Acting upon this impression, and yielding to the urgent necessity of the case, they summoned all the women, without exception, and explaining to them the circumstances in which they were placed, and the improbability that any injury would be offered them, until the firing had been returned from the opposite side of the fort, they urged them to go in a body to the spring, and each bring up a bucket full of water. Some of the ladies, as was natural, had no relish for the undertaking, and asked why the men could not bring water as well as themselves, observing that _they_ were not bullet-proof, and that the Indians made no distinction between male and female scalps!
To this it was answered, that women were in the habit of bringing water every morning to the fort, and that if the Indians saw them engaged as usual, it would induce them to believe that their ambuscade was undiscovered, and that they would not unmask themselves for the sake of firing at a few women, when they hoped, by remaining concealed a few moments longer, to obtain complete possession of the fort. That if men should go down to the spring, the Indians would immediately suspect that something was wrong, would despair of succeeding by ambuscade, and would instantly rush upon them, follow them into the fort, or shoot them down at the spring. The decision was soon over.
A few of the boldest declared their readiness to brave the danger, and the younger and more timid rallying in the rear of these veterans, they all marched down in a body to the spring, within point blank shot of more than five hundred Indian warriors! Some of the girls could not help betraying symptoms of terror, but the married women, in general, moved with a steadiness and composure, which completely deceived the Indians. Not a shot was fired. The party were permitted to fill their buckets, one after another, without interruption, and although their steps became quicker and quicker, on their return, and when near the gate of the fort, degenerated into a rather unmilitary celerity, attended with some little crowding in passing the gate, yet not more than one-fifth of the water was spilled, and the eyes of the youngest had not dilated to more than double their ordinary size.
JAMES O. PATTIE
James Ohio Pattie, an early Western traveler, was born near Brooksville, Kentucky, in 1804. His father, Sylvester Pattie (1782-1828), emigrated to Missouri in 1812, and settled at St.
Charles. He served in the War of 1812, at the conclusion of which he built a saw-mill on the Gasconade river, sending down pine lumber in rafts to St. Louis. Several years later his wife died, leaving nine young children, of whom James O. Pattie was the eldest. In 1824 Sylvester Pattie became dissatisfied with his lumber business and decided to dispose of it and undertake an expedition into New Mexico, which was one of the first from this country into that territory. The route pursued by his party was quite new. James O. Pattie was at school, but he prevailed upon his father to permit him to accompany the expedition. It remained for him to write a most interesting account of their remarkable journey, in which Indians who had never seen white men before were encountered, his own capture described, together with the sufferings and death of his father in New Mexico. On his return to the United States Pattie passed through Cincinnati, where he met Timothy Flint, one of the pioneers of Western letters, who edited his journal under the title of _The Personal Narrative of James O. Pattie, of Kentucky, during an Expedition from St. Louis, through the Vast Regions between that Place and the Pacific Ocean, and thence Back through the City of Mexico to Vera Cruz, during Journeyings of Six Years; in which_ _he and his Father, who accompanied him, suffered Unheard of Hardships and Dangers, and Various Conflicts with the Indians, and were made Captives, in which Captivity his Father Died; together with a description of the Country and the Various Nations through which they Passed_ (Cincinnati, 1831).
"One sees in [Pattie's] pages the beginnings of the drama to be fought out in the Mexican War." The date and place of his death are unknown.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Appletons' _Cyclopaedia of American Biography_ (New York, 1888, v. iv); Pattie's _Narrative_ has been carefully re-edited with notes and introduction by Reuben Gold Thwaites, and published in his famous _Early Western Travels Series_ (Cleveland, 1905, v. xviii).
THE SANTA FE COUNTRY
[From _The Personal Narrative of James O. Pattie, of Kentucky_ (Cincinnati, 1831)]
We set off for Santa Fe on the 1st of November [1824]. Our course for the first day led us over broken ground. We passed the night in a small town, called Callacia, built on a small stream, that empties into the del Norte. The country around this place presents but a small portion of level surface.
The next day our path lay over a point of the mountain. We were the whole day crossing. We killed a grey bear, that was exceedingly fat.
