History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Part 195

Author: Bean, Theodore Weber, 1833-1891, [from old catalog] ed; Buck, William J. (William Joseph), 1825-1901
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1534

USA > Pennsylvania > Montgomery County > History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania > Part 195

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"Please remen.ber me to Mr. Ferguson. I cannot help regretting that a gentleman so formed by nature and education te take a part in the present contest with honor to himself aud advantage to the commu- nity, should unfortunately possess sentiments which must in my humble opinion condemn his talents to rest in obscurity."

In September following, in company with Samnel W. Stockton, of New Jersey, he sailed for England,

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for the purpose, it is said, of settling up some family a fairs in Scotland. He remained abroad until March, 1777, when he took passage to Jamaica, and from thence to New York. From the latter place he went with the army to Philadelphia with a view to return to Grieme Park, when a pass was refused him, and having learned that such an attempt must be attended with a great deal of hazard, he remained and they appointed him a commissary of prisoners while they held the city. Mr. Ferguson was assessed in Horsham, in 1776, as holding eight hundred acres of land, one negro, six horses, six cattle and eight sheep, £58 8s.

Just before his departure for Europe, Margaret Stedman wrote to Mrs. Ferguson from the city, Sep- tember 2, 1775,-

"I aun really sorry I am necessitated to tell you all my endeavors to accommodate yon with a girl and household-servant have as yet proved ineffectual. If I did not know from frequent experience that you sel no bounds or limitations to your kindness in regard to your friends, I should be led to congratulate yon on a little cessation from company now, as of late I cannot help thinking you have indeed had a repetition of visitors. Mr. Ferguson and your polite easy manner, joined to the pleasing reception you never fail of giving your friends, deprives them, I believe, of the power of readily quitting your hospitable mansion. As for Mr. Ferguson, the natural sweetness of his temper renders him so very engaging that it is impossible not to be pleased where he is. In short, you are both so calculated to give pleasure, as well as improvement, that I look on your distance of situation as a general loss of society."

The position of Mrs. Ferguson through the Rey- olutionary period was a pitiable one. That her young husband was indifferent to her and desired to make use of her property for his selfish interests there is not a doubt ; to this we will hereafter refer. She was then, indeed, a lonely woman, nearly forty years of age, and no near relation or friend to render either advice or protection in so trying a time. It would have been much better for her had she given up all itleas as to the return of her husband, and been contented to remain on her estate, and attend only to its interests. But her fondness for so- ciety and desire to be conspicuous, though it gave hier notoriety, only so mnich the more increased her troubles. Naturally kind-hearted and benevolent, through the selfish purposes of those she thought her friends, she was only too often made use of as an in- strument to carry out their designs, in which shecould possibly receive neither interest or benefit. This will become the more apparent as we progress in this brief biography.

The Rev. Jacob Duche, an eloquent Episcopal clergyman of the city, who had been a favorite of Mrs. Græme from his boyhood, and the first chaplain to Congress, on hearing of the American defeat at Germantown, set himself to work in the city to pre- pare a letter to Washington, to induce him to save the further effusion of blood in so hopeless a cause, and, if necessary, at the head of his army, to compel Congress to sue for peace and thus serve his country and the cause of humanity to the utmost. This communication was dated October 8, 1777, and

its author prevailed on Mrs. Ferguson to carry it to the American camp. She accordingly delivered it to Washington on the I5th of the month, at his headquarters in Towamencin. In respect to this matter, the general thus wrote to the Congress :

"I, yesterday, through the hands of Mrs. Ferguson, of Graham Park, received a letter of a very curious and extraordinary nature from Mr. Duché, which I have thought proper to transmit to Congress. To this ridiculous, illiberal performance, I made a short reply, by desiring the bearer of it, if she would hereafter by any accident meet with Mr. Duche, to tell him I should have returned it nnopened if I had had any idea of the contents ; observing at the same time, that I highly disapproved the intercourse she seemed to have been carrying on, and expected it would be discontinued. Notwithstanding the author's assertion, I can- nut but suspect that the measure did not originate with him, and that he was induced to it by the hope of establishing his interest and peace more effectually with the enemy."

That he should have selected a woman to deliver it personally, a task which no man would have know- ingly assumed, was certainly ingenious. The bearer might have been ignorant of its contents. The writer regrets that the information that passed on this occa- sion between Mrs. Ferguson and Washington, cannot be given here.

