Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1883-11-09
Mrs. Arthur'S Grave

In Lenox, on a rainy day last week, l en-
joyed fireside chat with Mrs, Morgan, wild
| ow of +. ID. Morgan, of New York, who was re-
| turning from visit to the neighboring town
| ship of Mount Washington, undertaken with
a view to finding the house in which her Ia
| mented husband was born, writes correspond
ent from Boston to the Philadelphia Press. Mrs.
Morgan, with her erect form and dignifed
| carriage, a gentlewomaR of the old school,
is an impressive figure in the deep robes of
her widowhood. and her manner suggests the
stately grace with which she is said to have
dispensed, in the stirring, brilliant, days of
the war, the hospitality Of the imperial
State over which her husband presided,
and more recently, at their Newport home,
| where President Arthur held almost broth
ers place at their board and ireside.
Knowing that Mrs. Morgan was able to
speak from long and intimate knowledge Of
General and Mrs. Arthur, l asked her many
questions about the latter, by whose grave in
the rural cemetery at Albany l had stood q
| few davs previous. The sarcOphagus that
covers the grave is of the finest Italian mar
ble and around its edge, like a running vine,
are carved in relief, in antique lettering her
name, Ellen Herndon Arthur, the date and
place of her birth, Cullepper, Va, August
80, 1887, and her death, New York, January
II, 1880. The inscription begins at the low
er left hand corner, bringing the husbands
name, Chester A. Arthur, across the head Of
the sarcophagus. The father and mother of
the President, and Jane, one of his five sis
ters, who died at eighteen, lie in the same
| lot also Mrs. Herndon, the mother of Mrs.
Arthur, and William Herndon Arthur, their
| eldest child.
1t a very unpretentious sepulchre for the
househould of the head of the nation, and it
is not easily found, lying well to the rear OF
the handsome old cemetery of which it forms
a part, but the grass of the burial plat has
been worn nearly bare by the feet of
many pilgrims, and the myrtle vine which
grows thritily around the edge Of the
marble block that covers Mrs. Arthur's
grave is reverently despoiled of innumerable
slips to be pressed within the leaves of fem
mime bibles and albums as memorial Of her
whose pathetic fate it was to fade suddenly
| out of life just when that life had reached
its full-orbed matronly prime and was near
ing the zenith of the proudest American
woman's ambition. Mrs. Arthur has left Q
vivid and pleasing memory in the circles of
Albany and New York city in which she
moved. She was a singing spirit, going win
somely through life. Mrs. Morgan speaks
of the more than ordinary attachment be-
tween the husband and wife, and Of his &C.
companying her into society more than most
men so engrossed in official life.
Her death, of pneumonia, was occasioned
by cold contracted one rainy Friday at
dinner party, from which she went to . con-
cert, and it occurred the following Monday
evening. Gen. Arthur was away on business.
and, to his unspeakable grief, did not reach
home until she bad lost the power Of recogni-
tion. There is a place called Three-mile
Point, which every traveller remembers who
has journeyed by carriage from Richfeld
Springs to Cooperstown, through the beauti-
full country lying on the borders of Otsego
Lake. At this point, three miles from Coop
erstown. a New England man named Thayer
has veranda-bOrdered cottage, which enjoys
a great reputation for its dinners, and there
parties from Rchfeld and Cooperstown come
all through the pleasure season to dine by
special arrangement, late in September, and
Mr.. Thayer told us that Gen. and Mrs.
Arthur and the children came there annually
the last six years of her life, on the 30th Of
August, to eat dinner in honor of her birth
day.
He said the household, even to the servants
were always delighted with her coming, and
when she goodnatnredly sat down to sing ct
the piano, as she always did, they would open
the kitchen doors to listen, and she had q
smile and a kind word for all, remembering
their names from one year to another, and
saying something bright and merry to each.
He came to Washington last winter and went
to the White House to see his old patron, ho
expressed pleasure at meeting him, and sat
down and talked over the old days with him
for an hour or more.