Growth of a Century : as illustrated in the history of Jefferson County, New York, from 1793 to 1894, Part 77

Author: Haddock, John A. 1823-
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : Sherman
Number of Pages: 1094

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Those who have visited Ottawa will remem- ber the dense forest which environs that delightful city beyond the rapid river towards the north. Within a few miles of this Cana- dian capital you can readily lose yourself in the dense growth of trees; and into this then almost unbroken wilderness Henry Backus launched himself, fully resolved never again to live among civilized men. Farther and farther he jurneyed, until the stage route dwindled to mere "buckboard " travel, then to solitary paths marked by blazed trees, until Alexis-le-Bcau, upon the Upper Gatineau, was reached, and then up that rapid strcam he pressed a hundred miles to Desert, which was a mere fringe of clearing in that almost un- broken primeval forest. There Backus passed the late spring and summer. Gradually the need of employment for his mind and strength asserted itself, and he built a small log cabin with store-room in front, and began to trade with the Indians for their furs. When winter . came on he made a journey out from the woods to Ottawa, where he perfected an ar-

359

THE AWAKENING OF HENRY BACKUS.

rangement for the annual sale of his peltry and for a regular consignment to him of such goods as his trade at Desert demanded. He was gone a month, and on his return took up his daily life as before, a solitary, independ- ent, silent man. I leave the imagination of the reader to depict his feelings, his yearnings for his mother, his moments of frantic love for Mabel Hancock, his resolve to break the spell that was upon him and return to his old home and friends, and for the reader to com- prehend the depth of a nature that could en- dure in silence a disappointment so bitter.

For a long time Mrs. Backus expected to see Henry walk into the house almost any day. She managed her farm much better than she had expected, saving something every year After five years had passed she lost faith in Henry's return, and almost gave him up as dead. She fell sick, and was in bed for a long time; then it was that Mabel Han- cock developed the good that was in her. Humbly she went to the sick woman's bed- side, confessed her undying love for Henry, took all the blame upon herself for his de- parture and long absence, and volunteered to nurse Mrs. Backus through her sickness. At first she was not at all drawn towards the girl, but her remorse and self-condemnation so plainly attested her sincerity that she was permitted to remain She soon became a per- manent fixture at Henry's old home, and so won the mother's heart that they never separated. Jointly they managed the farm, and became so knit together by mutual regard that strangers looked upon them as mother and daughter. James Atwell had married Harriet and they had moved away, but Mabel did not attend her sister's wedding. Woman-like, she cast upon Atwell most of the blame for the unfortunate separation from her lover, when in fact she was the one mainly at fault, though there were those who thought Henry Backus himself not without grave responsibility for the turn affairs had taken. And so the years wore on until Mabel was nearly 40 years of age-comely in figure, but with a sad face, seldom lit by a smile. Her constant prayer was that she might be able to pay back to Henry's mother that fealty and support which had been lost when an unwise and needless quarrel had driven away her son.

The coming of the balloon men made an abiding impression upon Backus. He felt a return of that longing for home which he thought he had entirely conquered. He even found himself full of self-accusation, because he had not volunteered to personally accom- pany them to Ottawa, for from there he could have telegraphed or written to his mother. He found it difficult to put aside the influence these two eager, pushing men had exerted upon him. They were resolutely bent upon returning to that civilization he had been so willing to leave, and he began to feel a con- viction that they were right in their course and that he had been wrong in his. For three weeks this struggle went on in his heart until he began to realize the selfishness and folly of

his course. He felt like loathing his sur- roundings as wholly unworthy one who had in his youth given such ample promise of use- fulness and honor. Hard as was the struggle, however, and much as he felt the value of what he had to ruthlessly cast away 20 years before, it might have been doubtful what course he would ultimately have taken had not Providence unmistakably warned him that he was trifling with his own best interests, to say nothing of his disregard of filial duty.

About the middle of Octocer, 1859, a party of river men, on their way up from Alexis-le- Beau, the nearest postoffice, brought him a letter, which may have read as follows:

AT HOME, October 10, 1859.

