As I Remember

The rambling personal notes threaded together in these pages were written at the urgent request of my family, and have provided a pleasant diversion during otherwise lonely hours. The idea of their publication was highly distasteful to me until the often repeated importunities of many of those whose judgment commands my respect persuaded me that some of the facts and incidents I have recalled would prove of interest to a large circle of readers. The narrative is concerned with persons and events that have interested me during the busy hours of a lengthy life. I have been deeply impressed by the changes wrought by time in the modes of education, which are now so much at variance with those of my childhood, and in the manners and customs of those with whom I have mingled.

I should be guilty of an act of grave injustice if I failed to express my grateful acknowledgments for the aid so unselfishly rendered, in a score of ways, by my daughter, Mrs. Roswell Randall Hoes, without which these pages would not, and could not, have been written.

M. GOUVERNEUR.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I.--EARLY LONG ISLAND DAYS 1

II.--NEW YORK AND SOME NEW YORKERS 21

III.--SCHOOL-DAYS AND EARLY FRIENDS 50

IV.--LIFE AND EXPERIENCES IN THE METROPOLIS 69

V.--LONG BRANCH, NEWPORT AND ELSEWHERE 96

VI.--SOME DISTINGUISHED ACQUAINTANCES 118

VII.--FASHION AND LETTERS 138

VIII.--WASHINGTON IN THE FORTIES 170

IX.--SOCIAL LEADERS IN WASHINGTON LIFE 194

X.--DIPLOMATIC CORPS AND OTHER CELEBRITIES 229

XI.--MARRIAGE AND CONTINUED LIFE IN WASHINGTON 256

XII.--SOJOURN IN CHINA AND RETURN 288

XIII.--THE CIVIL WAR AND LIFE IN MARYLAND 312

XIV.--VISIT TO THE FAR SOUTH AND RETURN TO WASHINGTON 335

XV.--TO THE PRESENT DAY 365

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Mrs. Gouverneur Frontispiece

Samuel L. Gouverneur, Junior 116

Mrs. John Still Winthrop, née Armistead, by Sully 146

Mrs. Charles Eames, née Campbell, by Gambadella 178

Brigadier General Winfield Scott, U.S.A., by Ingham 202

Mrs. James Munroe, née Kortright, by Benjamin West 258

Miniature of James Monroe, painted in Paris in 1794 by Semé 284

Mrs. Gouverneur's three daughters, Miss Gouverneur, Mrs. Roswell Randall Hoes, Mrs. William Crawford Johnson 310

AS I REMEMBER

CHAPTER I

EARLY LONG ISLAND DAYS

I do not know of a spot where, had I been accorded the selection, I should have preferred first to see the light of day, nor one more in keeping with the promptings of sentiment, than the southern shore of Long Island, N.Y., where I was born. My home was in Queens County, on the old Rockaway Road, and often in childhood during storms at sea I have heard the waves dash upon the Rockaway beach. Two miles the other side of us was the village of Jamaica, and from our windows we caught glimpses of the bay that bore its name. My first home was a large old-fashioned house on a farm of many acres, ornamented by Lombardy poplars which stood on each side of the driveway, a fashion introduced into this country by Lafayette. My maternal grandfather, Captain John Hazard, who had commanded a privateersman during the Revolution, purchased the place from "Citizen" Edmond Charles Genet, the first Minister of France to the United States, and I have the old parchment deed of transfer still in my possession. During the War of the Revolution my Grandfather Hazard's ship was captured by Admiral George B. Rodney, and I have often heard my mother tell the story she received from his lips, to the effect that after he was "comfortably housed in irons" on Rodney's ship he overheard a conversation in which his name was frequently mentioned. The subject under discussion was the form of punishment he deserved, and the cheerful remark reached his ear: "Hang the damned rebel." This incident made an indelible impression upon my mother's memory, which was emphasized by the fact that her father bore the scars of those irons to the day of his death.