(jtTAR ANTBED. THE LARGEST CIRCULATION IN THE CITY
.ECOND PART -rr
Twelve
CHAE
pase 9-12-
VOL. XXIII.
CHARLOTTE, N. C, SATURDAY EVENING, AUGUST 2, 1902,
NO. 5327
LOTTIE
NEWS.
Pages
iil OF THE WAR
How Money From Bank of
Charlotte Was Saved
ED NEAR FORT MILL
Three Months After its Burial Money
Was Bug Up and Sestored to the
Bank - Searching Parties Have
Since Dug in Vain Tor the Valuable
Treasure
About the year 1865 Charlotte, N.
C, was only beginning to be consid
ered us a point of future importance.
Xo more stores or other buildings
encumbered the earth there than
-would have been expected in a county
seat of any large thriving county, such
as old Mecklenburg, the birthplace of
the "hornet's nest." Then, or shortly
afterwards, was established the Bank
of Charlotte, which continued in busi
ness until near the end of the great
civil war, when it had on hand some
$.000 m specie.
When the peerless Lee surrendered
and the Federals were swarming
over the south and the officers of this
bank became very uneasy about that
coin in their possession, and they
secreted it somewhere in the neigh
borhood of Charlotte. It was not long
before Johnson surrendered; Stone
man captured Salisbury (40 miles
north of Charlotte), while a detach
ment of his corps was going down the
south side of Catawba river to de
stroy the railroad bridge at Nation
Ford, 20 miles southwest of Charlotte,
and three miles from Fort Mill, S. C.
The bank officers became alarmed
for htemselves and for their treasure,
because they doubted not that they
would be tortured into a betrayal of
the hiding place of the money or be
killed if they did not reveal it when
Stnneman's men should take the
town. The specie mostly silver had
been packed in four strong boxes, but
where should they put the boxes?
After consultation they turned over.
their funds to Hon. J. Harvey Wilson
(one of the directors), with a request
to take what steps he might deem
best for the concealment thereof. Mr.
Wilson accepted the responsible trust,
but it was uncertain where to go, how
to go, or whom he could .get to assist
him. His nephew, Captain W , had
returned the previous day from the
surrender worn out and broken in
health, To this nephew he went with
his troubles. The captain was sick and
could ill bear a trip across the coun
try, but after repeated importunities,
he agreed to assist his uncle in the
unwelcome employment. After night
fall these two men placed the four
boxes in Captain W s' buggy and
went toward Fort Mill, S. C, in the
dark, cold and rain.
Let it be remembered that such a
journey undertaken at such a time,
was not only uncomfortable, but at
tended with danger. Many straggling
soldiers were returning from the front,
discontented, morose, and often des
perate bands of marauders under
guise of soldiers plundered defense
less homes, and any of these might be
very well pleased to capture such a
booty; besides it was not impossible
that they might meet some of Stone
man's men. However, all things con
sidered, it was probably safer to un
dertake such an enterprise at night
than in daylight.
After a toilsome journey over bad
roads, in the dark and rain, they ar
rived at a point about one mile above
Fort Mill, 17 miles from their starting
Point. Here they stopped. Mr. Wilson
remained in the buggy, while the cap
tain should go to his father's old home
for a tool to bury the money. The lat
ter did not want to arouse any one
lest his mission should be detected.
Finding nothine outside h went, into
the mansion, got the fire shovel and
returned to his uncle.
rri. i
. j-iie uoxes were then taken to a
lonely spot and buried in the edge ol
a branch, after which our travelers
sought rest in the old mansion about
- a. m. Next mornins the caDtain f ear
mg that the work done in the dark
mignt be incomplete rode by a cinriui
tons route to the nlace of conceal
went. Looking around to be sure that
ne was not observed, he built over the
spot an irregular brush heap of such
"'-it,ns and bushes as were convenient
and returned to the house by a dif-
ient route.
iur. Wilson oQT.tcwi v.
norse belonging to the captain, bat
jjaa not gone far before he was
popped by some men claiming to be-
--'6 io Ferguson's brigade, a part of
uers command, who had been
e'Uiting their horses in Georgia
-'se men wanted to take Mr. Wil
,on s horse, and would have done so
iari he not ridden toward General
e,gnson about the matter. They
Jn got back to the old mansion,
nere Mr. Wilson rode into the yard.
