VOLUME I.
The ENDED
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“It was many and many a year ago In a
kingdom by the sea
That a maiden lived with no other
thought than to love and be loved by
me.
For I was a child and she was a child,
in the kingdom by the sea;
And we loved with a love that was more
than love, I and my Annabel Lee.”
THESE lines of Poe were favor
ites' of "English Jack,” known
to all visitors to the White
mountains as the Crawford
Notch hermit, who when he
died the other day, for fifty-eight
years had remained true to the sacred
memory of a woman.
The old hermit, who was in his nine
tieth year, was well known to • the
tourists of the White mountains, thou
sands of whom have stopped at his
picturesque old shanty,«which he
called his “ship.”
That “English Jack" became first a
wandering soldier and then a hermit
because of a broken heart was known
to most of his callers. Outside his
cabin he had a series of glass-sided
tanks in which he bred trout from
spawn.
It the financial inducement were
sufficient he would give exhibitions of
snake-swallowing for the benefit of
summer visitors.
London His Birthplace.
“English Jack” was born in London.
His father and mother died when he
was twelve. One pound comprised his
wealth. Some sea stories he had read
turned his efforts toward finding an
opportunity to go to sea. At first he
was unsuccessful. For days, barefoot
ed, with his bundle of earthly goods
strapped on his back, he canvassed
the gruff official seamen hanging
about the docks for the chance he
dreamed would come.
His query, “Do you want a boy,
sir?” was always met with cruel re
plies, savored with sailor profanity,
and many hard knocks for his trou
ble.
One spring morning, tired, hungry
and homesick, he sat down on a door
step overlooking the docks and began
to cry. A little girl five years old,
with blue eyes, came up to him and
offered her gracious sympathy, saying
she was lost, too, and was in search
of her daddy’s ship.
That little face, illuminated with
the white light of an innocent and ten
der heart, was the weather vane of
the boy’s destiny. She confided to him
as they further exchanged their
troubles that her name was Mary, and
when she began to cry she made Jack
forget his hunger and privations.
Beginning of the Romance.
He smoothed and petted her the
best be knew, and she drove trouble
many miles across the sea by surren-
NUMBER 22.
dering her little dewy lips to Jack —
his first kiss.
Soon, as they were slowly walking
up the street together, an omnibus
rattled by w r ith two men on the top.
Just as it was passing them, the little
girl screamed out, “Oh, there’s my
daddy!” and started running after the
bus.
Jack caught up with the bus, and
clambering to the top. found Captain
Simmons, the child’s father.
As a reward he gave Jack a berth
on his ship. Jack made several voy
ages and finally became an able sea
man. At the end of every voyage he
always made his home with the Sim
monses.
Nimmons and Jack on one voyage
sailed on a ship named the Nelson for
the Indian ocean. A terrific simoom
struck and wrecked it on the shores
of a desert island. Jack and Sim
mons and eleven other members of
the crew were all that were saved.
t A diet of snails, mussels and crabs
resulted in poisoning many of them
and they died off until only Jack
and Simmons, with two others, were
left. Simmons took fever and died,
asking Jack to look out for his little
• Mary.
Only Survivor of Crew.
Jack, with his companions, one
morning weeks later saw a ship rid
ing at anchor in the lee of the island.
Their signals of distress were sighted
and they were taken aboard.
Jack’s companions died within a
few days, leaving Jack as the sole sur
vivor of the forty-two men who had
sailed from London on the Nelson.
Jack finally arrived in London, after
having been gone for nineteen months,
to find that Simmons’ wife was dead
and that little Mary had been sent to
a workhouse.
Jack managed to secure her release
and sent her to boarding school. He
was called away to sea again, and he
w-ent with the understanding that
upon his return Mary should become
his wife.
After being gone for a little more
than a year, he again landed in Liver
pool and hastened to the boarding
school where he had left Mary.
“Miss Simmons died just a month
ago,” said one of the teachers.
Jack, with a stifled cry of anguish,
fell to the floor unconscious. He was
ill for many weeks afterward, but
managed to pull through, broken in
spirit. He enlisted in the Crimean
war and also served as a volunteer
during the Indian mutiny. At the ter
mination of the war he traveled all
over the globe, resolving to live the
rest of his life true to Mary’s memory.
