PAGE 4
THE CHEMAWA AMERICAN
W EBB BEAL DISCOVEBES
under the elms that stood on its lawn he met Gen.
Lafayette and conferred with him.
Many ;pf thepoet’s famous works were written in
this home, according to Hezekiah Butterworth, the
Boston historian. The original of “ The Clock on the
Stairs’ ’ ticked away the time and chimed the hours B
he wrote. “ The Psalm of Life” was inspired by a
summer morning in 1838 when Longfellow was still
a young mam For a long time he kept the pòéfii in
Eis diary ahdwould hot consent to have it published.
When he finally surrendered it it quickly became a
favorite everywhere.
A friend of the poet traveling in Japan once found
a few lines of the poem iiV Japanese inscribed on afán.
The friend purchased the fam and sent it to Longfel-
low as an evidence of how widely his “ Psalm of Life”
was known and appreciated. r>
In 1879 a storm of extraordinary violence swept
the coast of New England. Being unable to sleep that
night, Longfellow ■-arose from his bed and wrote the
“ Wreck of the Hesperus,” putting on the finishing
touches as the clock on the stairs chimed the hour
of three.
On one occasion when the poet went to call on a
newly married couple he found them seated at a little
tea table before the hearth. As, the young husband,
like himself, was a poet, Longfellow suggested that
É;e write a poem on the Acadian custom of hanging
the cane. A decade later he met the husband again
and when he found that he had not acted on his sug
gestion and written the.poem, Longfellow set to work
and wrote “ Thè Hanging of the Cane” himself.
The story of Evangeline was told to Longfellow ,by
Hawthorne who stated that he had been urged to write
a romance based on it but that he considered it better
suited for verse. The outline of “ Hiawatha” was
obtained from a story Related t o / Schoolcraft by
Abraham Le Fort, an Onondaga chief tian. An old
colonial hostelry at Sudbury, Mass., w hich/is still
in existence suggested the “ Tale of a Wayside Inp.”
To Columbus is accorded the glory ofdiscovering
America—which he did, as a fact—but there were un
doubtedly other and prior 'discoverers of this great
land in which we. live. For instance, thé Norsemen
have quite well-authenticated'claims as discoverers.
Tittle is known concerning these people prior to
about the end of the 10th century except what, can
be gathered from legends, mythology and history
that is more or less doubtful. It is certain, however,
that they were the most hardy and intrepid sailors of
their day and that in the ninth and 10th centuries
their ships were - common visitors jat practically all
European ports.
For three centuries they made piratical expeditions
to the neighboring coastsof England and their fighting
men could be hired by any ruler who had the money to
pay them. They made Settlements in Greenland, Iceland
and Normandy. Old records show that a Norseman
named Herjulfson while on a yqyage from Iceland to
Greenland in 986 A. D. was driven by winds far out
of his reckonings to the west. A bold rugged coast,
now believed to have been that of Labrador or ‘New
foundland, was sighted several times but Herjulfson
did not land. Lief Etiçsson. set out in the year 100Ô
for the purpose of testing the truth of Herjulfson’s
report and in the spring of the following year, it ap
pears, landed at Labrador, which he found superior
..in many respects to Iceland. ,
One historian says that Ericsson and his followers
traveled as far soùth as Massachusetts where they
remained for more than a year. They also visited
Rhode Island, he says, and even entered New York
harbor. Other Norsemen came in the next few years
and colonies were planted in Newfoundland and Nova
Scotia but these settlements sqon died but and tlie
Norsemen lost all interest in the newly discovered
land—Vinland—which they believed to be a continu
ation of the-Coast of Greenland; they never’ dreamed
tha't they had really found a new continent. The ac
count of the Norsemen’s explorations and settlements
THE CHABM WORKED
in America is borne out by the fact-that reasonably
consistent records of Ericsson’svoyage- have .been
A young woman who thought she was losing her
made by Norse historians, also by the finding of Norse husband’s affection went to a seventh daughter of a
remains at Newport, R. I., and other places in America. seventh daughter for a love-powder; The mystery-
woman told-her:
W BITING OE FAMOUS LONGFELLOW POEMS
“ Get a raw piece of beef, cut flat, about an inch
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, when he became thick. Slice’an onion in two, and rub the meat on
professor of modern languages and literature at Har both sides with-it. Put on pepper and salt, and toast
vard university in 1835, went to live at what was it on, each side over red coal-fire. Drop on three lumps
known as the old Vassal mansion, at one time the of butter and two sprigs of parsley, and get him to
most pretentious home ip Cambridge. Gen. Wash ^at Kt-” ;.
The young wife did. so, and her husband loved .her
ington had his headquarters in
house when he
became head o f the colonial army in July, 1^75, and ever after.