Clough : Kingdom-builder in South India

Front matter

ER CLOUGH (ia 0G

Herpert Watpo HInEs, a native of Boston, is a graduate of Harvard (A.B., 1909, A. M., 1910) and of the University of Chicago (B. D., 1911, Ph. D., 1922), and has studied in Germany (University of Berlin, 1912, 1913, Marburg, 1913, 1914). Ordained in 1911, he has held pastorates at El Paso, Ill, 1915-1921, in the First Baptist Church, Kankakee, 1921-1925, and in the Central Church, Springfield, since 1925. He is a member of the board of the World Baptist Young People’s Union, of the board of directors of the Illinois Baptist State Convention, of the Committee on Young People’s Work of the Northern Baptist Convention, and of the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America, and the author of Missionary. Education in the Local Church.

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Introduction

The author wishes to give special credit to those sources from which many of the facts for this book were obtained. Among these were: Social Christianity in the Orient, by Emma Rauschenbusch Clough, From Darkness to Light, by John E. Clough, and The Lone Star, by David Downie.

To both Drs. Jacob Heinrichs and W. L. Ferguson, men of ripe and conspicuous experience on the South India field, the author is indebted for suggestions of value. Judge John M. Mercer, of Burlington, Iowa, gave some useful hints relative to Clough’s Burlington days. The officials of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society were courteous in furnishing from their files specific data relative to Clough’s movements from the time of his first being appointed as a missionary. |

To Rev. Floyd L. Carr the author feels especially grateful for suggestions, encouragement, and counsel during the period of research and preparation of the manuscript.

Contents

Lay,

I

ONE afternoon late in the autumn of 1844 three covered wagons came to a halt near a clump of trees on the plains of northwestern Indiana, and the men of this family party, for such it was, proceeded mechanically to make ready for another night’s rest, as they had done day after day for the last two months of their trek westward. The horses were watered and turned loose to graze, the evening meal was prepared over an open fire, and darkness began to settle over the prairies. The drying leaves of autumn gradually blended into the shades of dusk and disappeared, leaving only a faint rustle behind.

II

JoHN EVERETT CLoUGH came home from the field one evening, tired in body and restless in spirit, for all day long he had been plowing new ground, and thinking to himself as he trudged along: “ Where is this getting me? I’m tired of being a farm-hand, and want to do something better!” Looking into the future, he saw himself as a prominent lawyer and well-to-do landowner. Just how he was going to arrive there he was not sure, nor had he figured out what the next step should be. He generally gave himself a quarter of a century to arrive, but he was impatient to be on his way. As he approached the barn his mutterings and musings were interrupted by the shouts of a group of small boys running excitedly about a few covered wagons halted quite near the house. ‘‘ Some new homesteaders on their way west,” he thought to himself, and proceeded to water his team preparatory to furning them loose in the pasture for the night. All at once he heard a cordial call from a strange individual who seemed to know him. Hastening toward the nearest of the covered wagons he gazed at a kindly-eyed gentleman whom he half recognized, and yet could not quite place. His hesitation was only for a few brief seconds, for he rushed forward and exclaimed with genuine pleasure: “Mr. Anderson! What are you doing here?”

The welcome guest was Mr. W. L. Anderson, of Dubuque, Iowa, in whose home the Cloughs had been guests two years before on their way to their new home at Strawberry Point. They chatted briefly while Mr. Anderson looked admiringly at the physique of the stalwart young plowboy and commented with enthusiasm on how much he had grown in two years. Mr. Anderson had liked Everett when first he had seen him, for he was keen to observe the leader in him, and the personality that could make dreams come true. He needed just such a young man now.

Mr. Anderson explained that he was a United States surveyor on his way to Minnesota, under contract with Uncle Sam to survey a large tract of land in that new territory. As he told of his anticipated summer’s work in the virgin land of the Sioux Indians, he observed the sparkle of intense interest in Everett’s eyes.

That evening, when the milking was all done, the chores tended to, and the bounteous company meal tucked away under expanding belts, the men-folks settled down for a chat together. Mr. Anderson told of his approaching government work in Minnesota, of the company he had brought together for that purpose—cooks, laborers, surveyors, helpers, et al. But he still needed a general utility man, who, though not a specialist in any one line, would be a willing worker. He quickly turned to Mr. Clough and said:

‘“ Your son Everett is just the man I am looking for! Pll pay him twenty-five dollars a month in gold, guarantee his safety, and promise you that I shall look after him carefully and bring him safely back at the close of the season. The experience will be good for him, and I am sure you will want your boy to have a chance like this.”

