ACTIVITIES OF A 
LIFETIME DR. J. A. MUNK ACTIVITIES OF A 
LIFETIME 
By 
Joseph Amasa Munk, M. D. 
Los Angeles 
The TIMES-MIRROR Press 
1924 Copyright, 1924, 
Times-Mirror Press 
Los Angeles Contents 
PAGE 
Early Recollections 9 
Army Days 35 
Vocation and Avocation 66 
Vital Force and the Lifeline 107 
President's Address 119 
Adaptation of Life to Environment 137 
The Fresh Air Fiend 149 
The Pace that Kills ; 158 
The Munk Cattle Ranch ' 163 
The Munk Library of Arizoniana.. 181 
The Munk Botanical Garden and krboretum.... 207 List of Illustrations 
PAGE 
Dr. J. A. Munk Frontispiece 
Joseph A. Munk, sixteen years old 40 
Dr. Munk, at the age of twenty-five 72 
Dr. Munk, at the age of forty 87 
Bottom of the Bright Angel Trail 92 
Cereus Giganteus 96 
The Munk Cattle Ranch 163 
Dr. Munk in His Arizona Library 181 
The Munk Arboretum 207 ACTIVITIES OF A 
LIFETIME Early Recollections 
I WAS BORN November 9, 1847, on a farm 
near the village of North Georgetown, Colum- 
biana County, Ohio. I was the third of six children, 
my two sisters, Mary and Anna, being older, and my 
three brothers, Ephraim, Edward and William, all 
younger. 
My childhood was the experience of the average 
country lad living on an Ohio farm sixty-five years 
ago. During the advancing years came periods of 
work, study and play, according to the duties of the 
hour and the season of the year. 
It may be of interest to relate here some of my 
early experiences as I recall them at this date. 
In the early days of primeval forests and primitive 
life, there was no coal or oil used and wood was the 
exclusive fuel. The wood was cut and piled in a 
heap on dry ground near the house, to be used as 
needed on the hearth of the living room or in the 
kitchen stove. The wood was cut with either an axe 
or hand saw, and the accumulated chips and sawdust 
made considerable of a low flat mound in the course 
of time. This spot became our family playground 
where we youngsters met almost daily and built our 10 
Activities of a Lifetime 
fairy air-castles and played our simple games until 
we became weary of the sport. It was our favorite 
resort where we spent many happy hours. 
My first adventure out into the big world, that I 
can remember, was when we went a-fishing. We had 
been warned not to leave the dooryard nor take the 
risk of going down to the meadow brook to wade in 
its shallow waters. Somehow, we got the idea that 
we wanted to fish, and fishing we went. Our tackle 
consisted of sticks that we used as poles, wrapping 
cord which served as fish-lines, and bent pins that 
answered the purpose of hooks. The hooks were 
cast into the water without bait and, of course, we 
caught nothing. Pretty soon mother missed us from 
our accustomed playground, and after hunting and 
finding us gave us all a spanking and marched us 
home in a row, crying, with the admonition never 
to go near the water again. 
During the early fifties father sold his Mahoning 
bottom farm and moved to Salem, Ohio, where he 
bought a house in town and another farm one mile 
south of town. 
Shortly after we got settled in our new home in 
town, a neighbor's wife took sick and died. I 
attended the funeral and saw the corpse lying in the Early Recollections 
11 
coffin. The casket was made of walnut wood which 
has a strong odor that scented the whole house. Ever 
since then the smell of walnut wood has been offen- 
sive and is a reminder of a funeral. 
An event of a later date made another lifelong 
impression. In playing on the street one day I saw 
a man smoking a cigar, but knew nothing of the evil 
habit nor its injurious effects. Seeing a man doing 
the act, I concluded that it must be a necessary quali- 
fication of manhood. As every boy wants to become 
a man as soon as possible, I picked up a discarded 
cigar stub off the street and pretended to smoke it. 
I must have swallowed some of the tobacco juice and 
soon became deathly sick. I wandered into the garden 
and fell unconscious among some currant bushes, 
where I was found and carried into the house. After 
I revived and explained what had happened, I was 
told to let tobacco alone, which advice I obeyed and 
have not touched it since. 
My father did not use tobacco in any form but all 
my brothers smoke moderately. 
My father contemplated building a new house on 
the farm and making it his home. He had the lumber 
cut from local timber and stacked the boards in a 
dry-kiln to cure. 12 
Activities of a Lifetime 
When the lumber was nearly dry, it caught fire 
from the furnace and burned up. Again he assembled 
material for the building and, just as he had the task 
about completed, a violent tornado came along and 
the wind blew the boards away, scattering the broken 
pieces over the entire countryside. Meeting with two 
such disasters in his building program he felt com- 
pletely discouraged, and, believing that fate was 
against him, he abandoned his plans. He sold the 
farm where he expected to build, also the town 
property in Salem, and bought a new farm one-half 
mile south of Mount Union, which was afterwards 
incorporated into the town of Alliance, Ohio. The 
place was selected on account of its having a sub- 
stantial farm house, its nearness to town and excellent 
educational facilities, which consisted of a public 
school and a literary college. In this homestead the 
children grew to maturity and then scattered to seek 
their individual fortunes. The daughters married 
and found homes of their own. The sons attended 
college and graduated, the two older ones in medicine 
and the two younger ones in law. 
In the course of time the aged parents sickened 
and died and were buried in the village graveyard, 
on a hillside, where they rest in peace. Early Recollections 
13 
I was four years old when we moved to Salem, 
seven years old when we went to Mount Union, and 
less than eighteen when I was discharged from the 
army at the close of the Civil War in 1865. On this 
farm and in its vicinity I acquired my knowledge of 
farming during my boyhood days. 
My father, Jacob Munk, and my mother, Maria 
Roseberry Munk, were gentle folk, who liked their 
work and loved their home and family. My mother's 
motto for promoting diligence was "schaffen und 
sparen" (work and save), which maxim was faith- 
fully impressed upon us children and taught us many 
useful lessons in thrift and economy. We had to 
be corrected sometimes but I do not recall that we 
ever received any severe whippings. I presume that 
we were the same as average children, but were taught 
obedience, love of home and consideration for our 
elders and for one another. We sometimes needed 
a spanking and got it, too, but our crying was more 
from fright than from hurt. Mother's custom of 
applying the slipper was by using her bare hand. 
After one of these episodes, I heard her muttering 
to herself, as she turned away rubbing her hand, that 
she believed the punishment hurt her more than it 
did me. After that I did not mind her spanking as 14 
Activities of a Lifetime 
I had good reason to believe she was getting the 
worst of the bargain. 
In making plans for the new home, one of the first 
things that father did was to plant a family orchard 
of deciduous fruit trees, which was a great joy to 
us children later when the trees came into bearing. 
During the interval of growth, we depended upon 
wild fruits for our home supply, such as raspberries, 
blackberries, elderberries, and wild plums and 
grapes. After the family needs were supplied, any 
surplus was sold to our neighbors, which gave us 
some pin money. 
Elderberries, particularly, were abundant and 
were used both fresh and dried; and we all liked 
them. To gather the bunches was an easy task but 
to pick the berries from the stems was slow and 
tedious work. I invented a contraption that we called 
an "Elderberry Sheller," which was quite a success. 
It consisted of a cylinder fastened into a wooden box 
and made in imitation of a threshing machine. The 
cylinder was made of two round end boards that 
were connected by a score or more of rattan rods, 
salvaged from the frame of an old discarded hoop- 
skirt. The shaft on which the cylinder revolved was Early Recollections 
15 
also made of wood as, indeed, were all other parts 
of the machine. 
The motive power was furnished by mother's 
large, old-fashioned spinning wheel, and a stout twine 
cord served as a belt that operated the pulley and 
cylinder. When the big wheel was turned by hand 
at a moderate speed, it caused the cylinder to re- 
volve rapidly. The elderberry bunches were held 
loosely against the rapidly revolving drum, which 
quickly stripped the stems clean of berries without 
crushing them. The separation of the berries from 
the stems was done much more rapidly and neatly 
by the machine than when done by hand. A tubful 
of elderberries could be prepared in this manner in 
a short time for drying and the work of handling 
them was converted into a pleasant pastime. 
When the taste for elderberries is once acquired, 
they make a very satisfying fruit. The berries can 
be stewed and served as a sauce or can be made 
into a pie, and the juice makes an excellent wine. 
Among the first fruits that resulted from home 
production in the orchard, were several trees of early 
sweet cherries. Almost before the cherries were ripe, 
the birds found and feasted on them. The red- 16 
Activities of a Lifetime 
headed woodpecker was the worst offender and the 
principal object of our wrath. We spent some time 
devising means for its destruction before we 
succeeded. 
Just how we got the idea to beat the birds I do 
not remember, but the means was effective even if 
it was severe. We observed that whenever a bird 
flew into a tree it always lit upon some topmost 
branch where it could be seen against the sky. This 
peculiarity of its habit was used in accomplishing 
its destruction. We cut down a slender tree that 
was as tall as the cherry tree and trimmed it into a 
bare pole. The pole was erected near the bole of 
the cherry tree, with its tip projecting above the tree 
and its base fixed firmly in the ground. When a 
woodpecker flew into the tree, it would alight with 
its breast against the pole. One of us boys under 
the tree watched its arrival and with a big wooden 
maul hit the pole a hard blow. This gave the bird 
heart failure, when it came tumbling out of the 
tree and fell dead upon the ground. The deed could 
not be called cruel as it caused no pain, and was 
excusable when done by heedless boys, but would not 
have been justifiable if done by full-grown men. Early Recollections 
17 
The primeval forests were most attractive because 
of their natural charm and beauty, and never failed 
to interest the true lover of nature. That they had 
to be despoiled, and partly destroyed by the vandal 
hands of civilized man, was to be regretted. 
In the early days the forests furnished the raw 
material for heating and the timber for building 
houses. 
The small trees were used for fire-wood, while the 
large trees were cut into logs and made into boards 
in a saw mill. 
The timbers used in building were hewn from 
green trees, scored and squared with an ax, adz and 
broad-ax, and joined by mortise and tenon into a 
frame that was erected for a house. 
A house raising was usually celebrated as a gala 
day, when the men of the neighborhood gathered for 
the job and gave their help gratis, but were rewarded 
with a feast of a bountiful and well cooked country 
dinner. 
The woodmen were, as a rule, big, stalwart, clean 
looking fellows and in the full vigor of manhood, 
who knew how to swing an ax. They would cut down 
and trim a big tree in no time. I remember dis- 18 
Activities of a Lifetime 
tinctly, when I was fortunate to be with a gang of 
woodchoppers, how I tried to get as near them as 
possible without getting in their way, in order to 
catch the smell of healthy sweat from their bodies, 
which, mingled with the odor of freshly cut wood, 
made a fragrance that was finer than perfume. To 
hear and see these men at work was more interesting 
than watching any performance on a stage; and the 
sound of ringing axes, as it rose and fell in rhythmic 
cadence, was as sweet music to the ear. 
Learning to chop wood is hard work for the novice 
but by practice it soon becomes an easy task. Not 
only did firewood have to be cut for house use, but 
the land had to be cleared of trees so that it could be 
plowed and seeded to grain. 
Large quantities of cordwood were cut for the 
town market, and trees of suitable size and quality 
had to be selected and split into thousands of fence 
rails. In those days the fences were all built of 
split rails, in zigzag or worm fashion, with stakes and 
riders to hold them down. The farm thus fenced into 
fields added much to the picturesqueness of the 
landscape. 
My first money earned away from home was by 
cutting cordwood for Joel Harris, at seventy-five Early Recollections 
19 
cents a day, walking two miles to and from my work. 
I managed to cut and rank two full cords of four 
foot wood in a day, which I was told was doing 
pretty well for a boy. It gave me money that I 
needed, and the added pleasure of hearing the ring 
of the ax and watching the chips fly was clear velvet. 
I learned by experience that a good ax-handle will 
last a skilful ax-man many years and, in careful 
hands, even a lifetime. A good wood-chopper always 
makes a true stroke and seldom misses. If a false 
stroke is made it wrenches the handle, when it is 
easily splintered and broken. This quality of strain 
belongs to all farm implements and must be under- 
stood if the tools are kept in working order. Many 
workmen never learn this lesson and through igno- 
rance and careless handling are liable to break every 
tool they touch. 
Nearly every farm had its "sugar bush," or grove 
of maple trees, for running sap and making sugar 
during the months of February and March. The joy 
of those warm, sunny days when the frost came out 
of the ground and the air was soft and balmy, are 
memories to be forever cherished. It meant a change 
to camp life in the woods and freedom for a brief 
spell from the usual farm routine. It was also a 20 
Activities of a Lifetime 
reminder of Indian life and recalled thrilling stories 
that I had read of hunting adventures in the woods. 
The sugar season was opened by tapping the trees 
with an auger, inserting a spile into the hole, when 
the sap immediately commenced to drop. It was 
caught in wooden hand-made troughs or buckets, or 
stone jars, that were emptied twice a day. 
The sap was gathered every morning and evening, 
in a barrel on a sled drawn by a horse, and emptied 
into large kettles or vats, and boiled down into a 
syrup and made into sugar at a central camp. This 
variety of sugar has a particularly pleasant flavor, 
which makes it very alluring, and we children just 
reveled in it. 
I have always been a lover of nature and of the 
outdoor life. As a boy, I spent much time exploring 
the fields and forests trying to find out their secrets. 
Every season had its attraction and the lure of the 
trail, in whatever direction it led, always fascinated 
me. The flowers and trees first claimed my attention, 
and the cool, shady woods held a mystery that was 
a perpetual incentive to action. I imagined that in 
the leafy dells some fairy sprites might be found 
dancing, or that from the dark depths of the forest 
a bear might suddenly jump out and catch me. Early Recollections 
21 
A child's thoughts naturally run to fancies and 
anything that is imagined can easily be made to 
seem very real. 
A large variety of trees grew in the forests and 
many of them I soon learned to recognize, and could 
name on sight. Among the more common trees were 
the beech, maple, elm, poplar and linden; but a group 
of nut-bearing trees held the greatest attraction, such 
as hickory, chestnut, walnut and butternut, as they 
produced something good to eat. This appealed 
directly to a hungry boy's stomach, and when was 
there ever a healthy boy that did not have a ravenous 
appetite to appease or entice him? 
When the fall of the year came around, we were 
keen to have the nuts ripen quickly and fall out of 
their shells to the ground for us to gather. Where 
a tree grew in an open space in a field, its crop of 
nuts was apt to ripen earliest. After a windy night 
there was sure to be an extra large fall of nuts to 
reward an early visit, and on such a morning we 
never failed to be on the ground promptly, each boy 
trying to get there first, to secure the largest share 
of nuts. 
As a matter of fact, the nuts were fully ripe some- 
time before the hulls opened, but we did not know 22 
Activities of a Lifetime 
it. In this matter the squirrels were wiser than the 
boys, and did not always wait for the nuts to fall 
of their own accord, but bit them off with their sharp 
teeth, hulls and all. In this fashion a squirrel would 
trim up a tree quickly and soon have all the nuts 
lying on the ground. 
Whenever we entered the woods, while out on a 
nutting expedition, we always stopped and listened 
if we could hear any nuts dropping, that some 
squirrel was cutting down. If we heard the sound, 
we kept perfectly quiet, not to disturb the squirrel, 
which would quit its work if it heard a noise. We 
waited impatiently until the sound of dropping nuts 
ceased, when we ran to pick up the nuts before the 
squirrel could get them. It was the habit of the 
squirrel, after it had stripped a tree of its fruit, to 
run down and gather the nuts and bury them in a 
heap in the dry, rotten wood of a hollow log, or 
cache them in a pile of dead leaves where they had 
been drifted by the wind. The cache was so care- 
fully concealed that its existence could not be de- 
tected by its outward appearance, and was not often 
found. After discovering the trick of the squirrel 
in caching the nuts, we made it our business to find 
them. In this manner we often found and carried Early Recollections 
23 
off triumphantly the harvest of nuts which some 
industrious squirrel had buried and stored for 
future use. 
Sometimes the home supply of nuts became 
scarce, when we had to fare far afield to find any. 
Then, as a rule, we hied us away to the Mahoning 
River bottom, four miles distant, to visit the famous 
hickory swales of that region. 
We usually left home before daylight, carrying 
our lunch in a bag, and headed for Carrick's pasture 
where there was a fine hickory grove. If we did not 
find enough nuts on the ground, we climbed small 
trees and shook them down, or bumped the larger 
trees with an improvised battering-ram, which brought 
them down in a shower. Each one of us gathered 
from a peck to a half bushel or more, and when we 
had all we could carry, started for home. We ar- 
rived there in the evening after dark, dog-tired and 
as hungry as bear cubs; but a good supper and a 
night's sound sleep fixed us all right by the next 
morning. 
Our principal stock of nuts consisted of hickory 
nuts, but there were also smaller lots of chestnuts, 
walnuts, butternuts, beechnuts and hazelnuts. The 
nuts were spread in separate piles upon the floor of 24 
Activities of a Lifetime 
the store-room to dry. After they were cured they 
were put into bags and boxes for safe-keeping until 
Christmas; but we couldn't wait and had to crack 
and eat a few nuts occasionally, just to see how 
good they tasted. 
We got more real pleasure out of our winter store 
of nuts than from any of our other small possessions. 
Of course, like all boys, we had to have a dog and 
so one was given to us by a friend. It was a mongrel 
black and white bull puppy by the name of Penny 
and not hurt with too much beauty. He was like 
Bud Means' bulldog, mentioned in The Hoosier 
Schoolmaster, "Whenever Bull takes holt Heaven and 
yarth can't make him let go." He was true grit and 
nothing ever daunted him. If he was somewhat slow 
in a foot race, because of his short legs, he was strong 
in courage and muscle, and couldn't be beaten in 
digging any varmint out of a hole in the ground, be 
it rabbit, skunk or badger. 
The scent of a skunk fairly set him frantic, and 
whenever he located one he went after it like a whirl- 
wind and never failed in landing the quarry; and 
often there were several animals in one hole. The 
embarrassing feature of skunk hunting was its 
powerful and disagreeable odor which filled the air Early Recollections 
25 
for miles around, so that our success was heralded at 
home before our arrival there. Of course, we were 
not welcome and were ordered to stay out of the 
house until conditions improved. None of us fancied 
the odor but we endured it for the sake of the money 
the hides brought us. Money did not grow on 
bushes in those days and a skunk's pelt was worth 
from one to two dollars, according to its size and 
quality. 
There were also many muskrats living in nearby 
ponds and streams, whose hides were valuable as 
fur. These we caught in large numbers in home- 
made traps that answered the purpose admirably. 
The traps were made out of rough boards three feet 
long and six inches square. Each end was guarded 
by a metal gate that opened inward, and was divided 
into two parts by inserting several wooden rods 
through the middle. The trap was set, submerged 
in a runway where the rats swam back and forth 
during the night. They could go forward only by 
going through the trap, where they were caught and 
drowned. When we lifted the trap in the morning, 
we invariably found from one to four victims. 
The summer harvest time was always an interesting 
season that called for much hard work. It was 26 
Activities of a Lifetime 
before the days of the mowing machine and the 
reaper, when the grass was cut by hand with a scythe 
and the grain with a cradle. During war time the 
country was depleted of its active man power, when 
the young men volunteered to join the army, and the 
middle-aged men were busy with home and govern- 
mental duties. 
The scarcity of men made it necessary for the 
boys to go into the harvest fields to do the absent 
men's work, where they soon developed into mature 
field hands. This was my job and I soon learned to 
cut a swath of grass or grain as well as any man. 
When the cutting began in a field, the reapers lined 
up in a row, one after the other, every man having 
to work at the same rate of speed in order to hold 
his place and not hinder the rest. If any work tried 
a boy's mettle, it was this experience. Sometimes 
the older men would tell us for our encouragement 
that they "would hang our hides on the fence before 
night," which naturally was disconcerting; but the 
plucky boy never acknowledged defeat and hung on 
doggedly, after a fashion, until quitting time. 
A curious experience that often happened in the 
harvest field was fighting the bumble-bees which Early Recollections 
27 
sometimes stung the horses and likewise the men. 
As a valiant fighter, the lowly bumble-bee was not 
to be despised. Whenever a nest was found and dis- 
turbed, the bees at once flew out in a swarm to fight 
the common enemy in defense of their home. After 
experiencing some of their rough-and-tumble methods 
of fighting, we discovered an easy and effective means 
for their disposal. 
An open jug, partly filled with water, was placed 
near the nest when the bees were routed out. Not 
finding an active enemy in sight, as we disappeared 
for the moment, but spying the open jug, they all 
made a bee-line for the hole and dived into it and 
the water below, and were drowned. We then robbed 
the nest of its honey and disposed of it at our leisure, 
without fear of being stung. There was no reason 
that we could see why the bees should commit 
deliberate suicide in this manner. Does anybody 
know? 
Mowing grass, like chopping wood or doing other 
kinds of hard work, is difficult at the start, but by 
practice it gradually becomes an easy task, so that 
in time a long day of hard work, if done in a proper 
manner, never results in anything more serious than 28 
Activities of a Lifetime 
a feeling of wholesome weariness. As exercise such 
work is more beneficial than playing golf or any 
other game. 
After the harvest was gathered and the grain either 
stacked in the field or housed in the barn, came 
threshing time, which was another exciting event in 
the life of a country boy. When the threshing outfit 
drove in, there was something doing every minute. 
By the combined use of horse and man power the 
machinery was soon installed and started going. Each 
man took his station to perform his specific work, 
when the machinery began to hum. The sheaves of 
wheat or oats were cut and fed into the cylinder and 
as they disappeared the grain was separated auto- 
matically from the chaff and straw and discharged 
into bags. 
The job of removing the chaff and straw from 
behind the separator usually fell to the boys in the 
outfit who were obliged to work in a thick cloud of 
dust that nearly smothered them. The dust from 
the straw seemed to be poisonous and breathing it 
made me sick. It acted like an attack of ague, caus- 
ing severe chills and fever, which lasted several days. 
How we boys did hate the job, yet we invariably 
had to do it. Early Recollections 
29 
Our school days were spent in the district or 
public school, where we were taught the elementary 
branches of study. 
We went to school to learn and were not allowed 
to fool away our time. The primary subjects were 
thoroughly taught, which made a good foundation 
for the higher education of a college course or a 
business career that might come later. The school 
was made up of a variety of children of different 
dispositions and grades, the same as was usually 
found in any common school. 
We also had our school bully, Clem Park, who 
in this instance was also the champion wrestler, 
runner, jumper and skater. It was his pleasure 
always to lord it over the small boy, which was 
naturally a humiliating experience to the victim. 
The bully was a fast sprinter and it did not take 
him long to win in an ordinary race. He took after 
me one day, during recess when I was not expecting 
him, and I felt certain that he would catch and throw 
me. While I was running with all my might, and 
just as he was about to grab me, the thought suddenly 
popped into my mind how I could circumvent him. 
Instantly I dropped upon my hands and knees, di- 
rectly across his path, which caused him to stumble 30 
Activities of a Lifetime 
over me and sent him sprawling. The collision did 
not hurt me in the least, and before he could recover 
himself to continue the race I was up and out of his 
reach. After this occurrence he discreetly let me 
alone and never molested me again. Years after- 
wards I met him in San Jose, California, where he 
was a successful banker. I referred pleasantly to 
the circumstance but he did not seem to remember it. 
My eldest sister Mary was the captain of our 
little band and our leader in everything we did. She 
was our little mother and, for some unaccountable 
reason, we all obeyed her without asking any ques- 
tions. Her influence on my young life was deep and 
lasting and is a precious memory. Though dead, she 
is associated in thought with every incident of my 
boyhood, of praiseworthy things she said and did 
that were kind and helpful. Whenever any of us 
had trouble with our lessons she was always ready 
to come to our rescue and never refused to help us. 
A single example will illustrate what I mean. I had 
trouble with a sum in arithmetic and asked her to 
help me. She dropped her work, took the slate and 
sat down beside me and rapidly worked out the sum. 
When done, she turned and asked me if I understood Early Recollections 
31 
it. I awakened as from a dream and said, "What?" 
My mind was off on a rabbit chase and I had not 
heard one word she said. Instead of becoming angry 
and upbraiding me for my inattention, she patiently 
repeated the demonstration. This time I paid atten- 
tion and understood what she said. It was her sweet, 
unselfish disposition that made us all love her so. In 
this manner she helped me in all the problems of my 
young life and was a daily inspiration to good 
thoughts and deeds. She undoubtedly exerted the 
same good influence on her husband as she changed 
him from a Democrat to a Republican, and caused 
him to quit using tobacco. 
We were taught more by example than by precept 
and I do not recall that we were ever lectured and 
seldom given detailed instruction on any subject. 
Whenever there was anything for us to learn, we 
were given a practical lesson, which we were expected 
to follow. The general effect of our home life was 
such as to make me want to be worthy of the love 
and affection of my parents and of my brothers and 
sisters. 
There was a small town library where I got books 
to read. One book particularly impressed me to the 32 
Activities of a Lifetime 
sobbing point. It was entitled, "Homestead on the 
Hillside," and was written by Mrs. Holmes, the 
popular author of that day. 
My interest was aroused in behalf of little Willie, 
the hero of the story, who was shamefully mistreated 
by a cruel step-mother. 
I was interested in reading the lives of noted men 
and the history of our country. Books by Scott and 
Dickens were also favorites. But the books that were 
gripping and that I loved best were those which told 
about life in the early days, of hunting adventures 
and of Indian warfare. It was in the days when 
Beadle's dime novels flourished, and stories of the 
type written by Ned Buntline fascinated my youthful 
imagination. To me these characters represented real 
heroes and sounded true, even though they were only 
fiction of the Wild West variety, and gave me the 
desire to explore the western frontier. 
Father's morning salutation indicated his kind and 
poetic nature. We children slept upstairs and 
father's customary morning call from the foot of the 
stairs was, "Auf! Kinder, auf! Die Sonne scheint 
uber Hugel and Thal." (Up! children, up! The 
sun shines over hill and dale.) He had a suitable 
Sprichwort (saying or proverb) for every occasion. Early Recollections 
33 
His call usually brought us to our feet. If for any 
reason we were slow to respond, he repeated it with 
an added ja (Yah) to make it emphatic; and a heavy 
foot-fall on the stairs brought instant action. I can- 
not say why the heavy tread gave us fear, as I do 
not recall that he ever came upstairs to enforce the 
command. It may have been only a psychologic 
vagary, and we will have to let it go at that. 
Father was a great reader and student of events. 
His favorite books were the Bible and the works of 
Goethe and Stilling. He often repeated to us the 
tales he read, and told us the story of Robinson 
Crusoe and his pet parrot. As a reward if I would 
learn to read German, he promised to buy me a copy 
of the book in English, which I acquired in due time. 
He loved to walk and when he went anywhere, if 
there was a choice between riding and walking, he 
always chose the latter. He often walked to a little 
country church that was several miles distant and I 
sometimes went with him. I also walked with him 
on little excursions in the neighboring fields and 
forests, and they not only delighted me but always 
taught me something new. 
After an absence of many years I visited the old 
home and the scenes of my childhood, and was sur- 34 
Activities of a Lifetime 
prised to find the many changes that had taken place. 
The five and ten acre fields of the old farm, that 
once looked so large to childish eyes, had dwindled 
into small calf lots; and hills that once looked dan- 
gerous to climb had disappeared altogether. 
The landscape was completely changed and the 
familiar faces of long ago, that I hoped to see again, 
had vanished either by removal or death; or, if found, 
the features were so altered that they were scarcely 
recognizable. Army Days 
Zfg THE MEMORABLE DAYS of the Civil War 
tried men's souls and made a lasting impres- 
sion upon our nation's history. 
