Part 9
On the night of October 2–3, the American forces marched quietly down the main road toward Germantown, with flanks thrown out, on the right to the Wissahickon ravine, on the left to the old York pike. Dawn brought Sullivan of Maine into contact with the enemy. The enemy retreated, gaining speed as he scampered down Mount Airy into Germantown, with Sullivan, Conway and Reed at his heels. Colonel Musgrave, of the Fortieth Regiment of the British, saw the retreat coming, and with one hundred and twenty men swarmed into Cliveden, closed the shutters on the lower floor, barred the doors, and prepared to stand. Washington himself was in the pursuit, and he ordered Maxwell and four cannon to the ground across the street from Cliveden, where Upsala now stands. A thick fog had gathered, making it nearly impossible to determine where the enemy was, or in what strength. The utmost confusion prevailed. One of Maxwell’s six-pounders spoke, and a ball passed in the front window of the Chew house, through four partitions and heaven knows how many British, and out a rear window. The battery hammered at the steps, the windows and the door, while snipers fired at the flash of rifles from the upper stories. Infantry charged across the lawn and were beaten back, artillery punctured, but did not dislodge. Reed was all for chasing the rest of the retreating British toward the city, but Knox said it was against the rules to leave an enemy fort in the rear. “What!” Reed exclaimed, “call this a fort and lose the happy moment?”
It was in effect a fort, but it was as truly the happy moment to leave the fort to be cleaned out later and press the British retreat. For the American wings had not driven the British back (the American left wing failed because General Stephen was drunk), and the British, unopposed, marched obliquely toward the center of the fighting at Cliveden. Thus the battle became, instead of the conflict of bow-shaped forces, the meeting of two great arrowheads, and the point where the arrows met and the sparks were flying thickest was the lawn of the Chew house. Smith of Virginia, a colonel, set out for the house with a flag of truce to demand Musgrave’s surrender, and was shot from a window. Major White, one of Sullivan’s aides, tried to set fire to the house, and a shot from a cellar window killed him. Musgrave hung on. Every minute that passed brought British troops nearer, and increased the odds against the Americans.
Our army left five hundred dead and wounded in Germantown and then retreated to Whitemarsh. The King’s forces, reduced by five hundred dead and wounded, remained in the bloody fog of the village. The townsfolk began to come out of their cellars and examine the damage. A field hospital was set up at Wyck, a fine old house down Germantown Road. At Johnson House you can see today the hole in a window-frame through which a frantic pet squirrel, forgotten in the flight to the cellar, gnawed his way to freedom. Stray bullets pierced every house within a quarter-mile, and of all the houses within that radius, Cliveden, its center, took the worst punishment.
Five carpenters worked all that fall and winter repairing the damage. Holes gaped through the inner walls, hardly a pane of glass was intact, statues were chipped, mirrors splintered, furniture reduced to expensive kindling. What was not stained with blood was streaked with smoke, and the second floor ceilings were sprayed with bullets by Continentals who dashed into the shelter of the building and fired through the upper windows.
Across the span of the years we can still hear the echo of an outraged protest--the hymn of hate of the daughters of William Chew, sung with all the cordial detestation that could be uttered by a group of sisters who came out to Germantown under British escort and found their lovely home in ruins at the hands of the army that had already made their father a prisoner. None can blame them for the gayety with which they entered into the social life of that winter in the occupied city, with never a thought for Washington’s men shivering in the snow at Valley Forge. Knyphausen, Cornwallis, and the two Howes picked out comfortable quarters in the deserted houses of the patriots who had fled, and Major André settled down with a “rapacious crew” in the home of Benjamin Franklin. When Franklin’s daughter returned after the British evacuation the next June she reported to him in Paris: “They stole and carried off with them some of your musical instruments, viz., a Welsh harp, ball harp, the set of tuned bells which were in a box, viol-de-gamba, all the spare harmonica glasses and one or two spare cases.” Tuneful was the life of the army of occupation.
André was paying diligent court to Peggy Chew. He was her champion in the fête of Mischianza, and her gallant protector when a marauding force of ragged Continentals marched down from Valley Forge and broke up the party. He wore her ribbon, with the legend “No Rival,” presented her with an aquarelle of himself in costume, wrote an account of the affair in verse, and filled in his spare hours by inditing to her rhapsodies inspired in the orchard at Cliveden, in apple-blossom time. Then came the parting; within a few short years
“The youth who bids with stifled pain His sad farewell tonight”
was dead with a rope around his neck, and although Peggy married a soldier of the Republic, she remembered the enemy gallant. She was never so impishly amused as when she could say a kind word for André, for it guaranteed an explosive protest from her husband. “Major André,” said Peggy, demurely, with a certain dangerous sadness in her eyes, “was a most witty and cultivated gentleman,” and Colonel Howard, seizing a visitor’s arm, exclaimed “He was a damned spy, sir! Nothing but a damned spy!”
