Cornell University Library F 127 .G19K35 Genesee couritry. 3 1924 025 959 408 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924025959408 THE iNESEE COUNTRY / BY JOHN KENNEDY, uthor of "Robert Morris and the Holland Purchase." 1895. Calkins & Lent, Publishers, Batavia, N. Y. ■■i„- J;j!. .1 ; ! '^■' CONTENTS. An jEsthetical Digression A Century of Dishonor A Dakota Vision A Descriptive Digression An Educational Digression An Essay in Criticism A Literary Digression A Linguistic Digression A Literary Nemesis . A Minerva from the Hudson An Opportune Titan . Apollo in the Woods . A -Sentimental Digression A Vanished Eden A Wilderness at Home ". Befo' the Wah" Bits of History Dean Richmond Fairy Land Greek the Armor of Religion ■Going Out in Glory . General Scott . ■Greater than a Titan . Morrisiana Noblesse Oblige Our Debt to Antiquity On Mai-Teaching Patriot — Not Financier Pioneering Reminiscences Some Further Thoughts on Education Some Thoughts on Iconoclasm The Agent of the Millennium The Aryans The Awakening of Japan " The Arms and the Man I Sing" The Breaking of the Spell The Centennial The English Language The Genesee Country The Genesee Country in Winter The Greatest Hero of the Genesee The Hudson .... CONTENTS — CONTINUED. The Heroes of the Genesee The Judge .... The Last of the Iroquois The Later Heroes of the Genesee The Man of Bunker Hill The Man of Valley Forge The Mound Builders of the Genesee The Memoirs of Robert Morris The Pioneer .... The Pioneer's Wardrobe The Prairies The Phantom Steamboat The Peace Jubilee The Preservation of the Old Land Office The Red Man's Epic of Peace The Second and Greater Revolution The Sovereign Sway of Beauty The Symbol of a Nation The Titan Again The Woes of the Pioneers The White City vVhat is History? 3^ 168 83 39- 163 188 26- 221 3 216 76 94 123 73 63 ^7 y8 »3& 85 114 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. View on the Genesee at Portage The Pioneer Cabin An Interior in the Old Holland Land Office Grandmother Could Describe Them The Lower Falls of the Genesee Winter in the Genesee Country Winter Transfigured . A Mound of the Genesee The State Park in Batavia . View from a Mound of the Genesee A Mound of the Genesee A Reflection of the Parthenon The Home of Trumbull Cary In the Shadow of Greatness . The President's Mansion The Old Holland Land Office Robert Morris, Patriot Washington's Headquarters . ■Washington's Home . Washington's Tomb . The Phantom Steamboat The Old Holland Land Office Where the Architects Get their Inspiration " Let us Have Peace" The Peristyle . A Corner in the Court of Honor Fairy Land In the Court of Honor The Queen of Fairy Land In Fairy Land The Art Palace View in Niagara Rapids Fair Chautauqua Faneuil Hall . The Tonawanda Plateau A Vista ■ - . ,,; The Morris Family Crest The Home of Phineas Tracy The Border of the Genesee Country Joseph Ellicott The Outlet of Lake Otsego . The Tomb of Joseph Ellicott LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS — CONTINUED. 'i'he U. S. Treasury Building Hon. John G. Carlisle Dedication of the Holland Land Office Washington's Monument The " Last Chieftain of the Iroquois" The Home of George W. Lay A Ghost of the Past .... A Cove in Silver Lake The Tonawanda Bridge Halcyon Days .... The Old Genesse Court House The Patent Office . The Iowa Corn Palace Not W"indsor Park Where Grass-Lawn and Shrubbery Meet . . Rounding Wooded Island . A. Forest Idyl . . . . ^ The Residence of Dean Richmond . Mot the Black Forest . \ Glimpse of Paradise Q. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington The Court of Honor from the Peristyle The Mausoleum of Dean Richmond 5tate, War, and Navy Building, Washington City The Old Wooden Railroad Bridge at Portage jmithsonian Institute, Washington The Guardian of the Frontier The Capitol at Washington . ^ City Within a Building The Falls of the Genesee at Portage ^ Stretch of Fairy Land The Battle of Bunker Hill . Vashington at Trenton . . . The Birth-Place of Independence . I'he Colonnade .... 'arewell'to the' Court of Honor . ■ . ■ First in War, First in Peace" \ 146 148 150 154 156 158 luo 162 164 166 168 170 172 174 176 178 1 80 182 1^4 189 igi rg2 194 196 199 202 204 206 209 211 214 217 219 222 224 227 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. TH E PIONEE R. What constitutes a state 7 Not bigb-raised battlement or labored mound, Tblck wall or moated gate ; Not cities proud w!tb spires and turrets crowned; Not bays and broadarm ports, Where, langblng at the storm, rich navies ride; Not starred and spangled courts. Where lowbrowed baseness wafts perfume to pride . No:— men, high-minded men. With powers as far above dull brutes endued In forest, bralie, or4en, . As beasts excell cold rocks and brambles rude,— Hen who their duties know. But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain. Present the long aimed blow. And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain: These constitute a state; And sovereign law, that state's oolleoted will. O'er thrones and globes elate. Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill. —Sir William Jones. THE guadri-centennial anniversary of the discovery of America was cele- brated with great pomp in Chicago by the Columbian Word's Fair. That great discovery introduced a new era in history — the great era of the pioneer. He was never known before. There has been scarce- ly anything else known since. The history of modern times is the history of the pioneer. Nineteen years ago we had another great centennial year. We then cele- brated the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of a great, free, and enlight- ened nation founded in the forests of the New World by the arms of the pioneers. The men who started in from Maine to Georgia and undertook to push a thousand miles of frontier line were, as Lowell happily and truthfully says, ' ' men with empires in their brains. " The thousand miles of frontier line has moved.steadily onward until it is now awakening the echoes of those distant solitudes where once "rolled the Oregon, and heard no sound save his own dashings." A well organized nation of seventy milliops is established on the labors of the pioneer, and will ever hold him in honored remembrance. Lowell says that Cooper created but one character — but that one was enough for fame — the white hunter, Natty Bumppo. On the shore of Otsego Lake a lofty granite shaft upholds an effigy of the brave child of the forest, 4 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. arrayed in his liunting stiirt, his coonskin cap, and leggins, and holding " Kill Deer" in his hand. Thus one aspect of the pioneer has been caught by genius and immortalized. But Cooper came pretty near supplying another char- acter when he wrote up Billy Kirby, the wood-chopper of Otsego. The stalwart young giant who laid the edge of his axe against the loftiest pine as though the felling of the monster was a mere trifle ; the youth who made the woods vocal with his songs at the sugar-making ; the youth who was the life of every bee and frolic and turkey shoot ; the man who was ever ready to lend his great strength to the constable or sheriff in making the arrest of a law-breaker ; the man who could storm an outlaw's stronghold and look without a quiver into the barrel of his rifle while calling upon him to surrender, — certainly came very near being a character. But those flitting young men passing from forest to forest and from settle- ment to settlement, with all their merits are f^r from being the best types of the pioneer. They are remembered with love for their amiable traits. But yoti ' see the pioneer in earnest when you see the man who took his family into the woods and fought out the problem of existence there. Some genius will yet bring out the Endicotts, the Putnams, and the Lincolns into as distinct relief as the Bumppos and the Kirbys. The finest literature in the world will yet cluster around the early settlements of America and the American pioneer. A great subject will surely one day find a great voice. Some great character will typify the whole movement. His shaft will not stand by a secluded lake but rather on the shore of the mighty ocean itself. The figure will have a suggestion of Bumppo, Kirby, Endicott, Putnam, and Lincoln ; as the typi- cal pioneer will represent all those characters fused into one. The on-rush of history since the pioneer got abroad is simply amazing. America has bepn made since the battle of Bunker Hill; the revolutionary set-- tie men ts were but a mere fringe along the Atlantic coast; the site of Bataviaj was then buried in the wilderness two hundred miles beyond the remotest set- lements. Think of all the history that. has been made since Bunker Hill! Think of Rochester, and Buffalo, and Cleveland, and Cincinnati, and Chicago, and St. Lotiis, and San Francisco. Yet the interval since Bunker Hill is com- prehended by two lives. A gifted friend of mine who is still in vigorous health and who has a prospect of many years yet before him, has written a spirited poem on "The Fifer of Bunker Hill." The poet who is now living an honored resident of Batavia, got the materials for his poem at first-hand ; he conversed with the fifer of Bunker Hill, and heard him blow on the identi- cal fife the tunes that stirred the hearts of the Old Continentals to stubborn battle. "What of the limitless future, if so much has been accomplished within the scope of two generations? I could describe the homes of the Vanderbilts and the Astors, of the Rhinelanders and the Roosevelts. I have traversed the Beacon street of the Modern Athens and have viewed the statued thoroughfares of our National Capital. But these sights have never stirred my feelings half so much as a little structure that.*[ once saw in the Old South Church in Boston, stirred them. It was a model of a Puritan's cabin — the cabin of the first pioneer. In the capacious fire-place with its well swept hearth a generous supply of logs was resting on the identical andirons that upheld the feul for those who looked death and history in the face in that dreadful winter of 1620 that THE GENESEE COUNTRY. 5 winter of dire exposure and starvation. The pots and kettles that cooked their clams and such other meagre provisions as they could command were near at hand ; and the cranes that upheld them were in place. The dishes were arranged away with housewifery taste in a neat but humble cupboard. A few chairs of the olden time were on the clean floor, together with the plain table at which the pioneer ate his humble meal. The cradle that once held the child of Rose Standish ere she and the little darling both went down to sleep under the snow of that winter of death was there carrymg its eloquent silence down to remotest posterity. Over against the cradle was the spinning wheel whose music played an accompaniment to Priscilla's throbbing heart as she heard the message from Miles Standish and prayed that John Alden might ""ri- .•■•v-'4 r^' •*'■ ;■'•. i •*•> -i .'3,-. v'tS? ^ ^'-^^^jk t ■■■■ i ■if "'■ '■^"'^¥''t^&''''-l.'' ^ :..... ^A ■■l"R-i- ■ "j" *ii ■ -.\:: :::::.h-^^--'t-^/ itti '-.%> ' •^, i ■ ■„"■ 5Um1 ■^■n^^^^^H {■mm . ■ " '• h nil '■ asr^- - "PC' - — ^^^■^^^1 m^:. - , '"'^^^M^^^^^^^m THE PIONEER CABIN AT SILVER LAKE, IN THE HEART OF THE GENESEE. plead only for himself. On the wall was the flintlock that had '■ seen service in Flanders," that had brought food from the forest, and that had kept the prowling savage at bay. Here indeed was history. Beacon street with its luxury and culture was but a stone's-throw away. I turned from it with indif- ference and took off my hat to Plymouth Rock. The Old South was teeming that day with relics of the colonial period, the period of America's first pioneers. Those relics were exhibited for the purpose of raising a fund to save the Old South itself from falling into the hands of the modern speculator. I will mention one other relic to show the kind of men that were nursed in the cradles of the woodland cabins. On a table with other reUcs was a small rapier sheathed in a faded scabbard attachad to an equally faded belt. It was an insignificant little object. Never in my life, however, have I been go njoved as I W4S at the sight of that small weapon resting in its faded cover. 6 , THE GENESEE COUNTRY. It had belonged to, an obscure farmer who had been awakened from his slumbers by the midnight alarm of Paul Revere, as the latter dashedthrough-the settle- ments on his flying steed and reported that the British soldiers were movtng- out from Boston. Our farmer was already in the service of his country as a minute man. He had drilled his neighbors of Acton town, and was honored with the appointment of captain. He had fed his animals for. the last time on earth, and had retired as usual, with his armor of warfare on the chair by his side* The dusk of morning found the Acton company hovering on the heights of Concord town, feeling theii way to battle. The roar of destruction came on the breeze from Lexington ; and immediately the victorious regulars came marching with gleaming-bayonets and well-drilled step into the streets of Concord. They despised the straggling companies of common folks that made a show of resistance on the hills. They saw that there was no coher- ence, no organization, no drill. Opposed to their muskets and bayonets were only the squirrel rifles and such heterogeneous weapons as happened to be in the houses of a pioneer settlement. The militia at Lexington had disappeared betore the withering fire like late snow flakes before the burning rays of the rising sun. Again and again the patriots fell back before superior numbers, superior equipment, and superior training. ';;The torch was applied to the stores at Concord ; and the regulars faced back to Boston to tell the story of their success. The Acton company was in their front,, its commander raging like a caged lion. He sullenly gave way with his, little band until the bridge was reached and crossed. There' his patience was exhausted. Turning to his men he said: "This thing has gone far enough;! > propose that we make a stand right here. " The little rapier flew . from its ^ shea& ; and at the word of command the squirrel rifles were discharged into- the .faees of the reg- ulars. At the return volley Captain Isaac Davis fell forjsvard'on his face, ho longer an obsecure farmer, but one of the most renowned. heroes that ,the world has ever produced. I need not stop to tell the s.toi^ of ^Cpneordjigflit, how the struggle at the bridge brought all the neighborhood dowh upon the regulars, how every wall and fence and building became a Jjreastwork ot blaz- ing weapons, how the fleeing British were saved frofl);utter annihilation only by the timely arrival of heavy re-enforements, how the ■ rescued remnant fell upon the ground with tongues protruding in the last stage of exhaustion, i "By the, rude bridge that arohed the flood, . , • Their flag to April's breeze unfurled. Here once the embattled farmers stood, . ; And fired the shot heard round the world." The gatherings of pioneers are eminently proper; eminently .useful, and pre-eminently agreeable. It is eminently proper for those who. haye stood together in the hour of trial and danger to meet and talk of .old titnes, old scenes, and dangers past. This feeling brings the surviving soldiers "flying from all parts of the land to attend the reunions of their old regiments. It is like a family reunion, for once a common danger drew them together closer than brothers. These gatherings of pioneers are eminently useful ; for they bring out the best kind of history for the instruction of the on-looker, viz;-, the history of the eye-witnesS or of the actual participant.^ When ^neas held the Carthaginian queen and her people spell-bound with his story it was be. cause he was able to say: " All of which I saw and part of which I was." , TilE Genesee country. • 1 " The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay. Sat by his flre, and talked the night away; Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done. Shouldered his orntoh and showed how fields were won." And what is more agreeable than the story of . old times? When the ship -wrecked Trojans were tossed ashore on the wild inhospit. . able coast of Libya, far from their destination, ruined and undone, not know- ing which way to turn in their deep distress and sorrow, their leader endeav- ored to arouse their spirits by assuming a cheerfulness which he did not possess, and by reminding them that some day these dire adventures would be something pleasant to talk about. "Forsan et hcec olim memimsse juvabit." It is the community of danger and struggle, that need of mutual helpful, ness, which gives the word neighbor its true meaning. He is my neighbor who helps me in time of trial and who comforts and cheers me in my loneli- ness and sorrow. The old settlers have fought the battle together ; they have visited each other in sickness and in health ; thdy have followed one another to the tonib. The old settler has his neighbors all over a county ; the city man dogs not know, nor want to know, the family residing next door. The old set- tlers band themselves together and form a local aristocracy. This is right. It is the aristocracy of worth ; the test of time is on the article ; its genuineness is established beyond question. Every pioneer is a new nobleman ; and every man who has the courage to go somewhere and be an old settler may become the founder of a house. Greeley's pithy " Go West, young man," was a sug- , gestion to go and get a dukedom. I have spoken of what has been, and what is. But what is to be is greater than all. Our pioneer has been moving on parallel lines. He has been true to the adage that '.' westward the course of empire moves." But he will soon have no west. Then will he take to his meridians ; and some future historian will tell of his doings at Baffins Bay and Cape Horn. He will then deploy his skirmish lines through Africa and eventually reach the Amoor. Csesar built a bridge and crossed the Rhine ; but he hurried back again because he encountered there a man who was destined to make a better his- tory than he could make. The pioneer emanates from the German forest ; the Anglo-Saxon is the world-maker. But he does not make the world for Csesar. He makes the world for families and for old and new settlers. In the world of the Anglo-Saxon every man has freedom and scope to follow the bent of his tastes and aspirations. He has the opportunity to make the most out of his life without having any one to molest or make him afraid. The pioneer is the pioneer of liberty. Every old settler is not only a nobleman, he is a fraiction of a king ; a king powerful and beneficent, a king before whom all the other mojiarchs of the sarth are beginning to bend the knee, a king to whom all the other monarchs of the earth will yet be obliged to surrender their crowns, thrones, and dominions. ■ ■ I have said that genius would yet write up the story of the pioneer and paint him on a canvass that would do justice to his manly traits. Let me close this passage with a vison seen by genius before the first pioneer entered the wilds of America. The golden ages of literature were the fifth century before Christ in Greece, the first century before Christ in Rome, the fifteenth 8 J THE GENESEE CONNTRY. century in Italy, the sixteenth century in England, and the seventeenth cen- tury in France. In each of those periods human genius reveled in its powers and brought forth the noljlest productions under the very stress as it were of necessary creation. Shakespeare had his contemporaries and his compeers, the glorious galaxy of the Elizabethan age, men who rank in our literature as stars of the first magnitude ; though their radiance was somewhat obscured by the sunlight of his imperial powers. On hearing that Virginia was to be set- tled the poet Drayton gave vent to his enthusiasm in an impatient burst of song and prophecy : PIONEER HISTORY — AN INTERIOR IN THE OLD HOLLAND LAND OFFICE. Ye brave heroic minds I Worthy your country's name. That honor still pursue Whilest loitering hinds Lurk here at hoi^. In shame, Go and subdue I Britons, you stay too long I Quickly aboard bestow you ! And with a spreading gale Swell the stretched sail. And with vows as strong As the winds that blow you I And cheerily at sea Success you still entice To get the pearl and gold And ours to hold Virginia, earth's paradloe I THE GENESEE COUNTRY. In kennins of the shore. Thanks to God first given, Oh ! ye, the happiest men ! Be frolic then ! Let cannons roar Frighting the wide heaven ! And in regions far Such heroes bring ye forth. And those from whom we came, And plant our name Under that star Not Known to our worth ! And as there plenty grows Of laurels everywhere, Apollo's sacred tree Yoait may see, A poet's brow to crown That may ."ins there. BEFO' THE WAH. ANY one who chances to overhear any conversation anyw^here in the South will not fail to hear the phrase " befo' the wah."' And he will not fail to hear it again and again if the con- versation continues. This is because the older population of the South have lived in widely differing eras; and they cannot avoid making comparisons. The war broke up the whole structure of ante bellum society. Old customs and old characters have disappeared forever with the conditions that brought them into existence. Those vanished cus- toms and characters were very picturesque ; and literary art is now doing its best to stereotype and preserve them. They will be preserved in art. But the North also has its "befo' the wah," as well as the South. We also are liv- 'ing in a new era; the change in customs and characters has been nearly as great here as there. Our older people have their minds filled with mighty comparisons, with reminiscences of things that have utterly and forever van- ished. But the war was not the cause with us ; though it happened to be nearly the dividing point between the old and new. The cause with us is in- vention. There are those livmg who have seen the sickle cutting off the grain ; they have seen the gentle sickle give way to that wonderful stalwart cradle that piled down its swath more rapidly than a score of sickles ; they have seen the crashing cradle give way to the singing reaper, with which one small boy could pile more sheaves than had been previously put together by half a dozen stalwart men. They have seen the mower's scythe give place to the clicking mowing machine ; they have seen Maud MuUer retired by the horse- rake ; they have seen the hay gathered on to the wagon without a pitch-fork, and have seen it packed away in the barn with grappling hooks worked by horses. They have seen the sower scatter the seed with his hand ; they have seen the farmer hoeing out the weeds from his corn ; and they have seen him digging his potatoes with a spade. They have seen the house-wife plying the Id TriE GENESEE COUNTRV. spinning wheel and the knitting needles ; they have seen her churning ttef butter by hand ; they have seen the flying shuttle in the farm-house weaving the substantial linsey-woolsey to clothe the entire household. They have seen the stage-coach with its unique driver ; they have seen the prosperous way-side inns. They have seen the burning wick in the saucer of molten lard ; they have seen the tallow candle, made first by ' dipping and then by moulding. They have seen the spelling-school, and the husking bee, and the quilting party, and the log-raising. And so I might go on with multitudes of things that have been in recent times, but now are not, and never again will be . But I wish to dwell a moment on one great change and its conse- quences. I refer to the change in the method of pioneering. The pioneer as GRANDMOTHER COULD DESCRIBE THEM. a home-seeker will go on until he has taken the last corner of the earth. But the pioneer as a character has almost disappeared. Soon he must be sought in the pages of literature alone. It seems a paradox to say that settlement has been quickened, but the settler can no longer be found. But it is true. There are no longer any new settlements. But old settlements are constantly found on new ground. I have seen the silent prairie empty to the distant horizon ; I have been on that identical prairie in the midst of a settlement as old as this of the Genesee. The houses were just as large and white ; the barns were just as large and red ; the school-houses and churches were just as commanding; the roads were in just as good condition; the villages and cities were just as well built ; the stores were just as well packed with necessaries, THE GENESEE COUNTRY. 11 comforts, and luxuries. The people had not a single privation. It was an old settlement. I am relating a fact; I am describing a miracle that I have seen. But it has thousands of counterparts. It is a constant occurence. But what wizard or magician is doing this? I saw him at the World's Fair. Any- one could see him that had any wish to do so. He was the first thing to be seen on entering the grounds from the 63d Street gate. He stood on the left hand just before you struck that great quadrangle of buildings balanced by the toivering shaft of the Administration Building, It was the little wheezy locomotive, "DeWit Clinton," and its little ramshackle train of coaches. When that little thing started on its first journey from Albany to Schenectady the mightiest social revolution in history was begun. The death-knell of privation was rung with that first little bell. The pioneer is no pioneer if he does not have to suffer and be brave. Before the coming of the locomotive the uninhabited wilds were attacked by the "prairie schooner," or covered wagon. And the prairie schooner was a picturesque institution. It carried a brave family with a humble outfit. It carried those who knowingly and willingly accepted great privations for the sake of independence. It carried genuine pioneers ; it meant new settlements far from home ; it meant keeping Indians and the wolf at bay and waiting a generation for even ordinary comforts. The pioneers were a quiet set ; they did not publish their intentions from the house-tops. But as they looked into their winter's fire they kept up a mighty thinking; and just as soon as flow- ery May afforded grass for the animals and a temperature that could be endured, the white sails of the land ship were spread from Lake Erie to the Gulf , and the forward movement of the vanguard of civilization began. It was picturesque. They started singly and in trains ; others followed and fol- lowed, until the season was well advanced. And every year the pioneer ' swarmed and moved on to his new abode.' The locomotive moves civilization without a vanguard; hence the loco- motive has killed our pioneer. It would, be a rare sight now to see a prairie schooner ; it is a^s obsolete as the old stage coach. The wild Oklahoma rush is not the pioneering of history ; the latter is gone forever. All honor to the vanished vanguard ! I encountered an Oklahoma boomer on the grounds of the World's Fair. ' He had done his rushing and got his claim, and a few days later he was doing up the Fair, as smug a looking personage as any one there. No, in opening up a new country now, the railroad has to go on ahead. And as soon as it is determined where the next town must be, the town will be there on short notice, often within a few days after the .de^nilte establish- ment of the station. At some of the; more desirable points the houses are built on wheels ready to be run on the corner lots as soon as it is known where the comers must be. So, within a week after the arrival of the first train, the enterprising commercial traveler alights with his gripsack, is driven in a bus to the " best hotel,'' and proceeds to sell goods to "all the stores in town." A man may go out and admire a sociable community of prairie dogs in a region not otherwise ■ inhabited. Within a month he may hear a company of commercial , travelers gravely comparing the hotel accommodations in Jl_^ ,; and lo!- and behold! is right on the site of the enterprising and hospitable little canines. I say hospitable.; for they had been giving the owls and'the rattlesnakes, free lodgings for a thousand years. The locomotive 12 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. puffed them and their prescriptive rights out of sight and into nowhere ; and it puflfed a settled civilization into instant existence. Even the Indian cannot bear the smoke ; he hears the toot and the beH and moves sullenly on. The Greaser, the Chinese, and the South African will have to get out of the way of the puffer. The ships distributed civilization somewhat ; but nothing can com- pare with the railroad in extinguishing the old and establishing the new. The British fleet used to be the world's civilizer. It was a rough process, but a somewhat effective one. But the palm has passed away from it to the peace- able offices of the Vanderbilts. It is sometimes questioned whether maps would not be better if not cut up and marked with so many railroad lines. Not at all ; the railroads indicate the exact position of the frontier and the state of the world in regard to civilization. No device of coloring could tell a tithe as much as do the railroad lines themselves. The Anglo-Saxon started to get the world with his gun ; and he would have had it in time. He is get-, ing it now m enormous morsels with his railroads. We will not be here to see what he will do next. But the problem will not be deferred long beyond our time. THE GENESEE COUNTRY. THE picture which captivated me rhost fully of all at the Columbian World's Pair, was one of jivhose existence I was not aware until I encountered it on an'end wall, and not at the middle of the wall at that. It was honored with a middle elevation, but it was put as far into the corner as possible. It was no centre-piece arranged to attract and hold admiring thousands. So far as I know no trumpet had ever sounded its fame ; nor have I since heard an allusion to it. I know of but one worshipper who offered any special incense before it. But he was an ardent devotee ; and he came to it again and again, to commune with it and to let it sink deep into his soul. He was not an art critic; and he may be wrong; but Jie had his feelings and he yielded to them. Wonderful I Wonderful I the charm of color Fascinates me the more that In myself The pcift is wanting. I am not a paXnter.— Longfellow. The voice of the world and the voice of the management said: "Look elsewhere." He did look elsewhere, and with much enjoyment ; but he ever returned to his own little love with increased idolatry. He saw by the name of the painter that they dared not put it off the middle line ; but, as I said, they accorded it every indignity consistent with that one concession. Its theme was not that of battles — "the pomp and circumstance of glorious war;" nor was it the lively chase, with bounds and stags and mounted horsemen and flying foxes. It was not a scene of stampeding buftalos and pursuing Indians. It was not a struggle in the jungles ; it was not an encounter with the Numidian lion. It was not an exploit of the buskined huntress of Greece ; it was not Actseon torn by his own ctpgs. It was not a picture of sirens or beautiful nymphs, or conch-blowing Tritons, or howling Polyphemuses. It was not the stately procession of the great with gorgeous costumes and graceful attitudes ; it was not the wholesome home of the decent poor. It was not the persecution, nor the amphitheater, nor the Indian massacre. It THE GENESEE COUNTRY. 13 was not the pre-Raphaelite study of interiors and quaint characters ; it was not the humor of -the monastery. It was not one of the thousand marines ; it was not one of the luscious Dutch landscapes. It was not a representation of a royal family, a portrait of a distinguished person, or a study of an ideal head. It was not an inspiring allegory ; it was not a side splitting joke. It was not of animals on the farm, or at the fair, or on the mountains ; it was not of shepherds or shepherdesses, or pet lambs. It was not the sailor's yarn ; it was not the rural marriage ; it was not the procession to the "Derljy" or the "Grand Prix." It was not a storm on the Alps; it was not the yawning canon ; it was not the sombre fiord or the wave-dashed promontory. It was not the still life, of knifes and forks and sliced ham ; it was not the impressionist's blur of nature in her sombre moods. It was not the Norway pine ; it was not the mountain cedar ; it was not the spreading elm ; it was not the symmet- rical maple. It was not the Grand Turk, nor the stern Puritan, nor the dash- ing Cavalier. It was not the parting, nor the return, nor the quarrel, nor the reconciliation. It was not the tulip, nor the rose, nor the chrysanthe- mum, nor the lily of the valley. It was not a peep into lonely lakes, or un- visited water courses ; it was not a sight of dashing cataracts; It was not a corner in a barnyard ; it was not a cottage on a hillside ; it was not a ponder- ous wind-mill by the sluggish canal. And so I might go on with my principle of exclusion, describing my picture by negations, until it would seem that I had ruled out the artist's entire realm. Every one of the subjects mentioned was found in the Art Palace, treated in masterly style with glorious effect, and showing that there is infinite room for originality after the subject has been handled a thousand times. I might sum up all the other themes by saying that my picture was not one of them. It contamed no mountain and no lake, no purling stream, no dashing cataract, no house, no human being, no ship, no sea. Perhaps you will say that my new process of exclu- sion will rule it out of the universe? Not quite ; neither the artist nor myself is so etherial as to get away from God's universe ; though we may both hap- pen to find a sip of pleasure outside of the beaten track. It is true that we are told that the poet Gives to airy nothings A local habitation and a name." But I have not "The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling," and I am quiet sure that my artist friend was perfectly sane. But I will be merciful at last, and let my little secret out. My painting was entitled "Ripening SvJnbeams." Please notice that I did not rule out the sky. "Aloft on sky and mountain wall Are God's great pictures hung." The mellow rays of an August sun are pouring down through rifts in the fleecy clouds. Below is a patch of fine wheat (not a wheat-field — even a fence would distract from the glorious process that is going on with such powerful silence.) The gold descends in a flood; and the wheat seems to reach up for it in its hurry or eagerness to be transmuted. The lavish giver and the eager receiver seem to understand each other ; there is bounty on the one hand ; there is response on the other ; there is beauty all the way through. Never 14 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. have I seen so great a theme so greatly handled. It would be paltry praise to say that was a fin^ sky effect. It was the finest of the fine ; but that was only an incident in the artist's purpose. It would not over-Shoot the mark to say that finer wheat never appeared on canvass; but that is not the point; the glory of the picture is in the play of silent and subtle forces. It is not in the ripe grain that the artist reaches his triumph, but in the ripening grain. You see the golden sunshine come down ; you see the wheat drinking it in; you see the g^reen giving way to the gold ; you see the process going on right be- fore your eyes. It is marvelous ; it is exuisite ; this conservation of energy treated with the eye of a poet and the brush of a great artist, The man who can do that can afford to wait for recognition ; for it must come as surely as day follows night. "And now Maestro pray unvail your picture Of 'Danae,' of which I hear such praise. Titian, drawing hack the curtain: What think you? MiouAEL Anoelo: That Aorisius did weli To locli such beauty in a bronzen tower, And hide It from all eyes. Titian: The model truly > was beautiful. ;, MicuAEL Angelo: And more that you were present And saw the showery Jove from high Olympus Descend in.all his splendor. Titian: From your lips Such words are full of sweatness. Michael Angelo: You have caught These golden hues from your Veuetian suasets. Titian: Possibly. Michael Angelo: ^ Or from sunshine through a shower ' On the lagoons of the broad Adriatic." I was glad to see, before I left, the label of a gold medal stuck in the frame. When the committee got down to busmess they realized what an un- obtrusive gem had been thrust off into the dark corner. The painter of this master-piece was already in the ranks of the immortals ; it was the English artist Millais. Poor old Falstaff in his last extremity "babbled o' green fields;" and that brief interval of beautiful delirium almost redeemed a life of worse than swinish sensuality. That great hulk of repulsive coarseness had somewhere within it the not entirely stifled soul of a child. He had been born for better things; yet, "nothing in his life so became him as the parting with it." Yes, the green fields are beautifiul. Delicious is the soft verdure of the young spring, fragrant with beautiful flowers smiling back to the sweetly caroling birds. THE GENESEE COUNTRY. IQ the spring a brighter crimson deepens on the robin's breasit; In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest; la the spring a lovlier iris changes on the burnished dove; In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. — Tennyson. Sweetly beautiful are the green fields in early summer. And what is so fair as a day in June ? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune; And over it softly her warm ear la,ya.— Lowell. Fine are the green fields in heavy f oliaged July. Sometimes walking, not unseen, 'Long ledge-row elms, by hillocks green, Bight against the eastern gate. 15 THE LOWER FALLS OF THE GENESEE AT ROCHESTER. Whero the great sun begins his state, Eobed in flames of amber light. The clouds in thousand liveries dight; While the plowman near at hand Whistles o'er the furrowed land; And the milkmaid singing blithe; And the mower whets his scythe; And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorne in the yale.