EDITORIALANA. |
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THE DRAPER MANUSCRIPTS. In this QUARTERLY we publish the first of a number of articles we shall from time to time reproduce from the collection of the famous Draper manuscripts in the possession of the Wisconsin Historical Society, located at Madison, Wisconsin. A large portion of these manuscripts, there preserved, pertain to the early history of Ohio. The past summer (1910) it was the privilege of the Editor of the QUARTERLY to visit Madison and through the courtesy of Dr. Reuben Gold Thwaites, Secretary and Superintendent of the Wisconsin Historical Society, certain of the Ohioan manuscripts were selected for transcription and publication in this and future numbers of the Ohio State Archae- ological and Historical Society QUARTERLY. Many of these have never before been made public and we are thus enabled to present our readers much valuable history at "first hand." What are the Draper manuscripts? We answer that question from the article by Dr. Reuben Gold Thwaites on "The Draper Manuscripts," published in his volume of "Essays on Western History." Lyman Copeland Draper was a native of Erie County, New York, the year of his birth being 1815. His paternal grandfather was a Revolutionary soldier and his maternal grandfather fell in the War of 1812, in which contest his father also took part. The lad's taste therefore for historical lore of his own country was a natural inheritance. AS a boy he heard the tales of frontier warfare from those who had par- ticipated therein, and he read the stories of the colonies. When only eighteen years of age he began to write historical sketches for the newspapers. In his nineteenth year he entered college at Granville, Ohio, now known as Denison University. After two years of undergraduate work, lack of means compelled him to leave and seek aid elsewhere. This aid he received from Peter A. Ramsen, who had married Draper's cousin. The well-to-do relative, appreciating the boy's ambition and ability, placed him in the Hudson River Seminary, at Stockport, New York, where he pursued his studies "which were followed by an extended course of private reading, chiefly historical," -the historians of the Western border. In 1838 he entered upon the plan of writing a series (467) |
468 Ohio Arch. and Hist.
Society Publications.
of biographies of trans-Alleghany
pioneers, from material to be gathered
by original investigation and research.
This investigation and search of
material he assiduously followed to the
end of his life, "but," says
Thwaites, "in the end he had only
investigated and collected, and the
biographies were never written."
But he left a wealth of material for
others to use. He entered into
correspondence with the prominent
pioneers, then still living, and (in
1840) began to supplement his cor-
respondence with journeys of discovery
and of interviews with persons
able to impart information and
historical data. These journeys slow
and tedious in those days of primitive
travel extended throughout New
York, Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia and
Tennessee. The result was a vast
accumulation of "old diaries,
letters, account-books, or other family
documents which might cast sidelights on
the romantic story of western
settlement." He also visited and
took notes among aged warriors of
several Indian tribes -the Six Nations
and the Ohio tribesmen. For
forty years-1840-1880- he toiled
unceasingly to gather this material,
much if not most of which, would have
been lost to the student and
scholar, but for his industry. During
the early period of his researches
Draper drifted about, engaging in
various literary enterprises, mostly
historical, and he made his home in
several localities, at one time (1841)
in Pontotoc, Mississippi, where he was
joined by a young lawyer, who
had been a fellow-student at Granville,
Ohio, one Charles H. Larrabee.
For a while he was an official clerk at
Buffalo, then for a time was in
Baltimore and (in 1844) at Philadelphia, where his extensive and
valuable collection of historical
material, prints and books, came to
the knowledge of George Bancroft, Dr. S.
P. Hildreth, S. G. Drake,
Francis Parkman, Jared Sparks, Benjamin
Lossing and others. With
these he carried on correspondence, and
from them received encourage-
ment to proceed in his mission. Lossing
even entering with him into a
proposed literary co-partnership for the
joint production of some of the
biographies of early prominent pioneers.
