A Discourse on the Life, Character and Writings of Gulian Crommelin Verplanck | Page 2

among its
ancient groves, a large stone building of one story when I saw it; with a
sharp roof and dormer windows, beside its old fashioned and well
stocked garden. A winding path leads down to the river's edge, through
an ancient forest which has stood there ever since Hendrick Hudson
navigated the river bearing his name, and centuries before. This
mansion was the country retreat of Mr. Verplanck ever since I knew
him, and here it was that his grandfather on the paternal side, Samuel
Verplanck, passed much of his time during our revolutionary war, in
which, although he took no share in political measures, his inclinations
were on the side of the mother country. This Samuel Verplanck, by a
custom which seems not to have become obsolete in his time, was
betrothed when but seven years old to his cousin Judith Crommelin, the
daughter of a wealthy banker of the Huguenot stock in Amsterdam.
When the young gentleman was of the proper age he was sent to make
the tour of Europe, and bring home his bride. He was married in the
banker's great stone house, standing beside a fair Dutch garden, with a
wide marble entrance hall, the counting room on one side of it, and the
drawing room, bright with gilding, on the other. When the grandson, in
after years, visited Amsterdam, the mansion which had often been
described to him by his grandmother, had to him quite a familiar
aspect.
The lady from Amsterdam was particularly accomplished, and versed
not only in several modern languages, but in Greek and Latin, speaking
fluently the Latin, of which the Colloquies of her great countryman,
Erasmus, furnish so rich a store of phrases for ordinary dialogue. Her
conversation is said to have been uncommonly brilliant and her society
much sought. During the revolutionary war her house was open to the
British officers, General Howe, and others, accomplished men, of

whom she had many anecdotes to relate to her grandson, when he came
under her care. For the greater part of this time her husband remained at
the country seat in Fishkill, quietly occupied with his books and the
care of his estate. Meantime, she wrote anxious letters to her father, in
Amsterdam, which were answered in neat French. The banker consoled
his daughter by saying that "Mr. Samuel Verplanck was a man so
universally known and honored, both for his integrity and scholarly
attainments, that in the end all would be well." This proved true; the
extensive estate at Fishkill was never confiscated, and its owner was
left unmolested.
On the mother's side, our friend had an ancestry of quite different
political views. His grandfather, William Samuel Johnson, of Stratford,
in Connecticut, was one of the revolutionary fathers. Before the
revolution, he was the agent of Connecticut in England; when it broke
out he took a zealous part in the cause of the revolted colonies; he was
a delegate to Congress from his State when Congress sat in New York,
and he aided in framing the Constitution of the United States.
Afterwards, he was President of Columbia College from the year 1787
to the year 1800, when, resigning the post, he returned to Stratford,
where he died in 1819, at the age of ninety-two. His father, the
great-grandfather of the subject of this memoir, was Dr. Samuel
Johnson, of Stratford, one of the finest American scholars of his day,
and the first President of Columbia College, which however, he left
after nine years, to return and pass a serene old age at Stratford. He had
been a Congregational minister in Connecticut, but by reading the
works of Barrow and other eminent divines of the Anglican Church,
became a convert to that church, went to England, and taking orders
returned to introduce its ritual into Connecticut. He was the friend of
Bishop Berkeley, whose arm-chair was preserved as an heir-loom in his
family. When in England, he saw Pope, who gave him cuttings from
his Twickenham willow. These he brought from the banks of the
Thames, and planted on the wilder borders of his own beautiful river
the Housatonic, which at Stratford enters the Sound. They were,
probably, the progenitors of all the weeping willows which are seen in
this part of the country, where they rapidly grow to a size which I have
never seen them attain in any other part of the world.

The younger of these Dr. Johnsons--for they both received the degree
of Doctor of Divinity from the University of Oxford--had a daughter
Elizabeth, who married Daniel Crommelin Verplanck, the son of
Samuel Verplanck, and the only fruit of their marriage was the subject
of this memoir. The fair-haired young mother was a frequent visitor
with her child to Stratford, where, under the willow trees from
Twickenham,