CHAPTER XVIII.

 THE SCHUYLER ROMANCES.

Pages 159-170

[Page 159]    

     Catherine Schuyler had been the only girl and youngest child in Colonel Johannes Van Rensselaer's family, and as such was greatly beloved by her brothers, who viewed her life with pride and affection.  Crailo, at Greenbush, was the half way house, where the Albany and Claverack families assembled, the Van Rensselaer and Schuyler grandchildren often meeting under their grandfather's roof.  A young British officer seated on the curbing of the old well at Crailo wrote the words of Yankee Doodle.  In the same place many a Van Rensselaer boy and girl sang them.  As Colonel Johannes had a summer home at Claverack, Catherine Van Rensselaer in her girlhood, was accustomed to the close proximity to Albany of her Greenbush home, and also the familiarity of the Claverack home, in a community of Manor Houses occupied by her older brothers and their families. [page 160]

     Lossing describes her as "delicate but perfect in form and feature; of medium height, extremely graceful in her movements, and winning in her deportment; well educated in comparison with others, of sprightly temperament and possessed of great firmness of will."  The early years of her married life had been most eventful.  With her soldier husband continually going and coming, and in constant danger abroad, her little family of children increasing almost yearly at home, she found her hands filled with the cares of a large household, and many public calls as well.  She had inherited many of her father's fine characteristics, and also his executive ability.  Mrs. Ellet says of her, "At the head of a large family her management was so perfect, that the regularity with which all went on, appeared spontaneous.  Her life was devoted to the care of her children; yet her friendships were warm and constant, and she found time for dispensing charities to the poor.  Many families in poverty remembered with gratitude the aid received from her, sometimes in the shape of a milch cow or other article of usefulness.  She possessed great self control, and as the mistress of a household, her [page 161] prudence was blended with unvarying kindness.  Her chief pleasure was in diffusing happiness in her home."

     The family Bible in this household never failed to record each added child, with its benedictory prayer in the father's handwriting, "Elizabeth, Born Aug. 9th, 1757, Lord do according to they will with her."

     "John Bradstreet Born July 20th 1763, Do with him according to thy will O Lord.  Be with him living or dying."

     "Philip Jeremiah Born Jan. 20th, 1768.  May the Lord grant that he grow up for the glory of God and his happiness."

      After the defeat of Ticonderoga, Catherine Schuyler had turned her barn into a hospital, tearing up table-linen and sheets into bandages, while she and her nieces Catherine and Gertrude Schuyler, and the daughters of Mayor Cuyler, united in nursing the wounded soldiers, her slaves being utilized meanwhile in cooking for the barn full of men, in the improvised hospital.

     During the year her husband had spent in Europe, Mrs. Schuyler had finished building the Schuyler mansion at Albany, possibly with General Bradstreet's [page 162] advice and assistance, though the woman of that day showed quite remarkable architectural talent in the construction of their own homes.  It was a large square house built of yellow brick, with thick walls suitable for defense, and with spacious halls sixty feel long, divided in the center by fan and side lights with their delicate tracery.  There was the long drawing room with its handsomely carved colonial mantels, and its deep window seats, where many a youthful confidence was given and received, and where General Schuyler and his wife received guests of great political and social prominence.

     Sometimes the Schuyler coach brought the boys of the family to Claverack, which event has hailed with joy by their cousins of whom there were boys in plenty, John R., Jacob Rutsen, Jeremiah, Henry and James in General Robert R. Van Rensselaer's family and John H., Volkert, Jeremiah H. and Robert Henry, in Colonel Henry I. Van Rensselaer's household.  There were a hundred pleasures of field and stream which kept the boys occupied and happy in each other's company.  The Schuyler, as well as the Van Rensselaer boys, were wide awake children, full of pranks, and [page 163] with their minds stored with the incidents and excitements of soldier life with which they had come in close contact in both Saratoga and Albany.  Rensselaer Schuyler's visits to Claverack were reckoned doubly pleasant through the absence of a hated penalty which he was accustomed to pay for his mischief, which consisted in writing pages of William Smith's History of New York.

