USA > Virginia > City of Richmond > City of Richmond > Virginia, especially Richmond, in by-gone days; with a glance at the present: being reminiscences and last words of an old citizen > Part 6
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out who were the owners of such as I liked best. In fact, Mr. Pickett, I came to Richmond to buy this tract of land from you. It contains water power and other advantages, and I would not part with it for five times what it cost me." This land was, if I am not misinformed, at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio, and became the site of Marietta.
Robert Pollard's house nearly opposite to Mr. Pickett's has for a number of years been the resi- dence of Mrs. Young, whose name will appear on a subsequent page. The square next to Mr. Pol- lard, and extending to the market, was built on and long occupied by Dr. James Lyons, and subse- quently by his son of the same name, a conspicu- ous citizen. On the square west of the market, on the north side of Marshall street, there yet stands a yellow wooden house in which Peter Tinsley, the clerk in whose office Mr. Clay wrote, long resided, until he built the dwelling, now Mr. Goddin's, on Sixth street. Small houses and small salaries suf- ficed for officials in that day.
I will also mention a curious circumstance I heard from Mr. Pollard. A man in Connecticut wrote to him, requesting that Mr. P. would address a letter to him, stating his wish to buy a certain piece of land in the West, for which he would give a good price, say $10,000, promising that the offer should not be used to Mr. P.'s injury, nor should
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he be considered as committing himself by it. The applicant added, that he wished to use the letter to effect a sale he had in view, and he would on any other occasion render a similar service to Mr. Pollard !
Charles Johnston, afterwards President of the Farmers' Bank in Lynchburg, was a partner with Pickett & Pollard, and these gentlemen dealt very largely in Western lands, which may account for the two affairs I have mentioned, and for the fol- lowing :
Mr. Johnston, when a very young man, in 1789, accompanied a party in an attempt to descend the Ohio. They were made prisoners by the Indians, most of them killed, and he, one of the survivors, after dreadful sufferings, and once even at the point of being burned at the stake, was, after a long march, sold to a humane Frenchman, an Indian trader from Detroit, who carried Mr. Johnston there, treated him most kindly and furnished him with the means of returning home. Many years afterwards Mr. Johnston had the satisfaction of welcoming in Virginia his deliverer, Mr. Dechou- quet. A narrative of these events was published by Mr. Johnston in 1827.
The large and respectable old mansion on the summit of Gamble's hill, overlooking the Armory, and all the country around, was erected, but left unfinished, by Col. John Harvie. The house was 9
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planned by Mr. Latrobe, the architect of its neigh- bor, the Penitentiary; the intermediate ground embraced Gallows hill, the edifice on which was rendered in a great measure useless by the Peni- tentiary-with what good effect this is not the place to inquire. One small wooden house, with a shed at either end, stood not far off, in which service was performed by Baptist preachers, for want of a better place of worship. Its locality possessed the advantage of being near the Peni- tentiary pond-convenient for immersion-for it was then pure water.
But to return from this digression, Col. Harvie wished to make some change in Latrobe's plan, to which the architect would not accede. They parted-the house stood unfinished for some time, when it passed into the hands of Colonel Robert Gamble, after some previous change of ownership. The Colonel finished and occupied it for many years, until his death; and after remaining in the hands of his descendants for some time, it has passed to others repeatedly.
Col. Gamble, in advanced years, but still an active merchant, and I should add a most estima- ble citizen, was accidentally killed by being thrown from his horse. His sons and partners in trade, John and Robert, were valuable citizens in both civil and military capacities. The former com- manded the Light Infantry Blues, and the latter
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the Richmond Troop of Horse, and were in service in the war of 1812. They were among the first adventurers to Florida, after its cession to the United States, and among its most enterprising and valuable citizens. John died in 1853, and Robert is yet (1859) an active and energetic man. When the Indians were committing depredations around him, he remained unharmed, because he had always been kind to them. One of their sisters became the wife of the distinguished William Wirt, and the other of W. H. Cabell, at one time Governor of Virginia, and afterwards President of the Court of Appeals.
The extensive grounds around the old mansion have been divided and subdivided until but a small portion remains attached to it. It is now flanked on one side by a Gothic tower, on the very apex of the hill ; a distant view of which gives to the hill a Rhenish aspect ; but in the good old colonel's time the visitor at a nearer view would more likely be reminded of Madeira.