Everett’s father refused, for he could not bear to see his family circle broken. Everett was a useful man on the farm, but so ambitious and masterly his father sensed that if he once got on his own resources he would never return to the parental roof. But John Everett was wild to go. It was just the chance he wanted in his outreach after a new experience. He urged his father, begged his mother, and besought his older brother, Cyrus, who respected Everett’s ability very much, to talk in his favor. His mother and brother both spoke favorably, and finally his father half-heartedly consented.

It was an excited young man that went to bed that night, but there was little sleep for him, for his mind was on the venture of the morrow. Way into the night his good mother worked getting his clothes ready. Early next morning these clothes, packed into a two-bushel bag, were slung into one of the covered wagons, and the son swung onto the seat beside the driver, off for new adventures in the then little known land of Minnesota.

Northward the surveying caravan made its way and veered occasionally to the west. As they moved toward the northwest plains, the settlers’ cabins became fewer and fewer. Near the Iowa boundary only occasionally would one raise itself up like a sail above a dark green wave, as the grasses of spring carpeted the plains. By the evening of the tenth day they had crossed the northern frontier of Iowa and had left all settlements behind. There were no roads or wagon tracks to go by, only trails across the grassy plains, | from which rose innumerable frightened prairie-hens, as the horses’ hoofs pounded on. Frequently wolves and foxes looked them over from elevated ridges. When they passed by small groves of maples and oak, deer and elk were sighted. Eagerly Everett scanned the plains for buffaloes, but they had all been driven off far to the west by the Sioux hunters.

The party made its way along the Cedar River, and within a few days reached what Mr. Anderson designated as “our camp.” Near this spot, which became their point of departure and center of activities, there was a small blockhouse or family fort, set up by a family of squatters, who were claiming the land for their very own. Around this blockhouse grew up the town of Austin. Everett’s work here was that of an ordinary drudge in a surveying party—carrying the surveyor’s chain, an axe, and a spade, and following those who marked the lines, set the stakes in the proper places. Mules carried the stakes or posts, but Clough toted the tools, tramping with them many miles every day. At first it was very hard and wearisome, but in the course of a few weeks he got somewhat used to it. Another one of his responsibilities was to kill the rattlesnakes, which got on the lines at the rate of half a dozen a day.

At first the new venture was a thriller. The free life in the great open spaces, the abundance of fine food well cooked, the kindliness of all the men, especially of Mr. Anderson, and the feeling that he was doing a man’s work away from home, gave him a sense of exaltation. In a few weeks, however, he suffered from a strange “all-gone’”’ feeling that made him want to start for home at once; he probably would have done so had he known the trails and roads. There was no way of his hearing from the family or of communicating with them. He felt terribly ashamed to let his yearning to go home be known, lest he be considered unmanly, so he sulked and suffered in silence.

One day when the party had finished its work quite early in the afternoon, Mr. Anderson, having observed Clough’s condition and knowing it would be hard for him to sit around unoccupied, sent him off to correct several posts which had been put in the wrong places. Everett did the task assigned to him, and realizing he was alone, or at least believing he was, just let himself go and cried like a four-year-old. It seemed such relief to him to “ bawl ” it out of his system when none of the gang could hear him and be tempted to laugh at him. All at once he stopped crying for he sensed some one near. Turning quickly he saw a group of Sioux Indians on their ponies. They were half hidden by the overhanging foliage of a big burroak tree, and their war-feathers, paint, spears, and tomahawks were so interwoven with the limbs of the tree that their camouflage was exceedingly picturesque. For some reason they were on the war-path. Everett ° did not stop to inquire why; he felt his hair rising rapidly, his tools dropping suddenly, and he was off for camp three miles away. The Sioux gave a war-whoop at their discovery, and were likewise suddenly gone in the opposite direction. Clough was cured of his homesickness; it never returned. He completed this season as all-around utility man for the surveying party, returning home when the weather stopped the work.

Shortly after returning to spend the winter with his family he heard of the opening of a high school at a town about thirty miles from Strawberry Point, to which two of his friends were going. Since he purposed to do some studying this winter anyway, and since it was his fixed determination to fit himself for the law, he immediately became excited about the possibility of going to high school. He had been longing for an education for quite a few years, but the little district schools had not offered him very much. Of course he was not really ready for high school, but he determined to go just the same. His brother Cyrus

[ 22 | again argued for this move, and his parents readily consented. Ina few days he was off for the high school at West Union thirty miles away. He walked that. distance, taking with him some of the precious gold he had earned killing rattlesnakes, digging post-holes, and carrying axes and shovels on the plains of Minnesota.