The lines of divergence between the Republican 
and Democratic parties were sharply drawn, the 
former standing for loyalty and the Union and the 
latter for State Rights and Secession. Because of 
this radical difference in policies between the North 
and the South, the first Lincoln campaign for the 
presidency was hotly contested. Speeches were 
made, pro and con, by able speakers to influence the 
voters, that resulted in the election of Abraham 
Lincoln as President of the United States. 
I heard my father tell how he was persuaded to 
vote the Democratic ticket when he first came to this 
country in 1830. After the Democrats passed the 
Fugitive Slave law, he repudiated the party and 
became a Republican, and ever after voted the Re- 
publican ticket. He said that he would not help 
to support any party that could enact such a cruel 
and inhuman law. It was a common saying during 36 
Activities of a Lifetime 
the war that every rebel was a Democrat but not 
every Democrat a rebel. 
Many political meetings were held which I, with 
a boy's curiosity, attended in order to hear and see 
what was going on. These meetings were sometimes 
held during the day in a nearby shady grove, but 
ofttimes they convened at night in the town hall or 
some other public place of meeting. 
To make the occasion more impressive and as a 
preliminary to the meeting, men were formed into 
companies and dressed in uniform or regalia, and 
marched the streets by torchlight with flags and 
banners flying, to attract a crowd. 
A brass band usually headed the procession, play- 
ing patriotic music, altogether making a spectacular 
and exciting scene. 
As a result of such an active political campaign in 
every town and hamlet throughout the land, Abraham 
Lincoln was elected President, and in due time in- 
augurated as the Chief Magistrate of the United 
States. Immediately following that event, hostile 
acts against the Government commenced to develop 
and multiplied rapidly in the Southern States as they 
severally seceded from the Union. These acts of Army Days 
37 
disloyalty were promptly met and counteracted by 
loyal deeds enacted by the people of the North. 
Calls were made for volunteers to defend the 
Union and suppress the rebellion, to which appeal 
ready response was made by the men of the loyal 
states and a formidable army was soon assembled. 
During the four years of the war recruiting for the 
army was a daily event and regiments were organized 
and sent to the front as fast as the men were needed. 
With all of this excitement going on, the small 
boys of the village also caught the war fever and 
were eager to do something. The boys that were 
too young to enlist formed a company of home guards, 
as they chose to call themselves, of which organization 
I was elected captain. We had our regular times for 
meeting and drilling and were outfitted by our 
mothers and sisters with Zouave uniforms that made 
us feel very proud. We made wooden guns out of 
boards and spent much time practising the manual 
of arms. Our company usually managed to be 
present at all gatherings of soldiers and we were 
particularly active when any marching had to be 
done. This happened often, when we were permitted 
to escort squads of new recruits to their camp ground. 38 
Activities of a Lifetime 
Military bands were in great demand in those days, 
to furnish music on public occasions and for the 
soldiers in camp. Their music always thrilled me 
and I gave the players close attention. I can even 
yet recall the name of Tump Haines as the leader 
of the Alliance band, although I had never met him. 
One particular composition was played that charmed 
me most and the melody haunted me for years, yet 
I never knew its name. Many years later, in looking 
over a book of songs, I saw stated in a foot-note that 
the song on that page had been a great favorite with 
military bands during the Civil War. As I hummed 
the tune I found that it was the same melody that 
had charmed me. The name of the song is "Bonny 
Eloise, the Belle of the Mohawk Vale." 
During the month of July, 1863, the middle border 
got a taste of real war, when General John Morgan 
with his cavalry crossed the Ohio River from Ken- 
tucky and made a raid through southern Indiana and 
Ohio, as far east as the Pennsylvania line. The raid 
caused a big scare but did little actual damage. He 
was pursued by irregular troops and captured before 
he could re-cross the river. He was sent to prison, 
from which he later escaped. It taught the people Army Days 
39 
the necessity of being prepared for emergencies and 
the lesson was not lost. 
This near-war incident occurring so close to my 
home, gave me the war fever worse than ever and 
made me unfit for doing any kind of work. The 
desire to go to war was constantly on my mind and 
I could not get rid of it. Father did everything that 
he could to dissuade me but it was no use. He re- 
lated how, when he was a young man at home in 
Germany and Napoleon was in power, all of the able- 
bodied men of his village were conscripted into the 
army to go to Moscow, Russia, in that last fatal 
campaign when the city was burned and Napoleon's 
army perished almost to a man from cold and 
hunger. 
My father was fortunate at that time in being 
afflicted with a bad case of white swelling of the 
knee, which disqualified him from going and saved 
his life. Stories of danger and hardship did not 
discourage me in the least and only seemed to add 
fuel to the fire. Being under age, I could not enlist 
without my father's consent, which he gave reluc- 
tantly after seeing that nothing else would do. 40 
Activities of a Lifetime 
It made me the happiest boy alive but I was soon 
disillusioned by the experiences of army life. 
In the summer of 1864, a friend of the family 
and a soldier in the army, Captain William A. 
Miller, returned home from the front on a veteran's 
furlough to recruit a company for a new regiment. 
It is said that "everything comes to him who waits," 
so at last I got my wish. Being a friend, he gave 
a sympathetic ear to my story and promised to have 
me enlisted even if I was under age. At that late 
period of the war, man-power for the army was 
growing scarce and the entrance examination was less 
rigid. It might truly have been said that both the 
cradle and the grave were being robbed to make re- 
cruits, and almost any man that offered himself was 
accepted. 
A younger brother of the Captain, Vanamering 
Miller, also a member of our boy company and about 
my own age, enlisted at the same time and we at 
once became chums and mess-mates. The date of 
our enlistment was August 7, 1864, and the term of 
service was for one year or during the war. Soon 
after joining the company we received our uniforms 
and, dressed in our new suits of army blue, were 
sent to Camp Chase, near Columbus, Ohio, where Joseph A. Munk, sixteen years old, in his first uniform after joining 
the Union Army. Army Days 
41 
we were regularly mustered into the service as Com- 
pany I, 178th Regiment of Ohio Volunteer Infantry. 
We were equipped with Springfield muzzle-loading 
rifles, which were the prevailing firearms of the 
army. The soldiers were required to keep their guns 
clean and in good condition, and were inspected on 
occasion to see that they met the requirements. Some 
of the men were careless with their guns and got into 
the habit of exchanging their own poorly kept weapons 
for good ones, which made it necessary that the owner 
adopt a private mark to guard against fraud. My 
mark was three pin heads sunk into the wood of the 
stock, that were not conspicuous but easily recog- 
nized. After the war, I took my gun home and I 
have it yet, in my library, as a relic of the war. 
After a month of hard drilling in camp, our regi- 
ment was directed to report for duty to General 
George H. Thomas at Nashville, Tennessee, and we 
were assigned to the Second Brigade, Fourth Divi- 
sion, Twentieth Army Corps, Department of the 
Cumberland. Upon our arrival at Nashville, we 
were sent to occupy temporary quarters in the Zolli- 
coffer House, a large building in process of con- 
struction but not yet finished. The building was a 
noted war rendezvous and clearing house for return- 42 
Activities of a Lifetime 
ing furloughed veterans and new recruits going to 
the front. Here we camped and did guard duty for 
a few days, when we were ordered to go to Tullahoma 
to remain until needed for active field service. 
Real camp life was a new experience and it took 
us some time to become fully accustomed to the 
change. The camp routine soon became monotonous, 
the same maneuvers being repeated day after day, 
with little variation. However, it gave us an oppor- 
tunity to get acquainted and become familiar with 
our new surroundings. Very few of the boys escaped 
having a touch of homesickness, which always had a 
depressing effect. If a man got it bad, it was apt to 
cause some serious sickness that occasionally ended 
in death. 
Men differ greatly in their ability to endure the 
hardships of army life. Young and medium-sized 
men made the best soldiers. There were three middle- 
aged men in our company who were related, two 
Snyder brothers and a cousin named Shinn, all six- 
footers and stalwart fellows. They were always 
complaining and sick and seldom fit for duty. One 
of the brothers died in a short time and the other 
one spent most of his time in the hospital. The 
cousin struggled along feebly in the ranks, doing Army Days 
43 
the best he could, but his efforts did not amount 
to much. 
The opposite to these three large men were three 
medium-sized men, who made excellent soldiers. 
They were Corporal Joseph Hay and privates John 
Lambright and John Magee, who were rarely sick 
and had a smile and a kind word for everybody. 
I remember them better than any other members 
of the company because of their cheerful dispositions, 
good manners and agreeable company. They all had 
good voices, sang well and gave frequent entertain- 
ments that helped to drive dull care away. 
Corporal Hay had the largest repertoire of songs 
and was the best entertainer. He sang a funny ditty 
about women that always drew a crowd and an ap- 
preciative audience. It consisted of many verses, 
none of which I memorized at the time, when sud- 
denly, after a lapse of thirty years or more, the tune 
and first two and last verses recurred to me again, 
as follows: 
When I first saw my true love, 
'Twas in rainy weather, 
And the wrinkles on her forehead 
Were thick as upper leather, 
When I thought she wouldn't do, 
And I knew she wouldn't do, 
And I was almost sure she wouldn't do. 44 
Activities of a Lifetime 
Her nose stuck out before 
Like a neck on a fiddle, 
And as thin around the waist 
As a hogshead in the middle, 
When I thought she wouldn't do, 
And I knew she wouldn't do, 
And I was almost sure she wouldn't do. 
I'd give the preacher money, 
If he'd be so mighty clever 
As to take her to the devil 
And keep her there forever, 
When I thought she wouldn't do, 
And I knew she wouldn't do, 
And I was almost sure she wouldn't do. 
Many were the happy hours that we spent around 
our camp fires in song, conversation and story telling, 
that turned our morbid thoughts into more cheerful 
channels. 
Aside from performing the routine duty of policing 
the grounds, company drill and regimental dress 
parade, there was little else to do. Our chief duty 
when on detail was to patrol the Nashville and 
Chattanooga Railroad and guard its trains against 
attacks from marauding guerilla bands of rebels that 
infested the country. 
After becoming settled in camp for an indefinite 
stay, we were supplied with a cook and company 
mess. When a meal was served we repaired to the Army Days 
45 
cook's tent, with tin cup and plate in hand, and re- 
ceived our portions hot from the hands of the cook. 
The usual menu consisted of coffee and crackers and 
boiled pork and beans. We seldom tasted baker's 
bread and occasionally were given a mess of potatoes 
or onions. 
After we broke camp and started on a march, the 
company cook was dismissed and every man had to 
be his own cook. Each soldier carried his individual 
kit of frying pan, quart tin cup, canteen and haver- 
sack, and out of these simple receptacles, if they were 
not empty, he got his living. For a change the hard- 
tack was sometimes fried crisp in hot bacon grease, 
or made soft by covering with water and steaming 
it. A sandwich made with slices of raw bacon 
between crackers tasted good as a lunch at noon time, 
when we were on a march. 
Only a few times was liquor issued to the men. 
While standing in line, every man received his dram 
of whisky poured into his tin cup, which he could 
dispose of as he pleased. Some of the men drank 
their whisky raw and then looked for more, others 
made it into a toddy and sipped it at their leisure, 
and a few threw it away. As I had been taught 
temperance at home, I had no use for it and threw 46 
Activities of a Lifetime 
it out. I was implored not to waste it so but to give 
it to someone that wanted it. I replied that if it was 
not good for me it would not be good for anybody, 
which ended the talk. 
As a physician in after years, I learned that alco- 
hol or whisky was a valuable medicine as a stimulant 
in a case of collapse. Like many other things in life, 
whisky is both good and bad, according to how it is 
used. It is capable of doing much harm but it can 
also do much good. 
I do not recall that tobacco was ever distributed 
free in the army, although sometimes there occurred 
a serious shortage of the weed in camp. The lack 
of whisky or tobacco never bothered me as I had no 
taste for either, never having acquired the habit. 
About the first of December, 1864, our regiment 
was ordered to report to General R. H. Milroy at 
Murfreesboro, where it took part in several engage- 
ments with Forest's cavalry and suffered some casu- 
alties. Just before the regiment broke camp at 
Tullahoma to go to Murfreesboro, I was taken se- 
verely ill with an attack of jaundice and a carbuncle 
on my knee. I had received a box of delicacies from 
home but was too sick to enjoy them. When I found 
that we had to move, I turned the box over to the Army Days 
47 
boys and told them to help themselves. Being too 
sick to march with the regiment, I was put on board 
a railroad train with other invalids and sent direct 
to the hospital at Nashville. My mind is a complete 
blank as to what transpired on the trip and I only 
remember that I found myself in the Columbia 
Hospital No. 9, under a doctor's care. 
In the meantime great preparations were being 
made for the battle of Nashville, which was to have 
a decisive effect upon the military situation in the 
west. 
After ten days of hospital experience, all of the 
convalescents and near-convalescents were ordered to 
pack up and get ready to take the field. We were 
organized into an invalid corps and sent to occupy 
some breastworks on the Granny White Pike, under 
the guns of Fort Negley, where we could see the 
battle and render aid, if necessary, in an emergency. 
The weather was extremely stormy and cold, which 
in our enfeebled condition, was hard to endure. We 
were camped out in the open, without cover or shelter 
of any kind, and very little fuel to keep us warm and 
dry. One day the drizzling rain froze as it fell and 
covered the earth with a solid sheet of ice. There 
was no tent or bed to crawl into at night and we had 48 
Activities of a Lifetime 
to lie down on the ice, just as we were, to go to sleep. 
As a result, we became frozen fast to the ground 
during the night and had to be pulled loose in the 
morning before we could get up. 
After the battle the Invalid Corps was disbanded 
and the members sent to join their several commands. 
I found my regiment at Murfreesboro and was glad 
to be up and about again with my company. 
General Hood was badly defeated and his army 
completely demoralized and scattered. Our corps 
with other units of Thomas' army went in pursuit, 
but had little fighting to do except to participate in 
some rear guard skirmishes and picking up stragglers. 
The weather was execrable and the roads even worse. 
We were in a constant struggle day and night with 
either rain and mud or snow and ice, that caused 
much discomfort and made our progress slow. 
It seemed to us of the rank and file that we were 
often sent hither and yon on some wild goose chase 
that resulted only in additional hardship, without 
accomplishing anything good. 
On one of these occasions our company marched 
all night through rain and mud, and when at last 
we were ordered to halt and fall into line, I was one 
of six privates out of one hundred that answered Army Days 
49 
present to the roll call. The absent men were either 
stuck in the mud and lost in the dark or so exhausted 
that they could go no farther and had to wait for 
daylight to catch up. 
We were never told where we were going, nor the 
object of our mission, and went forward just because 
we were ordered to go. The most disturbing thing 
about the service to me was that the soldier was never 
a free man but was at all times subject to the com- 
mands of his officers and had to obey orders, or go 
to the guard house. As I was never in the guard 
house, I had no such grudge to nurse. Strict obedi- 
ence to orders, of course, is an essential element of 
success in military training, as discipline must be 
maintained at all hazards. Nevertheless, such re- 
straint was galling to the independent spirit of a 
free-born American citizen. 
Our pursuit of Hood ended at Clifton on the Ten- 
nessee River. There we were met by an order that 
called for a reorganization of the army and the be- 
ginning of a new campaign. Our regiment was 
newly assigned to the Third Brigade, First Division, 
Twenty-third Army Corps, Department of the Ohio, 
commanded by General J. H. Schofield. Our corps 
commander was General J. D. Cox, and the division 50 
Activities of a Lifetime 
commander was General T. H. Ruger. The Twenty- 
third Corps was ordered to move to the Atlantic 
Coast to join General Terry's forces in a campaign 
to capture and destroy Fort Fisher, a rebel stronghold 
at the mouth of the Cape Fear River. 
We embarked on river transports at Clifton, Janu- 
ary 14, 1865, and started on our long journey of 
fourteen hundred miles to Washington and Alex- 
andria on the Potomac River. We ran down the 
Tennessee River and up the Ohio to Cincinnati, and 
from there went by rail to Washington, D. C. 
For some unaccountable reason no rations were 
issued to the men on the boat, so we had only our 
empty haversacks for provender. I was glad to pick 
up and munch any stray bit of hardtack that I could 
find, tramped on by grimy feet on the deck, but that 
did not stay my hunger. Neither did we have berths 
to sleep in but every man took a chance to find a 
vacant spot where he could stand or lie down. My 
chum and I happened to spy an unoccupied corner 
on the deck near the smokestack, into which we crept 
and managed to keep warm during the night. The 
boat was heavily loaded and made slow progress 
going up stream, but we met with no serious accident Army Days 
51 
and in due time arrived at Cincinnati where condi- 
tions began to improve. 
The weather continued cold and the landscape was 
covered by a thick mantle of snow, but the good 
citizens gave us a warm welcome and fed us all that 
we could eat. We entrained in box-cars and received 
the same enthusiastic welcome at every station where 
we stopped along the road. It seemed like getting 
home again, to receive such friendly greetings which 
were fully appreciated by the half-frozen and starved 
blue coats. We were home, indeed, in very fact, as 
many of the boys had enlisted from the same towns 
in southern Ohio through which we were passing. 
Some of them could not resist the temptation to visit 
the home folks and took French leave for that pur- 
pose. I, too, had the desire but resolutely smothered 
it and stuck to my little cold corner in the box-car. 
We detrained at Washington, crossed the Potomac 
River on the old Long Bridge, and went into bivouac 
at Camp Stoneman on Arlington Heights which, since 
the war, has become a national cemetery for interring 
the Nation's honored dead. It was in mid January 
and the weather intensely cold. There was only a 
limited supply of green pine wood for fuel, that would 52 
Activities of a Lifetime 
not bum nor keep us warm and gave out more smoke 
than heat. Fortunately, we now had plenty to eat 
and grew fat in spite of the cold. We pitched camp 
in the open with no other shelter than our little pup 
tents. Two of these small pieces of canvas were 
buttoned together and stretched over a ridge pole, 
which made a wedge-shaped tent the size of a dog 
kennel. We spread our thin blankets on the hard, 
frozen ground for a bed and used our knapsacks for 
pillows. We went to bed by crawling into our tent 
and blankets, one at a time, upon our hands and 
knees, and lay down with our clothes on. We spent 
most of the time in bed where we could keep warmer 
than when standing on our feet or walking about 
outside in the cold wind. 
These little dog tents were always carried but 
never used on the march as then we lived entirely in 
the open and without any cover. Many of the 
soldiers discarded their knapsacks as being too heavy 
and cumbersome, and carried their blankets, tied in 
a roll, over the shoulder. I stuck to my knapsack as 
I found it a convenient receptacle for stowing away 
little things of value that would have been lost if 
carried in a blanket roll. Our constant concern was 
to make ourselves as comfortable as possible under Army Days 
53 
the existing circumstances. The pomp and glory of 
war rapidly frays into frazzles when the time has to 
be spent in a constant struggle for existence. 
Soon the order came for us to leave our bleak, 
wind-swept land camp, and go by water to Fort 
Fisher, on the North Carolina coast. On February 4, 
1865, we shipped on board the army transport Aerial 
for the trip. The weather was very stormy all the 
time that we were on the water. There was no danger 
of my ever wanting to sail the Seven Seas, after getting 
my fill sailing on this one. During the twenty days 
that we were on the water, the weather was exceedingly 
rough. The wind blew a regular hurricane, the waves 
ran mountain high, and the thunder and lightning 
were terrific. Tossed by wind and wave, the old boat 
rocked dangerously and threatened to shipwreck us 
any minute. 
When we arrived at our destination, we were in- 
formed that the battle had already been fought and 
that Fort Fisher was captured. Without landing or 
casting anchor, the ship was turned about and headed 
for Moorhead City where we landed February twenty- 
fourth. 
I was terribly seasick all the time that I was on 
the vessel and after landing I was land sick for a 54 
Activities of a Lifetime 
week. I was completely cured of any desire to be- 
come a sailor and after recovering my equilibrium 
I was glad to be only a "land lubber." 
From this port the Twenty-third Army Corps 
marched by land to Newberne, Kinston and Golds- 
boro, at which latter place we expected to meet 
Sherman, but we arrived first and did not see him 
until several days later. Our march towards Golds- 
boro was strongly opposed by General Bragg of the 
rebel army, who made an effort to stop us at Kinston. 
The entire corps took part in the desultory fighting 
that took place and lasted during several days. The 
fight is known as the battle of Kinston. 
The coast country over which we traveled was low 
and flat and mostly covered by tangled woods and 
impassable swamps that obstructed the view and re- 
tarded our progress. It was tedious work picking 
our way over soft roads and through dense thickets 
of brush, expecting to meet the enemy at any time. 
The lowering sky and dark forests surrounding us 
filled us with gloom when we heard the faint boom 
of distant cannon and an occasional musket shot from 
the skirmish line. The feeling of fear and dread was 
more imaginary than real, and vanished, as if by 
magic, when the actual fighting began. Army Days 
55 
Early in the engagement Colonel Upham's regiment 
was surprised and captured by the enemy, and we 
were rushed in to fill the gap. In the open space 
where the conflict occurred I saw many dead men 
and horses lying upon the ground. Our losses in 
the battle were 1,257 men, of which number 322 
were killed and wounded. General Bragg finding that 
he was being out-fought and out-generaled, decided 
that it was best to retreat, and moved his army in the 
direction of Goldsboro. We built a bridge over the 
Nuese River and marched into Kinston, March 
14, 1865. 
Again we found ourselves on short rations as the 
"Cracker Line" from Newberne was not yet in full 
operation, and we were once more made to feel the 
pangs of hunger. 
This experience was repeated so often that it had 
become almost a habit. We were always on the 
watch to replenish our larder and must have met a 
streak of luck when, after crossing the Nuese River 
at Kinston, our mess found itself in the possession of 
an old turkey gobbler, which we cooked all night in 
a camp kettle and feasted on the next morning for 
breakfast. 56 
Activities of a Lifetime 
While killing time and waiting for supplies, I 
wandered out into the woods one day to see if I could 
find something to eat. I chanced to run into a 
vidette picket-post among the trees, composed of a 
squad of cavalrymen and their horses. The horses 
were being fed corn in the ear on the bare ground 
and I saw kernels of com going to waste in the dirt. 
I began picking up some of the shelled corn to take 
back to camp to parch, when the guard spoke and 
asked what I was doing. I told him my tale of woe 
and said I was in search of something to eat. He 
expressed regret at my hard luck and handed me a 
handful of crackers out of his sack, which I gladly 
accepted with thanks. I hurried back to camp to 
tell the good news and share the crackers with my 
comrades, which was soon done. It was barely a taste 
for each one but not enough to assuage our hunger, 
yet it was better than nothing. 
It would scarcely seem possible in our land of 
plenty that soldiers should ever have to go hungry, 
but that was a common occurrence. Often when 
hungry and thinking of home, my mouth watered for 
a chance to pick out of the swill bucket, which stood 
at the kitchen door at home, fragments of food that 
had been discarded from the family board to feed to Army Days 
57 
the pigs. It would have been a feast. Although it was 
at a late time in the war, that region had seen little 
of any army and was, therefore, a rich, virgin field 
for foraging, which the boys were not slow to discover. 
Frequently parties went into the country on a foraging 
expedition that gave variety to our diet. The men 
came back loaded with hams and smoked meats, 
sweet potatoes and sorghum molasses, which they 
had found hidden away in out-of-the-way places, but 
these caches did not escape the sharp eyes of the 
Yankee soldier, and we lived on the fat of the land 
while it lasted. Some poultry and small livestock, 
such as sheep, calves and pigs, were also caught, 
killed and quartered and brought into camp. These 
likewise helped to replenish the larder. 
We boys were a venturesome lot and were always 
ready to participate in any adventure that promised 
loot or excitement and never missed a chance that 
seemed reasonably safe. Not a few of the foragers 
were either killed or captured at various times, but 
that did not discourage the practice. 
Graybacks were the torment of a soldier's life. 
The vermin were present everywhere but were more 
active in hot than in cold weather. While on the 
march, when the soldier was loaded and belted down 58 
Activities of a Lifetime 
with his accoutrements, was the grayback's oppor- 
tunity to get in its most deadly work. That was his 
busy day when the victim was hampered and helpless 
to defend himself. The soldier's hands were occupied 
with his load and there was no time to stop and 
scratch until a halt was called. 
There was joy in the ranks when the regiment filed 
off the road to go into camp for the night. Soon 
after the command was given to halt and break ranks, 
the camp ground was covered with naked backs, as 
the soldiers stripped off their shirts to hunt the gray- 
backs. Seated on his knapsack or blanket roll, every 
soldier was busy examining his shirt in search of lice. 
Their favorite resort was in or along the seams, and 
these were searched from end to end as the lice and 
nits were being caught and crushed, with a grinding 
sound, between the thumb nails. Such a clean-up 
of the little pests was only a temporary expedient and 
had to be repeated every day. 
The greatest hardship in marching was the heavy 
load the soldier had to carry. It may not have been 
a heavy weight in pounds but felt like a ton on the 
shoulders of the soldier. He not only got leg weary, 
but was tired all over, and at times and in spots was 
paralyzed by gun and belt pressure. In his exhausted Army Days 
59 
condition he had to drag his miserable self along by 
the sheer force of will power, as his brain told him 
that he must do so at all hazards. 
It was never a profitable business for the soldier 
to fall out of ranks to rest while his comrades marched 
on. If he ever tried it, he soon found out his mis- 
take as it seemed impossible to catch up again. I 
did it once, to my sorrow, but never more. When I 
started to go forward again after resting, I found 
myself in the midst of such a tangle of road traffic 
that it was impossible to make any headway. In 
whatever direction I turned I always found some- 
thing in the way to head me off and I had to stop and 
try another tack. I struggled on during two days, 
trying to catch up, but did not find my company again 
until the evening of the second day, after the regiment 
had halted for the night. 
Schofield's army entered Goldsboro, March twenty- 
first, and Sherman arrived two days later. About 
the same time, the railroad was finished to Newberne 
and whole trainloads of supplies came rolling in to 
feed and refit the army. We were kept posted on 
the progress of Sherman's march through the heart 
of the Confederacy and were curious to see what 
kind of soldiers composed his army. I wanted to 60 
Activities of a Lifetime 
see what "Sherman's Bummers" looked like and 
stood on the street and watched them as they marched 
by in irregular order. They were bound to show 
their hard service and came along dressed in rags 
but with the air of conquerors as they stepped off 
in an easy, swinging stride which denoted that they 
were accustomed to marching. They looked and 
acted like a crowd of big boys but real fighters, who 
were out for a good time and had it. Only a few 
middle-aged men could be seen among them, who 
must have acted as a balance wheel. 
After ten days' rest and recuperation in camp, the 
combined armies started on their march after 
Johnston, in the direction of Raleigh, Greensboro 
and Charlotte. The weather being rather warm, 
much extra clothing was discarded and scattered along 
the road. This shedding of garments was premature 
and regretted after a few days when the weather 
turned colder and more clothing was needed. How- 
ever, it was a windfall for the natives-negro con- 
trabands and poor whites-who followed the army 
and gathered up and carted off wagonloads of 
clothing. 
The army had got only fairly started on its march 
when the startling but glad news was received that Army Days 
61 
General Lee had surrendered his army to General 
Grant at Appomattox, April 9, 1865. The news was 
received with great joy and the soldiers screamed 
their delight and threw their caps in the air as they 
cheered wildly. It meant that the war was over and 
soon the soldier boys would be on their way home. 
But Johnston had yet to be reckoned with and our 
march towards Raleigh was resumed. 
