The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume], June 05, 1892, Page 10, Image 10

About The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914

Image provided by: Washington State Library; Olympia, WA

                
10
which was written soon after his appointment
•ad r«ceivod in due course of mail some two
months later:
WASWIKOTO?*, IX C., April If, IftA
To A. A. D*nuj\ K*q.— Dmr Mr: Herewith
you wiU find K printed copy of my instructions
from the swrotary of war, by which you will see
an exploration and surruy of a railroad from tbss
Load water* of tha Mississippi to fiuret sound
]s intrusted to rue. To avoid tha delay such >JX-
Kltion mlsjht occasion in the organisation of
territory, Colonel Anderson, tho marshal,
Will take" a census preliminary to an
•lection for mem hers of the legislature.
He will te found to be i very worthy
gentleman, will ocnsuit with his fellow ciUaens
oa all subjects of Interest to the territory, and
for him and his brother officers I besaeait your
sood offices. A military road is to be built from
'ort Walla Walla to Pueet sound. < aplain Mc-
Clellan, an Qfflow dialloguiehad for his ra.-
lan try in Mexico, has command of the party.
Who will make the exploration of the Cascade
range and the flpoastrufrtlon of the military roau.
His undertaking the task Is a sure guaranty of
Its accomplish meat I expect to pierce the
Hooky mountains und this road is to be done in
time for the falVs fmtoatiqa, "o that an op<jn
lino of oomuijjo.cj Uot: twtwcm the stales and
the Boand woTfe ldiule this year.
Desiring to know j tour views on these and
kindred topics, inviting yonr consideration of
the question of a j refer location of tho terri
torial capital, 1 am tru.y yonrs,
ISAAC L BTEY«;»S.
Though looking back over a period of nearly
forty years, I think it Will be readily discerned
that from the time of the Moutlcello convention,
Whicl) framed tb® memorial already quoted,
down to the organisation of the first legislature,
was a most Intensely interesting period in our
territorial existence; so much so that the time
embracing our Indian war I feel sale In saying
excels by far in interest any period of like dura
tion In our whole territorial life; but I have not
the time and will net attempt to enter Into a
history of that period except to a very limited
extent. Colonel Anderson, on his arrival, pro
ceeded with ail possible dispatch to take the
census, and found a total white population of
8,9W, antf upon the arrival of the governor he
mads an apportionment for the first legislature
and issued a proclamation on the 28th day
of November, WM, designating the 30th day of
January, 1651, ss the day for the first election
of members of the legislature, and the 27th day
of February as the time and Olympia as the
plies of meeting. The council wss composed of
nine members, ss follows:
Clsjko county—D. F. Bradford, William Tap*
pan.
Lewis and Pacific— Seth Catlln, Henry Miles.
Thu»ton—V. K. Bigelow, B. F. >'*ntis.
Pieroo and King— Lafayette Balch, G. N. Mc-
Conahii.
Jefierson and Island—Willfam P. Sayward.
The Ilouse consisted ol eighteen members, ap
portioned a* follows:
Clarke county, F. A. Chenoweth, Heny K.
Crosbie, A. J. Boian, John D. Hll'is, A. C. Lewes;
Island, Samuel D. Howe; Jeftetson, Daniel F.
jSrownfleld; Kins, A. A. Denny; Lewis, 11. D.
Huntlngtou, JoUu K. Jnckson; Pacific, Jehu
Bcudder: Fierce, U. C. Moseley, L. F. Thornp
aou, John M. C&apiinn; Thurston, David Shel
ton, C. H. Hale, 1. D. Durgin, Ira Work.
Of that council one member only now siir
vivo*, I). R. Blgeiow, and of the house, so far as
I hay® been able to learn, all are gono but seven
t-Chenoweth, Browurield, Cnapinan, lieuny,
Work, Thompson and Shelton. This legisla
ture was composed mostly of young men, active,
earnest and fairly well equipped to succeed in
Whatever they undertook. One of their first
legislative acts was to call to their assistance,
> a* a commission, the three judges of the district
Court—Lander, Monroe and Strong—to prepare a
code of laws for the territory, and it may be
truly said that the work accomplished t>y that
legislature and assistant commission was
highly creditable to all concerned.
At the tiimj of the Montfeello convention
Thurston county embraced all the territory north
of Lewis to British Columbia; the session of the
Oregon legislature, just prior to the division of
the territory, formed out of Thurston, Pierce.
King, Island and Jefferson, making a total of
eight counties in Washington territory when
organized, Clarke county at that time extending
cast to the summit of the Rocky mountains.
The first session of the legislature formed eight
new counties. Walla Walla was formed at this
■oislon, embracing all the territory east of the
month of the Deschutes river and running to
the forty-ninth parallel on the north and the
parallel of 46.:$ eastward to the summit of the
Stocky mounta»a*, and I well remem
ber that a board of county offi
cers was appointed and representation In
the legislature provided for, but when tbe suc
ceeding legislature convened no members from
Walla Walln appeared, and it was found that no
organisation ot the county had been made for
want ot population and the widely scattered
condition of the tew who then Inhabited that
vast territory. Questions have often been
asked, and very naturally, too, as to the hopes
and expectations ol the early settlers. Forty
one years ago all of Puget sound north of the
mouth of 9teUacoom creek was as wild as when
visited by Vancouver in 17<J3, but even then I
expected to see a railroad from the Atlantic
coast to Puget sound, and was only disap
pointed In the time of Its accomplishment by
the occurrence of certstn events which were
sot then to be reasonably anticipated or for
scon.
