A Statue for Jacob

by Peter Murphy

  The two main decisions the committee had to make were: exactly where the memorial would be located; and which artist would be chosen from the several hundred who applied, to design and construct it. With so much enthusiasm within the Grand Lodge, the location was easily settled. With a little preparatory work, a space for the plinth was made in the right-hand corner immediately in front of the building itself, and so away from the street, removing any possible resistance from the city. Sam told me that the Lodge had shown no interest in accepting any money from the government for this not inconsiderable change to the appearance of its historic building. Some of the enthusiasm was due to Sam. Once the ink was dry on the settlement agreement, she collected up all the available loan certificates and Abe Best’s correspondence, and presented them to the Grand Master as a gift from the van Eyck family. Within a few days, they were proudly displayed in a new historical exhibit, ‘Freemasonry at the time of the War of Independence’.

  The artist selected was a young French sculptor by the name of Henri Marot, who had already made a name for himself with some beautiful civic pieces he had executed on commission in his native Provence. What attracted him to the committee was his solution to the only serious problem encountered in designing a statue in the image of Jacob van Eyck, namely: there were no known images of Jacob van Eyck – no portraits done during his lifetime, or even verbal descriptions of his appearance, except for one suggestion that he was unusually tall for his day; and, of course, the nose. Apart from those details, no one had the faintest idea what Jacob had actually looked like. Most of the applicants proposed to overcome this obstacle by emphasising qualities they thought to be associated with patriotism, a high forehead, large hands and so on, none of which impressed the committee at all. Henri Marot proposed tackling the problem head-on. The height would be around six feet, certainly pretty tall for the time; the family nose would be prominent (he used Sam as a model); the rest of the face would be mostly hidden, with the eyes looking down, and the fold of his cape drawn up over the mouth. When Henri first introduced his idea it didn’t sound promising, but his drawings were mesmerising. The subject was undoubtedly a van Eyck, but in many ways he remained an enigma – which, as Henri reminded us, he was. He won the commission immediately.

  The whole work is executed in bronze. The life-size statue of the enigmatic Jacob van Eyck stands on a plinth bearing the following inscription.

  Sacred to the memory of Jacob van Eyck (1730–1812)

  Patriot

  He gave his whole fortune in the cause of the Independence of the United States.

  This debt was not contracted as the price of bread or wine or arms. It was the price of liberty. Alexander Hamilton

  At noon, once the several hundred guests had taken their seats, the chief dignitaries, those seated in the front row, made their entrance. The President was flanked by Sam and Aunt Meg on one side, and the Grand Master on the other. Beside them sat Henri Marot, the Attorney General, the senators and several congressmen and women from Pennsylvania, the Mayor of Philadelphia, two Justices of the United States Supreme Court, and the British and French ambassadors. I sat in the row behind with Arya, whom I’d brought as my personal guest, Arlene, Powalski and Jenny. On the same row sat Harry Welsh and his team, including Dave and Ellen, Ben Silber, John Macey, and a lot of people I didn’t know at all. Behind us was a sea of guests and members of the public who had applied for tickets. I’m told that more than 200 family members attended.

  To be honest, I didn’t take in much of what the President said. There’s a written record, of course, which I’ve read a number of times since, and I have to say, although much of it consists of weary platitudes about patriotism, there was something heartfelt about it, and cynical as I am, I don’t think it was entirely electioneering. I think the van Eyck story had touched the man. I’d had that impression when we were with him in the White House and I had it again at the unveiling.

  The President didn’t stay long at the reception. There were other key states to visit. Ohio was next on the list, and a presidential campaign doesn’t allow for much down time. But he stayed long enough to talk with Sam, Aunt Meg and me and to wish us well. I’d introduced Aunt Meg to Arya, and they spent a long time together at the reception, sitting at a small table away from the throng. I would have loved to know what they were talking about, but I would never have interrupted.

