Mrs. Hill's Visitors

1895

The Beautiful Finesse With Which She Rebuked Their Impertinence.

Mrs. J. J. Hill, wife of the new millionaire railroad magnate, is a person of a great deal of keenness, and nobody knows it better than a Washington woman who spent a summer out in St. Paul once upon a time. This Washington woman had met Mrs. Hill and chose to consider her one of the newly rich and not to be named in the same afternoon with the people of her set.

The Washington woman had a friend with her for a few days, and in showing her the sights of the town took her to the Hill house. Mrs. Hill was very gracious, though the Washington woman scarcely concealed the fact that curiosity alone prompted her visit. She and her friend were shown all over the house and asked questions that would have been really inexcusable in any one but a woman of society.

Finally she asked to be shown Mrs. Hill's jewels. Mrs. Hill's jewels, by the way, are among the finest in the country, and Mrs. Hill is fond of them with a connoisseur's pride and not with the vanity of a woman fond of adornment. Mrs. Hill left the room, and in a few moments the jewels were shown, but it was a maid who showed them. The hostess did not appear again, and as the two women went away the maid asked them politely if they wished to see anything else.

Personally I think congress ought to vote Mrs. Hill a medal. — Washington Post.

Sears Wife's Tempter With a Red-hot Iron

1920

Angry Husband Then Plies Whip to Victim's Wounds.

SEATTLE, Washington. — Branding with a red-hot iron, administering a horse whipping and driving him from the State, was chosen by Alvin Steigerwald, widely known Washougal dairyman, as punishment for Walter Groth, an employe, whom he accused of attempting to violate the sanctity of his home, according to a statement made by the former to county officials.

Steigerwald is said to have returned to his home and found his wife in tears, sobbing out Groth's name. Steigerwald claims to have taken his shotgun and hunted Groth. He changed his mind, he said, about killing Groth and determined to brand and horsewhip him and send him out of the State.

Attorney Yates, investigating the affair, stated Steigerwald told him he paid Groth's fare out of the State and that realizing that Groth's wife and 14-day-old baby would be entirely destitute, took them under his protection and provided for them until he found their relatives in Portland, Ore.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Aug. 7, 1920, p. 1.

Lincoln Cabin Accepted by Nation

1916

The humble log cabin in which Abraham Lincoln was born, on Feb. 12, 1809, is now the property of the United States, having been accepted for the Nation by President Wilson in his speech at Hodgenville, Kentucky, last week. The cabin is in the beautiful granite Lincoln Memorial, on the summit of a hill two miles from Hodgenville.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 6.

Getting a Reputation

1910

There is a desk in the senate particularly convenient as a place from which to make speeches. It is next to the aisle and almost in the center of the chamber, and affords an opportunity for the speaker to make everybody hear.

At least a dozen senators, according to the Washington correspondent of the St. Louis Star, have borrowed this desk when they had special utterances to deliver to the senate. This led, not long ago, to a mild protest from its legitimate occupant.

"I am perfectly willing to give up my desk," said he, "but I am afraid people will think that the same man is talking all the time. I don't want to get the reputation of constantly filling the senate with words." — Youth's Companion.

Hubby's Superstitions Made Her Life a Burden

1909

List Shows He Knew Them All

Woman Put Up With Them Until Life Ceased to Be a Pleasure, Then She Asked for a Divorce — Story She Had to Tell Beats Any Ever Heard in a Court Room

SEATTLE, Wash., Oct. 6. — Because he is "the most superstitious man in the world," and for cruelty and eccentric habits arising from his beliefs, Mrs. Sofia Rudd was granted a divorce from Robert Rudd, a well to do farmer of Kitsap County. Here are some of the things he did, according to allegations presented for evidence:

When their only child was 1 year old she was forced to swallow a teaspoonful of fine sand, one grain meaning every [*line of text missing.]

He hung a live toad in the stable, in the belief that the total number of days required for the tortured thing to die would be the number of prosperous years of his life.

Last spring he compelled his wife to disrobe and walk wound a newly planted potato patch, that the crop might be a prolific one.

Nailed a wagon wheel over the gate and tied a skull bone of a horse to the gate, that none passing through bring disease to the family.

Impaled an owl on the gable and fastened a hawk to the side of the barn to discourage other birds from visiting his barnyard.

Would not permit his wife to raise ducks or geese, because white fowls are said to bring discontent.

Kept a piece of wood from a coffin once dug up in Oregon tied to his wagon to keep caterpillars off the farm.

A rooster was kept tied on to a nest for six months to discourage hens from wanting to set.

