Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 309, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1912 — Revolutionary Ghosts Stirred [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Revolutionary Ghosts Stirred

NEW YORK. —Ghosts of a score of Central and South American revolutions were stirred from their lurking places in the arms-fllled corners of Westminster Abbey’s “what-not” store, No. 61 Front street, by a fire the other afternoon. Since 1830 it has been possible to get anything from a print of eighteenth century New York to a pound of “good mixed tea at 20 cents” in this store, but munitions of war have been its chief stock, and if seamen’s gossip means anything filibusters have had good reason to know this for more than a generation. Westminster* Abbey—who got his strange name because his father, Jared Abbey, intended him for the church—watched the progress of the fire with tear-filled eyes. "Every one’s got a bug,” he said, "and my bug is my business. I had things in there that you wouldn’t take as a gift, but that I wouldn’t have parted with for any price you could have offered.” Many of these things were ruined by smoke and water, but for the most part the damage was confined to flags and uniforms from half the

by Abbey Fire

countries in the world; to tenting and fishing tackle; to teas and coffees jumbled in with paint; to prints and etchings, and to some ancient paintings of greater sentimental than artistic worth. Some $50,000 worth of arms and ammunition escaped harm. Perhaps the most valuable retjca owned by Abbey come under this last category. The building occupied - by Abbey was said by the police to be the old* est along Front street. For three generations it has been known as "the shop with the little brass candlestick,” from its trademark, a tiny gun that could hardly carry more than a buckshot, but which is of great age and value. \