davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
Evening star., 1915-01-17
When Million Dollars in Gold Went Begging

legal claim to it Not the Southern Con-
iederacy for that was stone dead and
mad left no heirs, executors or adminis-
traitors; not President Davis or any
other officer Of the Confederate govern
ment, for the cotton had been bought
not with their money. but with the
money o - Confederacy, and none OF
them was mdividually any more en-
it!ed to the proceeds of the cotton
NAV my other man in the south; nor
was the CHfon government entitled to
L i"f i had not cartured either the
&c. 't"' - tie gold nor had either ever
reei luler it's Jurisdiction Nnr was
ne Yong man himself entitled TO il
ior the Confederate Government had
paid him for his services
;iti ana SO there was the situa ton of a
'hiilioh dollars worth of propertv to
which no one could get any Iep.l t,.io
anu II that isn't an Impossible state
OF affairs l do not know how tn de-
fine it. ~ oe-
What did the young man do? What
eouiu @ ne 40 but hold on to it? He GER
,aiI,iS "a wasn't going to throw it in the
81. Lawrence river. and very much more
certainly he wasn't going to furn ~
over to the Union government. Thev
Wereh shaking hands across the
bloody chasm to that extent lust then
He did secretly send a large sum NJ ~
to defray the expenses of the trial of
Jefferson Davis. and in like secrecy re-
lleved the wants of many old Confed-
crate soldiers and sufferers.
The bulk of that gold. however. he
took with him to New York where he
engaged in the cotton business He he
came one of the most successful cotton
merchants there. amassing a fortune
that made his original nest egg of a
million look trivial. and, embarking
with a family of charming dauehters
into the current of fashionable New
York society. married them into the
four hundred and established an old
family there.
But it was not for many years that
he confided to his intimate friends his
adventure with the cotton ana the
gold"
Evening star., 1915-01-17
EDWARD B RAn, ON R1GHT)

of the men on the sands-had found the
sea so pleasant they had gone beyond
their depth: that the other man had re-
turned to shore, and that her compan-
ion in danger had succeeded in joining
him while she was still fighting the
tide. The letter of gratitude which she
wrote to Surfman Bailey appears on
the records of the life saving service.
The United States Navy comes in for
a big share of life saving medals on
each years list. and the revenue cutter
service plays no small part in this.
Karl Johanssen is a gunner on the cut
ter Gresham. March IA last he. with
c. Hansen. coxswain; Max Matson. c.
Anderson. J. Kask. G. Miller. A. John
son. F. w. Sarnow and L. NJ. A. Hof-
mann, seamen. was awarded silver
medal. for rescuing the crew of Brit
ish schooner. S. a. Fownes.
The Gresham. with Capt. F. H Uber-
roth commanding, had gone several
miles off the Massachusetts coast. to
act as savior in a blizzard that was
racing over the sea at the rate of
sixty miles an hour. The crew of one
schooner had been rescued during the
first few hours out, and was being fed
and warmed in the hold of the Gresh-
am, when. just as she Jared south
east of Monomoy Island, the careful
watching eyes aboard her discovered,
perhaps five miles south of the island,
a sinking ship whose masta We're gone.
Closer approach and sharp looking
revealed a Union Jack, all aWry. but
sticking fast to sturdy staff wedged
in corner of the deckhouse. For all
the signs of life on the boat, obvious
ly British. she might have been a new
sort of Flying Dutchman. or a moving
bit In some miSt-made mirage of
northern sea, where white and steel
blue and black move with their re-
spective armies and constitute Il world.
The .wiry little cutter and her skill
full seamen went lightly on, hut eau
tiously, and when as near as they
dared go in the shoals, stopped within
a quarter of "A mile of the doomed
schooner. Karl Johanssen was then
detailed. with the men previously men
toned also receiving medals, to
take a lifeboat and 20 to the rescue of
any one who might be alive on the
ship now almost gone. His command
Evening star., 1915-01-17

