
favorite, “Oh! Would I Were a Boy Again,” or “Rock Me to Sleep, Mother,”
or Mrs. Hemans’ “Bring Flowers, Fresh Flowers,” the sweet old flowers
that all girls were singing sixty years ago. The old mothers and fathers,
the bright young daughters are scarce buried more deeply or mourned more
deeply than are the songs of long ago.
XXIII
A RAMBLE THROUGH THE OLD CITY
In the days of which I write New Orleans bore a very different aspect
from the present, and it may be well for me to take my readers on a
gossipy ramble through the thoroughfares which I so often traverse
nowadays in my thoughts.
Canal Street in the early forties was, par excellence, a resident street.
From Camp and Chartres Streets, way back as far as sidewalks were flagged
or bricked, which was only a few blocks, Canal Street was lined with
homes, side by side, often without even an alley to separate them, as
though land was scarce and one need economize space, whereas just beyond
was land in plenty, but no sidewalks or easy approaches to speak of. From
Camp Street to the levee were, as I remember, large wholesale business
houses, convenient to the shoppers of large supplies, who arrived at
regular intervals from their plantations on _Belle Creole_, or some other
coast packet, frequently retained their quarters on the boat the short
time it was in port, and so monsieur and madame could accomplish their
necessary shopping, untrammeled by the elegancies and inconvenient hours
of a hotel.
[Illustration]
Things were conducted on a very liberal basis in those days. I have a
liking for that old way—it was so debonair and generous, putting the
captain on the same social standing as his guests.
On the lower side of Canal Street, about where Holmes’ store now stands,
were more homes, in a row, all the houses exactly alike, with narrow
balconies stretching clear across the fronts, in a most confidentially
neighborly way. The lower floors were doctors’ or lawyers’ offices or
exchange brokers’. Fancy goods, dry goods, retail shops, in fact of
every kind, were on Chartres or Royal Street; none on Canal. R. W.
Montgomery had his home also on that fashionable thoroughfare.
Christ Church was on the corner of Baronne and Canal, and Dr. Laycock was
the pastor at the date of which I write, and, with few exceptions, all
these families were of his flock.
Lower Camp Street was occupied mostly by exchange brokers’ and such
offices. The Sun Mutual Insurance Company had a conspicuous sign on a
modest two-story brick building which any insurance structure to-day
would put to shame.
If it is near Christmas time, when we are taking this gossipy ramble, we
might meet a flock of turkeys marching up Camp Street, guided by a man
and boys with long poles. In those days fowls were not offered for sale
ready dressed or plucked, but sold “on the hoof,” as we say of cattle.
Camp and the adjacent resident streets were, to use another Westernism,
a favorite “turkey trot.” Those turkeys may have trotted miles. Goodness
knows whence they took up the line of march—presumably at some boat
landing—but they were docile as lambs and in good condition. No roast
turkey gobbler, or, better still, boiled turkey hen with oyster dressing,
tastes now like the ones mother had on her table when I was a child and
clamored for the drum-stick. What does taste as good to us old folks
to-day? Nothing! Absolutely nothing!...
In Exchange Alley (it may have a new name now, since Triton Walk and
Customhouse Street and others of the old days have been rechristened)
my father and a number of other “attorneys at law,” as their signs
indicated, had offices. Mr. Wharton was one, and I also recall two Hebrew
beaux of that date who were neighbors of my father’s, A. K. Josephs and
M. M. Cohen. Nobody knew their given names. Beyond Camp Street, near
Magazine, Mme. Shall kept a boarding house. It was a popular hostelry for
gentlemen. Ladies did not board, except (to use Susan Nippers’ language)
as temporaries.
[Illustration: EXCHANGE ALLEY.]
Visitors to the city “put up” at the St. Charles Hotel, in the hands
of Colonel Mudge. St. Charles was the best hotel even then, comparing
favorably with the Galt House, in Louisville, under the management of
that prince of hosts, Major Aris Throckmorton—which is saying volumes
for the St. Charles. In the season flocks of Nashville, Louisville and
Cincinnati belles descended upon New Orleans, sat in gorgeous attire
and much chatter of voices on the divans under the chandelier of the
St. Charles parlor, while the kindly fathers and insinuating brothers,
bent on giving the girls a good time, foraged about the ample rotunda,
captured, escorted in and introduced many eligible beaux found sauntering
around that fascinating rendezvous.
Up Carondelet Street—one could not find the location on a city map now,
for, as I remember, the streets were not named—were suburban homes, all
about, quite remote and countrified. Judge John N. Duncan lived in one
of those cottages. There was a grand, big yard surrounding it, with fig
trees, hedges, rosebushes and vines, a perfect bower of delight to us
children. Rose, the only daughter, was a lifelong friend of mine. She
became the first wife of Col. William Preston Johnston. Nearby lived the
Peter Conreys, who gave lovely lawn parties, that the naughty uninvited
dubbed “Feat sham peters.”
Not so very far away, in the neighborhood of Constance and Robin Streets,
there was erected in 1843 Quite a grand residence for the Slark family.
