I said I supposed this was so.
“What happened to the Jumel Mansion after the Roger Morris family left it?” I asked. “Did they come back?”
“No,” he answered. “The Philipse Manor was confiscated and sold with the Morris property, for these two families had gone back to England. . . . There was some mix-up about the income from the properties--war makes that, you know--and the heirs, I suppose, were glad to dispose of the place, for John Jacob Astor, seeing what is to-day called a ‘good buy,’ purchased the right of the heirs, with legal power to transfer, for twenty thousand pounds. . . . Later, the State of New York bought it from him for half a million dollars.
“From the close of the Revolution until Stephen Jumel bought the property, a period of nearly thirty years, the old house was, in turn, a humble farmhouse or an inn. . . . Stages began to go from Albany to New York in 1787, and of course they stopped at the inn. Changed horses, you know. . . . Can’t you see them dashing up in style, the whips cracking, the horses sweating, then the stop, and the ladies, all flounced and hooped of skirt, getting out to walk about and shake the stiffness from their bones? . . . Perhaps a gentleman would say, ‘Will madam do me the proud honour to sup with me?’ and perhaps they had fried chicken and mashed potato and pie--all on the table at once. And I’m sure the innkeeper’s wife frankly listened to their talk, for talk in those days took the place of newspapers, which even our country people get to-day. . . . Then after they’d ‘supped’ I think they’d go out and get in, the ladies most ‘genteel’ settling their skirts, and the gentlemen putting cushions back of them and murmuring something about the ‘glories of all blue skies paling beside the colour of their orbs.’ . . . They did it that way, in those days, Natalie,” Mr. Kempwood ended.
I said I knew it, but that I’d rather have a man say right out if he liked me, that I preferred sensible frankness. Mr. Kempwood said he knew it and that he thought a man would try to be awfully square with me.
Then I said, “What next?” and he smiled and said:
“And--with a crack of a whip, they dashed off to New York, a large town, which lay some ten miles distant from the hamlet of Harlem Heights!”
“Did they go up to see the view, I wonder?”
Mr. Kempwood thought they did. . . . You can see miles from the little balcony at the top of the Jumel Mansion, and then, of course, further, for nothing was built up.
“Yes,” he said, “probably the beau bowed very low and said, ‘Will madam’--or mistress--‘honour me by going up the stairs to see the view from the top balcony, which is rumoured to be the most beauteous, and is of great renown?’ ”