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Note: 888
...Continued from the Notes for Clare's husband, Augustus Wright Ives
What I am trying to write about was during the Revolutionary War - opposite to the door that we came in from the sitting room was the fire place - to describe this I would have in every part of it to deal in the superlative not only as my childhood eyes saw it, but in measurement of older years. It is yet - tall mantle [sic] fully six feet from the stone hearth that came halfway to the sitting room door - these large hearths were to protect from the fire - if one of the laws broke apart scattering coals and chunks - on the mantle [sic] were the tinder box, pipes and the gun with many useful traps but the glory was the open fire place. Never mind how wide or deep it was Mrs. Beecher [(?-?)] in her will describes it to you. A stuff [stiff?] green curtain was tacked on the mantle [sic] and hung down perhaps 3/4 of a yard, this to carry the smoke. Children could sit inside this spacious place - on each side of the blazing fire and crack nuts or eat apples and listen to stories, but one place in the side of the fireplace was funny - it looked like a little oven but had no door to it - it was built perhaps three feet into the wall. In this a baby could be cuddled after it was put to sleep and lay [sic] as snug as a bug in a rug for any indefinite period. Cupboards too, that nearly reached to the ceiling - quite fanciful these with scolloped [sic] shelves and painted red inside - were filled with queer old China much mended some of it - ancient all probably came into our country when the first great he and she of our family "Came over." Much of it wedgwood ever so pretty. As to their value - would bring if not almost their weight in gold for they were very heavy - yet fabulous prices [pieces?] - following along the wall we come to the door leading into the hall - then a turn and we get to the door leading to that mysterious region the cellar, old those cellars of our grandfather - full of salt water - delicacies in winter oysters, clams, soft clams also - all cured with seaweed, great heaps of these that were fed every day or two with Indian meal - and a sprinkling of saltwater - and they grew fat, yum, yum - if you read the times of the old war, you will know something of the Hoboys and Skinners, scamps who stole from friend and foe alike, landless, reckless - who prowled about the farm homes seeking what they might not only devour but to
carry off the cattle and sheep, chickens anything. So many homes were left unprotected with women and a few servants, perhaps slaves in those days. The home was a mile from the main road or from any neighbor. The farm itself was quite a territory. You know in those days farms were not bought by the acre but by the mile so Grove Farm extended for many miles. When I was a child and heard uncles tell, I thought, it embraced all of the West Chester, well it was a grand place for those fellows to attack - Grandfather was often away with his sloop, perhaps taking a load of oysters or farm truck to the city, New York, for all farm produce brot large prices. This middle kitchen was where the mothers and daughters did the nicer cooking - preserving, cake making - often churning - and fine ironing and clear starching - a very useful place. Now our grandmother was making dough-nuts, most savory odor. Now too there came tramping a set of these outlaws and came into this middle kitchen; our little grandmother knew no fear - but she knew well enough what this sudden incoming meant, in a flash, she thought of the barns, horses, cows, sheep - everything. A big big fire blazing was on the hearth with great inviting wooden arm chairs - how good it did look and feel to those fellows after their tramp in the snow. They waited no invitation to be seated and the wooden bowl full of foamy dough and the smell of the frying cakes - grandmother gave her pitcher of cider to a girl and sent her into the kitchen proper where some servants had come in to toast by the fire and said, "Sit down boys, and we will have some cider for you." The boys felt sure of their game and the smell of the cakes, and the prospect of cheer beguiled them and good little grandmother knew how to make the best of a bad situation. It was not the first time that these gangs had been about. The cider was hot - set by the fire to heat good strong cider, with a drop in it. Always there was a plan laid, if an attack threatened.
Oh, the grand mothers of the war time. She joked with the boys saying you`ve caught us this time, you are more lucky than those fellows who came around last, but be easy with us. I`ll treat you well, so don`t destroy what you don`t take, you know the Quakers are peaceable and make friends with everybody, even those some call enemies - but in the providence of things all are one in the sight of the Father. The cider began to work, the hot good cakes did their share and being so softly ensconced and knowing the man of the house was away, they ate and drank and snoozed a little and the time went on. Finally they went to the barns - to find that all the live stock had been driven to West Chester, and a small army of neighbors had come with guns to help their neighbor - they had been fairly beaten and no blood shed - then our little grandmother laid her hands on her hips and laughed for she was a merry woman, and old Sam, the master par excellence among the servants, said, "We did bettern the massa could." And for his ready wit was filled with cider and dough-nuts.
