lili^ FS3 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Bcnrg 1®. Sage 1891 Date Due Cornell University Library E664.F53 H79 The life of Clinton Bowen Fisl< olin 3 1924 030 910 966 W ^ Cornell University WB Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030910966 ^^^affiMH ^1 t. ! ! ^^^^y^^B^^^St^^k ^^9^K r c§aX^ X^sA\ ^oW^s^P ^ /^ /''^'^Ni v/ I c ^)A\) /^r#.^ KJ THE LIFE Clinton Bowen Fisk, WITH A BRIEF SKETCH JOHN A. BROO KS BY ALPHONSO A. HOPKINS. NEW YORK: FUNK & WAGNALLS, i8 AND 20 AsTOR Place. 1888. All Rights Reserved. jOt h.\lA.^'\% Entered, according to Act o{ Congress, in the year 1888, by FUNK £ WAGNALLS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, S. C. PRES3 or FUNK & WAQNALLS, 18 a,od 20 Astor Place, H£V TORK ^0 MRS. jeAnnette crippen fisk — AND — MRS. MARY FISK PARK, THE iSZ^ottljs Q2^[fe anU 3IBau0t)tei: OF CLINTON B. FISK, Who have so Tenderly and Loyally Helped him to Help Mankind K 29etricatc THE SIMPLE STORY OF A LIFE THEY LOVE. Love-cradm in a cabin of the West, Tlie babe in boyhood's hunger quickly grew. And hungeted, thirsted, for the. things they knew Who passed toiSh men as wise ; and in his breast Tliere throbbed a longing, always unexpressed. To stand some dty upon the world^s far blue Horizon, 'mid tliCijreat, the strong, the true The world might hono\ as an honored guest. The boy to manhood builK his stature well, — Of truth and courage, parity and grace; The mother's love clung rowtd him like a spell. And calm-eyed Duty gave h'^ lofty place. Till fame's fair garland on his forehead fell. And gladly great, and strong, am true, did greet his face. PEEFACE. Wkiting tte life of a living man has its embarrass- ments. I realized this fact when the publishers asked me to prepare a biography of General Fisk ; I realize it yet more keenly as now I send these final though first pages to press. Yet, if my task has been rather a diffi- cult and embarrassing one, it has been at the same time agreeable — to the biographer ; and its ample compensa- tion has come througli the nearer acquaintance made with a ripe character, the satisfaction found in close study of manly motives and unselfish acts, and the re- ward of a strong friendship, grown to full stature through these months of more intimate contact and more perfect trust. I have not sought in the following chapters to be rhetorical, analytical, philosophical, or elaborate. My one purpose has been to tell, in simple, unadorned fash- ion, the story of a typical American career, reaching from the log-house of a pioneer to high places of honor, from the struggles of a boyhood unblest by helpful sur- roundings to the rounded successes of a manhood richly helpful to Church and State. It should be a source of inspiration to all men, that lives like this are possible in our country ; and all men may learn a lesson from the fact that this life has its true sources of nobleness and power in humble Christian faith, in devoted consecration to good works, and in sincere loyalty to the principles of right, and temperance, and truth. VI PBEFACE. While seeking to avoid the tone of extravagant praise, I have not cared to assume the air of an impartial nar- rator. History is one thing, biography is another ; and though they may be close akin, their qualities dififer. I suspect that the biographer should always have sym- pathetic partiality for his subject, in order to the best results. It has been thought fit and timely to include within these covers, also, a sketch of the Rev. Dr. John A. Brooks. That it is so comparatively brief and incom- plete may be accredited to the fact that mainly this vol- ume was not proposed for campaign uses, but as one of a standard series for permanent sale. A. A. H. EocHESTEE, N. Y., July, 1888. OOI^TEI^TS. FAOE SONNET xi CLINTON BOWEN FISK. CHAPTER I. Antecedents and Birthplace 1 CHAPTER n. Parentage and Eaklt Surroundings 9 CHAPTER III. Early Boyhood in Michigan 14 CHAPTER IV. At the Deacon's and Afterward 31 CHAPTER V. Bbabinq the Birney Flag 28 CHAPTER VI. Struggles for an Education 34 CHAPTER vn. Marriage and Business at Coldwater 41 CHAPTER Vm. Dollar for Dollar 48 Vlll CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. r-^«B A Private Soldier. 65 CHAPTER X. A Commander of Men 61 CHAPTER XI. Some Army Incidents 68 CHAPTER XII. Administration Among Guerillas 75 CHAPTER XIII. Protecting the Capital.^ 83 CHAPTER XIV. An Army Story and the Sbqdel 89 CHAPTER XV. Reconstructing Society 94 CHAPTER XVI. The Fbeedman's Friend , 101 CHAPTER XVII. Aiding Colored Education 108 CHAPTER XVIII. The Story of the Singers 114 CHAPTER XIX. FiBK University 130 CHAPTER XX. As A Railroad Financier Igg CONTENTS. ix CHAPTER XXI. PioE President of the Indian Commission 134 CHAPTER XXII. Some Troubled Days 143 CHAPTER XXIII. Church Activities 147 CHAPTER XXIV. Centennial Speech upon Missions , . 159 CHAPTER XXV. Party and Prohibition 169 CHAPTER XXVI. His New Jersey Campaign 181 CHAPTER XXVII. Campaign Speeches and Calumny 189 CHAPTER XXVIII. The Natural Results 198 CHAPTER XXIX. Michigan's Amendment Campaign 208 CHAPTER XXX. Inevitable Leadership 318 CHAPTER XXXI. Nominated for the Presidency 237 CHAPTER XXXII. At his Sbabright Home 338 X CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXIII. page Words of Patriotism 349 LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE 260 JOHN ANDBESON BROOKS. CHAPTER I. Boyhood and Youth 269 CHAPTER II. Pastor and College Presidbnt 276 CHAPTER III. Master Workman and Prohibition Leader 283 CHAPTER IV. Nominated for the Vicb-Presidenct 293 LIFE OF CLINTON BOWEN FISK. CHAPTER I. ANTECEDENTS AND BIRTHPLACE. In the town of Killingly, Conn., about the beginning of the last decade of the last century, the beloved wife of Ephraim Fisk gave birth to four babes. There were two boys and two girls, and all lived, but the mother paid for such uncommon maternity the tribute of her life. To these four thriving orphans gossip lent four indica- tive names — Wonderful, Marvellous, Miraculous, Strange. Other cognomen came in due time — Samuel, David, Deborah, Miriam — more bibhcal, because Ephraim Fisk was a deacon of the church and a lover of the Book ; but people yet lived in Killingly, not many years ago, who could recall the quadruple birth which proved a neighborhood wonder, and the appellations which that simple-hearted community bestowed. With four such infants to care for, and two other motherless children who needed care, the father had ample reason to seek another wife. Character and cir- cumstances commending him, he found her, and brought her duly to his home. She bore ten children, giving him, all told, the paternity of sixteen. The youngest of 2 LIFE OF CLINTOK BOWEN FISK. her brood was Benjamin Bigford, named partly after herself, who, grown to manhood, married Lydia Aldrich, and became the father of six sons. There were two strains of the Fisk family in New England three generations back — the Connecticut Fisks and the Massachusetts Fisks. Some branches spelled the name as here written, and others added a final e. All were of Lincolnshire ancestry, and all dated their record back to about the year 1700. In the county of Lincoln, on the east coast of Eng- land, one of the mightiest movements in all church his- tory had its genesis ; and Lincolnshire has been spoken of as the remote parent of our own Republic. From that royal habitat of conscience, conviction, and courage in the Mother Land, New England drew much of her finest Christian fibre, her undying manly spirit. It was natural that John Fiske, father of Ephraim, should take up the sword, and wield it so well as to become a major- general. It was not less natural, perhaps, that Ephraim, dying at fourscore, should be mourned by those about him as a peacemaker and a gentle nian of God. Nor was it strange that Wilbur Fisk, another of John's de- scendants and first cousin of Benjamin B., should leave strong impress upon later generations as a profound theo- logian and President of the Wesleyan University at Middletown. Ecclesiastical and military tastes appear to have blended quite harmoniously in the Fisk blood, even until now. John Fiske, born in old Salem, Mass., April 10th, 1744, who rose to the rank of major-general in 1792, was a naval officer during the Eevolution, and com- manded the first vessel commissioned by Massachusetts the " Tyrannicide." He took part in many combats, and was placed in command of the State ship " Massa- AKTECEDENTS AND BIKTHPLACB. 3 chusetts " December 10th, 1777. Afterward he engaged in commerce, became wealthy, and wielded wide influ- ence. But while his early life was of the sanguinary sort, his father was a clergyman — Rev. Samuel Fiske — and his son Ephraim, as has been intimated, had the fervent spirit of simple Christian faith, and devoted him- self to promoting neighborly fellowship and establishing neighborhood peace. The name of Fisk, indeed, has been long and closely identified with church work and religious effort, though often found in the annals of war. Dr. Ezra Fisk was a conspicuous Presbyterian divine ; Pliny Fisk went as a missionary of that church to Syria, and died there ; Nathan Fisk was a Congregational min- ister of high repute ; Nathan "Welby Fisk, his son, be- came a theological teacher at Andover ; and a younger Samuel Fisk, better known by his nom de plume " Dunn Erown," left the pulpit for a soldier's work during our late war, and in that service gave his life. In the line of letters, too, the Fisks have been eminent, giving to literature Dr. Willard Fiske, and Professor John Fiske, and Helen Hunt Jackson, daughter of Professor Nathan Welby Fisk. Early branches of the family in this country seem to have been well off in worldly goods, as likewise well endowed with educational and religious tendencies. Ephraim and his brother Isaac were graduates of Brown University, and therefore had advantages which at that time only the wealthier class enjoyed. Wilbur, son of Isaac— born in Brattleborough, Vt., 1792— had opportu- nities equal to those given his father and uncle, and gifts evidently superior to theirs, or ambition greater. But Benjamin B. was less fortunate. Perhaps those sixteen children consumed unduly of his father's substance ; it may have melted away in bad business ventures, or losses 4 LIFE OF CLINTON BOWEN FISK. by fire and flood. There was not mucli money, at any rate, in the household where Benjamin B. grew up, and no college course awaited him outside. His chief inher- itance was that so common among Americans — hard work, and strength and will to do it. Largely he must make his own future, with little help of the schools, and unhelped by paternal hands. His edncation was barely sufficient for the common need of a mechanic's career, on which he early set out. Killingly was and is a township of Windham County, twenty-eight miles northeast of Norwich, and not farther from Providence. It borders on the Rhode Island line, and forms a part of some rather sterile country not re- markable for wealth-making possibilities. It is not now agriculturally productive in high degree ; and though manufacturing interests have changed that region much since the first decades of our century, it may be, even yet, as then it surely was, less fruitful of material for- tune than of genuine manhood. To Ehode Island many went who craved religious liberty, when elsewhere it did not so much abound, and who saw in the pure demo- cratic government of that miniature State our true American idea realized ; and with like feehng and spirit many located in Eastern Connecticut, where Rhode Island impulses were dominant, and for topographical, religious, and patriotic reasons made Providence their central rallying- point. But as years passed, and popula- tion multiplied, the region held less of promise for each young man and woman within it, and the eyes of some turned wistfully to the West. Benjamin Fisk, through boyhood and youth inured to labor, had learned the trade of a blacksmith, and wanted to ply it on some more lucrative field. Lydia Aldrich, grown from girlhood to the same narrow chances which AKTECEDENTS AND BIRTHPLACE. 