When 1 loon ted on the Sound It never occurred
to me that the vast Wilderness through which
1 h*<l io recently passed, lying between the Mi*«
•ourl river and tbe Rooky mountains, muit be
j>opulated before the settlement of this terri
tory, butsuoh proved to be the case Kansas
and Nebraska territories were organised and
opxuecl to settlement under circumstances pe
culiarly calculated to attract atteutlon. The re
peal of the Missouri compromise and declaia
tion of the Douglas* squatter sovereignity doc
trine st once opened the question of slavery In
Vie territories, producing a mo*t bitter contust
between the North and the south lor supremacy
In Kmmsand Nebraska. The effort forsuprem
acy b tweea the two seotlons was so great
that it absorbed almost the en
tire m>vlng population of the couutry.
Vory few during tfcls whole contest found their
way through that country except the California
gold seekers, a few of whom in time drifted
northward and reachod our territory, and I j
•hall have to admit, although there are tut fow
survivors to help ine bear the responsibility,
that we drew it rat : ier stroug in our Monticallo
memorial when we claimed ,l a large popula- !
tion, constantly an 1 rapidly Increasing." But I ;
think, under the circumstances, we should be
excused, a» we had so much room and were
starting in to build a:i empire. w<! could not j
then see ourselves us others see us now. After
we befan to feel that we wero really making 1
substantial progress the ludiau war of l«S 06
came upon us aud spread ruin and desolation '
over our lair territory, and a heavy per- ;
eeuia;;o of our population were compelled
to see* employment and homes abroad, and very
xr.auy of them never return.- i. Then came tiio
great rebellion and psralyxed everything from j
the Atlantic to the l'acltlc, effectually checking
all progress and improve meat for a long p->ri' 1
of time. Then, during all this period of *low
K avfth, ia iact almost u > gr wth at all, Oregon
was our big si'tfr, an 1, ol course, must be iirst
served, but I will do her the justice to admit
that she was always willing that wo should hav»<
What was left after she was served, and would
trv to hel •us jet it, but w<* wore tnus, a* it
were, <lad ia cast-off clotftes and din -1 at the
second table, so that when 1 look hack ami re
call oar early experience 1 am not surprised that
people new ask how we lived and What we saw
In the future to encourage and inspire hop—
although we MU-n experienced times of great
trial and privation, at times almost In want of
the necessaries of life, aud the luxuries were
jjot to be tboug.it of ■ r expected. As an illustra
tion of the situation wh oh possibly may be aj>-
proolated on the present occasion, 1 will nv-a
tion one instance only. Iu the fall of ISSI l»r.
WUUam K. Tolmie sent me a largo canoe loai of
potatoes from Fort Nosqsa .y for my winter s
supple, which were lauded ai Alki point by
I dwsjrd Muggins, one of your worthy cltnens,
then a very likely young man. who, if my
memory serves me right, s'.spt on the fl.»«-»r of
my cabin over ntght. sad if he was dissatisfied
with his accommodations he had b. .i too well
brought up to complain in iut hearing. 1 some
times felt like reproaching myself for «t> - ■■■,<
my wife aud children to such hardsu ps and
dangers as then surrounded us,t» :t 1 nuv-r lust
heart or hope, nor regretted having
cast my lot in Washington terr t >ry.
There wore forty-four who signed t v o Monti
cello memorial, snd twenty-seven i .embers <•:
the lirst legislature, in all seventy-one, an I out
of that nninher I am not now al io to twll how
snsny ars left, but eertainly all except j #-ii. y
f.fteeu havtt answered to the last roll nl. A t
while it ts a source of some pUa«urv to rec
and to write aud sivnk of those early exper
iences sud associations, it at the same time
causes a feeli .gof tnexprcsMb'e sadness, tu;
l mu»t not follow this s-ibject further
In conclusion, you will pardon me, I am sure,
for claiming t tl who blocked out Ws.h
liigton territory, though it may have been
roughly done, aud o. nducted its affair* «i n: f
the esrly psr oal of its ex.stance, did a go *l
work and did it » >IL They laid the lati-a
for s state wht h .» destined to take rank a« one
of the greatest in our ;rand and glorious Union
of States. A A Dsn. ny.
Hs'l'i Hair Renege ruusiakea i» » £~c
TO BEING STABS NEAB
How Alvan Clark Constructs
the Great Telescopes.
INFINITE CARE AND PATIENCE.
Work so Dellcsts That a Deviation Less
Than the Breadth of ■ Spider's
Strand Would Ruin It.
There is nothing made by human hande
that is more nearly perfect than the object
glass of a great telescope. Each slender
thread of a spider's web is composed of
many thousand strands, each strand so
fine that four millions of them would
make a thread no thicker than a human
hair. In other words, roughly speaking,
a spider's strand is as much smaller than
a hair as a hair is smaller than a tele
graph pole. Yet in the lens of a great
visual telescope a deviation of the breadth
of a spider's strand would be noticeable,
and in a photographic telescope it would
be fatal to the purpose of the glass.
Americans, accustomed to hearing their
countrymen accused of slipshod methods
in the manufacture of their wares, cannot
but take pride, then, in the fact that the
man who makes the greatest refracting
telescopes the world has ever known is an
American of the ninth generation. Mr.
Alvan G. dark, of Cambridgeport, Ma«s.,
is a descendant directly along the male
line of Thomas Clark, the mate of the May
flower.
Mr. Clark's father, the founder of the
famous house of A Ivan Clark & Sons, tel
escope makers, was a very remarkable
men. Until after his fortieth year he de
voted himself to oortrait painting, and
BO accurate was his eye, so delicately skill
ful his hand and so inexhaustible his
patience that his portraits stand today al
most unexcelled in point of likeness and
well nigh unsurpassable in point of ex
quisitely careful finish. In everything
that required keen vision and close exacti
tude he was successful. It is related that
once he watched a game of billiards, say
ing at the close that he believed he could
play, and although he had never before
handled a cue he played a game far above
the averages of ordinary billiardists. But
perhaps the most wonderful of his many
accomplishments was his marksmanship.
