Memories of many men in many lands; an autobiography

Front matter

OF MANY MEN IN MANY LANDS fRANCIS L'CLARK

PRINCETON, N. J.

BV 1423 .C6 A5 Clark, Francis E. 1851-1927 Memories of many men in man lands

Foreword

HIS volume has been written in different lands during the last seven years, much of it in snatches of time caught between speaking engagements. The only comparatively free time I have been able to devote to it has been a month or six weeks in Honolulu in 1916, and nearly two months in Freiburg, Germany, in the spring of 1922. Even these months were frequently interrupted by unexpected calls for addresses and by demands for articles for different publications.

I have had to rely for dates largely on my memory, supplemented by Mrs. Clark's, and by a few of her " Line-a- Day " books. This may have resulted in slight inaccuracies in dates of minor importance. Yet on the whole I think my readers may congratulate themselves on the fact that I have not kept a careful diary, lest this volume might have swelled to an inordinate size.

Old Edmund Waller once wrote:

" Poets lose half the praise they should have got; Were it but known what they discreetly blot."

So do autobiographers. In their case the last line might be slightly amended to

" Were it but known what they, perchance, forgot."

My chief sins or chief virtues, as you may look at it, have been those of omission, for in spite of much forgetting, my embarrassment has been the embarrassment of riches. I have recalled so many incidents I wanted to record, and especially so many people I wanted to tell about, that my task has been

VI FOREWORD that of using an ever-sharp mental blue-pencil. I have constantly had to remind myself that my task was to write a personal autobiography, and not a history of our times, or a history of the Christian Endeavor movement. A multitude of my friends who have been most usefully prominent in Christian Endeavor will not find themselves mentioned in this volume, — not because I have forgotten them, or do not love them, but simply for lack of space in a book which, as it is, I fear is too large.

I have had equal difficulty in choosing the illustrations and have looked over no less than two thousand photographs to find a hundred which on the whole seemed most suitable.

It has been a genuine joy to write this book, in spite of its inevitable deficiencies and the difficulty of finding time for it, for it has brought to mind dear friends in every land and many happy scenes of fellowship and spiritual communion. I trust that in the future this book may be some contribution to the story of the movement with which my name has been connected, and which, I feel more and more, as the years go by, is not of man, or of the will of man, but of God.

Contents

PAGE

Chapter I MY EARLY ANCP:STORS IN AMERICA

The Strenuous Career of Rev. Zechariah Symmes — Anne Hutchinson and the Quakers — The Land of Nod — How My First American Ancestor Helped Me through College — The Clark Branches of the Family Tree I

Chapter V

Dartmouth Centennial Commencement — Chief Justice Chase and General Tecumseh Sherman — Our President and Professors — Primitive Days at Dartmouth — Fraternity Life — Literary Efforts — Football in the Old

Days — Teaching School Winters 42

vii viii CONTENTS

PAGE

Chapter XI EARLY JOURNEYS IN LANDS AFAR

The American Quartette — '"New York '92" — A Round-the-World Commission — Six Weeks in Australia — China, Japan, and India — In the Centre of a Typhoon — A Sore Disappointment 107

CONTENTS ix

PAGE

Chapter XII Year 1893

The Terrors of JafFa — Turkish Objections to Literature — Unsuccessful Attempts at Smuggling — The Birthplace of St. Paul — Cilician Gates and Taurus Mountains — A Perilous Journey — Constantinople and Hamid II. — Spain and England 118

Chapter XVII

A Score of the World's Most Eloquent Preachers — Drs. Meyer, Clifford, Maclaren, Parker, Spurgeon, and Many Others — In Spurgeon's Class- Room — Dr. Parker's Humor — A Good Irish Story — William T. Stead . 162

X CONTENTS

PAGE

Chapter XXIX FROM PEACEFUL LAKE MOHONK TO DISTRACTED JAMAICA

The Smiley Brothers — Cornell University — Andrew D. White — A Terrible Earthquake — A Ruined City — The Canal Zone — Colonel Gorgas — The President of Panama 326 xii CONTENTS

