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DR. PARKS 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR PRIVATE 
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PROLEGOMENON 
 
 The writer, when not occupied in the last few years in 
 trying to relieve suffering humanity— of its money— has dictated 
 to various women at various times these notes, and they were 
 usually taken down immediately on the machine. It is evident 
 that the Apostle John and Madame De Remusat did not adopt 
 his plan, as their styles are more diffuse. 
 
 The writer, however, is fond of the French epigrammatic 
 style of writing, which leaves something to the intelligence and 
 imagination of the reader. 
 
 You don't have to hammer an idea into a Boston man with 
 a sledge hammer. But if he has gotten an idea into his head, 
 it often takes a lever longer than Archimedes's to pry it out. 
 
 The Author. 
 
 The author requests that this book shall not be 
 given to any paper or magazine for review nor 
 exposed for sale in any public place. 
 
To his schoolmate and kinsman 
 
 CHARLES NEWTON FESSENDEN 
 
 a faithfiil man and fine classical scholar, this attempt 
 
 to glean something from the past is 
 
 affectionately inscribed by 
 
 The Author 
 
 
 ^ 
 
Luther Parks 
 
 Born, November ii, 1788 
 
 Died, October 25, 1869 
 
DR. PARKS— HIS BOOK 
 
 The late Dr. James Freeman Clarke thought that the 
 Apostle John dictated to some of his friends, in his old age, 
 the Fourth Gospel. Madame de Remusat wrote memoirs of the 
 intimate life of Napoleon, which were published a hundred years 
 after her death by her grandson, Paul de Remusat, senator. 
 
 The writer believes that in sixty years of life he has had 
 experiences of sufficient interest, and met some very distinguished 
 people; so that, in humble imitation of the above mentioned 
 writers, he records some notes which may be of interest later. 
 
 He was born sixty years ago, in the South End of Boston, 
 at Hardscrabble, as his grandfather playfully called Blackstone 
 Square. His father was in the active practice of medicine there. 
 It was expected that that would become the Court end of the 
 town. About Franklin and Blackstone Squares are some hand- 
 some houses, built on a large plan. Chester Park and Union 
 Park were very handsome squares. Some of us remember the 
 Deacon House farther south, with its Marie Antoinette furni- 
 ture. The whole Back Bay region was then water. The writer 
 has often skated where Trinity Church stands. When his father 
 was a medical student the medical school was in Mason Street, 
 where the school committee now meets; and as there was no 
 dissection law, the bodies for the students were those of citizens 
 
 [3] 
 
who had recently been buried in the graveyard on Washington 
 Street, just south of Franklin Square. 
 
 The decadence of the South End began when the writer 
 left it, at the age of twelve, though he cannot consistently say 
 that it was because he left it. The people moved to the new 
 Back Bay district. 
 
 His father, Luther Parks, Jr., was born in 1823. He told 
 his son that his memory was distinct to the time that he was two 
 years old, and that he went to 6 Chestnut Street at that age; 
 therefore he went to 6 Chestnut Street in 1825. 
 
 His father, when a boy, went to Dr. Leverett's school. 
 Dr. Leverett was the author of the well-known Latin Lexicon. 
 He, the son, had some conversation with Colonel Jeffries, who 
 went to the same school at the same time. 
 
 His father taught Latin in a young ladies' school in Boston 
 after graduation from college. Mrs. Thomas Cushing was 
 one of his pupils. Dr. Ernest Cushing is responsible for this 
 statement. 
 
 Julia Dale, who became his mother, lived opposite, the 
 youngest of a family of children, who was adopted by Mr. and 
 Mrs. William Hales. They were married by the Rev. Mr. 
 Young, at the church on the Green in Summer Street, and a 
 record of their marriage, in Mr, Young's beautiful handwriting, 
 was, a few years ago, in charge of the Massachusetts Historical 
 Society, as Dr. Samuel A. Green kindly let him examine it. 
 
 [4] 
 
On their marriage his father started practice in Blackstone 
 Square. 
 
 When Luther Parks, Jr., was a child and was bad, his 
 mother used to whip him with her busk. A busk was a piece 
 of steel which women used to wear in their corsets. One of 
 her friends was allowed to put on to him his first shirt. 
 When he had arrived at manhood she always, when they met, 
 reminded him of it, and he hated her cordially. 
 
 The son's memory is distinct to the time he was three years 
 old, when he went to Dublin and Holland. 
 
 He remembers his grandmother very well. She came 
 from Danvers, and had, probably, more aristocratic blood 
 than any of us. She had a beautiful garden, and a grapevine 
 against the house which bore grapes which could be picked from 
 the piazza by the dining room ; a pear tree in the middle of the 
 garden, which bore pears; also lilies of the valley, Solomon's 
 seal, and old-fashioned brilliant flowers, peonies, and dahlias. 
 The grapevine disappeared several years ago, but the pear 
 tree, which became about fifty feet high, was cut down when 
 Mr. Green remodeled the house. His grandmother had a white 
 horse which she lent to Colonel Cowdin for a parade upon the 
 Common. 
 
 His father, on his second marriage, took the house in 
 Chestnut Street. As there had to be a music room, he had a 
 dining room made in the front of the house, below the level 
 
 [5] 
 
of the street. It was very dismal, and he thinks it a step 
 backwards. 
 
 Seventy-five years ago the boys in Chestnut Street, when 
 they counted off, used to say: 
 
 "Philissy, Pholossy, Nicholas John, 
 Queby, Quaby, Irish Mary. 
 Stincklum, Stankelum, 
 Johnnie Quo Buck!" 
 
