LETTERS FROM W.R.BARNES AND FRIENDS We (the New Lisbon Times-Argus, a local newspaper absorbed by a publishing company in nearby Mauston, WI and currently published under the 'Star-Times' masthead, as of April 2003) have received a letter from W. R. Barnes which states that Messrs. Curtis, Balgord and himself went on board the steamship "New England" at 5:30 p.m. on May 23, 1900, and as they moved out of Boston Harbor they were cheered by 40,000 persons, while the band played "God Save the Queen". The Atlantic looked dark and dismal as night approached, which made them think of the loved ones at home and they began to wish they were back in OLD WISCONSIN, walking the streets of New Lisbon. The sleeping apartment assigned them was a room 12 feet long, 2 ft. wide and 8 feet high, where twelve persons were obliged to sleep in bunks, one above the other, each two feet wide and six feet long, on a kind of mattress with about hay enough in it to make a good hen’s nest! "Talk about roughing it in a Lumber camp," said Mr. Barnes, "It ‘s no comparison." On Friday afternoon , May 25, they left the banks of New Foundland. The length of the boat was 565 ft. width 62 ft. and drew 29 feet of water, and it is driven through the water at the rate of nineteen miles an hour by powerful-triple expansion engines of 60.000 horse power. Two hundred tons of coal is consumed daily. The boat carried steam condensing engines, electric light and ice machines. It was loaded with 11,000 tons of freight and 1200 passengers. On Saturday, May 26th ,1900, Lars Balgord and Mr. Barnes did not get up for breakfast! C. D. Curtis arose, but soon returned to his bunk, feeling quite ill and at 11 a.m. he threw up all he had eaten for a week !! In the afternoon Barnes took a turn at "heaving up" which he accomplished with PERFECTION !! Up to Sunday noon, May 27th, none of them had eaten anything for 48 hours. On Monday, May 28th, Messrs. Curtis, and Barnes felt much easier. Lars Balgord seemed to stand the trip quite well. At 1 o’clock p.m. May 28th, they witnesses a nearly total eclipse of the sun, when the eclipse encountered a dense fog which made a weary and dreary sight with the black sea just visible below. On Tuesday, May 29th, W.R. Barnes sat up in his bunk and penned a letter to us while his companions were asleep. The weather was cold and dreary, and the voyage this far was very unpleasant . At that time they were nearing Queenstown and their voyage nearly at an end. May 30th, 1900 May 30, 1900—continued At 2:00 p.m.---the weather is clear and fine and the nearer we get to the land the greater grows the excitement, until it is nothing but hustle, bustle everywhere. The ship is like a thickly populated floating city. The people rush from side to side in trying to get the first sight of land, but they look in vain. A large vessel goes by and as it disappears it seems to sink down into the ocean with the sun. It was a strange and wonderful sight, a sight never to be forgotten, with the sea as calm as a sheet of glass, darkness closes over us without any sign of land, but still the ship is alive; it being a most beautiful night and the prospect of 200 of our passengers landing some time tonight at Queenstown. While playing and singing and dancing the night goes on. the sailors are busy hoisting baggage out of the hold. We at last lay down and try to sleep, but impossible. Bedlam has broken loose indeed! An insane man, who has slept with us all the way over and who has also become excited by the noise and tumult going on, was quarreling, shouting and raving. I never saw anything like it in my life before. May 31st, 1900, 6:00A.M. The Lighter has pulled away from us for Queenstown with over 200 of our passengers on board, and we weigh anchor and start for Liverpool with the high rocky shores and green sloping hills of OLD IRELAND in the distance. It is a magnificent sight; the green fields skirted with hedges and strips of woodland, with the white-washed dwelling glistening in the sunlight, with the beautiful bay filled with fishing boats of every shape and size, their white sails fluttering in the breeze. We also pass a large fort at the entrance of the harbor with their guns pointing seaward. Many a flock of wild ducks spin over the bay as we pass along. At last we leave the last point of Emerald Isle which fades out of sight in a dense fog which has just come over us, as we make for the coast of England with the port of Liverpool 280 miles away, 5:30 p.m. We are at last across the Irish Sea and Hollyhead is in sight, the first point of land reached off the Welsh coast before proceeding up the channel for Liverpool. The fog has cleared away and a strong breeze is blowing. We have passed numerous