The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1916-08-18
but deliver us from evil;
For thin IL tho king dun1 the Z

fOr Tic hll6uuIu, tnS 49,
er, and the glori, far evr. Amen:
/ This first pamphlet OF the BlDie
series had wide circulation and Mr..
JONI continued to work on the Scrip
lures, getting all of the sixty-six books
transcribed, but death came before he
had managed to save up money
enough to pay for printing them all.
The manuscript was in a Mankato
bank as protection against literary
pirates, which he feared greatly, and
the old gentleman-he was eighty
| two when he died-had received
proof sheets of one or wo more books
| from Houghton e Co., who printed all
| the books he put on the market.
The first of these of any size was
| in 1870, when his "Alfabet of Orthe-
opy and it's Aplicashun of Monosil-
abs" was issued. Then he got out
a combined spelling book and die
tionary of commonly used words, and
| i'm the seventies his system was
adopted by public and normal schools
in Minnesota and half a dozen other
states. For few years things look
ed very bright. He was engaged by
educational departments to visit
| schools to train teachers and pupils
| in the use of his system, and his
books of other kinds were becom-
| ing known. Then suddenly devel-
oped what he and his friends always
described as the enmity OF the book
trust" Lobbies were organized to
oppose him and much money was
spent, he believed, with the result
that gradually his system was aban-
doned 1t still fingers in the memory
of many middle-aged folk who re-
call the exciting and pleasing change
from the old method of spelling,
t't-r-a-n-s, trans, ST, sy, transy,
st-i-o-n, shun, transition" to the JONI
iway of spelling it just as it sounded,
i"transishun,' and more than one OF
ethem wishes for it back, particular
ly when attempting to master the in
tricacies of spelling and pronuncia-
ton required by war talk.
After the failure of his spelling
book to attain permanence, Mr.. JONI
ispent years and most of his income
trying to protect his system from
| being modified and adapted by the
Every concerns he blamed for it's be-
ing abandoned. The basis of his al
phabet was the use of different
character to indicate each vowel
sound-half dozen as, as many e's
}, several each of every other vowel.
1t required about twenty more char
sacters than the ordinary font of type.
i This type was designed and cast es-
ipecially for his use, and was in the
possession for years of the publishing
house to which he intrusted his pre-
cious manuscripts. The marking of
novels now used in most standard
spoilers and some dictionaries Mr.
JONI declared was stolen from his
scheme, and he instituted several
law suits to recover damages, but
never succeeded. He asserted fire.
quently that the energetic coIonePs
widely talked of simplified spelling
was developed from his idea, and that
T.. R. "stole his thunder"
HI A lighter side of Mr. JONI literary
life was presented in his poetry. Ex-
ceedingly fond of verse, able to
quote whole pages from Shakespeare,
Milton and Browning, "the greatest
of them ALL he used to say; almost
equally informed as to the minor
English poets and thoroughly &C
quainted with the American verse
makers of the last century, many of
whom he met and exchanged letters
with. He used to write smooth running
poetry of charming thought, but it's
readers were limited because he per-
sisted in using his own hard-to-read
spelling for it. One of his recreations
4 was to make weather predictions,
and so often did he succeed in it,
that his forecasts were read eager
1y throughout the Minnesota valley,
where he was a well-know figure for
half a century.
Prophesied Weather.
One of the last weather jingles he
wrote was for 1912, and it proved an
accurate forecast. 1t ran as follows:
"The sno has KUN, and KUN to sta;
"T'wont al be af the ferst of Ma;
Sun dagz hi da and mon days bi nit.
TIL nu yer will furnish to skar and
afrit.
Gal far tn best for gud health it will
bring
And big krop of hwet altho lat be
tn spring.
And kut wurms and 'hoprz viii Civ up
tn COST.
Far tina nevr hav sen so dedli frast.
"Then fill up yur koI binz and hep up
yur wud.
j And warm up yur firesidz az gud
n nabrs Shud;
Just wun wurd ov warning-let likr
alon.
Ar sum bitr nit yuI be stiff az, a
ston."
| A less successful bit of prophesy-
ing was done on his gravestone,
erected about 1908, where the date.
1920" attests his belief that he
would live until then. He reasoned
that his great work of publishing the
Bible in his "alfabet" would not be
completed until then, and he was sure
that the worthiness of his task
would insure his living until it was
finished. However, few days ILL
ness, following years of living on the
smallest possible sum, ended his life
Now he is recalled chiefly by the
quaint inscription and in the innum-
cradle tales of his unusual career to
be heard from almost any old resi-
dent of the Minnesota valley.
/ Eagle Lake