The game of chess is thought to have originated in northern India or Afghanistan. A complex game, it requires the application of strategy and tactics. The version familiar to Europeans and Americans was introduced via Persia to Italy and Spain by abut 1000 AD. It was played largely by the wealthy and leisured classes who could afford the ornate chess sets. Popular interest in the game grew as it evolved, sets became more affordable, and books on chess written by masters were published. Coffee houses attracted players, and the game later gave rise to chess clubs. Interest in chess spread to the American colonies. In 1750 Benjamin Franklin wrote The Morals of Chess in which he tied the game to the cultivation of habits “useful in course of human life” like foresight, circumspection, and caution. Other Revolutionary Era figures who were fond of chess include Thomas Paine, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. The ivory chess set pictured is identical to one owned by George Washington.

Women as well as men played chess. Susannah Jauncey Vardill Willett, the second wife of Colonel Marinus Willett and a star in New York City society, was apparently a good chess player. Though politely denying any talent, she flirtatiously accepted General Tadeusz Kościuszko’s challenge to a game in September of 1797.

It is suffitient to Conquer! generous minds never exult. The victory over General Gates & [von] Stuben, was not superior Play, but their politeness that gave me the superiority at Chess.
To receive a lesson from General Kusciusko, will be doing me a great favor and I am willing to sacrifice my fame as a Chess player if it can possibly contribute to his amusement one half hour—but I must pray his indulgence as I have not been in the habit of playing for many Months. … S.W.

Nancy Shippen Livingston, the subject of several recent posts, always seemed ready for a game. On May 4, she wrote in her Journal Book

… felt dull & stupid all day. Mr Washington drank tea with me in ye Afternoon. We sung, Laugh’d & play’d at Chess. Upon the whole spent the Eveng very merrily.

On 22 September 1784, Nancy’s uncle Arthur Lee wrote her describing a visit to Clermont where he visited with Nancy’s daughter Peggy and played chess with Margaret Beekman Livingston, Peggy’s grandmother.

I beat Mrs. Montgomery at Chess. But it was by laying a trap for her. I made way for her pawn to go to Queen. Allur’d by the brilliancy of the attcheivement, she neglected her poor King, who the very move before she was to make a Queen, was taken prisoner without resource. Tell Tommy [Nancy’s brother] that this is the way to win all or any of your Sex. That to captivate them he must apply, not to their reason or their interest, but to their fancy. He must keep before them constantly an object attractive of that, & he may beguile them of any thing—This my sweet Nancy, you must allow, will win every daughter of our Mother Eve.

On 1 October Nancy noted:

Mr Mercer a delegate of Congress playd chess & drank Tea with me.

On Saturday October 2 Nancy recorded:

Genl Gates called on me this morn’g. I playd with him at Chess, he beat me 2 games to my great mortification.

The chess set can be found here. Susannah Willett’s letter is from In the Words of Women pages 225-26. Nancy Shippen’s comments are from her Journal Book, pages 142, 214, 215, and 216.

Over the years it became clear that the loveless marriage of Nancy Shippen Livingston and Henry Beekman Livingston was doomed. All attempts at reconciliaton failed. Their daughter Peggy was basically raised by her Livingston grandmother, with intervals spent with her mother in Philadelphia.

Nancy received information about Peggy’s appearance and behavior from visitors to Clermont. Her brother Tommy reported: ” … after I had bribed her with Cake and Tea, and with a sight of my red pocketbook which she insisted on being allowed to call hers, she seated herself very much at her ease on my lap & held up her little ruby lips, as often as I wished to kiss them, which was every minute. … ”

Nancy ‘s mother-in-law, Margaret Beekman Livingston dubbed “the Old Lady,” sympathized with her situation: “I often think of you my poor girl, your Mother so situated as she is [she was deeply depressed]—your unhappy Marriage arising from events disagreeable on both sides, your brother absent, yr child at a distance & yr father’s profession by which you must lead a solitary life.”

Nancy kept up a correspondence with Louis Guillaume Otto, the French diplomat she had loved, which undoubtedly enraged her husband, but their relationship appears to be that of friends. Recalled to France, Otto later returned to the United States as chargé d’affaires. He married Eliza Livingston one of Nancy’s friends in New York, related to her husband; Otto was left with a daughter when his wife died in childbirth. In his letters to Nancy he continued to urge her to reconcile with her husband and was careful to say or do nothing that might damage Nancy’s reputation. Eventually Otto married again— his bride was John de Crevecoeur’s daughter Fanny.

Nancy’s effort to seek an “authoriz’d separation” failed. She considered suing for divorce but knew that if it were granted her husband would have custody of their child, and she would probably never be allowed to see her. Neither married nor free, Nancy occupied her time as best she could. She cared for her severely depressed mother. In her Journal Book she noted what she called “a continual round of insipid amusements, & trivial occupations.”

The day employed as usual in domestic affairs, preserving peaches &c. … Had company to Dinner. … I play’d cards … this Even’g till ten oclock. … I went with Mrs Stead … to see some new paintings exquisitely finished. … Worked a little at my needle, read, sang, play’d upon the guitar &c &c in the morn’g gave the necessary orders to the servants. … After dinner prepar’d for the Assembly where I spent a most agreeable Even’g. …

For the year 1791, there is single paragraph in Nancy’s Journal Book written on Christmas Day:

I have considered my life so uninteresting hitherto as to prevent me from continuing my journal & so I shall fill up the remainder with transcriptions—It is certain that when the mind bleeds with some wound of recent misfortune nothing is of equal efficacy with religious comfort. It is of power to enlighten the darkest hour, & to assuage the severest woe, by the relief of divine favor, & the prospect of a blessed immortality. In such hopes the mind expatiates with joy, & when bereaved of its earthly friends, solaces itself with the thoughts of one friend. who will never forsake it.