In January, 1849, the Wisconsin
Historical Society was organized at
Madison. Larrabee, then a circuit judge
in Wisconsin, became one of
the founders of the Society and through
his recommendation and
influence Lyman Draper was induced to
settle in Madison, to which
place his historical property was
transported and placed in the archives
of the Wisconsin Historical Society, of
which famous society he
became the secretary. In 1886 he
resigned his secretarial office, "turning
over to the charge of his successor a
reference library of national
reputation," to which were to be
added the volumes of Wisconsin His-
torical Collections, which he edited and
which are generally recognized as
ranking with the best American
publications of this character.
As we learn from the sketch of Dr.
Thwaites, the result of Mr.
Draper's efforts, now upon the shelves
of the Manuscript Room in the
Wisconsin Historical Library, is a
collection numbering four hundred
Editorialana. 469
folio volumes, comprising "some
10,000 fools-cap pages of notes of
the recollections of frontier warriors
and pioneers, either written by
themselves, or taken down from their own
lips; and wellnigh 5,000 pages
more of original manuscript journals,
memorandum books, and old
letters written by nearly all the
leading border heroes of the West."
This collection under the direction of
Dr. Thwaites has been classified,
mounted in folios, catalogued and
indexed in a most accurate and
satisfactory manner, so as to place it
easily within the use of students,
desiring to consult the contents.
Dr. Draper died on August 26, 1891,
after a life work, which
did not fulfill his ambition or plans-as
he had ever hoped to write
and publish a series of complete
biographies of pioneer heroes, but which
left to succeeding workers the
foundation for many an historical edifice,
that never could have been erected but
for "the unusual literary bricks
and stone" gathered by him. Dr.
Thwaites, whose privilege it has been
to be the co-laborer and successor of
Dr. Draper, to whose character
and life work Thwaites pays splendid
tribute, describing him as "under-
sized, far from robust; a bundle of
nervous activity, with delicate cut
features, which exhibited great firmness
of character and the powers of
intense mental concentration, readily
brightened with the most winning
of smiles."
MEMORIAL TO RUFUS PUTNAM.
[The Rufus Putnam Memorial Association,
with headquarters at
Worcester, Massachusetts, held its tenth
annual meeting at Rutland, Mass.,
the home of Rufus Putnam, on September
27, 1910. As the proceedings
interest the members of the Ohio State
Archaeological and Historical
Society, we publish the same as reported
in the Worcester Daily Telegram,
on September 28.-EDITOR.]
The 10th annual meeting of the Rufus
Putnam Memorial Association
was held in the Rufus Putnam home. The
Worcester members and some
from other places came in 10
automobiles. They left the Worcester
Club about 11.30 o'clock.
The meeting was stirred by the address
of Senator Charles S.
Dana of Marietta, 0., and remarks by
Prof. A. B. Hulbert of Marietta
College. President G. Stanley Hall
called the meeting to order at 12.25
o'clock. Secretary Eben F. Thompson read
the records of the last annual
meeting. Vice-President Hon. Henry A.
Marsh spoke of the death of
Henry E. Hill, treasurer of the
association, telling of his untiring
efforts for the good of the association.
He then read the report of
the treasurer, which showed the balance
on hand $178.16.
Then followed the election of officers
for the year 1910-11. These
were chosen: President, G. Stanley Hall;
Vice-President, Hon. Henry A.
Marsh; Clerk and Secretary, Eben F.
Thompson; Treasurer, Edward G.
470 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.
Norman, all of Worcester; Executive
Committee, Charles A. Bartlett
and Louis M. Hanff, Rutland, and Stephen
C. Earle, Worcester.
These were elected members of the
association: Hon. Curtis Guild,
Jr., Boston; Mrs. Louise H. Norman, Miss
Emma S. Hinckley and
Frank L. Coes of Worcester.
Prof. A. B. Hulbert reported for the
committee to which was
referred the matter of an incorrect
account published in the proceedings
of the Bunker Hill Monument Association
last year, stating that he
delivered an address, June 17, in
Boston, and that the address had
been published in pamphlet form and sent to various societies. The
address substantiated the fact that Gen.
Rufus Putnam planned the forti-
fications at Dorchester Heights.
