Part 3 (1/2)
Every year representatives from the Oneida tribe of Indians visited him.
His father had early purchased of them large tracts of land, and there was a tradition among them that, as an equivalent for the good bargains of the father, they had a right to the son's hospitality, with annual gifts of clothing and provisions. The slaves, too, had heard of Gerrit Smith, the abolitionist, and of Peterboro as one of the safe points _en route_ for Canada. His mansion was, in fact, one of the stations on the ”underground railroad” for slaves escaping from bondage. Hence they, too, felt that they had a right to a place under his protecting roof. On such occasions the barn and the kitchen floor were utilized as chambers for the black man from the southern plantation and the red man from his home in the forest.
The s.p.a.cious home was always enlivened with choice society from every part of the country. There one would meet members of the families of the old Dutch aristocracy, the Van Rensselaers, the Van Vechtens, the Schuylers, the Livingstons, the Bleeckers, the Brinkerhoffs, the Ten Eycks, the Millers, the Seymours, the Cochranes, the Biddles, the Barclays, the Wendells, and many others.
As the lady of the house, Ann Carroll Fitzhugh, was the daughter of a wealthy slaveholder of Maryland, many agreeable Southerners were often among the guests. Our immediate family relatives were well represented by General John Cochrane and his sisters, General Baird and his wife from West Point, the Fitzhughs from Oswego and Geneseo, the Backuses and Tallmans from Rochester, and the Swifts from Geneva. Here one was sure to meet scholars, philosophers, philanthropists, judges, bishops, clergymen, and statesmen.
Judge Alfred Conkling, the father of Roscoe Conkling, was, in his late years, frequently seen at Peterboro. Tall and stately, after all life's troubled scenes, financial losses and domestic sorrows, he used to say there was no spot on earth that seemed so like his idea of Paradise. The proud, reserved judge was unaccustomed to manifestations of affection and tender interest in his behalf, and when Gerrit, taking him by both hands would, in his softest tones say, ”Good-morning,” and inquire how he had slept and what he would like to do that day, and Nancy would greet him with equal warmth and pin a little bunch of roses in his b.u.t.tonhole, I have seen the tears in his eyes. Their warm sympathies and sweet simplicity of manner melted the sternest natures and made the most reserved amiable. There never was such an atmosphere of love and peace, of freedom and good cheer, in any other home I visited. And this was the universal testimony of those who were guests at Peterboro. To go anywhere else, after a visit there, was like coming down from the divine heights into the valley of humiliation.
How changed from the early days when, as strict Presbyterians, they believed in all the doctrines of Calvin! Then, an indefinite gloom pervaded their home. Their consciences were diseased. They attached such undue importance to forms that they went through three kinds of baptism.
At one time Nancy would read nothing but the Bible, sing nothing but hymns, and play only sacred music. She felt guilty if she talked on any subject except religion. She was, in all respects, a fitting mate for her attractive husband. Exquisitely refined in feeling and manner, beautiful in face and form, earnest and sincere, she sympathized with him in all his ideas of religion and reform. Together they pa.s.sed through every stage of theological experience, from the uncertain ground of superst.i.tion and speculation to the solid foundation of science and reason. The position of the Church in the anti-slavery conflict, opening as it did all questions of ecclesiastical authority, Bible interpretation, and church discipline, awakened them to new thought and broader views on religious subjects, and eventually emanc.i.p.ated them entirely from the old dogmas and formalities of their faith, and lifted them into the cheerful atmosphere in which they pa.s.sed the remainder of their lives. Their only daughter, Elizabeth, added greatly to the attractions of the home circle, as she drew many young people round her.
Beside her personal charm she was the heiress of a vast estate and had many admirers. The favored one was Charles Dudley Miller of Utica, nephew of Mrs. Blandina Bleecker Dudley, founder of the Albany Observatory. At the close of his college life Mr. Miller had not only mastered the languages, mathematics, rhetoric, and logic, but had learned the secret windings of the human heart. He understood the art of pleasing.
