USA > Washington DC > Washington DC > Historic homes in Washington : its noted men and women and a century in the White House > Part 23
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Some day Capitol Hill, which has had the prestige of an environment of literary women, may develop the alma mater for women which will give them the oppor- tunity that they now seek for in vain at the doors of uni- versities, and to Emily Edson Briggs shall belong the honor.
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In Georgetown lived the noted novelist, Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth. At the head of Prospect avenue stands a quaint little cottage of many gables, vine-clad and bright with flowers. Mrs. Southworth was not one of our greatest novelists, and yet, perhaps, no writer has been more widely read. We knocked at the cottage door one afternoon and were ushered into the presence of a pleasant-faced woman; her hair was gray, brushed back, revealing a high and broad forehead. Her eyes were blue, full of tenderness, and when she talked her whole face seemed illuminated. White, soft lace en- circled her neck and bosom. And as we listened to her delightful and fluent conversation, she revealed a char- acter rich in womanly traits.
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Her life has been a checkered one; but the maternal instinct and her own self-respect re-illumined the spark of genius and she has gone on through the years un- tiring until very many novels have emanated from her pen and brain.
When the civil war broke out she nailed the Stars and Stripes over her front gate, saying: "Whoever comes to my door must pass under that." With patriotic zeal she nursed the sick and wounded in camp and hos- pital, until she herself became a victim to the smallpox. With true philosophy she said:
"I cannot prevent the soldiers from taking the disease, but I can suffer with them; there is some comfort in that."
As we stood upon the veranda of this ideal home and glanced along the Virginia hills memory took us back to the far-away past that consecrated and made them classic ground. We thought of the brave and loyal men who had laid down their lives, sleeping among the green hills over there, to bequeath to the present all that the sacrifice, suffering and struggle of the past achieved. Mrs. Southworth died in the Summer of 1899.
HOME OF FRANCES HODGSON BUNRETT.
In the beautiful home, 1770 Massachusetts avenue, Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote "Little Lord Faun- tleroy." "This home," says Olive Logan, "even as Litch- field House was bought by Miss Braddon out of the pro- ceeds of 'Lady Audley's Secret,' so is Mrs. Burnett's residence due to 'Fauntleroy.' A substantial tribute indeed from the manly little Lord to 'Dearest."'
Passing from the front drawing-room to the back drawing-room, from the dining-room to tapestry-hung hall, up the quaint, winding stairs to the various sitting- rooms, bed-rooms and work-rooms on the upper floors, one was perforce required to draw heavily on the stock of epithets of admiration; for each of these apartments seemed to outvie the other in freshness, daintiness and beauty.
Hanging here, handsomely framed, was the illuminated address of thanks of English authors for the resolution
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taken by Mrs. Burnett and sustained by her at the law's point, concerning the right of an author to dramatize his own story, an injustice against which Charles Dickens protested in vain, against which Ouida has hurled some of her most vigorous language, from which hundreds of authors have silently suffered, and which was righted for all time by the energetic action of Frances Hodgson Burnett.
Mrs. Burnett was born in Manchester, England, and educated in her native city; and there it was that she be- came familiar with the Lancashire dialect and char- acter which she has so bewitchingly used in her "Lass o' Lowrie's." But it was after she had become a child of America, after "That Lass o' Lowrie's," "Haworth's," "Through One Administration," "Esmeralda," after she was a wife, after she was the mother of two beautiful boys, that motherhood in all its glorious beatitudes received its jeweled setting in the inspired pages of "Little Lord Fauntleroy."
Washington society does not all revolve around the Capitol, nor does it all get its illumination by reflection. From a city of primitive insignificance in the beginning of the century, Washington has become not only the political capital of the Union, but the scientific and literary center.
It has its Biological, Anthropological and Philo- sophical Societies, devoted to general scientific investiga- tion. . At the Cosmos Club, whose headquarters are in the house so long the home of Mrs. Madison, these scientists meet and exchange the better thoughts of their natures and develop the social talents also.
The literati meet and mingle among the different social clubs. The Literary Society finds doors open to receive them, and men and women of culture and education contribute to the evening's entertainment.
The Unity Club is founded on nearly the same plan, and is a counterpart of the other; it has among its mem- bers many names familiar to the literary world.
