Packingtown

“ I HAVE shown that Bund was ransomed without narrating in detail the fact. The Indian and historical dope is O.K. Papakeecha, alias Flat Belly, lived and had his being. I have tried within the limited scope of the short story to sketch the horror caused by St. Clair's defeat, and the terrible possibilities for lonely cabin or settlement anywhere north of the Ohio. The Indians' turning back with their white prisoner instead of pressing on to the Ohio is true to life, as their service was purely voluntary and they could quit at any time without losing caste or inviting punishment.—Hugh Pendexter. ”

“ The Earl of Aylesford in the sixties was the owner of Packington Hall, and a princely income, and it was whilst I was staying with George Graham (owner of the famous Yardley stud where the great Stirling “stood”) that a jovial party drove over from p. 109Packington. Luncheon as served in those days was an important item in the programme, and long before the Packington party began to think of returning more than one had succumbed to the rivers of champagne that flowed. ”

“ Elisha Packwood died May 27, 1876, aged 66 years, having furnished a striking example of the industry courage, and patience of the early pioneers of the Northwest Coast, as well as their small rewards. His son while living in California married Matilda Wardle. His eldest daughter, Chilitha, married Bennett, living at Ellensburg, in the Kittetas Valley, Washington. He had also a son Joseph. His brothers who came to Oregon in 1845 were Larkin, John, Charles, and Robert Tait. A cousin, James Packwood, also belonged to this immigration. ”

“ Nope. Cities know how to hide their poor spots in some ways. Boston puts its best foot forward, as the sayin' is.
"But take it right here in Poketown. Now, ain't the good and the bad all shoveled together? Take Colonel Pa'tridge's fine house on High Street, stuck in right between Miner's meat shop and old Bill Jones' drygoods an' groceries—an' I don't know which is the commonest lookin' of the two."
"There you air right, Miz' Petrie," agreed the Widow Beasely. "Miner's got so dirty—around his shop I mean—that I hate to buy a piece of meat there." ”

“ We started off on the road to Gettysburg, looking into every thicket for a picket station, and imagining that every wood in the distance must form part of the line, but one after another was passed, and still wp did not stop. About two miles from camp, we halted at a tavern, but it was only to get some water in the canteens. We there saw some of the outer pickets, among them the “one-eyed sergeant,” and after leaving them, we knew that picketting was not the object for which we were sent. It soon commenced to rain, but not very rapidly. ”

“ Pickwick was no sluggard; and he sprang like an ardent warrior from his tent—bedstead.
“Pleasant, pleasant country,” sighed the enthusiastic gentleman, as he opened his lattice window. “Who could live to gaze from day to day on bricks and slates, who had once felt the influence of a scene like this? Who could continue to exist, where there are no cows but the cows on the chimney-pots; nothing redolent of Pan but pan-tiles; no crop but stone-crop? Who could bear to drag out a life in such a spot? ”

“ About the time referred to in Packwood s report, Indian Agent E. P. Drew, in charge of the Umpqua and Coos bay Indians, became convinced that the latter were holding communication with the hostiles, and made haste to collect them on the reservation at the mouth of the Umpqua river, where he placed over them a local agent. Shortly after he found the settlers from Coos and Coquille valleys congre gated at Empire City, and a company formed (those who had resigned from the guards probably) , to punish the savages for fresh depredations. ”

“ In time of peace, the inhabitants moved out, to live in their isolated log-cabins and till the stump-dotted clearings. Trails led through the dark forests from one station to another, as well as to the settled districts beyond the mountains; and at long intervals men drove along them bands of pack-horses, laden with the few indispensable necessaries the settlers could not procure by their own labor. The pack-horse was the first, and for a long time the only, method of carrying on trade in the backwoods; and the business of the packer was one of the leading frontier industries. ”

“ A question that has often exercised ingenious folk is, why did Mr. Pickwick choose to live in Goswell Street? rather, why did Boz select such a quarter for him? Of course, at that time, it was really a “genteel” neighbourhood, as anyone can see who walks along the desolate streets and terraces, the forlorn squares and enclosures that are close by, and where the New River runs. Nothing is more depressing than the aspect of these fallen places; but, in Mr. Pickwick’s time, they had not been very long erected. ”