These were the times when the anti-slavery question was up for hot discussion. In all the neighboring towns conventions were held in which James G. Birney, a Southern gentleman who had emanc.i.p.ated his slaves, Charles Stuart of Scotland, and George Thompson of England, Garrison, Phillips, May, Beriah Greene, Foster, Abby Kelly, Lucretia Mott, Dougla.s.s, and others took part. Here, too, John Brown, Sanborn, Morton, and Frederick Dougla.s.s met to talk over that fatal movement on Harper's Ferry. On the question of temperance, also, the people were in a ferment. Dr. Cheever's pamphlet, ”Deacon Giles' Distillery,” was scattered far and wide, and, as he was sued for libel, the question was discussed in the courts as well as at every fireside. Then came the Father Matthew and Was.h.i.+ngtonian movements, and the position of the Church on these questions intensified and embittered the conflict. This brought the Cheevers, the Pierponts, the Delevans, the Nortons, and their charming wives to Peterboro. It was with such company and varied discussions on every possible phase of political, religious, and social life that I spent weeks every year. Gerrit Smith was cool and calm in debate, and, as he was armed at all points on these subjects, he could afford to be patient and fair with an opponent, whether on the platform or at the fireside. These rousing arguments at Peterboro made social life seem tame and profitless elsewhere, and the youngest of us felt that the conclusions reached in this school of philosophy were not to be questioned. The sisters of General Cochrane, in disputes with their Dutch cousins in Schenectady and Albany, would end all controversy by saying, ”This question was fully discussed at Peterboro, and settled.”
The youngsters frequently put the lessons of freedom and individual rights they heard so much of into practice, and relieved their brains from the constant strain of argument on first principles, by the wildest hilarity in dancing, all kinds of games, and practical jokes carried beyond all bounds of propriety. These romps generally took place at Mr.
Miller's. He used to say facetiously, that they talked a good deal about liberty over the way, but he kept the G.o.ddess under his roof. One memorable occasion in which our enthusiasm was kept at white heat for two hours I must try to describe, though words cannot do it justice, as it was pre-eminently a spectacular performance. The imagination even cannot do justice to the limp, woe-begone appearance of the actors in the closing scene. These romps were conducted on a purely democratic basis, without regard to color, s.e.x, or previous condition of servitude.
It was rather a cold day in the month of March, when ”Cousin Charley,”
as we called Mr. Miller, was superintending some men who were laying a plank walk in the rear of his premises. Some half dozen of us were invited to an early tea at good Deacon Huntington's. Immediately after dinner, Miss Fitzhugh and Miss Van Schaack decided to take a nap, that they might appear as brilliant as possible during the evening. That they might not be late, as they invariably were, Cousin Lizzie and I decided to rouse them in good season with a generous sprinkling of cold water.
In vain they struggled to keep the blankets around them; with equal force we pulled them away, and, whenever a stray finger or toe appeared, we brought fresh batteries to bear, until they saw that pa.s.sive resistance must give place to active hostility. We were armed with two watering pots. They armed themselves with two large-sized syringes used for showering potato bugs. With these weapons they gave us chase downstairs. We ran into a closet and held the door shut. They quietly waited our forthcoming. As soon as we opened the door to peep out, Miss Fitzhugh, who was large and strong, pulled it wide open and showered us with a vengeance. Then they fled into a large pantry where stood several pans of milk.
At this stage Cousin Charley, hearing the rumpus, came to our a.s.sistance. He locked them in the pantry and returned to his work, whereupon they opened the window and showered him with milk, while he, in turn, pelted them with wet clothes, soaking in tubs near by. As they were thinly clad, wet to the skin, and the cold March wind blew round them (we were all in fatigue costume in starting) they implored us to let them out, which we did, and, in return for our kindness, they gave us a broadside of milk in our faces. Cousin Lizzie and I fled to the dark closet, where they locked us in. After long, weary waiting they came to offer us terms of capitulation. Lizzie agreed to fill their guns with milk, and give them our watering pots full of water, and I agreed to call Cousin Charley under my window until they emptied the contents of guns and pots on his head. My room was on the first floor, and Miss Fitzhugh's immediately overhead. On these terms we accepted our freedom.
