Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1906-07-25
THE GREAT DAY We CELEBRATE.
JULY,4 NATAL DAY OF FAMOUS MEN.
ITS CONNECTION WITH BATTLES, ETC.

Although the Declaration of Inde-
pendence was not signed on the
Fourth of July, 1776, it was first
read to the Continental Congress on
that day, which thus is properly a
great one in the nations history. 1t
is the anniversary, too, of more than
one event which all Americans
should hold in memory.
1t was the death day, in 1926, of
two of the republics greatest men,
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.
On July 4, 1881, five years later,
James Monroe breathed his last.
Sixty years later, on July 4, 1891,
Hannibal Hamlin, Vice President
during Lincoln's first term, breathed
his last.
The death of both Adams and
Jefferson on the day accepted as the
nations birthday was strange CO.
incidence. The day was one neither
forgot, for both were among the
signers of the immortal document
which officially first saw the light
just fifty years before their death !;
both remembered the date and each
was cognizant of the others mortal
illness.
Adams was past ninety; Jefferson
was about seven years younger, yet
he had lived thirteen years more
than the three score and ten years
allotted by Holy Writ. At midnight
eighty years ago, when independence
Day was just being ushered in, JEFF
ferson, even though dying, but with
memory not yet altogether impaired,
muttered, "This is the Fourth of
july" In the morning Adams, the
same thought running through his
mind, reused himself to ask, "Does
Jefferson still liver" Adams died a
little after midday; Jefferson few
hours later.
The corner-stones of two of the
most impressive structures to be seen
in the city of Washington were laid
on July 4: Washington's Monument
in 1S4S, and the extension of the
Capitol building in 1851. Daniel
Webster was the orator on the Sec
ond of these occasions, and the we'll
rounded, sonorous sentences of his
address aroused intense enthusiasm
in the audience.
THE BIRTHDAY OF HAWTHORNE.
On July 4, 1O2 years ago, Ma
thaniel Hawthorne, held abroad to
be the most representative Ameri-
can writer, was born at witch ridden
Salem, and though there are many
among the critical who will not agree
that be, of all our literary lights, best
reveals the national character, it is
agreed that he is one of the very few
Americans whose work in letters has
become classic.
That he did vividly portray a
phase of the life of those English
colonists who settled New England
is undoubtedly true, though he
probably y used too vivid brush, but
that, even in the early colonial days,
the somber existence, the Grass
superstitions and the grim punish.
ments meted out to offenders against
the moral law in New England were
typical of all the colonists is absurd.
of course.
In the colony of New York, with
it's mixed English and Dutch popu-
lation; in the colony of Pennsyl-
vania, where dwelt the Quakers in
Maryland, whose people were Roman
Catholics, and in the Virginas, peo-
pied by colonists who were utterly
unlike the stern, intolerant religion
lists of New England, in all these
colonies there was little of which
Hawthorne's writings were in the
least descriptive.
Colonial life in most of these parts
OF the great country which is now
the United States has never been
well 1escrjbed in Etorotnro II -os