Appendix E: Biographies

Eastwick

Andrew McCalla Eastwick (14 September 1810 – 8 February 1879; see Image 233) was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He “attended the public schools until his twelfth year,” then took a job and went to night school.1 After first working “in a machine shop,” he went to work for Philip Garrett, a Philadelphia locomotive builder, where he was shortly made foreman, and at twenty-one became a partner.2 On 12 April 1832, he married Lydia Ann James (14 February 1815 – 15 December 1890; see Image 234), daughter of Maria (Quicksall) James (1793–1855) and John T. James (1780–1832).3 In 1835, the firm of Garrett and Eastwick took on as foreman Joseph Harrison Jr. (see Image 226), who in 1837 became a partner.4 On Garrett’s retirement in 1839, “the firm was reorganized as Eastwick and Harrison.”5

Harrison, as is explained in the Winans and Harrison family biographies in this Appendix, was invited to Russia in early 1843 to bid for the contract to build the locomotives and rolling stock for the St. Petersburg–Moscow Railway. He went without Eastwick, met Thomas DeKay Winans (see Image 229) on route, and together with him bid successfully for the contract. Their new firm was called Harrison, Winans and Eastwick. Once the contract was signed, “Eastwick closed down entirely the American operation, thereby ending the existence of Eastwick and Harrison,” and set out for Russia, “bringing with him tools and instruments from his factory.”6

Eastwick was issued a U.S. passport (no. 1857) in Washington, DC, on 6 March 1844, and another (no. 959) for himself and a son, who, family letters show, was his eldest son, Edward Peers Eastwick (12 January 1833 – 1926; see Image 235)7 in London, where he was made the bearer of dispatches to St. Petersburg.8 Mrs. Harrison and the two Harrison children were under Eastwick’s care on the boat to England, where they were entrusted to Joseph Harrison Jr. (see 226–227).9 Andrew and Edward Eastwick arrived in St. Petersburg on 22 May 1844.10 Their living quarters were in a house that they shared with the Harrisons at the Alexandrofsky Head Mechanical Works (see 223–225). Andrew Eastwick made the acquaintance of John Stevenson Maxwell, secretary of the American Legation, on 24 May 1844.11 In September 1844, Eastwick learned that his wife had given birth to a stillborn daughter, Julia, on 12 August 1844.12 Once Lydia Eastwick recovered, she decided she would come to Russia with their remaining children (see Images 236–237). Her mother, whom both she and Andrew Eastwick hoped would join them in Russia, decided not to do so because of her age. Encouraged by Andrew Eastwick to bring a governess with her to Russia, Lydia Eastwick was unable to persuade a Miss Valance, one of the children’s school teachers, to accept the position13; however, a Miss Anna G. Melish, a Scotswoman and a friend of Miss Valance’s, who seemed very qualified, agreed to go with her and the children.14 The group departing the United States consisted of Mrs. Lydia Ann (James) Eastwick; the five other Eastwick children: Joseph Harrison, known as Hass (2 or 3 December 1834 – 15 February 1917), Charles James (27 October 1836 – 31 May 1908), Philip Garrett (18 June 1838 – 1 February 1905),15 Margaret (1840–1862), and Maria James (11 August 1842 – 1926), all described by R.G. Fairbanks as “beautiful”;16 and Miss A.G. Melish, their governess. Lydia Eastwick was issued a U.S. passport (no. 2785) for the group in Washington, DC, on 4 February 1845.17 She and her charges reached London on 27 April 1845 and were met by Andrew Eastwick.18 Two U.S. passports were issued in London for St. Petersburg on 9 June 1845: one to Mrs. Eastwick and children (no. 1638), the other to Miss Melish (no. 1640).19 Andrew Eastwick was issued passport no. 1639 and made the bearer of dispatches.20 They arrived in St. Petersburg sometime in June 1845 and took up quarters at the Alexandrofsky Head Mechanical Works, where Andrew and Edward Eastwick lived on the first floor of the house they shared with the Harrisons (see Images 239–240).21

