The Palatka news and advertiser., 1915-09-24

spare time in writing short stories,
some of which now form the founda-
tion of his literary fame.
0. Henry left his native town in
1884, carrying with him letters OF
recommendation from the physicians
of the place, who said his character
was above reproach, and as drug
gist they invariably found him care
full, painstsaking and accurate, while
the public officials, such as the post
master, register of deeds and the
county court clerk, declared him to
be a young man of good moral char
acter and "a No. 1" druggist. Near
ly twenty years passed e'er his
friends learned of his wonderful sue
cess as writer. For while after
his arrival in Texas he wrote irregu-
larly to friends, two of whom pre-
served his letters, Mrs. R. X. Hall and
DR.. W. P. Beall, and these appear in
the last volume of his published works
In recent communication to me,
DR.. Beall says that "from the time
he left Ohio until he appeared in
New York very little is known of his
movements" For years the public
could learn nothing about 0. Henry's
personal history, and it was not until
his fame had become international and
he had married a former schoolmate
who had grown up in the old somno-
lent southern town that his old friends
awoke to the fact that Will Porter,
the forgotten prodigal, had gained the
highest place among the American
writers of popular fiction.
quote the following from a recent
number of the Current Opinion:
with the recent unveiling of a
statue of William Sidney Porter, in
the new State Administration Build
ing in Raleigh, North Carolina, o.
Henry was officially made a son of
North Carolina. Writing to The Ma
tion, Archibald Henderson defends
this tribute of the Southern state from
the attacks made by critics of other
states. He insists that the short
story writer loved his mother state
in tenderly intimate fashion. He
was instinctively and essentially a
child of the South. DR.. Henderson
presents sufficient proof of this and
notes in conclusion:
"'One note, one quality, in his sto-
ries bespeak his Southern origin-the
chivalric note, the quality of inextin-
gulshable romance. 1t was here in
North CAROLINA that he found the
sweetheart of his youth; here he
found surcease from metropolitan care
in the enfolding shelter of the Blue
Ridge; here he sleeps; here his fame
is memoriaized. AS a Southerner he
loved the South; as a true artist he
realized her am,able vices, her Iowa
BILE weaknesses Many of his stories
THE Guardian of the Accolade, ,"
The Emancipation of Billy" "Thim-
bel, " The Rose of Dixie" "A Munici,
pal Report" "An Adventure in Neu-
rasthenia," for example-testify to his
strong and tender feelings for his ma
tive section, his admiration for the
finer qualities of the South, his fac
ulty of kindly railery at foibles that
are passing with passing age. Like
another great humorist, Alphonse
Daudet, who amused a world with
delicate satire of his beloved South.
80. Henry let his shrewd raillery
play with kindly light over the South
of his own birth-her manners, her
customs, and her people,"
/ 1t IS not my purpose to discuss this
man, whom many of our leading crit
les, both at home and abroad, declare
to be "the prince of short story wri-
tiers" "the de Maupassant of Ameri-
ca" but rather to introduce to you
the place from which he came. It is
located at the point where you leave
the Southern Nestibule Limited to
take the slow train to Raleigh. North
Carolina If you prefer, YOU NAV
take a train to Winston-Sa Salem, or Nj.
Airy, or Wilmington, or Asheville--
forty-seven passenger trains moving
out of its railway station every day.
1t is located in the exact center of
Gullford County, on land sold in 1908
cy my great-graadfather, Ralph Cor
Tell, for the muniicent sum of S9S.0O.
The line which separates Gilmer
township from Morehead township di
vided the village into two equal parts,
and during the days of local option,
IL the drys in one township were sue
ceSSful the vets Invariably carried the
other. While the population as late
as 1890 was only 3,317, fully one
third negroes, this little I'd grn-
fully refused to accept any other ap-
pelIation than that of "the City of
Flowers" Later they consented 10
change the name to "the Gate City of
the South"
1t was a village of flowers. In 1874
elm trees had been planted along all
the leading streets and before the war
the box hedges surrounding all the
homes Of the well-to-do were SLOWLY
growing. Spreading lawns, beauti-
full shrubbery, fragrant flowers, old
fashioned colonial homes setting far
back from the streets, with wards ex-
tending over an area equal to a mod
ern city block, singing birds and a
running brook through the very heart
OF the village, made the old town a
place of charm and beauty.
Raclally the community was Ulster
transplanted, and anyone who did not
trace his ancestry back to the Cove
ranters and who did not subscribe to
the Westminster Confession of Faith
was an alien. This Scotch-Irish inn
migration began in 1852 from Lancas-
ter County, Pennsylvania, to which
these sturdy Ulstermen had come