by a
round of applause, and that Chief Justice Charles P. Daly and Judge
Joseph F. Daly, as well as Judge George M. Van Hoesen, who were on the
bench at this time, joined in the merriment.
The commencement exercises of Columbia College, as I remember them, took
place every summer in St. John's Church opposite St. John's Park, and I
often attended them in my early days. Columbia College at this period
was in the lower part of the city between College and Park Places, and
was the original King's College of colonial days. All of the professors
lived in the college buildings in a most unostentatious manner, and I
readily recall frequent instances during my early childhood when, in
company with my father, I walked to the college and took a simple six
o'clock supper with Professor Anthon and his sisters.
My mother met my father while visiting in New York, and the acquaintance
eventually resulted in a runaway marriage. They were married on the 10th
of June, 1818, and nine days later the following notice appeared in _The
National Advocate_:
_Married._
At Flushing, L.I., by the Rev. Mr. [Barzilla] Buckley, James
Campbell esq. of this city, to Miss Mary Ann Hazard,
daughter of John Hazard, esq. of Jamaica, Long Island.
The objection of my Grandfather Hazard to my mother's marriage was not
unnatural, as she was his only child, and being at this time well
advanced in years he dreaded the separation. But the happy bride
immediately brought her husband to live in the old home where she had
been born, where the young couple began their married life under
pleasing auspices, and my father continued his practice of law in New
York. I had the misfortune of being a second daughter. Traditionally, I
know that my grandfather most earnestly desired a grandson at that time,
and when the nurse announced my birth, she was not sufficiently
courageous to tell the truth, and said: "A boy, sir!" Her faltering
manner possibly betrayed her, as the sarcastic retort was: "I dare say,
an Irish boy."
My ambitious parents sent me with my oldest sister, Fanny, at the early
age of four, to a school in the village of Jamaica conducted by Miss
Delia Bacon. My recollection of events occurring at this early period is
not very vivid, but I still recall the vision of three beautiful women,
Delia, Alice and Julia Bacon, who presided over our school. This
interesting trio were nieces of the distinguished author and divine, the
Rev.
|