The army arrived at Raleigh on the thirteenth of 
April and negotiations for Johnston's surrender were 
begun. On the fifteenth the shocking news of Presi- 
dent Lincoln's assassination was received, which 
seemed too awful to be true. When the report was 
confirmed and the soldiers fully realized the full 
meaning of the terrible tragedy, they were filled with 
such a frenzy of rage and fury that they threatened 
to go after Johnston and wipe him and his army out 
at once. Under the circumstances that, of course, 
could not be done as events had to wait and take 
their turn in their natural course. 
After General Johnston's surrender the bulk of 
Sherman's army was concentrated at Raleigh for a 
general review, which was an inspiring sight; the army 
then started north on its march to Washington for the 62 
Activities of a Lifetime 
Grand Review, said to have been the greatest military 
pageant in history. 
The Twenty-third Corps was retained for a time 
to do local guard duty and take care of any emer- 
gency that might arise. The forces were distributed 
among the towns of Raleigh, Greensboro, Salisbury 
and Charlotte. 
Using Charlotte as our base of operations, we 
went out into the country in squads of from five to 
ten men under a noncommissioned officer, searching 
for medical and hospital stores that had been stolen 
and concealed. These goods were cached in a 
variety of places, such as old buildings, cellars, under 
floors, in barns or any place that promised con- 
cealment. 
We found quantities of such material, which in- 
cluded many kinds of liquors, that were brought in 
and turned over to the Government. On one of our 
successful raids our leader suggested that we cele- 
brate the day by opening a bottle of wine, which was 
agreed to. Nearly all partook of it but my con- 
scientious scruples would not permit me to indulge. 
I wonder if I would do as well now? I believe in 
children being taught religion and high ideals of 
living to start right in life, as there will always be Army Days 
63 
plenty of opportunities to broaden out later in life 
if it be so desired. 
We were stationed for a time to guard a pontoon 
bridge over the Catawba River, to observe and regu- 
late the traffic. Many of the paroled ex-rebel soldiers 
chose this route on their way home after the sur- 
render and gave us a chance to meet and converse 
with them. Those that needed help we gladly 
assisted, whether they were sick, wounded or hungry, 
and they certainly appreciated our kindness. Ever 
since then I have had a great respect for rebel 
soldiers, even though once we were foes. 
Knowing that the war was over, we were anxious 
to quit camp life and return to our homes. Rumors 
were heard daily as to when we would start for 
home, but these did not materialize. Finally, how- 
ever, the order came for our release and we were 
mustered out of service June 29, 1865, at Charlotte, 
North Carolina. 
After getting started, we could scarcely realize 
that we were actually on our way home, as it all 
seemed like a dream. There was nothing more that 
we could do than to settle down in the cars and take 
things easy while we fed ourselves upon the pleasures 
that we knew were waiting for us when we should 64 
Activities of a Lifetime 
get home. If the cars made a stop, we got impatient 
and were happy only when they were in motion and 
going in the direction of home. We made no change 
in our apparel and appearance and traveled just the 
same as if we were on the march. In due time we 
arrived at Columbus, Ohio, when we received our 
discharge papers at Todd's Barracks, and every man 
struck out for himself and made a bee-line for home. 
Many soldiers were returning from the war at 
that time and when I stepped off at the station at 
Alliance I found others there who were also headed 
for the same goal. I marched out a mile and a half on 
the public road in my army togs and found it to be 
the easiest march of the war. I felt as light as a 
feather and my feet were stepping on air. 
Before reaching the gate, I caught sight of my 
sister Mary, who was expecting me, and it did not 
take us long to meet and embrace. All the family 
received me with open arms and were as g^lad to 
see me as I was glad to see them, and they could not 
do enough for me. Everything about the old home- 
stead seemed to be about right. The friends were 
kind, the food tasted good, the bed was soft as 
eiderdown and I had every comfort that heart could 
wish. I was contented and happy. I was just crazy Army Days 
65 
to get into the army and then was doubly glad to be 
out of it again; such are the vicissitudes of life. 
I am thankful that I was not made a prisoner and 
sent to Andersonville which was the worst fate that 
could befall a Union soldier. I am also thankful 
that I did not have to serve in the army at a time 
when the soldiers were compelled, as is now the 
custom, to have their bodies shot full of poison 
serums by the doctors for some imaginary benefit, 
which I believe killed more men in our camps at 
home during the World War than were killed by the 
enemies' bullets on foreign battlefields; and it makes 
me shudder with fear and shame whenever I think 
of it. Vocation and Avocation 
K AFTER THE GLAMOUR of getting home 
from the war had worn off, I began to think 
about going to work. I realized that my life had 
undergone a great change and that I had to readjust 
myself to the new order of things. My army expe- 
rience was a stepping-stone from boyhood to man- 
hood, after which my childhood was merely a 
memory. 
When the Civil War closed there was much talk 
about how the army had spoiled the young manhood 
of the nation for work and had unfitted the young 
men who went to war for the duties of civil life, 
which statement I resented. I considered that I had 
been benefitted by my army experience as it was 
the means of getting me out of myself and giving 
me a broader vision of life. I wanted to do some- 
thing to prove the falsity of the assertion and show 
that I was not a failure. I could not remain idle 
and had to get busy. 
I decided that I must continue my school studies 
for a time at least, but was also desirous of engaging Vocation and Avocation 
67 
in some lucrative employment that would produce 
immediately an income in dollars and cents. I 
matriculated as a freshman in Mount Union College 
for the fall and winter term of 1865-6, and waited 
on future developments. The college was young but 
filled an urgent local demand, and the results fully 
justified its existence by the quality of its graduates, 
some of them reaching national prominence in 
after years. 
A half century ago our colleges were small affairs 
compared with what they are at the present time. 
Instead of the faculties counting their professors by 
the hundreds, as in the case of some of our large 
institutions of learning, which have grown to be top- 
heavy and unwieldy, in the old days the faculties 
scarcely averaged a dozen members. Instead of a 
professor giving only one or two lectures a month, 
every instructor taught a class at a fixed hour every 
day. This close intimacy between pupil and teacher 
kept the subject taught fresh in mind and made its 
study attractive. Every scholar was in personal 
touch with his teacher, which was of vast benefit to 
the student. The student went to college to learn 
something useful and not to fritter his time away 
in foolish folderols. 68 
Activities of a Lifetime 
The college supported two literary societies, Lin- 
nean and Republican, which met every Friday night 
at the same hour in two adjoining halls on the top 
floor of the college building. The membership of 
the societies was wholly volunteer. Although there 
was no compulsion used, every student was expected 
to join one of the two societies. 
A friendly rivalry existed between the two organi- 
zations in an effort to see which one could secure 
the most students and give the best performance. 
Fortunately, the two bodies were about equally 
divided as to number and interest, and the competi- 
tion for supremacy was free of all hate or bitterness. 
The exercises consisted of music, declamation and 
debate, and occasionally some drama was staged so 
that the program was educational in character. These 
gatherings were not only helpful to the students but 
were likewise beneficial to the youths of the town, 
as the public was invited to attend the meetings. 
Early in life I got the idea that a man could never 
tell what he could do until he tried, and have always 
acted on that principle. If a subject was presented 
which seemed to be interesting, I gave it attention 
and inquired into its merits. If I found it to be Vocation and Avocation 
69 
desirable and useful, I gave it some study, but if 
it was found to be valueless the subject was dropped. 
In addition to my regular studies in college, I 
became interested in two side lines that attracted 
my attention. One of these subjects was taxidermy 
and the other was music. Professor G. W. Clark, 
of the faculty, was a practical taxidermist and 
willingly gave me lessons in the art out of school 
hours. I soon became quite skillful in mounting 
birds and small mammals, and acquired not a few 
specimens as house ornaments. I did not engage in 
the work extensively, as I did not intend to follow 
it as a business. 
I always loved music and was ever ready to join 
in singing the home and school songs. Singing 
music by note was quite a different affair from sing- 
ing by ear, as I found out before I was able to read 
music at sight. To accomplish this feat, in addition 
to getting my other lessons, was a task. I was lucky 
in finding a senior student, Joel Seymour by name, 
who became interested in my plan and promised to 
see me through. I engaged him to give me a course 
of private lessons which he said would enable me to 
read music out of a book. Our united efforts were 70 
Activities of a Lifetime 
successful in giving me a start in music. From that 
time on I worked my way along in music as I found 
opportunity and time to devote to the subject. I had 
not yet chosen my vocation and had adopted these 
two avocations merely because they interested me 
and gave me pleasure. 
About that time I received the suggestion to study 
medicine. After carefully considering the subject, 
I concluded to do so and became a student of medi- 
cine in the office of a family friend, Dr. D. H. 
Rosenberg, who lived in the village of Bettsville, in 
western Ohio. I read medicine three years, attended 
two courses of medical lectures in the Eclectic Medical 
Institute of Cincinnati, Ohio, and graduated in 
February, 1869. 
The same method of teaching was followed in the 
medical school as was pursued in the literary col- 
lege; short terms, few but able teachers and plenty 
of hard work that kept the students busy night 
and day. 
After receiving my diploma, I sought a location 
to practise my profession and was willing to begin 
in a small way and work up. On the advice of my 
preceptor, I selected the town of Lindsey, Ohio, on Vocation and Avocation 
71 
the Lakeshore Railroad, where I rented an office and 
hung out my shingle for business. I was reasonably 
successful for a beginner, but not satisfied. After 
staying a year, I got the western fever and had to 
move on. Having friends in Chillicothe, Missouri, 
I paid them a visit in 1871. On my favorable im- 
pression of the town and my friends' urgent request, 
I decided to stop and try my luck, as the saying is. 
I rented an office on the public square and was soon 
settled and ready for business. 
About the time of my arrival, there was an influx 
of eastern homeseekers to help settle up the country, 
which increase in population gave balance to the 
public sentiment as to the merits of the North and 
South during the war. The southern element rather 
resented the intrusion but started no open hostilities. 
The people were good enough but there was an 
aloofness in their manner towards the Yankee immi- 
grants that did not court acquaintance and made the 
strangers feel as if they were not welcome. 
I read and studied a great deal and acquired the 
writing habit. I contributed articles on medicine 
to several periodicals, the Eclectic Medical Journal 
of Cincinnati, American Medical Journal of St. 72 
Activities of a Lifetime 
Louis, and the California Medical Journal of San 
Francisco; and furnished articles on health subjects 
to the local papers. 
I was not long in reaching the conclusion that a 
doctor ought to get married and I decided to commit 
matrimony. The young lady involved, Miss Emma 
S. Beazell, also had been a student of Mount Union 
College, where we became acquainted. Both of us 
being of one mind, that there was no good reason 
for delaying the ceremony, we agreed to marry. I 
then journeyed east and the marriage ceremony was 
performed at the home of the bride, in Webster, 
Pennsylvania, January 9, 1873. 
I gave most of my leisure time to music and the 
church. To increase my usefulness, I took lessons 
from a teacher on the cabinet organ and after some 
time was appointed organist and choir leader of the 
Methodist Church. I organized a music class from 
the children of the Sunday School and taught them 
to read music. There was considerable musical 
talent available in the town, which was united in a 
Choral Society, conducted by Dr. M. H. Wilcox, a 
local dentist. The attendance and interest of the 
members at the meetings was gratifying, and concerts 
were given occasionally at the city hall. Professor Dr. Munk, at the age of twenty-five, while living in Chilicothe, 
Mo., during the Seventies. Vocation and Avocation 
73 
H. S. Perkins of Chicago visited the town annually 
for a number of years and held conventions with 
local talent that rendered some rather ambitious 
music. 
My children's music class also gave concerts 
occasionally, in which everyone was interested and 
everybody attended, as was the custom in such 
affairs. One occasion, particularly, I remember, 
when the class gave a cantata that contained a fairy 
dance for which I wrote new words and music that 
made a great hit. It was charmingly rendered by 
a group of little children and received hearty ap- 
plause. The following lines contain the words: 
Down in the leafy, rocky dell, 
There the fairies love to dwell; 
Where the leaves in the sunlight glance, 
There the fairies love to dance. 
Having so much music on my mind, seemed to 
inspire me to write music. In making the attempt, 
I succeeded even better than I had expected. A 
number of songs were published in sheet form by 
John Church & Co. of Cincinnati; and hymns, anthems 
and choruses appeared in choir and convention books, 
edited by Professor Perkins and published by the 
Oliver Ditson Company, Boston, and Wm. A. Pond 74 
Activities of a Lifetime 
& Co., New York. Several temperance and Sunday 
School books also contained some of my songs that 
were popular. All of this music was written during 
the seventies, while I lived in Chillicothe. After I 
moved to Topeka, Kansas, I was too busy in my 
profession to give much thought to music and I quit 
writing any more. 
In the summer of 1876, I made a trip east, to 
attend the annual meeting of the National Eclectic 
Medical Association, of which I was a member, and 
to visit the Centennial celebration. The medical 
meeting was held in Washington and the Centennial 
Exposition at Philadelphia. Both events were in- 
tensely interesting but the weather was too hot and 
oppressive for comfort. It was while General U. S. 
Grant was President and he gave the doctors attend- 
ing the convention a reception at the Capitol. It 
pleased me mightily to meet and shake hands again 
with my former commander-in-chief. At this meet- 
ing I was elected vice-president of the association. 
The torrid weather made me feel half sick, and 
I was in poor condition to enjoy the show when I 
arrived at Philadelphia by boat. There was no way 
of escaping the heat, and suffering humanity had to 
sweat and swelter. It was in the month of June Vocation and Avocation 
75 
when the sad news was received of the awful massacre 
by the Sioux Indians of General Custer's command 
in a battle on the Little Big Horn River in Montana. 
The hot weather, the depressing news of the Indian 
butchery, and my sickness, decided me not to tarry 
long and I soon started for the west. 
Occasionally my wife and I joined a picnic party 
of friends and drove out into the country for the 
day, either to Day ton Lake or Gillespie's Ford on 
Grand River, where wild flowers and fems grew in 
abundance among the rocks. Those were enjoyable 
days that are remembered yet with much pleasure. 
One picnic, which I always took alone, was when 
I went hickory nutting. On the Grand River bottom 
grew extensive groves of hickory trees of the shell- 
bark variety, that have nuts of mammoth size and 
fine flavor. To buy them in town was no fun at all, 
and the real joy of having them was found in the 
getting of them. When the time came to go, I 
borrowed my neighbor Billy Miller's plug horse and 
rode out to the hickory grove. I crossed the river 
on an old-fashioned wooden bridge at Graham's Mill 
and then turned south into the big forest. I preferred 
going on horseback for the change and the freedom 
that it gave me. It was more for the joy of getting 76 
Activities of a Lifetime 
into the woods than for the nuts that were gathered. 
The nuts were put into a two bushel bag and fastened 
to the cantie of the saddle, when I mounted and rode 
leisurely home. 
I frequently took long drives into the country, 
which were enjoyable in pleasant weather but were 
trying when the weather was stormy and bad. To 
have to wade through snow in zero weather was 
anything but pleasant, when I had thoughts of 
seeking some milder clime. 
After waiting ten years for the promised prosperity 
that did not arrive, I made up my mind to make a 
change and hunt a new location. I heard of a 
physician's partnership business for sale in Topeka, 
Kansas, and went over to see about it. I was 
favorably impressed with the offer but considered 
the price rather high. It seemed like a big under- 
taking but, nevertheless, I accepted it, as it was a 
question of either "make or break." The transaction 
was a good move and was just what I needed to put 
me on my feet. This change was made in the spring 
of 1881. 
The difference in the two communities was 
marked. From the southern, pessimistic, old fogy 
notions of old Chillicothe, to the northern, optimistic Vocation and Avocation 
77 
enterprising new Topeka, was a long step. The 
change gave me a feeling of freedom that I craved, 
and opened the door of opportunity that I had sought. 
My partner's name was Phineas I. Mulvane and 
the firm name was Mulvane & Munk. My partner 
proved to be one of the best men that I ever knew. 
We were equal partners and shared alike in all 
things, each partner having the privilege of taking a 
vacation sometime during the year. This arrange- 
ment was fortunate for me as it gave me the chance 
to visit portions of the West that I desired to see. 
We were partners for eleven years and during all 
that time I do not recall that we ever had one word 
of difference. 
My partner was a large, handsome looking man, 
a few years older than myself, with a charming 
personality, and he was very popular. One peculi- 
arity that both amused and pleased me was his 
manner of greeting his patients. I was usually first 
at the office in the morning, after making a round of 
professional calls, where there would be one or more 
patients waiting to see him. As he entered the room 
in his jovial manner, he greeted the patient with a 
hearty handshake, saying, "Howdy do! Howdy do! 
Are you healthy?" The patient invariably answered, 78 
Activities of a Lifetime 
"No, Doctor, I am not feeling very well"; to which 
the Doctor immediately replied, "Well, I can fix 
you," when the cure was already half made. This 
was his customary greeting every day in the year 
and he meant it, too. He had a large practice and 
was very successful in curing the sick. 
My one diversion here, as in Chillicothe, was music 
but after a different fashion. I stopped writing and 
teaching altogether, but I joined the Modoc Club, 
an organization of men that was limited to thirty 
members. It met for rehearsal once a week and sang 
for the public on many occasions. 
The club was started as a minstrel troupe in 1876, 
to help defray the expenses of the State of Kansas 
exhibit at the Centennial Fair in Philadelphia. It 
was so successful in its work that it was reorganized 
on a permanent basis, when a name had to be chosen. 
It was at the time when the Modoc Indian outbreak 
occurred and the convicted culprits of that outrage 
were being incarcerated in the penitentiary at Leaven- 
worth. Everybody knew the name Modoc and it was 
suggested as a suitable name for the club, which was 
then adopted. 
Major T. J. Anderson (Our Tom), son of a Kansas 
pioneer and Civil War veteran, was elected president, Vocation and Avocation 
79 
in which capacity he served during his lifetime. He 
was the life of the club and all of its members loved 
him. He held an important position on the Atchison, 
Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad and was acquainted 
with many influential men, some of whom became 
our friends and patrons. 
M. C. Holman was our director, and no better man 
could have been found to fill the place. He was a 
real musician and fully qualified to take command. 
He was affable and kind and had the full confidence 
of all the men. It was as important for him to be 
the leader as it was for Major Anderson to be the 
president. The combined qualities of the two men 
made a team that was invincible. 
Topeka being the capital city of the state and 
seat of the general offices of the Atchison, Topeka 
and Santa Fe Railroad, it was a town of some 
importance and the scene of many stirring events. 
At nearly every important public meeting the 
club was asked to sing, which it gladly did whenever 
it was possible. At political and legislative func- 
tions, teachers' conventions and Grand Army rallies, 
its presence seemed indispensable. Its chief aim was 
to please and entertain the crowd and its selections 
included every kind of music. That the club's efforts 80 
Activities of a Lifetime 
were appreciated was evidenced by its popularity 
and the enthusiastic applause and encores that were 
bestowed. 
The club also gave pay entertainments in the 
opera house, to help defray its current expenses. 
With the assistance of its lady friends, it staged at 
various times Gilbert and Sullivan's and other light 
operas, such as Pinafore, Pirates of Penzance, 
Mikado, Chimes of Normandy, etc., which perform- 
ances were always largely attended. 
Two of its members, A. M. Salyer and J. N. 
Goolman, composed a new opera, words and music, 
called Eileen, that was the equal of any of the operas 
presented and was repeated many times to crowded 
houses. Two other members, L. M. Wood and W. W. 
Woolverton, also composed meritorious songs and 
choruses, which were included in the repertoire of 
the club and became popular. 
Through the influence of Major Anderson, who 
was a Grand Army man, the club received invitations 
to sing at the meetings of the National Encampment 
of the Grand Army of the Republic for many years. 
These meetings were held in all of the large cities, 
both east and west, which afforded the club the 
opportunity to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific Vocation and Avocation 
81 
and delight vast audiences with their patriotic songs. 
The banner trip of this series of excursions was the 
one made to San Francisco in 1886. A private car 
was chartered for the trip, over the Santa Fe route, 
and eighteen members of the club composed the 
party. 
On the way to the coast the train stopped early 
one morning at Barstow, on the desert. Everybody 
was invited out for refreshments and the hungry 
crowd of tourists was quick to respond. Not know- 
ing what to expect, it was a great surprise to find 
carloads of fruit and wine being distributed free as 
a friendly greeting from the hospitable citizens of 
Los Angeles. This generous treatment impressed the 
visitors more than any other demonstration could 
have done, and won our hearts entirely. 
When we reached Los Angeles, we met a con- 
tinuous round of free entertainments and were wined 
and dined to the limit. After several days of fes- 
tivities, we entrained for San Francisco where the 
same generous reception was accorded us, and all 
that we lacked was the capacity to absorb it all. 
The club sang before many brilliant audiences, but 
the most thrilling occasion was when we sang in the 
rotunda of the Palace Hotel, where every seat and 82 
Activities of a Lifetime 
every foot of floor space was occupied and the seven 
galleries, clear up to the roof, were packed with an 
enthusiastic audience that applauded and cheered to 
the echo. The acoustics of the rotunda were perfect 
for singing and the club never sang better. 
On our return trip we went back over the same 
route that we came and stopped again at Los Angeles. 
We also visited the neighboring towns of San Ber- 
nardino, Riverside and San Diego, and were hos- 
pitably received everywhere. Our car was continually 
supplied with crates of fresh fruits, and wine was 
passed around by the bucketful. The California 
style of greeting strangers was new to us, but 
immensely popular. We thought that Kansas knew 
how to entertain but had to acknowledge that Cali- 
fornia could beat her. The club gave a concert in 
each of these towns to full houses, and we went home 
with more money in our pockets than we had when 
we started on our journey. 
I was not an hour in Los Angeles before I said 
to myself, "There is one more move for you to make, 
old man," and I then and there resolved to make the 
Angel City my future home. It was the first time 
in my experience that I felt like choosing a permanent 
residence. I had made several changes of location Vocation and Avocation 
83 
and each one was better than the last, but going to 
Los Angeles was the best move of all, and I have 
never regretted the choice. 
My partner had speculated successfully in Chicago 
real estate and had thereby acquired considerable 
property, which decided him to leave Topeka and 
move to Chicago. The change was made in 1890. 
During that summer I went to Boston with the 
Modoc Club, and the following summer I spent on 
the ranch in Arizona. As my partner had already 
gone to Chicago and I contemplated leaving Topeka 
soon, I made my arrangements to go without further 
delay. By the spring of 1892 I was ready to leave 
Topeka and we made the trip to Los Angeles, stop- 
ping at the ranch on the way out, where we have 
lived ever since and expect to spend the balance of 
our days. 
My partner, too, had a fancy for Los Angeles 
but his Chicago interests led him in the opposite 
direction. The change did not agree with him and, 
although he was yet in the prime of life, it was not 
long until he sickened and died. 
After taking my first trip to Arizona in 1884, and 
then to California in 1886, I became restless and 
dissatisfied and had to repeat the journey every year, 84 
Activities of a Lifetime 
just to satisfy myself that everything I had seen was 
still there. If I had been a single man, I doubtless 
would have made Arizona my home, as did my 
two brothers who were unmarried. In those early 
days of danger on the frontier, it was foolhardy for 
a man to take his family into that Apache infested 
country to live, particularly if the wife was a semi- 
invalid, timid and nervous. When I did make a 
choice, I selected California as the best suited to the 
comforts of a family at that time. 
The first member of our family that went to 
Arizona was a cousin, named Aaron Evans, who was 
an Ohio coal miner and served in the Union army 
during the Civil War. After the war was over he 
wanted to dig gold instead of coal and went first to 
Colorado. Not finding a gold mine there, he drifted 
down to Arizona and located in the Dos Cabezas 
Mountains where he built a rock cabin and went 
prospecting among the hills for the precious metals. 
He found signs of gold in Silver Creek and Gold 
Gulch and obtained some gold by placering. He also 
found a piece of rich gold float, but could not locate 
its source or the lode from which it came. 
He sank a shaft in East Canyon, which he called 
the Mary Mine; and dug another hole on the ridge Vocation and Avocation 
85 
above the cabin that he named the Bell W. A dribble 
of gold showed in both prospects but not enough to 
justify further development. He would not quit 
searching for gold, and again verified the saying, 
"Once a prospector, always a prospector." Having 
entered the game, he could not give it up. 
He wrote to my younger brothers, who were prac- 
tising attorneys in St. Louis, in 1882, that he had 
found a valuable gold mine and wanted them to come 
out and join him. My youngest brother, William, 
thought it might pay and was willing to take a 
chance, and forthwith went out. My other brother 
soon followed and as I also was asked to come, I, 
too, went in the spring of 1884, on a visit and vacation 
trip. The gold mine failed to pan out and my 
brothers, instead of going into mining, started a 
cattle ranch. In this enterprise I joined them as a 
partner, when the Munk Brothers' Cattle Ranch was 
organized and is yet functioning. 
My brother "Bill" was a good scout and had 
previously located other valuable properties, but did 
not have the patience to wait until they could be 
developed and made profitable. Soon he would get 
restless with the wanderlust and go off on the hunt 
for something new and better. He stayed with the 86 
Activities of a Lifetime 
ranch seven years before he decided to quit. The 
ranch did not have the money to buy his interest, but 
when it was definitely decided that he would go, he 
accepted the proposition to ship a trainload of steers 
which he rounded up and took away as his share of 
the business and sold on the Chicago market. After 
thirty years of wandering, we three brothers were 
again reunited in Los Angeles, when we resolved to 
stick together for life. 
My brother Edward and I have always been 
closely associated in business and worked together 
for our mutual interests. He and Bill together 
managed the ranch in the beginning but after Bill 
left, Edward took entire charge of the business, my 
relation then being only in an advisory capacity. 
Edward's fancy ran to politics and he was elected 
County Judge and held court in Tombstone, the 
county seat of Cochise County, Arizona, during two 
terms of four years, from 1886 to 1890. By virtue 
of his office he was also Superintendent of Public 
Instruction. He organized the school system of 
Cochise County and called the first county teacher's 
institute that was held in the state. After his term 
of Judgeship expired, and during the Cleveland 
administration, he was appointed Receiver of the Dr. Munk, at the age of forty, when a citizen of Topeka, Kan., 
during the Eighties. Vocation and Avocation 
87 
United States Land Office at Tucson and was also 
made a regent of the University of the State of 
Arizona. 
Although I went to Los Angeles as a stranger, I 
soon established a good business, and often wondered 
where all of the business came from. Many families 
had moved from Topeka to Los Angeles and among 
them some of my former patrons. The new comers 
were naturally glad to meet and fraternize with old 
friends and to make new acquaintances, and, inci- 
dentally, spoke a good word for me. 
Being nearly worn out with work when I arrived 
and giving myself no rest, I suddenly collapsed with 
a critical illness that confined me to my bed for three 
months. I expected to die and my physicians held 
out little hope for my recovery, but fate willed it 
otherwise and I got well again. I have had several 
severe injuries and sicknesses in my time but have 
not mentioned them as such things are liable to 
happen to anyone and are of no general interest. 
The California Eclectic Medical College of San 
Francisco, after a successful career of thirty years, 
was destroyed by earthquake and fire in 1906, when 
it was announced that it would not be rebuilt. The 
friends of the college, however, did not feel like 88 
Activities of a Lifetime 
letting it go out of existence altogether, and proposed 
that it be moved and reopened in Los Angeles. Its 
charter and good will were transferred to the new 
management and new officers and a new faculty was 
elected. Dr. 0. C. Welboum was elected president 
and I was chosen dean. A suitable building was 
leased for the use of the college at 846 Lyon Street, 
and the school opened its doors for its first term in 
October, 1907. 
