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PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF
WASHINGTON IRVING

George Haven Putnam

^j^ASHINGTON IRVING may be regarded as the
\I/ first author produced by the American Republic.
He was, we may recall, born in 1783, the year in
which the Republic secured, under the Treaty of Paris,
recognition of its independence.

My father's home was a few miles south of Sunnyside.
From time to time, my father would take me with him on
his visits to his friend and author. I recall a word given
to me by Irving a year or two before his death in regard
to an interview that he had had with General Washington.
He told me that when he was a youngster a year old, his
nurse, who had the boy in a perambulator on the corner
of Pearl Street and Broadway, held him up in her arms
while Washington was passing on horseback in order that
the General might place his hand on the head of the child
who bore his name. "My nurse told me afterwards,"
said the old gentleman, "that the General lifted me in his
arms up to the pommel of his saddle and bestowed upon
me a formal blessing." I looked with reverential awe at
the head that had been touched by the first President and

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