Part 30

O snow-white blade, thou openest for me So many a page filled with delightful lore Where deathless minds have left the precious store Of words that breathe and truth that makes us free. To hold thee in my hand, or but to see Thee lying on my desk, O ivory oar, Waiting to drive my bark to any shore, Is fortaste of fresh joy and liberty. Thou bringest dreams of the Dark Continent Where herded elephants in freedom roam, Or blow their trumpets when they danger scent, Or in wide rivers shoot the pearly foam, Yet art of vital books all redolent, Where highest thoughts have made themselves a home.

FOOTNOTE:

[27] Copyright, 1902, by John James Piatt.

NATHANIEL S. SHALER

Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, the distinguished Harvard geologist, poet, historian, and sociologist, was born at Newport, Kentucky, February 20, 1841. He was graduated from Harvard in 1862, where he had the benefit of almost private instruction from the great Agassiz. Shaler returned to Kentucky, and for the next two years he served in the Union army. In 1864 he was appointed assistant in palentology at Harvard; and four years later he became assistant in zoology and geology in the Lawrence Scientific School and head of the department of palentology. In 1873 the Governor of Kentucky appointed Professor Shaler director of the Kentucky Geological Survey, and he devoted parts of the next seven years to this work. He was the most efficient State geologist Kentucky has ever known, and his work for the Survey pointed out the path trodden by his successors. His assistant, Professor John R. Proctor, followed him as Director, and he stands next to his chief in the work he accomplished. _The Kentucky Geological Survey_ (1874-1880, 6 vols.), volume three of which, entitled _A General Account of the Commonwealth of Kentucky_ (Cambridge, Mass., 1876), was written entirely by Shaler, are excellent memorials of the work he did for his native state. In 1884 Shaler was placed in charge of the Atlantic division of the United States Geological Survey; and in 1891 he was chosen dean of the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard. This position he held until a year or two before his death. Dean Shaler published _Thoughts on the Nature of Intellectual Property_ (Boston, 1878); _Glaciers_ (Boston, 1881); _The First Book of Geology_ (Boston, 1884); _Kentucky: A Pioneer Commonwealth_ (Boston, 1885), the philosophy of Kentucky history summarized; _Aspects of the Earth_ (New York, 1889); _Nature and Man in America_ (New York, 1891); _The Story of Our Continent_ (Boston, 1892); _Sea and Land_ (New York, 1892); _The United States_ (New York, 1893); _The Interpretation of Nature_ (Boston, 1893); _Domesticated Animals_ (New York, 1895); _American Highways_ (New York, 1896); _Outlines of the Earth's History_ (New York, 1898); _The Individual_ (New York, 1900); _Elizabeth of England_ (Boston, 1903, five vols.), a "dramatic romance," celebrating "the spacious times of great Elizabeth"; _The Neighbor_ (Boston, 1904); _The Citizen_ (New York, 1904); _Man and the Earth_ (New York, 1905); and _From Old Fields_ (Boston, 1906), a book of short poems. Besides these books, Dean Shaler wrote hundreds of magazine articles, reports, scientific memoirs, miscellaneous essays. He died at Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 10, 1906, just as he was about to make ready for a final journey to Kentucky. Dean Shaler was loved and honored more at Harvard, perhaps, than any other teacher the University has ever known.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The World's Work_ (June, 1906); _Science_ (June 8, 1906); _The Autobiography of Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, with a Supplementary Memoir by his Wife_, published posthumously (Boston, 1909), is a charming record of his days at Harvard and in Kentucky.

THE ORPHAN BRIGADE[28]

[From _From Old Fields_ (Boston, 1906)]

Eighteen hundred and sixty-one: There in the echo of Sumter's gun Marches the host of the Orphan Brigade, Lit by their banners, in hope's best arrayed. Five thousand strong, never legion hath borne Might as this bears it forth in that morn: Hastings and Cressy, Naseby, Dunbar, Cowpens and Yorktown, Thousand Years' War, Is writ on their hearts as onward afar They shout to the roar of their drums.