There is the Travel Club; as its name indicates, the work is given entirely to travel in the different countries
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throughout the world. With their guide, courier and traveling correspondents they ferret out the places of interest, and then some clever member of the club tells what he knows about it. The geography, history, science, fine arts and practical arts of other nations become fa- miliar as household words to the members. Travelers of note, foreign Ministers, men of letters, and women of brains have helped to furnish this intellectual feast these many years.
There is the Educational Bureau, the Observatory, with its magnificent instruments for astronomical pur- poses, the Coast and Geodetic Survey, and the several libraries, chief among them the Congressional.
The Woman's National Press Association is another of the clubs that brings together the literary women of the city. It has the honor of being the first of the kind organized in the country, and has among its members women from almost every State in the Union. It em- braces among its members journalists, magazine writers and authors.
Washington, like all other cities, has a journalists' guild, and its masculine pens, flowing with sparkling repartee and ready wit, have been supplemented by those of the women correspondents, whose letters are filled with interesting gossip, and are garnished with realistic pictures of society, and clever pen-pictures of public men and women. Correspondence and even editor- ship has risen to a profession among women, and, with the exception of a small minority who do not find the circulation of scandals and misstatements in any sense profitable, they are generously rewarded.
Women, as a rule, write from a conscientious love of their work, and they become popular in proportion as their style differs from the rough rhetoric of their brother bohemians. Their energy and perseverance is making the profession a permanent vocation for wo- men, and as the press grows in influence, more and more will it require the wil, grace and sparkle that emanate · from intellectual womanhood.
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CHAPTER XXVIL
THE SOCIETY OF THE DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
THE CALL BY MRS. LOCKWOOD-ORGANIZATION AT THE STRATH- MORE ARMS-THE OFFICERS-THE GREAT WORK DURING THE SPANISH WAR-THE PROPOSED CONTINENTAL HALL AT WASH- INGTON, AND OTHER OBJECTS OF PATRIOTIC EFFORT.
If there is a society which should have recognition in this history it is the above named.
We know of no organized body that stands so pre- eminently for home and country.
The bugle call was sounded, and appeal was made to the women of this country to organize for patriotic work through a letter written to the Washington Post by Mary Smith Lockwood, July 13, 1890.
Further activities were entered into in August by Mary Desha, Mrs. Ellen Hardin Walworth and Eugenia Wash- ington. Others signified their desire to unite in this work, and when the day seemed ripe for the launching of the ship the call was made and on October II, 1890, at two o'clock p. m., in the parlors of the Strathmore Arms, 810 12th street, the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution was organized.
The gathering was an enthusiastic one and 18 women signified their wish to become members. Eleven of them became members that evening.
It was decided that the Society should be National, with its headquarters in Washington, and that the head of the organization should be a woman of National re- pute.
A constitution was provisionally adopted and officers elected.
When the organization of the Board was complete it stood as follows, each officer being nominated and elected according to parliamentary usage: Mrs. Caroline Scott Harrison, President-General; Mrs. Flora
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Adams Darling Vice-President in Charge of Organi- zation; seven Vice-Presidents-General, Mrs. David Porter, Mrs. William Cabell, Mrs. Henry V. Boynton, Mrs. General Greely, Mrs. St. Clair, Mrs. G. Brown Goode, Mrs. William C. Winlock; Mrs. Ellen Harden Walworth, Secretary-General; Mrs. William C. Earle, Corresponding Secretary-General; Mrs. Marshall Mac- Donald, Treasurer-General; Miss. Eugenia Washington, Registrar-General; Mrs. Howard A. Clark, Registrar- General; Mary S. Lockwood, Historian-General; Miss Clara Barton, Surgeon-General; Mrs. Teunis S. Hamlin, Chaplain-General; Executive Committee, Mary Desha, Mrs. William E. Cabell, Mrs. E. H. Walworth, Mrs. Marshall MacDonald, Mrs. Mary S. Lockwood, Miss Eugenia Washington, Mrs. Hetzel.
