The Book Collector

At the Village dump, in the Swap Shop where people drop off things that still have some utility left in them, a copy of Willa Cather’s Sapphira and the Slave Girl sat on a shelf. It was a first edition, the binding somewhat faded by sunlight, and inside was the bookplate of Henry Scott Miller. The name was familiar to me because I see it every Sunday, on the floor at St. James’ Episcopal Church, on a brass plaque surrounded by tiles. The Rev. Henry Scott Miller was the thirteenth rector of St. James’, serving from 1931 to 1956.

Henry Scott Miller was born in Richmond, Indiana, in 1886, and graduated from that city’s Earlham College in 1915. While at Earlham, he was active in the Classical Club, in school plays and the Y.M.C.A., was on the staff of the yearbook and served as editor of the Earlhamite, the college literary magazine. One of his poems was chosen as the Prize Poem of 1913-1914 and included in an anthology entitled Earlham Verse, published in a limited edition of 250 copies in 1914. Miller was proud of his work; he inscribed and sent a copy of Earlham Verse to Indiana’s famed poet James Whitcomb Riley.

In the Earlham yearbook, Henry Scott Miller was described in these words:

“Poor Harry! He has such a hard time remaining popular, ’specially with the Dean, because he insists on telling folks about themselves — and it’s generally true. Then, too, many people think that he is married and that his wife’s name is Bertha and that she keeps him at the library, which is enough to make any man tear his hair, even though he is a poet and a philosopher.”

After graduation, Miller left Indiana and studied at the General Theological Seminary in New York City, graduating in 1918. He returned to Indiana to serve in his first parish, and afterward served in New York City and Washington D.C. In late 1930, he received a call to serve at St. James’ in Skaneateles.

Over the next 26 years, he baptized, married and buried many parishioners. He was never married himself, but parishioner Virginia Thorne recalls that he was “surrounded by spinsters.” Spinsters and books. Henry Scott Miller never lost his love of poetry and literature, and he has an appropriate legacy today, as books from his personal library, bearing his bookplate, are in collections all over the world. His eight-volume set of The Works of George Fox (1859) was auctioned off in Cleveland, Ohio, in 2007. The books bore the marks of the Skaneateles Library Association; one can easily see the Rev. Miller returning home with his arms full from the library’s annual book sale. The Rev. Miller’s copy of The Country of Pointed Firs (1896) by Sarah Orne Jewett is today in the University of California’s library at Berkeley, and his copy of Unbeaten Tracks of Japan (1881) by Isabella L. Bird has made its way to a library in Japan.

The Rev. Miller retired from St. James’ and his profession in 1956. In 1966, he died in Elmira, N.Y., where he had resided since leaving Skaneateles. He was buried in Fort Hill Cemetery, Auburn.

In his portrait, published in a history of St. James’, the Rev. Miller seems to be looking around the corner into the frame, not quite committed to having his picture taken, perhaps wishing he was home with a good book.

Skaneateles, 1818

“Between Auburn and the outlet of Skaneateles Lake, the country continued to present no very striking changes of scenery, from that between Geneva and Auburn. At the village of Skaneateles, the outlet leaves the lake, and continues to flow northward about fifteen miles, then falls into Seneca river. After crossing the outlet I turned southward up the lake. The Skaneateles is in form similar to those of Seneca and Cayuga, but of much less extent than either of the latter, being fifteen miles in length, with a medial width of less than one mile.

“The space between Owasco and Skaneateles rises rapidly from each lake, to a ridge of at least 400 feet high, mostly covered with an enormous forest; some farms are seen, but the greatest part of the surface is yet in woods. East of the Skaneateles the country is more improved, but also presents an immense and very much inclined plane, rising gradually from the water. The road winds along this slope. About half way from the lake to the apex of the hills; the farms have a curious aspect when viewed either from above or below the road. The soil is good, but very stony, and in many places must be inconvenient to cultivate, from the very steepness of its surface. The timber is composed of hemlock, sugar tree, elm, several species of hickory, and oak. The whole country is well supplied with excellent spring water.

“I remained the night of the 11th near the head of Skaneateles, in Spafford, and on the morning of the 12th set out, crossing the country towards Otisco Lake. No roads are yet formed in this part of Onondaga except the common country roads. I traversed the ridge between the lakes, and found it elevated to an astonishing height. Farms chequer the hill sides in their steepest parts, and spread along the bottoms, in every direction. The settlements are less frequent and have the appearance of being much more recently established, than those to the northward near the great western turnpike. After clambering the Skaneateles and another very high and steep ridge, I found myself upon the Skaneateles turnpike road about two miles above Otisco lake… I got to my lodgings, near the church of Cazenovia a little before sun-set, having travelled on foot over a very rough country more than thirty miles.”

