Breese Family Monograph

Part 7 - pages 519 to 526

 Mrs. Walker is the cousin to whom I owe the interesting reminiscences of her father and others included in this memorial. Mr. Walker died in Dresden, Saxony Jan. 9, 1880. He was graduated at Hamilton College in 1824, and received the honorary degree of Master of Arts from Yale College in 1881. A lawyer by profession, he took a lively interest in politics, first as a Whig then as a Republican, was distinguished for public spirit, and had a natural taste for art, which he diligently culti­vated, both for his own benefit and pleasure, and as a patron of art, byhis friendship and encouragement to artists, and by purchases to the extent of his ability. He went to reside in Europe for the sake, in part, of greater opportunities for art-culture. His home, wherever established, was the scene of frequent and graceful hospitalities.

The children of this marriage were five daughters, of whom only three lived to grow up: 1. Annie Breese (b. 1833); who married Henry, Stanley Dexter of San Francisco, Cal., and died in 1867, "mourned by her immediate family and a large circle of relatives and friends," a beautiful and lovely woman,²⁷ leaving two sons, Stanley Walker, married, in 1884, to Gabriella Manigault daughter of Colonel Julian McAllister, U. S. A., and Henry Stanley and one daughter, Annie Breese---who are now orphans; 2. Susan Louisa (b. 1834), who married Henry William Smith of New York, and now lives a widow, with one child, Walker Breese, married, in 1822, to Maud daughter of Francis R. Rives Esq. of New York; 3. Mary Seymour (b. 1845), w. ho married Major James Eglinton Montgomery, United States Consul, brother of the late Rev. Dr. Henry Montgomery of New York, and now resides at Vevey in Switzerland, with one child, Hugh Eglinton ;

(2.) Josiah Salisbury, born July 18, 1812; who married Augusta Eloise daughter of Augustus Hicks and Eloise Lawrence (Bogert) Lawrence , May 22, 1852, by whom he had two sons, William Lawrence (b. 1853), and James Lawrence (b. 1854), and one daughter, Eloise Lawrence (b. 1856) -- all now living -- both sons married, and possessed of large wealth by inheritance from their mother's side. He died a mer­chant of New York, Feb. Ii, 1865, leaving a Widow who still survives;

(3.) William Gregg, born Mar. 25, 1815; a merchant of Cincinnati, O.; who married Adeline daughter of Samuel Wiggins of Cincinnati, by whom he had one child, Cornelia Fanny, married to John Gerard Coster of New York; and died June 15, 1861, leaving a widow who survived him till July 26, 1880, when she too died;

(4.) Frances Helen, born Jan. 14. 1819; who never married, though “remarkable for her beauty, grace and refinement of manners ;" and died a triumphant death, June 4, 1847 ;28

(5.) Robert Lenox, born Sept. 22, 1820; who died July 31, 1835;

(6.) Aquila Stout, born May, 24, 1824; who died in infancy;

(Children of Samuel and Elizabeth (Anderson) Breese continued)

3. John, born Jul)' 16, 1772, who died Sept. 24, 1776;

4.  Susan Bayard born Nov. 15, 1774; who married Rev. Samuel Finley Snowden of Princeton, N. J., in 1794; and died June 8, 1848.  She was distinguished for personal beauty and great conversational powers --one of her nephews once spoke of her as the handsomest woman he ever saw; but her beauty became sadly marred by an incurable and painful malady. For more than twenty years before her death she was a great sufferer, "made perfect through sufferings." "Sensible and prudent" was the description given of her in her fifteenth year, by her uncle Hazard.²⁹   A son of hers says: "Had she been a man she would have been famous as an orator: she read beautifully."

Samuel Finley Snowden was the second son of Isaac Snowden, for a long time treasurer of the City and County of Philadelphia, a man of large wealth, who had his town-residence in Philadelphia, and his country-seat at Princeton, N.J. It was said of him by Commodore Stockton that he "surpassed all the Princetonians in his munificence and splendor. He drove his four in hand in princely style." His father, John Snowden, was a landowner in Pennsylvania as earl), as 1678. Six of his seven sons were graduated at Princeton: he wished them all to be ministers, and five of them became such. His second son was graduated at the College of New Jersey in 1786, with the highest honor of his Class, began the study of law, "and was leading a gay and fashionable life" when a great change came over him, and "he was led to consecrate himself to God," and to the Christian ministry.

