... Not long after this, when I was still a very small boy, I went to pay a visit to my Aunt Margaret Salter, who lived in West Fourteenth Street, near Sixth Avenue. Aunt Margaret was the wife of Commodore William Dayton Salter, of the United States navy. She was a dear soul; I have never known any one more kind and generous. She was highly educated, fond of reading and, like all my uncles and aunts, an excellent talker. Aunt Margaret told me that when she was with my father, Aunt Rose, and Uncle Charles, she heard the best and most amusing conversation of her life. As she spoke beautiful French, she made herself very agreeable to the foreign visitors whom she entertained at the Brooklyn Navy Yard when her husband was commandant. While he was at sea she lived either in New York or Elizabeth. General Winfield Scott lived in Elizabeth and was a great friend of my aunt's. I believe they were the last couple in America who could dance the minuet. The general was an enormous man, about six feet four, and large in proportion, always very kind, polite, and stately. I used often to meet him going up the river on the Mary Powell and have a little chat with him. ... [more]
