The Franklin County Publication Archive Index is constantly updated. By creating an account you can elect to receive notices when new articles are added and when people comment on the articles.
To search for a particular subject term, click on the highlighted link containing that term at the bottom of the article. For example, if you are seeking more articles about animals, click on the highlighted link which says Animals/Reptiles/Amphibians.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 16, 1875
Black King of Niam Niam
In an account of his adventures in the Upper Nile, Col. Long of the Egyptian Army, says that the black king of Niam Niam decapitated 30 of his subjects in honor of the visitor, who also accepted a girl as a royal gift. Through an interpreter she said "I want very much to go with you, but it must be on condition that you will not eat me". The colonel said he wouldn’t eat her on any consideration.
[This little gem appears to be taken from a book entitled "Centennial skyrockets: a series of flights, fancies and facts" by Rev. Titus Joslin. Wikipedia has an explanatory page about the Azande: "This name is probably of Dinka origin, and means great eaters in that language (as well as being an onomatopoeia), supposedly referring to cannibalistic propensities. This name for the Azande was in use by other tribes in Sudan, and later adopted by westerners. Naturally, today the name Niam-Niam is considered pejorative"].
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 16, 1875
News of the week
Six Niagara people visited the Cave of the Winds Mon. aft. without a guide, as they had frequently done before, and after passing through it, two of them, Ethelbert Parsons, 29 years old, and Miss Lottie C. Philpott, 25, descended to an eddy which is never visited by the guides. While bathing, the lady lost her foothold and was caught by the gentleman, but the current carried both into the river below, where they were drowned. They were soon to be married.
[See the whole sad story in the Aug. 13, 1875 New York Times Archives, entitled "Accident at the Falls. Also check out Cave of the Winds on Wikipedia].
It is well enough to keep track of the difficulty between the English and the King of Burmah, as a very lively war is likely to grow out of it before long, the result of which will probably be one of the most important territorial acquisitions the English in India have made for a quarter of a century. The grounds of the dispute are twofold: a little doubt about boundary lines, and the charge that the Burmese government sympathized with and assisted the Chinese who recently massacred in Western China a British exploring party of 80 persons.
/ The fact that the Chinese general who was responsible for this affair was recently received with honors in Burmah [See Burma or Myanmar in Wikipedia], has rendered the English highly indignant. The English papers intimate that war is scarcely avoidable. This is very likely to be true, for the reason that the English want a war, but certainly not because the provocation is sufficient to justify it. For according to the accounts received hitherto, the Burmese government cannot fairly be held responsible for sympathizing with an atrocity committed in China by Chinese. But the English want to annex Burmah, and that will be the secret of any war that is undertaken.
/ Disraeli is willing to add a little military glory to his administration, and British merchants sigh after the Chinese overland trade which the acquisition of Burmah would open to them. Negotiations are now pending between the two governments, and the English and Burmans are collecting armies. Of course the result of a war would be a foregone conclusion. Hostilities in that region will make it lively for the missionaries.
A memorial tablet , on which is the following inscription, now marks the spot in Westminster Abbey where the remains of Dr. Livingstone are deposited: Brought by faithful hands over land and sea, David Livingstone: missionary, traveler, philanthropist. For 30 years his life was spent in an unwearied effort to evangelize the native races, to explore the undiscovered secrets, and to abolish the slave trade. Born March 19, 1813; died May 1, 1873 at Chitambo's Village, Ulala"...
Gazette & Courier - Monday, April 12, 1875
The tunnel by the head-light of an engine
There is no better introduction to the tunnel than that which an accommodating engineer, an old iron horse and a bright headlight afford (long article).