streams, boats and sailing vessels going to every location, some passing close enough to wave hats at each other! We expect to be in Liverpool tonight some time. 10:30 p.m. The letter continues,---" We dropped anchor in the river Jersey between New Haven and Liverpool It looks very pretty in the dark with its thousands of electric lights flashing on all sides." June 1st, 1900---7 a.m. The boat pulls up to the dock and we set foot on solid land for the first time in eight days! I have always understood that Liverpool was rather a dirty place, but a cleaner and more beautiful city I have not had the pleasure of seeing , although the streets are somewhat narrow. In this respect it resembles the city of Boston. We soon get through the customs house officers who seem to hunt for nothing, but tobacco and cigars. 12:30 p.m. We leave Larsey Balgord to go on his trip to Norway, while we take the train for London, as we leave the city and get out in the country, I am surprised beyond description!! I can only say, "Oh, How beautiful!’ England, the home of wealth and beauty, the home of joy and comfort, the home of peace and pleasure. The land of buttercups. The landscape is too lovely for pen to describe, with its sloping hills clothed in green fields with patches of woodland here and there, with trees and shrubbery dotting the country everywhere, making it look like one continued garden with trees and flowers on all sides. Here, everyone seems to be a gentleman! I do not see anyone to work on the farms, as I do in America, only here and there one planting a few potatoes or hoeing in the garden, most of the land is taken up with cattle and sheep. At last we arrive at London, the metropolis of the world. It looks more like a beautiful garden than the largest city. After a ride of about 20 minutes through the city at the rate of 60 miles an hour, we arrived at Houston Station and take leave of Mr. Curtis. He is to hunt up his sister somewhere in the suburbs, while I took the bus for Charris Cross to take the train for the south of England. On my way I got acquainted with a gentleman who is in the sugar business. He said that the bounties other countries pay to their manufacturers hurt his business greatly. He said they had to sell their best grade for ½ cent and less per pound. June 2, 1900, 9:00 a.m. I am in Headcorn, Kent, the place where my mother was born and bred. I went around the old church which has stood for over 1500 years! It is a grand old structure with its massive walls which are from 4 to 6 feet and even 8 feet thick covered with the mosses of time. As I stand and look at it, I think if it could only speak, what a strange tale it could tell and the grand old oak that stands close by which is 16 ft. through, 2 ft. from the ground!! It must be at the least 2000 years and is quite full of life and vigor yet, and then I turn to the strange looking old tombstones. I read many a date on them that go back 200 years, but the older ones are so decayed that I could not tell how far they dated back. As I have not had a shave since I left Boston, I turned my steps to look for the barber shop. I met a man on the corner of the street whom I asked to inform me where to find a barber shop. The man said, "The next door, Sir, right there, he keeps the butcher and barber shop together." I went in and told him I would like to have a shave. He said, "All right, Sir," and led me into the next room where I sat down in a common chair with an iron slide up the back for my head to rest on. He picked up his brush and gave my face a little lather without any rubbing, then took down his razor, rubbed it up and down his pants-leg a couple of times with a little polishing on the palm of his hand and went at it. Well, I stood it for awhile, and then I commenced to grown tall as thought I was sliding up the back of the chair!! I finally said, Your razor pulls a little does it not?" "Does it?" he said with considerable surprise and gave it another rub up and down his sleeve with a little more polishing on his hand. THEN, I closed my eyes, set my teeth hard, braced my feet and made up my mind to make the best of it. WELL, --he worked very industriously. When he had finished we were perspiring freely, he with the hard labor he had performed and I with FEAR and PAIN. As I arose from his chair and gave him two pence, I consoled myself that I should not have to shave again as they were all out by the roots!!!We bought our return tickets at Liverpool to return on July 14th, 1900, on the Cunard Line, Steamer Compania for New York, which was a fine saloon cabin. WE had enough steerage going over, NOW and FOREVER!
