Autobiography: Ancestry, Childhood, Mother, Brother, Teachers and Companions

During the last years of the seventeenth and the first of the eighteenth centuries, Wilham Hodge, and Margaret, his wife, lived in the north of Ireland. They were the parents of four boys and two girls, of whom two died in early childhood, and one surviving to maturity lc(t no record. The father died Januar 4th, 1723, and the mother October 15th, 1730.

Soon after the death of their mother, the three remaining children, William, Andrew and Hugh, emigrated to America and settled in Philadelphia, where they became successful merchants and men of influence in the community. William had but one child, Mary, who in August, 1757, married Mr. William West, from whom are descended the Wests, Conynghams and Fraziers of Philadelphia, and the Stewarts of Baltimore. Hugh, the youngest of the three brothers, had but one chijd, a son bearing his own name, who graduated in the College of New Jersey, in Princeton, in 1773, and took his master’s degree in course. Soon afterwards he sailed for Europe, but the ship he sailed in was never heard of after leaving port.

His mother, Mrs. Hannah Hodge, known for many years in the family as Aunt Hannah, was recognized in all the city as a mother in Israel. She was born in Philadelphia, January, 1721, the daughter of John Harkum, of English descent. Her mother, whose maiden name was Doz, was the child of a Protestant who fled from France on account of the revocation of the Edict of Nantz, 1685, and afterwards with other French Protestants, was principally instrumental in founding the First Presbyterian Church, then standing on Market Street above Second, of which the Rev. Jedidiah Andrews was pastor. Although Hannah joined the church in 1736 or 7 she thought her true conversion occurred under the preaching of Whitefield, when her life became eminently consecrated to religious interests. When in 1743 the Second Presbyterian was formed out of the converts of Whitefield, she was one of one hundred and sixty communicants originally enrolled. In 1745, she married Mr. Hugh Hodge, who was a deacon in the Second Church from its foundation to the time of his death. They had a dry-goods store on the north side of Market Street above Second. Their house was the resort of clergymen and the centre of religious meetings. After her husband’s death Mrs. Hodge, although left independent, retained the business in order that she might not curtail her charities. Dr. Ashbel Green, her pastor, afterwards President of Princeton College, entertained a sincere reverence for her, and concludes his memoir of her, printed in the Panoplist, vol. 2d, for the year ending June, 1807, with a glowing eulogium of his friend. “Solid sense, sterling integrity, sincere piety united with great humility, the love of truth and the abhorrence of hypocrisy were her chief characteristics. These gave her an influence among her Christian associates perhaps superior to that of any other individual.” Her house was the home of several old and infirm ladies, supported in great measure

1739-] HIS GRANDFATHER, ANDREW HODGE. 3

by her bounty; and here* also originated the weekly meeting for prayer and religious instruction observed still in the Second Church, and in most of the other Presbyterian Churches of the city. The house in which she lived was by the will of her husband, left upon her decease to the Trustees of the College of New Jersey, for the education of candidates for the ministry. This endowment has continued to fulfil the pious design of its founders up to the present time, yielding an income varying from eight to fifteen hundred dollars annually; thus constituting with a few others the foundations of a system of endowments which has since attained magnificent proportions.

Aunt Hannah died December 17th, 1805, when I was eight years old. I was present at her funeral, and was standing with my cousin, John Bayard, rather older than myself, near the open coffin. We began to cry. We thought that was the right thing to do. But his mother came up, and giving us a little shake, said in an authoritative whisper, “Stop.” The discovery that we were making ourselves ridiculous, instantly dried the fountain of tears. By such filaments the present generation is connected with the past.