Gazette & Courier - Monday, February 8, 1875
Drs. Peters and Harkness [Christian Heinrich Friedrich Peters and Willia
Drs. Peters and Harkness [ http://newton.nap.edu/html/biomems/cpeters.html Christian Heinrich Friedrich Peters and http://www.usno.navy...ry/ToV_Chapter_7.htm William Harkness ] of the American expedition were the only successful observers of the transit of Venus in New Zealand. The observations at Hobart Town and Campbelltown, Tasmania, were obstructed by clouds, and the first part of the transit was lost. The German party at the Auckland Islands had a successful observation.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, February 1, 1875
Winter in Niagara Falls
Winter in http://www.pbase.com/michaelsv/image/38083352 Niagara Falls - A correspondent of the Rochester Express writes from Niagara Falls: "The http://www.cliftonhi...s_history_icebridge/ ice bridge is formed in all its perfection, more so than it has been for at least the past 12 or 15 years. The ice columns rear their heads in all their majesty below the American and Horseshoe Falls to the height of over 100 ft. Those at the base of the http://www.niagarafa...ut_Niagara_Falls.htm American Falls reach nearly to the top of the falls, and are as clear as crystal. On visiting Table Rock the visitor passes between the ice columns and the falls, and they present to the view of the beholder a magnificent spectacle. The ice bridge above the falls, extending at least a mile or more on the river, varies in thickness from 2 inches to 5 or 6 ft. Monday a party of 7 young gentlemen, started from th head of the http://www.mobot.org...ot_Goat/37_Third.htm Third Sister Island - went up the river opposite http://www.iaw.on.ca/~falls/cataract.html Grass Island , which is nearly a mile from their starting point, and stopped at the old scow which is anchored in the river above the rapids; returning they went under the http://www.mobot.org...ot_Goat/34_Three.htm Second Sister Island bridge down to http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/kostoff98.html McCullough's Rock , broke some of the rock off as a memento, went over to the old scow below the Third Sister Island, and returned home. The distance traveled on the ice bridge was over 5 miles, and this, it will be remembered, is located over a portion of the swiftest rapids approaching the cataract. It is said the distance traversed has not been frozen over before in 12 or 15 years. In some places the ice seemed frozen to the rocks, leaving but little room for the water to flow between the ice and the bed of the river. The http://wwww.philaprintshop.com/impr1881.html ice gorge below the falls is very ragged. It is supposed to be in some places, piled up to the thickness of 20 or 30 ft. One gentleman told this correspondent that in one locality it was 40 ft. thick. But we took the story with a great deal of allowance. The bridge below the falls is very rough, making traveling tiresome in the extreme to pedestrians, though this does not deter people from crossing and recrossing the river up to a stone's throw of the great cataract. The scenery from both the Park and Goat Island is magnificently grand.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, February 1, 1875
The Soko
The Soko - The geography of the region through which Livingstone traveled in Africa, the customs peculiar to the different tribes, and the habits of the various animals which he enumerated are described in this journal with his usual care, accuracy and fullness. The soko, which Livingstone speaks of interchangeably with the gorilla, seems after all to be an entirely new species of chimpanzee, and as such is entitled to the distinction of having his portrait reproduced at length, just as the explorer graphically sketches it.
In the Manyuema country, under date of Aug. 24, 1870, he writes: "Four gorillas, or sokos, were killed yesterday: an extensive grass-burning forced them out of their usual haunt, and coming on the plain, they were speared. They often go erect, but place the hand on the head, as if to steady the body. When seen thus, the soko is an ungainly beast. The most sentimental young lady would not call him a ’dear’, but a bandy-legged, pot-bellied, low-looking villain, without a particle of the gentlemen in him.
Other animals are graceful, especially the antelope, and it is pleasant to see them, either at rest or in motion. The natives are also well made, lithe, and comely to behold, but the soko, if large, would do well to stand for a picture of the devil. He takes away my appetite by his disgusting bestiality of appearance. His light-yellow face shows off his ugly whiskers and faint apology of a beard; the forehead, villainously low, with high ears, is well in the background of the great dog-mouth; the teeth are slightly human, but the canines show the beast by their large development. The hands, or rather the fingers, are like those of the natives. The flesh of the feet is yellow, and the eagerness with which the Manyuemas devour it leaves the impression that eating sokos was the first stage by which they arrived at being cannibals; they say the flesh is delicious. The soko is represented by some to be extremely knowing, successfully stalking men and women while at their work, kidnapping children and running up trees with them: he seems to be amused by the sight of the young native in his arms, but comes down when tempted by a bunch of bananas, and as he lifts that, drops the child: the young soko in such a case would cling closely to the arm-pit of the elder.
One man was cutting out honey from a tree, and naked, when a soko suddenly appeared and caught him, then let him go. Another man was hunting, and missed in his attempt to stab a soko: it seized the spear and broke it, then grappled with the man, who called to his companions, "Soko has caught me". The soko bit off the ends of his fingers and escaped unharmed. Both men are now alive at Bambarre. The soko is so cunning, and has such sharp eyes, that no one can stalk him in front without being seen; hence, when shot it is always in the back; when surrounded by men and nets, he is generally speared in the back, too; otherwise he is not a very formidable beast; he is nothing, as compared in power of damaging his assailant, to a leopard or lion, but is more like a man unarmed, for it does not occur to him to use his canine teeth, which are long and formidable.
Numbers of them come down in the forest within a hundred yards of our camp, and would be unknown but for giving tongue like fox-hounds: this is their nearest approach to speech. A man hoeing was stalked by a soko and seized; he roared out, but the soko giggled and grinned, and left him as if he had done it in play. A child caught up by a soko is often abused by being pinched and scratched, and let fall. The soko kills the leopard occasionally, by seizing both paws and biting them so as to disable them; he then goes up a tree, groans over his wounds, and sometimes recovers, while the leopard dies: at other times both soko and leopard die.