“ Pickwick set all the world agog with his adventures, the "White Hart" was recognized as a typical old English inn, and was really at its best. It had arrived at this prosperous state by easy stages during its previous 180 years, and had a reputation for comfort and generous hospitality during the best days of the coaching era, which had reached the golden age when Mr. Pickwick discovered Sam Weller cleaning boots in its coach yard one historic morning in the early nineteenth century. ”

“ York and Manchester stir no memories, and are unvisited by pilgrims, because they are not in Pickwick. Boz seems to have found the true interpretation and inner meaning of each place, and has actually preserved the tone and flavour that existed in his own time. This continues even now. As we stroll through Rochester or Ipswich, Bath or Bury, Pickwick and his friends walk with us. And, as if well contented to rest under the spell, these antique towns have made no effort at change, but remain much as they were. ”

“ People are about the same everywhere. And one house is like another, only one's bigger——"
"Now, that's right foolish talk, Miz' Middler!" exclaimed the lady so recently from the Hub. "The people's just as different as chalk is from cheese; and there ain't a church in Boston—and there's hundreds of 'em—that don't make our Union Church look silly."
"But, Miz' Petrie," cried one inquiring body. "Just what is it that makes Boston so different from Poketown? After all, folks is folks—and houses is houses—and streets is streets. ”

“ They were drawn up in a circle, after the fashion of emigrant trains in the Indian country, and under the curving canvas tops men and women were sleeping. Here again imagination might have helped—might have suggested that these people were pioneers, sleeping with their guns at their sides in fear of an Indian attack. Imagination might have done this; but Mr. Peckinpaw knew that the sleepers were extra people, earning three dollars a day and drawing two dollars more as a traveling allowance. A little knowledge can be a deadly thing. ”

“ Folks fly to new things; to do so is a propensity inherent in the human, female nature; and Mr. Peckaby’s shop flourished. Not that he was much honoured with the complimentary “Mr.;” his customers brought it out short—“Peckaby’s shop.” Much intimacy had appeared to exist, from the first, between him and Roy, so that it was surmised they had been previously acquainted. The prices were low, the shop was close at hand, and Clay Lane flocked to it.
New things, however, like new faces, are apt to turn out no better than the old: sometimes not as good. And thus it proved with Peckaby’s shop. ”

“ For 30 years he resided on his farm, amassing a considerable fortune. He was 95 years old at the time of his death, in February 1874, and until 5 years before had continued to labor upon his farm, doing the work of a man in his prime. He served in the war of 1812, being then 33 years of age. Portland Oregonian, Feb. 14, 1874. Elisha Packwood, brother of William and Samuel who arrived the previous year, was born in Patrick County, Virginia, in July 1810, and removed with his father's family to Indiana and Missouri, whence he migrated to Oregon. ”

“ Near the forks of the river another Indian was wounded, after which the company returned to Fort Kitchen.
Concerning these acts of the guards, Packwood explains, in a report to Governor Curry, in which he relates with great candor all that occurred, that the Indians had been warned by sub-agent Wright in October to keep upon the reservation ; also by David Wall, local agent, and by his successor, William Chance; and that "it would have been madness and folly to use gentle means any further," but that force was necessarily resorted to. ”

“ It was inevitable, therefore, that his enthusiasm for it should find vent in his stories, and the first references to its green woods and green shady lanes are to be found in charming phrases in The Pickwick Papers, with the "Leather Bottle" as the centre of attraction.
The inn is first named in the book in Mr. Tupman's pathetic letter to
Mr. Pickwick written on a certain historic morning at Dingley Dell:
"MY DEAR PICKWICK, "You, my dear friend, are placed far beyond the reach of many mortal frailties and weaknesses which ordinary people cannot over come. ”

“ Marvin Petrie was talking there was little other conversation at the sewing circle. Her comments upon people she had met and things she had seen, were in the line of a monologue.
"I do sartainly grow tired of Poketown when it comes fall, and things is dead, and the wind gets cold, and all. I'm sartain sure glad to git shet of it!" she pursued on this particular afternoon. "And then the first sight of Boston—and the mud—and the Common and Public Library,—and the shops, and all, make me feel like I was livin' again.
"Mabel says to me: 'How kin you live, Maw, most all the year in Poketown! ”