Andrew Hodge, the second in order of age of the three immigrant brothers, born in Ireland, March 28th, 171 1, was my grandfather. He soon became a successful merchant, and acquired considerable property. His wharf, and store, and city residence in which he spent his life, were on Water Street, to the south of what is now termed Delaware Avenue. His country seat was on Mead lane, now Montgomery Avenue, and he possessed one of the only six carriages then in the city. He was active and influential m all the affairs of the Church and of the community, one of the

* “The crowd being often so great as to fill, not only the parlor and kitchen, but even the back garden, close up against Christ Church ground, and much to the offence of our Episcopal brethren, who called them ‘Those conventicles held by Mrs, Hodge,’”

A AUTOBIOGRAPHY. [174Sfounders of and a liberal contributor to the Second Church, and a member of its board of Trustees to the day of his death. In 1739 he married Miss Jane M’Culloch. Her brother Hugh was an elder in the Second Church, and a man of great goodness and influence, though remarkable for the great tenacity with which he held on to his own opinions. He never would consent to the assertion that the earth moves; maintaining that it was contrary alike to his own observation and to Bible authority, as Joshua commanded not the earth, but the sun to stand still. His character is said to have been imbibed by our family, “O! there is Uncle M’Culloch” having become quite a .saying among the descendants of his sister.

The religious excitement which attended the preaching of Whitefield in this country about the middle of the last century, gave rise to two parties in the Presbyterian Church. Those who approved of the revival were called New Lights, and those who stood aloof or opposed to it, were called Old Lights. The pastor of the First Church, then the only Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, together with a majority of the congregation were Old Lights, while a minority were on the other side. These latter were, at their own request, set off and organized into the Second Church, of which the celebrated Gilbert Tennent was the first pastor. Of this Andrew Hodge, Senior, was a Trustee, and his son-in-law, Col. John Bayard, and his brother-in-law, Mr. Hugh M’Culloch, were ruling elders. The Church edifice was erected on the corner of Third and Arch Streets. It was an oblong building. The shorter side on the east faced Third Street; the longer side was on Arch Street. The steeple was on the west end, and the pulpit was on the north side. Subsequently the steeple was taken down and the tower included in the auditorium, and the pews were turned round to face the pulpit, which was placed at the west end. The Church in after years was removed to Seventh Street, near Arch, where it remained during the pastorates of Rev. Drs. Cuyler

1767.] DESCENDANTS OF ANDREW HODGE. 5

and Shields. The shifting of the population necessitating another removal, a lot was purchased at the corner of Twenty-first and Walnut, on which has been erected one of the most beautiful church-buildings in the city. My grandfather’s pew in the original edifice on Third and Arch Streets was the front one in the middle aisle to the left hand of the preacher. The same pew, i. e., the same in relative position, has remained in the family ever since. It is now held by the great-grandson of the original occupant. Dr. H. Lenox Hodge, who is also a ruling elder in his ancestral Church.

These family details are of interest to those whom they concern. I wish, however, that those who come after me should know that their ancestors and kindred were Presbyterians and patriots.

Andrew Hodge and Jane M’Culloch were the parents of fifteen children, eight of whom died in infancy or early life. Their eldest child, Margaret, married John Rubenheim Bayard, of Bohemia Manor, Maryland, afterwards a Colonel in the Revolutionary army. After the war he settled in Philadelphia, but during the latter part of his life resided in New Brunswick, New Jersey. His sons were James A., who married the daughter of the Rev. Dr. Rodgers, New York; Andrew, a merchant, and president of the Commercial Bank, Philadelphia; Samuel, clerk of the Supreme Court of the United States, and a resident of Princeton, New Jersey; John M., who resided on the Millstone river, near to a village of the same name; and Nicholas, a physician, who settled in Savannah, Georgia. His daughters were Jane, who married Chief Justice Kirkpatrick, of New Brunswick, N. J.; Maria, who married Samuel Boyd, Esq., of New York; and Mrs. Samuel Harrison Smith, of Washington, D. C.

