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Title: The National Magazine, Vol. XV, No. 1, November 1891
Author: Various
Release date: April 30, 2024 [eBook #73503]
Language: English
Original publication: New York City: The National History Company, 1891
Credits: hekula03 and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NATIONAL MAGAZINE, VOL. XV, NO. 1, NOVEMBER 1891 ***
THE NATIONAL MAGAZINE.
CONTENTS.
NOVEMBER 1891.
RARE PORTRAIT OF COLUMBUS[1]— FRONTISPIECE.
EXPLORATIONS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN COAST, PREVIOUS TO THE
VOYAGE OF HENRY HUDSON. Benjamin F. De Costa, D. D. 1
From advance sheets of “The Memorial History of New York.”
EARLY AMERICAN LITERATURE, T. J. Chapman 27
THE OHIO SOCIETY IN NEW YORK AND OHIO IN NEW
YORK, James Harrison Kennedy 33
Gen. Thomas Ewing—Col. William F. Strong—Hon. George Hoadly.
DE SOTO’S CAMPS IN THE CHICKASAW COUNTRY, 1540-1. T. H. Lewis 57
CHICAGO PIONEERS, Howard Louis Conard 62
Hon. Isaac N. Arnold.
SOME ANCIENT METHODS OF PUNISHMENT IN
MASSACHUSETTS, Hon. F. C. Sessions 67
GEN. WILLIAM E. STRONG,—A Memorial. 76
MISTAKES IN HISTORY; THE PILGRIMS NOT PURITANS,
BUT SEPARATISTS, D. W. Manchester 82
WERE THE DUTCH ON MANHATTAN ISLAND IN 1598? Daniel Van Pelt, A.M. 91
A FAMOUS POLITICAL CONTEST IN ILLINOIS, W. H. Maguire 97
Hon. Henry H. Evans.
EDITORIAL AND HISTORICAL NOTES, 102
The Change of Name—What it Means—Field of American
History—Material for War History—Growth of Historical
Societies—Value of Their Papers—Historic Interest in Legend
and Tradition—The Memorial History of New York—Preserving the
Field of Valley Forge—Monument to Red Jacket—International
Pan-Republic Congress—The Washington State Historical Society.
NOTES FROM THE HISTORICAL SOCIETIES, 105
RECENT HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS, 107
Adam’s Historical Essays—Minnesota Historical Society’s
Collections—Beginnings of Literary Culture in the Ohio
Valley—J. Freeman Clarke’s Autobiography Diary and
Correspondence—Howe’s Historical Collections of Ohio—Ohio
Historical Society, Vol. III.
[1] Said by the present Duke of Veragua to be the most representative of
the known portraits.
Published Monthly—Entered at New York Post Office as Second Class Mail
Matter.
NOTICE.
With this NOVEMBER Number, the Magazine of Western History, appears under
its new name
THE NATIONAL MAGAZINE.
A Journal devoted to American History.
(_See Editorial Notes._)
[Illustration: Engᵈ. by E. G. Williams & Bro. N.Y.]
The National Magazine.
_Vol XV._ NOVEMBER, 1891. _No. 1_
EXPLORATIONS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN COAST PREVIOUS TO THE VOYAGE OF HENRY
HUDSON.
One of the earliest Greek dreams, prominent in the classic literature,
was that of a beautiful island in the ocean at the far West. Perhaps,
nevertheless, we have been accustomed to think of the conception too much
as a dream, a piece of pure imagination; for it is absolutely certain, as
Pliny and Strabo prove, that bold Phenician navigators passed far beyond
the Pillars of Hercules into the vast Atlantic, discovering and naming
the Canary Islands, pushing their observations far and wide. Possibly,
like Columbus, as on his first voyage, they sailed over tranquil seas,
smooth as the rivers in Spain, and through ambient air, soft as the air
of Andalusia in spring, until they reached the Edenic Cuba, and thus
furnished the foundation of that Greek conception of an exquisitely fair
isle, the home of the immortals, an Elysium on whose happy, fragrant
shores the shrilly-breathing Zephyrus was ever piping for the refreshment
of weary souls.
In the fifteenth century the islands in the west formed the object of
many a voyage, but even in 1306 Marino Sanuto laid down the Canaries
anew, while Bethencourt found them in 1402. The Azores and the Madeira
Islands appear in the chart of Pizigani in 1367, and the sailors of
Prince Henry the Navigator went to the Azores, the Isles of the Hawks,
in 1431, as preparatory to those voyages which, beginning with the
rediscovery of the Cape Verde Islands in 1460, were destined to prepare
the way for the circumnavigation of Africa, and thus open the way to the
Indies by the Cape of Good Hope. Long before this, however, the Spaniards
were credited with the establishment of colonies in the western ocean,
and on the globe of Martin Behaim, in 1482, may be seen the legend
crediting Spanish bishops with the founding of seven cities in a distant
island in the year 734. In 1498 De Ayala, the Spanish ambassador in
England, reported to his sovereign that the city of Bristol had for seven
years sent out ships in search of the island of Brazil and the Seven
Cities, which were commonly laid down in maps, together with the great
island of “Antillia,” by many supposed to refer to the American Continent.
[Illustration: FERDINAND OF SPAIN.]
In the time of Columbus enterprise was generally active, and men
everywhere were eager to realize the prediction of Seneca, who declared
that the Ultima Thule, the extreme bounds of the earth, would in due
time be reached. But Columbus would win something more than beautiful
islands. He aimed at a continent, and would reach the eastern border of
Asia by sailing west, in accordance with the early philosophers, who had
accepted the spherical form of the earth, not dreaming that, instead
of a few islands, scattered like gems in the ocean, a mighty continent
barred the way. Dominated by the antique notions of the classic writers,
Columbus, after encountering and overcoming every discouragement,
finally sailed towards the golden West, finding the voyage a pleasant
excursion, interrupted only by the occasional fears of the sailors, lest
the light breeze might prevent their return to Spain, by blowing all
the time the one way. At a given point of the voyage Columbus met with
an experience, and made a decision, that perhaps determined the destiny
of North America. October 7, 1492, Martin Pinson saw flocks of parrots
flying southwest, and argued that the birds were returning to land, which
must lie in that direction. He accordingly advised the Admiral to change
the course of the ship. Columbus realized the force of the argument and
knew the significance of the flights of birds, the hawk having piloted
the Portuguese to the Azores. He was now sailing straight for the coast
of North Carolina, and must inevitably have discovered our continent,
but the parrots were accepted as guides, the course was changed to the
southwest, and in due time the Island of San Salvador rose before their
expectant eyes. All his efforts, therefore, after this memorable voyage,
were devoted to the West Indies, and in the fond belief that he had
reached fair Cathay. Consequently John Cabot was left to discover North
America at least one year before Columbus sighted the southern portion of
the western continent. Even then Columbus held that South America was a
part of India, and he finally died in ignorance of the fact that he had
reached a new world.
His error proved a most fortunate one for the English-speaking people;
since, if he had confined on the western course, the Carolinas would have
risen to view, and the splendors and riches of the Antilles might have
remained unknown long enough for Spanish enterprise to establish itself
on the Atlantic coast. This done, the magnificent Hudson would have
become the objective point of Spanish enterprise, and a Spanish fortress
and castle would to-day look down from the Weehawken Heights, the island
of New York yielding itself up as the site of a Spanish city.
The mistake of Columbus, however, was supplemented by what, perhaps,
may properly be called a series of blunders, all of them more or less
fortunate, or at least in the interest of a type of civilization
very unlike that of Spain, especially as expanded and interpreted in
Central and South America. It is, therefore, to the series of nautical
adventures following the age Columbus, and extending down to the voyage
of Henry Hudson, the Englishman, in 1609, that this article is mainly
devoted, showing how this entire region was preserved from permanent
occupation by Europeans, until it was colonized by the Walloons under the
Dutch, who providentially prepared the way for the English.
[Illustration: ISABELLA OF SPAIN.]
First, however, it may be interesting to glance at voyages made during
the Middle Ages, considering whether they had any possible connection
with the region now occupied by the city of New York.
That Northmen visited the shores of North America no reasonable inquirer
any longer doubts. Even Mr. George Bancroft, who for about half a century
cast grave reflections upon the voyages of the Northmen, and inspired
disbelief in many quarters, finally abandoned all allusion to the
subject, and subsequently explained that in throwing discredit upon the
Icelandic narratives he had fallen into error.[2]
The probability now seems to be that the Irish had become acquainted with
a great land at the west, and gave it the name of “Greenland,” which name
was simply applied by Eric the Red to a separate region, when he went to
the country now known as Greenland in the year 985. The next year Biarne
Heriulfsson, following Eric, was blown upon the north Atlantic coast,
and in the year 1000-1 Leif, son of Eric, went in quest of the land seen
by Biarne, reaching what is generally recognized as New England. Others
followed in 1002 and 1005, while from 1006 to 1009 Thorfinn Karlsefne
visited the same region, then known as “Vinland the Good,” and made a
serious but abortive effort to found a colony. Freydis, daughter of Eric
the Red, visited New England in 1010 to 1012. Vague accounts in the
Icelandic chronicles tell of a visit of one Are Marson to a region called
White Man’s Land (Hvitrammanaland) in 983, ante-dating Eric’s appearance
in Greenland. We also hear of Biörn Asbrandson in 999, and of the voyage
of Gudlaugson in 1027. Certain geographical fragments refer to Bishop
Eric, of Greenland, as searching for Wineland in 1121, while in 1357 a
small Icelandic ship visited “Markland,” the present Nova Scotia. The
voyages of Asbrandson and of Gudlaugson are generally viewed as standing
connected with a region extending from New England to Florida, known as
White Man’s Land, or Ireland the Great. In these accounts there is found
no definite allusion to the region of the Hudson, though Karlsefne’s
explorations may have extended some distance southwesterly from Rhode
Island; while later adventurers, who came southward and followed the
course of Are Marson, who was discovered in the country by Asbrandson,
must have sailed along our shores. Still no record of such a visit now
remains, which is not at all singular, since many a voyager went by, both
before and afterwards, with the same failure to signalize the event for
the information of posterity. “They had no poet and they died.”
Turning to the voyages of the Welsh, who, some think, reached the western
continent about the year 1170, led by Madoc, Prince of Wales, there is
the same failure to connect them with this region. Catlin, who visited
the White or Mandan Indians, supposes that the Welch sailed down the
coast to the Bay of Mexico and ascended the Mississippi; although there
is just as much reason to hold, if the Mandans were their descendants,
that they entered the continent and found their way westward from the
region of Massachusetts or New York. The latter, however, might be
favored, for the reason that our noble river forms to-day the most
popular and certainly the most splendid gateway to the far West.
The voyages of the Zeno brothers, who are believed by most competent
critics to have reached America about the close of the fourteenth
century, and who left a chart, first published in 1558, show a country
called “Drogeo,” a vast region which stretched far to the south, whose
inhabitants were clothed in skins, and subsisted by hunting, being armed
with bows and arrows, and living in a state of war. The description
would apply to our part of the coast. At this period the Red Indians had
come from the west, and dispersed the original inhabitants, known to the
Northmen as Skraellings. The red man on this coast was an invader and
conqueror, not the original proprietor of the land. In a very brief time,
however, he forgot his own traditions and indulged in the belief that
he was the first holder of this region, which was deeded to him by the
Great Father in fee simple; and it was in this belief that, in turn,
the simple savage conveyed vast tracts of territory to the white man, in
consideration of trinkets and fire-water.
[Illustration: SEBASTIAN CABOT.]
So far as can be discovered, the Skraelling was the first proprietor,
and by the Skraelling is meant what is called the “Glacial Man,” who
appeared on this coast when the great ice-sheet that once covered the
highlands of America was melting and sliding into the sea. The evidences
of the so-called glacial man are found at the present time in the gravels
of the Trenton River, of New Jersey, consisting of stone implements
that seem to have been lost while engaged in hunting and fishing. With
the disappearance of the ice and the moderation of the climate, these
men of the ice-period spread along the Atlantic coast from Labrador to
Florida, their descendants being the modern Eskimo and Greenlander, whose
ancestors were driven northward by the red man when he conquered the
country. The immediate region of the Hudson has thus far afforded none
of the stone implements that abound at Trenton yet it may be regarded
as beyond question that the first inhabitant of New York was a glacial
man, ruder than the rudest red savage, and in appearance resembling the
present Eskimo.
[Illustration: VERRAZANO.]
We turn, however, to note what, in this immediate connection, may be
styled the course of maritime enterprise, the first voyage of interest
in connection with our subject being the voyage said to have been made
by Sebastian Cabot along the coast from Newfoundland in 1515. Upon this
initial voyage many Englishmen based their claim, but in the present
state of knowledge the expedition itself is considered debatable by
some. That John Sebastian Cabot saw the continent in 1498, or one year
before Columbus saw South America, can hardly be doubted; but convincing
testimony is required respecting the alleged voyage down this part of the
coast in 1515. If we accept the voyage as a fact, this expedition, whose
objective point was Newfoundland, may be regarded as the first known
English expedition to these shores.
Before this time, however, the Portuguese were very active, and had run
the coast from Florida to Cape Breton, evidence of which they left in the
“Cantino” Map, and in the Ptolemy of 1513. This was in continuation of
the enterprise of the Costas, or “Cortereals,” who made voyages to the
north in 1500-1-2. The expedition made a long our coast at this period
left no memorials now known, save the maps to which allusion has been
made. As early as 1520 the Spaniards began to navigate to the north from
the West Indies, and in that year Ayllon reached the coast of Carolina,
on an expedition to capture slaves, though Martyr speaks of the country
he visited as “near the Baccaloos,” a term applied at that time to the
region far south of Newfoundland. Nevertheless, in the year 1524, we
reach a voyage of deep interest, for in this year the Bay of New York
comes distinctly into view, Europeans being known for the first time to
pass the Narrows. Reference is here made to the voyage of the celebrated
Italian, Giovanni da Verrazano, in the service of Francis I. of France.
This celebrated navigator is supposed to have been the son of Piero
Andrea di Bernardo de Verrazano and Fiametta Capella. He was born at
Val di Greve, a little village near Florence, in the year 1485. At one
time a portrait of Verrazano adorned the walls of a gallery in Florence.
This portrait[3] was engraved for the well-known work entitled, “Uomini
Illustri Toscani.” A medal was also struck in his honor, but no copy
of it can now be found. The family, nevertheless, appears to have
maintained a definite place in local history, the last known Florentine
representative being the Cavaliere Andrea da Verrazano, who died in 1819.
Verrazano, the great explorer of the American coast, seems to have had a
large experience as a sailor upon the Mediterranean, eventually entering
the service of Francis I. of France, as a privateer or corsair, in which
calling Columbus and many of the old navigators shone conspicuously, the
profession at that time being quite creditable, even though dangerous. In
1523 Verrazano was engaged in capturing Spanish ships that brought the
treasures of Montezuma from Mexico. In the following year he made his
voyage to America, and one statement makes it appear that, subsequently,
he was captured by the Spaniards and executed. Ramusio tells us that on
a second voyage he was made a prisoner by the savages, and was roasted
and eaten in the sight of his comrades. The light which we have at the
present time does not suffice for the settlement of the question relating
to the manner of his death, but we have overwhelming evidence of the
reality of his voyage in 1524, which is vouched for by invaluable maps
and relations contained in a lengthy letter addressed to his employer,
Francis I.
This letter is of unique interest, especially for the reason that it
contains the first known post-Columbian description of the North Atlantic
coast, and the first pen-picture of the Bay and Harbor of New York. In
connection with our local annals Giovanni da Verrazano must hold a high
place. As might be supposed, the narrative of Verrazano has exerted a
commanding influence upon historical literature. For more than three
centuries it has furnished quotations. This fact has not prevented one or
two occasional writers from questioning the authenticity of the Letter
of Verrazano, though the discussion which followed simply resulted in
the production of additional proof, especially that found in two maps
previously unknown, establishing the authenticity of both voyage and
letter, and taking the subject from the field of controversy.
[Illustration: VESPUCIUS.]
The voyage of Verrazano was projected in 1523. On April 25th of that
year, Silveira, the Portuguese embassador at the Court of Francis I.,
wrote to his master: “By what I hear, Maestro Joas Verrazano, who is
going on the discovery of Cathay, has not left up to date for want of
opportunity, and because of differences, I understand, between himself
and his men.... I shall continue to doubt unless he takes his departure.”
It appears that he first went to sea with four ships, but met a severe
gale and was obliged to return to port, apparently with the loss of two
ships. After making repairs, he sailed for the Spanish coast alone in the
Dolphin, the captain of the remaining ship leaving Verrazano, and giving
color to the story of Silveira, that he had quarreled with his men. In
the Carli correspondence, there is a reference to one Brunelleschi, “who
went with him and unfortunately turned back.”
On January 17, 1524 (old style), Verrazano finally sailed from a barren
rocky island, southeast of Madeira, though Carli erroneously says that he
departed from the Canaries. The discrepancy is useful, in that it proves
an absence of collusion between writers in framing a fictitious voyage.
Steering westward until February 14th, he met a severe hurricane, and
then veered more to the north, holding the middle course, as he feared
to sail southward, by the accustomed route to the West Indies, less he
should fall into the hands of the Spaniards,[4] who with the Portuguese,
claimed the entire New World, in accordance with the decree of Pope
Alexander. Hence the navigator, to avoid the Spanish cruisers, held his
course westward in sunshine and storm, until the shores of the American
continent appeared above the waves. March 7th he saw land which “never
before had been seen by any one either in ancient or modern times,” a
statement that he was lead into by the desire to claim something for
France. He knew that his statement could not be exactly true, because,
like all the navigators of his day, he was familiar with the Ptolemy of
1513, containing a rude map of the coast from Florida to 55° N. Evidently
he did not attach any value to the explorations of the Portuguese
as represented by the maps, and hence, after sighting land in the
neighborhood of 34° N., he sailed southward fifty leagues to make sure
of connecting with the actual exploration of the Portuguese, and then
began coasting northward in search of a route through the land to Cathay.
Columbus died in 1508, believing that he had reached Cathay, but in the
day of Verrazano it was understood by many that the land found formed a
new continent, though this was not everywhere accepted until the middle
of the sixteenth century.
[Illustration: CARTIER.]
Navigating northward, Verrazano reached the neighborhood of the present
site of Charlestown, South Carolina, describing the country substantially
as it appears to-day, bordered with low sand-hills, the sea making
inlets, while beyond were beautiful fields, broad plains, and vast
forests. On landing they found the natives timid, but by friendly signs
the savages became assured, and freely approached the French followers
of Verrazano, wondering at their dress and complexion, just as, in 1584,
Barlow, in the same locality, said that the natives wondered “at the
whiteness of our skins.” The descriptions of Verrazano were so faithful
that Barlow, though without credit, employed his language, especially
when he says, speaking of the forests before reaching the land, “We
smelt so sweet and strong a smell as if we had been in the midst of
some delicate garden.” As Verrazano held northward, his descriptions
continued to exhibit the same fidelity, being used by Barlow and
confirmed by Father White. They were also confirmed by Dermer, who ran
the coast in 1619, finding the shores low, without stones, sandy, and,
for the most part, harborless. When near Chesapeake Bay, Verrazano found
that the people made their canoes of logs, as described by Barlow and
Father White. The grapes-vines were also seen trailing from the trees, as
indicated by these writers; and, speaking of the fruit, Verrazano says
that it was “very sweet and pleasant.” This language, being used early
in the season, led to the rather thoughtless objection that Verrazano
never made the voyage. The simple explanation is that the natives were
accustomed to preserving fruits by drying them; and hence Hudson, in
1609, found dried “currants,” which were sweet and good, meaning by
the word, “currant” what all meant at that period, namely, a dried
grape. The letter of Verrazano contains exaggerations, like all similar
productions. Cortez made Montezuma drink wine from cellars in a country
where both wine and cellars were unknown. Cartier caused figs to grow in
Canada, and Eric the Red called the ice-clad hills of the land west of
Iceland, “Greenland.” Verrazano, however, falls into none of these flat
contradictions, and often the objection to the authenticity of the voyage
has grown out of the ignorance of the critic of very common things.
Leaving Delaware Bay, Verrazano coasted northward, sailing by day
and coming to anchor at night, finally reaching the Bay of New York,
which forms the culmination of the interest of the voyage, so far as
our present purpose is concerned. After proceeding a distance roughly
estimated, on the decimal system, at a hundred leagues, he says: “We
found a very pleasant situation among some little steep hills, through
which a very large river (grandissima riviera), deep at its mouth, forced
its way to the sea,” and he adds: “From the sea to the estuary of the
river any ship might pass, with the help of the tide, which rises eight
feet.” This is about the average rise at the present time, and the fact
is one that could have been learned only from actual observation. It
points to the “bar” as then existing, and gives the narrative every
appearance of reality. Many things observed were noted in what Verrazano
calls a “little book,” and evidently it was from data contained in this
book that his brother compiled the map which illustrates the voyage.
Verrazano, however, was cautious, as he possessed only one ship, and he
says: “As we were riding at anchor in a good berth we would not venture
up in our ship without a knowledge of the mouth; therefore,” he says,
“we took the boat and entering the river, we found the country on its
banks well-peopled, the inhabitants not differing much from the others,
being dressed out with feathers of birds of various colors.” The natives,
by their action, showed that their faith in human nature had not been
spoiled by men leading expeditions like those of Ayllon in 1521, to the
Carolinas for slaves. They were still a simple and unaffected people, not
spoiled by European contact, as in the time of Hudson, and accordingly,
unlike the sly people met where Ayllon’s kidnappers had done their work,
“they came towards us with evident admiration, and showing us where we
could most securely land with our boat.” Continuing, the narrative says:
“We passed up this river about half a league, when we found it formed a
most beautiful lake, three leagues in circuit, upon which were rowing
thirty or more of their small boats from one shore to the other, filled
with multitudes who came to see us.” This “beautiful lake” (bellissimo
lago) was, so far as one is able to judge, the Bay of New York.
Verrazano passed the bar and anchored at the entrance of the Narrows, the
position being defined as between “little steep hills” (infra piccoli
colli eminenti), which exactly describes the heights of Staten Island,
and the shore of Long Island as far up as Yellow Hook, the present
Bay Ridge. Then far and wide the spacious harbor was surrounded by
well-wooded shores, upon which Verrazano and his followers, evidently the
first of Europeans to enter the port, gazed with admiration. It would
appear that they did not cross the harbor, but they probably espied in
the distance the island upon which our city now stands, clothed in the
dusky brown, touched only here and there with patches of the evergreen
pine. Nothing is said of the beauty of the foliage in this region,
since in March none could have been apparent, though the population was
evidently numerous, and from the shores the smoke of many wigwams was
seen by day, with the distant illuminations that filled the eye of the
sailor by night. Verrazano little dreamed of the value of the situation.
It never occurred to him that on this “beautiful lake” would one day
stand a city which in wealth and importance would eclipse the far-famed
city of Montezuma. The situation was pleasing, but it did not offer what
Verrazano sought, namely, an opening to India. He learned that he was at
the mouth of a swift river that poured out a powerful tide from between
the hills, and he saw the unreasonableness of continuing his search at
this place. What conclusion he might have reached eventually, had his
stay been prolonged, we cannot predict, but he was soon hurried away. He
says: “All of a sudden, as it is wont to happen to navigators, a violent
contrary wind blew in from the sea and forced us to return to our ship,
greatly regretting to leave this region, which seemed so commodious and
delightful, and which we supposed must contain great riches, as the hills
showed many indications of minerals.” By a glance at the chart it will
be seen that the ship lay in a position in the lower bay perilous for a
stranger, and in case of a gale she would be in danger of being driven
upon the shore of either Long Island or Staten Island. Verrazano would
not take his ship through the Narrows into the harbor, on account of
his ignorance of the situation, and when the wind set upon shore from
the sea he at once decided to get out of danger. Accordingly he says:
“Weighing anchor we sailed fifty leagues towards the east, the coast
stretching in that direction, and always in sight of it.” Thus he coasted
along the shores of Long Island, and “discovered an island in triangular
form, some ten leagues from the main land, in size about equal to the
Island of Rhodes.” This was Block Island, and we mention the circumstance
here, in order that the reader may appreciate the fact that Verrazano
first visited New York, and that he properly describes the coast. Block
Island is distinctly a triangular island. Then he went to a harbor in the
main, identified as Newport Harbor.[5] The natives who appeared in the
harbor, it will be noticed, had some thirty small boats (barchettes).
The word itself does not indicate the manner of their construction, but,
when at Newport, Verrazano says distinctly, that these barchettes were
hollowed out of single logs of wood (un sole fusto di legno). The Dutch
found the natives using the same kind of boats here in the early days,
though the bark canoe was also employed. The objections urged against the
authenticity of the voyage of Verrazano have simply resulted in fresh
investigation and the production of proofs that establish beyond question
the truth of the narrative, which is supplemented by a long series of
maps. The series begin with the map of Verrazano, drawn in the year 1529,
by Hieronimo da Verrazano, brother of the navigator, and the Maijolla
map, which also represents the voyage, giving particulars not given in
the narrative of Verrazano. The map of Verrazano is now preserved in the
museum of the “Propaganda Fide” at Rome,[6] and forms a wonderful advance
upon the Ptolemy of 1513, which, after passing Florida, is vague and,
upon the whole, quite useless as respects our present purpose, since it
shows no knowledge of the Bay and Harbor of New York, and calls for no
particular notice here.
It has already been observed that much of that which is wanting in the
Letter is furnished by the map of Verrazano, noticeably the Shoals of
Cape Cod. The map was constructed by the aid of the “little book,” in
which, as Verrazano told Francis I., there were many particulars of the
voyage, and it forms the best sixteenth century map of the coast now
known to be extant in the original form. After Verrazano the delineation
of the coast, as a whole, gradually, in the neglect of cartography,
became more and more corrupt, culminating in the monstrous distortions of
Mercator.
On the map of Verrazano the Cape of Florida is most unmistakable, though
by an error in following Ptolemy, the draftsman placed the cape nine
degrees too high, thus vitiating the latitudes, also failing to eliminate
the error before reaching Cape Breton. This however, does not prevent
us from recognizing the leading points of the coast. At Cape “Olimpo”
we strike Cape Hatteras, and near “Santanna” is the mouth of Chesapeake
Bay. “Palamsina,” a corruption perhaps of Pallavicino, marks the entrance
to the Delaware. “Lamuetto,” possibly Bonivet after the general of that
name, distinguishes what apparently was intended for Sandy Hook; while
“San Germano” and “La Victoria” stand on the lower Bay of New York.
Verrazano did not know enough about the river of “the steep hills” to
enable him to give it a pronounced name, though in after times the
Hudson, as we shall see, was called “the river of the mountains.” It will
be readily recognized that San Germano is a name given out of compliment
to his patron by Verrazano, as it recalls the splendid palace of Francis
I., at St. Germaine-en-Lay. If circumstances had favored, the name of
Francis might have been affixed to a great French metropolis at the mouth
of the Hudson.
[Illustration: EXTRACT FROM THE VERRAZANO MAP
REVISED 1891]
The influence of the Verrazano Map upon succeeding charts was most marked
down even to 1610, when all obscurity in regard to the position of the
Harbor of New York had passed away. The same is true of the exhibition of
the relation of New York Bay to Rhode Island and the Island of Luisa. The
influence of Verrazano upon the Globe of Vlpius, 1542, was most emphatic,
as will be noticed later; though it is to be remembered that Verrazano’s
voyage was pictured on the Map of Maijolla before the Verrazano Map was
drawn, notes from Verrazano, probably out of the “little book” that he
mentions, affording the requisite material. Verrazano evidently furnished
an abundance of names for localities, and the various draftsmen seemed
to have exercised their judgment to some extent respecting their use.
It would, however, prove wearisome to the reader to peruse any minute
statements of the contents of the many maps that indicate the Bay of
New York; since neither the authenticity nor the influence of the
voyage of Verrazano can now be questioned. In directions where it was
never suspected, the Letter of Verrazano to Francis I. had a decided
influence, as will be noted hereafter, though attention may again be
called to the fact that Barlow, in his voyage to North Carolina, 1584,
used the Letter without credit, according to the custom of the time;
while, when Gosnold visited New England, in 1602, he sailed, as tacitly
acknowledged, with the Letter of Verrazano, translated by Hakluyt as his
guide.
