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About Valentine Democrat. (Valentine, Neb.) 1900-1930 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 9, 1909)
' . ' " . . . ' - . EXPLODING THE MYTHS OF CAPTAIN KIDD . . Actual Facts in the Legend ary Career of the Scotch man Who W as Accused : . . of Piracy and for Whose Fabulous Buried Treas ure Adventurers Are Still 1 Jt , Seeking. \ The buried treasure of Capt. Kidd Is one of the greatest myths of mod- ern times. Kiddte ' gold has been sought for 200 years. The waters of bays , rivers and lagoons have been swept for the hulk of his sunken ship. Quest of the treasure of Capt. Kidd must always be in vain , for Kidd buried no treasure , says the Philadelphia Ledger. Neither of the two vessels in -which he cruised during his years of free roving was sunk , so there can be no sunken hulk of Capt. Kidd's laden with gold or otherwise. The Adventure Galley , in which he began his cruises , was condemned as unseaworthy and burned at Madagas- . _ THE MANOR HOUSE' ON GARDINER'S ISLAND. car. His other ship the Quedah Mer- chant , was burned at Hispaniola ( San Domingo ) after Kidd's arrest in Bos- ton. The sloop San Antonio , in which Kidd came north , was seized in Bos- ton. Fanciful stories have been told of Kidd's visit to Gardiner's Island and . . his burial of treasure there. The only authentic account of his visit there is in the testimony of John Gardiner , given under oath at Boston about three weeks \ : after Kidd's visit. . It makes no mention of the treasure hav ing been buried. An official abstract of Mr. Gardiner's testimony was as follows : About 20 days ago Mr. Emott , of New York : , came to his ( Gardiner's ) house and desired a boat to go to New York ; furnished him one ; that even- . ing he ( Gardiner ) saw a sloop ( the San Antonio. with six guns riding off ( Gardiner's ) island ; two days after- ward in the evening Gardiner went on board the sloop to inquire what she was. When he came on board Capt. Kidd till then unknown to him , asked him how himself and family did ; said he was going to Lord Bellomont at Bos- ton , and desired him to [ carry two negro boys and one negro girl ashore and keep them until he returned or his order called for them ; about ten . - _ _ i I - _ r _ I - S . I _ \ - _ _ - S , I - = - - - 1/ . . : : . # / - large blacksnake lying at her feet. The frightened woman jumped back , catching her hair in the wire netting overhead , while the frightened snake glided out the other way. Mrs. Smith's head was badly torn , some cf the hair . being pulled out by the roots. : , . . . . . " , ' ' ' _ r ' ' ' : ' r . \ - , . . . . . . . . , . . , , " - _ . . - rI ! ' - ' " - J'T " - - " - ' - - . . 'y &r.JIV'-- _ 'X ' TTSUenf-yj - . . ' - r : sm.i-wiiS'aw ' - . . . . " " - : ' ' A - = . 'Tw . - . { - . - _ _ 't. " . . . . . . ' : : : ; . . , . : : . - . _ z. . _ . . _ " _ 'I' ! ZBI- - - - " " - " - - : l -4" v . = , - ' " " 'r . : ; : : . . . . . - - _ : : ; ; ; ; . . . ; r ' _ - , - . . . , , _ _ _ ' _ _ . " " ' - - - .n- _ " - J7 * _ - " - - . . J" TFrraiiTi"f ' . . . .c : : . -i ; Tff - : . . ' - ° _ . . v. It /f1 : - - . . - rsr . . . . ' - . . i III. , _ _ _ _ - k , , . . - - - - - : . r t : . . : : ' . - , - w + - - . .40- ' - - - ' , - . . - Ij ] - . j- " . : : _ : . _ _ . : s--- : _ . -j-"l _ . . " 1.- _ , - . . . . - j I 7 : .1 = I : . ' WIk1 _ t , : :2- : 1 ! r dt'L.j ' . . * ' . , - - . - - , - . . " . : - . . . . . . . . . . : . . . . . . - _ . . . - - - . - - - - _ . " , - . . . ' - . . . . "t iI - - " ' - . 4h ± + : :2X - -4 I . - . . . . . - . . - - . . ; ; . ; , WOMAN HELD AT SNAKE'S MERCY From one danger into another was Mrs. Lydia . Smith's predicament , , when , in trying to escape a snake , she caught her hair in a wire fence and badly lacerated her scalp before she could be extricated. Mrs. : \ Smith , who lives in Clayton Del. , while on an out- ing at Rehobeth , went to a small hen house in the back yard to catch a rhicken for dinner. As slio entered the wire inclosed yard she found a hours after he had taken the negroes , Kidd sent his boat ashore with two bales of goods and a negro boy. . Next morning Kidd desired Gard- iner to come on board immediately and bring six sheep with him for his voyage to Boston , which he did ; then Kidd desired him to spare a barrel of cider , which he consented to do. Gard- iner sent two of his men for it , and while they were gone , Kidd offered Gardiner several pieces of damaged muslin and gengal as a present to his wife. which Kidd put in a bag and handed to him ; about a quarter of an hour after , Kidd gave Gardiner two or three pieces of damaged muslin for his own use. An outline of the events that led to Kidd's being charged with piracy is necessary to an understand- ing of the situation in which he now found himself. For some years Kidd had been a shipmaster sailing out of New York : , and for a time had com- manded a privateer , cruising against the French in the 'Vest' Indies. He was prosperous , and tradition places in his house in Liberty street the