The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1897-11-03
BOYS MEET as SENATORS.
A Remarkable Incident Recalled by
the Death of Mcpherson.


There will probably never be another
such gathering in the United States
senate as there was when the extra
session was called together on the
4th of March, 1877. On that day John
ROderick Mcpherson, of New Jersey,
who was buried in Washington last
Monday, entered upon his first term as
representative of the state Of New,
Jersey in the upper house of congress
and then and there he met four boys,
each one OF whom like himself, was
born within the circumference of
circle of seventy-five miles diameter
with a center in Livingston county,
New York, an6, beside the five, there
was sixth who had lived within that
same circle and who had been known
personally to each of the others more
than three decades before that extra
session was called together.
The admission, in the July prec ID
ing, of the new state of Colorado had
brought TO the front as senators from
the centennial state Henry NJ. Teller,
who was born in Allegheny county,
just south Of Livingston, and Jerome
B. Chaffee, who first saw the light In
Niagara county, in the same state, fifty
miles north.
Angus Cameron, also born in Liv-
ingston county, was representing in
part the state of Wisconsin,, to which
he had removed after having studied
law in Buffalo.
Francis Herman, older than the rest
Of his colleagues, was a native of Steu-
ben county, and he was the only one
In the party who was then represent
ing his native state in the United States
senate.
James B. Beck took his seat that
same March day as representative of
Kentucky, to which state he had gone
with his father, after the latter had
completed the work of surveying a
railroad through the Genesee zalley.
Some time late in the thirties, these
five boys, following the custom then
general throughout the rural districts
of this country, had all added to their
earnings by laboring in the harvest
fields of what was then the great wheat
region of the United States, and it was
said of them on one particular occasion
all six of these boys met and cut grain
side by side on the farm owned by
Francis Kernan's father. However
this may be, it is certain that Angus
Cameron during several winters of his
early life taught district school in
western New York, and several of the
young men who afterward became
United States senators acquired part Of
their education in the school ever
which he presided.
1t is not at all strange that they
should have become so widely scatter
ed in after years, nor is it strange that
in choosing their political course the six
should have become equally divided as
between the two parties. Chaffee,
Teller and Cameron joined themselves
with the Republicans, thereby, appar-
emily, demonstrating that the atmOs-
phere of the west was more conducive
to Republican ideas than the east and
south, as Mcpherson, of New Jersey,
Herman, of New York, and Beck, Of
Kentucky, remained Democrats as long
as they lived.
Senator Chaffee was the first to die.
He was followed by Herman. Then
Beck, followed by Cameron, and now
Mcpherson has passed away.
Teller, the survivor of the six, re-
mains in the senate, but since the con-
vention in st. Louis last year he no
longer claims to be straightout Repub-
lican, but is the leader of a new party
of which he and few other senators
were founders, known as the Free Sill
yer republicans.