St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-08-11
Never Gets Left.

n. "A. CliHOru, the veteran commercial
traveller, who is known all over the North
west as ''Old Cliff" tells good story on
p. II. Kelly. For years he was connected
with Mr.. Kelly, when the latter was of the
firm of Beaupre & Kelly. and is well ac-
quainted with the gentleman's character
iStics Mr.. Clifford was conversing with a
gentleman on the recent anti-Kelly- Doran
convention, and was asked what he thought
of it, and whether Mr.. Kelly would ''get
left" Mr.. Cliffords reply contains the
story, as follows:
Get left? While L am now always have
been, and expect to be a consistent Democrat
as long as | live; am not selling puts and
calls on any one connected with politics; but
l will tell you an incident that happened
some twenty years ago, in which Mr.. Kelly
was an actor. AT the time the incident hap
pened St. Paul could not boast of her score
of railroads, over which hundreds of trains
arrive and depart daily, as now. Then the
only Eastern outlet by rail for St. Paul was
via the st. Paul 81 Sioux City railroad, con-
Meeting at Mendoza junction with the Mime
sofa Central, which had been bnilt from
Minneapolis running via Faribault and
OwatOnna-to McGregor, Ia, and then con-
connecting by ferry boats in summer, and
stages in winter with the Milwaukee & Prai-
RE du Chen railroad at Prairie du Chen and
we had only one train only only day, each
way. st. Paul passengers going to or coming
from the East were obliged to change cars at
the above junction, and the time for the de-
parture of the eastern train from the june
ton was four minutes later than the arrival
of the train from the junction. On certain
day, about the middle of the month of March,
1867, a party of gentlemen had been
made up to leave here together on q trip to
Chicago, New York, and other Eastern Cities
The party referred to was made up of Messrs.
P. H. Kelly.iP. F. McQuillan, Theodore Borup,
II n01e
Reaney and your humble servant from st.
Paul and Anthony Kelly, ESQ.,, from Mime
apolis The morning set for our departure
arrived. 1t had been arranged that Hugh
McCauley, at that time in the employ of
Beaupre & Kelly Qong since dead, should
hitch up my old road team, sBiy and
Johnny" get me and take me up to the east
end of the Wabasha street bridge, then go
after Mr.. Kelly, who at that time lived in his
red brick cottage away over on Daytou's
bluff, and drive him to the ST. Paul & Sioux
City depot, which was in those days situated
about block and half from the end of the
bridge in West St. Paul. was duly lett at
the end of the bridge and wended my way
across to the depot, and Hugh started after
Mr. Kelly. A few minutes before the time
arrived for our train to pull out, Mr.. Borup
called the roll of the party, and all but Mr.
Kelly were there to answer to their names.
The time had arrived for the train to leave,
Conductor Messer called ''all aboard" the
engineer was at his post with his hand upon
the lever Of his engine, awaiting the signal
from Messer to open up her throttle, and
still no signs of P. II. Every eye was strained
in the direction from which he was expected,
but could see nothing that looked like him or
the team. 1t had been agreed by all hands
that none of them would leave without Mr.
K. 'Where could he be? He was always on
time.'' / suggested that he might have gone
to Minneapolis the night before and stayed
with his brother, and would meet US at the
junction. so it was decided we would go that
far and if we did not meet him there we
would use a tie pass and come back to St.Paul
and see what was the matter. The rear end
of the train commanded a view of the river
and bridge for some distance. I stationed
myself on the platform and kept a
lookout for signs of Mr.. K. and team;
just before the train went out of sight
under the bluffs on the West side
caught sight of a pair of horses that
proved to be Billy and Johnny-on the bow
deck Of steamboat which was laid up for
the winter just below jackson street, on the
river. 1t seemed that as the streets were
nearly bare of snow and the bridge was en-
tirely SO, Mr.. Kelly had
DRIVEN UP AND DOWN
the bank of the river in search of a place to
drive on the ice, but the ice was badly rotted
and thawed out, and after spending con-
siderable time in the vain effort to do so, as
last resort, seeing the steamer lay in favor
able position, concluded to jump the horses
onto and off the deck of the boat TO the ice.
The deck was some three feet higher than the
ice No sooner thought of than done; and as
was saying, just before our train went out
of sight, saw the horses leap from the deck
of the steamer to the ice below, followed by
Mr. Kelly and Hugh hauling the sleigh after
them. They saw the train disappear through
the bluffs, it having some three minutes and
e mile and half the start of them. The
horses were quickly hitched to the sleigh and