E0HE original American, or the
American aboriyine, or the yell
q low. brown or bronZe-skinned
man sometimes called the redskin,
and to whom the name Indian came to
he applied through d geographical
error of the early explorers, has come
in for a rse meas of deep study
at the han s 0 antiropol"g SITS. eth
norogists and other scientific men.
One of the favorite explanations o.
,bc pres.nce of this man on the con-
,inent we now cal home is that the
tpsiar is or was Mongoli and
ame from Asia to tn land called
America, instead of being called Colom-
hia or Erikland, by crossing from
Siberia by way of he Aleuti n Islands
and Bering Strait and then journeying
southwark and eastward INTO his land
of promise.
There are those men of sclentlhc at
tainments who tenaciously hold to the
oninion that the man we call an Indian
never had any connection with ASIA
and is in no way related to the Mon
eols the Tartars. the Chinese or the
Aleutians. The contention OF these
learned gentlemen is that the Indian
was an Egyptian or a Carthaginian, or
ono of the races or peoples occupying
those parts of the world, and that he
crossed to this land in those remote
aees when Atlantis, the tabled conti-
nent which the classic authors limited
at Law between the shores OF Africa
nd What is now the eastern coast OF
America He came this far to the west
before three thousand or more miles OF
deen green, salt sea rolled and doomed
and elistened between the old world
and the new.
And still there are other grave men
who ayouch that our Indian came
neither from Asia nor Africa, but that
he came from Europe, and these gentle
men are divided among themselves into
Evening star., 1915-01-17

to the raft and deposit the children
there, much as if they were half
drowned puppies, for he couldn't tell
il himself, when asked. But, some,
four were taken from it by some men
who came upon the scene. Smith was
awarded a silver medal.
Another medalist by the name of
Erie H. Smith, a machnist's mate in
the navy. was rendered medal for
saving a seaman named Figo. Both men
We're on the L. S. S. Jenkins riding IN
Newport harbor. r. l. The rescuer
an hour after midnight. when the cry
of IMAM overheard" sounded through
the vessel. Smith jumped from his
bed, ran up the ladder, back to the
stern and leaped into the black At
lantic
He could not see the man, who had
ceased to shout now, and it was some
time before he sensed the straight di-
rection to follow. 1t was summer +
night and the water was calm ana
warm Nevertheless, when Smlth
reached his man. out about 12o yards
from the vessels side. he realized
there would be a fight to get back to
the hip. Rigo had gone through the
mental torture of expecting to drown
in another moment. and was as help-
less as fainting girl.
The Jenkins was thoroughly aroused
now to a man, and as Smith was seen
to be making slow progress with his
burden Thomas J. Glavin also leapei
into the sea. Had he not reached the
pair when he did both would have
gone under ana been lost, for Smith
was exhausted. Glavin, also the re-
cipicnt of a life-saving medal later,
now supported Rigo. and swan with
him toward the ship.
Smith, unable to swim any longer,
caught Il buoy one of his mates on
board threw toward him, and clung to
it until a boat hurriedly launched.
put out from the jenkins and picked
up the rescuer, his assistant and the
object of the rescue. The latter was
unconscious when laid deck, and
it was an hours work of experienced
hands before he was resuciated.
on May IS, 1914. Timothy OConnor
Evening star., 1915-01-17
TFHE LEGEND OF BRAKES DRUM

more hung his drum ON th" quarter
deck OF the flagship of the English
fleet. beat to quarters and routed the
proud hidalgoes. Drake then took his
drum on another expedition TO the Weei
Indies, against the Spaniards- Her.
after various successes, he died and
was buried at sea His last injunction
to his brother. who commanded a ship
in the fleet, was to take his beloved
drum back to England and hang it iu
his ancestral hall And. if ever Eng
land was in danger from a foreign foe.
to strike upon 1t and he, hearing II.
wherever he happened to be. would
come back to earth and rout her
enemies. The brother obeyed. and eve
since the drum that sounded the birth
of Englands naval greatness has hunG
in the age-old mansion of Buckland
Abbey. near tne Devonshire coast
where the descendants Of brakes
brother still live.
Twice it has sounded-and never in
vain. Once. but a few years after
brakes death. when the sturdy Dutch.
under Admiral Van Tromp. disputed
England's supremacy of the seas and
sailed up the channel with a broom at
the masthead. in token of his deterni
nation to sweep the English from the
ocean. Then brakes drum was sound
eO, ana lOTtnWltn arose Blake unto
whose body. according to trauitlon. tnc
soul of Drake entered) and did a little
sweeping on his own account. Thence
for 200 years the drum was silent. But
when Napoleon, supreme on land. chal-
lenged England's title mistress OF
the seas. brakes drum was beaten
again. And there came forth Horatio
Nelson. the greatest of English sea-
fighters. to break the French naval
power at Trafalgar.
Since then. for more than a hundred
years the drum has hung mute But
now, when the German powers are
threatening England's claim. the people
Of Devon and the tars of the British
navy are calling for the drum to be
sounded. confident that the spirit of the
first of England seafghters will come
again to sweep her enemies from the
seas.
This old tradition of brakes drum
has been very prettily told by Henry
Newbolt. the English poet. In one verse
he describes the dying Drake as saying
to his brother:
Take my drum to England, hang it by the shore:
Strike It when the powders running low.
And II the d0us sight Devon I'll leave the port
of heaven
And drum them up the channel I drummed
them long ago.
Evening star., 1915-01-17
AM]EJR7 CAN INDIAN MAY HAVE
BEEN FIRST MAN OF WORLD

