Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 August 1879 — PERSONAL AND LITERARY. [ARTICLE]

PERSONAL AND LITERARY.

—The old homestead of Abraham Lincoln at Sangamon, 111., is out of repair, and is used as a refuge by tramps. —Complaint is made that General Israel Putnam’s grave in Brooklyn, Conn., is sadly neglected. Relic hunters knock oIT pieces of the old slab and carry them away. —Chief-Justice Chase’s grave, at Oak Hill, near Washington, is marked simply by a block of gray granite, bearing only the record of his birth and death following his name. —Captain Eadi, of jetties fame, is described as a small and rather fragilelooking man. A peouliar pallor of his skin and a very quiet manner make him seem even smaller than he is, but he has a very thoughtful and determined face. He looks like a man who hus the utmost confidence in himself and who knows how to wait. —Representative Thomas Ewing’s home at Lancaster, Ohio, is a plain brick mansion, pleasantly situated on high ground. The General’s eldest son, William, who is twenty-three years old, is principal of an aoademy in an adjoining township. The General has four other children, two boys and two girls. —Thomas Smith, of Ipswich, Mass., is eighty-six years old. He does his own farming, haying included. He lives in an old-fashioned manner, nev.or had a stove in his house, and cooks by an open fireplace. He has never used spectacles and can read fine print by candle-light. He never rode in the cars, preferring to ride behind his old mare, which, he says, is fast enough for him.

—A member of a railway surveying party in Washington Territory visited the famous Indian Chief Moses, and writes of him: Moses is the only Indian Chief I have ever seen (and I have seem dozens of them) that is not a fraud. He lias brains. He is a gentleman in his manners. He has a large property in caitle and horses; and when he travels he has two servants with him to saddle his horse, to cook for him and to spread his blankets. He enjoys the unbonded confidence and respect of the most civilized and courageous Indians on the Continent. Born a warrior and chief, he had intelligence enough not to risk a useless war with whites if he could avert it. He dreaded war on account of its waste and the certain destruc-** tion of what he loved which it involved. He told me he would never again fight the whites ufiless the Indian agents tried to force him onto a reservation. “Then,” with a quick blazing of his eyes, “then I will fight. I had rather die than go. My people had rather die than go. ’