THE MAN WHO MADE NEW ORLEANS OF TO-DAY AND BECAME A NATIONAL PERSONALITY.

By George C. H. Kernion.

(A penniless New England boy who rose to fame and fortune. His remarkable autobiography, and other hitherto unpublished facts about one of the Nation's great sons.) It was indeed a strange trick of Fate that old New Orleans, which had been founded by the French, who ruled over it for many years, and which later had passed under the sway of the Spanish crown-two Powers that were ever the strongest supporters of the Roman Catholic faith-should yet be awakened from its lethargic sleep and given an impetus that placed it at once among the greatest cities of the American Union, by a penniless descendant of the Puritans, those poor dissenters from the North of England, who, in order to escape the persecution due to their doctrine of free religious worship, chose a voluntary exile and left their native soil in the seventeenth century, to land, after a ten years' sojourn in Holland, on the bleak and inhospitable shores of New England at Plymouth Rock, on December the 11th, 1620.

For Samuel Jarvis Peters, Sr., the father of the great New Orleans of today, was indeed a lineal descendant of Hugh Peters, who joined those hardy pioneers who, under John Carver, Miles Standish and William Bradford, crossed the yet uncharted Atlantic in the frail "Mayflower," and planted in the new world the seeds of colonization and of that religious freedom which was eventually destined to make the American Nation truly great.

This Hugh Peters had first seen the light of day in Fowey, Cornwall, where he was baptized on June 29th, 1598. He was a man of attainments, gifted with great mentality, wit and wisdom, and a graduate of the famed Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his B. A. degree in 1616 and his

M. A. in 1622. His father, Thomas Dyckwoode (or Peters) had married Martha Treffry, and was in affluent circumstances when his son Hugh started on the meteoric career that was to bring him eventually to exalted heights but withal to an early and cruel death.

History relates that the Peters family were originally of Norman origin, the first of the name, Sir William Petres (or Peters), coming to England as aid-de-camp in the train of William the Conqueror in 1056. Another was knighted by Henry VIII, and still another was elevated to a baronetcy by James I. Their coat of arms is recorded in the annals of the British Kingdom and is thus described: On a field gules, a golden bar surcharged with a duckling accosted by two cinquefoils, and accompanied by two shells. The family motto was: "Sans Dieu Rien.”

Hugh Peters, the first of the name to come to America, was evidently not of those that are satisfied with the glorious achievements of a long and distinguished line. He believed that a man should accomplish things himself to become truly great, and hardly had he left the collegiate bench than he commenced to show himself worthy of his name. We find him first lecturing at St. Sepulchre's, London, but in 1623, and up to 1632, he occupied a post in the church at Rotterdam. In 1635 he reached Boston, Massachusetts, and one year later became minister of the First Church of Salem, in Massachusetts. His rise in the ministry was rapid, and so great was the trust the Puritans had in him that in 1641 he became their emissary to and agent in England. A friend and follower of Cromwell and Fairfax, he fought for the Commonwealth side by side with them, and after the death of the king, Charles I, obtained several important offices from the Protector. He was one of the twenty-one persons ap pointed to remedy the abuses of the realm, and had been one of the fifty-eight Round-heads to sign the death warrant of the king. Being arrested at the Restoration, he was consigned to the Tower of London, and on October 14, 1660, after being found guilty of the king's death, he was dragged

to Charing Cross and there suffered a traitor's death on the gibbet. After being decapitated, his body was quartered and his head stuck on a pole on London Bridge. In spite of his awful fate, Hugh Peters is recognized today as a truly great man, who, though possibly guilty of some mistakes, still endeavored to do what he though was right and showed on many instances great kindness and moderation toward his enemies. He had married twice, his first wife being Elizabeth Cook of Pebmarsh, Essex, and his second Deliverance Sheffield.

Not only the blood of the unfortunate Hugh Peters, but also that of another distinguished Cromwellian officer, Colonel John Harrison, who shared a like fate, coursed, on the maternal side, through the veins of that splendid citizen who really made New Orleans what it is today.

