A sketch of the life of Caspar Wister / by W.S.W. Ruschenberger.

  • William Ruschenberger
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A sketch of the life of Caspar Wister / by W.S.W. Ruschenberger. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    Harrisburg from Philadelphia Dec. 8, by the Columbia Rail Road, and were detained till the 25th/ Caspar Wister joined a regiment, of which his townsman and friend Dr. Thomas F. Betton was surgeon, as his assistant. It is evident that professional examination did not precede appointment in this case. Nevertheless, he received the pay of an assistant surgeon while employed. Up to that time he was the first of his kinsmen to engage in military service, because bearing arms was repugnant to their sense of religious duty. Subsequently however several of them served with credit in the . late rebellion as regimental or company officers. This riotous disturbance at Harrisburg made by political partizans, was called the Buckshot War, because Governor Ritner had directed the volunteers to load their guns with buckshot and ball. Though many were alarmed nobody was wounded. Dispairing of lucrative employment in his vocation at home, he prob- ably imagined that a country where settlers were many and increasing, land sales would be common; and for such reasons the services of a surveyor would be in constant demand. His attention was directed to Texas, the independence of which had been recognized by the United States in 1837. Equipped with surveying instruments and a rifle, he sailed from New York, Oct. 28, 1839, for Texas, by way of New Orleans, where he arrived Nov. 18 and reached Galveston Nov. 20, and took the boat up the river to Houston. He proceeded immediately to the west. In a letter, dated Houston, Dec. 28, 1839, he wrote :—You may imagine the figure I cut, mounted on a mustang poney, about half tamed, on a Mexican saddle, leggings, a queer blanket coat, and around my waist a broad leathern belt in which were placed a pair of pistols and a bowie knife, it beiiig necessary to travel armed in this country—par- ticularly when travelling alone, as I was, there being men here who might take advantage of an unarmed man, should his money be seen; and you are frequently meeting some prowling Indians who are friendly to Texas, but more through fear than love. 1 See Address of the Hon. Charles B. Penrose, Speaker of the Senate; and the Speeches of Messrs. Fraley, (City) Williams, Pearson and Penrose, delivered in the Senate of Pennsylvania, [March 1839] on the subject of the Insurrection at Harris- burg, at the meeting of the Legislature in December 1838. 8vo., pp. 207. Printed by E. Guyer, Harrisburg 1839. Also, History of Philadelphia—1609 to 1884. By J. Thomas Scharf and Thompson Westcott. Quarto. L. H. Everts & Co., Philadelphia 1S84.