The Romance of Old New England RooftreesCrawford, Mary Caroline
History
The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees
Crawford, Mary Caroline
Historic buildings -- New England; New England -- Biography
The family drawing-room, its lofty walls covered with crimson paper, was
at the left of the entrance. The upper and lower halls of the house were
hung with pictures of game and with hunting scenes. The furniture,
wall-papers and draperies throughout the house had been imported from
England by Thomas Hancock, and expressed the height of luxury for that
day. Passing through the hall, a flight of steps led to a small
summer-house in the garden, near Mount Vernon Street, and here the
grounds were laid out in ornamental box-bordered beds like those still
to be seen in the beautiful Washington home on the Potomac. A highly
interesting corner of the garden was that given over to the group of
mulberry-trees, which had been imported from England by Thomas Hancock,
the uncle of John, he being, with others of his time, immensely
interested in the culture of the silkworm.
Of this beautiful home Dorothy Quincy showed herself well fitted to be
mistress, and through her native grace and dignity admirably performed
her part at the reception of D'Estaing, Lafayette, Washington, Brissot,
Lords Stanley and Wortley, and other noted guests.
On October 8, 1793, Hancock died, at the age of fifty-six years. The
last recorded letter penned in his letter volume was to Captain James
Scott, his lifelong friend. And it was to this Captain Scott that our
Dorothy Q. gave her hand in a second marriage three years later. She
outlived her second husband many years, residing at the end of her life
on Federal Street in Boston. When turned of seventy she had a lithe,
handsome figure, a pair of laughing eyes, and fine yellow ringlets in
which scarcely a gray hair could be seen. And although for the second
time a widow, she was as sprightly as a girl of sixteen. In her advanced
years, Madam Scott received another call from Lafayette, and those who
witnessed the hearty interview say that the once youthful chevalier and
the unrivalled belle met as if only a summer had passed since their
social intercourse during the perils of the Revolution.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 7: Drake.]
[Footnote 8: _New England Magazine._]
BARONESS RIEDESEL AND HER TORY FRIENDS
The most beautiful example of wifely devotion to be found in the annals
connected with the war of the Revolution is that afforded by the story
of the lovely Baroness Riedesel, whose husband was deputed to serve at
the head of the German mercenaries allied to the king's troops, and who
was herself, with the baron and her children, made prisoner of war after
the battle of Saratoga.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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