Chapter X: Part 10

He was the eldest of eight children. He received his early education in the district schools of Mendon, and at the Bellingham High School. Later he attended the academy at Amherst and the manual training school at Worcester, afterwards the Worcester Academy. He always ranked high in his scholarship, and in 1835–’36 taught school in Douglass, and for the four succeeding years assisted his father in a country store at Millville. In May, 1840, he re-entered the manual labor school, in order to fit for Brown University. Two years later he taught school at Hopkinton, Rhode Island, and while there was elected a member of the Phi Beta Kappa fraternity, an honor seldom conferred before the senior year.

In September, 1844, the superintendent of schools in Providence, Nathan Bishop, induced him to take charge of the boys’ high school for the remainder of the year for $600, a large salary for that period. This school had proven for some time unmanageable in the hands of several masters, but he reduced it to order and subjection. By accepting this position, he lost a year at Brown University, but was able to graduate in 1845, the second in his class. After his graduation, he immediately came to Worcester and became a teacher at the Academy, and was later its principal.

In 1845 he purchased of John Jaques four acres and ninety rods of land in Worcester, on what was then called Goat Hill. In 1848 he began the erection of the building called the Oread, which was completed in 1852. It is built of the stone underlying the hill. At first only the north tower was completed, and it was in this portion of the building that he established the famous school for young women, which he conducted with great success until he entered upon his later political work.

At the time that the school was opened, it was the only institute in the country that promised a full college course for women. It was the forerunner of Vassar, Smith and Wellesley. The name Oread means “the abode of the mountain nymphs.” The south tower was completed in 1850, and the connecting portion of the building a year or two later.

The towers are 40 feet in diameter and four stories high, while the entire length of the building is 250 feet. It was constructed after designs entirely Mr. Thayer’s own, without the aid of an architect, and the beauty of the building and the charming location have been remarked by strangers from all over the country.

He entered political life in 1852, when he was elected a member of the school board. Later he was a member of the board of aldermen and served during the years of 1853–’54 in the state legislature. It was during his first year in the state House of Representatives that he became conspicuous by the introduction of a bill to incorporate the Bank of Mutual Redemption, which was hailed with delight by bankers and monied men throughout the state, as it seemed to afford a means of release from the autocratic rule of the Suffolk Bank of Boston.

This bill was passed in the course of years and the Bank of Mutual Redemption loaned the money to the government when Andrew was governor during the Civil War.

It was not, however, until 1854 that Mr. Thayer accomplished the great act of his life, the one which enrolls his name among the benefactors of mankind, in originating the plan which saved Kansas and other territories to the Union and perhaps settled the destiny of the nation, for if the southern leaders had secured the territories, it would have given them the balance of power for many years to come and there would have been no rebellion. The North would have acquiesced, as it always had, in the decision of the congressional majority. In his original idea of making Kansas free, he actually settled the destinies of the country.

It was at a meeting to protest against the repeal of the Missouri compromise, held in the old city hall on the evening of March 11, 1854, that Mr. Thayer announced his celebrated “plan of freedom.” In effect it was simply to take possession by lawful means of the new territories through organized immigration of free-state men sustained by a base of supplies.

Mr. Thayer defined this plan as “business anti-slavery,” distinguished from sentimental and political anti-slavery, both of which had been tried for many years and found to be faulty, slavery in the meantime constantly growing stronger. He clearly saw that whichever side gained the majority of the settlers would control the situations of the new section, in spite of all efforts to establish others among them, and to the purpose of securing this majority for freedom he devoted all his energies and all of his means until that end was accomplished.

As the first means toward fortifying himself for this undertaking he immediately secured the passage of an act to incorporate the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company and before the vote to repeal the Missouri compromise was taken, hired a hall in Boston and began to speak afternoon and evening in behalf of his undertaking.

The intense excitement and strong opposition which followed the first announcement of the purpose to repeal the compromise in a great measure subsided after that act was accomplished, and he found extreme difficulty in the succeeding months in persuading a sufficient number of men to join in his enterprise to form the first colony.

The Know-Nothing frenzy absorbed the public mind so fully that other considerations were almost entirely excluded, and the Free Soil vote of 1854 dwindled to a few thousands, the Republican candidate for governor himself deserting his party and voting with the native Americans. The Know-Nothing organization had controlled the state for three years, and the frenzy had seized the public mind to such an extent that no man who aspired to public office had a chance of election unless he was affiliated with that party.

Every member of Congress belonged to it, and it has been commonly said that Henry Wilson and other prominent office-holders of that time were elected upon that platform. The national Know-Nothing party did not agitate the slavery question, but maintained that Congress ought not to legislate on the question of slavery, which was regulated by the statutes of the various states.

In 1856 the Republicans of the Massachusetts congressional district in which Worcester is situated came to the front, but, feeling that they stood no show of winning at the pending elections, made alliances with the Know-Nothing party, whereby the offices were to be divided, and Col. Alexander Dewitt made an agreement with Henry Chapin that he would not run against him. At the last moment, however, Governor Gardiner sent word that he must make the run against Chapin. It was at this crisis that Charles White, a party manager, nominated Eli Thayer for Congress, and took a carriage and went to the Oread to notify him of his nomination.

