In the course of time a few Tammany men became members, Peter B. Sweeny (called by his enemies “the spider of Tammany politics"), A. Oakey Hall, and John T. Hoffman representing the organization. Oakey Hall was noted for a certain elegance of dress as well as for literary attainments. A celebrated member was George Ticknor Curtis, the biographer of Webster. Quite clerical in appearance, austere and dark, he was yet thought to resemble August Belmont. He was highly cultivated and ready as a speaker. Horatio Seymour, Andrew H. Green (remarked for his Lord Brougham nose), John T. Agnew, General McClellan, "Uncle Sam" Ward, and "Winter Garden" Stuart were other early members. At the club-house, also, were to be seen General Hancock, Hon. George H. Pendleton, Gulian C. Verplanck, ex-President Franklin Pierce, and ex-President James Buchanan. The only member reputed a Republican was Thurlow Weed. "No. 96," gossip said, saw many of the leading events of that day concocted in its club-rooms. It was declared that Seymour and Blair were nominated there in conclave, and that there Vanderbilt and Belmont talked of more than whist. It was from the Manhattan that the "Commodore" despatched the message to the judge who had sent for him, that he could not come because "he was too far behind the game. It was at "No. 96" likewise that the sensational BatemanCranston incident occurred. H. L. Bateman, the father of the famous actress, Kate Bateman, and both her manager and that of Parepa Rosa, disregarding club rules, introduced a friend. Hiram Cranston, proprietor of the New York Hotel, at that time on the House Committee, forbade an attendant serving Mr. Bateman and his guest, with the result that the manager made a personal attack on him, and then offered his resignation. The governors of the Club, however, refused to accept it, and expelled him. CHAPTER THE FOURTH The Old Benkard House-Recollections of Mr. Lyons-"Uncle Dave" Gilbert and General Martin T. McMahon-Wilder Allen, the Practical Joker. T was in 1869 that Mr. Julius J. Lyons joined the Manhattan Club. One of the first things he was told was that he should have joined a few months earlier, for then he would have had the pleasure of enjoying the nightly sessions of a very entertaining group of prominent men of the day,-Frank Work, Horace F. Clark, Richard Schell, Ben Wood, Hiram Cranston, William Turnbull,-who, on winter evenings, were in the habit of gathering about the blazing logs in the great open fireplace of the front parlor of the Benkard house, old Commodore Vanderbilt himself leading the conversation. As it was, Mr. Lyons found in the Club much lively company and many striking characters, men of the sixties, among them Judge Henry Wilder Allen, then secretary of the Club and a great practical joker, Mr. Lyons being his victim on the occasion of the comparison between the Club's and Delmonico's ice-cream. Another early member was Simon Sterne, political econ |