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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13680 ***
+
+[Illustration: G.H. Perkins]
+
+
+
+
+THE BAY STATE MONTHLY
+
+_A MASSACHUSETTS MAGAZINE_.
+
+VOL. I.
+
+APRIL, 1884.
+
+NO. IV.
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1884, by John N.
+McClintock and Company, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at
+Washington.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CAPTAIN GEORGE HAMILTON PERKINS, U.S.N.
+
+By CAPTAIN GEORGE E. BELKNAP, U.S.N.
+
+
+In passing up the Concord and Claremont Railroad from Concord, the
+observant traveler has doubtless noticed the substantial and
+comfortable-looking homestead with large and trim front yard, shaded by
+thickly planted and generous topped maples, on the right-hand side of
+the road after crossing the bridge that spans
+
+  "Contoocook's bright and brimming river,"
+
+at the pleasant-looking village of Contoocookville in the northern part
+of Hopkinton.
+
+There, under that inviting roof, the subject of this sketch, GEORGE
+HAMILTON PERKINS, the eldest son in a family of eight children, was
+born, October 20, 1836.
+
+His father, the Honorable Hamilton Eliot Perkins, inherited all the land
+in that part of the town, and, in early life, in addition to
+professional work as a counsellor-at-law and member of the Merrimack
+County bar, built the mills at Contoocookville, and was, in fact, the
+founder of the thriving settlement at that point.
+
+His paternal grandfather, Roger Eliot Perkins, came to Hopkinton from
+the vicinity of Salem, Massachusetts, when a young man, and by his
+energy, enterprise, and public spirit, soon impressed his individuality
+upon the community, and became one of the leading citizens of the town.
+
+His mother was Miss Clara Bartlett George, daughter of the late John
+George, Esquire, of Concord, whose ancestors were among the early
+settlers of Watertown, Massachusetts. He is said to have been a man of
+active temperament, prompt in business, stout in heart, bluff of speech,
+honest in purpose, and never failing in any way those who had dealings
+with him.
+
+As "the child is father of the man," so the boyhood and youth of Captain
+Perkins gave earnest of those qualities which in his young manhood the
+rude tests of the sea and the grim crises of war developed to the full.
+"No matter" was his first plainly spoken phrase, a hint of childish
+obstinacy that foreshadowed the persistence of maturer years. Among
+other feats of his boyish daring, it is told that when a mere child,
+hardly into his first trousers, he went one day to catch a colt in one
+of his father's fields bordering on the Contoocook. The colt declined to
+be caught and after a sharp scamper took to the river and swam across.
+Nothing daunted, the plucky little urchin threw off his jacket, plunged
+into the swift current, and safely breasting it, was soon in hot pursuit
+on the other side; and after a long chase and hard tussle made out to
+catch the spirited animal and bring him home in triumph. Always
+passionately fond of animals and prematurely expert in all out-door
+sports, he thus early began to master that noblest of beasts, the horse.
+
+When eight years old, his father removed with his family to Boston, and,
+investing his means in shipping, engaged for a time in trade with the
+west coast of Africa. The son was apt to run about the wharves with his
+father, and the sight of the ships and contact with "Jack" doubtless
+awoke the taste for the sea, that was to be gratified later on.
+
+Returning to the old homestead on the Contoocook after the lapse of two
+years or more, the old, quiet, yet for young boyhood, frolicsome
+out-door life was resumed, and the lad grew apace amid the rural scenes
+and ample belongings of that generous home; not over studious, perhaps,
+and chafing, as boys will, at the restraint imposed by the study of
+daily lessons and their recital to his mother.
+
+At twelve years of age, he was sent to the Hopkinton Academy, and
+afterwards to the academy at Gilmanton. While at Gilmanton, General
+Charles H. Peaslee, then member of Congress from the Concord
+congressional district, offered him the appointment of acting midshipman
+to fill a vacancy at the Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, which,
+after some hesitation, his parents permitted him to accept, and he was
+withdrawn from Gilmanton and sent to Concord to prepare for entrance at
+Annapolis, under a private tutor. He remained under such pupilage until
+the age of fifteen, when the beginning of the academic year, October,
+1851, saw him installed in "Middy's" uniform at that institution, and
+the business of life for him had begun in earnest.
+
+To a young and restless lad, used to being afield at all times and hours
+with horse, dog, and gun, and fresh from a country home where the "pomp
+and circumstance" of military life had had no other illustration than
+occasional glimpses of the old "training and muster days" so dear to New
+Hampshire boys forty years ago, the change to the restraint and
+discipline; the inflexible routine and stern command; the bright
+uniforms and novel ways; the sight of the ships and the use of a
+vocabulary that ever smacks of the sea; the call by drum and trumpet to
+every act of the day, from bed-rising, prayers, and breakfast, through
+study, recitation, drill, and recreation hours, to tattoo and taps, when
+every student is expected to be in bed,--was a transformation wonderful
+indeed; but the flow of discipline and routine are so regular and
+imperative that their currents are imperceptibly impressed upon the
+youthful mind and soon become a part of his nature, as it were,
+unawares. So we may conclude that our young aspirant for naval honors
+proved no exception to the rule, and soon settled into these new grooves
+of life as quietly as his ardent temperament would permit.
+
+The discipline at the Academy, in those days, was harsher and more
+exacting, and the officers of the institution of a sterner and more
+experienced sea-school, than now; and the three months' practice cruises
+across the Atlantic, which the different classes made on alternate
+summers, when the "young gentlemen" were trained to do all the work of
+seamen, both alow and aloft, and lived on the old navy ration of salt
+junk, pork and beans, and hardtack, with no extras, were anything but a
+joke. The Academy, too, was in a transition state from the system in
+vogue, up to 1850 inclusive, prior to which period the midshipmen went
+to sea immediately after appointment, pretty much after the fashion of
+Peter Simple and Jack Easy, and after a lapse of five years came to the
+school for a year's cramming and coaching before graduating as passed
+midshipmen. The last of such appointees was graduated in 1856, and the
+sometime hinted contaminating influence of the "oldsters" upon the
+"youngsters" was a thing to be known no more forever, albeit the hint of
+contamination always seemed, to the writer, questionable, as, in his
+experience, the habit and propensity of the youngsters for mischief
+appeared to require neither promotion nor encouragement. Indeed, their
+methods and ingenuity in evading rules and regulations and defying
+discipline were as original as they were persevering, and could the
+third-story room of the building occupied by the subject of this sketch
+be given tongue, it would tell a tale of frolic and drollery that would
+only find parallel in the inimitable pages of Marryatt. Convenient
+apparatus for the stewing or roasting of oysters, poaching of eggs, or
+the mixing of refreshing drinks, could be readily stowed away from the
+inspecting officer, or a roast goose or turkey be smuggled by a trusty
+darkey from some restaurant outside; and it was but the work of a moment
+after taps to tack a blanket over the window, light the gas, and bring
+out a dilapidated pack of cards for a game of California Jack or
+draw-poker; or to convert the prim pine table into a billiard-table,
+with marbles for balls, with which the ownership of many a collar,
+neckerchief, shirt, and other articles of none too plentiful wardrobes,
+were decided in a twinkling, while the air of the crowded room grew
+thick and stifling from the smoke of the forbidden tobacco. One of the
+company would keep a sharp lookout for the possible advent of the
+sometimes rubber-shod passed midshipman doing police duty, and, if
+necessary, danger signals would be made from the basement story, by
+tapping on the steam-pipes, which signal would be repeated from room to
+room, and from floor to floor, generally in ample time for the young
+bacchanalians to disperse in safety. If, perchance, the revelers got
+caught, they would stand up at the next evening's parade and hear the
+offence and demerits accorded, read out in presence of the battalion,
+with an easy _sang-froid_ that piqued the sea-worn experience of the
+oldsters while they marveled. Let no one judge these lads too harshly,
+for the day came, all too soon, when they were to stand up in face of
+the enemy, and, with equally nonchalant but sterner courage, go into
+battle in defence of the flag they were being trained to defend, many
+winning undying honor and fame, some meeting untimely but heroic graves,
+in "the war that kept the Union whole."
+
+Our midshipmite soon became a favorite with all, from the gruff old
+superintendent down to the littlest new-comer at the school. His
+bright, cheery, and genial disposition, and frank, hearty ways, were
+very winning, and if, in his studies, he did not take leading rank, nor
+become enraptured over analytics, calculus, and binomials, he was
+esteemed a spirited, heartsome lad of good stock and promise, bred to
+honorable purpose and aspiration, with seemingly marked aptitude for the
+noble profession, which, more than any other, calls for a heroism that
+never hesitates, a courage that never falters; for, aside from its
+special work of upholding and defending the flag, and all it symbolizes,
+on the high seas to the uttermost parts of the globe, "they that go down
+to sea in ships" come closer to the manifestations of the unspeakable
+might and majesty of Almighty Power than any other. The seaman, with but
+a plank separating him from eternity, never knows at what moment he may
+be called upon to put forth all the skill and resource, the unflinching
+effort and sacrifice, that his calling ever, in emergency, unstintedly
+requires.
+
+  "Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail,
+  He searches all its stormy deep, its dangers all unveil."
+
+Of medium height, slight and trim of figure, clear complexion and
+piercing gray eyes of peculiar brilliancy, softened by a merry twinkle
+betokening latent mischief, young Perkins was a youth fair and
+interesting to look upon. He walked with quick, elastic step, carried
+his head a little on one side, and had a habit, when anything struck his
+fancy pleasantly, of shrugging his shoulders and rubbing his hands
+together in a vigorous way, that seemed to declare in unmistakable terms
+that he was glad all over!
+
+During one of the wonted summer cruises, he made himself somewhat famous
+at great-gun practice, the details of which are given in one of his home
+letters, as follows:--
+
+"We had target practice one day, and it came my turn to shoot. There was
+quite a swell on, which made it very difficult to get any kind of a
+shot, but when I fired I hit the target, which was a barrel with a small
+flag on it, set up about three quarters of a mile distant. Such a thing
+as hitting a small target at sea, with the ship in motion, and a swell
+on, is considered almost out of the question, so they all said it was
+'luck.' But another target was put out, and I fired again and stove it
+all to pieces. Then the crew all cheered, and made quite a hero of me.
+Still some said it must be luck, and another target was put out in
+exactly the same manner. This one I did not quite hit, but the shot fell
+so near, that all gave it up it was _not_ luck, and that I was a
+first-rate shot with broadside guns."
+
+After such demonstration, it is not strange that he was looked upon as
+having a very correct eye for distances, and was ever afterward called
+upon to fire whenever experiments were wanted. Naval gunnery, be it
+remarked in passing, is quite a different matter from army practice: in
+the former, with its platform never at rest, it is like shooting a bird
+on the wing, when distance and motion must be accurately gauged and
+allowed for; in the latter, from its gun on a fixed platform, it is but
+a question of measurement from the object, by means of instruments if
+need be, and of good pointing. The seaman stands immediately in rear of
+the gun, with eye along the sight directing its train, now right, now
+left, now well, and with taut lock-string in hand in readiness to pull
+the moment the object is on, and on the alert to jump clear of the
+recoil. The soldier handles his piece with greater deliberation, sights
+it leisurely on its immovable platform, and, if mounted _en barbette_,
+retires behind a traverse before firing.
+
+Graduating in June, 1856, the now full-fledged Midshipman Perkins could
+look back upon his five years' probationary experience with many
+pleasant recollections, though doubtless thanking his stars that his
+pupilage was over.
+
+During his time there had been two superintendents at the academy. The
+first was Captain C.K. Stribling, a fine seaman of the old school, of
+rigid Presbyterian stock, stern, grim, and precise, with curt manners,
+sharp and incisive voice that seemed to know no softening, and whose
+methods of duty and conception of discipline smacked of the "true blue"
+ideal of the Covenanters of old in their enforcement of obedience and
+conservation of morals. The second was Captain L.M. Goldsborough, a man
+of stalwart height and proportions and a presence that ennobled command;
+learned and accomplished, yet gruff and overwhelming in speech and
+brusque and impatient in manner, but possessing, withal, a kindly
+nature, and a keen sense of humor that took in a joke enjoyably, however
+practical; and a sympathetic discrimination that often led him to
+condone moral offences at which some of the straight-laced professors
+stood aghast. His responses at church-service resounded like the growl
+of a bear, and when reprimanding the assembled midshipmen, drawn up in
+battalion, for some grave breach of discipline, he would stride up and
+down the line with the tread of an elephant, and expound the Articles of
+War in stentorian tones that equaled the roar of a bull! But if,
+perchance, in the awesome precincts of his office, he afterwards got
+hold of a piece of doggerel some witty midshipman had written
+descriptive of such a scene, none would enjoy it more than he!
+
+After an enjoyment of a three months' leave of absence at home.
+Midshipman Perkins was ordered to join the sloop-of-war Cyane, Captain
+Robb. That ship was one of the home squadron, and in November, 1856,
+sailed for Aspinwall, to give protection to our citizens, mails, and
+freight, in the transit across the Isthmus of Panama to California, back
+and forth. At that period safe and rapid transit in that region of riots
+and revolution was much more important than now,--the Pacific Railroad
+existing only in the brains of a few sagacious men,--and the maintenance
+of the thoroughfare across the pestilential isthmus was a national
+necessity. For years our naval force on either side had had frequent
+occasion to land expeditions to protect the life and property of our
+citizens, and a frightful massacre of passengers had but lately occurred
+at the hands of a mongrel mob at Panama. The situation was critical, and
+for a time it looked as though the United States would be obliged to
+seize and hold that part of Colombian territory. But time wore on
+without outbreak on the part of the fiery freemen of that so-called
+republic, the continued presence of ships, both at Panama and Aspinwall,
+doubtless convincing them of the folly of further attempts to molest the
+hated Yankees.
+
+Meanwhile the notorious Walker had been making a filibustering raid in
+Central America, which ended in failure, and the Cyane went over to
+Greytown to bring the sick and wounded of his deluded followers to
+Aspinwall for passage to New York. Some hundred and twenty officers and
+men found in the hands of the Costa Ricans were taken on board, most of
+them in a deplorable condition. Some died before weighing anchor for
+Aspinwall, and as midshipmen have no definable duties except to obey
+orders, whatever they may be, Midshipman Perkins was sent in a boat one
+day to take a chaplain's part in the burial of one of the victims. "When
+we got out to sea," he wrote, "I read some prayers over him, and then he
+was thrown over the side, the sailors saying 'God bless you!' as the
+body sunk." This sad duty made him feel solemn and reflective, but more
+than likely as not he was called upon immediately on arrival on board,
+as "master's mate of the spirit-room," to attend the serving out of grog
+to the ship's company! Extremes meet on board a man-of-war, and the
+times for moralizing are short and scant.
+
+So time sped, Midshipman Perkins performing his multifarious duties with
+alacrity and approval, and having some perilous adventures by flood and
+field in pursuit of wild game, until July, 1857, when the monotony of
+the cruise was broken by a trip to the banks of Newfoundland for the
+protection of our fishing interests, and including visits at Boston, St.
+John's, and Halifax.
+
+The people of the Provinces were very hospitable, and the contrast
+between the dusky damsels of the isthmus and the ruddy-cheeked belles of
+St. John's and Halifax was brightening in the extreme; and young
+Perkins, ever gallant in his intercourse with the sex, and a good
+dancer, found much favor with the Provincial beauties, and doubtless
+made up for past deprivations, in the alluring contact with their
+charms.
+
+Returning southward in the fall, the ship cruised among the West Indies,
+visiting, among other ports, Cape Haytien, the old capital of the island
+of Hayti, to inquire into the imprisonment of an American merchant
+captain. This place, before the French Revolution, had been a city of
+great magnificence and beauty--the Paris of the Isles; and the old
+French nobility, possessing enormous landed estates and large numbers of
+slaves, lived in a state of almost fabled grandeur and luxury; but negro
+rule, the removal of the seat of government to Port-au-Prince, and the
+great earthquake of 1842, have destroyed all but a semblance of its
+former glory and importance.
+
+Among other sights visited by the officers was the old home of Count
+Cristoff, a castle of great size and strength, built on one of the
+highest hills, some twelve miles back of the town. It was told of the
+old Count that he used every year to bury large sums of money from his
+revenues, and then shoot the slave who did the work, that the secret of
+the spot might be known only to himself.
+
+In January, 1858, Midshipman Perkins was detached from the Cyane, and he
+bade adieu forever to her dark, cramped-up, tallow-candle lighted
+steerage, baggy hammock, and hard fare, where the occasional dessert to
+a salt dinner had been dried apples, mixed with bread and flavored with
+whiskey! There were no eleven-o'clock breakfasts for midshipmen in those
+days, and canned meats, condensed milk, preserved fruits, and other
+luxuries now common on shipboard, were almost unknown.
+
+A few brief days at home and orders came to join the storeship Release,
+which vessel after a three months' cruise in the Mediterranean returned
+to New York to fill up with stores and provisions for the Paraguay
+expedition. That expedition had for its object the chastisement of the
+Dictator Lopez for certain dastardly acts committed against our flag on
+the River Parana.
+
+Owing to the paucity of officers, so many being absent on other foreign
+service, Midshipman Perkins was appointed acting sailing-master, a very
+responsible position for so young an officer, which, with the added
+comforts of a stateroom and well-ordered table in the wardroom, was
+almost royal in its contrast with the duty, the darksome steerage, and
+hard fare on board the Cyane. It would be difficult to make a landsman
+take in the scope of the change implied, but let him in imagination
+start across the continent in an old-fashioned, cramped-up stage-coach,
+full of passengers, with such coarse fare as could be picked up from day
+to day, and return in a Pullman car with well-stocked larder and
+restaurant attached, and he will get a glimmering as to the difference
+between steerage and wardroom life on board a man-of-war.
+
+The Release was somewhat of a tub, and what with light and contrary
+winds and calms took sixty-two days to reach the rendezvous, Montevideo,
+arriving there in January, 1858. She found the whole fleet at anchor
+there, and officers and men soon forgot the weariness of the long
+passage in the receipt of letters from home, and in the joyous meetings
+with old friends. All admired the fine climate, and, as that part of
+South America is the greatest country in the world for horses, the young
+sailing-master rejoiced in the opportunity offered to indulge in his
+favorite pastime of riding. He also showed his prowess as a devotee of
+the chase in the fine sport afforded on the pampas that enabled him to
+run down and shoot a South American tiger.
+
+Meanwhile Commodore Shubrick, in command of the expedition, had
+completed his preparations for ascending the Parana, and the fleet soon
+moved up to a convenient point, the Commodore himself continuing on up
+the river in a small vessel to Corrientes to meet Lopez and convey to
+him the ultimatum of the United States. After some "backing and
+filling," as an old salt would characterize diplomacy, Lopez concluded
+"discretion to be the better part of valor," and making a satisfactory
+_amende_, the Paraguayan war came to a bloodless end, and the hopes of
+expectant heroes with visions of promotion dissolved like summer clouds.
+
+Young Perkins was now, August, 1858, transferred to the frigate Sabine
+for passage home to his examination for the grade of passed midshipman.
+Passing that ordeal satisfactorily, aided by handsome commendatory
+letters from his commanding officers, he spent three happy months at
+home, and then received orders for duty on board the steamer Sumter, as
+acting master, the destination of that vessel being the west coast of
+Africa, where, in accordance with the provisions of Article 8 of the
+Webster-Ashburton treaty (1842), the United States maintained a
+squadron, carrying not less than eighty guns, in co-operation with the
+British government, for the suppression of the slave trade. That article
+continued in active observance nineteen years, when the United States,
+having a little question of slavery to settle at home, gave the
+stipulated preliminary notice and recalled the ships.
+
+The Sumter arrived on the coast in October, 1859, making her first
+anchorage in the lovely harbor on the west side of Prince's Island. That
+island, in about 1° 30' north latitude, covered with all the luxuriance
+of tropical growth and verdure, and broken into every conceivable shape
+of pinnacle, castellated rock and chasm, and frowning precipice,
+streaked with silvery threads of leaping streams in their dash to the
+sea, is indeed one of the most enchanting spots the eye ever rested on.