Next, however, the reader’s attention must be directed to the voyage
of Estevan Gomez, who followed Verrazano in 1525. This adventurer was
a Portuguese in the service of Spain. While Verrazano was abroad on
his voyage, Gomez attended the nautical congress at Badajos, in Spain,
when, we are told, Sebastian Cabot was present. At this congress
Portugal opposed the plan presented for an expedition to the Indies,
being very jealous, as usual, of the power of Spain. The differences
of the two powers were nevertheless reconciled, and the king of Spain,
with the aid of several merchants, fitted out a caravel and put Gomez
in command. Gomez, if he did not stand as high as some men of his time,
was a navigator of experience. In 1519 he sailed as chief pilot with
Magellan, but incurred much odium by leaving him in the Straits which
now bear Magellan’s name, and returning to Spain. Peter Martyr, who
gives an account of the congress at Badajos, says: “It is decreed that
one Stephanus Gomez, himself a skilful navigator, shall go another way,
whereby, between Baccalaos and Florida, long since our countries, he
says he will find out a way to Cataia. Only one ship, a caravel, is
furnished for him,” and, the chronicler continues, “he will have no
other thing in charge than to search out whether any passage to the
great Chan from among the various windings and vast compassing of this
our ocean is to be found.” Of the voyage out from Spain few particulars
are now available, though the account of the return was penned by Martyr
subsequently to November 13, 1525, and probably before the close of the
year. The voyage was, upon the whole, a short one. Martyr, however, says
that he returned at the end of “ten months,” while Navarrete states that
he sailed in February. Galvano tells us that, having failed to obtain the
command of an expedition to the Moluccas, he went on the coast of the
new world in search of a passage to India, observing that “the Earl Don
Fernando de Andrada, and the doctor Beltram, and the merchant Christopher
de Serro, furnished a galleon for him, and he went from Groine, in
Gallicia, to the Island of Cuba, and to the Cape of Florida, sailing by
day because he knew not the land.” Galvano tells us, likewise, that he
passed the Bay of Angra and the river Enseada, and so “went over to the
other side, reaching Cape Razo in 46° N.” This means that he sailed up
from Florida past the coast of Maine. Martyr, writing after the return of
Gomez, indulges in a strain of ridicule, and says: “He, neither finding
the Straight, nor Cataia, which he promised, returned back in ten months
after his departure;” and continues: “I always thought and supposed this
worthy man’s fancies to be vain and frivolous. Yet he wanted not for
suffrages and voices in his favor and defense.” Still, Martyr admits that
“he found pleasant and profitable countries agreeable with our parallels
and degrees of the pole.”
The results of the voyage along the coast from Florida to Newfoundland
are indicated on the Map of Ribeiro, 1529, which represents a new
exploration, as nothing seems to have been borrowed from either the
voyage of Verrazano or from the voyages made by the Portuguese, with the
exception that Ribeiro used old Portuguese maps of Newfoundland, which
was the case with Verrazano. We must, however, confine our observations
to things that relate to this immediate region, and notice what the
accompanying maps so fully exhibit, the difference of the delineation
of Sandy Hook and Long Island. On the Ribeiro Map Sandy Hook appears as
“Cabo de Arenas,” the Sandy Cape, exaggerated in size, while Long Island
is hardly distinguishable, as the coast line runs too close to the north.
It is indicated by the section of the coast between two rivers, “Montana
Vue,” evidently one of the hills of Long Island that the navigator now
views from the sea. On the Verrazano Map, the region of Sandy Hook is
“Lamuetto” and “Lungavilla,” while Long Island is indicated as a part of
the mainland, bearing the names of “Cabo de Olimpo” and “Angolesme,” the
bay of “San Germano” lying between. The delineations of Verrazano exhibit
his short stay and hasty departure, while the survey of Gomez must have
occupied more time, at least around Sandy Hook. That this map resulted
from the voyage of Gomez is evident from the legend, which calls the land
“Tierra de Estevan Gomez;” (the country of Stephen Gomez) while eastward,
where the coast of Maine is delineated, is the “Arcipelago” of Gomez.
On this Map of Ribeiro the lower Bay of New York is indicated by “E.
de S. Xpoal,” with several Islands. A river appears between this bay,
given in later documents as Bay of “St. Chrispstabel,” and Long Island,
but the name of the river is not given. “B. de S. Antonio,” however, is
given which indicates the upper bay or harbor, and subsequently we shall
see the river itself indicated as the river “San Antonio,” while the
place of Sandy Hook in the old cartography will be fully established and
identified with Cape de Arenas. Ribeiro evidently had pretty full notes
of the calculations and observations of Gomez.
[Illustration: FRA. DRAKE.]
As the reverential old navigators were often in the habit of marking
their progress in connection with prominent days in the Calendar, it is
reasonable to suppose that the Hudson was discovered by Gomez on the
festival of St. Anthony, which falls on January 17. Navarrete indeed
says that he left Spain in February, but the accounts are more or less
confusing. If Martyr, who is more particular, is correct, and Gomez was
absent “ten months,” he must have sailed early in December, which would
have brought him to our coast on the festival of the celebrated Theban
Father. At this time the navigator would have seen the country at its
worst. Evidently he made no extended exploration of the river, as in
January it is often loaded with ice and snow.
Gomez was laughed at by the courtiers, and had no disposition to return
to the American coast. The legend on the Map of Ribeiro proclaiming
his discovery, that is, exploration of the coast, declared that here
were to be found “many trees and fruits similar to those in Spain,” but
Martyr contemptuously exclaims, “What need have we of these things that
are common to all the people of Europe? To the South! to the South!”
he ejaculates, “for the great and exceeding riches of the Equinoxial,”
adding, “They that seek riches must not go to the cold and frozen
North.” Gems, spices, and gold were the things coveted by Spain, and our
temperate region, with its blustering winters, did not attract natures
accustomed to soft Andalusian air.
After the voyage of Gomez, which, failing to find a route to the Indies,
excited ridicule, there is nothing of special interest to emphasize in
this connection until 1537. In the meanwhile, the English were active,
and in 1527 two ships, commanded by Captain John Rut, were in American
waters. It has been claimed that he sailed the entire coast, often
sending men on land “to search the state of these unknown regions,” and
it has been affirmed that this is “the first occasion of which we are
distinctly informed that Englishmen landed on the coast.” Also that,
“after Cabot, this was the second English expedition which sailed along
the entire east coast of the United States, as far as South Carolina.”
Granting, however, that the expedition of Rut actually extended down the
American coast, there is no proof that he gave any attention to the
locality of the Hudson.
[Illustration: A SECTION OF THE MAP OF ALONZO CHAVES.]
We turn now to the account of our particular locality, as given by Oviedo
in 1537, who wrote an account of the coast based largely upon the Map
of Alonzo Chaves. It appears that, in 1536, Charles V. ordered that the
official charts should “be examined and corrected by experienced men,
appointed for that purpose.” Acting under their instructions, Alonzo
Chaves drew up a chart, embodying the information that he had been able
to collect from maps and narratives. It is evident that he had notes of
the voyage of Gomez, and that he used the Ribeiro Map, but he had no
information about the voyage of Verrazano or that of Cartier in 1534.
His delineation of the coast began in the Bay of Mexico, and extended
to Newfoundland. Oviedo, in his “History of the Indies,” used this map,
and describes the coast by its aid. The Map of Chaves does not appear
to be accessible, but its American features have been reconstructed
from the descriptions of Oviedo, and this portion of the Map is given
herewith, the latitudes and distances being exactly preserved. From the
Cape of Florida, Oviedo moves northward in his descriptions, which are
distinctly recognizable. “Cabo de Sanct Johan” stands at the mouth of the
Chesapeake, and from this place “Cabo de los Arenas” is thirty leagues
to the north-northeast. The latter cape is 38° 20′ N. From “Arenas” the
coast runs thirty leagues to “Cabo de Santiago,” which is 39° 20′ N. On
this map Sandy Hook appears as Cape Santiago, but generally the name of
“Arenas,” the Sandy Cape, is affixed to the Hook[7]. Oviedo, on reaching
the end of Sandy Hook, proceeds to give an unmistakable delineation of
the Bay and Harbor of New York, and of the river which is now known
as the Hudson. “Thence,” continues Oviedo, with his eye on the Map of
Chaves, “the coast turns southwest twenty leagues to the Bay of Sanct
Christobal, which is in 39°, passes said bay, and goes thirty leagues
to Rio de Sanct Antonio, north and south with the bottom of this bay;
and the ‘Rio de Sanct Antonio’ is in 41° N.” Dr. Kohl says that “it is
impossible to give a more accurate description of the Hudson River,” but
this is not quite true. It was an excellent description for that period,
considering the material at hand; yet it must be remembered that all the
distances are given as general estimates on the decimal system. Besides,
the Map of Chaves, like all the maps, was drawn on a small scale, and
Sandy Hook and the Lower Bay are both exaggerated, as on the Map of
Ribeiro, which will be seen by a comparison of the two maps, placed
side by side to facilitate investigation. Both Ribeiro and Chaves had
erroneous measurements of distances, and made the Lower Bay quite a large
gulf, while the latitude of “Rio Sanct Antonio” is placed one degree too
high. Ribeiro, however, gave the Hook its right name, “Arenas.”[8] The
size of the Hook is exaggerated on the Maijolla Map, 1527, though not on
the Verrazano, 1529. These things show free-hand drawing on the part of
the mapmakers, and defective rule-of-thumb measurements by the navigator,
who probably viewed the waters behind the Hook when veiled in mist,
failing to test his own estimates.
Oviedo says that “from the Rio de Sanct Antonio the coast runs northeast
one-fourth east forty leagues to a point (punta), that on the western
side it has a river called the Buena Madre, and on the eastern part, in
front of (de lante) the point, is the Bay of Sanct Johan Baptista, which
point (punta) is 41° 30′ N.”; or, rather, correcting the error of one
degree, in 40° 30′ N. This point is Montauk Point, Long Island being
taken as a part of the main. The Thames River in Connecticut answers to
the River of the Good Mother, and the Bay of John Baptist is evidently
the Narragansett. Oviedo then goes on to the region of Cape Cod, varying
from the general usage, and calling it “Arrecifes,” or the Reef Cape,
instead of “Cabe de Baxos,” which signifies substantially the same thing.
Under the circumstances, the description of Long Island is remarkably
exact, as its shore trends northward almost exactly half a degree in
running to Montauk Point. What, therefore, lies on either side of the
River San Antonio fixes beyond question the locality of the Hudson, and
proves that it was clearly known from the time of Gomez to 1537.
The next navigator whose work touched our part of the coast was Jehan or
Jean Allefonsce, who, in 1542, came to Canada as pilot of Roberval, and
gained considerable knowledge of the North Atlantic shores. This hardy
sailor was a native of Saintonge, a village of Cognac, France. After
following the sea for a period of more than forty years, and escaping
many dangers, he finally received a mortal wound while engaged in a naval
battle in the harbor of Rochelle. Melin Saint-Gelais wrote a sonnet in
his honor during the year 1559. It can hardly be doubted that Allefonsce
himself ran down the coast in one of the ships of Roberval, probably when
returning to France.
With the aid of Paulin Secalart he wrote a cosmographical description,
which included Canada and the West Indies, with the American coast.
Very recognizable descriptions are given as far down as Cape Cod and
the islands to the southward. The manuscript also possesses interest
in connection with the region of the Hudson, though farther south the
description becomes still more available.
Allefonsce after disposing of the region of New England, turns southward,
and says: “From the Norombega River,” that is, the Penobscot, “the coast
runs west-southwest about two hundred and fifty leagues to a large bay
(anse) running inland about twenty leagues, and about twenty-nine
leagues wide. In this bay there are four islands close together. The
entrance to the bay is by 38° N., and the said islands lie in 39° 30′ N.
The source of this bay has not been explored, and I do not know whether
it extends further on.... The whole coast is thickly populated, but I had
no intercourse with them.” Continuing, he says: “From this bay the coast
runs west-northwest about forty-six leagues. Here you come upon a great
fresh-water river, and at its entrance is a sand island.” What is more,
he adds: “Said island is 39° 49′ N.”
From the description of Allefonsce, it is evident that the “great
fresh-water river” is the Hudson, described five years before by Oviedo,
out of the Map of Chaves, as the River of St. Anthony, while the “island
of sand” was Sandy Hook.[9]
Turning from the manuscript of Allefonsce to the printed cosmography, we
discover that the latter is only an abridgement, it being simply said
that after leaving Norombega, the coast turns to the south-southeast to a
cape which is high land (Cape Cod), and has a great island and three or
four small isles. New York and the entire coast south have no mention.
The manuscript, however, suffices for our purpose and proves that the
coast was well known.
It has been already stated that it would be impossible to say when the
first Englishman visited this region; yet in the year 1567-8, evidence
goes to prove that one David Ingram, an Englishman, set ashore with a
number of companions in the Bay of Mexico, journeyed on foot across the
country to the river St. John, New Brunswick, and sailed thence for
France. Possibly he was half crazed by his sufferings, yet there can
be little doubt that he crossed the continent and passed through the
State of New York, traveling on the Indian paths and crossing many broad
rivers. If the story is true, Ingram is the first Englishman known to
have visited these parts.
In April, 1583, Captain Carline wrote out propositions for a voyage “to
the latitude of fortie degrees or thereabouts, of that hithermost part
of America,” and, in 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert had this region under
consideration, Hakluyt observing on the margin of his “Divers Voyages”
that this was “the Countrey of Sir H. G. Uoyage.” Hays says in his
account of the region, that “God hath reserved the same to be reduced
unto Christian civility by the English nation” and, also that “God
would raise him up an instrument to effect the same.” All this is very
interesting in connection with English claims and enterprise. In the same
year the French were active on the coast, and one Stephen Bellinger,
of Rouen, sailed to Cape Breton, and thence coasted southwesterly six
hundred miles “and had trafique with the people in tenne or twelve
places.” Thus the French were moving from both the north and the south
towards this central region; but we cannot say how far south Bellinger
actually came, as there is nothing to indicate his mode of computation.
It is not improbable that he knew and profited by the rich fur-trade of
the Hudson.
In 1598 and there about, we find it asserted that the Dutch were upon
the ground, for, in the year 1644, the Committee of the Dutch West
India Company, known as the General Board of Accounts, to whom numerous
documents and papers have been intrusted, made a lengthy report, which
they begin as follows: “New Netherland, situated in America, between
English Virginia and New England, extending from the South [Delaware]
river, lying in 34½ degrees to Cape Malabat, in the latitude of 41½
degrees, was first frequented by the inhabitants of this country in the
year 1598, and especially by those of the Greenland Company, but without
making any fixed settlements, only as a shelter in winter. For which
they built on the North [Hudson] and the South [Delaware] rivers there
two little forts against the attacks of the Indians.” Mr. Brodhead says
that the statement “needs confirmation.” Still it is somewhat easy to
understand why a statement of this kind coming from such a body should
require confirmation; but the Committee had no reason for misstating the
facts, and ought to have been accurately informed. Yet if confirmation is
insisted upon, we are prepared to give it, such as it is, from an English
and, in fact, an unexpected source. Our authority is no less a personage
than Governor Bradford, of Plymouth Colony, whose office and inclinations
led him to challenge all unfounded claims that might be put forth by the
Dutch. Nevertheless, writing to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, the father of New
England colonization, who likewise was hostile to the pretensions of the
Dutch, Bradford says, under date of June 15, 1627, that the Dutch on
the Hudson “have used trading there this six-or-seven-and-twenty years,
but have begun to plant of later time, and now have reduced their trade
to some order.” Bradford lived in Holland in 1608, and had abundant
opportunities for knowing everything relating to Dutch enterprise. It
is perfectly well known that the Plymouth Colonists of 1620 intended to
settle at the Hudson, though circumstances directed them to the spot
pointed out by Dermer in 1619, when in the service of Gorges. Thus,
about seventeen years before the Committee of 1644 reported, Governor
Bradford, an unwilling, but every way competent and candid witness,
carried back the Dutch occupancy, under the Greenland Company, to the
year 1600. Besides, on the English map of the voyage of Linschoten,
1598, there is a dotted trail from the latitude of the Hudson, 40° N. to
the St. Lawrence, showing that the route was one known and traveled at
that time. It is evident, from a variety of considerations, that both
the Dutch and French resorted to the Hudson at this period to engage in
the trade. Linschoten was one of the best informed of Dutch writers,
and probably understood the significance of the representation upon his
map. The probability is that this route was known a long time before,
and that it may be indicated by Cartier, who, when in Canada, 1534, was
told of a route by the way of the river Richelieu, to a country a month’s
distance southward, supposed to produce cinnamon and cloves, which
Cartier thought the route to Florida. Champlain, writing in Canada, says
that, in the year previous, certain French who lived on the Hudson were
taken prisoners when out on an expedition against the northern Indians,
and were liberated, on the ground that they were friends of the French
in Canada. This agrees with the report of the Labadists, who taught that
a French child, Jean Vigné, was born here in 1614. Evidently the French
had been on the ground in force for some years, and were able to make
expeditions against the savages. Very likely the French were here quite
as early as the Hollanders.
There seems to be, however, another curious piece of confirmation, which
comes from the writings of the celebrated Father Isaac Jogues, who was in
New Amsterdam during the year 1646. In a letter written on August 3d of
that year, he says that the Dutch were here, “about fifty years” before,
while they began to settle permanently only about “twenty years” since.
The latter statement is sufficiently correct, as 1623 was the year when
a permanent colony was established by the Dutch. The former statement
carries us back to the date of the “Greenland Company.”
So far as present evidence goes, it is perhaps unnecessary to say
anything more in vindication of the statement of the Dutch Committee of
1644, claiming that representatives of the Greenland Company wintered
here in 1598. Nevertheless, as a matter of interest, and to show how
well the Hudson was known at this time by both Dutch and English, we may
quote from the English translation of the Dutch narrative of Linschoten,
which clearly describes the coast. He says: “There is a countrey under 44
degrees and a halfe, called Baccalaos.” This country of Baccalaos reached
nine hundred miles, that is, from the Cape de Baccalaos [Cape Race] to
Florida.
The distances are given approximately, of course, by Linschoten, being on
the decimal system, but they distinctly mark the principal divisions of
the coast and fix the fact beyond question that the Hudson was perfectly
well known.
On the general subject it may be said, that the record of the “Greenland
Company” is not satisfactory, yet the word “Greenland” at that time had a
very general use, and all that the Committee of Accounts may have meant
by the phrase was, that a company or association engaged in the fur and
fish trade, which for centuries, even, had been prosecuted at the north,
had sent some ships to this region in 1598. There is certainly nothing
unreasonable in this supposition, the coast being so well known. Various
adventurers of whom we know nothing doubtless came and went unobserved,
being in no haste to publish the source from which they derived such a
profitable trade in peltries. The Committee of Accounts either falsified
deliberately or followed some old tradition. Why may not a tradition be
true?
We turn next to examine a map recently brought to notice and which is
of unique value. Formerly the map usually pointed out as the oldest
seventeenth century map of this region was the Dutch “Figurative” Map,
which was found by Mr. Brodhead in the Dutch archives. We have now,
however, an earlier map of 1610, which was prepared from English data
for James I., a copy finding its way to Philip III., by Velasco, March
22, 1611. Sandy Hook, though without name, is delineated about as it
appears in later maps, while Long Island is shown as a part of the main,
with no indication of the Sound, though Cape Cod and the neighboring
islands are well delineated, and Verrazano’s Island of “Luisa” appears as
“Cla[u]dia,” the mother of Francis I. Clearly at this time neither Block
nor any other Dutch navigator had passed through Hell Gate into Long
Island Sound.
There is nothing whatever in this map relating to explorations by any
nation later than 1607. Jamestown appears on the Virginia portion, and
Sagadehoc in Maine. It was simply a copy of a map made soon after the
voyage to New England and Virginia in 1607. The compiler had not heard of
Hudson’s voyage, as that navigator did not reach England until November
7, 1609. If he had received any information from Hudson, he would have
shown the river terminating in a shallow, innavigable brook, whereas the
river is indicated, in accordance with Captain John Smith’s idea, as a
strait, leading to a large body of water. Further, the map contradicts
Hudson, who represents the Hoboken side of the river as “Manhatta,”
while this map puts the name on both sides, “Manahata,” on the west and
“Manahatin” on the east. It is not unlikely that Hudson had with him a
copy of the map, for his guidance on the voyage in the Half-Moon.
[Illustration: SIR WALTER RALEIGH.]
Though this map bears a date subsequent to Hudson’s voyage, the contents
prove that the original could not have been drawn later than 1608. It
was evidently one of the various maps of which Smith spoke and which
he underrated. Its substance indicates that it was drawn from a source
independent of the Dutch and French, showing that the English knew
of the Bay of New York and its relation to Sandy Hook, and that they
supposed the great river delineated was a broad stream which, in someway,
communicated with the Pacific. On the original map of which Velasco’s
example was a copy, the land west of the river was colored blue, and the
legend says that it is described by information drawn from the Indians.
What we need now is the original map, which may still exist in some
obscure collection in England or Holland, and quite as likely in the
archives of Spain, sent thither by jealous Spanish spies, who lingered,
like Velasco, at the court of James I., to learn what they could with
respect to English enterprise in America. At all events we have in this
English map the first seventeenth century delineation of this region,
and one showing that the English knew the form and general character of
the country which the crown conveyed to the colonists of North and South
Virginia in 1606. So far as now known, it was clearly the English who
first became acquainted with the name that the Aborigines applied to the
island upon which our great metropolitan city stands. Whether or not
this was an aboriginal word or a corruption of a Castilian term future
investigators may decide. The unexpected finding of this old English
map in the Spanish archives revives our hopes relating to the discovery
of new sources of information concerning early voyages to this coast.
English enterprise and adventure on the Virginia coast, extending from
Raleigh’s expedition, 1584, to Gosnold’s fatal quest, 1603, must have
brought Englishmen into the Bay of New York, unless miracle was balanced
against curiosity and chance. There are archives yet to be opened that
may give the origin of the delineations of this region found in the
remarkable map from Samancas, and we need to be cautious in making claims
even for the priority of the Dutch in 1598.
The period under consideration was a period of reconnoissance, one
that offered some romantic incident, but more of disappointment and
mortification. Here was a site for one of the noblest cities in the
world, but the voyager was blind. The river offered no route to the
gorgeous Indies, and Verrazano had little inclination to test its swift
tide. Gomez, in the short January days of 1525, had no desire to ascend,
for when his ship met the drift ice tossing on the cold, swirling stream,
he thought of Anthony in his desolate retreat on the Red Sea, put the
river under his charge, and sailed away in search of happier shores.
Sailors of other nationalities, doubtless, ascended the river; but,
finding it simply a river, they took what peltries they could get, and,
like Gomez, turned the whole region over to the care of the solitary
Saint, who for nearly a century stood connected with its neglect.
Much remained to be done before steps could be taken with regard to
colonization. The initial work, however, was inaugurated by the sturdy
Englishman, Henry Hudson, and the proud Spanish caravel disappears, while
the curtain rises upon the memorable voyage of the quaint Dutch fly-boat,
the Half-Moon.
FOOTNOTES
[2] Letter addressed to the writer in 1890.
[3] The vignette on proceeding page is a faithful representation of the
Florentine portrait.
[4] The usual course was to sail southward and reach Florida coasting
north, or to sail to Newfoundland and coast southward. It required
especial boldness to take the direct course, and, in 1562, when Ribault
followed this course, he was proud of the achievement. The fact that
Verrazano sailed the direct course at that time proves the authenticity
of his voyage, as a forger would not have invented the story.
[5] On the Map of Verrazano, to which attention will be directed, this
triangular island is delineated. The voyager approaching the island from
the west comes to a point of the triangle where he can look away in the
easterly direction, and at a glance take in two sides; while on reaching
the eastern limit the third side plainly appears. In sailing past Block
Island, as Verrazano did, from west to east, the navigator could not fail
to discover its triangular shape. Indeed it is so marked that one is
struck by the fact.
[6] The story of this map is curious. The American contents were first
given to the public by the writer in the “Magazine of American History,”
and afterward reprinted in “Verrazano the Explorer.”
[7] In “Cabo de Arenas,” the coast names taken from a large collection of
maps are arranged in parallel columns, illustrating three main divisions
of the coast, showing that Cabo de Baxos was the name applied to Cape
Cod, and Cabo de Arenas to Sandy Hook. Capo Cod in the early times was
not a sandy cape, but a beautiful and well-wooded cape. Sandy Hook ever
since it was known has borne its present character.
[8] Those who have fancied that Cape Arenas was Cape Cod, and that the
bay behind it was Massachusetts Bay, have the same difficulty as regards
dimensions. Students of American cartography understand perfectly well
that latitudes in the old maps were often more than two degrees out of
the way, the instruments of that period being so defective.
[9] To convince himself of this fact the reader may compare the
reconstructed Map of Chaves with the coast surveys, when the main
difference will be found to consist in the exaggeration of Sandy Hook.
The “Narrative and Critical History of America,” dealing with this point,
suppresses all allusion to the fact that Kohl recognizes the cape on the
Map of Chaves with the names “Santiago” and “Arenas” as Sandy Hook, which
follows, as the river inside of the Hook he identifies with the Hudson.
Dr. Kohl, though generally very acute, failed to see that Oviedo’s
description of the Map of Chaves was, substantially, the description
of Ribeiro, and that in identifying, as he chanced to, the “Arenas”
of Ribeiro with Cape Cod, he stultified his own reasoning. Nor did he
consider this, that if the great Cape “Arenas” was intended for Cape Cod,
there is no representation whatever of Sandy Hook and the Hudson in the
old cartography and that all the voyages to this region geographically
went for nothing. _Credat Judaeus Appellus!_ This exaggeration of
Sandy Hook is conceded, yet the inlets along the New Jersey shore may
have been viewed as connected by Gomez; and indeed, so great have been
the changes along the coast that no one can well deny that they were
connected in 1525, and formed a long bay running down behind Sandy Hook.
It will prove more historic to follow the writer, who says, “that the
coast of New York and the neighboring district were known to Europeans
almost a century before Hudson ascended the ‘Great River of the North,’
and that this knowledge is proved by various maps made in the course of
the sixteenth century. Nearly all of them place the mouth of a river
between the fortieth and forty-first degrees of latitude, or what should
be this latitude, but which imperfect instruments have placed farther
north.”—Nar. and Crit. His. of Amer., 4: 432.
EARLY AMERICAN LITERATURE.
Seventy-odd years ago the Rev. Sydney Smith wrote in the Edinburg Review
as follows: “Literature, the Americans have none—no native literature,
we mean. It is all imported. They had a Franklin, indeed, and may afford
to live for half a century on his fame. There is, or was, a Mr. Dwight,
who wrote some poems, and his baptismal name was Timothy. There is also a
small account of Virginia, by Jefferson, an epic by Joel Barlow, and some
pieces of pleasantry by Mr. Irving. But why should the Americans write
books, when a six weeks’ passage brings them, in their own tongue, our
sense, science and genius in bales and hogsheads?”
Times have changed since Mr. Smith wrote this somewhat sarcastic summary
of our native literature; for, while it is true that we still import
British “sense, science, and genius in bales and hogsheads,” it is done
now on principles of reciprocity, and we return quite as good and perhaps
nearly as much as we receive.
Americans do not instance Mr. Dwight, whose “baptismal name was Timothy,”
or Mr. Barlow, the author of the epic so sneeringly referred to, as the
chiefs of American poesy; yet we need not blush for either of them; for
the first was a distinguished scholar the President of Yale College, and
the author of the hymn so dear to many pious hearts:
“I love thy kingdom, Lord!
The house of Thine abode;
The church our blest Redeemer saved
With His own precious blood.”
The other, Mr. Barlow, was a well-known man of letters and politician in
his day, author of the “Columbiad,” the epic referred to by Mr. Smith,
and minister plenipotentiary of the United States to the coast of France
at a critical period of our history. As to the “Columbiad,” it has
been pronounced by competent critics to be equal in merit to Addison’s
“Campaign,” and surely it is no disgrace to have equalled Addison.
It was the fashion in those days for Englishmen to sneer at Americans;
and so we find in another review, written by the same gentleman in 1820,
this language: “During the thirty or forty years of their independence,
they have done absolutely nothing for the sciences, for the arts,
for literature, or even for the statesmanlike studies of politics or
political economy.... In the four quarters of the globe who reads an
American book? or looks at an American picture or statue? What does the
world yet owe to American physicians or surgeons? What new substances
have their chemists discovered? or what old ones have they analyzed? What
new constellations have been discovered by the telescopes of Americans?
What have they done in mathematics? Who drinks out of American glasses?
or eats from American plates? or wears American coats or gowns? or sleeps
in American blankets?” In the very same year that this array of rather
insolent queries was propounded by Sydney Smith, the genial Washington
Irving, in the advertisement to the first English edition of his Sketch
Book, remarks: “The author is aware of the austerity with which the
writings of his countrymen have been treated by British critics.” We have
not a particle of doubt as to the “austerity” in question. The salvos
of Old Ironsides and the roar of Jackson’s guns at New Orleans, were
unpleasant facts not yet forgotten by Englishmen.