— Milton. But glorious above all to me are the fields in August, the time of the ripening and the ripened grain. The fields are now transfigured; and they do "shine as the sun." Truly they shine as the sun ; for their glowing harvest gold is simply ripened sunshine. At the time of this autumn splendor l6 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. alandscape of the Genesee Country is a glimpse of Paradise. I never can stand on a Genesee eminence in early August without thinking of the Savior's tempta- tion. The Genesee country is pre-eminently the land of the golden gp:ain. Rochester was the " Flour City" long before it became the " Flower City." I have a fancy that the gold on the Genesee grain has a richer tinge than I have seen elsewhere. And 1 am quite positive that the waving cereal has a more^ delicate form and texture than can be found in any other region. Perhaps I am wrong. But such are my im- pressions of the beautiful Genesee country, glowing with that which is to me the most beautiful product of nature. I wish that Mr. Millais would come and look it over. I have said that the artist has generally to improve on nature ; no artist can ever do justice to the harvest gold of the Genesee. There is not in this wide worW a valley so sweet, As that vale in whose bosoni the bright waters meet ; Oh I the last rays of feeling and life must depart, Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart. —Moere. In an article on the " Blue Grass Region of Kentucky " recently contri- buted to the Century Magazine, a cultivated traveler says that he had long debated in his mind as to which is the most beautiful region in the world. The question gradually narrowed itself down to three places ; the famous Blue Grass Region of Kentucky, the gentle uplands of Surrey in England, and the Valley of the Genesee in the State of New York. After weighing the matter thoroughly and conscientiously he confessed that he was constrained to award the palm to the Valley of the Genesee, even while tuning his harp to sing of the Blue Grass Region. The three divinities of Olympus have again sub- mitted their charms to the judgment of a second Paris ; and again has the Venus of New York carried off the prize of comeliness from the Juno of Ken- tucky and the Minerva of England. We can say with perfect modesty about our Valley that it is very fine. It is not our fault if an impartial outsider pro-' nounces it the finest of the fine. I verily believe that these unapproachable glories of the Genesee will yet be the theme of song and story. The fairest region on the face of the earth cannot fail long to attract the poet and the ar- tist. It is as yet an untouched preserve of all that is daintiest, choicest, best. I cannot help feeling that it will furnish its own poets and painters, as well as its own magnificent characters. How Virgil would have reveled in such a setting for his " Eclogues " and " Georgics ! " What increased inspiration for his "Bucolics" would not Theocritus receive from a glance into the present glories of the Genesee ! Those divine bards would miss the helot, the slave, the serf, the bare-kneed peasant. "Where Corydon and Thyrsis met Are at their savory dinner set Of herbs, and other country messes. Which the ueat-handed Phyllis dresses; And then in hasten her bower she leaves. With Thystilis to bind the sheaves; Or, if the earlier season lead, To the tanned haycock in the mead." THE cenesee country. i7 But they would see hundreds of miles of waving grain that would make the harvests of Sicily pale ; they would see far and wide the cattle and sheep anihorses on a thousand hills and in the quiet wide-spreading vales ; they would see all the processes of agriculture carried on with the. most improved implements and driven by the highest intelligence. It is no Corydon nor Tityrus that occupies that two-story white house with the 'green blinds, em. bowered in a few lofty trees, and fronted with a lawn planted with shrubbery and- flowers. It is no impoveriphed victim of a thousand years of injustice who is packing that big red barri with the products of a fertile farm. It is no wretched captive from the north or south who is following that plow or direct- . ing the setting of those tiles, tor trimming that orchard, or gauging that new fence to a perfect bee-line. It is tlie best blopd of the Saxon race, most of it filtered through Old England and New 'England on its way to this "Happy land 6f Canaan" in the country of the Genesee. The artists often find the element of the picturesque in squalor. Any artist who needs that seasoning for his genius would not find it in the land of the Genesee. There is no squalor there. But to me there is a grace in thrift ; there is poetry in prosper- ity. . But among all the products of the Genesee country its most astounding product is boys and girls. And you would expect it from such an ancestry. . They are such sturdy, manly lads, and such beautiful, queenly lasses. There •"all the men are brave and all the women fair." And they are such ambi- tious young folks ; they choke down all the high schools, and normal schools, and colleges that are at all get-at-able. They swarm in the Genesee country, and hosts of them fly away to take possession of the rest of the land. Happy the land that attracts the fair young lives that go forth from the vales and up- lands of'tlie Genesee country. Never was finer seed of empire ready to be sown; fhe new lands of the west call it one way : the growing cities of the east call it another. But with all the drafts upon it the Genesee country maintains the full level of its population. Aiiy one wishing to get a good idea of the Genesee country would not do ill to start in at Batavia, the ancient headquarters of the Holland Land Company. This beautiful little city, planted by the wisdom and fore- sight of Joseph Ellicott at the junction of two great Indian trails, lies right across the water-shed of the Genesee. Every community has its peculiarities. The Batavians dote upon schools, shade-trees, and side-walks. The school fever is doubtless due to the fact that the town was started by college men and patriots. Thanks to the Hol- land Purchase the very first" clearing in these woods was graced by the high- est society in America. And Batavia has never lost the social tone. When Secretary Carlisle and the President's entire cabinet came here in 189410 dedicate the old Land Ofiice to the memory of the illustrious Robert Morris, they found a community ready to receive a king. The display was colossal ; the reception was princely; the hospitalities were lavish; but, most notice- able of all, the etiquette was absolutely unerring. Something of the grand manner of the olden time may have departed ; but the ease and correctness of the present social leaders of Batavia show that they are "to the manner born." The ancient pioneers of the Genesee country would not blush for the delicate, tactful, hearty hospitalities of their descendants. 18 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. The profusion of shade-trees may be due to the natural love of the forest in those who saw the noble forest go down. I leave to some future writer to account for the passionate love of Batavians for good side -walks. The Batavians put $85,000.00 into their high-school building, and made it one of the finest examples ot school architecture in the State. In keeping with the sensible ideas manifest all through the town, they gave this noble building three acres of elbow-room. These acres they have planted with or- namental shrubbery and have adorned with curved driveways and fine flag walks. I will not stop to speak of the beautiful interior and its decorations, but will hasten on to say that this building, whether by accident or design, was placed right on the water-shed of the Genesee. From one entrance the water flows away into the Genesee ; from the opposite entrance it sends its drainage to the Tonawanda, a tributary of the Niagara ; and it is so near to the water-shed of Lake Ontario that one might almost say that it sends its waters to all points of the compass. Just east of Batavia there is a grand point of view from which one can look off miles upon miles, upon miles, into the basin of the Genesee. Those miles, upon miles, upon miles, of Stafford and Le Roy, are but an unbroken succession of noWe farms ; and seen in the golden August time, it is, as I have said before, a sight fit for the gods. The well-painted house, the clump of trees' around the homestead, and the big red barn, are everywhere. And those big red barns are such in- fallible evidences of fertility. And oh ! that grain ! glinting to the edge of the far horizon ! And so it is all the way down to Rochester, thirty two miles away ; and so it is all the way up to Scottsville, Caledonia, and Avon ; all the way up to Geneseo, Mount Morris, and Nunda ; all the way up to Portage, 'Angelica, and Bel videre. And what suggestive names; Angelica (a place fit for the angels), Belvidere (beautiful to see). Genesee (the beau- tiful valley^. I have not followed the Genesee beyond the State line ; but I left it there, just reeking with fertility and rejoicing in that overpowering Genesee grain. At Portage, Mount Morris, and Rochester, the usually quiet scenery is varied with gorges, cataracts and falls, that are not only pictur- esque but even grand. But I must call you back to the point of view east of Batavia, and ask you to swing around to the north through the noble lands of Byron and Elba. It seems but Paradise intensified. Such continuity of noble farms ! Such endless succession of big red barns and comfortable homesteads ! Such ravishing beauty of spreading vale and rolling hill ! Such constant glint of the delicate burnished gold ! Northwest of Batavia you are on another elevation known in the neighborhood as "Inspiration Point." Again you are looking over miles upon miles, upon miles of beauty, richness, and prosperity. It is no longer the Valley of the Genesee proper ; you are now gazing out upon the Ontario Slope. But while it is not the valley proper, it is still the country of the Genesee. Where all places are superlatively glorious it is natural for you to think each point visited the best ; and it is not strange that you should think on reaching Oakfield and Alabama that you have reached the best of all. Come back again from east Batavia on to that wonderful plain over which the Tonawanda comes winding slowly down from Alexander, and over which it goes winding slowly away to Pembroke and the Niagara. The Genesee fertility is still there ; the red barn, the white house, the golden grain are omnipresent. It is an object lesson t;o the THE GENESEE COUNTRY. Ig children ; for when asked what is a plateau, they say it is a high level region like this on which we live. The Tonawanda has the unique characteristic of being a river on a hill, a river without a valley. It is a common saying in the region that you can drain more easily out of the Tonawanda than into it. But it is a beautiful stream, creeping quietly along until it wakes to ter- rific life at Indian Falls. After that dash over the rocks, that rush through the deep gorge, it is prepared for the angry plunge at the great Niagara and the devouring fury of its gorge and whirlpool. But to return, you can box the compass with roads leading out of Bata- via ; and, to see what the Genesee country is like, you have but to drive out on any one of those roads. You need not fear for your vehicle as you speed along the well-kept highway ; and you may speed and speed for days. You will hot leave prosperity ; you will not leave beauty ; you will not leave civilization. As " Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise," so here ■ fields peep o'er fields, and red barns on red barns arise. You will never strike a lonely road which drives your mind in upon itself with dreamy reverie. On the contrary you will be constantly impressed with the frequency of those solid homes of prosperity. They crowd thickly upon one another at all times ; and at times they thicken into a sort of uninten- tional and extemporaneous hamlet. This I suspect is due to the settling iti of a son, or a daughter, near the father. But if so, I defy any one to tell which was the parent estate ; a proud equality prevails everywhere ; the son is quite as well-to-do as the father ; he has his own big evidences of solid prosperity. You will query whether there are farms enough for so many houses. But when you see that they are all living on the edge, of their farms, the mystery will be solved ; the great stretches of field extend away back, to join with other stretches tliat front on another populous high- way Furthermore, the Genesee farmers are learning how to keep their children at home by learning how to make two blades of grass grow where one grew before. It will soon be a century since the rank Genesee soil was first tickled by the plough ; yet, instead of showing any signs of exhaustion, the two blades of grass are springing up everywhere where one grew be- fore Of course there is enormous response in the Genesee loam to any sensible treatment. Nature has been lavish tj the region ; and when she has been met half way by the intelligence of many, the result is as you see, two or three fat farms where one was found before. Nothing is more grati- fying than this process of subdivision ; the dreariest thing imaginable is the reverse process of consolidation, the obliteration of once happy homes. " lil fares the land to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay." But glorious that land where wealth accumulates, and men of the finest mould thicken in along the highways. I have said that the big red barn is an infallible sign of fertility. This sign never fails ; go where the big barn is, and you may predicate fertility in the soil ; go where the soil is fertile, and you may safely predict that some day it will be dotted with big red barns. But the big white house, with its fresh coat of paint, its fresh green trimmings, and its well-kept little front of lawn and f}ow?rs ^nd shrubbery, and with its large sightly trees casting a 20 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. grateful-shade ffom their picturesque bunches of foliage, is an index of an entirely different matter. It is an index of the population ; it is an index of race and civilization. I have been where the big red barn abounded and where the big white house was missing. I needed no explanation ; the story was on the face of things. I have been where the big red barn abounded, and where the neat backyard and tidy smaller buildings were wanting. I have been where the big red barn abounded without a single rose. It is the highest glory ,of the Genesee country that you never get away from the big white house, the house that sends forth judges, generals, governors, sena- tors, and presidents. I have looked down into the pellucid depths of the St. Lawrence river where its crystal water emerges from Lake Ontario, pure as a metal that has been seven times through the fire of purgation, pure as a soul that has been seven times through the fires of meekly accepted affliction. As the bright element sweeps on to lap in its chaste embrace the beautiful Thous- and Islands, I have seen reunited the waters from' each side of the Ross Street School ; and with them I have seen intermingled the waters from all over the beautiful Lake region of Central New York. There also are the waters from Cleveland, and Toledo, and Detroit, and Chicago, and Milwau- kee, and distant Duluth. The waters of a continent are moving across to the eastern ocean ; and at every step they are dropping their sediment into the great line of purifiers that nature has placed along our northern border, the Mediterranean Sea of the New World. Out of all this purifying comes the crystal flow of the St. Lawrence. An exactly similar process has been going on in the other direction ; but it has been the flow of humanity, filling up the unoccupied spaces of the earth. "Westward the coarse of empire takes its way." The flow of humanity has been dropping its sediment at every stop ; the law of natural selection and the survival of the fittest has been constantly skimming the cream, constantly removing the upper and clearer portion into the next receptacle ; until the new lands could furnish at a first crop such characters as Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan. The law is still in operation ; though the multiplication of railroads and fast steamship lines has arrest^ somewhat that wonderful process of human infiltration. The movement must not be too rapid if the sediment is to set- tle entirely to the bottom. The Genesee region was settled when the move- ment was not too rapid ; it did not catch a turbid flow. Therefore this re- gion will long stand pre-eminent for the quality of its people, as well for the quality of its animals, its cereals, and its scenery. ' River ! that in silence windest Through the meadows, bright, and free. Till at length thy rt st thou flndest In the bosom of the sea I Four long years of mingled feeling, Half in rest, and halt in strife, I have seen thy waters stealing Onward, like the stream of life. THE GENESEE COUNTRY. Thou hast taught me, Silent River ! Many a lesson, deep and long ; Thou hast been a generous giver ; I can give thee but a song. Oft in sadness and in illness, I have seen thy current glide. Till the beauty of its stillness Overflowed me, like a tide. And in later hoiirs and brighter, When I saw thy waters gleam, I have felt my heart beat lighter. And leap upward with thy stream Not for this alone I love thee, Nor because thy waves of blue - From celestial seas above thee Take their own celestial hue. Where yon shadowdy woodlands hide thee. And thy waters disappear. Friends I love have dwelt beside thee. And have made thy margin dear. * * * 'Tis for this thou Silent Biver I Tliat my spirit leans to thee ; Thou hast been a generous giver. Talie this idle song from me, —Longfellow. THE GENESEE COUNTRY IN WINTER. Not only around our infancy Doth heaven with all its splendor lie ; Daily with souls that oringe and plot, We Sinais cUmb, and know it not. Over our manhood bend the skies ; ' * * * For a cap and bells our lives we pay, Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking ; 'Tis only heaven that is given away ; 'Tis only God may be had for the asking, —Lowell. No story of the Genesee would bs complete without some account of its winter. It has a winter; the active lands lie dormant and quiescent, gather- ing strength for another year of great production, for another round of varied glories. But though the fields sleep, the spirit of beauty does not sleep; it is active all the season through. The winter scenes in the Genesee country are nearly always surpassingly beautiful. I do not call a Siberian winter beautiful; I do not see beauty in snow that glistens and crunches. I do not see beauty in a weary frozen sun, accompanied by one or more pale reflections of his desolate self. The vaporous breath, the stinging hands, the snapping of the trees under the action of the frost, do not excite pleas- urable feelings. There is no beauty in the blinding and destructive blizzard, though there is sublimity of the most awful kind. Such things make exiles of people; not exiles into Siberia, but exiles out of it. It makes them long for "a draught of the warm south." Nor do I think a winter of constant 22 THE GENESeE COUNtfey. rain and slush beautiful. But the golden mean between those two extremes is exceedingly beautiful. When the snow flies in frozen particles furiously driven, it is terrible; when it "falls like wool" nothing is more baautiful. Out of tbe bosom of the air, Out of the oloud-f olds of her garments shaken, Ov3r the woodlands brown and bare. Over the harvest fields forsaken, Silently and slow descends the snow.— Emerson. The snow had begun in the gloaming. And busily all the night Had been heaping field and highway With a silence deep and white. WINTER IN THE GENESEE COUNTRY— THE OLD HOLLAND LAND OFFICE ROBED IN THE " BEAUTIFUL SNOW." Every pine and fur and hemlock Wore ermine too dear for an earl, And the meanest fwig on the elm tree Was ridged inch deep with pearl. From sheds new-roofed with Carrara Came ChantioI«er's mufHed crow. The stiff rails softened to swan's down And still fluttered down the snow.— Lowell. That is the way it snows in the Genesee country; and I know nothing more beautful. You do not want to be in-doors during such a snow storm, nor after it. After it ! f IlE GENESEE COUNTRY, 23 Hear the sledges and the bells. Silver bells. What a world of merrlmeat their melody foretells I How theyimkle, tlnWe, tinkle, In the icy air of night ! While the stars that oversprinkle All the heavens seem to twinkle With a crystalline delight- Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells From the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells. From the jingling and the tingling of the bells. —Poe. After coming down like wool I have seen the "beautiful snow " lip like a warm white blanket of purest ermine around the roots of the bare trees, while aloft those trees made tracery with their bare branches and twigs against as beautiful a sky as the eye of man ever rested upon. The skies in the Genesee country are always fine ; in the winter they are simply ex- quisite. No brush nor pen can convey an idea of the cerulean blue that domes a Genesee landscape in winter. " How brightly gleams that arch of blue, Beyond the green arcade 1 " may be truly said of any well-shaded town in Western New York in Summer ; but the sky that shows through the naked branches is beautiful beyond all description. The winter seems to have cleared the atmosphere of all exhaltations so as to open the blue vault of heaven to our gaze. Na- ture with her rare painting power distributes some white flecks of clouds, through which the luscious blue can intensify itself and show to best advan- tage. And it is such unspeakable blue ! such ravishing blue! — not heavy blue, but delicate, tender, entrancing blue. I have seen it once before ; on a rare day in October far up in the Catskill Mountains I saw just such deli- cate and melting blue as can be seen on any clear winter day in the land of the Genesee. And that is the beauty of it, the days ar« so generally clear. And even at the time of the winter solstice the sun is not crushed ; he gleams bright and comfortable in the southern sky as if he had only withdrawn his overpowering effulgence in order kindly to let men see what a glorious heaven is behind him. " One sun by day ; by night a thousand shine." The Geneseeans are not sure of prolonged sleighing ; they catch it somewhat on the fly. But they are sure of immunity from annoying rains; and the bare roads are soon worn smooth by the passing wheels; so that locomotion is seldom long impeded. But the Genesee skies are always beautiful, whether the ground is bare or not; and when the bare trees rise out of a coating of warmest white snow, spreading their graceful arms and delicate finger-tips to the vision overhead, nothing could be more beautiful. It is winter transfigured, glorified. And the sky at night is as resplendent as that which the Psalmist saw on the Syrian plain. I have seen the young moon shine in the winter sky of 24 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. the Genesee like a crescent of the most highly burnished silver among con- stellations that were determined to show their remotest star. One of the very, very fine paintings in the Art Palace of the World's Fair, and one that won the award of a gold medal, was " A Snowy Day on Fifth Avenue, New York." by Mr. Childe Hassam of that city. It was very fine. It was clear that Mr. Hassam had "been there." And I have been there many winters when that beautiful snow dropped down and temporarily enveloped the Metropolis. Of course we knew that it would soon end in horrible slush; but we would endure the deformity for the sake of a few hours of beauty. I have known it to stay long enough in the city even to get out the sleighs.; That is the way it snows in the Genesee; but it stays with us longer, arid leaves us in a more gentle manner. WINTER TRANSFIGURED, GLORIFIED — THE DELICATE TRACERY AGAINST THE TENDER BLUE. I stood at the window and witnessed Th« silent work of the sky, • - And the frequent flarries ot snow birds Like brown leaves whirling by.— Lowell. And I have seen those siiow-birds congregate on a single tree until it was black with their little bodies, and there set up a concert of joy that iwould rival the melody of the groves in Spring. They were in their element in the soft, fleecy, kindly snow. Another prize painting in the Art Palace was a "Winter Landscape," by : Charles :A. Piatt ^of New York. It was very beautiful ; arid it just represents our Genesee country when robed in its winter glory. THE GENESEE COUNTRY. 2? In the Genesee country a very constant winter pastime is skating. The coming senators and the fair young princesses that are growing up around them, are out by the thousands on the frozen streams describing their beau- tiful circles, learning a natural grace of carriage, catching the spirit of har- mony as they interweave their May-pole dances on the glassy surface, and, above all, laying in a stock of vigor for their studies and their careers. And among them you will see their teachers, whose presence acts as a regulator, but who have not come there for reasons of discipline. But the long forbearing sun begins at last to assert himself; step by step he mounts to his supremacy. With the departure of winter goes some- thing of the delicate azure ; but it is succeeded by the glory of effulgence ; the all dominating sun monopolizes about himself the whole matter of beauty as well as strength and sovereignity. Now is the time to watch " the dap- pled dawn arise ;" and now is the time to observe the glorious sunsets. It will well repay any one to get up betimes in the land of the Genesee and see " Rosy fingered Aurora" lift the curtain of the dawn and U'sher in the god of day. Homer never saw a finer transfiguration scene in the sunny isles of Greetre. But many who are not up betimes to catch the morning glory may yet enjoy the marvelous play of colors with which the evening sun takes his 'leave in the beautiful land of the Genesee. I had witnessed many a glorious sunset before I was startled by a vision that burst upon me one evening as I sat looking out of a west window in the Richmond Hotel at Batavia. Across the pretty Court House park, down West Main street, ji}st above the famous old Land Office of the Holland Purchase, I saw the heav- ens bathed in fire. But it was the fire of the scenic stage, with all the gor- geous coloring of the latter intensified a hundred fold, and with none of its lack of harmony. It was not a sight ; it was not a view ; it was a vision. I was truly startled ; I could not keep still ; I gotup^and walked out to view it down' the street. The imperial sun was indulging himself in one of his imperial pictures. It was overpowering. Slow fades the visiou of the sky ; The Kolden water pales ; •" And over all the valley land - A gray-winged vapor sails. ■ * * * • ir But beauty seen is never lost, '• " God's colors all are fast ; - ' ' The Klory of this sunset heaven r Into my soul has passed, , * * * Too soon those smiling hills must wear Their coat of wintry brown ; , ; And snow-cold winds from off them shake The maple's red leaves down. But I shallise« a summer's sun Still setting broad and low ; ' ■ ' The mountain slopes shall blush and bloom. The golden water glow. A lover's claim have I op all ; I see, to have and hold ; The rose-light of eternalthills. ■ And sunsefe never cold. — WhittUr. fHE GENESEE COUN+RY. THE MOUND BUILDERS OF THE GENESEE. ALONG the valley of the Ohio are to be found some remarkable earthworks of a very ancient date. They are unquestionably the work of man ; yet the country has not even the slightest tradition of the peqple who erected them. Who those people were, and what uses they maiie of the mounds, are matters of pure speculation. To get some idea of what the original dimensions of those mounds were, one has but to remember that the strongest fortresses of the Revolutonary War are already nearly obliterated. By looking sharply one can still trace a, por- tion of the earthwork of Fort Washington, that proved so disastrous to J^ord Rawdon's first assault. But even where it is still visible, you could hattl a loaded wagon over it. Yet behind that disappearing line a devoted band of patriots sent back the answer to the British general that if he wanted that fort he must come and take it. Surrounded, cut off, overwhelmed with num- bers, they fcould but strike one last blow for honor. With bleeding heart Washington, from the Jersey shore, witnessed the expiring struggle of his brave detachment. He who can. trace the earthworks of the neighboring Fort George must have;asharp eye indeed. Old Fort Putnam at West Point, the post which Arribld tried to betray, has still some projections of crumbling stones, still some casemates that have not disappeared. Another century will leave even the stone line of Fort Putnam conjecturable. But down in the Ohio valley the earthworks still tower to a height of sixty or seventy feet, after the lapse of possibly tens of thousands of years. We saw at Chicago the remains of the Cliff Dwellers of the Colorado canons, a peo- ple who are supposed to have ceased to exist eight thousand years ago. But to them the Mound Builders were an ancient race, perhaps a forgotten race. With all the appliances of modern science and . art our engineers would not care to take the contract for duplicating those mounds. Hence we wonder at Ancient America. Hundreds of thousands toiled for genera- tions to place the Pyramids in the Valley of the Nile. But they were equip- ped with the best of tools and machinery. Myriads of savages with empty hands could not have piled the hillocks of the Ohio. But long before the Mound Builders had begun to exist, the mounds of the Genesee country were completed. And, strange to say, we know all about the building of the beautiful mounds of the Genesee. "There were giants in those days ;" the pretty mounds that dot the region, giving in plates a charming hillock to almost every farm, were piled there by a race of giants. And the giants worked so tenderly while putting the last touches upon this beautiful coun- try. They had a keen regard for symmetry. The base of the lovely hil- lock is usually a perfect circle ; though for variety a rectilinear or other pleasing form is often interspersed ; and the curving ascent varies all the way from a gentle rise to a decidedly sharp incline. The settlers of the Genesee, led in by Robert Morris just a century ago, knew what those pretty eminences were for ; for with ong accord they planted their big white houses and their big red barns right on those inviting little summits. Thence they could "view the landscape o'er" and command every foot of their farm. Ttifi GtiNESfiE COUNTRY. 2? So the lawn is often a sloping lawn in a level country. And it is always pleasant to look up at the houses. It is pleasant to look down upon a wide» spreading plain of prosperity ; but it is not pleasant to look down for the preniises of a single estate. Yes, the builders and the final occupants un- derstood each other ; the Mound Builders of the Genesee were making home-plots for the settlers of the Genesee. It is almost amusing some- times, but never unpleasant, to see the principle carried out to the utmost extreme. At times the giants sent their work up to very considerable heights ; but up went the big white house and the big red barn with them. A MOUND OF THE GENESEE— THE HOME OF PIONEER HEMAN J. REDFIELD. Often you will see those thrifty premises standing in mid-air away up above the highway. And when the mound is large enough, what a sightly posi- tion its sides give for the omnipresent orchard of the Genesee. We are told of Titans and Giants who once inhabited Greece ; we are told of the pulling up of forest trees by the roots, and of the piling of Mount Pelion upon Mount Ossa, in the attempt to storm Olympus. But we treat those stories as interesting fables growing out of the active imagination of the most poetic and delightful people that have ever appeared on the face of the earth. But the giants who did all this work in the region of the Gen- esee were no myths, no figments of the imagination; they were the most solid facts that the world has ever known. And, afe to strength, they would 28 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. not only tear up trees by the roots, when it served their purpose, but they would even tear the granite out of the mountain's side, and carry tons of it a thousand miles. But it was not rough granite which they placed in the mounds of the Genesee, to obtrude an unsightly annoyance ; it was material nicely pulverized, and well adapted to assume the smooth symmetrical forms which everywhere prevail. True, they got much of their material from mountains ; but the way they crushed and pulverized it would be the despair of modern road-makers. Our Mound Builders were Canadians, every last -one of them; and all the earth they piled so beautifully in the Genesee country was Canadian earth, every last bit of it. The United States has not the least intention of disturbing Canada; but the question often arises "Will Canada ever come into the Union ? " Canada is already in the Union to a very great extent. Every Genesee farmer who rejoices in an elevated house-site is sitting down upon a comfortable bit of Canada. There are some Canadians who are in favor of annexation. I once met a fine representative of that class. In re- ply to my inquiry as to why he wished to bring Canada into the Union, he said that his five sons had settled across the border, and that his heart was following his children. When I inet him he was just boarding a train at the Graiid Central depot in New York, after a tour in Europe. As we sped along he told me of a little deception that he had practised abroad. In answer to inquiries as to where he came from, he told them truthfully that he came from America. In every instance they assumed that he was from the United States, and accorded him special honor as a citizen of the great Republic. He did not have the courage to disabuse their minds of the false conclusion ; and having felt the dignity and benefits of American citizen- ship, he was more than ever bent on trying to get them. His heart was fol- lowing his children. Will Canada follow the beautiful children that she has sent on ahead? It is for Canada to say ; no dream of enforcing empire is nursed on this side of the border ; though there is some musing on the ques- tion of manifest destiny. But the Genesee country is not the only region in which the Canadian giants have been building pretty mounds of Canadian earth. They have scattered them all the way from Cape Cod to Puget Sound. Canada has been coming over the border all th e way along. But it was in the country of the Gene ■ see that those beneficient Cyclopes ran riot. Here they seemed to be on their mettle; here they seemed to have a plan, and a beautiful one. Else- where they dropped their burdens somewhat regardless; here they wrought with a;yiew to the finest landscapes gardening. Here the material was care- fully distributed around into multitudinous mounds; and every eminence, great or small, was modeled to a turn;. And it is noticeable how thoroughly the seal of adoption has been put upon tJiose beautiful strangers. The Pyramids, when completed, were en- cased in a coating of the finest marble. The mounds of the Genesee coun- try have, been encased to their very summits with the rich productive loam of the region. The plow in rising out ot the plain does not enter a foreign land. The surface is thoroughly homogeneous ; though the native strata support so many beautiful foreign burdens. We are told in the beautiful Greek myth that every God in Olympus con- THE GENESEE CONNTRY. 29 tributed some fine quality to the rare perfections of Pandora. She is there- fore appropriately called the "Gift of all." The final touches to the beauti- ful Genesee region were given by all the Canadas. It is therefore the Pan- dora as well as the Venus of the world. I must relate some other exploits of those benficent giants who toiled so assiduously for our comfort and delectation in the long ago. On a sightly eminence in the Mohawk Valleys overlooking one of the finest bends in that beautiful river, stands one of the finest mansions in the State of New York. Around it is a sweet little park in which grass-lawn, flower-beds, and orna- mental shrubbery are beautifully disposed. In this little park is a charming little artificial lake, fed from a spring of the purest water on the hill above. Tliis lake has its little island of mossy rock and shrubbery, imitating nature to perfection. A miniature bridge connects the island with the mainland. All kinds of water plants are growing in the water in rank lux- uriance ; and the sweetest of water lilies of every hue are smiling on the surface. A rustic summer house invites to repose on the beautiful border ; and near it is a tall white pole for the American flag whenever occasion shall require that it be flung to the breeze. Out of the centre of the lake a delicate little fountain keeps up the supply of water that gently trickles away in a little shady cascade that scenes a piece of nature. From that lake went up the lilies that cheered the last moments of General Grant on Mount Macgreggor. I stood beside that lake while the worthy matron of that mansion was clipping the beautiful lilies to be sent to the dying Mrs. Harrison up in the Adirondack Mountains. Around the entire park was a border of glowing geraniums. Banks of flow- ers and beds of flowers were disposed here and there with an unerring sense of harmony with all the surroundings ; and the flower-beds often arranged their contents into a pleasing word or motto. The conservatory was aglow with orchids and all other rarest flowers and delicate plants. Other foun- tains played about other plants ; and, taken all in all, the setting of the mansion was a veritable paradise. I have been specific because this was not purchased beauty ; it was not the domain of an autocratic landscape gar- dener ; every touch was the reflection of the thought of the cultured pair who dwelt within the mansion. As a painter touches his canvass from week to week, and from month to month, and from year to year, so had that worthy man and excellent matron been slowly perfecting their own picture. They touched it here and there to produce an effect that was satisfactory to themselves ; and the final effect was an artistic creation. And as the park grew, so grew the house. Every nook and corner inside and out was a per- sonal study ; and all was studied with relation to the surroundings. That far glimpse of the river was never forgotten in planning for towers, balconies, verandas, etc. Twice was the house demolished before the present solid mansion was fitted to the scene. But it is now a perfect fit ; and the aesthetic sense is more than satisfied ; it is ravished. The building is of delicately tinted stone. But no two pieces of stone are alike ; no two pieces came from the same quarry ;■ their original beds were separated by hundreds and thousands of miles. The stone is all hard granite, but every piece has a structure and tinge of color different from those of its neighbors. You see the streaks of color beside the sprinkling ; you see the black, the brown, 3° THE GENESEE COUNTRY. the green, the pink tinge, and endless shades of each. And every slightest variation means a new quarry. But it is all Canadian stone ; and it was all quarried and transported to the Mohawk Valley by the same giants that built the mounds of the Genesee. Only a few of the quarries have been lo- cated ; and of those few some are within the Arctic Circle. It was very ex- pensive to build this Pandora residence, even after the material was delivered free ; but in generous minds expense is not considered where an idea is in- volved. A man who builds such a house, and who perfects such an estate, is a public benefactor. But the man of whom I am speaking and his excellent wife have not alloweS. their benefactions to be restricted to tho'se of an inci- A MOUND OF THE GENESEE — THE STATE PARK IN BATAVIA. dental nature. The lilies were sent not to the suffering wife of a President, but to the depressed and stricken womdn. I have seen the flowers culled there for the humblest sufferers ; and I have known those humble sufferers and other humble ones not stricken with bodily ailments to receive in a quiet way something more substantial than flowers. Blest that abode where want and pain repair. And every stranger finds a ready chair. Blest be those feasts with simple plenty crowned, Where all the ruddy family around Laugh at the .iests of pranks that never fail. Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale. Or press the bashful stranger to his food. And learn the luxury of doing gooi.^Ooiasmtih. THE GENESEE COUNTRY. 31 I have noticed that our artists are the best almoners. As soon as our rich men become interested in beauty they begin at once to melt with philan- thropy. I do not mean commercial beauty ; there is much of that bought in the market simply because it is the vogue. The man who has his feelings sufficiently awakened to enjoy fine pictures and fine effects, is sure to have his feelings awakened to the note of sorrow. Our Canadian giants, as one of their diversions, built a dam across the Mississippi Valley and made two of the largest lakes in the world. Lake Su- perior and Lake Michigan are but the enduring fish-ponds of the Canadian mound builders. Those giants 'were verj' deliberate in their work, as all good artists are. The bright stones of the Mohawk Valley were transported from the Arctic re gions at the rate of about six feet a year. So the length of time they were on the way is only a little problem in multiplication. And the debris came to the Genesee mounds at about the same rate of motion. The coral insect adds his little contribution to the growing reef and dies ; the silk-worm weaves himself to death in leaving a legacy of beauty and com- fort to the world. So our strong, all-forceful mound builders died in the mo- ment of achievement. But their death was attended by instant dissolution ; their vanishing voices could be heard in th& purling streams ; and their spirits translated could be seen aloft in the golden clouds; aj>d in the rainbow arch. • I need not tell the people where to look for the charming bits of Canada to which I have been alluding. But if they ever go to Batavia, N. Y.. they will see one of the finest examples right in the heart of the town. It is about three-quarters of a mile in diameter, and rises out of the plain like a well- turned inverted bowl or bell. The State of New York has seized upon this beautiful eminence for itself, and has embellished it with all that the utmost art of landscape gardening could devise. If it could be dropped down into Central Park, New York, instead of blushing for its condition, it would be "the cynosure of wondering eyes." Again have beauty, art and philanthropy met at a common center to make their common cause at once sweet and strong ; for at the very summit of this glorious bowl or bell, in the very centre of all this loveliness, the State has placed a school of instruction for its afflicted children — the children from whom the beautiful sky, and the glorious sunset, and all the ravishing beauty of hill and d^le, and flowery fields, and golden grain, have been forever shut out. Yet the State does well ; for the presence of beauty can be known to those children even though its forms cannot be by them described. The visi- ble beauty translates itself to them in notes of touch' and sound. How the Titan, the defiant. The self-centred, self-reliant, Wrapped in visions and illusions, Hobs himself of life's best gifts : Till by all the storm-winds shalien, By the blast of fate o'ertaken. Hopeless, helpless, and forsaken. In the mists of his confusions To the reef of doom he drifts ! 32 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. Sorely tried and sorely tempted, From no agonies exempted. In the penance of his trial, And the discipline of pain ; Often by illusions cheated, Often baffled and defeated In the tasks to be completed, He by toil and self denial. To the highest shall attain. Tempt no more the noble schemer, Bear unto some idle dreamer - - '- This new toy and fascination, This new dalliance and delight ! To the garden where reposes , Bpimetheus crowned with roses. To the door that never closes Upon pleasure and temptation. Bring this vision of the night \— Longfellow. All are architects of Fate, Working in these walls of Time ; Some with massive deeds and great. Some with ornaments of rhyme. Nothing useless is or low; Each thing in its place is best ; And what seems but idle show Strengthens and supports the rest. For the structure that we raise Time is with materials filled; Our t o-days and yesterdays Are the blocks with which we build. In the elder days of Art. Builders wrougBt with greatest care Each minute and unseen pavt; For the Gods see everywhere. Let us do our work as well. Both the unseen and the seen; Make the house where Gods may d well , Beautiful, entire, and clean. Build to-day, then, strong and sure. With a firm and ample base; And assending and secure. Shall to-morrow find its place . Thus alone can we attain To th ose turrets, where the eye Sees the world as one vast plain. And the boundless reaeh of s\y. — lM)fifeUow. THE Genesee country. 33 THE HEROES OF THE GENESEE. WHEN the stage is ready you like to see the hero step forth. A beautiful country is a stage for a hero. With him the romance of the region is complete. Around him a literature can spring up and bloom, Nature has her charms, but they are all en- hanced by association with interesting, and especially with strong and noble human lives. What a shade would pass over the immortal heather of Scot- land if the names of Bruce and Wallace were withdrawn ; what a cloud would settle "on Ben Voirlich's head" and darken the bewitching waters of Loch Katrine. True, it would still be immortal as the land of Burns ; but Burns is only an additional hero. The "Merry homes of England" have given Arthur, Alfred, Richard, and Nelson to romance and authentic history. Charlemagne gives an added brightness to the sunny fields of France. The Alps have an added glory from the shadowy Tell and the more substantial Winkelried. Even "Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansion tread, And force a stubborn soil for scanty bread," men and patriots of the finest mould could be developed. The massive frame of Herman is ever leading the hosts of imperial Germany. , Smiling Italy where " Whatever fruits in southern climes abound, That proudly rise, or humbly court the ground. Whatever blooms in torid tracts appear, Whose bright succession decks the varied year, Whatever sweets salutes the northern sky. With vernal lives, that blossom but to die. These here disporting own the kindred soil. Nor ask luzuiiance from the planter'^ toil." is the- land of Butus, Cato, and Rienzi. Russia has the strong, though not alto- gether winning, characters of Peter and Catharine. Poland can never over- sing the praises of Sobieski and Kosciusko. These names are the strongest obstacles to assimilation with the nations into which she was so ruthlessly par- titioned. Hope for a season bade the world farewol, And freedom shrielsed when Kosciusko fell . + # * Departed spirits of the mighty dead. Ye that at Marathon and Leuctra bled. Friends of the world, restore your swords to man, Fight in Freefdom's cause, and lead the van; Oh! once again to Freedom's cause return. The patriot Tall, the Bruce of Bannock burn. Hungary has outgrown that ".Scourge of God," Attila, and now rejoices in one of the noblest heroes, Kossuth. Greece, that sweet "Mother of Arts 34 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. and Eloquence," — Greece, vrith her famous mountains, the abodes of the gods, with her gentle vales, the haunts of the Muses and the Graces, with her groves and thickets of fawns and dryads, with her nymph-inhabited streams, with her " Sunny Isles" "Where burning Sappho loved and sung, Where grew the arts of war and peace. Where Delos rose and Phoebus sprung," with her plains and passes dotted thickly over with the foot-prints of mighty deeds, would need a roll as long as the catalogue of Agamemnon's ships to name the heroes whom she has given to "The few, the Immortal names That were not born to die." VIEW FROM A MOUND OF. THE GENESEE — THE HIGHEST CITY IN THE STATE, SEEN FROM THE STILL HIGHER STATE PARK. But the new world has already contributed many heroes to the bead roll of fame ; and of those few several are of the Aboriginal population. ' ' There were brave men before Agamemnon ;" but they lacked a Homer to save their names from oblivion. There must have been brave men in America long before the coming of Columbus ; for it could not be that the brave men found here by his contemporaries could have been without their prototypes. Mon- tezuma was every inch a king. His royal brother Guatemozm could, in point of character, put to shame the men who put him to the torture and to death. A few words of his have come down to us that revealed a high-souled man, a veritable hero. We are told of tLe. " Seven Wise Men " of Greece. Qf the THE GENESEE COUNTRY. 35 wisdom of some of them we have left but a smgle sentence ; yet it is enough to show that the appellation was correctly given. When led forth a prisoner, in sight of the irons of torture, Guatemozin was asked where the treasures of his kingdota were concealed, he replied that it was the duty of a prince to protect the possessions of his country, not to betray them. He was then stretched upon a gridiron, together with some of his companions, and slowly roasted over a fire. The tormentors would roast the secret out of them. A sufferer beside the king turned to him in his anguish and besought that he might tell . The dying monarch silenced him with the gentle rebuke : "Am I resting on a bed Of flowers ? " It is brave to rush mto danger ; it is braver to endure to the end for a principle. When Gautemozin succumbed, a hero of the highest type was added to the immortals ; and the capability of his race for the attainment of high character was vindicated. There must have been just such characters during the many preceding centuries. In Virginia the English found a robust leader of men in the stormy Powhatan ; and they found a sweet type of merciful womanhood in his gentle daughter, the princess Pocahontas. She came over to the side of civilization ; and her blood is still flowing in the veins of the best in the land, a mark of honor rather than a taint. Philip in arms for his people was as strong a character as Richard or Saladin. And when run to earth his fall was like that of a noble lion. His life and death were heroic ; he was a large figure from first to last. Pontiac and Tecumseh are but two other Philips storming over the pages of American history. What if some of those people did torture the helpless ? It was their creed. But the courses pursued toward them by the strangers were not always in accordance with the creed of the latter. That creed was the Golden Rule. When the Indians tortured they thought that they were doing right. It was wrong. But it was wonderful how much of right they knew, and how staunchly they adhered to it. Lo, the poor Indian I trhose untutored mind Sees Ood in clouds, or hears him in the wind; Hia soul proud science never taught to stray Far as tb6 dolar wall^ or milky way. Yet simple nature to his hope has giT'n, Behind the cloud topt hill an humbler heav'n; Some safer world in depth of wood embraeed. Some happier island in the watery waste. Where slaves once more their native land behold. No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. To be contents his natural desire ; He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire; But thinks admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company.— il!!P«. This is not the best theology. But it is all the poor Indian had for a guide. Had he been more kindly dealt with, the Christian faith might have tound more ready access to his judgment, his conscience, and his heart. But, heathen though he was, he was, after all, a man of great wisdom, of deep heart-experience, and of strong principles ; and he could rise to truly heroic stature in the vindication of his principles. Though bitter and unrelenting in bis enmities, yet how faithful he was in his friendships. Cooper has not over- 36 THE GENESEE COUNTRV. drawn him ; Chingaghgook was equalled by Massasoit, by Logan, and by Red Jacket and Red Cloud. And how I wish that some Cooper would evoke from the misty past some ot the long Hue of aboriginal heroes of the Genesee. The warlike Iroquois, who had their hunting grounds in the country of the Genesee, were a race of intellectual and high-spirited men. The famous Red Jacket was at once a hero, a patriarch, and a sage. The white men took his lands, but they gave him to history and romance. But how many a;n unre- corded Red Jacket must have passed from the ' ' Beautiful Valley " to the hap- py hunting grounds before him. The poor Indians never had a Homer ; so all their heroes have been swallowed up in oblivion. Red Jacket was the highest and finest type of Indian charact-er; and he was the last of his line. He closed the history of the Aborigines in the "Beautiful Valley." A grandson of Red Jacket, Col. Eli Parker of General Grant's staff, was a shining light of civiliza- tion. ■ He was a man intellectual, scholarly, cultivated, courteous, and brave. Yet his blood was only that of the Iroquois. No, I should not say only ; for that might imply some reflection. His was the blood that has van- ished from the land ; and he showed what that blodd was capable of. But the IroquoiSj were not only brave, manly, and capable; they were also endowed with some rich special gifts. They were all poets of a very high order ; and they were all born orators. As to poetry Homer himself could not more easily convert all nature into glowing metaphors and similes than could the red man of tfie Genesee. And when the chief rose at the council fire a Webster might fake lessons in oratory. It needed not the white man's eye to discover the beauties of the region ; the very name Genesee means the "Beau- tiful Valley." It needed not the white man's ear to construct a sweet and euphonious combination of sounds. The geography is song to the ear where the red-man's nomenclature .survives; Genesee, Geneseo, Nunda, Canisteo, Tonawanda, Erie, Ontario, Oneida, Onondaga, Oswego, Ohio, Missouri, Mis- sissippi, Minnesota, Minnehaha, Wisconsin, Iowa, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ala- bama, Massachusetts, Dakota. The gentle Irving writhes over the white man's contribution of Podunk and Slabtown, and Mud Creek and Hogg's Tavern, and more than intimates that while the one seemed to have the ears of a seiaph, the other seemed equipped with the capacious appendages of a Midas (or some other family of the genus asinus.) Full many a gem of purest ray serene. The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear ; Pall many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Many a deed of faithful daring May obtain no record here. Wrought where none could see or note it. Save the One Almighty Seer.— 2Vcm«A. When the poet strikes his lyre to sing of the Genesee, I hope the meed of a spirited canto will be given to the vanished children of the Iriquois, to the forgotten Hiawathas, and Minnehahas, and Guatemozins, who lived, and loved, and suffered, and triumphed in these vales centuries before the white man came with his axe, his gun, his cities, and his books. There can be no doubt that they withered at our approach ; we can afford to give them at least the one return of remembrance. A great historical society is forming in the Genesee country with a view to collecting and preserving all the relics and THE GENESEE CONNTRY. 37 traditions of human life in the region. The old Land Office of the Holland Purchase has been secured both as an interesting relic and landmark in itself and as an appropriate depository for all the gleanings of this region's history and traditions. I hope that the most scholarly and searching investigations will be made into the Indian period, and that they may be rewarded with rich discoveries and abundant material remains. I am sure that the society would prize the Indian antiquities so obtained as highly as any class of its possessions. A MOUND OF THE GENESEE — THE STATE PARK IN BATAVIA. A LITERARY DIGRESSION. I LIKE romance of the heroic kind. It is stimulating toward the highest endeavor. It picks one up out of the groveling commonplace, and makes him build castles in Spain. I like romance ; but I detest lomances. The world has been highly blessed by the one ; it has been wof uUy cursed by the other. The boy or girl who sits down to read romance is feeding on angel's food; the boy or girl who sits down to read a romance is absorbing deadly poison. It is almost impossible to make a scholar or a man of a boy who becomes addicted to the reading of trash. In condemning bad literature I do not allude solely to the literature of crime, the real crime that finds such glowing description and such flaring headlines in the newspapers, nor to the imaginary crime that gluts the dime novels. The literature of sin is not always the literature of crime. 3'8 THE feENESEE COtTNTR*. By bad literature I mean much that has no sinful purpose. I mean morei I mean all the literature that is not good. How many books are printed ; and yet how few new classics are added to literature. I admire unstintedly the literary art; I detest extremely the literary trade. I do not like the literature that is forced, at so many cents or so many dollars a line; I do not like pot- boilers in literature any more than pot-boilers in art. I like the book that comes forth like the song of the linnet or the nightingale, because it cannot be repressed. I like the book that, like the song of the linnet or nightingale, con- tains not a single false note. _ _ . „ . "Ich singe wie der Vogel singt Ber in den Zweigen wohnet. Das Leid das aus der Kehle Dringt 1st Lohn das reioblioh lohnet." I like the book which has a message, but which is as free from vain or sordid purpose as the warbling of the feathered songster of the fields. I like the book that is not aimed at anybody's pocket; I Uke the book that is not aimed at anybody's prejudices; I like the book that is not aimed at anybody at all except its author. I like the book that is measured solely by its author's own ideals. I like the book that has been touched and retouched with loving care because of a sense of some lack, or because of some new flash of creative vision. I like the book tha:t grows up out of the art motive and on art principles. I like a book that is a work of art. I like the book that is "a thing of beauty" and "a joy forever ' added to the treasures of the world. Only such a book has a right to exist. I think it is just as much an offense against taste and culture to pack a library with worthless books as to pack a gallery with worthless pictures. I think that the very worst reason in the world for getting a book is that it is called for. Many books are called for with a vengance for about six weeks, more or less, and are never heard of ■ after to the day of doom. I like romance because it is the working of the art-spirit among the facts of human life. It sifts its elements ; it never seeks the cess-pool. It is the poet's function to "hold the mirror up to nature;" but it is the mirror of the poet's interpreting mind, not the lens of the lifeless camera. Pot-boilers and ■ kodaks are a great strain on art. Surely the burden of this age recalls " The Old Man of the Sea." True, our writers of romance are not always unerring in their touch. Nor are our artists. Some pictures will sell readily for a hundred thousand dollars where others are something of a drug at a hundred thousand cents. The critics could drive a coach and four through the structure of Cooper's romance; yet I wish that even a Cooper might write of the Genesee. Give us all the Irvings, Scotts, Thackerays, Hawthornes, and Coopers that you will; but spare us from the nobodies that keep so many presses going. Pile our my- thology and folk-lore mountain high ; but spare us the infliction of the goody- goody, wishy-washy, namby-pamby stuff that is turned out for our children at the rate of so much a yard of shelf room. I frequently have the inquiry discharged at me : ' 'Have you read ?" "I have not." "Well, now, you must go and get it right away; it is splen- did." I always warn my young friends not to read splendid books; it is :i!,i!,'!'!'; THE GENESEE COUNTRV. 3c) enough for them to read good books. "Is it a good book?" "Well, everybody is reading it." "Have the critics recommended it to the high school classes?'' "Well — well, — everybody's reading it." " Is it a book that everybody will be reading and talking about five years from now?" "Well, — n — ^no — I hardly think so." "Well, then, I need not be in a hurry to get at it. The ignorance that seems to put me at a little disadvantage now will be a great credit to me about this time next year." I am often sorely tried by book agents. To a large majority of them I feel strongly tempted to say ■• " That thing is of no earthly use to me; it is made with a shovel. I regard it as a serious offense to sell trash in the book- stories, a crime to sell it by subscription. Get out !" But I do not say that to the poorhonest venders of what they think is pretty fine. I merely try to awaken their pity at my poverty and to escape under that or some other con- venient plea. It is better so. But when one comes along with a book that has a spinal column, and that contains some manifest evidences of authorship, I may or may not buy the book (that has to depend on the state of my pov- erty). But I do almost invariably say to the worthy vender something equiv- alent to this ;" you are a missionary, my friend. Go on and sell that book in every house in this country. No matter how they may scowl upon you ; no matter how they may take down shot-guns at you; no matter how they may set the dog upon you ; no matter how they may call in the hired man to eject you ; go on and sell that book. It is needed. People can be brave in selling soap. You can afford tobeTjrave in selling such a good book. God bless you!" But books and reading are not my theme ; the heroes of the Genesee are. There are other heroes of the Genesee besides the Hiawathas, the Red Jackets, and the Cornplanters. THE LATER HEROES OF THE GENESEE. WE HAVE been looking into the Genesee of 1895. Let us lift the curtain on the scenes of a hundred years ago. That most cultivated and graceful of French writers, Viscomte de Chateaubriand, made a trip through New York to Niag- ara Falls in 1790. This is what he saw on the way: "An American population is making now toward the concessions of the Genesee. * * The abodes within the clearings here offer a curious admixture of wildness and civilization. Within the recesses of a forest that had previously only heard the yells of savages and the noise of wild beasts, we often come across a patch of cultivated land, and perceive at the same time the cabin of an Indian and the habitation of a white man. Some of these finished houses in the woods recall the tidiness of English or Dutch farm houses ; others, half completed- have but the dome formed by the standing foirest trees for a roof. I was re, ceived in some of these, and found often a charming family, with the com- forts and refinements of Europe— and all this within a few steps of an Iro- quois hut." This on-coming "American population" consisted almost with- 40 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. out exception of the soldiers of the Revolution, who, on their return to civil life, found themselves compelled to move on. They had seen the beauties of the Genesee country when they came up with Sullivan to chastise the Iroquois for the atrocities in Wyoming and Cherry Valley ; and they had then resolved to make the beautiful country their future home. Yes, those settlers who were bringing the "tidy homesteads of England and Holland" to grace the vales and the uplands of the Genesee, and who were to dot it all over with "charming families," were the men of Bunker Hill and Valley Forge, the men of Yorktown, the men of IVIonmouth, Bennington, and Saratoga. Where could you find heroes more thoroughly tested, or heroes in a better cause ? Almost every settler was a hero with a record. That was the seed. We have witnessed the fruitage. PIONEER ARCHITECTURE — A REFLECTION OF THE PARTHENON — A FORE- SHADOWING OF THE COURT OF HONOR. It will be noticed that the disbanded armies of the Revolution did not go forth as dissolute bandits to scourge the earth, butas founders of "tidy home- steads," as the providers and protectors of "charming families." Three times since then have disbanded armies of their descendants poured back into the bosom of the Genesee country to become the best of citizens after being the bravest of soldiers. The "tidy homestead" developed into the " big white house" already alluded to. But the home has never been without a soldier. The children seen by Chateaubriand were destined to rush to the front in that fringe of fire which surrounded the Genesee country in 1812. They were the men of Lundy's Lane, of Fort Niagara,, and Lake Erie. They were the men THE GENESEE COUNTRY. 4I who picked ofiE the heroes of Waterloo, from the stringers of Plattsburgh bridge, and who manned the victorious fleet of McDonough. They were the men who brought the wounded Scott from Lundy's Lane to Batavia. Their children followed the same Scott to Cerro Gordo, Chapultepec, ahd the City of Mexico. The children of those followed their own lion-hearted leaders to the . battles of the Great Rebellion. Wadsworth and his men always found the brunt of the battle. It was his troops that sustained the first shock at Getcysburg; it, was his troops that sustained the first shock in the Wilderness, AS' here he poured out his heroic life. A few days later it was a Genesee man with Genesee troops who was promoted on the field of battle for deeds of un- paralleled prowess at the famous "Bloody Angle" of Spottsylvania. Sheridan at Five Forks was not more the incarnation of determined effort than was Emory Upton at the bloody breastwork of Spottsylvania. A few days later it was a Genesee man with Genesee troops who made the first rush into that awful sacrifice at Cold Harbor. ' I'l " Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason v, hy, Theirs but t ) do and die." And so Martindale rushed in with his sixteen times six hundred. In all the battles of the Valley the soldiers of the Genesee shared all the glories of the old Sixth Corps. It was the Sixth Corps alone that Sheridan did not have to rally at Cedar Creek. It was mto the guns of the Sixth Corps that the Con- federates looked for the last time at Appomattox, before laying down their arms. The furious- assault of Johnston upon McClellan's left wing at Fair Oaks fell upon the soldiers of the Genesee, Colonel Brown of thj looth New York was seen for the last time inspiring his gallant regiment to a stand against overwhelming numbers. When the . famous assault was made upon Fort Wagner it was this same regiment of Geneseeans that went up the deadly parapet side by side with the colored troops. This same regiment was destin- -' ed for another deadly assault that has become historic, that upon Fo;;t Gregg before Petersburg. It would be long to speak of the deeds of the ist New York Dragoons and all the other fine regiments that went out of the Beautiful Valley. They all found fierce work to do ; and right gallantly did they do it, shedding an added lustre upon a region already renowned for its heroes. When the Mississippi was to be forced open it was a Genesee man, General Quinby, who found the hottest part of the Ime at Port Hudson. Soldiers from the Genesee scaled Lookout Mountain, stormed the heights of Kenesaw, as- sisted in the hard-won victory at Peach Tree Creek, fought in the bloody bat- tles about Atlanta, worried Johnston in his last struggle at Bentonville, and witnessed his surrender. *The gallantry of the western soldiers is well known. It makes a great page in the history of the Great Rebellion. Yet a western officer in writing of the Atlanta campaign says that he one day witnessed a sight that made a lasting impression upon his mind. It was just the sight of a New York regiment marching through the woods. He was impressed with the natty air of the entire force. Not a foot dragged. With arms at right shoulder shift they moved along with a gait as elastic as though they were walking on steel, springs. He has left us a picture of a regiment from the 42 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. Genesee. Such i snip-shot is quite as vivid ap anything that could be given by the kodak. He saw the elan of a true soldierly race,— not the stolid pro- fessional soldiery of Europe. He saw the fourth generation of men who performed the double duty of making the wilderness to blossom like the rose and of upholding the honor of the American flag. He saw the sons of the soldiers of Mexico, the grandsons of the soldiers of 1812, the great grandsons ■of, the soldiers of the Revolution. Those airy young fellows had been on the route step for nearly three years of monstrous battling since they first left- front-ed-into-line at Fair Oaks. Those springy feet had sprung into line at Gaines' Mill, and Savagp Station, and Malvern Hill, at Manassas, Antietam, and Fredericksburg, at ChancellorsviUe,' and Gettysburg, at Lookout Moun- tain and Kenesaw and ReSkca and Peaqh Tree Cr^ete And now a thousand miles from home they are moving on to «ew battles of the rHost sanguinary character as airy and chary as though they -yviere' moving out to their first parade. To be a soldier in secluded woods, and that after three years of heavy campaigning, is a very high test of the soldierly instinct. It looks like drinking in soldiery with mothers' rtiilk. Too often the veteran thinks that he has earned a right to be careless., to be even a little slouchy. Not so with those who come of a triple ancestry of soldiers. That regiment would dress its line and adjust its guns to a proper and uniform angle if it were going down in a quick-sand. , , If you want the history of America go into almost any of 'the big white hoiises of the Genesee couijtry and you will find it all ip family) tradition. ■ The heroes of the Genesee did not put down, the Rebellion. But they had quite a hand in the matter. Their hand was on Rebellion's throat from firsi to last; and they never relaxed their grip until the giant. was strangled. " We are coming, Father Abraham, six hundred thousand mor^ , From Mississippi's winding stream, and from New Enffland's shore; Wo are coming, we are coming, our Union to restpre; We are coming. Father Abraham, six hundred thousand more." Tho5e were the men that put down the Rebellion ; and it is sufficient praise for our Valley to say that in that national psean there was hfeard a, ring- ing note from the country of the Genesee. And just a word for the other side. Their valor was 'approved by the fact they gave our five times six hundred thousand heroes about all they cared to do. The suppression of the great Rebellion was no.holiday excursion ; it was no child's play. The poor fellows who were worsted have theone consolation that they "fit well ;" and no'one who wore the army blue wishes to deny them that solitary consolation. The boys in blue came to have even something of a tenderness for the stubborn "Johnnies." • '■The ]py which generous warriors feel In foemen worthy of their steel." ■.I. It was Greek against Greek ; it was American against American. The hate that might have survived was utterly drowned out by admiration fdr each other's courage; and the first to "clasp hands across the bloody chasm " trtE GeneSee country. 43 Were the Vety irieri who had been fighting each other td the death. Victory was precious; but victory with reconciliation "was a blessing scarcely to be hoped for. But we owe both to the soldiers. Grant gave his prisoners their horses with which to plow their lands and raise bread for their children. Grant's soldiers gave the poor fellows their forgiveness and called them brave. , I well remember the furor created by the first appearance of young Miss Thompson's " Roll Call After the Battle;" and there it was in the Eng- lish collection at the World's Fair credited to Lady Butler. Many an individu- al thing seemed an ample reward for the expense and time g^iven to the fair ; and the sigM of this picture was one. fe'u.^ ; ' . U" '.y : PIONEER ARCHITECTURE — THE HOME OF TRUMBULL CARY. To see what a hero is like you have but to look at any one of the faces in that picture ; the faces of men who have come up out of ' 'the leaden rain and iron hail" of carnage ; the men who have received the shock of the heavy dragoons ; the men who stood firm to receive the magnificent bayonet charge bearing down upon them "dressed on the centre ;" the men who have rushed in wild melee to rescue their endangered standards, or to capture those of the enemy. The colonel sits on his horse looking mournfully on the gallant remnant of the thousand whom he revieWed yesterday. Then every belt had to be precise, every coat and button in order. Now he has no word of complaint for hatless and coatless men who, in the ruin of their uniforms, are still "every 44 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. inch the soldier." The orderly with boolc in hand is calling the old familiar roll. The handkerchief about his head, the bandage round his arm, tell their own story. You can see that he has been shot in the head and arm ; but you can see that the poof fellow is now shot through the heart by the .-ominous si- lence that greets the old familiar names. And if there is anybody that loves the boys it is the "orderly;" if there is anybody that the boys dote upon it is the "orderly." "Adams, Allison, Amsden, AnthoOy; Appleby, Arthur, At- terby, Ashton, Atwater, Austin, Avery, Baldwin, Ball; Bean,- Beardsley, Beckwith. Belden, Bemis, Benedict, Bentley, Benton, ■ Bernard, Bertrand; Biddle, Billings, Bishop, Bostwick, Bosworth, Bowen, Boyle,' BrOwn, Burns, Burton, Bussey," * * * . "Howard" responds with a cheery "Here!" — but you can see that the poor fellow with all his attempt at liuntiness is scarcely able to stand in the line. He tries to persuade himself tS^t he is not holding on to anybody; and the others are trying to persuade him that .they are not holding him up. "Jones," — "Here!" — at the middle of the line without a button on his coat, though trying amusingly to be presentable, and.,wonderiuig that he is not hurt like the rest of them. And so the orderly reaches the end of his dismal roll mainly.in dreary silence " * * * Walker. Walsh, Waltou. Ware, Warren, Washbnrn, Watson, Weaver, Weeras. Willis, Williams, Wil- son, Wolcott, Wormly, iWorth, Worthington, Wright, Youma^;S, Young." Never again will that complete roll be called by that or any othtr orderly. The roll will stand on the records; but the ominous star (*)' of silence will stand before many a loved comrade's name, while a foot-note tells bf La Tour d'Auvergne — "Dead on the field of honor." Look at those surviving heroes ! They are not a set of hyenas sated with blood ; they are the most tender- hearted as well as the most gallant of men. I'o them every, silence in the roll call is a most crushing sorrow. You can see it In their expressions, but with it you can see intermingled the soldierly instinct to show a'bold front, and even to seem gay while their hearts are breaking. Each seems to be de- termined not to be the lugubrious one of the crowd. No holiday soldiers those ; but men with the stamp of "veteran" impressed on every lineament. Out of Spottsylvania they are ready for Cold Harbor; out of the withering assault on Donelson they are ready for the more withering defense at Shiloh ;. out of the destructive carnage at Winchester they are ready to retrieve the fortunes of the Union at Cedar Creek. The soldier is the soldier; anti one cannot avoid making the application to our own boys. People still in active life'among us have seen the unbroken thousands of our dear ones go forth with bright uni- forms and fresh banners proudly waving. They have seen the return of the haggard, ' tanned, and battle-worn remnants marching under tattered and blood-stained banners showing on their folds how many times the roll was called after the battle. "What can the great attraction be? What do the people rush to see P / A handful of haggard men. « « « # The men are old, the boys are men. Grown gray before their time. Let him who would ask what the Union cost go to the Capitol at Albany and see the battle flags of the two hundred regiments of the Empire State THE Genesee country. 