USA > Virginia > Some prominent Virginia families, Volume II > Part 29
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In Savannah, when invited out, we lived sumptuously-we had breakfast in the morning, luncheon at eleven o'eloek, dinner at two, tea and coffee in the evening, and a hot supper at night.
While in Savannah the troops were ordered to an Indian treaty at Augusta, and we were ordered to turn out with whiskers and moustaches ; this I was too young to do, being then not nineteen years old, but I used some blaek pomatum, such as the Hessian Yagers used, and smeared my face, so as to look very ferocious. The Indians were greatly frightened by their defeat by Gen. Wayne. The night they surprised him, he had given orders that none of them should be captured, that no quarters should be given, yet sixteen of them were captured by Capt. Scott's company of the Virginia line; and Gen. Wayne, seeing them next morning, ordered them to be bayoneted, which was deemed by some great eruelty ; but General Wayne's force not being so strong as Col. Brown's, in Savannah, he was obliged to change his position every night, lest he should be surprised by him; and the Indians, who were spies upon his camp, were constantly giving Brown informa- tion where he was; but after the defeat and massacre of the six- teen, they quitted the country ; they refused to come to any treaty at Augusta, where we were to eome, and the corps I belonged to, with the rest of the troops under Col. Posey, were ordered back to Charleston, where we remained till August, when the company to which I belonged, and between three and four hundred of the infantry, and fourteen offiecrs, including myself, belonging to different corps, embarked on board ship for Virginia. We were at sea 24 days, and it was thought, in Virginia, that we were lost. Having arrived at Hampton, we were most hospitably treated by a Mr. King and others. After remaining at Hampton three or four days, we came up to Richmond. I paid the company off a portion of their pay, and then gave them their discharges. I then left Richmond for Smithfield, my home, in a chariot loaned me by Mr. Henry Banks, to take a Mrs. Taylor from Norfolk to Fredericksburg. When we got opposite to Smithfield, I left Mrs. Taylor, took my knapsack, and walked to the house, and found the family at supper. To describe the feeling of joy with which they greeted me (believing that I had been lost at sea) would be very difficult.
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The Smithfield family at this time consisted of a kind and ex- cellent father; an amiable mother-in-law, who had one son, William, who, when he eame to man's estate, studied law, was sueeessful in his praetiee, died young, and left an amiable family ; my whole brothers, Dr. Laurence Brooke, and Robert Brooke, and my twin brother John.
Dr. Laurenee Brooke, who had studied medieine at Edinburgh, as I have often mentioned, had now eommeneed the practice of physie. My brother Robert, who had also been edueated at Edin- burgh, where he had studied law under Professor Mililer, had resumed the study, and was preparing to eommenee the praetiee of the law when I arrived.
My twin brother, John, endeared to me by the hardships and dangers of three eampaigns, like myself, had no profession, though some time after, he began to study law, got a lieense and began the practice of the law; he was sueeessful, and beeame a member of the House of Delegates from his eounty of Stafford several times. He married a most amiable and excellent lady, and died about the year 1822, leaving a distinguished family,-one of whom, his son Frank, was killed in the Florida War, under Colonel Taylor, now President of the United States. His son Henry is now a distinguished lawyer, at the bar of the Court of Appeals; mar- ried Virginia, the daughter of the late Judge Henry St. George Tueker, sometime president of the Court of Appeals.
My only sister married Fontaine Maury, though she had been eourted by Capt. Wm. Washington, afterwards General William Washington ; Major Churchill Jones, of Washington's regiment, and several others. Fontaine was the youngest son of Fontaine Maury, the Huguenot, who came to this country after the repeal of the Ediet of Nantes.
