The Remarkable Rise of Eliza Jumel
Page 28
35. Joseph Jencks Smith, Civil and military list of Rhode Island 1800–1850 … (Providence, RI: Preston and Rounds Co., 1901), 710.
36. U.S. Works Progress Administration, Rhode Island, Ship registers and enrollments of Providence, Rhode Island: 1773–1939 (Providence, RI: The National Archives Project, 1941), 1:459, no. 1446; 1:648, no. 2034; 1:770–71, no. 2436.
37. The diaries of Julia Cowles: A Connecticut record, 1797–1803, ed. Laura Hadley Moseley (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1931), 36, 37, 41 (for washing on Monday and ironing on Tuesday). See Diary of Elizabeth Drinker for other typical household activities.
38. Elizabeth Drinker mentions making jelly and candles, although she does not indicate whether she was helped by a servant; see Diary of Elizabeth Drinker, 1:102 (July 12 and 13, 1763), 1:343 (April 5, 1779). For dairy work by an indentured servant, see Herman Mann, The female review (1916; repr., Bedford, MA: Applewood Books, 2009), 44–45.
39. Betty Ring, Let virtue be a guide to thee: Needlework in the education of Rhode Island women, 1730–1830 (Providence, RI: Rhode Island Historical Society, 1983), 53, 94. The girls sheltered in New York’s House of Refuge in the nineteenth century were expected to do the sewing and mending for the boys who lived there; see Documents of the Assembly of the State of New-York, Seventy-third Session, 1850, vol. 6 (Albany: Weed, Parsons & Co., 1850), no. 172:7.
40. For example, by the age of twelve, Boston schoolgirl Anna Green Winslow was adept at spinning flax; see Diary of Anna Green Winslow: A Boston school girl of 1771, ed. Alice Morse Earle (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1899), 34.
41. For a bound-out girl going along to carry a child when the mistress of the house was visiting friends or taking a walk, see Diary of Elizabeth Drinker, 1:588 (September 1, 1794); 1:592 (September 11, 1794); 1:597 (September 22, 1794).
42. A season in New York 1801: Letters of Harriet and Maria Trumbull, ed. Helen M. Morgan (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1969), 96.
43. E.g., Diary of Elizabeth Drinker, 1:584 (August 20, 1794).
44. Ibid., 1:586 (August 28, 1794).
45. Ibid., 3:1963 (September 7, 1806).
CHAPTER 3: A DEATH IN THE FAMILY
1. “General and field-officers of the Militia, appointed at the last session of the Assembly,” Providence Gazette and Country Journal, May 20, 1786, [3]. The sentence relating to John Bowen appears at the end of this otherwise unrelated article.
2. PTP, Mss 214, Sg. 1, ser. 1, vol. 11, item 4563; PTP, Mss 214, Sg. 1, ser. 1, vol. 10, item 4077.
3. PTP, Mss 214, Sg. 1, ser. 1, vol. 10, item 4077.
4. TCMR 6:108.
5. Ibid., 6:116.
6. Ibid.; 1873 Transcript of Record, 304.
7. TCMR 6:116.
8. Ibid.
9. Herndon, Unwelcome Americans, 89, fig. 3 (see chap. 1, n. 14).
10. TCMR, No. 6: 1787–1794, 164; PTP, Mss 214, Sg. 1, ser. 1, vol. 15, items 6395, 6406.
11. Arnold, Vital records of Rhode Island, vol. 10, 135, 137 (see chap. 1, n. 33).
12. William Cary Duncan, The amazing Madame Jumel (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1935), 29–35, 39–40; 1873 Transcript of Record, 304.
13. Although it has been suggested that the girls traveled with the Clarks, no documentation indicates that they did.
14. Duncan, The amazing Madame Jumel, 41, 43.
15. Ibid., 43.
16. 1873 Transcript of Record, 304.
17. Duncan, The amazing Madame Jumel, 44.
18. Ibid., 44; B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase.
19. “Madame Jumel’s estate,” New York Herald, November 13, 1866, 4; Nelson Chase, “The Jumel estate—card from Mr. Nelson Chase,” New York Times, February 1, 1868. In 1880 Nelson said that Eliza had told him that John had died of a fever in New Orleans (B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase). However, no other information places John in Louisiana.
CHAPTER 4: THE MAKING OF A MERCHANT
1. Louis et Michel Papy, Histoire de Mont-de-Marsan: Tome 1; Des origines à 1800 (Mont-de-Marsan: Editions InterUniversitaires, 1994), 258–60.
2. Ibid., 251–52, 257, 263, 265, 268.
3. The address is given in his sister Madelaine’s marriage contract of November 9, 1790. ADL, 3 E 13 / 46.
4. Vincent Lagadère, Le commerce fluvial à Mont-de-Marsan du XVIIe au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2012), 261–62.
