THE LATE MR J ESKDALE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2892, 18 August 1909, Page 65

THE LATE MR J ESKDALE.

AN ADVENTUROUS LIFE. Those who believe in a courageous love of adventure, magnanimity in misfortune, self-denial in wealth, and a man who pertinaciously re-enters the unequal contest with circumstance till the end will be inj terested in the eventful life of Mr Joseph j Eakdale, which last-ad 84- years, and which closed at Palmereton on the 11th. The following facts were gkanod by one 1 of our reporters during an interview* with ! Mr John Moloney. Joseph Eskdale was born near Dumfries in 1825. His parents were of the well-to-do farming class, and his-father was a man of ; extraordinary strength ; so strong that he • was known to have felled a horse with a single blow at the Dumfries market. , Joseph Eskdale inherited this strength, and j was practically fearless— assets that proved . useful, as he had several times to defend | himself vigorously with fists and revolver, ? notably when bringing back his hard-won gold from the Californian diggings. ITHB WA3TDER I/OST. 1 When 14 years of qge young Joseph Vnac?© his first expedition. He went to fork to an uncle in the drapery trade, well off, and & bachelor, who intended to make him his heir. Here the wander lu6t possessed the boy. He tired of th© counting house and the business routine. How many hundreds |of prosperous ' business men— aye, and : pioneers, colonists, and derelicts — who « on looking back to their own youth "will not feel a twinge of sympathy for the lad with his eyes on the ledger and his heart in strange lands oversea? Joseph went unostentatiously to Hull and shipped for ' America. In four months time they raised Fire Island and Sandyhook, and he had an opportunity of gauging the difference between the New York and the old York. A crowd was on the wharf to see the ship in, and Joseph was startled by a voice shouting : " Hullo, yottng Eskdale, run away from home, have you?" He was naturally -astonished at his identity having preceded him, but' it appeared that thia man came from Dumfries, and knew Eskdale's father. Seeing the lad on; board he Was" struck with the family likeness. For the. rest, he had put this and that together, which is a way they- have in New York even to this day. When Eskdale landed his new friend asked the usual question : " Well, and what are you going to do?" And to this Eskdale replied in the usual way : " I dont know." " You had better, oome along j with me," said the stranger.' All right," { replied Eskdale, and he went. It was to a fiend's ranch near Qhicago, in those . days a journey of magnitude. Only a brief ! stretch of railway was laid, and the rest ! was covered by canal and behind horses^ j He stayed on the ranch for about a year, ' and then went to Leadville — a rather .ominous name, in those days of promiscuous pistol shooting — where he kept a drinking saloon. Here it was that Eskdale first met , the valiant but iU-fated Victor Galbraith, 1. who saved his life*. A Colorado knifethrower, was attacking Eskdale - with a bowie, and was about to strike him down from a safe distance, when- Galbraith fired suddenly. The desperado's arm fell broken to his side, and the knife clattered harmless to the floor. J TOMAHAWKED. • Touching these times Mr Eskdale was wont to relate aoi anecdote characteristic of the .man and his humour. There was a man who worried- him, a very pronounced prohibitionist, who arrived periodically to forcibly protest against the existence of the saloon. Altercations were frequent, and on one of th-esa occasions Eskdale struck him am-d- broke his jaw. As he had to pay this person's expenses in hospital for four months, , Mr Eskdale received a lesson. / He said : ( " I will never strike a man again as long 'as I live; I will always choke him." After j two v«ars he gave u,p his saloon and joined ! a party of fur traders plying between the Indian country and Ohicbuah-ua, in Mexico, and anyone possessed of an atlas and an imagination will conceive the kind of country they had to traverse. The Indians of those days were different from those of to-day. They were numerous, brave, cruel, enterprising, and exceedingly cunning, and though the company of 90 with their mules and waggons made a respectable column, they had a good many brushes with the Red men. Ambushes, ' of course, were frequent, and in one of theso Mr Eskdale ' was severely wounded by a tomahawk ; thrown by a crouching Indian, and he used sometimes to exhibit a long bony 1 ridge on the back of his head where the ' gash had healed.. (THE MEXICAN WAR. The year 1846 found Mr Eskdale, then » 21. and his party down in Texas, when, the difficulties arose which resulted in, the Mexican war. The Mexican troops descended upon them in force,- and consficated the entire outfit. Mr Eskdale, once more thrown on his own resources, promptly joined General Taylor's Volunteers, and. proceeding to the front', served throughout the war, and was present at the final taking of Mexico. During the operations he received a bullet in the leg. While in Mexico with the troops he may be said to have renewed his acquaintanceship with Victor Galbraith, then a private soldier, and to have witnessed the unhappy incident which led to his execution. The American army was then, and i 6 sometimes even now, rotten with spurious Republicanism which, when military discipline is insisted on, i« potent for disaster. The captain of the company was in a tent gambling with hi 6 men. A violent dispute took place between Private Galbraith and the officer. There was a oharge of oheating. and Galbraith struck the captain in tho face. For striking his superior officer .Galbraith was tried by court martial, and sentenced to be shot. The tragedy has been immortalised by Longfellow, and is vivid and apropos is the poem that it will bear quoting in full: — Victor Galbraith. Under the walls of Monterey At d«vbre*k the bugles, began to play Victor Galbnaa'th! In the mist of the morning damp and grey, These were the 'words -they seemed to say ; I " Come forth to thy deatby j Victor Galbraith!" Forth he came with a martial tread Firm was his step, erect his head; ] Victor Galbraith, Be who so well the bugle played, lOould not mistake "the words it said: •• Gome forth to thy death, Victor' Galbiaithl"

