1. COMMODORE HULL AND THE CONSTITUTION. BY JAMES GRANT WILSON, ΙΟΙ 2. JAY AND LIVINGSTON PEDIGREE. Communicated by MISS ELIZABETH CLARKSON JAY, 3. GENEALOGY OF THE DESCENDANTS OF THOMAS SEYMOUR, OF HARTFORD, 5. RECORDS OF THE REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK. 7. RECORDS OF THE REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH IN THE CITY OF NEW 9. NOTES ON BOOKS. -History of the Administration of John De Witt.-The Descendants, by the Female Branches, of Joseph Loomis.-Lady Deborah Moody, 10. OBITUARY.-Capt. Homer Crane Blake.- Solomon Townsend, 114 116 120 125 133 137 145 147 147-148 THE RECORD will be found on sale at Mott Memorial Hall, 64 Madison Avenue, and at the Book Store of E. W. Nash, No. 80 Nassau Street, New York. Vol. I., with Index, price, One Dollar; subsequent Vols., with Index, Two Dollars each. Subscription, Two Dollars per Year. Payments for subscriptions should be sent to RUFUS KING, Treasurer, No. 64 Madison Avenue, New York City. WARNING TO THE PUBLIC. THE NEW YORK GENEALOGICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY hereby cautions the Public in general, and all Literary and Historical Societies throughout the Country, against any and all persons professing to print or publish biographies or genealogies for money, under the name of "The Genealogical Society," "The N. Y. Genealogical Society," "Society of Genealogy," or any other similar name liable to be understood as that of this Corporation, or soliciting information for such purposes, as certain unprincipled persons have been and are now doing in different States, Cities, and Towns, personally and by letter. This Society does nothing of the kind. Its Magazine, the "New York Genealogical and Biographical Record," is its only publication, and articles are furnished freely by its contributors. THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS BEFORE THE NEW YORK GENEALOGICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY, FEBRUARY 27, 1880. BY JAMES GRANT WILSON. MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: In the course of one of my last conversations with the late Admiral of our Navy, he said, while speaking of the naval heroes of the war of 1812, "Isaac Hull was as able a seaman as ever sailed a ship. If I have done the country any service afloat, it is in no small degree owing to the ambition and enthusiasm he created in me when I was a youngster by his fair fight with, and capture of, an English frigate. I always," added the admiral, “"envied Hull that piece of good luck." The Commander, that the famous Farragut could, after his great achievements at New Orleans and Mobile, find it in his heart to envy, possessed many of the traits that characterized our illustrious American Admiral. He was not, at least in early life, unlike him in person, he possessed the same pleasing and unaffected manners, the same modesty and magnanimity, the same daring and dauntless courage, and the same spotless reputation in all the various relations of life. The name of Hull is of English origin. Including the present Com. Joseph B. Hull, the family can be traced through eight generations, and, as has been said of that of Washington, its history gives proof "of the lineal and enduring worth of race." Five persons of the name who are believed to have brothers were living in New England within a score of years of that stormy day in December, when the May Flower landed her precious cargo of pilgrims on Plymouth Rock. Previous to 1638 they had been admitted freemen by the General Court of Massachusetts. From these sturdy sons of John Hull of London, are descended all, or nearly all, of the name now living in this country. One of these brothers was captain of an artillery company; another was, as early as 1634, Representative to the General Court; from a third the town of Hull received its name; 7 while the son of another, who, when Massachusetts Bay assumed the prerogative of coining money, was her treasurer and master of the mint, amassing, for that primitive period, a large fortune in the office before Charles II. put a stop to that infringement of his royalties, married Judith Quincy, daughter of Edmund Quincy, the first of the honored name to appear in the New World. There is an association with the name of this fair lady which I fear may not commend itself to the blessings of some of this audience who are accustomed to pass between Boston and New York, by way of Long Island Sound; for John Hull owned real estate in the Narragansett country, and in conferring Christian names to those savage places, he gave that of his wife to a promontory of ill-repute, which to this day is known as Point Judith- -a terror to travellers who, like the classic Sir Joseph Porter, K. C. B. "When the breezes blow-generally go below." The daughter of John and