I do not remember much of them in those early days, though they lived
near enough to my father’s to be neighbors. Later in life my acquaintance
with them was more intimate. I recall, though, quite vividly Mrs. Slark’s
visiting card, which I admired prodigiously. Being a small collector
of curios that unique bit of pasteboard was one of my treasures till I
lost it! There seems to have been considerable latitude in the style of
visiting cards about that time—some were highly glazed and had gilt
edges; some were even pink tinged, but I think Mrs. Slark’s was the _ne
plus ultra_—a bird’s beak holding a waving pennant, and on its flowing
folds was engraved “Mrs.—Abigail—L.—Slark,” something after the style of
the eagle and _E pluribus unum_.
I find I am wandering away from that dear old Canal Street of fragrant
memories. Fragrant, though the broad neutral ground was a wilderness of
weeds of dampy growth, and (so our John used to tell me) snakes! There
certainly were frogs after a spring rain. I have heard their croaks.
Further back toward the swamps were deep ditches, with crawfish sneaking
about in them. Fine fishing place for us little ones it was, too. After
a heavy downpour of rain the poorly paved street and the low, marshy
neutral ground was often flooded clear across from sidewalk to sidewalk.
It was great fun to watch the men trying to cross the street after one of
these rains. Rubber shoes were unknown, so men depended on high boots. Of
course, ladies did not venture forth at such times, when they required
more protection for the foot than a thin-soled slipper afforded. There
were goloshes, wooden soles fastened with straps and buckles over the
instep. A golosh looked like a roller skate and was about as easy to walk
with. You never see one now.
I wonder if anyone under seventy-five years of age passes old “Julia
Street row” to-day and knows that those “13 Buildings” between Camp and
St. Charles Streets have an aristocratic past, and were once occupied by
the leading social element of the American colony residing in the early
forties above Canal Street? “13 Buildings” it was called, and at that
date, and a decade later, every one of them was tenanted by prominent
citizens of New Orleans. There they lived and entertained a host of
delightful guests, whose names were a power then, but whose descendants
are perhaps little known to-day.
There lived Mr. Lanfear with his two daughters. Louisa later became the
wife of David Ogden. There lived Mrs. Slocomb and her three children.
They became Mrs. T. G. Richardson, so well known and honored to-day in
the Crescent City; Mrs. David Urquhart, now living in England, and Capt.
Cuthbert Slocomb. Late in the forties that family went to Europe, and
returned to occupy the house, built in their absence, which is now the
home of Mr. Frank Howard, opposite Lafayette Square.
The Branders—Mr. Brander was a merchant of some note and social standing.
His daughter, Caledonia, married Mr. Sager, an Englishman, and eventually
went to Europe. Virginia Brander became the wife of Edward Matthews,
a New York man, who subsequently made a large fortune by speculating
in long leases of valuable business sites in New York during a panic
in commercial circles at the time of the Civil War. Their son, Brander
Matthews, is a distinguished man of letters and professor in Columbia
College. The Smith family, a host of handsome girls, occupied the house
next to the Camp street corner, and in that house the original J. P.
Labouisse married beautiful Dora Smith, whose death, at the advanced age
of ninety, occurred a short time ago. Charles Cammack married Sarah Smith
in the same house, and Mary Smith married Morris, the son of Beverly
Chew, who was a defendant in the noted Gaines case of that day.
H. S. Buckner’s home was midway of the row, and there was born Ellen
Buckner, who became the wife of James B. Eustis, the first United States
ambassador to France. Those old friends who visited Paris in her _régime_
tell of her cordial and gracious hospitality.
Leonard Mathews lived in one of the “13 Buildings.” He was agent of the
Sun Insurance Company. There were young people in that house, too. Mary
Jane Mathews married Mr. Hugh Wilson, a prominent business man, and their
daughter married Lyman Josephs of Rhode Island. There was also the family
of Dr. William Kennedy. Mrs. Kennedy was sister of Mr. Levi Peirce and
of Mrs. Hillary Cenas. Their daughter, Charlotte, married a son of the
distinguished Sargent S. Prentiss of Mississippi.
[Illustration: HENRY CLAY]
Diagonally across the corner of Julia and St. Charles Streets was the
home of Col. Maunsel White, a veteran of Chalmette, who won his title on
the field. A genial Irishman, his serenity was disturbed about the time
of which I write by the elopement of his oldest daughter, Eliza, with
the dashing Cuthbert Bullitt. She died many years ago, but Mr. Bullitt
lived and dashed many years after dashing ceased to be becoming. A short
time ago he also passed away at a ripe old age, having survived every
contemporary.
My personal recollections of the guests who came to my father’s house in
“13 Buildings” are distinct. Henry Clay, a lifelong friend of father’s,
the only one I ever heard call him “Dick” (even my mother did not do
that), was a frequent visitor whenever he came to the Crescent City.
My father planned in 1844 to go to England, and his old friend gave him
the following letter. It was never delivered, owing to the enforced
abandonment of the plan, and hangs now on my library wall, framed, beside
the Henry Clay portrait which illustrates this book and which is by far
the best likeness I have ever seen of Kentucky’s gifted son.
