THE

MAGAZINE OF HISTORY

WITH

NOTES AND QUERIES

OCTOBER, 1905

WILLIAM ABBATT

281 Fourth Avenue, New York

Published Monthly   $5.00 a Year   50 Cents a Number

WITH NOTES AND QUERIES

Vol. II   OCTOBER, 1905   No. 4

Entered as second-class matter, March 1, 1905, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of Congress of March 3, 1879.

Copyright, 1905, by William Abbatt

WITH NOTES AND QUERIES

Vol. II   OCTOBER, 1905   No. 4

THE BRITISH NAVY IN THE REVOLUTION

In the study of the events of the Revolution, one cannot but be impressed with the important share which the movements and achievements of the navy of Great Britain, had in deciding the military events. It has often been remarked that had King George been as well served ashore, as he was afloat, the Revolution might have ended very differently. Therefore, it may be assumed that the history of that great struggle will not be entirely complete until the work done at sea on both sides is more fully dealt with in its bearing on the land operations.

In such a study, the material facts are available to an extent which does not seem to be widely known; for in the great Public Record Office of the Crown, in Chancery Lane, London, are stored away the actual orders, reports and correspondence of the naval officials of that period, and in addition the actual log books of the vessels. The former include Admirals’ despatches, filed in the Navy Side, under the heading “Admiralty Secretary, In Letters,” and those relating to the strife with the thirteen colonies, during the period 1774 to 1784 inclusive, are indexed by the name of the “North American Station,” and numbered 484, 485, 486, 487 and 488. Of the mass of interesting material therein I was able, during a short visit, only to examine hastily one great package, which I found teeming with details of the affairs of the time, the confidential communications not only of the superior, but of subordinate officers on different stations, captured papers, reports of spies, and lists of captured vessels, men, and goods.

These papers are entirely free of access to any person, the only requirement being that they shall be examined in public, that no ink shall be used in copying, and that they are returned after every session.

[Pg 224]

Up to a date one hundred years ago, the papers are available without any introduction or order, but if the enquirer should desire those of more recent date, a special order must be obtained. The courtesy of Sir Henry Maxwell-Lyte, K. C. B., Deputy Keeper of the Records, and of W. Stamp, his assistant must be acknowledged by myself, and will undoubtedly be experienced by other enquirers into these matters.

It is extremely interesting to the student of history thus to handle and read the very documents which, received by the then authorities from the scene of actual hostilities, did so much in themselves to affect the course of events.

These official naval documents may be supplemented by examination of the contemporary military papers of the period, those emanating from the pseudo-civil governors of the colonies containing especially interesting matter.

Of these a number of the despatches of Governor Tryon to Lord George Germain, will be found in the Colonial Office Records, under heading “America and West Indies.” Those of 1780, for instance, are indexed No. 189—a bundle which contains some fascinating papers, such as the original reports of spies, a number of these signed by one especially active scoundrel whose signature, A. Z., is frequent, and his suggestions for the confounding of the American forces full of a lively personal interest. On the reports of deserters and spies, many favorable prognostications are founded by the writers of these despatches, and much may be learned of the policy and directions which led to some of the stirring events of that period.

Another source of information of a most detailed character is the large collection of log-books of the various war vessels. These were, in those days, kept not only by the Captains, and by the Lieutenants in command, but separate books were also kept by the sailing masters. Of the two former, those of the Lieutenants being practically duplicates of the Commanders’, have been destroyed, but the Captains’ and Masters’ books are preserved.

These books are in the original bindings and are of a most interesting character, carefully noting the time and nature of every occurrence in which the ship took part, as well as the surrounding circumstances of weather, sea and course.

[Pg 225]

From them may thus be obtained not only much new information of the details of actions, but confirmative and corrective matters of time and place.

In the course of a study of the operations of the British marine in the waters of New York, I found myself confronted by contradictions of a very annoying nature in the published accounts of the events of 1776, but upon reference to these log books many of these points were fully cleared up. Of some of these I hope at a future date to be able to give details, but the purpose of this article being to afford to others the knowledge of the existence and accessibility of the source of this information, I shall here give only the index numbers of the log-books of the most important vessels, which bore a prominent part in the Revolution.

The well-known names of the redoubtable men-of-war, frigates, armed brigs and schooners will recall to my readers events in which these took part, and the significant gaps in the logs of some point to the disasters or captures of which they became the victims.

CAPTAINS’ LOG BOOKS

[Preserved in the Public Record Office, London]

[Pg 226]

MASTERS’ LOG BOOKS

[Preserved in the Public Record Office, London]

[Pg 227]

Of these it may be noted that the Asia was conspicuous around New York, particularly in the summer of 1776, when a shot from her caused the only bloodshed of which Governor’s Island has been the scene, although it has been a military station since 1800. One of her cannon-balls took off an arm of an American soldier, in April, 1776.

Another of her shots penetrated the roof of Fraunces’ Tavern, in Broad street, New York. It was preserved until a few years ago, when it mysteriously disappeared. Freneau, in his Petition of Hugh Gaine refers to the incident:

The Eagle came very near furnishing the first proof in history of the efficiency of submarine boats or torpedoes. It is part of the history of the Revolution that Bushnell’s “Turtle” only failed to blow her up, as she lay off Governor’s Island in August, 1776, because of her bottom being coppered, and hence affording no chance of attachment of the “Turtle” by a huge screw, as the inventor had intended.

The Duchess of Gordon was Tryon’s headquarters at the same time. The Experiment, Thunder and Solebay were conspicuous in the unsuccessful attack on Charleston in June, 1776, and the Pearl, Phœnix, Rose, Roebuck and Tartar were particularly active near New York during the whole war.

The foregoing are by no means all of the vessels engaged in the war of the Revolution, of which I have gathered references to no less than one hundred and twenty-two, and there were doubtless many more engaged in those operations east and south of which I have been unable to make a close study.

These will, however, serve to indicate some of the material available, and perhaps afford some historical enquirers the means of adding to their information.

Reginald Pelham Bolton.

CHAPTER IV (Continued)

THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS IN NEW YORK

The administration of Governor George Clinton is very important on the side of Constitutional growth, since it is now that the General Assembly for the first time clearly enunciates the principles of self-government and the right not only to vote the taxes but to determine the ways in which the money shall be expended. In 1747 the colonies were engaged in war with France, and it was of the greatest importance that the outposts and fortified places on the Canadian border should be adequately garrisoned and amply supplied with provisions and munitions of war. Clinton was striving to assert the principle of royal prerogative in the matter of money-bills, a right which Governor Clarke had allowed to slip away from him. This attempt the General Assembly naturally resisted, and as a result is reproached by the Governor with neglecting to provide him with the money necessary to keep the province properly defended against the French. In the Minutes of the General Assembly of Oct. 8th, 1747, appears the following Message from the Governor,

The next day the House took into consideration the Governor’s[Pg 229] Message, and after a rather theatric locking of the door and laying the key on the table (as though, as Clinton says in his Message of Oct. 13th, some one were attempting to break in,) drew up a set of Resolutions to be delivered to the Governor, in which his Message was declared to be an attempt to subvert the rights, privileges, and immunities of the House. In addition a long document, called “A Humble Remonstrance of the House on the present State and Condition of the Colony,” was ordered carried by a committee to the Governor. This document, which had taken a Committee several days to draw up, was a long and detailed statement of the Assembly’s side of the quarrel and an attempt to show that the wretched state of the colony’s affairs was due to the tactics of delay made use of by the Governor and not to any fault of the Assembly which was very willing to grant money provided it had some assurance that the sums voted would be expended for the purposes designated. This Remonstrance the Governor refused to receive, and by his Secretary directed James Parker, the official printer, not to print it in the proceedings of the Assembly; this direction was not heeded by Parker, a step which brought out from the Governor the following Order:

This Order having duly appeared in Parker’s New York Gazette and Post Boy, the Speaker on Oct. 26th reported it to the House and requested “that the House would vindicate his Conduct therein.” Accordingly Parker was ordered to appear before the body. He came the next day and produced Clinton’s order in justification of his action, and the Assembly then passed the following resolutions;[2]

“Resolved, Nemine Contradicente, That it is the undoubted Right of the People of this Colony, to know the Proceedings of their Representatives in General Assembly, and that any Attempt to prevent their Proceedings being printed and published, is a Violation of the Rights and Liberties of the People of this Colony.

Resolved, Nemine Contradicente, That any Attempt to prohibit the printing or re-printing of any of the Proceedings of this House, is an infringement of the Privileges of this House, and of the People they represent.

Resolved, Nemine Contradicente, That the Humble Remonstrance of this House, of the 9th instant, though his Excellency, (contrary to the uninterrupted Usage in such Cases,) refused to receive it, was, notwithstanding, a regular Proceeding of this House.

Resolved, Nemine Contradicente, That his Excellency’s Order to forbid the printing or re-printing the said Remonstrance, is unwarrantable, arbitrary and illegal, and not only an open and manifest Violation of the Privileges of this House, but also of the Liberty of the Press, and evidently tends to the utter subversion of all the Rights and Liberties of this House, and of the People they represent.

[Pg 231]

Resolved, Nemine Contradicente, That Mr. Speaker’s ordering the said Remonstrance to be printed with the Votes and Proceedings of this House, is regular, and entirely consistent with the Duty of his Office as Speaker of this House.”

On Nov. 12th a further step was taken, when Col. Lewis Morris made the following Motion, which was carried;

The Governor up to this time had said nothing on the subject, but in his Speech dissolving the Assembly on Nov. 25,[3] he breaks his silence and argues the matter at length. He begins by saying that their action has a very dangerous likeness to a desire to grasp the executive power, a result which would be destructive of their dependency on Great Britain, and of which the people of Great Britain might become jealous. He then goes on to show that their conduct is not only wanting in respect to their Sovereign, since the Governor is his representative, but even wanting in ordinary manliness and honesty, since they are striking at one who, (on account of his position,) cannot retaliate. The question as to whether the paper is not a false, scandalous and malicious libel he left to his superiors in England. He ends his statement of the matter, “As to the popular Out-cry you endeavor to raise, of the Liberty of the Press, I shall only say, that certainly this Liberty, as well as any other may be abused, to the injury of others; if an injury is done, a proper Remedy ought to be applied; and such a Remedy can never be thought a Restraint of any just Liberty. I am persuaded that no considerate man can think, that I offered any Obstruction to the Liberty of the Press, by forbidding the Printer to publish that one Paper at his Peril; if no Peril in doing it, neither the author nor Publishers of it can suffer by the Order; the proper Judges may in Time show, whether I did a Service or a Disservice to any, by such Warning.”

[Pg 232]

The Twenty-fifth Assembly came together in the Spring of 1748 and the old quarrel was resumed. On reassembling for the second Session in September an Address was drawn up in which former complaints were reiterated, and which the Governor refused to receive.[4] The Address was then printed in the Votes and Proceedings of the Assembly, and on Nov. 12th the Governor, in proroguing the Assembly, took occasion to complain of their method of procedure.

Governor George Clinton was succeeded by Sir Danvers Osborne in the summer of 1753, but the latter meeting with a violent death the government devolved on James Delancey, the Lieutenant-Governor. The latter in his speech at the coming together of the Assembly took occasion to quote certain paragraphs from the Instructions given to Sir Danvers Osborne. These would naturally be of interest to all in the colony, and Hugh Gaine, the printer of the New York Mercury, published the paragraphs in his next issue. This provoked comment and the Assembly at once took action.[6]

Next day Hugh Gaine appeared at the Bar of the House; “being asked, whether he was the Printer of the Paper, called the New York Mercury, he acknowledged that he was; and then being asked, by what Authority he had therein printed and published an Extract of the Votes of this House; answered, that he had no Authority for doing it, and knew not that he did amiss in doing so; and that he was very sorry that he had offended the House, and humbly asked their Pardon.”[7]

The result was that after the matter had been discussed in the House the printer was called in, reprimanded, and allowed to go, on paying the costs.

In 1756 James Parker, who had in 1747 braved the wrath of Governor Clinton in order to obey the Speaker of the House, himself fell into disgrace. Parker and Wm. Weyman were at this time joint owners of the New York Gazette, or the Weekly Post Boy, and on the 15th of March, published an article entitled “Observations on the Circumstances and Conduct of the People in the Counties of Ulster and Orange, in the Province of New York.”