HEADCORN Kent, Sunday, June 3rd, 1900 I went to church in the grand old church. The services are conducted under the Church of England. It seems to me that it is very near the Catholic religion. They are now holding the holiday of Wilsomtide and the church is beautifully decorated with flowers, such as banks of them in every nook and corner. I don’t think I ever saw the like before, and the old stained glass windows,--- they are a very interesting sight, representing Christ and his Crucifixion. If it were not for the large mills in America, England would soon starve to death, for the mills that I have seen so far would not keep an old sow and her pigs. Monday, June 4th, I walked to a farm where they were running a steam threshing machine. It was a cumbersome affair, the engine was much larger and heavier than our sixteen horse power, although it was only a six horse power. The separator was the same and looked like a traveling elevator, yet it was only able to perform one sixth of the work of ours. They said it was one of the latest machines, new last year. I asked them how much they could thresh in a day and they said fifty quarters of wheat (200 bushels) was a good day’s work, about seventy quarters of oats (280 bushels) two men were carrying off in large baskets, one man pitched the bundles, while three men stood in a large box on top of the machine trying to feed it a few straws at the time. They were paid ten dollars per day, furnishing two men. 10:00A.M. I am in the bus for Tenterden, the birth-place of my father, The bus is a very small affair only room enough for four , unless you sat outside with the driver. I took the seat outside so that I could see the country better as we had a nine mile ride before us. The country is beautiful, it is like one vast park The bus was drawn by one horse (not over large) weighing about fourteen hundred pounds, the harness would at least weigh double what our double harness weigh, and the bus alone weighed seventeen hundred pounds. They have the best of roads, as smooth and as hard as any of our best streets in any of our large cities. With a very few exceptions, I find the crops no farther advanced than they are at New Lisbon this time of the year. June 5th: 1900 My aunt and I took a walk as far as the Priery, a large rambling building built by the Monks, some hundreds of years ago and there was a secret passage leading from the monastery-- Insert PAGE with remainder of June 5th letter and also June 9th and 10th letters Tenterden, England June 12th, 1900 to Editor of Times: I went up on top of the Tenterden church steeple. It stands on quite an elevation overlooking the surrounding country. The steeple is 160 feet in height so that from the top I got a splendid view, the weather being clear at the time. From the tops of the surrounding hills I could count 52 windmills in different towns and villages in the distance, and to the East a patch of the blue ocean could be seen with steamers and sailing vessels passing to and fro. This was about 20 miles away. It was a beautiful sight, the green fields with their waving grain dotted everywhere with the grand old English Oaks, with here and there a patch of woodland or a gentleman’s park with the mansion of bright red brick and slate roof rising about the trees and green foliage; it was a sight not easily forgotten. June 13, 1900, I took the bus to Headcorn, a 9 mile drive through a very fine country, and from there I took the train for London, arriving at Woodgreen, a suburb of London, where Mr. Curtis’ sister lives, at about 5:00 p.m. where I was very kindly received by Mrs. Collingwood (Mr. Curtis’ sister). She has a family of four daughters and one son, by whom I was pleasantly entertained when I was there. We were all sorry when it came time for us to part, but all things have to end. June 14th, 1900----Mr. Curtis and I went to the city this morning and went first to St. Paul’s Church. It is a fine old church with seating room for 10,000 people. We stayed to service, which is held every morning at 10:30 a.m. The singing was magnificent. having a choir of about 100 voices. From there we went to Blackfriars Bridge and there took a steamer up Themes River for Westminster Bridge, and along the embankment, which is lined by some of the finest building in the city. Some of them are:---Royal Hotel, Sion college, with its wonderful theological library and the Temple Gardens once the home of Knights Templars of Jerusalem, later according to Shakespeare, the place of the quarrel between the houses of York and Lancaster, which ended in the bloody Wars of the Roses. Later Oliver Goldsmith , Charles Lamb, Dr. Johnson Cowper and others lived in this place. Then the building of the school board of London, Somerset House, Waterlook Bridge and the famous Cleopatra’s Needle, that