History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio, Part 29

Author: Williams Brothers
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 443

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USA > Ohio > Geauga County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 29

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I foresee but one danger: it springs from no defect of character, but the peril of being named by some superserviceable friend, or ingenious enemy, for an un- named place prematurely. I believe him too well poised to be personally injured. Let the future provide for him as has the past. He may leave himself in the hands of the fates or forces which have been so kind to him. But the impression that he, or they, or it were shaping things for any special elevation of him would greatly impair his advance in the public confidence and esteem, and render him less useful. Whatever he might do in such a contingency would wear a sinister aspect. It would look as if done for a special purpose. Leave him to grow and serve.

Mr. Garfield, in his professor days, was joined in marriage with Lucretia, daughter of John Rudolph, of Hiram, a lady of rare excellence of character, charm of person and manner, alike loved and admired at the capital as in the country. They have a promising family of sons, with one daughter, an attractive cottage and farm in Mentor, a pleasant, modest residence in Washington.

CAPTAIN SETH LEDYARD PHELPS.

Seth Ledyard Phelps, eldest son of Alfred, and bearing the names of his grandfathers, was born at Parkman, June 13, 1824. When about two years of age, as will be remembered, the family removed to Chardon, and the descendant of Seth Phelps and William Ledyard, who was endowed with a robust constitution, fine physique, and the leading characteristics of his race, grew up a Chardon boy, with such advantages for education as the schools and the old academy of the village afforded. By spirit and temperament he was quite the leader in the rollicking adventures of the boys of that neighborhood. He early developed great fondness for rifles, shot-guns, fish-rods, and kindred virtues; was a crack shot, an expert hunter and woodsman at an early day. Strong, hardy, and adventurous, a passion for wild sports has attended him, and been freely indulged all through life in all parts of the world accessible to him.

At seventeen he was a tall, well-made youth, with a frank, manly bearing, and spirits barely within conventional restraints; of great, though moderately indulged, aptitude for the acquisition of knowledge. His eagerness for active out-door life and enterprise marked him for other things than a professional career or the quietude of civil life. Familiar with all the forests, ponds, and streams in the Geauga region, having hunted in the wilds of Michigan with his Uncle Nelson, his mind was filled with longings for adventure.

With the influence which his father could command, an unsuccessful effort was made in 1841 to secure the young man's entrance into the academy at West Point, to which the family certainly had claims. In the spring of that year a young man just admitted to the bar became an inmate of his father's office, of tempera- ment to understand and sympathize with the youth's spirit and wishes. They were at once friends, and the young lawyer became the confidant of the young man, who was eagerly turning for an opening out to a career. One day, as young Phelps made known the disappointment of his military hopes, and was sad over it, his friend asked him how he would like to enter the navy. "Nothing

would suit me so well," replied the young man, who had never seen a body of water larger than Monson and Punderson's ponds, except Lake Erie. He went on in a sad way to say that " after the failure at West Point he did not like asking his father to undertake to secure his entrance into the navy." His friend sug- gested that he ask for it himself. This led to an animated discussion, at the end of which the future commander wrote the following note :

"CHARDON, June 20, 1841.

" HON. ABEL P. UPSHUR, Secretary of the Navy.

"SIR,-My grandfather served in the Revolution, was with Wayne at Stony Point. My father served in the war of 1812; was wounded at Queenstown, and captured with Scott. I am seventeen years old, and also wish to serve my country. Please, sir, appoint me a midshipman.

"SETH L. PHELPS."

This was inclosed in a letter to Mr. Whittlesey, then in Washington, with a request that he deliver it to the secretary, with any word he might be pleased to say, and committed to the post-office. Ten days later the young men received a communication from the navy department, asking for the applicant's height, and whether he was free from disease. His friend put a rule to him, and he promptly answered,-

" Five feet eight inches. Sound as a roach.

" Respectfully,

"S. L. P."

The note from the department was most hopeful, and a reply to the last was anxiously looked for, and the matter remaining confined to the two friends, was talked over daily. July ran into August, August lapsed into September, which faded into October, and no further word. The two were in despair. The an- swering note was a matter of form. Nothing was heard from Mr. Whittlesey, nor was he again written to. The thing had quite ceased to be mentioned be- tween the young men, and Phelps was casting wistful glances about for some- thing in which to invest his surplus energies.