The Assembly at its meeting on the 16th took the matter up on the ground that it reflected on the conduct and composition of the House. The Serjeant at Arms was directed to bring the printers to the Bar. Parker was out of town, but Weyman appeared, and being asked how he had come to print it said that he done so merely as a piece of news, and went on to say that he believed it to have been written by the Rev. Hezekiah Watkins, a clergyman of Newburgh, Ulster County, and that he was heartily sorry for the mistake. The House then;[8]

Four days later Parker presented a petition setting forth that on receiving news of what had happened he had at once returned and surrendered himself; that the writer of the piece was Mr. Watkins, as he could easily prove; and the petition goes on to say “that when he received the said Piece, he thought it contained sundry indecent Expressions, and thereupon struck them out, but is sorry that he left sundry Matters, which though they seemed not to be malignant to him at the Time, appear now to be so; that he humbly confesses his fault in printing the said Piece; that he had no design to give Offense thereby, promised to be more circumspect for the future, and humbly begs the pardon of the honourable House: And therefore humbly praying (having long experienced the Kindness of the Honourable House) a Dismission from the Custody in which he now is.”

A week later the House took the matter up, and a motion to that effect having been made by Capt. Richard, Parker and Weyman were discharged from custody.

The House having been prorogued shortly after this, it was not until it came together again that the matter of the Revd. Mr. Watkins received attention. On Oct. 15, 1756, a motion was made by Capt. Walton that Mr. Watkins be ordered to attend the House. Accordingly he appeared on the 22nd and admitted the fact of authorship said that he had had no intention of acting disrespectfully but that the condition of affairs in Ulster and Orange Counties had caused his zeal for the welfare of the people to carry him too far; and that he was heartily sorry. In spite of his explanation he was ordered into the custody of the Sergeant at Arms, and the Minutes of the next day (Oct. 23,) set forth his Petition in which he went over at greater length the explanation he had given orally the day before. After some discussion of the matter he[Pg 235] was ordered to be brought to the Bar of the House where he was reprimanded by the Speaker and then discharged.

Another case very similar to the last was that of Samuel Townsend, a Justice of the Peace of Queen’s County. Some of the so-called “Neutral French” had been quartered upon Long Island, and Samuel Townsend wrote, in reference to their uncared for condition and misfortunes, a letter to the Speaker which the latter laid before the Assembly on Mar. 16, 1758, and Townsend was ordered to appear and explain the matter. Having examined him the House[9]

Next day a long petition was presented in which Townsend begged “leave, humbly to express his Uneasiness and Sorrow, for having wrote the said Letter; and at the same time, to declare that he did not intend thereby to cast any Reflection upon the Conduct or Dignity of this House, and that he shall for the future be more cautious to avoid every occasion of exposing himself to their Censure or Reproof.

Your Petitioner therefore most humbly Prays, that the sincere Acknowledgement of his Sorrow and Uneasiness may prevail upon this honourable House, to treat him with all that Levity and Compassion, to which the Innocence of his Intention herein declared, and the real Regard he has for the Honour of this House, may entitle him, and discharge him from the Custody of the Sergeant at Arms.”

After this had been read Townsend was ordered to the Bar, and, having been reprimanded by the Speaker, was discharged.

The growing dissatisfaction with the home government was fanned into open opposition when the news arrived in the colonies that the[Pg 236] Ministry, not content with the restrictions which it had placed upon the growing trade of the Atlantic coast towns, had decided to introduce direct taxation by a duty on stamped paper. The popular press in New York was filled with articles against the Stamp Act, but these articles were far exceeded in number and influence by handbills which were posted throughout the town, and read and discussed by all the inhabitants. The Assembly passed all this over, in silence, tacitly permitting what but a short time before would have brought any one suspected of complicity in the writing or printing of the same to its Bar.

But a peculiarly offensive piece of writing finally was taken notice of. It was about a month after the riot of Nov. 1st, 1765, (when the Stamp Act was due to go into effect,) on which occasion some damage had been done to the fort and batteries, that,[10] “Mr. Lott, Clerk to this House, presented on the 26th instant, a sealed Letter to the House, directed in the words following, viz. ‘To the General Assembly of the Province of New York.’ Which Letter was delivered to him, the said Lott, by his Clerk who had received it from a Person unknown; and was enclosed in another Letter directed, ‘To Mr. Lott, Mercht. in New York,’ and the same being read, was in the words following: ‘on Receiving you are to read the in Closed in the open assembly of this Province New York as you are Clark and whare of fail not on your perrel.

(Signed) Freedom.’”

And then the Letter addressed to the General Assembly being opened and also read, was in the Words following: ‘Gentlemen of the House of Representatives you are to consider what is to be Done first Drawing of as much money from the Lieut. Governors Sallery as will Repare the fort and on Spike the Guns on the Battery and the next a Repeal of the Gunning Act and then thare will be a good Militia but not before and also as you are asetting you may Consider of the Building Act as it is to take place nex yeare wich it Cannot for thare is no Supply of Some Sort of meterials Require’d this Law is not Ground on Reasons but thare is a Grate many Reasons to the Contrary do Gentlemen we desire you will Do what Lays in your power for the Good of the public but if you take this ill be not so Conceited as to Say or think that other People know noting about Government you have made these Laws and say they are Right but they are Rong and take a way Liberty,[Pg 237] Oppressons of your make Gentlemen make us Sons of Liberty think you are not for the Public Liberty, this is the General Opinion for this part of Your Conduct.

by order

Signd. one and all

Freedom’

1765 Nov. 26.

They then resolved to present an Address to the Governor calling on him to offer a reward of £50 for the discovery of the Author or Authors, and say that the House will provide means to meet the expense.

Writing under date of Sept. 23, 1765 to Secretary Conway in England, Lieutenant Governor Colden remarks on this general subject:[11]

And in another letter to Secretary Conway under date of Oct. 12, 1765,[12] he again refers to the matter.

(To be continued.)

THE EARLIEST SETTLERS AND THEIR IMPROVEMENTS

The difficulties of settling Dallas township were very great. It was comparatively an easy thing to cut a path or road along the banks of Toby’s Creek and find a way even to its source, but to settle there alone, many miles from any clearing, and meet the wolves, bears and other wild animals, which were terrible realities in those early days, saying nothing of the still pending dread of the prowling Indian, was a very serious undertaking.

When a small boy I heard Mr. Charles Harris, then an old man, tell some of his early recollections, which ran back to about the time of the battle and massacre of Wyoming. He told us of the Indians who once came into the house where he and his mother were alone and demanded food. There being nothing better they roasted a pumpkin before the fire and scraped it off and ate it as fast as it became soft with cooking. He also told us about his father’s first settling on the westerly side of Kingston Mountain at what is still known as the “Harris Settlement” about two miles north of Trucksville. He said that his father worked all the first day felling trees and building a cabin. Night came on before the cabin could be inclosed. With the darkness came a pack of wolves, and, to protect his family, Mr. Harris built a fire and sat up all night to keep it burning. The wolves were dazed and would not come near a fire, and when daylight came they disappeared. To pass one night under such circumstances required bravery, but to stay, build a house, clear a farm and raise a family with such terrors constantly menacing exhibited a courage that commands our highest esteem.

Among those who came in the first decade were Joseph Worthington and wife—the latter a daughter of Jonathan Buckley. They came from Connecticut in the year 1806 and settled near Harvey’s Lake. His first[Pg 240] house was built of logs, and stood on the hill about a quarter of a mile from the eastern inlet to Harvey’s Lake. When he first moved into that country there was no road from Huntsville to Harvey’s Lake except a bridle path. Mr. Worthington cut a way through and built a house when his nearest neighbor was miles away and no clearings in sight anywhere. Wolves were then very numerous and bold at night, and the only way Mr. Worthington could protect his family from their assaults was for all to climb the ladder to the second floor and pull the ladder up after them. Mr. Worthington used to say that his life during those early days was most lonely and disheartening.

THE VILLAGE STORE

The best of the first stores in Dallas would hardly be dignified by that name now. Only a few necessaries were kept in any of them, and “necessaries” then had a much scantier meaning than now. A few of the commonest and cheapest cotton cloths were kept in stock; the woolen goods used for winter wear, for both men and women, were all homespun. It took many years for the storekeepers to convince the farmers that they could buy heavy clothes of part wool and part cotton that would be as durable and cheaper than the all wool homespun. The time spent on the latter was counted as nothing, and the argument failed. A few other goods of kinds in daily use, such as coffee, tea, sugar, molasses, tobacco, powder, shot and flints and rum were of course necessary to any complete store. Hunting materials and supplies were in great demand. A hunter’s outfit at that time was proverbially “a quarter pound of powder, a pound of shot, a pint of rum and a flint.” The flint was the box of matches of that day. Before the invention of the lucifer match, the matter of keeping fire in a house, especially in winter time, was one of extreme importance in that sparsely settled country. Everyone burned wood then, about there, and fire was kept over night by covering a few “live coals” with ashes in the fireplace. Sometimes this failed, and then, if no flint and punk were at hand, some member of the family had to go to the nearest neighbor, probably a mile or more away, and bring fire. It is not difficult to imagine their sufferings during the winters in this respect. Had food, clothing and other things been plenty and good, this hardship could have been better endured; but they were not, and worst of all, there were almost no means of procuring them. There was an abundance of game and fish for a time, but they did not satisfy a civilized people.

[Pg 241]

EARLY AGRICULTURE

The only plow in use then was the old-fashioned shovel plow. The only iron about it was the blade, which was about the shape of an ordinary round-pointed shovel. This was fastened to the lower end of an upright post. To the post were attached handles to hold it with, and a beam or tongue to which the team could be hitched. This plow was jabbed into the ground here and there between roots, stumps and stones, and with it a little dirt could be torn up now and then. There was no patent plow in use then, nor could it be used there for many years after we settled in Dallas. Nor could we use a cradle for cutting grain. At that time the ground was so rough, and there were so many stumps and roots and stones, that we had to harvest at first with a sickle.

CROPS AND PIGEONS

Buckwheat was early introduced in Dallas, and was afterwards so extensively raised there that the expression “Buckwheat-Dallas” was frequently used by the way of marking this fact in connection with the name. It is a summer grain and quick to mature. In ninety days from the day when the crop is sowed it can be grown, matured, gathered, ground and served on the table as food, or, as has been often remarked, just in time to meet a three months’ note in bank. Another practical benefit from raising this grain was that, in gathering it, a large quantity of it shook off and was scattered over the fields. This afforded a most attractive pigeon food, and during the fall and spring seasons, and often during much of the winter, pigeons would flock in countless numbers all over that country. They came in such quantities that it would be difficult to exaggerate their numbers. When a boy I used to see flocks that extended as far as the eye could reach, from end to end, and these long strings or waves of birds would pass over so closely following each other that sometimes two or three flocks could be seen at once, and some days they were almost constantly flying over, and the noise of their wings was not unlike the sound of a high wind blowing through a pine wood. They cast a shadow as they passed over almost like a heavy cloud. Often they flew so low as to be easily reached with an ordinary shotgun. The skilled way of capturing them in large numbers, however, was with a net. William or Daddy Emmons was a famous pigeon trapper as well as fisherman. He used decoy pigeons. They were blind pigeons tied to the ground at some desired spot, and when they heard the noise of large[Pg 242] flocks flying overhead, they would flap their wings as if to fly away. Attracted by this the flock would come down and settle near the decoys, where plenty of buckwheat was always to be found. When a sufficient number had settled and collected on the right spot, Mr. Emmons, who was concealed in a bush or bough house near by, would spring his net over them quickly and fasten them within. After properly securing the net, the work of killing them began. It was done in an instant by crushing their heads between the thumb and fingers. Hundreds were often caught and killed in this way at one spring of the net. Pigeons were so plenty that some hunters cut off and saved the breast only, and threw the rest away.

THE OLD LOG CHURCH

Of all the occasions in the church, none ever approached such intensity of feeling and excitement as the “revival” or “protracted meeting” season.