Agnes, the second child of Andrew Hodge, sr., married James Ashton, a twin-brother of her brother-in-law. Col. John R. Bayard, who was a surgeon in the revolutionary army, and was accidentally killed in Charleston, South Carolina. Their children were John Hodge Bayard, who lived in Cumberland and died unmarried; Jane, whom 1 remember as a portly lady, dressed in the simple habit of a QiJtikeress, which the stricter Methodists of that period adopted; and James Ashton Bayard, jr., born July 28, 1767. He practiced law in Wilmington, Delaware, and in 1787 represented his district in the National House of Representatives. In 1804 he was chosen United States Senator, as successor to his father-in law. Governor Bassett, which position he retained until he was selected by President Madison as a Commissioner, together with Gallatin, Clay, and others, to negotiate a peace with Great Rfitain, His son, Richard H. Bayard, was United States Senator from 1836 to 1839, ^f’d again from 1841 to 1845. His second son, the third James Ashton Bayard in the direct line, was United States Senator for many years. And again the office has been continued in the third generation, in the person of the present Senator, Thomas F. Bayard.

A third daughter of Andrew Hodge, sr., married a gentleman from the West Indies, by the name of Philips. She left an only child, a daughter, who died unmarried.

A fourth daughter, Mary, married Major Hodgdon, a commissary in the revolutionary army. She lived to a great age, and left many children.

The sons of Andrew Hodge, sr., were John, a physician, who died at twenty-three years of age, and William, a merchant, who residing abroad was called by acquaintances on the Continent, “the handsome American.” After the revolution he was employed in the secret service of his government, and falling under suspicion, was for a time confined in the Bastile, where he was well treated. He died when only thirty years old. Of James, the youngest son of Andrew, sr., it is only known that he died unmarried. Andrew, jr., graduated in Princeton College in the class of 1772, and married Ann Ledyard, half-sister of the traveler and author. He was a Captain in the Pennsylvania line during the revo-I790.] HIS FATHER AND MOTHER. 7

lution, and was present at the battle of Princeton, and used to boast that he had captured a cannon in “Stockton’s woods.” He lived to a great age, and left many children. I heard the old gentleman say that at the battle of Princeton a company from Delaware, formed a little in advance of his own, broke and ran at the first fire of the British. Its Captain, who was rather corpulent, came puffing by crying, “Run, Captain Hodge, run, Captain Hodge, we shall all be killed.” The only answer I could get to the question “Did Captain Hodge run?” was a little laugh. He fell back, however, upon his treasure trove, “the cannon in Stockton’s woods.”

Hugh, the eighth child and fourth son of Andrew Hodge, sr., was my father. He was born in Philadelphia, August 20, 1755, graduated in the College of New Jersey in 1773, and studied medicine under the eminent doctor Cadwaladcr. He was appointed Surgeon, February 7, 1776, in the third battalion of troops raised in the Province of Pennsylvania, in the service of the United Colonies. He was captured by the British, and held as a prisoner at Fort Washington, N. Y., but through the intervention of General Washington was liberated on parole. After engaging in mercantile pursuits with his brother Andrew, he returned to the practice of medicine, and soon secured an influential connection. The tradition of his fine person and attractive manners lingered among the latest survivors of his generation. He was a prominent actor in the terrible scenes occasioned by the memorable epidemics of yellow fever in 1793, and afterwards in 1795. And through the exposure incident to his labors on these occasions his constitution was impaired, and he died after protracted sufferings July 14, 1798, at the early age of forty-three. His pastor. Dr. Ashbel Green, said of him, in his eulogium, that “as a husband, father, brother, friend and citizen, none surpassed him.”

His wife, my mother, was Mary Blanchard, of Boston. Her mother’s name was Hunt, probably of ICnglish origin.

