CHAPTER TENTH.

LIFE AT “99 STATE STREET," ALBANY.

My grandfather had conveyed a lot to my father in State street next to the Capitol grounds, and there my Grandmother Dunkin built a spacious dwelling, into which we moved when I was about three years old, and where my second brother was born January 29, 1823, and named Charles Watkins, after my grandmother's second brother. After him came the second daughter, named after her grandmother and greatgrandmother, Ann Eliza, April 5, 1825; then Lydia Beekman, May 25, 1827; Harriet Letitia (after her great-grandmother, Harriet Schuyler, and Lady Macnaghten, cousin to her grandfather Dunkin), January 19, 1830; Samuel Watkins, February 28, 1832; Catherine Sanders (from Mrs. G. Beekman), November 16, 1834; and Louisa ("the baby"), March 17, 1838, whose arrival was announced by my grandfather in his humorous way as "a present from St. Patrick." We were brought up in the strictest affection for each other, which time only served to strengthen. I remember being greatly disturbed for the safety of my baby sister during a thunder storm at night, and being rebuked by my mother for asking her whether God would not be wicked to kill "little Ann Eliza" with the lightning? Perhaps, however, a thought of being protected myself under the shield of the baby's innocence may have prompted my anxiety for her's.

One of my mother's most pronounced traits was generosity and self-forgetfulness. When my grand

mother Van Rensselaer died she declined to take the full portion of her clothing which fell to her, and shared it with my Uncle Richard for his children, as she thought them much more in need of them. This explains the allusion in the following characteristic letter of dear Aunt Beekman, who even then was suffering from the painful disease of dropsy which took her away:

"MOUNT PLEASANT, October 21st, 1830. "MY DEARLY BELOVED SISTER,

"I have received many entertaining Letters from you, which proves your great affection and interested feelings for me and my dear Mr. Beekman, who often exclaims, 'I would give a Dollar if dear Betsy Dunkin was here!' Thank heaven! he is much better; and as for myself, I eat a little, sleep a little, sew a little, snuff a little, and read a little; and so, little by little, I am getting up hill, as the poor Pilgrim did when he wrote his Progress, and I do sincerely hope that I may die as good a Christian as he did without having the world on my back. Doctor Watts expects to make a cure of me; he is very ill, and Doctor Kissam attends us now.

"Mrs. MacKesson had a private wedding; they proceeded the same day to Boston, where she as well as Mr. Field was delighted. They are now at Washington, and will make a great display of beautiful clothes made for the jaunt. Mrs. Bradhurst is happy beyond description. The Bride sent me a large Plum Cake, which I shall keep for you to eat of next Spring, and my dear Ann and her good Husband, whom I admire very much. Elizabeth Moore is no better.

"Your amiable Daughter has got great credit in giving a certain part of her Mother's clothes to Mr. Richard's children. I am delighted at the improvement you are making by adding a retiring room, and your family will be so comfortable sitting at meals that I really should like to take a peep and say, 'How do you all do?' Thank my very

dear Ann for her beautifnl letter, and a thousand thanks for the stockings, which I am delighted with. Mrs. Gerard is far from being well."

She was taken August 29, 1833, and her death deprived us of a most amiable, affectionate, and devoted kinswoman and friend. Her early life had been clouded by a great calamity in the loss of her husband, Captain Drew of the British navy, who perished with his ship, the De Braak, off Cape Henlopen, May 25, 1798. (Notitia F.)

My beloved great-grandmother, Ann Dunkin, died June 20, 1832, having my dear Mother with my sister Ann Eliza and our baby brother Sam, to comfort and soothe her in her last hours. Her remains lie under a large marble slab in the "Old Pine Street Presbyterian Church" burial ground at the south-west corner of Fourth and Pine streets in Philadelphia. She was born in Coleraine, county Derry, Ireland, (of which she never tired of talking), June 4, 1740, and retained to the last her clearness of intellect and mental vigor and vivacity.

