Exerpts from A HISTORY of MY LIFE by LAURA SCOTT GRISWOLD (Mrs. Griswold was born in 1841 and died at 96 or 97 years of age in 1936 or 1937.) |
At the urgent request of some of my Friends I am trying to put down some of my recollections of a long (being in my Ninety fourth year) and eventful life, and also of early St. Louis. My Grandmother was a Belle of Baltimore, Mary Ann Short. She was married when she was 16 to Captain Marriman of the United States Army and she was a widow by the time she was 18 years old. Her second husband was my Grandfather. My Mother (Glovenia) was an only child. Her (my grandmother's) third husband Captain Penrod was the grandfather we all knew. He was born in New Madrid and I have often heard him tell of the terrible Earthquake they had there in 1812. He said they had to hold hands to keep from falling in the terrible holes where the Earth opened up and that the Mississippi River ran up stream. He came up the Mississippi River with the Chouteaus when they settled St. Louis and afterwards he owned and ran Boats up and down the River to New Orleans. I was born February 15 1841, the oldest child of Charles G. and Glovenia Scott. I had two sisters and four brothers, all now dead. We were born on Sixth Street between Morgan and Franklin Avenues in the first brick house built off the Levee. Seventh Street was woods then. When the first built in bathtub was put in the house it was all wood and so high we children were never allowed in it unless a nurse was there. All the neighbors came in to see it. Later Governor Polk lived next door.
The first School I went to was St. Vincent's, conducted by the Sisters of Charity. It was on 11th and St Charles. The St. Louis University, the Jesuit School, was on Washington between 9th and 10th. It had a high fence around it. The boys got on top of the fence and when we girls passed on Sunday we waved our handkerchiefs to them. I don't know how the Sisters knew of it but we were put in Penance Monday for it. Later I went as a boarder to the old Sacred Heart Convent on Broadway opposite the French Market. It had a high fence around it but very often the young ladies were serenaded by their beaus. Of course no one knew anything about it. I was engaged the last year that I was at the Convent and was married soon after leaving, October 5, 1857. I was just a little over sixteen when I was married Mr. Andrew Einstmann a German gentleman much older than I was. My first visit to Europe was in 1859. We got there for May 5, which was my husbands birthday, his Fathers birthday, and his Fathers and Mothers wedding day. Needless to say there was a grand celebration. I was 18. My Mother-in-law had a long black velvet cape and bonnet. I wanted one like it. My husband said it was too old for me, which it was. But my Father-in-law said if I wanted it I should have it and he got it for me. I still have the cape. On our second trip his Mother was gone and on the third trip his Father was gone. On our second and third trips at the different watering places we went the People remembered me by my real golden hair. One Summer we were at Kissington, a fashionable watering place in Germany. The old Czar of Russia and the Father of the present ex Kaiser met there they stayed in the Hotel we were in. It was a beautiful sight as at nights all the mountains around were illuminated. My Grandmother used to take the Family and several Negroes every winter and go down to New Orleans and rent a house there. It was alright as Grandfather owned the boat. They were floating palaces in those days. The boat stopped at all the plantations down the river. It was a wonderful sight to see all the Negroes come down to the boat when it stopped; and if it stopped long enough the Master and Mistress came down too and invited the passengers off for refreshments. The Negroes would sing and play for us. Those were wonderful days before the War. We were living there during the War between the States. I was in New Orleans when the first gun was fired from Fort Sumpter. The boat we went down on was heavily loaded with kegs. The captain was so careful every night to have them covered and when we asked him about it he said they were filled with LARD. Some were put off at the different plantations but afterwards found out they were filled with powder. We went up to St. Louis on the last boat. We wouldn't have been so fortunate if the Captain White hadn't been a friend of my Grandfathers. There were exciting days down there till we left. We lived between the two Military Prisons. The one was the old McDowells Medical College at 8th and Gratiot the other was at Broadway and Mytel. It was a pitiful sight to see those poor ragged Southern soldiers being marched along behind those Dutch Guards and if they lagged they would stick them with a bayonet. Anyone even if they wasn't a southern sympathizer would pity those poor Southern men. We had two Southern Soldiers who had escaped from the prison hid in our cellar for two days and helped them to escape over the back fence one night. My Husband thought every night when he came home we would be in the prison. A friend of mine would come to the house and sing all the Rebel songs she could think of. Dr. Shore, whose family were great friends of ours, lived for many years at Broadway and Cerre. One of their old Negroes, she had been Dr.'s Nurse, said Dr. had concealed arms, which wasn't true. They put him in jail. He had a large family and a lot of Negroes so they took care of the family while Dr. was in prison by washing and going around working. They were terrible times. My youngest Sister married Louis Philippi, a German, on March 22, 1871. Soon after we left on our last trip to Europe. In those days when we wanted to go East we didn't have the Bridge and had to cross the River on the Ferry and take the trains on the East side. While we were in Kisington the Prussians and Bavarian armies met there in the Six Weeks War (I believe this is the Seven Weeks War). There were 60,000 Prussians who marched in the Town as one man. They fought hand-to-hand in the Hotel. We lived for two days on punicicle and water, one day I was expressing my opinions to the Clerk in the Hotel. I told him thought it was an outrage to treat Ladies that way. An Officer heard me and he stepped up begged our pardon. When I told him we were Americans he said he didn't know anything about it; from that time till we left we had everything we wanted. They gave us a five Armitrice to leave hadn't been able to leave before we drove through the Encampment of 60,000 soldiers. When we got to the next Town and the Clerk in the Hotel asked us where we had come from and when we told him he couldn't believe it as he said no one could get out of there. We continued to live out in the country place in the summer and boarded in town in the winter at one of the hotels. The year of 1876 we went to the Southern Hotel to board. It was the newest and largest Hotel. There was only my husband, mother and (my)self. On April 5, 1877 the hotel took fire. It was one of the worst fires in History, it was never known how many lost their lives that night. We were awaked at two o'clock in the morning; when we opened the door in the hall the carpets on the floor were burning so realized couldn't get out that way. So my husband tied the bedclothes together and tied one end to the bedpost he went down first to try them they broke as he was very large man and he fell the four stories I heard the thud when his body hit the sidewalk. He was dead. Then my Mother went down on them. A man sat out on the window sill on the second floor and he caught my Mother as she came down. She had, in her excitement, put on a flannel petticoat; he caught her by that but it tore. But, even so, it broke her fall. Of course she was very badly hurt but the man had kept her from being killed. She lay between life and death for weeks. I came down in the same way, but as I was little and light he held me and saved me. I have scars on my hands from the sparks that fell on them. I have an account of the fire one of the papers wrote up when I was there in 1933. They thought there wasn't (weren't) survivors of the Fire. My husband was President of the Board of Trade when he was killed. When I was back there I gave his picture to the Missouri Historical Society and they wanted me then to give them this history and also write about early St. Louis as there isn't any one else left that can tell all that I can. I could go on and tell lots about St Louis. I could tell how the river used to freeze over in the winter and they used to drive wagons over it. I could tell about the dedication of the Eads Bridge. And I could tell about after the War how they brought the poor Negroes up and put them in the booths at the old Fair Grounds and how they sold the Negroes on the Court House steps. And I could tell about in later years the grand times there were the first week in October. They had the Fair and we had to have our new Fall outfit for it. During the Exposition all the streets were lit with gas lamps, it was called the Illumination. And they had the Veiled Prophet parade and Ball. The last they still have but all the other have gone. |