Passing the Hoffman House recently, and lookin’ at the “improvements” lately made there, I stumbled across “Order of Arrest Jarvis” as the boys used to call him, not quite so boyish lookin’ as he was years ago, of course, but still handsome and gay “as a young sunflower,” to use one of his own favorite expressions. Judson used to be in his bachelor days a frequenter of the Hoffman House, and he once gave there a locally famous supper to two locally famous women–Mrs. Victoria Woodhull and Miss Tennie C. Claflin.
These ladies had just come to New York, and were becomin’ a sensation. A reporter got acquainted with ‘em, and introduced Judson to ‘em, who at once invited the ladies to an all-night supper, which was a big success in the way of eatin’, drinkin’ and taffy generally.
Everythin’ about the supper was very proper, of course, but thoroughly Bohemian and enjoyable. To this day Judson is prepared to swear, or affirm, that he has never enjoyed any supper so much as he did this. It cost him over a hundred dollars, but he got the worth of his money in wit and adventure.
The Claflin and Woodhull women who at one time created so much fuss in New York were only a “second edition” of “free love” and “social reform” ideas–only a repetition of a still more noteworthy “first edition” of “social reform,” this “first edition” havin’ been revealed to New York and the great American people some forty years before in the persons of the celebrated Fanny Wright and her sister.
The history of these two Wright sisters is almost forgotten now, but it has a good deal of Interest, which has been recently revived by a law suit among their descendants.
Fanny Wright and her sister came over to this country along with their friend, General Lafayette, and formed part of his family or suite when he had his great reception here in New York.
Fanny Wright herself was really a remarkable woman, and passed through a remarkable career. She was born in Scotland, of a good family, and had been highly educated, not after the Scotch, but the French, fashion.
She had sense enough to see that there was a good deal about this world of ours that needed reformin’, and she had soul enough to honestly wish to reform it; but she didn’t know exactly how to do what she wished, and made all sorts of mistakes in tryin’ to do it–mistakes which spoiled her own life.
Among other mistakes, she made the mistake of tryin’ to do away with the good old-fashioned Bible. She tried to “demolish the book,” as she called it, but she only succeeded in disgustin’ a good many, and demolishin’ herself, to a pretty large extent. But she was honest and sincere in this, as in her other mistakes, though, and lost money by it. She didn’t get $1,000 a night by demolishin’ the Bible, at a dollar a ticket.
And then she made the mistake in really believin’ that one man, white or black, was just as good socially as every other man; and she lost a pile of money–her own money though, not other people’s–in tryin’ to prove that this mistake wasn’t a mistake.
She got in with Robert Dale Owen and other “philosophers” and started a place where everybody was to be the equal of everybody else, at a town she called New Harmony, out in Indiana. But the “new harmony” didn’t work out any better or any more “harmoniously” than “old harmony” or any other old or new town on the face of the earth, and the enterprise was abandoned.
She also tried to free the negroes, and make them the equals of the whites by a kind of Abolitionism of her own; which was, however, a very different affair from the Abolitionism of Lewis Tappan and Lloyd Garrison. In fact, Fanny Wright was very much opposed to this sort of Abolitionism, and talked against it, just as the other Abolitionists were opposed to her and the “Fanny Wright societies” which she organized.
She got a place near Memphis and bought negroes, and settled ‘em on her place–the idea of her scheme bein’ to make the negroes pay what they cost in labor, and then, havin’ gradually educated ‘em, set ‘em free, and make their children free after ‘em, and so on. But the negroes never paid for ‘emselves, were not worth their salt, and the scheme was abandoned, though Fanny Wright, noble woman that she was, didn’t abandon the negroes, but sent ‘em to Haiti with an outfit at her own expense.
When young, Fanny Wright was rather attractive, in her way, though never handsome, and a young New Yorker, the son of a rich man, fell in love with her, and wanted to marry her. But Fanny didn’t believe in marriage just then. Se said it was “slavery,” and all that sort of thing, and refused the young New Yorker’s offer.