But Sydney Smith was not quite fair towards our countrymen. It was
“during the thirty or forty years of their independence” referred to that
Fulton’s steamboat revolutionized navigation, that Rittenhouse developed
a mathematical skill second only to that of Newton; that West delighted
even royalty itself with the creations of his pencil; while in “the
statesmanlike studies of politics or political economy,” it was during
this very period that Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, and their coadjutors
did more to develop the true principles of government and politics than
had ever been done before in the history of the world. True, we had not
much to boast of, but it would have been only just to give us credit
for what we were worth. Moreover, in a small way, but to the extent it
was possible under the circumstances, the English colonists in America
had cultivated letters from the beginning. In 1685, Cotton Mather wrote
his Memorable Providences; in 1732, Franklin began to issue his Poor
Richard’s Almanac; in 1749, Jonathan Edwards published his Life of David
Brainerd, and in 1754, his famous treatise on The Freedom of the Will and
Moral Agency. Besides these, which perhaps stand out most conspicuously,
there were many minor works of more or less excellence, over most of
which the iniquity of oblivion, to use the fine phrase of Sir Thomas
Browne, hath scattered her poppy.
The moment that the Edinburg Review was thus dealing our fathers these
heavy blows seemed to be the real starting point in our career of
literary greatness. William Cullen Bryant, Washington Irving, James K.
Paulding, Richard H. Dana, James Fenimore Cooper, Mrs. Sigourney and a
host of others were giving direction to that stream of literature that
has since flowed broad and free over our land, imparting life and vigor
and beauty to our society and institutions. It is, however, anterior to
the year 1820, the thirty or forty years of our national independence,
during which Mr. Smith says we have done “absolutely nothing” in
literature, science or art, to which we must more particularly advert.
The literary product of those years was scanty enough, it is true.
The student of this period will not find much, and not all of that of
the first order, to reward his labor—not much, at least, as compared
with other nations at the same time. But may there not have been some
sufficient reason for this, outside of any downright intellectual
deficiencies on the part of our fathers? Let us for a moment consider the
condition of things at that time in this country.
In the first place, at the time referred to, the citizens of the United
States were in a daily struggle with the material difficulties of their
situation. The country was new. The region west and north of the Ohio
and Mississippi was yet an almost unbroken wilderness, while the country
east and south of those rivers was but sparsely populated. At the same
time the tide of immigration was sweeping into the country, and with it
all the rush and turmoil incident to life in a new country was going on.
Forests were to be cut down; farms were to be cleared up; houses were
to be built; roads were to be made; bridges were to be thrown across
the rivers; while a livelihood was to be compelled from the forests,
the streams, and the fields. The conditions of a new country are not
favorable to the cultivation of the arts, of sciences, or of literature.
Why do not Englishmen twit the people of Australia because during the
past forty or fifty years in which they have prospered so greatly in
material things, they have not produced a Macaulay, a Tennyson, a
Gladstone, a Tyndall, or a Huxley? It would be just as fair to do it.
Not only was there this hand to hand contest with their physical
environment, but the political conditions were also unfavorable to any
general dalliance with the Muses. Only in times of tranquility and ease
is it possible.
“To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neaera’s hair.”
The country at the period referred to, had just emerged from a long and
exhausting war. Society was almost broken up; the arts of peace were
well nigh forgotten; the finances were in almost hopeless confusion; the
form of government was unsettled, and scarcely yet determined upon. The
first thing to do was to evolve some system and some security out of this
chaos. Politics alone occupied the moments of leisure. When, finally,
authority had crystallized into definite government the people were not
allowed to be at rest. Murderous wars with the Indians on the frontiers;
the machinations of French emissaries; British oppression of American
commerce, and at length another long and bloody war with England,
harassed the minds of the people, and prevented them from giving
themselves up more generally to the kindly and refining influences of
literature and art. When we consider all the circumstances in the case,
there seems a degree of severity in Sydney Smith’s sneers and taunts.
But though circumstances were thus unfavorable to the cultivation of
letters, yet something was done in this direction nevertheless. Smith
refers flippantly enough to Dwight, Jefferson, Barlow and Irving. But
besides these there were others, not brilliant luminaries perhaps, yet
stars shining in the darkness according to their orders and degrees.
We do not design here to enter upon any discussion of their respective
merits, but we may mention as a writer of that period no less a character
than George Washington, whose greatness in other spheres of life has
entirely eclipsed any fame of which he may be worthy as an author, yet
whose Farewell Address alone would entitle him to a place among the
most accurate writers of English. Among others we may name John Adams,
whose pen was scarcely less eloquent than his tongue; Francis Hopkinson,
author of The Battle of the Kegs and many other pieces, of which it has
been said, that “while they are fully equal to any of Swift’s writings
for wit, they have nothing at all in them of Swift’s vulgarity;” Dr.
Benjamin Rush, a distinguished writer on medical and social topics; John
Trumbull, the author of McFingal and The Progress of Dullness; James
Madison, afterward President of the United States, one of the ablest
writers in The Federalist; Philip Freneau, a poet of the Revolution and
the period immediately following; Alexander Hamilton, a contributor to
The Federalist, and one of the clearest of political writers; Joseph
Dennie, the author of The Lay Preacher, and editor of The Portfolio;
Joseph Hopkinson, author of Hail, Columbia; Charles Brockden Brown,
author of Wieland, Arthur Mervyn, and other works, and who was perhaps
the first American who wholly devoted his life to literary pursuits;
William Wirt, author of the British Spy, the Life of Patrick Henry,
and other works; and Lyman Beecher, the author of a work on Political
Atheism, anti several volumes of sermons and public addresses. This list
might easily be extended, but its length as it now stands, as well as the
merits of the writers adduced, is sufficient to contradict effectually
the statement that America had “no native literature,” and that during
the thirty or forty years immediately subsequent to the Revolution she
had done “absolutely nothing” for polite letters. Much of this early
literature still remains, and is read; many of these authors are still
familiar to this generation, and it is generally admitted that the writer
whose fame survives a century is assured of a literary immortality.
Sydney Smith was an acute man, a learned man, a great wit, a ready and
elegant writer, a trenchant critic, but the names of some of these
humble Americans whom he did not deign to mention, or mentioned only to
scoff, bid fair to stand as long in the annals of literature as his own.
On the eastern slope of the Andes are a thousand springs from which the
slender rills, half hidden at times by the grass, scarcely at any time
seen or heard, trickle down the side of the immense mountain range, here
and there falling into each other and swelling in volume as they flow,
until at length is formed the mighty Amazon, that drains the plateaus and
valleys of half a continent. So the beginnings of our literature, like
the beginnings of every literature, are small, indistinct, half hidden;
but as they proceed, these little rills of thought and expression grow
and expand, until the mighty stream is formed that irrigates the whole
world of intellectual activity.
This stream, as we have said, first began to assume definite form and
direction about the time that Sydney Smith was uttering his tirades
against the genius and achievements of our countrymen. In 1817, appeared
in the North American Review a remarkable poem called “Thanatopsis.” The
author was a young man named William Cullen Bryant, only twenty-three
years of age; yet the poem had been written four years before. The annals
of literature do not furnish another example of such excellence at so
early an age. The poem yet stands as one of the most exquisite in the
language. A recent critic has characterized it as “lofty in conception,
beautiful in execution, full of chaste language and delicate and striking
imagery, and, above all, pervaded by a noble and cheerful religious
philosophy.” This first effort on the part of Bryant was succeeded by a
long career of eminence in the field of literature. In 1818 appeared a
volume of miscellanies called “The Sketch Book,” by Washington Irving, a
young man who had already acquired some slight reputation as a dabbler
in literature of a trifling or humorous kind. The Sketch Book was almost
immediately honored by republication in England. This initial volume was
followed by a second series of miscellanies called “Bracebridge Hall,”
which was published in London in 1822. In the preliminary chapter the
author pleasantly adverts to the general feeling with which American
authorship was regarded in England. “It has been a matter of marvel to my
European readers,” says he, “that a man from the wilds of America should
express himself in tolerable English. I was looked upon as something
new and strange in literature; a kind of demi-savage, with a feather
in his hand instead of on his head; and there was a curiosity to hear
what such a being had to say about civilized society.” In the same year
with Irving’s Sketch Book appeared Drake’s Culprit Fay, a poem that has
not been surpassed in its kind since Milton’s Comus. In 1821 Percival
issued his first volume of poems, Dana his Idle Man, and Cooper, his
Precaution. His last named volume was at once followed by a long list of
works including such famous titles as The Spy, The Last of the Mohicans,
The Pathfinder, and The Deerslayer. It marked the advent of our most
distinguished novelist—a man who has been styled the Walter Scott of
America. He justly stands in the same rank with the mighty Wizard of the
North, and has no other equal. Thus the stream of American literature
rolled on its course, and was swelled as it flowed by the contributions
of Everett, Prescott, Bancroft, Emerson, Hawthorne, Poe, Willis, Holmes,
Whittier, Lowell, and a host of others, whose names the world will not
willingly let die.
America has not yet produced a Shakespere or a Milton; but it must be
remembered that England has produced but one, each of these in a period
of a thousand years. Anywhere below these two great names, American
literature of the last seventy years is able to parallel the best work
that has been produced by our kinsmen on the other side of the Atlantic.
In wealth and elegance of diction, in depth of thought or feeling, in
brightness and grace of expression, in any of the thousand forms and
flights in which genius seeks to express himself, the current literature
of America stands on a level with the current literature of England; and
Sydney Smith’s sneers, which must have touched our fathers to the quick,
find no response now except the smile of contempt which alone they ever
deserved.
T. J. CHAPMAN.
THE OHIO SOCIETY, AND OHIO IN NEW YORK.
I.
There are many things that link the capital city of financial and
commercial America, to the State of Ohio, that New England enterprise,
and New York encouragement, and Virginian patriotism, did so much to
build beyond the Alleghenies. It is not merely in the associations and
connections of to-day that New York and Ohio are bound together. A
pregnant era of the early past, was disposed toward good results forever,
by the patriotic generosity of the Empire State, at a time when Ohio was
but a name in the far off wilderness; a promise that many things must
nurture, before it could be realized.
Historians will recall, when this much has been said, the events that
were pressed close upon each other, before the soil upon which Ohio
now stands, was declared the property of the nation, disentangled from
the conflicting claims of jealous States, and how New York by her
self-renunciation, led the way to harmony. For a century had Virginia and
Connecticut made their claims to the vast westward territory; vaster than
the imagination of any living man then conceived. When the French were
driven from the lands west of the bounds of Pennsylvania, the contention
commenced, and claims were urged from time to time, until both voices of
dispute were temporarily silenced by the war in which the rivals fought
side by side for the freedom of both. When that conflict was ended, the
question again arose; not, this time, with the English Crown as the
greater power, but with the loose jointed Confederation, under which
America endeavored to work out a national salvation. Virginia, made her
demand under the grant of James, in 1609, which gave her: “All those
lands, countries and territories, situated, lying, and being in that part
of America called Virginia, from the point of the eastern land called
Cape or Point Comfort, all that space and circuit of land lying, from the
seacoast of the precinct aforesaid, up into the land, throughout, from
sea to sea, west and northwest, and also all the islands lying within one
hundred miles along the coast of the both seas of the precinct aforesaid.”
This generous King, who was giving away so much that did not belong to
him, was really giving more than he dreamed of; for the writer of the
grant evidently believed that the South Sea, or Pacific Ocean, was but
little westward of the Atlantic, and never dreamed that he was extending
his line so as to take in the magnificent Western and Northwestern empire
of to-day.
Connecticut made her claim under Charles the II, who in 1662, gave to the
colony “All that part of our dominion in New England, in America, bounded
on the east by the Narragansett River, commonly called Narragansett Bay,
where the said river falleth into the sea, and on the north by the line
of the Massachusetts plantation, and on the south by the sea, and in
longitude as the line of the Massachusetts colony, running from east to
west; that is to say, from the said Narragansett Bay, on the east to the
South Sea on the west part, with the islands thereto adjoining.”
It was under this very vague, but very extensive grant, that Connecticut
laid claim to, and maintained that claim, for that part of Ohio known the
world over, as the “Connecticut Western Reserve.”
While Virginia, Connecticut and Pennsylvania were warring in the courts,
in the legislatures, and before the people over their various claims,
there were many others who virtually assumed that the whole unoccupied
and unorganized land to the west, belonged to the nation at large, and
that no state had a right to exclusive jurisdiction. This discussion
threatened all sorts of difficulties, at a time when peace and prosperity
could only come through a mutual helpfulness and internal harmony, and
the wisest and most patriotic declared themselves willing to waive all
personal claims, and allow the national government to administer the
general estate for the general good. Congress so viewed it, and appealed
to the States to yield their claims. The first response came from New
York, which conceded all her possible ownership to western territory,
to the general government, and the other States followed in her wake.
Virginia followed New York; and Massachusetts Virginia; and eventually
Connecticut came into line.
In the appeal of Congress to the States there was no ambiguity as to
the purpose to which these lands were to be devoted. The act of October
10, 1780, resolved that “the unappropriated lands that may be ceded or
relinquished to the United States by any particular State,” should be
disposed of “for the common benefit of the United States, and shall be
settled and formed into distinct republican States, which shall become
members of the Federal Union, and have the same right of sovereignty,
freedom and independence as the other States; that each which shall be
so formed shall contain a suitable extent of territory not less than one
hundred nor more than one hundred and fifty miles square, or as near
thereto as circumstances will admit, that the necessary and reasonable
expense which any particular State shall have incurred since the
commencement of the present war, in subduing any part of the territory
that may be ceded or relinquished to the United States, shall be
reimbursed.” It was further agreed that said lands should be “granted or
settled at such times and under such regulations” as should be thereafter
agreed upon by the United States, or any nine or more of them.
In less than six months after the issuing of this broad invitation, New
York set an example of generosity to her young sister States, which had
so much yet to learn in the way of mutual concessions for the general
good. And she made no conditions in her surrender. She simply said that
she would draw a line across the western end of Lake Ontario, north and
south, and that while all east of it should be hers, all west would be
forever quit-claimed to the nation. It took Virginia three years to
make up her mind, and when she waived her claim in March, 1784, she yet
reserved nearly four million acres to the south and east of the Ohio.
The year following, Massachusetts came in with no conditions, while
Connecticut followed, in the fall of 1786, conditioning that she should
retain the magnificent Western Reserve, upon which a New Connecticut
was eventually built in the wilderness—that Reserve that has played
so important a part in the history, and the moral development of the
republic. South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia, at last straggled,
one by one, into the path of manifest destiny; although the century
had turned the point of time by two notches, before the last hand was
lessened, and the Nation became in law what she had already been in
fact—the architect and master of the splendid empire that stretched from
the western edge of the civilization of that day, to where the Spaniard
and the Frenchman still held a nominal right to the westward of the
Mississippi.
With these cessions, the territorial system of our government came into
existence. That which Georgia gave, became the Mississippi Territory;
that from the Carolinas, the Southwest Territory; and all that north of
the Ohio River, the Northwest Territory; and this brings us to a point
where New York again had a part in creating the State of Ohio, and in
dedicating the soil upon which she was reared, forever to the cause of
human liberty.
It was within the limits of her chief city that the very foundation
stones, not only of the one State but of many, were laid with a
far-seeing wisdom and prophetic foresight that mark the men of that early
Congress as among the sages of legislative wisdom. In the old hall,
that stood at the corner of Wall and Broad streets, where the restless
oceans of a financial world roll in a flood that never rests, and to
which the lines of monetary interest center from all the far-off corners
of the land, upon the spot now hallowed to the memory of Washington by
a colossal statue of bronze, there was enacted, in the midsummer of
1787, an ordinance that has well been called[10] “The most important
legislative act in American History”—there came into existence a law that
gave Ohio and Indiana, and that galaxy of northwestern states to the
Union; those free states, without which that Union never could have been
saved in the day of its imminent peril.
Many States have been created, many important acts have been passed by
the various Congresses that have sat in New York, in Philadelphia, and in
Washington, but there was in this measure something that saved the nation
from being sometime all slave; that reserved for freedom an empire that
by mere stress of moral example if in nothing else, was a menace forever
before the slaveholder. In that ordinance was one little clause that made
Ohio and Wisconsin and Illinois what they afterwards became.
“There shall be,” it recited, “neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude
in said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes.” Simple
enough these words sound now, when human bondage upon American soil is
but the echo of a dead past, but for the day in which they were uttered,
they were the clarion call of a new era—the death knell of a monster
wrong; and the voice was none the less that of God speaking in human
legislation, because many of the men who had become His instrument, had
no dream of the great things to which they had put their hands, and to
which they had given their votes.
So, in one sense, Ohio may be said to have had her beginning in New
York. From the days of her earliest childhood, she has been a willing
neighbor, willing to give and take of friendly offices with her elder
sister to the East. Two of her chief magistrates were the sons of the
Empire State; she has borrowed not a little of her legislation from the
experience of the older State; she patterned her canals after those
which DeWitt Clinton had so largely aided to bring into being; she has
developed many of her native resources by New York’s financial aid; she
has sought to build her railways so that they should lead direct to the
metropolis; she has in a thousand ways acknowledged the commercial and
financial supremacy of the greater city and State; and last, but not the
least, she has sent scores of her sons to the East, to prove that the
Buckeye is capable of gaining and holding his own among the best, in
any lines of human labor or human thought—and it is with this subject
largely, that we have at present to deal.
There hangs in certain cheerful rooms at No. 236 Fifth avenue, a modestly
framed document that is more significant in that which it suggests,
than in what it declares. It is a call for a meeting, and a pledge of
certain gentlemen whose names are attached, that they will do what lies
within their power to create in this great metropolis, a hearthstone
around which those who claimed Ohio for a mother or a foster-mother,
might congregate now and then, for such mutual help or association as
would keep the memory of the old home alive in the new. The beginning was
modest and quiet, and yet out of it has grown an organization that is
in many ways a model of its kind, and that certainly has fulfilled the
intentions of its originators.
“We the undersigned,” to quote from the language of the call, “hereby
agree to unite with each to form an association to be known as The
Ohio Association in New York, and to that end will meet at any place
designated, for the purpose of completing such organization upon notice
given to us whenever twelve persons shall have signed this agreement.
There is to be no expense incurred until the organization is completed,
and assented to by each member.”
“New York, October 7th, 1885.”
Attached to this document were names that would have carried weight
in many of the walks of the business and professional life of the
metropolis. General Thomas Ewing, an honored member of the New York Bar,
Samuel Thomas and Calvin S. Brice, of the more active fields of Wall
Street and the railway world, C. W. Moulton, Col. W. L. Strong, one of
the leading merchants of the city, Hugh J. Jewett, Wallace C. Andrews,
Homer Lee, J. W. Harman, Warren Higley, Milton Sayler, Anson G. McCook,
Col. Fogg, Mahlon Chance, J. Q. Howard, General Henry L. Burnett, and
others who had acquired reputation at home, before making New York the
scene of later operations and more recent successes. There was more than
mere formal agreement in this compact; it was understood by all that such
a society should come into being, and all were in one mind that then was
the time for beginning.
Other attempts looking in the same direction had been made in times past,
but had come to naught. Early in the days of the great war, many of the
sons and daughters of Ohio, residing in this city, met at the Murray Hill
Hotel, and took steps to give active aid to the soldiers in the field;
but these weekly gatherings ended with the noble purpose that called them
into being. In the first annual report of the Ohio Society, its first
secretary, Homer Lee, gives a brief sketch of this effort, and of the
things that followed in its wake. “The object,” says Mr. Lee, “was to
send supplies, clothing, medicines, etc., to the soldiers at the front.
A handsome silk and satin banner was made at a cost of some $500, upon
which was a beautifully embroidered Coat of Arms of the State of Ohio, to
be presented to the bravest Ohio regiment. As might have been expected
there was much rivalry for the possession of this prize, as glowing
descriptions of the beautiful souvenir were given by the newspapers at
that time. The commanding officers were appealed to, but could not be
prevailed upon to decide the question, because, as one officer put it
‘It could not easily be decided which was the bravest, where all the
regiments by their valor and heroism had covered themselves with glory.’
At the close of the war the 7th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, of Cleveland,
secured the prize.”
Another organization, somewhat similar in character and purpose, was
called into being about the same time. It was the Ohio Soldier’s Aid
Society, and Theron R. Butler, was its president, and Mr. John R. Cecil
the treasurer. Its members made it their duty to call upon the Ohio
soldiers in the New York hospitals, and to minister to their wants.
In various forms of help, this society expended over fifteen thousand
dollars, and performed many eminent services for the wounded and the
sick, and like its companion organization above described, its days ended
with the close of the war.
In 1877, the subject of an association of Ohio men was again discussed,
when a number of gentlemen had been called together by the death of
Chief Justice Chase, but it came to naught. Again, in 1874, some of the
younger sons of the Buckeye State in this city, held various meetings and
talked organization, but nothing came of the movement beyond talk. It was
reserved for the call above quoted to produce enduring results, and to
bring into being the flourishing society that has bound the Ohioans of
New York together with bonds of enduring union.
When the twelve, and more, had signed the call and thus made it
operative, a meeting was held in the office of General Ewing, No. 155
Broadway, on November 13, 1885. There was then no question of success,
and the gentlemen present went to work in a mood to make that success
of the most pronounced character. General Ewing was elected president
pro tem., and Mr. David F. Harbaugh secretary pro tem. A committee of
ten upon permanent organization were appointed, and consisted of the
following gentlemen: C. W. Moulton, William Perry Fogg, Cyrus Butler,
J. Q. Howard, Mahlon Chance, M. I. Southard, David F. Harbaugh, Warren
Higley, Calvin S. Brice, and Joseph Pool. When an adjourned meeting
was held, on the 20th of the same month, additions were made to this
foundation committee, in the persons of Messrs. Carson Lake, John W.
Harman, and Homer Lee.
The committee were already prepared with a report. They had drafted a
provisional constitution, and prepared by-laws, and proposed that these
should be printed and sent to the Ohio men in New York, to discover how
many would favor the movement, and agree to support it. Such action was
ordered, the new fundamental law of a society not yet organized was sent
broadcast, and responses invited. One hundred subscribing names were made
the requisite; they were furnished, and twenty-five in addition. Thus
encouraged, there was a call from the President, and on the evening
of January 13, 1886, over one hundred of the sons of Ohio were found
together in the parlors of the Fifth Avenue Hotel.
The meeting was prolific of results. The Ohio Society of New York, was
called into being. Officers were elected; arrangements made for the
preparation of a constitution that would be in exact accord with the
purposes there declared. The first officers there chosen constituted a
corps which was of itself a guarantee of successful results. General
Thomas Ewing was elected president; Whitelaw Reid, General Wager Swayne,
Col. William L. Strong, Hon. Hugh J. Jewett, and Algernon S. Sullivan
were chosen vice-presidents. Homer Lee was made recording secretary and
Carson Lake, corresponding secretary; while Col. William Perry Fogg was
assigned to the responsible position of treasurer. A governing committee
consisting of Henry L. Burnett, chairman, Calvin S. Brice, Andrew J.
C. Foye, A. D. Juilliard, George Follett, Stephen B. Elkins, Jerome D.
Gillett, C. W. Moulton, Joseph Pool, were selected. The president and
vice-president were directed to prepare the constitution; the invitations
of certain hotels managed by Ohio men to use their parlors for gatherings
until permanent quarters could be secured, were accepted; and the
president-elect delivered a striking address upon assuming office, that
throws so strong a light upon the purpose and spirit of the gathering,
that the writer is tempted to quote somewhat freely therefrom.
“We have met to-night” said General Ewing, “as sons and foster sons
of Ohio resident in New York City to complete the foundation of a new
society in our National Metropolis. Full as this city is of organizations
of men, she has, I think, none such as this. The ties of religion,
charity, politics, science, art, literature and common occupation draw
and hold people together in numberless associations which have filled
Manhattan Island with splendid edifices. So, too, the sympathies of
a common race and history have founded Societies of St. Patrick, St.
Andrew, St. George and many others, at whose annual reunion, the wit,
song and sentiment of the fatherlands warm the hearts of their sons in
this land beyond the sea. And here, also, is an American society which
has at several crises in the last fifty years exerted a considerable
influence on public opinion, and the annual reunions of which are watched
with eagerness everywhere throughout our land where the sons of New
England, from their distant homes, look proudly and fondly back on their
grand old mother.
“But the New England Society is composed of the sons of six States. This
is a society of the natives or former residents of a single State—Ohio,
the State first born of the American Republic. I do not say she was the
first received into the Union, for Vermont, Kentucky and Tennessee all
preceded her. Vermont was admitted in 1791, Kentucky in ’92, Tennessee
in ’96 and Ohio not until the 29th day of November, 1802. But these
three older States begun life as Colonies of Colonies, each exclusively
owned by and settled from its parent colony—Vermont from New York,
Kentucky from Virginia, and Tennessee from North Carolina. ‘The territory
northwest of the Ohio river’ was the first land ever owned by the United
States. It was a vast and pathless wilderness—an Empire in embryo—when,
in 1784, Virginia, with magnificent generosity, presented it to the
Union. It was not until ten years later, when the savages, who had been
allies of Great Britain throughout the War of the Revolution, were routed
and subdued by Mad Anthony Wayne, that agricultural settlements, except
under the shadow of block-houses, first became possible. Then the veteran
soldiers of the Revolution, broken in fortune, but aflame with the love
of liberty and triumphant from the long struggle for independence,
flocked there from every one of the glorious thirteen; hewed out homes in
the primeval forest, paid for lands in the long-dishonored certificates
of indebtedness given for their service in the Revolutionary War, and
thus founded the first State which sprung from the womb of the Republic.
“We are proud of Ohio,” continued the General, “for her heroic birth,
her honorable achievements, and her glorious destiny. She ‘sits in the
centre,’ belongs to no section, and is a bond of all. Her sons who
meet here to-night are at home in New York. We do not come together
as strangers in a strange land to seek relief from the depression of
inhospitable influence. No; New York is not inhospitable. She is merely
too big and too busy to note who comes or goes. Her gates landward and
seaward, are thrown open to the world. She is a focus of all the great
forces of American life. Much that is best and worst in it is developed
here; and the struggle of a new comer for a footing is always severe, and
generally unsuccessful. But New York is more truly cosmopolitan than any
other city in the United States, or, perhaps, in the world; and there
is little of race or sectional prejudice to bar the path of merit from
whatever quarter it may come.
“We found this Society because we love Ohio, and would cherish her
history, her traditions, her recollections of home and camp and forum.
How often do we look back to the days and scenes of our life there to
revive the sweetest influence and the dearest memories of existence.
“But we have aims for our Society beyond the culture of the memories and
affections of other days. We hope to make it felt in this great field of
thought and action as a generator of wholesome intellectual and moral
forces. When this meeting was called for permanent organization there
were one hundred and fifteen signers of our Constitution. Under the
direction of a judicious Governing Committee, the number will doubtless
be increased to several hundred. Our membership of non-residents will
perhaps be equally large. We should make something more of such good and
abundant material than a mere social club. I am far from insensible to
the pleasures of convivial reunions, and hope our society may have many
of them, and that I may long be of the number present. But we can have
some good work out of it as well as plenty of recreation. For instance,
with the aid of our western and southwestern brethern, who, like
ourselves, have drifted into this fence corner of the Republic, we might
help it to throw off its colonial subserviency to English politics and
manners, and gradually Americanize it. We can thus repay in kind the debt
of gratitude we owe the East for its missionary efforts a generation ago,
when it was the seat of power in the Union, and the now imperial West was
but a half subdued wilderness.
“Ere long we can command means, I hope, to fit up and maintain an
accessible, commodious and permanent club house, the halls of which
will be a pleasant rendezvous for members and their friends, where the
ideas and policies of East and West may meet in intelligent and friendly
encounter, and where sectional prejudice may be worn off in the attrition
of social intercourse; where we may see files of the Ohio newspapers, and
note the current of life at our old homes; where our brethern who come
East may meet, or learn where to find their friends, and get information
and help in their business; where Ohio men and women who are eminent or
rising in any worthy field of effort may have cordial recognition and a
helping hand, if needed; and where those who have unfortunately fallen in
the struggle for a foothold here will not be forgotten. In conclusion,
gentlemen, I venture to express the hope that our Society may be from the
outset, and continue to the end, so aristocratic that wealth can not buy
a membership for vice, and so democratic that none will be excluded by
needless cost of membership from an association which their virtues and
talents would adorn.”
