|
|
|
EDITED BY John C. Parish
Associate Editor of the State Historical Society of Iowa
| Volume I |
December 1920 |
No. 5 |
| |
|
|
Copyright 1920 by the State Historical Society of Iowa
(Transcribed by Gayle Harper)
Comment by the Editor
CLINTON PARKHUEST
|
Somewhere on the shore of the Pacific Ocean, Clinton
Parkhurst is apparently still living. Since the publication of
the October Palimpsest we have had many letters about the
writer of A Few Martial Memories. Some of these letters were
from readers who did not know Parkhurst but whose interest was
aroused by his graphic descriptive powers. Others have come
from men and women who have known Clinton Parkhurst at
different times in his career – and they have supplied many of
the missing fragments of the mosaic.
We have heard
from friends of Clinton Parkhurst in his schoolboy days, from
neighbors, from his fellow journalists, from his brother, and
from his daughter. We can now definitely connect him with the
early Parkhursts of the town of that name. His father, Lemuel
Parkhurst, was the son of Sterling Parkhurst and a nephew of
Eleazer Parkhurst, the founder of the town. Here he was born
in 1844, in the same township where two years later ''Buffalo
Bill ' ' Cody first saw the light of day.
The most
complete account of Parkhurst that has come to us is that of
Aug. P. Eichter, for many years editor of Der Demokrat of
Davenport; and it is this story which is printed in the
present number of The Palimpsest. The letters and accounts,
however, whether from friend or relative, are alike in one
respect. They fail to answer the question: Where is Clinton
Parkhurst? With all of them the trails run out and stop. We
have heard that two of his friends say, in identical
phraseology, that he is ''basking on the shores of the
Pacific", but they do not say where.
Probably we could
find his address by writing to the Pension Department at
Washington. But this we do not intend to do. The biographical
mosaic is nearly complete. If the subject of the portrait
wishes to keep the corner piece in his pocket during his last
few years, it is his right and we shall respect it. We are
happy to have read some of his writings, and to know something
of the man, and we shall wish him many happy days on the
sunset shores of America.
It will soon be two hundred and fifty years since the canoes
of Marquette and Jolliet swept out of the Wisconsin into the
waters of the Mississippi ; and in those long years the river
has had a wonderful history. Full of romance are the days when
explorer and fur trader paddled their slender barks up and
down the stream. Upon its broad highway the settlers of the
Louisiana Purchase arrived. Primitive steamboats laid their
course along the beautiful shores of the prairie land of Iowa,
while busy ferries laced their way back and forth across the
current. Then came the heyday of the paddle wheel – those
adventurous times when the roar of the whistle and the sound
of the pilot's bell were heard on every bend of the river;
when captains and crews raced their boats With a high spirit
of sport, feeding the fires with barrels of resin till the
flames sometimes blazed from the tops of the stacks. Snags and
explosion and fire took a heavy toll, but it was not these
accidents that spoiled the game and made Mark Twain's river a
thing of the past. Just as the ferries gave way to the
bridges, so the steamboat traffic declined with the extension
of railroads. The river still runs past our borders. Its banks
are as beautiful as ever. The ''wooded islands" and
"enchanting scenes" of Beltrami's day are still there.
Last summer we wanted to do as Beltrami and so many others
had done – travel by boat up the river to the falls of St.
Anthony and see the beauties of the Upper Mississippi by night
and day from a steamer's deck. But we were told that there was
no steamship line now making the trip. Beltrami, nearly a
hundred years ago, had the advantage of us. We can only travel
alongside and see the river from a car window or catch
fleeting, smoke-veiled vistas as we slip across on the
bridges. However, if the old adventurous days are denied us in
the present and if the scenic highway is closed we can at
least enjoy the glories of the past and we intend to tell in
THE PALIMPSEST during the coming year some of the stories of
the days when the Steamboat was
King.
J. C. P.
|
|