In 1909 the college was moved into new and 
better quarters at 337 South Hill Street, with an in- 
creased attendance. Unfortunately the school was 
handicapped by a lack of funds and strangled from 
the start by a code of arbitrary and unreasonable 
regulations that were promulgated by a self-appointed 
and mercenary board of censors in Chicago, which 
was organized for the express purpose of suppressing 
all small medical colleges and putting them out of 
business. The school did good work while it lasted, 
but the obstacles imposed in its way were insuperable 
and the institution, although solvent, voluntarily 
suspended its sessions and closed its doors, July 
1, 1915. 
At a meeting in Boston in June, 1910, I was 
elected president of the National Eclectic Medical Vocation and Avocation 
89 
Association, and presided at the next annual meeting 
of the association in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1911. 
In 1900 I joined the Archaeological Institute of 
America and became an organizer of the Southwest 
Museum. In 1908 I donated my Arizona Library to 
the Museum, which was housed temporarily in leased 
quarters in the Hamburger Building. A bookplate 
was ordered for the library, illustrating the beginning 
of knowledge by primitive man in the Southwest, and 
this collection of books was officially designated as 
The Munk Library of Arizoniana. 
I also donated a case of geological and mineral 
specimens of unusual interest and value, which I 
picked up on my various travels in Arizona. 
In 1914 a new Museum building was completed 
and occupied, when the Library was moved into a 
room of the Caracol Tower. The room is thirty feet 
square and eighteen feet high, with a gallery sur- 
rounding it, which accommodates comfortably the 
Library of about 15,000 volumes. In that year also 
a third edition of the Arizona Bibliography was 
compiled and published for the Museum by the 
Curator, Dr. Hector Alliot, since which time a card 
catalogue has been in the process of making. 90 
Activities of a Lifetime 
While engaged in compiling this work, Dr. Alliot 
found some old copies of my music, the existence 
of which I had almost forgotten. He suggested that 
all of my music that could be found should be 
gathered and re-published in book form. This book 
appeared under the title of "Musical Compositions," 
in 1916. 
I was a member of the Los Angeles Whist Club 
for a number of years, which was my only relaxa- 
tion and recreation. The membership was composed 
of about thirty-two men and women, the number 
fluctuating slightly from time to time as new mem- 
bers joined the club and old members dropped out. 
Whist was the only game played, which was always 
duplicate and sometimes progressive. The club 
flourished for many years but finally disbanded after 
bridge whist came into vogue. 
I took a lively interest for many years in a local 
periodical, the California Eclectic Medical Journal, 
edited and published by Dr. 0. C. Welbourn, to 
which I was a frequent contributor. I never at- 
tempted to break into any of the popular magazines 
as I neither had the time nor inclination to do so, 
and did not care for publicity. The above Journal, 
together with other representative periodicals of the Vocation and Avocation 
91 
Eclectic school of medicine, which system I practised, 
afforded me all the opportunity that I needed to 
express my views in print. 
I never was a "Jiner" and do not belong to any 
secret society or social club. Such organizations are 
popular and must do much good, but somehow they 
never appealed to me as being desirable, and only 
seemed to be a waste of valuable time and effort. I 
cannot have inherited the gregarious instinct as I am 
not enamored of crowds but, on the contrary, try to 
avoid them as much as possible. 
On my first visit to Arizona in 1884, I was greatly 
impressed by what I saw of the climate and scenery, 
strange fauna and flora, and the many bright colors 
seen in the earth, air and sky. The soft air, filled 
with the sweet fragrance of desert perfumes, also 
added much to the joy of living. 
During the past forty years I have made one or 
more trips into Arizona every year, to enjoy its charm 
and beauty, and to roam over its wide open spaces 
in search of the marvelous and curious in nature. 
My first trips were devoted mostly to the ranch and 
the interesting objects in its near vicinity, and getting 
acquainted with the country. After the year 1900, 
I began making trips into northern Arizona, where 92 
Activities of a Lifetime 
the landscape is incomparable for isolation, wild 
beauty and new world wonders. 
The Grand Canyon of Arizona, of course, stands 
first in the list, as it has no equal anywhere upon 
the face of the earth. Thousands of pilgrims go to 
see it every year and worship at its shrine. I have 
seen it many times and expect to see it again. The 
oftener one sees it, the more one enjoys it by becom- 
ing better acquainted with its magnitude, majesty 
and beauty. It has never been adequately described 
and, indeed, never can be. Even beholding it is 
beyond the comprehension and power of puny man 
to understand. 
The adjoining region of Flagstaff is of exceptional 
interest. There is the great Coconino Forest of pine 
trees and seven distinct life zones within a radius of 
twenty-five miles; the towering peaks of the San 
Francisco Mountains that are 13,000 feet high, and 
three hundred extinct volcanoes, lava beds and cinder 
fields; two natural ice caves in pure lava, with their 
mystery yet unsolved; Sunset Mountain, with its 
immense crater and crown of never fading glory of 
sunset glow that is produced by a combination of 
bright colors in its volcanic rocks; Walnut Canyon BOTTOM OF THE BRIGHT ANGEL TRAIL, GRAND CANYON OF ARIZONA 
Suggestive of Dante's Inferno Vocation and Avocation 
93 
and its cave and cliff dwellings and bottomless pits; 
and the Lowell Astronomical Observatory, which was 
established by Percival Lowell in 1893 for the study 
of the planet Mars, upon which signs of life have 
been discovered. These are some of its most inter- 
esting features. 
Its near neighbors on the east are Canyon Diablo, 
and an earthquake fissure that was made in 1887; also 
the Meteorite Mountain, where a small star fell out of 
space and hit the earth ages ago. The terrific impact 
raised a mound two hundred feet high above the 
level of the surrounding plain, and made a hole in 
the ground that is six hundred feet deep and a mile 
wide, where, presumably, the asteroid lies buried 
and is now being resurrected by a company of 
scientists. Great masses of meteoric iron, which is 
said to consist of the best gun metal and containing 
real diamonds, have been carted away. Large 
quantities of magnetite, or dead sparks from the 
burning meteor, which are magnetic and have 
polarity, also have been found in the vicinity. 
Farther east are the Petrified Forests, where the 
trunks of big trees have been turned into stone and 
lie scattered in profusion over the ground. When 94 
Activities of a Lifetime 
the logs are broken open, they show the grain of the 
wood in all colors of the rainbow, and contain a 
variety of precious stones and gem crystals. 
Beyond these forests of stone are other forests of 
live trees upon the Mogollon Mesa and White 
Mountains, that extend into New Mexico. These 
forests are a paradise in summer and are filled with 
bird life and floral beauty. Meandering through the 
forests and mountain meadows, ripple streams of 
clear, cold water that are full of speckled trout. It 
is an unusually attractive spot and has been the 
ancestral home of the Apache Indians from time 
immemorial. In the midst of these mountains lies 
the Tonto Basin, an immense natural depression in 
the earth that is surrounded by a high cliff of rim 
rock which makes the place impregnable and 
almost inaccessible. 
In northeastern Arizona, between the Santa Fe 
Railroad and the Utah border, is the home of the 
Navajo Indians, the largest of all the Indian tribes. 
A place where the corner of each of the four states, 
Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah, touch each 
other at right angles, is called the Four Corners and 
is the only occurrence of the kind in the United 
States. Vocation and Avocation 
95 
Upon the Navajo Reservation are found two of 
the three known large groups of cliff dwellings. Two 
of these groups are found in Canyon de Chelly and 
Laguna (Sagi) Canyon in Arizona, and the third 
group is on the Mesa Verde in Colorado. Scattered 
all over Arizona and the Southwest, are seen traces 
of an ancient people, which archaeologists are inves- 
tigating and trying to unravel their history. 
Travelers who go into that country usually go by 
the way of Gallup. In only a few places of the 
Navajo country are white persons permitted to live. 
These are the Franciscan Fathers at Saint Michaels, 
Lorenzo Hubbell at Ganado and John Wetherill at 
Kayenta. The Hopi Indians live on a small reserva- 
tion in the midst of the Navajo reservation. They 
are successful farmers and practise many weird 
ceremonies. They live in eight villages on three high 
mesas and are a thrifty people. 
Arizona has many tribes of Indians that now live 
in peace, which are as follows: Navajo, Apache, Hopi, 
Pima, Papago, Yuma, Mohave, Hualapai and Hava- 
supai, the latter living in Cataract Canyon. 
Highly colored cliffs of many hues, and domes 
and pinnacles of black rock are numerous, standing 
either singly or in groups. The most notable of these 96 
Activities of a Lifetime 
are The Hopi Buttes, Monument Canyon, a branch 
of Canyon de Chelly, and Monument Valley on the 
Utah border. Agathla Butte near Kayenta stands 
1,225 feet high and is a conspicuous landmark. 
At the foot of the Navajo Mountain on the Utah 
border, is the recently discovered Natural Bridge, 
which the Navajos call Nonnezoshe or the Rainbow 
Bridge. The region is very broken and wild and 
the few persons who make the trip have to go by 
pack train. 
Most of the Arizona country I have described in 
two books, entitled, "Arizona Sketches," published 
in 1905, and "Southwest Sketches," published in 
1920. 
On my many travels in Arizona I carried a kodak 
and took numerous pictures. These have been 
arranged in an album of ten volumes of two hundred 
pictures each. They are a history by themselves, 
showing the country and people in their primitive 
state, which is rapidly changing and fast passing 
away. 
It was my good fortune to make the acquaintance 
of Colonel James H. McClintock of Phoenix on one 
of my early visits to Arizona, and we have been 
good friends ever since. He has lived in Arizona CEREUS GIGANTEUS 
Wonder Plant of the Arizona Desert Vocation and Avocation 
97 
for many years and has participated in many stirring 
events. He was captain of a company in Colonel 
Roosevelt's Regiment of Rough Riders in the Spanish 
War and was severely wounded in the battle of Las 
Guasamas, Cuba. He has been the Arizona corre- 
spondent of the Los Angeles Times for the past forty 
years and still holds that responsible position. He 
has also done much writing for other newspapers and 
magazines, and is the State Historian. His books on 
the "History of Arizona," and the "Mormon Settle- 
ments of Arizona," are authentic and of great value. 
He stands high in social and civic life and is affec- 
tionately called "Jim" by his many friends. 
I have never lost my love for the soil and would 
rather dig in the ground than do anything else. Soon 
after moving to Los Angeles I bought a forty-acre 
farm near Compton, that was cultivated with hired 
help. The help was not satisfactory but was the best 
I could get. I bought a farmer's outfit of cows, 
horses, wagons and farming implements and set them 
to work. I soon found out that farming required 
water for irrigation to make it pay. I had an artesian 
well bored that furnished the desired quantity of 
water, but even then nothing seemed to prosper and 
the crops scarcely paid the taxes. As the land was 98 
Activities of a Lifetime 
intended to be more for play and pleasure than for 
profit, I do not consider that the experiment was an 
entire failure. 
There were a few old deciduous fruit trees grow- 
ing on the place but these were not enough to make 
an orchard and I sent to Ohio for a supply of young 
fruit trees to start a new one. The trees were 
properly planted and made a good beginning but 
from lack of attention many of them died. I con- 
cluded that if I wanted an orchard I would have to 
do the work myself. To make sure of a good location 
for an orchard, I bought an additional forty-three 
acres of land adjoining my farm on the south, in 
1900, that was also suitable for a botanical garden 
and arboretum. It was all flat land but hummocky 
and had to be leveled to make it good plow land. In 
spots some leveling had to be done by hand and 
ditches dug to carry water by gravity flow for irri- 
gation. This detail handwork I resolved to do my- 
self so that it would be done right. 
In the afternoon I closed my office in town at four 
o'clock and drove out to the farm with my horse and 
buggy in an hour, and was back in the office again 
by eight o'clock the next morning. This arrangement Vocation and Avocation 
99 
gave me several hours' time in which to do some work, 
even if I did have to work overtime. If the moon 
was shining, I could see to work at night as well as 
in the day time, and with my shovel and wheelbarrow 
the high spots were cut down and the low places 
filled up. If there was no moonlight, I hung the 
lantern on one of the handles of the wheelbarrow, 
which answered the same purpose and enabled me 
to work. This hard work was a real pleasure as 
well as a benefit physically, as it raised a sweat and 
gave me exercise which I needed and was an advan- 
tage in every way. 
In doing this work I got warmed up and required 
fewer clothes to wear. While engaged in farm work, 
I went bareheaded, and wore only a sleeveless shirt, 
overalls, shoes and stockings. There was a small cot- 
tage on the place that was plainly furnished, where I 
slept and prepared my meals and enjoyed my hermit 
life. 
After a spell of hard work that made me sweat 
profusely, it was a real luxury to get into a hot bath 
and wash off the grime of sweat and dust with soap 
and water, followed by a rub with a dry towel and 
a change of clean linen. Prior to taking such 100 
Activities of a Lifetime 
exercise, I had spells of feeling chilly and took colds 
easily, but working in the open air changed all that 
and improved my health generally. 
After putting the land in shape, I planted a second 
orchard of fruit trees in 1903 and took care of them 
myself. The orchard not only supplies my own needs 
but there is always a surplus of fruit to share with 
friends and neighbors, as I never sell any fruit. 
Soon after starting my new orchard, I planted some 
fig cuttings, in order to get more trees. After they 
were transplanted and came into bearing, I dis- 
covered that I had a new variety of fig that I could 
not account for. The cuttings were taken from a 
black fig tree, while the new fig appeared to be a 
cross between a white and a black fig, and with an 
excellent flavor. To give the new fig a name, I call 
it the Munk Fig. It was a great puzzle where this 
new fig came from. I made inquiry of fig experts 
as to how new varieties of figs originated and received 
either an evasive answer or no answer at all. I 
finally wrote to Luther Burbank, the plant wizard, and 
asked him to solve the problem. He replied that 
planting the seeds of figs sometimes resulted in new 
varieties, the same as of other fruits, but that the 
process was tedious and expensive. He also said that Vocation and Avocation 
101 
a new variety of fig might come from a sport bud on 
a cutting, for which there was no explanation. His 
answer seemed reasonable if not lucid, and I con- 
cluded that my new fig must be the product of a 
sport bud. 
In 1906 I began carrying out the plan I had in 
mind of establishing a botanical garden of medical 
plants for the use of the materia medica class in the 
California Eclectic Medical College. In connection 
therewith, I also planted a grove of eastern forest 
trees and shrubs with which I was familiar as a boy. 
In this attempt I was successful and inside of fifteen 
years I reproduced a full-grown eastern forest. Many 
of the trees are two feet in diameter and one hundred 
feet high, and stand thick enough to cast a dense 
shade. 
I got tired of seeing green trees all the year 
'round and wanted to see trees in their bare branches. 
I had heard it said that eastern forest trees would 
not grow in our mild climate and wanted to know if 
that was true. All of the trees I planted grew 
splendidly, even faster than they grow back east; and 
it was astonishing to observe their rapid development. 
If my experiment proves anything, it shows that big 
trees grow much faster in Southern California than 102 
Activities of a Lifetime 
they do back east. In planting the grove I tried to 
give it the appearance of a natural woods and must 
have succeeded as I have heard men remark, who 
came to see the grove, that it was an unusual "asso- 
ciation of trees" and that there was "all in one." 
My doctor friends who contributed to the garden 
were Professor John Uri Lloyd and Dr. Harvey Wicks 
Felter, Cincinnati; Dr. H. L. True, McConnelsville, 
and Dr. E. L. Welbourn, Union City, all of Ohio; Dr. 
Herbert T. Webster, Oakland, and Dr. A. J. Atkins, 
San Francisco, California. The Bureau of Plant 
Industry likewise contributed many foreign trees and 
plants for experimentation. With but one exception, 
all of these friends have visited the garden since its 
inception. 
Some years ago, when the inspection mania was 
at its height, I lost plants from too much inspection. 
A package of plants that was sent by the Bureau of 
Plant Industry, or some other reliable firm, which 
had been properly inspected before shipment and so 
tagged upon arrival, was opened again by the local 
inspector, squinted at through a pocket glass and 
then pushed aside, untied, and its contents left 
exposed to dry and die. I lost not a few plants from 
such careless handling by parties who should have Vocation and Avocation 
103 
known better. Inspection got to be such a nuisance 
that it was useless to send for more plants, and I 
quit the business in disgust. 
The varieties of native forest trees in Southern 
California are few in number and consist principally 
of pine, live-oak and sycamore. The sycamores are 
found growing in the canyons, the live-oaks on the 
foot-hills, and the pine trees upon the mountains. 
They are also sometimes used as ornamental trees 
in public parks and private grounds. 
Because of this paucity of native trees, many 
foreign trees of the evergreen sort have been intro- 
duced, chief among which are the eucalyptus from 
Australia and the pepper tree from South America. 
These trees will endure ten degrees of frost for a 
time without suffering any injury, but cannot with- 
stand a hard freeze. The pepper tree is very attrac- 
tive and is much prized on account of its beauty. 
Both the eucalyptus and the pepper tree emit spicy 
odors that are agreeable aromatic stimulants. 
Twenty years ago I planted a lot of eucalyptus 
trees without knowing just why I did it, unless it was 
to have a grove of eucalyptus trees growing on the 
farm. I took great pleasure in seeing them grow, 
and now find that I have an ample supply of wood 104 
Activities of a Lifetime 
for fuel and back logs a-plenty for the large fireplace 
in my new farm house. 
Three young men of about the same age, who were 
students in the Eclectic Medical Institute, met for 
the first time in Cincinnati in 1867. Now, after a 
half century has passed, they find themselves the sole 
survivors of the crowd of students which thronged 
the classic halls of their Alma Mater during the late 
sixties. 
I was one of that group of young men. The story 
of my life has been told in the preceding pages and 
needs no further comment. 
A second member was Dr. Herbert T. Webster, 
also of Ohio, and born in 1847. After graduating, 
he located and practised medicine for a number of 
years in Niles, Ohio. Catching the western fever, 
he moved to Oakland, California, and soon estab- 
lished himself as one of the leading physicians of 
that growing city. He was organizer and professor 
of the California Medical College in San Francisco 
and was the backbone of its faculty. He also was 
editor of the California Medical Journal for a term 
of years. He wrote and published several standard 
works on medicine-The Principle of Medicine, 
Dynamic Therapeutics, and the New Eclectic Medical Vocation and Avocation 
105 
Practice Complete-and is held in high esteem as an 
authority on clinical medicine. Dr. Webster moved 
recently to Southern California and bought himself 
a home in Alhambra. 
Professor John Uri Lloyd was the third and 
youngest member of the trio, who qualified as a 
chemist and was professor of chemistry and pharmacy 
in the Ohio Eclectic Medical College for many years. 
He is the founder of the Lloyd Library and the dis- 
coverer of Alcresta, which is known to science as 
Lloyd's reagent. He is father of colloidal chemistry 
in America as connected with medicine and pharmacy, 
and has made it a subject for study during the past 
forty years. He is the author of many books. He 
wrote Etidorhpa, a book of scientific romance, in 
which he foretold the existence of argon and radium 
before they were discovered. He has also written 
several books of Southern folklore tales, scientific 
books on chemistry and pharmacy, and monographs 
innumerable on many subjects. 
He loves the desert and was sent to Turkey and 
Arabia by the United States Government to investi- 
gate the subject of opium culture and Oriental 
products. In the summer of 1908 he accompanied 
me on one of my trips to the wonderland of northern 106 
Activities of a Lifetime 
Arizona. We met at a convention of Eclectic 
physicians in Kansas City, Missouri, in June, after 
which we traveled westward on the Santa Fe Railroad 
to Gallup, New Mexico, where by previous arrange- 
ment we were met by Lorenzo Hubbell's team and 
taken to Ganado, which is the oldest and largest 
trading post on the Navajo Indian Reservation and 
one of the show places of Arizona. From Ganado 
we went by team on a scout to see the cliff dwellings 
in Canyon de Chelly and then visited the Hopi 
villages on the Black Mesa. 
In our talks he advanced a new theory of world 
building. He said that the physical features of much 
of the earth's surface were made by geyser action in 
an age when geyser action was general and operated 
on a large scale. He claims that geyseration explains 
perfectly the stratification of many of the rocks 
while sedimentation does not. 
Although his home is in Cincinnati, he makes 
frequent trips to Los Angeles, when we three old 
cronies meet to compare notes and talk over old 
times. During all these years, from young manhood 
to old age, our friendship has stood firm and stead- 
fast, and is now even richer and better than at any 
time in the past. Vital Force and the Lifeline 
LIFE IS THE expression of vitality, the mani- 
festation of vital force. 
Of all the forces in nature vital force is the most 
subtle and incomprehensible. It manifests itself in 
an endless variety of forms and its complicated 
processes are marvelous and past finding out. At 
one time it builds on a colossal scale and supplies a 
giant's strength; and, again, it constructs so minutely 
and delicately that the object of its concern is 
invisible to the naked eye and destroyed by a touch; 
yet each object, be it either large or small, is distinct 
in its individuality and absolutely perfect in all its 
parts. 
We are apt to regard life merely as a fact and 
never think beyond the necessities of living. Man's 
capabilities are almost wholly spent in the struggle 
for existence, trying to get enough to eat and drink, 
and raiment wherewith to clothe the body. We 
content ourselves by thinking that life is a common- 
place affair and give it but scant consideration. 
Life is a profound mystery that in all probability 
will never be fully solved. Man stands awed and 108 
Activities of a Lifetime 
helpless in its presence, and with all his striving to 
fathom its depths he does not seem to get any nearer 
to the truth or obtain a satisfactory solution of the 
difficult problem. 
The origin of life is nature's well-guarded secret 
that baffles scientific investigation. In the absence of 
any definite knowledge as to its source, we can only 
believe that it was spoken into being by Omnipotence. 
The diversity of form and feature is amazing. 
Among the teeming millions of people living upon 
the earth, there are no two persons who look exactly 
alike. This difference is not stationary but pro- 
gressive, as changes are taking place continually 
within the body during every moment of life. There 
is no halting or turning back, however much we may 
want to stop, until we are finally swept by the ruthless 
hand of time into the great unknown beyond! 
In the process of reproduction, the vital spark 
which gives it life is implanted in the germ, that, 
once started on its earthly career, grows and lives 
after a definite plan into a perfect creature. What 
gives it life, shapes its form and regulates its growth, 
is an enigma. After living its allotted time, it dies 
and disappears as mysteriously as it came. Vital Force and the Lifeline 
109 
Nature is as prodigal of life as she is prolific in 
design. The quantity of protoplasm which she 
wastes in procreation, shows that she knows no limit 
to her resources. Not only does this waste occur at 
the threshold of life, but the same prodigality goes 
on forever from natural causes, such as accident and 
disease, animals preying on one another, and nations 
going to war. Life appears to be of such little value 
that it is being destroyed en masse continually, as 
dust is swept up with a broom. Even when the indi- 
vidual reaches full maturity, life lasts only a little 
while and vanishes as if it had never been. 
As all life is of the same essence, it would be 
invidious to make distinctions or draw comparisons; 
yet in the whole creation man is the only creature 
that has the conceit to claim perfection, or the 
audacity to assume that he is a superior being, the 
finished product of evolution, and the unchallenged 
monarch and ruler of the earth! 
When a man is bom into the world he is endowed 
with sufficient vitality to carry him through his brief 
span of life. Whether the amount of inherited vital 
force can be increased or diminished, is a question. 
That it can be conserved by correct habits of living, 110 
Activities of a Lifetime 
is conceded, and that it is suddenly extinguished by 
death we all know. 
The Bible gives the life of man as "three score 
years and ten," which is approximately correct; but 
under natural law his endowment of vital force 
should enable him to live a full one hundred years. 
By a law which governs the animal kingdom, each 
species is possessed with enough power to live five 
times as long as it takes it to grow to maturity. As 
man does not reach his full stature until the age of 
twenty, he should live to become one hundred years 
old. That but few persons ever live to reach this 
advanced age is no fault of nature but is the result 
of broken laws that pertain to right living. It is 
even possible for man to live longer than a century, 
as is proven by individual examples of longevity, but 
only a very few persons ever reach that goal. It is, 
indeed, an unusual occurrence to find a centenarian, 
as the large majority of mankind dies comparatively 
young. 
The average of human life has been estimated to 
be about thirty-five years and it is claimed that this 
is an increase over what it was a century ago; so that 
the natural tendency is toward a longer rather than 
a shorter life. That any man ever lived to reach the Vital Force and the Lifeline 
111 
age ascribed to Methuselah, is an utter impossibility. 
To attain any such age would require a complete 
reversal of nature, which, of course, never happened 
and never can happen, as the laws of nature are 
fixed and immutable. 
Man has implanted in his nature a desire to live 
and enjoy a long life of happiness. He is continually 
seeking after the fountain of eternal youth (which 
does not exist), where he may drink and remain 
forever young. He has this inborn desire to live, that 
makes him seek to avoid death. Occasionally the 
burden of life becomes too heavy to be borne and 
is shuffled off by a deliberate act of suicide. In the 
very nature of things there can be no perpetual youth 
as everything living is born to die and death must 
have its toll. 
Many means have been tried during recent years 
to prolong life indefinitely, but without success. 
Search was made to find an "elixir of life" that 
would supplant the impossible "fountain of youth," 
but this also has failed. 
A score or more years ago the distinguished 
French physiologist, Brown-Sequard, announced that 
he had discovered a sure cure for senility. It con- 
sisted of a glandular secretion that was injected 112 
Activities of a Lifetime 
hypodermically into the system, where it was sup- 
posed to act by some kind of hocus-pocus, to restore 
the vigor of youth and postpone old age. The treat- 
ment, however, failed to produce the desired results 
and proved to be only another foolish experiment 
that cost many lives. More recently the method was 
changed to transplanting the entire gland into the 
human body, which plan has likewise proved to be a 
failure. About the same time the new germ theory 
of disease had its origin, which is the greatest fallacy 
of the age, as time will prove. 
Man's worst enemy and his greatest besetting sin 
is his own unreasoning credulity or gullibility, which 
makes him eager to believe everything he hears and 
to snatch and swallow every tempting bait that is 
offered, hook and all, even though it kills him. 
It is interesting but sad to note the changes in form 
and features that take place during a lifetime. The 
child is always sweet and attractive but youth and 
beauty fade away as life goes on. The freshness of 
youth soon vanishes and with advancing years come 
white hair, impaired sight and hearing, wrinkled 
skin, bent form and tottering steps, so that it is diffi- 
cult to recognize the child and centenarian as the Vital Force and the Lifeline 
113 
same person. The boy is eager to become a man and 
spends much of his time in building air castles for 
the future. The old man wants to become a boy 
again and grows reminiscent of the past, talking 
about what has been. 
We may not like the conditions that surround us 
but we make a grand mistake when we attempt to 
change the natural into the artificial. Too much 
civilization is an evil and over-refinement is a curse. 
In addition to the outward changes that can be 
seen, other equally important alterations are taking 
place within the body. Metabolism becomes dis- 
turbed, cell activity is retarded, and the vital func- 
tions deteriorate and fail. The repair work of the 
body is being imperfectly done and that mysterious 
and fatal disease of old age, known as arteriosclerosis, 
makes its appearance. The walls of the arteries 
become hard and brittle, when under an increased 
blood pressure caused by excitement or over-exertion, 
a blood vessel may suddenly rupture and cause 
apoplexy, paralysis and death. It can no longer be 
said that a man is as old as he feels, but is just as 
old as are his arteries. If he goes slow and takes 
life easy, he may run on comfortably and carry a 114 
Activities of a Lifetime 
light load for many years; but if he forgets himself 
and makes a misstep or overworks, he at once breaks 
down beyond repair and dies. 
