Chapter VII: Part 7

It was but a few days after this, that, upon the lawn before the house, Washington finally parted with that portion of his army which did not accompany him to take possession of New York. He parted with his faithful comrades with a deep emotion that contrasted strongly with the cold and calm serenity of manner which had distinguished him throughout the whole seven years of the war.

THE TABERNACLE, SALT LAKE CITY

LADY HARDY

There are few passengers on board the train as we steam through the suburban districts of Mormonland. The magnificent chain of the Wahsatch Mountains rising in the east and the great Salt Lake stretching away towards the west, the rest of the scene made up of fertile lands, green meadows, fields of yellow corn and purple clover, form an enchanting panorama as we fly past them; we are full of an undefined curiosity and anxious to see this City of the Saints of which we have heard so much.

We reach the City of the Saints at last, and find it as fair and beautiful as we had expected. It is in truth an oasis in a desert, a blooming garden in a wilderness of green. We can scarcely conceive how this flowery world has lifted itself from the heart of desolation; it is only one more proof that the intellect and industry of man can master the mysteries of nature, and force her in her most harsh uncompromising moods to bring forth fair fruits. It lies in a deep wide valley, bounded on the east by the mighty range of the Wahsatch Mountains, which lift their rugged stony feet stretching away and reaching towards the west, where the great Salt Lake unrolls its dark waters, and widens and wanders away until it is lost in the distance. The streets are wide, the houses of all sorts and sizes, some one-story high, some two or even three, all built in different styles, or no style of architecture; each man having built his dwelling in accordance with his own taste, or convenience. The streets are all arranged in long straight rows, and stretch away till they seem to crawl up the mountain-sides and then are lost. On either side of the roadways are magnificent forest-trees, which in summer-time must form a most delightful shade, though now it is autumn and the leaves are falling fast. Streams of water with their pleasant gurgling music flow on either side, through a deep cutting (which we should irreverently call the gutter), rushing along as though they were in a hurry to reach some everlasting sea. The women come out with their buckets and help themselves, while the children sail their toy boats, clapping their hands gleefully as the tiny craft is tossed and tumbled and borne along on the face of the bubbling water. Street-cars come crawling along the straight streets, crossing and re-crossing each other at different points; but a private cab or carriage is rarely to be seen. Every house, be it only composed of a single room, is surrounded by a plot of garden ground, where fruits, flowers and vegetables all grow together in loving companionship. Everything seems flourishing, and everybody seems well-to-do; there are no signs of poverty anywhere; no bare-footed whining beggars fill the streets; tramps there may be, passing from one part of the State to another, but these are all decently dressed and well fed, for at whatever door they knock, they are sure to find food and shelter, charity to those in need being a part of the reigning religion.

The far-famed tabernacle strikes one as a huge monstrosity, a tumour of bricks and mortar rising on the face of the earth. It is a perfectly plain egg-shaped building, studded with heavy entrance doors all around; there is not the slightest attempt at ornamentation of any kind; it is a mass of ugliness; the inside is vast, dreary, and strikes one with a chill, as though entering a vault; it is 250 feet long and 80 feet high; its acoustic properties are wonderful--the voice of him who occupies the rostrum can be distinctly heard in the remotest corner of the building. If you whisper at one end your words are repeated aloud at the other, without being caught up and hunted through every crevice by ghostly mocking echoes. A gallery runs all around, supported by rows of thin, helpless-looking pillars. The seats in the body of the building are raised on sloping ground, like the pit of a theatre,--a wide expanse of empty benches, dreary and depressing to the wandering eye, which finds no pleasant spot to dwell upon. In the centre stands a fountain with four plaster-of-Paris lions _couchant_, poor, mangy-looking beasts at best. From the white plastered ceiling or dome, being concave perhaps it may be called so, hangs a gigantic star, hung round with artificial flowers and evergreen pendants, something like a monstrous jack-in-the-green turned upside down. The whole interior is gloomy and dark; I doubt if people could ever see to read their prayers. At one end of this huge barn-like building hangs an immense blue banner emblazoned with a golden beehive, which flaunts over the heads of the faithful. At the other end stands an organ, the largest in the world they say, and it may be so, for it is certainly immense. They are justly proud of it, for it is of home manufacture entirely, and was built precisely where it stands, under the supervision of an English convert named Ridges, and contains upwards of a thousand pipes, some of such a circumference you feel as though you could wander up and down them, and be lost in a world of music. Notwithstanding its immense size, it has not a single harsh or metallic sound; on the contrary, it is marvellously soft-toned; from the low flute-like wailing voice of the _vox humana_ to the deep bass roll which stirs the air like a wave of melodious thunder, it has all the delicacy of the Æolian harp, with the strength and power of its thousand brazen voices. The case is of polished pine of elegant and simple design. All wood, metal and other material used was brought from the forest or mines of Utah.

Sloping down from the organ towards the auditorium are semicircular rows of seats, for the elders and dignitaries of the Church. In the centre is a desk with a shabby blue sofa behind it; this was used by Brigham Young and his two chief councillors. Below this are the seats for the twelve apostles and for the choir and benches where the elders may congregate to consult together. In front of all this combination stands a long narrow table, an altar perhaps it may be called, covered with a red cloth, whereon is arranged a gorgeous array of silver cups, of all shapes and sizes, as though prepared for an unlimited christening party or an everlasting service libation to some heathen deity rather than to a Christian God.