Her father, Joseph Blanchard, was a descendant of the French Huguenots. She was born in Boston in 1765, and passed her earhest years amidst the excitements preparatory to the rebelHon of the Colonies against the authority of Great Britain. Of course her opportunities for education were comparatively few, but such as they were she employed them well, and early manifested a great taste for reading, often retiring from the fire-side circle to a cold room, in the depth of a Boston winter, and there enveloped in a blanket, read and committed to memory passages from Pope and Dryden, which she could repeat in after life. The physician of her family was the celebrated Dr. Joseph Warren, afterwards Major-General Warren, who fell at Bunker Hill, one of the first of his country’s martyrs. Her recollections of him were always very vivid, as she often sat on his lap listening to his enthusiastic discourse upon the exciting controversies of the day. She was the youngest of several children. The descendants of some of her brothers remain in Boston to the present time, while those of others are in the extreme south-west. Her brother Samuel married a niece of the Hon. Timothy Pickering, a Colonel in the revolutionary army, and afterward was Secretary of War, under Washington. Her favorite nephew, Francis Blanchard, was father of the first wife of the distinguished Mr. Winthrop, of Boston. Her parents died when she was young, and her brothers and sisters, being for the most part married, she came to Philadelphia to reside with her brother, John Blanchard, about 1785, at twenty years of age, and was introduced to our family through letters to Maj. Hodgdon.

After a courtship, protracted by the failure of his mercantile enterprises, she was married to my father in 1790, by Rev. Dr. Green, and went to housekeeping in the dwelling-house on the west of the store-house, on Water street below Race, belonging to the estate of his father, Andrew Hodge, sr., then recently deceased. On December 19th, their first child was born, a daughter, whom they named Elizabeth.

^T. o.] HIS BIRTH. Q

She was a healthy and promising child, until in Auo-ust,

1793, she was suddenly carried off by yellow fever. Their second child was Mary, born September ist, 1792, and their third child was a little boy named Hugh, born August 24,

1794. When her little boy was about a year old, after many years of absence, my mother revisited her home in Boston, leaving her little ones in Philadelphia. Very shortly the little Mary sickened with measles, of which fact, of course, the mother was instantly informed. She immediately left Boston in the mail stage, and after traveling three days and three nights she arrived home to find that Mary was dead, and Hugh also was dying of the same disease. Thus was she left again childless. Their fourth child, Hugh Lenox Hodge, was born June 27, 1796, the year after the death of his little namesake brother. The family at this time, because of the supposed insalubrity of Water street, removed to a house on the south side of Arch street above Fourth, the third door from Christ Church burying-ground. Here at midnight, in the last moments of the 27th or the first moments of the 28th of December, 1797, I, the fifth and last child, jyas born. Aunt Hannah used to inquire for “that strange named child, Charles,” as it was a new name in the family. My father died the 14th of July the next year, leaving my mother a widow in very limited circumstances, with two infants respectively two years and six months of age.

It is no marvel that mothers arc sacred in the eyes of their children. The debt they owe them is beyond all estimate. To our mother, my brother and myself, under God, owe absolutely everything. To us she devoted her life. For us she prayed, labored and suffered. My grandfather’s property yielded her for some >’cars a comfortable income. But as it consisted principally of the Water (Arch) Street wharf, with its docks, and the warehouse and dwellings by” which, on three sides, it was surrounded, its proceeds depended on the state of conunerce.

As the non-intercourse act and embargo which preceded the war of 18 12, and the war itself, led to the suspension of commercial business, our mother’s income was almost entirely cut off. This was at the time we were preparing for college. Instead of putting her children off her hands, and leaving them to provide for themselves, by sacrificing all she had, by the most self-denying economy, and by keeping boarders, she succeeded in securing for them the benefits of a collegiate and professional education, at her expense, and without loss of time. She lived long enough to see both her sons settled in life and heads of families.

It is a tradition in the family that in her youth she was distinguished for personal beauty. A gentleman from Boston, after age and illness had produced their inevitable effects, exclaimed, “Can that be the beautiful Mary Blanchard, of Boston?” In the eyes of her children she continued beautiful to the end. Her large blue eyes never lost their light of intelligence and love.

