USA > New York > The Olden time in New York > Part 3
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The withdrawal of so many of the gentry from the country, and the worldly ruin of so many more, was necessarily detrimental to its social refinement. It was taking away the high-toned dignity of the landed pro- prietors, and substituting in its place the restless aspira- tions of men who had to make their fortunes and posi- tion, and get forward in life. Society lost, therefore, much of its case and gracefulness. Mrs. Grant, to whose work we have already alluded, who in her youth had seen New York society as far back as 1760, and lived to know what it was after the peace, thus speaks
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NEW YORK SOCIETY
of the change: " Mildness of manners, refinement of mind, and all the softer virtues that spring up in the cultivated paths of social life, nurtured by generous affections, were undoubtedly to be found in the un- happy loyalists. . Certainly, however neces- sary the ruling powers might find it to carry their sys- tem of exile into execution, it has occasioned to the country an irreparable privation. What the loss of the Huguenots was to commerce and manufactures in France, that of the loyalists was to religion, literature, and amenity in America. The silken threads were drawn out of the mixed web of society, which has ever since been comparatively coarse and homely."*
This is somewhat of an exaggeration. The tone of society was, indeed, impaired, but not lost. There were still enough of the old families remaining to give it dignity, at least for another generation. The com- munity could not suddenly become democratic, or throw off all its old associations and habits of reverence. As a writer on that day says, people were " habituated to take off their hats to gentlemen who were got up re- gardless of expense, and who rode about in chariots drawn by four horses." It took a long while for the community to learn to act on the maxim that " all men are created equal." Not, indeed, until those were swept away who had lived in the days of the Revolu- tion, did this downward tendency become very evident. Simultaneously, too, with their departure came a set of the nouveaux riches, which the growing facilities of New York for making commercial fortunes brought forward, and thus, by degrees, was ushered in-the age of gaudy wealth.
The final blow, indeed, to this stately old society was given by the French Revolution. . We know how
* " American Lady," p. 330.
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IN THE OLDEN TIME.
everything dignified in society was then swept away in the wild fury of democracy, but the present genera- tion cannot conceive of the intense feeling which that event produced in our own country. France had been our old ally. England our old foe. We must side with the former in her struggles against tyranny. It be- came a political test. The Republicans adopted it, and insensibly there seemed to grow up the idea that re- finement and courtesy in life were at variance with the true party-spirit. In this way democratic rudeness crept into social life, and took the place of the aristo- cratic element of former days. Gradually it went down into the lower strata of society, till all that reverence which once characterized it was gone.
The manners of an individual at last became an evi- dence of his political views. Goodrich, in his " Recol- lections," speaking on this very point, gives an amusing instance of it. A clergyman in Connecticut, who was noted for his wit, riding along one summer day, came to a brook, where he paused to let his horse drink. Just then a stranger rode into the stream from the op- posite direction, and, as his horse began to drink also, the two men were brought face to face.
" How are you, priest ? " said the stranger.
" How are you, democrat ?" inquired the parson.
" How do you know I am a democrat ?" said onc.
" How do you know I am a priest?" said the other.
"I know you to be a priest by your dress," said the stranger.
"And I know you to be a democrat by your ad- dress," said the parson.
Even the dress was made the exponent of party views, as much as it had been by the Cavaliers and Puritans of England. As republican principles gained ground, large wigs and powder, cocked hats, breeches
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NEW YORK SOCIETY
and shoe-buckles, were replaced by short hair, panta- loons, and shoe-strings. It is said that the Marquis de Brézé, master of ceremonies at Versailles, nearly died of fright at the first pair of shoes, divested of buckles, which he saw on the feet of a revolutionary minister ascending the stairs to a royal levec. He rushed over to Dumouriez, then Minister of War. "He is actually entering," exclaimed the Marquis, " with ribbons in his shoes!" Dumouriez, himself one of the incendiaries of the Revolution, solemnly said, "Tout est fini !" -- " The game is up; the monarchy is gone." And so it was. This was only one of the signs of the times. Buckles and kings were extin- guished together.
Such being the feelings of the sans culottes in France, the favorers of Jacobinism in this country were not slow to imitate them. Jefferson eschewed breeches and wore pantaloons. He adopted leather strings in his shoes instead of buckles, and his admirers trum- peted it as a proof of democratic simplicity. Wash- ington rode to the Capitol in a carriage drawn by four cream-colored horses with servants in livery. All this his successor gave up, and even abolished the Presi- dent's levees, the latter of which were afterwards re- stored by Mrs. Madison. Thus the dress, which had for generations been the sign and symbol of a gentle- man, gradually waned away, till society reached that charming state of equality in which it became impos- sible, by any outward costume, to distinguish masters from servants. John Jay says, in one of his letters, that with small-clothes and buckles the high tone of society departed.