5 in Killingly were his, and having linked her life with his own, was willing with him to seek the wider field of his desire. Killingly born and bred, she came of "Welsh descent, and in her veins yet flowed somewhat of the sturdy faith, the heroic courage, and the unfailing will which her ancestors knew. Her nature was deep, womanly, tender. Certain gifts of poetic insight must have been here, allied with superior practical traits. Giving heart and hand to the young and ambitious artisan who won both, she therewith gave to him a companion- ship of the best womanly type, and to his children a motherhood sweet, uplifting, beneficent, with a disposi- tion wherein native paternal severity was mellowed by maternal tenderness. Hopeful and eager, ardent of belief in the better op- portunities which a new country would afford, in the fall of 1822 Benjamin and Lydia, with Cyrus B. and Leander, their baby boys, left Killingly for Livingston County, N. Y. Other of Ephraim's children had settled in the northern part of that State ; kinsfolk of Lydia had preceded them to the same locality whither they went ; it was not an untried thing for people to migrate ; yet this journey of the young Puritans might well enough have appeared momentous. It was surely a great journey for those times. Eastern Connecticut was then as far from "Western New York as Alaska from Maine to-day. Western New York was " on the frontier." Railroads were undreamed of. The Erie Canal did not exist. Livingston County was but the recent haunt of Red Stocking and his dusky race. It was all " the Genesee country," in popular parlance, west of the river Gene- see, until Niagara's foaming border line. Men came to it as settlers, lured by the beauties of a region rich in Indian romance, agriculturally fertile, and full of prom- 6 LIFE OF CLINTOK BOWEK FISK. ise. But to steady-going, home-staying New Englanders it seemed the edge of the ■world. Tou will search far to find a more lovely valley than that of the upper Genesee, across which Geneseo, from the eastern slope, looks westward with serene content. There lived the elder "Wadsworth, like some feudal lord, who held in fee vast areas round about, his broad estate copaprising part of the original Phelps and Gorham Pur- chase from Massachusetts, obtained when that section of New England had right to sell a portion of New York. There lives to-day a Wadsworth of the third generation, still holding much of the old family manor intact. In that fair domain, before any Wadsworth came to title- ship, the Six Nations had their Council Jlouse, and across the upper Genesee their favorite trails were made. There dwelt Mary Jemison, "the white woman," on lands conferred by the natives with whom she cast her lot. It was an inviting locality to which migrated Ben- jamin risk and Lydia, and in which they established themselves. The valley's breadth was beautiful then as now — its flat bottoms thickly wooded where the river wound along, its rolling uplands lifting gently above them and adding to the landscape a varied charm — while farther south its narrower sweep grew yet more pictu- resque, until at Portage Falls heroic grandeur wore con- sumihate grace, and wed itself to legend and to song. Where the valley is broadest, counting bottoms and uplands both, in the midst of rare pastoral loveliness and surrounded by uncommon wealth of historic association, stood and stands a little hamlet known then As Clapp's Corners, called Greigsville now. Its first settler was Ellis Clapp, who married an aunt of Lydia Fisk, and whose son, Amos Clapp, was long time Government Printer at Washington. Three miles above York, from ANTECEDENTS AND BIRTHPLACE. 7 which the township takes its name, and five miles below Geneseo, Livingston's county-seat, it was the natural centre of quite a territory contiguous, and oilered to one of Benjamin Fisk's avocation steady employment and fair pay. There he located, and there he led a busy life of varied, vigorous activities. He was blacksmith, wagon-builder, and general mechanic for the country round. Muscular and willing, equipped with a fine physique, he did not shrink from hard toil. His shops became the source of mechanical supply for farmers all up and down the valley, and their proprietor soon ac- quired local repute as a man of intelligence, enterprise, and character. He took rank as captain in the militia, and was deferred to as a leading spirit in town affairs. A contract, still in existence, which he drew, and which, with others, as a trustee, he executed, for building a school-house in the town of York, shows that he could put language on paper with precision, and that he pos- sessed good business sense. The fact that his colleagues appointed him to draw such an instrument shows" that they had confidence in his ability and good judgment. The hamlet did not grow ; there was no special reason why it should. It is, indeed, no larger now than fifty years ago ; and the marvel, when one sees it, is how anything can be so very small of its age. But the Fisk household increased, and household requirements multi- plied. Two more boys. Welcome V. and Horace A., made glad the father's heart and kept active the mother's hands. The name of one bespoke the reception of each, yet both added burdens of care and need. Mistress Lydia bore her part in providing for family wants. She washed wool and spun yarn and wove cloth. She did whatever she could. She was the helpmeet essential, amid surroundings like theirs. 