The following ludicrous anecdote is related by Kennedy in his Life of Wirt, concerning some of the personages above named. It occurred in 1803, when Mr. Wirt was awaiting Col. Gamble's sanction to his marriage with Miss Gamble, his second wife :*
* This lady died at the residence of her son-in-law, Alex'r Randall, Esq., in Annapolis, January 24, 1857, aged 73 years.
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" Colonel Gamble had occasion, one summer morning, to visit his future son-in-law's office. It unluckily happened that Wirt had the night before, brought some young friends there, and they had had a merry time of it, which so beguiled the hours, that even now, at sunrise, they had not separated. The Colo- nel opened the door, little expecting to find any company there at that hour. His eyes fell on the strangest group! There stood Wirt with a poker in his right hand, the sheet-iron blower on his left arm, which was thrust through the handle; on his head was a tin wash-basin, and as to the rest of his dress, it was hot weather, and the hero of this grotesque scene had dis- pensed with as much of his trappings as comfort might require, substituting for them a light wrapper, that greatly aided the theatrical effect. There he stood, in this whimsical caparison, reciting with great gesticulation Falstaff's onset on the thieves, his back to the door. The opening of it attracted the attention of all. We may imagine the queer look of the anxious proba- tioner, as Col. Gamble, with grave and mannerly silence, bowed and withdrew, closing the door behind him without the ex- change of a word."
The spot fronting the Capitol Square on which the First Presbyterian Church now stands, was formerly occupied by the humble residence of a distinguished man and eminent lawyer, Edmund Randolph. He erected and afterwards resided in the mansion now Mr. Fry's, between that church and the City Hall. The first humble dwelling was removed to a dirty alley on Seventh street, oppo- site the side entrance to the Theatre. Its present shabby aspect is scarcely reconcilable with the idea that it was once the abode of a Secretary of State, and afterwards of his son-in-law, also a distin- guished lawyer, Bennet Taylor, and of another
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son-in-law, Peter V. Daniel, now (1860) a Judge of the (Federal) Supreme Court. Mr. Randolph's only son, Peyton, also a lawyer, died in the prime of life. It was of his beautiful wife, when Miss Ward, that the celebrated John Randolph was enamored.
On the square west of the Capitol, and on part of which stands St. Paul's Church, Bushrod Wash- ington built a small office, which is yet standing in rear of the church. I will venture to record an anecdote which I have heard of this distinguished gentleman and his illustrious relative. When prac- ticing law in Richmond, in early life (1789), dur- ing the presidency of Washington, his friends urged Bushrod Washington to apply for the office of district attorney in the United States Court for Virginia.
He wrote to Washington, asking his opinion whether it would be worth his while to solicit the office, and received a reply in these terms : "Your standing at the bar would not justify my nomina- tion of you as attorney to the Federal District Court, in preference to some of the oldest and most esteemed General Court lawyers in your own State, who are desirous of this appointment."
Such anti-nepotism was not adopted as a prece- dent by Washington's successors; some of whom pursued a diametrically opposite course, and seemed to consider consanguinity a sufficient qualification
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for office, without any other. Bushrod Washing- ton was deemed worthy by his uncle's successor to fill a much higher station, and was appointed one of the Justices of the Supreme Court. He resided at Mount Vernon after the death of Washington, but removed from Richmond, I think, prior to that event.
The square on which his office stands was pur- chased by George Hay, a lawyer of eminence, who became district attorney under Mr. Jefferson, and who erected the present residence, afterwards Judge Stanard's, now Dr. Beale's, fronting the Capitol square.
Mr. Hay was prosecuting attorney at the trial of Aaron Burr, and had to encounter an array of talent rarely exceeded at any bar-but he did not fight single-handed, though against great odds.
Mr. Hay's second wife, who became his widow, was the daughter of Mr. Monroe, President of the United States. Her life was one of great vicissi- tudes. From the high estate she once held she was reduced by misfortune, when in her widow- hood, to a state of destitution ; and, as I have heard, her address was not known by the party to whose care her letters were sent. In that condi- tion she was found in Paris, (where she had been educated,) and almost at her last moment, by one of her country-women, an acquaintance of her early days. From this lady, the wife of an United
.
