A Backward Glance at Eighty: Recollections & Comment

by Charles A. Murdock

I have passed on from my first impressions in the country perhaps unwarrantedly. It is hard to differentiate consistently. I may have mixed early memories with more mature realization. I did not live with my grandmother continuously. I went back and forth as convenience and others' desires prompted. I do not know what impressions of life in the Pemberton House came first. Very early I remember helping my busy little mother, who in the spring of the year uncorded all the bedsteads and made life miserable for the festive bedbugs by an application of whale oil from a capable feather applied to the inside of all holes through which the ropes ran. The re-cording of the beds was a tedious process requiring two persons, and I soon grew big enough to count as one. I remember also the little triangular tin candlesticks that we inserted at the base of each of the very small panes of the window when we illuminated the hotel on special nights. I distinctly recall the quivering of the full glasses of jelly on tapering disks that formed attractive table ornaments.

Daniel Webster was often the central figure at banquets in the Pemberton. General Sam Houston, Senator from Texas, was also entertained, for I remember that my father told me of an incident that occurred many years after, when he passed through San Antonio. As he strolled through the city he saw the Senator across the street, but, supposing that he would not be remembered, had no thought of speaking, whereupon Houston called out, "Young man, are you not going to speak to me!" My father replied that he had not supposed that he would be remembered. "Of course I remember meeting you at the Pemberton House in Boston."

I remember some of the boarders, regular and transient, distinguished and otherwise. There was a young grocery clerk who used to hold me in his lap and talk to me. He became one of the best of California's governors, Frederick F. Low, and was a close friend of Thomas Starr King. A wit on a San Francisco paper once published at Thanksgiving time "A Thanksgiving proclamation by our stuttering reporter—'Praise God from whom all blessings f-f-low.'" In my memory he is associated with Haymaker Square.

I well remember the famous circus clown of the period, Joe Pentland, very serious and proper when not professionally funny. A minstrel who made a great hit with "Jim Crow" once gave me a valuable lesson on table manners. One Barrett, state treasurer, was a boarder. He had a standing order: "Roast beef, rare and fat; gravy from the dish." Madame Biscaccianti, of the Italian opera, graced our table. So did the original Drew family.

The hotel adjoined the Howard Athenaeum, and I profited from peeping privileges to the extent of many pins. I recall some wonderful trained animals—Van Amberg's, I think. A lion descended from back-stage and crawled with stealth upon a sleeping traveler in the foreground. It was thrilling but harmless. There were also some Viennese dancers, who introduced, I believe, the Cracovienne. I remember a "Sissy Madigan," who seemed a wonder of beauty and charm.

There was great excitement when the Athenaeum caught on fire. I can see the trunks being dragged down the stairs to the damage of the banisters, and great confusion and dismay among our boarders. A small boy was hurried in his nightie across the street and kept till all danger had passed. A very early memory is the marching through the streets of soldiers bound for the Mexican War.

Off and on, I lived in Boston till 1849, when my father left for California and the family returned to Leominster.

My first school in Boston was in the basement of Park Street Church. Hermann Clarke, son of our minister, Rev. James Freeman Clarke, was a fellow pupil. Afterward I went to the Mayhew Grammar School, connected in my mind with a mild chastisement for imitating a trombone when a procession passed by. The only other punishment I recall was a spanking by my father for playing "hookey" and roaming in the public garden. I remember Sunday-school parades through certain public streets. But the great event was the joining of all the day schools in the great parade when Cochituate water was introduced into the city. It was a proud moment when the fountain in the frogpond on the Common threw on high the water prodigiously brought from far Cochituate.

Another Boston memory is the Boston Theater, where William Warren reigned. Cinderella and her pumpkin carriage are fresh in my mind. I also recall a waxwork representation of the Birth in the Manger. I still can see the heads of the cattle, the spreading horns, and the blessed Babe.

As I recall my early boyhood, many changes in customs seem suggested. There may be trundle-beds in these days, but I never see them. No fathers wear boots in this era, and bootjacks are as extinct as the dodo. I have kept a few letters written by my mother when I was away from her. They were written on a flat sheet, afterward folded and fastened by a wafer. Envelopes had not arrived; neither had postage-stamps. Sealing-wax was then in vogue and red tape for important documents. In all well-regulated dwellings there were whatnots in the corner with shells and waxworks and other objects of beauty or mild interest. The pictures did not move—they were fixed in the family album. The musical instruments most in evidence were jew's-harps and harmonicas. The Rollo books were well calculated to make a boy sleepy. The Franconia books were more attractive, and "The Green Mountain Boy" was thrilling. A small boy's wildest dissipation was rolling a hoop.