Part 1 (1/2)

Mee Jacobs

Introduction

I have often been requested by , first, raphy, with sohty years and more; secondly, some of the addresses and papers made by me as a private citizen or public official; and, thirdly, some of the impressions, solemn, ludicrous and otherwise, enus homo_, principally on the Pacific Coast, where I have resided since 1852--in Oregon for seventeen years; in Seattle, Washi+ngton, thirty-eight years, plus the di future

I have finally concluded to undertake the delicate task If it is ever completed and printed, I fondly hope its readers, if any, may be interested, if not instructed, by these extracts fro experience of contact and conflict with the world

I say ”conflict,” because every true life is a battle for financial independence, social position and the general approval of one's fellow-raphy could be completed by an accurate and simple statement of facts, such as one's birth, education and the pro events or acts of one's career, it would be a coht incline to dim the lustre of the paramount facts, or to narrow their beneficence; while a doht overstate their erate their beneficial results Both of these are to be avoided But where is theas to avoid the engulfing breakers on either hand? If there could be an iested, still they would be but a veil enco the real man The true man would but dimly appear by implication Character, that invisible entity, like the soul, constitutes the true raphy that does not develop the traits, the qualities, of this invisible entity is of no value Character is complex and compound It consists of those tendencies, inclinations, bents and ih the line of descent and becoral part of the ed and strengthened, or curbed and diious belief Education possesses no creative power It acts only on the faculties God has given It draws thethens thereater breadth and deeper penetration By education I do not reat teacher and educator The continuous woods, the sunless canyon, the ascending ridges and mountain peaks, as well as the sunlit and flower-bestrewn dells and valleys--in fact all of the beautiful and variegated scenes in Nature--possess an educational force and power very ed--his taste for the beautiful quickened--and his love for the grand and sublime broadened and deepened by frequent intercourse with Nature Byron felt this when he wrote

”There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more, From these, our interviews, in which I steal Frole with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal”

I haveand quasi-licensing, but also an educational force There are, I fear, in every co persons, who, lacking in fixed moral principles and habits of life like the sensitive and i the color of the bark on the tree which for a ti of the society in which they move, and become for a time, at least, an ee--let such persons rate and become residents of a society of darker moral hue and of lower moral tone--and, like the cha and echo the lower tone If it is their nature to command, they become leaders in a career of associated viciousness or infauished in the line of individual cri broken loose fros, they drift as hopeless, purposeless wrecks on the sea of life

During my residence on the Pacific Coast I have known eneration, and our own beautiful and prosperous city has not been free fro that ”evil coood manners” It is oodintended by the translators

I have ious belief as an eleious teacher has ever exercised such a do force in the formation of character in the civilized world, as have the doctrines of Christ Before His advent the learned world received the philosophy of Aristotle, as a sufficient basis of reat as it was, and i as it often did on the doiven way or been subordinated to the clear, direct yet sirand and universally applicable rule of individual and civil conduct: ”Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” A character in which this doctrine forms the basis will always respond to the deht

These observations must answer as a preface, or, as Horace Greely once styled such perforraphy

I was born in the Genesee Valley, Livingstone County, State of New York, on the second day of May, A D 1827 I was nuirls My mother, while not in the popular sense an educated wo but a common-school education, had, as the philosopher Hobbes tere aave, as a religious mother, her assent to Solomon's declaration that he who spares the rod spoils the child, it was only in the rant instances of disobedience that she put the doctrine in practice She was fir in no unfulfilled threats or promises of punishment in case of non-compliance with her orders In fact, she acted upon the principle that certainty and not severity of punish governing poas affection--love,--thus exe of the Master that ”he who loveth Me keeps My cohty years of one to her reward My observation and experience is that the mother's influence over her sons, if she be a true and affectionate er than that of the father Her love is ever present in the conflict of life; it reainst evil, and a powerful iht Someone has said that there are but three words of beauty in the English language: ”Mother, Home, Heaven”