Mr. Thayer was warmly greeted in the convention and, although it was but five days before the election, he announced his determination to stump the district and called for means of transportation to the various towns and villages. During the five days he made on an average four speeches a day. At the close of the campaign Dr. Joseph Sargent said to Mr. Thayer that no man could do what he had done and live, but he replied that he was prepared to undertake the same ordeal again in the same cause.

During this campaign he would speak at Clinton in the morning, at Leominster at noon, at Ashburnham in the afternoon and at Fitchburg in the evening, and it was in this way that he covered the entire Worcester district in the short space of five days. The result of this bitter contest was most gratifying to Mr. Thayer, who won by a vote of nearly two to one. The election was in November, 1856, but Mr. Thayer did not take his seat until the December of the following year.

At this time a new matter was interesting the southern members—the retention of the state of Kansas in the Democratic column. The notable southern propagandists, of which Quitman of Mississippi was the representative, had, in order to amend the neutrality laws, put on foot a scheme for the unification of Mexico, Cuba and Central America and the formation of an immense slave empire. This was regarded by the northern representatives with a great deal of apprehension, but much to the surprise of everyone Mr. Thayer came out in favor of it.

MR. WILLIAM J. FARRELL.

Of New York.

A New Life Member of the Society.
]

He said to the southern leaders that he intended to colonize this new empire with New England Yankees. His speeches on Central American colonization, on the “Suicide of Slavery,” and on the “Admission of Oregon” brought him great fame. Against the caucus decision of his own party he secured the admission of Oregon into the Union, and in this act, though in opposition to partisan dictation, he was sustained by leading Republican organs throughout the country, although he received some censure in his own district.

Soon after these speeches his political enemies in the district began to organize against him, but his popularity was not to be overcome and he was returned with a flattering endorsement. During his second term in Congress he was instrumental in the admission of Oregon as a state to statehood. The Republicans were of the opinion that the admission of Oregon into the Union would mean heavier Democratic representation. Mr. Thayer, however, argued that the best way to make Oregon a Republican state would be to admit it into the Union. Succeeding events proved that his view of the matter was correct, but at the time the Republicans in the House opposed the admission.

Mr. Thayer, during the discussion of the bill, went to Alexander H. Stephens, then chairman of the Committee on Territories of the House, and told him that he should work for the passage of the bill and it was to his everlasting credit that Oregon was admitted to the Union by a majority of eleven votes, of which fourteen had been won over by the untiring efforts of Mr. Thayer.

He was assailed at home for his stand in this matter, as his constituents considered that he had voted for a measure which provided for the admission of a state whose constitution excluded the negro from all political rights. As a direct result of his stand in this matter, the district failed to send him as a delegate to the national convention in 1860, which placed in nomination Abraham Lincoln for the presidency.

Together with Horace Greeley, however, he was a member of the convention, representing Oregon, the state for whose admission he had so earnestly worked, and whose people appreciated his services in its behalf. He worked with Greeley for the nomination of Lincoln in a convention which was replete with startling incidents, not the least of which was the motion of Joshua R. Giddings, aiming at the admission of a clause in the platform providing that all men are free and equal.

On account of this outspoken stand in several important measures, it was apparent to Mr. Thayer that he would fail of a renomination, and in the spring of 1860 he announced himself as an independent Republican candidate. As the campaign developed, a candidate in opposition to Mr. Thayer was found in the person of Goldsmith F. Bailey of Fitchburg, but no speaker in the state could be found who was willing to meet the arguments on important questions advanced by Mr. Thayer. Such men as Henry Wilson and Charles Sumner refused to meet him on the stump in joint debate, and he was obliged to fight it out alone. The result was that he was defeated by a very small majority. So great was his popularity throughout the country during his second term that he was prominently spoken of as a possible senator from Massachusetts.

Bailey, who defeated him for Congress, was in advanced stages of consumption when he was nominated and was unable to take the stump against Mr. Thayer. The voters of Worcester at last became so vigorous in their demands to see the candidate that to quiet them a meeting was arranged at which he was to be presented to them from the platform. When Bailey arrived in the city he was such a haggard and ghastly spectacle that it was feared by the party managers that if seen by the voters as he was, it would make votes for Thayer.

It is maintained by those who seem to know that Bailey was taken into George R. Spear’s drug store before the meeting. There his face was painted and touched up with cosmetics until he looked like a thing of life instead of a specter. He sat in Congress but one day, and then returned to his home and died.

In 1856 Mr. Thayer originated a southern colonization scheme, which had for its object the settling of Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky and the border states and driving the slaves toward the Gulf. He enlisted the services of James Gordon Bennett of the _New York Herald_, and William Cullen Bryant of the _New York Evening Post_ in his project. He went South at the head of the colonists and founded the town of Ceredo in Virginia, now a sizable place.

