Charles Parker, wife, and two children aged two and four years, fled from Decatur, Ala., when the yellow fever broke out there, to the home of relatives at Oak Mountain. When within fifteen miles of Oak Mountain they were confronted by the shot-gun quarantine, and driven back. On the 7th inst. a brave physician went in search of them, and found them all dead, the parents having died in the woods of yellow fever, and the children of starvation.
The Biddeford Journal remarks: “The democratic newspapers are still strugling [sic] to hold down the remaining republican plurality in Maine. It reminds one of the late lamented John Phenix, who heroically held the other fellow down by inserting his nose between his antagonist’s teeth.”
At Memphis, Tenn., Sept. 30th, two white men were shot dead by a negro into whose house they were trying to break. The coroner’s jury acquitted him.
At Medina, Ohio, Mrs. Mary L. Garrett has been sentenced to be hanged Jan. 25th next for the murder of her two imbecile stepdaughters last November.
A campaign club of saloon keepers has just been organized in New York in Mr. Cleveland’s interests, and it pledges itself to turn out in the democratic processions with a thousand men. It is to be presumed that their duty will be to carry banners and transparencies declaring that the republican party is the “free whisky” party.
An American company has leased Aboukir bay from the Egyptian government to grow oysters. [This seemingly-obscure item may appear here because Washington Freeman, our proprietor at the time, also owned an oyster house on Congress Street.]
The apparent objections to twin screws for great ocean ships have produced a call for ocean paddle wheels.
An artesian well sunk under the salt water of New York bay, on the Jersey side, produces pure fresh water in abundance.
Miss Fannie Lawry, aged sixteen years, daughter of Mr. John Lawry of Kittery Point, died very suddenly on the morning of the 3rd inst. She accompanied her elder sister, Jessie, to the Kittery Point reailroad station, and then walked home, being apparently in good health at the time; shortly after entering the house she threw up her hands and fell to the floor, and in a few moments was dead.
A man who went into the city clerk’s office at Biddeford recently to take out a marriage license, had to go home again to find out the name of his intended bride. This must have been a case of love at first sight.
An English court has decided that a railroad has no more right to eject a passenger than to behead him.
It is announced from Washington that every federal office holder has been assessed five per cent on his income, to swell the democratic campaign fund. Even letter carriers who receive $600 a year are not excepted.
The Gloucester fishing schooner Ada S. Babson arrived home on the 2nd inst. from her first trip to the Grand Banks, with 400,000 lbs. of codfish, the largest fare ever landed at Gloucester by any American vessel.
The Rocket’s Flight
The steam tug Rocket, which came to this port on Thursday morning from the Boston navy yard, to take to the receiving ship Wabash at that port the seamen lately attached to the training-ships Saratoga and Portsmouth, left this navy yard about one o’clock Friday afternoon with 109 men besides her own complement, and arrived back again about two o’clock, having blown a socket bolt out of her boiler when near Whale’s-back. The seamen on the previous day, when they saw the steamer (a craft of 127 tons) which was to convey them to Boston, demurred considerably, and twice “went to the mast” on board the Constitution, where they have been quartered, to remonstrate against being sent around in her, expressing their willingness to pay their own expenses to Boston by rail rather than put to sea in such a diving-bell at this season; but the order for them to go around in the Rocket was from a high quarter, so they had to make the start as above related—and came back again directly.
[The Rocket was an 85-foot wooden harbor tug, built in 1862. It served as a fireboat and tug at the Boston Navy Yard through the Spanish-American War, and was stricken from the Navy list in 1899.]
The Times seems to labor under the impression that Foster’s Democrat is indulging in mendacity on regard to the circulation of the Dover daily.
From Dakota comes a report that almost the entire population of Ramsey county are on the verge of starvation, owing to the destruction of the wheat crop by frost.
The seventh known victim of the Whitechapel (London) butcher of women was found on the Thames embankment on the 2nd inst. Who the victim was is not known, but she had evidently been dead several weeks, and her body was dismembered and disfigured to a greater extent than any of the other six.
The first brewing in the new Jones brewery was made on Wednesday of last week, in honor of which a big and handsome ensign was displayed from a forty-foot staff on top of the tower of the new building, which is about 135 feet high.
Snow storm on Tuesday; not a very heavy one, but all that was needed on October 9th.
Mr. “Natty” Yeaton, the ancient boatman of the Piscataqua, was down again from Durham on Tuesday in his wherry, with a couple of passengers for this city, this being his 30th trip this season; and it depends upon the weather whether he comes down again or not. But people had best pay Natty beforehand for their passages, or else walk, to save the ancient boatman’s arms, which are of more value than their legs, or the necks of persons mean enough to cheat an old man out of the twenty-five cent fare he charges for a ten-mile trip.
The New Hampshire Gazette, October 11, 1888
The eccentric phenomena of this peculiar year seem to have no end. Every congressional district in Kentucky has a prohibition candidate in the field.
An eel measuring two feet in length was recently taken from the water pipe at the Keene high school building.
Mr. William Morton, aged about eighty-two years, of the Plains district in Newmarket, one night last week arose from his bed and wandered from his home with only a shirt and frock on, and was found dead in a field quarter of a mile from the house some hours later. He was highly respected, having before his mind became enfeebled by age been a leading citizen of the town.
The telephone system in Farmington has been discontinued and the wires will be removed. It has never been a paying investment there, the receipts for September being less than $5.
In Campton on the 6th inst. James Avery caught a bear that weighed 300 pounds. This is the first one captured in that town for many years.
An attempt was made to rob the pay car on the Black Hills & Fort Pierre railroad near Lead City, Dakota, Oct. 13th. The train was thrown into a gully by the removal of two rails near a curve, and three masked men immediately attacked the pay car. The paymaster opened fire with a Winchester Rifle, fatally wounding two; the third man escaped. None of the railroad men were hurt.
A man was seen raking hay in a lot on Union street, Wednesday morning of last week. Rather late for haying, and not very good haying weather, either.
About a dozen small urchins, with a drum, three flags, five torches, a big tin lantern and great enthusiasm, paraded the streets Thursday evening, singing and cheering lustily. Just what political party, if any, they were campaigning for, we did not ascertain; but they were having a mighty good time.
Under the heading, “Loafers, move on,” the Times of the 12th inst. says: “Corner and curbstone loafing on Congress street during the evening is getting to be an altogether too common a nuisance, and should be stopped. One of the principal loafing places is at the junction of Vaughan street, and to avoid the gaping crowds there, whose language is none of the most refined, decent people are forced to cross to the other side of the street rather than run the gauntlet of the bummers. Cannot something be done to stop this nuisance?”
A public reception was given at Montreal on the 10th inst. to Lieut. Gov. Auger. Alderman Clendenning, who was acting mayor in the absence of Mayor Abbott, was drunk as a lord, and made a grand show of himself. He will be asked to resign.
The Chicago street car strikers have commenced playcing [sic] dynamite on the tracks of the horse railroads, to blow people up. This is a bad move for their side.
The north millpond was skimmed over with ice on Monday morning, Oct. 15th.
The New Hampshire Gazette, October 18, 1888
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Our thanks to the Portsmouth Athenaeum, holder of the newspapers from which the items above were excerpted. – The Ed.