The foundation was thus laid; the story of the superstructure will be
deferred for the present.
GENERAL THOMAS EWING—FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE OHIO SOCIETY.
The connection of General Thomas Ewing with the founding of the Ohio
Society of New York has been already shown. At this point some mention
may profitably be made of the chief points in his public and professional
career; as others of the same Buckeye group will be considered from time
to time.
General Ewing came into the busy life of the world at a time, and under
auspices, calculated not only to develop the best that was in him, but
to call into active play the strongest elements of his nature. Ohio was
in its youthful days; schools and culture had not yet reached that point
where a finished education was the rule and expectation of the great
mass of the youth as now. The freedom of pioneer life was around him,
and while he learned the lessons of refinement and culture within his
parental home, he was learning the lessons of self-reliance, courage and
personal responsibility, from the outdoor environments of his day and
neighborhood.
It was, also, a time when the great public questions of the day were
debated from the stump, in the home circle, and at the caucus, and not
left to the newspapers as at present. The young man was not merely a
reader—he was compelled to think, and often talk for himself. He must
know something of public life, and he usually had a personal acquaintance
with the public men of his day and neighborhood. In the case of General
Ewing, one of the chief men of Ohio history was a member of his own
household—his father, Thomas Ewing, the Senator from Ohio, and Secretary
of the Treasury in the cabinets of the elder Harrison and Tyler, and
Secretary of the Interior under Taylor.
Thomas Ewing, the son, was born at Lancaster, Ohio, August 7, 1829. Not
only was he the natural heir to the qualities that had made his father
one of the great statesmen and lawyers of his day, but he could find
back among the family names that of Findley Ewing, who distinguished
himself under William of Orange, in the famous war of 1688, and was
presented with a flag by that monarch, for gallant service at the siege
of Londonderry; George Ewing, his grandfather, an ensign and lieutenant
of the Revolutionary War; Neil Gillespie—a man of mark, in the early
days of the Monongahela, and great-grandfather to James G. Blaine and
himself; and his mother’s father, Hugh Boyle, who, in youth was driven
from Ireland because of the part he had taken in the Emmet rebellion,
and afterward served the State of Ohio for forty years, as clerk of the
Supreme Court for Fairfield county.
The public life of young Ewing commenced at an early age. When but
nineteen, he was appointed secretary of the commission to settle the
still vexed question as to whether the boundary between Virginia and
Ohio was the high water mark or the low water mark, on the north side of
the Ohio River. A year later, he became one of the private secretaries
of President Taylor, and after Taylor’s sudden death, entered Brown
University at Providence, Rhode Island, from which he was graduated in
1854.
He had already chosen the profession of the law, as the work of his
life, and immediately entered the Cincinnati Law School, from which he
was graduated in 1855. The next year he married Ellen E. Cox, a daughter
of Rev. Wm. Cox, a Presbyterian minister of Piqua, Ohio, celebrated for
his eloquence and zeal, and in the fall of ’56 removed to Leavenworth,
Kansas, which he had chosen as the opening point of his professional
career. His partners in the first firm whose sign-board bore his
name, were two gentlemen afterwards to win great distinction in a war
then farther off in the minds of men than in the dread certainties of
fact—General Dan McCook, who afterwards fell at Kenesaw, and William T.
Sherman, whose recent death the world is yet lamenting. The name of the
firm was Sherman, Ewing & McCook.
The success of Mr. Ewing was brilliant from the start. He had not only
the magnetic presence by which friends are made, but the “natural genius
for law” that made him a safe counsellor, a brilliant pleader, and a wary
contestant in the varied fields of litigation. He was soon one of the
recognized leaders of the bar of Kansas, and it was inevitable that he
should soon be called to a commanding place in the field of politics as
well. It was a time and place where no man could be silent, and when the
most sluggish was compelled to become partisan. The young advocate from
Ohio left no one in doubt as to which side he took in the struggle to
make Kansas a free State. He bore an active and conspicuous part in the
struggle on the side of freedom, and was one of the Republican leaders of
the West. He represented Kansas in the Peace Conference, which assembled
in Washington on the call of Virginia in 1860, and at the early age of
twenty-nine was elected the first chief justice of the Supreme Court
of his State—a position he ably held for two years, until the great
rebellion swept him from the bench into the ranks of the Union army.
Some more detailed mention of General Ewing’s part in that great historic
struggle to make Kansas a free State is needed, to fully explain the
public service he rendered in those days of danger. In the fall of
1857, the Pro-Slavery constitutional convention of Kansas, formed the
Lecompton constitution, of which only the slavery cause was submitted
to popular vote. The question thus left to the people was whether they
would accept a fundamental law with slavery, or without. Thus the voter
was compelled to favor the Lecompton constitution if he voted at all—a
constitution hateful to the Free State majority, as it had been framed
by a fraudulently chosen convention, composed largely of residents of
Missouri.
It was also provided in this document, that if the majority voted for
it and rejected slavery, then the slaves already held in Kansas, should
remain such for life.
At the same election, a separate vote was ordered for legislative and
executive officers under the constitution. The hope of the pro slavery
party was that the Free State men, who were in a great majority in the
territory, would refuse to vote at all, because of their indignation at
the tricky manner of the submission, and that therefore, the Democratic
Congress would admit Kansas as a slave State completely officered by pro
slavery men.
“It was an artful trap,” says one historian of those stirring times, “and
the Free State Convention was caught in it by resolving that the party
would wholly refrain from voting at that election. Thereupon Mr. Ewing
bolted the convention, but only eight out of over a hundred delegates
followed him. The bolters nominated a full State ticket and tickets in
every county for all the offices, canvassed the Territory, and in spite
of the bitterest opposition of the radical leaders and press, succeeded
in bringing a large majority of the Free State party to the polls. They
thus completely officered the proposed pro-slavery Government with
tried and true Free State men—publicly pledged, if the State should be
admitted, to immediately call another convention, form a Free State
Constitution, and destroy the Lecompton Constitution and Government, root
and branch. The pro-slavery leaders, finding themselves outnumbered at
the polls, resorted to the most enormous and astounding frauds in the
returns, and then officially proclaimed the election of the pro-slavery
candidates. Thereupon Ewing went to the Territorial Legislature then in
session at Lawrence, a majority of which were Free State men, and got a
commission appointed to investigate and expose the election frauds. He
was a member of the Board and conducted its proceedings with startling
boldness and energy, resulting within a week in the discovery and seizure
of the forged returns, which had been buried in a candle box under a
wood pile at Lecompton on the premises of the United States Surveyor
General, John Calhoun—the exposure of the forgeries—the indictment of the
chief conspirators, Calhoun, McLean and others—their flight from Kansas
never to return—and the abandonment by Buchanan’s administration, and
his party in Congress of the Lecompton Constitution, which fell covered
with execrations and infamy. This closed the long struggle to force
slavery on Kansas, and the new State was thereupon admitted under a Free
Constitution made by her own people.”
To pass from this struggle for freedom to the greater struggle in the
wider field of the war that followed, was but a logical step to the young
advocate who had devoted so much of his time to the cause that had won
his heart. He first appears in that struggle as Colonel of the Eleventh
Regiment of Kansas Volunteer Infantry, recruited and organized by him
in the summer of 1862. He led his command in several severe engagements
in Arkansas—at Cane Hill, Van Buren and Prairie Grove; and for gallant
conduct in the last named battle, which was one of the fiercest of
the war, was promoted to be a Brigadier-General on the 11th of March,
1863. He was soon after assigned to the command of the “District of
the Border,” comprising the State of Kansas and the western portion
of Missouri—a command of extreme administrative difficulty and great
personal danger, which he held from June, 1863, to February, 1864, and
in which he won the emphatic approval of President Lincoln and General
Schofield, the Department Commander. His “Order No. 11,” issued while he
held this command, directing the inhabitants of large portions of three
border counties of southern Missouri to remove to the military posts
or out of the border, was and still is severely criticised. It was the
result of a peculiarly difficult situation, solvable in no other way.
Those counties had become the impregnable base of operations of about a
thousand guerrillas, under Quantrell, the James brothers, and Yeager, who
were incessantly making incursions into southern Kansas, to rob and kill
the defenceless people, and who had just burned Lawrence, and in cold
blood murdered nearly three hundred unarmed and unresisting citizens.
After two years of strenuous effort by other Union commanders, it had
proved to be impossible to protect Kansas people from these dreadful
incursions, and equally impossible to run the guerillas to earth in their
fastness on the Missouri side of the border. These counties had been
desolated early in the war by Jennison, Hoyt and their lawless bands of
Kansas “Red Legs”—burned to the subsoil, nineteen farms out of twenty
having been absolutely abandoned, and the houses and fences destroyed or
left rotting. The condition of this district can be imagined from the
fact that when this “Order No. 11” was issued, Nevada, the county seat
of Vernon County, having at least a hundred houses standing and in good
order, had not a single inhabitant, and the Court House without door or
window-pane, had become a shelter for hogs and cattle running wild,
with its records of titles and court proceedings scattered over the
floors, and covered with filth. There were not at that time a hundred
families left in the entire district affected by the order, outside of
the military posts. They were the friends and kinsfolk of the guerillas,
who were constantly hanging about the garrisoned towns, buying arms,
ammunition and provisions for the guerillas, and carrying news to them
of every movement of our troops. It was impossible to kill the guerillas
or drive them out of the border while these country people stayed there
as their spies and purveyors. Therefore, after full conference with
General Schofield, then commanding the Department of the Missouri, and
now the honored head of the army, General Ewing ordered the few remaining
inhabitants in these desolated districts to remove to the nearest
military post, or back to the second tier of counties from the State
border, and the order was subsequently ratified by President Lincoln.
In a letter published since the war, General Schofield said: “The
responsibility for that order rests with President Lincoln, myself, and
General Ewing, in the proportion of our respective rank and authority.”
About half of the people affected by the order removed to the posts under
the protection of our troops, and the remainder further back in Missouri.
They moved in summer—were subjected to no physical force or hardship,
and were generally glad to get out of reach of the wild storm which was
about to burst on them from Kansas, in revenge for the Lawrence massacre,
and which the Government had not troops enough there to quell. Within two
or three months after the issuance of this order, Quantrell having lost
his spies and purveyors, and finding it impossible therefore to continue
the vendetta, led all his guerillas south, and the border war was thus
forever ended.
General Ewing’s most distinguished service during the war was in fighting
the battle of Pilot Knob on the 27th and 28th of September, 1864. The
Confederate General, Sterling Price, having effected an unlooked for and
unresisted crossing of the Arkansas above Little Rock, with his army of
over twenty thousand men, marched on St. Louis, where General Rosecrans
was in command of the Department of the Missouri, and General Ewing
of the District of Southeast Missouri. All the Federal troops of the
department were scattered in small detachments, with bases in earthworks
or stockades in or near the chief towns of Missouri, which were the
places of refuge of the Union men and neutrals from the savage warfare
of the guerillas. These scattered troops could not be withdrawn from
their posts without enormous sacrifice of the people and property they
were protecting, and it was, moreover, impossible to assemble them at
St. Louis in time and numbers sufficient to defeat Price’s large army,
which was increasing rapidly by accessions of guerillas from all parts
of Southern Missouri. There was but one possible means of preventing the
capture of St. Louis and the vast loss of prestige and resources which
would follow. That was to delay Price a few days until re-enforcements
could arrive from Little Rock, by occupying and holding fast to Fort
Davidson, a small hexagonal work capable of being manned by about one
thousand men, situated ninety miles south of St. Louis, at the village
of Pilot Knob, which was then the southern terminus of the Iron Mountain
Railroad. In this little fort were stored immense amounts of ordnance,
commissary and quartermasters’ supplies, which Price greatly needed, and
which lay directly between him and the great city, by capturing which he
expected to bring Missouri over to the Confederacy. General Rosecrans,
at the urgent request of General Ewing, reluctantly consented that he
should lead this forlorn hope. He reached Pilot Knob in the nick of
time—but four hours ahead of Price’s advance—and with but one thousand
and eighty men he held Fort Davidson against two of the three divisions
of Price’s army—those of Marmaduke and Cabell—numbering about fourteen
thousand men—Shelpy’s division of about seven thousand men having been
sent to Ewing’s rear at Mineral Point, twenty miles north of Pilot Knob,
to cut the railroad and insure the destruction or capture of his entire
command. After repulsing two assaults with great loss to the enemy,
General Ewing, under cover of the night, evacuated and then blew up his
untenable fort, and, favored by broken ground, though pressed on flank
and rear, held his force in hand, and by dogged fighting for two days
and nights, brought them to a fortified camp at Rolla, a hundred miles
west of Pilot Knob. Price was thus delayed for a week, and drawn so far
westward from his march on St. Louis, that reinforcements reached St.
Louis and the great objective of his invasion was lost. He turned west
and south and was soon driven from Missouri without striking an effective
blow. General Rosecrans, in a special order issued October 6, 1864,
said of this brilliant episode: “With pride and pleasure the commanding
General notices the gallant conduct of Brigadier-General Thomas Ewing,
Jr., and his command in the defence of Pilot Knob, and in the subsequent
retreat to Rolla. With scarcely one thousand effective men, they repulsed
the attacks of Price’s invading army, and successfully retreated with
their battery a distance of one hundred miles, in the face of a pursuing
and assailing cavalry force of five times their number. General Ewing
and his subordinates have deserved well of their country. Under such
commanders, the Federal troops should always march to victory.”
At the conclusion of the war, General Ewing once more made his home in
his native State. He was soon prominent in political affairs, giving
his voice and vote to such measures as in his opinion were for the best
interests of his country. He was a member of the Ohio constitutional
convention of 1873-4, where his legal attainments and admirable powers of
debate gave him a foremost place. As a member of the Democratic majority
in the Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth Congresses, he was one of the leaders
of his party in resisting and stopping the employment of Federal troops
and supervisors at elections conducted under State laws, and also in
the successful movement for the preservation of the Greenback currency,
the remonetization of silver, and the issue of silver certificates,
but for which measures of finance the currency would have been greatly
contracted, to the infinite and protracted distress of the industrial and
debtor classes. In 1879, he was the Democratic candidate for governor of
Ohio, and made an able canvass of the State, but the Republican majority
was too large to be overcome.
In 1882, that magnetic attraction that draws so many men to New York
city, made General Ewing a member of the bar of the metropolis, where
the enlarged opportunities of his profession have been met by a mental
equipment and training equal to their most exacting requirements, and
where his success has been of a marked character. To this legal ability
is added a ripe scholarship, unusual grace as a speaker, and a personal
magnetism that charms all with whom he comes in contact. His published
speeches in Congress and on the stump have been numerous, and marked
by their information, ability, liberality of thought and patriotism.
Although his purely literary efforts have been less numerous, because of
the active professional life that has been thrust upon him, the work he
has done in that direction shows how much he might have accomplished,
had his life been given to letters; for example, an address delivered at
the Centennial celebration of the settlement of the Northwest territory
at Marietta, Ohio, July, 16, 1889, and his address before the Kansas
State Bar Association, on January 7, 1890, favoring the abolition of
the requirement of unanimity, of juries in civil cases, and urging the
codification of the “private law”—both of which speeches have attracted
wide attention, and most favorable comment.
While General Ewing has accomplished so much, he is still in his prime,
and is one of the moral forces in his profession in New York city, a
strong, well-balanced and successful man. As has been said, he takes a
deep interest in the affairs of the Society he did so much to create, and
with him, an “Ohio man,” whether known or unknown, is always sure of a
cordial welcome; while he enjoys life in his new home, his love for the
State that gave him birth, and which his honored father so long served,
is as deep as that of a son for a mother whose face he does not see, but
whose memory is forever carried in his heart.
COL. WILLIAM L. STRONG—ONE OF THE FIRST VICE-PRESIDENTS OF THE OHIO
SOCIETY.
In the sketches of the two distinguished Ohioans which accompany this,
the law has been so well represented that one might imagine that the
chief purpose of Ohio in the metropolis was to interpret the law, and
see that equal justice was done between man and man; but from that which
follows, it will be seen that the mission of the Buckeye in New York,
is as varied as his numbers are many, and that in the walks of business
and financial operation, he has won honor for his mother-state, and the
evidences of deserved success for himself. And while engaged in the
cares of business, he has not forgotten to fulfill all the demands of
good citizenship, nor to preserve the memory of the State he has left,
by doing all that lies in his power to perpetuate her memory loyally and
lovingly in the one of his adoption.
Those who have attended the meetings of the Ohio Society with any degree
of regularity, have not failed to notice that the genial presiding
officer, Gen. Swayne, whose genius for his position is universally
recognized is never so well satisfied as when he can so twist or change
the current of business as to bring upon the floor a gentleman who
always talks entertainingly, and whose appearance and speech justify
the efforts of the presiding officer to “draw him out.” Col. William L.
Strong has been so many years in New York, that people generally suppose
him to be of New York origin; he has travelled the world so much, that at
times it is hard to tell from what section he does hail; but when he has
been brought before the Society upon one of the occasions above referred
to, it takes no skill and no endeavor to tell that he was an Ohio man in
the beginning, and that many of the tendrils of his affection still cling
to the State in which his youth was spent, and to which he turns with a
loyal devotion, whenever the occasion renews the scenes of memory, and
the other sons of Ohio about him are recalling with varied emotions the
things of the vanished past.
Mr. Strong came to New York when quite young in years, but equipped with
all the elements needed for business success. He was born in Richland
County, Ohio, on the 22d of March, 1827, and spent his boyhood among the
Loudinville hills. At the age of sixteen he went to Wooster, Ohio, and
spent two years with the firm of Lake & Jones, a large retail dry goods
house, and from thence to Mansfield, Ohio, where he continued in the dry
goods business until he came to this city, arriving here on the 31st of
December, 1853.
When the young Buckeye reached the great city, he came with a purpose
of making the best use of all the possibilities which might present
themselves. He commenced life here as a salesman in the well-known dry
goods house of L. O. Wilson & Co., at that time one of the largest and
most prominent of the wholesale houses of the United States. In the panic
of 1857 the firm suspended, but Mr. Strong continued in its service until
1858, when he went into the dry goods commission business, entering the
firm of Farnham, Dale & Co., which was one of the prominent firms of New
York at that time. In the subsequent changes of affairs, it was succeeded
by Farnham, Sutton & Co., and afterwards by Sutton, Smith & Co. This last
named firm was dissolved and retired from business in December, 1869, and
on January 1, 1870, the firm of W. L. Strong & Co. was organized, and
succeeded to the business.
The advance of Mr. Strong in his chosen line, had been as rapid as his
wonderful success in these later years, has been deserved. He had entered
upon the work with a determination to succeed, and nothing in the line of
hard work or close application was allowed to stand in the way. He had
made the interests of his employers his own; he had studied all the needs
and possibilities of the situation, and had laid a sure foundation for
future success. He had learned the country from one end to the other, and
his business acquaintances were to be found in every quarter. It hardly
needs to be added that when the new firm of which he was the head, opened
its doors for business, it had already a clientage of the most valuable
sort, and that its prominent place among the great dry goods houses of
America, was already assured.
Col. Strong has been a faithful servant of the house from the beginning;
he has done his work as if the whole load fell upon him, and he has
never asked anyone to carry any share that properly belonged to himself.
The house has ever been recognized as one of the solid institutions of
New York. It has made but one removal since its organization, beginning
business on the corner of Church and Leonard streets, and moving several
years later to the spacious double store which it still occupies, in the
center of the dry goods district at Nos. 75 and 77 Worth street.
Some of the qualities that have made his firm what it is to-day, are
suggested in the above. Mr. Strong is a man of decided views, and great
force of character, and at the same time one of the most approachable and
genial men in the business. His good nature and open-handed liberality
are widely felt and known, and no man has a wider circle of personal
and business friends. His abilities as a business man and financier are
of the highest order, and although strongly marked by conservatism and
caution, are nevertheless, sufficiently progressive for even this day of
commercial activity.
But while Col. Strong has given the greater share of his time and care to
the interests of the firm of which he is the head, he has found time to
make his energy and capital effective in various other directions. He was
for years a director of the Central National Bank, and for three years
past has been its president; is president of the Homer Lee Bank Note
Company; was president of the Brush Electric Light Company of New York
for several years; is president of the Griswold Worsted Company, a large
corporation engaged in the manufacture of silk and worsted materials. He
is also a director in the Erie Railroad Company; a director in the New
York Life Insurance Company, Mercantile Trust Company, and Hanover Fire
Insurance Company. He is also vice-president of the New York Security
and Trust Company; is a director in the newly formed Plaza Bank, and has
been closely connected with other important commercial and financial
enterprises not necessary to mention in detail here.
In the lines of political duty, social demands, and especially in
connection with such enterprises as have had some object of public
benefit in view, Col. Strong has ever been an active factor. He is of the
Republican faith, and has long been recognized as one of the Republican
leaders of New York. He has been importuned many times to be a candidate
for public office, but has been too closely interested in his business
to take a hand in the practical manipulation of politics upon his own
account, content to do a citizen’s duty, and to remain in private life.
But he has done that duty whenever occasion offered. He is a member
of the Union League, and president of the Business Men’s Republican
Association, and has done much to make that one of the most efficient and
useful political associations of the country. He has ever taken a deep
interest in the Ohio Society, and is at present its first vice-president,
and has held that office from the date of its organization.
No words can too strongly describe the high repute in which is held the
business house of which Col. Strong is the head. It is among the most
prominent, popular and successful in the trade. It represents some of
the largest mills in this country engaged in the manufacture of dress
goods, flannels, blankets and other woolens and worsteds, also important
accounts in cotton goods. It has branch houses in Boston and Philadelphia
for the supply of the trade in those markets. The firm was organized
January 1, 1870, as above stated, and has continued in uninterrupted and
successful operation ever since. Through all the panics and business
disturbances that have visited this country at various periods since
1870, the house passed in safety with increased business prestige
and financial strength. The able business management of this large
commission house is proverbial in mercantile circles.
All that has been said in the above, in commendation of the house of
which Col. Strong is the visible head, may be truthfully repeated of
himself in his personal relations. His connection with many enterprises
of importance in the business community and his prominent position in the
same, are evidences of the business ability which he possesses and which
his associates have so practically recognized. Modest and unassuming,
his clear and analytical mind grasps the problems of business with such
skill that fortune has smiled upon every enterprise with which he is or
has been associated. His connection with so many financial institutions
as director or president, further attests the confidence of the public in
his integrity and marked ability.
While his business qualifications are of very high order, there are other
traits in the character of Col. Strong that are no less marked. He is
a man of the people, and his sympathies are wholly with the people. No
worthy object to relieve or to make the struggling masses happy, ever
fails to receive from him the substantial sympathy which his broad mind
and liberal heart so freely give. He is an American, in every sense of
the term. Plain and simple in his habits, he frowns upon everything that
seeks to make one man higher than another, except as merit or exceptional
service, have elevated him. He is, as one has well said, “One of the few
men equal to the occasion, wherever placed, and deservedly possesses the
entire confidence of the people.”
HON. GEORGE HOADLY, EX-GOVERNOR OF OHIO.
George Hoadly, who has won at the bar of New York, a position of eminence
equal to that he for years maintained in Ohio, is, in all the essentials
of affection and personal loyalty, yet an “Ohio man,” for he remembers
the home of his youth, the scene of his early labors and professional
advancement, and the State that chose him to the highest position within
her gift. Like General Ewing and Col. Strong, he is already a well-known
figure in the metropolis, and is one of the men by whose labors the Ohio
Society has been made what it is.
If a man is aided by the “sort of grandfathers” he has inherited, Judge
Hoadly had as fair a start as is given anyone. The older lawyers of Ohio
speak with tender remembrance of “Squire Hoadly,” who for years was one
of the imposing figures of the bar of Cleveland, and whose purity of
character was matched only by his legal knowledge, and the justice with
which, in his magisterial character, he arbitrated the affairs of his
fellowmen. He made Cleveland his home in 1830; served one term as Mayor,
and for fifteen years as justice of the peace, then an office of greater
honor and responsibility than in these days of multiplied minor and
municipal courts.
The son, George Hoadly, was born in New Haven, Connecticut, on July 31,
1826, of a mother (Mary Anne Woolsey), who counted Jonathan Edwards among
her direct ancestors, President Dwight her uncle, President Woolsey her
younger brother, Theodore Winthrop, Sarah Woolsey, (“Susan Coolidge,”)
her nephew and niece. Carried to Ohio when but four years of age, his
primary education was received in the private school, conducted by the
late Franklin T. Backus, afterwards the leader of the Cleveland bar, and
Judge William Strong of Oregon. When fourteen years of age he entered
Western Reserve College, at Hudson, Ohio, from which he was graduated in
1844. It had already been impressed upon him by natural bent of mind and
inclination, and by the advice of those who had studied his character
and watched his growth, that the law was his proper profession, and he
accordingly spent a year in study at the famous law school at Cambridge,
Massachusetts, where he was under the instruction of Judge Story and
Prof. Greenleaf. One more year of close study was passed in the office
of Judge Charles C. Convers, at Zanesville, Ohio, and then young Hoadly
went to Cincinnati, and in the fall of 1846 entered the law office of
Chase & Ball, where he completed his studies, and was admitted to the bar
in August of the following year. An incident of more than passing moment
in his personal and professional life grew out of this connection. “Young
Hoadly,” says one of the governor’s biographers, “at once attracted the
attention and secured the warm and lasting friendship of his preceptor,
Salmon P. Chase, afterwards Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of
the United States, who was well aware of the importance of attaching
to himself young men of ability, and, after a period of service as a
clerk, Mr. Hoadly was admitted, in 1849, as a junior partner into the
firm, which took the name of Chase, Ball & Hoadly. Mr. Chase was soon
thereafter elected United States Senator, and withdrew from professional
activity in Cincinnati, and this led to Hoadly’s appearing in important
cases very early in his career.”
Strong and able in his profession, and popular with the people, the
young lawyer’s way to official distinction was soon opened. In 1851, the
State Legislature elected him Judge of the Superior Court of Cincinnati,
for the residue of the term to which that court had been limited by the
constitutional convention. He ably served in this position until 1853,
when the court ceased its functions, and he then formed a co-partnership
with Edward Mills. He was city solicitor of Cincinnati in 1855, and
1856, and became a member of the present Superior Court in 1859. Twice
was he offered a seat upon the Supreme Bench of Ohio, but each time he
declined. In 1856, the proffer came from Governor Chase, and in 1862
from Governor Tod. In 1864 he was re-elected to the bench, but resigned
in 1866, at which time the firm of Hoadly, Jackson & Johnson was formed.
The late Judge Alphonse Taft was his successor upon the bench. The new
combination was soon ranked among the great law firms of the country, and
Judge Hoadly was classed as one of the ablest and soundest of American
jurists. Of this period of his life, an historian of Ohio has said: “They
(the above mentioned law firm), have successfully tried some of the great
railroad cases of the day, and are as noted in these cases in Ohio as
was Samuel J. Tilden in New York ten years ago in litigation of the same
kind. Judge Hoadly has also appeared as counsel in the most important
litigations of other kinds tried in Ohio of late years, having among
others conducted victoriously the cases involving the use of the Bible in
the common schools of Cincinnati, the constitutionality of the Pond and
Scott laws, and in the United States Supreme Court overthrown the Federal
trade-mark system, and compelled the State of Tennessee to redeem the
issues of the Bank of Tennessee.”
A position where his peculiar legal powers were called into play, and
his knowledge of constitutional law and readiness in debate made him
a leader, was his membership in the Ohio constitutional convention of
1873-4, to which he was elected without opposition from Hamilton County.
Yet while engaged in the manifold duties of his profession, he found time
to engage in other fields of usefulness, serving as professor in the
Cincinnati Law School, a chair of which he held for over twenty years; a
trustee of the University of Cincinnati, and of the Cincinnati Museum;
member of the Committee of the School of Design; and was in other ways
the patron of the arts and sciences, and a promoter of their development
in his home city. Among other self-imposed tasks, he made himself
acquainted with the Spanish and German languages, and became as he calls
himself “a poor stenographer.”
While Judge Hoadly had thus far allowed his name to be used only
in connection with official positions directly in the line of his
profession, and while he had little taste and less time for the
practical part of politics, he still held pronounced views upon public
questions, and carefully watched the drift of events. He was from
the first a Democrat—as his father had been before him—a believer in
democratic principles as enunciated by the founders of the party who
were among the greatest of the founders of our government. And being a
Democrat to the logical conclusions of democracy, he took issue with
his party upon the question of human slavery. During the war, he acted
politically with the Union elements; when peace was restored and the
slave freed, he took part in the Liberal Republican movement of 1872,
and was a member of the Cincinnati convention, and of its Committee on
Resolutions, but disapproved of the nomination of Mr. Greeley with whom
he had no political principles in common except hatred of slavery and
belief in hard money. He withdrew from the convention immediately after
the nomination was made, and entered into correspondence with leading
Democrats, endeavoring to bring about the nomination of a Democratic
candidate whom he stood ready to support. Failing in this, he reluctantly
voted for Grant’s second election.