Scattered boards full of nails and pieces of barbed wire in the path traveled by his cattle on turning them into the fresh green pastures in springtime. If an animal was injured he immediately killed it, because he believed that same animal would have died from overeating before the summer was passed, and that to end its life then would thus save the grass for the other cows.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Oct. 9, 1909.

*Note: A good guess would be one grain of sand for every day of the child's life that year.

Taft Baffles the Secret Service Men

1910

President Taft has thrown a bombshell into the ranks of that portion of the secret service which is assigned to the duty of protecting the chief executive of the nation from assassination. It is a soft job for the secret service men and often leads to something better, several of those who formerly guarded presidents now holding government positions that pay well and make the holder a man of some consequence in his home territory.

It is feared among Chief Wilkie's men that some of them will have to be looking for other jobs if the president continues to go out for long walks through the busiest streets of Washington unprotected. The president has "had the laugh" on several of the sleuths recently when, without making any announcement of his intentions, he left the White House and started out for a walk. Generally he has been accompanied by some cabinet official, but none of Wilkie's men was along.

On his last walk the president was accompanied by his brother, Charles P. Taft, the millionaire Cincinnatian. They walked up to the capitol and strolled through its wide halls.

So far as runs the memory of Alonzo Stewart, deputy sergeant at arms of the senate, and that is a full generation, it was the first time that a president has visited the capitol on the Sabbath day.

On another occasion the president walked through Pennsylvania avenue, Washington's most prominent business street. He was wearing a sack coat and a gray sweater.

"That looks like President Taft," remarked one man as President Taft passed the five-cent theaters on the avenue. Brig. Gen. Clarence Edwards, who was with the president, giggled and the president smiled. Mr. Taft did not look much like himself in his sack coat with sweater underneath.

The walk began when the president and the general eluded the secret service men at the White House. They walked briskly down to the Potomac flats, along the Southern railroad right of way and back through South Washington, around the capitol building and library. The return trip was down Pennsylvania avenue at dusk.

A president who walks the streets of Washington is too much for Washington. Mr. Taft's predecessors rode in carriages or took their "constitutionals" across country.

White House Wedding Superstitions

1915

Mrs. Champ Clark, wife of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, writing of the White House wedding scheduled to take place Saturday, says:

"Concerning President Wilson and the Select Lady (predestined in the councils of eternity before the foundations of the world, that is, if Calvinism still holds good) to preside over the social destinies of the White House in 1916, this much is apparent: neither is superstitious. Else in selecting the date of their marriage they would not have run contrary to the marriage day proverb, which says:

"'Monday for health,
Tuesday for wealth.
Wednesday the best day of all;
Thursday for losses,
Friday for crosses,
Saturday no day at all.'

"I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Saturday leap forward into popularity among the list of wedding days out of compliment to the high contracting parties. For the influence of the bride-elect is already manifest in the beautiful 'Edith pinks' lavishly displayed in all the department stores.

"However, among Mr. Wilson's predecessors in office there were several who were superstitious, notably among them General Grant, who tells in his autobiography the story of his own wooing and how it was affected by his pet superstition.

"General Grant says be was brought up to regard it bad luck to stop or turn back after you had stopped any place until you had arrived at your destination. So when he received orders to go to the Mexican War he suddenly realized that he was very much interested in Miss Julia Dent. He was on leave of absence at the time, but he rushed back with all possible speed to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, where he polished up his armor and brushed up his clothes and made himself as attractive as possible. Then mounting his horse he rode away, taking a bee line for Miss Julia Dent's house.

"Arrived at Gravoist Creek, a small, insignificant stream that ordinarily would not have had power to turn a coffee mill, he found it on the boom, out of its banks and making as much noise as the cataract of Lodore.

"But he was not to be stopped by a little old creek, even if it was on the rampage. So he plunged in and swam for dear life, the current carrying him down the stream, and if he had not been a country boy and used to meeting emergencies the story of Appomatox and its 'famous apple tree' would have had a different ending.

"As it was, he kept his own head and headed his horse persistently for the opposite bank. And got there safe and sound but wet to the skin and with no dry clothes on that side of the creek. However, he borrowed some clothes of his future brother-in-law, courted Miss Julia, was accepted, and four years afterward they were married and lived happily afterward, at least as much so as the circumstances would permit."

—Saturday Blade, Chicago, Dec. 18, 1915, p. 6. The publishing date of this paper is the same day President Wilson and Edith Galt were married.

Lassoing Fish Through Ice

1905

Unique Sport Enjoyed on a Potomac Branch Stream

In Hardy county, W. Va., the south fork of the south branch of the Potomac resolves itself into a series of fishing or swimming holes connected by riffles. The water is from two to five feet deep and quite clear.

