Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs/Chapter 20
XX
THE YEAR 1854
AT the session of the Legislature, January, 1854, the town of Fitchburg, aided by towns and citizens of the vicinity, petitioned for a new county to be composed of towns to be taken from the counties of Middlesex and Worcester and to be called the county of Webster. Mr. Choate was retained for the new county, and I appeared for the county of Middlesex. The hearing by the committee occupied two weeks or more, for an hour or an hour and a half a day. The fees received seem now to have been very small. It was said that Mr. Choate received the sum of five hundred dollars, and my fee was two hundred and fifty dollars. Mr. Choate obtained a favorable report from the committee, but the project failed in the Legislature. It was renewed the succeeding year, when Emery Washburn appeared for the county of Worcester. In those two contests, covering a month of time in all, I had an opportunity to study Mr. Choate in his characteristics as an advocate and as an examiner of witnesses, a branch of the profession in which he had great skill.
Various witnesses were called for the purpose of gathering facts as to the inconveniences of which complaints were made and also for the purpose of showing the advantage to be derived from the proposed change. A witness of importance and altogether friendly, was Stuart J. Park, of Groton. He was a Scotchman by birth, his father having been employed upon the Argyle estates. The father came to America while the son was a minor. They were by trade stone masons. Stuart J. Park was then nearly seventy years of age. He had represented the county in the State Senate and for many years he had been a person of note, although his education was limited. He had, however, an abundance of sound sense and an excess of will power, even for a Scotchman. In his business he had had a large and successful experience. He was the master builder of the Boston Mill Dam, of the Charlestown Dry Dock, of the State prison buildings in Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, of the track of the Lowell railway, which was laid originally on granite sleepers, and of many jails in New England. Experience proved that granite sleepers were too firm and sleepers of wood were substituted.
One of the county commissioners was John K. Going of Shirley. I had known him from my youth. He was my senior by about ten years. In my boyhood he called not infrequently at my father’s house, driving an old horse in a second-hand, well worn sulky. His business was trading in horses and watches, and gambling, as was reported, for small sums of money. To myself and my brothers he was held up by my mother as a warning. Before he was twenty-one years of age he had induced his father to mortgage his small homestead for four hundred dollars which John lost in unwise or unfortunate ventures. Upon that experience he began to recover his fortunes. He became a dealer in better horses, then in hops, then in real estate, and to some extent he became an operator in Boston markets. At the age of fifty he was worth, probably, two hundred thousand dollars. With the improvement of his fortunes, his character improved. He was always temperate and his agreements were carefully kept. He made ample provision for his parents, and for a sister; was a representative in the general court and for many years he was a capable and acceptable county commissioner. He was one of a not numerous class of persons who escape from evil early associations and habits of life.
In 1854 the Know Nothing Party took possession of Massachusetts. Its secrecy made it attractive to many persons. Moreover, the then existing parties were unsatisfactory to the people. The Whigs, who had been out of power in 1851 and ’52, had regained power, but the vitality of the party had disappeared forever. Many of the leaders had joined the Free-soil Party, and others were indifferent to its fortunes. The Democratic Party was dissatisfied with the national administration, and the Free-soil Party was without hope. The coalition could not be repeated. In the spring or summer of 1854 General Banks asked me whether I intended to join the Know Nothings. I said No, that I had left politics and that I intended to practice law. He said in reply, “I am in politics and I must go on.” The success of the Know Nothing Party was without precedent. They carried every city and town in the State, elected all the members of the Legislature, unless there may have been an accidental exception, unseated all the members of Congress, elected Henry J. Gardner, Governor by an immense majority, and elected Henry Wilson to the Senate of the United States.
Mr. Gardner was re-elected in 1855 by the momentum of the party, although it had fallen into discredit which would have led to its ruin in the face of a vigorous opposition. The Whig Party had disappeared and the Republican Party had not reached a period when it could command its forces. In 1856 the Know Nothing Party was yielding to the Republican Party and Governor Gardner was accepted for a third term.
In the year 1854 I made a trip to the Adirondack woods and mountains. The party was organized by Francis W. Bird, and it consisted of Mr. Bird, Henry W. Pierce, D. W. Alvord, a Mr. Hoyt and myself. We left our homes about the 20th of June and were absent about twenty days. We entered the woods from Amsterdam, N. Y. From that place we travelled by a wagon to Lake Pleasant, about fifty-four miles. We remained there two or three days at a hotel kept by a man named John C. Holmes, or rather by his wife, who was the chief of the premises. She kept a good house; while Holmes retailed old stories to the few guests. The chief topic was the large trout caught in the lake and when and by whom. The ten largest of the season caught in Lake Pleasant and Round Lake weighed in the aggregate 154½ pounds. A Mrs. Peters from New York was the champion; her prize having weighed something over 16 pounds.