Eighteen hundred and sixty-two: Well have they paid to the earth its due. Close up, steady! the half are yet here And all of the might, for the living bear The dead in their hearts over Shiloh's field-- Rich, O God, is thy harvest's yield! Where faith swings the sickle, trust binds the sheaves, To the roll of the surging drums.

Eighteen hundred and sixty-three: Barring Sherman's march to the sea-- Shorn to a thousand; face to the foe Back, ever back, but stubborn and slow. Nineteen hundred wounds they take In that service of Hell, yet the hills they shake With the roar of their charge as onward they go To the roll of their throbbing drums.

Eighteen hundred and sixty-four: Their banners are tattered, and scarce twelve score, Battered and wearied and seared and old, Stay by the staves where the Orphans hold Firm as a rock when the surges break-- Shield of a land where men die for His sake, For the sake of the brothers whom they have laid low, To the roll of their muffled drums.

Eighteen hundred and sixty-five: The Devil is dead and the Lord is alive, In the earth that springs where the heroes sleep, And in love new born where the stricken weep. That legion hath marched past the setting of sun: Beaten? nay, victors: the realms they have won Are the hearts of men who forever shall hear The throb of their far-off drums.

"TOM" MARSHALL[29]

[From _The Autobiography of Nathaniel Southgate Shaler_ (Boston, 1909)]

I have referred above to Thomas F. Marshall, a man of singular attractiveness and talents with whom I had a curious relation. I first met him when I was about fourteen years of age, when he, for some time a congressman, had through drunkenness fallen into a curious half-abandoned mode of life. He was then an oldish fellow, but retained much of his youthful splendor. He was about six feet three inches high, but so well built that he did not seem large, until you stood beside him. His face, even when marred by drink, had something of majesty in it. Marshall, when I knew him, picked up a scanty living as a lecturer. When sober, which he often was for months at a time, his favorite subject was temperance. On this theme he was as eloquent as Gough; in his season of spree, he turned to history. The gradations were not sharp, for he would, as I have seen him, preach most admirably of the evil of drink while he supported himself in his fervent oratory with whiskey from a silver mug. In matters of history, he had read widely. One of his favorite themes was the mediæval history of Italy. I recall with a distinctness which shows the impressiveness of his discourses his story of Florence, so well told that ten years after, when I saw the town for the first time, the shape of it and of the neighboring places was curiously familiar. Along with some other youths, I noted down the dates of events as he gave them and looked them up. We never caught him in an error, though at times he was so drunk that he could hardly stand up. I have known many historians who doubtless much exceeded him in learning, but never another who seemed to have such a capacity for living in the events he narrated.

I had no sooner met "Tom" Marshall than we became friends. He at once took a curious fancy to me, talked to me as though we were of an age, and gave me my first chance of such contact with a man of learning and imagination. The relation, while on one side largely profitable to me, became embarrassing, for the unhappy man got the notion that I could stop his drinking if I would stay with him. A number of times when he had his dipsomaniac fury upon him I found that by sitting by his bed and talking with him on some historical subject, or rather listening to his talk, he would apparently forget about his drink and in a few hours drop asleep and awake to be sober for some months.

Sometimes these quiet interviews were most interesting to me. I recall one of them when I found him in an attack of half delirium. His memory, always active, took him back to the days when he was in Congress and to the scene when he, a very young member of the House, had been chosen by some careful elders to lead an attack on John Quincy Adams. They, the elders, were to come to his support when he had drawn the enemy's fire. It all became so real to him, that he sprang out of bed and in his tattered nightgown gave, first his own speech with all the actions of a young orator, and then the deliberate, crushing rejoinder of his mighty antagonist. At the end of it he fell back upon his bed, cursing the villains who led him into the fight and left him to take the consequences.

