History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 114

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co.
Number of Pages: 666

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have no quarter. No sooner said, however, than the British captain seized the match from one of his men and directed a shot himself, which, owing to the rolling of the sea, did no execution. By force of our oars we soon were near enough to board, when Captain Hiler, springing aboard of the British vessel, aimed a blow at the head of the captain, who, springing backward, escaped, the sword merely passing down his breast. Captain Hiler immediately made another pass which, the other receiving on his arm, saved his life, and then cried for quarter, which was granted him. After taking the sloop and two schooners, we sailed round the Jersey shore, where, having discovered another sail out at sea, our Captain cried out, "Men, yonder is another sail ; we must have that." Springing to our oars as hard as we were able we came up with her, boarded her, and found her to be a prize that the British had taken at the capes, off the Delaware, and were sending her to New York. Three privateers coming up, which had been dispatched from the fleet in pursuit of us, we were ob- liged to cut and run, carrying with us the schooner last boarded, beaching the others (loaded with tar and tur- pentine), and running her into Sherk river. The next day we returned under British colors, and, coming along- side the fleet off Sandy Hook, dropped sail and ran into Solsbury. The same evening we passed through the narrow passage between Sandy Hook and the High- lands about sunset, when we spied a craft going across to the guard-ship, in pursuit of which our captain im- mediately sent the whale-boat. But perceiving a line of British soldiers marching down the beach, with the in- tention of waylaying us at the Narrows, we rowed to shore and landed fifteen men, who were to attack in the rear, the British having in the meantime crossed the beach on the side we lay with our boat. We were but thirty strong, including the fifteen we had landed; the enemy about seventy. While we were looking over the beach for them from our vessel, they came suddenly round a point within pistol-shot of us. The first thing we knew was a volley from a platoon, having come up in a solid column. Twelve of our men fired with muskets, and in such quick succession that the barrels began to burn our hands, the other three managed a four-pounder, which the captain ordered to be loaded with langrage, crying out : "Boys, land, land ; we will have them all!" When the four-pounder went off, accompanied with the fire of our musketry, we raised the yell. An opening by our four-pounder being made through their column the enemy broke and ran, and the fifteen men before landed happening to come up, charged and took the captain and nine of his men. In fact every day at Sandy Hook af- forded a skirmish of some kind or other, either with small arms or cannon. At Toms river inlet we were twice nearly cast away ; once at Hogg island inlet. On two occasions we narrowly escaped being taken prison- ers by two different frigates ; one the Fair American. Once in coming up from Sandy Hook to Amboy, with two gunboats and a whale-boat, Captain Hiler command- ing, being in charge of a British gunboat, we ran in be- tween an enemy's brig and a galley, that carried an

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eighteen-pounder in her bow; the gunboat had struck, but, before we were able to board her, an eighteen-pound ball passed through one of our gunboats, which obliged us to make the best of our way to the Jersey shore ; and getting every thing out of the boat, under a continual fire of cannon and small arms (which lasted until 9 o'clock at night), we left her to the British, our ammunition be- ing all spent.

After peace I returned home and followed the trade of a blacksmith until the year 1790. In the spring of that year I sold out, and came, about the close of October, to what is now Cincinnati, but at the time pretty much in woods. Having cleared a four-acre lot situate about a mile from the river, in the year 1791, I was the first that raised a crop of wheat between the two Miamis. While attending church the settlers rested on their guns to be ready on the first alarm from the Indians. In the spring of 1791, while occupied with clearing the said lot I ran a narrow chance of losing my scalp. Joseph Cutter was taken in a clearing adjoining mine, and a Mr. VanCleve was killed at a corner of my lot. The Indians were con- stantly skulking around us, murdering the settlers or robbing the stables.

From General St. Clair I received an ensign's com- mission; was afterwards promoted to a lieutenantcy; next chosen captain of the company; then major, and com- manded the militia at Cincinnati and Columbia, seven miles up the river, during the time of Wayne's campaign. Afterwards elected colonel, and had the honor to com- mand the troops at Greenville during. the treaty held with the Indians, General Harrison and General Cass being commissioners. Soon after the war I resigned my commission to General James Findlay. The time that elapsed from my appointment as ensign until elected a colonel, was between twenty and twenty-two years ; and during the whole of this period I never failed parading but one day, and that on account of sickness.

