A collection of the writings of John James Ingalls; essays, addresses, and orations

Dedication

To THE People of Kansas,

FOR WHOM MY BELOVED HUSBAND LABORED, AND

TO WHOM HE OWED SO MUCH,

CHAPTER I. Men make a nation

"States are not great Except as men may make them."

National life, strong and individual in character, seemingly the result and product of single instances and of personal action, is, in reality, the aggregate activity of the millions who live under the shadow of the flag. History deals largely with individuals. We talk of Washington, Lincoln, and many others, as though each in his day held in his single person all the mighty forces which controlled the national destiny. We speak of Grant, and Thomas, and Sherman, and Togan, and Sheridan as though they forged together and welded into unity the divergent national elements now the foundation of our glorious country. We write of money-kings and wheat-kings, — of political bosses and the heads of labor unions. But as the ocean misses one drop of all its myriads, as the giant cedars of California feel the loss of one woody fiber, so, one penny less, a sheaf of wheat missing, a single vote awry, one single craftsman outside the fold, and the money sovereign, the grain sovereign, the king of the ballot-box and of the crafts, consciously or unconsciously suffer loss.

Bach human soul has a potency and a value, — a place to fill in the universe. And that is why it is a human soul.

And yet to urge that "all men are created free and equal" is to fall into error. All men are not created free: neither are all men created equal, and history stands ever ready to overthrow the fallacious doctrine. While each man, like each blade of grass, has a place and power, yet there are men and men. Their names in the printshop range from brilliant type to great primer in lower case, and in small and large capitals above that.

"All the world' s a stage, And all the men and women merely players."

The drama of life is accurately portrayed by Shakespeare. Men of every station appear upon the stage. They stand a moment in full view, and then are swallowed up by the resistless tide of time. Many of them play insignificant parts. And while the play cannot proceed without them, they are not given name and mention in the dramatis personce. So it is in the drama of history. The lower-case men rarely get in at all by name, though many are heroes, and most of the real work of the world is done by them. They assert themselves as a body, and not as individuals. This seeming injustice is compensated by Nature. The men who labor possess and preserve the genius of a people ; and they perpetuate the true tendency of a nation. The cradles of the truly great in this world have been rocked by the hand of the lowly, not infrequently by the poverty stricken. But it is not to be denied that the play has alwa3's concerned itself mainly with large and small capitals.

Now, if the figure be not too long drawn out, somewhere in this upper-case in the size of type which the perspective of time will justify, will be set the name of John James Ingalls. In the annals of Kansas it will be "writ large," for these annals cannot be written without it.

A strange, brilliant, unique figure in our history, with few claims to the vast elements of imperishable renown in public affairs, he is yet an inseparable part of [an important era of our national life, and a strong factor in the growth and glory of one of our most illustrious States.

But beyond the man whom the world knew, or, rather, guessed at, was the man himself— the figure inside the buttoned-up exterior known only as thinker, scholar, poet. Beyond and inside this severe and formal figure buffeted about by the agitated tides which try and trouble men, was the husband, the father, the friend. And since the press, political enemies, and mere acquaintances have exploited the first man and sat in judgment on him, it is just and fitting that this memoir should seek to portray the true and inner man.

Chapter II

Edmund Ingalls came from England to Massachusetts in September, 1628. He was accompanied by his brother Francis. They were members of Governor Endicott's colony, and landed at Salem in September. Francis left no male descendants; his daughter Mary married Roger Belknap.

Nothing of a definite nature is known of the Ingalls family prior to the arrival of Edmund and Francis in America. The traditions of the family recite that these brothers came from Lincolnshire. No proof of this is known to exist; and the place of their birth is unknown.

These brothers seem to have been young men of enterprise; for immediately upon their arrival in America they secured a grant of land from the colonial authorities. The grant contained one hundred and twenty acres. They began at once to improve it, and followed farming and stockraising; they also established a tannery on their farm, where they engaged in the manufacture of leather. Their farm was in what is now Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts, of which city they were the founders and first settlers. The date of this settlement cannot be determined exactly, but is known certainly to have been in the winter of 1628-9.