In the writer's early day this system of the past was just going out. Wigs and powder and queues, breeches and buckles, still lingered among the older gentlemen
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IN THE OLDEN TIME.
--- vestiges of an age which was just vanishing away. But the high-toned feeling of the last century was still in the ascendant, and had not yet succumbed to the worship of mammon which characterizes this age. There was still in New York a reverence for the colo- nial families ; and the prominent political men --- like Du- ane, Clinton, Colden, Radcliff, Hoffman, and Living- ston .- were generally gentlemen by birth and social standing. The time had not yet come when this was to be an objection to an individual in a political career. The leaders were men whose names were historical in the state, and they influenced society. The old fami- lies still formed an association among themselves, and intermarried one generation after another. Society was therefore very restricted. The writer remembers. in his childhood, when he went out with his father for his usual afternoon drive, he knew every carriage they met on the avenues.
The gentlemen of that day knew each other well, for they had grown up together, and their associations in the past were the same. Yet, what friendships for after-life did these associations form! How different this from the intimacy between Mr. Smith and Mr. Thompson, when they knew nothing of each other's antecedents, have no subjects in common but the mo- ney market, and never heard of each other until the last year, when some lucky speculation in stocks raised them from their "low estate," and enabled them to purchase houses "up-town," and set up their car- riages !
There was in that day none of the show and glitter of modern times ; but there was with many of these families, particularly with those who had retained their landed estates, and were still living in their old family homes, an elegance which has never been rivalled in
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other parts of the country. In his early days the writer has been much at the South ; has stayed at Mount Vernon, when it was yet held by the Washing- tons ; with Lord Fairfax's family at Ashgrove and Van- cluse ; with the Lees in Virginia, and with the aristo- cratic planters of South Carolina ; but he has never elsewhere seen such elegance of living as was formerly exhibited by the old families of New York.
Gentlemen then were great diners-out. Their asso- ciations naturally led to this kind of intimacy, when almost the same set constantly met together. Giving dinners was then a science, and a gentleman took as much pride in the excellence of his wine-cellar as he did in his equipage or his library. This had its evils, it is true, and led to long sittings over the table, and an excess of conviviality which modern customs have fortunately corrected.
- There was a punctiliousness, too, in their intercourse, even among the most intimate, which formed a strange contrast to the familiarity of modern society. Gentle- men were guarded in what they said to each other, for those were duelling days, and a hasty speech had to be atoned for at Hoboken. Stories are still handed · down of disputes at the dinner-table which led to hos- tile meetings, but which, in our day, would not have been remembered next morning. In an obituary sketch of one of this set, published at his death twenty-five years ago, when speaking of the high tone which then characterized society, the writer said: "Perhaps the liability, which then existed, of being held personally answerable for their words. false as the principle may have been, produced a courtesy not known in these days."
One thing is certain-that there was a high tone prevailing at that time, which is now nowhere seen.
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IN THE OLDEN TIME.
The community then looked up to the public men with a degree of reverence which has never been felt for those who succeeded them. They were the last of a race which does not now exist. With them died the stateliness of colonial times. Wealth came in and created a social distinction which took the place of family, and thus society became vulgarized.
During the last year we have witnessed the depar- ture of one-Gulian C. Verplanck-who was, perhaps, the last prominent member of the generation which has gone. Where can we point to any one of those now living, like him, surrounded by the elevating asso- ciations of the past, distinguished in public life, and a ripe scholar in literature and theology? The old his- torical names of Jay and Duer and Hoffman, and a few more of colonial times, are still upheld among us by their sons, who are showing, in the third generation, the high talents of those who had gone before them ; " but what are they among so many !"
" Rari nantes in gurgite vasto."
The influences of the past are fast vanishing away, and our children will look only to the shadowy future. The very rule by which we estimate individuals has been entirely altered. The inquiry once was, "Who is he?" Men now ask the question, "How much is he worth ?" Have we gained by the change ?
