Mrs. Willard's Seminary at Troy was the fashionable school in my girlhood, and in the winter of 1830, with upward of a hundred other girls, I found myself an active participant in all the joys and sorrows of that institution. When in family council it was decided to send me to that intellectual Mecca, I did not receive the announcement with unmixed satisfaction, as I had fixed my mind on Union College. The thought of a school without boys, who had been to me such a stimulus both in study and play, seemed to my imagination dreary and profitless.
The one remarkable feature of my journey to Troy was the railroad from Schenectady to Albany, the first ever laid in this country. The manner of ascending a high hill going out of the city would now strike engineers as stupid to the last degree. The passenger cars were pulled up by a train, loaded with stones, descending the hill. The more rational way of tunneling through the hill or going around it had not yet dawned on our Dutch ancestors. At every step of my journey to Troy I felt that I was treading on my pride, and thus in a hopeless frame of mind I began my boarding-school career. I had already studied everything that was taught there except French, music, and dancing, so I devoted myself to these accomplishments. As I hada good voice I enjoyed singing, with a guitar accompaniment, and, having a good ear for time, I appreciated the harmony in music and motion and took great delight in dancing. The large house, the society of so many girls, the walks about the city, the novelty of everything made the new life more enjoyable than I had anticipated. To be sure I missed the boys, with whom I had grown up, played with for years, and later measured my intellectual powers with, but, as they became a novelty, there was new zest in occasionally seeing them. After I had been there a short time, I heard a call one day: "Heads out!" I ran with the rest and exclaimed, "What is it?" expecting to see a giraffe or some other wonder from Barnum's Museum. "Why, don't you see those boys?" said one. "Oh," I replied, "is that all? I have seen boys all my life." When visiting family friends in the city, we were in the way of making the acquaintance of their sons, and as all social relations were strictly forbidden, there was a new interest in seeing them. As they were not allowed to call upon us or write notes, unless they were brothers or cousins, we had, in time, a large number of kinsmen.
There was an intense interest to me now in writing notes, receiving calls, and joining the young men in the streets for a walk, such as I had never known when in constant association with them at school and in our daily amusements. Shut up with girls, most of them older than myself, I heard many subjects discussed of which I had never thought before, and in a manner it were better I had never heard. The healthful restraint always existing between boys and girls in conversation is apt to be relaxed with either sex alone. In all my intimate association with boys up to that period, I cannot recall one word or act for criticism, but I cannot say the same of the girls during the three years I passed at the seminary in Troy. My own experience proves to me that it is a grave mistake to send boys and girls to separate institutions of learning, especially at the most impressible age. The stimulus of sex promotes alike a healthy condition of the intellectual and the moral faculties and gives to both a development they never can acquire alone.
Mrs. Willard, having spent several months in Europe, did not return until I had been at the seminary some time. I well remember her arrival, and the joy with which she was greeted by the teachers and pupils who had known her before. She was a splendid-looking woman, then in her prime, and fully realized my idea of a queen. I doubt whether any royal personage in the Old World could have received her worshipers with more grace and dignity than did this far-famed daughter of the Republic. She was one of the remarkable women of that period, and did a great educational work for her sex. She gave free scholarships to a large number of promising girls, fitting them for teachers, with a proviso that, when the opportunity arose, they should, in turn, educate others.
I shall never forget one incident that occasioned me much unhappiness. I had written a very amusing composition, describing my room. A friend came in to see me just as I had finished it, and, as she asked me to read it to her, I did so. She enjoyed it very much and proposed an exchange. She said the rooms were all so nearly alike that, with a little alteration, she could use it. Being very susceptible to flattery, her praise of my production won a ready assent; but when I read herplatitudes I was sorry I had changed, and still more so in thedenouement.
Those selected to prepare compositions read them before the whole school. My friend's was received with great laughter and applause. The one I read not only fell flat, but nearly prostrated me also. As soon as I had finished, one of the young ladies left the room and, returning in a few moments with her composition book, laid it before the teacher who presided that day, showing her the same composition I had just read. I was called up at once to explain, but was so amazed and confounded that I could not speak, and I looked the personification of guilt. I saw at a glance the contemptible position I occupied and felt as if the last day had come, that I stood before the judgment seat and had heard the awful sentence pronounced, "Depart ye wicked into everlasting punishment." How I escaped from that scene to my own room I do not know. I was too wretched for tears. I sat alone for a long time when a gentle tap announced my betrayer. She put her arms around me affectionately and kissed me again and again.
"Oh!" she said, "you are a hero. You went through that trying ordeal like a soldier. I was so afraid, when you were pressed with questions, that the whole truth would come out and I be forced to stand in your place. I am not so brave as you; I could not endure it. Now that you are through it and know how bitter a trial it is, promise that you will save me from the same experience. You are so good and noble I know you will not betray me."
In this supreme moment of misery and disgrace, her loving words and warm embrace were like balm to mybruised soul and I readily promised all she asked. The girl had penetrated the weak point in my character. I loved flattery. Through that means she got my composition in the first place, pledged me to silence in the second place, and so confused my moral perceptions that I really thought it praiseworthy to shelter her from what I had suffered. However, without betrayal on my part, the trick came to light through the very means she took to make concealment sure. After compositions were read they were handed over to a certain teacher for criticism. Miss —— had copied mine, and returned to me the original. I had not copied hers, so the two were in the same handwriting—one with my name outside and one with Miss ——'s.
As I stood well in school, both for scholarship and behavior, my sudden fall from grace occasioned no end of discussion. So, as soon as the teacher discovered the two compositions in Miss ——'s writing, she came to me to inquire how I got one of Miss ——'s compositions. She said, "Where is yours that you wrote for that day?"
Taking it from my portfolio, I replied, "Here it is."
She then asked, "Did you copy it from her book?"
