Langstroth Gavels
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Matt Redman
Mar 24, 2010, 10:03:13 PM3/24/10
to Carl Flatow, lll...@googlegroups.com
Doe anyone know if the Langstroth gavels are still in existence? See stories below--which begin after this background material--
Background: The lady who suggested that the Langstroth gavels be made was Frances (Macbeth) Glessner--she was the wife of J. J. Glesner, a vice-president of International Harvester. They lived on Prairie Ave in Chicago--this is the street that Marshall Field, George Pullman, and Philip Armour lived on.
"In 1879, Mrs. Glessner began keeping the diary she would write for the next forty years, providing insight into daily life at the Glessners' house. Her husband would frequently complete diary entries whenever Mrs. Glessner was ill. Mrs. Glessner was a talented seamstress and needleworker, and visitors to the house may see many of her pieces still on display. She was also a silversmith, accomplished pianist, and avid knitter; she gave away many of her silver pieces as gifts and purportedly knitted more than 500 sweaters for children, employees, and servicemen. She studied with A. Fogliati, a master jewelry craftsman of Hull House, and Madeline Wynne, a noted Chicago silversmith; in 1904 Frances set up a workbench in the basement of her Prairie Avenue mansion and began producing simple and elegant objects. Her pieces bear her hallmark, a 'G' encircling a honeybee, iconography for another interest: bee keeping."
According to George W. York, speaking in 1912, Mrs. Glesner's son made the gavels--that would be George Macbeth Glesner (1871 -1929). In 1943 George's sister Fanny was the only female police captain in the United States. She created minature crime scenes-- the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death.
For more on Glessner Family see--
Here begins the Langstroth gavel saga: (By the way, MacFarland was wrong about Langstroth being a native of Baltimore); Langstroth himself said that he was born "near Independence Hall".
Annual report / Illinois State Bee-Keepers' Association, Volume 5, 1906--Langstroth Gavels and a poem by LLL for his wife
http://books.google.com/books?id=ifROAAAAIAAJ&dq=Langstroth%20Philadelphia&pg=PA138#v=onepage&q=Langstroth%20Philadelphia&f=false
PRESENTATION OF LANGSTROTH GAVELS.
Dr. Miller—Mr. President, I am commissioned to present, through you, Mr. Dadant, to the National Bee-Keepers' Association, a gavel whose source can not fail to make it an object of interest to every bee-keeper present. It is also my pleasant task to perform a like service, in presenting its mate to the Chicago Northwestern Bee-Keepers' Association, through its President, Mr. George W. York.
The loving heart of a good friend of both Associations conceived the idea of obtaining two gavels which should be constant reminders of the man' to whom apiculture is so greatly indebted—Rev. Lorenzo Loraine Langstroth. So an appeal was made to Dr. Dan Millikin, of Hamilton, Ohio, to see whether he could not secure a piece of wood from a tree in some way associated with Father Langs.troth. Dr. Millikin in turn applied to Prof. R. W. McFarland, residing in the same county, at Oxford, where Langstroth lived for so many years.
In reply came a package and a letter in which Prof. Mc Farland wrote, in part, as follows:
LETTER FROM PROF. MCFARLAND.
The weather was so disagreeable to me, and my physical self so much under the weather, that I did not get the Langstroth limb until sunset, Thursday. * * * I saw Mr. Langstroth while he assisted in planting the tree, nearly 40 years ago. I held the end of the limb yesterday, while my neighbor sawed it off. So your friend may be assured that this the genuine article.
While I was young, and was on my father's farm, 65 or 70 years ago, I was accustomed to attend the bees on our place. After seeing Mr. Langstroth's way, I saw that the old farm way was crude in the extreme. I assisted Mr. Langstroth 2, 3 or 4 weeks every summer for 10 or 12 years in the busy season. * * * It was a "joy forever" to be with Mr. L. and hear day after day, the simple, lucid words of wisdom which set forth the hidden things of nature and made you see them—and all unconsciously, so to say—things which among the bees he had seen and found out for himself.
