American Adventures Part 47

Once, while we were watching the men scrambling about upon the steel members of the uncompleted cantilever arm, one of them thought something was about to fall, and ran swiftly in, over a steel beam, toward the body of the structure; whereafter, as nothing did fall, he was unmercifully twitted by his fellow workers for having shown timidity.

Many of the men working on this bridge had worked on the older structure paralleling it. This was true not only of the laboring men, but of the engineers. Ralph Modjeski, the consulting engineer at the head of the work (he is, by the way, a son of Madame Modjeska), was chief draughtsman when the earlier structure was designed; W.E. Angier, a.s.sistant chief engineer in the present work, was a field engineer on the first bridge, and it is interesting to know that, in constructing the approach to the old bridge he unearthed a Spanish halbert which, it is thought, may date from the time of De Soto. These bridge engineers and bridgebuilders move in a large orbit. Their last job may have been in Mexico, in the far West, or in India; their next may be in France.

Many of the men here, worked on the Blackwell's Island bridge, on the Quebec bridge (which fell), on the Thebes bridge over the Mississippi, twenty miles above Cairo, on the Vancouver and Portland bridges over the Columbia and Willamette rivers, and on the great Oregon Trunk Railway bridges.

After standing for a time on the old bridge watching work on the new, and shuddering, often enough, at the squirrel-like way in which the men scampered about up there, so far above the water, we walked in and moved out again upon the partially completed floor of the new bridge. Here it was necessary to walk on railroad ties, with gaps, six or eight inches wide, between them. Even had one tried, one could hardly have managed to squeeze one's body through these c.h.i.n.ks; to fall through was impossible; nevertheless it gave me an uncomfortable feeling in the region of the stomach to walk out there, seeing the river all the time between the interstices. When we had progressed for some distance we came to a gap where, for perhaps a yard, there were no ties--just open s.p.a.ce, with the muddy water shining cold and cruel below. The opening was only about as wide as the hall of a small New York flat, and heaven knows that to step across such a hall is easy enough. But this was not so easy. When we came to the gap I stopped. Mr. Case, the young engineer, who loved all bridges with a sort of holy pa.s.sion, and loved this bridge in particular, was talking as we went along. I liked to hear him talk. He had been telling us how a thing that is to _be_ strong ought to _look_ strong, too, and from that had got somehow to the topic of expansion and contraction in bridges, with variations of temperature. "It isn't only the steel bridges that do it," he said. "Stone arch bridges do it, too.

The crown of the arch rises and falls. The Greeks and Romans and Egyptians knew that expansion and contraction occurred. They--"

While talking he had gone across the gap, stepping lightly upon a stringpiece probably a foot wide, and proceeding over the ties. Now, however, he ceased speaking and looked back, for I was no longer beside him. At the gap I had stopped. I intended to step across, but I did not propose to do so without giving the matter the attention it seemed to me to deserve.

Mr. Case did not laugh at me. He came back and stood on the string-piece where it crossed the opening, telling me to put my hand on his shoulder.

But I did not want to do that. I wanted to cross alone--when I got ready. It took me perhaps two minutes to get ready. Then I stepped over.

It was, of course, absurdly easy. I had known it would be. But as we walked along I kept thinking to myself: "I shall have to cross that beastly place again when we come back," and I marveled the more at the amazing steadiness of eye and mind and nerve that enables some men to go continually prancing about over emptiness infinitely more engulfing than that which had troubled and was troubling me.

Returning I stepped across without physical hesitation. But after I had crossed I continued to hate that gap. I hated it as I drove back to the hotel, that afternoon, as I ate dinner that night, as I went to bed, and in my dreams I continued to cross it, and to see the river waiting for me, seeming to look up and leer and beckon. I woke up hating the gap in the bridge as much as ever; I hated it down into the State of Mississippi, and over into Georgia; and wherever I have gone since, I have continued to hate it. Of course there isn't any gap there now. It was covered long ago. Yet for me it still exists, like some obnoxious person who, though actually dead, lives on in the minds of those who knew him.

FARTHEST SOUTH

CHAPTER LI

BEAUTIFUL SAVANNAH

How often it occurs that the great work a man set out originally to accomplish, is lost sight of, by future generations, in contemplation of other achievements of that man, which he himself regarded as of secondary importance.

