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11 - Starved Rock- A Historical Sketch by Eaton G. Osman · Starved Rock- A Historical Sketch

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  Speaker 1: Section eleven of Starved Rock, a historical sketch by Eton
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  Speaker 1: g Ossman. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
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  Speaker 1: recording by Veronica Jenkins. Section eleven. The Historians and the Novelist.
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  Speaker 1: The historians, as year by year his tapestry unrolled what
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  Speaker 1: varied wealth. Its growing length displayed, what long procession flamed
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  Speaker 1: in cloth of gold, what stately forms the flowing robes arrayed?
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  Speaker 1: He told the red Man's story far and wide. He
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  Speaker 1: searched the unwritten records of his race. Oliver Wendell Holmes.
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  Speaker 1: Francis Parkman, doctor Francis Parkman born in Boston September sixteenth,
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  Speaker 1: eighteen twenty three came of an ancestry distinguished for scholarly
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  Speaker 1: attainment and achievement, and so early was his own taste
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  Speaker 1: and aptitude for literature, disclosed that in eighteen forty, at
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  Speaker 1: the age of seventeen, he was meditating on a history
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  Speaker 1: of the French in Indian Wars, or, to be more specific,
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  Speaker 1: the history of France and England in North America. This
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  Speaker 1: project took definite shape, and from boyhood to the end
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  Speaker 1: of the work of a lifetime was pursued with exceptional
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  Speaker 1: consistency and inspiring steadfastness of aim and endeavor. It was
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  Speaker 1: practically fifty years from the time he began his life's
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  Speaker 1: work to the day he completed it. By an interesting
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  Speaker 1: coincidence naming his last volume, Fifty Years of Conflict. The
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  Speaker 1: Oregon Trail, which was a prelude to his great undertaking,
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  Speaker 1: was the result of a summer journey undertaken by himself
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  Speaker 1: and his cousin Quincy A. Shaw, in eighteen forty six,
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  Speaker 1: across the continent into the Black Hills. As doctor Parkman's
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  Speaker 1: nearest friend, Reverend Julius H. Ward, has said, this Volumelliam
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  Speaker 1: shows how he became acquainted with the kind of life which,
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  Speaker 1: in writing of the early settlement of North America he
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  Speaker 1: was called upon to describe. It laid the foundation of
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  Speaker 1: the attractive interest and the feeling of reality which are
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  Speaker 1: everywhere imparted to his narrative. Mister Parkman entered into his
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  Speaker 1: undertaking with such ardor and enthusiasm that before he was
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  Speaker 1: aware of it, he had overtaxed his strength and had
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  Speaker 1: prepared the way for permanent physical infirmity, not that of eyesight,
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  Speaker 1: except to a limited extent, but a tendency to congestion
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  Speaker 1: of the brain, which all his life withdrew him from
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  Speaker 1: the field of active duty, and constantly interfered with his
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  Speaker 1: work as a scholar, now reaching him in disability of
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  Speaker 1: this organ, and now in the infirmity of that, and
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  Speaker 1: constantly limiting him in his hours of work, and compelling
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  Speaker 1: him to go at a snail's pace, when he felt
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  Speaker 1: as if the only satisfaction to his spirit would have
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  Speaker 1: been to march forward like a colonel at the head
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  Speaker 1: of his regiment. His physical infirmities were a tremendous drawback
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  Speaker 1: in his life work, but his spirit was so resolute,
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  Speaker 1: and he lived so much above his limitations of body,
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  Speaker 1: that nothing interfered with his great object. And he lived
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  Speaker 1: to complete his work and bring the history down to
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  Speaker 1: the year seventeen sixty, when the English completed their conquest
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  Speaker 1: of New France, and to see the plan which he
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  Speaker 1: laid out while a college student, developed and treated in
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  Speaker 1: every respect as exhaustively as the materials will permit. The
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  Speaker 1: Oregon Trail is an incomparable picture of the life that
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  Speaker 1: once existed on the great plains of the far West,
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  Speaker 1: which has now disappeared forever it was dictated to his
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  Speaker 1: traveling companion, and all his life thereafter he was dependent
