angdon's two other daughters were Mrs.
Matthew Wilks, who married abroad and spent her life there, and the
first Mrs. De Lancey Kane, who made a runaway match, and both of whom
left descendants in New York. All three women were celebrated for their
beauty, but Mrs. Boreel was usually regarded as the handsomest of the
trio. Mrs. Walter Langdon was Dorothea Astor, a daughter of John Jacob
Astor, and her husband was a grandson of Judge John Langdon of New
Hampshire, who equipped Stark's regiment for the battle of Bennington,
and who for twelve years was a member of the United States Senate and
was present as President _pro tempore_ of that body at the first
inauguration of Washington.

Another society woman whose presence at this ball I recall, and without
whom no entertainment was regarded as complete, was Mrs. Charles
Augustus Davis, wife of the author of the well-known "Jack Downing
Letters." Indeed, the name "Jack Downing" seemed so much a part of the
Davis family that in after years I have often heard Mrs. Davis called
"Mrs. Jack Downing." The Davises had a handsome daughter who married a
gentleman of French descent, but neither of them long survived the
marriage.

In an old newspaper of 1807 I came across the following marriage notice,
which was the first Astor wedding to occur in this country:

BENTZON--ASTOR. Married, on Monday morning, the 14th ult.
[September], by the Rev. Mr. [Ralph] Williston, Adrian B.
Bentzon, Esq., of the Isle of St. Croix, to Miss Magdalen
Astor, daughter of John Jacob Astor of this city.

It was while on a cruise among the West Indies that Miss Astor met Mr.
Bentzon, a Danish gentleman of good family but moderate fortune. In the
early part of the last century many ambitious foreigners went to that
part of the world with the intention of making their fortunes.

Another daughter of John Jacob Astor, Eliza, married Count Vincent
Rumpff, who was for some years Minister at the Court of the Tuileries
from the Hanseatic towns of Germany. She was well known through life,
and long remembered after death, for her symmetrical Christian
character. One of her writings, entitled "Transplanted Flowers," has
been published in conjunction with one of the Duchesse de Broglie,
daughter of Madame de Stael, with whom she was intimately associated in
her Christian works.

Henry Astor, the brother of John Jacob Astor, was the first of the
family to come to America. I am able to state,