St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-03-06
PEGGY O'NEILL's FORTUNE.
A Humble Innkeeper's Daughter
Who Afterwards Shone at Isa-
hoIIa,s Ccupf

A Humble Innkeeper's Daughter
Who Afterwards Shone at lsa-
bella's Court.
The other day there died in New York
an Italian by the name OF Gabriel An
tonic Buchignani. For years he had
kept little hotel on Third avenue. just
back of the Academy of Music, which
has always been the resort of Italian
opera singers and Bohemans of the bet
ter class, says a New York letter to the
Columbus Inquirer. No man in the
Italian colony in New York was better
known than BUCK" as he was
Familiarity called. and few men
have had stranger or more TO-
mantle career. He came to America
in 1855, a boy of twenty-one. AT the
outbreak of the war he was the close
and trusted friend of President Lincoln,
who first appointed him to an important
diplomatic post in Rome and afterwards
intrusted him with the delivery OF ln-
portant state papers to all the courts or
Europe. The above facts and his ro-
mantle elopement and marriage with
the arstocratic Miss Randolph, of
Washington, who was his second wife,
were fully written up in the New
York papers; but the strangest
experience in Bucks eyentful
life was not touched upon at all.
This was his marriage with his first
wife. who was no less person than the
famous Peggy Eaton, and from whom
the Young Italian ran away to marry
her granddaughter, Emily Randolph!
The facts were we'll known to but few
perhaps, and those his oldest friends,
for it was a subject on which Bucks
lips had been sealed for years.
Peggy O'Neill was the daughter of an
Irish innkeeper in Washington, where,
before the present century had turned
it's first quarters she was notorious for
her escapades and her beauty. Senator
Andrew jackson and his colleague from
Tennessee, Maj. John II. Eaton, boarded
at her fathers house, and were both
warm admirers Of the lovely Peggy,
who had been publicly crowned at q
public ball by Dolly Madison as the
prettiest girl in Washington.
In 1928, the year that Andrew Jack
son was elected to the presidency, Peggy
became widow by PurSer Timberlake,
of the United States navy, whom she
had married few years previously,
committing suicide while on duty in the
Mediterranean. A few months after
wards she married Maj. Eaton, and
when Jackson returned to Washin gtOn
as president, he invited his friend Eaton
into his cabinet as secretary OF war.
This raised a tremendous row. as the
wives Of the other cabinet officers re-
fused absolutely to associate with Mrs.
Eaton. The wives of the foreign min
listers followed suit, and the whole
country was stirred up over the scandal.
A committee of clergymen was sent to
70. r,,if hn
even his niece, Mrs. Donelson, mistress
of the White house, declined to call
upon Mrs. Eaton.
Then you'll pack up and 60 back to
Tennessee on the next stageW said
Jackson, and pack up and 60 she did.
During two years poor Peggy was
snubbed at every ball or reception
which she attended, and at the end of
that time Jackson, who had been the
firm friend of Eaton and his wife
throughout the whole quarrel, demand
ed the designations of Attorney General
Berrien, Secretary of the Treasury Ing
ham and secretary Of the Navy Brancn.
the three married members of his cabi
net, whose wives had scorned "gOod llt
tie Peggy" as the president called her.
These designations were shortly 81
lowed by that of Vice President Cal-
houn, whose wife had been one OF
Peggy's strongest opponents.
Secretary of State Van Buren, es-
poused the presidents side in the quar-
rel and stood I'D for Peggy. jackson
wrote letter at this time, Ito be pub
lished only in case of my death" in
which he definitely named Van Buren,
as his successor.
Soon after this Eaton resigned and
was appointed minister to Spain, and
fifteen years Peggy shone with brill
fancy in the court of queen Isabella and