The Loss of the Sultana – A War Ballad

Image from Missed My Stop

IN MEMORIAM.

By Will M. Carleton.
(TELEGRAM)

“MEMPHIS, TENN., April 23d, 1865. — The steamer Sultana, from New Orleans the 21st, took on board at Vicksburg, upward of 1,900 Federal soldiers, principally parolled prisoners from Cahawba and Andersonville. — When seven miles above this city, her boiler exploded and she burned to the water’s edge. Of all on board, not more than six hundred were saved.”

I.
Down at Vicksburg, grim and smoking, on a cloudy April’s day,
Her gaudy colors flying fast, the old Sultana lay,
Waiting for the welcome signal that should order her away.

On her decks, all bright and smiling, stood a band of haggard men,
Who had smarted, prayed, and fasted, in a rebel prison-pen;
Who had faced the imps and goblins of a Southern devils’ den.

There were nineteen hundred heroes, who a prisoner’s trials knew;
From the fiery Southern furnace, nineteen hundred tried and true,
Who had doffed their faded tatters, for the legendary blue.

Pale and wasted were their features; pinched with want and prison fare;
Trampled by the hoofs of hatred, wrinkled by the hand of care;
Seamed and scarred with ruthless clawings from the tatoos of Despair.

But they waved their hands and shouted, as they g?ded from the shore,
And they cried, “Thank God’s great mercy, we are bound for home once more!”
And such lusty cheers of gladness never rent the air before!

But when last the Mississippi drank the echoes of their cry,
From the West, a roll of thunder sent an ominous reply,
And the wind swept down the river, with a sad foreboding sigh,

But they heeded not the omen; and the merry laugh went round;
In the brightness of the future all the fearful past was drowned;
And among the nineteen hundred ran the glad cry “homeward bound.”

II.
There was one among that number, whom the past to me endears;
True as steel and firm as marble was that lad of sixteen years,
With a soul of highest honor, and a heart devoid of fears.

With a mind all clear and active, and with powers that mind to wield,
With a faith that could not falter, and a will it would not yield,
He buckled on his armor, and went forth into the field.

And at last, with hapless comrades, he the breath of prison drew,
And the pains of want and famine with the rest of them he knew;
But he clenched his teeth and muttered, “I mean to see it through!”

And he wrote unto his mother, when he lay in sickness low,
“IF they ask you ‘Is he sorry that he made his mind to go?
Does he wish he might recall it?’ Mother, proudly tell them No!”

And to-day he stood in calmness mid that fated steamer’s crew,
And he uttered words of gladness, which, alas! were but too true,
As between his teeth he muttered, “I have almost seen it thro’!”

And he thought him of a father, who for once would be unmanned,
As he welcomed him in language he could hardly understand,
But repaid the lack of speaking in the pressure of his hand.

And he thought him of a mother, with a kind and gentle face,
Who would kiss him as she used to, with a warm and close embrace,
Who would love him with affection that no absence could erase.

Of a manly little brother, who would climb upon his knee,
Who would throw his arms around him, in his glad and boyish glee,
And would think that of all soldiers there was none so brave as he.

And he thought him of a maiden, whom at twilight a hour he’d seek,
Who would meet him at the threshold, with a blush upon her cheek,
And from out her eyes would tell him all the love she would not speak.

And he stood, and all these blessings in his gladdened mind he weighed,
And within the golden future, many a glorious plan he laid;
And he murmured, “I am happy; all my sufferings are repaid.”

III.
O, my God! that dull explosion! not a warning, not a prayer,
Ere it hurls full many a victim in the black and smoking air,
With a river for a death bed, and a moment to prepare!

With that hissing, steaming boiler, shatters many a hope that’s dear!
And a thousand shrieks and curses throw their echoes far and near,
With a thousand prayers for succor, that can reach no pitying ear.

And that youth whose cup of gladness danced so lately to the brim,
May the God of love and mercy hold a helping hand to him,
As he falls into the water, with a broken arm and limb!

But he rises to the surface, with  a look of pain and dread,
With a face all white as marble, like the faces of the dead,
And the crimson blood fast flowing from a death-wound on his head.

But a flash of manly courage fires his sinking heart anew,
And he grasps a floating timber, with the arm that still is true,
And between his teeth he mutters, “I mean to see it though.”

And he clung unto the fragment for a painful hour or more,
Vainly striving in his weakness, for the distant, gloomy shore.
For that heart of truest courage would not let the boy give o’er.

For a mortal hour he battled with the restless, flowing tide,
But the darkness gathered round him, and he stream was cold and wide,
And his pale lips murmuring, “Mother,” he relaxed his hold and died.

And with but the flowing waters to repeat his funeral lay,
Neath the turbid Mississippi lies the martyred boy to day,
His noble frame all mangled, and fast going to decay.

But if ever God reached downward, for a soul without alloy,
And if ever God had mercy on a dying soldier boy,
Rests to-day that youthful hero, in a home of peace and joy.

The Hillsdale Standard (Hillsdale, Michigan) Jan 5, 1869

Image from Civil War Family

A later, revised version of the poem ran in the Roman Citizen (Rome, New York) on June 11, 1886:

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Robespierre’s “Paine”

Image from American Patriotism – Success in America

Thomas Paine.

Thomas Paine was born 29th of January 1737, at Metford, in the county of Norfolk, England. He was trained to the business of a stay maker, and afterwards obtained a situation in the Customs and the management of a tobacco manufactory; but he fell into debt and was dismissed in 1774. He then came to America and took the side of the colonies against England. In 1776 he published “Common Sense,” which is a strong appeal for the freedom of the colonies. He was appointed by Congress secretary of the committee on Foreign affairs and visited France in 1787 where he made the acquaintance of Buffon, Malesherves and other leading men.

In 1791 he went to England and published his “Rights of Man,” which is a reply to Burke’s “Reflections on the French Revolution.” On his return to France he was elected in 1792 a deputy to the National Convention and acted with the Girondist party. He opposed the execution of Louis XVI and wanted that unhappy monarch exiled to America. This proposition gave offense to Robespierre, who caused Paine to be put in prison where he was detained fourteen months.

During his imprisonment he wrote his famous work “The Age of Reason.” He argues in favor of Deism but against Christianity. He was released from prison at the intercession of the United States Government, and restored to his seat in the Convention. Napoleon said that it was his intention when he conquered England to make Paine introduce a popular form of government there.

In 1802 Paine returned to the United States and devoted the remainder of his days to the study of finance. He died on the 8th of June, 1809.

The News (Frederick, Maryland) Jan 28, 1886

From Karl Marx to General Sherman

The photos here record an interesting chapter in the history of the Sequoia National Park, when Charles F. Kellar, 90, of Santa Cruz, was an organizer of the Kaweah Colony in 1886. The group built the first road connecting the valley with the grove of big trees. Kellar was the original owner of what is now known as the General Sherman tree and first named it the Carl Marx Tree. He is visiting the park this week. The pictures show: No. 1 — Camp Advance in 1889, at that time the colony town site north of Ash Mountain on the North Fork of the Kaweah River. No. 2 — Miss Kate Redstone in 1890 standing on a suspension bridge over the Kaweah just below the junction of the North Fork and the main stream. The bridge was built by Ralph Hopping, grandfather of Guy Hopping, superintendent of the General Grant National Park. Miss Redstone later became Mrs. Ralph Hopping. No. 3 — Type of paper money used in the Kaweah Colony. No. 4 — Kaweah colonist building road to Giant Forest in 1886. No. 5 — Charles F. Kellar. No. 6 — shows what happened when the donkey engine fell through the bridge.

SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK (Tulare Co.), Oct. 17. — A 90-year-old soldier stands reverently beneath the great arms of the General Sherman Tree, oldest and largest of living things, and exclaims, “I once tried to protect you.”

The soldier is Charles F. Kellar of Santa Cruz. He once owned the Sherman Tree in every sense that so ageless a living thing can be owned by a mortal being.

Organizer of the Kaweah Colony in 1886, he built the first road connecting the san Joaquin Valley with the grove of Sequoia Gigantes now included in the Sequois National Park.

And, as leader of the colony of Socialists, he named the largest of the trees the Karl Marx Tree. The government later changed the name to General Sherman.

Is Visitor At Park

Kellar is visiting in the park now, just fifty years after he and fifty-six other colonists started work on the road from a point seven miles above Three Rivers to the wilderness that now is a network of wide highways and graded trails. He is the guest of his granddaughter, Mrs. Daniel J. Tobin, wife of the assistant park superintendent.

Back in 1885, Kellar, a newly arrived San Franciscan who had just finished four years of service in the civil war, was the head of a Socialist organization, the Land Purchase and Improvement Company. On a business trip to Visalia — a trip made mostly on foot — he overheard two United States surveyors talking about a recent survey of a vast timber region dotted with giant trees. He soon had a copy of the survey and had obtained a guide, Newton Tharp, to take him to the timber country.

Tharp was a son of Hale Tharp, the discoverer of Giant Forest, and knew the wilderness even though there were no trails.

With packs on their backs, the two men traveled almost the same route now followed by the Generals Highway. They went up the middle fork of the Kaweah River to the base of Moro Rock, then wound around until they reached what is now known as Crescent Meadow.

Camp Was Inside Tree

Headquarters was made at Hale Tharp’s “cabin,” a fallen Sequoia hollowed out by fire and commodious enough for a Summer home.

Shortly, Kellar saw the really big trees. He saw the largest of all. And decided to own it and protect it.

Returning to San Francisco, he organized the Kaweah Colony. Each man put up a $10 fee on the quarter section of land that was to be his, and $400 was paid for the land. There were forty of the colonists.

Kellar recalls the trek to the promised land. The bay district Socialists came in a body and on foot, toting their worldly goods. Each had the hope of developing the land of the majestic trees and sharing in profits equally with his fellows.

As the weary party came upon the Sequoias they were awe inspired. All resolved the primary purpose of the colony would be to protect the largest of the trees for posterity.

Kellar’s land was towered over by the “Karl Marx Tree,” and around it spread the holdings of the other colonists.

Having invested $4,000, the colony leader included in his properties a ???-acre ranch, the old McIntosh place, on which the Kaweah Park office now stands.