+The chief inhabitant of the lovely isle was Madame Ferrara, a woman of
+French extraction, who lived alone in a big, rambling house, surrounded
+by slaves, who cultivated her plantations and prepared the cocoa, palm
+oil, yams, and cocoanuts, for the trade that sought her doors.
+
+Filling up with water, the Sumter proceeded to the island of Fernando
+Po, a Spanish possession close in to the mainland, in the Bight of
+Biafra, where she met several English and French men-of-war, and
+received orders for her future movements.
+
+The first thing to do, in accordance with the custom of the squadron,
+was the enlisting of fifteen or twenty negroes, known as Kroomen, whose
+home is in the Kroo country in upper Guinea, just south of Liberia. They
+did all the heavy boat-work of the ship, thus lightening the work of the
+crew, and saving them as much as possible from exposure to the effects
+of the deadly climate. Great, strapping, muscular fellows, many of them,
+with forms that an Apollo might envy, they were trained from infancy to
+be as much at home in the water as upon the land, and could swim a dozen
+leagues at sea or pull at the oar all day long without seeming fatigue.
+Wonderfully expert in their handling of boats, especially in the heavy
+surf that rolls in upon the coast with ceaseless volume and resistless
+power, its perilous line almost unbroken by a good harbor, from the Cape
+of Good Hope to the Straits of Gibraltar, their services in
+communicating with the shore were simply invaluable. The head Kroomen
+exercised despotic power over their respective gangs, and the men were
+given fanciful names, and so entered on the purser's books.
+Bottle-o'-Beer, Jack Frying-Pan, Tom Bobstay, Upside Down, and the like,
+were favorite names; and our fun-loving young sailing-master hints, in
+his letters of the time, that the archives of the fourth auditor's
+office at Washington may possibly embalm the names of certain Annapolis
+belles that had been borne by some of these sable folk!
+
+The cruising ground embraced the coasts of Upper and Lower Guinea, and
+the coast of Biafra, with occasional visits of recruit and recreation to
+Cape Town and St. Helena. The work was arduous, monotonous, and
+exhausting, especially during the rainy season, when the decks were
+continually deluged with water, and dry clothing was the exception, not
+the rule. The weather was always hot, often damp and sultry, and the
+atmosphere on shore so pestilential, that no one was permitted to remain
+there after sundown. But that rule was no deprivation, as the dangers of
+the passage through the relentless breakers, alive with sharks, were so
+great, that few cared to visit the shore except when absolutely
+necessary. The vessels cruised mostly in sight of the coast to watch the
+movements of the merchantmen, all more or less under suspicion as
+slavers, watching their chances to get off with a cargo. On one hand
+was the rounded horizon dipping into the broad Atlantic; on the other,
+the angry line of rollers with their thunderous roar, backed by white
+beach and dense forest, with occasional glimpses of blue hills in the
+distant interior. This and nothing more, from day to day, save when a
+small village of thatched huts came into view, adding a scant feature to
+the landscape; or a solitary canoe outside the line of breakers; or
+strange sail to seaward; or school of porpoises, leaping and blowing,
+windward bound; or hungry shark prowling round the ship, lent momentary
+interest to the watery solitude. It was a privilege to fall in with
+another cruiser, whether of our own or of the English flag. On such
+occasions, down would go the boats for the exchange of visits, the
+comparison of notes, and sometimes the discussion of a dinner. The
+English officers had numerous captures and handsome sums of prize-money
+to tell of, while our people, as a rule, could only talk of hopes and
+possibilities. Our laws regulating captures were as inflexible as the
+Westminster Catechism, and a captain could not detain a vessel without
+great risk of civil damages, unless slaves were actually on board.
+Suspected ships might have all the fittings and infamous equipage for
+the slave traffic on board, but if their masters produced correct papers
+the vessels could not be touched; and our officers not infrequently had
+the mortification of learning that ships they had overhauled, and
+believed to be slavers, but could not seize under their instructions,
+got off the coast eventually with large cargoes of ebon humanity on
+board.
+
+Not so with the English commanders, whose instructions enabled them to
+take and send to their prize-courts all vessels, except those under the
+American flag, under the slightest showing of nefarious character; and
+their hauls of prize-money were rich and frequent.
+
+The intercourse with the English officers, notes Master Perkins, at
+first cordial and agreeable, became, after a few months, cold and
+indifferent. Her Majesty's officers no longer cared to show politeness
+or friendly feeling. The first premonitions of the Rebellion in the John
+Brown raid, the break-up of the democracy at Charleston, and the
+violence of the Southern press concerning the probable results of the
+pending presidential election, convincing them that the long-predicted
+and wished-for day--the breaking up of the Republic--was nigh at hand,
+and their real feelings as Englishmen cropped out but too plainly; but
+of this, more anon.
+
+Despite the perils of the surf, the dangers of the inhospitable climate,
+and the unfriendly character of some of the savage tribes to be met
+with, the adventurous spirit and dauntless courage of Master Perkins was
+not to be balked. Volunteering for every duty, no matter how dangerous,
+hardly a boat ever left the ship that he was not in it. The life of the
+mess through his unfailing good humor and exuberant flow of spirits, he
+was the soul of every expedition, whether of service or pleasure; and
+before the cruise of some twenty-two months was up, he came to know
+almost every prominent tribe, chief, and king on the coast. Now dining
+with a king off the strangest of viands; now holding "palaver" with
+another; now spending a day with a chief and his numerous wives; now
+visiting a French barracoon, where, under a fiction of law, the victims
+were collected to be shipped as unwilling apprentices, not slaves, to be
+returned to their native wilds, _if they lived long enough_; now
+ascending a river dangerous for boats, where, if the boat had capsized,
+himself and crew would but have served a morning's meal to the hungry
+sharks held as fetich by the natives along the stream, who yearly
+sacrifice young girls reared for the purpose to their propitiation; now
+scouring the bush in pursuit of the gorilla or shooting hippopotami by
+the half-dozen, and other adventures and exploits wherein duty,
+excitement, and gratified curiosity were intermingled with danger and
+hairbreadth escape that few would care to tempt.
+
+On one occasion, he volunteered to go with a boat's crew and find the
+mouth of the Settee River, not dreaming of landing through the unusually
+heavy surf. "But," said he, "in pulling along about half a mile from
+shore, a roller struck the boat and capsized it. Of course we were
+obliged to swim for shore; in fact, we had little to do with it, for the
+moment the boat was upset we were driven into the surf, and not one of
+us thought we should ever reach the shore, for if we were not lost in
+the surf, the sharks would eat us up. As I rose on the top of a wave I
+could look ahead and see the stretch of wild, tossing surf, which it
+seemed impossible for any one to live in; but when I looked back I could
+count all my men striking out, which was very encouraging, as I feared
+one or two might be under the boat. I thought for a moment of you all at
+home, and wondered if mother would not feel a little frightened if she
+knew how strong the chances were against her son's receiving any more
+letters from home. Just then a roller struck me and carried me down so
+deep I was caught by the undertow and carried toward the sea, instead of
+the land. When I came to the surface I tried to look out for the next
+roller, but it was no use; the first one half-drowned me, and the next
+kept me down so long that when I rose I was in the wildest of the surf,
+which tumbled and rolled me about in a way I did not like at all. My
+eyes, nose, and mouth were full of sand, and, in fact, I thought my time
+had come. Just then I looked on shore, and saw two of my men dragging
+some one from the water, and at that sight I struck out with one
+despairing kick, and managed to get near enough for two of the men to
+reach me; but that was all I knew of the affair until a little after
+sunset, when I became conscious of the fact that I was being well
+shaken, and I heard one of the men say, 'Cheer up, Mr. Perkins! Your
+boat and all the men are on shore.' This was such good news that I did
+not much mind the uncomfortable position in which I found myself. I was
+covered with sand and stretched across a log about two feet high, my
+head on one side and my feet on the other. The men had worked a long
+while to bring me to. Three of the men were half-drowned and one
+injured. We managed to get the boat in the river, but suffered awfully
+from thirst. The next morning we lost our way, and, after pulling around
+till mid-afternoon, we stumbled on some natives fishing. We followed
+them home, but found them such a miserable, bad-looking lot of negroes
+that we expected trouble. Knowing that the native villages in the
+daytime are left in charge of the old men and women, and not knowing
+what might happen when the men came back, we killed some chickens, and,
+with some sweet potatoes, made quite a meal. The strongest of us, myself
+and three others, got ready for a fight, while the rest manned the boat
+ready for our retreat. Shortly after this the chief came back, and about
+a hundred men with him. I told the chief I had come to pay him a visit,
+and we had a great palaver; but he would not give us anything to eat,
+and we made up our minds that it was a dangerous neighborhood; so we
+moved down on a sand-spit in sight of the ship, and there we stayed
+three days and nights. We built a tent and fortification, traded off
+most of our clothes for something to eat, and slept unpleasantly near
+several hundred yelling savages. All this while the ship could render no
+assistance; but on the third day the Kroomen came on shore with some
+oars, and, after trying all one day, we managed, just at night, to get
+through the surf and back to the ship. It was a happy time for us, and I
+may say for all on board, as they had been very anxious about us. Not
+far north of this, if you happen to get cast ashore, they kill and eat
+you at once, for cannibalism is by no means extinct among the negroes."
+
+The sequel of this perilous experience was that all of them were
+stricken down with the dread African fever which, if it does not at all
+times kill, but too often shatters the constitution beyond remedy; and
+the fact that five officers, including one commanding officer, and a
+proportionate number of men, had been invalided home, and another
+commanding officer had died, all due to climatic causes, attests the
+general unhealthfulness of the coast. Other interesting incidents and
+narrow escapes, in which Master Perkins had part, might be told, did not
+lack of space forbid; but enough has been shown to impress the fact that
+African cruising, even in a well-found man-of-war, is not altogether the
+work and pleasure of a holiday; yet, in looking over young Perkins's
+letters, we cannot forbear this description of the expertness of the
+Kroomen in landing through the surf.
+
+"When the boat shoves off from the ship, the Kroomen, entirely naked
+with exception of breech-clout, strike up a song, and pulling grandly to
+its rhythmic time, soon reach the edge of the surf, and lie on their
+oars. All eyes are now cast seaward, looking for a big roller, on the
+top of which we shall be carried on shore, and there is a general
+feeling of excitement. In a short time, the looked-for roller comes; the
+Kroomen spring to their oars with a shout, the natives on shore yell
+with all their might, the boat shoots forward on top of the wave at
+incredible speed, the surf thunders like the roar of a battery, and
+altogether it seems as if the world had come to an end and all those
+fellows in the infernal regions were let loose. Now we must trust to
+luck wholly; there is no retreat and no help, for the boat is beyond the
+power of any human management, and go on shore you must, either in the
+boat or under it. The moment the boat strikes the beach, the Kroomen
+jump overboard, and you spring on the back of one of them, and he runs
+with you up on the beach out of the way of the next roller, which
+immediately follows, breaking over the boat, often upsetting it and
+always wetting everything inside. If you have escaped without a good
+soaking, you may consider yourself a lucky fellow."
+
+In the midst of this work came the startling news of the portentous
+events at home. The infrequent mails began to bring the angry
+mutterings, the fateful tidings, that preluded the Rebellion. Every
+fresh arrival but added to the excitement and increased the bewilderment
+that had so unexpectedly come upon the squadron; for, far removed from
+the scene, and not daily witnesses of the overt acts of the maddened
+South, they had mostly believed that the threatened conflict would be
+tided over, and the government be enabled to continue on in its wonted
+peaceful course. Now a wall, as of fire, rose up between the officers;
+every mess in every ship was divided against itself; brothers-in-arms of
+yesterday were enemies of to-day; and no one spoke of the outlook at
+home except in bated breath and measured speech, from fear that the
+bitter cup would overflow then and there, and water turn to blood. Many
+Southern officers sent in their resignations at once, and all, both from
+North and South, were anxious to get home to do their part on one side
+or the other.
+
+"For some time past," wrote Master Perkins, "the foreigners here have
+shown us but little respect, and seem to regard us as a broken power;
+and this has been very provoking, for in my opinion it will be a long
+time before any power can afford to despise the United States." And he
+notes the fact that no more money could be had,--that the credit of the
+government was gone! Ah! how happy the day to loyal but wearied hearts
+on that inhospitable shore, when the news came of the President's call
+for seventy-five thousand men, giving assurance that we still had a
+government, and meant to preserve it through the valor, the blood, the
+treasure of the nation, if need be!
+
+After unaccountable and vexatious delay, the Sumter received orders,
+July, 1861, to proceed to New York; meanwhile she had captured the slave
+brig Falmouth, a welcome finale to the cruise, and what with the
+officers transferred to her and the resignations that had taken place,
+Mr. Perkins now became executive officer, a fine position at that day
+for one of his years.
+
+Making the homeward run in thirty-six days, the officers and men
+dispersed to their homes for a brief respite before entering upon the
+stern duties that awaited them, and Mr. Perkins had the satisfaction of
+receiving his commission as master.
+
+Recruiting his shattered health for a short time at his welcoming home,
+he was ordered as executive officer of the Cayuga, one of the so-called
+ninety-day gunboats, carrying a battery of one eleven-inch Dahlgren gun,
+a twenty pounder Parrott rifle, and two twenty-four pounder howitzers,
+and commanded by Lieutenant-Commanding N.B. Harrison, a loyal Virginian,
+who had wavered never a moment as to his duty when his State threw down
+the gauntlet of rebellion.
+
+The exigencies of the war had soon exhausted the lists of regular
+officers and the few thousand seamen that had been trained in the
+service, and large drafts of officers and men were made upon the
+merchant marine as well as big hauls of green landsmen who had never
+dreamt of salt water; and First Lieutenant Perkins, as the only regular
+officer on board except the captain, soon found himself an exceeding
+busy man in organizing, disciplining, drilling, and shaping into place
+and routine, some ninety officers and men, all equally new to man-of-war
+life and methods, and requiring the necessary time and instruction to
+fit them for their new duties. A fair soldier may be made in three
+months--a good seaman not in three years.
+
+The vessel was ordered to join Farragut's fleet in the Gulf, but, with
+the usual delays incident to new ships, did not get off from New York
+until the first week in March, arriving at Ship Island on the
+thirty-first, by way of Key West, and having made a prize on the way. As
+the young executive had been promoted to a lieutenancy on the eve of
+departure from New York his visions of prize-money were doubtless
+proportionately enhanced by the capture!
+
+[Illustration: THE CAYUGA.]
+
+The next day she sailed for the mouth of the Mississippi, where, and at
+the head of the passes, the rest of the fleet was assembled, and
+Flag-Officer Farragut busily engaged in completing the preparations for
+the attack on New Orleans.
+
+The fleet consisted of four heavy sloops-of-war of the Hartford class;
+three corvettes of the Iroquois class; nine gunboats of the Cayuga
+class, and the large side-wheel steamer Mississippi, carrying in the
+aggregate one hundred and fifty-four guns, principally of nine-inch and
+eleven-inch calibre; but as the large ships carried their batteries
+mostly in broadside, the actual number that could be brought to bear,
+under the most favorable conditions, on every given point, would be cut
+down to the neighborhood of ninety guns.
+
+Supporting this force as auxiliary to it, for the bombardment of Forts
+Jackson and St. Philip, was Porter's mortar fleet of twenty schooners,
+each mounting a thirteen-inch mortar, and a flotilla of five side-wheel
+steamers, and the gunboat Owasco, carrying, in all, thirty guns.
+
+[Illustration: Map of the Mississippi River Showing Forts Jackson and
+St. Philip
+
+From the U.S. Coast Survey. Surveyed in 1870 by John N. McClintock.]
+
+The forts in question, forming the principal defences of New Orleans,
+were heavy casemated works with traverses on top for barbette guns, some
+ninety miles below the city at a point where the river makes a sharp
+bend to the southeast. Fort St. Philip, on the left bank, mounted
+forty-two guns, and Fort Jackson, including its water battery, had
+sixty-seven guns in position, all of calibre from the long twenty-four
+pounder to the heavy ten-inch Columbiad, and including several six-inch
+and seven-inch rifles.
+
+Stretching across the river from bank to bank to bar the channel, nearly
+opposite Fort Jackson and exposed to the perpendicular fire of St.
+Philip, were heavy ship's chains, supported and buoyed by hulks, rafts,
+and logs, and half a dozen large schooners. The rebels had also
+established some works on the banks of the river about four miles from
+town, known as the McGehee and Chalmette batteries, the latter being
+located at the point ever memorable in American history as the scene of
+General Jackson's overwhelming defeat of the British in 1815.
+
+Their reliance afloat was in the Louisiana, an ironclad, carrying nine
+rifles and seven smooth bores of heavy calibre; the ram Manassas, one
+gun; the McRae, seven guns; the Moore and Quitman with two guns each;
+six river steamers with their stems shod with iron to act as rams, and
+several iron-protected tugs.
+
+Assembling the fleet at the head of the passes, after much difficulty in
+getting the heavy ships over the bar, Farragut ordered the ships to
+strip like athletes for battle. Down came mast and spar till nothing was
+left standing but lower masts,--and even those were taken out of some of
+the gunboats,--and soon everything best out of reach of shot was landed,
+leaving clear decks, and no top hamper to be cut away by the enemy's
+projectiles, and come tumbling down about the heads of guns' crews.
+
+About this time the English and French men-of-war that had lain before
+New Orleans, giving aid and comfort to the enemy and making merry in
+singing rebel songs on board, especially on board the English vessels,
+left the river, their officers declaring it an impossibility for the
+fleet to pass the forts and obstructions.
+
+In this connection, it may be mentioned that the cruisers of John Bull
+prowled along the coast during the entire war, with sometimes permission
+to enter the blockaded ports, conveying information and lending
+encouragement to the enemy, and rejoicing at every disaster that befell
+the Union arms, which, together with the tacit connivance of the British
+government in letting out the Alabama, and other hostile acts, ought to
+be treasured against Great Britain so long as the Republic endures.
+
+On the sixteenth of April, Farragut moved up to a point just below the
+forts, and on the eighteenth, having established the vessels of the
+mortar fleet at distances ranging from twenty-nine hundred and fifty
+yards to four thousand yards, from Jackson, and partially hidden by
+trees on one side the river, and disguised with bushes on the other,
+opened the bombardment, which was kept up with little interruption for
+six days and nights; the corvettes and gunboats taking part by turns in
+running up, delivering their fire, and dropping down with the current
+out of range again. The forts replied vigorously, and every night the
+enemy sent down fire-rafts, but to little purpose.
+
+Meanwhile, under cover of the night and the fire of the fleet,
+Fleet-Captain Bell, and Lieutenants-Commanding Crosby and Caldwell of
+the gunboats Pinola and Itasca, had succeeded in forcing a channel
+through the obstructions, a piece of duty that had required the most
+robust and dauntless courage, and in which Caldwell--a son of
+Massachusetts--shone pre-eminent by the coolness of his methods and
+thoroughness of his work. And now, on the night of the twenty-third,
+after a last examination by Caldwell in a twelve-oared boat, all was
+pronounced clear, and the fleet was to weigh at two o'clock in the
+morning.
+
+The fleet was formed in three divisions, the first comprising the
+Hartford, flagship, the Brooklyn, and Richmond; the second composed of
+eight vessels with the divisional flag of Captain Bailey on board the
+Cayuga; and the third of six vessels, with Fleet-Captain Bell's flag
+flying from the Sciota; but was ordered to pass through the obstructions
+in one column or single line ahead, the Cayuga leading. Farragut had
+intended to lead himself, but at Bailey's urgent request yielded that
+honor to him.
+
+The letters of Lieutenant Perkins, ever glowing with ardor for the good
+cause, were, at this time, full of patriotic fervor and aspiration, and
+when he said: "I hope the Cayuga will go down before she ever gives up,
+and 'I guess' she will," he certainly meant it! And the supreme moment
+had now come for him to inform this hope by valorous deeds, and all
+unfalteringly did he walk in the blazing light of heroism that none but
+the brave may dare to tread.