In 1876, Judge Hoadly earnestly entered into the movement known to
contemporary history as “Tilden and Reform,” believing that the interests
of the country would be best subserved by the election of Tilden and
Hendricks. In the memorable legal contest that ensued, before the
electoral commission, the Democratic Committee invited Judge Hoadly to
argue the Oregon and Florida cases before that body, which he did in
such manner as to make national a reputation for legal ability that had
heretofore been largely confined to his own portion of the West. This
probably caused his call to the (temporary) presidency of the Democratic
National Convention of 1880.
One of the immediate but unpremeditated fruits of this political
activity came in 1883, when Judge Hoadly was named by the Democrats
of Ohio as their candidate for governor. He entered upon the canvas
with activity, and his speeches at Hamilton and Piqua, were reported
and eagerly circulated by the Democratic State Committee as campaign
documents. After making some ten speeches, he was unfortunately stricken
with malarial fever, which prevented his continuing upon the stump until
the last week of the campaign. Although not yet entirely recovered, he
was able to appear in Cleveland, Sandusky, Toledo and Dayton, addressing
immense audiences with marked effect. A campaign that had of necessity
lagged because of the absence of its chief, took on a new vigor, the
Democratic heart was fired anew, and George Hoadly became Governor
of the State by the emphatic majority of 12,529 over Judge Foraker,
the Republican nominee. Not only this, but the close counties went
Democratic, a legislature was secured, and Henry B. Payne, the life-long
friend of Governor Hoadly’s father, was sent to represent Ohio in the
United States Senate.
It is a matter of settled historical opinion, that the Buckeye State,
with all its famous governors, was never possessed of a better chief
magistrate than the one whose administration opened under such favoring
influences. A knowledge of the needs of the state, gained from long
acquaintance, a wisdom that could be made effective in practical
affairs, calm judgment, and an eye that could look higher than the levels
of mere partisanship, were among the things that aided him; and “the
greatest good to the greatest number” was the principle that inspired all
his acts.
A renomination was, of course, a foregone conclusion. In 1885, the
Democratic State Convention proclaimed by acclamation that George Hoadly
should again become its candidate for governor. He accepted, although
knowing that Ohio was then practically a Republican State, and that one
man could hardly expect to accomplish the miracle of permanent Democracy.
Judge Foraker was once more the Republican choice, and in the fall
election was chosen by a vote of 359,281 to 341,830 for Hoadly; the Rev.
A. B. Leonard, the Prohibition candidate receiving 28,081, and John W.
Northrup, the Greenback candidate 2,001 votes. Although the defeat was
decisive, it was sweetened to Governor Hoadly by the fact that in 1885,
as in 1883, he ran ahead of his ticket, being defeated by the smallest,
and, in 1883 elected by the largest plurality given against or for any of
the gentlemen upon the same ticket.
When Governor Hoadly saw his successor duly inaugurated, he cheerfully
returned to the active labors of his profession, in Cincinnati, where
he remained until March, 1887, when the call to the chief city of the
Union came in such shape that it could not be ignored. His practice
had extended into such fields that the removal was almost a necessity,
and his health demanded a change of climate. He located in New York,
and became a partner in the firm of Hoadly, Lauterbach & Johnson—a firm
that stands in the front rank, and that has an immense clientage, not
only in New York, but all through the country. His chief thought and
ambition since then has been in his profession. In the spring of 1890,
Governor David B. Hill appointed him a member of the commission to revise
the judiciary article of the constitution of New York, but because of
professional engagements which detained him in the trial of a case in
Detroit, Michigan, during the entire spring and summer months of that
year, he was compelled to decline the appointment.
In recent years, Judge Hoadly has been honored by the degree of Doctor of
Laws, conferred by Yale College in 1885, by Dartmouth College in 1889,
while his own college, once Hudson but now Adelbert, gave him the same
title some years ago. He is a Free Mason, a Knight Templar, and has taken
the 33rd degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish rite, and has always
performed anything in his power to advance the interests of the order.
Of Judge Hoadly’s professional life in New York, much might be said, were
this the place to say it. Outside of that, little can be said, for he has
had time for little else. As “an Ohio man” he is always at home to any
Buckeye neighbor, or impression, or memory that connect him with the days
and scenes of his youth and early manhood. He may be seen occasionally
in the gatherings of the Ohio Society, and when there, he is not allowed
to remain in his seat unheard. Few men are as approachable in any walk
of life; few men more companionable when he can command leisure for
companionship. His friendships are strong, his decisions intuitive, his
principles those of his honored ancestors, and Jonathan Edwards’ severe
theology has had little reflection in his generous religious views.
A single phrase might sum up his whole life and character: A typical
American jurist and gentlemen.
JAMES HARRISON KENNEDY.
FOOTNOTES
[10] “The founding of Ohio,” an address of Senator George F. Hoar, at
Marietta, Ohio, April 7, 1888.
DE SOTO’S CAMPS IN THE CHICKASAW COUNTRY IN 1540-1.
North Americans will probably always take a special interest in the
adventures of the army of the Spanish commander De Soto, apart from the
general charm of the subject, for it is to the chronicles of the same
that they are indebted for the very earliest accounts of the Indian
nations, who, in the sixteenth century inhabited the territory now
comprising the southeastern quarter of the United States.
The route pursued by the expedition during the years 1539 to 1543 has
long been the subject of much discussion, but no satisfactory conclusions
have been arrived at concerning the matter as a whole. Indeed there can
scarcely be said to be a single point on the entire line of march which
has been established beyond cavil. It is not now my intention to add
to the mass of general comment, but merely to treat of a certain point
of the route which personal enquiry and exploration in the field have
enabled me to make up my mind about in all surety.
This point is the location of the particular village of the Chickasaws in
northeastern Mississippi, where De Soto went into camp on December 17,
1540, and of the smaller village to the northward whither he retreated
about the first week in the ensuing March, after the fierce night attack
of the natives which almost ruined the Spaniards.
Before proceeding to give my own conclusions as to the true position
of these villages, it is but proper to furnish an abstract of the
descriptions given by the old writers, together with the opinions of the
modern historians of Mississippi and of other people now inhabiting the
northeastern counties of the State. The various authorities (excepting
the popular views) will be quoted in the order in which they have
appeared in printed form before the world.
The anonymous “Gentleman of Elvas” one of the Portuguese volunteers, an
eye-witness, comes first. His work, the “True Relation” etc., appeared in
1557. He says that Chicaza was a small town of twenty houses, and that
the land was thickly inhabited, and that it was fertile, the greater
part being under cultivation. Also that the Spaniards removed from that
town where they wintered to the one where the cacique was accustomed to
live, half a league off, because it was in the open country, on a prairie
favorable for them.
The second authority is Garcilaso de la Vega, “the Inca,” who, however,
was only a compiler, writing in 1591, from information given by three
separate members of the little army. His book, “La Florida del Ynca”
etc., first appeared in 1605. It furnishes a more elaborate account of
the Chicaza transactions than the proceeding one, and to the following
effect. The place had two hundred fires and was situated on a hill
extending north and south, which was watered by many little brooks
covered with nut, oak, and other similar trees. In order to lodge more
commodiously they built themselves houses with wood and straw that they
procured from the neighboring villages. Three days after the fight
referred to, the General ordered the force to advance a league, search
for wood and straw, and build a town to be named Chicacilla.
Factor Biedma’s account of the expedition, first published (in French)
in 1841, is a very brief one. In the Chicaza affair, Buckingham Smith
(1866) renders his words as stating that the army moved to “a cottage
about a mile off.”
Nor does the abridged journal of Rodrigo Ranjel, De Soto’s private
secretary, which was not printed till 1851, afford any information as to
the first town. But he relates how the Spaniards, after their defeat, at
once went to a savana or prairie a league off, where they erected huts
and barracks, and established camp on a declivity and hill.
As may be easily supposed the next Europeans to visit that region, the
English and French traders and soldiers of the eighteenth century, had
more urgent matters to attend to than the verification of historical
statements, for no mention of De Soto or the expedition is made in their
scanty writings or reports on this region, and apparently the Chickasaws
had forgotten all about his invasion. The American settlers of nearly a
century later were still less likely to know about the matter, for the
De Soto expedition can scarcely be said to have become known to people
in general in the United States till after the publication of Theodore
Irving’s interesting book in 1835.
Searching next in all accessible modern histories and books, the first
attempt at definite localizing that I can find is in the appendix to the
Smithsonian Report for 1867. The Rev. Samuel Agnew, writing from Guntown,
Mississippi, under date of January 11, 1868, states that twelve years
before, there had been pointed out to him on a long ridge between John’s
Creek and Friendship Church, in Pontotoc County, the remains of ancient
ditches or embankments. These he surmised might probably be the remains
of De Soto’s winter camp, but he hoped that some intelligent antiquarian
would look further into the matter.
The most comprehensive attempt however, to identify these camps, was made
by Hon. J. F. H. Claiborne, in his “Mississippi as a Province” etc.,
published in 1880. In this book he wrote that:—
“There (the old Indian trail) struck Pontotoc ridge, four miles east of
the ancient Chickasaw Council House. Near this point stood the first
Chickasaw town, and in this vicinity the Spaniards went into winter
quarters.
“At that period a portion of the Chickasaws still resided in the mountain
region of east Tennessee, but a large body of them had taken possession
of the territory where De Soto found them, and their principal settlement
or town, or series of villages, was on the ridge from the ancient
Council House (near Redland) north fifteen miles (near Pontotoc) and
northeast, on the ‘mean prairie’ eight or ten miles, within a few miles
of Tallahatchie River....
“Four miles east of the ancient Council House, on the Pontotoc ridge,
near the source of the Suckartonchee Creek, are the vestiges of a
fortified camp, evidently once strongly entrenched, after the European
style of that day, with bastions and towers. Leaden balls and fragments
of metal have been often found in these ruins. The enclosure was square,
and the whole area, as evidenced by the remains, would have afforded
shelter to the Spaniards and their live stock.... The chief of the
Chickasaws resided about two miles southeast of the present town of
Pontotoc, on the head-waters of Coonawa, now called Pontotoc Creek....
The exact position of this entrenched camp is still indicated by the
vestiges that remain. Some persons contend that De Soto left this
stronghold, advanced to Chickasilla, one mile northwest from where
Pontotoc now stands, and commenced the attack on the Chickasaw towns.
This would be to reverse the detailed accounts of the writers that
accompanied him.... After the destruction of their camp, the Spaniards
moved three miles to the village of Chickasilla, where they were annoyed
by desultory attacks.”
In forming his opinions on the matter, Claiborne acknowledged his
indebtedness to W. J. N. Walton of Aberdeen, Mississippi, a gentleman
who “in early life was secretary of Levi Colbert, head chief of the
Chickasaws, familiar with their language and with all their traditions,”
and to W. B. Wilkes of the same place, a man whose tastes inclined him to
archaeological pursuits. It is with diffidence therefore, that I venture
to disagree with these conclusions, in my own statement.
As to the ideas of the farmers and others living in the old Chickasaw
County, there is no uniformity of opinion as to the site of Soto’s
camps. There are many local candidates for that honor, and so far as I
could find out, there is no good reason to adopt one more than another.
The place pointed out to Mr. Agnew is probably the site of Mound
Builder’s work, of which class of remains there is no lack in northern
Mississippi.[11] The same may be said of the position assigned to Chicaza
by Claiborne, though the locality he means is rather to the southeast of
Redland and in Chickasaw County.
The Chicaza of Soto’s time was on a high ridge or hill located about one
mile northwest of Redland, on the S½ of the S¼ of Section 21, and the N½
of the N W½ of Section 28, town 11, range 3E. in Pontotoc county. The
hill extends north and south, and on both sides there are many little
spring branches flowing out of the base of the hill and uniting with
the larger streams at a distance of from one to four or five rods. The
main part of the town was located on Section 28. A part of it is under
cultivation and has farm buildings upon it, while the remainder of the
site is covered by young timber and brush.
Many years ago there was an Indian mission school that is said to have
been located where the farm building now stands. In the new ground
broken up within recent years, there were beds of charcoal and ashes
found at different points, and even in the old portion of the cultivated
land charcoal is occasionally brought to the surface by the plough.
These are undoubtedly remains of old Chicaza, and the beds of charcoal
and ashes mark the sites of the houses burned by the Indians. As
regards the location, there is no other place in either Lee or Pontotoc
counties—where the oldest Chickasaw settlements were undoubtedly
situated—that corresponds to the topographical description given by the
Inca.
Chicacilla was probably located on the S E¼ of Section 5, town 11,
range 3 E., about 3½ miles north and a very little west of Chicaza. At
this point there is debris, etc., indicating that there was once an old
Chickasaw village there. The narratives of the expedition, however, do
not give sufficient data regarding this site, so that it is impossible
to fully identify the place by them, there being nothing beyond the
statement already quoted that it was located on a sloping hill, a league
distant from Chicaza. This being the only ancient Chickasaw village site
properly lying on sloping ground, and at about the right distance from
the burned town; it is more than probable that the position given above
is the correct one. It is presumable that after the place was abandoned
by the Spaniards, the Indians took possession of it, and occupied
the houses in lieu of those destroyed by both parties. Besides this,
it supplied them with a well fortified (palisaded) town in which to
re-establish themselves.
At these two towns of Chicaza and Chicacilla, there are no vestiges of
fortifications or entrenchments of any description, in fact there are
none to be found in any of the Chickasaw old towns (or “fields”) that
can be identified. It is probable that the fortified towns described in
the De Soto and the early French expeditions were merely wooden walls or
palisades, for otherwise there would be traces of them still remaining,
so that at least some of them could be recognized as such.
The above conclusions were incidentally arrived at in the course of some
archaeological explorations made in January and February 1891, in the
former country of the Chickasaws, and may be considered as a contribution
to some future revision of the generally accepted route of De Soto and
his little army east of the Mississippi.
T. H. LEWIS.
FOOTNOTES
[11] Continuous wet weather and the resulting flooded state of the
country prevented the writer from visiting the Agnew locality, which he
had intended to examine like the others.
CHICAGO PIONEERS.
HON. ISAAC N. ARNOLD.
Isaac Newton Arnold was born at Hartwick, near Cooperstown, Otsego Co.,
New York, Nov. 30, 1813. His father George Washington Arnold was a
physician of honorable standing, and the family in America dates back
to the earliest settlement of New England, some of its members being
associates of Roger Williams and other sterling men, who established
in Rhode Island the first real Republic that ever gladdened the hearts
of men with its assertion and protection of liberty and independent,
sovereign manhood. The natural surroundings of his youth—the romantic
scenery of Otsego County, with its beautiful lakes and extensive forests,
so delightfully picturesque—were well calculated to develop a strong and
noble manhood. Amidst this beauty of nature and comparative solitude,
the man who was to make such a success of life drank in inspiration
and learned to love the pure and the beautiful. Early thrown upon his
own resources, self-made and self-reliant, he reached a position of
greatness, through a career of usefulness, honor and integrity. His early
education was obtained in the country schools and the village academy.
From seventeen to twenty years of age he employed his time in teaching
half the year and in attending school the other half, his revenue from
teaching enabling him to support himself in his pursuit of an education.
Ultimately he began to prepare himself for the profession in which he
afterwards achieved such a notable success. Reading law in the offices
of Richard Cooper and Judge Morehouse of Cooperstown, Mr. Arnold was
admitted to the bar in 1835, and after practicing for a brief time as
a partner of Judge Morehouse, he came to Chicago in 1836, and at once
began that illustrious professional career which placed him among the
foremost jurists not only of Illinois, but of the nation. It is scarcely
possible to have a more graphic and faithful picture of a life than
was drawn by Hon. E. B. Washburne in his eloquent eulogy of Mr. Arnold
before the Chicago Historical Society. He said: “During all the active
years of a long and well-spent life, Mr. Arnold has been a citizen of
Chicago, contributing by his indefatigable industry, his unimpeachable
integrity, his patriotism, his public spirit, his rare abilities,
his great acquirements, his spotless moral character, his high social
qualifications and instincts as a thorough gentleman to give lustre to
the city of his residence and to the generation to which he belonged;
a successful lawyer that stood in the front ranks of his profession; a
cautious, far-seeing and wise legislator, distinguishing himself in the
halls of legislation, national as well as state; a successful public
speaker and a writer of great power and wide-spread popularity, he has
left to the generations that succeed him the legacy of a noble example
and a noble name.”
Mr. Arnold was enrolled at the bar of the Supreme Court in Illinois
Dec. 9, 1841, and in that same year he became counsel in a case which
established his ability as a lawyer and brought him prominently before
the profession. It was a time of great business depression, and a
recreant legislature had passed an act of repudiation of public debts
and providing that unless the property of a judgment debtor should bring
two-thirds of its appraised value, it should not be sold under execution.
Mr. Arnold was a determined opponent, of such legislation, and being
employed by a New York judgment creditor to enforce his claim against a
debtor, he attacked the constitutionality of the act, carried the case
to the Supreme Court of the United States, where the case came on in
January, 1843. Mr. Arnold presented an irrefutable written argument and
Chief Justice Taney in one of the ablest and most elaborate opinions
ever delivered in the court, sustained the position of the counsel for
the appellant. Mr. Arnold was a powerful advocate whether before court
or jury. He was exceedingly pains-taking in the preparation of his
cases—which is half the battle with the lawyer—and before a jury he had
no superior. As one of his associates at the bar has put it: “He was a
learned lawyer, a jurist in the same sense of the term, and for more than
thirty years stood at the head of the Chicago bar.”
In 1842 he was elected to the Lower House of the Illinois General
Assembly. There were in that body at this time many men of distinction
and marked ability, but none that were superior to the subject of this
sketch. In 1844 Mr. Arnold was again elected to the House. At the close
of this session of the legislature in 1846, Mr. Arnold retired from
public life, and did not re-enter it until 1856. In politics he had been
a Democrat, and in 1844 was a presidential elector on the Polk ticket.
But becoming indignant at the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, he
became what was known as an anti-Nebraska Democrat and in 1856, at the
urgent solicitation of the anti-Nebraska Democrats and Republicans of
Cook County, he again consented to become a candidate for the House of
Representatives in the State Legislature. This was at the time that
Bissel was elected Governor and his right to take the seat was challenged
by the Democrats on the ground that he once accepted a challenge to
fight a duel. Mr. Arnold championed the Governor’s cause, and his speech
in his defense not only really settled the question, but gave him a high
reputation over the whole State, marking him as one of the ablest public
men of the time.
In the historical election at which Abraham Lincoln was first elected
President of the United States, Mr. Arnold was elected a representative
in the Thirty-seventh Congress from the Chicago district. That Congress
met in extra session, July 4, 1861, and has passed into history as one
of the most notable and momentous events in the life of the Republic.
The Administration at the time was confronted by an open rebellion
against the National authority, and it was for this session of Congress
to determine just what should be done in the premises. Mr. Arnold had
long known Mr. Lincoln, and between the two men there was a warm feeling
of regard, and perhaps no man took his seat in this memorable session
upon whom the President placed greater reliance than he did upon Mr.
Arnold. The respect that was generally entertained for his abilities was
evidenced by the fact that he was selected to pronounce the eulogy on
the occasion of the death of Stephen A. Douglass. The regular session
of the Thirty-seventh Congress met on the second day of December,
1861, at a time when the country was fully plunged into the midst of
civil war. Mr. Arnold took his seat in the House, and at once entered
actively into all the important proceedings of the body. His labors as
a representative were very great and of the highest usefulness. Among
his official acts that will live forever as a memento to his manhood
and his statesmanship was his vote to abolish slavery in the District
of Columbia and his introduction of a bill, which against a determined
opposition he persistently pushed to enactment, to prohibit slavery in
every place subject to the National jurisdiction. One who knew him well,
expressed the opinion however, that the ablest and most notable speech
which he made in Congress, was the one delivered May 2, 1862, in the
support of the bill to confiscate rebel property. This speech, because of
its value as an exponent of constitutional law, challenged the attention
of the lawyer members. He was ceaseless in administering blows against
the institution of slavery. He acted in this regard steadily upon his
own declaration: “Whenever we can give slavery a constitutional blow,
let us do it.” On February 15, 1863, he introduced a resolution, which
was passed, declaring that the constitution should be so amended as to
abolish slavery in the United States; and this was the first step ever
taken in Congress in favor of the abolition and prevention of slavery in
the country.
In his speech advocating this resolution, he uttered the following
vigorous language and eloquent sentiment: “In view of the long catalogue
of wrongs that slavery has inflicted upon the country, I demand to-day
in the Congress of the United States the death of slavery. We can have
no permanent peace while slavery lives. It now reels and staggers in the
last death struggle. Let us strike the monster this last decisive blow.
Pass this joint resolution and the Thirty-eighth Congress will live in
history as that which consummated the great work of freeing a continent
from the curse of human bondage. The great spectacle of this vote which
knocks off the fetters of a whole race will make this scene immortal.”
Further on he said: “I mean to fight this cause of the war—this cause
of the expenditure of all the blood and treasure from which my country
is now suffering; this institution which has filled our whole land with
sorrow, desolation and anguish—I mean to fight it until neither on
the statute-book nor in the constitution shall there be left a single
sentence or word which can be construed to sustain the stupendous wrong.
Let us now in the name of Liberty, Justice and of God consummate this
grand resolution. Let us now make our country the home of the free.”
Mr. Arnold’s congressional career ended with the Thirty-eighth Congress
March 3, 1865. He had served his country so well, had given the
Administration such loyal, able and efficient support and won such a
splendid fame that it was generally regretted that he would not consent
to be returned. After President Lincoln’s assassination, he accepted the
appointment from President Johnson of Auditor of the Treasury for the
Port Office department, as a residence in Washington afforded him a more
ready access to documents that were necessary to enable him to complete
his work entitled the “History of Abraham Lincoln and the Overthrow of
Slavery in the United States,” the preparation of which he had commenced
before the assassination. He finally resigned the position however, and
returned to Chicago in 1867. He then completed his work referred to,
which is one of surprising interest and of exceptional historic value.
In 1872, he resumed his bar practice in Chicago and continued actively
in his profession for two or three years, when failing health compelled
him to abandon it. From that time until his death, he lived a retired
life in his pleasant home among his books and papers, where surrounded
by his family and congenial friends he dispensed an elegant and gracious
hospitality. He now had leisure to devote himself to favorite literary
pursuits. He devoted himself to historic themes as he had a love for
historical research, and a power of analysis which enabled him to do
valuable work in historical and biographical writing. In 1880, he
brought out a work entitled “Life of Benedict Arnold—His Patriotism and
His Treason.” It is generally acknowledged to be a work of ability and
fairness. Certainly it showed the independence and courage of the author
for it required something of courage to meet the popular prejudice with
which the name of Benedict Arnold is regarded. But the author said that
he wished to “make known the patriotic service of Benedict Arnold; the
sufferings, heroism and the wrongs which drove him to a desperate action
and induced one of the most heroic men of an heroic age to perpetrate an
unpardonable crime.” The book is really one of great historic value. Mr.
Arnold was never quite satisfied with his work on Mr. Lincoln and the
overthrow of slavery. About two years before his death, therefore, he
began to write the “Life of Abraham Lincoln,” and it is upon this work,
says one of his ardent admirers, that his reputation as a biographer and
historian must rest.
He was the author of a great number of sketches. “To whatever he
undertook,” says one, “Mr. Arnold brought the qualities of a ripe
intelligence, great vigor and a sound judgment.” At an age when most
men rest, he was pursuing to its legitimate honors and rewards the
career of a man of letters and of a historian. With an intellectual
and finely chiseled face, of an erect and well-formed person, of quiet
and gentlemanly manners and courteous carriage and bearing, Mr. Arnold
was a man who always attracted attention. He was a communicant of the
Protestant Episcopal Church, and for many years a vestryman of St.
James’ Church in Chicago. The successes of life and the usual hardening
influences of public life had no effect upon his manly Christian
character. The better side of his nature was at all times in the
ascendancy. His earnest, paramount desire was to be useful in the world,
and he freely understood that to gratify that desire man must be alive
to the claims of his fellow man upon him. On his seventieth birthday he
wrote: “Three score and ten; Death must be at no great distance. I wish
to live only so long as I may be to some extent useful, and not when I
shall be a burden. May my remaining days be useful and innocent.” He
was possessed of many noble traits of character, not likely to be known
outside of his immediate circle of friends. He was a great lover of
children, and devotedly tender in his own home.
Mr. Arnold was twice married. His first marriage was with Catherine E.
Dorrance of Pittsfield, Mass., who died October 1839. His second marriage
was with Harriet Augusta Dorrance, a sister of his former wife, August
4, 1841. Nine children were born of this marriage. Mr. Arnold died at
his residence in Chicago, April 24, 1884, mourned by the great city in
which he lived and a multitude of others who appreciate the worth of true
manhood. No citizen of Chicago ever had more numerous or more eloquent
eulogies pronounced upon his death; the memory of no citizen was ever
honored by such a gathering of distinguished people as assembled to pay
the last sad tribute to Mr. Arnold’s memory.
HOWARD LOUIS CONARD.
SOME ANCIENT METHODS OF PUNISHMENT IN MASSACHUSETTS.
Scarcely anything indicates so accurately the predominant traits and
condition of a people at any given period, as do the laws by which they
are governed and the mode in which those laws are administered. Hence,
in studying the early history of Massachusetts much important aid may
be derived from the records of the courts and magistrates of that time.
These give us a tolerable correct idea of the laws then in force which
were designed to regulate the conduct of men in the various relations of
life and show what was the practical administration of those laws. This
is quite as true (perhaps more so), of the laws concerning what may be
termed minor offences or breaches of social duty, for which men were held
legally accountable, as it is of the graver crimes.
Some of the laws relating to this class of minor offences have undergone
changes within the last two hundred years, particularly since our
separation from the Mother Country.
These changes have been not so much in regard to the nature and
description of the offence itself, as in regard to the penalty. They
have in Massachusetts at the present time, and have had ever since the
American Revolution, laws against drunkenness, vagrancy, petty larceny,
libel and slander, profane cursing and swearing, Sabbath breaking,
unlawful games or plays, lewdness, common railing and brawling, and
idle and disorderly conduct generally. Our Colonial ancestors had laws
substantially like those in force so far as relates to the offences
themselves.
In fact, the present statutes on these subjects are many of them copies
of the provincial statutes. But the penalties are quite different. They
now punish breaching of these laws by a small fine or by imprisonment for
a short term, or by both. For similar breaches of the statute and common
law in the early history of Massachusetts some very different penalties
were provided. These were actually enforced in frequent instances, which
is hardly true of similar cases at the present day.
The Magistrates and Courts that administered the laws in Massachusetts
during the first century and a half after its settlement were full
believers in the propriety and efficacy of corporal punishment for a
certain class of transgressions. Having based their criminal code largely
upon that of Moses, they were well persuaded that, if in no case they
exceeded the Hebrew limit of forty stripes, they would have the Divine
sanction. With this illustrious precedent constantly in view as a rule
of action, they did not hesitate to apply the rod whenever it seemed
to them appropriate and adequate penalty for the offence. Crimes of a
graver character were dealt with by tribunals of larger jurisdiction and
punished by imprisonment or death. But for a large class of misdemeanors,
particularly such as were considered scandalous or tending to disorder
and of evil example, the rod was a very frequent instrument of punishment.
It was a matter within the discretion of the Magistrate to some extent.
This office was held by William Pynehon, of Springfield, Mass., for the
first eleven years, afterwards for half a century by John Pynehon and
his associates. In awarding this punishment of whipping little regard
seems to have been paid by the court to the sex or social position of
the offender. If the infliction of the penalty tended to disgrace the
culprit, the commission of the offence was in itself disgraceful. The
degrading punishment was regarded the just and proper sequence of the
disgraceful crime.
The constable was the officer by whom the sentence was executed, and the
public whipping post was the place. The time was sometimes the day on
which the court was held. Occasionally, the day of the weekly religious
lecture was designated as the time for the infliction.
Sometimes whipping was an alternative sentence to be inflicted if the
offender failed to pay his fine. Often it was the only punishment awarded.
Some instances will be given, taken from the records—most of them are
from the Pynehon record, containing cases tried by William Pynehon as a
Magistrate, and cases tried by his son, John Pynehon, in connection with
Eleziar Holyoke and Dr. Samuel Chapin who were commissioners appointed by
the General Court.
