Part 21 (1/2)

The Maryland mountaineers, as I knew them, were very similar in life and character to those in North Carolina, of whom more or less has been written the last few years They had peculiar customs as well as quaint s and conditions to suit thens of physical illness and the exact nature of their obacks” Frederick County was settled by the early Gerue A peach dried whole with the seed retained is called a _hutzel_, and dried apples are _snitz_ In this connection I am reminded of a German family named House, which resided in Frederick and consisted of four maiden sisters Theirfro Their front door was always locked and bolted, and to reach the in into a long alley and thence through a scrupulously clean kitchen and up the steep and narrow back stairs to a small rear room, where sat these four spinsters The first one who ,” and the others repeated the salutation in turn until the last one was reached, who sihable procedure was followed in their subsequent conversation, for one of them had only to lead off with a remark and the others repeated the close of it It is said that Crissie, the youngest of the quartette, once had a beau hoht for many years in their prim parlor and that, when he finally jilted her, one of her sisters was heard to reement: ”Just think of all them candles wasted!”

The second winter of our Maryland life was spent at a hotel in Frederick where we fore and Mrs John A Lynch With my historical as well as social tastes, I found the McPherson household a source of great pleasure and intellectual profit to me I knew Mrs ”fanny” McPherson, as she was invariably called, only as an elderly woraces and charone days was a pleasure upon which I even yet delight to dwell She lived to a very great age surrounded by her children, her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren, and went to her grave beloved by all She was the granddaughter of Thomas Johnson, the first Governor of Maryland I rereat pride in showinghim the position of Secretary of State in his cabinet This flattering offer he declined, but to hiton as Commander in Chief of the Army

Mrs McPherson was nearly related to Mrs John Quincy Adams, as Louisa Catharine Johnson of this same Maryland family, and, as she was an occasional visitor at the White House during her relative's residence there, she led with many prominent people I recall a weird story she once told hter of Smith Thompson, Secretary of the Navy under President Monroe It seems she married the Viscount Paul Alfred de Bresson, the third Secretary of the French Eton, and subsequently iven in her honor in Washi+ngton She returned with her husband to Europe and several months later her family received the announcement of her death As they had only recently received a letter from her, when apparently she was in the best of health and spirits, they felt somewhat skeptical and wrote at once for e reached the her heart preserved in alcohol

Mrs McPherson's older daughter, Mrs Worthington Ross, lived with herhands to her wants in her old age, while the remainder of her life was devoted to unselfish labor in her Master's vineyard Her memory, as well as that of her only child, fanny McPherson Ross, who passed onward and upward before her, is still revered in Frederick

Mr Gouverneur and I also formed a pleasant acquaintance with Rev Dr

John McElroy, whose remarkable career in the Catholic Church is orthy of notice Coed in etown, DC, and when about sixteen years of age became a lay Jesuit and in 1817 entered the priesthood After etown for several years, he was transferred, at the request of Chief Justice Roger B Taney, to Frederick, where he built St John's church, a college, an academy, an orphan asylu there for twenty-three years and establishi+ng a reputation for devotion to his church and rare executive ability that made him one of the most useful Jesuits in the country, he was sent back to his old church in Georgetown and the following year went to the Mexican War as Chaplain in the regi our occasional conversations it seemed to afford him more than usual pleasure to discuss with uished military chief After the war he was sent to Boston, where he becae and the Church of the Ie of ninety, he became blind and retired to the scene of his early labors in Frederick, where, as the oldest Jesuit in the world, he died in the fall of 1877 I re him one day on the street when he proudly announced that it was his birthday and that he was sixty-nine years of age I knew him to be much older, and my words of astonish that he had reversed his figures, he corrected hi, ”I mean ninety-six” At that tie, and to the close of his life was much respected and beloved by the residents of Frederick, irrespective of creed I attended his funeral and he was laid to rest in the burying ground of the old Novitiate which he founded It was then that I saw for the first tier B Taney The two-story brick house in Frederick in which he lived is still standing, but it would be regarded with contempt by any of the present Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States

But how natural, for how changed are the times! In an eloquent address subsequent to Taney's death, Charles O'Conor concluded with these words: ”May the future historian in writing of Judge Roger B Taney sorrowfully add, _Ultimus Romanoruled Banner,” is also buried in Frederick soil For rave in Mount Olivet Ceh the efforts of the citizens of Frederick, and especially of its wo ure with outstretched ar in Maryland I frequently met Chief Justice Salh, and was

Many years before, he had been a tutor in the Frederick College, which still survives and whose walls bear the inscription ”1797” Mrs

Goldsborough was a lifelong resident of Frederick and a wohter, Miss Mary Catharine Goldsborough, I always nu my most cherished friends

After a pleasant sojourn of a number of months in Frederick, ent to spend the su_, where we had the satisfaction of entertaining quite a nu as the Hon

Lafayette S Foster, then Vice-President _pro tempore_ of the United States Maryland was a familiar as well as a cherished State to him, as in early life he had been a tutor in Centerville on the ”Eastern Shore”

Mr Foster's visit was decidedly uneventful to him, as he was there entirely unheralded and without even a newspaper notice to announce his co

