Part 10

Among the subscribers to the first Dancing Assembly was Andrew Elliot, son of Sir Gilbert Elliot, then a young man recently arrived in the Province. Although he married into two Philadelphia families, Mr. Elliot’s associations were much with New York, where he was sometime Collector of Customs and Lieutenant-Governor. Mrs. Jauncey, Governor Elliot’s daughter, writes from that city, in 1783, of a ball at Head-quarters in honor of the Queen’s birthday, which her father urged his wife to attend, yet we find him writing a few months later of Mrs. Elliot being in Philadelphia, and warmly received by the authorities there, “in high spirits and high frolic, with all her best clothes; dancing with the French Minister, Financier-General, Governor of the State, &c., &c., all striving who shall show her most attention.” This latter was after the preliminaries of peace had been signed between Great Britain and the United States, when Governor Elliot’s old friends, “Governor Dickinson, Bob. Morris,” and other officials in the government, had begun to assume the more imposing proportions of winning figures. Both Mrs. Jauncey and Elizabeth Elliot married Englishmen. The latter, as Lady Cathcart, seems to have taken particular delight in dazzling the eyes of her American relatives with pictures of her own magnificent appearance in sable and diamonds assisting at court functions, where she is pleased to find herself on occasions the best dressed person in the company.[37]

Mrs. Jekyll, whose name is to be found on the early Assembly lists, and who is spoken of as “a lady of pre-eminent fashion and beauty,” was a grand-daughter of the first Edward Shippen. Her husband, John Jekyll, was Collector of the Port of Boston. In connection with this lady’s gayety and social distinction, Watson gives some curious information with regard to the invitations in early times, which, he says, were printed upon common playing-cards, there being no blank cards in the country, none but playing-cards being imported for sale. “I have seen at least a variety of a dozen in number addressed to this same lady [Mrs. Jekyll]. One of them, from a leading gentleman of that day, contained on the back the glaring effigy of _a queen_ of clubs!”[38]

The first Assembly Balls were held in a large room at Hamilton’s wharf, on Water Street, between Walnut and Dock. There seems to have been no hall capable of accommodating so many persons, and as Water Street skirted the court end of the town, it was a rather convenient locality in which to hold a ball. A lady of the olden time has left a record of going to one of these balls at Hamilton’s Stores in full dress and on horseback. What would the belles of that early time think if their Rosinantes could land them at the Academy of Music for one of the great routs of our days? The scene of enchantment now presented by the corridors, foyer, and supper-room would certainly bewilder the brains and dazzle the eyes of those beautiful great-grandmothers, for the decorations were not then elaborate, and the entertainment was simple, consisting, says one chronicler, “chiefly of something to drink.”

In 1772 the Assembly Balls seem to have been held at the Freemasons’ Lodge, while it is evident from notices in the _Pennsylvania Journal_ of 1784-85, that they were later held at the City Tavern. In 1802 the managers gave notice to subscribers, in _Poulson’s Advertiser_, that the first ball of the season would be held at Francis’s Hotel, on Market Street.

According to the early Assembly rules, tickets for strangers were to be had on application to the managers, and were to be paid for at the rate of seven shillings and sixpence,--this for gentlemen; for ladies (such was the gallantry of the time) nothing was to be paid. This old regulation remained in force until quite recently, when, in consequence of the increasing number of guests from other cities and in simple justice to the subscribers, it was decided that guests of both sexes should be paid for at the same rates as residents. The old subscription ticket was forty shillings, which moderate sum was levied upon the gentleman, and of course included the lady who accompanied him. It covered the expenses of a series of entertainments given upon every Thursday evening from January until May. The rule was that the ball “should commence at precisely six in the evening, and not, by any means, to exceed twelve the same night.” Worthy and most moderate ancestors! Your ball ended at the hour that the Assembly of our time begins, and the fair Belindas and Myrtillas who had graced the scene were sent off to their beds in time to get, if not beauty-sleep, certainly some hours of good sleep before dawn. This was a fortunate circumstance, for those were days when mothers of families considered it one of the cardinal sins to lie abed in the morning, and if Belinda did not get her quantum of sleep at night there was little chance of making it up at high noon.

Although it was one of the regulations of the Assembly that none were to be admitted without tickets, which were received at the door by one of the directors, there appears to have been some laxity in enforcing this regulation, as, in 1771, the following notice was inserted in the _Pennsylvania Journal_:

“The Assembly will be opened this evening, and as the receiving money at the door has been found extremely inconvenient, the managers think it necessary to give the public notice that no person will be admitted without a ticket from the directors, which (through the application of a subscriber) may be had of either of the managers.”