8 LIFE OF CLINTOK BOWEK FISK. Then Captain Fisk was called on, it is said, for some service in connection with the Erie Canal — contempt- uously alluded to often, in those days, as " Clinton's Ditch." What that service was cannot be verified, and whether any service was rendered is open to doubt, for the Erie Canal ran full thirty miles from Clapp's Corners, and Captain Eisk's labors were confined there ; but if he had no part in the making of that water-way, as is the probable fact, he somehow made the acquaintance of Governor DeWitt Clinton, or grew to know much about and greatly to admire him, perhaps to think him their friend. So when a fifth boy came to the Eisk domicile, in witness of regard for the governor, and borrowing from the mother's family tree, they called him CHnton Bowen. CHAPTER II. PARENTAGE AND EAELT STIEEOUNDINGS. Clinton Bowen Fisk was born December 8tb, 1828. Clapp's Corners had not a dozen houses, and none of them was pretentious. The home in which Clinton first saw light was not the birthplace of his youngest brothers. Two streets, forming a country cross-roads, comprised the hamlet ; and the Fisks originally located on the road running north and south — the same which, continued three fourths of a mile farther up the valley, toward Geneseo, in like manner formed and still forms part of another small settlement, known as Greigsville then, called now South Greigsville. Before Clinton's advent they changed to a lot on the road running east and west, about forty rods west of the four corners. The site they chose there was very charming. It was on the north side of the street, facing the upper Gene- see's blue southern boundary line, some twenty odd miles away. The river itself cannot be seen from this point, since it is two miles distant, and hidden by a rise in the upland on the east ; but wide reaches of intervale stretch magnificently southward, and end in a lofty range of hills belting the southern sky from west to east. Half a mile farther west, up the valley's gentle western slope, the view sweeps unobstructed over this depression in the upland, over the ridge beyond, over the fertile Genesee flats, and traverses not less than forty miles of eastern horizon dotted with farm buildings and village groups. 10 LIFE OP CLINTOK BOWEK PISK. Half a mile eastward, on the upland ridge, one com- mands the same far-reaching prospect, with a western background, if he turn to note it, only less captivating, where sleep the twin hamlets of Greigsville in a minor valley of their own, and covet nothing more. The house to which Benjamin Eisk removed Lydia and their four boys, and which was hallowed soon with the sacredness of a new maternity, was built for unhal- lowed purposes. Before the Fisks converted it into a domicile it was a distillery — one of those modest manu- factories of liquid death so common in our country sixty years gone by. Its conversion to better uses can be credited to no spirit of local reform, for there were few temperance reformers then, and Benjamin Fisk was not one of those few. Perhaps the distillery did not pay. Larger affairs may have rendered its product unprofit- able. As a distillery it must have been small ; as a resi- dence it was not large. Eighteen by twenty-two feet at the most, and but one story high, it could not have contained more than three or four rooms, and small ones at that. It is standing yet, in habitable preservation, and belongs to the Delaware and Lackawanna Railroad Company, whose thoroughfare cuts clean across the original five-acre lot on which the house was built. Its batten sidings have never seen paint, and look weather- worn, though they are not the same which covered the frame at first. It has grown half a story in height since Mistress Lydia made it homelike, and a small wing has been added on the west end. On a summer's day in 1884 General Fisk went to see it. He had never been back to his birthplace since car- ried away in his mother's arms. The discovery of salt- fields in that neighborhood, and a certainty that the whole region was underlaid by salt beds, had set specu- PAEEKTAGE AND EARLY SUEKOUN'DIKGS. 11 lation rampant. Sharp bargainers were going about leasing or buying, under various pretences, all the land thought available for salt-producing purposes. With a friend the general sought out old residenters, whose recollections might run farthest back. Two sisters were cited — maiden ladies by the name of Tuttle, living alone ; and he called upon them. But when General Fisk began his neighborhood inquiries, explaining that here was his birthplace, the elder sister interrupted him. " Tou needn't come around making believe any such thing, ' ' with quick asperity she said. ' ' I know all you salt speculators, and what you're after. You'd like to get our land, but you can't have it. We won't sell it or lease it to you at any price, and you might just as well go along. " General Fisk' s keen sense of the ludicrous was excited, and he greatly enjoyed her remarks. Her harsh and sus- picious mood melted soon, however, as he went on to estab- lish his identity and prove his errand, and she said at last : " Tes, I remember the morning you were born. I remember rocking the cradle, with you in it, months afterward, when your mother went out to weave some full-cloth at a neighbor's on the hill. You had a good mother. Step to the door with me, and I will show you the very house where she lived." It was duly pointed out, not far up the street, and then they sat Aowa. again to inquiry and reminiscence. Presently, and picking up a church journal lying on the centre-table, the lady asked : " Are you the General Fisk this paper tells about ?— the one who is so much of a temperance man ?" The general recognized his own denominational organ, and answered : " Yes, I suppose 1 am." 12 LIFE OF CLINTOK BOWEK FISK. ' ' Well, ' ' she went on, giving a little chuckle character- istic of her, " 1 don't know as I ought to tell you, but the truth is, your father wasn't just the sort of man you are. " " Do you mean that he did not beheve in temper- ance ?" asked the general. " Not exactly that," was her hesitating reply ; " but he wasn't just like you ;" and she chuckled again. " He would drink sometimes. " " Didn't have a monopoly of that sort of thing, did he ?" the general inquired. " Oh, no, not a bit of it !" she made haste to say, punctuating with a chuckle as she ran on. " 'Most everybody drank then, and your father was in the mili- tary, you know ; and on training days and Fourth of July he drank. But he was a good man and a first- class mechanic, and a man of influence." She has borne similar