He offered resolutions which mentioned
the planning and forming
the Ohio Company of Associates by Gen.
Rufus Putnam and Gen.
Benjamin Tupper in the Rufus Putnam House in Rutland, 125 years
ago, January 10, 1911; the leading of
the colonists from Massachusetts
and Connecticut to Ohio and the founding
of Marietta; The organizing
of Muskingum Academy in 1797 by Gen.
Putnam, which later became
Marietta College, and now owns valuable
historical collections of the
Ohio Company and journals, dairies and
other papers of Gen. Putnam,
was included.
In order to perpetuate the unselfish
devotion of the pioneers who
first settled Ohio, it was suggested a
committee of ten be appointed by
the President of the Rufus Putnam
Memorial Association, which shall
formulate and carry out a plan to secure
what shall be known as the
General Rufus Putnam Memorial Fund of $100,000, the income to be
expended for the maintenance of the
Rufus Putnam Home in Rutland
in its present state of preservation;
for the support of the department
of history and political science and the
historical museum of Marietta
College, and for such other purposes as
shall promote the general aim
of this enterprise, the trustees of
Marietta College to be custodians and
trustees of the fund.
The resolutions were adopted and this
committee appointed: G.
Stanley Hall, Arthur F. Estabrook, Hon.
Curtis Guild, Jr., Boston;
Hon. Whitelaw Reid, London; Homer Lee,
New York; W. W. Mills,
Senator Charles S. Dana, Prof. A. B.
Hulbert, Marietta; E. O. Randall,
Columbus; A. George Bullock, Worcester.
Senator Charles S. Dana of Marietta was
introduced:
He said, in part:
It is a privilege for me to stand by the
threshold of the founder
of Ohio and greet you of the East who
revere the life and the deeds
of Rufus Putnam. Here among the hills of
Massachusetts the name
of Rutland seems the articulation of the
empire of the great North-
west. The mists of a century and a
quarter do not dim the lurid deeds
Editorialana. 471
of the Company of Ohio Associates, upon
whom history spreads all
the effulgence of the glorious sun.
The plain history of America transcends
all the gilded imagination
of the writer of the historical novel.
The pen cannot add to the life
of Washington, of Hamilton, of Adams, of
Putnam, and within our
own time it can but fittingly record its
tribute to that great American
of your own commonwealth, George Frisbie
Hoar.
If Quebec had not fallen into the hands
of the English under Gen.
Wolfe, it is highly probable that the
land we now call the great North-
west, would exist under the colors of
France. If Lawrence and Augustine
Washington had not formed a company,
with Lord Fairfax, in 1748,
that they called the Ohio Company, which
company controlled the land
immediately south of the Ohio River and
north of the Little Kanawha,
it is also possible that Ohio would be a
French province today. If
Gen. Lewis had not led his poorly armed
and clad Virginia mountaineers
to the battle of Point Pleasant in the
Ohio Valley, and routed the
Indians, who were fighting under English
directions, it is also possible
that there would not have been any
reason for this Putnam Society to
exist.
The Ohio Company grew from a call issued
from yonder house
by Gen. Putnam and Gen. Tupper, both
brave soldiers of the Revolu-
tion, and the friends and companions of
Washington.
We have met to commemorate and
perpetuate the life and the
deeds of Rufus Putnam in the fragrance
of appreciation and grateful
memory.
Putnam, the stepson of a Sutton
inn-keeper, became a self-made
man of the highest type. He early
developed a fondness for engineering
and had his early training in the old
French and Indian wars. While
in the conflict of
the Revolution, his services were most distinguished
at Dorchester Heights, in the fortifying
of West Point, the creating
of coast defenses, taking part in the
capture of the army under Burgoyne,
and the saf retreat from Long Island.
Rufus Putnam, the father of Ohio, is my
toast: Rutland, Marietta,
Ohio these are the sequences.