One dark, late, October day Phelps, Sr., came in from the post-office, speech- less from surprise, as was his way, bearing in his hand a formidable package tied with tape, under the seal of the navy department, addressed to " Midshipman Seth L. Phelps." Silently he handed it to the junior counselor, who coolly took it. "Oh ! it has come, has it? Well, we've been for some months looking for it." An explanation followed. There it was, an appointment as midshipman, with orders to report to Commodore Stewart, on board the " Independence," of the home squadron ; and, like a young salmon hatched in the remote head-waters of an ocean-going stream, he followed it down to the great realm of the sea. He had a quick, vigorous intellect, a good eye, a firm nerve for the new world which he entered, as well as for the new lessons of his profession. He took his place naturally, as born to it, in the aristocratic circle of the naval officer. He served in the home squadron ; was sent in the "Columbus" to the Mediterranean ; saw the cities of Italy, the coasts of South America; saw a good deal of the world, of its old life, real and other, by all of which he profited. He wrote home many letters to his father, his younger brother, Alfred, and his older friend, that were graphic, and full of sparkle and vigor. The Phelpses were all good writers. After three years he came back. He went away a fresh, ruddy, rollicking boy, natural, pronounced, emphatic. He returned the finished, easy, slightly toned-up young gentleman of the quarter-deck, drawing-room, and ladies' boudoir, with his morning costume, evening dress-suit, kids, and French boots. Chardon had seen nothing like it. Alfred, a strong, tender, and brave- hearted boy as ever hunted and fished in the woods and streams of the Reserve, was at first overcome, and wept his disappointment in the presence of their com- mon friend. It was, however, soon discovered that the heart, nature, and spirit were the same, only matured, and the manners fashioned in the new school and surroundings of his new life. If he had learned so much that was new, he had forgotten nothing good of the old, and was an immense favorite in a single day, -a position he has never lost.

All this belongs exclusively to Chardon and Geauga life, and I have brought it out with more breadth than space will permit for the residue of this sketch. If well told, that would be a fascinating tale of the sea ; of wandering the wide oceans over; of adventure, danger, storm, and battle; of strange lands and peoples; with the weird charm and flavor which the mysterious sea imparts to the lives of her children who float on her bosom or perish in her depths. Of all this I can give but passing glimpses, with slight accounts of a few striking incidents.

In January, 1845, Mr. Phelps sailed on the "Jamestown," a beautiful twenty- gun sloop, for a tour against slavers on the coast of Africa, the severest duty known to the service. Here he spent a year, during which he saw all the barra- coons, commanded a party for shore duty, and intervened in the wars of the natives. Early in February, 1846, while the " Jamestown" was lying at one of the Cape de Verdes, she fell in with, and captured, an outward-bound slaver, a schooner, called

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HISTORY OF GEAUGA AND LAKE COUNTIES, OHIO.

the " Robert Wilson," fitted up with the usual appliances, and carrying a cargo of rum, to be equitably exchanged for slaves. Certainly, whoever sells the one should have the other in exchange. Her whole force, excluding officers, was thirteen. A lieutenant, two marines, and seven seamen, with Midshipman Phelps, were placed on board, as a prize crew, to take her back to Norfolk, for trial and con- demnation. This was many months before the young officer's twenty-second birth- day. After parting with the " Jamestown," it was discovered that the instruments of navigation for keeping the ship's reckoning had been thrown overboard, and there was no means of determining their progress, and of telling where they were, except by what sailors call " dead-reckoning," made up of the course and distance by the log, without reference to the celestial bodies, and which, in the most skillful hands, is very illusory. The captured crew were not confined ; on the contrary, were assigned to service with the prize crew, while it was the duty of the marines to stand sentinel, off and on. That rum worked its true mission. The slaver crew broke through the bulkhead, came at the casks, supplied the lieuten- ant, who, laying by a supply for the voyage, got drunk, and kept straight on to mania-a-potu, and remained hors du combat for the rest of the voyage. The slavers were drunk enough to mutiny, shared the rum with the prize crew, and themselves took refuge in the forecastle, and when called for duty refused to come up, and remained insolent and threatening.