VT of the men followed and in
wed on taking the horse. Captain
vvuson seeing his uncle's trouble,
Of H Ut t0k hld f 0ne' rein
hnui e bndle' while a Westerner was
in ' ,Tg tne other. Altercation fol
enM Vn Which the caPtain threat
himti shoot- The Westerners told
fatal such a case would only prove
umboTed. h WaS hPelessly
Just th(i& Captain oRbert Fullwood,
a neighbor, came upon . the scene,
steadying by a good walking stick his
footsteps, tottering under the load of
three score years and ten, and in
quired the nature of the trouble. This
old man, full of righteous indignation,
seized the bridle and exclaimed, "I
know this young man; his father was
my lifelong friend. I love my country,
I love her laws; you can't cheat me
out of many days, and I am ready to
die right here and now before you
shall rob him of his horse."
fi i j wjmzmm
St"v ' i l-f- flIC " " :'
0-: ttJs
W1( .
v.'.v.w. v.
This -bold act and speech of the
aged farmer rather staggered trie
mob, but they would prooaDiy nav
taken the horse had there not been
another and opportune entrance on
the stage.
Cant. John Mills, formerly a South
Carolinian and a friend of the cap
tain's family, rode up at the head of
his company of Alabamians, called his
men to "attention," told the would
be robbers to disperse before he
should arrest them, said he would
have them shot unless they abandon
ed their prey.
They sullenly departed vowing ven
geance. Shortly afterward the young
captain saw smoke and learned that
the railroad bridge was burned by 300
i s "a
Si I -
MILLIONS FOR BUILDING
AND
In the past thiry years over $20,000,-
00 has been given to the American As
sociations for buildings and for en
dowment purposes, which was given
stability , to the Associations, and has
led in each Association to an Increase
in the amount annually secured for
current expenses. Many State Young
Mea's Christian Association committees
are gathering endowment funds. The
Massachusetts State Committee has se
cured a building worth nearly $200,000,
the income of which goes toward the
support of the state work there.
Last year was' the Jubilee year of the
Young Men's Christian Associations
and the movement for a partial endow
ment of their International Committee
received impulse from the promise of
$250,000 from one of the best fiends of
the movement. Now the total of $1,1)00,
000 has been pledged. Of this amount
six persons gave $632,000. Only 150 per
sons besides Association secretaries
were asked to subscribe, and 56 ot
these contributed. However, the
"Robert R. McBurney Fund of $3,700
also included in the total amount, was
given by 55 employed officers of the
Associations. For more than tenears
there has been an agitation m favor of
endowment to make partal provision
for the supervisory work ot their In
ternational Committee, to which much
of the great Young Men s Christian As
sociation development throughout the
WThde payment of subscriptions to this
aaa nno onrinwmant was begun in
July but little financial relief will come.
JUlJf, out ,Taor frnm this
ctothe sommiuw j
"v.."
i
M5ffM 0
utiS
of Stoneman's men. He hastened to
Ferguson and offered to lead his com
mand to a place where they could
capture the whole outfit, but the gen
eral declined to act.
That night our two travelers re
turned to Charlotte worn out and
sick. The kitchen at the old home
stead was set on fire, but extinguish
ed, though the ginhouse with 120
bales of cotton, 2,000 bushels of seed;
all the machinery in it was burned to
the ground. Was it "vengeance?"
About three months after the bid
den treasure was exhumed and re
stored to the bank. Some persons
have of late dug about the old home
stead supposedly for this money, be
ing ignorant of its recovery. Sam P,
Massey in The. Sunny South.
ENDOWMENT
I source, as less than one-fourth of the
$150,000. necessary to maintain the in
ternational work can come from the
income from this endowment after it is
fully paid in and invested. It is a good
beginning, and will bring some future
relief to the committee, which receive
constant calls for. extension and increase-
of force on account of the
growth of the Association movement
throughout America and the world.
irr.irnr.M mi ligrmmCTimr-WTtfffhyTg - , i i iii
yUEEN AND SOME CORONATION DETAILS.
(Copyright, 1902, by W. R. Hearst.)
At the top of tliis picture is shown an invitation of the Earl Marshal to
the coronation in Westminster Abbey.
At the bottom is the picture of Queen Alexandra in a little outing hat.
At the left is Westminster Abbey, with a temporary addition, in which
the King and Queen will dress for the coronation.
In the centre is the great review ing stand in Trafalgar Square.
Below is one of the coronation gi ft boxes, which are scattered all over
the kingdom. ,
H AYTI'S PER
ARMY A QUEER AFFAIR
According to a telegram Haiti is at
war apparently with itself and the
Haitian army is on the rampage.
