MARY P. SHINDLER
Mrs. Mary Palmer Shindler, poet and novelist, was born at Beaufort, South Carolina, February 15, 1810. She was the daughter of Dr.
Benjamin M. Palmer, the celebrated Presbyterian preacher of New Orleans. She was educated in Charleston by the daughter of Dr. David Ramsey, the early historian of South Carolina. Her education was completed in the schools of Connecticut and New Jersey. In 1835 Miss Palmer was married to Charles E. Dana of New York; and in 1848 to Rev.
Robert D. Shindler, an Episcopal clergyman. Two years after this marriage they removed to Maryland, and then to Shelbyville, Kentucky, where Dr. Shindler held a professorship in Shelby College. Shelbyville was Mrs. Shindler's home henceforth, save for short sojourns in other states, and in that town she died about 1880. She was the author of _The Southern Harp_ (1840); _The Northern Harp_ (1841); _The Parted Family and Other Poems_ (1842); _The Temperance Lyre_ (1842); _Charles Morton, or the Young Patriot_ (1843); _The Young Sailor_ (1844); _Forecastle Tour_ (1844); and, _Letters to Relatives and Friends on the Trinity_ (1845). Several of Mrs. Shindler's lyrics are well known.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Appletons' _Cyclopaedia of American Biography_ (New York, 1888, v. v); _The Writers of South Carolina_, by George A.
Wauchope (Columbia, South Carolina, 1910).
THE FADED FLOWER
[From _The Parted Family and Other Poems_ (1842)]
I have seen a fragrant flower All impearled with morning dew; I have plucked it from the bower, Where in loveliness it grew.
Oh, 'twas sweet, when gayly vying With the garden's richest bloom; But when faded, withered, dying, Sweeter far its choice perfume.
So the heart, when crushed by sorrow, Sends its richest streams abroad, While it learns sweet balm to borrow From the uplifted hand of God.
Not in its sunny days of gladness Will the heart be fixed on Heaven; When 'tis wounded, clothed in sadness, Oft its richest love is given.
MARTIN J. SPALDING
Martin John Spalding, seventh archbishop of Baltimore, was born near Lebanon, Kentucky, May 23, 1810. His forebears were Maryland Catholics who had emigrated to Kentucky. He was graduated from St. Mary's College when but sixteen years of age. Spalding then spent four years at St. Joseph's College, Bardstown, Kentucky, and the same number of years in Rome, at the conclusion of which he is said to have made a seven hours' defense in Latin of 256 theological propositions. This exhibition won him a doctor's diploma, and his ordination as a priest.
From 1834 to 1843 Dr. Spalding was president of St. Joseph's College in Bardstown. And from 1843 to 1848 he was in charge of the cathedral at Louisville. In 1848 he was consecrated Bishop of Lengone; and two years later Bishop of Louisville. Bishop Spalding served in this capacity until 1864 when, in the presence of four thousand people, he was installed as the seventh archbishop of Baltimore. This high office he held until his death, which occurred at Baltimore, February 7, 1872. Bishop Spalding was the greatest Roman Catholic reviewer and historian Kentucky has produced. He was one of the editors of the _Catholic Magazine_, and the author of the excellent _Sketches of the Early Catholic Missions in Kentucky_ (Louisville, 1846); _The Life, Times, and Character of the Rt. Rev. B. J. Flaget_ (Louisville, 1852).
He also published _Lectures on the General Evidences of Christianity_ (1844); _Review of D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation_ (Baltimore, 1847); _History of the Protestant Reformation_ (1860); and a posthumous volume, _Miscellanea_ (1885). There is also a uniform five volume edition of his works, which is fortunate, as his books, especially the _Sketches_, and _Flaget_, are exceedingly scarce.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Life of Archbishop Spalding_, by his nephew, John L. Spalding (New York, 1872); Adams's _Dictionary of American Authors_ (Boston, 1905).
A BISHOP'S ARRIVAL
[From _Sketches of the Life, Times, and Character of the Rt. Rev.
Benedict Joseph Flaget_ (Louisville, Kentucky, 1852)]
Bishop Dubourg had sailed from Bordeaux on the 1st of July, 1817; and he had landed at Annapolis on the 4th of September. His _suite_ consisted of five priests--of whom the present Archbishop of New Orleans was one--and twenty-six young men, some of whom were candidates for the ministry, and others were destined to become lay brothers to assist the missionaries in temporal affairs. Several of these youths were from Belgium; and among them was the V. Rev. D. A.