 When he was a boy at 6 Chestnut Street, that was a delight- 
 ful neighborhood. Opposite were Mr. Patrick Grant and 
 family. Next door a pretty girl, Miss Julia Cunningham, who 
 married Bishop Lawrence. In the house which was next door 
 and the steps corresponded with ours, Mr. Patrick Jackson. 
 
 When General Devens, who was wounded in the foot at 
 Chancellorsville, came home he was at his brother's house 
 nearly opposite. 
 
 He attended Dan Rice's circus on the Public Garden. 
 There was a trick mule which Dan Rice offered a piece of 
 gold as big as a cart wheel to any one who would ride. A 
 Negro boy succeeded in remaining on it a long time by twist- 
 ing his legs around the animal's neck and holding on tightly 
 to his tail, although the mule turned somersaults. Whether the 
 Negro got the piece of gold is unknown to the writer. One 
 of the clowns sang a song: "Then up jumped Governor Wise 
 
 [6] 
 
with his specs upon his eyes, and knocked him to the other side 
 of Jordan, Oh!" To what historical fact the clown's song 
 referred is unknown to the writer. 
 
 He was sent to the State House to hear Governor Andrew 
 make his plea for a license liquor law. A little man with curly 
 hair, in full dress, with a white tie. He remembers well one 
 argument. That the great cause of drunkenness in New Eng- 
 land was the want of innocent, popular amusements. Today 
 Keith's Theater probably prevents many people from drinking 
 too much; and the Sunday concerts on the Common, in the 
 same line. 
 
 When Governor Andrew died his body was laid in state, 
 covered with purple. It has since been discovered that "Tyrian 
 purple" was red. Mr. Smith, of Washington, formerly of 
 Boston, who has a classical museum there, is satisfied on this 
 point — that "Tyrian purple" was red. 
 
 In the Civil War, Governor Andrew oflered a commission 
 as assistant surgeon in the Sixth Massachusetts Infantry to his 
 father, and a very complimentary letter from Governor Andrew 
 on the subject may be found in the "History of the Sixth 
 Regiment in the Civil War," which was kindly lent to him 
 by Dr. Robert Willard. He was also appointed a medical officer 
 of Cobb's, afterwards Nims's, light battery, which the son often 
 saw as a boy drilling on the Common. They were fine-looking 
 men, as no one was accepted under six feet in height. The 
 
 [7] 
 
battery went with General Banks's unfortunate expedition up 
 the Red River. Inexperienced, they attempted to go through 
 the woods without infantry fllankers, and the rebels came in 
 and took their guns away from them ; but they were not of much 
 use to the enemy, as their ammunition was a peculiar size of 
 shrapnel made in South Boston, and after the limited supply 
 was exhausted they could find no other to fit. A year or two 
 ago he had the pleasure of a call upon Nims, who commanded 
 the battery, and he was then a druggist, and a very old man, 
 in Cambridge Street. His father did not, for domestic reasons, 
 go to the war with the Sixth Regiment or with Nims's battery ; 
 but early in the war, at the request of Governor Andrew, he 
 went with Dr. Gay and others to the Peninsula, and rode from 
 Yorktown to Williamsburg ; but he never received a commission 
 from the state or government, so that he has not been eligible 
 to the Loyal Legion. 
 
 A few years ago he met in Philadelphia a gentleman named 
 Smith, eighty years old. His father had been a soldier in the 
 American Revolution at Valley Forge and Yorktown. His 
 father told him that at the siege of Yorktown the American 
 soldiers ran along the outside of the walls with ladders, 
 suddenly put them up and climbed over. The night of the 
 surrender the French ships in the river were illuminated with 
 fireworks. 
 
 Luther Parks wrote his son a letter which is preserved to 
 describe his ride from Yorktown to Williamsburg. The ground 
 
 [8] 
 
was strewn with mines which might explode on contact with 
 the horses' shoes. There were inquiries for General McClellan 
 — mounted officers rode back to find him, but he moved slowlj'. 
 Dr. George Derby was seen operating under a tree exposed to 
 fire. 
 
 • • 
 
 The son went to Yorktown in 1881 as a private in Com- 
 pany B, Independent Corps Cadets. He was sentry on the 
 beach, and once General Arthur, the then President of the 
 United States, passed within a few yards of him, and the soldier 
 twice presented arms to the President. The last evening the 
 sunset was fine, and a salute was fired from the men-of-war 
 in the river — old wooden ships, the Trenton flagship, the Alert, 
 and Alliance. It was a magnificent sight, never to be forgotten. 
 
 At Yorktown the Corps was halted at the left of the grand 
 stand and Colonel Edmands chafed at the inaction. The 
 Virginia cadets had passed and there was a gap in the column. 
 An officer called out, " Colonel, if your men are ready you may 
 march past." Instantly Colonel Edmands gave the proper 
 orders. 
 
 On the steamer Empire State the writer was a sentry in 
 the cabin. His orders were, " No smoking." The Commander- 
 in-Chief, Governor Long, sat down in an armchair, wrapped 
 his cloak around him, and started to enjoy a postprandial 
 smoke. The sentry saluted and told him "it was against orders 
 to smoke in the cabin." The governor deserves the highest 
 praise for the promptness and good temper with which he threw 
 his cigar away. 
 
 [9] 
 
In the Civil War General Grant was in command of the 
 whole United States Army, He went on to a wharf to enjoy 
 an after-dinner cigar. The sentry told him it was "against 
 orders to smoke on the wharf." He threw his cigar away. The 
 cases are exactly parallel. 
 
