USA > Ohio > The Western Reserve of Ohio and some of its pioneers, places and women's clubs, Vol. II > Part 13
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A. M. WILLIARD, ARTIST
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title of "Yankee Doodle" was decided upon as a good one. Both Mr. Ryder and Mr. Willard remembered seeing in their boyhood days the old-time drummers and fifers of the Militia, who occasionally imbibed a little too much of the spirit of rum with the spirit of '76, so that with the effort to preserve the proper martial bearing their appearance often suggested more or less of the grotesque.
It was decided that three figures, a fifer and two drum- mers, should represent "Yankee Doodle" or as it was afterward called "The Spirit of '76."
Willard then started the composition. With his charcoal he drew several groups to get the proper action. Remember this was to be a serio-comic picture, but in sketching in the old drummer's face he partly by accident, put a gleam in the old man's eye which made him pause and think, "Here really was a subject worthy of the most serious consideration."
Willard was seized with a new inspiration. He put forth every effort to concentrate all the patriotic fire, force and action at his command into the painting. How well he suc- ceeded, the people have said.
Hugh Mosier, a fine old farmer and a good fifer, posed for the figure on the right. Willard used his father, with his strong Vermont face, for the old drummer. Feeble at the time, he did not live to see the painting finished. Harry Devereux, son of the late General Devereux, posed for the boy drummer.
He placed them in the most trying position men can be placed in-on the battle-field.
The painting was finished in time to be exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876. Hugh Mosier visited the Exposition. In appearance he suggested Simon Girty
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or Daniel Boone. While standing before the painting he was recognized by the crowd as the original of the fifer. He was given an ovation.
From Philadelphia the painting went to Boston for exhi- bition. The gentleman in charge requested to be allowed to add to the name "Yankee Doodle," "The Spirit of '76." A half- witted character, commonly known about the city as "Yankee Doodle," was being confused with the picture. The request was granted and "The Spirit of '76" had gradually superseded the original name.
The painting was purchased by General Devereux, who presented it to his native town of Marblehead, Mass.
It was taken from the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, and placed in Abbott Hall, Marblehead, near scenes where the real Spirit of '76 was born.
In 1912 the City of Cleveland ordered a reproduction of "The Spirit of '76" for the new City Hall. This Willard painted in his 76th year. He still resides in Cleveland.
LOUISE PATTERSON, AUTHOR
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ADDRESS BY MRS. S. LOUISE PATTERSON.
Winter and early spring, when food is scarce, are the best seasons to attract birds to yard and orchard, and to foster bird interests. The woodpeckers, industrious hunters that they are after the hibernating insects and their larvae, keenly appreciate a little hospitality in the form of suet and peanuts. In return they will clean our shade and fruit trees, and in the spring the returning songbirds follow them to their food stations and continue the work after the woodpeckers have retired to the deep woods. Bird houses should be put up in winter that they may become storm-proof before needed. All such tokens of hos- pitality and good will to birds attract other species beside those that make use of them, and whoso thus neighbors with birds will find them veritable teachers of thrift and content- ment, helpers and entertainers, and in time objects of affection- ate concern. The most isolated dwelling may have cheer and diversion by simply attracting birds. Nay, more, when neigh- boring with birds, one is unconsciously led into an ever widen- ing realm of Nature. The green earth, the brown fields, shrubs, trees, all these become interesting since they are the birds' nurseries, feeding places, dwellings. And birds will lure one out at all times of the day so that there is made acquaintance with the dawn, the dew, sunrise, sunset, and starlight. And to be drawn to scenes and objects that are the handiwork of God is to be drawn ever closer to Him.
By means of a hundred or more scenes of bird life repro- duced in colors Mrs. Patterson shows how she has attracted bird neighbors, and what pleasure, instruction and inspiration they afford.
The following are some of her literary works:
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Books: Pussy Meow, the Autobiography of a Cat; Letters from Pussycatville; Kitty Kat Kimmie.
Magazine articles: A Pestalozzian Pilgrimage, published in the Chautauquan September, 1900, and various articles on birds, published in Country Life in America, The Youth's Com- panion, The School Arts Magazine, etc.
I also give a lecture, "My Bird Neighbors," profusely illus- trated with slides taken from my own photographic plates.