PAGE

Chapter XXX Year 1907

Panama Canal in the Making — Peculiarities of the West Coast — Lima, the Paris of South America — Harvard University in Arequipa — A Perilous Journey — Lake Titicaca — Beautiful Santiago — The Christ of the Andes 335

Chapter XXXI Year 1907

The Wonderful City of "Good Air" — ■ An Audience with President Alcorta — Rich Little Uruguay — Rio de Janeiro — The Prince of Cities — A Unique Prayer Meeting — Sao Paulo — The Coffee Region — Home via Europe . 350

Java — The Wild Men of Borneo — Open House in the Philippines — Troublous China — Hospitable Japan — Beautiful Honolulu — Home Again . 386

Chapter XXXV IN THE GOOD OLD SUMMER TIME

From the Maine Coast to Cape Cod — A House for ^550. — The Charming Maine Coast — Why We Chose Sagamore — Reforming an Abandoned Farm — Rejuvenating an Old House 397

CONTENTS xiii

PAGE

Chapter XXXIX Year 1912

Part II

Iconium — The Oldest City in the World — Seljukian Turks and Their Wonderful Mosques — Why the Dervishes Whirl ■ — Finding the Site of Lystra — How "Christian Dogs" Found Favor — From Stones to Melons — A Noble Missionary Doctor 440

Chapter XL Year 1912

An Interesting Journey to Old Philadelphia — Sardis — Thyatira — Pergamum — Smyrna — Ephesus — Laodicea — A Persian Tomb at Sardis — Immense Ruins of Pergamum — Desolate Ruins of Laodicea — Scripture Illustrated 450

XIV CONTENTS

PAGE

Chapter XLI Year 1912

A Sixtieth Birthday — Palestine Just before the Great War — Jerusalem — Nazareth — Damascus — Baalbec — Beirut — Tyre — Sidon — Cairo — Assiout — Alexandria — Syracuse — Earthquake-Ruined Messina — Pozzuoli — Rome 470

Chapter XLII Year 1913

Far beyond the Arctic Circle — The Great Magnet — A Day without a Sunrise ■ — Farthest North — A Christian Endeavor Meeting in Norway's National Cathedral — The Romance of the Little Nut-Seller — Finland's Beautiful Churches — Meetings in Germany, France, and Italy 493

Chapter XLHI

Year 1914

A RECORD OF PROVIDENTIAL DELIVERANCES

How a Poem Glorified a City — Plans for a New St. Bartholomew's Day — How the Barcelona Police Frustrated Plans — A Boomerang — A Runaway Automobile in London — Almost Shipwrecked 503

Chapter XLVII Year 1916

JAPAN IN 1916

Polite Reporters — A Light (?) Schedule — Eminent Editors — A Nobleman's Memories of America — Count Okuma's Cordiality — Asana's Palace — A Peace Banquet — The Late Emperor's Tomb — Our Japanese "Daughter" 541

Chapter XLVIII Year 1916

IN THE LAND OF MORNING CALM

Korea after Sixteen Years — Great Improvements — National Unrest — Twelve Hundred People at a Prayer Meeting — Pneumonia — Best Laid Plans Gang Aft Agley — Mukden, the Barbaric 551

Chapter XLIX Year 1916

Unwise Economy — Beside the Great Wall — Yuan Shi Kai's Pretensions — Memorable Scenes in Peking — Hangchow — Ten Thousand Miles of Travel for a Ten-Minute Speech — In a Chinese Revolution — Weary Days of Illness — Cormorant Fishing — Home Again 560

Chapter L CLIMBING UP HILL DIFFICULTY TO HEALTHVILLE

A Month in Hospital — America in the War — ■ Anxious Days for the World

- — In Flowery Florida ■ — How a Puritan Home Renewed Its Youth . . . 576

Chapter LI

Organizing Christian Endeavor Alumni — Reception in My Boyhood Home — • Effect of the War on the Christian Endeavor Movement — The Sudden End of the War — A Saloonless Nation 587