In 1733, the year in which General Oglethorpe started his Georgia colony, there were more than a hundred offenses for which a person might be hanged in England; Oglethorpe's primary idea in founding the colony was to provide a means of freeing debtors from prison, and giving them a fresh start in life; yet it is as the man responsible for the laying out of the beautiful city of Savannah, that Oglethorpe is probably most widely remembered to-day.

Oglethorpe was a first-rate soldier. He defeated a superior Spanish force from Florida, and successfully resisted attacks from the Indians.

Also, he was a man whose ethical sense was in advance of his period. He did not permit slavery in Georgia, and it was not adopted there until he went back to England. In planning Savannah he was a.s.sisted by a Charleston engineer named Bull, for whom the chief street of Savannah is named. The place is laid out very simply; it has rectangular blocks and wide roads, with small parks, or squares, at regular intervals.

There are some two dozen of these small parks, aside from one or two larger parks, a parade ground, and numerous boulevards with double roadways and parked centers, and the abundance of semi-tropical foliage and of airy s.p.a.ces, in Savannah, gives the city its most distinctive and charming quality--the quality which differentiates it from all other American cities. Originally these parks were used as market-places and rallying points in case of Indian attack; now they serve the equally utilitarian purposes of this age, having become charming public gardens and playgrounds. One of them--not the most important one--is named Oglethorpe Square; but the monument to Oglethorpe is placed elsewhere.

Madison Square, Savannah, is relatively about as important as Madison Square, New York, and though smaller than the latter, is much prettier.

It contains a monument to Sergeant Jasper, the Revolutionary hero who, when the flag was shot down from Fort Moultrie, off Charleston, by the British, flung it to the breeze again, under fire. Jasper was later killed with the flag in his arms, in the French-American attempt to take Savannah from the British. Monterey Square has a statue of Count Pulaski, who also fell at the siege of Savannah. Another Revolutionary hero remembered with a monument is General Nathanael Greene who, though born in Rhode Island, moved after the war to Georgia where, in recognition of his services, he was given an estate not far from Savannah. "Mad" Anthony Wayne, a Pennsylvanian by birth, also accepted an estate in Georgia and resided there after the Revolution.

An interesting story attaches to Greene's settlement in Georgia. The estate given to him was that known as Mulberry Grove, above the city, on the Savannah River. The property had previously belonged to Lieutenant-governor John Graham, but was confiscated because Graham was a loyalist. Along with the property, Greene apparently took over the Graham vault in Colonial Cemetery--now a city park, and a very interesting one because of the old tombs and gravestones--and there he was himself buried. After a while people forgot where Greene's remains lay, and later, when it was decided to erect a monument to his memory in Johnson Square, they couldn't find any Greene to put under it. However, they went ahead and made the monument, and Lafayette laid the cornerstone, when he visited Savannah in March, 1825. Greene's remains were lost for 114 years. They did not come to light until 1902, when some one thought of opening the Graham vault. Thereupon they were removed and reinterred in their proper resting place beneath the monument which had so long awaited them. That monument, by the way, was not erected by Savannah people, or even by Southerners, but was paid for by the legislature of the general's native Rhode Island. When the remains were discovered, Rhode Island asked for them, but Savannah, which had lost them, also wanted them. The matter was settled by a vote of Greene's known descendants, who decided almost unanimously to leave his remains in Savannah.

The foundation of the general's former home at Mulberry Grove may still be seen. It was in this house that Eli Whitney invented the cotton-gin.

Whitney was a tutor in the Greene family after the general's death, and it was at the suggestion of Mrs. Greene that he started to try and make "a machine to pick the seed out of cotton." It is said that Whitney's first machine would do, in five hours, work which, if done by hand, would take one man two years. This was, of course, an epoch-making invention and caused enormous commercial growth in the South, where cotton-gins are as common things as restaurants in the city of New York.

Which reminds me of a story.

A northern man was visiting Mr. W.D. Pender, at Tarboro, North Carolina.

On the day of the guest's arrival Mr. Pender spoke to his cook, a negro woman of the old order, telling her to hurry up the dinner, because he wished to take his friend down to see the cotton-gin. "You know," he explained, "this gentleman has never seen a cotton-gin."

The cook looked at him in amazement.

"Lor'! Mistuh Penduh," she exclaimed. "An' dat man _look_ like he was edjacated!"