I replied, "No; I wrote it myself."
"Then why did you not read your own?"
"We agreed to change," said I.
"Did you know that Miss —— had copied that from the book of another young lady?"
"No, not until I was accused of doing it myself before the whole school."
"Why did you not defend yourself on the spot?"
"I could not speak, neither did I know what to say."
"Why have you allowed yourself to remain in such a false position for a whole week?"
"I do not know."
"Suppose I had not found this out, did you intend to keep silent?"
"Yes," I replied.
"Did Miss —— ask you to do so?"
"Yes."
I had been a great favorite with this teacher, but she was so disgusted with my stupidity, as she called my timidity, that she said:
"Really, my child, you have not acted in this matter as if you had ordinary common sense."
So little do grown people, in familiar surroundings, appreciate the confusion of a child's faculties, under new and trying experiences. When poor Miss ——'s turn came to stand up before the whole school and take the burden on her own shoulders she had so cunningly laid on mine, I readily shed the tears for her I could not summon for myself. This was my first sad lesson in human duplicity.
This episode, unfortunately, destroyed in a measure my confidence in my companions and made me suspicious even of those who came to me with appreciative words. Up to this time I had accepted all things as they seemed on the surface. Now I began to wonder what lay behind the visible conditions about me. Perhaps the experience was beneficial, as it is quite necessary for a young girl, thrown wholly on herself for the first time among strangers, to learn caution in all she says and does. The atmosphere of home life, where all disguises and pretensions are thrown off, is quite different from a large school of girls, with the petty jealousiesand antagonisms that arise in daily competition in their dress, studies, accomplishments, and amusements.
The next happening in Troy that seriously influenced my character was the advent of the Rev. Charles G. Finney, a pulpit orator, who, as a terrifier of human souls, proved himself the equal of Savonarola. He held a protracted meeting in the Rev. Dr. Beaman's church, which many of my schoolmates attended. The result of six weeks of untiring effort on the part of Mr. Finney and his confreres was one of those intense revival seasons that swept over the city and through the seminary like an epidemic, attacking in its worst form the most susceptible. Owing to my gloomy Calvinistic training in the old Scotch Presbyterian church, and my vivid imagination, I was one of the first victims. We attended all the public services, beside the daily prayer and experience meetings held in the seminary. Our studies, for the time, held a subordinate place to the more important duty of saving our souls.
To state the idea of conversion and salvation as then understood, one can readily see from our present standpoint that nothing could be more puzzling and harrowing to the young mind. The revival fairly started, the most excitable were soon on the anxious seat. There we learned the total depravity of human nature and the sinner's awful danger of everlasting punishment. This was enlarged upon until the most innocent girl believed herself a monster of iniquity and felt certain of eternal damnation. Then God's hatred of sin was emphasized and his irreconcilable position toward the sinner so justified that one felt like a miserable, helpless, forsaken worm of the dust in trying to approach him, even in prayer.
Having brought you into a condition of profound humility, the only cardinal virtue for one under conviction, in the depths of your despair you were told that it required no herculean effort on your part to be transformed into an angel, to be reconciled to God, to escape endless perdition. The way to salvation was short and simple. We had naught to do but to repent and believe and give our hearts to Jesus, who was ever ready to receive them. How to do all this was the puzzling question. Talking with Dr. Finney one day, I said:
"I cannot understand what I am to do. If you should tell me to go to the top of the church steeple and jump off, I would readily do it, if thereby I could save my soul; but I do not know how to go to Jesus."
"Repent and believe," said he, "that is all you have to do to be happy here and hereafter."
"I am very sorry," I replied, "for all the evil I have done, and I believe all you tell me, and the more sincerely I believe, the more unhappy I am."
With the natural reaction from despair to hope many of us imagined ourselves converted, prayed and gave our experiences in the meetings, and at times rejoiced in the thought that we were Christians—chosen children of God—rather than sinners and outcasts.
But Dr. Finney's terrible anathemas on the depravity and deceitfulness of the human heart soon shortened our newborn hopes. His appearance in the pulpit on these memorable occasions is indelibly impressed on my mind. I can see him now, his great eyes rolling around the congregation and his arms flying about in the air like those of a windmill. One evening he described hell and the devil and the long procession of sinnersbeing swept down the rapids, about to make the awful plunge into the burning depths of liquid fire below, and the rejoicing hosts in the inferno coming up to meet them with the shouts of the devils echoing through the vaulted arches. He suddenly halted, and, pointing his index finger at the supposed procession, he exclaimed:
"There, do you not see them!"
I was wrought up to such a pitch that I actually jumped up and gazed in the direction to which he pointed, while the picture glowed before my eyes and remained with me for months afterward. I cannot forbear saying that, although high respect is due to the intellectual, moral, and spiritual gifts of the venerable ex-president of Oberlin College, such preaching worked incalculable harm to the very souls he sought to save. Fear of the judgment seized my soul. Visions of the lost haunted my dreams. Mental anguish prostrated my health. Dethronement of my reason was apprehended by friends. But he was sincere, so peace to his ashes! Returning home, I often at night roused my father from his slumbers to pray for me, lest I should be cast into the bottomless pit before morning.
To change the current of my thoughts, a trip was planned to Niagara, and it was decided that the subject of religion was to be tabooed altogether. Accordingly our party, consisting of my sister, her husband, my father and myself, started in our private carriage, and for six weeks I heard nothing on the subject. About this time Gall and Spurzheim published their works on phrenology, followed by Combe's "Constitution of Man," his "Moral Philosophy," and many other liberal works, all so rational and opposed to the old theologies that they produced a profound impression onmy brother-in-law's mind. As we had these books with us, reading and discussing by the way, we all became deeply interested in the new ideas. Thus, after many months of weary wandering in the intellectual labyrinth of "The Fall of Man," "Original Sin," "Total Depravity," "God's Wrath," "Satan's Triumph," "The Crucifixion," "The Atonement," and "Salvation by Faith," I found my way out of the darkness into the clear sunlight of Truth. My religious superstitions gave place to rational ideas based on scientific facts, and in proportion, as I looked at everything from a new standpoint, I grew more and more happy, day by day. Thus, with a delightful journey in the month of June, an entire change in my course of reading and the current of my thoughts, my mind was restored to its normal condition. I view it as one of the greatest crimes to shadow the minds of the young with these gloomy superstitions; and with fears of the unknown and the unknowable to poison all their joy in life.
