USA > New Jersey > Somerset County > Within a Jersey circle : tales of the past, grave and gay, as picked up from old Jerseyites > Part 19
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one night. In answer to his inquiry, the smiling boniface replied :
"For supper, friend, I'm heartily at your service; if the best half of a venison pie, corn cake, hot waffles and a tankard of my best home brewed to wash it down, might like thee. But as to a room, I'm right sorry sir, to say it; but we're full up, and-eh? What say, Mirandy? Now hold hard a minute. Just wait half a jiffy till I see what the woman says."
"The woman" was his wife, who had called him. He hurried to her. Coming back shortly he drew a foaming mug of his prime October to Chris's order, and the lat- ter took a long pull at it.
"Now, about a room," mine host said. "We have got an idle room, and the best bed in the house that room has into it, too; but it's so long since it has been let to any one that, by jiminy, I clean forgot it! Now, I'll tell you about that there room, and, as the woman says, "when you know all we know ourselves, why, you can suit your- self whether you'll take it or not."
The landlord then explained to Chris that some years before, an old barber had occupied the room in question, and that he was either murdered or had put an end to, his own life in that room by cutting his throat from ear to ear.
"Whether is was murder or he killed himself was never proved, but anyway," said the innkeeper, "it makes little difference now which way it was; the man is dead and buried and there's an end o' the business so far as I am concerned. But, hark ye, now, I always act fair and square by every man. Every man Jack in this house but
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myself, every customer that comes to it and every man, I do believe, in Chester town, will tell you that the old barber rises out of his grave and comes back to that room. Several people tried to sleep in the room since the trag- edy, but they all quit before the night was half through, and they all said the same thing as to what drove them out, and that was that the barber himself or his ghost walked the room in his white winding sheet, asking in a hollow voice :
" 'Do you want to be shaved? Do you want to be shaved ?'
"Now," continued the landlord, "between you and me and the bedpost, I don't give a continental cuss for all their white-livered yarns ; nothin' but fool talk, tommyrot, I call it. Say, now, what do you think of it all, Mr .- I didn't quite catch your name?"
"Katz, Christopher Katz, is my name," Chris an- swered, "and as to what I think about the barber or his ghost, the best way to give my opinion of the tales is to say that I will sleep in the room to-night if you are agree- able and you don't want too much for that privilege."
"Good! good! Bully for you; now, Mr. Skat-Mr. Katz, I mean-excuse me, sir, but I do like to see a man as is a man, sir! Here, Mary Ann!" called the landlord to one of the hired girls, as he excitedly took down a cou- ple of burnished copper warming pans from the tall man- telpiece. "See, Mary Ann, clap a lot of red hot coals in- to these and keep 'em going in the bed in No. I for a good hour, do you hear!"
"Oh, mercy on us!" ejaculated the girl, catching her
",Do you want to be shaved?"
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breath, "in that room! All right, sir-but-but let Jenny come along with me."
"All right, all right; get away about it, the pair of you," grunted the good-natured host, "and I'll just have to get the gentleman's supper myself. Such a set of frightened babbies as I've to put up with, anyhow !"
"Now, you can see for youself," said he, turning to his guest, "one of them's as bad as another all through this house, and the whole town, I'll be sworn; which it dam- ages my good wholesome house, sir, from the wine in my cellar to the topmost shingle on the roof."
"Talking of ghosts," Chris said, "I'm a true believer in what our old church sexton says and he's always mix- ing among coffins and graves. 'Believe me,' the sexton said one day I sounded him on the subject; 'believe me,' says he, 'there's no such thing as people coming back as ghosts. There's a good reason for it. For if a man goes to the good place when he dies he wouldn't leave it to come back to a worse place if he could; and if he goes to the bad spot, why, they wouldn't let him out to come back if he wanted to. Therefore,' says he, 'none of them ever does come back nohow.'"