Another story of Miannah. As I have said Grandfather was often from home, feeling so safe with leaving his better half at home to protect the house. It was a stone house of walls two feet if not more - thick, heavy windows, shutters well ironed -"...Sam, Misses ums coming" - "All right Sam, call the boys, get the girls, find all the guns, shovels, big boats [boots?] they`ll think it is an army. Make all the noise you can, bolt the doors, call down stairs upstairs, tramp like horses, point the guns and fire, load fast, get at different windows. Some get to the top chambers - don`t be afraid - fire away - and raize [?] away." Thus the little grandmother again - the Skinners, for it was just a party of them, thought the house was well garrisoned and again the little woman put her hands on her hips and laughed and the castle was saved.
Another bit, being Quakers, they were non-combatants - but some had declared "the old fellow must have money hidden." They would catch him. Perhaps it was intuition. Never mind, it was her business to take care of her husband, and seeing danger she meant to get him safe - there had been a talk among the negroes that "they were after Massa." This had been floating in the air. "Take your master Sam - open a hole in the stone wall of the orchard, build it up around him - take your gun - a good way off from him - and do as tho you were saving the orchard, keep away from him - and if you have to fire among them the boys will be armed and ready to jump for them." All night grandfather laid [sic] in his stone chamber, all night Sam took care of the orchard. Nothing was hurt. They went off, swearing that they would come another day for the d---d Quaker and grandmother had a nice boiled chicken for the beloved man she meant to take care of - many stories of this brave woman, full of fun and vim - from my mother many stories. The word fear had no meaning for "Myannah" - the hall was broad but was much broadened at the far end, here in the old time was the dining room - all the meals were eaten there in the summer. I rather think the middle kitchen was used in winter. My grandfather was a mild autocrat - and was called "Master," but his wonderfully bright alert wife was the soul of the manor, wise enough to make him believe he was the ruler. She loved her John with a true heart - always she the first up in the morning to be about tending to the spinning girls, seeing that the host in the kitchen were up and around and Grandfather left to finish his morning nap. Always in the cellar hung a tender chicken or two ready for the coals, and dearly she liked to pet her husband suggesting his poor appetite, if he waited a little before he ate. "Go Kate, throw a chicken on the coals, your master would like to have it." I fancy the said chick was very near done when Katy went for it, for mother said it came on the table in an incredibly short space of time, then grandmother would say, "John, try to eat it." Probably, grandfather John had been filled with a good lunch at bedtime, with perhaps a pleasant night cap of Punch so common in those days - of coaxing. At one time they had a well there with buckets - a child in playing fell in - grandmother saw it and in a moment caught the rope of
the bucket and swung herself down and brot up her drenched child. Mother said she never waited to parley - fearless - quick to comprehend - first in the home. She died long before I was born. Oh dear, I had no grandparents living as I have said and oh how I have yearned for them, saved every item I can get - few indeed - if I had lived in the East I could have gotten more. With what reverence I used to look at the ancient furniture in the room where she and grandfather slept. I seem to have realized the latter from knowing my uncle Elijah Ferris [(1768-1842)] being there so much during my childhood. He somehow fell heir to the homestead [Grove Farm] and there it was and is, not very different in its outward look from the time the Skinners and Hautboys made their raids. Uncle Elijah was a splendid looking man much too as mother used to describe her father. "The master," he too was called, and was the same as I have said by nature a mild sort of autocrat and his wife, the second one [Amelia Livingston Ferris (1772-1853)], I knew, petted him much in the way that he said his mother had petted his father. Uncle Elijah like his father was a sort of noble of the manor always a plate was set for the stranger that might