The Pickens sentinel. [volume] (Pickens, S.C.) 1871-1903, 1881-03-24
THE NEW CABINET.
Biographical Sketches of its Members

Personal and Political Antecetlents q
Blaine, Window, KirkwOOd, Lincoln
HUNT James and SEacveaSh.
New York Hersld.
JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE, SECRETARY
OF STATE.
Few public men in America are bette,
known than Senator James G.. Blaine
ex-Speaker Of the House of Representa-
tives, and few are likely to maintain
themselves 80 steadily in the forefront OF
the political battle field for many wears
to come. AS Premier of the new ad-
ministratien Mr.. Blaine will share with
President Garfield the chief responsible.
ltles Of policy which will be largely
his own, at least to a degree unusual in
the annals of recent governments. Mr..
Blaine, as is well known, is citizen of
Maine and native of Pennsylvania, but
1T is not so we'll understood that he may
be considered in geographical sense as
"Ohio man." having been born in the
center of the Ohio Valley, much nearer
the Beautiful River" than either Hayes
or Sherman. He comes Of Revolution
ary stock, his great-grandfather, COL.
Ephriam Blaine, native of Scotland,
having fought with prince Charley at
Culloden in the '45, and afterward par
ticipated in the American Revolution, as
commissionary general of the Middle de-
partment during the Revolutionary war.
His maternal grandfather, James Gilles-
pie, settled upon large tract of land in
the Monongahela Valley soon after the
Revolution, that region being considered
then Il part Of Virginia. His father,
Ephriam l.. Blaine. married Miss Gill
lespie, and James G. Blaine, one of seven
children, was born Jan. 81, 1880, on
Indian Hill farm, West Brownsville,
Union township, on the Monongahela, in
Washington county, Pa. The county
seat was the thriving village of Wash
ington-usually known as "Lttle Wash
ington"-a town which has become
prominent of late years by its cremation
furnace and by the visits of Gen. Grant
to the members of his family who reside
there. "Little Washington" is also no
ted as the seat of one of the oldest col
leges of the Ohio Valley, and there,
after preparation at a school in Lancas-
ter, o., where he resided with his uncle,
Senator Thomas Ewing, the future
Premier graduated in 1S47, with the
highest honors of a class of thirty-three
members, at the early age of seventeen
years. In 1850 he went to Georgetown,
KY, rs teacher at q military academy,
and married, about 1853, a Miss Harriet
Stanwood, lady who taught an adioin
ing district school. She belonged to a
prominent family of Maine, and this
marriage was the occasion of the remov.
al Of Mr.. Blaine to that State. He had
previously taught 1852I in the Penn.
sylvania Institution for the Blind at
Philadelphia, at the same time studying
law and writing for the Philadelphia
Inquirer. He speedily became connected
with the Kennebec Journal, published at
Augusta, the State Capital, and was for
a time editor of the Portland Advertiser,
but soon returned to his former post at
Augusta. In 1857 he was elected to the
State Legislature, where he sat for five
years, during two Of which he served as
Speaker. In 1862 he was elected to
Congress, to which he was regularly re
elected until 1876, when he was chosen
to the Senate in place of ex-senator Lot
NJ. Morrill,. In December, 1869, he was
elected Speaker of the Forty-frst Con-
gress, was reelected in 1871 and 1873
and was defeated in 1875 by his Demo
cratic competitor, Michael G. Kerr, the
Democrats having clear majority in
that House. AS every one knows, Mr..
Blaine was brilliantly successful as a
Speaker, having complete command of
parliamentary rules, and possessing that
gift of personal magnetism which marks
the leaders of men. AS an orator and
legislator he was one of the notable fig
urcs of Congress long before he became
its presiding officer, and began to be
mentioned as possible President soon
after his first election to the Speaker
ship. At Cincinnati in 1876 he narrow
ly escaped the Republican nomination,
and at Chicago in 1880 was the leading
candidate until almost the last moment,
when his followers threw their votes for
James Abram Garfield, thus securing
his nomination. He occupies O fine
house at Washington, where he, dispenses
hospitality; has six children, two Of his
sons already practicing law, and has a
uatural taste for diplomacy, for which
his character cminently fits him. He
has an imposing personal presence, a
phenomenal memory and reputation
tor steadfast loyalty to political friends.
WILLIAM WINDOW, SECRETARY OF THE
TREASURY.
The second prize in the Garfield Cabi
net falls to Senator William Window, of
Minnesota, who had some following in
the Chicago Convention of 1880 az q
possible Ozark hcrsa." Mr.. Window,
like many other meritorious politicians,
was originally an "Ohio man." having
first seen the light May 10, 1927, in Befo
mont county, o., almost on the banks of
the Beautiful River" near Wheeling,
West Va, not fifty miles, "as the crow
flies" from the birth place of James q.
Blaine. His parents were both from
Virginia, his Paternal grand parents
were from North Carolina, and biz nna.