The Cecil Whig., 1871-04-15
T0Wn Point, Mar. Il, ISL.
Social Life in Washington during Mr..
MadisOn's Presidency.

If the old National Iutelligeacer had but
known its hour, it would have shut up it's
office and decently died at the breaking out
of the Rebellion. Instead of doing this
sensible thing, it fingered along as feeble
or virulent organ of protest against the
spirit of the North, thenceforward domi-
nant at the National Capital, till it went
down i'll 1868 from sheer inability to live
another day. The volume recently pub
llshed by hlessrs. James r. Osgood & Co.,
while in some sense a history of the Iategli-
gencer and Memoir of Colonel Seaton,
with whose name that paper is identified,
is chiefly of interest from the glimpses it
gives of many public men now in their
graves, and from the hints and half-views
it presents of social life in Washington
during the period from 1912 to 1880 or 1S40
In this latter aspect it has great and per-
manent value to the student and historian;
and to show something of life at the Capt.
tai in those old days is the object of this
present writing.
In 1909 William w. Seaton then twenty
four years ofagc, married Miss Sarah Gales,
who was four years his junior. He began
his career in journalism at Richmond when
eighteen, did service in newspaper offices
at Petersburg, Halifax, and Raleigh, and
had been married three years when he came
to Washington, and, with his brother in
law, Joseph Gales, entered into ownership
and management of the IntcEligencer. Gales
had already been on the paper for about
five years Seaton had done elsewhere what
was called exceedingly good work in those
days; both families were of aristocratic
connection, and the Seatons therefore found
the best social circles Of the times freely
open to their admission.
The seat of government had been removed
from Philadelphia but ten or twelve years
previously. Washington, in 1912, was
dreary. place, -" the wings of the Capitol,
the Presidents mansion, a few public
buildings, and score or two of private
dwellings,, stranded among the marshes,
scattered over the rural hills, and along the
banks of muddy Goose Creek constitut-
ing the main features of the infant metrop-
oils, says chronicler of the period. The
Capitol now stands with its rear toward
the city. The original proprietors of the
neighborhood, as well as Washington him
self, intended the city to be built up east
ward, toward the navy yard, but land was
held at such prices in this direction, that it
was found cheaper to fill and improve the
the anomaly Of great statue ON the dome
of the Capitol that looks into sunrise
and away from the city. The ridge, of
which the Capitol forms part, was COW
cred with fine growth of noble and wide
spreading forest trees, which might have
formed the nucleus of a handsome park :;
but in purchasing the ground, government
had not reserved the right to these trees,
and of course the sharp and money-loving
Marylandcrs cut them down and sold them
for fuel, thus turning an honest penny at
the expense of all future generations. 81
wish l were a despot," cried Mr.. Jefferson,
might save these grand trees" The broil-
ers under later Washington summer suns
can heartily echo this sentiment of the old
man who was only the chief magistrate of
Republic.
| The peculiar mental and social charac-
| teristics of the author of this memoir crop
out plainly enough in the first paragraph
she writes about the life of the new city.
ishcd gayety" pervading certain circles,
and of ''that era of courtly tone and
stately grace of society, marked by the
simplicity of high breeding, and the absence
of tawdry display" Fortunately we are
not obliged to rely on this person for our
pictures of Washington social life they
are to be drawn from the published letters
of Mrs. Seaton, whe appears to have been
not only a woman bright of humor, but
also of pretty good common sense, whose
heart and brain were never much spoiled
by long residence in the pernicous atmos-
phere of the capital.
She was twenty three years old when she
went there, in the fall of 1912. Mr.. Madi-
son was Just then closing his first term as
President, and Monroe was in his cabinet
as Secretary of State. GA flavor of roy
atty still clings to habits and modes of
speech :" the White House was known rs
"The Palace" and Mrs. Madison was spo
ken of as &C Her Majesty" Races were as
popular then as now in the neighborhood
and that of October 1912, was called "ar
exhilcrating spectacle by Mrs. Seaton
who dcvotes to it good portion Of hel
first letter to her mother, then living il
Raleigh. "Such an assemblage of stylish
equipages" she never before saw,-more
perhaps, than the whole of North Carolina
could have produced. That afternoon "tht
first drawing-roo of the season was held
at tho White HouSe William she remark 6