USA > Washington DC > Washington DC > Historic homes in Washington : its noted men and women and a century in the White House > Part 25
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At this period social life was dead, apparently, beyond resurrection.
One of the most beautiful and historic homes of George- town is the Tudor Place. It is the ancestral home of the Peters family. The house is built of English brick and contains eighteen or twenty spacious apartments.
'At the period when the courtly manners of the old Colonial times prevailed, all that was best of the social circles of Georgetown and Washington used to assemble there, among them the Washingtons, Lees, Fairfaxes, Calverts, and Spotsfords.
HOLLAND HOUSE.
Holland House was built in the forties. It is on 12th street northwest, No. 506. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson re- moved from Philadelphia here in 1848; this was the only house available in the city that possessed any of the ap- pointments and conveniences of the Philadelphia houses, and they took possession of it. It was at that time quite in the suburbs .. Most of the residences of polite society were in the vicinity of C, 3d, and 41/2 streets. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson were of good old Puritan stock. Mr. John- son was a lineal descendant of John Rogers, and. Mrs. Johnson was a daughter of Dr. Donaldson, a soldier in the Revolutionary War.
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Washington at this time was little more than a straggling village, fulfilling painfully the idea of a city of dreary distances. The avenues were poorly paved, and the streets almost impassable and miserably lighted. Modern improvements came in slowly, for slavery was spread like a cloud over the District. Gales & Seaton were struggling to keep pace with the times and sustain the prestige of the genteel Intelligencer.
New men took their places; those who were accustomed to the demands and progress of the times. Years passed by; the slow improvement was anxiously watched. The people who were in the watch tower of social and physical advancement have seen the desolation and decay of the last 40 years succeeded by a diversified and wonderful development.
Mr. and Mrs. Johnson came to Washington in stirring times. Their Puritan education and instincts were in contradiction to the many acts of Congress and the seem- ing trend of public thought. The passage of the Fugi- tive Slave Bill, the extension of the slave power, which brought on the long and terrible struggle between the friends of Free Soil and the friends of Slavery for the possession of Kansas, which convulsed the country for vears, and moistened the soil of that Territory with blood, had left its impress here.
The Free Trade Tariff of 1846 had produced a train of business and financial disasters; instead of prosperity, everywhere was misery and ruin. Even the rich gold mines of California and the flow of its golden treasure into the Eastern States could not stay the widespread discomfiture.
President Fillmore, who succeeded Gen. Taylor on the latter's death, warned Congress to protect our manu- factures from "ruinous competition from abroad," and President Buchanan, in his Message of 1857, declared that, "In the midst of unsurpassed plenty, in all the pro- ductions and in all the elements of National wealth, we find our manufactures suspended, our public works re- tarded, our private enterprises of different kinds aban- doned, and thousands of useful laborers thrown out of
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employment and reduced to want." Further than this, the financial credit of the Nation was at zero.
This was the condition of this goodly land; a state of things that would naturally assemble the better part of society, the thinking men and women of the country, to take counsel together. From these councils went forth influences that have proved a mighty shatterer of fetters and a dissolvent of many cast-iron prejudices.
Probably no house has entertained under its roof more distinguished men and cultured women than the Holland House. By this we do not mean the men and women who are the social lions of the day, but those who are known to the world as having made it better by having lived in it. Scholars, scientists and patriots have gath- ered here year after year.
Sunday's twilight has brought sage and philan- thropist under this roof, and over the simple tea situations have been discussed and plans laid-plans that years have matured and time ripened into full fruition, from which the world has been benefited and humanity blessed.
Here we found those who were quickly and keenly sympathetic with the life of the time. All social and intellectual agitations of the day were discussed in a way that gave mental quickening and force to those taking part.in them.
Here one always met the friends of human progress; such men as Charles Sumner, Senator Hale, William H. Seward, George C. Boutwell, Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, Gerrit Smith, Oliver Johnson, Henry Wilson, Frederick Douglas and Joshua Giddings-men whose blows struck for freedom and the right have been felt over the world.
This was one of the "Homes of the New World" in which Frederika Bremer formed her sweet recollections of American life, and of which she wrote after her visit to this country in 1849, when she returned to Sweden. !
Harriet Martineau also .was a friend. . Her abhor- rence of slavery, her advanced ideas of political economy, found ready sympathy in the hearts of these philan- thropistes
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After the battle of Bull Run this was one of the first houses to open its doors for the wounded and dying. Miss Dix, who was also an intimate friend of Mrs. John- son, had passed through Washington and was stopping in Baltimore when the news of the battle reached her. She returned at once, and, for a time, had full charge of the improvised hospital arrangements, her headquarters being with Mrs. Johnson.