When Peggy reached age sixteen she left the Livingstons and joined her mother in Philadelphia. Nancy, estranged from her parents, her brother Tommy dead, lived a lonely, quiet life with her daughter. The two sought solace in religion; a large part of the fortune Peggy inherited from her Grandmother Livingston was lost to swindlers. Nancy died in 1841, her daughter in 1865. They are buried in the same grave in the Woodlands Cemetery in Philadelphia.

The quoted material is from Nancy Shippen Livingston’s Journal Book, pages 212, 213, 215, 216, 226, 228, 231, 235, and 294. The portrait of Margaret Beekman Livingston is from the original by Gilbert Stuart, Courtesy of the Frick Art Reference Library and Brigadier General John Ross Delafiel.

Dear readers; you and I need a break from the sad story of Nancy Shippen Livingston. As it is the Fourth of July, some words related to the Declaration of Independence are in order.

John Adams was a member of the committee of the Continental Congress whose task was to draw up a such a declaration. In a letter written on July 3, 1776 to his wife Abigail, he claimed “the greatest Question was decided, which ever was debated in America, and a greater perhaps, never was or will be decided among Men.” The committee had written “a Declaration setting forth the Causes, which have impell’d Us to this mighty Revolution, and the Reasons which will justify it, in the Sight of God and Man. …” He added: “I am apt to believe that [July 2] will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

In a letter of July 21 Abigail described to her husband how Boston had received the Declaration.

Last Thursday after hearing a very Good Sermon I went with the Multitude into Kings Street to hear HGH the proclamation for independance read and proclamed. Some Field peices with the Train were brought there, the troops appeard under Arms and all the inhabitants assembled there (the small pox prevented many thousand from the Country). When Col. Crafts read from the Belcona of the State House the Proclamation, great attention was given to every word. As soon as he ended, the cry from the Belcona, was God Save our American States and then 3 cheers which rended the air, the Bells rang, the privateers fired, the forts and Batteries, the cannon were discharged, the platoons followed and every face appeard joyfull. … After dinner the kings arms were taken down from the State House and every vestage of him from every place in which it appeard and burnt in King Street. Thus ends royall Authority in this State, and all the people shall say Amen.

To clarify, Congress adopted a resolution for independence on July 2, and after two days of debate adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4.

Letters from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 2 and 3 July 1776; letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, 13 – 14 July 1776, Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive. They can be found at the Massachusetts Historical Society. The engraving (1782) of the first public reading of the Declaration is by Edward Barnard; it is at the Library Company of Philadelphia.

Nancy Shippen Livingston was advised to return to her husband with their child Peggy in the hope that when he saw her he would relent and try to make a success of their marriage. Nancy traveled to Clermont, the home of her husband’s mother, Margaret Beekman Livingston, where she was warmly welcomed. Henry had written to his mother and she read a passage from the letter to Nancy who wrote: “[H]e continues Obdurate—will not come & see me & his dear infant—continues to repeat his false suspicions & and to be jealous of me.” She noted that “his Mother thinks him unalterable in his resolutions—& that it will be impossible to live happily with him.” Nancy wrote to her husband:

… I am sorry to find in you a disposition so very unfavorable, & so repugnant to every Idea of future peace & comfort together. It is in the
affliction of my soul I often repeat to myself the question what am I to expect from returning into the immediate power & possession of a man, who can manifest at the present so ungracious a temper? … All that is now dear to you, I leave with you; But what in this case will be your greatest happiness, will be to me, in the pangs of parting & continued separation, unspeakable Anguish. Yet I will not envy you I will rejoice in this at least that there will always be one dear Centre where our affections will meet & that under the care of an affec[tiona]te & prudent Grandmother, this one precious fruit of our otherwise unhappy connection, will be trained up to be an honor & a comfort to you.

Nancy returned to her parents in Philadelphia and confessed in her Journal:

I have been in such a state of misery since I left my beloved Child I have not been able to continue my journal. Alass! how shall I paint my sufferings at & since that dreadfull moment that I parted with my beloved baby! I will not, I cannot attempt it—I will only say that I have never known a happy moment since—O! what a sacrifice! but it was for her—therefore let me try to be resign’d—

In September of 1783 Nancy received a letter from her mother-in-law letting her know how the child was.

[S]he is in perfect health, pleased with every thing, and every Body. No person especially Gentlemen enters the Room, but she goes to them and says upe, and sits on their Lap and begins a conversation intirely her own. But her favorite one is her baby that ingroces all her time and all her care, next to the Harpsichord of which she is Extreamly fond. Her looks are much improved, having grown quite fat. To be short, for I dare not trust myself when speaking or writing of this dear Child, I will only ad that she is the sweetest and best tempered Child in the world, and as happy as an Angel, when the weather is fine to run about the Garden with her cousin betsey who is very fond of her. …

Excerpts are from Nancy Shippen’s Journal Book, pages 157, 159, and 160. The image of Henry Beekman Livingston can be found here.