While the Ingalls family can be traced only to the coming of the brothers Edmund and Francis as members of the colony of Governor Endicott, the name is known to be of Scandinavian origin. In the northern lands of Northwestern Europe it was anciently borne by the royalty, Ingialld appearing as the twenty-second in the Norwegian dynasty and as the thirteenth in the Danish dynasty. The name Ingialldr is found in the royal lists of Sweden, one by such name having been king of that country, A. D. 600 It is probable that the name was carried to England in the Danish conquest, which began in A. D. 787. The old chronicles relate that in that year the "Danes," really the people of Scandinavia, crossed the North Sea and swarmed along the shores of Britain. They swept up the great rivers in irresistible hordes and began a war of extermination upon the tribes of their own kindred, the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons, who, more than three hundred years before, had exterminated the ancient Britons in those regions. These pagan barbarians undoubtedlv carried the name — Ingalls — to England in their relentless conquest.

Had we time, we would find it instructive and interesting to study these fierce old nations. Even in their barbarous state there could be found among them the virtues for which the Aryan race was ever noted. They fostered justice and equality before the law, and established assemblies of the people for the transaction of business of a public nature. They were intolerant of tyranny and were ever lovers of liberty. In their society women held a high place. They possessed an indomitable courage; and through admixture with the Normans, a kindred people, they obtained capacity for great enterprises and genius for the establishment of stable and just government never before equalled in the world. Their descendants, of whom Edmund Ingalls was one, came into the rude wilderness of North America, and in turn became the progenitors of a race with hardy and lasting virtues and carried conquest from ocean to ocean. "In them was renewed,

32 John James Ingai^ls.

with all its ancient energy, that wild and daring spirit, that force and hardihood of mind, which marked our barbarous ancestors of Germany and Norway."

Edmund Ingalls fell a victim to accident. In August, 1648, he found it necessary to visit Boston, then, as now, the commercial metropolis of Massachusetts. Keeping in mind, as the Puritans were ever prone, that life is uncertain and death inevitable, he made his will, dating it August 28, 1648. On the way to Boston, traveling on horseback, he fell through a defective bridge, receiving such injuries that he died from their effects a few days thereafter — exact date unknown.

Edmund Ingalls left eight children — among them Henry, the sixth child and the third son. By his father's will, Henr>^ had the "house lot bought of Goodman West," also land in what is now called Chelsea (Andover, Massachusetts).

This son, Henry, lived to a great age, dying February 8,

1 7 18, being then "about 90." He was twice married; first to Mary Osgood, at Andover, July 6, 1653, who was at that time of the age of twenty-one. Their second son was named Henrs'; bom December 8, 1656; died February 8, 1698.

Henry, the son of Henry, married Abigail, the daughter of John Emery, of Newbury, June 6, 1688. Their fourth child and second son was Francis; bom December 20, 1694; died Januar}' 26, 1759.

Francis married his cousin, Lydia Ingalls, November 19,

1719. Their fourth son, Francis, was born January 26, 1731; died April 3, 1795.

Francis, son of Francis, married Eunice Jennings, November 12, 1754. [He lived in Andover, where he died April 3, 1795. Their sixth son, Theodore, was bom March 30, 1764; died November 7, 18 17, at Middletown, Massachusetts.

Theodore, son of Francis and Eunice, was three times married. The third marriage was with Ruth Fhnt. The only son of Theodore and Ruth FHnt was EHas Theodore^ who was born October 7, 18 10; died December 28, 1892.

Elias Theodore, son of Theodore and Ruth FHnt, married EHza Chase, daughter of Samuel Chase, December 27,. 1832. Their first-born was John James Ingalls, the subject of this brief memoir.