These meetings usually began late in the fall, about the time or just after the farmers had finished their fall work. The first symptom usually appeared in the slightly extra fervor which the minister put in his sermons and prayers on Sunday. Then a special prayer meeting would be set for some evening during the week. Other special meetings soon followed, so that, if all things were favorable, the revival or “protracted meeting” would be at a white heat within two or three weeks. In the meantime the fact would become known far and near, and the “protracted meeting” would be the leading event of the neighborhood. If the sleighing became good, parties would be formed miles away to go sleigh riding with this “protracted meeting” as their objective visiting point, often from idle curiosity or for want of something more instructive or entertaining to do. Others went equally far, through storm and mud, in wagons or on foot, from a higher sense of personal responsibility and duty. With many it was a most grave and serious business. The house was usually packed to repletion. Professional ambulatory revivalists, often from remoter parts of the state or county, would stop there on their religious crusades through the land, to attend and help at these meetings. Many of these were specially gifted in the kind of praying and speaking that was usually most successful at such times. It is not overdrawing to say that many times on a still night the noise of those meetings was heard a mile away from the church. In one occasion I saw a leading exhorter at one of[Pg 243] those meetings enter the pulpit, take off his coat, hurl it into a corner, and standing in his shirt sleeves begin a wild and excited harangue. After possibly half an hour of most violent imprecations and raving he came down from the pulpit, jumped up on top of the rail which extended down the center of the room and divided the seats on the two sides of the house, and from there finished, and exhausted himself, begging and pleading with sinners to come forward and be converted, and invoking “hell fire” and all the torments supposed to accompany this kind of caloric, upon those who dared to smile or exhibit a sentiment or action not in accord with his.

The principal argument at those meetings was something to excite fear through most terrible picturings of hell, and the length of an eternal damnation and death. Scores would be converted, and many would backslide before the probationary season had ended. Some were annually re-converted, and as often returned again to their natural state. Many remained true to the new life, and became useful and prominent members of the church and community. It cannot be successfully denied that many were reached and reformed at those meetings whose consciences never could have been touched by any milder form of preaching. They had to be gathered in a whirlwind or not at all.

THE SECOND ADVENT

This chapter cannot well be closed without some reference to “Millerism” and the preaching of Millerite doctrines in the winter of 1842-43. It is doubtful if any other religious movement of modern times, and certainly few in all historic time, have ever, in so short a period, awakened so vast a religious excitement and terror as the announcement and promulgation of these doctrines. Ten years before Rev. William Miller, of Pittsfield, Mass., began preaching upon the subject of the second coming of Christ, and claimed to have discovered some key to the prophecies by which the near approach of the end of the world and of the judgment day was clearly shown. His earnest manner and elaborate arguments, apparently fortified with abundant historic proof, had attracted great attention and started many followers to adopt and preach the doctrines, so that, at the period named, the excitement attending it throughout Christendom was at its highest point. The time for this holocaust had been definitely fixed by these modern interpreters. The year was 1843 and February was the month when all things were to[Pg 244] collapse and end. Even the day was fixed by some. On that, however, all did not agree. Some fixed the 14th and others the 16th of February, and others still other days in that month for the happening of this terrible event. When we recall that the doctrine found millions of believers in the most civilized centers of the world, and for a time seriously paralyzed business in London, New York and Philadelphia, we will not wonder that with the people then living in the dreary solitudes of Dallas, such a doctrine found ready listeners and willing believers almost everywhere. The old log schoolhouse was not large enough to hold the meetings, and others were started in different places. A very large one was conducted at the “Goss” or “Corner” schoolhouse. The time was getting short, and with the nearing of the fatal day excitement increased. Half the people of the community were in some degree insane. Many people refused to do any business, but devoted themselves entirely to religious work and meditation. These meetings were started early in the fall, and were kept up continuously through the winter. The plan and intention of the leaders was to convert everyone in Dallas township, and with a few exceptions the plan succeeded. Of course there were different degrees of faith. Some were so sure of the dissolution of all things on the appointed day that they refused to make any provisions for a longer existence. One man, Christian Snyder, refused to sell corn or grain, but was willing to give it away to the needy, and only desired to keep enough for the needs of himself and family until the fixed final day. Many of the people spent that dreadful winter reading the Bible, praying and pondering over that horrible interpretation. The memorable meteoric shower which extended almost over the whole world on the night of the 12th and 13th of November, 1833, was still fresh in the memory of almost every adult, and was well calculated to prepare the mind to believe the proofs and prophecies of such a catastrophe. That never-to-be-forgotten rain of fire must have been frightfully impressive even to the most scientific man who could best understand the causes which produced it. It has no parallel in recorded history, and one can quite readily understand how such an interpretation of the holy prophecies, following immediately such a fiery manifestation in the heavens, should find easy believers.

Converts were frequently baptized that winter by immersion through holes cut in the ice, and in one instance, I am credibly informed, when a parent only succeeded in converting a doubting daughter on the night before the supposed fatal day, he took her himself on that bitter cold night to the nearest mill-pond, cut a hole in the ice and baptized her[Pg 245] by immersion. The man was personally well known to me, and to the day of his death, which occurred only within the last decade, he remained firm in his faith in similar interpretations of the prophecies, and continued calculating and fixing new dates in the future for the coming of the end of all things. He was never disconcerted by any failures, but seriously accounted for it by saying that he had made a little error in his calculation, and gave you a new and corrected date further on. This man was Christopher Snyder.

An anecdote is told of Harris in connection with the meteoric shower above referred to, illustrating the common belief that the stars had actually fallen from the heavens. On the evening following the shower, Mr. Harris said he could see a great diminution of the number of stars in the heavens, and ventured the belief that a few more showers like the one of the evening before would use up the rest of them. So common was this belief that the stars had actually fallen, so great and memorable was the event, that to this day, among the older men about Dallas, you will occasionally hear men trying to fix the date or year of some long past occurrence, and not infrequently one will say something like this: “Well, I know it happened then because the stars fell in thirty-three, and this happened just so many years after” (or before, just as the case may be)—“now figure it up yourself.”

SOCIAL THINGS

Of “apple cuts” I can speak in lighter vein. They were generally occasions of great merriment.

It has been truly said that a country is poor indeed when it is so poor that dried apples become a luxury. Before the days of cheap sugar and canned fruits, dried apples and cider apple sauce, the latter made of apples boiled to a pulp in cider, were luxuries and necessities both in many places besides ours. Apples were always abundant and cheap in Dallas. In fact, when the forests are cleared away, apple trees are found to spring up spontaneously in some places, and only need a little trimming and protection to become good orchards. This fact was accounted for to the writer by the owner of one such orchard as follows: He said a good many people had marveled at the natural growth of his orchard, and had asked him how he could account for it. “Of course you know,” said he, “that it has always been my habit to give such things a good deal of thought. I could never be satisfied, like most folks, to just sit down[Pg 246] and take things as they come without trying to understand them, and I always keep at them until I cipher them out. Now, you see it’s just like this about these apple trees: Some day or ’nuther, probably millions of years ago, this hull country was overflowed by the ocean. That’s plain enough to any man who takes the trouble to think about these things. Well, right about over here somewhere there has been a shipwreck some day, and a ship load of apples has sunk right here, and these apple trees have sprung from the seeds. You know a seed will keep a great while and then grow.”

The work of paring the apples and removing the cores for an ordinary family’s winter supply of dried apples and apple butter, before the days of machines for that purpose, was a task of no little magnitude. All had to be done by hand and as sometimes happened, many bushels had to be so treated. It was a task that would have occupied the working portion of an ordinary family several days, and thus much of the fruit would, from long keeping, have lost its value for cider appliance by becoming stale and partly dried. For this reason there seemed almost a necessity for calling in help sufficient to do the required amount of work in a very short period of time. The apple cut solved this difficulty successfully. When a family had once determined on having an apple cut, it was given out to the nearest neighbors, and from them it spread of its own accord for miles around. Those who heard of it could go if they chose to. No special invitations were required. The apple cut was an evening festivity, and was most “prevalent” just after buckwheat thrashing, when the nights were cool and the roads not very muddy. I am told that in later years it began to be considered “bad form” to go to an apple cut without special invitation; but apple cuts were degenerating then, and they died soon after when the apple parer in its present improved form was introduced.

The old-fashioned apple cut was a very informal affair. Each guest upon arrival was expected to take a plate and knife, select a seat and some apples, and begin work without disturbing anyone else. The “cut” usually lasted for an hour or two. Twenty or thirty people could, and did usually, accomplish a good deal in that time in the way of work as well as say and do a great many of the commonplace things that country people ordinarily indulge in when thus congenially thrown together.

After the work was finished and the débris cleared away, a surreptitious fiddle was sometimes pulled from an old grain bag and started up.[Pg 247] “Fisher’s Hornpipe,” “Money Musk” and “The Arkansaw Traveler” composed the stock of the average fiddler thereabouts in those days, and any of them was enough to set all heels, with the slightest proclivities in that way, to kicking in the French Four, Virginia Reel or Cotillion. At some houses dancing was looked upon as improper, and in its stead some simple games were played. The festivities usually broke off early, as all had long distances to go. Dissipation in the matter of late hours could not be indulged in very much, because of the very general country habit of early rising.

The gentlemen did not often forget or fail to be gallant in the matter of escorting the ladies home. Usually the demands of etiquette were satisfied with the gentleman “going only as far as the chips,” as it was commonly expressed, meaning, of course, the place where the wood was hauled in front of the house and chopped up for firewood.

“Going as far as the chips” was an expression as common and as generally understood in that day as going to the front gate would be now. The front gate then was generally a few improvised steps to assist in climbing over the rail fence at some point near the “chips” or wood pile.

“Spinning Bees” and “Quilting Bees” were exclusively feminine industries. With each invitation to a “spinning bee” was sent a bunch of tow sufficient for two or three days’ spinning, which the recipient was expected to convert into thread or yarn by or before the date fixed for the party. The acceptance of the tow was equivalent to a formal acceptance of the invitation. On the appointed day each lady took her bunch of spun tow and proceeded early in the afternoon to the house of the hostess. The afternoon was usually spent in the usually easy and unconventional manner that might be expected when a dozen or fifteen able-bodied women of the neighborhood, who had not seen each other lately, are assembled. This was, of course, long before the newspaper or magazine had reached their present perfection, and before the daily paper “brought the universe to our breakfast table.”

The surest way for a lady to avoid being the subject of comment was to be at the meeting. The gentlemen always came in time for tea and to see the ladies home.

“Quilting Bees” define themselves in their name. They were very similar to spinning bees, except that the work was done after the guests had assembled.

[Pg 248]

Of “Stoning Bees,” “Logging Bees” and “Raising Bees,” description is unnecessary. The names are almost self-explaining, though just why they were called “Bees” I cannot learn, unless it is because those who came were expected to, and usually did, imitate the industrial virtues of that insect. They were also sometimes called “frolics,” possibly for the reason that the frolicking was often as hard and as general as the work. Strong and hearty men were much inclined to playful trials of strength and other frivolities when they met at such times. This tendency was much enhanced in the earlier days by the customary presence of intoxicants.

These amusements were varied and extended far beyond those above mentioned. They exhibited and illustrate much of the character, surroundings and habits of those early people. They wanted no better amusement. It was, in their esteem, a wicked waste of time and in conflict with their necessary economies to have parties or gatherings of any kind exclusively for amusement, and unaccompanied with some economic or industrial purpose like those indicated above.

The dancing party or ball was a thing of later date, but even when it came, and for many years after, it was looked upon by the more serious people as not only wicked and degrading in a religious and moral point of view, but very wasteful in an economic sense.

Their hard sense taught them that their industrio-social gatherings, together with the church meetings and Sunday-schools, furnished ample occasions for the young to meet and become acquainted, while the elements of evil that crept into modern society elsewhere were there reduced to a minimum.

A THRIFTY STOREKEEPER

A good story is told of Joseph Hoover dating well back in the first half of the century. He went one day to the store of Mr. Jacob R——, in a neighboring town, to get a gallon of molasses, taking with him the jug usually used for that purpose. As it happened that day, the son, Isaac, who usually waited on him, was otherwise engaged, and the father, Jacob, went down cellar to draw the molasses. After being gone some time, Jacob called up from the cellar to Joseph and said that the jug did not hold a gallon. “Call Isaac,” replied Hoover, “and let him try; he has always been able to get a gallon in that jug!”

