Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1872-04-06

POREIGN LIST.
An EyentfuI Life.

From the Murfrcsboro Monitor.l l
Every now and then in our journeying
through life we meet up with strange
characters, whose experience if written
out in minute detail would make up a
story stranger than the widest fiction
history Of sturdy adventures as thrill.
ing to the listener as Othellos tale OF
hair breath escapes and moving aeci-
dents by food and field" to the charmed
Desdemona. We met one of them yes
terday, an old gentleman from William
son county, by the name Of George
Ridley, distant relative of our young
friend Granville Ridley, who is at pres
ent in attendance on the Circuit Court
here in the character of witness in the
case of NJ. II. Buchanan VS.. 3. ID. Miller.
His experience as related to us in a
private, casual conversation, has been a
marvellous one in the extreme. In a
newspaper article we cannot be expected
to give more than the faintest and brief.
est outline. ..s
He is now seventy-six years OF age,
gray and SCARED all over, and his life OF
vicissitudes commenced when but boy.
He ran away from bis father, clever,
honest citizen of Nashville, just before
the battle Of New Orleans and Joined
General Jackson in his march to that
city. His age can be imagined from the
fact that at that time he was but mere
stripping and weighed but seventy-one
pounds. He carried the flag of his regi-
ment through all the storm and hurri-
cane of that battle until cannon shot
fred from the British lines, almost stimuli.
taneously with the fall of General Pack
enham, carried the shattered staff from
his hands. His hand to this day bears
the scar from the wound received then.
After his return to Nashville from the
war in 1915, he did not take well to civil
life, but when the first opportunity
offered itself, in 1918, he shouldered his
gun and entered the Florida campaign,
against the Seminole Indians. He was
wounded by the redskins five times.
About the year. 1856, when Buchanan
became President, he was appointed by
the administration Indian agent in Kan
sas and Nebraska. He was there when
Beecher, in aseries Of sermons, exhorted
his pious Plymouth brethren to send
Sharp rifles, instead of Bibles, out to
Kansas. he was there all through that
eventful border war, aud was wounded
five times at Passawattamy and in Other
skirmishes against John Brown, whose
soul has long since gone marching
home" 8e lalf aeF
After the expiration of his agency, he
made frequent explorations into the far
West. On his last expedition there he
went with man by the name of Paul
fishing They we're in wagon, and as
they were passing near the foot Of
Pixies Peak, near the head of the Ar
kansas river, he says that the wagon
turned up earth, and he discovered q
shining surface that he knew was gold.
He made an excuse to Paul and went
back, filled up his sack with the ore,
covered up the spot and marked it so
that he could identity it even now. The
place is an unfreluented one, and he is
satisfied that the secret of the hidden
treasure is with him Alone. From the
litile sackfull he picked up he realized
from the mint at Lexington, Missouri,
the sum of two hundred and eighty dol
lars in small coin. ra,4 ...,
Although he is old now and decrepit,
and frequently affected with spasms that
nearly kill him, he is determined to set
out again, about the lst of May, to this
III Dorado in the West, aud he is salts
fed he can find gold enough to enrich
this whole Congressional district.