Centennial history of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, Part 23

Author: Stocker, Rhamanthus Menville, 1848-
Publication date: 1887
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : R. T. Peck
Number of Pages: 1318

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The following is taken from a tribute paid to her brother, Hon. Davis Dimock, Jr., who died while a member of Congress :

Thou art gone, 'midst honors, to the tomb, and all the people mourn,

Who twined a wreath around thy brow, which now is from thee torn-

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To crown anew the victor Death, who seeks from earth to win

The bright, the beautiful and great, as the trophies meet for him.

Thou art gone, but oh! thou art gone not where thy country calls for thee,

And a vacant seat is in the halls of our nation great and free,

Which was thine to fill for years to come, with bright- ness round thy name,

And with deepest love for the nation's weal, thou wouldst have filled the same.

* *

Thou art gone, and now the grief and woe that fancy cannot paint,

Which sheds such blight on human hearts, that makes them fail and faint,

Which withers all their dearest joys, and changes life to gloom,

Are theirs who loved, but could not save thee from the voiceless tomb.

* * * * * *

Thou art gone, and o'er thy noble form death triumphs in his power-

But there is coming, on swift wing, in time the des- tined hour

When he in whom was all thy hope will take from death the prize,

And, robed in beauty and in light, thou wilt from dust arise.

ANNA DRINKER wrote poetry under the nom de plume of Edith May. The pages of the Home Journal, edited by N. P. Willis and George Morris, bore ample evidence of her genius. Her pocms were published in book- form, by a Philadelphia house, in 1851, prefaced by a tribute from N. P. Willis. She also pub- lished, in 1855,"Tales and Poems for Children." Miss Blackman writes :" It has been remarked 'she might have sat for her own Theodora.'

"In her eyes are tranquil shadows Lofty thoughts alone can make, Like the darkness thrown by mountains O'er a lake."

In a sketch of the fair authoress, written by Miss Susan E. Dickinson in 1879, she said : "When Miss Drinker began to write, Susque- hanna County still held countless lovely soli- tudes, where only the wild deer ranged, or hunters' and poets' footsteps delighted to roam. Many of her poems pictured this fair and gra- cious region with its peculiar charms. Not a few, and these the longest, were narrative poems,

full of dramatic fire and fervor, showing how her imaginative powers were seizing upon and bringing out the strength, the beauty, the romance lying in the life around her."

The following are extracts from her poems :

STORM AT TWILIGHT.

The roar of a chafed lion in his lair Begirt by leveled spears : A sudden flash, Intense, yet wavering, like a beast's fierce eye Searching the darkness. The wild lay of winds Sweeps the burnt plains of heaven, and from afar, Linked clouds are riding up like eager horsemen, Javelin in hand. From the moth wings of twilight There falls unwonted shadow, and strange gloom Cloisters the unwilling stars. The sky is roofed With tempest, and the moon's scant rays fall through Like light let dimly through fissured rock Vaulting a cavern. To the horizon, The green sea of the forest has rolled back Its leveled billows, and where mast-like trees Sway to its bosom, here and there, a vine Braided to some pine's bare shaft, clings, rocked aloft Like a bold mariner! There is no bough But lifteth an appealing arm to heaven. The scudding grass is shivered as it flies And herbs and flowers crouch to their mother earth Like frightened children. "Tis more terrible, When the near thunder speaks, and the fleet wind Stops like a steed that knows his rider's voice; For, oh, the hush that follows is the calm Of a despairing heart, and, as a maniac Loses his grief in raving, the mad storm, Weeping fast tears, awakens with a sob From its blank desolation, and shrieks on !

UNREST.

Rest for awhile ! I'm tempest-tossed to-day ; Bar out the sunshine. Let importunate life, Beating forever with impatient hand My soul's closed portals, only rouse within Dull, dreamy echoes. In a forest calm Builds sleep, the white dove. As a bird she rides The lulled waves of the soul. To-day my thoughts Hunt me like hounds; my senses, wide awake, Watch for the touch that thrills them; every sound Falls through the listening air unscabbarded ; And if sleep comes, 'tis but a transient dream That flits betwixt me and the light of life, Alighting never.

TWO CHANTS.

"Te Deum Laudamus!" through green river mead- ows,

Where noon, pacing slow, holds in leash the fleet shadows,

Blown like a cloud from St. Agatha's altar,

Drifts down the south wind and loud-chanted psalter ;

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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

Under the light of the tapers lies sleeping One whose fair soul was not whitened by weeping.