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  Speaker 1: on the pens of his friends or of paid amenuences,
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  Speaker 1: not only for the performance of the labor of writing
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  Speaker 1: his words at his dictation, but for the collection and
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  Speaker 1: collating of materials under his direction. Five times he went
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  Speaker 1: to Europe, taking with him trained assistance to aid him
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  Speaker 1: in procuring the necessary data for his histories. Tens of
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  Speaker 1: thousands of maps and folio copies of documents were made
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  Speaker 1: in the museums and private archives of France and England
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  Speaker 1: with infinite patience in labor. All of these were examined
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  Speaker 1: in order that the histories might cover every important detail
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  Speaker 1: of their time with absolute accuracy. In eighteen fifty he
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  Speaker 1: married Catherine Bigelow, and for a brief space less than
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  Speaker 1: eight years, found in her companionship sweet solace for an
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  Speaker 1: illness which to a lesser man would have been a
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  Speaker 1: veritable death in life. Yet these were the happiest years
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  Speaker 1: of his life. In eighteen fifty one, The Conspiracy of
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  Speaker 1: Pontiac appeared, the first of that notable series of historical
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  Speaker 1: narratives entitled France and England in America, though chronologically it
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  Speaker 1: is the last, not again until eighteen fifty eight, after
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  Speaker 1: the death of his wife, did doctor Parkman find physical
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  Speaker 1: strength to resume his life's work in the meantime as
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  Speaker 1: a diversion, he has sayed the role of a novelist,
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  Speaker 1: Vassal Morton, being his third book, it was a succeed esteem.
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  Speaker 1: But the man who could make history more fascinating than
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  Speaker 1: romance saw that it was a waste of time and
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  Speaker 1: talents to make novels less agreeable than history. And he
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  Speaker 1: never repeated the experiment, in spite of the fact that
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  Speaker 1: for some years he could do absolutely nothing, that for
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  Speaker 1: many more he could work but five minutes a day,
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  Speaker 1: and that he never was able to work above ten
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  Speaker 1: hours or to compose above five hundred words a day.
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  Speaker 1: His purpose never faltered, But the successive volumes came slowly.
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  Speaker 1: The Pioneers of France in the New World eighteen sixty five,
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  Speaker 1: the Jesuits in North America eighteen sixty seven, LaSalle and
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  Speaker 1: the Discovery of the Great West eighteen sixty nine, The
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  Speaker 1: Old Regime in Canada eighteen teen seventy four, Count Frontenac
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  Speaker 1: and New France eighteen seventy seven, Montcalm and Wolf eighteen
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  Speaker 1: eighty four, and a half century of conflict eighteen ninety two,
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  Speaker 1: with which last the author laid down his pen, dying
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  Speaker 1: November eighth, eighteen ninety three. A life task fulfilled, fulfilled
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  Speaker 1: with the happiness of complete recognition of his significance and uniqueness,
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  Speaker 1: and with the world's acknowledgment that never need the work
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  Speaker 1: be repeated. The twelve volumes which constitute the History as
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  Speaker 1: it now stands, as Doctor Ward remarks, constitute a work
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  Speaker 1: which has a permanent value. It is a thorough examination
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  Speaker 1: of all the facts and an impartial treatment of them.
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  Speaker 1: This has been conceded by Catholic and Protestant students. It
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  Speaker 1: is as free from excess in one direction as in
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  Speaker 1: the other. Mister Parkman is able to sympathize with both
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  Speaker 1: parties in the contention for the mastery of North America,
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  Speaker 1: and usually allows the fact to speak for themselves and
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  Speaker 1: lead us to their obvious conclusion. It is these qualities
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  Speaker 1: of thoroughness and impartiality which give his work authority, and
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  Speaker 1: the charming style in which it is written ensures a
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  Speaker 1: permanent popularity. His publishers, Little Brown and Company, Boston, have
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  Speaker 1: recently issued a new edition of his works, with his
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  Speaker 1: latest revisions, including the Oregon Trail, characteristically illustrated by Frederick Remington.
