The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1892-08-04
ANNUAL ADDRESS
FOOL. VIM. H. S. BURGWYN,
Delivered Before the North Caro-
lima State Tobacco Association
at Morehead City, July 9th,
1892.

at Morehead City, July 9th
1892.
Nh. President and Gentlemen Of M
State Tobacco Association, LaaIe
ami Gentlemen A summer morn
ing, August, 50 years ago. There
stands a fort where the river join
the lake, yellow sand ridges cast VI
by the waters of the lake low
green prairie and wilderness beyond
There is war The fort is beseiged by
a treacherous and sullen Indian tribe
An evacuation; a retreat; a massacre
I a boy of eight, the orphan of hunter
forest-bred, he is older than his years
and alert to danger. Hampered, un-
sheltered, outnumbered, the white men
die fighting. The Indians close in on
the wagons where are the women and
children, leap into them with toma-
hawk in hand and the massacre be-
gins. In one of these wagons crouches
the eight year old child. As it is
entered by the savages, swift as an
otter gliding into water, the boy is
out and darting away among the
bushes. A friendly cottonwood tree
offers him a shelter, and near by a
heap of bushes into which he writhes
and struggles and is lost from view.
Night fall The child steps from his
hiding place and runs to the south
ward. Suddenly a dark figure rises
in his path and the grasp of a strong
hand is on his shoulder. He struggles
irantically, but his own language is
spoken. 1t is the voice of a friendly
Miami fleeing like the boy from the
Pottowatomies The Indian takes the
child by the hand and hurries him to
the westward; to the Mississippi.
1t is the year 1885. One of a band
Of trappers, venturlng up the Missouri,
is slender quiet man, the deadliest
shot in the party. Good trapper he
is; lonely man, but a creature of
action. He is hunter of Indians,
Vengeance pers onified. He is the boy
who hid beneath the brush heap near
the cottonwood tree. To his single
arm has fallen more savages than fell
whites on the day cf the massacre.
1t is the year 1898. An old man
west. He is now 50 years Of age.
The long battle with the dangers of
the wilds is done. The old man listens
to the talk of those about him. He
hears them tell Of a place where a
mighty nation is inviting the peoples
Of the world to take part in a monster
jubilee, because of the quadri
NAL of a continents discovery. As
he hears of this place, a torrent of
memory sweeps him backward over
So years. He thinks of one awful day
md night. An irresistible longing
seizes him to look again upon the
regions he has not seen for more than
three qurters Of a century. A wild
desire to revisit the junCture of the
river and the great lake, and to wander
where were the sand reaches and the
cottonwood tree, possesses him, and,
resolute as ever, he acts upon the i'm
pulse.
An old man, in uncouth garb and
enquiring manner is hurried along the
swarming, warring thoroughfares of a
great city. He has found the river
and the lake, but nothing else, save
pandemonium. He is seeking the
place where stood the cottonwood
tree. He finds his way to a broad
avenue bearing The blue lakes name,
and is told to seek Eighteenth street
and there walk to the water. There
it stands, the cottonwood tree of the
massacre; with blunt, white limbs out
stretched and dead; as dead as those
who were slaughtered at its base SO
years ago. Where was once the brush
heap, beneath whose sheltering covert
he passed those shuddering hours, mar
Bile piles of rich men loom above him
on each side, and along the yellow
sand ridges cast up by the waters of
the lake, rush by the freighted railroad
trains. The old man passes on. He
seeks the oak dotted prairie miles to
the south. He is in swirl of hosts.
He looks upon vast structures such as
the world has never seen before.
Through the broad thoroughiares surge
the people Of all nations, and here
was where the friendly Miami Indian
found the boy.
An old man is sitting again in his
cabin in the far northwest. He is
wondering, wondering if it had been
but dream, his old age journey.
Could such changes have come with
IN the span Of single lifetime. Yet
his eyes had seen the new and he had
been an actor in the old.
\ massacre of every white soul but
enc in it, introduces to US the Chicago
Ct SO years ago. \ jubilee welcomes
the nations of the world to its mil
lion of inhabitants of to-day.
What is the lesson?
Commerce, Civilization, Christi
anIty. We may safely say, this genera
ton will not look upon another Worlds
Fair held on this continent. When
i: comes about to celebrate the CEN
t7nnlal of the surrender at Appomat
tox, the occasion will interest US but
Little; ourselves, our deeds, our names
will be lost in the millions OF those
who like us have lived and died within
that time, for We are like summer
clouds the breath of evening watts
away; we cannot even claim the
present as our own.