Mrs. Ferguson having secured a pass from Wash- ington with a view of seeing her husband in the city, relative to his being charged with treason, made her stay at the house of her brother-in-law, Charles Sted- man, in June, 1778. Governor George Johnstone, one of the three British commissioners sent to arrange proposals of peace with the colonies, on learning of Mrs. Ferguson being there, sought her out, that she might be made the instrument for further negotia- tions with those in power on the American side. He at once expressed himself fully on the subject to the lady, to her great surprise and astonishment, and at the same time holding out a bribe to General Reed for his influence, stating that he had actually sent a letter to him on this matter April 11th previous, On next seeing General Reed, June 21st, he related the circumstances to him, and he, it appears, at once and justly took alarm that such information should now get out and place him in a very equivocal situation. The result was that in self-defense he laid the letter before Congress, which body, August 11th following, passed a resolution that all such offers as were made thercin would be looked upon as corruption and bribery, and that no further correspondence or intercourse can be held with the said George Johnstone, Esq., " especially to negotiate with him upon affairs in which the cause of liberty is interested." There is no doubt that in this transaction, to guard himself from any suspicion, General Reed tried to implicate Mrs. Ferguson as much as possible, as the correspondence of her friends at that time disclosed.

We now come to treat in these troublous times of her title to the estate that had been bequeathed to her by her father. Her husband, H. Ilngh Fer . guson, was charged with treason to the commonwealth by going over to the British and aiding their cause.

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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

Mr. Ferguson had no title whatever to said estate, except what right he may have acquired by marriage, and further, as a foreigner, but a few years here, how could he be charged as a loyalist with treason to this government, unless he owed it allegiance ? To have made this good would have been an utter impossi- bility. A portion of Mrs. Ferguson's personal prop- erty had been sold on these grounds, and it was now meant to sell the estate on her husband's account in 1779. To counteract the influence of General Reed, her friends began to set themselves actively to work in her behalf; among these were George Meade, Elias Boudinot, Rev. Nathaniel Irvine, Rev. James Aber- crombie, Rev. William White, Rev. William Smith, Daniel Roberdeau, Thomas Franklin, General Mifflin, Benjamin Rush and others. A petition was drawn up by Andrew Robeson, and numerously signed and sent to the Assembly, March 1, 1781, who passed an act, April 2d, vesting the right of said estate altogether in Mrs. Ferguson. The House had, May 26, 1780, rec- ommended the Supreme Executive Council to defer the sale of Græme Park, and that she be permitted to live rent-free thereon under the indulgence of the commonwealth by paying the taxes.

There is no question that the patriotism of Mrs. Ferguson, through her peculiar situation, was severely tried. Her relations were divided on the subject. The Stedmans and her nephew, John Young, were loyalists, while her brother-in-law, James Young, and his daughter, Anna, and her husband, Dr. William Smith, were strongly on the side of America. Then again, a large majority of her nearest and dearest friends were also on the same side (as may be observed by the names on her petition to the Assembly), and they never doubted her sincerity to the cause. It is said that while the army lay encamped at Whitemarsh, and badly off for clothing from the increasing cold weather, she conveyed to them at several times linen and other materials of her own raising and manufacture to be distributed among the most needy, and that Washington, in consequence, had sent her letters of thanks which her friends stated that they had seen. It is a current tradition that at that time the commander-in-chief came to the Park and remained there overnight, the camp being about six miles distant, where the army lay from October 21st to December 11, 1777, a period of about seven weeks.

On the evacuation of Philadelphia, her husband, H. Hugh Ferguson, followed the retreating army to New York, and while there Mrs. Ferguson made a pathetic application to the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, November 28, 1778, for per- mission to go there, take leave of him and return, which that body refused to grant. On this subject, her niece, Anna Young Smith, wrote to her from Allentown, while the British had possession of Phila- delphia,-

"I heard of the pathetic letter you wrote him in order to draw him off from British connections. I can truly say my heart bleeds for you

to have Mr. Ferguson, after an absence of two years, not able to get to his own house, and both of you, I would suppose, conscientiously attached to opposite sides. Oh, my dear Aunt, I see you are completely wretched, who had but a few months ago an independent fortune, and blest with superior talents and uncommon virtues."

