Recollections of Samuel Breck, with passages from his note-books (1771-1862)

Preface

A /JR. SAMUEL BRECK, whose recollections oc- ■'-^ -^ cupy this volume, died in Philadelphia, August 31, 1862, at the age of ninety-one years and forty-six days. His memory, which was excellent to the last, could thus span the entire period embraced in the history of our country from the beginning of the war for Independence to that of the war for Union. The incidents in his life were varied; his early associations were with the best society in Boston, his native town ; his education in France gave him not only a familiarity with foreign life, but an intimate acquaintance with the French exiles and travellers to this country ; his public life took him to Harrisburg and Washington, and made him a valued member not only of the government of Philadelphia, but of various charitable, literary and financial institutions ; while his social position enabled him to associate with the most educated and refined classes in the city. His own family connection with the Lloyds, the Aspinwalls of New York, the Andrews and others, gave him most agreeable relations, and the reader of this volume will find among the names of families in Boston and Philadelphia with whom Mr.

O PREFACE.

Brcck associated those best known for private worth and public spirit.

His life is not recorded in this volume, except as it is implied in the narrative and reflections which his pen set down. He was accustomed from the year 1800 onward to keep a diary of more or less fulness, in which he entered not only his personal experience, but comments on current events, on the books he read, on the persons he met, together with occasional reminiscences of the period preceding 1800. When nearly sixty years old he undertook to arrange his recollections in orderly form for his own amusement, and, writing at intervals, brought the narrative down to the year 1797. From some cause, not recorded in his diary, he stopped his work abruptly. It was, however, largely formed of passages from his diary, and that diary he continued to keep until 1856, though the entries for the final years were very brief

His recollections and his diaries together have furnished the material for this volume. The larger part of it is occupied with the Recollections, which is printed without change, except in the omission of some portions of his foreign itinerary, and in such slight verbal corrections as he would himself have made if preparing his manuscript for the press. This portion has also been broken up for convenience into chapters.

The remainder of the volume consists of Passages

PREFACE. 7

from his Note-books, arranged with a general regard to harmony of subjects, and marked in each case with the date of entry in Mr. Breck's journal. By this means one is able to note the period of certain observations which depend for their interest partly upon being contemporaneous with the scenes and events described. Throughout the volume the Editor has aimed to supply such notes as would serve to illustrate the text ; and for some of those relating to Philadelphia he is indebted to Mr. Townsend Ward of that city.

The book rests its claim to notice not on the reputation or character of Mr. Breck. Those who knew that courteous and honorable gentleman will read it with the more interest, and will testify to his integrity, his obstinate firmness in principle, his sound judgment and his generous nature. Some of these qualities will be discovered by the reader from the book itself; and no one can be familiar with Mr. Breck's private writings and not have a hearty confidence in his truthfulness and candor. Nor does the book profess to add important facts to history, although in two or three cases, as in the account of the naval encounter in Boston Harbor and his report of Judge Peters's explanation of the arrest of Flower, it may be that he has added to our acquaintance with historical facts. The real value of the book will be readily perceived to lie in its power to reconstruct the past for us as a living force.

8 PREFACE.

To have talked with an old man who has a clear and intelligent memory is to have enjoyed some of the advantages of age with the bright imagination of youth. Here is transfusion of blood of another sort. The personality of the old man, when discoursing even of trivial matters, becomes a solvent which sets free the particles of history, and enables the younger man to see the past as a contemporary. It is singular by how slight a word one is thus enabled to live over again not his own past, but his father's past. When I read in Mr. Brcck's diary how he stood with the crowd before the post-office in Philadelphia and heard the postmaster read from a chamber-window the news of the burning of Washington, I am as free from the influence of steam and the telegraph-wire as were the eager crowd gathered there, and the historic fact comes before me with a far livelier power than when I read it in a formal history. If the good we are to derive from history were based simply upon our acquaintance with the facts which we regard as determining the logic of historic processes, then all personal gossip and such reminiscences and notes as these by Mr. Breck would give us only idle pastime. But every one instinctively feels that his knowledge of history, like his knowledge of daily affairs, is conditioned upon numberless trivial and fleeting impressions created by the look, the dress, the by-play of the world. An idle-minded man, to be sure,

PREFACE. 9

can scarcely reflect more than his own vacuity, and that when he undertakes to discourse of weighty matters ; a man of character can scarcely fail to throw some light on life when he speaks of trivial things. Mr. Breck made no pretensions to literary power, but he was a man of catholic taste and general interests. In this book the reader hears his chat, and will be helped by it to get that contemporaneous position which is so needful if one would see American life and manners from time to time during the first century of the Republic. • H. E. S.