When the ice forms on these ponds the men and boys indulge in a unique mode of fishing.

Three holes are cut in the ice in line across stream, at which are stationed as many men with snares or strip loops of soft copper wire that will tighten on being drawn round an object. These men kneeling by the holes watch for the fish to pass.

The others in the sport go, some to one end of the pond, others to the other. Those downstream, by stamping or beating on the ice with rails, start the fish upstream, when the men stationed at the holes try to snare them. The men upstream in turn drive the fish back past the holes.

The process is repeated again and again, until the mess of fish is obtained, or the enthusiasm of the fishermen is exhausted. — Country Life in America.

Statue Given by Indiana

1900

Although each state has the privilege of placing in Statuary Hall, in the national Capitol, statues of two of its illustrious sons, ten states only have thus far availed themselves of the opportunity in full. Six other states have presented one statue each. On a recent Saturday afternoon, in the Senate-Chamber, a marble statue of Oliver P. Morton, the "war governor" of Indiana, was presented to the nation in the name of that state.

Mr. Fairbanks, the senior senator from Indiana, was the first speaker. Among those in the galleries were the widow of Mr. Morton and several of his nephews. On the floor had gathered, besides senators, several of the representatives from Indiana, and other friends of the man whose deeds were to be recounted.

"This statue," began Senator Fairbanks, "is to stand in yonder hall. Assembled there are the marble figures of citizens, soldiers and statesmen. In good time representatives of each of the states will be gathered there, when the number will equal the membership of the United States Senate. Parties here may come and go, administrations may rise and fall, but no change will occur in the members who join the select assembly in that exalted and historic hall."

The physical difficulties under which Mr. Morton labored during the later years of his life, when a member of the Senate, were brought out by Mr. Fairbanks, and also by Mr. Allison, who had served in the Senate with him. Mr. Morton had long suffered from an incurable malady, which compelled him to be seated while speaking and to go into the Senate supported by attendants. And yet he worked so hard in the committee-room and elsewhere that Senator McDonald, his old-time colleague, described him as "tireless among the tired, and pressing on where strong men gave way."

Senator Beveridge, also of Indiana, made the concluding speech of the day, after which the Senate passed resolutions accepting the statue and thanking the state for its gift.


Sugar For The Troops

German soldiers get a ration of sugar; so do British and French soldiers when on duty in the tropics. And now, by advice of the medical staff and with the approval of army officers, the United States Commissary Department has been shipping many tons of confectionery, put up in pound packages, for the use of our soldiers in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines.

— Youth's Companion.

Moving A House By Water

1896

A remarkable feat of engineering has just been successfully accomplished by a Pacific coast firm. An attorney named Ernest Sevier is the owner of a two-story house at Arcata, twelve miles from Eureka. Owing to a decline in the value of property at Arcata Sevier determined to have the house moved to Eureka, where he intended having it set up on some land that he owned.

A firm of contractors undertook to remove the house intact and set it up, uninjured, for the sum of $1,200. In case it was unfit for occupancy upon its arrival they were to receive the dwelling as their compensation.

The trip was made principally by water. To remove the house to the edge of the bay was the first difficulty to be overcome, as it necessitated taking the building over a large dyke and a marsh. This was accomplished satisfactorily and the house was transferred to two railroad lighters that had been lashed together in readiness for the trip.

The journey by water was completed with the aid of a tug without accident, and an immense crowd assembled at Eureka to welcome the strange craft.

Amid the cheers of the spectators and the tooting of steam whistles the lighters were made fast and the house transferred to land once more. It was a comparatively easy matter to convey it to its new site and the strange engineering feat was accomplished without any more damage being done to the house than a slight cracking of the plaster.

Woman Fought for Liberty

Woman Fought for Liberty

1900

Deborah Sampson, who enlisted in the continental army as Robert Shurtleff, was one of the most dashing and bravest fighters for the cause of liberty. She enlisted in a Massachusetts regiment and served three years before it was known that the brave soldier was a woman.

She was taken ill in Philadelphia and the hospital nurse had pronounced her dead, but a slight gurgling attracted the doctor's attention. He placed his hand over her heart, and finding, to his surprise, an inner waistcoat tightly compressing her breast, ripped it open. She was immediately removed to the matron's apartments, where everything was done for her comfort.

The commanding officer, upon learning that his aid was a woman, granted her an honorable discharge and presented her with a letter from Washington commending her services. The humble soldier stood before him with shining eyes filled with tears and thanked him many times, begging him to ask that her fellow soldiers be told and that he ask them to tell him if she had done aught that was unbecoming a woman. This was done and her comrades and officers declared their respect for her was unbounded.