I question if history records another
instance wherein the govern-
ment of a state was projected and the
laws worked out in detail in the
advance of the coming of a single
individual to the land. Herein the
genius of Putnam was recognized and,
with his forceful character, he
was placed at the head of the Ohio
Company of Associates.
I have never been able to picture Putnam
as a man given to
making money from his associates. He did
not exploit the Ohio Com-
pany. When he left Rutland he had in his
heart the love of God and
the love of his fellowmen, and to him
the Ohio country offered an
opportunity for the advancement of
mankind in a land where human
slavery could not exist and where the
church was to stand beside the
472 Ohio
Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.
schoolhouse. He realized that a people
to be great must be accomplished,
and so he took with him the plans of a
university, and under the
Ohio Company the first institution of
this kind was established in
Ohio.
In the wilderness our fathers propagated
Greek and Latin roots from
the very beginning and raised a
citizenship of conspicuous mark. Men
of broad lives and views, who knew their
rights and dared maintain
them; men who absorbed the ideas of
Putnam's life and placed their
own lives behind the guns that flashed
from Sumter and Appomattox.
Rufus Putnam could not have conceived of the creation of a
community without an institution of higher
learning, and by the fireplace
here in Rutland he planned for an
institution like Marietta College.
Through this seat of learning his
influence lives today, and Rutland and
Marietta are joined by ties that will
endure.
Ohio is now one of the empire states
with a population represen-
tative of the civilization of the globe.
Her children have amalgamated the
blood of New England and of the
Virginians, and in these strains her
men and women are virile, they are yet
the exemplars of the Putnam
band and must be the source of
perpetuating the good, honest, common-
sense that has, after all, made America
great.
Do not allow your ideals of Putnam's
standard to be replaced by
the "Melting Pot." The pure
strain of American blood must not be
contaminated in this way, for otherwise
we will turn back the sands of
time.
Truly this is a time of rapid progress.
Ours is the engine of
internal combustion, the wireless
message, the subtle power of electricity,
the recording of the human voice, the
power of aerial travel.
This is a country just passing the
portals of real human progress,
and we are a part of the same. Ours is
the inspiration of all that
has made our nation great, and it is
ours to help keep perpetual the
integrity of Rufus Putnam, his honest
purpose and his devotion to
"religion, education and
morality."
After the address of Senator Dana, a
recess was had, and the
members went to Hotel Bartlett, where
dinner was served. At the
tables were: Dr. G. Stanley Hall, Mrs.
Florence E. Hall, A. George
Bullock, Mrs. Mary C. Bullock, Burton W.
Potter, Mrs. Fannie E.
Potter, William Woodward, Mrs. Caroline I. Woodward,
Nathaniel
Paine, Henry A. Marsh, Mrs. Emily W.
Marsh, Eben F. Thompson,
Miss Emma S. Hinckley, Stephen C. Earle,
Nathan H. Allen, Edward
G. Norman, Mrs. Louise H. Norman, Miss
Mary Hoar, Dr. Charles B.
Elder, Mrs. Almina R. Elder of
Worcester; Rev. Sidney Crawford,
Wayland; Edwin D. Mead, Boston; Senator
Charles S. Dana, Prof. A. B.
Hulbert, Marietta; Miss Edith Sears,
Boston; Miss Maude Bartlett,
Brooklyn; Ira G. Dudley, Mrs. Sarah
Dudley, Boston; Walter A. Wheeler,
Editorialana. 473
Mrs. Mary E. Bray, Charles R. Bartlett,
Mrs. Catharine M. Bartlett,
Louis M. Hanff, Mrs. Frances P. Hanff,
Rutland.
After the dinner, Prof. Hulbert, Senator
Dana and Edwin D. Mead
spoke briefly, after which the meeting
dissolved. After the meeting,
several signed the membership roll of
the Rutland Chapter of the Ohio
Company of Associates.
GOLDWIN SMITH.
A Pupil's Recollection.
