The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-09-05
"REMINISCENCES OF THE FoRT1Es

All Ciu buILalOnlaIl, FolIl1ellS VI 4NSW
 Haven, Solves a Local Political Mys-
 tery of More Than Half Century
 Ago.
 The MT. Hodge spoken of below was a resident of New Haven quite a num-
 Der of years. He was employed In the
 railroad shops, but after his wlfe's death, three years ago, moved to Men tor O., the home of the late President
 Garfield.
 In June last he visited New Haven.
 He Is now very ill with cancer of the
 throat. He is related to Mrs. Mary
 Dudley Burke Fitzgerald and resided
 on Rosette street.
 The Cleveland, O., Voice says as fol-
 lows: There is now living in Mentor,
 Lake County, O., man past seventy years of age, MT. Alfred A. Hodge, who spent most of his boyhood days in Buff falo. His father died of cholera in that city in 1882, being the first victim of the disease that year in Buffalo, Young Hodge was then eight years old. Thrown upon his own resources, he went to learn the printers trade. At seventeen he entered the navy, and | soon after on the United States ship l Columbus, sailed for the Mediterranean | Sea. Subsequently he visited all the | continents of the globe, and sailed on
 nearly all its seas, At one time he was
 on the island of St. Helena where the great Napoleon was prisoner and died, and at another at the island of l Juan Fernandez, where Alexander Sel-
 kirk-Robinson Crusoe--was shipwreck
 ed and lived so long. He was on the 1 United States warship Ohio, and took
 part ill the capture of Vera Cruz from | the Mexicans in 1S47, after which he
 spent nineteen years in the gold regions
 on the Pacific Coast.
 MT. Hodge has his mind well stored with interesting events in his life. A I few days since, the writer listened for
 an hour or more hearing him relate
 some of his adventures.
 ''The log cabin being built on the pub- l lie square ill Cleveland said he, | brings to my mind an event in con- | nection with a similar structure put
 up in the city of Buffalo in 1S40 when was boy. At the time was work ing at my trade in the old Buffalonian printing office, whose editor, a little later, was sent to Jail three months for libel, and the building subsequently,
 burned to the ground. At the time I was sleeping in the third story and barely escaped
 Politics in 1840 ran high; the whigs built a log cabin on Eagle street, be- l tween the old Eagle theater and Main street on the top of which was staff surmounted by Harrison and Tyler flag. On the roof of the building was birch canoe, fastened in it's place at the ridge by stayropes. In the canoe were several wooden images represent ing Indians. One night, when a large meeting was being held in the cabin. three boys might have been seen climb | ing up as many corners of the cabin One of these boys pulled down the flag. l jumped to the ground with it and ran | away as fast as he could. The two | others cut the stay-ropes of the canoe, and they, too, jumped and ran, each in an opposite direction. The canoe, In- l dians and all, came down with crash 1 The audience rushed out of the cabin, l much amazed at the noise The boys l soon returned and mixed with the 1 crowd. They heard many remarks not
 very complimentary to themselves Said one man: Whoever did this ought
 to be hung. Finally the audience again | entered the cabin, and the great out 1 rage was severely condemned by sev- eral speeches and a reward of $50 was offered for the arrest of the guilty par- | ty. "
 The boys heard the speeches and began to realize that it would not be l pleasant for them if found out; so they
 all took an oath by holding up their
 hands and saying, They hoped to die | if they told a word on each other, and 1 so the secret has been kept for many l years.
 'The real criminal in this work" said | Mir. Hodge, was a MT. Dean. who at
 the time was one of the proprietors of l the Eagle street theater and father of Julia Dean, who afterward became a
 somewhat noted actress. One evening l he called David Patterson Bradford Barnes and another boy about my own age into his private office and agreed
 to give them s5 If they would pull down and carry away the flag over the cabin ! and capsize the canoe. Dean was a | blatant Locofoco and had great lla- tired for the whigs The $5 was paid to
 the boys by Enos Palmer, another democrat The flag that was pulled
 down I afterward saw hanging in sa-
 loon"