In the summer of 1784 she received a letter from Mr. Ferguson, in London, imploring a remittance to relieve his distressed condition, to which it appears she responded. Her nephew, John Young, wrote to her from London, July 9, 1789, that " it would afford me a signal gratification to know that you were either unconditionally reconciled to your husband, or that you had reconciled your mind to the loss of him, for I much fear that it must at last be reduced to this dilemma." It is supposed the last information re- ceived concerning him was in October, 1793, when she learned that he had entered the army and gone to Flanders. The subject of his absence, it appears, preyed greatly on her mind. Even in her writings a memorandum is found, dated February 26, 1800, only a year before her death, in which she states that "every event of my marriage and all that relates to my husband is as recent in my memory as though it had occurrred but yesterday. Though strange, out of twenty-eight years I lived but two and a half with him, and the period of separation exceeds that of the celebrated Ulysses and Penelope. I know not now whether he is among the dead or the living." The celebrated philosopher, Adam Ferguson, who was a native of Perthshire, and secretary to the British Commission spoken of, it is stated was a relative. Dr. Rush is in error in regard to his name; it is signed " H. Hugh Fergusson" in the records of the Hatboro' Library and also in the Bradford Papers of the His- torical Society, where several communications may be seen written and signed by him as commissary of prisoners. Mrs. Ferguson also invariably used two s's in her name, but it has become now so established that we have concluded to follow the custom.

Says Dr. Rush,-

" Mrs. Ferguson passed the interval between the year 1775 and the time of her death chiefly in the country, upon her farm, in reading and in the different branches of domestic industry. A female friend wbo had been the companion of her youth, and whose mind was congenial to her own, united her destiny with hers, and soothed her various distresses by all the kind and affectionate offices which friendship and sympathy could dictate, In her retirement she waseminently useful. The doors of the rottages that were in her neighborhood bore the marks of her footsteps, which were always accompanied or followed with clothing, provisions and medicines to relieve the nakedness, hunger or sickness of their in- habitants. During the time General Howe had possession of Philadelphia she sent a quantity of linen into the city, spun with her own hands, and directed it to be nule into shirts for the benefit of the American prison- ers that were taken at the battle of Germantown. Upon hearing, in one of her visits to Philadelphia, that a merchant once affluent in his circuni- stances was suddenly thrown into jail by his creditors, and was suffer- ing from the want of many of the usual comforts of his life, she sent him a bed, and afterwards procured admission into his apartment, and put twenty dollars into his hands. He asked for the name of his benefactress. She refused to make herself known to him, and suddenly left him. This humane and charitable act would not have been made known had not the gentleman's description of her person and dress discovered it. Many such secret acts of charity, exercised at the expense of her personal and habitual comforts, might be mentioned."

The Hon. Elias Boudinot, president of Congress,

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on signing the preliminary treaty of peace with Great Britain, forwarded a letter on the subject of Mrs. Fer- gnson, in which he mentioned that General Washing- ton was highly pleased on the result. A reply was returned from Græme Park, April 17, 1783, in which she said,-

" Is it not hard, my dear friend, that with a heart formed for urbanity and convivial cheerfulness, on this occasion particularly, I should from all extraordinary combinations of perplexed circumstances remain in total obscurity, but I am a poor, selfish creature, and if I adhere to the truth, mast declare that amidst all these important events my own prospects und situation haunt my view, and at present nothing can draw me from this retreat, for my peace is so wounded, for I feel as though I could never come out of the shade. Dear Betsy Stedman joins in warm felicitations on this great event."

Margaret Stedman wrote to Mrs. Ferguson from Philadelphia, September 9, 1785, in which she de- sired her to "accept a heart replete with gratitude for the invitation contained in your last favor, and doubt not my sincerity when I assure you I ever esteemed and honored your society as one of the most pleasurable circumstances of my life, and much am [ indebted to the balmy air of Græme Park, never being blessed with a greater sense of health than during my three years' residence there."

The Union Library of Hatboro' was founded in 1755, to which Dr. Græme, as has been stated, pre- sented an early donation of books. To this institu- tion we find from its minutes that his daughter, Mrs. Ferguson, was also a liberal contributor. In May, 1763, she presented her first gift of books, for which she received the thanks of the directors, followed by further gifts in 1773, 1783, 1794 and 1798, making in all at least seventy three volumes, some of which were quartos. It is also known that she presented, at vari- ous times, works to the Montgomery Library, in Gwyn- edd, and to the one in Philadelphia.