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed mine host; "that's about the closest reasoning I ever heard on! And now for your supper, friend; and it shall be worthy of the 'Traveler's Rest.' "
The innkeeper, who seemed to take quite a liking to his new guest, probably because he looked so simple and was generally silent and listened at any length, appar- ently with his mouth as well as his ears, told Chris that his house was the headquarters for practically all
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the tin peddlers that came into the Schooley's, men who in those days drove their huge wagons piled up high with household necessities through every highway and byway of the country. Good substantial men of means they generally were, too, and respected everywhere. But, like all other kinds of tradesmen, they had their hard drink- ers, brawlers and gamblers among them. And mine host, rightly judging Chris not to be of that stripe, expressed a hope that it would not greatly disturb him if some of those worthies were a bit late and noisy over their cards and cups, to which the guest replied that if the old bar- ber would only let him alone he felt sure he would easily get along with the rest. At all events, he would try it, with which, taking his candle, he repaired to No. I and went to bed.
He had not gone asleep, however, before he heard a peculiar sound, such a sound as Chris had little doubt that nervous people might easily magnify into the dig- nity of a human voice; but it did not so appear to him, and, getting up, he determined to investigate. Locating the origin of the sound as being in one corner of the room, he went near and listened. It certainly was sug- gestive of a half-whine, half-moan of an old man, and not at all unlike a kind of mumbling of "Do you want to be shaved ?" But that was not enough for the hard-headed "Long Island Yank," as Chris was sometimes called. He studied the thing as he might a mathematical problem. At last he opened the window nearest the apparent source of the disturbance, and, behold! sure enough, there he saw the perfectly natural cause of what had ter- rified a lot of people half out of their wits. It was noth-
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ing more than the rubbing of a limb of a hickory tree against the corner of the house near the window. With a derisive sniff he shut down the window and went back to bed.
Perfectly satisfied and at his ease now and assured of enjoying the quiet rest he was greatly in need of, he was in the act of tucking himself in nice and snug for sleep, when, to his intense disgust two or three loud-voiced men came stamping into number two, next door, and began dragging chairs and tables about, evidently all uncon- scious of Chris's occupation of No. I. He was not long left in doubt of their intention, for among clinking of bottles and glasses and big oaths he heard them settle upon high stakes to be played for at cards; and it was not long before the chinking of coin, periods of great quiet interspersed by excited wrangles and blasphemy, confirmed the suspicion that they were gamblers and plainly meant to make a night of it. Chris stood it for about two hours, then suddenly a great idea came to him.
Getting out of bed during one of the gambler's loud arguments, he slipped back the bolt of a communicating door with next room, and finding it open easily, peeped in and saw three men sitting close around a small table in one corner. The feeble yellow glare of two candles, one on each end of the table, showed the frenzied excite- ment of the men's dissolute faces, as their eyes strained nervously from the cards in their hands to the piles of gold and silver before them, which were about to be lost or won on the mere chance of a card. The pot was a big one; one man was to be made rich and the others as
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good as ruined. For the time, their liquor stood untasted, the only sound being the flip of shuffling and dealing and ejaculated curses at the tardiness of the winning card's appearance. It was a supreme moment.
Withdrawing his head from the slightly opened door, Chris hastily whipped a sheet from the bed and hanging it over his head and in folds around his body, grasped the washbowl in one hand and then slowly advanced into the gamblers' room. When he had taken about three steps in,
"Do you want to be shaved ?" he said as if out of the hollowest tomb.
For a second or so the three pairs of eyes almost bulged out of their sockets, as, forgetting the game, money and everything else in the world, their owners opening wide their mouths as well, stared at the awful white figure. It made another step forward, and :
"Do you want -? " but before the ghostly question was finished :
"It's the barber!" "It's the ghost!" "Let me out of here!" yelled the gamblers in abject terror as they fled and fell over each other in the doorway in their wild haste to escape from the room.
When Chris heard the last of the trio scampering away for his life along the passage, he held his wash bowl to the deserted table and swept the three piles of money into it. Then he went back into his own room, locked the door and went quietly to bed. All was silent next door the rest of the night. Evidently the gamblers did not dare enter the room again. If they did, Chris said, they were mighty quiet about it, for he never heard
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a sound. Next morning, when he went down to a late breakfast, all the peddlers had long before departed on their business rounds. After a comfortable meal, Chris did the same, and his heart warmed at the very name of the Schooley Mountains ever afterward.