At the time he was charged by the Southerners with coming down into the South to interfere with slavery, but he and his colonists disclaimed any such purpose, saying that he neither intended to interfere nor have any part in the slavery movement. He said further that he could support the negro power and a steam engine for $10 a year, while it was costing the southern slaveholders $150 a year, and that at the time he came into Virginia land was worth but 50 cents to $1.50 an acre, but that his free settlement had made it worth $50 an acre.

A man named Jenkins, afterwards a rebel officer, appealed to Gov. Henry A. Wise to exterminate this colony of abolitionists, but the governor said that they came into the state in a peaceful way and that anything which tended to increase the wealth should be protected. Considerable progress with the colonization scheme was made in other states, especially in North Carolina, but the John Brown raid and the opening of the rebellion brought the enterprise to an end. After the war Charles B. Hoard, a member of Congress with Mr. Thayer, came into possession of the property at Ceredo. The project caused Mr. Thayer a loss of $118,000.

Mr. Thayer was appointed a special and confidential agent of the treasury department and served as such in 1861–’62. In 1862 he proposed to Secretary Stanton a plan for the military colonization of Florida, which was approved by President Lincoln, all of the members of the president’s cabinet excepting Seward, and by nearly every Republican member of Congress, as well as by Generals Hunter, Hooker and Garfield. According to the plan, Mr. Thayer was to go as military governor and General Garfield as commander of the forces.

This plan was under consideration for several months by the president’s cabinet and was sustained by great meetings in New York City and Brooklyn by such speakers as William Cullen Bryant and Cassius M. Clay and others of equal note. Capitalists came forward with offers of steamships, and other means and regiments were offered from several of the states, but, like other notable plans which were never carried out, this plan was prevented from being put into operation by exigencies of the times.

He remained with the Republican party until the impeachment of President Johnson. He was a Democratic candidate for Congress in this district in 1874, and also later, in the first instance nearly defeating Senator George F. Hoar, reducing the Republican majority from 7,000 to 300.

He was interested in the solution of the polygamy question in Utah, and, in connection with such men as Amos A. Lawrence, Edward Everett Hale and other members of the old Emigrant Aid Society, was concerned with plans for the elimination of the evil by the principle formerly put into force in Kansas. In recent years he has written much of history, illustrating his life work and the principles which have governed his actions in political and philanthropic work. He kept fully abreast of the times, with a keen interest in current events, and was always in sympathy with genuine progress.

Mr. Thayer was engaged after leaving Congress by the Hanibal and St. Joe Railroad Company, at a very large salary, to act as its land agent in New York City. He was there from about 1864 until 1870. He was also an expert in matters of invention, acting as a referee in such cases, for which he received large sums. He studied law, but was never admitted to the bar.

During the war time he originated a plan for the establishment of a great port of entry on the peninsular between the York and the James rivers in Virginia, and obtained a bond for a deed of the land. He considered the natural advantages of that locality a rival to New York. His plan, however, was divulged to certain heavy capitalists in New York, and they by some means obtained possession of the property and frustrated his scheme. He said he would have carried the thing through had he obtained the land, but the capitalists undertook it and failed.

He had a very keen sense of humor and a sharp wit. It was most amusing of itself to hear him tell humorous stories and preserve his grim countenance from the suspicion of a smile.

Mr. Thayer took the initiative in developing the south end of Worcester for manufacturing by erecting, more than fifty years ago, the building formerly known as the Adriatic mills on Southgate Street. He was influential in the erection of the junction shop formerly the property of the late Col. James Estabrook, and for many years occupied by the Knowles loom works on Jackson Street. This building, like the Oread Institute, was constructed of the stone taken from Oread Hill. He laid out and improved several streets and tracts of land in the vicinity of the Oread and had under consideration at the time of his death the opening up of a large area on the summit of Pakachoag Hill, at the rear of Holy Cross College.

He was the last surviving member of the Emigrant Aid Society, director of the Mutual Redemption Bank, member of the Worcester Society of Antiquity and the American Irish Historical Society. Belonging to no clubs, he was essentially a home man. Throughout the country he was familiarly known as the “Father of Kansas.”

He was married in 1846 to Cardina M. Capron of Millville, Mass., and seven children were born as a result of the union.

LATE PUBLICATIONS ON HISTORY OF INTEREST TO THE MEMBERS OF THE AMERICAN
IRISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

BY THE SECRETARY-GENERAL.

PACIFIC BLOCKADE. By ALBERT E. HOGAN, LL. D.

This is the only treatise in English exclusively upon this subject, and the author has discussed a minor topic of international law fully and fairly. His views are briefly that pacific blockade (the right to blockade the ports of another state in time of peace and without war necessarily resulting) is too new a practice to have become entirely regularized; that the state blockaded as well as the blockader, but not the third powers affected, may decline to look upon a specific case of pacific blockade as consistent with peace, and thus consider war to be a fact; that notice, effectiveness, days of grace, etc., are to be observed much as in ordinary blockade; that, unlike ordinary blockade, it may be limited to a certain commodity or a certain traffic; that the ships of third powers, attempting to run a pacific blockade, can only be turned back or at most detained, never seized and confiscated as if war existed; that this kind of coercion is better than war for all parties.