Elias Theodore Ingalls was educated with the design that he should become a minister in the Congregational Church,, of which his ancestors had been honored members. He graduated from Bradford Academy, and was above the average in his attainments. Poor health made it necessary for him to abandon his intention to enter the ministry, and he began a successful business career. He formed a partnership with Samuel Chase, in Haverhill, in 1827. He married his partner's daughter. In 1833 he established himself in Middletown, Massachusetts, as a merchant and manufacturer. He was a pioneer in the manufacture of shoes by machinery. In. 1859 his factory turned out six hundred pairs of shoes a day. In conducting his business he did not forget his love for literature, but kept abreast of the advancement of the time. He was one of the leading spirits in a society of which the poet Whittier was a member, and was always fond of the Greek poets. He took an active interest in the affairs of the Congregational Church. He was long independent in his political action, but became finally a staunch Democrat, though originally a Whig. Later he became a Free Soiler, and then an Abolitionist. He lived in Haverhill, Massachusetts, the greater part of his life, and died there.

John James Ingalls, the oldest son of Elias Theodore and Eliza Chase Ingalls, was born in Middletown, Massachusetts, December 29, 1833. The ancient Hebrews numbered their generations, counting from some important epoch. Reckoning thus, we find him in the eighth generation from Edmund Ingalls, the Puritan immigrant from England, who, with his brother Francis, also a Puritan immigrant, founded and first settled the city of Lynn, in 1628. This was in the eighth vear from the landing of the Pilgrims. For nearly three hundred years the family founded by Edmund Ingalls has lived in America. Its members have done their full share in the work of building the greatest republic the world has known. Such ancestry is illustrious.

There was nothing unusual observed in his youthful disposition. He was fond of sports dear to every bov. These were, though, sometimes irksome to him. He would lose interest in games or other pursuit of pastime or pleasure and become sedate and even unhappy. At such times he sought the society of his mother, where he remained quiet, thoughtful, and usually uncommunicative. He was reared in the Church of his fathers, attending there regularly, often writing out the sermon almost word for word upon his return from the Sunday morning ser^•ice.

The boy grew into youth, and was kept in school as has ever been the good Xew England custom. He was made read}- for college at the Haverhill High School and by private teachers. He entered Williams College, at Williamstown, Mass., in 1851, at the beginning of the course, and remained throughout, graduating in the class of 1855. Few incidents -of his college days are preserved. It is known that he loved the pranks of college students, and was not behind others in their design and execution.

A few months prior to his graduation he was unjustly reprimanded by the president of the college. His sense of justice was supreme, and he resolved to take substantial satisfaction for what he regarded as an attempt to humiliate him. He prepared his commencement oration with this purpose of revenge in mind, taking for his subject "Mummy Life." Such a castigation of solemn professors and college oflficers had not before been written. It was necessary that it should be submitted for revision, and the faculty eliminated the major portion of it. He took the precaution to pay all fees and dues before Commencement, exacting a receipt showing him entitled to a certificate of graduation as a Bachelor of Arts. The faculty had not thought of the declamation of the original oration. Imagine their surprise when, in the keen, defiant, sarcastic manner of which he was even at that time master, he delivered his oration as it was originally written. He was commanded repeatedly to cease speaking, but he held forth to the end. When his diploma was handed him at the conclusion of the exercises, it proved a blank, so far as any testimonial of meritorious scholarship was concerned. But, relying upon his rights in the matter, and armed with his treasurer's receipt showing the liability of the college, he demanded his diploma, as a matter of right, stating firmly at the same time that he would bring a suit in law to compel compliance in case of refusal to issue it to him. A few days thereafter he was given a diploma in due form, and the incident was closed. Twenty-five years later his Alma Mater chose him to deliver the annual oration, and at that time, voluntarily and without solicitation, conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws.