We started for the woods on a Thursday taking with us eight guides, a donkey and a considerable quantity of pro- visions. As the protection was insufficient, the bread, salt, pepper, etc., were soon ruined. The salt pork was saved. At the end of three or four days we sent the donkey and three men back to Lake Pleasant. On this trip I had my first and indeed my only experience in sleeping on the ground. At the small lakes we found the hunters’ camps, which were made by erecting poles and covering the scanty frame with the bark of cedar trees.
Saturday night we divided our force as the camp at the lake where we intended to stop was too small for the accommodation of the whole party. Consequently some of the guides went on about four miles to a lake where there was another camp of larger size. Hoyt was the enthusiast of the party, and it was his ambition to kill a deer, although the inhumane act was prohibited at that season of the year.
Our leading guide was called Aaron Burr Sturgis. Thursday evening Hoyt insisted upon going out deer hunting upon the lake. Burr took charge of him. Hoyt had a shot, but missed the deer. Friday evening the effort was renewed with the same result. Burr insisted that the game was in sight at a reasonable distance, and that Hoyt was a victim of the disease known as buck fever. When Saturday evening came there was a public sentiment in favor of changing the hunter as the party were becoming weary of salt pork and trout. Burr fixed upon me, and warmly advocated my selection. Hoyt was warm in advocacy of his own claim. Burr’s partiality for me was due to the circumstance that at Lake Pleasant I had sent a buck-shot fifteen rods straight to the mark. Hoyt was finally driven from the field, his only consolation being my promise that I would fire but once, and whether successful or not, I would return to the camp.
The hunter’s boat was a narrow, long, flat-bottomed craft, capable of carrying two persons if they were sober and careful. I took my place in the bow of the boat, behind and rather under the jack. I rested upon my knees, holding my gun in such a position that I could use it at short notice. While we were crossing the lake to the feeding ground, Burr gave me my instructions. He said that when I saw the deer in the light from the jack, he would look as though he were cut out of white paper. Such proved to be the fact. The light upon the deer gave him the appearance of being white as the background was black. He appeared in profile only. Next Burr said I must not fire until he gave me orders, as I could not judge of the distance.
After a time the light fell upon a deer. He raised his head and gazed upon the light. Burr moved with the boat without making a ripple and finally he held the boat with his oar and ordered me to fire. This I did, and the deer ran for the shore, Burr pushed his boat to the quag, took the jack, and followed the track. At the distance of about fifteen rods he found the deer unable to move. Burr applied his knife to the throat of the animal, and then dragged him to the boat and we lifted him in. As Burr turned the boat he said, “Did you hear the deer whistle on the other side of the lake when you fired?” I said no. Burr said they whistled and he was going over to see if we couldn’t get a shot. I referred to my promise to Hoyt, which Burr answered with an oath of disapproval. As I saw no reason for getting another deer I was disgusted with the new movement, and neglected to re-load the empty barrel. When we reached the other side, we could hear deer moving in the water among the tall grass, but we could not see them. After a time I became interested in the undertaking, and I raised myself upon my feet for the purpose of looking over the tall grass. At once I was seen by a deer, and he made for the shore without delay. In the excitement of the moment I dis- charged my remaining barrel. The deer stopped suddenly, raised his tail, and whistled. I thought that I had shot him, and that he would soon fall into the water. I said to Burr, “How am I to get that deer?” Burr said, “I don’t know: you haven’t hit him yet.” The deer stood for a minute within good range and fully exposed. Luckily I had only an empty gun, or otherwise I might have killed a deer for which we had no use—for which there could have been no excuse. The whistle of the animal was a note of exultation and a notice that he was unharmed. Had he been wounded he would have run without waiting to explain his condition. This was the only success in deer hunting by any of the party. Hoyt went out several times, to return a disappointed man.
I spent the larger part of a night upon Louis Lake with a Canadian Frenchman, of whom the rumor was, as I learned afterwards, that he was a refugee charged with the murder of a woman. While one might not choose such a person for a guide upon a forest lake and in the night time, yet criminals of that sort are very often safer companions than many reckless persons not yet guilty of any great crime. Murders committed under the influence of passion do not lead to other murders by the same parties. On the Sunday following we arrived at a small lake where the camp was too limited for the accommodation of the entire party and those who had remained proceeded to join their companions. The day was rainy and when we reached our destination, we found that one end of the camp had been destroyed by fire and that the part standing furnished only inadequate room for the small party already occupying it. The building of a new and much larger camp was the work of the entire party. For a bed we cut great quantities of hemlock boughs and after shaking the water from them we laid them upon the ground and in our blankets we lay down with our feet to a rousing fire which extended along the entire front of the camp not less than twenty feet. None of the party suffered from the experience.
