Fashion had decreed that the correct hour for dancing was 11 A.M., and MATINEES DANSANTES were regularly given at the hotels, our grandmothers appearing in DECOLLETE muslin frocks adorned with broad sashes, and disporting themselves gayly until the dinner hour.Low-neck dresses were the rule, not only for these informal entertainments, but as every-day wear for young girls, - an old lady only the other day telling me she had never worn a "high-body"until after her marriage.Two o'clock found all the beauties and beaux dining.How incredulously they would have laughed if any one had prophesied that their grandchildren would prefer eight forty-five as a dinner hour!
The opening of Bellevue Avenue marked another epoch in the history of Newport.About that time Governor Lawrence bought the whole of Ochre Point farm for fourteen thousand dollars, and Mr.de Rham built on the newly opened road the first "cottage," which stands to-day modestly back from the avenue opposite Perry Street.If houses have souls, as Hawthorne averred, and can remember and compare, what curious thoughts must pass through the oaken brain of this simple construction as it sees its marble neighbors rearing their vast facades among trees.The trees, too, are an innovation, for when the de Rham cottage was built and Mrs.Cleveland opened her new house at the extreme end of Rough Point (the second summer residence in the place) it is doubtful if a single tree broke the rocky monotony of the landscape from the Ocean House to Bateman's Point.
Governor Lawrence, having sold one acre of his Ochre Point farm to Mr.Pendleton for the price he himself had paid for the whole, proceeded to build a stone wall between the two properties down to the water's edge.The population of Newport had been accustomed to take their Sunday airings and moonlight rambles along "the cliffs,"and viewed this obstruction of their favorite walk with dismay.So strong was their feeling that when the wall was completed the young men of the town repaired there in the night and tore it down.It was rebuilt, the mortar being mixed with broken glass.This infuriated the people to such an extent that the whole populace, in broad daylight, accompanied by the summer visitors, destroyed the wall and threw the materials into the sea.Lawrence, bent on maintaining what he considered his rights, called the law to his aid.It was then discovered that an immemorial riverain right gave the fishermen and the public generally, access to the shore for fishing, and also to collect seaweed, - a right of way that no one could obstruct.