Morning journal and courier., 1881-09-20
Price Four Cents
MziI M .I.; E s!;''EI.E ''a
DEATH OF PREsTDENT CAT

the assassin's bullet while in the waiting
 room of the Baltimore and Potomac depot
 at Washington. As quickly as possible the
 wounded man was removed to the White
 House ald he began that grand fight for life
 that has since been followed with SO much
 anxiety in every part of the civilized world.
 His grand rally gave hope to his fellow citi-
 zens that in the end he would conquer, and
 especially after his removal to Long Branch
 was it thought that he would recover But
 the fatal rigors that had previously threaten
 ed to end the struggle came on again last Sat
 urday, since which time he has been gradual
 ly sinking until last night between 10 and II
 o'clock he breathed his last.
 James Abram Garfield was born November
 19, 1881, in a log cabin on a new farm in
 Orange township, Cuyahoga county, Ohio,
 which his father was clearing. He came of
 hardy, industrious, intelligent New England
 stock. His father bought eighty acres of
 forest land in Orange short time before the
 boys birth, put up a log cabin of single
 room, moved his family into it, and began
 the work of clearing farm. In May, 1883,
 the father died, leaving the farm partly
 cleared and only partly paid for, as the sole
 support of his young family. His last words 1 were: "Eliza, have planted four saplipos
 in these woods I leave them to your care.n
 The mother, woman of great courage and 1 strong will, sold off half the land to pay the | debt and by the help of the oldest son man. aged to keep the family together and to rear
 the children in the atmosphere of a pious
 self-sacrifcing home life
 James helped on the farm as soon as he | was old enough to handle an axe or hoe or ! drive the oxen for his big brother to hold 1 the plough. When older he earned money | by working for the neighbors in the hay | field. His first regular wages were gained 1 by working in a potash factory owned by a neighboring storekeeper. His early educa- l tion was got at district school house, where he learned to read, write and cipher. At school he was known as a fighting boy, be- cause of his readiness to defend himself when misused by the larger boys
 When eighteen he went to Newburg and took contract to chop 100 cords of wood at fifty cents Q cord. Subsequently he hired out to drive horses on the canal, and spent the
 summer boating between Cleveland and
 Brier Hill, on the Mahoning river making one trip to Pittsburg. He soon rose to the rank of steersman, but hard work and expo- sure brought on a malarial fever which lasted all the next winter.
 In the following spring he went to Geauga Academy Baptist institution in the village of Chester, to make start at getting an ed ucation. His mother gave him seventeen dollars, which she and his brother Thomas had scraped together, and with this money he got through one term of school. In the summer he worked for days wages in the hay and harvest fields, and helped build q farm house for his mother, thus learning something of the carpenter trade, which was of great service to him afterward in enabling
 him to complete his education. Returning
 to the academy in the fall, he boarded him self at cost of thirty-on cents per week.
 but finding the fare hardly good enough for
 health, increased his expenses to fifty cents per week. He taught school in the winter and the next spring went back to the academy and supported himself by working for car penter mornings and evenings and Saturdays From Chester Academy he went to Hiram in the adjoining county of Portage, and there too, he earned his way by teaching country schools winters and working in mer at the carpenters bench, until he was offered a tutorship in the institution. His ruling passion now was to get college edu- cation. In 1854, when nearly g years old, he entered Williams College at Williamstown, Mass, and passed the examination for the junior class. Returning to Ohio from col lege, young Garfield went back to the school at Hiram, and was given the professorship of Latin and Greek, and the next year, when only 26 years old, he was made president of the institute. There probably never was a younger college president.
 Garfield's first political speech was made at Williamstown in 1856, just before he left col lege in behalf of Fremont the first Republi-
 T LI- h. was cast that fall Thus his political career began with the birth of the Republican party; with the glorious work of that party from 1856 up to the time of his death he has been closely associated.
 His place in life seemed now won and he married the object of his youthful love in Lu cretia Rudolph farmers daughter, who had been his fellow student at Chester Academy, and his pupil at Hiram.
 While teaching at Hiram, Garfield was in the habit of delivering religious discourses on Sunday He was never ordained minis ter but in his denomination no ordination is required for occupying the pulpit, any mem- Der of the church being privileged to deliver sermons. At one time he held a five days joint discussion on geology with William Denton taking the providential against the material view of creation.
 In 1859 Garfield was elected to the Senate of Ohio from the counties of Portage and Summit His most intimate friend in the Senate was J. D. Cox, who afterward became a major general governor of the State and secretary of the interior. The two young Senators roomed together studied together, and helped each other in the work of legisla tion Garfield pushed his law studies for ward, and early in the winter of 1861 was ad- mittsd to the bar of the supreme court.
 At the outbreak of the war Governor Den ison offered Garfield the colonelcy of the 42d Ohio infantry, but he modestly declined, on
 Gal. 1o1 H. The governor made him ieutenant-colonel and few weeks later, when the regiment was organized, he yielded to the universal desire of its officers and accepted the colo nelcy The regiment took the field in east ern Kentucky in December, 1861. Colonel Garfield was assigned to the com nand of the 18th brigade, and was ordered by General Buell. to drive Humphrey Marshall out of the Sandy Valley. By forced night march he reached MarshalPs position, near Preston burg at daybreak, fell upon him with impet- uosity, and after sharp fight forced him to burn his baggage and retreat into Virginia. Afterward he was ord cred to join Buell's army, which was then it's way to rein force Grant at Pittsburg Landing At the battle of Chickamauga he wrote every order save one submitting each to General Rose crans for approval or change. For his con- duct at Chickamauga, Garfield was made major general.
 In the summer of 1862, when everybody supposed the war was going to end in a few months, & number of officers who had gained distinction in the field were taken up at home and elected to Congress Among them was General Garfield, who was nominated by the Republicans of Joshua R. Giddings' old dis trict while with his brigade in Kentucky. He had no knowledge of any such movement in his behalf, and when he accepted the noml- nation he did so in the belief that the rebel lion would be subdued before he would be called upon to take his seat in the House, in December, 1863. He was elected by ma jority of over 10000.
 MT Garfeld's legislative work in Congress has been far too extensive to be adequately reviewed in the compass of short sketch like this Nearly all the great measures of the past fifteen years for reconstruction, for conferring citizenship and suffrage upon the former slaves, for maintaining the credit of the country, for restoring it's currency to specie basis, for protecting American indus try, and for securing the purity of elections, which are the glory of the Republican party, received in their inception the stamp of his broad. statesmanlike mind, and had in their adoption the help of his great ability as a