Cambridge, Mass., January, 1877.

Contents

RECOLLECTIONS.

Chapter I. Page

Sweetbrier, — Ancestry. — Earliest Recollections. — The Dark Day. — Benjamin Andrews. — John Andrews. — Tracy's Dinner to D'Estaing. — Bougainville. — Laborde. — John Tracy. — Thomas Brattle. — Beacon Hill. — Boston Boys. — Anticks. — The Whipping-Post.— The Breck Mansion. — La Fayette at Town Meeting.— Lively Antics on High Buildings. — A Naval Encounter in Boston Harbor. — De Vaudreuil. — Mr. Breck and the French Consul. — A Journey to France for Education. — The Voyage and its Incidents. — A Quick Passage 15

CHAPTER n.

First View of France. — Nantes. — Boston in France. — La Rochelle. — Rochefort. — Bordeaux. — Toulouse. — Sor^ze. — Holidays at the Castle of De Vaudreuil. — The Course of Study at Soreze. — School Life. — Balloons. — Blanchard. — Mesmer. — Lightning- Rods. — Distinguished Families at Soreze. — La Perouse. — Dora Crozal and Quetain. — Confession and Mass. — Journey to Paris. — Political Excitement in Paris. — Crevecoeur. — High Life. — Beaumanoir. — De Valady. — Brissot de Warville. — Journey to Havre. — Fellow-Passengers on Return Voyage. — Arrival at

New York 52

12 CONTENTS.

Chapter III. Page

New York after the Fire. — From New York to Boston. — Fourth of July, 1787. — Mad-Caps. — Entrance into Business. — Business Morals and Revenue Reform. — Mr. Joseph Marryat and Charlotte Geycr. — Tristram Dalton. — Journey to Philadelphia. — Captain Phipps. — Society in New York. — The Roads. — William Knox. — Two Insane Gentlemen. — Family Servants. — Eccentric Tradesmen. — Mrs. Jeffrey. — Wigs. — Whiiefield's Great Toe. — The First Mass in Boston. — An Atheist's Temple. — John Quincy Adams and his Early Passion. — La F"ayette's Aid to Boston. — Captain Booby. — French and English Discipline.— Washington's Visit to Boston. — Hancock's State Pride, — Entertaining Indians. — Lord Whickham. — Governor Sullivan 89

Chapter IV

Second Voyage to Europe. — A Gale in the Irish Sea and a Shelter under the Isle of Man. — Dublin. — An Irish Bull. — A Hungry Traveller. — Liverpool. — By Stage to London. — Drury Lane. — Binneau. — The Chevalier d'Eon. — Frederick Geyer. — A Lord Mayor's Show. — A Parliamentary Debate. — Burke. — Nicholas Ward Boylston. — A Ball at Bath.— En Route for Paris.— A Well-preserved Barber. — The Revolution. — De Noailles. — A Debate in the National Assembly. — Mirabeau. — A Glimpse of the Royal Family. — Spongers.— Barlow. — Browne Cutting. — Return Voyage. — A Dinner at Mr. Jeffrey's 137

Chapter V

Boston in 1791. — A Sunday Journey. — A Theatre in Boston. — Started in Business. — Dabbling in .Stocks. — Unjust Taxation in Boston. — Removal to Philadelphia. — Society in Philadelphia.— General Washington's Style. — Tradesmen. — Eccentric Characters in Boston. — James Allen. — Mrs. Smith. — Frederick Rhone. — The Yellow Fever in Philadelphia. — A Well-prophesied Death. — Congress. — Talleyrand. — Volney. — De Noailles. — Walking Stewart. — Baring. — The Binghams and their Style. — Morris. — Cobbett. — Clayton. — General Knox. — Hamilton.... 178

CONTENTS. 13

PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS.