"His theological studies were pursued at Princeton, under the direc­tion of Dr. Witherspoon and Dr. Stanhope Smith, who esteemed him very highly," and his first pastorate was over the First Presbyterian Church of Princeton, to which both Dr. Witherspoon and Dr. Smith had ministered before him, though he was its first pastor. "I-lis father gave him the deed of a house with 300 acres of land, on the edge of Princeton." In this relation he continued from 1794 to 1801, when ill health compelled him to retire. On his recovery "he became pastor, successively, of the churches of New Hartford and Sackett's Harbor [a military station-[, in the State of New York;" and "while residing at New Hartford he had much to do with the founding and establishing on a solid basis of Hamil­ton College, and was a Trustee of that institution .... He was a model of clerical manners, a gentleman of the old school, and had great conversational  powers," knew "how to introduce religious topics with the happiest  effects into every circle of society." His ministerial labors were greatly blessed. His favorite studies, in which he excelled, were the ancient languages, belles-lettres and history, sacred and profane. He died in Brownsville, N. Y., in 1846, at the age of seventy-eight years.

The records of the Snowden family have suffered severe loss through the destruction by fire, some years since, of the house of Rev. Ebenezer Hazard Snowden, one of the sons of Samuel Finley Snowden, and, more than others, the family registrar. All his papers were burnt. But this cousin of mine still lives, and, together with his brothers Arthur Henry and Robert Ralston, has aided me to make as complete a record as possible of the Breese-Snowden line of descent. Col. Snowden, a grandson of Rev. S. F. Snowden, has at his place Annesdale, near Mem­phis. Tenn., portraits in oil of his grandfather and grandmother Snowden, painted in New York more than forty years ago, which are well executed, and thought to be good likenesses.

Samuel Finley and Susan Bayard (Breese) Snowden had ten children, as follows, beside two who died in infancy:

(1.) Samuel Breese, born in 1796; who went at an early day to Tennessee, and married Jane daughter of Rev. Dr. William Hume, President of the University of Nashville, Tenn.; and died Apr. 19, 1860, "in the 63d year of his age"--" an upright, honest, Christian gentleman, member of the First Presbyterian Church. He was quite a poet, and    wrote a great deal for Magazines and Christian papers." He left six children, four daughters and two sons, some of whom still live in Nashville, where their father long resided;

 (2.) Mary Cox, born in 1798; who married Dr. Roswell Post Hayes "of New England ancestry," son of Rev. Joel Hayes of South Hadley, Mass., and made her home in Tennessee--" a woman of high culture, and greatly esteemed for her benevolence, works of faith and labors of love."  She had two sons and two daughters: Mary Elizabeth, now residing in Philadelphia, is the only surviving child, and the mother died long since.  One of her sons was Henry Lindsley Hayes, a Judge of the Supreme Court of Arkansas; the other was Hon. Samuel Snowden Hayes, a distinguished lawyer of Chicago, I11. Of the latter it has been said:

“Few men have accomplished so much as Samuel Snowden Hayes, and fewer still are so unconscious of what they have done. Like Moses, he wot not that his face shone, or that the eyes of his fellowmen were fixed upon him ....

"Mr. Hayes was a lawyer by profession, and settled in Chicago, Ill. He rose at once to eminence, and early in life was sent as a delegate to the Memphis Convention called to promote the commercial interests of the South and West. Hon. John C. Calhoun was the president of the Convention, and in his opening speech advanced sentiments not in keeping with the object for which they were convened. Mr. Hayes rose immediately and opposed them, closing his speech with a resolution 'That no measure should be enacted by the Convention which had not the concurrence of both of the two great political parties.' This resolution was carried without a dissenting voice, Mr. Calhoun was convinced of his error, and agreed to the sentiment advanced by Mr. Haves. He sought his acquaintance, and they became intimate friends ....