5. Ibid., 262–63.
6. Dominique Jumel is listed as a marchand droguiste in the May 13, 1762, record of Madelaine Jumel’s birth and baptism (ADL, E dépôt 192 / GG 56), and the Jumels’ shop is mentioned in Madelaine’s marriage contract (ADL, 3 E 13 / 46).
7. [Eustache-Marie-Pierre-Marc-Antoine] Courtin, Encyclopédie moderne, ou, Dictionnaire abrégé des sciences, des lettres et des arts … (Paris: Au bureau de l’Encyclopédie, 1828), 12:5; Trésor de la langue française: Dictionnaire de la langue du XIXe et du XXe siècle (1789–1960), ed. Paul Imbs, vol. 7 (Paris: Éditions du Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, 1979), 508, 511.
8. For the products sold in drogueries described in this and the next paragraph, I drew on the following sources: Encyclopédie methodique, ou par ordre de matières; par une société de gens de lettres, de savans et d’artistes. Commerce, vol. 2 (Paris: Chez Pankouke, 1783), especially the entry titled “Droguerie”; [Nicolas] Lemery, Dictionnaire universel des drogues simples, contenant leurs noms, origine, choix, principes, vertus, etimologies …, nouvelle édition (Paris: Chez d’Houry, 1760); Nouveau dictionnaire général des drogues simples et composées, de Lemery; révu, corrigé, et considérablement augmenté par Simon Morelot (Paris: Rémont, 1807).
9. A separate address is not given for the shop in Stephen’s sister Madelaine’s marriage contract (ADL, 3 E 13 / 46), which sets out a plan to expand the droguerie with the help of an investment from her future husband. The young couple was to share the house at 16, rue du Bourg with the Jumels and run the business with them as equal partners.
10. ADL, E dépôt 192 / GG 56 (124). The maiden name of Stephen’s mother is spelled in a variety of ways, including Sonier, Sonnier, Sonié, and Sounier. I have chosen Sonier, the form she used in signing her name to a contract (ADL, 3E 4 172 / 75).
11. ADL, E dépôt 192 / GG 56 (for all three births).
12. A note in a legal document prepared in France in 1824 testifies to his consistent use of the name Stephen. The notary preparing the document observed that he had been “improperly named Étienne Stephen Jumel instead of Stephen Jumel, which is his only first name” in a record drawn up four years earlier. See ADL, 4 Q 1/10, no. 487.
13. Papy, Histoire de Mont-de-Marsan, 296.
14. Ibid.
15. Lagadère, Le commerce fluvial, 263.
16. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letters 6, 7, 11, 24.
17. [Nicolas] Lemery, Dictionnaire universel des drogues simples, contenant leurs noms, origine, choix, principes, vertus, etimologies …, nouvelle édition (Paris: Chez d’Houry, 1760), vii; Jaques Savary, Le parfait négociant, ou, Instruction générale pour ce qui regarde le commerce des marchandises de France, & des pays étrangers, nouvelle édition, revûe et corrigie … par Philémon-Louis Savary (Genève: Chez les Frères Cramer & Cl. Philibert, 1752), vol. 1, preface (n.p.) and 1:4.
18. Amitiés Généalogigues Bordelaises, Passagers pour les iles embarqués à Bordeaux de 1713 à 1787: depouillements des registres appartenant au fonds de l’amiraute de Guyanne (Mont-de-Marsan, 1993), n.p.
19. Mats Lundahl, “The Haitian dilemma reexamined: Lessons from the past in the light of some new economic theory,” in Haiti renewed: Political and economic prospects, ed. Robert I. Rotberg (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press; Cambridge, MA: World Peace Foundation, 1997), 62; Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The story of the Haitian revolution (Cambridge, MA and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004), 21; Alexandre-Stanislas de Wimpffen, Haiti au XVIIIe siècle: Richesse et esclavage dans une colonie française,
ed. Pierre Pluchon (Paris: Édition Karthala, 1993), 295; Jeremy D. Popkin, A concise history of the Haitian revolution (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 20.
20. Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 35.
21. Jacques de Cauna, L’Eldorado des Aquitains: gascons, basques, et bêarnais aux îles d’Amérique (XVIIIe-XVIIIe) siècles (Biarritz: Éditions Atlantica, 1999), 183; 1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 13.