  When the reception died down, Powalski led us to the minibus he had rented for the occasion to accommodate us all. We had brought Aunt Meg with us and, of course, we had promised her a ride home. As if by some unspoken thought, we went to her house by way of the graveyard at the Old Swedes church. Dusk was falling on our beautiful October day by now, so we didn’t stay long. But for a while, we stood together silently, looking out over the mass of gravestones.

  ‘No gravestone for Jacob,’ Sam said quietly. ‘He’s buried all alone.’

  Arya took her hand and joined it to Aunt Meg’s.

  ‘Not for much longer, I think,’ she replied.

  Kiah’s Postscript

  More than two years have gone by since the unveiling of the Jacob van Eyck Memorial, and I’m taking advantage of a rare quiet afternoon to take up my pen, as Isabel Hardwick might have said, to add a postscript, a note to record how those of us involved in the case have fared since that amazing day.

  The President, as we all know, was elected to serve a second term. No one can prove, or disprove, that his unveiling of such a patriotic memorial not long before polling day played any decisive role in the campaign, but it was a close race and I can’t see that it could have done him any harm. Henry Shilling continues to serve with great distinction as Attorney General. The Secretary of the Treasury, on the other hand, resigned shortly after the election to spend more time with his family.

  Aunt Meg passed away about three months ago. She and Sam had become very close. Sam went to see her from time to time, and they exchanged letters regularly in between. Aunt Meg had told Sam that she felt she could die happy, now that Jacob had received the justice and recognition he deserved. I and the whole team went to Upper Merion Township for her funeral, which was attended by a huge throng of van Eycks, at least as many as had been present at the New Orleans reunion, and which turned into something of a spontaneous reunion itself, with an impromptu reception and dinner, which Aunt Meg would have loved. The family had been granted permission for her to be buried at the Old Swedes Church, where she joined many earlier generations of van Eycks.

  While I’m on that general subject, a team of faculty and students from the archaeology faculty at Penn State approached us recently with a plan to locate and formally identify the remains of Jacob van Eyck, and to seek permission to have them reburied with military honours in Arlington cemetery. Sam and several other family members descended from each of Jacob’s brothers have supplied DNA samples, and they plan to start work as soon as the King of Prussia Historical Society and the church elders, who have dominion over the church, sign off on the project. Whether they will succeed in finding and identifying Jacob’s remains, and if so, whether they will be able to persuade the government to approve his reburial at Arlington, we can only wait and see, though I have a hunch that, if they can get it all done before this president leaves office, they have a good shot at it.

  Sam goes from strength to strength. In the aftermath of the case, her agent was deluged with offers of work, everything from serious theatre to national commercials. Being Sam, she prefers to continue with the work she’s always done, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and the other American staples. The difference is that where before she was working with regional repertory companies in the South-East, she’s now doing the same repertoire on Broadway and in the major regional theatres across the country. A spell in London’s West End is pending, and she is under contract for two movies, neither of which will bear any resemblance to Revenge of the Zombie Cheerleaders. Consequently, I don’t see as mu
ch of her as I used to, but whenever she’s within striking distance, we get together. She is a friend for life, and that’s a wonderful gift to have.

  So, what about me? Well, I’m still practising law, but in rather different circumstances now. I’m the senior partner of the law firm of Harmon Petrosian Matthews & Associates. Once news of the settlement hit the streets, I was inundated with offers of work – and by work, I mean seriously good commercial work, as well as some far-fetched nonsense from fantasists with the federal government in their sights. I’m not sure what took up more of Arlene’s time, taking on board the serious clients or discouraging the others. We succeeded in doing both, but it was obvious that we needed help, and needed it without delay.