My relations with Marshall continued until I went to Cambridge but my influence over his drinking gradually lessened as he sank lower, and his able mind began to be permanently clouded. When I had been some months at college, I espied the poor fellow in the street, carpet-bag in hand, evidently making for my quarters. I sent word by a messenger to my chum, Hyatt, to receive and care for him, but to say that I had left town, which was true, for I went at once to Greenfield, where I had friends. Hyatt was also to provide the wanderer with a suit of clothes and a railway ticket back to Kentucky. I stayed away until I learned that Marshall was on his way home. I have always been ashamed of my conduct in this matter, but the unhappy man was at that time of his degradation an impossible burthen for me to carry; once ensconced in my quarters it would have been impossible to provide him with a dignified exit, and there was no longer hope that I might reform him. Yet the cowardice of the action has grieved me to this day.

Two years afterwards, in 1862, I saw Marshall for the last time. I was with a column of troops going through the town of Versailles, Kentucky. He was seated in front of a bar-room, with his chin upon the top of his cane. He was so far gone that the sight merely troubled his wits without affording him any explanation of what it meant. His bleared though still noble face stays in my memories as one of the saddest of those weary years.

LINCOLN IN KENTUCKY

[From the same]

Among the interesting and in a way shaping incidents of my boyhood, was a brief contact with Abraham Lincoln about 1856. He was coming on foot from the town of Covington; I was on horseback, and met him near the bridge over the Licking River. He asked the way to my grandfather's house, which was about a mile off. Attracted by his appearance, I dismounted and asked him to get on my horse, which he declined to do; so I walked beside him. Probably because he knew how to talk to a lad--few know the art, and those the large natures alone--we became at once friendly. When I had shown him into the house, I hung about to find his name. As I had never heard of Mr. Lincoln of Illinois, it was explained to me that he was the man who was "running against" the Little Giant. We lads all knew Stephen A. Douglas, who was so popular that farm tools were named for him: the Little Giant this and that of cornshellers or ploughs. While Mr. Lincoln was with my grandfather, my mother dined or supped with him. When she came home she said: "I have had a long talk with Mr. Lincoln, who is called an Abolitionist; if he is an Abolitionist, I am an Abolitionist." I well remember the horror with which this remark inspired the household: if my mother had said she was Satan, it could not have been worse. The droll part of the matter is that all the reasonable people about me were in heart haters of slavery. They saw and deplored its evils, and were full of fanciful schemes for making an end of it. But the name Abolitionist was abominated.

I never knew what brought Mr. Lincoln to my grandfather's house. It is likely that he came because a certain doctor of central Kentucky, an uncle of Mr. Lincoln, a widower, had recently married an aunt of mine, a widow. This union of two middle-aged people, each with large families, brought trouble; since family traditions were against divorce, a separation was effected which had an amusing though tragic finish. When all other matters of property had been arranged and P. had betaken himself to his plantation in Mississippi, as an afterthought he set up a supplementary claim to a saddle mule belonging to my aunt which he had forgotten to demand in the settlement. This reopened the question, and it was determined in family council that the grasping doctor should not be satisfied. We boys had the notion that Mr. Lincoln's visit related to this episode of the mule, for shortly after the "critter" was sent with a servant by steamboat, to be delivered to the claimant at the landing of his plantation on the Mississippi River. In due time the negro returned and made report: It was that the unworthy suitor came with a group of his friends to witness his success, mounted, and started to ride away, but the beast, frisky from its long confinement, "stooped up behind," as the darkeys phrase it, and threw his master and killed him. Whether Lincoln had a hand in the negotiations which led to this finish or not, I am sure that the humor of it must have tickled him.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] Copyright, 1906, by Houghton, Mifflin Company.

[29] Copyright, 1909, by Houghton, Mifflin Company.