Mr. L. was one of the finest men I ever saw—the very highest style of man. Having personally known him for more than 30 years, I may be able to give a point or two.
He was native of Baltimore; graduated at Yale College; became a Congregational minister; had charge of a college for women in Philadelphia for some years; lost his health and had to give up teaching; stayed a year or two in Mexico, hoping to regain sound health, but never did; studied bees and mastered the subject. For 6 months of every year—the winter months—he was unable to work at anything, usually kept himself closely in his room, but in the summer he was sunshine itself. His death well closed out a beautiful life. In the city of Dayton, Ohio, he was staying with a married daughter after the death of Mrs. Langstroth, and in church, one Sunday morning, he had just concluded the opening part of his services, preparatory to administering the sacrament, when taking his seat, in a moment his head fell on his shoulder. Men rushed to him and gently laid him down—but he was dead. R. W. Mcfarland.
You will likely want to know more about this man who for 10 years or more helped Mr. Langstroth for 2 to 4 weeks each year. A letter from Dr. Millikin tells something about him. This is a private letter, but is so thoroughly interesting and enjoyable throughout that I cannot forbear reading almost the entire letter. Injunctions have been laid upon me to say as little as possible about the donor of these gifts, but a full appreciation of this letter demands that you should know it is written to Mrs. J. J. Glessner, of Chicago, the one to whose kind thoughtfulness we are indebted for these precious mementoes. I shall read' the letter just as it is, and trust to making my peace with Mr. Glessner as best I may afterward, for any betrayal of confidence:
LETTER FROM DR. MILLIKEN.
Dear. Mrs. Glessner—I am about to send you some wood from the Langstroth place—it shall go by express to-morrow.
When my wife made known your needs to me I thought at once of my father's friend, and my brother Joe's teacher and colleague, Prof. R. W. McFarland, of Oxford. He was an authority in classic learning ever so long ago, and an editor of one or two good editions in Latin. He was a mathematician so high in the second class that it always appeared that he ought to brealc into the class of thoroughly great imaginative mathematicians. He was no mean astronomer. He was a practical civil engineer. He lived long enough to become a very useful and successful mining engineer. He was a college president in spite of his many protests. He was, and is, a very enthusiatic naturalist. They don't make any such men now. Rockefeller and Carnegie together couldn't turn out more than two in a long year.
I think that Prof. McFarland is nearer 80 than 70 years. I hear that his locomotion is seriously impaired, and that his sight is also failing. Yet the letter which I enclose for you shows that he has at least one good eye. He is is quite in retirement (the delightful retirement of an old scholar), but his influence upon the young disciples who love him and cultivate him, by far outweighs the impression of all missionaries to Africa, past, present, and to come.
I have written my politest letter of thanks to him. It is pure impudence in me to ask you to do the same and delight the soul of the gallant old gentleman.
Do you know that this is a case of me, too?" I knew Langstroth very well, and I knew him at a very impressible time of my life. When I was about 16 he came down to Maplewood, where my father had about 20 hives of bees. At that time the enemies of the bee were apparently less destructive than now, for those neglected bees had persisted and they throve through many years of comparative neglect. Occasionally it was found that a colony had died out in the winter, whereupon the hive was cleaned, sulphured, painted and set away for the swarms that were sure to appear when the clover and hot June days came. My father did not go near the hives; my mother worshipped the little bees because they were the pets of her father who "died in "57." An old English gardner managed to steal a little honey now and then, but I dp not remember at all how he got it; I only know that neither farther nor mother would consent to the killing of bees with sulphur in order to get the honey.
There came a time when Langstroth hives were made in Hamilton. The manufacturer was authorized to sell hives to my father, with the condition that Langstroth himself should come down from Oxford and transfer the bees, and he was so insistent that my father bought 30 hives to get rid of the pestiferous sash-and-window-blind man!