come at meal time, always a bountiful table. At one end the famous ham, which was a part of the institution of the house. Every Saturday morning early, old Dilly had the famous iron pot swung upon the crane filled with cold water and in it, the ham. Never a ham was eaten until it was a year old - ripe - cured with such a recipe as a king would like to have - so much sugar, so much salt petre - well all day the kettle swung upon the crane with a gentle simmer just up to the edge of boiling. To Dilly, if the master who at intervals came to see how it progressed found it boiling, "Dilly," he would say in strong emphasis, "do you know that this ham is perhaps ruined?" If uncle said "you" with emphasis so contrary to his Quaker language, the gentle "thee," even to the dog and horses they said "thee," Dilly never much alarmed at her master`s "you" said, I`ll see to that Master Ferris." He was no master for Dilly for she held the rod of empire through the length and breadth of that farm and she knew it well. Yet generally the old gentleman tried to be as I have said the mild supreme - and Dilly upheld him in this except as regarding her own position. Every cow knew when the soothing bittersweet ointment was softly rubbed on the bruised parts of its hurt leg that all would be well. The poor boy Dick who had chill blains [blisters or inflamed sores; is this a reference to cold sores?] got well when Dilly planted him in the corner of the kitchen chimney and put a pail of salt hay under his frost bites - and set the hay [aflame?] while his feet seemed boiling over the hot stuff. Take his feet off? [the fire?] Not a stir until Aunt Dilly said they could, if ever the Son [Christ?] worked anywhere it [He?] did under that potent withered bent old woman, her shoulders I can only describe in this way, if a large pumpkin were cut in two and the half put over her shoulders and her dress drawn over it, it would look like Dilly`s shoulders, the seams of her face looked as tho they were smoked, deep seams. She was a white woman, altho the smoke from the fire place and from her pipe had left indelible marks, so bent was she that one had to look down and under to see really well, her face - remember Augustus that now I am talking
of the time when my uncle Elijah was the master and when I was a little girl that this Aunt Dilly held sway. I wish you could have been a little boy then too, but then you know, it was not possible - but oh how you would have enjoyed seeing Uncle Elijah "toast the sausage," you see then the sausage meat was chopped in a famous big trough and for a week in the winter evenings all the available force of servants and axes, cleavers, short hatchets had been plied to get the meat fine enough to be packed in jars, some of it also in skins. Finally Dilly said, "it`s fine enough you`d ort to have it had it done long ago." Well, then for the seasoning - to so much meat so much salt, black pepper, a "leetle" cayene let it lay [sic] overnight with the seasoning to get thro it - next night always there was a sort of charm about night work, the hogs must be cut at night, doughnuts cooked, nuts cracked to put away in large earthen jars "to have ready." Always this the watchword, to "be ready" beautiful in its meaning of hospitality. In the living room a blazing fire the blaze lighting the whole room altho Uncle Elijah had the round stand with the two brass candlesticks and in the tray all as bright - as rubbing and rotten stone could make them, so were the andirons - with their steeple tops - in the days of your ancestors anything that could be made bright - by hands were - read lead for painting the bricks of the fireplace, pot lead for brightening any iron lid - whiting for silver, and wax for furniture. If only dear mother could have lived in those days when even the pots and kettles used in the kitchen were made as bright as a knife blade for two inches below the rim.
So uncle with his big brass spectacles with round glasses sat in the most comfortable chair in the room, Aunt Amelia on the other side of the fire place knitting, big cat on the rug and the younger ones disposed in many ways on the great sofa or floor. All knew it was the evening for the "tasting" - smelt the sausage cooking - then old Dilly with her flounced cap, the flounce yellow from smoke hanging in the great fullness half over her eyes.
"Mr. Ferris, get ready," she said, "them sausage must be et hot - no stoppin` to finish enny reedin`."
