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More than twenty years afterward, as I was passing through Western Michigan, a friend pointed out to me his tombstone, in a little village cemetery, with comments, half comic, half pathetic; and I also recall a mournful feeling when one day, in going over the roll of my students at the University of Michigan, I came upon one who bore the baptismal name of Isaac Crary.
The pages of history were ransacked for illustrations to sustain the speaker, and all were poured in rapid profusion upon the head of poor Crary, who sat amazed and stupefied at the storm he had provoked. As Corwin proceeded the members left their seats and clustered thickly about him, the reporters laid down their pens, and everybody gave themselves up to the enjoyment of the hour. As Mr.
There was then in Congress the most famous stump-speaker of his time, and perhaps of all times, a man of great physical, intellectual, and moral vigor; powerful in argument, sympathetic in manner, of infinite wit and humor, and, unfortunately for General Crary, a Whig, Thomas Corwin, of Ohio. Mr.
For this purpose they looked about, and finally found one of their younger congressional representatives, considered to be a rising man, who, having gained some little experience in the Western militia, had received the honorary title of ``General, Isaac M. Crary, of Michigan; him they selected to make a speech in Congress exhibiting and exploding General Harrison's military record.
Crary's heavy, tedious, perfunctory arraignment of General Harrison being ended, Corwin rose and began an offhand speech on ``The Military Services of General Isaac M. Crary. In a few minutes he had as his audience, not only the House of Representatives, but as many members of the Senate, of the Supreme Court, and visitors to the city, as could be crowded into the congressional chamber, and, of all humorous speeches ever delivered in Congress, this of Corwin has come down to us as the most successful.
General Crary appears to have been the only one who had previously concerned himself with educational matters, so it is small wonder that some impracticable measures were taken. To those of us who look back now with the advantage of "hind-sight," the mistakes of the first Board are obvious. Two tracts of land were considered as possible sites for the University.
His uncle, however, received him as an assistant in the Commissary Department, and when the brig Pilgrim, of Stonington, was commissioned to make war on the public enemy, the rejected volunteer was warmly welcomed on board by his kinsman, Captain Humphrey Crary. The first night after putting to sea, the Pilgrim encountered a British fleet just entering the Vineyard Sound.
It really was so; Crary, although a man of merit, never returned to Congress, but was thenceforth dropped from political life.
Included among the number, as ex-officio members, were the boy Governor of the State, Stevens T. Mason, then only twenty-five years old, the Lieutenant-Governor, Edward Mundy, and the Chancellor of the State, Elon Farnsworth; while among the members by appointment were Michigan's first Congressman and author of the law under which the University was to be organized, General Isaac E. Crary, and two well-known Detroit physicians, Dr.
For vigorous argument and genuine wit the speech has rarely been equaled. Those who heard it agree that his defense of Harrison was overwhelming and the annihilation of Crary complete. The House was convulsed with laughter at the richness and originality of the humor, and at times almost awed by the great dignity and profound arguments of the orator.
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