“ So I judged, from the circumstance of Peckham’s unfurling a silken banner that fanned heaven and earth with the words, ‘The Peckham Lifeboat.’ No boat being in attendance, though life, in the likeness of ‘a gallant, gallant crew,’ in nautical uniform, followed the flag, I was led to meditate on the fact that Peckham is described by geographers as an inland settlement, with no larger or nearer shore-line than the towing-path of the Surrey Canal, on which stormy station I had been given to understand no lifeboat exists. ”

“ A large proportion of these little dwellings are tenanted by at least two families, and the district is given over to small shopkeepers and clerks, shop assistants, teachers and those who belong more frankly to the working classes. No one who can afford to live elsewhere chooses to live in Peckham ”

“ Pickwick's room in the tavern that he vowed to Mr. Perker he would never pay even a halfpenny of the damages.
The next morning the Pickwickians again continued their travels, Bath being their choice of place. Returning after a week's absence, we are told that Mr. Pickwick with Sam "straightway returned to his old quarters at the 'George and Vulture.'" Before another week elapsed the fateful and inevitable day came when Mr. Pickwick was arrested and eventually conveyed to the Fleet Prison. ”

“ High-roads and by-roads, towns and villages, public conveyances and their passengers, first-rate inns and road-side public houses, races, fairs, regattas, elections, meetings, market days—all the scenes that can possibly occur to enliven a country place, and at which different traits of character may be observed and recognized, were alike visited and beheld by the ardent Pickwick and his enthusiastic followers. ”

“ Pickwick sliding” and the “Mr. Pickwick sitting for his portrait in the Fleet” have different faces.
There has always been a sort of fascination in tracing out and identifying the Pickwickian localities. It is astonishing the number of persons that have been engrossed with this pursuit. Take Muggleton for instance, which seems to have hitherto defied all attempts at discovery. The younger Charles Dickens fancied that town, Malling, which lies to the p. 124south of Rochester. Mr. Frost, Mr. Hughes, and other “explorers” all have their favourite town. ”

“ Mr. Pickwick was a City man, and his club met in Huggin Lane, in the City. He generally put up, or, as Bob Sawyer had it, “hung out,” at the “George and Vulture,” also in the City. One side of Goswell Street, in those days—a road ascending to the old Angel Inn—faced, near the top, a number of the pretentious squares and terraces I have been describing. That interesting old theatre, Sadler’s Wells, was in the rear, and the New River passed beneath it or beside it, and, quite uncovered in those days, rippled along on its course from the country.
All the houses were private houses. ”

“ PAKINGTON (DOROTHY, LADY) wife of Sir John Pakington, baronet, and daughter of Thomas, lord Coventry, keeper of the great seal, born at London about the middle of the reign of James I. Although this excellent lady was celebrated by the best and most learned divines of her time, yet scarce any pen will be thought capable of adding to the reputation which her own has acquired, if it shall appear, that she was the author of The whole Duty of Man. ”

“ PAKINGTON, Sir JOHN (1671–1727) , politician and alleged original of Addison's ‘Sir Roger de Coverley,’ born on 16 March 1671, was only son of Sir John Pakington, of Westwood, Worcestershire, the third baronet [see under Pakington, Sir John, (1620–1680) ] . His mother, Margaret (d. 1690) , was second daughter of Sir John Keyt, bart., of Ebrington, Gloucestershire. Dorothy, lady Pakington [q. v.] , was his grandmother. Pakington's father, who died in 1688, entrusted his education to the care of Lord Weymouth and his brothers, James and Henry Frederick Thynne. ”

“ I think an inn is a good sort of a place to propose to a single woman in, Mr. Pickwick. She is more likely to feel the loneliness of her situation in travelling, perhaps, than she would be at home. What do you think, Mr. Pickwick?’
‘I think it is very probable,’ replied that gentleman.
‘I beg your pardon, Mr. Pickwick,’ said Mr. Peter Magnus, ‘but I am naturally rather curious; what may you have come down here for?’
‘On a far less pleasant errand, Sir,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, the colour mounting to his face at the recollection. ”