Now, what shall I say of myself? The war was over, and it was time that I should look to some other profession than that of arms. I was not quite twenty years of age, and like other young men of the times, having an indulgent father, who permitted me to keep horses, I wasted two or three years fox hunting, and sometimes in raeing ; was sometimes at home for three or four weeks at a time. My father had an excellent family library. I was fond of reading history ; read Hume's History of England, Robertson's History of Charles the Fifth, some of the British Poets, Shakespeare, Dryden,
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Pope, etc., and most of the literature of Queen Anne's reign, and even Blackstone's Commentaries, before I had determined to study law. Having resolved at last to pursue some profession, my brother, Dr. Brooke, prevailed upon me to study medieine. I read his books with him for about twelve months, when my brother Robert would say to me, "Frank, you have missed your path, and had better study law." I soon after took his adviee, and eommeneed the study of the law with him, and in 1788, I applied for a lieense to prac- tice law. There were at that time, in Virginia, only three persons authorized to grant lieenses : they were the Attorney General, Mr. Innis, Mr. German Baker, and Col. John Taylor, of Caroline, all distinguished lawyers. I was examined by Mr. Baker, at Rich- mond, and obtained his signature to my license. I then applied to the Attorney General, Mr. Innis, to examine me, but he was always too mueh engaged, and I returned home. In a few days after, I received a letter from my old army friend, Capt. Wm. Barret, of Washington's regiment, informing me that he had scen the Attorney General, who expressed great regret that he had not had it in his power to examine his friend, Mr. Brooke ; but that he had talked with Mr. Baker, and was fully satisfied of his competency, and if he would send his lieense down to Rich- mond, he would sign it. I accordingly sent the license to him, and he signed it, by which I became a lawyer. I afterwards returned to my brother's office, and applied myself more than I had done to the doctrine of pleading, etc.
Early in 1788, I went to Morgantown, in the North-Western corner of the State, then somewhat an Indian country; Vir- ginia being compelled to keep her scouts and rangers to defend the inhabitants on our frontier, though the Indians still made frequent inroads, and killed, and earried off five families at the Dunkard Bottom, on Cheat River, twenty miles to the east of Mor- gantown. I had commenced the practice of law in the counties of Monongalia, at Morgantown; and Harrison, at Clarksburg. Soon after the distriet courts were established, and two of the Judges of the district court, Judges Mercer and Parker, came to Morgantown to hold a court there, when I received from the Attorney General, Mr. Innis, a commission as Attorney for the Commonwealth of that district; he having at that time power to grant commissions to all Commonwealth's Attorneys in the dis- triets and eountics of the State.
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I continued the practice of the law in that country for a little more than two years, during which time I became acquainted with Albert Gallatin, from whom I, not long ago, received a letter, written in his 88th year, which is here inserted :
NEW YORK, 4th March, 1847.
My dear Sir :
Although you were pleased, in your favor of December last, to admire the preservation of my faculties, these are in truth sadly impaired. I cannot work more than four hours a day, and I write with great diffi- culty. Entirely absorbed in a subject which engrossed all my thoughts and all my feelings, I was compelled to postpone answering the numer- . ous letters I receive, unless they imperiously required immediate attention. I am now making up my arrears.
But though my memory fails me for recent transactions, it is unimpaired . in reference to my carly days. I have ever preserved a most pleasing recollection of our friendly intercourse almost sixty years ago; and followed you in your long and respectable judiciary career-less stormy, and probably happier than mine. I am, as you presumed, four years older than yourself, born 29th of January, 1761, and now in my 88th; growing weaker every month, but with only the infirmities of age. For all chronical diseases,-I have no faith in physicians, consult none, and take no physic whatever.
With my best wishes that your latter days may be as smooth, as healing and as happy as my own, I remain in great truth,
Your friend,
ALBERT GALLATIN.
Hon'ble Francis Brooke,
Richmond.
I returned to Eastern Virginia, and went to settle at Tappa- hannock, and practiced law in Essex, and the Northern Neck, with Bushrod Washington, afterwards Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States; Alexander Campbell, a distinguished lawyer, and the old Scotch lawyer, Warden, etc., etc.
In that year, the year '90, I sometimes visited my friends at Smithfield ; paid my addresses to Mary Randolph Spotswood, the eldest daughter of Gen. Spotswood and Mrs. Spotswood, the only whole niece of Gen. Washington. Our attachment had been a very early one. Her father frequently sent to Smithfield for me when I was only thirteen years of age; my father would complain, but always permitted me to go. I would find the General, about day- light in the morning, with his fine horses drawn out, and his fox
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hounds, and, as I was an excellent horseman, would mount me upon one of his most spirited horses, and often range through the country and woods, where I now live. He knew his daughter was very much attached to me, but though suececding in my profession, I was but poor, and he had great objections to the match. After some time, however, when I had gone baek to Tappahannock, find- ing his daughter's attachment too strong to be overeome, though she had been courted by others, he consented to our union.
