The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 1, October,
1884, by Various
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Title: Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 1, October, 1884
A Massachusetts Magazine
Author: Various
Release Date: May 28, 2005 [EBook #15926]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BAY STATE MONTHLY, VOL. II ***
Produced by Cornell University, Joshua Hutchinson, David
Garcia and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
THE
Bay State Monthly
_A Massachusetts Magazine_
OF
LITERATURE, HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, AND STATE PROGRESS
* * * * *
VOLUME II
* * * * *
BOSTON
JOHN N. McCLINTOCK AND COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
No. 31 MILK STREET
1885
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, by John N.
McClintock and Company, in the office of the Librarian of Congress
at Washington. All rights reserved.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.
* * * * *
Ames, Lieutenant Governor Oliver James W. Clarke, A.M. 185
Bartholdi Colossus William Howe Downes 153
Battle of Shiloh General Henry B. Carrington 330, 367
Bermuda Islands, Early History of James H. Stark 277
Blaine, James Gillespie 1
Boston, Taverns of in Ye Olden Time David M. Balfour 106
Boston Herald 22
Our National Cemeteries Charles Cowley. LL.D. 58
Cleveland, Grover Henry H. Metcalf 61
Cleveland, Grover, and The Roman
Catholic Protectory Charles Cowley, LL.D. 243
Dark Day Elbridge H. Goss 254
Easy Chair Elbridge H. Goss 306
Editor's Table 120
Elizabeth: A Romance of Francis C. Sparhawk
Colonial Days 82, 159, 236, 296, 375
Fitchburg, Historical Sketch of Ebenezer Bailey 226
Fitchburg in 1885 Atherton P. Mason, M.D. 341
Gaston William Arthur P. Dodge 245
Gems from the Easy Chair 372
Glorifying Trial by Jury Charles Cowley, LL.D. 82
Gold, Past and Future of David M. Balfour 359
Groton, Boundary Lines of Old--III
IV Hon. Samuel Abbott Green, M.D. 12, 69
Lancaster, Historical Sketch of Hon. Henry S. Nourse 261
Lee, William George L. Austin, M.D. 309
Lothrop, Daniel John N. McClintock, A.M.
(Illustrated) 121
Middlesex Canal Lorin L. Dame, A.M. 96
Names and Nicknames Gilbert Nash 255
National Bank Failures George H. Wood 373
New England Conservatory of Music Mrs. M.J. Davis (Illustrated) 132
Phillips, Wendell 306
Pittsfield, Historical Sketch of Frank W. Kaan (Illustrated) 193
Protection of Children Ernest Nusse 89
Publishers Department--Chromo--
Lithography 89, 174
Robinson, George Dexter Fred W. Webber, A.M. 177
Rogers, Robert, the Ranger Joseph B. Walker 211
Reuben Tracy's Vacation Trips. II. Elizabeth Porter Gould 368
Saugus, Historical Sketch of E.P. Robinson (Illustrated) 140
Shepard, Charles A.B. George L. Austin, M.D. 312, 316
Summer on the Great lakes, A Fred. Myron Colby 42
Sunday Travel and the Law Chester F. Sanger 231
Wachusett Mountain and Princeton Atherton P. Mason 35
Webster, Daniel, Reminiscences of Hon. George W. Nesmith, LL.D. 252
Wallace, Hon. Rodney Rev. S. Leroy Blake, D.D. 317
POETRY.
A Glimpse Mary H. Wheeler 276
Fitchburg Mrs. Caroline A. Mason 328
Heart and I Mary Helen Boodey 295
My Mountain Home William C. Sturoc 366
Roused From Dreams Adelaide Cilley Waldron 225
Sails 81
Washington and the Flag Henry B. Carrington 41
STEEL ENGRAVINGS.
James G. Blaine 1
Grover Cleveland 61
Daniel Lothrop 121
George D. Robinson 177
Oliver Ames 185
William Gaston 245
William Lee 309
Charles A.B. Shepard 313
Rodney Wallace 317
* * * * *
[Illustration: James G. Blaine]
THE BAY STATE MONTHLY.
_A Massachusetts Magazine._
VOL. II. OCTOBER, 1884. No. 1.
* * * * *
JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE.
In the long list of illustrious men who have held the high office
of President of the United States, a few names stand out with such
prominence as to be constantly before the American people. While Adams,
Jefferson, Monroe, Jackson, Grant, and others, did the country service
that never will be forgotten, it is indisputable that Washington,
Lincoln, and Garfield gained a firmer hold upon the confidence and
affection of the masses than any others. And now, as we approach another
presidential campaign, the result of which is to place in the highest
office of the nation a new man, it is alike a source of pride and
satisfaction that the Republican party has put in nomination a man, who,
if elected, will bring to the discharge of his duties as high a degree
of honesty as Washington, as thorough an acquaintance with human nature
as Lincoln, and as profound a knowledge of political economy as
Garfield. Through all the years of his manhood he has been a central
figure in American politics, and his achievements are indelibly written
on almost every page of American history for the last quarter of a
century. With such a man as a candidate the country may well
congratulate itself that if he proves to be the choice of the majority
he will, by his ability and experience, bring as great renown to the
office as any of his predecessors, and that under his guidance the
material prosperity and intellectual growth of the nation will be such
as to gain for his administration great popular favor, the admiration of
his friends, and the respect of all nations.
James Gillespie Blaine, the nominee of the Republican party for
President of the United States, was born on January 31, 1830, in
Washington County, in the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania, in West
Brownsville, a village on the west bank of the Monongahela. Here Neil
Gillespie, before the British army left America at the close of the
Revolution, had established his family, purchasing the land of the
Indians. Nearly twenty years later the Blaines came from Carlisle,
seeking investment and development in this new West, and the father of
James G. Blaine, who had left Carlisle when a child, married the
daughter of Neil Gillespie the second.
The first of the Blaine family of whom much is known was Colonel Ephraim
Blaine, who lived at Chester, and in the Revolution was purveyor-general
of the Pennsylvania troops, and incidentally of the whole Revolutionary
array. He married Rebekah Galbraith in 1765. Elaine is a well-known
Scotch name. Galbraith and Gillespie are Scotch-Irish; in fact, the
ancestors of James G. Blaine were nearly all Scotch and Irish. It is a
circumstance worthy of comment that Blaine comes from a stock which has
furnished the United States with many of her ablest public men, notably
among them being Andrew Jackson and Horace Greeley.
Colonel Ephraim Blaine had two sons named Robert and James, and each of
these sons named his son for Colonel Ephraim Blaine. Old Ephraim Blaine
did not leave his property to his sons, but to these two grandsons, (1)
Ephraim, who remained in Carlisle, and (2) Ephraim Lyon Blaine, who grew
up in western Pennsylvania. Ephraim Lyon Blaine was named for his
mother, Miss Lyon, the daughter of Samuel Lyon from about Carlisle.
Ephraim Lyon Blaine married Miss Gillespie, a devout member of the Roman
Catholic Church, but most of their seven children--five boys and two
girls--adhered to the traditional faith of the Blaines. The second of
these sons, James Gillespie Blaine, is the subject of this sketch. He
would have inherited large blended fortunes, had not his father, like
his grandfather, been a spendthrift. Therefore, soon after James G.
Blaine was born his parents had to move out of the big house which they
could no longer keep up, and occupy a frame-house called the Pringle
dwelling, also in West Brownsville, about a quarter of a mile distant.
Here young Elaine lived and went to school both in Brownsville and in
West Brownsville, until his father was elected prothonotary of the
county, in 1843, when the whole family removed to Little Washington,
twenty-four miles distant.
James G. entered Washington College in 1843, being then thirteen years
of age, and became at once prominent as a scholar among the two or three
hundred other lads from all parts of the country. He was also a leader
in athletic sports. He was not a bookworm, but he was a close student
and possessed the happy faculty of assimilating knowledge from books and
tutors far more easily and quickly than most of his fellows. In
debating-societies he held his own well, and was conspicuous by his
ability to control and direct others.
After leaving college young Blaine started for Kentucky to carve out his
own fortune. He went to Blue Lick Springs and became a professor in the
Western Military Institute, in which there were about four hundred and
fifty boys. A retired officer who was a student there at the time
relates that Professor Blaine was a thin, handsome, earnest young man,
with the same fascinating manners he has now. He was popular with the
boys, who trusted him and made friends with him from the first. He knew
the given name of every one, and he knew his shortcomings and his strong
points. He was a man of great personal courage, and during a fight
between the faculty of the school and the owners of the springs,
involving some questions about the removal of the school, he behaved in
the bravest manner, fighting hard but keeping cool. Revolvers and knives
were freely used, but Blaine only used his well-disciplined muscle.
Colonel Thornton F. Johnson was the principal of the school, and his
wife had a young ladies' school at Millersburg, twenty miles distant.
There Blaine met Miss Harriet Stanwood, who subsequently became his
wife. She was a Maine girl of excellent family sent to Kentucky to be
educated.
After teaching for a while Blaine left Kentucky and went to Philadelphia
to study law. While there he taught for a short time at the blind asylum
and also wrote for the newspapers. He soon, however, was irresistibly
attracted to the State of Maine, and left his native State for a home in
the community with which his name is now indissolubly connected. It is
somewhat remarkable that this ambitious young man should have gone East
instead of West, choosing a State which the young men were fast
leaving--one whose population in the last forty years has increased very
little. He is, indeed, almost the only man who has gone East in the last
half-century and risen to any prominence.
Mr. Blaine went to Maine in 1853, and soon afterward married Miss
Stanwood, whose family are well known in New England. Through their
influence he soon found an occupation in journalism, and until 1860 was
actively engaged in editing at different times the Kennebec Journal and
the Portland Daily Advertiser. He retained a part ownership in the
Kennebec Journal until it began to hamper him in his political career,
and then he sold out. A friend has said of him as a journalist: "I have
often thought that a great editor, as great perhaps as Horace Greeley,
was lost when Mr. Blaine went into politics. He possesses all the
qualities of a great journalist: he has a phenomenal memory; he
remembers circumstances, dates, names, and places more readily than any
other man I ever met."
Wielding a strong, vigorous, aggressive pen, Mr. Blaine soon made its
power felt among politicians. He went to Maine at a time when the Whig
and Democratic parties were breaking up. Previous to 1854 the Democratic
party had governed the State for a quarter of a century, but its power
was broken in the September election of that year, through a temporary
union of the anti-slavery and temperance elements. In 1855 the different
wings of the new party were well consolidated, and in the famous Frémont
campaign of 1856 they carried the State, electing Hannibal Hamlin
governor by twenty-four thousand majority. Mr. Blaine, during all these
exciting times, did not by any means confine himself to writing
political leaders. He took an active part in politics, attending
Republican meetings throughout the State, and soon made himself one of
the recognized Republican leaders in Maine. Of this period of his
career, the late Governor Kent, of Maine, who himself stood in the front
rank of public men in his State, once wrote as follows:--
"Almost from the day of his assuming editorial charge of the Kennebec
Journal, at the early age of twenty-three, Mr. Elaine sprang into a
position of great influence in the politics and policy of Maine. At
twenty-five he was a leading power in the councils of the Republican
party, so recognized by Fessenden, Hamlin, the two Morrills, and others,
then, and still, prominent in the State. Before he was twenty-nine he
was chosen chairman of the executive committee of the Republican
organization in Maine--a position he has held ever since, and from which
he has practically shaped and directed every political campaign in the
State, always leading his party to brilliant victory. Had Mr. Blaine
been New-England born, he would probably not have received such rapid
advancement at so early an age, even with the same ability he possessed.
But there was a sort of Western _dash_ about him that took with us
Down-Easters; an expression of frankness, candor, and confidence, that
gave him from the start a very strong and permanent hold on our people,
and, as the foundation of all, a pure character and a masterly ability
equal to all demands made upon him."
Mr. Blaine's early political addresses, and especially the ability which
he displayed in them as a debater, won him great local reputation, and,
during the Frémont campaign, he achieved a distinction as a speaker
which insured him a seat in the Legislature, in 1858, though he was not
yet thirty years of age and had been but five years in his adopted
State. The ability which he displayed as a legislator was so marked that
his constituents returned him four years in succession, and the
Legislature, recognizing his talents, elected him speaker in 1860 and
1861, a rare honor for so young a man. As a presiding officer he
displayed those fine qualifications which afterward made him one of the
most brilliant of the long line of able men who have occupied the
speaker's chair in the National House of Representatives.
By this time Mr. Blaine had become a professional politician. In other
words he had given up all other occupations and made politics his sole
employment. This is a fact worthy of serious consideration, for few men
in this country have avowedly chosen politics as a calling and succeeded
in it as James G. Blaine has succeeded. Most of our statesmen, like
Webster and Lincoln, have been eminent lawyers. Blaine studied law
thoroughly, but never applied for admission at the bar. Some, like
Greeley, have been eminent journalists. Blaine made journalism merely a
means to an end, discarding it as soon as it had served his purpose.
Blaine has made a systematic and thorough study of politics and
political affairs. Constitutional history and international law he made
it his business to master. Above all, he has studied men, has learned by
careful observation how to handle, to mould, to use his fellow-beings.
No man in America to-day is more learned in everything pertaining to the
science of statesmanship than James G. Blaine. It is the fashion in this
country to decry professional politicians, to uphold the doctrine that
the office should seek the man and not the man the office. Yet there can
be no more honorable profession than the service of one's country, and
surely no man should be blamed for fitting himself for that service as
thoroughly and as carefully as for any other profession.
A man of Mr. Blaine's ability, of his rare knowledge of parliamentary
usages, and, above all, of his ambitions, was not likely to remain long
content with the position of a representative in the State Legislature.
As early as 1859 he had an ambition to go to Congress, and he was talked
of as a candidate in 1860. But Anson P. Morrill was nominated, Mr.
Blaine not having strength enough to obtain the honor. In 1862 Mr.
Blaine was nominated to the office, although he was not then so desirous
of it as he had been two years before. His patriotic utterances in the
convention which nominated him met with a hearty response, and he was
elected over his Democratic competitor by the largest majority that had
ever been given in his district, it exceeding three thousand. This
majority he held in six succeeding and consecutive elections, running it
up in one exciting contest to nearly four thousand.
During his first term in Congress Mr. Blaine gave himself up to study
and observation, but in the next Congress, the Thirty-ninth, he gained
some prominence, and from that time to the end of his congressional
career he occupied a foremost place among the Republican leaders. His
reputation was that of an exceedingly industrious committeeman. He was a
member of the post-office and military committees, and of the committees
on appropriations and rules. He paid close attention to the business of
the committees, and took an active part in the debates of the House,
manifesting practical ability and genius for details. The first
remarkable speech which he made in Congress was on the subject of the
assumption by the general government of the war debts of the States, in
the course of which he urged that the North was abundantly able to carry
on the war to a successful issue. This vigorous speech attracted so much
attention that two hundred thousand copies of it were circulated in 1864
as a campaign document by the Republican party. In the winter of 1865-66
Mr. Blaine was very energetic in promoting the passage of reconstruction
measures. In the early part of 1866 he proposed a resolution which
finally became the basis of that part of the fourteenth amendment
relating to congressional representation. In the second session of the
Thirty-ninth Congress he also distinguished himself by the "Blaine
amendment" to the military bill, which was universally discussed in the
public press of the day.
In 1867 Mr. Blaine made a trip to Europe, returning in time to fight
against the greenback heresy, of which he was the foremost opponent. In
December he made an elaborate speech on the finances, in which he
analyzed Mr. Pendleton's greenback theory. "The remedy for our financial
troubles," said he, "will not be found in a superabundance of
depreciated paper currency. It lies in the opposite direction, and the
sooner the nation finds itself on a specie basis the sooner will the
public treasury be freed from embarrassment and private business be
relieved from discouragement. Instead, therefore, of entering upon a
reckless and boundless issue of legal tenders, with their constant
depreciation, if not destruction, of value, let us set resolutely to
work and make those already in circulation equal to so many gold
dollars."
This was the last great question in the discussion of which Mr. Blaine
took part on the floor of the House, his colleagues in 1869 electing him
to the office of speaker, vacated by the promotion of Schuyler Colfax to
the vice-presidency. The vote stood one hundred and thirty-five votes
for Blaine to fifty-seven for Kerr, of Indiana. Mr. Blaine proved
himself eminently fitted for the position. As a speaker he may be
classed with Henry Clay and General Banks, who are acknowledged to have
been the best speakers we have ever had. Blaine was their equal in every
respect. The whole force of such a statement as this cannot be felt
unless it is fully understood that the speaker of the House of
Representatives stands next to the President in power and importance in
the United States. The business of Congress is done largely by
committees, and the committees of the House are appointed and shaped by
the speaker. Then, to say that Blaine was one of our three ablest
speakers is to say a great deal, for a long line of very able men have
filled the speaker's chair. His quickness, his thorough knowledge of
parliamentary law and of the rules, his firmness, clear voice,
impressive manner, his ready comprehension of subjects and situations,
and his dash and brilliancy, really made him a great presiding officer.
He rose to a high place not only in the estimation of his Republican
friends, but also of his Democratic opponents, and he was re-elected to
the speakership in 1871 and again in 1873. In 1875, the Democratic
majority took control, and Mr. Blaine resumed his place on the floor to
win fresh laurels as a debater, and to discomfit the majority in many a
projected scheme which his quick eye detected and his ready words
exposed.
The governor of Maine, on the tenth of July, 1876, appointed Mr. Blaine
to the national Senate, in place of Mr. Morrill, who had resigned to
become secretary of the treasury. He was afterward elected for the
unexpired term and the full term following. On his appointment he wrote
to his constituents thus:--
Beginning with 1862, you have, by continuous elections, sent me as your
representative to the Congress of the United States. For such marked
confidence, I have endeavored to return the most zealous and devoted
service in my power, and it is certainly not without a feeling of pain
that I now surrender a trust by which I have always felt so signally
honored. It has been my boast, in public and in private, that no man on
the floor of Congress ever represented a constituency more distinguished
for intelligence, for patriotism, for public and personal virtue. The
cordial support you have so uniformly given me through these fourteen
eventful years is the chief honor of my life. In closing the intimate
relations I have so long held with the people of this district, it is
a great satisfaction to me to know that with returning health I shall
enter upon a field of duty in which I can still serve them in common
with the larger constituency of which they form a part.
While in the Senate Mr. Blaine advocated the Chinese immigration bill,
and opposed the electoral commission and Bland silver legislation. Here,
as throughout his political career, he was never on the fence on any
question. His position has always been clear and he has always taken
strong grounds.
Mr. Elaine was a candidate for the presidential nomination in 1876, and
came within twenty-seven votes of being successful. His vote increased
from two hundred and ninety-one on the first ballot to three hundred and
fifty-one on the seventh, but he was beaten by a combination against him
of the delegates supporting Morton, Conkling, Hartranft, Bristow, and
Hayes, who united upon Hayes, and made him the nominee. He was also one
of the leading candidates for the presidential nomination at the
Republican National Convention in Chicago, in June, 1880. Out of a total
of seven hundred and fifty-five he received, on the first ballot, two
hundred and eighty-four votes. On the thirteenth and fourteenth ballots
he received his highest vote, two hundred and eighty-five, which very
gradually declined to two hundred and fifty-seven on the thirty-fifth
ballot. On the thirty-sixth ballot General Garfield was nominated by a
combination of the elements opposed to General Grant and a third term.
As before, Mr. Blaine yielded to the inevitable, remaining true to his
party principles, and contributing his aid to the election of James A.
Garfield.
When President Garfield made up his Cabinet he offered Mr. Blaine the
control of the state department. This is how Mr. Blaine accepted the
offer:
WASHINGTON, December 20, 1880.
_My dear Garfield_,--Your generous invitation to enter your Cabinet
as secretary of state has been under consideration for more than three
weeks. The thought had really never occurred to my mind until, at our
late conference, you presented it with such cogent arguments in its
favor, and with such warmth of personal friendship in aid of your kind
offer. I know that an early answer is desirable, and I have waited only
long enough to consider the subject in all its bearings, and to make up
my mind, definitely and conclusively. I now say to you, in the same
cordial spirit in which you have invited me, that I accept the position.
It is no affectation for me to add that I make this decision, not for
the honor of the promotion it gives me in the public service, but
because I think I can be useful to the country and to the party; useful
to you as the responsible leader of the party and the great head of the
government. I am influenced somewhat, perhaps, by the shower of letters
I have received urging me to accept, written to me in consequence of the
mere unauthorized newspaper report that you had been pleased to offer me
the place. While I have received these letters from all sections of the
Union, I have been especially pleased, and even surprised, at the
cordial and widely extended feeling in my favor throughout New England,
where I had expected to encounter local jealousy and, perhaps, rival
aspiration.