Sorrow stood far from her-love, in mute reverence, Knelt to the shrine of her starry intelligence, Charmed by her music of being, dull cavil Lay coiled in her presence ; and lion-like evil, Lying in wait for her soul frail and tender, Crouching at the blaze of its virginal splendor.

Over her calm face a radiance immortal Flows from the smile at the mouth's silent portal- They who kueel round her from inatins till even, As they kneel at the tombs of the blessed in heaven, Think not to question that presence resplendent Where fled the soul that is shining ascendent.

Sorrow, that writes with the pen of an angel, God's burning thoughts through her mystic evangel ; Passion, that, laden with memorics tender, Crowns himself king with their tropical splendor ; Weeping repentance, with hand lifted palely- These were the spirits that walked with her daily.

FOREST SCENE.

I know a forest vast and old- A shade so deep, so darkly green, That morning sends her shaft of gold In vain to pierce its leafy screen.

I know a brake where sleeps the fawn- The soft-eyed fawn through noon's repose, For noon, with all the calm of dawn, Lies hushed beneath those dewy boughs.

From slippery ledge, from moss-grown rock, Dash the swift waters at a bound,

And from the foam that veils the shock, Floats every wavelet, sparkle-crowned. By brake and dell and lawny glade, O'er gnarled root, o'er mossy stone,

Beneath the forest's emerald shade The brook winds murmuring, chiding on.

GEORGE CATLIN, son of Putnam and Polly (Sutton) Catlin, was born in Wyoming Valley in 1796. He came to Brooklyn, Susquehanna County, with his father, where he taught school. His father designed him for the law and to that end sent him to Reeves' school, at Litchfield, Conn., where he remained two years. He was admitted to the Susquehanna County bar Feb-

ruary 20, 1820. At that time his brother Charles resided where Mrs. Webb now lives. But law was not suited to young Catlin's tastes or inclinations. He says :

" After having covered nearly every inch of the lawyer's table (and even encroached upon the judges' bench) with pen-knife, pen and ink, and pencil sketches of judges, juries and culprits, I very delib- erately resolved to convert my law library into paint- pots and brushes, and to pursue painting as my future and apparently more agreeable profession."

1 " Art was his idolized profession. So strong did his passion become that he abandoned the law and went to New York, where he was soon engaged in the painting of portraits and minia- tures. In 1829, being then thirty-three years old, Mr. Catlin had his attention called to the fact that the pure American race was disap- pearing before the march of civilization. He therefore resolved to rescue from oblivion the types and customs of the unfortunate Indians. From that moment dated the commencement of his life-study; then he became a public bene- factor, and his subsequent career. was devoted to the cause of art and history, to which he has added a chapter that cannot be undervalued. In 1831 Mr. Catlin, though discouraged by his friends and the government, accompanied Gov- ernor Clark, of St. Louis, then superintendent of Indian affairs, in a western tour among the Winnebagos and Menomonies, the Shawanos, Sacs and Foxes, and with these interviews be- gan the series of his Indian paintings. After the close of the 'Black Hawk War' he visited Black Hawk and five of his warriors, prisoners at Jefferson Barracks, where he painted their portraits. In the following year he descended the Missouri River, from the mouth of the Yellowstone to St. Louis, in a canoe, with two men (a distance of two thousand miles), steering it with his own paddle. In that trip he visited and painted the Mandans, Crows, Black feet, K'nisteneux, Assinneboins, Minatarres, Rec- carrees, Sioux, Poncas and Iowas. During these voyages he was the correspondent of the New York Spectator. These letters were pub- lished in a volume entitled ‘Catlin's Life Among the North American Indians.'"

1 New York Tribune.

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1 " In the fall of 1837 Mr. Catlin lectured in New York, in connection with the exhibition of paintings, while Black Hawk, Keokuk and about fifty Indians from four tribes were present.

"In 1838 the value of his paintings was estimated at from $100,000 to $150,000.