Chapter I. Public Men And Events

PAGE

Richard Peters 213

Jeux d'Esprit oi'' Judge Peters 217

The Marquis de Valady 219

The Duke of Orleans 246

Joseph Bonaparte 248

Washington's Farewell Address 252

The Burning of Washington 253

De Witt Clinton 255

John Randolph 256

Daniel Webster 258

Steuben not IX.D 260

Audubon 260

Zerah Colburn 261

Francis Jeffrey 262

CHAPTER H.

NOTES OF TRAVEL.

A Journey TO Washington 264

Journey to Boston ; 271

Chance Travelling-Companions 273

Quick Travel 274

The Other Side 275

Praise of Boston 277

CHAPTER HI.

PERSONAL AND SOCIETY GOSSIP.

Life at Sweetbrier 280

A LoNG-LiVED Family 281

A Diner-Out Waylaid 282

14 CONTENTS.

PAGE

An Eccentric Englishman 284

Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis 285

Dining in the Country 286

Miss Kean 287

WisTAR Parties 288

A Walking Clud 2S8

Captain Marryat 289

Dallas and his Snuff-Box 293

CHAPTER IV.

MANNERS AND CHANGES.

Coal Fires in Pennsylvania 295

Experience with Servants 295

Labor and Wages 300

Thrifty Blacks 301

DiviNiNG-RoDS 303

A Governor's Style 304

Kean's Acting 305

American Literature 306

Mammoth Newspapers 307

Recollections of Samuel Breck.

CHAPTER I.

Sweetbrier. — Ancestry. — Earliest Recollections. — The Dark Day. — Benjamin Andrews. — John Andrews. — Tracy's Dinner to D'Estaing. — Bougainville. — Laborde. — John Tracy. — Thomas Brattle. — Beacon Hill. — Boston Boys. — Anticks. — The Whipping-Post. — The Breck Mansion. — La Fayette at Town Meeting. — Lively Antics on High Buildings. — A Naval Encounter in Boston Harbor. — De Vaudreuil. — Mr. Breck and the French Consul. — A Journey to France for Education. — The Voyage and its Incidents. — A Quick Passage.

I BEGIN, this 17th of January, 1830, precisely at the age of fifty-eight years and six months, the recollections of my past life. Residing as I do now in the country, I have much leisure, which I hope to occupy agreeably, and perhaps profitably, by condensing the diaries heretofore kept by me. My residence has been, when at home with my family, where it now is, for more than thirty years, being on an estate belonging to me, situated on the right bank of the Schuylkill, in the township of Blockley, county of Philadelphia, and two miles from the western part of the city. The mansion on this estate I built in 1797. It is a fine stone house, roughcast, fifty-three feet long, thirty-eight broad, and three stories high, having out-buildings of every kind suitable for elegance and comfort. The prospect consists of the l6 KECOLLECriOiVS OF SAMUEL BRECK.

river, animated by its great trade carried on in boats of about thirty tons, drawn by horses ; of a beautiful sloping lawn, terminating at that river, now nearly four hundred )'ards wide opposite the portico ; of side-screen woods ; of gardens, green-house, etc. Swectbricr is the name of my villa.* As I write these sheets for my amusement alone, and care not how minute or garrulous I may be in my narrative, I shall commence with a brief notice of my ancestors.

Three brothers, originally from the north of England, Edward, Robert and Samuel Breck,t landed at

* Sweetbiier was occupied by Mr. Breck until 1838, when he sold the estate and moved into town, mainly because of the prevalence of fever and ague, induced, he states, by the building of the dam at the city waterworks in 1822. The estate was not far from the historic mansion of Belmont, and is now included in Fairmount Park. The house occupied by Mr. Breck is still standing (1S77) and occupied as a restaurant.

