Vandergrift High School - Spectator Yearbook (Vandergrift, PA)

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22 THE SPECTATOR met to hear the reading of the great Declaration of Independence. When it was read the multitude gave a mighty shout. But above the roar of human voices rang out, sharp and bold, the great bell. Its tongue spoke defiance to tyranny and comfort to the colonists. Its stern voice sounded from sea to sea. It called the men of Georgia to join the men of Massachusetts. It sounded through city and forest, calling merchant and farmer and forester to the front. Its notes rang across the rugged sea and sent a shudder through England. The Liberty Bell it was. It called the men of America to their duty. It rang for Independence! In 1777 it was hastily placed on a wagon and hurried to Allentown, that the British might not break it up and cast it into cannon. It was returned late in 1778. For fifty years it rang the glad tidings of liberty on every anniversary! On the morning of July 8th, 1835, while it was tolling the solemn news of the death of Chief Justice Marshall, who died in Philadelphia two days before, it cracked. On February 22, 1843, it was rang to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of the greatest American. But the old bell could not bear the strain, the crack lengthened and widened, and its tongue became silent forever. —Martha Staniek, ’28. THE DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN N April 14th., the manager of Ford’s Theatre invited the President and General Grant to witness the representation of “Our American Cousin” and it was announced that they both would be present but Grant was obliged to leave the city. Lincoln, feeling that it would be a disappointment if he should fail, relunctantly consented to go. With his wife and two friends, he reached the theatre a little before nine o’clock, and took seats in a box reserved for the party. The whole audience rose as the President entered, and he was greeted with the greatest enthusiasm. As Lincoln was listening with great interest to the play, an actor named John Wilkes Booth reached the door of the box where the President was seated, presented a pistol within a few inches of Lincoln’s head, and fired a bullet into his brain. Lincoln instantly lost all consciousness and did not move. The assassin leaped upon the stage shouting, “Sic semper tyranis”, meaning “So be it always to tyrants,” then rushed across the stage and in the confusion which ensued, mounted a fleet horse and escaped. Tne helpless form of the President was borne across the street to a private house. An examination showed that the wound was mortal. At twenty-two minutes past seven o’clock in the morning of April 15, 1865, President Lincoln, without recovering consciousness, breathed his last. The body of the President was moved to the White House where 50,000 people took a last look at his loved face. It may be truly said that the funeral train extended fifteen hundred miles—from Washington to Springfield, Illinois. Later his remains were placed in an appropriate tomb. And, so it was that our beloved President, Abraham Lincoln, met his death. —Louise Wherry, ’25. THE CHARACTER OF GEORGE WASHINGTON OR many years we have studied the career of Washington, and with every step the greatness of the man has grown upon us. We see in Washington a great soldier who fought a trying war to a successful end; a great statesman who did more than all other men to lay the foundation of a republic which has endured in prosperity for more than a century. We find in him a marvelous judgment which was never at fault, a penetrating vision which beheld the future of America when it was too dim for other eyes; a will of iron and an unequalled strength of patriotic purpose. We see in him, too, a pure high-minded gentleman of dauntless courage and stainless honor, simple and stately of manner, kind and generous of heart. Such he was in truth. The historian and biographer

