LETTER OF MR. FRANK M. CHANDLER.

Mr. L. F. Mellen,

Secretary Early Settlers' Association,

My dear Mr. Mellen:

In response to your request for some reminisences of my father's residence in Cleveland will say:

My grandfather Joel Chandler came to Cleveland from Alstead, N. H., with his family in 1835. Fifty years later my father told the story of the journey to Ohio in rhyme as follows:

THE JOURNEY TO OHIO.

Among the best remembered things
Borne from the past on memory's wings,
Is the experience I had

When I was yet a little lad,

Eleven years had shone upon

And life had been a quiet one:

For then my parents deemed it best

To leave New Hampshire and "go west,"
And to the fair Ohio state

Prepared themselves to emigrate.

One September afternoon,

We harnessed up the black and bay
And everything was ready soon
To say farewell and drive away.

The preparations all complete
Each in the wagon took a seat,

The parents two and children three,

Were all our small family.

Farewells and hand shakes soon were done,

Our faces turned toward the west;

Our long journey was begun

And that first night our welcome rest
At Uncle Stowell's home we found

In Rockingham, State of Vermont;

And when next morning westward bound
We said, "good bye" to Uncle, Aunt
And cousins four-and then we went
Across the mountains green
And sundown saw at Arlington.
So on we went, day after day,
Drawn by our faithful black and bay,
Across the Empire State we passed,
The Keystone State came next and last.
And thus for more than twenty days
We traveled on the western ways,
Till on Lake Erie's southern shore
We reached a city-one that bore
The name of Cleveland, and where we
Found shelter with a family

Of dear old neighbors, we had known

In brave New Hampshire's land of stone.

The "old neighbors" he mentions, was the family of Deacon Benjamin Rouse who lived on the Public Square near Superior Street. Other early settlers in Cleveland who came from the same locality in New Hampshire, were the families of Elijah Bingham, Silas Brainard, W. W. Partridge and Hiram Smith, the latter being my grandmother Chandler's brother and who lived on Vermont Street in Ohio City.

My grandfather lived on a small farm outside the city limits near what is now the junction of Prospect and Bolivar Streets. In 1838 he removed to Richfield, Summit County where he resided until his death which occurred in 1865.

SINKING OF THE LADY ELGIN.

In 1860 the Steamer Lady Elgin, Capt. John Wilson, built in 1851 was run into and sunk by the schooner Augusta on lake Michigan. Three hundred lives were lost. Mr. Henry C. Work, the most famous song writer of the Civil War put the Lady Elgin disaster into sang. It may here be said Mr. Work wrote "Marching Through Georgia," "Grandfather's Clock," "Wake Nicodemus," "Come Home Father," and a number of other songs, for a time quite popular; some of them still so. As there has been considerable inquiry of late as to the words of the Lady Elgin song we here give it entire:

"Up from the poor man's cottage,
Forth from the mansion door,

Sweeping across the waters,

And echoing from shore to shore,
Caught by the morning breezes,
Borne on the evening gale,
Cometh the voice of mourning,

A sad and solemn wail.

Chorus:

"Lost on the Lady Elgin,
Sleeping to wake no more,
Numbered with that three hundred,
Who failed to reach the shore.
"Staunch was the noble steamer,
Precious the freight she bore,
Gaily she loosed her cables,
A few short hours before;
Grandly she swept her harbor,

Joyfully rang her bell;

Little thought we ere morning
'Twould toll so sad a knell.

"Oh! 'tis the cry of children,
Weeping for parents gone—
Children who slept at evening,
But orphans awoke at dawn!
Sisters for brothers weeping,
Husbands for missing wives-
Such are the ties that severed
In those three hundred lives."

THE JUG ON THE TABLE.

A Reminscence From Col. O. J. Hodge's Book of Historic Events in Cleveland.

In 1816 that part of Cuyahoga County known as Rockport, became a township and elected its first officers. On election day when the people came together to vote, it was pretty well understood who were to be the trustees, and who the township clerk. The candidates, however, wanted to make their election a sure

thing, so in accordance with the spirit of the times, they sat a jug of whiskey free to all who came. That all came, it may be safe to believe, as the candidates were unanimously elected. For eleven years thereafter at very township election there was a jug of free whiskey on the table. It was a cheap way to please the voters, as whiskey in that day sold at twenty cents a gallon.

In 1827 Mr. Datus Kelly, an old resident of Rockport, appeared at the polls with a paper protesting against the free whiskey practice. When Mr. Kelly had secured about a dozen names to his paper, he ran up against a snag. A man who was asked to sign, shouted, "Men, do you know what you are doing? Do you you know you are signing away your liberty? Remember the immortal words of Thomas Jefferson, 'Give me liberty or give me death'." This brought forth loud applause. They had heard a good deal about Jefferson, but knew very little about Patrick Henry. Some who had signed, now backslid, whether this came from the speech or the fact that a man was seen nearby with a fresh jug of whiskey. That day the "jug ticket" won, but never since at any election in Rockport has there been a whiskey jug on the table. This was the first temperance movement in Cuyahoga County. All honor to Datus Kelly. Rockport should erect a tall monument to his memory.

LAST WORDS FROM CHAPLAIN JONES.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I asked the President to let me speak to you for five minutes. I have been associated with Christian charity in Cleveland since the date of my birth. My father preached the gospel in this neighhood before there was a church here, since 1829. I heard the stories of charity work which was carried on when I was a child, and I want to speak just on this one point, the great and good results that spring from charity work carried on in a Christian spirit. From the members of this Chamber of Commerce today, there are more than one hundred whose names I could give you, who are the children of men who had to depend at an early date on charity. I could give you the names of some of the leading lawyers in the