John Uri Lloyd, novelist and scientist, was born at West Bloomfield, New York, April 19, 1849. He is the son of a civil engineer who came West, in 1853, for the purpose of surveying a railroad between Covington and Louisville, known as the "River Route." Mr. Lloyd was thus four years old when his father settled at Burlington, Boone county, Kentucky, near the line of the road. The panic of 1854 came and the railroad company failed, but his parents preferred their new Kentucky home to the old home in the East, and they decided to remain, taking up their first vocations, that of teaching. For several years they taught in the village schools of the three little Kentucky towns of Burlington, Petersburg, and Florence. Mr. Lloyd lived at Florence until he was fourteen years of age, when he was apprenticed to a Cincinnati druggist, but he continued to be a resident of Kentucky until 1876, since which time he has lived at Cincinnati. In 1878 he became connected with the Cincinnati College of Pharmacy, and this connection has continued to the present day. In 1880 he was married to a Kentucky woman. Mr. Lloyd is one of the most distinguished pharmaceutical chemists in the United States. He has a magnificent library and museum upon his subjects; and he is generally conceded to be the world's highest authority on puff-balls. Mr. Lloyd's scientific works include The Chemistry of Medicines (1881); Drugs and Medicines of North America (1884); King's American Dispensatory (1885); Elixirs, their History and Preparation (1892); and he, as president, has edited the publications of the Lloyd Library, as follows: Dr. B. S. Barton's Collections (1900); Dr. Peter Smith's Indian Doctor's Dispensatory (1901); A Study in Pharmacy (1902); Dr. David Schopf's Materia Medica Americana (1903); Dr. Manasseh Cutler's Vegetable Productions (1903); Reproductions from the Works of William Downey, John Carver, and Anthony St. Storck (1907); Hydrastis Canadensis (1908); Samuel Thomson and Thomsonian Materia Medica (1909). Dr. Lloyd has won his general reputation as a writer of novels descriptive of life in northern Kentucky. His first work to attract wide attention was entitled Etidorpha, or the End of Earth (New York, 1895), a work which involved speculative philosophy. This was followed by a little story, The Right Side of the Car (Boston, 1897). Then came the Stringtown stories, which made his reputation. "Stringtown" is the fictional name for the Kentucky Florence of his boyhood. There are four of them: Stringtown on the Pike (New York, 1900); Warwick of the Knobs (New York, 1901); Red Head (New York, 1903); and Scroggins (New York, 1904). In these stories the author's aim was not to be engaged solely as a novelist, "but to portray to outsiders a phase of life unknown to the world at large, and to establish a folk-lore picture in which the scenes that occurred in times gone by, would be paralleled in the events therein narrated." Stringtown on the Pike is Mr. Lloyd's best known book, but Warwick of the Knobs is far and way the finest of the four.
Bibliography. The Bookman (May, 1900); The Outlook (November 16, 1901); The Bookman (December, 1910).
"LET'S HAVE THE MERCY TEXT"[34]
[From Warwick of the Knobs (New York, 1901)]
Warwick made no movement; no word of greeting came from his lips, no softening touch to his furrowed brow, no sparkle to his cold, gray eye. As though gazing upon a stranger, he sat and pierced the girl through and through with a formal stare, that drove despair deeper into her heart and caused her to cling closer to her brother.
"Pap, sister's home ag'in," the youth repeated.
"I know nothing of a sister who claims a home here."
Mary would have fallen but for the strong arm of her brother, who gently, tenderly guided her to a great rocking-chair. Then he turned on his father.
"I said thet sister's home agin, and I means it, pap."
Turning the leaves of the Book to a familiar passage, Warwick read aloud:
"'The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but of the world.' This girl has no home here. She is of the world."
"Father, ef sister hes no home here, I hav'n't none, either. Ef she must go out into the world, I'll go with her."
The man of God gazed sternly at the rebellious youth. Then he turned to the girl.
"The good Book says, 'A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.'"
Joshua stepped between the two and hid the child from her father.