A PAGE OF HISTORY CORRECTED

III

HALLECK AND POPE

The fourth letter[13] contains a sentence which almost takes one’s breath. It is bunglingly constructed—a thing unusual in Pope’s communications. He had received a letter from Halleck, dated November 7, intimating that the Secretary of War would order a court of inquiry, and he answers, conveying the following:

“The overt act at Alexandria, during the engagement near Centreville, can be fully substantiated by letters from many officers since I have been here [St. Paul], it is quite certain [Now mark!] that my defeat was predetermined, [Now mark again!] and I think you must now be conscious of it.”

Pope does not even intimate who predetermined that “overt act,” although he intimates rather clearly that Halleck is conscious of the facts. It is difficult to see, however, how either McClellan, Porter or Griffin could “predetermine” either a victory or a defeat at that time.

On the 25th day of November, 1862, the very day set by General Pope, Major-General Halleck ordered a general court-martial for the trial of Major-General Fitz-John Porter, and on that same day he made his official report of the battle in which he certified to Pope’s efficiency, as the latter had demanded in those uncanny letters. And on the 5th day of December, Major-General Pope declared under oath:

“This is all I have yet done”: i. e., “in my official reports of the operations of the army, to set forth all the facts as they transpired on the field. I have not preferred charges against him. I have merely set forth facts in my official reports,” etc.

The “Official Records” referred to show that he “set forth” certain[Pg 250] facts [or fancies] in his private letters to Halleck, which, by some mysterious influence have found their way into print, and suggest that an explanation is in order to reconcile his sworn testimony with the fact that he was urging General Halleck to action, by military court, and even threatening him in case he should neglect such action.

He says: “No man knows better than yourself the constancy, the energy, and the zeal with which I endeavored to carry out your programme in Virginia. Your own letters and dispatches, from beginning to end, are sufficient evidence of this fact, and also of the fact that I not only committed no mistake, but that every act and movement met with your heartiest concurrence.”

[Note.—This statement is fully corroborated by the “Official Records.” It is as certain as anything can be that Halleck formulated the plan and that Pope executed it. If he appeared to be making mistakes, he was obeying orders, and Halleck should be chargeable.]

Pope continues: “Your own declarations to me up to the last hour I remained in Washington bore testimony that I had shown every quality to command success.”...

“Having, at your own urgent request [Mark that well! and what follows also. This paragraph shows that Halleck himself was the instigator of the charges against Porter], and from a sense of duty [!] laid before the Government, the conduct of McClellan, Porter and Griffin, and substantiated the facts stated by their own written documents, I am not disposed to push the matter further, unless the silence of the Government [this means Halleck, as has been shown Halleck was the only objector to the gratification of Pope’s wishes], in the midst of the unscrupulous slander and misrepresentation purposely put in circulation against me and the restoration of these officers, without trial, to their commands, coupled with my banishment to a distant and unimportant department, render it necessary as an act of justice to myself.”

How keenly Pope feels his disgrace, having been used as a tool and then flung aside, is shown clearly. He continues:

“As I have already said, I challenge and seek examination of my campaign in Virginia in all its details, and unless the Government by some high mark of public confidence, such as they have given to me in private, relieves me from the atrocious injury done to my character as a soldier[Pg 251] ... justice to myself and to all connected with me demands that I should urge the court of inquiry.... This investigation, under the circumstances above stated, I shall assuredly urge in every way. If it cannot be accomplished by military courts, it will undoubtedly be the subject of the inquiry in Congress.”

Then follows a darkly ominous hint: “It is especially hard, in view of my relations with you [Note that!] that I should be compelled even to ask at your hands the justice which it is your duty to assure to every officer of the army.... I tell you frankly that by the time Congress meets such influences as can not be resisted will be brought to bear on this subject.... I prefer greatly that you should do me this justice of your own accord.”[14]

Altogether this letter is a rare specimen of the chiaroscuro in the art epistolary; it tells of Halleck’s acts of injustice which Pope will right by every means in his power. At times it breathes hatred and vengeance, and closes with such a loving assurance as this:

“I write you this letter with mixed feelings. Personal friendship and interest in your welfare, I think, predominate. I am not so blinded as not to know that it gave you pain to allow such scandal against me and to take such action as you thought the peculiar circumstances required. Much as I differ with you on the subject, I am not ready to blame you or to feel bitterly.”

Then follows that warning: “I impress upon you the necessity for your own sake of considering carefully the suggestions I have presented,” and closes with the assurance, “I shall not again address you a letter on such a subject.”

This assurance was not fulfilled. Indeed, Pope wrote several letters on the subject, as will appear. Queer letters were they, to be written by a major-general commanding a department, to his superior, the general-in-chief, to whom he administers the medicine à la cheval de trait.

To summarize: Pope makes these charges against Halleck.

(1) That the plan of campaign was Halleck’s.[15]

(2) That Pope was but an instrument in the hands of the general-in-chief.[16]

[Pg 252]

(3) That Pope faithfully executed Halleck’s plans.[17]

(4) That the latter fully approved every act of the former, thereby making himself responsible, so far as Pope was concerned, for the final result.[18]

Here a pause. These charges are fully substantiated by letters and telegrams passing between Halleck and Pope, which appear in parts II and III, of Vol. XII, of the Official Records. Pope was regularly advising Halleck of his movements, and Halleck was as regularly approving the same. And as late as August 26, 11:45 A. M., Halleck wired Pope: “Not the slightest dissatisfaction has been felt in regard to your operations on the Rappahannock,” etc.

Returning to the charges:

(5) That Pope had made the charges against Generals McClellan, Porter and Griffin “at Halleck’s own urgent request.”[19] Halleck was the real instigator.

(6) That Halleck had not assigned him [Pope] to command of the western department, which, as Pope says, “would at once have freed me [Pope] from the odium and abuse which have so shamefully and unjustly been heaped upon me by the papers and people,” etc.[20]

(7) That he found himself banished to the frontier.[21]

(8) That his character and reputation as a soldier had been deeply and irretrievably injured.[22]

(9) That the Government refused to allow him to publish the facts[23] and

(10) That General-in-Chief Halleck declined to acknowledge his services publicly.

All through the letters are insinuations and charges against McClellan, Porter and Griffin. And he makes categorical demand in these words:

“I said, and say now, that one of three things I was entitled to; any one of them would have satisfied me. The dictates of the commonest justice gave me the right to expect one of them at least:

[Pg 253]

1st. That the court of inquiry be at once held and the blame be fixed where it belongs. It is now too late for that, as the delay has already made the worst impression against me that is possible.

2d. That the Government should acknowledge publicly, as it had done privately, my services in Virginia, or

3d. That in case neither of these things could be done, then that the Government bestow upon me some mark of public confidence, as its opinion of my ability warranted.

None of these things have been done,” etc.

He continues: “You know me well enough I think, to understand that I will never submit if I can help it. The court of inquiry, which you inform me has been ordered, will amount to nothing for several reasons. It is too late, so far as I am concerned. Its proceedings, I presume, will be secret, as in Harper’s Ferry business. The principal witnesses are here with me, and I myself should be present. The Mississippi River closes by the 25th of November [Note that date!]; frequently sooner than that. It is then next to impossible to get away from this place. A journey through the snow of 200 miles is required to communicate with any railroad.”[24]

And on the very day which Pope had named, November 25, 1862, General-in-Chief Halleck issued his order for the court-martial of Fitz-John Porter, and issued his report certifying to the efficiency of General Pope, thus avoiding the court of inquiry which Pope had threatened to demand.

Such a court, if honestly conducted, would have laid bare the truth, and shown to the world that Halleck himself had prevented the reinforcements from reaching Pope, caused the defeat of Second Bull Run, imperiled the national capital, and opened the door of Maryland to Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee.

This conclusion is supported both by Halleck’s official report and by his testimony before the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War. In the former, he says: “Had the Army of the Potomac arrived a few days earlier, the rebel army could have been easily defeated and, perhaps, destroyed.” His testimony before that committee, on March 11, 1863.[25]

[Pg 254]

“Question. To what do you attribute the disastrous result of General Pope’s campaign?

Answer. I think our troops were not sufficiently concentrated so as to be all brought into action on the field of battle; and there was great delay in getting reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac to General Pope’s assistance.

Question. To what is that delay attributable?

Answer. Partly, I think, to accidents, and partly to a want of energy in the troops, or their officers, in getting forward to General Pope’s assistance. I could not say that that was due to any particular individual. It may have resulted from the officers generally not feeling the absolute necessity of great haste in re-enforcing General Pope. The troops, after they started from the Peninsula, were considerably delayed by heavy storms that came on at that time.”

[Note.—General Halleck has not told that committee, what his own letters and telegrams conclusively prove, that the principal delay of those reinforcements was due to his own wilfully false telegrams to Generals McClellan, Burnside, and Porter, and that he also prevented General Franklin and the Sixth Army Corps from reaching Pope from Alexandria by refusing to provide transportation. The next question and answer fixes the blame directly upon Halleck himself]:

“Question. Had the Army of the Peninsula [i. e., the army under McClellan, which embraced both Porter’s and Franklin’s corps] been brought to co-operate with the Army of Virginia [under the command of Pope] with the utmost energy that circumstances would have permitted, in your judgment as a military man, would it not have resulted in our victory instead of our defeat?

Answer. I thought so at the time, and still think so.”

And this is the opinion of all military critics who have pronounced judgment in the case. It is also certainly true that Halleck’s own orders and telegrams prove that he himself, and apparently purposely, prevented such co-operation, and it throws a peculiar significance on Pope’s charge in his letter to Halleck, dated November 20, 1862, before quoted, “It is quite certain that my defeat was predetermined, and I think you must now be conscious of it.”[26]

[Pg 255]

The consequences which followed the defeat of Pope were not immediately and fully appreciated at the time in the North, on account of the censorship of the press, nor do they seem to be so at this day. Orders were given to prepare for the evacuation of Washington; vessels were ordered to the arsenal to receive the munitions of war for shipment northward; one warship was anchored in the Potomac, ready to receive the President, the Cabinet and the more important archives of the Government: Secretary Stanton advised Mr. Hiram Barney, then Collector of the Port of New York, to leave Washington at once, as communication might be cut off before morning;[27] Stanton and Halleck assured President Lincoln that the Capital was lost.

Singularly enough the designs against Washington in the East were at the same time and in the same manner being duplicated against Cincinnati, then the “Queen City of the West.”

On August 30, while Pope was fighting the second Bull Run battle in Virginia, the Confederate Major-General, E. Kirby Smith, was fighting the battle of Richmond, Ky. In his report to General Braxton Bragg, Smith says:

“The enemy’s loss during the day is about 1400 killed and wounded, and 4000 prisoners. Our loss is about 500 killed and wounded. General Miller was killed, General Nelson wounded, and General Manson taken prisoner. The remnant of the Federal force in Kentucky is making its way, utterly demoralized and scattered, to the Ohio. General Marshall is in communication with me. Our column is moving upon Cincinnati.”

On September 2, Lexington was occupied by Kirby Smith’s infantry. He reports to General Cooper that the Union killed and wounded exceed 1000; “the prisoners amount to between 5000 and 6000; the loss—besides some twenty pieces of artillery, including that taken here (Lexington) and at Frankfort—9000 small arms and large quantities of supplies.” The Confederate cavalry, he reports, pursued the Union forces to within twelve miles of Louisville; and, he adds: “I have sent a small force to Frankfort, to take possession of the arsenal and public property there. I am pushing some forces in the direction of Cincinnati, in order to give the people of Kentucky time to organize. General Heth, with the advance, is at Cynthiana, with orders to threaten Covington.”

[Pg 256]

This invasion of Kentucky was due to Halleck, as was proved before the military court appointed “to inquire into and report upon the operations of the forces under command of Major-General Buell in the States of Tennessee and Kentucky, and particularly in reference to General Buell suffering the State of Kentucky to be invaded by the rebel forces under General Bragg,” etc.