So in June, after I was out of school, and when the bees were busy with white clover and locust, here came Langstroth to the big farm. He was a large, slouching man, with a tendency to heaviness in the face. When the sodden look disappeared pain was the predominant expression. I do not now remember that he ever smiled. He came in a Lincolnian linen duster, and his other clothing was tidy and shapeless.
We received him in such fashion as became a freakish mechanic and inventor. It was many hours before I learned that he was a graduate of Yale, and hours again before I knew that he was an ordained Presbyterian minister. Later he was revealed to me as one who lived chiefly for the good of others. I fell wholly in love with him when I found that he was an out-of-doors man, a profound naturalist, and, in every fibre, a poet.
I learned, months after, that his career as a teacher and a preacher was spoiled by fits of melancholy. During these seizures he was often unable to endure the sight of a human face for many days together, and he was sometimes obliged to seclude himself from the public for many weeks consecutively. At the worst he fasted incredibly. When all was over, he would come forth, a staggering cadaver, slowly and shyly to resume his place in the family and in society. It is a marvel that, like'most geniuses, he did not learn to blunt his pain with alcohol, or end all with suicide. When I had learned that he was under the curse of genius I comprehended his countenance better, and I came to doubt that the cloud ever lifted from his noble mind. If I mistake not, he died at the top, and achieved the only rest possible for such as he.
Well, I watched him from afar; I brought him dry and rotten maple wood and saw him subdue the bees with smoke. When they were gorged he inverted the old hive and drove his tens of thousands into an empty box set upon it; I saw the myriads shaken upon a sheet; I noted the orderly march into a Langstroth hive. We took the old hive to the cellar and mounted the combs as well as we could in another Langstroth hive, and we soon drummed out another colony of bees to take possession, and that day I graduated an apiarist. It was the first of many happy days with Langstroth and bees. Dr. Millikin
Dr. Miller—Mr. President, may the peace-loving spirit, and the spirit of unselfishness that pervaded the entire life of Langstroth, be present at all our sessions, whenever and wherever these gavels are wielded.
Pres! Dadant—The thoughtfulness which prompted this gift can only be rewarded by a vote of thanks from the Association and I will await the motion.
Mr. Taylor—I make the motion.
Dr. Bohrer—I second that motion; and before the motion is put I wish to supplement Dr. Miller's statement. A remark occurred in one of the papers that they had never seen Mr. Langstroth smile. I met him at one time and I think he was one of the jolliest men I ever met. That was in 1864. I was home from the army on furlough. I didn't see him any more until 1866, when I happened to catch him in his apiary when one of his attacks of melancholy was on. He was out in his apiary when I came to the gate and opened it, and I went right to him, and it was where these gavels were taken from, at the brick house standing in the grounds in Oxford, Ohio. He recognized me and shook hands with me, and said, "Please excuse me and talk to Mrs. Langstroth and my son James." That day, however, he did not smile. I saw him at what was known as the American Convention of Bee-Keepers, in Cincinnati, a few months later, and he did not smile there. It was a short time after he had lost his son, James T. Langstroth, and he asked me if I had ever endured any such experience as that. I said, "Not in the way of a son, but I have lost some near and dear friends. The most I can say in cases of this kind is to look to the mighty Physician, and in addition to that the record of your son is one no one need blush at." The old gentleman did not smile. I think the Association ought to accept this "gavel as a memento, and it should be guarded and looked after with jealous care because he was one of the greatest men in bee-keeping that the world has ever known. There probably will never be another man live that will do so much for the profession as did Mr. Langstroth.
Mr. Hilton—I will now move to amend the motion, that the vote be given by rising.
The President put the motion as amended, and on a vote being taken it was carried unanimously.
Pres. Dadant—I wish to say the Presidents of both Associations will take good care of these gavels, and that they shall be handed from one President to another as long as the Associations last.