ASHLAND, 16th July, 1844.
MY LORD:
Richard H. Chinn, Esq., who will deliver this letter desiring
the honor of your Lordship’s acquaintance, I take pleasure
in introducing him (sic) to you as an eminent and highly
respectable councillor at law, now residing in New Orleans,
whom I have long known.
I avail myself of the opportunity to assure your Lordship of
the constant esteem and regard of
Your Lordship’s faithful and obedient servant,
H. CLAY.
THE RIGHT HONORABLE LORD ASHBURTON, London.
Gen. E. P. Gaines and his tiny, frisky wife, the noted Myra Clark Gaines,
were also frequent guests. The General, a warrior, every inch of him,
very tall, erect and pompously stately, always appeared at “functions”
in full uniform, epaulettes, sword and what not, while she, all smiles
and ringlets and flounces, hung upon his arm like a pink silk reticule.
There also came Charles Gayarré, the Louisiana historian; John R. Grymes,
the noted lawyer; Pierre Soulé, diplomat; Alec Bullitt, Alec Walker and
George W. Kendall—all three editors of the leading paper of the day, the
_Picayune_. And so on, including a host of others just as noted and
interesting in their day, whose names are never mentioned now. I cannot
omit mention of the famous wit and beauty, Miss Sally Carneal, niece of
the original Nick Longworth, of Ohio, for, with her superb voice, she
frequently entertained and entranced my father’s guests. I recall one
occasion when she sang, with inimitable pathos and wild passion, a song
I never wish to hear again, “The Maniac.” The little audience, roused to
a pitch bordering on madness, was almost ready to shriek and tear its
hair. Glendy Burke (does anybody remember him? He was an eligible _parti_
then) fell in desperate love with her that night, and subsequently they
married. All are gone now; and most of them forgotten, except, possibly,
by an old lady, who sits at her fireside, and unfolds the book of
memory....
In course of time a Mme. Peuch took possession of the house on the St.
Charles street corner, and, horrors! opened a boarding house, whereupon
the aristocratic element gradually fluttered away. The Smiths and
Labouisses went, as we thought, into the wilderness, up Carondelet Street
to a kind of country place, with lots of ground and fig trees. The
Buckners flew still further. I think they halted at Jackson Street—I am
not sure the street had as yet a name. The Mathews moved to Annunciation
Street. My father took his _lares et penates_ to Canal Street, and Mrs.
Slocomb still further away, to Europe. The infection spread, and in a
short time the whole “13 Buildings” pimpled out into cheap boarding
houses or rented rooms. _Sic transit!_ Where are all those fine people
now? And what of the “13 Buildings”? Do they still stand and flaunt their
signs over the places once adorned with immaculately shining brass name
plates? or have they, in the march of events, also silently departed, and
left places to be filled by a newer generation of buildings, in imitation
of the lords of the earth that knew them and loved them and patronized
them in their heyday?
XXIV
“OLD CREOLE DAYS” AND WAYS
It was in the autumn of 1846 _La Belle Creole_ carried me, a young girl,
to Dr. Doussan’s home, on the coast, above New Orleans. I was sent there
to learn to speak French, which I had been fairly well taught to read and
write. Both Dr. and Mme. Doussan were past middle life. The doctor was a
native of France, madame a Creole, and the few _arpents_ they owned were
her inheritance. Their home was surrounded by a settlement of Creoles,
pure and simple Creoles, such as I doubt exists to-day in the changed
conditions that seventy years bring.
The simple natives, who had little patches, some of which amounted to
little over an _arpent_ (about an acre), were domiciled so conveniently
near that it afforded an unending source of interest to a wide-awake
American girl to see, listen to, and talk with them. They were not “poor
folks” except possibly in the one meaning of the term. There was a family
of Grandprés in that little settlement. Hearing the name Grandpré would
instantly call to mind the Grandprés of Louisiana’s early days. Was not a
Grandpré Governor, or Captain General, or something else as notable and
commanding in Louisiana history, in the French, or more likely Spanish,
occupancy of the country? This family descended from the original proud
stock. The children, grown, half-grown, babies, at the time of which I
write actually had a resident tutor, M. Marr, a man of no mean ability.
I do not know how far they advanced in other branches of education, but
their beautiful chirography would put to the blush any college graduate
who hovers around our young girls to-day, and they signed themselves,
too, with a grand flourish, De Grandpré. My old red and gilt album (every
girl had an album and her friends wrote fulsome nonsense in it) has a
“_Je suis très flatté, mademoiselle, de pouvoir m’inscrire_,” etc. signed
L. De Grandpré. Looks as if I had flattered a nobleman of France! Doesn’t
it?
That flock of children of all ages and sizes were being educated well
for their day and generation, albeit Grandpré _mère_ strolled about in a
gingham _blouse volante_, her frosty hair covered with a plaid _tignon_;
and Grandpré _père_ sniffled around (he had some catarrhal trouble, I
guess) in carpet slippers. I do not think he ever did anything but bear
the high-sounding name, and I never heard, after those album days, that
the sons did either.