– From A Tour from the City of New York to Detroit in the Michigan Territory, Made Between 2d of May and 22d of September 1818 (1819) by William Darby (Letter XVIL, Albany, September 18, 1818)

William Darby (1775-1854) was a surveyor establishing the boundary line between the United States and Canada after the War of 1812. Darby was one of the leading geographers of his day. My thanks to Alan Stamm for this one.

The Thayer House

The Thayer House when the fence was painted white, and the summer awnings were unfurled, and there were still circular windows like portholes up on the mansard roof. Ah, Joel, you were a gift to us all.

Rebels in Our Midst

:: The House ::

How much history can one house can hold?  After all, this is the house that came across the ice — built in 1823 where Roosevelt Hall now stands on the western shore of Skaneateles Lake, traded for a team of H.W. Allen’s horses in 1838, then purchased by James Gurdon Porter and moved in pieces, in the winter of 1839, across the frozen lake. A house so big, it made two houses on the other side: the center of the house and one wing hauled up the hill to what is today 19 Leitch Avenue, put back together there, and a second wing taken farther up the street to create a smaller house at 27 Leitch Avenue.

:: The Sandisfield Connection ::

The house has had many occupants, but Erastus Mills Beach is the one who interests me. His story begins in Sandisfield, Massachusetts, a small town in Berkshire County. There we start with children of Peter and Sarah Mills: Sarah Sage Mills (b. 1781), Drake Mills (b. 1792), Otis Mills (b.1794) and Celestia Mills (b.1798). Nearby lived the Smith family; they had a son named Reuel (b. 1789).

The eldest sibling, Sarah Sage Mills, married Erastus O. Beach, also of Sandisfield, in about 1800; their first son was Erastus Mills Beach, born in 1804. Celestia Mills, born 18 years after her sister Sarah, married Reuel Smith in 1824. Hence the Mills, Smith and Beach families were knit by ties of hometown and marriage.

This explains why, years later, we find Reuel Smith and Drake Mills, brothers-in-law, in business together on Front Street in New York City as grocers and importers, as “Smith & Mills.”  And Otis Mills and Erastus Mills Beach, uncle and nephew, in business together in Charleston, South Carolina, exporting grain (mostly rice) as “Mills & Beach.” And of course, they are each other’s customers, with Mills & Beach selling and shipping grain from the south to Smith & Mills who in turn sell it to New Yorkers.

Otis Mills and Erastus Mills Beach were members of the New England Society, founded in 1819 by Northern mill owners who bought cotton in Charleston. They were part owners of the Charleston & Savannah Railroad, and both owned real estate in Charleston, including wharves and buildings on the harbor. In 1849, Otis Mills built the Mills House, a Charleston landmark hotel.

:: Summers in Skaneateles ::

Erastus Mills Beach’s close friend and occasional business partner in Charleston was Henry Latrobe Roosevelt, from Skaneateles, where Beach’s uncle, Reuel Smith, had bought a farm. Roosevelt returned to Skaneateles in 1851, and Erastus Mills Beach came to visit Roosevelt and his Uncle Reuel in Skaneateles in 1853. Two years later, Beach bought the home that had crossed the ice.

E.N. Leslie, in his History of Skaneateles, notes, “The Beach family were very prominent here while they were residents during the summer season, and became famous for entertaining a great deal of company, composed principally of their friends in the village, of which they had many.” Leslie also tells us that Beach hosted many of his southern friends, including his uncle and partner, Otis Mills.

The Beach family attended St. James’ Episcopal Church, as did the Roosevelt and Smith families, and in 1857, Erastus Beach was a delegate to the Episcopalian convention from St. James’, along with Henry L. Roosevelt and William H. Jewett.

:: The War ::

All was rosy until April 12, 1861, when forces of the newly declared Confederacy opened fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in Charleston’s harbor. This did not bode well for Smith & Mills in New York, and Mills & Beach in Charleston, who suddenly had a war and a naval blockade interfering with their shipping. Leslie says that Erastus Beach continued to summer in Skaneateles, but we know from a letter from Drake Mills in New York that travel and communication were becoming difficult.