f In a letter to a kinsm.m Mr. Breck writes: " In some places that name has been vulgarized and corrupted into Brick. Let me entreat you to avoid that nickname, either for yourself or your family connexions. Breck is an Erse word, signifying 'distinguished chief,' and ought not to l)e debased into vile baked clay. Our English ancestors resided in Cumberland and Westmoreland." It was doubtless some consolation to Mr. Breck, when he found one of his ancestors reported as the Widow Brick, to read of her as " the very flower of Boston." The bookseller John Dunton, in his Life and Errors, gives an account of his sojourn in Boston in 1685-S6, and speaks thus of Madam Breck ; " The beauty of her person, the sweetness and affability of her temper, the gravity of her carriage, and her exalted piety gave me so just a value for liei that Mr. Green would often say, ' Should Iris die' (the name he gave his wife), 'which Heaven forbid! there is none fit to succeed her but Madam Brick.'" Mr. Drake, in his History of Boston, where we find this extract from Dunton, says that the spelling Brick is in accordance with the pronunciation of Breck at that time. The name of Breck has

ANCESTR Y AND BIR TH. I /

Dorchester, near Boston, about the year 1 630. Edward's son John became eminent in Dorchester, and from him I am Hneally descended as a great-grandson. He died the 1 6th of February, 17 13, aged thirty-two, as appears by the inscription on our family mourning rings distributed at his death. The son of that gentleman was named after him, and became the parent of three sons and many daughters. This second son was named Samuel, and was my father. He was born on the nth of April, 1747, o. s., and died on the 7th of May, 1809, aged about sixty-two. The progenitors of my mother were very respectable emigrants from England to Boston, by the name of Andrews. She was born on the nth of November, 1747, o. s., and is still living in good health in her eighty-third year.

I was born on the 17th of July, 1771, in the then town of Boston. It was at a period of political excitement, and I feel myself identified with the Revolution, having been nursed at Lexington, where the first blood was spilt, and an unconscious spectator of the great battle of Bunker Hill. I say unconscious, because at the date of that battle (17th of June, 1775) I was too young to receive a durable impression, or indeed any recollection at all about it. I have been told, however, that the woman who had the care of me stood on an eminence with me in her arms contemplating the engagement.

been borne by persons of local distinction in various part of the countiy; amongst others, by Hon. Daniel Breck, a member of Congress from Kentucky 1849-51; by the Rev. Charles Breck, D. D., and by the late Rev. J. Lloyd Breck, D. D., both clergymen of the Protestant Episcopal Church and nephews of our author.

l8 KECOLLECTIOXS OF SAMUEL BRECK.

An event that took place shortly after I remember perfectly. Boston was closely invested by Washington, and in the bombardment a shell fell in our courtyard* that cracked a beautiful mirror by the concussion of the air in bursting, and gave my father a broad hint to provide for the safct}' of his family. He had then only two children, Mrs. Lloyd f and myself He obtained a passport from the British general, + and, being allowed to traverse the camp of the besiegers, brought his wife and children to Philadelphia, stopping a few days at New York, and travelling from that city in company with the late Vice-President, George Clinton, who, as I have heard my father say, had the kindness to bring me part of the way in his sulky. That gentleman became very distinguished afterward, and was uncle to the great De Witt Clinton.

My parents have often told me how hospitably we were received in that city, where, in common with all the colonies, a strong sympathy was entertained for the sufferers in Boston. I, of course, have few recollections of that period. One thing only can I remember, and

* Mr. Bieck does not state wliere the family home in Boston was at this time, other than that it was in what was then called New Boston, the present West End — strictly speaking, the district west of Sudbury street.

f Mrs. Lloyd, Mr. Breck's sister Hannah, was the wife of Hon. James Lloyd, a respected merchant of Boston, who twice represented Massachusetts in the U. S. Senate, 1808-13 ^"'' 1822-26.

\ From references in the letters of John Andrews (referred to at length on a later page, 23) it appears that Mr. Brock removed his family from Boston at the end of May, 1 775, just before Governor Gage put into execution stringent rules forl)idding the issuing of passports.

PROCESSION OF THE POPE AND THE DEVIL. 1 9

that is the inoculation of my sister and myself for the small-pox.*

We stayed a few months in Philadelphia, and then removed to Taunton in Massachusetts, in order to be ready to enter Boston as soon as the British should evacuate the town. It was here at Taunton that I distinctly recollect seeing the procession of the Pope and the Devil on the 5th of November, the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. Effigies of those two illustrious personages were paraded round the Common, and this was perhaps the last exhibition of the kind in our country.f Sentiments of great liberality and toleration, together with an entire absence of colonial or English feeling, have contributed to abolish the custom heretofore annual, and to root out all violent prejudices against the good bishop of Rome and the Church which he governs.