Passing out from the tabernacle, we glanced at the Endowment House, where many of their religious ceremonies are performed, and where, if rumour speaks truly, gross licentiousness is carried on under the sanction of the Church--where some ugly secrets and mysteries lie hidden, of which no one can speak and live. Across the road stands the president’s office, and next to that the “Beehive House” of Brigham Young notoriety. It is a long low-roofed, adobe building, railed in, a desolate-looking place where, in old days, some dozens of his wives were domiciled; it is now occupied by his wives--some of them. A high stone wall filled in with adobe encloses the president’s residence and many other buildings, with arched gateways and heavy wooden gates; there is a double archway leading to some factories and stables, surmounted by a beehive in the grip of a monstrous eagle--an illustration of the Mormon faith in the cruel clutch of the Stars and Stripes. Close by is the school-house, first erected for the sole education of Brigham Young’s family, which was large enough to fill it; it is now devoted to the benefit of the masses. The whole of these buildings are crowded together, and are generally surrounded by a high wall, which gives them a gloomy appearance, suggestive of an Eastern harem.

THE NATIONAL WASHINGTON MONUMENT

JOSEPH B. VARNUM

“Yonder shaft,
Which States and peoples piled the stones
That from its top the very winds might waft upon,
To distant shores, the name of Washington.”

The most interesting fact connected with the Monument is, that it stands on the site where Washington supposed he was to be commemorated. In 1783, Congress passed resolutions directing the Minister at Versailles to secure the services of the best artist in Europe, for the preparation of a statue of Washington, “to be erected at the place where the residence of Congress shall be established.”

WASHINGTON, D. C.]

The Commissioners who planned the Federal City, set apart the place where the Monument now stands, as the site for this statue; and their report with this provision, was communicated by Washington to Congress. It has been said that the statue by Houdon, in Virginia, was from the cast which Jefferson, then Minister to France, procured, with reference to fulfilling this resolution of Congress; but the statue never appears to have been ordered, probably for want of funds. Like many other acts of the Continental Congress, it was probably delayed in its execution by the uncertainty which existed about a Seat of Government, as well as the embarrassments incident to a government just emerging from a war, and dependent for all its resources on the action of the States.

In 1799, Congress directed President Adams to correspond with Mrs. Washington, and ask her consent to the interment of the remains of her illustrious husband, under a monument to be erected by the United States in the Capitol at the City of Washington. Mrs. Washington gave her assent in the following letter:

“Taught by the great example I have so long had before me never to oppose my private wishes to the public will, I must consent to the request of Congress which you have had the goodness to transmit to me; and, in doing this, I need not, I cannot, say what a sacrifice of individual feeling I make to a sense of public duty.”

But the monument was not erected, and the remains, therefore, were not removed from _Mount Vernon_.

In 1816, the subject was revived in a report by Mr. Huger, of South Carolina, from a joint committee for a public monument and the removal of the remains, but nothing was done. In February of the same year the legislature of Virginia authorized Governor Nicholas to apply to Judge Bushrod Washington, then proprietor of _Mount Vernon_, for leave to remove the remains of General and Mrs. Washington from _Mount Vernon_ to Richmond, to be placed under the monument proposed to be erected to the honour of Washington, at the capital of the State. Judge Washington declined, and, among other reasons stated the following:

“But obligations more sacred than anything which concerns myself--obligations with which I cannot dispense--command me to retain the mortal remains of my venerated uncle in the family vault where they are deposited. _It is his own will, and that will is to me a law which I dare not disobey._ He has himself directed his body should be placed there, and I cannot separate it from those of his near relatives, by which it is surrounded.”

Mr. John A. Washington declined on a similar ground, a proposition made by Congress in 1832, to remove the remains of General and Mrs. Washington to a vault under the rotunda of the Capitol.

On the 26th of September, 1833, a number of citizens of Washington digested a plan for the erection of a monument which, in the language subsequently used by Mr. Winthrop, should “bespeak the gratitude, not only of the State, or of cities, or of Governments, not of separate communities, or of official bodies; but of the people, the whole people of the nation: a national monument erected by the citizens of the United States of America.”

At first the plan was to raise the funds by dollar subscriptions; but the whole collection amounted to only $28,000, when, owing to the financial embarrassments of the country, the collections were suspended. But the amount on hand was invested, and the interest regularly re-invested, so that it had increased to $40,000 when the new collection was begun in 1846.

As to the design, it is not easy to say what would have suited the public at large, and satisfied to a reasonable degree the critics. For our own part we should have thought that something might have been designed more particularly expressive of its object and more American in its details, less of a mere imitation of the ancients, something which would have embodied in it the trees and products peculiar to our country, something a little less like a second edition of Bunker Hill Monument, and which could present internal as well as outward attractions.

