Snow-Storm in August
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9.7. both came out: Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815 to 1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 325.
9.8. Key gave the magistrate: The record of Clem Johnson’s manumission is found in the Collection of the Adams County Historical Society, Gettysburg, Pa. Wayne Motts, executive director, shared the original document with me as well as his thoughts about its origins and implications. He is not responsible in any way for my interpretation of Key and Johnson’s relationship.
9.9. One was called Big Round Top: Weybright, Spangled Banner, 7.
Chapter 10
10.1. “Are you Mr. Stanbery?”: Dialogue is drawn verbatim from three sources: the House trial testimony of Stanbery, published in the National Intelligencer, April 21, 1832; of bystander Jonathan Elliot, National Intelligencer, April 27, 1832; and of Senator Alexander Buckner, National Intelligencer, April 25 and April 28, 1832. Buckner’s account is the most comprehensive. See also Delaplaine, Life and Times, 324.
10.2. Stanbery had delivered: Delaplaine, Life and Times, 325–26.
10.3. resolution calling for Houston’s arrest: Ibid., 327.
10.4. “vile attempt”: Globe, April 17, 1832.
10.5. “On no occasion”: National Intelligencer, April 19, 1832.
10.6. “ardent, zealous, fearless”: Delaplaine, Life and Times, 370.
10.7. Key scorned the charge: National Intelligencer, April 21 and 23, 1832.
10.8. “Sir,” he said to the House Speaker: Joseph Gales, Register of Debates in Congress: Comprising the Leading Debates and Incidents of the Second Session of the Eighteenth Congress: [Dec. 6, 1824, to the First Session of the Twenty-Fifth Congress, Oct. 16, 1837] vol. 82 (Washington, D.C.: Gales and Seaton, 1837), 2597–2620.
10.9. “his face reflected how deeply”: Weybright, Spangled Banner, 44–45.
10.10. “I am proud”: Register of Debates in Congress, April 26, 1832, 2598.
10.11. “A free Constitution”: Ibid., 2614.
10.12. “a ruffian had brutally assaulted”: Delaplaine, Life and Times, 335.
10.13. yearned for a roll call: National Intelligencer, May 10, 1832, referring to the May 8 session.
10.14. The vote was 106 to 89: Delaplaine, Life and Times, 343.
10.15. claiming vindication for pummeling: Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 436; Parton, Life of Andrew Jackson, 385–92.
10.16. lived the life of a young gentleman: Isobel Davidson, Real Stories from Baltimore County History (Baltimore: Warwick & York, Inc, 1917), 91.
10.17. told his mortified father: Letter, FSK to Charles Howard, May 22, 1832, Howard Family Papers, Francis Scott Key Papers, MHS, MS 469 box 3.
10.18. “Everybody is satisfied”: Letter, FSK to Charles Howard, May 25, 1832, Howard Family Papers, Francis Scott Key Papers, MHS, MS 469 box 3.
Chapter 11
11.1. “I nominate Francis S. Key”: Journal of the Senate of the United States, Second Session of the Twenty-Second Congress (Washington, D.C.: Duff Green, 1832), 279.
11.2. “not altogether to his taste”: Weybright, Spangled Banner, 241.
11.3. increased the fines: Bryan, History of the National Capital, 95.
11.4. “There is no city”: National Intelligencer, November 13, 1833.
11.5. a wage of fifty dollars: Watterston, A New Guide to Washington, 166–67.
11.6. reward money for capturing: In 1832, Key’s predecessor as district attorney, Thomas Swann, prosecuted two constables, Gilson Dove and David Waters, for unspecified “illegal practices.” Dove resigned and became a dealer of enslaved persons. Docket Book, vol. 69, RG 21, entry 6, Case Papers, box 492, March Term 1833, Criminal Appearances. Dove’s new profession is identified in the Directory for Washington City, 1834, 16.
11.7. proceeded to prosecute: Ibid., Special Session, September 1833.
11.8. forthright beauties: George Watterston, The L——Family at Washington; or, a Winter in the Metropolis (Washington, D.C.: Davis and Force, 1822), 104.
11.9. The demimonde of the Washington: All names and locations are found in Docket Book, vol. 70, RG 21, entry 6, Case Papers, box 493, September Term 1833, Criminal Appearances; Docket Book, vol. 70, RG 21, entry 6, Case Papers, box 502, November Term 1833, Criminal Appearances.
11.10. a standard indictment form: Docket Book, vol. 70., RG 21, entry 6, Case Papers, box 522, November Term 1834, Criminal Appearances.
Chapter 12
12.1. dispatched him on another sensitive: Delaplaine, Life and Times, 350–61; Weybright, Spangled Banner, 243–55; Thomas Chambers McCorvey, “The Mission of Francis Scott Key to Alabama in 1833,” Alabama Historical Society 4 (1904), 141–63.
