by Frank H. Dodd, Bleeker Von Wagenen (of the firm
of “Ian Maclaren’s” publishers), and the Rev. Dr. Lyman
Abbott, and their wives, with an excursion up the Hudson to
West Point. On their return the doctor came into my office
fairly bubbling over with fun. He had been delightfully entertained
and had enjoyed the magnificent scenery of “your
beautiful Hudson River. It is grand.” He sat and chatted
with me for an hour and charmed me with his description of
the day’s outing. He saw the bright side of everything, and
the humorous side too. He had brought with him and gave to
me, fresh from the press, a copy of “Kate Carnegie,” his new
book, telling me that this was the second copy out of the
bindery; Mrs. Watson had the first copy. In the copy that
he gave to me he wrote:
* * * * *
“TO MAJOR J. B. POND:
“The second copy of this book is given by the author after the week of
his American tour, during which he has already come to consider the
Major his friend.
“New York, October 10, 1896.”
* * * * *
One of the proudest days of my life was the following Sunday, when I
accompanied Dr. and Mrs. Watson to Plymouth Church. I felt that the
whole of that vast congregation must envy me. My star was the centre of
all eyes until the sermon began. Dr. Abbott was at his best, and Dr.
Watson enjoyed him. “That’s great preaching,” he said to me at the
close. Friends crowded around us in great numbers, and “Ian Maclaren”
must have “shaked hands” with hundreds.
“Ian Maclaren’s” American tour really began on the evening of October
12th, in the Academy of Music, Brooklyn, under the auspices of the
Consumptives’ Home, and under the supervision of Mr. S. V. White. Before
Dr. Watson went on the stage Deacon White handed me a check for
$1,000--the fee for the lecture. The good old minister who introduced
Dr. Watson took advantage of the occasion (it was probably the largest
audience he had ever faced) to make a twenty-minute speech. The audience
of highly bred ladies and gentlemen endured it heroically. Almost any
other audience in any other city would have given vent to their pent-up
feelings and called, “Maclaren, Maclaren!” but they patiently waited and
suffered. Finally the speaker of the evening was introduced, and for an
hour and a half more that audience sat in breathless suspense, listening
to a man who gave them as much delightful pleasure as they had ever
before enjoyed in that length of time. I saw that there was going to be
lively work ahead of us for the next two months. The second lecture in
America was in Carnegie Hall, New York, under the auspices of the St.
Andrew’s Society. Sitting on the platform was a reception committee of
over four hundred, including college presidents, clergymen, judges,
statesmen, lawyers, and men of letters, besides other prominent men.
Chauncey M. Depew introduced the doctor in one of his delightful
speeches. Dr. Watson’s voice was distinctly heard in all parts of the
great hall. He was a success in every way. The gross receipts were
$2,455.50.
As the political cauldron was boiling in the States (the McKinley
campaign), I chose to fill in the early portion of our tour in Canada,
and on our way up there we made one stop, at Burlington, Vt. It was the
first ride either Dr. or Mrs. Watson had taken in a drawing-room car,
and they enjoyed it the more for having a sumptuous compartment all to
themselves. The doctor appeared tired but cheerful. I found him an
athletic man with a perfect physique and no fear of being overworked,
but Mrs. Watson seemed delicate and hardly fitted for such a rush as we
were about entering on.
Before reaching Burlington a committee of citizens came on board the
train to welcome the doctor to Vermont. We arrived in the town at just
eight o’clock in the evening, and were obliged to hurry from the hotel
to the Opera House, where we found an immense jam in waiting. Even the
stage was utilized by placing two hundred chairs there, which had been
sold for a dollar apiece.
At Burlington it was the initial experience of my friends in a typical
American hotel, the Van Ness. Mrs. Watson missed the bread plate and the
two knives. She didn’t enjoy spreading butter with the same knife that
she used to cut her meat. The doctor learned to his surprise that
preserves and jam are one and the same, and he inquired if he were
expected to spread his preserves on bread. If so, he wanted some bread.
Owing to the necessity of an early start, we got only an hour or two of
sleep that night. The Watsons were up on time--2:30--and stood the
unseasonable disturbance very gracefully and cheerfully. It seemed rough
on the little lady, but she did not complain. All slept well into
Montreal, where we enjoyed as good a breakfast at the Windsor Hotel as
ever was set before hungry travellers. I noticed a look of pride and an
at-home air about the Watsons as soon as they knew that they were in the
Queen’s dominions, and it seemed to give a relish to their food when I
exclaimed, “God save the Queen!”