first Turkey carpet seen in New York. In 1695 fate ordained a change in th life of Capt. . Kidd. In that year he was in London. commanding the brig- antine Antigoa , of New York , when the King appointed Richard Coote , Earl of Bellomont , Governor of New England and New York. ellomont : _ was ambitious , and saw in the sup- pression of piracy , at which the Col- onial Governors had been winking , a field for personal advancement and gain. Before leaving England he asked that an English frigate be sent to sup- press the pirates , and not getting it he decided to fit out a privately owned ship. He cast about for a captain , and Robert Livingston , founder of the New York family of that name , who i was then in London , recommended Capt. Kidd as the proper man. Kidd was disinclined to take the position , but Bellomont intimated that Kidd's own vessel would be detained in the Thames if he did not , and he yielded. For two years little was heard from the Adventure Galley , either in New York or London , but that little was bad. Ships brought stories that Kidd had turned pirate. One report was that he had taken : a great ship , the Quedah Merchant , and had left his own ship " to cruise as a pirate in her. This was hard news for Capt. Kidd's wife , faithful and anxious in their New York home , waiting , with their two children , for his return. It dis turbed Kidd's noble partners also. though for a different reason. Kidd was compromising them. He was not careful enough. He must be dropped. So they sent warships to hunt him ' " ' .I wrCTING I i s TliE QNSU . . , , _ - - ' "h The Director of the Census is Edwin Dana Durand , Michigan : man , born in 1871. For two years he was legislative librarian of the New York Scate Library. For another year he was assistant professor of administra- tion and finance at Stanford University. From 1900 until 1902 he was secretary of the industrial commission , and for a short time before going to the census bureau as special expert he was instructor of economics at Harvard. The history of census taking in this country may be divided into three periods , determined by fundamental acts of Congress. The first of these extends from 1790 until 1850. During this period the Department of State had charge of the work , while United States marshals and their assistants supervised and collected the data. In the second period , extending from 1850 until the law of 1002 was passed , the Department of the Interior had charge of the work. The laws of 1902 and 1903 providing for the permanent organization and changing the bureau : from the Interior Department to that of Commerce and Labor mark Ihe 1 beginning of the present epoch. As early as 1810 an attempt to include in the census information per- taining to manufactures of this country was made , though it met with little success. The act 01' 1850 increased the objects of inquiry to include mines , manufactures arid agriculture , and with each succeeding decade the scope .of inquiry has been enlarged until the mass of information has become too heavy to handle with ease , and much of it is out of date before it is put into available shape. The eleventh census was not published until seven years after it was begun. The census of 1SSO appeared in 1S89. For each enormous sums of money are spent , thousands of clerks are employed , tons of literature distributed. The four principal reports of the census of 1900 , those on population , agriculture , manufacturing and vital statistics filled ten quarto volumes , 10,000 pages of printed matter , and with the special reports sustained the claim that in the matter of census taking the United States leads in scope I of inquiry , combinatibps of facts and costs incurred. I I . as a pirate. While his backers were d anxiously waiting to hear of his cap- ture Kidd appeared unexpectedly in the West Indies , where he touched at Anguilla April 1 , 1699 , heard that he was wanted as a pirate and now de cided to find Bellomont and set him- self straight if he could. Capt. Kidd was prepared to swear to Bellomont that he was innocent of piracy ; that he had taken only ships which sailed under French papers , and that whatever acts of a piratical na ture he had committed were by his crew , who had mutinied , and locked him in his cabin until the piracies were accomplished. Kidd approached the land first in Delaware Bay , near Lewes , and sent ashore for supplies. He did not go ashore here , nor did he land any goods. A chest owned by James Gillam , a pirate , who was ' a passenger on Kidd's vessel from Mada- gascar , was landed here by its owner and placed in safe hands. Several peo- ple who sold Kidd supplies were on his vessel. They were later arrested and swore Kidd landed no goods. Kidd's movements from this point on can be traced. He was anxious to communicate with his wife and friends in New York , and to that end he steered for Long Island Sound , entering it at the east end and pro- ceeding as far as Oyster Bay. Here he went ashore and sent a messenger to New York with a letter to James Emott , a