It is said that with a riile he could put bul
let after bullet through a distant board
AI. VAN CLARK, SR.
with such precision that one would say
only a single shot had been tired, and thin
is partially explained by the fact that he
made his own riiles with his own hands,
and used that same marvellous exactitude
in the boring of the barrel, the setting of
the sights and the cutting of the bullets
that afterward gave him his world-wide
fame as a lens maker.
It was not until 1843, when Alvan Clark
was more than 40 years old, that his at
tention was turned to t&escope making.
In that year the accidental breaking of a
dinner bell at the Phillips academy, And
over, prepared the way fot the most im
portant advance that tbe science of prac
tical astronomy has ever made. George
llassett Clark, son of Alvan and elder
brother of the present Alvan G., was a
pupil at the academy. Gathering up the
cast away fragments of the bell he took
them home, put them into a crucible with
some tin, and proceeded to melt them in
the kitchen Are, iuformhig hie mother that
he was going to make a telescope. The
mother smiled indulgently upon this pot
tering interference with her more
important culinary arrangements, btlt
the father, when he learned of
it, took a more serious view of
the matter. He became so deeply inter
ested in the work that he laid aside his
paints and brushes and gave his time and
genius to the shaping and polishing of his
son's rotlector. The result was a live-Inch
reflecting telescope which showed the sat
ellites of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn and
other telescopic objects. That was the be
ginning from which have grown, in grad
ual succession, the famous refracting tele
scopes of the Vienna university (Li inch
aperture), the Morrison observatory
inch aperture), the Wisconsin university
<1"< 1 2 inch), the Warren observatory (16
inch), the Northwestern university (18} a
inch), the Denver university (20 inch) the
I'rinceton university (23) inch), the Uni
versity of Virginia (26 inch), the T'nited
States naval observatory at Washington
(:>> inch), the Pulkowa observatory of
Russia (30 inch), and the great Lick ob
-1 servntorv of California (36 inch), the larg
er iens in the world, though a ttiil larger
one is in process of construction, as I shall
show later on.
Alvan Clark never again took up his
paint brushes until forty years later, when,
at the ace of he male an exquisitely
beautiful and wondrously lifelike portrait
of his grandson, who hud recently died.
This young man. the or. y son of Aivan
(«.. was the hope of the family, it' not, in
deed, the hope of astronomical '.once, for
it was to hira that the great work was to
fail when his grandfather and his lather
should have passed aw.iv, ar. t he wa> be
ing carefully trained, as his father before
him had been, from early boyhood, to the
met!. which had made this house pre
r;i..:u t among the world's creat lens
makers. It is a matter of serious import
that the only man now living who can
make ...e> e great lenses is Weil along inhi>
OOtc. year.
Fh» * :revt car conductor told me I
should know Mr. t'lars's place wl.»*n I
cirne t * u, for it w \s "% bia yard, full o:
fmokes'.ti The "smokestacks," I
found, w. telescope tubes, tor whenever
Mr Clar* make* a u*t;is« of new si;? he
erects a rough tu en which to test it on
the stars and thes* tubes all remain,
monumental reminders of his successive
triumphs. f\-T in Is 2 he broke the record
of ia-ge len«tand ever since his been
breaking over an i over his own otherwise
aiU-uuwa .*
THE SEATftE POST-INTELLIGENCER, SUNDAY, JUNE 5. 1398.
paid to the general appearance of this biff
yard. In front atand two neat frame
houses, one the old homestead where
Alvan Clark lived for more than half a
century, the other the more modern home
of Alvan G. Down at the rear of the
gently sloping grounds stands a small,
shambling brick structure, picturesque
enough, but hardly suggestive of the
unique enterprise it shelters. In this low
building. buried to its window sills, Mr.
Clark, with only two assistants, shapes
and grinds and polishes the lenses which
make the heavens yield to us their thrill
ing mysteries.
I cannot hope to give in a few words
anything like an adequate idea of the akill
and patience employed in the manufacture
of these great objectives. The story merely
of how the glass, the raw material, is
made would warrant the use of more
space than I have at my disposal. But a
suggestion of the nicety of this latter pro
cess may be found in the fact that almost
four years ago the glassmakers began
work on two discs, from which Mr. Clark
is to make a forty-inch ltnse for the
Soence observatory at Los Angeles, Cal.,
and only one of them has as yet been sent
to Mr. Clark. Time and again, with in
linite care and patience, the glassniaker
must try, for if there be a speck, a bubble,
a wave or a Haw of any kind, no matter
how minute, Mr. Clark will not accept it.
To show me how clear this glass must be
Mr. Clark placed in my hand a six-inch
disc, covered with a opaque substance, and
asked rae to look through a hole which
seemed to have been cut through its di
ameter. I said I saw nothing strange;
it was like looking through any hole.
"Exactly," said he, "only you are not
looking through a hole."
I was looking through six inches of solid
glass. What seemed to be a hole was really
twodiametrically opposed places where the
opaque coating had been removed. Then I
was informed that if a wall of such glass
ten feet thick ntood before me in such a
position that I could see no reflection
from it I should not know of its presence.
It is literally as clear as air. No wonder a
single disk of it forty inches in diameter
and perhaps ten inches thick costs Mr.
Clark SB,OOO.
The process of making a lens from such
a disk is exceedingly simple. There is
very little machinery and no secret. If
you have the necessarv patience, Mr.
Clark will let you stand by and see all the
work done. First he tests the disk for
striae—that is. he sets it up on edge mid
way of a long dark room. At one end of
the room he places a light, then takes his
position at the other end of the room. An
assistant now holds a lens between the
light and the disk, and as the rays
are intensified npon the disk they magnify
whatever streaks or waves or inequali
ties of whatsoever nature there may be in
the disk; and Mr. Clark's keen ana prac
tised eye can determine whether the daw
is in the body of the glass or near enough
to the surface to be removed by the pol
ishing process.