From New England's storehouse of supplies, medi- cines and delicacies were sent which were made up in every house and hamlet, until from cellar to garret each room was filled, and this was the chrysalis of the Sani- tary Commission which afterwards was planned and or- ganized in the parlors of this house, with Dr. Bellows and Dr. Channing as prime movers.
"There does not live a soldier to-day who is treading the paths of life as best he may, armless, legless and with shattered frame, but has invoked God's loving benediction upon this great and merciful commission and the noble men and women who conceived and accomplished such glorious results.
This house is built of red brick, three stories and a basement. Winding steps lead up from the street to the front door; you enter a broad hall; a winding stairway at the end leads to the second story. At the left is a large bay window; a small table and a couple of easy-chairs fill the space. A beautiful etched portrait of Washington hangs on the wall underneath a tri-pannelled sepia draw- ing (by Toft, a Danish water-color painter) of Sulgrave Manor, Northamptonshire, England, the ancestral man- sion of the Washington family. Mount Vernon is in the center, and Brinton Church, which the Washingtons attended, and the tombs of the Washington family. Underneath is the coat-of-arms of the Washingtons, that suggested the American flag. To the right you enter the large saloon parlor, where so many men of thought and action, at the Nation's Capital, have assem- bled during the last 20, 30 and 40 years. The walls are hung with rare paintings; several of them from the brush of Charles B. King, an artist who has painted the
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portraits of more public men than any other Washing- ton artist. For 40 years he had his studio in a building on Twelfth street, now used for the Newsboys' Home. An exquisite portrait of his is now in this collection-a fair young face, said to be that of the daughter of Aaron Burr, the unfortunate and beautiful Theodosia. Choice water-colors are grouped here and there, showing a la er school and younger taste. They are the selections of Mrs. Stroude, a niece of Mrs. Johnson, of whose years many have been spent in the atmosphere of this cultured home.
Mr. Johnson died April, 1852. For many years Mrs. Johnson and her sister, Miss Donaldson, lived here, the center and the attraction of a refined circle; women of superior intellect and will, genial and warm-hearted, it was their happiness to make others as comfortable as possible. It is to their honor that the unknown and the lowly shared in their thoughtful solicitation.
In 1881 the sweet-faced, gentle Miss Donaldson laid down the burden and the cares of life. Mrs. Johnson died a few years later. She lived to see all the compan- ions of her youth pass away, but before the heavenly vision opened to her, she saw her beloved country clothed in the habiliments of unity, strength and freedom.
CHAPTER XXX.
THE STRATHMORE ARMS.
THE HOME OF MANY REPRESENTATIVE MEN AND WOMEN-HERE
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LIVED VICE-PRESIDENT WHEELER - SENATOR EDMUNDS. JUDGE HARLAN-SENATOR INGALLS-JAMES B. BLOUNT-M. C. BUTLER, OF SOUTH CAROLINA-CHARLES T. O'FARRELL, OF VIRGINIA -- A LESSON LEARNED-CHARLES B. FARWELL AN M. C .- MAINE HAS HAD HER QUOTA-SENATOR FRYE AND TOM REED-MICHIGAN ROYALLY REPRESENTED-ASPIRANTS FOR THE SPEAKERSHIP-OHIO NOT LEFT OUT-SENATOR MC- DILL AND EX-GOVERNOR CARPENTER-THE BADGER STATE. HAPPY-GOING ISAAC VON SCHAICE-L. B. CASWELL-R. M. LA FOLLETTE-W. A. HAUGEN-A. S. GIFFORD AND JOHN LIND. FROM NEARER THE SUNSET BORDER-WILLIAM H. WADE, PA- TRON SAINT-WILLIAM E. MASON-"MOTHER GOOSE SPEECH." WOMEN OF CULTURE-OLIVE LOGAN SIKES-A GIFTED WO- MAN-THE HOME OF GENERAL JOHN A. LOGAN-HIS LIFE AN OPEN BOOK-THE GENERAL AS A SCHOLAR-HIS FRIEND- SHIPS-AN ANECDOTE OF THAD. STEVENS-A JOB PUT UP ON THE GENERAL-SECRET INTERVIEW-NOMINATED VICE-PRESI- DENT-CHEERS FOR "BLACK JACK"-SUMMER FRIENDS-A MEMORY OF THE WAR-MARY LOGAN GOES TO HIS SICK BOYS. FOUNDS THE STRIPED HOSPITAL-THE NIGHT CLOSES-GEORGE S. BOUTWELL-SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY-GREAT RE- SPONSIBILITIES ABLY