At Montreal there was a delegation of representative Scotchmen waiting
to do honors to “Ian Maclaren.” I don’t think there was a man in the
city that day who hadn’t Scotch blood in him, at least I did not see
one. The lecture was in the St. James Methodist church, an immense
auditorium, with a seating capacity of about 2,300, but with
reverberating acoustics that enabled a speaker to hear the echo of his
words five times repeated. I don’t think very many could understand the
reading, and it was about the stupidest audience I ever saw for one so
numerous. The lecture, however, was a great financial success. The local
manager who had engaged the doctor for the lecture was an insurance
agent. He tried to keep possession of Dr. Watson and worried him all day
long.
Dr. Watson was up very early the next morning and knocked at my door,
saying:
“Major, are you up?”
“Come in,” I said, throwing open my door, ready to go to breakfast.
“Major, not a bad meeting last night. I see the papers are not
unfriendly; but oh! that late supper. We will have no more of them.”
We went on to Ottawa by the Canadian Pacific Overland Express. The
general manager of the road had set aside for Dr. and Mrs. Watson a
drawing-room car containing more photographs of scenery along the
Canadian Pacific route than I think they could possibly have examined in
a month, even had they done nothing else. Dinner in the dining car
pleased them. They declared it a most interesting way of enjoying a
meal, and such a good meal, too! Where could it possibly be prepared?
There was a novel experience awaiting Dr. Watson in Ottawa. Mr. Knowles,
the local manager, turned out to be a clergyman and rector of a church
there. The lecture was in the Knox Presbyterian Church. Sir Wilfred
Laurier, the Premier of Canada and a Roman Catholic, presided. He is
Canada’s famous orator, and this was a great occasion for him. When the
doctor was told that a Catholic would introduce him in a Presbyterian
church, he was greatly surprised; but he was in for it and bore it
heroically, and made a very pretty allusion to it in his introductory
speech. Later in the evening he said to me:
“Major, isn’t this a wonderful country? Think of it; I, a Scotch
minister, have given readings for a clergyman of the Church of England,
in a John Knox Presbyterian church, introduced by a Roman Catholic!”
There were cheers and handclapping during the entire evening, closing
with a motion for a vote of thanks, seconded by a speech, then a vote of
thanks to the chairman and another eloquent speech, after which the
doctor read “McClure’s Last Ride,” as an extra. What enthusiasm! I had
hardly seen the doctor since our arrival. Friends had taken possession
of him and he had done the town between 2:30 and 6.
When we got back to our hotel, the Russell, we met Mr. Isaac Campbell
and Hon. John Cameron, two prominent politicians and thoroughbreds of
Winnipeg, who had come all the way to see and hear “Ian Maclaren.”
In company with Premier Laurier and Mr. Knowles, we went up to their
rooms and spent about as interesting an hour as Dr. Watson experienced
during the entire tour. It was a revelation to him; but he had been a
boy himself once, and he learned one fact, that in the great and new
West the boy nature predominates among the men to the end of their
lives. These men were leading Canadian politicians, and the affairs of
Canada were largely in the control of the set to which they belonged.
There was a pretty intense political campaign on in Canada just at this
time over the school question, and there was a desire on the part of the
different partisans to explain to Dr. Watson why their particular party
was right and how the salvation of the country depended upon the
election of their man. He enjoyed it.
We were obliged to start very early next morning for Kingston, and were
glad to leave the old Russell House. The dull porter directed us wrong,
so that we were obliged to change cars twice, when we might have come
direct in a parlor car. My travelling companions had a chance to
experience the inconvenience of riding in the common day coaches of
Canada, and for a short distance we were obliged to ride in the caboose
of a freight train. It was not a delightful experience, but I heard not
the slightest complaint. The doctor really got fun out of it.