THE CARY SISTERS.

Robert Cary, the father of Alice and Phoebe Cary, came to the "Wilderness of Ohio," from New Hamp- shire, in 1803. He was then but fifteen years of age. The family of which he was a member, travelled in an emigrant wagon to Pittsfield, and thence on a flat-boat down the Ohio river to Fort Washington. After remain- ing there a few years a purchase of land was made, eight miles north of this "settlement," on the Hamilton road.

In 1814 Robert Cary was married to Elizabeth Jessup, and a home was established upon a quarter section of the original purchase of the father, Christopher Cary. The farm afterwards became the "Clovernook" of Alice Cary's charming stories. But it was a home by actual posses- sion only after long years of the closest economy and in- dustry. Debt hung over the toiling parents like a dark cloud, and its influence was not unfelt by even the smaller children. In the year 1831 was born the young- est of nine children, of whom Alice was the fourth and Phobe the sixth. Quoting from Alice's words, she once

said: "The first fourteen years of my life it seemed as if there was actually nothing in existence but work. The whole family struggle was just for the right to live free from the curse of debt. My father worked early and late; my mother's work was never done."

But even in such a plain, unpretentious place as the little unpainted story-and-a-half house was, in which so many years of the poets' lives were passed, there was some- thing worthy of a tender love and remembrance. Again and again, in poetry and prose, the blessed old home of their girlhood comes into view. Phoebe's poem, "Our Homestead," is especially simple and beautiful in its description of the old brown dwelling and its surround- ing apple and cherry trees, old-fashioned roses and sweet- briar. And nothing could go more directly to the heart than Alice's words on the same theme in that sweetest of descriptive poems, "An Order for a Picture." Out of all she had ever written, that was the poem she most loved. We give the poem entire :

AN ORDER FOR A PICTURE.

O good painter, tell me true, Has your hand the cunning to draw Shapes of things that you never saw?

Ay? Well, here is an order for you.

Woods and cornfields, a little brown,-

The picture must not be over-bright, --- Yet all in the golden and gracious light Of a cloud, when the summer sun is down.

Alway and alway, night and morn, Woods upon woods, with fields of corn Lying between them, not quite sere,

And not in the full, thick, leafy bloom,

When the wind can hardly find breathing-room Under their tassels,-cattle near, Biting shorter the short green grass, And a hedge of sumach and sassafras, With blue-birds twittering all around, -

(Ah, good painter, you can't paint sound!) These, and the little house where I was born,

Little and low, and black and old,

With children, many as it can hold, All at the windows, open wide,- Heads and shoulders clear outside,

And fair young faces all ablush: Perhaps you may have seen some day,

Roses crowding the self-same way,

Out of a wilding, wayside bush.

Listen closer. When you have done With woods and cornfields and grazing herds,

A lady, the loveliest ever the sun Looked down upon you must paint for me: Oh, if I only could make you see The clear blue eyes, the tender smile, The sovereign sweetness, the gentle grace, The woman's soul, and the angel's face That are beaming on me all the while, I need not speak these foolish words:

Yct one word tells you all I would say,-

She is my mother: you will agree

That all the rest may be thrown away.

Two little urchins at her knee You must paint, sir: one like me, - The other with a clearer brow,

And the light of his adventurous eyes l'lashing with boldest enterprise: At ten years old he went to sea,- God knoweth if he be living now, -

Hle sailed in the good ship "Commodore,"-

Nobody ever crossed her track T'o bring us news, and she never came back.

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Ah, 'tis twenty long years and more Since that old ship went out of the bay With my great-hearted brother on her deck, I watched him till he shrank to a speck. And his face was turned toward me all the way. Bright his hair was, a golden brown, The time we stood at our mother's knee:

That beauteous head, if it did go down, Carried sunshine into the sea!