So "git-reddy" was the word. "Then," said Dilly, with a peculiar emphasis as much as to say, "I suppose you`ll find fault" - of course Mr. Ferris always did - then the spectacles were pushed to the top of the bald head - and the bit of dry bread and hot sausage. I don`t believe you ever saw an old man try to taste the fine flavor of anything, such a sort of looking up to the ceiling for fear he might not just get the too full or too little of the seasoning. "Well," impatiently comes from Dilly. "Dilly, it isn`t right, I don`t know just what it wants, it doesn`t come up to my mother`s seasoning." Dilly breaks in, "Your mother, s`pose not - well Mr. Ferris what do they want?" Always this with a growl. "I guess Dilly it had better lay over till tomorrow perhaps a trifle of salt." "Yes, yes, I knowed it, and all that mess of meat to be worked over again, I think it`s right just as it is." "Try it again Dilly, bring in some hot ones." So we waited while Dilly skipped about, mad, coming in pretty soon - with the nice brown things. Dilly always "carved"
these days but Uncle felt it was sort of better to find his little fault. Just this today as I have said that this beloved uncle Elijah always has held the place in my heart as grandfather - as grandfather, living as he did at the old homestead - with all the old fashioned bits of furniture, hospitable, very, and as I have called him the mild autocrat - the door yard was large and persons could be seen coming some minutes before they reached the house, then it was said, "Friends are coming." No one stirred from their seat except uncle - it was a rule with him to welcome friends himself if at home - he would rise quickly from his seat, put down his paper, push his spectacles on top of his head and get to the front door by the time the company got there - and then the welcome. "I`m heartily glad to see you" taking both hands of the first comer and so on. Now just look at the old gentleman, it is summer, and a good breeze comes from the Sound, the back door is open, the gracious garden high with flowers, sending sweetness thro and thro. The smile on the dear face, followed by a genial laugh - the white hair in hundreds of little rings of curls full below the bald [head] - is blown by the fresh breeze - and all the time showers of tiny petals from the Multiflora Rose skimming through the hall as tho they too wanted to add to the genial greeting then the family found time to take the hands and make, more and more the welcome. This was always the way, as I have said on the table always a plate for the stranger, always some delicate good thing in reserve to be brot on the table. Aunt Amelia was a good housekeeper - she made doughnuts and ginger nuts for "every day cake" by the firkin full, while the rich plum cake was deposited in a great earthen jar lined in brown sugar to keep it moist. It would keep good and fresh for always; but generally it was expected to last a year - only to be taken when company came - choice bit. I was once at a friend`s house and I said, "Cousin Mary, how is it that always thee has plum cake?" "Well," she replied, "thee sees dear - the doctor likes a hearty meal - and is somewhat of an epicure so our friends have satisfied their hunger before it is time to pop the cake, then I always make good gingerbread which is passed first, if the cake after that - jumbles and when it is time to pass the plum cake our friends generally say, ‘Well really, you have so much that is nice - but I will take a small bit of that rich cake. Mary, thee does always tempt us so.` and very little is eaten of it." So with Aunt Amelia all excellent things in readiness - to the cool cellar a jar of cream in winter ready made with a little bit of lemon in it - an egg or more broken then sweetened and a good flavor of brandy - the small whip churn - beside it and a great bowl of the delicious foamy luxury was ready in "a few minutes" to add to a plain desert. Like my old grandmother Anna - chicken ready to be tossed on the hot coals - and the weekly ham - so that a sort of "company dinner" ever at a minute`s warning - I have told thee that always the ham must be a year old before it was eaten and the process of simmering the whole day, then set away to get cold. Uncle was famous for his recipe for curing hams - proud he was but never expected to have anyone ask a second time for it at a meal, always it was the bit to flavor the other meat on the table, exactly two inches as a rule was the allowance - it had to last the week out. At the marriage of any one of his nieces - one of these hams was the wedding gift with strong direction regarding the cooking, "Now mind thee never lets it boil." When thy grandmother Eliza (that`s me) was married, he sent me one of his finest also altho it was the 23rd
of November - great water melons - really they were an ornament to the table, the black waiters plumed themselves on cutting them fancifully.
