y by playing in a most masterly manner the
Italian music then in vogue. A few years after her return to her
Southern home she married her cousin, William Neyle Habersham, an
accomplished musician. For many years they lived in Savannah in the
greatest elegance, until the Civil War came to disturb their tranquil
dreams. Two young sons, both under twenty-one, laid down their lives for
the Southern cause during that conflict. After their great sorrow music
was their chief solace, and they delighted their friends by playing
together on various musical instruments.
New Orleans was represented at our school by a famous beauty, Catharine
Alexander Chew, a daughter of Beverly Chew, the Collector of the Port of
New Orleans, and whose wife, Miss Maria Theodosia Duer, was a sister of
President William Alexander Duer of Columbia College. He and Richard
Relf, cashier of the Louisiana State Bank, were the business partners
and subsequently the executors of the will of Daniel Clark of the same
city, and it was against them that the latter's daughter, Myra Clark
Gaines, the widow of General Edmund Pendleton Gaines, U.S.A., fought her
famous legal battles for over half a century. Miss Chew married Judge
Thomas H. Kennedy of New Orleans and left many descendants. The sister
of General Pierre G. T. Beauregard, Elodie Toutant, whom I have already
mentioned, was also from Louisiana. She was a studious girl, and a most
attractive companion. The original family name was Toutant, but towards
the close of the sixteenth century the last male descendant of the
family died, and an only surviving daughter having married Sieur Paix de
Beauregard, the name became Toutant de Beauregard, the prefix _de_
having subsequently been dropped.
Still another friendship I formed at Madame Chegaray's school was with
Elizabeth Clarkson Jay, which through life was a source of intense
pleasure to me and lasted until her pure and gentle spirit returned to
its Maker. She was the daughter of Peter Augustus Jay, a highly
respected lawyer, and a granddaughter of the distinguished statesman,
John Jay. She was a deeply religious woman, and died a few years ago in
New York after a life consecrated to good works.
One of the brightest girls in my class was Sarah Jones, a daughter of
one of New York's most distinguished jurists, Chancellor Samuel Jones.
She and another schoolmate of mine, Maria Brandegee, who lived in LeRoy
Place, were intimate and inseparable companions.
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