Evening Star Newspaper, September 27, 1936, Page 50

- RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE WAS BRILLIANT SON OF VIRGINIA MERCIFUL IN HIS GREAT DUEL Fiétion Mixed With Facts in Stories of His Dominant Place in American Life, as Associate of Great Leaders—His Real Romance—Attitude on Slavery Question. [3 HENRY CLAY, Who fought a bloodless duel with John Randolph in near- by Virginia. Indeed, even at Mr. O'Neale's board- ing house, which preceded the Frank- lin Hotel, many people of prominence resided, and it was here that George Clinton, Vice President of the United States, died on April 20, 1812, and was buried in Congressional Cemetery, from which he was removed in 1908, and his remains reinterred in the First Dutch Reformed Church Cemetery, Kingston, N. Y. By John Clagett Proctor. | ASHINGTON has had some | very queer characters in | A the almost century and a | half of its existence, but | surely one of the oddest men of all, and the brainiest, was that remark- able legislator and diplomat, John Randolph of Roanoke, whom we have | recently seen depicted as falling in love with the famous Peggy O'Neale— a quite impossible, and almost pre- posterous thing for this noted man to| do, when we understand his tempera- ment and the life he led. Not, of | course, that he never did really fall| in love, for that he did. but not to Peggy. rather to a flower of his own | Southland, a fair Virginia lady named Maria Ward, who evidently refused his | heart and hand, and subsequently was married to Peyton Randolph. son of | Edmund Randolph, who was Governor | of Virginia, the first Attorney General | of the United States during Wash- | ington’s first administration, and later BSecretary of State. | This affair of the heart began in | John Randolph's early boyhood, and, we are told, “became the one en-| thralling passion of his manhood, | filling his whole being until he loved | her better than his own soul.” How- ever, they were never married, and their courtship was mysteriously | ended and no one but the two lovers | themselves ever knew the cause that kept them apart forever. An early mccount of this estrangement says: “The breaking off of the affair is wrapped in mystery: all we know is that one Summer morning he rode up to the house, and after & long in- terview in the parlor, the lady left the room in tears, while he rushed from the house, mounted his horse and rode furiously away. He never saw her again: but one day he ap- proached a house where she was stay- ing while she was singing in the par- lor. Fascinated by the sound of her voice, he lingered on the porch and gent in from time to time a request for her to sing one song after an-| other—the tender little ballads which were assoclated with their Jover's presence, while he rushed frantically up and down the porch in an arony of grief, waving his arms and crying in the anguish of his heart, ‘Macbeth hath murdered sleep; Mac- beth shall sleep no more!’” THE accompanying picture of this charming girl, said to have had wondrous blue eyes, exquisitely deli-| cate complexion, a profusion of sunny brown curls and dressed in quaint costume, represents her at the age of 16. It is related that she was dis- tinguished for her exquisite grace and fascination of manners and bright wit. She died in 1826, aged 42 years, | and up to this time, we are told, “was as fresh as the Summer rose, as cap- tivating in mind and manners as when she enthralled the passionate heart of John Randolph of Roanoke.” Just to what extent John Randolph eame in contact with Miss O'Neale, if | sny, is & question the writer admits— for want of proof—he cannot answer. | When Congress convened in Wash- | ington for the first time, on Novem- | ber 17, 1800, John Randolph was l“ member of the House of Represent- | atives in the delegation from Virginia, | another member being the celebrated John Marshall, later Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Peggy O'Neale was then just one vear old, Randolph was 27, and just where the young Congressman stayed at this time, and for several years afterward, s another matter of uncertainty. In the Library of Congress, the Na- tion's great storehouse of knowledge, | the Congressional Directories, running | back as far as 1809, are to be found, | and from this year on Mr, Randolph’s | residence in the District of Columbia was traceable. At this date, 1809, he | was making his home at the Union | Tavern, or Union Hotel, then conduct- ed by William Crawford, who had suc- ceeded a Mr. McLaughlin, and Peter | Brady followed Crawford. This hos-| telry was erected at the northeast cor- ner of Thirteenth and M streets in 1796, and was destroyed by fire in 1832. It was rebuilt in 1836, and a large part of the more recent struc- ture remains intact, except the cor- ner portion, which was removed a year | or two ago. Many notable guests stopped here tn the early days, including Louis Philippe, Count Volney, Baron Hum- boldt, Robert Fulton, the inventor; | ‘Talleyrand, Jerome Bonaparte, Wash- ington Irving. Gen. St. Clair, Loren- eo Dow and Francis Scott Key. BEFORE the City of Washington was built up it was the general and almost the only resort of those distinguished