After the restraints of childhood at home and in school, what a period of irrepressible joy and freedom comes to us in girlhood with the first taste of liberty. Then is our individuality in a measure recognized and our feelings and opinions consulted; then we decide where and when we will come and go, what we will eat, drink, wear, and do. To suit one's own fancy in clothes, to buy what one likes, and wear what one chooses is a great privilege to most young people. To go out at pleasure, to walk, to ride, to drive, with no one to say us nay or question our right to liberty, this is indeed like a birth into a new world of happiness and freedom. This is the period, too, when the emotions rule us, and we idealize everything in life; when love and hope makethe present an ecstasy and the future bright with anticipation.
Then comes that dream of bliss that for weeks and months throws a halo of glory round the most ordinary characters in every-day life, holding the strongest and most common-sense young men and women in a thraldom from which few mortals escape. The period when love, in soft silver tones, whispers his first words of adoration, painting our graces and virtues day by day in living colors in poetry and prose, stealthily punctuated ever and anon with a kiss or fond embrace. What dignity it adds to a young girl's estimate of herself when some strong man makes her feel that in her hands rest his future peace and happiness! Though these seasons of intoxication may come once to all, yet they are seldom repeated. How often in after life we long for one more such rapturous dream of bliss, one more season of supreme human love and passion!
After leaving school, until my marriage, I had the most pleasant years of my girlhood. With frequent visits to a large circle of friends and relatives in various towns and cities, the monotony of home life was sufficiently broken to make our simple country pleasures always delightful and enjoyable. An entirely new life now opened to me. The old bondage of fear of the visible and the invisible was broken and, no longer subject to absolute authority, I rejoiced in the dawn of a new day of freedom in thought and action.
My brother-in-law, Edward Bayard, ten years my senior, was an inestimable blessing to me at this time, especially as my mind was just then opening to the consideration of all the varied problems of life. To me and my sisters he was a companion in all our amusements,a teacher in the higher departments of knowledge, and a counselor in all our youthful trials and disappointments. He was of a metaphysical turn of mind, and in the pursuit of truth was in no way trammeled by popular superstitions. He took nothing for granted and, like Socrates, went about asking questions. Nothing pleased him more than to get a bevy of bright young girls about him and teach them how to think clearly and reason logically.
One great advantage of the years my sisters and myself spent at the Troy Seminary was the large number of pleasant acquaintances we made there, many of which ripened into lifelong friendships. From time to time many of our classmates visited us, and all alike enjoyed the intellectual fencing in which my brother-in-law drilled them. He discoursed with us on law, philosophy, political economy, history, and poetry, and together we read novels without number. The long winter evenings thus passed pleasantly, Mr. Bayard alternately talking and reading aloud Scott, Bulwer, James, Cooper, and Dickens, whose works were just then coming out in numbers from week to week, always leaving us in suspense at the most critical point of the story. Our readings were varied with recitations, music, dancing, and games.
As we all enjoyed brisk exercise, even with the thermometer below zero, we took long walks and sleighrides during the day, and thus the winter months glided quickly by, while the glorious summer on those blue hills was a period of unmixed enjoyment. At this season we arose at five in the morning for a long ride on horseback through the beautiful Mohawk Valley and over the surrounding hills. Every road and lane in thatregion was as familiar to us and our ponies, as were the trees to the squirrels we frightened as we cantered by their favorite resorts.
Part of the time Margaret Christie, a young girl of Scotch descent, was a member of our family circle. She taught us French, music, and dancing. Our days were too short for all we had to do, for our time was not wholly given to pleasure. We were required to keep our rooms in order, mend and make our clothes, and do our own ironing. The latter was one of my mother's politic requirements, to make our laundry lists as short as possible.
Ironing on hot days in summer was a sore trial to all of us; but Miss Christie, being of an inventive turn of mind, soon taught us a short way out of it. She folded and smoothed her undergarments with her hands and then sat on them for a specified time. We all followed her example and thus utilized the hours devoted to our French lessons and, while reading "Corinne" and "Télémaque," in this primitive style we ironed our clothes. But for dresses, collars and cuffs, and pocket handkerchiefs, we were compelled to wield the hot iron, hence with these articles we used all due economy, and my mother's object was thus accomplished.
As I had become sufficiently philosophical to talk over my religious experiences calmly with my classmates who had been with me through the Finney revival meetings, we all came to the same conclusion—that we had passed through no remarkable change and that we had not been born again, as they say, for we found our tastes and enjoyments the same as ever. My brother-in-law explained to us the nature of the delusion we had all experienced, the physical conditions, the mental processes, the church machinery by which such excitements are worked up, and the impositions to which credulous minds are necessarily subjected. As we had all been through that period of depression and humiliation, and had been oppressed at times with the feeling that all our professions were arrant hypocrisy and that our last state was worse than our first, he helped us to understand these workings of the human mind and reconciled us to the more rational condition in which we now found ourselves. He never grew weary of expounding principles to us and dissipating the fogs and mists that gather over young minds educated in an atmosphere of superstition.