Dr. Miller—One little personal remark. At one time when I was for some part of the year working in Cincinnati, I went up to see Father Langstroth at Oxford, and I did not see him, he wasn't there at all. A very short time after that I was working in my office down in the city preparatory to the first of Theodore Thomas' May festivals, and Mr. Langstroth came in and we had quite a pleasant little visit. I was unknown entirely to him, and owing to the fact that an obscure bee-keeper had called to see him, he came back to see me. I think it shows the humble spirit of the man.
Mr. York—I would like on behalf of the Chicago-Northwestern Association to thank the donor of the gavel, and it seems to me it is a very strange coincidence. I knew nothing at all about this, but about a month ago I designed an idea of having Mr. Langstroth's picture on the front page of this paper, and a poem that had never been published before, that he mailed to me over 10 years ago. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Langstroth at the Toronto convention, in 1895. I think Mr. Hutchinson will remember I went to Flint on my way to Toronto, and I believe it was near the Port Huron tunnel that Father Langstroth and his daughter, Mrs. Cowan, boarded the train; but I had never seen him before that. After we had ridden some miles Mr. Hutchinson said, "I believe that is Father Langstroth." They traveled nearly all day with us in the car, but we did not speak to him. At that convention I had the very great pleasure of meeting .Father Langstroth, and talking to him for about two hours in the hotel while a number of the beekeepers went to visit the Exposition. . It seems to me I never had been so entertained with any conversationalist as I was at that time with Father Langstroth, and I have been thankful to this day that I went to Toronto and had the pleasure of meeting the great Father Langstroth.
Mr. Aspinwall—Although I have been a resident of Michigan for 23 years, my home was originally in New York State, and my acquaintance with Mr. Quinby was some considerable, and up to the time of 1895 I had never met Mr. Langstroth, and I fully endorse the remarks made by Mr. York, of the courteous manner in which he received strangers and guests and entertained them. Previous to my return home, Father Langstroth, upon that .short acquaintance, volunteered to send me an autograph copy of his work, which he did shortly after that session. I merely state this to show the spirit of the man as manifestly displayed by the remarks of Dr. Miller, that he lived largely in the interests of others.
Pres. Dadant—I wish to state that this gavel is engraved as follows: "Wood from tree planted by Rev. L. L. Langstroth in his garden in Oxford, Ohio. National BeeKeepers' Association, 1905. T. M. G."
Mr. France—I would like to request on behalf of the Association, if they would favor it, that the Association draw upon its funds sufficient to have Father Langstroth's picture framed and hung in our convention halls at future meetings. I would move that. (Applause).
Dr. Bohrer—I second the motion.
Pres. Dadant—It will be understood that the motion is simply to recommend this to the Directors.
The President put the motion which was carried unanimously.
Dr. Miller—With your permission I would like to read the poem that Father Langstroth had written which has never been published till just now. It is entitled,
TO MY WIFE IN HEAVEN.
Wife of my youth—I dream of thee,
Arrayed in bridal form;
I hold in mine thy trusting hand—
http://books.google.com/books?id=ifROAAAAIAAJ&dq=Langstroth%20Philadelphia&pg=PA138#v=onepage&q=Langstroth%20Philadelphia&f=false
PRESENTATION OF LANGSTROTH GAVELS.
Dr. Miller—Mr. President, I am commissioned to present, through you, Mr. Dadant, to the National Bee-Keepers' Association, a gavel whose source can not fail to make it an object of interest to every bee-keeper present. It is also my pleasant task to perform a like service, in presenting its mate to the Chicago Northwestern Bee-Keepers' Association, through its President, Mr. George W. York.
The loving heart of a good friend of both Associations conceived the idea of obtaining two gavels which should be constant reminders of the man' to whom apiculture is so greatly indebted—Rev. Lorenzo Loraine Langstroth. So an appeal was made to Dr. Dan Millikin, of Hamilton, Ohio, to see whether he could not secure a piece of wood from a tree in some way associated with Father Langs.troth. Dr. Millikin in turn applied to Prof. R. W. McFarland, residing in the same county, at Oxford, where Langstroth lived for so many years.