  Fortunately, I’d also been receiving unsolicited job applications from any number of young lawyers who’d been attracted by reports of the van Eyck case, and presumably thought it was the kind of stuff I did all the time, and that it would be great fun to work for me. Some of them I wouldn’t have looked at twice, but quite a few really raised my eyebrows. These were bright young lawyers from top law schools with glowing résumés, lawyers who could have been applying to the big firms on Wall Street. I hired four of them immediately, and told another three that they would be next if the practice continued to grow. The three included Jenny, our faithful intern from Kate Banahan’s Wills and Trusts class, who had actually dropped out of law school for the rest of the semester to stay with me when the van Eyck case was at its most desperate. She had asked for nothing in return, but I told her then that she had a job if she ever wanted it, and now that she’s about to take her bar exams I hope she may join us soon. But having good associates wasn’t enough.

  I needed partners – experienced lawyers who could handle the pressure of big cases, work without my supervision, and supervise associates themselves. I approached Dave and Ellen almost immediately. I had no experience of having law partners, and the thought intimidated me, but I’ve always had a theory that lawyers go about choosing their partners in the wrong way. Almost always, partners come from one’s circle of friends or colleagues, meaning that if you’ve worked together at all, it’s been on the same side of the case. But partnership is an intimate relationship, one that has to be built on trust, and it’s always seemed to me that you have a much better idea of how far you can trust another lawyer when you’ve been on the other side of a case. That was my experience of Dave and Ellen. I’d known them only as opponents, but I felt I could trust them with my life. To my surprise and delight, they didn’t even think about it: they both jumped at the offer. I made a faint pass at Harry Welsh too, but he told me that he’d always been a government man, and always would be – not to mention that Maggie Watts was about to be promoted to Deputy Attorney General and he was about to be promoted to take over her job.

  All these changes required new office space, still in Arlington but far bigger, and an office staff comprising legal secretaries and paralegals. Making that happen was a huge undertaking, and the credit for the smooth transition is due entirely to our Executive Practice Manager, Arlene, who rules the roost with her unique combination of extraordinary competence and homely Texas words of encouragement, the latter occasionally taking new associates and secretaries a bit by surprise.

  At Dave’s insistence, the firm has a policy that no one – partners, associates or office staff – works so hard that they can’t spend enough time on their personal or family life. That was non-negotiable for Dave, and given my own tendency until that point to allow work to take over my life, it was a policy I was very glad to accept. I was ready for a change.

  Arlene is a bit secretive about it – I’m getting this mostly from him rather than her – but I happen to know that she’s been seeing quite a bit of Powalski. They’ve been for long weekends to New Orleans together once or twice, and Powalski’s been taking Bubba to watch some NFL and college football games.

  I still see Arya, of course. She’s doing great, and her armchair, incense, foot rubs and occasional sumptuous dinners remain a big part of my life. Of course, my stress level is through the roof these days, but in a good way. It’s not about the Week any more. It’s about the stresses of handling a large, successful law practice, and I’m handling it just fine. All the same, Arya is still my rock, and I lean on her often.

  And I guess that’s about it.

  Well… OK… I guess there’s one more thing, although there’s nothing definite yet, and I don’t want to give the impression that there is. But… well, there’s this guy. His name is Doug. He’s a doctor, a cardiologist actually, and we met at a reception in Arlington a few months ago. He’s a little older than me, but not enough that it matters. He was widowed by cancer about three years ago, and he has a beautiful little girl called Amy, who’s almost seven. I met her at his place after our third date, and when I sat down on the sofa she immediately leapt into my lap and hugged me, and stayed there with me until she fell asleep, and it felt really good. I don’t know. Neither of us knows. I don’t know whether I’m ready to trust a man again, and he doesn’t know whether he’s completely over the death of his wife. But the thing is, even if we’re not there yet, there’s this feeling that we’re getting there together, and that we’ve come most of the way. And there’s something about it that feels incredibly good, incredibly right.

  It feels like Kiah: a new beginning.