He was in earnest, and followed her to Europe afterwards, but she wouldn’t have anythin’ to do with him, more’s the pity for her. For he probably would have been to her a very good husband, as he was afterwards to young lady, two of whose sons are now doin’ business in Broad street, New York.
But although she didn’t believe in marriage at first, when she was young, and had a tip-top chance, she changed her mind and believed in it when she got older, and then she married a man who made her very unhappy. Funny how things go at cross purposes in this world.
She met a Frenchman called D’Arusmont, who had “a system of philosophy,” and little else. This system was a good deal like her own, and so poor Fanny Wright thought she had discovered in this “philosopher” a “kindred soul” and married him.
Before this she had been fallen in love with, the story goes, by Robert Dale Owen himself. But as both Owen and herself thought marriage “slavery,” this love affair didn’t come to anythin’, and she promised Owen she would never marry anybody. This promise kind of comforted Owen a little, though not much; but when at last Fanny went back on her promise and on her “systems” and “sold herself to slavery,” that is, gave herself away in marriage, Owen was heart-broken, or is near bein’ heart-broken as a first-class-way-up-A No. 1 philosopher could be. So he took to wearin’ mournin’ on his hat the day Fanny Wright got married–which was a very original way of celebratin’ a weddin’, though not inappropriate, the way some weddin’s turn out, this very weddin’ of any Wright’s among the number. For on the principle, I suppose, that two of a trade never agree, the two philosophers with a system, Fanny Wright and Mons. D’Arusmont, couldn’t get along together, and soon separated; Fanny Wright, as she now re-called herself, goin’ to Cincinnati, and settlin’ down there with her daughter, while her philosopher husband devoted himself systematically to tryin’ to get hold of his ex-wife’s property.
Unhappy marriages seem to have run in the whole Wright family. The Wrights all married wrong. It would seem as if marriage revenged itself on ‘em, for havin’ talked and written against it, just as Vic. Woodhull has been unfortunate in all her marriages.
Fanny’s sister, Sylvia, made a very romantic match, and unhappy as it was romantic.
One of her farm hands got sick of a fever, and Sylvia heard of it. She sent him a doctor, which was all right; and then she went to see him herself, which was all wrong. The sick man was very young, and, as it happened, very good-lookin’ in the mere matters of form and color. He was six feet high, or long, as he lay stretched on his bed, with fine florid complexion, and large blue eyes–lookin’ like a big lamb, which he wasn’t–but instead of it a big fool. Sylvia was full of poetry and all that sort of thing, and fell in love with her own hired man. And as she believed in love with bein’ “free,” she didn’t try to restrain her love in the bounds of prudence and common sense, but let it have full play. She moved her quarters down to her hired man’s hut, nursed him night and day, and spent as much money on him for medicine as if she was a manageress of a theatre and he was her pet “star.” And when he got well she kept on, not with her medicine, but with her love-makin’, till finally, one day, she abruptly proposed to the man, who was too stupid to have spunk to propose for her himself.
The hired man and his boss got married, and the usual thing happened: the hired man didn’t know how to appreciate or use his luck–showed himself to be the low-minded brute he was. He spent all her money that he could get hold of, and kept other women of his own class, servant girls and milk maids, on it; and at last when Sylvia found fault with this sort of thing, very naturally, he raised his hand, or rather his foot, against her, and in a fit of brutal passion, kicked her.
It was a vile outrage, and yet, perhaps, this kick was the very best thing that could have happened to her, for it put her out of the worst part of her misery at once. It drove her desperate, and made her leave him–goin’ over to Scotland to join her sister Fanny, and takin’ her child with her.
The second generation of Wrights had as much married misery as the first. The daughter of Sylvia followed the example of her poor mother, and got in love with one of her own hired people, not a mere laborer this time, but her financial agent and the general manager of her business affairs.
