ir charge. I wish particularly to enforce my
dependence upon your bounty; for I feel hopes revive, which
owe their birth to your honor and generosity, and to that of
the State whose representative I now address. Now that my
father is no more, I am certain they and you will remember
what merited your esteem in his character and conduct and
forget that which estranged your hearts from so honorable a
man. But should you not, you are too just to visit what you
deem the sins of the father upon his luckless daughter.

I am, sir, your obt. etc.

In 1831 the small but pretty Gramercy Park in New York was established
by Samuel B. Ruggles. I have heard that this plot of ground was
originally used as a burying ground by Trinity parish. As I first
recollect the spot, there were but four or five dwellings in its
vicinity. One of the earliest was built by James W. Gerard, a prominent
lawyer, who was regarded as a most venturesome pioneer to establish his
residence in such a remote locality. Next door to Mr. Gerard, a few
years later, lived George Belden, whose daughter Julia married Frederick
S. Tallmadge. Mr. Tallmadge died only a few years ago, highly respected
and esteemed by a large circle of friends.

In 1846 I was one of the guests at a fashionable wedding in a residence
on the west side of this park, which was possibly the first ceremony of
the kind to take place in this then remote region. The bride's mother,
the widow of Richard Armistead of New Bern, N.C., who habitually spent
her winters in New York, had purchased the house only a few months
previously. The bride, Susan Armistead, was an intimate friend of mine,
and a well-known belle in both the North and the South. The groom, a
resident of New York, was John Still Winthrop, of the same family as the
Winthrops of Massachusetts. The guests composed an interesting
assemblage of the old _regime_, many of whose descendants are now in the
background. I met on that occasion many old friends, among whom the
Kings, Gracies, Winthrops and Rogers predominated. Mrs. De Witt Clinton
honored the occasion, dressed in the fashion of a decade or two
previous. Her presence was a very graceful act as she then but seldom
appeared in society, her only view of the gay world being from her own
domain. Her peculiarity in regard to dress was very marked as she
positively declined to change it with the prevailing style but clung
tenaciously to