The obelisk presents some decided advantages--

First: It is of all monuments the strongest and most enduring, next to that of the pyramid. In 1800, when the question in Congress was between adopting the statue of 1783, or a mausoleum in pyramidal form, it was stated in debate, without any concert whatever, a remarkable concurrence had taken place between West, Trumbull and other respectable artists, who gave an unequivocal preference to a mausoleum. A mausoleum would last for ages, and would present the same imperishable appearance two thousand years hence that it would now; whereas a statue would only remain until some civil convulsion, or foreign invasion, or flagitious conqueror, or lawless mob should dash it into atoms, or until some invading barbarian should transport it as a trophy of his guilt to a foreign shore. Besides, a statue was minute, trivial, perishable. It was a monument erected to all that crowd of estimable but subordinate personages that soar in a region elevated indeed above common characters, but which was infinitely below that of Washington. At that session, after a long discussion, a bill passed one House for the erection of a “mausoleum of American granite and marble in a pyramidal form, 100 feet square at the base and of a proportional height.”

Secondly: It is like the Government and character of Washington, simple and majestic, with no attempt at ornament. It cannot well be spoiled in building, or by bad sculpture. We could not hope to rival the magnificent productions of the Old World in structure, however creditable the works of our artists may have been in one or two instances.

Thirdly: It excels all others in one respect, that of height.

NOTE.--The work was begun in 1858 and finished in 1885.
The original designs were by Robert Mills and the total cost
reached the sum of $1,187,710.31. In 1878, it was noticed that
the foundations were not secure, and deep excavations were made
around the base to strengthen the obelisk which had by that
time reached the height of 156 feet. The area of the foundation
was enlarged from 6,400 to 16,000 feet. The National Washington
Monument has a total height of 555 feet 5⅓ inches, higher than
St. Paul’s, London (404 feet), St. Peter’s, Rome (434¾ feet),
the Strasburg Cathedral (495 feet) and the Cologne Cathedral
(514 feet). It is 231 feet higher than Bartholdi Statue of
Liberty in the harbour of New York.--E. S.

THE CLARKE-HANCOCK HOUSE, LEXINGTON

In 1778, the City of Boston placed a tablet on the walls of Christ Church, Boston, which reads: “The signal lanterns of Paul Revere displayed in the steeples of this church, April 18, 1775, warned the country of the march of the British troops to Lexington and Concord.”

Important as the “midnight ride of Paul Revere” was, it owes its chief fame to Longfellow, who made it the subject of a story in _The Tales of a Wayside Inn_, written in 1863. The Landlord begins:

“Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere
In the Eighteenth of April, Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

“He said to his friend, ‘If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.’
Then he said ‘Good-night!’ and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

* * * * *

“Meanwhile his friend, through alley and street,
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

* * * * *

“Meanwhile impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride,
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight,
A second lamp in the belfry burns!

“A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight
Kindled the land into fame with its heat.

* * * * *

“It was one by the village clock
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

* * * * *

“So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,--
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.”

Closely associated with this ride is the old house known as the Clarke-Hancock House and now owned by the Lexington Historical Society. On the night of Paul Revere’s ride, two of the leaders of the American cause were sleeping quietly there,--John Hancock and Samuel Adams, upon whose heads a price had been set. They were attending the daily sessions of the Provincial Congress in Concord and returned every night to Lexington where they lodged in the home of the Rev. Jonas Clarke, who had married a niece of Hancock’s. Another inmate of the house at this time was Hancock’s betrothed bride, Dorothy Quincy, whom he married in the following year. It was very important that Hancock and Adams should be kept informed of the progress of events in Boston, and Paul Revere, then a man of forty, was a regularly employed and paid messenger from the patriots of Boston to them Revere, an engraver and silversmith, was one of the “Sons of Liberty,” a society composed largely of artisans and workmen; and, moreover, he was one of a company who patrolled the streets of Boston to watch the movements of British soldiers and Tories.

Revere’s own account of this ride, written about 1783 and published in an early number of the _Massachusetts Historical Society’s_ publications, reads:

“About ten o’clock, Dr. Warren sent in great haste for me, and begged that I would immediately set off for Lexington, where Messrs. Hancock and Adams were, and acquaint them of the movement, and that it was thought they were the objects. When I got to Dr. Warren’s house, I found he had sent an express by land to Lexington--a Mr. William Dawes. The Sunday before, by desire of Dr. Warren, I had been to Lexington, to Messrs. Hancock and Adams, who were at the Rev. Mr. Clarke’s. I returned at night through Charlestown; there I agreed with a Colonel Conant and some other gentlemen, that if the British went out by water, we would show two lanthorns in the North Church steeple; and if by land, one as a signal; for we were apprehensive it would be difficult to cross the Charles River, or get over Boston Neck. I left Dr. Warren, called upon a friend, and desired him to make the signals. I then went home, took my boots and surtout, went to the north part of the town, where I kept a boat; two friends rowed me across Charles River a little to the eastward, where the _Somerset_ man-of-war lay. It was then young flood, the ship was winding and the moon rising. They landed me on the Charlestown side. When I got into town, I met Colonel Conant and several others; they said they had seen our signals. I told them what was acting, and went to get me a horse; I got a horse of Deacon Larkin.”

