H ouse and Garden 
THE JUMEL MANSION 
On IVashington Heights 
But as he disappears the birds miss him and 
at once sidle over the ridge to keep him in 
sight! So he has to be brought back by the 
camera before his pets’ portraits can be se¬ 
cured. There is real pathos in the “ For 
Sale” sign tacked up on an old stump, and 
in the news that the house itself is in the way 
of the March of Improvement: a new street 
must be cut through at this exact spot; it 
has been condemned by the official leaders of 
the March; and its months are numbered. 
Elsewhere can be seen buildings of still 
older pattern, the most distinguishing feature 
being the curving roofs, rounding out in 
concave from ridge to eaves. This was dear 
to the hearts of the early Dutchmen, and their 
low roomy houses were generally built so. It 
has an oddly quaint and entertaining effect 
upon the eye, this simple, graceful sweep 
upward at the eaves amid the complexities 
of the heterogeneous cottages that men build 
for themselves in the modern suburbs. 
I hese Dutchmen were just what their 
houses indicate: it is very significant, for 
instance, that in the whole history of Flat- 
bush tor two hundred years there is only 
one murder recorded—and that was in the 
nineteenth centurv when several Indians 
killed an offending member of their tribe. 
Even on Manhattan Island the sky-scra¬ 
pers have not entirely completed their work 
of demolition. For uptown, where every 
street direction has a hundred and some- 
thingth in it, there stands on some of the 
highest land on the island a mansion whose 
history is extraordinary even for an old house. 
Roger Morris brought his lovely bride 
herein 1758—she who was Mary Phillipse 
and the heiress to 50,000 acres. It was 
then “ near New York ”! But it was not 
so very long before their quiet life was 
broken up by the great struggle of ’76, 
which found Colonel Morris such an avowed 
Tory that his name was included in the bill 
of attainders passed by the New York Leg¬ 
islature the next year. 
The tide of war swept rapidly nearer. 
Presently the box-trees and the great pillars 
had a sight of George Washington as he came 
between them to make the fine old mansion 
his headquarters during the first active cam¬ 
paign on the upper end of the island. It 
was not very long, however, before the 
leader of the buff and blue, surrounded by 
his officers, stood upon the lawn in front 
and looked—perhaps past the very self-same 
superb white peacock which now rears a 
proud and scornful head there—towards an 
oncoming army of men in scarlet. Fifteen 
minutes afterwards the British and Hessians 
THE APPROACH TO THE JUMEL MANSION 
31 