lawyer , and a message to his wife. Emott , whose practice em- braced the defense of pirates , hurried to Oyster Bay and went on board Kidd's sloop , which sailed at once for Rhode Island. Here Emott was land- ded in Narragansett Bay , probably near Point Judith , to proceed to Bos- ton , Lord Bellomont being there. Capt. Kidd's advocate arrived in Boston on June 13 , 1699 , and went at once to Bellomont's lodgings. Bellomont prom- ised Kidd security "if he would prove himself as innocent as Emott said he was. " About June 25 Kidd headed for Bos- ton , after taking on.a . pilot from Rhode Island-one Benjamin Bevins. This pilot naturally had charge of the sloop , and no treasure could have been landed without his knowledge. He was later a witness for the govern- ment. The San Antonio put in at Tarpaulin Cove , a convenient harbor on Vineyard Sound , and there Kidd landed "a bale and two barrels of goods , " which were "left with the man there , " to be called for on his return. The bale and barrels were duly recov- ered , like all the rest of Kidd's prop- erty. The value of the goods and treasure recovered from Kidd tallies fairly clearly with his probable share of the total booty of his voyage , less the goods left on the Quedah Mer chant , which were sold by Bolton at St. Thomas. The exact nature of the treasure Kidd turned over to Mr. Gard- iner is known from an inventory made by five commissioners sent by Massa chusetts to collect Kidd's property. The original of this inventory still exists. The treasure left at Gardiner's Island was listed in it as follows : Ounces. No. 1 - One bag gold dust . . . . . . 60 % No. 2 - One bag coined gold. . . . . . 11 And in it silver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 No. 3 - One bag : dust gold . . . . . . . 24 % No. 4 - One bag , three silver rings and sundry precious stones . . . . 4 % One bag unpolished stones. . . . . 4 % One pure crystal and brazer stones , two. Cornelson rings , two small agates , two ame- thysts , all in the same bag. No. 5 - One bag silver buttons and a lamp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 No. 8 - One bag broken silver . . . 173 * ! + No. 7 - One bag gold bars . . . . . . . .35314 No. 8 - One bag gold bars . . . . . 238 % No. 9 - One bag dust gold . . . . . . . 59 M No. 10 - One bag silver bars . . . 212 No. 11 - One bag silver bars . . . 309 Besides this treasure the commis- sioners seized on the San Antonio and at Mrs. Kidd's lodgings about as much more. i TURKEY GETS REVENGE' FOR TEASING 7 YEARS AGO. Does a turkey gobbler possess the same .remarkable mental faculties as does the elephant ? A turkey on the farm of Amos Hollister , near Benton , Wash. , was teased into anger over seven years ago by a little girl with \ yellow curls. The other day the same little girl , now grown into woman- hood , wearing the dresses of the day's style , appeared upon the lawn of the same farm and was attacked by a gobbler enraged beyond all turkey sense , and continued the fight until he was subdued and placed in a pen. Over seven years ago Miss Elsie Gun- ther visited the farm of her uncle and teased the gobbler with a cane which had ribbons tied to it. The turkey chased her around the barnyard. The incident was forgotten and school work and business kept the niece from again visiting her uncle until seven years had passed. Miss : Gunther , free from school duties and languishing for the free air of the country , went to the Benton farm last week. The first thing she did was to trip across the barnyard toward the cow pens as she had done years ago. Before she was across the lawn a big turkey gobbler , the same one which attacked her seven years ago , flew at her face and sturck her a blow that almost threw her into a heap. The turkey } : continued his attack until Holl lister captured and imprisoned him. Most Mexican cheese comes from I Pennsylvania native variety is dry and of an insipid flavor I \ , r - = - - P t a - - - : { tANBOAF r a f'j q r' 11 . ON I It is a happy coincidence that the i year which witnessed the entrance of ' the White Star-Dominion Line Laur- entic should also be the centenary year of the introduction of steam navigation on the St. Lawrence. The idea of applying steam power to the boats which a hundred years ago car- ried on the limited transportation be- tween Montreal and Quebec origin- ated with the late Hon. John Molsoi : ; ? , whose name is perpetuated to-day in one of the banking institutions of Canada , which bears the family name. The "Accommodation" was the name of the Molson steamboat , and she was built on the bank of the St. Lawrence at Montreal in the summer of 1800. and the event was fraught with great importance to the trade of the coun- try greater by far probably , than the prime mover in its accomplishment even dared to imagine. The steamboat "Accommodation , " which ushered in such an epoch mark : ing period in the history of Canada , was 75 feet long on the keel and So feet on deck. She had berths for twenty passengers which it was prom ised would be considerably