Revere went directly to the Clarke house. His narrative continues:

“After I had been there for about an hour Mr. Dawes came; we refreshed ourselves, and set off for Concord, to secure the stores, etc., there. We were overtaken by a young Dr. Prescott, whom we found to be a high Son of Liberty. I told them of the ten officers that Mr. Devens met, and that it was probable we might be stopped before we got to Concord; for I supposed that after that night, they divided themselves, and that two of them had fixed themselves in such passages as were most likely to stop any intelligence going to Concord. I likewise mentioned that we had better alarm all the inhabitants till we got to Concord; the young Doctor much approved of it, and said he would stop with either of us, for the people between that and Concord knew him, and would give the more credit to what we said. We had got nearly half-way; Mr. Dawes and the Doctor stopped to alarm the people of a house; I was about one hundred yards ahead, when I saw two men, in nearly the same situation as those officers were near Charlestown. I called for the Doctor and Mr. Dawes to come up; in an instant I was surrounded by four; they had placed themselves in a straight road, that inclined each way; they had taken down a pair of bars on the north side of the road, and two of them were under a tree in the pasture. The Doctor being foremost, he came up; and we tried to get past them; but they being armed with pistols and swords, they forced us into the pasture; the Doctor jumped his horse over a low stone-wall, and got to Concord.

“I observed a wood at a small distance, and made for that. When I got there, out started six officers on horseback and ordered me to dismount. One of them, who appeared to have the command, examined me, where I came from and what my name was. I told him. He asked me if I was an express? I answered in the affirmative. He demanded what time I left Boston? I told him; and added that their troops had catched aground in passing the river and that there would be five hundred Americans there in a short time, for I had alarmed the country all the way up.”

Revere was ordered to mount his horse, and was led by the soldiers back to Lexington; but when they arrived near the meeting-house, “the militia fired a volley of guns, which appeared to alarm them very much.” The officers rode off with Revere’s horse and he hurried back to Mr. Clarke’s house, where he related his adventures. It was then decided that Hancock and Adams had better leave Lexington, and so they, with Dorothy Quincy, accompanied by Hancock’s secretary, Lowell, and Paul Revere, went to Woburn. Revere and Lowell returned to Lexington, to “find what was going on.” The former tells us that on reaching the town:

“Mr. Lowell asked me to go to the tavern with him to get a trunk of papers belonging to Mr. Hancock. We went up chamber, and while we were getting the trunk, we saw the British very near, upon a full march. We hurried towards Mr. Clarke’s house. In our way, we passed through the militia. They were about fifty. When we had got about one hundred yards from the meeting-house, the British troops appeared on both sides of the meeting-house. They made a short halt; when I saw and heard a gun fired, which appeared to be a pistol. Then I could distinguish two guns, and then a continued roar of musketry; when we made off with the trunk.”

A concise and interesting version of this story is thus told by Thomas Wentworth Higginson:

“When on the night of the 18th April, 1775, Paul Revere rode beneath the bright moonlight through Lexington to Concord with Dawes and Prescott for comrades, he was carrying the signal for the independence of a nation. He had seen across the Charles River the two lights from the church steeple in Boston which were to show that a British force was going out to seize the patriotic supplies at Concord: he had warned Hancock and Adams at Rev. Jonas Clarke’s parsonage in Lexington, and had rejected Sergeant Monroe’s caution against unnecessary noise, with the rejoinder: ‘You’ll have noise enough here before long--the regulars are coming out.’ As he galloped on his way the regulars were advancing with steady step behind him, soon warned of their own danger by alarm-bells and signal guns. By the time Revere was captured by some British officers who happened to be near Concord, Colonel Smith, the commander of the expedition, halted, ordered Pitcairn forward, and sent back prudently for re-enforcements. It was a night of terror to all the neighbouring Middlesex towns, for no one knew what excesses the angry British troops might commit on their return march....

“Before 5 A. M., on April 19, 1775, the British troops had reached Lexington Green, where thirty-eight men, under Captain Parker, stood up before 600 or 800 to be shot at, their captain saying: ‘Don’t fire unless you are fired on; but if they want a war, let it begin here.’ It began there; they were fired upon; they fired rather ineffectually in return, while seven were killed and nine wounded. The rest, after retreating, re-formed and pursued the British towards Concord, capturing seven stragglers--the first prisoners taken in the war. Then followed the fight at Concord, where 450 Americans instead of 38, were rallied to meet the British. The fighting took place between two detachments at the North Bridge, where

“‘Once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.’”

The old house, which witnessed such exciting scenes, stands not far from the village green of Lexington. It is known as the Clarke-Hancock House, and was built by Thomas Hancock, the rich Boston merchant, in 1740, presumably for his father “Bishop” Hancock, who dwelt there. The following description is by Samuel Adams Drake:

“The house belongs certainly to two, and perhaps to three, periods. It is composed of a main building in the plain, substantial style of the last (Eighteenth) Century, and of a more antiquated structure standing at right angles to it. The first confronts you, if you have come down the road from the Common; the last faces the street from which the whole structure stands back a little distance, with a space of green turf between. A large willow is growing in front of the main house, and on the verge of the grass-plot stands an elm, its branches interlacing those of a fellow-tree on the other side the way, so as to form a triumphal arch under which no patriot should fail to pass. We have christened the twain Hancock and Adams. The one is sturdy, far reaching and comprehensive; the other, graceful, supple, but of lesser breadth. About the house flourish lilacs, syringas and the common floral adjuncts of a New England home....