Although thus devoted to the support and education of her children, she was always active in promoting the welfare of others. Her son Hugh has recorded his recollection of trudging by her side through the snow many squares to assist, with other ladies, in the distribution of soup and groceries to the destitute, either as donations, or at wholesale prices. She was one of the founders, and to the time of her death, an active promoter and Directress of the “Female Association for the Relief of Widows and Single Women of reduced circumstances,” which still continues, after eighty years, one of the most useful, as it was one of the earliest of the many benevolent institutions of Philadelphia.

Having been an invalid for several years, early in April, 1832, she took a slight cold, which did not seem to be of any importance for two or three days. But this was unexpectedly followed by pulmonary congestion and slight delirium, so that she expired on the fourteenth of that

r. 9-] HIS BROTHER HUGH.

II

month; too soon, alas, for me to see her alive, though I left Princeton in response to the first note of alarm. Her funeral services were conducted by her aged pastor, Dr. Ashbel Green, who had married her, baptized her children, and delivered an eulogium over the grave of her husband.

My brother was far more than a brother to me. Although only eighteen months my senior, he assumed from the first the office of guardian. He always went first in the dark. I never slept out of his arms until I was eleven or twelve years old. I have now (1877) distinctly before my mind the room in which that crisis in my life occurred. I well recollect how quickly, after blowing out the candle, I jumped into bed, and threw the cover over my head. Having lived through that night, I afterwards got on very well. No professor in Princeton was ever able to bring up and educate a family of children on his salary. My brother, without waiting to be asked, always helped me through. He seemed to regard me as himself, and my children as his own. Although he rose to eminence as a practitioner and professor of medicine, he was revered principally for his goodness. His life-long friend, Dr. Caspar Morris, said in a published letter, that he “regarded Dr. Hugh L. Hodge as the best man he had ever known.” He left fi’e sons; three of whom are ministers in the Presbyterian Church, one is a minister in the Episcopal Church, and the fifth is a Presbyterian Ruling Elder. This is due, I firmly believe, to their father’s prayers, and to the influence of their excellent mother, a daughter of the late Mr. John Aspinwall, of New York.

The first school to which I went was taught by an old lady in Arch street. It was attended by a room full of little boys and girls. I afterwards went to a school in Fifth street, opposite Independence Square, taught by Andrew Brown, a worthy elder of the Second Presbyterian Church. His specialties were writing and arithmetic. He was an adept in making quill-pens, and an export in tlic use of them. His flourishes were wonderful. He must also have been a good teacher of arithmetic. At least I knew more of arithmetic then than I do now. Within a few months a thin folio copy-book, having my name in it, and dated 1807, was found among some old papers. This book is filled with solutions of questions in Barter, Profit and Loss, many of which would puzzle me to solve now.

My next school was taught by an Irish gentleman named Taylor. He was a Swedenborgian. He lived in perpetual sunshine, always happy and always amiable. He took little interest in drilling his pupils in reading, writing and arithmetic. His favorite method of teaching was to get half a dozen boys around him before a large wall map of England, France, Italy, or some other country, pointing out its rivers, mountains, cities, and its ancient ruins; descanting on the elements of its population; the manners and customs of its people; its productions; its great men; mixing up geography, antiquities, history and statistics. He would linger around the battle-fields, describe the conflicts, taking part vehemently with one side against the other. He was an enthusiast, and infected his pupils with his spirit. He used to flatter them; dubbing them with the names and ranks of his heroes. My associates in this school have, as far as I know, all passed away. There were two Ralstons, two McCalls, two Reeds, James Hopkinson, John Brinton, and others [with whom the elder brother Hugh says, “Charles, as his manner was, through his whole life, contracted intimate friendships.”] These now are all gone.