+
+The signal to weigh was promptly made at two o'clock, A.M., but work at
+night is always behind, and it was half-past three o'clock before the
+little Cayuga, leading the line, pressed gallantly through the
+obstructions at full speed, eager for the fray, closely followed by the
+heavy Pensacola, and ship after ship in the order assigned; but lack of
+space forbids a general description of the battle, and we propose to do
+hardly more than to follow the fortunes of the Cayuga.
+
+Lieutenant-Commanding Harrison had paid his executive the high
+compliment of allowing him to pilot the vessel, and Perkins took
+position in the eyes of her, on the topgallant forecastle, while
+Lieutenant-Commanding Harrison and Captain Bailey stood aft, near the
+wheel, and all the men except the helmsmen were made to lie flat on the
+deck until the time came for them to serve the battery. Prone on the
+deck at Perkins's feet, and with his head close down over the bow, was
+the captain of the forecastle, to watch the channel and give timely
+warning of anything barring the way that might escape the wider-ranging
+eye of the intrepid young pilot; and as the Cayuga pressed on, receiving
+the first shock of the outburst from the forts, what finer subject for
+the painter, than that lithe young figure standing up in bold and
+unflinching relief, at the extreme bow of the ship, peering ahead in the
+morning starlight to pilot her safely on her way, amid the blinding
+flame and screaming bolts, the hurtle of shot and crash of shell, the
+explosion and deafening roar of a hundred shotted guns, as the vessel
+steamed into the jaws of death, leading the fleet into one of the most
+momentous and memorable conflicts in naval annals. Nor should cool and
+phlegmatic Harrison nor grand old Bailey be overlooked, as the constant
+flashes of the thick exploding shells revealed them standing, calm and
+grim, at their posts, in readiness to direct the movements of vessel and
+column, and engage the foe, ashore and afloat; nor the impatient
+officers and crew, who eagerly waited the order to spring to their guns
+and make reply to the withering fire pouring in upon them as yet
+unavenged.
+
+"Noticing," said Perkins, "that the enemy's guns were all aimed for
+midstream, I steered right close under the walls of St. Philip, and
+although our masts and rigging were badly shot through, the hull was
+hardly damaged. After passing the last battery, I looked back for some
+of our vessels, and my heart jumped into my mouth, when I found I could
+not see a single one. I thought they must all have been sunk by the
+forts. Looking ahead, I saw eleven of the enemy's gunboats coming down,
+upon us, and I supposed we were _gone_. Three made a dash to board us,
+but a charge from our eleven-inch settled one, the Governor Moore. The
+ram Manassas just missed us astern, and we soon disposed of the other.
+Just then, some of our gunboats came to the assistance of the Cayuga,
+and all sorts of things happened; it was the wildest excitement all
+round. The Varuna fired a broadside into us instead of the enemy.
+Another attacked one of our prizes; three had struck to us before any of
+our ships came up, but when they did come up we all pitched in and sunk
+eleven vessels in about twenty minutes."
+
+The brief encounter with the Moore had been very exciting. The vessels
+were alongside each other, and both were reloading,--the guns muzzle to
+muzzle, and but a few feet apart. The gun that could fire first would
+decide the fate of one or the other. Perkins sprang down, and, taking
+personal charge of the smoking eleven-inch, put fresh vigor into its
+loading, and firing the instant the rammer was withdrawn, swept the
+Moore's gun from its carriage, and killed or disabled thirteen of its
+crew.
+
+The Cayuga still leading the way up the river came upon a regiment at
+daylight encamped close to the bank, and Perkins, as the mouthpiece of
+the captain, hailed them and ordered them to come on board and deliver
+up their arms or he would "blow them to pieces."
+
+It proved to be the Chalmette regiment, and, surrendering, the officers
+and men were paroled and the former allowed to retain their side-arms,
+"except," said Perkins, "one captain, whom I discovered was from New
+Hampshire. I took his sword away from him and have kept it!"
+
+Now Farragut came up in the Hartford and signalled the fleet to anchor.
+This was near Quarantine, some five miles above the forts. All the
+vessels had succeeded in running the gauntlet of their fire except three
+gunboats, and New Orleans was now practically at the mercy of the fleet;
+but the Varuna had been rammed and sunk in the hot fight with the
+enemy's flotilla just above St. Philip.
+
+The Cayuga had received forty-two hits in mast and hull, and six men had
+been wounded.
+
+The hurricane of projectiles had passed mostly too high to do mortal
+harm to her crew, due in part to the skilful manner in which Perkins had
+sheered in toward the bank from midstream so early in the fight.
+
+Resting until the next morning to care for the dead and wounded, and the
+repair of damages, the fleet again weighed, the Cayuga still in advance;
+and when the spires of the city hove in sight from her deck, "three
+rousing cheers and a tiger" went up from her gallant crew. But the
+plucky little gunboat was getting ahead too fast, for arriving close
+abreast the Chalmette battery, which seemed to be deserted, she suddenly
+received a fire that compelled a halt. Over-matched five to one, and
+having been struck fourteen times, with shot and shells dropping thick
+and fast about her, she slowed and dropped back a little with the
+current, until the Hartford and Brooklyn coming up quickly silenced the
+enemy with their heavy broadsides, while the Pensacola cared for the
+hostile works on the opposite bank in like manner. The fleet then kept
+on without further obstruction, and arrived and anchored off the city
+about noon; finding the levee along its entire length aflame with
+burning cotton, coal, ships, steamboats, and other property the
+infuriated enemy had devoted to destruction.
+
+The loss to the fleet in this daring and brilliant feat had been
+thirty-seven killed and one hundred and thirty-seven wounded.
+
+It is needless to say that Lieutenant Perkins not only received high
+commendation from Captain Bailey and Lieutenant-Commanding Harrison, but
+won the praise and admiration of all on board and in the fleet, by the
+coolness and intrepidity shown by him in every emergency of the fight
+and passage up the river.
+
+The first tidings received in Washington foreshadowing the success of
+the attack was through rebel telegrams announcing, "one of the enemy's
+gunboats"--the Cayuga--"above the forts." Some question subsequently
+arose between Bailey and Farragut as to the Cayuga's position in the
+passage, which in the diagrams accompanying the official reports
+contradicted the text, putting the Cayuga third instead of first in the
+van. Farragut cheerfully made the correction.
+
+Soon after anchoring, Bailey was ordered to go on shore and demand the
+unconditional surrender of the city, and he asked Lieutenant Perkins to
+accompany him. This duty was almost as dangerous and conspicuous as the
+passage of the forts had been, for an infuriated and insolent mob
+followed them from the landing to the mayor's office, and while there
+with the mayor and General Lovell, besieged the doors, demanding the
+"Yankee officers" to be given up to them to be hung. The demonstration
+at last became so threatening, that the mayor drew off the attention of
+the mob by a speech to them in front of the building, while the Union
+officers took a close carriage in its rear and driving rapidly down to
+their boat, reached the ship in safety.
+
+Bailey had managed to hoist the flag over the mint, which a party of
+rebels tore down the next day, but the authorities refused to surrender
+the city or to haul down the insignia of rebellion. Then ensued a
+correspondence which, to read at this day, makes the blood boil at rebel
+insolence, and the wonder grow at Farragut's forbearance; but on the
+twenty-ninth of April, he sent Fleet-Captain Bell on shore with two
+howitzers manned by sailors and a battalion of two hundred and fifty
+marines and took possession of the city. Meanwhile the forts had
+surrendered to Porter of the mortar fleet, and General Butler, arriving
+on the first of May, relieved Farragut of further responsibility as to
+the city.
+
+[Illustration: GOING ASHORE TO DEMAND THE SURRENDER OF NEW ORLEANS.]
+
+The Cayuga had been so badly cut up by shot and shell that she was
+selected to take Captain Bailey north as bearer of dispatches, and
+landing him at Fortress Monroe, proceeded on to New York to be
+refitted. This enabled Lieutenant Perkins to make a short visit to
+Concord, where his father, now become judge of probate of Merrimack
+County, had removed, and both himself and the family received many
+congratulations, personal and written, at the brilliant record he had
+made in the recent memorable operations on the Mississippi.
+
+Modest and unassuming, with a genial frankness of manner that told
+pleasantly alike on quarter-deck or street, in family-circle or
+drawing-room, he wore his honors in the quietest way possible, never
+speaking of his own part in the brave deeds of the time, except when
+pressed to do so, and then with a reticence all too provoking, from the
+well-grounded suspicion that he kept back the pith of the real story of
+personal participation he might tell without tinge of exaggeration or
+boastfulness.
+
+Returning to the Cayuga he found a new commanding officer,
+Lieutenant-Commanding D. McN. Fairfax, another loyal Virginian, who not
+only stood faithful to the flag under all circumstances, but had, as the
+officer from the San Jacinto, boarded the Trent and taken from her the
+arch-conspirators, Mason and Slidell, suffering the contumely of rebel
+womanhood in the reception accorded him by Mr. Commissioner Slidell's
+daughter.
+
+Fairfax and Perkins had known each other on the coast of Africa, and it
+was the meeting of old friends made doubly pleasant by the senior's
+hearty appreciation of the laurels so gallantly won by the junior, and
+self-congratulation in the promised comfort of retaining an executive of
+so much energy, ability, and reputation.
+
+Rejoining Farragut's squadron, Perkins saw other gallant and varied
+service in the Cayuga until November, 1862, when he was transferred to
+the Pensacola, and the following month commissioned
+lieutenant-commander, a new grade created by Congress to correspond with
+that of major in the army.
+
+In June, 1863, General Banks, then besieging Port Hudson, sent word to
+the now Rear-Admiral Farragut, that he must have more powder or give up
+the siege, wherefore the Admiral ordered the gunboat New London on the
+important service of powder transportation and convoy, and assigning
+Perkins to the command until the officer ordered from the North by the
+department should arrive. The enemy had possession at that time of some
+three hundred miles of the river below Port Hudson, with batteries
+established at various points and sharpshooters distributed along the
+banks.
+
+Five times Perkins ran the fiery gauntlet successfully, but on the sixth
+his vessel was disabled in a sharp fight at Whitehall's Point. One shot
+from the enemy exploded the New London's boiler, and another disabled
+her steam chest. In that critical condition, directly under the guns of
+the hostile battery, and exposed to the fire of sharpshooters on the
+bank, and deserted by his consort, the Winona, his position seemed
+desperate almost beyond remedy; but fertile in expedients and daring to
+rashness in their execution, he finally succeeded, after almost
+incredible exertion and perilous personal adventure, in communicating
+with the fleet below, and the vessel was saved.
+
+Now the commanding officer from the North having arrived, Perkins was
+transferred to the command of the ninety-day gunboat Sciota, the best
+command at that time, in the squadron, for an officer of his years, and
+assigned to duty on the blockade off the coast of Texas. To one of his
+social disposition and active temperament, the blockade, ever harassing
+and monotonous, was, as he wrote, a "living death," adding that "we are
+all talked out, and sometimes a week passes and I hardly speak more than
+a necessary word." Venturing ashore several times on hunting excursions,
+he at last came near being captured by the enemy, and held after that,
+that "cabin'd confinement was preferable to a rebel prison," and so kept
+on board. Once during that weary nine months, the tedium was broken by
+the capture of a fat prize--a schooner loaded with cotton. Let us hope
+that the prize-court and its attendant officials did not absorb too big
+a share of the proceeds!
+
+[Illustration: THE CHICKASAW.]
+
+Relieved from that command late in May, 1864, with leave to proceed
+home, he arrived at New Orleans in June, to find active preparations for
+the Mobile fight going on, and though he had not been at home for two
+years, he could not stand it to let slip so glorious an opportunity for
+stirring service, and so volunteered to remain. Farragut, delighted at
+such determination, quite different from the experience he had had with
+some officers, assigned to Perkins a command above his rank--the
+Chickasaw,--a double-turretted monitor, carrying four eleven-inch guns
+and a crew of one hundred and forty-five men and twenty-five officers.
+She had been built, together with the Winnebago, a sister vessel, at St.
+Louis, by Mr. Joseph B. Eads, the eminent engineer, on plans of his own.
+Of light draught and frame, and peculiar construction, some officers
+distrusted her strength and sea-going qualities. The Chickasaw, too,
+was not yet completed, the mechanics being still at work on her
+machinery and fittings, and her crew, with exception of a half-dozen
+men-of-war's-men, were river-men and landsmen, knowing nothing of
+salt-water sailing or of naval discipline. But time pressed: every
+moment was of priceless value; and Perkins, declining all social
+invitations, set about with characteristic energy to prepare his ship
+for the coming conflict. Nor did his work of preparation and drill
+cease, either in the river or outside, until well into the night
+preceding the eventful day in Mobile Bay that was to add another
+brilliant page to the annals of the navy.
+
+On the twenty-eighth of July, he left New Orleans to join the fleet off
+Mobile, and on the way down the river an episode occurred that came nigh
+settling the fate of the Chickasaw without risk or chance of battle; for
+on nearing the bar, Perkins left the pilot-house a moment to look after
+some matters requiring attention outside. He had hardly reached the spot
+he sought, when, turning round, he saw that the pilot had changed the
+ship's course and was heading directly for a wreck close aboard, which
+to strike would end the career of the Chickasaw then and there.
+Springing back into the pilot-house, he seized the wheel and brought the
+ship back on her course, then snatching a pistol from his belt, said to
+the traitorous fellow: "You are here to take this ship over the bar, and
+if she touches ground or anything else, I'll blow your d----d brains
+out!" Pale with suppressed rage, and trembling with fear, the pilot
+expostulated that "the bottom was lumpy, and the best pilot in the river
+could not help touching at times."
+
+"No matter," rejoined Perkins, "if you love the Confederacy better than
+your life, take your choice; but if you touch a single lump, I'll shoot
+you!" Needless to say, no lumps were found, nor that the pilot made
+haste to get out of such company the moment he was permitted to do so;
+neither may we doubt that the recording angel traced, with lightest
+hand, the strong language used by the nearly betrayed captain!
+
+The Chickasaw arrived off Mobile bar August 1, where all was expectancy
+and preparation for the coming fight, a fight which perhaps had more in
+it of dramatic interest than any other naval battle of the war. The
+wooden ships pushing into the bay through the torpedo-strewn channel and
+under the fierce storm of shot and shell from Fort Morgan, lashed
+together in pairs for mutual support in case of disaster; the sudden and
+tragic sinking of the Tecumseh by torpedo stroke, with the loss of the
+heroic Craven and most of his brave officers and men; the halt of the
+Brooklyn in mid-channel in face of that dire disaster, which, with the
+threatened huddling of the ships together by the inward sweep of the
+tide, portended swift discomfiture and possible defeat; the intuitive
+perception and quick decision that literally enabled Farragut to take
+the flood that led to fortune, in the instant ordering of the Hartford
+to push ahead with his flag and assume the lead he had relinquished only
+at the urgent request of the Brooklyn's commander; the restored order
+and prompt following of the fleet, regardless of torpedoes, on the new
+course blazed out by the eagle eye and emphatic tongue of the fearless
+old admiral as he grappled with the emergency from the futtock-shrouds
+of the flagship; the little boat putting off from the Metacomet,
+suddenly lighted up by its saucy ensign, in the midst of the fiery chaos
+and thunderous roar of battle, to save the few souls struggling in the
+water from the ill-fated Tecumseh, calling forth admiration, alike from
+friend and foe, at the intrepidity of its mission; the dash of the
+enemy's powerful ram Tennessee, clad in heaviest armor, down the Union
+line, endeavoring to strike each vessel in turn; the separation of the
+coupled ships when beyond the reach of Morgan's guns, and the dash of
+the gunboats led by Jouett, of the Metacomet, like hounds released from
+the leash, at the enemy's flotilla; the reappearance of leviathan
+Tennessee and the fierce tournament that ensued, with turtle-backed
+Chickasaw following close under her stern with bulldog grip that knew no
+release; the intrepid skill and desperate valor never surpassed, with
+which the ram manoeuvred and withstood the hammering and ramming of the
+wooden ships, the pounding and shattering of the ironclads, before she
+yielded to the inevitable fate that awaited her,--all conspired to form
+a scene of grand and dramatic circumstance almost without parallel in
+naval warfare.
+
+The youngest officer in command on that day,--the fifth of August,--so
+fateful to the fading fortunes of the Confederacy, so glorious to the
+reascendant star of Union, no one contributed more to its glories and
+success than Perkins of the Chickasaw; and in any other service under
+the sun he would have received immediate promotion for what he did on
+that day. Had he been an Englishman, the honors of knighthood would have
+been conferred on him, as well as promotion, but as an American he still
+waits adequate recognition for deeds as brave as they were conspicuous
+and telling.
+
+Said Mr. Eads, the builder, when he heard the results of the battle and
+the surpassing part of the Chickasaw in it: "I would walk fifty miles to
+shake hands with the young man who commanded her!" And remembering the
+disparagement that had been put on the vessel and her sister ship, the
+Winnebago, his enthusiasm knew no bounds, and he took pains to gather
+all the details of the Chickasaw's brilliant work.
+
+With the loss of the Tecumseh, the ironclad portion of the fleet was
+reduced to the Manhattan, armed with two fifteen-inch guns, and the
+Chickasaw and Winnebago of two eleven-inch guns each; but one of the
+Manhattan's guns became disabled early in the action, by a bit of iron
+lodging in the vent, and the Winnebago's turrets would not turn, so that
+her guns could be pointed only by manoeuvring the vessel. But the
+Chickasaw, owing to Perkins's foresight and hard work, was in perfect
+condition, as illustrated in all her service on that eventful day, as
+well as on all subsequent occasions, until the capitulation of Mobile
+ended the drama of rebellion on the Southern seaboard.
+
+The wooden ships, stripped as at New Orleans for the stern work in hand,
+numbered fourteen, and the number of guns carried by the fleet was one
+hundred and fifty-five, throwing, by added facility of pivot and turret,
+ninety-two hundred and eight pounds of metal in broadside, from which
+thirteen hundred and twenty must be deducted through the early loss of
+the Tecumseh and the disabled gun of the Manhattan.
+
+The enemy's defences consisted of Fort Morgan, commanding the channel
+at Mobile Point, mounting seventy guns; Fort Gaines, on the eastern
+point of Dauphin Island, some three miles northwest of Fort Morgan,
+armed with thirty guns, and Fort Powell, about four miles from Gaines
+northwest, at Grant's Pass, with four guns.
+
+Across the channel, which runs close to Morgan, several lines of
+torpedoes were planted, and just beyond them to the northward of the
+fort, in line abreast waiting their opportunity, was the rebel squadron,
+comprising the Tennessee, flagship of Admiral Buchanan, and the gunboats
+Morgan, Gaines, and Selma, carrying in the aggregate twenty-two
+guns--eight rifles and fourteen smooth-bores. The Tennessee, the most
+powerful ship that ever flew the Confederate flag, was two hundred and
+nine feet in length, and forty-eight feet in width, with a heavy iron
+spur projecting from the bow some two feet under water. Her sides
+"tumbled home" at an angle of forty-five degrees and were clad in armor
+of five and six inches thickness, over a structure of oak and pine of
+twenty-five inches. Her guns, six heavy Brooke's rifles, were arranged,
+by port and pivot, for an effective all-round fire, and her speed was
+six knots.
+
+[Illustration: THE TENNESSEE.]
+
+All was ready for the attack on the evening of the fourth of August, and
+at half-past five the next morning the signal was thrown out to weigh,
+and fall into the order prescribed; the wooden ships in couples, and the
+ironclads in line by themselves; the Tecumseh in the van and the
+Chickasaw in rear, according to the rank of their commanding officers.
+
+At half-past six the fleet was across the bar and in order of battle. No
+starlight or favoring clouds now, to partially mask its movements as at
+the passage of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, but the joyous sunshine,
+flooding land and sea with its brightness, and mirroring its revealing
+gleams upon fort and ship and pennon, serving friend and foe alike
+impartially. Alas! for the brave souls to whom that gracious morning
+light was the last of earth, but we may hope they awoke in a light of
+still more radiance and glory, and amid paeans of a joyous host,
+choiring "Well done, thou good and faithful servants, that didst give
+thy lives to God and country!"
