Search the Newspapers Browse Newspapers by Date Articles Indexed by Topic About the Newspapers Valley of the Shadow Home

Franklin Repository: December 02, 1868 Go To Page : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

The Teachers' County Institute
(Column 06)

Summary: The paper prints an account of the Teachers' County Institute that met in the Chambersburg Court House on the 16th. One hundred and ten teachers attended to hear essays and addresses. Topics included school government, the need for textbook uniformity, teacher compensation, and improving the religious character of the schools. Individual subjects were also addressed including penmanship, mental arithmetic, and poetry.
(Names in announcement: Rev. Barnes, L. S. Clarke, B. F. Cormany, Samuel Gelwix, J. R. Gaff, W. H. Hockenberry, I. Y. Atherton, Brewer, J. W. Coble, D. W. Sollenberger, L. W. Detrich, W. C. M'Lellan, J. P. Wichersham, E. Burke, A. M'Elwain, Prof. Congdon, S. H. Eby, T. M. Richards, D. W. Ward, Rev. P. S. Davis, A. H. DeHaven, J. D. Shumaker, Rev. Keckler, J. H. Shumaker, J. Eckhart, Miss S. A. Reynolds, Miss L. A. Brewer, G. H. Cook, Samuel Gelwix, Rev. C. W. M'Keehan, Enterline, O. C. Bowers, Houck, Zook, Prof. Jackson, Shoemaker, Boyd, J. H. Thomas, J. R. Gaff, Stine, Kugler, Whetstone, Rev. Huber, Wickersham, Lull, D. C. Ward)

Meeting of Congress
(Column 01)

Summary: The editor praises the Fortieth Congress for its efforts in bringing the country back together. He outlines some of the problems Congress will face in the next session, specifically providing proper governments for Virginia, Mississippi, Texas, and Georgia. The paper also gave a short eulogy in honor of the late Thaddeus Stevens.

Full Text of Article:

The second session of the Fortieth Congress will meet on Monday next.--Its term will be brief, expiring by constitutional limitation on the 4th of March. At its close dissolves a body which sat and legislated during the most complicated and critical period of our country's history, and who were required to solve the greatest problems which can arise for the determination of a Republican government. It was required to adjust our National affairs to the new order of things evolved out of a fierce and protracted civil war, wherein the vital principle of our Government was put on trial, and to heal the wounds and remove the scars made by the strife. Acting as the trusted servant of the people and guardian of their sacred rights, its members come back fresh from their constituents with their work fully endorsed and vindicated. The verdict of the people unmistakably rendered at the ballot box is, well done good and faithful servants. In the meter of Reconstrustion, then we take it that Congress cannot fairly be expected to take a step backward, and it only remains to perfect that which is not yet completed.

The assembling of Congress will be a proud occasion for the noble men who return to the capital carrying with them the approval of their constituents in the election of General Grant. But there are those who will not return. The noblest Roman of them all sleeps in the grave. Thaddeus Stevens, mighty in intellect, fearless in statesmanship, incorruptible in his life, closed his eyes in death when he had beheld the principles for which he battled from youth to old age made sure and irrevocable. It is no idle figure of speech to say that for years the eyes of the whole country were upon him. Year after year he returned to Washington and to his great work with purpose unshaken and hope undimmed for the safety of the Republic. Each returning session found him more and more enfeebled by age, but his heart beat with all the enthusiasm of youth responsive to the call of universal Freedom and universal Justice, and his mighty intellect disdained the destroying hand of time. With perception almost as clear as inspiration he saw far into the future, compassed the ends of treason, and more than all others thwarted its efforts for civil victories when overthrown in the field. He was a ruler among men by force of the mastery of his intellect; and he alone could marshall the forces of Freedom and hold them in his hand to hurl them alike against the spirits of treason, of ambition, of prostituted power or of weak and time-serving demagogueism. He towered so high over all others that none disputed his right to lead and command, as none doubted his patriotism, his honesty or his philanthrophy. But he is gone and we see him only through his works. He belongs to history whose unerring hand will mould from these an image whose features will bear all the linaments of his noble life, and place it so high that they can be seen and read by all the lowly and despised of the earth for whom he lived and labored. When posterity shall review the struggle of civilization and barbarism for the mastery, which rocked the country to its centre, his name will be first lisped by youth and linger last on the tongue of old age. Others have reached higher official position than he, but their names will pass from recollection while that of the friendless, unknown New England boy will grow brighter so long as intelligence is a virtue and higher civilization and purer laws are esteemed by the people.