Chapter III

"I was a student in the junior class at Williams College," writes Mr, Ingalls, "when President Pierce, forgotten but for that signature, approved the act establishing the Territory of Kansas, May 30, 1854. I remember the inconceivable agitation that preceded, accompanied, and followed this event. It was an epoch. Destiny closed one volume of our annals, and, opening another, traced with shadowy finger upon its pages a million epi taphs ending with 'Appomattox.'

"Floating one summer night upon a moonlit sea, I heard far over the still waters a high, clear voice singing:

" ' To the West ! To the West ! To the land of the free, Where the mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea; , Where a man is a man if he 's willing to toil, And the humblest may gather the fruits of the soil."

"A few days later, my studies completed, I joined the uninterrupted and resistless column of volunteers that marched to the lands of the free. St. Louis was a squalid border town, the outpost of civihzation. The railroad ended at Jefferson City. Transcontinental trains with sleepers and dining-cars annihilating space and time were the vague dreams of the future century.

"Overtaking at Hermann a fragile steamer that had left the levee the day before, we embarked upon a monotonous voyage of four days along the treacherous and tortuous channel that crawled between forest of Cottonwood and barren bars of tawny sand, to the frontier of the American Desert.

' ' It was the mission of the pioneer with his plough to abolish the frontier and to subjugate the desert. One has become a boundary and the other an oasis. But with so much acquisition something has been lost for which there is no equivalent. He is unfortunate who has never felt the fascination of the frontier; the temptation of unknown and mysterious soUtudes; the exultation of helping to build a State; of forming its institutions and giving direction to its cause."

After his graduation in 1855, young Ingalls applied himself to the study of law. Two years later, at the age of 24,

"he was admitted to the Essex County bar. But Haverhill presented few opportunities to a wide-awake young man of studious mind and keen penetrability. It is not strange that this young man, with the natural ambition of youth and with a conscious sense of his power even then to sway men with his mentality, should find in the West an alluring field.

A lithograph of the town of Sumner, Kansas, displayed by an enterprising real-estate agent, attracted Mr. Ingalls to the State. In 1858, three years before its admission to the Union, he came to Kansas and sought this town of Sumner. It was at that time a thriving little frontier settlement in the prime of its booming days, and with a promise of a growing, prosperous future. Two years later a Kansas tornado blew Sumner off the map, and Mr. Ingalls removed to Atchison. Here for forty years he made his home; not only that, but he gave to the city a chance to get into history because it was the home of him who came to be in many respects one of the most noted citizens of Kansas, and in some respects her most illustrious son.

That Mr. Ingalls should enter politics was inevitable. That he should soon become a power therein was likewise inevitable. His was too intense a nature to be otherwise than a power in anything. Whatever else he may have inherited from the "Ingialld" of the old Norwegian dynasty, or from "Baron Ingald" of the "Doomsday Book," the power of Thor was his inheritance. It was his by blood, if not in inclination, and men felt his presence and feared it, too — the certain marks of superior mentality.

In 1859 he was made a delegate to the Wyandotte Constitutional Convention that met to frame a State Constitution, and he impressed himself upon the fundamental law of the State in the phraseology in which it is couched.

The next year he was secretary of the Territorial Council, and the next, of thf State Senate. In 1862 he served as State senator for his district. This official record served to show his growing power in public affairs.

The Civil War found Ingalls serving in the capacity of iudge -advocate for the Kansas V^olunteers, with the rank of major. At the same time he was laying the foundation for his reputation as a writer. During the absence of Colonel John A. Martin, who was serving in the war, Mr. Ingalls was the editor of the Atchison Champion. The literary instinct ever strong in him found outlet for activity.

After onlv seven years' residence in the State, John James Ingalls had come to be recognized as a force to be reckoned with in all public affairs.

The great source of his power lay in his tine command of words. But words are only the signs of ideas. He who can marshal them adroitly must have a control of ideas, also a power to think. There are many men who have this latter power, but thev miss greatness because of a lack of ability to give expression to it. The double gift in large measure was the possession of this New England nobleman transplanted in the commonwealth of Kansas.