For upwards of twenty years God had graciously withheld the dreaded visitation of death from our immediate home circle, but at last it came upon us in the sudden calling away of our dear little Sam, November 17, 1839. It came like lightning from a clear sky. It was my really first sharp and painful experience in the death of those I loved, and the impression has not been effaced after a lapse of forty-seven years. He was a remarkably sweet, affectionate and amiable boy, to whom we were all fondly attached, and in whom my mother and grandmother took especial delight, as they showed in their pleasure in describing his qualities to me.

"Little Sam," my mother wrote, "is the most devoted child to the Bible; he spends an hour at a time, and that

several times a day and almost every evening reading it, and learns all the pretty hymns he can find, and can repeat most of the prayers he learns in the Bible. When he was so ill he could hardly hold up his head he would not go to bed without saying his prayers, and requested me to read the prayer for a sick child. I am in hopes he will be a minister; he already has influence enough to make Charles read the Bible on Sunday evening."

A few months after, while at the Seminary in New York, I received the following grievous tidings by the hands of a special messenger:

"ALBANY, Sunday morning, Novr. 17, 1839. "MY DEAR MAUNSELL,

It

"I have sad news to communicate to you - I hope you will have fortitude to bear it with proper resignation. has pleased the Almighty Disposer of events to take from our arms your blessed brother Samuel. He died this morning of congestion of the viscera, which set in on Friday. night with vomiting, which excited no alarm until he became delirious on Sunday morning.

"We purpose to have the funeral obsequies on Tuesday next at 3 o'clk P. M.; this will enable you to reach Albany early on Tuesday morning. Ascertain if your uncle Barney is still in New York, at the Pacific Hotel, and apprise him of this most afflicting event. We are all in the deepest grief, but otherwise well.

"Very truly

"your afflicted father,

"J. S. VAN RENSSELAER." The effect of this second blow upon our poor mother can only be described in her own heart-broken words:

"No time or circumstance can ever efface from my mind the heart-rending occurrence in our house; at every step, indeed every look, I miss my darling boy. The stroke that took him sank deep in his Mother's heart, and left a void never to be filled. Oft in the still hour of night the question enters my mind, Where is my Samuel? is his blessed spirit near me? or has it lost all recollection of his earthly friends? are we never to meet again? or, if we meet, are

we to recognize each other? These are anxious questions, and I fear cannot be satisfactorily answered. In the Banner

of the Cross of Novr. 2d there is a beautiful piece on the Snowdrop, which is very agreeable to those who have been bereaved of young children. Old Docr. Yates spent a day with us; he is the most perfect believer I ever met with. He said, if our little boy had been his son, with such a disposition, he thought he should jump up and sing Hallelujah to GOD for taking him, as his happiness must be perfected without the trials awaiting other Christians of more mature age. But for all I cannot cease to mourn my loss. The dear little fellow was placed last week beside his beloved brother Dunkin at Cherry Hill; they were lovely in life, and in death they were not divided.' Do not particularly refer to this letter when you write, as I do not wish your Grandmother to see it; she grieves so much for our little darling that I do not wish to have her feelings aroused by what I have written."

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This thoughtful consideration for the feelings of others was one of her strongest characteristics, which not even her own sufferings could overcome. Her grief at the bereavement was fully shared by her affectionate mother, who wrote:

“The tribute of affection you pay to the memory of your dear departed brother truly accords with our feelings. For myself I am a constant mourner at the hard dispensation of Providence in snatching him away in a few hours without any apparent disease. I try to comfort myself by thinking that if there was any communication from the dead to the living, he would say to me, 'Grandmama, don't mourn for me; I am better off than you; I have passed my short journey on earth, and had an easy passage out of it, and am at rest and free from all the troubles of life.' I can't look around without seeing something to remind me of his lovely and happy disposition, always more ready to bestow pleasure than receive it.

"I send you Docr. Yates' sermon on Thanksgiving day, towards the end of which you will see an allusion to your dear departed brother. The book you sent your Mother written by Docr. Dorr is the most comforting I ever met with on that most important subject, the recognition of