MY DEAR SON, if indeed you are my son: I read last week in the Springfield Republican an account of the adventures of the lost balloon men, who gave credit to one Henry Backus, a trader at Desert. on the Gatin- eau river, in Canada, for having aided them in their efforts to return to their homes. My heart prompted me to write to Mr. Haddock, at Watertown, N. Y., for a description of this Henry Backus. and Mr. H. immediately answered my letter. Making full allow- ance for the changes 20 years may have made I feel quite hopeful that you are my long lost and deeply mourned son. If so, do not delay an hour. but come home before it is too late to see your poor mother, now past her 60th year, but whose prayer has ever been for her absent son.

Mabel Hancock has lived with me for the past 18 years. She is my stay and greatest comfort, and she desires me to enclose a word from her, for we are more and more convinced that you are my lost son. My heart is too full to write more, but if you are my son hasten to my arms, for a fresh disappointment or long delay may prove too much for my poor strength. Affectionately, your mother.

RACHAEL BACKUS. The note enclosed was from Mabel, it read :

DEAREST FRIEND -- If you are that Henry Backus to whom I was once betrothed in marriage, I feel that I owe much in the way of apology for the treatment you received at my hands when I was a young and inexperienced girl. My past life I offer as an evi- dence of my feelings towards you then and now; yet that life for many years has been a burden, which I could only have borne for your dear mother's sake. If you are the lost one, you cannot be too qnick in hastening to your true home, for your mother is not long for this world. Your attached friend,

MABEL HANCOCK

If Backus had been tardy in carrying out the plans which the coming of the lost balloon men appeared to prompt, he was on fire now with impatience, and counted every hour as lost that kept him from the telegraph. Placing a trusted clerk in charge of his busi- ness, he packed up his important'papers, and, on the morning of the fourth day was in Ottawa, sending a message to distant Berk- shire that he was indeed the lost son, who had come to himself and would soon be there.

Having thus far dealt in facts, I will invite the reader himself to imagine that meeting, when Backus found under the same roof his beloved mother and that Mabel Hancock, who was thenceforth to reign as the undisputed idol of his heart. The natural inclination of a newspaper editor to follow out any incident of more than passing interest with which he had become interested, impelled me to make inquiry of Backus' subsequent career, as well as of all that might shed any light upon his history before we met him at Desert. On the

360

THE GROWTH OF A CENTURY.

1st of January following his return, he and Mabel Hancock were married, and the whole neighborhood shared in the merry-making. He soon sold his possessions at Desert, and settled down in a prosperous career, becoming a leading citizen of his native county. Him- self and wife were noted for their hospitality and open-handed charity, and it was especi- ally remarked that they were exceedingly lenient in their treatment of any one who had lapsed from duty or against whom society held its doors askance. The poor and the outcast found ready sympathy with them, and no hungry wayfarer was ever sent away un- filled.

The casual reader may not be much im- pressed with the extraordinary means through which Henry Backus came to be fully " awakened " to his true condition, but those who take a broader view of these incidents, can perhaps discover in them the workings of that Supreme Omniscience which notes even the fall of a sparrow. J. A. H.

WATERTOWN JEALOUSIES.

IN bringing nearly to conclusion these some- what extended remarks, reminiscences, bio- graphical sketches and many strictly busi- ness details, pertaining to the city of Water- town, it may be well to state again the relation which, in our own estimation, that city sustains to the county at large. In the first place, and that is a matter concerning every man, woman and child in the county, it is the " county seat;" there the laws are adjudicated upon, there are the authentic records of land titles, those business keystones which interlock and closely bind the very fibre of community, and hold society together under the generic name of "law." There, also, are the records of crime, not often (let us hope) needed to be consulted. Water- town city, we repeat, is the geographical, educational, historical, financial and legal centre of the great county of Jefferson-a county with an historic name, a name that was alike honorable in its origin and person- ality, but has been honored and even made greater in this grand old county's keeping.

