EDWARD J. C. KEWEN.

BY J. G. HOWARD,

Author of the "BLOVE PAPERS."

THIS gentleman's father, Captain Kewen, a native of the Emerald Isle, emigrated to the United States a short time previous to our last war with England, and acquired much military distinction at the battle of New Orleans. Locating a trading post upon the Tombigbee in 1820, in a region almost uninhabited save by savages, he succeeded in a very few years in accumulating a large fortune. By his marriage with a Miss Weaver, an accomplished lady from Tennessee, he had issue three sons, the eldest of whom, and the sole survivor, is our present subject.

Captain Kewen forfeited his life in a duel, leaving behind him a brilliant reputation as a soldier, and an unspotted name for integrity.

Edward J. C. Kewen was born at Columbus, Mississippi, Nov. 2d, 1825. At thirteen years of age he became a student in the Wesleyan University, located at Middletown, Conn. He had been there some three years, when the untoward speculations of his guardian hurried him to his Mississippi home; and he arrived there to learn that his once princely inheritance had dwindled down to a mere pittance. Thus reduced from affluence to comparative poverty, with his two younger brothers dependent upon his exertions for subsistence, he resolved upon the profession of the law. He betook himself to solitary study, with a

persistence and assiduity almost unprecedented in those of his extreme youth.

He had reached the age of nineteen, with but few acquaintances and associations in his native town. This was in 1844, in the midst of a most exciting political contest. By some means he was selected to deliver the opening address before what was then styled a "Clay Club." His primal effort on that occasion acquired for him at once an extraordinary reputation for oratory. His extreme youth, peculiarity of style, copiousness of diction, earnestness and polish of manner, gave him sudden and unwonted fame. He was seized upon by the leading spirits of the party to which he belonged, in a section of country distinguished for its eloquent men, as one of their most efficient speakers, and dispatched to remote

sections.

The writer of the present notice has heard an incident illustrative of young Kewen's daring and fervid elocution. At a prominent point in his native State the people of both parties had massed together to enjoy barbacued provisions and the attrition of oratory. Two whole days had passed away in the social and political revel, but very much to the discomfiture of Whig doctrines. Such giants as Geo. R. Clayton and H. L. Harris and Jno. B. Cobb, from unaccountable reasons, had failed to present themselves to effulge upon the beauties and strength of a protective tariff and other germane Whig topics. In despair, and at the very finale of the meeting, the young stranger Kewen, a beardless boy, was reluctantly thrown before them. He had now some experience, it is true, in public declamation, and youth has its magnetism and sympathy; yet, they say astonishment soon melted into earnest admiration, and the comparative boy ran away with the hearts and the judgments of the serried crowd. Regardless of party discrimination, they did a strange thing for that region. They seized hold of the juvenile orator as he finished his glowing peroration, and bore him around upon their shoulders, and would not be content until he had given them another specimen of his eloquence the same night in a neighboring court-house.

Such triumphs are very rare. After the election of 1844, Mr. Kewen became the editor of the Columbus Whig, and remained in that occupation for two years.

Removing to St. Louis, Mo., for the purpose of practicing law, and meeting with peculiar success, we find him again upon the hustings after the nomination of Zachary Taylor for the Presidency. The papers of that day teem with the most extravagant encomiums upon his oratorical abilities. In commendation of his forensic efforts, partizanship lost its rancor, for praise flew equally from his opponents as his friends. In his fervid pilgrimage he

traversed several of the Middle and Southern States.

The reader of this sketch has already detected in its subject a peculiar restlessness so characteristic of men of his ardent temperament, and will not be surprised to learn that he became one of the innumerable throng that hurried to this western El Dorado some twenty years ago.

Perhaps the blind boy, Dan Cupid, was one of the impelling causes of his sudden migration. It is very certain that he fell in with the caravan of Dr. T. J. White and family, and meandered across the "plains" in their companionship, and became the fortunate husband of the Doctor's accomplished daughter upon their arrival at Sacramento, December 10th, 1849.

It would seem that his fame as an orator had anteceded him. Some occasion prompting it, he was summoned to the rostrum the very day his weary footsteps first traversed the then primitive city of Sacramento; and his instantaneous popularity was evinced by his election to the responsible office of Attorney-General by the State Legislature soon after his advent upon our coast. This office he resigned, as it compelled his residence at a distance from his adopted city, in which he had sprung into a lucrative practice in his profession.

If other evidences of moral and physical courage were wanting, his character in this respect was especially manifest in his enlistment against the Squatters, who, at that early period of our history had banded in murderous clans. Under threats of assassination, he boldly repaired to one of their convocations on the Levee, and succeeded

by the audacity of his tongue in dispersing the threatening and insurrectionary crowd.

In May, 1851, he was nominated as a candidate on the Whig ticket for Congress; and it was in that canvass that he displayed the full maturity and strength of his peculiar powers. Often speaking several times during the same day, he seemed exhaustless in mind and body. Though unsuccessful, the small majority obtained by his opponent was a high compliment to the zeal and eloquence of Col. Kewen in a State Democratic at the time by many thousands.

Leaving Sacramento in the summer of 1852, for San Francisco, he practiced his profession in the latter city with eminent success, until his restless and daring mind drove him into a new career. His brother, A. L. Kewen, second in command to Col. Walker, was shot and killed in the first battle of Rivas, Nicaragua, in June, 1855. Thomas, the youngest of the three, had died the preceding year on the Island of Tabogo in the province of Panama. Alone in the world, and we may naturally suppose, brooding in deepest melancholy over the early death of his only and loved kindred, it is not surprising that one of his ardent and generous impulses would seek relief in the first daring enterprise that offered. He was an intimate friend of Col. Walker, and had hitherto resisted his earnest importunities to embark in his wild adventure. Walker, now the military head of the new government, welcomed him with open arms, and at once commissioned him as the financial agent of the Republic; and it was not long before he became a member of a judicial tribunal organized to adjust the rival claims of Vanderbilt and Garrison & Morgan. The result of the deliberations of that body was, that Vanderbilt was indebted to the RivasWalker government to the amount of one half million of dollars. Pending the decision, were fought the memorable battles of Rivas, Massaya and Granada, in each of which Col. Kewen took an active part as aid to Gen. Walker. Though disapproving the measure, Col. Kewen was instructed to take possession of the steamers belonging to Commodore Vanderbilt, plying on Lake Nicaragua. That