During my early boyhood in Philadelphia, my brother and myself went to a drawing-school kept in a room over Woodward’s Book-store, on the corner of Chestnut and Third streets. Its master was an Englishman named Cox. He was a character. He lived in the southern part of the city by himself, in a house filled from garret to cellar with books and odds and ends of all things -curious. While under his instruction I executed a landscape in water colors,

^T. II.] EARL V RELIGION. I x

which now hangs in my study, and which is considered to possess considerable merit. How the merit got there is the mystery. Those who know anything of the history of my one work of art, are aware that when painting in India ink, the teacher looked over my shoulder, and said, “Charles, I think I could spit paint better than that.” They therefore find it hard to believe that the merit of my landscape is due to native talent on my part, and not to the intervention of my teacher.

Our early training was religious. Our mother was a Christian. She took us regularly to church, and carefully drilled us in the Westminster Catechism, which we recited on stated occasions to Dr. Ashbel Green, our pastor. There has never been anything remarkable in my religious experience, unless it be that it began very early. I think that in my childhood I came nearer to conforming to the apostle’s injunction: “Pray without ceasing,” than in any other period of my life. As far back as I can remember, I had the habit of thanking God for everything I received, and asking him for everything I wanted. If I lost a book, or any of my playthings, I prayed that I might find it. I prayed walking along the streets, in school and out of school, whether playing or studying. I did not do this in obedience to any prescribed rule. It seemed natural. I thought of God as an everywhere-present Being, full of kindness and love, who would not be offended if children talked to him. I knew he cared for sparrows. I was as cheerful and happy as the birds, and acted as they did. There was little more in my prayers and praises than in the worship rendered by the fowls of the air. This mild form of natural religion did not amount to much. It, however, saved me from profanity. I cannot recollect that I ever uttered a profane word, except once. It was when I was thirteen or fourteen years old. I was walking with my brother, and

struck my foot against a stone, and said:” D n it.’

My brother was shocked, and exclaimed: “Why, Charles!!”

I cannot tell why I said it. I was not hurt, neither was I angry. It seemed to me to be an effect without a cause. I felt like a very, very small Paul, when he said: “It was not I who did it, but something dwelling in me.” I am thankful that no similar experience ever occurred to me.

In the early part of the year 1810 my brother and myself were sent to the classical Academy in Somerville, New Jersey. The village was on high ground, very healthy, and on the line of the “Swift and Sure Mail Coach Line” between Philadelphia and New York, near the confluence of the Millstone and Raritan rivers, and between ten and twelve miles west of New Brunswick. The reason for my mother’s preference for that school was not its celebrity, but its situation, only a few miles from the residence of Mr. John M, Bayard, who, although only our first cousin, was old enough to exercise parental care over us. For the first six months we boarded in the family of Mr., afterwards Judge, Vandevere. His oldest daughter was then an infant a it^N months old. I was sometimes allowed to carry her about on a pillow. After leaving Somerville, I did not see her until after an interval of fifty years. She was then a tall, thin lady, the widow of the Hon. Wm. Dayton, U. S. Senator and Minister to France. I could hardly believe my eyes.

I had another experience of the same kind. During my school days at Somerville, the reigning belle of that region was Miss Martina Ellmendorf We boys used to collect around the church-door to see her in and out of her carriage. She subsequently married the Hon. Dr. Condict of Morristown. Some forty years after leaving Somerville I dined at Dr. Condict’s, and said to him that as I had known his wife when a young lady, I should be very glad to be presented to her. He replied that she was very much of an invalid, and never left her room, but that after dinner he would introduce me. Her room was on the ground-floor; and when the door was opened, a tall, emaciated, mild and courteous lady, evidently not long for this world, rose be-

^T. 13.] AT SOMERVILLE. I efore me. I could not help thinking that if identity could be preserved in spite of so entire a change of all that was outward, it might well be preserved between that aged believer (as she then was) and what she would be when she rose resplendent in the image of her Saviour.