"In eight years he visited about fifty tribes, and brought home more than six hundred oil-paintings (in every instance from nature) of portraits, land- scapes and Indian customs, and every article of their manufacture, such as weapons, costumes, wigwams, etc. He exhibited this collection in New York and Washington, and also in London and Paris. He had offers from noblemen in England for his collection, but he declined them, preferring to dispose of it in his own country. He offered it to the government of the United States for $65,000. The bill for its pur- chase was discussed in the Senate and lost by one vote. This was probably owing to the influence of H. R. Schoolcraft, who had endeavored to secure the use of Mr. Catlin's paintings to illustrate a work he contemplated editing for the United States; but Mr. Catlin had already incurred great labor and expense towards a publication of his own, and declined his proposition."

In 1852 he sailed to Venezuela and for sev- eral years was employed in exploring the inner- most parts of South America, interviewing scores of tribes of wild Indians. "Last Ram- bles in North and South America," from his pen, is a graphic description of his life in the wildernesses of those countries. He also wrote "Lifted and Subsided Rocks of North America," based on his observations ; also "North Ameri- can Folio," containing twenty-five plates of hunting scenes. As an author Mr. Catlin was peculiarly talented, and as an artist his paintings are spirited and accurate portraits and faithful and true landscapes. The remnant of his paint- ing can be seen at Washington, D. C., having been collected by the government at last. He died in 1872, at Jersey City, aged seventy-eight.

MISS EMILY C. BLACKMAN was born at Gilbertsville, Otsego County, N. Y., July 15, 1826. When she was three years old her father, Dr. J. Blackman, whose sketch will appear in the medical chapter, removed to Binghamton, where he resided seven years, removing to Montrose in 1836. Miss Blackman has a very distinct recollection of Binghamton, where shc first attended school; but her early education

was principally obtained at the Susquehanna County or Montrose Academy. At the age of fifteen she commenced teaching as an assistant in the academy, still continuing her studies, however. About this time she and her sister Many Ann planned to found a school; but her sister married soon after, and that destroyed one of Miss Blackman's early hopes. After she left school and teaching herc, she was preceptress at Towanda, also teaching three years at Chester, Delaware County, Pa. She has taught in the schools of Wisconsin and Illinois and Freed- man's school in Mississippi from 1866 to 1868. In fact, her whole life since she was fifteen has been that of an instructor in one way or another. During all these years she has been a student of languages and music. She studied music in New York and Philadelphia, and became an accomplished music-teacher.

In later years she has given more attention to the study of the languages, and is able to read the Testament in ten different languages. Miss Blackman is of a literary turn of mind, and during the time she was in the South she was a constant contributor to the press, and also while in Europe. Her greatest literary work is the "History of Susquehanna County," npon which she spent four years of conscientious, painstaking labor. No one but a historian can appreciate the labor required in searching through countless old dust-covered records, newspaper files and diaries, to ascertain a date, a name or a fact, which requires only a short sentence to express when found, and the interviewing of the oldest inhabitants, and the comparing of conflicting statements, all requiring method in arrangement, patience in research and perseverance until the desired information is obtained. All of these characteristics were made manifest in Miss Blackman's work, which has received many commendations from those most capable of criticising.

Miss Blackman united with the Presbyterian Church of Montrose when she was twelve years old, and has been active in every good work growing out of her relation thereto. The Home and Foreign Missions of the church, the Soldiers' Aid Society and Sanitary Commission during the war, and Frecdman's Aid, Woman's

Blackman.

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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

Christian Temperance Union, have all enlisted her sympathies and taken more or less of her time as secretary. More recently she has acted as superintendent of the work among the prison- ers in the Montrose jail. She has been across the continent twice and to Europe once, but the principal theatre of her labors has been at home, in Montrose, and throughout Susquehanna County. This brief outline but feebly indicates the manner of her education or the intense ac- tivity of her life. Being naturally susceptible

she can have the consolation of knowing that her life has not been unfruitful of good results at home; that it has been as usefully spent at Montrose, as it could have been any where.

REV. ELISHA MULFORD, LL. D .- While most men of letters who exert a great influence in their day and generation, and attain a national or even a world-wide reputation, are soon for- gotten, or live here only in name when they pass away, it is but rarely true that the really great men in the world's history attain any very

Emily Co. Blackman.

