to his endless mortification.
Elihu Root recently met at a dinner a lady who asked him if he
remembered her as a member of his class at Miss Green's school. 'Do I
remember you?' the former secretary of State replied. 'You are one of
the girls who used to laugh at me when I had to walk into the closet.'"

It was in 1835, when the new avenue was in the first flush of its lusty
infancy, that a hotel was opened at the northeast corner of Eighth
Street. They call it the Lafayette today: tomorrow it may have still
another name. But to one with any feeling for old New York it will
always be remembered by its appellation of yesterday, which it drew from
the old proprietors of the land on which it stands, that family that is
descended from Hendrick Brevoort who had served Haarlem as constable and
overseer, and later emigrated to New York, where he was an alderman from
1702 to 1713. The Brevoort farm adjoined the Randall farm and ran
northeasterly to about Fourth Avenue and Fourteenth Street. Among the
descendants of the Dutch burgher was one Henry Brevoort, to whose
obstinacy of disposition is owed a curious inconsistency of the city of
today. His farmhouse was on the west side of Fourth Avenue and on his
land were certain favourite trees. When the Commissioners were
replanning the town in 1807 there was a projected Eleventh Street. But
the trees were in the way of the improvement, so old Brevoort stood in
the doorway, blunderbuss in hand, and defied the invaders to such
purpose that to this day Eleventh Street has never been cut through.
Instead, Grace Church, its garden and rectory cover the site of the old
homestead. Later the vestry of Grace Church was to play old Brevoort's
game. "Boss" Tweed determined to cut through or make the church pay
handsomely for immunity. The vestry defied him. Tweed never acted.

There was another Henry Brevoort in the family. He it was who built the
house that now stands at the northwest corner of the Avenue and Ninth
Street. That Henry was the grandfather of James Renwick, Jr., the
architect who built Grace Church and St. Patrick's Cathedral. His house
was one of the great houses of the early days. Now known as the De Rham
house--Brevoort sold it in 1857 to Henry De Rham for fifty-seven
thousand dollars,--it still strikes the passer-by on account of its
individuality of appearance. But long before the De Rhams entered in
possession it had its romance. There, the evening of February 24, 1840,