The house had been restored only two years when William Chew sold it to Blair McClenahan, but in 1787 he bought it back. In August of 1787 Washington, then president of the Constitutional Convention, rode out to see the encampment at Whitemarsh to which he had retreated ten years before, and dined with McClenahan in the Chew house. Despite his Royalist relations, the close of the Revolution restored Benjamin Chew to good standing in his community and the judicial profession, and he served as justice of the High Court of Errours and Appeals until its abolishment in 1808. During the period when the Federal Congress sat in Philadelphia it was no infrequent thing to see the Father of His Country in company with the father of Peggy and of Harriet, who was soon to marry a Carroll of Doughoregan.
It was at Germantown that Stephen’s drunkenness left his division without a commander, and opened a vacancy for Lafayette’s assumption of an active command as major-general. Naturally, therefore, when Lafayette returned to America in 1825, he could not ignore Germantown. He was received with a military escort and drawn “in an open barouche” to Cliveden. Let Miss Ann Johnson, of Upsala, across the way, carry on the story as she did in a letter to her mother:
“Last 4th. day morn I had the honour of breakfasting with Lafayette at Mr. Chew’s. I wish you had been here--the house both up and down stairs was crowded with men, women and soldiers--and around the house. Mrs. and two of the Miss Morris’s and myself were the only invited ladies that sat down to Breakfast--about 16 sat down at first, and when they had finished others took their place, and so on till I believe nearly all the soldiers had breakfast--those that did not come in had something in the kitchen. I heard that they eat everything they had till at last the cook had to lock the doors.
“I was introduced to LaFayette twice and shook hands with him three times. Ann Chew regretted M. was not there to enjoy the scene--it was quite delightful to see anything so animated in G--pp. There was so much noise that I could not hear a word the General said; every person seemed so anxious to see him eat that a centinal had to keep guard at the door with a drawn sword--it was very fine indeed. When he departed the shouts of the multitude and the roaring of the cannon was almost deafening. A. L. Logan said I could give you a very fine description of it--but I told him I would have to leave it to your imagination, it would be impossible for me to describe everything.”
Mrs. Samuel Chew is the present owner of the estate, and an appreciative custodian of its legend. Hers are the Washington letters; the portraits of illustrious Chews who have been eminent in the law, medicine, and public affairs since John Chew sailed into Jamestown in the _Charitie_ in 1621; the shot-holes, the stains of the powder-kegs on the floor; the immaculately carved columns and stair rail of the hallway, and the hundred other fragments of the Cliveden story. Cliveden is hers--its story is the nation’s.
THE WENTWORTH MANSION
THE WENTWORTH MANSION
“These tales you tell are one and all Of the Old World,” the Poet said, “Flowers gathered from a crumbling wall, Dead leaves that rustle as they fall; Let me present you in their stead Something of our New England earth, ...”
--_Lady Wentworth._
It was almost as original in Colonial New Hampshire to be a Wentworth as it is today to be a Biddle in Philadelphia. The descendants of Samuel Wentworth, the first of his name in the province, were conspicuously numerous in the small population of their community. As individuals they were energetic, persevering, and not without a certain amount of dignity. To say that they were politicians is to say that they were business men. Individually they were better than average citizens, collectively they contributed enough to the progress and the story of New Hampshire to invite a glimpse into the house which is today the chief memorial to the family.
Except for its size you might pass it by in a countryside full of rambling buildings silvered by the weather. It has neither the warm, open-armed welcome of Doughoregan Manor, nor the smug comfort of Cliveden, nor the exalted location of Monticello, nor the decorative dignity of its rival, the Pepperrell House across the harbor. A plain man built it somewhere back in the seventeenth century, built it close by the bright water of Little Harbor because there were codfish there as sacred to New Hampshire revenue as any goldfish that ever inspired faith in Massachusetts. Built it out of big timber to cut the northeasters whipping in over the Isles of Shoals, built a sharp roof to shed snow. Built it to live in. Another generation, with perhaps a larger family, wanted more room, and built on. When Mark Hunking owned it he did the same. In the south our colonies’ increased demands upon the facilities of a growing estate were met by outbuildings set well apart from the great house, but in this sharp climate outbuildings raised the unpleasant prospect of wading to and fro through shoulder-high drifts, and involved separate heating-plants and no end of inconvenience. So gradually the house sprouted a plain ell here and a humble jog there, a shed around the corner, and enough additions to effect a total of nearly fifty rooms. I like to think of the house as a family group of all the Wentworths, of each little addition to the original nucleus as one of the useful but obscure members posed kneeling or sitting on the outskirts of the family as it pyramids up to the great bulk of the council-room Benning Wentworth built, the council-room being in my mind’s eye none other than the formidable, homely, well-fed and hard-drinking Benning himself.