Is it strange that the writer answers in himself that description in Horace-" Laudator acti temporis, me puero?" As years gather round him, and the shadows deepen in his path, he instinctively turns more and more from the " living Present" to commune with the " dead Past." Many, however, to whom he has re- ferred in these pages, will be to most of his readers 6
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NEW YORK SOCIETY IN THE OLDEN TIME.
only names, while to nim they are realities-living and breathing men; and, as he thinks of them, he believes there is no delusion in the conviction that, for elegance and refinement, for all the graces which elevate and ennoble life, they have left no successors. The out- ward pressure is now too democratic. Most of the prominent men, also, of the present day, want the asso- ciations of the past.
As Edward IV. stood on the tower of Warwick Castle, and saw marching through the park below him the mighty host of retainers who, at the summons of the great Earl of Warwick, had gathered round him, and then thought how powerless, in comparison, were the new nobles with whom he had attempted to sur- round his throne, he is said to have muttered to him- self, " After all, you cannot make a great baron out of a new lord !" And so we would say, You cannot make out of the new millionaire what was exhibited by the gentlemen of our old colonial families !
. Commerce, indeed, is fast taking the place of the true old chivalry with all its high associations. It is impossible, in this country, for St. Germain to hold its own against the Bourse. Money-getting is the great object of life in this practical age, and, every month, the words which Halleck wrote so many years ago are becoming more true :
These are not romantic times So beautiful in Spenser's rhymes, So dazzling to the dreaming boy ; Ours are the days of fact, not fable, Of Knights, but not of the Round Table, Of Baillie Jarvis, not Rob Roy. And noble name and cultured land, Palace and park, and vassal band, Are powerless to notes of hand Of Rothschild or the Barings.
TRACES
OF
AMERICAN LINEAGE IN ENGLAND.
RICHMOND HILL HOUSE, N. Y., IN 1776.
TRACES
OF
AMERICAN LINEAGE IN ENGLAND.
THEY say in England that Burke's Peerage is "the Englishman's Bible." He certainly pores over it with a devotion which, had it been the Bible, would have prepared him to be a Professor of Biblical Interpreta- tion in a Theological Seminary. The aristocracy have this immense crimson-bound volume in their libraries because it gives their own family history. The middle class parade it on their centre-tables because its pos- session seems in some way, they cannot define how, to associate them with the titled class. Then, if they should happen to see a live lord, it is a great satisfac- tion, on their return home, to open Burke and learn all about him. It makes them almost feel as if they were acquainted with him.
Burke; it is true, gives the history of these families, but then there is added to it an immense amount of the Romance of History. The old Norman nobility of England have most of them died out, and it is strange to see, in Shirley's Noble and Gentle Men of England, how few families are now remaining, in the male line, of those who occupied any prominent position in the days of the wars of York and Lancaster. The great Percy family, for example, has three times become ex- tinct in the male line. Then, some one who had mar- ried its heiress took the name of Percy, and had the title of Duke of Northumberland revived for his bene-
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TRACES OF AMERICAN LINEAGE IN ENGLAND.
. fit. The last time this occurred was in 1750, when it was done for one of the Smithson family, who had married the daughter and only child of the last Duke. Thus, new shoots are grafted_on the old lines.
Besides this, new men are constantly rising up and winning their way into the upper class, and these must be furnished with pedigrees. So Burke begins per- haps by stating, that "one of this name flourished in Kent, temp. Henry III." To be sure there is a dread- ful hiatus between this imaginary character and temp. Victoria, when the new lord makes his appearance, but there is a sort of uncertain glamour thrown over it which, without any reason, seems to connect the pres- ent with the distant past. Still, with all these draw- backs, Burke is a very valuable record, and we cannot understand the history of England without knowing something of the history of its great families.
Then, besides Burke's Peerage is his Landed Gentry, a work of equal interest and value to the historical student. Many of these untitled families have lived on their broad lands since the Norman conquest. You turn, for instance, to the Fitzherbert family, and read of the present proprietor of their estates-"Mr. Fitz- herbert is the 26th Lord of the Manor of Norbury, and the 10th Lord of Swinnerton." Many of these families have for generations refused peerages, preferring to be Old Commoners rather than New Lords.
The third volume, to complete the set, is Burke's Extinct Pecrages, a record of families which possessed titles, traced down to the death of the last holder of the title.
What interest have we Americans in these volumes ? Apparently very little. And yet, in turning them over, we every little while light on some scrap of American family history, giving a portion of the records of fami-
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TRACES OF AMERICAN LINEAGE IN ENGLAND.
lies who are descended from these old stocks, and whose history would not be complete without this no- tice of the parent tree; or, what we find is mingled in some way with the annals of our own country, so that it throws new light on some point in our affairs, or gives a completion of detail to some portion of Ameri- can History.