Doctor Hogan is an Irishman and a professor of law at the University of Oxford in England, but his book and his views are being much discussed and widely criticised by American historical authorities.

THE MYSTERY OF THE PINCKNEY DRAUGHT. By HON. CHARLES C. NOTT, formerly Chief Justice of the United States Court of Claims.

This work is interesting throughout. Pinckney was not a great constructive statesman, but in the work of the convention he rendered valuable service in formulating many of the details embodied in the Constitution. It was not so much a new instrument of government that Pinckney framed in his original plan as it was a revision of the Articles of Confederation. In the preparation of his plan, Pinckney drew extensively upon the Articles of Confederation and the various state constitutions, especially that of New York. On May 29th, 1787, Charles Pinckney presented to the Federal Convention “the draft of a federal government to be agreed upon between the free and independent states of America”; that the records note simply its submission to the convention, its reference on the same day to the Committee of the Whole House, and later to the Committee of Detail; and that when John Quincy Adams in 1818 applied to Pinckney for a copy of the missing plan, he received in reply a document so strikingly similar to the draft of a constitution reported by the Committee of Detail on August 6th that it was evident one document must have been taken from the other. The conclusion has been almost universally unfavorable to Pinckney. Judge Nott in his work takes the other side, and in an elaborate argument declares that the original Pinckney plan is lost to the world because it was used as “printer’s copy” by the Committee of Detail.

THE WORKS OF JAMES BUCHANAN, COMPRISING HIS SPEECHES, STATE PAPERS AND PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. Collected and edited by PROF. JOHN BASSETT MOORE. Volumes V and VI, 1841–1844, 1844–1846.

President Buchanan was an Irishman, and Professor Moore has undertaken a most meritorious work in bringing forth the speeches, state papers and private correspondence of this great American citizen. The volume now issued is the fifth, and covers part of the period that Mr. Buchanan was in the United States Senate, where his continued membership of the Committee on Foreign Relations and Committee on Manufactures brought him into close contact with many of the most pressing questions of the time. The great issues covered by these volumes were those of the northeastern and northwestern boundaries and the annexation of Texas. In 1844 Buchanan was a presidential possibility, and his letters, though few in number, show him willing to take, but unwilling to seek, this high office. An excellent review of these volumes has recently been made by Professor William MacDonald of Brown University, Providence, R. I., a member of the Executive Committee of the American Historical Association.

CHAUNCEY OLCOTT.

Of New York City, the Famous Actor.

A Life Member of the Society.
]

OLD TIMES ON THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI: THE RECOLLECTIONS OF A STEAMBOAT PILOT FROM 1854 TO 1863. BY GEORGE BYRON MERRICK.

The author’s family were whalers from Nantucket. Mr. Merrick is a good story-teller, and his book abounds with tales of traffic on the Mississippi River from 1854 to 1863.

The author originally came from Nantucket, and began as a pantry boy on the Mississippi, occupying every position in the steamboat and flat-boat business for a great many years, and his tales of war-times are intensely interesting. The book is not well named, however, because steamboating was a large business for over thirty years before the narrative begins. He tells interestingly of bringing to the front in April, 1861, Sherman’s Flying Artillery, the most famous organization in the old army, stationed at the time at Fort Ridgely, high up the Minnesota River. The _Fanny Harris_, the largest boat which had ever gone up the stream, received the battery on board, its commander then being no other than John C. Pemberton of Pennsylvania, at first a loyal Union officer, although afterwards the Confederate lieutenant-general at Vicksburg. His lieutenant was Romeyn B. Ayres, than whom no Federal officer of the Civil War was braver. The river was at flood, the perils of navigation great, but the emergency was pressing. The _Fanny Harris_ dashed on at full speed, sometimes in the tortuous channel, sometimes crashing through narrow barriers of land into inundated bottoms and even woods, the battery-men meantime exclaiming that the risk to life in battle was far less than among those pouring waters. Three hundred miles down the current was accomplished in two days. The boat was almost stripped of smokestacks, light upper work, and nearly all of her guards, but the battery was delivered, guns and men, at Prairie du Chien. Its style is simple, but very interesting, and the book is beautifully illustrated and printed.

TEXTS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCES AT THE HAGUE, 1899 AND 1907, with English translation and appendix of related documents. Edited by JAMES BROWN SCOTT, technical delegate of the United States to the Second Peace Conference at The Hague.

The volume is published by Ginn & Company of Boston and New York, of which our Librarian and Archivist, Mr. Thomas B. Lawler, is a partner. There is a twenty-five page introduction, giving an analysis and discussion of the work of the conferences. Most of the documents have been published elsewhere, and some of them many times, but it is well worth while to have them brought together in this convenient form. Ex-Secretary Root thinks the work of the Second Conference presents the greatest advance ever made at any single time towards the reasonable and peaceful regulation of international conduct, unless it be the advance made at The Hague Conference of 1899. The volume is complete and treats of the important factors in both conferences, and publishes the very valuable documents.

