The Cairo daily bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1870-1872, 1872-10-20
THE BULLETIN.
SELECTED STORY
POOR BLENNERHASSET.
BY JAS. PARTON.

The life and misfortunes of this man
may at least serve to illustrate the
homely old saying that fool and his
money are soon parted. lie was the
younger son of an ancient aud some
what wealthy Irish family, Of the
county Of Kerry though he himself
was born in England, while his parents
were visiting friend in that country,
in 1865. After attending the usual
period of Westminster school in Lon
don, and at Trinity College, Dublin, he
was put to the study Of the law, and in
1899, when be was twenty five years Of
age, he was admitted to the Irish bar
rs barrister.
lie never practiced his profession /;
for he had no sooner completed his lie.
gal studies than the death Of his elder
brother made him the heir Of the fam
lily estates. Instead, therefore, Of set.
thing down to lifetime of honorable
labor, he put money in his purse and
started to make the tour Of Europe.
He happened to arrive in Pari. about
the time when the French people were
in the early delirium Of their revolution,
and he was present at the first annual
celebration of the destruction Of the
Bastile, when five hundred thousand
Frenchman assembled in one vast am
pitheatre, took the oath Of fidelity TO
the nation. to the constitution and to
the king. He returned to Ireland full
Of those dreams and iancies which
characterized the light headed liberal of
the period. lie was republican, and,
seeing no prospec, Of the emancipation
Of his native land he determined to
sell of his estates, and remove to the
republic on the other side Of the Allan.
tic, over which General Washington
was presiding with so much eclat and
dignity. His Irish property yielded
him twenty thousand pounds, which,
small as it sounds to our ears, was, for
that, day, really handsome fortune.
1t was probably equivalent, in purchas-
ing power, and in the importance it
gave to its possessor, to more than a
quarter Of million Of our present dol
lars.
While making his arrangements to
remove, he tell in love with a young
lady named Miss Agnew, the child of
distinguished military family. She
was of romantic turn Of mind, and
though, i, delightful to marry an Irish
republican, whose sister was an Irish
peeress, aud to emigrate with him to
the wilderness of America! On the
first day of August, 1896, when Blen
nerhassett was thirty-op years of age
they landed in New York where, i,
seems, the mosquitoes attacked them
with such unrelenting per'nacity, that
they were glad to 90 into the country
for few weeks until the hot weather
was over.
His first letter from New York gives
n curious account Of the furious specu-
lation then prevailing among business
men which he though. was the cause
of the extravagant prices of everything
and the high rate Of wages. Men SER
wants, be said, received twelve dollars
month, mechanics sixteen shillings a
day, and good house was two hundred
pounds year. There was perfect
mania for speculation in real estate
fortunes made and lost every day in
buying and selling lots and lands. lie
saw almost everything in a favorable J
light. Witness his description of |
Newark, nine miles from the city of
New York
Newark is perhaps the handsomest
village in the world. OF extent,
nearly three miles it is seated in a
plain, clear and level as pailor floor,
on the banks Of the Passaic, in an am
pitheatre environed by gently swelling
hills Its academy, courthouse, and
two neat buildings for public worship,
added to nine stages, which besides an
infnity of wagons, every day pass
through it between New York and
Philadelphia, give an air of business
and gaiety to the place. 1t is also the
residence of many private families of
respectabiity.'
1t is only very old inhabitants Of
Newark, which is now grown to a
great manufacturing city of one hun
dred thousand inhabitants, who will re-
alize the truth of Blennerhassetts pic
ture.
Our romantic adventurers were
bound westward-fo the far vest
which was then the shores of the Ohio
river. between Pittsburg and the site OF
Cincinnati. The next whit found
them in Marietta in Ohio, whence he
made excursions into the universal will
derness in quest of suitable land upon
which to establish himself. Near the
village is an eminence of some eleva-
ton, from the summit of which an ex.
tensive veiw is afforded of the river and
surrounding country. No sight could |
have been more inconvenient; but, as
in the old world, many picturesque
height was crowned by picturesque
castle, the relict of barbarious times,
the Blennerhassetts thought it would be
a grand thing to place upon this height
the Mansion they intended to build.
Near Marietta, there is low island
in the Ohio river, about three miles
long and perhaps one hundred yards
wide. 1t lies fiat upon the surface Of