Haiti is chieby remarkable by reason
of its being a military republic, with
an army of 4,000 generals and 4,000 pri
vates a general to each Tommv. The
enerals are extraordinary men in
more than one sense of the " word.
There is one who commands a large
province m the republic, who is
the lowest of the neoDle. who can
neither read nor write, and who is nev
ertheless a great revolutionary power.
This man General Johannis Merister
is obliged to ask one man to read to
him, and yet in his hands are the ilves
an ddeaths of the people over whom he
rules.
Every third man you meet in Haiti
is a general, but it is only every tenth
general who gets paid; it has to be
conceded that each general does his
bst to pay himself. The authorized
rate of pay is 140 annually for a gen
eral of division and 105 for a brigad
ier. A captain is passing rich on 12
a year; a private thinks himself for
tunate if he receives 2 10 shillings
during the same period.
"Branc," once said a private in the i
hearing of a well-known English jour
nalist, "Blanc, I am a soldier; give me
10 centimes."
j "You have your pay."
"My general has taken my pay. I am
a poor man and a soldier. , Give me 10
centimes."
"How long have you been a soldier?"
"Three years." '
"When did you have your pay last?"
"'Very long ago, and I am hungry.
Give me 10 centimes. Merci."
The aHitiah soldier's uniform is a
fearful and wonderful thing. Let us re
review a regiment on parade. Some of
them are shod in dried grass slippers.
They wear a little blue cap with a red
band. One man, perhaps, is wearing a
shabby pair of old tweed trousers, and
slung by a hemp rope over his should
ers is an old-fashioned flintlock gun
The officer who commands the regi
ment is brandishing t rusty swort.
A general has but little sense of jus
tice. An unfortunate Swiss went out
shooting once in Haiti without a pass
port. "Who are you?" said the general
when the poor man was brought berore
him. -.
"I am a foreigner." ;
"What nationality?
"Swiss."
The general turned to his secretary.
"Have the Swiss a navy?"
"No, my general."
"Then put the brute in prison."
The army, it goes without saying, is
miserably housed. In Port au Prince,
the capital of aHiti, you will find , a
post of soldiers every 50 or 100 yards.
They live in wretched guard rooms,
which are merely long hovels, with
piazzas raised ttwo feet above the
street. Below flows an open drain. The
men themselves drink, smoke and
gamble all the weary day.
But they have a good idea of them
selves. Two Haitian generals, discus
sing a review in which they had just
A BOUFFE-
taken part, thus expressed themselves:
"Without question the most magnifi-
cent spectacle that one could have
seen."
Yes, indeed, our army is composed
of brave men. Do you not think so?
turning to a traveling Englishman.
He (diplomatically choosing his
words): "I have seen none like it. The
army of Haiti is one that depends upon
its officers; an army without officers,
what is it?"
"The army of Haiti has never been
conquered. The French were here; we
drove them out. - The English fought
with us; where are they? ,Bue we we
we we are here always; we have
never been conquered."
You must never allow a smile to
cross your face however tempted you
may be to laugh if you meet a Hai
tian soldier. A European diplomatist
landed once at Port au Prince and on
his way from the ship he fell in with
what he imagined to be a tattered
mountebank carrying a rifle. He
smiled, for the black man's pompous
solemnity was immensely funny. At
once the negro's" face changed.
"You laugh at me? You laugh at
me?" he cried furiously.
He was a soldier of the republic; his
Angers flew to his cartridges . and the
visitor waited for no more, but fled up
the street.
The Haitian soldier needs but the
license of a political strife to laah him
into frenzy. No wonder that the Ame
rican Consul-General at Port au Prince
telegraphed to his Government to send
a man-of-war without delay. Given
political troubles and a modicum of
shooting in thes treets, and a man such
as we have just described, with intense
irascibility of temper and thousands of
companions like himself, he would be
come a very perilous and terrible ele
ment m the general anarchy.
The ailitian army in peace times
may be like that upon a comic opera
stage, but wiven a war, it would be
come a hotbed of tragedy. London
Express.
ALPHABET ON A PINHEAD.
The Work of a Gloversville, New York
Man.
William L. McLean, of Gloversville
N. Y., has engraved on the head of an
ordinary brass pin the entire alphabe
in script, initial letters. The work was
done with an ordinary engraving tool
with the aid of a powerful magnifying
glass.
The alphabet is arranged in two cir
cles around the pin, four leters which.
it was impossible to include in them
being placed in the centre. No part o
one letter touches another. 1
In the first circle are all the letters
up to and including M. A smaller cir
cle contains the leters which follow, up
to V, while in the centre are the re
maining four letters.
