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a.
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Note: 888
...Continued from the Notes for Louis's brother, Chandler Ives.
husband of Catherine Maria Leggett] a popular man, he gave me some anecdotes of my father whom he well remembered.
Now I have talked about births, weddings, burials, now I will tell thee of the parties of young people and how they amused themselves. This is among the Quakers. It was not until near the time of our marriage that I went into another society. At the time of Byron [George Gordon, Lord Byron, (1788-1824)] the young Quakers, I don`t know why, were sort of permeated with his poetry. I was not, however, allowed to read it because my dear mother was afraid it would tend to that fearful romance as she called it, but my brother Valentine smuggled in these things and I did read "Lalla Rook." If not Byron it was continental in the extreme thee knows. Oh dear I remember well when Byron died my ears were wide open to hear all about it and how he died so that night that the news came out I thought now I will die too, had all of the symptoms, lumps got in my throat. I was sleeping in the great front room with my sister Anna, and mother and Marianna were in the back room and to get there I had to go thro a long dark and entry or hall and thro another bedroom before I could reach my mother. This was a long way to go in the dying condition in which I was, but I must be with mother and my beloved sister Marianna. Mother being deaf did not hear me but sister did, and asked tenderly, "What is it Lidy?" I told her "I was [am] dying and felt [feel] very cold and wanted [want] to be with mother and with her [thee]." "Yes dear," she said, "crawl in softly at the foot of the bed, put thy little feet by mine, and snuggle there till morning people don`t walk when they are dying." So I did and still live. Well it was soon all the rage for young folks to be sentimental. To have "a silent sorrow" and sigh continually in company, to repeat in the corner to each other this [Byron?]:
"I have a silent, sorrow here
A grief I`ll ne`er impart
it breathes no sigh, its sheds no tear
But it consumes my heart."
Girls tried to look pale, talked in a languid way, and made the most of their silent sorrow. Young men recited forceful tragedies while the fair listeners shed tears. This was the thing to do for one whole winter. Both sexes were willing to be considered martyrs, to disappointed affection one of the most beautiful girls among the Quakers who set all the youths going to meeting early just to see Anna Barker come in, set them quite crazy. She left off her soft blue ribbons that she had worn in bows on her lovely shoulders just in testimony of her grief over this "sorrow"- she looked more beautiful this way, "so sentimental" and the young men at parties hovered over her just as much, and thought those bewitching shoulders looked if anything more fascinating in this devotion that gave a certain fascination to those drooping limbs funny was it not but it is true.
Recitation was a great feature in these entertainments, so this was quite an outlet for sorrow, also gentle pensive songs, altogether it was a season of [more Byron?]:
"Sweet sensibility oh la I heard a little lamb cry baa!`
And said I, Little lamb have you lost your ma?`
And still the little lamb cried baa.`"
Every young lady in society of any means gave a party thro the winter and numberless small teas, the greatest part of the entertainment was a continual feasting. There was no table except on great occasions, weddings or receptions of noted friends from other cities about eight o`clock. Tea and coffee handed from large waiter`s trays generally some little girl had brot plates napkins were not yet used, so very large handkerchiefs were fashioned with lace an inch wide around, so here was an opportunity to spread or make a spread of the beautiful bit of vanity another waiter brot hot biscuit, luscious with sweet butter drippings, chipped beef, thick ham, cheese. Then followed after awhile with cake, bushels of such cakes, oh dear a great pride, well it grew to be perhaps nine o`clock before this observance was thro, but before a song was sung or a mild recitation came preserves blanch, mange, whipped cream, macaroons then a spell of promenading through the rooms and hall singing, mild love making, some pouting, always some tears may be if the couples were not well paired, then nuts and all kinds of fruit, wine four kinds then to go home with a pleasant companion, if fortunate.