Deparcq, of our Diocese. A portion of the company started directly for Baltimore with Bishop Dubourg; the rest, with the Rev. M. Blanc at their head, remained at Annapolis, where they were entertained with princely hospitality in the mansion of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, until the end of October.
Preparations were in the meantime made for crossing the mountains. The stage then ran westward only once a week; and no less than three weeks were consumed in transporting the missionary band to Pittsburgh. The Bishop and M. Blanc were in the last division; but after remaining in the stage for two days, during which time it had repeatedly upset, endangering their lives, they finally abandoned it altogether, and performed the remainder of the journey for five days on foot. About the middle of November, the missionary company embarked on a flatboat; and they reached Louisville on the last day of the month. Here they found the Rev. MM. Chabrat and Shaeffer, who had been sent on by Bishop Flaget to welcome them to Kentucky. Accompanied by them and by the Rev. M. Blanc, Bishop Dubourg started immediately for St.
Thomas's, where he arrived in the evening of December 2d.
Bishop Flaget was rejoiced to meet his old friend. "I recognized him instantly," says he; "see! on meeting me, he has the humility to dismount, in order to present me the most affectionate salute that ever was given." Many and long were the "happy conversations" which he held with his former associate, and now distinguished guest. Bishop Dubourg officiated pontifically, and preached an admirable sermon in the church of St. Thomas,--the only cathedral which the Bishop as yet possessed.
On the 12th of December, the two prelates, accompanied by Father Badin, set out for St. Louis, by the way of Louisville. Here Bishop Dubourg preached in the chapel erected by M. Badin. On the 18th they embarked on the steamboat Piqua, and on the 20th reached the mouth of the Ohio, where they were detained five days by the ice. Their time was passed chiefly in religious exercises and pious conversations.
The following description of the Piqua and its passengers, from the pen of Bishop Flaget, may not be uninteresting to us at the present day, when steamboat building and navigation have so greatly changed for the better:
"Nothing could be more original than the medley of persons on board this boat. We have a band of seven or eight comedians, a family of seven or eight Jews, and a company of clergymen composed of a tonsured cleric, a priest, and two Bishops; besides others, both white and black. Thus more than thirty persons are lodged in an apartment (cabin), twenty feet by twelve, which is again divided into two parts. This boat comprises the old and the new testament. It might serve successively for a synagogue, a cathedral, a theatre, an hospital, a parlor, a dining room, and a sleeping apartment. It is, in fact, a veritable _Noah's ark_, in which there are both clean and unclean animals;--and what is more astonishing,--peace and harmony reign here."
They were still at the mouth of the Ohio on the morning of Christmas day. Not being able to say three Masses, they determined to make three meditations. At the conclusion of the second, the redoubtable Piqua resumed her course towards St. Louis. The Bishops and clergy made a kind of retreat on their Noah's ark. On the evening of Christmas day, the boat stopped near the farm of the widow Fenwick, a good Catholic, whom they were happy to visit. M. Badin continued his journey by land from this point, in order to be able to visit on the way many of his old friends, Catholic emigrants from Kentucky.
The Bishops returned to the boat, where they found the comedians performing a play,--that is, engaged in a general fight among themselves,--until they were separated by the captain. At midnight, on the 30th, they arrived at St. Genevieve; and early next morning they sent a messenger to announce their coming to M. De Andreis.
Two hours afterwards, "about thirty of the principal inhabitants came, with several young men on horseback and a carriage, to escort the Bishops into the town. We went to the presbytery to put on our pontifical robes: twenty-four choir-children with the cross at their head, and four citizens bearing a canopy, conducted us to the church, where after the installation of Bishop Dubourg, on a throne specially prepared for the purpose, we sang the _Te Deum_. The whole day was spent in receiving visits."
On the first day of the year 1818, Bishop Dubourg celebrated Pontifical Mass at St. Genevieve. The journey was then continued to Prairie du Rocher and Cahokias to St. Louis, where the prelates arrived on the 5th. They were received with great pomp, in the best French style; and Bishop Dubourg was no sooner known than he was universally esteemed and beloved. He professed himself much pleased with the dispositions and sentiments of his new flock,--so different from what he had been led to expect.
Bishop Flaget having now completed his mission, preached his farewell sermon to the Catholics of St. Louis on the feast of the Epiphany; and on the next day he turned his face homeward. He and M. Badin performed the journey on horseback, by the way of Kaskaskia and Vincennes. They were detained three days at the former place, not being able to cross the river in consequence of the running ice; and in traversing Illinois they passed three successive nights in the open air of the prairies.
They reached Vincennes on the 27th of January; and after remaining here two weeks, attending to missionary duties, they continued their journey.