45 furled forever with their eloquent story to posterity. The soldiers who went forth came back "either with their shield or on it." The'most of them were on the shield ; but they were on it only as an awful aggregate of numbers that went down in the hour of battle with their eyes on those very flags ; in the hour when those very flags were, receiving those holes and tears from flying missies ; in the hour when those flags were receiving that saturation of the blood of heroes, and that soiling from earth made moist with heroes' blood. Then let him go to eyery other capitol of every other loyal State and see the same scene repeated. Miss Thompson (or later Lady Butler) has not scattered her talent. She is of that high class of geniuses who believe in doing a few things well. The soldier has been her subject. After showing him immediately after action she proceeded to show him in action ; and the result is another immortal can- vas. With all due respect to the great painter of "Friedland," I think that the most powerful battle-piece in existence is her "Charge of the Scots Greys." A distinguished critic has said of the ' 'Angelus" that the painter succeeded in painting sound- In the "Scots Greys" Lady Butler has painted to our hear- ing the thunder and the earthquake. But to the eye those muscular horses and those strpng men flying like a whirlwind to the point of attack are a vision of all that is sublime in war. The horses themselves are bent on win- ning-^heads dpwn, nostrils distended, eyes glaring fury, the iron-shod hoofs with the grea|- muscles back of them are determined to assail and trample down all beWe them. It is a picture of the irresistable. And yet such disi- pline ! In the mad rush eyes are turned on the guidon, swords are flashing the signal of cqjnmand where voices and bugles are utterly drowned. It is grand ; it is perfect. And yet a young woman has done this. The "Roll Call" was painted by a girl in her teens. But "Thanatopsis" was written by a boy who had scarcely reached his teens. Aeschylus could write the "Per- sians " and create the drama because he had been down in the depths of the struggle ; he was one of the immortal ten thousand who charged down with Miltiades from the mountain on to the plain of Marathon, and swept away the three hundred and fifty thousand Persians who had landed for the invas- ion of his county. But how did young Miss Thompson get her power? ■THE ARMS AND THE MAN I SING.' Arma vlrumque cano.— Virgil. SPEAKING of the Great Rebellion naturally brings to mind the great leader of the victorious Union armies. We often get very inade- quate or even incorrect notions of people by merely reading about them ; and a very brief personal encounter will often do much to rec- tify the conception. I had the good fortune to meet General Grant; and as the encounter was very instructive to me I venture to give an account of is here. We were pleasantly astonished one Spring by learning that a man was moving into Dixie with the evident purpose of staying. He proclaimed at Paducah that he came not to molest peaceable people but to deal with those 46 THE GENESEE COUNTRY, who were in arms against the government. He hastened around to find those armed uaughty ones ; he found them at Belmont and struck them a stunning blow. After that it was on to Fort Henry, on to Donelson, on to Shiloh, on to Vicksburg, on to Chattanooga, on to the Wilderness, on to Spottsylvania, on to Cold Harbor, on to Petersburg, on to Fraijklin, on to Nashville, on to Kene- saw, on to Atlanta, on to Allatoona, on to Savannah, on to Winchester, on to Cedar Creek, on to Richmond, on to Five Forks, on to Appomattox. A - friend of mine saw him soon after Appomattox receiving an ovation in one of the northern towns. I asked him how he looked. . Well he said he wore a dingy sort of a cheap army overcoat and looked bored. That was a little dis- appointing. But we were often disappointed. We waited eagerly far the illustrated papers to see what the hero of Belmont looked like. O disappoint- ment ! It was only a tame looking bewhiskered man with a sort of cavalry hat pinned up at the side. To make a hero of that extremely common place looking individual was quite a tax on our powers of idealization. , After the startling capture of Donelson out came that pinned up hat and those long whiskers again. But they never came afterward. Thenceforward we , saw the familiar square figure with closely trimmed whiskers, and the ha^t that never was fastened at the side. Still it was not a dashing figure. And we naturally look for a little dash in a hero. But we got used to it, and found that the picturesque is not an essential element in the winning of battles. But he did not lack picturesque subordinates. To find the beau sabreur we need not go beyond Sheridan, Custer, and Kilpatrick. To find the ideal knight, handsome, majestic, capable, brave, successful, we need but look at Hancock. To find the blasting eye and the very fury of war we have but to look at the mustached face of Logan. In his " Gentleman of Laporte" Bret Harte presents us a party of pros- pecting miners suddenly happening upon a little habitation in a clearing. This opportunity to get much information, and possibly a little tobacco, was not to be lost. So the party advanced upon an individual who was chopping firewood just in front of the little cabin. On being accosted he begged to be excused, and suddenly disappeared into the interior. Presently he re-appear- ed arrayed in an immaculate linen shirt, a silk hat, and white gloves. Re- moving the hat with the grace of a Chesterfield he begged to know the plea- sure of his visitors. On the brow of one of the wanderers there were all the signs of a coming storm. He moved upon the bowing gentleman with the fierce interrogatory: " See here. Stranger, what's this ere that yer a givin' us?" " I beg pardon, I don't comprehend !" "What do you take us for; do you think we're going to stand biled shirts, and silk hats, and, — ." The nar- rator of the incident said that he could not report with any degree of clearness what occurred just at that point. But when the atmosphere cleared some- what he discovered himself in the crotch of a tree ; and he saw the rest of his party similarly disposed in the neighboring foliage ; while the gentleman, hat in hand, was still bowing low to know their further pleasure. The first to climb down was the irate miner who had brought on the cyclone, or whatever it was. Approaching the bowing gentleman he once more addressed him, but in language very conciliatory : ' ' See here, Stranger, there are exceptions to all rules. As a rule I don't approve of biled shirts, and silk hats, and white kid gloves, and things; but I. want to say to you. Stranger, that you're entitled THE GENESEE COUNTRY. 47 to we^r just what you please." And speaking of the picturesque, General Grant relates that there was just one officer in the Union army who dared to appear before his soldiers in full regimentals ; andthatone was General Charles F, Smith, the hero of Fort Donelson. When General Smith rode down the line with waving.plume and, gorgeous uniform, with his tall form erect in the saddle, and sitting his horse so as to bring tears of mortifiaction to the eyes of a Buffalo Bill, no one grinned, no one jeered. After coming out of that awful assault on the left a soldier was aisked how he felt going up. " Well, I just get my teeth and kept my eye on the old man. The way he sat that horse in front of the line ?ind coolly pushed aside the obstructions was very re-assur- ing." That ',' old man " could " wear what he pleased." IN THE SHADOW OF GREATNESS. If it is true that Xerxes led four millions of men to the invasion of Greece, then he is the only man that ever commanded a larger number of troops in the field than General Grant commanded. But Xerxes lost about all his great army in a series of disasters due to his egregiously bad generalship. Of suc- cessful commanders no other man has carried as large a responsibility as rest- ed upon the brain of General Grant. And as nothing succeeds like success, no other man was so successful. It is eminently fitting that a mausoleum costing half a million dollars should be placed over his remains in Riverside Park. The greatest captain in history should be honored in a great way. General Grant has been much criticized. I used to have a stock of such criticisms. But they are all obsolete";! do not use them any more. The Con- federate General Buckner visited General Grant on that mountain of eternal sadness, a few days before the great hero's death. The conciliatory words of 48 THfe GENESEE CotJNTkY. the departing great man to his late foemen are a lasting heritage to the nation that he saved. In New York, on his return, Buckner was a listener to a sharp discussion of General Grant's character and career. One said that he lacked so and so. Buckner remarked: " That may be true, gentlemen, but I tell you General Grant was a very near man." Another said that he lacked so and so. Buckner remarked as before: " That may be true gentlemen, still I must in- sist that General Grant was a very near man. " And so Buckner met every single criticism with the constant phrase " a very near man." At last they lost patience, and demanded to know what he ment by calling General Grant " a very near man." "Well, gentlemen, I will tell you. You remember that I once had fifteen thousand rhen in Fort Donelson that I was compelled to give away to somebody ; and General Grant was right there near by to take them. Some months later my friend Pemberton had just 'twice as many men in Vicksburg that he had to give away to somebody ; and this same General Grant was right near by to take possession of them. At last it became neces- sary for General Lee to give up the whole southern army to somebody ; and, behold! it was the same General Grant that was right «^ar by to take them in. I tell you, gentlemen, he was a very near man." Well, I was full of criticisms too. I thought this and ,that about him. But the scales at last fell from my eyes so that I could see him as he was. The historian McMaster says that we know much of General Washington and of President Washington, but that we Still have to become acquamted with George Washington. If |hat be true^ I hope that when we become acquaint, ed with George Washington we shall Have no occasion to grieve. I know whereof I speak when I say that we have no occasion to grieve for the char- acter or traits of Ulysses S. Grant. He will bear the ilashlights of history. He needs no pall of charity. His simplicity was the very antipodes of vul- garity. His heart was as free from guile as a babe's, and as warm in its syrnpathies as-a woman's. He erred not on the side of stolidity, but on the side of a too great trustfulness ; he thought that other people were as honor- able and highly mmded as he. Of his intellectual powers, of the richness of hisculture, and of the charm of his presence, I shall speak later. I will now relate the circumstances of my conversion. They were somewhat dramatic, and in no small degree amusing. Toward the close of his first terln in the presidency I was doing up Washihgton for the first time. I invaded the Capital and ascended its beauti- ful dome without a tremor. I looked into the Treasury Building, the Patent office, and the Smithsonian Institute. The awtul White House I deferred to the last, in order to get my courage .=crewed up to the sticking point. At last, one morning after a good sleep and a good breakfast, I moved upon the Ex- ecutive Mansion. I went to the north entrance and leisurely contemplated the famous building. All contemplations must end ; so at last I turned on my heel and started back to the hotel. But I did not go to the hotel. I do not undertake to give the reasons why. Hypnotism is a convenient explanation of a course of conduct entirely contrary to one's usual habit. Whatever the cause I found myself back at the gate again. I nevet trespassed before nor since ; it is not my habit. After a pause I found myself entering that gate and moving on toward that mansion. My reason remained, though' my will ■vyas gone. I reasoned that I was guilty of gross trespass, perhaps of some- THE GENESEE COUNTRY. 49 thing like treason ; and I wondered liow far I would go before they would either arrest or eject me. On I went to the very corner of the house and touched it. Now I thought if I live through this I will have something to tell. Again I turned on my heel ; but again I did not get to the hotel. I heard the rustle of a newspaper ; and a figure that I had not noticed before straightened. itself up on a park seat near me. I was not particularly startled ; I was des- parately, reconciled to either arrest or ejection, whichever the event might be. But the figure was that of a benignant gentleman who asked me without any. preliminary the blunt question: "Have you been inside?" I could have, taken arrest with a fair degree of composure ; but this question upset me. "Go in, "'Said' the benignant gentleman, "it is the regular thing." "And go where you please. " I presume that I said something ; though I cannot now recall it He, however, said no more, and seemed inclined to return to his. newspaper." I could not interrupt a man who evidently wanted to read; so I drifted away from' him poxidering deeply. How quickly one slides down the hill of recklessness when he once begins. I had intruded upon the President's grounds; I now invaded his residence. I entered and walked down the main corridor. Colored domestics were flitting back and forth about their duties ; but no one seemed surprised at my presence. I was ' ' monarch of all I surveyed." The Persian magnate gives over his castle to the visiting guest. But woe to the guest that would take it. But I took the White House, and held it without disaster. After doing the corridors I felt constrained to do the rooms that were at rrty disposal. I peered modestly into a few ; but I had to take possession of the famous East Room. I held it alone while I thought of its history from John Adams to Grant. I took another stroll in the corridors and then turned on my heel to go to the hotel, feeling that I had had great adventures. But again I did not go to the hotel. As I moved toward the door a couple of gentlemen brushed by me. A remark from one of them in passing turned the whole tide of events. "He came rather unexpectedly, didn't he?" I instantly divined who was meant by " he." It was August ; and Grant had been tarrying at his cottage at Long Branch. He was now in that building. I was seized with an uncontrollable desire to see him. But how to effect my purpose required some pondering. At last I hailed a flittmg colored gentleman. " Is President Grant in ?" " Yessah." " How can a person- get to see him?" " O, its vahy easy, sah. You just go up that flight of stahs, sah, to the first landing, sah, and turn m -to a doh, sah, at the left hand, sah. That's Gen'l Dent's room, sah, the President's private secketay, sah; He'l get you a chance to see the President, sah." A sUght movement of his hand toward his head, and of his head to- ward his hand; and he was flitting again. I did as directed. For an exam- ple of perfectly beaming urbanity commend me to General Dent the brother of Mrs. Grant. He sat high behind a sort of banker's screen with a little window before him. He beamed and beamed on me from ths minute that I appeared at the door-way until I presented myself at the little window. His countenance intimated eloquently that he was glad beyond all measure that I had come at last. And when I told him my name and that I desired to pay my respects to the President, he could not altogether repress a little paroxysm of delight. He passed me out a blank card with a perfect ardor of kindness (it- would be wrong to callit unction). " All right, Mr. just write your 50 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. name, please, on that card ; and I will send it in to him at once. Just at pre- sent he is closeted with the Secretary of War, and may be engaged with him for a short time. But I think it will not be long. He will send for you as soon as he is disengaged. Please have a seat and make yourself entirely at home." Another melting beam ; and that ended my first and last interview with Gen- eral Dent. Having tucked me away cozily the General proceeded to beam upon his duties. I sat down and sat there just one hour. Some men were already sitting ; and others kept dropping in at intervals, until there were about fifteen sitters all told. I did not know what the ultimate formality would be ; I could only await developments. I thought that we would be call- ed in the order of our cards. The hour was not altogether lost ; for I was lAuch interested in the various types that constituted bur party. We were called en masse. A very straight young colored man appeared at the inner door and read off in ringing tones the names on all the cards that had been sent in. He then faced about like a drum major. We took the hint and formed single file to follow him. He marched us quickly to the right and then quick- ly to the left off to some remote part of the house ; andhe quickly stepped aside on reaching an open door. Through that door the rest of the file march- ed. Just inside the door stood a gentleman who gave a cordial shake of the hand to each of the party who had done him the honor of calling upon- him. It was THE MAN OF ArpoMATTox. He had read our names ; and the seqilel will show that every name was fixed in his memory. He took the hand of each and looked kindly into each pair of eyes, as he allowed us to identify oiir- selves ; and the sequel will show that the identification was not needed a second time. " Mr. — ?" " " "O, yes, Mr. I am glad to see you;" and so he passed us each into the room. It transpired that nearly all of us had very precious axes to grind ; but like a true gentleman he left that to transpire, and assumed that we came there with the highest motives imaginable. No stolidity about that. That little action at the door marked the very acme of good breeding. He needed no master of ceremonies to be gracious in his name and to take care of the forms of his co\;rt. His breeding was so high that he was incapable of condescensic^^. His breeding was so high that he could afterwards meet all the sovereigns of the world without jarrmg their dignity or losing his own. I have heard it said that the presidency polished him. I do not so understand it. The victory that first revealed General Grant's military talents also revealed the gentleness of his heart, the dignity of his character, the delicacy of his touch, and the finish of his politeness. When Donelson fell, and his name was ringing through the land, instead of inflating himself with self-importance, he thought only of the feelings of the unfortun- ate. He was the general until the fort surrendered ; he was then the gentle- man ; and he won his greatest victory after the arms were grounded ; for he disarmed his prisoners of their hate. He gave strict orders that no act should be perpetrated, no word uttered, that could possibly mortify the pri- soners. He made a call of courtesy upon the captive officers and insisted that they should meet him at- his own mess. He did all that a gentleman could do to put them in countenance ; and they never forgot it. It was the Commander of Donelson who rushed to Mount Macgreggor when he learned that his great antagonist was passing away. Could anything be more gentle than his treat- ment of Lee andjLee's veterans ? General Grant's, kindly instincta disarmed THE GENESEE COUNTRY. 51 the whole confederacy of its hate. The one consolation that the Confederates had in their final defeat was that they had been defeated by General Grant. While they stood in arms he was remorseless. "Unconditional surrender; I propose to move immediately upon your works. " " Why does Thomas delay ? Why is not that line moving up Missionary Ridge ?" "I propose to fight it ■out on this line, if it takes all summer." Words of death and destruction. But the very moment they submitted he was gentleness itself. No, the Pres- idency did nothing for Grant. He adorned the Presidency. My contempti- hle criticisms began to fly to the four winds from the moment that I encoun- tered him in that door. It was not the Grant of the newspapers ; it was Ulysses S. Grant himself ; and Ulysses S. Grant himself was a revelation to me. He stood at that dopr in his prime, at the zenith of everything. I never THE PRESIDENT S MANSION. have seen a man to whom the word wholesome would more fitly apply. He was an example of perfect health. The warm strong hand bespoke 'perfect circulation of the blood ; the eye, the face, the body showed that every organ was in prime condition. He was fifty ; but there was not the least suggestion of approaching age. His nerve was as steady after his mighty deeds and cares as if he had never done a thing in his life. But his presence was whole- some from a moral point of view. You felt that you were in the presence of a good man as well as a great one. He was of medium height, square built, and strong. I have heard such a figure described as being built from the ground up. It would be called a sturdy figure. I remember that he had a very fine shoulder. B«t he was so well proportioned that no part was con- spicuous. He was well dressed , though not in broad cloth. He wore a square- cut business suit of darkish stuff of good quality. , He was well dressed with- out the slightest suggestion of style. I would call it an easy suit, and a man at ease in it. The room w^& oblong. A Ipng table in the middle extended 52 fHE ISENESEB COUNTRY. lengthwise of the room. Covered chairs were arranged at itltefvals around the table ; and other covered chairs were arranged at intervals around the wall. We drifted to the seats around the wall. The President took a seat at the head of the table and faced to my side of the room. It chanced that I had drifted to a seat within a very feet of him ; so I heard every word that was said during the hour that I was in the room, and had Grant manifesting him- self to me at very close range and under very trying circumstances. As soon as he was seated he was interviewee! at once by a gentleman who took a seat at my side of the table and presented his face to me in profile. I was far enough away to be at a civil distance, and yet near enough to hear all that was said and to observe the workings of the President's mind. That side chair became the anxious seat for a long succession of petitioners who had ■ failed to get satisfaction m the departments, and who now brought their own side of the story to the President himself.^ I became a little' panickywhen I found that my companions were all there on business, while 1 had come there as a mere idle interloper. But there I was ; and all I could do was to let matters take their course. I would have given a great deal to be out of my predicament, and yet I would not for ten times as much have lost the oppor- tunity of seeing General Grant for an hour under fire. He allowed each petitioner to say all that he had come to say, without the slightest interruption. His repose of manner was wonderful ; he never fidgeted nor even moved in that chair ; he sat there like a statue. And his control of his countenance was as noticeable as his control of his nerves ; his face gave absolutely no sign as to how the petitioner's case was faring. But the instant that his case was all in the President was talking ; and that talk ; was a revelation. It showed that he had been the best of listeners, and that while his face was absolutely impassive he had been mentally probing the case to the very core. And he spoke like one who had a grip of it at the core. It, was the voice of a master-mind. The petitioners were generally very strong men, and they seemed to have much at stake. I think there was no petition that had reference to appointments or politics ; they seemed to be all concern- ing business interests that were affected" by"the~aT;ti'(yn~bf~th"e~d'epartments. ' Some said they came to appeal to his sense of justice ; others were disposed to impress upon him what would be to the interest of the public service. He shrank from neither; he was willing to be a Solomon columns and entablatures , and we seem to be on the Acropolis in the Age of Pericles. Phidias has left his thought in Chicago ; the Parthenon is everywhere. So, too, is the Temple of Diana and the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates. But blended with it all are the stately arch, thevictorycolumns, and the massive composite architecture of imperial Rome. One walks in the 88 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. Forum under the shadow of the Capitoline. You need not leave the spot to get suggestions of Byzantine architecture ; and while you stand, a flood of sweetest melody rolls out from chimes away up in the towers of a Gothic ca- thedral. Look again from the same spot and through the same identical things and you are gazing on the domes of Michael Angelo and the architec- ture of the Renaissance. Step under any one of the lofty portals and the thought is made complete by revealing to you the painted ceiling of the Sis- tine Chapel. Out again and the very same scene is the Venice of the Doges. The ducal palace is everywhere ; the gondolas flit through, the Jagoons and under the Rialto"; the lion is rampant oh the square of Saq, Marco. Up again through the phantasmagoria, and holding the thought for a moment, is Sir Christopher Wren with his Saint Paul's, the pride of London. Move a little, it is the Alhambra that -appeals to you with the graceful and ravishing archj. tecture of the Moors. Old Castile has given to the scene something more than the caravels of Columbus. Nor is there wanting a suggestion of the India of Herodotus and the Egypt of Moses. Even far Cathay has lent its note to the silent diapason of beauty which holds the soul of the beholder spell-bound. But, hark ! the sweet-toned chimes are waking in the lofty tower. What have they to say that will fit in with the thought and impres- sion of the moment ? It is a simple, familiar melody, one of the heart songs of the ages : " Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam. Be it ever so humble, tiiere's no place like home." The note is true, apt, and sympathetic to the mood. It is home-making that has made all this. We make our homes ; and the rest is added unto us, " 'Way down upon the Suwanee river, Far, far away. There's where my heart is turning eyer; There's where the old folks stay." Again the note of home and affection. Even though we do not all live on the Suwanee river the melody draws our hearts to our own "old folks at home." '' There's a land that is fairer than day; And by faith we can see it afar." Yes, beauty is heaven-born, and beauty's flights are heavenward. It would do slight violence to the situation to imagine the pavementof the Court of Honor to be made of jasper and gold, and that all this was an attempt to foreshadow the New Jerusalem. " Nearer my God to Thee." The bells have worked out the climax for us, and interpreted our emotions to ourselves. The uplift of it all is toward the throne of Him who is the source of the Good, the True, the Beautiful. How this thought is intensified a little later. " Now came slow evening on, and twilight gray " would seem about to extinguish the whole beautiful scene, to swallow up in THE GENESEE COUNTRY. remorseless darkness the palaces and gardens of fairy land; when lo! as by a stroke of magic, dull night is conquered and made even more beautiful than day ! The buildings, canals, and gardens are all aglow with incandescent lights ; fountains of light in variegated and swiftly changing colors are dash- ing into the air and describing an infinite variety of forms ; flash lights are dipping here and there on domes and towers and pinnacles; on portals, foun- tains, and statuary ; picking rare bits of beauty and rendering them more glorious by contrast with the surrounding darkness. The last agent forced into the service of man has already multiplied the beauty of the earth four- fold, One realizes that he has never seen the Macmonnie's Fountain, or the Administration Building, or the canals, or the Peristyle at all until he has seen them under the flashes of the electric light. What ravishing sculpture ! What marvelous architecture ! What wonderful water effects with their curving bridges and flitting gondolas are brought out by the well-directed flashes from the roofs of the lofty buildings ! " And holy thoaebts come o'er me, When I behold afar DesoendinK from the heavenly height The shield of that bright star. " Yes, it was beautiful ! It was divinely beautiful ! FAIRY LAND. THERE were worlds of beauty apart from the Court of Honor and the Grand Canal. In fact this wonderful Latin cross was designed to be only a noble vestibule to the real temple of the Fair. That it made itself the centre of interest and took supreme possession of the beholder was perhaps an accidental result rather than a thing deliberately aimed at in the original plan. The plan contemplated a vast, varied, and in- teresting exhibit, and just proposed to have it appropriately housed. The spirit that soared so high on the mere problem of the entrance was not inac- tive as to what was supposed to be the real thing itself. The exhibits them- selves became simply materials of adjustment in the hands of exacting art ; just as the straws and wool and hair and slime are controlled into that beauti- ful product, a bird's nest. Ores, and grasses, and grains; fabrics, and fishes, and facts ; wares, and machines, and utensils ; all the myriad products of an onward-sweeping civilization — were forced into order by an over-mastering sense of form and color. They became the mere elements of innumerable beautiful pictures ; while art supplemented its own effects with special decora- tion, and over it all turned on the sweet airs of rriusic. It was Fairyland with- in as well as without. The sublime vestibule did lead into a bewildering temple. I have said that the Manufacturers' Building could contain within its symmetrical and harmonious embrace thirteen Saint Peter's; and the com- 90 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. parison of buildings within a building was not a forced one; . Though the thirteen Saint Peter's were not there, yet there were several times thirteen gor- geous and magnificent palaces in that great interior, any one of which would be a striking object in any street of any city, and some of which were truly colossal. Is was street after street worthy of the Arabian Nights, blazing with color, and — shall we say? — even riotous with form, But it was the riot of infallible and sure-footed harmony that could dance the giddiest mazes with- out missing the slightest figure or point. A city within a building ! And a city of such gorgeous color and. form ! Miracle on miracle piled! I well re- member when it was a great experience to go to the top of Bunker Hill monu- ment and look down upon the distant roofs of Charlestown, ami upon the pygmy folks celebrating the heroism of a hundred years ago. One could rise UIIICKK 'IIIK ARCHITECTS (JET THEIR INSIMKATION— THE CRACEEUI, COLUMNS, THE iJUnlNEl) AISi.ES, ANli THE OKiMATE TRIUMPHAL ARCHES OF NATURE. " Father, thy hand '> Hath reared those venerable columns, thou Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst loolt down Upon the naked earth, and, forthwith, rose AH these fair ranks of trees. ***** These dim vaults. These winding alf>le.s, of human pride and nomp Keport not. Thou hast not left Thyself without a witness, in the shades, Of thy perfections." THE GENESfeE COUNTRY. 91 # ' the elevator of the Manufacturers' Building to a greater height than the p of Bunker Hill monument, and still be under a roof ! Far, far below were e summits of lofty pinnacles; and lower still weie the swarming little black ijects known to be human beings inspecting a city more marvelous than ncy ever painted, and converting by contrast into a poor bazaar the fabled ealth of " Ormus and the Ind." And when you get up you cannot get down, itil you have traveled around a piece of the roof and contemplated sonie- liat leisurely the aggregate glories of Fairy Land, together with its setting a great stretch of the great city on one side and the great lake on the other. mere balcony view, and yet suggestive of viewing creation from the top of ont Blanc. After traversing the bit of roof and returning to the elevator fain from the other direction, you are told that yon havfe footed it just a mile ! his mile was only the core of the great lauilding ; you just cut across a mod- ate sectionof a few of the streets away down in the great interior. The en- rced observation on the top of the big building }iad its exact counterpart in le case of the big Ferris Wheel. In the latter, as in the former, you had to le sublimity, willy, nilly. There was this difference, however, that whereas 1 the big building you suddenly found yourself on top of creation, in the big . heel on the contrary you suddenly "found creation dropping from under your et. But go you must after that remorseless gate was shut upon your car. he fifty cents entitled you to two trips around the great circumference, jrusha Jane be.^ame disturbed at the Sudden slipping away of terra firma ; id she suggested with great anxiety to Brother Jonathan (she called him eorge) that they do not go up the second time. Poor Jerusha ! when the 3ar earth came up to her, and the cup of a safe landing was just at her eager id trembling lips, it was ruthlessly dashed away from her ; and down went le earth a second time to that awful two hundred and fifty feet. Again the :ory ended pleasantly ; for when the good kind earth came up the next time came to Stay. i Fairy land had its sections with different key-notes, but always in perfect ine. The very instant that you left the north end of the Manufacturers' uilding you left the commanding beauty of the straight line; the wonderful jrizontals, verticals, and obliques of the Court of Honor and its noble tran- jpt, the Grand Canal. You now go " swinging round the circle" under the ill domination of the curve. The rectilinear canal expands into circular goons; the Hudson of the Palisades swells out, into Tappan Zee and Haver- raw Bay. You encounter circular buildings amidst circular thoroughfares, rcular islands clothed with rarest vegetation and cut into labyrinthine mazes ith circular, pathways. The domes become hemispherical, the bridges al- lost semi;circles. The gentle pitch of the Rialto is not sufficiently pronounc- 1 to fit iri'-'with the key-note of this scene. Where all this softened beauty of le circle centres itself, there art with true instinct planted the Palace of Paint- ig and SeSilpture. This temple of pure art, this home ot beauty alone, this inctuar/from which cold and sodden utility is utterly excluded, and in which le soul is invited to feast on nectar and ambrosia, is very properly approach- 1 through tlie softening influence of circular forms. At every step you thrill ith the perfect touch in things ; you are impressed with another balancing in special world of beauty. . ; g2 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. With other devotees you ascend a long flight of steps to the heavy portal of the sacred temple ; and you enter — Olympus ! ' - Olympus is a theme in itself. Happy he who can treat it. You go. everywhere under a spell — the spell of ever-present beauty, of infallible art, of sustained harmony. Or, to pxpress it all in terms of music, in the Court of Honor and along the Grand Canal you get the groundswell of the sublime organ tones, whereas passing nojtjthward you strike-the rippling music of the piano, gently inter- spersed with the dulcet notes of the guitar. Ravishing sweetness ! See the gondola and the swans rounding Wooded Island ! But as you began in the Court of Honor so the close of each day will find you there again. And there you will find stealing over yoii a solid conviction that here after all is the center of things ; this instead of being the entratice is the pivot of the whole. Bewitchery remains ; but with it there is superadded the sense of sublimity ; and you resolve to stand solidly here and try to think it out, while the whole magnificence bears down upon you in one stupendous effect. " Earth proudly wears the Parthenon, As the best gem upon her zone, ,. I And Morning ope's with haste her lids. To gaze upon the Pyramids; O'er England's abbeys bends the sky. As on its friends with kindred eye; For oat of thought's Interior sphere Those wonders rose to upper air; * « # 4: Those temples grew as grows the grass; Art might obey, but not surpass. The passive master lent his hand To the vast soul that o'er him planned." * * * * " O'er me soared the eternal sky, Full of light and deity; Again I saw, again I heard, The rolling river, the morning bird ; Beauty through my senses stole; I yielded myself to the perfect whole. " THE CENTENNIAL. M ANY have stood in the Court of Honor who, up to that moment, had carried glowing remembrances of the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia. But what a reaction comes over one by con. trast. The Centennial exhibits became too paltry to be thought of; they are as antiquated and as much out of date as if they belonged to a period beyond the flood. And yet some of us do not feel that we are much older than when we went to Philadelphia. What a rush we are in when a new civilization takes possession of the world in the short space of seventeen years ! But at Philadelphia the exhibits were everything, the buildings were nothing but great unsightly barns. The thought ascended no higher than THE GENESEE COUNTRY. 93 Utility ; and a poor, pinched utility, at that. We cannot even concede to the Centennial the attribute of size. As we now recall it thexe was nothing to do but to finger carpets, and porcelain, and bric-a,-brac. And yet the Centennial is not to be despised, even in remembrance. It was grand considering all the circumstances. It was the work of a nation exhausted by a frightful war. We were not presentable ; we had been drained, and harried, and torn, and worn. The flower of our yeuth was consumed on an enormous battle line ; and the old folks were at their wits' end finding supplies and hurrying them to the front. It was a desperate fight for life ; it was not a time to make artists ; it was a time to make gladiators and patriots. What could those poor, panting gladiators and patriots do so soon after emerging from the smoke of battle ? They did what they could ; and the Centennial of that day did them as much credit as the White City has done to this generation of the myrtle. " O Beautiful 1 my country I ours once more I Smoothing thy gold of war-diahevelled hair O'er sucii sweet brows as never other wore, And letting thy set lips. Freed from wrath's pale eclipse, The ro.