FALSE REPORTS, SLANDERS, ETC.
In May, 1645, the General Court enacted a law designed to suppress the
invention and circulation of false reports, whether injurious to private
individuals or to the public in general.
The preamble was in these words:
“WHEREAS, Truth in words, as well as actions, is required of all men,
especially of Christians who are the professed servants of the God of
truth; and
“WHEREAS, All lying is contrary to truth, and some sort of lies are
not only sinful (as all lies are), but also pernicious to the public
weal and injurious to particular persons. It is therefore ordered that
every person who shall wittingly and willingly make or publish any lie
pernicious to the public weal or tending to the damage or injury of any
particular person, or with intent to deceive and abuse the people with
false news and reports shall be punished.
For the 1st offence a fine of 10 shillings, &c.
For the 2d offence a fine of 20 shillings or be whipped upon the naked
body not exceeding 10 stripes.
For the 3rd offence a fine of 4 shillings or 15 stripes, &c., &c.”
The following is a case for slander in imputing to a woman the offence
witchcraft.
“May 29 and 30, 1649—The widdow Marshfield, complains against Mary, the
wife of Hugh Parsons, of Springfield, for reporting her to be suspected
for a witch, and she produced Jo Matthews and his wife for her witnesses
who were examined upon oath. Jo Matthews said that Mary Parsons told
him how she was taught to try a witch by a widdow woman that now lives
in Springfield, and that she had lived in Windsor, and that she had
three children, and that one of them was married, and at last she said
it was the widdow Marshfield. Jo Matthews answered that he believed no
such thing of her—but, thereupon, said he, Mary Parsons replied, you
need not speak so much for goody Marshfield, for I am sure (said she),
she hath envied every woman’s child in ye end (?) till her own daughter
had a child, and then said she yt child died and ye cow died, and I am
persuaded said she, they were bewitched, and she said moreover, it was
reported to her by one in town that she was suspected to be a witch when
she lived in Windsor, and that it was publicly knowne that the devill
followed her house in Windsor, and for aught I know said she follows her
here.
Goody Matthews saith upon oath that when Goody Parsons came to her house
she said to her, I wonder what is become of the half pound of wool.
Goody Parsons said that she could not tell except the witch had witched
it away. I wonder, said I, that you talk so much of a witch—do you
think there is any witch in towne? Yes, said she, and she came into my
house while the wool was cardinge. Who is it, said I? She said that An
Stebbinge had told her in Mr. Smith’s chamber that she was suspected to
be a witch in Windsor, and that there were divers strange lights seen of
late in the Meddow that were never seen before ye widdow Marshfield came
to town, and that she did grudge at other women that had children because
her daughter had none, and about the time (namely of the grudging) ye
child died and ye cow died.
Goody Parsons did stiffly deny the truth of their testimonys, but the
said witness had delivered their testimony upon oath, and finding that
she had defamed ye good name of the Widdow Marshfield I sentenced her
to be well whipped on the morrow after lecture with twenty lashes by
the constable unless she could promise the payment of 3L to ye Widdow
Marshfield for and towards the reparation of her good name.”
MARRIAGE—PLYMOUTH COLONY LAWS.—1638.
“Whereas divers persons unfit for marriage both in regard of their young
years and also in regard of their weake estate, some practising the
enveagling of men’s daughters and maids under guardines contrary to their
parents and guardians likeing, and of maid servants without leave and
liking of their masters.
“It is therefore enacted by the Court that if any shall make any motion
of marriage to any man’s daughter or mayde servant not having first
obtayned leave and consent of the parents or master so to doe, shall
be punished either by fine or corporal punishment or both, at the
discretion of the bench and according to the nature of the offence. It
is also enacted that if a motion of marriage be duly made to the master,
and through any sinister end or coveteous desire he will not consent
thereunto, then the cause to be made known unto the Magistrates and they
to set down such order therein as upon examination of the case shall
appear to be most equal on both parts.”
COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE—PROVINCE LAWS.
“May 1647. Whereas God hath committed the care and power into the hands
of parents for the disposing of their children in marriage, so that it is
against rule to seek to draw away the affection of young maidens under
pretence of purpose of marriage, before their parents have given way and
allowance in that respect; and whereas it is a common practice in divers
places for young men irregularly and disorderly to watch all advantages
for their evil purposes to insinuate into the affections of young
maidens, by coming to them in places and seasons unknown to their parents
for such ends, whereby much evil hath grown amongst us to the dishonor of
God and damage of parties; for prevention whereof for time to come:
It is further ordered that whatsoever person from henceforth shall
endeavour, directly or indirectly, to draw away the affection of any maid
in this jurisdiction, under pretence of marriage, before he hath obtained
liberty and allowance from her parents or governors, or in the absence
of such, of the nearest magistrate, he shall forfeit for the first
offence five pounds, for the second towards the party ten pounds, and be
bound to forbear any further attempt and proceedings in that unlawful
design without or against the allowance aforesaid; and for the third
offence upon information or complaint by such parents or governors to any
Magistrate, giving bond to prosecute the party, he shall be committed
to prison; and upon hearing and conviction by the next court, shall be
adjudged to continue in prison until the court of assistants shall see
fit to release him.”
In 1641, before this statute was enacted, a case occurred which Mr.
Pynehon records, in which he sentenced parties for the misconduct
forbidden by this statute. This must have been under his general
authority to examine misdemeanors and inflict corporal punishment.
“January 11, 1640, it is ordered that John Hobell shall be well whipt
by the constable for two misdemeanors, first for proceeding to get
promises of marriage from Abigail Burt, after that both he and she had
been prohibited by her father several times (and also for offering and
attempting to doe the act of fornication with her as they both confesse,
though as far as we can discerne by any proof of justice the act was not
done).
Also Abigail Burt is found guilty in both the said faults, and is also to
be well whipt by the constable for the said faults.”
COMMON RAILERS AND BRAWLERS were punishable by the old provincial laws as
they are by our present laws, but in a different way. A curious case is
recorded by Mr. Holyoke as having come before the courts at the time John
Pynehon, Samuel Chapin and Eliziar Holyoke were the Magistrates.
“March 13, 1655—Obadiah Miller complaynes against Joane, his wife, for
abusing him with reproachfull tearmes or names as calling him foole,
toad, vermine and threateninge him; as also for yt yesterday shee fell
upon him endeavoring to beat him, at which tyme shee scratched his face
and hands. The case being examined it was found that Joane, the wife of
Obadiah Miller was guilty of very evil behavior towards her said husband;
it being proved by the testimony of John Lamb and Tho. Miller.
John Lamb testifyed he heard her say shee would knock him on the head,
and yt shee did often call him foole and other reproachful tearmes.
Thomas Miller testifyed yt wn his brother Obediah, his wife lived with
him she did comonly call him foole and vermine; and he doth not remember
he ever heard her call him husband, and that shee said shee did not love
him but hated him; yea shee here said shee did not love him and shee
should not love him.
For which, her vile misbehaviour towards her husband, she was adjudged
to be taken forth to ye whipping post, there to receive soe many stripes
on ye naked body as ye commissioners should see cause to inflict on
her; whereuppon shee was brought forth, but by her humileation and
earnest protestations for better carriage towards her said husband,
the punishment was remitted and this sentence passed yt for the least
miscarriage to her husband after this tyme, shee should be brought forth
agayne to receive a good whipping on the naked body well laid on.”
HUSBAND OR WIFE STRIKING.
Colony Laws, Chap. 66.
October 1650. “It is ordered by the Court and authority thereof, that
no man shall strike his wife, nor any woman her husband, on penalty of
such fine not exceeding ten pounds for one offence, or such corporall
punishment as the County Court shall determine.”
The Colony laws regarding the OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH were quite
numerous and strictly enforced by various penalties.
At a court before the Commissioners John Pynehon, Eliziar Holyoke and
Samuel Chapin. May 8th, 1654.
“Daniel, a Scotchman servant to Thomas Merick being found to profhane
the Sabbath in idle walkinge about, and not cominge to ye ordinances
of ye Lord, yea though he had warninge to ye contrary; and being also
complayned of by his said master for his grevious idleness in neglecting
his busyness for severall dayes, yea synce he was called before authority
for the like misbehaviour formerly at wh tyme he promised amendment;
but he grew worse and worse and therefore was adjudged to be whipped
on ye bare back wth five lashes well laid on, and execution was done
accordingly.”
Another case in which four young men were charged with violation of the
Sabbath was attended with this peculiarity—that two of the culprits were
sons of Holyoke, one of the two Magistrates before whom the trial was had.
This trial was in 1664, and was thus recorded in the handwriting of
Holyoke.
“Thomas Noble, Constable, presenting Thomas Thomson and John Horton for
that last Sabb., was fortnight, June ye 7, they made a fray in ye street
in ye evening about ½ an hour after sunsett. Samuel & Elizar Holyoke
being accessory in ye said fray.
The Commissioners uppon examination of ye case doe fynd that the said
foure persons did profane the Lord’s day, and therefor doe determine
that they all shall be admonished thereof & that Thomas Thomson, John
Horton, and Samuel Holyoke shall pay a fyne of five shillings apeece to
the County, or be whipped by the Constable on ye naked body with three
stripes apeece; whereuppon they were all admonished & the 3 former
desiring to pay ye fynes, then otherwise were ordered to pay them to ye
County Treasurer.”
Samuel Holyoke upon whom this sentence was passed by his own father, was
then a boy of seventeen years. Twelve years afterwards in 1676, he was
the Capt. Holyoke who so greatly distinguished himself in the celebrated
Falls fight with the Indians.
ASSAULTING OF WOMEN.
PROVINCE LAWS CH. 105-1711.
SEC. 2. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that
whosoever shall be convicted of assaulting or offering any insolence or
violence to any woman or mankind in the fields, streets or lanes in any
town, or of despoiling them, damnifying or defacing of their attire or
ornaments, or attempting the same, shall be punished by being publickly
whipped, not exceeding two stripes, or by being committed to the house of
correction to receive the discipline of the house and continue there by
the space of thirty days.
The discipline of the house by a law passed in 1699, included among
other things, “moderate whipping not exceeding ten stripes at once,
which shall be inflicted at their first coming in and from time to time,
in case they be stubborn, disorderly or idle.”
(At a Court holden at Northampton, June 19, 1672, John Edwards, of
Northampton, who came to that place from Virginia, was tried for some
misdemeanor in lascivious carriage towards divers women of Northampton,
and the case being searched into. It is found and proved yt the sd
Edwards hath been notoriously lascivious and hath carried himself very
debauchedly towards diverse women of N (as by test on file appears) and
yt he hathe traded? this way:)
“The Courte doth adjudge him to be whipt on ye naked body with 20 stripes
well laid on.”
A different case with a different penalty is this. At a County Corte
holden at Northampton, March 31, 1674.
“Martin Smith, resident at Pacomtuck, being bound over to this Corte by
N. Comiss: for offering abuse to Jedidiak Strong’s wife (in ye street
near her father Woodwards house) laying hold on her to kiss her as shee
thinks, and she testifying her offence to be soe affronted whereby shee
sayth also shee was somewhat affrighted; he appearing in Corte and owning
his fact and condemning himself and seeming sorrowful that he should be
left to such folly, was fyned only 20s. to be pd to ye Treasurer and 2s.
and 6d. as ye Recorder’s fees.”
SITTING IN THE STOCKS was a mode of punishment for certain offences to
which persons of either sex were sometimes subjected. Occasionally it was
ordered as an alternative sentence in a case where the culprit failed to
pay the fine imposed.
Webster’s Unabridged describes the stocks as a machine consisting of a
frame of timber, with holes in which the feet, or the feet and hands
of the criminals were confined by way of punishment. The picture gives
a much better idea of this punishment than can be gained from the
definition. The offender sits on a bench with a high back, his feet
projecting through two holes in an upright plank in front secured so that
they cannot be withdrawn or moved. In this situation he can neither lie
down or stand up, but must remain fixed until released. The stocks were
usually located in some public place where the culprit could be seen by
all passers by—and not seldom he was subjected to the taunts and ridicule
of the crowd that were sure to gather on such an occasion.
PROFANE CURSING AND SWEARING was one of the offences subjecting the
transgressor to the punishment of the stocks.
COLONY LAWS, CHAP. 94.
AN ACT AGAINST SWEARING AND CURSING.
“SEC. 1. It is ordered by this Court and authority thereof, that if any
person within this jurisdiction shall swear rashly or vainly by the holy
name of God, or other oath, he shall forfeit to the common treasury for
every such offence ten shillings; and it shall be in the power of any
Magistrate by warrant to the constable, to call such person before him,
and upon sufficient proof to sentence such offender, and to give order
to levy the fine; and if such person be not able or shall refuse to pay
the said fine, he shall be committed to the stocks, there to continue not
exceeding three hours nor less than one hour.
SEC. 2. And if any person shall swear more oaths than one at a time
before he remove out of the room or company where he so swears, he shall
then pay 20 shillings. The like penalty shall be inflicted for profane
and wicked cursing of any person or creature, and for the multiplying
the same as is appointed for profane swearing, and in case any person so
offending by multiplying oaths or cursing, shall not pay his or their
fines forthwith, they shall be whipt or committed to prison till they
shall pay the same at the discretion of the Court or Magistrate that
shall have cognyance thereof.”
The wife of Henry Gregory, one of the early settlers here, transgressed
this law, and her case came before Mr. William Pynehon as a Magistrate.
His record of it is as follows under date of February 15, 1640:
“Goody Gregory being accused by oath of John Woodcoke & Richard Williams
for swearing before God I could break thy head: She did acknowledge it
was her great sin & fault & saith she hath bin much humbled for it.
She is fined 12d (12 pence) to the poore to be paid to Henry Smyth within
a month; or if she doe not she is to sit 3 hours in the stocks.”
COMMON SCOLD.
By the English common law in force here in the early times a common scold
was liable to a peculiar form of punishment. Blackstone (4 Black. Com.
168) says:
“A common scold—communis rixatrix—(for our law confines it to the
feminine gender) is a public nuisance to her neighborhood for which
offence she may be indicted, and if convicted shall be sentenced to
be placed in a certain engine of correction called the trebucket,
castigatory or cucking stool, which in the Saxon language is said to
signify the scolding stool, though now it is frequently corrupted into
ducking stool, because the residue of the judgment is that when she is
placed therein she shall be plunged in the water for her punishment.”
Oct. 24, 1673—“John Petty complaines agt Goodwife Hunter for offering
to mischiefe his wife & giving her ill language; calling her as ye
testimonys speake:
Railing, scolding & other exorbitancys of ye Young appearing as by ye
Testimonys of Mary Brookes & Mercy Johns on file & also ye neighbors,
declaring her continual trade upon every occasion to be exorbitant in her
Toung as particularly Sam Marshfull & John Bagg so declared. I sentenced
her to be gaged or else set on a ducking stool & dipped in water as law
provides. Shee to choose wh of ym shee pleases within this half houre;
or else I do determine & order either as I see cause. Shee not choosing
either, I order her to be gagged & so to stand half an hour in ye open
street wh was done accordingly; & for her reproaching Goodie Petty shoe
did openly cleare her of all shee spake agt her & asked forgiveness wch
G. Petty accepting of shee was released as to yt.”
The Puritan Fathers are often blamed on account of their witchcraft
persecutions. Long after Massachusetts had confessed her wrong-doing,
England and Germany put people to death for witchcraft. Twenty-five
years after persecution had ceased in New England, Chief Justice Matthew
Hale, of England, sent a mother and her little daughter to the scaffold
for the same offence; and one hundred and one years afterwards Germany
did likewise. The age in which these men lived is responsible for these
things, and not the men themselves. They were founders of schools, and
were not intolerant. I do not believe in the cry of the “good old times”
simply. There are more good men and women now than ever before. I think
it almost unfortunate to explain away witchcraft and some other peculiar
things of those times, as then some people would have nothing to talk
about and sneer at and criticise the Pilgrim Fathers. Some persons like
to continue this. Dr. Blake of Boston, says that a good Baptist brother
had often met him and chaffingly asked, “How is Roger Williams to-day?”
when Mr. Blake, tiring of the question, answered, “Oh, he is warm and
dry by this time.” The Pilgrims had especially three noble qualities:
Earnestness, definiteness of belief and stalwartness of spiritual life.
GENERAL WILLIAM EMERSON STRONG.
With the death of General William E. Strong of Chicago, in April of the
present year, there passed away another of the distinguished volunteer
soldiers of the United States who won distinction during the War of the
Rebellion, and at the close of that great conflict returned to civil life
to become the flower of American manhood, and a perfect representative of
American citizenship. Brave, loyal and patriotic, when the call came for
his services in support of the Union he was prompt to respond, and was
a faithful and gallant soldier until the struggle was ended and victory
achieved. When that time came it found him equally ready to return to
peaceful pursuits in which in later years his high character and ability
made him both successful and distinguished.
William Emerson Strong was born in Granville, in Washington County, New
York, August 10, 1840. The family to which he belonged was one of the
oldest and most noted of the Puritan families of New England. Elder John
Strong, the founder of the family in America, was a native of Taunton,
England—where his ancestors had been honorably mentioned in public
records as long ago as 1545. He sailed from Plymouth in the ship “Mary
and John,” March 20th, 1630, in company with one hundred and forty other
persons. They landed at Nantasket, (twelve miles s. e. of Boston) at the
end of a voyage of more than seventy days, and John Strong settled at
Northampton, Massachusetts. Here several generations of his descendants
lived, and from thence representatives of the family drifted into other
States, to become conspicuous in all the walks of life.
One of these descendants, but three or four generations removed from the
pilgrim John Strong was Caleb Strong, one of the framers of the Federal
Constitution, Governor of Massachusetts from 1800 to 1807, and again from
1812 to 1816, and also one of the first United States Senators from the
“Old Bay State.”
Other representatives of the family who have achieved extraordinary
distinction have been Gen. George C. Strong, who was mortally wounded
while leading the Federal troops in the assault on Fort Wagner, July
18th, 1863, Rear Admiral James Hooker Strong of the United States Navy,
Theron R. Strong, at one time a Judge of the Supreme Court of New York
State, William Strong one of the most noted of American jurists, and
Simeon Strong, who sat on the Supreme Court Bench of Massachusetts from
1800 to 1805.
General William E. Strong was descended on the father’s side from the
Emerson family of New England, one of his near kinsmen being Ralph Waldo
Emerson, the poet-philosopher, whose name is revered by all those who
appreciate the purest and best in intellectual culture.
Gen. Strong’s father, John Emerson Strong, was a wealthy manufacturer and
merchant of Granville, New York, up to 1849, when he met with business
reverses which changed the character of his business and led him to
seek a new location. In the spring of 1853 he removed from New York to
Wisconsin, and settled with his family at Jefferson Prairie, in Rock
County, where he purchased a farm and turned his attention to bringing
it under cultivation. His son William was at this time thirteen years of
age. Prior to the removal of the family from New York he had enjoyed all
the educational advantages afforded by the excellent schools of the town
in which he had lived and had made good progress in his studies. From the
time he was thirteen until he was seventeen years of age however, he was
busily employed at work on his father’s farm and only attended school
during the winter months of each year with the exception of one year,
when he had the privilege of spending six months in the preparatory
department of Beloit College.
In the fall of 1856 when he was in his seventeenth year, he entered the
law office of Strong & Fuller, at Racine, Wisconsin, and under their
preceptorship began the study of law. He was at that time an active,
manly young fellow, and he entered upon the work of fitting himself for
a professional career with all the ardor, enthusiasm and determination
which characterized him in later years. Whatever he undertook to do, he
endeavored to do better than it had been done before. In everything he
strove to excel, and in this he observed the spirit of the old motto
“Tentanda est Via,” placed upon the Strong escutcheon three hundred years
ago.
After a time he temporarily dropped his law studies and went to Phillips
Academy at Andover, Massachusetts, where he prepared for college and
was admitted to the sophomore class of Harvard. Before completing his
college course however, he determined to enter upon the practice of law,
and in accordance with the course he had mapped out for himself, he
made application for admission to the bar of Wisconsin. He was examined
at Racine, in open court, by a committee appointed for the purpose in
accordance with the usages of that period, and the examination being
passed successfully he was duly authorized to begin practicing his
profession in the courts of the First Judicial Circuit of Wisconsin.
This was in 1861, and it will be observed that notwithstanding the fact
that he had had to contend with disadvantages of various kinds, before he
was twenty-one years of age he had fitted himself to enter the profession
in which so large a number of those bearing the same name and belonging
to the same stock had achieved unusual distinction.
The day he received the certificate which entitled him to begin the
practice of law, was that which brought the news of the fall of Fort
Sumpter. This suddenly changed all his plans, and ultimately the whole
course of his life. At once he resolved to tender his services to the
government, and on the same day that President Lincoln issued his
first call for volunteers, he was regularly enlisted in the government
service. He proceeded to raise a company, known as the Belle City Rifles,
which was assigned to the Second Regiment of Wisconsin Infantry. When
the company was organized, William E. Strong was commissioned Captain
and went into the field in command of it, the regiment becoming part
of a brigade commanded by Colonel (afterward General) W. T. Sherman.
He retained the command of the company between four and five months,
participating in the battle of Blackburn’s Fort and Bull Run. He was
also in command of his company when the next advance of the army into
Virginia was made by way of Chain Ridge. It was during his first campaign
that Captain Strong met with one of his most thrilling experiences, and
demonstrated that his fighting qualities were such as could be depended
upon under all circumstances. At one time while extending his picket
line, he ventured too far out and found himself inside the lines of
the enemy. Before he could retire from this embarrassing and dangerous
position he was surrounded by a band of five confederates, three of whom
were mounted and two of whom were on foot, and was taken prisoner. The
confederates demanded his pistols, and with great courtesy and suavity
he responded “certainly gentlemen,” at the same time drawing the weapons
from their holsters. His “suaviter in modo” threw his enemies off their
guard, but he had no intention of being captured without a struggle, and
no sooner were the pistols in his hands than they were brought to bear on
the confederates and two of them fell at his first fire. The suddenness
and vigor of the attack caused the remaining captors to beat a retreat,
and Captain Strong reached the Federal lines in safety. In this encounter
he was shot through the cheek, but although the wound was painful he
did not regard it as serious and did not allow it to interfere with his
regular discharge of his military duties.
On the 12th of September he was commissioned Major of the 12th. Regiment
of Wisconsin Infantry, serving with it in Kansas, Missouri, and New
Mexico. In October of 1862, he was assigned to duty on the staff of
General McLean, as Inspector General of the first division, right wing
of the Army of the Tennessee. He served in this capacity two months and
was then assigned to duty on the staff of General James B. McPherson,
as inspector General of the right wing of the Army of the Tennessee.
In February, 1863, he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and became
Assistant Inspector General of the Seventeenth Army corps. On the 20th
of April, 1864, he was appointed Inspector General of the Department
and Army of the Tennessee, serving in that capacity until the close of
the war. He was chief of staff to General O. O. Howard, on the march to
the sea and through the Carolinas to Beaufort, Goldboro, Raleigh and
thence to Washington. At Atlanta he was promoted to a Colonelcy, dating
from July 22d, 1864, for “gallantry on the field of battle,” and on the
21st of March, 1865, he was brevetted a brigadier general of volunteers,
having attained this distinction while still under 24 years of age.
After participating in the grand review of troops at Washington in
May, 1865, General Strong was assigned with General Howard, to duty in
connection with the conduct and management of the Freedman’s Bureau,
and in September, 1866, was then mustered out of the service at his own
request, having served in all over five years.
Throughout his entire term of service he was recognized as a brave and
capable officer, and his gallantry was attested on numerous occasions. It
was he who raised the stars and stripes over the Courthouse at Vicksburg
immediately after the capitulation of the confederate forces.
He received the last order from the brilliant and lamented McPherson,
while acting as his chief of staff, and led the desperate and daring
charge which was made to recover the dead chieftain’s body. The following
is a list of battles and campaigns in which he participated; The battles
of Blackburn’s Ford and Bull Run in July, 1861. The campaign in Kansas,
and also the campaign in Kentucky, Tennessee and Central Mississippi in
1862-63; the campaign against Vicksburg by way of the Mississippi River;
and also in the battles of Port Gibson, May 1st; battle of Raymond,
May 12th; battle of Jackson, May 14th; battle of Champign Hills, May
16th; battle of Black River Bridge, May 17th; Siege of Vicksburgh, May
17th to July 4th, 1863; the campaign against Meridian, Mississippi, and
that against Atlanta in 1864, in which he participated in the battle of
Resaca, Dallas, New Hope Church, Kennesaw Mountain, Atlanta, Ezra Chapel,
Jonesboro, Lovejoy Station, and later Fort McAllister, and Bentonville,
one of the final contests of the war, and was present at the final
surrender of Johnston’s army on April 26th of that year. Esteemed by his
superior officers and subordinates alike for his soldierly qualities,
he was equally noted for his uniform courtesy and his efficiency as an
executive officer.
In 1867, soon after he left the military service, General Strong formed
a business connection with the Peshtigo Company, one of the largest
corporate organizations engaged in the lumber trade in the United States.
The same year he was married to Miss Mary Bostwick Ogden, an accomplished
young woman, daughter of Mahlon D. Ogden, one of the pioneer citizens
of Chicago. Establishing his home in Chicago at that time it continued
to be his place of residence to the date of his death, and with many
of its most important enterprises and undertakings of late years he
was most prominently identified. Chosen secretary and treasurer of the
Peshtigo Company in 1867, he retained that position until 1873, when he
became president of the corporation. This position he filled for eighteen
years, and was holding at the time of his death, April 10th, 1891. He
was one of the promoters and builders of the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal,
became a director and was also treasurer and assistant secretary of the
Sturgeon Bay & Lake Michigan Canal Company, and was largely instrumental
in developing the resources of the lumber regions of the northwest. In
his business life he showed great capacity for the conduct of affairs of
more than ordinary magnitude. His management of the important interests
committed to his care was uniformally successful. He never lost his
interest in military affairs, and after he became a citizen of Illinois
was among those most active in promoting the organization and providing
for the proper discipline and equipment of the National Guard of the
State. In 1876, he was commissioned by Gov. Beveridge, Inspector General
of the Illinois’ National Guard. Gov. Cullom, the immediate successor
of Gov. Beveridge, commissioned him Inspector General and Inspector of
Rifle practice on his staff, with the rank of Brigadier General in 1877,
and again in 1879. In addition to his interest in the National Guard,
he was active in building up and promoting the growth of the veteran
organizations particularly of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion,
of the Illinois commandery of which he was a charter member and also
commander.
In politics he took a moderately active interest as a member of the
Republican party to the principles of which he was devotedly attached. He
was a member of the Local Committee of Arrangements which had charge of
the preparations for the meeting of the National Republican convention
of 1880, was designated to take charge of the convention building, and
to act as sergeant-at-arms after the sessions began. This convention
was memorable for the length of time it lasted, for the large number of
distinguished men who participated in the proceedings, and the multitude
of people from all parts of the country in attendance. The great crowds
were handled by General Strong with remarkable skill, and at the close
of the convention he was publicly thanked for his services by General
James A. Garfield, who had been made the Presidential nominee.
From early boyhood General Strong was a lover of field sports, and was
passionately found of hunting wild fowl and large game, and visited
at one time and another, almost every portion of the United States,
having attractions of this kind to offer. In company with General Phil.
Sheridan—for many years, one of his most intimate friends—he made several
visits to the Yellowstone Park region, and wrote numerous interesting
sketches of these experiences, adventures and explorations. While the
busy life he led did not allow him to give as much attention as he would
have liked to literature, he gathered together a valuable library, one of
the most conspicuous features of which was the amount of war literature
which it contained, inclusive of rare manuscripts, autograph letters,
papers, documents, and photographs, which it is said can scarcely be
duplicated in the United States. He was a member of the Literary Club
of Chicago and also of the Commercial Club. His last public service was
rendered to the city in the capacity of a director of the Worlds Fair, an
enterprise with the inception and inauguration of which he had much to do.
General Strong was in the prime of a splendid manhood when failing
health admonished him that he must seek rest and a change of climate.
Accordingly on the 14th of March last, he sailed from New York to join
his wife and daughters in Europe. Traveling by easy stages he reached
Florence, Italy, where the end came suddenly, and at least to his
thousands of friends in the United States, unexpectedly on the 10th of
April. His remains were brought back to the land of his nativity and to
his former home in Chicago. From thence they were carried by the comrades
of former days and the devoted friends of his later years to his last
resting place in Graceland cemetery, where he sleeps peacefully, wrapped
in the national colors which he so bravely defended in his young manhood.
