USA > West Virginia > Hampshire County > History of Hampshire County, West Virginia : from its earliest settlement to the present > Part 33
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With sweet flowers of adoration, Lottie Doon.
All homage you may ask Shall be given, Ere from us you shall go Back to heaven.
Earth's harps shall for you play A glad tune, If with us you will stay, Lottie Doon.
THE SPRING 'NEATH THE OLD GUM TREE. There is many a spot on the old home place That I'm wishing and longing to see, But the dearest of all is the meadow lot And the spring 'neath the old gum tree. At the harvest noon when the wheat in the field Waved a billowy, golden sea,
Round the clover heads the bumble bees croon By the spring 'neath the old gum tree.
Oh, the shade was sweet, and the grass was green While, merry harvesters, we
Spent a happy hour when we used to meet By the spring 'neath the old gum tree.
The spring bubbled up with a laugh on its lips, And danced away to the sea, While again and again we filled the cup
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From the spring 'neath the old gum tree. But those days are fled in the din of life And never more shall I be With the harvesters of then (who now are dead) By the spring 'neath the old gum tree.
So, there's many a spot on the old home place That I'm wishing and longing to see, But the dearest of all is the meadow lot, And the spring 'neath the old gum tree.
BOHEMIAN LOVE SONG. We are poor, dear heart, but we will feign That we a castle have in Spain.
When clouds are dark and storms are high. Together we will thither fly.
Around it spreads the living green, Above it bends the smiling sky; 'Twas meant, my love, that you and I Should reign within as king and queen.
We are sad, dear heart; but we will feign That we a castle have in Spain, Where tears flow not and hearts are light, Where lips are red and eyes are bright. We are faint, dear heart, but we will feign That we a castle have in Spain, Where love doth wield her magic spell And faith and hope together dwell. The windows dance a diamond sheen, The slim spires sparkle toward the sky; I am sure, my love, that you and I Ere long shall reign there king and queen.
The following verses are samples of a translation from the French of Beranger, "Shooting Stars:"
Shepherd, say you that in the skies
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Gleams the star that guides our sail ? 'Tis so, my child; but from our eyes Night hides that star within her veil.
Shepherd, 'tis thought, with mystic art, You read the secret of the skies:
What is that star which downward darts, Which darts, darts and darting dies?
My child, an erring mortal dies,
And instant downward shoots his star; He drank and sang amid the cries
Of friends whose joys no hatred mars.
Happy he sleeps, nor moves, nor starts; After the wine he quiet lies- Another star is seen which darts, Which darts, darts and darting dies.
MARSHALL S. CORNWELL was born in Hampshire county, October 18, 1871. His boyhood was spent on his father's farm, about twelve miles from Romney, where he had the benefit of the country schools. He ventured upon busi- ness for himself as editor of the Gazette, at Petersburg, Grant county, West Virginia. He made a success of this, and by his vigorous editorials attracted attention beyond the borders of his county. He was invited by United States Senator Stephen B. Elkins to take charge of the Inter- mountain, a newspaper published at Elkins, in Randolph county, West Virginia. He accepted the position and built up an excellent paper. He filled a position as clerk during a session of the state legislature at Charleston. His health failed, and in 1896 he was obliged to give up his newspaper work. He spent the winter in Florida, where he was not idle, but occupied his time studying the charac- ter of the country and people. The result was, he wrote with a keen appreciation of what he saw.
The letter which will be found below was written by 31
,
MARSHALL S. CORNWELL.
DIBLIC LIBRARY
TOP LENOX AND ILDEN FOUNDATIONS
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James Whitcomb Riley, the poet, and the poem to which it refers is also given:
"INDIANAPOLIS, IND., March 12, 1897.
"M. S. CORNWELL, ESQ. DEAR SIR :- By the poems you send me, especially the one 'Success,' your gift seems gen- uine and far above that indicated in verse, meeting general approval. Your own philosophy in last stanzas of 'Suc- cess' contains the entire creed of fame or failure for the striver, in any line of art, in this world's order and condi- tions. You can succeed, but must be of stoutest heart and hope and patience-just as every master before our time. Therefore let us read their lines as well as work's, and in between the lines down fathoms deep. Remain firmly superior to all trials; keep sound of soul and always hale of faith in all good things. Work and enduringly rejoice in your work and utter it ever like a jubilant prayer.