In our new relation I shall give all that I am and all that I can hope
to be, freely and joyfully, to your service. You need no pledge of my
loyalty in heart and in act. I should be false to myself did I not prove
true both to the great trust you confide to me and to your own personal
and political fortunes in the present and in the future. Your
administration must be made brilliantly successful and strong in the
confidence and pride of the people, not at all directing its energies
for re-election, and yet compelling that result by the logic of events
and by the imperious necessities of the situation. To that most
desirable consummation I feel that, next to yourself, I can possibly
contribute as much influence as any other one man. I say this not from
egotism or vainglory, but merely as a deduction from a plain analysis of
the political forces which have been at work in the country for five
years past, and which have been significantly shown in two great
national conventions. I accept it as one of the happiest circumstances
connected with this affair that in allying my political fortunes with
yours--or, rather, for the time merging mine in yours--my heart goes
with my head, and that I carry to you not only political support, but
personal and devoted friendship. I can but regard it as somewhat
remarkable that two men of the same age, entering Congress at the same
time, influenced by the same aims and cherishing the same ambitions,
should never, for a single moment in eighteen years of close intimacy,
have had a misunderstanding or a coolness, and that our friendship has
steadily grown with our growth and strengthened with our strength. It is
this fact which has led me to the conclusion embodied in this letter;
for however much, my dear Garfield, I might admire you as a statesman, I
would not enter your Cabinet if I did not believe in you as a man and
love you as a friend. Always faithfully yours,
JAMES G. BLAINE.
Mr. Blaine's diplomatic career began with his appointment as secretary
of state on March 5, 1881, and ended with his resignation on December
19, three months after President Garfield's death. The two principal
objects of his foreign policy, as defined by himself on September 1,
1882, were these: "First, to bring about peace, and prevent future wars
in North and South America; second, to cultivate such friendly
commercial relations with all American countries as would lead to a
large increase in the export trade of the United States, by supplying
those fabrics in which we are abundantly able to compete with the
manufacturing nations of Europe." President Garfield, in his inaugural
address, had repeated the declaration of his predecessor that it was
"the right and duty of the United States to assert and maintain such
supervision and authority over any interoceanic canal across the isthmus
that connects North and South America as will protect our national
interests." This policy, which had received the direct approval of
Congress, was vigorously upheld by Secretary Blaine. The Colombian
Republic had proposed to the European powers to join in a guaranty of
the neutrality of the proposed Panama Canal. One of President Garfield's
first acts under the advice of Secretary Blaine was to remind the
European governments of the exclusive rights which the United States had
secured with the country to be traversed by the interoceanic waterway.
These exclusive rights rendered the prior guaranty of the United States
government indispensable, and the powers were informed that any foreign
guaranty would be not only an unnecessary but unfriendly act. As the
United States had made, in the Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850, a special
agreement with Great Britain on this subject, Secretary Blaine
supplemented his memorandum to the powers by a formal proposal for the
abrogation of all provisions of that convention which were not in accord
with the guaranties and privileges covenanted for in the compact with
the Colombian Republic. In this state paper, the most elaborate of the
series receiving his signature as secretary of state, Mr. Blaine
contended that the operation of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty practically
conceded to Great Britain the control of any canal which might be
constructed in the isthmus, as that power was required, by its insular
position and colonial possessions, to maintain a naval establishment
with which the United States could not compete. As the American
government had bound itself by its engagements in the Clayton-Bulwer
treaty not to fight in the isthmus, nor to fortify the mouths of any
waterway that might be constructed, the secretary argued that if any
struggle for the control of the canal were to arise England would have
an advantage at the outset which would prove decisive. "The treaty," he
remarked, "commands this government not to use a single regiment of
troops to protect its interests in connection with the interoceanic
canal, but to surrender the transit to the guardianship and control of
the British navy." The logic of this paper was unanswerable from an
American point of view.
The war between Chili and Peru had virtually ended with the capture of
Lima on January 17, 1881. The state department made strenuous exertions
to bring about the conclusion of an early peace between Chili and the
two prostrate states which had been crushed in war. The influence of the
government was brought to bear upon victorious Chili in the interest of
peace and magnanimity; but, owing to an unfortunate misapprehension of
Mr. Blaine's instructions, the United States ministers did not promote
the ends of peace. Special envoys were accordingly sent to South
America, accredited to the three governments, with general instructions
which should enable them to bring those belligerent powers into friendly
relations. After they had set out from New York Mr. Blaine resigned, and
Mr. Frelinghuysen reversed the diplomatic policy with such precipitate
haste that the envoys on arriving at their destination were informed by
the Chilian minister of foreign affairs that their instructions had been
countermanded, and that their mission was an idle farce. By this
reversal of diplomatic methods and purposes the influence of the United
States government on the South American coast was reduced to so low a
point as to become insignificant. Mr. Blaine's policy had been at once
strong and pacific. It was followed by a period of no policy, which
enabled Chili to make a conqueror's terms with the conquered and to
seize as much territory as pleased her rapacious generals.
The most conspicuous act of Mr. Blaine's administration of the state
department was his invitation to the peace congress. The proposition was
to invite all the independent governments of North and South America to
meet in a peace congress at Washington on March 15, 1882. The
representatives of all the minor governments on this continent were to
agree, if possible, upon some comprehensive plan for averting war by
means of arbitration, and for resisting the intrigues of European
diplomacy. Invitations were sent on November 22, with the limitations
and restrictions originally designed. Mr. Frelinghuysen lost no time in
undermining this diplomatic congress, and the meeting never took place.
On the morning of Saturday, July 2, President Garfield was to start from
Washington by the morning limited express for New York, en route for New
England and a reunion with his old college mates at the Williams College
commencement. His secretary of state accompanied him to the train, and
has recorded the great, almost boyish, delight with which the President
anticipated his holiday. They entered the waiting-room at the station,
and a moment later Guiteau's revolver had done its work. The country
still vividly remembers the devotion with which the head of the Cabinet
watched at the President's bedside, and the calm dignity with which,
during those long weeks of suspense, he discharged the painful duties of
his position. On September 6 the President was removed from Washington
to Elberon, whither he was followed the same day by Mr. Blaine and the
rest of the Cabinet. The apparent improvement in the President's
condition warranted the belief that he would continue to gain, and Mr.
Blaine went for a short rest to his home in Augusta. He was on his way
back to Elberon when the fatal moment came, and reached there the next
morning. It is the universal testimony of the press and people that,
during the weary weeks which intervened between the President's injury
and death, Mr. Blaine's every action and constant demeanor were
absolutely faultless. Selected by Congress to pronounce a formal eulogy
upon President Garfield, Mr. Blaine, on February 19, 1882, before
President Arthur and his Cabinet, both Houses of Congress, the Supreme
Court, the foreign legations, and an audience of ladies and gentlemen
which crowded the Hall of Representatives, delivered a most just,
comprehensive, and admirable address upon the martyr's great career and
character.
Since his withdrawal from President Arthur's Cabinet and his retirement
to private life at Augusta, Mr. Blaine has busied himself with his
history, entitled Twenty Years of Congress, the first volume of which
was given to the public last April. When finished, this work will cover
the period from Lincoln to Garfield, with a review of the events which
led to the political revolution of 1860. The story he tells in his first
volume is given with the simplicity and compactness of a trained
journalist, and yet with sufficient fulness to make the picture distinct
and clear in almost every detail. The book is as easy to read as a
well-written novel; it is clear and interesting, and commands the
attention throughout, the more for the absence of anything like
oratorical display or forensic combativeness. In literary polish it is
not beyond criticism, though occasional infelicities of expression and
instances of carelessness do not outweigh the general clearness and
force of style. It is not at all points unerring in portraiture, nor
infallible in judgment, though the writer's impartiality of spirit and
desire to be just are conspicuous, and he gives cogent reasons for
opinions expressed. But in broad and comprehensive appreciation of the
forces by which the development of public opinion has been affected, the
work is one of great merit. It seems to be entirely free from those
personal qualities which have characterized Mr. Blaine in politics. It
is very remarkable that a man so prominent as a partisan in political
affairs could have written a book so free from partisanship.
Mr. Blaine is now in his fifty-fifth year. Although above medium height,
he is so compactly and powerfully built that he scarcely seems tall. His
features are large and expressive; he is slightly bald and his neatly
trimmed beard is prematurely gray; his brows are lowering--his eyes
keen. On the floor of Congress he manifested marvelous power and nerve.
His voice is rich and melodious; his delivery is fluent and vigorous;
his gestures are full of grace and force; his self-possession is never
lost. He has appeared on the stump in almost every Northern State, and
is an exceedingly popular and effective campaign speaker. But it is not
when on the platform, speaking alone, that he has shown his greatest
strength. He is strongest when hard pressed by opponents in
parliamentary debate. He is a thorough believer in the organization of
men who think alike for advancing their views. He believes that in order
to carry out any great project it is necessary to have a party
organization, not for the purpose of advancing individual interests, but
to push ahead a great line of policy. He is a positive with the courage
of his convictions, and believes in aggressive politics. As a
consequence of this he has always had both very strong friends and very
bitter enemies. It is probable that no man in this country has had a
stronger personal following since the days of Harry Clay.
Blaine is a man of great physical capacities. He has great powers of
application. His mind works quickly. He is as restless as the ocean and
has the power of accomplishing an immense amount of work. Another
quality which he possesses--rare but invaluable to a public man--is that
of remembering names and faces, of remembering men and all about them.
This ability is partly natural, partly the result of his training. He
has made it a study to get acquainted with men.
His knowledge of facts, dates, events, men in our history, is not only
remarkable, but almost unprecedented. It would be difficult to find a
man in the United States who can, on the instant, without reference to
book or note, give so many facts and statistics relating to the social
and political history of our country. This has been the study of his
life, and his memory is truly encyclopædic.
Mr. Blaine was not a poor man when he entered Congress in 1863, and he
is not a millionaire now. For twenty years he has owned a valuable coal
tract of several hundred acres near Pittsburgh. This yielded him a
handsome income before he entered Congress, and the investment has been
a profitable one during his public life. He is said to have speculated
more or less, and to have made and lost millions. Yet in general his
business affairs have been managed with prudence and shrewdness, and he
now has a handsome fortune. His home in Augusta, near the State House,
is a plain two-story house. Several institutions in the State have
received benefactions from him, and his charity and generosity are
appreciated at home. He is a member of the Congregational Church in
Augusta, and constant attendance at divine service is a practice that he
has always inculcated upon his family. He has constantly refused to take
religious matters into politics, but his respect for his mother's belief
has made him tolerant and charitable toward all sects. In his own house
he is a man of culture and refinement, a genial host, a courteous
gentlemen. No man in public life is more fortunate in his domestic
relations. He is the companion and confidant of every one of his six
children, and they fear him no more than they fear one of their own
number. Mrs. Blaine is a model wife and mother. The eldest son, Walker
Blaine, is a graduate of Yale College and of the Law School of Columbia
College. He is a member of the bar of several States, and has been
creditably engaged in public life in Washington. The second son, Emmons
Blaine, is a graduate of Harvard College and the Cambridge Law School.
The third is James G. Blaine, Jr., who was graduated from Exeter Academy
last year. The three daughters are named Alice, Margaret, and Harriet.
The eldest was married more than a year ago to Brevet-Colonel J.J.
Coppinger, U.S.A.
But however Mr. Blaine may have distinguished himself as an author, a
diplomatist, or a man of varied experience and knowledge, in the present
political campaign, in which he is destined to play so important a part,
he will necessarily be largely judged in a political sense, and as a
politician. What does the record show in these directions? Has he been
true or false to his political convictions? Assuredly no man, be he
friend or foe, can point to a single instance in Mr. Blaine's long and
varied political career, in which he has betrayed his political trust or
failed to respond to the demands of his political professions. Through
the anti-slavery period; during the trying years of the war; through the
boisterous struggle for reconstruction, and constantly since, Mr.
Blaine's voice has always been heard pleading for the cause of equality,
arguing for freedom, and combating all propositions that aimed to
restrict human rights or fetter human progress. That he has sometimes
been swayed by partisan rather than statesmanlike considerations is
highly probable, but even that can but prove his zeal and devotion to
party principles.
No one claims for him political infallibility, and his warmest admirer
will admit that he, like other men, has faults. But those who look upon
Mr. Blaine as an impetuous and rash politician have but to read his
letter of acceptance to see how unjust that judgment is. Calm,
dignified, and scholarly, it discusses with consummate ability the
issues that to-day are engaging the attention of the American people,
and whether it be the tariff question or our foreign policy, he shows a
familiarity with the subject that at once stamps him as a man of
remarkable versatility and rare accomplishments. As the standard-bearer
of the great Republican party, he will unquestionably inspire in his
followers great enthusiasm and determination, and, if elected to the
high office to which he has been nominated, there is every reason to
believe that he will make a Chief Magistrate of whom the entire people
will justly be proud.
* * * * *
THE BOUNDARY LINES OF OLD GROTON.--III.
By the Hon. Samuel Abbott Green.
The running of the Provincial line in 1741 cut off a large part of
Dunstable, and left it on the New Hampshire side of the boundary. It
separated even the meeting-house from that portion of the town still
remaining in Massachusetts, and this fact added not a little to the deep
animosity felt by the inhabitants when the disputed question was
settled. It is no exaggeration to say that, throughout the old township,
the feelings and sympathies of the inhabitants on both sides of the line
were entirely with Massachusetts. A short time before this period the
town of Nottingham had been incorporated by the General Court, and its
territory taken from Dunstable. It comprised all the lands of that town,
lying on the easterly side of the Merrimack River; and the difficulty of
attending public worship led to the division. When the Provincial line
was established, it affected Nottingham, like many other towns, most
unfavorably. It divided its territory and left a tract of land in
Massachusetts, too small for a separate township, but by its
associations belonging to Dunstable. This tract is to-day that part of
Tyngsborough lying east of the river.
The question of a new meeting-house was now agitating the inhabitants
of Dunstable. Their former building was in another Province, where
different laws prevailed respecting the qualifications and settlement of
ministers. It was clearly evident that another structure must be built,
and the customary dispute of small communities arose in regard to its
site. Some persons favored one locality, and others another; some wanted
the centre of territory, and others the centre of population. Akin to
this subject I give the words of the Reverend Joseph Emerson, of
Pepperell,--as quoted by Mr. Butler, in his History of Groton (page
306),--taken from a sermon delivered on March 8, 1770, at the dedication
of the second meeting-house in Pepperell: "It hath been observed that
some of the hottest contentions in this land hath been about settling of
ministers and building meeting-houses; and what is the reason? The devil
is a great enemy to settling ministers and building meeting-houses;
wherefore he sets on his own children to work and make difficulties, and
to the utmost of his power stirs up the corruptions of the children of
God in some way lo oppose or obstruct so good a work." This explanation
was considered highly satisfactory, as the hand of the evil one was
always seen in such disputes.
During this period of local excitement an effort was made to annex
Nottingham to Dunstable; and at the same time Joint Grass to Dunstable.
Joint Grass was a district in the northeastern part of Groton, settled
by a few families, and so named from a brook running through the
neighborhood. It is evident from the documents that the questions of
annexation and the site of the meeting-house were closely connected. The
petition in favor of annexation was granted by the General Court on
certain conditions, which were not fulfilled, and consequently the
attempt fell to the ground. Some of the papers relating to it are as
follows:
A Petition of sundry Inhabitants of the most northerly Part of the first
Parish in _Groton_, praying that they may be set off from said
_Groton_ to _Dunstable_, for the Reasons mentioned.
Read and _Ordered_, That the Petitioners serve the Towns of
_Groton_ and _Dunstable_ with Copies of this Petition, that
they show Cause, if any they have, on the first Friday of the next
Sitting of this Court, why the Prayer thereof should not be granted.
Sent up for Concurrence.
[Journal of the House of Representatives (page 264), March 11, 1746.]
_Francis Foxcroft_, Esq; brought down the Petition of the northerly
Part of _Groton_, as entred the 11th of _March_ last, and refer'd.
Pass'd in Council, _viz._ In Council _May_ 29th 1747. Read again,
together with the Answers of the Towns of _Groton_ and _Dunstable_,
and _Ordered_, That _Joseph Wilder_ and _John Quincy_, Esqrs; together
with such as the honourable House shall join, be a Committee to take
under Consideration this Petition, together with the other Petitions and
Papers referring to the Affair within mentioned, and report what they
judge proper for this Court to do thereon. Sent down for Concurrence.
Read and concur'd, and Major _Jones_, Mr. _Fox_, and Col.
_Gerrish_, are joined in the Affair.
[Journal of the House of Representatives (page 11), May 29, 1747.]
_John Hill_, Esq; brought down the Petition of the Inhabitants of
_Groton_ and _Nottingham_, with the Report of a Committee of
both Houses thereon.
Signed _Joseph Wilder_, per Order.
Pass'd in Council, _viz._ In Council _June_ 5th 1747. The
within Report was read and accepted, and _Ordered_, That the
Petition of _John Swallow_ and others, Inhabitants of the northerly
Part of _Groton_ be so far granted, as that the Petitioners, with
their Estates petition'd for, be set off from _Groton_, and annexed
to the Town of _Dunstable_, agreable to _Groton_ Town Vote of
the 18th of _May_ last; and that the Petition of the Inhabitants of
_Nottingham_ be granted, and that that Part of _Nottingham_
left to the Province, with the Inhabitants theron, be annexed to said
_Dunstable,_ and that they thus Incorporated, do Duty and receive
Priviledges as other Towns within this Province do or by Law ought to
enjoy.
And it is further _Ordered_, That the House for publick Worship be
placed two Hundred and forty eight Rods distant from Mr. _John Tyng's_
North-East Corner, to run from said Corner North fifty two Degrees West,
or as near that Place as the Land will admit of.
Sent down for Concurrence.
Read and concur'd with the Amendment, _viz._ instead of those
Words, ... _And it is further Ordered, That the House for publick
Worship be_ ... insert the following Words ... _Provided that
within one Year a House for the publick Worship of_ GOD _be
erected, and_....
Sent up for Concurrence.
[Journal of the House of Repesentatives (page 26), June 6, 1747.]
To his Excellency William Shirley Esquire Captain General and Governour
in Chief in and over his Majestys Province of the Massachusetts Bay in
New England The Hon'ble: the Council and Hon'ble: House of
Representatives of the said Province in General Court Assembled at
Boston the 31'st. of May 1749.
The petition of the Inhabitants of the Town of Dunstable in the Province
of the Massachusetts Bay
Most Humbly Shew
That in the Year 1747, that part of Nottingham which lyes within this
Government and part of the Town of Groton Called Joint Grass preferred
two petitions to this Great and Hon'ble: Court praying that they might
be Annexed to the Town of Dunstable which petitions Your Excellency and
Honours were pleased to Grant upon Conditions that a meeting house for
the Publick Worship of God should be built two hundred and forty Eight
Rods 52 Deg's: West of the North from North East Corner of M. John Tyngs
land But the Inhabitants of the Town Apprehending Your Excellency and
Honours were not fully Acquainted with the Inconveniencys that would
Attend placeing the Meeting House there Soon after Convened in Publick
Town Meeting Legally Called to Conclude upon a place for fixing said
meeting house where it would best Accommodate all the Inhabitants at
which meeting proposals were made by some of the Inhabitants to take the
Advice and Assistance of three men of other Towns which proposal was
Accepted by the Town and they accordingly made Choice of The Hon'ble:
James Minot Esq'r. Maj'r: Lawrence and M'r. Brewer and then Adjourned
the Meeting.
That the said Gentlemen mett at the Towns Request and Determined upon a
place for fixing the said meeting house which was approved of by the
Town and they Accordingly Voted to Raise the sum of one hundred pounds
towards defraying the Charge of Building the said House But Upon
Reviewing the Spot pitched upon as aforesaid many of the Inhabitants
Apprehended it was more to the southward than the Committee Intended it
should be And thereupon a Meeting was Called on the Twenty Sixth day of
May last when the Town voted to Build the meeting house on the East side
of the Road that leads from Cap't: Cummings's to M'r Simon Tompsons
where some part of the Timber now lyes being about Forty Rods Northward
of Isaac Colburns house which they Apprehended to be the Spot of Ground
the Committee Intended to fix upon.
And for as much as the place Last Voted by the Town to Build their
meeting house upon will best Accommodate all the Inhabitants,
Your pet'rs. therefore most humbly pray Your Excellency and Honours
would be pleased to Confirm the said Vote of the Town of the 26'th: day
of May last and order the meeting house for the Publick Worship of God
to be Erected on the peice of Ground aforementioned,
And in duty bound they will ever pray &c.
Simon tompson
Eben Parkhurst
Com'tee for the
Town of Dunstable
[Massachusetts Archives, cxv, 507, 508.]
The Committee appointed on the Petition of a Committee for the Town of
_Dunstable,_ reported according to Order.