The ranch became the starting point for the wilderness road which ended at C?????y Mill, ___  ____ d___.[back copy, illegible]

“It took us three years of the hardest labor to build the road,” Kellar says. “We had few tools and we were unskilled.”

Upon completion of the job, the federal government brought suit against the Kaweah Colony charging fraudulent entry. When the case came up for trial in Los Angeles, Kellar says, the colonists presented their receipts for fees and payments and the matter, Kellar says, was thrown out of court.

Nevertheless, there was difficulty due to the government’s opposition. The Sequoia National Park was formed by the federal authorities. The colonists became discouraged, disbanded and scattered. The road they had toiled so hard to build they used only as a way out of the wilderness.

Kellar likes to reminisce about his youth. Born in Germany in 1846, he came to America with his parents at the age of 9 years, the family settling on a farm in Pennsylvania, near Lake Erie.

Served Throughout War

When the war clouds began to gather between the North and South, Kellar, although not of age to become a soldier, enlisted three times, having run away from home to join the army. His father balled him out of the service twice. His third and last enlistment was one year prior to General Lee’s entrance into Gettysburg and he served throughout the war.

Among the highlights of Kellar’s career as a soldier was his march with General Sherman to the sea. He cast his first vote for president Abraham Lincoln when a ballot box was brought to the field of battle. Congress had given special permission for all soldiers to vote regardless of their ages.

Crossed Isthmus Of Panama

After the war Kellar came to California via Panama by rail and water in the year 1886. Leaving Panama the ship stopped at San Pedro, the only other coast city having a wharf, besides San Francisco. Here as far as the eye could see were fields of wild geese which looked somewhat like a mirage. Los Angeles then had a population of 5,000, and land was selling for $10 an acre. Seventh and Hill Streets was considered an outpost.

San Francisco was a series of sand dunes, a wharf, board walks, a few boarding houses and saloons. Beer was 25 cents per glass. No grass was growing in the city, but some one had imported Bermuda grass and dried one crop as hay in the region now known as Golden Gate Park. The wind soon sifted the dry grass around in the sand dunes and with the aid of moisture from the sea, there was a luxurious growth.

Kellar asserts an ounce of gold worth $15 constituted a day’s wage in the late sixties. There was a great scarcity of labor. “We carried our gold in buckskin bags in our pockets, he recalls.

Fresno Bee Republican (Fresno, California) Oct 18, 1936

From the Smithsonian – American Exploration and Settlement:

Between 1884 and 1891, the area along the North Fork of the Kaweah River just upstream from the Terminus Reservoir site was the scene of an interesting experiment in utopian socialism that is still the subject of serious study by students of economics and political science. This was the Kaweah Cooperative Commonwealth, generally referred to as the Kaweah Colony. It was based upon the theories of Laurence Gronlund, an American socialist originally from Denmark, whose book “The Cooperative Commonwealth,” was the first adequate exposition of German socialism. In general, Gronlund envisioned an ideal cooperative colony in which working members would own and control production and profit accordingly. Burnette G. Haskell, John Hooper Redstone, and James John Martin, all of whom had been active in labor organizations in San Francisco, were impressed with Gronlund’s theories and decided to form such a colony with timberlands as a source of raw materials for a manufacturing business. After a search of the entire Pacific Coast and parts of Mexico, the leaders of the proposed colony selected the Government timberlands between the Middle, Marble, and North Forks of Kaweah River. Fifty-three timber claims totaling about 12,000 acres were filed. Because several of the applicants gave the same San Francisco address and some were aliens, and because of the large number of claims, the Federal Land Commissioner in Visalia withdrew the lands filed upon from entry on suspicion of fraud. The colonists, however, were convinced their claims would be validated by the courts and proceeded with the venture.

*More at the link, although I didn’t see any mention of Charles Kellar.

And more at The History of Kaweah Colony. No mention of Kellar here either. Maybe he embellished his role a bit  in starting the colony.

I found a few references to C.F. Keller with a little more searching (The History of Tulare and Kings County):

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Sarah Winnemucca: An Indian Princess

MISS SARAH WINNEMUCCA.

Miss Sarah Winnemucca recently passed through Carson, Nevada, on her way to Virginia City. This notable woman is commonly reputed to be the daughter of the old war chief of the Piutes, but this statement is denied, and it is represented that she was born of Digger parents somewhere in the foothills of the Sacramento Valley, and was educated by “The Sisters” at their Catholic academy in Marysville. Still the fact remains that she is enough versed in the Piute tongue to be able to talk fluently with the people of the tribe, for whom she had frequently acted as an interpreter. She is popularly regarded as the virgin queen of the Piutes; is a plain little woman, pretty dark; dresses like an American female, of rustic habits and modest pretensions; and talks English without any perceptible accent. She is a capable person, and reads our language and expresses herself in writing quite correctly, and with considerable force of expression. We have also heard of her writing poetry. As a reputed princess of the Piute blood royal she is a famous character. — [Carson, Nevada, Appeal.

The Fitchburg Sentinel (Fitchburg, Massachusetts) Aug 2, 1873

THE PIUTE QUEEN.

A Letter From Her Highness to Chief Naches.

[Winnemucca Silver State.]

Naches, Chief of the Piutes, has received a letter from Sarah Winnemucca, the Piute Queen, now at Fort Simcoe, Washington Territory. She says she is well and doing well, and is now teaching a school among her people, which sixty of them, and sometimes more, attend. They have cleared about 70 acres of land and put in quite a crop of corn and potatoes. Lee Winnemucca is working for the agent at Simcoe Reservation, and Mattie, her niece, who accompanied her through the war last Summer, is dead. Twenty-one of the Piutes, who were taken to Simcoe last Winter have died, and there are quite a number of others on the sick list, many of whom are not expected to live. Those of the tribe who were taken to Vancouver as prisoners of war, she has not heard from, and she does not know what is going to be done with them. Princess Sally hankers for pine nuts, and wants Naches to send her as many of them as he can. She cannot tell when, if ever, she and her people are coming back, as they cannot leave without orders from Washington to that effect.

Daily Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Jul 17, 1879

Sarah’s Challenge.

The following is said to be a literal copy of Sarah Winnemucca’s challenge to the editor of the Silver State:

Your statement that I am a drunkard is an infernal lie, and you knew it was false when you wrote it. If you are anything of a man you will meet me and give me satisfaction. I will cram the lie down your throat at the point of a bowie knife. An early answer will oblige.

SARAH WINNEMUCCA.

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Feb 24, 1880

Image from dragonflydesigns – Ancient Voices

Married a California Princess.

SAN FRANCISCO, December 8. — The princess of the Piute Indians of Nevada, commonly called Sarah Winnemucca, was married last night at the Russ house, in this city, to L.H. Hopkins, an ex-soldier of the United States army, who arrived here from Arizona on November 3. The bridegroom informed a reporter that as far back as 1879, during the Bannock campaign, he first met the princess, and was smitten with her charms. Since then mutual feeling has inspired them and, an opportunity presenting itself, they resolved never to be separated again. Dr. Beers was the officiating minister. Princess Winnemucca Hopkins and Mr. Hopkins will take their departure for the east at an early date. The princess is well known on this coast. She has lived mainly in Carson, Nev., with her father, the old Chief Winnemucca, who died a few months ago. She is a bright girl, has a good English education, and looks more like a Mexican girl than Indian. She has regular features and dresses fairly. She is a great advocate of education and has lectured in this and other cities on the wrongs of her tribe.

The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) Dec 9, 1881

Image from Fort Tours

PLEADING FOR HER RACE.

The Princess Winnemucca Before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.

WASHINGTON, April 22. — The Princess Sarah Winnemucca, of the Piute tribe of Indians, was before the senate committee on Indian affairs to-day, pleading for a setting apart of a reservation for her tribe. She was accompanied by a delegation of ladies and gentlemen from Baltimore. The Indian woman spoke in good English, emphasizing her remarks with graceful gestures. As she depicted the griefs of her people, she was frequently moved to tears. She said her tribe was scattered, that they had been driven from place to place, “Two winters ago,” she continued, “while being driven from one point old men and children were frozen to death. She also said that the Indian agents had deprived the tribe of the stores provided for them by the government. The Piutes are located in Nevada. The princess asked that camp McDermott be set apart for them.

The Atlanta Constitution ( Atlanta, Georgia) Apr 23, 1884

Google Book link – Read Online

An Indian Tale.

“Life Among the Piutes,” is the title of a new book just published in the East, the authorship of which is accredited to Sarah Winnemucca, the Piute princess. In the introductory chapter the reputed authoress informs the reader that “I was born sometime about the year 1844. My grandfather, Winnemucca, was then camped at Humboldt Lake with others of his tribe. It was about that time that a party of white men returning from California, was seen approaching our camp,” etc., etc.

The book is said to be full of thrilling incidents in the life of the dusky heroine, (which of course never happened.) It tells all about the capture of Sallie and her brother by the whites and how they were taken to California and educated; how they rejoined the tribe as soon as liberated; how in after years they labored to keep peace between the whites and Indians; how the heroine wrestled with her people to make christians out of them, and to prevent them from becoming victims to King alcohol and other besetting sins forever thrown in their way by conscienceless white men, and all that sort of thing. One or two heart rending love stories, in which the authoress plays a conspicuous part, are also woven in to give spice to the narrative. All of which, no doubt, will be entertaining to people in the East who know the Indian and his mode of life simply through pictures drawn in fancy by Cooper and other blood and thunder novelists, but to those who have lived in Nevada a quarter of a century and are somewhat familiar with the Piute tribe and the career of this dusky heroine, whatever interest the book may contain will be from another and very different standpoint.

Weekly Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) May 3, 1884

Daily Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Sep 7, 1884

THE NORTHERN INDIANN.

They do Not Want to Go to Pyramid Reservation, and No Room For Them There if They Did.