"Fraternally yours, "JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY."
SUCCESS.
Two ships sail over the harbor bar With the flush of the morning breeze, And both are bound for a haven far O'er the shimmering summer seas. With sails all set, fair wind and tide, They steer for the open main;
But little they reck of the billows wide Ere they anchor safe again.
There is one perchance, ere the summer is done, That reaches the port afar;
She hears the sound of the welcoming gun As she crosses the harbor bar.
. The haven she reaches, success, 'tis said, Is the end of a perilous trip. Perhaps the bravest and best are dead Who sailed in the fortunate ship.
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The other, bereft of shroud and sail, At the mercy of wind and tide, Is swept by the might of the pitiless gale 'Neath the billows dark and wide. But 'tis only the one in the harbor there That receiveth the meed of praise; The other sailed when the morn was fair, And was lost in the stormy ways. And so to men who have won renown In the weary battle of life, There cometh at last the victor's crown, Not to him who fell in the strife. For the world recks not of those who fail, Nor cares what their trials are, Only praises the ship that with swelling sail Comes in o'er the harbor bar.
SOME DAY.
Some day through the mists of the earthly night We shall catch the gleam of the harbor light That shines for aye on the far off shore Where dwell the loved who have gone before; We shall anchor safe from our stormy way In that haven of rest, some day, some day. Some day our sorrows will all be o'er And we'll rest from trouble forevermore: When over the river's rolling tide We shall "strike glad hands" on the other side. In the city celestial, at last we may Rest in peace, some day, some day. Some day will close these weary eyes That shall look no more on the carthly skies, And over the heart that has ceased to beat Kind hands will place fresh flowers sweet; But my soul shall hear the celestial lay, Sweet pæans of praise, some day.
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AN INVOCATION. Give me oh Lord of Life, I pray A little love lest I should stray. "Tis this I ask and this alway Unto the end of life's brief day.
I crave no storm of passion's flood That madly stirs the human blood, Only the love of friend for friend- And it be faithful to the end.
For human hearts have human needs; And naught of piety or creeds, Of peace can give to souls forlorn That stem alone life's battle-storm.
I ask not wisdom-the divine; For death shall make this soul of mine To heights and depths of knowledge vast When outworn dreams of earth are past.
A little love alone I crave To light my pathway to the grave- The hand of friendship tried and strong To steer my shattered barque along, Until at last the sail is furled In the wide bay where tempest hurled Storm-riven wrecks from time's rough sea Ride safe through all eternity!
DR. ROBERT NEWMAN, author of a book on the Treat- ment of Dropsy, was a noted man in his day. He wrote many books, but published only the one above mentioned. He was philosophical in his tastes; and, while he practiced medicine and achieved distinction in that field, he found time to prosecute investigation along other lines. He was born in Culpeper county, Virginia, in 1770. His youth passed with nothing to distinguish him from others of his age and circumstances. He was the youngest of six
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brothers, and of a delicate constitution. In 1791 all six brothers joined the army under General Arthur St. Clair, and took part in the battle of November 4, of that year, against the Indians north of Cincinnati. St. Clair's defeat is one of the saddest pages in American history. Of the nine hundred soldiers who went into action, more than six hundred were left dead on the field of battle. They had met the allied army of all the Indian tribes of Ohio and Indiana: With this overwhelming force, they,
"Fought eye to eye and hand to hand; Alas, 'twas but to die! In vain the rifle's deadly flash Scorched eagle plume and wampum sash, The hatchet hissed on high; And down they fell in crimson heaps, Like the ripe grain the sickle reaps."
The exhausted and panic stricken fugitives made their escape to Fort Jefferson, near Cincinnati. Among those fugitives was the subject of this sketch, Robert Newman. Of the six brothers who went into the fight, he alone escaped with his life. It might be supposed that he would . have been satisfied with his experience and would have been content to return to the quietude of his Virginia home, and remain with his books, of which he was very fond. But, although he loved books much, he loved adven- ture more; and we next find him seeking his fortune on the banks of the Mississippi, the first years of the nine- teenth century. About that time Burr and Blannerhassett were engaged in a mysterious undertaking, never fully understood, but believed to have for its object the setting up of a government on territory of Texas, which then belonged to Spain. At any rate, Burr and Blannerhassett were arrested, together with others, and were tried in Richmond. Robert Newman was, by many, believed to have knowledge of the designs of Burr and his associates.