Miss Melish did not fare well in Russia. To understand her plight and failure there, it is necessary to examine Andrew Eastwick’s own childhood and education, which colored his subsequent humorless views on the subject and created a heightened anxiety in him: “In my youth I was left a poor orphan at a very early age, and the little education I obtained was at a charity school, between the age of 7 and 13.”22 He therefore felt he could not “urge … too strongly the necessity of obtaining knowledge in the springtime of your life.”23 His anxiety concerning the early acquisition of good “habits in writing and composition [was] very great,”24 because his own lack of early training caused him to frequently experience mortification when he himself wrote a letter. Even as an adult he felt “deficient in appropriate words to impress upon [Edward’s] mind the full force of [his] anxiety.”25 He spoke of the great “pleasure and satisfaction” he felt as the quality of Edward’s letters to him improved.26

He did not like the “home system of education, as [he] found it difficult to have a teacher in the house, take that interest in the welfare of children as is done in well-regulated schools, or in fact to have them perform their duty.”27 This was his feeling even when he urged his wife to bring along with her to Russia a governess she could personally vouch for. Lydia Eastwick had been sceptical about taking a stranger with her,28 but Miss Valance, who had known Miss Melish for many years, even before the latter spent seven years as a governess in the American South, recommended her highly. To Lydia Eastwick, Miss Melish seemed “nearer 40 than 30,” of “very good disposition,” and “devoted to children.” She was “of a very good family”; her deceased father had been “a map publisher in Chestnut Street [Philadelphia] at one time”; and she could teach music, Italian, and French, and was “capable of giving the children a good English education,” so important to Andrew Eastwick. Lydia Eastwick therefore agreed to hire her, but for 400 dollars a year rather than the 500 Miss Melish had requested.29 The conditions were set down in a contract signed on 25 April 1845.30 Miss Melish was let go after she had been in Russia approximately six weeks. Her letter to Andrew Eastwick justifying her actions as a teacher shows that he and his wife considered Miss Melish’s conduct with the children erroneous, and that Lydia Eastwick, in particular, reprimanded her in the presence of the children, accusing her of neglecting them.31 Although obsessed by the idea of a classic English education for his sons, and having in his employ a governess recommended by his own wife as capable of giving such an education, Andrew Eastwick dismissed Miss Melish because she tried to use amusement as a tool to instill a love of reading in what she forthrightly called the Eastwicks’ spoiled American children.32 There is evidence that she remained in Russia for two years beyond her dismissal by him, because on 17/29 October 1847, Andrew Eastwick reported her death to Edward, telling him that she had “died at sea 17 days from Kronstadt.”33 He wrote Edward that he had “no particulars of what was the cause” of her death, but supposed they would “learn more particulars hereafter,” and did not recall whether he had already informed his son of her death.34 With these seemingly unconcerned remarks about her, Miss Melish disappears from the extant Eastwick correspondence.

In the subsequent absence of an opportunity for his sons to have a classic English education, Andrew Eastwick sent Edward to boarding school in Germany in September 1847 and filled his letters to this eldest son with precepts and admonitions, feeling “satisfied that my children will execute every nerve to be a credit to their parents and an ornament in society.”35 Monsieur Le Coq, one of the tutors engaged after the departure of Miss Melish, was also not found satisfactory, for Andrew Eastwick had written Edward that “if [he did] not see a change in the exertions of Monsieur Le Coq,” he would consider having Philip and Charles come along when he took Joseph to join Edward in Germany in July 1848.36 Lydia Eastwick’s consternation at the idea of parting with all three remaining sons at once, added to Andrew Eastwick’s own reluctance, kept him from taking Philip and Charles to Germany. In late January 1849, the Le Coqs left the Eastwicks’ employ, and Andrew Eastwick proceeded with preparations to take Philip and Charles to Germany.37 In the end, he decided that on their trip back to the United States in May 1849, he, Lydia Eastwick, the two girls, and baby William would pick up all four boys in Germany, and they would be placed in “a good English seminary” in America.38