As for civics, I stand for :
1. Peace by arbitration and cessation of all sanguinary warfare between nations.
2. Political enfranchisement of women.
3. Abolition of the liquor traffic.
4. Justice to neglected, misunderstood childhood.
5. Manual and religious, as well as mental training of the young; in other words the development and training of what Pestalozzi called the three h's-head, heart and hand.
Special Schools for backward children, and permanent
6. custodial care of mental defectives.
7. Homeplacing for orphans instead of asylums, and pen- sions for the aged poor instead of the almshouse.
8. Intermediate sentence for lawbreakers.
9. Abolition of the county jail.
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10. Compulsory birth registration and abolition of child labor.
11. Conservation of all our natural resources including wild birds.
12. Abolition of the capture of wild animals by trapping.
13. Single tax,
and for many more things. But thirteen is my lucky number, so I will stop here.
Wishing you success in your noble undertaking, I am
Yours very sincerely,
MRS. S. LOUISE PATTERSON.
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Mrs. W. G. Rose is one of the pioneer club women of Cleve- land. She has been active in every step women of this city have taken publicly, often being herself the instigator of the move- ment.
She has belonged to many organizations and committees formed to influence public opinion in the way of reforms, and through these committees many things have come to pass for the civic improvement of the city. The story of Mrs. Rose's work, in which she is earnest, steadfast and indefatigable, is a long one and cannot be told here, but a brief word for what she is doing for children may be given. She instituted the plan of turning vacant lots into playgrounds for children for several summers, and she superintended their play personally; she fostered the growth of the summer schools; in connection with the Health Protective Association, she organized children into a little society bound to protect the orderliness and neatness of the city streets. She has many other plans for using the energies of children to good ends and believes that they may be trained in good citizenship in childhood.
Women interested in the abatement of smoke, discussed the natural gas ordinance and roasted Professor Benjamin in the school headquarters assembly room, Tuesday. Mrs. Louise Southworth said:
"We women are here to discuss whether natural gas will improve the cleanliness of our city. We want our city fathers to pass this ordinance, and I think every woman in the city should sign a petition to that effect."
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"I returned from California recently," said Mrs. Martha Rose, "and found no dirt or smoke out there. The train we traveled on, after four days, was cleaner than our homes are, each morning.
"I was on Broadway, the other day, and saw four chimneys belching out smoke. I learned they were the Standard Oil Co.'s chimneys. Professor Benjamin's ordinance says they must smoke only five minutes. I watched these, for an hour, and when I left they were still smoking. If this gas ordinance will give us relief, let us demand its passage."
"We want cheaper and better light, too," interjected Mrs. E. L. Whitehead.
"If we get natural gas," said Mrs. M. Slocum, "can we force the manufacturers to use it?"
"No," said M. B. Daly, of the East Ohio Gas Co. "It is too expensive."
"And will you pay the city a bonus on the franchise?" queried Mrs. Rose.
"No, we can't afford to," said Daly.
"It will reduce the smoke, however," said Mayor Tom.
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MRS. CAROLINE M. SEVERANCE.
Mrs. Caroline Seymour Severance was born January 12, 1820, in Cambridge, N. Y.
On August 27, 1840, she married a banker of Cleveland, Mr. J. C. Severance.
She was with Fanny Gage and Sojourner Truth in Akron, Ohio, and from that meeting was founded the Ohio Suffrage Association.
She was in New York city at the Temperance Convention when Antoinette Brown, an accredited delegate, and was re- fused because of her age. Mrs. Severance at once wrote a paper entitled, "Humanity." It received immense hearing and was repeated in Tremont Temple.
In 1895 the family removed to Los Angeles, California, where in her reform work she was made president of the Kin- dergarten Association and succeeded in putting Kindergartens in nine schools. She is called The First Club Woman of Our Country.
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THE SEA AND SHORE
Paper Read by Miss M. C. Quintrell, before the Science Con- gress of the World's Fair, Chicago, Aug. 24, 1893.