At the obsequies of General Strong the fact was made apparent that a
man had passed away whom a great busy community, felt called upon to
honor, and the tenderest tributes of love, respect, and admiration were
laid on his grave. Said one who paid tribute to his character and worth
as a man and patriot: “It is befitting to preserve in memory and hand
down to the generations something about a man who has helped to make
citizens heroic soldiers, and to render possible the triumph of liberty
and manhood. While his was a beneficent existence of many manly years, it
seems to the view of man that he died before his time. It is but just to
say of him that his conduct as a soldier, sprang from a truly patriotic,
martyr spirit which enabled him to dare unflinchingly, with a smile to
the green earth, and a smile to the bright heavens, and a cheer to his
companions.”
Of striking appearance, pleasing manners and great personal magnetism,
he drew around him a circle of friends which was composed of many of
the men best known in public and official life, in the world of trade
and commerce, and in the various professions. These men were drawn to
him by his geniality, his candor, his culture, his broad liberality
and his unswerving fidelity to his friends. He was of that chivalrous
nature which was regarded as the distinguishing characteristic of the
Preux Chevalier in the days of knight errantry and with it all, was the
practical, level-headed man of affairs.
A brave soldier, a good citizen, a courteous gentleman, General Strong
was a splendid type of American manhood.
HOWARD LOUIS CONARD.
MISTAKES IN HISTORY—THE PILGRIMS NOT PURITANS BUT SEPARATISTS.
Among the wrong impressions and mistaken ideas which have been conveyed
by writers and speakers during the last two hundred and fifty years, and
even down to the present day, there are, perhaps, none more prominent
and important than those relating to, and connected with, that most
interesting body of people and most important event in our history—the
Pilgrims and their coming to America. In no instance that is now called
to mind, of the settling of a country or planting of a colony, have
the motives and purposes of the colonists been so misrepresented and
falsified, and so much fiction made to hang about their acts, as in the
case of the Pilgrims. It is proposed in the present article to deal with
two main ideas—who were the Pilgrims, and what were their objects or
motives in coming to this country.
With regard to the first idea there seems to be great and unpardonable
ignorance and confusion, for they were not Puritans nor Persecutors,
as the latter became both in England and early in America, but were
Separatists. Much has been done by Mr. Benjamin Scott, Chamberlain
of the City of London, towards setting this matter right and putting
it in proper shape before the public, and, he in turn, obtained much
information through the studies and investigations of Dr. Waddington.
The latter says: “The ignorance still existing on this subject is
almost incredible. We find men of education who seem to have no exact
information respecting the Pilgrim Fathers. Quarterly reviewers, members
of Parliament, Christian divines and ecclesiastical historians speak of
them with the same complacent disregard of facts.” The church presumed
to dictate as to what kind of christians the Puritans should be, and the
form and manner of worship they should adopt and be governed by. To these
requirements there was a partial submission.
The Pilgrims separated from them because of this church imposition,
and so became “Separatists.” Parliament declared, in Mary’s reign, the
Pope to be the spiritual head of the church in England. When Elizabeth
ascended to the throne 1558, she was confronted with this state of
affairs respecting these matters, and issued a proclamation forbidding
any change in the forms of religion, until they should be determined
according to law. Thus it happened that there was no freedom to worship
according to conscience for either Roman Catholics or Protestants.
Elizabeth was opposed to Popery, but she was just as vindictive toward
Protestants who did not shape their religious course and belief in
accordance with her standard and the law of the State.
This Act of Supremacy, which she caused to be passed soon after she came
into power, was not long after followed by the Act of Uniformity, which
required everybody to worship, not only as the State directed, but also
in the parish churches. Two years later came the crowning act in the
adoption of the Articles of Religion; and the Church of England was
established by the highest authority of the realm, and then commenced
separations and persecutions. There were a few people, a small band,
who found some errors yet left in the wake of the Reformation against
which they protested. They also objected to any human power assuming
that headship which they claimed belonged alone to Christ, and also
asked the privilege of worshiping according to the simplicity of form
and practice of the primitive Christians. Minor questions, such as
baptism and the like, which have since given rise to divisions and
sects, were not considered, and this little band of people, together
with the Roman Catholics, were the only persons throughout England who
objected to the church as the law had established it. Accordingly they
formed themselves into distinct bodies, or associations, or churches,
chose their own teachers and determined their own affairs. They claimed
that the church was a spiritual association and should, therefore, be
separated from the world, and was amenable only to the laws of Christ
as given in the New Testament. Hence the name “Separatists.” They were
simple in their manners and conduct and morals, and all these things
rendered them unpopular and drew upon them the ill-will and enmity of the
church, which found plenty of reason and many excuses and opportunities
for persecuting them. There arose at this period another party, some of
whom were English reformers, who had been driven from the country and
had returned on the ascension of Elizabeth, but were disappointed to find
that religious matters and laws had been settled and established.
Many of them however, accepted the change, including Royal Supremacy,
Uniformity of Worship and Articles of Religion. They were nevertheless
much dissatisfied, but hoped to effect still further changes and
reformations. But in this they failed. This as will be seen, was a
party within a party, a church within a church, or a party within the
“establishment,” and they were the “Puritans.” In other words, the
Protestants may be said to have been divided into three classes. The High
Ritualists, Puritans and Separatists. High Ritualists claimed divine
authority for the form of government, and the ceremonial of the Church
of England. The king, they claimed, was the head of the church, as well
as supreme in all civil matters and had power and authority over persons
and property. The Puritans, on the contrary, believed none of these
doctrines, although they were as devoted to the Church of England as was
the other party, the High Ritualists, and the reforms they desired, they
sought to make from within the church. Separation they regarded as the
rankest kind of an offense, a terrible sin. To draw a comparison, or to
make an illustration—the Puritans were Episcopalians—the low-church wing
of that period. In another sense there was a difference or distinction
between Puritans and Pilgrims: The Puritans had among their number, as
influential persons, many of the nobility, men of business, capitalists
and educated, fashionable and accomplished people. Indeed, during the
entire reign of James I, they formed a majority in the House of Commons,
and no person not a communicant of the Church of England could then sit
in that body.
From this body of Puritan Episcopalians sprang that company who landed
at Salem and settled at Boston in 1630, not the Pilgrims who settled at
Plymouth in 1620. The latter, the “Separatists,” renounced the Church
of England, and separated from it. They were likewise socially from the
humbler walks of life. Some of their number, it is true, were persons of
education, culture and refinement, but as has been said, the great bulk
were from among the common people, without means, power or influence.
Indeed, they sustained about the same relation to other classes and
denominations that the Methodists, in their beginning, did to other
religious denominations. In short, they were persecuted by the Church of
England by the Puritans and by the Roman Catholics.
The Separatists, one and all, suffered every indignity, privation and
want, while many, among them Barrow, Greenwood, Dennis and Penry, were
hung. Others still were thrown into prison, and died from neglect, hunger
and cold. Others were permitted to leave the country, but were informed
that if they returned, their lives would be the forfeit. Later on, this
was even denied them, and their departure from the country was forbidden.
For these reasons, the Separatist congregations fled secretly to Holland,
and even in Holland the Dutch shunned them, for they were afraid of
offending King James, whose good will and help they wanted. These
“Separatists,” or Pilgrims, therefore gradually disappeared from English
soil, and from the English mind, and in 1607, there remained in the
kingdom only one organized congregation of this kind, which was within
the limits of the little town of Scrooby. Here their pastors were Richard
Clifton and John Robinson, the latter a somewhat rash and inconsiderate
young man, but they depended chiefly for material aid and favors, as well
as sympathy and encouragement, on William Brewster, afterwards their
“venerated elder.” He was postmaster, and his duties included the charge
of public travel, which necessitated a house of large dimensions, and in
this building he permitted the “Separatists” to worship weekly, lodging
and entertaining them. About this time there appeared another person,
a mere lad, who became interested in, and identified himself with, the
Pilgrims, and who subsequently occupied a useful and prominent position
in their history.
This was William Bradford, who came from a very respectable family in
a neighboring village. They were not long, however, to remain here in
peace and unmolested quiet. Their retreat was sought out and persecutions
anew visited upon them, and there remained only two alternatives, the one
to yield a hypocritical conformity and submission, or to become exiles
from their native land, from “the graves in which their fathers slept.”
They accordingly gathered themselves together, and under the leadership
of the youthful and brave Bradford, fled to Amsterdam—Brewster, Robinson
and Clifton remaining behind, like the marshal of Napoleon’s grand army,
to guard the rear, when, having seen all safely on their journey and
beyond the reach of the “King’s hirelings,” they followed on and soon
joined those who had gone before. They were disappointed however, and
failed to find peace and quiet and rest, for at Amsterdam there were
two societies or congregations of English worshipers who had fled their
country, but they were in continual dissensions with each other, and
rendered the situation of the little band of “Separatists,” uncomfortable
and unpleasant. There remained therefore, nothing for the latter to do
but to “move on,” which they did, forty miles distant to the “goodly and
pleasant city” of Leyden. Here at last they found peace and quiet and
freedom of worship, but were not without perplexities and disadvantages.
They had to depend upon manual labor for subsistence, which employment
they sought from the Dutch, of whose language they understood not a
word. In their own land they had been chiefly agriculturists, but many of
them now became manufacturers and mechanics of various kinds. Thus were
they, by the force of circumstances, fortunate in learning trades which
were useful to the community in after years in their home beyond the
sea. Bradford engaged in the silk dyeing business and Brewster set up a
printing office. It could not be expected that this condition of affairs,
even, although a great improvement, would long satisfy the spiritual
and intellectual longings and demands of such men as the Pilgrims.
Their life, on the whole, was far from satisfactory. True their numbers
had more than doubled, grown from one to over two hundred, yet their
lot here seemed to have been cast in a hard place. Their children were
losing English habits, character and language. Sunday, as was generally
the case in European countries, was a day of recreation and was given
up to merry-making and the playing of games. Influences, associations
and examples were unfortunate, and all these things caused serious
apprehensions in the minds of the Pilgrims. The old adage, too, that “a
rolling stone gathers no moss,” was strikingly illustrated in their case.
Years and life were passing rapidly away.
They had, many of them, become physically weakened from the hardships
they had endured and were nearing old age, Brewster being sixty at the
time of the landing, and they had the very natural feeling and desire to
“lay up something for a rainy day.” After much thoughtful and prayerful
consideration, in view of all these facts and circumstances, they decided
to emigrate to America.
At this period in their lives, from their wanderings, misfortunes and
persecutions, nearly every member of the Separatist-Pilgrim Company had
become reduced to the direst straits. Indeed, this had been the common
lot and experience of a large majority of them from their youth up, and
when it was determined to seek homes in the new world, they were without
means to secure their passage.
To obtain this, they made the best terms and conditions that they could
with the London merchants.
The conditions were hard, but they were in the power of the merchants and
there was no alternative. Concerning this Mr. Cushman who, acted as agent
in the matter, says: “Although they (the proposals) were very afflictive
to the minds of such as were concerned in the voyage, and hard enough for
the poor people that were to adventure their persons as well as their
estates,” they had to be accepted. Had they not done so, Mr. Cushman
adds, “the whole design would have fallen to the ground.”
At the end of the seven years all the original and acquired assets of
the colony, were to be equally divided between the merchants and the
Pilgrims. So practically, it cost the Pilgrims seven years of severe
labor to get from England to America. Nor was this all. There had
been disaffection among the merchants and some had withdrawn from the
co-partnership, leaving an accumulation of indebtedness. Those remaining
friendly to the Pilgrims, wrote the latter: “As there has been a faction
among us more than two years, so now there is an utter breach and
sequestration. The company’s debts are no less than 1400 pounds, and we
hope you will do your best to free them. We are still persuaded that you
are the people that must make a plantation in those remote places where
all others fail. We have sent some cattle, clothes, hoes, shoes, leather
etc., for Allerton and Winslow to sell as our factors.”
And these goods the Pilgrims were to purchase at an advance of seventy
per cent. Thus matters went from bad to worse, until the Pilgrims, seeing
no way of “making out” of the difficulty became convinced that the best
thing they could do was to break up the co-partnership and wind up its
affairs. With this in view, they sent Miles Standish to London to “oblige
them to come to a composition.” He took up 150 pounds of the indebtedness
at the rate of fifty per cent.
Matters were in bad shape in England for the colonists, and among
disheartening things, Standish found that both Robinson and Cushman
had died. Finally, late in 1626, Mr. Allerton went over and through
influence brought to bear on the merchants, the latter agreed to sell
out to the colonists for 1,800 pounds, in payments of 200 pounds a year,
beginning with the year 1628. Here were nine years more of hard labor
before they could hope to be clear of the indebtedness incurred for their
passage money with living expenses added. An arrangement was at last
affected by some of the leading men of the colony with a few staunch
friends in London to take the trade of the colony for six years, pay off
the debts and send the remainder of the Leyden church over. The six years
would end in 1632, a period of twelve years from the time of landing. It
was also the length of time spent by the Separatists in Holland after
they left England. What a history! Almost a generation in time, and
crowded full of trials, hardships, discouragements, sickness and death.
The Pilgrims doubtless were a kind, tender hearted and sympathetic
people naturally, and their surroundings and experiences in life would
tend to render more marked these characteristics. They as clearly were a
christian people and deeply religious, and it could hardly be expected
that the Reformation of the sixteenth century, setting men’s minds
and thoughts religiously free, would result in aught else than great
diversity of opinion, and that beliefs and doctrines would be sharply
outlined and stoutly maintained; Luther died but a few years before
Brewster was born, and Melanchthon, his coadjutor and ally, lived for
several years after. Bradford and Robinson were born before religious
feeling and ardor had become cooled. It is not, therefore, a matter of
surprise, when we find Robinson taking a hand in the discussions of the
day. This suited his nature; he seemed to be in his “element,” for he
was yet young, only 32, when the “Separatists,” went from Scrooby into
Holland.
Lest it be thought that the opinion we have expressed concerning Robinson
was incorrect and unjust, the language is here given of an eminent,
English writer and speaker: “It was with the Calvinists that Robinson
took part, entering into the subject with all the learning of which he
was master and all the ardor of a man of his temperament, and still not
40 years old. It is to be regretted that, like all the other polemics
of his day, his zeal betrayed him into intemperate warmth, and the
adoption of harsh, acrimonious and uncharitable expressions. It must be
remembered that the most vehement, violent and vituperative language used
by the most ultra bigot of our times is as mild as milk, compared with
the controversial tone of the theological disputants of the seventeenth
century.” Bradford also says of Robinson that “he was a man of quick and
sharp wit, an acute and expert disputant, very quick and ready;” and
Winslow adds: “’Tis true, I confess, he was more rigid in his course and
way at first than towards his latter end,” when the “fiery vehemence of
youth” had given place to the cooler judgment and conservatism of riper
years. But Robinson did not come to America with the Pilgrims, nor at
all, for he died at the age of 49, in 1625.
He had expected to come, but a majority of the flock at Leyden decided to
remain at that place instead of emigrating, and he concluded to remain
also.
Leaving Robinson out, who had been obliged in early manhood, to resort to
daily labor for a living, it is very doubtful if the desire for freedom
in religious worship was the main motive for their emigrating.
Bradford was thirteen years younger than Robinson, and but a mere boy
when the church at Scrooby was formed, and only nineteen at the removal
to Leyden. He was a noble youth (and a nobler man) and was easily
influenced and led by Brewster and Robinson. The whole company went to
Leyden expecting probably to spend their lives there, and engaged in
various business callings and occupations. On coming of age, Bradford
inherited some money. This he sank in unfortunate business operations.
Brewster had been postmaster at Scrooby from 1594 to 1607, when he
resigned, presumably because his sympathy with the “Separatists” was
obnoxious to the government, which, in all probability, would have
removed him had not he himself deprived it of that pleasure, by vacating
office, following which action he immediately went to Holland.
It will be borne in mind that the Pilgrims, as a congregation or
church, were not the first Separatist body or organization, for one
John Smith had organized a company of these people as early as 1602, at
Gainsborough, numbering some three or four hundred, and in 1604 went with
them to Amsterdam. This was undoubtedly one reason for the Pilgrims going
to that place under Brewster and Bradford, instead of going to any other
place. It is believed that Robinson had little or no connection with our
Pilgrims until after Brewster left the post-office, and they were about
to leave Scrooby. On the way to Amsterdam, and later, on the way to and
at Leyden, accessions were made to the company, so that before the final
emigration their numbers had reached between two and three hundred. These
latter additions were from the common or laboring class, who, in all
probability, joined in the wake of the movement, thinking to better their
worldly condition.
On this point another English writer has said: “The vicinity of Scrooby
was an agricultural district, having a few villages scattered about, each
with its church and perhaps an esquire’s seat, but the population was
for the most part employed in husbandry, an occupation little congenial
to the growth of extreme opinions in either religion or politics or of
voluntary sacrifices to a severe estimate of duty, or a supposed call of
conscience.” The same writer, speaking of those who were even prominently
identified with the movement, says: “Neither Bradford nor Brewster, nor
the divines who were concerned in the movement, were of the eminent of
the earth, about whom there is curiosity widely extended through the
country which gave them birth, and concerning whom nothing is thought
unimportant. It may even be said that they were but inconsiderable
persons at home, and their consequence has undoubtedly arisen out of
the grand results which, unforeseen by themselves, have ensued on their
great resolve. So that there is scarcely anything to be told of their
early history besides those very small facts which make the history of
men who are of but small account in the midst of a large and advanced
population.” It has also been said that the Pilgrims, as we speak of
them, would scarcely have been heard of had it not been first for
Robinson and Brewster and Bradford, and there can be no doubt that the
great majority of them came to this country that they might find homes
and advance their worldly circumstances.
An American of high historical standing and learning has said: “Here
lay a new world for the most part unoccupied, inviting colonization,
and it was as natural for men to come and settle here as to embark
in any other enterprise in life. The only wonder is that the work of
colonization was not begun earlier and pursued by thousands rather than
by hundreds.” This colonizing, this settling and developing a country,
the desire to own the roof under which one sleeps “raise the personal
importance and dignity of the subject or citizens,” and “it can never
be too well understood that the generations of men sow and plant for
their successors.” It seems to have been an entire and pushing necessity
that these people should get away from Holland in order to secure a
comfortable living and to make any provision for their posterity.
Bradford says: “The country (Holland) was hard and many were discouraged.
Grim and grizzled poverty was coming on them as an armed man, old age
was coming upon them and no amelioration of their condition came with
it.” That they should come to America, and for the reasons given, seems
quite reasonable and natural when it is remembered that Captain Smith
and others, returning to England, had expressed the opinion that the
fisheries on the New England coast might be made profitable. And we know
that this was one of the first industries engaged in by the Pilgrims.
Smith states that in 1616 four ships of London and two of Plymouth and
Sir Richard Hawkins were again in the fishing waters in the vicinity of
Massachusetts and Maine.
Early in 1620, also, six or seven sailing vessels set out for the western
country for the same purpose and visited the country about the harbor
where the Pilgrims landed in December following.
That there was a Providence in their coming here is altogether probable.
That the same Providence reached out and extended its ruling and
benignant hand on the journey and after the arrival is certain.
“There is no doubt, a great over-ruling power in all human affairs,
but our concern (the emigration) is with second causes, and it is to
be believed that we often deceive ourselves when we attempt to recover
general principles from which things remarkable in the acts of men have
sprung.” “And if we conclude that these people had mistaken the path or
duty, or had imposed upon themselves a severer burthen than God ever
intended for them, there it still a heroism in their conduct which
forbids us to regard them with indifference, nay rather, which will call
forth the sympathy of every generous mind.”
There has been neither design nor desire, in what has been said, to
reflect on the character of the Pilgrims, or to detract from the high
fame and renown to which they are justly entitled. No one has more
appreciation of their virtues or greater veneration for their memories
than the writer. A train of thought only has been followed which led in
a channel that seems to be altogether reasonable and intelligent. When a
genealogist thought to please Napoleon by telling him that his descent
could be traced from some ancient line of Gothic princes, he replied
that he dated his patent of nobility from the battle of Monte Notte (his
first victory.) The Pilgrims inherited their patent of nobility and
derived their claim to immortality by the excellence of their example and
the beauty and usefulness of their lives.
D. W. MANCHESTER.
WERE THE DUTCH ON MANHATTAN ISLAND IN 1598?
It will admit of but very little dispute that Verrazano in 1524, and
Gomez in 1525, anticipated Henry Hudson by several decades in the
discovery of New York Bay and the Hudson River. There is also a claim
for previous discovery however, put forward in behalf of the Dutch.
One confident historian of the Metropolis starts out bravely and
unhesitatingly with the assertion that the Dutch were here as early
as 1598; but he gives no authorities from whence he had gathered this
startling piece of information, yet before one has read thirty pages
of such a well-known work as Dr. E. B. O’Callaghan’s, “History of New
Netherland,” the source of the statement is plainly indicated, and
fortunately, also the opportunity for a careful weighing of the testimony
supporting it.
[Illustration: MANHATTAN ISLAND IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.]
Dr. O’Callaghan refers his readers to a Dutch document in the State
Archives at Albany, discovered by Mr. Brodhead at the Hague, copied by
him for his collection of documents and translated and published in that
invaluable store-house of historical material, the “Documents relating
to the Colonial History of the State of New York,” vol. I, pp. 149, _et
seq._ Here we read: “New Netherland ... was first frequented [explored]
by the inhabitants of this country [Holland] in the year 1598, and
especially by those of the Greenland Company, but without making any
fixed settlements, only as a shelter [resort] in the winter. For which
purpose they erected on the North [Hudson] and South [Delaware] Rivers
there, two little forts against the incursions of the Indians. A charter
was afterwards, on the 11th of October, 1614, granted by their High
Mightinesses to trade exclusively to the newly discovered countries.”
Without discussing the nature or merits of this document itself just
now, we will first weigh the value of its statement. The Hollanders who
“frequented” Manhattan Island in 1598, were in the employ of a Dutch
“Greenland Company.” Now it would seem to be of some importance for the
establishment of the interesting fact under discussion, that there be
brought forward some evidence of the existence of such an association as
this Greenland Company. For certainly if no trace of its existence can be
found, this would cast serious doubt upon the exploits of its servants in
these waters.
We have to begin with announcing the lamentable fact that after a
thorough search of every imaginable source of information, we have been
unable to discover the existence of a Dutch Greenland Company prior to
the year 1600. The works of Dutch historians, both ancient and modern,
were carefully scanned, but all in vain. We began with a modern writer,
N. G. Van Kampen, sometimes called by his fond and admiring countrymen,
the Dutch Macaulay. He wrote an elaborate and extensive work of four or
five octavo volumes on “De Nederlanders buiten Europa” (The Netherlanders
outside of Europe), giving an eloquent as well as exhaustive review of
those splendid achievements in various portions of the globe, which
resulted in the establishment of the great Colonial Empire of the Dutch,
even at this day second only to that of the English.
But there is found no mention of a Dutch Greenland Company or its doings
either in these volumes or in Wagenaar, who lived in the eighteenth
century and issued more than one monumental publication, or in Bor or
Van Meteren of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These older
writers let no event or transaction or institution of any importance
escape them. They were not afraid of multiplying their volumes and
therefore not at all deterred from noting even the minutest affairs that
came within their ken, as they laboriously proceeded from year to year.
But they are all strangely silent about this apocryphal company whose
mariners were in the habit of sheltering themselves on Manhattan Island
before 1600.
But now it is only fair to indicate how the tradition may have originated
that there ever was such an organization as the Greenland Company. An
appreciation of any reasonable grounds for its origin, will help us
understand better how the mistaken statement came to be made, and to see
that it was a mistake. There did exist in Holland a “Noordsche Compagnie”
or Northern Company and there exists the most abundant and indubitable
evidence that the terms “Northern Company” and “Greenland Company” were
used interchangeably, and were both applied to the former association.
This company was at first confined to the merchants of the Province of
Holland, who had received their charter from the States-General, after
the approval and endorsement of such a measure by the States of Holland.
In 1617, the charter was renewed, but the merchants of Zeeland wished
for the same privileges and the States-General granted a charter to
a Zeeland “Northern Company” in May 28, 1622. Turning to the “Groot
Placcaet Book,” Vol. I, Cols. 673, 674, we discover the two names in
question in curious but instructive juxtaposition. The title of the
act has Noortsche Compagnie, while in the body of the act we read
Groenlandtsche Compagnie. In this same year (Dec., 1622), the Zeeland and
Holland Companies were combined into one general or national “Northern
Company,” but the act granting a larger charter mentions only the above
name both in the title and in the body of it. It is to this Company that
Moulton refers in his “History of New York” (p. 362) when he makes the
assertion that “the Greenland Company was created in 1622.” He places
this association on an exact level with the East and West India Companies.
“Thus the Northern Seas, Asia, Africa and America, were partitioned to
three armed associations, possessing powers nearly co-extensive with
those of the Republic.” The company chartered in 1622, (as we have seen),
can not properly be classed as equal in importance or influence or power
with the two great commercial associations named in one breath with it
by Mr. Moulton. And we have seen also, that it did not officially bear
the name he gives it, although that name might be interchangeable with
the true one in the case of subordinate companies. Yet even this is not
the case with the charter creating the original company confined to
Holland Province alone, where there is no mention of the name “Greenland”
in either the title or the body of the document. Lastly there is this
significant circumstance about that earliest charter of any “Northern
Company;” it bears date January 1614, and distinctly states “that no such
company had ever been chartered before.”[12] This therefore settles the
question as to whether it could possibly have been men in the employ of
this company, miscalled the “Greenland Company,” who habitually sought
relief from the rigors of an Arctic winter on the shores of the Hudson
River in the year 1598. This could hardly have been when it was not
erected or chartered until January 1614.
In the second place, if frequent or habitual visits to Manhattan Island
were made by the Dutch in and after the year 1598, we are at a loss to
comprehend the entire lack of recollection of such visits on the part
of the Indians thereabouts. It is insisted on more than once in various
accounts that both the vessel and the persons of its crew, were objects
of boundless wonder to the natives, as they beheld the “Half-Moon”
resting upon the waters of the bay or gliding up the river. De Laet, one
of the earliest to write on Hudson’s discovery, publishing his “Nieuwe
Wereld,” (New World) in 1625 and basing his statements on those of
Hudson’s own journal, perhaps citing his very words, speaks as follows:
“So far as they could judge and find out, there had never been any ships
or Christians in this region before, so that they were the first who
discovered this river and sailed up so far.” Such a declaration might
need to be received with some suspicion, if the author had intended to
maintain a claim of the first discovery for the Dutch as against other
nations. But he could have had no reason to suppress the circumstance of
the visits of the Dutch themselves to our river, in 1598. If that had
been patent to De Laet he would have been only too glad to mention it,
as only increasing the validity of the Dutch claims to those regions by
the right of first discovery. He could have had no particular object in
glorifying the Englishman Hudson’s exploit at the expense of the sailors
of an exclusively and undoubtedly Dutch Greenland Company. But returning
to the Indians, we notice in Vander Donck’s celebrated “Vertoogh,”
written at New Amsterdam and published at the Hague in 1650, another
arraignment of their poor memories. “Even at the present day those
natives of the country who are so old as to recollect when the Dutch
ships first came here, declare that when they saw them, they did not know
what to make of them. Some among them when the first one arrived, even
imagined it to be a fish or some monster of the sea.” Now the Indians
might indeed have forgotten a visit made so long ago as 1524 or 1525, if
Verrazano and Gomez really did discover the Hudson then, making but a
brief stay and a rapid examination of its banks at best, but an habitual
resort to its shores, or even one winter spent on the island at its
mouth, in forts built to repel their attacks, only eleven years before
Hudson came among them, the Indians could not possibly, it would seem,
have so utterly forgotten in 1609.
But we will now give our attention more particularly to the document
which asserts that the Dutch were on Manhattan Island as early as 1598.
What was the nature of it, and to what degree of credence is it entitled?
Mr. Brodhead in the explanatory heading which he usually prefixes to
the documents in his collection states that it is a report made in 1644
by the Chairman of a Committee or Board of Accounts, appointed by the
directors of the West India Company. Several documents were placed in
his (the chairman’s) hands for the purpose of enabling him to furnish to
the company a succinct review of events connected with the origin of the
settlement on Manhattan Island, and with its progress up to that date.
The writer begins with the story of the Dutch and their forts in 1598.
Immediately after this the official historian glides easily into what
he evidently either considers himself, or wishes others to believe, is
the next stage in the history of the Manhattan Colony; namely this: “a
charter was afterwards on the 11th of October 1614, granted by their High
Mightinesses.” As if nothing of importance had happened between 1598 and
1614!