The money he had with him was not enough to carry him through the winter, indeed there was not enough to pay anything on his board. Therefore as soon as he arrived in the high-school town he went immediately to the only good hotel and asked the proprietor if he could work for his board. He began his hotel career as a hewer of wood, drawer of water, maker of fires, and chambermaid for the cows and horses. For the performance of these tasks he had to get up early every morning, do some work around the hotel at noon, and be on hand for a third instalment each evening. In exchange for these little responsibilities he was accepted as a regular boarder, eating at the regular table with the guests. After several weeks the proprietor came to have great confidence in him, and left Clough in charge of the hostelry when he had to be absent. This experience of having to be mindful of the comfort of guests Clough treasured greatly, for in later years his compound in India often had a hundred or more guests, to whom he had to be host.

In his studies that winter he specialized eagerly in mathematics, for he had an ambition to be something more than a hatchet-carrier when he should be with the surveying party the following summer. He also did some technical reading along lines that would help him up a notch in surveying. But he suffered dreadfully from lack of preliminary education, so much so that he did not get along well at first. This caused some people who were a bit slow in reading personalities to think he was not very promising, and to smile at the thought that young Clough planned some day to be a lawyer. It led the thoughtless principal of the school to remark that “in Clough a good farmer would be spoiled to make a poor lawyer.” This was probably one of the bumps he needed to hit. But on the rebound he made up his mind to work harder than ever. In this resolve he was encouraged by the wife of the hotel proprietor, who was indignant at the discouraging comments of the principal. It humbled Clough considerably, and he often thought of it in later years, when he was tempted to discourage some Telugu lad who was ambitious to get a little education. It made him sympathetic even with some unpromising material.

With the coming of spring Everett Clough was again a member of Mr. Anderson’s surveying party, working in Minnesota, but this time farther to the north. When Mr. Anderson heard that young Clough had been studying mathematics and some science in a high school during the past winter, he gave him a chance to apply his knowledge by putting a compass in his hand, telling him how to use it, and by sending others with him to carry the axes and to dig holes. This was a step up, a decided one, and the eighteenyear-old man was scared as he started out on such an important task. He was to make sketches and notes of the first day’s work and report that evening just what he had done so that Mr. Anderson could see if he had the right idea of surveying. Mr. Anderson very wisely let Clough alone for the first day to study the thing out by himself, thus lessening his embarrassment. :

That night Mr. Anderson heard the report of the young surveyor’s first day with as much of a thrill as Clough himself experienced, for he found his estimate of Clough established and his trust in him justified. After a few more days close observation of the youth’s work, the camp was divided into two companies, one-half, or six men, being under Clough’s leadership, the other under the lead of Mr. Anderson. Each evening the parties came together to check up, the youthful chief’s work being gone over carefully for awhile. In the course of a few weeks the daily reports were merely nominal, for the head surveyor trusted Clough’s judgment and results entirely, and he was left alone to head his surveying party until the approach of winter stopped the season’s work.

After a dreary winter spent as storekeeper, our young surveyor began his third season with his former boss and companion about fifty miles north of the then village of Minneapolis. This season the party was divided into two camps, which meant that Clough was in direct charge of a party in every respect. Of course this was not permissible unless the one in charge were a regular surveyor, for which the nineteen-year-old Clough was not yet of sufficient age. But Mr. Anderson had him sworn in as U. S. Deputy Surveyor to himself. John Everett received his official certificate as deputy to Mr. Anderson, the government surveyor, and felt very proud of it. Twenty years later he showed this United States certificate to the British officials in India, who were letting contracts for canal digging; it secured him a contract, which resulted in employment to keep his starving Christians alive, and indirectly in the great ingathering.

To the chief deputy, Clough, was given the work of surveying off the new lands into sections, while Mr. Anderson’s crew laid out the meridian and township lines. The deputy hardly ever saw his chief, except for conference about once a month. One time Clough had a puzzling situation; the section lines did not come out right. After studying over the matter he wondered if his difficulty could be due to the chief’s mistake. He then checked up on a township line and found a mistake. He sent a messenger through the wilderness to find Mr. Anderson, who sent back word he would come as soon as possible.

On another occasion a settler offered Clough a hundred dollars in gold if he would alter the lines slightly so that they would pass along the boundary of his claim. He could have done this easily by shortening or lengthening the chain a bit, and the variation might not have been detected for years, but he could not bring himself to do this on account of his father having taught him to be absolutely honest in all his dealings. He laid the lines with mathematical exactness, in honor of his home training, and experienced infinitely more joy than one hundred dollars in gold could ever have given.

