r, when he was Secretary of the Navy
during the Polk administration, I saw Mr. Bancroft very frequently. I
am not aware whether it is generally known that he began his political
life in Massachusetts as a Whig. When I first knew him, however, he was
a Democrat and the change in his political creed placed him in an
unfavorable light in his State, most of whose citizens were well nigh as
intolerant of Democrats as their ancestors had been of witches in early
colonial days.

Upon my return to Washington I soon renewed my acquaintance with Mr. and
Mrs. Bancroft, and the entertainments I attended in their home on H
Street, between Sixteenth and Seventeenth Streets, revived pleasant
recollections of Mrs. Clement C. Hill, whose house they purchased and of
whose social leadership I have already spoken. Mr. Bancroft at this time
was well advanced in years, and in referring to his age I have often
heard him say: "I came in with the century." In spite of the fact,
however, that he had exceeded the years usually allotted to man, he
could be seen nearly every day in the saddle with Herrman Bratz, his
devoted German attendant, riding at a respectful distance in the rear. I
may add, by the way, that a few doors from the Bancrofts lived Dr.
George Clymer of the Navy with his wife and venerable mother-in-law, the
latter of whom was the widow of Commodore William B. Shubrick, U.S.N.

Colonel Alexander Bliss, Mrs. Bancroft's son and familiarly known to
Washingtonians as "Sandy" Bliss, lived just around the corner from his
mother's. His wife was the daughter of William T. Albert, of Baltimore,
but when I knew him best he was a widower. A few doors from Colonel
Bliss lived Senator Matthew H. Carpenter, a political power of the first
magnitude during President Grant's second presidential term, whose
daughter Lilian was a reigning belle. Equestrian exercise was not then
quite so popular in Washington as later, but it had its devotees, among
whom was Colonel Joseph C. Audenreid, U.S.A., an unusually handsome man
with a decidedly military bearing. He was generally accompanied by his
daughter Florence, then a child, and was often to be seen riding out
Fourteenth Street towards the Soldiers' Home, which was then the
fashionable drive.

John L. Cadwalader, a cousin of Mr. Gouverneur and now one of the most
prominent members of the New York bar, was Assistant Secretary of State
under Hamilton Fish during the Grant _regime_. He was a bachelor and