The Silver State says:

Leggins’ band of Piutes, who remained peaceable during the Bannock war, were treated upon the cessation of hostilities exactly the same as the captured hostiles. By order of the Indian Bureau, they were taken under military escort from Fort McDermit, by way of Camp Harney, where they were joined by the hostiles, to Yakima, Washington Territory. Naches and Sarah Winnemucca went from here to Washington to intercede for Leggins’ band, and upon the representation of General Howard and other military officers, who were in the campaign against the Bannocks, and who knew that Leggins’ band was not on the warpath, the Secretary of the Interior promised Naches that the exiled Piutes should be permitted to return to their own country, and that they should be furnished a military escort through Oregon. Owing to opposition of the Indian Bureau and a change in the Cabinet, this promise was not fulfilled, although the Indians expected it would be; and after patiently waiting nearly three years, they made their escape from Yakima, crossed the Columbia river, and evading as far as possible the settlements in Oregon, finally reached their native hunting grounds, near Fort McDermit, almost naked and starving. During the intensely cold weather tow years ago, they suffered from hunger, as they had been on the road from Yakima all Summer, and had it not been for the military and settlers, many of them would have starved to death. The Legislature of 1883 asked Congress to provide for their immediate wants, and Congressman Cassidy succeeded in getting $5,000 appropriated to purchase food and clothing for them. About $1,000 of that amount was expended under the direction of the military at McDermit for their benefit, and possible the Indian Bureau may be able to account for the balance of it, though the Indians derived no benefit from it. Subsequently an appropriation was made to be expended in removing Leggins and his band to some reservation. A week ago, E.C. Ellet, a special Indian Commissioner, arrived from the East at McDermit to arrange for removing the Indians. He held a council with the head men of Leggins’ band, and they protested against being taken away from the land of their birth, stating that as their young men could work for the settlers herding cattle, etc., and hunt deer and other game, they preferred to remain, but expressed the hope that the Government would provide, during the Winter months at least, for the old and decrepid of the band, through the military, who always befriended friendly Indians. Commissioner Ellet, accompanied by Lieutenant Colville P. Terrett, then went to the Pyramid Reservation to see what provision, if any, had been made for the northern Indians, and if there was sufficient arable land there to accommodate them. We learn that they found that the lands which the northern Indians would have to occupy on the reservation are not susceptible of cultivation; that the best lands along the Truckee for eight or nine miles below Wadsworth are occupied by white squatters, who have good fences, and comfortable houses; and that Winnemucca Lake, which the Indians claim was originally included in the reservation, is now a resort for Chinese fishermen. They also ascertained that the supplies furnished the reservation were not sufficient for the want of the Indians now there, and that Leggins’ band would have to support themselves or starve if removed there. Commissioner Ellet, after due consultation with Agent Gibson at the reservation, did not hesitate to say that he would recommend the removal of the squatters from the Reservation, but even if that is accomplished there will not be room there for Leggins’ band, the old and feeble of whom, in his opinion, should be provided for where they are.

Daily Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Dec 11, 1884

SARAH’S LIES ABOUT THE PIUTES STARVING ON THEIR RESERVATION.

Her Story of the Wrongs of Her People and False Charges of Dishonesty Against Indian Agent Gibson.

Sarah Winnemucca is the champion light-weight of the season, as will appear from a perusal of the following interview taken from the San Francisco Call of the 22d:

When old Winnemucca, the chief of the Piute Indians, died, he committed the interests of his people to his daughter Sarah. It was one of the most sagacious actions in the old man’s life. From that day to this Sarah Winnemucca has been the tireless friend of her people. She has brought to her work a fine mind, a generous nature, a fair education and indomitable energy. The first book written in the English language by an Indian is her vivid narrative of the wrongs of the Piutes and her eloquent appeal for justice for her people. In the history of the Indians she and Pocahontas will be the principal female characters, and her singular devotion to her race will no doubt be chronicled as an illustration of the better traits of the Indian character.

Sarah Winnemucca first spoke to a white audience several years ago in this city. The years that have intervened have been spent by her in addressing audiences in the East, relating to them the sad history of her tribe, and appealing to them to aid her people in their destitution. She has returned to San Francisco again. A Call reporter called upon her yesterday to inquire what the condition of her tribe was and what she proposed to do for them.

THE PIUTES STARVING.

“My people are famishing in the snow about Pyramid Lake, in Nevada,” she said sadly. “They are utterly destitute. My brother Natchez, the chief of the Piutes since the death of Winnemucca, my father, has only pine nuts to eat, and the speckled trout he catches in the lake. If he had not foreseen the need of the Winter last Summer, when he went into the mountains for the nuts, he would have had nothing. The Piutes are on the verge of starvation. They are growing weaker and weaker every day for want of food. They have been driven like wild beasts from place to place, and forced back from the meadows and the banks of rivers and streams into the mountains that are barren and wholly destitute of game.”

As Sarah Winnemucca, in these brief words, painted the destitute condition of her tribe, she expressed in her intelligent face the sorrow and indignation she felt. She is a woman slightly apast 40, with a heavy, yet shapely figure. Her face is exceedingly intelligent. She has strong jaws, with a delicate mouth, and cheek bones that are not so prominent as is usual in Indian faces. Her forehead is rather low, but broad, and her eyes are large and expressive. Her glossy black hair was gathered in a Grecian coil at the back, which showed the outline of her shapely head. She has easy command of colloquial English, and frequently expresses herself forcibly and eloquently.

“The Piutes are now on the reservation about Pyramid Lake,” she continued. “They number about 7,000 in all. It has been falsely said that the Pyramid Lake Reservation is rich in game and good lands. That was the representation made to the authorities at Washington when we were driven from the Malhuer Reservation. General Sheridan asked me, a short time ago, if our reservation did not afford us a good living. I told him that high bleak hills that only a goat could safely climb rose out of the water all around the lake; that the only arable lands were four acres on the river. He seemed astonished at the revelation, for he feels very kindly toward my people.”

FREEZING IN THE SNOW.

“How do your people live?” asked the reporter.

“Ah, that is a sad story, It is a wonder that they do live at all. They would all surely have perished long ago if their life-long experience with hardship had not inured them to scant food and exposure to cold. It is snowing now, doubtless, on their reservation, the lake and river are full of ice, yet they have no shelter except the wigwams, made of reeds and tule, no clothing save the bit of calico or blanket that they have picked up. Some of the young men herd cattle in Summer or work on farms near the reservation, and in that way they get a little money to buy blankets for the Winter; but they are the fortunate few. The rest have little to protect them from the cold.”

“What have they for food now?” inquired the reporter.

“Pine nuts, fish and rabbits. The latter is the only game on the whole reservation, and you may imagine how quickly they will disappear when hunted by 7,000 starving Indians.”

“Has no appropriation been made by the Government for the support of the Piutes?”

“My people do not belong to that class of Indians who are regularly provided for by the Government. At the last session of Congress Senator Dawes, of Massachusetts, secured an appropriation of $17,000 for the support of the Winnemucca tribe and Leggin’s band during this Winter, but not a cent of it has yet been spent for us, and I am afraid that it will never get farther than the hands of the rascally agents, who steal all they can get. My people are suffering for it now.”

THE INDIAN AGENT.

“Who is the Indian agent at your reservation?” asked the reporter.

“One Bill Gibson,” she replied with scorn. “He has employed all his relations in positions provided for by the Government, such as teachers, carpenters, blacksmiths and farmers. But they never do anything for the Indians. They live in idleness and draw their salaries regularly. The carpenter has not driven a nail for months; the teachers have never given a lesson; the blacksmith rarely lights a fire in his forge, and the farmer plows only for the white people. If a conspiracy were formed by the most cunning men to desert and neglect the Indians on our reservation, it could not succeed better than the selfish policy of Bill Gibson, the agent, and his hungry relations. Not a cent of the $17,000 which was appropriated for the support of the Piutes has been spent for us. Where it has been side-tracked on its journey from Washington I do not know.”

“Don’t the Indians sell fish and get money that way?”

“Yes; but they are robbed of that too. They are allowed to trade only with the settlers of the reservation. They but their fish at 5 or 6 cents a pound and sell it for 15 to 18 cents. My people don’t understand weighing either. They bring in a load of fish and the settler goes through the form of putting them on the scales and then tosses the Indian a silver dollar or two and goes off satisfied. Everyone connected with the agency is wholly devoid of conscience. They are there to get rich. There are people there who steal everything that the Government sends to us. They steal everything that the Indians own, and they run their cattle on our reservation, driving ours and the game off. It is a wretched state of affairs.”

“Are your people willing to become farmers?” asked the reporter.

“Yes, indeed, if they had but a chance. They are not a roaming, shiftless, lazy people. They want to work in the Summer they take it eagerly. If we could only get a start in agriculture, if we could only get arable land, we could take care of ourselves, but we have been driven from good land to worse, till now we are on about as bleak and barren a spot as there is in the whole state of Nevada.”

Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Jan 25, 1885

Image from the National Park Service

Wants Protection.

Sarah Winnemucca writes the Silver State from Lovelock, complaining about the destruction of the Indians’ crops by the cattle and hogs belonging to white people, and asks if there is no law for the protection of the Piutes’ crops.

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Dec 4, 1886

Image from A Landing A Day

An Indian Industrial School.

A Lovelock correspondent, under date of the 1st instant, writes to the [Silver State] as follows: “Princess Sarah Winnemucca goes East to agitate the matter of getting aid for building an industrial school on Chief Naches farm at Lovelock. Naches offers to donate a 40-acre tract for that purpose. The Princess will canvass among her eastern friends for their support and influence in trying to get Government aid towards the building of such an institution. There are some 400 Indian children within the country to be educated, and Sarah believes in educating them at home. She says it is all nonsense about the Indian children’s features changing when taken from home to be educated, as some papers go so far as to say, and that their features always remain as God made them. They learn rapidly at almost any school under proper treatment, but the right place to teach them is at home in their own State amid the surroundings of their childhood, with their parents, not among strangers in some distant land. Experience has taught her what her young people need, and the Government should make an appropriation and place her at the head of an Indian industrial school. So far she has conducted her school here without Government aid, having received assistance from her eastern friends, among them that grand old lady — Miss Peabody.”

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Jun 4, 1887

Superintendent W.I. Davis, of the Grand Junction School, with several Indian pupils, will leave here to-morrow morning for home. He expected to take with him at least forty recruits for his excellent school. He would have done so had not Piute Natchez, and his lovely relative the far-famed Princess Sarah Winnemucca, interposed a veto. This latter idolized friend of Mrs. Horace Mann and Miss Peabody can shed crocodile tears over the misfortunes and lamentable ignorance of “my people,” but now that the opportunity offers this “patron of learning” shows her hand. She is soon to go East to collect money to educate “my people,” but she protests against the Government educating them. She dislikes the Government and the dislike is mutual. Her dislike to the Government is her objection to “my people” being educated at the Government’s expense. If Sarah could handle the Government’s money as she does that of the misguided religious enthusiast there would never be a whisper by her against the Government educating the Piute people to which, unfortunately for them, she is a member.