We had a constant source of amusement and vexation in the students in my father's office. A succession of them was always coming fresh from college and full of conceit. Aching to try their powers of debate on graduates from the Troy Seminary, they politely questioned all our theories and assertions. However, with my brother-in-law's training in analysis and logic, we were a match for any of them. Nothing pleased me better than a long argument with them on woman's equality, which I tried to prove by a diligent study of the books they read and the games they played. I confess that I did not study so much for a love of the truth or my own development, in these days, as to make those young men recognize my equality. I soon noticed that, after losing a few games of chess, my opponent talked less of masculine superiority. Sister Madge would occasionally rush to the defense with an emphatic "Fudge for these laws, all made by men! I'll never obey one of them. And as to the students with their impertinent talk of superiority, all they need issuch a shaking up as I gave the most disagreeable one yesterday. I invited him to take a ride on horseback. He accepted promptly, and said he would be most happy to go. Accordingly I told Peter to saddle the toughest-mouthed, hardest-trotting carriage horse in the stable. Mounted on my swift pony, I took a ten-mile canter as fast as I could go, with that superior being at my heels calling, as he found breath, for me to stop, which I did at last and left him in the hands of Peter, half dead at his hotel, where he will be laid out, with all his marvelous masculine virtues, for a week at least. Now do not waste your arguments on these prigs from Union College. Take each, in turn, the ten-miles' circuit on 'Old Boney' and they'll have no breath left to prate of woman's inferiority. You might argue with them all day, and you could not make them feel so small as I made that popinjay feel in one hour. I knew 'Old Boney' would keep up with me, if he died for it, and that my escort could neither stop nor dismount, except by throwing himself from the saddle."
"Oh, Madge!" I exclaimed; "what will you say when he meets you again?"
"If he complains, I will say 'the next time you ride see that you have a curb bit before starting.' Surely, a man ought to know what is necessary to manage a horse, and not expect a woman to tell him."
Our lives were still further varied and intensified by the usual number of flirtations, so called, more or less lasting or evanescent, from all of which I emerged, as from my religious experiences, in a more rational frame of mind. We had been too much in the society of boys and young gentlemen, and knew too well their real character, to idealize the sex in general. In addition to ourown observations, we had the advantage of our brother-in-law's wisdom. Wishing to save us as long as possible from all matrimonial entanglements, he was continually unveiling those with whom he associated, and so critically portraying their intellectual and moral condition that it was quite impossible, in our most worshipful moods, to make gods of any of the sons of Adam.
However, in spite of all our own experiences and of all the warning words of wisdom from those who had seen life in its many phases, we entered the charmed circle at last, all but one marrying into the legal profession, with its odious statute laws and infamous decisions. And this, after reading Blackstone, Kent, and Story, and thoroughly understanding the status of the wife under the old common law of England, which was in force at that time in most of the States of the Union.
The year, with us, was never considered complete without a visit to Peterboro, N.Y., the home of Gerrit Smith. Though he was a reformer and was very radical in many of his ideas, yet, being a man of broad sympathies, culture, wealth, and position, he drew around him many friends of the most conservative opinions. He was a man of fine presence, rare physical beauty, most affable and courteous in manner, and his hospitalities were generous to an extreme, and dispensed to all classes of society.
Every year representatives from the Oneida tribe of Indians visited him. His father had early purchased of them large tracts of land, and there was a tradition among them that, as an equivalent for the good bargains of the father, they had a right to the son's hospitality, with annual gifts of clothing and provisions. The slaves, too, had heard of Gerrit Smith, the abolitionist, and of Peterboro as one of the safe pointsen routefor Canada. His mansion was, in fact, one of the stations on the "underground railroad" for slaves escaping from bondage. Hence they, too, felt that they had a right to a place under his protecting roof. On such occasions the barn and the kitchen floor were utilized as chambers for the black man from the southern plantation and the red man from his home in the forest.
The spacious home was always enlivened with choice society from every part of the country. There one would meet members of the families of the old Dutch aristocracy, the Van Rensselaers, the Van Vechtens, the Schuylers, the Livingstons, the Bleeckers, the Brinkerhoffs, the Ten Eycks, the Millers, the Seymours, the Cochranes, the Biddles, the Barclays, the Wendells, and many others.
As the lady of the house, Ann Carroll Fitzhugh, was the daughter of a wealthy slaveholder of Maryland, many agreeable Southerners were often among the guests. Our immediate family relatives were well represented by General John Cochrane and his sisters, General Baird and his wife from West Point, the Fitzhughs from Oswego and Geneseo, the Backuses and Tallmans from Rochester, and the Swifts from Geneva. Here one was sure to meet scholars, philosophers, philanthropists, judges, bishops, clergymen, and statesmen.
Judge Alfred Conkling, the father of Roscoe Conkling, was, in his late years, frequently seen at Peterboro. Tall and stately, after all life's troubled scenes, financial losses and domestic sorrows, he used to say there was no spot on earth that seemed so like his idea of Paradise. The proud, reserved judge was unaccustomed to manifestations of affection and tender interest in his behalf, and when Gerrit, taking him by both hands would, in his softest tones say, "Good-morning," and inquire how he had slept and what he would like to do that day, and Nancy would greet him with equal warmth and pin a little bunch of roses in his buttonhole, I have seen the tears in his eyes. Their warm sympathies and sweet simplicity of manner melted the sternest natures and made the most reserved amiable. There never was such anatmosphere of love and peace, of freedom and good cheer, in any other home I visited. And this was the universal testimony of those who were guests at Peterboro. To go anywhere else, after a visit there, was like coming down from the divine heights into the valley of humiliation.