+
+The soft south wind of that fair morn came like a benediction to the
+fleet now sweeping on with the flood tide, and stillness like a sentient
+presence, only disturbed by the sound of screw or paddle-wheel as they
+turned ahead, hung over the ships till broken by the belching roar of
+the Tecumseh's monster guns, as she threw two fifteen-inch shells into
+Morgan--her first and last! And now, at seven, "by the chime," the
+action became general, and the Tecumseh, having loaded with heaviest
+charge and solid steel shot, steamed on ahead of the Brooklyn to attack
+the Tennessee; but Craven, thinking he saw a movement on the part of the
+ram to get out of the way, together with the seemingly too narrow space
+between the fatal buoy and the shore for manoeuvre in case of need, gave
+the order to starboard the helm, and head directly for the watchful
+Tennessee, waiting with lock-strings in hand to salute the monitor as
+she closed--gallant foeman worthy of her steel! So near and yet so far,
+for hardly had the Tecumseh gone a length to the westward of the
+sentinel buoy, than the fate, already outlined, overwhelmed her, and her
+iron walls became coffin, shroud, and winding-sheet to Craven and most
+of the brave souls with him, and all so suddenly that those who had seen
+the disaster could hardly realize what had taken place.
+
+Ours is not the purpose to follow further the details of the fight, but
+to go with Perkins in the Chickasaw and see things as he saw them on
+that stirring day, as gathered from his letters and as fortified from
+other sources. Of tireless energy and restless activity, and sternly
+intent upon making the Chickasaw second to none in the grand work
+demanded of the fleet, he imparted nerve and enthusiasm throughout the
+vessel; now in the pilot-house, looking after the helmsman; then in the
+forward turret, personally sighting the guns; anon on top of the turret,
+taking in the surroundings.
+
+His fine spirit and high moral courage had characteristic illustration
+when, the night before the fight, calling his officers into the cabin,
+he thus addressed them: "Gentlemen, by this time to-morrow, the fate of
+this fleet and of Mobile will be sealed. We have all a duty to perform
+and a victory to win. I have sent for you to say, that not a drop of
+wine, liquor, or beer, is to be drunk on board of this vessel from this
+hour until the battle is over, and the victory won, or death has come to
+us. It is my wish that every officer and man shall go into battle with a
+clear head and strong nerves. I rely upon you to comply with this
+requirement, confident that the Chickasaw and her crew can thus best
+perform their whole duty."
+
+An officer, who held high position on board the flagship, writes:
+"Perkins went into the fight in his shirt-sleeves and a straw hat, and
+as he passed the Hartford, he was on top of the turret waving his hat
+and dancing around with delight and excitement."--"The ironclads," said
+Perkins, "were ordered to follow inside the fleet, between fleet and
+fort. I had orders to be reserve force and remain with wooden vessels
+after passing obstructions. Our course was between a certain buoy and
+the shore. This passage was known to be free from torpedoes, and was
+left for the blockade runners. All the vessels had orders to keep
+between that buoy and the shore, but in other respects the ironclads had
+separate orders from the wooden vessels. In the confusion resulting from
+the destruction of the Tecumseh and the movements of the Brooklyn, the
+monitors received _no_ orders and followed in the line of the other
+vessels." Be it said in passing, that Perkins had no pilot, and at sight
+of the Tecumseh's doom, one of the men in the pilot-house fainted,
+leaving only Perkins and one man to steer the vessel until the vigorous
+methods applied brought the man to, and freshened his pluck! The
+pilot-house was abaft the forward turret, not on top, as in the case of
+the Tecumseh class, and was entered through a trap-door which was kept
+open during the fight, for the vessel being unfinished, there was no way
+of opening it from inside when closed.
+
+"I pushed forward as rapidly as possible, but my ship anyway was
+stationed last of the ironclads, as I was youngest in command. We fired
+at the fort to keep down its fire till the wooden ships had passed. When
+the Tennessee passed, it was on my port side; she then steamed toward
+Fort Morgan. Some of our vessels anchored, others kept under weigh, and
+when the Tennessee approached the fleet again, she was at once attacked
+by the wooden vessels, but they made no impression upon her. An order
+was now brought to the ironclads by Fleet-Surgeon Palmer for them to
+attack the ram, but as they stood for her, she seemed again to move as
+if retiring toward the fort, but the Chickasaw overtook her, and after a
+short engagement, succeeded in forcing her to surrender, having shot
+away her smoke-stack, destroyed her steering gear, and jammed her
+afterparts so that her stern guns were rendered useless. As she could
+not steer she drifted down the bay, head on, and I followed her close,
+firing as fast as I could, my guns and turrets, in spite of the strain
+upon them, continuing in perfect order. When Johnston came on the roof
+of the Tennessee and showed the white flag as signal of surrender, no
+vessel of the fleet was as near as a quarter of a mile, but the Ossipee
+was approaching, and her captain was much older than myself. I was wet
+with perspiration, begrimed with powder, and exhausted by long-continued
+exertion. I drew back and allowed Captain Le Roy to receive the
+surrender, though my first lieutenant, Hamilton, said to me at the time:
+'Captain, you are making a mistake.'"
+
+Knowing full well that the Chickasaw's eleven-inch shot would not
+penetrate the stout side-armor of the Tennessee, Perkins made for the
+weakest part of the vessel--her stern, and hung there close aboard,
+pouring solid shot of iron and steel into that vital part with the
+accuracy of pistol-shooting, until the ram surrendered; then taking her
+in tow, carried her near the flagship. He had fired fifty-two shots,
+and, says the officer of the Hartford already quoted: "The guns of the
+Chickasaw jammed the steering gear of the ram, also the port stopper of
+the after port disabling the after gun, and a shot from the Chickasaw
+broke Admiral Buchanan's leg."
+
+But said Commander Nicholson of the Manhattan, in his official report:
+"Of the six fifteen-inch projectiles fired from this vessel at the rebel
+ironclad Tennessee, I claim four as having struck, doing most of the
+real injuries that she has sustained"; then enumerating the injuries
+inflicted, which included most of those claimed for the Chickasaw. Upon
+which claim put forth by the Manhattan, the writer ventures the opinion:
+First, that four hits out of six shots was poor shooting for a monitor
+at a target like the Tennessee, and suggestive of considerable distance
+between the vessels; second, that eye-witnesses have affirmed that only
+one of the Manhattan's shot took effect, a solid shot that struck the
+ram on the port beam, crushing her armor and splintering the backing,
+but not entering the casemate, though leaving a clean hole through;
+third, that the effect of that one shot showed what the Manhattan might
+have accomplished had she taken as favorable a position as that chosen
+by the Chickasaw; fourth, that it is believed the report of a board of
+survey confirmed the opinion as to that one shot; fifth, that, as
+between the great difference of sound in the firing of the fifteen-inch
+gun and an eleven-inch, and the greater destructive effect of the larger
+projectiles which could not but be felt by those receiving it, the enemy
+would best be likely to know from what source they sustained the most
+vital damage; sixth, that the concurrent opinions of the day, as given
+by press correspondents, eye-witnesses to the conflict, magazine
+summaries, official reports, the praise of Perkins on every lip, the
+talk of his promotion by distinguished officers, and the testimony of
+the enemy themselves, including Admiral Buchanan and Captain Johnston,
+all go to show that the surrender of the Tennessee was due more to the
+dogged and unrelenting effort and skilful management of Perkins of the
+Chickasaw than from any other cause.
+
+Asked the Tennessee's pilot of "Metacomet" Jouett: "Who commanded the
+monitor that got under our stern?" adding, "D----n him! he stuck to us
+like a leech; we could not get away from him. It was he who cut away the
+steering gear, jammed the stern port shutters, and wounded Admiral
+Buchanan."
+
+Said Captain Johnston, in the same vein: "If it had not been for that
+d----d black hulk hanging on our stern we would have got along well
+enough; she did us more damage than all the rest of the Federal fleet."
+
+"The praise of Commander Perkins," wrote a son of Concord, himself an
+active participant in the fight, "on the superb management of his
+command, and the most admirable and efficient working of his ship, was
+upon the lips of all."
+
+Pages of similar commendation might be quoted, but what need multiply
+testimony so direct and conclusive as to Perkins's gallantry and
+achievement, questioned only in quarters where the discretion of silence
+and suggestion of modesty had best been observed!
+
+It only remains to add, in this connection, that so long as the
+Tennessee continued to flaunt her flag in face of the fleet, so long the
+work of that glorious day was of naught; that her capture, due in
+greatest part to the efforts of the Chickasaw, completed the work and
+ensured, without embarrassment, the continued operations against Fort
+Morgan and other defences in the bay.
+
+Perkins, not content with laurels already won, got under weigh after
+dinner, and steamed up to Fort Powell, taking that work in rear. The
+shots from the Chickasaw destroyed the water-tanks, and Captain Anderson
+reported that, believing it to be impossible to drive the ironclad from
+its position, and fearing that a shell from the Chickasaw would explode
+the magazine, he decided to save his command and blow up the fort, which
+was done that night at 10.30. In the afternoon, the Chickasaw had seized
+a barge loaded with stores, from under the guns of Fort Powell, and
+towed it to the fleet.
+
+The next afternoon, the ever-ready and alert Chickasaw, under her
+indefatigable commander, went down to Fort Gaines and shelled that work
+until dusk with such telling effect, that, coupled with the fact that
+the landforce under General Granger, investing its rear, was now ready
+to open fire in conjunction with the fleet, the rebel commander
+capitulated the next morning.
+
+Morgan was now the only remaining work of the outer line of Mobile's
+defences to be "possessed and occupied," and General Granger, after
+throwing a sufficient garrison into Gaines, transferred his army and
+siege-train to the other side of the bay, and landing at Navy Cove, some
+four miles from Morgan, began its investment.
+
+While this was going on, the Chickasaw was not idle, but continually
+using her guns at one point and another, with occasional exchanges of
+shotted compliments with the rams and batteries across the obstructions
+in Dog River, forming the inner line of defence of the city, some four
+miles distant.
+
+On the twenty-second of August, the approaches having been completed,
+the land and naval forces opened a terrific fire on devoted Morgan, and
+continued it throughout the day with such effect that General Page,
+commanding the garrison, struck his colors and surrendered the next day.
+
+The Chickasaw was as conspicuous in the bombardment as she had been in
+all her work since entering the bay. It was not in Perkins's temperament
+to be otherwise, and said an eye-witness at the time: "It was a glorious
+sight to see the gallant Perkins in the Chickasaw, nearly all the
+morning almost touching the wharf, and pouring in his terrible missiles,
+two at a time, making bricks and mortar fly in all directions, then
+moving ahead or astern a little to get a fresh place. He stayed there
+till nearly noon, when he hauled off to cool his guns and give his men
+some refreshment. In the afternoon, he took his ship in again, and
+turret after turret was emptied at the poor fort."
+
+Perkins sent home the flag that had flown over the fort during the
+bombardment he obtained it in this wise: "The sailors from this ship,"
+said he, "hauled down the flag, and one of them seized it and hid it in
+his bosom; there was not much left of it; it was riddled and torn. He
+brought it to me, declaring that no one had a right to it but the
+captain of the Chickasaw. I hardly knew what to do about it, but the man
+seemed so earnest I could not refuse to take it from him."
+
+The bay was now sealed to blockade runners, and Mobile, measured as to
+its commercial importance to the Confederacy, might as well have been
+located among the mountains of northern Alabama as on the Gulf; and
+owing to strategic reasons, operations for its immediate reduction came
+to a halt. But on the twenty-seventh of March, 1865, the land and naval
+forces began a joint movement against the defences surrounding the city,
+and on the twelfth of April the Union forces were in full possession. In
+these last operations, which cost the loss of two light draught
+ironclads, a gunboat, and several other smaller vessels by torpedoes, we
+may know that the Chickasaw was never in the background.
+
+In July, Perkins was relieved from the command and ordered home. He had
+volunteered for the Mobile fight but had been detained on board the
+Chickasaw nearly thirteen months.
+
+On his arrival home, he was overwhelmed with congratulations upon his
+gallantry and achievements in Mobile Bay; but his friends felt indignant
+that no promotion had followed them, believing that at least the thirty
+numbers authorized by statute, "for eminent and conspicuous conduct in
+battle," could not be reasonably denied him. But he would not work
+personally toward that end, nor pull political wires to attain it. With
+him, the promotion must come unasked or not at all. It never came, and
+others disputed, with unblushing effrontery, the laurels he had won. Not
+only that, but he has seen, as well as others, those who did the least
+service during the war, given recognition and place over those who "bore
+the heat and burden of the day," during those four years so momentous in
+the annals of the Republic.
+
+The following winter he was stationed at New Orleans, in charge of
+ironclads, and in May, 1866, was ordered as executive officer of the
+Lackawanna, for a cruise of three years in the North Pacific. The
+"piping times of peace" had come, and officers who had had important
+commands, now had to take a step back to the regular duties of their
+grade. Returning from the Pacific in the early spring of 1869, he was
+ordered to the Boston Navy Yard on ordnance duty, and in March, 1871,
+received his commission as commander. Two months later, he was selected
+to command the storeship Relief, to carry provisions to the suffering
+French of the Franco-German war. On his return, after a lapse of six
+months, he resumed his duties at the Boston yard, until appointed
+lighthouse inspector of the Boston district, which position he held
+until January, 1876.
+
+Meanwhile he had taken to himself a wife, having, in 1870, married Miss
+Anna Minot Weld, daughter of Mr. William F. Weld, of Boston. The issue
+of the marriage has been one child, a daughter, born in 1877.
+
+From March, 1877, until May, 1879, he was in command of the United
+States steamer Ashuelot on the Asiatic station, making a most
+interesting cruise, and having, for a time, the pleasure of General
+Grant's company on board, as a guest.
+
+Since his return from that cruise he has been on "waiting orders,"
+varied by occasional duty as member of courts-martial, boards of
+examination, and the like.
+
+In March, 1882, he was promoted to a post-captaincy, as the grade of
+captain in the navy was styled in the olden time, which grade
+corresponds with that of colonel in the army.
+
+Captain Perkins has a house in Boston, where he makes his home in
+winter, but nothing has ever weakened his affection for the old Granite
+State, and nothing delights him more, when possible to do so, than to
+put behind him the whirl and distraction of the city for the quiet
+enjoyment of the fresh, exhilarating air, unpretentious, wholesome life,
+and substantial ways that await him among his dear native hills.
+
+In glancing over the "Portraits for Posterity," the writer notes the
+conspicuous absence of naval representation among the "counterfeit
+presentments" that adorn the walls of the Capitol at Concord and the
+halls of Dartmouth, and ventures to suggest to Governor Prescott, the
+distinguished and indefatigable collector of most of the pictures, that
+portraits of Thornton of the Kearsarge, and Perkins of the Cayuga and
+Chickasaw, might fittingly be given place among those who, in the varied
+walks of life, have lent distinction and added lustre to the Province
+and State of New Hampshire from Colonial times to this. Let not the men
+of the sea be forgotten!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FROM THE WHITE HORSE TO LITTLE RHODY.
+
+BY CHARLES M. BARROWS.
+
+
+Were other means lacking, the progress of the human race might be pretty
+accurately gauged by its modes of locomotion. On such a basis of
+classification there might be a pedestrian period, a pilgrim period, a
+saddle period, a road-wain period, a stage-coach period, and a railway
+period.
+
+Relatively considered, each mode of travel thus indicated would be an
+index of the necessities and activity of the times. The nomadic peoples
+dwelt in a leisurely world, and were content to go a-foot; their wants
+were simple, their aspirations temperate; subsistence for themselves and
+their flocks was their great care, and only when the grass withered and
+the stream dried up did they set forth in quest of fresh pasturage. At
+length, however, the dull-thoughted tribular chieftain became curious to
+know what lay beyond the narrow horizon of his wilderness, and men bound
+on the sandal, girded up their loins, grasped staff, and beat paths up
+and down the valleys, trudging behind an ass or a pack-horse that
+carried their impedimenta. Another advance, and the man who drove his
+beast before him found that the creature was able to carry both his pack
+and himself; and training soon enabled the animal to mend his pace and
+transport his master rapidly across long stretches of waste country.
+Another period elapsed, and ambitious man discovered that, by clearing a
+passage for wheels, the load could be shifted from the back of the beast
+to a wagon drawn behind him; thus carriages came into use, and the race
+went bowling along the great highway of progress at a wonderful rate.
+Then vehicles began to be improved, and the restless brain of the
+inventor contrived a stage-coach for the convenience of those who had no
+private carriages or did not care to use them; though rude at first, it
+soon came to be luxurious, with thorough braces, upholstery, and glass
+windows. But even this noisy vehicle, that abridged distance and brought
+far cities near together, outgrew its usefulness and gave way to its
+rival, the steam-car, which could hurry men through the land as on the
+wings of a tornado. And now the same race, which in the morning of the
+world was content to wander four or five miles between sun and sun, and
+had no wish to go faster, can scarcely abide the slowness of a
+palace-car sliding over a mile of steel rail each minute, and General
+Meigs is importuning the Legislature for leave to construct a railway on
+which trains shall run at three times that speed.
+
+It would be too much to ask this hurrying, restless, nineteenth-century
+world to retrace its way by rail and turnpike, saddle and sandal, back
+to the slow patriarch, who kept his youth a hundred years, and in all
+that time might not have traveled as far as a suburban gentleman of
+to-day does in going once from his home to his place of business in
+Boston. It might halt long enough, however, to enjoy a view of the
+stage-coach in which its grandfathers got on so rapidly, rumbling before
+a cloud of dust over the straight pike that used to connect the
+metropolis with some lesser city.
+
+Such a highway was the Norfolk and Bristol Turnpike, the grand avenue of
+public travel between Boston and Providence, and one link of the
+continuous thoroughfare connecting New England with New York and
+Washington. It was opened during the years of intense activity that
+marked the infancy of the nation, and it had a distinct corporate
+existence and history, like the railroad that ruined it, and was owned
+and operated by a stock company. Though the entire road was not fifty
+miles in length, the original enterprise contemplated only a section
+thereof, which, in accordance with an act of incorporation passed by the
+State Legislature in 1802, was built from the court-house in Dedham, the
+shire town of Norfolk County, to the north precinct meeting-house in
+Attleborough, then a small border town of Bristol County.
+
+The members of the original corporation that held the franchise of the
+road were Fisher Ames, James Richardson, and Timothy Gay, Jr., of
+Dedham; Timothy Whitney and John Whiting, of Roxbury; Eliphalet Slack,
+Samuel S. Blackinton, William Blackinton, Israel Hatch, Elijah Daggett,
+and Joseph Holmes, of Attleborough; Ephraim Starkweather, Oliver
+Wilkinson, and Ozias Wilkinson, of Pawtucket, Rhode Island. They were
+all enterprising business men in their day, well known throughout
+Eastern Massachusetts, and the undertaking for which they combined
+seemed as vast to the rural denizens of the towns through which it
+passed as did the Pacific Railroad enterprise to capitalists twenty
+years ago. To the surprise of the honest farmers, who considered the
+crooked county roads good enough for them, it made almost a straight
+line from one terminus to the other, and was laid out four rods in
+width--a reckless waste of land--as a preventive against snow blockades
+in winter Instead of following the windings of valley and stream as
+other roads did, this pike mounted directly over all interposing hills,
+in accordance with the most approved theories of civil engineers of that
+day; and where sections of those old thoroughfares still remain intact,
+it is amusing to observe at what steep, straight grades they were made
+to climb the most abrupt ascent, curving neither to the right nor to the
+left in merciful consideration for the horses.
+
+But it must not be supposed that public stage-coach travel on the route
+here indicated began with the opening of the Norfolk and Bristol
+Turnpike. The first conveyance of the kind started on its devious way
+over the poor county roads from Boston to Providence in 1767; and the
+quaint Jedediah Morse records that twelve years later the "intercourse
+of the country barely required two stages and twelve horses on this
+line"; but the same authority states that in 1797 twenty stages and one
+hundred horses were employed, and that the number of different stages
+leaving Boston during the week was twenty.