Talking of peddlers, it is wonderful, old people here say, how things have changed in the country. One of the old standing institutions used to be the visits all around of the tin peddler. Now he is never seen any more. His big lumbering and crowded wagon once upon a time would regularly heave in sight with all its shining tin goods-the latest patent egg-beaters, nutmeg graters, toasting forks, broilers and novelty helps of every kind for the housewife. And she, ever looking forward to his welcome visits, would be carefully saving up her white rags in one bag and her colored clippings in another, against the day for the pleasant banter of exchange and barter with the well-known tin peddler-not some jab- bering and suspicious foreigner, but Mr. A. or Mr. B. of some good old native American family, on his time- honored and regular rounds.
Indeed, some of New York's richest men of the past had their first start in life in such a business. For in- stance, the well-known "Jim" Fisk, the millionaire, who met such an untimely end at the hands of Stokes, as a little boy traveled for years through, especially, Vermont and New Hampshire, on one of these wagons-just such wagons they were as used to creep along the Old York road here, through Hunterdon County in those days, as several aged persons here still delight to tell of. One woman now living near Reaville, who in her younger
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days lived in Vermont, says the variety and quantity of things that Mr. Fisk senior used to carry on his im- mense bazar-like wagon was something wonderful.
Besides an endless selection of shining tinware he had such things as spectacles, ribbons of all kinds, a great variety of pretty dress goods, fancy work-baskets and no- tions of all kinds, as well as genuine jewelry. The above- mentioned lady's grandmother bought a string of prettily chased, real gold beads from Mr. Fisk senior, which she wore all her life, without ever once parting or losing a bead ; and a grand-daughter wears them to this day.
At the famous old "Downer's Tavern," at Upper Falls, Vt. (now called Amsden), the same lady well remembers when Fisk used regularly to put up and make his head- quarters there, from which he made numerous day jour- neys in the populous neighborhood. The present white- haired proprietor of that hostelry, who was only a little boy himself when the elder Fisk used to put up for long spells there, never tires of telling about "Jim" Fisk. It will be remembered that at the time of the great Chi- cago fire this same James Fisk was the first to dispatch a re- lief train, all at his own expense, to the sufferers there. The old innkeeper says that little Jim, who was a "bit of a runt" about his own age, was considered somewhat lazy, and being under-sized for his age, he often got out of work by complaining that he was too small to do it. The cleaning out of the stable was one of the jobs Jim used to shirk in this way.
But one day his father put him on his mettle by prom- ising that if he cleaned the stable and would do the work well he should have $2. Being keen even then to make
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an honest penny, Jim went at it with a will, finished the job in good workmanlike style and duly received his $2. But, alas for Jim! It was only a baited trap of his long- headed father. For ever after that his plea of being too little to do it was of no avail and he had the stable to clean without mention of any further bribes. Many and many were the times, the landlord says, that he heard Jim declare later in life, after he had become a rich man, that cleaning that stable that time for $2 was the greatest mistake he ever made in his life.
"DEVIL JOHN."
THE CELEBRATED HORSE-THIEF.
When William Penn treated with the Indians for a tract of land on one occasion, the extent of the purchase was agreed to be a given distance inland from the Dela- ware and as far along that river as a white man could travel in one day, from sunrise to sunset. In the choice of a man to do the walking or running, and in the elab- orate provisions made for his refreshments at intervals all along the course, so that he might cover as much ground as possible, and further, through the tremendous length he thus measured off, it is said the great Quaker came nearer forfeiting the red men's confidence than in any other of his many transactions with them. The Indians did bitterly resent what they felt to be the unfair advan- tage thus taken of them; but their wrath was directed against the man and not his master.
This man, the Weston of his day, was John Marshall. He was said to be wonderfully nimble of foot and a prodigy in endurance. For his very effective service on that occasion, John Marshall was granted a fine estate; but for many a long day after entering into possession of it he was in jeopardy, for his life was zealously sought by the red men, not by open attack by numbers, but secretly by one or two who used to skulk in neighboring woods with the object of shooting their enemy from ambush and then escaping; so that the murder might be a mystery and not chargeable against them by their great friend, William
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... he secreted himself in the stable on the watch, weapon in hand,
...