Read and accepted, and thereupon the following Order pass'd, _viz._ _In
as much as the House for the publick Worship of_ _GOD in_ Dunstable _was
not erected within the Line limitted in the Order of this Court of_ June
6th 1747, _the Inhabitants of_ Groton _and_ Nottingham _have lost the
Benefit of Incorporation with the Town of_ Dunstable: Therefore
_Voted_, That a Meeting House for the publick Worship of GOD be
erected as soon as may be on the East Side of the Road that leads from
Capt. _Cummins_ to _Simon Thompson's,_ where the Timber for
such a House now lies, agreeable to a Vote of the said Town of
_Dunstable_ on the 26th of _May_ last; and that the said Inhabitants
of _Groton_ and _Nottingham_ be and continue to be set off and
annexed to the Town of _Dunstable_, to do Duty and receive
Priviledge there, their Neglect of Compliance with the said Order of
_June_ 6th 1747, notwithstanding, unless the major Part of the
Inhabitants and rateable Estate belonging to said _Groton_ and
_Nottingham_ respectively, shall on or before the first Day of
_September_ next in writing under their Hands, transmit to the
Secretary's Office their Desire not to continue so incorporated with the
town of _Dunstable_ as aforesaid; provided also, That in Case the
said Inhabitants of _Groton_ and _Nottingham_ shall signify
such their Desire in Manner and Time as aforesaid, they be nevertheless
subjected to pay and discharge their Proportion of all Publick Town or
Ministerial Rates or Taxes hitherto granted or regularly laid on them;
excepting the last Sum granted for building a Meeting House. And that
the present Town Officers stand and execute their Offices respectively
until the Anniversary Town-Meeting at _Dunstable_ in _March_
next. Sent up for Concurrence.
[Journal of the House of Representatives (pages 46, 47), June 26, 1749.]
Whereas the Great & Generall Court of the the [_sic_] Province of
the Massachusetts Bay in June Last, On the Petitions of Dunstable &
Nottingham has Ordered that the Inhabitants of Groton and Nottingham,
Which by Order of the s'd Court the 6th of June 1747 Were On Certain
Conditions Annexed to s'd Dunstable & (Which Conditions not being
Complyed with) be Annexed to s'd. Dunstable to do duty & Receive
priviledge there their neglect of Complyance notwithstanding, Unless the
major part of the Inhabitants and ratable Estate belonging to the s'd.
Groton & Nottingham respectively Shall on or before the first day of
September next in Writing under their hands Transmitt to the Secretarys
Office their desire not to Continue so Incorporated With the town of
Dunstable as afores'd. Now therefore Wee the Subscribers Inhabitants of
Groton & Nottingham Sett of as afores'd. do hereby Signifie Our desire
not to Continue so Incorporated with the town of Dunstable as afores'd.
but to be Sett at Liberty As tho that Order of Court had not ben passed
Dated the 10th day of July 1749
Inhabitants of Groton
Timothy Read
Joseph fletcher
John Swallow
Samuel Comings
Benjamin Robbins
Joseph Spalding iuner
Inhabitants of Nottingham
Samuell Gould
Robert Fletcher
Joseph perriaham Daken [Deacon?]
iohn Collans
Zacheus Spaulding
and ten others
[Massachusetts Archives, cxv, 515.]
A manuscript plan of Dunstable, made by Joseph Blanchard, in the autumn
of 1748, and accompanying these papers among the Archives (cxv, 519),
has considerable interest for the local antiquary.
In the course of a few years some of these Groton signers reconsidered
the matter, and changed their minds. It appears from the following
communication that the question of the site of the meeting-house had
some influence in the matter:--
Groton, May 10, 1753. We have concluded to Joine with Dunstable in
settling the gospell and all other affairs hart & hand in case Dunstable
woud meet us in erecting a meting house in center of Lands or center of
Travel.
Joseph Spaulding jr.
John Swallow.
Timothy Read.
Samuel Cumings.
Joseph Parkhurst.
[Nason's History of Dunstable, page 85.]
The desired result of annexation was now brought about, and in this way
Joint Grass became a part and portion of Dunstable. The following
extracts give further particulars in regard to it:--
A Petition of a Committee in Behalf of the Inhabitants of
_Dunstable_, within this Province, shewing, that that Part of
_Dunstable_ by the late running of the Line is small, and the Land
much broken, unable to support the Ministry, and other necessary
Charges; that there is a small Part of _Groton_ contiguous, and
well situated to be united to them in the same Incorporation, lying to
the West and Northwest of them; that in the Year 1744, the Inhabitants
there requested them that they might be incorporated with them, which
was conceeded to by the Town of _Groton_; that in Consequence of
this, upon Application to this Court they were annexed to the Town of
_Dunstable_ with the following Proviso, viz. "That within one Year
from that Time a House for the publick Worship of GOD should be erected
at a certain Place therein mentioned": Which Place was esteemed by all
Parties both in _Groton_ and _Nottingham_, so incommodious,
that it was not complied withal; that on a further Application to this
Court to alter the Place, Liberty was given to the Inhabitants of
_Groton_ and _Nottingham_, to withdraw, whereby they are deprived of
that contiguous and necessary Assistance which they expected: Now as the
Reasons hold good in every Respect for their Incorporation with them,
they humbly pray that the said Inhabitants of _Groton_ by the same Bounds
as in the former Order stated, may be reannexed to them, for the Reasons
mentioned.
Read and _Ordered_, That the Petitioners serve the Inhabitants of
_Groton_ therein refer'd to, as also the Clerk of the Town of
_Groton_, with Copies of this Petition, that so the said Inhabitants,
as also the Town of _Groton_, shew Cause, if any they have, on the
first Tuesday of the next _May_ Session, why the Prayer thereof
should not be granted.
Sent up for Concurrence.
[Journal of the House of Representatives (pages 138, 139), April 4,
1753.]
_John Hill_, Esq; brought down the Petition of a Committee of the Town
of _Dunstable_, as entred the 4th of _April_ last, and refer'd. Pass'd
in Council, viz. In Council _June_ 5th 1753. Read again, together with
the Answer of the Inhabitants of that Part of _Groton_ commonly called
_Joint-Grass,_ and likewise _William Lawrence_, Esq; being heard in
Behalf of the Town of _Groton_, and the Matter being fully considered,
_Ordered_, That the Prayer of the Petition be so far granted, as that
_Joseph Fletcher, Joseph Spaulding, Samuel Comings, Benjamin Rabbins,
Timothy Read, John Swallow, Joseph Parkhurst_, and _Ebenezer Parkhurst_,
Jun. with their Families and Estates, and other Lands petitioned for, be
set off from the Town of _Groton_, and annexed to the town of
_Dunstable_, agreable to the Vote of the Town of _Groton_ on the 18th of
_May_ 1747, to receive Priviledge and do Duty there, provided that
_Timothy Read_, Constable for the Town of _Groton_, and Collector of the
said Parish in said Town the last Year, and _Joseph Fletcher_, Constable
for the said Town this present Year, finish their Collection of the
Taxes committed or to be committed to them respectively; and also that
the said Inhabitants pay their Proportion of the Taxes that are already
due or shall be due to the said Town of _Groton_ for the present Year,
for which they may be taxed by the Assessors of _Groton_, as tho' this
Order had not past: provided also that the Meeting-House for the publick
Worship of GOD in _Dunstable_ be erected agreable to the Vote of
_Dunstable_ relating thereto in _May_ 1753. Sent down for Concurrence.
Read and concur'd.
[Journal of the House of Representatives (page 21), June 7, 1753.]
The part of Nottingham, mentioned in these petitions, was not joined to
Dunstable until a later period. On June 14, 1754, an order passed the
House of Representatives, annexing "a very small Part of Nottingham now
lying in this Province, unable to be made into a District, but very
commodious for Dunstable;" but the matter was delayed in the Council,
and it was a year or two before the end was brought about.
The west parish of Groton was set off as a precinct on November 26,
1742. It comprised that part of the town lying on the west side of the
Nashua River, north of the road from Groton to Townsend. Its
incorporation as a parish or precinct allowed the inhabitants to manage
their own ecclesiastical affairs, while in all other matters they
continued to act with the parent town. Its partial separation gave them
the benefit of a settled minister in their neighborhood, which, in those
days, was considered of great importance.
It is an interesting fact to note that, in early times, the main reason
given in the petitions for dividing towns was the long distance to the
meeting-house, by which the inhabitants were prevented from hearing the
stated preaching of the gospel.
The petitioners for the change first asked for a township, which was not
granted; but subsequently they changed their request to a precinct
instead, which was duly allowed. The papers relating to the matter are
as follows:--
Province of The Massechuetts Bay in New England.
To His Excellency W'm: Shirley Esq'r: Goveinr in & over y'e Same And To
The Hon'le: his Majestis Council & House of Representetives in Gen'll:
Court Assembled June 1742:
The Petition of Sundry Inhabitants & Resendant in the Northerly Part of
Groton Humbly Sheweth that the Town of Groton is at Least ten miles in
Length North & South & seven miles in wedth East & West And that in
Runing two miles Due North from the Present Meeting House & from thence
to Run Due East to Dunstable West Line. And from the Ende of the S'd:
two miles to Run West till it Comes to the Cuntry Rode that is Laide out
to Townshend & soon S'd: Rode till it Comes to Townshend East Line then
tur[n]ing & Runing Northly to Nestiquaset Corner which is for Groton &
Townshend then tur[n]ing & Runing Easterly on Dunstable South Line & So
on Dunstable Line till it comes to the Line first mentioned, Which Land
Lyeth about Seven miles in Length & four miles & a Quarter in Wedth.
And Thare is Now Setled in those Lines here after mentioned is about the
Number of Seventy families all Redy And may [many?] more ready to Settle
there and as soon as scet off to the Petitioners & those families
Settled in y'e Lines afore s'd: Would make A Good township & the
Remaining Part of Groton Left in a regular forme And by reason of the
great Distance your Petitioners are from the Present Meeting House are
put to very Great Disadvantages in Attending the Public Worship of God
many of Whom are Oblidged to travel Seven or Eight miles & that the
Remaining Part of Groton Consisting of such good land & y'e
Inhabitants so Numerous that thay Can by no means be Hurt Should your
Petitioners & those families Settled in y'e Lines afore s'd: Be
Erected to a Seprate & Distinct Township: That the in Contestable
situation & accomodations on the s'd: Lands was y'e one great reason
of your Petitioners Settling thare & Had Not those Prospects been so
Clear to us We should by no means have under taken The Hardship We have
already & must go Throu.
Wherefore Your Petitioners Would farther Shew that Part of y'e Land here
Prayed for all Redy Voted of by the S'd town to be a Presinct & that the
most of them that are in that Lines have Subscribed with us to be a
Dest[i]ncte Township Wherefore Your Petitioners Humbly Pray your Honnors
to Grante us our Desire according to This our Request as we in Duty
Bound Shall Ever Pray &c.
Joseph Spaulding iur
Zachariah Lawrance
William Allen
Jeremiah Lawrance
William Blood
Nathaniel Parker
Enoch Lawarnce
Samuel Right
James larwance
Josiah Tucker
Sam'll fisk
Soloman blood
John Woods
Josiah Sartell
benj'n. Swallow
Elies Ellat
Richard Worner
Ebenezer Gillson
Ebenezer Parce
James Blood iu
Joseph Spaulding
Phiniahas Parker iur
Joseph Warner
Phineahas Chambrlin
Isaac laken
Isacc Williams
John Swallow
Joseph Swallow
Benj'n: Robins
Nathan Fisk
John Chamberlin
Jacob Lakin
Seth Phillips
John Cumings
Benj'n: Parker
Gersham Hobart
Joseph Lawrance
John Spaulding
Isaac Woods
In the House of Rep'ives June. 10, 1742.
Read and Ordered that the Pet'rs serve the Town of Groton with a Copy of
this Pet'n that they shew cause if any they have on the first fryday of
the next session of this Court why the Prayer thereof should not be
granted
Sent up for concurrence
T Cushing Spkr
In Council June 15. 1742;
Read & Non Concur'd
J Willard Sec'ry
[Massachusetts Archives, cxiv, 779, 780.]
To his Excellency William Shirley Esq'r. Captain General and Governour
in Cheiff in and over his Majesties Province of y'e. Massachusetts Bay
in New England: To y'e. Honourable his Majesties Council and House of
Representatives in General Court Assembled on y'e: Twenty sixth Day of
May. A:D. 1742.
The Petition of as the Subscribers to your Excellency and Honours
Humbley Sheweth that we are Proprietors and Inhabitants of y'e. Land
Lying on y'e. Westerly Side Lancester River (so called) [now known as
the Nashua River] in y'e North west corner of y'e. Township of
Groton: & Such of us as are Inhabitants thereon Live very Remote from ye
Publick worship of God in s'd Town and at many Times and Season of
y'e. year are Put to Great Difficulty to attend y'e. same: And the
Lands Bounded as Followeth (viz) Southerly on Townshend Rode: Westerly
on Townshend Line: Northerly on Dunstable West Precint, & old Town: and
Easterly on said River as it now Runs to y'e. First mentioned Bounds,
being of y'e. Contents of about Four Miles Square of Good Land, well
Scituated for a Precint: And the Town of Groton hath been Petitioned to
Set of y'e. Lands bounded as afores'd. to be a Distinct and Seperate
Precint and at a Town Meeting of y'e. Inhabitants of s'd. Town of
Groton Assembled on y'e Twenty Fifth Day of May Last Past The Town
voted y'e Prayer of y'e. s'd. Petition and that y'e Lands before
Described should be a Separate Precinct and that y'e. Inhabitants
thereon and Such others as hereafter Shall Settle on s'd. Lands;
should have y'e Powers and Priviledges that other Precincts in s'd.
Province have or Do Enjoy: as p'r. a Coppy from Groton Town Book
herewith Exhibited may Appear: For the Reasons mentioned we the
Subscribers as afores'd. Humbley Prayes your Excellency and Honours to
Set off y'e s'd Lands bounded as afores'd. to be a Distinct and
Sepperate Precinct and Invest y'e Inhabitants thereon (Containing
about y'e N'o. of Forty Famelies) and Such others as Shall hereafter
Settle on s'd. Lands with Such Powers & Priviledges as other Precincts
in s'd. Province have &c or Grant to your Petitioners Such other
Releaf in y'e. Premises as your Excellency and Honours in your Great
Wisdom Shall think Fit: and your Petitioners as in Duty bound Shall Ever
pray &c.
Benj Swallow
W'm: Spalden
Isaac Williams
Ebenezer Gilson
Elias Ellit
Samuel Shattuck iu
James Shattuck
David Shattuck
David Blood
Jonathan Woods
John Blood iuner
Josiah Parker
Jacob Ames
Jonas Varnum
Moses Woods
Zachery Lawrence Jun'r
Jeremiah Lawrence
John Mozier
Josiah Tucher
W'm Allen
John Shadd
Jam's. Green
John Kemp
Nehemiah Jewett
Eleazar Green
Jonathan Shattuck
Jonathan Shattuck Jun'r
In the House of Rep'tives Nov'r. 26. 1742
In Answer to the within Petition ordered that that Part of the Town of
Groton Lying on the Westerly Side of Lancaster River within the
following bounds viz't bounding Easterly on said River Southerly on
Townsend Road so called Wisterly on Townsend line and Northerly on
Dunstable West Precinct with the Inhabitants thereon be and hereby are
Set off a distinct and seperate precinct and Vested with the powers &
priviledges which Other Precincts do or by Law ought to enjoy Always
provided that the Inhabitants Dwelling on the Lands abovementioned be
subject to pay their Just part and proportions of all ministeriall Rates
and Taxes in the Town of Groton already Granted or Assessed.
Sent up for Concurrence.
T Cushing Spk'r.
In Council Nov'r. 26 1742 Read and Concurr'd
J Willard Secry
Consented to, W Shirley,
[Massachusetts Archives, cxiv, 768, 769.]
When the new Provincial line was run between Massachusetts and New
Hampshire, in the spring of 1741, it left a gore of land, previously
belonging to the west parish of Dunstable, lying north of the territory
of Groton and contiguous to it. It formed a narrow strip, perhaps three
hundred rods in width at the western end, running easterly for three
miles and tapering off to a point at the Nashua River, by which stream
it was entirely separated from Dunstable. Shaped like a thin wedge, it
lay along the border of the province, and belonged geographically to the
west precinct or parish of Groton. Under these circumstances the second
parish petitioned the General Court to have it annexed to their
jurisdiction, which request was granted. William Prescott, one of the
committee appointed to take charge of the matter, nearly a quarter of a
century later was the commander of the American forces at the battle of
Bunker Hill. It has been incorrectly stated by writers that this
triangular parcel of land was the gore ceded, in the summer of 1736, to
the proprietors of Groton, on the petition of Benjamin Prescott. The
documents relating to this matter are as follows:--
To his Honnor Spencer Phipes Esq'r Cap't Geniorl and Commander In Cheaf
in and ouer his majists prouince of the Massachusets Bay in New england
and to The Hon'ble his majestys Counsel and House of Representatiues In
Geniral Courte assambled at Boston The 26 of December 1751
The Petition of Peleg Lawrance Jarimah Lawrance and william Prescott a
Cum'ttee. for the Second Parish In Groton in The County of Middle sikes.
Humbly Shew That Theare is a strip of Land of about fiue or six hundred
acors Lys ajoyning To The Town of Groton which be Longs To the town of
Dunstable the said strip of land Lys near fouer mill in Length and
bounds on the North Line of the said second Parrish in Groton and on the
South Side of Newhampsher Line which Peeace by Runing the sd Line of
Newhampsher was Intierly Cut off from the town of Dunstable from
Receueing any Priuelidge their for it Lys not Less then aboute Eight
mill from the Senter of the town of Dunstable and but about two mill and
a half from the meeting house in the said second Parish in Groton so
that they that settel on the sd Strip of Land may be much beter
acommadated to be Joyned to ye town of Groton and to the sd second
Parish than Euer thay Can any other way in this Prouince and the town of
Dunstable being well sencable thare of haue at thare town meeting on the
19 Day of December Currant voted of the sd Strip of Land allso Jarnes
Colburn who now Liues on sd Strip Land from the town of Dunstable to be
annexed to the town of Groton and to the sd second Parish in sd town and
the second Parish haue aCordingly voted to Recue the same all which may
appear by the vote of sd Dunstable and said Parish which will be of
Grate advantige to the owners of the sd. strip of Land and a benefit to
the said second Parish in Groton so that your Petitioners Humbly Pray
that the sd. strip of Land may be annexed to the said second Parish in
Groton so far as Groton Nor west corner to do Duty and Recue Priulidge
theare and your petionrs In Duty bound shall Euer Pray
Peleg Lawrence
Will'm Prescott
Jeremiah Lawrence
Dunstable December 24 1751
this may Certifye the Grate and Genirol Courte that I Liue on the slip
of Land within mentioned and it tis my Desier that the prayer of this
Petition be Granted
James Colburn
In the House of Rep'tives Jan'ry 4. 1752
Voted that the prayer of the Petition be so farr granted that the said
strip of Land prayed for, that is the Jurisdiction of it be Annex'd to
the Town of Groton & to y'e Second Precinct in said Town & to do dutys
there & to recieve Priviledges from them.
Sent up for Concurrence
T. Hubbard Spk'r.
In Council Jan'y 6. 1752 Read & Concur'd
J Willard Secry.
Consented to
S Phips
[Massachusetts Archives, cxvi, 162, 163.]
The west parish of Groton was made a district on April 12, 1753, the day
the Act was signed by the Governor, which was a second step toward its
final and complete separation. It then took the name of Pepperell, and
was vested with still broader political powers. It was so called after
Sir William Pepperrell, who had successfully commanded the New England
troops against Louisburg; and the name was suggested, doubtless, by the
Reverend Joseph Emerson, the first settled minister of the parish. He
had accompanied that famous expedition in the capacity of chaplain, only
the year before he had received a call for his settlement, and his
associations with the commander were fresh in his memory. It will be
noticed that the Act for incorporating the district leaves the name
blank, which was customary in this kind of legislation at that period;
and the governor, perhaps with the advice of his council, was in the
habit subsequently of filling out the name.
Pepperell, for one "r" is dropped from the name, had now all the
privileges of a town, except the right to choose a representative to the
General Court, and this political connection with Groton was kept up
until the beginning of the Revolution. In the session of the General
Court which met at Watertown, on July 19, 1775, Pepperell was
represented by a member, and in this way acquired the privileges of a
town without any special act of incorporation. Other similar districts
were likewise represented, in accordance with the precept calling that
body together, and they thus obtained municipal rights without the usual
formality. The precedent seems to have been set by the Provincial
Congress of Massachusetts, which was made up of delegates from the
districts as well as from the towns. It was a revolutionary step taken
outside of the law. On March 23, 1786, this anomalous condition of
affairs was settled by an act of the Legislature, which declared all
districts, incorporated before January 1, 1777, to be towns for all
intents and purposes.