It was on the thirtieth day of July, 1801, that Samuel Jarvis Peters, Sr., first saw the light of day in Canada, where his parents had removed from their native state of Connecticut during the Revolutionary War. His father, William Birdseye Peters, was born in Hebron, Conn., in 1774, and had graduated in in law from Trinity College, Oxford. He later became under secretary of his relative, Colonel Jarvis. He died in Mobile, Alabama, in 1821, at the age of 47. This William Birdseye Peters had married in Canada, in 1796, Miss Patty Marvin Jarvis, of a distinguished Connecticut family, who survived him with six children, towit: Albertine, Samuel Jarvis, Augusta, William, Sally and Hugh Peters. Mrs. Wm. Birdseye Peters died at the advanced age of 70 years in the city of New York at No. 115 Cedar Street, where she was residing on the day of her death, March 12th, 1842, with a Mrs. Perry. Her death was a terrible one, she being accidentally burnt to death while resting in her bedroom. The Jarvis family had been singularly distinguished in Connecticut, one of the forebears of Mrs. Wm. Birdseye Peters being Abraham Jarivs, who became the second Protestant bishop of Connecticut.

The ancestors of the illustrious Samuel Jarvis Peters, of

New Orleans, were evidently gifted with wonderful vitality, for while his father died at 47, his mother attained the ripe old age of 70 years, his grandmother Jarvis died of shock in her 92nd year, and his grandfather Jarvis reached four score and ten.

Among the brothers and sisters of S. J. Peters was Hugh Peters, who inherited the fighting spirit of his ancestors as was shown by his roundly caning an Englishman who had insulted him in Marseilles in 1842, which necessitated his hasty departure from that city at the time.

Up to now little was known of the penniless New England boy who landed in 1822 on the deserted river front of New Orleans and who, in an incredibly short time, by his great powers of organization and administration, as well as his self-reliance, aroused the old colonial city of the French and Spanish to become what it is today and instilled into her sluggish veins that energy and spirit that awakened her from her lethargic sleep of more than one hundred years and placed her at once in the foremost rank of the great cities of our American Commonwealth.

Samuel Jarvis Peters sleeps his last sleep in an unpretentious grave, nestling in the shadow of the ancient trees of Washington Cemetery, in this city. No imposing pile of granite, marble or bronze marks his last abode, and while some, more favored by Renown than he, repose in splendid mausoleums that raise their pinnacled fronts to the very skies and are daily visited by hundreds of grateful citizens, Samuel Jarvis Peters, than whom no man deserved better from the people of the city he so faithfully and disinterestedly served and elevated to greatness, is almost a forgotten memory! The birds twitter over his ashes, and save for an occasional visit from some of his many descendants, no friendly footstep awakens the echo of the quiet spot where he awaits in peace the day of final judgment.

Look in the various histories of Louisiana for the name of Samuel Jarvis Peters! It is not to be found, except in the few

brief words that some historian like George Cable and Henry C. Castellanos, less forgetful than the rest, have seen fit to allow him. It is very probable that were it not for the fact that a public school, a street and an avenue of New Orleans are named after him, very few indeed in these early 20th century days would even know of his very existence!

However, it is very fortunate that an old document has recently come to light which sheds a flood of hitherto unpublished details about the man, who, in his day, was a national character. This document is nothing else than an autobiography written by the eminent citizen himself!

Hidden away in an old trunk where it had lain for about sixty years, it was discovered in the garret of the Kernion residence on Esplanade Avenue by the writer of this article. How it came there is easily explained. When Samuel Jarvis Peters died in 1855 he left two sons, Samuel J. Peters, Jr., and B. F. Peters. The family mementoes were divided between his heirs, and to Samual J. Peters, Jr., fell the possession of the precious historical document. This Samuel J. Peters, Jr., who had married a Miss Aspasie de la Villebeuvre, had adopted as his child a Miss Heloise Campbell, a second cousin of his wife, who had lost her parents at a tender age. When Samuel J. Peters, Jr., died, his wife inherited everything he possessed, and at her death their adopted child, Miss Heloise Campbell, who was then Mrs. A. L. H. Kernion, became the heir and possessor of the precious autobiography.

Let us picture to ourselves, if we can, the City of New Orleans as it stood in 1822, when Samuel Jarvis Peters, a perfect stranger and barely 21 years of age, landed in our midst. Its population then was less than 50,000; its streets were unpaved; not a sidewalk had yet been built for the accommodation of its citizens, and its river front was practically deserted, there being not a single wharf yet erected to take care of the river traffic. It was still the old city of the French and Spanish, bounded by the river, Canal, Rampart and Esplanade Streets; the Vieux Carre comprising