In reply came a package and a letter in which Prof. Mc Farland wrote, in part, as follows:
LETTER FROM PROF. MCFARLAND.
The weather was so disagreeable to me, and my physical self so much under the weather, that I did not get the Langstroth limb until sunset, Thursday. * * * I saw Mr. Langstroth while he assisted in planting the tree, nearly 40 years ago. I held the end of the limb yesterday, while my neighbor sawed it off. So your friend may be assured that this the genuine article.
While I was young, and was on my father's farm, 65 or 70 years ago, I was accustomed to attend the bees on our place. After seeing Mr. Langstroth's way, I saw that the old farm way was crude in the extreme. I assisted Mr. Langstroth 2, 3 or 4 weeks every summer for 10 or 12 years in the busy season. * * * It was a "joy forever" to be with Mr. L. and hear day after day, the simple, lucid words of wisdom which set forth the hidden things of nature and made you see them—and all unconsciously, so to say—things which among the bees he had seen and found out for himself.
Mr. L. was one of the finest men I ever saw—the very highest style of man. Having personally known him for more than 30 years, I may be able to give a point or two.
He was native of Baltimore; graduated at Yale College; became a Congregational minister; had charge of a college for women in Philadelphia for some years; lost his health and had to give up teaching; stayed a year or two in Mexico, hoping to regain sound health, but never did; studied bees and mastered the subject. For 6 months of every year—the winter months—he was unable to work at anything, usually kept himself closely in his room, but in the summer he was sunshine itself. His death well closed out a beautiful life. In the city of Dayton, Ohio, he was staying with a married daughter after the death of Mrs. Langstroth, and in church, one Sunday morning, he had just concluded the opening part of his services, preparatory to administering the sacrament, when taking his seat, in a moment his head fell on his shoulder. Men rushed to him and gently laid him down—but he was dead. R. W. Mcfarland.
You will likely want to know more about this man who for 10 years or more helped Mr. Langstroth for 2 to 4 weeks each year. A letter from Dr. Millikin tells something about him. This is a private letter, but is so thoroughly interesting and enjoyable throughout that I cannot forbear reading almost the entire letter. Injunctions have been laid upon me to say as little as possible about the donor of these gifts, but a full appreciation of this letter demands that you should know it is written to Mrs. J. J. Glessner, of Chicago, the one to whose kind thoughtfulness we are indebted for these precious mementoes. I shall read' the letter just as it is, and trust to making my peace with Mr. Glessner as best I may afterward, for any betrayal of confidence:
LETTER FROM DR. MILLIKEN.
Dear. Mrs. Glessner—I am about to send you some wood from the Langstroth place—it shall go by express to-morrow.
When my wife made known your needs to me I thought at once of my father's friend, and my brother Joe's teacher and colleague, Prof. R. W. McFarland, of Oxford. He was an authority in classic learning ever so long ago, and an editor of one or two good editions in Latin. He was a mathematician so high in the second class that it always appeared that he ought to brealc into the class of thoroughly great imaginative mathematicians. He was no mean astronomer. He was a practical civil engineer. He lived long enough to become a very useful and successful mining engineer. He was a college president in spite of his many protests. He was, and is, a very enthusiatic naturalist. They don't make any such men now. Rockefeller and Carnegie together couldn't turn out more than two in a long year.
I think that Prof. McFarland is nearer 80 than 70 years. I hear that his locomotion is seriously impaired, and that his sight is also failing. Yet the letter which I enclose for you shows that he has at least one good eye. He is is quite in retirement (the delightful retirement of an old scholar), but his influence upon the young disciples who love him and cultivate him, by far outweighs the impression of all missionaries to Africa, past, present, and to come.
I have written my politest letter of thanks to him. It is pure impudence in me to ask you to do the same and delight the soul of the gallant old gentleman.