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Penn. Naturally under such circumstances Marshall took care to have a loaded musket and pistols handy at all times. For he had more than once surprised his prowl- ing enemies; but as they had not actually attacked him he allowed them to slink away, as they always did when ob- served.
At last an opportunity came when the white man by a strategic movement quite overawed them. He was en- gaged with his axe one evening among some stumps in a clearing when he caught sight of three Indians stealthily approaching. He purposely avoided openly looking their way, so as to draw them on, and with great nerve kept in full view until actually within musket range. Then, as if by accident, he disappeared behind a stump and taking his musket ramrod put his hat on it and pushed it up in sight, as if his head were in it and he were watching over the top of the stump. As he anticipated, they let drive and riddled the hat with three bullets. Then when he knew their weapons were empty the wily Marshall jumped up, shot one dead with his musket and pistoled the other two. One of the savages who was badly wounded he allowed to crawl away, so that he might tell his tribe the tale. The result was that Marshall was not again troubled by the Indians.
According to tradition, two or three sons of this first John Marshall, James, John and Edward, settled at Rah- way; but later James and John migrated with their fam- ilies to Stony Hill valley, a very fertile hollow lying be- tween the Second Mountain of the Watchungs and an offshoot known as Stony Hill. For reasons unknown these two families changed their names to Marsh, leav- 21
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ing off the last syllable. James had a son, also named James, who grew up to be of exceptionally fine physique and who having married, became father of six children. As the young man looked upon his boys and girls growing up around him, he failed to see any proper future for them there, in the mountains, and moved to a little hamlet which afterward became Paterson, where he judged the outlook to be more favorable.
This family was said to be as beautiful in character as they were prepossessing in personal beauty. As time passed, the third son, John, developed into a singu- larly handsome young fellow, but one who as cordially hated any one kind of work as another and harked back with an overpowering longing for the free air of moun- tain and forest, the green hills and woods of his boyhood haunts. He was so good to look upon that it was easy to anticipate fame and glory of some sort as awaiting him. Of all things impossible to expect for him, however, what did come was the most surprising and unexepected, and that was infamy.
Taking to the wildwood with all the ardor of a young duck for water, through all the Watchung, Sourland, Ho- patcong and Musconetcong mountains, no foot was fleet- er, no eye more keen, no steadier hand in the daring hunt than John Marsh's, even while yet but a stripling. He loved to climb the dizziest steeps and delve through crag- gy gorges of the then unexplored mountains, and to out- wit and capture whatever he set his heart upon as game. Every ancient red man's trail, every bridle path through the densest forest, young John knew far better than he did
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any book. Afoot or in the saddle he was equally at home, the unapproachable Nimrod of the mountains.
To transplant such a spirit into the town was to cage the young eagle. His father expostulated, telling him he should imitate his excellent brothers and settle down to useful work ; and John would acquiesce and try once more. But early as the parent rose of a morning, John was up before him; and once again "Bugler," the best saddle horse, would be gone from the stable and John gone with him-back, back again to his fascinating mountains! It seemed quite hopeless.
"Well, let him go," the father said at last, "till he finds that he can't live by it. He cannot always hang on his uncle John. He'll be wanting money to ride his hobby; then he'll come back and go to work."
As far as wanting money, that prophecy was correct, but otherwise it went amiss. The young fellow developed a taste for card playing with loose company at wayside taverns. Money was everything there and he must have it. He came and went as he pleased, his indulgent Uncle John asking no questions. When his nephew would dis- appear for a few days and nights Uncle John thought the boy had gone back home for a while. And the father felt all was perfectly right so long as his boy was at his Uncle John's. So after about a week's absence when John came back to his uncle's on foot, the latter had no idea in the world but that the young fellow had been home and had left his father's favorite saddle horse "Bugler" there. Nevertheless the sad fact was that John had sold the horse for a large sum-more money than he had ever
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before handled-and like the proverbial fool, had already squandered every penny of it gambling.
That was the parting of the ways in John's life. He was afraid to go home now and felt more and more guilt- ily ashamed to meet his good old uncle's frank and honest greetings. The only people he could look in the face without flinching were those back-barroom loungers of ill omen at the wayside taverns.