As card-playing formed an important part in the entertainment of the time, rooms were provided for those who preferred cards to the dance, furnished with fire, candles, tables, cards, etc.

The dances were regulated according to very strict rules, “first come, first served.” The ladies who arrived first had places in the first set; the others were to be arranged in the order in which they arrived. The ladies were to draw for their places, which made a little pleasant excitement and raised a flutter of expectation in breasts masculine as well as feminine. The directors always had the right to reserve one place out of the set “to present to a stranger, if any, or any other lady, who was thereby entitled to lead up that set for the night.”

To break in upon the regular order of the dances seems to have been a serious offence, as, in a letter of 1782, we read of a Philadelphia belle, Miss Polly Riché, starting up a revolt against the established authorities by “standing up in a set not her own.” By drawing the other ladies and gentlemen, who formed the cotillon, into the rebellion, she precipitated a rupture between the gentlemen, Mr. Moore and Colonel Armand, and the managers of the Assembly.

Two Jewish names appear on this early list of 1749, Levy and Franks. Mr. Black, who was in Philadelphia in 1744, thus describes a Miss Levy, probably a sister of Samson Levy, whose name is enrolled among the subscribers to the Assembly:

“In the evening, in company with Mr. Lewis and Mr. Littlepage, I went to Mr. Levy’s, a Jew, and very Considerable Merch’t; he was a Widdower. And his Sister, Miss Hettie Levy, kept his House. We staid Tea, and was very agreeably Entertain’d by the Young Lady. She was of middle Stature, and very well made her Complection Black but very Comely, she had two Charming eyes full of Fire and Rolling; Eye Brows Black and well turn’d, with a Beautiful head of Hair, Coal Black which she wore a Wigg, waving in wanting curling Ringletts in her Neck; She was a lady of a great Deal of Wit, Join’d to a Good Understanding, full of Spirits, and of a Humor exceeding Jocose and Agreeable.”

Another lady who inspired even more ardent admiration in the susceptible breast of Mr. Black was Miss Mollie Stamper, who married William Bingham, and figures on the early lists of the Assembly as Mrs. Bingham.[39] Of this young lady’s charms Mr. Black says,--

“I cannot say that she was a Regular Beauty, but she was Such that few could find any Fault with what Dame Nature had done for her.... When I view’d her I thought all the Statues I ever beheld, was so much inferior to her in Beauty that she was more capable of Converting a man into a Statue, than of being Imitated by the Greatest Master of that Art, & I surely had as much delight in Surveying her as the Organs of Sight are capable of conveying to the Soul.”

Few names were better known in the old-time social life than that of Franks. David Franks was a brother of Phila Franks, afterwards Mrs. Oliver De Lancey, and father of Rebecca Franks, who was a reigning belle during the British occupation of Philadelphia, when General Howe was in the habit of tying his horse before David Franks’s house and going in to have a chat with the ladies, and probably to enjoy a laugh at some of Miss Rebecca’s spirited sallies. Although the beautiful Jewess shared the honors of belledom with fair Willings and Shippens, no person seems to have disputed her title to be considered the wit of the day among womankind. Abigail Franks, who became Mrs. Andrew Hamilton, was another daughter of David Franks. It was to this sister in Philadelphia that Miss Rebecca wrote a long gossipy letter from New York in 1781, in which she contrasted the manners of the belles of that city and her own very much to the advantage of those of the latter place, always excepting the Van Hornes, with whom she is staying, and whom she describes as most attractive, Miss Kitty Van Horne much resembling the greatly admired Mrs. Galloway.

“By the way,” she writes, “few New York ladies know how to entertain company in their own houses, unless they introduce the card-table. Except this family, who are remarkable for their good sense and ease, I don’t know a woman or girl that can chat above half an hour, and that on the form of a cap, the color of a ribbon, or the set of a hoop, stay, or jupon. I will do our ladies, that is in Philadelphia, the justice to say they have more cleverness in the turn of an eye than the New York girls have in their whole composition. With what ease have I seen a Chew, a Penn, Oswald, Allen, and a thousand others entertain a large circle of both sexes, and the conversation, without the aid of cards, not flag or seem in the least strained or stupid.”[40]

