Thomas Montgomery

“ She shook her head.
"No," she wrote, "Uncle Thomas and Aunt Janet will tell you to go away and never come back. And they will never let me come here any more. Since it is not right to meet you I will not come, but it is no use to think of going to them. I did not tell them about you because I knew that they would forbid me to see you, but I am sorry, since it is so wrong."
"You must take me to them," said Eric firmly. "I am quite sure that things will not be as you fear when they hear what I have to say." ”

“ Hundreds of Montgomery's noblest young men saw service in the armies of the Confederacy, while many of her sons were general officers of high rank. William Lowndes Yancey, the great leader of Secession, resided in Montgomery. Montgomery was the home of Thomas Hill Watts, Attorney General of the Confederacy, and third War Governor of Alabama. ”

“ Next day, three people who came to see Young Thomas on business congratulated him on his approaching marriage. Young Thomas, who had recovered his usual good humour, merely laughed. There was no use in being too earnest in denial, he thought. He knew that his unusual fit of petulance with his housekeeper had only convinced her that the story was true. It would die away in time, as other similar stories had died, he thought. Valley View gossip was imaginative. ”

“ Next to being beautiful oneself—and that’s impossible in my case—it would be best to have a beautiful bosom friend. When I lived with Mrs. Thomas she had a bookcase in her sitting room with glass doors. There weren’t any books in it; Mrs. Thomas kept her best china and her preserves there—when she had any preserves to keep. One of the doors was broken. Mr. Thomas smashed it one night when he was slightly intoxicated. But the other was whole and I used to pretend that my reflection in it was another little girl who lived in it. I called her Katie Maurice, and we were very intimate. ”

“ Ellis told Mr. Fillmore. "I claim the satisfaction of that."
"You've done the job thoroughly," said Old Thomas. "There's your sixteen dollars, and every cent of it was earned, if ever money was, I'll say that much for you. There ain't a lazy bone in your body. If you ever want a recommendation just you come to me."
As Ellis passed Timothy Robinson's place on the way home that worthy himself appeared, strolling down his lane. "Ah, Ellis," he said, speaking to his nephew for the first time since their interview two months before, "so you've finished with your job?" ”

“ It is because she thinks so much of you that she will not marry you. She is afraid you would come to repent having married a dumb girl. Maybe she is right—maybe she is right.”
“I cannot give her up,” said Eric stubbornly. “Something must be done. Perhaps her defect can be remedied even yet. Have you ever thought of that? You have never had her examined by a doctor qualified to pronounce on her case, have you?”
“No, Master, we never took her to anyone. When we first began to fear that she was never going to talk Thomas wanted to take her to Charlottetown and have her looked to. ”

“ She isna to blame. But I canna go to meet her mother till our little lass has forgie'n me for the name I called her. Thomas, help me up. Since she winna come to me I must e'en go to her.'
"There was no crossing him--we saw that. He got up from his deathbed and Thomas helped him out into the hall and up the stair. I walked behind with the candle. Oh, Master, I'll never forget it--the awful shadows and the storm wind wailing outside, and father's gasping breath. But we got him to Margaret's room and he stood before her, trembling, with his white hairs falling about his sunken face. ”

“ On the night of the 4th of March, 1776, with three thousand picked men, he took possession of Dorchester Heights, commanding Boston, where the British were intrenched, and before morning had thrown up a formidable line of earth-works,—an advantage32 which finally led to the evacuation of the town by the enemy on the 17th of March. The death of Montgomery at the storming of Quebec necessitating the appointment of an experienced officer to command the troops in Canada, this duty was assigned to Thomas,—Congress having advanced him to the rank of major-general on the 6th of March, 1776. ”

“ Dunlop was, in the mean time, magnifying, wherever he went, the divine goodness which had, by so humble an instrument as himself, brought a noble person back to the right path. Montgomery no sooner heard of this wonderful work of grace than he too began to experience compunction. He went to Melville, made a confession not exactly coinciding with Ross's, and obtained a pass for England. William was then in Ireland; and Mary was governing in his stead. At her feet Montgomery threw himself. ”

