The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1919-07-01

Thomas MacDonough whipped Brit
ish squadron in 1914, and the bio
grapher of Henry I. Mayo will ac-
count for his naval career by deriy'
ing his inspiration from that stout
conflict in which 800 British and 200
Americans persisted, fighting at close
quarters in the old, romantic and san.
culinary style.
Admiral George Dewey of deathless
Manila Bay fame was born at Mont
pelier, under the State House Hill.
ON whose ores; the cows chew the cud
as they look in on the Legislators at
their desks Admiral Dewey wrote his
own life, and In Chapter |, he says
that during his long stay in the
beat OF Manila Bay after the battle,
certain angles of view of the irreg
ular landscape of Luzon from the
deck of the flagship Olympia often
recalled the Green mountains OF
my boyhood days." and he adds: In
deed, ! never look across stretch of
rolling country without feeling OF
Inconsistencies for Vermont" That is
the way all absent Vermonters feel,
and they like to say so. AS Dewey's
great-grandfather William fought at
Lexington, and Williams brother
Simeon was one of Ethan Aliens
Green Mountain Boys at the taking OF
Ticonderoga, George, an adventurous
scamp as boy ESQ he admits, seem
ed To be destined for the land forces.
Indeed, he spent two years at the Nor
WITCH Military Academy for the sake
of its discipline, which he needed,
(see his wild pranks in the autobio-
graphy) But there happened to be
no vacancy for West Point from Yer
mont when George Dewey was old
enough to be entered. Otherwise"
he says, Il might have gone into Ma
Mia Bay on an army transport in
stead of on the Olympia
1t was through the influence Of SEN
ator Foote that the Montpelier doc
tors son was dispatched to Annapolis
to become famous Admiral. The
University of Vermont never made
him Doctor Of Laws ii was antic-
ipated by the University of Pennsyl
yania. George Dewey was always
true to the Green Mountain State.
| Woodstock was his fayorite summer
| ing place, although the records of its
County Court show that at the De-
cember term in 1854 he and four 9TH
er boys were solemnly tried (The
State versus Lloyd r. Bowers ct all
for singing negro melodies outside a
house with intent to break up the
hymn singing of devout Woodstock
| family. So wicked was the Admiral
to-be
Another Vermont Admiral Of note
is Charles Edgar Clark, he OF the Ore
CONS run round South America and
the fight with the Dons off Santiago,
in which he took such gallant part.
Clark was born at Bradford, Yer
mont, the picturesque town that is
mirrored in the Connecticut, very
placid at that point. There is nothing
in its flow through oxbow meadows
and past wooded banks to send a boy
to Annapolis with visions, but Yer
mont cannot help turning out Admi-
rails who do things. OF all her sailor
sons Vermont seems to have liked
! Clark (also LII. D., Pennsylvania
| the best, for his democratic ways and
his modesty. He too, spent his
summers in Vermont, singular to say
on an artificial lake high up on Mount
Mansfield, where the simple life is
lived at a rustic clubhouse Vermont
will go on producing Admirals as long
as Cancels Hump salutes Mansfield
and Kiilington, and historic Cham
plain reflects the sun at its rising and
setting, but Dewey, Clark and Mayo
will not soon be surpassed.