My father owned a farm of forty acres in the Genesee Valley, and I first saw the light of day in a plain but comfortable frame house Back of it, and between two and three rods from it, quietly ran in a narrow channel a flower-strewn and al brook, whose clear and pure waters, about a foot in depth, were used for domestic and farm purposes I mention this brook because connected with it is my first memory I fell into that brook one day when I was about three years old, and would have drowned had it not been for the timely arrival of my mother As the years advanced, observation extended, experience increased and enlarged, and I became a parent myself, I have often considered how many children would have reachedthe alilance of a mother's love

The next circumstance in my life distinctly remembered occurred some two or threeand roh the kitchen one day, I tripped and fell, strikinga wound over an inch in length and cutting to the bone The profuse flow of blood alarmed me; but htful and resourceful in the presence of difficulties, soon staunched the flow of blood and drew the bleeding lips of the gaping wound together The doctor soon after added his skill; then Nature intervened; and, to use the stately language of court, the incident, as well as the wound, was closed

I have stated these two events not as very important factors in the history of a life, but because they illustrate the teaching of mental philosophy, that memory's power of retention and in individual's ability to recall any particular fact depends upon the intensity of e that fact or event Especially is this true of our youth and early orous and strong

In after years our emotional nature is not so active and not so readily aroused; still it exists, a latent but potent factor in memory's domain

Given the requisite intensity, it will still write in indelible characters the history of events on the tablets of memory

Memory is of two kinds--local and philosophical Local memory is the ability to retain and recall isolated and non-associated facts The vast mass of early facts accumulated in memory's store-house rests upon this emotional principle As the years increase and the mind matures, other principles become purveyors for that store-house The laws of classification and association becoencies of the cultivated eneralization The operation of these laws constitutes philosophicThe recalled facts of our youthful days have a thrill in them; not always of joy, sometihts on raphy

My father, not being satisfied with his forty-acre far desirous ofdescription of the fertile prairie and wooded plains in Southern Michigan, made a trip to that territory in the summer of 1831 and purchased in St Joseph County two tracts of land of 160 acres each--one being on as afterwards called Sturgis Prairie; the other, in as known as the Burr Oak Openings St Joseph County, now one of the reat State, then had less than two hundred people within its large domain Near the center of the prairie, which contained five or six sections of land, there were four or five log houses--the nucleus of a thriving to existing there There was also quite a pretentious block-house,the existence of the fear that the perfidious savage,--like the felon wolf,--ration and massacre There were ed to the then numerous and powerful tribe called the Pottawatto in sish streams These lakes and streams were literally filled with edible fish Deer and wild turkeys, also the prairie chicken, pheasant and quail, were abundant Strawberries, cherries, grapes, plums, pas and crabapples--as well as hazelnuts, hickory nuts, black walnuts and butternuts--were everywhere in the greatest profusion in the woodlands

It was a paradise for Indian habitation I cannot o lived on the frontierbecome acquainted with many Indian tribes, their habits and custohter just for the love of slaughtering, but for food and clothing, alone; hence, game was always plentiful in an Indian country The buffalo, those noble roao, existed in almost countless numbers, have nearly disappeared

The destructive fury and remorseless cupidity of the white man have done their work The indian and the buffalo could and would, judging by the past, have co-existed forever Now the doo of 1832 we started for our new hoon loaded with household goods and provisions--two yoke of oxen and a brood ood stock We reached our destination in a little over a month I say ”we” and ”our”

because I wish it to be understood that I tookwith ht be useful there I distinctly remember but two incidents of that journey; of not much importance, however, in the veracious history of a life I beca friend had given ht successfully whittle h to the land of promise I was inconsolable for a tirief, promised me another So true is it that faith in a prorief, lifts the darkening cloud, and often opens up a fountain of joy

We had to cross Lake Erie on our journey The not over-palatial floating palace in which we embarked was struck by a stor and foaers, save myself and some of the crew, as I was informed, lurched and foamed at the mouth in unison with the turbulent waves