groups, one holding the opinion that
he was Il Ciaul, another that he was Il
Welshman, another that he was an
Irishman. Perhaps one might find
the Indian was u Greek, another that
scholars and Investigators who could
give assurance that the American In
dian was originally Il Scotchman, an
Englishman, a German or a Swede.
SO many opinions are held by wise
men as to the origin of the Indian that
it is perhaps not unreasonable that
there should be either confusion or
Indifference on this subject in the lay
mind.
But the list of those men holding
vi, ws as to the Indians origin has not
yet been exhausted. There is a COM
bination of biologists and ethnolo-
gist who believed that the InGian-the
man whom few Americans have hon
ored and whom few do honor-was the
original man. They believe that he
was the first man of the earth. Among
biologists are those who believe that
this land which we call the new world.
and sometimes the new continent, is the
oldest land in the world They believe
that the first part of this continent To
appear above the seas which enwrap-
ped the world was that part called the
Laurenthan hills. north of Lake Su-
peflOf. L he OLD WOrld ol EUROPE
Asia and Africa had not then poked
it's mountain tips above the alien
comprising flood. That was many,
many, almost unthinkable years ago.
At the recent meeting in Philadelphia
of the Geological Society of America
one of the distinguished men of the
United States geological survey read
a paper in which he gave it as his opin-
ion that the age of the earth is about
100, O,O0O,O 900 years. 1t is believed by
some men that the first man appeared
in that early land around Lake Su-
perior and that the Indian is descended
from that man. However, there are so
many expert opinions as to the origin
of the Indian that there is probably
room for a few more.
Evening star., 1915-01-17

half u century before Capt Smith or
the Pilgrim fathers
1t beat its way around the world LOT
Drake. marking time for the sinking
of more Spanish vessels than ever pri-
yateer captured before or since II
made small difference to Drake. ana
his drum that peace was deciaIeu
between England and Spain soon after
they set out on that memorable cruise
There was no cable or wireless In those
days; so, for more than Two years
after the war ended brakes drum
still continued to beat to quarters wnen
his ken nose scented a treasure-ship
in the oftng-whatever, or Wherever
an offinS is.
When, after a few years of indus
trious piracy, Drake and his drum
aud his golden loot cast anchor IN
Torbav and learned that peace had
been declared so long ago that the
robins were nesting in the rusty can
non and the third widows of the war
spent bad quarter-hour. The good
Queen Bess had reputation of being
a mighty particular person about prop
ity and honesty in other people, ana Ior
awhile brakes head sat pretty looseiy
on his shoulders. When, however, the
queen learned that the cargo OF the
Golden Hind was mostly gold bullion
from Spanish treasure ships, she tortn-
with ordered her chancellor. Coke. 70
dig down in the statutes and see ii
there wasn't law covering the case.
dropping a casual hint. meantime, that
if such a law couldn't be found there
wasn't much use for a chancellor
dangling around court when there was
"A perfectly good headsman on duty at
Whitehall Fridays from to B.
The learned Lord Coke buckled down
and found the statute of nil nlsl de
bonis, etc, or something like that
found it before dark, too. mat very
day-and assured the good queen that
it took the spoil of the Golden Hlnd
out of the tainted money class. SO
Drake was. made commodore insteao
of a corpse. He was feted and honored
and ennobled and given an Oxford de-
gree with half the alphabet a1ter MS
name, which. considering that ne
couldn't spell. and for signature drew
a clumsy duck with curl in its tail
feather, might be called Work OF
supererogation. Meanwhile the good
queen had the Golden Hind backed up
against the rear of the treasury and
dumped its golden burden down the
coal hole, magnanimously returning
the Golden Hind TO Drake intact.
When, shortly after. the Spanish dons
came sailing up the channel with their
Justly celebrated armada Drake once
Evening star., 1915-01-17