THE BIBLIOGRAPHER’S MANUAL OF AMERICAN HISTORY, containing an account of all state, territory, town and county histories, etc., compiled by THOMAS LINDSLEY BRADFORD, M. D.

Three volumes have thus far been issued, and each volume shows improvement over its predecessor. It is a valuable work and a most excellent compilation of documents of great advantage to students of American history, and furnishes a good means of observation to the members of the American Irish Historical Society to take in at a glance the history of so many places in this country.

THE AMERICAN EXECUTIVE AND EXECUTIVE METHODS. By JOHN H. FINLEY, President of the College of the City of New York, and JOHN F. SANDERSON, member of the Pennsylvania Bar.

The joint authors of this book have maintained the high standard of scholarship that has characterized the series of which the volume under review is the final number. There are fourteen chapters upon the executive department of the American state, and the other eight deal with the federal executive, to which is added an appendix upon the presidential electoral system. Throughout the work reference is made to the excellent achievements of many Pennsylvania Irishmen, but Mr. Marshall S. Brown, who prints a review of the work, finds, among other things, that the book reflects somewhat the defects inherent in a work of dual authorship.

WINTHROP’S JOURNAL, 1630–1649. Edited by JAMES KENDALL HOSMER. Two volumes.

This is one of the series of “Original Narratives of Early American History.” The old title, “History of New England,” is given in this edition only as a sub-title, and the volumes appear to be what they are—a journal. Nevertheless, the work is interesting throughout, and would be a valuable addition to the Society’s library.

THE PROVINCE OF NEW JERSEY, 1664–1738. By EDWIN P. TANNER, PH. D., instructor in history in Syracuse University.

This is a detailed history of the political affairs and institutions of New Jersey during two generations of its provincial life. The peculiar land system of the proprietors in each of the two Jerseys, elements of the population, the personnel, legal position and activities of executive, council and assembly respectively, and their conflicts, the judicial system, financial affairs, militia system, etc., are carefully treated.

THE WRITINGS OF JAMES MADISON. Edited by GAILLARD HUNT.

This is much on the plan and fully as extensive as “The Works of James Buchanan” heretofore referred to, and eight volumes at present have been issued. The notes are excellent in respect to information and judgment, but not much of the matter set out is new, the author merely contenting himself by copying the writings of President Madison without making any specious comment on the same.

A CALENDAR OF CONFEDERATE PAPERS, WITH A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SOME CONFEDERATE PUBLICATIONS.

This is a preliminary report of the Southern Historical Manuscripts Commission, and is one of the really monumental historical enterprises in the South. The commission is actively collecting, arranging and publishing various kinds of material relating to the Civil War, and to thoroughly appreciate the truly marvelous changes one should have known the conditions in the southern capitals a quarter of a century ago. Those directing this enterprise are so energetic, intelligent and ambitious that we believe the best fruits are yet to be gathered, although there is no room to doubt the value of several large collections already made. Mr. Douglas Southall Freeman is the director, and this calendar, orderly throughout and supplemented by careful notes, is very complimentary to him. Much historical data can be gathered for the Society from the southern states, where the recognition of Irishmen and their achievements was more free than in the New England states.

THE ADOPTION OF THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT. By HORACE EDGAR FLACK, PH. D.

Is a part of the Johns Hopkins University studies in historical and political science. So much has been heretofore said about these studies in the current magazines that we assume the members of the Society are familiar with them.

COLLECTIONS AND RESEARCHES MADE BY THE MICHIGAN PIONEER AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

The Society has been at work many years, and now publishes its thirty-sixth volume. The usefulness of this work to members of our Society in Michigan who desire to record the history and achievements of Americans of Irish birth or descent cannot be overestimated.

COLLECTIONS OF THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN.

This is the eighteenth volume of the publications, and is edited by Doctor Thwaites, Secretary and Superintendent of the Society. The Wisconsin History Commission, consisting of the governor of the state, the professor of American history in the state university, the secretary of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, the secretary of the Library Commission, and a representative of the Grand Army of the Republic, work with the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, and have already gathered and arranged the material for a history of Wisconsin’s part in the Civil War. A series of “Original Papers” has been inaugurated, on the line of the papers presented at our last meeting in Washington by Mr. Justice Dowling and Ex-Attorney-General Moloney, and are very interesting.

LIVES OF THE GOVERNORS OF MINNESOTA.

Is Volume XIII of the publications of the Minnesota Historical Society Collections, and is by James H. Baker, A. M., who has occupied several political positions in his state and has been closely associated with the men whose lives he has sketched. Mr. Baker is almost eighty years of age, and he has personal acquaintance with the governors from Ramsey, the first territorial governor in 1849, up to the present incumbent. Mr. Baker’s sketches of Gorman, territorial governor from 1853 to 1857; Sibley, first state governor from 1858 to 1860; Swift, third state governor from 1863 to 1864; McGill, 1887 to 1889; and Clough, 1895 to 1899; men of Irish extraction, are thorough and entertaining.

HON. T. ST. JOHN GAFFNEY,

Of New York.

Consul-General to Dresden, Germany.