He looked at the earth, he looked at the sky, H« looked at the iil«s of musketry, Victor Galbraith, And he said, vwth a steady voi-c-e and eye. ■"Take good aim ; I ani ready to die!" Thus challenges death Victor Galbraith. Twelve fiery tongues flashed straight and red, Six leaden balls en their errand sped; Victor Galbraith Falls to the ground, but he is not dead : His name was not stamped on those balls of lead, And -they only scath Victor Gaibraith, Three balls are in his breast and brain, But he rises out of the dust again, Victor Galbr-aith! The water he drinks has a bloody staan; •• O kill me, and put me out of my pain I' In his agony prayeth Victor G-albraith. Forth dart once more those tongues of flame, And the bugler Iras died a death of shame, Victor' Galbraith! His soul has gone back to whence it_ came, And no one answers to the name "When the sergeant saith. "Victor Galbraith!", Under the walla of Monterey By night a bugk is heard to play, Victor Galbraith. . Through the mist ol the valley damp and , ThTeentinels hear the sound, and say, . " This is tine wraith Of Victor G-albraith!" Mr Eskdale, however, was wont to assert that it used to be the violin and not the We, with which Galbraith excelled. THE SENTRY'S SHIHT. Th- late Mr Eskdale's reminiscences of this war alone should in themselves make * capital book. His friends will xemember the -tory of the shirt.. He was doing ee-ntry-go. when the general, a very iHustrious personage indeed, who was afterwarS President of the United States, rode up and asked if the sentry possessed sucn a thing as a spare shirt, as he was sadly fn need of one. Mr Eskdale explained that he did happen to haw a', spare shirt m his kit, but he could not leave hie post to go and bring it ; whereupon the general offered to relieve him. The general dis--mounted; Mr Eskdale ported arms t gavo over his orders, arod trudged off to camp, leaving the general pacing up and clown with his musket. Returning with the garment, Mr Eskdale gravely relieved the general who returned his musket and rod© off with the shirt. Whether he ever returned it is not on record. A I/UOKY DIGGER.