But though the contemplation of Stevens' life warms the heart, it is not of him we meant to write. We do not assume to predict what Congress will do, and may err in our view as to what it should do for the country. Of course among the first things to engage its attention will be to form a more perfect Union. There are still three States, Virginia, Mississippi and Texas, without representation in Congress, and without State governments, having thus far refused to accept the liberal measures of the Reconstruction Act provided by Congress for such States as had been in rebellion. Congress will likewise, doubtless, inquire whether the State of Georgia has ever ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution so as to make her present government a legal one, and entitle her Representatives to a seat in Congress.

The Amendment was passed by a body composed largely of members who were disqualified by the terms of the Amendment itself from a seat in any legislature. The same body excluded thirty members of the legislature on the ground that they were disqualified by the laws of the State from holding office, but only after the Amendment had been passed by the votes of those whom they excluded. Whether then they hold their places in the legislature contrary to the Amendment or whether the colored members who gave to the Amendment the requisite votes to pass it are disqualified by the State of Georgia, in either event she is not in the Union, and her Government is only provisional.

It becomes the duty of Congress to interfere, then, and secure to the people of Georgia as to the reconstructed States a constitution which will confer equal political rights on both races. Having never accepted the Amendment, Georgia has neither members of the House of Representatives nor Senators.

We believe that what is yet to be done for the Southern States will be done without further resistance on the part of those who are reaping the bitter fruits of their own folly and madness. It is possible that those States not yet admitted may give earnest assistance in restoring them to their places in the Union. We trust they may; but if they still obstinately refuse, let them not fail to understand that the work of Reconstruction is not finished until every one of the States is restored to the Union, and that the execution of the work is in the hands of Congress, who will begin the job at once, and do it thoroughly. The popular verdict has so decreed it and it will be done.

The financial condition of the country is such as to demand the immediate attention of Congress, and all the ability of that body will be needed to lessen the stringency of the money market, and enliven the stagnancy of trade and industry.

The financial policy of the Secretary of the Treasury has certainly not been a success, and this, together with the lack of unanimity on the part of the Congress as to any given policy, and the repudiation theories of some, has brought alarm and distrust and financial ruin all over the country. The people look to Congress for relief. Anything which will restore confidence in our finances will bring relief. Let there be honesty on the part of the Government towards its creditors, and it will do more good to the country than months of doubtful integrity such as has been witnessed in the past.

Life Insurance Investments
(Column 03)

Summary: The paper stresses the importance of purchasing life insurance, and especially endorses the National Life Insurance Company. George Eyster is the local agent.
(Names in announcement: George Eyster)

The Monumental Association
(Column 03)

Summary: The paper calls on all citizens, especially women, to raise funds for a memorial to the fallen soldiers from Franklin county.