~pF .HONOR. architecture, paintmg, and sculpture to' the arts, and that was ready now at its close to show how to live grandly or die greatly, whichever issue Provi- dence might have in store. This greatest of centuries began for Athens with the unequal but triumphant struggles at Marathon and Salamis ; it was to end for her with the more sublime struggle against enemies on the heights and the deadly plague within. • Duloe et decorum eat pro patria mori." The address was the act of a Csesar hopelessly beset by assassins, gather- ing his drapery about his person and oflEering a decorous breast to the blow. Soul exaltation seemed to be in the very air of Europe in that wonderful century ; for almost at that very moment the white-haired senators of con- quered Rome were sitting at their portals like statues of devotion, faithful unto death in upholding their country's dignity, and placidly awaiting the no THE GENESEE COUNTRY. Yes, those were the scenes to fire a patriot's heart, to lilt his soul to the heights of self -obliteration, and to nerve his arm for the supreme blow that was either to give liberty to the world, or at least to make tyrants tremble in their capitals. ' " Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be, And freedom find no champion and no child, Such as Columbia saw arise when stie Sprang forth a Pallas, armed and undefiled ? " The spirit of '76 is still alive in the land; it needs but an occasion to arouse the Greek. Greeik does enter as an element into modern civiliza- tion. , .„ * That marvellous culture of Greece has inspired and informed every great , uprising in the west. When the Greek arms fell powerless, the Greek books went on doing theii wonderful work. Rome reached her zenith of culture by stooping to learn Greek. > In the very golden age of Roman literature the very princes of that"literary round table were constantly admonishing every- body to study Greek. Rome Latinized everything but Greece; she fell her- self a slave to Greek thought. " Greola oapta Komam captavit." Horace speaks tenderly of his Greek volumes ; he is constantly maintain- ing that no one even with the .rEneid, the Eclogues, the Metamorphoses, the Sallust, the Livy, the Cicero, the Cisesar at his command, can lay any claims to being a cultured man if he has not drunk long and deeply at the Greek fountain. We are told that it ig etiough to study the modern massterpiec^s, or at most to go back-only on classic Rome. "When we get there w& find- Horace, the premier of that classic Rome, impatiently urging his contemporaries not to be satisfied with Roman masterpieces, but to " study Greek, study Greek". . " Vos exemplaria Grseoa Nocturna versatemanu, versate diurna." He is constantly raving of Lesbian quills and ^olian pipes, pf Archil- ochus, Sappho, Alcspus, and Pindar. He was then the modern to wtiom the Greek genius was the delight and the despair. , He deemed it sufficient for his immortal renown that he had caught the Greek note and domesticated it at Rome. He claimed to be ohly an echo, a refiection ; and yet because he had echoed and reflected well, he predicted that he would be read in the schools thousands of years hence, and that school boys would be thumbing their Horaces to remotest ages. , " Exegi monumentum sere pereunius * * * * * * aut innumerabilis Annorum series et fuga temporum, Non omnis moriar, multaque pars met Vitabit Llbitinum : * * * * * * * * ex humlle potens, Prinoeps Solium carmen ad Italoa Beduxisse mudos.^' THE GENESEE COUNTRY. Ill It is nearly two thousand years since Horace's day; and yet his book is still thumbed pretty diligently by school-boys. And in the same satchel I am glad to say you will still find the book of the philosophical historian . Thucydides, who closed his volume with the prediction that he had written something that the world would read forever, that the nations would not let die. Educational notions '-may come" and educational notions "may go;* but it seems that Horace and Thucydides, in accordance with their own pre- dictions, may "go on forever." Horace was right ; modern masterpiteces do, not meet the requirements of the highest cultivation ; that can be attained qiily by "drinking deep " of the " Pierian Spring" and its famous companion Hippocrene. ON MAL-TEACHING. BUT WHAT of those who have studied Greek without manifest bene- fit? I answer that many have studied English without manifest benefit; they are smatterers who have not gotten into the merits of the matter. They have either lacked natural capability, or they have beSn ill-taught. With anything at all to build upon a Roger Asctlam would make of his pupil a strong and enthusiastic Greek scholar. The stu- dent who cannot learn Greek well canpot learn anything well; the student who is ill-taught in Greek would be ill-taught in anything else by the same teacher. A wrong method will not reachany goal, Greek among the rest. It is a sad commentary on our boasted modern methods that we fail to reach resultsin Greek. That we have had a Roman, an Italian, a German, an English, and an American Renaissance, shows that some one in the past has known how to teach Greek. Let us stop patronizing the teachers now sleep- ing in honored dust, and endeavor on the cofltrary to learn the secret of their power. Greek may be studied as a grammar; and like all grammars, it affords a most stimulating exercise. But that is not what Greek should be studied for; it should be studied as a literature, Instead of having his pupils nibbling at a more or less bitter shell, the teacher should reveal the toothsome kernel within, and spur his pupil on to get it all. Byron well surhs up the mal -teaching of the classics : Then farewell Horace ; whom I bated so Not for thy faults but mine. * * * * ■# * The drilled dull lesson, forced down word by word In my repugnant youth * * * • the dally drug which turned My sickening memory.' Yes, it was a "curse" in his case. All bad teaching is a curse. The teacher who can present beauty of any kind \yithout showing that he feels its charm is a curse. I fear that we are developing a new style of stoicism, which consists in suppressing all feeling. The true stoic would suppress only the tHE GENESEE COUNTRY. feeling of base fear. We are affecting not exactly cynicism, but a composure suggestive of an icicle. There is no sanction for any such type of culture ; instead of development it is a case of arrested development ; it is the poor lit- tle foot of the Chinese woman, the wretched product of murderous repression. Enthusiasm is not necessarily hysterical ; a cultured enthusiasm never is; t^e highest ideal of culture is not to repress enthusiasm, but to extend it to the largest possible number of objects, and to quicken its responsiveness. Enthusiasm is the movement of the soul ; it is the " God within." The teacher who presents a fine thing without observing that it is fine, commits an educational crime. I think, however, that the lack of enthusiasm in classes is oftener due to callow ignorance on the part of the teacher than to any deliberate attempt at systematic composure. There are those who can stand in sight of Niagara and think out their own trifling cares. •4 f ^^'^ f "SJfiw THE ADMINISTRATION BUILDING. — THE QUEHN OF FAIRY LAND. But the study of the detested classics made Byron after all. He had vi- tality enough to survive the methods practised upon him. If he did not learn to love Horace he did learn to love antiquity. He became the most advanced of philhellenes ; he went to Greece that was "living Greece no more" and called her back to life. He forced the "craven crouching slave" to look upon " ThermopylEe " and reassert the independence' and dignity of his ancient race. " The mountains look on Uarathou ; And Marathon looks on the sea ; And standing there an hoar alone I dreamed that Greese might yet be tree." THE GENESEE COytJtRV. I13 ' The dream was quickly, realized;, and it was realized through Byron's im- passioned use of names; it was. realized through that overwhelming force, the classic enthusiasm. The ■ dislodged Greek- did unwittingly what Fichte, did deliberately ; he went west arid trained the boys to come f>ack and restore him . " The Solan and the Teian muse, The hero's harp, the lover's lute," had long been singing liberty, manhood, qiyiUzatibrj, and aspiration into the races of the west: " Their place oC birth alone Is mute To sounds whloh echo farther west ' ' : '_ Than your sires' 'Islands of the Blest.'" , At last the West comes to pay her debt. The ears of the " Servile offsprlne of the free " are greeted with the voice of a western singer calling up all the bedimmed memories of a glorious past; , "., Clime of the unf orcotten brave ! " * * * ' • " The isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece : Where burning Sappho loved and sung. " * * * * '■ Hereditary bondsmen 1 Know ye not Who would be free themselves must strike the blow ? " * * * * * * " On SuU's rook and Parga's shore - Exists a remnant of a line Such as the Doric mothers bore ; And there perhaps some seed Is sown The Heraoleldan blood might own." * * , • ♦ " These scenes their story not unknown Arise and make again your own." The appeal was successful ; the prediction was literally and quickly ful- filled; the " Slaves— nay, the bondsmen of a slave. And callous save to crime," the men who had been trampled under tyranny and bred to degradation for over two thousand years, were almost instantly a set of heroes in arms at the throat of their oppressor. A singer from that region * * " farther west Than your sires' 'Islaftds of the Blest ' " sings thfe sequel : ' At midnight in the forest shades Bozzaris ranked his Suliote band,— True as the steel of their tried blades. Heroes In heart and hand. - ' 114; THE GENESEE COUNTRY. There had the Persian thousands stood. There had the glad earth drank their blood In old Platffla's day ; A-nd now there breathed that haunted air Th3 son^ of sires who oonqnered there, With arms to strike and souls to dare. As quick, as fair, as they." WHAT IS HISTORY? 1 F IT is educa'tion to have lofty ideals and a purified taste, then Greek will continue to plaly its part in a scheme of education. Many stilll think with Horace that this highest culture can come only through the' study of the Greek classics. Greek is still in our secondary schools andl IN FAIRY LAND. higher institutions as a regular branch of liberal culture ; and it claims that where it sits is the head of the table. It is "facile princeps." There is a recoil from the intense materialism into which an excessive at- tention to science was leading education ; there is a return to enthusiasm, to the culture of the soul and a building up of character. But every , recpil -of this kind is a return to Greek. We are returning to the humanities, and we are extending the teaching of Greek. There seems to be a move at present to get away from history. We are advised to look to the future and not to the past. We are told that the past THE GENESEE COUNTRY. Ilg has no right to control our thoughts and actions ; that those people lived as well as they could with the light which they had, and that they are now hap- pily laid away ; that we should be permitted to work out the problems of our environment undisturbed by folks who knew nothing about our chemistry, steam-propulsion, electricity, and photography. Very plausible. But a man might as well try to get away from his shadow as away from history. History is an unceasing flow ; the modern man has no monopoly of time ; he has but his moment on the shifting scene ; his life like all the rest will ' ' point a moral or adorn a tale " for those who come after. The man without a historical perspective is purblind ; he cannot see the future, and by cutting loose from the past he has lost his basis of in- ference. We are born to look both ways ; we are endowed with a ' ' great discourse looking before and after." In these piping times of peace we may dig tunnels and build bridges and hug our individual experience ; butlet danger menace us in any form, and we return at once to our better selves ; we listen to the warning voice of the past, and rise to our true condition as "the heirs of all the ages in the foremost files of times." In throwing down the gage of balttle at the outbreak of the Revolution, Patrick Henry made his appeal to history: "I know no way of judging of the future but by the past." But history is only a prattle of words, or a bewildering maze of dates, or a thoroughly unconnected phantasmagoria, until the past peoples begin to speak for themselves through their literatures ; then the elusive spectres take on flesh and blood ; they live and love and sorrow again for our sakes ; again the hall of council resounds with wisdom and burning eloquence ; qgain the busy mart appears ; again is heard the uproar of commerce with its thousand tongues ; again the creaking cordage is heard upon the waters ; and again the life of the past is so realistic that we can take sides with the warring factions. We cannot be sent to Greece or any other historic place ; we must be drawn there. Xenophon pulls us into Asia Minor and off to distant Babylon ; we actually see the villages of Armenia ; we hear the frequent ptean as the heavy-armed Greeks rush to battle ; we can feel the very snow on the Thracian mountains ; we walk right into the temple of Diana ; we hear the whisper of the Delphic priestess; we are present at the Olympian games; we are of the company of young men drinking in the wisdom of Socrates. With Thucy- dides we actually sail out of Pirasus and are a part of the disastrous campaign of Syracuse. Froude says there is no history except what the people say themselves ; everything else is distorted by ignorance or colored by prejudice; you get no solid footing in the matter until you hear the people talk. When people talk as well as the Greeks, and when they have a story of such thrilling interest to tell ; when moreover they occupy such an important point of departure in the history of the historic races, it would seem very unwise, to say the least, to close our ears against them. It is interesting and profitable to hear any people speak ; it is interesting, profitable, and improving to listen to the Greeks. I do not think that education is going to lose its sheet anchor; I think that Greek will stay. Ij6 the GENESEE COUNTRY. GREEK THE ARMOR OF RELlGtON. BUT were not the Greeks heathens ? And does not the study Ot Greek ' take us into heathendom ? Is not the literature of Crreece teeming with gods and .godesses ? It takes us into the childhood of 'the world, when the higher powers were sought m the visible forces hi nature. It takes us into a time when the marvelous had its attractions, and created for us ten thousand interesting and beautiful forms which are the cur- rent coin of modern thought and the diamond gems of modern art. But it also takes us into a culture that dethroned all its gods and godesses, and transformed all its polytheism into simple poetry. It takes us into a culture . that emancipated the human mind. It takes us into a culture that had reached the idea of one supreme and spiritual God. The'cultured Greeks accepted this idea; Socrates died promulgating it. He was as much a martyr to truth as those who were thrown to the wild beasts at Rome. It istrue thatthose ' people were not teaching Christianity. But how could they teach it five hun- dred years before the Saviour came? Since, the coming of the Saviour they have done nothing else. The cross has never disappeared froin Hellas since" it first appeared there. Greece was a university. She found her unity in the culture of the human powers. At Elis there were no Spartans, no Athenians, no Thebans : they were all Greeks. The college course was then four years ' as now ; but there were no under-classes ; the one class was carried through ' to graduation, and then another was started. And they came as a race to the • graduating exercises. To him who had finished the course well, they awarded ' the humble but precious crown of laurel or parsley, just as we are doing to- day in imitation of them. Such was their passionate interest in education that ' they reckoned time only by their college commencements. After three hundred _ glorious olympiads they had a culture strong enough to educate' a Saint Paul and to fit him for carrying the Gospel to the heart of the nations. Whenthe brilliant youth of Tarsus, saturated with Greek culture, stood ' on Mars" Hill, he proclaimed to the men of Athens that he came among them to make known that " Unknown' God" whom they had been darkly worshipping so long. And his inspired epistles were written in Greek. And the inspired Gospels of the evangelists were written in Greek. Already the Old Testament had been translated into Greek. So now the entire Word was Greek. I have said that ' Greece made school -boys of her conquerors. She was destined further to make them Christians. The Romans threw the Christians to the wild beasts; the'' Greeks gave the world a Christian czar, and placed Christianity under the'' protection of imperial law. No man of judgment will take his family into an American town where the school-house or church is languishing. But he ewes both to the Greeks. " Every Christian clergyman needs to be a Greek scholar ; and what is good for the pastor cannot be bad for the flock. It was thus that our college system arose. The colleges sprang up to educate the clergy for the offices of religion,;-, and other people availed therasel'v^es of the opportunity thus afforded for get- ting a liberal education. Our college graduates have blessed the land' not' only in the pulpit but in every walk of life. No, Greek is the most religious THE GENESEE COUNTRY. "7 and thri'stian thiug on earth. Its strongest entrenchment is m the support which it gives to religion. Qergymen will continue to be educated ; and other people will feel, as heretofore, that they might as well be educated too. SOME FURTHER THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION. T HE elective principle in education is admirably adapted to reach the needs of exceptional minds and needs growing out of exceptional circumstances. But I wish to combat the somewhat prevalent fal- lacy that education is merely a question of methods and drill con- T^iE ART PALACE. tinned throughout a sufficient period of time. You can make a good machine on that principle; I doubt whether it will make you the ideal man. The machine will work and will have lots of work in it ; there will be a great de- mand for it in the market. But, in my opinion, a man is better than a ma- chine ; and education should contemplate the production of men. ' A human machine, like any other machine, requires a user. It is the man that uses the machine. When captured by pirates and asked what he could do, Diogenes said that he could " command men." It was his way of saying that he believed himself educated. It was not a bad conception of the useful- ness of an educated being. It is not necessary that the command shall be formal ; the educated man is always virtually in command. The power to say Il8 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. no is a higher power than the power to adjust an electric light, or even the power to construct a bridge that will not break down under its own weight. While magnifying the former I would not by any means underestimate the value of the latter. And I speak now solely of the economic value of educa* tion in its highest aspects. I waive for the immediate purpose of argument the internal felicity of the man whose liberal studies " nourish his youth, de- light his old age, adorn his prosperity, afford a refuge and solace in adversity, please him at home, do not hamper him abroad, pass the night with him, ac- company him in his travels, share in his vacations." I speak not now of Cicero in his Tusculan retreat ; I speak of Cicero all on fire in the Roman Forum, strangling a horrid conspiracy and saving his country from the most pitiful destruction. I speak of Cicero as a motive force, laying bare at once the treason of Catiline and the sophistries of Cffisar, and declaring in the midst of his dangers that there is nothing in life but honorable service and an unspotted name. If these are waived one has lived too long; with these preserved one may die when he will, but he will yet have a little corner of immortality. I speak now of Otis organizing American Independence even before he received his degree from Harvard. I do not hesitate to say that the courage, power, and sublime usefulness of those men were the direct result of their liberal studies. A man is a self-propelling force of almost irresistable potency ; or we may consider his enthusiasm to be what the term implies, the spirit of God working within him. If true education makes one a chosen vessel of the Lord, then true education is worth striving after, and should never be yielded up to mere considerations of expediency. We may accommodate the student, who cannot pursue the classics successfully, with a course of work better adapted to his powers. But let us be frank with ourselves and not drag the brighter students down to his level. We may accommodate a student who did not think of going to college until it was too late for him to make the best preparation ; but let us be frank with ourselves, with him, and with all, and' not tell him that he is as well off as if he were properly prepared. The world still has use for Ciceros and Otises. Let us keep the pathway clear for such on-coming men. And let us keep the pathway clear by adhering to our logic, and by keeping our own intellects unclouded. The best in education is the best. Those who are prevented by circumstances from availing themselves of the best must be content with the second best. Adjust your courses to accommodate both classes. But don't forget that there is a best. I may be misunderstood. It is more than likely that I shall be misunder- stood. This is a time of the sharp clashing of opposing theories of education. I have never deemed myself a reactionist or a pessimist. My nature is opti- mistic. I look to the future for great and beneficent evolution in all direc- tions. I am a believer in the progressive science of pedagogy ; I have tried to put myself into the attitude of a disciple of it. I am decidedly opposed to all educational work that is blindly empirical and imitative. I believe in rationalizing educational work throughout its entire scope ; and I know that this can be done only by the most careful observation and the most profound study. I delight in all the discoveries in science and in all the advancements in the arts. I am hospitably inclined toward all the new demands upon our school curriculum. Yet at the risk of being deemed a hopeless conservative I THE GENESEE COtfNTRY. lIQ am more than willing to go on record as believing that learning is not yet obsolete. I stand for scholarship. I believe in spiritualizing and not in mater- ializing education. I believe that a magnanimous character is the highest product of education ; I believe that such a character is the greatest boon to the world. I believe in the man who has not time in this short life to make too much money ; I believe in the man whose tendency is to give rather than to get. It is such men who are to hold society together. You cannot get such a man by feeding the boy on dust and ashes. To make him "a little lower than the angels " you must feed him on angel's food. I do not make a bid for medisevalism ; I ask for the learning and culture that tore asunder the clouds of the dark ages, and then went on demolishing the sophistries that upheld the despotisms of the world. I believe in the learning that spread liberty abroad and put hope into the heart of man, in the learning that alone is fitted to keep the dry rot out of the great societies of modern times. I be- lieve in the learning that brings individuals on the stage of action rather than lifeless and remorseless corporations, the learning that gives names to the bead-roll of civic fame, the learning that produced that glorious galaxy of Elizabethan poets and scholars, the learning that dared to point out to foolish King George the way ef wisdom, the galaxy of Chatham, Burke, Fox, Ers- kine, and Pitt, the learning that produced that other galaxy of magnanimous spirits that drove King George out of America, and who shed a lustre, around the early days of the American Congress. I believe in the learning that " weaves the gossamers and forges the anchors of the mind." While my optimism keeps me looking to the future with great hope, yet I find my teacher behind me in the lesson of the ages. It is men that we want and not machines: " A still strong man in a blatant land. One that can do, and dare not lie." APOLLO IN THE WOODS. AMONG the celebrities that visited the Genesee Country in the early day was the poet Moore. He came in 1804 to a country that had already quite a little history, but almost no literature. After sihg- the Dismal Swamp, the Potomac, the Schuylkill, and the Delaware into immortality, he at last came singing into the wilderness. The Mohawk caught a noble ode : " From rise of morn till set of sun, I've seen the mighty Mohawk run; And as I marked the woods of pine Along his mirror darkly shine, Like tall and gloomy forma that pass Before th« wizard's midnight glass; And as I viewed the hurrying pace With which he ran his turbid race, Eushing, alike untired and wild. Through shades that frowned and flowers that smiled. I2p THE GENESEE COUNTRY. Flying by every green recess Tliat wooed him to its calm caress, Yet, sometimes turning with the wind, As it to leave one look behind 1 Oh! I have thought, and thlnklngaighed— How like to thee, thoa restless tldel V May be thp lot, the life of him. Who roams along thy water's brim! Through what alternate shades of woe And flowers of joy my path may go ! How many an humble, stllU retreat May rise to court my weary feet. While still pursuing, still unblest, I wander on, nor dare to rest! But, urgent as the doom that calls Thy water to its destined falls, I see the world's bewildering force Hurry my heart's devoted course From lapse to lapse, till life be done. And the lost current cease to run ! Oh! may my fails be bright as thine! Iljay Heaven's forgiving rainbow shine ' Upon the mist that circles me. As soft as now It hahgs o'er thee ! " The voice is coming this way. Will the Tonawanda catch a note ? Yes. the finest gem of all was dropped upon our stream. Tradition locates the spot about one mile west of Batavia The singer arrived here in his best mood. As if prophetic of the peace and plenty which now smile all over the Genesee country, he left us the most exquisite little idyl that was ever dropped from poet's pen: " I knew by the smoke, that so gracefully curled Above the green elms, that a cottage was near; Audi said, ' If there's peace to be found in the wnrld, A heart that was humble might hope for it here I ' It was noon, and on flowers that lan;;uished around la silencS'repased the voluptuous bee; Every leaf was at rest, and I heard not a sound But the woodpecker tapping the hollow beach-tree. And 'Here in this lone little wood', I exclaimed, 'With a maid who was lovely to soul and to eye. Who would blush when I praised her, and weep If I blamed, How blest could I live, and how palm could I die ! 'By the shade of yon sumach, whose red berry dips In the gush of the fountain, how sweet to recline. And to know that I sighed upon innocent lips. Which had never been sighed on by any but mine ! " But when he struck the undrained swamps as he wended his toilsome way westward, a cloud began to settle upon his spirits, and his song partakes of the spirit of the scene : " Now the vapour, hot and damp. Shed by day's expiring lamp. Through the misty ether spreads Every ill the white man dreads; Fiery fever's thirsty thrill, Fitful ague's shivering chill ! THE GENESEE COUNTRY. Hark! I hear the traveler's song, As he winds the woods along: Christian ! 'tis the song of fear; Wolves are round thee, night is near, . And the wild thou dar'st to roam— ' Oh ! 'twas once the Indian's home." *■*,,* * At last, footsore;, lame from an accident, sick and discouraged, he arrived at the shores of Lake Erie, and poured out his suffering and homesickness in a doleful Jeremiade. It was the one brief cloud. " But here, alas ! by JSrie's stormy lake, As far from thee my lonely uourse I talce. No bright remembrance o'er the fancy plays* ■ No classic dream, no star of other days, Has left that visionary glory here, That relic of its light, so soft, so dear, Which glides and hallows even the rudest scene. The humblest shed, where genius once has been 1 All that creation's varying mass assumes Of grand or lovely here aspires and blooms ; Cold rise the mountains, rich the gardens glow, Bright lakes expand, and conquering rivers flow ; Mind, nalnd alone, without whose quickening ray. The world's a wilderness, and man but clay. Mind, mind alone, in barren, still repose. Nor blooms, nor rises, nor expands, nor flows ! " The despondent poet forgot for the moment that a people must make their epic before they can sing it. The heroic age of American history was send- ing up its notes from the woods ; and he misunderstood the note. Hut his depression was not oi long duration. His recovery, physical and mental, was rapid. Buoyant as ever, he reached Niagara, and there poured fortn his highest notes of triumph, worthy to mingle forever with the sounds of the mighty cataract. "I dreamed not then, that ere the rolling year Bad filled its circle, I should wander here In musing awe ; should tread this wondrous world. See all its store of Inland waters burled In one vast volume down Niagara's steep." Now the voice is receding down the St. Lawrence River catching the romantic notes of the Canadian boatman's song. '• Faintly as tolls the evening chime, Our voices keep tune i.nd our oars keep time. Soon as the woods on shore look dim. We'll sing at St. Ann's ouriparting hymn . Eow, brothers, row, the stream runs fast. The Rapids are near and the daylight's past." * * « * Up from distant and lonely Labrador come the solemn notes of the dirge by Dead Man's Isle. 123 tHE GENESEE COUNTlilf. " See you, beneath yon cloud so dark. Past gliding along, a gloomy bark ! Her sails are full, though the wind is still, And there blows not a breath her sails to fill." ***** List of all we have his half -sorrowful, wholly-joyful outburst, as he as- cends the vessel that is to bear him home : ■'Farewell to the few— though we never may meet. On this planet again, it is soothing and sweet To think that, whenever my song, or my name Shall recur to their ear, they'll recall me the same . I have been to them now, young, unthoughtful, and blest. Ere hope had deceived me or sorrow depressed. ♦ * * * But see 1— the bent top-^ails are ready to swell- To the boat— I am with tj^ee- Columbia, farewell ! " The region has had its Iliad of horrors. It has been girdled by fire, and VIEW IN THE NIAGARA RAPIDS — A SYMPHONY OF THE SUBLIME AND THE PKAUTIFUL war, and desolation, while struggling forward to its present prosperity. But in the midst of its greatest trials came that beautiful and never-to-be-forgotten episode, that sweet girdle of song. Thdu, too, sail on, O ship of state ! Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! Humanity, with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! We know what Master laid thy keel. What Workman wrought thy ribs of steel. Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, THE GENESEE COUNTRY. 133 What anvils rang, what hammers beat, In what a forge and what a heat. Were shaped the anchors of thy hope ! Fear not each sudden sound and shock, 'Tis of the wave and not the rock ; 'Tis but the flapping of the sail. And not a rent made by the gale 1 In spite of rock and tempest's roar. In spite of false lights on the shore, Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea 1 Our hearts, our hopes, Hre all with thee j OarheartSt our hopes, our prayew,, our tears, Our faith triumphant o'er our (ears. Are all with thee— are all with thee \—Lmgfellmi). THE PRESERVATION OF THE OLD LAND OFFICE. THE Old South Church and Fanueil Hall as structures are sadly out of keeping with the imperial blocks with which they are flanked today; but their glorious associations shed around them a halo that more than overbalances their modest proportions and their faded material. Let real estate rise as it will — a thousand dollars a foot — ten ^bhoiisand dollars a foot — patriotic remembrance says to the mighty wave of commerce: "Thus far shall thou go, and no farther; here shall thy proud waves be stayed. These are the altars at which civic devotion shall pay its homage ; these are the altars at which civic devotion shall be fired. , Men, aftpr all,, are higher than merchants and merchandise ; and here we train up men — patriotic citizens." The same devotion has seized upon Mowpt Vernbi}, uppn Carpenters' Hall, upon the Headquarters at Newburg, atid upon the Headquarters at Tappan, and has seized upon them for the same identical uses.. The Old Land Office is a. great landmark in the histrM:y.;ot-the United States ; and to be a landmark m the history of the United States is to- be a landmark in the history of mankind ; for the United States in its brief exis- tence has reversed the tides of history, has made itself the fountain instead of the receptacle, a fountain from which waves of mighty and benef^cient influ- ence have steadily rolled back upon all the old communities of the world. But besides being involved in the making of the United States, the Old Land Office was involved to the very core in the making of Western New York. This great region of unapproachable scenery, and of unexampled fertility, fruitfulness, resources, and prosperity, is a little world in itself — and not such a very little world at that. It takes a dozen counties to hold it. It has one city of three hundred thousand inhabitants — ten times as large as the New York that wrestled with Howe and Clinton ; it has another city of over one hundred and fifty thousand ; and it is simply alive with corporations and com- munities that would be regarded as great towns by our Revolutionary fathers. Could they have had its present resources to draw upon it would have in- creased their fighting power at least one-half. 134 THE GENESEE COUNTRK; The preservation of family heir-looms does credit to human nature. It is an answer to the appeal of the past not to be forgotten. " To live in hearts we leave behind Is not to die." Grandfather's chair may be a very hurnble piece of furniture; but it is prized beyond all price because it is grandfather's chair. He used it while he was winning an honorable name for his descendants. He left them his integ- rity and this chair. Incidentally he left them provision for their maintenance. They forget his dollars ; but they remember him and the chair. They remem- ber him through the chair. Each house has its particular heir-loom. The Old Land Office is a common reminder of all the grandfathers and great- grandfathers of Western New York. The frequent pilgrimages to the Land FAIR CHAUTAUQUA. -Office was a feature of their lives. They viewed again and again its sturdy walls ; they- stepped in and out again and again over its threshold ; they' found it the centre of all their interests, the topic of much of their discourse. It was •to them a social, religious and political headquarters, while they felled the trees and let the sunlight down through the woods to invite production in the fertile soil. There it stands, the same identical structure. That grandfather and great-grandfather could wish it so, is in itself sufficient reason to Westerii New York to save that building from destruction. It speaks not only of past lives, but also of most wonderful vicissitudes. When it was planted at the junction of the Indian trails and began shedding the seeds of civilization into the wilderness, it was then a great and imposing edifice. As its seed bore fruit its consequence as an architectural triumph paled before the greater elegance and magnificence of its. own prosperous off- THE OENESEE COUNTRY. t25 ' Spring, it is a Sabine grandfather walking the streets of imperial Rome. A Scaurus or a Mtecenas may smile at the plain old gentleman ; yet, but for the plain old gentleman, Scaurus and Maecenas Would not have been there. Scaurus and Maecenas were able to look below the surface ; and I am sure that they would have suppressed the rising amusement at the old gentleman's "style," and have welcomed the Great Past to theif bbsom. Men are mecifuUy spared from injection in a generation to which they do not belong. Buildings, on the contrary, being more enduring, have to sutler the progressive pressure of contrast. But it is well that it is so. An old thing should look old, .^n old thing among the new is, i,n itself, presumptive evidence that it has a claim to preser. vation. It has ceased to be a factor 'in affairs; it has become a guest. Western New York is very bright; it is spank span new. The only old thing in it is this famous old building on the bank of the Tonawanda; and I believe that Western New York will act toward that venerable st'rncture as a gener- ous and cherishing host. The Old Land Office has known misfortune; but it has never known a vulgar hour. It had its birth in the very essence of refinement and culture. It was long the magnet to which all refinement in this region gravitated ; it was long the luminary frOm which all refining influences were shed abroad over this region. Americans cannot stand a formal aristoracy ; but they can stand all the true gentility that they can get among them. It is said by good thinkers that the best education must flow from the university downward, rather than the primary schools should be trusted to evolve their own devel^ opment. The Old Land Office has been the university to this entire region. Intelligence and refinement would unfold in the woods if you give them time enough. The Old Land Office made the woods intelligent and refined at once. " While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand ; When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall." While stands the Land Office the Holland Purchase shall stand ; for while that structure is in sight it carries its old boundaries with it. It stands for a domain. It preserves the unity of Western New York; though arbitrary county lines- have cut it up into fragments. The Land Office preserves the autonomy of the region, the real unity, the unity of common origin, common conditions, common toils and triumphs. I stand beside the landmark old. As bright the setting sun Turns Tonawanda's tide to gold, As if from diamonds spun. With magic tints of autumn dyes The shrub-decked lawn is dressed ; A holy calm on nature lies Like heaven's eternal rest. The ivy climbing to the eves ; The tree tops towering high ; A conopy of shimmering leaves ; With patchwork of the sky. 126 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. The mossy roof, the gables gray, The river winding by ; The azure hilltops leagues away ; The clouds that on them lie. The burled years come floating by Like phantotn-haunted dreams ; Each vision that is hovering ni?h With sacred memory teems. The resurrected long ago Commingles with the new ; The future throws its living glow On each dissolving view. I see a forest wild Inlaid With trails by nature's art ; I wateh beneath the gloomy shade Th« feathered headdress dart. The wild beHst and the wilder man Speed by in eagar chase, Before that culture's evjl ban Was placed on form or fac^. Here comes the hardy pioneer . From o'er the ocean wide. To plant beside the waters clear A home by kings denied. Thenlauliood of a royal line. The founders of a race. That fabbiohed out a grand design That years cannot efface. I see the structure rode of wood. Transformed to lasting stoae ; I see the fields were forests stood With grain of plenty sown. And as the shepherds once the star Pursued with eagar feet, SO pilgrims journeying from afar, ^ow at this Mecca meet. A change comes o'er the hallowed scene, As shifts the mimic stage, A teeming town and fields of green Eeveal the present age. The background and the frame are new Long may their beauty last : But grander is this relic true From out the sacred past. Each stone, t» me, is richer than If formed from polished gold ; It's outline framed from ancient plan. Than If from modern mould. It tells a story of the past. And links the old and new With possibilities so vast In time's sublime review. Well may the nation gather round To dedicate thy walls With poets' lore and words profound From out the college halls. Their Incense cannot be too great. THE GENESEE COUNTRY. Their precious gifts too erand, Upon this altar true of state Set up in freedom's land.