Upon her honorable discharge from the army she returned to her mother's home, striving to escape the calumny which followed her singular career. After Gen. Washington became president he wrote a most cordial letter to Mrs. Gannett (Deborah Sampson — she having married in the meantime), inviting "Robert Shurtleff" to visit him. She accepted and was treated with the greatest honors by the president and residents of Washington. — Ladies' Home Journal.


Too Early In The Day

When Sir Frederick Carrington was in South Africa before with the Bechanaland border police a new recruit wanted to join. He was questioned with martial-like severity, winding up with the question: "Do you drink?" As there was a syphon of soda and something suspiciously like whisky near it, the would-be recruit conceived the idea that he had been invited to partake. Nevertheless he answered the colonel's question with a modest, "No, thank you, sir; It's rather too early in the day for me."

Boy Carries Dog 20 Miles

1910

Washington Lad in Long Tramp Would Not Abandon His Pet Pup — Paws Were Sore

Tacoma, Washington. — Without railroad fare from North Yakima and forced to walk the entire distance of nearly 200 miles because of a desire to seek employment upon some lumber schooner plying out of Tacoma, Walter Anderson, aged nineteen, carried his bull terrier dog the last twenty miles of his journey after the animal had worn its feet until they were bleeding on the rough, graveled roadbed of the Northern Pacific.

Anderson appeared at the police station the other morning and asked to be directed to some shipping company. He was carrying the dog and had torn up his handkerchief to bandage its bleeding paws. Anderson said he had been eight days on the road sleeping out of doors. He had a little money, but was saving it to buy food. His first step on entering Tacoma was to buy meat for the dog at a butcher shop.

"You see, the little fellow isn't used to the road and it was rather tough on him, so I carried him," said Anderson. "You know he is only a dog and doesn't understand why we should be on this long hike, but he stuck to me nobly."

Cause of Washington's Death

Feb. 1920

George Washington probably died of diphtheria, instead of acute laryngitis, as is commonly believed, according to an article by Dr. R. B. Hemenway. Dr. Hemenway outlined briefly the means used to cure ills during the time of Washington.

"It is probable that Washington's life was cut short more by excess of treatment than by disease," the article reads. "It is sometimes said that he died of acute laryngitis, but we believe that it is now generally agreed his disease was diphtheria."


Site of the White House

The site for the president's palace, as the first maps name it, was selected by President Washington and Major L'Enfant when they laid out the federal city in 1792. They purposed to have the president's house and the capitol reciprocally close to the long vista formed by Pennsylvania avenue, and they also laid out a parklike connection between the two great buildings. The plans for the house, selected by Washington and Jefferson as the result of a competition in which L'Enfant took part, were drawn by James Hoban, a native of Dublin.


Prominent in Many Things

A close study of the life, letters and documents of Washington will show that he was prominent also as a business man, a farmer, a philosopher and a statesman and in his knowledge of human nature.

Mail Carrier Puts Snowshoes on Horse

Feb. 1920

Man and Beast Finish 45-Mile Trip in Three Days

SEATTLE, Wash. -- "Old the Bear" (A. R. Westerberg), mail carrier between Revelstoke, B.C., and Downie Creek, forty-five miles up the Big Bend, succeeded in accomplishing a feat that established a new record in this district.

The great depth of snow up the Big Bend, together with the heavy crust caused by raining and freezing, made it practically impossible for a horse to travel the roads, but "Ole" conceived the idea of making snow shoes for his horse, which he did out of birch, constructing them circular in shape and more than a foot across.

For protection he covered the horse's legs with blankets.



Rope, Poison Fail -- Shoots Self

ELGIN, Ill. -- After two attempts at suicide -- one by taking poison and one by hanging -- had failed, Swain Wilkinson, an Elburn farmer, shot himself through the heart.

Dolly Madison's Receptions

1874

Mrs. Madison, after the decease of her husband, returned to Washington, and, for a number of years occupied a house of moderate dimensions near Lafayette square.

She did not go into society, but held weekly receptions, at which her friends and others properly introduced were allowed to attend. She also held a drawing-room on New Year's day; which was generally attended by the principal officers of the Government, the military and naval officers in Washington, and foreign ministers attending in full costume, with the same formality observed at the Presidential Mansion.

On these occasions Mrs. Madison was dressed in a rich and ample robe of black velvet trimmed with point-lace and a magnificent turban crowning her head. She was somewhat above the medium size, moderately tending to corpulency. Her complexion was clear, and her features were still beautiful and expressive of dignity and intelligence.

