10 



<SI)C Jarmcv'5 itlotttl)li) bisitor. 



was tniserable: the better articles of every kind, 

 if ever they could be altained, bore inost extrav- 

 ajiaut prices. At ibis lime tlje best productions 

 of the earth are fiirnislicd in great abundance as 

 cheap as they are to he found in otljer citie.s. 

 Tlie reclaimed lands will soon be turned lo such 

 a production of Indian corn and wheat as to 

 make this sterile portion of the Union again a 

 flour and corn-exporling country. 



To the agricuhural iuiprovcmeiits will soon be 

 added that of the establishment of new manu- 

 factures in the Potomac valley. It is a good 

 sign for agriculture to see the men in office who 

 have generally relied for support npon govern- 

 ment salaries turning their attention as a surer 

 resource to the owning and cultivation of lands. 

 A son of the Secrelary of the Senate, qualified 

 as a practising lawyer and agent for claims, 

 keeps his oflice in the city, and spends much of 

 the summer in the cultivation of a farm in the 

 country: be comes in with the face and thedres» 

 of a farmer. The successful progress of the son 

 induces the falher into the same occupation to 

 which he has a desire to retire after a laborious 

 occupation in some of the departments for many 

 years. 



The water jiower of the Potomac within 

 twenty miles of Washington is said to be equal 

 to that of thf! whole of New England. The 

 con-iruction of the canal at Georgetown by the 

 lower falls has left a great water power for use. 

 At that place Gen. Bomford, the Chief of the 

 Ordnance Department, has constructed a cotton 

 factory with several thousand Sfiindles. The 

 looms and other machinery for this establish- 

 ment liave been made within the last year at the 

 prolific machine shop of the Amo^kcag company 

 at Manchester, N. II. The ereciion o( numer- 

 ous factories in the middle and southern slave 

 holding States may even be maile the means of 

 acceleratiuL' the prosperity of the mannfactnriug 

 estublisliments ol' New ]:Ingland ilself. As' long 

 as a foreign dfuKiod for our mimnraciurcs shall 

 claim an exchange of trade, fears need not be 

 entertained that we can have too much niaiiu- 

 factures. Yankee enterprise will always, be in 

 the first in market. We can afford to build ma- 

 chinery for the coarser cottons for every State 

 south which (-an finil an inducement to establish 

 factories; and the prosperity which grows out of 

 the new establishments will increase rather than 

 diminish the mutual trade between the two sec- 

 tions. At all times our better means for improv- 

 ing atid using evi^ry labor saving machine— our 

 greater abundance of material— our belter means 

 of inslriiction and knowh^lge — will enable the 

 labor of this country at a high price to compete 

 with tlie labor of Europe at a low price. 



C(Mii. .Tones iidi)rms us that with several other 

 gentlemen, be is the owner of the water power 

 with one thousand acres of bind upon the Poto- 

 mac sixteen rniles above Wasliiuglon. Mere is 

 power sullicient for the mnltiplicaliou of facto- 

 ries to any extent. By it comes down the canal 

 from the sources of the Potomac in n region of 

 coal and iron just opening. The Mount Savage 

 iron works, where railrouii iron was first made 

 in America, lies beyond Cumbci land in the Alle- 

 ghany mountains ; and to this coal and irmi re- 

 gion ingress ami egress are had both by means 

 of the canal to Wiishington and the railroad to 

 Baltimore. The new era of steam opening ihe 

 seaboard lo the interior coal beds and iron ore of 

 the mountains, in the next generation is to be- 

 come the source of uncounted wealth lo the 



country which few persons even at this time 

 have learned to appreciate. 



Two Venerated Matrons at the Federal City. 



The willow of the late James Madison, the 

 Uiollier of two sons by a former husband of the 

 nairje of Todd at the time of her second mar- 

 riage, has resided in her own house at Washing- 

 ton much of the time since the decease of her 

 late husband. Although more than eighty years 

 of age, the prominent features of her face pre- 

 sent tlie freshness of ladies much younger than 

 herself; Fashion delays the appearance at eve- 

 ning |)arties until past nine o'ldock. Prominent 

 ainong the beauty of the crowd at the mansion 

 of the President on the evening of the 20lh Jan- 

 uary was this lady who nearly forty years ago 

 bore the same relation to the people in the mar- 

 ble house as ihe wife of the present President. 