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States military officer of the highest rank and dis- tinction, she received every attention and kindness to the fatal close.
On the square south of the Capitol, where the United States has erected a Court Room, Custom House and Post Office, resided one of the most eminent physicians and talented men of his time- which is no faint praise. I mean Dr. James McClurg. He served in the medical staff during the Revolutionary War, and was declared to be the most skillful and accomplished medical officer in the division of the army serving in this part of the Union.
Mr. Madison had a great regard for him, and, in 1782, suggested him for the office of Secretary of Foreign Affairs. In 1787, after Mr. Henry, Gen. Nelson and R. H. Lee had successively re- signed the place of member of the Convention that formed the Constitution of the United States, Dr. McClurg was appointed, and attended at Philadel- phia with George Washington, Edmund Randolph, John Blair, James Madison, George Mason and George Wythe-a glorious communion.
His original domicile in Richmond was a small Dutch-roofed wooden house, recently demolished, (to make room for the. United States offices,) as has been a portion of the larger one of brick erected near it by the doctor, and afterwards oc- cupied by the Bank of Virginia. His third, or
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rather fourth, and most spacious dwelling was built on Grace street, the grounds attached to it extend- ing to Broad street. Now shorn of a large portion of superfluous territory, but retaining a spacious one, it is occupied (1856) by Dr. C. B. Gibson. A short biography of Dr. McClurg, who was the uncle of Dr. McCaw, has been published by a grandson of the latter.
On the square west of the last-mentioned resi- dence on Grace street, stood the old-fashioned, double-winged, triple-porticoed house of Major Du Val, one of the last of the cocked hats, satin shorts, and bag wigs.
For the information of my younger readers, I will tell them that a bag wig was furnished with a black silk plaited appendage, something like a lady's reticule, (and entitled to the appellation of a gentleman's ridicule.) The queue or tail of the wig was inserted into this bag, which was drawn tightly at the top to retain the hair, and dangled behind like a pendulum.
The Du Val lot was said to be the scene of Ralph Ringwood's adventure, as told by Washing- ington Irving. It was afterwards occupied by the celebrated William Wirt; but, like many cotem- porary wooden structures, it has of late years changed its location, and retired to one in the suburbs.
On the opposite square stood the unpretending
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abode of that learned, wise and excellent man, George Wythe, one of the signers of the Declara- tion of Independence, and whose life is interwoven with the history of Virginia, from his early man- hood to his latest years.
He was a conspicuous member of the Conven- tion that formed the Federal Constitution, but he did not sign it; ten years previously to which, on the organization of the Government of Vir- ginia, he was appointed Chancellor of the Court of Equity, which arduous office he filled until his death. This occurred on the 8th of June, 1806, and was caused by poison, administered by a youthful relative whom he had cherished, and who expected to inherit his estate-but no legal con- victing evidence was adduced. The miscreant was disappointed in his object, for Mr. Wythe lived long enough to disinherit him.
A fine tulip poplar, (Miss Murray would say Liriodendron Tulipifera,) planted by Mr. Wythe, marks the corner where his house stood, and where now stands the very handsome one of Mr. A. War- wick-but no tombstone marks the spot (where is it ?) where this good and wise man and learned jurist was buried.
Henry Clay, when a youth, wrote in the office of Peter Tinsley, clerk of the court in which Mr. Wythe presided, and his attention was no doubt attracted by young Clay's deportment. The judge
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invited him to his house, and gave him advice and instruction, and it was from this ample source, probably, that Mr. Clay got the first insight of his profession.
It was a pleasure to the kind Chancellor to give instruction to young men who would receive and appreciate it.
A letter from Mr. Clay to Mr. Minor, dated May 3d, 1851, and published in the Virginia His- torical Register, vol. v., says :
" My first acquaintance with Mr. Wythe was in 1793, in my sixteenth year, when I was a clerk in his court, and he then probably threescore and ten. His right hand was disabled by gout or rheumatism, and I acted as his amanuensis and wrote the cases he reported. It cost me a great deal of labor, not understanding a single Greek character, to write citations from Greek authors, which he inserted in the copies of his reports sent to Mr. Jefferson, to Samuel Adams, and one or two others; I copied them by imitating each character from the book.