men whose names form part of the Nation's history. During the sessions of Congress it was a com- mon thing to see from 60 to 80 mem- bers associated in messes within its temple walls, and among them such leading spirits as Randolph, Rufus King, Mr. Gore, Gen. Sumter, Gaston and Pinckney of South Carolina; Nel- #on of Virginia, Aaron Burr, when in his best days; John Marshall, Henry Clay, Martin Van Buren and Gen. Van Rensselaer. It was, besides, to an extent, the general residence of the foreign ministers and the officers of the Army. Indeed, its history informs us that & stage was always in waiting to convey the members of Congress to and from the Capitol, and that every night the apartments of the house were wont to echo with the ready wit and the pregnant jests, or with ani- matd discussions on the political oc- currences of the day. It had ‘several complete suites of private apartments and bed rooms, numerous drawing rooms, private par- Jors, receiving rooms for company, s large dining room and a splendid ball room, which was once the scene of the brightest and gayest festivity ever witnessed in this District. Other attractions were: Two large refectories, housekeepers’ and servants’ apart- ments, private dwelling house, wine cellar; dairy, meat and ice houses— with stabling for 100 horses. When President John Adams visited ‘Washington, on June 6, 1800, he was dined by the citizens at McLaughlin’s, who operated the tavern at that time. WHW John Randolph first came 1YY" to Washington and to the Union Tavern, John O'Neale was operating & boarding house close to where later loves. | Maria Ward sang, unconscious of her | | trary should develop, it does not seem | likely that Mr. | prior to 1809 at O'Neale's, but rather | one is impressed with the more gen- eral likelihood that, from the start, he boarded at Crawford's on M street | to the west of Rock Creek. Again, | the Library of Congress, so far as the Congressional Directories are concerned, cannot help us for several years, for the books from 1810 to 1815, both inclusive, are missing. In 1816 Randolph was living at | Semmes’' Hotel, Georgetown, which seems likely to have been the Union Tavern, since the proprietor of that hotel had changed frequently. Up to 1807 Joseph M. Semmes conducted a tavern at Fifteenth and F streets and then gave it up and this may be | the same Semmes who later ran the Georgetown hostelry. From 1819 throughout his stay in Washingion, or until he left Congress in 1829, Mr. Randolph’s address is given as “Mr. Dawson, No. 2 Capitol Hill.” John H. Eaton went to live at O'Neale’'s Frankiin Hotel, came to the Senate in 1818 and con- tinued to reside there at least until 1829. In 1823 Gen. Jackson came to Congress as a Senator from Ten- nessee and it was this year that Sen- ator Eaton bought ‘the hotel property |in order that it might not be sacri- ficed through a marshal’s sale, have ing already been advertised. The fol- lowing year it was sold to John Gadsby, who had conducted a hotel | in Alexandria and was then oper- ating the Indian Queen in Baltimore. When Gen. Eaton came to live at| the Franklin House Peggy (or Mrs. Timberlake then) had been married about two years and when Gen. Jack- son came there she had been married seven years. BUT to return to John Randolph, he undoubtedly was a man of rare talent, rightfully claimed he was | a descendant of Pocahontas and $aid | he was glad of it; and he evidently was, indeed, he seems to have in- herited the warlike spirit of some of the Virginia Indians. Of him his friend, Thomas H. Benton, writes: “He was noted for his keen retorts, reckless wit and skill in debate. His tall, slender, cadaverous form; his shrill, piping voice, and his long, | skinny fingers pointing at the object of his invective, made him a con- spicuous speaker. For 30 years he BLACND Sicas W/ CEMEMBER ~THIS O \N MOST ANY MOV stood the Franklin Hotel, erected by him in 1813, and which became, as we know, & place where many dis- tinguished people made their home. v ZERG However, unless proof to the con- | Randolph did stop ! when he ! Douce UsS To DrRINK FROM DIPPER HANG THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON. D. C. ¢ was the ‘political meteor of Con- gress.’” | At the time of the duel Randolph was serving in the Senate, having been appointed there in 1825. It is said he did not like Clay, nor any other Kentuckian, for that mat- ter. Indeed, it might be truthfully |said that there were many people | whom he did not like, and one very | bad habit he had was in expressing his personal dislikes in public, and these in scathing terms, which he did |in the speech he made in the Senate which brought on the duel. John Quincy Adams, the reader will probably recall, was elected President by the House of Representatives, par- ticularly to the dislike of those favor- |ing Andrew Jackson, who had re- | ceived 99 electoral votes to 84 re- | ceived by Mr. Adams. Incidentally, | the election of 1824 seems to have | been a free-for-all, since, besides these |two candidates, there were also in i the running for the presidency Henry Clay and Wiliam H. Crawford, and | for Vice President John C. Calhoun, ‘Nnthsn Sanford, Nathaniel