 At the age of about fifteen he went to Labrador on the 
 schooner Lilla Rich, eighty-two tons burden. He was gone 
 just two months, and had, for a boy, a very eventful trip. He 
 had some good trout fishing in Nova Scotia; he walked down 
 the coal mines in Cape Breton; he was lowered down one in 
 a bucket; he shot birds in the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf 
 of St. Lawrence; he saw about two hundred icebergs in a trip 
 through the Strait of Belle Isle. At Rigolette, the farthest 
 point north, he saw some Labrador Indians of colossal size, 
 and shook hands with some of them at the blacksmith's shop. 
 The writer has seen the Jersey mosquito in former times, but 
 he is a baby compared to the Labrador insect. It was said 
 that a criminal was stripped of his clothes and tied to a tree, 
 and the mosquitoes did the rest. He paddled about the harbor 
 in an Eskimo kyak, and he dug up an Eskimo skull and femur 
 and brought them to Boston. He waited till a fog settled 
 down to rob the grave. These he exhibited to the Boston 
 Society of Natural History, on the introduction of Professor 
 Jeffries Wyman. 
 
 Their pilot along the coast was Johnny Williams, who had 
 deserted from the British Navy, settled in Labrador, married 
 an Eskimo woman, and had a lot of half-breed daughters, 
 
 [10] 
 
whose chief occupation seemed to be to make bags of various 
 sorts with bird skins sewed together. There was no trust- 
 worthy chart of the coast later than one made like Captain 
 Cook's, who discovered the Hawaiian Islands. He well re- 
 members Battle Harbor, where recently Lieutenant Com- 
 mander Peary stopped on his return from the Pole, and where 
 we began to hear from him. 
 
 Dr. Wyman, who had measured the internal capacity of 
 the skull with dried peas and taken measurements, said to the 
 Society that that skull alone satisfied him that the Eskimo 
 was a Mongolian. The writer had these as ornaments in 
 his room in Gray's Hall, Harvard College. He afterwards 
 presented them to the Peabody Museum, at the solicitation of 
 Dr. Wyman. The sailors knew he had the skull of an Eskimo 
 aboard, and there was much grumbling and fear of disaster. 
 When in the Gulf of St. Lawrence there were mutterings 
 among the crew, as the weather became bad, "that they would 
 throw the boy's skull and cross-bone overboard and him with 
 them if the weather stayed bad." He had robbed the grave 
 for strictly scientific purpose, but after all he was only a boy 
 of fifteen. The weather grew worse and worse, and his imagi- 
 nation ran riot as to what might happen. Perhaps the sailors 
 were right, the Eskimo's head might cause disaster to all hands. 
 When kind Captain Dodge laid a hand on his arm as he was 
 asleep and said, "Come, boy, you must give us a hand now," 
 he started up and knew that danger had come. 
 
 He was told a story about the Indians at Rigolette. In 
 the fall they went up the Northwest River to hunt. On their 
 
 [II] 
 
return an old man was missing. On inquiry they said they 
 had found that he did not do his share of the work, so a com- 
 mittee of one was appointed to hit him on the head and push 
 him overboard. 
 
 After we had passed through the Strait of Belle Isle, on 
 the return trip, we were nearly wrecked on the lee shore, on the 
 coast of Newfoundland. Our jib broke loose from its sheet, 
 as it was torn near the bottom, and floated in the air in front 
 of the vessel. The mate, a tall man, ran out on the jib boom 
 and with his long legs twined around the boom gathered it in. 
 In his work he was several times submerged, but when he came 
 out of the water he went to work again. Those were parlous 
 times. 
 
 North of Belle Isle the sun did not set till about ten o'clock. 
 The boy used to spend half the night on deck to watch the 
 Aurora Borealis. 
 
 Once he climbed the rigging to the crosstrees. He went 
 up easily enough, but had difficulty about coming down, for he 
 had been lashed to the rigging. It was the reverse of the 
 Facilts descensus Averni ; sed revertarij hie labor hoc opus est. 
 
 What color is an iceberg? White? Not when the sun 
 shines. Then it is blue and green and all colors. The berg 
 melts and water runs down in rivulets. The sunlight is 
 refracted by the water and the berg is resplendent. 
 
 • • 
 
 About twelve years after graduation in medicine he went 
 to Vienna to perfect himself in his profession. He had a letter 
 of introduction to Professor Fuchs. The first thing to do 
 
 [12] 
 
was to familiarize himself with the sound of German, and this 
 was accomplished easily by attendance on the lectures of that 
 grand old North German, Robert Ultzmann, who spoke 
 very slowly. Afterward he spent most of his time in the 
 Krankenhaus. He took mostly practical courses, Bergmeister 
 gave a course on operations on the eye, and this the writer 
 found so valuable that he took it twice over. Konigstein gave 
 a course in English on the ophthalmoscope. He also attended 
 various other courses on the eye and a variety of other 
 subjects. 
 
 If, when he returned to Boston, he had devoted himself 
 exclusively to practice, he might have made some money, or 
 better, he should have settled in a less conservative and more 
 live place. He had been urged to go to Buffalo, and of course 
 New York is the metropolis. 
 
 In answer to a question which has often been asked him, 
 he honestly believes that at that time no such practical, thor- 
 ough courses on operations on the eye could be obtained any- 
 where in this country. He was made to do his cataracts and 
 iridectomies over and over again, with attention to the minutest 
 detail, until Klein or Bergmeister was satisfied that he was 
 competent to perform them properly. Bergmeister had some 
 excellent and ingenious plastic operations, one of which the 
 author practiced on an Italian in Boston who had lost an eye 
 by a blast. The author made him an entirely new upper 
 lid, but the Italian was not satisfied, as it did not wink as 
 he expected. However, it covered up an unsightly cavity. 
 He had a very excellent little course on bacteriology with 
 
 [13] 
 
Weichselbaum. He saw Albert do some surgery, but the 
 surgical courses were very advanced. 
 
