Notorious Woman: The Celebrated Case of Myra Clark Gaines

VII. A Most Unusual Woman

VII A Most Unusual Woman In the early 18405 Washington was a struggling small town, "unlike any other that was ever seen." One English visitor compared the United States capital to a Potemkin village—a "card-board city" that when Congress recessed was "taken down and packed up again til wanted." The large number of temporary structures built to house transients created the impression that everyonewas a bird of passage in Washington. Congress and the diplomatic corps rarely stayed after the legislative sessions ended, and even the clerks and other government officials were "mere lodgers." The climate appalled visitors; "nine days out of ten" it was "simply detestable ." Rain turned the unpaved streets into "sloughs of liquid mud"; during the dry season, clouds of dust enveloped the same thoroughfares. Pennsylvania Avenuewas the closest approximation to a real street. Lined with rows of houses, the avenue led from the Capitol to the White House. These two buildingswere, in the opinion of one German visitor, the "only two specimens of architecture in the whole town, the rest being merely hovels."1 The capital's two newest transients were General Edmund Pendleton Gaines and his bride, already notable as the "heroine of a prolonged and interesting lawsuit." The earliest physical descriptions of the new Mrs. Gaines come from the Washington dowagers, who generally approved of i. Ellet, Court Circles of the Republic, 581-3; Francis J. Grund, Aristocracy in America: From the Sketchbook of a German Nobleman (1839; reprint, New York: Harper & Row, 1959), 119. A Most Unusual Woman 157 her. She "is of medium height," declared one, "slender but well-rounded in form. Her brown hair is thick and clustered with curls. Her eyes are dark and brilliant, her complexion fair and clear. Her features are regular and she is beautiful beyond criticism. Full of life and animation, fresh in feeling and impulse, with a store of information and a mind well-cultivated , possessing rich humor and spirit with manners cordial, piquant, and winning, she is a universal favorite in society, and has a court of gentlemen about her wherever she moves." Another matron reported her meeting with General Gaines and his "tiny, frisky wife." The "pompously stately" general always appeared in public in full uniform, "epaulettes, sword, and what not"; his wife, "all smiles and ringlets and flounces," hung upon his arm "like a pink silk reticule."2 If Myra Gaines pleased Washington society, Washington society in turn pleased Myra. She wrote General Whitney that she had "received much kindness from strangers as well as public officers and other acquaintances ." Public opinion, she believed, was decidedly "in our favor." Congressmen from both parties "took a quiet interest in the matter [her lawsuits] . . . and cordially wish for our success." Myra met presidentelect William Henry Harrison at a ball given before his inauguration. She could not help boasting in the hearing of "a number of ladies and gentlemen ," that General Harrison regretted that he did not dance, "else he would select me for his partner in preferenceto all others." But such flattery meant little, and Myra revealed what was truly important to her in her response. She would have "appreciated the compliment much more highly if he had desired me to name a friend for one of the appointments to be made by him and promised to support whoever I might recommend." Perhaps she had in mind a future vacancy on the Supreme Court.3 Myra had quickly discovered that Washington society gossip centered around patronage. General Gaines's refusal to identify with any political party limited the extent of his influence in the power struggles of Washington politics. The general was, in his wife's words, not a "Party man," and his recommendations met with less attention than those of men subject to party discipline. Myra had hoped to aid the Whitney family by obtaining •L. Wharton, Social Life in the Early Republic, 187;Ellet, Court Circles of the Republic , 563; Eliza Moore Chinn McHatton Ripley, Social Life in Old New Orleans: Being Recollections of My Girlhood (1911; reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1975), 170. 3. Myra Clark Gaines to General JoshuaWhitney, Feb. 18, 1841, and Dec. 31, 1841; Myra Clark Gaines to Virgil Whitney, Feb. 6,1841, all in JoshuaWhitney Papers,Broome County Historical Society,Binghamton, New York. 158 Notorious Woman an appointment to West Point for one of Virgil Whitney's sons (her nephew by her first marriage).Since...