176 Chronicles of the Cape Fear River

hard cider and he will not leave Ohio.” The Whig party caught
it up and used it for all it was worth, and it was worth hundreds
of thousands of votes. Log cabins sprang up everywhere as the
meeting places for Tippecanoe and Tyler clubs, with the hard
cider always on tap. The first name referred, of course, to the
war record of General Harrison, and “Tippecanoe and Tyler,
too”’—“Tip and Ty,” for short—was the slogan of the party.

It was all very taking. The boys even enjoyed it hugely and
the ladies wore the brass medal with the log cabin and the cider

barrel represented upon it. The writer was a future voter at
the time, and on the off-road prospectively. He became pos-
sessed of a Harrison medal, and it must be confessed was quite
proud of it. A horror-stricken relative soon bought him out,
however, and he never afterwards deflected from his ancestral
principles. But this is too personal, perhaps.

One incident arises very vividly to mind and calls for notice.
A ship full-rigged.and beautiful to look upon was built at the
shipyard (now that of Capt. S. W. Skinner), to be taken to
Raleigh to the grand Whig convention rally of the party in
North Carolina on October 5. Constitution was the name of

the ship. James Cassiday was on deck as captain, and the

erew were Don MacRae, John Hedrick, John Marshall, Eli
Hall, John Walker, and Mike Cronly—then youths of fifteen
to eighteen years. The last named is the only survivor.

A large delegation of citizens went up from Wilmington to
the convention. Dr. John Hill, from the residence of General
James Owen, then standing where now stands the Carolina Cen-
tral Railroad office, addressed the crew of the ship and the
enthusiastic throng assembled there, and the boat then pro-

ceeded on her trip. By rail she was taken to Goldsboro and
thence by wagon, for lack of rail, to Raleigh. The ship was
left in Raleigh to be given to the county represented in the con-
vention which in the presidential election should give the larg-
est increase in the Whig vote over the Governor’s poll, in pro-
portion to population. Surry County got the ship.

Another incident: The Log Cabin in Wilmington stood just
where George Honnet’s jewelry store now is. The fire of Janu-
ary previous had destroyed the buildings then standing there
and they had not been rebuilt. Many an enthusiastic meeting
had been held in the cabin and many thrilling speeches deliv-
ered; many rousing songs had been sung, or shouted, and many
a barrel of cider doubtless had been drunk before the eventful

Early Years 177

night of November 5, 1840. On that night, or rather early next
morning, the town was aroused by an explosion. The Log Cabin
had been blown up. There was indignation, righteous indigna-
tion, of course, and plenty of it, and Alexander Anderson,
magistrate of police, offered a reward of $400 for proof suffi-
cient to convict the perpetrator of the deed.

The perpetrator was not caught. Indeed, as the election
came off a very few days thereafter and Harrison and Tyler
went in with a hurrah, receiving 234 electoral votes to Van
Buren’s 60, the matter was, as usual in such cases, suffered to
pass into oblivion, to be resurrected at the hands of an exploring

semi-antiquarian, who may be allowed to subscribe himself,
Senex, JR.

V.

About 1810 or 1811 the Wilmington Gazette’ was published
by a Mr. Hasell. The Cape Fear Recorder was established in
the spring of 1818. Later, for several years, it was edited by
Archibald McLean Hooper. Contemporaneously with the Re-
corder for a short time the Wilmington Herald, a Universalist
paper, was published by Rev. Jacob Frieze, assisted, perhaps,
by others. In the Recorder of February 6, 1828, appears a
very suggestive advertisement announcing that the Herald was
necessarily discontinued. On January 9, 1833, appeared the
first number of the People’s Press, edited by P. W. Fanning
and Thomas Loring. The Wilmington Advertiser, edited by
H. S. Ellenwood, was published at this time; how long before
this is not known. On April 2 of this year Mr. Ellenwood died.
His reputation as that of a gentleman of scholarly tastes and
aptitudes survives until the present. Mr. Fanning soon learned,
as so many who essay newspaper publication do, that the edi-
torial chair is far from being a post of luxurious ease, and on
May 1, 1833, he laid down the pen after an article in which with
the honesty and frankness characteristic of him he explained
his disgust with the profession, or rather with his experience
of the journalistic life. The People’s Press then combined with
the Advertiser, having as sole editor, Mr. Thomas Loring. On

‘This account of Wilmington newspapers is published, notwithstand-
ing a fuller account elsewhere in the Chronicles, because of much inti-
mate information here given which is supplementary to the longer

article on this subject.

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