Let us take an example of this-BENEDICT ARNOLD. His name is unfortunately "familiar in our ears as household words." Every school-boy knows the story of his treason, as it mingles with the sad narrative of Major Andre's life and death. We know that England rewarded his betrayal of his trust with the rank of Major-General in her service, the same which he had held in our army. But the war ended, and he went to Europe with her returning forces, and what is after- wards known of him? There are one or two anecdotes floating about-such as the account of his duel with Lord Balcarras-and that is all. We will guarantee there is not one American in a thousand can tell any- thing with regard to his future. As far as we are concerned-as Carlyle would express it -- "he disap- peared into infinite space."
Have not some of our readers thought of this; wished to know the subsequent history of the Arnold family, and wondered whether his treason enabled them to prosper in worldly matters, or whether "the sin of the father was visited on the children to the third `and fourth generation"? We know no source from which this want can be supplied, except by Burke's Landed Gentry. We turn to the name of Arnold and find this history of the family :---
GENERAL BENEDICT ARNOLD, m. S April, 1779, Margaret, dau. of Edward Shippen, Chief Judge of Pennsylvania, and died in 1801, having had issue.
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TRACES OF AMERICAN LINEAGE IN AMERICA.
Edward Shippen, Lieut. 6th Bengal Cavalry, and Paymaster of Mutra, d. at Dinapore in India, 13 Dec., 1813.
James Robertson, Lieut. General, K. H. and K. Crescent, m. Vir- ginia, d. of Bartlett Goodrich, Esq., of Saling Grove, Essex, which lady died 14 July, 1813.
George, Lieut .- Col. 2d Bengal Cavalry, died in India I Nov., 1828.
WILLIAM FETCH, of whom presently.
Sophia, m. Col. Pownall Phipps, E. I. C. Service (of the Mulgrave family).
WM. FETCH ARNOLD, EsQ., of Little Missenden Abbey, Capt. 12th Lancers, b. 25 June, 1794 ; m. 19 May, 1819, Elizabeth Cecelia, only dau. of Alexander Ruddach, Esq., of Tobago, and had issue.
EDWARD GLADWIN, of whom presently.
William Trail, b. 23. Oct., 1826, Capt. 4th Regt.
Margaret Stuart, m. Rev. Robert H. S. Rogers.
Elizabeth Sophia, m. Rev. Bryant Burgess.
Georgiana Phipps, m. Rev. John Stephenson.
REV. EDWARD GLADWIN ARNOLD, of Little Missenden Abbey, Co. Bucks, Rector of Stapleford, Herts, b. 25 April, 1823; m. 27 April, 1852, Charlotte Georgiana, eldest daughter of Lord Henry Chol- mondeley.
Seat, Little Missenden Abbey, Co. Bucks.
Here we have the whole story minutely set forth. from the arch traitor himself down to his grandson, the present representative. It seems that his sons held high offices in the army, and the family had been en- abled to take its place among the English Landed Gentry, and to hold it to the present time. In a world- ly point of view, there is probably hardly a family of the American Generals who remained faithful in the " times which tried men's souls," which at the present day is as well off as that of Benedict Arnold.
Let us take another example-SIR WILLIAM JOHN- SON. There has always been a great deal of romance associated with his life. Settling on the Mohawk, among the Indians, he obtained an influence over the Six Nations which no other white man on this Conti- nent has possessed. In the old French war he was
:
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TRACES OF AMERICAN LINEAGE IN AMERICA.
able to array these powerful tribes on the side of the English, and under his command they secured to the Colonial troops the victory over the French under Baron Dieskau at Lake George, and thus this raid into the colonies was hurled back. For this he was re- warded with a Baronetcy. He resided at Johnson Hall in a kind of barbaric splendor, which was most capti- vating to the Indian chiefs who were his constant visit- ors. The late Wm. L. Stone, of New York, published his life in two volumes, and Paulding made him a pro- minent character in his novel of The Dutchman's Fire- side. He died just as the Revolutionary War began, and it is asserted that his life was shortened by the vio- lent struggle through which he, like many other lead- ing men, was obliged to pass in deciding between the cause of his old friends and that of the Government to which he owed his honors.
His son and successor, Sir John Johnson, seems to have been troubled with no such scruples, but at once arrayed against the Colonists all the Indian tribes over which he had influence. For years his inroads kept in fear the whole border down to the very surburbs of Albany, and terrible were the scenes enacted in many a solitary hamlet, and even in the large town of Sche- nectady, when they were sacked and burned by his wild warriors. Their record is graphically written in Stone's Life of Brandt. When the war ended he re- treated into Canada, abandoning his great possessions and leaving Johnson Hall, which still stands, a monu- ment of the family.