April 1st 1888. Augustus thee asked me to write such incidents as I know of thy grandmother Ives [(?-?)]. It is very little that I can tell that she was a superior person I know, but my acquaintance was very short duration and we met at long intervals yet every hour that I spent with her seemed full of fruit a most modest person, chaste in her language exceedingly so, it seemed most natural to clothe her thoughts in clear, plain, forcible words. I saw her a few days before she died. Your mother and myself went to see her in the house where your Aunt Emma [Whittamore] lives. Your mother had gathered a few bright maple leaves as we walked to the house; and gave them in your grandmother`s hand. She looked at them with interest, spoke of their exceeding beauty, and said, "With such beauty as this in the world what might not be expected in the next?" She was very cheerful altho very weak, kissed us both and said, "Stay longer," but it seemed best not to do so. She was an exceedingly neat sewer, unusually so. Shortly after your father and I were married I made a visit there and we were fixing a cloth pocket for your mother, making it rather, and I was given a part to do; well I did do my best, took a great deal more pains in sewing it than I wanted to. It took me so long, but I knew how it would appear to your grandmother and congratulated myself upon its nicety, and handed it over for inspection when to my surprise Mrs. Ives said, "It will do, but I wish you had given more time and care to it." Oh dear, I never did do anything so well, before or since. She laughed to think that I had tried so hard and had so failed. I loved to hear her laugh. She had a fine sense of humor and was always a giver in conversation, having a rich nature to receive meanings.
[May 7th 1888] Dear Augustus I find so little that I really know in the way of anecdote of your most excellent grandmother Ives that I would recommend you to ask much of your father and note it down in a blank book which I think is a good thing always to have in your desk at home, also Aunt Emma would I believe assist in filling pages in such a book. Letters get lost, and unless bound get in confusion. The mother of Mr. W. C. Bryant from very early in her life kept a journal of events, her own reminiscences, and noted events occurring in her neighborhood, I think a sort of diary. I think this was continued, the sale of places, dates of certain things, anything that would present itself to her mind. This was growing from year to year. There were many of them and of great value. Mrs. Bryant told me once that persons living in New Orleans would write to her for dates and events very valuable information would be found sometimes in just an item. Mrs. Stone in her classes recommends greatly this matter of a journal, says as a matter of fact, that some of the most reliable statements and history especially dates, have been found in these home records. One has no reason in writing such to mistate, [sic] and one cannot rely upon memory as correct, then too to put in some public bit of interest opens up the opportunity of association. Often you will hear persons say when asked a question of an event, "Well, I cannot just tell but it occurred just the time of this event," naming one that has been recorded.
I did intend to write a letter to accompany this book, but I think it best to say here what I intended to say. These scraps of memory you will find jotted down without regard to order, just as the thoughts occurred to me so I have taken the moment to write. Often I have no doubt repeated the same thing as persons do in a lifetime. If you care for family facts not written here, you can find them somewhere. If I have time I will put down many anecdotes that occur to me. Now in all that I have read of biographies of Bryant they are dry as regards the home life of the poet. General Wilson`s "Life of Bryant and his Friends" is full of familiar bits of the friends of Bryant but for the principal individual, very meagre. As Mrs. Bryant used to say, "William has the two entirely separate lives, one as a writer one as the man at home or under the trees." I knew him under the trees, racing around his piazza, tearing down grapevines in the woods to make impromptu swings, going with his shoes unlaced, and a hole in his hat, leaping over his garden fence, and again over the half door of his house to get a string to tie up a bunch of roses. He was the most active man, not to say of his age, simply to say an active man, in perfect health, slender, full of nervous delight in the mere fact of motion. Think of him and Orville Dewey chasing around the great piazza and riding horseback trying to see which could beat on a turned down sapling, like boys ten years old. Perhaps I have written this before, no matter. I have written so many books for the children now I am flying off, in this letter, what a careless way I have, often thee will find a story begun and broken off short in a long yarn (well yes, let me say this) about something else as I did when I broke off about my blessed father just as his heart was breaking to tell the beautiful Anna of his love, now thee must take the whole book as notes only put down at odd moments in a most unconnected way, just as tho I was talking to thee, and believe that all along thro the stream of the old time, my heart is full of love, and hope, for thee.