Macon and Martin Van Buren. Henry Clay | and Andrew Jackson also received votes for Vice President. | Evidently, Mr. Randolph did not like | the selections made by the House, and | he did not like the President’s foreign | policy, and he did not like Mr. Clay | for accepting the office of Secretary | of State, and maybe he had dislikes | for a few other things besides. At any | rate, this is the way he paid his re- | spects in the Senate to the President and Mr. Clay: “The letter from Gen. Salazar, Mex- jcan Minister to Washington sub- mitted by the Preident to the Senate, bears the earmark of having been manufactured or forged by the Sec- retary of State. I denounce the ad- ministration as being a puritanic, dip- lomatic, black-legged coalition. Fur- thermore, I hold myself responsible for all I have said. Here I plant my foot; here I fling deflance right into his teeth (the President’s); here I | throw the gauntlet to him, and the bravest of his compeers, to come for- ward and defend these lines,” etc. S A result, a challenge was sent by | Mr. Clay to Mr. Randolph, and | the latter accepted it. Both parties | selected seconds: Mr. Randolph, Gen. | Hamilton and Col. Tattnall, and Mr.| Clay was represented by Senator | Johnson of Louisiana and Gen. Jes- sup. The place, we are told, was at the Little Falls, just beyond the Chain Bridge, at that time a thick forest, and 35 years later a spot described as being at the base of Fort Marcey. Mr. Randolph had declared his in- tention of not firing at Mr. Clay. However, at the first count of “one, | two, three!” both men fired, without | eflect. Of the second exchange of | shots, Senator Benton says: | “Mr. Randolph left me to resume | his post, utterly refusing to explain |out of the Senate anything that he { had said therein, and with the positive | declaration that he would not return the next fire. I withdrew a little way into the woods and kept my eyes fixed on Mr. Randolph, whom I then knew to be the only one in danger. I saw him receive the fire of Mr. Clay, saw the gravel torn up in the same place, saw Mr. Randolph raise | his pistol and discharge it into the | air, saying, ‘I do not fire at you, Mr. | Clay!’ Mr. Randolph immediately ad- | vanced, offering his hand. The mo- | ment Clay saw that Randolph had | thrown away his fire, advancing with extended hand, he said with emotion: “‘I trust in God, my dear sir, you | are untouched. After what has oc- | | curred I would not have harmed you | for a thousand worlds.” “They met half-way, shook hands, Mr. Randolph remarking jocosely, ‘You owe me a coat, Mr. Clay. | “The second bullet had passed | through the skirt of his flannel dress- | ing gown, very near the hip. Mr. | Clay promptly and pleasantly replied, | T am glad the debt is no greater.’” ! Indeed, it is quite evident that Ran- John Randolph T INF T 2 0 KT SEPTEMBER - 27. T oAt “{936—PART FOUR Old Union Tavern, Thirtieth and M streets, in Georgetown, where John Randolph of Roanoke made his home. & and his dogs, dolph had no venom in his heart for his antagonist, for he later said: “I have not aimed at the life of Mr. Clay. I did not aim as high as the | knees—not higher than the knee band; for it is no mercy to shoot & man in the knee. My only object was to disable him and spoil his aim. * * * I would not have seen him fall mor- tally, or even doughtfully, wounded, for all the land that is watered by Maria Ward, John Ra where he had stopped while on his way to England for his health. An account of his las: moments, quoted in part, follows: “The patient was greatly distressed in breathing, in consequence of diffi- cult expectoration. He requested the doctor, at his next visit, to bring in- struments for performing the oper- ation of bronchotomy, for he could not live unless relieved. He then di- mlolph’s sweetheart. the king of the floods and all his tributary streams.” OW remarkable it seems, as we scan the biographies of the world’s outstanding men, how really great they held themselves to be, and how little consideration many had for others. Indeed, many thought them- selves greater than the Creator Him- self, and never stopped to consider, until it was too late, that life is very short, even at the most, and John Randolph was little different from many who only fear God when their time comes to die. Mr. Randolph had been an ill man many years before his death, and had been a slave to the use of opium, which he used to alleviate pain. The end came when he was in Philadelphia, MANSIREE! WATER ¥OM Your HRTS ALMOSY AS GOOD NOVELTY “VHAY OSED VO \N= LS Y oLr HATS AT THE OLO CORNER 2 POMP WITH “THE \OLY BY ING ’;a-e" AS SOOI~ - INE ONE OF M HAINES “HAND, ME DOWNS § | and | placing his finger on a part he had rectéd a certain newspaper to be | brought to him. He put on his spec- tacles, as he sat propped up in bed, turned over the paper- several times, examined it carefully, then selected, handed it to the doctor, with a request that he would read it. It was headed ‘Cherokee.” “In the course ot reading the doctor came to the word ‘omnipotence’ and pronounced it with a full sound of | the penultimate — omnipo'tence. Mr. Randolph checked him and pro- nounced the word according