For Erastus Beach, matters in Skaneateles took a turn for the worse in early 1864, while he was in South Carolina. Leslie told the tale:

“Some mischievous person or persons circulated and sent to the Government at Washington a report (originating here) that Erastus M. Beach was a rebel, whereupon the Government immediately seized and held his property here in the village, and placed it in the charge of a Deputy United States Marshall (a resident).”

On 18 February 1864, Erasmus Darwin Beach, a younger brother of Erastus, wrote to Reuel Smith asking him to assist in defending his brother against suspicion of supporting the Confederacy and the confiscation of his property in Skaneateles. Smith, however, was apparently powerless to stop what happened next. Leslie wrote:

“During the time that this marshal had it in charge, Mr. Beach’s dwelling was allowed by this officer to be shamefully looted of all its furniture of every description, especially during the night. The general prejudice existing among many of the villagers against a rebel was such that the deputy marshal seemingly enjoyed the looting.

“Every closet throughout the house was looted of its contents. Every bureau, its drawers being locked, was broken open at the back and thence the contents were taken. A large manhole was cut through the floor in the front hall to reach the wine cellar, through which the looters reached and drank all the wines.”

Too easily we can imagine these patriotic men of Skaneateles, inspired by their love for the Union and an abhorrence for slavery, deciding the highest expression of their noble feelings would be to saw a hole in Erastus Beach’s floor and drain the cellar.

Leslie expressed outrage and in defense of his friend wrote:

“Erastus M. Beach had an irreproachable character in his business relations as well as in his private life, was possessed of a genial kindness of nature, a steadfast, reliable friend, and in every relation of life an admirable character. Before the extraordinary and shameful false reports circulated in the village by malicious persons affecting his character as a loyal American citizen, and the utter destruction of his property, for which the village of Skaneateles was responsible, his intercourse with his fellow citizens was at all times courteous and affable, always gentlemanly.”

Leslie, however, never touched upon Beach’s actual sympathies. Beach himself made those feelings clear in a letter to Reuel Smith, written from Charleston on January 24, 1861. Smith had suggested to Beach that the recent election of Lincoln was not sufficient grounds for secession. Beach replied:

“It is by no means the mere election of Lincoln which has aroused the South… It was openly announced there was to be no more slave territory, that we of the South are gradually to be driven to give up our slaves & adopt free labour — that we were to be deprived of our property by every means which men could devise, in open violation of The Constitution. The South felt the time had come when a separation must be had rather than submit to such a condition of things, and take the government of ourselves into our own keeping. We desire a peaceable separation. We are disposed to settle, upon the most honourable terms, all our national obligations, but we are determined not to submit to the rule of a party & power dominant, which does not hesitate to declare its hostility to us & our institution.”

Clearly, Beach’s sympathies were with the South, although they had not prevented him from keeping a northern summer home, now closed to him. By 1865, the war had also driven him out of Charleston. In a letter of May 29th to Reuel Smith in Skaneateles, Beach told of moving to Kirkwood, near Camden, South Carolina:

“The place has twenty acres, and has given me occupation and something to eat. We have found it very pleasant, being on all sides surrounded by very nice people. Sherman’s passage thro this portion of the State destroyed nearly all our means of communication, and mail facilities, so that we hear nothing from the outside world except occasionally some traveller passing thro is the bearer of letters & papers.”

Nor did the war go well for Beach’s business partner and uncle, Otis Mills. When he died in 1869, a Charleston newspaper wrote of his struggles:

“When the citizens of Charleston were called upon to aid the military authorities in erecting fortifications around the city, none responded more readily than Mr. Mills, and he and his slaves were at work incessantly day and night where their services were most needed. His practical faith in the success of our cause and his excessive generosity in risking his fortune therewith left him at the termination of the war almost penniless.”

And slave-less besides. Erastus Beach did eventually receive compensation for the confiscation of his home in Skaneateles. Leslie notes that he was also given a government job in the Customs House in New York City, by way of an apology, and he spent the rest of his life there. There is no mention of his ever returning to Skaneateles.

:: The Prince of Privateers ::

Before the war, Erastus Beach hosted John N. Maffitt in Skaneateles, surely his most famous guest. Between 1850 and 1855, Maffitt was an officer in the U.S. Navy, surveying the waters in and around Charleston, where he charted Maffitt’s Channel. It was probably at this time that Beach met Maffitt, who was much feted by the town’s grateful shippers.