testimony since, with more free- dom of expression, perhaps, than in the general's pres- ence she could feel ; and she tells, with some pride, how he called to see her, and what she said. She insists that Benjamin Fisk was not a church-going or religious man ; that he seldom or never heard preaching while at that place save at a funeral, with one droll exception. And she chuckles and shakes her plump form more than ever when she recounts that. A minister came along one day, so her story goes, who wanted his horse shod. He was a Baptist minister, and he lived at York. His church was the nearest house of worship, if at that time, as is declared, their only place of religious meeting, at South Greigsville, was a school-house. He drew up beside the shops of Captain Fisk and asked what would be the charge for shoeing his horse all round. " Preach me a sermon, right there on that horse- PARENTAGE AND EARLY SURROUNDINGS. 13 block," the blacksmith said, "and I'll do the job and not charge you a cent." It may be that Captain Fisk was more religious than the old lady admits ; it is possible that he craved the preacher's service, even at considerable cost, when close to hand. Or he may have possessed that swift sense of humor for which his son is noted, and may have seized upon the idea of a wayside sermon as offering some ele- ments of sport. He shod the horse, and then demanded his pay. The preacher, nothing loth, mounted the horse-block, and solemnly, deliberately, set about the task of compensation. He chose a text, announced a theme, divided and subdivided it, and went through with his exegesis, argument, and application, as thor- oughly as if facing his congregation from the pulpit. And so far as known that one auditor never repented his bargain. He sat the sermon through. And if there was any joke in the transaction, it may not have been all against the preacher. Whether religious and church-going or not, Benja- min Fisk had a creed. He was a Universalist. He believed that all men will be saved. He had hot held to the orthodox faith of his fathers, to which his good wife still clung. Of a virile, unyielding, rather severe nature, masterful and combative, he could more easily step outside the narrow lines of individual trust than walk within them. His temperament, of the more heroic, assertive order, grew rebellious against meelc personal sub- mission to the personal requirements of orthodox faith. His dominant characteristics may have come from his grandfather, who fought so bravely on the quarter-deck, as the dominant characteristics of his son, Chnton B., must have come from his grandfather, the gentle-souled peacemaker of Killiugly, or from the maternal side. CHAPTER III. EAKLY BOYHOOD IN MICHIGAN. Aftee eight years of close economy and hard work at Clapp's Corners, Captain Fisk concluded to go farther "West. He was not rapidly getting ahead, and there were the five lads to think of and provide for. Better chances could be found, he felt certain ; and in May, 1830, he sought them in the new territory of Michigan. That was a long way from " the Genesee Country," but, as compared with their former removal, an easy way. They went to Buffalo with teams ; from there the journey was by steamboat to Detroit. Taking pas- sage on " the staunch, low-pressure ' William Peacock,' " as described in the handbills then, they encountered one of the gales for which Lake Erie is famous, and were blown back into port. It was a stormy passage through- out, and occupied nine days. Clinton's older brothers remember it well, and speak of it in tones which imply less lively enjoyment than might have been expected. One of them, "Welcome Y., came near drowning in the river at Detroit, after they reached there. Leaving the wharf, to see a bear-show opposite, he slipped off a log and sank. As he was disappearing the third time, a sailor caught him with a boat-hook and drew him out. Life was apparently gone, and the word went round that a boy was drowned. But resuscitation followed, and just as Mrs. Fisk was counting her children, to see if the reported loss was hers, the dripping lad was brought to EARLY BOYHOOD IN MICHIGAN. 15 her arms still more dead than alive. Thus for the wife and mother Michigan's first greeting had in it trouble and pain, with an outcome of great joy. Lenawee County, in southeastern Michigan, was at that time alluring many settlers. The river Eaisin traversed it, upon the banks of wliich occurred the bloody massacre of 1813. It was all a wilderness nearly, with wet, swampy bottoms, rich, wooded uplands, and Potawatamie Indians in plenty. These latter yet hung about the neighborhood, always friendly and inoffensive, but often a nuisance. Daniel Porter had gone there from York a year earlier and built a log-house two and a half miles north of Clinton, which was five miles north of the then small village of Teeumseh. Clinton had been started and named in 1828 by Alpheus Kies, who there and then opened a log hotel. When Captain Fisk went to it, the place had two hotels and a blacksmith shop, and little else but its name. It has been said that this was given by Clinton's father in equal recognition of the boy, Clinton Fisk, and the governor, DeWitt Clinton ; but "such statement is in part erroneous. Kies gave the name in honor of New York's governor before Captain Fisk applied it to his boy. It was a mere coin- cidence that Clinton Fisk's boyhood should be spent in the town whose name he bore. The Fisks at first moved into Daniel Porter's house, and lived there six weeks. Then they bought out the Clinton blacksmith, one Mordy, locally known as " the beU-maker," because he made so many bells for cattle to wear. His log shop stood on an acre lot upon the east side of the north and south road, only two lots re- moved from the present home of Welcome Y. Fisk, and near the present centre of Clinton. Captain Fisk had spent about all his ready money in the transfer of family 16 IIBB OF CLINTOH BOWEH BISK. and effects, and readied Clinton witli but one dollar and fifty cents left. Tkey must therefore