The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1880-03-04
A Famous Journalistic Feat Retold.

Happening into q Washington peri
odical store the other day, encountered
Joseph Shillington, one of the Oldest
men in the business. He was originally
sent to Washington to superintend the
delivery of the Baltimore Sun to its
subscribers. He said to me: "Do you
know l gave the San what its proprie-
tor, Abel, always said was the biggest
piece Of news he ever gotp"
What was that, Mr.. ShillingtcnP'
I" 1t was the explosion nf the big gun
on the Princeton about 1874. Commo-
dore Stockton came around here with
his big ship to give Congress and the
administration an excursion. The ship
went down the river to somewhere near
Fort W ashington, and there, while most
of the people were down in the cabin
partaking of collation., Stockton had
his big gun, called the Peacemaker, fired
off. 1t burst and one of the pieces killed
Secretary Upshur, while Secretary Gill
mer was crushed to human wad. Two
gentlemen, named Gardiner and Maxey,
were killed at once. Gardeners daugh-
ter afterward married President Tyler.
Commodore Kennon was killed. Com
modore Stockton was temporarily
blinded, and Senator Tom Benton and
his servant were both knocked down
and the servant killed. Some people
said that Benton was little crazy al
ways afterward.
This accident happened" continued
Mr.. Shillington, "pretty late in the af-
ternoon, and the news didn't get to
Washington until something like nine
o'clock at night. l was not writer
ofanything, but / saw there was an op-
portunity to give the Sun big lift. The
first thing | did was to go to Stettineus,
manager of the Baltimore and Ohio
railroad here, and secure n locomotive.
1t cost me $75. Mr.. Abel was not al
ways liberal and felt that was taking
risk. At that time there was only
two trains a day from Baltimore to
Washington, one in the morning and
the other in the evening; therefore l
had u cleer track. kept the locomo-
tive with steam up in the old depot on
Pennsylvania avenue until could over
haul Congressman Paddock Pratt, of
New York. He was an old tanner in
the Catskill mountains, and had tanned
more than 100000 sides of leather.
| Pratt saw the explosion and gave me
the particulars. When 1 got down to
the depot | found the postmaster gen.
eral, Charles Wickliffe. standing there.
What is this locomotive forp' he asked.
He was told it had been privately char
tered on newspaper business. He
was getting up letters and dispatches to
go North. Said I Mr.. Postmaster
General, you can't send anything by
this locomotive! This is n newspaper
locomotiver Wickliffe was quite in
| dignant that there should be any such
| thing as a newspaper Locomotives; it
had not been heard of up to that time.
| Said he to the engineer: The govern
ment will pay for thisn Never you
mind said to the engineer and fire.
man, and / got aboard and we went as
| fast as the state of the road and kind of
| locomotive would allow to Baltimore,
nearly forty miles distant, which we
reached in one hour and half. got
| there about eleven o'clock the compost
tors had already been dismissed and the
edition was on the press. l had taken
the precaution to fee the engineer and
fireman and make them go right back
| Baltimore. | said to the pressman,
Stop this press mt once I could not
make them understand anything. Then
| went down to Mr.. Abell's house; he
lived on Water street. He put his hes
out of the window with night-cap on
and asked who was there. Finally, he
came down stairs and went with me to
the press room. We had sent out for
compositors previously.
"As soon as the composing room was
lighted up the Clipper and another news
paper there wanted to know all about it.
We kept everything a secret, and got
out the SIN with nearly two columns of
news. The other papers called it an
other moon-hoaX. 1t was not until
about nine o'clock next morning that a
train came in from Washington con-
firming the story, and then the S,t,e had
made it general all over Baltimore The
Sun had then been estab ished a few
years, but had not made much mark,
and for months afterward it boasted OF
it's enormous expenditure in gettin 3.
that piece of news. But from that it
learned the value of enterprise to such a
degree that when the Mexican war broke
out, two years afterward, the Satn used
both locomotives and couriers. -
"Gah's" Washington Letter to NeaO York
Graphic.