There are some aspiring and progressive villages in the county whose inhabitants affect to believe that they are retarded in their growth and best development by the jealousy of Watertown. But this is a delu- sion. No tax-payer in Watertown feels any- thing but the kindest sentiment towards all the towns and villages in the county. They are all more or less tributary, in the manner indicated, to Watertown, and for that very reason Watertown people wish them well. It is true that there was a time when a feeling of jealousy, such as is described, was felt in Watertown towards some of the other vil- lages, then vigorous and flourishing-notably Brownville and Sackets Harbor. When Col. Elisha Camp made his historic effort to divert a small fraction of the waters of Black River into his canal, which was to afford hydraulic privileges to Sackets Harbor, he desired to

take the water from a point below where are now the Gear and Wagon works-then, as now, a point beyond which the water was utilized to drive machinery. In this com- mendable measure he was defeated by some three men, who actually feared that if Sackets, in addition to its grand harbor and its loca- tion at the foot of a great lake, would retard the prosperity of Watertown; and so the Colonel was obliged to take water for his canal at a point about two miles above, which cost him nearly $10,000 more than if he had been allowed his own way. It is true that his canal was at last a failure, even though its course for several miles was in the bed of one of the most important waterways of Houndsfield (Mill Creek); yet the fact remains that the jealousy displayed by the three men who opposed him was as short-sighted as it was despicable. It is many years since any such feeling has existed in Watertown, and the prosperity of the villages of Jefferson county is now, and has been for the last quarter of a century, a matter of interest and hope to every enlightened citizen of that city.

The latest improvements upon the Public Square have been more important and per- manent than anything that has preceded them. When completed, the Square will be one of the finest in America-perhaps the very finest. The writer has seen none in this country to be compared with it, and there are but few in Europe. When the Harris House interval shall have been filled up with a block equal to those which flank it upon either hand, the symmetry of the Square will be made almost perfect. It is a grand property, wisely donated nearly an hundred years ago by three well-remembered citizens, whose astute perceptions foresaw what it might possibly become.

The manner in which the highways of Watertown have been "improved," has demonstrated the folly of short-sighted and cheap methods of making roads. On Arsenal and Court streets may be seen almost any day men engaged gathering up and carting away great loads of mud and pulverized lime- stone. They, in turn, will in time be follow- ed by more men and teams, carting on more limestone, which will in turn be pulverized or forced out of sight into the soft clay which underlies the streets. If a suitable founda- tion were first prepared, it would be easy to build some sort of a superstructure that would stand the wear. In the New England States, nearly every large road district owns a steam-roller, by which whatever is put upon the road is rolled level, and made smooth, mechanically. But the roads here- abouts are expected to be made smooth by the attrition of passing vehicles, a result never attained, for many loose stones escape the crushing of the wheels and remain a nuisance to horse and man. It is the same old way of trying to get " something for nothing," ", or the yet more foolish effort to get a permanent road by methods so cheap as to appear childish.

361

CITY OF WATERTOWN.

CRITICISMS OF SOLDIERS.

THE author of this History is aware that the criticisms he has heard of being made upon some of the numbers as they have come from the press (that it was a "Soldier History "), may appear just and excusable, viewed in the light of those who do not fairly appreciate the great crisis which was upon the country during the whole Civil War, covering the years 1861 to 1865. The writer was very unfavorably impressed when he saw that a late Gazetteer (in no sense a history) of Jefferson county gave to the record of all the soldiers who had served in the Union army from this portion of the State, only six and a half pages; to the Bench and Bar 53 pages; and to the Jefferson County Medical Society 37 pages. Considering that there would have been very little Bench or Bar or Medical Society left, were it not for the valor of that great army which beat back the annihilating wave of secession, these records appear to me a painful travesty upon the name of history.

Even now it is not believed that the immi- nent responsibility of the struggle is appreci- ated. It involved all the good that had gone before, and the question was whether that good should be perpetuated or allowed to lapse into the endless category of disastrous experiments, and become one more of the numerous failures to establish a people's government, that has strewn all the shores of time, from Egypt to America-and has darkened the pages of history with so many attempts to lift man up to the level his man- hood demanded, and which he would die to maintain. The struggle was momentous, de- manding great sacrifices, perhaps death itself. Then there came to the front men of great hearts, many of them of lowly origin, who were willing to be sacrificed, if need be, to save the nation.

