Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1877-08-04
A Strange Kind OF Tramp.

Prof. Z. II. Randle, of Mckenzie,
writes the following interesting let
ter to the Western Methodist, pub
lished at Memphis: In November,
1879, one DIR. Gordon b. Mundee,
died at my house, in Mckenzie,
Tenn. He was a perfect stranger,
aman of princely a ScOtch-
man by birth, of vast learning in al
most every variety of knowledge /;
a physician of the highest order, "A
practical analytical chemist, perfect
~ at home in a laboratory, either in
making apparatus of the most COM
plete finish, in Analysing, or in eX-
perimenting of any kind. HeSeemed
acquainted personally with many
of the most learned men of the
world. He claimed to have been
seventeen years in the service of the
British navy, employed as surgeon
and analytical chemist, and to have
served mostly in the East Indies !;
that he was intimately acquainted
with Tyndall and Huxley; that he
studied chemistry under Faraday,
was an intimate friend of Living
stone and a faVOrite Of the KhediVe
of Egypt that he visited Laird dur
ing that gentleman'S excavations
of Babylon and Nineveh, and saw
Belshazzar'S throne, the winged
bulls and men-headed lions found
amid the ruins of those buried cit
les.
He stopped off the train in the
spring of 1915, out of money, and
wanted employment of me to work
in my laboratory. gave him work
and boarded him till his health
failed; | then moved him from his
office to my house, and took care of
him till his death in November, and
then gave him decent burial. He
would have no wages of me for his
labor, except enough to supply his
wants, which were exceedingly few.
He often gave public lectures ON sci
entitic subjects which | have not
heard surpassed by the finest lectur-
ers of the world, especially for eleg-
ance of language and enhancing en-
tertainment. He was about sixty
years of age, five feet nine inches
high, and weighed about one humid
red and thirty pounds. Had high
cheek bones, gray locks, little bald,
gray eyes and a strong voice. He had
sabre strokes on his hands, and both
ankles Il little distorted he said the
SepOyS in the East India war had
given him the strokes and broken
both his ankles. He told me once
that he was of titled nObility-had a
great lawsuit on hand which would
be decided in November, and if he
gained it he would be immensely
rich: that he had retired from the
world till the November decision of
the Court in Scotland. Whether he
meant Il suit by death and heavenly
riches, | know not; but he appeared
a perfect Christian gentleman. He
left no letters nor writings of any
kind whatever by which we might
trace him. He must have carefully
| DESTROYED them, for, a while before
his death, he had many papers. On
! his dcathbed he asked me to write
| to Sir John Marshall, of Edinburgh,
and Henry Mcbride, of Vera Cruz,
The former is dead, the latter can
not be found.
Who was he? Our people are all
anxious to know his history; and
this article is written in the hope that
it may be copied by many papers in
America and Great Britain, that his
| friends may hear of him and that
we may learn his history. He was
/ certainly travelling under an as
sumed name, for no such name as
Mundee can be found in Scotland
and no one of such name was ever
an officer OF the British navy, so ]
am informed by the British Admir-
atty. Gordon Boclair Mundee, if
spell the middle name correctly, he
said was his full name and that BO-
clair was an old family name.
THE name is probably Beauclerk,
which is pronounced as the PROBES
sor has spelt it abOve.-[Ed. ChrOn'
icle.l