“ In Colonel Montgomery's hands these up-river raids reached the dignity of a fine art. His conceptions of foraging were rather more Western and liberal than mine, and on these excursions he fully indemnified himself for any undue abstinence demanded of him when in camp. I remember being on the wharf, with some naval officers, when he came down from his first trip. The steamer seemed an animated hen-coop. ”

“ Robert Montgomery has not failed to make his hero go to and fro, and walk up and down. With the exception, however, of this propensity to locomotion, Satan has not one Satanic quality. Mad Tom had told us that “the prince of darkness is a gentleman”; but we had yet to learn that he is a respectable and pious gentleman, whose principal fault is that he is something of a twaddle and far too liberal of his good advice. That happy change in his character which Origen anticipated, and of which Tillotson did not despair, seems to be rapidly taking place. Bad habits are not eradicated in a moment. ”

“ More than a century passed before there is any record of the site of Montgomery being again seen or visited by European travelers or adventurers. In 1697 three adventurous and hardy Englishmen from Carolina went down the Alabama river in boats to the Mobilian Indians, on Mobile Bay, and it may safely be conjectured that they spent a brief season at the Indian village Ikanatchati. In 1714 Bienville came up the Alabama river, and founded Fort Toulouse, near the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers, as a remote French outpost against the British on the east. ”

“ On the Capitol grounds is placed a handsome monument to the memory of the Confederate dead of Alabama. Its erection is due to the Ladies' Memorial Association of Montgomery. It is said to have cost forty-six thousand dollars. The corner stone was laid by Jefferson Davis, first and only President of the Confederate States of America, on April 26, 1886. It was completed and dedicated December 7, 1898.
In 1861, when the Southern States were planning for the formation of a new Confederacy, Montgomery was chosen as the place for the meeting of delegates to a Provisional Congress. ”

“ The citizens were not wanting in enterprise. Andrew Dexter, the leading spirit, foresaw the metropolitan importance of the town and promptly laid aside a square, on which the State Capitol was subsequently to be erected, as he confidently believed. By 1821 steamboats were making regular trips from Mobile to Montgomery, and in the same year the Montgomery Republican was issued by Jonathan Battelle. ”

“ Brother of Richard Monins (above) . Entered the 52nd Regt. as a Volunteer. Served at Waterloo with the 17th Lancers; deceased.
Montgomery,* Alfred, 1824. Son of the late Sir H. Conyngham Montgomery, Bart. b. 1814. Dep. Chairman Inland Revenue Office.
Montgomery, Hugh, 1819. Brother of the above, b. 1809. Major Madras Army; d. 1852.
Montgomery, Richard Thomas, 1826. Son of Rev. Alexr. J. Montgomery, of Beaulieu. b. 1813. Trin. Coll. Dub. 3rd Light Dragoons. Was High Sheriff for Louth 1855. Moody, George, 1820, b. 1808. St. John's Coll. Cam. Rector of Gilston, Herts. ”

“ Robert Montgomery is fond of personification, and belongs, we need not say, to that school of poets who hold that nothing more is necessary to a personification in poetry than to begin a word with a capital letter. Murder may, without impropriety, bare her arm, as she did long ago, in Mr. ”

“ As stated, at the time he laid off New Philadelphia, Andrew Dexter, reserved a square at the head of what was first known as Market Street, later to bear his name, as that of the real founder of Montgomery, on which he anticipated the ultimate placing of the State Capitol. The Capitol had been removed from Cahaba to Tuscaloosa, in 1826, and from time to time thereafter discussion arose as to its removal from the latter point. At the session of the Legislature, 1845-46, the subject was again advanced, and in January, 1846, Montgomery was chosen. ”

“ The negotiation speedily ended in a treaty of alliance, Payne confidently promised Montgomery, not merely pardon, but riches, power and dignity. Montgomery as confidently undertook to induce the Parliament of Scotland to recall the rightful King. Ross and Annandale readily agreed to whatever their able and active colleague proposed. An adventurer, who was sometimes called Simpson and sometimes Jones, who was perfectly willing to serve or to betray any government for hire, and who received wages at once from Portland and from Neville Payne, undertook to carry the offers of the Club to James. ”