Another item in Savannah history is that John Wesley came over about the middle of the eighteenth century to convert the Indians to Christianity. It was not until after this attempt, when he returned to England, that he began the great religious movement which led to the founding of the Methodist Church. George Whitfield also preached in Savannah. Evidently Wesley did not get very far with the savages who, it may be imagined, were more responsive to the kind of "conversion"

attempted in South Carolina, by a French dancing-master, who went out from Charleston in the early days and taught them the steps of the stately minuet.

Another great event in Savannah history was the departure from that port, in 1819, of the _City of Savannah_, the first steamship to cross the Atlantic. If I may make a suggestion to the city, it is that the centennial of this event be celebrated, and that a memorial be erected.

Inspiration for such a memorial might perhaps be found in the simple and charming monument, crowned by a galleon in bronze, which has been erected in San Francisco, in memory of Robert Louis Stevenson. A ship in bronze can be a glorious thing--which is more than can be said of a bronze statesman in modern pantaloons.

More lately Savannah initiated another world-improvement: she was the first city to abolish horses entirely from her fire department, replacing them with automobile engines, hook-and-ladders, and hose-carts. That is in line with what one would expect of Savannah, for she is not only a progressive city, but is a great automobile city, having several times been the scene of important international automobile road races, including the Grand Prize and the Vanderbilt Cup.

Nor is there want of other history. The Savannah Theater, though gutted by fire and rebuilt, is the same theater that Joseph Jefferson owned and managed for a time, in the fifties; in the house on Lafayette Square, now occupied by Judge W.W. Lambdin, Robert E. Lee once stayed, and Thackeray is said to have written there a part of "The Virginians."

A sad thing was happening in Savannah when we were there. The Habersham house, one of the loveliest old mansions of the city, was being torn down to make room for a munic.i.p.al auditorium.

The first Habersham in America was a Royal Governor of Georgia. He had three sons one of whom, Joseph, had, by the outbreak of the Revolution, become a good enough American to join a band of young patriots who took prisoner the British governor, Sir James Wright. The governor's house was situated where the Telfair Academy now is. He was placed under parole, but nevertheless fled to Bonaventure, the Tabnall estate, not far from the city, where he was protected by friends until he could escape to the British fleet, which then lay off Tybee Island at the mouth of the Savannah River, some eighteen miles below the city. This same Joseph Habersham, it is said, led a party which went out in 1775 in skiffs--called _bateaux_ along this part of the coast--boarded the British ship _Hinchenbroke_, lying at anchor in the river, and captured her in a hand-to-hand conflict. Mr. Neyle Colquitt of Savannah, a descendant of the Habershams, tells me that the powder taken from the _Hinchenbroke_ was used at the Battle of Bunker Hill. After the war, in which Joseph Habersham commanded a regiment of regulars, he was made Postmaster General of the United States. The old house itself was built by Archibald Bulloch, a progenitor of that Miss "Mittie" Bulloch who later became Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., mother of the President. It was designed by an English architect named Jay, who did a number of the fine old houses of Savannah, which are almost without exception of the Georgian period. Archibald Bulloch bought the lot on which he built the house from Matthew McAllister, great-grandfather of Ward McAllister.

When sold by Bulloch it pa.s.sed through several hands and finally came into the possession of Robert Habersham, a son of Joseph.

The old house was s.p.a.cious and its interiors had a fine formality about them. The staircase, fireplace and chandeliers were handsome, and there was at the rear a charming oval room, the heavy mahogany doors of which were curved to conform to the shape of the walls. To tear down such a house was sacrilege--also it was a sacrilege hard to commit, for some of the bas.e.m.e.nt walls were fifteen feet thick, and of solid brick straight through.

Sherman's headquarters were on the Square, just south of the De Soto Hotel, in the battlemented brick mansion which is the residence of General Peter W. Meldrim, ex-president of the American Bar a.s.sociation, and former Mayor of Savannah.

Among other old houses characteristic of Savannah, are the Scarborough house, the Mackay house, the Thomas house in Franklin Square (also known as the Owens house), in which Lafayette was entertained, and the Telfair house, now the Telfair Academy. The Telfair and Thomas houses were built by the architect who built the Habersham house, and it is to be hoped that they will never go the way of the latter mansion.

