Stir up the Animals!

Betty took her boys on the train to Washington to visit their grandparents when Edward was about seven and Max was five. They made themselves comfortable in the parlor in the big house on K Street as the grown-ups socialized and the boys found their own special nooks where they could play their own special games. When the doorbell rang, the boys ran and hid under the table - A tall thin man came in with their Aunt Mary – The boys lay low, but couldn’t keep from giggling. They giggled some more, and Aunt Mary said, “Oh, those are Betty’s boys. Come out boys, this is General Sherman” The boys giggled some more, but didn’t move.

Then General Sherman, in a very deep voice, took command: “You boys come right out now or I’ll get some of my big guns and blow you out!”

The quickly terrified boys scampered out from under the table and nervously shook hands with the tall thin man with the white pin-feathery beard who marched through Georgia, and said “War is Hell!”

~

The summer of 1891 the Perkins family spent most of August in Windsor as usual. By then William M. Evarts had bought up five houses in a row on Main Street just north of the center of town, with open country, and a lake, and Paradise behind them. Evarts had given Betty one of the houses, and in this extended compound the Evarts cousins gathered en masse each summer.

Benjamin Harrison was President and he travelled through Vermont that August, stopping at Bennington on Battle Day, August 19th, to dedicate the new Bennington Monument, and then travelling on through Saratoga Springs, Castleton, Fairhaven, Middlebury, Burlington, St. Albans and St. Johnsbury, before arriving in Windsor on August 27th.

Senator Evarts and Charlie Beaman, along with the town dignitaries, met the President at the depot and escorted him to Runnemede Lodge for luncheon.

It is pleasant to be here today at the home of my esteemed friend and your fellow-townsman, the Hon. William M. Evarts. [Applause] I am glad that he has introduced into Vermont model farming [Laughter and applause], and has shown you what the income of a large city law practice can do in the fertilization of a farm. [Laughter and applause] He has assured me to-day that his farm yields a net income. I accept the statement of my host with absolute faith—and yet Mr. Evart's reputation as a bookkeeper is not the best in the world. [Laughter and applause] It is pleasant to see him and to be for a while in his genial presence, and to have this journey illuminated by a visit to his home. I hope he may dwell long with you in peace and honor, as he will always dwell in the honor and esteem of our whole people. [Applause]


Edward and Max lived in the world of boys and were not much interested in seeing the President, but when they went up to their grandfather’s house and saw the long lines of carriages drive in, with many stately men in black frock coats and silk hats, they realized something was going on. Billy Evarts, who was then about three and whose father was a clergyman said, “It looks like a funeral.”

Edward and Max were soon at the tables where the caterer’s men were working, and making the most of the opportunity. But eventually Aunt Mary, who had a different idea of their opportunities, and wanted to make the most of them, ran them down and herded them through a forest of legs and skirts, for a long distance, until the boys came into a little clearing where the President stood. He was a short man with a remarkably round chest, like a barrel, and a white beard, which rested upon it. He was surrounded by all sorts of great Republicans.

Aunt Mary said, “Mr. President, may I present my sister Betty’s children?” And the President laughed and shook their hands, and said in a remarkably deep, booming voice, “Well, I suppose you boys are good Republicans too.” There was silence all around the President, of course, when he was speaking, and there the boys stood. There was a long silence.

Their father was one of the original mugwumps who had jumped ship from the Republicans and supported Democrat Grover Cleveland in 1884 rather than James G. Blaine (The Continental Liar From the State of Maine). Benjamin Harrison, a Republican, had ousted Cleveland from the presidency in 1888.

Then Edward spoke up loudly and defiantly: “No, we are not. We are Democrats!” There was a great burst of laughter, to which the President himself contributed.

Years later, Max thought it was a truly brave "magnificent thing" his brother had done and suggested as much to his mother. "Yes", she replied, "but it would have been different if you had been the one to do it. Edward always did like to stir up the animals."

Full House

Generous by nature, prodigal in hospitality, fond of young people, and a born man of the world, Evarts gave and took liberally without scruple, accepted the world without fearing or abusing it. He laughed where he could; he joked if a joke were possible; he was true to his friends and never lost his temper. - Henry Adams