It had fattened on a nut of the shape and size of a bean, which grows on a tree resembling the pine, called by the Spanish, _pinion_. We took a great part of the meat with us. We passed the night again in a town called Albukerque.
The following day we passed St. Thomas, a town situated on the bank of the del Norte, which is here a deep and muddy stream, with bottoms from five to six miles wide on both sides. These bottoms sustain numerous herds of cattle. The small huts of the shepherds, who attend to them, were visible here and there. We reached another town called Elgidonis, and stopped for the night. We kept guard around our horses all night, but in the morning four of our mules were gone. We hunted for them until ten o'clock, when two Spaniards came, and asked us what we would give them if they would find our mules? We told them to bring the mules, and we would pay them a dollar. They set off, two of our men following them without their knowledge and went into a thicket, where they had tied the mules, and returned with them to us.
As may be supposed, we gave them both a good whipping. It seemed at first that the whole town would rise against us in consequence. But when we related the circumstances fairly to the people, the officer corresponding to our justice of the peace, said, we had done perfectly right, and had the men put in the stocks.
We recommenced our journey, and passed a mission of Indians under the control of an old priest. After crossing a point of the mountain, we reached Santa Fe, on the 5th. This town contains between four and five thousand inhabitants. It is situated on a large plain. A handsome stream runs through it, adding life and beauty to a scene striking and agreeable from the union of amenity and cultivation around, with the distant view of the snow clad mountains. It is pleasant to walk on the flat roofs of the houses in the evening, and look on the town and plain spread below. The houses are low, with flat roofs as I have mentioned. The churches are differently constructed from the other buildings and make a beautiful show. They have a great number of large bells, which, when disturbed, make a noise, that would almost seem sufficient to awaken the dead.
We asked the governor for permission to trap beaver in the river Helay.
His reply was that, he did not know if he was allowed by the law to do so; but if upon examination it lay in his power, he would inform us on the morrow, if we would come to his office at 9 o'clock in the morning.
According to this request, we went to the place appointed, the succeeding day, which was the 9th of November. We were told by the governor, that he had found nothing that would justify him in giving us the legal permission we desired. We then proposed to him to give us liberty to trap upon the conditions that we paid him five per cent on the beaver we might catch. He said he would consider this proposition, and give us an answer the next day at the same hour. The thoughts of our hearts were not at all favorable to this person, as we left him.
WILLIAM F. MARVIN
William F. Marvin, "the latter-day drunken poet of Danville," was born at Leicestershire, England, in 1804. He emigrated to America when a young man, and made his home in the little town of Danville, Kentucky.
Marvin was a shoemaker by trade, but verse-making and bacchanalian nights were his heart's delight and perfect pleasures. He was a well-known character in Danville and the surrounding country, and many are the old wives' tales they tell on the old poet to this day. On one occasion, while in his cups, of course, he attempted suicide, using his shoe knife on his throat, but he was finally persuaded that a shoe knife could be put to far better purposes. Marvin served in the Mexican War, and on his return home, he published his first and only book of verse, _The Battle of Monterey and Other Poems_ (Danville, Kentucky, 1851). The title-poem, _The Battle of Monterey_, is a rather lengthy metrical romance of some forty or more pages; but the "other poems," called also "miscellaneous poems," extend the book to its 219 pages. A few of these are worthy of preservation, especially the shorter lyrics. Marvin's book is now extremely rare. The writer has located not more than six copies, though a large edition was printed by the poet's publisher, Captain A. S. McGrorty, who is still in the land of the living. During the closing years of his life Marvin contributed occasional poems to the old _Kentucky Advocate_, the Danville newspaper, his last poem having appeared in that paper, called _The Beauty, Breadth, and Depth of Love_. William F. Marvin died at Danville, Kentucky, July 12, 1879, and was buried in the cemetery of the town. To-day his grave may be identified, but it is unmarked by a monument. His verse certainly shows decided improvement over the rhymes of Thomas Johnson, but both of them were imperfect forerunners of that celebrated poet and distinguished soldier, who was born at Danville about the time Marvin reached there and set up his shop on Main street--Theodore O'Hara, the highest poetic note in the literature of old Kentucky.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Kentucky Advocate_ (Danville, July 14, 1879); letters from G. W. Doneghy, the Danville poet of to-day, author of _The Old Hanging Fork, and Other Poems_ (Franklin, Ohio, 1897), to the writer.