In due time we returned to Boston, and having been nursed, as I said before, at Lexington, I may boast of having been cradled in the midst of the brave men who

* The reader will recall the frequent references, as in the letters of John and Abigail Adams, to the personal discomfort caused by the precautions taken against small-pox through inoculation before the introduction of vaccination.

f The celebration of Pope Day in Boston was always accompanied by violence. There were rival popes from the North End and the South End — the Avignon and Rome of Boston — and the followers of each fought to get possession of the opposition pope. General Sumner, in his Pt'i/iiniscencex, published in the N'<'7o England Historic- Genealogical Register (vol. viii., April, 1854), gives an account of Governor Hancock's measures, through the mollifying influences of a dinner, to put an end to Pope Day in Boston a short time before more tragic hostilities broke out in 1775.

20 KECOLLECTIOXS OF SAMUEL BRECK.

SO nobly commenced and so gloriously terminated our immortal war of Independence. I may add that the Commonwealtii of Massachusetts, having undertaken to educate the son of General Warren,* who was slain at the battle of Bunker Hill, sent him to a school at Chelsea, near lioston, kept by a clergyman named Payson ; t and as I was placed there about the same time, we were made bedfellows, and so continued for some months.

The winter of 1780 was colder than any that has occurred since. I was then a scholar at Chelsea, and perfectly well remember being driven by my father's coachman, in a sleigh with two horses, on the ice directly across the bay of Boston, starting from the

* The four cliiUlien of General Warren were commilted to the care of their maternal grandmother after the death of Mrs. Warren, and the eldest son was educated at the expense of the United States, not of Massachusetts, the resolve being brought in by Samuel .-Xdams, Jan. 31, 1777. Benedict Arnold took great interest in the children, and contributed generously to their education. He applied to Congress for provision for the support of the children, and July i, 1780, Congress resolved to allow the half-pay of a major-general, to begin at the time of Warren's death and continue till the youngest child was of age — a stipend of about $1300 a year, with ^^7000 for a first payment, on account of money due under the resolve.

■j- Rev. Samuel Piullips Payson was distinguished at the time as a classical scholar and for his studies in natural philosophy and astronomy, but no acute observations on the Dark Day seem to have come down from him. He is preserved in the amber of Thornton's Pulpit of lite Avierican Revolution, and Sam Adams, writing to Elbridge Gerry and James Lovell about the Warren children, sjieaks of him as " a gentleman whose qualifications for the instructing of youth I need not mention to you;" which reads almost as if those two gentlemen had personal knowledge of Parson Payson's qualifications.

THE DARK DAY. 21

north part of the town, and keeping for many miles on the ice, which we left to traverse farms, without being stopped by the stone fences, which were all covered with snow. It was the summer that succeeded this cold weather, I think, that the famous Dark Day happened in New England. I was at the same school. It began about eleven o'clock in the morning, when I w^as standing by the master reading my lesson. The light grew dim, and in a very short time faded into utter darkness. The school was dismissed, and we went below stairs. The cause was wholly inexplicable at the time, nor do I find that it has ever been satisfactorily explained. Some ascribed it to an extensive conflagration in the backwoods, but I do not remember any heavy smoke or other indication of fire. I know that candles were lit, and the affrighted neighbors groped their way to our house for spiritual consolation and joined in prayer with our reverend principal, and that after we had dined by candlelight — probably about three o'clock — it cleared up and became bright enough to go abroad. The day having been one of terror, and now more than two-thirds spent, we were not called to school in the afternoon, but were permitted to go into the fields to gather fruit and birds' eggs. Yet the succeeding night was " palpably obscure." Many accidents happened to those who were on the road. Nothing could exceed the darkness. No doubt there was a natural cause for it, but whether smoke or vapor, or other atmospherical density, remains undivulged.*

* The Dark Day seems to have made an impression upon our fatliers more from spiritual than from physical causes. There were few exact