May 7th 1888 "Grandma"
Born May 9th 1815 Eliza S. Leggett
Today Sept. 24th 1888 I find this blank space and I think it is the last unwritten page will say it is a most charming day. I will not talk for just at this moment some lines come to me so expressive of what will be:
"Say to the laughing troop
That from the threshold starts
Led on by courage and immortal hope
And with the morning in their heart
They to the disappointed earth shall give
The lives we meant to live,
Beautiful free and strong;
The light we almost had
Shall make them glad;
The words we wanted
Shall make them glad
The words we wanted
Shall come in music from their voice and song
Unto our world hope`s daily oracles
From their lips shall be brought;
And in our life love`s hourly miracles
By them be wrought
Their merry task shall be
To make the house all fine and sweet
Its new inhabitants to greet;
The wondrous star-eyed twentieth century
And now the close of this fair day has come;
The bay grew duskier on its purple floor
And the long curve of foam
Drew its white net about the shore
Through the fading saffron light,
Through the deepening dusk of even
The round earth rolled into the summer night
And watched the kindling of the star in heaven."
I think some of these lines are so tender this one, "The light we almost had shall make them glad." Dear Augustus, will all this that the poet [which poet?] says come true?
I will try to get together a party we once had to tea, grandfather William Haight Leggett and his wife Margaret, Augustus Wright Leggett, Mr. C. A. Dunn and his wife, Mr. Park Godwin and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Ripley, Mrs. Kirkland well a more merry company could not meet. Everyone full of the keenest appreciation of the opportunity for talk, anecdotes followed anecdotes, everything seemed and was electric, they talked, they laughed, they could not give time for the echoes to die off from the last applause before again came the wit, clear wine of the vintage. In this class of persons there is no affectation, they clasp hand in further extravagance of delight, tears run down the cheeks for the fun of the thing, the current is not broken quick leaps and flashes. They throw their arms about on the nearest shoulder and clasp it in very delight like boys at school. Often several would meet in the twilight, the walks around the harbor were charming. A stroll from Bryant`s up to "Hill Side," our home, was a familiar ramble and beyond up on our hill to the home under the great butternut tree. For this point the finest view of the harbor, hill, the small lakes, the bay, the sand bar, and farms on the east side of level sand, then the village below, the sounds mingling with the twilight hours so indescribable, so enchanting and in memory still so sweet.
Julia Bryant [any relation to William Cullen Bryant?] was a young boarding school miss. She went to the Miss Edward`s, this was the most select and every way desirable school in New York. On the east side of our home was a long piazza, just below us the village hardly visible except in bits of homes. The hill was terraced down, and filled with small locust trees, and sweet briar, all pretty in the way of wild flowers and vines, a very tall cherry tree at the corner of the piazza. It was so very tall because it had to reach so far up for all the light it wanted, like this: first it started and had to get six feet before it was out of the shadows of the basement of the house; then it threw out a few branches still in shadow of the first story and the shade of the piazza and so it kept up a determined advance to reach the sun somehow until it grew way above the second story. Oh it was ever so tall, but the cherries black and big. The children liked to get on the roof of the piazza and pitch them while the boys would climb the tree to its top branch. What a view there of the sparkling bay, the far away Sound, the busy village and the heavy sound of laughter from George Allen`s [(?-?)] stables.
One morning Julia and a bevy of school girls who were out for a vacation came and bounced upon the piazza where I was sitting. Down they got on their knees with "Oh we are so tired, had such fun, walked over and it was hot?" They liked the ginger bread Aunt Dorcas [(?-?)] had just sent up fresh from the oven, ate it as if they were half starved, all talked together, "Say won`t you come over to tea? We want to have fun, won`t Mr. Leggett come, Jule says he`s funny` say yes! Oh dear, it`s so hot. Isn`t this just lovely ginger bread, and the queer little lake under the hill? Say isn`t this nice up here?" So the happy girls rattled off the gay spirits of freedom. Pretty Agnes Maxwell, how did she know "what the future might be?" What did she care, the petted child of Fortune? Could she see the dark clouds of the desperate War of the Rebellion, or that she was to be the wife and widow of General Phil Kearney [(1815-1862)
In Paris c. 1851, following the failure of his marriage, Kearney fell in love with Agnes, but his wife would not grant a divorce. He later injured himself in a riding accident, and Agnes moved in to take care of him. Kearny and Agnes lived in "Bellgrove" (his estate in Newark), until 1858 when his wife finally granted a divorce. Then they moved back to Paris, and were married. They returned to the U.S. with their three children upon the outbreak of the Civil War. His son, Archibald, died in 1862. Kearney himself died in an ambush at Second Bull Run (Manassas) on 1 September 1862.]
