Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 May 1884 — How Senator Ewing Came to Be Called “Solitude.” [ARTICLE]

How Senator Ewing Came to Be Called “Solitude.”

The nicknaming of prominent men, particularly of those mixing in politics, is practiced in this country more, perhaps, than in any other, and, as a rule, the recipient takes to it kindly. Thus, Gen. Jaekson was as well known as “Old Hickory” and more readily recognized than if* called President Jackson. Senator Benton, in his lifetime, was almost as well known as “Old Bullion so called from his advocacy of a gold and silver currency and his inveterate opposition to banks and paper money. The late Thomas Ewing, of Ohio, while a Senator in Congress, had his nickname of “Solitude,” and it so stuck to him that even now, long after his death, the prefix is still given him, to distinguish him from his son and namesake, Gen. Tom Ewing. Senator Ewing made a speech in the United States Senate which fastened the “Solitude” upon him. It was daring the national bank agitation, when the supporters of that institution were active in picturing the ruin that would come upon the country if the bank’s charter was notrenewed. Senator Ewing, in debate, spoke pf the mechanic being out cf work, and that the busy hum of industry is heard not in this, the busy season of the year, and wound up with the assertion that “our canals are a solitude, our lakes but desert wastes of water.” A number of Congressmen—several of them Senators, and more than half pf them Democrats —made up a party to return to their homes by the way of the New York canal. The West was then sending its produce to the East via lake and canal, and the Congressional party found that the canal trade, if judged by the number of boats met, was immense, and it was a standing joke with the Democratic members when a fleet of boats hove in sight to call Mr. Ewing from the cabin of the packet-boat to look at his “solitude.” At the lower end of the canal there had been a break, and a large number of boats were usually in sight. Of course there was fun to see them and to point them out to the Ohio member, but the fun was not on his side nor to his liking. At Rochester, just as the packetboat landed, a freight-boat was discharging cargo, and Mr. Ewing and the other Congressmen were lookers-on. By some accident a hogshead filled with molasses had its head burst in, and the contents poured into the canal. An Irish laborer standing near to Mr. Ewing, without knowing who he was, exclaimed: “Jabers, mon, that must be solitude swatenea.” The other Congessmen roared with laughter, and r. Ewing was forced to join them. The Democratic members told the joke and it got into the newspapers, and it aided in perpetuating the sobriquet of “Solitude” on Senator Thomas Ewing. I tell the tale as it was told and printed at the time.— Cor, Cincinnati Enquirer. _