Jeannette’s new husband was born in New York city in 1846, the son of the steamship owner, Isaac Bell (1814–1897), and Adelaide Bell (née Mott, 1828–1901).13Jeannette’s two brothers-in-law were Louis Valentine Bell (1853–1925) and Edward Bell (1860–1902). Her sister-in-law Olivia (1855-1894) married James L. Barclay (d. 1893) The Bell and Mott families had impeccable historical credentials as very early colonists. In the second half of the nineteenth century, pedigree was a key element in acceptance into high society. Their ancestor Isaac Bell joined the New Haven colony in 1640. What is not now clear is whether any of the family’s ships had been directly involved in transporting enslaved people from West Africa to the Caribbean or to the southern American states’ plantations. Jeannette’s mother-in-law’s father, Dr. Valentine Mott (1785–1865), had been a prominent American surgeon who had achieved eminence by his appointment as court surgeon to King Louis-Philippe of France, the Orleanist parliamentary monarch overthrown in the revolution of 1848. Did Jeannette’s mother’s reputed links with the Orleans family while in Paris stretch to some link with Dr. Mott? The claim that Isaac Bell was present at the naming ceremony of the Jeannette, if true, would indicate they had met in France, by accident or design, and both sailed back to New York on board the Saint-Laurent – with Bennett Jnr playing gooseberry!
What is known is that Jeannette’s husband had attended Harvard University in 1866 and 1867, but left – without graduating – to become a successful cotton trader. He was also to be – another link between the Bennett and Bell families – one of the key investors in the Commercial Cable Company, founded in 1884 by J. Gordon Bennett Jnr., with John Mackay, with a view to breaking the transatlantic cable monopoly held by Jay Gould (1836-92), the American railroad magnate and financial speculator, one of the “robber barons” of the Gilded Age. The new cable company was thus made financially possible, not unusually for the time, by money that had links to the cotton plantations formerly worked by enslaved peole, and allowed Bennett Junior to found his international edition of the Herald in Paris in 1887, the beginning of the international press.
The 1880s did not begin well for Jeannette. Her Irish grandmother, Eleanor Crean, who had emigrated to America from Dublin with her three children in the late 1830s, died in New York and was buried in the Bennett family plot in Greenwood cemetery. Jeannette turned 25 that same year and was able to regain control of her finances relating to her father’s will. Her money allowed her and Isaac, in 1881, to begin building a summer “cottage” in Newport, Rhode Island, the summer holiday resort of New York society seeking a change of air from the humidity of New York summers — to engage in yachting regattas and other, land-based, social activities. The cottage was completed within a couple of years.
By the 1880s Newport had taken over from Saratoga (NY) and its spa and ‘cures’ as the place to go. Whereas Saratoga at an earlier period had been very masculine in tone (including horseracing and trotting), not to say ‘louche’, meaning the demi-monde and liaisons were condoned, Newport was dominated by different values.14A. de Courcy, Husband Hunters, 2017. The season, beginning in July with its daily social round of conspicuous consumption, was as formal as the French Orleans and Imperial courts had been in France, which her mother Henrietta would have described to Jeannette as she grew up. Her mother and father had, during their grand tour of Europe been “presented at the court of Louis Philippe”, the Orleanist monarch, in January 184715Dictionary of American Biography, entry on James Gordon Bennett Snr.. The gatekeeper of New England high society, Mrs. Astor, with her social advisor and “arbiter of social taste”, Ward McAllister, made Newport fashionable and feminine16Her father Abraham Schermerhorn, like his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, was a commander and owner of shipping vessels trading between New York City and Charleston, South Carolina. They were related to the Beekman family also in New York from the seventeenth century. Both families were connected to enslavement. (see Edgar J. McManus, A History of Negro Slavery in New York, We are told that among the diaries, personal correspondence, and business records which contain information on the operation of enslavement, the following are the most important: the Bancker Papers, Beekman Papers, De Peyster Papers, Warren papers … page 201. The Beekman papers (Box 32) also contain letters from Schermerhorn (p.62 note 11).