A few years ago Mf. McLean, en
graved the Lord's Grayer on a. silver
5-ceut piece.
F
EATflF MIND
READER
German-American Who Has
Remarkable Powers
GIFT OF MENTAL SIGHT
Unable to Explain His Peculiar Talent
Though He Says it Came to Him
When a Boy Some of His Tricks at
Second Sight Which Look Snper
Natural Bat Come Easy to Him
Among the delegates to the American
Boilermakers' Convention, recently
held here, was one of the most remark
able ' experts in "second-sight," or-mind-reading,
or whatever one may
choose to call it, that this country can
boast. He is Bert Reese, a resident of
Chicago, who is well known throuhgout
the West for his peculiar mental pow
ers, but who has, as yet; been little
heard of in the East. Since he does not
make any parade of his powers and
does not in any way attempt to explain
them so marvelously mysterious gifts,
or flaunt them before people in the
snow line, it is not improper to say
something about him.
Mr. Reese is a German somewhat past
middle age and his appearance would
indicate a well-fed and easy-going mer
chant or tradesman. Just what to call
his remarkable gift of mental sight he
and others are at a loss to know. It
came to him, so he says, when he was
a mere boy, and since that tim he has
been able to perform, with some slight
mental strain, the most unusual and
astouding feats of mind-reading. That
is hardly the name of them, because,
withouut asking one to , fix one's
thoughts on any particular event, he
can instantly tell to the remotest detail
just what has taken place in a man's
life, and where and when.
Just before the convention met I met
Mr. Reese and he gave me an exhibi
tion of his powers, which was quite be
yond anything, that even the most fer
tile imagination could conjure. He had
never seen me before, so far as I know
and, I certainly had never laid eyes on
hdm until that moment. He did not even
know my name, and, as we were in the
presence of a third party whose repu
tation for honesty and strict adherence
to the truth cannot be questioned, there
was no room-ion the. jJctuibt which un-...
consciously spread over me as I become
acquainted with the marvelous ability
of this man.
Tearing a piece of paper Into five
pieces, he asked me to go to another
part of the hotel and write on one of
the sups the maiden name of my
mother; ori another the name of one
of my schoolteachers, and on the re
maining any three questions I might
desire to ask. This I did, taking care
to remove myself in such manner a.to
admit in no way of his knowing where
was. I then folded each slip of paper
and, holding them in my clasped hand,
returned to where he ' sat with my
friend. He asked me to hand two of the
slips to tne third party, to hold two of
them myself and to place th fifth in
my pocket. I did not have any idea
what was written on the slips, as they
were divided, so it was impossible for
me to influence his mind by my
thoughts.
Taking oue of the slips from my
hand, he placed it against his forehead
without unfolding, and asked me to
put my finger on it for a moment.
Meantime on a piece of paper he had
written a line of strange characters,
which were absolutely meaningless to
my friend and myself. Looking at this '
inscription while the paper was held
against his forehead, he immediately
said: "Where was I on December 25
1901?" That was one of the questions I
had written. Handing the paper to my
friend, it was opened, and there were
the words Mr. Reese had repeated.
The exact contents of the other four
papers were read off in less, time than
the telling takes, and without him in
any way touching any of them. He sim
ply asked that a closed hand, contain
ing the paper, be held toward him for
a brief space, and then, evidently sun
eringsome mental strain, he would ut
ter the question or the name without
the last hesitation. In the case of my
mother's maiden name he handed pen
cil and paper to my friend and asked
him to write down the letters as he
spoke. It is not an extremely common
name, but without hesitancy he spelled
it absolutely correct. When I asked him
how he accounted for this remarkable
gift he shrugged his shoulders and
proclaimed his absoluute ignorance. He
said:
"I have not the least idea how I am
enabled to do it. The strange power
came to me when I was about 8 years
old, and since then I have been able
with only a slight mental exertion to
perform some of the most remarkable
mental feats that could be imagined. I
do not know anything about the source
of this power. All that I do know is that
I see as plainly as! I see you events
that have transpired in other people's
lives, and such questions as you have
written on these slips , of paper are as
clear to my mind's eye as they are to
your actual seeing organs. I told the
president of the Boilermakers' Associ-
and whom I knew nothing save, his
later business career, exactly the place
and manner in which he earned his
first dollar. ; Of course, he was some
what surprised, and it was just as, hard
for me to know I could do this as for
him to understand my ability. ,