Andrew Eastwick’s anxiety from his childhood days permeated all aspects of his life. Allusions to fear and anxiety run through his letters, as do doubts of others’ ability to be discreet. He was in charge of the office at the Alexandrofsky Head Mechanical Works, and he worked very hard. He handled all the correspondence, both in Russia and internationally,39 and drew up the contracts. He was also responsible for large sums of gold and silver, which he would take to Cronstadt to be sent to England.40 He was anxious about traveling in Europe alone because of his lack of proficiency in languages, and tried to attach himself to a courier or be made a courier because of the protecting advantages of such an appointment.41 He was so busy that, in June of 1847, Edward reported to an aunt that for three years he, Edward, had been “within six miles” of St. Petersburg but unable to visit it. He intended to do so that summer because after the visit of Nicholas I (see Images 420–423) to the Works, “my father’s business will not be so heavy this year,” and “he will be better able to go with us.”42 In 1848, in anticipation of the firm’s acceptance of a contract “to finish the New Bridge over the Neva,” Andrew Eastwick was again extremely busy “in preparing conditions of the contract and guarding against responsibilities.”43 Work on the bridge “obliged [him] to visit town every day,” as well as do the office work.44 All these duties exhausted him, so that he had “little inclination to do anything at night but rest.”45 Nevertheless, he seems from the time of “his arrival in Russia … to have played a much less important role” than his two partners, and received little mention “in official documents dealing with matters concerning the firm and the Russian government.”46

With Eastwick’s arrival in Russia in 1844, friction between him and Harrison began, with the latter complaining that Eastwick “behaved in a ‘distasteful’, ‘intolerable’ and ‘outrageous’ manner toward him.”47 In part, “since in America [Eastwick] had been the senior partner in the firm of Eastwick and Harrison” and had “helped to launch Harrison’s career,” Eastwick “may have resented Harrison’s attitude” and his own reversed role in Russia as simply “the manager of the firm’s office.”48 “Harrison in his correspondence often projected the impression that he wished to be the leading person in the firm and certainly never underestimated his own worth and importance.”49 He “sometimes acted in a high-handed and overbearing manner toward [William Lewis] Winans”50 (see Image 232). There were also difficulties between Harrison and R.G. Fairbanks.51 But there were difficulties as well between Eastwick and Thomas Winans. “By the autumn of 1848, matters had deteriorated to the extent that Harrison … threatened to leave the firm … [and] Winans … stated that he would not remain alone in Russia with Eastwick.”52 From “the beginning of … 1849 Eastwick … had nothing to do with the business.”53 On 4 April 1849, Harrison stated in a letter that “Eastwick would soon be leaving for America but might return in the next year,” and that “he and Winans could carry on their work by themselves, while allowing Eastwick to continue sharing in the profits just as if he were still in St. Petersburg and carrying his share of the work load.”54

All three contractors expected to become rich in Russia, but Eastwick was obsessed with the idea. John Stevenson Maxwell, secretary of the American Legation, who was presented to Eastwick on 24 May 1844, two days after Eastwick’s arrival in St. Petersburg, had already heard from someone a week before that Eastwick was “solely bent upon making a fortune here and so engrossed as [sic] been his thoughts that he seems to have known little that was going on in the political world.”55 Eastwick’s letters to his son Edward, explaining how to record his finances and accounts, as well as letters to others, reveal that he was always aware of how much he himself was earning and spending, and that he had in mind a sum that would satisfy him at the end of his stay in Russia, and, if necessary, even allow him to take less in a sellout transaction in order to achieve other goals. It was as if he had a system for becoming rich, and his dogged pursuit of this system was what antagonized his partners, who subsequently capitulated to his wishes. A number of his letters contain attempts to persuade hesitant friends and relatives to join him in Russia for the purpose of becoming rich. He was somewhat paranoid in refusing to speak, even in his letters to his wife, of the friction pitting Harrison and Winans against him, lest she and others leak what he would divulge. It is the rare letter between the Eastwick spouses that contains even a glimpse into the three partners’ exasperation and hostility.