Chapter LII Year 1920

The Police Strike in Boston — On the Battlefields of France — A Visit to Jugo-Slavia — Passport Troubles — Distracted Europe — Where the First

XVI CONTENTS

PAGE

Gun Was Fired — Holiday Homes — Some British Meetings — On the Trail of an Ancestor 598

Chapter LHI

Year 1921

MEXICO IN 1921

How Engagements Multiply — A Quaker City — Mexican Trains Thirty-six Hours Late — Good Friday in the Capital — Thousands of Calla Lilies — Mexico's Beautiful Park and Wonderful Museum — A Race to Meet Engagements— Great Churches in Texas 615

Chapter LIV

A Glorious Vision of Amity — The Election of 1920 — An Interesting Ceremony — ■ President Harding Becomes a Christian Endeavor Alumnus — The Gracious Lady of the White House — Endeavorers in the Cabinet — The Great Washington Conference — Some Petitions and Their Answers . . . 622

Chapter LV Year 1921

THE FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR

In Portland — Aylmer Swept by Fire — • Why I Am Still President — A Crowning Convention — The Wonderful Parade — "A Warless World by 1923" ■ 631

Chapter LVI

Classical Freiburg — With Our Army on the Rhine — Germany in 1922 — Victorious and Vigorous Czecho-Slovakia — Despoiled Hungary — The Wonderful Bethania Union — Poland and Her Endeavorers — Denmark, Holland, England, Wales — Home 639

Chapter LVII

Dwight L. Moody — Ira D. Sankey — Theodore Cuyler — T. DeWitt Talmage — Henry Ward Beecher — Phillips Brooks — Maltbie D. Babcock — Edward Everett Hale — Vice-President Fairbanks — President Taft — Frances E. Willard — Anna Gordon — "Joe" Cannon — Champ Clark — J. H. Kellogg — John Wanamaker — WiUiam J. Bryan 659

CONTENTS xvii

PAGE

Chapter LVIII

First Articles and Books about Young People's Work — Travel-Books concerning Immigrants — Five Thousand Newspaper Articles — More Ambitious Flights — - My Pen as a Tent Needle 670

Chapter LIX

Our Six Homes — Many Absences Make Home More Precious — Our Children and Child ren-in-Law — Pleasant Home Evenings — Home Games — Hikes with My Boys — Family Prayers 678

Chapter LX Year 1922

WHAT MY RELIGION MEANS TO ME

Little Time for Religious Controversy — A Covenant, Not a Creed — Ups and Downs of Religious Experience — General O. O. Howard — Stonewall Jackson — Instant in Prayer — More Thanksgivings Than Petitions — My Religion in a Sentence 687

Chapter LXI CHANGES IN THREE-SCORE YEARS AND TEN

Seven Wonderful Decades — Many Administrations — Anti-Slavery — Prohibition— Woman Suffrage — The Victorian Era — Morals and Religion — Marvellous Inventions — The World War and Its Effects — A Closing Word of Optimism 693

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Portrait of Dr. Clark Frontispiccr

The Present Symmes Homestead in \\ incliester, Mass 8

Cherry Cottage ii

The Old Clark Homestead in Tewksbury, Mass 17

My Mother, with her Two Sons 24

Group of Dr. Clark's Pictures 28

My Adopted Father, Rev. Edward W. Clark 31

My Adopted Mother 33

Dr. Edwards A. Park 59

Harriet Elizabeth Abbott at Ihirteen 63

Harriet Elizabeth Abbott in 1876 65

VVilliston Chapel 68

Williston Congregational Church, Portland, Me 71

The Mizpah Mission Circle 79

Williston Parsonage in 188 1 80

Mr. Granville Staples 82

Original Copy of the Constitution, Accepted by the First Christian Endeavorers 85

