CHAPTER XXVII.
MANOR JUNKETING
Pages 257-267
[Page 257]
John Livingston , a son of Robert, had built his house at Oak Hill in 1798. The walls, like those of the old Manor were very thick, and built of brick made on the estate, the woodwork also was constructed from trees hewn from the Manor forests. The old Lord's wide acres provided for all the needs of a household from the foundations to the roof. Within were deep window-seats, and stairs with old fashioned comfortable landings, and high mantels decorated with the beautiful putty-work figures of the past.
There were variations in the building of the various Manor Houses, but in each were the furnishings of the colonial period, Chippendale chairs, high-post, elaborately festooned bedsteads, pier glasses, and inlaid tables, beautiful little sewing tables which held the embroidery of the lady of the Manor in [page 258] its tiny drawers, and many times some rare toy for the pleasure of the child who hung about its mother's knees, as she traced the fine stitches in her needle work. Embroidering chair-seats was a favorite occupation of the Manor ladies and their guests. One of these pieces of needle-work made by a daughter of Chancellor Livingston is still preserved. There were treasures in silver and china also, much of the silver being inherited from the first Lord Robert, and marked with the family crest.
There is a pen portrait of John Livingston written by one of his descendants, which almost brings the genial and courtly proprietor of Oak Hill into our presence, after the passing of over a century. "His style of dress was that worn by all the courtly gentlemen of the olden time,--a black dress coat with knee breeches fastened over his black silk stockings with silver buckles; similar buckles of a larger size were in his shoes. He had a high forehead, beautiful blue eyes, a straight nose and very determined mouth. His hair was carefully dressed every morning, the long queue was rewound, the whole head plentifully besprinkled with powder, and the small curls that had remained [page 289] in papers during breakfast time, adjusted on each side of his neck."
The Livingstons were still buying land and building saw-mills and flour-mills, and managing iron works as in earlier days of the Manor, only the purchases were made now in distant parts of the State, and in western lands.
There were dinner parties in those days where one great house entertained the guests of another; evening gatherings of neighbors dropping in unexpectedly on moonlight nights, "water-picnics" in summer, and sleigh-ride and skating parties in winter, with laughter and frolic. When the river was a flare of new ice after three zero nights, the venturesome spirits among the young people might stray down to its banks and embark on some swift-flying ice boat, skimming over the surface of the black ice before the wind, hearing the resounding noises of cracks in the new ice, avoiding air holes where groups of wild birds quenched their thirst in a circle about the open water, sweeping on with a thrill of excitement and pleasure over the wide expanse of the frozen river, while the cold winds blew down from the north, and the sky hung a half circle [page 260] of steely blue over their heads, and the sun in the west sent comforting rays of warmth through their chilled bodies.
Less exciting, but still having the form of novelty, were the river sleigh-rides, when the fallen snow had turned the Hudson into a great white thoroughfare, and a sleigh-ride party, on a starry night drove up or down the river to their destination, wrapped in warm robes with soap-stones at their feet, and a tingle of joy in the air, yet glad to reach the door thrown wide open into the night, flooding the snow with a cheerful light, where warmth and welcome awaited them. Often they danced till the small hours in the long drawing-rooms, where the chill in the distant corners sent the dancers back to the nearer circles about the crackling log-fires in the great fire places. At Oak Hill alone there were nine sons and daughters, and the many groups of cousins of the different Manor Houses with their guests, made a merry company of almost any neighborhood gathering.
All the Livingstons were ship-owners, and the sloops at the docks were a perpetual temptation on the [page 261] blossoming days of spring, or the balmy summer time, or during the glorious autumn days.
"Our two voyages" (to New York and back) "occupied nine days and seven hours," wrote one of the voyagers, "and we were received at Oak Hill with as hearty a welcome as if we had performed the journey around the world."
The Manor servants were still negro slaves, and the slaves on John Livingston's estate lived in the basement of the great house. The had a happy and an easy time, if we may trust a humorous sketch in a newspaper of later date:
"At Oak Hill, John Livingston resided, and owned a whole flock of negroes, the fattest, and the laziest, and the sauciest set of darkies that ever lay in the sunshine. They worked little and ate much, and whenever there was a horse-race or a pig-shave at the 'Stauchy' (Staatje), the negroes must have the horses, even if the master should be obliged to go about his business on foot. When they visited Catskill in tasseled boots and ruffled shirts, they were sure to create a sensation, and it was not unusual for the 'poor whites' to sigh for the sumptuous happiness of John Livingston's slaves."
Washington Irving gives a graphic account of a visit to one of the Livingston Manor Houses in a letter [page 262] written in the early part of 1812 to his friend Henry Brevoort:
"From the Captain's I proceeded to the country seat of John R. Livingston where I remained for a week, in complete fairy-land. His seat is spacious and elegant, with the fine grounds around it, and the neighborhood is very gay and hospitable. I dined twice at the Chancellor's, and once at Old Mrs. Montgomery's. Our own household was numerous and charming. In addition to the ladies of the family, there were Miss McEvers and Miss Haywood. Had you but seen me, happy rogue, up to my ears in 'an ocean of peacock feathers,' or rather 'like a strawberry smothered in cream!' The mode of living at the Manor is exactly after my own heart."
