INTRODUCTORY LETTERS. GOVERNOR THROOP TO MRS. DICKINSON. WILLOWBROOK, NEAR AUBURN, N. Y., MY DEAR MADAM-I am exceedingly gratified by the note with which you have honored me, reminding me of one of my most cherished friendships. Your eminent and lamented husband was a friend to be proud of: a man of probity and genius, faithful to his friend and his country. That you should find consolation in reviewing your wedded life, and in putting upon record proofs of your husband's noble character and distinguished career, I can well understand; and I wish it were in my power to make a more satisfactory contribution to your pious enterprise than I have the means to do. With you it is a labor of love, and not of vanity. Your early struggles together, that he might become worthy to be honored by his countrymen, must have knit your hearts together in ever-enduring love and a retrospect can yield nothing but pleasure. From the period of my first acquaintance with Mr. Dickinson until I left the country in 1838, I was so situated as to have but few opportunities of personal intercourse with him; and the few letters which passed between us were elicited almost entirely by my approval of his course as a legislator and politician. He seemed a man after my own heart; and it was gratifying to me to find him in accordance with my own views on all important topics. I first met Mr. Dickinson at Norwich in the year 1830, when I was on a journey across the county of Chenango, and again the next day, when I stopped for an hour or two at a little village a few miles east of Norwich, where he had recently opened an office to commence the practice of law. What I observed of him then impressed me deeply with the idea that there were in him the elements of a man of mark; but I did not then foresee that the unassuming individual before me would, within a few years, be deemed a fit candidate for the presidency of the United States. On my return to Albany I spoke of him to my friends as a person of merit, and commended him particularly to my brother-in-law, Mr. James Porter, then register in chancery and an influential politician. They afterwards became intimate friends, as I have understood. Mr. Dickinson had not then taken the first step in his brilliant career; when he did so, he rose rapidly. Impelled upward by the fire of genius-like the impatient balloon when fully charged-as soon as the ligaments which bound him to earth were severed, he rose to his equilibrium among the greatest men of the nation. I witnessed his luminous course with intense satisfaction; and now rejoice in the merited honors accorded to his memory by the unanimous voice of the nation. I am resting here in my eighty-third year, quietly awaiting the inevitable summons; but while I remain, I shall never cease to think of you and yours with interest and profound respect and regard. To MRS. LYDIA DICKINSON. E. T. THROOP. REV. DR. ANDREWS TO MRS. DICKINSON. BINGHAMTON, December 26, 1866. DEAR MRS. DICKINSON-In reply to your letter, I think my acquaintance with Mr. Dickinson first commenced in 1824, when he came to study law with the Hon. Lot Clark, in the village of Norwich, Chenango County. I became more intimate with him a few years after, when, living in Oxford, in the same County, I was principal of the Academy in that place. He had by this time finished his studies and was admitted to practice; he came frequently to visit Mr. Henry Van Der Lyn, an eminent counsellor, to consult him on various questions of law. Mr. Van Der Lyn, being Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the Academy, had so identified himself with its interests, that there was scarcely a day, in which I was not led to his office by something connected with the institution. Here I frequently met Mr. Dickinson, then quite a young man, and in the full flush of hope and expectation. His ready wit, vivacity, and apt quotations, entertained and delighted us. It was easy to see, at that early day, that he was to be no common man. quaintance thus formed continued in uninterrupted intimacy till his death. The ac A few years after, when I was Rector of the Episcopal Church in New Berlin, I was invited by Mr. Dickinson and several others, to preach on Sunday to the Episcopal Church, then newly organized in Guilford. The day was stormy and uncomfortable. I rode to Guilford with General Welch, and remained at your house as Mr. Dickinson's guest. A trivial incident occurred, so characteristic of Mr. Dickinson, that I have never forgotten it. A lady of the house, with feminine overcarefulness, made many apologies at the dinner table. In the kindest manner and with a pleasant voice he said, "Stop, my dear;-I am willing that the minister should know that I live within my income." This was a reply worthy of Aristides. The table was indeed furnished with all that was to be desired; and Mr. Dickinson's simplicity of taste disliked any appearance of affectation. It would be well for the young men and women of the present day, not to be ashamed to have the world know that they