— Coi. Sherman D. Blchardson. 127 A SENTIMENTAL DIGRESSION. T HE criticism has been made that the attempt to secure and preserve historical landmarks is an appeal to sentiment, and that such an appeal cannot succeed in this practical age. It is true that the appeal is made to a sentiment — to the great sentiment of patriotism ; FANUEIL HALL, BOSTON. ^THE "CRADLE OF LIBERTY. and I am not sure that this age and nation have yet become so practical as to let such an appeal go forth unheard. , Our people are certainly very busy in the acquisition of property, and it is both proper and commendable that they should be so. Industry, frugality, thrift, are virtues which redound not only to the independence, comfort, success, and happiness of their individual pos- sessors, but they also make the aggregate prosperity of the nation as a whole. The public hive is enriched by the activity of each individual busy bee. 128 THE Genesee country. We niay well be proud of our country when we see evei;y individual striv- ing honestly and zealously after a competence ; but we may well despair of our country whenever we see that its citizens have no aim in life beyond the acquisition of some extra dollars. Whenever our people descend to the making of money for its own sake, for the sake merely of having and hoard- ing it ; whenever a proper or even a glorious means is perverted into an end, then the beginning of the end has come. There are great uses for a competelicy ; and great souls are struggling to ^ get it in order to make those great uses of it. The grasping hand of avarice may be among our busy bees ; but I believe that the silent ambitions, the un- expressed purposes of the great majority of Amerifean toilers would bear the most rigid scrutiny^ T^eyare_planning not only hpw_ to ^et„t]tie money, but also the uses that they will put it to ; and those plans of use are all centered around some cherished sentiments. The very soul of sentiment is at the bot- tom of our business world. If it were not so, we might well despair of the future. Those i silent workers are reaching out to the discharge of some ulti-- mate duties; the wolf is to be .kept from the door; the leisure ind means for improving the mind are to be secured ; the children are to be educated and provided for; the condition of the unfortunate classes is to bp ameliorated; the spread of the gospel and (if good works is to be promoted ; matters of im- port to the general weal are to be forwarded. All these sentiments are to be gratified, all these duties to be performed, when competency or affluence arrives. ; The toilers i are working to becoriie free — free to exert their will — free to reveal the sentiments that dominate their dreams. But the man with his mind on ultimate duties is always -ready for the nearest duty. He is a man with a soul ; but that is only another way of say- ing that he is a man supfef-fcharged with sentiment. Let the public peace be menaced, let the national lift be imperiled, then, like Putnam, he foregoes'' all his plans, leaves his horses in ttie ftjjrrow as it were, and springs to his country's call. We have just seen two and a half millions i of American toilers spring from their vocations to put down a gigantic rebellion ; and hav- ing done it well, the survivors are now toiling again as if notiiing had hap- pened. O, there is plenty of sentiment yet in the breast of the aiverage silent, practical, American citizen! When you appeal to it in the right cause you never appeal in vain. ' It is not to the idlers of a nation that any generous appeal can be made : not to the hungry waifs who have lost all manhood but its mere physical proportions ; not to those Who use an ample fortune in the worthless busi- ness of killing time ; it is made to those who have a calling, a serious busi- ness in life ; it is made, in short, to this very practical element ; and it is not made in vain. The practical men of the country are the nation's treasury in reserve, • the nation's reserve of patriotism, and the nation's hope of glory. If you want a thing done that needs to be done, go to the. practical man with it; if you want a thing done that ought to be done,, go to the practical man with it. To say that an age is practical is only to say that, it is readiest for great emoi ' tions, that it is ripest for great deeds. It takes a practical age to put millions into monuments, ab our age has done; to fight down the; cholera, the yellow . Ttik GENEgEfi COtTNl'RV. 1*9 fever, famine, fire, and floods. This practical age has a pocket to go into on such occasions; and no one will say that the hand ever goes into the pocli^t grudgingly when responding to such calls. Such occasions convince the practical people that it is not the best end in life to "put money into your purse," but rather to take it out of the purse. In the moral education of children it is not a difficult thing to train them to put money into their purse ; they are all acquisitive by nature. The main ^task is to train them to open their little purse and let its contents flow forth in generous deeds. Nothing delights the thoughtful parent or teacher more than to find the child becoming a discriminating giver. The child's mite, THE TONAWANDA PI.A'IEAU- -NEARLY A THOUSAND FEET ABOVE THE LEVEL OF THE SEA. when freely given in response to a generous feeling, is even more precious than the widow's mite; for in the child the instinet of acquisition is the stronger, and ]the battle with selfishness the greater. Yes, it is more preci- ous to give than to receive ; and this is never more truly felt than among a people wlio are really prosperous, never more truly felt than in a practical age. There is a wide difference between an age that is practical and one that is sordid. '-WJien every generous impulse is stifled, when selfishness runs riot, when all are remorselessly straining after money for the sake of personal indulgence or lavish display, or the forwarding of unholy ambitions, when g^eed of gain, has become a general disease, then has the dry-rot entered into the national life ; and the collapse of that nation cannot be long deferred. There have been such ages, and there have been such awful examples ; Greece, 130 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. Rome, Venice, Florence, Genoa, all collapsed under the cankerous action of national avarice. " 111 tares the land to hastening Ills a prey. Where wealth accumulates and men decay." Empires are built upon sentiment ; they disappear when the people be" come too calm, when they become imperturbable and boast that they are never stirred with emotions. The emotion is the-,wholesome storm that dispels the in- sidious fog and the deadly stagnation of the waters. It is a compliment to a people to address to them an appeal on the line of sentiment ; for you assume that they are ready to give to that appeal a suitable response. But there is, after all, nothing more practical than sentiment. We expend untold millions 'to make the masses good citizens. What, then, could be more practical than to expend a few hundreds in an endeavor to stir within those masses the noble sentiment of patriotism, the love of country and admiration of its history? We do this by placing the flag of our country above each sclif)ol house, and by carefully preserving the landmarks ot the past. Nothing could be more impressive Or eflfective than the recent indignation of our veterans over the desecration of Gettysburg battlefield. See the numerous monuments dot- ting that field of triumph, and note the snug little sum wisely given to the fos- tering of a great sentiment. " How sleep the brave who sink to rest By ail their country's wishes blessed ! When Spring, with dewy finders c >lfl. Returns to deck their hallowed mould. She there shall dres.s a sweeter sod Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. By fairy hands their knell is rung; By forms unseen their dirge is sung ; There Honor comes, a pilgrim grey. To bless the turf that wraps their clay ; And Freedom shall awhile repair To dwell a weeping hermit there ! " Yes, it is practical all around. The parent who is planning the educa- tion of his children could not do a more practical thing than to surround them with an atmosphere in which they could breathe in the spirit of loftiest senti- ment and devotion. Who could be at Bunker Hill without being stirred to heroic self-sacrifice ? Who could look at Bunker Hill Monument without be- ing at Bunker Hill ? And so with every landmark associated with a great past. The Old Land Office of the Holland Purchase bridges over the entire interval back to the Revolutionary struggle. It touches hands with Robert Morris him- self, and carries us back to the critical moment when he alone, as if inspired by the Almighty Ruler of nations, saw the way through. The old building recalls the man, the cause, the mtervening time. It recalls the struggle for liberty, the making of the nation, the preservation of the nation, and the growth of empire. Such a landmark should be preserved with religious veneration ; and I THE GENESEE COUNTRY. 131 • believe that there is suflBcient sentiment in Western New York to ensure its preservation. I cannot close this passage without another word about the original owner of the Holland Purchase, that peerless baron of short possession, but a pos- session long enough to make the region almost holy ground. Robert Morris embodied in his personality the possibilities of human na- ture — the practical element and the sentimental, each in the highest degree. As a practical man he accumulated a fortune of eight millions. He doubtless had ulterior plans as to its use — such a man must have had his benevolent plans — but when the struggling Revolution was on he saw his opportunity, and he flung his millions in. Though he was thrown into a debtor's prison. THE TONAWANDA PLATEAU — A VISTA FI^M THE OLD GARY HOUSE TO THE HOLLAND LAND OFFICE. and died in abject poverty.'yet I doubt whether he ever regretted the sacrifices he had made. I think he would have done it again. A great opportunity had come to him ; and he had met it greatly. What more could a great-souled man wish? It is true that he was disowned and discredited ; while lieutenant- colonels and captains were the heroes of the hour, the Great Heart of the Revolution pined forgotten in a loathsome prison ; he died without any as- surance that his country would ever utter his name with any emotions of gratitude. But he had the consolation of all the greatest natures, the consolation that alone can satisfy a truly great soul — the consciousness of having done his duty, and of having made his life serviceable to mankind. Such a nature can, if necessary, dispense with_the sound of popular applause. He saved the 132 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. Revolution ; he forced it to succeed ; yet in his dire extremity he read the story of the Revolution with his name left out ; and he gave no sign. He died as greatly as he had lived ; we have no record of a single complaint passing from his lips ; he sank gently to his rest] '■ Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams." But his farm will redeem him from oblivion ; that mournful barony of his, the Holland Purchase, will do honor to his name, and will force that name to its proper position in American annals. With such a spirit hovering over the Old Land Office, and with all the associations of the intervening century clustering around it, who can doubt the propriety, yea, the imperative duty, of saving that great landmark from obliteration ? " Breathes there a man with soul so dead Who never to himself has said This is my own, my native land I Whose heart has ne'er within him burned. As home his footsteps he has turned From wandering on a foreign strand ! If such there breathe go mark him well ; For him no minstrel raptures swell ! High though his titles, proud his name. Boundless his wealth, as wish can claim ; Despite those titles, power and pelf. The wretch, concentred all in self. Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung. Unwept, unhonored, and unsung." NOBLESSE OBLIGE. THE proudest name in ancient Rome was Scjevola. It meant nothing more than a mutilated arm. Yet twenty generations wore that mangled arm as their family crest, and made it their inspiration to high thinking, to lofty character, to burning patriotism, and to use- ful public service. The Scsevolae were from first to last princes of worth in republican Rome. When Rome was threatened with destruction by the Etrurians, young Mucius made his way into the Etruscan camp to kill King Porsena ; but by mistake he struck down the royal treasurer, who was distributing the rewards for service in the field. Led before the King he was threatened with torture and death. To show his contempt for their threats he went to a fire, and placing his hand in the flame, held it there till the limb withered to ashes. The King, amazed at such a spirit, spared his life, and returned him unpledged to his country. When Mucius told him that three hundred young Romans had sworn to make the same attempt in succession, the King withdrew from THE GENESEE COUNTRY. 133 the siege and returned with his great forces to his capital. It [needed no monarch's touch to ennoble the descendants of Mucius. That mangled arm was to them a sufficiently glorious crest, and a reminder to them that they had great duties to perform and a great name to preserve untarnished. Rob- ert Morris left impoverished a family that were bred in the lap of luxury. Did they cry out against their hard fortune ? Did they denounce him for sinking their patrimony in their country's needs? Did they mveigh against a selfish and neglectful country ? They did nothing of the kind. They for- got entirely their own bitter portion and thought only of the crushing sorrows of their great father. They proceeded to ennoble themselves with his mis- fortunes ; and in dignified silence they turned to the trying duty of living worthy of his name. Morris was forgotten by his indebted and neglectful country, but his own suffering and innocent family made him the founder of a royal line. The fifth generation is now on the stage ; and it is in every way worthy of the first. I doubt not that the fortieth Mucius in America will be found to be a typical American citizen, and a high-souled, honorable man. THE MORRIS FAMILY CREST. When we moved to dedicate the Land Office, we wondered if there were any Morrises left ? When we heard that they were coming we wondered what they would be like ? When we met them we were charmed. Robert would see in the fifth generation not the slightest deterioration. The young lions proved their mettle ; they fought their great battle well, and won it. They reach our time healthy, sensible, independent, respected. Never was the principle of noblesse oblige more fully or triumphantly exemplified. It was by merest accident that we discovered that they had adopted a family crest symbolizing the misfortunes of their great ancester, committing themselves to keep his memory alive in the bosom of the family and pledging themselves to live worthy of his character and illustrious deeds. This is the only family crest in America. This is our only Scsevola. And it is the joint result of the determination of our country to forget Robert Morris and the determination of his family to hold him in remembrance. Noblesse oblige. 134 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. PIONEERING REMINISCENCES. John F. Lay. Should auld acquaintance be forgot. And never brought to min' 1 Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And days o' lang syne ?— Burns. 1DID not come with the pioneers ; but I put in an appearance pretty soon after them. I was born in Batavia before the first quarter of the century was completed. I remember many of the pioneers very well'. But my memories are supplemented with a rich store of pioneering reminiscences brought to me by both lines of my parentage. My grandfather, John Lay, was a native of Saybrook, Ct. Our remote ancestor came to that State, or, rather, colony, from England, about 1660, with Matthew Griswold. Grandfather graduated from Yale College in 1780, having entered the insti- tution in 1776. So he got his schooling in the midst of the stormy struggle for independence. But though a mere stripling engaged in his studies in Yale College, he yet got a chance to smell British powder and to fire American bul- lets. An armed British sloop lay off the harbor and attempted to land to pillage : New Haven, taking advantage of the absence of the men at the seat of war in the Jerseys, Pennsylvania, and New York. But the college boys armed them- selves, marched down to the wharf, and, after a spirited engagement with muskets, compelled the vessel to put back from shore. It was a militant scholarship that was coming up at that time at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. ■ After the war my grandfather moved to Catskill and engaged in mercantile business ; and there my father, George W. Lay, was born. Before Rip Van Winkle came down from the mountain to observe with bewildered eyes the figure of King George on the hotel sign changed to that of an individual called George Washington, my grandfather made another move, this time settling at Clinton in Central New York. There he touched the history of the Genesee country by buying the farm of Dominie Kirtland, the famous missionary to the Iroquois. We have many family anecdotes of the famous preacher. He was truly a godly man. My grandmother was of a noted family in Connecti- cut. Her maiden name was Phoebe Lee. My grandfather married her in 1780, like a sensible man immediately after graduating from college. Grand- father was in the Assembly in 1807. He left his mark at Clinton by bringing about the establishment of Hamilton College, from which my father gradu- ated in 1817. Father came at once to Batavia and studied law with my uncle, Phineas Tracy. He was in partnership with Tracy until about 1830. H? was elected to Congress in 1832, serving until 1836. He was afterwards min- ister to Sweden. He and Trumbull Cary bought out the remaining interests of the Holland Land Company in Chautauqua County and were involved in the Land Office war. Their office at May villa was torn down by the rioters; but the records had been previously removed to a place of security. Their The Genesee country. 135 business was readjusted by William H. Seward, who had been State Senator from the Cayuga District, and who was destined to fill a great page in the history of the nation. Seward held also a proprietary share of the purchase. I think that I am the only person living m Western New York who has seen Van Der Kamp, the general agent for the Hollanders. In 1839 my father came to New Haven, where my brother George and I were attending Yale College, and took us with him to Philadelphia, where he was going on business relating to his purchases. I remember Van Der Kamp as a thin, spare-looking old Hollander who wore glasses. Father's two brothers were residing in Buffalo at the time that it was burned by the British and Indians. Uncle John was a great favorite of the PIONEER ARCHITECTURE — THE HOME OF PHINEAS TRACY. Indians ; and everyone thought that he would be secure from harm. And he, perhaps,, took more risks on this account. But he was captured all the same, and Carried off- to an unhappy captivity in Canada. Uncle Jonathan, not having the same confidence in his standing with the red-skins, took to the woods with the books of their store and tarried there several weeks. He did all his cooking-in a bake-kettle and became utterly wearied of the old utensil. I have heard army men say that they were very fond of beans until they had them served up ad nauseam in the ubiquitous camp -kettle. My uncle could speak the Indian language. 136 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. THE WOES OF THE PIONEERS. Joseph Edwin Wilford. The maid who binds her warrior's sash With smile that well her pain dissembles. The while beneath her drooping lash One starry tear-drop hangs and trembles, Though Heaven alone records the tear, And fame shall never know her story, Her heart has shed a drop as dear As e'er bedewed the field of glory. The wife who girds her husband's sword, '.Mid little ones who weep or wonder. And bravely speaks the cheering word, Whkt though her heart be rent asunder. Doomed nightly in her dreams to hear ^ Tlie bolts of death around him rattle. Hath shed as saured blood as e'er Was poured upon the field of battle. The mother who conceals her grief While o'er her breast her sou she presses. Then breathes a few brave words and brief, Kissing the patriot brow she blesses. With no one but her sacred God To know the pain that weighs upon her. Sheds holy blood as e'er the sod Received on Freedom's field of honor ! — Thmms Buchanan Bead. My Grandfather McRillus, on my mother's side, came to the Holland Purchase in 1808, and took up the McRillus place, one mile east of the pres- ent village of Oakfield. The property is still in the hands of his descendants, after the lapse of 86 years. He came from Madison County, in this State. His wife was a daughter of Dr. Cleveland, a third cousin of President Clever land. My mother was but four years of age when the family arrived here ; but to the day of her death at 82, she had a most distinct reniembrance of the coming into the Genesee country, and of all the events that transpired subse- quently. I was her home boy, and she lived with me to the day of her death. To the last her memory was a luminous storehouse of the history of this re- gion, " all of which she saw and part of which she was; " and she was con- stantly pouring it out to my not unwilling ear. They stopped in Batavia the first night, and then started to drive seven miles to Oakfield. It took two days to make the trip, which is now just one hour's delightful drive along one of the finest thoroughfares and among the noblest farm steads in the world- The two days were consumed in cutting away trees to let the wagon pass through. They stopped over night midway at Dusenbury's, at Dusenbury Hill. She was impressed with the superabundance of peaches and the scar- city of apples. The children were told to eat all the peaches they pleased, but to spare the apples. It is now just the reverse ; the apple orchards are THE GENESEE COUNTRY. 137 like sturdy forests on every farm ; but the raising of peaches is not a success. She accounted for the abundance of peaches by supposing that the Indians must have cultivated them. The first white child born in Oakfield was born on the adjoining farm, a ,datighter of Aaron White. She married Harvey Fisher, a man somewhat prominent and well known in this region. When the war of 1812 swept all the men away, Aaron White went with the rest. In the report of the killed, wounded and missing, it was Aaron's fortune to be reported among the last. He never returned, and no trace of him was ever obtained. No infant set- tlement ever had a more dismal start. There was but one man left, and he THE BORDER OF THE GENESEE COUNTRY — A CHARMING BIT OF CANADA — -NIAGARA GORGE AND SUSPENSION BRIDGE. was left because he was both old and feeble. So the women and children had to do the best they could while wars and rumors of wars filled the neigh- borhood with distress, anxiety and panic. Buffalo was burned by the British and Indians acting together. Battles and reverses came on the breeze ; the Americans were preparing for a retreat on Batavia, there to make a last des- perate stand. At length the dreadful tidings came that the red-coats were coming; and the frightened women and children fled away through the woods, most of them passing entirely beyond the Genesee River. Others found shelter away up at Caledonia. Caledonia had been started early on account of its facilities for milling. The very few who did not flee gathered together in one house, and my 138 TttE GENESEE COUNTRY. mother's family were among them. There they awaited, like frightened lambs, for the coming of the wolves. And the terrible red-coatg came m earn- est. But they came without arms in their hands, and they 'came between armed files of the blue-coated soldiery. ' They were prisoners of war taken at Lundy's Lane. The Americans had at last gained a great victory, and the time of extreme distress was past. My father came in 1811, just in time to be swept away by the war. He lay out all night before Buffalo while it was burning, and in the struggle that occurred there he received a desperate wound in the leg. Three days later he arrived at Batavia with his wound still undressed, and in a horrible con- dition. The kindly Doctor McCracken took him to his house. But when Mrs. McCracken saw the condition of the man she positively insisted that that hoi-- rible looking soldier should be taken somewhere else. When the Doctor told her that it was one of their own neighbor boys, and who he was, she not only relented, but took him in and cared for him as a mother. . My father, John C. Wilford, came from Vermont. He drove through with a stock of hardware, which sold well. The family were originally Con- necticut people, the ancestors of all arriving there about 1635. My father was one of the first, and I think, the very firot justice of the peace in the town of Elba. In those days the justice was appointed by the Governor, and was required to be a freeholder. In order to qualify himself my father bought a lot containing two acres of land. This little estate was never restored to the farm it was taken from, but became incorporated into the adjoining farm ; and that farm to-day bears witness of the property quali- fication required in the olden time. The old settlers thought it very important to let their boys see and hear great men. Daniel Webster once delivered an address in Batavia ; and father took us boys to hear him. He spoke from the Court House steps and made a deep impression on me. He was received at the station and brought to the Court House in a carriage drawn by four black horses. Such things made a deep impression on boys. The old people had very strict notioiis inherited from New England. General Erastus Cleveland , of Madison County, was a brother of my grand- mother. Albert H. Tracy, a very distinguished lawyer of Buffalo, wanted to marry his daughter ; but Mrs. Cleveland opposed the match on the ground that lawyers cannot enter heaven ; and she carried her point. Mr. Tracy's brother, Phineas L. Tracy, was one of Batavia's distinguished citizens. I was always a great admirer of Dean Richmond. He was a , public- spirited man, a patriot, and a good citizen in every respect. It was. Dean Richmond who got the State Institution for the Education of the Blind lo- cated here. He did much for Batavia. During his life every train on the Central had to stop at Batavia. He was a man of great force of character, and his influence was felt throughout the entire United States. Samuel J: Tilden said that Richmond could have had the nomination for President and could have been elected. His value to the State and nation during the Re- bellion was incalculable. The country owes much to the patriotism of' such men as Richmond and Heman J . Redfield. Since his death his excellent wife and family have been most active and liberal in all matters of public interest, and in public and private charities THE GENESEE COUNTRY. 13g -As a consequence the name is and always will be dear to the people of this vicinity. Among the dangers of the olden time was that of getting lost in the woods. One of Joseph Holmes's sisters was lost in the woods and died before she was found. [The above modest narrative omits some important facts in regard to the Wilford family. The following significant quotation is from Beers's Gazetteer of Genesee County. It connects well with the story of Robert Morris. " Joseph Wilford, a native of Connecticut, was a soldier in the Revolutionary army. The British offered a bounty of 300 sovereigns for his body. He spent $40,000 of his private fortune to aid our government. He afterwards went to Vermont, and from there came to Batavia (now Oakfield). John C. Wilford, his son, was born in Rutland. Vt., in 1787, and came to Oakfield in 1811. His education was liberal, and he taught several terms." This passage would bear much comment.— K.] BITS OF HISTORY. John F. Lay. THE Hollanders employed Joseph Ellicott, an eminent surveyor, to survey their lands and manage the sale of them. Mr. Ellicott con- tinued in the position of agent for the Holland Land Company 21 years, and won great distinction by his remarkable executive ability. He was identified with all the enterprises of Western New York, including the construction of the Erie Canal, in which he took a great interest. He established his land office at Batavia in 1802 on the line of the Indian trail from the Canadas to Southern New York, and in the line of the immigra- tion that was then moving westward. The Indians had a council ground within a few rods of the land office. The trail (now Ellicott street in Batavia) became known as the " Big Tree Road," on account of its passing by an enormous tree near Geneseo. The other road (now Main street in Batavia) because the main thoroughfare from Albany to Niagara Falls and Buffalo. The first land office was a wooden building, but it was replaced early in this century by the present substantial stone structure. Every settler on the Holland Purchase made many visits to this famous structure while paying for his beautiful home in the " Pleasant Valley." The building is therefore an object of household tradition in six counties. But it was the headquarters of the entire region in every respect. All enter- prises were discussed and determined upon at Batavia. Mr. Ellicott, as a sort of grand seignior, was expected to receive and entertain distinguished visitors, and to be the leading spirit of the Purchase in all matters of common interest. He discharged all his functions so well that his name is remembered throughout the Purchase with admiration. 140 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. Mr. EUicott was succeeded in 1821 by Jacob S. Otto, wbo held the office of agent until his death in 1826. David E. Evans then became agent, and con- tinued in the office until 1836. In 1836 Heman J. Redfield and Jacob Le Roy bought the interests of the Holland Company in Genesee, Niagara, Erie, and Wyoming counties. In 1839 Peter J. Van Hall of Amsterdam, Holland, came as the last agent of the Holland Company and closed out their interests entirely in 1839. In 1839 Redfield and Pringie took charge of the Land Office and retained it until shortly before the accounts with the settlers were closed. Julius H. Smith succeeded Redfield and Pringie, and in the final settlement of matters the Land Office passed into his hands. It was sold by him to William G. Bryan, and has since passed through the hands of other purchasers. The agents were all subjected to assaults to secure their removal. But thev all came out unscathed. JOSEPH ELLICOTT — THE FOUNDER OF BATAVIA. They were all men of note and influence. All distinguished guests were entertained by them with an easy and ample hospitality. They were the cen ter of a very high society. Mr. Wadsworth of Geneseo and John Gregg of Canandaigua maintained the most intimate social relations with the incum- bents of the Land Office. Mr. Ellicott was an active promoter of the Erie canal, and was freely consulted in regard to all that pertained to it. The grade was too high to Ba- tavia ; but he got a feeder from Alabama to drain his swamp lands. The agency was first offered to Andrew Ellicott, a brother of Joseph. Andrew was a very eminent surveyor, and had a national reputation. It was for this reason that the Hollanders offered him the agency. He ran the boundary lines on the lakes and in Louisiana, and laid out the city of Wash- ington. Joseph never married. Among the descendents of Andrew Ellicott, now TltE GENESEte COUNTRY. 141 resident . in Batavia, are : Miss Douglass, daughter of Professor Douglass of West Point, and later of Geneva College, who married a daughter of Andrew EUicott, and Mrs. N. T. Smith, a daughter of John B. ElUcott, who was the son of Andrew. Goods came from New York by way of Rome and Oswego to Lewiston, and were carried thence to Batavia in wagons. The great boatman of the Mohawk was Eli Lasher. Another character in the Mohawk valley whose fame came with the goods to Batavia, was the interesting and very original Mr. Spraker of Spraker's Basin. When the church was struck by lightning Spraker would not rebuild it. He said stubbornly : " If God chooses to strike His own house, why should I build it up again for Him ? " • Ebenezer Mix, the great surveyor and mathematician, was originally a mason bjr trade. He wandered into Batavia by mere chance. His calcula- tion of the plastering on Mr. EUicott's house so impressed the latter that he put him in charge of all the mathematical calculations of the office. When the raiders planned the destruction of the Land Office in order to destroy the records, they intended also to kill Mix, as they feared that he would restore everything from memory. He wrote and published a work on mathematics. In trying an ejectment suit, Daniel H. Chandler said: " Now, we'll bring on Ebenezer Mix, who has the Holland Land Company's land mapped on his brain." One of Mr. Chandler's sons became the distinguished Admiral Chandler of the United States navy. The well-known writer, Bessie Chand- . ler, , is his grand4aughter, and daughter of the Admiral.. She resides in Batavia. " ' ' Red Jacket appeared frequently on the streets in Batavia. He could un- derstand English very well ; but he disdained to speak it except in extreme necessity. When addressed in English he would answer in Indian. His il- lustrious descendant, General Eli Parker of General Grant's staff, had a silver medal given by Washington to Red Jacket. General Parker was one of the invited guests to the dedication of the Land Office. By a remarkable coin, cidence his death occurred on the day of the dedication. Bishop Coxe made a feeling allusion to him as "The Last of the Iroquois." The anti-Mason excitement was the means of bringing out a number of men into permanent prominence. Some rode upon the wave into the history of the nation. Among those were Millard Filmore, William H. Seward, and Thurlow Weed. It gave great prominence to my uncle, Phineas Tracy ; it sent my father to Congress ; and it brought out Thomas C. Love of Buffalo Albert H. Tracy of Buffalo, Gideon Hurd of Albion, and Frederick Whittle- sey of PLOchester. ^ A body was found in the lake ; and it was brought forward as Morgan's. There was a little discrepancy, however, in the whiskers ; the face of the corpse had stub side-whiskers, whereas Morgan's face was smooth-shaven to the top. The story is told that Thurlow Weed took hold of the stub whisker and it parted from the face. "There," he said, " that is a good enough Morgan till after election." The Holland Purchase touches the Revolution, through Morris who trans- ferred it to the Hollanders, and through the Hollanders themselves who were Morris's Revolutionary creditors. 