Respecting Mrs. Ferguson's literary pursuits, her nephew, John Young, wrote from the city, March 22, 1775,-

" You have all the advantages that any poet can wish ; for the season of Poetry is fast approaching, and everything about you contributes to inspire it, so that you have nothing to do but to invoke the Muses and begin tosing. As for the scene, I am sure Græme Park may vie with Arcadia ; for poetry may easily convert Neshaminy into HIelicon, the meadows into Tempe, and the new park into Parnassus, so that I shall certainly expect to see something of the Pastoral kind in the next maga- zine."

Little did the youthful and sanguine writer then imagine what was so very near at hand, the dawn of a revolution to dispel this glorious illusion, and send him and Mr. Ferguson soon and forever in exile, and that on the ruins of the colonial system of govern- ment should be founded here a great and independ- ent republic.

As to her literary qualifications, Dr. Rush thus expressed himself, --

" I have said that Mrs. Ferguson possessed a talent for poetry. Some of those verses have been published, and many of them are in the bands of her friends, They discover a vigorous poetical imagination. Her prose writings indicate strong marks of genius, taste and knowledge. Nothing that came from her pen was common. Even her hasty notes

to her friends placed the moet trivial subjects in such a new and agree- able light as not only secured them from destruction, but gave them a durable place among the most precious fragments of fancy and senti- ment."

The Rev. Nathaniel Evans, who returned from England with Mrs. Ferguson, was a native of Phila- delphia and a poet of some merit. In the spring of 1766 he spent several weeks at Græme Park, with the view of benefiting his declining health, on which occasion he produced a beautiful "Ode" relative to the place, which is given elsewhere in this work. He was admitted into orders by Dr. Terrick, bishop of London, who expressed great satisfaction on his ex- amination. He received the charge of the churches at Gloucester and Colestown, N. J., where he died October 29, 1767, in the twenty-sixth year of his age, and at his particular request was interred at Christ Church. Rev. Dr. Smith collected his poetical effu- sions and had them published in Philadelphia in 1772, in an octavo volume of one hundred and sixty pages, entitled "Poems ou Several Occasions, with some other Compositions." In this collection are included several parodies and witty poems by Miss Græme, under the nom de plume of Laura. It also contains, by the same. a poem of forty-six lines on his death, in which she calls him "a dutiful and only son of aged and affectionate parents."

In his contribution on the "Early Poets and Poetry of Pennsylvania," by Joshua Francis Fisher (" Mem- oirs of Historical Society," vol. ii., 1827), he pays a compliment to the poems of Mr. Evans, and intro- Ances a notice of Mrs. Ferguson, from which we take this extract,-

" At her father's house she was surrounded by the most refined and literary society in America, and both here and in England she enjoyed the intimacy and gained the admiration of some of the most accomplished scholars and wits of the age. Her journal of travels, her letters and many other of her prose compositions were admired for their vivacity and elegance ; and her poems, among which is to be found a translation of Telemachus into English verse. Never did a poet possess a readier pen than Mrs. Ferguson. She wrote on every occasion, and on almost every subject, and if the publication of her manuscripts were called for, I have no doubt that a volume might be easily collected. Mrs. Ferguson is said to have been a lady of fine talents, of refined delicacy, exquisite sensibility and romantic generosity ; several of her friends are still living who remember with delight her noble disposition, her agreeable conver . sation and her amusing eccentricities."

Dr. Rush is in error in regard to Mrs. Ferguson's annual income, which he states to have been one hundred and sixty dollars. In an examination of her personal papers we find that, after the sale of her estate to Dr. Smith, she made arrangements with John Nicholson, who, in July, 1793, agreed to pay her an- nually on her investments, which, at her request, was transferred to George Meade, who obligated himself during her lifetime to pay unto her the annual sum of two hundred dollars. It appears, also, that she drew some income from Elias Boudinot, but whether from another amount or from a transfer we are unable to state. However, we wonder with others how she could have been enabled to spend as much in charity, which Dr. Rush suggests was "exercised at the ex-

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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

pense of her personal and habitual comforts." But she posses-ed the prudence to limit her expenses according to her resources.