Former Officers U. S. C. E 89

William Shaw 93

George B. Graff 96

A Corner in the Library of Dr. Clark's Home in Auburndale, Mass 103

A Busy Street of Sydney, New South Wales 112

Some Leading Christian Endeavorers of Cairo on a Picnic 119

One of the Great Mosques of Constantinople 123

The Ceremony of Selamlik 127

Hon. Samuel B. Capen I3S

Secretaries Afield U. S. C. E 138

Officers U. S. C. E I39

Secretary John Willis Baer and Family 141

George W. Coleman '44

Some of the Earlier Trustees U. S. C. E 147

Camping in Maine ^S~

Camp Dean iS4

A Japanese Christian Endeavor Leader and Family '59

Rev. John Pollock and his Wife and Son; Rev. James Mursell, Miss Elsie Pollock,

and Dr. Clark 165

The Organ Cactus of Me.xico 182

The Leaders of Christian Endeavor in Jamaica in 1898 185

Percy S. Foster 19"

The Christian Endeavor Chorus, Washington, D. C, 1896 193

The Press Tent of the Christian Endeavor Convention in Detroit 199

xix

XX ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Acres of Diamonds 214

Parsonage of the First Andrew Murray, Graaf Reinet, Cape Colony 218

George Murray's Family with Fifteen Children 221

Old Examination Cells, Now Abolished 227

A Chinese Soldier in the Regular Army in 1900 233

A Flash of Lightning 245

Our Fifth-Class Cars on the Trans-Baikal Train 249

Prison Barge 250

A Prison Car on the Trans-Siberian Railway 251

Our Fellow Passengers on the Trans-Siberian Railway 253

Children of Prince Bernadotte's Family 261

The Ice-Breaker Opening a Path for Our Steamer 265

Mrs. Tsilka and her Baby Elenka 267

Street in Thorshaven, Faroe Islands 271

Dr. Clark and His Son Fishing for Trout in Iceland 275

A Bit of Iceland Scenery 276

Lyell Bridge, New Zealand 283

Mangapapa Falls, New Zealand 285

In the Fern Forests of Queensland, Australia 289

The Principal Street in Durban 295

A Roman Temple of Pola 313

A Christian Endeavor Convention 323

A Church in Devasted Kingston 330

Culebra Cut When the Panama Canal was Built 336

Our Little Train in a Landslide on the High Peruvian Andes 341

The Christ of the Andes 348

Botofogo Bay, Rio de Janeiro 355

Mt. Corcovado, Rio de Janiero 358

Our Arrival at the Convention City, Agra, 1909 374

The Viceregal Encampment 375

World's Christian Endeavor Convention in Agra 379

The Taj Mahal 383

Triumphal Arch in Nagasaki 391

The Abandoned Old Farmhouse at Sagamore Beach 400

The Lily Pond in the "Sunken Orchard" 402

The Clark Family To-day 403

Polish Peasants 409

Ruins of Temple of Jupiter in Athens 424

Mars Hill, Athens 429

The Riverside 438

The Whirling Dervishes of Iconium 442

Courtyard of the Mosque of the Whirling Dervishes in Iconium 443

The Guest House of Lystra 444

A Very Old Fountain in Lystra 447

Pergamum, One of the Seven Cities of Revelation 457

A Street in Smyrna 461

Among the Ruins of Ephesus 464

The Fountain of the Virgin, Nazareth 478

ILLUSTRATIONS XXI

PAGE

Ancient Norwegian Church 49^

World's Christian Endeavor Building, Boston, Mass Facing 520

The Great Chicago Convention in 1915 5^7

Choir of the Chicago Convention, 1915 53 ^

A Street in Honolulu 535

Representatives of Twenty-Six Races and Cross Races 538

Christian Endeavor Seamen's Home, Nagasaki, Japan 543

The Great Wall of China, Near the Seacoast 5^1

West Lake, Hangchow 57°

A Common Mode of Travel in China 57^

Fishing with Cormorants in China 57^

Another Method of Going to a Convention 574

Mrs. Clark, her Twin Grandchildren, and her Chickens 582

The Old Abandoned Farmhouse 5^5

Trustees and Field-Secretaries of Christian Endeavor, at Buffalo 589

The Christian Endeavor House in London 611

President Harding, Christian Endeavor Alumnus 625

Cherry Cottage 633

Spire of the Wonderful Cathedral in Freiburg 640

The Great Monument of Kaiser William the First at the Junction of the Rhine

and Moselle 643

Dr. and Mrs. Clark with Two Endeavor Soldiers in Coblenz 646

Christian Endeavor Office Staff at German Christian Endeavor Headquarters,

Friedrichshagen bei Berlin 647