Out in the fields one summer night We were together, half afraid Of the corn-leaves' rustling, and of the shade, Of the high hills, stretching so still and far,-

Loitering till after the low little light Of the candle shone through the open door, And over the haystack's pointed top. All of a tremble and ready to drop,

The first half-hour, the great yellow star,

That we, with staring, ignorant eyes, Had often and often watched to see Propped and held in its place in the skies

By the fork of a tall red-mulberry tree, Which close in the edge of our flax-field grew, -- Dead at the top,-just one branch full Of leaves, notched round, and lined with wool, From which it tenderly shook the dew Over our heads, when we came to play In its handbreadth of shadow, day after day, Afraid to go home, sir; for one of us bore

A nest full of speckled and thin-shelled eggs,- The other, a bird, held fast by the legs, Not so big as a straw of wheat:

The berries we gave her she would not eat,

But cried and cried, till we held her bill,

So slim and shining, to keep her still.

At last we stood at our mother's knee. Do you think, Sir, if you try, You can paint the look of a lie? If you can, pray have the gracc To put it solely in the face

Of the urchin that is likest me: I think 'twas solely mine, indeed:

But that's no matter,-paint it so; The eyes of our mother-(take good heed)-

Looking not on the nest full of eggs, Nor the fluttering bird, held so fast by the legs, But straight through our faces down to our lies, And, oh, with such injured, reproachful surprise

I felt my heart bleed where that glance went, as though A sharp blade struck through it.

You, Sir, know That you on canvas are to repeat Things that are fairest, things most sweet,- Woods and cornfields and mulberry-tree, --

The mother,-the lads, with their bird, at her knee: But, oh, that look of reproachful woe! High as the heavens your name I'll shout, If you paint the picture, and leave that out.

Although the life of a pioneer in "the Far West" was surrounded by privations of every kind, Robert Cary and his wife must have made excellent use of their scanty privileges. Phœbe thus describes her father in her me- morial of her older sister: "He was a man of superior intelligence, of sound principles, and blameless life. He was fond of reading, especially romance and poetry, but early poverty and the hard exigencies of pioneer life had left him no time for acquiring anything more than the mere rudiments of a common school education, and the consciousness of his want of culture, and an invincible diffidence, born with him, gave him a shrinking, retiring manner, and a want of confidence in his own judgment,

which was inherited to a large measure by his offspring. He was a tender, loving father, who sang his children to sleep with holy hymns, and habitually went to work re- peating the grand old Hebrew poets, and the sweet and precious promises of the New Testament of our Lord." Ada Carnahan, the child of Rowena, his oldest daughter, thus speaks of him : "Of his children, Alice the most resembled him in person, and all the tender and close sympathy with nature, and with humanity, which in her fond expression had in him an existence as real, if voiceless." The wife of this man, the mother of the poet sisters, was by every one called beautiful. Among the many loving words his gifted daughters spoke of her are the following: "My mother was a woman of superior intellect and of good, well-ordered life. In my memory she stands apart from all others, wiser, purer, doing more and living better than any other woman. She was fond of history, politics, moral essays, biography, and works of religious controversy. Poetry she read, but cared lit- tle for fictitious literature." From such a parentage, what a wealth of intellectual and moral strength might their children receive. From their father they inherited the poetic temperament, the love of nature, their loving and pitying hearts, that reached out even to poor dumb creatures. From their mother they inherited their inter- est in public affairs, their passion for justice, their devo- tion to truth and duty as they saw it, their clear percep- tions, and sturdy common sense.

The year 1837 found the poets, aged respectively sev- enteen and thirteen, just beginning to put into broken measure the songs their full hearts could no longer con- ceal. During the preceding four years they had learned unwilling lessons in the school of sorrow; Rhoda, the sister next older and the beloved companion of Alice had died, the little household pet, Lucy, had followed a month later, and the weary mother soon after had been laid away to rest.

Now a new hand was at the helm. An unsympathetic presence was in the home of their girlhood-work was the ultimatum of all human endeavor-study was a waste of time, and candle-light could not be squandered on writing when a single piece of knitting or needlework remained incomplete. But what opportunities for men- tal improvement there offered in the little old district school-house, a mile distant, or on the meagre book- shelves at home or in the neighborhood were as well improved as their leisure moments would permit. When candles were denied them, a saucer of lard with a rag wick served instead, and thus, "for ten long years, they studied and wrote, and published without pecuniary rec- ompense." The Trumpet, a paper published by the Universalists, read by Robert Cary and his wife from its first issue to the close of their lives, was for many years the only paper Alice had any opportunity of seeing, and its Poet's Corner was the only source from which she could draw. With such meagre fare her genius was slow of growth. Before the age of fifteen we only find revis- ions of old poems found in her school-books, and here and there in her copy-books a page or two of original rhymes.

