by exceedingly hard work, good judgment of men and markets, financial generaiship and a rare administrative ability. He has paid and continues to pay an immense roll of laborers, mechanics and other employés, thus contributing essentially to the prosperity of the state. It goes almost without saying that the accomplishment of such results in twenty one years has involved an almost complete engrossment in business. Though possessed of a strong taste for politics, this fact has kept him almost entirely out of official life, until his election to the governorship, which occurred in the year 1884. He has been a Republican ever since he reached his majority, constantly active in behalf of his party, using his purse and his time with equal freedom in its service and attaining a leading position in its councils, but asking no better reward than to see it succeed.

He was nominated for governor at the convention held at Detroit in 1884, his opponents at the polls being Josiah W. Begole, Fusion, and David Preston, Prohibitionist, and was elected by a plurality of 3,953 votes-Preston, Prohibitionist, receiving 22,207 votes. His administration of his office has been in the same lines adopted in his business, and he has succeeded in public affairs to a degree almost as marked as in his private life. He is a keen, sagacious, penetrating governor, looking closely after the business interests of the state, but entirely free from narrowness or parsimony. He has liberally upheld the interests of education, and devoted especial attention to the improvement

of public institutions of charity and correction. Though a heavy investor in manufacturing, and interested upon the side of what is popularly called the

cause of capital," he is wise enough to see that capital and labor must continue partners in business and that they are essentially interdependent. As a business man and an official he deprecates extremes in the action of either, and lends the weight of his influence to the compromising of differences, and the maintenance of the good feeling and rapport so important to the interests of both.

Governor Alger's state papers are models of clearness, simplicity and force. He is a business man, with the training of a lawyer and the experience of a soldier, and as such could scarcely be otherwise than direct, intelligible and brief in his utterances.

The first term of Mr. Alger is not completed, and any attempt at an elaborate analysis of his administration would be hasty and in bad taste, but that it has fully satisfied his friends, won the respect of his opponents, and does credit to his many-sided ability, will not be disputed.

In person Governor Algers is an active, handsome man of six feet tall, whose appearance belies his fifty years. His soldier training shows itself in every movement and in every tone of his voice. The habit of obedience may be lost, but that of a command never. Though of slight build he impresses the casual observer as being a large man as well as a tall one. He is quick and incisive of speech, but never brusque ;

thoroughly approachable, respectful and considerate toward those whom he meets, and utterly lacking either in the arrogance of small greatness or in the still more objectionable truckling and assumed bon hommie of the small politician. He is thoroughly dignified, and his manners, like his garments, are so unassumingly good that one scarcely notices them.

No matter how busy he may be, it is his habit to leave his desk and politely greet every caller. He listens with attention to all, though so many come with senseless questions and impertinent requests.

Governor Alger is a hard worker. He is at his desk early in the morning, and does not spare himself late hours when business requires the sacrifice. His official and personal affairs compel him to travel much, and his return always finds an accumulation of business which taxes to the utmost his rare rapidity and facility of labor. He is always decided, never shaken and rarely mistaken. It would require no slight temerity to look into his penetrating eye and endeavor to deceive him. He easily wins and holds the confidence of all with whom he associates, and he earns their regard as well as their respect, by the little amenities and kindnesses, so easy to show in business, and

which, in the aggregate, so greatly increase the pleasure of life.

Although so engrossed by many duties, Mr. Alger has cultivated his mind, and widely informed himself, by hard and habitual closet study. He has an admirable library, bought for use and constantly referred to. He would take rank in any society as a man far above the average of the systematically educated, in the breadth of his field of knowledge and the exactness of his information. His beautiful home is rich in pictures and articles of vertu, and its interior decorations and furnishings are such that one readily discerns that its master has a deep love of the beautiful and an unusual taste in selection-that he is an amateur and a connoisseur.

On the second day of April, 1861, Mr. Alger married Annette H. Henry, the daughter of W. G. Henry of Grand Rapids, a lady of rare character and mind, whose graces and social accomplishments are the best adornment of his home and make it the center of a charmed and charming circle. Mr. and Mrs. Alger have six children, two of whom are young ladies in society, a daughter aged fifteen, and the remaining three boys, the eldest thirteen and the youngest four years of age.

WALTER BUELL.