Just two score years ago-in the Fall of
1870-the editor of the
QUARTERLY-then a "slip of a
lad" just emerging from his
'teens-
landed at the little city of Ithaca,
nestling in the valley at the head
shores of picturesque Lake Cayuga,
New York. It was one bright
September morn that the young
matriculate climbed the "hill of science"
to its brow, surmounted by the campus
then only partially leveled knolls,
the site of the new institution of
learning, called Cornell University,
which according to its founder was to be
an institution "where anybody
could fnd instruction in any
study." The university, now one of the
most famous in the land, with a score of
magnificent buildings, a
wealth of equipment, hundreds of
professors and instructors and
thousands of students, was then but a
hope and promise with two or three
permanent grey-stone buildings and half
a dozen, temporarily constructed,
frame halls of learning. But brick and
stone and chunks of endowment
funds do not alone make a university. It
is the professors and the
instruction that mould the character of
the student and train and de-
velop his gray matter, if he has any,
for the battle of life. It has been
truly said that "Mark Hopkins,
seated on one end of a log with a
student at the other makes a
college." At Cornell in those
incipient
days, there were crude appointments for
the accommodation of the
earnest boys who flocked to this new
institution. But it was the first
to break the shell of the old narrow
courses of mere dead languages
and a slight smattering of science, and
it was the pioneer to broaden
the curriculum into optional studies of
a hundred fold. But those early
years was the period of distinguished
professors and lecturers, resident
and non-resident. James Russell Lowell,
George William Curtis, Bayard
Taylor, in literature; Louis Agassiz in
natural science; Herman E. Von
Holst, Goldwin Smith, James Anthony
Froude, Edward A. Freeman,
George Washington Green and Andrew D.
White, in history. Of that
distinguished galaxy each one has done
his good work and passed to
the beyond-all save one, Andrew D.
White, the first president and the
one who inspired Ezra Cornell to found
the institution and who out-
lined the plans of this distinctly
American college-the new and liberal
methods which were at first to draw the
bitter antagonism of all other
1
474 Ohio Arch. and Hist.
Society Publications.
colleges- especially the
denominational ones, but which in due time
were to be followed, especially in its
elective system, by all the leading
instructional institutionsin this
country. Noble and potent man, that
Andrew D. White, the scholar, the
diplomat, the author, the protagonist
of the depth and breadth of modern
American college education-he
still survives to enjoy the appreciation
and praise of all right-minded
educators and scholars the world over;
may many years yet he his lot.
The editor was moved to revive these
informal memories by the
sad realization that Goldwin Smith
recently joined "the innumerable
caravan" - Goldwin Smith who from
the inception - in 1868- until near
the time of his demise was connected
with the growth and progress of
Cornell University as a lecturer in
English history, nor was there a
greater in that subject. The editor can
never forget the hours he sat
before that tall, gaunt figure, seated
in a chair, as was his wont when
lecturing, after the Oxford manner, and calmly, almost
impassively, "talk-
ing" in language of precise
elegance of the kings and queens and the
people of England, from the time when
Caesar laid his rapacious hand
on the "tight Little Island"
to the glorious Victorian Age. In his clear,
precise and scholastic words, it seemed
as if the speaker was making
history as he proceeded-it was not a
recitation of the annals written
by others, it was the panorama of the
scenes and events themselves.
Many are the anecdotes we might recall
of those delightful and precious
day. Intensely loyal to America the
country of his adoption, as he was, the
national birth right and British
sympathies and training of the distin-
guished lecturer would occasionally crop
out. He did not agree with
Froude on the Irish question and when
the latter was at Ithaca, delivering
his brilliant lectures, at times lit up
with flashes of wit and humor, the edi-
tor one morning asked Prof. Smith what
he thought of Mr. Froude's hand-
ling of his subject the evening before:
"h'ts a very h'easy matter to make
h'an h'audience laugh," was his
only reply. Again when Greene, the
eminent American historian, was there,
lecturing on the American Revo-
lution, a group of students, at the
close of one of his lectures, fell into
a dispute as to who won at the battle of
Monmouth, the British or
Americans, student-like a bet was made
and the editor as stake holder
was requested to refer the dispute to
Goldwin Smith, who had just taken
his seat for his morning discourse. The
editor put the question to the
good natured "Goldie," as we
called him. He immediately proceeded to
give an elaborate account of the battle
of Monmouth in England, in the
famous contest between Scotland and
England. As soon as possible the
editor corrected the error into which
the professor had fallen by saying,
"not to that battle of Monmouth do
we refer, but to the battle of Mon-
mouth in the American Revolution."