This chap was a degree better than the farm-hand her mother had married, inasmuch as he was an intelligent, smart, money-makin’ chap, instead of a fool. But then he was worse off than even the farm-hand in bein’ a married man with a wife and child before he met with Sylvia Wright’s daughter. But he didn’t stop at such a little encumbrance as a wife and child. He was a practical “free-lover,” he believed in love bein’ free of all legal or natural ties, of everything but self-interest and dollars and cents. So he sent his wife back to France, where she came from, and he shipped his daughter off to boardin’ school. Then, havin’ got rid of these inconveniences, he married the unsuspectin’ woman who had been fool enough to fall in love with him, and got hold of all her money.
But here he behaved a good deal better and wiser than the farm-hand. Having the woman and the money both, he took care of ‘em both–speculated with money and doubled it, and took the woman to Europe and made a great splurge with her.
Till at last he died, and his wife died, and then the first and legal wife came to the front with the first and legitimate daughter and made things pleasant for the other heirs.
Altogether they were a queer lot, those Wrights, but Fanny was really a good and smart woman, a sort of female Horace Greeley in her way.
Like Horace she was great on writin’, and talkin’ and lecturin’. Like Horace she was full of crotchets and big ideas for the benefit of other people that could never be carried out. And, like Horace she was queer in her ways and in her dress–queer and careless.
She was very tall, six feet one inch in height, almost a giantess, and quite bony and muscular, quite manly lookin’ in makeup, but really womanly about the eyes and face. Her favorite color of dress was brown. She always, or most always wore a brown bombazine, she had taken a fancy to the “basque” style of rig, and she wore a basque all the time, which made her talked about. She was very much opposed to low-necked dresses, thought ‘em indecent; although she herself had a fine large bust, she always wore her dress buttoned up to her throat. She was rather proud of her hair, and really had hair to be proud of–long dark brown hair, which fell in ringlets over her shoulders. Her favorite style of hat was a narrow brimmed Leghorn, or else a man’s stove pipe hat. Sometimes she would wear one of those styles of hat for a month or so steady, then she would drop it and adhere to the other. She never wore jewelry or ornaments, not even a ribbon.
Imagine a woman nowadays, if you can, with a fine bust that is never exhibited, and a bonnet without a ribbon. No wonder she excited as much notice among the other women as Horace Greeley and his white coat among ordinary men.
She had a habit of walkin’ along swingin’ her arms and talkin’ to herself without noticin’ anybody. And then she had another habit of pullin’ out a notebook, and takin’ notes on the spot of anybody or anythin’ that interested her or bothered her. This latter habit often caused quite a commotion.
Once she met a man who attracted her attention at table by his loud voice and fussy manner. She pulled out her notebook and repeatin’ to herself in a distinct voice the words, “a remarkably vulgar fellow,” and made a memo of it in her book. The fussy man’s wife heard Fanny Wright’s remark and there was “a high old time” at that table.
But with all her eccentricities and mistakes, there is every reason to believe that Fanny Wright was a first class woman–one of those real reformers whose reforms cost their own money, and who try, even if vainly, first to reform ‘emselves.
[Editor’s notes: As might be expected from the habitually sexist views of the “Harry Hill’s Gotham” writers, the above sketches of Fanny and Sylvia Wright focus on their domestic life and personal appearance. Also, it gets the kinship of the Wrights wrong.
Sylvia, whose given name was Francès-Sylva D’Arusmont, was Fanny Wright’s daughter, not her sister. Fanny did have a sister who was close to her and traveled with her in America, Camilla Elisa Wright. The “farm-hand” lover refers to Camilla’s experience while at the Tennessee settlement, Nashoba.
In describing Fanny Wright’s Tennessee settlement, the above column also adds a dose of racism. The failure of Wright’s farm had little to do with the formerly-enslaved workers “not being worth their salt.” However, they were not skilled farmers, and the enterprise needed craftsmen like carpenters, builders, blacksmiths, livestock handlers, etc., that were lacking. Wright herself worked so hard she became ill, and “Nashoba” was left in the management of a man who abused the residents (who numbered less than two dozen). Moreover, the land was wet and plagued by mosquitoes.]