Do you know that this is a case of me, too?" I knew Langstroth very well, and I knew him at a very impressible time of my life. When I was about 16 he came down to Maplewood, where my father had about 20 hives of bees. At that time the enemies of the bee were apparently less destructive than now, for those neglected bees had persisted and they throve through many years of comparative neglect. Occasionally it was found that a colony had died out in the winter, whereupon the hive was cleaned, sulphured, painted and set away for the swarms that were sure to appear when the clover and hot June days came. My father did not go near the hives; my mother worshipped the little bees because they were the pets of her father who "died in "57." An old English gardner managed to steal a little honey now and then, but I dp not remember at all how he got it; I only know that neither farther nor mother would consent to the killing of bees with sulphur in order to get the honey.
There came a time when Langstroth hives were made in Hamilton. The manufacturer was authorized to sell hives to my father, with the condition that Langstroth himself should come down from Oxford and transfer the bees, and he was so insistent that my father bought 30 hives to get rid of the pestiferous sash-and-window-blind man!
So in June, after I was out of school, and when the bees were busy with white clover and locust, here came Langstroth to the big farm. He was a large, slouching man, with a tendency to heaviness in the face. When the sodden look disappeared pain was the predominant expression. I do not now remember that he ever smiled. He came in a Lincolnian linen duster, and his other clothing was tidy and shapeless.
We received him in such fashion as became a freakish mechanic and inventor. It was many hours before I learned that he was a graduate of Yale, and hours again before I knew that he was an ordained Presbyterian minister. Later he was revealed to me as one who lived chiefly for the good of others. I fell wholly in love with him when I found that he was an out-of-doors man, a profound naturalist, and, in every fibre, a poet.
I learned, months after, that his career as a teacher and a preacher was spoiled by fits of melancholy. During these seizures he was often unable to endure the sight of a human face for many days together, and he was sometimes obliged to seclude himself from the public for many weeks consecutively. At the worst he fasted incredibly. When all was over, he would come forth, a staggering cadaver, slowly and shyly to resume his place in the family and in society. It is a marvel that, like'most geniuses, he did not learn to blunt his pain with alcohol, or end all with suicide. When I had learned that he was under the curse of genius I comprehended his countenance better, and I came to doubt that the cloud ever lifted from his noble mind. If I mistake not, he died at the top, and achieved the only rest possible for such as he.
Well, I watched him from afar; I brought him dry and rotten maple wood and saw him subdue the bees with smoke. When they were gorged he inverted the old hive and drove his tens of thousands into an empty box set upon it; I saw the myriads shaken upon a sheet; I noted the orderly march into a Langstroth hive. We took the old hive to the cellar and mounted the combs as well as we could in another Langstroth hive, and we soon drummed out another colony of bees to take possession, and that day I graduated an apiarist. It was the first of many happy days with Langstroth and bees. Dr. Millikin
Dr. Miller—Mr. President, may the peace-loving spirit, and the spirit of unselfishness that pervaded the entire life of Langstroth, be present at all our sessions, whenever and wherever these gavels are wielded.
Pres! Dadant—The thoughtfulness which prompted this gift can only be rewarded by a vote of thanks from the Association and I will await the motion.
Mr. Taylor—I make the motion.