Beginning in 1857, Maffitt commanded U.S. ships in the waters of the West Indies, intercepting slave ships and liberating hundreds of slaves. But in February of 1861, concerned that Maffitt was a southerner (he was raised in North Carolina) and might make off with his ship if war began, the U.S. Navy ordered him to return his ship to a U.S. port. He sailed to Mobile, Alabama, where he defended his ship from local citizens who wanted to seize it for the Confederacy. He next sailed to the naval base at Key West, where he helped to secure federal property there. There were no supplies to be had for the voyage north, so he provisioned the ship in Havana at his own expense and sailed it to New York. When he reported to Washington, the naval authorities refused to reimburse him for the expense. When Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter, Maffitt’s course became clear. He slipped out of Washington, and made his way south to join the Confederate States Navy.

John Newland Maffitt

In the service of the Confederacy, Maffitt became truly famous. As a blockade runner, he was fearless and uncatchable. Approaching the harbor at Mobile Bay on one occasion, so weak with yellow fever that he was barely able to stand, and having no local pilot to guide him, he chose to run the Union blockade in daylight. For 19 minutes he took broadsides from the Union ships. His midshipman, G. Terry Sinclair, later wrote:

“The ravages of the fever had prevented our doing more than mounting our guns and securing them for sea; otherwise we should have returned the enemy’s fire. We received one 11-inch shell opposite our port gangway, near the water-line. It passed through our coal-bunker, painfully wounding one man and beheading another, thence to the berth deck, where our men had previously been ordered as a place of safety. Fortunately this shell did not explode, the fuse having been knocked out, probably by contact with the ship’s side. Another shell entered the cabin, and, passing through the pantry, raised havoc with the crockery. The ship to the day of her destruction bore the marks of upward of fourteen hundred shrapnel balls.”

As a commerce raider in the Atlantic, Maffitt captured and burnt more than 70 ships, worth $15 million, that were headed to or from the Union. But he always took the crews and passengers safely to neutral ports. The press dubbed him “The Prince of Privateers.” Although the title was erroneous — he was officially in the navy of  the Confederacy — it had a nice ring to it. Reading of his exploits, some in Skaneateles must have recalled his visit and his host.

:: Epilogue ::

Reuel and Celestia Mills Smith had three children: James Mills Smith, Sarah Celestia Smith and Edmund Reuel Smith. Reuel’s wife, Celestia, died in New York City, in 1829, three days after the birth of Edmund. Their daughter, Sarah Celestia Smith, died two months after the death of her mother; she was not yet two-years-old. Reuel Smith, the elder, died in 1873 in New York City. In 1860, Edmund Reuel Smith married Elizabeth DeCost Burnett of Skaneateles and began a new chapter in the life of the Smith family here.

:: Sources ::

I am grateful for the Reuel Smith letters collected at the University of South Carolina’s South Caroliniana Library; The Old Merchants of New York City (1885) by Walter Barrett a.k.a. Joseph A. Scoville; G. Terry Sinclair, Midshipman, C.S.N., in “Confederate Commerce-Destroyers: The Eventful Cruise of the ‘Florida’ ” in The Century Magazine, July 1898; History of Skaneateles (1902) by Edmund Norman Leslie; History of the New England Society of Charleston, South Carolina, for One Hundred Years, 1819-1919 Compiled from Original Sources by William Way, Rector of Grace Episcopal Church and Ninth President of the New England Society (1920); many genealogies and of course, The New York Times and Wikipedia.

Skaneateles, circa 1865

“At a palatial residence we were met by the warbling of a thousand birds of varied plumage, while the stately pavilions, the cool summer houses, the hanging flower-baskets, the tropical luxuriance of the aloe and the cactus, the pattering of cool fountains, and the immense pleasure-grounds reminded us of Kablai Khan and the groves of Damascus.

“At various places the Star-Spangled Banner was flung to the breeze. Crowds of the beauty and the fashion thronged the sidewalks, and at the Lake House we were saluted by the band playing the air, ‘See! The conquering hero comes!’ “

– From “A Tourist’s Observations” quoted without date or attribution in E.N. Leslie’s History of Skaneateles (1902). We know that the Lake House hotel went by that name from 1840 until it burnt to the ground in 1870, and that the song cited (with its tune by Handel) was a popular martial air during the U.S. Civil War, 1861-1865, hence I estimate this glowing report to date from 1865 or so.

Skaneateles, 1839

“Skaneateles, at the outlet of the lake, is the second of those attractive lake cities (Cazenovia being the first) that we encounter in traveling this great western thoroughfare. It contains four churches, an academy, and five grist-mills that can make forty thousand barrels of flour annually, also four saw, four carding and cloth-dressing mills, two woollen factories, two furnaces and foundaries, two machine-shops, four tanneries, two carriage factories, two taverns, eight stores, three hundred houses, and two thousand one hundred and fifty inhabitants.