At that time fishing for brook trout was not an art. On one occasion I waded into the rapids of Racket River where the water was about two feet deep, and as often as my hook struck the water, I would get a bite. The fish were of uniform size and weighed about one pound each. We had equally good fishing upon the streams which connect the Eckford Lakes. At Racket Lake a controversy arose about the route to be taken. Alvord and Hoyt had a plan which Bird did not approve. Pierce and myself took no part in the debate; we had accepted Bird as leader and we chose to follow him.
We were quartered in a log house that had been built for the use of some railway surveyors, but it was then occupied by a man who went by the name of Wood. It was rumored that he was a refugee from Lowell, Mass. He had lost both legs to the knees by freezing, and he walked upon the stumps with considerable speed. He was able to walk to the settlement at Lake Pleasant, a distance of thirty-eight miles. He had a wife and one daughter, who were as ignorant as barbarians. After a warm and almost bitter debate between Hoyt and Bird, a separation was resolved upon. Hoyt and Alvord went northward and we resolved to return by the way of Indian and Louis Lakes to Lake Pleasant. Bird had incurred some expenses for our outfit, and Hoyt in his excitement resolved to pay his share at once. He had no money nor was there any money of consequence in the party. In this condition of affairs Hoyt exclaimed, “Who will give me the money for a check on the Greenfield Bank?”
Bird, Pierce, and myself, with three guides, turned our faces toward the Eckford Lakes and Mt. Emmons. From Eckford we made our way to Indian Lake. The day was warm and rainy in showers. The guides were ignorant of the route, having never passed over it, and the distance was estimated at twenty miles. We started in the morning in good spirits and confident of getting through to Forbes’ Clearing on Indian Lake. We followed a road made by the lumbermen and about noon we crossed an upper branch of the Hudson and came upon a small dwelling where an Irishman and a boy were grinding an ax.
They were protected from flies and mosquitoes by a dull fire of chips and leaves called a smudge. We asked for dinner and the way to Indian Lake. They could not give us a dinner nor say definitely how we were to get to Indian Lake. The man said there was another house farther along where we might get something to eat, and he would follow in a short time and go with us towards the lake. We soon reached the second dwelling where we found a woman and children; the husband having gone to the settlement for supplies. She gave us some ham and corn bread, to which we added tea from our own stock, When we were approaching the house, we saw a deer making for the thick forest. This was the only deer that I saw after my trip on the lake with Burr. When our meal was over, we followed the Irishman into the thick wood where there was no path, and where our way was often blocked by fallen trees. Many times in the course of an hour we heard the noise caused by the fall of a tree, and once when winding our way by the steep side of a mountain, we saved ourselves by fleeing towards the lake. The tree was a huge yellow birch and it was so much decayed that it was broken into thousands of pieces, trunk as well as branches.
When we began our trip, Pierce was unwell and the tramp of this day quite overcame him. He often sat down upon fallen trees, and deplored his folly in going into the woods. He amused us by his bids, offering first five dollars and then from time to time advancing his offer to anyone who would set him down at old John C.’s. When we came in sight of the lake we raised the sum of fifty cents for our guide and dismissed him. We then proceeded up the lake, keeping ourselves within sight of it for the most part. At about sunset we reached an opening where a small stream entered the lake. Pierce sat down upon the ground and announced that he would not walk another step that night. In that condition of affairs we sent guides forward with such luggage as they could take, and with directions to return with a boat as soon as they reached Forbes’ Clearing. During twilight we saw a boat coming down the lake. The boatman proved to be James Sturgis with a small boat designed to carry two persons. We were four, and when we were seated the water was within an inch of the top of the gunwale. I told Sturgis to keep near the shore. In doing so he ran upon the limb of a fallen tree. The boat careened on one side and then the other, dipping water. At last we got off and after an hour’s rowing, we reached the clearing, where we got a supper and the privilege of sleeping on the floor of the log house.
The next morning we obtained the use of a large flat-bottomed scow and paddled ourselves up the river which flows into the Indian Lake from Louis Lake. The distance was about nine miles and through an intervale from half a mile to two miles in width. This valley was studded with huge trees at such a distance from each other that it might well be called a park, and when in a state of nature it must have been not only beautiful, but magnificent. The curse of civilization was upon it, however. For lumbering purposes a dam had then been built across the outlet of Indian Lake, and the intervale had been overflowed until all the trees were dead. The grass was rank and we were told that it was a favorite feeding ground of the deer.
At Louis Lake I made an excuse to visit Burr Sturgis’ mother who lived with her husband on the opposite side of the lake from our camp. I asked Burr to take me across that I might get from his mother some corn cakes. We found Mrs. Sturgis to be a woman about forty-five years of age with some of the freshness of youth in her appearance, and in conversation quite above her surroundings. She had had a large family of children all born in the woods. The rumor among the guides was that she was from Connecticut. There were rumors about all the inhabitants of the woods, but of authentic history, there was but little. The imagination might sketch the history of Mrs. Sturgis.
Note.—Burr Sturgis and James Sturgis were brothers.