Next he tests it for polarized by
simply taking it to the outer light, laying
it tlat upon a polished redwood bed and
viewing It at a proper angle through a re
volving Nieol prism. If, as the prism
turns, the disk changes shades *egulariy
and evenly throughout its face, it is good
optical glass, but if it shows cloudy in
spots or streaks it must be rejected.
Having stood these tests, the disk is
ready to be shaped. But first a very im
portant problem in mathematics must be
solved. An order for a telescope contains
two essential specifications—namely, the
diameter of the object glass and the lengtfi
of focus. It, for example, the order be
l for u forty-inch aperture and a titly
i foot focus, Mr. Clark must deter-
I mine what curve to give the glass in
order that every ray of light which
strikes its surface may be refracted to a
common point precisely fifty feet away.
When this is computed, an iron casting
is made ot the size and shape each side of
| the lens is to be—a concave casting for the
i convex side of the eiass and vice versa.
| This casting is trued up on a lathe and the
d sk is laid upon it and revolved, steel
crushings being strewn between the two to
grind the disk. This brings the gla?s
roughly into the shape of the (ens. Then,
with eight courses ol emery, each course
finer than the preceding one, the disk is
TESTING THK GIA'S FC,n STI'.IA.
groand with an adjustable tool or form so
constructed t:iat the pressure may l»e in
creased or diminished at any p .:nt. Thus
the <i;?k is brought in*-, apr rox innately its
1.11 ai tortn. I his is ail comparatively
c< arse work. It is really very Lne work.
In making the measurement* at this stage
• Mr. dark employs an instrument <a home
made aila.r. which looks as if it had fyeen
w i <. .t with a ja k knife) that regis
ters >.ue thirty-thousandth of an inch.
'•i'Ut." savs he, "this is used only for
coarse measurements." No instrument
■ c.m be made by human hands tor measur
ing tlu infinitesimal distances which are
so important in tne t.nal shaping of ODe of
th- > great len«es. The human eye. and a
Kt-rn a:: 1 long-practiced one at that,
is the only instrument ht to make these
me.i» irements.
i'be nnal shaping and polishing are
c. n*- witii beeswax and rouge. Think of
grinding this tiinty glass with beeswax!
It .K,ts from eighteen months to two
y.arstido it. Oh. the patience of it!
At t ttien the final testing: The lens is
taken hack into the long, dark room.
* "it was brought two year* before.
~Ags n * t is -et on ec*e iiiidway of theoravi
THB eaaac WA KAKXB'S HOMO.
AT A.AN 6. CLARK.
light—is placed at the lower end of the
room ana at the upper end, precisely fifty
feet from the lens, exactly where the focus
most be, an eye piece is fixed. Now the
myraid rays of light from the star must
fall upon every point of surface nf ihe
forty-Inch lens, and each must fall at
Inch an angle that they will be refracted
to a common point Just exactly fifty
feet away. You cannot even imagine
a mathematical point —a point so small
that it could not possibly be smaller. Yet
Mr. Clark's business is to make that great
forty-inch If na so perfect in its curve that
every one of those countless rays shall
oome to a mathematical point at precisely
fifty feet. If one single ray falls the
breadth of a spider strand away from that
point, the lens is defective ana the lens
maker, with keen, blue eye and his life
long experience aud his tireless patience,
must find where that particular ray strikes
the surface of the lens, and then, with his
lump of soft beeswax, or perhaps with his
thumb, he must lightly rub tliat spot until
this ray is turned into its proper course;
and this must be done so deftly, so ex-
qtilsitely, that meantime no other ray is
disturbed. It makes one's head swim to
think of the fineness of this work.
"Ami with yoor bare thumb you can
wear down such glass as this?" I asked.
For answer Mr. Clark took up an old
castaway disk and gave it less than a
dojen sharp rubs with the smooth, soft
thick of his thumb. "There," said he, "if
this had been a perfect lens that would
have changed its shape enough to ruin it."
I wanted to accuse the man of playing
upon me, but his earnestness forbade.
And then there was that mathematical
point staring me in the imagination. And
as [stood wondering whether I ought to be
amused or amazed Mr. Clark, pointing at
the twenty-four-inch compound iens he is
making 011 the order of Miss C. W. Bruce,
TBB rofwmxa ROOM.
of New York, for the photographice tele
scope to be given by her to Harvard uni
versity, said: "When that lens is finished
we can hide every ray of light from many
more than a dozen stars at a time behind
a spider's strand at its focal point."
VERT FAST TRAVELING.
The Kiwi of the. flanging of Deeming
In Atitrilla Outran the Sun.
New York Sun.
An Interesting instance of the magic of
the telegraph, an illustration of the way
it can annihilate space, outrun the sun
and perform mystifying jugglery with
old Time's hour glass and with the
calendar, and an object lesson in every
day science, are aflorded in connection
with the execution of the sentence of Mur
derer Deeming in Australia on Monday.
Deeming was hanged at 10:01 a. m. and
the news and details of the execution
were read at the early breakfast table,
and even before daybreak that day.
The news was in San Francisco soon after
5 o'clock Sunday evening, having been
sent by way of Montreal. The telegraph
beat the sun by almost a whole day.