The act for the incorporation of Pepperell is as follows:--
Anno Regni Regis Georgij Secundi vicesimo Sexto
An Act for Erecting the second Precinct in the Town of Groton into a
seperate District
Be it enacted by the Leiu't. Gov'r: Council and House of Representatives
That the second Precinct in Groton bounding Southerly on the old Country
Road leading to Townshend, Westerly on Townshend Line Northerly on the
Line last run by the Governm't. of New Hampshire as the Boundary betwixt
that Province and this Easterly to the middle of the River, called
Lancaster [Nashua] River, from where the said Boundary Line crosses said
River, so up the middle of y'e. said River to where the Bridge did
stand, called Kemps Bridge, to the Road first mentioned, be & hereby is
erected into a seperate District by the Name of -------- and that the
said District be and hereby is invested with all the Priviledges Powers
and Immunities that Towns in this Province by Law do or may enjoy, that
of sending a Representative to the generall Assembly only excepted, and
that the Inhabitants of said District shall have full power & Right from
Time to time to joyn with the s'd: Town of Groton in the choice of
Representative or Representatives, in which Choice they shall enjoy all
the Priviledges which by Law they would have been entitled to, if this
Act had not been made. And that the said District shall from Time to
time pay their proportionable part of the Expence of such Representative
or Representatives According to their respective proportions of y'e.
Province Tax.
And that the s'd. Town of Groton as often as they shall call a Meeting
for the Choice of a Representative shall give seasonable Notice to the
Clerk of said District for the Time being, of the Time and place of
holding such Meeting, to the End that said District may join them
therein, and the Clerk of said District shall set up in some publick
place in s'd. District a Notification thereof accordingly or otherwise
give Seasonable Notice, as the District shall determine.
Provided Nevertheless and be it further enacted That the said District
shall pay their proportion: of all Town County and Province Taxes
already set on or granted to be raised by s'd. Town as if this Act had
not been made, and also be at one half the charge in building and
repairing the Two Bridges on Lancaster River aforesaid in s'd:
District.
Provided also and be it further Enacted That no poor Persons residing in
said District and Who have been Warn'd by the Selectmen of said Groton
to depart s'd: Town shall be understood as hereby exempted from any
Process they would have been exposed to if this Act had not been made.
And be it further enacted that W'm Lawrence[1] Esq'r Be and hereby is
impowered to issue his Warrant directed to some principal Inhabitant in
s'd. District requiring him to notify the Inhabitants of said District
to meet at such Time & place as he shall appoint to choose all such
Officers as by Law they are Impowered to Choose for conducting the
Affairs for s'd. District.
In the House of Rep'tives April 5, 1753
Read three several times and pass'd to be Engross'd
Sent up for Concurrence
T. Hubbard Spk'r.
In Council April 5 1753 AM
Read a first and Second Time and pass'd a Concurrence
Tho's. Clarke Dp'ty. Secry
[Massachusetts Archives, cxvi, 360-362.]
[Footnote 1: This name apparently inserted after the original draft was
made.]
* * * * *
THE BOSTON HERALD.
The newspapers of America have had their greatest growth within the past
quarter-century. Their progress in commercial prosperity during this
period has been remarkable. Before the Civil War the journals in this
country which returned large profits on the capital invested could
almost be numbered upon the fingers of one hand. Now they can be counted
up into the hundreds, and a well-established and successful newspaper is
rated as one of the most profitable of business ventures. This advance
in financial value has accompanied, and for the most part is due to, the
improvement in the character of the publications, which has been going
on steadily year by year. There has been a constant increase of
enterprise in all directions, especially in that of gathering news, and
with this has come the exercise of greater care and better taste in
presenting the intelligence collected to the reading public. The quality
of the work of reporters and correspondents has been vastly bettered,
and the number of special writers engaged has been gradually enlarged;
subjects which were once relegated to the monthlies and quarterlies for
discussion are now treated by the daily press in a style which, if less
ponderous, is nevertheless lucid and not unbefitting their importance.
In short, the tone of the American newspaper has been elevated without
the loss of its popular characteristics, and the tastes of its readers
have thereby--unconsciously, perhaps, but none the less surely--been
refined. For at least the length of time mentioned at the beginning of
this article, journalism has been regarded as worthy to rank beside, if
not exactly to be classed with, the "learned professions." The newspaper
writer has emerged from the confines of Bohemia, never to return, and
has taken a recognized position in the literary world. His connection
with a reputable journal gives him an unquestioned standing, of which
his credentials are the diploma.
In view of these great changes in journalism, the record of the progress
of a successful newspaper during the last four decades contains much
matter of general interest, and if excuse were needed, this would
warrant the publication here of a brief history of The Boston Herald.
Like most, if not all, of the leading journals of the country, The
Boston Herald had a very humble origin. Forty years ago some journeymen
printers on The Boston Daily Times began publishing a penny paper,
called The American Eagle, in advocacy of the Native American or
"Know-nothing" party.
Its publishers were "Baker, French, Harmon & Co." The full list of
proprietors was Albert Baker, John A. French, George W. Harmon, George
H. Campbell, Amos C. Clapp, J.W. Monroe, Justin Andrews, Augustus A.
Wallace, and James D. Stowers, and W.H. Waldron was subsequently
associated with them. The Eagle was successful at the outset, but its
fortunes declined with those of the party of which it was the exponent,
and in the summer of 1846 it was found to be moribund. The proprietors
had lost money and labor in the failing enterprise, and now lost
interest. After many protracted discussions they resolved to establish
an evening edition under another name, which should be neutral in
politics, and, if it proved successful, to let the Eagle die. The
Herald, therefore, came into existence on August 31, 1846, and an
edition of two thousand was printed of its first number. The editor of
the new sheet was William O. Eaton, a Bostonian, then but twenty-two
years of age, of little previous experience in journalism.
The Herald, it must be admitted, was not a handsome sheet at the outset.
Its four pages contained but five columns each, and measured only nine
by fourteen inches. But, unpromising as was its appearance, it was
really the liveliest of the Boston dailies from the hour of its birth,
and received praise on all hands for the quality of its matter.
The total force of brain-workers consisted of but two men, Mr. Eaton
having the assistance, after the middle of September, of Thomas W.
Tucker. David Leavitt joined the "staff" later on, in 1847, and made a
specialty of local news. The editorial, composing, and press rooms were
the same as those of the Eagle, in Wilson's Lane, now Devonshire Street.
"Running a newspaper" in Boston in 1846 was a different thing altogether
from journalism at the present day. The telegraph was in operation
between Boston and New York, but the tolls were high and the dailies
could not afford to use it except upon the most important occasions.
Moreover, readers had not been educated up to the point of expecting to
see reports of events in all parts of the world printed on the same day
of their occurrence or, at the latest, the day following.
For several years before the extension of the wires overland to Nova
Scotia, the newsgatherers of Boston and New York resorted to various
devices in order to obtain the earliest reports from Europe. From 1846
to 1850 the revolutionary movements in many of the countries on the
continent were of a nature to be especially interesting to the people of
the United States, and this stimulated enterprise among the American
newspapers. Mr. D.H. Craig, afterward widely known as agent of the
Associated Press, conceived the idea of anticipating the news of each
incoming ocean-steamer by means of a pigeon-express, which he put into
successful operation in the year first named. He procured a number of
carrier-pigeons, and several days before the expected arrival of every
English mail-steamer took three of them to Halifax. There he boarded the
vessels, procured the latest British papers, collated and summarized
their news upon thin paper, secured the dispatches thus prepared to the
pigeons, and fifty miles or so outside of Boston released the birds. The
winged messengers, flying homeward, reached the city far in advance of
the steamers, and the intelligence they brought was at once delivered to
Mr. W.G. Blanchard, then connected with the Boston press, who had the
brief dispatches "extended," put in type, and printed as an "extra" for
all the papers subscribing to the enterprise. Sheets bearing the head
"New York Herald Extra" were also printed in Boston and sent to the
metropolis by the Sound steamers, thus anticipating the arrival of the
regular mail.
It is interesting, in these days of lightning, to read an account of how
the Herald beat its local rivals in getting out an account of the
President's Message in 1849. A column synopsis was received by telegraph
from New York, and published in the morning edition, and the second
edition, issued a few hours later, contained the long document in full,
and was put on the street at least a half-hour earlier than the other
dailies. How the message was brought from Washington is thus described:
J.F. Calhoun, of New Haven, was the messenger, and he started from the
capital by rail at two o'clock on the morning of December 24; a steamtug
in waiting conveyed him, on his arrival, from Jersey City to New York; a
horse and chaise took him from the wharf to the New Haven dépôt, then in
Thirty-second Street, where he mounted a special engine and at 10 P.M.
started for Boston. He reached Boston at 6.20 the next morning, after an
eventful journey, having lost a half-hour by a derailed tender and an
hour and a half by the smashup of a freight-train.
The Herald, feeble as it was in many respects at first, managed to
struggle through the financial diseases incident to newspaper infancy so
stoutly that at the opening of 1847, when it had attained the age of
four months, its sponsors were able to give it a New-Year dress of new
type, to increase the size of its pages to seven columns, measuring
twenty-one by seventeen inches, and to add a morning and a weekly
edition. The paper in its new form, with a neat head in Roman letters
replacing the former unsightly title, and printed on a new Adams press,
presented a marked improvement.
Mr. Eaton continued in charge of the evening edition, while the new
morning issue was placed in the hands of Mr. George W. Tyler. The Herald
under this joint management presented its readers with from eight to ten
columns of reading-matter daily. Two columns of editorials, four of
local news, and two of clippings from "exchanges," were about the
average. News by telegraph was not plenty, and, as has already been
intimated, very little of it was printed during the first year. Yet, the
Herald was a live and lively paper, and published nothing but "live
matter." Much prominence was given to reports of affairs about home, and
in consequence the circulation soon exhibited a marked improvement.
At this time the proprietors entered on a novel journalistic experiment.
They allowed one editor to give "Whig" views and another to talk
"Democracy." The public did not take kindly to this mixed diet, and Mr.
Eaton, the purveyor of Democratic wisdom, was permitted to withdraw,
leaving Mr. Tyler, the Whiggite, in possession of the field.
Meantime, Mr. French had bought out the original proprietors one by one,
with the exception of Mr. Stowers, and in March their names appeared as
publishers at the head of the paper. The publication-office was removed
to more spacious quarters, and the press was thereafter run by
steam-power rented from a neighboring manufactory. At the end of the
month a statement of the circulation showed a total of eleven thousand
two hundred and seventy.
In May, 1847, The American Eagle died peacefully. About this period
Messrs. Tucker and Tyler left the Herald, and Mr. Stowers disposed of
his interest to Samuel K. Head. The new editor of the paper was William
Joseph Snelling, who acquired considerable local fame as a bold and
fearless writer. He died in the December of the following year. Under a
new manager, Mr. Samuel R. Glen, the Herald developed into a successful
news gatherer.
Special telegrams were regularly received from New York, a Washington
correspondent was secured, and the paper covered a much broader field
than it ever had before. Eight to ten columns of reading-matter were
printed daily, and it was invariably bright and entertaining. The
circulation showed a steady increase, and on August 17, 1848, was
declared to be eighteen thousand seven hundred and fifteen daily, a
figure from which it did not recede during the autumn and winter. After
the death of Mr. Snelling, Mr. Tyler was recalled to the chief editorial
chair, and heartily co-operated with Mr. Glen and the proprietors in
keeping the paper abreast of the times. On April 2, 1849, the custom of
printing four editions daily was inaugurated. The first was dated 5
o'clock, A.M., the second, 8, the third, 12 M., and the fourth, 2.30
P.M. That day the force of compositors was increased by four men, and
the paper was for the first time printed on a Hoe double-cylinder press,
run by steam-power, and capable of producing six thousand impressions an
hour. Mr. Head withdrew from the firm about this time, and Mr. French
was announced as sole proprietor throughout the remainder of the year.
In October the announcement was made that the Herald had a larger
circulation than any other paper published in Boston or elsewhere, and
the publisher made a successful demand for the post-office advertising,
which by law was to be given to the paper having the greatest
circulation.
During this year (1849) the Herald distanced its competitors and
accomplished a feat that was the talk of the town for a long time
afterwards, by reporting in full the trial of Professor Webster
for the murder of Dr. Parkman. Extras giving longhand reports of this
extraordinary case were issued hourly during the day, and the morning
edition contained a shorthand report of the testimony and proceedings
of the day previous. The extras were issued in New York as well as in
Boston, the report having been telegraphed sheet by sheet as fast as
written, and printed there simultaneously with the Herald's. The type
of the verbatim report was kept standing, and within an hour after the
verdict was rendered pamphlets containing a complete record of the
trial were for sale on the street. The year 1850 found the Herald as
prosperous as it had been during the previous twelvemonth. In September,
the editorial, composing, and press rooms were transferred to No. 6
Williams Court, where they remained until abandoned for the new Herald
Building, February 9, 1878, and the business-office was removed to No.
203 (now No. 241) Washington Street. Early in 1851, through some
inexplicable cause, Mr. French suddenly found himself financially
embarrassed. In July he disposed of the paper to John M. Barnard, and
soon after retired to a farm in Maine. Mr. Tyler was retained in charge
of the editorial department; but Mr. Glen resigned and was succeeded as
managing editor by Mr. A.A. Wallace. During the remainder of the year
the Herald did not display much enterprise in gathering news. Its
special telegraphic reports were meagre and averaged no more than a
"stickful" daily, and it was cut off from the privileges of the
Associated Press dispatches. In 1852 there was a marked improvement in
the paper, but it did not reach the standard it established in 1850.
Two new presses, one of Hoe's and the other a Taylor's Napier, were this
year put in use, which bettered the typography of the sheet. In 1853 the
Herald was little more than a record of local events, its telegraphic
reports being almost as brief and unsatisfactory as during the first
year of its existence. But the circulation kept up wonderfully well,
growing, according to the sworn statements of the proprietor, from
sixteen thousand five hundred and five in January to twenty-three
thousand two hundred and ten in December. The Herald of 1854 was a much
better paper than that of the year previous, exerting far more energy in
obtaining and printing news. On April 1 it was enlarged for the second
time and came out with columns lengthened two inches, the pages
measuring twenty-three by seventeen inches. The circulation continued to
increase, and, by the sworn statements published, grew from twenty-five
thousand two hundred and sixteen in January to thirty thousand eight
hundred and fifty-eight in June. Success continued through the year
1855. In February, Mr. Barnard, while remaining proprietor, withdrew
from active management, and Edwin C. Bailey and A. Milton Lawrence
became the publishers. There were also some changes in the editorial and
reportorial staff. Henry R. Tracy became assistant editor, and Charles
H. Andrews (now one of the editors and proprietors) was engaged as a
reporter. There were then engaged in the composing-room a foreman and
eight compositors, one of whom, George G. Bailey, subsequently became
foreman, and later one of the proprietors. Printers will be interested
to know that the weekly composition bill averaged one hundred and
seventy-five dollars. This year but one edition was published in the
morning, while the first evening edition was dated 12 M., the second,
1.30 P.M., and a "postscript" was issued at 2.30 P.M., to contain the
latest news for city circulation. Twelve to fourteen columns of
reading-matter were printed daily, two of which were editorial, two news
by telegraph, two gleanings from "exchanges," and the remainder local
reports, correspondence, etc. The average daily circulation during 1855
was claimed to have been thirty thousand, but was probably something
less.
Early in 1856 a change took place in the proprietorship, Mr. Barnard
selling out to Mr. Bailey, and Mr. Lawrence retiring.
Mr. Bailey brought to his new task a great deal of native energy and
enterprise, and he was ably seconded by the other gentlemen connected
with the paper, in his efforts to make the Herald a thoroughly live
journal. He strengthened his staff by engaging as assistant editor,
Justin Andrews, who had for some years held a similar position on The
Daily Times, and who subsequently became one of the news-managers of the
Herald, holding the office until, as one of the proprietors, he disposed
of his interest in 1873.
During Mr. Bailey's first year as proprietor he enlarged the facilities
for obtaining news, and paid particular attention to reporting the
events of the political campaign when Frémont was run against Buchanan
for the presidency. The result of the election was announced with a
degree of detail never before displayed in the Herald's columns or in
those of its contemporaries. The editorial course of the paper that year
is perhaps best explained by the following paragraph, printed a few days
after the election: "One of our contemporaries says the Herald has
alternately pleased and displeased both parties during this campaign.
That is our opinion. How could it be different if we told them the
truth? And that was our only aim." The circulation during election week
averaged forty-one thousand six hundred and ninety-three copies daily;
throughout the year it was nearly thirty thousand--considerably larger
than during the preceding year--and the boast that it was more than
double that of any other paper in Boston undoubtedly was justified by
the facts. Mechanically, the paper was well got up; in July the two
presses which had been in use for a number of years were discarded,
and a new four-cylinder Hoe press, having a capacity of ten thousand
impressions an hour, was set up in their place. Ten compositors were
employed, and the weekly composition bill averaged one hundred and sixty
dollars. In 1857 the Herald was a much better paper than it had ever
been, the Messrs. Andrews, upon whom the burden of its management
devolved, sparing no effort to make it newsy and bright in every
department. Beginning the year with a daily circulation of about thirty
thousand, in April it reached forty-two thousand, and when on the
twenty-third of that month the subscription list, carriers' routes,
agencies, etc., of The Daily Times were acquired by purchase, there was
another considerable increase, the issue of May 30 reaching forty-five
thousand one hundred and twenty. In 1858 the Herald continued its
prosperous career in the same general direction. Its telegraphic
facilities were improved, and events in all parts of the country were
well reported, while local news was most carefully attended to. The
editors and reporters this year numbered eleven, and the force in the
mechanical departments was correspondingly increased. A new six-cylinder
Hoe press was put in use, alongside the four-cylinder machine, and both
were frequently taxed to their utmost capacity to print the large
editions demanded by the public. The bills for white paper during the
year were upwards of seventy thousand dollars, which, in those ante-war
times, was a large sum. The circulation averaged over forty thousand
per diem. In 1859 the system of keeping an accurate account of the
circulation was inaugurated, and the actual figures of each day's issue
were recorded and published. From this record it is learned that the
Herald, from a circulation of forty-one thousand one hundred and
ninety-three in January, rose to fifty-three thousand and twenty-six in
December. Twelve compositors were regularly employed this year, and the
weekly composition bill was two hundred dollars. The year 1860 brought
the exciting presidential campaign which resulted in the election of
Abraham Lincoln. Great pains were taken to keep the Herald's readers
fully informed of the movements of all the political parties, and its
long reports of the national conventions, meetings, speeches, etc., in
all parts of the country, especially in New England, brought it to the
notice of many new readers. The average daily circulation for the year
was a little over fifty-four thousand, and the issue on the morning
after the November election reached seventy-three thousand seven hundred
and fifty-two, the largest edition since the Webster trial. E.B.
Haskell, now one of the proprietors, entered the office as a reporter in
1860, and was soon promoted to an editorial position. A year later R.M.
Pulsifer, another of the present proprietors, entered the business
department.
The breaking out of the Civil War in the spring of 1861 created a great
demand for news, and an increase in the circulation of all the daily
papers was the immediate result. It is hardly necessary to say here that
the Herald warmly espoused the cause of the Union, and that the events
of that stirring period were faithfully chronicled in its columns. To
meet a call for news on Sunday, a morning edition for that day was
established on May 26; the new sheet was received with favor by the
reading public, and from an issue of ten thousand at the outset its
circulation has reached, at the present time, nearly one hundred
thousand. The Herald's enterprise was appreciated all through the war,
and as there were no essential changes in the methods of its management
or in the members of its staff, a recapitulation of statistics taken
from its books will suffice here as a record of its progress. In 1861
the average circulation was sixty thousand; the largest edition
(reporting the attack on the sixth Massachusetts regiment in Baltimore),
ninety-two thousand four hundred and forty-eight; the white paper bill,
one hundred and eight thousand dollars; the salary list, forty thousand
dollars; telegraph tolls, sixty-five hundred dollars. In 1862 the
average circulation was sixty-five thousand one hundred and sixteen; the
largest edition, eighty-four thousand; the white paper bill,
ninety-three thousand five hundred dollars; the salary list, forty-three
thousand dollars; telegraph tolls, eight thousand dollars. In 1863 the
average circulation was thirty-six thousand one hundred and
twenty-eight; the largest issue, seventy-four thousand; the paper bill,
ninety-five thousand dollars; salaries, forty-six thousand five hundred
dollars; telegraphing, eight thousand dollars. In July the four-cylinder
Hoe press was replaced by one with six cylinders, from the same maker.
In 1864 the average circulation was thirty-seven thousand and
eighty-eight; largest issue, fifty thousand eight hundred and eighty;
paper bill, one hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars; salaries,
fifty-eight thousand dollars; telegraph, ten thousand five hundred
dollars. The cost of white paper rose to such a figure that the
proprietors of Boston dailies were compelled to increase the price of
their journals, and a mutual agreement was made on August 15 whereby the
Herald charged three cents a copy and the others five cents. On June 1,
1865, the price of the Herald was reduced to its former rate of two
cents. The average circulation that year was thirty-seven thousand six
hundred and seventeen; the largest day's issue, eighty-three thousand
five hundred and twenty; the paper bill was about the same as in 1864,
but the telegraphic expenses ran up to fifteen thousand dollars. The
circulation in 1866 averaged forty-five thousand eight hundred and
forty-eight, and on several occasions rose to seventy thousand and more.