The lion kills him at once, and sometimes tears his limbs off, but does not eat him. The soko eats no flesh; small bananas are his dainties, but not maize. His food consists of wild fruits, which abound. The soko brings forth at times twins. A very large soko was seen by Mohamed’s hunters sitting picking his nails: they tried to stalk him, but he vanished. Some Manyuema think that their buried dead rise up as sokos, and one was killed with holes in his ears, as if he had been a man. He is very strong, and fears guns, but not spears; he never catches women. He draws out a spear (but never uses it), and takes some leaves and stuffs them into his wound to staunch the blood; he does not wish an encounter with an armed man.
He sees women do him no harm, and never molests them: a man with out a spear is nearly safe from him. They live in communities of about ten, each having his own female: an intruder from another camp is beaten off with their fists and loud yells. If one tries to seize the female of another, he is caught on the ground, and all unite in boxing and biting the offender. A male often carries a child, especially if they are passing from one patch of forest to another over a grassy space; he then gives it to the mother."
Gazette & Courier - Monday, January 25, 1875
Southern correspondence
Southern correspondence - Jacksonville, Florida - Editors of Gazette & Courier: It is possible I have a few friends who would like to know whether I am on the land or under the ocean, and I take this method of informing them that I am alive, and taking my rations as usual. I left New York the 29th ult. on http://www.enlou.com/time/year1840.htm steamer Vicksburg , via http://www.reveredor....com/art%20works.htm Port Royal and http://www.picturesf...na-beach/default.htm Fernandina , thence by rail to this place. The steamer is a propeller, was built for government service and has since been remodeled to fit it for a freight and passenger boat, and is much better for freight than passengers. The 30th was cold and windy, too uncomfortable to be on deck. I considered myself proof against sea sickness and congratulated myself on the fun I should have with others of our company, as they were obliged to pay http://www.jasa.net.au/books/druett.htm tribute to old Neptune . Alas, how uncertain human expectations are, that miserable ship concluded to roll from side to side, until I could not tell whether she was rolling sideways like a carriage wheel, or bottomside up; but I do remember I had to pay tribute with all the others and a fine in addition, for escaping last year. A storm set in from the north east, and the way it rushed us over the brine was a caution to timid ones. Our Captain judged we were off Port Royal on Friday. A heavy fog encompassed us and we drifted 24 hours; the fog lifted and we made Hilton Head, then it settled down again and we waited until morning, then steamed up to Port Royal, thence to Fernandina Mon. morning at 8 a.m. I think most of our company were glad to set their feet on solid ground again. It was a stormy trip, but we had a pleasant time after the sea sickness passed off. One of our company, who received the unanimous appellation of uncle, kept the passengers and crew in an uproar continually, with his oddities and jokes. He could sucker the boys just as easy as rollin' off from a log, and when he sat at dinner at Port Royal, the Captain says "Well, Uncle, what do you think of Port Royal?" ' Wal Capt., tell you what 'tis, I think there is a good deal of land to the acre down here' - I think the reply was a very good description of the place. Our party of 8 are residents of the "sunny south" in the city of Jacksonville, all boarding at one place; we have not been able to learn where the sunny part comes in as we have not seen that luminous body since the 30th of December; they say it will shine again soon, and we hope the time is not too far distant. It is mild and comfortable here without an overcoat. The trees and shrubs look green and fresh. Saw some white trumpet lilies in bunches about 3 ft. high, the blossoms hanging down like white bells, 8 inches in length; they were beautiful, and attracted much attention from Northern people. Oranges are plenty and delicious, and the way our boys go for them will make prices rule higher soon. Five of our party will go up the river on a hunting, fishing, and exploring tour. We are waiting for our boats; two of them to be put in order and other arrangements to be completed; expect to start the 12th and go up the St. Johns to Salt Lake, then cross 6 miles of land. Our boats will have to be taken over by teams to Indian River, down said river to the southern part of the state. I must tell you of my http://www.flarr.com/ railroad trip from Fernandina to Jacksonville , for we made the greatest time on record so far as my rail traveling extends. The Florida Railroad extends from http://www.flarr.com/fernandina.htm Fernandina to Cedar Keys and intersects with the Gulf Railroad at http://www.flarr.com/baldwin.htm Baldwin . The distance to this station from Fernandina is 17 miles and we made it the whole distance in the astonishing time of 7 hours. I felt a little nervous about trusting my precious self on this road, for I had been out and examined it a short distance, and as they were switching some cars onto a side track near the station I noticed the engine had a greater affinity for the sleepers than for the rails, and to be sure everything was all right, went out just at night to see if they had got it on the track again. It was all right, and the train was to start precisely at 12 o'clock at night, and I dismissed my fears, as this was a common occurrence and attended with no danger whatever. When it happens, all you have to do is to go out into the woods hunting, and they will whistle for you when they are ready to start again. We got under way between 1 and 2, and before the train had made half the distance, I made up my mind it was the safest road I ever traveled over, and the only real danger to be anticipated is if you are sharp-sighted like myself, and fail to lay in a good stock of provisions, you may be somewhat emaciated when you get to the end of the route. They don't check any baggage on this road as it would be entirely useless, for they could not afford to pay for it if lost, and would not if they could. I would advise all my friends who don't want too much experience crowded in one trip, to take the Savannah steamer from New York to Savannah, and Florida and Savannah boats to Jacksonville and points up the river. They have fine accommodations, good fare, and are sure to go somewhere, which is more than you can say of any other routes (O.F.S.) [O.F. Swift].
