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Page 32
The Southern Israelite
E. H.JORDAN & SONS
205-7 GOULD BUILDING
Extend
Cordial
Greetings
of
Good
Felloivsh'p
out'of'doors
IRA M. VALENTINE
Operating as
STEWART-WARNER
SALES COMPANY
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
Veeder-Root Counters Waltham Speedometers
J. Burt Moore
J. W. Lyerly
ANSLEY GARAGE CO.
STORAGE
REPAIRING
To Oar Friends
The Season's
Greetings
WASHING
GREASING
670 Boulevard, N.E.
Phone Walnut 5680
With the Pest Wishes
of the
Manufacturers of
KARO
UNIT
M AZOLA — KRE-MEL
H. Z. HOPKINS COMPANY
Adjusters oe Fire Losses for the Assured
TRUST COMPANY OF GEORGIA BUILDING
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
H. Z. HOPKINS
C. I). MARTIN, JR.
J. B. TUGGLE
X. L. GEDDES
McCord-St ewart Company
Importers, Manufacturers
Wholesale Grocers
Coffee Roasters
West Hunter and Haynes Streets
ATLANTA, GA.
South Commemorates Judah P. Be), > }1Un
(Continued from page 7)
was among those recently chosen for
the Hall of Fame.
Recently, the Sons of Confederate
Veterans adopted a resolution to erect
upon Monument Avenue a memorial
to Judah P. Benjamin. A committee
has been appointed to raise $50,(XX) for
this purpose. Already, the Richmond
City Council has set aside the inter
section of Monument and Malvern
avenues. As both streets are broad,
there will be a spacious approach to
the proposed memorial, a noble setting
for the future bronze figure.
Gaston Lichtenstein, of Richmond, is
chairman of the committee having this
proposed statue in hand. Not only will
the Sons of Confederate Veterans
throughout the Southern States co
operate to bring this memorial to com
pletion, but it is understood that the
legal profession of both America and
England will contribute individually
and as organizations in order to fur
ther the plan. Benjamin’s Richmond
home during the War was on Main
Street, near Foushee Street, and the
former site of the house is now indi
cated by a stone tablet placed in the
sidewalk. The committee, which is
headed by Mr. Lichtenstein, is com
posed of Leo A. Conrad, secretary and
treasurer; George A. Bowden, auditor,
and David L. Pulliam, Walter L. Hop
kins, Herbert T. Ezekiel, and Edwin
II. Courtney.
At Ellenton, Fla., the old Gamble
Mansion—which five years ago by an
Act of the State Legislature was made
a perpetual memorial—stands a typi
cal colonnaded home of the days “be
fore the War”. The building was ac
quired largely through the efforts of
the Judah P. Benjamin Chapter of the
Daughters of the Confederacy. It is
a notable example of the architecture
of the Old South. The three-acre site
on which it stands was also conveyed
to the State.
Ellenton, in Manate County, is not
far from Daytona Beach, where, by
the way, the Judah P. Benjamin Lodge
of the B’nai B'rith annually conducts
a gold medal essay contest on the life
of Benjamin. The local inhabitants of
Ellenton still tell details of the days
when Benjamin went into hiding with
his friends, the Gambles, at their sugar
plantation. They say he stayed at the
Gamble Mansion for about a month,
sleeping in the front bedroom on the
second floor. From Mr. Louis Ossinsky
(deputy for Florida of the B’nai B’rith
Grand Lodge) we learn that:
"In the rear of the building on the
second floor is located an alcove con
structed of oyster-shell blocks, the
same as the rest of the building. Ben
jamin had a little room in the top of
this alcove which he could get by
removing some of the blocks and re
placing them after being inside. It was
necessary for him to use this little
hiding-place on numerous occasions
when the soldiers came to the mansion
looking for him.
“On one occasion the soldiers came
to the mansion and he did not have
time to reach his hiding-place and
thereupon he assumed
butler and waited on tin
had been sent to look
said that he dropped a
waiting on the officers, an
ble, to assist in the dism
!t >on of
( rs that
• It is
' while
T. Gam-
. . , kicked
him and stated to the offit , ,, ,| iat t ,
white help was terrible."
vouch for this curious am
present it for what it is -
Our informant closes his 1 tier with
these words:
“In the middle of the i
P. Benjamin, in an open
went down the river and boarded a
vessel for the Bahama Islands, whence
he went to England.”
The escape of Benjamin was not
quite so simple as this, however. From
the time he parted with Jefferson
Davis at Washington, Georgia, and
made his way through Florida dis
guised in homespun clothes, until he
ultimately reached England, lie had
many adventures. The yawl boat on
which he set sail June 23rd, 18<>5, ior
the six-hundred-mile trip across the
Gulf to the Bimini Islands, a British
possession, reached there on July 10th.
Three days later he left for Nassau in
a small sloop loaded with wet sponges.
When the sponges dried they expanded
and opened the seams of the boat
which founded at sea one day out. The
occupants jumped into a small skiff
which was in tow—with one oar, a
pot of rice, a small keg of water and
three negroes as his companions in
disaster. Luckily they were not "res
cued” by a federal gunboat but were
picked up by His Britannic Majesty s
Lighthouse Yacht, Georgia, which put
back to Bimini where Benjamin again
chartered a sloop and started the same
afternoon on the hundred-mile voyage
for Nassau, and after six days arrived
there on July 21st. Thence he took a
steamer for St. Thomas Islands to con
nect with another vessel bound for
England. In St. Thomas he visited the
scenes of his early childhood, for he
had been born at St. Croix in the West
Indies in 1811, his parents having been
English Jews who had dwelt there.
Sailing for England on August 15th.
the ship caught fire when sixty miles
at sea, limped back to port, was re
fitted and eventually Benjamin arrived
in England!
It would be difficult to overstate the
influence Judah P. Benjamin had i
his efforts to secure recognition abroad
for the Confederacy. He bent a large
part of his enegies to this task. ^ e
today can understand how, after ha\-
ing been a resident of Louisiana t\ r
more than thirty' y'ears when the W ar
broke out, his sympathies should have
been with the Southern cause. There
were times during the conflict " hen
Benjamin was unpopular in the Sou
but Jefferson Davis reposed steadta
confidence in him. It has been said
close students of the political b -
of that feverish period that if ‘
jamin had remained at his P°'
Senator when the Southern Sena
withdrew Johnson of Tennessee.
(Continued on page 50)