" Mr. Wythe was one of the purest, best and most learned men in classical lore that I ever knew.
" He had a grand nephew, a youth scarcely of mature age, to whom by his will, written by me at his dictation before my departure from Richmond, he devised the greater part of his estate. That youth poisoned him and others (black members of his household), by putting arsenic into a pot in which coffee was prepared for breakfast. The paper which contained the arsenic was found on the floor of the kitchen. The coffee . having been drank by the Chancellor and his servants, the poison developed the usual effects.
" The Chancellor lived long enough to send for his neighbor, Major William Duval, and got him to write another will, disin-
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heriting the ungrateful and guilty grand nephew, and making other disposition of his estate. An old negro woman, his cook, also died under the operation of the poison. After the Chan- cellor's death, it was discovered that the atrocious author of it had forged bank checks in Mr. Wythe's name.
"Mr. Wythe's personal appearance and habits were plain, simple and unostentatious. His countenance was full of bland- ness and benevolence, and he made, in his salutation to others, the most graceful bow that I ever witnessed."
[P. S .- On this 12th day of April, 1860, the eighty-third anniversary of Henry Clay's birth, an admirable marble statue of him, by Hart, is erected in the Capitol square, and inaugurated in a speech worthy of the theme, in the presence of one of the largest assemblages, from all parts of the country, that ever convened in Richmond. His memory has survived party prejudice, or the statue would not be permitted to occupy that position ; but time does justice, and dispels falsehood, the venom of which had done its work many years ago. How- ever high a position his maligners may have un- worthily attained, his character is and ever will be held in the estimation of mankind as much above theirs as is the soaring eagle above the mousing owl.
It is to the glory of our country-women that they originated and effected this patriotic work, a token of gratitude to one of our greatest states- men. To them also is the nation indebted for rescuing from the chance of desecration the earthly
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home of her greatest man. Is not the summit of Bunker Hill Monument also indebted to the ladies for ascending to its proper elevation ?
We had better entrust such works to the ladies. No misapplication of money stains their hands, and none of their plans are left unfinished .*
On this same day another statue of Henry Clay is inaugurated at New Orleans; and in his own Kentucky, a third ! Were such triple honors ever before paid simultaneously, without preconcert, to one man, and in cities so remote from each other ?]
The square on which Mr. Wythe resided was pre-eminent as was its owner. It was on the highest spot in the city, as ascertained by Mr. Watkins, who surveyed it, and who erected a small dwelling on the same square, which was taken down not many years ago, to be replaced by Mr. Dunlop's residence.
On the square west of the Chancellor's, and at the corner of Franklin and Fifth streets, lived John Warden, a Scotchman-one of the best read and worst-featured, most good-tempered and worst
* When this suggestion was made, the writer was not aware that the ladies were about to attempt the rescue of the monu- ment to Washington, commenced many years ago, in his own city, from the danger of falling into premature decay, or of being desecrated to the purposes of party or of peculation, as many of our public works are, where money is expended and votes are wanted.
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formed, but among the best informed members of the Richmond bar-his mind and body were a bundle of contrasts. His ugliness was so attrac- tive and so strongly marked, that the boys used to amuse themselves in drawing likenesses of his short thick figure, crooked legs and satyr-like features on the walls of the court room. But his talents, wit and humor compensated for the externals, in which nature had been so niggardly.
On one occasion in court, when Mr. Wickham and Mr. Hay were adverse counsel, the former got the latter into a dilemma. On which Mr. Warden whispered to Mr. Wirt, "Habet fenum in cornu,"* who extemporized the following epigram :
" Wickham one day in open court Was tossing Hay about for sport: Jock rich in Wit and Latin too, Cried "Habet fenum in cornu."
Mr. Warden retained with his broad Scotch dialect his allegiance to the mother country, and looked rather contemptuously on Republicanism in its infancy, and on its rebel representatives. During a session of the Legislature, he was re- ported to have uttered contemptuous expressions
* " He has hay on his horns." The Romans tied hay on the horns of mischievous cattle, both as a caution and as a protec- tion to those who approached them. Hence the term was applied to "a dangerous fellow."
