December 1, 2011

Nevada's Online State News Journal

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Nevada History:

 [T. D. Jones, Who Is Colonel Lander?, Cincinnati Commercial article reprinted in the Sacramento Union, May 16, 1860]

            Who is Colonel Lander? — We are permitted to make the following extract from a private letter of T. D. Jones, the well-known sculptor, to a friend in this city:

            Bowie knives are 'riz !' Northern pluck is above par, just at this writing. I wish I knew all the facts in the case. I am afraid the news is too good, as published in yesterday's Commercial and Gazette. Colonel F. W. Lander (for that is his real name) is an old friend of mine, and he is no chicken, I assure you. His life has been an eventful one. He has far more Presidential material in him than a dozen Fremonts. Colonel F. W. Lander is a native of Salem, Massachusetts, and is a descendant of one of the oldest and wealthiest families in that town. He stands six feet two inches in hight, and weighs over two hundred pounds. He is a better made man, physically, than John C. Heenan, the Benicia Boy. When I saw him last he had not an ounce of spare flesh on him — all bone and muscle. He has a good education, and is a powerful writer in prose or verse, for I have seen both. After he graduated at — College he turned his attention to civil engineering, and was employed in building, or rather laying out and superintending most of the New England railroads ; after which he went to Washington, where his services were secured by our Government to accompany Governor Stevens' expedition from St. Paul to Oregon, on what was called the northern railroad. He acted as engineer and advance-guard for that expedition to the Pacific. After their arrival on the Pacific in Oregon, Governor Stevens thought proper, for some trifling cause, to pick a quarrel with Lander, which was finally settled without a duel. After which, Colonel Lander selected seven men to accompany him to the States. They struck, as near as they could, a bee-line for Utah Territory. On reaching the chain of the Rocky Mountains, Colonel Lander encountered one of the largest of the known grizzly bears and dispatched him single-handed with one of Colt's six-shooters ; in fact, he discharged twelve balls into him before old grizzly surrendered.

            Colonel Lander escaped without receiving even a scratch, and from that day to this he has been familiarly known among his friends as "Old Grizzly." He reached Utah Territory with only three men of the seven he started with from Oregon. From Utah, he came to the States, where he remained, and much of his time in Washington, until our army were ordered to march for the home of Brigham Young.

            Colonel Lander was engaged to construct the wagon road in advance of our army, and it is needless to add that a more arduous and hazardous undertaking could not well be imposed upon any man. His railroad surveys to the Pacific, I believe, have not been published by or at the expense of the National Government, because, forsooth, he never learned the humiliating art of "bending the pregnant hinges of the knee, that thrift may follow fawning." Such are the brief, too brief, outlines of the man who has so recently come forward to vindicate the manhood of the North.

            Colonel Lander has a sister in Rome, who is the first of American sculptors among her sex — for there are three American ladies in Rome at present engaged as sculptors. Miss Hosmer went there first, Miss Lander next, then a Miss Stebbins.

            Colonel Lander is about forty-five years of age, and an old bachelor.— Cin. Com.