To paint for yourself the picture of the prime of the house you must recall certain facts about the Portsmouth of the beginning of the eighteenth century. Twenty miles inland Indians scalped white men and women, and white men scalped Indians. As many miles to the eastward, and more, the men of Portsmouth sailed in ships for fish and returned with a catch to pay the storekeeper’s bill for groceries and clothing--a bill which always seemed just out of reach, and which kept these men sailing until they died, while the merchants prospered. From the outer world came small-pox. Over on Great Island, at the Walton place, there were genuine witches; if you don’t believe this you may read it in a pamphlet published in London in 1698, whose title says it is
“an Exact and True Account of the various actions of infernal Spirits, or (_Devils Incarnate_) Witches, or both; and the great Disturbance and Amazement they gave to _George Walton’s_ Family at a place called _Great Island_ in the Province of _New Hampshire_ in New England, chiefly in throwing about (by an Invisible hand) _Stones_, _Bricks_, and _Brick-bats_ of all sizes, with several other things, as _Hammers_, _Mauls_, _Iron-Crows_, _Spits_, and other domestick utensils, as came into their Hellish Minds, and this for the space of a Quarter of a Year.”
The Province, though a royal property as distinguished from a chartered colonial settlement, was not encouraging to the farmer, not ready for the miller. Its governorship was for the king’s favorite candidate, and in size and importance it was a homely stepsister of the well-to-do colony of Massachusetts to the southward.
John Wentworth bought the lieutenant-governorship and made it profitable until he died. From his widow, Mark Hunking’s daughter, Benning Wentworth inherited the Mansion at Little Harbor. As a young graduate of Harvard who had brought home a Boston bride, and as the owner of a prosperous business and a fine house, he was popular enough, and his path was paved into politics. The Assembly applauded his protests against the Governor of Massachusetts who also governed New Hampshire. As a member of the council his youthful oratory soon moderated to the whisper of the boss who is learning how to do things smoothly, for there was much to be gained if London could be persuaded to appoint a distinct governor for New Hampshire who would not be responsible to Massachusetts. In 1744 the opportunity came to prove his point.
Benning Wentworth sold a cargo of lumber to an agent of the King of Spain. When it reached Cadiz the agent had resigned, and his successor refused the cargo. On the return voyage the ship foundered, and Wentworth and a handful of sailors counted themselves lucky to be rescued. He went at once to London to beg the government to enforce his claim on Spain. With similar complaints from other British merchants a bill was presented at Madrid which Spain honored but did not pay, and under economic pressure England declared war upon her. At home, meanwhile, Governor Belcher had fallen into every trap his enemies set for him, and was removed, but not before the King had been prevailed upon to separate Massachusetts and New Hampshire once and for all, re-survey their boundaries, and set up a new governor not only in Boston but in Portsmouth.
Theoretically, John Thomlinson, the agent of New Hampshire in London, brought this about, but, as a matter of fact, it was Thomlinson’s good aim and Benning Wentworth’s timely cartridges which shot Governor Belcher’s support from under him. What more natural, therefore, than that Benning Wentworth return to Portsmouth as governor of New Hampshire. He was received with cheers, and made a hearty address to his Assembly, suggesting that they make him a guaranteed annual grant of salary. The Assembly replied with fulsome cordiality and said they would grant him whatever they found themselves able to pay. It proved to be £500 a year, and to this Thomlinson presently managed to add the job of Surveyor of the Woods, which he bought from the previous surveyor for two thousand pounds and turned over to Wentworth for a consideration not mentioned. In order to accept the post the Governor had to surrender his claims for $56,000 against the Court of Spain, and the prospects were so bright in his new position that he was glad enough to do it in favor of additional income of £800, and to settle down to a smooth program of political patronage.
It happened that he was not to be allowed to forget the Court of Spain, nor to get rich without making enemies. England’s war with Spain dragged France in, and Governor Shirley of Massachusetts, full of enthusiasm for his new charge, looked on a map for the nearest French stronghold, found it to be Louisburg, on Cape Breton Island, and shouted for money, arms, and men for an expedition. Benning Wentworth, who liked Shirley and often asked his advice, heard the cry, and offered New Hampshire help. Shirley took the help, and appointed a rival merchant in Portsmouth, William Pepperrell, as general in command.
