Elizabeth daily monitor. [volume] (Elizabeth, N.J.) 1868-1880, 1869-06-10
&Iisabstb Daily Mfaonitor,
PUBLISHED AT 155 BROAD STREET, BY
]. MADISON DRAKE.
UNTIMELY DEATHS.

1OilOW1n8 mOufnlul yet UeDuer f0ullu-
iscences of the White House and its in
mates during few years past. 1t en-
bodies lessons which we may all profit
bly,
The telegraph announced few days
ago, that while Andrew Johnson, late
President of the United States, was at
Pulaski, where hewas to make speech
he received the intelligenceof the death
of his son, Colonel Robert Johnson.
Andrew johnson always exhibited
the tenderest affection FOR his son, on
whom he had bestowed an excellent ed
ucation. He was young man of su-
perior abilities and remarkably pleas
ant manners. He had been member
of the Legislature of Tennessee, and
the upward path to usefulness. and dis
tinction lay open and easy before him.
One only besetting sin forever blighted
all his prospects he had an uncontrol-
liable thirst for strong drink. The last
we heard of him previous to the news
of death, he was somewhere in an in
ebriate asylum.
The announcement of Colonel Rob-
ert Johnson's decease carries us back to
the White House in the first days of
Andrew Johnson's Administration.
Robert was then one of his fathers Pri
vate Secretaries Col. W. A. Browning
was another. Browning was one of
the handsomest men in the world-tall
muscular, finely formed, with an open,
pleasing countenance, and complex
ion as clear, and skin as fine, as Ire
land or Nantucket gives to the fairest
of women. He had graduated at Yale
College, and was fine bellies lettres
scholar, and a man of many accom-
plishments. He had been with Mr..
johnson in Tennessee for several years,
and went with him to the White House
But his stay was of short duration. He
received the appointment of Secretary
Of Legation to Mexico. He never left
the country however. The same habit
which has now carried off young John
son did its fatal work with him more
speedily. He was extremely popular
and the idol of women. Yet we have
seen him turn from the loveliest of
smiles, and from the gayest scenes Of
festivity, and quietly remark: My heart
is broken-I have no wish to live.
Mr.. Browning was married when
quite young to beautiful young girl,
who lived but short time after her mar
riage. He never seemed to recover, in
any degree, from the shock of her
death. On the contrary. the pain of
separation seemed constantly to deep
en-, to grow more poignant in his heart.
The last time we met him was in Wash
ington, only short time before his
death. In the course of brief CONVEX
sation he said 81 have just parted
with the most beautiful woman in
America but my heart is buried in my
wlfe's grave, and want to die"
Soon afterwards, he shut himself up
in room and deliberately drank whis-
key until it killed him.
At the beginning of the time of which
we speak, another inmate of the White
House was Preston King. How jolly
he looked and felt-and how his hearty
laugh shook his great, heavy sides
King, though a mild-mannered man,
and lawyer by education, had been
an athlete and fighter in his young
days, and was always bit of dandy,
weighing, we should say, upward of an
eighth of ton. He used to receive.at
the White House, arrayed in white
pants and vest, and wearing something
like the old-fashioned pump shoes.
highly polished-such as Prosper M.
Wetmore used to wear when he called
on Secretary of State Marcy
AS we have said, Mr.. King felt very
jolly now. He was the Presidents 9th
er self and had things hisown way. He
considered that he had been snubbed
and badly treated by the Seward men,
in the election of Morgan to supercede
him, when he had served only one
term in the Senate but now he was
greater than Seward, for was he not al
most as good as President, while Sew
ard was only Secretary of State !?
Alas that very elevation to power
was the cause of Mr.. Kings awful I'M
timely death. His infuence-his as.
cendency-at the White House was
felt to be altogether too great by the
jealous and envious politicians with
whose purposes it interfered. They
cunningly cortrived to Danish him to
honorable exile, by making him Collec-
tor of the port of New York, an office
for which he had neither taste nor adap-
ton. Its perplexing, complicated, and
harassing duties, and, we have always
thought, the discovery of the trick