At Kingston we were met by Principal Grant, of Queen’s College, who
entertained the Watsons over Sunday. There was a very large audience
that evening at the Kingston Opera House, which made the local managers
happy. Principal Grant presided at the lecture and afterward asked me if
it were not possible to secure Dr. Watson to address the students at the
college next morning. I told him the doctor had agreed to lecture twice
a day for me if I would release him from preaching, so I could not
insist, though I thought he might have been willing to address the
college to please a thousand students, many of whom had given up their
hard earnings to hear him at the Opera House. But he is Scotch, and
having said “no,” he did “no,” although he worshipped with the students
at the college in the morning.
The next day (Monday) we were due at Toronto. I drove a mile in a
carriage to Principal Grant’s home at the college at about 1 A.M., found
Dr. and Mrs. Watson waiting, and we drove out to Kingston Junction to
get our train. It was an uncomfortable ride in a rickety old hack, with
the thermometer at zero. I know that Mrs. Watson and I didn’t enjoy it,
but the doctor was as beaming as though he had had a normal night’s
sleep.
“Jannie,” said he, “I guess the boys are not thinking of where we are
just now. If we hadn’t promised them those bicycles we wouldn’t be
here.” And so he kept the chilly air out by making sunshine at midnight.
The fire had gone out in the stove in the station waiting room, and all
the coal was locked up in the shed outside. The train was forty minutes
late. It seemed the longest forty minutes of my life. A more unendurable
position I never knew than waiting in a cold railway station at 2 A.M.,
in Canada, for a late train. “Ian Maclaren” found enjoyment in it. But
when the train came we had a comfortable ride into Toronto, and were
none the worse for our rough experience of the middle of the night.
Here the Scotch were out in force again. Badges and insignia of
different societies were much in evidence. They all wanted to see “Ian
Maclaren,” and he was unable to see any of them. He accepted an
invitation to lunch with Mr. E. Gurney, a prominent citizen and an old
friend of Mr. Beecher’s and mine, and then he and Mrs. Watson were
driven about the city all the rest of the day until it was time to
lecture. Lord Aberdeen presided, and it is a matter worthy of record
that the largest audience that ever attended any one-man entertainment
in Massey Hall, Toronto, and paid high prices, was the one drawn to hear
“Ian Maclaren’s” readings. A more enthusiastic demonstration of welcome
one seldom sees, especially in America. It was more like Welsh
enthusiasm.
We were booked for Detroit the following day at eleven o’clock, and
Grand Rapids at eight in the evening, so I had a lively time hustling
the doctor from Massey Hall on board the sleeping car. We reached
Detroit at 8 A.M. and breakfasted at the Russell. The doctor gave his
reading at eleven to an opera house full of Detroit’s most select
citizens. Colonel Livingstone, editor of the Detroit _Journal_, had
arranged a luncheon party for the doctor at the Detroit Club at 12:30,
and we were to leave at 1:20 for Grand Rapids. A carriage was engaged
during our stay in Detroit. Dr. Watson hurried from the hall over to the
club. The luncheon was a magnificent affair. About two hundred of
Detroit’s best men were there and made it a pretty lively thirty minutes
for the Scotchman. I took a special carriage and hurried to the station
and persuaded the conductor to hold the train five minutes for us.
Finally the doctor and Colonel Livingstone came. We jumped on the train
just as it was starting and went bounding over the country for Grand
Rapids.
At Jackson we took on a special train carrying the generals of the army,
who had enlisted in the Presidential campaign and were on their way to
Grand Rapids for a grand mass meeting. As we entered that city there
were brass bands playing, fireworks, and all sorts of demonstrations. I
assured Dr. Watson they were not intended in his honor, and he quickly
found out that he was a mighty small affair in the minds of that excited
populace. It was “McKinley and Hobart” everywhere, and everybody was in
some kind of uniform carrying a torch.
In due time my correspondent there appeared with a carriage and drove
us to the Baptist Church, where a great crowd was waiting to welcome
“Ian Maclaren.” It surprised the doctor. The lecture over, we went
direct to the sleeping car, which we boarded at 11 P.M. for Chicago. We
had been on the move at a very lively rate all day, but Dr. Watson’s
ability to see everything from the brightest side kept us all jolly.
We had a very early breakfast in the Auditorium Hotel, in the first sky
dining room the Watsons had ever seen. Unfortunately, Lake Michigan,
once to be seen only a short distance away, was completely hidden by the
smoke.
“How do you like this, Dr. Watson?” I asked.
“Wait until I get my breakfast and I will tell you, Major,” he said.