MET-REUBEN E. FENTON, GOVERNOR AND SENATOR-ONE WHO DID THE COUNTRY HONOR-SENATOR HALE-AN INCIDENT IN WHICH PRESIDENT PIERCE WAS CON- CERNED-JUDGE THOMAS HOOD-A FAMILIAR FIGURE-A MAN OF TENDER HEART-FRIEND OF EDWIN STANTON-"I HAVE SHIPS AT SEA"-REV. DR. SCOTT-MRS. SCOTT LORD-MRS. DIMMICK-MRS. LIEUTENANT PARKER-REFLEX HONOR-THE FAMILY'S VENERABLE HEAD-AMONG THE LITERATI-OLIVER JOHNSON-C. C. COFFIN (CARLETON)-BRONSON HOWARD AND IIIS ENGLISH WIFE-"THE HENRIETTA"-GEORGE KENNAN. SIBERIA-THE NEWSPAPER FRATERNITY-MANY UNDER THIS ROOF-FLEMING- DUNNELL-MCBRIDE - PEPPER - ANDREWS. CARPENTER-FRANK PALMER -- MISS JENNINGS-HARRIET TAYLOR UPTON-A CHARMING COTERIE OF KNIGHTS OF THE FREE LANCE-UNBROKEN FRIENDSHIPS DUE THE HISTORIC HOMES IN WASHINGTON.
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There are few houses in the city of Washington that
. have gathered under their roofs so many noted people during the last decade as the Strathmore Arms.
Not alone has it been known for being the home for
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Congressmen and their families, but there is hardly a State but at some time has had representative men and women in it as guests.
The North and the South, the East and the West have here congregated year after year. Party and sectional lines have not been known.
Here lived the families of ex-Vice-President Wheeler, Senator Edmunds, Judge Harlan of the Supreme Court, Senator John J. Ingalls, who always brought with him the atmosphere of Essex Hills, which he first breathed; the same that has given to the Republic Rufus Choate, Judge Story, Caleb Cushing, and many other great men.
The senior member of the Georgia delegation, the able, vigilant James H. Blount; the courteous, dignified Sen- ator of South Carolina, M. C. Butler; the representative Virginia gentlemen, statesman and scholar, Charles T. O'Farrell, have here broken bread; and we gather the lesson, as these men come and go, that there is a brother- hood reaching above and beyond the strife of private rights or public gain that will live when State and country are no more.
The Hon. Charles B. Farwell, before he was raised to the dignity of United States Senator, was domiciled in this house; and Maine sent her quota in the personnel of Senator Frye and Tom Reed, two well-known men in the affairs of state, and who to the country are treasures in many ways. If they do not know everybody, everybody knows them by reputation.
Michigan has been royally represented by Hon. Julius C. Burrows, John T. Rich, R. G. Horr, McGowan, Brewer and Moffat.
Two of these men mentioned are aspirants for the Speakership. No picture, it is said, does Tom Reed justice. He is a splendidly developed man in brain and muscle; he has a large, round head, partly covered with a thin, fine growth of soft, brown hair, a short neck and a face round as the moon; he has a pair of twinkling, hu- morous brown eyes, which when he laughs lie in fleshy ambuscade.
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He is the leader on the Republican side, the best par- liamentarian of the House, and if he is made Speaker everybody will feel that he deserves it. It is said that some day he will be asked to go over to the other side of the Capitol. It will then be Senator Reed, and Julius Cæsar Burrows will take the place of leader which he vacates. Mr. Burrows's splendid physique, magnificent voice and manly bearing would well fit him for an admin- istrative officer.
As Ohio never allows any niche to go unfilled without the representative Ohioan, so the Strathmore Arms has had Hon. Ezra B. Taylor, John T. Rich and "Silver Bill" Warner.
As we go on towards the sunset we find Senator Mc- Dill, of Iowa, and ex-Governor Carpenter as member of Congress; and from the Badger State, Senator Cameron, the large-hearted, reliable, happy going Isaac W. Van Schaick, L. B. Caswell, R. M. LaFollette, W. A. Haugen. O. S. Gifford and John Lind take us farther on over the broad expanse of country. In time the boundaries nar- row until the Strathmore Arms brings States and Terri- tories together. With William H. Wade, of Missouri, as patron saint, their burdens are lightened and life brings some cheer even to a Congressman.