That court was in session from November 27, 1862, until May 6, 1863, with the gallant Major-General Lew Wallace presiding. Its opinion recited that Halleck had ordered General Buell to march against Chattanooga and take it, with the ulterior object of dislodging Kirby Smith and his rebel force from East Tennessee; that General Buell had force sufficient to accomplish the object if he could have marched promptly to Chattanooga; that the plan of operation prescribed by General Halleck compelled General Buell to repair the Memphis and Charleston railroad from Corinth to Decatur, and put it in running order; that the road proved of comparatively little service; that the work forced such delays that a prompt march upon Chattanooga was impossible, while they made the rebel invasion of Tennessee and Kentucky possible. Our forces were driven northward to the Ohio, leaving the Memphis and Charleston railroad in excellent condition for the use of the Confederates. Strangely enough, Halleck’s orders to Buell had inured to the benefit of the Confederates in the West, in the same manner and along the same lines as his orders to McClellan and to Pope had inured to the benefit of the Confederates in the East.

Both Washington and Cincinnati were imperiled at the same time, and by the same officer, General-in-Chief Halleck, and in the same way—by a succession of steps that appear to have been carefully planned.

Now, mark what follows.

On March 1, 1872, the House of Representatives called upon the Secretary of War for a copy of the proceedings of that military court; and on April 13 the Secretary reported to the House, “that a careful and exhaustive search among all the records and files in this Department fails to discover what disposition was made of the proceedings of the Commission,” etc.

But though the records of those proceedings which fix the blame for that campaign upon Major-General Halleck were lost or stolen from the archives of the War Department, Benn Pitman, the phonographic[Pg 257] reporter of the court, had possession of a report of those proceedings. And, by Act of Congress, approved by President Grant on June 5, 1872, the Secretary of War was “directed to employ at once Benn Pitman to make a full and complete transcript of the phonographic notes taken by him during the said investigation, and to put the same on file among the records of the War Department, and to furnish a copy of the same to Congress.”

The report of those proceedings may now be found in “Official Records,” Series I, Vol. XVI, Part I, pp. 6 to 726, inclusive. The most melancholy part of the story lies in the fact that Porter, who certainly helped to save Washington from falling into Lee’s hands, had his life blasted by Halleck, and died without knowledge that Halleck, not Pope, was really guilty of the disaster which so nearly resulted in the abandonment of the Capital to the Confederates, and while Halleck was directing affairs in the West in such a manner as to imperil Cincinnati.

The remarkable co-operation between Pope and Buell for the surrender of those cities, and which was attempted by Halleck, does not look like a concatenation of accidental circumstances. This is accentuated by the charge against Halleck’s loyalty to the Republic which was made by the gallant Wallace after he had presided over that Buell military court. He was a careful man; and, being a good lawyer, he understood the laws and effect of evidence. Porter, who prevented the surrender of Washington, and Buell, who saved Cincinnati, were both punished. It looks as if they had interfered with Halleck’s plan of a general surrender.

L’ENVOI

In January, 1899, the writer commenced to unravel the mystery surrounding the battle of Harper’s Ferry, which culminated in the surrender of that post September 15, 1862. He was a member of that garrison, and he knew that history had not truthfully recorded the defense, some chronicles reading that “Harper’s Ferry fell without a struggle,” others that “there was no defense”; in the main, historians were a unit.

Such reports are wholly false. The defense of that post was stubborn and prolonged, lasting from September 11, when the Confederates showed themselves in Pleasant Valley, until the 15th, when the garrison was subjected to one of the fiercest bombardments of the Civil War. Never was hope abandoned until the last shell was expended, though the[Pg 258] little garrison of 12,500 men was besieged by what was practically the whole of Lee’s army. Starting on a new line of research, and abandoning the path beaten by others, he found many battles lost in the same manner, and the responsibility shifted from the shoulders of the guilty and carefully loaded upon those of the innocent, and all by the use of the same means, a false report by General-in-Chief Halleck, and a bogus trial by a military court.

Conspicuous among these was the battle of Second Bull Run, followed by the trial of Fitz-John Porter. That battle was certainly lost by Halleck, as shown by documents over that general’s own signature. And Pope knew it, and charged that it was premeditated. To avoid the odium which some papers were attaching to his name, the latter applied the whip and spur to the former, who, under threat of exposure, ordered the court-martial of the innocent and gallant Major-General Fitz-John Porter. The battle of Harper’s Ferry followed; the result was the same; lost by Halleck; responsibility lifted from his shoulders, and carefully divided between General McClellan (for not relieving the post) and Colonel Dixon S. Mills (for not defending it). After that came Fredericksburg, with similar results; lost by Halleck; responsibility lifted from his shoulders, and divided between Burnside and Franklin.

Study the plans adopted in one instance; the plans adopted in the others become manifest. The losing of the battles to the Union arms was accomplished by carefully prepared plans, and reduced to an exact science.

R. N. Arpe.

PRESENT-DAY ASPECTS OF WASHINGTON’S BIRTHPLACE

Five Virginia counties lying between the Potomac and the Rappahannock constitute the Northern Neck, the region in which George Washington, Light Horse Harry Lee, and his more famous son were born and bred. There are a scant thousand square miles in these counties of King George, Westmoreland, Richmond, Northumberland, and Lancaster, and the population of the five is under fifty-five thousand. At no point are the rivers much more than thirty miles apart, and near the northern boundary line of King George the harbors on the two streams are only nine miles apart. Washington was born on a lonely plantation in Westmoreland County, bordering the beautiful Bridges Creek, within sight of the Potomac. At Colonial Beach, two or three miles across the mouth of Monroe Creek, also in Westmoreland County, stands a house in good repair, which is declared to have been the residence of Light Horse Harry Lee before he removed to Fairfax County. Washington as an infant was taken by his parents to their new home opposite Fredericksburg, in Stafford County, and at the age of twenty he inherited from his half-brother Lawrence the fine estate of Mount Vernon, in Fairfax County. Lawrence had named his estate in honor of Admiral Vernon, with whom the young Virginian had served as an officer in the campaign against the Spanish-American stronghold of Cartagena. It was Lawrence’s acquaintance with Admiral Vernon that won for George Washington the offer of a midshipman’s commission in the royal navy, an appointment that only his mother’s strong objection prevented him from accepting.

From the birthplace of Washington to his second home opposite Fredericksburg is hardly more than fifty-five miles as the crow flies, and from the birthplace to the scene of his death at Mount Vernon is under seventy miles. The triangle enclosed by the lines connecting these points includes a tract of Virginia that is full of historic interest, and singularly rich and beautiful as an agricultural region. Most of the counties of the Northern Neck are increasing in population, but they lie far from railways, and their mode of communication with the outside world is the steamboats that ply from Baltimore up and down the two rivers.

[Pg 260]

In spite, therefore, of the rolling years, and of civil war, and emancipation, the Northern Neck of Virginia is in many respects much what it was when George Washington and Light Horse Harry Lee were born a month apart in the quaint and lovely old Westmoreland of the year 1732. The visitor to Mount Vernon comes away with a strong impression of Washington, the local magnate and world-wide hero. But Mount Vernon, in spite of its tomb and its relics, many of them actually used and handled by Washington himself, can hardly give one the eighteenth century atmosphere. To obtain that one must make a pilgrimage to the region of Washington’s birth. A fair shaft erected by the Federal Government now stands on the spot occupied by the homestead of Augustine Washington, the birthplace of his mighty son. The spot is as remote and lonely as it was when Washington’s eyes first saw the light, and the aspect of the region must be much what it was in that day. Doubtless the woodland has shrunk in area and the plowed land has widened. But there, in full view from the monument, are the land-locked tidal waters of the little stream, and eastward lies the broad lazy flood of the Potomac, idly moving beneath the soft overarching sky. Everywhere are the marks of an old civilization. The road that leads from the wharf at Wakefield on Monroe Creek to the monument is lined with cherry trees escaped from the old orchards of the neighborhood. The mockingbird sings in all the woodlands as it must have sung in the ears of Augustine Washington as he moved about his fields, and gray old log granaries of the eighteenth century pattern still stand amid piles of last year’s corncobs. Even to-day brand-new corn cribs are built in the same fashion of partly hewn logs. The crops are also those of the earlier century. The monument itself stands in the midst of a waving wheat field, and acres of Indian corn rustle green and rich as they must have rustled in the first hot summer of George Washington’s infancy.

The reality of it all is increased by the bodily presence of Washington’s own kin, men and women bearing his name, the descendants of his collateral relatives. A little boat rocking at anchor off the wharf at Wakefield is the fishing dory of Lawrence Washington, commonly called “Lal” Washington by his neighbors. He is a man of substance and dignity. But he takes delight in fishing his own pound nets, and the unpretentious fishermen of the region tell how the old man’s enthusiasm was such that he rushed waist deep into the water to help three or four young fellows drag ashore a heavily laden seine. His brother was for years State’s Attorney of a neighboring county, and other members of the[Pg 261] family are landholders in Westmoreland. Their neighbors accept these families of historic name in a simple, matter-of-fact fashion, and with no humiliating sense of inferiority. “They’re all smart people,” said the young fisherman that sailed us across Monroe Creek to the wharf at Wakefield, and that is what Westmoreland expects of the Washingtons.

Neighboring plantations are stocked with fine old European nut and fruit trees, such as the colonists with the increasing wealth of the third and fourth generations were accustomed to import. In some places the fig is cultivated, and within the shadow of the birthplace monument is a dense colony of young fig shoots which have sprung and resprung after every severe winter for perhaps more than a century and a half. The steep bank of Bridges Creek to the southeast of the monument is lined with cherry trees that to this day bear excellent fruit, to be had merely for the picking. One gathers from all the surroundings of the place a strong sense of the dignity and simplicity that mark plantation life in Virginia.

It is a quiet life, indeed, that the people of these Westmoreland plantations lead. Even to this day sailing craft slowly worm their way far into the deep navigable inlets of the region, and carry freight to Baltimore and Washington. Each plantation has its own wharf, and each planter keeps a lookout for the coming schooner, just as their ancestors of Washington’s day must have watched for the slow and patient craft that plied up and down the Potomac, and away to Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, or across the Atlantic to England, a voyage that might stretch out for six or eight, ten, or even twelve weeks.

The very speech of the people has a slightly archaic flavor, and family names are redolent of old English ancestry. Here still are the Kendalls, who like to boast that one of their ancestors was the earliest mail contractor in Virginia. The elder Kendall, a man of substance and fair education, found satisfactory reasons for selling all that he had and coming to Jamestown with Captain John Smith. In coming away he left behind a son just grown to manhood and some debts owing to the estate. The son was instructed to collect what he could of the proceeds, invest it in blankets and trinkets such as the Indians liked, and to follow the father to Jamestown. The young man obeyed the paternal instructions, but in sailing up the Potomac with his freight of gewgaws he mistook the Potomac for the James. After vainly looking for Jamestown, he concluded that the settlement had been destroyed by the Indians, and, having reached the present site of Alexandria, he made a settlement and called it Bell[Pg 262] Haven. Some months later an Indian who visited Bell Haven made the settlers to understand that there were white men on a river further south. Young Kendall knew then that Jamestown was still in being. So he wrote a letter to his father and entrusted it to the Indian to be delivered at Jamestown, paying him for the service one gay woolen blanket. Father and son thus came into communication, but the son remained at Bell Haven, and from him are descended the Kendalls of the Northern Neck.

The whole region teems with traditions of Washington. Down in Northumberland County, the lovely little harbor of Lodge is named from the fact that here stood the Masonic lodge that Washington used to attend. The British destroyed the house during the Revolutionary War, but the cornerstone was found and opened not many years ago, and some of its treasures of old English money were placed in the cornerstone of the Masonic lodge at Kinsale, another charming little Virginia harbor. It is at Lodge that the maker of canceling dies for the Post Office Department, exiled from Washington because of the climate, has for nearly twenty years carried on his business with the aid of country youths trained for the purpose.

