Quincy, Illinois

“ You were heroes, both of you, and you were men. And I'm sorry for at least ten per cent of the trouble that was given you by the head-boat of Company M.
At Keokuk the whole fleet was lashed together in a huge raft, and, after being wind-bound a day, a steamboat took us in tow down the Mississippi to Quincy, Illinois, where we camped across the river on Goose Island. Here the raft idea was abandoned, the boats being joined together in groups of four and decked over. Somebody told me that Quincy was the richest town of its size in the United States. ”

“ John B. Ellis, is a widow, who owns and manages the Quincy Whig and is a favorite in society. A daughter of Thomas Redmond, Catherine, is the wife of J. Frank Ricker, cashier of the Ricker National Bank, one of the strongest financial institutions in Illinois.
The Heire or Haire Brothers—spelled both ways—came to Quincy before 1840. They proved to be valuable and influential citizens as merchants and professional men. Captain Thomas J. Heire, a son of Thomas, Sr., served his country gallantly in the Union Army. 316He is a printer by trade and after the war published the Quincy Evening News. ”

“ From Cincinnati, Ohio, not less than four branches of the Road radiated. One of these led to Fountain City, Indiana, where it was joined by two other important lines. From this point four lines diverged to the north. At Oberlin as many as five lines converged from the south. Quincy, Illinois, was the starting-point of four or five lines, and Knoxville, Ottawa and Chicago in the same state each received fugitives from several routes. The region in which the devices of multiple routes and cross lines were most highly developed is, as far as known, in southeastern Pennsylvania. ”

“ Two thirds of this land is prairie, and the rest timbered, crossed by a variety of rivers and creeks. The soil is generally a black vegetable mould from fifteen to thirty inches deep. Much of the best of this land has been bought up by a company who have opened an office at Quincy, where they sell it from three to ten dollars an acre, while other parts are sold at the price government established for its lands all over the States, one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre. Government has given to the State of Illinois every other section. ”

“ A hundred years earlier, such safeguards as his would have secured any young man’s success; and although in 1838 their value was not very great compared with what they would have had in 1738, yet the mere accident of starting a twentieth century career from a nest of associations so colonial,—so trogloditic,—as the First Church, the Boston State House, Beacon Hill, John Hancock and John Adams, Mount Vernon Street and Quincy, all crowding on ten pounds of unconscious babyhood, was so queer as to offer a subject of curious speculation to the baby long after he had witnessed the solution. ”

“ One hand grasped Quincy's while the other encircled his dainty wife's waist, and he drew her towards him.
“You have a fine farm,” said Quincy.
“About as good as they make them,” 'Zeke replied. “I've a good market for all I can raise. Strout and Maxwell buy a great deal of garden truck, and I sell considerable to Mrs. Hawkins direct. What I have left we eat or give away.”
Alice had taken young Quincy on her lap. He became communicative. “I've got a grandpa and grandma and Uncle Abner.”
“Abner isn't your uncle,” said Alice. “I'm your Aunt Alice, and that is your Uncle Quincy.” ”

“ Men have stayed in prison longer than that and have come out into the world again. Why, Quincy is only fifty-three now.”
“And I'm seventy—an old woman some think me, and others call me so, but if I were sure that by living I could see Quincy again, I'd manage some way to keep alive until he came.”
“You are just lovely, Aunt Ella, and I love you more than ever for those words. I believe that Quincy wants me to come to him—and I am going!”
“My dear Alice, I'm sure the only way you will ever see Quincy is by going to him, for he can never come to you.” ”

“ Quincy replied. “Mrs. Putnam died in this house, and Alice has such a vivid recollection of her last day on earth—”
“I understand,” said Huldah, “but you must come and see us every day.”
“Where's Ezekiel?” asked Alice.
“Getting in his last load of hay—about sixty tons this year. We only had thirty a year ago.”
“Where's my namesake—Quincy Adams Pettingill?”
“He goes every day to see his grandpa and grandma. Abner will be here with him soon.”
When they reached the piazza, Quincy took a good view of the farm. ”