It was a small body of loyal-hearted women that run up the old flag on that October day, and called the patriotic women of the Nation to order. The signal was cited, the rallying force was at hand, and to-day from the rising sun to its golden setting the name Daugh- ters of the American Revolution means love of country, fidelity to her institutions, veneration for her flag, honor to her name. Now, in the ten years gone, what has this society accomplished? From a membership of eleven they tip the scales at 30,000. They publish an historical and biographical magazine. It is the news-letter of the Society. In it are recorded the proceedings of their Congress and the gigantic work of the Board. Through its pages and the Chapter work, each month, the Chapters are put in touch with each other. All vital questions in its pages can be discussed weekly; Chapter after Chapter is springing into being, until historical research and pat- riotic endeavor have become charged with a new spirit.
Mrs. Caroline Scott Harrison, wife of President Harri- son, was the first President, Mrs. Letetia Stevenson was next, Mrs. John W. Foster next, followed by Mrs. Daniel Manning.
The marvellous advance of this Society is largely owing to the character of the women who have stood at its head. No year since the organization of the Society
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has there been such opportunity to show what such an organization means as the one gone by (1898).
When the first cloud of war was seen in the horizon a resolution to be sent to the head of the Government was passed at a meeting held at the Strathmore Arms of this import: "The Daughters of the American Revolu- tion have an organization in every State, and will hold themselves in readiness for their country's needs when called upon."
This was followed by a meeting of the National Board in April, when specific action was taken.
It resulted in the Society being commissioned by the War Department to provide all hospital nurses sent to Cuba and the camps in this country. The result was that no year has this Society accomplished so much that was so vital to the country, and the Daughters of the American Revolution have interwoven themselves into the fiber of National activities and will share in its glories.
The Committees and the personnel named by the Presi- dent, Mrs. Daniel Manning, and confirmed by the Board, at once entered upon their arduous task. A royal pat- riotism that is ever the under-current of action with the Daughters controlled the self-sacrificing devotion and work through the long days and nights of that Summer.
Faithfully they labored under the orders of Govern- ment, and as a result 1,700 trained nurses who had passed through their rigid examination were sent out to the various hospitals at home and to the islands of the sea. Money was sent to the different hospital surgeons and supplies to every hospital.
"The War Committee" and "The Hospital Corps," by the united efforts of the Chapters in the different States, forwarded to the hospitals some $300,000, 60, 000 garments, tons of food supplies, instruments, delicacies of all need- ful kinds, estimated at $60,000 more. Needy families, whose men had gone to the front, were provided for, rents paid, and supplies of food sent regularly.
A hospital launch, D. A. R .. was given by the Daugh-
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ters of the American Revolution to the Government Hos- pital Ship Missouri, which was found of great value in transporting the sick and wounded from shore to ship.
The trained nurses of this country gladly assert that they owe their standing and relation to the United States Government to the Daughters of the American Revolu- tion, a brave class of women banded together for heroism and humanity.
The great object next in hand for this Society is the building of a Continental Hall, an object near at heart with the first President, Mrs. Caroline Scott Harrison.
This will be accomplished in the near future. This, with the carrying out of the objects of this Society, make it one of the largest, best equipped and most compre- hensive organizations of women in history.
Under its direction and care a work of great promise has been inaugurated, "The Society of the Children of the American Revolution." Mrs. Daniel Lothrop, its first President, has made a signal success of this So- ciety. The systematic training of the children in love of country cannot be too highly estimated.
This Society will also keep fresh in the minds of the American people all the events of this Nation that has welded it into a glorious Republic.
: The distaff and the spindle of their insignia tells its story. It whirs to the songs of patriotism, and the woof that is woven from its threads covers the motherhood and the womanhood of the Nation, and the Stars and Stripes, with the old emblematic eagle over all, no longer represents a faction, but the "household troops" and the Life Guards of the Nation.
They will watch over and care for the home of Paul Revere; for Fort Crailo, where "Yankee Doodle" had its birth; for Jamestown and the holy spots in the "Old Do- minion," where our history first began; of the "Wolf's Den" of Putnam fame; of the school house out of which walked brave Nathan Hale; the Block House of Fort Pitt, and the restoration of the room in Continental Hall; Meadow Garden, under their fostering care, will always
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be enveloped in the patriotic atmosphere of a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
This Society was invited by the Lafayette Memorial Committee of the United States Paris Exposition to assist in raising funds toward the erection of a monu- ment to Lafayette in Paris in 1900.