It had been known for some time that there was gold in California, but the Mexicans would allow no strangers to dig. \fter the caoture of £h© City of Mexico, Upper California and New Mexrco were ceded to the United .States as part of the indemnity, and Mr Eskdale and a party of fur traders received 30,000 dollars compensation for the loss of their goods and waggon train. With this they set out for "golden" California-. Paxt of their track lay athwart the terrible Arizona deserts, where so great were thoir privations that out of a band 7 of 90 only three stricken, starving men crawled into the comparative civilisation of California, and Mr Eskdale was one of them. When they recovered strength they commenced to seairch for gold, with such 6ucpess . that in~ a little over a year Mr Eskdale had secured £20.080 worth, and bagan to turn his face homeward. He took ship at San Francisco (a very small place in those days) for .Panama, and crossing the Isthmus, sailed for Liv^er-. There' are those in Dunedin who 'will remember Mf Eskdale's watch, the case of which was worn as thin as thread paper ; ' the glass scratched and blurred, and the dial yellow with age. It was a wonderful old watch, so well and truly made and carefully constructed that it would last till all the parts went to pieces together. Th.'s was 'the first pnrehaee Mr Eskd'ale made 'on his return to the Old Country. Ha asked a Liverpool jeweller for the best silver watch he had. Th© jeweller gave . him this one, with the remark, " this watch will last you you* lifetime." But Mr Eskdale outlived it by about eight years. As the owner was entering a train at Lim© Street Station, the glass fell out, and Mr Esfcdule held the watch in his hand ail the way to Enston. when the defect was remedied by a London jeweller.

VABIED FOBTUNES.

Mr Eskdale possessed the distinction of being the first to take Californian gold to the Bank of England. Having sold it, he went up to his native district, where he married. No on© knew how it was, or what became of the fortune, but when Mr Eskdale was next heard of he had accepted a position as manager of a store at Paris (Ontario), then Canada's' most westerly outpost. From thence he was driven by the cold. Two years later (1251) he landed at Melbourne,. again in quest of Kold, but did no good at th« 'Victorian diggings, and

returning to Melbourne got employment at a grain store, where his abilities soon 'inspired confidence. A partner in the firm (Mr Robertson) came over to New Zealand, and Mr Eskdale, after the death of his wife, severed his connection with the Melbourne establishment and came to the Thames (New Zealand) as a commission agent. The Dunedin distillery was then goinsr on xmder Messrs Larnach, Howden, and Robertson, and Mr Robertson told his

partners that if they couW find a man calkd Bskdale, whom he believed to be in

New Zealand, he would make the business a success. Search resulted in the dircovory of Mr EskdaJe at the Thames. He accepted the offer, and ran the distillery till the Government closed it in the " seventies,"

giving the- company .& large sum as co npensation. Mr Eskdale became manager

for the Albion Brewing Company on theold premises, but resigned because he did "not agTee with the directors, and was made manager of Messrs Keast and M'Carthy's brewery, which position he held till it was formed into a company. He then managed a grain business at Oamaru till it was closed owing to some failure in Dune-din. Management of the Phoenix Confectionery Company kept him busy till he accepted the management of Strae*han's Brewiiref Company, where he remained till ill health rendered resignation advisable. Shortly after this he became a trustee in the estate of William Secular, from which ha retired about two years ago.

It would seem to bo one of the ironies of Fate that a man who had rough t peril so often, who had faced fortune and disaster, who had be-sn several times wounded in war, should receive hi 1 ; most serious injury \scJlile following a peaceful calling im

a peace-loving community. A stack of wheat fell upon hiui some years I ago in a store at Oamaru, seriously injuring his head and spine. The accident left him with an impaired sens© of eight, hearing, taste, and smell. Mr ; Howden, however, visiting him in July j found his intellect as keen and his memory , as clear as ever. Mr Eskdale was very ' temperate, having given up stimulants when 23 years old. He never smoker] . Those who knew him will remember him as a stern, strong, very generous man, without vices or expensive tastes. Yesterday someone slimmed him up "to our Teporter in three words: "A real man."