10
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concerning that body. The Sergeant-at-arms ar- rested and brought him to the bar of the House. The Speaker charged him with the offence and required him to retract it on his knees, or he should be sent to prison. The sarcastic Scot as- sumed the prescribed humble position, and thus apologized : "Mr. Speaker, I confess I did say that your honors were not fit to carry guts to a bear-I now retract that assertion, and acknow- ledge that you are fit." Then slowly rising, he brushed the dust from his knees-muttered "I .. dommed dirty hoose," made his bow and retired, amid the mirth and mortification of the members and the bystanders.
The residence of the celebrated and eccentric Alexander Campbell was the same that Mr. War- den afterwards occupied. His name appears in the constellation of lawyers that shone in the early days of the Commonwealth. He was a materialist in faith, or rather in the lack of faith, and in the singular will which he made, in 1795, he says, "I hope no tombstone will be raised over me, because it will merely hinder something from grow- ing on the spot. If all men had tombstones . erected over their graves, the earth, in a few cen- turies, would be one entire pavement." Judge Wayne of the Supreme Court of the U. S., married a daughter of Mr. Campbell.
Descending Fifth street from Mr. Warden's
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we first pass the house surmounted by a cupola a questionable ornament to a dwelling), once oc- cupied by John Barrett, the father of the gentle- man who now lives near the same spot. We now pass the square formerly occupied by the Singleton family, now by Mr. Hobson and other gentlemen, and then we descend to the square of William Hay, on which a tall colonnade is now seen, and many other buildings are erected. Opposite to this is the handsome residence, built and long occupied by Joseph Marx, an enterprising merchant, of the strictest probity, a public-spirited, useful and hos- pitable member of society, who contributed liber- ally to the prosperity of the city.
Here terminated the residences in old times, except that of William Munford, who filled the of- fice of Clerk of the House of Delegates for many years, and left a worthy successor to the station in his eldest son. The metrical translation of Homer, by Mr. Munford, published after his death, is pronounced, by eminent Greek scholars, to be one of the most faithful extant.
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CHAPTER VIII. OLD RESIDENCES AND THEIR OCCUPANTS. (CONTINUED.)
The house, corner of Main and Third streets, now occupied by John Robertson, Esq., (late Judge,) was, more than fifty years ago, the resi- dence of his father, William Robertson, Clerk of the Council, who there reared a large family. T. Bolling Robertson, Governor of Louisiana, was one of his sons, and others were not undistinguished. They are descendants of Pocahontas, as the names of several members indicate. That Princess must have possessed a greater share of beauty than her portraits exhibit, if we may judge by that of her female descendants, who are distinguished for it.
The spacious square on Franklin street between Second and Third, retained its full dimensions during about fifty years' occupancy by its quiet and unaspiring proprietor, Anthony Robinson, ex- cept that, in the latter years of his life, he appor- tioned a part of it to one of his sons, on which to erect a residence. His own yet stands.
In a plain and not spacious wooden building at the north-east corner of Franklin and Third streets, I recognize the residence for several years
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of Thomas Ritchie, the founder and indefatigable editor of the Enquirer. In the office attached to the house was concocted during the small hours before daylight many a furious paragraph against the Whigs or Federalists, as they were then called. A more commodious tenement on Grace, between Fifth and Sixth (Mr. Wythe's square), was in later years the dwelling of Mr. Ritchie till he removed to the head-quarters of politicians at Washington, where he died July 3, 1854.
An antique dwelling, half brick, half wood, with the square on which it stood, on the south side of Main, between Second and Third streets, was the residence, many years ago, of Major Andrew Dunscombe, probably a soldier of the Revolution, a gentleman of the olden time.
In 1787 he was appointed by the Executive of Virginia, Commissioner for settling the accounts between this Commonwealth and the United States, which arose during the war of the Revolution, &c. This occupied him several years, after which, I think, he was Master in Chancery of Judge Wythe's court.
He erected Goodall's Tavern (The Indian Queen), now the Central Hotel. The small brick office that he long occupied was taken down to make room for an addition to the Hotel. Major D. married Miss Philadelphia Pope, a sister of Nathaniel Pope, of Hanover. The respected name
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of Dunscombe no longer exists in our community, but in those of Christian, at Lynchburg, and Horsley, of Nelson, his descendants are found. A brother of his was long ago Clerk of the Federal Court, New York.
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