dates back 1500 B.C. which was presented to this country in 1819, but lay in the sands of Alexandria for more than fifty years: it is a strange piece of work behind which stands the Savoy and Cecil Hotels, Adelphia Turacebuilt in 1768, Charing Cross pier, Hungerford Suspension Bridge, the first of its kind built by Isambard, Prunel without the use of scaffolding. At last we arrive at Westminster bridge Here are the Houses of Parliament, the finest building in London, the noble clock tower rising to the height of 320 feet, the work of the late Sir Charles Barry, whose son is the well-known engineer of the Tower Bridge. Thence, we went to Westminster Abbey, where has been crowned every sovereign from William, the Conqueror to Queen Victoria, here is the Coronation Chair, a quite rude looking affair. It does not look as though it was made for either ease of comfort.. Here are also the tombs of Kings and Queens, Poets, Artists, Actors, and Explorers. Across the river from here you can see the fine row of buildings of St. Thomas’ Hospital. Then we went to the National Art Gallery. Here we found some of the best of English, French, German, and Italian Art. Some of the paintings are wonderful. June 15th, 1900-----On this day I visited the Victoria and Albert museum, in which can be seen ancient and modern War Vessels and all the implements of war from the old Sword and Pile and Cross Bow to the latest fire gun of today, and other old relics such as the vest the Duke of Wellington wore; THE OLD COAT that Lord Nelson died upon, old cannon taken from the bottom of the ocean, almost falling apart form the elapse of time and being expose to the waters of the briny deep were there. There were strange old swords of every shape and design, some beautifully engraved and inlaid with gold; old fire-arms of the strangest patterns, and pistols without showing any hole where the ball was discharged from. They looked to me as though they were only made to flash the powder up in your face or something of the kind. As we went into the building we met a part of about 100 Japs, the crew of a Japanese Gun Boat. They were a fine looking lot of fellows. They were dressed in blue uniforms and were very much larger men than I supposed they would be. From there we went to Hyde Park and the Zoo where there are a fine collection of animals, birds and reptiles. Here you can see a python 6 inches in diameter and from 25 to 30 feet in length and big enough to crunch a small horse or a cow to death and swallow them, or a giraffe that can eat the leaves from the branches of a tree 18 feet to20 feet from the ground; Sea Turtles weighing 600 pounds. Birds of every specie and color, from the Humming Bird to the Ostrich. The Park is very beautiful with its wealth of flowering shrubs and lovely flower beds, winding walks over-hung with its magnificent shade trees. W. R. Barnes out into the woods about a quarter of a mile away, which I was told they used to catch young girls and drag them through the passage to the Monastery, where they were kept for the rest of their life. Tenterden, KENT, June 9th, 1900 I took the BUS for Ashford this morning , the place where I was born. It is quite a large place now, some 25,000 inhabitants, and from there I took the train for Canterbury and I paid a visit to the old Cathedral. It is a magnificent building ---520 feet long, the largest tower is 280 feet high. It was built at the time of the Romans. Here are the tombs of the Black Prince and other noted men. The choir is one of the best in England, the great organ has 180 stops and 27 miles of electric wires connecting the pipes with the key board. The stained glass windows are masterpieces of art, some of the are said to be the finest in the world. Canterbury is a quaint old city with very narrow streets, some so narrow that there is only room for one carriage at a time between the sidewalks ,and the walks are only 2 foot wide and so crooked you cannot see 10 rods ahead of you!! I don’t think you can find 80 rods of straight road in all of England!! JUNE 10th, 1900 I went for a walk out into the country and went up a large hill, from the top I could see the country for miles around. It was a beautiful sight, dotted everywhere with grand old oaks, their branches reaching out to a distance of from 50 to 75 feet, and from every hill top could be seen the old fashioned windmill with their long arms reaching out toward the sky, and the church spires of a score of different towers glistening in the light of the setting sun. OH , how I wished I could have painted it, but—as the sun sinks behind the distant hills the panorama gradually fades from sight and I descent the hill. The weather has been lovely ever since I landed. |