"In 1846 Mr. Hayes, though a Democrat, was elected (in a Whig county) to the State Senate by a large majority.

"He received the chairmanship of the Committee on Education, and inaugurated several important measures ....

"In 1847 he recruited a company for the Mexican war. In the same year he was elected by the vote of both parties a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of Illinois, was Chairman of the Committee on Law Reform, and took an active part in the preparation of the new Constitution. He held the office of City Solicitor, and Governor French appointed him his Aide de Camp.

"Hon. Stephen A. Douglas was seeking to repeal the ' Missouri Compromise.  This measure was strenuously opposed by Mr. Hayes, and he made a speech of great weight and power in Chicago against it. When Mr. Douglas returned home, he made some severe strictures upon Mr. Hayes' course in opposing it. To this Mr. Hayes replied, in the largest hall in the city, speaking for two hours and a half swaying the immense audience by Iris eloquence, and obtained a unanimous vote in his favor. In this speech he took ground in behalf of free and against slave labor, and declared that ' freedom lies bleeding on the green sod of Kansas.'

"When it was evident that the war of the rebellion could not be averted, he advocated crushing out the rebellion, and wrote to Stephen A. Douglas, in Washington, to that effect. In 1862 Mr. Hayes became City Comptroller of Chicago. In this office he was remarkably successful .... When he retired he received a unanimous vote of thanks from the City Council.

"Soon after retiring from this position he was appointed one of three members of the United States Revenue Committee (the other two Republicans), he being a Democrat, and especially distinguished himself by a report on 'The Property in the Funds, the income desired therefrom as a source of national revenue, the financial system of the United States, the creation of a Sinking Fund, and taxation in general.'

"Mr. Hayes was a delegate to several National Conventions, and was the President  of one Democratic State Convention. He was twice appointed a member of the Board of Education, and a Republican Board in 1867 named the 'Hayes School' after him, in acknowledgment of his eminent services in the cause of popular education. By Governor Oglesby he was  appointed a Trustee of the State Industrial University. He was elected a member of a second State Constitutional Convention in 1870. His last official position was that of City Comptroller, to which he was elected the second time, so valuable were his services. "We have here the secret of Chicago's resurrection from the ruins of the great fire, its heaviest calamity.... "

  (3.) Ebenezer .Hazard, born June 27, 1799; who was graduated at Hamilton College in 1818, with the third honor of his Class. He studied law, was admitted to the Bar at Utica, N. V., and went to Nashville to practice that profession, but decided soon after to enter the ministry of the Presbyterian Church, of which he was already a member, studied theology at Princeton, was licensed, and afterwards ordained, by the Presbytery of New York, and was installed pastor of the Presbyterian    church of St. Augustine, Florida, officiating occasionally at Jacksonville and at Mandarin.  "He made a missionary tour to the Gulf of Mexico, passing over the ground where Major Dade's regiment was afterwards massacred (save one) by Osceola .... Coming to the North again, he

 "was installed Pastor of the Presbyterian church of Brownsville, N.Y. At the disrup­tion of the Presbyterian Church he went to Philadelphia as a delegate to the Conven­tion of 1837, and while there accepted an invitation to visit the church of Kingston, Pa., of which he became Pastor in the fall of the same year .... He has been instru­mental in building churches in Kingston, Plymouth and Larksville, the last, at the latter place, being known as the 'Snowden Memorial Church of Larksville,' so named in commemoration of the tact that this is the last of the three churches which Mr. Snowden has got up in the Valley of Wyoming."³⁰

He has been twice married. His first marriage was to Elizabeth daughter of Waters Smith, United States Marshal of East Florida, about     the )'ear 1828, who died in 1847, having had seven children, of whom five still live, three daughters and two sons, all married: Samuel Hazard,; one of the sons, formerly a Captain in the Confederate Army, and with Lee in

the battle of Gettysburg, is now a planter in Mississippi; James Glassel, the other son, is a farmer, on a large scale, in Ohio. His second marriage was to Caroline daughter of Ebenezer   Adams (of the old .Massachusetts family) of Newburgh, N. Y., Mar. 27, 1855, who still lives, without children. Ebenezer Hazard Snowden, now residing at Kingston, Pa., "is preaching at the age of 85 to the church of Larksville," gathered by him.