Accordingly, I gently raised the window and called Charley confidentially within whispering distance, when down came a shower of water. As he stepped back to look up and see whence it came, and who made the attack, a stream of milk hit him on the forehead, his heels struck a plank, and he fell backward, to all appearance knocked down with a stream of milk. His humiliation was received with shouts of derisive laughter, and even the carpenters at work laid down their hammers and joined in the chorus; but his revenge was swift and capped the climax. Cold and wet as we all were, and completely tired out, we commenced to disrobe and get ready for the tea party. Unfortunately I had forgotten to lock my door, and in walked Cousin Charley with a quart bottle of liquid blacking, which he prepared to empty on my devoted head. I begged so eloquently and trembled so at the idea of being dyed black, that he said he would let me off on one condition, and that was to get him, by some means, into Miss Fitzhugh's room. So I ran screaming up the stairs, as if hotly pursued by the enemy, and begged her to let me in. She cautiously opened the door, but when she saw Charley behind me she tried to force it shut. However, he was too quick for her. He had one leg and arm in; but, at that stage of her toilet, to let him in was impossible, and there they stood, equally strong, firmly braced, she on one side of the door and he on the other. But the blacking he was determined she should have; so, gauging her probable position, with one desperate effort he squeezed in a little farther and, raising the bottle, he poured the contents on her head. The blacking went streaming down over her face, white robe, and person, and left her looking more like a bronze fury than one of Eve's most charming daughters. A yard or more of the carpet was ruined, the wallpaper and bedclothes spattered, and the poor victim was unfit to be seen for a week at least. Charley had a good excuse for his extreme measures, for, as we all by turn played our tricks on him, it was necessary to keep us in some fear of punishment. This was but one of the many outrageous pranks we perpetrated on each other. To see us a few hours later, all absorbed in an anti-slavery or temperance convention, or dressed in our best, in high discourse with the philosophers, one would never think we could have been guilty of such consummate follies. It was, however, but the natural reaction from the general serious trend of our thoughts.
It was in Peterboro, too, that I first met one who was then considered the most eloquent and impa.s.sioned orator on the anti-slavery platform, Henry B. Stanton. He had come over from Utica with Alvin Stewart's beautiful daughter, to whom report said he was engaged; but, as she soon after married Luther R. Marsh, there was a mistake somewhere. However, the rumor had its advantages. Regarding him as not in the matrimonial market, we were all much more free and easy in our manners with him than we would otherwise have been. A series of anti-slavery conventions was being held in Madison County, and there I had the pleasure of hearing him for the first time. As I had a pa.s.sion for oratory, I was deeply impressed with his power. He was not so smooth and eloquent as Phillips, but he could make his audience both laugh and cry; the latter, Phillips himself said he never could do. Mr. Stanton was then in his prime, a fine-looking, affable young man, with remarkable conversational talent, and was ten years my senior, with the advantage that number of years necessarily gives.
Two carriage-loads of ladies and gentlemen drove off every morning, sometimes ten miles, to one of these conventions, returning late at night. I shall never forget those charming drives over the hills in Madison County, the bright autumnal days, and the bewitching moonlight nights. The enthusiasm of the people in these great meetings, the thrilling oratory, and lucid arguments of the speakers, all conspired to make these days memorable as among the most charming in my life. It seemed to me that I never had so much happiness crowded into one short month. I had become interested in the anti-slavery and temperance questions, and was deeply impressed with the appeals and arguments. I felt a new inspiration in life and was enthused with new ideas of individual rights and the basic principles of government, for the anti-slavery platform was the best school the American people ever had on which to learn republican principles and ethics. These conventions and the discussions at my cousin's fireside I count among the great blessings of my life.
One morning, as we came out from breakfast, Mr. Stanton joined me on the piazza, where I was walking up and down enjoying the balmy air and the beauty of the foliage. ”As we have no conventions,” said he, ”on hand, what do you say to a ride on horseback this morning?” I readily accepted the suggestion, ordered the horses, put on my habit, and away we went.