On page 34, McManus wites that most slave holders were small farmers and petty artisans who had to buy and sell according to economic need. Enslaved people were sold to liquidate estates for the benefit of heirs, to satisfy the claims of creditors and often just to turn a profit on the transaction. The prevalent attitude was that there was nothing invidious about turning a profit, for the moral right of the owner to sell his slaves for any reason was universally recognized. The numerous newspaper advertisements of enslaved people for sale provide convincing evidence that the traffic of enslaved people was very broadly based.
Pages 5-6: Dutch settlers in New York from 1648 were permitted by the West India Company (having adopted enslavement as an instrument of colonization) to trade directly with Angola, one of the great sources of the African enslavement trade. Angola exported large numbers of the enslaved each year to all the American colonies. The plan was to send their farm produce to Angola and “to convey African people back home to be employed in the cultivation of their lands” to promote agriculture and create increased demand for enslaved people (see also O’Callaghan ed. Voyage of the Slavers). The demand for the enslaved labour was always greater than the supply, for the brutal "seasoning" process took a frightful toll.
Among the earliest examples of enslavement in America was in 1652 when the Dutch Privateer De Raaf, under French lettres de marque seized sixty-four Africans from a Spanish "slaver" and sold them at New Amsterdam. Steady importation of enslaved people stabilized the economy, after 1640 agriculture had begun to expand. The fur trade took secondary place to agriculture as farming gained the ascendancy. Enslaved people provided the labor and profits for the settlers. Enslaved labor was especially important in agricultural development of the Hudson Valley [so from New York northwards]. It was claimed that the New Netherlands slavery system was “as mild as the realities of chattel slavery allowed” [whatever such justifications mean in practice] and that “the pragmatic Dutch regarded it as an economic expedient, never a social organization or race control.” Similarly, “neither the West India Company nor the settlers endorsed the specious theories of black-skinned people's inferiority used in other places to justify the system”.2. In 1871 these two had launched a new structure of American high society, based on exclusion/inclusion – in concrete terms, a calling card from Mrs. Astor was the ‘open sesame’17Mrs. William Backhouse Astor Jnr., the Mrs. Astor, led a group known as The Four Hundred, a list of New York society during the Gilded Age, for many years. She was born Caroline Webster Schermerhorn, and so married into the same class of original Dutch New Amsterdam/New York aristocracy. A. de Courcy, Husband Hunters, pp. 119-123. The summer decamping to Newport became a regular part of New York society ritual. Its original nine rental residences, “Cliff Cottages” and a nearby luxury hotel, plus the Reading Room club, were the centre-pieces of the six-week summer stay. The wealthiest families built their own ‘cottage’ mansions. Enormous amounts of money were spent on these new summer residences, the most by the Vanderbilt family in building “The Breakers”, which, through its French-trained architect Richard Morris Hunt and its interior decoration and furnishing in French 18th century design by Parisian cabinet-makers, decorator and art dealer Jules Allard et fils (Paris), became much copied in America and the model for how the nation historically came to imagine a ‘French’ interior18Jules Allard and Sons - Wikipedia. By 1881 the Newport Casino sports club had been built by Jeannette’s brother as a rival to the Reading Room. Bennett Jnr had, in 1879, purchased land on Bellevue Avenue including the mansion he enlarged and redecorated as ‘Stone Villa’.
Isaac had bought lots on Bellevue Avenue very close to ‘Stone Villa’ and called in her brother-in-law’s architects, the McKim, Mead, and White Company, to design his second home. The company were known in Newport for designing Bennett Jnr’s Newport Casino sporting club and his summer ‘cottage, and later his new Herald offices in Manhattan (finished in 1895). They also designed Boston Public Library and the famous ‘Penn’ Station in New York. The Bell House is now the property of the Preservation Society of Newport, and meticulously restored19Since the 1960s, the Preservation Society of Newport County have bought about 10 Gilded Age “Cottages”, including the Vanderbilt family’s “The Breakers”.. It was of interest since it represented a change in architectural style and internal decoration from the Breakers’ neo-classical French style. A recent study examines how this firm tried to create a new American architectural style, which would fashion a nation. The “brash young White [who] brought an artistic flair to the firm's evolving Beaux-Arts style”, along with their interior designer Joseph T. Wells were taking the style of houses of the rich away from Versaillesque and more than half-way towards Frank Lloyd Wright or C. Rennie Mackintosh, and from marble to wood. The Bell house began as a typical summer resort house with asymmetric summer porches. But the Bells’ decision to live in the house all year round led McKim, Mead and White to “enclose it more and tighten it into a box form”, shingle clad, with “interiors elaborately done in the Aesthetic style”20M. Broderick, Triumvirate: McKim, Mead & White, 2010, pp. 164-165..