Into this peaceful household once walked the spirit and the embodiment of the Prince of Evil, Charles Guiteau. He gained access to the house by a low cunning, which was ultimately proven to be the groundwork of his na- ture and the demon responsible for all of his diabolical acts.
In alluding to this it brings forward one of the most tragic incidents connected with American history, that of the assassination of President James A. Garfield
The assassin professed intimacy with the President- elect and James G. Blaine, and desired to make the ac- quaintance of John A. Logan and other prominent men for their official assistance. In this he showed the va- garies `of a crazed brain.
His stav was short, but long enough to make a very unfavorable impression on many of the household, and
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long enough to bring some of them as witnesses at court in one of the most exciting trials on record.
How it broadens hope and welds confidence to see men of varied minds and untried measures beat and hammer "away in the halls of legislation, and afterwards in purest friendship meet around a common board, and be to each other the prince of good fellows!
William E. Mason, known better among his numerous friends as "Billy" Mason, makes this house ring with merriment when, in his droll manner, he hurls some witticisms or tells an apt story, of which he has an inex- haustible stock. Those who heard his rollicking "Mother Goose" speech on the Tariff, when the House was kept in a roar of laughter, will not forget the telling points where every truth struck home. The memory of it will sur- vive, when the rhetorical eloquence of Breckenridge, the profound argument of Carlisle and the Jacksonian "thrusts of Randall have been forgotten.
Mr. Mason is a short man in stature, rising little more than five feet above Mother Earth, thick-set, with an avoirdupois of two hundred and twenty pounds. His hair is black and shaggy, his face smooth, broad, and good-natured. In looks he resembles two sons of Illinois, John A. Logan and, in a marked degree, the "Little Giant," Stephen A. Douglas.
One meets here society in all its phases; men and wo- . men of the world who have more money and leisure than ability to utilize them. One sees those who long to read their names in the papers, and those who are angered because their names are there; and those who delight in social duties, as well as those who are miserable because of them. Women of culture here congregate; women of patriotism whom the vicissitudes of life have drifted into the workshops of the Nation; women whose integrity and honor are to them jewels far above the positions lost when fortune changed hands.
Memory recalls those whose fine.sense and broad charity never intruded on privacy, never spoke ill of the absent; but rather whose conversation and life were full of deep, true instincts that make rounded characters, who could
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talk of science, poetry, art, religion and politics with a keen intelligence which made such a fellowship an education, such conversation a continual spring of in- spiration, and social freedom a delight. While the flood- gates of memory are raised, in walks the embodiment of one of these, Olive Logan Sikes. It is not necessary to tell the people who she is. Too long she has been one of America's favorite daughters not to have been heard of in city, town and hamlet, through her writings and her lectures.
She is a woman as gifted in mind as she is charming in person and manner; she is one who is true to herself, true to her profession and true to her sex-a strong, help- ful, womanly woman.
It is for these qualities that she has been kindly received by the Queen of England among a few chosen guests at a lawn gathering at Windsor; complimented by the Empress of Germany; thanked by the Empress Eugenie for her written words; bidden to the Stratton mansion by Baro- ness Burdette-Coutts; warmly welcomed by the best in her own native land. Wherever her feet touch its shores there "Welcome ever smiles."
She is a handsome woman, of large figure, fine com- plexion, her skin exceeding fair and cheeks rosy with health, pleasant, laughing blue eyes, an abundance of soft, gray, wavy hair, which completes a pen portrait of this woman, who is as fascinating as her letters are charm- ing.
Were it not for the influence she has wielded with her pen in the English press, for America and its institutions, for the last quarter of a century, during which time she has made London her home, more would be the pity that the mother-land could not have the honor of sheltering its own daughter in the eventime of life. Still, Olive Logan feels that her English sojourn is only temporary, and always expects to locate in the United States. She is now but at the period of .ripe middle age, and returns home to America every year or two. As soon as she feels her physical powers waning, and that she can no
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longer travel to and fro, she will return to America and settle-probably in Washington.
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The face and form of another rises before me as I write, that for many years was a noted character and one that filled a large place in the public eye. Is there an American heart that will ever forget the service rendered to country and State by John A. Logan?
It is out of respect to his memory that we take up the pen to make record of some incidents occurring in his life which came under our own eve. For many years we broke bread and lived under the same roof with him, and it was during this time that we came to know another side of this man, of which the people at large knew but little.