with a darker destiny beyond [meaning?] this daughter of the great Judge Maxwell? [(?-?), at one point, customs collector of New York City; later a judge?]..... Yes "Mr. Leggett is so nice, what is your name, your real name? Can`t we call you by your real name?" "Oh don`t ask me, pray don`t, the only thing I have against my mother is the name she gave me." "Oh what is it? What is it?" "I never do tell, never even sign it in full, just initials, you know, you`d never like me if you knew it."... "Don`t girls don`t, this is the one tender point with Mr. Leggett, he never mentions it. It was only by accident we heard it." How good of Mrs. Bryant to come to the rescue then such a clapping of hands. "Oh delightful, a mystery. Can we guess? Is it Peter? Is it a Bible name? Tell us the first letter?" "J" "Well why is it James or John or Julius or Jeremiah, oh what is it? Don`t sigh about it. It is not as bad as that. Mercy it isn`t Je---, gracious it isn`t that, tell do tell, are you, it can`t be that, your mother wouldn`t dare to call you that, mercy sakes." "Don`t, girls don`t torment Mr. Leggett if he doesn`t want to tell you his names." "Names! How many names have you got? Do you know we are dying, just dying to know, J J Will you tell us if we guess?" "Can`t." "Why, Mr. Leggett, you look just as if you were going to cry." Mrs. Bryant suggests that he tell them under a promise of secrecy. "Oh, we`ll never, never never tell. We declare, we never will." Mrs. Bryant sends the waiter out of the room. "Then upon honor..." No we never, never
never will tell." "Well, now girls, you never will like me if I tell. Shall I Mrs. Bryant, would you trust them?" "Yes," she would. "Now promise you won`t nickname me." "Yes, we never never will, good gracious what can be, it isn`t, oh dear don`t say it if it is, it isn`t J----" They sighed as tho some evil was going to spoil their fun. Certainly if it was that it was dreadful wicked in his mother to give him such a name "awful!" Yes it would be "awful!" "My name is JEHOSEPHAT!" Such a scream! Such a relief! "Oh good Mr. Jehosephat, it is a horrid name, but we thought maybe it was ...oh dear we are so glad it is Jehosephat. Did you get the money of some old miser? Tell us why your mother called you Jehosephat. Can`t you change it? Did your father like it? Did Mrs. Leggett know what your name was before she married you? Why my gracious." "No, I never told my name. It was always a secret sorrow. Not until tonight has she known it. Always has called me G- She thought it might be and so has spared my feelings by not urging me to tell. How is it that I have told you this one sore spot in my mind don`t let my children know it still call me Mr. Leggett if they or anyone is by." "Yes, we will, we will and never mind you are charming anyway have you forgiven your mother?" "Not quite." [This must be a joke. There is no Jehosephat Leggett in the records! But just which Leggett man is the subject of all this merriment?]
"Come early at four o`clock, we want to get up a picnic for Thursday." Next day a troop, the same gay girls, met us on our way under the old oak, two were carrying a huge boquet as large as a bushel basket, mullien stalks with the tall spire of yellow blossoms, a cabbage for the central beauty, horse raddish leaves love lies bleeding lady slippers pulled up by the roots, a gorgeous array of sunflowers never such a posey offering; as they approached a deep obeisance to us as they presented the floral gift fit for the greatest heathen divinity, singing in chorus, verses for the Great Jehosephat. So the picnic should be in the Camp Meeting Grove, if it did not rain, well it won`t rain, some fearful one said another, "You ought to be ashamed of yourself to throw cold water on the fun." "Well, it always does," says another. "It looks cloudy doesn`t it Mrs. Kirkland?" "Well, s`pose it does there`s the barn. So then come now then. So rain or shine the festival will come off."