If the shore is much what it was in Washington’s infancy, the river and its tributaries are even more so. Those who know the Potomac at Washington or amid the mountains that hem it in further west and north, may well have no suspicion of the vast flood which it becomes in the lower part of its course. Fifty miles below Washington the river is from four to six miles wide. Sixty miles below the capital it has spread to a width of ten miles, and in the lower forty miles of its course it is from ten to eighteen miles wide, a great estuary of the Chesapeake, with tributaries, almost nameless on the map, that fairly dwarf the Hudson. The busy steamers plying these waters to carry the produce of the plantations to the markets of Baltimore and Washington leave the Potomac from time to time to lose themselves in its tortuous tributaries. Cape on cape recedes to unfold new and unexpected depths of loveliness; little harbors sit low on the tidal waters backed by wooded bluffs, behind which lie the rich plantations of Northumberland and Westmoreland. A soft-spoken race of easy-going Virginians haunts the landing-places. Fishermen, still pursuing the traditional methods of the eighteenth century, fetch in sea trout and striped bass and pike to sell them at absurdly low prices, and for nine months of the year oystermen are busy. Every planter who will can maintain his pound net in the shallows of the Potomac or one of[Pg 263] its tributaries, and all along the lower course of the stream the planter may secure his own oysters almost without leaving the shore. The dainties that filled colonial larders in Washington’s youth are still the food of the region—oysters and clams, soft-shell crabs, wild duck, geese, and swan in winter, and a bewildering variety of fish.

Just across the Potomac from Washington’s birthplace is old Catholic Maryland of the Calvert Palatinate, settled almost exactly a century before his birth, and still rich in the names and traditions of that earlier time. The great width of the separating flood makes one shore invisible from the other, and the only means of communication are either the local sailing craft or the steamers that weave from side to side of the river and lengthen the voyage from Baltimore to Washington to a matter of thirty hours. Communication between Maryland and Virginia was almost as easy in Washington’s day, for the steamboats have an annoying habit of neglecting many miles of one shore or the other, and there are days when no steamer crosses the stream. A man living in one of the little harbors of the Northern Neck, being in a hurry to travel northward, found his most expeditious mode of travel to be a drive of seventy miles to a railway at Richmond. Shut in thus, the people of the Northern Neck have nursed their traditions and held hard by their old family names, so that the visiting stranger, if he have any touch of historic instinct, finds himself singularly moved with a sense of his nearness in time to George Washington and his contemporaries. The telephone, indeed, has brought these people into tenuous communication with the modern world, but he that looks out upon the sea-like flood of the Potomac from the mouth of one of its many navigable tributaries in the Northern Neck can hardly persuade himself that the capital of 80,000,000 people lies less than a hundred miles up stream. Washington the man seems vastly more real and present than Washington the city.

E. N. Vallandigham.

(The original manuscript of this unpublished poem by Walt Whitman, was sold in New York recently. Apparently it was never finished; which is to be regretted, as its few lines are in Whitman’s best manner. The scene is on the hill by the twin lighthouses at Navesink, N. J., near the entrance to New York harbor.—Ed.)

FANCIES AT NAVESINK—THE PILOT IN THE MIST

(Steaming the Northern Rapids—an old St. Lawrence Reminiscence.)

Standing upon one of the heights near the head or southern end of Lake George, the tourist looks down on the placid waters, and sees at his feet a little island covered with verdure, and glowing like an emerald in the summer sheen. This is Diamond Island,[28] one of the best known of the many exquisite isles that gem the little inland sea.

From time immemorial it has borne its present name, derived from the exquisite crystals with which the underlying rock abounds. Here is the scene of the fight which took place on this lake, September 24, 1777, an occurrence that appears to have been purposely overlooked by the Americans at the time, and which has since failed to find a chronicler.[29]

But before proceeding to give the narrative of this event it may be well to speak of several other points, and to make a brief statement of the military situation at that time.

First comes the question of the discovery of Lake George by the Europeans. According to the best knowledge that we possess, its waters were first seen by a white man in the year 1646.[30] It is true Champlain tells us that he saw the falls at the outlet of the lake in 1609, yet there is nothing whatever to indicate that he visited the lake itself, though the Indians had informed him of its existence. It is reasonable, therefore, to conclude that Lake George was seen for the first time by a European, May 29, 1646,[31] when it received its name, “Lake Saint Sacrament,” from the[Pg 266] Rev. Isaac Jogues, S.J., who, in company with Jean Bourdon, the celebrated engineer, was on his way south to effect a treaty with the Mohawks. Arriving at the outlet of the lake on the evening of Corpus Christi, they gave it the above name in honor of this festival, which falls on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday, and commemorates the alleged Real Presence of Christ in the Great Sacrament.

From this time until 1755 the lake was rarely visited by Europeans. At this period the French commenced the fortifications of Ticonderoga, while the English met the advance by the construction of Fort William Henry at the opposite end of the lake.

We pass over the struggles that took place on these waters during the French wars, and come to the period of the Revolution, when a feeble English garrison held possession of Ticonderoga, while Captain Nordberg[Pg 267] lived in a little cottage at the head of the lake, being the nominal commander of empty Fort George. With the commencement of the struggle for liberty, Lake George resumed its former importance as a part of the main highway to the Canadas, and by this route our troops went northward, until the tide turned, and our own soil, in the summer of 1777, became the scene of fresh invasion. Then Burgoyne’s troops poured in like a flood, and for a time swept all before them. It was at this period that the fight at Diamond Island took place.

Burgoyne had pushed with his troops, by the Whitehall route, far to the southward of Lake George, being determined to strike at Albany, having left but a small force at Ticonderoga, a handful of men at Fort George, and a garrison at Diamond Island to guard the stores accumulated there. Seeing the opportunity thus broadly presented, General Lincoln, acting under the direction of Gates, resolved to make an effort to destroy Burgoyne’s line of communication, and, if possible, capture his supplies. To this end, he despatched Colonel John Brown with a force to attack Ticonderoga, an enterprise which, though attended with partial success, failed in the end. To this failure he subsequently added another, which resulted from the fight at Diamond Island.

But since the printed accounts of the attack upon Ticonderoga are almost as meagre as those of the struggle at the island, we will here give the official report, which is likewise to be found among the Gates Papers, now in the possession of the Historical Society of New York, prefacing the report, however, with the English statement of Burgoyne.

In the course of a vindication of his military policy, General Burgoyne writes as follows:

Such is Burgoyne’s account of the attack upon Ticonderoga; next to which comes that of Colonel Brown, who for the second time in the course of his military experience has an opportunity of exhibiting his unquestioned valor. His report to General Lincoln runs as follows:

We now turn to the fight at Diamond Island, giving first the English version, simply remarking as a preliminary, that in the postscript of a letter addressed by Jonas Fay to General Gates, dated Bennington, September 22, 1771, is the following:

Writing from Albany after his surrender, General Burgoyne says, under the date of October 27, that

[Pg 270]

This statement was based upon the report made by Lieutenant Irwine, the commander at Lake George, whose communication appears to have fallen into the hands of Gates, at the surrender of Burgoyne.

Lieutenant George Irwine, of the 47th, reports thus to Lieutenant Francis Clark, aid-de-camp to General Burgoyne:

We now turn to the hitherto unpublished report of Colonel Brown, who reports as follows, not without chagrin:

Thus ended the fight of Diamond Island; a fight which, if attended with better success, might have perhaps hastened the surrender of Burgoyne, and resulted in other advantages to the American arms. As it was, however, the British line of communication on Lake George was not broken, while the American leaders took good care to prevent this failure[Pg 272] from reaching the public ear through the press. Thus Colonel Brown’s reports to General Lincoln remained unpublished. They have now been brought out to be put on permanent record, as interesting material for American history.

To-day the summer tourist who rows out to this lovely isle, which commands delightful views of the lake far and wide, will see no evidences of the struggle, but will find the very atmosphere bathed in perfect peace. Of relics of the old wars, which for more than a hundred years caused the air to jar, and echoing hills to complain,—there are none. The ramparts that once bristled with cannon have been smoothed away, and the cellar of an ancient house is all the visitor will find among the birches to tell of the olden occupancy of man.

(The Late Rev.) B. F. DaCosta.

Lieutenant Colonel John Brown (1774-1780), a native of Berkshire county, Massachusetts, was a Yale graduate of 1771, and in 1774 visited Canada as a horse dealer, to ascertain the sentiments of the Canadians towards the principles of our impending Revolution. His subsequent experiences with Arnold in the Quebec campaign are matters of history, but his early death, in the encounter at Stone Arabia, N. Y., in 1780, just after the discovery of Arnold’s treachery, prevented the details of his specific accusations against the latter from becoming public. His descendants in Boston have long been preparing to issue a detailed biography, which should be a valuable contribution to the literature of the Revolution. The story of his Lake George fight was practically unknown before Dr. DeCosta’s article was written [for the N. E. Historic Genealogic Society] and although it was afterward published in pamphlet form, so few copies were printed that it has been inaccessible to the general reader.

Mr. William L. Stone furnishes me with the following particulars regarding Captain Aubrey: He came with his regiment from Ireland to America in 1773, and served throughout the Revolution. He commanded his company at Bunker Hill, and when in the spring of 1776 the regiment was sent to reinforce Carleton in Canada, he accompanied it and aided in the expulsion of the American forces. After Burgoyne’s surrender, Aubrey’s detachment returned to Canada and he remained there and in command of the post at the entrance to Lake Ontario for a long time. He died in London, January 15, 1814.—[Ed.]

II

THE MAIDEN OF THE MOON

Among the rivers of the North, none can boast of more numerous charms than the St. Louis, and the fairest spot of the earth which it waters is that where now (1847) stands the trading post of Fond du Lac. Upon this spot, many summers ago, there lived a Chippewa chief and his wife, who were the parents of an only daughter. Her name was Sweet Strawberry, and she was acknowledged to be the most beautiful maiden of her nation. Her voice was like that of the turtle-dove, and the red deer was not more graceful and sprightly in its form. Her eyes were brilliant as the star of the northern sky, which guides the hunter through the wilderness, and her dark hair clustered around her neck like grape vines around the trunk of the tree they loved. The young men of every nation had striven to win her heart, but she smiled upon none. Curious presents were sent to her from the four quarters of the world, but she received them not. Seldom did she deign to reply to the many warriors who entered her father’s lodge, and when she did, it was only to assure them that while upon earth she would never change her condition. Her strange conduct astonished them, but did not subdue their affection. Many and noble were the deeds they performed, not only in winning the white plumes of the eagle, but in hunting the elk and the black bear. But all their exploits availed them nothing, for the heart of the beautiful girl was still untouched.

The snows of winter were all gone, and the pleasant winds of spring were blowing over the land. The time for making sugar had arrived, though the men had not yet returned from the remote hunting grounds, and in the maple forests bright fires were burning, and the fragrance of the sweet sap filled all the air. The ringing laugh of childhood and the[Pg 274] mature song of women, were heard in the valley, but in no part of the wilderness could be found more happiness than on the banks of the St. Louis. But the Sweet Strawberry mingled with the young men and maidens of her tribe, in a thoughtful mood and with downcast eyes. She was evidently bowed down by some mysterious grief, but she neglected not her duties; and though she spent much of her time alone, her buchère-bucket was as frequently filled with the sugar juice as any of her companions.

Such was the condition of affairs, when a party of young warriors from the far North came upon a frolic to the St. Louis River. Having seen the many handsome maidens of this region, the strangers became enamored of their charms, and each one succeeded in obtaining the love of a maiden, who was to become his bride during the marrying season of summer.

The warriors had heard of the Sweet Strawberry, but, neglected by all of them, she was still doomed to remain alone. She witnessed the happiness of her old playmates, and, wondering at her own strange fate, spent much of her time in solitude. She even became so unhappy and bewildered that she heeded not the tender words of her mother, and from that time the music of her voice was never heard.

The sugar making season was now rapidly passing away, but the brow of the Sweet Strawberry was still overshadowed with grief. Everything was done to restore her to her wonted cheerfulness, but she remained unchanged. Wild ducks in innumerable numbers arrived with every southern wind, and settled upon the surrounding waters, and proceeded to build their nests in pairs, and the Indian maiden sighed over her mysterious doom. On one occasion she espied a cluster of early spring flowers peering above the dry leaves of the forest, and, strange to say, even these were separated into pairs, and seemed to be wooing each other in love. All things whispered to her of love, the happiness of her companions, the birds of the air, and the flowers. She looked into her heart, and inwardly praying for a companion whom she might love, the Master of Life took pity upon her lot and answered her prayer.