Statue of John Huss 649

A Junior Society in Viecbork (Vandsburg), Poland . .• 653

Our Summer Home at Pine Point, Me., 1880 to 1908 679

Mrs. Harriet A. Clark 681

The Living-room in the Old Farmhouse "82

Colony Day in Sagamore, Mass o°4

Chapter I Years 1599— 1670

THE STRENUOUS CAREER OF REV. ZECHARIAH SYMMES

ANNE HUTCHINSON AND THE QUAKERS THE LAND OF

NOD HOW MY FIRST AMERICAN ANCESTOR HELPED

ME THROUGH COLLEGE THE CLARK BRANCHES OF

THE FAMILY TREE.

UTOBIOGRAPHIES, except by the most distinguished of men, often appear to me to savor of egotism, since they seem to imply that the writer thinks that other people are anxious to know what he has been, and done. Nevertheless I am going to lay myself open to this same charge, since many friends have asked me to write down these reminiscences, and have assured me that they would be of interest, not only to my own children, but to the larger family of Christian Endeavorers, and, possibly, to an even wider circle.

A further reason which I have in my own mind for these reminiscences is the fact that the character of my work and the organization that I have especially represented, have brought me in contact, during the last forty years, with some of the foremost men of our times, and other interesting charactersj and, however uninspiring a man's own life may be, his memories and his estimate of others who have helped to make the history of his generation are not without interest.

Now that I have more than reached the age of three-score years and ten alloted to man by the Psalmist, and have been reminded of the uncertainty of life by a severe illness and a more severe operation, as well as by two or three somewhat narrow escapes from a violent death, I have decided to write down, in as orderly a fashion as I can, the events of the last one and seventy years, so far as they have touched my little orbit.

It is the fashion of some autobiographers to begin with their remote ancestors, but few Americans care to go further back than to the days when their first forbears crossed the salt seas for a home in the new world.

Following this precedent, I will say that my first ancestor in America was Rev. Zechariah Symmes, who was born at Canterbury in England in 1599. He was educated at Emmanuel College, of the University of Cambridge, where he was graduated in 1620.

He was evidently of stern, nonconformist stock, for Cotton Mather tells us that Rev. William Symmes, the father, charged his sons, Zechariah and William, " never to defile themselves with any idolatry or superstition, but to derive their religion from God's Holy Word, and to worship God as He himself has directed, and not after the devices and traditions of men."

That Zechariah followed his reverend father's instructions, and perhaps improved upon them, is indicated by the fact that he was frequently harassed by prosecutions in the bishops' courts, of which the redoubtable persecutor, William Laud, was then the head. This was some twenty years before Archbishop Laud's own head fell on Tower Hill in London, " for his agency in subverting the liberties of England."

Without any premonition of what was to happen to him when fortune's wheel should revolve agani, Laud made it very hot for Zechariah Symmes, and compelled him to leave London, where he was lecturer at St. Anthony's, and to remove to Dunstable in 1625, where he acted as rector for the eight following years.

Of my visit to Emmanuel College and to Dunstable in 1920 when on the track of my ancient progenitor, I will speak later, and will only add at this point that Laud and his persecuting myrmidons followed Zechariah to Dunstable. Feeling that he could have no peace in England, he sailed with his wife and seven children in the ship " Griffin," for Boston, where he arrived September 18, 1634. This family counted nine among the two hundred immigrants on the " Griffin," among whom was the famous and somewhat cantankerous Anne Hutchinson, who made so much trouble for the Puritans in later years.