+
+The first stage-coach that passed over this new turnpike was driven by
+William Hodges, familiarly called "Bill," a famous Jehu, whose exploits
+with rein and whip, being really of a high order of merit, were
+graphically set forth to any passenger who shared the box with him,
+after Bill's spirits had been raised and his tongue limbered with the
+requisite number of "nippers"; and the increased comfort and rapidity of
+the journey were so clearly apparent, that the line was soon after
+extended to connect the capitals of the Bay State and Little Rhody.
+
+In those days there was but one way to drive out of Boston, and that a
+narrow one known as the "Neck," beyond which was Roxbury. Across this
+isthmus all northward, westward, and southward-bound vehicles must pass,
+in leaving or entering the city. The narrowest place was at the present
+intersection of Dover Street with Washington, or, as it was then called,
+Orange, Street. In _ante-bellum_ times this was the southern limit of
+the city, and here a gate stood, which opened on to a causeway that
+crossed the "salt marish," which at high tide was covered by the water.
+To this gateway, then, the turnpike was extended from Dedham
+court-house; and when the work was finished a coach, starting from the
+White Horse Tavern in Boston, which stood near the site of the Adams
+House, just opened by Messrs. Hall and Whipple, bowled along "a smooth
+and easy highway" to the bank of the Providence River, making the long
+journey within the incredibly short space of six consecutive hours, when
+the wheeling was good.
+
+This great work, which was talked about years before it was undertaken,
+and then required years to finish, was a triumph of road-building, in
+which both owners and contractors took a pardonable pride; and to those
+familiar with the region through which it passed, the course will be
+sufficiently indicated by noting here and there a way-mark. On leaving
+Boston Neck it followed the already well-graded road through the
+Highlands, to a point near the present station of the Boston and
+Providence Railroad corporation in Roxbury, thence through West Roxbury
+to Dedham, and on through Norwood to East Walpole; it left the central
+village of Walpole a mile or so to the west, keeping near the Sharon
+line, struck into the westerly edge of Foxborough to a point called the
+Four Corners, then through Shepardville in Wrentham to North
+Attleborough, Attleborough "City," Pawtucket, and Providence. A large
+portion of the road is still kept in repair, so that one might take a
+carriage and trace the route through its entire length.
+
+To support such an expensive turnpike it was necessary to levy a tax on
+those who made use of it, and to that end several toll-gates were
+established, at which passengers were compelled to halt and pay their
+lawful reckoning. These gates were located at Roxbury, Dedham, East
+Walpole, Foxborough Four Corners, North Attleborough, and Pawtucket; and
+so great was the patronage of the road, that the annual income derived
+from these sources afforded the stockholders a handsome net dividend.
+
+With the disuse of stage-coaches has perished that public convenience,
+the country tavern, an institution with which the modern hotel has
+little in common. It was suited to the needs and tastes of a former
+generation, and to a time, it may be,
+
+  "When men lived in a grander way,
+  With ampler hospitality."
+
+But no hotel of the present day, with its showy furnishings and glitter,
+its gongs and bell-calls, its multitude of obsequious waiters, gauging
+their attention by your clothes, will bear comparison with the old-time
+tavern for homelike comfort and hearty good service. The guest, on his
+arrival, tired and hungry, was not put off with the cold recognition of
+a clerk who simply wrote after his name the number of his room, and then
+with averted face said: "Waiter, show this gentleman to number
+ninety-seven." On climbing out of the stage-coach, he was sure to see
+mine host, a fat, jolly man, who greeted him, whether friend or
+stranger, with a bow of genuine welcome, relieved him of his
+hand-luggage, ushered him in before the open fire of the bar-room, and
+actually asked what he would have for supper. Nor did this personal
+interest cease as soon as the guest had been comfortably bestowed; for
+the landlord was sure to have some pleasant words with him in the course
+of the evening, and to make him feel, ere he went to rest, that, by
+coming at that particular time, he had conferred on the host or some
+other guest a special favor, so that he retired in the best of humor
+with himself.
+
+Such inns of entertainment were to be found in every considerable New
+England town a hundred years ago, and each bore some special reputation
+for general hospitality, the cordiality of its landlord, or the
+excellence of its table or liquors. Each one of these ancient hostelries
+might also be aptly described as
+
+  "A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall,
+    Now somewhat fallen to decay,
+  With weather-stains upon the wall,
+    And creaking and uneven floors,
+    And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall."
+
+Wherever a stage line was established, a good country tavern, every few
+miles along the route, became a necessity. It nourished on the patronage
+that the coach brought to its door; its kitchen and barns afforded a
+ready market for the produce of the farmers, and it was a grand centre
+for news and the idlers of the village.
+
+The Norfolk and Bristol Turnpike was fortunate in its taverns, which
+were accounted among the best in the State, from the White Horse, whence
+every stage-coach took its departure, to the last one met with on the
+very borders of the land of Roger Williams. There was the Billings
+Tavern in Roxbury, where it was considered quite the proper thing for
+outward-bound passengers to alight and get something to fortify them
+against the fatigues of the journey, especially if the weather were
+extremely cold or extremely warm.
+
+The next tavern on the line was widely known as Bride's, and later as
+Gay's, in Dedham, a place where all who took the early coach out of the
+city delighted to stop and breakfast. Here was to be found one of the
+best tables on the line, and tradition has it that Bill Hodges, who, by
+the way, must have been a competent judge, pronounced Bride's old
+Medford rum the finest he had ever tasted. In the palmy days of
+stage-coach travel, it was no uncommon thing for a hundred persons to
+breakfast at this inn before resuming their journey to Providence. It
+was here that President John Adams usually took the coach when he set
+out for Washington, being first driven to that point from Quincy in his
+own private carriage.
+
+There was a small public house at South Dedham, now Norwood, which was
+but little patronized, and the next tavern of note was Polley's, at East
+Walpole, which had the name of furnishing the best board to be found
+between Boston and New York, and there all the travel on the road
+stopped to dinner. It was also a convenient point for taking up
+passengers from many adjacent towns, whence mail-carriages converged
+toward the common centre, and scores of private teams were driven with
+small parcels or other commissions for the stage; for it must be borne
+in mind that the driver exercised the functions of an expressman, or
+common carrier, and was entrusted with a variety of messages and
+valuables to deliver along the route, the fees for such service being
+usually regarded as his rightful perquisites.
+
+Shepard's Tavern in Foxborough was a customary stopping-place; but the
+next grand halt, after leaving Polley's, was made at Hatch's, in North
+Attleborough. Here the approach of each stage was announced by the
+winding of a horn, and the driver was wont to swing his long lash with a
+flourish around the sweaty flanks of his leaders in a way to assure them
+that he meant business, then give his wheel horses an encouraging cut,
+and dash up before the famous hostelry at a breakneck speed that said to
+the small boys, Get out of the way! and caused the stock loafers, who
+always assembled on the piazza at the first blast of the horn, to envy
+the skill that could thus handle a whip, and guide, with apparent ease,
+the most mettlesome four-in-hand.
+
+Historically considered, no other tavern on the line possessed so much
+of antiquarian interest as Hatch's. It occupied the site of an old
+garrison built and occupied by John Woodcock, the famous Indian fighter,
+as a stronghold against the attacks of his red foes. He went thither
+from the Providence Plantation about the middle of the seventeenth
+century, when the town was an unbroken wilderness in the northern part
+of the Rehoboth North Purchase, so called, took up his abode and reared
+his family in lonely solitude within the close stockades he planted
+around his home. The first house that went by the name of Hatch's Tavern
+was built upon this old garrison, which, indeed, formed a part of its
+very walls, and not until the proprietor found it necessary to erect a
+new and larger house, when the turnpike was opened, did the last
+vestiges of the Woodcock stronghold disappear.
+
+The landlord of this inn, Colonel Israel Hatch, was also a man of
+importance in his time, who enjoyed an enviable reputation for military
+achievements, and was very prominent in public affairs. At no point on
+the line was the traveler surer of a larger hospitality or a heartier
+welcome than was extended by Colonel Hatch, though its best room, which
+was reserved for visitors of note, might not have contained the
+veritable inscription ascribed to Major Molineaux:--
+
+  "What do you think?
+  Here is good drink.
+  Perhaps you may not know it;
+  If not in haste, do stop and taste;
+  You merry folks will show it."
+
+On leaving North Attlebourogh, the remaining twelve miles to Providence
+were conveniently relieved by short halts at Bishop's and at Barrow's
+Taverns in Attleborough "City" and West Attleborough, and at one or two
+places in Pawtucket, so that no passenger was compelled to go hungry or
+dry for many miles.
+
+By far the most noted passenger ever conveyed over the Norfolk and
+Bristol road, and there were many worthy of mention, is reputed to have
+been President James Monroe, who shortly after his inauguration in
+March, 1817, made a tour through the New England States, similar to that
+made by President Hayes in 1877. The occasion was a great one, for
+Monroe and his party left Providence in the morning, halted at Hatch's
+for lunch, dined at Polley's, and were met on their arrival at Dedham by
+a delegation from Boston who escorted them to the "Hub of the Universe."
+Great was the curiosity of the country-folk to behold a president, and
+the streets through which his barouche was to pass were thronged with an
+eager, expectant multitude, who greeted him with cheers, and were
+rewarded with a gracious bow. And one little boy, now a venerable and
+honored member of the Bristol County bar, was standing with his father
+in an open farm wagon, when the President alighted at North
+Attleborough, and exclaimed with evident disappointment: "Why, father,
+he's no bigger than any other man!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+DUNGEON ROCK, LYNN.
+
+BY FRANK P. HARRIMAN.
+
+
+All over the land there are localities to which, in some way or other,
+have become attached names that indicate something of the supernatural,
+or such as are intended to excite apprehension. What stout heart does
+not stand dismayed before a real dungeon? A prison under ground is
+something awful to contemplate. Whose hair does not stand on end at the
+thought of possible confinement in a dark, damp, cold stone
+prison-house, with rusty-hinged or even sealed doors, where no window
+opens to the light of day; where no friendly voice is ever heard; where
+liberation is impossible, and where, cursed with the remainder of life,
+one is doomed to a miserable existence till the mortal and the immortal
+separate? Deliver us from such terrors as these!
+
+In visiting Dungeon Rock, however, like most places of a similar
+character, we find there is no especial reason for fear, notwithstanding
+the indicative name, and the many blood-curdling traditions connected
+therewith.
+
+It was a fine autumn day, when, together with some friends, we mustered
+courage to pay our respects to this now famous spot. We found our way
+thither from the city of Lynn by horse-cars, a part of the way by a
+barge and on foot. The driver of the barge, like most drivers of such
+vehicles, displayed no small amount of scientific driving. Why it is
+that almost all scientific driving generally results in some mishap, we
+are unable to determine. But we conclude that the particular science to
+which we refer is usually engendered by the driver having his elbow
+crooked at some bar before the journey commences. On all such occasions
+stops are quite common; branches of trees are not avoided, and they
+threaten to destroy our best suits, or brush us altogether from our
+seats; the brakes do not work; the traces get unhitched; an immense whip
+is flourished and cracked; the horses become unmanageable; frightened
+women in a high key scream "Mercy!" and the ride becomes not only
+dangerous but unendurable.
+
+After a ride up hill and down over a winding road skirted by forest
+trees on either hand, we were left in the woods at the foot of a steep
+hill. The remainder of our way was by a path of the most primitive
+nature, something, we should judge, like that of the native Pawtuckets,
+with the exception of the rapid ascent, for the natives were wiser than
+we in laying out their highways, for they avoided both hills and swamps.
+Shortly we found ourselves in the immediate vicinity of Dungeon Rock,
+which is situated on the summit of a granite-capped eminence overlooking
+the surrounding country. Quite a concourse of people had assembled on
+this occasion, apparently to spend the day and have a "good time"
+generally. We should have said before that this is considered a kind of
+Mecca for those who hold to the Spiritual faith. There are several
+buildings which seem to have been dropped down without much order, and a
+large platform furnished with plank seats. An entertainment had been
+furnished, though for what purpose or by whom we knew not. There was
+some fine singing, in solos, duets, and quartettes, and a slender little
+girl showed a good lip, large lungs, and nimble fingers on a silver
+cornet, out of which she fired repeated volleys of sputtering jigs at
+the overelated spectators.
+
+Lynn's first historian, who dealt somewhat in tradition, among other
+things, says, in substance, "early in 1658, on a pleasant evening, a
+little after sunset, a small vessel was seen to anchor near the mouth of
+the Saugus River. A boat was presently lowered from her side, into which
+four men descended and moved up the river a considerable distance, when
+they landed and proceeded directly into the woods. They had been noticed
+by only a few individuals; but in those early times, when the people
+were surrounded by danger and easily susceptible of alarm, such an
+incident was well calculated to awaken suspicion, and in the course of
+the evening the intelligence was conveyed to many houses. In the morning
+the vessel was gone, and no trace of her or her crew could be found." He
+further states that on going into the foundry connected with the then
+existing iron-works, a quantity of shackles, handcuffs, hatchets, and
+other articles of iron, were ordered to be made and left at a certain
+place, for which a return in silver would be found. "This was done" (so
+says the historian), and the mysterious contractors fulfilled their part
+of the obligation, but were undiscovered. Some months afterward the four
+men returned and made their abode in what has, to this day, been called
+Pirates' Glen, where they built a hut and dug a well. It is supposed
+that they buried money in this vicinity, but our opinion is that most of
+the money then, as now, was kept above ground. Their retreat being
+discovered, one of the king's cruisers appeared on the coast, and three
+of them were arrested and carried to England and probably executed. The
+other, whose name was Thomas Veal, escaped to a rock in the woods, in
+which was a spacious cavern, where the pirates had previously deposited
+some of their plunder. There the fugitive practised the trade of
+shoemaking. He continued his residence here till the great earthquake of
+1658, when the top of the rock was unloosed and crashed down into the
+mouth of the cavern, enclosing the unfortunate man in what has been
+called to this day Pirates' Dungeon or Dungeon Rock. We cannot vouch for
+the complete truthfulness of this historian's statements.
+
+In 1852, one Hiram Marble purchased from the city of Lynn a lot of
+woodland in which Dungeon Rock is situated. He came, as was claimed,
+influenced by Spiritualistic revelations.
+
+Directed by the spirit of the departed pirate Tom Veal, Mr. Marble
+commenced to excavate from this very hard porphyry rock in search of a
+subterranean vault, into which had been poured, as was supposed, the
+ill-gotten gain of all the pirates, from Captain Kidd down to the last
+outlaw of the ocean. Twenty-seven years the sound of the hammer and the
+drill and the thud of blasting-powder echoed through the leafy forests,
+and then all was hushed.
+
+Hiram Marble died in his lonely residence at Dungeon Rock, November 10,
+1868, aged sixty-five. He was widely known for his perseverence in the
+work in which he was engaged. Sixteen years he labored without a
+realization of his ardent hopes. He remained a Spiritualist to the last,
+and those of a like faith were invited to the funeral services which
+took place on the day following his death.
+
+"His faith has not been without works, nor his courage barren of
+results, and centuries hence, if his name and identity should be lost,
+the strange labor may be referred to some recluse Cyclops who had
+strayed hither from mystic lands."
+
+"Edwin Marble, who succeeded his father in the strange search for
+treasure, died January 16, 1880, aged forty-eight years. He was buried
+near the foot of the rock on the southwestern slope, it having been his
+express desire to be interred near the scene of his hopeful, though
+fruitless, labors."
+
+The broken rock, which they removed solely with their own hands, makes
+quite a mountain of itself.
+
+We decided to enter the place where so many years of fruitless toil had
+been spent. A wooden gate on rusty hinges opened and we passed in, and
+the gate closed behind us.
+
+The excavation is high enough and broad enough for two tall men to walk
+abreast, and on its winding way, screw fashion, doubling upon itself, it
+leads down one hundred and fifty feet into the bowels of the earth, all
+the way through solid rock that had remained undisturbed for centuries
+on centuries, until the work of this ill-directed Marble commenced.
+Down, down we went, out of the warm sunlight into this cold, damp
+subterranean passage, winding hither and thither, till we reached an
+ice-cold pool of water which is constantly being supplied from some
+hidden fountain, and, were it not removed by pumps, would fill the
+place to the brim.
+
+This rock-hewn passage is lighted with lanterns hung at the various
+turns, so that the descent and ascent, notwithstanding the way is rough,
+can be made with safety. Though the day was warm outside, we were in a
+very short time chilled through and glad to make our escape. How these
+men could have endured many long years of labor in this vast
+refrigerator, and retain any degree of health, is a problem. Faith and
+zeal doubtless kept the blood moving through their veins. It is said
+that a knife, or dirk, and a pair of scissors of very ancient origin,
+which we were shown, were found by Mr. Marble in a fissure of this solid
+rock. That they were left there by pirates, years on years ago, no sane
+man can for a moment believe. The probabilities are that some one
+deceived Mr. Marble.
+
+When this misguided adventurer commenced this work, he was possessed of
+about fifteen hundred dollars, which he expended long before his death,
+after which, he depended upon the charities of those who sympathized
+with him in his undertaking.
+
+In one of the buildings named above, there are several portraits of
+pirates and their wives, drawn, it is said, by some one under the
+influence of the spirits, in a marvelously short space of time. Several
+wives of Captain Kidd are among them.
+
+Captain Kidd must have been a remarkable man, to want more than one such
+character for a companion, provided the likenesses are true to nature;
+at any rate we are not at all surprised that he was a pirate, under the
+circumstances.
+
+To illustrate how Mr. Marble professed to have been directed, we give
+the following correspondence with the spirits:--
+
+Mr. Marble wrote: "I wish Veal or Harris would tell what move to make
+next."
+
+This query was covered by fifteen thicknesses of paper and then the
+medium was called in, and, merely feeling of the exterior of the paper,
+wrote what the spirit of Veal revealed through him. Captain Harris,
+named in the communication, is supposed to have been the leader of the
+piratical band.
+
+Response of Veal: "_My Dear Charge_,--You solicit me or Captain Harris
+to advise you as to what to next do. Well, as Harris says he has always
+had the heft of the load on his shoulders, I will try and respond myself
+and let Harris rest. Ha! ha! Well, Marble, we must joke a bit; did we
+not, we should have the blues, as do you some of those rainy days when
+you see no living person at the rock, save your own dear ones. Not a
+sound do you hear, save the woodpecker and that little gray bird [Mr.
+Marble's pet canary], that sings all day long, more especially wet days,
+tittry, tittry, tittry. But, Marble, as Long [a deceased friend of
+Marble] says, 'Don't be discouraged.' We are doing as fast as we can. As
+to the course, you are in the right direction at present. You have one
+more curve to make before you take the course that leads to the cave. We
+have a reason for keeping you from entering the cave at once. Moses was
+by the Lord kept forty years in his circuitous route, ere he had sight
+of that land that flowed with milk and honey. God had his purpose in so
+doing, notwithstanding he might have led Moses into the promise, in a
+very few days from the start. But no; God wanted to develop a truth,
+and no faster than the minds of the people were prepared to receive it.
+Cheer up, Marble, we are with you and doing all we can.
+
+"Your guide,
+
+"TOM VEAL."
+
+Another communication, from C.B. Long, contains the following: "The
+names of Hiram and Edwin Marble will live when millions of years shall,
+from this time, have passed, and when even kings and statesmen shall
+have been forgotten."
+
+And so the man and, after him, his son worked on till, so far as they
+were concerned, death closed the scene. Whether any person in the years
+to come will follow these misguided laborers, and take up the work where
+they left it, is a question.
+
+The legendary lore of Dungeon Rock is eclipsed by the dominant impulse
+of lives absorbed in an idea, based upon supernatural agency. While it
+is an evidence of a misguided zeal, unequaled by anything the whole
+world has heretofore probably known, in and of itself it is no mystery.
+
+The mystery is that there ever lived human beings to undertake such an
+unpromising work, where such hardship and perseverance were required,
+and where the folly of any hope of success must have been apparent to an
+intelligent person every day, from the commencement to the close of the
+twenty-seven years of servile toil.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LANCASTER IN ACADIE AND THE ACADIENS IN LANCASTER.