Twenty-one compositors were regularly employed, and the average weekly
composition bill was five hundred dollars. Paper that year cost one
hundred and fifty-two thousand dollars, and the telegraph bill was
fifteen thousand five hundred dollars. In 1867 seventy persons were on
the Herald's payroll, a larger number than ever before. The circulation
showed a steady gain, and the average for the year was fifty-two
thousand one hundred and eighteen. The paper bill was one hundred
and fifty-six thousand dollars, and the expense of telegraphing,
twenty-three thousand dollars. In 1868 the circulation continued to
increase, and the daily average reached fifty-four thousand seven
hundred and forty; white paper cost one hundred and fifty-three thousand
dollars, and telegraphing, twenty-eight thousand dollars.
In 1869 occurred an important event in the Herald's history. Mr. Bailey,
who had acquired an interest in 1855 and became sole proprietor a year
later, decided to sell out, and on April 1 it was announced that he had
disposed of the paper to Royal M. Pulsifer, Edwin B. Haskell, Charles H.
Andrews, Justin Andrews, and George G. Bailey. All these gentlemen were
at the time and had for some years previously been connected with the
Herald: the first-named in the business department, the next three on
the editorial staff, and the last as foreman of the composing-room. In
announcing their purchase, the firm, which was then and ever since has
been styled R.M. Pulsifer and Company, said in the editorial column: "We
shall use our best endeavors to make the Herald strictly a newspaper,
with the freshest and most trustworthy intelligence of all that is going
on in this busy age; and to this end we shall spare no expense in any
department.... The Herald will be in the future, as it has been in the
past, essentially a people's paper, the organ of no clique or party,
advocating at all proper times those measures which tend to promote the
welfare of our country, and to secure the greatest good to the greatest
number. It will exert its influence in favor of simplicity and economy
in the administration of the government, and toleration and liberality
in our social institutions. It will not hesitate to point out abuses or
to commend good measures, from whatever source they come, and it will
contain candid reports of all proceedings which go to make up the
discussions of current topics. It will give its readers all the news,
condensed when necessary and in an intelligible and readable form, with
a free use of the telegraph by reliable reporters and correspondents."
That these promises have been sacredly fulfilled up to the present
moment cannot be denied even by readers and contemporary sheets whose
opinions have been in direct opposition to those expressed in the
Herald's editorial columns. No pains or expense have been spared to
obtain the news from all quarters of the globe, and the paper's most
violent opponent will find it impossible to substantiate a charge that
the intelligence collected with such care and thoroughness has in a
single instance been distorted or colored in the publication to suit the
editorial policy pursued at the time. The expression of opinions has
always, under the present management, been confined to the editorial
columns, and here a course of absolute independence has been followed.
The Herald, immediately upon coming under the control of the new
proprietors, showed a marked accession of enterprise, and that this
change for the better was appreciated by the reading public was proved
by the fact that during the year 1869 the circulation rose from a daily
average of fifty-three thousand four hundred and sixty-five in January
to sixty thousand five hundred and thirty-five in December, the increase
having been regular and permanent, and not caused by any "spurts"
arising from extraordinary events. On New Year's day, 1870, the Herald
was enlarged for the third time, to its present size, by the addition of
another column and lengthening the pages to correspond. On September 3,
of that year, the circulation for the first time passed above one
hundred thousand, the issue containing an account of the battle of Sedan
reaching a sale of over one hundred and five thousand copies. The
average daily circulation for the year was more than seventy-three
thousand. Finding it impossible, from the growing circulation of the
paper, to supply the demand with the two six-cylinder presses printing
from type, it was determined, early in the year, to stereotype the
forms, so that duplicate plates could be used simultaneously on both.
The requisite machinery was introduced therefor, and on June 8, 1870,
was put in use for the first time. For nearly ten years the Herald was
the only paper in Boston printed from stereotype plates. In 1871 the
average daily circulatian was eighty-three thousand nine hundred, a gain
of nearly eleven thousand over the previous year. On a number of
occasions the edition reached as high as one hundred and twelve
thousand. On October 1 George G. Bailey disposed of his interest in the
paper to the other proprietors, and retired from the firm. In 1872 there
was a further increase in the circulation, the daily average having been
ninety-three thousand five hundred. One issue (after the Great Fire)
reached two hundred and twenty thousand, and several were not much below
that figure. The first Bullock perfecting-press ever used east of New
York was put in operation in the Herald office in June, 1872; this press
feeds itself from a continuous roll of paper, and prints both sides,
cutting and delivering the papers complete. On January 1, 1873, Justin
Andrews, who had been connected with the Herald, as one of its editors
since 1856, and as one of the proprietors who succeeded Mr. Bailey in
1869, sold his interest to his partners, and retired from newspaper life
altogether. Since that date, the ownership in the Herald has been vested
in R.M. Pulsifer, E.B. Haskell, and Charles H. Andrews. The circulation
in 1873 exceeded one hundred and one thousand daily; in 1874 one hundred
and seven thousand; in 1875 one hundred and twelve thousand; in 1876 one
hundred and sixteen thousand five hundred. On November 8, of that year,
the day after the presidential election, the issue was two hundred and
twenty-three thousand two hundred and fifty-six. The two six-cylinder
Hoe presses had given place, in 1874, to two more Bullock machines, and
a Mayall press was added in 1876; the four were run to their utmost
capacity on the occasion just mentioned, and the magnitude of the day's
work will be better understood when it is stated that between 4 A.M. and
11 P.M. fourteen tons of paper were printed and sold, an amount which
would make a continuous sheet the width of the Herald two hundred and
fifty miles long. In 1877 a fourth Bullock press was put in use, and the
Mayall was removed to Hawley Street, where type, stands for fifty
compositors, a complete apparatus for stereotyping, and all the
necessary machinery, materials, and implements are kept in readiness to
"start up" at any moment, in case a fire or other disaster prevents the
issue of the regular editions in the main office.
On February 9, 1878, the Herald was issued for the first time from the
new building erected by its proprietors at No. 255 Washington Street.
This structure has a lofty and ornate front of gray granite with
trimmings of red granite; it covers an irregular shaped lot, something
in the form of the letter L. From Washington Street, where it has a
width of thirty-one feet nine inches, it extends back one hundred and
seventy-nine feet, and from the rear a wing runs northward to Williams
Court forty feet. This wing was originally twenty-five feet wide on the
court; but in 1882 an adjoining lot, formerly occupied by the old Herald
Building, was purchased and built upon, increasing the width of the wing
and its frontage on the court to eighty-five feet. The structure forms
one of the finest and most convenient newspaper-offices in the country.
In the basement are the pressroom, where at the present time six Bullock
perfecting-presses (two with folders attached) are run by two
45-horse-power engines; the stereotype-room, where the latest
improvements in machinery have enabled the casting, finishing, and
placing on the press of two plates in less than eight minutes after the
receipt of a "form"; the two dynamos and the engine running them, which
supply the electricity for the incandescent lights with which every room
in the building is illuminated; and the storage-room for paper and other
supplies. On the first floor are the business-office, a very handsome
and spacious apartment facing Washington Street, and finished in
mahogany, rare marbles, and brasswork; the delivery and mailing rooms,
whence the editions are sent out for distribution at the Williams-court
door. On the second floor are the reception-room, the library, and the
apartments of the editor-in-chief, managing editor, and department
editors. On the third floor are the general manager's office and the
rooms of the news and city editors and the reporters. The entire fourth
floor is used as a composing-room, where stand "frames" for ninety-six
compositors; the foreman and his assistants have each a private office,
and a private room is assigned to the proofreaders. All the editors' and
reporters' rooms are spacious, well lighted, and admirably ventilated;
they are finished in native woods, varnished, and are handsomely
furnished. Electric call-bells, speaking-tubes, and pneumatic-tubes
furnish means of communication with all the departments, and no expense
has been spared in supplying every convenience for facilitating work and
the comfort of the employees.
With increased facilities came continued prosperity. The business
depression in 1877 affected the circulation of the Herald, as it did
that of every newspaper in the country, and the circulation that year
was not so large as during the year previous; still, the daily average
was one hundred and three thousand copies.
The array of men employed in the various departments of the Herald at
the present time would astonish the founders of the paper. In 1846 the
editorial and reportorial staff consisted of two men; now it comprises
seventy-seven. Six compositors were employed then; now there are one
hundred and forty-seven. One pressman and an assistant easily printed
the Herald, and another daily paper as well, in those days, upon one
small handpress; now forty men find constant employment in attending the
engines and the six latest improved perfecting-presses required to issue
the editions on time. The business department was then conducted with
ease by one man, who generally found time to attend to the mailing and
sale of papers; now twenty-one persons have plenty to do in the
counting-room, and the delivery-room engages the services of twenty.
Then stereotyping the forms of a daily newspaper was an unheard-of
proceeding; now fourteen men are employed in the Herald's foundery. The
salaries and bills for composition aggregated scarcely one hundred and
fifty dollars a week then; now the weekly composition bill averages over
three thousand dollars, and the payroll of the other departments reaches
three thousand dollars every week, and frequently exceeds that sum. Then
the Herald depended for outside news upon the meagre dispatches of
telegraph agencies in New York (the Associated Press system was not
inaugurated until 1848-49, and New England papers were not admitted to
its privileges until some years later), and such occasional
correspondence as its friends in this and other States sent in free of
charge. Now it not only receives the full dispatches of the Associated
Press, but has news bureaus of its own in London, Paris, New York, and
Washington, and special correspondents in every city of any considerable
size throughout the country. All these are in constant communication
with the office and are instructed to use the telegraph without stint
when the occasion demands. The Herald has grown from a little four-paged
sheet, nine by fourteen inches in dimensions, to such an extent that
daily supplements are required to do justice to readers as well as
advertisers, and it is necessary to print an eight-paged edition as
often as four times a week during the busy season of the year.
The Herald has achieved a great success; it has broadened from year to
year since the present proprietors assumed control. It has been their
steadily followed purpose gradually to elevate the tone of their paper,
till it should reach the highest level of American journalism. They have
done this, and, at the same time, they have retained their enormous
constituency. The wonderful educating power of a great newspaper cannot
easily be overestimated. It is the popular university to which thousands
upon thousands of readers resort daily for intelligent comment on the
events of the world--the great wars, the suggestions of science, the
achievements of the engineers, home and foreign politics, etc. That such
a great newspaper as the Herald, wherein the elucidating comment is kept
up from day to day by cultivated writers trained in journalism, must
perform many of the functions of a university is clear. The news columns
of the Herald are a perfect mirror of the great world's busy life. The
ocean-cable is employed to an extent which would have seemed recklessly
extravagant ten years ago. It has its news bureaus in the great capitals
of civilization; its roving correspondents may be found, at the date of
this writing, exploring the Panama Canal, the interior of Mexico,
studying the railway system of Great Britain, investigating Mormon
homelife, scouring the vast level stretches of Dakota, traversing the
great Central States of the Union for presidential "pointers," making a
tour of the Southern States to secure trustworthy data as to the
progress achieved in education there, and journeying along the coast of
hundred-harbored Maine for the latest information as to the growth of
the newer summer resorts in that picturesque region. In large and quiet
rooms in the home office a force of copy-readers is preparing the
correspondence from all over the world for the compositors; at the news
desks trained men are working day and night over telegrams flashed from
far and near, eliminating useless words, punctuating, putting on
"heads," and otherwise dressing copy for the typesetters. The enormous
amount of detail work in a great paper is not easily to be conveyed to
the non-professional reader. From the managing editor, whose brain is
employed in inventing new ideas for his subordinates to carry into
execution, to that very important functionary, the proof-reader, who
corrects the errors of the types, there is a distracting amount of
detail work performed every day. The Herald is managed with very little
friction; the great machine runs as if oiled. With an abundance of
capital, an ungrudging expenditure of money in the pursuit of news, a
great working-force well disciplined and systematized, it goes on
weekday after weekday, turning out nine editions daily, and on Sundays
giving to the public sixteen closely-crowded pages, an intellectual
bill-of-fare from which all may select according to individual
preference.
The organization of the Herald force is almost ideally perfect. Its
three proprietors, all of whom are still on the ascending grade of the
hill of life, share in the daily duties of their vast establishment.
Colonel Royal M. Pulsifer is the publisher of the paper, and has charge
of the counting-room, the delivery, press, and composition rooms, the
three last departments being under competent foremen. A large share of
the wonderful business success of the Herald is due to his sagacity and
liberality. He is a publisher who expends at long range, not expecting
immediate returns. Under this generous and wisely prudent policy of
spending liberally for large future returns the Herald has grown to its
present proportions. The editor-in-chief of the paper is Mr. Edwin B.
Haskell, who directs the political and general editorial policy of the
paper. He has the courage of his independence, and is independent even
of the Independents. Since he assumed the editorial chair, the Herald
has fought consistently for honest money, for a reformed civil service,
for the purification of municipal politics, for freer trade, and local
self-government. The editor of the Herald writes strong Saxon-English,
believing that in a daily newspaper the people should be addressed in a
plain, understandable style. He has an unexpected way of putting things,
his arguments are enlivened by a rare humor, and clinched frequently by
some anecdote or popular allusion. The third partner, Mr. Charles H.
Andrews, is one of those newspaper men who are born journalists. He has
the gift of common sense. His judgment is always sound. The news end of
the Herald establishment is under control of Mr. Andrews, and to no man
more than to him is due the wonderful development of the Herald's news
features. The executive officer of the Herald ship is the managing
editor, Mr. John H. Holmes, who is known to newspaper workers all over
the country as a man of great journalistic ability. He has the
cosmopolitan mind; is free from local prejudices, and can take in the
value of news three thousand miles away as quickly as if the happening
were at the office door. An untiring, sleepless man, prodigal of his
energies in the development of the Herald into a great world-paper,
Mr. Holmes is a type of that distinctively modern development, the
"newspaper man." Men of adventurous minds, of breadth of view, and
delighting in positive achievements, take to journalism in these days as
in the sixteenth century they became navigators of the globe, explorers
of distant regions, and founders of new empires.
Years ago the Herald outgrew the provincial idea that the happenings of
the streets must be of more importance, and, consequently, demanding
more space, than events of universal interest in the chief centres of
the world. The policy of the paper has been, while neglecting nothing of
news value at home, and while photographing all events of local
importance with fulness and accuracy, to keep its readers _au courant_
with the world's progress. In all departments of sporting intelligence
the Herald is an acknowledged authority; its dramatic news is fuller
than that of any paper in the country; it "covers," to use a newspaper
technicality, the world's metropolis on the banks of the Thames not with
a single correspondent, but with a corps of able writers; during the
recent troubles in Ireland one of its special correspondents traversed
that distracted country, giving to his paper the most graphic picture of
Irish distress and discontent, and he capped the climax of journalistic
achievement by interviewing the leading British statesmen on the Irish
theme, making a long letter, which was cabled to the Herald and
recabled back the same day to the London press, which had to take, at
second-hand, the enterprise of the great New-England daily. At Paris,
the world's pleasure capital, the chief seat of science, it is ably
represented, and its Italian correspondence has been ample and
excellent. When public attention was first drawn to Mexico by the
opening up of that land of mystery and revolutions by American
railway-builders, the Herald put three correspondents into that field,
and made Mexico an open book to the reading public. It is one of the
characteristics of the paper's policy to take up and exhaust all topics
of great current interest, and then to pass quickly on to something new.
In dealing with topics of interest of local importance, the paper has
long been noted for exhaustive special articles by writers of accuracy
and fitness for their task. Its New York City staff comprises a general
correspondent, a political observer, a chronicler of business failures,
an accomplished art critic, a fashion writer, a theatrical
correspondent, and three general news correspondents, using the wires.
The Herald is something more than a Boston paper. It has a wide reach,
and employs electricity more freely than did the oldtime newspaper the
post-horse.
In its closely-printed columns the Herald has, during the last decade,
given to its readers a cyclopædia of the world's daily doings.
Portraitures of men of affairs done by skilled writers, the fullest
records of contemporaneous events, the gossip and news of the chief
towns of the globe,--all this has made up a complete record to which the
future historian may turn.
To manage such a paper requires a coördination of forces and an
intellectual breadth of view deserving to be ranked with the work and
attributes of a successful general. Not to wait for the slow processes
of legislation, to be up and ahead of the government itself, to be alert
and untiring--this is the newspaper ideal. How near the Herald has come
to this, its enduring popularity, its great profits, and its wide fame
and influence, best show.
* * * * *
WACHUSETT MOUNTAIN AND PRINCETON.
By Atherton P. Mason.
Almost the first land seen by a person on board a vessel approaching the
Massachusetts coast is the summit of Wachusett Mountain; and any one
standing upon its rocky top beholds more of Massachusetts than can be
seen from any other mountain in the State. For these two reasons, if for
no others, a short historical and sceno-graphical description of this
lonely and majestic eminence, and of the beautiful township in which it
lies, would seem to be interesting.
Wachusett, or "Great Watchusett Hill," as it was originally called, lies
in the northern part of the township of Princeton, and is about fifty
miles due west from Boston. The Nashaways, or Nashuas, originally held
this tract and all the land west of the river that still bears their
name, and they gave to this mountain and the region around its base the
name of "Watchusett." Rising by a gradual ascent from its base, it has
the appearance of a vast dome. The Reverend Peter Whitney[2] speaking of
its dimensions, says: "The circumference of this monstrous mass is about
three miles, and its height is 3,012 feet above the level of the sea, as
was found by the Hon. John Winthrop, Esq., LL.D., in the year 1777: and
this must be 1,800 or 1,900 feet above the level of the adjacent
country." More recent measurements have not materially changed these
figures, so they may be regarded as substantially correct.
The first mention, and probably the first sight, of this mountain, or of
any portion of the region now comprised in Worcester County, is recorded
in Governor Winthrop's journal, in which, under the date of January 27,
1632, is written: "The Governour and some company with him, went up by
Charles River about eight miles above Watertown." The party after
climbing an eminence in the vicinity of their halting-place saw "a very
high hill, due west about forty miles off, and to the N.W. the high
hills by Merrimack, above sixty miles off," The "very high hill" seen by
them for the first time was unquestionably Wachusett.
"On the 20th of October, 1759, the General Court of Massachusetts,
passed an act for incorporating the east wing, so called, of Rutland,
together with sundry farms and some publick lands contiguous thereto,"
as a district under the name of Prince Town, "to perpetuate the name and
memory of the late Rev. Thomas Prince, colleague pastor of the Old South
church in Boston, and a large proprietor of this tract of land." The
district thus incorporated contained about nineteen thousand acres; but
on April 24, 1771, its inhabitants petitioned the General Court, that
it, "with all the lands adjoining said District, not included in any
other town or District," be incorporated into a town by the name of
Princeton; and by the granting of this petition, the area of the town
was increased to twenty-two thousand acres.
The principal citizen of Princeton at this period was the Honorable
Moses Gill, who married the daughter of the Reverend Thomas Prince. He
was a man of considerable note in the county also, holding office as one
of the judges of the court of common pleas for the county of Worcester,
and being "for several years Counsellor of this Commonwealth." His
country-seat, located at Princeton, was a very extensive estate,
comprising nearly three thousand acres. Mr. Whitney appears to have been
personally familiar with this place, and his description of it is so
graphic and enthusiastic, that it may be interesting to quote a portion
of it.
"His noble and elegant seat is about one mile and a quarter from the
meeting-house, to the south. The mansion-house is large, being fifty by
fifty feet, with four stacks of chimneys. The farmhouse is forty feet by
thirty-six. In a line with this stands the coach and chaise house, fifty
feet by thirty-six. This is joined to the barn by a shed seventy feet in
length--the barn is two hundred feet by thirty-two. Very elegant fences
are erected around the mansion-house, the outhouses, and the garden.
When we view this seat, these buildings, and this farm of so many
hundred acres under a high degree of profitable cultivation, and are
told that in the year 1776 it was a perfect wilderness, we are struck
with wonder, admiration, and astonishment. Upon the whole, the seat of
Judge Gill, all the agreeable circumstances respecting it being
attentively considered, is not paralleled by any in the New England
States: perhaps not by any this side the Delaware."
Judge Gill was a very benevolent and enterprising man, and did much to
advance the welfare of the town in its infancy. During the first thirty
years of its existence, it increased rapidly in wealth and population,
having in 1790 one thousand and sixteen inhabitants. For the next
half-century it increased slowly, having in 1840 thirteen hundred and
forty-seven inhabitants. Since then, like all our beautiful New-England
farming-towns, it has fallen off in population, having at the present
time but little over one thousand people dwelling within its limits. Yet
neither the town nor the character of the people has degenerated in the
last century. Persevering industry has brought into existence in this
town some of the most beautiful farms in New England, and in 1875 the
value of farm products was nearly a quarter of a million dollars.
Manufacturing has never been carried on to any great extent in this
town. "In Princeton there are four grist mills, five saw mills, and one
fulling mill and clothiers' works," says Whitney in 1793. Now lumber and
chair-stock are the principal manufactured products, and in 1875 the
value of these, together with the products of other smaller
manufacturing industries, was nearly seventy thousand dollars.