Very soon after his arrival in Boston, on a fast day appointed for the occasion, Mr. Symmes was elected and ordained the teacher of the church in Charlestown. This church already had a pastor, the Rev. Thomas James, who had been with it since its organization two years before, but after the coming of my ancestor he seems to have confined himself to pastoral labor, while Mr. Symmes did the work of preacher and teacher.

It is interesting to recall that the first church in Boston was originally formed in Charlestown, July 30, 1630, and for some time met for worship under the shadow of a great oak. It was soon found, however, that it was difficult for the large families of those days to cross the Charles River, especially in the winter, so the church was removed to Boston, on the other side of the Charles, where a majority of its members re-- sided, and the new church of which I have been speaking was organized in Charlestown in 1632. This church is still in existence and not long since I had the privilege of preaching to its present day congregation.

Alas, there were ministerial differences in the seventeenth century, as in the twentieth. It is often difficult for two clergymen of different temperaments, though equally good men, to work together in the same church. It was so in this case. The majority of the people sided with Mr. Symmes, while Mr. James sought fresh fields and pastures new in Providence, New Haven, and Virginia, and afterwards returned to England, a good and true man and faithful servant of Christ to the end of his long life.

Another distinguished member of the Charlestown church was Rev. John Harvard, who came three years later than Mr. Symmes, and who had graduated at the same college in Cambridge.

It is thought by some that he was for a time a colleague of Mr. Symmes. This is probably a mistake, for he died of consumption a year after reaching America, but not before he had immortalized himself, and perpetuated his name throughout all coming generations, by willing one-half of all his property, to the amount of 779 pounds, 17 shillings, and two pence, to the great college which bears his name.

I have a dim suspicion that my honored ancestor, strong and noble man though he was, was somewhat difficult to get along with, for he not only seems to have had some trouble with his colleague, Mr. James, but was one of the most militant of those involved in the celebrated controversy with Mrs. Anne Hutchinson and the Antinomians. He did not enjoy her company on the voyage, and did not believe in the special revelations with which she regaled him. Nor did he at all approve of the meetings which she held after reaching shore. But she gave as good as he sent, and denounced him and his confreres roundly for " holding to a covenant of works." The end was the banishment of Mrs. Hutchinson from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, as every one knows.

This Puritan pastor seems to have been involved also in the trouble with the Quakers. I am glad to say that, so far as I know, he had nothing to do with banishing any of them, though he seems to have annoyed them by his visits to them while in prison, for " religious conversation suited to their needs." For this and similar efforts, we read, " he was grievously reviled by the Quakers."

I wonder what these " similar efforts " were. I fear they may refer to something besides " religious conversation." But we must remember that some of the Quakers of those days were very unlike the delightful, peace-loving citizens who bear that name to-day, for we read that in some places their conduct was in the highest degree " turbulent and provoking." " Margaret Brewster," it is said, " went into a meeting-house with her face smeared with black paint. Deborah Wilson went through the streets of Salem naked, as a sign of her adherence to the naked truth. Lydia Wardwell went into a meeting-house in Newbury as naked as she was born." Many opened their shops on the Lord's Day in defiance of the laws, so that the Rev. Zechariah and his fellows had excuses for their harshness which are not generally recognized.

Toward the end of his life another controversy, which must have been painful at the time, resulted in the formation of the First Baptist Church in Boston. The evil tree of discord thus for once bore good fruit, in multiplying strong evangelical churches throughout all the confines of the city. It seems that one of the members of Mr. Symmes' church — one Thomas Gould — would not bring his infant child for baptism. In fact the boy lived to be ten years old, and still . the symbolic water had not been sprinkled on his brow. The father was repeatedly admonished, and at length, in the year 1665, with others, was excommunicated, and they then formed the First Baptist Church in Boston. This unhappy, yet happy event, marks the contrast between the seventeenth and the twentieth centuries.