Chapter IV

In the published accounts of great men, it sometimes happens that their family relationships are least considered. When John James Ingalls died in August of 1900, the press of the country gave double-column space to his picture, column after column to his life and attainments, but only brief mention was made of his home life and family ties. This was well enough, for the casual reader cares little for anyone but the man himself; and the indifferent public often judges himfrom his overt acts, and rarely from his motives and influences. And yet it is generally true that the better part of one's life is omitted when the home influences and associations are passed over in silence. In the case of Mr. Ingalls this is certainly true ; to this fact those who knew him most intimately bear willing testimony.

In 1859 Anna Louisa Chesebrough came with her father's family from New York city to Atchison. Hers was a wellreputed people, whose early ancestors were the associates of John Winthrop in the settlement of Boston, in 1630. Her father, Ellsworth Chesebrough, was, for a number of years, an importer in New York city. At the time of his death in the year 1864, he was an elector from the vState of Kansas on the Lincoln ticket.

When Mr. Ingalls had lived in Kansas for seven years, and was thirty-one years of age, he was married to Miss Chesebrough. The wedding took place on September 27, 1865. The wedded life then begun lasted through thirty-five years of unbroken

A^ John James Ingalls.

•faith and love, and ended on that midsummer night in Las Vegas, when, for the tenderly affectionate husband, the light went out and the dawning of his new day was the sunrise of eternity.

"One love, one home, one heaven above, One fold in heart and life; And the old love still will last us through

To the journey's end, sweet wife.

And reaching on, when this life is done.

It will live and thrive and grow With a deathless flame, and a deeper name Than our mortal loves can know."

Mr. Ingalls' home life is one that for the glory of Kansas her future senators would do well to emulate. His wife was his most trusted friend, his admirer, his inspiration. In her he centered the love of his life, and he found by his own fireside the haven of peace his soul most longed for. It was for him Ihe

"Golden milestone; Was the central point from which he measured every distance Through the gateways of the world around him."

Mrs. Ingalls was essentially a home-maker, as her husband was a home-lover. vShe was the mother of eleven children, six of whom are still living, and seven of whom grew to manhood and womanhood. When her fifth anniversary came, there were four babies in the house. When the tenth came, there were six living children, and one little grave in the cemetery. Think of it, you mother of one troublesome child; you wife who feels that maternity is a burden ! Six babies under ten years of age ! To the happy Ingalls family fatherhood and motherhood were coronals of honor. Their children were the inspiration of their lives, not the trial and burden of existence.

It was in these early 3^ears of home-making that Mr. Ingalls did some of his best literary work. Four months before his death, when he was health-seeking in Arizona, there fell into his hands a circular containing an extract from the Quarterly Report of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture for March, 1900. This circular contained a long quotation from "Blue Grass," one of the early magazine articles that helped to make him famous. On the back of the circular Mr. Ingalls wrote :

" Dearest Wife:

" ' Blue Grass ' seems to be one of those compositions that the world will not willingly let die.

"Those were happy days when it was written: in the little cottage on the bluff looking out over the great river; with a roomful of babies; obscure and unknown; waiting for destiny, so soon to come. * * * How far away it seems!

"Your loving Husband."

Socialty, Mrs. Ingalls w^as by birth and breeding a fit companion for her illustrious husband. In his work entitled "Society in Washington, Its Great Men, Accomplished Women," etc., Mr. Randolph Keim says of the wife of the noted Senator from Kansas:

' ' Mrs. Ingalls, the wife of the eloquent senator from the battle-ground of the slavery contests, is one of the interesting ladies of the senatorial circle. * * * Amid the cares of family, she has adorned the senator's social hfe at Washington with the same distinguished success which has attended his wonderful career as one of the striking figiu-es in the upper branch of Congress."