12.2. The arrival of the famous author: Alabama Department of History and Archives website: http://www.archives.state.al.us/timeline/al1801.html.
12.3. “That is a pretty air”: Weybright, Spangled Banner, 250.
12.4. twenty-nine years of age: Elizabeth Fox-Genovese sketches Mrs. Gayle’s winning personality in Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 1–20.
12.5. “He is very pleasant”: Sarah Gayle Diary typescript (Gayle Diary), 47. Sarah Haynesworth Gayle, series 5, Josiah and Amelia Gorgas Family Papers, W. S. Hoole Special Collections Library, the University of Alabama.
12.6. “He has been around frequently”: Gayle Diary, 36.
12.7. “And is it so?”: The entire poem appears in Delaplaine, Life and Times, 358.
12.8. lamented in her diary: Gayle Diary, 67. In her entry for October 4, 1834, she recalled their days as newlyweds. “I used to think then that Mr. Gayle loved me better than most men loved their wives—he had that sort of look which drew him to my presence constantly, that I cannot remember any time, that his eyes were not seeking me, and that the expression I always met there did not create and keep alive sun-shine in my bosom. I am sure I do not discover that same look in many countenances now.”
12.9. “I will set no wicked things”: Ibid., 50.
12.10. he joined the Delphian Club: The full text of Key’s only known venture in erotic verse is found in Delaplaine, Life and Times, 230–31.
12.11. “Few had stronger inward impulses”: Delaplaine, Life and Times, 182–83.
12.12. “The Creek controversy”: Weybright, Spangled Banner, 258.
12.13. “the gaunt man from Maryland”: Delaplaine, Life and Times, 295.
12.14. “The African race”: Citing Carl Brent Swisher, Roger B. Taney (New York: Macmillan, 1935), 154. Howe, What God Hath Wrought, 442. Taney asserted, inaccurately, that blacks “were never regarded as a constituent portion of the sovereignty of any state.” In fact, free Negroes held citizenship in several northern states after the Revolution. Taney also claimed they “were not looked upon as citizens by the contracting parties who formed the constitution,” historically dubious for the same reason.
12.15. Taney also encouraged: Steiner, Life of Roger Brooke Taney, 120.
12.16. He followed up with another letter: Frank Otto Gatell, “Secretary Taney and the Baltimore Pets: A Study in Banking and Politics,” Business History Review 39, no. 2 (Summer 1965), 217.
12.17. Biddle, in the words: Tyler, Memoir of Roger Brooke Taney, 207.
12.18. Ellicott, an amoral Quaker: Ibid., 162.
12.19. “knew he would have to bail”: Gatell, “Secretary Taney and the Baltimore Pets,” 217.
12.20. “Insolvent you say?”: Remini, Life of Andrew Jackson, 189.
12.21. a new financial regime: Gatell, “Secretary Taney and the Baltimore Pets,” 205–27.
12.22. Taney’s formal nomination: Tyler, Memoir of Roger Brooke Taney, 221; Steiner, Life of Roger Brooke Taney, 166.
12.23. they attended a political picnic: Weybright, Spangled Banner, 261–63.
12.24. “Never even in my boyhood,” Delaplaine, Life and Times, 379–80.
12.25. General Jackson had faced: Esmeralda Boyle and Frederick P
inkney, Biographical Sketches of Distinguished Marylanders (Baltimore: Kelly Piet & Co., 1877), 255; Weybright, Spangled Banner, 263–64.
Chapter 13
13.1. the grand jury indicted: Docket Book, vol. 69, RG 21, entry 6, Case Papers, box 492, March Term 1833; Criminal Appearances; William Cranch, Reports on Cases, Civil and Criminal, of the District of Columbia from 1801 to 1841 in Six Volumes, vol. 4 (1830–1816), 303; Hillary Russell, “Underground Railroad Activists in Washington, D.C.,” Washington History 13, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2001–2002), 43.
13.2. “There is neither mercy”: GUE 13 (June 1833), 127–28.
13.3. Lundy reported another story: Ibid.
13.4. “to injure, oppress, aggrieve & vilify”: Docket Book, vol. 70.
13.5. “never departed empty-handed”: Sollors, Titcomb, and Underwood, Blacks at Harvard, 47.
13.6. the printer called two witnesses: Ibid.; James Thomson, witness. Directory for Washington City, Alexandria 1834, 20. The directory lists a “James Thompson, Sea Captain, Duke near Water Street.”