During the remaining eighteen months of my stay in Somerville, I lived in the family of Doctor, better known as General, Stryker. The beautiful country about Somerville, on the Raritan and Millstone rivers, was in a great measure occupied by wealthy and refined Dutch families — the Ellmendorfs, Van Vacters, Van Esses, the Frelinghuysens, and many others. Mr. John Frelinghuysen lived on the Raritan, a few miles up the river; his younger brother, Frederick, lived in the village of Millstone: he was the father of the present U. S. Senator, the Hon. F. T. Frelinghuysen. A third brother, the Hon. Theodore Frelinghuysen, so long the ornament of New Jersey, and General Stryker had married sisters. This led to his frequently visiting the family in which I lived. I thus became acquainted with him in my boyhood, an acquaintance which, in after life, ripened, on my part, into a revering friendship. I was one of those who were allowed to stand around his coffin, and gaze on his saintly countenance in the repose of death. His pronounced evangelical sentiments militated against his political success. The late Governor Seward was on intimate terms with Archbishop Hughes of New York, and called on him with the request that he would use his influence with the Romanists to induce them to vote the Whig ticket, when Clay and Frelinghuysen were candidates for the offices of President and Vice-President respectively. The Archbishop shook his head, and said: ‘’We could stand Mr. Clay; but we cannot stand Frelinghuysen.” This was told me by a distinguished gentleman from New York. My informant was satisfied of the truth of the anecdote.

Mr. Clay was also a praying man. The late Rev. Dr.

Edgar of Nashville, Tenn., told me that when traveling through Kentucky, he spent a night with Mr. Clay at the house of a mutual friend. It was a cholera season. During the night Mr. Clay was taken alarmingly ill. Dr. Edgar was one of his attendants. In course of conversation Mr Clay, after expressing his faith, said that he never had introduced a measure into Congress, without first kneeling down and invoking the guidance and blessing of God.

I began the study of Latin when I went to Somerville. During the first year the academy was taught by the Rev. Mr. Boyer, afterwards pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Columbia, Penna. When he went away, the school was under the care of the Rev. Mr. Vredenburgh, pastor of the Dutch Church in the village. On one occasion the pulpit was filled by the Rev. Dr. Livingston, long the patriarch of the Reformed Dutch Church in America. He was a patrician as well as a patriarch: tall and elegant in person, careful in his dress, a model of courtesy in manners, hair perfectly white and reaching down to his shoulders. I could not believe that Abraham was more venerable in his appearance. The only thing I recollect of his sermon is that he exhorted the people to commit to memory the fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. The exhortation took effect; for a few days after I heard Dr. Stryker call upon his daughters to repeat that chapter, the doctor himself prompting and helping them through.

One summer Dr. Livingston invited Dr. Archibald Alexander to take a seat with him in his carriage for a few days’ tour through New Jersey, to attend Bible Society meetings. Dr. Alexander told me that Dr. Livingston addressed every one he had the opportunity to speak to, on the subject of religion. Even the hostler, who came out to water the horses, was sure to receive some word of admonition or counsel. This was a gift which Dr. Alexander appreciated, but did not possess. During the entire six weeks’ journey I made with him through Virginia in

.^T. 14.] REMOVAL TO PRINCETON.

1 8 16, 1 never, except once, heard him make such a personal address to any one. The exception did not amount to much. The stage had stopped for a few moments at Charlestown in the valley, and the driver, standing by the pump, called out to a companion, whom he saw going towards an open church, “Take care, don’t go there, you may get converted.” Dr. Alexander said to him, “Do you think that would hurt him?” Yet, Dr. Alexander, in the opinion of all who knew him, was second to no one in piety and zeal.

The only one of my school-mates at Somerville with whom I was associated in after life was the Rev. Peter Studdiford. During his whole ministerial life, he was pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Lambertville, New Jersey. That church rose under his care from a mere handful, to being one of the largest in the Synod. Dr. Studdiford, was distinguished for learning, wisdom and goodness in the most comprehensive sense of that word.