In 1810, about the time these houses were built, Savannah had 5,000 inhabitants; by 1850 the population had trebled, and 1890 found it a place of more than 40,000. Since then the city has grown with wholesome rapidity, and attractive suburban districts have been developed. The 1910 census gives the population as 65,000, but the city talks exuberantly of 90,000. Well, perhaps that is not an exaggerated claim.

Certainly it is a city to attract those who are free to live where they please. In fall, winter and spring it leaves little to be desired. I have been there three times, and I have never walked up Bull Street without looking forward to the day when I could go there, rent an old house full of beautiful mahogany, and pa.s.s a winter. Not even New Orleans made me feel like that. I feel about New Orleans that it is a place to visit rather than to settle down in. I want to go back to New Orleans, but I do not want to stay more than a few weeks. I want to see some people that I know, prowl about the French quarter, and have Jules Alciatore turn me out a dinner; then I want to go away. So, too, I want to go back to Atlanta--just to see some people. I want to stay there a week or two. Also I want to go to St. Augustine when cold weather comes, and bask in the warm sun, and breathe the soft air full of gold dust, and feel indolent and happy as I watch the activities about the excellent Ponce de Leon Hotel; but there are two cities in the South that I dream of going to for a quiet happy winter of domesticity and work, in a rented house--it must be the right house, too--and those cities are, first Charleston; then Savannah.

The Telfair Academy in the old Telfair mansion was left, by a member of the family, to the city, to be used as a museum. Being somewhat skeptical about museums in cities of the size of Savannah, not to say much larger cities, especially when they are art museums, I very nearly omitted a visit to this one. Had I done so I would have missed seeing not only a number of exceedingly interesting historic treasures, but what I believe to be the best public art collection contained in any southern city.

The museum does, to be sure, contain a number of old "tight" paintings of the kind with which the country was deluged at the time of the Chicago World's Fair, but upstairs there is a surprise in shape of an exhibition of modern American paintings (the best paintings being produced in the world to-day) showing brilliant selection. I was utterly amazed when I found this collection. There were excellent canvases by Childe Ha.s.sam, Ernest Lawson, George Bellows, and other living American painters whose work, while it is becoming more and more widely appreciated each year, is still beyond all but the most advanced and discriminating buyers of paintings. I went into ecstasies over this collection, and I said to myself: "Away down here in Savannah there is some one buying better paintings for a little museum than the heads of many of the big museums in the country have had sense enough or courage enough to buy. This man ought to be 'discovered' and taken to some big museum where his appreciation will be put to the greatest use." With that I rushed downstairs, sought out the curator, and asked who had purchased the modern American pictures. And then my bubble was p.r.i.c.ked, for who had they had, down there, buying their pictures for them, but Gari Melchers! Naturally the pictures were good!

In one room of the building, on the ground floor, is a collection of fine old furniture, etc., which belonged to the Telfair family, including two beautiful mantelpieces of black and white marble, some cabinets, and a very curious and fascinating extension dining-table, built of mahogany. The table is perfectly round, and the leaves, instead of being added in the middle, are curved pieces, fitting around the outer edge in two series, so that when extended to its full capacity the table is still round. I have never seen another such table.

Also I found many interesting old books and papers pa.s.sed down from the Telfairs. One of these was a ledger with records of slave sales.

In a sale held Friday, October 14, 1774, Sir James Wright, the same British governor who was presently put to flight, purchased four men, five women, nine boys, and one girl, at a total cost of 820, or about $3,280. Sir Patrick Houston bought two women at 90, or $450. The whole day's sale disposed of thirty-five men, seventeen women, twenty-seven boys and ten girls, at a grand total of 3206, or roughly between nine and ten thousand dollars.

The Telfairs were great planters. Among the papers was one headed "Rules and Directions to be strictly attended to by all overseers at Thorn Island Plantation." This plantation was on the North Carolina side of the river, and was owned by Alexander Telfair, a brother of Miss Mary Telfair who gave the Academy to the city. Dates which occur in the papers stamp them as having been issued some time prior to 1837. Here are some of the regulations:

The allowance for every grown negro, let him or her be old and good for nothing, and every young one that works in the field, is a peck of corn a week and a pint of salt and a piece of meat not exceeding fourteen pounds per month.

No negro to have more than forty lashes, no matter what his crime.

The suckling children and all small ones who do not work in the field draw a half allowance of corn and salt.