llantry, poetry, judicial acumen,
oratory, all have their lustre mingled with this name." I regard this
statement as just and truthful.
Still another valued associate of my father was Hugh Maxwell, a
prominent member of the New York bar. In his earlier life he was
District Attorney and later Collector of the Port of New York. The
Maxwells owned a pleasant summer residence at Nyack-on-the-Hudson, where
we as children made occasional visits. Many years later one of my
daughters formed an intimate friendship with Hugh Maxwell's
granddaughter, Virginia De Lancey Kearny, subsequently Mrs. Ridgely
Hunt, which terminated only with the latter's death in 1897.
From my earliest childhood Gulian C. Verplanck was a frequent guest at
our house. He and my father formed an intimacy in early manhood which
lasted throughout life. Mr. Verplanck was graduated from Columbia
College in 1801, the youngest Bachelor of Arts who, up to that time, had
received a diploma from that institution of learning. Both he and my
father found in politics an all-absorbing topic of conversation,
especially as both of them took an active part in state affairs. I have
many letters, one of them written as early as 1822, from Mr. Verplanck
to my father bearing upon political matters in New York. For four terms
he represented his district in Congress, while later he served in the
State Senate and for many years was Vice Chancellor of the University of
the State of New York. He was an ardent Episcopalian and a vestryman in
old Trinity Parish. He was a brilliant conversationalist, and his
tastes, like my father's, were decidedly literary. In connection with
William Cullen Bryant and Robert C. Sands, he edited _The Talisman_, an
annual which continued through the year 1827. Mr. Verplanck lived to an
old age and survived my father for a long time, but he did not forget
his old friend. Almost a score of years after my father's death, on the
4th of July, 1867, Mr. Verplanck delivered a scholarly oration before
the Tammany Society of New York, in which he paid the following glowing
tribute to his memory:
In those days James Campbell, for many years the Surrogate
of this city, was a powerful leader at Tammany Hall, and
from character and mind alone, without any effort or any act
of popularity. He was not college-bred, but he was the son
of a learned father, old Malcolm Campbell, who had been
trained at Aberdeen, the great school of Sco
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