and conscientious, she drank freely at the foun- tain of knowledge and truth as presented to her understanding by her teachers, pastors and books. Being ambitious and persevering, she has ac- quired and imparted much information, even to the second generation as a teacher, and has watched the development of her pupils with that keen interest which a true teacher always feels in her pupils. Miss Blackman's hearing began to fail when she was teaching at Towan- da. If it had not been for this misfortune, she would have gone abroad as a missionary ; but

marked distinction while yet living. The former cultivate present and transient interests, and are . content with things as they are, if only they may secure the popular recognition, and attain thereby the temporal and often fictitious ap- plauses and honors of the world ; but the latter, in natural gifts and sympathies ahead of their age, and in love of truth for its own sake, are only satisfied in progressive and enduring work, and aspire to become the pioneers and prophets of a new dispensation. The subject of this brief sketch, although fairly successful in a worldly

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sense, is not an exception to this general rule. Well-known and appreciated by the widely- scattered few who sympathized with his ideas, he was, previous to his death, but little known. As the poet Whittier has since written of him : " Unnoted as the setting of a star

He passed ; and sect and party scarcely knew When from their midst a sage and seer withdrew To fitter audience, where the great dead are

In God's republic of the heart and mind, Leaving no purer, nobler soul behind."

And these whisperings are becoming day by day more frequent and distinct, and we believe will ultimately grow into the voices of a vast multitude in the ages to come, who shall have come to regard him as the "sage and seer" of this generation.

Dr. Mulford was born in Montrose, Pa., No- vember 19, 1833. His father was Sylvanus S. Mulford, a prominent and successful merchant, of pure English extraction. His family form- ed one of a social group of friends and relatives distinguished not only for their refined and intellectual character, but also for their practi- cal and business abilities. He was endowed with a rare combination of natural gifts, both physical and mental. He possessed a remark- able facility and beauty of expression, an im- passioned temperament, and a lofty style which, without affectation or haughtiness, carried with it the impression of greatness. Joined with these, he possessed a philosophie cast of mind- all of which gifts had been thoroughly cul- tured by the best discipline that could be se- cured in our schools, by travel, and by social intercourse with the best cultured minds at home and abroad.

Rev. Theodore T. Munger, D.D., in a brief review of his life and works in The Independent, also says :

" Dr. Mulford, previous to his death, was generally known only as the author of his books. His name, bare of all titles on the title-page of 'The Nation,' simply announced him as a writer. This work drew from Yale College an LL.D .; and he was thenceforth known as Dr. Mulford; but still he remained barely more than a name in the public inind. 'The Repub- lic of God,' published four years later, had run the gauntlet of three commencement seasons without attracting to its author the degree of D.D .; and so the anomaly becomes an unalterable fact that the

author of an original, able and learned work on theology secured no formal recognition in his day, where it might most be expected."

With this impression, that so far as regarded the general public, his great contributions to the religious and political advancement of the race were but little recognized, he died ; and we can hardly conceive of any more bitter experi- ence than that one who, in love of truth, had de- voted his life to its development in the con- sciousness of men, should, in his last moments, believe the popular mind wholly indifferent thereto. But no sooner had he gone than there arose whisperings that a really great man had lived and died in our midst unrecognized, and had left behind him imperishable works. He graduated at Yale College in the class of 1855; took an independent course of study for one year; studied theology at Andover, graduating in 1859 ; traveled and studied in Europe two years, thoroughly acquainting himself with the progress of English and German thought and research ; took orders in the Protestant Epis- copal Church in 1862, and subsequently be- came rector of a parish in Orange, N. J.

Though successful in his chosen profession, the management of his own and his wife's es- tates, requiring his presence and personal atten- tion, constrained him to resign his rectorship and retire to the seclusion of one of his farms, where he spent nearly twenty years of the subsequent period of his life. He was not nat- urally, as some have supposed, a recluse-one who enjoyed seclusion for its own sake-but souglit retirement only for the quiet essential to his great literary work. On the contrary, he emerged from his obscurity at every oppor- tunity presented to visit his many personal friends, and to acquaint himself with the affairs of the world. He was deeply in sympathy with humanity, and alive to all its interests. As Prof. Allen said of him in The Christian Union,-

"He felt an interest in all that came under his gaze, not merely high things, but things of small re- pute. The incidents of common life had a charm for

him. In the language of Wordsworth, he was wont

' Along life's commnon way

With sympathetic heart to stray, And with a soul of power.'"