Here was a delicate situation. Shirley, having securely appointed Pepperrell, wrote: “It would have been an infinite satisfaction to me, and done great honor to the expedition if your limbs would have permitted you to take the command.” Wentworth was so charmed with the idea that he forgot his gout and volunteered! To this Shirley replied, with more truth than tact, that “any alteration of the present command would be attended with great risque, both with respect to the Assembly and the soldiers being entirely disgusted.” “You was made General,” wrote a friend to Pepperrell, “being a popular man, most likely to raise soldiers soonest. The expedition was calculated to ESTABLISH Shirley and make his creature Wentworth Governor of Cape Breton, which is to be a place of refuge for him from his creditors. Beware of snakes in the grass and mind their hissing.” About four thousand men rallied, a fleet of a hundred vessels assembled, and the voyage began, planned by a Governor, and commanded by a merchant, to storm a citadel called the “Gibraltar of America.”
Contemporaries called it a “Cambridge commencement,” and without a wild sort of undergraduate enthusiasm it must have failed. An enthusiastic preacher gave Governor Shirley a plan for investing the fortress which he had worked out himself. Another amateur gave him a model of a flying bridge to be used in scaling the walls--it only needed twelve hundred feet of rope to operate, and a thousand men might pass over it in four minutes. Shirley took his own counsel, drew his own beautifully-timed plans, and designed his own scaling ladders and pikes. The men were growing restless when George Whitefield, the eminent Newburyport counterpart of our own Billy Sunday, devised a motto “nihil desperandum Christo duce,” and the expedition sailed like fanatic crusaders out of Boston Harbor, unscathed by a severe epidemic of small-pox in the port.
Every plan Shirley made went wrong. The fortress, instead of being surprised by the fleet, woke up the morning of April 29 to see it lying off the harbor. Yet on June 17 the well-scared commander of the citadel hauled down the French flag. The Yankees took the city, hauled the Tricolor up again, and lured several valuable prizes into port in this way. Pepperrell was made a Baronet, Commodore Warren an Admiral. England forced France to make peace, and gave Louisburg back. Do you, perhaps, see now why they called it a Cambridge commencement?
Governor Wentworth, though not a participant, shared vicariously in the glory of the expedition, and kept busy at home directing the fighting in the west against French Indians who raided the frontier stockades from the New York lakes. Gradually and thoroughly he installed his relatives in lucrative positions of the provincial government. An occasional quarrel with his Assembly brought forth a protest to the King to remove him and place Pepperrell in his stead. Unruffled, he would call his council to the mansion at Little Harbor, set out an enormous punch-bowl on the council-room sideboard, and conduct the affairs of state as swiftly as a governor should who wants to move on to the card-rooms for a friendly game.
From his office above he could keep a weather eye on the ships out for the West Indies with lumber and livestock and fish and oil, and could tick off those inward-bound with molasses and coffee and rum. Toward town he could glimpse the stocks where more ships were building to tie his wilderness province, with its twenty miles of seacoast, to the outside world. If the Assembly lost its manners and had to be attended to, he stepped to the landing at the council-room door, and was royally wafted away to town in his official barge. His aims were not all selfish by any means. He gave a grant of land in the Connecticut valley on which to build Dartmouth College, he drew from the Assembly a grant of 300 pounds to restore a part of the burned library of Harvard. If his wife and his son had been spared to him, his life would have been very happy. But they were not spared, and thus innocently they contribute to the story of the house its most entertaining episode.
The kindly poet in the Craigie House told it in the _Tales of a Wayside Inn_. Shorn of its poetic embellishments, it is this: The Governor grew lonely in the great house. He had lost his wife, his boy, his figure. A maid of Portsmouth caught his eye, but she loved a sailor, and would have none of the Governor and his city ways. Accordingly, the sailor was caught by a press-gang and shipped to sea. Benning Wentworth grew lonelier, until one day he summoned to his house a number of guests, among them the Reverend Arthur Brown. After a good dinner he fixed a firm eye upon the dominie; and said: “You are here, sir, to marry me.” The company was astounded, and asked for the bride, whereupon the Governor turned and introduced as his blushing betrothed a maid-of-all-work in the house, Martha Hilton. And so, as so often happens, they were married.
“The rector read the service loud and clear: ‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here,’ And so on to the end. At his command On the fourth finger of her fair left hand The Governor placed the ring; and that was all: Martha was Lady Wentworth of the Hall!”
The son of the present owner of the house, Mr. J. Templeman Coolidge, tells me that marrying Martha did not necessarily indicate a loss of caste on the Governor’s part, for it was customary in those days for girls of good families to work in the households of other good families. Further, there are none of the poet’s “stacks of chimneys rising high in air,” nor oaken panels and tapestries. Further still, it is doubtful whether Martha, as a barefoot child about the streets of Portsmouth, ever resolved that some day she would marry the
“... portly person with three-cornered hat, A crimson velvet coat, head high in air, Gold-headed cane, and nicely powdered hair And diamond buckles sparkling at his knees, Dignified, stately, florid, much at ease.”
But so many inaccurate legends have been edited to make dull facts that it is a real pleasure to concede the Hall to Martha, and Martha to her husband.