Invite Mr. Ward McAllister to a Ball to be given by the Citizens of New York to the
PRINCE OF WALES,
At the Academy of Music, on Friday Evening, the twelfth of October, 1860, at nine o’clock.
Peter Cooper, M. B. Field,
Chairman. Secretary.
The ball was to be opened by a Quadrille d’Honneur. Governor and Mrs. Morgan, Mr. Bancroft the historian, and Mrs. Bancroft, Colonel and Mrs. Abraham Van Buren, with others, were to dance in it. Mrs. Morgan had forgotten all she had learned of dancing in early childhood, so she at once took dancing lessons. Fernando Wood was then Mayor of New York. The great event of the evening was to be the opening quadrille, and the rush to be near it was so great that the floor gave way and in tumbled the whole centre of the stage. I stood up in the first tier, getting a good view of the catastrophe. The Duke of Newcastle, with the Prince, who, as it happened, was advancing to the centre of the stage, followed by all who were to dance in the quadrille, at once retired with the Prince to the reception room, while Mr. Renwick, the architect, and a gang of carpenters got to work to floor over the chasm. I well remember the enormous form of old Isaac Brown, sexton of Grace Church, rushing around and encouraging the workmen. A report had been spread that the Duke would not allow the Prince to again appear on the stage.
In the mean while, the whole royal party were conversing in groups in the reception room. The Prince had been led into a corner of the room by the Mayor’s daughter, when the Duke, feeling the young lady had had fully her share of his Royal Highness, was about to interrupt them, when our distinguished magistrate implored him not to do so. “Oh, Duke,” he exclaimed, “let the young people alone, they are enjoying themselves.” The stage made safe, the quadrille was danced, to the amusement of the assembled people. The old-fashioned curtseys, the pigeon-wings, and genuflexions only known to our ancestors were gone through with dignity and repose. Mrs. Van Buren, who had presided over the White House during Martin Van Buren’s presidency, has repeatedly since discussed this quadrille with me, declaring she was again and again on the point of laughing at the grotesque figures cut by the dancers.
“But, my dear sir,” she said, “I did not permit my dignity and repose to be at all ruffled; I think I went through the trying ordeal well; but why, why will not our people learn to dance!” A waltz immediately followed the quadrille; the Prince, a remarkably handsome young man, with blue eyes and light hair, a most agreeable countenance, and a gracious manner, danced with Miss Fish, Miss Mason, Miss Fannie Butler, and others, and danced well. I followed him with a fair partner, doing all I could to enlarge the dancing circle. He danced incessantly until supper, the arrangements for which were admirable.
One entered the supper room by one stage door and left it by another; a horseshoe table ran around the entire room,—behind it stood an army of servants, elbow to elbow, all in livery. At one end of the room was a raised dais, where the royal party supped. At each stage door a prominent citizen stood guard; the moment the supper room was full, no one else was admitted. As fifty would go out, fifty would come in. I remember on my attempting to get in through one of these doors, stealthily, the vigilant eye of John Jacob Astor met mine. He bid me wait my turn. Nothing could have been more successful, or better done. The house was packed to repletion. Now, all was the Prince. The city rang with his name; all desired to catch a glimpse of him. His own people could not have offered him greater homage.
A friend of mine at Barrytown telegraphed me to come to him and pass Sunday, and on Monday go with him to West Point to a breakfast to be given by Colonel Delafield, the Commandant of the Point, to the Prince of Wales. It was in the fall of the year, when the Hudson was at its best, clothed in its autumnal tints. I was enraptured on looking out of my window on Sunday morning at the scene that lay before me, with the river, like a tiny thread away below, gracefully flowing through a wilderness of foliage, the flock of Southdown sheep on my friend’s lawn, the picturesque little stone chapel adjoining his place, all in full view, and the great masses of autumn leaves raked in huge piles. Going to church in the morning, I proposed to myself a ten-mile walk in the afternoon to get an appetite for what I felt sure would be my friend’s best effort in the way of a dinner, as he well knew I loved the “flesh pots of Egypt.” Fully equipped for my walk, the butler entered my room and announced luncheon. I declined the meal. Again he appeared, stating that the family insisted on my lunching with them, as on Sunday it was always a most substantial repast.