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Jun 7, 1887

PDF Link  Newspaper article:  Johnson Sides == “United States Peacemaker”

Combatting Superstition.

Princess Sarah Winnemucca came in from Humboldt last evening and had a long talk with Johnson Sides and other Piutes relative to the fraudulent prophet of Walker River, who is telling the Indians of that locality that the braves of former ages are soon to reappear on the earth to destroy all Indians who have adopted the habits of white people. Sarah and all the better informed of her tribe do not believe in any such foolishness.

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Mar 25, 1889

Sarah Winnemucca, the Indian princess who attended Wellesley college, and under the nom de plume of “Bright Eyes” has written several frontier stories, is now teaching an Indian school of her own. She reports that she has fifteen or sixteen pupils, and is getting along nicely.

Daily Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Apr 16, 1889

UNRELENTING BRAVES.

They Want Tuscarora Jake to Stretch Hemp.

A council of Shoshone Indian braves was held at Elko last week. Tuscarora Jake, the Indian thug, is in jail for the murder of two members of his tribe. The relatives and friends of Jake offered to give the relatives of the murdered men a certain number of ponies, blankets and money if they would consent to have him set at liberty, and to put up a number of ponies as indemnity for the future good behavior of Jake.

The relatives of the murdered men refused the offer, and said that Jake ought to be hanged, as he not only killed members of his own tribe, but a Chinaman also, for which another and an innocent Indian was sent to State Prison. The head men of the tribe concluded that Jake should be punished as an example and a warning to Indians who are disposed, while drunk, to murder members of their own tribe or others who happen in their way. They think Jake is guilty of a cold-blooded murder and ought to be publicly hanged, so that Indians and whites could see him die. Sarah Winnemucca and Nachez attended the council.

Weekly Gazette Stockman (Reno, Nevada) Oct 10, 1889

SARAH WINNEMUCCA.

Colonel Frank Parker Tells How She Once Saved His Life.

Princess Sarah Winnemucca, who died recently in Montana, was a remarkable woman in many respects, and a prominent feature in the Indian relations of the Pacific Coast for the past quarter of a century. She had but one idea, and that was the civilization of her people. She was the daughter of old Chief Winnemucca, of the great Piute tribe, which included the Bannocks, Sheep-eaters, Weisers, Malheurs and the Snake River Indians, who committed so many depredations in early days in Oregon and Idaho. Winnemucca and her whole family were ever true to the whites, and so far as their jurisdiction extended forced their tribes to peace. Colonel Frank J. Parker, editor of the Walla Walla Statesman, tell how she saved his life and that of his companions in the Malheur country in the spring of 1878:

Sarah was then on her way to the Malheur reservation in the vain endeavor to prevent the reservation Indians there from going on the warpath with Buffalo Horn. One night one of the horses of her team got away, and to help her out we loaned a young fellow, who was along with her, one of our horses to hunt the lost one. Charles Robinson of this city and a boy were along with us at the time, and for the help we rendered her we always gave credit for saving our little company from being killed. The Indians had already donned their war paint and we were in their midst. The very day we arrived on the reservation everything was looking dark. Sarah was all the time in consultation with Chief Egan, and sent for us. Going to her wickiup, she introduced Eagan, and intimated that we had better get, and stand not upon the order of getting. As we only had one gun among our crowd, the advice was taken.

After this Sarah joined Howard‘s outfit, and followed him throughout the Bannock campaign as a guide and a possible interpreter in case of a desire to surrender on the part of the hostiles. When the war ended she was in great demand by the Interior Department authorities, and did good work in having the remnants of her tribe removed to various other reservations where they could do no mischief. She was the only Indian on this coast who ever took any prominent part in settling the Indian question, and as such her memory should be respected.

Col. Parker could not have known old Winnemucca very well, for a more treacherous wretch never lived.

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Nov 20, 1891

We called her Sarah Winnemucca, of the mint family? Well, Toc-me-to- which means shell-flower. Have you ever seen these flowers growing in an old garden among their many cousins of the mint family? Well, Tocme-to-ne loved them of all flowers best, for was she not herself a shell-flower?

Her people were Piute Indians, and they lived in every part of what is now the great state of Nevada.

Toc-me-to-ne had a flower name, so she was followed to take part in the children’s flower festival, when all the little girls dance and sing, holding hands and making believe that they are the very flowers for which they are named. They wear their own flowers, too, and after they have sung together for a while one will dance off on the grass by herself while all the boys and girls look on and she sings:

I am a daisy gold and white
Somebody catch me — me!

The grown-up people watch, too, as their children play, and Toc-me-to ne was never happier than when, light as a bird, she danced and sang her shellflower song:

See me – see me, a beautiful flower,
Give me a hand and a dance.

Then after the plays and dancing the children had all sorts of good things to eat, and the flower festival was over for a year.

Only three times did Toc-me-to-ne take part in the flower festival, for when she was quite a little girl, her grandfather, Chief Winnemucca, took his family and went to live in California, and when they came back she was almost grown up.

Her grandfather was very fond of her, and called her sweetheart, so she was sad and lonesome indeed when he left her and went to the Happy Spirit Land; but she did not forget his last words to her before he went. “Sweetheart,” he said, “do not forget my white brothers; be kind to them and they will be kind to you and teach you many things.”

In California the old chief gave to grandchildren new names — Natchez, Lee, Mary and Sarah, and Sarah learned to speak fairly good English. Later, when she came to Pyramid lake, she played with Mr. Ormsby’s children and learned to speak better English. Besides this Mrs. Ormsby taught her to cook and sew and to do housework.

When Sarah was fifteen years old she made the long 500-mile journey to California once more with her brother and sister and her grandmother. Her brothers took care of cattle for good Mr. Scott, who had known and loved Chief Winnemucca, and he gave them good wages, several fine horses, and two ponies for Sarah and Mary to ride. The sisters had always ridden bareback like Indian men, but when Christmas came Sarah was surprised to find a beautiful Mexican side-saddle from her brother Lee, and she learned to ride like the white ladies, and was very proud and happy.

Now the Piutes always would wander about. They lived by hunting and fishing, not by farming, so they moved from place to place wherever there was game. When they were in the mountains rough white settlers came to Pyramid lake and caught almost all of the fish with nets, so that there were no fish when the Indians returned. This made the Indians angry, and so trouble began. All this time Sarah was in California. Her father, Chief Winnemucca Second, and her mother were in Nevada, and she often heard good news from them, but one spring when she was seventeen years old two Indians came bringing the news from her father that he was in the mountains and wanted all his children to come to him, but especially Sarah.

Starting on their ponies they began the journey, riding beside the wagon where the grandmother rode. It took twenty-five days to reach Carson City, but here their father and mother met them, and next day all went to see Gov. Nye, whom Sarah told in English what her father, the chief, wanted to say.

Gov. Nye was very jolly and good, and when he knew how things really were he told the white settlers not to interfere with the Indians, and sent soldiers from the fort to drive the rough men away; so Gov. Nye and Chief Winnemucca became good friends, as they never could have been but for little Toc-me-to-ne and her bright interpretations.

For the next year Sarah talked both Piute and English, and settled many little troubles. She was called friend both by the Indians and soldiers, and her father and she thought often of old Chief Winnemucca’s words and kept peace with their white brothers.

New Oxford Item (New Oxford, Pennsylvania) Nov 5, 1908

Image from Nephilim Skulls International

Seek to clarify Indian myth about tribe of cannibal giants

By BRENDAN RILEY
Associated Press Writer

LOVELOCK, Nev. (AP) — Times are tough for the legendary red-haired cannibal giants whose alleged existence here centuries ago has been debated for nearly 100 years.

Scientists have said there’s no proof the “giants” first described in old Indian tales were cannibals. Chemical staining by earth after burial was advanced as a likely reason why mummified remains have red hair instead of black like most Indians in the area.

Now a new study under way at the University of Nevada indicates the “giants” were about six feet tall, and not up to 10 feet tall as had been claimed.
What’s left is evidence of a tribe separate from principal tribes whose Paiute descendants live here — perhaps a wandering, more aggressive but outnumbered band finally hunted down and killed or chased off.

Anthropologists say the story, while somewhat tamer, is still fascinating. But they concede the old myth has more appeal and, no matter what they say, will probably persist.

Don Tuohy, curator of anthropology at Nevada State Museum, says he’s confident the “giant” myth is about to be debunked. He asked for the latest study after a bundle of “giant” bones were found in a long-overlooked cabinet at the Nevada Historical Society building in Reno.

But Tuohy says the old tale will probably live on.

Dr. Sheilagh Brooks, chairwoman of the anthropology department at UN-La Vegas, is now analyzing the bones which apparently came from the Lovelock Cave, a nearby treasure trove for scientists trying to reconstruct Nevada’s early history.

Dr. Brooks says her initial investigation shows some of the bones were from cows, not giants. The human bones appear to be remains of Indians “maybe six feet tall — big, but not that big,” she says.

The myth was written down in 1883 by Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, daughter of a Piaute Indian chief. She told of a strange, red-haired tribe of cannibals her ancestors drove into a cave and suffocated by lighting a fire at its entrance.

She said the “people eaters” were so fierce they would leap into the air, snatch arrows whizzing over their heads, and shoot them back at the Piaute attackers.

John T. Reid, a Lovelock, mining engineer, said Indians took him to the cave in 1886 and told him the same tale. But when he entered the cave he found nothing but tons of bat guano.

Reid was unsuccessful in getting an archeological dig started immediately. But miners realizing the value of guano as fertilizer started hauling it out in 1911. They promptly turned up bones, baskets, weapons, tools, duck decoys, various other artifacts and what they described as a 6-foot-8 red-haired mummy.

That spurred the first archeological dig in 1912. A second dig took place in 1924. Thousands of artifacts and about 60 average-height mummies were recovered. More studies followed, including radio-carbon dating which showed the cave was occupied from about 2,000 BC to about 900 AD.