“The site of the village is unsurpassed in its complete command of the lake, that is as transparent as air; its banks romantic, picturesque, and rising into eminences of several hundred feet at its southern termination; it abounds with trout in its deep cool waters, that reflect, like a mirror, the hills and slopes, woods, meadows, and pure white farm houses.

“Petrifactions also abound here; on the east, and on a level with the water, are organic remains of the cornu ammonis, imbedded in slate. Three miles north of the outlet, the creek sinks into the rocks below the falls of seventy feet, and is lost for some distance, but this is often the case in Florida, and in limestone countries. The Indian name of this lake, as preserved, means LONG; it is fed by springs, and is fifteen miles long by one half to one and a half wide.”

– The North American Tourist (1839) by A.T. Goodrich

The Livingstons of Skaneateles

I want to tell you about John W. Livingston of Skaneateles, and the famous writer he once hosted at his estate on East Lake Road, but first I feel the need to illuminate the Livingston pedigree.

You no doubt recall John Livingston (1714-1788), “The Loyalist,” a wealthy merchant from New York who remained loyal to England during the American Revolution. His son, John William Livingston (1754-1830), also a Loyalist, served as a Captain in the King’s American Rifles. Capt. John W. Livingston was blessed with a son of his own in 1778 and named him John W. Livingston.

The loyalist Captain Livingston also had a daughter, named Eliza; in 1805, Eliza married a U.S. Navy surgeon named Dr. William Turk; they had a son who they named John William Turk. In 1842, John William Turk married a cousin, Mary Augusta Livingston, one of three daughters of his mother Eliza’s brother, our own John W. Livingston (1778-1860). The following year, the young Turk legally changed his name to John W. Livingston, thus becoming his uncle’s namesake as well as his nephew and son-in-law. I have no idea how they tagged their Christmas presents.

With that made clear, I can go back 50 years to pick up the thread of the narrative:

Our John W. Livingston (1778-1860) was for a time an officer, like his father, but in the new American military rather than the British-American military; he served as a Captain of Artillery and Engineers from 1798 to 1804; as an engineer, he selected sites for fortifications on the frontier of the new republic. After resigning his military commission, John married Julia Adel Broome (1780-1844), daughter of John Broome, a New York City importer of tea, china and silk who also served as the Mayor of New York City. Julia Broome Livingston’s sister, Sarah Broome, married James Boggs. In 1808, John W. Livingston and James Boggs, brothers-in-law, went into business together, forming an auction house, Boggs & Livingston, in New York City. They were, by all accounts, wildly successful.

At the beginning of the War of 1812, John W. Livingston returned to the military and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel; for a time he served as adjutant to the Governor of New York, Daniel Tompkins, whose Lt. Governor was John Broome, Lt. Col. John W. Livingston’s father-in-law. It was a small world.

:: Skaneateles ::

At the war’s end in 1815, Lt. Col. John W. Livingston was appointed U.S. Marshal of the Northern District of New York and took up residence in Skaneateles, living in a large house with beautiful grounds on the eastern shore of the lake, just a mile south of the village.

The land and house already had a history of their own. Military Lot No. 44 was given to one John Shultz in payment for his military service during the American Revolution. The land was uncleared and there were no roads leading to it, so Shultz, like many other soldiers, sold his land to a speculator, in this case Judge Jedediah Sanger, our first developer. In 1801, Col. Sebra Brainerd and Ebenezer Pardee bought the land from Sanger for $500, and built two log cabins and a barn.

In 1807, they sold the newly cleared farm to Gershom Hall for $1250. Two years later, Gershom and his wife Keziah entered into an agreement with their son Loammi Hall and his wife to work the land together and raise “a good and sufficient house” in which both their families could live. (Students of Biblical names will of course recognize Gershom as the firstborn son of Moses and Zipporah, Lo-ammi as the eldest son of the prophet Hosea, and Keziah as the second daughter of Job to be born after his restoration from affliction.)

In 1815, Col. Livingston paid the Hall families $4,750 for the house and farm, and moved in with his wife and three daughters — Julia, Adele and Mary Augusta. Among their personal effects were a pianoforte which Julia’s father, John Broome, had imported from London, and a silver pitcher made by Paul Revere.

As an officer of the government and a wealthy man, John Livingston was an important person in the community. In 1816, when St. James’ Episcopal Church was organized, he was named as one of the vestrymen; also that year, when money was raised to build a new dam at the outlet of the lake, John W. Livingston was one of signers of the deed.