How changed from the early days when, as strict Presbyterians, they believed in all the doctrines of Calvin! Then, an indefinite gloom pervaded their home. Their consciences were diseased. They attached such undue importance to forms that they went through three kinds of baptism. At one time Nancy would read nothing but the Bible, sing nothing but hymns, and play only sacred music. She felt guilty if she talked on any subject except religion. She was, in all respects, a fitting mate for her attractive husband. Exquisitely refined in feeling and manner, beautiful in face and form, earnest and sincere, she sympathized with him in all his ideas of religion and reform. Together they passed through every stage of theological experience, from the uncertain ground of superstition and speculation to the solid foundation of science and reason. The position of the Church in the anti-slavery conflict, opening as it did all questions of ecclesiastical authority, Bible interpretation, and church discipline, awakened them to new thought and broader views on religious subjects, and eventually emancipated them entirely from the old dogmas and formalities of their faith, and lifted them into the cheerful atmosphere in which they passed the remainder of their lives. Their only daughter, Elizabeth, added greatly to the attractions of the home circle, as she drew many young people round her. Beside her personal charm she was the heiress of a vast estate andhad many admirers. The favored one was Charles Dudley Miller of Utica, nephew of Mrs. Blandina Bleecker Dudley, founder of the Albany Observatory. At the close of his college life Mr. Miller had not only mastered the languages, mathematics, rhetoric, and logic, but had learned the secret windings of the human heart. He understood the art of pleasing.
These were the times when the anti-slavery question was up for hot discussion. In all the neighboring towns conventions were held in which James G. Birney, a Southern gentleman who had emancipated his slaves, Charles Stuart of Scotland, and George Thompson of England, Garrison, Phillips, May, Beriah Greene, Foster, Abby Kelly, Lucretia Mott, Douglass, and others took part. Here, too, John Brown, Sanborn, Morton, and Frederick Douglass met to talk over that fatal movement on Harper's Ferry. On the question of temperance, also, the people were in a ferment. Dr. Cheever's pamphlet, "Deacon Giles' Distillery," was scattered far and wide, and, as he was sued for libel, the question was discussed in the courts as well as at every fireside. Then came the Father Matthew and Washingtonian movements, and the position of the Church on these questions intensified and embittered the conflict. This brought the Cheevers, the Pierponts, the Delevans, the Nortons, and their charming wives to Peterboro. It was with such company and varied discussions on every possible phase of political, religious, and social life that I spent weeks every year. Gerrit Smith was cool and calm in debate, and, as he was armed at all points on these subjects, he could afford to be patient and fair with an opponent, whether on the platform or at the fireside. These rousing arguments at Peterboro made social life seem tame and profitless elsewhere, and the youngest of us felt that the conclusions reached in this school of philosophy were not to be questioned. The sisters of General Cochrane, in disputes with their Dutch cousins in Schenectady and Albany, would end all controversy by saying, "This question was fully discussed at Peterboro, and settled."
The youngsters frequently put the lessons of freedom and individual rights they heard so much of into practice, and relieved their brains from the constant strain of argument on first principles, by the wildest hilarity in dancing, all kinds of games, and practical jokes carried beyond all bounds of propriety. These romps generally took place at Mr. Miller's. He used to say facetiously, that they talked a good deal about liberty over the way, but he kept the goddess under his roof. One memorable occasion in which our enthusiasm was kept at white heat for two hours I must try to describe, though words cannot do it justice, as it was pre-eminently a spectacular performance. The imagination even cannot do justice to the limp, woe-begone appearance of the actors in the closing scene. These romps were conducted on a purely democratic basis, without regard to color, sex, or previous condition of servitude.
It was rather a cold day in the month of March, when "Cousin Charley," as we called Mr. Miller, was superintending some men who were laying a plank walk in the rear of his premises. Some half dozen of us were invited to an early tea at good Deacon Huntington's. Immediately after dinner, Miss Fitzhugh and Miss Van Schaack decided to take a nap, that they might appear as brilliant as possible during the evening. That theymight not be late, as they invariably were, Cousin Lizzie and I decided to rouse them in good season with a generous sprinkling of cold water. In vain they struggled to keep the blankets around them; with equal force we pulled them away, and, whenever a stray finger or toe appeared, we brought fresh batteries to bear, until they saw that passive resistance must give place to active hostility. We were armed with two watering pots. They armed themselves with two large-sized syringes used for showering potato bugs. With these weapons they gave us chase downstairs. We ran into a closet and held the door shut. They quietly waited our forthcoming. As soon as we opened the door to peep out, Miss Fitzhugh, who was large and strong, pulled it wide open and showered us with a vengeance. Then they fled into a large pantry where stood several pans of milk.
At this stage Cousin Charley, hearing the rumpus, came to our assistance. He locked them in the pantry and returned to his work, whereupon they opened the window and showered him with milk, while he, in turn, pelted them with wet clothes, soaking in tubs near by. As they were thinly clad, wet to the skin, and the cold March wind blew round them (we were all in fatigue costume in starting) they implored us to let them out, which we did, and, in return for our kindness, they gave us a broadside of milk in our faces. Cousin Lizzie and I fled to the dark closet, where they locked us in. After long, weary waiting they came to offer us terms of capitulation. Lizzie agreed to fill their guns with milk, and give them our watering pots full of water, and I agreed to call Cousin Charley under my window until they emptied the contents of guns and pots on hishead. My room was on the first floor, and Miss Fitzhugh's immediately overhead. On these terms we accepted our freedom. Accordingly, I gently raised the window and called Charley confidentially within whispering distance, when down came a shower of water. As he stepped back to look up and see whence it came, and who made the attack, a stream of milk hit him on the forehead, his heels struck a plank, and he fell backward, to all appearance knocked down with a stream of milk. His humiliation was received with shouts of derisive laughter, and even the carpenters at work laid down their hammers and joined in the chorus; but his revenge was swift and capped the climax. Cold and wet as we all were, and completely tired out, we commenced to disrobe and get ready for the tea party. Unfortunately I had forgotten to lock my door, and in walked Cousin Charley with a quart bottle of liquid blacking, which he prepared to empty on my devoted head. I begged so eloquently and trembled so at the idea of being dyed black, that he said he would let me off on one condition, and that was to get him, by some means, into Miss Fitzhugh's room. So I ran screaming up the stairs, as if hotly pursued by the enemy, and begged her to let me in. She cautiously opened the door, but when she saw Charley behind me she tried to force it shut. However, he was too quick for her. He had one leg and arm in; but, at that stage of her toilet, to let him in was impossible, and there they stood, equally strong, firmly braced, she on one side of the door and he on the other. But the blacking he was determined she should have; so, gauging her probable position, with one desperate effort he squeezed in a little farther and, raising the bottle, he poured the contents on her head. Theblacking went streaming down over her face, white robe, and person, and left her looking more like a bronze fury than one of Eve's most charming daughters. A yard or more of the carpet was ruined, the wallpaper and bedclothes spattered, and the poor victim was unfit to be seen for a week at least. Charley had a good excuse for his extreme measures, for, as we all by turn played our tricks on him, it was necessary to keep us in some fear of punishment. This was but one of the many outrageous pranks we perpetrated on each other. To see us a few hours later, all absorbed in an anti-slavery or temperance convention, or dressed in our best, in high discourse with the philosophers, one would never think we could have been guilty of such consummate follies. It was, however, but the natural reaction from the general serious trend of our thoughts.