"Pap, thet book says tough things to-night. The text you preached from to-day was a better one. I remember et, and I'll leave et to you ef I am not right. 'I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep my anger forever.' Thet's a better text, and I takes et, God was in a better humor when He wrote et."
"Joshua!" spoke the father, shocked at his son's irreverence.
"Listen, pap. I hate to say et, but I must. You preached one thing this morning, and you acts another thing now. Didn't you say thet God 'retaineth not His anger forever, because He delighteth in mercy?' I may not hev the words right, but I've got the sense."
"My son!"
"Pap, I axes the question on the square. Ain't thet what you preached?"
"That was the text."
"It ain't fair to preach one text in the meetin'-house and act another text at home."
"Joshua!"
"Let's hev the mercy text to-night. Pap, sister's home ag'in. Let's act the fergivin' text out."
Joshua stepped aside and the minister, touched in spite of himself, glanced at his daughter, a softened glance, that spoke of affection, but he made no movement. Then the girl slowly rose and turned toward the door, still keeping her eyes on her father's face. She edged backward step by step toward the door by which she had entered. Her hand grasped the latch; the door moved on its hinges.
"Stop, sister," said Joshua. "Pap, ef sister opens thet door I go with her, and then you will sit alone in this room ferever. You will be the last Warwick of the Knob."
Warwick, with all his coldness and strength, could not stand the ordeal.
"Come back, my children," he said. "It is also written, 'I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.'" And then, as in former times, Mary's head rested on her father's knee.
FOOTNOTES
[1] The italics in which the three Kentucky lines are set, are my own.[2] Marshall in his History, v. i, p. 7, says it was 1758. Mr. H. Taylor thinks Dr. Walker informed him it was in 1752, but Col. Shelby states implicitly that, in 1779 in company with Dr. Walker on Yellow creek a mile or two from Cumberland mountain, the Doctor observed "upon that tree," pointing to a beech across the road to the left hand, "Ambrose Powell marked his name and the date of the year." I examined the tree and found A. Powell 1750 cut in legible characters.[3] This reply was made in answer to one of Randolph's ranting Yazoo philippics, several of which are among the bitterest speeches ever heard in Congress. Lyon at this time (1804) was a member of Congress from Kentucky. The Yazoo land grant frauds had aroused the public mind, and a commission had endeavored to settle by compromise the claims of Georgia, and those holding under the Georgia act of 1795, to the vast territory in dispute. Randolph denounced the frauds committed, and opposed any settlement of the controversy, while Lyon desired to see the country settled, and the compromise of the commissioners carried out.[4] This reply to Randolph was made in the House of Representatives, in 1824, in the course of the debate between Clay and Randolph. "During the session of 1823-4, attempts wore made to run at Mr. Clay, on account of his peculiar situation in being named for the presidency while Speaker of the House of Representatives, and for his zealous support of the American system. In a debate on an improvement bill he encountered Mr. Randolph of Virginia, who had endeavored to provoke him to reply," and the bit of the debate reproduced here is the answer the gentleman from Virginia received for his pains.[5] After the above address, La Fayette rose, and in a tone influenced by powerful feeling, made an eloquent reply. In 1824 La Fayette visited the United States, as "the guest of the Nation," and he was gladly welcomed in many parts of the country. And "on the tenth of December, 1824, he was introduced in the House of Representatives by a committee appointed for that purpose. The general, being conducted to the sofa placed for his reception, the Speaker (Mr. Clay), addressed him" in the very happy words given above.[6] Copyright, 1897, by Charles Scribner's Sons.[7] Governor Morehead's widow, Mrs. L. M. Morehead, who died several years ago, published a slender volume of verse, Christmas Is Coming and Other Poems for the "House Mother" and her Darlings (Philadelphia, 1871).[8] Copyright, 1905, by the Arthur H. Clark Company.[9] Some versions show the following stanzas at this point:
Who heard the thunder of the fray
Break o'er the field beneath,
Knew well the watchword of that day
Was "Victory or Death."