THE first house of representatives under the constitution of the United States formed a quorum on the first day of April, 1789. The senate, on the sixth, chose its president. On the fourteenth, George Washington received the official announcement of his recall to the public service. On the thirtieth, the day appointed for the inauguration—he being then fifty-seven years, two months and eight days old-the president elect was received by the two houses of congress, in New York City. Livingston, the chancellor of the state, admin istered the oath of office; and when he cried "Long live George Washington, president of the United States"-great was the cheering! This was the beginning of our government under its present form; and a movement has already been made in the matter of a centennial celebration of these events, in that city, in April, 1889.

We

early day, there were many well-known portages, or carrying-places, in the west, used in passing to and fro between the valley of the St. Lawrence and that of the Mississippi. will mention only the most noted. There was one between the head of Lake Chautauqua and the Rivere Aux Pommes (Apple river), a small stream flowing into Lake Erie. This was in the present county of Chautauqua, New York. There was another carrying-place to and from the waters of Lake Erie and those flowing into

the Alleghany, between that lake and the head of French creek. During French occupation, there was a well-traveled road across it, leading from Presque Isle, now Erie, Erie county, Pennsylvania, to Fort Le Boeuf, within the present limits of Waterford Borough, same county. A noted portage was that between the Cuyahoga river and the head waters of the Tuscarawas river, in the present county of Summit, Ohio. The "path" was about eight miles in length, leading south from the Cuyahoga river across what is now Portage township, nearly to the centre of the present township of Coventry, where a small lake indicates its southern terminus. There was a short carrying-place between the head waters of the Sandusky and those of the Scioto, in what is now Marion county, Ohio. In going up the Maumee river to its head, and thence to the Ohio, there was the choice of the St. Mary's river, with a portage to the head waters of the great Miami, or leaving at what is now Fort Wayne, Indiana, and going directly by a well-trodden path to the upper waters of the Wabash. There was also an excellent portage from the south bend of the St. Joseph river of Lake Michigan to the head of the Kankakee, just below the site of what is now the city of South Bend, Indiana. A noted carrying-place was the tract of low country lying between the south branch of the Chicago river and the Desplaines. But the most celebrated of all the portages was the one between the Fox river of Green bay and the Wisconsin river, at what is now Portage, Columbia county, Wisconsin. This " "path" was a little over a mile in length, almost a dead level, without any obstructions, and the two streams were always navigable for canoes or batteaux. There were also other carrying

WHEN Colonel George Rogers Clark and his heoric band of Virginians reached Kaskaskia, on the evening of the fourth of July, 1778, they had little difficulty in capturing not only the village but Fort Gage-the commander, Philippe Francois de Bastel, Chevalier de Rocheblave, who was, as his name indicates, a Frenchman, being taken wholly by surprise. To the English, this officer was known as, simply, Philip Rocheblave. He was sent a prisoner by Clark to Virginia and his name (which has long been a stumbling-block to western historians) soon disappeared except on the pages of history.

Of the different publications known as "Histories of Ohio," we enumerate, in chronological order, the following, as separate and distinct works:

I. A History of the State of Ohio, Natural and Civil.' By Caleb Atwater, A. M. Cincinnati, 1838.

II. 'Historical Collections of Ohio.' By Henry Howe. Cincinnati, 1847.

III. History of the State of Ohio.' By James W. Taylor. Cincinnati, 1854.

IV. The History of Ohio.' Edited by W. H. Carpenter and T. S. Arthur. Philadelphia, 1858.

V. 'The History of the State of Ohio.' By John S. C. Abbott. Detroit, 1875.

Each one of these is an octavo volume, except the one by Carpenter and Arthur, which is a 16mo. A pamphlet was published in 1848, in New York, entitled 'A Pictorial Description of Ohio, "compiled from the best authorities," by B. J. Lossing. As it was originally intended to accompany a map of the state, it can hardly be considered a distinct "History of Ohio."

ON the ninth of September, 1850, Millard Fillmore, who, by the death of Zachary Taylor, had become president of the United States,

thirty-first state of the Union. The news reached San Francisco, on the eighteenth of October, by the steamer Oregon. The twentyninth was set aside in San Francisco as a day of celebration over the event. A procession, an oration, the recitation of an ode written by a lady, the firing of guns, the discharge of artillery, the display of fireworks, the illumination by bonfires, and a grand ball given by the citizens, made the day and the night memorable. The ode, written by Mrs. Wills, of Louisiana, by request of the committee of arrangements, was as follows:

Rejoice! hear ye not o'er the hills of the east,
The sound of our welcome to liberty's union?
Pledge high! for we join in the mystical feast

That our forefathers hallowed at freedom's communion;
Then with hands high in air, our allegiance we swear,
Which time, nor dissension, shall ever impair :
And the bond of the Union, oh, long may it be
The hope of th' oppressed and the shield of the free!