+
+BY HENRY S. NOURSE.
+
+
+It is almost one hundred and thirty years
+
+  " ... since the burning of Grand-Pre,
+  When on the falling tide the freighted vessels departed,
+  Bearing a nation, with all its household gods, into exile;
+  Exile without an end, and without an example in story."
+
+Of the numerous readers of Evangeline in Lancaster, few now suspect how
+nearly the sad tale of wantonly-ravaged Acadie touched their own town
+history. From the archives of Nova Scotia all details of that deed of
+merciless treachery were left out, for very shame; but upon the crown
+officials then in authority over the Province, history and poetry have
+indelibly branded the stigma of an unnecessary edict of expulsion, which
+devastated one of the fairest regions of America, and tore seven
+thousand guileless and peaceful people from a scene of rural felicity
+rarely equaled on earth, to scatter them in the misery of abject
+poverty, among strangers speaking a strange tongue and hating their
+religion. The agents who faithfully executed the cruel decree were
+Massachusetts men, reluctantly obedient to "his Majesty's orders," given
+them specifically in writing by Charles Lawrence, Governor of Nova
+Scotia.
+
+On the twentieth of May, 1755, Lieutenant-Colonel John Winslow embarked
+at Boston with a force of about two thousand men, organized in two
+battalions. They were enlisted for the term of one year, unless sooner
+discharged, for the special service of dislodging the French from their
+newly fortified positions along the north side of the Bay of Fundy, and
+on the isthmus connecting New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Among the
+vessels of the fleet was the sloop Victory, and to this was assigned a
+company belonging to the second, or Lieutenant-Colonel Scott's,
+battalion, largely composed of, and officered by, Lancaster men, a list
+of whose names is subjoined:--
+
+  Captain Abijah Willard.
+  First Lieutenant "Haskal." [Henry Haskell ?]
+  Second Lieutenant Willard. [Levi ?]
+  Ensign Willard. [Aaron ?]
+
+  SERGEANTS.
+
+  Thomas Beman, husbandman,      aged 25
+  James Houghton,  "                " 25
+
+  CORPORALS.
+
+  Jacob Willard, husbandman      aged 31
+  Thomas Willard,  "                " 23
+
+  DRUMMERS.
+
+  Joseph Farnsworth, husbandman  aged 20
+  Joseph Phelps,           "        " 21
+
+  PRIVATES,
+
+  Benjamin Atherton, laborer     aged 20
+  Phineas Atherton,    "           "  16
+  Daniel Atherton,     "           "  21
+  Jonathan Brown,      "           "  17
+  Joseph Bailey,       "           "  30
+  Phineas Divoll,      "           "  22
+  Abel Farnsworth, husbandman      "  22
+  John Farnsworth, laborer         "  30
+  Jeremiah Field,      "           "  18
+  Ephraim Goss,        "           "  22
+  Thomas Henderson,    "           "  40
+  Daniel Harper,       "           "  21
+  Elias Haskell, cooper            "  19
+  William Hutson, cordwainer       "  22
+  John Johnson, laborer            "  22
+  Samuel Kilham   "                "  20
+  Matthias Larkin,"                "  30
+  Joseph Metcalf, cooper           "  21
+  Joseph Pratt, laborer            "  30
+  Joseph Priest,   "               "  45
+  Daniel Sanders,  "               "  19
+  Isaac Sollendine, laborer        "  21
+  Jacob Stiles, housewright        "  19
+  Lemuel Turner, laborer           "  18
+  Nathaniel Turner, "              "  18
+  William Turner,   "              "  18
+  Aaron Wilder,     "              "  30
+  William Warner,   "              "  20
+  David Wilson,     "              "  18
+  Levi Woods, laborer            aged 20
+  Silas Willard,  "                "  19
+  Uziah Wyman, apothecary          "  21
+  John Warner, laborer             "  20
+  James Willard,  "                "  18
+  John Wilson,    "                "  20
+
+Besides the above forty-five, there were, in other companies, three
+natives of Lancaster:--
+
+  Nathaniel Johnson, yeoman         aged 25
+  Jonas Moor,           "             "  32
+  John Rugg, husbandman               "  31
+
+What special part these men took in the investment and capture of the
+formidable fort of Beau Sejour, or in the assaults upon the minor forts,
+neither record nor tradition tell, and we are equally uninformed
+respecting their participation in the pitiable scenes enacted along the
+shores of Minas and Chignecto Bays. The Massachusetts Archives contain
+no pay-rolls of this expedition, and no papers of Captain Abijah Willard
+are known to exist throwing any light upon its history. That the service
+was not only inglorious in part, and ungrateful to the truly brave, but
+attended with much hardship, is attested by the following documents
+copied from Massachusetts Archives, lv, 62 and 63. They are there in the
+handwriting of Secretary Josiah Willard:--
+
+"_Sir_: I have received your Letter giving me an acct. of the Hardships
+your poor Soldiers are exposed to. I sincerely Compassionate their
+unhappy case & I pray God to find out some Way for their Relief. The
+Governor is not expected here till the month of December. When he
+arrives I shall endeavour to mention the affair to him. In the mean
+time, I have written a Letter to Major General Winslow which I have left
+open, Leaving it with you to deliver it or not as you shall judge best,
+First sealing it before you deliver it The Council being informed that I
+had a Letter from you upon the subject of these Hardships of the
+Soldiers desired me to communicate it to them, which I did. What they
+will do upon it I know not.
+
+"Octob'r 31, 1755.
+
+To ABIJAH WILLARD."
+
+
+     "BOSTON, Oct. 31, 1755
+
+     "_Sir_: I have lately received a Letter from my Kinsman Cpt. Abijah
+     Willard expressing his tender concern for his soldiers who are
+     exposed to ly in Tents in this cold season now coming on and their
+     cloath now worn out. I would fain use any Interest I could make
+     that may contribute to the Relief of these and other the Provincial
+     soldiers in Nova Scotia in the like circumstances, but I am a
+     perfect stranger both to Governor Lawrence & Coll. Monkton. But the
+     acquaintance I have of you & my knowledge of your compassionate
+     spirit, especially towards the soldiers under your command in like
+     circumstances, urges me to write to you on this occasion (not from
+     any Distrust I have of your care in these matters, but possibly as
+     your Distance from the Place where this Company is quartered may
+     keep you in some Ignorance of the Difficulties these poor men
+     labour under) to desire you would interpose your best offices for
+     their Relief. It seems that these men can be of little service in
+     act of Duty required of them while they are so destitute of the
+     necessary. Comforts & Refreshments of Life. You will excuse this
+     Freedom. With my earnest desires of the gracious Presence of God
+     with you & particularly to prosper your enterprises for the Good of
+     your nation & Countrey I am, Sir, Your very humble serv't,
+
+     "JOSIAH WILLARD."
+
+This was not Captain Willard's first experience of Nova Scotia, nor was
+it to be his last. Ten years before he enlisted in the expedition
+against Louisburg, being first lieutenant of Captain Joshua Pierce's
+company, in the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment, of which his father,
+Samuel Willard, was colonel. He was there promoted to a captaincy, July
+31, 1745, three days after his twenty-first birthday. Little more than
+twenty years had passed from the time when he had assisted in forcing
+the broken-hearted Acadien farmers into exile, and again he sailed for
+Nova Scotia, himself a fugitive, proscribed as a Tory, his ample estate
+confiscated, and his name a reproach among his life-long neighbors. As
+thousands of French Neutrals from Georgia to Massachusetts Bay sighed
+away their lives with grieving for their lost Acadie, so we know Abijah
+Willard, so long as he lived, looked westward with yearning heart toward
+that elm-shaded home so familiar to all Lancastrians. On the coast of
+the Bay of Fundy, not far west of St. John, is a locality yet called
+_Lancaster_. Colonel Abijah Willard gave it the name. It was his retreat
+in exile, and there he died in 1789.
+
+Of the thousand Acadiens apportioned to the Province of Massachusetts,
+the committee appointed by General Court for the duty of distributing
+them among the several towns, sent three families, consisting of twenty
+persons, to Lancaster. These were Benoni Melanson, his wife Mary, and
+children, Mary, Joseph, Simeon, John, Bezaleel, "Carre," and another
+daughter not named; Geoffroy Benway, Abigail, his wife, and children,
+John, Peter, Joseph, and Mary; Theal Forre, his wife Abigail, and
+children, Mary, Abigail, Margaret. The Forre family were soon
+transferred to Harvard. They arrived in February, 1756, and the
+accounts of the town's selectmen for their support were regularly
+rendered until February, 1761. They were destitute, sickly, and
+apparently utterly unable to support themselves, and were billeted now
+here, now there, among the farmers, at a fixed price of two shillings
+and eight-pence each per week for their board. Sometimes a house was
+hired for them, and, in addition to rent paid, we find in the
+selectmen's charges such items as these:--
+
+                                           _£  s   d  gr_
+
+  To cash pd for an Interpreter and
+  paper,                                         3   4
+  To what Nessecareys we found them,          1  0   8  0
+  To 472 weight of Befe cost,                 3  3   2  1
+  To Corn  that they have had  &
+  yoused, with Sauss,                               10  8
+  To one Bushel of Salt & Salting the
+  Befe,                                              5  6
+  to one washing tub, 2 earthen pots
+  & pail,                                            4  0
+  to wood for the winter season for the
+  year 1757,                                     1   6  8
+
+Direct evidence to the helpless condition of the two families of French
+Neutrals in Lancaster is given in a letter from the selectmen, dated
+January 24, 1757, found in Massachusetts Archives, xxiii, 330:--
+
+"and here Foloweth an account of the curcumstances, age and sexes of
+those people, thare Is two famles Consisting of fifteen In Number, the
+whole to witt. Benoni Melanso with his wife of about fourty four or five
+years of age, and they have seven children thre Boyes and four Girlls,
+the Eldest Girl about 17 years old, the boye Next about 15 years old,
+Sickly. Can Do Nothing. ye Next Boy 12 years old. ye Next boy 10 years
+old, and ye four Girles all under them Down to two years old, and the
+woman almost a Criple....
+
+The Name of the others Is Jefray--& his wife, he almost an Idot and
+aboute 46 years old, ... they have four children 3 Boyes & one Girll. ye
+Eldest Boye 10 yeares old & ye Rest Down to two years old.
+
+"WM. RICHARDSON }
+"JOHN CARTER    }  Selectmen of Lancaster."
+"JOSHUA FAIRBANK}
+
+Shortly after the date of the above, these unhappy people suddenly
+disappeared from their habitation. Reckless with homesickness, they had
+stolen away, and made a bold push for the sea, in the vain hope that on
+it they might float back to the Basin of Minas. This was in the depth of
+winter, February, 1757. They came to the coast at Weymouth. There they
+soon encountered the questioning of local authority, and to excuse their
+intrusion Melanson made complaint against his Lancaster guardians, the
+history of which is in Massachusetts Archives, xxiii, 356.
+
+"The Committee to whom was referred the Petition of Benoni Melanzan in
+behalf of himself and sundrie other French People, Having met and heard
+the Petition and one of the Selectmen of Lancaster, relating to the
+several matters therein Complained of and also have heard the
+Representative of Weymouth where the French People mentioned in s d
+Petition at present reside: Beg leave to report as follows. Viz: That it
+doth not appear that ye Petitioner had any Grounds to complain of the
+selectmen of Lancaster or either of them relating the matter complained
+of, and therefore Beg leave further Report that the Committee are of
+oppinion that the said French People be ordered forthwith to Return to
+Lancaster from whence they in a disorderly manner withdrew themselves,
+all which is Humbly submited.
+
+"pr order of the Comitte
+
+"SILVANUS BOURN."
+
+
+"In Council, February 24, 1757.
+
+"Read and ordered that this Report be so far accepted as relates to the
+Petitioners Complaint of his Treatment at Lancaster being without
+Grounds, but inasmuch as the Petitioner offers to undertake for the
+support of himself and the other French removed from Lancaster except in
+the article of Firing and House Room, and is likewise willing that two
+of his sons be placed out in Families and inasmuch as the Petitioner is
+by employment a Fisherman, which cannot be exercised at Lancaster,
+therefore, Ordered that he have liberty to reside in the Town of
+Weymouth until this Court shall otherwise order, and the Selectmen of
+said Town are impowered to place two of his sons in English families for
+a reasonable term and to provide House Room for the Rest, & the liberty
+of cutting as much Firewood as is necessary in as convenient a Lot as
+can be procured. The account of the Charge of House Rent and Firewood to
+be allowed out of the Province Treasury.
+
+"Sent down for concurrence.
+
+"THOS. CLARKE, Dpty. Secy.
+
+"Feb. 25, 1757."
+
+"In the House of Representatives. Read and unanimously non concurred,
+and ordered that Report of the Com'tee be accepted & ye the said
+French Neutrals so called be directed to return forthwith to ye Town of
+Lancaster accordingly.
+
+"Sent up for Concurrence.
+
+"T. HUBBARD, Spk'r."
+
+
+"In Council, Feb. 25, 1757.
+
+"Read & Concurred. A. OLIVER, Secy.
+
+"Consented to S. PHIPS."
+
+They were soon again in the quarters whence they fled. In June, 1760,
+the Melanson family were divided between Lunenburg, Leominister, and
+Hardwick, while the Benways remained. Among the petitioners for leave to
+go to "Old France," a little later, appear "Benoni Melanson and Marie,
+with family of seven," and from that date the waifs from Acadie appear
+no more in the annals of Lancaster.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GIFTS TO COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES.
+
+BY CHARLES F. THWING.
+
+
+The generosity of the American people, in the making of gifts to their
+institutions of learning, is munificent. The generosity is keeping pace
+with the increase of wealth. In 1847, Abbott Lawrence gave fifty
+thousand dollars to Harvard University, to found the school of science
+which now bears his name. This gift is declared to be "the largest
+amount ever given at one time, during the lifetime of the donor, to any
+public institution in this country." But since the year 1847, it is
+probable that not less than fifty millions of dollars have been donated
+by individuals to educational institutions. In several instances, gifts,
+each approaching, or even exceeding, a million of dollars, have been
+bestowed. The Baltimore merchant, Johns Hopkins, gave not less than
+three millions of dollars to a great university, which, like Harvard,
+bears the name of its founder. Henry W. Sage and Ezra Cornell
+contributed more than a million to the endowment of Cornell University.
+The gifts of Amasa Stone to the Adelbert University at Cleveland
+aggregate more than half a million. Since 1864, Ario Pardee has given to
+Lafayette College more than five hundred thousand dollars; and the
+donations of John C. Green to Princeton aggregate toward a million of
+dollars. Alexander Agassiz, worthy son of a worthy father, has donated
+more than a quarter of a million of dollars to the equipment of the
+Museum of Comparative Zoology and Anatomy which his father founded.
+Joseph E. Sheffield endowed the scientific school at New Haven which
+bears his name. The late Nathaniel Thayer, of Boston, contributed about
+two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Harvard. Among various
+institutions in the West, South, and North, Mrs. Valeria G. Stone, of
+Maiden, Massachusetts, has, within the last five years, distributed more
+than a million of dollars. George Peabody's benevolences amount to eight
+millions of dollars, about one fourth of which forms the Southern
+Educational Fund, and about one eighth endowed the Peabody Institute at
+Baltimore. John F. Slater gave a million of dollars to the cause of
+Southern education. The amounts contributed to college and university
+education in the last ten years may be thus summarized:[A]
+
+  1872    $6,282,461
+  1873     8,238,141
+  1874     1,845,354
+  1875     2,703,650
+  1876     2,743,348
+  1877     1,273,991
+  1878     1,389,633
+  1879     3,878,648
+  1880     2,666,571
+  1881     4,601,069
+
+[Footnote A: Compiled from various Reports of the United States
+Commissioner of Education.]
+
+In the nineteen years since the close of the war, many institutions have
+been founded with munificent endowments, as Johns Hopkins, Smith at
+Northampton, Wellesley; and many more institutions have vastly increased
+their resources. Harvard's property has perhaps tripled in amount;
+Princeton's income, under the presidency of Dr. McCosh, has greatly
+enlarged; Yale's revenue has also received large additions. Colleges in
+every State have been the recipients of munificent gifts.
+Notwithstanding, however, these benevolences, most colleges are in a
+constant state of poverty. Indeed, it may be said that every college
+ought to be poor; that is, it ought to have needs far outrunning its
+immediate means of supplying them. Harvard is frequently making
+applications for funds, which appear to be needed quite as much in
+Cambridge, as in the new college of a new town of a new State. At the
+present time, colleges stand in peculiar need of gifts for general
+purposes of administration. Funds are frequently given for a special
+object, as the foundation of a professorship. But the amount may be
+inadequate. It is not expedient to decline the gift. Properly to endow
+the new chair, therefore, revenue must be drawn from the general funds,
+which thus suffer diminution. Donations are of the greatest advantage to
+a college, which are free from conditions relative to their use.
+
+The demand of institutions of learning for endowment receives special
+emphasis at the present by the decreasing rate of interest. It is
+difficult, every college treasurer knows well, so to invest funds with
+safety as to cause them to return more than five per cent, interest.
+Ten years ago in the East it was as easy to secure seven, as it is now
+to secure five, per cent. In one year one college saw its income
+decrease many thousand dollars by reason of this decrease in the rate of
+interest. Bowdoin College is distinguished for the success with which
+its funds are administered. At the present these funds are said to pay
+about six per cent, interest, but it is a rate higher than many colleges
+are able to gain. By this decrease the salaries of professors, the
+income of scholarships, and the entire revenue, suffer.
+
+Many reasons might be urged in behalf of benevolence to institutions of
+learning. Funds thus given are as a rule administered with extraordinary
+financial skill. Their permanence is greater than the permanence of
+funds in trust companies and savings banks. Harvard, the oldest college,
+Yale, the next to the oldest (with the exception of William and Mary),
+have funds still unimpaired, still applied to the designs of those who
+gave them in the first years of their incorporation.
+
+Gifts to a college are, moreover, an application of the right principle
+of benevolence of helping those who help themselves. The trustees, the
+professors, are, in proportion to their income, the most generous. Not
+seldom do they pledge a year's salary for the benefit of the
+institutions which they officially serve. The first nineteen donors to
+Tabor College, Iowa, several of whom were its officers, gave no less
+than _sixty per cent._ of the assessed value of their property. The
+efficient president of Colorado College has been engaged in making money
+for his college in legitimate business, in preference to making his own
+fortune. The students, as well as the officers, of colleges endeavor to
+help themselves to an education in all fitting ways. The keeping of
+school, the doing of chores, the running of errands, the tutoring of
+fellow-students, suggest the various ways in which they endeavor to work
+their way through college.
+
+Those who thus donate their money, in amounts either large or small,
+foster the highest interests of the nation. From institutions of
+learning flow the best forces of the national life. Literature, the fine
+arts, patriotism, philanthrophy, and religion, thus receive their
+strongest motives. The higher education in the United States is most
+intimately related to the master-minds of American literature.
+Longfellow, Hawthorne, Lowell, Holmes, were in part created by Bowdoin
+and Harvard. Among the most efficient officers of the late war were the
+graduates of the colleges. Without the college the ministry would become
+a "sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal" indeed, and without a learned
+ministry the church would languish. In the early years of the century,
+Mr. John Norris, of Salem, proposed to give a large sum of money to the
+cause of foreign missions. He was persuaded, however, to transfer the
+gift to the foundation of the Andover Theological Seminary, assured that
+thus he was really giving it to the missionary cause. So the event
+proved. For the first American missionaries were trained at Andover.
+Thus, he who gives his money to the college, gives it to the fostering
+of the highest and best forces in American thought and character.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SONG OF THE WINDS.
+
+BY HENRY B. CARRINGTON.
+
+
+  I.
+
+  Thin as the viewless air,
+    Swifter than dreams can be,
+  Above, around, and everywhere,
+   We speed with pinions free.
+  No barrier bounds our path,
+    But, ever, to and fro,
+  Angels of mercy and of wrath.
+    Onward, in haste we go.
+
+
+  II.