Mr. Symmes' salary during most of his ministerial life was ninety pounds sterling a year, a very good stipend for those days, for only one other minister, the eminent John Cotton of

Boston, had as mucb. Moreover the town of Charlestown was generous to this long-time and greatly honored pastor, and gave him a tract of three hundred acres of land now in the thriving town of Winchester " extending from the north end of Mystic Pond to the borders of Woburn." At another time it gave him three hundred acres more in the " Land of Nod," now within the borders of Wilmington. The latter gift received the name of the region to which Cain banished himself, because it was such a forlorn district and so far from any church, and as Mr. Symmes' twelfth part of the Land of Nod was valued when he died at only five pounds, the region probably deserved its name. A small portion of these original grants has remained in different branches of the Symmes family to the present day, and, when a boy, a number of these acres in so-called " Turkey Swamp " in Winchester, which belonged to me, were sold for a few hundred dollars which went toward my college education.

I have dwelt at some length on the life of old Zechariah, because of his unique personality, and because his life touched so many of the most interesting events in the early history of Massachusetts.

The Reverend Zechariah ended his useful and strenuous career February 4, 1670, having been pastor of the church in Charlestown for more than thirty-five years, and to the very end of his days. So much honored was he that he was buried at the expense of the town, and on his tombstone they engraved his eulogy, two lines of which run as follows:

" A prophet h'es beneath this stone, His words shall live though he be gone."

He left behind him, besides a good name and a modest fortune, a devoted and noble wife and ten children, three others having died before their father. From this good man I am descended in the eighth generation, having for my forbears his son William, and his son William, then three Johns in succession, while my father broke the hundred-year line of Johns by being named Charles.

The militant spirit of Zechariah seems to have descended to many of his descendants, for not a few of them fought in the Revolutionary War. The second John in the series of my ancestors was Captain John Symmes of the Revolutionary army. He was one of the Medford Company, commanded by Captain Isaac Hall, which marched to Charlestown on the memorable seventeenth of June, 1775, but reached Bunker Hill just too late to take part in that fight. He made up for it, however, by enlisting for three years, and was doubtless engaged in many battles, though the particulars of his military career have not been preserved. At the close of the three years he came home, " ragged and emaciated," we are told. He was paid in the depreciated currency of the day, all of which he gave for a yoke of oxen. The oxen he sold and took his pay in the same currency, which he kept for a short time, while it constantly depreciated, and then paid it all for a bag of Indian meal, so that the net financial results of his three years in the Revolutionary War seems to have been one bag of corn meal.

Mahomet Ali, an old man who had served many years in the Turkish army, once told me that he received no pay at all, but when he was discharged was given a ragged red Turkish fez, — the only soldier of whom I know who fared worse financially than my ancestor, John the second.

Another descendant of Zechariah Symmes, though not in my direct line, married General William Henry Harrison, the eighth president of the United States. That his wife, Anna Symmes, had a strong religious influence over old " Tippecanoe " is indicated by the well-authenticated fact that during the presidential canvass of 1840 a company of politicians from Cincinnati visited the candidate at North Bend. " General Harrison met them at some place near by, and, extending his hand courteously, said, ' Gentlemen, I should be most happy to welcome you on any other day, but if I had no regard for religion myself, I have too much respect for the religion of my wife to encourage the violation of the Christian-Sabbath.'"

So far as I know there have been no scalawags among the descendants of Zechariah Symmes, though had there been, possibly their misdeeds would not have been recorded in the family memorial. There was, however, one harmless but somewhat distinguished crank, who created a very considerable sensation in his day with his theory of " Concentric Spheres

The Present Symmes Homestead in Winchester, Mass. Built by Deacon John Symmes in 1806.

and Polar Voids." This was Captain John Cleves Symmes, who fought in the war of 1 8 1 2 and received from his superior officer " honorable mention " for his bravery at the Siege of Fort Erie. After the war he had time to turn his attention to the interior of the earth, and he came to the conclusion that " the earth was hollow, habitable within, and widely open about the Poles." An elaborate book was written to prove this theory, and he did his best to induce Congress to fit out an expedition to explore these concave regions, and visit the inside of the earth. A hard-hearted Congress, however, would not make the appropriation, and he died a brokenhearted man with his fantastic theories still the ruling passion of his life.