(4.) Arthur Henry, born June 4, 1802; who married Laurentini Araminta daughter of General Robert Bogardus of New York, and also of Jay and DeRochelle descent, Mar. 16, 1831. General Bogardus, a great grandson of Rev. Everardus Bogardus mentioned above (pp. 504-07, note), "was, up to the time of his death, a leading member of the New York Bar, a Colonel in the Regular Army during the war of 1812, and toward the close of the war held the responsible position of Commandant of the defences of the city." Mrs. Snowden died Oct. 8, 1880, "a kind and affectionate wife and mother, unsparing of self in her devotion to the welfare' and happiness of her husband and children, always interested in every good work." They had six children, all now living: Mary Laurentini ; Robert Bayard, now Rector of an Episcopal church at Fort Hamilton, N. Y., who has six children; Susan Breese, who married Charles Henry Von Tagen of Philadelphia, Professor of Surgery, and is now a widow; Cora Araminta ; Vivianna Olivia ; and Arthur Cogdell. Mr. Snowden, still living, has favored me with some notes of reminiscences  of his early days which claim a place among these memorials:

"On the 3d [April 1822] left [Sackett's Harbor] in a small sailing vessel, commanded by Capt. Bill Johnson (the hero of the Thousand Islands), for Nashville, Tenn. I had to wait at Buffalo (population 5000) three days for a stage to Erie, 9° miles, thence by coach to Cleveland, thence by same to Pittsburgh, by steamboat to Wheeling, Va., by another to Cincinnati, by another to Louisville, by horseback (180 miles in four days) to Nashville, where t arrived in just one month (May 3d), traveling as fast as was possible in those days. My horse was a very fast walker  (5 miles an hour), a good swimmer, and I sold him for double what he cost me. At Nashville I resided nine years. I was intimately acquainted with General Jackson, often at the Hermitage, always cordially welcomed, not only by the General but by his excellent wife, who always asked for a blessing at the table, &c .... After Gen. Jackson was elected President, I took Washington on my way to Nashville, and called at the White House. I found the General just as cordial as at the Hermitage  -- he invited me to take a family dinner with him, and introduced me to his Secretary of State, Martin Van Buren; I was acquainted with his private secretary Andrew J. Donaldson.... After I had gone, I was told that the General said: ' Mr.. Snowden is the first gentleman who has called on me from Nashville who has not asked for an office.'

"While I was at Nashville there were several duels near by -- Henry A. Wise with Bailie Peyton, Sam Houston with the Gov. of Kentucky, &c. &c. I left Nashville for New York in 1830, taking letters of introduction to Henry Clay of Kentucky and Gen. Leslie Coombs: the latter called on me at my hotel in Lexington and took me to Ashland, where I saw Mrs. Clay and had a cordial reception: Mr. Clay invited me to spend a day or so with him, and he would show me his fine blooded stock. I declined and returned with Gen. Coombs to town....

(5.) Susan, born Aug. 7, 1804, who married Lieut. Joseph Steele Gallagher, U. S. A., son of an English army-officer, in 1825; and died Sept. 10, 1837 --after which her husband was, for forty years, a highly respected clergyman, residing latterly at Bloomfield, N.J. They had four children, one son and three daughters: the eldest daughter Frances Elizabeth (b. 1827) married Rev. Carroll Cutler of Windham, N. H., now President of Western Reserve College, in 1858, and has one child, a daughter; the second daughter, Susan Breese (b. 1829) married Prof. William Alfred Packard, formerly of Dartmouth College, now of the College of New Jersey, in 1861, and has one child, a daughter; the third daughter, Mary Cornelia: (b. 1831) married Philander W. Fobes of Syracuse,  N. Y., in 1857, and died in 1875, the mother of six children;

(6.) James Anderson, born May 6, 1806; who married Sarah Sophia daughter of John W. Holden of Winchester, Tenn., in 1835, by whom he had five children. The family now resides in Aberdeen, Miss.; Mrs. J. A. Snowden died in 1849;

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