MY father’s wooing, carried on, now at Dr. Rice’s house in town, now
at Olney, progressed propitiously. During the engagement, Lafayette
visited Richmond. My father was a member of the once-famous volunteer
company, the Richmond Blues, and marched with it when it was detailed
as a body-guard for the illustrious guest of the nation. My mother
walked at the head of her class of Sunday-school children in the
procession of women and girls mustered here to do him honor, as was
done in Trenton and other towns. She kept among her treasured relics
the blue-satin badge, with Lafayette’s likeness stamped on it in
silver, which she wore upon her left shoulder. The Blues were arrayed
in Continental uniform, with powdered hair. So completely was my father
metamorphosed by the costume that, when, at the close of the parade, he
presented himself in Dr. Rice’s drawing-room to pay his devoirs to his
fiancée, she did not recognize him until he spoke.
I have heard the particulars of that day’s pageant and of Lafayette’s
behavior at the public reception awarded him by a grateful people,
so often that I seem to have been part of the scene in a former
incarnation. So vivid were my reminiscences that, when a bride and
a guest at Redhill, the former home of Patrick Henry, I exchanged
incidents and sayings with the great orator’s son, Mr. John Henry, who
had been on the Committee of Reception in 1824. In the enthusiasm of
his own recollections of the fête he inquired, naïvely:
“Do you, then, remember Lafayette’s visit to America so well?”
The general burst of merriment that went around the table, and Wirt
Henry’s respectful, half-distressed—“Why, father! she wasn’t born!”
brought both of us back to the actual and present time and place.
A large platform erected upon the Capitol Square was filled with
distinguished guests and officials. From this Lafayette reviewed the
regiments of soldiers, and here he stood when the schools of the city
sent up as their representative a pretty little girl, eight or ten
years of age, to “speak a piece” written for the occasion by a local
bard. The midget went through the task bravely, but with filling eyes
and trembling limbs. Her store of factitious courage exhaled with the
last line reeled off from the red lips, and, with a scared, piteous
look into the benign face brought upon a level with hers by the table
upon which she had been set, like an animated puppet, she cast herself
upon the great man’s decorated breast and wept sore. He kissed and
cuddled and soothed her as he might pet his own grandchild, and not
until she could return his smile, and he had dried her tears upon his
laced handkerchief, did he transfer her to other arms.
Major James Morton, of “Willington,” Prince Edward County, who married
my grandmother’s sister Mary, of Montrose, had served under Lafayette
and came down to Richmond to do honor to his former chief. The Major’s
_sobriquet_ in the army was “Solid Column,” in reference to his
“stocky” build. Although he had been on Washington’s staff, he did not
expect to be recognized, after the lapse of thirty years and more, by
the renowned Frenchman, who had passed since their parting through a
bloodier revolution than that which won freedom for America.
General Lafayette was standing at the head of the ball-room (which was,
I think, in the Eagle Hotel), where he received the crowds of citizens
and military flocking to pay their respects, when he espied his whilom
comrade on the outskirts of the throng. Instantly stepping outside of
the cordon of aids and attendants, the Marquis held out both hands with:
“Vy, old So_lee_d Col_uu_me! I am ’appy to see you!”
A marvellous memory and a more marvellous facile tongue and quick
wit had the distinguished leader of freedom-lovers! There lived in
Richmond, until the latter quarter of the nineteenth century, a stately
gentlewoman of the very old school whom we, of two younger generations,
regarded with prideful veneration, and with reason. For Lafayette, who
had seen her dance at the aforesaid ball, had pronounced her, audibly,
“the handsomest woman he had seen in America.” Time had handled her
disrespectfully by the time I heard the tale. But I never questioned
the truth of it until I found in three other cities as many antique
belles upon whom he had set a seal of the self-same pattern.
We were generously fed with authentic stories of Revolutionary days in
my far-off childhood. I have sat at Major Morton’s feet and learned
of the veteran much that nobody else wots of in our rushing times. I
recall his emphatic denial of the assertion made by a Fourth-of-July
orator to the effect that so grievous was the weight of public cares
upon the Commander-in-Chief, he was never seen to smile during those
eventful eight years of struggle and suspense.