Daily Leader (Pontiac, Illinois) Oct 4, 1976

John Quincy Adams – Patriot, Poet, Statesman, and Sage

[From the Baltimore Patriot.]
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

Wonderful man! whose mighty mind
Not even age itself can blight;
He is an honor to mankind,
And to the world a shining light;
His voice is heard in freedom’s halls,
As oft ’twas heard in olden time,
Echoing along the lofty walls,
In tones of eloquence sublime.

Patriot and poet, statesman, sage,
The friend of freedom and our race;
His fame shall live thro’ every age,
And millions yet unborn shall trace
The record of his bright renown,
And of his brilliant deeds sublime,
Which shall to mighty men go down
Upon the future tide of time.

To Ireland’s hero he the lyre
Has swept and sung of other days,
While listening ears poetic fire,
Perceivedin all his lofty lays;
The thunders of his touching tongue,
From which corruption shrinks in fear,
Thro’ freedom’s temple oft have rung,
When listening Senates’ lean’d to hear.

Had he in ancient Greece appeared,
Immortal would have been his name;
Statues to him would have been reared,
And by the golden pen of fame,
His glory on the mighty scroll,
High in her temple would be placed;
Almost on marble would his soul,
By Grecian gratitude be traced.

J.H.N.

The Ohio Repository (Canton, Ohio) Jul 8, 1847

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

The October Number of the “Democratic Review,” published at Washington, contains some very interesting “glances at Congress,” in which several of the most prominent members are described in a graphic and somewhat impartial manner. The following sketch of that extraordinary man, JOHN Q. ADAMS, will be read with much interest:
Cum. Pres.

“Our attention is now attracted to a ray of light that glitters on the appex of a balk and noble head located on the left of the House, in the neighborhood of the speaker’s chair. It proceeds from that wonderful man who in his person combines the agitator, poet, philosopher, statesman, critic and orator — John Quincy Adams. There he sits, hour after hour, day after day, with untiring patience, never absent from his seat, never voting for an adjournment of the House, his ear ever on the alert always prepared to go at once into the profoundest questions of state or the minutest points or order. We look at him and mark his cold and fearless eye, his stern and abstracted gaze, and conjure up phantoms of other scenes. We look upon a more than king, who has filled every department of honor in his native land, still at his post; he who was the president of millions, now the representative of forty odd thousand, quarrelling about trifles or advocating high principles; to day growling and sneering at the House, with an abolition petition in his trembling hand, and anon lording it over the passions, and lashing the members into the wildest state of enthusiasm by his indignant and emphatic eloquence. Alone unspoken to, unconsulted with others, he sits apart, wrapped in his reveries, or probably he is writing, his almost perpetual employment. He looks enfeebled, but yet he is never tired; worn out, but ever ready for the combat; melancholy, but let a witty thing fall from any member that hazards an arrow at him — the eagle is not swifter in its flight than Mr. Adams; with his agitated finger quivering in sarcastic gesticulation, he seizes upon his foe, and, amid the amazement of the House, rarely fails to take signal vengeance. His stores of knowledge on every subject, garnered up through the course of his extraordinary life, in the well arraigned store house of a memory which is said never to have permitted a single fact to escape it, give him a great advantage over all comers in encounters of this kind. He is a wonderful eccentric genius. He belongs to no party, nor does any party belong to him. He is original, of very peculiar ideas, and perfectly fearless and independent in expressing and maintaining them. His manner of speaking is peculiar; he rises abruptly, his face reddens, and in a moment, throwing himself into the attitude of  a veteran gladiator, he prepares for the attack; then he becomes full of gesticulation, his body sways to and fro self command seems lost, his head is bent forward in his earnestness till it sometimes touches the desk; his voice frequently breaks, but he pursues his subject through all its bearings — nothing daunts him — the House may ring with cries of order — order! unmoved, contemptuous he stands amid the tempest, and like an oak that knows its gnarled and knotted strength, stretches his arm forth and defies the blast.

Alton Observer (Alton, Illinois) Jan 4, 1838

REMINISCENCE OF J.Q. ADAMS.

The Hon. John Quincy Adams concluded his argument before the United States Supreme Court, in the Amistad case, with the following touching reminiscence:

May it please your Honor: On the 7th of February, 1804, now more than thirty-seven years past, my name was entered, and yet stands recorded on both the rolls, as one of the attorneys and counselors of this Court. Five years later, in February and March, 1809, I appeared for the last time before this Court, in defense of the cause of justice, and of important rights, in which many of my fellow citizens had property to a large amount at stake. Very shortly afterwards, I was called to the discharge of other duties; first in distant lands, and in later years, within our own country, but in different departments of her Government. —

Little did I imagine that I should ever be required to claim the right of appearing in the capacity of an officer of this Court. Yet such has been the dictate of my destiny; and I appear again to plead the cause of justice, and now of liberty and life, in behalf of many of my fellow-men, before that same Court, which, in a former age, I had addressed in support of rights of property. I stand again, I trust for the last time, before the same Court, “hic castus artemque repeno.” I stand before the same Court, but not before the same judges, nor aided by the same associates, nor resisted by the same opponents. As I cast my eyes along those seats of honor and of public trust, now occupied by you, they seek in vain for one of those honored and honorable persons whose indulgence listened then to to my voice. Marshall, Cushing, Case, Washington, Johnson, Livingston, Todd: where are they? Where is that eloquent statesman and learned lawyer who was my associate counsel in the management of that cause — Robert Goodloe Harper? Where is that brilliant luminary, so long the pride of Maryland and of the American bar, then my opposing counsel — Luther Martin? Where is the excellent clerk of that day, whose name has been inscribed on the shores of Africa, as a monument of his abhorrence to the African slave trade — Elias B. Caldwell? Where is the marshal? Where are the criers of the Court? Alas! where is one of the very judges of the Court, arbiters of life or death, before whom I commenced this anxious argument? Gone! — gone from a world of sin and sorrow, I trust — to that blest abode, “where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.” And it is my ardent wish, and fervent prayer, that each and every one of you, may go to this final account with as little of earthly frailty to answer for, as those illustrious dead; and that you may every one, after the close of a long and virtuous career in this world, be received at the portals of the next with the approving sentence: Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”

Alton Telegraph And Democratic Review (Alton, Illinois) Mar 17, 1848

MR. ADAMS’ KINDNESS

The anecdotes of he ‘old man eloquent,’ would fill a volume. One of the most touching, and eminently illustrative of the devotedness which his domestic virtues called forth from those in his service, was recently narrated to us in substance as follows:

‘A few years ago, as John Quincy Adams was riding to the capitol, his horses became unmanageable and overturned his coach, dashing the driver, and Irishman, who had long been in Mr. Adams’ employ, with great violence against a post or the corner of a building. He was taken up for dead, and carried to an apartment in the capitol, under the room in which Mr. Adams breathed his last, followed by many persons among them Mr. Adams himself. After some time the injured man was restored to consciousness, and, apparently regardless of his own sufferings, turning his eyes anxiously around, his first words were — ‘Is Mr. Adams safe?’ Mr. Adams replied that he was unhurt. The poor fellow exclaimed, ‘Then I am content,’ and relapsed into an unconscious state. The venerable statesman was deeply moved at his evidence of affectionate regard for his welfare, and tears flowed down his cheeks. The wounded and suffering man was taken to the Patriot’s house, but did not survive until morning. Mr. Adams was engaged to speak in some important cause before the Supreme Court of the United States on that day — it is believed in the Amistad case; but his feelings were such that he went to he Court, and stating the circumstances that had occurred, solicited, as a personal favor, the postponement of the case until the next day, which was accordingly granted. The tokens of mourning were placed on Mr. Adams’ door, as if one of his own family had deceased; and the funeral took place from his house, and under his personal superintendence. Truly has it been said of the illustrious sage, ‘that he concentrated affection at home.’

Salem (Mass.) Register.

American Freeman (Prairieville, Wisconsin) Apr 5, 1848

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS ON EDITORS. 

In July, 1822, a plan for an independent newspaper was proposed to John Quincy Adams by some members of Congress, and the necessity of such a paper was urged upon him with great earnestness. He replied:

“An independent newspaper is very necessary to make truth known to the people; but an editor really independent must have a heart of oak, nerves of iron, and a soul of adamant to carry it through. His first attempt will bring a hornet’s nest about his head; and, if they do not sting him to death or to blindness, he will have to pursue his march with them continually swarming over him, and be beset on all sides with obloquy and slander.”

The Berkshire County Eagle (Pittsfield, Massachusetts) Jan 26, 1860

When John Quincy Adams was elected to the House of Representatives he found that he was the owner of some shares in the United States Bank. Before taking his seat he sold his shares, on the ground that, as a representative of the people, he should not have an interest in any matter that might come before the House for legislation.

What a blessed thing it would be if our members to-day were to be governed by the same sense of honor.

Allen County Democrat (Lima, Ohio) Mar 16, 1876

Image from Ancient Faces

The late Charles Francis Adams believed in himself as well as in his ancestors. Introduced to speak at a political meeting as the grandson of President John Adams, and the son of John Quincy Adams, he at once said: “The fact of my ancestry has been referred to several times during the evening. I am proud of my father and grandfather, but I wish it distinctly understood that I appear before you as myself, and not as the son and grandson of any man.”

He then went on and made one of the most powerful speeches of the day. The moral is obvious. Every tub has its own bottom. Every American it his own ancestor.

Bangor Daily Whig and Courier (Bangor, Maine) Dec 15, 1886

Didn’t Inspire Him.

When Lafayette visited Virginia he was entertained with other eminent guests by President Monroe at Oak Hill. Leesburg, too, the historic town nine miles from Monroe’s country seat, accorded him honors on that occasion, and at a dinner at that town John Quincy Adams delivered a famous toast to the surviving patriots of the Revolution, who, he said, were like the sibylline leaves — the fewer they became the more precious they were.

On the return to Oak Hill another of Monroe’s guests said to Mr. Adams:

“Excuse the impertinence, but would you not tell me what inspired the beautiful sentiment of your toast today?”

“Why,” replied Mr. Adams, “it was suggested this morning by the picture of the sibyl that hangs in the hall of the Oak Hill mansion.”

