Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1873-04-24
a CITY of Divers Na.ionaIities.


There are a few cities where skilled
| pen could set down as many curiosities
of folklore and confusions of race as in
Wilmington, the metropolis of Della
ware. The Dutch, the Swedes and the
English Quakers formed the substratum,
| upon which were poured the enatg4es of
| the French Revolution and the fugitives
| from Santo Domingo. The latter some
times brought slaves who had continued
| faithful, aud who retained their serfdom
under the laws of Delaware. The
French 6onnes stood on washing bench
| es in the Brandywine, and taught the
amazed Quaker wives that laundry
work could be done in cold water. The
names of grand old French families, pre-
faced by the proprietarial forms of Se
| and DIT, became mixed by marriage with
such Swedish names as SvensSon and
such Dutch names as Staelkappe. (The
| first Staelkappe was ships cook, nick
named from his oily and glossy bonnet
AS for the refugees from Santo Domingo,
they absolutely invaded Wilmington, so
that the price of butter and eggs was
lust double in 1891, and house-rents
rose in proportion. They found them
selves with rapture where the hills were
ROSY with peach blossoms, and where
every summer was simply an extract
from Paradise.
We cannot linger, as we fain would
do. over the quaint and amusing PARIS
en- AmerJQue which reigned here for
period following the events of '93. AT
Sixth and French streets lived marchi-
oness in cot, which she adorned with
the manners of Versailles and the tenn
per of the Faubourg st. German. This
MARQUIS de Sourci was maintained by
her son, who made pretty boxes of
gourds, and afterward boats, in one of
which he was subsequently wrecked on
the Delaware, before the young marquis
was of age to claim his title. In farm
house. whose rooms he lined with paint
ed canvas, lived Colonel de TOusard. On
Long Hook Farm resided, in honor and
comfort, Major Pierre Jaquette, son OF
a Hungarian refugee who married Swe-
dish girl, and became Methodist after
one of Whitefield's orations; as for the
son, he served in thirty-two pitched bat
ties during our Revolution. Good Jo-
seph Isambrie, the blacksmith, used to
tell in provincial French the story of his
service with Bonaparte in Egypt, while
his wife blew the forge bellows. lie
D0ctem Bayard, rich physician, cured
his compatriots for nothing, and Doctor
Capelle, one of Louis XVI. s army sur
geOns, set their poor homesick old bones
for nothing when necessary. Monsieur
Bergerac, afterward Professor in ST.
Mary's College, Baltimore, was teach
er; another preceptOr, Nj. Michel Mar
tel. an ez2iqre of 1880, was proficient in
fifteen languages, five of which he had
impaired to the lovely and talented The
Pur h01NrNpnaI to
visit Wilmington when the man who
had trained his daughters intellect was
living in the almshouse, wrecked and
paralytic, with the memory of all his
many tongues gone, except the French.
Some benevolent WilmingtOnians APP
preached Burrin his behalf, showing the
colOnel's own letter which had intro
duced him to the town.
II wrote that letter when kneao him, -
said the diplomatic Colonel Burr, ''but
l know him no more.
The day quickly came when Burr's
speech of denial was reflected upon him
self, and those who then honored him
''knew him no more"
Another French teacher, by the by.
was not of Gallo race, but that of Abb |
on le p6rtide 4; this was none other than !
William Goblet, with his reputation all |
before him, known only to the Will /
mington millers for the French lessons /
he gave their daughters and the French /.
grammar he had published He lived /
on Quaker Hill" from 1894 to 1896 /
He then went to Philadelphia and began /
to publish Peter P0rcupiae's Gazette /
II mean to shoot my quilts" said Cob /
bett "wherever | can catch game"
With the sinews of Wilmington money .
he soon made his way back to England, /
became a philosopher, and sat in the /
House of Commons. Another British .
exile was Archibald Hamilton Rowan,
an Irish patriot. and one of the Omit
ted Irishmen" of 1877. Escaping from
n Dublin jail in womans clothes, be
found his way to Wilmington after add
ventures like those of Boucicault's he
roes; lived here several years in garrets
and cottages, carrying fascination ard
laughter wherever he went among his
staid neighbors; and after some years
flew back to Ireland, glorious as phn-
nix, resuming the habits proper to his
income of thirty thousand pounds a
year,
A familiar figure on the wharves of
Wilmington was the gigantic one of
Captain Paul Cuffee, looking like a
SHdl dClCI III u mast luCIdClG. Ills dlulpJ-
iC limbs forced into the narrow gar
ments of the Quakers, and a brim of SUI
perior development shading his dark ne
gro face, he talked sea-ling0 among the
trading captains, mixed with phrases
from Robert Barclay aad gutturals
picked up on the coast of Sierra Leone.
Captain Cuffee owned several vessels,
manned by sailors as black as shoemak-
cr's wax, and he conducted one of his
ships habitually to the African ports.
Coming back rich from Africa, his figure
of darkness has often led its crew of
shadows into port at the Brandywine
mouth, passing modestly amongst the
whalers and whoat-shallops, dim as the
Flying Dutchman and mum as Friends
meeting. 1t is possible tLat from some
visit of his arose the legend that Black
beard, the terrible pirate, who always
hid his booty on the margins of streams,
had used the Brandywine for this
purpose. At any rate, some clairvoy-
ants, in their dreams, saw in 1919 the
glittering pots of Blackbeard's gold
lying beneath the rocks of Harvev's
waste land, next TO Vincent GiIpin's
mill. They paid forty thousand dollars
for small tract, and searched and
fOuad nothing; but Job Harvey Rugged
his purchase money.
Latrobe the architect lived here in the
first quarter of the century, midway be-
tween Philadelphia (where he was
building waterworks and banks) and
(where he was seating
young nation in legislative halls worthy
of its greatress;) using Wilmington
as a pleasant retirement,
where he could wear his thinking cap,
educate his beautiful young daughter,
and mix with the French and other cul-
tured society of the place. Here, too,
about fifty years ago, a pretty French
girl used to play and eat peaches, MAIN
famed by funds mysteriously supplied
from Louisiana, and ignorant of all con-
lectious except peculating guardian.
It was little MYra Clark NOW Mrs.
3aines) who woke up one day to find
. 10 1.,,t1 # ~. I