In the early part of the year 1812 my brother and myself removed to Princeton. In order to make a home for us our mother had removed from Philadelphia and rented a small frame house in Witherspoon street, which runs directly north, starting in front of the College. The house is still standing, next door to the old session-house, since the parochial school.

In order to aid in meeting her expenses mother received into her family as boarders several boys preparing for College, all of whom were either relations or connections. Our cousin, Alexander Hodgdon, of Philadelphia, Nicholas Bayard, son of our cousin. Dr. Nicholas Bayard, of Savannah, Georgia, and two young Master Wards, step-sons of Dr. Nicholas Bayard through his second marriage. These young men were the half-brothers of Jane and Margaret Bayard, the former of whom married the Rev. Dr. Leighton Wilson, and spent seventeen years as a missionary with her distinguished husband in western Africa. After that protracted service she returned to this country in as perfect health as any of her contemporaries who had remained at home. A year or two after her return she said to me that she still hankered after Africa. Her sister Margaret married the Rev. Dr. Eckart, and went with him as a missionary to Ceylon, and remained there ten years, until her broken health compelled their return. There was no physician resident at their station, and as cholera ofter prevailed among the natives, Dr. Eckart told me he always kept on hand a bottle containing a mixture of calomel and opium, and when called to a sufferer, uniformly administered a teaspoonful of the combined powder. If rejected, he repeated the dose. If retained, a cure almost always followed.

My brother entered the College in May, 18 12, sophomore half-advanced. I entered the Academy, then taught by the Rev. Mr. Fyler, who was afterwards the head of a prosperous classical school in Trenton. The Princeton Academy then stood between the church and the house of the President of the College. It was during the same season that Princeton Theological Seminary was founded, and Dr. Archibald Alexander was inaugurated its first Professor. That important service was performed in the old Presbyterian church, which occupied the site of the present First Church, August 12, 181 2. I can well remember, then a boy of fourteen, lying at length on the rail of the gallery listening to the doctor’s inaugural address and watching the ceremony of investiture.

Ofte day, during the same summer, the school-room door being opened, Dr. Alexander walked in. He found me stammering over a verse in the Greek Testament. The process seemed to amuse the old gentleman (just forty — old to a boy). He asked me what ■Ji’iartc, was derived from. I could not tell him. Mr. Fyler apologized for me by saying I had been studying Greek only a month or six weeks. This occurrence was the first thread of the cord which bound me to Dr. Alexander — a cord never broken. He never

^T. 14.] FRIENDSHIP OF DR. ALEXANDER. i g

failed to notice me when I crossed his path. Frequently he would take me with him in his gig, when he went out into the country to preach. On one occasion he took me to Flemington, a court town fifteen or sixteen miles north of Princeton. I was astonished at the knowledge he displayed of the country through which we passed. He knew the character of the soil in every neighborhood; the character of the people, whether of Dutch or English origin; the name of all the streams, where they rose and where they emptied. We were hospitably entertained, from Saturday to Monday, in the house of Mr. Samuel S. Southard, then a rising young lawyer, afterwards United States Senator and Secretary of the Navy. In my young days, he and the Hon. Theodore Frelinghuysen were the two most popular men in New Jersey. Mr. Southard was a handsome man, and very cordial in his manners. He had the happy tact of making every man he met feel that he was glad to see him, and really enjoyed his society. As he liked everybody, everybody liked him.

Some years afterward (in 1825) during a meeting of the Trustees of the College of New Jersey, Chief Justice Kirkpatrick was staying with me, and Mr. Southard, then Secretary of the Navy, called to see him, and gave him a glowing account of the rapidity with which he had fitted out the frigate Brandywine to take Gen. Lafayette back to Europe. When he had finished the Chief Justice turned towards him and said, “Now, Mr. Southard, if any man should ask you which end of a ship goes first, could you tell him?” This was hardly fair in the old judge; as it is not expected that a Secretary of the Navy should be an expert in naval architecture.