It was in Peterboro, too, that I first met one who was then considered the most eloquent and impassioned orator on the anti-slavery platform, Henry B. Stanton. He had come over from Utica with Alvin Stewart's beautiful daughter, to whom report said he was engaged; but, as she soon after married Luther R. Marsh, there was a mistake somewhere. However, the rumor had its advantages. Regarding him as not in the matrimonial market, we were all much more free and easy in our manners with him than we would otherwise have been. A series of anti-slavery conventions was being held in Madison County, and there I had the pleasure of hearing him for the first time. As I had a passion for oratory, I was deeply impressed with his power. He was not so smooth and eloquent as Phillips, but he could make his audience both laugh and cry; the latter, Phillips himself said he never could do.Mr. Stanton was then in his prime, a fine-looking, affable young man, with remarkable conversational talent, and was ten years my senior, with the advantage that number of years necessarily gives.
Two carriage-loads of ladies and gentlemen drove off every morning, sometimes ten miles, to one of these conventions, returning late at night. I shall never forget those charming drives over the hills in Madison County, the bright autumnal days, and the bewitching moonlight nights. The enthusiasm of the people in these great meetings, the thrilling oratory, and lucid arguments of the speakers, all conspired to make these days memorable as among the most charming in my life. It seemed to me that I never had so much happiness crowded into one short month. I had become interested in the anti-slavery and temperance questions, and was deeply impressed with the appeals and arguments. I felt a new inspiration in life and was enthused with new ideas of individual rights and the basic principles of government, for the anti-slavery platform was the best school the American people ever had on which to learn republican principles and ethics. These conventions and the discussions at my cousin's fireside I count among the great blessings of my life.
One morning, as we came out from breakfast, Mr. Stanton joined me on the piazza, where I was walking up and down enjoying the balmy air and the beauty of the foliage. "As we have no conventions," said he, "on hand, what do you say to a ride on horseback this morning?" I readily accepted the suggestion, ordered the horses, put on my habit, and away we went. The roads were fine and we took a long ride. As we were returning home we stopped often to admire thescenery and, perchance, each other. When walking slowly through a beautiful grove, he laid his hand on the horn of the saddle and, to my surprise, made one of those charming revelations of human feeling which brave knights have always found eloquent words to utter, and to which fair ladies have always listened with mingled emotions of pleasure and astonishment.
One outcome of those glorious days of October, 1839, was a marriage, in Johnstown, the 10th day of May, 1840, and a voyage to the Old World.
Six weeks of that charming autumn, ending in the Indian summer with its peculiarly hazy atmosphere, I lingered in Peterboro. It seems in retrospect like a beautiful dream. A succession of guests was constantly coming and going, and I still remember the daily drives over those grand old hills crowned with trees now gorgeous in rich colors, the more charming because we knew the time was short before the cold winds of November would change all.
The early setting sun warned us that the shortening days must soon end our twilight drives, and the moonlight nights were too chilly to linger long in the rustic arbors or shady nooks outside. With the peculiar charm of this season of the year there is always a touch of sadness in nature, and it seemed doubly so to me, as my engagement was not one of unmixed joy and satisfaction. Among all conservative families there was a strong aversion to abolitionists and the whole anti-slavery movement. Alone with Cousin Gerrit in his library he warned me, in deep, solemn tones, while strongly eulogizing my lover, that my father would never consent to my marriage with an abolitionist. He felt in duty bound, as my engagement had occurredunder his roof, to free himself from all responsibility by giving me a long dissertation on love, friendship, marriage, and all the pitfalls for the unwary, who, without due consideration, formed matrimonial relations. The general principles laid down in this interview did not strike my youthful mind so forcibly as the suggestion that it was better to announce my engagement by letter than to wait until I returned home, as thus I might draw the hottest fire while still in safe harbor, where Cousin Gerrit could help me defend the weak points in my position. So I lingered at Peterboro to prolong the dream of happiness and postpone the conflict I feared to meet.
But the Judge understood the advantage of our position as well as we did, and wasted no ammunition on us. Being even more indignant at my cousin than at me, he quietly waited until I returned home, when I passed through the ordeal of another interview, with another dissertation on domestic relations from a financial standpoint. These were two of the most bewildering interviews I ever had. They succeeded in making me feel that the step I proposed to take was the most momentous and far-reaching in its consequences of any in this mortal life. Heretofore my apprehensions had all been of death and eternity; now life itself was filled with fears and anxiety as to the possibilities of the future. Thus these two noble men, who would have done anything for my happiness, actually overweighted my conscience and turned the sweetest dream of my life into a tragedy. How little strong men, with their logic, sophistry, and hypothetical examples, appreciate the violence they inflict on the tender sensibilities of a woman's heart, in trying to subjugate her to their will!The love of protecting too often degenerates into downright tyranny. Fortunately all these sombre pictures of a possible future were thrown into the background by the tender missives every post brought me, in which the brilliant word-painting of one of the most eloquent pens of this generation made the future for us both, as bright and beautiful as Spring with her verdure and blossoms of promise.
