Madame de Staël says: “The homes and haunts of the great ever bear impress of their individuality.” Jean Paul Richter declares: “No thought is lost.” If this be true, how affluent of eloquence, wit and mirth these historic halls must be! They are ready to revive more than the splendor of past days. For a number of years the house, rented to the Government, has been used for offices. But within twelve months it has been purchased by General Edward Fitzgerald Beale, who has rehabilitated it, without remodelling it, for his own family residence. The ample halls and grand salon remain unchanged in proportions, while fresh frescoes, historic devices, French windows and marble vestibule, give to the antique mansion the aspect of modern elegance.
General Beale is the grandson of Commodore Thomas Truxton, one of the first six captains appointed by General Washington in the early navy to guard the commerce of the United States. Commodore Decatur was a favorite midshipman and lieutenant under Truxton; and the grandson of his early commander, in this home of Decatur’s heart, is now preserving every possible souvenir of the sea. The Decatur mansion has passed into fitting hands. Its present owner made his gallant record under Commodore Stockton, and, in imperilling his life for others, has maintained the illustrious escutcheon transmitted him by his ancestors. When the gay season begins, light and music, warmth and cheer, wisdom, beauty and grace will again make these old halls glad. “Memnon-like, the old walls will again give forth sweet sounds.” A new generation will repeat the festivities of the generation gone to dust.
A few rods further on we came to the famous Stockton-Sickles House. Just now it shrinks, shabby and small, below its lofty modern neighbors. It is a white stuccoed house, two stories, with basement and attic, with high steps and square central hall, after the fashion of old times. It was called the Stockton House because Purser Stockton, who married a relative of Commodore Decatur, owned and lived in it. Afterwards, it was occupied by Levi Woodbury, the father of Mrs. Montgomery Blair, who lived here both while Secretary of the Treasury and of the Navy. It was also rented by Mr. Southard, of Georgia, the father of Mrs. Ogden Hoffman. When Mr. and Mrs. Sickles lived in it, it is said that the trees in Lafayette square were so small that the waving of a handkerchief from one of the windows could be distinctly seen at the club house opposite, on the other side of the square. This was the signal used between the first betrayed, then tempted and ruined wife, and the man of the world, to whom seduction was at once a pastime and a profession.
The trunk of the tree against which Key fell when shot by Sickles, may still be seen near the corner of Madison place and Pennsylvania avenue.
A few steps further on, in the middle of the block, stands the famous club-house which has witnessed more of the vicissitudes and tragedy of human life than any other house on the square, excepting, perhaps, the White House. The Club-House is a large, square, three-storied red brick house, built for his own use by Commodore Rogers, of the Navy. After his death, it became a fashionable boarding-house, then a club-house. To one of its rooms Barton Key was borne after being wounded by Sickles. While Secretary-of-State, Mr. Seward occupied the house for eight years, and during that time it was the centre of most elegant hospitality. In the assassination of Mr. Seward, it witnessed its crowning tragedy. In its rooms Mr. Seward and his son languished for months, while slowly recovering from the almost death-blows dealt by Payne.
After their recovery, the lovely and only daughter of Mr. Seward here slowly faded from earth. This young lady was, in a very remarkable degree, the chosen companion and confidante of her father. She not only sympathized profoundly in his pursuits, she shared them with him. I believe she witnessed, with unavailing cries, the attempted assassination of her father. At least, she never recovered from the shock received at that time. With her, passed from earth one of the loveliest spirits which ever shed its pure light upon the social life of the Capital. Her death left Mr. Seward wifeless and daughterless. With everything to live for, she met death with perfect faith and resignation. Her beautiful life, with her triumphant passage through death to a life still more perfect, remained with him to his last moment the most precious memory of her illustrious father.
With all its burden of tragedy and pathetic death, with the departure of the Sewards, the old house did not take on the shadow of gloom. Its parlors never witnessed gayer or more crowded assemblies than thronged them the next winter, when occupied by General Belknap, the Secretary-of-War. This was but for a single season. Another winter dropped its earliest snows on the new-made grave of the young wife and mother, the memory of whose gentle face and graceful presence and tender spirit, will only fade from the Capital with the present generation. It was the last flaming up of festivity in the old house. It has never been gay since Mrs. Belknap died.
The next year it waned into a boarding-house. Even that was not successful. People of sensibility do not wish even to board in a house so haunted with tragic memories of human lives. The house is now used for Government purposes. Its site is so superlative; central to the most interesting objects of Washington, and facing the waving sea of summer-green in Lafayette square. In the march of change its place will soon be filled by some soaring Mansard mansion of the future. But when every brick has vanished, the memories of the old club-house and Seward mansion will survive while any chronicle of Washington endures.
Next to it stands the house of Mr. Benjamin Ogle Tayloe, a descendant of Mr. Tayloe, of Octagon House memory. Mr. and Mrs. Tayloe have occupied this stately house for many years. The reminiscences of Washington published by Mr. Tayloe for private circulation are among the most entertaining records ever written of the Capital.
Next to the Tayloe House, on the corner of Fifteenth and H street, stands the Madison House, in which, as a widow, Mrs. Madison so long held her court. No eminent man retired from service of the state ever had more public recognition and honor bestowed upon him by the Government he had served than did this popular and ever-beloved woman. On New Year’s day, after paying their respects to the President, all the high officers of the Government always adjourned to the house of Mrs. Madison, to pay their respects to her. In her drawing-room political foes met on equal ground, and for the time, public and private animosities were forgotten or ignored.