The young officer in command knew he could rely on no one but himself. Look- ing about the deck, he saw one of the slavers, and, drawing his revolver, he ordered him, on pain of instant death, to precede him down the narrow, dark companion- way to where the mutinous men were assembled, saying to him that, if any of his mates used a knife, he, as in the advance, would be the victim. In this way the daring commander, unharmed, gained the presence of the mutineers, whom, with his cocked revolver covering them, he ordered upon the deck. So perfect was his command that one by one they immediately obeyed, and he followed the last. On deck, he made them a sailor's speech, plain and direct. He told them that there was not the least probability that they, the common seamen, would be tried for piracy, as slavers; that if they compelled him to have them tried for mutiny, he would see every devil of them duly and properly hanged; that if they would return to duty, and remain faithful, he gave them the word of an American officer never to report their present misconduct. If they did not, he would instantly put them in irons. He had but six pairs of irons, and they . should be put in a row, coupled together, on deck, and take their chances. After this neat bit of nautical harangue he sent for the irons, while the marines stood guard, and turned carelessly away, to leave the poor fellows to their own counsels. The frank, heroic conduct of the young officer had its proper effect, and after a short consultation they accepted his proposition, and he had little further trouble with them. The mischief, however, extended to the " Jamestown" sailors, and discipline, in the known condition of the lieutenant, was seriously impaired. The bulkhead was restored, but again broken through by Mr. Phelps' own men. One of them, a seaman named Bettinger, of gigantic proportions and strength, under the madness of the rum defied his commander, and threatened, if he persisted in an order, to throw him into the sea, and the signs were, rather, that his messmates would back him. Mr. Phelps promptly called four of the slaver's crew, and ordered them to arrest and iron the mutineer, while he stood by with his arms. After a desperate struggle, he was ironed, and chained to a ring-bolt on deck, where he remained. In addition to the dead-reckoning, the young commander expected to discover his approach to the coast by the rising temperature of the water, which he constantly tested by the thermometer, and detected the fallacy of that theory. On nearing the land he encountered the awful six-day hurricane of March, 1846, the most violent and fatal known, and as such is still remembered. The ironed mutineer would inevitably been washed overboard had he not been fastened to the ring-bolt.

On the subsidence of the storm unmistakable signs of land were discovered. By rare fortune he was off Charleston, on the best course, and was soon after relieved by the presence of a pilot,-the first moment, for days and weeks of the greatest peril, in which he could for an instant relinquish the command of the ship to a competent hand. The address, skill, and courage with which he encountered and put down a most dangerous mutiny-two of them-and met and baffled the fury of the hurricane, was only equaled by the powers of mental and physical endurance with which he faced the awful strain upon both. It may · well be doubted whether modern naval annals can produce a parallel instance of equal conduct in an officer so young. One wishes he had been in command of the "Somers" during the mutiny of the ill-fated " Philip Spencer." I must trace this story out. It was never before told to the public. The character of Mr. Phelps is to be exhibited in even a more striking light,-that of magnanimity to the criminally wretched lieutenant, whose name he has never mentioned in connection with these transactions.

On the arrival in Charleston, Mr. Phelps undertook to get his miserable supe-

rior in a possible condition to discharge the remaining duties of the commander of the prize,-report her, with a statement to the United States district attorney, for proper action in court. As soon as he could trust him, he made up a state- ment for him which would entirely hide that officer's own delinquency ; and, as far as the management of Mr. Phelps was concerned, save him from punishment, or even publicity. At the same time, it would also hide the rare merits of Mr. Phelps. Thus armed, the lieutenant made his report to the district attorney. His account of the interview, on his return, induced that officer to call on the lawyer, whom he was surprised to find in possession of all the facts, picked up by the pilot on board, and reported to him.