The question therefore arises, if this was meant for history in 1644, why
was it written so imperfectly? It could not be that the fact of Hudson’s
discovery, so vitally connected with the origin of Manhattan Colony, had
been completely forgotten at that time, much less that after a careful
examination of all the papers available to directors of the West India
Company, the chairman of their committee should not have come across the
record of that discovery. How then did he happen to pass it over in utter
silence in his official report? Was it purposely suppressed? If so, what
could have been the motive for this singular proceeding?
We think we can readily divine what the motive was, when we read in
more than one English writer what use that nation contrived to make
of the fact that the discovery of the Hudson River was achieved by
an Englishman. Peter Heylin, who wrote before the surrender of New
Netherland in 1664, remarks: “With him [i. e. Hudson] the Hollanders,
in 1609, compounded for his charts and maps; but they were hardly warm
in their new Habitations,” when Argall, Governor of Virginia, disputed
their title to this region, which was looked upon as part of Virginia
territory. The latter advanced this ingenious argument in support of
his claim; “that Hudson, under whose sale they claimed that country,
being an Englishman and licensed to discover those northern parts by the
King of England, could not alienate or dismember it (being but a part or
province of Virginia) from the Crown thereof.” This matter of a “sale” by
Hudson, which was illegal, and the subsequent “right” of the English to
New Netherland, is brought out again in a book written nearly a century
later, or long after the problem which was unsolved in Heylin’s time—how
to get the Dutch out and the English in—had been solved by Colonel
Nicolls in 1664. In this book, William Smith’s “History of New York”
(1757), we read, scarcely without a smile: “Henry Hudson, an Englishman,
_according to our authors_[13] in the year 1608 [sic], under a commission
from the King, his master, discovered Long Island, New York, and the
river which still bears his name; and afterwards sold the country, or
rather his Right to the Dutch. Their writers contend that Hudson was sent
out by the East India Company in 1609 to discover a northwest passage to
China. It is said however, that there was a sale; and that the English
objected to it, though they for some time neglected to oppose the Dutch
settlement of the country.”
Now we can readily appreciate why the Dutch West India Company might have
a distinct and deliberate object in not being too exact in their history
of Manhattan Colony. They would naturally be very shy of giving occasion
or encouragement to a rival nation on the alert to press a claim avowedly
made, however unjust, to territories entrusted to the Company’s care and
government. It would to say the least have been very impolitic to give
countenance to it in one of their own official papers. About twelve years
later the directors, writing to Stuyvesant, while commending him for
the reduction of New Sweden, at the same time remonstrated with him for
having made a written agreement with the Swedish Commander. And they then
put into so many words the shrewd policy which we suggest they followed
in the present instance, saying; “What is written is too long preserved
and may be produced when not desired, whereas words not recorded are in
the lapse of time forgotten, or may be explained away” (O’Callaghan’s
“New Netherland,” vol. II. p. 327). If Argall on the spot, and only a few
years after the settlement; if Heylin in a book written and published
before 1664, could make so much of Hudson’s nationality in the matter
of his discovery, so that more than a hundred years after that event,
sober historians could still cooly repeat the story of England’s supreme
right, and quite cast aside the claims of the Dutch, then it may well
have been considered in 1644 that it would be a dangerous concession to
have even made an allusion to Hudson in a committee report. Under these
circumstances, finding at home a possibly prevalent and convenient
rumor about the Greenland Company and its vessels in New York bay and
river, without any intention to deliberately falsify, the chairman of
the committee simply incorporated the statement under discussion in
his report. For business purposes, on a paper prepared by business men
and not by historians, this may have been good enough history; but
being preserved in this documentary form, and read in an age eager for
documentary evidence and too ready to give undue weight to unpublished
and original matter, the assertion derived an importance which it does
not really deserve, and was not intended to possess. And so entirely
unsupported is it by other proofs, or by the facts of history, that even
the documentary character of this evidence has not prevailed to deceive
wise and judicious investigators. It is clear that it did not commend
itself as quite trustworthy for historical purposes to Dr. O’Callaghan.
In quoting it, though it own assertion is entirely positive, he
introduces its language by the cautious phrase, “it is said.” Brodhead,
whose researches brought the paper to light, also deals very gingerly
with it, holding it off at arms length, so to speak, and saying: “it
needs confirmation”—and indeed, it certainly does.
DANIEL VAN PELT.
FOOTNOTES
[12] Groot Placcaet Book, I. Cols. 669, 673, 676.
[13] The italics are ours.
A FAMOUS POLITICAL CONTEST IN ILLINOIS.
HON. HENRY H. EVANS.
The most interesting political contest which has taken place in the
State of Illinois since the days of Lincoln and Douglass, was that which
ended with the election of General John M. Palmer to the United States
Senate, on the 11th day of March, 1891. The contest was of historic
interest because it elevated to the Senate, a man who had long been a
conspicuous figure in American politics, and who had for many years
cherished an ambition to occupy a seat in the Upper Bench of the national
Legislature. It was of interest also because it gave to the Democratic
party of Illinois, for the first time in many years, a representative in
the United States Senate. It was moreover an intensely interesting and
exciting contest—and greater interest attached to it on this than on any
other account—because it developed a crisis in the political affairs of
the State.
It is no harsh criticism of the Republican management of the State
campaign of 1890, in Illinois, to say that the campaign was lazily
conducted. At the Democratic Convention, held some months before the
election, General John M. Palmer had been formally endorsed as the
choice of his party for United States Senator, and his adherents at once
entered upon a determined and aggressive campaign. The result of this
spirited Democratic campaigning, of Republican apathy, and of disturbing
“side issues,” was, that when the roll of the Thirty-seventh General
Assembly was made up, it was ascertained that there were 101 Democratic
members elect, 100 Republicans, and three representatives of the Farmers’
Alliance organization.
This being the political status of the body which was to choose a United
States Senator, it was evident that the three independent or Farmers’
Alliance members held the balance of power as between the two great
political parties. These three legislators thought they saw before them
great opportunities for the advancement of their interests, and starting
a political revolution. Once before it had happened in the history of
the State, that a little band of five legislators—the representatives of
the “Anti-Nebraska” party—had placed in the field a candidate for United
States Senator, of their own choosing, and in full sympathy with their
political views, and at the end of a long contest that candidate had been
triumphantly elected, and a new political party had been brought into
existence.
The triumvirate of the Thirty-seventh General Assembly of Illinois,
hastily jumped to the conclusion that there was to be a repetition of
history, and that what the “Anti-Nebraska” legislators had accomplished
in 1885, could be accomplished by the representatives of the Farmers’
Alliance in 1891.
When the Legislature convened they accordingly placed in nomination as
their candidate for United States Senator, Alanson J. Streeter, a farmer
by occupation, whose large wealth had enabled him to take up politics
as a diversion, and whose views had been of a sufficiently variegated
character, to enable him to claim political kinship with any of the
existing partisan organizations.
General Palmer was already in the field as the Democratic candidate for
Senator, and the Republicans named ex-Governor Richard J. Oglesby as
their nominee. Balloting began on the 20th day of January and continued
from day to day—when the Legislature was in session—until the 11th of
March, when the contest ended as already stated.
The attitude of the Farmers’ Alliance members, from start to finish,
toward the Republican minority, was in effect, that they presented to
them the alternative of electing the Alliance nominee with Republican
votes, or of allowing the Democratic nominee to be elected by Alliance
votes. The proposition was one as humiliating to the great political
organization to which it was made, as it was inconsistent in those who
made it. Nevertheless, it was adhered to and all counter-propositions
were rejected. Republican diplomacy was tried without result, the
Alliance members refusing to vote for a leading representative of their
own interests when he was put forward as the Republican nominee.
As the contest was prolonged, the feeling between Republicans and
Democrats became more intensely antagonistic, and a point was finally
reached where some of the Republican leaders apparently determined to
defeat General Palmer at any cost. To do this they determined to throw
the support of the entire Republican membership of the Legislature to
Streeter, thereby securing his election by a majority of two votes.
Principles were for the time being lost sight of by those who favored
this movement. Political trusts were relegated to the region of barren
idealities, and rank heresies were to be swallowed without a grimace
for the sole purpose of compassing the defeat of an old time political
adversary.
That the dominant party of the third State in the Union was not in a
sense, committed to the vagaries of a nondescript political organization,
and made directly responsible for the acts of one of its most erratic
representatives, was due to the sound judgment and positive convictions
of a very small number of Republican Legislators, of whom Hon. Henry
H. Evans, representing the Fourteenth Senatorial District, was the
acknowledged leader.
While Colonel Evans had long been prominent in the politics of the State
and had had much to do with shaping its legislatures for a dozen years
or more, no other event in his life has brought him so conspicuously
before the public as the determined stand which he took against, what
could not have been regarded in the future, as anything else than a
sacrifice of the political integrity of his party. While those who were
engineering this movement may have been mistaken in their calculations,
they frequently affirmed that they could deliver to the Alliance
candidate for Senator, the entire Republican vote of the Legislature,
provided Senator Evans would consent to have this vote so recorded, and
it is reasonably certain that his colleagues of the opposition were
largely influenced by him. The pressure brought to bear on him, to
induce him to become a party to the combine with the Alliance, was of
the most powerful kind, but to entreaties, arguments and threats alike,
he returned the same answer, the gist of which is contained in a brief
statement of his intentions, to which he gave utterance at one of the
numerous Republican caucuses, at which this matter was considered. On
that occasion he said: “I want to say to this caucus, that I will never
vote for any of these men for United States Senator, no matter what this
caucus may think. I am a Republican, and I am for a Republican. I was
elected and sent here to vote for a Republican for United States Senator,
and that I will do to the end of this contest. But I do not think we
should humiliate the glorious old Republican party of Illinois, by
bartering away our independence for the sake of sending to the Senate a
political nondescript for whose official action we must be responsible.”
This was the ringing declaration of an honest and courageous
representative of well defined political principles. It was a declaration
of his purposes from which he did not deviate during the contest, and no
public servant ever made a better record for consistency and a strict
observance of his obligations to his constituency.
The prominence which he attained in this honorable contest, and through
public services previously rendered, have made him one of the prominent
figures among the public men of Illinois, and the story of his life
becomes interesting.
Born at Toronto, Canada, March 9, 1836, he has been essentially the
architect of his own fortune. His father, Griffith Evans, and his wife,
(Elizabeth Weldon), were both natives of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, being
descendants of families ante-dating the Revolution—so that, although born
on Canadian soil, Colonel Evans is of thoroughly American ancestry.
His father was a millwright by trade, who with his wife and family
settled at Aurora, Illinois, in 1841. Colonel Evans was next to the
eldest of ten children. The father was an industrious and intelligent
mechanic who had more or less to do with the erection and equipment
of several large mills in the neighborhood of Aurora, but he never
accumulated any considerable amount of property, and his children had to
depend mainly upon their own resources.
Col. Evans received his education in the public schools of Aurora,
grew to manhood there, and then married Alice M. Rhodes, a lady of
English birth and parentage. Soon after his marriage, he engaged in the
restaurant business and continued in this business until September,
1862, when he enlisted in the One Hundred and Twenty-fourth Regiment
of Illinois Volunteer Infantry. He was mustered into the service at
Springfield, Illinois, went into action first at Jackson, Tenn.,
participated in the siege of Vicksburg and in successive campaigns, being
mustered out of service at the end of three years days from the date of
his enlistment.
Immediately after his retirement from the military service, he returned
to his old business in Aurora. Enterprising, shrewd and capable, his
business expanded and he became the proprietor and then owner of the
leading hotel of the city, and one of its most enterprising and public
spirited citizens. He became largely interested in real estate, laying
out several large additions to the city, and realizing handsome profits
from his investments. In 1882, he organized the Aurora Street Railroad
Company, took charge of the construction of the road, and pushed to
completion, an enterprise which has since been developed into one of
the most perfect electric railroad systems in the West. He was also the
projector of the Joliet and Aurora Northern Railroad, an enterprise
with which he was most actively identified up to the date of its going
into operation, and at a late date as one of its leading officials.
In everything calculated to contribute in any way to the growth and
prosperity of Aurora he has taken a most active interest, and as a
natural consequence of this, coupled with a cheering geniality, he has
always enjoyed great popularity.
His political life began in 1876, when he was elected an Alderman for
one of the wards of Aurora. In the fall of the same year he was elected
a member of the State Legislature. After serving one term in the House
of Representatives, he was elected, in 1880, a member of the State
Senate, and has been twice re-elected since that time. As a member of the
General Assembly, he has become recognized as a careful and conscientious
legislator, with a large stock of practical ideas, and a capacity for
energetic and persistent efforts, which have made his services peculiarly
valuable to his constituents. While serving his first term in the
Legislature he introduced and succeeded in having enacted into a law,
the bill providing for the establishment of a State Soldier’s Home in
Illinois—an institution which does great credit to the State.
He was also the author of the law under which the National Guard is now
organized, a measure which met with determined opposition at the time of
its introduction. Despite the opposition however, it became a law, and
the wisdom of the act has since been demonstrated on numerous occasions.
In recognition of his services in perfecting the organization of and
rendering effective the State Militia, Governor Shelby M. Cullom made
him a member of his military staff, with the rank of colonel. He was
appointed to the same position on the staff of Governor Hamilton and
Governor Oglesby, and is now serving on the staff of Governor Fifer.
The Police Pension bill was another of the important measures which had
his successful advocacy.
The life of Col. Evans strikingly emphasizes the marvelous industry,
tireless energy, and broad spirit of enterprise that are to-day so
characteristic of the American man of affairs.
W. H. MAGUIRE.
EDITORIAL AND HISTORICAL NOTES.
The present (November) number of the Magazine of Western History, which
is the first number of the new volume (Vol. XV) appears under a new name
which will more adequately describe its present character.
The title chosen—“THE NATIONAL MAGAZINE—A JOURNAL DEVOTED TO AMERICAN
HISTORY—” is in keeping with the enlarged scope and purpose of the
publication. When it first came into existence, its proposed mission was
to gather and preserve the history of that great West which lies beyond
the Alleghanies, and while that labor has been pursued with results
that have enriched American history, the boundaries have been gradually
enlarged until the whole country has become its field of research, and
readers and contributors are found in every State and territory.
The Magazine has become NATIONAL, and it is believed that the present
name will be accepted as more appropriate than the one that has been
outgrown.
* * * * *
The new name defines, perhaps with sufficient fullness, both scope and
purpose, but for the sake of clearness we add that it is proposed to
confine our interest exclusively to the field of American History, and
whatever directly illustrates it. By this we mean not alone or chiefly
the history of our remote past with its discoveries, its early settlers,
and its struggling colonies, but the history as well of the present
century—the planting of colonies by railroads, the evolution of States,
the founding of cities, the building up of a literature, the history of
politics, and of all that unexampled material progress that makes America
the wonder and admiration of the world.
* * * * *
The great civil war has served necessarily as an extraordinary stimulus
to historical writing and research concerning its antecedent causes,
the tremendous conflict itself, and its far reaching and still potent
consequences. It is plain however, that the history of the war has yet
been written only in outline. The historical material which when gathered
and sifted would give it completeness and fullness is as yet largely
unwritten. This exists in the recollections of men yet living—actors and
witnesses—in their letters, journals and other written memoranda, and in
the traditions carefully cherished by families and friends of those that
are gone. We propose to collect such material as far as possible, and
give it a permanent record in our pages.
* * * * *
One of the interesting features of our national life is the growth of
societies for the encouragement of historical studies as well as the
preservation of valuable historical material which would otherwise be
lost. The historical societies having permanent homes, number nearly
or quite two hundred and fifty, and while some of the largest support
intermittent publications of their own, we believe there is no general
organ devoted to their interests and furnishing a medium of intercourse
between them. The National Magazine proposes, as far as possible, to
supply this want and will conduct a separate department giving all notes
of interest regarding the Historical Societies of the United States
which we may be able to obtain.
* * * * *
It is believed that a large amount of historical material of great
interest both to the general reader and the historical student exists
in the shape of papers prepared by members of these various Historical
Societies for the interest and instruction of their particular
organizations.
Such papers as we refer to are prepared for the most part by members who
have both leisure and taste for historical research, or who find in such
work a grateful relief from the exacting cares of successful professional
and business careers, and although addressed to a limited circle, have
frequently a value and interest that entitles them to a larger audience
and to preservation in more permanent form.
It is proposed to present in the pages of the Magazine, in pursuance of
our general purpose to broaden the field of its interest and usefulness,
a selection from such papers. It is believed that the literature of
American History would be greatly enriched from this source. Papers of
even local interest are not without value to the student of history in
any portion of the country, and all these various efforts at writing
history are building up that great body of historical material from which
American History at least in the nineteenth century is to be exhaustively
and philosophically written.
* * * * *
“In lighter vein” we propose to touch on the picturesque side of
historical research, and to seek material in the legends and traditions
that attach to certain localities. The very fact that a certain headland,
valley, mountain or river has a legendary interest is not undeserving
the attention of the scholar and is a matter of legitimate historical
interest if not value. A country as new as ours can well afford to
jealously preserve whatever of such legendary and historical lore it
may have. It at least serves to “adorn the tale” which has a more solid
basis. Other changes are contemplated that will add value, and interest
to the pages of the Magazine.
* * * * *
The present number contains the first installment of a series of articles
from the advance sheets of the forthcoming Memorial History of New
York, edited by Gen. James Grant Wilson. It is the intention to select
for publication in the Magazine such parts of this work as will in our
judgment be of great interest to its readers, and as far as possible
present a continuous narrative. These articles will be amply illustrated
from the plates prepared and selected for the original work with great
care. The exhaustive character of the work, the time given to its
preparation, the staff of contributors each pre-eminent in his special
field, are fully set forth on the cover of the present number.
* * * * *
In the August number of this Magazine we remarked upon the fact that the
historic property of Valley Forge was in danger of being sold and divided
among individual purchasers and that in this event the ancient ramparts
of Fort Washington, the site of the forge, the cold spring, and the
Headquarters of Washington, Lafayette and Knox would be obliterated. It
is a pleasure to learn that the march of such “improvement” will probably
be arrested. A meeting of the members of the National Society of the
Daughters of the Revolution residing in Washington was held on Oct. 13th,
and a plan was considered for purchasing and preserving this property.
The Illinois chapter of the same organization has also held a meeting
to advance the same cause. With the patriotic ardor of women thoroughly
awakened there should be no question about preserving to the nation the
field of Valley Forge with all its “visible history.”
* * * * *
A monument to the great Indian Chief Red Jacket, Chief of the Senecas and
the renowned orator of the six nations was dedicated at Waterloo, N. Y.
on Oct. 14th. President Welles of the Waterloo Historical Society under
whose auspices the monument is erected presided. The Hon. W. C. Bryant
of Buffalo delivered an historical address. The monument is unique in
design, being carved from a block of granite to represent the trunk of an
oak tree, and stands on the west shore of Cayuga Lake near the spot where
Red Jacket was born. The base bears four descriptive bronze tablets, and
around the base are clustered six small bowlders bearing the names of the
six nations of the Iroquois. Red Jacket was one of the unique figures of
his time, his character a peculiar mixture of the noble and the ignoble,
a sagacious statesman, a cunning demagogue, but always an Indian.
* * * * *
A gathering both important and unique was held in Independence Hall,
Philadelphia, on the 12th of October. The occasion was the reunion of
a committee which has undertaken to organize a Pan-Republic Congress
and Human Freedom League, and to arrange an international meeting in
connection with the anniversary ceremonies of 1892. The leaders of the
movement claim that their ideas have been gradually disseminated through
organized societies in all civilized countries. Their meaning and purpose
they broadly state to be: That the four hundredth anniversary of the
discovery of this continent should be celebrated by a convocation, first
of the representatives of all governments based on an acknowledgment of
the rights of man, and secondly, of representatives of the people of
high purpose everywhere, independent of the form of government under
which they live. That these two bodies acting in concert on the soil of
the greatest of the governments founded upon freedom, should consult
together on the means of widening the domain in which the earth’s
dwellers may enjoy the rights claimed for us by our immortal Declaration
of Independence.
* * * * *
Youngest among the sisterhood of the States of our Union stands
Washington, on the borders of the far Pacific. It is very gratifying to
observe the citizens of a community of such regent origin, amid the eager
competitions of life and the pressure of material interests, turning
aside from these practical pursuits to secure for future generations a
record not only of their own achievements, but of the humbler and more
heroic doings of the pioneers of their State. Such is the aim and purpose
of the Washington State Historical Society, organized during the present
month in the city of Tacoma, and the latest to join the ever widening
circle of these societies. In the words of its president, the Hon.
Elwood Evans, “the State of Washington has reached a time when the need
of collecting original historical material has become imperative since
the history of the State and Territory runs back 38 years, and most of
the early settlers are dead. The hardships and heroism of the pioneers
should be handed down and recorded as material for the historian of later
years.”
NOTES FROM THE HISTORICAL SOCIETIES.
The quarterly meeting of the Chicago Historical Society, (Illinois,) was
held on Tuesday evening, Oct. 20. A paper was read prepared by Samuel C.
Clarke of Marietta, Ga., entitled “Some recollections of Chicago in the
Forties.”
* * * * *
The Pejepscot Historical Society (Brunswick), Maine, are considering the
erection of a fireproof building.
* * * * *
The Maryland Historical Society (Baltimore), are discussing with active
interest the successor to John H. B. Latrobe, Esq., late President of the
Society, S. Teakle Wallis, Esq., and Gen. Bradley T. Johnson are the most
prominent names mentioned.
* * * * *
The Wakefield Historical Society, Mass., at its monthly meeting in
October, received some valuable donations, the most interesting of which
was the diary of Capt. Natl. Cowdrey, kept by him during the campaign in
New York which included Arnold’s treason and the attempt to capture West
Point.
* * * * *
The annual meeting of the Beverly Mass., Historical Society was held on
the evening of Oct. 14th. The occasion was the 223rd anniversary of the
settlement of the Town of Beverly.
* * * * *
The Old Colony Historical Society, (Taunton) Mass., held a large meeting
on Thursday, Oct. 15. Geo. Fox Tucker, Esq. of New Bedford, gave an
elaborate address on the Quaker element in New England, and the Old
Colony life in the middle of the seventeenth century.
* * * * *
The Cape Ann Historical Society (Gloucester) Mass., was formed on the
evening of Oct. 7th. Joseph L. Stevens was elected president and Alfred
F. Stickney corresponding secretary.
* * * * *
The Suffolk County Historical Society N. Y., held its annual meeting at
Riverhead on Oct. 6th. A committee was appointed to consider the erection
of a suitable fireproof building for the use of the society and the
preservation of its treasures, many of which are original parchments and
manuscripts which could not be replaced.
* * * * *
The Westchester County Historical Society, N. Y. held its annual
meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 28th—the anniversary of the battle of White
Plains—Judge J. O. Dykman gave an address on County Affairs during the
Revolutionary War.
* * * * *
Waterloo Historical Society N. Y.—_See Editorial Notes._
* * * * *
The Dauphin County Historical Society, (Harrisburgh) Pa., held an
interesting meeting on Oct. 8th, and received many valuable documents
connected with the war. A paper on “Historic Localities” by Mr. E. J.
Stackpole was read.
* * * * *
The Ohio Historical Society (Columbus), with characteristic enterprise
and timeliness has appointed a committee of three into whose hands will
be placed the arrangements for the historical and archeological display
of Ohio at the Columbian Fair.
* * * * *
The October meeting of the Rhode Island Soldiers and Sailors Historical
Society (Providence), was held on Oct. 20. Several interesting historical
donations were received. Gen. Viall read a paper entitled “Sketch of the
14th R. I. Heavy Artillery.”
* * * * *
The Rhode Island Veteran Citizens Historical Association (Providence)
held one of their regular meetings on Oct. 20th. It was announced that
Noah J. Arnold, Esq., was preparing a paper on “Adrien Block and Block
Island” which should prove very interesting.
* * * * *
The Tennessee Historical Society (Nashville), held its monthly meeting in
the Watkins Institute on Oct. 13th. The noteworthy event of the meeting
was their action in formally requesting their senators and members in
Congress to lend their aid to the erection of the proposed national
gallery of history and art in commemoration of our 400th anniversary.
It is hoped that other societies will support the Tennessee Historical
Society in this object.
The Vermont Historical Society (Montpelier), held their annual meeting at
their rooms in the State House on Oct. 20th. President Hiram Carleton,
presided. The old officers were re-elected.
* * * * *
The Washington State Historical Society was organized at Tacoma on Oct.
8th. Hon. Elwood Evans was made President and C. H. Hobart, Secretary.
RECENT HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS.
“HISTORICAL ESSAYS.” By Henry Adams. Chas. Scribners’ Sons.
In this volume are gathered a number of essays, chiefly on historical
subjects, which have appeared at various times in magazines. They are
characterized, as might be expected, by the clear and attractive style
and the incisive thought that belongs to all of Mr. Adams’ literary work.
Some of the essays are of pronounced value and interest. Notably the
essay on the Gold Conspiracy, which to any one who is at all familiar
with the details of one of the most remarkable episodes in American
financial history, will prove absorbingly interesting. It contains a
sketch of Jay Gould, which, in the light of recent occurrences, has a
peculiar interest.
In no field of investigation at the present time is the skeptical spirit
more active than in the historical, and the essay on Capt. John Smith
will provoke some criticism and more regret, as it is an effort to cut
away the historic basis from the beautiful story of Pocahontas. As Dr.
Schliemann has lifted Troy and its legends to the dignity of history,
perhaps some historical explorer may be inspired to undertake the same
task for the Pocahontas incident.
* * * * *
We have received in pamphlet form, as one of the published collections of
the Minnesota Historical Society for 1891, the account of the ceremonies
of the two hundredth anniversary of the discovery of the Falls of St.
Anthony by Father Hennepin in 1680, and the different papers read on
that interesting occasion. This “Part” is a continuation of the series
of short sketches and papers which had been interrupted, and makes a
valuable addition to the data for Western History. It is a real pleasure
to praise the beautiful typographical appearance of this pamphlet.
* * * * *
“BEGINNINGS OF LITERARY CULTURE IN THE OHIO VALLEY.” By W. H. Venable,
L.L.D. Robert Clarke & Co., 1891.
Dr. Venable has been very successful in his undertaking to show the
progress of literature, education, art, politics and religion in the Ohio
Valley, from the days of the early settlers until the present time. He
has done this by sketching the careers of those who have been conspicuous
in these fields of culture and practical interest, and has gathered a
great fund of information, anecdote and biographical detail, which has
made his narrative very interesting as well as full.
* * * * *
“JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE. AUTOBIOGRAPHY, DIARY AND CORRESPONDENCE.” Edited
by Edward Everett Hale. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1891.
A book on James Freeman Clarke, by Edward Everett Hale, encourages “great
expectations,” and these expectations are not disappointed.
It is a delightful mixture of the handiwork of two bright thinkers and
recognized lights in our native literature. After a modest account of
himself, the subject of the sketch is delineated still further by a fond
and appreciative friend. The man, broad and free and catholic in his
thinking and in his feeling, opens his heart to us in diary and letters.
And what he fails to tell, as eminently improper for himself to tell,
Dr. Hale gives to us, so that the picture may be complete. The keynote
to the book, and the real use of it, are indicated on the first page by
Dr. Clarke himself: “I have lived in an important period; have known many
eminent men and distinguished women; have seen great changes in social
life, in religious opinion, in private morals and public manners. If I
can succeed in making a few suggestive pictures, or memory sketches,
it may be a gratification to my children and friends, and possibly
contribute matter for the future historian of this period.”
* * * * *
“HISTORICAL COLLECTION OF OHIO.” By Henry Howe, L.L.D.
The two concluding volumes of the Historical Collections of Ohio are now
published together, and complete a monumental work. Dr. Howe has given
many years to this undertaking, and is said to have personally visited
every locality of which he treats, and collected his facts from the lips
of living men and women as well as from written records. The work is
more than a formal history. It unfolds before the reader the whole life
and annals of Ohio, from the earliest settlements to the present day.
Geography and statistics go hand in hand with narration, reminiscence and
details of social life and customs.
* * * * *
“OHIO ARCHÆOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY, VOL. III.”
We have received the third volume of the publications of The Ohio
Archæological and Historical Society. This volume is mainly concerned
with the anniversary exercises connected with the centennial of the
settlement of Gallipolis. Exhaustive papers on “The French Settlement
and Settlers of Gallipolis,” “The Scioto Company and its Purchase,”
and the “Early Judiciary of Ohio,” attest the historical value of this
volume. It also contains a report of the sixth annual meeting of the
society, February 19th and 20th, 1891. The secretary (Mr. A. A. Graham),
very pertinently says in his preface, “The State is now indebted to the
Ohio Archæological and Historical Society for three valuable historical
volumes, and if the society had done nothing else, its existence is more
than justified.”
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