Well Augustus suppose for variety we make escape from these early days to the wedding day of your grandfather and grandmother. We were married in New York City in Madison between Market Street and Catherine at that time quite a neighborhood of Quakers. This event occurred after a rather stormy engagement of three years - November 23rd 1836 - You have seen the marriage certificate, it is written on parchment and cost $25. The house was a handsome modern one - finished from the basement quite to the roof, making what might be termed four comfortable stories for living in - all plastered pleasant rooms - there were folding doors in the rooms of the second story as well as in the parlors, so when opened they made a grand supper room. Early in the day the whole house was given over to the marriage of the occasion (caterers?) - these men with their master came early in the day and took possession as does the pilot when the ship is given over to him - he receives no orders knowing his business - the family get into small quarters, the cook and kitchen girls obey orders and the work goes on like clock work. All day our arrivals of festal meanings. Lamps are hung in all available places - thro the halls - gas was not then greatly used in homes but - oil and wax candles made a brilliant house from the upper story to the kitchen. The great plum cakes had been made two months ago and set aside to ripen - now I am somewhat at a loss, to set the supper table first or to marry the young couple. I guess I will go along a little longer with the day - a great arrangement of flowers was made on a circle or half circle of steps in the third story. There were growing plants as well and over the top of the whole a figure of Flora who held a branch candle-stick with many candles. This was ever so pretty; the dressing rooms were in this story as the one below was the Supper Room - at 5 o`clock in the afternoon the barber came to dress the head of the bride elect and two of the bridesmaids, Aunt Anne Ferris [(?-?)] and Aunt Catherine Maria Allan [Catherine Maria Leggett Allen, (1817-1890)] and your grandmother`s veil or rather blond broad scarf was fastened with elaborate patterns, hair dressed very high in the back with loops of hair over a net of fine wires something like this [obscure diagram] - this the back hair. In front great bunches of small puff curls, with orange buds - well I paid 5 dollars to have it dressed and so of course it did look nice. The dress was white satin figured, very low neck, it was said that the neck was pretty and the shoulders sloping - I hope they were - short sleeves - gloves a heavy white silk corded and tassels tied around the waiste and hanging to the feet - heavy fall of blond lace from the neck, and at the elbows. A bouquet of orange blossoms in a pretty pearl holder - an elaborate handkerchief 3/4 yard square with deep lace - that was the look of your grandma with white satin shoes silk stockings.
The Groom. You have seen the vest - white satin, also a high stock [cravat or necktie] - perhaps three inches large low - black broadcloth of best quality, a gift from his uncles, Edward [Augustus] Wright [(1803-1880)] and John [Bogart Wright, (1801-1858)] - also to him by them was given the finest quality drab [type of woolen] cloth - surtout [long overcoat] - pumps, silk stockings, his hair curled by the hairdresser. You know the marriage ceremony of Friends - guests 200 - the parlors looked like a fairy place, lamps swinging. In nooks wax candles and many colored flowers. Just here to break in upon the happy occasion I will say I had 3 bridesmaids, of course 3 groomsmen - my husband and myself, Aunt Anna Ferris, Aunt Catherine Maria Allan, Emily Bourne that making four women, four men, all of the men are dead, this takes Augustus W. Leggett, Percival Seaman, William Allan [Allen], Richard Bourne. This seems to be a rather singular circumstance, all of the women are living.
The supper! To make it as short as I can, in the two rooms in the second story the tables reaching from the front windows to the back windows giving space to pass a round - and a large round table in a corner on which was a mammoth punch bowl - in the centre of the long table - the bride`s cake - elaborately decorated with little angels, cupids etc. - two tall pyramids one of oranges, the front being all divided in sections and glazed with a sweet sugar cement, the glass stand upon which they stood, the pyramid and the tall decorations of artificial flowers made these pyramids 3 feet high, a light burning dimly - all this front was covered was spun web of sugar - making a most glittering circumference - tall was the style - the higher the dishes could be placed the handsomer it was considered. Thy Uncle Elijah`s watermelons were on a very elevated stand. The minor good things were Lady Apples, small red checked apples called "Love Apples" - lots - every girl must have a Love Apple - boys too, and as well the elders; so that there was an ample supply. Game, oysters - stewed and pickled, wines, champaigne [sic] and the famous punch bowl with its glasses - I will say no one was in the least noisy by this, all was bright and nice, mottoes were in great demand. Kisses, fruit cake - this is a lighter sort of plum cake, ice cream, - oh dear - I can`t tell all. It was called very fine. Just here I will tell about the China that was used - when my father was living a person by the name of Stansberg owed him a bill of eight hundred dollars - father`s prices were high - Mr. Stansberg somehow had been unfortunate in his business - he had ordered a double dinner set of East India China - you see a double set meant a great many pieces - two tureens as large as my large white one - plates of four sizes - vegetable dishes, salad, and large gallon punch pitchers with covers, custard cups, fruit basket, open work china - these sets were only used on rare occasions. Well Mr. Stansberg asked my father if he would take the china, (as each piece of it was marked with the letter S) in payment of the bill of $800. The only color on this was a narrow border of buff hair color with a gold thread running thro.