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THE SPECTATOR 21 GETTYSBURG HEROINES 'XE cannot read of the history of the Battle of Gettysburg without feeling a thrill of admiration for the women who so courageously served and even gave their lives for their country. One incident which is related concerns a woman named Annie Etheridge, just out of her teens, who volunteered as a daughter of a regiment in the Army of the Potomac. She served four years and was presented with a badge by her state, for her devotion to the wounded at Gettysburg. Though not called upon to fight, Annie had spirit enough to make a battle heroine. At Gettysburg she went to the outposts with the skirmishers and was ordered back. On her way back she discovered a line of low trenches, where the enemy lay concealed, so turning her face to the front she called “Boys do your duty, and whip those fellows!” A hearty cheer was the response and a volley was poured into the hidden trenches. Annie was hit in the hand, her horse was wounded, and her skirt was riddled. She performed deeds of daring in bringing wounded from the field under fire, turning a retreating party of soldiers face about by offering to lead them. On the battle field she toiled under the scorching sun and the pouring rains with no thought but for those who were suffering and dying all around her. The story of pretty Jennie Wade is a very romantic and sad one. To Corporal Johnson Skelly, she was the ideal—the girl he left behind him. It was her picture and her letters that cheered him during long and weary days at the front and then he was wounded and for lack of medical attention, life fled. Mercifully Jennie did not hear of her lover’s death for she herself was to be sorely tried. The stork that cares for neither war nor peace had visited the home of her sister, and in order that the baby have attention, and the mother be made comfortable, Jennie and her mother had gone to the little red house that lay in the path of the invading enemy. When the lead begun to fly, Jennie was placidly baking. While the battle waged fiercer the girl went on kneading dough, undismayed by her obvious danger. But finally a bullet found its way into Jennie’s kitchen and with a convulsive cry she clasped her hands to her breast and fell. But perhaps after all it was a friendly bullet that kept her frorp learning that her sweetheart had found a friendless grave only a few days before. Annie Roberts is but another example of indomitable courage. Young, gentle, affectionate Annie, hearing that the regiment in which her brother and husband were enrolled, scarcely existed except for its dying and its dead, unhesitatingly set out for the fateful scene. Reaching it she trod the blood soaked fields searching among the prostrate bodies for her loved ones. From hospital to hospital, and trench to trench amid rain and mud she trudged on day after day. Did Annie Roberts succeed? She found her noble gray-haired brother with a leg torn off and at length she heard from her brave husband who was a wounded prisoner at Libby. These are but typical of many cases of bravery and devotion, but they all point to one fact, that these women loved their country and their flag and were ready and willing, if necessary, to give their lives for her. Pauline Bolar, ’24. THE LIBERTY BELL VERY person in this broad land is proud of the old Liberty Bell. It is a sacred and silent witness now of the great deeds of long ago. November 1st, 1751, the superintendents of the old Statehouse in Philadelphia, wrote to London and asked for a good bell of about 2000 pounds weight. The bell came in August, 1752. When it was hung and tried for the sound, it was cracked by a stroke of the clapper, witnout any violence whatever. The bell was re-cast in Philadelphia, but it made such a poor sound that it was again broken up and re-cast. This time it was satisfactory. On July 8th, 1776, this bell became famous. On that day the Statehouse yard was crowded with eager patriots. They had

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THE SPECTATOR 23 may fail to do him justice, but the instinct of mankind will not fail. The real hero needs not books to give him worshippers. George Washington will alw’ays receive the love and reverence of men, because they see embodied in him the noblest possibilities of humanity. —Tresa Ferrari, ’28. GENERAL ROBERT LEE OBERT Lee wras a son of the Famous Light Horse Harry Lee. He was born on the nineteenth of January, 1807 in Westmoreland County, Virginia, on the Potomac River. He was a brave, strong, manly lad and was always in love with his mother. His father moved from his native State to Washington near the National Capitol. Here Robert w'ent to school. When he was eleven years old his father died. He resolved to hold up his father’s honor, so he went to West Point on the Hudson River. Four years later he graduated as Lieutenant Lee. He joined the Engineering Corps and was stationed on the Atlantic Coast. On the third day of June, thirty-three years later, he was made General of the Army of Virginia. He w'on the Battle of Malvern Hill and second Battle of Bull Run. However, at Gettysburg, Pa., in the following year, he was defeated by General Meade. He kept the Union soldiers out of Richmond for three yeai-s and he fought many other battles. At last he was defeated by General U. S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, on the ninth day of April, 1865. Here the war ended; the South w’as a waste. For five years he wfas President of Washington College. He died on the twelfth day of October, five years after his surrender and he is honored to this day. —Leland Balsiger, ’28. “THE OLD BLOCK HOUSE” wonder how many of the readers of this paper ever knew' that it was unnecessary to go a hundred or more miles to see a place of national interest? How many could find within the walls of Pittsburgh at least one place of interest? How' many ever heard of “The Old Block House”, in Pittsburgh? Suppose the next time you go shopping you look for it. It is a tiny brick building, a five sided construction, such as we see in our history books when viewing pictures of the Revolutionary days. It is about thirty-five feet wide and has an underground passage running to the fort and one out to the river. It is built of brick, a pagoda in shape, having two floors each showing a row of horizontal slits as loopholes. Over the door there is a stone upon which is inscribed: COL. BOUQUET 1764 In 1785 the structure was converted into a dwelling and continued to be so for 109 years, when the building and surrounding sites were deeded to the Daughters of the American Revolution, who restored it to its original state. Upon entering, one steps back two centuries as he steps down the two steps at the entrance. The interior, paved with flag stone, contains a narrow, twisting staircase leading to the second floor and has a vault-like appearance. A few' historical facts would do no harm. Upon this site rested one of the six places that determined the geographical and political institution wre call the United States. In 1754 the French began building forts to show their power west of the Alleghanies. The two most military dominions of that interior wrere at Niagara and Pittsburgh, but strange as it seems, no fort was made at Pittsburgh until the Virginians had made a fort there in 1754. Gov. Dinwiddie of Virginia, decided to investigate these activities and sent George Washington with a letter asking the French to cease operation on English-American soil but the French politely refused. The following year a body of Virginians were defeated and the French then erected Fort Duquesne. In 1758 the French left this fort in the face of their enemies and the English arriving a few days later began Fort Pitt, naming it in honor of the Prime Minister.