Wheeling Times And Advertiser

How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world."

The following incident in the life of Gen. Harrison was related to me a few days since by Mr. Barnabas Otis, of this town.

Death having deprived Mr. Otis of all his progeny except two male grand children, and they, having become orphans when quite young, were taken into his family and adopted as his own children. The elder of the two, Henry O. Williams, having remained several years with his foster-father, and obtained a good common school education, at the age of fifteen years became anxious to enter into some mercantile employment, and solicited his grand-father to send him to Nashville, Tennessee, where, he was informed, a relative of his father resided. Though for one so young to undertake an overland journey of that length, was extremely hazardous, the repeated importunities of the boy induced Mr. Otis, at length to comply with his request. He was accordingly despatched, first to Boston and thence to Baltimore, where he arrived in May, 1825. W. H. Morse, Esq. to whose care he was confided, after having equipped him for his journey and given him such advice and directions as his circumstances required, procured him a passage in a stage coach; and thus, at that tender age did this lad commence a long inland journey."a stranger in a strange land," without a friend or acquaintance to protect or advise him.

But the ways of Providence are inscrutable, and Heaven vouchsafed to send him a protector in the person of General William Henry Harrison. Congress having adjourned about the time young Williams left Baltimore, Gen. Harrison, who was a member of that body, took passage at Washington on his return home in the same stage. The solitary situation of the boy being apparently without a protector, attracted the attention of Harrison, he therefore, entered into a familiar conversation with him: and, having learned his name, residence and place of destination, asked him if he had any one to protect him, and on being answered in the negative, he kindly tendered his own services, which were cheerfully accepted. As his course was through Ohio, Gen. Harrison kept his ward with him until he arrived at his seat at North Bend: where, for the present we will leave him and return to Mr. Otis: who was soon apprized of the situation of his grand child, but without knowing anything of the character of his voluntary guardian. The Hon. Zabdiel Sampson, then Collector of the port of Plymouth, brother of the present incumbent of that office, and like him, a firm supporter of Andrew Jackson, having for several years represented this district in Congress while Harrison was a member also. Mr. Otis had recourse to him for the requisite information. After a brief recital of the circumstances, he asked Mr. Sampson if he was personally acquainted with Gen. Harrison? "Acquainted with him!" he exclaimed, "Indeed I am."

"What kind of a man is he?" said Mr. O—

"He has a soul as big as the world, and he will never let any one suffer to whom he has power to give relief." was his emphatic reply.

At the request of Mr. Otis, Mr. Sampson addressed a letter to Gen. Harrison inquiring into the circumstances of the boy, to which the latter promptly replied.— He stated that it was his intention to have sent him from thence in a steamboat, as he deemed it a safer conveyance for one in his situation than that of stages: but found on his arrival, that the rivers were too low for such navigation; but adhering still to his first plan, he should keep him at his house until the river became navigable. Five months elapsed, however, before the boats could run—during which time he remained at the hospitable mansion of his kind benefactor. But at the end of that period he wrote Mr. Sampson, with whom he continued to correspond, that he had procured him a passage on board a steamboat, and supplied him with every thing necessary for his journey, and that Mrs. Harrison had fully repaired his wardrobe: but requested him particularly to tell the old gentleman to give himself no uneasiness, for he required no compensation; that what he had done was out of tender feelings towards the lad."

The boy, however, did not then continue the journey; for, meeting with a merchant on board the boat, (belonging to a place, of which the narrator did not remember the name, who was in want of a lad in his store, he engaged to stop with him. General Harrison being informed of it, and not knowing the person to whom the boy had let himself, immediately wrote to a friend of his belonging to the same place, requesting him to inquire into his situation, and, if it was not good, to send him back to his house and he would pay all expenses. The boy was not sent back, however, nor did he long continue with his employer before he again set out for Nashville, where he soon after arrived. Still anxious for the fate of his ward, General Harrison, on hearing of his arrival at the latter place, wrote to his friend Major Eaton, who subsequently became Secretary of War under President Jackson, requesting him to see to the boy, and should he not succeed in finding his relative or obtaining a good situation, to send him to his seat in Ohio, and he would defray all charges.— He was successful, however, and is now a thrifty merchant at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and will no doubt exert his whole energies to elevate his benefactor to that exalted station which his virtues and talents so eminently qualify him to fill.

This is not an idle tale told by an idiot, but a plain fact related by one of our most respectable townsmen, who was chosen a few days since a constable of the town by the unanimous suffrages of his fellow citizens; an office to which he has been annually elected, and the duties of which he has discharged faithfully and efficiently during thirty-two years. This venerable gentleman, whose silver locks have been bleached with the frost of more than fourscore winters, and who was an eye-witness of the battle of Bunker Hill, and a volunteer in a corps sent to reinforce the garrison at that place, related the story with that kind of pathos, but earnestness of expression, as plainly evinced the feelings of the inner man; and as he proceeded, his countenance brightened with animation, and his age bedimmed optics sparkled with the fire of youth, which told, in a language stronger than words, that his aged bosom glowed with that heart-felt gratitude towards the benefactor of his relative, so justly due him for the generous and noble deed. Noble it was in every sense of the word; for if there was ever an act of purely disinterested benevolence performed by man, that was manifestly such. He had never seen the lad till then, or any of his connections; he refused any pecuniary compensation; while he could not have had the most distant prospect of any other reward save that which arises from a consciousness of having performed a generous action.

He beheld the situation of the boy, and that generous sympathy which never flows but from the purest fountains induced him to administer to his wants.— "He was a stranger, and he took him in:" and, like the good Samaritan, "poured oil and wine into his wounds" and tendered his own purse, should he become chargeable, to defray the expenses; while hundreds of such Priests and Levites as Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren would have passed by on the other side to avoid the incumbrance.

I do not record this as a singular circumstance in the life of General Harrison, but as one among the many well authenticated evidences of his truly benevolent character which are already before the public.— Nor do I contend, that his many virtues, superadded to his brilliant military fame, which all the scribblers in the land can never tarnish, are of themselves sufficient to entitle him to the chief magistracy of the United States; but, combine with his mental abilities and literary acquirements, his long experience in civil policy, and the stern and inflexible integrity manifested in all the public and private transactions of his life; that christian benevolence, that heaven born charity, "that is not puffed up; that suffereth long and is kind?" and "that seeketh not her own," but others' good, with which his noble soul is richly fraught, constitute, in my opinion a sufficient guaranty that, when he shall have been placed in the presidential chair, which I confidently trust, will shortly be the case; "as he has done to one of these little ones," he will do the people: that he will not act upon that sordid, selfish policy, which declares that "the spoils belong to the victors," and that offices and emoluments were created to reward the faithful partisans of the administration: but, that he will endeavor to bring back the Government to the primitive intention of its founders, and to the legitimate object of all governments; the protection, safety, prosperity and happiness of the people: and, by the help of Congress and the blessing of God, restore our country, now bleeding at every pore, to its wonted vigor and prosperity.

JUNIUS.