Vice-President of the Society for Germany.
]

TRANSACTIONS OF THE KANSAS STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 1907–1908:

This is Volume X of the publications of the Society, and is edited by the Secretary, George W. Martin. Fifty-six essays by nearly as many writers are presented. Several of the productions are composed of separate papers, such as the collections of biographical sketches of members of early legislatures, etc. A wealth of original material, well worth the notice of historians outside of the state of Kansas, is revealed, and forty-eight maps, plans, portraits and landscapes illustrate the text.

HISTORY OF THE CITY OF VINCENNES, 1702–1901:

An important contribution to the local history of Indiana, and a well written and authentic account of the oldest town in that state. By Henry S. Cauthorn.

HISTORY OF WORCESTER:

A well written, authentic history of the Massachusetts town in the War of the Rebellion. By A. P. Marvin.

WISCONSIN VOLUNTEER INFANTRY HISTORY:

An account of the regiment from 1861 to 1865. By Edwin E. Bryant.

Professor Edward Channing of Harvard University has two volumes of a History of the United States already issued of a series of eight volumes. The title of Volume I is “The Planting of a Nation in the New World, 1000 to 1660”; Volume II, “A Century of Colonial History, 1660 to 1760.” The titles to Volumes III and IV, not yet issued, are “The American Revolution, 1760–1789,” and “Federalists and Republicans, 1789–1812,” while the titles to Volumes V to VIII have not as yet been selected.

“Dr. John McLoughlin, the Victor of Oregon,” an authoritative biographical sketch, with abundant documents, by Frederick V. Holman.

“A Documentary Source-Book of American History,” by Professor William MacDonald of Brown University, author of “Select Charters,” “Select Documents,” and “Select Statutes,” etc. The work is in one volume, and includes all the most important documents contained in Professor MacDonald’s large works, but in some cases shortened by immaterial omissions.

GENERAL HISTORICAL ITEMS.

A very interesting document is the Report of the Committee on the Documentary Historical Publications of the United States Government, appointed by President Roosevelt in February, 1908, as an assistant committee to the Committee on Department Methods. Hon. Lawrence O. Murray, now Comptroller of the Currency at Washington, D. C., and at that time in the Department of Commerce and Labor, is a member of this committee, and the Society acknowledges with its thanks the receipt from him of a copy.

On February 11th, the President sent it to Congress with a message, and message and report have since been printed as Senate Document No. 714 of the session concluded March 4th.

The report contains a review of the course hitherto pursued by the government in the matter of historical publications; a general survey of the publications hitherto made, and of the gaps still existing between or among them; a body of recommendations for filling such gaps, especially by the inception of a series of National State Papers; and finally a series of suggestions for the organization of a permanent Commission on National Historical Publications, with a bill which, it is hoped, will be introduced in the sixty-first Congress.

The Fifth Annual Meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association was held at the University of California November 21st last. Papers were read by Professor E. D. Adams of Stanford University concerning the annexation of California, Mr. Don E. Smith and Professor J. N. Bowman of the University of California, and by Mr. F. J. Taggart. The proceedings lasted the entire day, sessions being held in the morning and afternoon, followed by a banquet in the evening.

The publications of the American Association for International Conciliation are being sent forward to the members of our Society, and are readable and interesting documents by learned authorities upon the subjects they present. At the suggestion of the Secretary of the Association, the addresses of our members were sent him, and he has written each that the publications of the Association will go forward to them if they so request it. All that it is necessary to do to receive them is to write the Secretary. His address is: “F. P. Keppel, Secretary, Sub-Station 84, New York City.”

Hon. Thomas W. Bicknell, Providence, R. I., President of the Rhode Island Citizens’ Historical Association and an applicant for membership in our Society, has recently published in the Journal of American History an interesting article entitled “First White Owners of Land in America.” Mr. Bicknell is also the author of “Sowans,” a work treating of the early history of Barrington and Warren in Rhode Island.

Among the contents of the last issue of the _American Historical Magazine_ is “Heroes of the Battle of Point Pleasant,” by Delia A. McCulloch.

In the January issue of the _Essex Institute Historical Collections_ is an article on “Captain John Manley of Marblehead, a Man of Irish Descent,” by Robert E. Peabody.

RECOMMENDATIONS.

It has been the custom of the Society since its organization to have one annual meeting and two or more field days each year. The annual meeting in each instance has been called for the early evening, and the business affairs finished in a few minutes; then a short reception would take place, followed by a dinner, on the completion of which some historical papers would be read and addresses of interest made.

This proceeding is not calculated to sufficiently advance the interests of the Society, or enable it to truly do the work for which it is organized. Some historical associations have annual meetings at which there is a morning and afternoon session, followed by a dinner in the evening, while others have sessions lasting two or three days. It is impossible to crowd into a single evening, part of which has been taken up in partaking of a good dinner, any significant number of historical papers, much less to have a discussion on them.

Valuable addresses have been made that have not been printed in the Journal, and all that is left of them in the minds of the members is hardly more than pleasant recollections of the speakers. All the leading historical associations procure valuable papers from members, and, after they are read, discussion upon the subject-matter is thrown open, the good points gathered, and all reported in print later for the use of the members.

