Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 91, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 April 1910 — “THE IMMORTAL J. N.” [ARTICLE]

“THE IMMORTAL J. N.”

Hia Wonderfol Library in Ohio Ta Knpidly Falling; Into Decay. Hidden away in the most unlikely place in the world, a shabby, woefully prosaic little cottage in a country town, is a library unique and so valuable that to wander among its ancient tomes and fondle their ponderous clasps and worm-eaten pages would plunge the ordinary bibliomaniac into what Robert Louis Stevenson calls "a fine, dizzy, joy.” Since there is no real reason for preserving the secret forever inviolate, let it be told that the village is McCutchenville, in Wyandotte County, Ohio, and the owner of the library Mrs. Elias Cooley, M. J. Thrall says in the Pittsburg Dispatch. While this name may not convey any especial significance, Mrs. Cooley is the sister of the late Jacob Newman Free, better known as the Immortal J. N., and the last surviving member of an extraordinary family. The Immortal J. N. was one of the most eccentric and at the same time pathetic creatures who ever lived in Ohio. He first came into public notice at the time of the Civil War by means of his frequent journeys between Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis for the purpose of “removing the pressure"—l. e., restoring peace. Through overstudy and brooding over the tragedy of the rebellion he had become mentally unsound, and through *ll the rest of his long life he remained resolved upon one thing, “to lift the pressure.” To-day this splendid library is piled in confusion in the little McCutchenville cottage in mute testimony of his erudition. In the old home one side of the front room from floor to ceiling was lined with volumes and the table in front of the shelves was heaped with them.,- The collection numbers about one thousand volumes. They are printed in many languages—in Latin, Greek, German. French, Hebrew, Sanskrit and Chinese. Some of them data