It was now the twilight hour, and in the maple woods the Indian boys were watching their fires and the women were bringing in the sap from the surrounding trees. The time for making sugar was almost gone, and the well-filled mocucks, which might be seen in all the wigwams,[Pg 275] testified that the yield had been abundant. The hearts of the old women beat in thankfulness, and the young men and maidens were already beginning to anticipate the pleasures of wedded life and those associated with the sweet summer time. But the brow of the Sweet Strawberry continued to droop, and her friends looked upon her as a victim of a settled melancholy. Her duties, however, were performed without a murmur, and so continued to be performed until the trees refused to fill her buchère-bucket with sap, when she stole away from the sugar camp and wandered to a retired place to muse upon her sorrows. Her unaccountable grief was very bitter, but did not long endure; for, as she stood gazing upon the sky, the moon ascended above the hills and filled her soul with a joy she had never felt before. The longer she looked upon the brilliant object, the more deeply in love did she become with its celestial charms, and she burst forth into a song—a loud, wild, and joyous song. Her musical voice echoed through the woods, and her friends hastened to ascertain the cause. They gathered around her in crowds, but she heeded them not. They wondered at the wildness of her words, and the airy-like appearance of her form. They were spellbound by the scene before them, but their astonishment knew no limits when they saw her gradually ascend from the earth into the air, where she disappeared, as if borne upward by the evening wind. And then it was that they discovered her clasped in the embraces of the moon, for they knew that the spots which they saw within the circle of that planet were those of her robe, which she had made from the skins of the spotted fawn.

Many summers have passed away since the Sweet Strawberry became the Maiden of the Moon, yet among all the people of her nation is she ever remembered for her beauty and the mystery of her being.

(The late) Charles Lanman.

Just the other day, during a housecleaning in the Post Office Department, a number of autograph letters written by men famous in American history were discovered in an old and battered file-case. The file-case had evidently been considered of no value, for it had been stowed away in a little-used portion of the cellar, and would undoubtedly have eventually been broken up and its contents lost or destroyed.

The papers include letters of recommendation by Horace Greeley, Garfield, Sumner, and others of then national prominence. Among the papers was the record of the first woman appointed to the postal service and one of the first employed in the Government departments in Washington in any capacity.

The documents are considered as of more than ordinary interest, particularly as autograph letters of recommendation from prominent men are now practically things of the past. The general use of the typewriter, and the fact that almost every man of prominence has a private secretary, are largely responsible for this modern condition.

Autograph letters of recommendation, moreover, are not looked upon with favor in Government departments nowadays, and a missive from Horace Greeley such as the one on file would probably be thrown in the waste basket as undecipherable. The appearance of this letter justifies all things that were ever said about the great editor’s chirography.

One of the most interesting papers in the collection is an autograph letter written by Elisha Whittlesey of the comptroller’s office in the Treasury Department, to Montgomery Blair, then Postmaster General, which resulted in the appointment of the first woman employee of the postal service and the second to be employed by any Government department in Washington. The letter follows:

Mr. Blair made the desired appointment, and Mr. Whittlesey’s letter bears the following endorsement in the Postmaster General’s handwriting:

“Somewhat mixed, but his heart is in the right place. Recommendation approved.”

Seated on a thick oak plank, worn smooth and shiny by centuries of use as the seat of a hand loom, and with Mrs. Talbot seated on a similar plank in front of a second loom in the basement of his residence, No. 193 Power Street, Arnold G. Talbot, secretary of the Tockwotton Company, and well known in social circles of the East Side, has become a hand loom weaver. Side by side, with a light between them and another in each of the front corners of the little room, Mr. and Mrs. Talbot sit every week day evening and weave plain and pattern goods in silk, linen and cotton, on the looms and in the fashions of two centuries ago.

They do it partly for amusement and partly to satisfy an increasing demand for such goods as our grandmothers wove, among people with so much money that it is really doing them a service to separate them from some of it. They have what is probably the only hand loom establishment in this State, a practical exposition of the spread and possibilities of the modern arts and crafts movement. It is right in line with the present movement for hand work in wearing materials or house fabrics by those able to pay the necessarily increased cost.

In fact there are but few such establishments in this country. In the mountains of Kentucky hand weaving is still practiced, and the products of the mountaineers, handled through a semi-public institution, have a ready sale. In Massachusetts such goods are also selling. Mr. and Mrs. Talbot first thought of the possibilities of remunerative trade when they found a demand for hand weaving among friends who saw the results of their work of three hours every evening—from seven to ten o’clock—on the one loom with which they began work. Then they procured another loom in Johnston, the town from which the first one came, and set that up beside the one Mr. Talbot had bought as a curiosity. Now they have hired a Swede woman to come to work at the loom during the day. In Sweden all the girls are still taught in the country districts to operate a hand loom, and this woman has not been in this country long enough to forget what she was taught as a girl.

Mr. Talbot believes in old things. It is said by friends that there[Pg 279] is nothing modern in his house except the present members of the family. He has one of the most strikingly beautiful mantels imaginable, taken from one of the old houses on South Main Street, in which the quality of the old town of Providence once lived, and his son and heir even sleeps in one of the trundle beds of song and story. So when a friend told him of the auction of goods of a collector of antiques in Johnston he went to the sale. No one else seemed to want the old hand loom there offered, so Mr. Talbot bought it, just for the sake of getting an unusual antique.

There must be many such looms in the garrets of the South County and other sections of the State, where they were shoved to one side half or three-quarters of a century ago, but few of them are set up and in working order as this one was. Mr. Talbot had the loom brought to his home and then started to put it together again. What he did not know about looms was vast and comprehensive, and Mrs. Talbot’s knowledge was equally vain. But together and with the help of a friend or two whose working idea of mechanics was as great as the Talbot willingness to learn, they finally had it set up in the room Mr. Talbot had used for his den. Then they went to work to learn how to run the thing.

Mr. Talbot has a wide acquaintance among mill men, and some of them volunteered to come to the Talbot home and show them how to read patterns, that they might reproduce old hand-loom designs. So they came, and were given some hand-made goods to read. One by one they confessed that, while they could read any machine-woven pattern, the difference in the methods of the machine and the hand looms was great enough to puzzle them. They could not read the patterns, that is, tell how they were woven—so many threads this way, so many that way, and the rest. They gave it up. Mrs. Talbot, who had a rare combination of gumption and energy, tackled the problem and puzzled it out. She picked up a little here and a little there, and was soon weaving, and weaving patterns, at that.

This was early last October. The first loom had no sooner been set up and started than Mr. and Mrs. Talbot found a new difficulty. The work was fascinating, the hours they had to give to it were few, and each wanted to use the loom at about the same time. So Mr. Talbot commissioned the man he had bought it from to find and buy another for them. The second one was found in Johnston, the town from which the first had come, and was set up beside the other. After that they peacefully wove every evening side by side.

[Pg 280]

They had to work everything out from the beginning. Their thread they bought, but they had to build a warping frame, after the old fashion, and warp and link the thread themselves, running four threads at a time, up and down the warping frame. It takes them about four hours to wind fifty yards of warp for forty-inch cloth. Warping the yarn is the most essential feature of the whole process, for if it is not done well, the yarn will not feed easily, and the weaving will be stopped.

Everything about the looms, except the operators and the harnesses, is old. The harnesses, which came with the looms, were of cord, and the new ones are superior. The reeds used in the looms are of split reed, and Mrs. Talbot considers them better than the modern ones of steel. The looms themselves are built of white oak, and as their history is known, Mr. Talbot is safe in the statement that they are each more than 200 years old. He has even procured the square and compasses with which they were built. One loom is used for plain weaving, the other one for pattern work.

Mr. and Mrs. Talbot have named it the Hearthside Loom, a charmingly descriptive name, and have already produced some very handsome patterns, some of them copies of old patterns of two centuries ago, some of them from Mrs. Talbot’s ideas, or from patterns made by Mr. Talbot for their original work. They have found a good demand for their products at prices ranging from $3 a yard for tabbie weaving—the straight up and down, plain weaving—to about $5 a yard for silk goods. In linen, which costs $2.50 a yard, they use all imported Irish linen, the American linen lacking the property of lasting, the oil having been extracted from it. Wool patterns and patterns in imported cloth are worth $6 a yard, with plain wool weaving forty or forty-five inches wide, at $4 a yard, and scrim curtains at $6 a pair.

A good woman weaver can weave about four yards of linen a day, or about five yards of wool a day, on such looms as these. The Hearthside Loom takes orders for pattern work on original patterns, and its work has already proved popular among people who are able to buy goods made to last. In addition to the two large looms, Mr. Talbot has a small ribbon loom that is even older than the larger ones, while the trade-mark of the establishment is a reproduction of a hand loom small enough to be held in one hand, and hardly bigger than a large shingle.

[Pg 281]

The room in which they are placed is a veritable curiosity shop. On the wall hangs the long crane from the old glebe house of St. John’s Church, torn down last year, with other iron fire pieces; at the hearth are old iron fire dogs; all along the rear wall hang other antiques. The house is filled with old and curious things, none older or more curious, however, than the looms forming the working machinery of the Hearthside Loom.

In the midst of the enterprise and activity that mark the Baltimore of to-day, visitors frequently come across old landmarks that stand out distinctly as reminders of the earlier and more leisurely days of the city’s history. None of them is more familiar than the old-fashioned stepping-stones still to be seen at a few crossings, usually at the bottom of the steepest grades, and which become veritable Ararats of refuge when the streets are flooded after a heavy rain. Worn smooth on top by thousands of scurrying feet that now are still, chipped and scarred at the corners by hundreds of whirling wheels long since rotted, and streaked and pitted on the sides by the winter snows and summer rains of countless yesterdays, the stepping-stone stands amid the busy street like a milestone on the road that Greater Baltimore has trod—like the tombstone of the dead past.

Nowadays the most prominent of these old stepping-stones are at the foot of the hill below the town house of Secretary of the Navy Bonaparte, at Centre Street and Park Avenue.

There are traces of the stones still left on the steep grade of Saratoga Street, down from Courtland to Calvert, and there are some of these stones at North Avenue, near the Mount Royal Avenue entrance to the park, and their usefulness has been demonstrated more than once during the heavy downpours that have characterized this season’s rains.

Probably the best-known of the stepping-stones were those opposite the site of the old Hall of Congress, on what is now Baltimore Street, between Sharp and Liberty, at which the sessions of the Continental Congress were held in December, 1776.

Speaking of these old landmarks, Col. William H. Love said:

“For many years Baltimore and Fredericksburg, Va., shared with Pompeii the distinction of having stepping-stones across the public highways. Some years ago, when ex-Mayor Latrobe and his father, the late John H. B. Latrobe, were visiting Pompeii, the elder Mr. Latrobe said: ‘Ferdinand, do you see anything familiar?’ Mr. Latrobe said that he suddenly felt at home; he saw some old stepping-stones.

[Pg 283]

Some years ago, if I am not mistaken, there were stepping-stones at the crossings on Lexington Street leading toward Liberty, and on Liberty at the crossings all the way down to Lombard Street. They were the cause of some painful accidents to children who were crossing and slipped, cutting their faces badly. But as a rule they could not have been dispensed with, because of the enormous body of water that came down the streets when it rained in those days.

The flow of water was especially strong down Baltimore Street, and the old stones opposite Congress Hall I remember well. The stones were quite high at the curb and were somewhat lower near the center of the street. I have known the rush of water to be so great down Baltimore Street at that point that traffic was altogether stopped by it until the storm was over.”

The grave of Daniel Shipman, who is generally believed to have been the original of Cooper’s Leather Stocking, has been definitely located in the Adams cemetery at Fly Creek, near Cooperstown, N. Y. A committee has been appointed for the purpose of erecting a suitable tablet to mark the grave, which is now merely covered with a large flat stone with no inscription whatever.

This event (which has been called by Creasy one of the fifteen decisive battles of the world) secured for us the French alliance; and lifted the cloud of moral and financial gloom that had settled upon the hearts of the people, dampening the hopes of the leaders of the Revolution, and wringing despairing words even from the hopeful Washington.

More than a century has elapsed since that illustrious event. All the actors in the drama have passed away, and their descendants are now sharing in the rewards of their devotion and suffering. And now after years of labor a noble shaft has arisen at Schuylerville to commemorate that turning point of our National destiny; which, like those of Lexington and Bunker Hill, tells of one of the earliest bloodsheds in the cause of Cisatlantic freedom, and makes the selfsacrifice of our ancestors endure in granite records for the admiration of generations yet to be.