:: The Visiting Writer ::

In 1827, young Adele Livingston had a visitor, Nathaniel Parker Willis, a student from Yale who was on his “grand tour” prior to graduation. Willis was already recognized as a poet, and was on his way to building a great reputation as a man of letters and, also, as a guest.

A jaunty and aristocratic lad, Willis found the Livingston home to be a “little palace of cultivation and refinement” in the wilderness that was then upstate New York. In a later work entitled Edith Linsey, Willis cast the home as Fleming Farm. In the chapter called “Love in the Library,” he described the Livingston sisters as “quite too pretty to have been left out of my story so long,” and noted that they “were more indulgent, I thought, to the indigenous beaux of Skaneateles than those aboriginal specimens had a right to expect.”

A sketch of young Nathaniel Parker Willis

Together, Adele and Nathaniel went horseback riding around the lake, and Willis later gave us this glimpse of the home’s interior:

“There was a long room in the southern wing of the house fitted up as a library. It was a heavily curtained, dim old place, with deep-embayed windows, and so many nooks, and so much furniture, that there was a hushed air, that absence of echo within it, which is the great charm of a haunt for study or thought.”

It was, however, a family connection who would ultimately win Adele Livingston’s heart. A young clerk at Boggs & Livingston, named Joseph Sampson, had worked his way up through the company, which in 1830 became Boggs, Sampson & Thompson. In 1831, Adele settled her affections upon Mr. Sampson and they were married in Skaneateles, at home, by The Rev. Samuel W. Brace, a Presbyterian.

:: Back to New York City ::

Joseph and Adele Livingston Sampson settled in New York City where their fortunes flourished. In 1837, Adele’s parents returned to New York City as well, leaving Skaneateles after John retired from his duties as U.S. Marshal.

In 1840, Joseph Sampson bought the New York mansion of banker Samuel Ward for $70,000. No less an authority than John Jacob Astor remarked at the time that he hadn’t known there was any one in New York who could afford to pay such a price for a residence. Joseph Sampson could. It was said of him, “His clearness of vision in business matters made his advice most valuable to those associated with him, while his even temperament prevented his losing his head in times of panic and financial trouble.”

On August 23, 1841, Joseph and Adele were blessed with the birth of a daughter. Eight days later, on September 1st, Adele Livingston Sampson died. Joseph Sampson named his daughter Adele Livingston Sampson.

:: The Second Adele ::

The second Adele Livingston Sampson had no connection with Skaneateles, but her story bears telling. The New York Times once observed of her, she “was not very pretty, but she was very chic, and, moreover, had a large fortune.” The fortune came from Joseph Sampson, her father, whose fortunes continued to thrive; he was a founder of The Chemical Bank of New York, and a successful investor. He sent Adele to the Priory School for Girls in Pelham Manor, N.Y., and then abroad for “finishing.”

In 1862, Adele married Frederick W. Stevens; they had four children, and Mrs. Stevens became a notable society hostesses; she summered at Newport and rode to the hounds with the Westbury hunting set. In 1872, her father died and she inherited almost his entire fortune, becoming one of the richest women in America. She had fond memories of her school, the Priory, and in 1883, when it closed, she bought the building and grounds and presented them to her daughter, Mrs. Frederick H. Allen, as a wedding gift.

The Priory in Pelham Manor

And then, delicious scandal. The New York Times breathlessly recounted:

“… early in the season, it was whispered, then rumored, and finally boldly stated that Mrs. Stevens’ name had been stricken from off the society list, and that she had gone to Europe to join no less a person than the Marquis de Talleyrand-Perigord, leaving husband and children behind. It was then remembered that the Marquis, who himself was a married man, having married Miss Bessie Curtis, of the old Boston family of that name, and who had visited New-York and Newport in 1876 and again about 1881, had evinced so decided a preference for Mrs. Stevens’s society that some gossip was provoked at the time.

“The fact that Mrs. Stevens, however, should have gone so far as to leave home and family for a Frenchman of no particular personal attractions, the Marquis being short and rather stout and decidedly ordinary-looking, and being moreover supposed to be deeply in debt, and a man having wife and family, occasioned the utmost sensation and surprise.”