The message had to travel the course
traversed by the sun, too, and did not
make the gain by cutting across lots or
doubling back and stealing a lap. With a
cable under the Pacific the message
might have doubled on the sun's track
and gained a day in a minute or
■o. Telegrams from Australia must take
the westward or sunward course, and
make the full circular tour. The message
left Melbourne, 011 the far side of Aus
tralia, very soon after 10 o'clock Mon
day morning, traveled about 15,000
miles, was retransmitted thirteen
titn«s through as many different stations
and different lengths of cable, reached
New York at 8:50 p. m. Sunday,
and was in the SUH office before 0
o'clock. The difference in time be
tween New York and Melbourne is four
teen hours and forty minutes, so that when
Deeming was on the gallows it was 7:30
Sunday evening in New York, and the
message traveled the 15,0TA) miies in the
remarkably quick time of less than an
hour and a half.
This w as the route, the message passing
from one cable and one set of instruments
to another at ea;h station: From
Melbourne across the Australian
continent by land line to Port Darwin,
trience to Banjoewangie, in Java; to
Singapore, to Madras, across India to
Bombay, uuder the Indian ocean to Aden,
in Arabia, under the Red Sea to Suez,
along the Suez canal to Alexandria, under
the Mediteranean to Malta, Malta to
Marseilles, across France and under
the channel to London, thence to
Ireland, under the Atlantic to Cape
Cans<>, N'uva Scotia, and then down the
c >ast, via Coney island and the Brooklyn
bridge, to Broad street, New York.
The time occupied by a cable mes
sage in reaching any distant
point is taken u;> bv the number of trans
missions, the actual electrical transmis
sion through any one cable being instan
taneous. Taking that into consineration,
the news traveled remarkably fast.
It might seem from the loregoing that
by traveling ar.mnd and around the
earth one might have the same
day and date lor an indefinite pe
riod, provided he kept pace with the sun.
But the day must end somewhere, and
end very ai-r iptiy, and the point where
the old day dies and the new one is born
is out in the Pacific ocean, about mid
way between San Francisco and Yoko
hama, and running due north and
soutn. ihat line of demarcation in
the calendar runs through Bering sea. cuts
across and among the Fiji islands, and
just scrapes the end of New Zealand, but
lor convenience sake, and not to have
it Sunday midday on one side of the
street and Mondav noon on the other in
some is unds of the Pacific, the line has
been croc ked so that it does not cut any
island. As the earth turns before the
sun, midday of r-uadav would advance
around The world unt:l it struck that
line, when ;t must perforce change or
every day would he Sunday. The cnange
is really made at midnight. It may re
quire a little thought to straighten out the
subje 1, but it wiii come straight event
ually.
The Lait Obstacle Removed.
Pack.
Jennie—Bat yon can't support a wife on
?12 a week, George,
George—Tr »e, darling; but our firm
always its men to flioO when they
ALTAES TO BRAVERY.
Colonel Cockerill Yisits the
Field of Gettysburg.
MONUMENTS ON EVERY HAND.
Stories of Bravery Told in Granite aad
Bronze—Grem Hill* That Oaoe
Were Red With Blood.
A journey to the battlefield of Gettys
burg is one that every patriotic American
should make. The death grapple between
the armies of the Union and the Confeder
acy, which took place in and around this
quiet, sleepy old town of Gettysburg
twenty-nine years ago, ranks as the one
great battle of modern times, and it is
bound to live in history with Marathon,
Blenheim and Waterloo. It was my pleas
ure to visit Gettysburg recently with a
party of New York and Philadelphia news
paper workers, guests of the Reading rail
way, which, in addition to other great en
terprises, is making a specialty of its con
nection with Gettysburg and its famous
field. There is no prettier spot on this
continent than Gettysburg and its sur
roundings. The beautiful, undulating
character of the rallfty in which the town
lies, its swelliog ridges covered with emer
ald verdure and the whole set in by back
grounds of blue mountain ridges make it a
pieture full of sweetness and repose. Here,
but for the incursions from visitors from
the outer world, one mis»ht find the repose
of an Auburn or the happy valley of Kas
selas.
Thank* to the patriotism of the surviv
ors of the battle and the munificence of
some of our Northern states, the Gettys
burg battlefield today is a magnificent dis
play of monumental art. We have no such
heroic sculpture in this country, and the
stories which here are told in granite,
marble and bronze from one end of this
field to the other are such as to inspire
the loftiest emotions. With its monu
ments recounting the deeds ot brigades,
regiments and squadrons the story of the
great struggle is told in language which
needs scarcely any addition, and the les
son promulgated is one which every youth
in the land should enjoy. Some of these
monuments are exquisite, both in design
and execution, and the battlefield is now
really a great outdoor exhibition of art —a
veritable national museum.
I had made a hasty visit to Gettysburg's
field a couple of years ago and, having
read pretty much everything that had
been written on the subject of the battle,
I was pretty familiar with the stories of
the guides. We had with us on this occa
sion Colonel John B. Bachelder, the gov
ernment historian, who has been visiting
the field annually for more than twenty
years and who baa enjoyed the society of
thousands of officers of both armies who
met on this spot. The old gentleman
means to write, one of these days, a history
of this battle, but he is suffering now from
an excess of information and is so burdened
with caution that I am afraid the book,
like the mathematical work which the poor
schoolmaster on Longfellow's story of Kav
anaugh contemplated writing for so many
years, will never be written. Every time he
visits Gettysburg the old colonel obtains
a new bit of information which requirts
the overhauling and revising of his
previous reports. In passing over the
field the other day with Minnigli, the
oratorical guide, the colonel felt called
upon several times to correct statements
which have long been historical through
constant repetition. Colonel Bachelder
has caused to be set up on Seminary ridge,
near the point where Pickett's famous
and glorious charge ended in death and
dismay, a memorial which is to celebrate
the " High Water Mark of the Rebellion."
It is in the form of a granite pedestal with
an enormous bronze book lying open upon
it, upon which, without adjectives, are
recorded the deeds performed there and
with them the names of the organizations
of both armies which contended there.
