Excerpt from Chapter 8, Young Sarah Meets President James Monroe
Sarah, called Sallie by her family, traveled in the winter of 1824 with her father Major Ridge, her brother John Ridge, and a Cherokee tribal delegation to Washington City (as it was then called) to negotiate with leaders the federal government. She was twelve or thirteen years old, but in those days that age was considered a young woman. They roomed at Tennison's Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue near the President's House (later called the White House).
By then she had received years of schooling with the missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions at Brainard school located in the Cherokee Nation and with the German-speaking Moravian missionaries at Springplace, some 50 miles from her home in northwest Georgia.
These four or so months in the city were pivotal to her life in many ways. Her father was seeking to further Sallie's education at the Quaker Friends School. While—factually—there is record of her presence, in the novel I show through her young eyes her time there learning the pleasures, perils, and pitfalls of a Cherokee girl in the white man's world. Her father ordered a new wardrobe sewn for Sallie, and a teacher from the Friends School came often to the hotel to tutor her.
President Monroe regularly held Wednesday evening receptions—soirees—in the oval reception room, then called the Elliptical Saloon and currently known as the Blue Room. People from all walks of life attended. Although there is no record of Sallie's presence, the Cherokee delegates were regularly invited to attend and I let Sallie go along one evening.
Oh, what splendor she saw!
Please enjoy this excerpt from Chapter 8, Eagles & a Raven, page 50:
She [Sallie] fiddled with the tiny red ribbon that circled the neckline of her undyed muslin day dress. She'd picked this simple one to wear because Father and John said they'd remain in the hotel today writing letters and securing arrangements for meetings with the Secretary of War and the Secretary of State, the man with the three names: John Quincy Adams. The Cherokee delegation would also be invited to present their credentials to Mr. James Monroe, Our Father the President.
Tomorrow, her father told her, the delegation hoped to go to the War Department building down past the President's House to meet Secretary Calhoun. But, come Wednesday, the dressmaker would return to fit Sallie's new dresses so she could accompany Father and John to Mrs. Monroe's evening soiree at the President's House! She would wear the saffron yellow silk gown under her dark green pelisses cloak, and her green silk slippers. Lucinda would braid her hair with ribbons and Sallie would wear her yellow velvet bonnet!
~~~
Sallie removed one glove and ran her hand across the crimson silk cushion of the sofa on which she perched, letting her fingers follow the embroidered eagle centered within a border of green laurel leaves. Threads of gold—a true gold and a rose gold—built up the image to where it seemed to Sallie that the eagle might fly. A golden flying eagle!
From now on when I see an eagle in the sky, she promised herself, I will remember this night at the President's House.
She looked up. No eagle flew amid the glittering chandeliers where beeswax candles flickered, but the ceiling was so high one could, she supposed. With walls that curved! She had never imagined a round room, though John corrected her saying it was but a half-round room named the Elliptical Saloon. Red velvet draperies bordered with loops of gold tassels fell across tall windows.
Just then a tall man leaned over her. "Why Miss Sallie. You have truly blossomed into a young lady since last we met." No eagle he.
"Our friend, The Raven," her father said in Cherokee as Sam Houston, now a congressman from Tennessee, lifted Sallie's ungloved hand and kissed it.
Smiling, she jumped up unladylike. Her glove fell to the floor. The Raven bent to pick it up and bowed to her when he placed it in her hand. Surrounded in the tall room by tall men, Sallie wriggled her fingers into her glove and busied herself buttoning the wrist, listening, glancing at the long-haired Raven as he spoke, his hands gesturing and blue eyes flickering, his cheeks flushed with enthusiasm . . . or perhaps the rosiness of rum. From his visits and tribal stories Sallie knew him by his Cherokee name, Colonneh, the Raven. The storytellers sometimes used his other name, Ootsetee Ardeetahske, the Big Drunk.
Continuing his conversation with her father and John, Houston said, "I told my friend Congressman John Randolph of Roanoke, that you, John, reminded me of himself. You and Major Ridge here are not inferior to the white man in thought or action. Note those around us . . . "
Sallie cringed as a stream of amber landed in a spittoon near the end of the sofa. A purported gentleman with slick-oiled hair chewed vigorously, his dirty white collar buffeted by tobacco-stained chin whiskers. Next to him stood another man who had failed to wipe his boots and left clods of mud on the polished floor.
Earlier the room seemed regal, the ladies wearing gowns of colors Sallie never imagined as they stood beside their husbands: the secretaries of the government, the consuls and foreign ministers. But most had departed, as had John Ross and Elijah Hicks.
When her brother presented her upon their arrival, Sallie shook hands with President Monroe and his attractive daughter Mrs. Eliza Monroe Hay, receiving for her mother who, John had whispered earlier, was often infirm. Sallie thought Our Father the President a distinguished man and knew he was sympathetic to the Cherokee cause. Mr. Secretary Three-named Adams introduced the council members all around and inquired of the purpose of her accompanying the party to the Capitol city, to which she replied in precise words—hoping no tinge of German edged in—of her expectation for enrollment in the Quaker Friends School.
"So, John, how goes the ofttimes-turbulent process of requesting governmental appointments?" Houston asked.
Sallie noticed the muddy-boot man easing closer between her brother and Houston.
John, too, saw the eavesdropper slipping in and answered in Cherokee, "A great success thus far. We'll be received in two days by the President."
Sallie sighed. Now she could listen more easily. . . .
~~~
Sallie learned so very much of life while in Washington City. When she returns home to northwest Georgia, the perils and pitfalls for her nation continue.
South Front of the President’s House
Creator: James Hoban, 1818
(Credit: Library of Congress)
From: The White House Historical Association:
Not only did the Monroes add a French flavor to the interior of the White House, but they also left their mark on the exterior. The South Portico, or porch, was added in 1824. James Hoban's design for the portico used stone quarried in Maryland and called for two staircases. The South Portico is one of the defining architectural features of the White House today.
https://www.whitehousehistory.org/photos/south-portico-drawing