The season was brought to an abrupt close by a snow-storm, in which the homeward journey began. For a number of days they had to clear the snow off the ground before pitching the tents; just outside the tents they built great fires of logs, which burned all night long. On the way home they discussed plans for the following season, which was to be spent in the Dakotas. They were to go into the section of the State where no settlers had entered, to divide the new lands into townships and sections. They were to work in a territory where there were lakes and rivers, which type of work would call for a technical knowledge of a sort Clough did not possess. He would have to do a lot of figuring out angles and distances due to the water courses, and would need to know something of physical geography. Mr. Anderson advised him to study up on these subjects for the next season. This he was enabled to do, for he found a retired teacher of mathematics who lived on a farm not far from the home of his parents. This teacher agreed to tutor Clough in the required subjects during the winter.

Hardly had Clough’s fourth and last surveying season opened when Mr. Anderson received a message to come home on important business. Clough, a youth of twenty, was left in complete charge of the Government surveying party in the wilds of the Dakotas. There were no roads, no white settlers, nor any villages anywhere about. Clough had to send for supplies to a place a long way back, for he had full charge of buying supplies. To the nearest trading center it was a week’s journey through forest and over rivers too deep to ford. The signs of life were, as in the first summer, Sioux and rattlesnakes.

The Sioux were on the war-path. A band of the tribe had murdered some forty settlers, and Uncle Sam had determined that the murderers should not go unpunished. ‘The tribe had been tracked and overtaken. by a detachment of United States regular troops from Fort Snelling, was compelled to give up the murderers, but was in an ugly mood. The soldiers started back to the fort with the prisoners, but were followed at a distance by skulking bands of Indians determined upon freeing their comrades. The surveying party had heard reports of these happenings but had heard nothing of the outcome. Vague and undetermined rumors floated in. One day, however, there was cannonading heard all day long and these sinister sounds of battle made all hands nervous. They re-

[ 28 | turned to the camp and discussed the situation, some feeling they should flee immediately to some settlement, others they should stay where they were and prepare for a fight. They planned a defense, setting sentinels for the night. Morning came, but no Indians. Shortly a half-breed arrived with some news. The United States commander, learning from his scouts that the Indians were planning to attack the soldiers, rescue the prisoners, and massacre all surveyors and settlers, established an armed camp on a knoll and fired a cannon every five minutes with blank cartridges as a warning to the Sioux. By nightfall the Indians, fearing an attack, had scattered.

With the coming of autumn the fourth season’s surveying was concluded and the work finished. Young Clough had enjoyed his leadership and responsibility among these sixteen men, all older than himself. They worked faithfully for and with him, and respected his desires to have a high and clean type of life in their camp. It was a leadership training for which he clearly had the capacity, and from which he profited greatly. He paid the men their summer’s wages, sold out the supplies, and started on a thousand-mile journey to Dubuque, Iowa, to report to Mr. Anderson and to pay over to him the money he had in his possession.

It was then necessary to write up the field notes of the summer’s work into a report to be filed with the Surveyor-General in Washington. This was a task requiring several weeks’ time, and a lot of patient work.

For this period Clough became a resident of the Anderson home and had the use of his chief’s fine, roomy study, which intimacy with the Anderson household was fraught with decisive influences, as we shall presently see.

III

WHEN young Clough closed his surveying career in Mr. Anderson’s study he felt that now the way was opened for him to carry out his intention to become a lawyer. He had some money on hand to go to school, and he sensed that at twenty-one years of age he must start immediately on this road to a career. It so happened that Mr. Anderson had a son who was just starting off for Burlington University, a strong Baptist school of the pioneer days located at Burlington, Iowa. Dr. G. J. Johnson, the pastor of the Baptist church in Burlington, was a good friend of Mr. Anderson, and often came to Dubuque, where he was always a welcome guest inthe Anderson home. Therefore it was the most natural thing in the world that John Everett Clough should be going to a strongly denominational school, though he himself had no religious training or background. Mr. Anderson gave his young son into the care of Clough, as one would commit such a charge to an elder brother, for he had come to trust his deputy in an unusual way. A few minutes before the boat departed to transport them from Dubuque down toward Burlington he took from his pocket his own fine watch and handed it to Clough, earnestly saying, “Take this as memento of your faithfulness and of my affection for you.”