13.7. The jury found Greer not guilty: D.C. Circuit Court “Original Minutes,” 1834–1836, RG 21, microfilm 1021, roll 4.
PART III: ANNA AND ARTHUR
Chapter 14
14.1. lived next door: Anna Thornton recorded many visits in her diary, such as on September 25, 1829, and November 3, 1829. On January 1, 1832, she noted that the Adamses were among her principal acquaintances. AMT Diary, vol. 1, 746, 748, and 813.
14.2. The anniversary of their wedding: Ibid., 238. In 1803, she wrote, “Our wedding day. Thirteen years.”
14.3. the anniversary of his passing: Ibid., 760. On March 27, 1830, she wrote, “Another anniversary of my dreadful loss is arrived.”
14.4. bright eyes and sharp features: Clarke, “Dr. and Mrs. William Thornton,” 144.
14.5. a friend of her late husband: Gordon Brown, Incidental Architect: William Thornton and the Cultural Elite of Early Washington, D.C., 1794–1828 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2009), 66–67.
14.6. The front parlor was adorned: Memorandum, May 18, 1854, written by Anna Thornton listing all of her property. WTP, reel 1.
14.7. she owned property: In 1833 she and her mother owned at least 113 lots, which were located in every ward of the city. Tax Book 1833, A–Z, Corporation of Washington, First and Second Wards, RG 351, entry 47, vol. 18.
14.8. She owned a five-hundred-acre farm: Montgomery County Circuit Court Land Records, Grantee Index MSA-CE 217–290, Given Names L–Z, 1740.
14.9. It was Anna’s slaves: Handwritten will, WTP. A published summary of Thornton’s will in District of Columbia Probate Records, Will Book 2, compiled by Wesley E. Pippenger (Arlington, Va.: Family Line Publications, 1996), 144–45, states inaccurately that Thornton’s will freed his slaves upon his own death.
14.10. took care of the Bethesda farm: AMT Diary, vol. 1, 747, 772, and 784.
14.11. seven dollars a month: Ibid., 846. When Thornton hired out Joe and Bill, she received only four dollars per month.
14.12. Anna relied on George Plant: His central role in the household and his residence in Georgetown is documented throughout the diary. See AMT Diary, vol. 1, 857, 859, 861, 869, and 874.
14.13. “Races today + Arthur gone without leave”: AMT Diary, vol. 1, 728.
14.14. “They are violent and unreasonable”: Ibid., 779.
14.15. Anna was furious at him: Ibid., 796.
14.16. “Archy is dead”: Ibid., 847.
14.17. at the southwest corner: Wilhelmus B. Bryan, “A Fire in an Old Time F Street Tavern and What It Revealed.” Records of the Columbia Historical Society 9 (1906), 198–215.
14.18. jumped out of the window: The incident scandalized Washington society and gave impetus to the creation of the American Colonization Society (ACS). See Torrey, A Portraiture of Domestic Slavery in the United States, 42.
14.19. Anna hired him out to Mrs. Cochrane: AMT Diary, vol. 1, 875.
14.20. Anna hired him out to Mrs. Carlisle: Ibid., 884–85.
14.21. She hired him out to Mr. and Mrs. Fuller: Ibid., 899.
14.22. making new friends: “He fell into bad company,” Anna later told President Jackson. Letter, AMT to AJ, February 17, 1836. RG 59, General Records of the Department of State, Petitions for Pardons 1789–1860, Jackson Administration 1829–1837, box 25, file 1327.
14.23. “It was obvious”: Ibid.
14.24. left his clerk’s job: Directory for Washington City, 1834, 12.
14.25. the Philomathean Talking Society: Letitia Woods Brown and Elsie M. Lewis, Washington from Banneker to Douglass, 1791–1870 (Washington, D.C.: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, 1971), 17–18.
14.26. he began keeping “the company”: Letter, AMT to AJ, February 17, 1836.
Chapter 15
15.1. “Mama poorly”: AMT Diary, vol. 1, 750, 763, and 767.
15.2. “Mama better”: Ibid., 748, 787.
15.3. “Mama unwell”: Ibid., 719, 801, and 876.
15.4. “Mama a little better”: Ibid., 749, 922.
15.5. “a great inconvenience”: Ibid., 770.
15.6. Anna was annoyed: Ibid., 785.
15.7. Maria was not pleased: Ibid., 808.
15.8. warm and hazy days: George and Arthur harvested potatoes; Anna read a book: Ibid., 799–801.
15.9. While she complained: Ibid., 818, 821, and 835.
15.10. “I shall miss him”: Ibid., 793.
15.11. With his winning design: Brown, Incidental Architect, 7.
15.12. they gave dinners and parties: Ibid., 31.
15.13. she saw Tudor House: Stearns and Yerkes, Renaissance Man, 31, 35; Caemmerer’s Manual, 173.
