Early in life he married a lady from the neighboring village who had been reared in the same sentiments of devotion to the mother country. After a few years of happy domestic life in their retired home, she died, leaving him with a family of five lovely daughters. Some years later he married a widow from Philadelphia, whose only child by her former marriage was the wife of a banker in that city, Mr. von Francke.
Not far from the dwelling of Mr. Foote, and still nearer to the village, was the residence of Mr. Thorpe, a handsome building conformed to the fashion of European suburban mansions. He was also an Englishman in his tastes and habits, but of a less tenacious cast than his neighbor, whom he often annoyed by assailing some of his cherished whims and humors. Nevertheless, they lived on terms of the most cordial intimacy and friendship.
Mr. Thorpe married the only child of Mr. Earle, a banker in Philadelphia, who was the senior partner of Mrs. Foote’s son-in-law. She was a beautiful and highly accomplished lady. Endowed with rare ability, discrimination, and firmness, no sophistry could mislead the nice sense of justice which governed all her decisions. Her father’s position and financial operations
had opened a wide circle of acquaintance in all the cities of the new world, and his fine social qualities, combined with the fascinations of his gifted daughter—whose mother had died when she was too young to realize the loss—attracted crowds to his hospitable mansion. Great was the surprise in the fashionable city circle among whom she moved when she chose from the host of her admirers a plain country gentleman, of unquestionable merit, it was true, but of very simple, not to say rustic, manners and retiring habits.
She brought to her secluded home all the refined graces and elegant embellishments of her former one, and sustained perfectly, in the midst of her rural associations, the quiet dignity that had always distinguished her; while she continued to exercise the generous hospitality to which she had been accustomed in her father’s house.
Some years previous to the beginning of the war of independence, her father retired from active business, left his affairs in the hands of his partner, Mr. von Francke, and went to share his daughter’s home, now adorned with seven fair sons, so tenderly beloved by their grandfather that he could not bear to be separated from them. New Jersey was then, as it is still, a thoroughfare between the States of the Atlantic coast. From the first settlement it had been the most turbulent of the provinces. Always violently agitated by territorial and political questions, it was prepared to enter with vehemence into the merits of those which had arisen between the colonies and the mother country. In none of them were the exciting topics of the day discussed
more fiercely, pro and con, than in this.
During the stirring events of the years immediately preceding and following the memorable “’76” the house of Mr. Thorpe, much to the chagrin of his intolerant neighbor, became the rendezvous of many prominent men, most of them old friends of his father-in-law, of all shades of political opinion, and of every religious and non-religious party.
Through the holidays of Christmas and New Year’s the two families always entertained a multitude of friends, and there was a round of festivities between them, in which the neighboring villagers participated. Mr. Foote, who, as might be expected, was a Tory of the most malignant type, selected his guests from the class who were in sympathy with him, and accused his more moderate neighbor of treason, because he, his father-in-law, and his lovely wife tolerated persons of different views, and acknowledged the force of their objections to British rule.
Fifty years later it was my good fortune, among the felicitous chances of a specially favored childhood, to pass the greater portion of three years under the roof of a house built after the precise pattern of Mr. Foote’s, though of somewhat smaller dimensions, in a little village on the south bank of the St. Lawrence. Here his youngest daughter, Anna, resided, and shared her home with her step-sister, Mrs. von Francke, from Philadelphia, the widow of Mr. Earle’s partner, who occupied a suite of rooms set apart for her use, and was always attended by her waiting-woman, a smiling German matron somewhat advanced in years and very fond of children.