to Wal- ker. The doctor attempted to give a reason for his pronunciation. ‘Pass on,’ was the quick reply. The word impetus was then pronounced with the e long—'impétus.” He was instantly (Continued on Page 6.) SHAFT LURES BIRDS TO DIE 'Flood-Light Is Fatal Attraction at Washington Monument for Those Engaged in Semi-Annual Migration, as They Fly Through Washington on the Way. By John Lorance. ECENT visitors, in the early hours of the night, at the ‘Washington Monument have been seeing what is a wholly unexpected phenomenon to many, the bombardment of the Monument by swarms of birds, many of which, as & result, fall dead at the base of the great shaft. The fact is not gen- erally known in Washington, but has become a semi-annual event since the Monument has been flood-lighted, be- coming thereby a feature in the pan- orama of the Capital, which not only draws tourists to it, but irresistibly | attracts flocks of birds in seasonal mi- gration, north and south, to the Sum- | mer feeding and breeding grounds. ‘The migration takes place in the early Spring and the early Fall, and | the bombardment and casualties at the Monument have been especially noticeable in recent September nights, | especially during the air disturbance occasioned by the Carolina hurricane, whose high winds were noticed in.the city. The birds, fiying low because | of the cloudy night, were caught in the swirls of the currents around the | Monument in large numbers and suf- : fered proportionately, making mean- | | small object hit him after glancing off, | time a rather brilliant spectacle as | they fluttered about, the lower parts of | their bodies and their wings illumi- nated by - floodlights below. They seemed - like scintillating sparks from the base to the top, 550 feet high. How they met their fate, death or escape, could be clearly seen, and the thud as they struck the Monument and hit the pavement below- could be easily heard in the silence which pre- | vails around the Monument at night. | Nor was it a spectacle for just one of the four sides of the Monument, but for all sides, because the swirling cur- rents of air breezed all around. It was a sight that held one to the Monument for some time, perhaps as late as midnight, when the flood light~ ing is cut off except for the tip, a guide for night human fiyers. A visitor from Kansas had a surprise, for when, as he was looking at the Monument, s | and was picked up at his feet he | found it was a dead bird. Several per- | sons rushed up to him and, turning | the flashlights they carried upon the bird, said, “a magnolia.” EXPLANATXONS followed. The visitor was told that the birds were falling dead in no mean num- | bers, as the migratory season was on | in which birds from far away Canada | were passing over Washington on their way to Southern lands, even to South America, and some were killed as they hit the Monument in their flight, at times as many as 125 a night. The birds, it was said, were drawn | to the Monument, which in their swift flight they saw as a brilliant object against a black sky, and, blinded as they neared the Monument, they hit it in full force and were killed or | stunned as they dropped to the hard pavement or grass below. Attempts have been made to photograph with | extra fast lens the birds as they ! dashed against the Monument. | ‘The bodies are quickly picked up by persons who are connected with | the Biological Survey of the Depart- | ment of Agriculture, and who in the | migratory season make it their duty | to be on hand at the base of the ! Monument to pick up the dead birds | and care for such of them as still live. | These are tenderly cared for and sometimes recover. They are tagged for scientific reasons and are permit- ted to fiy off to rejoin the migration, | which they instinctively know how | to do. ‘The birds have biological value. Those that hit the Monument disclose whether they are insectivorous or seed birds or what their parasites are as revealed in the contents of their stom- achs. Some of the birds are skinned and stuffed by private ornithologists who make their own collections from | the birds they gather up at the Monu- ment in the migratory season. These may be found especially active with their flashlights, as they search the neighboring grass swards into which some of the birds may have been thrown by the wind. The biological scientists report that | some 40 to 50 varieties of birds are | found among the casualties at the | Monument. Special effort is made to | catch the unusual varieties, Sad to say, nearly all the birds that hit the Monument in the migrations are song birds, chiefly of the kind | known as warblers and verioes. They are small birds, about 4 inches long from beak to tip of the tail. The magnolia mentioned is a warbler with | yellow feathers on the under body. | There is also a Connecticut warbler found here. This does not mean that the bird Summers in Connecticut. Far | It is not known how | from it. in fact. the bird got its Conncticut designi tion. The warblers are of several species, with the magnolia the most common found killed among the warblers, and next the red-eyed verioes. Singing sparrows are also found, as well as snowbirds. The