+
+  Our birth, mid Chaos rude,
+    Ere Earth had formed its shell;
+  And nursed we were, in solitude,
+  Where hoary night did dwell.
+    We tossed her raven hair,
+  Ere sun began to glow,
+  And whirled the atoms through the air,
+    To form the moon, I trow.
+
+
+  III.
+
+  We heard the Eternal Voice
+    Pronounce, "Let there be Light!"
+  And, shrieking, fled, beneath the wings
+    Of the escaping Night.
+  We saw the earth arise,
+    Childlike, from Nature's womb,
+  And flew to it, with joyous cries,--
+    We knew it was our home.
+
+
+  IV.
+
+  How brilliant, then, its dyes,
+    O'er past we could not grieve;--
+  We rocked the trees of Paradise,
+    And whisked the locks of Eve.
+  Mid things so gay and calm,
+    With wings, as those of doves,
+  We floated o'er those fields of balm,
+    As lightest zephyr roves.
+
+
+  V.
+
+  All changed from peace to wrath
+    When stern Archangel came
+  And drove that pair from garden path,
+    With sword of lambent flame.
+  Our wings grew strong and broad,
+    Our anger burst on high,
+  We tore huge trees,--we dashed along,
+    Our shadows gloomed the sky.
+
+
+  VI.
+
+  Our home, the boundless air
+    Or Ocean's surging breast,--
+  We meet the lightnings' lurid glare,
+    Or hang on rainbow's crest;
+  At touch, the forests bow,
+    The lake uplifts its voice,
+  The long grass hums its anthem low,
+    And ocean waves rejoice.
+
+
+  VII.
+
+  Our flocks, the drifting clouds
+    That sweep across the plain,
+  Like vessels seen, with netted shrouds,
+    At rest upon the main.
+  We laugh to see them spread
+    With darkened fleece, afar,--
+  While thunders mutter, overhead,
+    Like trumpet notes of war.
+
+
+  VIII.
+
+  We scorn the pride of man,
+    With us he dare not cope,
+  Build vessel strong as e'er he can,
+    We shiver mast and rope.
+  Too long we tarry now--
+    Away,--with speed, away,
+  More than a thousand miles we go,
+    To sink a ship to-day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BRITISH LOSSES IN THE REVOLUTION.
+
+FROM APRIL 19, 1775, TO THE SURRENDER OF GENERAL BURGOYNE,
+
+OCTOBER 17, 1777
+
+[The following account of the losses of the British in the Revolution,
+for the first thirty months of the war, is taken from The London
+Magazine of February, 1778, and is interesting in that it differs from
+all the statements that appear in our United States Histories of that
+portion of the war.--ED.]
+
+
+In March, 1776, the Parliament of Great Britain Voted 42,390 Men for the
+Service of America; These troops Landed Accordingly, And have Lost
+agreeable to their Returns as Followeth:--
+
+______________________________|___________|_____________|_____________
+Places Where                  |  Killed.  |   Wounded.  |  Prisoners.
+______________________________|___________|_____________|____________
+At Lexington and Concord      |    43     |       70    |
+Bunker Hill                   |  746      |   1,150     |
+Ticonderoga and Quebec        |    81     |      110    |     350
+On the Lake, by General Arnold|    93     |       64    |
+Sullivan's Island             |   191     |      264    |
+Ceder                         |    40     |       70    |
+Norfolk, in Virginia          |   129     |      175    |      40
+Different Actions on Long     |   840     |      660    |      60
+   Island                     |           |             |
+Harlem and Hell's Gate        |   236     |      773    |      43
+New York, in time of landing  |    57     |      100    |
+White Plains, General McDougal|   450     |      490    |     270
+Fort Washington               |   900     |    1,500    |
+Fort Lee                      |    20     |       30    |
+Trenton Hessians              |    35     |       60    |     948
+Princetown                    |    74     |      100    |     210
+Boston Road, by Admiral Hardy |    52     |       90    |     750
+Transports taken              |           |             |     390
+Danbury                       |   260     |      350    |      40
+Iron Hill, near Elk           |    59     |       80    |      20
+Brandy Wine                   |   800     |    1,170    |
+Reden Road, by General Maxwell|    40     |       60    |
+Staten Island, by General     |    94     |      150    |     278
+  Sullivan                    |           |             |
+Bennington                    |   200     |    1,100    |   1,100
+Fort Montgomery               |   580     |      700    |
+Fort Mifflin and Red Bank     |   328     |       53    |      84
+General Burgoyne's Army       | 2,100     |    1,126    |   5,572
+Deserted                      | 1,100     |             |
+______________________________|___________|_____________|___________
+                              | 8,448     |    10,495   |   10,155
+--------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE BOSTON YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION.
+
+BY RUSSELL STURGIS, JR.
+
+
+In the year of our Lord 1844, a young clerk, named George Williams,
+consulted with a few others and determined that something should be done
+to save the young men, who came by thousands to London, from the
+terrible temptations and snares to which they were exposed. The old
+times had passed when the young man came to the city recommended to some
+friend who would feel a personal interest in him, either take him into
+his own house or find some good home for him; who felt responsible for
+him and bound to know where he went and with whom he associated; who
+often had him at his own board, if not regularly there, and who expected
+to see him in his family pew on Sunday.
+
+[Illustration: Old Building.[A]]
+
+[Footnote A: NOTE.--The illustrations are furnished by the architects of
+the new building, Messrs. Sturgis and Brigham.]
+
+Perhaps this state of things had, from necessity, ceased to be; perhaps
+the introduction of machinery and the employment of large numbers of
+young men in the cities made this personal relation no longer possible.
+Whether possible or no, the fact remains that this close relation
+between employer and employed ceased. There are, even now, some noble
+exceptions to this, as in the case of Mr. Williams himself, and the firm
+of Samuel Morlay and Company.
+
+The young man to-day comes fresh from the pure air and clear lavish
+sunshine of his country home, where summer's flower-decked green is a
+continuous feast, and winter's glories a delight no less. Whether upon
+the snow in sleigh, or hillside coasting, or the swift skate on the
+frozen river, or at evening's cozy fireside before the blazing logs, all
+rejoice in simple pleasures, and prayer closes the day. Dear country
+home, where every sound is ministry; the morning cock and cackling hen,
+the birds' hopeful morning song, the twittering swallow, noon's rest and
+healthy appetite, the lowing cattle, the birds' thankful evening note,
+the village bell--old curfew's echo, the pattering on the pane, the wind
+in the treetops, the watchdog's distant bark for lullaby, and quiet
+restful sleep; his greatest sports--those of the evening
+village-green--the apple bee, the husking, and the weekly
+singing-school.
+
+He stands at evening gazing at the splendors of the blacksmith's glowing
+forge, and in the morning says "good-by" to all, and starts upon his
+journey to the city.
+
+Arrived, and having found employment, he works from a fixed hour in the
+morning till evening, then he goes _home_--where? 'T is all the home he
+has--all he can afford: a room, or perhaps a part of a room, on the
+upper floor of a tall house, in a narrow street--houses all about--the
+view all brick and slate,--the sunshine never penetrates to him--the air
+is close and heavy; not one attraction is there for him here. But on his
+way from work he must perforce pass many a front, where the electric
+light casts its brilliant beams quite across the street. Yes, this
+proprietor can well afford the costly allurement--it pays--a very
+wrecker's light to lure to destruction. Its baneful brightness makes day
+of that dark narrow street. Within is warmth, companionship, music,
+wine, play,--all that appeals to a young man's nature. What wonder that
+he turns in here rather than go on to his cold, dreary room.
+
+Once in, he is welcomed; hearty good fellows they seem. True, they are
+very different from his _old_ friends in appearance, manner, and
+language, and he at first shrinks from them, but the wine-cup soon
+obliterates distinctions, and he feels that he has never met such choice
+spirits before. Laughing at their jokes and coarse stories, he forgets
+all in the wild excitement of the moment. His voice is now the loudest.
+He sings, shouts, and, at length, losing consciousness, only wakes sick
+and utterly miserable. He determines it shall be the last. Never will he
+be seen there again. But he has entered upon a path of easy descent, and
+lower and lower he falls. He is hurrying to death.
+
+His employer cares only that he is at his place in the morning and
+remains there at work till the evening. He cannot follow him, and should
+the young man's habits become such that it "no longer pays" to employ
+him, he is dismissed and another is quickly found to take his place.
+Vast numbers of young men were going down to death in the cities, when
+George Williams and his friend determined to do something to keep them
+from destruction, and thus they formed the first Young Men's Christian
+Association in the world, on the sixth day of June, 1844.
+
+In the autumn of 1851, a correspondent of the Watchman and Reflector, a
+religious paper published in Boston, wrote an account of his visit to
+the London rooms. Captain Sullivan saw the article, and having himself
+visited the London Association, he spoke to others, and the result was a
+meeting in the vestry of the Central Church, on December 15, 1851, of
+thirty-two men, representing twenty congregations of the different
+denominations.
+
+This meeting was adjourned to December 22, at the Old South Chapel, in
+Spring Lane. A constitution was adopted on December 29. Officers were
+chosen January 5 and 10, and the work began in earnest.
+
+Mr. Francis O. Watts, of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, was the first
+president of this, the _first_ Young Men's Christian Association of the
+United States. It is a strange coincidence, easily understood by the
+Christian, that on the twenty-fifth of November, one month previous,
+without any knowledge on the part of Boston, the first Young Men's
+Christian Association of America had been organized at Montreal, in
+Canada.
+
+The constitution adopted was based upon that of the parent Association,
+and provided that, while any young man could be a member and enjoy all
+other privileges of the Association, only members of evangelical
+churches could hold office or vote. The reason for this was clear and
+right. Those who originated the parent Association, and those who
+formed this, believed in the doctrines of the Universal Church of
+Christ--in the loss of the soul and its redemption only by the blood of
+the Lord Jesus Christ; nor could they be satisfied with any work for
+young men which did not at least aim at conversion.
+
+The chairman of the international committee thus speaks, in February
+last: "When any Association sinks the religious element and the
+religious object which it professes to hold high beneath secular
+agencies and powers, it ceases to deserve the name of Young Men's
+Christian Association. It belongs then to a class of societies of which
+we have many, and in which, as Christian young men looking to the
+conversion of our fellows as the supreme object, we have no special or
+peculiar interest." The tenth annual report thus speaks upon this point:
+"The tie which binds us together is a common faith. We hold this faith
+most dearly, and believe it to be essential, and therefore worthy to be
+protected by every means. We cannot be expected, surely, to do so
+suicidal a thing as to admit to the right of equal voice in the
+government of our society those who are directly opposed to the very
+essence of our being."
+
+[Illustration: NEW BUILDING.]
+
+The _benefits_ of the Association are for all--its _management_ alone is
+restricted.
+
+There are now nearly twenty-five hundred Associations in the world, all
+upon what is called the evangelical basis, and in the United States and
+British Provinces only Associations upon this basis have membership or
+representation in the International Organization, formulated in Paris,
+in 1855, thus:--
+
+"The Young Men's Christian Associations seek to unite those young men
+who, regarding Jesus Christ as their God and Saviour according to the
+Holy Scriptures, desire to be his disciples in their doctrine and in
+their life, and to associate their efforts for the extension of his
+kingdom among young men."
+
+It is a fact that whenever the attempt has been made, and it often has,
+in any Association, to give an equal right in the management to those
+who are not of our faith, that Association has either soon adopted our
+basis or ceased to exist.
+
+The spiritual benefit of its members having thus always been its
+ultimate end, the London Association, during its early years, did no
+other work; and no sooner was the Boston Association formed than it,
+too, took it up. For a while, it carried on a Bible-class and a weekly
+prayer-meeting; but in May, 1857, a daily prayer-meeting was
+established, and has been continued almost without intermission to the
+present time. The visitation of sick members, the distribution of
+tracts, and the conduct of general religious meetings, have been the
+regular work of special committees. These last have been held when and
+where they seemed to be called for: on the Common, at the wharves, on
+board the ships in the harbor, and, especially during our Civil War, on
+board the receiving-ship Ohio; in the theatres, at Tremont Temple, and
+at the Meionaon, where, at various times, for weeks, a noon meeting has
+been held for business men.
+
+The Association has also been the rallying-point and chief
+instrumentality in great revival movements, under the direction of the
+churches, and especially in that under Mr. Moody in the great
+Tabernacle. The Boston Association has never forgotten the chief object
+of its existence, nor, though not without some fluctuation, has it
+intermitted its religious work.
+
+We have said that in London the work was at first wholly religious. In
+this country, however, the social and intellectual element in young men
+was immediately recognized and measures taken to satisfy them. Therefore
+pleasant rooms were at once secured, carpeted, furnished, hung with
+pictures, and supplied with papers, magazines, and books; and, as the
+work enlarged and additional and more commodious rooms were obtained,
+the literary class and the occasional lecture in the room at the Tremont
+Temple building, expanded, in its first own building at the corner of
+Tremont and Elliot Streets, into evening classes, social gatherings,
+readings, and concerts; and here first we were able to give to our
+members who wished them the advantages of the gymnasium and bathrooms.
+And when, through the munificence of the business men, the Association
+was enabled to take possession of its present building, certainly
+excelled by no other in the world, either in beauty of exterior or
+accommodation, every appliance for physical, social, intellectual and
+spiritual work has been made possible.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Visit the building with us. There it stands, at the corner of two broad
+streets, and in the midst of the finest public and private buildings in
+the city. Unique in architecture, simple in design, warm in color, and
+beautiful in its proportions, it is a building of which Boston may well
+be proud, while every Christian man must rejoice in the thought that it
+is built for His glory whose blessed emblem crowns its top-most gable.
+By its broad stone staircase, under the motto of Associations, "Teneo et
+teneor," and through its vestibule, we enter the great reception-room.
+Immediately on the left, a white marble fountain supplies ice-cold water
+to all who wish it; beyond, richly carpeted and well furnished, the
+walls hung with good paintings, are the two parlors. Here the members
+have withdrawing-rooms equal to those even in this favored neighborhood.
+The few whom we find here certainly appreciate their comfort. The
+pleasant room adjoining is that of the general secretary, where he is
+usually to be found, and where each member is cordially welcomed for
+converse or advice. Beyond, again, is the office, where three men find
+it no sinecure to attend to the continuous stream of comers for
+welcome, membership, or information. The library is a large, handsome,
+sunnyroom, well furnished with shelves, _but not these so well with
+books_; and yet, from twenty to fifty men are here quietly reading. The
+next room is for general reading. Around the walls on every side are
+papers from almost everywhere, and on the tables all the periodicals of
+this country, and many from abroad. All about the room sit or stand the
+readers, many, for the time, at home again as they gather the local news
+of their own town or village. The room beyond is called the "game-room."
+At each little table sit the chess or draught-players, while many
+interested are looking on.
+
+Here is the lavatory, complete in all its appointments, except, perhaps,
+that the long towel on the roller has been already this evening used by
+too many hands. The smell of blacking, too, indicates the wearer's
+pleasure in his cleaned and polished boots. In that little hall, which
+seats about three hundred, a lecture is being given to young men, on the
+care of the body, by Dr.----. This is one of six which are given
+gratuitously by Boston physicians.
+
+We mount the stairs to the next story. These two rooms are rented to a
+commercial college. This door opposite admits you to the hall, which has
+seats for nine hundred persons. It is extremely simple, but the tints of
+the walls and ceiling are delightful, and you have only to listen to
+those members of the ---- Club, who have leased it for their concerts,
+to realize that its acoustic properties are perfect.
+
+Still higher, we find the room of the board, where, once at least in
+each month, the directors sup at their own expense, and manage the
+affairs of the Association. Here, too, its various committees meet. In
+the room adjoining, a French lesson is going on; in that, German; in
+this, penmanship. Still higher up we find the "Tech" Glee Club
+practising, and this large room adjoining is filled with those who are
+learning vocal music. The building seems a very hive--something going on
+everywhere.
+
+Let us now descend to the basement. The gymnasium is here in full blast.
+Men in every kind of costume and in every possible and, to many persons,
+impossible position, while the superintendent is intently watching each
+to see that he is properly _developing_; every kind of bath and many of
+them are right at hand, and dressing-rooms with boxes for eight hundred
+persons.
+
+And this great building and all these appliances are the gift of the
+citizens of Boston to the young men from the country. Many of the donors
+remember the time when they came lonely to the city, and determined, if
+they could prevent it, that no young man, to-day, in the same position,
+should be without a place where all of which they so greatly felt the
+need is supplied.
+
+These needs are thus supplied. Early in the history of the Association,
+a circular was sent to every evangelical pastor in New England, asking
+him to give information of each young man coming to the city, that he
+might be met at the station or received at the rooms.
+
+Let us sketch a case: We have received word that John ---- is to arrive
+from G---- by such a train. During the journey, thoughts of the dear
+ones he has left crowd upon him. He is already sick for home, as he
+looks about him and sees no familiar face. He has left harbor for the
+first time. All before him is uncertain: all about him strange. He
+reaches the city; friends are there at the station to welcome this and
+that one of his fellow-travelers. He knows no one. No one cares for his
+coming. No one? Yes, there is a young man scanning closely the faces
+which pass. Suddenly his eye encounters our traveler, and at once the
+question: "Are you John ----? 'Tis well. I am from the Association. We
+are expecting you." Together they go to the building, and, even before
+reaching it, our stranger is not quite a stranger. One man at least is
+interested in him. "This is the building." "What, this fine place ready
+to welcome me? Why, this is grand!" Here, too, is the electric light,
+but not baneful this, no wrecker's false gleam, but like the light upon
+the pier, showing safe entrance and anchorage. "This is our secretary.
+Mr. D., this is John ----." "Glad to see you. Had you a pleasant journey?
+What can we do for you? You want a boarding-place! Well, here is the
+book. What can you pay? Very well, Mrs. B. has a vacancy and it is just
+the place you want. I will send some one with you there. Your
+recommendation was such that we have found a situation for you, and they
+will be ready to see you to-morrow. We have an entertainment this
+evening, and I shall be glad to introduce you to several young men."
+Imagine, if you can, what such an introduction to city life is to a
+young man, and what is his coming to the city without it. He is no
+stranger now. He has found comfort, companionship, sympathy, occupation.
+His heart goes home indeed, but it is in thankfulness that he writes and
+describes his surroundings, and glad is he at the close of the evening
+to join with others in, prayer and thanksgiving to his mother's God, for
+the blessings of the Association; and later, in the quiet of his own
+room, he renews his thanks, sleeps peacefully, and, full of hope, takes
+hold of work in the morning. He is directed to the church of his choice
+and is introduced to the pastor. Thus, at the very first, he is
+surrounded by good influences in a city where thousands are on the watch
+with every allurement to tempt just such strangers to destruction of
+both soul and body. Should John ---- be ready, in his turn, to help
+others, work enough can be found for him in one of the several
+departments of social or spiritual life.
+
+Should he fall sick, a committee of the Association visit and care for
+him, and, if necessary, watch with him. There have been many cases where
+young men have been carefully tended during a long illness, and a few
+where even the funeral expenses have been borne by the Association, and
+even burial given to the body in the Association lot at Forest Hills
+Cemetery. This is no fancy sketch. Many, many actual Johns are here
+pictured, and many souls will, by-and-by, be found thanking God that he
+put it into the hearts of his servants to establish the Young Men's
+Christian Association.
+
+But whence this well-appointed building? Within the first year of its
+life, a building fund was projected, and, as far as we know, this was
+absolutely the first step in this direction taken by any Association,
+either in this country or elsewhere. A library fund was also started at
+the same time.