“The room occupied by ‘King’ Hancock and ‘Citizen’ Adams is the one on the lower floor on the left of the entrance. Care has been taken to preserve its original appearance.

“The woodwork of Southern pine has remained unpainted, acquiring with age a beautiful colour. One side of the room is wainscoted up to the ceiling, the remaining walls bearing the original paper in large figures. The staircase in the front hall has also remained innocent of paint and is handsome enough for a church. Age has given to the carved balusters and panelled casings a richness and depth of hue that scorns the application of any unnatural pigment. The room we have just left is in the south-west corner of the house. Passing to the opposite side of the hall we enter the best room, which corresponds in finish with that just described, except that the painter’s brush has been applied to the wainscot and newer paper to the walls....

“The best room communicates with the ancient or original house, which is seen fronting the street with its single story and picturesque dormer windows and roof. This part was doubtless built by the bishop’s parishioners soon after his settlement. It formerly stood nearer the high-road until the new building was completed, when it was moved back and joined upon it. The house is a veritable curiosity and would not make a bad depository for the household furniture and utensils of the period to which it belongs, being of itself so unique a specimen of early New England architecture. The floors and wainscot are of hard wood, upon which time has left not the least evidence of decay. The farmers clearly meant their minister to inhabit a house of a better sort than their own, as is apparent in the curious panelling of the outer door, which still retains its original fastenings, and in the folding shutters of the little study at the back. A cramped and narrow staircase conducts to the chambers above, from the room in which we are standing. The same old dresser is attached to the wall, garnished of yore by the wooden trenchers and scanty blue china of the good bishop’s housekeeping. Some old three-legged tables are the only relics of the former inhabitants. This one room according to the custom of the times, served as kitchen, dining-room and for the usual avocations of the family. The little study has the narrow windows which first admitted light upon the ponderous folios of the minister, or the half-written sheets of many a weighty sermon.”

CASTLE ST. LOUIS, QUEBEC

J. M. LE MOINE, F. R. S. C.

“Such dusky grandeur clothed the height
Where the huge castle holds its state,
And all the steep slope, down
Whose ridgy back heaves to the sky,
Piled deep and massy, close and high,
Mine own romantic town.”

--_Marmion._

In describing the antique castle, several writers have mixed up dates and incidents referring to the Fort St. Louis begun in 1620, with those relating to the Château St. Louis, which, after several changes and transformations, assumed that name only in 1647, under Governor de Montmagny. Hawkins is quite correct in saying that: “The Castle of St. Louis was in early times rather a stronghold of defence than an embellished ornament of royalty. Seated on a tremendous precipice:

“On a rock whose haughty brow
Frown’d o’er St. Lawrence’s foaming tide,”

and looking defiance to the utmost boldness of the assailant, nature lent her aid to the security of the position. The cliff on which it stood rises nearly two hundred feet in perpendicular height above the river. The castle thus commanded on every side a most extensive prospect, and until the occupation of the higher ground to the south-west, afterwards called Cape Diamond, must have been the principal object among the buildings of the city.

Copyright, 1901, by Detroit Photographic Co.

CASTLE ST. LOUIS, QUEBEC]

“When Champlain first laid the foundation of the Fort, in 1620, to which he gave the name of St. Louis, it is evident he was actuated by views of a political, not of a commercial character. His mind was in better keeping with warlike enterprises than the acquirement of wealth. He was perfectly disinterested in all his proceedings. Foreseeing that Quebec would become the seat of dominion and invite a struggle for its future possession, he knew the necessity of a stronghold, and determined to erect one in opposition to the wishes of the Company of Merchants.” The building was commenced in July, 1620.

Champlain, at first, styled his fort “_demeure, corps-de-logis_”--that is, a dwelling-place. In 1621, he put in charge of it, one M. Du Mai, with a few men. In 1622, he pushed on the work, “insisting on the importance of completing it, having it equipped with an armament, stores and a suitable garrison.” On the 29th November, 1623, the ruggedness of the ascent from the _Abitation_ to the fort, induced him to establish a road or path (since known as Mountain Hill) to Fort St. Louis. The walls of the fort later on covered about four acres. On the 18th April, 1624, his artificers were busy putting in their place the timber conveyed there by his Indian allies on sledges over the snow on the 10th December, 1623. Two years later, a violent wind storm carried away over the cliff the roof of the building.

On his departure for France in August, 1624, though Champlain had left orders to continue the work on his fort, he found on his return that no progress worth mentioning had been made. In anticipation of the time not far distant when he expected the French King would be sending colonists to Quebec, as well as soldiers for their protection, the founder of Quebec decided on razing the small fort begun in 1620. With the materials, he set to work to lay the foundations of the larger one, which he may have occupied as a residence previous to the surrender of the fort to the Kertks in 1629, but where he certainly made his home when he returned from France in 1633, until his death there on Christmas Day, 1635.

Louis Kertk held it from 1629 to 1632, Emery de Caen and Duplessis Bochart took possession of it in 1632, until Champlain’s return, 23d May, 1633.