Full Text of Article:

We would call the attention of our readers to the careful perusal of the supplement to this week's REPOSITORY, asking aid for the Franklin County Monumental Association. There is not a man or woman in Franklin county who cannot do something to encourage and assist this worthy object. To work for this noble enterprise should be a pleasure; it is a duty we owe to our hundreds of widows and orphans, to our heart-broken sisters and mothers, to our fathers and brothers, to the patriotic comrades of those who died, to the dead themselves. Let us tell posterity that those who die for their country and their country's flag shall ever be remembered by a grateful people. From every hamlet, township and borough brave men went forth never more to return. These heroes stood as a wall of fire between our homes and our foes.--We were proud of their bravery, their patriotism, their devotion to liberty. Let us now erect a monument on which shall be inscribed the name of every hero and soldier from Franklin county, who died that the nation might live. We can do it. Let each township select men and women who will work, work unceasingly until the monument is a fixed fact.--That we will have one there is no doubt, but let it be such a one as will be a credit to our generosity, and reflect honor on this portion of our State. We more particularly appeal to our ladies throughout the county to take an interest in this matter. We know what they have done in Chambersburg, and with the same energy, the same determination to succeed in our towns and townships, it will be but a short time ere the funds will be raised.

Flag Presentation
(Column 01)

Summary: The editor prints in detail speeches given by Mr. C.M. Duncan and Capt. Skinner during the presentation of a flag to the Housum Zouaves. Both of these men mainly praised Col. Housum's conduct during the war and the great deeds of the Housum Zouaves.
(Names in announcement: C. M. Duncan, Capt. Skinner, Col. P. B. Housum)

Full Text of Article:

One of the most pleasing features of Thanksgiving Day, was the presentation of a flag by Hon. C.M. Duncan to the Housum Zouaves of this borough. The company was drawn up in line under command of Capt. Skinner. On presenting the flag, Mr. Duncan spoke as follows:

Officers and members of this company:

Some time since at our last Agricultural Fair, ballots were cast by our citizens to chose a name for your company. Among the names upon the list appeared my own, and the result of the election showed that my name received the highest number of votes. For this unexpected and distinguished honor, I am much indebted to my friends in the town and country, and embrace this opportunity of returning to them my heartfelt and sincere thanks for their kind partiality.

This honor, though flattering as it was and is, and grateful as I assure you all I feel towards those who generously conferred it upon me; still, I now, with the consent of this company, transfer it to one more deserving and meritorious.

Twelve years ago when I came a stranger to this town, among the first of my friends and acquaintances made here, was Col. P.B. Housum. He was then a man busy in the active duties of life, with a reputation unblemished, a high toned and honorable gentleman.--He was, for years, my intimate personal friend.

When the civil war broke out, and our Government called for volunteers to defend the integrity of the Union, among the first to leave home, with its ten thousand endearments and to go forth to face a deadly foe; and alas! that we have it to say, among the first to fall in the strife, was Col. Housum.

For thirteen months, in active service, he escaped unharmed; but at the battle of Stone River, while at the head of his column, repelling an assault of Gen. Hardie's corps, he fell mortally wounded; he was borne by his comrades from the field, and that night, the 31st of December, as the Southern winds chanted a solemn requiem for the dying Housum. He died covered with glory and his remains now fill an honored soldier's grave. Though his ears are deaf to our praise, and his eyes closed to this scene, and his tongue is silent still there are many who will heartily sanction the tribute of respect we this pay to his memory. And it is fitting that this company, composed of young men of this borough, here, where Col. Housum lived and moved amongst us, and where his widow and fatherless children now live, should bear his name. And I know of no one more worthy, Captain, than yourself, you who shared the dangers of that day with Col. Housum, and was among the first to raise him from the ground where he fell, to receive this banner with his name inscribed upon it.

Let me have the honor of presenting this flag to the "Housum Zouaves."

The Star Spangled Banner needs no comments of mine. It is "known and honored throughout the whole world." Its bright stars guided our forefathers through the long, dark nights of the American Revolution. It cheered the hearts, nerved the arms and strengthened the hands of Washington and his compatriots during seven years of holy war, fighting for the independence of this people, and in laboring to lay the foundations of this Republic.

It is the same Flag beneath which, in the war of 1812, the vaunted Lion of old England was made to crouch the second time.