 It was a stormy, snowing night, with the wind at 

 the north-east; yet a flushed countenance (which 

 malice might in part attribute, if it had been the 

 face of a widow of forty, to artificial means,) not 

 less than an erect posture and an imwavering 

 step, marked the octogenarian lady as retaining 

 the vivacity and qui vive to be expected oidy of 

 the fair sex of whom she is at least half a centu- 

 ry the elder. The autograph of Mrs. Madison, 

 often soucbt for ladies' albums, exhibits a beau- 

 tifid firm band, which may be said to be neither 

 mascidine or feminine. The sons of Mrs. Mad- 

 ison are advanced in life beyond fifty years : one 

 of tliem, we believe, was a late miidster of the 

 United Slates to the Russian court. Mr. Madi- 

 son, incessantly engaged in the affairs of the na- 

 tion after the close of the revohilionary war, whose 

 mind in the legislative halls and the closet con- 

 tributed perhaps more than any other man to the 

 work of perfecting our present excellent consli- 

 tutioii in avoidance of the evils resulting from the 

 old articles of confederation — found no time to 

 marry uiilil late ir. life. At the lime of her mar- 

 riage, Mrs. Todd, like the youlbful widowed 

 spiiuso of Washington, with her two pledges of a 

 former husband's affection, must have been ac- 

 complished, yoimg and beanlil'ul. Mr. Madison 

 was a man of delicate conslilulion, although of 

 even health amidst his first years of severe men- 

 tal application and labor: she was perhaps such 

 a wife as bis post-meridian life reipiired as well 

 at the lime of high elevation and responsibility in 

 the government, as in the subsequent seclusion 

 of the twenty last years of his life. He died, it 

 will be remembered, in the year 1820. Circum- 

 stances, it is said, have rendered the meansof the 

 widow reslricKMl, nolwithstanding Congress af- 

 forded Ikm' a fewyearssiiu-e a haiidsfime gratuity 

 for the use of her husband's iiiqiidilished papers. 

 Seeking also aid from the government by of- 

 fers to Congress of her husband's un[)ublish(Ml 

 correspondence and manuscripts, the widow of 

 the late Alexamdkr Hamilton has resided at 

 Washington during the two or iIium: last sessions 

 ol' Congress. A bill (or patronizing the pid)lica- 

 lion of these papers with their purchase for dc- 

 posite in the national archives, has passed the 

 S'Miati^ during the present session of Congress. 

 Mrs. MaMiilliin is perhaps ten }t'.-MS the elder of 

 Mrs. iMiidi.-^Ko, anil is nearly if nol quite ninety 

 years of age. ("falling of an albrnoon iijion a 

 mernher of Congress in the common parlor of a 

 boarding bouse, we saw what was ipiile unusual 

 in that bou.se, an aged female industriously ply- 

 ing her needles with woolen yarn, in the produc- 

 tion of something like a mantle or scarf. Although 

 the dusk of the evening was approaching, she 



ceased not the steady movement of her fingers 

 between that and the time of caudle-lighting. — 

 The gentleman with whom we conversed, on en- 

 quiry, answered us that was Mrs. Hamilton, and 

 at once introrluced us. If we had been surprised 

 at the venerable lady's industry, we wei'e more 

 surprised at her quickness of |>erception, her ac- 

 curacy of memory and soundness of mind in con- 

 versation at her great age. The daughter of one 

 of the oldest and most conspicuous officers of the 

 revolutionary war. Gen. Philip Schuyler, she re- 

 members as having herself abnost participated in 

 them, the movements in the great drama enacted 

 between the city of New York anil Canada along 

 the line of the Hudson river and lake Champiaiu. 

 Her father participated in the thrilling events oc- 

 curring prior to the conquest of Canada in ITliO ; 

 and although then very young, the terrors of 

 childhood had left the inq)ression which enables 

 her to relate many things that never appeared in 

 prim. She was born in Albsmy ; but her falher 

 early owned an extensive property on the Hudson 

 near Saratoga, ami u|)on the spot where Burgoyne 

 surrendered in 1777. Previous to that surrender. 

 Gen. Schuyler's extensive mills on the Fisbkill 

 with the house of bis residence and other appen- 

 dages were burnt to the ground before the inva- 

 ding army was conquered. 



Mrs. Hamilton formed her first acquaintance 

 with her future husbaiul while be was connected 

 with the staff of the army to which she was in- 

 troduced by the public position of her father. — 

 She intermarried with him before the close of the 

 revolution. The young man, with a spirit as no- 

 ble and generous, and somewhat resembling in 

 position our own Scammell who unfortunately 

 fell at Yorktown to be prevented from attaining 

 to that lenown li« which liigh talent was leading 

 him on, was born in the island of Nevis of Eng- 

 lish parents while on a temporary visit to that 

 from the island of St. Croix in the West Indies. 

 His fiimily in connexion with merchants in the 

 city of New York, he was a boy in a counting- 

 room as soon as he was ten years old. Tlie prin- 

 cipal, on quitting the island for New York, left 

 young Hamilton at the age of twelve years in 

 charge of the business of the house. The own- 

 er not returning as was expected, the yoiilh was 

 left to settle and close up the busiues-s which he 

 did wilh great mercantile accurary, Before the 

 revohilion, Hamilton commenied a course of aca- 

 demical education ; and the military possession 

 of the city by the IJrilisb, found him a student at 

 the New York University, vvliose edifice for in- 

 struction was converted into barracks lor the 

 British troops. He entered the American army 

 in the elmracter of a snhallern officer very young. 

 Soon alierwards his enterprise and talents attract- 

 ed the attenliiin of ibe .Vruerican commander-in- 

 chief, into whose staff" he was introduced ; and 

 from that to the day of his death the rising young 

 man entertained the confidence and friendship 

 of the " father of his coimtry." 



With ihese scanty means of education, inter- 

 rupted for nearly seven years by military service 

 conjijuniling the eflurts of preparation fin- civil 

 life, Hamilton afterwards became not only emi- 

 nent as a lawyer and statesman, hut distinguished 

 asa schobirand a writer. Mrs. Hamilton remem- 

 bers his zeal for ihe adoption of the Federal 

 Conslilulioii. It will be recollected that he was 

 an advocate for a sirnugei govermnent than the 

 pure represeulative democracy, in Hhich all tlio 

 members of the Convention were brought to 

 niiree : bo was, wilhoiit concealment, among those 

 who feared for the stabililv of oiu' institutions un- 