Princeton is the birthplace of several men who have become well known,
among whom may be mentioned Edward Savage (1761-1817), noted as a
skilful portrait-painter; David Everett (1770-1813), the journalist, and
author of those familiar schoolboy verses beginning:--
"You'd scarce expect one of my age
To speak in public on the stage";
and Leonard Woods, D.D., the eminent theologian.
This locality derives additional interest from the fact that Mrs.
Rowlandson, in her book entitled Twenty Removes, designates it as the
place where King Philip released her from captivity in the spring of
1676. Tradition still points out the spot where this release took place,
in a meadow near a large bowlder at the eastern base of the mountain.
The bowlder is known to this day as "Redemption Rock." It is quite near
the margin of Wachusett Lake, a beautiful sheet of water covering over
one hundred acres. This is a favorite place for picnic parties from
neighboring towns, and the several excellent hotels and boarding-houses
in the immediate vicinity afford accommodations for summer visitors, who
frequent this locality in large numbers.
The Indian history of this region is brief, but what there is of it is
interesting to us on account of King Philip's connection with it. At the
outbreak of the Narragansett War, in 1675, the Wachusetts, in spite of
their solemn compact with the colonists, joined King Philip, and, after
his defeat, "the lands about the Wachusetts" became one of his
headquarters, and he was frequently in that region. For many years their
wigwams were scattered about the base of the mountain and along the
border of the lake, and tradition informs us that on a large flat rock
near the lake their council-fires were often lighted.
Until 1751, but three families had settled in the Wachusett tract. In
May of that year Robert Keyes, a noted hunter, settled there with his
family, upon the eastern slope of the mountain, near where the present
carriage-road to the summit begins. On April 14, 1755, a child of his
named Lucy, about five years old, strayed away, presumably to follow
her sisters who had gone to the lake, about a mile distant. She was
never heard of again, though the woods were diligently searched for
weeks. Whitney speaks of this incident, and concludes that "she was
taken by the Indians and carried into their country, and soon forgot
her relations, lost her native language, and became as one of the
aborigines." In 1765 Keyes petitioned the General Court to grant him "ye
easterly half of said Wachusett hill" in consideration of the loss of
"100 pounds lawful money" incurred by him in seeking for his lost child.
This petition was endorsed "negatived" in the handwriting of the
secretary. With this one exception the early settlers of Princeton seem
to have suffered very little at the hands of the Indians.
Princeton, in common with its neighbors, underwent much religious
controversy during the first half-century of its existence. The first
meeting-house, "50 foots long and 40 foots wide," was erected in 1762
"on the highest part of the land, near three pine trees, being near a
large flat rock." This edifice was taken down in 1796, and replaced by a
more "elegant" building, which in turn was removed in 1838. The three
pine trees are now no more, but the flat rock remains, and on account of
the fine sunset view obtained from it has been named "Sunset Rock."
The first minister in Princeton was the Reverend Timothy Fuller, settled
in 1767. In 1768 the General Court granted him Wachusett Mountain to
compensate him for his settlement over "a heavily burdened people in a
wilderness country." It was certainly at that time neither a profitable
nor useful gift, and it was a pity to have this grand old pile pass into
private hands. Mr. Fuller continued as pastor until 1776. His successors
were the Reverend Thomas Crafts, the Reverend Joseph Russell, and the
Reverend James Murdock, D.D. At the time when Dr. Murdock left, in 1815,
Unitarian sentiments had developed extensively, and "the town and a
minority of the church" called the Reverend Samuel Clarke, who had been
a pupil of Dr. Channing. The call was accepted and, as a result, a
portion of the church seceded and built a small house of worship; but in
1836 the church and society reunited and have remained so ever since.
In 1817 a Baptist society was organized, and had several pastors; but in
1844 the society began to diminish, and not long after ceased to exist.
The meeting-house was sold and is now an hotel--the Prospect House. In
1839 a Methodist Episcopal Church was organized which still flourishes.
Besides Wachusett Mountain there are two other hills in Princeton that
are deserving of mention--Pine Hill and Little Wachusett. The former is
about two miles from the centre of the town and not far from Wachusett,
and the latter is about half a mile to the north of the centre. Neither
of these hills is large or high, their elevation being about one
thousand feet less than that of Wachusett, but they appear like two
beautiful children of the majestic father that looms above them. All
these hills were once heavily wooded, but much timber has been cut off
during the last century, and forest-fires have devastated portions at
different times; yet there is still an abundance left. Whitney speaks of
the region as abounding in oak of various kinds, chestnut, white ash,
beech, birch, and maple, with some butternut and walnut trees. The
vigorous growth of the primeval forest indicated the strength and
richness of the soil which has since been turned to such profitable use
by the farmers. The houses in which the people live are all substantial,
convenient, and, in many cases, beautiful, being surrounded by neatly
kept grounds and well-tilled land.
In a hilly country such as this is, springs and brooks of course abound.
The height of land upon which Princeton is situated is a watershed
between the Connecticut and Merrimack Rivers, and of the three beautiful
brooks having their source in the township, one, Wachusett Brook, runs
into Ware River, and thence to the Connecticut, while the other two,
East Wachusett and Keyes Brooks, get to the Merrimack by Still River and
the Nashua.
Mention has been made of Wachusett Lake. Properly speaking, this cannot
perhaps be considered as being in Princeton, inasmuch as about four
fifths of its surface lie in the adjoining township of Westminster.
Besides Wachusett Lake there is another called Quinnepoxet, which lies
in the southwestern part of the township, a small portion of it being in
Holden. It is smaller than its northern neighbor, covering only about
seventy acres, but it is a very charming sheet of water.
A brief account of the geology of this region may perhaps prove
interesting. In the eastern portion of Princeton the underlying rock is
a kind of micaceous schist, and in the western is granitic gneiss. The
gneiss abounds in sulphuret of iron, and for this reason is peculiarly
liable to undergo disintegration; hence the excellent character of the
soil in this portion of Worcester County where naked rock is seldom seen
in place, except in case of the summits of the hills scattered here and
there; and these summits are rounded, and show the effects of
weathering. As we go westerly upon this gneiss range, and get into the
limits of Franklin and Hampshire Counties, a larger amount of naked rock
appears, the hills are more craggy and precipitous, and in general the
soil is poorer. The three principal elevations in Princeton are mainly
composed of gneiss. This variety of rock is identical with granite in
its composition, the distinctive point between the two being that gneiss
has lines of stratification while granite has none. The rock of which
Wachusett is mainly composed has rather obscure stratification, and
hence may be called granitic gneiss. What stratification there is does
not show the irregularity that one would suppose would result from the
elevation of the mountain to so great a height above the surrounding
country; on the other hand the rock does not differ essentially in
hardness from that in the regions below, and hence the theory that all
the adjacent land was once as high as the summit of the mountain, and
was subsequently worn away by the action of water and weather, is hardly
tenable. The gneiss of this region is not especially rich in other
mineral contents. Some fine specimens of mica have however been obtained
from the summit of Wachusett. The only other extraneous mineral found
there to any great extent is the sulphuret of iron before mentioned. The
common name of this mineral is iron pyrites, and being of a yellow color
has in many localities in New England, in times past, caused a vast
waste of time and money in a vain search for gold. It does not appear
that the inhabitants of Princeton were ever thus deceived, though
Whitney wrote in 1793: "Perhaps its bowels may contain very valuable hid
treasure, which in some future period may be descried." In describing
the summit of the mountain he speaks of it as "a flat rock, or ledge of
rocks for some rods round; and there is a small pond of water generally
upon the top of it, of two or three rods square; and where there is any
earth it is covered with blueberry bushes for acres round." The small
pond and blueberry bushes are visible at present, or were a year or two
ago at any rate, but the area of bare rock has increased somewhat as
time went on, though the top is not as bare as is that of its New
Hampshire brother, Monadnock, nor are its sides so craggy and
precipitous.
The people of Princeton have always kept abreast of the times. From the
first they were ardent supporters of the measures of the Revolution, and
foremost among them in patriotic spirit was the Honorable Moses Gill,
previously mentioned in this paper, who, on account of his devotion to
the good cause, was called by Samuel Adams "The Duke of Princeton."
Their strong adherence to the "state rights" principle led the people
of the town to vote against the adoption of the Constitution of the
United States; but when it was adopted they abided by it, and when the
Union was menaced in the recent Rebellion they nobly responded to the
call of the nation with one hundred and twenty-seven men and nearly
twenty thousand dollars in money--exceeding in both items the demand
made upon them. Nor is their record in the pursuits of peace less
honorable, for in dairy products and in the rearing of fine cattle they
have earned an enviable and well-deserved reputation. As a community it
is cultured and industrious, and has ever been in full sympathy with
progress in education, religion, and social relations.
But few towns in Massachusetts offer to summer visitors as many
attractions as does Princeton. The air is clear and bracing, the
landscape charming, and the pleasant, shady woodroads afford
opportunities for drives through most picturesque scenery. Near at hand
is the lake, and above it towers Wachusett. It has been proposed to run
a railroad up to and around the mountain, but thus far, fortunately,
nothing has come of it. A fine road of easy ascent winds up the
mountain, and on the summit is a good hotel which is annually patronized
by thousands of transient visitors.
The view from here is magnificent on a clear day. The misty blue of the
Atlantic, the silver thread of the Connecticut, Mounts Tom and Holyoke,
and cloud-clapped Monadnock, the cities of Worcester and Fitchburg--all
these and many other beautiful objects are spread out before the
spectator. But it cannot be described--it must be seen to be
appreciated; and the throngs of visitors that flit through the town
every summer afford abundant evidence that the love of the beautiful and
grand in nature still lives in the hearts of the people.
Brief is the sketch of this beautiful mountain town, which is neither
large nor possessed of very eventful history: but in its quiet seclusion
dwell peace and prosperity, and its worthy inhabitants are most deeply
attached to the beautiful heritage handed down to them by their
ancestors.
[Footnote 2: History of Worcester County. Worcester: 1793.]
* * * * *
WASHINGTON AND THE FLAG.
By Henry B. Carrington.
"Strike, strike! O Liberty, thy silver strings!"
NOTE--On a pavement slab in Brighton Chapel, Northamptonshire, England,
the Washington coat-of-arms appears: a bird rising from nest (coronet),
upon azure field with five-pointed stars, and parallel red-and-white
bands on field below; suggesting origin of the national escutcheon.
I.
Strike, strike! O Liberty, thy silver strings;
And fill with melody the clear blue sky!
Give swell to chorus full,--to gladness wings,
And let swift heralds with the tidings fly!
Faint not, nor tire, but glorify the record
Which honors him who gave the nation life;
Fill up the story, and with one accord
Our people hush their conflicts--end their strife!
II.
Tell me, ye people, why doth this appeal
Go forth in measure swift as it has force,
To quicken souls, and make the nation's weal
Advance, unfettered, in its onward course,
Unless that they who live in these our times
May grasp the grand, o'erwhelming thought,
That he who led our troops in battle-lines,
But our best interests ever sought!
III.
What is this story, thus redolent of praise?
Why challenge Liberty herself to lend her voice?
Why must ye hallelujah anthems raise,
And bid the world in plaudits loud rejoice?
Why lift the banner with its star-lit folds,
And give it honors, grandest and the best,
Unless its blood-stripes and its stars of gold
Bring ransom to the toilers--to the weary rest?
IV.
O yes, there's a secret in the stars and stripes:
It was the emblem of our nation's sire;
And from the record of his father's stripes,
He gathered zeal which did his youth inspire.
Fearless and keen in the border battle,
Careless of risk while dealing blow for blow,
What did he care for yell or rifle-rattle
If he in peril only duty e'er could know!
V.
As thus in youth he measured well his work,
And filled that measure ever full and true,
So then to him to lead the nation looked,
When all to arms in holy frenzy flew.
Great faith was that, to inspire our sires,
And honor him, so true, with chief command,
And fervid be our joy, while beacon-fires
Do honor to this hero through the land.
VI.
Strike, strike! O Liberty, thy silver strings!
Bid nations many in the contest try!
Tell them, O, tell, of all thy mercy brings
For all that languish, be it far or nigh!
For all oppressed the time shall surely come,
When, stripped of fear, and hushed each plaintive cry,
All, all, will find in Washington
The model guide, for now--for aye, for aye.
* * * * *
A SUMMER ON THE GREAT LAKES.
By Fred. Myron Colby.
Where shall we go this year? is the annual recurring question as the
summer heats draw near. We must go somewhere, for it will be no less
unwholesome than unfashionable to remain in town. The body needs rest;
the brain, no less wearied, unites in the demand for change, for
recreation. A relief from the wear and tear of professional life is a
necessity. The seaside? Cape May and York Beach are among our first
remembrances. We believe in change. The mountains? Their inexhaustible
variety will never pall, but then we have "done" the White Mountains,
explored the Catskills, and encamped among the Adirondacks in years gone
by. Saratoga? We have never been there, but we have an abhorrence for a
great fashionable crowd. To say the truth, we are heartily sick of
"summer resorts," with their gambling, smoking, and drinking. The great
watering-places hold no charms for us. "The world, the flesh, and the
devil" there hold undisputed sway: we desire a gentler rule.
"What do you say to a trip on the Great Lakes?" suggests my friend,
Ralph Vincent, with indefatigable patience.
"I--I don't know," I answered, thoughtfully.
"Don't know!" cried "the Historian"--(we called Hugh Warren by that
title from his ability to always give information on any mooted point).
He was a walking encyclopaedia of historical lore. "Don't know! Yes, you
do. It is just what we want. It will be a delightful voyage, with scenes
of beauty at every sunset and every sunrise. The Sault de Ste. Marie
with its fairy isles, the waters of Lake Huron so darkly, deeply,
beautifully green, and the storied waves of Superior with their memories
of the martyr missionaries, of old French broils and the musical flow of
Hiawatha. The very thought is enough to make one enthusiastic. How came
you to think of it, Vincent?"
"I never think: I scorn the imputation," repled Vincent, with a look of
assumed disdain. "It was a inspiration."
"And you have inspired us to a glorious undertaking. The Crusades were
nothing to it. Say, Montague," to me, "you are agreed?"
"Yes, I am agreed," I assented. "We will spend our summer on the Great
Lakes. It will be novel, it will be refreshing, it will be classical."
So it was concluded. A week from that time found us at Oswego. Our
proposed route was an elaborate one. It was to start at Oswego, take a
beeline across Lake Ontario to Toronto, hence up the lake and through
the Welland Canal into Lake Erie, along the shores of that historical
inland sea, touching at Erie, Cleveland, Sandusky, and Toledo, up
Detroit River, through the Lake and River of St. Clair, then gliding
over the waters of Lake Huron, dash down along the shores of Lake
Michigan to Chicago, and back past Milwaukee, through the Straits of
Mackinaw and the ship-canal into the placid waves of Superior, making
Duluth the terminus of our journey. Our return would be leisurely,
stopping here and there, at out-of-the-way places, camping-out whenever
the fancy seized us and the opportunity offered, to hunt, to fish, to
rest, being for the time knight-errants of pleasure, or, as the
Historian dubbed us, peripatetic philosophers, in search, not of the
touchstone to make gold, but the touchstone to make health. Our trip was
to occupy two months.
It was well toward the latter part of June in 1881, on one of the
brightest of summer mornings, that our steamer, belonging to the regular
daily line to Toronto, steamed slowly out from the harbor of Oswego. So
we were at last on the "beautiful water," for that is the meaning of
Ontario in the Indian tongue. Here, two hundred years before us, the
war-canoes of De Champlain and his Huron allies had spurned the foaming
tide. Here, a hundred years later the batteaux of that great soldier,
Montcalm, had swept round the bluff to win the fortress on its height,
then in English hands. Historic memories haunted it. The very waves
sparkling in the morning sunshine whispered of romantic tales.
Seated at the stern of the boat we looked back upon the fading city.
Hugh Warren was smoking, and his slow-moving blue eyes were fixed
dreamily upon the shore. He did not seem to be gazing at anything, and
yet we knew he saw more than any of us.
"A centime for your thoughts, Hugh!" cried Vincent, rising and
stretching his limbs.
"I was thinking," said the Historian, "of that Frenchman, Montcalm, who
one summer day came down on the English at Oswego unawares with his
gunboats and Indians and gendarmes. Of the twenty-five thousand people
in yonder city I don't suppose there are a dozen who know what his plans
were. They were grand ones. In no country on the face of the globe has
nature traced outlines of internal navigation on so grand a scale as
upon our American continent. Entering the mouth of the St. Lawrence we
are carried by that river through the Great Lakes to the head of Lake
Superior, a distance of more than two thousand miles. On the south we
find the Mississippi pouring its waters into the Gulf of Mexico, within
a few degrees of the tropics after a course of three thousand miles.
'The Great Water,' as its name signifies, and its numerous branches
drain the surface of about one million one hundred thousand square
miles, or an area twenty times greater than England and Wales. The
tributaries of the Mississippi equal the largest rivers of Europe. The
course of the Missouri is probably not less than twenty-five hundred
miles. The Ohio winds above a thousand miles through fertile countries.
The tributaries of _these_ tributaries are great rivers. The Wabash, a
feeder of the Ohio, has a course of above five hundred miles, four
hundred of which are navigable. If the contemplated canal is ever
completed which will unite Lake Michigan with the head of navigation on
the Illinois River, it will be possible to proceed by lines of inland
navigation from Quebec to New Orleans. There is space within the regions
enjoying these advantages of water communication, and already peopled by
the Anglo-Saxon race, for four hundred millions of the human race, or
more than double the population of Europe at the present time.
Imagination cannot conceive the new influences which will be exercised
on the affairs of the world when the great valley of the Mississippi,
and the continent from Lake Superior to New Orleans, is thronged with
population. In the valley of the Mississippi alone there is abundant
room for a population of a hundred million.
"In Montcalm's day all this territory belonged to France. It was that
soldier's dream, and he was no less a statesman than a soldier, to make
here a great nation. Toward that end a great chain of forts was to be
built along the line from Ontario to New Orleans. Sandusky, Mackinaw,
Detroit, Oswego, Du Quesne, were but a few links in the contemplated
chain that was to bind the continent forever to French interests. It was
for this he battled through all those bloody, brilliant campaigns of the
old French war. But the English were too strong for him. Montcalm
perished, and the power of France was at an end in the New World. But it
almost overwhelms me at the thought of what a mighty empire was lost
when the English huzza rose above the French clarion on the Plains of
Abraham."
"Better for the continent and the world that England won," said Vincent.
"Perhaps so," allowed Hugh. "Though we cannot tell what might have been.
But that does not concern this Ulysses and his crew. Onward, voyagers
and voyageresses."
"Your simile is an unfortunate one. Ulysses was wrecked off Circe's
island and at other places. Rather let us be the Argonauts in search of
the Golden Fleece."
"Mercenary wretch!" exclaimed Hugh. "My taste is different. I am going
in search of a dinner."
Hugh Warren's ability for discovering anything of that sort was
proverbially good, so we, having the same disposition, followed him
below to the dining-saloon.
We arrived at Toronto, one hundred and sixty miles from Oswego, a little
before dusk. This city, the capital of the province of Ontario, is
situated on an arm of the lake. Its bay is a beautiful inlet about four
miles long and two miles wide, forming a capacious and well-protected
harbor. The site of the town is low, but rises gently from the water's
edge. The streets are regular and wide, crossing each other generally at
right angles. There is an esplanade fronting the bay which extends for a
distance of two miles. The population of the city has increased from
twelve hundred in 1817 to nearly sixty thousand at present. In the
morning we took a hurried survey of its chief buildings, visited Queen's
Park in the centre of the city, and got round in season to take the
afternoon steamer for Buffalo.
The district situated between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, as it has been
longest settled, so also is it the best-cultivated part of Western
Canada. The vicinity to the two Great Lakes renders the climate more
agreeable, by diminishing the severity of the winters and tempering the
summers' heats. Fruits of various kind arrive at great perfection,
cargoes of which are exported to Montreal, Quebec, and other places
situated in the less genial parts of the eastern province. Mrs. Jameson
speaks of this district as "superlatively beautiful." The only place
approaching a town in size and the number of inhabitants, from the Falls
along the shores of Lake Erie for a great distance, beyond even Grand
River, is Chippewa, situated on the river Welland, or Chippewa, which
empties itself into Niagara Strait, just where the rapids commence and
navigation terminates. One or more steamers run between Chippewa and
Buffalo. Chippewa is still but a small village, but, as it lies directly
on the great route from the Western States of the Union to the Falls of
Niagara and the Eastern States, it will probably rise into importance.
Its greatest celebrity at present arises from the fact of there having
been a great battle fought near by between the British and Americans in
the war of 1812.