“ While Montgomery was labouring to form out of various materials a party which might, when the Convention should reassemble, be powerful enough to dictate to the throne, an enemy still more formidable than Montgomery had set up the standard of civil war in a region about which the politicians of Westminster, and indeed most of the politicians of Edinburgh, knew no more than about Abyssinia or Japan.
It is not easy for a modern Englishman, who can pass in a day from his club in St. ”

“ Few men have ever fallen in battle so much regretted on both sides as General Richard Montgomery. His many amiable qualities had procured him an uncommon share of private affection; and his great abilities an equal proportion of public esteem. Being a sincere lover of liberty, he had engaged in the American cause from principle, and quitted the enjoyment of an easy fortune, and the highest domestic felicity, to take an active share in the fatigues and dangers of a war instituted for the defense of the community of which he was an adopted member. ”

“ In personal appearance Montgomery is described as of medium height, ruddy complexioned, with curly reddish hair and a quick grey eye. He was twice married: first, in December 1648, to Mary, eldest daughter of Charles, second viscount Moore, by whom he had two sons Hugh and Henry, who were successively second and third earls of Mount Alexander and a daughter, Jean, who died unmarried in 1673; secondly, in 1660, to Catherine Jones, daughter of Arthur, second viscount Ranelagh, and widow of Sir William Parsons of Bellamont. ”

“ Montgomery is not the sort of man one would naturally associate with his energetic and self-reliant helpmate. There is a lack of shrewdness and an utter want of that keen discriminating power, which can give at first glance the full numerical value of all exterior objects. The owner of "Gladswood" belonged to that "come-easy-go-easy" class, who, unless circumstances come to their relief, are ever being duped or made a prey to the avaricious. But Mr. Montgomery had a source of never-failing strength in his wife. ”

“ Although the military abilities of Montgomery were highly distinguished, war and conquest had no other charms to him than as the means of peace and happiness to mankind, and he found leisure in the midst of camps to cultivate an excellent taste for philosophy and polite literature. ”

“ Paul's church, New York city, in honor “of the patriotic conduct, enterprise, and perseverance of Maj.-Gen. Richard Montgomery.” In the British parliament, Edmund Burke contrasted the condition of the 8,000 men, starved, disgraced, and shut up within the single town of Boston, with the movements of the hero who in one campaign had conquered two thirds of Canada. To which Lord North replied : “I cannot join in lamenting the death of Montgomery as a public loss. Curse on his virtues! they've undone his country. He was brave, he was able, he was humane, he was generous ”

“ John Newman King, Judge Walters, Captain Joshua Wilson, the veteran recorder, former-Sheriff Whittlesey and others, and is included merely to satisfy those citizens of Montgomery who think this entire history should be devoted to Phil, to the exclusion of her friends and relations. The historian hopes he is an open-minded person, and he would rather please Montgomery than any other center of thought and industry he knows; but the laws of proportion (as Phil would be the first to point out) may not lightly be ignored. ”

“ Montgomery had two or three livid marks upon his body, and his face was haggard, save for that pink spot which the brandy had brought into either cheek. He rocked a little as he stood opposite his man, [70] and his hands drooped as if he felt the gloves to be an unutterable weight. It was evident that he was spent and desperately weary. If he received one other blow it must surely be fatal to him. If he brought one home, what power could there be behind it, and what chance was there of its harming the colossus in front of him? It was the crisis of the fight. ”

“ And yet he contrived to present the same appearance of a man who is hopelessly done. The Master, weary from his own shower of blows, and fearing nothing from so weak a man, dropped his hand for an instant, and at that instant Montgomery's right came home.
It was a magnificent blow, straight, clean, crisp, with the force of the loins and the back behind it. And it landed where he had meant it to— upon the exact point of that blue-grained chin. Flesh and blood could not stand such a blow in such a place. Neither valour nor hardihood can save the man to whom it comes. ”