In Mr. Joseph Shippen’s “Lines Written in an Assembly Room” we find a graceful picture of the beauties of the ante-Revolutionary period. “Fair, charming Swift,” the eldest daughter of John Swift, who afterwards became Mrs. Livingston; “lovely White,” a sister of Bishop White, who, as Mrs. Robert Morris, was the chosen friend of Mrs. Washington while in Philadelphia; “sweet, smiling, fair M’Call;” Katharine Inglis; Polly Franks, an elder daughter of David Franks; Sally Coxe, who married Andrew Allen, the loyalist; and Chews so fair that Mr. Shippen cannot decide which is the fairer. Two of these bewildering sisters, Mary and Elizabeth Chew, married respectively Alexander Wilcocks and Edward Tilghman. Another poet, of a period a little later than this, happening to pick up a knot of ribbon dropped by Miss Chew on the ball-room floor, thus descants upon her charms:

“If I mistake not--’tis the accomplish’d Chew, To whom this ornamental bow is due; Its taste like hers, so neat, so void of art-- Just as her mind and gentle as her heart. I haste to send it--to resume its place, For beaux should sorrow o’er a bow’s disgrace.”

It does not appear to have taken great inspirations to set the muse to rhyming in those days. Mr. John Swanwick seems always to have found his prompt to obey his call, and whether he is disappointed in a walk with Miss Markoe, or whether he takes such a walk; whether it is Miss Meredith’s canary-bird that dies or the great astronomer David Rittenhouse, all alike give wings to his Pegasus. He lends Miss Abby Willing his Biographical Dictionary, and with it encloses a dozen verses or more on those inscribed in this “splendid roll of fame.” Another occasion of poetic inspiration is when tears are observed to stream down a young lady’s cheek on listening to a sermon from the Rev. William White. Must it not have been delightful to possess such a fancy?

As early as 1765 some of the good old Quaker names are to be found on the Assembly lists, as Mifflin, Fishbourne, Dickinson, Galloway, Nixon, Powell, and Cadwalader, the latter family being, like the Ingersolls, Montgomerys, Sergeants, Tilghmans, Wisters, and Markoes, among later arrivals in Philadelphia from other States or from abroad. Margaret Cadwalader married Samuel Meredith, first Treasurer of the United States, while her elder sister Polly became the wife of Philemon Dickinson, from Crosia-doré, Maryland, a brother of John Dickinson, himself distinguished as a soldier and statesman, while General John Cadwalader carried off one of the Meschianza belles, Miss Williamina Bond.[41] Among names upon other Assembly lists, early and late, are those of Clymer, Hazlehurst, Evans, Burd, Lewis, McMurtrie, McPherson, Sims, Ross, Watmough, Biddle, Wharton, Meade, etc., while in that of 1765 there is a curious record of “Miss Allen, alias Governess,” which evidently refers to Ann Allen, who married Governor John Penn, a grandson of the Proprietary. Of this fair lady the ever-ready Swanwick sings,--

“When youthful Allen of majestic mien Seems as she moves of every beauty queen-- And by refinements of a polish’d mind, To decorate a throne design’d.”

The regular Assembly balls seem to have been discontinued during the War of the Revolution, although most of this time there was no lack of gayety in Philadelphia, especially in Tory circles, as is shown by contemporaneous letters. Miss Franks writes to Mrs. William Paca[42] in 1778, while the British were in possession of the city,--

“You can have no idea of the life of continued amusement I live in. I can scarce have a moment to myself. I have stole this while everybody is retired to dress for dinner. I am but just come from under Mr. J. Black’s hands and most elegantly am I dressed for a ball this evening at Smith’s where we have one every Thursday. You would not Know the room ’tis so much improv’d.

“I wish to Heaven you were going with us this evening to judge for yourself. I spent Tuesday evening at Sir Wᵐ Howes where we had a concert and Dance. I asked his leave to send you a Handkerchief to show the fashions. He very politely gave me leave to send anything you wanted, tho’ I told him you were a Delegate’s Lady....

“The Dress is more ridiculous and pretty than any thing I ever saw--great quantity of different colored feathers on the head at a time besides a thousand other things. The Hair dress’d very high in the shape Miss Vining’s was the night we returned from Smiths--the Hat we found in your Mother’s Closet wou’d be of a proper size. I have an afternoon cap with one wing--tho’ I assure you I go less in the fashion than most of the Ladies--no being dress’d without a hoop. B. Bond makes her first appearance tonight at the rooms.”

