It’s installment four of my transcription of Susan B. Anthony’s diary, detailing her trip with Ernestine Rose to Washington, D.C., and the surrounding area in 1854.
March 27
Weather moderated but still cold. After walking about two miles, visiting five printing offices, the Bill Printer, & Bill Poster, I returned & with Mrs. R visited the Patent Office, the most remarkable curiosities there were the sword, cane, the coat, vest & breeches of Gen. Washington worn at the time he resigned his commission, his Camp Chest with its appurtenances—Tea Pot, Coffee Urn, Pepper dish, Salt, tea chest, Gridiron, Tin Kettles for cooking on, also the writing desk used by him during all his campaigns—there too was a bit of the old tent cloth—ragged & dirty.
From the Patent Office we went to the Treasury department, thence to the State departments, here we were shown the identical letter Benedict Arnold to Major Andre found in the pocket of Andre—signed Augustus & written as though Andre were a Merchant—saw also the Original Constitution of the United States with the signatures of the delegates from the 13 States—it was beautifully penned on Parchment over two feet square, tied together with a deep blue ribbon—at the Patent Office saw also the original Declaration of Independence, many of the signatures were nearly obliterated, on account of having been written with [new?] ink. From State Departments we went to the Presidents House took a peep into the East Room, splendidly furnished with large gilt mirrors, in front of the White house in a beautiful park, is a very fine bronze statue of Gen. Jackson, on horseback—mounted on a white marble pedestal—then called at Mr. Aker’s office to see the Bust of Mrs. Davis, a very fine one indeed. After dinner walked on to Capitol Hill, called on Anne Royal, a woman 85 years of age—she is indeed as Mrs. R. says, the Living Curiosity of Washington—was brought up by the Indians, married Captain of the Army, he died, & she has printed a paper called the Huntress for the past 20 years. She has a fine intellectual head. She lives in a small house, has two little boys whom she is educating, one boy she has instructed in Greek & Latin & geometry—said to me no one can know how to reason without studying geometry learning to say Therefore, Wherefore & Because. We each of us subscribed for the Huntress. She gave us each two books, written by her many years ago. She is the most filthy specimen of humanity I ever beheld, her fingers look like birds claws, in color & attennuity. They shone as if glazed.
A great black Newfoundland dog, old Cat & kittens sat at her feet–& Mrs. R. says eight years ago she had in addition to these 2 guinea hens & two little pigs running about the floor. She was writing her editorial for this weeks paper said I do her what a wonderful woman you are, she answered me “I know it.”
Notes:
The Patent Office that Anthony and Ernestine Rose visited in 1854 still stands; it is now the National Portrait Gallery. The women would have seen Washington’s possessions in the Model-Room. Today, the Smithsonian owns Washington’s uniform and camp chest.
Today, both the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are housed at the National Archives. As Anthony notes, the Declaration of Independence in particular was treated rather carelessly over the years: According to the National Archives, it was at the Patent Office from 1841 to 1876, where it hung opposite a window, soaking up sunlight and enduring Washington’s humid summers. Over the ensuing years, it would undergo further indignities, including being housed in the smoking-permitted State Department library. After decades of being shunted from place to place, in 1952 the document finally reached its present home at the National Archives, where it spends its days in an archivally correct display case and its evenings in an underground vault.
The large gilt mirrors in the East Room can be seen in this 1861 lithograph. Franklin Pierce, who was President at the time of Anthony’s visit, added the painted ceiling and the marble mantlepiece. Andrew Jackson’s statue stands in Lafayette Park. The statute was quite new when Anthony saw it, having been dedicated only the year before.
Paul Akers, a sculptor from Maine, chiseled a bust of the wealthy Paulina Wright Davis in Rome. Davis herself does not appear to have liked the bust.
Anne Royall was indeed a Washington institution of sorts when the women met her. The Huntress was the second of the two newspapers she published during her long and adventurous life. (Supposedly, she forced John Quincy Adams to give her an interview by catching him bathing in a river and sitting on his clothes until he answered her questions.) In the Huntress, she drew pen-portraits of many Washington notables, including members of Congress, although she does not appear to have taken an y interest in Representative Abraham Lincoln during his one term in Congress. Ernestine Rose first met Royall in 1845, when Ernestine accompanied her mentor, reformer Robert Owen, on a trip to Washington. She and Owen visited Royall, who wrote a flattering piece about Owen and about Ernestine as well: “She is a beautiful creature, of youthful appearance, being in the prime of life. In stature she is of the common height, with a form surpassing the most extravagant, fancy can conceive of symmetry.” (Sadly, Royall said nothing of Rose’s accomplishments as a public speaker.) Anne Royall died on October 1, 1854, and was buried in Washington’s Congressional Cemetery.