The occasion was grand-the struggle in- cisive and doubtful-foreign nations were observant, some were neutral; our great natural ally was hostile, because the issues in- volved were really democracy against aristoc- racy-the people against institutions which had their foundations in feudalism and king- craft. But, grand as was the occasion, the men who gave it virile strength and demon- strative power were equal to it. They came from workshops, from factories, from forges; some, too, from pulpits and school-houses, and banks and stores and lawyers' offices, and some from the seclusion of editorial sanctums. They asked only to be led-as Warren did at Bunker Hill. "To the redoubt ! to the redoubt !" said he, when questioned as to the place he preferred in the fight. So these men only demanded to be led where the fight was imminent, the danger greatest.

Many went-some are resting to-day where the perennial laurel shall ever wave its green branches over their brave breasts, as they lie entombed in Southern soil-some sleep in hospital cemeteries, perhaps with " Unknown" engraved upon their tombstones. These sleep

well, for their history is secure. But the great majority returned; some with wounds, some with stooped shoulders, all of them the worse for wear-a motley host of sober, sad- faced men-sobered by hard experience, half regretful that they had ever gone into the service-and this, especially, when they noted with surprise the indifference with which their sacrifices were considered by many, who, in peaceful bomes, enjoyed all the bene- fits of an established and cemented govern- ment, which their valor had helped to per- petuate. It may be said that these gallant first recruits went from principle, not from any desire or hope of gain. They rushed to arms with songs upon their lips-I say it boldly, they "sang" as they marched to death or to glory; and went "joyfully " to do their duty, even though their hearts were bursting under strain of severed ties and love for kindred.

To rescue some of these heroes from oblivion has been my dearest ambition. It is my tearful tribute to those who fell, some of them at my side, as we struggled forward in the path of duty.

It will not be long before the last of these broken, halting, grey-headed heroes hare passed away, and then it will be too late to tell them how much their efforts won from absolute chaos and destruction. But while they are yet above the sod, it should be the duty of every honest heart to see to it that no fault-finding or detractive word shall ever reach their ears. What they should hear ought to be words of praise and honor.

Doubtless there are some who may think that these soldier records smack of egotism. Not so. None of these brave men care to see their deeds blazoned forth-the motive that prompts their relation is a higher one-it is to spread upon the record such facts and incidents as will enable the student of history in the years to come to discover the magnitude of the strife, its insidious dangers, its tremendous consequences, its triumphant ending. The writer was one of the very humblest, and certainly the least deserving of any of those who wore an epaulet for four and a half years, and he tells only of what he saw, and part of which he was. We give one more in- cident, and then dismiss the "Soldier" question from further attention, hoping that it may be handled by abler pens as the years pass by.

AN ARMY EPISODE.

Ir is well to remember that war is in itself cruel and full of invasions of personal rights. In its best form it is scarcely a picnic, While the expedition under my command was obliged to inflict losses and privation upon many families that were not directly participants in the rebellion, it is yet well to remember that nearly all the grown-up male members of those families were serving as volunteer

362

THE GROWTH OF A CENTURY.

soldiers in the Confederate army, little dream- ing that the time would soon come when the rash measures they were supporting for the dismemberment of the Union would bring trouble and loss to those they had left in peaceful homes.

The summer of 1862 was remarkable for two things upon the Rappahannock below Fredericksburgh, Virginia. One was the continual smuggling that was practiced across that river, mainly through King George county, whereby a weekly mail and large quantities of medicine and the finest groceries were regularly conveyed to the Rebel army around Richmond. The other was the con- stant traffic in slaves that was carried on in that remote neighborhood, the owners in Maryland and Northern Virginia having caught the prevailing fear that the invasion from the North was soon to imperil their property in "chattels " that walked on two legs, and hence they desired to hurry this class of property away into the "further South " where slaves yet commanded a high price. The slim strip of country, not over seven miles wide, lying between the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers, was especially adapted for these smuggling and slave ex- peditions, and when once the property had crossed the Rappahannock it was almost entirely safe from pursuit or capture, for the 40 miles to Richmond had not yet felt the tread of a single Northern soldier. Into this region the assassin Booth penetrated when he tried to reach what was left of the Confed- eracy. It was at Port Royal, on the Rappa- hannock, that he crossed, and there was for two years the well-known runway for the smuggling and slave traffic.