"You have every variety of rural amusement within your reach, and are left to yourself to occupy your time as you please. We made several charming excursions, and you may suppose how delightful they were, through such beautiful scenery, with such fine women to accompany you. They surpassed even our Sunday morning rambles among the groves on the banks of the Hudson, when you and the divine H---- were so tender and sentimental, and you displayed your horsemanship so gallantly by leaping over a three-barred gate."
The "Widow Mary" or "Lady Mary Livingston," both of which titles belonged to her, was a marked personality in the Manor life of the early years of the [page 263] nineteenth century. She had been a Miss Allen of Allentown when she married Henry W. Livingston, whom she survived forty-give years. Like Margaret Beekman of Revolutionary fame, and Catherine Schuyler, she built a mansion upon a commanding eminence, whose substantial elegance, has never been excelled in any of the Manor Houses.
The "Widow Mary" Livingston was a woman of strong character who conducted her vast estate, brought up her family, built houses for her sons, and entertained widely and hospitably, as did all the Livingston wives before her. An old lady of Claverack who made her an afternoon call as a child, never forgot the grandeur of the great hall, the dignified "Lady Mary," with her high Swiss cap, which she was in the habit of carrying from place to place in a basket when traveling, the dark-face butler in swallow-tails, with his mammoth silver tray, which he lowered hospitably before the child and her father, offering them cake and wine at his mistress' command.
The "Widow Mary" loved a garden, and from some [page 264] far-away place imported the snap-dragon of our fields to-day. In neighborly kindness she presented a portion of her yellow-blossoming plant to the wife of Colonel Henry I. Van Rensselaer at the Stone Mills, and the hardy little flower showing wild instincts when planted in a box-bordered flower-bed, wandered all over the Livingston and Van Rensselaer Manors, and crept through all the Manor fences into the farm-yards and fields, till the "Widow Mary's" golden blossom is one of the best known field flowers of Columbia County to-day.
It was this same neighbor, Colonel Henry I. Van Rensselaer, who aspired to have the first buggy in this part of the country, so placed his wood in the mill-pond to season for a year, at the end of which time the buggy was constructed, and presumably had the same durable qualities as the "wonderful one-horse shay" of New England fame.
Four Henry W. Livingstons have descended in a straight line from the first Henry W. Livingston, the husband of "Lady Mary." At the death of one of them in the long ago, a whole ox was roasted to entertain the great gathering of people who attended the funeral [page 265] These were also the days when the minister and pall-bearers attended funerals clad in long pleated scarfs (sic) of white linen, fastened with black rosettes, and wearing black gloves.
To the first fifty years of the Republic belonged Robert, the last Lord of Livingston Manor; his brother, Peter Van Brugh, a merchant of New York, and active in the Provincial Congress; John, also a merchant of New York; Philip, the "Signer;" Henry; William, Governor of New Jersey, and father of Brockholst Livingston, Judge of the State Supreme Court, and Assistant Justice of the United States Court; Sarah, wife of Major-General Alexander, Earl of Stirling; Alida (Mrs. Martin Hoffman); Catherine (Mrs. John I. Lawrence).
Of the children of the last Lord Robert who belong to this same period, was Peter R. Livingston, who was President of the Convention of the State of New York in 1776; Chairman of the New York Committee of Safety; Colonel of the 10th Regiment from Albany County in 1775, but was detained from leading his men to the field by his duties to the State at that time, his younger brother, Henry, leading the [page 266] Regiment as Lieutenant-Colonel. Peter R. began to build before the war, what he had intended to be his grand Manor House. The Revolution doing away with the entail brought his hopes to an end, and the house, with its solid foundation was never finished, simply a roof being placed over the first story. It has ever since gone under the name of the "Hermitage." At a later date Peter R. Livingston held the office of Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Columbia County.
Walter Livingston, the second son of the the last Lord of the Manor, was a member of the Provincial Congress, and first custodian of the United States Treasury. His home was at "Teviotdale," which later came to be called "Fulton House," after the marriage of Walter's daughter Harriet to Robert Fulton, and their residence in this beautiful country home during many of the summers of their early married life. Robert C. was a merchant of New York and Jamaica, "C." standing for Cambridge University, where he was educated, and to distinguish him from the many other Roberts. John, for whom Johnstown was named, [page 267] and who built Oak Hill, and General Harry, of Revolutionary fame, completed the sons, to whom were added Maria, who married Judge James Duane; Alida, the wife of Valentine Gardner, and Mrs. John Patterson.
The life of Livingston Manor a century ago belongs to the picturesque past, when great political service and large land and mercantile enterprises were combined with a home life, whose junketings and vistings "water-picnics" and sloop journeys, and coaching parties, ended around the festal board of some Lord of the Manor, whose hospitality was as far-famed as were the beauty and grace of the Lady of the Manor, and the hearty welcome of his sons and daughters.