 After having worked very hard all winter, in the spring 
 he ran up to Dresden for the particular purpose to see the 
 Sistine Madonna. He also saw the crown jewels of Saxony. 
 
 He had constantly in mind, when in Dresden, that his late 
 father had been presented at the court of Saxony. His costume 
 had been long white stockings, red garters, and, he thinks, a 
 sword, which were required by etiquette for the occasion. The 
 son owns the first two mentioned articles, which were sent 
 home to him. 
 
 He found very advanced work on the eye in Paris. Landolt 
 was a mathematician and an excellent operator. De Wecker 
 did advanced work, but Dr. Meyer was the writer's special 
 patron, as Dr. Fuchs had been in Vienna, and the writer spent 
 many hours at his Maison de Sante. 
 
 In Vienna he saw something of royalty. He often saw 
 the emperor, Franz Joseph, and received a bow from him on 
 one occasion. At the unveiling of the statue of Maria Theresia, 
 which took place out of doors, he saw the whole Austrian 
 Court out in their fine clothes. He saw the unhappy Crown 
 Prince then and on other occasions. The tragedy connected 
 with him occurred soon after he left Vienna for Paris, but the 
 writer was still in communication with Vienna. The first report 
 was that he had been killed by an infuriated gamekeeper whose 
 daughter he had led astray. All sorts of reports were current, 
 but the old Emperor had merely to express a wish that there 
 should be no further discussion of the subject and all discussion 
 
 [14] 
 
immediately ceased. He believes the true story to have been 
 told in "The Martyrdom of an Empress," that the Crown 
 Prince had a stormy interview with his father at the palace, 
 which lasted nearly all night, in which the old man insisted 
 that he must give up the woman he wished to marry, Marie 
 Vetsera, as she was his sister. It was a case of double 
 suicide. 
 
 He saw a review, near Vienna, of twenty thousand Austrian 
 troops, the best troops in Europe on parade, but as history 
 shows they have never succeeded in any of their wars. 
 
 Austria is the most Catholic of all Catholic countries he 
 has ever been in, not excepting Italy or France. Many of the 
 soldiers had sprigs of evergreen (the tips in three parts, to repre- 
 sent the Trinity) in their rifles. 
 
 He had the pleasure of attending at the palace the ceremony 
 of the foot-washing, when the emperor is supposed to humble 
 himself every year by washing the feet of twelve old men and 
 women; but it was only a ceremony. 
 
 He was very much struck by the uniform of the Hungarian 
 Guards, a leopard skin over their bare shoulders; and he saw 
 among them the Count Hunyadi, a very fierce-looking man. 
 
 He saw the Crown Prince of Germany ride into Vienna 
 in a barouche, with one foot on the step to show his eager- 
 ness to embrace the Crown Prince of Austria. He probably 
 kissed him on both cheeks. It was said at the time that the 
 Crown Prince of Germany confided to the Crown Prince of 
 Austria that when he became emperor he intended to follow 
 the policy of Frederick the Great; and that the Crown Prince 
 
 [15] 
 
of Austria reminded him that the policy of Frederick the Great 
 had been to crush Austria. 
 
 He spent two winters in Paris, where he studied medicine; 
 but the second winter was there particularly to perfect himself 
 in the ability to speak French. He saw somewhat of the Army. 
 He saw a review near Paris. When he was in Paris there were 
 two marshals, Canrobert and Bazaine. Bazaine was in Mexico 
 with the French. Canrobert, whom he saw, was over ninety 
 years old, and had a distinguished military bearing, though his 
 moustache drooped at the corners. 
 
 He met a general at his little hotel who had been under 
 Bazaine in Mexico. He was a man of great learning and 
 lectured on Egyptology at the Louvre. He had a chateau in 
 France, and was a very delightful companion. 
 
 The first time he went to France, on his way to Vienna, 
 he went from New York to Bordeaux, and sailed up the 
 Garonne and the Gironde Rivers in an old Hudson River 
 steamboat, which was very interesting, past medieval chateaux 
 and curious country scenes. Very few Americans visit Bor- 
 deaux, and he met there an American consul who was very glad 
 to see him. He had lost a leg at Gettysburg, under General 
 Sickles. 
 
 Once, in Paris, he saw about a dozen balloons floating in the 
 air, free. The attention of the crowd was attracted to one of 
 them, and a man in the crowd said, "C'est une Americaine.'* 
 From under one of the balloons hung by one arm, from a 
 trapeze, a woman. She was Leona Dare, who had been shot 
 out of a catapult in Barnum's Circus. 
 
 [i6] 
 
His father, who was in favor of the abolition of slavery 
 and a free-soiler, was an agent of the underground railway. 
 Mrs. Cruft told him that his father was interested in a fugitive 
 slave, a certain Mrs. Smith, and she was afraid that the owners 
 would come North and claim her; but his father told her that 
 if they came he would take her in his carriage and put her in 
 a place of safety. 
 
 When in Philadelphia the son served a short time as assistant 
 in the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, and Dr. Kirkbride 
 was very much pleased when told that his father had been an 
 agent of the underground railway, as he himself had also been 
 one. Dr. Kirkbride had one of the most spiritual characters 
 that he has ever known. 
 