Sea and Shore-magic words! How they fill the poor in- valid's heart with joy, and his weary spirit with gladness! Even to the little children the moments will not pass quickly enough that will bring them to those charmed scenes which. fill their minds with longings to be there again. But while we praise those awe-inspiring monuments of towering grandeur that hold the waters in the hollow of their hands, we seldom think upon the tremendous forces that have torn and convulsed the land with mighty contortions, through aeons upon aeons of time-down the ages long departed-those same mighty bulwarks of strength that now bid defiance to old Ocean's fiercest storms, and stand in their majestic grandeur, the peer- less sovereigns of the earth. They alone can say to the surg- ing billows, "Thus far shalt thou come and no farther."
How we love to wander on the beautiful seashore and gaze far, far away over the distant blue waters, and try to compre- hend their vast extent, but it seems like trying to comprehend eternity itself, and we are lost in wonder and admiration.
But we must cease our musings. Pick up that little crystal- line pebble at your feet and listen to its story. It begins: I first became conscious of my existence far, far down, fifty thousand feet beneath the spot where you now stand. I belong to that old and distinguished family of rocks-the Metamorphic. The rocks of this class are stratified like sedimentary, but crystalline like igneous rocks. Their origin is evidently sedi- mentary, but they have been subsequently subjected to heat and other agents, which have wonderfully changed their struc-
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ture. For this reason we are called metamorphic rocks. Meta- morphism has taken place in all geographical periods, and is now doubtless progressing in deeply buried strata. We think the activity of vegetable and animal life, the rush of business along the crowded street, is all that is going on now, but we have no idea of the great laboratory of the busy earth, where even now is being accomplished great constructive work that shall so change the face of the globe, that in a million years from now it will seem like an entirely different sphere. I was very quiet for some time, deeply imbedded far down in my resting place, when one day there were terrible commotions all around me, and by one tremendous throe of mother earth the Metamorphic rocks were outpoured upon the surface. Ge- ologists say the cause was either the elastic force of the steam generated, or the pressure or squeezing produced by the folding of the crust of the earth, so common in mountainous regions. For indeed many of the mountains are children born of the sea, and the sea has been singing lullabys to them ever since.
Every portion of the earth's crust has been worked over and over again, passing through the several conditions of soil, sediment, stratified rock, metamorphic rock and igneous rock, perhaps many times in the course of geological history-that riddle of the painful earth.
Although found so many thousands of feet in thickness, also cover areas extending to hundreds of thousands of square miles.
The Metamorphis are considered the most beautiful of all rocks. What can be more beautiful than malachite, jasper, amethyst, garnets, marble and others too numerous to men- tion, arrayed in every tint and shade of gorgeous color? Our precious gems have ever allured with delight the enraptured eye of the children of men, for :
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"Men may come and men may go, But we charm on forever."
Indeed we are told that the walls of the New Jerusalem are garnished with all manner of precious stones. "The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third a chalce- dony, the fourth an emerald, the fifth sardonyx, the sixth sar- dius, the seventh chrysolyte, the eighth beryl, the ninth a topaz, the tenth a chrysoprasus, the eleventh a jacinth, the twelfth an amethyst"-all metamorphic stones, as though to teach us that naught but what has gone through the fiery ordeal of purification can be accepted to adorn that glorious abode. No wonder the geologist loves to point with joy to those beauti- ful stones in his cherished collection. In fact, he needs nothing more than the metamorphic rocks to make his interesting and valuable cabinet. No wonder also is it that man has chosen these same stones to build his monuments, on which he would record his fellow man's noblest deeds and grandest qualities.
Originally, I belonged to that massive bulwark that rises before you. My neighbors were the family of the Palaeozoics, and we dwelt there for many years, till one night, in a terrific storm, I was detached from my abiding place and washed to the bottom of the sea, and afterwards was tossed hither and thither till I lay at your feet, the battered and rounded pebble that you found me. Perhaps stones are not the only things that the tossing's and buffetings of life have made into symmetrical and rounded characters.