“How strange!” remarked the less brilliant guest. “I have looked at that picture many times during the past years, and that thought never occurred to me.”

Adams County News (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania) Jun 25, 1910

*****

Previously Posted:

The Life and Death of John Quincy Adams

Death at a Crossing

Image from the Oakland, IL Genealogy website

DEATH AT A CROSSING.

Levi Alsbury, an Old Veteran, Instantly Killed.

An old invalid soldier, Levi Alsbury, more familiarly known as “Button,” was instantly killed at 11:35 a.m. to-day at the Priest street crossing of the Illinois Central road, just east of the tray factory. He had been up town after some nails, and was returning to a new house in the fourth ward he was building, when he sat down on a log near the factory to rest. The Terre Haute and Peoria passenger train going toward the depot came along, and just before the train reached the crossing, Alsbury arose to cross over. The old man was subject to fainting spells and may have been suddenly attacked with a feeling of weakness as he arose from the log. The cow-catcher struck him and hurled him upward against the steam chest with great force, when the lifeless body dropped into the ditch. Nearly every bone in his body was broken. The body was removed by Coroner Perl to his office, where the inquest will be held this evening at 8 o’clock.

Mr. Alsbury was 48 years of age, and resided at 900 West Macon street. He leaves a wife and two children. Brice Alsbury, a son of his wife by a former marriage, was murdered at Kinney, Ill., a few years ago. Mr. A. served through the war as a member of Co. H, 63d Ill. Regiment and received a pension of $30 a month. His back pay received not long since was $1900.

It was T.H. & P. train 1, engine 4, that struck the man; Buchanan, conductor; George Winn, engineer; Jerry Ryan, fireman.

Decatur Daily Republican (Decatur, Illinois) May 14, 1887

KILLED BY THE CARS.

Levi Alsbury Struck Down By a T-H.& P. Train.

From Sunday’s Daily.

Levi Alsbury, a union ex-soldier, was killed at the Priest street crossing of the Illinois Central railroad a few minutes before 12 o’clock noon yesterday, by a Terre Haute & Peoria passenger train. He was struck by the pilot of the engine and his body was hurled a distance of nearly twenty feet. Alsbury had been up town to get a bundle of nails and was on his way to work on a dwelling which he was erecting in the Fourth ward, when he met his death. An inquest was held last night by Coroner Perl at his undertaking establishment on South Main street. The witnesses were John Sheeney, a bricklayer, George Winn, engineer, and Eugene Ryan, fireman on the engine of the train, and Mrs. S.J. Alsbury, wife of the deceased. Sheeney testified that Alsbury walked toward the crossing without looking down the track and was seemingly unmindful that the train was coming, although the engineer was sounding the whistle and the fireman was ringing the engine bell. The engineer testified that he sounded the station whistle at the usual place and subsequently sounded the whistle again to attract Alsbury’s attention. The fireman testified to the same fact. Alsbury did not discover his danger until he was on the track. Then he made a leap to get out of the way but was too late. He was struck by the top of the right side of the pilot and instantly killed. His neck, both arms and both legs, and his ribs were broken. The train at the time of the accident was running, according to the testimony of the engineer, fireman and Sheeney, not faster than six miles an hour.

The deceased was aged 48 years, and resides at 900 West Macon street. He leaves surviving him a wife and two children. He was the father of Brice Alsbury who was murdered at Kenney two years ago. Mr. Alsbury served in the union army during the late war as a member of Co. H, 63d Ill. Inf. He was wounded and lost a portion of the bones of his left arm. For this disability he was allowed a pension of $30 per month, and received back pay amounting to $1900.

Saturday Herald (Decatur, Illinois) May 21, 1887

EDWIN PHILBROOK, pension attorney, has received notice of a pension of $12 per month for Sarah J. Alsbury, Decatur, Ill., widow of Levi Alsbury, Company H, 63d Illinois Infantry.

Decatur Daily Republican ( Jan 15, 1890

Brice Alsbury’s Murder:

From Tuesday’s Daily.

Held for Trial.

Henry Teal, of Waynesville, was arrested on Friday for the murder of Brice Alsbury, upon a warrant sworn out by State’s Attorney Booth, of DeWitt county. He was taken to Clinton, and was given a preliminary hearing before Judge McHenry. The judge was of the opinion that Teal’s provocation for shooting Alsbury had a tendency to somewhat mitigate the enormity of the crime, and, on the plea of manslaughter, admitted him to bail in the sum of ten thousand dollars, for his appearance at the next term of the circuit court. Teal was released upon his furnishing the required bond. Wiley Marvel, John Teal and George B. Graham are his securities.

Saturday Herald (Decatur, Illinois) Mar 15, 1884

Murder Trial.

Henry Teal is on trial at Clinton before Judge Herdman for the murder of Brice Alsbury, at Waynesville, a year ago. Alsbury is well known about Mt. Zion, in this county, where his relatives reside. Attorneys Booth and Warner represent the People, and Dan Voorhees, of Indiana, and Lawyer Graham the defendant. A jury was secured last evening.

Decatur Daily Republican (Decatur, Illinois) Dec 11, 1884

SATURDAY last, at the second trial at Clinton, Henry Teal was found guilty and sentenced to one year at Joliet, for the murder of Brice Alsbury. Teal has applied for another new trial.

Decatur Daily Republican (Decatur, Illinois) Sep 7, 1885

LATE NEWS.

Henry Teal, for the murder of Brice Alsbury at Waynesville, Ill., more than a year ago, has been sentenced to one year’s imprisonment in the penitentiary of Illinois.

Oshkosh Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Sep 8, 1885

HENRY TEAL, who was found guilty of the murder of Brice Alsbury, was granted a new trial at Clinton, Thursday, by Judge Epler, on the grounds that two of the jurymen had previously expressed themselves as to Teal’s guilt.

Decatur Daily Republican (Decatur, Illinois) Sep 12, 1885

Teal Discharged.

Brice Alsbury, whose parents reside at Mt. Zion, this county, was injured at Waynesville, in DeWitt county, some years ago, and died. Henry M. Teal was indicted for the murder, and found guilty by a jury. He was granted a new trial and a change of venue to Havana. Yesterday State’s attorney Booth, of Clinton, entered a nolle in the case and Teal was discharged. Important witnesses have disappeared.

Decatur Daily Republican (Decatur, Illinois) Aug 7, 1886

Before the murder of Brice Alsbury:

YESTERDAY Brice Alsbury was arrested in Decatur on a state warrant charging him with having made an assault upon one James Houchens, at Waynesville, Ill., with intent to kill. The assault is alleged to have been made on October 17, since which time Alsbury has been skirmishing around for the benefit of his health. The prisoner was lodged in the county jail and the DeWitt county sheriff notified of the arrest.

Decatur Daily Republican (Decatur, Illinois) Dec 28, 1882

Corsets for Everyone

This poetic advertisement ran in the newspaper back in 1885:

How dear to my heart is the “Comfort Hip” Corset,
A well moulded figure ‘twas made to adorn,
I’m sure, as an elegant, close fitting corset,
It lays over all makes I ever have worn.
Oh, my! with delight it is driving me crazy,
The feelings that thrill me no language can tell;
Just look at its shape, — oh, ain’t it a daisy!
The “Comfort Hip” corset that fits me so well.
The close fitting corset – the “Lock Clasp” corset –
The “Comfort Hip” corset that fits me so well.

It clings to my waist so tightly and neatly,
Its fair rounded shape shows no wrinkle or fold;
It fits this plump figure of mine as completely
As if I’d been melted and poured in its mould.
How fertile the mind that was moved to design it,
Such comfort pervades each depression and swell,
The waist would entice a strong arm to entwine it, —
The waist of this corset that fits me so will.
The close fitting corset, — the “Lock Clasp” corset –
The “Comfort Hip” corset that fits me so well.

Of course I will wear it to parties and dances,
And gentlemen there will my figure admire!
The ladies will throw me envious glances,
And that’s just the state of affairs I desire;
For feminine envy and male admiration
Proclaim that their object’s considered a belle.
Oh, thou art of beauty – the fair consummation –
My “comfort Hip” corset that fits me so well.
The Five-Hook corset – the “Lock Clasp” corset –
The “Comfort Hip” corset that fits me so well.

The News (Frederick, Maryland) Dec 19, 1885

Saved By a Corset Steel.

Missouri Republican Last Saturday Mrs. Lucy Moore, aged twenty-one years, and a Mrs. Miller were among the passengers on the Santa Fe train coming to El Paso. About seventy miles north of El Paso, the train stopped in the open prairie on account of a hot journal. Mrs. Miller has a revolver that she had loaded for some time, and as she had tried in vain to pick out the cartridges, she thought it a good time to fire them off to empty the chambers. She fired several shots just at random, and then snapped the pistol three times. After the last shot she thought it was empty and went to picking out the shells when the weapon went off, the bullet striking Mrs. Moore in the pit of the stomach. The wounded woman was brought to El Paso. A medical examination showed that the corset had acted as a chain armor. The bullet struck a corset steel and was turned to the right, apparently causing only a flesh wound.

The Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Jan 6, 1888

Mrs. Robert Hintze, of 3606 Vincence avenue, Chicago, formerly Miss Jennie Gillet, of Fond du Lac, was badly injured by the bursting of one of the pipes of her kitchen range. The explosion resulted in badly lacerating her face, and she is in great danger of losing one of her eyes. A piece of iron struck her over the stomach, and would have probably caused fatal injury but for the resistance of a corset steel.

The Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Jan 5, 1888

Saved by Her Corset.

CHICAGO, Aug. 14 — Lillie Vale, who was shot by her lover, George Slosson in a Washington street saloon Sunday night, will not die. The ball struck a whalebone in her corset and glanced off, inflicting a serious but not fatal wound.

The Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Aug 14, 1888

Her Corset Saved Her.

New York, Jul 6 00 John Billses, out of pure patriotic devilment fired a loaded revolver into a crowd on James street yesterday. A bullet struck Mrs. Oliver Fairly in the waist but glanced off without doing her any injury. Her steel corset saved her life. John is held for trial.

The Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Jul 6, 1888

Bright Bits

Motto for a corset factory — “We have come to stay.”

The Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Dec 20 1886

FRIVOLITIES.

No woman ever went to a corset shop for a stay of proceedings.

The Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Jun  4, 1886

A New York lady has invented a corset which will squeeze a woman to death in five minutes if she feels like suicide.

The Fitchburg Sentinel (Ftichburg, Massachusetts) Oct 11, 1873

Why does a widow feel her bereavement less when she wears corsets? Because then she’s solaced.

The Fitchburg Sentinel (Fitchburg, Massachusetts) May 4, 1872

COMICAL CUTS.

The corset cannot be abolished; it is woman’s main-stay.

The Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) May 15, 1888

How to Put on a Corset.

The San Francisco Chronicle is responsible for the following amusing description of an examination by a coroner’s jury, where the coroner desired to show the course taken by the ball, and for this purpose produced the corsets worn by Mrs. Burkhart, at the time of the tragedy:

“You see,” said he — and here he drew the corsets around his waist lacings in front — “the ball must have gone here from behind. No, that can’t be either, for the doctor says the ball went in front. Confound it, I’ve got in on wrong. Ah! this way.” (Here the coroner put them on upside down.) “Now you see,” pointing to the hole in the garment, which rested directly over his hip, “the ball must have gone in here. No, that can’t be either, for” —

Here Mr. Mather, the handsomest man on the jury broke in —

“Dr. Stillman,” said he, “you’ve got the corset on wrong.”

Here Dr. Stillman blushed like a puppy.

“Well,” said he, “I’ve been married twice, and ought to know how to rig a corset.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Mather, “but you don’t. You had it right in the first place. The strings go in front, and the ladies clasp them together in the back. Don’t I know, I think I ought to; I’ve been married. If you doubt it, look here, (pointing to the fullness at the top.) How do you suppose that’s going to be filled up unless you put it on as I suggest?”

“That,” said Dr. Stillman; “why, that goes over the hops.”

“No, it don’t,” said Mr. Mather; “that fullness goes somewhere else — this way;” and here Mr. Mather indicated where he thought the fullness ought to go.

At this a pale faced young man with a voice like a robin, and a note book under his arm, said he thought the ladies always clasped their corsets on the side. The pale faced young man said this very innocently, as if he wished to convey the impression that he knew nothing whatever of the matter. The jury laughed the pale faced young man to scorn, and one of them intimated that he thought the young man was not half so green about women’s dress as he tried to appear. The young man was a reporter, and it is, therefore, exceedingly probable that this knowledge was fully as limited as was apparent from his suggestion, the jury to the contrary notwithstanding.

Here another juryman discovered that Dr. Stillman had the corset on bottom side up.

“Doctor,” said he, “put it on the other way.”
Then the doctor put it on in reverse order, with the lacings in front. This brought the bullet holes directly over the tails of his coat.

“I don’t think,” said Mr. Mather, “that the bullet went in there, doctor.”

“No, I don’t think it did,” was the reply. “Confound it. It’s mighty funny — six married men in this room and not one that knows how to put on a woman’s corset.”

Here the Chronicles reporter, who has several sisters and always keeps his eyes open, advanced and convinced Dr. Stillman and Mr. Mather, after much argument, that the lacings of the corsage go behind, and that the garment is clasped in front. After this explanation the course of the bullet was readily traced, and found to bear out the explanation afforded by the two physicians.

The Fitchburg Sentinel (Fitchburg, Massachuetts) Jun 12, 1874

Corsets for Men.

The corset is becoming more and more a necessity of the ultra-fashionable man’s toilet, says a New York paper. The latest style of corsets for men look more than anything else like a large-sized belt curved for the hips, and are about ten inches wide. They are made of the same material as a woman’s corset, but whalebones are used instead of steel for the purpose of giving shape to them. They are usually laced at the back and are faced in front by means of eleven small elastic bands. The elastic is used so as to give perfect freedom of motion.

“How much do these corsets cost?” was asked of a manufacturer.

“The corset-wearers pay all the way from $2.50 to $20 a pair, and they are very particular not to say cranky, about the fit of them.”

“What class of men wear them?”

“The men who wear them are, in the first place, the fashionable young fellows around town, who are intent on being known for their handsome figures, and who do everything they can to increase the size of their shoulders and diminish the size of their waist. Outside of these the wearers of them are military men and stout men who find themselves growing too corpulent for gracefulness. Actors often wear them, and among the actors who are addicted to this sort of thing Kyrle Bellow and Herbert Kelsey are most frequently quoted. These men, it’s said, “secure corsets from a theatrical costumer instead of the fashionable furnishing-goods men on Broadway.”

The Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) May 10, 1890

Now they are talking of corsets for men. Some people will go any length to get tight.

Modesto Evening News (Modesto, California) Feb 13, 1923

Not content with one external revolt, there are those devotees to style who are advocating (no fooling) corsets for men.

“What’s this country coming to, anyway?” the writer heard one man asking another in conversation. “There’s no dispute on the point that ‘co-worked’ form would be the corset wearer’s, but the real mission of the corset would be to shape the wearer’s career.”

And all this climaxes an announcement at the Mercantile Exposition (in the broadest sense) that corsets practically are going to be taboo with “madame who wishes to be right in style,” figuratively speaking.

And, in the words of the gentleman quoted above, there is cause to wonder “if man really is to become the unwitting victim of the law of compensation, because somebody [has] to wear the darn things.”

Modesto Evening News (Modesto, California) Aug 10, 1923

An Electric Corset.

Paris is laughing over a joke about an American inventor who is said to have patented an electric corset that is to bring about the reign of morality at once. If one of these articles is pressed by a lover’s arm it at once emits a shriek like the whistle of a railway engine; and the inventor claims that he has already married three of his daughters, owing to the publicity thus thrust upon a backward lover.

Daily Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Jul 16, 1891

A Few Words About Electric Appliances.

ALBERT LEA, May 28th, 1886 — W.S. Jackson — DEAR SIR: Previous to wearing Dr. Scott’s Electric corset I was troubled with severe pains in my back and shoulders, and after using one for only two weeks the pain has entirely disappeared. I would not part with it for four times its cost.

MISS BERTHA REIMER

Freeborn County Standard (Albert Lea, Minnesota) Jun 16, 1886

Every Mail brings us Testimonials like the following:

Memphis, Tenn., November 28.
Dr. Scott’s Electric Corsets have given me much relief, I suffered four years with breast trouble, without finding any benefit from other remedies. They are invaluable.

MRS. JAS. CAMPBELL.

*****

De Witt, N.Y., June 11.
I have an invalid sister who has not been dressed for a year. She has worn Dr. Scott’s Electric Corsets for two weeks, and is now able to be dressed and sit up most of the time.

MELVA J. DOE.

Daily Democratic Times (Lima, Ohio) Sep 29, 1886

Even children should wear corsets! Be a sensible mother — get your child a corset so she can be beautiful.

The Salem Daily News (Salem, Ohio) Aug 26, 1890

Where No Irish Need Apply

Image from the Food @ Hunters Hill website.

Hurray for the Irish!

The other day we tossed a scallion to an Irish-owned Employment Agency on 6th Avenue because it posted a sign reading: “No Irish Need Apply.”

Now comes a reminder from William Kenny of East Haven, Conn., who says that this is taken from an old Dean Swift quotation. Swift saw the same sign on a factory — No Irish Need Apply!

So he took out his pencil and under that sign be swiftied: “Who ever wrote this wrote it well, For the same is written on the Gates of Hell!”

Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Mar 23, 1932

Image from the Lehman College website.

The New York Sun supplies the following ingenious explanation of the origin of the expression, “No Irish need apply.” “The words for a time were common in advertisements of servants wanted. The story is that Dean Swift and his Irish servant were travelling near Cork and reached that city, then governed by some Englishman. He had fastened a sign on the gates to the effect that Irishmen would not be admitted. The dean passed in, Patrick was left outside. He saw this sign, and presently added this couplet:

“”‘Whoever wrote this, wrote it well,
For the same is written on the gates of hell.'”

Galveston Daily News (Galveston, Texas) Feb 23, 1896

A girl, presenting herself for a situations, at a house “where no Irish need apply,” in answer to the question where she came from, said: “Shure, couldn’t you persave by me accint that it’s Frinch I am?”

Decatur Republican (Decatur, Illinois) Feb 25, 1869

DURING a recent engagement of Mr. and Mrs. Barney Williams in Philadelphia, a woman, with an infant, attended one of the performances. The baby kept up an incessant cry. At the end of the play, Mr. Williams was called before the curtain. The baby was bawling lustily. Mr. Williams looked around for a moment then said:

“Shure there’s a nurse wanted.”

A roar of laughter followed. When the mirth had subsided, the woman with the infant arose and replied:

“No Irish need apply.”

There was a tremendous burst of applause, amid which the woman, with the musical baby, triumphantly retired.

Decatur Review (Decatur, Illinois) May 25, 1871

New York Daily Times – Mar 25, 1854

The New York Times – May 10, 1859

The Daily Republican -(Illinois) – May 7, 1873

The Ohio Democrat – May 10, 1883

“No Irish Need Apply.”

Editors Morning Herald.

In running my eye over your list of local news items April 1st, my attention was particularly attracted by an advertisement for the respectable and responsible position of “maid of all work” with the qualifying (but not obsolete) phrase “no Irish need apply.” The advertiser did well to add this last phrase, lest all the Irish in the city might apply together, as the position was too good to miss it there would be a rush sure of the “wild Irish.”

I fear the advertisers have outlived their time, as Irish-phobia and Knownothingism are dead and buried so deep as to be past resurrection. I am told the same phrase, “no Irish need apply,” is posted on the doors and gates of the nether world, as well as on some of their facsimiles on terra firma. The occupants of the house referred to must be sleeping, or out of the country, for the last ten or eleven years, as during that time their fell of bigotry toward the Irish was crushed out and Irish have held positions of trust and danger from the time the first gun was fired on Fort Sumpter down to the present date. In conclusion my Irish friends are better off without such anglicised bigots for employers.

Yours, &c,
“IRISH”

Titusville Morning Herald (Titusville, Pennsylvania) Apr 2, 1872

“Dennis, my boy,” said a schoolmaster to his Hibernian pupil, “I fear I shall make nothing of you — you’ve no application.”

“An’ sure enough, sir,” said the quick-witted lad, “Isn’t myself that’s always been tould there is no occasion for it? Don’t I seen every day in the newspapers that ‘No Irish need apply,’ at all at all?”