142 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. But it seems that the Land Office was distined to be mixed up in some way with every great convulsion of the United States. If it can be said that it gave Lincoln to history, then it must be conceded that it had an important relation to the Civil War. That it caused the nomination of Lincoln I think can be established beyond dispute. In i860 Mr. Seward was the logical candidate of the Republicans. His pronunciamento of the " irrepressable conflict" voiced the coming struggle. Men looked to him as the prophet and the Moses of the hour. He came very near getting the nomination for president, and would have obtained it, had he not been stricken down at the last moment by Horace Greeley at Chicago. ..1 ^^f^tf^^fe '#iMattt^»U4» THE OUTLKT OF LAKE OTSEGO — CELEIIRATED IN "DEEK SLAYER." Greeley's animosity had its origin in the Land Office. Albert Brisbane of Batavia had become the great apostle of Fourierism, in which Greeley took some interest. This led to very friendly relations. Through the influence of Brisbane the columns of the Tribune were opened to a series of articles from Batavia reflecting upon the administration of Redfield and Pringle, who were acting as agents for the Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, the last owners of the interests of the Hollanders in the Purchase. Mr. Redfield brought suit for libel; and William H. Seward was appointed referee. Mr. Seward decided against the Tribune, and adjudged it to pay a fine of five hundred dollars and to retract the libelous statements. Greeley did not mind the five hundred dollars much ; but the retraction stung him to the quick. He became thenceforth a bitter, unrelenting enemy of Mr. Sew- ard. He said that his time would come ; and it came— at Chicago. By stat- ing these cold facts we do not necessarily imply any regret that the great Lincoln came on to the stage of action for which he seemed providentially destined. But the facts show what great results may flow from very small causes. Mr. Seward was a high-minded man, and a patriot ; and he faithful- THE GENESEE COUNTRY. ' 143 ly co-operated with Mr. Lincoln in carrying forward to a successful issue one of the greatest struggles in history. He did what he thought was right in the Land Office matter; and I think that he could say with Clay that he " would rather be right than be President." AN ESSAY IN CRITICISM. [DESIRE to say a few words about the recent " Life of Robert Morris," written by Professor William G. Sumner, of Yale College. Professor Sumner is a very distinguished scholar; and when I learned that he had written a biography of Robert Morris I expected to enjoy a rare treat. About twenty years ago it began to dawnmpon mo that a very great man had passed across the horizon of our affairs and the historians had al- most overlooked him. My subsequent reading and reflection have tended only to confirm that dawning conviction and to bring out more and more clear- ly to my mind the colossal personaltiy of that neglected and forgotten man. 1 have awaited with eagerness the American Plutarch who would seize with avidity upon such a fine overlooked subject, and give us another immortal classic. Angelo was seized with a fury of attack at sight of a fine piece of marble ; I was sure that the coming Plutarch would glow with creative energy at the sight of the neglected Morris. I was prepared to find the longed-for Plutarch in Professor Sumner. I regret to say that I have been both extremely disappointed and deeply pained by the perusal of his book. The disappointrrient I might waive ; but the pain compels me to speak out. I am disappointed with the literary qualities of the book ; but I do not intend this as a critique. I am pained with the doctrine of the book ; and I do intend this as a protest. If Professor Sumner should choose to give us a book as bald in style as the Saxon Chronicle, as disjointed as a dictionary, and as col- orless as a brick of manufactured ice, I might be sorely disappointed, but I would not say a word. That is a question of taste, and the world takes care of such matters. I would not say a word, but I might have my preferences in the matter ; I might prefer the artistic structure and fervid style of Macaulay, or the masterly analyses of Plutarch. But furthermore I am often charitable as to form, even though I may not like the form. Men have a right to strike Out on new lines, and make experiments. I don't like Walt Whitman's style for example ; but I am quite willing to give it a trial. It is not without its ad- . admirers ; and we know not yet what the final verdict may be in regard to it. Nor would I be understood as condemning Saxon Chronicles and dictionaries _ On the contrary I consider them very valuable books in their respective spheres. I did not know but that Professor Sumner had hit upon a new form of biography. Michael Angelo said that the sculptor does not create ; he simply sees the angel in the stone and hastens to knock away the superfluous pieces, so that the angel may emerge. I did not know when I began reading this ex. traordinary book but that Professor Sumner was about to pursue the Angelo method ; and that if we followed him carefully we would see the angel emerge. Sumner could then have the triumph of bringing truth to light, rather than 1 44 tHfi GEKESEfi COUNTRY. of simply stating what the truth is. Sure enough the angel begdn to emerge, But I thought that the emergence was a little disturbing to the professor ; it was not just what he expected; it was not what he wanted; he hurried away from those spots where the emergence was dangerously imminent (or rather enjinent) ; he hastened to the other side of the stone, and there chipped away bravely. At last he throws off the mask and positively declares that it is not an angel that he is looking for it all, but some other kind of character. But the angel emerged all the same. If there had never been another word written on the subject of Robert Morris than this book of Mr. Sumner's, if THE TOMB OF JOSEPH ELLICOTT AT BATAVIA. there should never be another word written hereafter about him, this book alone would place him in the fore-front of all the great, the wise, the good, the pure, the gentle, the noble that this world has ever produced. The angel has emerged from the stone this time in spite of the sculptor. With no other basis than Sunmer's book Washington, Franklin. Lincoln, and Grant need not blush for the fifth compeer that has stepped to their side. The words have been said and cannot be recalled. In that book enough has been said THE GENESEE COUNTRY. 145 (more or less grudgingly) to sketch one of the greatest and best of characters— a character, strong, symmetrical, consistent, true. I am pained because the young will not see the character which Professor Sumner has unwittingly drawn, but rather the character which he has tried to draw. May I ask the patience of the reader to follow him a little? He does not look for the fruit in the seed; he skips over the whole question of antecedents and training, merely stating the date and place of his birth, that his father was a merchant, and that the son was sent to Philadelphia at the age of 14 years and placed in the house of the Willings. The boy was the head of the house at 20 ; and yet this does not strike the Professor as being anything remarkable. Yet it is the most remarkable thing of the kind on record. Hired boys do not usually get to' the lowest end of such firms until they are in the forties ; they do well if they get to the head of them in the sixties. What an implied story of good antecedents and careful nurture, of brilliant>bilities, steady habits and strict attention to business! "The reconstruction of the firm indicates. an infusion of youth'and enterprise." That word "youth" seems to me an inadequate and altogether misleading description of the case Another great getiius said when taunted with his youth : ' ' The atrocious crimeof being a young man I will not attempt to palliate, nor do I deny." It could not be wealth that placed him at the head of the firm. In his father's estate "the personal property was nearly $7,000" — a mere drop in the bucket in a great shipping business. It might pay the office rent, for a single year. True "mention was made in his father's will of some real estate;" butitwas all a small matter ; it was Ijjrains and character that won, not money. By strict attention to business he was able twenty years later to loose eight millions in the Revo- lution. His sterling character and abilities gained him the respect not only of his employers but of the best people of the time ; he was able to marry into the best family of Pennsylvania, his wife being a sister of Bishop White, and th,e most cultivated woman of her time. These things are very significant to ordinary historians. They carry their own comment, even if the historian should slide over them. "Morris signed the non-importation agreement of J765 ;■' ,,and therefore, for the sake of his country, struck a deadly blow at his own business. Yet we are asked later on to believe that he had an insane desire for wealth. While . his ships were rotting at the idle wharf, ' ' he was on a committee of citizens who forced the stamp distributor of Pennsylvania to desist from the administration of his office ;" and thereby became especially obppxious to the government eleven years before any one thought that it would cease to rule in America. Hampden and Eliot could do no more. "In June, 1775, he was appointed on the committee of safety for Pennsylvania" — a pestiferous nest of traitors, in the eyes of the government. He had already imperiled his business and his life, and made no ado about it. There was certainly nothing to pose for in all this ; there was nothing in it to feed any of the forms of vanity with which he is charged. It just marks ten years of con- sistent and steady defiance by one who had much to lose and nothing to gain except his country's liberty. " Being a member of these three bodies at one tiipe, we are not surprised to find him declaring that his time was occupied with public affairs to the injury of his private business." " Declaring," mind you, but not complaining. How does this concession of our author that Rob- 146 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. ert Morris performed his public duties at great private loss, tally with the inti- mations further on that he was in office " for revenue only." "After he be- came a member of Congress he was absorbed in the work of that body." That is the kind of patriot he was ; no half measures with hiili if business went to the canines. " He was appointed a member of the secret committee of cor- respondence." More deadly treason. But the people knew their man, if Professor Sumner does not. What sterling patriotism, what ability, what ' judgment, what tact, what delicacy, what discretion, did membership on these committees require ! These qualities were conceded by his appointment ; and we never hear that the masters of the time or the public had to recast their estimate of him. Not only in the business, but in it to the very core — at the very root of the matter — "absorbed" as though he had no private business. He had given the latter a momentum in the previous twenty years that kept it THE U. S. TREASURY BUILDING. going somewhat. He had made a success of his private business by being "absorbed" in it; he was destined to make just as complete a success of his- tory by the exercise ef the same traits of character, the same qualities of mind. Is there any hint of the peculator, the speculator, 'or the Dives in all this ? Far from it. Shame on the thought ! AN OPPORTUNE TITAN. (( M' ORRIS was one of those who hesitated about the Declaration of Independence." Washington was another; and every other man in the country, except Samuel Adams, was a third. They were fighting for rights ; the idea of independence came later. He voted against the resolution in favor of independence on the 2d of July;" THE GENESEE COUNTRY. 147 because he wanted to learn first what the Howes had to offer. " He signed the Declaration, however, on the 2d day of August;" after the chances of hanging for doing so had very much improved. It was but a few days prior to the disastrous defeat on Long Island. " We can clearly see that Washing- ton, for the manceuver that he executed at Trenton, really had no support from anybody but Morris." What praise ! The whole world can see the wis- dom of the manceuver after it was made. What praise for Morris that he could see the wisdom of it beforehand ! What comfort to Washington that in that moment of dire extremity, with an enemy triumphant, with a country despairing, with treason in the camp, with friends falling away from him, with cabals forming around him, that he had one loyal heart to whom he could unbosom himself, one capacious mind that could understand him! " The three great crises of the Revolution— the attack on Trenton, Burgoyne's surrender, and Cornwallis's surrender." Yes, and we see that at the first Morris alone was present to help the deserted chieftain through. But for Morris the other two crises never would have been passed. The short, sharp cainpaign of Trenton and Princeton made Washington one of the great military captains of history. He was just as great on his masterly retreat ; but people do not understand retreat as well as victory. When Fabius became a Marcellus then even Fabius was understood. All could see that the war was on insteajd of over. The Brittish redoubled their efforts and prepared to break the colonies in two. The real crisis came after Princeton. The terms of the veteran troops were expiring ; and they were resolved to go home. Had they gone home what would have become of the campaign of 1777, the decisive campaign of Burgoyne? Had they gone home what would have become of the war ? It would have ended in the defeat of the patriots; the revolution would have collapsed ; Washington said so. That fatal disinte- gration was arrested by a man who never lost his head in a crisis — the great second genius of the war. Nothing but hard money would hold the soldiers ; the military chest contained nothing but "Continental pasteboard." Robert ■Morris hurried to Philadelphia, and, after vain appeals to patriotism, he pledged his private credit. At this the money flowed into his hands, and he was able to brmg back fifty thousand shining dollars. The soldiers remained ; Burgoyne fell ; the French came in— all through the devotion and standing of one private citizen. If I were to select the man who has established a pre- eminent claim to write our annals, I would select John Fiske. This is his judgment on the matter; " Except for the sums raised by Robert Morris, of Philadelphia, even Washington could not have saved the country." This is one of the points at which Protessor Sumner seems in a hurry to get to the other side of the stone. It is now twelve years since Morris ordered his own business to wither; and since he began to put all kinds of halters about his neck. And he has been flying night and day ever since. For what? To pose? To feed an avaricious maw? The arlny remained; the sequal was Saratoga and Monmouth. It was well for this country that Robert Morris in his youth "never applied hot and rebellious liquors to his blood;" for it needed the physical strenth of a giant, as well as the intellect and heart of a Titan, to meet the demands which were now upon him, and which were never for a moment off him to the end of the war — the demands of a self-imposed devotion to his struggling country. Had he even been stricken with tem- 148 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. porary illness we were lost. Stronger language than this has flowed from pens having far better claims than mine to speak of American history. Who will say that this is not a great man? It may be urged in reply that it was generous to get the money, though not particularly great. We will see later. But where is the flaw in the character up to the present? It was the "honor" of Robert Morris that controlled, and was to control for years yet to come, the forces of the world. The revolution was won by character; men trusted Washington and his inseparable Damon, Robert Morris. But to return to the chipping. ' ' He had begun to urge, from the first year of the war, that congress should employ competent executive officers upon proper salaries. HON. JOHN G. CARLISLE OF KENTUCKY, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. He urged this as a measure of economy and efficiency in administration." Could anything better be urged, after a hundred years to think it over?' It is noticeable that no recommendation of Robert Morris ever needed to be modified ; it is noticeable that every one of his recommendations has be- come incorporated into our civil polity ; it is noticeable that scarcely a single great feature of our present government was not at some time recommended THE GENESEE COUNTRY. I49 by Robert Morris, Does the great man appear yet? Or is it only a fussy money-bags? Lowell speaks of "men with empires in their brains." "His large head seems as well adapted for the government of an empire as that of most men;" I quote from our author the words of Prince de Broglie. But how were the above recommendations received ? ' ' We do not know of any one at that time who seconded his efforts in this direction." How lonely is a man who is a century ahead of his time ! " Congress was under the influence of a number of prejudices;" Robert Morris was under the influence of conviction alone from first to last. It was almost amusing to see this grand man time and again put down his solitary cane, and say to congress, and the country, and the world ; ' ' Thus far will I go; and that is the end of it; you must meet me there." They met him. Is it a great man yet? An intellect to see the way amid all the fogginess of the times ; a will to force things along the way amidst all the obstructions of the times! And those were the "times that tried men's souls; " and those were the times that tried men's bodies; and those were the times that tried men's intellects. I don't know how you can get any better tests of greatness than those which Robert Morris triumphantly withstood at every moment of his public career. I have already shown, through our author, that his private career was phenomenal beyond all precedent. " He thought that all else should be laid aside in order to devote all available strength to an energetic prosecution of the war ; " and he ever practised what he preached. The trim- mers who were spreading their sails to catch the popular breeze would have left the Revolution stranded ; this man with his cane going down from point to point, forced the Revolution through. " It seemed to him that the quarrels about liberty and rights could be settled after peace and independence had been won." And it seems to us that everything that seemed right to him was right, is right, and always will be right. His extraordinary' intelligence penetrated at once to the laws of everything that he had anything to do with; and his conscience always compelled him to follow the strict letter of the law. He was never without the courage of his convictions ; he was always ready, if need be, to stand alone. Even according to our author he stood alone time and again, with his toe at the line and his lip set, waiting for the world to get around to him. It alway.s got around to him when he took that attitude. Any nonentity can be obsti- nate ; it takes the greatest of the great to know when to be wisely obstinate, to know when the time for concessions is past. Robert Morris could rule ; but he could not ruin; none knew better than he when it was safe and wise to give way. In that age of jealousies and compromises there was no man more tactful. But never did a concession of his carry with it a suggestion of craven fear ; never was a concession of his other than a master stroke in the interest of the public good. In all his sublime and timely obstinacy he never crossed wills with Washington but once. They saw things alike ; and together they pulled all along ; like knew its like by instinct, and cleaved to it ; no wedge of separa- tion could enter between them ; it was Damon and Pythias ; it was Castor and Pollux; and before those Dioscuri the enemies of freedom, of sound economy, and of good government fell back in ignominious defeat. The whole Revo- ISO tHE GENESEE COUKtfey. lutionary period was the constant battle of Lake Regillus, in which those god-like youths continued to infuse into mere corporals' guards the spirit and power of conquering hosts. Gl^EATER THAN A TITAN. THE benignant countenance of Pythias is seen all over the land— in marble, in bronze, in print, in paint — an inspiration to succeeding generations of patriots. But we look in vain, as yet, for the mild countenanceof the unobtrusive Damon. I say as yet ; for I have faith that the Plutarch will yet appear who will resuscitate the forgotten Damon, DEDICATION OF THE HOLLAND LAND OFFICE TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT MORRIS, OCTOBER 13, l8g4 — EXERCISES ON THE STATE PARK MOUND — ADDRESS OF HON. JOHN G. CARLISLE, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. and re-introduce him to his much indebted countrymen. Castor has his shaft of marble shooting five hundred feet into the blue sky, and over-topping all other works of man as much as his character over-topped that of other mor- tals. Pollux, according to our author, lies in a dark and chilly enclosure, with nothing above him but a horizontal slab inscribed with the dates of his birth and death, and stating incidentally that he had been the " Financier of the United States during the Revolution." ' ' His resting place is therefore a damp and dark corner." No comment. Castor was true to the last to his THE GENESEE COUNTRY. IJI more mortal brother; and in the last year of his life he sends the "affectionate regards of General and Mrs. Washington to Robert Morris." The message went to a man old and poor, and who had been for two years languishing in a debtors' prison, shut up with the yellow fever, and submitting with the meekness of a second Job to the, blows that cruel fortune could devise. I be- lieve that Job once cried out in his anguish ; Morris never uttered a sound nor gave a single sign. The sage of Athens did not sip the hemlock more caTmly than did Morris take the bitter dregs that came to him in the evening of his existence out of his glorious and beneficent life. Mark Tapley saw one com- pensation in adversity cheerfully borne, an opportunity for getting credit worth having. Morris maintained his cheerfulness without seeking any credit at all ; he simply did it on principle, that it is a philosopher's duty. There was one thing he yet could do, and he would do it ; he could avoid breeding snow storms to chill other lives. Our author is good enough to call this "grim pleasantry and a desperate reconciliation to facts." I fear that he would see nothing but " grim pleasantry and desperate reconciliation to facts" in the cases of Socrates and Phocion. " In April, 1799, (after he had suffered two years of imprisonment) Gou- verneur Morris visited Robert Morris in the prison and dined with him and Mrs. Morris there." Rather a change from the mansion and table where princes and potentates and all worthy people partook of the friendly and tact- ful hospitality of this same. Robert and Mrs. Morris ! Rather a change from the mansion and table which supplied their comforts to the elegant and fas- tidious Washington on the occasion of every visit of his to Philadelphia. He trusted " Robert" always; he lived with him whenever he could. And when Washington came as President to live in Philadelphia, Robert succeeded in persuading him to occupy the house that had always been his home. there. " The latter two (Mr. and Mrs. Morris) kept up high spirits, and ,the visitor was distressed to see that Morris had made up his mind to his situation more than he could have believed possible." Mr. and Mrs. Morris did what they had always done — they entertained their guest as handsomely as their cir- cumstances would permit. The lady who smiled in prison was according to our author "the second lady at court; as to taste, etiquette, etc., she is cer- tainly the first." This hospitality in prison has its counterpart in that of General Marion who graciously entertained the visiting British officer with a share of his solitary sweet potato. The officer on his return said to his super- iors :" you can never conquer a people who take adversity like that." . Ifear that Professor Sumner would never enter fully into the spirit of these things ; for he seems to regard them all as "grim pleasantry." At Fort Sumter the- soldiers ate their last crust amid exploding magazines and falling walls ; they would have starved if that would have saved the fort ; as it was they de- manded and obtained the "honors of war;" At Bunker Hill the soldiers stayed till their last shot was fired ; they would still have stayed, if that would have held the hill. I take it that true heroism consists in rising superior to circumstances, and in maintaining an equable spirit and an exalted demeanor in the last extremity. The Roman sages used the expression ' equal mind " to denote this supreme test of character. 152 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. " The man resolved and steady to his trust, Inflexable to ill, ami obstinately just, May the rude rabble's insolence despise. Their senseless clamors and unmeaning cries :- * * * * Though the great frame of nature round him breals, Into mad ruin and confusion hurled, He unconcerned would hear the mighty crack. And stand unmoved amid the crash of worlds . " Two years of apparently perpetual imprisonment without a smgle scowl, and without a single note of repinmg! And the cultured wife sharing it with him with the same high-bred resignation ! Is not this literally *' Patience sitting by a monument And smiling extremely out of act"? It was worth all their losses and misfortunes to enable Robert Morris and his great-hearted wife to show their character under such supreme tests, to be photographed in such a setting. In looking into the countenance oi Gouverneur Morris they looked into the face of their vanished affluence with-T out a quiver. Greatness of soul could go no further. I know no picture in his- tory that equals it. THE TITAN AGAIN. BUT TO return from the aged philosopher in prison, let us follow th§,» strong man in the arena. We left him at the beginning of the glor- ious Burgoyne campaign. " During December and January he may be said to have carried on the work of the continent." Our author might, have said something here about Atlas and Titans; but he didn't; I have already intimated that this seemed to be a ticklish spot with him ; the angel seemed to be getting dangerously near the surface ; so he judiciously hurries away to safer ground. Robert Morris was ■ ruling the country, and was getting things around on time,— Saratoga, French Alliance, Monmouth. But he was not a usurper ; he did not seize the government which he wielded ; he simply accepted a government that in a manner slid onto him. It had been well-for the country had Congress continued to satisfy itself with the fiction of.governing, and left the fact to Morris. But Congress never ran away except when they scented some danger from afar ; then they wpuld carry the fiction with them and leave the fact behind. That was ever Morris's opportunity. When the Gauls were at the threshold the people were sent away and the Roman senate remained. The senate remained behind, this time ; but their aggregate number in the crisis was somewhat reduced. They numbered all told just one man. And he did not sit calmly at his door-way waiting to have his throat slit ;. he waited to spring like a Hercules upon the Nemsean lion and to strangle him m his arms. Things were fairly safe after Monmouth ; so Congress took up the busi- ness again, and in the next two years succeeded in making a sorry mess o{ it. " The public men of the time truckled to public opinion to a degree modern THE GENESEE COUNTRY. 153 men cannot understand," — consequently they will soon need Morris again. "At the close of 1780 the leading public men almost despaired of the strug- gle." " Almost," but not quite ; for they had Robert Morris to fall back upon in the last extremity ; and they somehow felt that he might in some way pull them through. ' ' To the public men in positions of responsibility, it seemed that everything might be lost." Naturally; for the job was manifestly too big for them. " Congress was driven . . . to supersede the board . . . of the treiasury by a single competent officer." Exactly^; just what Rob- ert Morris watited them to do four years earlier; but there was too much "truckling" going on. They had at last to do a sensible thing or be totally shipwrecked. The breakers are just under the bow ; the angry surf is roaring ; who will prevent the crash? " Robert Morris was regarded as the one man in the country for this office." Indeed! What, this peculator, this specula- tor, this fussy money-bags, this vain popinjay, this insanely avaricious man, the " only one" m a great nation that can save that nation from immediate destruction? Well, Mr. Sumner, I have heard of people who were compelled to use food that was not particularly appetizing to them ; and when I come to look back upon that sentence of yours, and consider what a troublesome part of the stone you have reached, I must say that it is a brave one. It is a strong one ; the rhetorics would pass it ; I am now ready to say that there is literature in your book. " Morris was in command of the situation." He always was where things were as desperate as they could be ; they never gave him any- thing but the worst kind of job. As long as there was a ghost of a chance of getting along without him thoy did not permit him to be " master of the sit- uation."^ " It no doubt flattered his vanity." Oh, fie! Mr. Sumner! You were brave a moment ago ; why did you not stay so? You seem to be panicky again, and to be making a wild dash to the other side of the stone. " No doubt," did you say? Well, I answer that there are men in the world, and there are men. " That all should turn to him at a moment of supreme crisis." Those were the only moments in which they did turn to him. They "all" always came to their senses when everything was almost lost. They stopped "truckling" just on this side of ruin. It was hardly giving Robert a fair chance; but he did not split hairs. " As the one man who was indispensable to the country." You never spoke a truer word; there was just "one indis- pensable" man in the Revolution; and I am very glad to see that you know it. What surprises me is that it starts no reflections in your mind, except the entirely gratuitous and utterly unworthy one that " it no doubt flattered his vanity." We would like to get all that kind of vanity that, is readily accessi- ble. I think you said that they "all" knew it. They would all know it to- day if all the historians were as frank as you. Good things will keep ; Robert Morris's character and career will keep ; whether the historians think to write him up or not ; indeed, even if some historian should try to write him down. "He had a clear idea of what he wanted and of what ought to be done." So clear, that when Adam Smith's book came out a few months later they " all " saw that Morris had told it all beforehand. "He also had very definite convictions." Just what I have been maintaining. "He therefore set his conditions;" in other words he put the cane down. "He insisted, however, and carried his point ;" in other words they always yielded when his yielding ceased. " Morris was one of the first to recognize the immense im- 154 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. portance of union among the States." Great idea; what a pity the others couldn't see it then. They wouldn't give him a Union to work with ; they gave him the job and left him to grapple with a lot of loose recalcitrant States. He did not put the cane down on this point ; and so when they would not let him get through in a sensible m.anner he pulled them through by hook and by crook (but never by ways that are crooked). I will allow our great historian, Professor Fiske, to voice this achievement: " That the government had in any way been able to "finish the war after the downfall of the paper money, was due WASHINGTON S MONUMENT BY THE POTOMAC. to the gigantic efforts of on? great man — Robert Morris." Mr. Fiske is usually calm and judicial ; the utterance in this passage is Demosthenic. And it leaves him in no panic; it is an angel that he is chipping for. I think that some allusions have been made to Titans Well, ' ' gigantic " isnot very farfrom it. But I beg especially to call attention to the last two words, " great man.'-' Thei-e are great generals, great financiers, great sculptors, great historians,- great biographers, etc. ; but when you have run your gamut through you reach the climax of all in a great man. I have seen different appellations ap- TME GENESEfe COUNTRY. Ijj plied to Morris ; but 1 have waited long for that happy and just characteriza- tion of Professor Fiske. I have seen the appellation " Great Financier" ap- plied to him until I am nauseated with it. I could bear "great patriot," "great soul," or some other similar epithet; but nothing tells it all so well as "great man." " Who noble ends by noble means obtains. Or, failing , smiles in exile or in chains. Like good Aurolins, let him reign, or bleed Like Socrates, that man is great indeed," In the above spirited lines the poet allows alternatives. Morris needed none ; he covered all the conditions, and is therefore in a manner doubly great. He "obtained the noblest ends" by only "noble means;" he " smiled in exile and in chains" without '.'failing;" "like good Aurelins " he did "reign;" and he reigned through crises, the like ot which Aurelins never knew. "Like Socrates" he did "bleed" at every physical, mental, and moral pore ; and he bled with the same lamb-like and saiatly resignation. He got the money and he got them through ; that sums up the doings of 80-83. He got them out of Scylla and Charybdis, even though they denied him a decent pair of oars. He grasped at any sticks that he could lay his hands upon and paddled the doomed vessel out into the offing. " Washington had long cherished a desire with the help of the French to dislodge the English from New York." And he intended to try it in '8[. Here Pythiasand Damon clashed for the first and only time. It ended in Damon's way; and it ended to Pythias's renown. The boldest thing in Morris's career was when he put the cane down to Washington. " Morris of course shrank from the enormous expense of that undertaking." That does not tell it; he maintained that New York was not worth having. He held that if Washing- ton could get in at all, wnich was very doubtful, the British would immediate- ly drive him out again with their fleet. " It was then determined to march against Cornwallis in Virginia." So his obstinacy, which'was never ill-timed, but which was simply terrible when the cane came down, precipitated the most brilliant military movement in history. " When he found the demands upon him for money far exceeded the amount which he possessed (that is when he went to New York to wrestle with Washington) he gave none to anybody, but brought it back." The cane was down, you see. Another patriot has left the immortal shibboleth : " Millions for defense ; not one dollar for tribute." Morris's idea was " Millions for Yorktown, but not one dollar for New York." " Hence, it was then determined" — a beautifully indefinite proposition to cover a particularly dangerous part of the stone. No money for New York ; but " millions of rations " had been sent to Greene in the Carolinas; and, quick as was Washington's march to Philadelphia, when he got there the road-sides were lined for miles with army wagons laden with provisions and other supplies needful in an active campaign. To facilitate rapidity of move- ment other supplies were waiting at points along the Chesapeake. Morris "laid the train" in a double sense; the avenging fire sped along it and ex- ploded the mine under Cornwallis's feet. Hostilities were ended ; though the war dragged on two years longer. He got them temporarily into a safe of- fing. He got the money it seems by hook or by crook (but never by ways that are crooked). We are told that he advanced $1,400,000 of his own money to 156 THE GENESEE COUNTRV. fill those wagons. Our author says that this is probably "apocryphal." Well, I leave him to fight that out ; it is only a question of detail. The short of it is that he got them through ; and he held them through with his broken oars and his drift-wood sticks for two years longer — until indepen- dence was definitely secured. When the job became small enough for the others to handle it again he turned it over to them and went back to his neg- lected and honey-combed business. I have said that in the twenty years of his young manhood he had given a momentum to his business that would keep it going awhile. But ten years is more than " awhile;" he found his own ves- sel hopelessly out of repair. By superhuman exertions he kept her afloat ten years longer ; and then she went to pieces after the manner of the overworked THIi "LAST' CHIEFTAIN OF THE IROQUOIS" — GENERAL ELI PARKEK OK GENERAL grant's STAFF. "one boss shay." But in that ten years in which he escaped the prison walls he was enabled to perform three other services for his country. He assisted in making the Constitution which he had been clamoring for for fourteen years ; he sat in the first Senate and helped Washington launch his first ad- ministration ; and he virtually settled the location of the National Capitol. We have seen him financiering under the most trying and distressing circum- stances. He was now offered the opportunity to djstinguish himself with the THE GENESEE COUNTRY. 157 finest cf a,ft ever launched, and upon the fairest sea. He quietly declined and recommended the brainy young Hamilton. Hamilton straightened matters out on lines laid down by Robert Morris fifteen years before. SOME THOUGHTS ON ICONOCLASM. THE BATTLE of opinion is always. on ; terrific blows are given and received by those who never forget the amenities. It is unfair war- fare to undertake to'strike down the opinion by striking down the good man who entertains it. This is worse than persecution; the hero can face the gallows calmly ; but he groans under defamation of charac- ter. When Epaminondas was asked why the sentence of death should not be passed upon him, he said that it should be passed upon him, for he had delib- erately disobeyed a mandate of his country. But he craved that his country- men would do justice to his memory. He wished it carefully inscribed upon his tomb that he had disobeyed his country in order to save her and in oi-der . to brmg her lasting prestige and renown, and not through any lower motive. With this assurance he was ready to embrace the block and face posterity. Then did it dawn upon the hearts of his countrymen that there is something higher than legal justice; there is that equity that brings the heart alone to trial. They spared their hero and condoned his noble crime. Morris was never even a constructive criminal in his public station ; he had not only legal sanction for every act that he performed, but he also had with it the urgent appeal of his countrymen. He obeyed that appeal whenever the emergency was great enough to make obedience a duty. He did become a constructive criminal by becoming poor. He asked no mercy for the technical crime of having sunk his fortune to save his country ; and he got none. Nor did his country give him a tomb on which his record could be put right before poster- ity. The axe fell at once upon his defenceless neck and upon his reputation. He lies in an unmarked grave, the victim of his brave sacrifices, of the auster ity of his country's law, unrelieved by equity, and, worst of all, the victim of foul slander. In the heat of passion even good meh may make personal attacks which they afterwards sincerely regret. In the strife of factions there are always those who do not scruple to impugn the motives of their advarsaries, and to deliberately blacken private character. It is the cowardly method of striking down the opinion by striking down its possessor; it is the carrying out of the atrocious doctrine that " the end justifies the means." It is dangerous to go groping among the scurrillity of a by-gone time ; for one may be caught warming up old venom with which to asperse a pure char- acter no longer able to rise in its own defense. In our history we shall never be all on one side ; we shall always have opposing houses ; and it is better so. Never will the good men be all in one party; and never will a man's opinion be the key to his private character. Morris could have escaped all obloquy had he stayed at the desk of his counting-house. But he was too brave and high-minded to do that. He accounted the rectitude of his intentions a suflS- cient safe-guard ; and with it he took all chances of annoyance and injury. 