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Home : Quarterly Archives : Volume 16 |
Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society |
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Source: April 1973 Volume 16 Number 2, Pages 39–44 Letters from Joseph D. Newlin to his Mother, August 1871 Tuesday eve. August 3, 1871, St. Nicholes, New York, My dear Ma; We are sitting in the reading room of this fine hotel. Mr. Murphy at one end of a long table and I at the other, with several other persons all engaged in the same occupation. We had a very comfortable ride on from Philadelphia, the car we were in not being fulland the road being free from dust and the sun for most of the distance being obscured by clouds. At Jersey City depot I met Alick Quterbridge who was just returning to Philadelphia after a visit at his father's. Our room here is rather high up, but we don't mind that much. Tea was in the small room in which I remember taking tea and also lunch with you some years ago. We strolled up Broadway until a Madison Avenue stage came along which took us as far as 41st. Being then very near Tom Conrad's in 42nd. St., we called there and saw the sexton of his church.. from whom we learned that Tom, his father and mother expect to sail in the "Cuba" and to be at home about the 6th of September... We then walked some distance down 5th. Avenue and finally took another omnibus, which brought us back to the hotel... Delevan House, Albany, August 9, We left Now York this morning at half past eight in the Hudson River boat, and the day being very comfortable on the water had a very enjoyable trip to this city. For some distance the atmosphere was rather smoky and I was afraid we would not get a good view of the Catskill Mountains, but the latter part of the day was perfectly clear and we could not only see the mountains but also the Mountain House. Mr. Murphy seemed to enjoy it all very much... The boat did not reach Albany till seven o'clock, more than an hour behind her time "so that we have had no daylight in which to stroll about the city. We were not long however in getting tea, and since then walked around the Capital grounds and through two or three of the principal streets. On the boat we met a clergyman of my acquaintence, the Rev. Mr. Knauff, formerly the Rector at the Church at Lockhaven. We have been very comfortably accommodated at this house, which is a first class one. Instead of getting put up near the roof as we expected to be, we have a double room on the lowest floor near the office, and opening on the street...the place where my tooth was has not ceased to grieve over the departure of its old friend, but its complainings have today not been too loud.. assuring you that I had many thoughts of you as we sailed up the River past Newburgh and the Catski11s.... FORT WILLIAM HENRY HOTEL, Lake George, Thursday August 10, We left Albany this morning at seven o'clock, the train starting from a depot along side the hotel. At a quarter before 3 we were at Saratoga, where we left our trunks with the baggage master... then went to the Union Hotel where we deposited our bag, coats, etc. It did not take us long to walk nearly all over the town ... A great many springs, from three of which we partook of the water... After dining at the Union we took a 3.15 train which carried us as far as Glenn's Falls, where stages were in readiness to convey the passengers to this place, a distance of about nine miles. The weather was delightful and as we had outside seats, we had a splendid view of the beautiful scenery in all directions. It was about six when we reached the hotel, allowing us ample time after taking tea to walk over the village and to enjoy the evening scene upon the lake. Mr. Murphy is in raptures with the place. Happily, our room, though high up... looks out upon the lake... My face has been more confortable today... St. Lawrence Hotel, Montreal, Sat. Eve. August 12. Please thank Cousin for her kind letter.. We were obliged to rise very early this morning in order to take the train passing through Burlington at 4.15. We got a cup of coffee and something to eat at St. Albans, and arrived at Montreal about ten. The trunks were passed by the Custom-House officer while on the train. We pointed them out to him on the baggage car, and he marked them passed without opening them... As soon as we were fairly established.. we started out to walk to the house of the Gray Nuns, reaching it in time to see the curious twelve o'clock services in the chapel...we were taken through some of the rooms of the building, but not many, and saw a number of little fancy articles set out for sale.. No flowers set out.. On telling of my disappointment... one of the sisters put us into the "Parlor", then led us upstairs to a room in which the flowers are made.. the sisters went to a great deal of pains to exhibit their stock in a most charming manner.. (They) showed their interest and pleasure when I explained... that my mother had purchased a rose or two at the Nunnery about thirty years ago and that I was now desirious of taking her home some more.. We expect to remain here till Monday evening and to leave on the 7 p.m. boat for Quebec. Montreal, Monday August 14... About church time in the morning we started out for the Cathedral, but to our dissappointment found that the building was closed for repairs. I happened to know of another of our churches some distance off, and to it we hastened, walking very briskly, but not reaching it till