The roads were fine and we took a long ride. As we were returning home we stopped often to admire the scenery and, perchance, each other. When walking slowly through a beautiful grove, he laid his hand on the horn of the saddle and, to my surprise, made one of those charming revelations of human feeling which brave knights have always found eloquent words to utter, and to which fair ladies have always listened with mingled emotions of pleasure and astonishment.
One outcome of those glorious days of October, 1839, was a marriage, in Johnstown, the 10th day of May, 1840, and a voyage to the Old World.
Six weeks of that charming autumn, ending in the Indian summer with its peculiarly hazy atmosphere, I lingered in Peterboro. It seems in retrospect like a beautiful dream. A succession of guests was constantly coming and going, and I still remember the daily drives over those grand old hills crowned with trees now gorgeous in rich colors, the more charming because we knew the time was short before the cold winds of November would change all.
The early setting sun warned us that the shortening days must soon end our twilight drives, and the moonlight nights were too chilly to linger long in the rustic arbors or shady nooks outside. With the peculiar charm of this season of the year there is always a touch of sadness in nature, and it seemed doubly so to me, as my engagement was not one of unmixed joy and satisfaction. Among all conservative families there was a strong aversion to abolitionists and the whole anti-slavery movement.
Alone with Cousin Gerrit in his library he warned me, in deep, solemn tones, while strongly eulogizing my lover, that my father would never consent to my marriage with an abolitionist. He felt in duty bound, as my engagement had occurred under his roof, to free himself from all responsibility by giving me a long dissertation on love, friends.h.i.+p, marriage, and all the pitfalls for the unwary, who, without due consideration, formed matrimonial relations. The general principles laid down in this interview did not strike my youthful mind so forcibly as the suggestion that it was better to announce my engagement by letter than to wait until I returned home, as thus I might draw the hottest fire while still in safe harbor, where Cousin Gerrit could help me defend the weak points in my position. So I lingered at Peterboro to prolong the dream of happiness and postpone the conflict I feared to meet.
But the Judge understood the advantage of our position as well as we did, and wasted no ammunition on us. Being even more indignant at my cousin than at me, he quietly waited until I returned home, when I pa.s.sed through the ordeal of another interview, with another dissertation on domestic relations from a financial standpoint. These were two of the most bewildering interviews I ever had. They succeeded in making me feel that the step I proposed to take was the most momentous and far-reaching in its consequences of any in this mortal life. Heretofore my apprehensions had all been of death and eternity; now life itself was filled with fears and anxiety as to the possibilities of the future. Thus these two n.o.ble men, who would have done anything for my happiness, actually overweighted my conscience and turned the sweetest dream of my life into a tragedy. How little strong men, with their logic, sophistry, and hypothetical examples, appreciate the violence they inflict on the tender sensibilities of a woman's heart, in trying to subjugate her to their will! The love of protecting too often degenerates into downright tyranny. Fortunately all these sombre pictures of a possible future were thrown into the background by the tender missives every post brought me, in which the brilliant word-painting of one of the most eloquent pens of this generation made the future for us both, as bright and beautiful as Spring with her verdure and blossoms of promise.
However, many things were always transpiring at Peterboro to turn one's thoughts and rouse new interest in humanity at large. One day, as a bevy of us girls were singing and chattering in the parlor, Cousin Gerrit entered and, in mysterious tones, said: ”I have a most important secret to tell you, which you must keep to yourselves religiously for twenty-four hours.”
We readily pledged ourselves in the most solemn manner, individually and collectively.
”Now,” said he, ”follow me to the third story.”
This we did, wondering what the secret could be. At last, opening a door, he ushered us into a large room, in the center of which sat a beautiful quadroon girl, about eighteen years of age. Addressing her, he said:
”Harriet, I have brought all my young cousins to see you. I want you to make good abolitionists of them by telling them the history of your life--what you have seen and suffered in slavery.”