22. One of the plantations owned by Jacques Sonier and Angelique Sterlin measured only 6 to 7 carreaux in size—that is, up to 9.1 hectares—producing eight thousand pounds of coffee per year. Similarly, Angelique’s sister Mrs. Blanchard had only twelve carreaux (15.6 hectares), yielding twelve thousand to eighteen thousand pounds of coffee (1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 28). Although yield numbers for both of these properties fall within the norms (fully cultivated land typically produced about one thousand pounds of coffee per hectare), the plantation sizes are modest (Wimpffen, Haiti au XVIIIe siècle, 78n2). The average cultivated area on a Saint-Domingue coffee plantation at this era has been estimated at 27 hectares (David P. Geggus, “Sugar and coffee cultivation in Saint Domingue and the shaping of the slave labor force,” in Cultivation and culture: labor and the shaping of slave life in the Americas, ed. Ira Berlin and Philip D. Morgan [Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993], 76–77).
23. Anne-Marie Cocula, “Contrats d’apprentissage autour de Langon dans la seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle,” Revue historique de Bordeaux de la Gironde 20, nouvelle série (1971), 115, 115n20.
24. Stendhal, Mémoires d’un touriste (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1891), 2:365.
25. Paul Butel, Les dynasties bordelaises de Colbert à Chaban (Paris: Librairie Académique Perren, 1991), 16; Meudre de Lapouyade, “Impressions d’une allemande à Bordeaux en 1785,” Revue Historique de Bordeaux et du Département de la Gironde 4, no. 3 (May–June 1911): 172, 177–78.
26. Alan Forrest, Society and politics in revolutionary Bordeaux (London: Oxford University Press, 1975), 11.
27. NYHS-JP, box 1, folder 11, business notebook of Stephen Jumel.
28. Alan Forrest, The Revolution in provincial France: Aquitaine 1789–1799 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 64–65.
29. ADL, 3 U 1/293, fol.77 verso; ADL, 3 E 51 16.
30. Stephen Auerbach, “Politics, protest, and violence in revolutionary Bordeaux, 1789–1794,” Proceedings of the Western Society of French History 37 (2009): 160.
31. Anne de Mathan, Mémoires de Terreur: L’an II à Bordeaux (Pessac: Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux, 2002), 33.
32. Auerbach, “Politics, protest, and violence,” 160.
33. Mathan, Mémoires de Terreur, 33–34.
34. ADL, 3 E 13 / 46 (marriage contract of November 9, 1790); E dépôt 192 / GG 58 (record of the marriage).
CHAPTER 5: TRANSITIONS
1. Mrs. Felton, American life. A narrative of two years’ city and country residence in the United States (London: Simkin, Marshall, and Co., 1842), 54.
2. Flint, Letters from America, 10 (see chap. 2, n. 28).
3. William Duncan, The New-York directory and register for the year 1795 (New York: Printed for the editor by T. and J. Swords, 1795), 115.
4. Graham Russell Hodges, New York City cartmen, 1667–1850 (New York and London: New York University Press, 1986), 2–3, 49, 132.
5. See Duncan, New-York directory and register for the year 1795.
6. William Duncan, The New-York directory and register for the year 1794 (New York: Printed for the editor by T. and J. Swords, 1794), 146; Duncan, New-York directory and register for the year 1795, 115, 128, 168.
7. Sylvia Marzagalli, “The failure of a transatlantic alliance? Franco-American trade, 1783–1815,” History of European Ideas 34, no. 4 (December 2008): 457–59.
8. Robert Greenhalgh Albion, “Maritime adventures of New York in the Napoleonic era,” in Essays in modern English history in honor of Walter Cortez Abbott (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1941), 317.
9. The court’s proceedings on May 29, 1797, are recorded in NYPL, MssCol 3094, Proceedings of the United States District Court, New York, 1796–1798.
CHAPTER 6: REINVENTION
1. A guide to the city of New York; containing an alphabetical list of streets, &c. accompanied by a correct map (New York: J. Disturnell, 1837), 12.
2. “Longworth’s New-York register and city-directory,” Daily Advertiser, July 2, 1803, [3].
3. Daily Advertiser, July 7, 1803, [3] (an advertisement for Longworth’s directory).
4. Longworth’s American almanac, New-York register, city directory for the twenty-eighth year of American independence (New York: David Longworth, 1803), 98.
5. Daniel Defoe, Roxana: The fortunate mistress, ed. John Mullan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996; Oxford World’s Classics Paperback, 1998), xvi–xix.
6. In 1802 Elizabeth Drinker commented that her granddaughter Elizabeth’s parents called the baby Betsy, “which is now old-fashioned” (Diary of Elizabeth Drinker, 3:1509 [April 20, 1802]).
7. The female marine and related works: Narratives of cross-dressing and urban vice in America’s early republic, ed. Daniel A. Cohen (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997), 70.
8. Like Eliza, the Brinckerhoffs are listed at 87 Reed in Longworth’s American almanac, 1803, 96.
9. New York County, Land and Property Records, Conveyances, Liber 53:154–55; Liber 60:315–19; Liber 65:211–13; Liber 71:71–72.