  Author’s Postscript

  The man whose loans may have helped to save the War of Independence was Jacob de Haven (1730–1812) a citizen of Pennsylvania. The unbroken de Haven family tradition since Jacob’s death is that he made loans of gold and supplies to Washington’s army at Valley Forge during the fateful winter of 1777–1778, such loans totalling about $450,000 value at the time. With the passage of time evidence inevitably gets lost and whether, or to what extent, the family tradition is history or fiction may no longer be capable of proof. But more than one friend or patriot must have helped to rescue the army from the cold and starvation of that terrible winter. Jacob owned the land on the bank of the Schuylkill adjacent to Washington’s encampment. Jacob and Washington were friends and both were Freemasons, and for whatever reason, during that winter Jacob suddenly fell from great wealth to a state of penury from which he never recovered.

  In March 1989, Thelma Weasenforth Lunaas, a descendant of Jacob de Haven, sued the federal government in the United States Claims Court to recover the amount of the loan and the congressionally authorised interest on the sums loaned. She was represented by Jo Beth Kloecker of the Texas Bar, who enlisted me, her former law school professor, as her co-counsel. In January 1990, Judge James T. Turner held that the claim was barred by the six-year statute of limitation applicable to Claims Court cases, and dismissed the case. Judge Turner also refused to make an order for discovery, thereby preventing us from making the government search for and disclose such evidence as it might have relating to the de Haven loans.

  Subsequently, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld Judge Turner’s decision. The United States Supreme Court refused our application to hear the case. Consequently, the de Haven family no longer has any judicial remedy to recover a loan for which, according to Alexander Hamilton, the faith and credit of the United States had been repeatedly pledged, and which represented the price of liberty.

  Jacob de Haven died in poverty in 1812. He lies buried in an unmarked grave in a remote churchyard in rural Pennsylvania.

  There is no memorial in his honour.

  Author’s Note

  The story of the de Haven loans has inhabited my psyche since 1989, when Jo Beth approached me to work with her on Thelma’s case. I had been one of Jo Beth’s professors when she was in law school, but I hadn’t seen her since her graduation. She had opened her own office, and she explained that Thelma had walked in off the street and asked whether she handled debt collection cases. Like any young lawyer anxious to build a practice, Jo Beth had said she did. It was on
ly later that she, and I, appreciated the scale of the case she had accepted. It was the beginning of a fascinating legal journey in which 200-year-old events ran up against contemporary legal procedure.

  During our time working on the case, we met a number of de Haven family members, and we were able to chronicle the consistent efforts the family had made since Jacob’s death to draw attention to the loans. There had been political approaches to congressmen, in exercise of the right to demand the redress of grievances by political means, but none had borne fruit. Litigation was the last resort. No one in the family wanted to have to sue the United States, and there is one thing I want to make absolutely clear: in real life, as in my novel, no one in the de Haven family ever contemplated recovering the amount suggested by the compound interest calculations, or anything like it. They are a patriotic family, now just as much as in 1777, and what they wanted more than anything else was recognition of their ancestor: a statue for Jacob.

  When Jo Beth came to me for help she told me that she felt out of her depth. Well, who wouldn’t, with this case? But in fact, she had done an amazing amount of research, about the history of the War of Independence, the history of the de Haven family, and about the law. I was able to put that together and start writing the briefs, but it was her diligence that got the case off the ground. I was, and am still very proud of the legal arguments we made. I continue to believe that our argument – that the debt was recoverable, regardless of the lapse of time, because of the first paragraph of Article Six of the Constitution – has merit. I don’t say that it’s necessarily correct, but it is certainly very arguable and my only real criticism of any court involved in the litigation is of the United States Supreme Court, for ducking a case which turned on points of pure constitutional law. That’s what the Supreme Court is there for, and their failure to intervene allowed part of an article of the Constitution to die without ever being judicially interpreted. On a lighter note, and this is really one for the lawyers, I’m proud too of having made parts of Alexander Hamilton’s writings and speeches in 1790, while he was Secretary of the Treasury, admissible in evidence as admissions by a party opponent under the Federal Rules of Evidence.