The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1915-11-19
] Ilae

Well now; there it goes again
Manufacturing his story to suit ones
spite, or a wild mania to keep a ride
ulous ie~going! On the next to the
last page of this paper last week was
an article entitled Having a Sense
of Humor," and it was about Rev
/ Samuel A. Peters. for whom it is
claimed that he was the author oil
the celebrated Blue laws of Con-
necticut," and that the authorities OF
that state adopted and enforced those
lawsl Well now, that is great! As
remarked last week, they do not
teach history in that way in the Mos
lem University at Carol
He did conceive and write the blue
laws, but! He was born in east
ern Connecticut and graduated at Yale
College in 1857, went to England,
where he was ordained an Episcopal
ian clergyman, and came back to his
native state as rector of several mis-
sionary churches, till just before the
outbreak of the Revolutionary war,
when he was so hot a loyalist or Tory
that the Sons of Liberty pursuaded
him to leave his work; his was most
respectable family, and later one oil
his nephews was governor of the
state and another a. superior court
Judge; but he was bitter in his 10y
ality, and would talk against the pat
riot cause, and make himself obnox-
ious as the Oopperhead- opponents of
the country did during the Civil War
of 1876; and so he again went to
. England full of bitterness against his
native country. AS an Episcopalian
. Clergyman he did not approve the
Puritan party of Connecticut, and to
be revenged against those whom he
claimed had treated unjustly he wrote
/. what he called history of Connect
cut, which he published in England
in 1881; which was republished in
New Haven, Conn, in 1929, and again
republished by the Appletons of New
York in 1877, edited by descendant
of the author, in which he tries to ex-
cuse the wild and ridiculous state
ments of the original. In this pur-
ported history Peters writes of some
of the prominent people of the Con-
necticut Colony, among them of his
own family, in which he claims rela-
ton with everybody by that family
name, including some of the great
men of Cromwell's time. most of
which is tissue of falsehood. His
wonderful book was for English con-
sumption, where they were ready to
believe almost anything about the re-
bellious colonies and people.
His descriptions of natural scenery
are wild; he says the Connecticut
river is 500 miles long and four miles
wide; its length would have to be
coiled up to get it into New England;
| have crossed it at its mouth several
times and know it is not a half-mile
wide. Some miles north of the Mas
sachusetts line, between Vermont and
New Hampshire at Bellows Falls. is
a narrow gorge with rapids and falls;
as. | recall it the Connecticut river is
at its narrowest point here about
three rods wide; but Peters said it
was only FIVE yards (ffteen feet) wide
and four hundred feet long formed
by high overhanging mountains. the
tops of which pierced the clouds,
which might be true when the fog
hung very low. Here" he says, "the
water is consolidated without frost.
between the sturdy punching rocks, to
such a degree of hardness that an
iron crow cannot be forced into it.
Here iron, cork and lead. have a
common weight. Here. steady as
TINE dHu ndIucT lHdH lildIDlSs Tic
stream passes through. as irristable.
if not as swift as tightening" And
yet in further history of this wender-
full chasm he says that an Indian
squaw in canoe once passed through
it in safety when she was drunk
OF town djoining his native place
I he tells a marvellous frog story. 1t
was the Sons of Liberty of this place
who had urged him to depart, and APP
4 parently to be revenged he told this
yarn. With much elaboration he
tells: "the frogs in their march from
] the pond, FIVE miles to Windham town
! were obliged to take the highway by
. necessity and this road, forty yards
/ or one hundred and twenty feet wide,
. was filled with the train. which was
also four miles long, and was several
/ hours in passing" And he describes
the sound, saying: there were
twenty distinct voices heard among
the pipers," and that some of them
were like the believing of bull!''
Then he turns his attention to the
city of Norwich and tells his British
readers what, according to Peters. the
/ great Evangelist Whiteheld thought
4 of that Connecticut town. He profes-
! ses to quote from the preachers fare
well sermon at his last visit to that
city: 81 told you (the people of Nor
wich) twenty years ago. that YOU