Judith Hull was, in the year 1676, married to Samuel Sewall, afterwards Chief Justice, whose quaint and curious diary has just been published, and is almost as interesting as that of another Samuel, who was his contemporary-the immortal Pepys, prince of diarists. The mint-master gave his daughter, as dowry, her weight in silver. The tradition is that he seated the fair Hannah on a scale, and, in the presence of the wedding guests, honestly and fairly balanced her with freshly-coined pine-tree shillings. From this marriage has sprung the eminent family of Sewall, which has given one chief justice to Canada, and three to Massachusetts. The remaining one of the five Hulls, named Richard, in the year 1639, removed from Massachusetts and settled at New Haven. His son, known as Dr. John Hull, established himself in the neighboring town of Derby, and was for many years its representative in the General Assembly. Afterwards he went to Wallingford, where he owned a mile square of land, probably granted to him for services rendered as surgeon in King Philips' war. From him are descended General William Hull, and the hero who, with the frigate Constitution, in which he broke the charm of British invincibility on the sea "whose slaughter breathing brass grew hot, and spoke her name among the nations of the earth," is the subject of this paper. Isaac, the eldest of seven sons of Joseph and Sarah Hull, was born at Derby, March 9, 1775, early enough to hear the echoes of the guns fired at Lexington and Concord. His father entered the army as Lieut. of Artillery, and was made prisoner at the capture of Fort Washington. After his exchange in 1778 he was placed in command of a flotilla on Long Island Sound, and did some good sea service for his country. He was a second time captured by the enemy, and was one of the unhappy patriots who suffered martyrdom in a Jersey prison-ship. Isaac as a child was on one occasion out in a boat, when a squall came up suddenly, accompanied by thunder, lightning, and heavy rain. While the other children cried with fright, our little hero laughed and clapped his hands, an incident reminding us of Gray's lines in the "Progress of Poesy:" "Fear, grandmother?" said the hero of Trafalgar, when seven summers old, "fear, grandmother? I never saw fear!" Isaac Hull, at the same age, might have indulged in similar childish prattle. He certainly lived the words of Lord Nelson. His father being dead, he was at an early age adopted by his uncle, General Hull, who wished to educate him with a view to his entering Yale College, where he himself was graduated, in 1772, but the boy's unconquerable passion for the sea made him an unwilling and a somewhat unsuccessful student; and so we find him at fourteen, following the natural bent of his genius and choosing the sea for his field of action. He entered the merchant service, beginning, in accordance with the custom of that time, as a cabin-boy, on a ship belonging to one of Gen. Hull's friends. The vessel was afterwards wrecked, and the captain was saved by the brave young sailor of sixteen. Before he was twenty-one years of age, he was commander of a ship that sailed to the West Indies. He was in this position at the first establishment of the American navy, and so great was the reputation which he had already acquired as a skilful seaman, that he entered the service as fourth lieutenant, his commission being dated March 9, 1798, his twenty-third birthday. Hull saw his first service in our infant navy, under Com. Samuel Nicholson, commanding the Constitution. Two years later, while still serving on board the Constitution, then the flagship of Com. Talbot, the latter accepted a challenge from the captain of an English frigate to engage in a day's trial of speed. Hull, already advanced to the grade of First Lieutenant, sailed "Old Ironsides," and the admirable manner in which he did it was long the subject of eulogy. All hands were kept on deck during the entire day, and, just as the sun disappeared, the Constitution fired her evening gun, the signal that the sailing match was ended. In the race the English frigate was beaten several miles, and her boastful captain lost his cask of wine. The manner in which "Old Ironsides" was handled was entirely due to Hull, whose skill in sailing a ship under canvas was ever remarkable. In this particular he was perhaps the most efficient officer of the American navy, as he certainly had no superior for coolness in the hour of danger. On During the same cruise, Hull manned from the crew of the Constitution a small vessel called the Sally; ran into Port Platte, Hayti, at noonday; boarded and captured a French letter-of-marque known as the Sandwich, while the marines landed and spiked the guns of the battery before the commanding officer could prepare for defence. Taken altogether, it