Story of a Shoe-Buckle.
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| A recent notice of James T. Woodbury's
name, in connection with a temperance anecdote, brought to our mind, among other
things, a certain pair of those old-fashioned
shoe-buckles, of which we are tempted to speak.
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Mr. Woodbury, in connection with Daniel Webster, had procured from Congress a
pension for the Widow Leighton, the aged
relict of Captain Issac Davis, who fell at
the head of the Action “Minute-men” at
the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts, in the first armed resistance made
to British oppression in America. Mrs.
Leighton would insist that Mr. Woodbury
should receive some sort of pay for his efforts on her account. Resisting, however,
any such idea, but disposed to humor her
wish, he finally said to her, that “if she
had anything of Davis's which he could put
among his collection of mementos of the
Revolution, he would be most happy to receive it.” She arose, tottered to an old
chest, and took from the bottom of it a pair
of shoe-buckles. “These,” said she, “I
have sacredly kept from the day they were
taken from my husband's feet, the 19th day
of April, 1776. They are the only article
of his which I have retained. Though I
meant never to part with them, I am glad
to give them now to you. That appearance
of rust on them is Mr. Davis's blood. They
were bespattered with it as it spouted from
his heart, through which, you know, he was
shot, at the Old North Bridge. They have
never been wiped since.¹
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She could say no more. That they both
wiped their tears for the unwiped buckles
we need not add, possibly you may be doing
the same thing. How often, in
the connections of history, are accidents apparently the most trivial!
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When, some seven years ago, Mr. Woodbury was pleading in the Legislature of
Massachusetts for aid to build the “Acton
Monument”—and many of the members
were so imbued with “peace principles” as
to think it wrong even to commemorate the
battles of the Revolution—and he was likely
to fail in his object through the general opposition, he sent to the speaker's desk these
shoe-buckles, stating their history at the
same time, and requesting the speaker to
take them in his hands. “The touch of
them, sir, will do you good. They have an
eloquence that can be felt. Circulate them
now, if you please, sir, through the house.
It will do the 'peace men' good, also, to
touch them. There is patriotic blood on
them, sir, and a virtue in them to stir the
patriotic blood, if there be any, in every
gentleman's heart. I wish them to circulate, sir, and I will say no more. Like the
'poor, dumb mouths' of Cæsar's wounds I
bid them speak for me.”
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If the spirit of '76 had been discharged
on the house, like galvanism from a battery,
the effect could not have been more thrilling. The “peace-men” said, “You are
wrong, Mr. Woodbury, but we shall vote
the appropriation, notwithstanding.” They
did so, and the monument in question towers on the Acton Common, not less to show
the issue often of an unintended trifle than
the noblest results of the most determined
virtues.—College Echo. |
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