Instantly the small, deep set eyes
of the professor flashed up as he said,
"Oh, I don't know anything about
your petty American squabbles-go ask
Greene." But he did know all
about our "petty" American
squabbles, and his later writings concerning
Editorialana. 475
the social and political problems of our
government and people showed
an understanding of affairs American as
profound and prophetic as any
of our own thinkers and writers.
The latter years of his life he made
Toronto his home, where
he became editor of one of the leading
Canadian monthlies and he
wrote and spoke much in favor of the
ultimate union of the Canadian
province and the United States-it would
be best for both, was ever his
plea. He wrote with great force and rare
scholarship on many topics
of the day-and no writer, Britsh or
American, was read with greater
interest or more thoughtful
consideration, for he was fearless, con-
vincing, and devoid of bias, political
or religious.
Grand old "Goldie"-thousands
of men-pupils of his in the
yea rs early and later throughout our
broad land will turn the wheels of
memory and pay mental tribute to the
learning and kindly spirit that
was his and gratefully recall the
privileged hours when they sat in
his presence and listened to the
unfolding of historic events, told in his
easy, fluent rhetoric, unsurpassed in
clearness and precision. It was the
golden age of Cornell's historians, and
among them the memory of none
is more greatly revered or will be
longer remembered than that of
Goldwin Smith.
He proved his undying love and devotion
to the university, he
served so long and so well, by leaving
the large estate, which had be-
come his in his Canadian home, to that
same institution on the Ithacan
hill; upon the campus of which, in its
earliest days he caused to be
placed a stone seat upon the back of
which was carved the main truth
of his religion: "Above all nations is Humanity."
EDITORIALANA. |
|
THE DRAPER MANUSCRIPTS. In this QUARTERLY we publish the first of a number of articles we shall from time to time reproduce from the collection of the famous Draper manuscripts in the possession of the Wisconsin Historical Society, located at Madison, Wisconsin. A large portion of these manuscripts, there preserved, pertain to the early history of Ohio. The past summer (1910) it was the privilege of the Editor of the QUARTERLY to visit Madison and through the courtesy of Dr. Reuben Gold Thwaites, Secretary and Superintendent of the Wisconsin Historical Society, certain of the Ohioan manuscripts were selected for transcription and publication in this and future numbers of the Ohio State Archae- ological and Historical Society QUARTERLY. Many of these have never before been made public and we are thus enabled to present our readers much valuable history at "first hand." What are the Draper manuscripts? We answer that question from the article by Dr. Reuben Gold Thwaites on "The Draper Manuscripts," published in his volume of "Essays on Western History." Lyman Copeland Draper was a native of Erie County, New York, the year of his birth being 1815. His paternal grandfather was a Revolutionary soldier and his maternal grandfather fell in the War of 1812, in which contest his father also took part. The lad's taste therefore for historical lore of his own country was a natural inheritance. AS a boy he heard the tales of frontier warfare from those who had par- ticipated therein, and he read the stories of the colonies. When only eighteen years of age he began to write historical sketches for the newspapers. In his nineteenth year he entered college at Granville, Ohio, now known as Denison University. After two years of undergraduate work, lack of means compelled him to leave and seek aid elsewhere. This aid he received from Peter A. Ramsen, who had married Draper's cousin. The well-to-do relative, appreciating the boy's ambition and ability, placed him in the Hudson River Seminary, at Stockport, New York, where he pursued his studies "which were followed by an extended course of private reading, chiefly historical," -the historians of the Western border. In 1838 he entered upon the plan of writing a series (467) |