As I Remember Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century

Produced by Suzanne Lybarger and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net





  +------------------------------------------------------------+
  | Transcriber's Note                                         |
  |                                                            |
  | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in        |
  | this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of   |
  | this document.                                             |
  | Text printed using the Greek alphabet in the original book |
  | is shown as follows: [Greek: logos]                        |
  | Superscript letters are shown as follows: Jan^y            |
  | A letter with a breve is shown as follows: [)a]            |
  +------------------------------------------------------------+




AS I REMEMBER


[Illustration: MRS. GOUVERNEUR.]




AS I REMEMBER

_Recollections of American Society
during the Nineteenth Century_

BY

MARIAN GOUVERNEUR

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK AND LONDON
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1911


COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

Printed in the United States of America




TO THE MEMORY OF

MY FATHER

Judge James Campbell

WHOSE BENIGN INFLUENCE I STILL FEEL

AND TO

MY HUSBAND

Samuel L. Gouverneur, Jr.

THE COMPANION AND PILLAR OF STRENGTH

OF MY LATER YEARS

THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED




PREFACE


The rambling personal notes threaded together in these pages were
written at the urgent request of my family, and have provided a pleasant
diversion during otherwise lonely hours. The idea of their publication
was highly distasteful to me until the often repeated importunities of
many of those whose judgment commands my respect persuaded me that some
of the facts and incidents I have recalled would prove of interest to a
large circle of readers. The narrative is concerned with persons and
events that have interested me during the busy hours of a lengthy life.
I have been deeply impressed by the changes wrought by time in the modes
of education, which are now so much at variance with those of my
childhood, and in the manners and customs of those with whom I have
mingled.

I should be guilty of an act of grave injustice if I failed to express
my grateful acknowledgments for the aid so unselfishly rendered, in a
score of ways, by my daughter, Mrs. Roswell Randall Hoes, without which
these pages would not, and could not, have been written.

M. GOUVERNEUR.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER                                                             PAGE

   I.--EARLY LONG ISLAND DAYS                                          1

  II.--NEW YORK AND SOME NEW YORKERS                                  21

 III.--SCHOOL-DAYS AND EARLY FRIENDS                                  50

  IV.--LIFE AND EXPERIENCES IN THE METROPOLIS                         69

   V.--LONG BRANCH, NEWPORT AND ELSEWHERE                             96

  VI.--SOME DISTINGUISHED ACQUAINTANCES                              118

 VII.--FASHION AND LETTERS                                           138

VIII.--WASHINGTON IN THE FORTIES                                     170

  IX.--SOCIAL LEADERS IN WASHINGTON LIFE                             194

   X.--DIPLOMATIC CORPS AND OTHER CELEBRITIES                        229

  XI.--MARRIAGE AND CONTINUED LIFE IN WASHINGTON                     256

 XII.--SOJOURN IN CHINA AND RETURN                                   288

XIII.--THE CIVIL WAR AND LIFE IN MARYLAND                            312

 XIV.--VISIT TO THE FAR SOUTH AND RETURN TO WASHINGTON               335

  XV.--TO THE PRESENT DAY                                            365




ILLUSTRATIONS


PAGE

Mrs. Gouverneur                                           _Frontispiece_

Samuel L. Gouverneur, Junior                                         116

Mrs. John Still Winthrop, _née_ Armistead, by Sully                  146

Mrs. Charles Eames, _née_ Campbell, by Gambadella                    178

Brigadier General Winfield Scott, U.S.A., by Ingham                  202

Mrs. James Munroe, _née_ Kortright, by Benjamin West                 258

Miniature of James Monroe, painted in Paris in 1794 by Semé          284

Mrs. Gouverneur's three daughters, Miss Gouverneur, Mrs. Roswell
Randall Hoes, Mrs. William Crawford Johnson                          310




AS I REMEMBER




CHAPTER I

EARLY LONG ISLAND DAYS


I do not know of a spot where, had I been accorded the selection, I
should have preferred first to see the light of day, nor one more in
keeping with the promptings of sentiment, than the southern shore of
Long Island, N.Y., where I was born. My home was in Queens County, on
the old Rockaway Road, and often in childhood during storms at sea I
have heard the waves dash upon the Rockaway beach. Two miles the other
side of us was the village of Jamaica, and from our windows we caught
glimpses of the bay that bore its name.