St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1892-01-21
A TRIBUTE TO HORACE K. FLINT

Nor blame I death because he bear
The use of virtue out of earth;
know, translated human worth
Will bloom to profit o~therwhere-
But thou and I were one in kind;
As moulded like in natures mint;
And hill and wood and field did print
The same sweet forms in either mind"
lin Memoriam.
More than two weeks after the
death of my very dear personal
friend, whose name appears above,
l CHANGED to see among the items in
the CALIFORNIAN, a notice of this
event. Till then I knew not that he
was even sick. About the same time
1 received from an adopted daughter
a letter giving a somewhat particular
account of his last sickness and its
end. He lived but two days after a
a physician had been called, and died
of pneumonia, just seven weeks after
the death of his wife. His devoted
care for her, during a long sickness,
and a quite inconsolable grief over
this affection, SO wrought upon him
that the disease, when he vas at
tackled, made short work.
Mr.. Flint wasa ST.. Johnsbury boy,
and his love for his native town suf-
fered no abatement during all the
years of his absence from it; and the
memory of him is still green in the
recollection of many of your old
citizens.
1t seems fit, therefore, that ONE
thing further be added to the brief
though appreciative notice which
has already appeared in the columns
of the CALIFORNIAN.
He was from his youth a lad of
promise: He loved and sought
knowledge, though so few avenues
were open to him, as was true of most
of us in that early day. He was easily
the first scholar in the old Branch
school, while a pupil there. He was
more eager for books than most boys
were for kites or sleds, but was
INDUCED in very few by his father.
He relates that having once persuaded
his father to purchase him a small
dictionary, after long entreaty, he
went to him again some weeks after
and asked for some other book
some history, | think; he was very
CURLY dismissed by his father telling
him that he didn't believe he had
read through the book he had just
bought him. He was an only child
in the family until he was some
fourteen years old, naturally diff
fdent, with very few mates and
confdants, and lived a suppressed
and intensely subjective life through
all his early years, and this habit he
carried through life, and was &C
counted by many who did not know
him, as cold and exclusive; but no
warmer or truer heart ever beat,
when true friendships opened the way
to it.
His early purpose w a to fit him
self for professional life, but the sud-
den death of his father when he was
about seventeen years old gave an
entirely different cast to his life, and
he was forced for a while to take up
the utterly uncongenial work on his
fathers farm. He broke at length
from this and other trammels, and
after several terms in the Lyndon
Academy and Stanbridge in Canada,
LC DOSdh AlllIlS niIioOlI II III
istrv in the Universalist church, in
which belief he had been brought up.
His doctrinal views having under
gone a change, he abandoned this
purpose.
In the year 1912, I think, he left
St. Johnsbury and went South as a
teacher. He continued in this rather
unremuneratiW calling and then
married and went West, and tried
farming for some time. From there
he removed to Vineland, in New Ter
sey, where he entered the more con-
genial calling of journalism. In this
he vas at home, and by the high
tone he gave to his paper, his able
and O~ut-spoken editorials did much
to make that town the model of in
telligence and virtuefor which a score
of years ago it was noted.
He afterwards removed to Camden,
n. J., and went into business in
Philadelphia, from which he retired
a few years ago.
Mr.. Flint was a man of very def
mite and decided opinions. He was
deeply and intelligently interested in
politics, though never a politician.
He was too honest and severe,
though discriminating, a critic to be-
come a partisan. He was exceeding
" interested in all religious move
ments, especially in the questions
which are today agitating our Amer
lean Christianity. A long and very
intimate correspondence with him,
largely on these subjects, has made
me acquainted with his views and
the clear-cut type of his thinking.
Three or four years ago, by a pre-
vious agreement, we visited St.
Johnsbury together; and it was one
of the most delightful episodes of our
life. For twenty years before, we