Longevity, or the ability to live long, depends 
largely upon the endowment of vital force. It runs 
in the blood and is an inherited gift that makes 
families long or short-lived according to how it 
functions. If the vitality is strong, it takes more 
than an ordinary disease or accident to produce 
death, but if the vital spark is weak it is easily 
snuffed out. The physician, more than anyone else, 
is familiar with its action as he observes the difference 
daily in his attendance upon the sick. 
Different persons are affected differently by sick- 
ness. Some live a long life in perfect health, while 
others cannot say that they ever feel well; but the 
majority of human beings have the average experi- 
ence of being alternately well and sick at longer or 
shorter intervals. In this respect there are many 
persons who seem to move in cycles of several years 
between sick spells. From natural causes the system 
becomes clogged with impurities, when sickness acts 
as a cleanser by getting rid of the worn out and 
waste material through the emunctories. Every such 
attack is beneficial to the patient if he has the vitality Vital Force and the Lifeline 
115 
to endure the reaction of organism and can success- 
fully pass the crisis. After such a siege the body 
has become thoroughly renovated and rejuvenated, 
and new tissues are built up from the bone. Such a 
person may not have his youth restored as to years 
but gets his body renewed and obtains a new lease 
on life that will last for many years, or until the 
return of the cycle period when another sickness is 
due, unless death from violence should happen in 
the meantime. 
The strength or weakness of the vital force can- 
not always be correctly judged by the outward 
appearance. A fine physique may have the appear- 
ance of robust health and yet be inherently weak; 
while a complaining, puny little weakling may be 
full of vital vigor and live to a ripe old age. I have 
known strong men to die from a scratch and others 
to recover from some serious sickness or injury that 
would have been enough to kill several ordinary 
men. 
The recuperative power of nature is wonderful 
if it is given only a fair chance to act. It is never 
wise to despair or give up hope in any case of sick- 
ness while a spark of life remains. Sometimes, in 
a desperate case, the very best remedy is to trust to 116 
Activities of a Lifetime 
nature and hope for the best, as all experienced 
physicians know. 
About fifty years ago Professor Powell discovered 
the life line in the human subject, by which means 
the vital force can be measured. Its use enables the 
physician to judge correctly of his patient's vital 
stamina and predict his ability to combat disease. 
The seat of the vital force is in the cerebellum, at 
the base of the brain, and is either strong or weak in 
proportion to the size of the brain. To ascertain its 
dimensions, a line is drawn from the occipital pro- 
tuberance on the back of the head to the supra-orbital 
foramen above the eye. The distance from this line 
to the external auditory meatus, or ear hole, 
designates the size of the cerebellum and indicates 
the strength or weakness of the vital force. If the 
distance measures one-half inch, it means that the 
patient possesses a fair amount of vital tenacity, and 
if it is less than a half inch the vital force is weak. 
Three-fourths of an inch marks the vital force strong 
and a full inch means that it is very strong. 
That life hangs by a single thread is literally true 
and is demonstrated by the anatomy of the spinal 
column. Where the head rests and rotates upon the 
two upper vertebrae, called the atlas and axis, they Vital Force and the Lifeline 
117 
are so peculiarly constructed that life depends upon 
the strength of one small ligament. The odontoid 
process of the axis projects upwards into the lumen 
of the atlas and is fastened there by the odontoid 
ligament. If this ligament is ruptured, the odontoid 
process falls backwards and presses upon the spinal 
cord, and produces instant paralysis and death. The 
pressure thus made is exerted upon the medulla 
oblongata, at which spot physiologists have located the 
vital point. Although the anatomy of the cervical 
vertebrae thus seems to be defective and dangerous, 
as a matter of fact it is relatively as strong as any 
other part of the body and proves fatal only when 
the neck is broken. 
Death often occurs suddenly, but usually it takes 
place gradually. It is a mooted question whether 
natural death is ever instantaneous. The body dies 
by degrees, one vital function after another failing, 
until last of all respiration ceases. When death 
threatens to claim the body, as long as there is no 
serious disturbance of the vital organs, there is no 
danger of immediate collapse. Only after the 
temperature, pulse and respiration become decidedly 
abnormal, is death imminent. The death rattle is 
caused by an accumulation of mucus in the larynx, 118 
Activities of a Lifetime 
which the enfeebled respiratory movement is unable 
to expel, but is not always heard. 
It is likewise a disputed point whether there is 
any great physical pain or mental anguish experi- 
enced when death takes place. The agony of dissolu- 
tion, if there be any, is felt during the acute stage 
of the disease, when the nerves are tense with feeling. 
During the progress of a fatal disease, nature merci- 
fully prepares the way for death by causing a 
physical and mental lethargy to creep over the body, 
that blunts the sensibilities and gives immunity from 
suffering. What sometimes appears to be pain in 
uttered groans and facial contortions, does not neces- 
sarily indicate suffering, as such effects are some- 
times produced by involuntary reflex action of the 
nerve centers and are not the result of conscious pain. President's Address* 
WE MEET AGAIN today in another annual 
convention to represent national Eclecticism, or 
the American practice of medicine, in the United 
States. I need not repeat the history of Eclecticism 
at this time, as the story has been told often and is 
readily accessible to those who are unfamiliar with 
the subject. Suffice it to say that it started as a protest 
against the murderous practice of Allopathy about 
one hundred years ago, in much the same manner as 
other systems of healing have started since that 
time. 
Notwithstanding that Allopathic medicine has been 
acknowledged a complete failure, as is proven by the 
fact that the dominant school of medicine has com- 
pletely reversed itself during the past fifty years by 
changing from the heroic dose to giving no medicine, 
yet, in the face of such evidence, Allopathy assumes 
to be the embodiment of all knowledge and wisdom, 
and asks to be placed in supreme power by the 
enactment of laws that would give it exclusive control. 
* Delivered before the National Eclectic Medical Association, at the 
Annual Meeting held in Louisville, Ky., June 20-21-22-23, 1911, and 
reprinted from the N. E. M. A. Quarterly, September, 1911. 120 
Activities of a Lifetime 
It wants only Allopathic physicians appointed to the 
public health service, aims to dominate all schools 
of learning, and even seeks to enter the privacy of 
the home and dictate what shall be done there. 
During the past twenty years, while honest men slept, 
the American Medical Association has built up a 
powerful political machine which is intended to 
promote its own arbitrary and selfish schemes, and 
has succeeded only too well in its endeavors. But 
at last the people have been aroused to a sense of 
their danger and are earnestly protesting against the 
evil influence that is being exerted by this trust 
power. 
ORGANIZATION 
During recent years the tendency in all branches 
of business has been to unite and concentrate every 
line of business into a single combination or corpora- 
tion, so that by the combined influence of large 
numbers and great wealth, competition, which is the 
life of trade, is killed and the small dealer put out 
of business. By such selfish and unfair methods 
every living interest has become a monopoly that is 
managed in the interests of a few men and has made 
them immensely rich at the expense of the many. 
This is certainly the age of mammon worship, and President's Address 
121 
at no time in the history of the world have such vast 
individual fortunes been accumulated as have been 
amassed in our generation. Individuality has thus 
become lost in the corporation and corporations are 
said to have no soul, conscience or responsibility. 
The same greedy, selfish power that rules in the 
business world seeks to get control of all educational 
institutions and of the professions and limit their 
number to the wealthy class. 
Allopathy, through its general organization of the 
A. M. A., is opposed to every system of healing or 
treating the sick but its own, and is doing every- 
thing in its power to prevent competition. A clique 
in that body, although in the minority, yet by its 
splendid organization controls the majority. Its 
system consists of a perfect organization of all the 
societies, county, state and national, with a full set 
of organizers and promoters in each state, who work 
together under the direction of the clique. Its 
influence thus becomes far-reaching and aims to 
compel every physician in the land either to join the 
association or quit doing business. 
The independent school of medicine which desires 
to continue a separate existence, finds it imperative 
that all of its members must unite in a counter organi- 122 
Activities of a Lifetime 
zation to resist such oppression and "fight fire with 
fire." This emergency is what brought about the 
reorganization of Eclecticism in a closer affiliation of 
the several state societies with the national body, and 
is the chief reason for our being here today. It is 
highly important that all loyal Eclectics stand together 
in this crisis and present a solid front to the enemy. 
Standing alone counts for but little in such a struggle 
for liberty and independence. It is only by uniting 
our individual units throughout the land and acting 
together in unison through the National Association 
that we can ever hope to measure up to our full 
strength and maintain our standard. The work of 
reorganization has progressed rapidly and is about 
completed, and success seems to be assured. If 
anyone among us is in doubt as to what he is or 
where he stands, or is of that half-baked, nondescript 
"I don't know what I am" kind of an Eclectic, it is 
high time that he be immediately reconverted or 
sent where he belongs. 
Any enterprise that is a success must be properly 
managed. If your private business is permitted to 
run itself, or is managed by an enemy, it is certain 
to fail. The same is true of Eclecticism if it is con- 
ducted on a similar basis. The thing that is most President's Address 
123 
needed is being done, standing together in behalf of 
our own interests and fighting the common foe. 
Nothing delights Allopathy so much as when it does 
things to its rivals. If it can create any disturbance 
in our ranks and lose us a college, or cause dissatis- 
faction and discord among the members of our state 
societies and get them to pull at cross purposes with 
the National Association, the machine is only too 
well pleased with its work. Our association repre- 
sents the strength of Eclecticism in the nation, and 
the officers are its authorized agents to see that its 
business is properly done. These men are worthy 
and deserve your utmost confidence and need your 
earnest support to give them success. If anyone 
here is in doubt or is pessimistic, suspect your enemy 
if you must, but believe and trust your friends. Your 
officers are striving to improve conditions, and if they 
make mistakes rest assured that they are not inten- 
tional. When the new order of things is established 
and every Eclectic becomes an earnest and active 
worker for the cause, it will be a glad day for 
Eclecticism. The strength of an army does not rest 
wholly in numbers, but much depends upon the 
fighting quality of its soldiers who will stand in the 
face of the enemy and receive unflinchingly the shock 124 
Activities of a Lifetime 
of battle. Cowards and skulkers are no help in such 
a crisis, and the sooner they are lost the better it is 
for the loyal fighting soldiers. 
EDUCATION 
Judging from results, there seems to be something 
radically wrong with both the objects and methods of 
teaching. There is even much difference of opinion 
as to what education really consists of. As long ago 
as the seventeenth century, William Penn wrote on 
the education of youth, and said: "We are in pain 
to make them scholars, but not men. To talk rather 
than to know, which is true canting." In 1863, 
Thomas L. Eddy, the noted Methodist divine, de- 
livered an address at the commencement exercises of 
the University of Iowa, in which he remarked, "Next 
to the question of what becomes of all the pins, is 
the question of what becomes of our premium college 
graduates." Only recently Charles W. Eliot, retired 
president of Harvard College, stated in substance that 
a five-foot shelf of selected books, diligently read and 
studied, was sufficient to give a man a liberal educa- 
tion. These quotations show the different opinions of 
men at various periods in our history on the subject 
of education and denote that the standard of perfec- President's Address 
125 
tion is far from being unanimous. Much time and 
many subjects, as well as much literary junk, are 
included in the average course of instruction. Every 
curriculum contains some useless material and no 
single schedule can be constructed that will fit 
perfectly the needs of each pupil. The elementary 
branches are apt to be slighted and too much time 
is devoted to finishing, which is but a poor veneer 
to cover up existing defects. How common it is, even 
among educated people, to find those who do not 
write or speak the English language correctly, while 
spelling has become one of the lost arts. 
In all education the rudiments are always impor- 
tant, but are often slighted, to the irreparable damage 
of the pupil. The time that should be devoted to 
essentials is given to foolish fads that may please the 
vanity of the teacher, but are of no real benefit to 
the student. This condition is as true of medicine 
as it is of education in general, and is to be deplored 
as it wastes valuable time and squanders hard-earned 
cash. A course of study should be selected that is 
adapted to the pupil in the direction of his natural 
bent; and knowledge must be mixed with common 
sense in order to get the best results. 
Education is being conducted more and more on 126 
Activities of a Lifetime 
the monopolistic or corporation plan. Vast sums 
of money are spent in buildings, endowment and 
equipment, and because the institution looks big its 
popularity seems to grow with its size. Influence, 
which means more money, is steadily going into these 
large institutions, until they have grown to be top- 
heavy and unwieldy. The purpose is to reduce the 
number of colleges by increasing their size and 
limiting the product. Money, indeed, is a great 
power and of great value when sanely used in all 
the affairs of life, but it is not everything and should 
not be worshipped supremely as was the golden calf. 
When education means only mere show or material 
gain, it has missed its mark and begins to decline. 
Such is the history of great wealth among all nations 
since the world began and it keeps repeating itself. 
The smaller college does more good and better work 
in proportion to its size than does the university. In 
proof of this assertion, note the fact, which is fre- 
quently seen, that the smart professor in our large 
institutions is nearly always a graduate of some small 
college. Money by itself cannot accomplish every- 
thing, but to become really effective it must be accom- 
panied by brains. Wealth is often more of a 
hindrance than a help, as its possession removes the President's Address 
127 
incentive or necessity to work, and we all know very 
well that "there is no excellence without great labor." 
THE POOR BOY 
Abraham Flexner, of the Rockefeller Foundation, 
in his report speaks flippantly of the poor boy as not 
being worth a thought. He says, "It is clear that 
the poor boy has no right to go into a profession for 
which he is not willing to obtain adequate prepara- 
tion," and might as well have added that the poor 
boy has no right to live, anyhow. This statement not 
only shows prejudice, which is ignorance, but is also 
a misstatement of fact. When he talks like that he 
slanders the best men that ever lived, who started 
poor in life. The boy who has an ambition to engage 
in a profession is not only willing, but anxious, to 
acquire the necessary preliminary preparation to fit 
himself for the higher studies of his profession; but 
from lack of time and money he is not always able 
to acquire such knowledge in the usual manner, but 
succeeds in his own way if he is given half a chance 
and is let alone, by steady work and a fixed determina- 
tion to win. 
It used to be that the poor boy had a chance to 
make something of himself, and how grandly he 128 
Activities of a Lifetime 
succeeded history often records. Abraham Lincoln 
and Thomas A. Edison are only two illustrious 
examples, out of many that could be mentioned of 
successful individual effort, who practically never 
went to school nor even saw the inside of a college, 
yet became world-famous as men of achievement. 
Compared to such men of giant intellect, Mr. Flexner 
is scarcely more than a microbe. His class of gentry 
are never able to earn a living for themselves, but 
are always looking for a string that is tied to.some 
man with plenty of money who will support them. 
Such a connection gives the small man some courage 
and a feeling of much importance and affords him 
the harmless amusement of barking and biting at the 
heels of his superiors. 
Under the modern conditions of society the poor 
boy has but little show and sees nothing ahead but 
degrading drudgery. He cannot engage in any busi- 
ness for himself as he has no capital to invest and 
is unable to compete with the trusts; he is shut out 
of college for the lack of funds to pay his bills and 
cannot enter a profession because of unreasonable 
requirements; and he is even denied the right of 
apprenticeship to learn some useful trade by the 
labor unions. All that he can do is either to become President's Address 
129 
a hobo to wander up and down the earth begging a 
living, or else become a criminal and by committing 
a crime break into jail to spend a lifetime. The rich 
boy, with plenty of money, goes to school but fails 
to appreciate his opportunity. Being reared in 
luxury, he does not care to work or study, and spends 
his time in ease, idleness and pleasure. If he lacks 
anything, he has money and can buy it; but a whistle 
cannot be made out of a pig's tail even if the pig 
has money. 
STANDARDS 
Some general standard of regulation and conduct 
for the physician seems necessary to guard the dual 
interests of the profession and the public. It is not 
the people, however, who ask for medical legislation, 
but the political doctor who needs support and wants 
a job. The question is not so much whether there be 
a standard, but, if adopted, that its provisions be 
equitable to all concerned. When a physician 
assumes the responsibility of prescribing for the sick, 
he should be able to show some authority for doing 
so and give some evidence of his qualifications. 
There are many persons who believe that the system 
of examining boards now in vogue is not the best 
method for establishing a standard. 130 
Activities of a Lifetime 
In such a system there is too much difference 
between the various states, and no two of them agree. 
As it is, the physician who moves from one state to 
another cannot practise until he passes another 
examination and receives a new license. This seems 
unnecessary and discriminates against the experienced 
practitioner, in favor of the young graduate who has 
not yet acquired much practical knowledge. If a 
man has received his license in one state, or is fit to 
practise medicine at all, this right should be recog- 
nized by every state in the Union. But the political 
doctor, who manipulates legislation, does not want 
it that way. His object is to limit the number of 
physicians and hinder the doctor from moving from 
one state to another. The claim is sometimes made 
that there are too many doctors, which may be true 
of the kind who make the complaint, but cannot be 
true where there is competition. These kickers are 
usually failures who cannot meet competition. The 
competent, successful physician does not have to beg 
for a position or a salary, as he is fully able to 
support and take care of himself. 
There must be some plan of reciprocity devised 
which will permit the licensed doctor to practise in 
any state of the Union in which he chooses to live. President's Address 
131 
Many able men in the profession, regardless of 
school, who are in active practice and exceptionally 
skillful and successful physicians, cannot pass a state 
board examination. The subjects that are included 
in such an examination are not of the practical sort- 
the practice of medicine and surgery and the curing 
of the sick-but consist of theoretical and laboratory 
subjects which interest only teachers and research 
men and are of no particular value to the physician. 
Such an examination makes it impossible for the 
practical man to pass the board, which prevents him 
changing his abode with a view of continuing in 
business. Many members of the various state boards 
would fail to pass their own examinations if put to 
the test. It is this obstructive policy which has been 
injected into all modem medical legislation that 
makes it so objectionable. Its purpose is to have 
fewer medical colleges and limit the number of 
graduates and physicians in order to give the 
political doctors a chance. 
It does seem as if there might be a better standard 
fixed for the medical profession than a state board 
examination. The man who holds the diploma of 
any reputable and qualified medical college should 
have his passports to do business anywhere in the 132 
Activities of a Lifetime 
United States. The adoption of this rule would form 
a feasible and just basis for all and nobody could 
be charged with prejudice or unfair dealing. Let 
the colleges be censored, if necessary, only so that 
all are required to do a reputable and square busi- 
ness; give a competent and thorough course in all 
branches that pertain to medicine, and graduate no 
student who does not have merit. After a man has 
once graduated and gotten his diploma, it ought to 
give him permission to practise in any state or com- 
munity in the Union. 
NATIONAL LEAGUE 
We, as Eclectics, are a separate and independent 
school of medicine, but we are not the only one. It 
is as necessary and beneficial to have a variety of 
schools of medicine as it is to have parties in politics 
or sects in religion. Each school, party or sect 
permits the citizen to have a choice, to select what 
he wants and gives him the opportunity to act with 
those of his own way of thinking. This is his con- 
stitutional right under our system of free government, 
of which we are all so proud. Attempts have been 
made to invade and annul this inalienable right. The 
same spirit of monopoly which pervades the com- President's Address 
133 
mercial world is also found in medicine. To establish 
one school of medicine to the exclusion of all others 
would create state medicine, which is just as 
obnoxious and dangerous as is state religion. A 
variety of schools, parties and sects is an advantage, 
as it causes a friendly rivalry by each one striving 
to excel the others, and a healthy competition that 
benefits the majority, which is as it should be, 
especially in a government like ours where majorities 
rule. This exclusive power has been sought after 
many years by the political ring in the A. M. A., 
which it hopes to obtain eventually through state and 
national legislation. 
All of the minor schools of medicine, known as the 
Allies, are opposed to such action on the ground that 
it is class legislation and unconstitutional; but 
neither one of the Allies is strong enough to engage 
the enemy single-handed. It also does not seem to 
be convenient for them to unite their several interests 
in one counter organization. In this crisis a new 
and welcome friend has appeared upon the scene to 
lend a helping hand. The National League for 
Medical Freedom was organized only one short year 
ago as a lay movement in opposition to the offensive 
activity of the A. M. A. to force the Owen's bill 134 
Activities of a Lifetime 
through Congress and establish a Public Health 
Bureau. Owing to the League's timely and energetic 
protest, the bill failed to pass, but it is up again in 
a modified but no less objectionable form, to be 
acted on during the present extra session of Congress. 
That the bill will again be defeated goes without 
saying, now that the people have been warned of 
their danger. If such a bill ever becomes a law, 
it will be a serious menace to liberty and freedom 
in the United States, and will be the entering wedge 
for other objectionable and harmful legislation of 
a like character. 
The scope of the League is nation-wide, and it has 
branch offices in nearly every large city of the Union. 
Its function is to expose and oppose the evil designs 
of the medical trust which it endeavors to fasten upon 
the states and nation; to give publicity to every point 
of interest and teach the people the right and wrong 
of everything that pertains to the subject. It is 
pledged to oppose every attempt to legislate against 
the interests of the people or to rob the citizen of 
his liberty and right to choose his own medical 
adviser. The objects of the League meet exactly our President's Address 
135 
wants, and it behooves us to "pool our issues" and 
"hitch our wagon to a star" that will carry us safely 
and surely to victory. 
CONCLUSION 
In summing up, it can be truly said that Eclecticism 
is in better condition than it has been in many years. 
The incubus o£ apathy and lethargy has been thrown 
off and replaced by a spirit of optimism that augurs 
well for the future. Reorganization has been com- 
pleted with a better feeling in the ranks and a closer 
affiliation of the state societies with the national than 
ever before. Differences that have been a disturbing 
element and a bar to success have been amicably 
settled and stumbling blocks removed. Larger and 
better meetings than usual have been held during the 
year, and an increased zeal and activity manifested 
among the members. A new interest has been 
awakened, smoldering fires rekindled, and the vital 
faith in Eclecticism restored. The slogan, "Once an 
Eclectic, always an Eclectic," is again heard in the 
land. It is almost inconceivable how any Eclectic 
could ever think of changing or becoming anything 136 
Activities of a Lifetime 
else, when he already has the very best there is in 
medicine. 
We can well congratulate one another and rejoice 
together at the favorable turn in Eclectic affairs; and 
let us all here and now pledge ourselves anew in 
loyalty and fidelity to the cause we love. Adaptation of Life to Environment 
MAN WAS MADE for the earth and not the 
earth for man. The greater must include the 
lesser and the process cannot be successfully reversed. 
The earth was made long before man appeared who 
was then created to fit his environment upon the 
earth. 
The earth is only an atom in space which is the 
most stupendous and staggering fact in nature. 
Space is something so vast that it is incomprehensible 
to the finite mind of man and, like eternity, is 
without beginning or end. 
As potent and versatile a force as we know 
electricity to be, it is no stretch of the imagination 
to say that it is existent and active throughout the 
universe and is the one agent that furnishes the heat, 
light and power of the revolving worlds in space. 
Gravity is a form of electric energy (electro mag- 
netism) that attracts all objects within a given radius 
toward a common center; and balances the stars and 
keeps them in place. 
The earth makes one complete revolution on its 
axis every twenty-four hours, which makes it seem 138 
Activities of a Lifetime 
as if we stood upon our feet one-half of the time 
and upon our heads the other half. If this be so, 
we are not conscious of the fact because of the 
influence of gravity that holds us in our proper 
relation to the earth. 
There is really no up or down upon the earth, as 
it is not flat, but round and changing its position 
continually, so that the perpendicular affects only 
the individual object in its relation to its immediate 
surroundings. If we were consciously affected by 
the change of position, we would have the sensations 
of a man standing on his head, which would cause a 
serious disturbance in the action of the vital functions 
and soon cause death. 
Nature has wisely made provision for such action 
not to produce any unpleasant or injurious effects. 
Every living thing has been harmoniously adapted 
to its own environment for some useful purpose. 
Whenever Nature's plans are interrupted and a 
cataclysm occurs, it is merely an unimportant incident 
in the cosmic scheme. She quickly heals the breach 
and continues in her regular course as if nothing had 
happened. 
The endless variety of life that is found upon the 
earth is startling and something wonderful to Adaptation of Life to Environment 
139 
contemplate. All life is of the same essence but is 
manifested in a variety of forms. Of the principles 
of life, per se, we know absolutely nothing. During 
all the ages of the past, it has eluded discovery and, 
judging the future by the past, it always will. Life 
is Nature's deep secret that is not for man to know, 
and both its coming in and going out are equally 
obscure and mysterious. 
Every day we meet in the open many kinds of 
life, and seeing them often makes them familiar and 
common, so that they fail to impress us. Only the 
unusual and rare things of life attract our attention 
and we are forever hunting something new and 
curious. We might find the common things in 
Nature just as wonderful as are the rare if we would 
only stop and think. The lowest form of infinitesimal 
life is just as perfect in its organism and action as 
is the highest type of life. 
The reason for our not understanding animals any 
better than we do is because of our ignorance and 
prejudice, and we would think more kindly of them 
if we knew them better. The inferior animals, as 
we are pleased to call them, are just as wonderful 
in their anatomical structure and physiological action 
as is man, and they are even his superiors in some 140 
Activities of a Lifetime 
respects since they know and do some things that 
man does not know and cannot do. It would at 
least be nothing more than right to give to animals 
such credit as they deserve instead of denying them 
everything as is generally done. 
There are manifold intelligences just as there are 
many forms of life and each kind is sufficient unto 
itself. All animals live in a little world of their own 
which they know and understand. They have a 
language or at least some means of communicating 
with one another, even if man does not understand 
them. We profess to know them but only speak of 
them out of our ignorance. Man is apt to assume 
wisdom that he does not possess and says by his 
actions, if not in so many words, that what he does 
not know is not worth knowing. 
There are many things in life about which we 
may believe much and know very little, and because 
of our lack of knowledge we often err grievously in 
judgment. We need an excuse to hide our ignorance 
and grudgingly give to animals credit for possessing 
instinct but deny that they have any intelligence or 
reason. They have our five senses and many of the 
mental faculties are alike common to both man and 
beast, such as love, hate, fear, joy, anger, jealousy, Adaptation of Life to Environment 
141 
imitation, memory; yes, and sometimes even reason. 
An animal can be taught like a child in many things 
and shows by its actions what it thinks of the treat- 
ment it receives. In recent years there has been a 
closer study of animal nature with a change for the 
better showing a growing sentiment in their favor. 
In the beginning the earth was entirely covered 
with water and enshrouded in darkness by thick 
clouds of vapor that hung in the sky. After long 
ages and many changes, the earth cooled sufficiently 
to permit the presence of life, which then appeared, 
first in the water and afterwards upon the dry land. 
It required countless ages to fit the earth for the 
habitation of living things, but as soon as the condi- 
tions were right, life sprang into being. All life 
has its origin in water and is, therefore, water bom. 
Oxygen is necessary to all animal existence and is 
obtained either from air or water. Man is no 
exception to the rule and, although he has passed 
beyond the all-water stage and reached a high state 
of development, even yet he distinctly shows his 
aquatic origin by living exclusively in water during 
his nine months of fetal life. 
All animals are not suited to the same environment, 
and often exist under diverse or opposite conditions. 142 
Activities of a Lifetime 
In the case of fish, some live wholly in salt water 
while others live entirely in fresh water. However, 
there are exceptions when salt water fish make brief 
excursions into fresh water without harm, as in the 
case of the salmon during the spawning season. The 
eel, also, is born in the ocean but emigrates to fresh 
water streams. Life can only live and flourish in 
environment for which it was created and adapted. 