Dr. Bohrer—I second that motion; and before the motion is put I wish to supplement Dr. Miller's statement. A remark occurred in one of the papers that they had never seen Mr. Langstroth smile. I met him at one time and I think he was one of the jolliest men I ever met. That was in 1864. I was home from the army on furlough. I didn't see him any more until 1866, when I happened to catch him in his apiary when one of his attacks of melancholy was on. He was out in his apiary when I came to the gate and opened it, and I went right to him, and it was where these gavels were taken from, at the brick house standing in the grounds in Oxford, Ohio. He recognized me and shook hands with me, and said, "Please excuse me and talk to Mrs. Langstroth and my son James." That day, however, he did not smile. I saw him at what was known as the American Convention of Bee-Keepers, in Cincinnati, a few months later, and he did not smile there. It was a short time after he had lost his son, James T. Langstroth, and he asked me if I had ever endured any such experience as that. I said, "Not in the way of a son, but I have lost some near and dear friends. The most I can say in cases of this kind is to look to the mighty Physician, and in addition to that the record of your son is one no one need blush at." The old gentleman did not smile. I think the Association ought to accept this "gavel as a memento, and it should be guarded and looked after with jealous care because he was one of the greatest men in bee-keeping that the world has ever known. There probably will never be another man live that will do so much for the profession as did Mr. Langstroth.
Mr. Hilton—I will now move to amend the motion, that the vote be given by rising.
The President put the motion as amended, and on a vote being taken it was carried unanimously.
Pres. Dadant—I wish to say the Presidents of both Associations will take good care of these gavels, and that they shall be handed from one President to another as long as the Associations last.
Dr. Miller—One little personal remark. At one time when I was for some part of the year working in Cincinnati, I went up to see Father Langstroth at Oxford, and I did not see him, he wasn't there at all. A very short time after that I was working in my office down in the city preparatory to the first of Theodore Thomas' May festivals, and Mr. Langstroth came in and we had quite a pleasant little visit. I was unknown entirely to him, and owing to the fact that an obscure bee-keeper had called to see him, he came back to see me. I think it shows the humble spirit of the man.
Mr. York—I would like on behalf of the Chicago-Northwestern Association to thank the donor of the gavel, and it seems to me it is a very strange coincidence. I knew nothing at all about this, but about a month ago I designed an idea of having Mr. Langstroth's picture on the front page of this paper, and a poem that had never been published before, that he mailed to me over 10 years ago. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Langstroth at the Toronto convention, in 1895. I think Mr. Hutchinson will remember I went to Flint on my way to Toronto, and I believe it was near the Port Huron tunnel that Father Langstroth and his daughter, Mrs. Cowan, boarded the train; but I had never seen him before that. After we had ridden some miles Mr. Hutchinson said, "I believe that is Father Langstroth." They traveled nearly all day with us in the car, but we did not speak to him. At that convention I had the very great pleasure of meeting .Father Langstroth, and talking to him for about two hours in the hotel while a number of the beekeepers went to visit the Exposition. . It seems to me I never had been so entertained with any conversationalist as I was at that time with Father Langstroth, and I have been thankful to this day that I went to Toronto and had the pleasure of meeting the great Father Langstroth.
Mr. Aspinwall—Although I have been a resident of Michigan for 23 years, my home was originally in New York State, and my acquaintance with Mr. Quinby was some considerable, and up to the time of 1895 I had never met Mr. Langstroth, and I fully endorse the remarks made by Mr. York, of the courteous manner in which he received strangers and guests and entertained them. Previous to my return home, Father Langstroth, upon that .short acquaintance, volunteered to send me an autograph copy of his work, which he did shortly after that session. I merely state this to show the spirit of the man as manifestly displayed by the remarks of Dr. Miller, that he lived largely in the interests of others.
Pres. Dadant—I wish to state that this gavel is engraved as follows: "Wood from tree planted by Rev. L. L. Langstroth in his garden in Oxford, Ohio. National BeeKeepers' Association, 1905. T. M. G."
Mr. France—I would like to request on behalf of the Association, if they would favor it, that the Association draw upon its funds sufficient to have Father Langstroth's picture framed and hung in our convention halls at future meetings. I would move that. (Applause).
Dr. Bohrer—I second the motion.
Pres. Dadant—It will be understood that the motion is simply to recommend this to the Directors.
The President put the motion which was carried unanimously.
Dr. Miller—With your permission I would like to read the poem that Father Langstroth had written which has never been published till just now. It is entitled,
TO MY WIFE IN HEAVEN.