was one of the best executed enterprises of its character in our naval annals. the 18th May, 1804, Lieut. Hull was promoted to the rank of Master-Commanding, and assigned to the brig Argus, which vessel participated in several gallant actions at Tripoli and elsewhere, in the war against the Barbary States, the American squadron being commahded by Com. Edward Preble. Two years later, Hull was made a full captain, and before hostilities began between the United States and England, he was in command of the Constitution in which he was ordered to Europe, to carry specie for the payment of the interest on the debt due to Holland. Having dispatched his business with that government, Hull proceeded to Portsmouth where he remained several days that he might communicate with the American chargé d'affaires, then accredited to the court of St. James. There having been some difficulty while in port about deserters, and two English ships having anchored alongside, the Constitution changed her position for another, to which she was followed by one of the frigates. Capt. Hull, not intending to be caught unprepared like Com. Barron in the Chesapeake, ordered the ship cleared for action. The lanterns were lighted fore and aft, and the men went to quarters by beat of drum. Cooper remarks, "It is not easy to portray the enthusiasm that existed in this noble ship, every officer and man on board believing that the affair of the Chesapeake was to be repeated, so far, at least, as the assault was concerned. The manner in which the crew took hold of the gun-tackles has been described as if they were about to jerk the guns through the ship's sides. An officer who was passing through the batteries observed to the men, that if there was an occasion, to fight, it would be in their quarrel, and that he expected good service from them. "Let the quarter-deck look out for the colors," was the answer, “ and we will look out for the guns." In short, it was not possible for a ship's company to be in better humor to defend the honor of the flag, when the drum beat the retreat, and the boatswain piped the people to the capstan-bars.” The day succeeding the night on which the ship sailed for France several men-of-war were seen in chase. The Constitution outsailed all the ships save one. After leading her a long distance ahead of the others, Capt. Hull hove to, beat to quarters, and waited to learn the Englishman's business, remarking to a lieutenant: "If that fellow wants to fight, we won't disappoint him.". The frigate came close to the Constitution, but no hostilities were offered, and old Ironsides proceeded on her way to Cherbourg. Hull's hour of glory and fame had not yet come. 66 Five days after tardy justice was rendered to American honor by the return of two seamen taken by the Leopard from the deck of the unfortunate frigate Chesapeake, in 1807, war with Great Britain was declared. I should perhaps pause and say a word in reference to the various outrages on our flag which led to the war, and to the timid policy as regards our navy, pursued by Mr. Madison's administration, but, as the chorus to Henry the Fifth very sensibly remarks, "Time, numbers, and due course of things cannot be here presented." At the commencement of hostilities, three-score and eight years ago, we had, in addition to seven frigates, only some fifteen sloops of war and smaller vessels lying in the naval dock yards, with which to cope with England's 1060 sail, eight hundred of which, according to Steel's list of the Royal Navy for 1811-12, were in commission and ranging from cutters carrying four guns up to the line-of-battle ships carrying 120. Against such overwhelming odds did the conflict begin, and so little confidence had the administration in the ability of our vessels to meet the British ships, that, but for the spirited protest of Stewart and Bainbridge, they would have been kept in port to prevent their capture! The English press ridiculed the American navy as consisting of a few fir-built frigates flying at their mast-heads a piece of striped bunting which Britannia would soon sweep from the seas; but a much better judge of such matters-the renowned Nelson-after critically watching the seamanship of Commodore Dale's squadron, said that there was in the handling of those trans-Atlantic ships a nucleus of trouble for the navy of Great Britain. The various apologies for England's naval defeats which soon followed the declaration of war, June 18, 1812, what were they but verifications of her great admiral's predictions? When, in 1803, Louisiana was sold to the United States by Napoleon, he prophetically said, in the bitterness of his thwarted ambition, "I have given to England a maritime rival that will sooner or later humble her pride.' On her return the Constitution went into the Chesapeake, was cleaned |