Long had the doubtful conflict raged
O'er all that stricken plain,
For never fiercer fight had waged
The vengeful blood of Spain;
And still the storm of battle blew,
Still swelled the gory tide;
Not long, our stout old chieftain[10] knew,
Such odds his strength could bide.
'Twas in that hour his stern command
Called to a martyr's grave
The flower of his beloved land,
The nation's flag to save.
By rivers of their fathers' gore
His first-born laurels grew,
And well he deemed the sons would pour
Their lives for glory too.
Full many a norther's breath has swept
O'er Angostura's plain,[11]
And long the pitying sky has wept
Above its mouldered slain.
The raven's scream, or eagle's flight,
Or shepherd's pensive lay,
Alone awakes each sullen height
That frowned o'er that dread fray.
Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground,
Ye must not slumber there, et cetera.
[10] Gen. Zachary Taylor.[11] Near Buena Vista.[12] A complete list of the club's publications is: John Filson, by R. T. Durrett (1884); The Wilderness Road, by Thomas Speed (1886); The Pioneer Press of Kentucky, by W. H. Perrin (1888); Life and Times of Judge Caleb Wallace, by W. H. Whitsitt (1888); An Historical Sketch of St. Paul's Church, by R. T. Durrett (1889); The Political Beginnings of Kentucky, by J. M. Brown (1889); The Centenary of Kentucky, by R. T. Durrett (1892); The Centenary of Louisville, by R. T. Durrett (1893); The Political Club of Danville, Kentucky, by Thomas Speed (1894); The Life and Writings of Rafinesque, by R. E. Call (1895); Transylvania University, by Dr. Robert Peter (1896); Bryant's Station, by R. T. Durrett (1897); The First Explorations of Kentucky, by J. S. Johnston (1898); The Clay Family, by Z. F. Smith and Mrs. Mary R. Clay (1899); The Battle of Tippecanoe, by Alfred Pirtle (1900); Boonesborough, by G. W. Ranck (1901); The Old Masters of the Bluegrass, by S. W. Price (1902); The Battle of the Thames, by B. H. Young (1903); The Battle of New Orleans, by Z. F. Smith (1904); History of the Medical Department of Transylvania University, by Dr. Robert Peter (1905); Lopez's Expeditions to Cuba, by A. C. Quisenberry (1906); The Quest for a Lost Race, by Dr. T. E. Pickett (1907); Traditions of the Earliest Visits of Foreigners to North America, by R. T. Durrett (1908); Sketches of Two Distinguished Kentuckians, by J. W. Townsend and S. W. Price (1909); The Prehistoric Men of Kentucky, by B. H. Young (1910); The Kentucky Mountains, by Miss Mary Verhoeff (1911). No publication was issued in 1912.[13] Copyright, 1893, by the Filson Club.[14] Copyright, 1901, by the American Baptist Publication Society.[15] Copyright, 1897, by G. P. Putnam's Sons.[16] Copyright, 1905, by the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association.[17] Copyright, 1909, by the Author.[18] Copyright, 1898, by John P. Morton and Company.[19] Copyright, 1910, by Doubleday, Page and Company.[20] Copyright, 1892, by the Author.[21] Copyright, 1901, by McClure, Phillips and Company.[22] Copyright, 1906, by John James Piatt.[23] Copyright, 1891, by J. B. Lippincott Company.[24] Copyright, 1891, by Robert Clarke Company.[25] Canard.[26] Copyright, 1910, by The Torch Press.[27] Copyright, 1902, by John James Piatt.[28] Copyright, 1906, by Houghton, Mifflin Company.[29] Copyright, 1909, by Houghton, Mifflin Company.[30] Copyright, 1911, by the Author.[31] Copyright, 1910, by the Filson Club.[32] Copyright, 1908, by B. W. Dodge and Company.[33] Copyright, 1892, by Brentano's.[34] Copyright, 1901, by Dodd, Mead and Company.