of his mates and of the situation is
reported as perfect.
The storm was increasing with a fury
that seemed to demand sacrifice of life
in that very hour and place. Again
and again, as the gunner and his men
pulled close, they were tossed back on
the crest of a wind-whipped wave
Even when they were able to get in
close and stick there, the danger of
the big, half broken thing swapping
and crushing them beneath a thousand
timbers made this rescue a tribute to
every man intrusted to Johanssen's COM
mand.
1t is not recorded in the communica-
tions concerned with the matter just
where in the ship the five men res
cued were found by the gunner's crew.
when they had finally fought their
way up those breaking bulwarks. But
that the Britons were almost frozen.
were famished and hardly conscious
enough to recognize their seemingly
heaven-sent friends is evidence that it
was, now that the most seemed accom-
plished, a problem to get them down
the sides of their ruined and danger
Gus craft and into the lifeboat
This boat, with it's load of rescuing
to the Gresham again when the
Fownes went down, with not a vestige
of her rising from the waters to tell
the tale.
That Edward 3. Ray of Brooklyn,
n. Y. married the young woman whom
he rescued and became a medalist on
account of is a fact and not at all
the set-up romance one often hears
of in connection with rescues from
drowning. Mrs. Ray was Miss Jennie
Crommelin, and she and the man now
her husband were part of swim
ming party enjoying themselves in
Long Island sound.
1t was near Mount Sinai harbor, and
in the evening of a hot day in Au-
gust. The water was d relief after
the heat of the day. and everybody
there swan with much enjoyment Mr.
Ray went out farthest Miss Crom-
melin was leading the others. when
finding herself no little distance from
land, she started back. Mr.. Ray
Evening star., 1915-01-17

007 ILL brakes drum, silent these
NAV hundred years, be beaten again:
w viii it. for the third time,
summon the soul of the old seadog to
take command. in spirit. of the Brlt1sh
fleets and scatter her enemies to the
four winds? Twice since the waters
of the Spanish main closed over the
BODY of the doughty admiral-haf
prince and half pirate. yet wholly the
hero of the English people-his MS
1oric drum has beat to call his soul
To the rescue of old England; and
never beat in vain.
At least so runs the legend. handed
down for now more than 500 years
NV the seamen of the British navy
and the people of the Devon coast anu
believed in by them as infallihily as
the words of Holy Writ indeed tfie
man in the British navy or the sou'h
of England who questions the virtue
of brakes drum writes hlmsell 40" II
an Ishmaelite. pariah ana liai'oi
among his fellows.
,adium as their chiefest defense
against their enemies, SO the DeNoH-
shire man looks upon Drake s oruii as
the hulwark of his southern SHORES.
now hangs in his ancestral nails, nuns
unon his quarter deck throughout all
his adventurous career lncldentaliy IL
beat the watches to mark the time o
day. but chiefly it beat to quarters
which is sea slang for stripping for
fight-when they hove in sight or
Spanish sail Whether gold-laden
palIeon or gun-laden man-of-war. II
was all one to Drake and his drum.
it beat equally joyous for either.
When he took his daring cruise in
the Golden Hind up the western shore
of America from Cape Horn to the
Straits of San Juan de Fuca and
combed the coast clean of all that
was Spanish and spoilable. his drum
hung ever ready at his hand. Nor
were it's uses only secular and war
like and-well. piratical, if you want
to be exact. When he cast anchor
that winter in San Francisco bay under
the shelter of the Sausalito cliffs the
first beat of his drum was to summon
the crew to Church of England serv-
ice, the first Protestant service ever
held on the American continent, nearly
Evening star., 1915-01-17

