Richland beacon., 1873-07-19
BRET HARTE.
He Goc, u Pilgrimage TO washinStOn's
Headquarters.

quarters ut MOrrlStOwn. The adult
American who has not at sometime
stood beneath the same roof that shell
tered the father of his country is to be
pitied and feared. The opportunities
for performing this simple, patriotic act
are so ample and varied that studiOus
disregard of them is, | am satisfied, con-
sistent only with moral turpitude.
Such person may, indeed, offer as an
excuse that he has sat Ill CHAIR once
occupied by Washington that he has
drunk from a mug once used by wash
ington, or that he has in his extreme youth
talked with an aged person who distinct
ly remembered Washington but these
are supererOgatory acts which do not
take the place of this primary Obliga-
tion. When we consider the number of
roofs that Washington has apparently
slept under when we reflect upon the
infinite toll and travel which the great
and good man must have undergone to
place this proud privilege within the
easy reach of every American citizen,
the omission to avail ones self of it is
simply despicable. The Valley Forge
experience has always been deemed a
spectacle of noble devotion and unpar-
alleled self-sacrifice, but / have pre-
fered, confess, TO lay awake at nights
thinking of this unseltish hero, rising
ere it was yet day, hurrying away, ac-
companied only by his $50 colOred body
servants, each with longevity and gar
rulity depicted on their faces, hurrying
away to reach the next town in time to
make another roof tree historical. l
have thought of him pursuing this no.
BILE duty with dignified haste, pansing
only to pat the heads of tOddline in
fants, who in after years were destined
to distinctly remember it, until the tears
have risen to my eyes.
50 that when l heard that Washing
tons headquarters at Morristown was
to be sold at public auction on the 25th,
l determined to go and see it. 1t was
nv first intimatiOn that it was still in
existence; / had, perhaps. often passed
it without knowing the fact, for 1t IS a
popularity of this kind of property that
its historic quality is always sprung
upon you like trap; that you are
hardly safe in any old tenement; that
yOu drop unconsciOusly into the WASH
ington cnair, or imbibe serenely from
the Washington mug, and that the fact
is brought sharply upon you like pm
in the cushion or fly in the milk. In
the course of time this expectation ma
turally excites morbid activity of the
intellect but only once do l remem-
Der being mistaken in the result. 1t
was in Sierran solitude, where l had
encamped, and where / was solicited to
take supper in the newly-built cabin OF
an eastern immigrant. At supper. l
was supplied with an ordinary china
mug of a pale blue willow pattern.
"That mug" said my host, "has lit
tie story connected on it. 1t has been
in our family nigh on hundred years.
1t belonged to my grandfather. At the
siege of Yorktown he lived convenient
to the battlefield, and the guns was
posted all around the house. All of a
student" 81 remember" l inter-
posed hastily. "Suddenly command
ing form darkened the little doorway,
and a dignified but courteous voice
asked for drink of water. Your grand.
father rose" 81 was goin' on to say,
continued my host calmly, "that the
boomin' O. them guns broke every bit
of china in the house, and that grand
father had to buy new set next day,
and this yer one is the last of them. "
1 put down my cup and gazed long and
earnestly at the man. His face was
calm. thoughtful, and even sad, slight
tremulOusnesslof the left eyelid, and a
depression of the lower angle of the
mouth on the same side, easily attribu-
table to historic emotion, were the only
evidences of feeling.
But here was a vc-stable headquar-
ters of Washington, based on no local
tradition, but standing boldly in histo-
ry. There had been temporary head
quarters at the freemason's tavern on
"the village green" But the house
was gone, the freemasons were dust
these fifty years, and on the "villagt
greer" the gray chaft that commemO
rated the MorristOwn dead of the las
civil war obliterated the past. How
then, remote and bloodless looked tha
Jersey campaign of IT, beside TIN
names on this obelisk. How rust.
those old blood stains appeared beside
the bright red, still warm current OF to
day. / hurried past it, and out into tn
leafy road that lead to the historl'
house.
1t had been my original intention t.
take with me q certain humOrist, mai
who had made so. little reputation
by habit of scoffing at certain re
versed objects by humorous analysis o
their effect upon others a man wht
kept you in high spirits, and left yo'
vapid and uncomfortable, a man who's
company was dissipation that brought
dreadful tomorrow morning after 1t !;
man who was always to be depended
upon, but never to be trusted. con
ciuded, however, not to take him witt
me. "You'll be sorry You didn't" h
said gloomily, as he leaned against
!, fence with the settled melancholy o
, his profession. You're not to be truste'
, alone. Tde like t. get a shy at G. "
: some time. Look around his garden
not a cherry tree to be seen. Tell m
that he can get over that habit, that b
didn't sleep with a hatchet under hi
, pillow, and get up in the dead of nigh
!. to do it. And then he had no sense G
s. humor. When the staff we're doing &C
! nundrums down there one night, an
: Green asked him Why a goOseberr
. . was like a Hessian,' didn't he reply
Gen. Greene, cannot tell lie, ther
5 is certainly no connection in nature bt
tween the two, and spoil the boys {
y their little fus ?" And so / left hil
3 muttering, with look in his eye as
! he were even then celebrating humol
= Ous account of my visit, based entirel
y upon speculatiOn of nv character, an