We speak advisedly when we say that his life was an open book; he indulged in no secret plotting, no under- ground wires, no deep-sea affiliations; every act of his life was one of honest conviction, and if there was a legislator of the people and for the people, John A. Logan was one.
Many thought him to be the unyielding, stern, digni- fied General; his stalwart figure, raven black hair, and eagle eye, that could pierce one through when roused, gave credence to this belief. But to a friend he was affable, approachable, and always had a pleasant word of welcome; his face could glow with genial expression, and the same piercing eye would grow soft and tender as a child's.
There is, perhaps, no part of the General's character as little understood as his intellectual attainments. A general impression seems to have gone abroad that Mrs. Logan was the power behind the throne in all his' literary work, speeches, letters, books, what not. There never was a greater error. Mrs. Logan has literary tastes, but of a very different order. She had sole charge of his correspondence, and any one can see what advantage that would be to any public man. Matters that were best kept secret were in no danger of divulgence. This correspondence was answered by her dictation, and when it is known that often the wee small hours of the
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night have found her at her desk, it can be inferred what a helpmate she was to him.
1.
After the General was nominated for the Vice-Presi- dency, a public demonstration was given him at this residence, where he delivered a carefully-prepared speech; some of the papers next day, as usual, gave the credit to Mrs. Logan. The facts were General Logan had a pri- vate room in which to prepare his speech, and Mrs. Logan was too ill to see any one that day but the nurse attending her.
One very stormy Sunday, in the public parlor, were con- gregated several of the household, General Logan among the rest. The conversation drifted upon religious sub- jects. Among the number was a young man who really was an intellectual prodigy, but without principle. He made a furious attack on the Christian religion, and especially the Methodist Church. The General listened attentively for a time. At length he opened upon him. It took but a very few moments to show who was the Biblical scholar, and it was as interesting as it was aston- ishing to learn how completely the General had the Bible at his command. The young man saw that he could hold no argument with him on religion, and so withdrew his forces and planted them upon the plains of the Pelopon- nesus. Again the General proved himself quite as much at ease among the classics as in Bible lore. The Greek philosophers, statesmen, and warriors, one after another, were brought up, each one a representative of the past in his age, their ambitions and their failures noted. Through a mass of commentaries and tranditions he had gath- ered them out of the centuries; and on that stormy after- noon we listened to the old story afresh from his lips. The young man sat, astonished and thrilled, through it all, while the whole company had been held spellbound by the man whom the newspapers said got some one else to write his speeches. :
We remember a paper prepared for the Travel Club, one of the literary clubs of Washington, upon the mili- tary life of Egypt. It was wonderful in research, beauti- ful in expression, abounding in interesting data, and
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when we asked where he went for all the information, he replied, "I have had no book in my hand but the Bible."
If he liked a friend, it was for his true worth; rich or poor, high or low, it mattered not; if he possessed redeem- ing traits, he liked him for those; if a servant did him a kind act he never forgot it, and from that time held him in grateful remembrance. If, by virtue of his office, he could be of help to others, the needed aid was sure to follow. It sometimes happened that those who had been thus benefited would keep aloof out of consider- ation to the great demands upon his time; nothing hurt him more, and we have been surprised at the sensitiveness manifested. He was fond of company, and was always glad to see his friends. He would say, "When my friends come wanting no service of mine, I know they come be- cause they want to see me, and it is the people who are willing to foot it that I like to see. But when they come with a great flourish of trumpets, four-in-hand and livery, it is because other people do it, it is the thing to do- there is no heart in it."
It always gave him pain when he recalled the injustice done him by the criticisms made on his educational bill, that the "tax on whisky should go towards educating the , masses."
As we look upon it in the light of the days gone by, we can but feel that the advocates of temperance were "penny- wise and pound foolish"; as though it would purify the money by being put into the general crib and drawn out ad libitum, had the educational bill passed. The an- ecdote repeated by the Senator is pertinent to the case.
One morning the tall, stately form of Thaddeus Stevens was making its way up to the Capitol on Pennsylvania avenue. He was stopped by a colored man, who saluted him with a "good morning," and added that the colored people were struggling along to build a church; could he help them a little. Mr. Stevens took a hundred dollar bill out of his pocket and handed it to the man, eyeing him closely, and said, "There is a hundred dollars I won gambling last night; if that will serve you you are welcome to it." The colored man, instead of disdaining to take
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