live within their income. In the summer of 1836, I accepted the rectorship of Christ's Church, Binghamton, and was thus placed in intimate relations with Mr. Dickinson, who had removed here a few years before me. He was now in the full employment of an extensive practice, and with brilliant prospects of professional success. His talents were admirably fitted to make him a lawyer of the highest order. He prepared his causes with great care; arranged his evidence with consummate skill, and conducted his cross examinations with a shrewdness and searching power, which was, to a reluctant or dishonest witness, distressing in the extreme. It was in this meridian of his strength and promise, that he was induced to accept the nomination to the State senatorship. He had doubts about accepting, and did me the honor to consult me. Knowing what he was about to give up for the uncertainties of political life, I endeavored to dissuade him; but other influences prevailed, and, being elected, he commenced that career of politics and statesmanship which for so long a time was conducted with such brilliancy and reputation. But whatever laurels he may have won, either at Albany or Washington, I still think that his most appropriate sphere was in courts of justice and the practice of the legal profession. There he had few equals. His ready wit; his happy application of rhyme, anecdote, or proverb; the surprising quickness with which he seized upon the important points of a cause, gave a freshness and originality to his efforts; while his power of argument and accurate knowledge of the law rendered him a formidable antagonist. He was a model of industry, patient toil, and unwearied investigation. His office was no place for loungers and idlers. Attracted by his vivacity, pleasing manners, and inexhaustible fund of anecdote, many who had met him in the streets, or formed acquaintance with him at public places, or seen him in stages, cars, or at private parties, would go to his office, thinking to while away an idle hour in agreeable unprofitableness. They soon found their mistake. Not that they were repelled, or even treated coldly;-there was the same kind manner, the same cordial greeting, the same good-natured welcome, but he was busy; his countenance was full of deep thought; he was occupied with that in which they had no interest. They felt themselves intruders, and went away. Such, my dear Madam, are some of the remembrances of your deceased husband. He added to all these religious faith in the promises of the Gospel; and was not ashamed, in an unbelieving age, to own and declare that faith. I shall not dwell on this, for it is better known to you than any one else. Neither shall I dwell, with tender sorrow, on his memory; for however great is the loss of him to his friends, his country and his family, you, of all others, must feel the conviction, that death to him is gain. I am, Madam, with great respect and affection, EDWARD ANDREWS. MR. ROGERS TO MRS. DICKINSON. BUFFALO, April 12, 1867. MY DEAR MRS. DICKINSON-One year has passed since the death of your husband, yet I do not doubt that you are as acutely sensible to your great loss as when the crushing blow first fell upon you. I have had it in mind for many months to put into your hands some views of Mr. Dickinson's character, as that character has impressed me during an acquaintance somewhat familiar and confidential, running through a period of more than forty years. This, the anniversary of his death, seems a fitting occasion for the fulfilment of that design. Though I knew Mr. Dickinson but little previous to your marriage, I well remember his earnest yet delicate attentions to you for years before that event, and when your feeble health was the subject of anxious solicitude among your friends. And it is a real pleasure to me now, to recall the impression made upon me at that time, that those attentions seemed more the affectionate and tender devotion of a loving brother towards an invalid sister, than those of a suitor and lover. And I may add that one of the most beautiful thoughts connected with my knowledge of his after life is this: that there was never any apparent abatement of that loving devotion. I had thought to speak of his early struggles and the apparently insurmountable obstacles in the way of his advancement, of his strenuous efforts to overcome them, and of the success which crowned those efforts. But why should I? You know them all, and more than this, they will necessarily appear in detail and with precision, in his life, writings, and speeches, which, I learn, are soon to be given to the public by his competent and intelligent brother. It is true that many of his struggles were quite familiar to me, for my own course, so far as it went, lay along the same rugged pathway. To a poor boy, at that day, the facilities for acquiring an education sufficiently broad and deep to make even a re-pectable foundation to a learned profession, were, as compared with the present, absolutely nothing-and yet this dif ficulty he overcame. |