The first Château, a one-story building commenced in 1647 by Governor de Montmagny, and which is styled “Corps de Logis au Fort,” after some repairs was finally demolished by Count de Frontenac in 1694 and rebuilt by him. The second Château, begun in 1694–5, to which a wing was added was completed in 1700. It is described by La Potherie, and later on, in 1749 by the Swedish botanist and traveller, Herr Peter Kalm, the friend of Linnæus. Capt. John Knox of the 43d, a companion-in-arms of Wolfe, also alludes to it in his voluminous diary of the great siege of 1759, when the bombardment inflicted on Quebec by Admiral Saunders, left it in ruins. It so remained until Gov. Murray had it repaired in 1764, and occupied it in 1765.

On the 5th May, 1784, General Haldimand set to work to construct an addition to St. Louis Castle for public balls and official dinners, whilst the state levees continued to take place in the old Château. A portion of the walls of Fort St. Louis were used in constructing the first story of the building, which took the name of Château Haldimand. It was inaugurated with _éclat_ more than two years after the Governor’s departure, on the 18th January, 1787, by a splendid ball on Queen Charlotte’s birthday when Lady Dorchester-Maria, the accomplished daughter of the Earl of Iffingham--presided. On August 15th, 1787, Prince William, a middy on board the frigate _Pegasus_, then in port, afterwards Duke of Clarence, and later on, William IV., King of England, paid his respects to the Governor-General at Government House, the old Château and inspected the new building.

On the 21st September of the same year, and on the 4th of October, 1787, the overseer of Military Works, Sergeant James Thompson records in his diary the extensive preparations made to welcome to Quebec the King’s son, without forgetting the platform erected for the occasion on the roof of the old powder magazine (razed in 1892), in the rear of Château Haldimand, in order to witness the fireworks set off in his honour. In December of that year, the Governor removed his household goods to the new building, leaving the old Château to be used as public offices, and about this time the castle was allowed to get out of repair. The Governor for the time being inhabited the new building, the Château Haldimand, it being more modern and roomy, in its internal arrangements.

In 1808, at the request of His Excellency, General Sir James Henry Craig, the provincial legislature voted and spent £10,000 in rebuilding two stories higher the antique castle; and a short time before his departure, in 1811, he removed to it from his summer retreat, Spencer Wood, and his winter quarters at Château Haldimand. On the 23d January, 1834, it was entirely consumed by fire; but its dependency, Haldimand Castle escaped. Lord and Lady Aylmer, the previous occupants of Château St. Louis, instead of inhabiting General Haldimand’s structure, took their abode on the Cape with Col. Craig, until they could rent a house. Four years later, in 1838, the pompous but able Governor and Grand Commissioner, the Earl of Durham, having declined to accept from the authorities any remuneration for his short time of office, it is said, directed this fund to be donated to the razing of the ruins of the old Château, and to the erection on their foundations, of a terrace (Durham Terrace until 1879), 160 feet in length. This the Minister of Public Works, in 1854, the Hon. P. Chabot, M. P. P. for Quebec, increased to 270 feet. Under Lord Dufferin’s Plans of City Embellishments, it was extended, at Government and Municipal cost, to 1,420 feet in length. The corner-stone to this incomparable promenade was laid on the 18th October, 1878, by the Earl of Dufferin, and was named and inaugurated by their Excellencies, the Marquis of Lorne and H. R. H. the Princess Louise, as Dufferin Terrace on the 19th June, 1879, at the request of the Mayor, City Council and Citizens of Quebec.

On the 12th June, 1846, an awful fire, attended by the loss of forty lives, obliterated the remaining walls of the old Château and its stables, transformed first into a riding-school and next into a theatre.

From 1852 to 1855, and from 1860 to 1865, the remaining modern building, Château Haldimand, was used by the Provincial Board of Works, the Crown Lands, King’s Domain and Registrar. In 1857, it became the seat of the Normal School, and again until 1860 and later on.

With the old French powder-magazine in rear, it was razed in 1892 to the ground to make room for the stately pile, the Hotel Château Frontenac, planned by an eminent New York architect, Mr. Bruce Price, for the Château Frontenac Co., of which Thos. G. Shaughnessy is the president. It was built at a cost of $500,000 on a site purchased from the Provincial Government of Quebec, covering 57,000 feet.

Montmagny, Chevalier de Malte, had pushed forward colonization, among other measures drawing on Normandy, Brittany, Perche, Poitou, Aunis, and set to work to inspire respect to the Indians hutted around his fort. The latter styled Montmagny _Ononthio_, which means “Great Mountain”--playing on his name (Mons Magnus). The surname was borne by the succeeding French Governors.

His next care was to lay out streets, widen and straighten the footpaths which intersected Stadacona. But a _chevalier sans cheval_, as Mr. E. Gagnon well observes, could not be the correct thing. So a horse as a mount--the first seen in the colony--was imported from France by the inhabitants on the 20th June, 1647, a very suitable present to the worthy Knight. What became of it history does not say. Matters were evidently looking up at the Fort and Château when M. d’Ailleboust, the new Governor took possession of Government House at Quebec in 1648. He was replaced by M. de Lauzon, 1651–56. Lauzon reoccupied it as administrator in 1657, and his successors under Viscount d’Argenson in 1658; Baron d’Avougour, in 1661, and Chevalier Saffrey de Mesy in 1663.