Well this china was at the wedding feast. This wedding and attending bits cost Mother $800. If you have any curiosity to know the look of this China which was the delight of my soul, if you ever visit Mrs. Holden, [(?-?)] she has I think a tea set or part of a tea set, that came through the Stanslaus family. I think she will show it to you.
I said that the engagement had been stormy those nearly three years one of my brothers [which one?] made himself and the whole family miserable by his opposition to the marriage. It would pain me to write it all over again-in one of the many journals it is to be found if you have any curiosity to see how distressing it was to all. He was the most dearly loved of my brothers during my youth, and the feeling that I could love anyone but him was not to be forgiven; so the three years was full of all those hard things that cut into my heart, finally when he found that the event of our marriage was coming off he left New York, went to St. Louis, giving it out that he would never return. He did not write home that he had never cut his hair, or had never shaved. In that day, this was an unheard of thing, the face was closely shaved, no mustache but small side whiskers. A young man could get no situation if he allowed more than the whiskers. As I have said no mustache so this thing in my brother was unheard of. Never mind. He did come in about six months but would not be reconciled to the marriage, but time works away heals. The tragedy (for it was heartfelt sorrow to me) was over.
I often think what a mistake is the belief or at least the saying that youth is the happiest season of life. I think it a mistake, a struggle right along. Nature has seen fit to take this season for its warfare of the passions. Emerging from the school, the future - a sort of something stares them in the face and the cry of what shall I do to be saved? The youth reaches a point where it is expected he will be self supporting. How? That`s the question - school has taught him A B C but not the A B C of Bread, Body, Me myself - standing on the precipice ready to plunge off, comes a vision of exceeding beauty and the already oppressed accepts the intoxicating, delicious cup. What then with the hope so also comes despair - again it`s "Oh Lord, what can I do? This double sweet yet bitter misery - love torments and life seems a prison house which as yet the will can`t open.
Dear Augustus if I should tell to you all the torment of my youth you might perhaps say, "But these were fancies - nothing to cause real distress" - but all the while a naked heart lay quivering in a sensitiveness that made much of the distresses that it had given to others. Never mind I won`t write all this, our Augustus. My engagement was kept secret for three years and other hearts were wounded while I was caged. I guess I won`t tell of distresses that beset me and only recollect them as part of youth. Always as I have said I pity youth, as I think of my own, I would not if I could pass it again.
I wonder why life is as it is - lovers look forward to marriage, their union seems blissful but here again we find life the same old story only different in chapters. I am not blue today only somehow I wonder why we were created, if this is all, this anxious toiling; it would seem aimless, but as it ever has been. Hope still stands near with her promises, and the Beyond is as of old. Shall I say man never is but always to be blessed. Oh no, think I did not say this - it fell off of the pen.
Anna Ferris Seaman. [(1771-1854)] Thee has heard me talk so much of my father, now I will write some of my Mother. She was considered very beautiful as a girl and never lost her beauty as a woman - exquisite complexion, soft dark hair, bright dark hair. She was born at Grove Farm, Quaker parents.
When it grew to be time for the daughter to have a little better opportunity than a country school
...Continued in the Notes for Clare's first child, Margaret Ives.
Note: LETTERS OF ELIZA SEAMAN LEGGETT TO HER GRANDSON AUGUSTUS WRIGHT IVES, 1
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