The schooner " Robert Wilson" was owned and fitted out at Providence, R. I. The captain was a man of culture, a member of one of the old Knickerbocker families of New York. During the hurricane, the fury of the waves swept the schooner's bulwarks away and poured a deluge into the cabin, washed the cap- tain's wig off, and exposed a number of damaging letters concealed in it, which were fatally used against him on his trial, and directly implicated several of the orthodox pillars of the Providence churches. The captain was indicted for piracy, the prize libeled for condemnation, and Mr. Phelps ordered to remain in South Carolina till the case was tried. At the trial, before Judge Wayne, of the United States Supreme Court, when placed on the stand, he declared that he renounced in advance all claim for prize-money for the capture of the slaver, and proceeded to give his testimony. He was quite the only witness. The counsel for the prisoner several times assailed him on the cross-examination, but the court silenced him. The captain was convicted of piracy, and sent to the penitentiary, and this by a South Carolina jury ; in marked contrast with the conduct of a New York jury, which, about the same time, acquitted a slaver captured at Loango, while slaves were being placed on board of her. The lieu- tenant who made that seizure was then sued for damages, and a judgment was rendered against him for eleven thousand dollars. The derelict lieutenant, placed in command of the " Robert Wilson," was ordered for trial by court-martial, and soon after committed suicide at Washington.

While in attendance upon the pirate captain's trial Mr. Phelps made the ac- quaintance of General Sherman, then lieutenant of artillery, which speedily ripened into a life-long friendship. The men resemble each other in virile manhood.

After the trial young Phelps was ordered to Annapolis, to complete his studies for examination. His only other opportunities were on shipboard, while on duty. Two days after his arrival came the news of the fateful battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. He at once applied for orders, and was sent to join the little "Bonita," a schooner of sixty tons, built in New York for the Mexican government, and secured by ours. There were three of the same class, and two small steamers, of all of which the government possessed itself. These, when armed, constituted the famous " mosquito fleet" of the Mexican war, and were at once dispatched into the Gulf of Mexico. The " Bonita" carried one long, old- fashioned thirty-two gun. These light-draft vessels were capable of entering the streams and harbors, and rendered efficient service. Mr. Phelps remained on this coast through the war, the " Bonita" taking an active part in every affair in which the navy was engaged. In the famous bombardment of Vera Cruz, the fleet attacked what was supposed to be the impregnable castle of San Juan d'Ulloa, and the forts on the sea-front. During some parts of the battle the " Bonita" was so near the works as to receive grape-shot. The diminutive size of the craft alone saved them from destruction in the fearful cannonade to which they so fearlessly exposed themselves.

The exposure and suffering in these two years and a half of service were greater than that on the coast of Africa. Some part of the time Mr. Phelps did shore- duty in that malaria and fever-smitten region, during which, in the summer of 1848, while alcalde of a Mexican town, he was stricken with yellow fever, prescribed for himself, and took drastic doses of calomel. In the delirium which supervened he ordered his Mexican attendants to drench him with cold water. The splendid physique which he inherited carried him through, at the expense of the perma- nent disabling of the wrist-joint of the left hand, due to the heroic self-treatment during his illness. He was now invalided for a short time, and then ordered to Annapolis, where he passed the next summer, at which time he would have been entitled to an examination. This was followed by a place in the high-school observatory, in connection with coast survey.

Such was his position in the navy as a man of scientific attainments that, in 1850, he was ordered to join Lieutenant James M. Gilliss at Santiago, Chili, whither he had been sent with a party, and an outfit of instruments, to establish an observatory and make a series of observations to determine the sun's parallax, in connection with other astronomical labors. He remained in this service till its completion, late in the autumn of 1852, when the party returned to the United States. From that time till the spring of 1856 he was on duty in Washington, working up the Chilian observations.

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We may well understand that this was a period of great interest, during which he contracted his marriage and established himself in the innermost circles of the capital's society.