Wife of my youth—I dream of thee,
Arrayed in bridal form;
I hold in mine thy trusting hand—
Hail! Happy marriage morn!
To God we vow our glad "I will"—
Thy soft, responsive voice—
Of twain made one by wedded bands—
And I, with thee, rejoice.
Sweet, loving wife—God's gracious gift—
And art thou all my own?
This plighted hand I'll closer clasp—
Dear Lord! I wake alone.
Ah! Silent lips, whose law of love
So gently swayed my will,
When trusting in thee, heart to heart,
We were united still.
Weeping lasts but a night, dear wife;
Joy cometh with the light;
But for a moment darkened days,
Then where there is no night.
Both shall be present with the Lord,
Grievings and partings past;
Soul knit to soul by Heavenly bands
When lengthening ages last.
Dr. Bohrer—I received a letter embracing that sentiment a few days after he buried his wife.
Mr. York—I think it ought to be made a matter of record that Dr.' Bohrer was present at the first meeting of this Association, and is present at this meeting.
The convention then adjourned to meet at 2 p. m.
Dr. Bohrer—I received a letter embracing that sentiment a few days after he buried his wife.
Mr. York—I think it ought to be made a matter of record that Dr.' Bohrer was present at the first meeting of this Association, and is present at this meeting.
The convention then adjourned to meet at 2 p. m.
p. 198
http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA198&lpg=PA198&dq=%22Langstroth+gavel%22&sig=-1HKK20SDi9pZZaYIoVoKfAl2b8&ei=9fSpS53QDoSuNpvezMEB&ct=result&id=QfxOAAAAIAAJ&ots=gYy2JOy4P9#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Annual report / Illinois State Bee-Keepers' Association, Volume 11
1912
Annual report / Illinois State Bee-Keepers' Association, Volume 11
1912
SECOND DAY—EVENING SESS1ON.
Pres. York—We have come to the last session of this Convention—the Co-Operation Session. Every session has grown more important, I believe, from the first, and this session certainly ought to 'be the livest of them all. But before taking up the program of the evening, I want to say that this gavel was made from wood taken from a tree that Father Langstroth planted in Oxford, Ohio, 50 or 60 yeears ago; a lady in Chicago—Mrs. J. J Glessner —thought it would be very nice to have some gavels made out of the wood of the tree that Father Langstroth planted, so she sent for a limb of it, and her son made two gavels; this is one of them.
When the National Association met in Chicago, in 1906, Mr. Dadant was President, and I was President of the Chicago-Northwestern Association. Dr. Miller presented this gavel to Mr. Dadant, President of the National, and another to me, President of the Chicago-Northwestern. For the past two years I have had charge of both gavels, as I am still President of the Chicago-Northwestern. The gavels are made of bass-wood, and are very nice gavels. This one, of course, will always be kept in the hands of the President of the National, whoever he may be. I thought you might like to know the history of this gavel.
Pres. York—We have come to the last session of this Convention—the Co-Operation Session. Every session has grown more important, I believe, from the first, and this session certainly ought to 'be the livest of them all. But before taking up the program of the evening, I want to say that this gavel was made from wood taken from a tree that Father Langstroth planted in Oxford, Ohio, 50 or 60 yeears ago; a lady in Chicago—Mrs. J. J Glessner —thought it would be very nice to have some gavels made out of the wood of the tree that Father Langstroth planted, so she sent for a limb of it, and her son made two gavels; this is one of them.
When the National Association met in Chicago, in 1906, Mr. Dadant was President, and I was President of the Chicago-Northwestern Association. Dr. Miller presented this gavel to Mr. Dadant, President of the National, and another to me, President of the Chicago-Northwestern. For the past two years I have had charge of both gavels, as I am still President of the Chicago-Northwestern. The gavels are made of bass-wood, and are very nice gavels. This one, of course, will always be kept in the hands of the President of the National, whoever he may be. I thought you might like to know the history of this gavel.
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