In August of 1877 President Hayes toured Vermont and New Hampshire hoping to draw public interest away from economic collapse and the great railroad strike that had pitted militia against workers in Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Chicago. Twelve years after the end of the Civil War, the country was divided both economically and by the politics of Reconstruction; Hayes hoped the tour to mark the centennial of the events of the Revolution would also help salvage America’s fragile sense of unity. A large crowd greeted the President and his Secretary of State when they arrived in Bennington to celebrate the centennial of the Battle of Bennington. Hayes was brief in his remarks: 100 years ago it was meritorious to be a minute-man, to fight in the cause of independence. Is there not some merit in my becoming a minute-man? When Wm. M Evarts took the podium, he followed the president’s lead: I should warn you that although I am very slow to begin a speech, I am much slower to end it, and I know your only safety is in my retiring before I commence. Evarts did, however, speak at length at dinner, recalling that he was only a few miles from Sunderland, birthplace of his father. The Presidential party spent the night at the Walloomsac Inn and the next day travelled on to Windsor to commemorate the founding of the Republic of Vermont. Arriving in Windsor, the president introduced his Secretary of State, “the gentleman who conducts the correspondence with foreign governments, and who writes the high sounding words in the documents to which I have to put my signature. If you ever see my name under such documents you must bear in mind that they were written by your neighbor.” The President and his party spent the weekend as Evarts’s guests at Runnemede. Saturday was a grand day - speeches were made from the piazza, the band played, three cheers were given, and thousands came to shake hands with the President. On Sunday Evarts and Hayes attended church and then toured the abundant countryside, admiring the views of the Connecticut Valley and Mt. Ascutney from the family barouche.

Rutherford B. Hayes never really seemed comfortable as President. He did his best to heal the festering sores left over from the war, but he effectively ended Reconstruction and allowed Jim Crow’s return to the south. A stigma from the contested election hung over his four years in office despite his attempts to divert attention. William M. Evarts, however, seemed right at home as Secretary of State. He was back in Washington, living in a nice big house at 15th and K Street – two blocks from Lafayette Square. He had the most markedly intellectual face; wearing an old fashioned stock and a high velvet collar, his hair fell carelessly over his hawk-like nose, and his eyes glittered grey. Helen Evarts was still handsome and young looking despite being the mother of twelve, including two sets of twins (all pretty and some of them more than pretty and all well behaved according to Chief Justice Chase). By 1877, their own children were leaving the nest, and while Washington was the capital of a democracy and full of “over-dressed, loud-mouthed, vulgar people”, the Evarts assembled a coterie of bright young friends in the aristocratic enclave near Lafayette Square. As John Hay wrote Mark Twain, "a man reaches the zenith at forty, the top of the hill. From that time forward he begins to descend. If you have any great undertaking ahead, begin it now. You will never be so capable again." Henry and Clover Adams, John and Clara Hay, and Clarence King were a generation younger than the Evarts; in common with the Secretary of State they were all small in stature (they averaged five foot three in height) but outsized in personality. They called themselves The Five of Hearts, and they were at the top of the hill. Henry Adams had moved back to Washington in 1877 to research his biography of Albert Gallatin; thanks to Evarts, he had access to the records of the State Department. Evarts, who had enjoyed Adams so much in London, had shared his house with him when he was Attorney General while the family summered in Windsor, and Evarts had showed Adams the town, as well as his wit- “as for disgust with myself, I feel it every time I steal an idea from Evarts, who produces them naturally”. Henry had married Clover Hooper in 1872 despite his brother Charles’s warning against marrying a Hooper - “Heavens! - no – they’re all crazy as coots” - He was madly in love - “always in Clover”. Clover was from good stock, a Sturgis from Boston, and while Henry James thought Henry Adams “very sensible, though a trifle dry,” he found that “Clover has a touch of genius.” While no beauty, with a prominent nose and jutting chin, and prone to bouts of depression, she had a quick wit and an assured presence which provided a sharp compliment to the often enigmatic Adams.

She is certainly not handsome; nor would she be quite called plain, I think. She is twenty-eight years old. She knows her own mind uncommon well. She does not talk very American. Her manners are quiet. She reads German also Latin also, I fear, a little Greek, but very little. She talks garrulously, but on the whole pretty sensibly. She is very open to instruction. We shall improve her. She dresses badly. She decidedly has humor and will appreciate our wit. She has enough money to be quite independent. She rules me as only American women rule men, and I cower before her.