 His experience in the Philadelphia Hospital, Blockley, was 
 extremely interesting for a young man. There were about 
 three thousand inmates, and the van used to go through the city 
 picking up all stray people. The young doctors would classify 
 them as they came in ; if they were well, they were made to dig 
 in the garden, but if ill, they were sent to proper wards. There 
 were no trained nurses in those days. The hospital was ruled 
 over by a Board of Guardians, many of whom were dishonest; 
 and their superintendent, Phipps, was sent to Moyamensing 
 Prison. At one time they discovered that, though they ordered 
 liquors for the patients, they never received them, but that they 
 were sold and the proceeds divided among the nurses. Although 
 aseptic methods had not come in, they had valuable experiences 
 there. The most startling experience that he ever had in his 
 practice was when, as a young man, he was called up one night 
 
 [17] 
 
to a man who was bleeding from the nose. His pillow was a 
 mass of blood, and the sight ghastly for a young man. He 
 plugged his nose with a Bellocq canula and stopped the hemor- 
 rhage, but as he had a bad heart disease, of course he had another 
 hemorrhage in which he died. Nurse Peterman, who made for 
 the doctors porter sangaree, has, he supposes, long since passed 
 away. 
 
 At one time he and his friend. Dr. John Keating, attended 
 three women in confinement. Those were wild old days in 
 Blockley Hospital. 
 
 Some years ago his friend, Dr. Benjamin S. Shaw, asked 
 him to go with him to the old Music Hall to see Professor 
 Graham Bell, who was to talk the length of Music Hall on a 
 wire. He was incredulous that Dr. Bell could do such a thing, 
 but nevertheless went. Since then he has talked on a wire some 
 hundreds of miles. 
 
 On the steamer to Havre he met General Berdan, who 
 invented Berdan's rifle and commanded Berdan's sharp-shooters 
 in the Civil War. He was at Gettysburg, and he told him 
 that story of how a man who was shot through both legs, and 
 dying, begged him to give him another shot at them before he 
 died on the field. General Berdan's daughter was the wife 
 of the novelist Marion Crawford. 
 
 He went to England one winter as surgeon of the Warren 
 steamship Minnesota, Captain Burwell. When he left East 
 
 [i8] 
 
Boston it was extremely cold, and the first night on board in the 
 surgery, a little room down forward, was far from comfort- 
 able. His port was not screwed up tightly and the water came 
 in and drenched him in his berth. The coalheavers had come 
 aboard, mostly drunk, Saturday afternoon, and the next morn- 
 ing they all appeared at the surgery and asked for black- 
 draught. He had not known what black-draught was, but on 
 consultation of the books he discovered that it was salts and 
 senna. He gave it to them in liberal doses and they thought 
 he was a fine doctor. Afterwards Captain Burwell gave him 
 a cabin aft, and when they reached the Gulf Stream it was 
 warm and pleasant. He had a very smooth passage in January 
 to Liverpool, which occupied eleven days. He had few patients. 
 One of them was a baby who was tongue-tied, and he was 
 anxious as a young doctor to operate, but the mother would 
 not consent. He inquired the sex of the child, and repeated 
 to the mother Professor Gross's familiar joke that if it was a 
 girl-baby it need not be operated on, it would work loose; but 
 if it was a boy an operation was necessary. 
 
 There were some Algerines aboard who had escaped from 
 the Penal College at Cayenne. They had been taken off by 
 a Yankee skipper and brought to Boston, but the authorities 
 would not let them land, but put them on our steamer to be 
 sent to England, and ultimately to France. They were in the 
 steerage and they suffered horribly from chillblains. They laid 
 in the straw without blankets, as they had none and he failed 
 to get any for them from the captain or purser. They were 
 all branded on the cheek, and as they gathered around the 
 
 [19] 
 
smokestacks to warm themselves they pulled their shawls, 
 which they carried over their heads, over that side of the cheek 
 to conceal the brands from view. 
 
 When he was in the dispensary at the North End of Boston 
 he attended the wake of one of his patients, which appealed to 
 his sense of humor. There was the tobacco and the pipes 
 on the table for the friends. The widow rocked to and fro 
 and was very demonstrative in her grief. The friends bowed 
 and courtesied to the corpse as they came in, and the whole 
 scene was almost an exact reproduction of the wake scene in 
 the " Shaughraun." He considers the wake scene in the 
 "Shaughraun" one of the best bits of Irish humor in all the 
 comedies with which he is familiar; and the wittiest speech of 
 all was when Conn, the Shaughraun, sits up in his coffin and 
 says, "Ah! the divil must be proud of you, Corrie Kinchella." 
 
 He had the pleasure to meet Boucicault at the Boston 
 Museum, in Mrs. Vincent's dressing room. She introduced 
 the two men. It was during a matinee. Boucicault said: 
 "Doctor, you have chosen an unfortunate afternoon; the audi- 
 ence hasn't waked up yet. Every actor knows exactly when 
 an audience begins to be in sympathy with him; until that 
 moment to act is a hard task; after that it is easy." 
 
 Mr. Boucicault as a playwright was a plagiarist. Mrs. Vin- 
 cent told the writer that when, as a young woman, she acted 
 with him in the old country, that one day they rehearsed their 
 parts. She studied her part from a printed book; the other 
 actors from manuscript which Boucicault had given them. 
 
 [20] 
 
Boucicault asked her what she was doing with that book; she 
 replied that it was easier to study print than manuscript, and 
 that he had taken his play from an old play, "The Liar." He 
 had stolen pretty near the whole play. In spite of this fault 
 he was, however, a delightful man to meet. 
 