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  Speaker 1: The addition is superior in workmanship, convenient in size, and
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  Speaker 1: moderate in price. John Gilmery Shay L. L d. Though
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  Speaker 1: thy worldly task hast done, ham Art gone, and tay
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  Speaker 1: In thy wages anonymous. After Parkman, no one man perhaps
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  Speaker 1: has done more to recover the history of the early
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  Speaker 1: French in the Mississippi Valley than doctor Shea deeply religious
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  Speaker 1: by nature and early training, and after his graduation from
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  Speaker 1: Columbia College, of which his father was a professor for
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  Speaker 1: six years a novice of the Society of Jesus, he became,
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  Speaker 1: as a Catholic much interested in the early history of
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  Speaker 1: Catholicism on this continent, and was especially moved, as must
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  Speaker 1: be every imaginative mind, by the heroism of the men
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  Speaker 1: who first carried the cross to the Indians of the
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  Speaker 1: Saint Lawrence and Great Lakes Valleys. Compelled by precarious health
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  Speaker 1: to abandon the university, he resumed the practice of law,
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  Speaker 1: interrupted by his connection with the Jesuits, but his historical studies,
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  Speaker 1: one may imagine, consumed much of the time other lawyers
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  Speaker 1: would have given to their briefs. His preliminary literary work
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  Speaker 1: was in the form of contribution to Catholic periodicals, which
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  Speaker 1: quickly brought him to the attention of the literary world,
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  Speaker 1: especially of historical students of this country and Europe. At
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  Speaker 1: the age of twenty six eighteen fifty he published his
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  Speaker 1: History of the Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi River,
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  Speaker 1: a work whose apparent great recent search in the buried
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  Speaker 1: archives of Canadian governmental and sacradotal records, and whose accuracy
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  Speaker 1: and uniqueness at once placed him in the rank of
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  Speaker 1: the first rate historians of his country. It was the
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  Speaker 1: first work to give dignity and form to an important
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  Speaker 1: part of our Western annals. It has been honored and
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  Speaker 1: approved by frequent reference by doctor Parkman. And equally, and
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  Speaker 1: perhaps in some respects even more important service was the
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  Speaker 1: editing and publishing by him of twenty six volumes of
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  Speaker 1: the missionaries relations, official reports, all of which were outside
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  Speaker 1: and in addition to those published by the Canadian government,
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  Speaker 1: covering the early French exploration in the Great West, and
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  Speaker 1: invaluable as a mind for original research. His History of
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  Speaker 1: the Catholic missions among the Indian tribes of the United
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  Speaker 1: States is also a monument to his learning, industry and piety.
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  Speaker 1: Both of these works are deeply interesting to the student
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  Speaker 1: of today. He was an indefatigable worker, and a list
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  Speaker 1: of his books and contributions to periodicals and historical society
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  Speaker 1: records would fill a goodly page. His last and perhaps
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  Speaker 1: greatest work was a history of the Catholic Church in
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  Speaker 1: the United States, which he finished on his deathbed. As
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  Speaker 1: to his work in general, Doctor Richard H. Clark in
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  Speaker 1: the Catholic Family Annal truly says his position in the
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  Speaker 1: Special Department of Catholic Americana was unequaled and unique. His
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  Speaker 1: advent in our midst, at a time when our Catholic
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  Speaker 1: historical records and materials were wasting, was providential, for he
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  Speaker 1: was foremost in teaching us their value and in making
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  Speaker 1: a noble and able use of them. He was, by
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  Speaker 1: prestige in his day, the historian of the American Catholic Church.
