Chapter 1 - Page 2

shrubbery, this lawn was coated with a sward that, in the
proper seasons, rivalled all I have read, or imagined, of the emerald
and shorn slopes of the Swiss valleys.

Clawbonny, while it had all the appearance of being the residence of
an affluent agriculturist, had none of the pretension of these later
times. The house had an air of substantial comfort without, an
appearance that its interior in no manner contradicted. The
ceilings, were low, it is true, nor were the rooms particularly large;
but the latter were warm in winter, cool in summer and tidy, neat and
respectable all the year round. Both the parlours had carpets, as had
the passages and all the better bed-rooms; and there were an
old-fashioned chintz settee, well stuffed and cushioned, and curtains
in the "big parlour," as we called the best apartment,--the pretending
name of drawing-room not having reached our valley as far back as the
year 1796, or that in which my recollections of the place, as it then
existed, are the most vivid and distinct.

We had orchards, meadows, and ploughed fields all around us; while the
barns, granaries, styes, and other buildings of the farm, were of
solid stone, like the dwelling, and all in capital condition. In
addition to the place, which he inherited from my grandfather, quite
without any encumbrance, well stocked and supplied with utensils of
all sorts, my father had managed to bring with him from sea some
fourteen or fifteen thousand dollars, which he carefully invested in
mortgages in the county. He got twenty-seven hundred pounds currency
with my mother, similarly bestowed; and, two or three great landed
proprietors, and as many retired merchants from York, excepted,
Captain Wallingford was generally supposed to be one of the stiffest
men in Ulster county. I do not know exactly how true was this report;
though I never saw anything but the abundance of a better sort of
American farm under the paternal roof, and I know that the poor were
never sent away empty-handed. It as true that our wine was made of
currants; but it was delicious, and there was always a sufficient
stock in the cellar to enable us to drink it three or four years
old. My father, however, had a small private collection of his own,
out of which he would occasionally produce a bottle; and I remember to
have heard Governor George Clinton, afterwards, Vice President, who
was an Ulster county man, and who sometimes stopped at Clawbonny in
passing, say that it was excellent East India Madeira. As for clarets,
burgundy, hock and champagne, they were wines then unknown in America,
except on the tables of some of the principal merchants, and, here and
there, on that of some travelled gentleman of an estate larger than
common. When I