It was in the course of this year,* I think, that a most melancholy event terminated the life of ni)' maternal uncle, Benjamin Andrews, Esq. That gentleman was well educated, active, useful, beloved; in short, a very distinguished citizen. Mr. Benjamin Hichborn, his friend, and a lawyer subsequently of eminence, was with my uncle assisting him to prepare for a journey that was to commence the next day. While Mr. Andrews was writing, Hichborn was trying a pair of pistols and putting them in order for the journey. He had snapped them against the chimney-back, he said, and, supposing them to be unloaded, was in the act of handing one of them to my uncle when it went off,

records of the facts, and those were gathered and sifted in a paper by Professor Samuel Williams of Harvard, published in tlie Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for 1783. The lime was May 19, 1780, and the darkness came on between the hours of 10 and 11 A. M., continuing into the night; the degree differed in different places, but candles were required at mid-day for the reading of common print in all the district covered by it. " The birds, having sung their evening songs, disappeared and became silent ; the fowls retired to roost ; the cocks were crowing all around, as at break of day; objects could not be distinguished but at a very little distance, and everything bore the appearance and gloom of night." There was no definite information as to the extent of the darkness, but it seems to have been coextensive with New England. The atmosphere was charged with an extraordinary quantity of vapor, and in some places where rain fell a light scum, as of the ashes of burned leaves, was observed ; and the most acceptable explanation of the phenomenon was that the smoke from vast fires in the back country floating in the atmosphere at different elevations formed a medium very dense and impenetrable to the rays of the sun.

* Mr. Benjamin Andrews was killed, I find by a mourning ring in my mother's possession, on the 9th of January, 1779, aged thirty-eight. He was almost the only native Bostonian who spoke French. — S. B.

DEATH OF BENJAMIN ANDREWS. 23

hit him with the wad in the temple and killed him on the spot. My father had dined somewhere in the country that day, and had not returned when the news of the event came to our house, which was about early candlelight. I went to the deceased's house, and witnessed the confusion and deep regret that pervaded it. My aunt was a fine-looking, well-bred woman, fond of dress and fashionable dissipation. She had five or six children and an indulgent husband. Suddenly she saw herself a widow overwhelmed with consternation and dismay. This affair has always appeared mysterious, and made a great noise at the time ; and, very strange as it may seem, Hichborn proposed as a remedy and atonement the only measure that could be adduced as a motive for the commission of murder. " I have been guilty," said he, " of this unintentional manslaughter ; Mr. Andrews was my friend ; by my instrumentality his children are left fatherless. I will be a parent and protector to them ; the best amends I can make is to marry the widow." He did marry her, and during a long life he was to her and her children a kind and generous friend, father and husband.*

Mr. Andrews left one brother, John Andrews ; and whilst I am on the subject of that worthy family, I will anticipate and say a word of this other maternal uncle. For more than a dozen years Mr. John Andrews was a selectman of Boston. In the evening of life he pur-

* Mr. Hichborn is characterized by Loring in his Himdred Boston Orators as one of the most fearless, dauntless patriots. He was a Democrat of the old school, and a warm advocate of Jefferson. He died in Dorchester in 181 7.

chased a villa at Jamaica Plains, and retired there with an ample fortune. I saw him last when in his eightieth year, in 1822. He was full of anecdote and reminiscences of the Revolutionary War. He stayed in Boston during its blockade by General Washington, and entertained that great man at dinner the first day after its evacuation by the British. His timely interference at that period prevented the destruction of the trees in the Mall ; and subsequently his personal exertions saved part of the Common (a spot without a rival in America) from being sold and cut up into lots. He died shortly after.*

Before the Revolution the colonists had little or no communication with France, so that Frenchmen were known to them only through the prejudiced medium of England. Every vulgar story told by John Bull about Frenchmen living on salad And frogs was implicitly believed by Brother Jonathan, even by men of education and the first standing in society. When, there-

* The nime of John Andrews, which otherwise would have perished with that of a good many excellent associates in business, has been preserved for posterity through the means of a bundle of old letters discovered a few years since, which were written by Andrews to a brother-in-law, William Barrell of Philadelphia. These letters, published in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, July, 1865, are known to students as the raciest and most vivid account which we have of life in Boston immediately before and during the siege in 1776. When the letters were found they were submitted to Mr. Breck, who was able by his recollection to identify the persons and places of the letters and to furnish explanations and illustrations. At the time when the letters were shown to him he was eighty-eight years old, and thirty-seven years before he had visited the writer, his uncle, then in his eightieth year.