teacher bird is met with. It is so called from its cry, which seems to say, “Do you hear me, do you see me?” and similar notes. | Now and then a big bird will become too inquisitive at the white shaft and hit it and be killed. A duck has been found killed at the base of the Monu- TDOGGONE! VP SHOW Yop HowTo S ORINK WATER OUT- EN A HAT (F | HAO ONE O’ VYHEM/DIPS \SAAC GANS GAVE AWAY TO THE 80YS LASTCHRISTMAS QUESTION, HERE WAS CRYSTAL | SPIRINGS RACE TRAC , THOSE WERE THE HAPPY DAYS! ‘Heaisear o veswrior —By Dick Mansfield% | cerned, more of the song birds men= | tioned fiy - HE we,, T Dasssf. : ' €0 maAN VEAR mOsESTER- HAVE OsT | Pacific coastline. | ered with | fiy. ment. The large birds fiy high in the sky in migrations, while the small birds usually fly from an altitude of 400 to 500 feet, and thus come within the fatal Washington Monument height. TRDS are attracted by any well- lighted building and stray bodies of them have been found at the base of such buildings. The brilliantly lighted dome of the Capitol is irresistible to many, but the dome is s0 large that the birds can clear the pile through the currents that swirl around fit, fiying out of the current through some instinct they possess. Scien- tists tell of a duck so caught. By a spiral flight it managed to reach | the top of the Statue of Freedom and rested there for an hour, then flying safely off. Lighthouses are a terrible attraction to all kinds of birds. The birds fly at night, for they feed and rest in the day hours. | Storms are confusing to them, espe- cally thunderstorms, around them without a notion of what they are doing. Sometimes they are hurled to the ground by the strong winds and rain and are killed. and they fly | and sometimes they drop dead from sheer exhaustion in battling a storm. Whole flelds have been found cov- birds killed in this way If caught at night in a storm or needing rest they will alight on the ground. There have been nights when the area around the Monument has been literally covered with small birds resting or evading a storm. Perhaps the Monument helped to attract them as a place of refuge It is truly often irresistible to those not blinded. At the Monument one can see them again and again, re- turning to the shaft after they ap- pear to have escaped, though fre- | quently drawn back by the force of the swirling current of air. One woman scientist picked up & live warbler which seemed to have con- siderable vitality left in it. She took it a distance of 100 feet from the Monument and then permitted it to To her surprise, for she had tagged it, she found the bird again at the Monument. * Then she took it to a distance of several hundred feet, but the bird again found the Monument. Next time it was lib- erated in the day time, when the shaft has no attraction for birds. 'HESE song birds have two broods a year. The birds born in the Spring fly with their elders to the southern hemisphere when irresisti- ble instinct moves them to fly or food gets scarce. Many of the young die in their journeys for lack of strength to carry on their flight. The birds live from 6 to 10 years, and z0 will have made twice that number of migrations in their lifetime. In so far as the Washington area is con- North. They follow the course of the rivers; the Potomac and the Atlantic coast line are very conspicuous to them at night. They are fond of using moonlight in their migrations for obvious reasons. Few are the birds gathered up here in the Spring of the year. It is said that some fly North by way of the Before the Monu- ment was lighted some birds were | killed there in their swift flight. and | | midnight, enemy of cotton, may be it used to be said that one could col- lect enough birds to make a bird pie if one went to the Monument early in the morning. There is no way of helping the birds except by razing the Monument, and, of course, that is unthinkable. To be sure, the flood-lighting might be eliminated in the migratory sea- son, but the Monument is lighted more as a protection for aviators than to make a beautiful picture at night. There are several large air- ports in the neighborhood. The | angry looking red lights at the top are not enough in the way of warn- ing, although they seem to do after but there is not much fiying after that hour. The flood« lighting comes not only from the bottom of the shaft, but also through searchlights from neighboring Gove ernment buildings, —_— Vacuum for Bollworm. The pink bollworm. destructive cuum- cleaned” if plans being studied by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics work out. D. A. Isler, who has been at work on the plan, hopes to develop a device for collecting bolls, squares, leaves and blooms which shatter off the plants and, lying on the ground, offer a | home for the weevil. A shaver and rake have already been perfected for cutting down the cotton stalks and collecting them, but after this operation there still remains considerable litter which plays host to the weevil. A suction device to pick the trash up is what is now sought. The difficulty of controlling the bollworm through poisons has beem too often and too well demonstrated 1o place complete faith in that method. N «