CHAPTER XIV

VISIT TO THE FAR SOUTH AND RETURN TO WAshi+NGTON

In the autu anticipated visit to Mrs John Still Winthrop in Tallahassee, whose o and which I have already described My two younger children accohter I left behind under her father's protecting care at the Misses Vernon's boarding school in Frederick This period see absence, as the whole tirossed in editing for publication a posthumous work of James Monroe, which was subsequently published by the Lippincotts under the title, ”The People the Sovereigns” We sailed from New York and stopped _en route_ in Savannah to enable me to see my old friend and schoolmate, Mrs William Neyle Habershah Georgia, carrying with hi which this and other caht into the homes of these Southern people it would be difficult to describe The whole South seeiven up to the ”Lost Cause” a husband or a son, and in soallant sons of the Habershams, mere boys, had died upon the same battlefield, and when I saw Mr Habersharief that he was obliged to leave the roo ht bravely for the sake of her dear ones still spared her, but every now and then her sorrow asserted itself anew and see soul could bear She was especially gifted with her pen, and about ten years after the hile her heart was still wrung with grief, she wrote the following pathetic lines:--

Up above, the Pines make sweet music; sad, plaintive, for must there not be a tone of ”infinite sadness” in all the places of Earth's finite gladness? From a spray of jessainner; it tries over and over again ”its one plain passage of few notes”--the prelude to the full-voice antheht! what coloring!

Green in the grass and trees, blue in the violets and sky, gray in thearound in a perfect Danaean shower of burnished gold! My truant fancy sees all this--and more! A dear hand that held mine, a ”pure hand,” a boy's hand, that ere eantry had drawn the sword for that dear summer-land of the jessamine and pine--had drawn the sword and dropped it; dropped it fro manhood to lie still and cal life butand then the other young soldier! for is not my sorroin sorrow? Can they be dissevered? In death they were not divided My eyes grow dim Wipe away the mist, poor racing the board Let the blue of the violets breathe to thee rather of endless skies and an eternal Heaven, where earth's finite sadness is beautified into infinite gladness

We finally reached Tallahassee, where we found theus Mrs Winthrop lived in the very heart of the city but our surroundings were e trees and hyacinths and jessaetation were suggestive of an earthly Paradise

Since we last met my hostess had become a , but fortunately she and her only son, as then just e into le, as they had taken refuge in the mountains of North Carolina Before the war the Winthrops had owned hundreds of slaves andin quarters only a short distance froh the war had notthose who suffered froes the unfriendly feeling entertained at this tiainst their Northern brethren was naturally intense I re son of Mrs Custis, ith his mother was then an inmate of the Winthrop household, asked his mother, who had just returned from the early service of the Episcopal Church, whether ”the 'Yankees' went up to the sa my Tallahassee life I made the acquaintance of Madame Achille Murat, who lived in an old mansion outside of the city lireat-grandniece of General Washi+ngton Upon her e to Achille Murat he took her abroad, where she was received with ton blood Then, too, her e into such an illustrious French family was an open sesame to the most exclusive circles of society She was an elderly woman when I met her, but her conversation abounded with thereminiscences of her life in France She died in the sumreat Marshal of Napoleon, whose sister Caroline heof Naples Many years later his two sons came to this country One of them settled in Bordentown in New Jersey, and Achille Murat, after his inia bride, became a resident of Florida Madame Murat told e was long and tedious She had many articles of _vertu_ around her, and I especially recall a superb marble bust by Canova of her mother-in-law, Queen Caroline I expressed surprise at the extreme attractiveness of the late Queen, as I had always understood that the Princess Pauline, Napoleon's other sister, was the family beauty Madame Murat, however, told me I was mistaken and that her royal mother-in-laas, in that respect, quite the equal of her sister

During my acquaintance with Madame Murat, Napoleon III was on the throne of France, and I learned frouished kinspeople were of the most cordial character; and I aave her an annuity Hanging in her drawing-room, whose contents were replete with historic association, were two handsome portraits of the Emperor and Eifts from her royal relatives That prince of hosts, Gouverneur Ke incident _apropos_ of Achille Murat's resourcefulness under peculiar difficulties On one occasion quite a nuuests appeared at the French with milk and honey,” he was sorely perplexed to knoould be ”toothsome and succulent” to serve for their repast Suddenly an idea flashed upon hiave immediate orders to have the tips of their ears cut off

These were served in due fornorance of what they had eaten but fully convinced that America produced the choicest of viands

Upon one of her numerous visits to France, Madame Murat was accoinian whose contemporaries proudly asserted was an adorn the works of art, Madame Murat was joined by Jerome Bonaparte, to whom she formally presented Mr Corbin When the opportunity arose Bonaparte inquired of his kinswoentleinia”

”Well,” was the ejaculation, ”I had no idea there was so es will show that all through life I have had a decided fancy for older men and women I can hardly account for this taste except by the fact that my predilections have always been of a decidedly historical character As another instance, I especially enjoyed e Thomas Randall, who inally from Annapolis He did not allow advanced years to interfere with his social tastes, but frequently accompanied us to parties, where his vivacity rendered hiuests Still another elderly gentle this Southern sojourn was Francis Wayles Eppes He was the son of US Senator John Wayles Eppes, whose as Maria Jefferson, elder daughter of Thoinia many years prior to my acquaintance with him and settled with several members of the Randolph family in Western Florida when it was alret this picturesque land of flowers and stately oaks, but duty calledi absence It would seem that the observance of ti to localities and other circumstances I was informed that the train I should take from Tallahassee would leave _about_ such and such a ti in Savannah as to whether the shi+p upon which I proposed to embark for Baltimore would leave on time, I was explicitly told by its captain that if I were a ers