NEzzI[Q(
During the Past Year
Thirty-Four Medals for
Life Saving Have Been
Awarded by the Secre-
tary of the Treasury.
Tales of Heroism and
a Valiant Disregard
of Consequences by
Those Who Risked
Their Lives to Save
Others.
TRING the fiscal year Of 1919
W there were thirty-four medals for
III III life saving issued by the Secre-
~ tary of the Treasury. through the
medium of the American lfe-saving serv
ice
Ordinarily, no small percentage of the
number selected to receive medals, on ac-
count of extraordinary heroism displayed
in rescuing persons from drowning. lies
among the daring surfmen who patro'
the long stretches of Uncle Sans coas.
lines.
But this year men in various occupa
tions and stations in life received recos
milton for some particular bravery, ami
around no less than half the number ne
ordinary circumstances existed.
Always it is with interest that on
reads of unselfishness in children. Rus
sell Potter Reeder. jr. of Fort Mckinley.
Me. awarded silver medal for saving
little six-year-old named George S. Nc
Mullin, was more than that. This young
medalist showed that. as the son of a
captain of the Coast Artillery Corps sta
toned there at the island fort off the
Maine coast. he had not been reared in
an atmosphere of strictness for nothing.
Among the circle of uniformed people he
knew it was duty first and self afterward.
Great Diamond Island. seat of the mill
tary reservation, is very beautiful. The
Atlantic throws about it gray and green
and deep blue shawl, and the mainland
looks a million miles away when mists
arise. Every ones leisure hours are spent
in pleasure boats along the shore. Even
the water that brushes the sands is deep.
and the children on summer afternoons
play in skiffs anchored to the wharves.
If you are not grown up 1t is lot OF
fun to pretend you are the admiral. of
feet just starting to war. and to make
considerable fuss in the commands you
give an imaginary crew. The McMullin
lad one August evening Of the past year
was doing just some such thing. And he
fell in.
1t was merely playing in water when
one end of his boat was on the snowy
sands; but when little commanders
went overheard they went into the
terrorizng Atlantic At this point the
ocean was several times as deep as
the too enthusiastic pretender. and
Russell Potter Reeder, eleven years
old and quite above such babyish per-
formances as the drowning child had
been chief of. was standing on deck
of nearby boat watching some coast
artillery maneuvers upshore.
Without removing even his shoes, the
older boy plunged into water fourteen
feet deep, and, although not a good
swimmer, managed to bring the
younger to the surface and back to
the wharf, where Mrs. Reader went to
the aid of her son and his unconscious
burden.
Evening star., 1915-01-17

''W ai,isss. Ssss'@ tragic. %seS 'e s1s,sssss. que
w comic and sometimes i'm
possible" said an old soldier of the
Confederate army. Impossible? Yes.
I've known conditions arising from war
that mi ght be called impossible. SO ut
terly beyond all common or even un-
common experience were they
For instance" continued the veter-
an, would you not consider it an i'm
possible situation If you were told that
a man, practically penniless himself
suddenly finds that a million dollars in
his possession is without any claimant
on earth by purchase. descent or dis
covery, as the law defines all manner
of claim ana title. Yet that very con-
dition occurred as a result of our civil
war-occurred not on desert island.
but in the city OF Montreal soon after
the surrender of Gen. Lee and the
downfall of the Southern Confederacy.
The circumstances that led up to this
anomalous situation were these:
LAS the war progressed and the
hlockading fleets of the north drew
their Gordon more and more tightly
around the southern ports. II became
more and more difficult for the block
ade runners to evade their watchful
eyes Few and far between were the
cotton-laden vessels sneaking out of
Galveston. Charleston and Savannah
that ever reached a British port; most
of them We're picked up before they
had gotten out of sight of land.
~
The result was that by 1864. while
the warehouses of the south were
choked with cotton. II was worth only
j or 2 cents pound. while over in
England, where thousands of mill op-
eratives were idle through lack of ma
terial. it was worth about a dollar a
pound. Hence, although only abou,
one vessel in ten successfully ran the
blockade, the profits, when successful
Evening star., 1915-01-17

were SO enormous that despite the oddS
spectators continued to make the at
tempt. Indeed, in the autumn OF that
wear the Confederate government it.
self. which was sorely in need of gold,
went secretly into the business or
blockade running. buying up carso"s
of cotton ard chartering vessels IN the
name of some trusted and confidential
agent Who1 theS" efforts We're sue
cessful the a~ept sold Nh" cotton IN
Liverpool for gold took ship for can
ada and ,aniinr there made his Wy
south with hi treasure by the peSt
"It was al'0" - February. 1865. that
the Con <eieratn t.S ."-1."' h"N'ng
purchased about 200 ohn n"rn"s o!
cotton for a song chartered small
but swift vessel and. loading il in an
obscure estuary Of a Carolina river put
out to one dark and foGgy night
bound for the English port of Nassau.
The cotton in charge of young
man. a personal friend of President Da-
Wis. who had been cotton merchant in
Memphis.
Fortune favored the southerners.
The vessel evaded the blockadinS
ships of the Union and duly reached
Nassau Her. the cargo was trans
ferred to a British ship. and. under
protection of the British flag. was taken
by the young merchant to Liverpool
where IL was promptly sold for more
than a million dollars in gold Shortly
after the young man took a steamer
for Montreal with his treasure safely
stored in the hold.
He reached Montreal the latter part
of April, and the first news he got was
that Lee and Johnson had surrendered,
Jefferson Davis was prisoner and the
entire Southern Confederacy had gone
up in smoke
Thus the young man found himself
in an impossible position. He was in
possession of more than a million dol
lars in gold to which no one on earth
laid the slightest claim. More, there
was no one who could lay the slightest