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Phobe, at the age of fourteen, secretly sent a poem to a Boston newspaper, and while waiting in suspense its acceptance, was astonished to find it copied in a Cincin- nati paper.

For several years of their early lives as poets, the vari- ous publications of Cincinnati formed the principal medium through which they began to be known. The Ladies' Repository, of Boston, Graham's Magazine, and the National Era, of Washington, also received and pub- lished their productions. The first money received by Alice for her literary work was from the Era, after which she furnished that paper contributions regularly, for a small sum in payment.

After a time responses began to come to that western home. Edgar Allan Poe named Alice's Pictures of Memory one of the most musically perfect lyrics in our language. Words of encouragement had come to the sisters from not a few men of letters, among them John G. Whittier. In 1849 Horace Greeley visited them at their home. The same year Phoebe writes: "We have been very busy collecting and revising all our published poems. Rev. R. W. Griswold, quite a noted author, is going to publish them for us this summer." This little volume, entitled Poems of Alice and Phoebe Carey, was the first condensed result of their twelve years of study, privation, aspiration, labor, sorrow, and youth.

In the late autumn of 1850, Alice set out alone to seek her fortune. A shy, sensitive young person would hardly be the one to brave the terrors of city life, and that city New York. But something besides ambition and fame drove her to undertake this perilous work in her own girlish strength. Naturally loving, tender, devo- ted to her friends, she did what any true feminine nature would have done-received and returned tenfold the love proffered her by one who was the centre of every picture of her future life. "A proud and prosperous family brought all their pride and power to bear on a son, to prevent his marrying a girl to them uneducated, rustic, and poor." "I waited for one who never came back," she said. But she was not weak enough to relin- quish her life because of one sad experience. Under her feminine sympathy and tenderness lay a strong founda- tion of will, common sense, and love for justice and truth. She outlived the pain and humiliation, and could even look upon the circumstance with pity. She had many and flattering offers of marriage in after years, but would never again promise her hand.

The following year the older sister was joined by Phoebe and their younger sister, Elmina. They at once rented a modest suite of rooms in an unfashionable neighborhood, and proceeded to maintain a home by their work. They papered the walls, painted the doors, and framed the pictures with their own hands. Limiting themselves to such necessities as their pens could pay for, they gradually improved their surroundings and added luxuries as their poems and prose productions became more and more in demand.

With increasing fame and recompense, came the pow- er to surround themselves with articles of elegance and beauty, for which in their early poverty they had so

pined. The home on Twentieth street, on which they bestowed so much taste and in which they afterward passed their last days on earth, became theirs through long years of industry. Their writings were copied widely, and, alone or conjoined, grew into many vol- umes. The "Clovernook Papers" were translated into French, and the London Literary Gazette commended them in no doubtful terms. During twenty years Alice produced eleven volumes, and Phœbe, besides aiding in the editing of several books, the most important of which was "Hymns for all Christians," published two books; and at their death there remained uncollected poems enough to form two volumes for each name.

Mary Clemmer, in her graceful and loving tribute to these sister singers, says: "I have never known any other woman so systematically and persistently industri- ous as Alice Cary. Hers was truly the genius of pa- tience. No obstacle ever daunted it, no pain ever stilled it, no weariness ever overcame it, till the last weariness of death."

In 1862 Elmina died, after which event the older sis- ter seemed struggling hourly with disease. The year 1871 found the two remaining hard at work, but the following year looked out upon their graves. On Tues- day, February 7th, Alice wrote her last poem, of which the last line was-

"The rainbow comes but with the cloud."

As her strength left her, she asked her friends fre- quently to sing the hymns of her childhood, such as "Jesus, Lover of my Soul," and "Show pity, Lord; O, Lord, forgive;" and she wished also the old tunes. Feb- ruary 13th a telegram swept through the country, saying : " Alice Cary died yesterday." The announcement called out a response from every journal in the land, and the biographical notices that followed everywhere spoke of her rather as a beloved friend than a talented author.