We were very much interested a short time ago in a picnic on this beach one beautiful day in spring. Fifteen ladies, call- ing themselves the "Science Club," had come to spend the day. Choosing a delightful spot beneath the shadow of an overhang- ing rock, they spread two large snowy damask table cloths
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on the pure, smooth sand. On one they placed a bountiful colla- tion of everything tempting and healthful-viands they them- selves had prepared-a feast worthy of the gods. But the other was the pride of their hearts, for each and every one of them had agreed to bring her choicest treasure to grace the rare and costly display they were soon to make. Each lady selected the daintiest and brightest little pink sea weed she could find, with which she formed a mat on the damask, and on this placed her precious offering. Grandma A. had brought a beautiful display of corals. Mrs. S. had brought a malachite box, which a friend had brought her from Moscow, Russia. It was a beauty. The interior of the box was formed of the rarest and most beautiful pieces of strangely-textured, polished, green malachite. The outside was malachite, garnished with figures of cut amethysts and glacier crystals. Mrs. C. brought three exquisite Silurian crinoids-the beautiful stone-lilies. Who could have imagined that they had lain slumbering in their beauty for millions of years, so perfectly were they preserved? Mrs. K. had brought a large piece of the finest piece jasper, on which was wrought with cunning skill the Egyptian Sphinx. Mrs. G. had brought a very fine specimen of the cup sponge. Its brown fernlike enfoldings seen through a magnifying glass were exquisite. Mrs. A. had brought two rare and valuable Silurian fossils-the Receptaculties Formosus and the Lons- daleia Floriformis. Grandma R. had brought a cameo shell, on which was carved, "Columbus, though discouraged, still prays to God for strength to persevere." Mrs. N. had brought a beautiful Florentine Mosaic, the Prodigal's Return. "I like this," she said, as she displayed it, "because of the expression of that grand, old face-like God's great pity." Mrs. P. had brought an exquisitely-carved ivory cross, in which a large five-
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carat diamond sparkled in the bright sunlight, as though it said, "I hold in my possession the highest index of refraction- no other gem dares with me to compete." It seemed as though Mrs. P. had been rather presumptuous to bring so costly an offering. But we shall change our minds presently. Mrs. J. had brought two perfectly preserved fossils of the Jurassic period. One was the Ammonites Hymphreysianus, and its beautiful septa was so elaborately frilled that daintiest maiden was never arrayed like one of these. The other was the won- derful little sailor ancestor, the Arganauta Argo, whose family, mirabile dictu, is yet alive in our day and generation! Miss Q. had brought a pure, snow-white dove, sculptured from the finest Carrara marble. Her brother, who had given his life for his country, had brought it to her from Italy. It was sculptured with consummate skill. Each little shaft and vein of each little dainty feather was chiselled with perfect art. "I brought it to you Mary," he had said, "because of its beautiful emble- matic character." She had taken it from its shrine today for the first time. Mrs. W. had brought three precious little fossils -the Ammonites Cantes, the Ammonites Planicostatus, and the Ammonites Capricornis, which a dear friend had sent her from England. Good practical Mis. R. had brought some rare specimens of the coal ferns. The beautiful, exquisite, complex fronds, with their dichotomous veins and veinlets, with their ribs and mid-ribs, lay slumbering there so perfectly that they seemed to need only voice of the resurrection morn to call them into life and activity again. Mrs. P. had been requested to draw the lesson from the stones today. She said: "Of all the arts and sciences in the world, I think geology is certainly best intended for ladies. No one knows the solid comfort I take in my studies. I never know what it is to be lonely or have the
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blues. When John and Mary and the children have gone to their several places of amusement winter evenings, I take out my stones and enjoy them so much. It seems as though the little exquisite leaves were spread out, the little curious animals preserved, the beautiful crystals were fashioned for the patient, studious eye of woman to trace out and admire." To our lesson: In 1867 a Dutch farmer obtained from a peas- ant a bright stone which his children were using as a plaything, and thus the diamond fields of South Africa were discovered. The stone was sent to the Cape where its true nature as a dia- mond was recognized, and subsequently forwarded to the Paris Exhibition and sold for $2,500. In 1893 some relentless, pre- sumptuous men are taking the words of Holy Writ and are casting them in the mire and dirt-using them as playthings to raise the hoot and sneer of the vicious and the incredulous! Shall we not with persevering zeal wash away the mud from the jewels of God's Holy Word, and use them to adorn our daily lives? For
"The dear Lord's best interpreters Are humble human souls; The gospel of a life like theirs, Is more than books or scrolls."