"What! down on your luck, John? Ah, douse it and never say die, me hearty!" cried Slippery Dick, one of these choice spirits, clapping John with cheerful familiari- ty on the shoulder. "Come along in ; cheer-up, old chap," said he; and then in John's ear: "Another strike, sweet innocent, and raise the wind; easiest thing in the world ! Hasn't pop another Bucephalus of the Bugler type? I've a buyer, ripe and raging-ready with a good three hundred spot cash, for another like that. What say to it, John? It's dead easy money."
John shook his head, but only weakly, and Dick swag- gered out to the bar to order drinks, trolling,
"Gaily still my moments roll, While I quaff the flowing bowl;"
and as he came back with two humpers:
"Care can never reach the soul Who deeply drinks of wine."
After several more drinks and much talk, every now and again punctuated by a few bars of some madrigal or
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bachanal drivel from the elder toper, the two left the house together. Striking hands at parting:
"That's settled then;" Slippery Dick said in an un- dertone: "Tony Van Vechten's tavern, Lambertville, next Monday night at 12 o'clock. Deliver the goods and I'm there, safe as houses with my man and the sugar !"
"I'll be there;" John answered and they took their several ways.
As John some time later advanced toward his uncle's he stopped and looked at the peaceful homestead in the silent moonlight. "No!" he said, turning on his heel, "I cannot face Uncle John any more. I must pay my way now as I can. When I've money I'll eat well and sleep well; but till Monday night and my purse is re- plenished, the green grass for my bed and thou, starry heaven, for my canopy. ) money, money! my only friend, thou art equally good howsoever we get thee; mine thou shalt be!" with which he struck into the woods.
Two days later there was complete consternation in Stony Hill, then known as Union village. Bill Par- sons, the well-to-do store keeper found his stable door broken open and his best horse gone. Parsons was a breeder of fine saddlehorses. The very pick of his stud was stolen! Who was the theif? It was a generation since such a thing happened.
In the great hue and cry set up among the mountain dwellers everyone thought of strangers of course for the thief. A couple of tin peddlers who had passed through the day before were immediately pursued by Parsons,
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down through Passaic to Newark, but to no purpose ; the men having no difficulty in proving their long es- tablished good character. Another villager, Silas Huff, had followed a clue that led him to Paterson with simi- lar result. The man he followed was a blacksmith's helper in search of work and honest as any man.
Huff was in the store telling Bill Parsons about his quest when Uncle John Marsh came in to learn what success they'd had. Having heard both men's stories of their fruitless rides :
"I'll tell you what, Bill," he said gleefully, "I'll send and ask my brother James at Paterson to send my nephew John up here with 'Bugler'! I'll wager that John will run down the thief if he's "
"That's strange, Uncle John," Huff broke in, "for I met James and he said John was up here with you; and he asked me to tell you that he was in need of Bug- ler and would like if you would send John home with the horse."
"How's that, Silas?" Uncle John said with a start. "Did brother James say that? There must be a won- derful mistake somewhere. Why," said he taking a long breath and looking hard at Huff; "Why Silas, my nephew hasn't been inside my door in the last ten days; and Bugler! Why, he took Bugler home long ago."
"Well, as you say, Uncle John," said Huff, putting a fresh chew in his mouth, "there's some mistake some- where; for sartin sure it is that James said his boy was at your house and that he was stopping too long, for he hadn't been home for more two whole months."
At this Uncle John's eyes and even his mouth opened
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wide; then he gave a shrill whistle of surprise and hurry- ing out, shouted from the door:
"I'll see James in two hours' time !" And ten min- utes later, mounted on "Star", the swiftest horse in his stable, he was gone full gallop toward Paterson.
By this time the village was in a rumpus, with the store as a storm center.
"My stars! but Uncle John's gone off somewhere in a ter'ble hurry," Luther Dunn remarked, coming in like everyone else to give and get all the news possible. "Be he gone for a docther, think ye Bill?" he asked the pro- prietor in his usual, high falsetto twang. But Parsons in a brown study, stood scratching his head and did not answer till his hat fell off. Replacing it mechanically:
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