 Mrs. Vincent's maiden name was Mary Anne Farley. 
 
 Who has forgotten the German doorkeeper at the Boston 
 Museum, with the schmiss on his face? Mrs. Vincent told the 
 writer a good story about him which the writer thinks advisable 
 not to print. But he can relate it on application. 
 
 When at Luzern he lived opposite a house where the 
 morganatic widow of the Emperor Alexander of Russia lived. 
 She used to dine in the garden, and the man-servant who waited 
 upon her always addressed her as "Princesse." She had a son 
 constantly under the tutelage of Dr. . 
 
 When he was in Paris he visited a mushroom cave outside 
 the Barrier, at Mont Rouge. He descended a ladder about 
 forty feet. He had a stout cane. The farmer, a big, strong 
 man, told him to leave it outside, which he did. It would not 
 do for an Anglo-Saxon to show fear of a Frenchman. But he 
 might easily have not come out of the cave alive. And the 
 world would never have known what had become of him. 
 
 In Paris he lived opposite the great Ricord. 
 
 The professor was really an American. When he died he 
 was within a few months of being ninety years old. 
 
 [21] 
 
The writer visited him sur son lit de mort. He laid on 
 the bed in his evening clothes, surrounded by six candles which 
 rose from the floor to the height of several feet. Flowers were 
 strewn on the bed. His great-grandchildren were playing about 
 in the room. 
 
 He went out to the Pacific coast to make his fortune. 
 When at Santa Barbara he was invited to go off on the Coast 
 Survey steamer Mc Arthur, which was triangulating the coast. 
 At San Bernardino Captain Leutze gave the doctor a leave of 
 absence of a week, and the writer took his place. He went 
 ashore with a young officer to climb a hill and put a signal 
 on the top for the triangulation. When most up the hill they 
 began to slide, and they might have slid two or three hundred 
 feet if a sailor had not climbed the side of the hill like a 
 cat and let a line down to them. The last he heard of the 
 Mc Arthur she had been at the bottom of the sea in San Fran- 
 cisco harbor ; but she was brought up. 
 
 When in San Francisco the Bannock Indians in the lava 
 beds of Oregon broke out into rebellion. He appealed to 
 Colonel Keaney, medical director of the Pacific coast, for a job. 
 He promised to send him off as contract surgeon, with a horse 
 and a hundred dollars a month for the war. The colonel said 
 there was not much fight in those Indians, and all he would 
 have to do would be to ride around, and he might buy some 
 trophies; but the Princess Sarah Winnemucca, an educated 
 woman, persuaded the Indians not to fight, and he was much 
 disappointed. O the trouble the w^omen do make! Sarah 
 
 [22] 
 
Winnemucca and Sarah ; but the white woman made a 
 
 great deal worse trouble than the red one. 
 
 When the Spanish War broke out he was in Washington, 
 and again became very anxious to serve in a military capacity. 
 He offered his services to General Sternberg, whom he met at 
 the Cosmos Club, both before the war broke out and after- 
 wards, and he wrote from Philadelphia to urge his suit. There 
 was one thing that he didn't do, he didn't apply to his Con- 
 gressman, or use any political influence, and he didn't get the 
 job which he coveted very much, as he was anxious to serve 
 his country. 
 
 Up to as late as the time that he was in college there was 
 a well of sweet water in the back shed at 6 Chestnut Street, 
 about two-thirds of the way down. He thinks he could put 
 his foot on the exact spot. All the wells in Chestnut Street, 
 the one at No. 6, the one at Jerry Abbott's house opposite, the 
 one at Mr. Coolidge's house (low down in Chestnut Street), 
 were closed by order of the Board of Health. Mr. Gay, who 
 bought Jerry Abbott's house, tells him that now in his deed is 
 a provision which permits his back neighbors to use his well, 
 although the well has been closed. 
 
 By the way, Professor John C. Dalton, of New York, came 
 to Boston to see his father. As his father was not in, he in- 
 quired for Mrs. Parks, who came down to see Professor Dalton. 
 He did not introduce himself, but said abruptly, "Those trees 
 in front of the house ought to be cut down ; they make the 
 
 [23] 
 
house too damp." That must have happened about 1870, and 
 those trees have not yet been cut down. 
 
 Recently Mrs. Kehew told him that her house, 27A, nearly 
 opposite Spruce Street, was built about one hundred years ago. 
 Bulfinch was the architect. 
 
 He thinks the house occupied by Dr. J. Baxter Upham is 
 the one now occupied as a boarding house. A few years ago 
 this house had wall paper representing in large patterns human 
 figures, if not historical scenes; at any rate, it was interesting 
 wall paper. What has become of it? 
 
 The best sermon the writer ever heard James Freeman 
 Clarke preach was on the text, "Muzzle not the ox that 
 treadeth out the corn." 
 
 He told the writer that it was known that Christopher 
 Columbus had been in Iceland — three miles from a monastery 
 where records were kept of the voyages of the Northmen to 
 America. 
 
 He considers it a great privilege that he grew up under 
 the personal counsel and religious instruction of James Free- 
 man Clarke. Among the other people in Boston who had a 
 great influence upon his life, though some years later, was 
 Mrs. J. R. Vincent, the actress at the Boston Museum, with 
 whom he had his office the last two years of her life, and was 
 with her at her deathbed. He had the privilege of bringing 
 these two noble characters together. While living with 
 Mrs. Vincent he had the privilege of meeting the wonderful 
 comedian, William Warren, although, contrary to general be- 
 
 [24] 
 
lief, they were not personal friends. Warren was an atheist; 
 Mrs. Vincent, on the contrary, a very strong churchwoman ; 
 which was the only reason why she had no liking for William 
 Warren. She admired him extremely as an actor. Mrs. Vin- 
 cent knew the English language perfectly, and she knew nothing 
 whatever of any other language. The writer received from her 
 some valuable training in the pronunciation of English; but, 
 best of all, he got from her some of her wonderful regard for 
 the lower animals, which she carried farther than any one with 
 whom he has had acquaintance. 
 
