Veteran Alaska
Flyer Turns From
Planes To Boats
(Continued from Page One>
near-legendary character, even to
articles about him in national
magazines.
, But he was setting some speed
records purely by leg power yes
, terday when a Times reporter
caught him at the fly at the Cal
houn Hotel.
"Been outside from Alaska only
• three times in 35 years, and I oc
casionally think that's three times
too many," he snorted. Then he
took off to answer a telephone
call. Then back to the interview:
“I wouldn’t have come out this
time, except they’re building a
boat for me at Berg’s shipyard in
Bellingham and I had to see about
it.”
A quick look at his watch, and
time out for a few words with a
person waiting to see him. And
another phone call. It reminded
the reporter of his last interview
with the leading man in the flea ,
circus, except that even on the:
gallop, the grinning Ferguson was j
good for more stories and more i
laughs.
Like his story about a polar-bear j
’ hunting expedition two years ago!
on the springtime ice of Kotzebue ‘
Sound:
"We spotted this mother bear
‘ and her cub from the air and
landed alongside. One of my two
, passengers, a native boy, got out
and took a shot at the old lady.
He missed, the cub let out a howl, i
and the mother took out after the1
boy.
“I heard my other passenger
rattling around in the plane and!
thought it was the hunter climb-!
ing aboard,” he went on. ‘‘So I
gunned the ship to get out of
there.
“Next thing I knew, the boy
came running past, the bear full
tilt after him. We managed to get
him aboard in time, and beat it
without damage.”
The story had a fatal sequel for
the mother bear, as Ferguson
made another landing and the
marksmanship proved better. The
cub was captured and shipped to
a Baltimore zoo.
Ferguson has operated a com
mercial flying service out of Kot
zebue since the early 1930*s, but
is quitting the game. This week
he sold his company, the Ferguson
Airways, to the Wien Alaska Air
lines. With the sale went three
planes, a hangar and shop tools.
Ferguson kept a four-place Cess
na for his own personal flying,
and retained his three stores and
the Kotzebue Sound Lighterage
Company.
The boat now building for him
at Bellingham represents the rea
son for his departure from com
mercial flying, he said. Ferguson
has been awarded a four-year con
tract to carry the mail between
Nome and St. Michael, and ex
pects the business operations of
this enterprise will keep him too
well occupied to permit proper
handling of the air service. His
new boat, a 12-ton passenger
freight vessel with steel hull and
Diesel power, will take the mail
run.
Business has slowed a bit in his
territory during the war, but min
ing is picking up and trapping was
good this winter, the sandy-haired
Alaskan said.
As for the weather up there:
"We've had a mild winter," he
asserted. "Why. it's only been 40
degrees below. You know, some
times it really gels cold around
there; I've seen it 70 below at
Shungnak."
Then Archie was off again, had
an appointment.
The reporter stepped outside
and shivered. It was 40 degrees
above in Seattle.
ROSEMARY’S
HAND LAUNDRY
In Paterson Hotel
i
will open
• ^
MONDAY, FEB. 11th
MOVING
HEAVY HAULING - FREIGHTING
Done by
JACK BULLOCK and CHARLES O’LEARY
Our Equipment Is Available
Call RED 41
| The Lincoln
Legend . . .
j (Continued from Page One)
I basic facts: That Linclon and Ann
| Rutledge knew each other more
; than a century ago in New Salem,
111., that there was friendship,
even affection, between them, that
Lincoln was grieved deeply by her
death.
But was there a betrothal? Was
I
Lincoln’s sorrow at her death so
stormy that he almost lost his rea
son? Were his mind and heart and
soul irreparably scarred? Was
Ann Rutledge the only woman he
ever loved?
These are questions to which
historians still seek unchalleng-i
able answers.
I
It is only in comparatively re
cent years that the doubts have
emerged.
For more than a half century,
the story had stood as it was told
by W. H. Herndon, Lincoln’s pas
sionately truthful law partner and
biographer, in a lecture at Spring-1
field, 111., in 1866.
Herndon’s story was the story
popularized by Hollywood, stage
and schoolbook.
Herndon didn’t imagine it. He!
talked to people who had known
both Lincoln and Ann in New
Salem, their friends and relatives
and neighbors. He set down what
they told him. He wrote letters
and carefully kept all his corres
pondence. He pursued every clue.
All of his evidence has been pre
served.
But he had one undefeatable
enemy: Time. All of his material
was accumulated 30 years after
the event.
He was dependent upon memo
ries or, worse, the recollections of
what some second party had said.
It is a point to consider also that
he was amassing material at a
time (1866) when a person’s eager
ness for self-glorification through
any association, however remote, i
with a recently martyred presi
dent would tend to color memory, i
As this lack of contemporary!
evidence became apparent, histo-1
rians began to raise their voices
in question of the story. Careful,
biographers conceded that the t
Herndon version was based upon
a shaky foundation.
Then, in 1927, Paul M. Angle,
head of the Illinois State Histo
rical Library, flatly termed the
Lincoln-Rutledge romance “one of
the great myths of American his
tory.”
There the matter stood until
last year, when Angle, writing in
the quarterly of the Abraham Lin
coln Research Society, announced
a new find.
Jay Monaghan, editor of the li
brary, had ben poking through old
newspaper files which the library
had just acquired.
Among them was the Feb. 15,
1862 issue of hte Menard Axis,
published in Petersburg, 111., by
John Hill, son of the Sam Hill
who had been a partner of John
McNamar (to whom Ann Rutledge
was engaged before Lincoln came,
along) in New Salem’s first store.!
In that old paper Monaghan
found an article, “A Romance of
Reality,” which told of the love
between an “awkward youth” and
an “angelic lady.” The youth was
named—Lincoln; the lady was not,
but unmistakably she was Ann
Rutledge.
The story dovetailed with Hern
don’s version. It had been pub
lished four years prior to Hern
don’s Springfield speech which
generally had been acepted as the
first public utterance of the story.
It proved that Herndon had not
originated the tale.
Even this has not stilled the de
bate, however. J. G. Randall, pro
fessor of history at the University
of Illinois, and author of the re
cent “Lincoln the President,
Springfield to Gettysburg,” points
out that the Hill story too is indi
rect testimony (a son reciting his
father’s memory', and cites flaws
in the narrative.
Further, after an exhaustive as
saying of all sources, he says he
has found “no thoroughly verified
utterance of Lincoln, written or
oral, in which Ann Rutledge is
even mentioned.”
One hope of settlement beyond
challenge remains. That hope lies
in the unpublished Abraham Lin
coln papers, approximately 10,000
items, which are under seal in the
Library of Congress.
They have been there since
1923 when Robert Todd Lincoln,
son of the President, deeded them
to the library with the proviso
that they not be published until
21 years after his death.
That 21 years will end July 26,
1947.
The great bulk of these papers
are official documents.
But there is just a bare chance
that somewhere among them may
be evidence—a letter to or from
Ann Rutledge, perhaps — which
will establish the Lincoln-Rut-'
ledge story in its true historical
status.
.. ^1 ■■ ■'■'^••'■4
DOC PA L__Pvt. Raymond
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hold Buck, the dog without which
Doolittle refused to leave Eng.
land for home.
More than 275,000 tons of ethy
lele and 250,000 tons of propy
lene, both gaseous hydracarbons
obtained from petroleum, were
used during 1945 for the manufac
ture of synthetic organic chemi
cals.
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