It is the same banner under which, on the unequal battlefield of Buena Vista, Gen. Taylor rallied his thinned regiments, and won immortal fame; and it was afterwards triumphantly unfurled in the Regal Halls of the Montezumas.

Before it paled the rebellious banner of stars and bars; and it now spreads triumphantly its ample folds over the entire American people.

It is seen floating in triumph amid the ice-bound rivers and snow-clad hills of Alaska, as well as in the flower-decked fields of the distant South; it is found swinging gaily from the mast-heads of ten thousand vessels on the Atlantic coast, and on the Pacific shores; it unfurls its Stars and Stripes, above the earthquakes of the Californias. It is honored in every land, on every sea, by every nation under the whole heavens.

"And long may it wave,

O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave."

Capt. Skinner replied eloquently, and said:

MR. DUNCAN--Sir: In behalf of the members of this organization, allow me to return you, the generous donor of this flag, their most heartfelt thanks. Appreciating, as we do, the motives which led you to lay aside an honor conferred upon yourself, and to ask that it be transferred to the memory of one fallen in his country's service, we cannot, nevertheless, forget on whom that honor was first bestowed. We accept, sir, the flag, and the name which you have suggested, instead of your own. I speak for myself, and I believe for every man in these ranks when I say that no act of ours shall ever be so construed as to reflect dishonor upon the name of that gallant officer which is inscribed there upon its field, or upon the name of him, our honored fellow-townsman, from whose hands we have just received it. It is not at all probable we will ever be called upon to carry it over fields sultry with the hot breath of flying missiles, or into breaches where death lurks in a thousand rifles. But I am assured were duty to call us under its lead into the midst of such scenes, these men here would only consent to its being trailed in the dust and dishonored when the hearts that beat beneath their uniforms were still in death. We are not unmindful of the fact, sir, that a national ensign can be disgraced elsewhere than on the field of battle, and by other means than its cowardly desertion. Men have disgraced the uniforms they wore and the flag they enlisted under by ungentlemanly and dishonorable conduct at home. I trust, sir, you may never have to record such conduct on the part of any member of the Housum Zouaves. In listening to your eloquent and deserved tribute to the memory of that gallant officer, I was reminded of the part he played in the morning of that day on which he yielded up his life. How courageously he bore up under the severe reverse we were then experiencing; how he urged his men to stand firm in their places, and how, when the fatal bullet had laid him low, with remarkable presence of mind, he called to the next officer in rank to take the command which he was now relinquishing at the bidding of death. In addition to what you have said, allow me, as one who served under him, to bear my testimony to his personal worth. Emphatically a soldier, Col. Housum was also a christian, and many of his regiment will well remember his gentle reproofs when he had caught them in some sinful amusement. No officer died more universally beloved by his men. The monument which stands in yonder cemetery was reared by their hands, as a slight manifestation of the affection they cherished toward him. Your words but re-echo the feelings of our own breasts, when you express the hope that the occasion will never arise for a recurrence of such scenes as many here present were called on to witness a few years ago, when men in the forefront were dying beneath the drooping folds of their country's flag, and loving hearts around the home fireside were bursting with pain and dread. While it is our hope and belief that the war will not come again upon the land, we nevertheless conceive it to be the duty of every patriotic citizen to hold himself in readiness to support and defend the institutions of his country when endangered from any source whatever. This is the object of our organization as avowed in the preamble to its constitution. Again, sir, we thank you. And to you, the officers and soldiers of the Housum Zouaves, I charge you to see well to the fact that the pledges I have just made, in your behalf, be fulfilled, and that the proud name of Peter B. Housum be in no way tarnished by its new association.

The company spent the day in Greencastle, where they were hospitably entertained.

The Cumberland Valley Railroad Company
(Column 02)

Summary: The paper praises the importance and promise of the Cumberland Valley Railroad that runs between Harrisburg and Hagerstown. The road links "the prolific fields of the South and the great workshops of the North." The editors assert that the country it traverses is unusually rich in mineral resources.