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He was not a prolific writer, but what he wrote he elaborated with the greatest patience and care. His first book, " The Nation," pub- lished in Boston, 1870, had been the subject of his studies and reflections for many years. He was at least five years in producing the first manuscript after having set himself to the task, and subsequently re-wrote it again and again. Indeed, so great was his effort to make the book an accurate and complete exposition of its subject, he devoted to the correction of the proof-sheets as much time as would ordi- narily be required for a complete revision. When finally published, it arrested the atten- tion of some of the greatest scholars and thinkers, not only in this country, but also in Europe. It is said that Senator Sumner, casu- ally taking up the large volume in a book-store, became at once so deeply interested that he stood for hours as one transfixed while perusing its contents. He afterwards declared it to be " an ideally perfect work," and wrote, sending his personal congratulations to the author :

"I have read it from first to last with constant in- terest and sympathy. It is a most important contri- bution to our political literature, and cannot fail to strengthen and elevate our national life."

From England also came personal congratu- lations, and notably from F. D. Maurice, one of the most distinguished of British theological writers, and rightly deemed the great pioneer in the modern development of Christian thought.

From many distinguished men in this coun- try also came letters and reviews highly appre- ciative of the work.

His design and effort in this great work are to show that " Man is by nature a political be- ing;" that the nation has existence in the pur- pose of God, and is designed to be a chief medium in the moral development of the race. To use his own language: "The nation is the goal of history in the fulfilment of the highest political ideal." It is towards this goal the " nations move in the fulfilment of the life of humanity." It is "to work as one whose achievement passes beyond time, whose glory and honor are borne into the eternal City."

His second great work appeared in 1881,

eleven years later, and is entitled " The Repub- lic of God : An Institute in Theology." Both works might well have received the same title ; for, though one is political and the other theo- logical-the one treating of the nation, the other of the church-yet each, he believed and taught, has a similar design in the Divine mind. Both, when each shall have attained the goal of its earthly history, will merge in the kingdom of God, which is, in the true and ideal sense, a republic, self-governing, and whose only law is love.

" The Republic of God," although it has ap- parently attracted less attention than "The Nation," is, if possible, his greater work. It is, in reality, a prophecy of a glory to come-of the spiritual advent of the Christ in the minds and hearts of men.

In 1880 he was appointed to the position of lecturer in the Episcopal Theological School at Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he soon drew around him a class of enthusiastic students and disciples. Prof. Allen thus writes of his work there :

"His lectures, though few in number, were carefully elaborated, embodying the reflections of his mature life, with many deep thoughts, careful distinctions and many exquisite expres- sions. He dwelt chiefly upon the living God as the central principle of theology. In him theology rested, not in attributes or covenants or mechanical conceptions of revelation, not in doctrines either of the incarnation or atone- ment."

He died at his residence in Cambridge De- cember 9, 1885, and is buried in the old burial- ground at Concord, beside Emerson and many other distinguished men or letters. He left a wife-née Rachel Carmalt, a native also of this county and of excellent family -- and four chil- dren.

REV. EDWARD A. WARRINER was born in Agawam, Mass., and graduated at Union Col- lege in 1855. He taught school twelve years, and studied theology under Dr. Mombert at Lancaster, Pa., while he was principal of the Yates Institute. In 1866, while yet in deacon's orders, he was called to minister at Saint Paul's Church at Montrose, where he still remains. In

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1875 he published a thological novel entitled " Victor La Tourette," advocating broad church views, and which had a large influence and cir- culation ; five years later a poem in seven cantos entitled "Kear," and has now in press a theologi- cal work entitled "I am that I am; or, The Philo- sophie Basis of the Christian Faith." Mr. War- riner's poem, " Kear," is based on Indian legends and religious notions. The heroine is Eniskin, Tamanend's daughter, who is in love with Ne- panet, an Indian of her own tribe, the Lenni Lenape ; but she finally consents to become the bride of an Oneida chieftain in order to save her people from the vengeance of the Six Na- tions ; but, when the bride is sought, it is found that she has gone to the spirit land. The scene of the poem is laid at Montrose and along the Susquehanna. Tamanend, or St. Tammany, was a famous chief of the Lenni Lenape or Del- awares, and when the whites first knew Susque- hanna County the Six Nations had gained the victory over the Delawares, and Susquehanna County, lying between the tribes, may have been " dark and bloody ground."

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Centennial history of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, Part 23

Author: Stocker, Rhamanthus Menville, 1848- Publication date: 1887 Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : R. T. Peck Number of Pages: 1318

Author: Stocker, Rhamanthus Menville, 1848-
Publication date: 1887
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : R. T. Peck
Number of Pages: 1318