Adele was ostracized from New York society, and went her own way. In 1887, she divorced her husband and married the Marquis de Talleyrand-Perigord; his elderly uncle, the Duc de Dino, abdicated his title making the Marquis the new duke and Adele a duchess. Henry Adams, in a letter of 1907, spoke of meeting the banished Adele while visiting a friend’s chateau in France:

“I went down with the Jones’s and tumbled headlong into the arms of the Duchess Sampson. The last time I was in the same room was with Mr. and Mrs. Fred Stevens and Mr. & Mrs. Fred Jones, somewhere about the year 1880. Since then, I doubt whether any relations have existed. The moment was more than hazardous, but passed off without a shock. Never have I seen so melodramatic a situation, and not a sign of it betrayed.”

In 1912, Adele Livingston Sampson Stevens, the Duchess de Dino, died in Paris; she left more than $1,000,000 to her four children, in equal shares, as well as shares in the trust fund established for her by her father.

:: Julia Livingston Tappan ::

Julia Livingston Tappan, circa 1852

Circling back in time: The eldest of the three lovely Livingston sisers, Julia, in 1828 married Henry P. Tappan, a graduate of the nearby Auburn Theological Seminary, which was then training young men to be clergy on the frontier. Tappan was a clergyman for a time, then taught philosophy at various colleges before becoming the first president of the University of Michigan in 1852. Although the University thrived under Professor Tappan, he was fired by the Board of Regents in 1863. The ten regents, of whom only two were college-educated, thought Tappan put on “lofty airs” and one in particular objected to his drinking wine with dinner. After his firing, an “act of savage, unmitigated barbarism” according to The American Journal of Education, the Tappan family moved to Europe, and never returned.

:: Nathaniel Parker Willis ::

Having survived his visit to the wilds of Skaneateles, N.P. Willis went on to a glowing literary life. In the elegant circles of Boston, he would be “much admired and caressed.” As a publisher and editor, he was a friend to every major American writer, including Emerson, Lowell and Hawthorne, as well as England’s Dickens and Thackery. Willis was the first to publish Edgar Allen Poe’s poem “The Raven.” (Poe once noted charitably, “Willis… he’s not quite an ass.”) As a writer, Willis was one of America’s most popular and best-paid.

In 1832, he went to Europe; his travel writings were collected as Pencillings by the Way. One biographer noted, “He wrote in the tone and style of a young prince.” His titles say it all: Inklings of Adventure, Loiterings of Travel, Dashes at Life with a Free Pencil, People I Have Met, Fun Jottings. Sadly, Willis’ frothy light writing did not wear well, nor did his image. As he aged, the soft, straying forelock of his younger days evolved into glued curls, and he was said to be, in Walt Whitman’s words, “the horror of photographers,” who could but fail to capture his fleeting youth.

Nathaniel Parker Willis, photographed by Mathew Brady

But he was not forgotten by his peers. When he died at the age of 60, the bookstores of Boston closed for his funeral service, and his pallbearers included Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell and Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

:: The House ::

Alone among our players, the Livingston home still stands. After the family’s departure for New York City in 1837, the house was purchased by a retired New York merchant, Dyer Brainerd. Of the house and its new tenant, William Beauchamp, in his Notes on Other Days in Skaneateles, wrote, “His old home, with its fine thorn hedge, was long one of the most noticeable near Skaneateles, and many were the pleasant entertainments that occurred there.”

A succession of private owners lived in, altered, and restored the house, and sold off large pieces of the estate. Briefly in the early 1950’s, the house was used as a restaurant named Gnarlehedge House, open during the summer for luncheon and dinner, with a House Museum for its guests. Since 1956, the home has again been a private residence.

:: Sources ::

Nathaniel Parker Willis (1885) by Henry A. Beers; “Nathaniel Parker Willis” in Some Noted Princes, Authors & Statesmen of Our Time (1885) by James Parton; Prose Writings of N.P. Willis (1885); “Married To Her Marquis” NewYork Times, Jan. 27, 1887; “Duke and Duchess Part” New York Times, April 4, 1903; “Mrs. Sampson’s Will” New York Times, July 26, 1912; Crowding Memories (1920) by Mrs. Thomas Bailey Aldrich; “The Story of Gnarlehedge House,” circa 1950, from the collection of the Skaneateles Historical Society; Historic Pelham website; Henry Adams in a letter to Elizabeth Cameron, June 1907.

John Francis McCarthy

This softcover collection of John Francis McCarthy’s photography of Skaneateles is available in his store at 9 Jordan Street. It’s a lovely keepsake of the Village for travelers and residents alike. If you can’t get to the store, you can visit John on the Web.

Isaac Sherwood, 1769-1840

From the Auburn, N.Y., Cayuga Patriot of April 29, 1840:

“Died, In this village, on Friday 24th instant, Isaac Sherwood, Esq., aged 70 years, 6  months, 11 days.

