VI.

SALMON P. CHASE.

THAT is a long life which covers the years between the first appearance of a steamboat on Lake Erie and the end of the Civil War, the impeachment of Andrew Johnson and the second. election of General Grant. A boy, twelve years old, born in Cornish, N. H., in 1808, and destined to be Chief-Justice of the United States. and the great Finance Minister of his time, journeyed from New England to that remote and almost unknown region," The Ohio," in 1820. He was Salmon Portland, son of Ithamar Chase, of a distinguished New England family. He was early left fatherless, and when a young lad was invited by his uncle, Philander Chase, the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Ohio, to be received into his household at Worthington, O. Chase, in his autobiographical notes, said: "I tried to find out where I was going, and got some queer information. 'The Ohio,' as the country was then called, was a great way off. It was very fertile. Cucumbers grew on trees! There were wonderful springs whose waters were like New England rum! Deer and wolves were plenty, and people few." The lad began his journey, in charge of his elder brother Alexander, who was

going West with the intention of joining General Cass's expedition into the Indian country; and another member of the party was Henry R. Schoolcraft, who afterward became distinguished as a writer on Indian ethnology, customs, and traditions.

It was

The little party at Black Rock, Lake Erie, were to take passage on a novel craft, the steamer "Walk-in-the-Water," for Cleveland. They were detained by reason of the ice in the lake. then April, 1820, and when they did finally embark, the steamer was towed part way by several yoke of oxen attached to a tow-line, walking on the bank; and when they were forced to leave the shore, the steamer was helped in her progress across the open lake by sails as well as by steam. Nevertheless this method of navigation was greatly admired for its speed and its novelty.

Arriving at Cleveland Alexander Chase and Schoolcraft left the lad behind, where he was to wait for company to take charge of him to Worthington. During his tarry here he amused himself and earned a little money by ferrying passengers across the Cuyahoga. On this incident was founded a pleasing tale written for boys by J. T. Trowbridge, and entitled "The Ferry-Boy and the Financier." Chase's brief experience on the Cuyahoga would hardly warrant any person in giving him the title of a ferry-boy, as his doings in that line were very limited. But we may be grateful to Mr. Trowbridge, the writer of the book, for his laudable endeavor, because

having written to Chase, in 1863 and 1864, for information on which to build his entertaining story, he was favored with many letters from the great man, in which may be found some autobiographical notes of great value, which probably otherwise would never have been written.

The lad was finally taken into the charge of two young men who were going to Worthington, and they went forward in company. "The settlement of the country," wrote Mr. Chase, in later years, "was only begun. Great forests stretched across the State. Carriage-ways were hardly practicable. Almost all travelling was performed on foot or on horseback. The two young men had two horses, and the arrangement was that we were to ride and tie, that is to say, one was to ride ahead some distance, then dismount and tie his horse, and walk forward. The person on foot was to come up, take the horse, ride on beyond the walker in front, then tie, and so on. We passed through Wooster, staying there overnight. This place seemed to me to be a great one, and the lighted houses, as we went in after dark, were very splendid. In three or four days we reached Worthington. I entered the town walking, and met my uncle in the street with two or three of his clergy or friends."

The young lad, now domesticated with his uncle, the Bishop of Ohio, was expected to pursue his studies, already well begun, and to "do chores." He was proficient in Latin and Greek, and "Rollin's Ancient History" was read and reread by him, as many modern boys might read