make shift for awMle as best they could, and cheerfully they did it. To the shop they added a log and slab attachment, small and rude, and there for two years they lived, the ringing anvil near at hand, the smoking forge equally close, the wheezy bellows puffing half the time by day, and from the wide-mouthed chimney scattering a frequent shower of sparks by night. The first recollection which abides with General Fisk is of seeing his father stampede the Indians, who often crowded into the shop and annoyed him, by swinging a white-hot iron bar from the forge to the anvil, so that the blistering scales flew from it in pro- fusion and stung their naked legs. It was his accidental way of clearing out the Potawatamies when they became too friendly and famihar. And it never failed. Captain Fisk got on here more encouragingly than hitherto. The country was fast settling up. Se^^eral men followed him to Clinton from the township he had left, and the place bid fair to thrive. He worked early and late, ambitious to secure home and fortune for Lydia and their six growing lads, another boy having been added to the number since they came. He managed to buy eighty acres of wild land two miles away and to pay for it, with the help of some cloth which Lydia wove before their removal and brought with her, and which proved valuable as an article of exchange ; he also built a small frame house near the shop, into which they gladly and proudly went. Then the strong man sick- ened within six months after that better home was his, and when all their prospects began to brighten and give them gladder hope. Smitten with typhus-fever, the result of malarious conditions, no doubt, he mastered the first attack and was getting well, when slight exposure EARLY BOYHOOD IK MICHIGAIT. . 17 caused a relapse that carried him ofE. This was in 1832, and his remains were the first which found sepulture in the graveyard at Clinton. A Methodist minister, Elder Bangs, preached the funeral sermon. "With her six boys — one but a mere babe— her quarter section of wild land, her shop and her encumbered new home, Mrs. Fisk faced rather a sombre future. The home was given up, and the land sold for three hundred dollars. This money she expended in erecting a frame cottage upon another lot, and there she bravely strug- gled to keep her family together. How busy and brave she must have been ! She kept boarders, and did laundry work, and bound hats ; and still she found time to care for the neighborhood sick. All who knew her then and are living now speak warmly of the unselfish- ness she exhibited, the unfailing courage and noble womanliness that were hers. She was loving and true and strong. When his father died, Clinton B. was a chubby little fellow less than four years old. From his mother he inherited a sunny disposition, which quickly won him friends. Sportive, fun-loving, and frank, he grew to be ' the village favorite. An eager thirst for knowledge early possessed him, and almost before any one knew it he had learned to read. In like self-helpful way he ' learned to write. On a dry-goods box one day, in front ^ of the village store, he saw painted in compact, back- '^ hand Italic script the address of 5 Clinton, Mich., \r. Zenawee Co. ii He was captivated by the neat style of lettering, which « some expert shipping clerk had achieved, in the remote 18 LIFE OF CLINTON' BO WEN FISK. city of New York. With impetuous desire, Clinton sought the merchants named, and asked if they would sell him that box. They would, but the small price put upon it was quite beyond his reach. Disappointed and sorrowful, he turned about to leave, but then an alter- native suggested itself. Would they not sell him the one board on which that pretty writing was ? Liking the boy, the merchants said they would do that, and that he might have it for so much, or so little. " And will you take pay in eggs ?" he further asked. Yes, they would accept eggs in payment. " And will you trust me V ' was his final inquiry. They would even do that. And after the bargain was thus closed he took the coveted board and ran home- ward, big with elation, to sit down and calculate how long before he could finish paying his debt with the eggs given him as a premium for careful watching of the nests and gathering of their contents. Having patiently figured out this problem, he set himself to patient imita- tion of the backhand letters, finding in them more than half the alphabet. The broad, smooth hearthstone be- fore the ample fireplace was all the slate he had, and lying there, close to the roaring flames as he could bear, he practised writing, as days and nights wore on, until he mastered the style, and wrote it easily and well. In the same position he studied DaboU's " Arithmetic," and on the same stone surface he set down and wrought out the simpler problems Daboll gave. To the heat of that fireplace and another, so long directed upon his young head while prostrate he wrote and ciphered, his early baldness was unquestionably due. One by one the four boys older than Clinton were put out to live with farmers and mechanics in the vicinity, and thus maternal burdens grew less. Cyrus, Leander EAELY BOYHOOD IX JIICHIGAN. 