The line of navigation by the St. Lawrence did not extend beyond Lake
Ontario until the Welland Canal was constructed. This important work is
thirty-two miles long, and admits ships of one hundred and twenty-five
guns, which is about the average tonnage of the trading-vessels on the
lakes. The Niagara Strait is nearly parallel to the Welland Canal, and
more than one third of it is not navigable. The canal, by opening this
communication between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, has conferred an
immense benefit on all the districts west of Ontario. The great Erie
Canal has been still more beneficial, by connecting the lakes with New
York and the Atlantic by the Hudson River, which the canal joins after a
course of three hundred and sixty miles. The effect of these two canals
was quickly perceptible in the increased activity of commerce on Lake
Erie, and the Erie Canal has rendered this lake the great line of
transit from New York to the Western States.
Lake Erie is the most shallow of all the lakes, its average depth being
only sixty or seventy feet. Owing to this shallowness the lake is
readily disturbed by the wind; and for this reason, and for its paucity
of good harbors, it has the reputation of being the most dangerous
to navigate of any of the Great Lakes. Neither are its shores as
picturesquely beautiful as those of Ontario, Huron, and Superior. Still
it is a lovely and romantic body of water, and its historic memories are
interesting and important. In this last respect all the Great Lakes are
remarkable. Some of the most picturesque and interesting chapters of our
colonial and military history have for their scenes the shores and the
waters of these vast inland seas. A host of great names--Champlain,
Frontenac, La Salle, Marquette, Perry, Tecumseh, and Harrison--has
wreathed the lakes with glory. The scene of the stirring events in which
Pontiac was the conspicuous figure is now marked on the map by such
names as Detroit, Sandusky, Green Bay, and Mackinaw. The thunder of the
battles of Lundy's Lane and the Thames was heard not far off, and the
very waters of Lake Erie were once canopied with the sulphur smoke from
the cannon of Perry's conquering fleet.
We spent two days in Buffalo, and they were days well spent. This city
is the second in size of the five Great Lake ports, being outranked only
by Chicago. Founded in 1801, it now boasts of a population of one
hundred and sixty thousand souls. The site is a plain, which, from a
point about two miles distant from the lake, slopes gently to the
water's edge. The city has a water front of two and a half miles on the
lake and of about the same extent on Niagara River. It has one of the
finest harbors on the lake. The public buildings are costly and imposing
edifices, and many of the private residences are elegant. The pride of
the city is its public park of five hundred and thirty acres, laid out
by Frederick Law Olmstead in 1870. It has the reputation of being the
healthiest city of the United States.
Buffalo was the home of Millard Fillmore, the thirteenth President of
the United States. Here the great man spent the larger part of his life.
He went there a poor youth of twenty, with four dollars in his pocket.
He died there more than fifty years afterward worth one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars, and after having filled the highest offices his
country could bestow upon him. He owned a beautiful and elegant
residence in the city, situated on one of the avenues, with a frontage
toward the lake, of which a fine view is obtained. It is a modern
mansion, three stories in height, with large stately rooms. It looks
very little different externally from some of its neighbors, but the
fact that it was for thirty years the home of one of our Presidents
gives it importance and invests it with historic charm.
On board a steamer bound for Detroit we again plowed the waves. The day
was a delightful one; the morning had been cloudy and some rain had
fallen, but by ten o'clock the sky was clear, and the sunbeams went
dancing over the laughing waters. Hugh was on his high-horse, and full
of historic reminiscences.
"Do you know that this year is the two hundredth anniversary of a
remarkable event for this lake?" he began. "Well, it is. It was in 1681,
in the summer of the year, that the keel of the first vessel launched in
Western waters was laid at a point six miles this side of the Niagara
Falls. She was built by Count Frontenac who named her the Griffen. I
should like to have sailed in it."
"Its speed could hardly equal that of the Detroit," observed Vincent,
complacently.
"You hard, cold utilitarian!" exclaimed the Historian; "who cares
anything about that? It is the romance of the thing that would charm
me."
"And the romance consists in its being distant. We always talk of the
good old times as though they were really any better than our own age!
It is a beautiful delusion. Don't you know how in walking the shady
places are always behind us?"
The Historian's only answer to this banter was to shrug his shoulders
scornfully and to light a fresh cigar.
Lake Erie is about two hundred and forty miles in length and has a mean
breadth of forty miles. Its surface is three hundred and thirty feet
above Lake Ontario, and five hundred and sixty-five above the level of
the sea. It receives the waters of the upper lakes by means of the
Detroit River, and discharges them again by the Niagara into Lake
Ontario. Lake Erie has a shallow depth, but Ontario, which is five
hundred and two feet deep, is two hundred and thirty feet below the tide
level of the ocean, or as low as most parts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
and the bottoms of Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior, although their
surface is much higher, are all, from their vast depths, on a level with
the bottom of Ontario. Now, as the discharge through Detroit River,
after allowing all the probable portion carried off by evaporation, does
not appear by any means equal to the quantity of water which the other
three lakes receive, it has been conjectured that a subterranean river
may run from Lake Ontario. This conjecture is not improbable, and
accounts for the singular fact that salmon and herring are caught in all
the lakes communicating with the St. Lawrence, but no others. As the
Falls of Niagara must always have existed, it would puzzle the
naturalists to say how those fish got into the upper lakes unless there
is a subterranean river; moreover, any periodical obstruction of the
river would furnish a not improbable solution of the mysterious flux and
influx of the lakes.
Some after noon we steamed past a small city on the southern coast which
had a large natural harbor.
"Erie and Presque Isle Bay," announced the Historian. "A famous place.
From it sailed Oliver Hazard Perry with his fleet of nine sail to most
unmercifully drub the British lion on that tenth day of September, 1813.
The battle took place some distance from here over against Sandusky. I
will tell you all about it when we get there. My grandfather was one of
the actors."
He said no more, and for a long time the conversation was sustained by
Vincent and myself. The steamer put in at Cleveland just at dusk. The
stop was brief, however, and we left the beautiful and thriving city
looking like a queen on the Ohio shore under the bridal veil of night.
The evening was brilliant with moonlight. The lake was like a mirror or
an enchanted sea. Hour after hour passed, and we still sat on deck
gazing on the scene. Far to the south we saw the many lights of a city
shining. It was Sandusky.
"How delightful it is!" murmured Vincent.
"Beautiful," I replied. "If it were only the Ionian Sea, now, or the
clear Ægean"--
"Those classic waters cannot match this lake," interrupted Hugh.
"The battle of Erie will outlive Salamis or Actium. The laurels of
Themistokles and Augustus fade even now before those of Perry. He was
a hero worth talking about, something more human altogether than any
of Plutarch's men. I feel it to be so now at least. It was right here
somewhere that the battle raged."
"He was quite a young man, I believe," said I, glad to show that I knew
something of the hero. I had seen his house at Newport many times, one
of the old colonial kind, and his picture, that of a tall, slim man,
with dash and bravery in his face, was not unfamiliar to me.
"Yes; only twenty-seven, and just married," continued the Historian,
settling down to work. "Before the battle he read over his wife's
letters for the last time, and then tore them up, so that the enemy
should not see those records of the heart, if victorious. 'This is the
most important day of my life,' he said to his officers, as the first
shot from the British came crashing among the sails of the Lawrence;
'but we know how to beat those fellows,' he added, with a laugh. He had
nine vessels, with fifty-four guns and four hundred and ninety officers
and men. The British had six ships mounting sixty-three guns, with five
hundred and two officers and men.
"In the beginning of the battle the British had the advantage. Their
guns were of longer range, and Perry was exposed to their fire half an
hour before he got in position where he could do execution. When he had
succeeded in this the British concentrated their fire on his flag-ship.
Enveloped in flame and smoke, Perry strove desperately to maintain his
ground till the rest of his ships could get into action. For more than
two hours he sustained the unequal conflict without flinching. It was
his first battle, and, moreover, he was enfeebled by a fever from which
he had just risen; but he never lost his ease and confidence. When most
of his men had fallen, when his ship lay an unmanageable wreck on the
water, 'every brace and bowline shot away,' and all his guns were
rendered ineffective, he still remained calm and unmoved.
"Eighteen men out of one hundred stood alive on his deck; many of those
were wounded. Lieutenant. Yarnell, with a red handkerchief tied round
his head and another round his neck to stanch the blood flowing from two
wounds, stood bravely by his commander. But all seemed lost when,
through the smoke, Perry saw the Niagara approaching uncrippled.
"'If a victory is to be won I will win it,' he said to the lieutenant.
He tore down his flag with its glorious motto,--'Don't give up the
ship,'--and leaping into a boat with half a dozen others, told the
sailors to give way with a will. The Niagara was half a mile distant to
the windward, and the enemy, as soon as they observed his movement,
directed their fire upon his boat. Oars were splintered in the rowers'
hands by musket-balls, and the men themselves covered with spray from
the roundshot and grape that smote the water on every side. But they
passed safely through the iron storm, and at last reached the deck of
the Niagara, where they were welcomed with thundering cheers. Lieutenant
Elliot of the Niagara, leaving his own ship, took command of the Somers,
and brought up the smaller vessels of the fleet, which had as yet been
little in the action. Perry ran up his signal for close action, and from
vessel to vessel the answering signals went up in the sunlight and the
cheers rang over the water. All together now bore down upon the enemy
and, passing through his line, opened a raking crossfire. So close and
terrible was that fire that the crew of the Lady Prevost ran below,
leaving the wounded and stunned commander alone on the deck. Shrieks and
groans rose from every side. In fifteen minutes from the time the signal
was made Captain Barclay, the British commander, flung out the white
flag. The firing then ceased; the smoke slowly cleared away, revealing
the two fleets commingled, shattered, and torn, and the decks strewn
with dead. The loss on each side was the same, one hundred and
thirty-five killed and wounded. The combat had lasted about three hours.
When Perry saw that victory was secure he wrote with a pencil on the
back of an old letter, resting it on his navy cap, the despatch to
General Harrison: 'We have met the enemy, and they are ours: two ships,
two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop.'
"It was a great victory," concluded the eloquent narrator. "The young
conqueror did not sleep a wink that night. Until the morning light he
was on the quarter-deck of the Lawrence, doing what he could to relieve
his suffering comrades, while the stifled groans of the wounded men
echoed from ship to ship. The next day the dead, both the British and
the American, were buried in a wild and solitary spot on the shore. And
there they sleep the sleep of the brave, with the sullen waves to sing
their perpetual requiem."
We sat in silence a long time after; no one was disposed to speak. It
came to us with power there on the moonlit lake, a realization of the
hard-fought battle, the gallant bearing of the young commander, his
daring passage in an open boat through the enemy's fire to the Niagara,
the motto on his flag, the manner in which he carried his vessel alone
through the enemy's line, and then closed in half pistol-shot, his
laconic account of the victory to his superior officer, the ships
stripped of their spars and canvas, the groans of the wounded, and the
mournful spectacle of the burial on the lake shore.
Our next stopping-place was at Detroit, the metropolis of Michigan, on
the river of the same name, the colony of the old Frenchman De la Mothe
Cadillac, the colonial Pontchartrain, the scene of Pontiac's defeat and
of Hull's treachery, cowardice, or incapacity, grandly seated on the
green Michigan shore, overlooking the best harbor on the Great Lakes,
and with a population of more than one hundred thousand. Two stormy days
kept us within doors most of the time. The third day we were again "on
board," steaming up Detroit River into Lake St. Clair. On and on we
kept, till the green waters of Huron sparkled beneath the keel of our
steamer. All the way over the lake we kept the shores of Michigan in
sight, beaches of white sand alternating with others of limestone
shingle, and the forests behind, a tangled growth of cedar, fir, and
spruce in impenetrable swamps, or a scanty, scrubby growth upon a sandy
soil. Two hours were spent at Thunder Bay, where the steamer stopped for
a supply of wood, and we went steaming on toward Mackinaw, a hundred
miles away. At sunset of that day the shores of the green rocky island
dawned upon us. The steamer swept up to an excellent dock, as the
sinking sun was pouring a stream of molten gold across the flood, out of
the amber gates of the west.
"At last Mackinaw, great in history and story," announced the Historian
leaning on the taffrail and gazing at the clear pebbly bottom and
through forty feet of water.
"My history consists of a series of statues and tableaux--statues of the
great men, tableaux of the great events," said Vincent. "Were there any
such at Mackinaw?"
"Yes," answered Hugh, "two statues and one tableau--the former Marquette
and Mae-che-ne-mock-qua, the latter the massacre at Fort
Michilimakinack."
"The event happened during Pontiac's war, I believe," I hastened to
observe. "The Indians took the place by stratagem, did they not?"
"They did. It was on the fourth of July, 1763. The fort contained a
hundred soldiers under the command of Major Etherington. In the
neighborhood were four hundred Indians apparently friendly. On the day
specified the savages played a great game of ball or baggatiway on the
parade before the fort. Many of the soldiers went out to witness it and
the gate was left open. During the game the ball was many times pitched
over the pickets of the fort. Instantly it was followed by the whole
body of players, in the unrestrained pursuit of a rude athletic
exercise. The garrison feared nothing; but suddenly the Indians drawing
their concealed weapons began the massacre. No resistance was offered,
so sudden and unexpected was the surprise. Seventy of the soldiers were
murdered, the remainder were sold for slaves. Only one Englishman
escaped. He was a trader named Henry. He was in his own house writing a
letter to his Montreal friends by the canoe which was just on the eve of
departure, when the massacre began. Only a low board fence separated his
grounds from those of M. Longlade, a Frenchman, who had great influence
with the savages. He obtained entrance into the house, where he was
concealed by one of the women, and though the savages made vigorous
search for him, he remained undiscovered. You can imagine the horrible
sight the fort presented when the sun went down, the soldiers in their
red uniforms lying there scalped and mangled, a ghastly heap under the
summer sky. And to just think it was only a short time ago, a little
more than a hundred years."
We could hardly realize it as we gazed up the rocky eminence at the
United States fort, one hundred and fifty feet high, overlooking the
little village. And yet Mackinaw's history is very little different from
that of most Western settlements and military Stations. Dark,
sanguinary, and bloody tragedies were constantly enacted upon the
frontiers for generations. As every one acquainted with our history must
know, the war on the border has been an almost interminable one. As the
tide of emigration has rolled westward it has ever met that fiery
counter-surge, and only overcome it by incessant battling and effort.
And even now, as the distant shores of the Pacific are wellnigh reached,
that resisting wave still gives forth its lurid flashes of conflict.
Mackinaw Island is only about three miles long and two in breadth, with
a circuit of nine miles in all. It rises out of the lake to an average
height of three hundred feet, and is heavily wooded with cedar, beech,
maple, and yew. Three of its sides are bold and rocky, the fourth slopes
down gradually toward the north to meet the blue waters of the lake. The
island is intersected in all directions with carriage-roads and paths,
and in the bay are always to be seen the row and sail boats belonging to
pleasure-seekers. From four to seven steamers call at the wharf daily,
while fleets of sailing-vessels may at any time be descried from old
Fort Holmes, creeping noiselessly on to the commercial marts of those
great inland seas.
Tradition lends its enchantment to the isle. According to the Indian
legend it rose suddenly from the calm bosom of the lake at the sunset
hour. In their fancy it took the form of a huge turtle, and so they
bestowed upon it the name of Moc-che-ne-nock-e-nung. In the Ojibway
mythology it became the home of the Great Fairies, and to this day it is
said to be a sacred spot to all Indians who preserve the memory of the
primal times. The fairies lived in a subterranean abode under the
island, and an old sagamore, Chees-a-kee, is related to have been
conducted _a la_ Æneus, in Virgil, to the halls of the spirits and
to have seen them all assembled in the spacious wigwam. Had some bard
taken up the tale of this fortunate individual, the literature of the
red man might have boasted an epic ranking perhaps with the Æneid or the
Iliad.
From the walls of old Fort Holmes, two hundred feet above the lake, a
fine view is obtained of the island and its surroundings. Westward is
Point St. Ignace, a sharply defined cape running out from the mainland
into the strait. There rest the bones of good Father Marquette, who, in
1671, erected a chapel on the island and began to Christianize the wild
natives of this region. On the northwest we see the "Sitting Rabbits,"
two curious-looking rockhills which bear a singular resemblance to our
common American hare. Eastward stretches away the boundless inland sea,
a beautiful greenish-blue, to the horizon. The mountains of St. Martin,
and the hills from which flow Carp and Pine Rivers meet the northern
vision. To the south is Boisblanc Island, lying like an emerald paradise
on the bosom of Lake Huron, and close beside it, as if seeking
protection, is lovely Round Island. Among all these islands, and laving
the shores of the adjacent mainland, are the rippling waves of the lake,
now lying as if asleep in the flooding light, anon white-capped and
angry, driven by the strong winds. Beneath us are the undulations of
billowy green foliage, calm and cool, intersected with carriage-roads,
and showing yonder the white stones of the soldiers' and citizens'
graves. Here, down by the water, and close under the fort, the white,
quaint houses lie wrapped in light and quiet. Breezes cool and
delightful, breezes that have traversed the broad expanse of the lakes,
blow over your face softly, as in Indian myth blows the wind from the
Land of Souls. The scene and the hour lulls you into a sense of
delicious quietude. You are aroused by the shrill whistle of a steamer,
and you descend dockward to note the fresh arrivals.
Several days' excursions do not exhaust the island. One day we go to
see Arch Rock, a beautiful natural bridge of rock spanning a chasm some
eighty feet in height and forty in width. The summit is one hundred and
fifty feet above the level. Another day we visit Sugar-loaf Rock, an
isolated conical shape one hundred and forty feet high, rising from a
plateau in the centre of the island. A hole half-way up its side is
large enough to hold a dozen persons, and has in it the names of a
hundred eager aspirants after immortality. On the southwest side of the
island is a perpendicular rock bluff, rising one hundred and fifty feet
from the lake and called "Lover's Leap." The legend was told us one
afternoon by Hugh, as follows:--
"In the ancient time, when the red men held their councils in this heart
of the waters, and the lake around rippled to the canoe fleets of
warrior tribes going and returning, a young Ojibway girl had her home on
this sacred isle. Her name was Mae-che-ne-mock-qua, and she was
beautiful as the sunrise of a summer morning. She had many lovers, but
only to one brave did the blooming Indian girl give her heart. Often
would Mae-che-ne-mock-qua wander to this solitary rock and gaze out upon
the wide waters after the receding canoes of the combined Ojibway and
Ottawa bands, speeding south for scalps and glory. There, too, she
always watched for their return, for among them was the one she loved,
an eagle-plumed warrior, Ge-win-e-gnon, the bravest of the brave. The
west wind often wafted the shouts of the victorious braves far in
advance of them as they returned from the mainland, and highest above
all she always heard the voice of Ge-win-e-gnon. But one time, in the
chorus of shouts, the maiden heard no longer the voice of her lover. Her
heart told her that he had gone to the spirit-land behind the sunset,
and she should no more behold his face among the chieftains. So it was:
a Huron arrow had pierced his heart, and his last words were of his
maiden in the Fairy Isle. Sad grew the heart of the lovely
Mae-che-ne-mock-qua. She had no wish to live. She could only stand on
the cliff and gaze at the west, where the form of her lover appeared
beckoning her to follow him. One morning her mangled body was found at
the foot of the cliff; she had gone to meet her lover in the
spirit-land. So love gained its sacrifice and a maiden became immortal."
A well-earned night's sleep, bathed in this highly ozoned lake
atmosphere, which magically soothes every nerve and refreshes every
sense like an elixir, and we are off again on the broad bosom of the
Mackinaw strait, threading a verdant labyrinth of emerald islets and
following the course of Father Jacques Marquette, who two hundred years
before us had set off from the island in two canoes, with his friend
Louis Joliet, to explore and Christianize the region of the Mississippi.
We looked back upon the Fairy Island with regretful eyes, and as it sunk
into the lake Hugh repeated the lines of the poet:--
"A gem amid gems, set in blue yielding waters,
Is Mackinac Island with cliffs girded round,
For her eagle-plumed braves and her true-hearted daughters;
Long, long ere the pale face came widely renowned.
"Tradition invests thee with Spirit and Fairy;
Thy dead soldiers' sleep shall no drum-beat awake,
While about thee the cool winds do lovingly tarry
And kiss thy green brows with the breath of the lake.
"Thy memory shall haunt me wherever life reaches,
Thy day-dreams of fancy, thy night's balmy sleep,
The plash of thy waters along the smooth beaches,
The shade of thine evergreens, grateful and deep.
"O Mackinac Island! rest long in thy glory!
Sweet native to peacefulness, home of delight!
Beneath thy soft ministry, care and sad worry
Shall flee from the weary eyes blessed with thy sight."
"That poet had taste," remarked our friend when he had concluded.