The combined funds of Jeannette and Isaac Bell afforded them leisure time and allowed Isaac’s interest in a political career in Rhode Island to take root. The couple had 3 children by the time the house was well under way in the spring of 1882. The day began in Newport with some riding, which held no fears for Jeannette, who had followed the hounds in England in 1877-78. Mid-morning meant a change to day dress, possibly signing in at the Casino to signal one’s arrival to friends, a very Bennett-Jnr facility. Bathing was possible for ladies in a full-skirted costume, others might opt for the new sport of tennis, in pleated skirts and black stockings, and a decorous hat against the sun. Then, at 3 p.m. punctually, in imitation of the French 2nd Empire’s carriage parade around the lac central in the Bois de Boulogne, the top set would follow Mrs. Astor and the Vanderbilts (including young children) in a dress parade of carriages going at snail’s pace for two hours up and down Bellevue Avenue in what was generally regarded as a tedious, but obligatory ritual, possibly even by most of those leading it, its function being to demonstrate and maintain the social hierarchy – one could never overtake the carriage of a social superior, nor out-dress them, reports de Courcy, a most entertaining source for upper class mores of Gilded Age Newport and New York. The grandest equipage was that of Mrs. August Belmont, she assues us. In the evening, at the height of the season, in Newport’s dinners, ‘cotillons’ or fancy-dress balls, it has been said there were more dresses on show by the Paris designer Worth than anywhere else in America other than New York. As de Courcy remarks, it was a society designed by women for women; a husband was hardly needed except to pay the bills21Husband Hunters, see pp. 120-127. For the nouveaux riches, to break into New York society, you first had to crack Newport.
Life was not without its setbacks for Jeannette. In 1882, after several months of winter with no news of the Arctic exploration ship Jeannette, different sources gradually confirmed that a tragedy had occurred: the ship had been trapped in the ice, crushed and 20 men out of a total crew of 33 were dead. The tone in which it was reported in the newspapers, some said, stripped the dead men of their dignity. Jeannette must at the very least to have been embarrassed by it22News got back to Bennett in 1882 that one group had been saved since September 1881, the implications being others were dead. Through 1882-83, tasteless reporting by one journalist in particular caused a public sensation in the US, and outrage in government circles. Naval and Congressional investigations were held in attempts to negate the effect of the revelations. A tragedy had certainly occurred, however. Twenty men from a total of 33 had died in the most distressing circumstances, yet those men were stripped of their dignity and their enterprise ended in a public squabble..
However, by 1884, (now aged 30) Jeannette’s place in society seemed assured when she was received at a ball attended by the highest rank of New York society people, the Astors, the Roosevelts, the Goelets, the Vanderbilts, the Belmonts, the Lorillards and so on23“Society at a Ball. … given by Mrs. Marshall O. Roberts at her residence, No. 107, Fifth Avenue, which was attended by the highest rank of society people in the city.” At the top of the guest list in the New York Times report were Mrs. William Astor, Miss Carrie Astor, … Mr. and Mrs. Lorillard, Mr. and Mrs. John Jay, Gen. and Mrs. Webb, … Ward McAllister, Mrs. Paran Stevens and other names Roosevelt, Renselaar, W. C. Schermerhorn, Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton Fish, Bowdoin, Mr. and Mrs. Iselin, Townsend, Vanderbilt, Belmont, until we come to Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Bell. New York Times, January 31, 1884.. She had been accepted. She and the rest of New York high society – the leaders of which were the wives and widows of the founding families – had had to learn how to survive links to plantation owners or how to accommodate one way or another to associations with slavery money. Southern cotton and tobacco fields were not visible in New England and it was in poor taste to talk about it. Mrs. Astor (old money) had to accept Alva Vanderbilt (new money), from a Mobile Alabama plantation family into the Winter Ball of March 1883, after a strategic wedding of the latter’s daughter into British aristocracy. Mrs. Astor was from a wealthy family who were part of New York City ‘aristocracy’, descendants of the city's original Dutch settlers. Her extended Schermerhorn family earned their money from shipping and appear connected to slavery24Her father Abraham Schermerhorn, like his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, was a commander and owner of shipping vessels trading between New York City and Charleston, South Carolina. They were related to the Beekman family also in New York from the seventeenth century. Both families were connected to slavery. (see Edgar J. McManus, A History of Negro Slavery in New York, Among the diaries, personal correspondence, and business records which contain information on the operation of slavery, the following are the most important: the Bancker Papers, Beekman Papers, De Peyster Papers, Warren papers … page 201. The Beekman papers (Box 32) also contain letters from Schermerhorn, p. 62 note 11