Lydia Eastwick alluded to difficulties Harrison and Winans were having with office matters while Andrew Eastwick was in London in March 1849 and to Winans’s hostility towards her husband: “Mr. Winans inquired of me when you was coming home. I think him and Mr. Harrison find the office business more than they expected. Mr. Harrison is obliged to go to town in the evenings to see the Major [Whistler]. I believe they have a great deal of difficulty with the lawsuit and I think they wish you were here to attend to it. I thought Mr. Winans ought to be the last one to ask when you were coming back. Mr. Harrison also asked me the same question yesterday in church at the Works. My answer was that you had just arrived in London and that you did not say anything about when you were coming home.”56

Andrew Eastwick was the most candid he had ever been in writing about the hostility of the firm’s partners towards one another when he wrote to his wife from Russia in 1850, where he had returned to wind up the firm’s affairs. He referred to “this detestable place.”57 He had settled matters to a point where he could say approximately how much money would be coming to him. As Harrison and Winans were “remain[ing] in the business,” closing it up was being left to Eastwick and Thomas Winans’s brother, William. Eastwick did not in any way suggest that he was being squeezed out; he spoke of “the vacancy occasioned by my withdrawal.” He was “fully prepared to make a considerable sacrifice” financially, because having to risk being iced in for the winter, away from all his family until 1851, would “cause me much anxiety.” He felt, however, that a satisfactory proposition would not be made, “as Mr. Wm. Winans is a shrude [sic] and cunning fellow, and not possessed of an over abundance of moral sensibility.” He concluded his remarks on the subject of his buyout with: “I would write on many points, if I was not fearful that my letters would be misunderstood or be seen by others than yourself,” implying a certain suspicion of Lydia Eastwick’s ability to understand what he expressed or to be discreet.

Andrew Eastwick and his family left St. Petersburg on 6/18 May 1849, on the same steamer as Anna Whistler and Willie (see Images 1–5, 27, 30).58 Both families had suffered recent personal losses: George Whistler Eastwick (see Image 238) had died on 31 March, and George Washington Whistler (see Images 7–8, 21) on 7 April. The Eastwicks took the opportunity to travel in Europe and, although Anna Whistler anticipated that they would all sail for America on the same ship, in the end, she, James (see Images 24–29), Willie, and Mary Brennan went alone.59

In June 1850, Eastwick returned to St. Petersburg, Harrison having agreed that “as former office manager [he] would be quite capable of settling accounts with the Russian government concerning work done since 1844,” a matter Harrison estimated would take several months.60 In September 1850, Harrison “arranged with the help of Thomas Winans to have William Winans buy out Eastwick’s share of the business,” which “was done on October 2 (O.S.), thereby formally ending the existence of the firm of Harrison, Winans and Eastwick.”61 On 7/19 October 1850, Eastwick left Russia permanently, “a rich man,” “far richer,” Harrison said, “than he deserved to be.”62 Eventually, the warring partners became reconciled, for the Eastwicks’ last child was called Thomas Winans, and in 1862, in a letter to Eastwick, Harrison addressed him as “Dear Friend.”63

After their Russian sojourn, the Eastwicks returned to Philadelphia, where Andrew Eastwick joined the City Bank of Philadelphia, eventually becoming its president. “He became, after the consolidation of the city, a member of the Common Council from Twenty-second Ward.” “He was first a Whig and later a Republican.” He was also an inventor, for example of “the equalizing beam.”64 In 1850, Eastwick bought Bartram Gardens on the Schuylkill River, the estate of John Bartram, the botanist. The Eastwick family lived in the old house on the estate while a new house, a “Norman villa,” was being built. In late 1851, the family moved to the new house, which was called Bartram Hall. Andrew Eastwick died there on 8 February 1879, and Lydia Ann Eastwick on 15 December 1890. After Andrew Eastwick’s death, the city of Philadelphia, through his former head gardener, entered into negotiations to buy a portion of the property, “including the old Bartram House and gardens and a few acres surrounding them,” for a city park. In the year of Lydia Eastwick’s death, the purchase was concluded.65

The Eastwicks had fourteen children. In addition to the six who went to Russia with them, two more were born in Russia: William (1/13 August 1846 – 7 January 1887)66 and George Whistler (b. 19/31 March 1848), who died at New Alexandrofsky, aged one year, on 19/31 March 1849 (a week before Major Whistler’s death), and for whom a funeral service was performed on 22 March/3 April 1849, after which his body was placed in the vault of the English Church and later removed for interment in the United States (see Image 238 for a portrait of the two boys with their mother).67 The abovementioned stillborn daughter born in 1844 in the United States was the other child who died. After their return to the United States, five more children were born: Lydia Anne (3 April 1850 – 1918), Mary Emma Harmar (23 or 24 December 1851 – 1928), Kate (14 December 1853 – buried Philadelphia 27 December 1879), Andrew McCalla (29 September 1855 – 1 January 1934), and Thomas Winans (31 May 1857 – 1880).68