the service was begun... At 3 1/2 in the afternoon we went over to the French Cathedral and saw a great deal that was very strange to us. Vespers were sung by a large number of Choristers at the altar, and were accompanied with more ceremony than I remember ever to have seen at them before. A procession of the choristers and priests then went up and down the church bearing a silver image of the Virgin Mary, and singing a litany to the Virgin splendidly. After this, what is called the veneration of the Blessed Sacro, at which there was incense, ringing of the tower bell &c. The sexton who showed strangers seats, and drove out others (their own people). We had taken wrong ones. He was dressed in a crimson waistcoat, a blue coat and silver bindings, and carried a great cane. The procession too was headed by a beadle (is a parish officer, punishes petty offenders, and waits on clergymen), dressed still more oddly as were also three or four others... In the evening we went to another of our churches, still larger and finer than the morning one. In Philadelphia both these churches would be thought very remarkable for size and beauty. This morning , immediately after breakfast, we again went into the French Catherdral where we saw a funeral. A high mass was being sung, after which there was a procession of priests down the middle aisle to the coffin which stood in about the center of the church, and with all that was around it and above it, was quite a sight. Here the office for the dead was performed. The deceased person appeared young, and the pall was born by six girls in white, with veils and flowers. Even after the coffin was put into tho hearse, these six walked alongside up the middle of the street, holding to long white streamers that where attached to the top of the hearse. At 9 O'clock we took a drive around the mountain, said to be about 9 miles, and then went again to the Chapel of the Gray Nunnery. We have taken a state room on board...the steamer leaving for Quebec this evening at 7 p.m. From Quebec we expect to go to the Glen House and to the Crawford ... Quebec, Tuesday Eve, August 15. Here we are at this quaint old city... I have thought of you a great deal... The approach to the City was very beautiful. On landing we were at once in the midst of a great deal of noise and confusion, the drivers besieging the passengers and thrusting one another about with their strange looking vehicles... Breakfasted at the "St. Louis" on Ryssell's upper hotel... Took a carriage and drove first to the Falls of Mont Morenci, stopping on the way at a church at the town of Beaufort. The beauty of the falls greatly exceeded my expectation... I thought of cousin Christie's description... and of how you and Pa stood looking at them years ago...We drove to the citadel and were conducted by a soldier around the ramparts and shown the Plains of Abraham &c... magnificent view of the St. Lawrence... Some difficulty in opening our chamber door. One of the waiters who came to assist us, after opening it, got himself fastened in with us and we had to send for the hotel locksmith or "engineer" as they called him. About half past four we went to see the English Cathedral in the chancel of which there were two tattered flags suspended... Walked to "Durham Terrace", which overhangs the mountain as it were, near the hotel... Then to the Governor's Garden... A band of the regiment was playing... The lower part of the city...is indeed a strange, foreign looking place... Quebec, Wednesday August l6.. Our first rainy weather ... Have walked through some of the strangest parts of this strange old city and have visited a chapel to see a number of fine pictures. Finding that the ground pointed out to us yesterday was not the Plains of Abraham, or certainly was not the whole of them, we hired one of the numerous vehicles standing close to the hotel and drove there, seeing the monument which marks the spot where Wolfe fell (or rather where he died) at the taking of Quebec in 1759... Drove to the Mount Hermen Cemetery about 3 miles from the city. We have seen, in the city, the French Cathedral, an old house where General Montgomery's body was laid, and just opposite the hotel another old structure where Montcalm held his last council of war and had his quarters. The latter is now a barber shop, called "Montcalm's hairdressing, Shaving, and Shampooing Parlour". We have been down a long flight of steps called the "Champagne Steps" leading down into one of the narrowest and strangest streets of the town... We expect to leave this evening by the Grand Trunk Railway for Gorham and will probably be at the Glen House at the foot of Mount Washington tomorrow afternoon... Glen House White Mts. Thursday August 17. We left Quebec last evening about dusk. Crossing the river to Point Levi opposite, we took the train at 7 1/2 o'clock and it was not a great while before we were asleep in a sleeping car.... At 5 1/2 the train stopped at a very pretty place called Island Pond for an hour and a half, where we breakfasted and where our baggage was passed by the custom officers. At a quarter before eleven we were at Gorham, and at one took the stage for the Glen House... After dinner we walked a short distance to see the "Garnet Pool"... interesting but not extraordinary. Then got into a stage which took us to Glen Ellis Falls, Crystal Cascade, Thompson's Falls, and Emerald Pool All these are worth seeing but the first two are really picturesque... since tea we have been looking at the