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  Speaker 1: And it may be added he was also a man
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  Speaker 1: in whom the Christian virtues which adorned his private life
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  Speaker 1: were covered by a veil of modesty and humility. He
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  Speaker 1: was born in New York July twenty second, eighteen twenty
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  Speaker 1: four and died at Elizabeth, New Jersey, February twenty second,
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  Speaker 1: eighteen ninety two. Missus Mary H. Catherwood give two barrows,
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  Speaker 1: trays and pans, Grace and glimmer of Romance, Emerson the
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  Speaker 1: novelist Missus Mary Hartwell Catherward, a resident of Hoopston, Illinois,
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  Speaker 1: in the Romance of Dollard. The story of Tanti et cetera, has,
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  Speaker 1: in Romance done for the period of French dominion in
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  Speaker 1: North America what Parkman has done for it in history
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  Speaker 1: recreated the period for the instruction and amusement of present generations.
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  Speaker 1: And if Parkman has given to history the charm of Romance,
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  Speaker 1: Missus Catherward has no less served history by reproducing in
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  Speaker 1: Romance the charm of local color in the realistic pictures
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  Speaker 1: of the life of the Canadian and Illinois people of
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  Speaker 1: the those those faraway days, without which history itself is
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  Speaker 1: incomplete and unsatisfactory. The reader of this sketch is the
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  Speaker 1: more interested in the story of Tanti, since the characters
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  Speaker 1: of the tale are the heroes of starved Rock. While
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  Speaker 1: the roc itself is the scene of not the least
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  Speaker 1: absorbing events of the story, the story of Tanti is
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  Speaker 1: the story of a friend, the most faithful of servants.
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  Speaker 1: Tanti was also the most steadfast of friends, that rarest
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  Speaker 1: of human blessings, which at best comes to a few
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  Speaker 1: men only, and to each but once Parkman has borne
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  Speaker 1: testimony to the disinterested fidelity of Tanti. But it remained
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  Speaker 1: for Missus Catherwood in the Story of Tanti, to recreate
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  Speaker 1: the living man and present him to us, crowned with
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  Speaker 1: the praises of historians, priests, tradition, savages, and his own deeds.
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  Speaker 1: The story opens with the beaver fair at Montreal sixteen
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  Speaker 1: seventy eight. LaSalle and Tanty had just arrived from France
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  Speaker 1: to explore the west. The picture of the savage gathering
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  Speaker 1: assembled for trade and a powwow with Frontenac the governor
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  Speaker 1: is very realistic. The threat of enmity against a Lassal
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  Speaker 1: that appears in the conversation of the traders and merchants
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  Speaker 1: is a hint of his ultimate failure and discloses also
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  Speaker 1: the reasons for it. In book two, the scene is
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  Speaker 1: Lesal's Lake Ontario Fort Fort Frontenac, and the theme is
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  Speaker 1: Lassal's earlier disappointments and the adverse influences operating against him
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  Speaker 1: on the Saint Lawrence. In book three, the scene is
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  Speaker 1: at Starved Rock, during that distressing period when LaSalle was
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  Speaker 1: in France for the last time, was murdered in Texas,
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  Speaker 1: and when his brother and Jotale saved from the fate
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  Speaker 1: of Lasal, enjoying Tonty's hospitality, hid from him the news
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  Speaker 1: of the death of his master and friend Lsal. The
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  Speaker 1: story is faithful to the thread of Lesal's career, and
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  Speaker 1: so is full of heroism and suffering, deception and treachery, envy,
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  Speaker 1: hatred and malice, and all uncharitableness. Relieved, however, by the
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  Speaker 1: loving faithfulness of Barb Lesal's niece and Tonty, his friend.
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  Speaker 1: Nearly all the celebrated names in Northwestern discovery in the
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  Speaker 1: seventeenth century are met in the course of the story,
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  Speaker 1: which completes with its color the picture, the drawing of
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  Speaker 1: which was the work of Parkman, the historian, and of
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  Speaker 1: section eleven, recorded by Veronica Jenkins in Ottawa, Illinois.