It may here be stated that Mr. Astor's solicitude concerning Mr. Monroe's financial obligation was duly relieved, and that the debt was paid in full.
John Jacob Astor's numerous descendants can lay this "flattering unction" to their souls, that every dollar of his vast wealth was accumulated through thrift while leading an upright life.
An old-fashioned stage coach in my early days ran between New York and Harlem, but the fashionable drive was on the west side of the city along what was then called the "Bloomingdale Road." Many fashionable New Yorkers owned and occupied handsome country seats along this route, and closed their city homes for a period during the heated term. I recall with pleasure the home of the Prussian Consul General and Mrs. John William Schmidt, and especially their attractive daughters. Mr. Schmidt, who came to this country as a bachelor, married Miss Eliza Ann Bache of New York. Quite a number of years subsequent to this event, before they had children of their own, they adopted a little girl whom they named Julia and whom I knew very well in my early girlhood. As equestrian exercise was popular in New York at that time, many of the young men and women riding on the Bloomingdale Road would stop at the Schmidts' hospitable home, rest their horses and enjoy a pleasing half-hour's conversation with the daughters of the household. Among the fair riders was Mary Tallmadge, a famous beauty and a daughter of General James Tallmadge. During her early life and at a period when visits abroad were few and far between, her father accompanied her to Europe. During her travels on the continent she visited St. Petersburg, where her beauty created a great sensation. While there the Emperor Nicholas I. presented her with a handsome India shawl. She returned to America, married Philip S. Van Rensselaer, a son of the old Patroon, and lived for many years on Washington Square in New York.
Alexander Hamilton and family also owned and occupied a house in this charming suburb called "The Grange." It was subsequently occupied by Herman Thorne, who had married Miss Jane Mary Jauncey, a wealthy heiress of New York. He lived in this house only a few years when he went with his wife to reside in Paris during the reign of Louis Philippe. Mr. Thorne became the most prominent American resident there and excited the envy of many of his countrymen by his lavish expenditure of money. His daughters made foreign matrimonial alliances. He was originally from Schenectady, for a time was a purser in the U.S. Navy, and was remarkable for his handsome presence and courtly bearing.
Jacob Lorillard lived in a handsome house in Manhattanville, a short distance from the Bloomingdale Road. He began life, first as an apprentice and then as a proprietor, in the tanning and hide business, and his tannery was on Pearl Street. He then, with his brothers, embarked in the manufacture and sale of snuff and tobacco, in which, as is well known, he amassed an immense fortune. My earliest recollection of the family is in the days of its great prosperity. One of Mr. Lorillard's daughters, Julia, who married Daniel Edgar, I knew very well, and I recall a visit I once made her in her beautiful home, where I also attended her wedding a few years later. At this time her mother was a widow, and shortly after the marriage the place was sold to the Catholic order of the Sacre Coeur. Mrs. Jacob Lorillard was a daughter of the Rev. Doctor Johann Christoff Kunze, professor of Oriental Languages in Columbia College.
Many years ago the wags of London exhausted their wits in fittingly characterizing and ridiculing the numerous equipages of a London manufacturer of snuff and tobacco. One couplet suggestive of the manner in which this vast wealth was acquired, was
Who would have thought it
That Noses had bought it.
The suitor of the daughter of this wealthy Englishman was appropriately dubbed "Up to Snuff." Alas, this ancestral and aristocratic luxury of snuff departed many years ago, but succeeding generations have been "up to snuff" in many other ways. The gold snuff-box frequently studded with gems which I remember so well in days gone by and especially at the home Gouverneur Kemble in Cold Spring, where it was passed around and freely used by both men and women, now commands no respect except as an ancestral curio. Dryden, Dean Swift, Pope, Addison, Lord Chesterfield, Dr. Johnson, Garrick, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Keats, Charles Lamb, Gibbon, Walter Scott and Darwin were among the prominent worshipers of the snuff-box and its contents, while some of them indulged in the habit to the degree of intemperance. In describing his manner of using the snuff-box Gibbon wrote: "I drew my snuff-box, rapped it, took snuff twice, and continued my discourse in my usual attitude of my body bent forwards, and my fore-finger stretched out;" and Boswell wrote in its praise:
Oh, snuff! our fashionable end and aim—
Strasburgh, Rappe, Dutch, Scotch—whate'er thy name!
Powder celestial! quintessence divine
New joys entrance my soul while thou art mine;
Who takes? who takes thee not? Where'er I range
I smell thy sweets from Pall Mall to the 'Change.
While the spirit of patriotism was as prevalent in early New York as it is now, it seems to me that it was somewhat less demonstrative. The 4th of July, however, was anticipated by the youngsters of the day with the greatest eagerness and pleasure. It was the habit of my father, for many years, to take us children early in the morning to the City Hall to attend the official observances of the day, an experience which we naturally regarded as a great privilege. Booths were temporarily erected all along the pavement in front of the City Hall, where substantial food was displayed and sold to the crowds collected to assist in celebrating the day. About noon several military companies arrived upon the scene and took their positions in the park, where, after a number of interesting maneuvers, a salute was fired which was terrifying to my youthful nerves. Small boys, then as now, provided themselves with pistols, and human life was occasionally sacrificed to patriotic ardor, although I never remember hearing of cases of lockjaw resulting from such accidents, as is so frequently the case at present. Firecrackers and torpedoes were then in vogue, but skyrockets and more elaborate fireworks had not then come into general use. I do not recall that the national flag was especially prominent upon the "glorious fourth," and it is my impression that this insignia of patriotism was not universally displayed upon patriotic occasions until the Civil War.