Henry and Clover Adams rented a large house on Lafayette Square. The Adams rode through Rock Creek Park in the morning, breakfasted at noon, Henry wrote in the afternoon, and then they poured tea at five. Childless, they fawned over their Skye terriers Boojum and Pollywog. The house was stuffed full of potted palms and Japanese vases, drawings by Rembrandt and Michelangelo, Kashmir carpets and oils by Turner and Constable. Their home soon became known as the “Little White House” and drew more admirers than the larger (and much dryer) White House across the square. Henry, the grandson and great-grandson of Presidents, seemed to have no political ambitions of his own, but was relentlessly drawn to the Capitol for the human capital it provided. He had considerable wealth, excellent taste, and a discriminating mind. Above all else he valued his friends, and he found his old mentor Evarts “very cordial and civil, and the State Department magnificently hospitable”. At a time when women could watch but not participate in politics, Clover became an accomplished voyeur. She and Henry learned the new art of photography on their honeymoon trip up the Nile, and Clover became a very accomplished photographer – her portraits of Oliver Wendell Holmes, George Bancroft and John Hay and the Adams family and the Adams dogs (Possum, Marquis, and Boojum at tea in the garden) capture a world of parlors, picnics and teas, afternoons playing banjo on the porch, and catboat sails in the bay, and great men considering their legacies to the world. The State Department became even more hospitable in the fall of 1879, when Evarts called John Hay back from Cleveland to become his Assistant Secretary of State. Hay resisted the call at first, but agreed to serve when he learned that Henry Adams was in town. Hay had been a young assistant to Lincoln during the war, had edited the New York Tribune, written some best-selling doggerel (Jim Bludso of the Prairie Belle), and married very, very well to Clara Stone, the daughter of a railroad baron. The youngest of the Hearts, Clara was at the same time their mother figure. She was a pious and robust young woman, with deep brown eyes and thick dark hair. She loved reading books aloud to her husband and her four children, and glared at Mark Twain when he came to call on the Sabbath. She was the quiet foil to the wits of the other four hearts, pouring tea and being amused by their brilliance. Clarence King was campaigning for the creation of the U.S. Geological Survey. King had been a fixture at dinners at the Union League and Century Clubs in New York, and had made a name for himself by exploring the west along the fortieth parallel with his friend James Gardiner (son-in-law of Bishop Doane). Unlike Hay and Adams, who both inherited and married well, King needed to get rich and he needed female companionship. He was, according to Hay “the best and brightest man of his generation, with talents immeasurably beyond any of his contemporaries . . . with everything in his favor but blind luck".

"Hang it," said Bonnycastle, "Let us be vulgar and have some fun - let us invite the President" -Henry James, Pandora

Evarts’s protégés were bound together by their common arrival at the seat of power at the apex of their lives. They played their private games – amusing themselves with Five of Hearts tea sets and stationery, snubbing the President, and continuously accusing each other of authoring Democracy, the roman-a-clef about a New York socialite who "for reasons that many people thought ridiculous . . . decided to pass the winter in Washington."

"What she wished to see," the anonymous author wrote, "was the clash of interests, the interests of 40 millions of people and a whole continent, centering at Washington; guided, restrained, controlled, or unrestrained and uncontrollable, by men of ordinary mould; the tremendous forces of government and the machinery of society at work. What she wanted, was POWER."

Summer Love

Hettie Evarts was twenty that summer of 1872 in Geneva; Charlie Beaman was thirty-two. It was a time of important international negotiations and also, for the younger set, a summer of social intrigue. Hettie's sister Helen was there, as was Mary Adams and her brother Brooks who was secretary for his father Charles Francis Adams. Henry showed up in August with his new bride Clover Hooper, who he had first met when he was in London with his father and Wm M. Evarts during the war. After visiting Paris and calling on the government at Versailles, the delegation settled in Geneva. The Davises took quarters at the Beau Rivage, a well appointed hotel whose verandas provided a splendid view of the lake. The Evarts took a villa nearby and made it their home. The Adams took a place in the country.

William M. Evarts, one of the senior counsels for the tribunal, cultivated young friends and he was very fond of Beaman who shared his energy, common sense, intellectual ability, cheeriness, and dry wit. Charlie was evidently growing very fond of Hettie as well, and William M. encouraged the union. They made a fine young couple – Hettie inherited her father’s distinctive profile and his wit; Charlie sported a mustache, but had not yet grown portly. They were both smart and assertive, full of good taste, and had the wherewithal to use it.

Charlie had graduated from law school at Harvard in 1865. He was admitted to the bar that November and secured a position as secretary to Senator Charles Sumner and clerk of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. After privately publishing The National and Private Alabama Claims in 1871 he lobbied for a post as junior counsel on the Alabama Commission. Sumner had him appointed Examiner of Claims for the Department of State in November of 1871; in January 1872 he became solicitor for the US before the Arbitration Tribunal in Geneva.

In September the Tribunal found that Britain was liable for the damages caused by the Alabama, and awarded $15.5 million to the United States. While less than the $2 billion (and all of Canada) Sumner had originally sought, it was an advantageous settlement and helped launch Beaman’s career.

Returning to New York in 1873, Charlie went into partnership with Edward Dickerson who represented Thomas Edison, the New York Telephone Company and Western Union as patent attorney. While he had one of the five telephones in New York in his office, the Senate had none, so he wrote to Sumner telling him of his engagement to Hettie.