She was sixteen in June, and we were married in October follow- ing, at Nottingham, in the year 1791. Her form could not be excelled; her face, when lighted with a smile, was brilliant, though her features were not regular; she had brilliant teeth, and luxuriant brown hair; she had been highly educated by a Mrs. Hearn, an English lady, who lived in the family several years. The General was more attentive to the education of his daughters than to that of his sons. He and his brother, John Spotswood, had been mueh neglected by their guardian at Eton, in England, and were badly educated; they returned to Virginia, and when Gen. Spotswood arrived of age, in 1772, he possessed one hundred and fifty thousand aercs of land in the three counties of Orange, Spottsylvania and Culpeper; it was an entailed estate which de- seended to him from his grandfather, Governor Spotswood. His father's executor prevailed on the Legislature to permit him to sell seventy thousand acres of it; he himself afterwards, and be- fore I belonged to the family, sold to Gen. Henry Lec twenty-odd thousand acres, above Fredericksburg; he also sold forty thousand aeres of leased land to James Somerville, of Fredericksburg. He possessed also iron works; a foundry established by Governor Spotswood, which yielded an ineome of five thousand pounds per annum, and which was broken up by his father's executor.
The General was neglectful of his affairs, and was better fitted for the army than for the pursuits of eivil life. He commanded the second regiment, at the battle of Brandywine; and it was said by a British writer, one Smith, that it was the only regiment that left the field of battle in good order. He was again at the battle of Germantown, where his brother, Capt. Spotswood, being badly wounded, was thought to be dead; whereupon he sent in his resignation to Gen. Washington, having made a eontraet with his brother, when they entered the army, that if either should be
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killed, the survivor should return home to take care of the two families. When it was known that Capt. Spotswood was still alive, a prisoner in Philadelphia, he wished to return to his command of the army; but Gen. Washington replied to his letter to this effect, that he could not be reinstated in his former command, because many offieers had been promoted after his resignation. He was soon after appointed a Brigadier General, by the State of Virginia, to command the Legion to be raised in Virginia. During Arnold's invasion, in 1780, he commanded a Brigade of Militia, called out to oppose General Arnold. Gen. Spotswood spent a great deal of his fortune in the army; while the Army of the North was naked of clothing, Gen. Spotswood elothed his whole regiment out of his own pocket, in Philadelphia.
Happily married, with good prospects, we lived together thirteen years, when she died January 5th, 1803, after the birth of her youngest daughter, Mary Randolph. She left four children : John, her eldest, Robert, Elizabeth and Mary Randolph. Elizabeth was unhappily killed by the over-setting of a stage. John studied medieine, and in the year 1825, was appointed a deputy surgeon in the Navy; went out in the Brandywine, with Gen. Lafayette to France, where he had been before; has remained in the navy ever sinee, and is now fleet surgeon in the Chinese seas. Robert was educated at West Point, was appointed a Lieutenant of the Engineer Corps, soon resigned, and studied law; began the practice at Charlottesville, went to Staunton, has been twice married, and has a family of eight children. He was twice eleeted a member of the House of Delegates, from Augusta; was a good speaker, and popular with the House; his family increasing, he deelined public life, and is now President of the Branch of the Valley Bank, at Staunton.
Mary Randolph was married in 1827, to Dr. Edmund Berkeley, of Hanover; and after many changes of situation, went to Staunton, where she now resides, and has a family of eight children.
The shock I received on the death of my wife, I cannot well de- scribe ; but my father had left me a legacy better than property, his fine alacrity of spirits (God bless him), which have never forsaken me; and in the summer afterwards, I was advised to go to the Virginia Springs, and began to look out for another wife, to supply
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the place to my children of their mother. While at the Warm Springs, with Mr. Giles and some others, a carriage arrived with ladies ; there is something in destiny, for as soon as I took hold of the hand of Mary Champe Carter (though I had seen her before and admired her very much), I felt that she would amply supply the place of my lost wife. I began my attentions to her from that moment. In person and in face she was very beautiful. Mr. Jefferson said of her, "She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, either in France or in this country." Her sister, Naney, who married Governor Troup, of Georgia, was thought by somc equally handsome. Mary Champe had brilliant teeth, and beautiful dark hair; but her beauty was not her only charm; her soft and feminine manners were still more attractive.