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He was summoned to Richmond as a witness, but, if he had any knowledge on the subject, he did not divulge it. He often spoke of the matter, but was careful in his state- ments, except that he frequently said that he considered the undertaking a speculation rather than a plot against the government of the United States or any other govern- ment.
Returning from the south he married Mrs. Elizabeth Hancock, formerly Miss Neale, and made his home on the Potomac at Old Town, where he commenced the practice of medicine. He removed to Romney in 1820, when he was fifty years old, and resided there ever afterwards, en- joying much local celebrity, especially in the treatment of dropsy and consumption.
His views on religion have been spoken of in another chapter of this book, and his history as a physician in still another. It is proper here, in connection with his literary labors, to speak of his scientific studies. He was a man who merited notice in several fields of labor, in medicine, in science, in literature and religion. In astronomy he found pleasure, formulating theories which could not then, and cannot now, be substantiated by facts. Nor did he claim to substantiate them, and he knew of his failure, but he still hoped that the future would show that he was right. He wrote extended treatises on the subject, which he left in manuscript at his death. The outline of his theory of the movements of the heavenly bodies, as con- tained in his manuscript works, is as follows: Isaac New- ton was wrong in claiming that planets, and all heavenly bodies, are held in their orbits by the balancing of the cen- trifugal and centipetal forces, but these bodies are held apart by the elasticity of their respective atmospheres, which are in contact. He claimed that worlds are not so far apart, nor so far from ours, as mathematicians bad calculated them to be; not that mathematics was unrelia- ble as a science, but that correct data had not been obtained
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on which to base the calculations. He replaced gravita- tion by magnetism, but in attempting to show how all known celestial phenomena could be thus accounted for, he encountered problems which he could solve only by calling in "electricity" as an assistant to magnetism. Had he been so fortunate as to have attained a thorough educa- tion he would not have attributed to electricity everything which could not be explained.
Richard Newman was one of the founders, and most earnest supporters, of the Romney Literary society. He died January 28, 1843, in his seventy-seventh year.
WILLIAM HENRY FOOTE is in the foremost rank among the literary men of Hampshire county, where he spent a long life of activity working in the cause of education, the church, and literature. The publication by which he is best known was "Sketches of Virginia," printed in Phila- delphia in 1850, with a second and enlarged edition later. It is the best history of the Presbyterian church in Vir- ginia that had been written at that time; yet, it is not strictly a church history, but deals with persons, places and events.
JOHN O. CASLER, author of a book widely read in Hamp- shire county, Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade, has contributed to the cause of literature and history; to the latter by preserving from oblivion facts which were fast passing beyond recall; to the former by writing in a plain and entertaining style. He was born in Frederick county, Virginia, nine miles from Winchester, in 1838. His mother's maiden name was Hieronimous, an old family dating back to the Revolutionary war. In 1841 his father moved his family to Springfield, in Hampshire county, and there the subject of this sketch grew to manhood. Early in 1859 he came to the conclusion, so common with the energetic young men of West Virginia, that the west offered better opportunities than could be found in his na- tive state, and he took his departure, and landed in Cass
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county, Missouri. He lived two years in that state, and no doubt would have remained had not the signs of the times portended war. He could have found all the fight- ing he wanted in Missouri, as subsequent events proved, but he preferred to cast his fortunes with Virginia, which he regarded as his home. He, therefore, returned to Winchester in the spring of 1861, and after visiting rela- tives in Frederick county, he passed into Hampshire, and at Blue's Gap, on the road between Romney and Winches- ter, he joined the company of Captain P. T. Grace, which had been organized at Springfield, and with nearly all the men he was personally acquainted. His book gives his experience in the war; and it has been consulted with ad- vantage by the authors of the present history of Hamp- shire. It was published at Guthrie, Oklahoma, in 1893.
HOWARD HILL JOHNSON comes of a sturdy race of ances- tors remarkable for sterling qualities of mind and heart, and in some instances for broad culture and extensive learning. His father, Colonel Jacob F. Johnson, was for fifty years a prominent citizen of Pendleton county, and represented his county in the legislature of 1872-3. He held many other offices of trust and responsibility. His grandfather, James Johnson, represented the same county in the legislature of Virginia several times, and was a member of the constitutional convention of 1829. His great-grandfather, Joseph Johnson, was born in Pennsyl- vania of English parents, in the early part of the eighteenth century, and migrated to the Shenandoah valley during that remarkable movement which settled that part of Vir- ginia with the ancestors of the present enlightened popu- lation. He married there, and finally settled in Pendleton county about the time of the Revolutionary war, or shortly before, where he raised a family of several children late in life. He was past age for service, and his children were not old enough to engage actively in the struggle for independence.
