The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-08-20

1t was not until 1 stumbled one day on
Erkskine's map Of Rockland county. made
in 1779, when he was geographer for the
Continental army. that cav Van Horns
mill plainly set down and recognized
RoclSsand Lake in Queaspeack Pond. Only
twenty years before Swartwout laid his
foundation, Washington was at Ramapo.
and Colonel John Tyler's regiment was
encamped at Tappan. Some of the men
who went with Mad Anthony Wayne on
that memorable exploit at Stony Point
were Swartwout's neighbors.
In that box was a yellow bundle Of
farmers almanacs, running from 1870 to
1880, each one Bearing evidence In pencil
marks that 1t had been identified with the
hopes and prospects of it's particular year,
and testifying by the bit OF string in the
corner that It had hung by the mantel
for convenient family reference. Among
other strange vestiges was package
carefully tied up in what had once been
white paper, and containing two pieces
Of anthracite coal about the size of
goose egg. Nothing in the box explained
why this ordinary material should have
been so scrUpulously preserved. But when
we afterward came to open the sons box
we found in it a letter written to him
by his father in )1S1O in which occurs the
following passage: "Your uncle William
came from Philadelphia last week. He
was five days coming. the roads are SO
soft. He brought US two pieces of the
new stone they are going to make fires
with in Philadelphia" There is a gleam
Of our early civilization in the fathers
advice to the son, Do not loose your head
like everybody else, about the West. Some
OF US who stay this side OF the mountain
will have the country to ourselves, and
It's better to work hard and die in your
bed than to go to Ohio and be killed by
savages." That advice comes back to US
when a young nation was beginning TO
swarm over the Alleghanies, AMI every
body wanted to go out and possess the
land. Then all at once, we perceive that
John Jay is Governor. Somebody named
Conclin from the Kakiat grant land
that's Rampo now) has been killed at
Fort Washington two months before, and
Fort Washington is all there is of Gin
i
mill of some OF the Old fellows, to pass
resolutions of respect to Conclin's MEM
DRY, for he was one of the men who went
with unloaded guns up into Stony Point
and astounded the British by depending
entirely on the bayonet.
There Is an account OF a voyage the
family made to New York from Hunters
Landing in Captain Van Tassels sloop.
They were two days making the journey.
and met with terrible storms of the Pal
isades. AS there are one or two clippings
pinned to this letter. which Is written to
Aunt Molly from New York, II is evident
that she was left behind to keep house,
that the object Of the journey was TO take
part in the celebration Of the opening OF
the Erie Canal in 1926. Then the influence
Of the coming of Rebeccah begins to make
itself felt. She Is sent to New York
when she is twelve years old to go to
school, and the cholera breaks out. There
IS letter from her father directing her
TO come home, but to go to Grant Thor
burns seed-store, No. 10 John street. and
bring with her marrow fat peas and Isa-
belle grape stems. Presently, We pull out
her old school books. Her name Is writ
ten on the fly leaves and the corners are
carefully cut off to prevent 6Og-ears.
From one of them drops a fringed-gen-
tian. probably picked by the girl as she
went bMthely over these hills on Septem-
her morning. It had been there so long
that the page retains a curious photo
graph of 1t.
Something of that girls history and
character lies under the caves. The faded
and cast-off souvenirs are little vistas in
TO the past. We perceive by the old and
scarcely discernible ambrotype that she
must have been comely. and the old rag
bag betrays her ribbons and furbelows.
She must have been the scholar OF the
family by the books. and when she was
twenty we know that she read y. =. Wil-
lis and Boz, and a little later 'oueechy''
and The Wide. Wide World and
Friendships Offering One OF these
books-it is a copy Of 'Queechy'-is
mass OF dishgured paper. rain-soaked,
bulsv, and dismembered. I dare say she
had been reading It unGer the walnut tree
and left It there TO be ruined by shower
when Aunt Molly called her. Then the
next morning Aunt Molly carried il up
and deposited 1t under the caves. l Won
der IL the contemporancous Becky who
is swinging under the same walnut tree
In q hammock. could be induced TO read
.oueechy.' Ny impression is that she has
not time. She only comes up for week
In July and gets very tired of 1t before
her week is out. She then kisses her
mother and hurries away before the gold
en-rod arrives.
The present mistress OF the home re-
members Aunt Molly very well. and what
IS remarkable she hangs the farmers al
manac on the mantel. pokes her bills and
receipts into the same old secretary, and
hangs her milk pans on the Same pegs
under the shed, just as the original Re-
beccah did: and the only thing that never
bv anv means gets under the caves Is the
/ big family Bible, with its brass clasps. In
which all those lost links are carefully
set down in varying styles OF penmanship
and bridge for US. with a blunt chronology
the eras from the opening 10 the close OF
the century.
IGNORANCE IN MEXICO
A Wichita man who recently returned
/ from Old Mexico. tells some queer tales rs
Illustrating the dense ignorance OF the
r,.sses Ona paone was very sick and the