Amphibious animals like the frog live both in 
water and on dry land. While the frog remains a 
tadpole it functions as a fish, but soon changes into 
a land-going animal. It loses its tail by absorption 
and develops legs instead of fins, which enable it 
to creep and hop. The gills which extracted oxygen 
from the water are replaced by real lungs that breathe 
and extract oxygen from the air. Many marvelous 
changes occur in Nature that seem like miracles, 
because they are unusual, and we do not understand 
them. 
Deep sea dredging has brought to light much new 
and curious life. The abysmal depths of the ocean 
are pitch dark and almost cold enough to freeze ice 
owing to the flow of cold water from the Arctic 
Ocean to the equator. It was thought for a long 
time that in this dark and cold underworld of water Adaptation of Life to Environment 
143 
no life could exist, but investigation has found it to 
be teeming with interesting life. Many kinds of fish 
of strange forms and bright colors move about 
through the water in perfect comfort. The weight 
of ocean water at a depth of 2500 fathoms is two and 
one-half tons to the square inch, and that increases 
with depth. An ordinary fish would be crushed by 
this enormous weight, but the abysmal fish is so 
organized that it receives no injury. Its tissues are 
soft and porous and freely permeated by water, so 
that the animal is practically a part of the water which 
surrounds it. However, when one of these fishes rises 
out of its natural zone, it loses its self-control and 
shoots rapidly upward to its death. The reduced 
pressure liberates a gas that fills the tissues and 
causes the fish to swell up and explode. They are 
mostly without eyes and therefore blind, but have a 
fine sense of touch and feel their way automatically. 
Some of them are endowed with an auto-lighting 
apparatus of special organs which produces a lumines- 
cence that serves the purpose of eyes and enables them 
tn find their way and take their prey. 
It appears to be just as dangerous for a shore fish 
to descend into great depths as it is for a deep water 
fish to rise to the surface. Every variety of fish is 144 
Activities of a Lifetime 
adapted to its own sphere of action and cannot change 
its habitat with impunity, which is also true of all 
animals. 
When a whale fills its lungs with air and "sounds," 
its body is subjected to a considerable increase of 
pressure that is borne mostly by the ribs, and becomes 
dangerous only when the animal dives deep enough. 
Several such broken and repaired bones have been 
found in skeletal remains, which show that denizens 
of the briny deep, like land animals, are sometimes 
the victims of serious accidents. 
The atmosphere in which we live is much lighter 
than water and exerts a pressure of fifteen pounds to 
the square inch at sea level, and diminishes with 
altitude. An adult man supports between twelve and 
fourteen tons of air as he moves about upon the 
earth, but without feeling any sense of inconvenience. 
The atmosphere is his natural element and necessary 
to his existence. 
Atmospheric pressure exerts an important influence 
on life as a regulator of the vital functions. Its 
effect upon the human body may be likened to the 
action of the governor on a steam engine or the 
pendulum of a clock. When this control is lost, the Adaptation of Life to Environment 
145 
machinery of the body runs wild and rapidly goes 
to smash. It acts as a sedative to the brain and 
nervous system and soothes and quiets the action of 
the vital functions, which prevents them wearing out. 
When the atmospheric pressure is reduced, the action 
of all the vital organs is accelerated, the heart 
becomes excited, the pulse rapid and the respirations 
more frequent. 
Atmospheric pressure is an important factor in 
climatology and can be used with benefit, either as 
a sedative or a stimulant, according to the effect that 
is desired. The low altitude of sea level, or below, 
has a sedative effect, while a high mountain altitude 
acts as a stimulant. Nervous persons who live in 
the high mountains often have to descend to sea level 
to get relief from their nervousness. Persons who 
are afflicted with any kind of organic disease should 
not venture into a high altitude, as it would be 
dangerous by overtaxing the affected organs. 
In times past it was believed that the rapid 
breathing which was experienced in mountain 
climbing was due to a lack of oxygen in the air, but 
later experiments proved that the same proportion of 
oxygen is present in the air everywhere at all times. 146 
Activities of a Lifetime 
The cause of more rapid breathing at an elevation is 
because the lungs absorb less oxygen under high 
pressure than under low pressure, to supply the 
physiological needs of the body. After some time 
the lungs become accustomed to the change and 
normal respiration is re-established. The atmospheric 
pressure at sea level suits most people best and these 
regions are also the most populated. 
The entire trend of civilization is to alter conditions 
by changing things. Many people who live in the 
country want to move into the city and but few 
city folks ever care to move into the country. Thus 
it is that there is a constant stream of people flowing 
into the city from the outside where they become 
absorbed by the mass and are lost as individuals, 
unless they are distinguished in some way. In a few 
generations the family likewise disappears and is as 
though it had never been. Artificiality in any line, 
that may seem to be good for the time being, is of 
no permanent benefit but tends toward the deteriora- 
tion and destruction of the human race. 
Nature has done things right without help from 
the beginning of time and will continue to do so as Adaptation of Life to Environment 
147 
long as time lasts. The feeble assistance that man 
can give her amounts to little or nothing and is likely 
to do more harm than good. The truest thing in the 
universe is Nature and if Nature is not true there is 
no truth. 
Civilized man is a very destructive creature. He 
goes marching up and down the earth, ripping up 
the ground, felling forest trees, leveling mountains 
and filling up valleys in his ambition to conquer the 
earth, and calls it progress. He makes a plaything of 
life as if it were a toy and tortures and kills every 
living thing that crosses his path. By his greater 
knowledge and power he is made capable of doing 
much more harm than was done by primitive man. 
The savagery, brutality and vandalism that was de- 
veloped by the World War exceeds anything known to 
history; yet it was all done in the name of civilization, 
science and culture. Compared to such destruction 
primitive life was a paradise and aboriginal man an 
angel. By the world's record man's last estate is 
worse than his first and what it may yet be, who can 
tell? Life does not need man's puny help and flour- 
ishes in spite of much inteference. In the last analy- 
sis life existed from the beginning and will work out 
its own destiny. 148 
Activities of a Lifetime 
True greatness in man is inherent and cannot be 
manufactured or made to order. Great men usually 
have a humble origin and are self made. Although 
we do not know how Nature operates, we know that 
she is reliable and in every crisis of life the right man 
is always found to take command. The Fresh Air Fiend 
SAN ANOMALOUS PRODUCT of our mod- 
ern civilization is the nondescript character 
known as the Fresh Air Fiend. He may be of either 
sex and is often a woman. He is altogether selfish 
and his one desire seems to be to please himself with- 
out the least regard for the comfort and happiness of 
others. 
There is nothing better in life than fresh air and 
plenty of it; but all persons are not constituted alike 
and are often affected differently by the same treat- 
ment. What gives health and happiness to one may 
cause sickness and death to another. Because of this 
difference in people, it is necessary to consider the 
comfort of all without doing anyone an injury. 
The winter season is the time of year when the 
fresh air fiend gets in his most deadly work. The 
cold blasts of winter afford an opportunity for doing 
the greatest damage and making everybody feel 
miserable. If the "fiend" would only herd by him- 
self he could do no harm, but in our complex 
civilization it is impossible for anyone to live only 
for himself. 150 
Activities of a Lifetime 
It is not merely the wanting of fresh air that makes 
the fresh air fiend such a terror, but his selfish and 
unfair method of getting it. Whenever he enters a 
room he immediately feels smothered and must have 
fresh air or die. Then, without asking "by your 
leave," he proceeds to open all the doors and windows, 
regardless of the state of the weather outside, or 
what effect the cold air drafts will have upon others 
who may be present in the room. 
He acts without sense or reason and "hogs" it all 
as if he owned the earth; and the only way to suc- 
cessfully suppress him is to caress him with a club. 
It is no sign that a room needs ventilating just because 
the fresh air fiend says so; and if the room really 
needs it, there is a more sane and safe way of doing 
it than by his arbitrary method. 
It is generally conceded that every living room, 
street car, church or public hall should be properly 
ventilated, but that is not always an easy thing to 
do without causing inconvenience and discomfort to 
some of its occupants. In every assembly of this 
kind there is always a variety of people present, and 
among them are some that are weak, invalid and 
old, who cannot endure a sudden or extreme change 
of temperature with impunity. If such persons are The Fresh Air Fiend 
151 
subjected to drafts of cold air, particularly if they 
are in a state of perspiration, they are liable to catch 
a cold that may result in some serious sickness, or 
even end in death. 
If there are any persons who deserve more con- 
sideration than others, it is those that are feeble and 
sensitive to changes. From a humanitarian stand- 
point, if for no other reason, the strong ought to be 
willing to help bear the infirmities of the weak. 
Health is of more importance than the gratification 
of any foolish whim or fancy. 
Scenes of selfishness and ill-breeding are of 
common occurrence and may be seen almost daily 
on trolley cars. The modern street car is so con- 
structed that a portion of the car is left open and 
another part is inclosed, which makes a combination 
that is well adapted to the health and comfort of the 
traveling public. By this arrangement those who 
want plenty of fresh air can get it by sitting outside 
where the wind blows, while the more delicate and 
sensitive can find protection from the wind by sitting 
inside the car. 
But what does the fresh air fiend invariably do 
on boarding a car? Instead of taking a seat on the 
outside where he rightfully belongs, he marches 152 
Activities of a Lifetime 
straight away inside the car and plants himself in a 
seat beside a window. He lets the door stand open be- 
hind him, as if he had been taught that doors were not 
made to shut, and opens every window wide to the 
sky, when the car is quickly filled with death-dealing 
drafts. By the general discomfort which he creates 
he makes himself an unmitigated nuisance and 
deserves to be put off the car. There should be a 
law passed to compel such a freak either to sit in 
his proper place on the outside, or, if he goes inside, 
to behave himself and act decently. 
There is a great difference between ventilation and 
cold air drafts. Moving about or exercising in the 
open air, even when the wind blows, is less liable to 
produce a cold than when standing or sitting still in 
a draft. When proper ventilation is practised, there 
is an almost imperceptible movement of the air that 
is scarcely felt and does no harm; but to stand or sit 
in a cold draft before an open door or window is 
almost certain to result in a cold. 
If anyone at a public meeting feels the need of 
fresh air and must have it, he had better leave the 
room and go home rather than open windows and 
doors indiscriminately, which would not only 
jeopardize his own health but also endanger the The Fresh Air Fiend 
153 
health of the community by exposing those present 
to dangerous air drafts. 
I once witnessed the opening of a window by a 
fresh air fiend that produced other than the usual 
effect upon a large congregation in a church. The 
building in which it happened was well aired and did 
not need ventilation. Soon after the service began, 
a member of the choir who had the habit and could 
not resist the impulse to do the wrong thing at the 
right time, arose and opened a window back of the 
pulpit, which let in a blinding stream of sunlight 
into the eyes of the congregation, that caused torture 
to the audience, all because of the stupidity of 
one man. 
It has been said that nature abhors a vacuum. 
Perhaps the nearest approach to a vacuum would be 
a house, if it could really be made empty and air- 
tight, which it cannot, as it is filled with air, if nothing 
else, at all times. 
By an act of diffusion air is present everywhere 
and in every house. It filters through every crack 
and crevice and circulates freely both inside as well 
as outside of a house, whether we aim to let it in or 
try to keep it out. The winds that blow, together with 
the expansion and contraction of the atmosphere 154 
Activities of a Lifetime 
caused by variations in temperature, keep the air in 
motion and prevent its becoming stagnant and stale. 
Getting fresh air need not worry us in the least, as 
it finds and follows us wherever we go. 
There are persons who do not understand the nature 
of air and imagine it is absent where it is present. 
They appoint themselves agents to regulate the air 
and make it their business to open doors and windows 
that are not their concern. Facts show that people 
who live in unventilated houses are just as healthy and 
live as long as those who live out of doors. I have 
observed its operation in both directions and have not 
been able to discover any difference. If it were not 
so we would not have to build houses but could live 
in the open like savages. 
People get cranky notions on many subjects, but 
on none more than on air and diet. At one time, 
not so very long ago, night air was considered to be 
a deadly poison, presumably because of the dark (?), 
and futile efforts were made to keep it out of the 
houses. Just where to draw the line of demarcation 
between day and night air was difficult to determine, 
so the practice was abolished. Who cares whether 
we breathe day or night air, as long as everybody 
has to breathe both kinds of air, in order to live? The Fresh Air Fiend 
155 
We have to take the atmosphere as we find it and 
cannot always pick our choice. Neither is the air 
always the same as it is liable to many changes. If 
there is any difference in quality, shut-in air should 
be purer and sweeter than outside air. As a result 
of our modem civilization, the air is often polluted 
and laden with impurities such as dust, smoke and 
noxious gases, that are both disagreeable and 
dangerous but which we cannot escape even when we 
take the utmost care to avoid them. It is so easy to 
"strain at a gnat and swallow a camel." 
The following extract is taken from a book written 
by William T. Homaday, our greatest living 
naturalist, on "The Minds and Manners of Wild 
American Animals," that is to the point: 
"On this subject there is a strange diversion of 
reasoning power between the wild animals of cold 
countries and the sleeping porch advocates of today. 
Even the most warm coated of the fur-bearing 
animals, such as the bears, foxes, martins and minks, 
also the burrowing rodents, take great pains to den 
up in winter just as far from the 'fresh air' of the 
cold outdoors as they can attain by deep denning or 
burrowing. The prairie dog not only ensconces him- 
self in a cul-de-sac at the end of a hole fourteen 156 
Activities of a Lifetime 
feet deep and long, but as winter sets in he also 
tightly plugs up the mouth of his den with moist 
earth. When sealed up in his winter den, the black 
bear of the north draws his supply of fresh air 
through a hole about one inch in diameter, or less. 
"But the human devotees of fresh air reason in the 
opposite direction. It is now the regular thing for 
mothers to open wide to the freezing air outdoors 
either one or all the windows of a room in which 
their children sleep, giving to each child enough fresh 
air to supply ten full-grown elephants or twenty head 
of horses. And the final word is the 'sleeping porch'! 
"It matters not how deadly damp is the air with 
its 33 degrees of cold, or the velocity of the wind. 
The fresh air must be delivered. The example of 
the fat, heavily furred wild beast is ignored; and I 
just wonder how many people in the United States, 
old and young, have been killed or permanently 
injured by fresh air during the last fifteen years. 
"And furthermore. Excepting the hoofed species, 
it is the universal rule of the wild animals of the cold 
winter zones of the earth that the mother shall keep 
her helpless young close beside her in the home nest 
and keep them warm partly by the warmth of her 
body. The wild fur-clad mother does not warm her The Fresh Air Fiend 
157 
helpless offspring in an isolated cot in a room apart, 
upon a thin mattress and in an atmosphere so cold 
that it is utterly impossible for the poor little body 
and limbs to warm it and keep it warm. Yet many 
human mothers do just that, and some take good 
care to provide a warmer atmosphere for themselves 
than they joyously force upon their helpless infants. 
"No dangerous fads should be forced upon defense- 
less children or animals. 
"A proper amount of fresh air is very desirable, 
but the intake of a child is much less than that of an 
elephant. Besides, if nature had intended that men 
should sleep outdoors in winter, with the moose and 
caribou, we should have been furnished with ruminant 
pelage and fat." The Pace That Kills 
THE ARTIFICIAL LIFE of modern civiliza- 
tion has made great strides during recent years 
in what is known as progress, but at what a terrific 
cost of human life has it been brought about! Every- 
thing goes on with a rush and the wear and tear of 
living machinery is something frightful. The speed 
at which we live is surely the pace that kills. 
The time was when men and women lived 
moderately and modestly and were happy in doing 
so. They obeyed nature's laws and lived natural 
lives. Their daily needs were simple and few and 
their reward was happiness and contentment. When 
we stop and think of those days and compare them 
with the life that is passing now, we are tempted to 
wish for a return of the simple life. 
The things that have happened in the world's 
progress during the past century are truly marvelous 
and wonderful to contemplate. With the introduction 
of steam, gasoline and electric power came speed 
and a mad desire to move rapidly, do things quickly 
and accomplish great results. One invention after 
another was discovered to aid man in compassing 
time and space. But the speed craze does not stop The Pace That Kills 
159 
at machinery, which represents only the lower, 
material plane, but has also invaded the higher mental 
and moral spheres. From a pure desire to go steady 
and do right, man has accepted the speed idea along 
all lines without regard to consequences. His striv- 
ings have become more and more sordid and selfish, 
culminating in the one ambition to become immensely 
rich and causing him to drift far from his high ideals 
of honesty and integrity. 
The popular craze is to amass wealth and to 
accumulate dollars in such numbers as to make for- 
tunes that amount to hundreds of millions. Such a 
piling up of great riches is all wrong, even if it 
were done legally, as it destroys the balance of 
society and widens the breach between the rich and 
the poor. In this unnatural and unreasonable 
scramble for money, men have changed in many 
ways, but the one thing to be deplored most is the 
loss of honesty. The man who is out only for the 
almighty dollar has no conscience and will stoop to 
anything to accomplish his end. He does not hesitate 
to deceive his best friend if he can profit by doing 
so, and his methods for acquiring money are some- 
times more reprehensible than those of the common 
thief. Men who occupy high positions commit such 160 
Activities of a Lifetime 
acts of perfidy repeatedly and seem to think nothing 
of it. They have neither compunction of conscience 
nor feeling of pity for those they have ruined, and 
their only concern seems to be how to evade the law 
and keep out of jail. This crazy grasping after 
money leads to many evils and tends to form 
dangerous monopolies by the combination and con- 
centration of large capital. Monopoly kills compe- 
tition and competition is the life of trade. When a 
man accumulates millions, like Rockefeller or 
Carnegie, dollars that he does not need and cannot 
use, he puts out of business and impoverishes thou- 
sands of small traders and dealers. His money may 
eventually be given to charity but that does not help 
those who have been robbed. Any man who 
uses unscrupulous methods to increase his wealth, 
whatever his standing may be, is an undesirable 
citizen. To check this evil extravagance, a legal limit 
should be put upon the amount of money any one 
individual may acquire. 
The poor laboring man envies his rich neighbor 
and is apt to think that he owes him a grudge and 
tries to get even with him for some real or fancied 
wrong, and joins a union that he may the more 
successfully combat his enemy when labor and capital The Pace That Kills 
161 
clash. Union bossism is just as bad as corporate 
greed. Each tries to take an unfair advantage of the 
other and get something for nothing. Both are 
wrong and no two wrongs can make one right. Unless 
there is a speedy return to sanity and honesty in 
business, the nation is in great danger of anarchy 
and ruin. 
The advent of steam and electricity changed the 
speed standard. Prior to their use, man gauged speed 
by his own gait and had the right of way on all 
occasions. His standard of speed was slightly in- 
creased by the pace of old Dobbin, the family horse; 
that is now also taboo. The horse vehicle went out 
after the steam engine and trolley cars, the bicycle, 
motorcycle and automobile, and lastly the flying 
machine, came into use. The great speed of these 
various means of rapid transit on wheels, moving 
rapidly in every direction across the landscape, both 
on country roads and city streets, has caused such a 
confusion and menace to pedestrians that it is no 
longer safe to travel on foot and alone on any public 
highway. This increased speed was perhaps inevitable 
as a factor of modern progress, but the large toll of 
life that it exacts is appalling. 162 
Activities of a Lifetime 
To adequately meet the new requirements of speed 
and make it reasonably safe, a school of instruction 
is necessary for people to attend, to re-educate the 
senses and fit them for existing conditions. The great 
change which has been made from slow to rapid 
motion by the new methods of travel makes it impera- 
tive for people to modernize and readjust themselves 
to the new order of things. This is more easily said 
than done as it is about as hard to unlearn the old as 
it is to learn the new. Particularly is this true of old 
people who are apt to take too much for granted and 
do not take kindly to changes. They are naturally 
inclined to fall behind in the race with time and the 
progress of events and, more than ever, need to use 
caution. With advancing years, too, the senses be- 
come dulled and thus old folks fail to notice the 
things that pass by as they once did in youth. Even 
after every precaution has been taken, it is sometimes 
impossible to escape the rush of vehicles, and the 
helpless victim is caught and ground beneath the 
wheels of the modern juggernaut. 
It behooves everyone who travels to heed the 
warning sign at the railroad crossing to "Stop! 
Look!! Listen!!!" and then wait some. First be 
sure you are right and then go ahead. Bird's-eye view of the Munk cattle ranch in Railroad Pass, Wilcox, Arizona The Munk Cattle Ranch 
Jgft WHEN THE MUNK BROTHERS located 
their cattle ranch in Arizona in 1882, it was in 
the days of free grass and the open range upon the 
Public Domain. It was also during the years of 
Apache strife, when human life was very uncertain 
in that dangerous country. Except for the presence 
of hostile Indians, conditions seemed to be favorable 
for doing a successful cattle business, and we went 
ahead on the saying, "Nothing ventured, nothing 
gained." 
Railroad Pass, where the ranch is located, was 
named by Lieut. J. G. Parke, back in the fifties, while 
he had charge of a surveying party to find a practical 
route for a railroad to the Pacific Coast. Its long, 
gentle slope and easy grade made it desirable for 
such an enterprise, and the Southern Pacific Railroad 
was built upon this route in 1880. 
The Pass is bounded on the east by the San Simon 
Valley, on the west by the Sulphur Spring Valley, 
on the south by the Dos Cabezas Mountains, a spur 
of the Chiricahua Range, and on the north by the 
Graham, or Pinaleno Mountains. It lies in the heart 
of the Apache country that was once the home and the 164 
Activities of a Lifetime 
hunting ground of one of the most savage and 
ferocious tribes of Indians that ever lived. The 
three great chiefs of the Apache tribe were Coloradas 
Mangas, Cochise and Geronimo, who, with a score 
or more of minor chiefs, kept the country in a state 
of terrorism for many years. 
Indian trails crisscrossed the country in every 
direction, but led mainly north and south from the 
Apache stronghold in the Mogollon and Chiricahua 
Mountains, down into Mexico, where the Indians made 
frequent forays to replenish their supplies, and to 
steal horses and cattle. After the United States took 
possession of the country, the Government built a 
chain of forts that extended from the Mexican border, 
north, into the Mogollon and White Mountains. These 
forts were named Huachuca, Bowie, Grant, Thomas, 
San Carlos and Apache, which since the war have 
been abandoned or converted to other purposes. The 
forts or posts were established for the use of the 
frontier army to fight the Indians and to protect 
travelers and settlers who came into the country. 
At that time the land was thinly settled because 
of its savage scourge. Some farms and ranches were 
started in the valleys and a few hardy prospectors 
lived in the mountains. Houses were few and far The Munk Cattle Ranch 
165 
between and distance was seemingly endless. Every- 
thing was yet primitive and new and nature unspoiled. 
A horseman could ride all day long in any direction 
without meeting a single soul or seeing any house 
or fence. 
The grass stood knee-deep everywhere and was 
stirred into rippling waves by a gentle breeze over a 
broad meadow, as far as the eye could see. Game of 
all kinds was plentiful and roamed the plains and 
mountains unmolested. After the cattle came, deer 
and antelope sometimes mingled with the herds and 
grazed as tame and contented as if nothing new had 
happened. There was plenty of grass but water was 
extremely scarce. The land looked inviting but from 
lack of water was unoccupied. Seeing the beauty of 
the place and the abundance of grass everywhere, it 
was decided to locate the ranch on this favored spot, 
and take a chance on finding water. 
We located our first camp in the foothills of the 
Dos Cabezas Mountains where there was plenty of 
grass and wood. In looking about to see what more 
we could find, we discovered several small springs 
and wet weather brooks, that furnished sufficient 
water for present needs. To our great disappoint- 
ment, these water sources proved to be active only 166 
Activities of a Lifetime 
during the rainy season and soon dried up. Several 
wells were dug in the hope of striking a permanent 
flow of water, but without success. Under these dis- 
couraging circumstances it appeared as if a ranch 
could not be made there. No chain is stronger than 
its weakest link, and even with plenty of grass but 
no water the cattle would have to perish. 
However, not to be thwarted in our purpose, like 
others who, we were told, had failed when they 
started on a similar quest, further diligent search in 
a new direction resulted, fortunately, in the discovery 
of an underground spring that came near the surface 
but did not flow on top of the ground. Here a fine 
stream of water was encountered at a shallow depth 
by digging. Getting such a flow of water out of 
perfectly dry ground seemed like a miracle and was 
as surprising as making water gush from a rock by 
striking it with a stick, as is told in fairy tales. 
The big spring is located at the point of the 
Pinaleno Mountains, on the north side of the Pass, 
and fully twelve miles distant from where the search 
for water first began. It is one of the largest and 
best springs in that entire region, and furnishes an 
ample supply of water for every ranch need. The 
weather never affects it, neither does its flow ever The Munk Cattle Ranch 
167 
change; and it has watered thousands of head of stock 
in the driest seasons. Its unvarying, steady flow and 
unchanging temperature of seventy degrees Fahren- 
heit throughout the year, denotes that it comes from 
a deep and far off source to acquire these qualities. 
The water is perfectly pure and as soft as rain water. 
It is a wholesome beverage and suitable for every 
purpose. 
Upon the hill above the spring is found plenty of 
evidence to show that the place had once been 
inhabited. There are no structural ruins but 
quantities of arrowheads, stone axes, metates, rubbing 
stones and broken pottery have been found, to show 
that the place was once occupied. It must have been 
a favorite resort for the native tribes in their migra- 
tory wanderings long ago. From some unknown 
cause the spring became covered up and lost and 
was rediscovered as described. 
Here the ranch buildings and corrals were located 
and have been the center of ranch activities ever 
since. As the ranch covered a wide territory, other 
lesser outlying camps were made near springs, and 
water holes where storm water collects in ponds 
during the rainy season. Each of these camps has 
a small cabin and corral that is used by the cowboys 168 
Activities of a Lifetime 
when absent from the home ranch on emergency 
work, or for rounding up and branding calves. 
In the beginning, when the work was not pressing, 
and while we were awaiting the arrival of cattle, the 
men who were idle went into the hills prospecting for 
gold, to kill time. One of the men who had dug 
himself into a hole, hearing a noise above his head 
looked up and saw several Indian faces peering down 
at him. His unhappy fate might have been sealed 
then and there but by good luck it happened that the 
uninvited guests were a detail of friendly Apache 
scouts who were under the command of an army 
officer, trailing some broncho bucks who had left 
their reservation without permission, and were on 
their way to Mexico. The man was badly scared 
but the adventure ended without any harm being done. 
Incidents that are either amusing, serious or tragic 
are liable to happen at any time during the regular 
routine of ranch life. 
The original range cattle were known as Long- 
horns, on account of their enormous headgear. The 
horns frequently measured from five to six feet across 
from tip to tip, and were certainly fierce looking 
and dangerous in a fight. They were native wild 
cattle of an inferior grade, brought in from Texas The Munk Cattle Ranch 
169 
and Sonora, and were the only kind of cattle obtain- 
able at that time. They were desert bred and 
accustomed to an arid climate. They had much of 
the nature of a camel and could exist on little food 
and water. A little of this kind of blood is desirable 
in range cattle as it enables them to rustle a living 
while others perish when grass and water are scarce. 
These cattle have been graded up by importing pure 
bred bulls of new breeds, mostly Shorthorns and 
Herefords, until the scrub element has been nearly 
bred out. Herefords, or White Faces, as they are 
commonly called, are now the prevailing type of cattle 
that is seen upon the ranges of the Southwest. 
Being country bred and somewhat familiar with 
farm life, we were, nevertheless, tyros in the range 
cattle business, but willing to learn. Our method 
was to begin in a small way at the bottom of the 
ladder and gradually work up as circumstances and 
experience would dictate. This plan was strictly 
followed from the beginning, and proved to be right, 
as it resulted in success. 