But what was his future history, and how fared it with the family who, for loyalty, thus abandoned their wide lands? Few indeed had sacrificed as much as they did for this cause. We turn to Burke's Peerage, and here is the record of the next generations :--
7
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TRACES OF AMERICAN LINEAGE IN ENGLAND.
WILLIAM JOHNSON, ESQ., born at Smithtown, Co. Meath. descend- ed from an Irish family, was adopted by his maternal uncle, Sir Peter Warren, K.B., and went out with him to North America, where he rose to the rank of a Col. in the army, and distinguished himself as a military commander during the first American war, and as a negotiator with Indian tribes ; he was created a Baronet 27 Nov., 1755. He d. 11 July, 1774, aged 59, at his seat, Johnson Hall, New York, leav- ing, by Catherine Wisenberg, his wife,
JOHN, his heir,
Anne, m. to Col. Daniel Clauss, of North America, and d. about I 798.
Mary, m. Col. Gray Johnson, and had two daughters, Mary, wife of Gen. Colin Campbell; and Julia.
The son and heir,
II. SIR JOHN, of Mount Johnson, Montreal, Superintendent-Gen- eral, and Inspector-General of Indian Affairs in British North Ameri- ca, Colonel-in-Chief of the six battalions of the militia of the Eastern Township of Lower Canada, was knighted at St. James, London, 22 Nov., 1765. He m. 30 June, 1773, Mary, dau. of John Watts, Esq., some time President of the Council at New York, and by her had issue,
I. William, Lieut .- Col., b. 1775; m. 1802, Susan, dau. of Stephen De Lancey, Governor of Tobago, and left issue,
Charlotte, m., in 1820, to Alexander, Count Balmain, Russian Con- missioner at St. Helena.
2. ADAM GORDON, 3d Baronet.
3. James Stephen, Capt. 28th Regt., killed at Badajos.
4. Robert Thomas, drowned in Canada, 1812.
5. Warren, Major 68th Regt., d. 1813.
7. John, of Point Oliver, Montreal, Col. Comm. 6th battalion of militia, b. 8 Aug., 1782, m. 10 Feb., 1825, Mary Deane, dau. of Richard Dillon, Esq., of Montreal ; and d. 23 June, 1841, leaving issue,
WILLIAM GEORGE, present Baronet.
7. Charles Christopher. b. 29 Oct., 1798, Lient .- Col. in the army, Knight of the 2d class of the Prussian Order of the Lion and Sun ; m. 1818, Susan, eldest dau. of Admiral Sir Edward Griffith, of North- brook House, Hants, and d. 30 Sept., 1854.
Sir John died Jan., 1830, and was succeeded by his eldest surviv- ing son.
III. SIR ADAM GORDON, Lieut .- Col. of 6th battalion of militia, b. 6 May, 1781, d. unm., 21 May, 1843, and was succeeded by his nephew, William George.
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TRACES OF AMERICAN LINEAGE IN ENGLAND.
IV. SIR WILLIAM GEORGE JOHNSON, of Twickenham, Co. Middle- sex, an officer in the Royal Artillery, b. 19 Dec., 1830, succeeded as 4th Baronet, at the decease of his uncle in May, 1843.
They too have preserved their position, but at the end of the lineage, in Burke, there is no Seat given, as usual, and we presume, therefore, the Baronet is land- less, and has no compensation for the wide manor's his family once held on the pleasant Mohawk.
Sometimes, when no lineage of a family is given, we trace the name through various intermarriages. This is the case with the DE LANCEYS, Huguenots from France, so prominent in New York, until they were crushed by the confiscations which followed the Revo- lution. One of them, as we see above in the Johnson family, is mentioned as marrying a son of Sir John Johnson. The name occurs again in another family, for after the death of her first husband we find her mar- rying Lieut .- General Sir Hudson Lowe, K. C. B., so well known as the Governor of St. Helena during the imprisonment of Napoleon. Her brother, Sir William Howe De Lancey, died at Waterloo on the Staff of the Duke of Wellington. Another of the family mar- ried Lieut .- Gen. Sir William Draper, and another Field- Marshal Sir David Dundas. Another is recorded as the wife of Sir Julius Clifton, Bart. In this way it is that here and there we meet with traces of this old loyalist family.
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