This Commission, under the auspices of the Com- missioner-General of the United States to the Paris Ex- position of 1900, indorsed by the President of the United States, and composed of the Secretary of State, the Governors of all the States and Territories, and other representative men throughout the Union, in giving this invitation, assured the Society that they would re- ceive full and official recognition in this work, and that one of the four tablets on the monument will be reserved for proper inscription by the Daughters of the American Revolution. Actuated by the same principles of per- petuating the names of Revolutionary soldiers, helped them in the work of erecting a monument to Lafayette as a proof that his help in an hour of need had not been forgotten.
A few years ago a few patriotic women conceived the idea of presenting in the name of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the women of America a statue of Washington to France.
It is to be a bronze equestrian statue by the sculptor Daniel French. It will be presented to France during the Paris Exposition of 1900.
The Committee appointed by the President of the Society for the year did good work, notwithstanding the large drafts made for relief work.
The Lafayette fund for the year was $1,603.89; the Washington Statue, S917.20. Total, $2,521.09.
The Lafayette monument will be unvailed July 1, 1900. It will be placed in a beautiful part of the Tuil- leries. This Society will be officially represented by its President.
This is but the alphabet of the history whose first pages are being written. Mrs. Manning's adminis-
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tration will carry the organization over into the next century. With the executive ability she has already displayed, the hand writing is on the wall.
The Colonial Hall will be built, monuments will be raised, historic spots will be protected, unwritten history recorded, and the country will always have a hand-maiden in this Society, and the old flag never more greatly hon- ored than when representing the Daughters of the Ameri- can Revolution.
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CHAPTER XXVIII.
HOMES OF FRELINGHUYSEN, MORTON, AND CHASE.
THE FRELINGHUYSEN HOUSE-HOME OF FOUR CABINET OFFICERS.
ARTHUR'S ADMINISTRATION-MRS. WILLIAM C. WHITNEY A CHARMING HOSTESS-A MAN OF LETTERS-THE OLD MANSION IN GOOD HANDS-THE HOOPER HOUSE-PRESIDENT ANDREW JOHNSON A GUEST-AN INCONGRUOUS MARRIAGE-THE ENG- LISH MISSION-ESTRANGEMENT OF GRANT AND SUMNER-A SECRET WITH ROSCOE CONKLING-THE HOME OF SALMON P. CHASE AND HIS DAUGHTER.
Among the houses of Washington that have associa- tions of National interest attached to them is the home of the Frelinghuysens, 1731 I street.
Many noted men and celebrated women have met under this roof. Four Cabinet officers have here made homes-two Secretaries of State, Evarts and Freling- huysen, one Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Whitney, and ex-Postmaster-General John Wanamaker.
Manifold associations cluster around this home which carry us back to the Arthur Administration, with a social atmosphere refined and elegant. Mr. Frelinghuysen, as Secretary of State, was very near the President, which brought the two families into intimate relations.
Of Mr. Arthur's Cabinet none entertained more royally than the Frelinghuysens. When another page of his- tory was turned and the Frelinghuysens sought the seclusion of their New Jersey home, this elegant old home lost none of its social atmosphere. Its parlors never witnessed more brilliant social gatherings or gayer assemblies than when William C. Whitney, Secretary of the Navy, and his estimable wife were host and hostess.
The elegant ball-room was added while they were in possession. This is a room 50 by 30 feet in width, with a raised platform for the orchestra. At one end is a large fireplace finished in Dutch tiles, panels and antique settles. The room is finished in hardwood.
The receptions given at the Whitney home far exceeded in brilliancy and generous outlay any others given by
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the Cabinet. There were flowers everywhere, banks of roses, violets in profusion, ferns and smilax, japonicas and lilies, which loaded the air with delicate perfume. Champagne and terrapin, salads and ices drew the multi- tude.
Mrs. Whitney was a woman of generous impulses, charitable to the poor and thoughtful of the suffering. She had a quiet way of dispensing her charities, and only those who were' the beneficiaries of her hand knew of the channels it reached.
Another page is added to history. One Adminis- tration goes out and another comes in, and with it comes John Wanamaker as Postmaster-General. The Freling- huysen home is that of the man'of letters.