augment- ed the following year. She received her impulse from an open double- spoked , perpendicular wheel on each side without any circular band or rim. In the Old Days. In the old days hardships innumer- able presented themselves in the land , . journey , whilst dangers by day and by night stared the hardy voyageurs in the face when they made their journey between Quebec and Mont : : real. The heavy and swift flowing currents of the river made the up- ward journey very difficult , and many laborious detours had to be made to . accomplish the journey. To go on with the historical sld'i of the narrative , it may be stated , the Montreal Star says , uiat with all its inconviences , the mode of travel in- troduced by Hon. John Molson was a success , for the following year we find him applying to the legislature of the Province of Quebec "for the exclu sive right and privilege of construct- ing and navigating a steamboat or steamboats within the limits of the province for a space of fifteen years. " In 1812 he built another and larger steamer of 130 feet keel and 24 feet beam. The name of which vessel was "Swiftsure. " Following the "Swiftsure , " Mr. : : Molson proceeded to carry out his idea of operating a fleet of river steamers , and the construction of each one led to improvements in mat- ter of size and accommodation. Up to about 1818 a great many peo- ple\preferred to drive in caleches over rough roads between Montreal and Quebec , but by that time the service had been so greatly : improved that the steamboats came into more gen- eral favor. A few years afterwards attention was devoted to the building of power- ful tug boats so that sailing vessels- could be towed up the river against the current. At one time oxen werar- yoked up and driven to the river side. . waiting to assist. In addition to th.5r oxen there was one horse as leader This system prevailed up to tlwt year IS32. At that period wharves ; , did not exist ; the boats drew up to the shore as close as possible aisfi' made fast to piles temporarily driven in the bank of the river. The first records of accidents to ' steamboats in tne St. Lawrence are those df the "Waterloo" and "John Bull. The former foundered in Lake St. Peter and was replaced by the "John Bull " a fine boat 190 feet long . which was burned in 1S3S. It was re - lated of the latter boat that sTis earned more money while at anchor than while in operation. This arose out of the fact that she burned stf much coal that she was unprofitable , but while at anchor was often used as - the official residence of His Excel lency the Governor-General , Lord Dur- ham. ' ham.The The third steamboat accident of' which there is a record , was that of the "Montreal : : , " which was lost in a- snow storm near Batiscan in Novenfc- ber , 1853. First Iron Steamers. The first iron steamers came into use on the St. Lawrence about 1843 , the pioneers of that class being the- "Prince Albert" and "Iron Duke/ ' which were used as ferry boats be- tween Montreal on the one side , and ! St. Lambert and Laprairie on the- south shore. This was long before- the Victoria Bridge was built and passengers from the south by thti- Champlain and St. Lawrence Railway were landed on the south side auet : were conveyed across the river by these steamers. These boats we re built in Scotland and brought out tn , sections , being put together in Mont ' real. real.The The year 1845 saw the advent of the Richelieu Steamboat Company ; ' which was destined to play an impor- tant part in St. Lawrence navigation . in after years , much larger than the- originators of the service ever dreamed. From the modest beginning of running some market boats to Sorel to enable farmers to market . their produce Montreal : : , the company has- by steady growth and amalgamation- , with other companies , developed into one with assets exceeding $4,009OGD to its credit , and operating steamers of all sizes , through and local , from Lake Ontario to the Gulf of St. Law rence. , SPAIN'S REVOLUT ON-A SCENE OF WRECKAGE. . II y y ifs/ r/ - , 7 yf' fi y.j1v 4 . . : L'G 'G y i ra' .fir. : I ; . f : ; . r&1 ; : : .vF ? Y rr i f ' ' : . , f4/ . ' , , } .KL : j ) 'f : ry . F : , p + f a. ' a , - . , . ; . , > ; ; : : ) . . - -.4. - $ , v 4 ' ; , ' Z4d ) 5/ .iifvlffif : Jy ' " + ; T 2'j' s- ; / : : : ' % ay : . ' ' . ; ' 'fi'i ' c' Y ith : : kJF J Jy ter. : : : + aw yr" t : u : . . . . . . . . . . . . ' . . . A TRAMWAY CAR OVERTURNED BY THE RIOTERS. During the recent revolution , in Spain the tramway system of Barcelona : was attacked by the rioters at many points , the track being destroyed and cars overturned and burnt. In the fighting and rioting women and children took a conspicuous part , for the rioters -when- confronted with troops placed the children in the front line , the women. . . in the second , and the men themselves formed a third. Under cover of the women and children the men attacked the police or soldiers , who were unable to discharge their rifles against defenceless women an. children. ' - - - - - - - - . - - - - - - - - . , F