“The life of the deceased presents a remarkable instance of the successful application of a vigorous and practical mind to the pursuits of business, and it is due to his character, and to the extensive circle of his friends and acquaintances, to pay a passing tribute to his memory.

“Mr. Sherwood was born in Williamstown, Mass. 13th Oct. 1769. He came into this country in the year 1798, and settled on a farm within the limits of the present town of Sennett; in 1804 he removed to the village of Skaneateles where for a number of years he was engaged in mercantile business. In 1811, he joined the late Jason Parker, of Utica, in establishing a line of stages to run twice in a week between Utica and Geneva. It was in this last business in which he retained an interest to the time of his death, that he became more extensively identified with the interests of the community and so generally known. This business which had so lately so small a beginning was gradually extended under his supervision — as the population and business of the country increased until of late years five and six daily lines of Post Coaches have been insufficient to accommodate the traveling public.

“Decision and energy were perhaps the most prominent features in the character of the deceased and to these he added promptness and perseverance in action which stopped at no obstacles. These qualities imparted a marked character to all his business operations.

“Nor was it as a man of business alone that he excelled. His general intelligence and social qualities were no less conspicuous. Though his pursuits in life were not favorable to an extensive acquaintance with books, yet he read much and always to profit. His business pursuits enabled him to become acquainted with the leading men of the nation, and he had much of that best kind of knowledge — the knowledge of men and things.

“With a fund of information and of anecdote thus acquired and with a happy tact of communication — and a mind ever active and elastic his conversation possessed unusual point and interest.

“Of the kindlier qualities of his heart, the best evidences exist in the unwavering affections of the members of his family — and in the warm regard of those whose fortune it was to be his more familiar acquaintances.

“For the last five or six years he has resided in this village, and has had but little active participation in business. He however preserved his habits of exercise by travel and riding, down to the time of his confinement last fall; and though his great obesity of person rendered this necessary for the preservation of his health, however inconvenient it might be, yet he was equally impelled to it by his great activity and energy of mind — which made him impatient under inaction.

“He retained his reason to the last moment of his existence and died in the hope of an interest in the Redeemer.”

* * *

My thanks to the Cayuga County Historical Society and the Skaneateles Historical Society for this obituary of Isaac Sherwood, who founded “Sherwood’s Inn” in 1807.

Skaneateles, 1805

“July 20. Rose at half past two o’clock, and proceeded to Andrew’s, at Skaneateles, to breakfast, sixteen miles; a good tavern. The country is still hilly, but very fertile. The soil is deep, — a mixture of loam and clay. The roads here must be very bad in wet weather. It rained last night for the first time since we commenced our journey; and the horses’ feet, in consequence thereof, slipped as if they were travelling on snow or ice…

“Skaneateles is a pleasant village, situated on the northern extremity, and at the outlet of, the lake of the same name. The lake is from one to two miles wide, and sixteen miles long from north to south. There is a view of the village of about six miles up the lake. The country which encompasses this lake is delightful. There are no marshes or swamps to be seen; but the land sloops gently towards the water, so that wheat is seen growing to its very edge. The soil is remarkably fertile, free from rocks, and agreeably diversified with gentle swells.

“The lake, moreover, abounds with fish of all kinds usually found in fresh water, and the outlet affords a most excellent seat for mills and other water-works. Here are already a grist and saw mill, a carding-machine, and to distil-houses, which are supplied with water from the lake, though many rods distant, by means of pumps wrought by water. The pumps discharge their water into perpendicular logs or pipes, from which it descends, and then runs along in an aqueduct till it reaches the distil-house, and then rises again.

“The dam which is thrown across the outlet raises the water over the whole surface of the lake. This is the reason there is no beach now to be seen on its borders, but the verdure meets the water. It is remarkable that this flowing should not overflow any lands adjacent to the lake, except a small tract at the southern or upper extremity of the lake; and the proprietor of the dam has purchased the right to flow that.”

– Timothy Bigelow in Journal of a Trip to Niagara Falls in the Year 1805 (1876)

Note: The tavern Bigelow writes of was kept by Elnathan Andrews. Should you wish to commune with the tavern’s spirit, its site lies on Genesee Street approximately where the red brick bank is today, between the Masonic Hall to the west and State Street to the east. Andrews also kept a “travelers barn” across the street on the lake shore; in 1807, the barn was the only building on the south side of the road and was itself famous, in its day, for briefly sheltering the first elephant ever seen in the village of Skaneateles.