Life and works of Orlo Jay Hamlin (1803-1880)

Front matter

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Preface

ORLO JAY HAMLIN, the subject of this volume, was a man of unusual mental power. His early career, from his own pen, is conscientiously set forth in this volume with as much accuracy as has been in the editor's power to give. The reader will note his strong and never-ending desire to better his own and the lives and conditions of those who knew him. The way he set about to study law as a step to his greater success indexes the sturdiness of his will, and the giant, undaunted spirit he showed in all his life-long efforts. His simple sketch of his early life proves that his temperament was modest and sensitive. Reason and justice governed all the aims and relations in the life of this lofty and ennobling man whose spirit and brain kept him steadily working on problems of life, and of local, state and national interests. During his short-period of physical strength he accomplished much, and then came the cruel thirty years' epoch of invalidism, throughout which he kept up a ceaseless study of laws, languages and customs; such heroism manifested on a sick bed marks him as an unusual intellectual and spiritual character.

While he was ill of nervous prostration and tormented by all the characteristics attendant upon such a sickness, he lived in the highest thoughts, wrote poems, axioms, reminiscences, political speeches, scientific articles and translated French and German.

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He also did exhaustive work in chemistry, geology and astronomy. Meanwhile, he kept abreast of the times, and even touched upon the Woman Suffrage question, which was young in its agitation at that date. Mr. Hamlin's habits were irreproachable, his nature was essentially spiritual; he never knew bitterness nor wrath over his physical weakness, neither did he fret over his blighted career. His physical incapacitation in no wise stopped his mental growth ; his soul called for intellectual stimulation; mental growth and betterment of conditions around him meant infinitely more to his nature than did material possessions.

Mr. Hamlin was doomed to drudgeries and distasteful occupations in his early life, but he was born of wise, honorable and tender parents, which is the greatest blessing to a man in the power of fortune to bestow; his mother was a superior woman, with a keen eye for the essentials to the formation of character. Love watched over Orlo J.'s childhood, he was cast in an heroic mold and was early filled spiritually to meet his hardships. Mr. Hamlin's mind was a climbing one, his accomplishments in public life were many before ill health put him between sheets, where for so many years his inborn ambition and force of character held him closely to his purpose in life. He was at once a man of will and intelligence, and of soul and temperament; he was brilliant in conversation, and accurate in his statements. The subject he discussed always showed his thorough understanding of it; his information was solid, he digested it well. This accuracy, with his natural charm, gave him unusual influence with his contemporaries and in his

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profession. By ill health, his successful legal career was cut off when he crossed the meridian of life. As will be seen, his extraordinary brain power gradually sapped the vitality of his frail body, meantime his mentality grew stronger. He was wise and just always and fearless for right everywhere, — in his family, his social life and in his profession. Mr. Hamlin was a distinctive man of parts. McKean County has not his superior in contemporaneous history.

Modesty of his attainments may be truthfully recorded as his greatest characteristic. It is needless to describe in detail the literary task-work done by Mr. Hamlin during the thirty years of his invalidism. His manuscripts speak volumes of love for accurate studentship. We would like to reproduce herein some of his works on Botany, Chemistry and Astronomy. These manuscripts could well be made into separate text-books for public school work. Because of their age and decay, the writer regrets that she must leave many more valuable materials unused to complete this showing of the attainments of this wonderful man.

Mr. Hamlin signed his own name or initials to many of his writings and treated the authorship of others as open secrets. Those certified by him give us a complete understanding of his way of thinking and of his conduct. From these we get a sound idea of his life and of his character. He made good primitive history for the State of Pennsylvania. This record of his life will mean much to his town, his county, his State, to his family and to mankind. Christina Howell Charles.

Contents

PAGE

I THE MAN HIMSELF 1

Lineage 3