Middletown transcript., 1917-06-02
THIRD lNSTALLMENT.

In the artillery, sir"
And this is part of the story where
all the legends agree; that the commo-
dore said:
II see you do, and thank you, sir;
and I shall never forget this day, sir,
and you never shall, sir"
And after the whole thing was over,
and he had the Englishman's sword,
in the midst of the state and ceremony
Of the quarterback. he said:
"Where is Mr.. Nolan? Ask Mr.. No
Ian to come here"
And when Nolan came, the captain
said:
"Mr. Nolan, we are all very grateful
to you today; you are one of us today;
you will be named in the dispatches"
And then the old man took off his
own sword of ceremony, and gave it to
Nolan, and made him put 1t on. The
man told me this who saw 1t. Nolan
cried like baby, and well he might.
He had not worn a sword since that
internal day at Fort Adams. But al
ways afterward, on occasions of cere-
mony, he wore that quaint old French
sword of the commodore's.
The captain did mention him in the
dispatches. 1t was always said he
asked that he might be pardoned. He
wrote a special letter to the secretary
of war. But nothing ever came of it.
As I said, that was about the time
when they began to ignore the whole
transaction at Washington, and when
Nolan's imprisonment began to carry
itself on because there was nobody to
stop it without any new orders from
home.
have heard it said that he was with
Porter when he took possession of the
Nukahiwa islands. Not this Porter,
you know, but old Porter, his father,
Essex Porter, that is, the old Essex
Porter. not this Essex. AS an artil-
lery officer, who had seen service in
the West, Nolan knew more about for
tifcations, embrasures, ravelines,
stockades, and all that, than any Of
them did; and he worked with right
good will in fixing that battery all
right. l have always thought it was
q pity Porter did not leave him in
command there with Gamble. That
would have settled all the question
about his punishment. We should
have kept the islands, and at this mo-
ment we should have one station in
the Pacific ocean. Our French friends,
too. when they wanted this little wa
tering place, would have found 1t was
pre-occupied. But Madison and the
yirginians, Of course, flung all that
away.
All that was near fifty years ago
If Nolan was thirty then, he must
have been near eighty when he Gied
He looked sixty when he was forty
But he never seemed to me to change
q hair afterward. AS l imagine his
life, from what have seen and heard
of it, he must have been in every sea
and vet almost never on land. He
must have known in formal way
more officers in our service than any
man living knows. He told me once
with q grave smile, that no man in the
world lived so methodical life as he
"You know the boys say I am the
Iron Mask, and you know how busy
he was" He said it did not do fol
anyone to try to read all the time, more
than to do anything else all the time
but that he read just five hours day
"Then," he said, Il keep up my note
books, writing in them at such ant
such hours from what l have beer
reading; and 1 include in them my
scrapbooks." These were very curiou:
indeed. He had six or eight, of differ
ent subjects. There was one OF his
tory, one Of natural science, one which
he called "Odds and Ends" But the!
were not merely books of extract
from newspapers. They had bits o
plants and ribbons, shells tied on, ant
carved scraps of bone and wood, whicl
he had taught the men to cut for him
and they were beautifully illustrated
He drew admirably. He had some o
the funniest drawings there, and som
of the most pathetic, that l have eve
seen in my life. 1 wonder who Wi
have Nolan's scrapbooks.
Well, he said his reading and hi
notes were his profession, and tina
they took five hours and two hour
respectively of each day. "Then,
sati he, "every man should have d
version as we'll as, profession. NJ
natural history is my diversion" Tha
took two hours q day more. The me
used to bring him birds and fish, bu
on long cruise he had to satisfy hin
self with centipedes and cockroache
and such small game. He was the onl
naturalist l ever met who knew an!
thing about the habits of the house fl
and the mosquito. All those peOpl
can tell you whether they are Lep
doptera or Steptopotera; but as fo
telling how you can get rid of then
or how they get away from you whe
you strike them, why, Linnaeus kne'
us little of that as John FOy, the lido
did. These nine hours made Nolan
regular daily Occupation" The re:
of the time he talked or walked. I'll
he grew very old, he went aloft grea
deal. He always kept up his exercis
and never heard that he was i'll.
any other man was ill, he was the KIM
est nurse in the world; and he kne
more than half the surgeons do. The
If anybody was sick or died, or if tn
captain wanted him to on any otht
occasion, he was always ready to rea
prayers. / have remarked that /
read beautifully.
My own acquaintance with Phil
Nolan began six or eight years aftt