“ He first located in Vermont, where he obtained employment at whatever offered. He came to Quincy in 1837. Being young, vigorous and industrious, success attended him from the start. He soon accumulated sufficient capital as a common laborer to purchase a few horses, carts and wagons, which enabled him to accept contracts in constructing railroads, at which he made money rapidly and invested every surplus dollar in Quincy real estate. In 1848 he was elected a member of the city council; in 1860, mayor; in 1864 to a seat in the State Legislature. ”

“ And through the minor harmony of dripping leafage and fulsome roads and drench-stained houses came a fret of chill, too slight to retrieve the season from its languor, yet real enough to stultify the warmth.
This was the setting of Quincy’s birth.
In from Main Street and away from the salt air that fluttered toward it like a curtain’s fringe, a paltry, sordid stretch of lights; a road much rutted by last summer’s traffic; a straggling array of shops, saloons, dim and bedraggled with the rain—the heart of Harriet, Long Island. ”

“ He walked along the beach, savagely kicking his toes into the white sand. "Johnnie!" She had called him Johnnie. And the way she had looked at him, too! Again John Quincy felt that sharp pang in his heart. Foolish, foolish; better go back to Boston and forget. Peaceful old Boston, that was where he belonged. He was an old man out here—thirty, nearly. Better go away and leave these children to love and the moonlit beach.
Miss Minerva had gone in the big car to call on friends, and the house was quiet as the tomb. John Quincy wandered aimlessly about the rooms, gloomy and bereft. ”

“ You ask me also how it happens that I am living again "near by Quincy?" As true as you live, I never thought of the coincidence. If you please, we pronounce it "Kansee." When I read your question I laughed. I remembered that Abelard, when he was first condemned, retired to the Hermitage of Quincy, but when I took down Larousse to look it up, what do you think I found? Simply this and nothing more: "Quincy: Ville des Etats-Unis (Massachusetts) , 28,000 habitants." ”

“ Bring this girl to me, Quincy. She must be a genius, if she can write as you say she can. Let me care for her and love her and make life pleasant and beautiful for her until you get ready to do it yourself."
"I will, some day, Aunt Ella. You are the best friend I have in the world, and when I have the right to bring Alice to you, I will lose no time in doing so. Thank you for your kind words about her. I shall never forget them, and she shall hear them some day. But I must go now."
They both arose, "Promise that you will come and see me every time you are in Boston, Quincy ”

“ Quincy made preparation for an immediate departure.
“Mrs. Hawkins, I must go to Boston at once with Mr. Merry. Will you have Andrew get a team ready for me? I will leave it at the Eagle Hotel. I know the way home.”
“You ought to,” said she. “You've druv it times enough.”
“What will you do with yourself all day, Alice? I must go to the State House on business, but I'll be back by six o'clock.” ”

“ Lincoln made no reply, and when Uncle Job had finished, continued on in silence, as if summing up the case, pro and con, as a judge might do on the bench.
The town of Quincy at the time of which I speak was one of many small places that had sprung up on the banks of the Mississippi about the time of the Black Hawk war. Most of these exist to-day as attractive cities, but others not so wisely located have long since been abandoned, many of them being lost even to memory. ”

“ Quincy had had enough. He was frightened, horrified.
He pushed up Water Street and westward, eager above all to escape the omnipresent Bridge. He passed through fetid piles of tenement, pouring their produce into the street. Crowds jostled him; cars clashed; machines went braying, shuttling. The taste of New York was bitter on his lips. Through its sheer bulk, it threatened to submerge him. He wished to run, in order to be rid of it. But he held himself back. He must be calm, courageous. All of this delirium, this lurid show of filth and vice and an inexplicable beauty—was it not life? ”

“ CHAPTER XIX. — BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD
Until he was fourteen years of age, young Quincy attended the public schools in Fernborough and Cottonton. While in England he had had a governess and later a tutor, so that when he reached America he was much farther advanced than Fernborough boys of his own age. Methods in the New England town were different, however, and his Uncle Ezekiel was satisfied to have him keep pace with the others, and not arouse antagonism by asking for any special promotion. ”