Reporters came early and kept the doctor under cross-examination for
some time, not, however, to his discomfort. He enjoyed them, and they
knew it, and helped to make things lively. The Rev. Dr. Gunsaulus was
the first minister to call. He drove the doctor out to the Armour
Institute, where he addressed the students that morning, and in the
afternoon he took him for another drive to see Chicago. On his return
his enthusiasm and wonder could hardly be expressed.
“Major, these big stories we read about your Chicago and the West are
not big stories at all. I have seen thirty miles of parks to-day, and I
am told that not one of them is over twenty-five years old.” In the
evening he spoke before the Twentieth Century Club.
At noon the next day the doctor lunched at the Union League Club with a
party of leading spirits. The round table, with twenty-four men sitting
about it, had been placed in the main dining room, where the
distinguished party could be viewed from all sides. I noticed that Dr.
Watson was disturbed. He was not very sociable, either, under the gaze
of so many starers. It was an elaborate lunch, but there were glasses
for water only. After we went out, Dr. Watson asked me if gentlemen were
in the habit of lunching distinguished parties without wine. A friend of
mine who was present assured the doctor that the absence of wine was
entirely on account of the presence of a distinguished minister. Had he
(Dr. Watson) been absent it would have been very different. That evening
the lecture was in Central Music Hall, which was crammed.
My Minneapolis correspondent, who had bought a single lecture for that
city, was one of the doctor’s enthusiastic auditors in Chicago. I had
originally planned that Dr. Watson should have an open date in
Minneapolis for rest, as a neighboring minister in Liverpool had
written: “Watson, poor fellow, is not strong. He has had severe
hemorrhages.” But when I found that he was an athlete, with the power of
endurance of a gladiator, and when he offered to keep all dates I made
if I would release him from preaching, I decided to fill in three more
readings in Minneapolis and St. Paul. I felt all the more warranted in
doing so as all the auditoriums in which Dr. Watson had spoken up to
this time had been crowded to their full capacity. So I told my
Minneapolis man that either he must arrange to fill in two matinées and
the open evening, or I must buy him off and go back East, where we were
sure of a much larger business. He demurred, but “it was to be,” so he
finally assented.
Looking up my dates, I found that the day before election was open in
Central Music Hall, Chicago, and I decided to place two return readings
there for the afternoon and evening of that day. The local manager
refused to have anything to do with it, so I did it myself, and enjoyed
seeing him quite demoralized because he had not accepted my offer. That
afternoon and evening Dr. Watson gave two readings, the gross receipts
for which were over $4,000.
What a delightful ride we had the next day on the fast express from
Chicago to Milwaukee, where I once worked as a printer on the
_Sentinel_. At that time (1857-58) Milwaukee was the metropolis of the
State; now it is a suburb of Chicago. I called Dr. Watson’s attention to
the beautiful brick which is used here, and makes such handsome
buildings. He thought them inferior in quality to the Scotch bricks, and
I think he was right.
He lectured here in Plymouth Church, where I had been with Mr. Beecher
and other stars. The church was crowded, and I was told that there had
been no such enthusiasm since the palmy days of John B. Gough. A supper
after the lecture was attended by the leading minds of the city and
State, among whom was my old friend F. N. Finney, son of the late
Charles G. Finney of Oberlin. The Woman’s Club, which had secured Dr.
Watson for Milwaukee, entertained our entire party the next morning,
showing us the sights of the city, including a first-class art gallery
and the largest, best-equipped brewery in the world.
We pushed on to Appleton, Wisconsin, where nearly the whole town was in
waiting at the depot. The rest of the townspeople met us on the train
before reaching the city. At the lecture that evening, the
Congregational Church held the biggest crowd it ever had held up to that
time. The next day (Sunday) was a proud day for me. “Ian Maclaren”
preached for one in my father and mother’s old church, in order that my
friends might hear him. It was a great sermon and a great crowd, too.
People came over two hundred miles to hear him, and filled the church
both morning and evening, and all the surrounding streets as well. It
was my second great triumph in Appleton. On a former occasion I had
introduced Henry Ward Beecher to the same public, and Dr. Watson’s
reception was just as hearty as Beecher’s. In the evening I gave my
Beecher lecture. Dr. Watson was a listener and gave me inspiration. I
talked Beecher for an hour and a half, and was attentively listened to.