The tall and slender figure of Mrs. Alexander Hamilton, whose husband, as is well known, was first Secretary of the Treasury under General Washington, would be seen standing near Mrs. Madison, dressed in the habiliments of deep mourning which she had assumed forty years before, when her husband, in the full strength of early manhood, had fallen in a duel with Aaron Burr.

Scenes During the Potomac Flood – Great Trees, Debris, Pumpkins

1878

Scenes During the Potomac Flood

The Washington Star has this account of the recent rise in the Potomac at the National Capital:

From the Virginia side to look up the Potomac was like looking up the rapids at Niagara Falls, except that here the water was almost solid with mud, and was loaded with timber hewn and rough, and pumpkins and other farm products. Wrecks of bridges and houses were rapidly driven on the boiling flood.

As the angry waters struck the piers of the bridge they were forced up almost to the quivering timbers, and then started again on their rapid race for the sea. Looking down the river the water was dashed and tossed into the shape of ocean breakers. Behind the piers it boiled and bubbled like the contents of some infernal cauldron, with a roar equal to that of a tornado. Great trees and hewn timbers coming down stream would sometimes strike the piers and be whirled into the air against the bridge. In one case a tree trunk about sixty feet long and almost two feet in diameter was swept crosswise against the pier, and in an instant was broken into three parts and swept away in the mighty current.

Among the debris were hundreds of yellow pumpkins sweet from off the cornfields on the bottom lands many miles above, and the scramble for them was lively, some of the skiffs coming in loaded with them. Men, women and boys could be seen going home a large pumpkin under each arm, and rows of them lined the bridge and shore.

The damage to crops on the river farms must have been considerable, judging from the vast quantities of hay, corn and fodder that were afloat. During the night several canal boats came down, it is thought, from Georgetown, and went to pieces against the Long Bridge. A small dwelling house came down about two o'clock, and striking near the north draw shattered and went to pieces. Another large one with a roof newly shingled came down the south channe1, and striking a pier went to pieces and floated away in fragments below.


That Colorado Stone Man

A Denver assayer gives this account of the origin of the Colorado stone man with a tail:

In August, 1875, five of us were prospecting in the vicinity of Pueblo. In coming upon a sandstone quarry, one of the party observed a sort of likeness of a man drawn upon the rock. The incident occasioned a deal of talk about ancient creations, and the idea of getting up a second Cardiff giant was then favorably discussed.

The party agreed to undertake the task and a stonecutter named Saunders, who had been working in the vicinity and known to be a clever hand at modeling, was at once sought out and an agreement made for the figure. While the plan was in progress one of the party in a joking way, said the thing ought to have a tail, as in ancient times men had tails six or seven inches long. It was decided amongst the party that the figure should be known as a petrified Aztec Indian, and they would resurrect him after six months and impose him on the public as such.

The stonecutter, not seeing the joke, set to work, and made the figure, with tail appended. The price paid the artisan was $135, and after he had completed the figure it was buried. The "Muldoon" was made out of sandstone and dried by the cabin fire, which partly accounts for the little moles on the surface. After the burial — two feet from the surface of the ground — the party went on their way to await the resurrection.

A few of the prospectors had got wind of the proceedings and were keeping an eye on the party, and so they dispersed in different directions. Finally they became scattered, some in New York and the remainder in different portions of the country. I had forgotten nearly about the matter when the discovery was chronicled in the papers.

"Union of the Isles" — Poetry on Maury and Vashon Islands

1898

UNION OF THE ISLES

A Legend of Puget Sound

By Mary Bynon Reese

["The Portage" is a small strip of sand uniting Maury and Vashon Islands, and separating Chautauqua Bay and Quartermaster Harbor. The adjacent scenery is exquisite.]

Ages ago, when Time was young
And earth a paradise untrod,
Two isles, to gem an island sea,
Dropped radiant from the hand of God.
Resplendent at Creation's dawn,
They stood together, side by side,
Bold Maury and the fair Vashon,
Expectant lover, waiting bride.

Their pines in recognition swayed,
And friendly zephyrs greeting bore,
But cruel barriers rolled between
That separated shore from shore;
Rude taunting voices of the waves,
Harsh tones that come twixt heart and heart,
Cried: "Ever we shall flow between
And ever you must dwell apart."

Then pitying sands came drifting in,
Nor drifted back, the legend runs,
And day by day, and grain by grain,
They nearer brought those severed ones,
Till tides forgot to flow between,
And shore clasped shore, as heart does heart,
Now sing the isles: — "We two are one,
But you proud waves must dwell apart."

—Steubenville Herald-Star, Steubenville, OH, March 5, 1898, p. 8.

Note: Here's a link to the area.