Better known abroad in the early part of the century than any other American city, all travellers of consequence came to Philadelphia. Among these we find such men as General Moreau, counted after Bonaparte the greatest general in the French Republic; the younger Murat, who married Miss Fraser, of South Carolina; the Marquis de Grouchy, whose name will be forever associated with the defeat of Waterloo; the poet Moore, whose singing drew tears from the beautiful eyes of Mrs. Joseph Hopkinson; the Prince de Canino, son-in-law of Joseph Bonaparte, ex-king of Spain, who, himself residing at Bordentown until 1830, was doubtless a guest of the Wistar Association, although, after the fashion of princes, it was his pleasure to entertain rather than to be entertained. These and many more, including President Madison, and the witty and able Virginia gentleman William Short, who, as secretary of legation under Thomas Jefferson, chargé-d’affaires to the French Republic, and minister to Spain and the Netherlands, had seen much of foreign official and social life. An acquaintance of Talleyrand, himself a diplomatist, life abroad offered Mr. Short many attractions, which a friend and contemporary assures us were more than balanced by the terrors of the sea, which menaced him in the form of sea-sickness. This gentleman, a surviving member of the Wistar Association of 1837, recalls no social intercourse in Old-World cities more delightful than that of this informal club.
While on a visit to Philadelphia in 1825, the Duke of Saxe-Weimar makes the following entry in his journal:
“At Mr. Walsh’s I found a numerous assembly, mostly of scientific and literary gentlemen. This assembly is called ‘Wistar Party.’... The conversation generally relates to literary and scientific topics. I unexpectedly met Mr. E. Livingston in this assembly. I was also introduced to the mayor of the city, Mr. [Joseph] Watson, as well as to most of the gentlemen present, whose interesting conversation afforded me much entertainment.”
This German nobleman, who was well “wined and dined” in old Philadelphia, seems to have possessed a happy faculty of replying aptly to the pretty compliments paid him and his country by Judge Peters, Mr. Charles J. Ingersoll, and other social magnates of the period. To the toast “Weimar, the native country of letters,” he replied, with ready wit, “Pennsylvania, the asylum of unfortunate Germans.” Can we not hear the laughter and applause that greeted that toast? They were not allowed to subside, either, as the venerable Judge Peters followed the toast with a song which he had composed the previous evening, and which he sang with great vivacity and spirit. Are there any such gatherings now, and do our octogenarians sing songs of their own composing with vivacity?
The Duke of Saxe-Weimar describes another Wistar Party, this at the house of Colonel Clement C. Biddle, at which John Quincy Adams, then President of the United States, was a guest. Of him he says,—
“The President is about sixty years old, of rather short stature, with a bald head, and of a very plain and worthy appearance. He speaks little, but what he does speak is to the purpose. I must confess that I seldom in my life felt so true and sincere a reverence as at the moment when this honorable gentleman, whom eleven millions of people have thought worthy to elect as their chief magistrate, shook hands with me.”
In the same year Chief Justice Tilghman records a Wistar Party held at his house, at which were present such citizens as Roberts Vaux, Mathew Carey, the Irish protectionist, his son Henry C. Carey, political economist and writer, Joseph Hopkinson, the elder Peale, who had studied at the Royal Academy in London and came home to paint portraits of Washington and his generals, Dr. Frederick Beasley, and many more, with a sprinkling of foreigners,—Mr. Pedersen, Minister from Denmark to the United States, the Prince de Canino, who was an enthusiastic ornithologist, Colonel Beckwith, who had left a leg upon the field of Waterloo, and several French chevaliers. The whole company, numbering about one hundred, was regaled with chicken salad, oysters, ices, wine, punch, and the like, at an expense of twenty-four dollars and eighty-nine cents. This moderate sum, the accurate transcriber tells us, included the whiskey for the punch, the spermaceti candles, oil for the lamps, and extra fire in one room.
Later in the history of the Wistar Club, after the good founders had gone, and left it to its own devices, serious innovations were made in the old sumptuary code, whereupon severe strictures were instituted against the dainty fare set before the wise men, in the local journals and elsewhere. One of these attacks upon the Wistarians appeared in the then recently established Daily Courier, and is interesting not only because the slashing editorial of the young writer ended the brief career of his paper, but because its demise is intimately connected with the rise of two prominent journals of to-day. It happened that many of the subscribers to the Daily Courier were members or guests of the Wistar Parties. These persons instantly withdrew their patronage. The Courier was shaken to its foundations, and the unfortunate young Scotchman, James Gordon Bennett, whose pen had proved too sharp for Philadelphia, sold his journal to Mr. Jesper Harding, upon which the Daily Courier was merged in the Pennsylvania Inquirer, and Mr. Bennett, having transplanted his talents to the more congenial soil of New York, later employed them in founding the New York Herald.[28]
Written invitations to the Wistar Parties seem to have been used up to 1835, when Mr. Vaughan first speaks of a printed invitation. This bore the quaint queued head of Dr. Wistar, and is in all respects similar to that issued by the Wistar Association redivivus of 1886.
In 1838 and 1839 printed lists appeared, naming the hosts of the season, and giving the dates of the several entertainments. To these were appended sumptuary regulations, which were of course born to die. Just when the terrapin, game, croquette, and like dainties replaced the original decanters, flanked with ice, cakes, and one substantial course, Mr. Tyson does not record. When the terrapin came, however, it came to stay, until the hot discussions incident to the disturbances of the late civil war routed it and the guests alike.