The Warner weekly sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1885, 1884-02-22
CONGRESSIONAL CEMETERY

Notable Public Men Who Lie in It
The Story OF the P]rlnceton's Fatal
Gun Explosion.
The Washington correspondent of the
Providence Journal, in describing the
cemeteries at the National Capitol, says:
The Congressional and Oak Hill Gem
eteries are the two most thiClky popu-
lated with those who in their lifetime
were of public note. 1t is in a past-aud-
zone fashion TO be buried in the Con-
gressional, but now and then one whose
friends lie there is I taken to join them,
and occasionally new lots are l believe
sold This cemetery is at the Capitol
Hill end of the city. There are public
men, @ goodly number, lying here, as
for instance: A consecutive two Of the
earlier Vice Presidents, George Clinton
and Elbridge Gerry; William Writ, At
torney-G General; A. A. Upshur, Secre-
tary of State and previously OF the Navy,
who, with Commander keenan,, Chief
of the Bureau of Construction; Secretary
of the Navy Gilmer, Virgil Maxey aud
David Gardiner of GARDENERS Island. N.
Y, were killed in February, 1874, on
board the corvette sloop Of
war Princeton. by the
bursting of a gun when near Alexandria
on their return trip from an excursion to
Mount Vernon. President Tyler, Colo
mel and Mrs. ruley of Virginia, and
many others on board escaped without
injury. President Tyler, the following
June, married Miss Julia Gardiner,
daughter of one Of the victims, who with
- -.r.A- 49, - y..1 1900. - A.
catastrophe. Judge wilkins, Secretary
of War, it is recorded, was saved by a wit
icism. He had been standing beside Sec
rotary Gilmer, and pe%rceiying that the
gun was about to be fred, exclaimed:
Though Secretary of war, I do not like
this firing, and believe / she'll run" So
saying, he retreated. Mrs. Gilmer SAL
on deck with a face that grew pale as
death, as she saw herself widowed in an
instant. Five hundred guests were on
board; they had just dined and the
tOasts were being drunk. Shortly be-
fore the explosion, Secretary Upshur
had been called on for his toast. He ac-
cidently took up an empty bottle and
lightly remarked that "the dead bodies
(the empty bottles) must be cleared
q way before he could give ms toast. BY
chance another empty bottle was pushed
towards him, he repeated his joke,
which drew from Captain Stockton.
commander of the frigate, the reply
that there were plenty Of living (bottles)
to supply the place of the dead.
The President then gave
the toast: The Princeton and her three
guns, etc. The leading gentlemen then
withdrew from the table to make room
for others. and within ten minutes sec
rotary Upshur himself, and four of the
participants with him at the banquet,
were dead bodies Five hearses were
escorted by Postmaster-General Wick
life to the executive mansion, where
the body Of Colonel Gardiner, the father
of the Presidents betrothed wife, re-
NAMED till the funeral. All this is q d.
erosion, but it ..vivi6es the anne on
those grim headst0nes wonderfully to
connect Them with scenes OF warm
blooded, real life.
Colonel Tobias Lear Private Secre-
tary and friend of Washington, who
committed suicide here in 1916. is also
buried in the Congressional Cemetery,
as are Major-Generals Macomb and
Jacob Brown, each of whom, in his day,
The Wainwright family; Alexander Dali
Las Bache, founder of sthe coast survey
service Surgecn-General Joseph Lowell,
u. s. A.; gallant Midshipman Frederick
Rogers, who was drowned at Norfolk in
1923, wkile trying TO save his comrades
in life and death; Midshipmen Slidell
and Harrison; Pus-ma-ta-ha, a Choctaw
Chief, the white mans friend; Secretary
of State Forsyth, and a -nrnber ofyoung
lady operatives at the arsenal at the
time OF III exulOsiOn during the war.
who lie in one tomb, are Among others