This Society could profitably take a day and an evening for its annual meeting. A morning session should be had, called to order at ten o’clock. Two or three papers could be read and discussion had upon each, followed by a recess from one to three p. m. Further papers and discussion might then be entertained and the meeting adjourned, with all the business completely transacted, in time for the dinner in the evening, at which short and interesting speeches, good music and general recreation after the day’s work would be in order.

These annual conventions should take place in different parts of the country, and those interested in our work will be sure to be on hand. In looking over some of our old records, it appears that requests have been made by members for meetings to take place in Richmond, Va., Charleston, S. C., and Detroit, Mich. In neither of these places has an annual meeting or a field day of the Society taken place.

Members of the Society are earnestly requested to furnish the Secretary-General with correct addresses. When a member removes or changes his address, the Secretary-General should be notified immediately, otherwise the publications and communications of the Society may be lost or fall into unauthorized hands.

The necessity for prompt payment of dues ought to be manifest to every member. The Society has no income except from the $5 a year contributed by the annual members. No officer or member receives any salary, and the finances are carefully and economically managed by the Executive Council. We have no expense for rental for the Society’s headquarters, and have no recent record of any officer of the Society accepting even his traveling expenses in matters connected with the Society. Nevertheless, the income is small, and our expenditures for printing the annual volume, gathering historical matter, postage, stationery and typewriting are large and do not leave the Society at the end of the year with any substantial balance in the Treasurer-General’s hands.

COL. C. C. SANDERS (Deceased).

Gainesville, Ga.

Late Member of the Executive Council.
]

Donations of money or bequests by will or otherwise are earnestly and respectfully solicited, and any member who will take the trouble to read the constitution and note the purposes for which the Society is incorporated can readily see the great and lasting service to our people and American history in general that could be made, in addition to what the Society is now doing, to make better known the Irish Chapter in American History.

Some members well able to pay are in arrears from two to four years in their dues, notwithstanding the fact that several tactful circulars and repeated statements have been forwarded them by committees and officers of the Society. The attention of members is called to section 8 of the by-laws, which reads as follows:

“8. A member neglecting for two years to pay his annual fee shall be notified of such omission by the Secretary-General. Still neglecting for three months to pay the dues, such delinquent member shall be dropped as no longer belonging to the Society.”

Many of our members belong to other historical associations, and, by keeping in touch with their works, become of greater service to us. The American Historical Association, the headquarters of which are at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D. C., and the leading state historical associations are cordially recommended to our members.

Members are earnestly requested to furnish the Secretary-General with biographical sketches. It is necessary to have these for our archives, and we hope that no member will allow his feeling of modesty to interfere with keeping the records of the Society complete. These sketches will not be published in the Journal if a member shall so direct. Read over your biographical sketches in the membership roll, and if they are not correct or should have additions, notify the Secretary-General.

Current items of interest relating to the doings of Americans of Irish extraction are solicited from every member by the Secretary-General. If a good article is met with in a newspaper or magazine, it will be thankfully received and filed in the archives if you will send it forward. It is by keeping abreast with the current history that we fulfil one of our greatest duties.

Donations of historical works, ancient or modern, or, in fact, books of any description, are solicited for the Society’s library. Copies or originals of old deeds, wills, bills of sale of slaves, curiosities in American or Confederate money, plate, postage stamps, old prints, pictures and the like are also solicited. When received, they will be carefully indexed and filed, with the name of the donor attached. Every member can readily find something of interest to send, and the aggregation will form a nucleus for a good library and possibly a museum.

Volumes I, II, IV, V and VI of the JOURNAL of the Society are out of print. We have fifty copies of Volume III and ten copies of Volume VII left. The Executive Council have ordered fifteen hundred copies of Volume VIII, so that we may be sure every member will have a copy and the Society have some to spare.

These volumes out of print have become very rare, and some of them are held at high prices. If a sufficient demand appears from members who desire to have a complete set of the Society’s publications, the subject will be brought before the Executive Council for action, with the possibility that some of the volumes may be ordered reprinted.

REILLY OF F

(Captain H. J. Reilly, Battery F, Fifth Artillery, “The Fighting Fifth,” U. S. A., killed on the walls of Pekin, in the relief of the legations, during the Boxer uprising.)

By JOHN JEROME ROONEY.

I.

Know you the story, friends, know you the story?
No hero is mine of the plume and the lance—
Yet worthy to claim the green bay of glory
In the lay of the singer of oldest romance.
Then, when the song of the minstrel is gone,
Forget not how Reilly—brave Reilly went on!

II.

Out from the East, like a bolt from the sky,
Thrilled the wild rumor of danger and dread—
Out from the East flamed a prayer and a cry—
A cry of the living, a cry of the dead—
Straight to the heart of the nations it came,
And the nations were shaken, as wind shakes a flame!

III.

There, ‘mid the millions of Mongols, they stood—
One grain in the desert, a drop in the sea—
Mothers and children—brave men of our blood—
What is their fate? Say, what shall it be?
How can we name the thing that we fear?
The heart, at the thought, is palsied and seer!