He came ■to this country thirty-six
years ago and drifted up to the White
mountains, where he built his “ship’*
©Be Thilldin
IRWINTON, WILKINSON COUNTY, GEORGIA, FRIDAY, JUNE 14, 1912.
at Crawford Notch. He always lived
the life of a recluse, but at the samb
time he never was Inhospitable to any
of the many thousands who called
upon him. Few, however, knew more
than that he had lived up there alone
in the woods for almost four decades.
The writer, during the summer of
1909, usually at twilight, had many in
teresting chats with him.
He often recited with appalling emo
tion the whole of "Annabel Lee." The
poem had been torn from a book of
Poe's poems by a mountain mission
ary, and English Jack treasured the
pastor’s gift above all others.
“We loved with a love that was
more than love," he often tenderly
repeated
"English Jack” during all those
years of solitude read some things of
John Burroughs, John Muir, Thoreau
and Whitman. Bryant’s "To a Water
fowl” filled his soul with joy.
He lived mostly on mountain foods,
deer and duck especially. He was a
crack shot, and if he chanced to come
upon the spoor of a deer or a bear
woe to both. Because of his ability
with the rod and line when trout was
the prey he was dubbed by fishermen
“the mightiest fisherman.” t
The old hermit through it all lived
a dream life, looking for bi^ sweet
heart’s face. He said he had seen her
often—always in the limpid pool at
the base of the notch, often at dusk
on top of a beetling crag, sometimes
in the gloaming on the long savannah.
—New York World.
SAFE THROUGH ICY FLOOD
Indian Hero Swims to Shore With
Boy Across the Columbia River
at Its Highest.
To swim the Columbia river at
Umatilla, where it is half a mile in
width, is a test of human strength
even under the most favorable condi
tions, but to accomplish that feat bur
dened with the weight of a child and
in the dead of winter with the swol
len river made more formidable by
the presence of hundreds of jagged
ice floes is an achievement almost un
believable, says a writer in the Ore
gon Journal.
Yet this was just what was done
about eight years ago by a Columbia
River Indian who had almost reached
the age of fifty. He is still living to
day on the Umatilla reservation to
testify to the performance, though no
man ever heard him boast of it
The Indian’s name is Sees-Yuse and
he is now the head man of the scat
tered Columbias. It was in the early
years of the new century that he at
tempted to make the passage of the
Columbia in a frail canoe, accompa
nied by a boy of nine years. When
in midstream his little craft was
struck with such force by an ice cake
that it was overturned. Sees-Yuse
seized his boy companion, and plac
ing him on his back, breasted the
stream and commenced his battle to
gain the shore.
Several times he was struck by an
ice floe and the jagged end of one cut
a deep wound in his neck. Finally,
after what seemed an almost inter
minable time, he reached the shore
with his burden, his strength spent by
his heroic efforts and loss of blood,
and almost frozen by the chill water.
Before the flow of his wound could be
checked he had almost bled to death.
Not long after the incident Sees-
Yuse was awarded some heirship
lands on the Umatilla reservation and
since that time has lived among the
Umatillas, Cayuses and Walla Wallas,
but through the death of the chief
tains of his ,own tribe he has come
to be regarded by his people as their
head man.
The old Indian, whose facial charac
teristics are so different from those
of the prairie Indians, is a frequent
visitor in Pendleton, Ore., and almost
regularly once a week calls upon his
friend, Major Lee Moorhouse, not,
however, so much for the purpose of
talking with the major as to gaze at
a full-length painting of himself which
adorns the walls of the Moorhouse
office. The painting was made from
a photograph of Sees-Yuse, taken by
the major, and the aged red man
often sits by. the hour, childlike, ad
miring the likeness on the ■wall.
MYRICK’S
DEPARTMENT
STORE
MILLEDGEVILLE,GA.
I
SPRING
IS HERE
Our showing of Spring and
Summer Goods will please you-
We have the most complete line
ever shown in Milledgeville
Georgia, Our efforts for the last
six months have been concern
trated on getting together this
wonderful showing.
CAN WE
PLEASE YOU?
We will be pleased to have
you call and see what we have.
Your Friends,
W. S. MYRICK
& COMPANY
©I.OO A YEAR.