“Not a word of truth in it, sir!” Thus old Solid Column to the man
who reported the speech to him. “I was with him at Valley Forge, sir,
and nobody there tried harder to keep up the spirits of the men. I
recollect, particularly, one bitter cold day, when a dozen or so of the
officers were amusing themselves and trying to get warm by jumping up
and down, leaping high up in the air and trying to clap their heels
together twice before they struck the ground in coming down. General
Greene was sure he could do it, but he was fleshy and never light on
his feet, besides being naturally sober. He was a Quaker, you know,
and was turned out of meeting for joining the army. Well, on this
particular day he took his turn with the others in jumping. And a
poor hand he was at it! He couldn’t clap his heels together once on
the way down, let alone twice. By-and-by he made a tremendous effort
and pitched over, head down and heels up—flat on the snow. General
Washington was watching them from where he stood in his tent door, and
when General Greene went down—how the General laughed! He fairly held
his sides!
“‘Ah, Greene!’ he called out. ‘You were always a lubberly fellow!’
“I am not saying he wasn’t one of the gravest men I ever saw, as a
rule, but he often smiled, and he did laugh sometimes.”
My grandfather’s uncle and godfather, Sterling Smith, was one of our
family Revolutionary heroes. My mother, who had a fair talent for
mimicry, had an anecdote of the old war-horse’s defence of Washington
against the oft-repeated charge of profanity upon the field of Monmouth:
“‘He did not swear!’ the veteran would thunder when irreverent
youngsters retailed the slander in his hearing—and with malice
prepense. ‘I was close behind him—and I can tell you, sir, we rode
_fast_—when what should we meet, running away, licketty-split, from the
field of battle, with the British almost on their heels, but Gen’ral
Lee and his men?
“‘Then, with that, says Gen’ral Washington, speaking out loud and
sharp—says he, “Gen’ral Lee! in God’s name, sir, what is the meaning of
this ill-timed prudence?”
“‘Now, you see, Gen’ral Lee, he was mighty high-sperrited always, and
all of us could hear what was going on. So he speaks up as haughty as
the Gen’ral had done, and says he:
“‘“I know of no one who has more of that most damnable virtue than your
Excellency!”
“‘So, you see, young man, it was Gen’ral Lee that swore, and not
Gen’ral Washington! Don’t you ever let me hear that lie again!’”
A Revolutionary reminiscence of my mother’s (or mine) is always renewed
by the sight of an Old Virginia plantation-gate, swinging gratingly on
ponderous hinges and kept shut by the fall of a wooden latch, two yards
long, into a wooden hook set in the gate-post. This latch is usually
nearly half-way down the gate, and a horseman approaching it from the
outside must dismount to lift the heavy bar, or be practised in the
trick of throwing himself well over the top-rail to reach the latch and
hold it, while he guides his horse through the narrow opening.
My grandfather, “Captain Sterling,” was at the head of a foraging-party
near Yorktown when they were chased by British troopers. The Americans
scattered in various directions and escaped for the most part, being
familiar with the country by-ways and cross-roads. Their captain was
closely pursued by three troopers to a high plantation-gate. The
Virginian opened it, without leaving the saddle, shot through, shut the
gate, and rammed down the latch into the socket _hard_. The pursuers
had to alight to raise the latch, and the delay gave the fugitive time
to get away.
My parents were married at Olney, in Henrico County, January 25, 1825.
The bride—not yet nineteen years of age—wore a soft, sheer India
muslin, a veil falling to the hem of the gown, and white brocade
slippers embroidered with faint blue flowers. The bridegroom’s suit
was of fine blue cloth, with real silver buttons. His feet were clad
in white-silk stockings and low shoes—“pumps” as they were called—with
wrought-silver buckles. Those shoes and buckles were long preserved in
the family. I do not know what befell them finally. The ceremony was
performed by the brother-in-law whom I have called, for the sake of
convenience, the Reverend Mr. Carus.
The girl had laughingly threatened that she would not promise to
“obey,” and that a scene would follow the use of the obnoxious word in
the marriage service. The young divine, with this in mind, or in a fit
of absent-mindedness or of stage-fright, actually blundered out, “Love,
honor—and obey, _in all things consistent_!”