15.14. which he had designed and built: Tayloe, Our Neighbors on La Fayette Square, 5.
15.15. he imagined what this: Stearns and Yerkes, Renaissance Man, 27.
15.16. he planted saplings and bushes: Christian Hines, Early Recollections of Washington City (Washington, D.C.: Junior League of Washington, 1981), 86.
15.17. two full-length unpublished novels: The handwritten manuscripts of “Julia” and “Lucy” are found in the Papers of William Thornton, Library of Congress. In “Julia,” the embattled heroine justifies her love affairs outside of her loveless marriage (WTP, roll 3).
15.18. “Mr. Thornton, you don’t know”: Tayloe, Our Neighbors on La Fayette Square, 76–77.
15.19. “He knew many things”: Clarke, “Dr. and Mrs. William Thornton,” 144.
15.20. “His thirst for knowledge”: Ibid., 169.
15.21. “a man of some learning”: John Quincy Adams, diary 31, 1 January 1819–20 March 1821, 10 November 1824–6 December 1824, 159 (electronic edition). The Diaries of John Quincy Adams: A Digital Collection (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2004), accessed September 21, 2010, http://www.masshist.org/jqadiaries.
Chapter 16
16.1. “Luxury Luxury Luxury!”: Advertisement, National Intelligencer, September 12, 1834.
16.2. The Avenue had been paved: Bryan, History of the National Capital, 237.
16.3. lived at Brown’s: Directory for Washington City, 1834, passim.
16.4. The shiny blue carriages: Advertisement, National Intelligencer, July 11, 1831.
16.5. the mammoth orator: Beverly himself said so. James Cleland Hamilton, Osgoode Hall; Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar (Toronto: Carswell Company Ltd., 1904), 133.
16.6. prescribed by Mary Randolph: Mary Randolph, The Virginia Housewife; or, Methodical Cook (Baltimore: Plakitt, Fite, 1838), 20.
16.7. “the West Indian way”: Hannah Glass, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (London: 1778), 331–32.
16.8. “Some of the most refined”: National Intelligencer, September 12, 1834.
16.9. “Health Bought Cheap”: Advertisement, Globe, October 11, 14, 15, and 18, 1833.
16.10. Beverly made the city tax rolls: RG 351, entry 47, vol. 16, 1832 Tax Book, Third and Fourth Wards, RG 351, entry 47, vol. 22. 1834 Tax Book, Third and Fourt
h Wards.
16.11. That distinction probably belonged: Robinson declared five hundred dollars’ worth of personal property in 1833, the most of any colored property owner in the city. Tax Book 1833, A-Z, Corporation of Washington, Third and Fourth Wards; RG 351, Entry 47, vol. 18. Her livelihood was revealed in April 1836, when she was convicted of running a house of ill fame. D.C. Circuit Court Original Minutes, 1834–1836, RG 21, microfilm 1021, roll 4.
16.12. “The National Restaurateur”: Advertisement, National Intelligencer, December 12, 1832.
16.13. herded groups of chained families: Andrews, Slavery and the Domestic Slave-Trade, 136–37.
16.14. posted a five-hundred-dollar bond: D.C. Circuit Court “Original Minutes” 1834–1836, RG 21, microfilm 1021, roll 4.
16.15. Beverly seems to have left: Snow’s absence is inferred from the notices of undelivered letters published in the Globe. Undelivered mail for Beverly Snow, Globe, September 2, 3; October 15–17; November 15, 18.
16.16. “This man Snow”: Osgood, William Winston Seaton of the “National Intelligencer,” 217–19.
Chapter 17
17.1. The mood was somber: The attempt on Jackson’s life is described in Martineau, Retrospect of Western Travel, 161–62; Delaplaine, Life and Times, 387; Remini, Life of Andrew Jackson, 201; Charles Francis Adams, ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams: comprising portions of his diary, vol. 9 (New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1876), 203.
17.2. Judge Cranch gaveled the hearing: The arraignment of Lawrence and Blair’s stunt with the pistols is reported in the Alexandria Gazette, February 2, 1835, and the Globe, January 31, 1835.
17.3. As district attorney, Key: Delaplaine, Life and Times, 394.
17.4. “rank with the fumes”: Edwin A. Miles, “Andrew Jackson and Senator George Poindexter,” The Journal of Southern History 24, no. 1 (February 1958), 60.
17.5. Jackson was certain: Miles, “Andrew Jackson and Senator George Poindexter,” 59–61.
17.6. “He protested, in the presence”: Martineau, Retrospect of Western Travel, 163.
17.7. a bricklayer who worked: Account books showed Coltman had been paid forty-five dollars for a job at the President’s House just a few days before. Andrew Jackson Papers (AJP), Library of Congress, no. 18260.