under his notice. He had an intuitive knowledge of law and unerring judgment, and he possessed the marvellous faculty of straightening out legal complications in which others had failed, and of drawing complicated legal instruments, writing them out in his own hand in such form as to enable his first draft to be immediately executed without requiring an important correction, a faculty which was declared by many of his contemporaries to be possessed by probably no other lawyer at this Bar. For over twenty years before his death Mr. Barlow resided on the corner of Madison Avenue and Twenty-third Street, the house which he owned, and where he entertained royally many of the most prominent men in the country, occupying part of the site now occupied by the Metropolitan Life Building. His son, Peter Townsend Barlow, is serving his second term as one of the magistrates of the City of New York, his appointment to a second term by Mayor Gaynor being one of the last acts of that official." Another early member, one destined to play a prominent part on the stage of Democracy, was Samuel J. Tilden. In the first year of the Club, Mr. Tilden was one of the Managing Committee, his colleagues being: Wm. F. Allen John T. Hoffman Charles O'Conor Douglas Taylor John Van Buren Gulian C. Verplanck Still another well-known member of the Club, in its first year, was Judge Henry Hilton, who, with George W. McLean and Hiram Cranston, formed the first House Committee, whose duty, according to the first Constitution, was to make all necessary purchases for the Club, fix the prices of articles sold in the Club, and, in general, transact its current business and regulate its internal economy. A prominent out-of-town member of this period was Smith M. Weed, of Plattsburg. He long stood at the head of up-State Democratic politics, narrowly missing the United States senatorship on three occasions, and always exercising commanding influence. He is still hale and hearty at the ripe old age of eighty-three. Such was the atmosphere of the Manhattan Club in its old Benkard house days, and such the stalwart and striking figures of early post-bellum Democracy. What these men did for the Club we shall hear in the coming chapters. CHAPTER THE FIFTH 1865-1877 The Old Club-Public Dinners and Receptions-Out-of-town Members provided for-Mortality among the Club Officials-The Club denounces the Use of Troops in Louisiana. HE official history of the Manhattan Club divides itself naturally into two sections, the first section covering the period of the Club's life between the years 1865 and 1877, before it became a corporation; the second section embracing the years from 1877 to 1915, the semi-centennial year of the Club's existence; both of these sections were filled with striking personalities and events. By the Act of Incorporation, sworn to before B. J. Douras, N.P., on February 15, 1877, and signed by John Bigelow, Secretary of State, at Albany, February 20, 1877, the Manhattan Club, as it existed, and the incorporated Manhattan Club, became separate bodies, distinguished in all records thereafter as the "Old Club" and the "New Club." During the whole of its life the "Old Club" made its home in the Benkard house. The early months of the Old Club's life following those already recorded were without incident other than the loss sustained by the death of ex-Governor Washington Hunt, one of its most valued members, in 1867. Governor Hunt is described in the Club annals as "a Christian gentleman." He was a man whose distinguished and successful career in State and National legislatures and as Governor of New York had established the character of ability, stability, and shining integrity. His death at that trying period of American history came as a national as well as a State and Club loss, for as a statesman no less than a clubman he had hosts of friends, won and held by his genial temper and unaffected ways. The matters which now began to engage the attention and interest of the Old Club were, first, its hope of becoming an efficient aid to the Democratic Party; second, its desire to see itself incorporated; third, its troubled financial affairs; and fourth, the growing restlessness of its younger members as to its removal to an up-town club-house. The first of these aims led to the appointment, March 1, 1868, by the President, of a committee of three, with himself as chairman, having power to extend the hospitalities of the Club to the National Democratic Committee, members of the National Democratic Convention, about to assemble, and to other distinguished Democrats who might be present in New York City on the 4th of July of that year. On November 23, 1870, this work was continued by a formal request made to Mr. George Ticknor Curtis that he mature and submit a plan he had suggested for increasing the political efficiency of the Club. This plan, which embraced, among other functions, public dinners and receptions to leading Democrats, began to bear fruit. On the 7th of November, 1873, we find the Club holding a general meeting to arrange for an entertainment, to be given a week later, in honor of Governor Kemper of Virginia and of Governor Allen and Senator Thurman of Ohio; and on May 7, 1874, |