And greater charities have not been done than by this host and hostess. Their lives have been spent in prompt- ing acts of beneficence, in getting the rich to help the poor, and helping the poor to forget their misery. *
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During the time that Levi P. Morton was a member of Congress his house was on the corner of 15th and H streets. This was another of the houses whose records could tell many tales. Better it is, perhaps, that walls, ever so historic, tell no secrets. This house was better known as the Hooper House. During Mr. Lincoln's Administration it was owned and occupied by Samuel Hooper, of Boston. Mr. Hooper was a Representative in Congress, a man of sterling worth and integrity, and by his urbane manner and liberal hospitality drew around him men of social and political standing like Charles Sumner, Bancroft the historian, and others.
It was to this hours that .Andrew Johnson was invited after President Lincoln's assassination and his own Inauguration. Here he remained for weeks, until Mrs. Lincoln had sufficiently recovered from the shock of her husband's death to be removed from the Executive Mansion.
Political constitutions and Cabinet meetings were held, and undoubtedly. She chrysalis of the carly Johnson policy here found form. Stanch Republicans, like Sum-
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ner, Hooper, Boutwell and others were his advisers. Seward was laid up, suffering from the would-be as- sassin's blow. Harlan, Randall, McCulloch and Welles were in his Cabinet.
The later policy that developed with President John- son found no sympathy in the hearts of those who had been his friends, nor vith Congress.
In the place where the President found his name supported, now congregated the same men, with Seward added, laying their plans to avert, what seemed to them, the death-blow of the Nation." How well they succeeded history tells.
Mr. Hooper had a son who died in his country's ser- vice during the war. His widow, one of the most at- tractive women in society at that time, connected with some of the foremost people of Boston, was one of the attractions of the Hooper mansion.
Here she constantly met the dignified, elegant Charles Sumner, a man in years old enough to be her father. At this time he stood before the country its most noble son, the leader of the Republican party, at the zenith of popularity, a brilliant orator, a profound scholar. His speeches filled the galleries with thinking men and women, as well as with the beauty and fashion of the dav.
Possessed of lofty stature and nobleness of feature, it is not surprising that the fair daughter of Massachu- setts admired Charles Sumner, and that all Washington was agog when it became known that the great states- man was to marry Mrs. Hooper. . This is not the place to follow the outcome of this incongruous marriage.
After this followed many noted gatherings at the Hooper house. General and Mrs. Grant, Mr. and Mrs. Sumner, Senators, diplomats, queens of society, all ri- valled each other in wit, brilliancy and grace of manner.
There was in this house for months another guest to whom the world owes homage; a man who possessed in his own person that harmonious union of rare qualities which Dr. Holmes says "was the master key that opened every door, the countersign that passed every sentinel,
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the, unsealed letter of introduction to all the higher circles of the highest civilization.". Such were the natural graces and such the distinguished bearing of J. Lo- throp Motley.
After Gen. Grant's first election, Mr. Motley was Mr. Hooper's guest, and later Mrs. Motley and their three daughters joined him. It was during his stay here that he received the appointment of Minister to Eng- land, from President Grant. This appointment was undoubtedly due to Mr. Sumner's influence.
We can imagine what their dinner talks may have been, when Motley, Sumner, Hooper and a few other choice spirits exchanged views upon literature, art, politics, and all the great questions of the day, over choice viands and rare wines.
But the English mission was an episode in Mr. Motley's life full of heart-burnings. If a wrong was, done him it must be laid at the doors of those whom the Nation has delighted to honor and whose services no error of judgment, or feeling, or conduct can ever induce us to forget.
It will be remembered that a serious estrangement had come between the President and Mr. Sumner, and we have been told by those "near the throne" that when the President saw Mr. Motley for the first time, he was disappointed; in what wav does not appear. Mr. Motley was a scholar, not a soldier. Whatever was the real cause, whether it was slight indiscretion in the Alabama treaty, or his relations to Mr. Sumner, or some other reason, the letter requesting the resignation of Mr. Motley was issued by the President.
Oliver Wendell Holmes says in his Memoirs, "We might as well leave out Achilles from the Iliad as the anger of the President with Sumner from the story of Mr. Motley's dismissal"; and, again, "It is not strange that the man who had so lately got out of the saddle should catch at the scholastic robe of the man on the floor of the Senate."
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