As may be imagined, the interpolation produced a lively sensation in
the well-mannered company thronging the homestead, and took rank as a
family legend. How many times I have heard my mother quote the saving
clause in playful monition to my masterful father!
The bride’s portion, on leaving home for the house her father had
furnished for her in town, was ten thousand dollars in stocks and
bonds, and two family servants—a husband and wife.
The following summer the wedded pair visited the husband’s mother in
Roxbury, Massachusetts. The journey from Richmond to New York was by
a packet-ship, and lasted for two weeks. My poor little mother was
horribly seasick for a week each way. To her latest day she could not
hear of “Point Judith” without a qualm. She said that, for a time,
the association “disgusted her with her own name.” The mother-in-law,
hale and handsome at forty-five, had married, less than a year before,
Deacon John Clapp, a well-to-do and excellent citizen of Roxbury, and
installed the buxom, “capable” widow, whose father was now dead, as
the mother of four children by a former marriage, and as mistress of
a comfortable home. She had not come to him portionless. The sturdy
“Squire,” mindful of her filial devotion to him in his declining
years, had left her an equal share of his estate with her sisters. The
brother, Lewis Pierce, had succeeded to the homestead.
Mrs. Clapp appeared in the door of her pretty house, radiant in her
best black silk and cap of fine lace (she never wore any other), her
husband at her side, the little girls and the boy in the background, as
the stage bringing her son and new daughter from Boston stopped at the
gate.
At their nearer approach she uttered an exclamation, flung up her hands
before her eyes, and ran back into the house for the “good cry” the
calmest matron of the day considered obligatory upon her when state
family occasions demanded a show of “proper feeling.”
The worthy Deacon saved the situation from embarrassment by the
heartiness of his welcome to the pair, neither of whom he had ever met
before.
The second incident linked in my mind with the important visit is of
a more serious complexion. I note it upon Memory’s tablets as the
solitary exhibition of aught approaching jealousy I ever saw in the
wife, who knew that her lover-husband’s heart was all her own, then and
as long as it beat. I give the story in her own words:
“A Miss Topliffe and her mother were invited to take tea with us one
evening. I had gathered from sundry hints—and eloquent sighs—from your
grandmother that she had set her heart upon a match between her son
and this young lady. She even went to the length of advising me to pay
particular attention to my dress on this evening. ‘Miss Topliffe was
very dressy!’ I found this to be true. She was also an airy personage,
talkative to your father, and supercilious to me. A few days afterward
we were asked to tea at the Topliffes. I had a wretched evening! Miss
Topliffe was rather handsome and very lively, and she was in high
feather that night, directing most of her conversation, as before,
to my husband. She played upon the piano, and sang love-songs, and
altogether made herself the attraction of the occasion. I felt small
and insignificant and dull beside her, and I could see that she amused
your father so much that he did not see how I was pushed into the
background.
“I said never a word of all this to him, still less to my
mother-in-law, when she told me, next day, that ‘every one of his
friends had hoped my son would marry Miss Topliffe. The match would
have been very agreeable to both families. But it seems that it was not
to be. The ways of Providence are past finding out!’
“Then she sighed, just as she might have mourned over a bereavement in
the family. I have _hated_ that girl ever since!”
“But, mother,” I essayed, consolingly, “you knew he loved you best all
the time!”
“Of course, child, but _she_ didn’t! There was the rub!”
I can respond now. It always is the bitter drop at the bottom of the
cup held to the lips of the wife who cannot resent her lord’s innocent
flirtation with “that other woman.” She knows, and he is serenely
conscious of his unshaken loyalty, but the other woman has her own
beliefs and hugs them.
In May, 1826, my brother William Edwin was born in the cosey home on
the slope of Church Hill overlooking the “Pineapple Church.” More than
forty years afterward, in the last drive I had with my mother, she
leaned forward in the carriage to point out the neat three-story brick
dwelling, now in the heart of the business section of the city:
“That was the house in which I spent the first three years of my
married life!”
Then, dreamily and softly, she related what was the peaceful tenor of
those first years. Her father was alive, and she saw him often; her
sister, “Aunt Betsy,” and her children kept the old home-nest warm for
him; the young couple had hosts of friends in town and country, and
both were as deeply interested, as of yore, in church-work.