19 and Horace had comfortable homes, and fairly enjoyed them ; "Welcome fell into the hands of a fiery, brutal Irishman, and finally ran away in seK-defence, and much to his advantage, though he did not go far or stay long. Their mother hoped that Clinton might be kept with her, but it seemed wiser, at last, that he, too, should be making his own way. Across the river and the river flats, beyond where Indian bands had often camped since the village began, in a small log-house containing a big chimney, lived Deacon Elijah Wright. It was barely a mile from the cottage of his mother, and there it was decided CHnton should go. He pleaded for the chance himself. But nine years old though he was, the hunger for an education had seized him and would not be satisfied. Somewhere and somehow he must have the school opportunities which his hard-working mother could not afford. And though he missed no ofiFer of a penny for errands he could do, and saved each coin paid him toward the purpose he had formed, there was little prospect of success unless he should accept the proposition made. He heard it, in his mother's kitchen, his heart beating one tattoo within his breast and his heels beating another upon the washtub whereon he sat. By the terms proposed he was to live with and work for Deacon Wright until twenty-one years old, was to have three months of ' ' schooling ' ' each year for at least four years, and when " of age" he should be paid two hundred dollars in cash and given a horse, saddle, and bridle and two suits of clothes. It seemed a magnificent opportunity, and much as he loved the good mother and hated to leave her, he was in a tremor of fear lest she might pass it by. "O my!" he ejaculated, "such a chance as that! I'll go, mother ! I'll go !" 20 LIFE OF CLINTON' BOWEN FISK. And so lie settled it. Go ho did next day. There was a wide, wide world of knowledge outreaching before him, and he could explore it, or so he fancied, from those paths near by which focused at the deacon' s farm. So glad and grand a thing it seemed, this chance of his, and so glad and elate was he as he kissed his mother good-by at the door, that looking back he wondered why her face grew swiftly sad, and why she put her apron often to her eyes till he was out of sight. CHAPTER IV. AT THE deacon's AND AETEEWAED. It was but an ordinary pioneer home to wliich this hungry lad so gladly went. In it and about it there was enough to busy a chore-boy from year's end to year's end. He was not allowed much leisure, nor did he have a harder time than has or had the average farmer's son. But he lacked the advantages which to-day the average boy enjoys. Books were few in the neigh- borhood, and his craving for them was constant, insati- able. His three months yearly at the log school-house but served to whet an almost abnormal appetite for knowledge, and render him more passionately eager for that which was denied. His chief opportunities for study were not in school, but at the fireplace, as in the home he had left ; and there, stretched flat upon the hearthstone, he lay long evenings through, conning the lessons to be learned, devoiiring every printed page that he could capture. When tired of study he would turn upon his back and count the stars that crossed his field of vision through the yawning chimney's throat. The first literary possession he could call his own was a mutilated copy of Shakespeare. He happened to see it one day in the hands of a neighbor, who was wiping his razor upon its leaves, tearing oS one at a time as needed for that purpose. This vandalism had gone on so long that two or three plays were missing already, but 32 LIFE OF CLIKTOK BOWEN MSK. still lie begged to buy it. . The farmer consented to sell, and Clinton paid him by hoeing corn two days. He felt a sturdy pride in his purchase, damaged though it was ; and what remained of Shakespeare he read as best he could, catching even then, we may believe, some glimmer of the great poet's finest meanings and grandest thoughts. Beginning with this one volume, he estab- lished a genuine circulating library, a shoe-box for his bookcase, of which the emasculated Shakespeare, an entire " Kobinson Crusoe," a worn " Pilgrim's Prog- ress," a " Paradise Lost," and a " Columbian Orator," formed the largest part. If these were not all entertain- ing books for so young a lad, one of them, at least, had fascination in it, and they were such as neighborhood resources would permit. Clinton was bright, quick-witted, ambitious. He had an exceptional memory. He thought much about what he read, and talked of it freely with those around him. The man he served had fair intelligence, and a sensible appreciation of the superiority knowledge gave. Per- haps as much encouragement was given the boy by those he daily met as prudence could justify. He worked faithfully, often hard, but all his spare moments were given to reading. His thirst for knowledge grew daily more intense. Like many another lad, he dreamed of broad endeavor and splendid achievement, and felt in eager haste for manhood's royal morrow. It was in front of Deacon Wright's fireplace that his earliest anti-slavery convictions took root. The deacon was an abolitionist of the original type— tenacious, ardent ; and so was his wife. They held long and animated con- versations over slavery, and all the innate hatred of Clinton's boyish heart quickened and grew strong against it. Yet that he should ever have such part as came to AT THE deacon's AND AFTERAVARD. 23 him in caring for slavery's effects, no prophetic aspira- tions might foretell. The year after he went to live at Deacon "Wright's, a veteran Baptist missionary, Kev. Eobert Powell, held revival meetings in a school-house two miles west. He attended these, and became interested. Young as he was, he had more mental maturity than many older youth ; and back of him was a religious lineage iin- usual, from which he had inherited unusually strong re- ligious tendencies. His temperament was responsive to the touch of divine things. He had read so much, too, that he was well grounded in the fundamentals of Chris- tian faith. One night the preacher's text read : " Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest " (Matthew 11 : 28). A weary working boy, tired with the labors of the day, Clinton had trudged over to the meeting. That Scripture touched him very deeply. He listened with a new tenderness to the ser- mon which followed, and afterward went forward with others for prayers, while the congregation sang, " Alas ! and did my Saviour bleed ?" Across liis soul there rolled a burden of conscious guilt unknown till that hour. He thirsted for the personal comfort of Christ. Then came the hymned confession and covenant of those about him, sweet and pulsing with recognition and avowal — " But drops of grief can ne'er repay The debt of love I owe ; Here, Lord, I give myself away, 'Tis all tliat I can do. " Upon