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Authors: Janet Wallach
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harpoon their prey. What’s more, costly whale oil was being replaced by kerosene, which now fueled many lamps in America and Europe.
Worst of all, explorers deep in a well in Pennsylvania discovered a greenish black substance oozing from the earth like a monster rising from the depths of the sea. The discovery of fossil oil in America made it clear to Edward Robinson that the need for whale oil was coming to an end. He was right: within six years Pennsylvania workers would be drilling three and a half million barrels of crude oil a year. A cold, hard look at the industry left him with little doubt the time had come to divest himself of his business. What’s more, the death of his wife not only enriched him, it freed him to rethink his life.
As he made plans, he offered his daughter a change of pace. When the warm weather came she traveled by train to upstate New York. Above Albany, the smart resort of Saratoga served as a gathering place for frenzied Wall Street businessmen, prosperous New England industrialists, and southern plantation owners fluffed with cotton. Wives and daughters in tow, they drank in youth at the bubbling mineral waters of the Congress Spring, cheered the thoroughbreds at the racetrack, and paraded up and down the elm-shaded avenues. Evenings they dined in the hotel dining rooms and attended the informal hops at the Union House, where sharp-eyed mothers surveyed the room and saucy-eyed daughters smiled and hoped they would be asked to dance. In the summer of 1860, young, pretty Hetty Howland Robinson waltzed across the ballroom floor.
Throughout the days in Saratoga, on the wide porches of the grand United States Hotel men lazed side by side in rocking chairs, feet stretched out, straw hats pushed back, Havana cigars in hand, mint juleps at their side. Colleagues in business, northern “lords ofthe loom” expressed sympathy for the southern “lords of the lash” lounging next to them; they benefited together from the expansion of slavery. And when their sons and daughters married and their businesses merged, so much the better.
The presidential elections spun through the porches of Saratoga that summer. In May, “Honest Abe,” the “man of the people,” as Horace Greeley, publisher of the
Tribune
, called him, had won the Republican presidential nomination on the third ballot at the Chicago convention. The party platform pledged not to extend slavery and promised a protective tariff, free land for homesteaders, and a railroad to the Pacific Ocean. In August the Democratic opponent, Stephen Douglas, spent a week at Saratoga and was given a reception on the balcony of the United States Hotel. He may have shown more bluster than humor, but his wife charmed all the guests.
Although politics was on everyone’s mind, for Hetty the highlight of the visit was not the coming election, in which women were not allowed to vote, but the dinner party to which she was invited. Former U.S. president Martin Van Buren, a Democrat, asked her to dine at his cottage on Saratoga Lake. For many years a photograph of Hetty, taken on her way to the dinner, rested on her rolltop desk. Visitors who saw it remarked on the striking young woman with the broad forehead, sharp nose, and keen blue eyes.
Her chaperone for the evening was Baroness Stoeckel, wife of the Russian ambassador, and among the distinguished guests were Van Buren’s son John, a brilliant orator; Lord Althorp, the future Duke of Northumberland; the witty Lord Harvey; and Captain Tower, who had fought in the Crimean War with the Coldstream Guards. Eager to show off her wit, Hetty turned to one of the guests and, eyes twinkling, asked: “Do you know how you can see the masses rising?” No, replied the aristocrat. “Go west to the Mississippi and go aboard a high-pressure steam boat,” she said. “You will see masses of people rising on deck.”
N othing could outdo the flurry of excitement that Hetty encountered when she returned
Worst of all, explorers deep in a well in Pennsylvania discovered a greenish black substance oozing from the earth like a monster rising from the depths of the sea. The discovery of fossil oil in America made it clear to Edward Robinson that the need for whale oil was coming to an end. He was right: within six years Pennsylvania workers would be drilling three and a half million barrels of crude oil a year. A cold, hard look at the industry left him with little doubt the time had come to divest himself of his business. What’s more, the death of his wife not only enriched him, it freed him to rethink his life.
As he made plans, he offered his daughter a change of pace. When the warm weather came she traveled by train to upstate New York. Above Albany, the smart resort of Saratoga served as a gathering place for frenzied Wall Street businessmen, prosperous New England industrialists, and southern plantation owners fluffed with cotton. Wives and daughters in tow, they drank in youth at the bubbling mineral waters of the Congress Spring, cheered the thoroughbreds at the racetrack, and paraded up and down the elm-shaded avenues. Evenings they dined in the hotel dining rooms and attended the informal hops at the Union House, where sharp-eyed mothers surveyed the room and saucy-eyed daughters smiled and hoped they would be asked to dance. In the summer of 1860, young, pretty Hetty Howland Robinson waltzed across the ballroom floor.
Throughout the days in Saratoga, on the wide porches of the grand United States Hotel men lazed side by side in rocking chairs, feet stretched out, straw hats pushed back, Havana cigars in hand, mint juleps at their side. Colleagues in business, northern “lords ofthe loom” expressed sympathy for the southern “lords of the lash” lounging next to them; they benefited together from the expansion of slavery. And when their sons and daughters married and their businesses merged, so much the better.
The presidential elections spun through the porches of Saratoga that summer. In May, “Honest Abe,” the “man of the people,” as Horace Greeley, publisher of the
Tribune
, called him, had won the Republican presidential nomination on the third ballot at the Chicago convention. The party platform pledged not to extend slavery and promised a protective tariff, free land for homesteaders, and a railroad to the Pacific Ocean. In August the Democratic opponent, Stephen Douglas, spent a week at Saratoga and was given a reception on the balcony of the United States Hotel. He may have shown more bluster than humor, but his wife charmed all the guests.
Although politics was on everyone’s mind, for Hetty the highlight of the visit was not the coming election, in which women were not allowed to vote, but the dinner party to which she was invited. Former U.S. president Martin Van Buren, a Democrat, asked her to dine at his cottage on Saratoga Lake. For many years a photograph of Hetty, taken on her way to the dinner, rested on her rolltop desk. Visitors who saw it remarked on the striking young woman with the broad forehead, sharp nose, and keen blue eyes.
Her chaperone for the evening was Baroness Stoeckel, wife of the Russian ambassador, and among the distinguished guests were Van Buren’s son John, a brilliant orator; Lord Althorp, the future Duke of Northumberland; the witty Lord Harvey; and Captain Tower, who had fought in the Crimean War with the Coldstream Guards. Eager to show off her wit, Hetty turned to one of the guests and, eyes twinkling, asked: “Do you know how you can see the masses rising?” No, replied the aristocrat. “Go west to the Mississippi and go aboard a high-pressure steam boat,” she said. “You will see masses of people rising on deck.”
N othing could outdo the flurry of excitement that Hetty encountered when she returned
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