EPIGRAM
[From _The Battle of Monterey and Other Poems_ (Danville, Kentucky, 1851)]
A bee, while hovering round a lip, Where wit and beauty hung, Mistook its bloom, and flew to sip, But ah, the bee got stung.
THE FIRST ROSES OF SPRING
[From the same]
Ye are come my sad heart to beguile, In the blush of your beautiful hue; The fairest and welcomest flowers that smile, Within the wide arch of the blue.
From Araby odors ye bring, And ye steal the warm tints from the sky, And scatter your pearly bright beauties in spring, As if nature ne'er meant you to die.
The soft crimson blush of each lip, 'Mong the green leaves and buds that abound Seems pouting in richness, and parted to sip The dew that is falling around.
Ye bow to the breath of the Morn, And cover his wings with perfume; And woo the gay bee in the earliest dawn, To rest on your bosoms of bloom.
Ye have brought back the passion of love, For a moment to warm my lone breast, And pointed to undying roses above, That smile through eternity's rest.
SONG
[From the same]
AIR--_Here's a health to One I love dear_.
Here's a bumper brimful for our friends, And a frown and a fig for our foes; And may he who stoops meanly to gain his own ends, Never know the sweets of repose.
Though folly and ignorance join, To blight the young buds of our fame, Their slander a moment may injure the vine, But its fruits will be blushing the same.
Then here is a bumper to truth, May its banners wave wide as the world, And a fig for the mortal in age or in youth Who has not its banner unfurl'd.
ELISHA BARTLETT
Dr. Elisha Bartlett, physician, poet, and politician, was born at Smithfield, Rhode Island, in 1805. He was graduated in medicine from Brown University in 1826, and later practiced at Lowell, Massachusetts, of which city he was the first mayor. Dr. Bartlett lectured at Dartmouth College in 1839; and two years later he became professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine in the medical school of Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky. He left Transylvania in 1844, for the University of Maryland, but he returned to Lexington two years later, occupying his former chair in the medical school. In 1849 Dr. Bartlett left Transylvania and went to Louisville, where he delivered medical lectures for a year. From 1851 until his death he was professor of materia medica and medical jurisprudence in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York City. Dr. Bartlett died at his birthplace, Smithfield, Rhode Island, July 18, 1855, one of the most widely known of American physicians, and also well known and highly regarded by medical men in Europe. His medical works are: _Essay on the Philosophy of Medical Science_ (Philadelphia, 1844); _Inquiry into the Degree of Certainty in Medicine_ (1848); _A Discourse on the Life and Labours of Dr. Wells, the Discoverer of the Philosophy of Dew_ (1849); _The Fevers of the United States_ (1850); _Discourse on the Times, Character, and Works of Hippocrates_ (1852).
These are his medical works, but it is upon his small volume of poems, _Simple Settings, in Verse, for Six Portraits and Pictures, from Mr.
Dickens's Gallery_ (Boston, 1855), that he is entitled to his place in this work. Of this little book of but eighty pages, his friend, Dr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, wrote: "Yet few suspected him of giving utterance in rhythmical shape to his thoughts or feelings. It was only when his failing limbs could bear him no longer, as conscious existence slowly retreated from his palsied nerves, that he revealed himself freely in truest and tenderest form of expression. We knew he was dying by slow degrees, and we heard from him from time to time, or saw him always serene and always hopeful while hope could have a place in his earthly future.... When to the friends he loved there came, as a farewell gift, ... a little book with a few songs in it--songs with his whole warm heart in them--they knew that his hour was come, and their tears fell fast as they read the loving thoughts that he had clothed in words of beauty and melody. Among the memorials of departed friendships, we treasure the little book of 'songs' ... his last present, as it was his last production."
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Appletons' _Cyclopaedia of American Biography_ (New York, 1887, v. i); _History of the Medical Department of Transylvania University_, by Dr. Robert Peter (Louisville, Kentucky, 1905).
JOHN BROWDIE OF NICHOLAS NICKLEBY