However, many things were always transpiring at Peterboro to turn one's thoughts and rouse new interest in humanity at large. One day, as a bevy of us girls were singing and chattering in the parlor, Cousin Gerrit entered and, in mysterious tones, said: "I have a most important secret to tell you, which you must keep to yourselves religiously for twenty-four hours."
We readily pledged ourselves in the most solemn manner, individually and collectively.
"Now," said he, "follow me to the third story."
This we did, wondering what the secret could be. At last, opening a door, he ushered us into a large room, in the center of which sat a beautiful quadroon girl, about eighteen years of age. Addressing her, he said:
"Harriet, I have brought all my young cousins to see you. I want you to make good abolitionists of them by telling them the history of your life—what you have seen and suffered in slavery."
Turning to us he said:
"Harriet has just escaped from her master, who is visiting in Syracuse, and is on her way to Canada. She will start this evening and you may never have another opportunity of seeing a slave girl face to face, so ask her all you care to know of the system of slavery."
For two hours we listened to the sad story of herchildhood and youth, separated from all her family and sold for her beauty in a New Orleans market when but fourteen years of age. The details of her story I need not repeat. The fate of such girls is too well known to need rehearsal. We all wept together as she talked, and, when Cousin Gerrit returned to summon us away, we needed no further education to make us earnest abolitionists.
Dressed as a Quakeress, Harriet started at twilight with one of Mr. Smith's faithful clerks in a carriage for Oswego, there to cross the lake to Canada. The next day her master and the marshals from Syracuse were on her track in Peterboro, and traced her to Mr. Smith's premises. He was quite gracious in receiving them, and, while assuring them that there was no slave there, he said that they were at liberty to make a thorough search of the house and grounds. He invited them to stay and dine and kept them talking as long as possible, as every hour helped Harriet to get beyond their reach; for, although she had eighteen hours the start of them, yet we feared some accident might have delayed her. The master was evidently a gentleman, for, on Mr. Smith's assurance that Harriet was not there, he made no search, feeling that they could not do so without appearing to doubt his word. He was evidently surprised to find an abolitionist so courteous and affable, and it was interesting to hear them in conversation, at dinner, calmly discussing the problem of slavery, while public sentiment was at white heat on the question. They shook hands warmly at parting and expressed an equal interest in the final adjustment of that national difficulty.
In due time the clerk returned with the good newsthat Harriet was safe with friends in a good situation in Canada. Mr. Smith then published an open letter to the master in the New YorkTribune, saying "that he would no doubt rejoice to know that his slave Harriet, in whose fate he felt so deep an interest, was now a free woman, safe under the shadow of the British throne. I had the honor of entertaining her under my roof, sending her in my carriage to Lake Ontario, just eighteen hours before your arrival: hence my willingness to have you search my premises."
Like the varied combinations of the kaleidoscope, the scenes in our social life at Peterboro were continually changing from grave to gay. Some years later we had a most hilarious occasion at the marriage of Mary Cochrane, sister of General John Cochrane, to Chapman Biddle, of Philadelphia. The festivities, which were kept up for three days, involved most elaborate preparations for breakfasts, dinners, etc., there being no Delmonico's in that remote part of the country. It was decided in family council that we had sufficient culinary talent under the roof to prepare the entiremenuof substantials and delicacies, from soup and salmon to cakes and creams. So, gifted ladies and gentlemen were impressed into the service. The Fitzhughs all had a natural talent for cooking, and chief among them was Isabella, wife of a naval officer,—Lieutenant Swift of Geneva,—who had made a profound study of all the authorities from Archestratus, a poet in Syracuse, the most famous cook among the Greeks, down to our own Miss Leslie. Accordingly she was elected manager of the occasion, and to each one was assigned the specialty in which she claimed to excel. Those who had no specialty were assistants to those who had. Inthis humble office—"assistant at large"—I labored throughout.
Cooking is a high art. A wise Egyptian said, long ago: "The degree of taste and skill manifested by a nation in the preparation of food may be regarded as to a very considerable extent proportioned to its culture and refinement." In early times men, only, were deemed capable of handling fire, whether at the altar or the hearthstone. We read in the Scriptures that Abraham prepared cakes of fine meal and a calf tender and good, which, with butter and milk, he set before the three angels in the plains of Mamre. We are told, too, of the chief butler and chief baker as officers in the household of King Pharaoh. I would like to call the attention of my readers to the dignity of this profession, which some young women affect to despise. The fact that angels eat, shows that we may be called upon in the next sphere to cook even for cherubim and seraphim. How important, then, to cultivate one's gifts in that direction!
With such facts before us, we stirred and pounded, whipped and ground, coaxed the delicate meats from crabs and lobsters and the succulent peas from the pods, and grated corn and cocoanut with the same cheerfulness and devotion that we played Mendelssohn's "Songs Without Words" on the piano, the Spanish Fandango on our guitars, or danced the minuet, polka, lancers, or Virginia reel.
During the day of the wedding, every stage coach was crowded with guests from the North, South, East, and West, and, as the twilight deepened, carriages began to roll in with neighbors and friends living at short distances, until the house and grounds were full. A sonof Bishop Coxe, who married the tall and stately sister of Roscoe Conkling, performed the ceremony. The beautiful young bride was given away by her Uncle Gerrit. The congratulations, the feast, and all went off with fitting decorum in the usual way. The best proof of the excellence of our viands was that they were all speedily swept from mortal view, and every housewife wanted a recipe for something.