158 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. " The men who have labored to influence public opinion in this direction, however, have always been unpopular." Please bear that in mind, Mr. Sum- ner, and be careful and charitable when you strike the reckless language of that unpopularity. Please remember how easy it was to screen ones self and what great moral courage it required to face the storm. Washington and Morris had this courage ; and the very things for which they were abused are the things, for which they are venerated to-day, and for which they will be venerated to the end of time. Yes, the vile things that were said about. Washington himself would make a large literature. " They have always had to contend with' and overcome the traditional prejudices and the inertia of the popular bodies, while those who floated with the popular tide have enjoyed popularity and ease together." Please remember that you are saying this pioneer architecture — the home of george w. lay (with modern alterations). yourself, and that you are sayjng it about Robert Morris. It is all that I have contended for; and it is all that is necessary to establish his noble character. I am glad that your book is written; for this is the testimony of an opponent; but I will be glad to see it succeeded by one that comes straight from the heart ; and that one we will put into the hands of our children. You have made a discriminating life of this good man necessary ; and the man who will prepare it will confer a boon. In Western New York we have a special interest in Robest Morris. He appears in our anna,ls a,s the first proprietor of most of the beautiful Genesee THE GENESEE COUNTRY. 159 country. He is one of us ; and it is with clansmen's loyalty that we spring to arms against his defamers. "We are not ashamed that our titles all run back to that great man, that worthy, gentleman. He lived in Philadelphia; and Philadelphia gives him a " cold, dark corner." He just appeared among us; and we give him the warmest place in our hearts, and will make as manful battle as we can for justice to him. He is the beginnmg of our history; the centuries of savagery led down to Robert Morris and civilization. We are glad that the epoch was a Titan — that the new era began with a moral and in- tellectual giant. As -well strike down Arminius in Germany as Robert Morris along the banks of the Genesee. They may be able to forget him in Philadel- phia; we could not forget him here, if we would; the slightest retrospect of our region compels us to go back to "the time of Robert Morris." But we don't want to forget him; we feel honored in dating our history from a man who thrice saved the Revolution from failure, and who did it as much by his "honor," his " credit," and his respectability, as by his imperial intellect and his sublime pertinacity. We feel honored in dating our history from a man who gave the United States its liberty, its independence, its Constitution, and its polity, and who did it without incurring a single stain upon his integrity, without disturbing in the least the quiet simplicity of his character — the trust- ed friend of Washington. , " Morris was the one man to whom Washington unbent." The words of his own step-son — the voice out of his own household — the ex cathedra assertion of Morris's personal worth. " Probably because " — be careful, Mr. Sumner; you are on dangerous ground; you are now imput- ing motives to Washington. I know that you are at the tenderest part of your stone; you have mv sympathies; but — forbear. That is what Washington thought of him. How did the others regard him? " Mr. Otis said that Morris was esteemed next to Washington;" and Mr. .Otis appends no "probably" at all. "Was esteemed" by whom? There is only one interpretation to that sentence; Washington and the im- plied subject of that passive verb esteemed only good men. We all have our limitations. I could not write a book on music; and I would not try it. Never can a painting of mine grace the gallery wall of a Columbian World's Fair. The Lord has blessed me with powers to admire far beyond my powers to create. "Along the smooth sequestered vale of life " I am content to pursue ■' the even-tenor of my. way." I cannot make the ro.=ie that blooms for my de- light; but I can resent the vandalism that would ruthlessly trample it down. I cannot make the flowers of art ; but I can storm with wrath when the de- stroyer's hand gets among them. But the flower of all creation is a noble human character ; "An honest man's the noblest work of God." . The hand of the iconoclast reaches the height of audacity when it assails a good name. History has no meaning except in the types of men.it has pro- duced; a much greater offence than the destruction of Washington's statues, would be an attempt to" destroy his identity. The hero worship that consists in admiring a man who displayed the extreme of fortitude in contending for a great principle, is the hero worship that the world needs. The present is in- spired to noble deeds by remembrance of the pist. Webster knew what chord to touch when with the names of good men north and south he fired the pop- ular heart to the defense of the Union thirty years before it was directly as- l6o THE GENESEE COUNTRY. sailed. Men have a prevision of victory when a supreme effort is to be made; when he sat down in cosy comfort that night before his reply to Hayne, he knew that he had won not only the battle of the forum but also the greater battle of the field. He knew that his words would resound like clarion notes should the question ever come to the stern arbitrament of war ; he knew that " Liberty a«^/ Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!" would call millions of citizens from their vocations to the defense of the Star Spangled Banner. The blaze of that cavernous deep dark eye was the blaze of prophecy. He knew that they would save the Union; for he told them what "it was worth" in terms which they could understand. It was worth just what it cost— the heroic sacrifices of "good men and true." Marathon, Thermopylse, Salamis, Plataea, and BannocKburn, are only names to sum up cases of indi- vidual heroism. The heroism consisted in baring the breast for a principle. Thousands of more destructive conflicts have passed into oblivion, because A GHOST OK THE PAST — THE OLD TERRAPIN TOWER AT NIAGARA FALLS.. they were fought by the victors solely for advantage. But the names men- tioned above have furnished a battle cry in every subsequent struggle for the right. How much greater is the force of the appeal when one is calleJ to his duty by the heroism of his own country. The ghostly leaders of Regillus were no empty fiction ; the shades of departed worthies do hover above the banners of every new host arrayed in battle for the right. The magician who can evoke them is ihe real leader of the time. " One blast upon his busle horn Were worth a thousand men." I have no sympathy with the precisionism that lays its clammy hand of destruction upon the harmless little myths that spring up in popular tradition. Those myths are often an inspiration to youthful minds; and they are quite THE GENESEE COUNTRY. l6l likely to have at their basis a solid kernel of fact. To destroy them is to take much food from youthful enthusiasm ; it is to take from youth the history which it can understand ; and it is to mutilate history itself. It is the peo- ple's way of telling their own story; and in those myths the youth sits down at the fireside of his ancestors. Historical evidence proved that there was no Troy, and that Homer had a marvelous imagination. The people said there was a Troy ; and Dr. Schlieman believed them. He admitted that the pre- cisionists had proved their case ; but he went over just the same and dtjg up Troy. It was still questioned whether there had been such persons as Aga- memnon and Menelaus ; so he went over to the other side and dug Up Mycenae. The Berkleyan philosophers proved that there is no food; but when tW"aihn'er time came around they somehow did not exactly relish an empty plate. So the wisest of men sometimes find themselves staggered by the troublesome facts of history. You may explain them away, argue them away, deny their existence ; but, like Banquo's ghost they will not down ; when you get through they are still there. Common report is a wonderful receptacle of history ; and it has its basis in the contact with concrete facts. Who will doubt that this generation has a pretty clear notion of Sheridan? Yet it is quite among the possibilities that some one a hundred years hence may arise and prove that we don't know anything about him at all. I prefer to get my ideas of Socrates from some one who has seen hira. A utilitarian philosopher of the nineteenth century, after spending a night with the Sophists, may claim that Xenophon and Hlato knew nothing about their master; but I prefer all the 'same to listen to Xenophon and Plato. There may be a pardonable bias in the minds of those admiring youths faithful to the end, and affectionately painting him for posterity; but it is far less misleading than the bitter prejudices of those bad men whom Socrates had stung to the quick and driven out of the schools. But there is always a consensus of opinion that adjusts the portrait to very correct proportions. And what perfect pictures the people do draw ; Hector is Hector, and nobody else; Andromache has her sweet individuality ; even Astyanax is not the generic baby. Brutus and Tarquin could be identified on the streets. Bruce and Wallace will never be confounded. And so I take it that remotest ages will see Lincoln just as we see him, not in the light of his photograph, but in the light of his character ; and they will see him as we see hira, because we have seen him. There is no other law in the matter. Some- body may try on the basis of musty and obsolete documents, on things said in a corner, and so on, to reconstruct his character so as to suit the writer's pre- possessions; but the wave of a world's consensus will move right over such an experiment, and engulf it in a prompt oblivion. It is a pretty well est3,b- lisbed principle that all the world knows more than any man in it ; and woe to the man who would reverse the principle. In recognition of this principle it. is the settled practice of psychologists to study the content of the terms used by the people as a whole in speaking of any of the mental activities. They find in this study the side-lights which they know must be there. The idea is the aggregate result of millions of shrewd observations ; and the analyst finds a golden mine of laboratory work well done. The people live to teach. You cannot by writing change the altitude of Mont Blanc ; you cannot argue away the snowy crown of that "Monarch of mountains," bathed in l62 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. eternal sunlight ; but I deplore the temporary naental confusion which you can produce by the attempt to do so. In defense of Robert Morris I have called up his life and deeds to speak for him ; I have cited the opinions of the highest authorities of his time ; I have called into court his neighbors, his friends, his public to speak for him ; I have attempted to force his critic to construct the apotheosis of the great hero whom he would belittle. I might have multiplied citations to a volumin- ous extent, but I have tried to make a few characteristic types do the work of the whole. I will now permit the vyorttiy defendant to speak for himself. A COVE IN SILVER LAKE. " There oft ae mild evenins weeps over the lea. The Bweet-sceuted birk shades my Mary and me," The Spartan mother told her son to come back with his shield or on it. A French King sent back to his Capital the dispatch; " All is lost but honor." This was a note of triumph ; and his people did not put on sack-cloth and ashes. Our Samson, shorn of the locks which he had deliberately scattered right and left in the service of his country, staggers at last to his fall : • ' I am sensible that I have lost the confidence of the world as to my pecuniary abil- ' ity, but I believe not as to my honor and integrity." THE GENESEE COUNTRY. 163 THE MAN OF BUNKER HILL. Geo. H. Holden. In their ragged regimentals Stood the old continentals. Yielding not, When the grenadiers were lunging. And like hail fell the plunging Cannon-shot; When the files Of th" isles From the smoliy night encampment bore the banner of the rampant Unicorn, And grummer, grummer, grummer rolled the roll of the drummer Through the morn. • Then with eyes to the front all, And with guns horizontal. Stood our sires; And the balls whistled deadly, And in streams flashing redly Blazed the fires; As the roar On the shore Swept the strong battle-breakers on the green-sodded acres Of the plain; And louder, louier, louder cracked the black gunpowder Cracking amain ! * * * * * . * Then the old-fashioned colonel Galloped through the white infernal Powder-cloud; And his broadsword was swingins. And his brazen throat was ringing Trumpet loud. Then the blue Bullets fiew, And the trooper-jackets redden at the touch of the leaden Eifle-breath; And rounder, rounder, rounder rolled the iron six-pounder, Hurling death . Guy Humphrey McMaster. M Y GRANDFATHER, Capt. James Holden, came to Batavia with His family iti 1803. He lived in a white house just across the creek from the Land Office. He had been in the Revolutionary war. Was present at the Battle of Bunker Hill. I have heard him describe that battle many times. It was very amusing to hear him de- scribe the battle. He always got intensely excited when describing that struggle. His eyes would glitter, and he would prance around the room. " Our powder gave out ; but, confound them ! we clubbed our muskets and made it as warm for them as we could." He had nine sons and three daugh- ters. Five of the sons were out in the war of 1812. One morning my father .saw a man rush out of the woods west of our house without hat, coat, vest, or 164 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. shoes. When the excited individual came up, he found that it was his own brother, who had run all the way from the Niagara river to give the alarm that the British were coming. The inhabitants all fled to Canandaigua. Our folks buried their silver when they fled ; but it was found by some recruits that were passing through to the front, and was all taken but one spoon, which I now have in my possession. The spoon seems to have been made by hammering. My grandfather on my mother's side, General Tbwner, thought he would not run with the rest of them. He gathered together some militia, and took a stand northwest of Batavia to protect the town. But the British did not come. TONAWANDA BRIDGE — LAND OFFICE IN THE DISTANCE. As my father was only fifteen they thought he had better stay at home. But the war got him. In 1813 he was hauling stone for the old arsenal when General Scott's ofScers came along and impressed his team and him. He was sent to Albany to bring on supplies. He got a land warrant for eighty acres of land for this involuntary service. He said that it was the only time that lightning ever struck him. One of my father's brothers became accidentally a hero at Black Rock. The Americans were keeping a sharp watch day and night against surprise. One evening my uncle was in a squad that was reconnoitering with lantern.? near the edge of the cliff. The officer decided to send some of the men down to the water's edge. My uncle, in moving forward, lost his footing and turn-, bled down to the bottom. He almost fell upon three British soldiers. Taking, in the situation at once, he shouted, " Here they are, men, come on." The THE GENESEE COUNTRY. 165 poor Britishers begged permission to surrender ; and he took the three of them back to camp. When they asked him how he captured them, he said: " O, I surrounded them." I have heard John B. EUicott describe the coming over of the British. They had a long line of boats filled with soldiers. Directly in front of him an oificer was standing' in the bow of a boat giving orders. EUicott drew a bead on him ; but his heart failed him, and he didn't shoot. Again he took a sight ■on- him'; but again he could not prevail upon himself to kill that man. The third time he let her fly. " Did you hit him?" "Idon'tknow. Somebody hit him ; but by the time I shot there was a crash all along the line." EUicott would also tell of a funny panic that once took place among the troops at Black Rock. They were posted on the bluff ; and one evening a violent clatter was heard down by the water's edge. A panic seized the detachrnent, and they fled with th eir arms in their hands. Pretty soon some one stumbled, and down went his bayonet into the fellow ahead of him. Then began a general stumbling, and a general bayoneting of the poor fellows that chanced to be ahead. '-'And what did you do ? " "Why, I ran with the rest of them." When they came to investigate the cause of their terror and bloodshed, they found that an old blind horse was fumbling and stumbling around in the narrow passageway. Grandfather died at the age of 88. His death was hastened, I think, by a fall he received on the bridge where he slipped on the ice. None of his children died under 8q> except one who died of cholera in 1834. The bears were' very familiar in the early days in Batavia. My grand- father had a pig-pen eight rails high just back of his house. In that pen they were fattening a lusty porker that had reached dimensions that would gratify the eye of Phil. Armour. One evening, when my father and grandmother were the sole occupants of the house, the big piggy gave forth notes of positive , distress. Peering out they saw a monstrous black bear depositing chuffy on the -outside of that eight rail fence, without disturbing a rail. And they de- cided not to interfere with the proceedings. The eight rail pen knew chuffy no more forever. I regret to say that my last encounter with my excellent old grandfather was of such a nature as- to leave our relations a little strained. I was a very frequent visitor at his residence, and always had the run of the house. One day as I was roaming through the upper chambers, to my inexpressable de- light, I chanced upon a violin and bow. I had never taken lessons from Paganini ; but what I lacked in skill I made up in energy. I sawed and sawed until I was red in the face ; and I certainly succeeded in making my self heard. In fact, I thought that the remotest settler could not fail to catch, my dulcet strains. I have said that my grandfather was not in robust health after his fall on the bridge ; so he was not in a condition to enjoy my music. I heard a very wrathful voice at the foot of the stairs ; and when I tremblingly responded to its call I found my grandfather in such a rage that his wrath at the Britishers at Bunker Hill might in comparison be called amiability itself. I shrank home, and never had the courage to enter his home again, though he lived several years longer. But I used to see him at a safe distance stroll- ing up the street every day to get his mail. The Batavia bar has alwajfS bepn strong. But the early bar of Batavia i66 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. was exceedingly strong. There were Daniel H. Chandler, Albert Smith-, Isaac H. Verplank, John B. Skinner, Ethan B. Allen. John H. Martindale,' Edgar C. Dibble, Moses Taggart, Phineas Tracy, George W. Lay, Glen Car- penter, and Seth Wakemen. Those were strong men. HALCYON DAYS — PEACE AT LAST ON THE TONAWANDA. 1 can see him no w— as I saw him then, When I was a lad— and my years but ten ; ThouRh the years have sped and my beard is gray- I can see him now as I did that day ; That aged miller— whose locks thin and white. Were fanned by a breeze that was cool and light. At eventide of a summer's day. When the old grist mill had ceased to play, And the over-shot wheel no longer rolled ronnd. With a splash of water, and rumbling sound ; When the King of day with a shining vest. Behind the green hill retiring to rest. Cast a golden gleam o'er the sky's deep blue, As he bade the world an evening adieu. Then he came forth from that old brown mill. That stood by the race that ran down the hill ; With his ruddy cheeks and his look serene. His full round chest and his martial mien. Though his garb was white with flour and dust. He looked like a man a nation could trust. The music he loved and had from a boy. THE GENESEE COUNTRY. 1 67 Was the steill-tonecl fife — his solace and Joy, And he played it still ;— and at close of day, When the old mill ueased its jarring play, Its whirring around with a rumbling sound. While many a grist for neighbors was ground. In " Seventy-six " with his flfe in hand. Then a lad— he joined the patriot band, Who periled their lives that this might be. Prom thenceforth called "' The Land of the Free ;" Though then too young to take up arms. He sought a place mid war's alarms, The thiolser the bullets around him flew. The louder his shrill- toned fife he blew, And its piercing tones gave the patriots cheer. For the fifer showed no signs of fear ; And that flte was heard on the left and Hght, Wherever occurred the thicliest fight. That war was a long and weary one ; But it ceased at last, when freedom was won ; And the lad, a youth, unharmed went home, But clung to that fife— where'er he might roam. In the war with England which next occurred. That warlike flfe at the front was heard. He marched at the head of a martial band. That played tor the men who fought for the land. Warlike and stirring were the tunes he played, When battallions stood in battle arrayed ; Sad and mournful were the notes for the dead, When a comrade's tears tor the slain were shed. He went through ihe war with never a wound. Became a miller— and many grists ground ; Yet, still played the flfe. and at close of day, lu front of the mill, would stand and play. I can see him now as I saw him then. When I was a lad and my years but ten ; Though the years have sped and my beard is gray, I can see him now as I did that day ; That aged flter with locks thin and white Blown back by a breeze that was cool and light, And the tune he played was a dirge for the brave. It was called, he said : ■' Napoleon's Grave ;" So mournful the notes that they touched my heart And he played them too, with such magic art, That I saw before me a great man dead. Who had lately stood at a nation's head ; A soldier of fortune who had won renown, A coffined hero, who late wore a crown, Who fought great battles, his last battle o'er. And monarohs shall dread his frown nevermore. An august warrior— so mighty and brave. About to be laid in the cold, damp grave. And I saw them place the turf o'er his head. As they laid him to rest in his lonely bed. On a rocky isle— where the sobbing surge. And the wind's sad wall, are his only dirge. * .. * * * * The musical notes of that tuneful life, Oft heard by the brave, in the battle strife. No longer are heard in front of the mill, For that mill is gone— It hath passed away— 1 68 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. The tooth of time hath wrought its decay ; The grists at the mill, no lonser are tolled, By that robust miller— so brave and bold ; At four score and ten, the good man died. They laid him to rest— his fife by his side, For he loved It still, with his latest breath, And they parted them not, in sable death. A plain marble slab now marks the place, A worthier monument ought to grace. —N. A. Woodward, THE OLD GENESEE COURT HOUSE AT THE JUNCTION OF THE INDIAN TRAILS. THE JU DGE. John F. Lay. BAT AVI A figured in the War of 1812 as a sort of rendezvous for the troops assembling from different parts of the interior of the State on their way to the front, and as a city of refuge for the wounded and fugitives. Batavia had at that time a very unique character in the person of Judge Stevens. The Judge had served for a time on the staff of General Porter, as his adjutant-general. Among the duties of his position was the locating and setting up of the headquarters tent. On one occasion THE GENESEE COUNTRY. I69 the enemy seemed disposed to disturb the ordinarily peaceful procedure of going into camp. The discreet limb of the law rode back to his general and made the following report: " General, the bullets are flying over there; it is positively dangerous to proceed with the setting up of that tent; I shall surely be killed if I tarry in that locality." The irate general at once discharged the full vial of his wrath upon the head of his cautious penman and mouthpiece : " Go back, immediately, sir, and proceed with your duties; it is your duty to direct the setting up of that tent." But the Judge had not studiet law in vain ; he had very clear notions of the limitations of jurisdictions, prerogatives, duties, vested rights, inalienable privileges, and other world-controlling ab- stractions and distinctions. Though prudent and discreet in regard to the enemies' bullets, he was nevertheless a very lion where his own rights seemed to be trenched upon. Drawing himself up with great dignity he proceeded to , lay down the law of the matter to the very face of his testy cortimander : " General Porter, sir, I would have you to understand that I am your writing aid, not yoMx fighting aid." , '■' The unfailing prudence and discretion of the worthy adjutant-general enabled him to avoid disagreeable contact with the ill-mannered bullets and to return with an unbroken skin to his chosen Batavia. Thence.'^orth his ' prowefis in arms gave an added interest to a character that was never lacking in unique attractions. . " As driftwood apars, that meet and pass Upi)n the boundless ocean's plaiD. So in the sea of li'o, alas ! Man meets man ; mee's and quits atraln." The Judge was destined to give to literature and history another flash of genius. He had his residence on the south side of the creek, on the site of the present famous Law Mansion. On the Tonawanda bridge, which was af- terwards the scene of such'thrilling doings in the Land Office war, the history of the old world and the new came together. It is well known that after the battle of Waterloo the air of France was not congenial to the tardy Marshal Grouchy. He was seized with a desire to see foreign lands. Wrapped in his own reflections and his military cloak he seemed to stalk abroad like a restless ghost. In due time he appeared in the quiet frontier hamlet of Batavia, a sol- itary, contemplative, undisturbed figure. As the Marshal was strolling in solitary pensiveness across the Tonawanda bridge in the gloaming, another solitary figure was approaching from the opposite direction. Sympathy often springs forth like an electric thrill; he who was behind time at Waterloo could not fail to awaken an interest in him who was behind the lines at Lundy's Lane and Queenstown and Fort Niagara. The Judge, being on his native heath, felt that the initiative rested with him. Stopping short in front of the silent, .gliding exile, and with his characteristic abruptness, he said; " You, I believe, are Marshal Grouchy. I am Judge Stevens of Batavia." It was not exactly the manner of the French capital, so for a moment the Marshal's sen- sibilities were thrown into a chaotic condition. But, quickly collecting him- self, it is said that a gleam of intellectual illumination came over his counten- ance ; and just at that point tradition is silent. The Judge was for many years a clerk in the Land Office. His assistant was Junius A. Smith. The statements were made quarterly ; and it often re- 170 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. quired corriitiendable diligence to get them ready on tiro^. The burden fell largely upon the shoulders of the faithful Junius. The Judge, feeing really a kind-hearted man, felt like cheering iis toiling Achates: " Now,, Junius, when we get off these reports we will take some recreation." Junius brightened at the idea like an overtaxed race-horse that has had a word of encouragement cooed into his ear. The reports were ready in good season; and, the benevo- lent Judge, true to his word, said: "Now, Junius, we will proceed to take some recreation." The pair strolled together across the bridge to the Judge's house, where, to the surprise of the laborious assistant, his host produced a (5o/^/« of " recreation." "Well, Junius, dum vivimus vivamus." Having thus taken the "recreation," they at once returned to the Land Office and the new records. UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE, WASHINGTON. Although the Judge had his "recreation" at home, he also had there his domestic inielicities. He thought his wife extravagant, and deemed it neces- sary to post her. Ebenezer Kimberly presented a bill contracted by the bet- ter half. " Wont pay it. Posted my wife. You can't collect it." Presently Homer Kimberly came with the same bill. " Well, Homer, what have you there?" " A bill." "Well, Homer, I'll pay you, because you are an hon- est man ; but that brother of yours is a rascal." His young hopeful amused himself by shooting the eyes out of his grand- parents' portraits. The judge took him aside and gave him a severe lecture, of which only the closing words have come down to us: "Ambrose, I ban- ish you my presence." The Judge went to Medina to celebrate the opening of the Erie Canal. "Great era !" he exclaimed. " Wonderful events ! We haven't time to talk this thing all over now ; but we will when we are singing halleluiahs in heaven," •the genese^ countrV. 171 The Judge was very slow in adding. This was noticed b)»his observant assistant, Junius. The latter, after footing up a vast array of columns, com- placently appended a little memorandum: "I have footed up these columns in just one hour. J. A. S." The Judge having no confidence in such expedi- dition, went ovei- the whole matter in his usual laborious, careful and slow manner, after which he appended the following supplementary memorandum : ■'And m doine: so you have made fifteen mistakes. J. W. S." EUicott criticized Stevens to the effect that in his first view of things he got everything .wrong side up, eoafcsed and mixed, but in the end he got them clarified, and brought them out all straight. With all his oddities the Judge was a cultured man. He was a graduate of Princeton College. In Philadelphia, before coming to Batavia, he crossed swords with the famous Cobbett in a series of articles published over the sig- nature of Peter Porcupi-ne. It must be borne in mmd th^t Batavia never was primitive in the sense 'of being illiterate. It abounded at the very outstart in men of the ripest scholarship, the richest culture, and the most remarkable acumen. The opening words were vocal with the most remarkable command of English ; and the tone ,of the society of the village was baronial. A DESCRIPTIVE DIGRESSION. " Land of my fathers I I have stood Where lordly Hudson rolls his flood ; Seen sun-rise gleam and day light fade Upon his frowning Palisade." THE greatest sin in literature is digfression, the tendency to scatter into everything and come out nowhere. But in some the tendency to digress is as natal and as fatal as is the tendency in others to lisp. We are back again in the Empire State still chatting or chattering of the sublime, the beautiful, the pathetic, the historical, the traditional, the mythological, the fanciful. And the grandeur of our own great triangle with its teeming history and folk-lore seems to rise in jealous protest of the fine things that we have been saying of the far away. It would take much space to do justice to the fair Mrs. Knickerbocker; but I will endeavor to propitiate the worthy lady by a glimpse or two that would not suffer by comparison with the great vision of the Dakotas. The Genesee country is the apex of that magnificent triangle known as the Empire State. That triangle as a whole is a subject to inspire the greatest pen. It is truly imperial in whatever aspect it is viewed. I will venture only to say a few words about the wonderful base. Whenever I think of scenery, history, mythology, folk-lore, romance, empire, that great base with its unparalleled scenery, its teeming associations, and its extraor- dinary development, rises before my mind and demands attention. To see a thing is one thing ; to see it under right conditions is another. I was very lucky when I first got the view from the Catskill Mountain House. 172 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. The New York boat delivered me at the village in the early afternoon; and the strong rnountain stage, with its four stalwart horses, stood ready to receive me. The white building on the mountain was distinctly visible; and it seemed as though we would be up on that liill in a few minutes. If I remem- ber correctly it was about six hours before we drove into the entrance. The afternoon was consumed in getting to the base of the mountain which seemed just a stone's throw away. After ten miles of heavy staging we were still on the plain. Night dropped down suddenly with dark clouds por- tending a respectable storm. It was useless to keep pulling aside the leather curtain to see things ; for there was nothing to see. We went steadily up the mountain ; but the darkness was so dense that it might be cut with a knife. Cimmerian darkness or Egyptian midnight could not improve upon it. When fm^^^'''' ' P'^ .^p^fl; ^j^ifi - TL-li -■- • ' } — ■■ THE IOWA " CORN PALACE." (Prom " Glimpaea Of the World's Fair.") we got to Hendrick Hudson's bowling alley he and his phantom Dutch sail- ors with their great pantaloons, their wide belts, and large buckles, and their high steeple hats, were at it in great form. The rumble of the balls along the alley was continuous; and crash after crash told of a ten-strike^jor at least of great slaughter among the standing pins. We did not see them ; I have only Rip Van Winkle's word as to their costumes, their mode of procedure, and the collations with wljich they indulged themselves. But the clatter of it all was startlingly distinct ; and the echoes traveled around the mountain in crashing roll after roll. On coming down the mountain a day or two later all was quiet as the grave where we had encountered the uproar. And near the roadside on a smooth flat stone we read the legend: " On this spot Rip Van tHfe feENteSEfe COUNI-RV. 173 Winkle slept for twenty years." A sweet mountain spring bubbled up near by ; and a little solitary hostelry supplied refreshments to the weary way- farer. All else was dense native forest and rocky walls rising sheer to the height of hundreds of feet. The changes below bewildered Rip after an ab- sence of twenty years ; the unchanging identity of things above would have impressed him after the absence of a century. We entered tlje hotel enclosure that night with no view beyond where the lantern shot its b^ms. I was able to get a room on the east side. The clerk took down my order to be called just before day-break. I slept a mountain sleep, and was awakened exactly at the appointed time. I slipped to the win- dow with ravenous eagerness and drew aside the veil. The day was just breaking on the Berkshire Hills in Massachusetts, on the Green Mountains in Vermont, and on the distant Highlands of the Hudson. The storm was all gone, sweeping away with it every trace of mist oj- haze, leaving an atmos- phere so pure that it seemed that one could see through it to the end of the world. Vision faded only where the far mountain barriers shut it in. Rosy- fingered Aurora was at her daintiest as she lifted the curtain of the eastern sky and gradually let in the light of day upon a realm of grandeur and beauty, with the silver ribbon of the Hudson glinting down the middle. I am not foolish enough to try to describe that picture. It would have been grand, magnificent, sublime, if built up piece-meal from below. Seen all at piice and from cbove it was thrilling. The shower-bath of the previous night had washed the face of nature clean. She showed a " shining morning face" to the grand illumination that soon flooded it all. Every tree, and house, and grove, and villa, and farm, and road-stead for a hundred miles was bright and fresh in the glo'V of that morning sun. It was a magnificent mosaic. The creation that spread out before us was an unbroken series of little squares, and patches, and clumps, and curves of a teeming civilization. The lift of 250 feet in the Ferris Wheel at Chicago was thrilling ; but here was a view-point 3,000 feet in the air. What better could a balloon do for us.' Mrs; Knickerbocker has the call; there is nothing in the West like that. Later, as I was selecting points of view on the mountain,' I encountered a gentleman who frankly acknowledged that he was a globe-trotter, and had been a mountain climber for years. He said that he had often been at greater altitudes in the Alps, the Pyrenees, and elsewhere, but nowhere else had he encountered as extended and fine a mountain prospect as that which spread out before us. We boast of our nerves ; but I have been twice rebuked ; once on that mountain, and once at Niagara Falls. I went to the highest summits without any nervous disturbance ; and I went to the very edge of those rocky walls that sink away sheer for hundreds of feet and looked down as calmly as I would from a six-foot wall. At last I took a little pathway that led out below the brow of the mountain and followed it till it ceased, or ran out into a squir- rel track and up a tree. There was no trouble so long as the slightest trace of human foot-step was below me. But the instant that I was on pathless ground the enormous height and the awful depth below took hold of me, and I cowered in terror. I seized the bushes and held on for dear life. I was humbled and crushed, a dizzy man three-quarters of a mile in. the air and with 174 THE GENESEE COUNTRY. loose pebbles rolling from under his feet down, down, down to the depths, where he seemed destined to go headlong after them. But the instant that I reached the little foot path I was as brave as ever. More serious was my mishap at Niagara Falls. I sat one day for a long time by the very edge of that sinking flood, seeing " AH its store of inland waters hurled In one vast volume down Niagara's steep," %t^a.-uy^ j/ ^Jl-^iA, f^/'-^l^'Cp^Pi./i^t^