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The subject of this sketch was born at the old family home on Friend's run, near Franklin, in Pendleton county, Virginia, now West Virginia, February 19, 1846, and was soon found to be, like his elder brother James, almost totally blind. His parents were persons of superior judgment and information, and wisely arranged for the most favorable conditions to give their unfortunate offspring equal opportunities and chances with their more fortunate brothers and sisters. The older brother was entered at the institution for the deaf and the blind at Staunton in 1848, and finished the usual course there in 1855. He became his younger brother's instructor at once, and prepared him for school with great care and ability. Two years later Howard was entered at the same school, and made rapid progress till he was obliged to leave off his training by the opening of the war 1861. By this time James had established himself as a teacher in his native county, and the younger brother's education was little in- terrupted, as he went immediately into his brother's school, where he was taught just as other children were taught, with the single exception, that his lessons were read to him by his schoolmates instead of by himself. To this circumstance, more than to any other, he attributes much of the success he may be thought to have achieved as a teacher of the blind.
After two years he was considered to have covered enough ground to warrant his being placed in a classical school near New Market, Virginia, under the care of Jos- eph Saliards, a most remarkable scholar in many respects.
During the two years he spent in this school under his learned preceptor he made considerable progress in math- ematics, literature, science, and the languages, and when the war closed he and his brother opened a school of high grade at Franklin, in which many of the young men of the neighborhood who had been deprived by the war of their
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school advantages, found ample opportunity of preparing themselves for the duties of life and business.
In 1866 the institution at Staunton offered the young student-teacher advantages in the prosecution of his studies, which he availed himself of for one more term, greatly to his advancement. In September, 1867, he began a school at Franklin under the provisions of the free school system which had just gone into effect in Pendleton county. The next year he was called to Moorefield, where he taught the public school for three successive terms, with great acceptance.
During his years of early teaching he had noticed with regret and concern, that there was no provision in the gen- eral system for the education of the blind in his native state, and he soon set for himself the task of supplying this defect, and of removing from the fair fame of his be- loved state this apparent reproach. Accordingly, in 1870, he realized his most sanguine expectations in seeing the establishment of a school for the education of the deaf and the blind at Romney, in which he was made the principal teacher in the blind department, and where he is at this writing, entering on his twenty-eighth term of service.
In 1877 Mr. Johnson received from the Virginia Poly- technic institute at New Market, the successor to his old friend's school, the degree of A. M. through the kind par- tiality of Professor Saliards, an honor not unworthily be- stowed, and most gratefully appreciated.
He had married in 1868 a Miss Barbbe of Virginia, to whom were born three children, Leila B., William T. and H. Guy Johnson. He lost his wife in 1880, and the care of his little family was kindly assumed by the grandparents, at Bridgewater, Virginia. In 1882 Mr. Johnson married again, his second wife being Miss Elizabeth Neale, daugh- ter of Dr. Hamlet V. Neale of Keyser, West Virginia. George N. and Lucy N. are the only children of this marriage.
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The lessons of this sketch are valuable in their bearing on the education and training of blind children. The wis- dom and thoroughness of Mr. Johnson's home training are credited by him with whatever he has been able to accom- plish, either for himself or his fellows under the like cloud of blindness, to the amelioration of whose condition he has devoted himself with singleness of heart.
Mr. Johnson has written in both prose and verse. His prose writing's treat chiefly of educational topics, particu- larly in relation to the blind. A few selections from his poems are given:
A QUESTION.
Man, thy virtues shine not faintly; But magnificently they blaze. Say, thy neighbors deem thee saintly: Art thou worthy of their praise?
BLINDNESS.
Ah, veiled and clouded in eternal night, The opening blossom, and the verdant plain, And landscapes, smiling in the mellow light, On me expend their holy charms in vain.
INTUITIVE LOVE.
The fragrance that bursts from the bosom of nature And spreads to the star-spangled heavens above --- O, that rich exhalation, ethereal teacher-
Bids us act by the instinct God gives us to love.