As the grand dinner was to come off the next day, our thoughts now turned in that direction. The responsibility rested heavily on the heads of the chief actors, and they reported troubled dreams and unduly early rising. Dear Belle Swift was up in season and her white soup stood serenely in a tin pan, on an upper shelf, before the town clock struck seven. If it had not taken that position so early, it might have been incorporated with higher forms of life than that into which it eventually fell. Another artist was also on the wing early, and in pursuit of a tin pan in which to hide her precious compound, she unwittingly seized this one, and the rich white soup rolled down her raven locks like the oil on Aaron's beard, and enveloped her in a veil of filmy whiteness. I heard the splash and the exclamation of surprise and entered the butler's pantry just in time to see the heiress of the Smith estate standing like a statue, tin pan in hand, soup in her curls, her eyebrows and eyelashes,—collar, cuffs, and morning dress saturated,—and Belle, at a little distance, looking at her and the soup on the floor with surprise and disgust depicted on every feature. The tableau was inexpressibly comical, and I could not help laughing outright; whereupon Belle turned on me, and, with indignant tones, said, "If you had been up since fouro'clock making that soup you would not stand there like a laughing monkey, without the least feeling of pity!" Poor Lizzie was very sorry, and would have shed tears, but they could not penetrate that film of soup. I tried to apologize, but could only laugh the more when I saw Belle crying and Lizzie standing as if hoping that the soup might be scraped off her and gathered from the floor and made to do duty on the occasion.
After breakfast, ladies and gentlemen, alike in white aprons, crowded into the dining room and kitchen, each to perform the allotted task. George Biddle of Philadelphia and John B. Miller of Utica, in holiday spirits, were irrepressible—everywhere at the same moment, helping or hindering as the case might be. Dear Belle, having only partially recovered from the white-soup catastrophe, called Mr. Biddle to hold the ice-cream freezer while she poured in the luscious compound she had just prepared. He held it up without resting it on anything, while Belle slowly poured in the cream. As the freezer had no indentations round the top or rim to brace the thumbs and fingers, when it grew suddenly heavier his hands slipped and down went the whole thing, spattering poor Belle and spoiling a beautiful pair of gaiters in which, as she had very pretty feet, she took a laudable pride. In another corner sat Wealthea Backus, grating some cocoanut. While struggling in that operation, John Miller, feeling hilarious, was annoying her in divers ways; at length she drew the grater across his nose, gently, as she intended, but alas! she took the skin off, and John's beauty, for the remainder of the festivities, was marred with a black patch on that prominent feature. One can readily imagine the fun that must have transpired where so many amateurcooks were at work round one table, with all manner of culinary tools and ingredients.
As assistant-at-large I was summoned to the cellar, where Mrs. Cornelia Barclay of New York was evolving from a pan of flour and water that miracle in the pie department called puff paste. This, it seems, can only be accomplished where the thermometer is below forty, and near a refrigerator where the compound can be kept cold until ready to be popped into the oven. No jokes or nonsense here. With queenly dignity the flour and water were gently compressed. Here one hand must not know what the other doeth. Bits of butter must be so deftly introduced that even the rolling pin may be unconscious of its work. As the artist gave the last touch to an exquisite lemon pie, with a mingled expression of pride and satisfaction on her classic features, she ordered me to bear it to the oven. In the transit I met Madam Belle. "Don't let that fall," she said sneeringly. Fortunately I did not, and returned in triumph to transport another. I was then summoned to a consultation with the committee on toasts, consisting of James Cochrane, John Miller, and myself. Mr. Miller had one for each guest already written, all of which we accepted and pronounced very good.
Strange to say, a most excellent dinner emerged from all this uproar and confusion. The table, with its silver, china, flowers, and rich viands, the guests in satins, velvets, jewels, soft laces, and bright cravats, together reflecting all the colors of the prism, looked as beautiful as the rainbow after a thunderstorm.
Twenty years ago I made my last sad visit to that spot so rich with pleasant memories of bygone days. A few relatives and family friends gathered there topay the last tokens of respect to our noble cousin. It was on one of the coldest days of gray December that we laid him in the frozen earth, to be seen no more. He died from a stroke of apoplexy in New York city, at the home of his niece, Mrs. Ellen Cochrane Walter, whose mother was Mr. Smith's only sister. The journey from New York to Peterboro was cold and dreary, and climbing the hills from Canastota in an open sleigh, nine hundred feet above the valley, with the thermometer below zero, before sunrise, made all nature look as sombre as the sad errand on which we came.
Outside the mansion everything in its wintry garb was cold and still, and all within was silent as the grave. The central figure, the light and joy of that home, had vanished forever. He who had welcomed us on that threshold for half a century would welcome us no more. We did what we could to dissipate the gloom that settled on us all. We did not intensify our grief by darkening the house and covering ourselves with black crape, but wore our accustomed dresses of chastened colors and opened all the blinds that the glad sunshine might stream in. We hung the apartment where the casket stood with wreaths of evergreens, and overhead we wove his favorite mottoes in living letters, "Equal rights for all!" "Rescue Cuba now!" The religious services were short and simple; the Unitarian clergyman from Syracuse made a few remarks, the children from the orphan asylum, in which he was deeply interested, sang an appropriate hymn, and around the grave stood representatives of the Biddles, the Dixwells, the Sedgwicks, the Barclays, and Stantons, and three generations of his immediate family. With a few appropriate words from General JohnCochrane we left our beloved kinsman alone in his last resting place. Two months later, on his birthday, his wife, Ann Carroll Fitzhugh, passed away and was laid by his side. Theirs was a remarkably happy union of over half a century, and they were soon reunited in the life eternal.