Of course it did rain not much, "none to hurt" father said father always said that all his life nothing bad enough to hurt much the barn a huge clean hall it made the good things were on a big bin, quilts and cushions made nice seats, and a swing was fixed to the beam. Yes, it was a really gracious big old barn and hay not yet in, so there was hide and go seek. The girls danced and told riddles and guessed conundrums, and were happy. Mrs. Kirkland was a famous storyteller. The barn was on a pretty high hill, the bay just below. "Oh but isn`t this just lovely, tra la tra la." Sweet Agnes, pretty Victoria, all seemed a company of wood nymphs. "What`s the matter?" Such a scream part a scare, part a laugh what on Earth who is it? Pinkney`s [?] mule and a horrid old gypsey! How the girls huddled into the corner how they rushed back again to see the cray [crazy?] thing mule and old witch come tumbling up the hill scream again Pinkney`s mule the terror of the village. He would rush into the barn with the old hag. "Oh dear Mrs. Bryant, Mrs. Leggett, Mrs. Kirkland, what is it?" then came mild thunder and the dreadful "orful" thing came straight to the barn door and put his stubborn old head into Mrs. Kirkland`s lap. "Would we have our fortunes told?" "Oh good, good," clapping hands. "Who`ll be first?" "Mrs. Kirkland aren`t you afraid?" Then the bit of silver and the future told. What did she tell you and you?
Oh dear, mine`s lovely I can`t tell else it won`t come true. It is over off and downhill stumbled the crazy things and down fell the cart, mule, overwent the fortune teller up she leaped "Oh! you miserable man! [Is this "Jehosephat" Leggett?] How could you, and now, you have fooled us and our fortunes are spoiled forever." Ah, where now are the sparkling joyous girls fifty years ago my darling, fifty years ago. In an old scrap book of Aunt Augusta [Leggett] Pease [Mrs. Elisha Brook Pease, (1851-1903)] is a little faded envelope with the picture of a small dog in one corner, and a lock of hair enclosed, and addressed to "My Friend, Jehosephat, from Agnes Maxwell." Eight girls, what have the fifty years been to them? Of all, Julia Bryant, much of her time spent in Europe.
I leave a space someone may know [about the girls?] and put it down. If, Augustus you care at any time to know more of the pleasures, we enjoyed so many. Books I have hastily written will give you points. If I were not as old as I am I would make an effort to put in shape a sort of summer book, of these familiar bits that were enjoyed with the dear family and their friends at "Cedar Mere."
"Come," Mrs. Bryant would say, "come Eliza, you and Augustus whenever you hear of any friend that you would like to meet being with us, I will try to let you know and consider that an invitation so that the neighbors will think you came by accident. Often little Dutch John came to us saying "Cum, cum now, there`s a big man over there, cum now to tea, it someone from the States I guess." This would mean from another state generally Massachusetts. Such nice talks and banterings between these men made boys again by their reminiscences.
I like to tell little incidents of Bryant and his blessed wife. She was so good to me to us all. Perhaps I have not told of this homeopathy it was not much accepted in New York. When your mother [her daughter, Margaret "Minnie" Wright Leggett, (1843-1928] was in her second summer, Dr. Grey [(?-?)] and his partner Dr. Hull [(?-?)] were the best known indeed had made the greatest success. Those who favored the little pills were laughed at. Mr. and Mrs. Bryant believed in the "new light" as it was called and were great friends of Dr. Grey. Your mother was pretty sick, nothing seemed to help her summer complaint. One day Mrs. Bryant came and said, "I have come Eliza," now I am going to try and make you understand how she pronounced my name, "Eleyza" now make that musical and you will somehow know what a tenderness their was as she always took my hand and pressed it emphasizing each syllable as though it was a note of music and her voice so sweet, and her eyes so tender. She was not handsome, yet so full of human sympathy, one would think she was. Just here before I tell you about how she cured your mother, when I saw her in her home for the last time, she had sent Mr. Bryant over to Henry`s to see me. "I have come," he said, "to ask you when we shall expect you." "Tomorrow," I replied. "Oh, my wife cannot wait, she is holding out her arms for you come today." Yes, she met us, Aunt Anne and myself, taking a hand of each as we entered the door. "Oh Eliza, have you come? Why did you go away? I have had some trees cut down that I might as least see the home and would think or try to think that you were there." Ah what a visit we had! I have written I think in this book, if not in this, in others where Bryant recited his "Autumn Walks" before it was published just at the close of the [Civil] war. It was a sort of heavenly time.