HYMN TO SPRING.
The black austerity of snow clad hills,
Of icy forests and of frozen rills,
Of winter howling through the leafless trees With notes all mournful as he rules the breeze, Has rolled its glittering armanent afar With polar strands and artic seas to war. Adieu, dread tyrant of the year, adieu
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Till ice-wrought shackles bind the world anew.
All hail, thou baimiest season of the year, The summer's cradle and the winter's bier! Thee I salute, thou soft, etherial spring That all the charms of sunny south dost bring, Of fields conceiving in the warm embrace Of genial sunshine every living grace That decks the carpet of the verdant sod And wafts its grateful incense to its God.
Since last thy banners were unfurled around; Since last thy presence spread the naked ground With softest carpeting of heaven-dyed hue, Sight-soothing green 'neath heaven's expanse of blue, The summer's heat matured the welcome grain That waved all golden on the fertile plain. His withering scepter then the autumn swayed, And field and forest each his lord obeyed.
Then rose the winter in the endless train, And spred his snows upon the prostrate plain; And one interminable shroud of white ' Concealed decaying nature from the sight. Thrice curved the vestal sovereign of the night Majestic o'er the glittering fields of white, Ere winter ceased impetuous wrath to vent; Ere all the fury of his storms was spent, Then slow retiring to the arctic main He leaves thee, Goddess, to resume thy reign. At first, kind subject of the muse's song, Thy march was doubtful and thy halts were long. For winter, glittering in his cave of snow, Was loth to battle with so fair a foe; Yet, proud and arrogant as foemen are, He left ÆEolus to support the war. In vain, he labored to subdue thy might,
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Exhaust thy patience in the airy flight; In vain, his hostile legions of the air Around him rallied in their last despair. Repulsed, and flying in impetuous haste, They left thee sovereign of a desert waste.
The wandering breezes, ever circling round, At last submitting, though at first they frowned, And disengaging their ethereal mold From wintry vestiges of piercing cold, Now stand, expectant of thy kind command To waft thy fragrance o'er the smiling land. At thy sweet bidding, too, thou vernal Care, The joyous, swift-winged messengers of air Will bear to regions yet confined in ice The greateful tidings of the kind device That shines effulgent on thy flower-wrought shield And wakes new vigor in the torpid field. They'll tell the oppressor of the aching ground, With songs outgushing from the heart's profound, To heal the wounds of heartless tyranny, And, swift dispersing, leave the landscape free; For once again the bright, celestial fire Relights the pole, and frantic flames with ire. When last his chariot coursed its vernal path, The like indignities awoke his wrath That wake it now; for fields he left in bloom, Now lie inhumed beneath an icy tomb.
The sunbeams, dancing on the snowy plain, Will raise thick vapors to recruit the rain; Snows disappear as comes the vernal queen; Their white monotony is lost in green; They fall, as tyranny must ever fall, When weak subjection shall for mercy call. The high, celestial arbiter of light, Whose flaming disc consumes the shades of night,
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Controls thy seasons with omnific sway; Spring, summer, autumn, even snows, obey; And, though they war, their conflict is in vain, As each, unrivaled, in his turn must reign.
The world, long trembling 'neath the wintry king, Would never smile but for thy soothing wing, Kind brooding bird, the spacious womb of earth At thy command teems myriads at a birth. Thy genial presence, quickening every grain That, smiling, bursts beneath thy joyous plain, And shooting upward to salute its queen, The world is carpeted in living green. The hills, the vales, the landscapes far and wide, The rolling prairies, and the mountain side, Proclaim thy praises, O thou goddess fair; Their incense rises in the balmy air.
Each shrub, thy altar, and thy priest, each rose That all the range of fragrant nature shows; Each grove, thy temple; and thy court, each plain. No earthly sovereign has so wide a reign. Dew-dissolved odors on the wings of morn High toward the vaulted skies are softly borne From opening petals of symbolic love, From out the arbor, and from out the grove; From every turf that feeds the vital stock, From every cranny in the barren rock. To thee, O spring, this offering sweet is given; To thee whose presence makes the world a heaven. Winged warblers, twittering o'er the world of flowers, Enchant with melody the fleeting hours; From nature's orchestra what notes arise In sweet vibrations through the liquid skies! Such is the universal feast of spring, Yet, all her sweetness she herself doth bring. What, though contending elements should war,
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