CHAPTER XXI.

THE MARRIAGE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON

AND ELIZABETH SCHUYLER.

Pages  189-195

[Page 189]         

     The Schuyler girls, with their thoughts on matrimony, owing to the epidemic of marriages in their family, found in Claverack much to interest them in the stories of the weddings of an earlier generation, the marriage outfits of their Aunt Rachel Douw, the wife of Colonel Henry I. Van Rensselaer, and their Aunt Cornelia Rutsen, General Robert's wife, and also that of Anna Schuyler, wife of Johannes De Peyster, and daughter of that Myndert Schuyler through whom descended the Adam and Eve table-cloth.  There were towels, sheets, pillow cases, hempsheets, handkerchiefs, neckerchiefs, and table cloths in large numbers, beside spreads and quilts, in the outfits of these Manor brides, which practical household furnishings were expected to cover the necessities of large families and many guests.

     [page 190] Beside these, was the wedding finery, delicate yellow and blue satins and brocades, flowered silks and fine laces, and even their uncle Henry's wedding waistcoat drew a few moments attention from the merry-hearted girls, till exquisite pearl handled fans with groups of dancing maidens, drew their interest back to articles of feminine adornment once more.

     It was before Peggy Schuyler was married and before the war was over, that Angelica Church came home with her first baby.  She had taken a dangerous time for her visit to her old home, for an attempt was made by the Tories and Indians during her stay to capture her father.  Other efforts of the kind had been made, and the house was guarded by six soldiers.  Their guns were stacked in the hall.  Childlike, the little Philip had hung about the dangerous playthings, and no peril seeming imminent, his mother had removed the guns to a safer place out of the baby' s reach.  At the alarm of the approaching enemy, the soldiers rushed for the weapons only to find them gone.  The family fled precipitantly up stairs, when the baby was suddenly remembered to have been asleep in one of the rooms below.  Margaret Schuyler dashed back, [page 191 grasped the sleeping child in her arms and shielding it with her body, gained the stairs, when an Indian flung a tomahawk at her head.  It missed its aim, but buried itself in the wood of the stairs, where the mark is still visible.

     The Van Rensselaer girls might listen with thrills of excited pleasure in the moonlight, to tales of the elopements of their Schuyler cousins, but Margaret's brave act in saving the life of her little nephew, won the generous admiration of her boy cousins.

     Full of interest as were these stories of hair-breadth escapes, and runaway matches, to all the Van Rensselaer young people, the gathering of the clans of the Upper and Lower Manors of Rensselaerwick, in the great Schuyler drawing room, when Alexander Hamilton married Elizabeth Schuyler in her own home, was an occasion of family pleasure without alloy.

     The deep window-seats had seen much of the love-making of the young diplomat and this daughter of the Schuylers, and offered inviting shadows to the many young people present.  It was a grand occasion, drawing together those prominent in the social and [page 192] political life of the new Republic, for a large portion of which guests, it was not necessary to go outside of the family relationship.  The rich brocades and glistening satin gowns, and dainty high-heeled slippers to match, the coquettish young eyes peering over the tops of ivory handled fans, as they bowed and courtesied in the minuet or money-muck, in the spacious upper hall which was used as a dancing hall in the Schuyler families, and their friends the young bloods of the day who were present.

     Never had Betsey Schuyler's dark eyes shone so gloriously, or her cheeks flushed more bewitchingly, than when she stood beside her brilliant young husband, receiving the good wishes of her friends, --merry wishes from the cousins and younger people, more earnest ones from the older relatives.  It was possible for all the guests to gather in the broad halls below, divided by a glass partition with fan and side lights.

     The sweep of the staircase, with its fine spindled balustrade, seemed made for the descent of so distinguished a groom, and so charming a bride.  There [page 193] was a glance of pride and protection in Hamilton's fine face as he appeared on the half-way landing beside Elizabeth Schuyler gowned in the quaint and charming fashion of the period, with a witching smile on her always sunny face.  As they descended into the merry waiting gathering below, they made a beautiful picture in the old hall, not easily forgotten among the many scenes of note which transpired there.

     Catherine Schuyler's children were scattering, and grandchildren drew her heart in many directions, but still back to old Claverack among the rest.  Philip Jeremiah, one of the younger among the Schuyler children, who had often visited and loved the home of his mother's girlhood, married Sally Rutsen a few years later, a relative of his aunt, Mrs. Robert R. Van Rensselaer, and when a son, Philip, named for both father and grandfather was born in April 1789, the young couple waited for the beautiful month of May, when the youthful Philip was baptized in the old Claverack church by Dominie Gebhard, the parents themselves acting as god-father and god-mother on this occasion.

     Bringing back the children of the new generation [page 194] to the old Claverack homes had many pleasant features.  There are no toys in childhood equal to the quaint playthings of by-gone days, and in the Van Rensselaer homes of Claverack were wooden cradles with hooded canopies at one end, and little goose feather beds and home-woven covers, and high-post doll's bedsteads with blue and white chintz curtains.  The dolls that looked out between the curtains, were most attractive, if we may trust a family saying of  the Dominie's daughter, Charlotte.  "As beautiful as a Holland doll," was her highest form of praise of a child, telling one how beautiful the children's Dutch dolls must have seemed to their youthful eyes.  Tiny leather trunks, brass-nailed and hairy, held the doll's wardrobe, while little rush-bottomed rocking chairs invited the small mother to rest awhile and rock the doll-babies.

     For the boys, the old flint-lock guns, and spy-glasses, the pleasures of Claverack creek and a fishing rod, and the remnants of Revolutionary uniforms never lost their fascinating, nor yet the Spitzenberg apples to be found on the top of the "kas" in many of the houses.  The hollow tops of these old linen chest [page 195] afforded a safe hiding place for the spicy winter apples during the mellowing time, until the lengthening of boyish legs revealed their presence to the eyes on a level with the edge of the "kas," when the climber felt as rich as though he had discovered a gold mine.

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