THE interest in the anniversary celebrations to occur this year in Marietta, the gateway to the Ohio country, increases as the days of reunion approach, and much valuable historical matter is being placed upon record here and there in connection with those events. The paper of Mrs. Alderman in this issue of the MAGAZINE OF WESTERN HISTORY is one of the most entertaining furnished in that connection, and should be read by all who have a desire to learn the facts connected with the memorable events of 1788.

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THE paper recently published in these pages from the pen of Honorable Isaac Smucker upon the Ohio legislature of 1837 has aroused a new interest among several of our pioneers, that turns also in the direction of Marietta. take the liberty of quoting from a private letter from Mr. Smucker, under date of Newark, Ohio, February 22, in which he says: ceived a letter from Honorable John A. Foote (of Cleveland). He wishes the surviving members of the legislature of 1837-38 to join him at the Centennial anniversary of the first settlement of Ohio' at Marietta, April 7. I know as yet of only four survivors, viz., James J. Faran of Cincinnati (one of the former proprietors of the Enquirer); French W. Thornhill of Coshocton, and Mr. Foote and myself. Perhaps some of the survivors will meet Mr. Foote at Marietta. I hope so, but they can all be represented by letter or by substitute." In commenting upon this suggestion, the Newark American, published in Mr. Smucker's home, says: "But the prospect is not good for the proposed reunion, as the patriarch Thornhill has been confined to his home for eight years. The present status of the venerable proprietor of the Enquirer is not known. Mr. Smucker feels the infirmities of age too

heavy for the journey. Mr. Foote is the only one spry enough to travel across the state, and should he conclude to go alone we fear he would feel like Rip Van Winkle when returning from his long sleep in the Catskill mountains to find in his native village of Falling Water,' a new generation that knew him not. We regret exceedingly that the infirmities of age will prevent this reunion, as it would be a scene equally interesting to the parties of the reunion and those who might witness the meeting."

SPEAKING from no personal information, but from only what we know of the man, we can guarantee that Mr. Foote will be there. If the train should desert the track en route, Mr. Foote will "take to the ties" and be in on time; the first man in the grand stand, and the last to leave. He belongs to that class who never grow old; who are kept up by a pure heart, temperate living, with no stings from conscience to wear life away before their time. He is one of the youngest old men in America; and when the people are told that he was a member of the Ohio legislature, they will ask if it was that of last year or the one before, instead of 1837. He helped to make history a half century ago, and has lived to enjoy the fruits of the planting begun so long ago. May many years see him still an active part in the world of men.

WHILE Marietta does not intend to be content with one celebration — and one can see no reason why she need be, with so much to celebrate, and so much of enthusiasm to be utilized-that of April 7 comes first, and so deserves the first consideration. A circular has been received, signed by I. W. Andrews, A. J. Warner, R. R. Dawes and others, in which the events of that day are fully set forth. To

The first anniversary of the day was duly cele

brated in 1789, Dr. Solomon Drown delivering

an oration. The day has been generally observed in Marietta, and for many years the

Pioneer Association of Cincinnati has held its annual meeting on the seventh of April. The words of Honorable Arius Nye, in his address in 1836, voiced the universal sentiment: Here commenced on the seventh of April, 1788, the State of Ohio, and here its history properly begins.' In 1858 the great audience that gathered to celebrate the seventieth anniversary was addressed by Ohio's most eminent citizen and son-Honorable Thomas Ewing."

"THE celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the settlement was determined on some years ago, and a committee appointed by the Washington County Pioneer association to make the necessary arrangements. Honorable George E. Hoar, United States senator from Massachusetts, will deliver an oration, and Honorable J. Randolph Tucker will represent Virginia, the state whose delegates in congress were so efficient in securing the great ordinance of 1787, the ordinance itself having been enacted with special reference to the colony founded at Marietta on the seventh of April, 1788. The Ohio Archæological and Historical society will hold its annual meeting at the same time, and addresses will be given by Honorable Thomas Ewing of New York city, Judge Joseph Cox and others. Appropriate exercises will be held on Sunday, the eighth, and a discourse will be delivered by Rev. Henry M. Storrs, D. D., of New Jersey. The American Historical association, as well as state historical societies, state societies of the

Cincinnati Pioneer associations, and other organizations have appointed delegates to represent them on the occasion. Great historic interest centres in the event to be commemorated, and many descendants of the pioneers will make a pilgrimage to the old home."

THE paper of Honorable Amos Townsend of Cleveland, in this issue, upon his experiences in Kansas with the congressional committee of

1856, possesses an unusual value, as it contains much information in the possession of but a few, and upon a point around which the interest of the people will ever be centered. The Kansas-Nebraska question was one of the great avenues through which the slaveholders forced war upon the people; and the outrages perpetrated upon the soil of the territory first named had a powerful effect in the election of

Lincoln, and the solidifying of the Union

sentiment of the north. Mr. Townsend has told his story in a manner that gives it an unusual interest and that must chain the attention of the reader from first to last.

THE election of Professor B. A. Hinsdale of this city to a chair in the faculty of the University of Michigan, places the right man in the right place. He had outgrown Hiram college years before he departed from it, and it was largely because he felt the need of an enlarged field that he accepted the position of superintendent of the Cleveland public schools. While he was a recognized power for good in these schools and made his influence felt in many ways during his short incumbency, it was not the place for him-school board tactics, the rush and push of aspiring politicians and the hot-house methods of many school supporters not being forces to which he was accustomed or that could be at all congenial. But in the great institution to which he has gone, among scholars, and engaged in teaching to others what he knows so well-the theory and science of education-he has found the right place and will command a success as extended as his best friends could wish.