At what exact time Mrs. Ferguson left the park we have not been enabled to learn, but it was probably about 1797, when, with her companion, Miss Stedman, she removed to the comfortable home of Seneca Lu- kens, a well-to-do farmer, who resided about two miles distant on the main road leading to Philadelphi:1. From her correspondence we infer that she suffered from an internal ailment for many years, which, to- wards the last, was accompanied with great and pro- tracted pain. She died February 23, 1801, aged sixty years and twenty days. Agreeably to her request, she was interred by the side of her parents in the inclosure of Christ Church, Philadelphia. The epitaph on her reads :

"Elizabeth Ferguson, the true sympathizer with the afflicted ; daugh- ter of Thomas and Aun Græme, wife of HIngh Henry Ferguson .- 1801. Eliza caused this stone to be laid, waits with resignation and humble hope for reunion with her friend in a more perfect state of existence."

We observe here that Mr. Ferguson's given name has been reversed; in all his autographs it is invari- ably written as has been stated.

Joseph Lukens, son of Seneca, informed us, in 1855, that he very well remembered Mrs. Ferguson; that she was a woman of extraordinary conversational powers and a great pedestrian, even down nearly to the close of her life, frequently walking on foot to Philadelphia, a distance of eighteen miles; that she was unusually kind-hearted and charitable. Mrs. Martha Paul stated, in 1850, that she had frequently seen Mrs. Ferguson going through the Willow Grove on foot to Philadelphia, and also thus returning to her Horsham home; that in the latter part of her life she was much given to attending funerals throughont her neighborhood. David Lloyd, the author, men- tions having several times seen Mrs. Ferguson, while at Seneca Lukens', sitting beneath the trees reading a book; that she was of medium size, but slender and delicate in form; thinks she possessed the most intel- ligent and expressive eyes he ever beheld in a female; that she was generally known throughout that section as "Lady Ferguson." On asking him the reason for being so called he said it was owing to her having been called so by George 11I., and also as the grand- daughter of Lady Keith.

Eliza Stedman, so long the devoted friend and com- panion of Mrs. Ferguson, was a niece of Charles Stedman, who had married Ann, daughter of Dr. Græme, in 1749. She was a native of Holstein, Den- mark, and her uncle, Stedman, who was a captain of a vessel sailing to Philadelphia, on his settling there after his marriage, came thus to bring thither the young lady, who was an orphan. IIer letters denote that she had received an excellent education, and the penmanship was such as few can surpass it at this day. She was probably about ten years younger than Mrs. Ferguson, and much more robust. From her corre-

spondence we learn that she was an occasional visitor at Græme Park in 1764, if not some time earlier. Her uncle, Charles Stedman, died in Philadelphia September 28, 1874, aged seventy-one years. On the death of Mrs. Ferguson, near Græme Park, in 1801, she removed to Philadelphia, and died at the house of Samuel F. Smith, about the year 1825, at an advanced age. Mrs. Ferguson, in one of her poems written in 1789, thus refers to her companion,-

"One female friend alone was left,- Then dare sad Laura still repine If vue bright jewel still is mine ; My Stella, partner of my hours Whom no misanthropy devours."

MRS. ANNA YOUNG SMITH .- James Young, the father of Anna, we have presumed, was a native of Scotland, but he must have arrived here early in life. He was a merchant of Philadelphia, and was married, about 1754 or the following year, to Jane, the eldest daughter of Dr. Græme, born April 27, 1727. The correspondence of this gentleman denotes that he must have received an excellent education. Dur- ing the French and Indian war he held several posi- tions under the colonial government; among these was captain, commissary of musters and paymas- ter; for the faithful performance of these duties he received the thanks of the proprietary, Thomas Penn, in 1758. On the breaking out of the Revolution he became an early and ardent patriot. Near the close of 1776 he was appointed one of the justices of the peace for the city, and the following June 11th one of the judges of the court.

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History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Part 195

Author: Bean, Theodore Weber, 1833-1891, [from old catalog] ed; Buck, William J. (William Joseph), 1825-1901 Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck Number of Pages: 1534

Author: Bean, Theodore Weber, 1833-1891, [from old catalog] ed; Buck, William J. (William Joseph), 1825-1901
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1534