 Mrs. Vincent told him that "The Rivals" was the finest 
 comedy in the English language. 
 
 After Mrs. Vincent's death the Vincent Memorial Hospital 
 was founded, chiefly through the instrumentality of one earnest 
 lady, not primarily for women patients, but as a hospital for 
 women doctors. She had a positive hatred of women as 
 doctors, and the writer thinks that a hospital for women 
 singularly unfortunate as a memorial for Mrs. Vincent. If 
 it had been a hospital for disabled firemen, whom she loved, 
 or for horses or dogs, it would have been more appropriate. 
 
 After having left college, by the advice of Professor Jeffries 
 Wyman, he studied chemistry with Dr. Gibbs in the Lawrence 
 Scientific School, in preparation for the study of medicine. 
 
 Some years before, Dr. Gibbs and one Charles W. Eliot 
 were rivals for the chair of chemistry in the Scientific School, 
 and Dr. Gibbs won. When Eliot became president of the 
 University he never visited the Scientific School officially, but 
 
 [25] 
 
summoned Dr. Gibbs over to University Hall. Probably 
 Dr. Gibbs felt the indignity. It is certain that we young men 
 did. Dr. Gibbs vi^as a man of great personal dignity. 
 
 His grandfather had two stories which he delighted to 
 tell about Peter Harvey, who took care of Daniel Webster 
 when drunk and lent him money. He, Peter Harvey, was a 
 very stout man and had an enormous thigh and leg. He went 
 to Washington to give President Lincoln advice as to his (the 
 President's) policy. Lincoln listened to him attentively, and 
 when he had finished slapped his (Peter Harvey's) thigh 
 and said, "By George! Mr. Harvey, your leg is most as big 
 as mine." 
 
 There was a man named Cheatham who had his office in 
 the neighborhood of the writer's grandfather's ofKce. Peter 
 Harvey had his also in the same neighborhood. His grand- 
 father had had some dealing with Peter Harvey, and the latter 
 felt that he had not been fairly treated, though Luther Parks 
 was a very honest man. One day a man stopped at Harvey's 
 office to inquire for Mr. Cheatham, and Harvey directed him 
 to Luther Parks'. He recognized at once who had done it. 
 He said it was the only bright thing he ever knew Peter Harvey 
 to do. 
 
 Lieutenant Dale was born in the Arsenal grounds in 
 Springfield, Massachusetts. 
 
 Lieutenant John Blake Dale was second in command of 
 the United States Exploring Expedition to the Dead Sea 
 
 [26] 
 
and the Jordan, and artist of the expedition. The illustrations 
 in Lynch 's book are from his (Dale's) pencil. 
 
 He would have been in command, but he was thought to 
 be too young. He left two sons, William Hales Dale and 
 John. Their guardians were Luther Parks and Eben Dale. 
 When but eighteen years of age, Johnnie began to spit blood, 
 and Dr. Parks put him aboard the Fleetwood, Captain Dale, 
 of Gloucester, bound round Cape Horn. The writer well 
 remembers the ship in Boston Harbor, its rigging covered with 
 ice and snow. She was lost ofF the coast of Patagonia, and 
 was said to have struck an iceberg in the night. One boatload 
 only reached the shore. Johnnie Dale was lost. 
 
 Eben Dale employed detectives to question these sailors in 
 New York to learn if there had been foul play. But they held 
 consistently to their story — that the vessel had struck an ice- 
 berg in the night. The detectives lived with them and drank 
 with them. 
 
 What a noble man old Eben Dale was! 
 
 The log of Lieutenant Dale is in several volumes in the 
 Massachusetts Historic Genealogical Society. 
 
 He was two weeks on a desert island in the Southern 
 Ocean, and his drinking cup was a shell. Wilkes ordered him 
 ashore in charge of a boat to get water, with orders to return 
 at once. Dale thought the surf too heavy and waited. Wilkes 
 sailed away and did not return for a fortnight. When Dale 
 came aboard he was put under arrest. This, he wrote, was 
 "a welcome with a vengeance." Wilkes afterwards admitted 
 that his delay was due to inexperience. 
 
 [27] 
 
"that boy '' 
 
There was not any relationship between Eben Dale, of 
 Gloucester, and William H. Dale, though William was inti- 
 mate with Eben and Theron Dale. Julia Dale was not legally 
 adopted by William Hales and his wife. Julia Dale was the 
 youngest of a large family of children — twelve. 
 
 When he was a boy at Miles's Military School at Brattle- 
 boro, Vermont, he was a corporal. When he passed his vaca- 
 tions at 6 Chestnut Street his father required him to wear his 
 uniform with his red chevrons. It was war time and he was 
 much in evidence in the street. 
 
 Thirty or forty years later he was presented to Mrs. Julia 
 Ward Howe. She asked at once, in her epigrammatic way, 
 "Are you that boy?" He admitted that he was. 
 
 He asked Mrs. Julia Ward Howe if the lines in the 
 Battle Hymn of the Republic, "In the beauty of the lilies 
 Christ was born across the sea," had any special reference. 
 She said it was merely a figure of speech. 
 