He was married in October, 1853, to Miss Lizzie Maynadie, a daughter of Gen- eral Maynadie, of the ordnance corps. He was a very accomplished gentleman, of French birth. Her mother, a daughter of the famous Mason family of Virginia. She, herself, was one of the most attractive and accomplished of the young ladies of Washington. Beyond, and out of the reach of official society, there are at the capital some of the most charming social circles found in American life, made up of the families of officers of the navy and army, the cultured of other cities and countries, with just an infusion from the foreign legations,-circles unknown to, and impenetrable by, the noisy comers and goers who flash for an hour in the noisy, coarse glitter and glare of what is known to the world as Washington society. It is obvious that Mr. Phelps would be but a passing votary of fashion, could never worship at society's altars, or win promotion by toadying to official place and power. With rare personal advantages, manners, and address, inherited from cultured ancestors of educated sentiments, and the glamour which surrounds the names and persons of young men who have acquired reputations for gallant conduct in desperate enterprises, it is no wonder that in these circles, where his bride was reared, he became quite as much a favorite as he cared to be.

In the spring of 1856 he was ordered to the steam-frigate "Susquehanna," for a cruise in the Mediterranean. During this period she assisted in the first attempt to lay the Atlantic cable. The enterprise was shared by a British line- of-battle ship, and, as is remembered, the cable parted when some five hun- dred miles had been paid out. After the failure the frigate returned to the Mediterranean. Thence ordered to the Gulf of Mexico, to look after Walker, raiding in that region. While on this duty, in the spring of 1858, the yellow fever broke out on shipboard, and became one of the most terrible pestilences ever known. The frigate ran into Kingston, Jamaica, and a third of the crew were sent to the hospital. Mr. Phelps escaped. His terrible acclimatization in the tierra caliente of Mexico doubtless was his protection. Negroes were employed as stokers, and the cruise continued. After the ship's return to New York she was frozen with cargoes of ice and salt. Yet men who afterwards went on board of her died of yellow fever. After a whole winter her depths were fatal, and it was not until the second spring that it was found safe to break out her hold.

In the autumn of 1858, Mr. Phelps was ordered to the Pacific for duty on the "St. Mary's," sloop of war; cruised in her and the " Saranac," returning to the United States in January, 1861. Was then ordered to duty at Washington to finish up the " Chilian scientific work." He came back to find the foundations of the government apparently breaking up, and the hearts of men everywhere failing them. No man could forecast the future, and scarcely any two agreed as to the true course of patriotism. The Phelpses were from the start necessarily Federalists, and naturally graduated into the later Whigs, with broad national views. In no sense political partisans. Every fibre and instinct of their strong, high natures, all their traditions and associations, were American and patriotic.

April came, the fall of Fort Sumter, and the awful war. At the start there was little, save the most irksome and inglorious of all blockading, for the navy, compelling quarantine for the infected rebel coasts. Mr. Phelps was ordered to report to the engineer bureau of the army for duty, and attached to the army of Washington. Sent to Norfolk, he was a most unwilling participator in the destruction of the navy-yard and unfinished vessels,-a measure which his judg- ment never approved. Returning, he was employed on the works about the capital. In June he was directed to report to Commodore, now Admiral, Rogers for duty on the Mississippi, where the navy was to develop a new method of conducting a great war, and to which few officers contributed so much skill, courage, and good conduct. His first duty was to get the incomplete upper river craft, hastily and imperfectly transformed to gunboats, down the river. The water was falling rapidly, but after weeks of arduous labor he brought them down the Ohio to Cairo. Here they entered at once upon the most active service; and, although their boilers, steam-pipes, and machinery extended from bow to stern, high above the water-line, protected only by three inches of oak planking, they became at once efficient in the western warfare. They were the " Conestoga," " Lexington," and "Tyler." The former was under the command of then Lieu- tenant Phelps. The first effective service of the flotilla, under the late Admiral Foote, which consisted of seven vessels, four of them partially iron-clad, was in the brilliant campaign under Grant against Forts Henry and Donelson. These forts were some ten miles apart, at a point where the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers approach each other,-the first and slighter protecting the Tennessee, and Donel- son commanding the Cumberland. The gunboats captured Henry after an hour's fierce cannonade, although the most of the garrison escaped to Donelson. After- wards the flotilla engaged the much heavier water-batteries of Donelson, and, after a five hours' contest, were obliged to withdraw, badly battered. Grant, however,

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History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio, Part 29

Author: Williams Brothers Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Number of Pages: 443

Author: Williams Brothers
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 443