"Beautiful Isle! No wonder the great missionary wished his bones to rest
within sight of its shores. Marquette never seemed to me so great as
now. He was one of those Jesuits like Zinzendorf and Sebastian Ralle,
wonderful men, all of them, full of energy and adventure and missionary
zeal, and devoted to the welfare of their order. At the age of thirty he
was sent among the Hurons as a missionary. He founded the mission of
Sault de Ste. Marie in Lake Superior, in 1668, and three years later
that of Mackinaw. In 1673, in company with Joliet and five other
Frenchmen, the adventurous missionary set out on a voyage toward the
South Sea. They followed the Mississippi to the Gulf, and returning,
arrived at Green Bay in September. In four months they had traveled a
distance of twenty-five hundred miles in an open canoe. Marquette was
sick a whole year, but in 1674, at the solicitation of his superior, set
out to preach to the Kaskaskia Indians. He was compelled to halt on the
way by his infirmities, and remained all winter at the place, with only
two Frenchmen to minister to his wants. As soon as it was spring,
knowing full well that he could not live, he attempted to return to
Mackinaw. He died on the way, on a small river that bears his name,
which empties into Lake Michigan on the western shore. His memory
en-wreathes the very names of Superior and Michigan with the halo of
romance."
"Thank you," said Vincent, looking out over the dark water. "I can fancy
his ghost haunting the lake at midnight."
"Speak not of that down at the Queen City," returned Hugh, with a tragic
air. "Pork and grain are more substantial things than ghosts at Chicago,
and they might look on you as an escaped lunatic. Nathless, it was a
pretty idea to promulgate among the Indians two centuries ago. Observe
how civilization has changed. Two hundred years ago we sent missionaries
among them: now we send soldiers to shoot them down, after we have
plundered them of their lands."
Neither of us were disposed to discuss the Indian question with Hugh
Warren, and the conversation dropped after a while.
At noon of the next day the steamer made Milwaukee, and the evening of
the day after Chicago. These two cities are excellent types of the
Western city, and both show, in a wonderful degree, the rapid growth of
towns in the great West. Neither had an inhabitant before 1825, and now
one has a population of one hundred thousand, and the other of five
hundred thousand. Chicago is, in fact, a wonder of the world. Its
unparalleled growth, its phoenix-like rise from the devastation of the
great fire of 1871, and its cosmopolitan character, all contribute to
render it a remarkable city.
The city looks out upon the lake like a queen, as in fact she is,
crowned by the triple diadem of beauty, wealth, and dignity. She is the
commercial metropolis of the whole Northwest, an emporium second only to
New York in the quantity of her imports and exports. The commodious
harbor is thronged with shipping. Her water communication has a vast
area. Foreign consuls from Austria, France, Great Britain, Belgium,
Italy, Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands, have their residence in the
city. It is an art-centre, and almost equally with Brooklyn is entitled
to be called a city of churches.
A week is a short time to devote to seeing all that this queen city has
that is interesting, and that included every day we spent there. Neither
in a sketch like the present shall we have space to give more than we
have done--a general idea of the city. One day about noon we steamed out
of the harbor, on a magnificent lake-steamer, bound for Duluth. We were
to have a run of over seven hundred miles with but a single
stopping-place the whole distance. It would be three days before we
should step on land again.
"Farewell, a long farewell, to the city of the Indian sachem," said
Hugh, as the grand emporium and railway-centre grew dim in the distance.
"By the way," continued he, "are you aware that the correct etymology of
the name Chicago is not generally known?"
Vincent and I confessed that we did not even know the supposed etymology
of the name.
"No matter about that," went on the Historian. "The name is undoubtedly
Indian, corrupted from Chercaqua, the name of a long line of chiefs,
meaning strong, also applied to a wild onion. Long before the white men
knew the region the site of Chicago was a favorite rendezvous of several
Indian tribes. The first geographical notice of the place occurs in a
map dated Quebec, Canada, 1683, as 'Fort Chicagon.' Marquette camped on
the site during the winter of 1674-5. A fort was built there by the
French and afterward abandoned. So you see that Chicago has a history
that is long anterior to the existence of the present city. Have a
cigar, Montague?"
Clouds of fragrant tobacco-smoke soon obscured the view of the Queen
City of the Northwest, busy with life above the graves of the Indian
sagamores whose memories she has forgotten.
On the third day we steamed past Mackinaw, and soon made the ship-canal
which was constructed for the passage of large ships, a channel a dozen
miles long and half a mile wide. And now, hurrah! We are on the waters
of Lake Superior, the "Gitche Gumee, the shining Big Sea-Water," of
Longfellow's musical verse. The lake is a great sea. Its greatest length
is three hundred and sixty miles, its greatest breadth one hundred and
forty miles; the whole length of its coast is fifteen hundred miles. It
has an area of thirty-two thousand square miles, and a mean depth of one
thousand feet. These dimensions show it to be by far the largest body of
fresh water on the globe.
Nothing can be conceived more charming than a cruise on this lake in
summer. The memories of the lake are striking and romantic in the
extreme. There is a background of history and romance which renders
Superior a classic water. It was a favorite fishing-ground for several
tribes of Indians, and its aboriginal name Ojibwakechegun, was derived
from one of these, the Ojibways, who lived on the southern shore when
the lake first became known to white men. The waters of the lake vary in
color from a dazzling green to a sea-blue, and are stocked with all
kinds of excellent fish. Numerous islands are scattered about the lake,
some low and green, others rocky and rising precipitately to great
heights directly up from the deep water. The coast of the lake is for
the most part rocky. Nowhere upon the inland waters of North America is
the scenery so bold and grand as around Lake Superior. Famous among
travelers are those precipitous walls of red sandstone on the south
coast, described in all the earlier accounts of the lake as the
"Pictured Rocks." They stand opposite the greatest width of the lake and
exposed to the greatest force of the heavy storms from the north. The
effect of the waves upon them is not only seen in their irregular shape,
but the sand derived from their disintegration is swept down the coast
below and raised by the winds into long lines of sandy cliffs. At the
place called the Grand Sable these are from one hundred to three hundred
feet high, and the region around consists of hills of drifting sand.
Half-way across the lake Keweenaw Point stretches out into the water.
Here the steamer halted for wood. We landed on the shore in a beautiful
grove. "What a place for a dinner!" cried one of the party.
"Glorious! glorious!" chimed in a dozen voices.
"How long has the boat to wait?" asked Hugh.
"One hour," was the answer of the weather-beaten son of Neptune.
"That gives us plenty of time," was the general verdict. So without more
ado lunch-baskets were brought ashore. The steamer's steward was
prevailed upon, by a silver dollar thrust slyly into his hand, to help
us, and presently the whole party was feasting by the lakeside. And what
a royal dining-room was that grove, its outer pillars rising from the
very lake itself, its smooth brown floor of pine-needles, arabesqued
with a flitting tracery of sun shadows and fluttering leaves, and giving
through the true Gothic arches of its myriad windows glorious views of
the lake that lay like an enchanted sea before us! And whoever dined
more regally, more divinely, even, though upon nectar and ambrosia, than
our merry-makers as they sat at their well-spread board, with such
glowing, heaven-tinted pictures before their eyes, such balmy airs
floating about their happy heads, and such music as the sunshiny waves
made in their glad, listening ears? It was like a picture out of
Hiawatha. At least it seemed to strike our young lady so, who in a voice
of peculiar sweetness and power recited the opening of the twenty-second
book of that poem:--
"By the shore of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big Sea-Water,
At the doorway of his wigwam,
In the pleasant Summer morning,
Hiawatha stood and waited.
All the air was full of freshness.
All the earth was bright and joyous,
And before him, through the sunshine,
Westward toward the neighboring forest
Passed in golden swarms the Ahmo,
Passed the bees, the honey-makers,
Burning, singing in the sunshine.
Bright above him shone the heavens,
Level spread the lake before him;
From its bosom leaped the sturgeon,
Sparkling, flashing in the sunshine;
On its margin the great forest
Stood reflected in the water,
Every treetop had its shadow
Motionless beneath the water."
"Thank you, Miss," said Hugh, gallantly. "We only need a wigwam with
smoke curling from it under these trees, and a 'birch canoe with
paddles, rising, sinking on the water, dripping, flashing in the
sunshine,' to complete the picture. It's a pity the Indians ever left
this shore."
"So the settlers of Minnesota thought in '62," observed Vincent,
ironically.
"The Indians would have been all right if the white man had stayed
away," replied the Historian, hotly.
"In that case we should not be here now, and, consequently"--
What promised to be quite a warm discussion was killed in the embryo by
the captain's clear cry, "All aboard!"
Once more we were steaming westward toward the land of the Dacotahs.
That night we all sat up till after midnight to see the last of our
lake, for in the morning Duluth would be in sight. It was a night never
to be forgotten. The idle words and deeds of my companions have faded
from my mind, but never will the memory of the bright lake rippling
under that moonlit sky.
A city picturesquely situated on the side of a hill which overlooks the
lake and rises gradually toward the northwest, reaching the height of
six hundred feet a mile from the shore, with a river on one side. That
is Duluth. The city takes its name from Juan du Luth, a French officer,
who visited the region in 1679. In 1860 there were only seventy white
inhabitants in the place, and in 1869 the number had not much increased.
The selection of the village as the eastern terminus of the Northern
Pacific Railroad gave it an impetus, and now Duluth is a city of fifteen
thousand inhabitants, and rapidly growing. The harbor is a good one, and
is open about two hundred days in the year. Six regular lines of
steamers run to Chicago, Cleveland, Canadian ports, and ports on the
south shore of Lake Superior. The commerce of Duluth, situated as it is
in the vicinity of the mineral districts on both shores of the lake,
surrounded by a well-timbered country, and offering the most convenient
outlet for the products of the wheat region further west, is of growing
importance. In half a century Duluth will be outranked in wealth and
population by no more than a dozen cities in America.
Our stay at Duluth was protracted many days. One finds himself at home
in this new Western city, and there are a thousand ways in which to
amuse yourself. If you are disposed for a walk, there are any number of
delightful woodpaths leading to famous bits of beach where you may sit
and dream the livelong day without fear of interruption or notice. If
you would try camping-out, there are guides and canoes right at your
hand, and the choice of scores of beautiful and delightful spots within
easy reach of your hotel or along the shore of the lake and its numerous
beautiful islands, or as far away into the forest as you care to
penetrate. Lastly, if piscatorially inclined, here is a boathouse with
every kind of boat from the steam-yacht down to the birch canoe, and
there is the lake, full of "lakers," sturgeon, whitefish, and speckled
trout, some of the latter weighing from thirty to forty pounds
apiece,--a condition of things alike satisfactory and tempting to every
owner of a rod and line.
The guides, of whom there are large numbers to be found at Duluth, as
indeed at all of the northern border towns, are a class of men too
interesting and peculiar to be passed over without more than a cursory
notice. These men are mostly French-Canadians and Indians, with now and
then a native, and for hardihood, skill, and reliability, cannot be
surpassed by any other similar class of men the world over. They are
usually men of many parts, can act equally well as guide, boatman,
baggage-carrier, purveyor, and cook. They are respectful and chivalrous:
no woman, be she old or young, fair or faded, fails to receive the most
polite and courteous treatment at their hands, and with these qualities
they possess a manly independence that is as far removed from servility
as forwardness. Some of these men are strikingly handsome, with shapely
statuesque figures that recall the Antinous and the Apollo Belvidere.
Their life is necessarily a hard one, exposed as they are to all sorts
of weather and the dangers incidental to their profession. At a
comparatively early age they break down, and extended excursions are
left to the younger and more active members of the fraternity.
Camping-out, provided the weather is reasonably agreeable, is one of the
most delightful and healthful ways to spend vacation. It is a sort of
woodman's or frontier life. It means living in a tent, sleeping on
boughs or leaves, cooking your own meals, washing your own dishes and
clothes perhaps, getting up your own fuel, making your own fire, and
foraging for your own provender. It means activity, variety, novelty,
and fun alive; and the more you have of it the more you like it; and the
longer you stay the less willing you are to give it up. There is a
freedom in it that you do not get elsewhere. All the stiff formalties of
conventional life are put aside: you are left free to enjoy yourself as
you choose. All in all, it is the very best way we know to enjoy a
"glorious vacation."
At Duluth, at Sault de Ste. Marie, at Mackinaw, at Saginaw, we wandered
away days at a time, with nothing but our birch canoe, rifles, and
fishing-rods, and for provisions, hard bread, pork, potatoes, coffee,
tea, rice, butter, and sugar, closely packed. Any camper-out can make
himself comfortable with an outfit as simple as the one named. How
memory clings around some of those bright spots we visited! I pass over
them again, in thought, as I write these lines, longing to nestle amid
them forever.
Following along the coast, now in small yachts hired for the occasion,
now in a birch canoe of our own, we passed from one village to another.
Wherever we happened to be at night, we encamped. Many a time it was on
a lonely shore. Standing at sunset on a pleasant strand, more than once
we saw the glow of the vanished sun behind the western mountains or the
western waves, darkly piled in mist and shadow along the sky; near at
hand, the dead pine, mighty in decay, stretching its ragged arms athwart
the burning heavens, the crow perched on its top like an image carved in
jet; and aloft, the night-hawk, circling in his flight, and, with a
strange whining sound, diving through the air each moment for the
insects he makes his prey.
But all good things, as well as others, have an end. The season drew to
a close at last. August nights are chilly for sleeping in tents. Our
flitting must cease, and our thoughts and steps turn homeward. But a few
days are still left us. At Buffalo once more we go to see the Falls.
Then by boat to Hamilton, thence to Kingston at the foot of the lake,
and so on through the Thousand Isles to Montreal, and finally to
Quebec,--a tour as fascinating in its innumerable and singularly wild
and beautiful "sights" as heart could desire.
* * * * *
OUR NATIONAL CEMETERIES.
By Charles Cowley, LL.D.
There are circumstances generally attending the death of the soldier or
the sailor, whether on battle-field or gun-deck, whether in the
captives' prison, the cockpit, or the field-hospital, which touch our
sensibilities far more deeply than any circumstances which usually
attend the death of men of any other class; moving within us mingled
emotions of pathos and pity, of mystery and awe.
"There is a tear for all that die,
A mourner o'er the humblest grave;
But nations swell the funeral cry,
And freedom weeps above the brave;
"For them is sorrow's purest sigh,
O'er ocean's heaving bosom sent;
In vain their bones unburied lie,--
All earth becomes their monument.
"A tomb is their's on every page;
An epitaph on every tongue;
The present hours, the future age,
Nor them bewail, to them belong.
"A theme to crowds that knew them not,
Lamented by admiring foes,
Who would not share their glorious lot?
Who would not die the death they chose?"
A similar halo invests our National Cemeteries--which are the most
permanent mementos of our sanguinary Civil War.
Nature labors diligently to cover up her scars. Most of the
battle-fields of the Rebellion now show growths of use and beauty. Many
of the structures of that great conflict have already ceased to be. Some
of them have been swept away by the winds or overgrown with weeds;
others, like Fort Wagner, have been washed away by the waves. But
neither winds nor waves are likely to disturb the monuments or the
cemeteries of our soldiers and sailors. Where they were placed, there
they remain; "and there they will remain forever."
The seventy-eight National Cemeteries distributed over the country
contain the remains of three hundred and eighteen thousand four hundred
and fifty-five men, classed as follows: known, 170,960; unknown,
147,495; total, 318,455. And these are not half of those whose deaths
are attributable to their service in the armies and navies of the United
States and the Confederate States, who are buried in all sections of the
Union and in foreign lands.
In some of these cemeteries, as at Gettysburg, Antietam, City Point,
Winchester, Marietta, Woodlawn, Hampton, and Beaufort, by means of
public appropriations and private subscriptions, statues and other
monuments have at different times been erected; and many others
doubtless will be erected in them hereafter. Some of them are in
secluded situations, where for many mites the population is sparse, and
the few people that live near them cherish tenderer recollections of the
"Lost Cause" than of that which finally won. But such of them as are
contiguous to cities are places of interest to more or less of the
neighboring population; and, in some of them, there are commemorative
services upon Memorial Days.
These cemeteries have many features in common; and much that may be said
of one of them may also be said of the others--merely changing the
names.
It happened to the present writer to visit the National Cemetery at
Beaufort, South Carolina, to deliver an oration on Memorial Day, 1881,
in the midst of ten thousand graves of the soldiers and sailors of the
department of the South and South Atlantic blockading squadron. The dead
interred in these thirty acres of graves are: known, 4,748, unknown,
4,493; total, 9,241. Among the trees planted in this cemetery is a
willow, grown from a branch of the historic tree which once overshadowed
the grave of Napoleon at St. Helena.
Generals Thomas W. Sherman and John G. Foster, who commanded that
department, and Admirals Dupont and Dahlgren, who commanded that
squadron, all died in their Northern homes since the peace, and their
graves are not to be looked for here. The same may be said of hundreds
of military and naval officers who performed valuable services on these
shores and along these coasts, and have since "passed over to the great
majority."
That neither General Strong nor General Schimmelfennig is buried here
might be accounted for by the fact that, though they died by reason of
their having served in this department, they died at the North. But even
General Mitchell, whose flag of command was last unfurled in this
department, who died in Beaufort, and was originally buried under the
sycamores of the Episcopal churchyard, now sleeps in the shades of
Greenwood, and not (as he would probably have preferred, could he have
foreseen this cemetery) among the brave men whom he commanded.
The best known names among those here buried (to use a pardonable
Hibernianism) are among the "unknown." For here, as we may believe, in
unknown graves, rest the remains of Colonel Robert G. Shaw, of the
Fifty-fourth Massachusetts (colored), Colonel Haldimand S. Putnam, of
the Seventh New Hampshire, Lieutenant-Colonel James M. Green, of the
Forty-eighth New York, and many other gallant officers and men who were
killed in the assault on Fort Wagner, July 18, 1863, and who were first
buried by the Confederates in the sands of Morris Island.
Many a Northern college is represented here. Among those to whom tablets
have been erected in the Memorial Hall of Harvard University, who are
buried here, besides Colonel Shaw, are Captains Winthrop P. Boynton and
William D. Crane, who were killed at Honey Hill, November 30, 1864; and
Captain Cabot J. Russell, who fell with Shaw at Fort Wagner. Yet these
are but the beginning of the list of the sons of Massachusetts who rest
in this "garden of graves."
Among the many gallant men of the navy buried here is Acting-Master
Charles W. Howard, of the ironclad steam-frigate New Ironsides, whom
Lieutentant Glassell shot during his bold attempt to blow up the New
Ironsides with the torpedo steamer David, October 5, 1863. Another is
Thomas Jackson, coxswain of the Wabash, the _beau ideal_ of an
American sailor, who was killed in the battle of Port Royal, November 7,
1861.
Death, like a true democrat, levels all distinctions. Still, it may be
mentioned that Lieutenant-Colonel William N. Reed, who was mortally
wounded at Olustee while in command of the Thirty-fifth United States
colored troops, February 20, 1864, was, while living, the highest
officer in rank, whose grave is known here. Other gallant officers,
killed at Olustee, are buried near him. Among these, probably, is
Colonel Charles W. Fribley, of the Eighth United States colored troops;
though he may be still sleeping beneath the sighing pines of Olustee.
As far as practicable, all Federal soldiers and sailors buried along the
seaboard of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, have been removed to
Beaufort Cemetery; and, as Governor Alexander H. Bullock said: "Wherever
they offered up their lives, amid the thunder of battle, or on the
exhausting march, in victory or in defeat, in hospital or in prison,
officers and privates, soldiers and sailors, patriots all, they fell
like the beauty of Israel on their high places, burying all distinctions
of rank in the august equality of death."
One section of the cemetery is devoted to the Confederates. There are
more than a hundred of these, including several commissioned officers;
and on Memorial Days the same ladies who decorate the graves of the
Federals decorate also in the same manner the graves of the
Confederates; recognizing that, though in life they were arrayed as
mortal enemies, they are now reconciled in "the awful but kindly
brotherhood of death." Sir Walter Scott enjoins:--
"Speak not for those a separate doom,
Whom fate made brothers in the tomb."
And One infinitely greater than Sir Walter has inculcated still loftier
sentiments.
Among the graves to which the attention of the writer was particularly
attracted was that of Charley ----, a boy of Colonel Putnam's regiment,
who had now been dead more years than he had lived. His parents, living
on the shores of Lake Winnipiseogee, and walking daily over the paths
which he had often trod, had plucked the earliest flower of their
northern clime and sent it to the superintendent of the cemetery, to be
planted at Charley's grave. The burning sun of South Carolina had not
spared that flower; but something of it still remained. Its mute
eloquence spoke to the heart of the tender recollections of a father and
of a mother's undying love. How truly does Wordsworth say,--
"The meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."
For us who have survived the perils of battle and the far more fatal
diseases that wasted our forces, and for all who cherish the memory of
these dead, it will always be a consoling thought that the Federal
government has done so much to provide honorable sepulture for those who
fell in defence of the Union. We can all appreciate Lord Byron's lament
for the great Florentine poet and patriot;--
"Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar,
Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore."
But we can have no such regret for our lost comrades, buried not upon a
foreign, nor upon an unfriendly shore, but in the bosom of the soil
which their blood redeemed. Sacred is the tear that is shed for the
unreturning brave.
"'T is the tear through many a long day wept,
'T is life's whole path o'ershaded;
'T is the one remembrance, fondly kept,
When all lighter griefs have faded."
* * * * *
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 1,
October, 1884, by Various
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