[No Title]
(Column 02)

Summary: The Monumental Association held a well-attended concert on Thanksgiving evening to raise money for the soldiers' monument. The paper prints a program of the event.
(Names in announcement: Mary Snider, Prof. J. H. Shumaker, Fuller, Pillsbury, Engle, Henninger, Mr. Snibbs, Mrs. Snibbs, Kate Hazelet, Lizzie M'Keehan, Miss Donovan, Mr. Donovan, Heyser, Miss Huston)

A Paying Investment
(Column 03)

Summary: Samuel Myers, agent for Mrs. C. A. Radebaugh, sold off seventeen lots on West King Street. They were offered at 10 percent cash, the balance payable at the end of 10 years at 6 percent interest. The paper praises the project. "It will not only enlarge and improve our town, but it gives the poor man an opportunity of procuring himself a home. Let our laborers and others who are renting from year to year buy themselves a piece of ground, for the moderate price they can obtain it from Mr. Myers, and have a place that they and their little ones can call their own. Men of moderate means should not let this opportunity go by unimproved, for there is a speculation in it."
(Names in announcement: Samuel Myers, Mrs. C. A. Radebaugh)

Chambersburg Building Association
(Column 03)

Summary: The paper recorded the report of the Chambersburg Building Association.

Full Text of Article:

The report of the Chambersburg Building Association made at its last meeting for the year ending Nov. 16th, is as follows:

The receipts for Dues, Fines, Transfers, interests &c., including the Premium on 76 shares sold, have been $19,496.07 The expenditures for Printing, Rent, Stationery, Secretary and Attorney's salary, &c., including 76 shares paid, have been 19,321.53 Leaving bal. in hands of Treasurer $174.54

The present condition of the Association is--

76 shares paid 19,000.00 Dues unpaid 64.00 Fines unpaid 13.25 Interest 13.90 Bal. on hand 174.54 19,265.29 Deduct amount overpaid 32.60 Assets over liabilities $19,233.09 Amount paid on each share $26.00 Present Value of each share $38.46

Average Premium for year 30 per cent.

[No Title]
(Column 04)

Summary: The Rev. Samuel Barnes of the Methodist Church delivered a sermon in Chambersburg's German Reformed Church on Thanksgiving Day.
(Names in announcement: Rev. Samuel Barnes)

Religious
(Column 04)

Summary: Rev. I. N. Hays, the pastor-elect of the Central Presbyterian Church, will deliver his first sermon in the Court House on Sunday.
(Names in announcement: Rev. I. N. Hays)

Married
(Column 04)

Summary: Frank T. Rineheart of Chambersburg and Miss Hannah L. Keefer of Guilford were married on November 7th by the Rev. F. Dyson.
(Names in announcement: Frank T. Rineheart, Hannah L. Keefer, Rev. F. Dyson)

Married
(Column 04)

Summary: William C. Shearer of Spring Run and Miss Mattie A. Kirkpatrick of Dry Run were married on November 17th by the Rev. William A. West.
(Names in announcement: William C. Shearer, Mattie A. Kirkpatrick, Rev. William A. West)

Married
(Column 04)

Summary: Jacob F. Shearer of Metal and Miss Maggie A. M'Cartney of Spring Run were married on November 18th by the Rev. William A. West.
(Names in announcement: Jacob F. Shearer, Maggie A. M'Cartney, Rev. William A. West)

Married
(Column 04)

Summary: John M'Causland of California and Miss Rachael R. Shields of Mercersburg were married in the Presbyterian Church in Mercersburg on November 26th by the Rev. Thomas Creigh.
(Names in announcement: John M'Causland, Rachael R. Shields, Rev. Thomas Creigh)

Died
(Column 04)

Summary: Stuart M'Gowan died in Fayetteville on November 30th. He was 19 years old.
(Names in announcement: Stuart M'Gowan)