We have under this heading some curious graveyard gleanings on remarkable
men and women. Our first is from a tombstone erected in the churchyard of
Spofforth, at the cost of Lord Dundas, telling the remarkable career of
John Metcalf, better known as "Blind Jack of Knaresborough":--
Here lies JOHN METCALF, one whose infant sight
Felt the dark pressure of an endless night;
Yet such the fervour of his dauntless mind,
His limbs full strung, his spirits unconfined,
That, long ere yet life's bolder years began,
The sightless efforts marked th' aspiring man;
Nor marked in vain--high deeds his manhood dared,
And commerce, travel, both his ardour shared.
'Twas his a guide's unerring aid to lend--
O'er trackless wastes to bid new roads extend;
And, when rebellion reared her giant size,
'Twas his to burn with patriot enterprise;
For parting wife and babes, a pang to feel,
Then welcome danger for his country's weal.
Reader, like him, exert thy utmost talent given!
Reader, like him, adore the bounteous hand of Heaven.
He died on the 26th of April, 1801, in the 93rd year of his age.
A few jottings respecting Metcalf, will probably be read with interest. At
the age of six years he lost his sight by an attack of small-pox. Three
years later he joined the boys in their bird-nesting exploits, and climbed
trees to share the plunder. When he had reached thirteen summers he was
taught music, and soon became a proficient performer; he also learned to
ride and swim, and was passionately fond of field-sports. At the age of
manhood it is said his mind possessed a self-dependence rarely enjoyed by
those who have the perfect use of their faculties; his body was well in
harmony with his mind, for when twenty-one years of age he was six feet
one and a-half inches in height, strong and robust in proportion. At the
age of twenty-five, he was engaged as a musician at Harrogate. About this
time he was frequently employed during the dark nights as a guide over the
moors and wilds, then abundant in the neighbourhood of Knaresborough. He
was a lover of horse-racing, and often rode his own animals. His horses he
so tamed that when he called them by their respective names they came to
him, thus enabling him to find his own amongst any number and without
trouble. Particulars of the marriage of this individual read like a
romance. A Miss Benson, daughter of an innkeeper, reciprocated the
affections of our hero; however, the suitor did not please the parents of
the "fair lady," and they selected a Mr. Dickinson as her future husband.
Metcalf, hearing that the object of his affection was to be married the
following day to the young man selected by her father, hastened to free
her by inducing the damsel to elope with him. Next day they were made man
and wife, to the great surprise of all who knew them, and to the
disappointment of the intended son-in-law. To all it was a matter of
wonder how a handsome woman as any in the country, the pride of the place,
could link her future with 'Blind Jack,' and, for his sake, reject the
many good offers made her. But the bride set the matter at rest by
declaring: "His actions are so singular, and his spirit so manly and
enterprising, that I could not help it."
It is worthy of note that he was the first to set up, for the public
accommodation of visitors to Harrogate, a four-wheeled chaise and a
one-horse chair; these he kept for two seasons. He next bought horses and
went to the coast for fish, which he conveyed to Leeds and Manchester. In
1745, when the rebellion broke out in Scotland, he joined a regiment of
volunteers raised by Colonel Thornton, a patriotic gentleman, for the
defence of the House of Hanover. Metcalf shared with his comrades all the
dangers of the campaign. He was defeated at Falkirk, and victorious at
Culloden. He was the first to set up (in 1754) a stage-waggon between York
and Knaresborough, which he conducted himself twice a week in summer, and
once a week in winter. This employment he followed until he commenced
contracting for road-making. His first contract was for making three miles
of road between Minskip and Ferrensby. He afterwards erected bridges and
houses, and made hundreds of miles of roads in Yorkshire, Lancashire,
Cheshire, and Derbyshire. He was a dealer in timber and hay, of which he
measured and calculated the solid contents by a peculiar method of his
own. The hay he always measured with his arms, and, having learned the
height, he could tell the number of square yards in the stack. When he
went out, he always carried with him a stout staff some inches taller than
himself, which was of great service both in his travels and measurements.
In 1778 he lost his wife, after thirty-nine years of conjugal felicity, in
the sixty-first year of her age. She was interred at Stockport. Four years
later he left Lancashire, and settled at the pleasant rural village of
Spofforth, not far distant from the town of his nativity. With a daughter,
he resided on a small farm until he died, in 1801. At the time of his
decease, his descendants were four children, twenty grandchildren, and
ninety great-grandchildren.
[In one of our articles in _Chambers's Journal_ we furnished the foregoing
sketch, and it has since been reproduced in many newspapers and in several
volumes.]
In "Yorkshire Longevity," compiled by Mr. William Grainge, of Harrogate, a
most painstaking writer on local history, will be found an interesting
account of Henry Jenkins, a celebrated Yorkshireman. It is stated: "In the
year 1743, a monument was erected, by subscription, in Bolton churchyard,
to the memory of Jenkins; it consists of a square base of freestone, four
feet four inches on each side, by four feet six inches in height,
surmounted by a pyramid eleven feet high. On the east side is inscribed:--
This monument was
erected by contribution,
in ye year 1743, to ye memory
of HENRY JENKINS.