On our return to Fredericksburg, I seriously addressed her- and though I had powerful rivals, I soon found that I had won her affections. As I had children, however, her mother and her relations were rather opposed to my pretensions, but their ob- jeetions were overcome, when they found that our attachment was reciprocal; and we were married on the 14th of February follow- ing. Though she had little fortune, her father having left her one thousand and five hundred pounds in officer's certificate (and the half of his plate, on the death of her mother, which by the way, she never received), I had a renewed prospcet for happiness. We settled and lived in a small house near her mother's, in Fred- erieksburg; from there we sent John and Robert to school, to Mr. Wilson, until after the birth of her first son, which she lost. I had built a small brick house with a shed to it, and a briek floor, in the country. Her mother and sister went to Boston; when they returned, she agreed to come into the country to live in that small house; the farm was a small one and worn out; as I was seldom at home, she had the trouble of planting the hedges, attending to laying off the garden, planting the fruit, and house-trecs, and was frequently at home by herself for five or six weeks at a time. She was always very kind to the parents of her stepehildren, for when Mrs. Spotwood's old cook, Juna, was worn out nearly, they expressed the desire to have our cook, Belissa, who was an excellent eook; she readily gave up Belissa to them, and took a girl, little . more than seventeen years of age, into the kitchen. She was a kind and affectionate stepmother, and her stepchildren were very
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mueh attached to her. When John had gone to Carlisle College, and then to Philadelphia, and often wrote to mne to send him more money, and I being straitened, then she would say, "Send him the money, if you are obliged to sell one of the negroes." When Mary Randolph was sent to her by her grandmother, she expressed as much anxiety for her education as if she had been her own ehild, and when she grew to a proper age, had a musie master in the house always, and instrueted her herself; although she was no performer, she understood musie very well.
In 1806, when her health was delieate and she was advised to go to the Springs, she earried Robert with her, then six years of age ; he had had the ague and fever, but recovered at the Springs. We lived forty-two years together very happily, when on the 25th of October, 1846, she expired. She was a sineere Christian, and a quarter of an hour before her death, while I held her feeble hand in mine, she looked up at me, and said, "I am not frightened, I am in no pain, take care of ours"-there she stopped. A short time afterwards, when Mrs. Herndon, the wife of Dr. Herndon, who was here attending her, wanted to bathe her lips with eold water, she held out one of her hands, and said, "I want nothing more in this world," and expired. She had ehosen a burial place ; I wrote the epitaph, which is engraved upon her tombstone. "T'is as follows :
(A small but grateful tribute of my heart to one whom I had loved so well and long.)
Sacred To the Memory of MARY CHAMPE BROOKE The wife of Judge Brooke; She expired on the 25th of October, 1846, in the 68th year of her age.
She was never excelled in virtue, or any of those endearing qualities which made her an affectionate wife and devoted mother!
She left two children, Franeis and Helen. Franeis married Ella, the youngest daughter of Colonel Ambler, of Jamestown. She is a most amiable wife and mother; they have three sons.
Helen married most unfortunately; her husband was governed by nothing but passion; treated her very eruelly, and she was foreed to apply for a divoree to the Legislature, which she ob-
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tained, and now lives with me; and he, like the base Judean, "Threw away a pcarl richer than all his tribe." She has a little girl, Mary Champe, called after her grandmother.
My native state conferred many offices upon me. I represented the County of Essex in 1794-95, in the House of Delegates. In 1796 my brother, John, having married and declined the practice of the law, I removed from Tappahannock to Fredericksburg, to finish the law business he and my brother Robert had left. In 1800, I was elected a Judge of the General Court (as my com- mission will show), and, of course, rode the districts of the District Courts, until the Circuit Courts were established; when I was assigned to this circuit, beginning at Goochland, going to Richmond, Hanover, Essex, Caroline, and Spottsylvania, until 1811, when I was clected Judge of the Court of Appeals; of which I was President eight years, and where I was continued ever since. In 1831, I was again elected a Judge of the Court of Appeals, under the New Constitution.