Edwin was two years old when a single bolt from the blue changed life
for her.
My father’s partner was a personal and trusted friend before they went
into business together. They had kept bachelor’s hall in partnership
up to the marriage of the junior member of the firm. It transpired
subsequently that the senior, who was the financial manager of the
concern, had “cooked” accounts and made up false exhibits of the status
of the house to coax the confiding comrade to join his fortunes with
his. The tale is old and as common to-day as when my father discovered
that his own savings and my mother’s wedding-portion would be swallowed
up in the payment of his partner’s debts.
It was dark and bitter weather that swept down upon the peaceful home
and blighted the ambitions of the rising young merchant.
The man who had brought about the reverse of fortune “took to drink.”
That was likewise as common then as now. My father paid his debts,
wound up the business honestly, and braced himself to begin the world
anew.
In his chagrin at the overthrow of plans and hopes, he somewhat rashly
accepted the proposal that the fresh beginning should be in the
country. Richmond was full of disagreeable associations, and country
merchants were making money.
Country “storekeeping” was then as honorable as the calling of a
city merchant. In fact, many town-houses had rural branches. It was
not unusual for a city man to set up his son in one of these, thus
controlling the trade of a larger territory than a single house could
command. There were no railways in Virginia. Merchandise was carried
all over the state in big, covered wagons, known in Pennsylvania as
“Conestogas.” Long-bodied, with hooped awnings of sail-cloth lashed
over the ark-like interior to keep out dust and rain, and drawn by six
powerful draught-horses, the leaders wearing sprays of bells, they
were a picturesque feature of country roads. Fortunes were amassed by
the owners of wagon-lines, the great arks keeping the road winter and
summer, and well laden both ways. Planters had their teams and wagons
for hauling tobacco and other crops to town, and bringing back stores
of groceries and dry-goods at stated periods in the spring and autumn;
but between times they were glad to avail themselves of the caravans
for transportation of butter, eggs, poultry, potatoes, dried fruits,
yarn, cotton, and other domestic products to the city, to be sold or
bartered for articles they could not raise.
In such a wheeléd boat the furniture and personal belongings of our
small family were transported from Richmond to Dennisville, Amelia
County, a journey of two dreary days.
Husband, wife, and baby travelled in their own barouche, my father
acting as coachman. Sam and Milly, the colored servants, had preceded
them by two days, taking passage in the Conestoga. One November
afternoon, the carriage drew up at the future home of the three
passengers. The dwelling adjoined the store—a circumstance that shocked
the city woman. The joint structure was of wood, mean in dimensions and
inconvenient in plan. Dead leaves were heaped about the steps. As Baby
Edwin was lifted from the carriage to the ground, he stood knee-deep in
the rustling leaves, and began to cry with the cold and the strangeness
of it all. Not a carpet was down, and the efforts of the faithful
servants to make two rooms home-like for “Miss Jud’ Anna” increased
the forlornness of the situation by reminding her of the habitation and
friends she had left behind.
It was a comfortless winter and spring. I fancy it was as delightless
to the husband as to the wife—just turning her twenty-first year,
and learning for the first time in her sheltered life the taste of
privation. She loved her church, her father and her sister and dear
old Olney—unchanged while she dwelt so far apart from them and it
and home-comforts; she was fond of society, and in Richmond she had
her merry circle close at hand. In Dennisville she had, literally,
no neighbors, and without the walls of her house no palliatives of
homesickness. The cottage was small; her servants were trained,
diligent, and solicitous to spare her toil and inconvenience; her
husband and her distant friends kept her supplied with books, and as
the period of her second confinement drew near she yielded more and
more to natural lassitude, spent the summer days upon the sofa or in
bed, reading, and rarely left the house on foot.
In direct consequence, as she ever afterward maintained, of this
indolent mode of life, she went down to the gate of death when her
first daughter, Ann Almeria (named for two grandmothers), was born in
June.
Providentially, an able specialist from another county was visiting a
friend upon a neighboring plantation, and the local practitioner, at
his wits’ end, chanced to think of him. A messenger was sent for him in
hot haste, and he saved the life of mother and child. The baby was puny
and delicate, and was a source of anxiety throughout her childhood.