Governor de Courcelles arrived at Quebec in 1665, with the magnificent Marquis de Tracy, the King’s Lieutenant-General in America. Tracy was accompanied by several companies of the dashing Carignan-Salières regiment, and made his _début_ with extraordinary pomp. His advent was quite a social event in Quebec, which had just been granted a Royal Government, and for the first time was styled a town. De Courcelles’s administration lasted until 1672, when Count de Frontenac was named Governor. His first administration lasted until 1682. He was followed by Labarre, 1682–85, and by the Marquis De Nonville, 1685–89, when the stern old warrior was recalled to his former position, which he occupied until the year of his death, in 1698. Callières followed, 1699–1703, when Philippe de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil, was named and governed the country until 1725.

Charles Le Moine, Baron de Longueuil, administered the colony, 1625–26; he was succeeded by the Marquis de Beauharnois. Count de la Galissonnière was next sent out to govern, from 1746 to 1749, during the captivity of the Marquis de la Jonquière, who, on his way to Quebec, had been taken prisoner by an English fleet. The Marquis, however, at his release ruled here, in 1752, when Charles Le Moine, the second Baron de Longueuil, administered the Government from May to July, 1752. That year the Marquis Duquesne de Menneville replaced him, and the last Governor under French rule was Pierre Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil Cavagnal until 1760.

History tells of one distinguished guest Herr Peter Kalm, the Swedish _savant_ and botanist, who was dined and wined there for forty days by another _savant_ Count de la Galissonnière, Governor of Quebec, in the summer of 1749. Hark to his description of the Château:

“The Palace (Château Saint Louis), is situated on the west or steepest side of the mountain, just above the lower city. It is not properly a palace, but a large building of stone, two stories high, extending north and south. On the west side of it is a courtyard, surrounded partly with a wall and partly with houses. On the east side, or towards the river, is a gallery as long as the whole building, and about two fathoms broad paved with smooth flags and included on the outside by iron rails, from whence the city and river exhibit a charming prospect. This _gallery_ serves as a very agreeable walk after dinner, and those who come to speak with the Governor-General wait here till he is at leisure. The place is the lodging of the Governor-General of Canada, and a number of soldiers mount the guard before it, both at the gate and in the courtyard; and when the Governor, or the Bishop comes in or goes out, they must all appear in arms and beat the drum. The Governor-General has his own chapel where he hears prayers; however, he often goes to Mass at the church of the Recollets, which is very near the palace.”

The Castle and Fort St. Louis under England’s domination has had its sunshine and its shadows; its dark as well as its bright, radiant memories; its anxious hours of siege and alarm--nay, even of blockade, followed by the welcome roar of artillery, proclaiming British victories; more than once social pageants and many festive displays.

Facing the site of the fort, long since vanished, a few yards to the west, lies the well-known area, _La Grande Place du Fort_ (since 1862, the Ring), mantled in foliage and trees, planted when Mayor Thomas Pope held out at the City Hall. Our warlike ancestors knew it as the _Place d’Armes_. In days gone by, have met, not for military drill, but for annual roll-call, on St. Peter and St. Paul’s Day, June the 29th, the city militia--an important though a very pacific body. It was continued for years until dropped about 1850.

Hark! to the rousing cheer of the British soldiery, as they plant on the Grande Parade, facing the historic Château, on the 18th of September, 1759, on the day of the capitulation of Quebec, the solitary gun, drawn from the Heights of Abraham through St. Louis gate. Captain John Knox, of the 43d Regiment, tells us how his brave commander hoisted the English flag, after taking possession of the keys of Quebec from de Ramsay, its late Governor.

But the lordly castle of other days, riddled by the shot and shell of the English fleet, tenantless, uninhabitable, was not thoroughly repaired until 1764–5, when General James Murray, first Governor of Quebec, had his Royal Commission read on the adjoining square, prior to his taking possession of the Castle as his official residence. A decade later, and the occupant (Sir) Guy Carleton, so appropriately named the “saviour of Quebec,” might notice, from the Château windows, the arrival on the Levis shore, on the 5th of November, 1775, of Benedict Arnold’s hungry and worn-out continentals, eager to cross the St. Lawrence, and land at Wolfe’s cove above. But a wise precaution had induced Lt.-Governor Cramahe to remove to the Quebec side the Levis canoes and water conveyances before the arrival of the invading host. The wave of invasion, triumphant at Montreal, Sorel, Chambly, Three Rivers, St. John and elsewhere, was hurled back by the granite rock of Quebec. On the 31st December, 1775, at 9 A. M., the intrepid chieftain, Guy Carleton, could from his parlour windows look down triumphantly, but not scornfully, on the New England soldiery, escorted to the Grande Parade--426 rank and file--marched up prisoners of war, from the Sault-au-Matelot assault, to await crestfallen, the orders of His Excellency before being detailed to their respective prisons.