The Fitchburg Sentinel (Fitchburg, Massachusetts) Aug 18, 1883

IT will be noticed that our city government is a regular knownothing concern. The first year of the present administration the Irish and Germans were recognized, in a small way, and even Johnny Bull got a small slice, but the second year every foreign born citizen was bounced. Not only has the promise to “take care” of the men who like a glass of beer been violated, but the men who were largely instrumental in the election of the republican city ticket aer not now recognized in the appointments. No Dutch or Irish need apply, except to shovel on the streets.

Decatur Morning Review (Decatur, Illinois) Jul 15, 1884

“No Irish Need Apply.”

TO THE EXPRESS: — An unknown poetic friend sends me the following stirring poem. It deserves circulation, and will be read with pride by all lovers of distressed Erin — the laurel-twined isle, so ignobly oppressed that station comes not till at treason’s behest:

J.N. GALLAGHER.

Shame on the lips that utter it, shame on the hands that write;
Shame on the page that publishes such slander to the light.
I feel my blood with lightning speed through all my being fly
At the old taunt, forever new —
No Irish need apply!

Are not our hands as stout and strong, our hearts as warm and true
As theirs who fling this mock at us to cheat us of our due?
While ‘neath our feet God’s earth stands firm and ‘bove us hangs his sky,
Where there is honor to be won —
The Irish need apply!

Oh! have not glorious things been done by Irish hearts and hands?
Are not her deeds emplazoned over many seas and lands?
There may be tears on Ireland’s cheek, but still her heart beats high,
And where there’s valor to be shown —
The Irish need apply!

Wherever noble thoughts are nurs’d and noble words are said,
Wherever patient faith endures, where hope itself seems dead,
Wherever wit and genius reign, and heroes tower high,
Wherever manly toil prevails —
The Irish will apply!

Wherever woman’s love is pure as soft, unsullied snow,
Wherever woman’s cheek at tales of injury will glow,
Wherever pitying tears are shed, and breathed is feeling’s sigh,
Wherever kindliness is sought —
The Irish need apply!

If there is aught of tenderness, If there is aught of worth,
If there’s a trace of heaven left upon our sinful earth;
If there are noble, steadfast hearts that uncomplaining die
To tread like them life’s thorny road —
The Irish will apply!

Till on Killarney’s waters blue the soft stars cease to shine,
Till round the parent oak no more the ivy loves to twine.
Till Nephin topples from his place and Shannon’s stream runs dry,
For all that’s great and good and pure —
The Irish will apply!

F.R.H.

San Antonio Daily Express (San Antonio, Texas) Aug 26, 1886

The defeat of John W. Corcoran for lieutenant governor, and the putting aside of Owen A. Galvin as a mayoralty candidate, may be regarded by the Irish-American voters as a notification from the mugwumps that when it comes to offices “no Irish need apply.” — {Boston Traveller.

The Fitchburg Sentinel (Fitchburg, Massachusetts) Nov 14, 1890

Mrs. Noshape — There, you careless creature, you have dropped that beautiful statue of Venus and Broken it all to pieces.

Bridget — Well, mum, you ought to be glad av it. Sized up alongside of Vaynus your figure was at considerable disadvantage.

And no Mrs. Noshape has advertised for a new servant that is respectful and well-behaved. No Irish need apply.

— Texas Siftings.

The Stevens Point Gazette (Stevens Point, Wisconsin) Jun 12, 1895

Image from the Parlor Songs website, and includes an interesting article about the Irish Immigrants and the song.

FAIR ENOUGH By Westbrook Pegler

[excerpt]
Hated Like Present Jew Refugees

The Irish refugees of those days, men and women of the same faith and stock from which Father Coughlin himself has sprung, were hated like the Jewish refugees of the present. Election frauds and immigration frauds were bitterly resented by the native Americans as politicians exploited the greenhorns to thwart native proposals and defeat their tickets at the polls.

The immigrants were untidy, disorderly and troublesome, speaking in general terms. So, even as late as the turn of the century, a music hall song, possibly one of Harrigan and Hart’s, sounded the refrain, “And they were Irish, and they were Irish, and yet they say ‘no Irish need apply’.”

This referred to the virtues of Irish heroes and to the open prejudice against the Irish expressed in the employment ads in American cities.

The bill against the Irish and, of course, the Catholics — for they were almost all Catholic — also accused them of carrying into their new life here their active hatred of a foreign nation with which this country was on friendly terms. It was argued that immigrants who took citizenship here had no right to imperil the life of their new country by activities which might involve the United States in a war with Great Britain.

Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Feb 25, 1939

Abe Lincoln, Remembered

Happy Birthday, Mr. Lincoln!

An Abe Lincoln Story.

Senator Mills has a new story about Lincoln. It was told to him by a son of John L. Helm of Kentucky, who lives in Corsicana.

“Old John L. Helm,” said the senator, “was a famous character in Kentucky. He was, if I remember rightly, a governor of the state, but at any rate his position was a most prominent one. When the civil war came on, Helm was a rabid secessionist. He could not praise the south too highly, and could not heap enough abuse upon the north. He was too old to go into the war with is sons, and remained at home, doing all he could to help the confederate cause and harass the Yankees who invaded the state. Finally he became so obstreperous that the federal general who was in command near Helm’s home put him in prison. The old man’s age, the high position which he occupied in the state, his wide connection, and, especially his inability to do any actual harm, were all pleaded in his extenuation and he was released.

Instead of profiting by the warning, the old man became more persistent than ever in his course. Once more he was clapped into jail. This happened two or three times, and finally, while he was still locked up, the matter was brought to the attention of the federal authorities. Even President Lincoln was appealed to, and asked to commit the ardent southerner to an indefinite confinement in order that he might be curbed.

“Lincoln listened to the statement of the case with more than usual interest. Then he leaned back and began to speak with a smile upon his face. “You are talking about old man John Helm? Well, did you know that I used to live, when I was a boy, in Helm’s town. He was kind to me. He seemed to like me as a boy, and he never lost an opportunity to help me. He seemed to think,” said Lincoln, with another of his almost pathetic smiles, “that I would probably make something of a man. Why, when I went out to Illinois, poor and unknown, that man gave me the money to pay my way and keep me until I got a start. John Helm? O, yes, I know him And I know what I owe to him. I think I can fix his case.”

“And then,” said Senator Mills, “Lincoln went to a desk and wrote a few words. The bit of writing is treasured in the Helm household to this day. This is what the president wrote:

“I hereby pardon John L. Helm of Kentucky for all that he has ever done against the United States, and all that he ever will do.

“‘ABRAHAM LINCOLN.'”

The Nebraska State Journal (Lincoln, Nebraska) Dec 20, 1897

LINCOLN.

This man, whose homely face you look upon,
Was one of Nature’s masterful great men;
Born with strong arms, that unfought battles won;
Direct of speech and cunning with pen.

Chosen for large designs, he had the art
Of winning with his humor, and he went
Straight to his mark, which was the human heart.
Wise, too, for what he could not break he bent.

Upon his back a more than Atlas load,
The burden of the commonwealth was laid;
He stooped and rose up to it, though the road
Shot suddenly downward, not a whit dismayed.

Hold, warriors, counselors, kings! — All now give place
To this dear benefactor of the race.

R.H. STODDARD.

The News (Frederick, Maryland) Apr 10, 1886

Image from the Haunted Hudson Valley website.

LINCOLN’S PHANTOM FUNERAL TRAIN.

A writer in the Albany [Evening Times] relates a conversation with a superstitious night watchman on the New York Central Railroad. Said the watchman: “I believe in spirits and ghosts. I know such things exist. If you will come up in April I will convince you.” He then told of the phantom train that every year comes up the road with the body of Abraham Lincoln. Regularly in the month of April, about midnight, the air on the track becomes very keen and cutting. On either side it is warm and still. Every watchman when he feels this air steps off the track and sits down to watch.

Soon after the pilot engine, with long black streamers, and a band with black instruments, playing dirges, grinning skeletons sitting all about, will pass up noiselessly, and the very air grows black. If it is moonlight, clouds always come over the moon, and the music seems to linger, as if frozen with horror. A few moments after and the phantom train glides by. Flags and streamers hang about. The track ahead seems covered with a black carpet, and the wheels are draped with the same. The coffin of the murdered Lincoln is seen lying on the center car, and all about it in the air and the train behind are vast numbers of blue-coated men, others leaning on them. It seems then, that all the vast armies of men who died during the war are escorting the phantom train of the President.

The wind, if blowing, dies away at once, and over all the solemn air a solemn hush, almost stifling prevails. It a train were passing, its noise would be drowned in the silence, and the phantom train would ride over it. Clocks and watches always stop, and when looked at are found to be from five to eight minutes behind. Everywhere on the road, about the 27th of April, the time of the watches and trains is found suddenly behind. This, said the leading watchman, was from the passage of the phantom train.

Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Dec 21, 1872

Texas Lynching – Abuse of 14 year-old Wife

Image by K-Weston on Flickr

TEXAS LYNCHING.

James Howard Taken From Jail and Hanged at Midnight.

TEXARKANA, Tex., Dec. 18. — James Howard, aged 35 years, was taken from jail here at midnight of the 15th, by a masked mob, by whom he was carried a short distance below town and hanged to a railroad trestle. Howard was arrested Wednesday on a warrant sworn out by his mother-in-law, Mrs. Winchew, charging him with maltreating his wife, who si scarcely 14 years old. Howard and his wife were married last July. Mrs. Howard tells the story of the atrocious brutality on the part of her husband. She says he frequently tied her feet together, while she was in a state of nudity, and hanging her up by the feet, beat her unmercifully and threatened to kill her if she told any one of his cruelties.

On the first day of November Howard took a common branding iron, used to brand live stock and heating it red hot branded a large letter “H” on his wife’s person in two places while she was tied to the bed. After suffering several weeks from the effects of these burns, Mrs. Howard  told her mother what had happened with the result that Howard was arrested.

Deputy Sheriff Hargett anticipated that a mob would attack the jail at night, and had employed extra guards, but the mob gained entrance while the guards were eating their midnight meal.

Milford Mail (Milford, Iowa) Dec 23, 1886