page 34 of ‘History of Negro Slavery in New York’ Most slave holders were small farmers and petty artisans who had to buy and sell according to economic need. Slaves were sold to liquidate estates for the benefit of heirs, to satisfy the claims of creditors and often just to turn a profit on the transaction. There was nothing invidious about turning a profit, for the moral right of the owner to sell his slaves for any reason was universally recognized. The numerous newspaper advertisements of slaves for sale provide convincing evidence that the traffic of slave was very broadly based. (p. 34)
p.5-6 Dutch settlers in New York from 1648 were permitted by the West India Company (having adopted slavery as an instrument of colonization) to trade directly with Angola. One of the great sources of the African slave trade, Angola exported large numbers of slaves each year to all the American colonies. The plan was to send their farm produce to Angola and “to convey Negroes back home to be employed in the cultivation of their lands” to promote agriculture and crate increased demand for slaves. But the plan failed because the principal demand was for negroes who had been “seasoned” on the West Indian plantations. Slaves fresh from their African homeland were difficult to control – “proud and treacherous” – as one New Netherlander described them. The few who were imported generally turned out to be unsatisfactory to most users of labor. Indeed, African slaves did not remain in the colony for very long. The cargo … was reshipped to the plantation colonies where the demand for Africans was greater. … Most slaves transported to New Netherland came from Curacao, the principal slave entrepôt of the Ditch in the West Indies (see O’Callaghan ed. Voyage of the Slavers). The demand for the slaves was always greater than the supply, for the brutal seasoning process took a frightful toll.
In 1652 the Dutch Privateer De Raaf, under French letters of marque. Seized sixty-four Negroes from a Spanish slaver and sold them at New Amsterdam. Steady importation of slaves stabilized the economy, after 1640 agriculture began to expand. The fur trade took secondary place to agriculture as farming gained the ascendancy. Slaves provided the labor and profitable for the settlers. Slave labor was especially important in agricultural development of the Hudson Valley. for about as much as annual wages of a free worker. compared to free workers’ annual. The New Netherlands slavery system was as mild as the realities of chattel slavery allowed. There was none of the mutual hatred of the sort that brutalized slave relations in other colonies. The pragmatic Dutch regarded it as an economic expedient, never a social organization or race control. Neither the West India Company nor the settlers endorsed the specious theories of Negro inferiority used in other places to justify the system. Free negros were truly free in New Netherlands..
On the brighter side, Isaac Bell Jnr, increasingly active in Democratic politics, was appointed by President Cleveland to serve as U.S. Minister [Ambassador] to the Netherlands, serving from June 8, 1885 – April 29, 1888. This meant, as Ambassador, he spent much of his three-year mission in The Hague, with the trips to Washington, and summer holidays in Newport. It is unconfirmed how much time Jeannette spent in the Netherlands, but the expectation would be that the Ambassador be accompanied by his wife at major functions. And her husband’s position gave her correspondingly higher status. What could go wrong now?
Well, probably the worst that could have happened: in January 1889, unexpectedly, husband Isaac caught typhoid fever, complicated by septicemia, and within two weeks was dead, leaving her a widow, aged 34, with three children aged from 6 to 9 years. It is likely that her in-laws now had control of at least some of their son’s finances and property. There is, it has to be said, no evidence to think they were anything other than a support in her grief.
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