10. The family of Joris Dircksen Brinckerhoff, 1638 (New York: Richard Brinckerhoff, 1887), 89–91.
11. Brooks McNamara, The American playhouse in the eighteenth century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), 132.
12. Ibid., 133–34, 137–38.
13. Diary of William Dunlap (1766–1839): The memoirs of a dramatist, theatrical manager, painter, critic, novelist, and historian (New York: Printed for the New-York Historical Society, 1930), 3:796.
14. [Joseph Haslewood], The secret history of the green-room: Containing authentic and enterprising memoirs of the actors and actresses in the three Theatres Royal (London: Printed for J. Owen, 1795), 2:199.
15. William Dunlap, A history of the American theater (New York: J. & J. Harper, 1832), 158.
16. H. N. D. [Joseph Norton Ireland], Fifty years of a play-goers journal or, annals of the New York stage, from A.D. 1798 to A.D. 1848 (New York: Samuel French, Publisher, 1860), 13–14, 17–19, 25.
17. Her height is given as 5′4″ on a passport issued in 1841 and 5′5″ on a passport issued in 1833; see Ancestry.com, U.S. Passport Applications, 1795–1925 [database online] (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2007). I have used the 1841 figure, because Eliza appeared in person before the notary who wrote out the description. In 1833 the passport was requested by her nephew-in-law, who supplied a brief description of her.
18. [Tom Ford], A peep behind the curtain, by a supernumerary (Boston: Redding & Co., 1850), 10.
19. Claudia D. Johnson, “That guilty third tier: Prostitution in nineteenth-century American theaters,” in Victorian America, ed. Daniel Walker Howe (University of Pennsylvania press, 1976), 111–13; Dunlap, History of the American theater, 211, 277; The American Chesterfield, or way to wealth, honor, and distinction (Philadelphia: John Grigg, 1828), 203.
20. For example, only about five performances at the Park Theatre required female super-numeraries between November 14, 1803, when the fall season opened, and the end of December 1803. (Advertisements were placed in the New York City newspapers for each performance, making it possible to identify the dates and program for each.) For salaries, see [Ford], A peep behind the curtain, 9–10.
21. Adin Ballou, An elaborate history and genealogy of the Ballous in America (Providence: Arial Ballou and Latimer W. Ballou, 1988), v.
22. Ibid., 202–203.
23. Ibid., 203. It is not clear where David Ballou went after his wife’s death. Adin Ballou writes that he moved to New York and lived there many years, but
this seems implausible; David’s name doesn’t appear in any of New York’s city directories between 1800 and 1840. He may have gone west, as in 1832, according to Adin Ballou, he was settled in Union County, Ohio (ibid., 203).
24. Ballou, Elaborate history, 203, 463.
25. United States Chronicle: Political, Commercial and Historical, September 24, 1789, [3]; Sterling, North Burial Ground, 146.
26. Herndon, “‘Proper’ magistrates and masters,” 46 (see prologue, n. 7).
CHAPTER 7: MARRIAGE
1. [Haslewood], Secret history of the green-room, 2:193 (see chapter 6, n. 14).
2. Stephen had business premises for a time on Upper Reed Street (the part of the street east of Broadway), even after moving from the lodging at 44 Reed he had occupied in 1795.
3. NYHS-BV Jumel, entry for February 7, 1804.
4. Ibid., entry for November 7, 1808.
5. Ibid., entry for February 1, 1804.
6. Ibid., entries for June 10 and June 13, 1804. William’s tutor received payment directly from Stephen, whereas “Miss Brown” handed over the money for her own lessons. However, as the transactions appear in Stephen’s receipt book, it was probably his money that paid both bills.
7. NYPL, MssColl 318, Elizabeth De Hart Bleecker Diary 1799–1806, entry for April 9, 1804 (for the weather).
8. Morris-Jumel Mansion Archives, 26.13 (English translation of the certificate).
9. Letters from John Pintard to his daughter Eliza Noel Pintard Davidson 1816–1833. Vol. II: 1821–1827 (New York: Printed by the New-York Historical Society, 1940), 31.
10. New York County, Land and Property Records, Deeds, Liber 96:330–33; N.Y. Ct. Ch., Stephen Jumel vs. the Ursuline Convent of the City of New York and the Trustees of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, CL-161, 184–251.
11. For the significance of gossip, see Edith B. Gelles, “Gossip: an eighteenth-century case,” Journal of Social History 22, no. 4 (Summer 1989): 667–68, 676.
12. Letters from John Pintard to his daughter Eliza Noel Pintard Davidson 1816–1833. Vol. IV: 1832–1833 (New York: Printed by the New-York Historical Society, 1941), 170.