The following brief biographies are those of the sons who came to Russia with their parents. Edward Peers Eastwick and Joseph Harrison Eastwick both later “studied chemistry at Göttingen University.” Edward Peers went into the sugar-refining industry and formed the company of Havemeyer and Eastwick. Joseph Harrison Eastwick became a chemist and “held a position for years in Philadelphia.” Charles James Eastwick “spent most of his life as cashier of the Norfolk and Western Railroad Company.”69 Philip Garrett Eastwick “entered the navy during the Civil War and became first assistant engineer on the battleship ‘Monongahela’.” A civil engineer, “he became connected” in 1870 “with the Northern Pacific Railroad Company” and “laid out the towns of Seattle and Tacoma, Washington.” He next worked for the U.S. Government in “Pacific coast engineering work”: for example, “the building of jetties at the mouth of the Columbia.” He contracted yellow fever in Panama in January 1905, while visiting his son, P.G. Eastwick Jr., the manager there of the International Banking Corporation. His body was brought back to Portland, Oregon, for interment.70

Anna Whistler considered the Eastwicks good friends, and Edward was “quite a favourite of hers.”71 Many instances of times spent together and generous acts by the two families toward one another appear in the St. Petersburg diaries, the Eastwick correspondence, Anna Whistler’s correspondence, and her 1850 Diary. They attended the public festivities together at the marriage of Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna (see Image 432) at Peterhof. The Whistler family made visits to the Eastwick home at Alexandrofsky (see Images 239–240), and the Whistler children attended birthday parties there. During the stopover in Hamburg on their way home from Debo’s wedding, the Whistlers visited Edward Eastwick, who had been sent there to study. Lydia Eastwick accompanied Anna Whistler to the communion altar at the English Church in St. Petersburg (see Images 110–111) after Debo married. Both Andrew and Lydia Eastwick kept vigil by Major Whistler’s sickbed in autumn 1848. The Whistlers left their cow with the Eastwicks when they went to England. Andrew Eastwick had steel skates made at Alexandrofsky for James and Willie. When George Whistler Eastwick was born on 8 April 1848, the two Eastwick girls spent two weeks with Anna Whistler, “whom … all [the Eastwicks] so highly esteem[ed].” Andrew Eastwick comes across as a kind and thoughtful man, especially at that poignant moment when the coffin of John Bouttatz Whistler was borne off to the English Church vault in the Eastwick carriage.72

Their friendship continued after the Russian sojourn, as did his thoughtfulness and kindness. In April 1850, the first anniversary of Major Whistler’s death, Andrew Eastwick purposely visited the Palmers in Stonington and then Anna Whistler in Pomfret so that on his upcoming trip to St. Petersburg he could accurately “report [on them] to the circle there.”73 Anna Whistler considered him a close-enough friend to write to him after that visit, with a request that he go “to see Mr. Harrisons father about the loan of $1000 for [her] brother Charles,”74 about whom she was greatly distressed. His response was to himself offer “to arrange for the loan … so as to prevent [Anna Whistler] or Capt [Wm. H.] Swift being made responsible.”75 He was “a friend in need,” whom Anna Whistler and her family remembered for this deed in their prayers.76 In 1860, when Anna Whistler was planning to take a trip to England, the Eastwicks invited her to store her household furnishings at their home.77

Anna Whistler was also a frequent visitor at Bartram Hall78 and attended the Philadelphia weddings of Eastwick children. Her correspondents included the Eastwicks’ daughter, Mary Emma, to whom there are at least three extant letters.79 And, when Andrew Eastwick died (of typhoid pneumonia), the frail Anna Whistler in Hastings wrote Lydia Eastwick a letter of sympathy, assessing him as “so kind a husband and wise a parent.”80

Notes