IV.

Onward! the cry of the East and the West—
Onward! spoke Chaffee, Columbia’s son:
The nations were calling their bravest and best
For the work of a giant before them undone.
No time now to palter with quavering breath—
’Twas action and rescue—’twas rescue or death!

V.

And the word came to Reilly—it spoke not again—
Brave Reilly with all his bold lads of the guns—
(Ah, if any came out from El Caney’s red rain,
’Twas by the grace of the Lord—not Hispania’s sons!)
Oh, a stancher band never turned face to the foe
As onward with Reilly, straight onward they go!

VI.

They battered the walls of the forts of Taku,
They lifted the door-knock and pounded it well—
And the door?—the door was a breach looking thro’
An entrance well dusted by shrapnel and shell.
The fort, like a mist of the morning, was gone,
And Reilly went on—bold Reilly went on!

VII.

On by the railroad—still onward they press’d—
Thro’ rampart—thro’ swamp, like a sword of the Lord—
True sons of the East, true sons of the West,
A knight of King Arthur confronting a horde!
And Battery F, unafraid of the brunt,
Kept its pace, and its guns, right up to the front!

VIII.

See! See! the walls of the Capital rise
Away to the right, a vision of power—
They are flashing a signal—our loved one’s replies—
They are lost had the guns been delayed but an hour.
Like a cyclone they open and thunder their doom
And the flame from their mouths is the light in our gloom!

IX.

Battery F opened up like a hell,
With a roar like a lion—a serpent’s fierce hiss—
Solid shot under! above with the shell!
Gates were not made to be pounded like this.
Trembles the portal—with a shot it is gone—
And Reilly went on—bold Reilly went on!

X.

From the compound a cheer, like a voice from the grave,
Rolls upward and out and upward again;
The Lord—He is gracious and mighty to save,
And he works by the hands of His valiant of men!
Still, was work to be done—stern work to be done—
Ere the wall’d town within was level’d and won.

XI.

Then “Forward,” called Reilly—and forward they swept
To the walls where the foe had rallied his horde.
Like a boy, to a ladder the Captain has leapt,
You can see, far in front, the gleam of his sword.
Then up thro’ the smoke, like a wraith, he has gone—
And Reilly went on—bold Reilly went on!

XII.

O sweet harp of Erin, sound gently thy lay!
O star of Colombia, be swift with thy light!
He fell—and the summit of Glory that day
Was the rampart he scaled alone in the fight.
In a beam of the splendor a moment he shone—
And Reilly went on—brave Reilly went on!

EDWARD CARROLL.

Leavenworth, Kansas.

A Member of the Society.
]

The above is a true story, every word of it. The United States
Government brought Captain Reilly’s body home and buried it in the
Arlington Cemetery, near Washington, and erected a splendid shaft to
mark this brave soldier’s memory. Captain Reilly, as his name
indicates, was of Irish stock.—J. J. R.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS SANDERS, ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN IRISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY, AND MEMBER OF THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL. A WORTHY AND DISTINGUISHED ASSOCIATE.

By A. W. VAN HOOSE, PRESIDENT BRENAU COLLEGE-CONSERVATORY, GAINESVILLE,
GA.

On August 3d, 1908, there died at his home in Gainesville, Ga., one of the most remarkable men that it has been my good fortune to meet.

Descended on his father’s side from Rev. Moses Sanders, a Baptist preacher who emigrated from England to this country in the year 1765, and on his mother’s side from Thomas Smythe, a man distinguished for his great learning and for the many sweet poems that came from his pen, an Irishman, who with a party of friends, left Dublin, Ireland, in 1798 and made his home in Charleston, S. C., Colonel Sanders combined in his nature, disposition and temperament, the very best characteristics of the English and Irish, whose descendant he was.

For twenty years I knew him intimately, and I have no hesitation in making the statement that he was one of the most remarkable men of the generation in which he lived.

If I were asked in what respects he was remarkable, I would answer, First in his broad patriotism and deep love of country. Although he was little more than a boy when Georgia, in which state his parents had settled, seceded and issued her call for her sons to take up arms in defense of principles which they knew to be right, young Sanders, who had received a splendid military training at the Georgia Military Academy, was one of the first to respond to his country’s call, and during all those years of carnage and bloodshed, he gave his best strength, mental and physical, to the cause of the Confederacy. For distinguished bravery and great ability in military matters, he was soon made Colonel of the 24th Regiment of Georgia Volunteers and in the battles of Williamsburg, Seven Pines, Cold Harbor, Malvern Hill, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Harper’s Ferry, The Wilderness, Spottsylvania Court House and other great struggles, the Confederacy had no braver soldier or more efficient officer than he. At Spottsylvania, he was severely wounded and his command suffered greatly; he was captured at Sailor’s Creek, May 6, ’65, and until July 25th, suffered the awful horrors of the Federal Prison at Johnston’s Island. During the war, he was offered the rank of Brigadier-General, but with that modesty which characterized his whole life, he declined the honor.