So she said, "Lock the door Eliza for we should only be laughed at if it was known I had come with the little pills I know you have no faith in these things but try them and get for you and baby both a good night`s rest well Minnie got well yet I am not a disciple.
Augustus, if ever thee wants to make a more clear story of old times, thee can find all kinds of bits or reminiscences thro the many books that will be scattered thro the family. To Eliza Seaman Randall [surely a transcription error; the reference must be to her daughter Anna Seaman Leggett Randall, Mrs. Corrydon Chandler Randall, (1848-1934)] I intend to give what I have called the Bryant Book, thinking it may serve her in some way thro the literary line that she seems to incline to, so heedless I have been in making anything like a connected story However, I will find the items, and anyone may use anything I leave, working them up in their his own way.
I have just finished writing a letter to the Rev. Theodore A. Leggett [(1845-1906), author of the authoritative Leggett genealogy, Early Settlers of West Farms], he lives on Staten Island, New Brighton, has been for many years collecting items and dates, wills, everything he can find of the Leggett family, has an unbroken record from the Conquest, [Norman Conquest, 1066; he makes no such claim in Early Settlers] not a link gone, says he has spent time, labor, and money and has the greatest array of facts gathered from tomb stones, Kings College, Herald`s offices, many papers from underground cellars - oh lots of stuff. I guess he is going to get or make a book. Uncle Frank [assume she is referring to Francis William Leggett 1833-1907 of New York City] says he is very rich. I wonder if I shall live to see it. [No, even Theodore Leggett did not live to see it; Early Settlers was published posthumously in 1913.] I think how [thy?] grandpa [Augustus Wright Leggett, (1816-1885)?] would rub his hands, and hang up all the dead bones of history to add to this record perhaps he knows all about it who knows?
For the beginning of this conclusion of Uncle Gilly [Gilbert Bogart,(17??-18??) see p. 41, below] see 25. Have I this funny way of doing thinking. I have room to tell all that comes in my mind, and I find a flood is pouring in. Well as I said, my dear mother was so placid and as scolding was the natural expression of his face, mother never suspected anything. I supposed Uncle was well pleased, it was all that my sister [-in-law] Maria [(Mary) Bogart Wright, (1790-1873), Mrs. James Valentine Seaman] could do to keep the irascible old gent from blowing out, so that mother could hear. That he did not dare to do, for Maria would not allow it. All this was sort of fun to us, and we were told, often if a little chick was weak or cold, mother would put it in her warm bosom she could not hear it "peep" and often at the dinner table it would "peep peep" One would laugh, and mother would say "I suppose there is something pleasant going on, I wish I could hear it." It was funny to hear uncle dispute with the old gentleman mathematician. On the exact rules that that composed that inexorable science, they would quarrel. [My brother] James and Maria were very fond of visiting and to leave the little children always one a baby. Uncle Gilly thought this was a shame, would always scold, and always take the best kind of care grumbling the little one to sleep. When he had to put on a clean shirt he protested to the last minute like Domini Sampson [?] he would fight to the last. My brother James painted his portrait, a bent little wrinkled man in an old fashioned wooden chair, with red and white pocket handkerchief over his knees, his eyebrows fell over his eyes very much like those little lap dogs, spitz are they? Well for all that he lost which eyes or ear could convey to the senses.
September 22, 1888 Drayton. This is as broken up a "bit of writin`" as can well be. Think of it all as a talk often interrupted. You know how that is. One gets into a pretty fair way of telling something, feels rather good over it when in steps an "excuse me, don`t let me interrupt" and "the steam boat lands." I find a fair sheet, I really wonder Gus if thee can get or keep the clue of this thing of old times reminiscences, love stories, broken bits thee is pretty good at sorting out grain from the chaff. I feel a little sentimental today, that does not mean sad, only the past comes up with its lights and shadows only think Augustus, think of the long past of thy life childhood, youth, middle-age, old age I think each life is a poem. I think no book has ever been written or can be where all that could be said of what has been could be like the reality. We read a novel and exclaim at its intensity and say, "Perhaps it is too highly wrought."
...Continued in the Notes for Louis's brother, Clarence Ives.
Note: LETTERS OF ELIZA SEAMAN LEGGETT TO HER GRANDSON AUGUSTUS WRIGHT IVES, 1
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