     When Betsey and Peggy Schuyler's bright faces, in their flaring, flower-line bonnets, looked out of the coach windows as it drove up to the Manor Houses of their uncles, a flutter of excitement ran through the girls of either household, for there were girls as well as boys at the Lower Manor.  At General Robert Van Rensselaer's there are Alida, Catherine and Angelica.  In Colonel Henry I. Van Rensselaer's home were Angelica, Anna, and Magdalene.

     There were comparisons of gowns and needle-work, and fashions, walks in the garden between flower beds, and under the old trees, and candle-light talks at night while they brushed their hair before the mahogany dressing-tables with their glass-handled drawers, and mirrors which reflected fair girlish faces [page 164] and bright eyes shining with the interest of the story they were telling.  The histories continued in hushed whispers after the candles were snuffed out, and the pale rays of a new moon crept in at the windows, and the high-post, chintz-covered bedsteads cast dark shadows in the great bed rooms.

     What more exciting tale of romance than each Schuyler girl brought in turn, as one after another of her four sisters conceived of some new form of entering into the marriage relation!  In the case of Peggy's elopement, there was the double interest, since both Peggy and Stephen Van Rensselaer, the young Patroon of the Upper Manor, were cousins of the Claverack young people.  Peggy's husband must have quieted greatly in his later years, for it is said of him that "the elder Stephen was very rich, very benevolent, and very hospitable, but no matter how distinguished a guest was beneath his roof, when nine o'clock came he took his flat sliver candle-stick and went to bed."

     But no tale of them all, produced such delicious thrills of excitement as the story of Cornelia, who had attended the wedding of Elizabeth Morton in New [page 165] Jersey, who had married Josiah Quincy of Boston.  After the wedding the bride and groom had departed in a coach and four, accompanied part of the way by their bridesmaids and groomsmen.  As in many other cases one wedding had bred another, and here Cornelia Schuyler had met the bride's brother, Washington Morton, noted as a young athlete, he having walked to Philadelphia on a wager, accompanied by  admirers and sustainers on horseback and in carriages.  Naturally he had been the popular man of the occasion, and he and Cornelia had been immediately attracted to one another.

     But, alas!  Cornelia's father was not pleased with the form of the young man's notoriety, and upon being approached upon the tender subject, refused his consent, the General even going so far as to see young Morton started on a sloop toward home.

     But love's young dream was not to be so easily blighted, and Cornelia confided to her cousins that she and her father had had a stormy scene, but she had not given up her lover.

     There had been some fears and tears in the waiting time, but at last a letter had reached her, and it was [page 166] not long after, that waiting at her window one night, her heart beating like a trip-hammer, she had heard a low whistle, and saw in the shadows below two muffled figures.  Opening the window softly, a coil of rope was thrown up, which she rapidly drew in and found at the end a rope ladder.  It required only a few minutes to fasten it securely, then the girl, too excited to remember to be afraid, stepped swiftly down from the high second-story window to the ground.

     No longer separated, the lovers drove to the river and crossed, a coach and pair meeting them on the opposite side.  Across country they hastened for thirty miles to Stockbridge, to the home of Judge Theodore Sedgwick, an old friend of he Morton family, and not unknown to the reciter or listeners, for he had been connected on the Massachusetts side with the trouble-some boundary questions, with which all Colonel Johannes' children and grandchildren were only too familiar.  The Judge sent for a minister and the runaway couple were married.  It was thought by those giving breathless attention to the exciting story, to have been the crowning episode of all the Schuyler romances, and it was many a night before the beat of [page 167[ horses' hoofs on the road, failed to bring to mind the escapade of their cousin Cornelia, and a wonderment whether a similar runaway match was taking place along the moonlit post-road in Claverack.

     As for the uncles and aunts, the interest of the recital did not prevent cautions to their own young people, not to follow the example of their headstrong cousin, and some prophecies of the probable unfortunate results of such a course.  But all signs failed in this, as in the other cases where the Schuyler girls' elopements were concerned, the marriage proving to be a happy one, and the young man becoming in time a rising young lawyer of New York.

     Ann Eliza Blecker was a poetess of that day much read by the young ladies of the Manors.  In a collection of poems and letters published after her death, is one humorous epistle, written to her sister, chiding her for her long delay in answering her letters, which give between the lines, some idea of the life of a young lady of fashion of the day.