Though afar on the verge of the ocean we lie,

Our hearts are as true as the sun that shines o'er us; Our treasures we bring of earth, ocean and sky,

And souls that exalt to join freedom's full chorus. Should foes o'er the land our justice withstand, 'Neath our own stripes and stars, we are found heart and hand:

For the bond of the Union, oh, long shall it be
The hope of th' oppressed and the shield of the free.

Like the star that once rose over Bethlehem's height,
And shed o'er creation the light of its beaming,
May the "bride of the west " through the earth pour her
light,

Nor set while one heart can be cheered by its gleaming.
So shall nations afar, point to nations the star
In peace softly shining, though dreadful in war:
In the bond of the Union, oh, long may it be
The hope of th' oppressed and the shield of the free.

IN early times, some of the western savages were spoken of as "Confute" Indians-why? It was usual to call Monongahela whisky, in pioneer times, "tafia "-why? When what is now the county seat of Armstrong county, Pennsylvania, was an Indian village, it was generally known as "the Kittanning;"--why "the" Kittanning? Kaskaskia was called "Rouinsac," in 1718—why?

WILLIAM STANLEY, HATCH was a volunteer in the Cincinnati light infantry, in the last war with England, and from the invasion of Canada by General William Hull in 1812, to the surrender of his army, was acting assistant quartermaster-general. Concerning the arrival of General Hull's army at Detroit from Dayton, Ohio, Hatch says:

July 3, 1812.-At two o'clock, P. M., whilst under march, near the River Raisin, we received dispatches from Washington City, announcing the declaration of war against England. The late Judge Shaler of Pittsburgh, then a young man, was the bearer of dispatches.

During the forenoon of Saturday, the fourth of July, the army reached the River Huron, after passing some miles through a heavily timbered swamp. The river, where struck was deep with the water near the surface of the ground; banks perpendicular; width perhaps fifty or sixty feet. A floating bridge, made of the timber of the vicinity, and transported by a large fatigue force, was constructed in a short time; so that the entire army, with all the baggage and stores, was passed over the river before sunset. They bivouacked in the prairie in front-the grass in which was then at an average height of about three feet.

July 5.-The army passed the Indian council ground at Brownstown, crossed the River Rouge, advanced and encamped at "Spring Wells," estimated at that time to be three to four miles from the Fort of Detroit.

July 6.-Monday, the Fourth regiment U. S. infantry marched to the fort and occupied it.

July 7.-The volunteers marched and took position near the fort on the south, west and north.

a group of three, being Red Cloud, Young Spotted Tail and C. P. Jordan, interpreter; also a group of eleven, consisting of YoungMan-Afraid-of-His-Horses, Sword, Yellow Bear, He Dog, Little Hound, American Horse, Little Big Man, Three Bears, and three interpre

ters.

ers.

THE American Antiquarian society held its last annual meeting in Worcester, Massachusetts on the twenty-first of October, 1885. A portion of the proceedings were of a character that will be of general interest to western read"Dr. Manasseh Cutler," said Charles Deane, LL. D., "is clearly entitled to recog. nition as a man of science, and as a statesman of large patriotism. Dr. Asa Gray, in a note to me enclosing a scrap of paper, and enquiring if the writing on it was in Dr. Cutler's hand, called him our first [earliest] New England botanist;' while our associate, Mr. William F. Poole of Chicago, in an interesting article in the North American Review for April, 1876, has shown that the country was largely indebted to Dr. Cutler for securing the ordinance of 1787, with its enlightened and merciful provisions. His life was crowded with a diversity of employment. It has been for many years understood that a memoir of Dr. Cutler was in preparation by a gentleman of Providence, Rhode Island, who had been entrusted with family manuscripts, including a diary, for this purpose; but it is believed that nothing was written, and the long deferred hopes of a memoir from that source is cut off by death. But I am told that the manuscripts of which I have spoken-Dr. Cutler's manuscripts-have been reclaimed by his descendants at Marietta, and that a memoir of Dr. Cutler is now preparing by a member of the family."

THE fund, at the present time, for the maintenance of the Astor library, in New York City, is $411,550. The endowment is $1,412,374.77. The income of the library during the year 1885 was $24,267.55. The insurance on books is $220,000; on the building $100,000.