Charlie and Hettie were married in Windsor the summer of 1874. Fifty guests stayed at the Evarts compound for two days and two nights and Hettie looked magnificent in white silk and orange buds. After the wedding everyone returned to Runnemede to continue the party and Charlie sat down at the piano and belted out “I wish I was Single Again”. The next morning, Evarts was heard warbling away, making a horrible noise in the parlor, and his daughters rushed in aghast, “Father, we didn’t know you could sing!”

“Well, I never knew it myself until I heard Beaman.”

~

By the time of the marriage, Evarts had developed one of the finest farms in the country at Windsor. The main house, Runnemede, was raised up from the street on a knoll, rambling, unpretentious, yet full of comfort. When guests came, which they did with frequency, they were lodged next door at “Giants”, with its billiard room, and the separate office which eventually came to be called the “State Department”. Behind the house stood a greenhouse, a flower garden, and walks hedged with symmetrically trimmed pointed hemlocks. Beyond the garden was Paradise Pond, and fields of hay and corn and stables and barns, and tall stands of pine trees.

Charlie Evarts, who had been badly hurt during the war, thrown from his horse while serving in the Shenandoah, managed the farm for his father. Charlie raised swine and five hundred sheep and the farm won nearly all the blue ribbons at the Claremont fair in 1875. “The crops are magnificent and the cattle superb. I have had numbers of people remark that they never saw such a splendid crib of corn . . . I wish you might see the produce we are now harvesting.”

Altogether Evarts owned about six hundred acres on both sides of the Connecticut River, with over two hundred in cultivation. Evarts made the farm pay by “crediting the farm with everything taken off of it and charging nothing put on.” He offered his guests both milk and champagne, “Take your choice; they’re both refreshing, and they cost me the same.”

He took particular pleasure in sending produce of the farm to his friends. Writing George Bancroft, “I hope you will find as much useful aliment for the body and mind in this product as in former years from the same pen. If you continue to give it preference, for a scholar’s breakfast, over the grass-fed pork or mutton, it will give a new meaning to the high-sounding pretension on, “The pen is mightier than the sword.”



William M. Evarts served as Chief Counsel for the Republican Party during the disputed presidential election of 1876 between Hayes and Tilden. It all came down to some disputed ballots in Florida; after Hayes took the office in the great compromise of 1877 and reconstruction effectively came to an end, Evarts took office as Secretary of State.

He had the rare faculty of saying at the dinner table the best things that were said there - invariably something that was quoted everywhere for days and even years afterward - and giving the impression while saying it that he had better things in reserve if he really cared to produce them. - John Hay

A cabinet position was a great honor, but it only paid ten thousand dollars per year, and the house that he rented on K Street cost him five thousand. There were social compensations however; John Hay served as his assistant Secretary of State, and Henry Adams found the State Department under Evarts to be "magnificently hospitable."

Lucy Hayes, the new first lady tried to bring social affairs to a more urbane level than had been the case during the Grant administration, but she didn’t permit dancing, exiled the billiard table to the White House attic, and frowned on liquor. When the Secretary of State arranged a grand state dinner for the visiting Russian grand dukes, the president and his wife left their wine untouched; and after another formal White House dinner Evarts drolly reported "It was a brilliant affair; water flowed like champagne!"

Charlie and Hettie bought a house on North Main Street in Windsor just above Runnemede in 1877. This extra space came in handily when the family needed all the space it could find when President Hayes visited Windsor after dedicating the Bennington Monument.

Vermont

John Evarts was perhaps the first of my forbears to come to America. He emigrated from Yorkshire and settled in Concord, Massachusetts around 1638. He lived in Concord where at least two of his children were born, before moving to Connecticut around 1650. The Evarts family farmed around Guilford for the next four generations.

After a century of plowing, overgrazing, deforestation, and erosion, the soil was becoming exhausted and the population growth limited options for farming new land locally. After the revolution my progenitor James Evarts, like many of his contemporaries, moved to Vermont, looking to resettle outside the inbred cluster of farms on the coast. Jeremiah Evarts was born in 1781 to James and Sarah Todd Evarts in Sunderland, Vermont, about fifteen miles north of where I live today in Bennington.

Settlements were being developed throughout the Republic of Vermont in the last decades of the eighteenth century. Ethan and Ira Allen, who also lived in Sunderland, had travelled across the Green Mountains four years earlier to meet with fellow settlers at the tavern in Windsor to declare the creation of the Republic of Vermont, independent from the jurisdictions of New York and New Hampshire.

The Evarts family farmed in Sunderland for a few years, but found that southwest Vermont was better suited for water powered mills, such as the paper mill Anthony Haswell was building in Bennington, than for agriculture. The Evarts soon moved north and helped settle the town of Georgia in the productive Champlain Valley. By 1790, Georgia, with its timber resources and fertile soil, was one of the most prosperous communities in northern Vermont.