258 Chronicles of the Cape Fear Rwer

A FRAGMENTARY MEMORY OF JOHNSON HOOPER.

By James G. Burr.

The impressions made upon the mind in childhood and youth
are always the most vivid and enduring, and though in the
daily pursuits of life, in the arduous struggle for success and
the jarring conflicts of adverse elements, those impressions may
for a time be obscured or forgotten, yet they are never lost. As
age creeps upon us and we live in recollection more than we do
in hope, that longing for the past of our boyhood cleaves to us
all. Our thoughts fly backward to the scenes and associations
of our youth and fasten themselves upon them with a longing
that nothing else can satisfy. The present and the future are
alike unheeded, for our yearning hearts centre only upon the
days that have faded into distance. At such moments, inci-
dents the most trivial will excite emotions to which we have long
been strangers—a withered leaf, a strip of faded ribbon that
bound the ringlets of a lost and loved one, a line traced by a
hand long moulded into dust, a little word in kindness spoken,
a motion or a tear, will evoke recollections that genius can not
trace or inspiration fathom.

This train of thought has been excited by finding in a pack-
age of old papers that had long lain hid, some lines written
many, many years ago by one who has long since passed to his
rest, Johnson Hooper, a Wilmington boy. He was the son of
Archibald Maclaine Hooper, one of the most accomplished
scholars of his day, who edited for a number of years the Cape
Fear Recorder, the only newspaper published in Wilmington
for a long period. He was a near relative of William Hooper,
one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The
family removed to Montgomery, Ala., where Johnson became
connected with the Montgomery Mail, a newspaper of extensive
circulation and great influence. He found time, however, from
his arduous duties to indulge his humorous fancies, and while

connected with that paper, gave the world several humorous

Interesting Memories 259

He was an educated gentleman, but possessed certain peculiari-
ties to an unusual and disagreeable extent, was dogmatic and
Overbearing in disposition, and exhibited continuously a
haughty, aristocratic bearing, which he took no pains to conceal.
His “personal pulchritude” was immense, but he was always
scrupulously neat in his attire, wearing fine broadcloth and
ruffled shirts of spotless whiteness. A gold-framed eyeglass
dangled from a ribbon around his neck and was conspicuously
displayed upon his breast, while a number of massive gold seals
hung pendant from his watch fob. He was altogether English,
haughty and presumptuous, with a growl at everything and at
almost everybody, and could not tolerate democracy in any form.
He was an exaggerated type of class intolerance in the official

life of the town, and his pompous air and personal decorations
were the delightful derision of the small boy.

Upon one occasion, at the corner of Market and Front Streets,
Mr. Milan was discussing with an important functionary a

question of public affairs in the presence of the newly elected
constable—the only policeman—who incautiously interjected
the remark that in his opinion, ete. Mr. Milan stared at him
with unmitigated contempt—“And pray, sir,” said he, “what
right have you to an opinion?’ (Tempora mutantur, et nos
mutamur in illis. )

About that time a ship had been built at the southern ex-
tremity of the town, and the day appointed for the launching
had arrived. As the building of a ship in those days was quite
an event in the history of the town, almost the entire population
turned out to witness the launching, and an immense crowd
gathered on the wharves and the surrounding hills. Of course,
the British consul was there in full dress. The tide unfortu-
nately was too low at the time for the ship to float when she left
the ways; she grounded, and just then Mr. Milan, by some acci-
dent, fell overboard, but was quickly hooked up out of the river
all dripping wet, with his bald head glistening in the sun like
burnished gold. He was not at all injured by his involuntary
ducking, but excessively chagrined. Of course, the boys were

works of great merit, viz. : Taking the Census, Captain Simon delighted, for he was exceedingly unpopular with them, and the
Suggs, and others which gave him rank among the best humor- 7 next day Johnson Hooper, one of the youngsters, produced the

ous writers of the day. He died in Richmond, Va., shortly _ following lines, which exhibit, even at that early age, his playful
after the transfer of the Confederate Government to that city. fancies:

Nearly, if not quite eighty years ago, an Englishman, Mr.
Anthony Milan, was British consul at the port of Wilmington.