Every testimonial to the courage and
prowess of the Southerners is merely a
magnificent tribute to the indomitable
courage and the noble sacrifices of the de
fenders of the Union who met them here
and sent them recoiling back to Appottat
tox. The Gettysburg Memorial Associa
tion has made and graded twenty mile 3 of
carriage road over the battlefield, and the
monuments thus far set up represent an
investment of over a million dollars.
When these roads are properly macada
mized the battlefield will be a magnificent
park, and when the Confederates have
marked their positions the vast field will
be a silent history speaking to the ages.
Until this recent visit I had. along with
a good many other people, fancied that
the first day's fighting around Gettysburg
was little more than heavy skirmishing,
mingled with considerable running and a
complete rout in the end for the Federal
forces. As a matter of fact, there was no
better fighting done at Gettysburg than
that of Buford's cavalry and the First
corps, which encountered the advance of
General Lee's army on the Chambersburg
pike on the Ist of July. The prolongation
of that day's struggle made it possible foi
General Meade to bring up his detached
corps and place them where they could be
hammered into an impregnable position
on Seminary ridge with the ilanks
protected by the Bound Top, Ceme
tery hill and Culp's hill. When
Genera! Buford, at the head of his two
cavalry brigades came thundering into
Gettysburg on the last day of June he
learned of the eastward movement of Gen
eral Lee's forces from Chambersburg.
General Early had passed through Gettys
burg, moving eastward some nights be
fore, and had taken up his position at
York. Ewell with a large force was at
Carlisle 0:1 the north, threatening Harris
burg with several divisions. When, on
tha morning of the Ist, Buford's cavalry
men met the advance of Lee on the Cash
town pike, his theory must have been that
he was only to meet an advancing di
vision or two, and it must have been his
belief that by holding them in check until
Reynolds came up with his first corps the
Confederates would be defeated and turned
back. Whatever his theory, he started in
with a tremendous display of energy and
pluck and for several hours he "must
hive mystified the fiery Confederates with
the vigor of his defense. When Reynolds,
with his infantry, reached the field it was
to meet a mighty onpouring of the very
flower of the Confederate army. -It was
little known then that Lee had issued an
order to his detached wing? to concentrate
at Gettysburg, and while Double Jay was
making his heroic fight on the west of the
town, and Howard's Eleventh corps were
forming on the north, down came the
hordes of Ewell from Carlisle and west
ward marched the legions of Early from
York; so that by 4 o'clock on that dread
afternoon a mere segment of the Armv of
the Potomac was grappling in deadly em
brace with almost the ma-s of Lee's armv
of 'j"." 4 *' men. All save Pickett's division
| of 5,000 men, which had been left at
| Chambersburg, were brought to Getty*-
j burg on the first day. It is little wonder
j that these battened and bruised men of the
i First and Eleventh corps were forced to
| retreat. But the country can never know
; what it owes to that excellent soldier,
j treneral liar.cock who, galloping np from
Meade's headquarters twenty miles away,
met the routed forces rallying up in their
reserves on Cemetery hil! and forced them
to make a stand. The desperate resistance
on Cuip's hill and Cemetery hill that
awful evening checked the onrolling tide
• of the Confederacy, and when the morn
: ing sun arose Seminary ridge and its flanks
! were filled with the worn and haggard but
' veteran* of the Aruij yi
Potomac. That made victory for our army
at Gettysburg, and that victory sealed the
late of the Confederacy.
A visitor to this battlefield, finding
himself standing at the point known as
the "Bloody Angle," against which Pick
ett's great charge was made, and where
General Armistead fell inside the Union
lines waving his hat upon his sword, is
surprised to note that Seminary Ridge
just here is not a ridge at all, vie we i troin
the front. I had always supposed until
my first visit to the field that Pickett s
doomed 4,'* X) men not only inarched
across an open plain to the assault but
that they had been compelled to ctimb the
rocky sides of a most rugged natural de
fense. To tell the truth, that charge WHS
delivered across a comparatively level
piain against troops who had scarcely any
advantage in the matter of ground, bar
ring the trivial stone wall which fringe J
the front. Looking at the field from
this standpoint an}' one can understand
how General Longstreet might well have
opposed Lee's determination to assault the
Federal center, and can imagine how sick
his heart must have been when he saw
those three brigades of Virginians march
ing to certain death and destruction. Hut
Lee had fought two detached corps of the
Army of the Potomac on the Ist, anl had
failed to crush them; he had assaulted
desperately both flanks on the 2d and had
failed, and on the third there was left for
him only the Napoleonic tactics of break
ing the center. That awful charge would
never have been made, 1 presume, if Lee
had not believed that his terrible two
hours' cannouade had silenced the bat
teries along the Federal front. Had it been
supported as it should have been it might,
perhaps, have succeeded, but all that was
vital and forceful in Lee's armies marched
with Pickett in that fateful charge. Colonel
Freemantle, the English officer of the
Guards who had accompanied Lee in his
invasion of Virginia, sat on the fence on
Seminary Kidge when Pickett came down
the slope and moved against the Federal
center with the precision of parade, ana
when the thin and broken ranks had al
most reached the famous "Bloody Angle '
he swung his cap in the air and shouted:
"It will succeed; it is the grandest charge
the world ever saw!" But General Long
street says that he knew that the effort
had failed; fir3t, because no body of men
on earth could stand such a storm of leaden
and iron hail as Pickett's men endured,
and, second, because there was absolutely
no support on tiank or in rear for the brave
men who had been blindly sent to destruc
tion.
There is one sad and pathetic picture of
this battle which has always touched me,
but which the field guides seem to have
overlooked. On the last day's battle,
when General Lee was preparing to hurl
himself against the federal center, a cav
alry charge was made on his right wing,
lying around the Ilound Tops and the
Devil's Den. which for absolute futility,
fatality and absurdity has not been
equaled since the famous Six Hundred
rode against the batteries of Balaklava.