To break up this business in July, 1862, I was ordered by General King to take 30 of my best men, put them on board a small steamer that had been provided, proceed down the river, and destroy every boat I could find and capture any contraband goods I could lay my hands upon, which I had rea- son to believe were awaiting transfer to the Confederate army. I had full discretion as to the time to be consumed on the trip as well as the means to be used in carrying out my orders. It took me nearly a day to get to- gether rations and such "impedimenta " as appeared necessary for such an expedition, which was to take us, if not straight into the enemy's country, at least through what was certainly debatable ground, where we would have but slight hope of escape if attacked by a superior force, and where the roads and general contour of the land were wholly unknown to us. General King him- self felt that the duty assigned me was dangerous, and he had his signal officer pro- vide me with colored rockets for use in case I got cornered and called for help. These rockets we never used.

Under such circumstances I felt the need of a guide who knew the' country below and around Port Royal, and bethought me that my old friend, Capt. George Parker, a com- missary in Sedgwick's Sixth corp, might be

able to find me a man among the numerous people he usually employed around head- quarters. I rode over to his post, and the Captain said he had the very man I needed. He sent for a very intelligent negro man, named Lewis, who had lived in King George county all his life and claimed to know every road and four-corners in that country where I was about to operate as "boat smasher " and general detective. He had been a slave, and only a short time before had escaped from the plantation where he was raised, leaving his wife and children with a promise to soon return for them. He seemed so intelligent and so anxious to go with me that I con- cluded to take him along. His only condition was that on our return from the expedition we should land at a certain plantation wharf and give him an hour in which to hurry up to his cabin and bring away his family, who were to be carried on our boat to Fredericks- burgh to join that great crowd of escaped slaves who were daily seeking employment within the Union lines.

Down the river then we steamed, visiting many plantations where a Federal soldier had never before been seen, and finding many boats which we somewhat reluctantly de- stroyed, for some of them were evidently family pleasure boats used upon the river in summer; yet some were large concerns, ca- pable of holding 30 people, and had evidently been used for carrying slaves across the water as well as for purposes of traffic. These larger boats we destroyed without compunc- tion, but a few we spared where it was evident they had not lately been in the water, but were housed up away from the river. The second day we had proceeded perhaps 60 miles below Fredericksburgh, as the river turns and twists, and the evening overtook us in a broad part of the river, which was here half a mile wide. This day I visited Port Royal, a small hamlet, the most prominent building being a large tavern located upon a high hill. When myself and two of my men had made a brief inspection of the place, meeting with many sullen looks and sarcastic remarks from the men whom we found, and who promised that we would not soon again see Fredericksburgh, we turned our faces towards the boat, and had got about half way down the hill when we were fired upon; as none of us was wounded, we kept straight on to the steamer, not caring then to bring on a possible skirmish that would divert me from carrying out my specific orders. This episode, however, taught us that we were in an enemy's country and were likely to fare badly if at any time outnumbered.

We anchored in the middle of the river, not caring to proceed at night. Having set the watch and extinguished the lights, so as to hide our presence, and with strict injunctions as to silence, I laid down for rest. But I felt too anxious for sleep. It must have been near 12 o'clock, and a warm mist had fallen upon the water, when my quick ear caught the sound of oars. At first I thought it might be an attacking party, but soon concluded it

363

OITY OF WATERTOWN.

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Growth of a Century : as illustrated in the history of Jefferson County, New York, from 1793 to 1894, Part 77

Author: Haddock, John A. 1823- Publication date: 1894 Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : Sherman Number of Pages: 1094

Author: Haddock, John A. 1823-
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : Sherman
Number of Pages: 1094