The next day we went to Madison, Wisconsin, where Dr. and Mrs. Watson
were the guests of President Adams of the Wisconsin State University.
Mrs. Watson was unable to sit up. The doctor addressed the students of
the University in the afternoon, and lectured in the First
Congregational Church in the evening--the same place where, in 1879, Mr.
Beecher had drawn exactly $1,200. The legislature was in session then,
but now it was autumn, and no legislature. Dr. Watson drew just $1,000
even money.
We were obliged to take the midnight train from Madison to Minneapolis.
When we went on board poor Mrs. Watson was almost broken down, but never
a murmur escaped her. Dr. Watson nursed and cared for her all night on
the cars as gently as a mother could have done. Still he couldn’t help
saying funny things. As she lay in agony in her berth, he said: “Jannie,
you must not forget; the boys may get their wheels yet. The audience was
not hostile.”
By the time we reached Minneapolis, Mrs. Watson was so feeble that she
could hardly bear to be lifted from the car to a carriage; still she did
not complain. At the West Hotel we called in a physician, who declared
that she was threatened with pneumonia. Colonel West and his daughters
were very kind and attentive and relieved the doctor as much as
possible. The Caledonian Society and the St. Andrew’s Society were in
waiting to show honors to the distinguished visitor, and many other
Scotch institutions were out in great force. The lobbies of the hotels
were jammed. “Ian Maclaren” was the name on everybody’s lips.
He amused the audience at the beginning of one of his lectures by
telling of a letter he had received, asking whether the first name of
his pseudonym was pronounced Ian, Eean, Yan, Yon, Yane, John, Jan, or
Jane. “In answer to this question,” said Dr. Watson, “I would say that
if you want to pronounce it like an Englishman, you will say I-an; if
like a Scotchman, Ee-an; and if like a Highlander, Ee-on.”
A luncheon was given him by one society, and after the reading in the
evening he had a banquet. I absolutely believed the doctor must be
bewildered from so much increasing attention. The smart reporters here
got hold of him. His keen discernment enabled him to detect a different
atmospherical condition about these and our Eastern newspaper men. There
was a freshness and a keen assurance about the Minneapolis reporters
that rendered them irresistible. He saw and enjoyed everything.
Everybody was in love with him, and everybody wished to do something for
him.
Judge Gilfillan, of the United Scotch Societies, introduced him at the
first reading by declaring that it had been left to the lion of the
evening “to show us the lights and shadows of Scottish character as they
are exhibited in the simple, everyday scenes of life.” The doctor
stepped forward amid a wave of lasting applause. “It is my duty,” he
said, “to notice with a glow of heart the Scottish tone of this
introduction, for, as I sat listening, I could scarcely realize that I
was in the far Northwest and not in my own country.” Wherever he went he
met Scotch people--some by descent, some by marriage, and one by virtue
of the fact that her sister had been tended by a Scotch nurse.
We gave three readings in Minneapolis, instead of one, as originally
planned, and two in St. Paul. The afternoon in St. Paul was marked by
almost as terrific a rain-storm as I ever remember witnessing. The water
absolutely piled up in the streets for two or three hours. Through the
invitation of Mr. I. W. Whitney of the Great Northern R.R. Co., Dr.
Watson visited the residence of Mr. James Hill, president of the
railroad, who has the finest collection of pictures west of New York.
Dr. Watson, who is an art critic and has seen all the famous collections
of Europe, declared this the best-selected and choicest private
collection of paintings that he knew of.
We found Mrs. Watson more comfortable on our return, but the physicians
said that she had a slight touch of pneumonia and must not be moved for
a week, so we were obliged to leave her behind and go on to Des Moines
without her. I feared that the tour was about finished. I didn’t see how
the doctor could give his readings under such conditions, but he
insisted that “Jannie” was a woman of wonderful will power and he was
sure she would come through all right. To leave her among strangers, in
a strange land, nearly five thousand miles from home, was not a cheering
prospect, but Colonel West, owner of the West Hotel, and his daughters
were very kind to her, and she was heroic and brave as well. “Good-by,
Jannie. The boys will get their wheels,” were the doctor’s last cheering
words as he came from her room and we took a carriage for the depot to
go to Des Moines.