My military appointments were as follows: In the year 1796, I was appointed Major of a Battalion of Cavalry, annexed to the second division of the militia. In 1800, I was appointed Lieuten- ant Colonel Commandant of the second regiment of Cavalry, in the second division of the militia, Colonel Tom Mann Randolph having resigned. In 1802, I was appointed Brigadier General of the First Brigade and second division of the militia.
Though I had married into two families that had been among the wealthiest in Virginia, it did not profit me very much-for though Gen. Spotswood was a devoted father-in-law, he had not much to give. He gave to his daughter, when we went to Tappa- hannock, a small servant girl, who soon after died; he gave me a bill of exchange upon Charleston, drawn by Maj. Churchill Jones, which helped me to purchase an old home, in Tappahan- nock, which was repaired by two of my father's mechanics. In the meantime, he wrote a letter to my father saying, that if he would give me ten negroes, of a particular description, he would give me at his death an equal share with the rest of his children, of his property. My father had delivered some of the negroes before his death, and the General insisted that I should sue his executor for the rest of them and I brought a suit in the High Court of Chancery, and got a decree for them; in the record of
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which suit Gen. Spotswood's letter and my father's reply to it can be found. After Gen. Spotswood's death, he having left nothing by his will to me, or any of my family, I brought a suit against his executor, in the Chancery Court at Fredericksburg, upon the contract ; but the delays of the law were so great at the time, that I compromised the suit with the executor, to which course my counsel, the late Judge Stanard, thinking that I had made a bad compromise, was very much opposed. The executor gave mic an order for three thousand dollars on the suit, which Gen. Spots- wood had in the Federal Court (which suit Gen. Spotswood had against the securities of his guardian), which ultimately I received. The executor also conveyed to me one hundred and fifty acres of land, which lies ncar ine.
I personally knew (as well as so young a man could know) all the eminent military characters of the revolution, with the excep- tion of Alexander Hamilton and Gen. Knox. I knew Washington, Green and Gates-I knew Washington in my boyhood. He came to Smithfield with Gen. Spotswood, in 1773, I think it was. He was then a Colonel in the British army. I remember his dress ; he wore a deep blue coat, a scarlet waistcoat, trimmed with a gold chain, and buckskin small clothes, boots, spurs, and sword; he had with him a beautiful greyhound; was fond of the sports of the field, and proposed to my father, who had a tame deer, to try if the greyhound could not catch him; to which my father assented, and after leaping over the yard palings, they went through the garden where they leaped the palings again; when the deer turned towards the river, he got a start of the greyhound, and got into the river before he could catch him. Gen. Washington was afterwards at Smithfield two or three times. He was fond of horses ; my father had some excellent ones, so had Gen. Spotswood ; they took the horses to the road, and mounted the boys upon theni, to try their speed. Gen. Washington, in the year 1774, came to Fredericksburg to review the independent companies. After the review, they gave him a collation in the old market house, where he had all the boys of a large grammar school, of which I was one, brought to him; gave them a drink of punch, patted them upon their heads, and asked them if they could fight for their country. After the war he frequently came to Fredericksburg, where his mother resided, and his only sister, Mrs. Lewis. He
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attended the ball of the 22d of February; opened it by dancing a minuet with some lady, then danced cotillions and country dances; was very gallant, and always attached himself, by his attentions, to some one or more of the most beautiful and attractive ladies at the balls. The next day, his friends gave him a dinner, at which, after the cloth was removed, and the wine came on, a Mr. Jack Stewart (who had been a Clerk of the House of Dele- gates), a great vocalist, was called upon for a song; and he sang one from the novel of "Roderick Random," which was a very amusing one. Gen. Washington laughed at it very much, and encored it. The next day, when I went to his sister's to intro- duce strangers to him, I found him one of the most dignified men of the age. While he was President of the United States, at the instance of my father-in-law, Gen. Spotswood, he offered me the collector's office at Tappahannock; but I preferred my profession, and declined it, though the office, at that time, was a very lucrative one. Washington was undoubtedly a great man, and there was a sublimity in his greatness which exceeded that of any of the great men of ancient or modern history.
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