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be of her representative woman, who was by her manners and dress every inch a true and noble lady."

When Kirkwood began his public career the capital was at Iowa city, and after its removal the governor's headquarters were at the miller's old home. For nearly twenty years, and under the administration of five governors, Iowa city held the sceptre, but by a new treaty with the Sacs and Foxes a further unsettled territory was opened, and a new centre created; then the capitol was removed to Fort Des Moines, a promising town with four thousand inhabitants in the heart of the prairie. Wrath and despair seized Iowa city, her business seemed paralyzed, her hopes were blighted, and when one sagacious citizen thought of securing the state university, many in anger refused to sign the paper he circulated; but in 1857 the legislative property was removed to Des Moines, and the students of the state university appropriated the abandoned capitol, which was left as a legacy to education forever.

The archives were gone. The old days were ended, but a new era began, rich with the romance that always pervades a university town. From being the seat of politics and politicians, it became the seat of linguists and of learning. Historical rooms, libraries, museums, academies arose, and schools, classical, scientific, commercial, law, medical, and dental, clustered around the state university. The grim old capitol, designed to resound with legislative eloquence, is now the scholastic retreat of the ambitious law student, and on that historic height other buildings have arisen to be the conservators of science and art. To the younger generation the old capital days are a myth and a legend, but to their parents the actors of that old drama live as yesterday.

Judging from its history and its buildings, from its trees and gardens and elegant homes, Iowa city is an old town in a new state. There is a haze of the past over it, a tinge of conservatism, through and behind which dashes the fresh red blood of youth. Scholars love it; clubs, literary, historic, and scientific, haunt its libraries, and numerous visitors annually bear witness to its continued hospitality; yet as compared with the east Iowa city is young, with a future unfolding full of promise as any university town of new or old world fame.

Eva Emery Dye.

IOWA CITY, IOWA.

THE ANCIENT AND HONORABLE ARTILLERY COMPANY

THE OLDEST MILITARY ORGANIZATION IN AMERICA

The Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts is the offspring of The Honourable Artillery Company of London, the oldest military organization in the world. The latter was incorporated by King Henry VIII. in 1537, as a nursery or school for training soldiers. This London corps antedates by more than one hundred years the formation of any other British military company, and has already celebrated its three hundred and fiftieth birthday. Nor is age its chief distinction. It has been commanded by kings and princes, officered by dukes and earls; the proudest families of the realm have been glad to enroll their sons among its members, while it has been granted and still enjoys many privileges and immunities peculiar to itself. From the time of its foundation until the present it has been wholly distinct from all other military bodies, is self sustaining, receives no aid from the public funds, is the only corps outside of the regular British army that bears the “Queen's colours," and its government is based upon royal warrants that have been confirmed by each succeeding sovereign from the time of Henry VIII.

When the American branch of the Honourable Artillery Company was organized, it adopted not only the plan and purpose of its famous prototype, but also many of its customs; and it is probably due to this circumstance though many of these customs have been discarded by the London company-that the relations existing between the two are now so unique. Each is absolutely independent of the other, the English company recognizes the American as its offspring, while the latter is pleased to claim so illustrious a parent, and every year strengthens the bond uniting these, the oldest affiliated military organizations in existence.

Yet the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts was founded in a manner characteristically American. It did not lean on the parent corps for support; it was not begun by men sent out from London for the purpose of establishing it; but was the direct outgrowth of a military spirit which the dangers of an unexplored country compelled the early settlers to cultivate.* The "Pilgrim fathers" were brave men,

* In the preparation of this paper every important authority has been consulted, Whitman, Raikes, Winthrop, the "Records " of the company, etc., and acknowledgments are also due to Colonel Henry Walker of Boston for original material. Conflicting statements have been in every instance closely scrutinized.

understanding the use of warlike weapons, and, though coming to the new world for peace and freedom to worship God in their own way, they came with musket in one hand and Bible in the other. Every reader of New England history knows how the flint-lock hung over the door of each rude cottage, how the Puritan went to church carrying his loaded musket, and stood at the entrance to his pew during the long prayer, not daring to kneel lest the sentry on guard outside should shout "To arms!" and when that cry came these men at once formed their company in the aisle, and the meeting-house became an armed fortress.

Regular bodies of militia were of necessity organized in the very earliest days of the Plymouth colony, and were regarded of such importance as to be mentioned in the "Charter of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England," it being therein stated that the governor has authority "to train, instruct, and govern the militia-to assemble in martial array and put in warlike posture the inhabitants, to conduct them in service, within and without the province, by sea and land, to resist invasion, and to attack and destroy, pursue and capture, the public enemy."