Gazette & Courier - Monday, January 4, 1875
A Portsmouth paper says that affairs are now taking a definite form with regard to the British Arctic Expedition. The
A Portsmouth paper says that affairs are now taking a definite form with regard to the http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk/news/04050502.html British Arctic Expedition . The http://www.worldthro...rth-west-passage.php Pandora (5 screw gun vessel), is undertaking a survey for the purpose. She is 140 ft. long with 25 ft. beam, and at her last measured mile trial attained a speed of 4 knots. She has had two commissions, from the second of which she returned just over 2 years ago, since which time she has been in the steam reserve. It is understood that she will be planked round with square timber to enable her to successfully resist the pressure of the ice. The Columbine, which has been selected at Chatham, is 160 ft. long and [?] ft. broad, her speed being about the same as that of the Pandora. She returned from the East India Station in May last. Government surveyors are also engaged in Scotland inspecting the whalers there. The http://www.south-pole.com/aspp005.htm expedition will start in May next at the same time as the whaling fleets. The object in leaving at this early period is to reach the ice in time to pass through Melville Bay at the first opening, which occurs generally about the 5th of June.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, December 14, 1874
Success of Prof. Marsh's expedition
Success of http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/~alroy/lefa/Marsh.html Prof. Marsh 's expedition - Prof. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othniel_Charles_Marsh Othniel C. Marsh of Yale College and his party reached Fort Laramie, Wyoming, Sun. the 29th, on their return from their expedition to the Bad Lands, south of the Black Hills, and notwithstanding a good deal of trouble from hostile Indians and very severe weather - the thermometer being several days below zero - their explorations have been very successful. The fossil beds explored there were of the micocene age, and though limited in extent, proved to be rich beyond expectation. Nearly two tons of fossil bones were collected, most of them rare specimens, and many of them unknown to science. These remains were all of tropical animals entombed in the bed of an ancient lake. Some of them are as large as elephants; others are allied to the camel, the rhinoceros and the horse. This collection, one of the finest ever made in the West, goes to Yale College, and when fully described by http://www.geocities...b/3773/OC_Marsh.html Prof. Marsh , will settle many doubtful points in paleontology and add an important chapter to the science. The researches resulted also in new geological information in regard to the subdivisions of the tertiary and their geographical extent.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, November 30, 1874
Lady Franklin has renewed the offer of $100,000 to anyone who will find the official records of her lost husband's expedition.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, November 30, 1874
Lady Franklin [Jane Franklin] has renewed the offer of $100,000 to any one who will find the official records of her lost husband's exped
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 21, 1874
A party of adventurers are starting at New York for the new Eldorado, so glowingly depicted by some of General Custer's party.
A party of adventurers are starting at New York for the new Eldorado, so glowingly depicted by some of General Custer’s party.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, February 19, 1872
Dr. Livingstone is alive again. He is within 20 days' march of the place which he was trying to reach at the same distance a year ago. He is apparen
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1039 Dr. Livingstone is alive again. He is within 20 days' march of the place which he was trying to reach at the same distance a year ago. He is apparently swinging round a circle.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, June 1, 1874
Congressional notes...The Senate passed the civil rights bill by the large vote of 20 to 19 at an early hour on Sat. morning 23rd...The bill is not toned down at all from what Mr. Sumner intended. 19
Congressional notes...The Senate passed the civil rights bill by the large vote of 20 to 19 at an early hour on Sat. morning 23rd...The bill is not toned down at all from what Mr. Sumner intended. 19 Senators recorded their votes Thurs. in favor of admitting women to political equality with men. Among them were Mr. Morton of Indiana and Mr. Washburn of Massachusetts. Colleague Boutwell voted "no" as did Mr. Roscoe Conkling of New York. It has been resolved to send a select Congressional committee of 5 to visit Arkansas for the purpose of discovering whether or not a republican form of government exists there. A bill has passed giving the widow of Capt. Hall $1836, being the amount due him when he died on the Polaris, and paying her $15,000 for the papers of his Arctic explorations.
- Sat, Feb 7, 2009