It is a noteworthy fact, in connection with the Battles of Saratoga, that, until recently, there has been no map of the battle-ground from an American standpoint (Neilson’s is the same as no map), our only means of information being those maps made by Burgoyne’s engineers [these were then shown by the speaker] and which were published in 1781 to illustrate Burgoyne’s defence when he was tried in Parliament for his defeat at Saratoga. But, within a few years, there has been found a map of the battle-ground, by General Rufus Putnam, which throws great light on one point in particular, viz.: It has always been a mystery, as I say in my “Burgoyne’s Campaign,” why Gates did not renew the battle on the next day, the 8th. But from this map [here the speaker exhibited the map, which has never been published] it appears that the ravines at Wilbur’s Basin had been so fortified by the British, that (to quote from the map in Putnam’s handwriting) “These defences (i. e.: on these ravines) thus fortified, prevented our attack on the British the next day.”

It is also of interest, as showing the good judgment of Burgoyne’s[Pg 285] engineers, that the roads which they cut through the (at that time) primeval forest, are the same that the farmers and road commissioners adopted for their present roads—the one, for instance, from Victory Mills to Quaker Springs, on the high ridge which Fraser took, while Burgoyne and Riedesel took the river bank.

On the 23d of December, 1782, I went on board of the Triomphant, eighty guns with M. de Viomenil, and on the 24th the whole squadron, carrying the army, set sail and left the harbor of Boston; the channel is narrow and has little depth; so that we were not without uneasiness. Our pilot himself did not appear to be quite composed and incessantly repeated orders. However, we fortunately got through; one only of the transport ships was shattered upon the rocks on setting sail; happily, there were not troops on board. We were to cruise as high up as Portsmouth, a pretty good port beyond Boston, where two ships of war were, which were to rejoin us and then to cruise alongside of Rhode Island in order to meet with the Fantasque, a vessel armed en flute. The bad weather changed these designs; we could not, without danger, remain upon these coasts exposed to being cast away upon them or driven upon sand banks.

On the 27th, the frigate Iris left us, to proceed to France. On the same day we lost sight of our convoy and our frigate. Moreover, every vessel carried a sealed package pointing out the general destination of the squadron.

The staff of the Triomphant consisted of thirteen officers. Three auxiliary and three officers of the regiment Médoc, keeping garrison in the ship, who, with the officers who were passengers made fifty-five persons.[Pg 286] The soldiers and sailors were in proportion, so that there were more than eleven hundred persons on board of this ship. We also had on board the famous Paul Jones, who had asked permission to embark on board of us, who behaved with great propriety.

February, 1783. On the 8th, several of our ships were obliged to put into port at Curacoa. The squadron finally sailed for France, April 4th, arrived at Brest 17th of June.

LETTER FROM COL. HENRY GLEN, OF SCHENECTADY, N. Y., TO COL. MARINUS WILLETT.

Schenectady, 13th March, 1783.

My worthy Friend

Colo M. Willett

Sir:

Your letter with the disgreeable Titings of that unhappy day I have Before me and any delay of not answering you sooner was in an exspatation of sending you the Grat & Gloriss news of peace. But out of my power as yet, But momently exspected, when I shall loss no time of sending that Longwished pease of newes. NO MEN Felt moor unhappy Then I hearing the Miscariges of the Expedition & that through the conduct of the dam Savage(s). I cannot but condol on the ocasion & that Sincerely.

However as its the change of war for Fourthen (fortune), & Miss Fourthen to authir (other) Generals, dukes Lords & the first Generals of the Earth Let’s Go back to Jullis Cisier’s time Al’xd the Grat, Malberg (Marlborough) Charles the 12 of Sweden, Prince Ugen (Eugene), Cumberland & the King of prusia, what has befallen them in a moment, a woeful amangumercy (emergency) who both fell in Pursuitt of that thing called Glory & Honour which promised the fairest of every thing in the world, for you to be crowned with, for I blieve by your own acc’t Major (Van Courtland?) & several other Gentlemen who was with you that not a soul of the garrison new ware you came from—you might as well been Tropt (dropped) out of the moon—for what they new—the only way is to make your self happy, its well known your activity Bravery & Courage in the case, that you are not Blamed—a few of your Enemies may say the men had no business there, But what for....

I am last Evening from Albany—saw all the Polititians not a word[Pg 288] of newes but you had in the last papers. Major Hale Just from head-Quarters, no aRivals momently Exspected—the Assembly ware to Brack (break) up on Saturday next, Mr Morris[38] whants to resign—he has some Enemies in Philadelphia who Excuse him for making Parde (part) payment—Congress won’t Suffer him to Resign, wether they have it in their power to prevent him I am not able to Judge, I am sorrow for it.

The Shrief (sheriff) has a letter for Publican (publication?) the day of aLection for a Governer, Lieut Governer, one Senator for the northen district in the Room of Genl Tenbroeck & the Reprecentatives, which is to be on the 3rd Thursday in April next—no talk of any body for to apose Governor Clinton—the Barroom talk is Judge R. Yates (a pair?)—and Thomas Pallmer—neither of the three will answer, tho the one has abbility enough but their is something wanting Palame (Palmer?) I thing had the better ... various are the Congecturs who are the persons for Rang of Goverment.

My opinion, George Clinton, Esq, Governer, for thre years moor, Pier(re) V(an) Cortland Lieut Gov’r some Considerable Alteration in the Lower House....

Civil List either John M. Scott,[39] or James Duane for Mayir for the city of N. York. Recorder, I am at the last I believe, Marrinus Willet, High Shreff, tho you have been misforthen’d you have still friends at Court. So much for a little Pollitics. Calling yesterday at the post office I found a letter to you from His Excellency, which accompanies mine & Rest assured in a few days you will have one wether the war is to continue or pease to take place—there is no telling till a packet which had not come in within these fiew days

I am & Remain with Sentiments of Regard, &c.,

H. Glen.

[Pg 289]

LETTER OF WASHINGTON PARTLY IN REFERENCE TO UNIFORMS

Head Quarters, near New Windsor, (N. Y.,) 29th May, 1781.

To the Board of War:

Gentlemen.—I have been honored with your favors of the 13th 14th and 17th instants. My late absence from the Army prevented my acknowledging them sooner.

If the Uniforms which were fixed upon for the Troops of North and South Carolina have not been ordered from Europe, I do not see that any inconvenience can attend the proposed alteration. I think, however, the Lace ought to be dispensed with as altogether superfluous and very expensive.

It seems reasonable that a due proportion should be observed between the pay of the Deputies and the principal in any department, and as Congress were pleased to augment the Salary of Mr Laurance the Judge Advocate General very considerably by the Resolve of the 10th of November there can I think be no impropriety in augmenting the Salaries of the Deputies also to 60 dolls p. month, which is what they request.

Sir Henry Clinton has informed me that it is not in his power to permit the transportation of Tobacco from Virginia to Charlestown. I imagine there are some commercial Regulations in the way. But he says that he mentioned certain Articles to Colo Magaw and Colo Ely which might be sent in and sold for the benefit of our prisoners. What they were I do not exactly recollect, but I think Lumber and Iron.

I have the Honor to be

with great Respect

Gentlemen

Your most obt. Servt.

Go Washington.

Honble Board of War.

[Pg 290]

LETTER OF JOHN DICKINSON TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS

Philadelphia, July 27, 1783.

Sir:

Yesterday evening the Soldiers from Lancaster began their March for that Place Under the Command of their officers.—Those in the barracks behave very quietly, & are desirous of being dismist.—Colonel Hampton informs me that Letters were sent by the principal Authors of the late Disturbance, to excite General Armand’s Legion & Colonel Moylan’s Regiment, to join in the Mutiny. The general Disposition of those Troops I know not; But I expect to receive immediate Advice of any Movements of Importance among them, which I shall communicate to Congress.

I am, Sir

Your very obt. Serv’t.

John Dickinson.

Mr. Thomson[40] who does me the Honor of charging himself with this Letter, will deliver to Congress a copy of the last proposals of the Soldiers to Councils, & the Act of Council thereon.

His Excellency

The President of Congress.

[Congress had adjourned from Philadelphia to Princeton, N. J.—Ed.]

THE FIRST U. S. FLAG

The first Stars and Stripes were displayed at Fort Schuyler (the present Rome, N. Y.), August 5, 1777. This much every schoolboy is supposed [it is very much of a supposition, however, how many in the average High School could tell the story off-hand—Ed.] to know. What is not generally known is that this historic flag is still in existence; being in the possession of Mrs. Abram Lansing, of Albany, N. Y., a grand-daughter of Colonel Gansevoort, and who possesses also the original of the following letter:

QUERIES

27 a. Allen—In 1808, William B. Allen began to publish in Haverhill, Mass., The Merrimack Intelligencer. In February, 1812, he took his brother, H. G. Allen (Horatio Gates Allen?) into partnership. January 1, 1814, H. G. Allen, who had bought the interest of William B. in 1813, “sold out his paper, printing office and book store to William Greenough and Nathan Burrill.” [Chase’s History of Haverhill.] Wanted, the names of parents and birthplace of Wm. B. and H. G. Allen.

b. Howard—Benjamin Howard, born in 1691, resided in Chelmsford, Mass. Whose daughter was his wife, Mary?

c. Snow—Samuel Howard, b. 1731, son of Benjamin and Mary, married (Int. pub. Sept., 1758), Mary Snow. Who was she?

d. Wright—Mary, wife of Timothy Wright of Stoneham, Mass., died Oct. 27, 1755, aged 45 years (gravestone). Who was she? Timothy Wright’s second wife whom he married in 1756 was Mary Green, the widow of Thomas Green.

e. Perry—Who was Deborah Perry of Lynnfield, who married, Feb. 14, 1796, Wright Newhall? She died in August, 1855, aged 80.    G2.

ANSWERS

19 a. Chamberlain—James Savage derived his information relative to Rebecca Chamberlain from Farmer’s and Moore’s “Historical Collections” (vol. II, p. 70), published at Concord, New Hampshire, in 1823, and republished in Smith’s “Boston News-Letter” (vol. I, p. 232), in 1826.

The article on the “Early History of Billerica, Mass.,” in the “Historical Collections,” although unsigned was doubtless prepared by John Farmer himself, as he had published in 1816 his “Historical Memoir of Billerica.”

In the article in the “Historical Collections” here referred to we read: “Though there is no positive evidence that any of the inhabitants of Billerica were put upon trial for the supposed crime of witchcraft in the time of this delusion, yet it may be safely inferred that several were suspected and one or two apprehended. Besides the authority of Hutchinson, the town records inform us that during the height of the delusion, two persons were in the prison at Cambridge, and that they both died there. Rebecca, wife of William Chamberlain, died there Sept. 26, 1692, and John Durant, Oct. 27, 1692. They were probably both victims of the infatuation which prevailed at that time.”

The writer has made a careful examination of the original court files of[Pg 293] Middlesex County for 1691 and 1692 and finds nothing for or against Farmer’s statements. However, John Farmer, a native of the town of Chelmsford, adjoining Billerica, does not write as though this phase of his subject were traditional with him, but rather conjectural.

Geo. W. Chamberlain,

Weymouth, Mass.

20 d. Gridley—On Dec 19, 1717, John Gridley, then of Beverly, Mass., married Joanna, daughter of Josiah⁸ Dodge, of Wenham, Mass. [Genealogy of the Dodge Family of Essex County, page 35.]

g. Parrott—Mrs. Martha Parrott of Greenland, N. H., in 1805 was the widow of John Parrott, whom she had married after the death of his first wife, and by whom she had one son, Enoch Greenleaf Parrott, named for a friend of the family, Enoch Greenleaf, of Weston, Mass. Mrs. Parrott’s maiden name was Brackett; she was probably a daughter of James and Martha (Cate) Brackett, of Greenland, N. H.    X.

WEYMOUTH HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Wessagusset and Weymouth, an historical address by Charles Francis Adams, Jr., delivered at Weymouth, July 4, 1874, on the occasion of the celebration of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Permanent Settlement of the Town. Weymouth in its First Twenty Years, a paper read before the Society by Gilbert Nash, November 1, 1882. Weymouth Thirty Years Later, a paper read by Charles Francis Adams, before the Weymouth Historical Society, September 23, 1904. Published by the Weymouth Historical Society, 1905. 8vo, pp. 164.