MR. JAMES A. BRIGGS has mailed us a few notes that were intended to supplement his article in the February issue on the Willoughby Institute of Lake Erie, but as they failed to arrive until the article in question had been published, we take the liberty of inserting them here: "There were several professors in the university at different periods. Among them Professors Bennett, Underhill, Walsh, Graham, Donovan and St. John. I think of all who were teachers in that medical university Professor Orson S. St. John is the only one now living. For a time, in 1840–41, he filled the chair of materia medica and medical jurisprudence. Professor St. John was well qualified for the duties of his professorship. He was thoroughly educated in his profession, in general science, and well read in the textbooks and in the principles of legal jurisprudence. He is enjoying a vigorous old age, and a few years ago made an extended tour of the northern and western portions of our country. How different the condition of things in our land now from what they were in the long-ago, when the professor was in short skirts, at the time when his heroic mother saved her house in Buffalo from destruction by the British in the last war with Great Britain, and hers was the only house saved from the invader's torch in that frontier village. Truly may we say of Professor St. John:

'Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty,
For in my youth I never did apply

Hot and rebellious liquors to my blood.

Bennett who made so conspicuous a figure among the Mormons of Nauvoo, in 1841 and 1842. He was made mayor of the city, chancellor of the Nauvoo university, a general in the Nauvoo legion, and was recognized as one of the leading men of the Mormon church. A rupture between the Prophet Joseph Smith and himself caused him to withdraw from the church and become one of its bitterest foes. He published a book that created a great excitement at the time-The History of the Saints, or, an Expose of Joe Smith and Mormonism' (Boston, 1842). On pages twelve and thirteen of that book are published certificates showing him to have occupied the position of "President of the Medical Faculty of the Willoughby University of Lake Erie" in 1835. His career in the west was one of adventure and excitement; and if any who read this possess information as to his fortunes after his departure from the Mormon church, the editor would be pleased to be acquainted with the fact.

THE question agitating the country as to the disposal of the surplus in the National treasury recalls the famous episode in American history over the disposal of the surplus that had accumulated by 1837. While he may not have been the first to suggest a method to be pursued in such cases, Thomas Jefferson was certainly among the first to do so, and we find him in his second inaugural address, delivered on March 4, 1805, using the following words: "These contributions [import duties] enable us to support the current expenses of the government, to fulfill contracts with foreign nations, to extinguish the native right of soil within our limits, to extend those limits, and to apply such a surplus to our public debts as places at a short day their final redemption, and that redemption once effected, the revenue thereby liberated may, by a just reparation among the states, and a corresponding amendment of the Constitution, be applied, in time of peace, to rivers, canals, roads, arts, manufacturers, education and other great objects within each state."

ONE of the most interesting, as it is one of the most rare, among the early books called forth by the establishment of the Mormon church in Ohio, is that of Daniel P. Kidder, published by Carlton & Porter, in 1842, under the title Mormonism and the Mormons.' manner in which this little work came into be

ace:

The

ing is thus related by the author in his pref"It is due to the writer, no less than to the reader, that the circumstances which have called forth the present volume should be stated. On the thirteenth of November, 1840, I was at a place called Fulton City, on the upper waters of the Mississippi river, waiting for the descent of some steamboat in which I might take passage. About daybreak the next morning a boat was hailed, and I went on board. The bustle of embarkation was hardly over before I learned that the boat was owned and principally manned by Mormons, being called Nauvoo. It, moreover, carried Joseph Smith, junior, in the character of passenger, although in reality he was chief director of the whole concern. It appeared that among the multitudes drawn together at the Mormon settlements in the west were a number of individuals more or less acquainted with navigation. In order that their talent might not be unemployed, Smith and his coadjutors had purchased a steamboat, and commenced running it on the river for purposes of speculation, and also, doubtless, with a view to accomodating their colony at Nauvoo.

"ON board this boat was a small but promiscuous company of passengers, most of whom having embarked without a knowledge of the peculiar company into which they would be introduced, soon found themselves annoyed by a system of surveillance that was maintained over them. If in their conversation any remarks were dropped indicative of doubt concerning the truth of Mormonism, or want of respect toward the leaders of that sect, they were almost sure to be reported to Smith. He,

as the leader and champion, took it upon himself to chastise with severe words any who had thus offended. He did not explain the manner of his information respecting the expressions of those with whom he had not conversed, but asserted himself a 'discerner of spirits' and affected to disclose what was in the hearts of others. In short, his repeated treatment of those who did not acknowledge his pretensions, exemplified an assertion of his own, viz., that in order to get through the world to the best advantage, he had learned to browbeat his way. I had at that time but little acquaintance with the doctrines or peculiarities of Mormonism, and therefore felt bound to avail myself of all the facilities for gaining information, in the midst of which I was so unexpectedly thrown. I will neither attempt to detail what passed in the course of the two or three days I spent in company with the individual referred to, nor inquire what agency his prophetic knowledge had in running the boat out of her proper course, and driving her upon rocks, at a moment when he himself was assisting the pilot at the wheel! It was by the last-mentioned circumstance that my passage on the Nauvoo was interrupted, and the poor boat left fast upon the upper rapids of the Mississippi, until a rise of water took her off.

"On leaving the Nauvoo for another boat, which came to our relief, several passengers of the former requested me to draw up a statement of what we had witnessed, for publication at St. Louis. This I declined, but promised at a future day to prepare an article for the press, in which, without setting down aught on the score of the personal treatment we had received, I would endeavor to place the subject of Mormonism in its true light. Such an article was prepared for publication in the Methodist Quarterly Review. It, however, being rather too long for an insertion in that periodical, the editor and others recommended its revision with a view to publication in its present form."