1870 - BUFFALO HUNTING! Orange, Llewellyn Park New Jersey; Piedmont Va.; Ruskin

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1870 - BUFFALO HUNTING! Orange, Llewellyn Park New Jersey; Piedmont Va.; Ruskin
APPLETON’S JOURNAL
Nov. 5,
1870
BUFFALO HUNTING
Llewellyn Park, Orange, N.J.
Piedmont, Virginia
John Ruskin
This is an issue of the illustrated weekly publication,
Appleton’s Journal
, which was
printed over 150 years ago
. It is 28 pages long, and measures 8 x 11 inches in size. The paper comes from a bound volume and has some minor disbinding marks at the spine, but is otherwise in very good condition. It will be shipped in a clear report binder, to keep it safe from deterioration in the future.
The highlights of this issue are:
***
BUFFALO-HUNTING
.
This is nearly a full page article. The story begins by mentioning
a steel engraving
which was a separate print published to accompany this issue of
Appleton’s
,
but THAT SEPARATE ILLUSTRATION IS NOT INCLUDED WITH THIS MAGAZINE
. Even without it, though, the text is outstanding, saying in part:
“Hunting the buffalo—or, strictly speaking, the bison—on the Western plains, has become of late years one of the most popular of sports. Men come from all quarters of the globe to partake of it, and old sportsmen are apt to rank it as among the most thrilling and enjoyable. ‘I never knew what physical excitement was before,’ says one writer. . . .
“The most picturesque and exciting buffalo-hunts are those of the half-breeds in the northern Red-River country, where annually almost the entire population proceed in brigades to the great buffalo-ranges. . . . With as many carts as he can afford, for the transportation homeward of the buffalo hides and meat, and at least one fast buffalo-horse, with a gun, plenty of powder and balls, the hunter is prepared for the plains. The hunters go in ‘brigades’ of several hundreds, and often the entire town departs on the excursion—men, women, children, oxen, horses, dogs, with full supply of tents and housekeeping utensils.
The last two-thirds of the article (95 lines of text) is a long quote from an earlier issue of
Harper’s Magazine
, in which the writer Manton Marble gave a colorful account of the attack on a buffalo heard by such a “half-breed brigade”:
“. . . all the buffalo-runners saddled. . . . The horses, too, knew what was in the wind; and the more high-spirited ones. . . stood shivering with excitement. . . . in less than five minutes from the time the rider had got to camp . . . more than three hundred horsemen were steadily trotting southward in the direction of the herd. . . . the leader dimounted and crept along up the slope to reconnoitre. . . to determine from what direction the charge had better be made. . . . A dozen or more of the fleetest runners were sent . . . to head the herd and start them back. . . This was the critical moment. The dozen hunters shouted at the tops of their lungs. . . three hundred and fifty horsemen came flying over the ridge. . . and in front of them all . . . a herd of nearly a thousand buffaloes in headlong flight, tails out, heads down, and nostrils red and flaring. . . . soon hunters and hunted were one indistinguishable mass thundering over the plain. . . . volleys of musketry buffet the air, the hunters fly along with loosened rein, trusting to their horses to clear the badger holes that here and there break the ground, and to keep their own flanks and the riders’ legs from the horns of the buffaloes by whom they must pass. . . As fast as one fires he draws the plug of the powder-horn with his teeth. . . then lowers and fires in the same instant without an aim . . . his horse wheels away, and, loading as he flies, he spurs on in chase of another, and another. . . . One after one the buffaloes lagged behind, staggered and fell, at first singly and then by scores, till in a few moments the whole herd was slain, save only a few old bulls. . . . dismounting from their drenched horses, walked back through the heaps of dead buffalo and the puddles of blood . . . The carts driven by the women come up, knives are drawn, and with marvellous dexterity the shaggy skins are stripped off, the great, bloody frame divided, huge bones and quivering flesh, all cut into pieces of portable size, the carts loaded, and by sunset all are on their way to camp.”
*** PIEDMONT VIRGINIA.
3/4ths of a page describing this area, beginning:
“There are few sections of the country that at present offer greater temptations to the tourist, the settler, and the capitalist, thant he lovely regio stretching along the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the State of Virginia.”
*** JOHN RUSKIN.
One and 1/2 pages on a biography of the famous author who wrote the classic set of
Modern Painters
. At this time of this article, Ruskin was 51 years old, and had recently been elected to the newly-created chair of the Slade Art Professorship at Oxford. The article is illustrated with a nice portrait of the distinguished gentleman. Its text begins:
“John Ruskin, the most eloquent . . . of the English writers on art . . . gave evidence, at a very early age, of the strong love of Nature and of insight into its qualities which, as applied to art, have made him famous.”
*** LLEWELLYN PARK — ORANGE, NEW JERSEY.
This is a 2.5x3.5-inch real estate ad on the back page, the only ad on the page. It reads:
“Llewellyn Park, at Orange, N.J., combines acknowledged healthfulness, accessibility, and social advantages, with an opportunity to secure the enjoyment of a large and costly country place by the purchase of one acre of land, which carries with it the possession of fifty acres of pleasure-grounds, and seven miles of private drives, throughout a tract of land nearly as large as Central Park. All persons seeking a country home are invited to visit and examine the remaining building-sites of from one to five acres each, the greater portion of the Park having already been sold, and improved by New York Merchants.”
*** A ROUND TRIP to LAKE SUPERIOR and THE MISSISSIPPI from NEW YORK.
Two pages by Francis Vinton, as part of a series. In this chapter, he describes a journey from St. Paul, Minnesota by boat and railroad, to Chicago, with comparisons made to a diary of another traveler written 37 years earlier, with comments on Prairie du Chien, the Sioux Indians, etc.
*** “ALGERINE CHAOUSES.”
Almost a full-page wood engraving of a Boulanger painting of two
“
chaouses
, or lackeys, or personal attendants, of a great man among the Orientals.”
*** VICTOR HUGO’S ‘NATURE.’
Two and a half pages of literary criticism on Victor Hugo, in which the writer lavishly praises Hugo’s writing, in response to a negative piece on Hugo which ran in a previous issue.
*** The Surrender of Strasbourg.
1/3rd page on General Ulrich’s surrender to General Werther:
“On Tuesday, . . . the joyful sight of a white flag was beheld flying form the cathedral.”
This is followed by related items on “Discipline of the French Army”; “The King and the Emperor”; “What Bismarck Says”; and “Napoleon III”, etc.
*** Dickens at Forty Years.
An article of over 75 lines
*********************************************
Background on this publication
:
Appleton’s Journal
was an illustrated weekly paper published in New York. Its parent company was D. Appleton & Co., Publishers, which at the time was one of America’s leading book publishers. The paper was founded in 1869, and achieved a widespread, but shortlived national popularity during the next six years. It carried some serial fiction, but most of its content was devoted to essays on Americana subjects, plus the arts and sciences. Following several changes in editors, however, it began suffering a decline in circulation. It subsequently switched to monthly publication after 1876, and went out of business in 1881.
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