My hat has come home, and it is very pretty; it is a sherred blue crape, without any ribbon—trimmed very simply with blue crape and illusion mixed and the same inside.
Mrs. William Le Roy has been to see you. Ma thinks that you had better come home when you first expected—on Tuesday or Wednesday. I am very much disappointed that you are not here to go to the Kembles as you have a dress to wear.
You can tell Adeline [Adeline Camilla Scott], if you please, that Mr. Pendleton wants to know the use of sending her to school when her head is filled with beaux and parties. I told him her mother did it to keep her out of mischief. Bucknor says he thinks it is time for you to come home. If you stay much longer my spring fever will come on and I shall get so many things there will be no money left for you. Besides Mr. Pendleton is going to the Bucknor's some day next week and I am going to get him to stop for me, and if you are home I shall invite you to go along. Beek Fish will be there the same evening with his flute. He told Emily B. that his sister [Mrs. Thomas Pym Remington of Philadelphia] had written them that you had been in Philadelphia and that she was so delighted to see you.
Leslie Irving told me that he had seen a letter in the Commercial Advertiser from Thomas Turner [subsequently Rear Admiral Turner, U.S.N.] to Hamilton Fish. He thought of sending it to you, but he thought some one else had probably done so. I hear that they [the Fishes] are to have a party. The Bankheads [General James Bankhead's daughters] are going to spend the summer at West Point. Pa and Jim are better. Pa rode out yesterday and walked out to-day. He has been in a great state of excitement about General Scott. It was reported two days ago that he was killed and he was afraid it was true. Vera Cruz, I believe, is taken. I cannot write any longer, I'm so tired. I will send Cornelia's [Cornelia Scott] purse by H. Forbes [Harriet Forbes, Mrs. Colhoun of Philadelphia].
M. Campbell.
Saturday April 10th.
Pa thinks it is time for you to come home. Do you know of any opportunity? I shall not send anything to you. You see you never will take my advice in anything. I told you to bring your pink dress with you but you would not. I suppose I shall not hear from you again. Pa says you can do as you please about staying longer.
Elizabeth, New Jersey, was a quaint old town whose inhabitants seemed almost exclusively made up of Barbers, Ogdens and Chetwoods, with a sprinkling of De Harts. There was a steamboat plying between Elizabethport (now a part of the City of Elizabeth) and New York, and we were its frequent patrons. Ursino, the country seat of the Kean family, then as now was one of the historic places of the neighborhood. As I remember the beautiful old home, it was occupied by John Kean, father of the late senior U.S. Senator from New Jersey. At an earlier period the latter's great-grandfather had married Susan Livingston, a daughter of Peter Van Brough Livingston of New York, and resided at Ursino. After the death of her husband she married Count Julian Niemcewicz, who was called the "Shakespeare of Poland" and who came to America with Kosciusco, upon whose staff he had served. She was also the grandmother of Mrs. Hamilton Fish. Another noted estate in the same general neighborhood, was "Abyssinia," owned and occupied for a long period by the Ricketts family, whose walls were highly decorated by one of its artistic members. I am informed that it still stands but that it is used, alas, for mechanical purposes!
I recall with intense pleasure another of my visits to New Jersey when I was a guest at the home of General and Mrs. Scott in Elizabeth. Isabella Cass of Detroit, daughter of General Lewis Cass, was also there at the same time. She attended school in Paris while her father was Minister to France and received other educational advantages quite unusual for women at that time. While residing in Washington at a subsequent period she was regarded as one of the reigning belles. She married a member of the Diplomatic Corps from the Netherlands and lived and died abroad. A constant visitor of the Scott family whom I recall with great pleasure was Thomas Turner, subsequently an Admiral in our Navy. He was a Virginian by birth and a near relative of General Robert E. Lee; but, though possessing the blood of the Carters, he remained during the Civil War loyal to the national flag. His wife was Frances Hailes Palmer of "Abyssinia."
Still another guest of the Scotts in Elizabeth was the erratic but decidedly brilliant Doctor William Starbuck Mayo. Although Mrs. Scott was a Mayo, they were not related. He was from the northern part of the State of New York, while Mrs. Scott, as is well known, was from Virginia. Doctor Mayo, however, was an ardent admirer of Mrs. Scott and made the fact apparent in much that he said and did. He was the author of several works, one of which was a romance entitled "Kaloolah," which he dedicated to Mrs. Scott. When I met him in Washington he was on his first bridal tour, although pretty well advanced in years. His bride was Mrs. Henry Dudley of New York, whose maiden name was Helen Stuyvesant. She was the daughter of Nicholas William Stuyvesant and one of the heirs of the large estate of Peter G. Stuyvesant. During Van Buren's administration, Doctor Mayo was a social light in Washington.