Our first purchase of cattle was obtained under 
difficulties. The only cattle that we could find were 
of poor quality, high priced, far away and hard to 
bring home. A cattle boom was on and everybody 170 
Activities of a Lifetime 
wanted to get into the cattle business at the same 
time. As Mexican cattle were the nearest that we 
could get, we made our first purchase from the 
J. H. Slaughter San Bernardino ranch in Sonora, 
just below the border. They were of the usual 
Longhorn variety and were as wild as deer. 
The market price of a scrub cow at that time was 
thirty dollars, with the calf thrown in if there was 
one. The herd which we bought numbered two 
hundred head, to which aggregation was added a 
remuda of twenty-five cow ponies, for driving the 
cattle home, a distance of one hundred miles, over 
an open country. The creatures were very wild and 
not easy to drive or locate on their new range. After 
considerable trouble, we succeeded in getting them 
home, yet, notwithstanding that they were close 
herded for a time, some of them got away and re- 
turned home to their former range. We gave the 
renegades a hot chase and captured some of them, 
but a few head were lost that we never did find. Once 
cattle get accustomed to a range, they become con- 
tented in their new home and will not stray very far 
away. This herd was bought in 1883 and another 
like it in 1884, also from the Slaughter ranch and 
upon the same terms. The Munk Cattle Ranch 
171 
From that time we bought and sold cattle whenever 
more were needed or there was an opportunity to 
sell. The steers, when sold, were gathered and 
shipped usually in train loads to northern pastures 
and feed lots in the corn producing states, where 
they were matured as beef for the eastern market; 
while the cows and heifers were kept for breeding 
purposes to increase the herd. In this manner the 
cattle were constantly being changed and their 
quality improved. The southern country has a mild, 
warm climate that is favorable for breeding stock, in 
which industry Arizona excels. 
When the market was dull and sales slow, a 
surplus of cattle was certain to accumulate and 
overstock the range. Too many cattle made a 
shortage of feed, when a part, if not all, of the herd 
had to be moved to a new range or disposed of by 
any method that would insure their safety. When 
the country was first opened to cattle during boom 
days, so much stock was rushed in to graze that the 
range was soon overloaded and all of the grass 
cleaned up. The men who saw the grass covered 
plains in the early days of grazing, had no thought 
that the grass could ever entirely disappear under 
cattle any more than under the buffalo, but that very 172 
Activities of a Lifetime 
thing happened and to the surprise of everybody. 
After the hard lesson of overstocking was learned, 
the ranch men were more careful not to let their herds 
grow to an unwieldy size, but sold their surplus cattle 
at any price they could get in time to prevent a 
catastrophe. 
Our one serious loss of cattle was from this cause 
during the early nineties of the last century when 
there was a succession of several dry years. All 
kinds of feed was short and the range heavily over- 
stocked. Without grass, water could not save the 
famished cattle, and as there was no way out of the 
difficulty, many cattle had to die. The feeble old 
cows came straggling in to water after a long journey 
in search of a little grass, looking thin and starved, 
and were too weary and thirsty even to drink after 
they arrived at the spring. They lined up in a row 
at the water trough, which was always brimful and 
overflowing, touched their muzzles to the water and 
drew their heads back with a jerk, as if contact with 
the water hurt their mouths. This performance was 
repeated many times before they began to drink in 
earnest. After getting fairly started, they settled 
down with great gusto to a long steady draught on 
the water, until they were full to bursting. As they The Munk Cattle Ranch 
173 
continued to drink, their flat, empty sides gradually 
swelled out and grew round like a barrel. By the 
time they were ready to quit drinking, they had 
acquired such a load of water that their weak legs 
gave way under the weight, and they sank down in 
their tracks to rise no more. Whenever a cow got 
down on her side in this fashion, she was helpless 
and unable to rise again; neither could she be helped 
up to stand on her feet but expired where she fell. 
Carcasses dotted the corral like a shamble and were 
dragged away into a side canyon, to add more costly 
but useless raw material to the bone yard. 
At that time our range was carrying several thou- 
sand head of cattle and the loss was heavy. After 
the stress was over the decimated herds could have 
been counted by hundreds instead of thousands as 
formerly. The loss of cattle was general, which 
discouraged the ranchmen so much that they were 
as anxious to get out of the business as they had been 
eager to get in only a few short years before, and 
many of them did quit. But we stuck, and by staying 
found out later that our loss was not as serious as 
it seemed to be when it happened, and the difference 
was soon made up by the natural increase in the herd. 174 
Activities of a Lifetime 
Every staple industry has its lean and fat years, 
which is likewise true of the cattle business. At a 
time of depression it is necessary to hold on and wait 
for the return of better days. By a natural law of 
compensation, there is bound to be a reaction after 
every period of depression, and by exercising faith, 
courage and perseverance prosperous days are sure 
to come back. 
Although cattle will sometimes fatten on the open 
range, it is only during an exceptionally good season 
that this can be done with certainty, when there is 
plenty of rain and an abundance of green grass. All 
of the old grass disappeared years ago and it now 
happens only rarely that any of the new grass holds 
over from one year to another. The only grass that 
is now available is what grows each year, and even 
this supply is not always dependable as the rainy 
season is variable, regional and uncertain. Rain may 
be abundant on one section of the range and entirely 
absent in another region, yet both within sight of 
each other. For this and other reasons, it is always 
difficult to guess what the year will bring forth in the 
range country. Even with a scant growth of grass, 
the cattle will manage to pull through the year as 
the gramma grass is very nutritious and a little of it The Munk Cattle Ranch 
175 
will go a long way, especially if it is reinforced by 
browse from the mesquite bushes. However, the 
necessity of taking a chance occurs frequently in the 
range cattle business. There is seldom any hand 
feeding done as it is too expensive and the cattle are 
expected to find their own living or starve. 
The cattle on neighborhood ranches naturally get 
mixed up, running together upon the open range, and 
need identifying marks to distinguish them. For 
this reason every ranch has its separate earmarks and 
brands to enable the rancher to know and claim his 
own. Another difficulty in range work is that when 
cattle are running wild they cannot be counted as 
accurately as when they are in an enclosure. A 
range count, as it is called, is equal to a rough guess. 
Keeping tally of the calves that are branded during 
the year and multiplying the number by three, is as 
nearly a correct count as can be made in a general 
estimate. 
The profit of a herd depends largely upon the size 
of the calf crop, although an increase in the price of 
stock cattle also helps some. The steers are usually 
sold as yearlings but some of the youngsters are apt 
to escape in the first roundup and are picked up 
again at some future time and counted as "twos" 176 
Activities of a Lifetime 
or "threes," according to their age when sent to 
market. For many years the average price of a 
yearling was fifteen dollars, but the selling price has 
dropped as low as six dollars, and, again, has risen 
as high as forty dollars. 
Our fixed rule, from which we have never deviated, 
is not to ship any stock until it is sold and to sell 
only to buyers in the field, who will contract sales 
for delivery upon a fixed date. If there are no buyers 
out, the cattle are held in pasture, to go over until 
the next season, or to die if they must, for want of 
feed. Sales are usually made at so much per head 
for yearling steers, with an additional five dollars 
for "twos" and ten dollars for "threes." 
At the time of gathering, the cattle are required 
to be in good shipping condition, and delivered on a 
designated date at the nearest shipping station on the 
railroad. After they are loaded into the cars, the 
new proprietor takes charge. 
During recent years many changes have taken place 
in the range country. Much new land has been sur- 
veyed and laws have been passed to regulate the 
buying and leasing of public land. Many settlers 
have also come in and located homestead sites which The Munk Cattle Ranch 
177 
they are trying to farm, without much success; but 
the bulk of the land is owned or leased by the cattle 
men. The old style of ranching has ceased and is a 
thing of the past. A few small ranches continue to 
operate but the large ranches have nearly all disap- 
peared. The few that remain have reduced their 
herds and made other changes to meet the require- 
ments of the new regime. Practically all of the land 
is fenced, with the owner in possession. 
The old timers, who were familiar with the arid 
conditions of the range, never dreamed that any 
such changes could ever take place, but they are an 
accomplished fact. What the nestors will be able 
to do with the land is yet to be seen. Pioneering in 
any new country is always attended by difficulties, 
and on the desert where the hardships are particularly 
trying the experiment is extra hazardous. Farmers 
must have water to grow their crops, and in a land 
that is almost rainless and waterless the prospects 
are not flattering. However, there are always 
optimists who are ready to experiment and are willing 
to take a chance on anything that is offered. It is 
this small band of brave and courageous men and 
women who have thus dared, that has pushed back 178 
Activities of a Lifetime 
an unpromising frontier across a continent, reclaimed 
a vast wilderness, and blazed the way for our modern 
civilization. 
In past years our range extended to the horizon 
in every direction, but is now limited to a fenced 
pasture that is seven miles square. It is capable of 
supporting approximately one thousand cows and 
their increase, which in these piping days of high 
taxes and cost of living is enough to worry about. 
A system of iron pipes, cement reservoirs and 
water troughs has been installed, which carries the 
water direct from the spring into each one of the 
half dozen pastures, so that the cattle can drink 
whenever they get thirsty. 
Having the herds segregated and under control in 
fenced pastures has an advantage over the open 
range, in that it simplifies the ranch work, gives the 
cattle better care, and requires fewer cowboys to do 
the work. Another very desirable feature is that the 
owner can give the ranch his personal attention, and 
is independent of selfish neighbors and arbitrary 
cowboys. 
In the fall of 1918, we held our last open range 
round-up, which was attended by the usual variety The Munk Cattle Ranch 
179 
of incidents that go with such a gathering. Sixteen 
cowboys participated in the event and kept things 
moving lively. One day one of the men on dis- 
mounting threw his belt and gun upon the ground, 
when the revolver exploded and shot a bullet through 
his arm. Another man, while riding full tilt after 
cattle, was thrown from his horse and had his collar- 
bone broken. Such accidents are liable to happen 
almost any day in ranch work. 
It has always been a custom of the range for cow- 
boys to carry revolvers, presumably for self-defense 
in an emergency. Some of them were quite expert 
with a gun and were known as gunmen because they 
were "quick on the draw." In the early days when 
the country was new and wild, it was necessary to go 
armed, but that excuse no longer exists. It is a use- 
less and dangerous practice for a man to carry a gun 
and the habit should be abandoned. More harm 
results from the careless use of firearms than from 
any other accident. In all of my travels through the 
Indian country I never carried a revolver, and a rifle 
only a few times when there was grave danger from 
Indians, when the hostiles were out on the warpath 
raiding the country. 180 
Activities of a Lifetime 
After the fighting Apaches were subjugated and 
outlawry on the frontier suppressed, the necessity of 
carrying firearms became obsolete; and with them 
departed the glory of the gunman from the "wild 
and woolly west." Dr. Munk in his Arizona Library, Southwest Museum The Munk Library of Arizoniana* 
THE PLAN for collecting a library of Ari- 
xJvl zona books was not premeditated but was purely 
accidental, and due to my visiting a cattle ranch in 
1884. 
The ranch is located in Railroad Pass in the 
mountainous region of southeastern Arizona, which 
is in the heart of the Apache country. At the time 
of my visit hostile Indians were out on the warpath 
and the frontier army was busy running them down. 
Everything was new and strange and I was greatly 
interested by what I saw and heard. The trip fur- 
nished the opportunity to see more of the Far West, 
which was my dream from childhood. Stories of 
the woods and wilderness, of wild animals and wilder 
Indians, always fascinated me and I was eager to 
see for myself the things of which I had read. 
After seeing Arizona, I found it so interesting that 
I was consumed with curiosity to learn more about 
the country. When I returned home, I immediately 
* The historical data for this article were compiled by the Librarian, 
Miss Adelaide Chamberlin. 182 
Activities of a Lifetime 
began to acquire all the books that I could find 
describing it. My one surprise now is that after 
having made the start and with no definite purpose 
in view, I have continued without pause during the 
past forty years collecting Arizona books, which has 
resulted in the assembling of a unique library. 
The Southwest has the oldest white civilization in 
America and had a culture of its own when the 
white men found it. The country was sparsely 
populated by sedentary Indians who lived in pueblos 
and followed farming. They are a peace loving 
people and disinclined to wage any aggressive war- 
fare, but are valiant defenders of their homes. 
Geographically and historically, Arizona is in the 
center of this culture of the Great Southwest, which 
also includes New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, California 
and northern Mexico; and most of the books which 
touch that region are related to Arizona. 
The attractive scenery and valuable resources of 
that country, together with its early discovery and 
occupation by the Spaniards, make it an important 
storehouse of historical lore that has caused it to be 
written about more than any other portion of the 
United States. It is the purpose of the library to 
gather all of this source material that can be found The Munk Library of Arizoniana 
183 
and make it available to students and scholars for 
the benefit of mankind. 
Four hundred years ago the Spaniards first dis- 
covered and explored the Great Southwest. At 
various times Spain sent out expeditions to conquer, 
colonize and Christianize the natives of that vast 
region. All of these expeditions served in the name 
of the King of Spain and were supplied with 
missionaries whose duty it was to save the souls of 
the heathen. Each company had its own scribe who 
reported their travels and discoveries in detail, and 
these reports are preserved in the Spanish Archives. 
This literature embraces an interesting and valu- 
able record of events which goes back to near 
Columbian days and prior to Coronado's great march, 
to an expedition that was sent out from Spain in 
1527 under Panfilo de Narvaez to conquer the 
Province of Florida. That event, though seemingly 
disconnected, is the real origin of Arizona history 
and the basis of our literature. 
The Spanish flotilla of five ships with about six 
hundred souls on board reached the Florida coast 
nearly one year later, when three hundred men were 
landed to explore the country. The ships were 
ordered to follow along the coast to an agreed 184 
Activities of a Lifetime 
rendezvous at a harbor called Panuco. After fruit- 
less wanderings and great hardships, the recon- 
naissance party returned to the coast to find no harbor 
or vessels waiting there. In their almost helpless 
condition they contrived to piece together five barges 
on which they embarked on the twenty-second of 
September, 1528, to hunt the missing ships. Terrific 
storms soon separated and destroyed the frail craft. 
Two of the largest were driven ashore on Galveston 
Island, near the Texas coast, where the men were 
made captives by the Indians. 
After six years of captivity, the sole survivors, 
namely, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, Andres 
Dorantes, Alonzo del Castillo Maldonado and an 
Arab Moor, Estevanico, succeeded in making their 
escape in 1535, and under the leadership of Cabeza 
de Vaca started westward on foot, posing as medicine 
men. This isolated band of intrepid adventurers 
traveled through the then unknown country of Texas, 
New Mexico, Arizona and Sonora to Sinaloa, where 
they arrived during the summer of 1536. Cabeza de 
Vaca made his report to Melchior Diaz, Chief Alcalde, 
in which he related how they had heard of some The Munk Library of Arizoniana 
185 
strange people who lived in large cities built of 
stone, that contained much treasure. 
As there is nothing of record that tells us about 
their exact route and the travelers furnished no 
definite information on the subject, there has always 
been a difference of opinion among historians as to 
what route they followed on their long overland 
journey. As there was no made road to guide them 
nor any description of their route to be had, we can 
only judge of their course by what we know con- 
fronted them. 
They were anxious to find some of their country- 
men but knew of none nearer than Culiacan, Mexico, 
which was somewhere in the direction of the Pacific 
Coast. To reach their goal they would have to take 
a western course, which they could change if necessary 
by deviating either to the right or left of their line 
of march, as circumstances might dictate. 
They must have received some information about 
the country from the Indians with whom they mingled 
and doubtless also made some observations of their 
own as to directions and the contour of the landscape. 
Wild Indians, like wild animals, are apt to find the 186 
Activities of a Lifetime 
best roads and make their trails on the lines of least 
resistance. Some such trails our travelers must have 
found and followed as they invariably lead to springs 
or running streams where water could be obtained, 
which was a desirable factor in that desert country. 
The entire trip could not be mapped out from the 
start but had to be discovered in sections as they 
proceeded and were guided by what they saw and 
heard. They must have received information from 
their friendly hosts about the impassable mountain 
barrier of the Sierra Madres of Mexico, which extend 
south from the Gila River to the City of Mexico, and 
prevented them making any short cut in that direction. 
North of the Gila River were other high mountains 
that did not interfere with their journey as they were 
in the opposite direction from their objective. 
If they had made a long detour to the north, they 
would have met the Pueblo Indians and seen their 
stone houses, but nothing of the kind happened or 
else they would have reported it. All that they knew 
about the Pueblos was what they had heard and not 
what they had seen as they had seen nothing. 
As they did not cross the high mountains to the 
south and did not detour to the north, nor visit any 
of the Pueblos, they must have followed nearly in a The Munk Library of Arizoniana 
187 
straight line as far west as Nogales, on the Arizona- 
Mexico border. There they were able to circumvent 
the mountain barrier by passing around its base. 
After that they turned south and traveled over a more 
open country where they readily found the road that 
took them to Culiacan, their land of "heart's desire." 
At the suggestion of Coronado, the viceroy of New 
Spain, Antonio de Mendoza sent Fray Marcos de Niza 
to the north to ascertain the truth of Cabeza de Vaca's 
report. He left Culiacan March 7, 1539, accom- 
panied by Estevanico and some Indians, with orders 
to send back accounts of what he saw. Soon 
emissaries came back telling of Cibola; and Niza 
followed day by day in the footsteps of his scout. 
Early in May news was brought that Estevan had 
reached Cibola and tried to enter against the wishes 
of the inhabitants, who then killed him. Niza 
advanced until he could see Cibola in the distance, 
when he took formal possession in the name of the 
King of Spain and returned by heavy marches, 
reaching Mexico City in September, 1539. 
As a result of Niza's accounts, Francisco Vasquez 
de Coronado organized his expedition and left Com- 
postela, New Galicia, February 23, 1540. At 
Culiacan, Coronado reorganized his company and 188 
Activities of a Lifetime 
marched north through Arizona in search of the 
famous Seven Cities of Cibola, which they found not 
in palaces of wealth, as they expected, but in the poor 
adobe huts of ancient Zuni. From Cibola parties 
under Pedro de Tovar and Garcia Lopez de Cardenas 
were sent out to explore the country towards the 
northwest, where they discovered the Hopi villages 
and first saw the Grand Canyon. 
The army spent the winter at Tiguex, near the site 
of the present Albuquerque, and in the spring of 
1541 pursued their journey to Quivira, which was 
found to be a village of Wichita Indian teepees, not 
far from Great Bend, on the Arkansas River. Not 
finding anything worth while to reward their efforts, 
they returned home poor in pocket but rich in 
experience. 
From that time on there has been an unbroken 
chain of exciting events in the history of Arizona and 
New Mexico that has caused the making of many 
books. 
Hernando de Alarcon was the first navigator of 
the Colorado River. He was sent in command of 
several ships to explore the northwest coast of 
Mexico at the same time that Coronado went in search 
of Cibola, which was supposed to be on or near a The Munk Library of Arizoniana 
189 
large body of water. He started from Acapulco 
May 9, 1540, and followed the shore until he 
reached the mouth of the Colorado River. His 
sailing vessels were unable to proceed, so with twenty 
men and two small boats he started upstream August 
29, 1540. After a journey of fifteen days, they 
returned to their ships, having heard from the Indians 
that Coronado had reached Cibola. 
In the following month, with replenished supplies, 
Alarcon made a second up-river journey. This time 
he went as far as the Grand Canyon where he left 
letters buried in a sealed jar under a tree, telling 
how he was unable to proceed. After having waited 
many days for news from Coronado, he returned to 
New Spain, explaining that the Gulf of California 
was a bay and not a strait as had been supposed. 
These letters were found by Melchior Diaz whom 
Coronado had sent westward from Corazones with a 
small party to find the ships. Diaz crossed the river 
and finding only a desert beyond, turned back to 
Corazones, but died on his way there. 
Fray Augustin Rodriguez, accompanied by two 
priests and eighteen men, set out from San Bartolome, 
Chihuahua, June 6, 1581, for the land which they 
named New Mexico, and founded the first mission 190 
Activities of a Lifetime 
at Puaray. The soldiers under their captain, Fran- 
cisco Sanchez Chamuscado, searched for gold and 
discovered the first silver mine. They refused to go 
farther with Rodriguez and his two companions and 
returned to Mexico City in May of the following 
year. Rodriguez and the two priests remained at 
Puaray where they were all killed by the Indians. 
Late in 1582, Antonio de Espejo started from 
Santa Barbara, Chihuahua, with a small party 
financed by himself, to go in search of Rodriguez 
and the two priests, of whose desertion by the soldiers 
of their party he had heard. When his expedition 
had passed Isleta, he learned of their murder. Then 
Espejo decided to make some brief explorations on 
his own account before returning to Mexico. With 
two men he for two days traveled east into the 
buffalo country. Then he went up the Rio Grande 
and westerly with his whole command as far as Zuni. 
From there Espejo with nine men traveled as far west 
as the Hopi villages. He estimated their population 
as 50,000, which was probably an overestimate. The 
expedition returned by way of the Pecos River, 
through Texas, reaching Santa Barbara, September 
20, 1583. 
With about one hundred and thirty soldiers, ten The Munk Library of Arizoniana 
191 
Franciscan friars and a number of colonizing 
families, Juan de Onate started from San Bartolome 
January 20, 1598, for New Mexico. He crossed the 
Rio Grande below El Paso in May and formally 
declared New Mexico to be a part of the Spanish 
kingdom. Moving up the Rio Grande to its junction 
with the Chama, he founded the town of San Gabriel 
de los Espanoles, the second oldest town in the United 
States, in the fall of 1598. He traveled to Acoma 
where he put down a revolt. In 1605 Onate founded 
Santa Fe. In 1608 he was superseded by Pedro de 
Peralta, the second governor of New Mexico. 
In 1621, the Franciscan Missions, which claimed 
16,000 converts, were organized as the Custodia of 
the Conversion of Saint Paul, and Alonzo Benavides 
came as the first custodio, with twenty-seven friars. 
He was a tireless worker and made a lengthy report 
as to the people and provinces of New Mexico in 
1626, when he was recalled to Mexico. This report 
was transmitted by the Commissary-General of the 
Franciscans in Mexico to King Philip IV and printed 
in Madrid in 1630. 
As the result of ever increasing oppression of the 
Indians by the Spaniards, on August 10, 1680, follow- 
ing the plan of a Pueblo Indian, Pope, the Pueblo 192 
Activities of a Lifetime 
towns revolted and about four hundred Spaniards 
were massacred in the outlying pueblos. At Santa 
Fe, which had been made the capital of New Mexico 
in 1605, nearly 2,000 people, including one hundred 
and fifty-five soldiers, assembled to resist the attack 
of the Indians. On August 19, the Spaniards made a 
sortie and captured forty-seven Indians, who were 
executed on the plaza. The next day, however, they 
were forced to evacuate the town and this the Indians 
allowed them to do, following them for seventy miles, 
to be assured that they were really leaving the 
country. The refugees made winter quarters about 
thirty miles north of El Paso, at San Lorenzo, from 
which point most of them later made their way to 
the settlements in Chihuahua. Twenty-one Fran- 
ciscans are said to have been killed and all evidence 
of their enforced religion destroyed. 
In 1681, Antonio de Otermin, then Governor of 
New Mexico, organized an unsuccessful attempt to 
regain with a force of about two hundred soldiers the 
country from which he had been forced to retreat the 
year before. From this time on, until 1692, the 
various governors made a series of expeditions against 
the Pueblos but did not succeed in a permanent The Munk Library of Arizoniana 
193 
occupation. Pope retained supreme authority over 
the Indians until he died in 1688. 
On August the twenty-first, 1692, Diego de Vargas, 
appointed by the viceroy of New Spain to the task 
of reconquering New Mexico, left El Paso with two 
hundred soldiers and one hundred friendly Indians. 
He reached Santa Fe in twenty-three days and was 
able to enter the city peaceably, promising pardon 
to all who gave allegiance to the church and king. 
This he did at all of the Pueblos and then went back 
to El Paso to collect the people who were to re- 
colonize the country. Not until October 13, 1693, 
did this large company start for New Mexico, and 
when they arrived at Santa Fe, in December, their 
occupation of the city was opposed. A fierce battle 
was fought in which the Spaniards were at last vic- 
torious. Sporadic hostilities continued for over two 
years more in the Pueblo country, but in 1696 the 
re-conquest was complete. 
In 1696 De Vargas was succeeded as governor by 
Pedro Rodriguez Cubero, who held him prisoner 
under charges in Santa Fe until July, 1700, when 
he left for Mexico to seek redress. The king appre- 
ciating his services, re-appointed him as governor and 194 
Activities of a Lifetime 
in 1703 he returned to Santa Fe. April 14, 1704, 
he was killed in a foray against the Navajos. 
Padre Kino, an Austrian by birth, was sent from 
Mexico in 1687 to work among the tribes of Pimeria 
Alta. In this year he established the Mission of 
Nuestra Senora de los Dolores about one hundred 
miles south of Tucson. This mission was his head- 
quarters for twenty-four years of exploration work. 
From this base he established a number of missions 
in the valleys of the Magdalena and Altar, crossed 
the Sonora line and founded San Xavier del Bac in 
1700, and within the next two years Guevavi and 
Tumacacori; several times explored the Gila River 
country, twice he descended the Colorado River below 
the mouth of the Gila, once crossing into California 
and once reaching the Gulf in an attempt to prove 
whether California was an island or a peninsula. 
Kino died in 1711 and for more than twenty years 
no Spaniard is known to have entered Arizona. A 
tireless worker and traveler, Kino is said to have 
baptized more than 48,000 Indians, but he left no 
permanent results although twenty-nine missions and 
seventy-three Indian pueblos were founded in what 
is now Sonora and Arizona by him and his mis- The Munk Library of Arizoniana 
195 
sionaries. Padre Juan Maria de Salvatierra was 
intimately associated with Kino in this work which 
was carried on by the Jesuits. Father Kino's manu- 
scripts were lost for two hundred years in the Spanish 
Archives and were only recently found and translated 
by Herbert E. Bolton. It was a fortunate discovery 
as it fills an important hiatus in early Spanish 
history. 
After the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767, fourteen 
Franciscan missionaries were sent from Mexico to 
take their places at the request of the Marquis de 
Croix. Among them was Padre Francisco Garces 
who was assigned to San Xavier del Bac, arriving 
there June 13, 1768. From there he made extensive 
pilgrimages. In 1769 he entered the Apache country 
and observed the various nations. In 1771 he went 
to prepare the Indians for the future founding of 
missions and, in visiting the Yumas, followed the 
Colorado River to the sea. He went with Captain 
Anza on both of his expeditions to California and 
afterwards started north from Yuma and traveled as 
far east as the Hopi villages, returning to San Xavier 
September 17, 1776. In August, 1779, he was 
ordered to go to the Colorado River where, at the 196 
Activities of a Lifetime 
mission of Puerto de la Purisima Concepcion, the 
present site of Yuma, he was killed by the Indians 
on July 19, 1781. 
Juan Bautista de Anza was born at Fronteras in 
1735 and entered the army in 1753, taking part in 
many campaigns against the various hostile Indian 
tribes. Later he commanded two memorable expedi- 
tions. On January 8, 1774, he left Tubac with 
thirty-four men, including Padres Garces and Diaz, 
for the purpose of finding a suitable road from 
Sonora to Alta California, for the use of future 
colonists. On March 22, he reached San Gabriel, 
California, having proved the existence of a practical 
route, and made this difficult march without losing a 
man. Diaz and Garces were really the chief guides, 
Diaz having made the same journey three years be- 
fore. From here he went to Monterey and from there 
returned to San Gabriel and Tubac. 