WILLIAM L. VISSCHER

William Lightfoot Visscher, poet, was born at Owingsville, Kentucky, November 25, 1842. He was educated at the Bath Seminary, Owingsville, and graduated in law from the University of Louisville, but he never practiced. He was a soldier in the Civil War for four years. Colonel Visscher--which title he did not win upon the battlefield!--has been connected with more newspapers than he now cares to count; and he has written hundreds of verses which have appeared in periodicals and in book form. He is the author of five novels: _Carlisle of Colorado_; _Way Out Yonder_; _Thou Art Peter_; _Fetch Over the Canoe_ (Chicago, 1908); and _Amos Hudson's Motto_. The first of these is the best known work he has done in prose fiction. His _Thrilling and Truthful History of the Pony Express_ (Chicago, 1908), filled a small gap in American history. A little group of biographical sketches and newspaper reminiscences, called _Ten Wise Men and Some More_ (Chicago, 1909), is interesting. Colonel Visscher has also published five books of verse: _Black Mammy; Harp of the South; Blue Grass Ballads and Other Verse_ (Chicago, 1900); _Chicago: an Epic_, and his most recent volume, _Poems of the South and Other Verses_ (Chicago, 1911). The colonel is also a popular lecturer; and he has actually put paint on his face and essayed acting. He is a poet of the Old South, one reading his verse would at once conclude that not to have been born in Kentucky before the war, one might as well never have lived at all. He is a versified, pocket-edition of Mr. Thomas Nelson Page; and while he has not reached the sublime heights of true poesy, he has written some delicious dialect and much pleasing verse. _Proem_, printed in two of his books, is certainly the best thing he has done hitherto.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Century Magazine_ (July, 1902); _Who's Who in America_ (1912-1913).

PROEM[30]

[From _Poems of the South and Other Verse_ (Chicago, 1911)]

In the evening of a lifetime While the shadows, growing long, Fall eastward, and the gloaming Brings the spell of vesper song, Fond memory turns backward To the bright light of the day, Where joys, like troops of fairies, Gaily dance along the way, Full-armed with mirth and music, Driving skirmishers of care Howling, back into the forest, And their dark, uncanny lair. So the pastures of Kentucky, And the fields of Tennessee, The bloom of all the Southland And the old-time melody; The vales, and streams, and mountains; The bay of trailing hounds; The neigh of blooded horses And the farm-yard's cheery sounds; The smiles of wholesome women And the hail of hearty men, Come sweeping back, in fancy, And, behold, I'm young again.

FOOTNOTE:

[30] Copyright, 1911, by the Author.

BENNETT H. YOUNG

Bennett Henderson Young, historian and antiquarian, was born at Nicholasville, Kentucky, May 25, 1843, the son of blue-stocking Presbyterians. His academic training was received at Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, and Queen's College, Toronto, Canada. He was graduated in law from Queen's College, Belfast, Ireland. Colonel Young was with General John Hunt Morgan and his men during the Civil War, being in charge of the raid through St. Alban's, Vermont. He was a member of the fourth Constitutional convention which formulated Kentucky's present constitution. Colonel Young is now one of the leading lawyers of Louisville, and commander-in-chief of the United Confederate Veterans. He has published _The History of the Kentucky Constitutions_ (1890); _The History of Evangelistic Work in Kentucky_ (1891); _History of the Battle of the Blue Licks_ (Louisville, 1897); _The History of Jessamine County, Kentucky_ (Louisville, 1898); _The History of the Division of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky_ (1898); _The Battle of the Thames_ (Louisville, 1901); _Kentucky Eloquence_ (Louisville, 1907); and _The Prehistoric Men of Kentucky_ (Louisville, 1910). Colonel Young has taken a keen interest in "the prehistoric men of Kentucky," the mound-builders; and his collection is one of the finest in the country. His work upon these ancient people is far and away the ablest volume he has written. It represented the researches of a life-time, and the results of his labors are quite obvious.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Lawyers and Lawmakers of Kentucky_ (Chicago, 1897); _Who's Who in America_ (1912-1913).