range of mountains rising up immediately before us: Mt. Washington, Mt. Jefferson, Mt. Adams and Mt. Madison. Two of the houses on the summit of the former can be distinctly seen from the hotel... Our plan now is to be at Portsmouth, N.H. next Monday eve, and to stop at the Rockingham Hotel and to spend Tuesday night at the Applecove Hotel, Isle of Shoals, near Portsmouth. Wednesday night at Mrs. Walter Baker's, Dorchester, Mass.. Wishing you were here to see what I am seeing. Summit of Mt. Washington, N.H., Friday, August 18. I am sitting in such a room as I believe I never occupied before, in the house called the "Summit House" on the top of this glorious mountain... a few feet from us is " Tip-Top House", where we had our dinner along with over a hundred others.. We came up this morning...by stage road, a distance from the foot to the top of the mountain of 8 miles, the last four of which are above the region of the trees. We walked a little of the way. ...The Rev. Dr. Newton and his son, the same one we were with on Lake Champlain and at Burlingham were here at dinner time. While lending my pen to Mr. Murphy for a few minutes I have just scribbled off a few lines in lead pencil to Kitty Trainer and Mrs. Philips... Oh, how I wish you were here. I know how you would enjoy the glorious ranges of mountains which stretch far and far away upon every side. I should like to transport the whole of the two households at Marshall Street to where I am... Crawford House; White Mts. Saturday, August 19, On waking and coming downstairs, we found the thermometer was standing at about 33 degrees, and that the wind was blowing at the rate of fifty miles an hour,(sometimes it gets up to ninety). We were enveloped in a cloud and had no sunrise. At 8 o'clock we started to descend .. by the railroad, the car taking us down in an hour and a half. The inclination of the track, the slow, jerking motion of the car, and the precipices and surrounding scenery all make this one of the most unusual and exciting of rides. The weather prevented us from seeing much... We had several miles of staging after having left the car... did not reach our present stopping place till half past eleven... walked to several cascades and falls... The little flowers I enclose called, I believe, the Alpine Flower, I gathered on the top of the mountain... Rockingham House, Portsmouth, N.H., Monday August 21. Yesterday we spent at the "Crawford House". Mr. Murphy read the church service and preached a most excellent sermon in the parlor in the morning. The attendence was as large as we could have looked for... enough present accustomed to the use of the Prayer Book to throw some life into the responses... In the afternoon... we walked up the carriage road leading to the top of Mt. Willard... about 2000 ft. above the level below... view quite celebrated... Today we have had a long journey leaving the Crawford at 5 1/2 in the morning and arriving at Portsmouth at about the same hour this evening. The distance was about 200 miles, the first 17 being by stage. Establishing ourselves in what has proved to be ... the most stylish room we have yet occupied... Tomorrow morning we expect to make an excursion to the Isle of Shoales, distant nine miles, and to return in the afternoon... Mr Murphy has just written, at Mrs. Baker's request, to her man to meet us in Boston on Wednesday morning. That night we expect to spend at Mrs Baker's at Dorchester. On Thursday afternoon we propose taking the Boston and Stonington line, and the next day we hope to reach home by the train arriving in West Philadelphia at one o'clock. Rockingham House, Portsmouth, N.H. Tuesday August 22. From breakfast time this morning till 11 o'clock we were walking about the city, the most of the time occupied in hunting up the key of the old Episcopal Church, the interior of which we had considerable curiosity to see. My own interest in it was partly occasioned by the fact the Rev. D. Davies of St. Peters of Phila. was its Rector, and by hearing Aunt Mary speak a great deal of it, she having spent some weeks here when Uncle Frank was concerned in some ship here during the war. The present building is not very ancient, but it contains several curiosities, chief of which are the Prayer Books and the Bible used, before the Revolution, and an old font on which I believe a number of loaves of bread are placed every Sunday for the poor, some one having left 200 pounds, the interest of which was to be thus applied. At 11 o'clock we started for Applecove, the chief island of the Isle of Shoals, and the one to which visitors resort. I bought a few photographs of it... it is about 400 acres... for the most part is barren rock, having just two trees on it. There is a large hotel kept by the persons by whom the island is owned, and at it we met Mrs. Pennock and her family, parishiners of Mr. Murphy's at Rockdale, who took us under their care. There also went down with us in the boat John Morton and his son; but I did not see him till we were landing. The island being so rocky, and there being no wharf, the landing is effected by means of small boats, which row out to the steamer. Applecove is nine miles from Portsmouth, out in the ocean.... After tea the band from the Navy Yard played in front of the hotel... Tomorrow at 8.20 we leave for Boston and Dorchester, expecting to be home by two o'clock on Friday. Hoping to find you well and with love to all, Your affectionate son, Joseph. |
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