The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1906-03-23
GEN. BADEN POWElL's BLUnDER
He Claims John Smith as His
IIIustrious Ancestor"
The Truth Is Smith Never Married, as
the Records Plainly Show-Buss OF
the Hero to be Given to the James
town questionable Romance Of
the Newspaper Worid-The Faithful
Old Clock.

ofu SiOIh.
For the Messenger.
A year or more ago an enterpris-
ing newspaper correspondent found,
in 4 tour Of one Of the middle states
a woman, the wife of a machinist,
who proved, the correspondent went
on to narrate, to be the granddaughter
of a distinguished Confederate officer.
A very pretty story was told of her
love affair with the mechanic at her
home in the south, of the opposition
| Of her aristocratic parents and re,a-
tives, Of her fidelity to the man Of her
choice, their marriage and their max
ing a home for themselves at the north.
The only trouble with the story was
that it was not true, the distinguished
Confederate officer in question having
lived and died a bachelor, and consa-
quently never having had a grand
daughter.
General Baden Powell, the British
officer who achieved such distinction
IN the BOer war. writes to the mana
gers of the jamestown exposition that
he desires to present to the expoSi-
ton a bust of Captain John Smith, the
founder and the repeated defender and
savior of jamestown, who" General
Baden Powell says, was my illustrIous
ancestor" This, as the warlike Virgin
ian historian, James Gordon McCabe,
points out in the Richmond Times
Dispatch, is an astounding rider" to
General Baden Powells offer; for it
is a we'll known fact that John Smith
never married.
John Smith was in the New World
altogether something less than three
| years, arriving with Bartholomew
Gosnold in the early part of 1907, and
leaving in the latter part of 1909. He
certainly did not marry in the Virginia
colony; had he done so, there would
have been some note of it III volumin-
Gus writings of his contemporaries
and personal friends. Archer and VIII
liam Strachey. There is no record
anywhere hat he married after his
| return to England, does he him
self, in any of his writings make men
ton of wife or child. Indeed, in his
WILL NC SpOtiuCdlly uCNlSCS W dlIOCtCt
| heir Of his father property which had
been b~equeathed to him by the latter,
conditionally on his surviving his
brother Francis.
1t is almost incredible that General
Baden Powell should have made such
a blunder in his genealogy-though, as
McCabe facetiously remarks, he may
we'll be, like many others who do
not know it, a direct relative Of some
john Snlith, considering the tens Of
| thousands born into the world.
1t seems somewhat the irony of fate
/ that one Of the real heroes of history
one Of the truly great men of any
| age or time, should stand on the pages
! Of the chronicler as plain, prosaic,
monosyllabic John Smith" He was
| born at Willoughby, England, in 1879.
! and after the death of his father was
| a]pprenticed to a linen-draper at Lynn.
| He early conceived a distaste for mer-
camille occupation, and when only Is
| years old built a hut in the depths
| of the woods, where he lived as q
| hermit, and devoted himself to study of
military science.
In 1896, at the age of II years, he
| set forth to roam the world in quest Of
| his fortune, and about a year later
entered the Austrian service, Joining
the Transylvanian army against the
Turks. At the siege of Regal, when
a lad under 20 years old, he slew and
| cut off the head of Tubishaba, the
| Ottoman champion, who had challeng-
| ed any Christian soldier to single COM
bat. John Smith was afterwards TAX
| en- prisoner, and sold as a slave to
| an odaliolue in the harem Of a racha
| in Constantinople. His mistress con
| ceived a passion for him; and, in order
| to insure his safety sent him to he.
| brother, a pacha on the Sea of Azov.
| His new master proved a tyrant; and
| Smith, unable to endure the cruelties
! to which he was subject, killed the
| pacha, and made his escape. He wan
| dered through Russia, Germany,
| France, Spain and Morocco. and al
last reached England, after an absence
Of ten years.
John Smith was the very life, the
| genius, of the jamestown settlement.
| He saved the colonists over and over
| from destruction-saved them from the
i, Indians. whom they repeatedly pro-
voked to hostilities by their impru-
! dence; saved them from starvation,
threatened by their idleness and inn
providence; saved them from them
selves. for they were always io:i t;y
feuds and divided by factions.
Five years after his return to Eng.
land from jamestown, Smith com
manded an unsuccessful expedition 10
North Virginia. now New England.
and ~thenceforth, for II years, lived
in his native country, passing much
of his time IN travelling over England
and endeavoriHg to enlist mel OF
means in his plans for the colonial
ttion of the New World. He also
vainly solicited the aid Of the qneen
consorts of James / and Charles ] In
a tribute to the memory of Pocahon-
tas, who, as Mrs. Rolfe, died n Eng
land. John Smith died in London IN
1881. in the reign Of Charles l, a. the
age of about SO years.
Smith had all the qualities of great