the wings of faith and song his burden lifted. " I adopted the statement and pledge as mine," he testi- fied later, " and was born into the kingdom." A happy 24 LIFE OF CLINTON BOWEN FISK. walk across the fields liomeward finished the day for him, and in his life it formed a way-mark memorable above all others. He was baptized a little later, on a Sunday afternoon, in the river Raisin, by Elder Powell, and joined the Baptist Chnrch. A sturdy little Baptist he remained, too, for some time afterward, as affirmed by one of his playmates still living in Clinton ; an earnest believer in and advocate of immersion, and quite well read in the pros and cons thereof. Best of all, as this gentleman testifies, he was an active, working Christian, solicitous for human souls. lie talked often with the boys who worked and played with him about religious things, and prayed with them as well ; and though he did not cease to be a boy himself, alive, alert, with genuine boyish pranks and innocent mischief, they knew that ho was devoted and sincere. His lips were clean. Only twice does he remember to liave soiled thcni with an oath. On the first occasion he was burning brush in a back lot half a mile away from every one but God. He had heard much profanity, as in those days every boy did hear it. Young tongues and pure could easily echo oaths. They seemed to many youth the manly form of emphasis. Vexed and fretted by some obstacle his hands encountered, Clinton voiced a mild expletive, Avhich did not violate the third com- mandment. It shocked him, however, coming from himself. It violated his integrity of Christian speech. Conscience began at once to goad him and give him jiunishment. He could neither be happy nor work on until, kneeling by a stump near by, he had acknowledged his fault and sin, and implored God's forgiveness. And of his second slip he repented in similar swift fashion, never to err that way again. AT THE deacon's AND AFTERWARD. 35 As Clinton read and studied on before the fireplace in the farmer's home, or, often, with book in hand, about his duties as chore-boy, there grew within him a desire for wider things. This chance that had appeared at first so fine did not develop as he supposed it would, or in the ratio of his developing aspirations. At best he could count upon two or three years only, in the aggregate, of school advantages, before he should come "of age" and command his time; and he daily hun- gered for more, and of a better sort. At length hesita- tion yielded to hope, and ho laid the case before Deacon AVright. But the deacon failed to see any way of satis- faction. Then Western, his younger brother — so named because of the Western fever which brought Captain Fislc to Michigan — fell ill and died. The older boys were scattered, as has been said. Their mother was left en- tirely alone. She missed her baby, and grew more lone- some and unhappy week by week. She coveted Clinton, and sought to secure his return. Between her and Deacon Wright there were many interviews and seasons of consideration, with the subject of them all a deeply interested listener or participant. It grew to be a grave question, in his mind, whether the terms his master pro- posed, as conditioning his release, could be met ; and he spent anxious hours with the deacon in discussing them. At last concessions were made which Mrs. Fisk accepted, and after two years and a littla more of farm life Clinton found himself back with his mother, sharing cheerfullj' the poverty she bore, because free to work out, with her consent and help, the better things of which ambitiously he dreamed. He did not find the doors of opportunity wide open even now. It was not easy for the boy of eleven to overcome such difficulties as hedged him in. But he '^Cj vaz (it CLisrojc kowex rx»K- •w'dn at home, and hh rri other's fy^nnsel* were: wi«e, Jier lore v/as frrc-at. Thtr'^ must %rn<; l/ri^ter day» farther on- 11 sVwjnld te her hrave and clifcerfnl helper. Somehow tliey should gc-t along. lie rrright ;;o r/> -/;}i'^y>l, wl&n &e}ioyal rriotlier-heart to ry>rfi- fort him in gnch :■;-';%?. and blester] -//!«e I ISiemed n the inan who can look l^ack upon a W.Lood ennobled and inspired by saeh a motlier-lieart I WhAte^erhe 'y.-uM do Clinton did t^> Lf;]p tlie mother who iso },h.Y-A liim. AI! -s^irrj- of odd job* were thrown into his hands by n^;.':.'?.bor5» and clerks, each of wliom liked the lad and wante'l to ssee him sncceed. Be ran erraTids, lie carried par;!-: %.;.«-., he v,a*/;re^l hor-se«, he drove cows ; lie to'/k gnch pay as came- Often his com- p^isatioTi was in soine printed form or other — a stray m&;.'^^:ne, or an old newspaper, or a well-thtimbed l>ook wlueh none co --'eted but he. In rJah manner he acquired and read " TL'^ Fiekwick Piper-," tJi/;3i rnnning as a serial in a P;..'!^>;!phia journal, and reverting from the regular subscriber to ;;.r,i.%elf. Hi? ta«*A did rio* di«crim- iTjAte aj.'a!iiit i.r.y}.'.:.^ in the .-iiape of pnr.r, triat for.ane threw in his way, lie read omniroronsly, with varying; iritere-;t, to be sure, but always interenied. 'Whatever '.'=si.y-A 07 the JW.fAutum or ihvery, or was adapted to deelamatioii, he ca . g;it at quickest. The riat: re iri.^tinct» of arj orator were his, aid he soon comTfjItte^i to r.'.ejnoty everv ps^^e in tl-e old '•' Columbian " colle^rtion, rceg often to an imaginary audience, and t..r:„'r.g v, 'th the efro.t tha«s made. It must hare V^^r. J-;>.t after Lf-i returr: from life on the A'^j'/jZi'T. hain tr.^t h^ fir^ pnhlidy appeared in an oxav^rical capacity. With .^me other active lads he AI THE DEACOX'S A^TD APTEBWABD; 2T planned a Fourth of July celebration, and was designated to deliTer the address. With all possible care he wrote it oat ; Schoolmaster Tidl corrected it and perhaps a linle improved it ; and then he carefully memorized the production. It glowed with revolutionary spirit and patriotism. It was radical with anti slavery sentiment. Irs delivery, in a grove by the riverside, before a real audiraice numbering about all the people in that neigh- borho