On the 21st of February, the Bishop found himself once more at his retired and pleasant home in the seminary of St. Thomas.
JOHN W. AUDUBON
John Woodhouse Audubon, son of the great Audubon, was born at Henderson, Kentucky, November 30, 1812. At the time of his birth his father was ekeing out an existence in Henderson, with saw-mills and lumber ventures of various kinds, all of which finally failed. The nomadic life of the ornithologist was early forced upon his son. Their wanderings were chiefly confined to the country south of the Ohio river, and Louisiana. John Woodhouse Audubon was instructed by his mother in the useful field of learning; but from his father he learned to delineate birds and mammals, though it was the family's desire that he should become a portrait painter. He and his brother, Victor, who was three years his elder, were sent to school together, but, in 1826, they were separated, Victor becoming a clerk at Louisville, Kentucky, and John remaining in Louisiana with his mother, who was then conducting a school, while the father went to Europe to solicit subscriptions for his forthcoming _Birds of America_. John W. Audubon was at this time engaged in drawing from Nature, and in playing the violin, to which he was devoted throughout life. He was a clerk for a short time on a Mississippi river steamboat, but any kind of routine was distasteful to him, his whole life being absorbed in the study of birds and mammals. He accompanied his father on one of his European trips, and in England and Scotland he copied many of the masterpieces of the great painters. In 1863 the collection of new species demanded that father and son should go as far South as the Gulf of Mexico; and while passing through Charleston, South Carolina, the son met Maria Bachman, whom he married the following year. In 1840 the Audubon house near New York City was built, and there John W. Audubon spent the remaining years of his life. In 1849 he joined a California company to go to the gold fields, but he went not for gold but for new birds and mammals. He returned in the following year, and in 1851, his famous father died. The brothers were then occupied with the publication of _The Quadrupeds_, and the octavo edition of _The Birds of America_. In the summer of 1860 Victor Audubon died; and on February 21, 1862, his brother followed him into the silent country. John Woodhouse Audubon's forty-nine years were spent in collaborating with his father and brother, but his independent fame is founded upon the manuscript record of his 1849 journey from New York to California. This most interesting manuscript was edited by his daughter, Miss Maria R.
Audubon, of Salem, New York, and published as _Audubon's Western Journal: 1849-1850_ (Cleveland, Ohio, 1906). A more charming book of travels, of Nature in many forms, would be difficult to name.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. The several lives of the great Audubon contain much material for a study of his son. His daughter made an excellent sketch of him for her edition of his _Western Journal: 1849-1850_ (Cleveland, 1906).
LOS ANGELES[8]
[From Audubon's _Western Journal, 1849-1850_ (Cleveland, 1906)]
This "city of the angels" is anything else, unless the angels are fallen ones. An antiquated, dilapidated air pervades all, but Americans are pouring in, and in a few years will make a beautiful place of it. It is well watered by a pretty little river, led off in irrigating ditches like those at San Antonio de Bexar. The whole town is surrounded to the south with very luxuriant vines, and the grapes are quite delightful; we parted from them with great regret, as fruit is such a luxury with us. Many of the men took bushels, and only paid small sums for them.
TULARE VALLEY
[From the same]
One more day brought us to this great valley, and the view from the last hill looking to northwest was quite grand, stretching on one hand until lost in distance, and on the other the snowy mountains on the east of the Tulare valley. Here, for the first time, I saw the Lewis woodpecker, and Steller's jay in this country. I have seen many California vultures and a new hawk, with a white tail and red shoulders. During the dry season this great plain may be travelled on, but now numerous ponds and lakes exist, and the ground is in places, for miles, too boggy to ride over, so we were forced to skirt the hills. This compelled us sometimes to take three days when two should have been ample. Our journeys now are not more than twenty miles a day, and our nights are so penetrating and cold, that four blankets are not too many.
CHRISTMAS IN 'FRISCO IN 1849
[From the same]
Christmas Day! Happy Christmas! Merry Christmas! Not that here, to me at any rate, in this pandemonium of a city. Not a _lady_ to be seen, and the women, poor things, sad and silent, except when drunk or excited. The place full of gamblers, hundreds of them, and men of the lowest types, more blasphemous, and with less regard for God and his commands than all I have ever seen on the Mississippi, [in] New Orleans or Texas, which give us the same class to some extent, it is true; but instead of a few dozen, or a hundred, gaming at a time, here there are thousands, and one house alone pays one hundred and fifty thousand dollars per annum for the rent of the "Monte" tables.
Sunday makes no difference, certainly not Christmas, except for a little more drunkenness, and a little extra effort on the part of the hotel keepers to take in more money.