Anza's second expedition was organized at San 
Miguel de Horcasitas, Sonora, September 29, 1775. 
Padre Font, then in charge of the Mission San Jose 
de los Pimas, was detailed as spiritual adviser. 
Padre Garces and Padre Tomas Eixarch were 
directed to accompany the expedition as far as the 
Colorado. They all started from Tubac, October The Munk Library of Arizoniana 
197 
22, 1775. In the party were two hundred and forty 
persons, including the families of the colonists, 
soldiers and some Indians, with one thousand 
domestic animals. Garces and Eixarch remained 
with the Yumas on the Colorado, while the main 
expedition went on and reached San Gabriel in 
January, 1776. With an advance party including 
Padre Font, Anza went north along the coast, and 
on March 28, founded San Francisco, turned over 
the colonists to Lieut. Moraga, and with Font and 
a considerable force started back. Padre Font is 
remembered particularly for the numerous well- 
drawn maps he made while traveling. 
In June, 1775, Padre Silvestre Velez de Escalante, 
a New Mexican Franciscan father, spent eight days 
in the Hopi towns, trying to learn of a road from 
Santa Fe to Monterey by the regions of the north. 
His report influenced the governor of New Mexico, 
Pedro Fermin de Mendinueta, to assist the Franciscans 
in an attempt to discover such a passage the follow- 
ing year. With an escort of nine soldiers, Padre 
Escalante and Padre Francisco Atanacio Dominguez 
set out from Santa Fe July 9, 1776. Traveling in 
a northwesterly direction, they reached northern 
Utah, discovering a large lake which they named 198 
Activities of a Lifetime 
Lago Salado (Salt Lake), a name it bears to this day. 
They returned by a circuitous route through Arizona, 
crossing the Colorado River by swimming near the 
site of Yuma, visiting the Hopis and Zunis and 
reaching Santa Fe, January 2, 1777. 
This rather lengthy outline of the history of the 
Southwest is given to show how numerous were the 
activities of the Spaniards in settling New Mexico 
and Arizona, and to indicate the rich mine of litera- 
ture that is available to students and historians of 
our country. 
Original old books of Arizona are few and hard 
to find and even some of the more recent ones have 
become scarce. Only a few of the rarer items that 
are found in the Munk Library of Arizoniana are 
here mentioned. De Torquemada's "Monarchia 
Indiana" was published in Madrid in 1723. The 
work consists of three large quarto volumes bound 
in vellum, each containing an elaborately engraved 
title page. Other books of an early date are Bena- 
vide's report, printed in Madrid in 1630, and now 
obtainable in several English editions; Heylen's 
"Cosmographie, containing the Chorographie and 
History of the Whole World," London, 1617; 
Herman Moll's "Complete Geographer," London, The Munk Library of Arizoniana 
199 
1709; De Herrera's "History of the Vast Continent 
and Islands of America," an English edition, trans- 
lated by John Stevens and printed in London, in six 
volumes bound in calf, in 1725; Miguel Venegas' 
"History of California" (includes Arizona), with 
maps and illustrations, two volumes, London, 1759; 
De Page's "Voyages autour du Monde," three vol- 
umes, Berne, 1783; Alcedo's Diccionario Geografico- 
Historico," five volumes, Madrid, 1786; Reynal's 
"History of the East and West Indies," eight volumes, 
London, 1788; De Humboldt's "Nouvelle Espagne," 
five volumes, Paris, 1811; Malte Brun's "Universal 
Geography," six volumes, Philadelphia, 1827. These 
are only a few of the many old and valuable works 
in this collection of books. 
Until the middle of the nineteenth century, 
Arizona was a part of New Mexico and the history 
of one is the history of both. Soon after the year 
1800, American adventurers began to drift into 
Mexican territory in the capacity of explorers, 
trappers and traders, and it was not long before a 
considerable commerce was established between the 
two nations. Santa Fe being the nearest town to the 
American outposts and the largest and most important 
city in the Southwest, naturally became the goal of 200 
Activities of a Lifetime 
all western wanderers. These were soon followed by 
many settlers after Uncle Sam took possession of the 
land in 1848. 
William Morrison of Illinois, was the man who 
started the Santa Fe trade in 1804, by sending 
Baptiste La Lande, a French creole, there with a 
small assignment of goods. Attracted by the country, 
La Lande sold the goods, appropriated the money to 
his own use and remained in Santa Fe. James Purcell 
of Kentucky was the second arrival, in 1805. He was 
driven into Santa Fe by the Indians from a trapping 
expedition, and his outfit wrecked. 
Glowing accounts of the marvelous richness of the 
Far West soon traveled east and sent many adven- 
turous spirits, both men and women, into the Rocky 
Mountains. As a result of the spreading of these 
stories, the Government sent its first exploring expedi- 
tion into the Southwest under Lieut. Zebulon Pike, 
in 1806. His instructions were to examine the 
country that was tributary to the Arkansas and Red 
Rivers and to establish friendly relations with the 
Indians living there. From that time on emigration 
followed rapidly into the west and many new enter- 
prises started. The Munk Library of Arizoniana 
201 
To William Becknell belongs the honor of being 
the founder of the Santa Fe trade and the founder 
of the Santa Fe trail. His was the first successful 
trading expedition to Santa Fe and he was the first 
man to take wagons over the route that was later 
followed. 
Among the notable men of the early days were 
Sylvester and James Pattie, father and son, from 
Kentucky, who left St. Louis with a trading caravan 
in the summer of 1824, headed for Santa Fe. There 
they obtained permission from the Spanish governor 
to trap for beaver on the Gila River. They spent five 
months in this occupation and were very successful, 
but the Indians stole their furs. For a time they 
worked the Santa Rita copper mines but were forced 
to abandon them in the spring of 1827. They again 
engaged in trapping on the Gila, following the stream 
down to its confluence with the Colorado and from 
thence to the Gulf of California, hoping to find a 
settlement there. Finding none, they struggled 
through Lower California to San Diego where they 
were made prisoners, and the elder Pattie died in 
his cell. James, the son, was finally released and 
succeeded in making his way by land through to 202 
Activities of a Lifetime 
Vera Cruz, and then by water to New Orleans and 
Cincinnati. He reached his old Kentucky home worn 
and penniless after enduring six years of great peril 
and hardship. 
Captain Jedediah Smith was the first white man to 
enter Arizona from the north. In August, 1826, he 
started with sixteen men from Salt Lake and traveled 
to the Virgin River in Arizona, not far from its 
junction with the Colorado, near the southwestern 
corner of Utah. In 1830, Smith and his two partners 
sold out their northern fur company and entered the 
Santa Fe trade. On a trip from St. Louis to Santa 
Fe he separated from his companions, in search of 
water, and was killed by a band of Comanche Indians 
on the banks of the Cimarron. 
Kit Carson, the most noted scout and guide of his 
time, had his first Indian fight with Apaches on the 
Salt River in Arizona, in 1827. He married a 
Mexican woman and lived at Taos, New Mexico. He 
was guide for Col. Fremont and dispatch bearer from 
California, for the Government, through a badly 
infested Indian country, and came through it 
unscathed. 
Col. John C. Fremont, explorer and pathfinder, 
made four trips through the mountains of the Far The Munk Library of Arizoniana 
203 
West during the forties, and took an active part in 
the conquest of California. In 1849 he crossed 
Arizona by the Gila River route on his way to Cali- 
fornia where he lived for a time on a ranch. He was 
appointed governor of Arizona in 1878 but never 
saw actual service. 
Among the more recent books, dating from and 
after the Mexican War and published at Washington, 
D. C., are Lieut. Emory's "Notes of a Military 
Reconnaissance," 1848, and "Report on the United 
States and Mexican Boundary Survey," three vol- 
umes, 1857; "The Pacific Railroad Reports," con- 
tained in thirteen large quarto volumes and published 
during the fifties; "Wheeler's Geographical Surveys 
West of the 100th Meridian," seven volumes, con- 
ducted during the seventies. 
Annual Reports of the Secretary of the Interior, 
Commissioner of Indian Affairs and of the Indian 
Military Service, Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of 
Ethnology, Geology, Agriculture, Irrigation, and 
Reclamation, furnish a mass of information that is 
valuable historically. The numerous monographs on 
the Zuni and Hopi ceremonies and of pueblo and cliff 
dwelling ruins, by Dr. J. W. Fewkes, also belong to 
this group. Carl Buschman's and Buckingham 204 
Activities of a Lifetime 
Smith's Indian philological studies, and the vocabu- 
lary and dictionary of the Navajo language, by the 
Franciscan Fathers at Saint Michaels, Arizona, are 
likewise important documents. 
Other books of merit are Ward's "Mexico," two 
volumes, London, 1827; Hardy's "Travels in the 
Interior of Mexico," London, 1829; Pattie's "Narra- 
tive," Cincinnati, 1833; Kendall's "Texas Santa Fe 
Expedition," two volumes, New York, 1844; Gregg's 
"Commerce of the Prairies," two volumes, New 
York, 1844; Hughes' "Doniphan's Expedition," 
Cincinnati, 1847; Ruxton's "Life of the Far West," 
New York, 1849; Coyner's "Lost Trappers," Cin- 
cinnati, 1850; Bartlett's "Personal Narrative," New 
York, 1854; Stratton's "Captivity of the Oatman 
Girls," San Francisco, 1857; Froebel's "Seven Years' 
Travel in Central America," London, 1859; Dome- 
nech's "Seven Years' Residence in the Great Deserts 
of North America," two volumes, London, I860: 
Cremony's "Life among the Apaches," San Francisco, 
1868; Brown's "Adventures in the Apache Country," 
San Francisco, 1869; Bell's "New Tracks in North 
America," London, 1869; Davis' "Spanish Conquest 
of New Mexico," Doylston, 1869; Pumpelly's "Across 
America and Asia," New York, 1871; Peter's "Life The Munk Library of Arizoniana 
205 
of Kit Carson," Hartford, 1873; Hinton's "Handbook 
of Arizona," San Francisco, 1878; Tyler's "History 
of the Mormon Battalion," Salt Lake, 1881; Ban- 
croft's "History of Arizona and New Mexico," San 
Francisco, 1890; Bourke's "On the Border with 
Crook," New York, 1891; Bandelier's "Gilded Man," 
New York, 1893; Lummis' "Spanish Pioneers," 
Chicago, 1893; Wright's "Indians Taxed and not 
Taxed," Washington, 1894; Coue's "On the Trail of 
a Spanish Pioneer," New York, 1900; Chittenden's 
"American Fur Trade," three volumes, New York, 
1902; Winship's "Journey of Coronado," New York, 
1904; Twitchell's "Leading Facts of New Mexican 
History," two volumes, Cedar Rapids, 1911; Read's 
"History of New Mexico," Santa Fe, 1912; Prince's 
"History of New Mexico," Cedar Rapids, 1912; 
Reagan's "Don Diego," New York, 1914; Mc- 
Clintock's "History of Arizona," three volumes, 
Chicago, 1916; Gregory's "Navajo Country," Wash- 
ington, 1916; Dale's "Ashley-Smith Explorations," 
Cleveland, 1919, et cetera. 
Perhaps the rarest book of all is "Reid's Tramp, 
A Journal of Incidents During Ten Months' Travel 
Through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Sonora and 
California," published at Selma, Alabama, in 1858. 206 
Activities of a Lifetime 
It is claimed that only four copies of the book are 
in existence, the bulk of the edition having been 
destroyed during the Civil War. The author was 
1st Lieut, of Colonel Crabb's auxiliary filibustering 
expedition in Sonora, Mexico, in 1857, and was one 
of the few men who escaped the general massacre. THE MUNK ARBORETUM 
Made grove of eastern forest trees, Compton, California The Munk Botanical Garden and 
Arboretum 
SIN 1906 I STARTED a botanical garden for 
growing domestic medicinal herbs, to find out 
how plants imported from other states would be 
affected when transferred to California soil and cli- 
mate. Some native medicinal plants, like Anemopsis 
and Rhamnus Californica, were already established on 
the ground when the garden was begun, and were 
allowed to remain to give variety to the collection. 
Later on the experiment was extended to include many 
eastern plants, forest trees and shrubs. 
The place chosen for making the experiment was 
a ten-acre lot near the village of Compton, in an 
agricultural district on an alluvial plain, seventy-six 
feet above tidewater and half-way between Los 
Angeles and Long Beach. The soil is a rich, sandy 
loam with some clay, filled with small bits of mica 
and some alkali in spots. Not a grain of coarse sand 
or gravel, nor a piece of any kind of rock, unless 
imported, can be found in an area of many miles. 
This locality has the benefit of the daily sea breeze 
from the Pacific Ocean during the summer months 208 
Activities of a Lifetime 
and an occasional touch of frost during the winter. 
The frost rarely amounts to ten degrees and then only 
for a short time during the early morning, and seldom 
does any damage. The land lies midway between 
the frostless seashore and the foothill thermal belt. 
Apple trees are supposed to be benefited by frost 
and apples grow here to perfection, but citrus fruits 
thrive best where there is no frost. 
When the garden was begun, a professional friend 
from Topeka, Kansas, paid me a visit. After show- 
ing him over the place and explaining the project, 
he immediately began to figure out my prospect of 
life, according to actuary rules, and decided that I 
was undertaking the enterprise too late in life to 
realize any benefit from it. I did not let his talk 
discourage me from going ahead and said that, even 
though the time was short, the work gave me pleasure 
by watching things grow; and even if it did not 
benefit me it would do somebody else some good after 
I was gone. He proved to be a false prophet as I 
have lived long enough to realize my expectations, 
while he departed this life many years ago. 
As the trees found growing in Southern California 
are mostly of the evergreen variety, imported from 
tropical countries, I decided to make the test with The Munk Botanical Garden 
209 
deciduous shade trees from our eastern forests. When 
I started to hunt for trees I ascertained that the kind 
of trees that I wanted were scarce and could not be 
obtained in the local market. However, I succeeded 
in finding a few native poplars, sycamores and 
willows and with these made a start. 
I then sent east and procured an assortment of 
forest trees and shrubs from nurserymen and friends, 
also some new foreign varieties from the Bureau of 
Plant Industry. In planting the trees I was careful 
to avoid any formal method of arrangement but dis- 
tributed them at irregular intervals, to give the grove 
the appearance of a natural forest. I wanted to see 
how the trees would be affected by the change in 
local conditions and gave them such attention only 
as was necessary to give them a good start in life. 
They all readily became established and grew rapidly 
so that after a lapse of fifteen years some of the trees 
have attained a diameter of two feet and a height of 
one hundred feet, and are covered with a thick canopy 
of foliage. 
A winding brook meanders through the grove with 
here and there a footpath leading to some favorite 
spot. The spaces of sloping banks, level bottom land, 
open glens and sequestered glades dotted with trees 210 
Activities of a Lifetime 
and shrubs, give it the appearance of an eastern 
woodland. Many kinds of birds and small four- 
footed wild creatures have been attracted to its shelter 
and made it their sanctuary. The little animals are 
not often seen as they usually travel at night, but 
their presence is made known by their tracks in the 
dust on the trails or the soft earth of the damp ditches. 
An important feature of California horticulture is 
that you have to keep the soil in good condition by 
regulating the supply of irrigation water. In a 
country like California where it does not rain during 
eight months in the year and averages only fifteen 
inches of rainfall during the remaining four months, 
the water supply is an important factor and must be 
applied to the land artificially by irrigation, to make 
the soil fully productive. This essential element in 
this case is furnished by an artesian well that flows 
in a perennial stream without pumping. The flow 
of water is regulated by a casing cap and is supplied 
in any quantity that may be needed. The water is 
conducted over the ground in open ditches, by gravity 
flow. When the well is left open and the water is 
permitted to flow freely but is not used, it is dis- 
charged by a spillway over a rippling cascade as it The Munk Botanical Garden 
211 
falls from the higher level of the well to the lower 
level of the brook, and flows on to the sea. 
One advantage of a dry country is that weeds do 
not spread as they do in wet countries. Any plant 
that is brought from the humid east, where it has 
been accustomed to being drenched by rain every 
few days, cannot stand a prolonged drought and live. 
Naturally, some weeds must grow in all lands but 
those that are imported from countries where rains 
prevail, if they live at all, must become desert-bred 
before they can acquire the quality of drought 
resistance. Otherwise they must be nursed with water 
and cultivated in order to be able to endure. How- 
ever, plants sometimes change their habits and will 
in time adapt themselves to drought so that they can 
live without much water. A familiar example of 
such a change in California is the common horehound 
(Marrubium vulgaris) which is an adopted child but 
flourishes as if it were native to the soil. 
The Carolina poplar (Populus Carolinensis) is 
my favorite of all the forest trees that were tested 
in the experiment. The tree is a rapid grower and 
is tall, stately and clean. Its glossy foliage sparkles 
in the sunlight, and its leaves, which are scarcely ever 212 
Activities of a Lifetime 
still, have a musical rustle. It is a handsome looking 
tree throughout the year, draped in a garment of 
green during the spring and summer, golden yellow 
in the fall when its foliage shows the autumn tints, 
and white in winter as its bare, gray branches stand 
gracefully outlined against the blue sky. The tree 
top is the last to acquire leaves in the spring and is 
also last to lose them in the fall. After most of the 
leaves upon the lower branches have fallen off, the 
top limbs stand up like flag poles in a glorious array 
of shimmering yellow leaves, like an army with 
banners fluttering in the breeze. When the autumnal 
colors of red and yellow appear in the foliage, the 
change is called oxidation, which is an effect and not 
a cause, and denotes that the leaves have reached 
their full maturity and are passing into a state of 
decay. This action is seen en masse only in deciduous 
trees when they shed their leaves in the fall of the 
year and carpet the ground in varying shades of gold, 
russet and brown. 
If at this time the weather happens to be hot and 
dry, the leaves do not have their natural, bright 
colors but shrivel up and fall off quickly. It is only 
when the weather is cool, damp and cloudy that their The Munk Botanical Garden 
213 
bright colors develop and the leaves cling to the 
branches for any length of time. 
October is the month of arboreal beauty in Cali- 
fornia, the same as in the east, as far as it concerns 
deciduous forest trees, but does not require any help 
from frost to produce its gorgeous effect. Such a 
grove in California is rare, indeed, and its appearance 
is in striking contrast to the prevailing groves of 
evergreen eucalyptus trees introduced from Australia, 
with their somber colored foliage of dust laden leaves 
waiting for their annual bath that is given by the 
winter rains. 
Nature's arboreal pageant is a pleasing spectacle 
to contemplate. It starts early in the spring with 
bursting buds of many kinds of leaves and flowers, 
that spread a delicate drapery over the trees in 
variegated colors and mark the beginning of Nature's 
annual carnival. The mild winter weather of the 
California summerland does not appear to hurry 
Nature in the least. The trees remain dormant all 
winter long, for that is their nature, and do not act 
until they are ready, when, just at the right time, the 
buds suddenly start to swell and grow in a new 
creation and nothing can stop them. Nature's order 214 
Activities of a Lifetime 
of procedure is perfect in every respect and each 
variety of leaf and flower finds its assigned place in 
the moving procession at precisely the right time to 
give its magic touch of color and completes the 
harmony of the wonderful panorama. 
The predominating color in the autumn foliage of 
a transplanted California forest is yellow, yet there 
are also many bright splashes of red to be seen upon 
the trees. The trees that are the most conspicuous in 
yellow are prominent in about the following order: 
Carolina poplar (Populus Carolinensis), yellow 
poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera), black ash (Fraxi- 
nus Americana), sugar maple (Acer Saccharum), 
slippery elm (Ulmus fulva), basswood (Tilia Ameri- 
cana), buttonwood (Platanus occidentalis), and the 
beech tree (Fagus Americana); while the tallow tree 
(Sapium sebiferum), red oak (Quercus rubra), 
sweet gum (Liquidambar styraciflua), wahoo 
(Enonymus atropurpureus), poison sumac (Rhus 
Toxicodendron), and poke root (Phytolacca de- 
candra) are clothed in brilliant red as if growing 
on their native heath. 
There is no handsomer plant found growing any- 
where than the poke root with its crimson stems, 
intermingled green and scarlet leaves, white flowers The Munk Botanical Garden 
215 
and shiny black berries, all present in the living plant 
at the same time. It commences to change color in 
midsummer; first in the stalks, then it creeps to the 
under side of the leaves and over the top until the 
entire plant is a glorious blaze of flame. On some 
of the trees the foliage is about equally blended in 
red and yellow, and often in the same leaf. This 
peculiarity is strikingly true of the poison sumac, 
maple and tallow tree. The difference in foliage 
coloration begins on the lower branches and travels 
upward to the top of the tree in successive bands, 
one above the other; and again a variety of tints 
are mingled indiscriminately in a riot of bright 
colors on all parts of the tree. 
Starting a grove of deciduous forest trees seemed 
to be a necessary preliminary in preparing suitable 
ground for the reception of eastern wildwood plants, 
in order to provide them with their accustomed leaf 
mold and shade. Notwithstanding that this work was 
given time and thoroughly done, the new plants did 
not take kindly to the change and most of them 
perished in a short time. My first order was for one 
hundred sets each of golden seal (Hydrastis 
Canadensis) and ginseng (Panax quinquifolium) 
from an eastern nursery. They were received in 216 
Activities of a Lifetime 
prime condition, carefully planted and made a good 
start. After several weeks of promise had passed, 
they were suddenly stricken in one night with a blight 
that wilted them to the ground and only a few 
specimens survived. The few plants that lived made 
a feeble struggle to grow and lasted one year, when 
they too died. 
Many different kinds of woods plants were pro- 
cured at different times from eastern collectors and 
planted, but they nearly all met a like fate, which 
was a great disappointment. Many of the plants 
seemed to do well the first year but did not establish 
themselves. No sufficient reason could be ascribed 
for their failure only that they did not seem to fit 
their new environment. A few of these plants, as 
I now recall them, were black cahosh (Cimicifuga 
racemosa), May-apple (Podophyllum peltatum), 
bloodroot (Sanguinaria Canadensis), liverwort 
(Hepatica triloba), partridge berry (Mitchella 
repens), wild ginger (Asarum Canadensis), trailing 
arbutus (Epegea repens), wintergreen (Gaultheria 
procumbens), and yellow lady slipper (Cypripedium 
pubescens). 
About the same time I planted a few periwinkle 
vines (Vinca minor) in another section of the grove. The Munk Botanical Garden 
217 
These grew rank and spread rapidly by runners into 
a thick mat of vines that now covers the ground. This 
plant seems to be right at home and thrives luxuriantly 
in dense shade and a soft bed of leaves, the very con- 
ditions that seemed to be unfavorable to the other 
plants. The periwinkle vine makes an attractive 
midwinter cover crop of trailing vines, green leaves, 
and blue flowers showing delicately among the bare 
trees and brown leaves on the forest floor. Of the 
climbing vines only three kinds became established 
and continued to endure: the wild yam (Dioscorea 
villosa), American ivy (Ampelopsis quinquifolium), 
and yellow parilla (Menispermum Canadensis). 
The shrubs and herbaceous plants that were planted 
in the open garden fared better and some of them 
prospered exceptionally well. Among these are the 
spice bush (Larus benzoin), elderberry (Sambucus 
Canadensis), prickly ash (Xanthoxylum Ameri- 
canum), bayberry (Mirica cerifera), black haw 
(Vibernum prunifolium), witch hazel (Hamamelis 
Virginica), paw paw (Asimina triloba), English haw- 
thorn (Crategas oxycantha), Oregon grape (Berberis 
Acquifolium), Scotch broom (Cytisus scoparious), 
Canadian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum), queen of 
the meadow (Eupatorium perpurum), iron weed 218 
Activities of a Lifetime 
(Veronia Noveboracensis), Solomon's seal (Poly- 
gonatum bifeorum), boneset (Eupatorium perfolia- 
tum), cranesbill (Geranium maculatum), butterfly 
weed (Aselepias tuberosa), Indian pink (Spigelia 
Marilandica), spikenard (Aralia racemosa), mullen 
(Verbascum thapsus), and elecampane (Inula 
Helenium). 
Some desert plants like the Apache plume (Fal- 
lugia paredoxa), green bells (Lycium pallidum), 
desert willow (Chilopsis lineares), creosote bush 
(Covillea tridentata), burro thorn (Condalia spinosa) 
and Perezia Arizonica have also done well. 
The plants above mentioned are only a few out of 
the many that grow in the garden but are sufficient 
to indicate the wide scope of production which the 
garden affords. Some of the plant families are 
represented by several different varieties but all 
having similar peculiarities. There is every kind of 
mint, several kinds of sumac and dogwood, a dozen 
or more varieties of Berberis and a like number of 
goldenrods. 
Many of these plants show unusual size and vigor. 
There is a spicewood bush growing in the garden that 
is larger than any I ever saw growing in Ohio, where 
it is common and the school children gather the twigs The Munk Botanical Garden 
219 
in winter to chew and to make tea. The same is true 
of pokeroot which excels in size and beauty any such 
stalk that I ever saw growing elsewhere. Another 
remarkable example is the iron weed. As found 
growing in an eastern meadow, it is from two to four 
feet high, while here it attains a height of from eight 
to ten feet and a head of dark purple blossoms as 
big as a water bucket. The common elder likewise 
thrives luxuriantly. In the east it has a corymb of 
white blossoms that is the size of a saucer while here 
it is as large as a dinner plate. It fruits freely but 
the greedy birds eat the berries before they are 
half ripe. 
One reason for growing medicinal plants is to 
prove their value as medicines. It has been remarked 
that a change of environment might impair their 
potency. According to my experiments they do not 
lose any of their efficiency and if there is any 
difference it is in favor of the new habitat. 
The pleasure of watching this garden grow has 
been a daily joy for years and I hope that it may 
continue thus for many years more. 
Having a good eye for levels, I did not have to 
hire an engineer to run a line for an irrigating ditch. 
I planned and dug the ditch myself and had the water 220 
Activities of a Lifetime 
touch every foot of land in a ten acre lot by 
gravity flow. 
I started planting trees before completing fully my 
plans for making a grove and garden and let cir- 
cumstances determine its development. 
The forest is fringed on its outside border by a 
row of tall trees and tapers downward and inward 
by other smaller trees and shrubs, to a low spot in 
the center of the garden that is given over to herba- 
ceous plants. This arrangement gives the grove the 
shape of a big bowl, which makes it favorable for 
inspection. Standing in the center of the garden, the 
entire bowl is brought into view by one sweeping 
upward glance that makes a striking picture. 
The garden is distant one-quarter of a mile from 
the nearest neighbor and is also the same distance 
from any public highway, which isolation was sought 
when the land was purchased. 
The grounds are entered from a paved boulevard, 
over a private right-of-way that runs through cul- 
tivated fields of sugar beets, barley and alfalfa. The 
road is surfaced with decomposed granite and shaded 
by a row of stately poplar trees. The road is hard 
and smooth and the traffic not sufficiently heavy to 
cut it up into ruts and chuck holes. It never gets The Munk Botanical Garden 
221 
muddy in the rainy season, nor dusty during the dry 
summer. 
The spirit of grabbing seems to be rampant in the 
land, and big business tolerates no opposition to its 
schemes. With the encroachment of the Los Angeles 
industrial district, already crowding in from the 
north, and a threatened invasion of noisome derricks 
from the Signal Hill oil field of Long Beach from 
the south, it is a question how long the coveted privacy 
and beauty of the grove and garden will endure. 
Whenever two competing objects become inhar- 
monious and antagonistic, the artistic must invariably 
yield to the economic, and ever thus is beauty sacri- 
ficed and destroyed.