There was silence for some minutes, and
"The beautiful blue sea Lapsed lightly as if Jesus spoke, And it were Galilee;"
But we must travel on and leave them. As we journey along the coast, one scene after another meets the eye. Here the bold granite cliffs lift their towering heads, sparkling in the bright sunlight, a thousand feet into the air. There the soft strata tilt and fold in many complicated ways, arrayed
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in all their varied colors till the scene is one of marvelous beauty. At one time we see the peculiar aspects afforded by the wonderful coral reefs of Florida, at another the strange but often picturesque effects produced where volcanoes have built their cones along the shore, or thrown them up from the depth of the ocean.
We observe from time to time that the lands are con- stantly wearing away by the action of the rains, rivers, and glaciers, and the sea floor is taking the sediments which the waters have brought to it, and is arranging them in new deposits. The result would be that in time the shores would entirely disappear, and the seas be filled with the spoils they had won from them. But there are compensations to this ac- tion. Geologists tell us that "The lands are constantly grow- ing upward from the action of these forces, which elevate moun- tain chains; probably also the whole of the vast ridge which constitutes the body of each continent is also characterized by a massive upward growth; at the same time the ocean basins seem to be ever deepening by the down sinking of their floors. The result of these, which Mr. N. S. Shaler so aptly terms 'The beautiful compensating movements,' is that, although that most ancient contest between land and sea is constantly going on, neither side will ever be likely to be victorious-the result will be for the profit of the whole."
Again and again we travel from New York northward, we find the rocky faces of the shore more or less rounded by the action of the ice during the glacial period, and we can also see the scratches which so plainly tell of the ice time. But we must look above to find them, not below, where the waves do their most effective work. For with a terrific force does old Ocean use her heavy artillery against the assaulted cliffs, some-
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times hurling rocks weighing several hundred tons far in on the land. We are reminded also at this point of the great force with which the waves throw the spray, sometimes to a height of 117 feet, equivalent to a pressure of nearly three tons per square foot, and in violent storms the force is estimated at 6,000 pounds per square foot.
It is very interesting to observe the wave terraces, where the sea has cut back from time to time along the shore. Mother Ocean is also very careful to keep them swept clean by the swift stormborn rivers of the coasts. "A most vigilant housewife is Mistress Ocean," as Mrs. Lecks remarked to Mrs. Aleshine; not one speck of dust or coal-smoke in all her vast dominion.
Time fails me to tell of the beautiful forms of the shore structures, often simulating the noblest results of architecture -the coast arches, the natural bridges and rocky caverns. But let us pause before some pulpit rocks, for we would bear the sermon of the stones away, while the spacious firmament above and the perpetual seas beneath unite in the anthem, "In wis- dom hast Thou made us all." The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice !
ASBESTOS CLOTH AND CLOTHING
Paper Read Before Sorosis, by Mrs. J. Elliot Snow, November 23, 1893.
While visiting the World's Columbian Exposition and view- ing the exhibits of the nations, my thoughts were at first of things which man had wrought. Surely, thought I, there "is no wisdom, nor skill, nor knowledge, of which man has not be- come master. He has tunneled mountains; he has spanned rivers; he has encircled the globe with railroads and telegraphs. By his methods of rapid transit he has gathered in this fair
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and beautiful city of glistening white, thousands upon thousands of specimens of his handiwork, and has invited the intelligent of all lands to come, behold, and admire."
In the presence of this marvelous display of the arts and industries of the various tribes and races of mankind, there seemed for the time no homage too great, no adoration too exalted, to be paid to him, whose wisdom, skill and ingenuity had planned and executed it all. But as I had passed on and beheld the fruits of the earth, the cereals, the minerals, the precious stones and metals, the gifts of a beneficent Heavenly Father, my thoughts went out in greater adoration to Him, "in whose hand our breath is."
Of all the productions of the earth nothing to me seemed more marvelous than what we call mineral wool, or asbestos. The Canada building was full of it. It was there in all stages, from the apparently solid rock as quarried from the earth, to the wool plucked into filmy feathery masses, spun into threads, the threads woven into cloth and the cloth manufactured into clothing. The clothing consisted mainly of such garments as are worn by firemen. There were overcoats, caps and boots, blouses, shirts and pants. The peculiarity of the material is that firemen do not burn in it, nor water make any impression upon it.
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