The effort Phoebe made to be brave after Alice's death was almost pitiful to her friends. "She opened the windows to admit the sunlight, she filled her room with flowers, she refused to put on mourning, and tried to interest herself in general plans for the advancement of woman." But it was a vain attempt. The life so bound up in another's for a period of years, drooped when left alone. Phoebe Cary died July 31, 1871. Greenwood cemetery is honored with their last remains. Phobe's poem of poems, from which came to her the fame of which her simple heart so little dreamed, is "Nearer Home." It has filled a page in nearly every book of sacred song printed since its composition. It has been the favorite in Sabbath-school melody, and in the services of the church of every denomination. Its measures have given voice to the sufferer as the last hour approached, and convicted the child of sin far away from the restraints of friends and home; and yet the writer claimed for it little intellectual worth.

One sweetly solemn thought Comes to me o'er and o'er; I'm nearer home to-day Than I ever have been before;

Nearer my Father's house, Where the many mansions be;

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HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

Nearer the great white throne, Nearer the crystal sea.

Nearer the bound of life, Where we lay our burdens down; Nearer leaving the cross, Nearer gaining the crown.

But lying darkly between, Winding down through the night,

Is the silent, unknown stream, That leads at last to the light.

Closer and closer my steps Come to the dread abysm:

Closer Death to my lips Presses the awful chrism.

O, if my mortal feet Have almost gained the brink;

If it be I am nearer home Even to-day than I think;

Father, perfect my trust; Let my spirit feel in death That her feet are firmly set On the rock of a living faith.

DR. REUBEN D. MUSSEY.

The late Reuben Dimond Mussey, M. D. LL. D., long a prominent surgeon and medical practitioner in Cincinnati, was a native of Rockingham county, New Hampshire, born June 23, 1780, of French Huguenot stock. His ancestors settled at Ipswich, Massachusetts, early in the seventeenth century. John Mussey, his father, was also a physician of note, and survived until 1831, when he died at the advanced age of eighty-six. The elder Mussey removed to Amherst, New Hampshire, in 1791, and here his son, then eleven years of age, had his first opportunities of formal education, but only dur- ing part of the winter, and at a district school. Elemen- tary Latin was taught him by his father, and at the age of fifteen he was enabled to enter the Aurean academy, an Amherst institution. Ambitious of yet higher education, he labored diligently on the farm during the warm season and taught school in the winter. In this way he secured means enough to carry him through Dartmouth college, which he entered in 1801, as a junior, and was graduated therefrom two years afterwards, with high honor. He began the study of medicine at once with Dr. Nathan Smith, the distinguished founder of the Medical school of New Hampshire, afterwards of New Haven, Connecticut. For financial reasons, however, he returned for a time to teaching, this time in the academy at Petersborough, but keeping up his medical reading, now with Dr. Howe, of Jaffrey, but returning presently to Dr. Smith. In 1805 he received his degree of Bachelor of Medicine, as the practice then was in that part of the country, after due public examination. In September following he began practice in Essex county, Massachusetts, with a very hope- ful prestige, and was shortly able to enjoy further ad- vantages of instruction at the University of Pennsylvania. From this institution, after sitting at the feet of Rush, Wister, Barton, and other masters of medical science, he was graduated in 1809. Soon resuming practice, he occupied much of his leisure time in making

experimental researches, in the hope of settling certain important and long disputed questions in physiology. For example, even before leaving the University school, he ascertained by the detection in human urine of highly colored substances, as madder, cochineal, and the like, solutions of which had been merely brought into con- tact with parts of the body, that the doctrine of cutaneous absorption was true. The experiments were per- formd upon his own person, and one of the baths in which he immersed himself for the purpose nearly cost him his life. Similar results were obtained by others, building upon his inquiries. The experiments are referred to in the Anatomy of Dr. Wister and kindred works, and went far to change the views of the physiolo- gists-even so eminent a scientist as Dr. Rush-in re- gard to the possibility of absorption by the skin.

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 114

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co. Number of Pages: 666

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co.
Number of Pages: 666