Custer's cavalry was hovering on the ex
treme left when it entered into the head of
General Farnsworth to make a diversion
by charging headlong into the midst of
the Confederate troops at that time not
actively engaged. He had just been pro
moted to a brigadier generalship a few
days before and had borrowed a pair of
general's shoulder straps from one of his
brother officers. These he had stitched
upon a linen coat, and, proud of himself
and his opportunity, he was anxious to
put his tinger marks upon the great battle.
Sword in hand he galloped down with his
little body of bravo followers upon the
desperate Texans and Alabamians of
Hood's division. He was treated to a
terrible infantry fire, and at least two bat
teries opened upon him with grape and
canister. He rode around in a circle, and
as he rode the guns of the batteries were
turned upon him until it seemed as if not
one of this fooihardy band would return
alive. General Farnsworth was mortally
wounded, and his command was abso
lutely cut to pieces. Colonel Gates, of the
Fifteenth Alabama, told me some time
ago that lie was satisfied that Farnsworth
shot himself with his own pistol when
he found that he was seriously
wounded, lest he should be made pris
oner. He said that one of his Ala
bama soldiers came to him on the field
with a pair of shoulder straps which he
said he had cut from the coat of a Yankee
major, who, he said, had just been killed.
Colonel Oates recognized the insignia of
the brigadier general, and knew by the
color that a cavalry officer had been slain.
He was taken to where General Farns
worth's body was lying, and upon examin
ing some papers was able to identity him.
He said that Farnsworth had several
wounds upon his body, any of which
might have proved fatal, and that he held
in his hand his pistol, and that the shot in
his head had evidently been self-inriicted.
Be this as it may, no braver nor nobler of
ficer ever laid down his life on the battle
field tnan this gallant son of Illinois.
That his ambitious charge was ill advised
no one doubts, for even in that day
mounted cavalrymen with sabres had no
more chance at close quarters with infan
try and artillery than at this time—which
is absolutely nil.
One of the most Interesting citizens of
Gettysburg that I met daring my visit was
Mr. D. McConaughy, a venerable lawyer,
who was born in the heart of the town and
who has lived there every day of his life.
He is now burgess, an office equivalent to
that of mayor. He makes it his business
to look after visitors to the battleiield, and
his courtesy and graciousness is very much
appreciated. I had from him a number of
interesting stories in relation to the gre it
contest. Mr. McConaughy was one of
the first burghers of Gettysburg to recog
nize the importance of tbe battlefield from
a commercial and historic standpoint, and
he organized the movement which resulted
in the purchase of Little Round Top with
in a week or two after the battle.
When General Buford first reached
Gettysburg Mr. McConaughy met him
and gave him a lot of valuable informa
tion touching the movements of Lee's
army to the west of the town. This in
formation had been brought to him bv
voung men of the neighborhood who had
been acting as voluntary scouts and mes
sengers. The old gentleman was in Gettsy
burg town during the entire three days'
battle, a part of the time occupying a good
point of observation on the roof of his own
house. He had quite an experience with
the officers and men of Lee's army, who
occupied the town during the three days'
fighting. His theory is that Gettysburg
would hare been reduced to ashes but for
the fact that the courthouse, all the churches
and nearly all the houses in the town
were tilled with Confederate wounded. He
had a somewhat unpleasant experience
with General Early, and he related to me
a story about General John B. Gordon, of
Georgia, which seemed almost incompre
hensible. He said that after the fighting
ot the first day. General Gordon delivered
in the public square of the town a fierv
harangue to a number of frightened Get
tysburgers, during which he indulged in
most awful threats against everything and
everybody connected with the Union
cause. He announced that it was the in
tention of Lee's armies to defeat the army
of the Potomac, to rn irehon Philadelphia
Baltimore find &nd so
was his enthusiasm and" so strong his be
lief, that he almost converted the Gettvs
burgers to his way of thinking
General Gordon today is one of the
most loval and conservative men of
the South. He wa3 a splendid fighter dur
ing war. It is possible that his fiery tem
per led him away at Gettysburg.. I doubt
that he would care to see" that speech in
print now, for, since the boastful perform
ances of the French leaders at Agincourt
there has been nothing quite so ridiculous
a« a general officer on a battlefield talking
of the great deeds about to be performed
Of course that famous old man, whom
President Lincoln and John Hay made
celebrated as the only citizen of Gettys
burg who actually participated in the
battle, is always inquired about by visit
ors. One of our party, who visited the
humble cottage once occup led by John
Burns, found a guide who took a great
deal of the patriotic roMaaoe out of the
(ud g eiiueiuaa# £«x:o£ui&aix«, jjuuu
was 72 years of age at the
of tlie fight, and ho li
humble cottage to the west of the to»%
lie had been in his day a
hud incurred the displeasure of most
his fellow citfe-ns by reason of hi #a -_*
siveness toward the stray doga oTtt£
town. In fact, he had put to death
many dogs that ho was about as unnoan!
lar as a tax-gatherer in Ireland.
sessions were small, one of the most uL
portant being a cow. At the tim* 2
Lattle came on this cow was tethered
some of the open pastures along tS
Chambersburg road. The old man «a&i
down to secure his cow when the fiKhtin#
beiran between Buford's and Archer'i
men, but when he reached the animal kl
found Jier dead from a stray shot deli?.**!
from the Confederate quarter. This*
enraged him that he swore vengeanea
and, seizing a musket, he went to work*
He kept blazing away until disabled
by a shot in the hip. VfWu
the old gentleman was u u t exactlt
inspired by lofty, patriotic motives h*
was certainly in defrndm,
his fireside and m* cow. When PresidZu
Lincoln visited tiie battlefield, in Nona,
ber, 1.%3, he called upon old John at hk
cottage, sat upon his humble porch and
had him tell the story of his part in tl!