“ To the end of his life he never quite overcame the prejudice thus drawn in with his childish breath. He never could compel himself to care for nineteenth century style. He was never able to adopt it, any more than his father or grandfather or great-grandfather had done. Not that he felt it as particularly hostile, for he reconciled himself to much that was worse; but because, for some remote reason, he was born an eighteenth-century child. The old house at Quincy was eighteenth century. What style it had was in its Queen Anne mahogany panels and its Louis Seize chairs and sofas. ”

“ Quincy replied with a laugh, "If I did my reward is a great return for my power of invention, but I assure you I was thinking of your health and not of the chair, when I tendered my services."
"You are an adept in sweet speeches, Mr. Sawyer. You city young men all are; but our country youth, who are just as true and honest, are at a great disadvantage, because they cannot say what they think in so pleasing a way."
"I hope you do not think I am insincere," remarked Quincy, gravely.
"Not at all," said Alice, "but I have not answered your question. ”

“ An ornamental villa has replaced his old house, which was burnt, and the homestead has gone to strangers. Close by Webster's is the grave of the early Pilgrim Governor Winslow, whose quaint old dwelling is near. Quincy is famous as 27 the home of the greatest families of the original colony of Massachusetts Bay—Quincy and Adams. The antique church of Quincy, known as the Adams Temple, has in the yard the graves of the two Presidents Adams, father and son. John Hancock, whose bold signature leads the Congress in the Declaration of Independence, was a native of Quincy. ”

“ There are ever so many things in the house today to call up a Quincy tradition, for if you scratch almost any chapter of New England history you will find a Quincy tradition underneath. Take away its Hoars, Lowells, Holmeses, Adamses, Wendells, Hancocks, Sewalls—to mention only a few of the Quincy connections—and what, indeed, becomes of New England? ”

“ Many of the old pioneers moved off with the human current to California and other attractive places in the Far West. Only a few of those who remained in Quincy are still living, but many of their children are among the leading men of affairs in every branch of business as well as the professions in Quincy and its vicinity. ”

“ Sawyer is about as lucky as they make 'em," remarked! Uncle Ike, with a laugh.
"Kind fortune owes me one or two favors yet before I shall be entirely satisfied," said Quincy. "Now, Miss Pettengill, will you allow me to make a suggestion that will free you from the further care of this document?"
"I don't care what is done with it," said Alice; "but no one but Lindy must read it."
"That is any idea exactly," assented Quincy. "I will go to Boston on the noon train and send that advertisement to the New York 'Herald,' With your permission, I will turn that document over to a legal friend of mine. ”

“ The dark center-part—himself—seemed strangely unmoved. It was Quincy’s first intensive lesson in the design of spirit—that mad craftsman who hurls strident clashings into a harmony so fluent that all the world, if one step back and look, falls to a monochrome.
There was no distinguishable episode, at first. His strollings in New York, lit by his own fluttering lights far more than by the city’s screaming incandescence, made no chapter apart. His family was there, all-swerving in its crowd-way: Rhoda with her flagrant and acid beauty; Marsden the oracle; Adelaide the unformidable sphinx ”

“ Then Alice remembered what Maude had said in one of her letters—that young Quincy should be brought up as an American. She spoke to Aunt Ella about the matter, repeating what Maude had written.
“Where could we send him?”
“The where is not so important” Aunt Ella remarked, “as the to whom. Florence and Maude are both out of the question for they have young children of their own who might, or might not, take to an outsider. Quincy's mother would be delighted to have him for he is her son's son, but Boston, with its east winds would be no better than here. ”

“ If we can attend to this during the afternoon and evening, I will go up to Boston again to-morrow morning." Quincy then told Alice about Rosa and the terms that he had made with her, and Alice expressed herself as greatly pleased with the arrangement. "You will find Miss Very a perfect lady," said Quincy, "with a low, melodious voice that will not jar upon your ears, as mine, no doubt, has often done." ”