But aside from the home-keeping and social traits, Mrs. Ingalls was her husband's true companion and helpmeet in all his public service and literary effort. To her he paid the high compliment of valuing her friendship with her love. She was for him counsel and ambition. For her sake^he became an orator and a statesman. Through her inspiration he was moved to eloquence. Through her wisdom he^was discerning, and in her love he found peace.

"How full of mournful tragedies, of incompleteness, of fragmentary ambitions and successes this existence is!" So writes Mr. Ingalls on the sudden death of Senator Sumner. "And yet how sweet and dear it is made by love! That alone never fails to satisfy and fill the soul. Wealth satiates, and ambition ceases to allure ; we weary of eating and drinking, of going up and down the earth — of looking at its mountains and seas, at the sky that arches it, at the moon and stars that shine upon it, but never of the soul that we love and that loves us, of the face that watches for us and grows brighter when we come. * * * Good-night."

It is perhaps granted to few women to know a married

life of such unbroken trust, to have such sincere admiration, to

feel one's self to be of so mtich tise and comfort to her husband

as it was Mrs. Ingalls' lot to know.

Next to his love for his wife was Mr. Ingalls' affection for

his children. His grief for the little ones taken away in early

childhood was intense.

"My bereavement," he writes to his sister after the death of little Ruth, aged seven, "seems to me like a cruel dream from which I shall soon awaken. The light has gone out of my life. Ruth was my favorite child. Her temperament was tranquil and consoling; she gratified my love of the beautiful, my desire for repose. I loved her most because she was so much like her dear mother." And he adds at the close: "I am assured we shall meet again."

So, too, of his little boy Addison, who died in October, 1876,

aged four, he writes to his father:

"He was the noblest and most {promising of my sons, as Ruth was the most lovely and engaging of my daughters.

"Yesterday, beneath the clear sky that brooded above us like a covenant of peace, we laid him to sleep beside his sister, to wait the solution of the great mystery of existence when earth and sea shall give up their dead.

* * * * If eternity will release its treasures, sometime I shall claim my own."

Of the children who grew to manhood and womanhood, his daughter Constance seems to have been most beloved, although they were all very dear to their father. In a letter to his wife, written in February, 1875, he says:

"Your praises of Baby Constance find a constant echo in my heart. Since Ruth went away, I think Constance seems a little nearer and dearer to me than any of the rest of the sweet brood. * * *

"I would like to gather you all around the hbrary fire this bitter night and talk over the affairs of the day."

Constance died just eight months before her father. Her death was a crushing blow from which he never ralHed.

It would be cruel, however, to the memory of John James Ingalls to dwell on these sad phases of family life only, and to omit all mention of his intense pleasure in his home, his pride in his children, his keen sense of humor, that to his political enemies took the form of bitterest sarcasm, but to his loved ones and intimate friends was only delightful mirth. His love of beauty, too, was an apparent trait in his daily life. Somewhere in every letter and in every speech it shone forth, not by conscious effort, but because it was the inherent part of a brilliant, beauty-loving mind.

On Thanksgiving Day, 1891, he wrote to Constance:

"It is a most entrancing morning. I have just come in from a stroll in the sunshine to and fro along the stone walk to the north gate. The sky is cloudless, and the wind just strong enough to turn the mill slowly in the soft air. The smoke from the chinmeys rises straight to the zenith and dissolves in the stainless blue. In the deep, distant valley the river glimmers through a dim silver mist woven with shifting purple Hke the hues which gleam on the breast of a dove. Undulating along the horizon, the bluft's rise Uke translucent crags of violet, and from the city beneath columns of vapor and fumes from engines and factories ascend, accompanied by a confused and inarticulate murmur, hke the whispers of protest and pain. * * * During the night it rained, and the grass of the lawn is green. It glitters and scintillates with the transitory gems of the frost. Here and there are disappearing ridges of the snow from the storm of Monday, and in the hollows of the grove the bronze leaves of the oaks are piled high, to be dispersed by the next gale, like the ruined gold of a spendthrift, or the vanishing hopes of men."