My Friends at Brook Farm | Page 3

was a
drukker--that is, a printer or bookseller or something of that vain and
frivolous description. Cleo attained great age, overrunning the century
mark. In her later years she came by inheritance to my mother, and so
rather curiously, it happened that while my father openly professed
anti-slavery sentiments, my mother was a slaveholder, presumably one
of the last of that class in the state of New York.
One of our neighbors in the Old Colonie was Thurlow Weed, the Boss
of the Whig party in the Empire State, and the founder, proprietor and
editor of the Albany Evening Journal, one of the most influential papers
in the country. Father was on terms of near-intimacy with Mr. Weed,
and this brought him in touch with Horace Greeley. Father, though
never a politician, was interested in party affairs and in constant
communication with the Old Line Whigs of the Henry Clay following,
and I am under the impression that the consultations of the political
firm of Seward, Weed and Greeley were sometimes held in father's
library. When he was editing the "Log Cabin" the party paper in the
first Harrison campaign, Mr. Greeley was often a guest at our house,
and at that period, he and father formed a warm friendship which
continued during the remainder of their lives.
Having referred to Mr. Weed as the Boss of the Whig party in New
York State, I think it due to the memory of an honorable man to state
my belief that he never made one dollar out of politics. He gave a great
deal of service and a great deal of money to the promotion of his
political ideas, but never received a penny in return. He was a Boss

indeed, directing party affairs with the strong hand of a Dictator, but he
sought no profit and gained none, not even the thanks of those he
served. So far from bettering his fortunes, his public activities involved
constant demands upon his private purse. Not only party friends but
party enemies called on Thurlow Weed for help when in distress,
knowing that his hands would be open and his lips closed. Closed they
were, but it was generally understood in the Old Colonie that the many
seedy and needy applicants coming to his door must have made serious
inroads on his income.
One noticeable case was that of a saloon-keeper, a Whig politician in a
small way, who was supposed to control the "canal vote," that is the
vote of the floating population in the canal basin, among whom were
boatmen ready to cast their ballots either way for a price. Mr. Weed did
not approve of this man or of his methods, and the fellow went over to
the Locofocos, bag and baggage. He took with him an ugly grudge
against the Whig Boss and vented his spite in lies, slanders and
defamations of the foulest kind. For years he made all the trouble he
possibly could, but being a drinking man, he meanwhile drifted down
hill, deviously but without a stop. When he had reached the bottom, in
utter destitution, he came to Mr. Weed begging for aid--and he got it.
More than that, after his death his children were supported until they
could take care of themselves, and the costs, as we could not help
knowing, were paid by our Beaver Street neighbor.
A final memory of Mr. Weed lingers in my mind, to the discredit of
those who should have been his grateful friends. The last time I called
on him was when he was living in New York with his daughter, I think
in Broome Street. On greeting him I noted that he was much disturbed
by some annoyance which he could neither conceal nor throw off with
his old-time buoyancy of spirit.
His agitation was so evident and so unusual that I ventured to inquire as
to the trouble which so vexed his serene temper. In reply he took up a
copy of a prominent New York morning paper and pointed to a
sub-editorial in which he was referred to by name as "a veteran lagging
superfluous on the stage."

That was the most unkindest cut of all. Mr. Weed was at that time
living in retirement, but he still contributed vigorous and timely articles
to the editorial columns of this same journal. He was grievously hurt by
the gratuitous affront to which he had been so rudely subjected, but all
he said was, "I may be superfluous, but no one can truthfully say I ever
was a laggard."
I believe the management of the paper apologized privately for the
stupid insult, ascribing the sub-editorial to one of the juniors, and
expressing regret that it should have been inadvertently printed. All the
same, Thurlow Weed never wrote another