PREHISTORIC WEAPONS[31]

[From _The Prehistoric Men of Kentucky_ (Louisville, Kentucky, 1910)]

The life of prehistoric man, judging from the large number of fortifications existing in Kentucky to this day, must have been one of constant and general warfare. His weapons were all constructed for conflict at short range.

First was his ax of two kinds, grooved and grooveless. The indications are that these were used contemporaneously, and though this is not certain, their proximity to each other in so many places would tend to show that they were made during the same period. The grooved ax would be more reliable either in domestic use or in war than the grooveless ax, because of the grip of the handle, aided materially by the groove, permitting it to be held much more closely and to admit of heavier strokes and more constant action. The battle-axes vary in weight from one to thirty-two pounds. They were doubtless so variant in weight by reason of the conditions that surrounded the makers, and also by reason of the ability of the user to carry either light or heavy weight. With handles from three to six feet and firmly bound with rawhide, which could be obtained from several animals, these men were enabled to fasten the handle tightly around the ax, either grooved or ungrooved. These axes would require close contact in battle. They had flint saws or knives which enabled them to cut the hickory withe or sapling from which these handles were made. After soaking the handle in hot water, or for that matter in cold water, it could easily have been bent around the ax and tied with rawhide, which, by its contraction when drying, would press the handle closely in the groove.

They also used what is known as a battle-ax blade, that is, a thin piece of flint, oval in shape, about five by three and a half inches. By splitting the handle and placing the flint blade between it, and then binding with rawhide, they were enabled to fasten it very securely. These handles were about two or two and a half feet in length, and with the blade projecting on either side, became a dangerous weapon at close range.

The most damage, however, done by these prehistoric people was doubtless accomplished by the bow and arrow. The bows were about six feet in length, judging by the strings which we have seen and one of which the writer has been able to secure from Salts Cave. They would be made of many woods, preferably of hickory, cedar, or ash, but hickory usually possesses greater strength than other timbers of similar size. It is not probable that they had any tools with which they could split the hickory trees. They would, therefore, be compelled to use the hickory saplings in the manufacture of bow staves.

The penetrative force of the stone-tipped arrow, driven by the strong and skillful arms of these prehistoric men, must have been very great. Quite a number of instances are known and specimens preserved in which they were driven practically through the larger bones of the body. The author has a human pelvis found in a cave in Meade County. Imbedded in this is a portion of a flint arrow-point, the position of which shows that it had been driven through the body, penetrating the bone on the opposite side from which it entered. The point reached into the socket of the hip joint. There it remained, causing necrosis of the bone, until by processes of Nature the wastage was stopped, and the point remained in the bone until the death of the individual, which the indications show occurred long after receiving the wound. In one instance an arrowhead was driven three inches into the bone of the leg just below its union with the hip, and evidently caused the death of the party into whom it had been shot. A number of instances are known in which these arrowheads penetrated several inches into bone, and it was no unusual thing that they attained sufficient penetrative force to drive them through both coverings of the skull.

Three of these arrowheads that have come under the immediate observation of the author are not sharp at all, but rather blunt. The smaller triangular arrowheads, if sufficiently strong--and probably they were--could have been driven readily into bone without the use of any great force, but an arrow-point about three inches in length, and with a blunt point, thus driven into the bones of the body, demonstrates beyond all question that the power which was used in their propulsion must have been comparatively very great.

The wooden or cane shafts probably were tipped with many kinds of points, some beveled, some serrated, some triangular, some blunt, being fastened thereto with the sinew of the deer or other animal. There are some evidences, although not entirely conclusive, that these arrow-points were often tipped with poison. It is said that at one time the Shawnees in Western Kentucky were so well versed in the use of poisons that they could place them in springs and thus destroy their enemies, and also that quite large streams of water were impregnated with these dangerous elements. We sometimes comment upon the savageness of the methods of these people, but the poisoned arrow is no worse than the soft-nose or explosive bullet, which has been used by civilized nations in the memory of living people.