Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1897-10-30
UP, JONAH"
By JOAQUIN MILLER.
rcopvrIght. 1897. by the Author.1


Jonah was and is even now to be seen
here snugly housed in one end of his
huge old whaleboat by one Of our Oak
land wharfs, an old Yankee sailor,
tall, lean, lank, once as full Of old sea
stories as an old pincushion is full of
old needles. Nearly all of these stories
are made up Of dreadful shipwrecks, in
every one of which he bore conspicu-
GUS part and was each time the worst
shipwrecked sailor Of the whole crew,
and think this is why the Califor-
mans, long, long ago, when it was the
habit to call men by queer names, called
this man Jonah. Anyhow the namo
was firmly fastened on him when few
years ago .le was set to watch a certain
place by the shore and give alarm in
case of fire.
Well, in a few days the place took
fire, and everything, including old Jo-
nah, as it was thought, was burned to
ashes. But as these Californians always
rebuild very quickly the workmen,
while clearing away for new founda-
tion, heard voice away down below,
and, opening the mouth of the we'll
that had been covered by falling tim
beers, there they found poor old Jonah,
up to his neck1in the water, where he
{ had fallen while. running in great haste
to give the alarm Of fire.
This and other less important Incl
dents in the same line gave the honest
old sailor such reputation for bad
luck that few fishermen or pleasure par
ties were willing to embark with Jonah
if other boats were to be had at hand.
But on the 28th Of November, 1886,
the day on which the California Arbor
day was established, the old man had
his big boat filled with as bright and
lovely little crowd of country boys
and girls as could have been found for
miles around, and this was because ev-
cry other boat had been engaged to go
to Yuba Buena island, in the middle of
the great and most glorious bay of San
Francisco, where the ceremonies we're
to take place.
This great, big and ugly island in
this broad and most beautiful bay on
the globe, if we except the bay Of Ma
Piles perhaps, is barren and rocky
place. 1t belongs to the government and
has pretty lighthouse On it. There are
four other islands in this great bay of
San Francisco, but they are not SO bar
rem and ugly. One of them is a hugo
fort, with more than 500 cannon and
many soldiers on it. Another one is a
great place for building ships
And so, as this barren island lies al
most in the middle Of this magnificent
bay and is nearly between Oakland and
San Francisco, where boats pass by con-
tinuously, it was agreed that it would
be good thing to begin our California
Arbor day by planting this ugly and
barren island with forest trees.
General Howard, the one armed old
hero Of Gettysburg and many another
| bloody field Of battle, was in command
of our armies and armament on this
| coast at the time, and he headed the
work by giving all the ships and all the
sailors and all the soldiers to carry the
people to the island and help plant
| trees, and SO on.
Mr.. Sutro. the great engineer who
| made the Sutro tunnel into the silver
mountains Of Nevada, gave us so,
trees to plant Oh the island, and as he
was to plant the first tree, and as Gen
| eral Howard was also TO plant tree,
and as the governors and senators OF
| California and Nevada were also te
| plant trees, and as the famous orator,
John J. Irish, was to make speech,
why, you see, nearly everybody wanted