After gaining his victory John Watts
established this Orphan House and with true magnanimity placed Leake's
name before his own. Jacob R. LeRoy lived in Greenwich Street near the
Battery, which at this time was a fashionable section of the city.
His sister Caroline, whom I knew, became the second wife of Daniel
Webster. Mr. LeRoy's daughter Charlotte married Rev. Henry de Koven,
whose son is the musical genius, Reginald de Koven. Henry W. Hicks was
the son of a prominent Quaker merchant and a member of the firm of Hicks
& Co., which did an enormous shipping business until its suspension,
about 1847, owing to foreign business embarrassments. Thomas W. Ludlow
was a wealthy citizen, genial and most hospitably inclined. He owned a
handsome country-seat near Tarrytown, and every now and then it was his
pleasure to charter a steamboat to convey his guests thither; and I
recall several pleasant days I spent in this manner. When we reached the
Tarrytown home a fine collation always awaited us and in its wake came
music and dancing. Charles McEvers, junior, belonged to an old New York
family and was one of the executors of the Vanden Heuvel estate. His
niece, Mary McEvers, married Sir Edward Cunard, who was knighted by
Queen Victoria. William Starr Miller married a niece of Philip Schuyler,
who was a woman possessing many excellent traits of character. As far as
I can remember, she was the only divorced person of those days who was
well received in society, for people with "past histories" were then
regarded with marked disfavor.

CHAPTER VI

SOME DISTINGUISHED ACQUAINTANCES

In close proximity to St. John's Park, during my early life on Hubert
Street, there resided a Frenchman named Laurent Salles, and I have a
vivid recollection of a notable marriage which was solemnized in his
mansion. The groom, Lispenard Stewart, married his daughter, Miss Louise
Stephanie Salles, but the young and pretty bride survived her marriage
for only a few years. She left two children, one of whom is Mrs.
Frederick Graham Lee, whom I occasionally see in Washington, where with
her husband she spends her winters.

When playing in St. John's Park in this same neighborhood, I made the
acquaintance of Margaret Tillotson Kemble, one of the young daughters of
William Kemble already mentioned as living on Beach Street, opposite
that Park. Mr. Kemble was the son of Peter Kemble, member of the
prominent firm of "Gouverneur and Kemble," shipping me