+
+  A few subscriptions towards
+  a building were obtained,
+  which, in 1858, amounted to           $1,200
+
+  In 1859-60 were added                  1,644
+
+  In 1873 (for altering and
+  furnishing),                           5,700
+
+  In 1873-74,                            4,400
+
+  In 1874-75,                            7,800
+
+  In 1882, the estate of Daniel
+  P. Stone gave                         25,000
+
+  Inspired by this, a meeting
+  of citizens was held at the
+  Brunswick, where committees
+  on finance were appointed,
+  and the result was a subscription
+  of                                    175,000    $220,744
+
+  _By will have been bequeathed_:
+  By Charles H. Cook,                      300
+  "  Miss Nabby Joy,                     5,000
+  " J. Sullivan Warren,                 13,059
+  " Dr. George E. Hatton,                5,000       23,359
+
+  _And by subscriptions in connection with, Fairs_:
+
+  1859--Chinese Fair,                    4,787
+  1873--Bazaar of Nations,              12,246       17,033
+                                                   --------
+                                                   $261,136
+
+We have mentioned "Fairs." These have been three in number; each being
+held in the Music Hall, and owed their success, not only to the energy
+of the young men, but to the hearty sympathy and untiring exertions of
+the ladies of the Boston churches.
+
+  The first was held in 1858, and netted        $9,650
+  The second was called the Chinese
+  Fair, all the decorations being Chinese,--a
+  pagoda reaching fifty-six
+  feet to the very height of the hall,
+  which netted                                  33,000
+
+  The third was the most elaborate--the
+  Bazaar of the Nations; the Music
+  Hall being made to represent a street
+  of foreign houses, where, by persons
+  in costume, the goods of the different
+  nations were sold. It came in
+  the spring and immediately after the
+  fire, but netted                              28,673
+                                              --------
+                                               $71,323
+
+It is certainly to the credit of the Association that up to 1882, when
+the large subscription of $200,000 was secured, the amount raised
+through the exertions of the young men and the ladies exceeded by more
+than $10,000 all moneys subscribed.
+
+[Illustration: IN THE GYM]
+
+The influence of the Boston Association has not been merely local.
+Through Mr. L.P. Rowland, long its general secretary, and now the
+veteran secretary of the United States, in his capacity of corresponding
+secretary of the international committee, the first State work was done
+and Associations formed in all parts of Massachusetts. The present
+Boston building is now the headquarters of the Massachusetts committee,
+where the State secretary may always be reached. The secretary of the
+Association is a member of the State committee, a present member of the
+board, and an ex-president is now chairman of the same. In national
+matters, also, the Boston Association has responded to every call. In
+the early days of the war a drill-club was organized by one of its
+board, and he, as well as a large number of his men, went into service.
+And at the call of Mr. Stuart, of Philadelphia, the committee of the
+Christian Commission was represented by an ex-president and an army
+committee formed in the Association, which sent the large sum in money
+of $333,237.49, and immense stores of all kinds to the field.
+
+The same committee acted as almoners at the time of Chicago's great
+fire, and also when the Western woods fires caused such suffering.
+
+Without boasting, for much more might have been done, the Boston
+Association has no cause to be ashamed of its history. Beginning with
+all ready to criticize, and many disapproving, the Association has
+worked itself into the confidence of the community; and the Reverend
+Joseph Cook, who was introduced as a lecturer to Boston under its
+auspices, thus speaks of the Association at the close of its
+quarter-century. He says:--
+
+"First, That there is a vast amount of work which should be done for
+young men in cities, and that, as the proportion of the American
+population living in cities had increased since the opening of this
+century from one twenty-fifth to one fifth, the importance is great and
+growing.
+
+"Second, That neither individual churches taken separately, nor
+individual denominations taken separately, can do this work easily or
+adequately.
+
+"Third, That all the evangelical denominations united in a city can do
+this work easily by the organization of a Young Men's Christian
+Association as their representative."
+
+A short time ago a committee of conference, made up of eight leading
+city clergymen and as many laymen, two of each denomination, unanimously
+passed the following resolutions:--
+
+"_Resolved_, That the great and peculiar dangers to which young men are
+exposed in this, as in other cities, clearly calls, for the work of the
+Young Men's Christian Association.
+
+"_Resolved_, That the Association represents the Church working through
+its young men for the redemption of young men, and, therefore, it is
+entitled to the continued confidence, support, and co-operation of the
+churches."
+
+After long years of patient and steady work, the Boston Young Men's
+Christian Association has secured the confidence of the Christian
+community to the extent of more than $300,000, in the palpable form of
+stone and brick, which beautifies one of the finest sites in our city.
+It stands also as a monument of the liberality of Christian Boston and
+her appreciation of this great work for young men in the Master's name.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE OHIO FLOODS.
+
+BY THE HON. GEORGE E. JENKS.
+
+
+Several causes are assigned for the excessive rise of water in the Ohio
+valley. This water-shed is accredited with an area of two hundred
+thousand square miles, and it lies upon the border-line of hot and cold
+temperatures. It is subject to heavy storms, and sometimes, in winter,
+to large accumulations of snow. It is presumable also, the rainfall is
+greater than the average of the country. When, following great deposits
+of snow, warm, heavy, and prolonged rains occur, excessive floods must
+be the result. Add to these coincidents the fact that forests, once
+existing, are now so nearly annihilated that little protection is
+offered against a rapid dissolution of the snow, and the sudden freezing
+of the earth in an interval of the late storm preventing absorption of
+rain falling thereafter. The waters thus produced fall into the main
+streams without hindrance, like rain from roofs of buildings. An
+aggregation of waters in this valley, rising from fifty to seventy-one
+feet, is of annual occurrence, intensified according to excesses and
+completeness of coincidents.
+
+The damage arising from the Ohio flood of 1882 has been estimated at
+twelve millions of dollars; that of 1883 at thirty-five to forty
+millions of dollars. If these estimates are approximately correct, what
+must have been the damage from the flood of 1884!
+
+There are other causes for the floods in the Ohio valley, and in all
+Southern streams, that have been but little considered, which exercise
+undoubted and immense influence in solving the peculiarities of the
+question under consideration, and afford striking contrasts in different
+sections of this country.
+
+There are two water systems presented in North America. North of about
+the forty-first degree of latitude probably the southern limit of the
+once glacial region--a _reservoir system_ prevails toward the headwaters
+of all the streams. It includes New England, New York, Michigan,
+Wisconsin, Minnesota, Dakota, and to the Rocky Mountains divide, and all
+of the British Provinces to the Arctic Circle. It also somewhat occurs
+on the western slope of the Rockies. This region is notable for the
+great lake system, and the immense number of smaller lakes and
+ponds--natural inland reservoirs, supposed to be largely of glacial
+formation to hold back considerable portions of the cumulative waters
+upon any given water-shed, and serving to restrain the outflow, even
+after they are filled. These basins exercise a happy and protective
+influence in many ways.
+
+South of the forty-first parallel, the rivers have no _reservoirs_ to
+hold any part of the flow from their water-shed. Within this vast area
+few lakes or ponds exist. The superabundance of water has no restraint,
+but at once takes to the bottom lands. To this southern system the Ohio
+River notably belongs, with all its tributaries. Within its two hundred
+thousand square miles of area, scarcely a natural reservoir is to be
+found. No other part of the country is so devoid of basins. Its feeders
+drain the western slopes of the Alleghany and Cumberland
+Mountains--Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia, representing sixty
+thousand square miles, the southern portions of Ohio, Indiana, and
+Illinois, and most of Kentucky and Tennessee. These States are without
+lakes or ponds. Nothing intervenes to hold back any portion of the vast
+flow from these coincidents of nature before spoken of, and therefore
+the excessive floods of last year and this. Such results must continue
+to follow.
+
+During the summer droughts the other extreme prevails. For lack of a
+reservoir system to withhold and control the flow of water, the river
+falls from flood-tide--seventy-one feet--to points so low as to
+seriously impede or prevent navigation. Sometimes even the smallest
+steamers and barges fail to pass between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, and
+coal famines have not been unfrequent, resulting from difficult
+navigation. An equable flow of this stream is impossible. It will always
+be subject to these extremes. Nothing but an extensive method of filling
+or diking is likely to prevent the inundation of cities and villages
+that are not seventy feet above low-water mark, with attending suffering
+and destruction of life and property. All Southern rivers are liable to
+like extremes.
+
+In contrast, it may be noted that the St. Lawrence River but slightly
+varies its flow, above Montreal, because of the restraining power of the
+Great Lakes, its feeders. The upper Mississippi rises not to excess
+because of the thousands of lakes and lakelets in Wisconsin, Minnesota,
+and Dakota, its sources. The floods occur in its southern portion,
+chiefly below St. Louis. But for this reservoir system its navigation in
+the upper portion would be seriously impeded in summer seasons.
+
+Disastrous floods can scarcely occur on the St. John's, St. Croix,
+Penobscot, Kennebec, Androscoggin, Saco, Piscataqua, Merrimack,
+Connecticut, or Hudson Rivers, except from damming of the ice in winter
+or springtime (and that cause is of rare occurrence), such is the
+elaborate system of reservoirs about the headwaters of these streams.
+This northern country is greatly benefited by these excavations
+occurring from geological causes.
+
+The Merrimack River has a water-shed of about four thousand square miles
+miles--one fiftieth part of that of the Ohio. It has the Winnipiseogee,
+Squam, and Newfound Lakes, and hundreds of ponds to fill, that store a
+large amount of water, before any considerable rise can take place in
+the river, and then they restrain the flow. No excess of water comes
+through the Winnipiseogee River, though it is the outlet of a water-shed
+nearly as great as of the Pemigewasset. The freshets of the Merrimack
+come chiefly from the last-named stream and minor tributaries. Without
+these reservoirs, the manufacturing establishments at Lawrence, Lowell,
+and Manchester, would cease to be operated by water-power during the
+summer droughts. The highest flow of water in the Merrimack known in
+forty-six years, as measured at the Lowell dam, was thirteen and
+seven-twelfths feet. This occurred in 1852. Only a few times have
+freshets exceeded ten feet rise over that dam.
+
+The greatest fall of water and rise of the freshet, in this valley,
+known at Concord, New Hampshire, occurred in August, 1826. This storm
+notably caused the land-slide in the Saco valley, which buried the
+Willey family. The next was in early October, 1869, which caused the
+slide of seventy-five acres of land on the western side of Tri-Pyramid
+Mountain into Mad River, in Waterville.
+
+Messrs. Rand, McNally, and Company, of Chicago, in their Atlas of the
+World, give data to illustrate the two river systems of the country
+spoken of. Names of sixty-seven lakes are given in Maine, and beside
+these are ponds almost innumerable. By census statistics given, her
+reservoir and land areas are as 1 to 13. New Hampshire is accredited
+with three hundred and sixty-two lakes and ponds, being as 1 acre to 41
+of land. Vermont has forty-one lakes and ponds, including Lake
+Champlain, being as 1 acre to 24 of land. Massachusetts, forty-seven
+lakes and ponds; Rhode Island, forty-seven; Connecticut, eighteen; New
+York, two hundred and sixty, beside her great lakes; New Jersey, ten;
+Pennsylvania (chiefly northeastern portion), fifty-eight; Michigan,
+ninety-eight lakes, and ponds in great number; Wisconsin, seventy-two
+lakes, and a large number of ponds; Minnesota, one hundred and forty-two
+lakes, and ponds innumerable; Dakota, fifteen lakes, and a great number
+of ponds; and Iowa, forty-eight lakes.
+
+In contrast, Virginia has only Lake Drummond--really a part of the
+Dismal Swamp; West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, none;
+Indiana, eleven lakes, and Illinois, eight,--all on northern water-shed.
+The Carolinas, Georgia, and Alabama have no reservoirs. Lagoons exist in
+the States bordering the Mississippi River and the Gulf, which are
+filled by the overflow of the rivers.
+
+A consultation of any good atlas of our country will confirm these
+statements.
+
+The two sections are thus contrasted. The Northern States have reason to
+be very thankful for their more equable system, for the motive power its
+reservoirs furnish, and for exemption from disastrous floods, as well as
+from cyclones and tornadoes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY.
+
+[This account of the Boston Tea-Party is taken, _verbatim_, from "The
+Boston Evening Post, Monday, December 20, 1773. Thomas and John Fleet,
+at the Heart and Crown, in Cornhill, Messi'rs Printers." It adds another
+link in the chain of evidence to prove that the patriots were disguised
+as Indians.--ED.]
+
+
+Having accidentally arrived at Boston upon a visit to a Friend the
+evening before the meeting of the Body of the People on the 29th of
+November, curiosity, and the pressing invitations of my most kind host,
+induced me to attend the Meeting. I must confess that I was most
+agreeably, and I hope that I shall be forgiven by the People if I say so
+unexpectedly, entertained and instructed by the regular, reasonable and
+sensible conduct and expression of the People there collected, that I
+should rather have entertained an idea of being transported to the
+British senate than to an adventurous and promiscuous assembly of People
+of a remote Colony, were I not convinced by the genuine and uncorrupted
+integrity and manly hardihood of the Rhetoricians of that assembly that
+they were not yet corrupted by venality or debauched by luxury.
+
+The conduct of that wise and considerate body, in their several
+transactions, evidently tended to preserve the property of the East
+India Company. I must confess I was very disagreeably affected with the
+conduct of Mr. Hutchinson, their pensioned Governor, on the succeeding
+day, who very unseasonably, and, as I am informed, very arbitrarily (not
+having the sanction of law), framed and executed a mandate to disperse
+the People, which, in my oppinion, with a people less prudent and
+temperate would have cost him his head. The Force of that body was
+directed to effect the return of the Teas to Great Briton; much argument
+was expended. Much entreaty was made use of to effect this desirable
+purpose. Mr. Rotch behaved, in my estimation, very unexceptionably; his
+disposition was seemingly to comport with the desires of the People to
+convey the Teas to the original proprietors. The Consignees have behaved
+like Scoundrels in refusing to take the consignment, or indemnify the
+owner of the ship which conveyed this detestable commodity to this port.
+Every possible step was taken to preserve this property. The People
+being exasperated with the conduct of the administration in this affair,
+great pains were taken and much policy exerted to procure a stated watch
+for this purpose.[A]
+
+[Footnote A: This watch consisted of 24 to 34 Men, who served as
+volunteers 19 Days and 23 Hours.]
+
+The body of the People determined the Tea should not be landed; the
+determination was deliberate, was judicious; the sacrifice of their
+Rights, of the Union of all the Colonies, would have been the effect had
+they conducted with less resolution: On the Committee of Correspondence
+they devolved the care of seeing their resolutions seasonably executed;
+that body, as I have been informed by one of their members, had taken
+every step prudence and patriotism could suggest, to effect the
+desirable purpose, but were defeated. The Body once more assembled, I
+was again present; such a collection of the people was to me a novelty;
+near seven thousand persons from several towns, Gentlemen, Merchants,
+Yeomen, and others, respectable for their rank and abilities, and
+venerable for their age and character, constituted the assembly; they
+decently, unanimously and firmly adhered to their former resolution,
+that the baleful commodity which was to rivet and establish the duty
+should never be landed; to prevent the mischief they repeated the
+desires of the Committee of the Towns, that the owner of the ship should
+apply for a clearance; it appeared that Mr. Rotch had been managed and
+was still under the influence of the opposite party; he resisted the
+request of the people to apply for a clearance for his ship with an
+obstinacy which, in my opinion, bordered on stubbornness--subdued at
+length by the peremptory demand of the Body, he consented to apply, a
+committee of ten respectable gentlemen were appointed to attend him to
+the collector; the Body meeting the same morning by adjournment, Mr.
+Rotch was directed to protest in form, and then apply to the Governor
+for a Pass by the Castle; Mr. Rotch executed his commission with
+fidelity, but a pass could not be obtained, his Excellency excusing
+himself in his refusal that he should not make the precedent of granting
+a pass till a clearance was obtained, which was indeed a fallacy, as it
+had been usual with him in ordinary cases,--Mr. Rotch returning in the
+evening reported as above; the Body then voted his conduct to be
+satisfactory, and recommending order and regularity to the People,
+dissolved. Previous to the dissolution, a number of Persons, supposed to
+be the Aboriginal Natives from their complection, approaching near the
+door of the assembly, gave the War Whoop, which was answered by a few in
+the galleries of the house where the assembly was convened; silence was
+commanded, and prudent and peaceable deportment again enjoined. The
+Savages repaired to the ships which entertained the pestilential Teas,
+and had began their ravage previous to the dissolution of the
+meeting--they apply themselves to the destruction of the commodity in
+earnest, and in the space of about two hours broke up 342 chests and
+discharged their contents into the sea. A watch, as I am informed, was
+stationed to prevent embezzlement and not a single ounce of Teas was
+suffered to be purloined by the populace. One or two persons being
+detected in endeavouring to pocket a small quantity were stripped of
+their acquisitions and very roughly handled. It is worthy remark that,
+although a considerable quantity of goods of different kinds were still
+remaining on board the vessels, no injury was sustained; such attention
+to private property was observed that a small padlock belonging to the
+Captain of one of the ships being broke another was procured and sent to
+him. I cannot but express my admiration of the conduct of this People.
+Uninfluenced by party or any other attachment, I presume I shall not be
+suspected of misrepresentation. The East India Company must console
+themselves with this reflection, that if they have suffered, the
+prejudice they sustaine does not arise from enmity to them. A fatal
+necessity has rendered this catstrophe inevitable--the landing the tea
+would have been fatal, as it would have saddled the colonies with a duty
+imposed without their consent, and which no power on earth can effect.
+Their strength and numbers, spirit and illumination, render the
+experiment dangerous, the defeat certain: The Consignees must attribute
+to themselves the loss of the property of the East India Company: had
+they seasonably quieted the minds of the people by a resignation, all
+had been well; the customhouse, and the man who disgraces Majesty by
+representing him, acting in confederacy with the inveterate enemies of
+America, stupidly opposed every measure concerted to return the
+Teas.--That Americans may defeat every attempt to enslave them, is the
+warmest wish of my heart. I shall return home doubly fortified in my
+resolution to prevent that deprecrated calamity, the landing the teas in
+Rhode Island, and console myself with the happiest assurance that my
+brethren have not less virtue, less resolution, than their neighbours.
+
+AN IMPARTIAL OBSERVER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PUBLISHERS' DEPARTMENT.
+
+
+We give with this number of the Bay State a fac-simile reproduction,
+from a rare copy in our possession, of "An Oration, pronounced at
+Hanover, New Hampshire, the Fourth Day of July, 1800," by Daniel
+Webster. This oration was delivered when the future statesman was in his
+eighteenth year. It cannot fail to interest every reader of the
+Magazine, and will be a treat to every collector of Americana.
+
+Our Lowell article in the March number of The Bay State Monthly has been
+severely criticized--especially the cuts. To the older residents of that
+city each picture was of interest from association. We should have given
+credit to the excellent History of Lowell, written by Charles Cowley,
+LL.D., and to the Year Book, published by the Mail.
+
+A System of Rhetoric is the title of a book by C.W. Bardeen, published
+in 1884 by A.S. Barnes and Company, of New York.
+
+The subject is divided into sentence-making, conversation,
+letter-writing, the essay, oratory, and poetry. The book under
+consideration is an able and exhaustive treatise and must become highly
+prized as a textbook.
+
+A Brief History of Ancient, Mediaeval, and Modern Peoples, with some
+account of their monuments, institutions, arts; manners, and customs, is
+the title of a book of six hundred pages, with two hundred and forty
+illustrations, issued by the same publishers.
+
+There is a large amount of information crowded within its covers, made
+available by a thorough index.
+
+[Illustration: ORNAMENTAL FIREPLACE. (Magee Fine-Art Castings.)][A]
+
+[Footnote A: Note.--By the delay of the artist, this page, designed for
+the Chelsea article in the February number of The Bay State Monthly, was
+not ready in season.--Ed.]
+
+The unique designs, massive beauty, and artistic grace of Magee's
+fine-art castings place them in competition with the finest work in
+brass and bronze. From the antique suit of armor, platinum plated, to
+the light and graceful leaf, for holding the quill and pencil, their
+designs include a great variety of ornamental articles: tiles, shields,
+panels, sconces, brackets, plaques, arms, trays, fireplaces, and
+jewelry-boxes.
+
+Their reproduction of the strange and fantastic hand-made studies of
+Chinese and Japanese artists would puzzle the Celestials, especially in
+the coloring and finish. Professional critics are often deceived as to
+the materials employed, so fine a finish will iron receive.
+
+This class of work is in its infancy--its possibilities are very
+numerous.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1,
+Issue 4 - April, 1884, by Various
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13680 ***