At the close of the first Indian war in which Massachusetts engagedthat short and bloody conflict with the Pequods-the rulers of Boston feasted the victorious militia-men. Some of the soldiers and a few merchants and "gentlemen" of the infant colony, former members of the Honourable Artillery Company of London, suggested a military organization, the aim of which should be to instruct men in the art of war and introduce a better and uniform system of military tactics. After shaping the new company, they petitioned the general court for a charter. This petition was not at first favorably received; the need of a substantial military organization was generally admitted, but the fears of the court, the jealousy of the council, and the apprehensions of the governor combined to crush it. "Divers gentlemen and others," so writes Governor Winthrop in his journal,* "being joined in a military company, desired to be made a corporation. But the council, considering (from the example of the Pretorian band among the Romans and Templars in Europe) how dangerous it might be to erect a standing authority of military men, which might easily, in time, overthrow the civil power, thought fit to stop it betimes." The governor, however, soon perceived that such a company would strengthen his power rather than diminish it, and through his influence the charter was finally granted. Winthrop adds to the notice in his journal, "Yet they were allowed to be a company, but subordinate to all authority." On the seventeenth day of March, 1638, the much-discussed petition was * Winthrop's History of New England, from 1630 to 1649.

approved, by order of the general court. At the time this charter was granted, Boston, in Massachusetts, says Josselyn, was "rather a village than a town, there being not above twenty or thirty houses." Yet the Puritans, while tilling the soil and fighting savages and wild beasts, had not been idle in the matter of extirpating heresy and trying to keep pure the faith. Roger Williams had escaped through the snow-enshrouded forests to Rhode Island rather than be sent over the sea in chains, Henry Vane had gone to his glorious life and heroic death in England, Mrs. Hutchinson had fled to Long Island, and not even the great popularity of Captain John Underhill, the hero of the Pequod war, who had stormed Fort Mystic and won the skirmishes on the Zuyder Zee, could save him from the ignominious surrender of his sword and the decree of banishment. Many distinguished soldiers were required to surrender their arms to the first commander of the new military company, and none of the charter members of the organization were allowed to place their names on its roll until they had been examined by the council "as to their views concerning the doctrine of justification by faith and the work of the Holy Ghost." The General Court of Massachusetts Bay had already, in 1636, granted a charter to "the Corporation of Harvard College," the first ever granted by the court; the second, and the only other granted for more than one hundred years, was the charter of this ancient artillery company.

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The document reads as follows:

Whereas divers Gentlemen and others, out of their care of the public weal and safety, by the advancement of the military art, and exercise of arms, have desired license of the Court to join themselves in one company, and to have the liberty to exercise themselves, at such times as their occasions will best permit ; and that such liberties and privileges might be granted them as the Court should think meet, for their better encouragement and furtherance, in so useful an employment; which request of theirs being referred by the Court unto us of the Standing Council, we have thought fit, upon serious consideration, and conference with divers of the principal of them, to set down an order herein as followeth :

Imprimis. We do order that Robert Keayne, merchant; Nathaniel Duncan, merchant; Robert Sedgwick, gentleman; William Spencer, merchant; and such others as they have already joined with them, and such as they shall from time to time take into their company, shall be called the MILITARY COMPANY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS." *

*The name was soon changed to The Artillery Company," and, even after the use of artillery was abandoned by its members, in 1690, the name remained unchanged. The general court recognized the organization as “The Artillery Company" until about 1738, after which it is spoken of as "The Honorable Artillery Company" or "The Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company.' The records use the word "honorable" for the first time in 1743, and the full title only after 1786. These changes in name have been confirmed by acts of the state legislature.—Raikes's History of the Honourable Artillery Company of London.

The charter then goes on to state the privileges granted the company, which certainly were remarkable: "They erty to choose their captain, lieutenant, and all other officers,

and no officer by their own bound to atother military of it; no other meetings ing-days; they themselves," and collect

of their own exceed not twenty shillings for any

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shall have lib

shall be put upon them but choice." No member was tend "trainings" in any organization unless an officer trainings, or ordinary town could be held on their traincould "make order amongst manage their own affairs, levy fines and forfeitures on any members, "so as the same

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one offense"; they might assemble, for military exercises, in any town within the jurisdiction of the court, at their own pleasure, and they were granted one thousand acres of land, "for providing necessaries for their military exercises, and defraying of other charges, which may arise by occasion thereof." Then, as if the council still feared the ultimate supremacy of the military power, it was "provided always, that this order, or grant, or anything therein contained, shall not extend to free the said Company, or any of them, their persons or estates, from the civil gov ernment and jurisdiction here established." The four persons mentioned by name in the charter were chosen from the four important towns in the colony, in order that it might be understood, once for all, that the company, though having its headquarters in Boston, belonged to the commonwealth. It was also understood that it was a "training-school "-the West Point of New England, as it has since been called-that its members might hold commissions in any of the militia organizations in the colony, and that all of its own officers should be chosen annually, so that each member might know how to command, as well as obey. It is a fact worthy of

VOL. XXI.-No. 6.-32

DEVICE ON THE NEW COLORS OF THE COMPANY.

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