Might one not unreasonably infer, from the official etiquette that has ever prevailed among naval commanders frequenting our port, that the youthful captain of the sloop of war, _Albemarle_, Horatio Nelson, present here in 1782 paid his _devoirs_ at the Castle to the distinguished Governor-General Sir Frederick Haldimand, and partook of the hospitalities usually shown to visitors of distinction? At his romantic time of life did Nelson, like many subsequent lovers, indulge in a sentimental promenade on the famed Castle terrace? Did he ever, at the witching-hour when the citadel evening-gun calls to barrack military _beaux_, meet there the adorable Mary Simpson, the girl for whose sake he was, he said, ready to quit the service? Southey, as well as Lamartine, in their biographies of the hero of Trafalgar, state that violence had to be used to tear the smitten Horatio from his Quebec charmer. Miss Simpson after marrying Major Matthews, Secretary to the Governor, removed to London with her husband who became Governor of Chelsea Hospital.

A titled visitor of no ordinary rank entered the portals of the Castle in 1787, Prince William Henry, Duke of Clarence, subsequently William IV., King of England. He was then a roystering middy on board H. M. frigate _Pegasus_, anchored in the port below the Château. A grand ball was given there in his honour by Lord and Lady Dorchester.

A volume would not suffice to detail the brilliant receptions and state balls given at the Castle during Lord Dorchester’s administration--the lively discussions, the formal protests originating out of points of precedence, burning _questions de jupons_ between the touchy magnates of the old and those of the new _régime_; whether La Baronne de St. Laurent would be admitted at the Château or not; whether a de Longueuil or a de Lotbinière’s place was on the right of Lady Maria, the charming consort of His Excellency Lord Dorchester, a daughter of the great English Earl of Effingham; whether dancing ought to cease when their Lordships the Bishops entered and made their bow to the representative of royalty. Unfortunately, Quebec had then no Court Journal, so that the generations following can have but faint ideas of all the witchery, the stunning head-dresses, the _décolletées_, and high-waisted robes of their stately grandmothers, whirled around in the giddy waltz by whiskered, epauletted cavaliers, or else courtesying in the demure _minuet de la cour_.

We are now nearing the stormy era of “Little King Craig.” Troublous times are looming out portentously for the earnest, hospitable, but stern Laird of the Castle, Sir James Henry Craig. The lightning cloud, however, will burst over his successor, Sir George Prevost. As oft before, the trumpet of Bellona has sounded; this time at Washington, on the 18th of June, 1812. “Prepare for the Invader,” is repeated with bated breath in the streets of Quebec.

“Five cannon taken at Detroit, are now lying in the Château Court,” says the Quebec _Mercury_ of 27th October, 1813, whilst the prisoners taken at Detroit, brought down to Quebec, await embarkation for Boston for purposes of exchange. Quebec was martial with United States uniforms--American prisoners--the Yankee Generals Winder, Chandler and Winchester; Colonel Winfield Scott, later on General Winfield Scott, who culled laurels in the Mexican War, and so many other officers and privates, that the Governor of Canada scarcely knew how to dispose of them. Colonel Scott remained in Canada from the date of his surrender, 23d October, 1812, to the period of his departure from Quebec, say May, 1813. But he was on _parole_ all the time.

In bringing to a close this brief sketch, may we not recall how many representatives of royalty, under French and under English rule, Viceroys, proud Dukes, distinguished Earls, martial Counts and Barons, occasionally held there their Court, in quasi-regal style, in order to keep up the prestige of France’s _Grand Monarque_ (Louis XIV.) and thereby impress, the surrounding Indian tribes with his might; or as worthy representatives of the British Crown in the New World: Champlain, de Montmagny, D’Ailleboust, Lauzon, D’Argenson, de Mesy, de Courcelles, stern old Frontenac, La Barre, Callières, de Vaudreuil, de Ramsay, de Longueuil, de Beauharnois, de la Galissonnière, de la Jonquière, Duquesne, General Murray, Sir Guy Carleton, Sir F. Haldimand, Lord Dorchester, General Prescott, Sir James H. Craig, Sir George Prevost, Sir James Kempt, Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, the Duke of Richmond, Earl Dalhousie, Lord Aylmer?

SUNNYSIDE, TARRYTOWN

BENSON J. LOSSING

Approaching Tarrytown, we observe upon the left of the highway an already populous cemetery covering the crown and slopes of a gentle hill. Near its base is an ancient church, and a little beyond it flows a clear stream of water, which the Indians called _Po-can-te-co_, signifying a “run between two hills.” It makes its way in a swift current from the back country between a hundred hills, presenting a thousand scenes of singular beauty in its course. The Dutch named it _Slaeperigh Haven Kill_, or Sleepy Haven Creek, and the valley in the vicinity of the old church through which it flowed _Slaeperigh Hol_, or Sleepy Hollow, the scene of Washington Irving’s famous legend of that name.

The little old church is a curiosity. It was built, says an inscription upon a small marble tablet on its front, by “Frederic Philips and Catharine Van Cortland, his wife, in 1699,” and is the oldest church edifice existing in the state of New York. It was built of brick and stone, the former imported from Holland for the purpose. Over its little spire still turns the flag-shaped vane of iron, in which is cut the monogram of its founder (V F in combination, his name being spelt in Dutch Vedryck Flypsen); and in the little tower hangs the ancient bell, bearing the inscription in Latin: “_If God be for us, who can be against us? 1685._” The pulpit and communion table were also imported from Holland. The former was long since destroyed by the iconoclastic hand of “improvement.”