Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1894-10-04
James Lawrence Mcchan's Adventures.

year of our Lord 1894, James Lawrence
McChan. who is known so well to every
man, woman and child in Shepherds
town, babe adieu to the scenes of his
childhood and left on the b. q y.
limited express train for the great
West. His destination was Kansas
City, Missouri, and his object to get
for himself fortune and fame. Soon
after sunrise, on Saturday last, Sep
TENDER 29th, same year, Mr.. McChan
pulled into Shepherdstown, footsore
and weary, with the vision of wealth
and celebrity still an iridescent dream,
And this is the tale that he told:
Lawrence has an uncle and an aunt
in Kansas City, and for some time
past he has had it in his mind to make
his home with them and have his share
of the commercial property of that
booming city. Accordingly, on the date
first mentioned, he set forth conquer
ing and TO conquer. He arrived IN
Kansas City on Saturday. Monday
he was initiated into hard work, and
put in tough day shoveling coal and
performing other labor of an equally
unromantic kind. By the time Sat-
urday night came Lawrence was
tired and disguised boy. The eli
mate was raw and chilly, the town
unsociable, the work distasteful. They
wanted him to work on Sunday, be-
sides, which was another discourager
to a virtuous youth. Just as he went
to bed Sunday night woman on the
floor above started in to play the
piano. Lawrence says that she start
ed in with Sweet Marie, and then
pounded out after the Ball, Daisy
Bell and 1.-TWO Little Girls in Blue.
Finally she played softly and pathet-
ically Home, Sweet Home. That
settled it, Lawrence got up and sat
on the bed and wrote a note to his
kinsfolk that he was going to Virginia
and that they should take the money
due him and express his trunk after
him. He put the note and his key on
the table, and at the first chance struck
for the freight yards. On Monday,
the 18th, he shook the dust Of Kan
sas City from his feet, climbed into
side-door palace car and set his face
eastward. There were !, AGO weary
miles twixt him and home, but with
hope in his heart and sc cents in his
pocket he started on an eventful jour
ney.
Lawrence is something of a railroad
er himself, having been employed sew
eral months as call boy in Hagerstown,
his duties being to awaken the rail-
road men when it was time for them
to report for duty; so he had pretty
good luck with the train crews for
the first few hundred miles, riding in
STYLE in the cabooses. In fact, he only
walked about IS miles altogether.
One night he footed it % miles into
Cincinnati. He says he was afraid
that if he rode into the city on a
freight the police would run him in,
and he didn't want to be treated as a
common hobo. He acknowledges,
though, that it was tough night 5
work-worse, even. than canalllng.
AT Cincinnati his finances were com
pletely exhausted, and though he
struck some very good meals OCCASION
ally, he subsisted chiefly on cold
"hand-outs.
At Carrollton, ILL.,, Lawrence says
he came very near gettinginto troub-
lie. He and a chum he had picked
up got into a crowd of over forty no.
Dos and the whole party camped in a
24-acre tomato patch at the edge of
town. A bank had been robbed there
a short time before, and the people
had declared war on tramps. A half
dozen policemen, with bilhes a yard
long, ordered the gang to move on
1t wouldn't move. Then a military
company, with guns loaded with buck
shot, came out and said "git. They
all got. When he saw the soldiers
| Lawrence sldIleu W ulaho III" VIM
but he didn't have time to finish 1t
before he was on the run.
Lawrence says he will ever remem-
Der with gratitude G. A. Duncan, Of
Hamilton, Ohio Mr., Duncan, it ap-
pears, conducts barber shop. When
the subject of this sketch asked him to
trust him few weeks for the price OF
shave, the noble barber generously
scraped him for NOTTINGHAM act OF
kindness that touched the wanderer S
heart deeply.
t. obr;o,,C raosonc 7 awrence did