 At another time he asked her how she acquired her beautiful 
 speaking voice. She replied that as a girl the family used to 
 read aloud evenings. 
 
 On one occasion Governor Andrew visited Mrs. Howe at 
 her house in Chestnut Street. As housekeeping was not her 
 strong suit, she sent to Mrs. Parks to borrow some sheets for 
 His Excellency to sleep in. His father declared that he was 
 going, when they were sent back, to cut them up into pocket 
 handkerchiefs for the family as souvenirs of the governor. 
 
 [28] 
 
At Brattleboro the boys had buttons with the letter M. 
 Some town boy said : 
 
 "Miles's mighty mean militia, 
 Marching Monkeys, 
 Military Mules." 
 
 As a boy he knew a dear old gentleman, Henry Burroughs, 
 more than eighty years old. He remembered well the War 
 of 1812. He said that the boys on the Common — the boys 
 when they felt jolly — "used to throw up their caps and then 
 their wigs." The writer believes it is a historical fact that 
 boys in Boston in the early part of the nineteenth century 
 wore wigs. 
 
 There used to be a class of bores, now nearly or wholly 
 extinct, who had seen Taglioni dance. None had ever danced 
 like Taglioni. None would ever again dance like Taglioni, 
 in their opinion. 
 
 The writer may be tiresome in his belief that there never 
 was a place like old Chestnut Street. Eben Dale, Dr. Lothrop, 
 Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Richard H. Dana lived there. The 
 automobile has done much to ruin it. 
 
 « • • 
 
 Dr. Lothrop was the last chaplain of the First Corps of 
 Cadets, and enjoyed the dinner of the Corps at the Parker 
 House. He looked more like a fox-hunting, Irish gentleman 
 than a minister of Brattle Street Church. 
 
 [29] 
 
Dr. B. Joy Jeffries's grandfather crossed the British 
 Channel from France to England in a balloon. He went as 
 a passenger, having signed a written agreement to jump into 
 the sea if it became necessary to lighten the load. As they 
 neared England there was danger that they would strike the 
 chalk cHfifs. Jeffries began to undress, preparatory to jump- 
 ing; but the balloon took, fortunately, an upward turn and 
 he remained. 
 
 One hundred years later Dr. Jeffries celebrated the event 
 at his grandfather's request by a reception at 15 Chestnut 
 Street. The barometer and other instruments carried and the 
 clothes worn by Jeffries were shown. The writer was one of 
 the guests and had the honor, at the request of Dr. Jeffries, 
 to explain to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes the various objects 
 of interest shown. 
 
 In one hundred years there had been no improvement in 
 the art of ballooning. 
 
 Dr. Henry W. Williams told Dr. Luther Parks that 
 artists, to denote the expression of piety, make the eyes con- 
 verge slightly as well as look upward. 
 
 George Burroughs was a short time in Harvard College 
 and then went to West Point. He was third in his class and 
 entered the Engineer Corps. He graduated in 1861 just in 
 time to go into the Civil War. He was at Chattanooga and 
 Nashville. At the former he seized a saber and rushed into 
 the fight, which an engineer officer should not do. He became 
 
 [30] 
 
a major. He was on duty in Boston, He built the break- 
 water at Provincetown and had his first independent command 
 as inspector of a lighthouse district. 
 
 George Burroughs was known at the Academy and in the 
 Army by his classmates as "Los." At West Point, in the 
 Spanish class, they had read about "Los Burros" — the rabbit. 
 The present General MacKenzie of the Engineer Corps was 
 one of his classmates. The former General U. S. Grant said 
 of him many years ago that he was the brightest young man in 
 the Army. 
 
 When George Burroughs died, the writer was sent by his 
 father to announce the sad event to General Foster. He found 
 the general at home in the second-story front room of a house 
 in Franklin Square, opposite Washington Street. 
 
 He said to the general, "Major Burroughs is dead, sir." 
 And the general 'replied, "The devil you say." That was all. 
 
 He was a brave and brilliant officer. 
 
 George Burroughs told a story of something that happened 
 at West Point. A boy took a loaded shell to the point, put it 
 between his knees and hammered it on a rock. Soon there was 
 nothing left of the boy. This is true history. 
 
 In his time, the old English pronunciation of Latin went 
 out and the new Continental came in. With President Eliot 
 came in the elective system, which the writer believes is not 
 an unmitigated blessing. Many of the students selected such 
 courses as would enable them to get their degree with the least 
 amount of study; and it is a question if the old iron-bound 
 
 [31] 
 
THK FINTSHEn PRODUCT 
 
course did not produce better scholarship, though it may not 
 have prepared men as well for the special schools. There used 
 to be families of scholars. Horace Binney Sargent, Lucius 
 Manlius Sargent and the Morisons, Charles Sumner, Charle- 
 magne Tower were all scholars. The degrees ought to be 
 conferred, as formerly, in Latin, which has always been the 
 language of scholars. President Eliot has conferred them in 
 English, the great mercantile language. 
 
 What Boston boy has forgotten the enormous lobsters 
 which were exposed for sale in wheelbarrows in front of the 
 Boylston Market? They were red and were fully eighteen 
 inches long. The men used to go about with the barrows and 
 cry, "Buy a lob — lob — lob. Buy a lob." 
 
 Captain Jackson says that Mr. Thomas Gaffield is authority 
 for the statement that manganese causes the purple color in the 
 glass on the south side of Beacon Street. 
 
 [32] 
 
juN 2i 19H 
 
■m- 
 
 One copy del. to Cat. Div. 
 
 riJN 27 1*5 'I