In B. Bond we recognize one of the Meschianza belles, while the Miss Vining to whom Miss Franks refers was a Wilmington girl, whose beauty, grace, and fluency in speaking their language made her a great favorite with the French officers in America, who wrote home so enthusiastically of her charms that her name became known at the court of France, the queen herself expressing a desire to meet the famous American beauty.[43]

“No loss for partners,” the lively lady continues, “even I am engaged to seven different gentlemen for you must know ’tis a fix’d rule never to dance but two dances at a time with the same person. Oh how I wish Mr. P. wou’d let you come in for a week or two--tell him I’ll answer for your being let to return. I know you are as fond of a gay life as myself--you’d have an opportunity of rakeing as much as you choose either at Plays, Balls, Concerts or Assemblys. I’ve been but 3 evenings alone since we mov’d to town. I begin now to be almost tired.”[44]

It is probably to the revival of the hoop about 1778, of which Miss Franks speaks, that some humorous verses refer, in which the hoop and anti-hoop factions are described as arraying themselves for battle upon the floor of the Assembly room. The anti-hoop party was under the leadership of Narcissa, who with her followers declared that it was their opinion

“That unless They had it in their Power to dress As they thought proper, nought would be At last left to their Option free, And so concluded, one and all, Hoopless to go to the next Ball.”

The hoop party was conducted by Fribeto, the Nash of the time, a miniature beau, who suggests to the mind Pope’s _dramatis personæ_ in the “Rape of the Lock:”

“A gayly brilliant thing That sparkled in the shining ring.

* * * * *

This same Fribeto once was chose Director of the Belles and Beaux, When’er in full Assembly they Should meet to dance an hour away.”

Indeed, the scheme and treatment of this rhymed _Bataille de Dames_ are evidently borrowed from Pope’s brilliant satire, and some verses seem not unworthy the pen of Francis Hopkinson, as, for instance, a description of the two factions upon the Assembly night:

“Here walks a Fair, from Head to toe As straight as ever she can go; And here a Dame with wings so wide, Three Yards at least from side to side.

“Hoops and no Hoops dividing stand In dread array on either Hand, Resolved to try th’ important Cause By that Assembly’s fixed Laws.”

In the conflict which ensues, Fribeto is worsted by the slim damsels, and takes refuge under Melisinda’s ample wing, from whose pocket he surveys the field of battle. Enraged by the impertinent popping up of the dandy’s head from Melisinda’s pocket, Narcissa aims a blow at him, which glances aside and falls upon the bosom of his protectress, who starts up with a cry of pain and makes her escape, leaving Fribeto prone upon the ball-room floor, a pitiable object.

“One peal of laughter fills the place. The Hoops their Hero now despise, And view him with disdainful Eyes, And with one Voice at once agree To cry aloud for Liberty”--

declaring

“That Women still In dress at least should have their will.”

Upon which the humiliated Fribeto announces,--

“My office and my Right To govern, I resign this Night, Nor will I meddle should you come In greasy night Caps to this Room, Or sit in Rows in yonder Benches, As black with Dirt as Cynder-wenches.”

This important battle probably occurred after the British evacuation of the city, as Philadelphia gayety did not cease with the departure of the red-coats, an article of apparel that General Knox declared the American girls loved too well. Arnold’s advent as Commandant, we know, was inaugurated by a series of festivities from which the Tory belles were not excluded. Indeed, when such a measure was contemplated in connection with a grand ball to be given to the French and American officers, it was found impossible to make up the company without them, consequently they appeared in full feather, at this and other entertainments, it being alleged by more than one authority that far from being slighted these loyalist ladies were given the preference over Whig belles. Among leading Tory women were Miss Polly Riché, her friend Miss Christian Amiel, the Bards, Bonds, Odells, Oswalds, and Cliftons. It has been whispered that Miss Amiel was the fair lady to whom General Arnold was engaged in writing amatory epistles before Miss Shippen’s charms conquered the hero of many battles. A note from the Commandant to Miss Riché is still extant, in which he thanks her for a picture conveyed to him, in language so guarded that no reading between the lines serves to reveal the original of the miniature, although there are those who shrewdly suspect that it was a picture of General Arnold, which, for reasons best known to herself, Miss Amiel returned to him through Miss Riché. Miss Amiel afterwards married Colonel Richard Armstrong who was in America with Major Simcoe’s British Foot, while her friend Miss Riché became the wife of Charles Swift. It is evidently to her approaching marriage that Miss White refers in a letter written in 1785, in which she relates the disasters that have befallen the wardrobes of several mutual friends, among them Miss B. Lawrence, who has lost “three elegant lisk robes, and seventy yards of Lace, beside the rest of her Cloaths. There is,” she adds, “no dependence on these stage boats, pray be careful how you send your wedding Cloaths up when you come to Town for it must be horribly mortifying to lose them.”