The boys arrived after the school year had started, so they were of necessity separated and placed in rooms with other students. The fact that it was a pious sort of place did not bother Clough, for he figured he would not let that trouble him. He was assigned to a room with a student who was zealously devoted to religious observances, and assumed that Clough would read a chapter of the Bible and pray with him every evening before retiring. Clough frankly told him right at the start that he could be counted out on any religious exercise, for which he had no use. He even proposed drawing a chalk line through the middle of the room, on one side of which the pious student might pray, on the other of which Clough would study. Three days after Clough’s entrance into the preparatory department of the University he met a theological student, who predicted frankly that Clough would become a Baptist minister. This provoked him at first, then amused him.

It so happened that the President of the University, Dr. L. B. Allen, taught a young men’s Bible class in the Baptist Sunday school, and of course invited the new student to attend. This invitation Clough accepted as a common courtesy, but soon came to admire Doctor Allen very much and to enjoy staying to church to hear the stanch Doctor Johnson expound fervently the Baptist democratic principles, for that was the time of denominational controversy. After a few months the new student felt his skepticism slipping, and began to lose some of the self-sufficiency he had reveled in for several years. His roommate noticed that something was worrying Clough, and suspecting that it was some difficulty pertaining to his lack of faith, prayed with renewed vigor for his conversion. It soon became very difficult for Clough to study while some one prayed; he felt disrespectful and restless during that time. Suddenly one evening he pushed the books aside and knelt with his roommate. The very next day the joyous roommate went to tell Pastor Johnson what had happened, and the good shepherd lost no time in calling on Clough. They had a wonderful talk together; an abiding faith in Christ swept into Clough’s soul. He was baptized shortly afterward in the First Baptist Church of Burlington.

Clough took hold of his studies fairly well, and after two years in the preparatory department, was able to enter the sophomore class of the college. He specialized in mathematics, for he still had an affection for surveying which he thought, in the back of his mind, he might follow, should the legal bubble ever burst. When he entered the junior class Doctor Allen gave him the responsibility of teaching two classes in the preparatory department, which gave him an added income. This he needed badly, for his college career, after the first year, was quite a financial struggle. One time it seemed almost certain that he would have to leave school for a while, but he hung on, living for

CLOUGH: Kingdom-Builder in South India Restle SSRN ACMA INIA is AACN CDR MEE SS AT months on graham bread, butter, and apples. In later years he thanked God for these experiences, for they enabled him to understand sympathetically the natives of India in their struggles against poverty to secure some education.

Although he had to push himself hard with his studies and do outside work to earn a living, he found some time to engage in church work. Into the factory district he went and gathered up a lot of children for a Sunday-school class, which he taught. He became active in the work of the mission, and once was called upon to preach there. His knees shook, his mind went blank, and in fifteen minutes he had to quit. He was provoked with himself, and with those who had asked him to preach, and was ready to pommel any one who dared suggest that he would ever be a minister.

In spite of this definite conviction that he could not and would not become a preacher, there swept into his soul a sort of undercurrent of doubt that he was going to bea lawyer. His vague dreams of being a politician or surveyor began likewise to appear to him as selfish desires of his own vanity. He got to thinking that he should surrender his life unselfishly for some Kingdom service, and should not try to run away from God. When he thought along these lines he felt a great peace in his soul, and these moments of peace seemed to him veritable calls of God. One day a missionary secretary came to the college and visited some of the fellows in their rooms, among them Clough. When the good doctor left Clough, the latter felt intimately a call to be a foreign missionary.

Toward the end of his junior year, however, his school career was ina turmoil. Fort Sumter had been fired upon, and President Lincoln had issued a call for volunteers. Many of the students went off to war, most classes were broken up, and there was no graduating class. Clough went home to Strawberry Point to enlist from there. The folks, and especially his brother Cyrus, were dead set against his going, for they all knew how whole-heartedly and vigorously he went into things, and they visioned him plunging recklessly into dangers of battle, in his true John Everett style. Meanwhile two interesting situations developed to sidetrack his war enthusiasm. An order was issued stopping volunteering in Iowa, and calling for drafting: the draft did not include him. Also he had renewed his previous summer acquaintance with a pretty young school teacher at Strawberry Point, and was struck by her concern lest he should go to war. She was Harriet Sunderland, born and educated in England, but recently having come to America. As they talked things over together during their summer-evening strolls, she told of her great interest in the work of foreign missions, and of her secret ambition to go out some day as a missionary. Many things were drawing them together, so much so that they were engaged with characteristic Clough dispateh and promptly married, July 15, 1861.