battle. That settled John's lame. fi» erT
visitor to Gettysburg called upon hij7
and nearly everybody left some snbatanl
tial token of appreciation. The poor old
feliow was on the road to wealth andean
when death cut him off. He will alwan
be a part of the historic battle, becso*
Bret Ilarte's poem has canonized him and
placed him in the category of Bghtiag
saints. 5
My good friend. General Batchelder, the
government historian referred to, it ma
fair way to earn the hostility of the state
of Pennsylvania. He has undertakes to
fix the brand of cowardice and falsehood
upon one of the famous fighting rep.
ments of the state—the Seventy-sec
ond, of Philadelphia. This regiment
belonged to the organization recruited
among the old volunteer firemen of Phil*
delphia, and was known as the Put Bri
gade. It was supposed to be composed of
the very best fighting material extant. It
came upon the field of Gettysburg upon
the afternoon of the lid, and went into po
sition near the clump of trees which nov
marks the "high-water mafk" which Gen.
eral Batchelder is so proud of exploit
ing. Some time ago the regiment, when
called upon to erect a selected
a spot Tery close to the famous atone vail
which General Armistead and his mea
61 imbed over, an I at least lOOfeattothe
right of wheru (>eneral Batchelder uji
the regiment was really stationed. Astus
apostle of eternal truth General Bateh
elder refused to sanction the erection of
the monument upon the spot select
ed. The matter was carriea into the
courts, and the supreme court of the state
directed the monument to be placed as
originally designated. There it stands to
day, a splendid thing in bronze, theflguia
of a life-size soldier in zouave uniform, ad
vancing to the front with clubbed moaket.
It is heroic in attitude and ferocious la
general aspect. General Batchelder sajs
it is a bronze lie, and every time he gets
a crowd of people together at
the Bloody Angle he tells the story
of how the Seventy-second regiment re
fused to advance to the stone wall when
ordered to do so. and how General Aias
ander Webb nearly tore the coat off the
color-bearer of the regiment in vaia
efforts to get him into the gap at the
front. The oattlefield guides are all being
inoculated with the Batchelder storyof
the cowardice of the Seventy-second regi
ment and the falsehood which its mono*
merit perpetuates, and a very bitter feeling
is likely to grow out of this controversy.
My advice to the Seventy-second peowe
would be to remove the monument a «w
paces to the rear. So far aa lam able to
investigate, the facts are against them.
A visitor to Gettysburg will, of count
find there an exhaustless stock of relict,
This fact amused very much Mr. J. K.
Bailey, the quaint humorist of the Dan
bury A eus, who accompanied u» oo
this excursion, and who ill »
participant in the fighting nearly thirty
years ago. Bailey insists that the busi
ness of manufacturing and planting relia
on the battlefield is one of the established
occupations of Gettysburg, and he cannot
be made to believe otherwise. The
citizens all declare that the relio
are growing scarce and the prices,
therefore, are steadily advancing. Aaide
from the regular collectors whohaveibop*
in the town, one meets at every point upon
the field and in the streets little chilarea
with pitiful collections of bullets and
bits of shells, which they offer
for sale. Good-natured visitors pat
ronize them, more, I think, became
of their necessitous appearance than be*
cause of any desire to possess relict. 1
gave one freckled-faced anemic littlecha»
75 cents for the butt end of a rusty oia
bayonet. The price was somewhat out
of "proportion, but it enabled somebody to
indulge in the witticism that this WM
one of the most remarkable bayo
net charges that the field had known.
While we were in Gettysburg somebody
unearthed the skeletons of a horse and a
man. The horse had been thrown into a
trench with all of his accoutrements, a#d
tlie only thing which was in a fair stateoc
preservation was the saddle and battOM
of the soldier. The latter indicated thai
the skeleton was that of a Swutluri
soldier.
I must reiterate that a visit to Getty*
burg is well worth the time. Even people
who were born since the war and wh#
have read little about it and care tat
are absolutely entranced when once
they come in contact with a recordof
the momentous deeds done there e#d
which hive now made it a
hallowed
Mecca for every true American, »•
gardles3 of section or prejudice. The to*
pressions one carries away from there®*
lasting; the lessons valuable. Avividnwi
and value would be additionally irnpaim
to both if Gettysburg had a good modwa
hotel. This the quaint old town need*
and the battlefield itself should beo»B*
rnented with statues of General!
Hancock and Buford.
Mr. Yale
Invented the famous "YALL" LIA
A thousand other men hare tried *
equal it, and—failed. Others imititeili
but all they have produced is a iun»l*
key, and the key has fooled many*
man. The only genuine " YALE" Lock*
are made by THE YALE & ToWl®
MANUFACTURING COMPANY, and hi*
tnc word * VALE " in some form on loA
•nd key. You can't afford anythf|
t»t a genuine " YALE " when you wd*
• lock. Sold wherever locks selL
I\f\ I v f r«i It In any bu«lM»
1111111 l I'll 3"™ dro '.
ll|<l I\J I I bujr an improved
II 11 111 || luaia ia-'ubU'jr.
■fllul 1 1 moke MOSII
can In
- N1 OttcEf-as man t« «
oihf 6a»'.ce*»Jb»
j' rt
M a *n' • »»■? fit
miHliils
; his h-.tel is a: th« bate of Mi I
Orca* Uiaa i on« of U>« loveliest that I
•o:n<L 0000 IABIJ5; hot ana coW »5gC
La'broom: pleaiani rooott; toat.ag a»i P*TJL I
Rt. AHyNABLB. Hay J- -J£ I
furtiiar iuS»nnatif>o addr*## MBA X* W I
laml-.air.i-j*.,, i.,., ■ ■ mrrr «FyM- _ *--*• I