"To Miss S---- T---- E----

     "No, I can admit of no excuse.  I have written three letters in folio to my Susan, and have received no answer.  After various conjectures about the cause [page 168] of so mortifying an omission.  I have come to this conclusion, that you have commenced a very, very, fashionable lady--(you see my penetration)--and though I am not in possession of Joseph's divining cup, I can minutely describe how you passed the day when my last letter was handed you; we will suppose it your own journal.

"Saturday Morn. Feb. 12.

     "Ten o'clock.  Was disturbed in a very pleasant dream by aunt V. W., who told me breakfast was ready, fell asleep and dreamed again about Mr. S.

     "Eleven.  Rose from bed:  Dinah handed my shoes, washed the cream poultice from my arms, and unbuckled my curls; drank two dishes of hyson; could not eat anything.

     "From twelve to two.  Withdrew to my closet; perused the title page of Pilgrim's Progress; R----came in, and with an engaging address, presented me with a final billet-doux from Mr. S. and a monstrous big packet from sister B.  Laid the packet aside; mused over the charming note until three o'clock.  Could not read sister's letter, because I must dress, Major Arrogance, Colonel Bombast, and Tom Fustian being to dine with us; could not suit my colors; fretted--got the vapours; Dine, handing me the salts, let the vial fall and broke it; it was diamond cut crystal, a present form Mr. S.  I flew up in a passion--it was enough to vex a saint--and boxed her ears soundly.

     "Four.  Dressed; Aunt asked me what sister had wrote.  I told her she was well, and had wrote nothing in particular.  Mem.--I slyly broke the seal to give a colour to my assertions.

     [page 169] "Between four and five.  Dined.  Tom Fustian toasted the brightest eyes in the company--I reddened like crimson--was surprised to see M---- blush, and looking around saw P---- blush yet deeper than we.  I wonder who he meant.  Tom is called a lad of judgment.  Mr. S. passed the window on horseback.

      "Six.  Visited at Miss ----'s; a very formal company; uneasy in my stays--scalded my fingers, and stained my changeable by spilling a dish of tea; the ladies were exceedingly sorry for the accident, and Miss V. Z. observed that just such another mischance had befallen the widow R. three years before the year.

     "From six till three in the morning.  Danced with Mr. S.--thought he looked jealous--to punish him I coquetted with three or four pretty fellows, whispered Colonel Tinsel, who smiled and kissed my hand; in return I gave him a petulant blow on the shoulder.  Mr. S. looked like a thunder gulf; then affected to be calm as a stoic; but in spite of philosophy turned as pale as Banquo's ghost.  M---- seemed concerned, and asked what ailed him?  I don't like M----; I wonder what charm makes everybody admire her; sure, if Mr. S. was civil to her it was enough, he need not be so very affectionate.  I flew in a pet to a vacant palour, and took out sister's letter to read; I labored through ten lines, contemplated the seal, chewed off three corners, and folding the remains elegantly, put it in my pocket.  I suppose it was full of friendship and such like country stuff.  However, sister writes out of a good heart to me, and I will answer it.  Mr. S. and I were reconciled through the intercession of P----, whose lovely humanity everywhere commands [page 170] esteem.  We passed the hours very agreeably.  On my retiring, Dinah attended, and having no paper handy, I gave her sister's letter to put my hair in buckle, while I read some verses.

     "Well, Susan, you see that in the Arctic wilds of America your secret actions are brought to light, so I hope you will pay more respect to this epistle.

     "Mr. B--- begs me, at this very instant to present his very humble regards to you, and has made three solemn blows to your ladyship before I could write a sentence.  Polly S---- is here, and making sad execution among our beaus.  We live here, a merry kind of a laughing, indolent life; we suffer no real evils, and are far from regretting the elegant amusements that attend a city life; all that I want, my sister, is your company.  This constant repetition you must permit (without repining) in all my letters.  I never walk in that angle of my garden where your flowers are planted, but I heave a sigh, as if it were a painted monument to your departed body.  Can you never come to us?  Tell my sweet cousins I love them all tenderly; recollect me with affection to Aunt V---- W----, and permit my Peg and Hannah to salute you.

                                                                                      "ANN ELIZA BLEECKER."

                                                                                             "Tomhanick, March 29, 1785.

     "This day fourteen years ago, Susan, I was married; repent and take a husband."

Buttons by www.grsites.com