lic affairs, devoting himself to the preparation of the works he afterwards published.

Colonel Benton was by no means free from faults-the chief of which was egotism. He loved to speak of his own exploits. On the day he made his celebrated speech against the "Omnibus Territorial Bill," which, by way of derision, he compared to old Dr. Jacob Townsend's sarsaparilla, and in which he kept the Senate for hours in a roar of laughter at the expense of Mr. Clay, who had opposed the bills separately, and supported them when consolidated, we overtook him on Pennsylvania Avenue as he was returning home. The first question he asked was, if we heard his speech; and, on receiving an affirmative answer, said, "Didn't I give Clay h-1?" and every few minutes repeated it with evident delight and satisfaction. But he was so exemplary a man in all his private relations, and had so few faults, that his friends were disposed to overlook this, prominent as it was.

In his family he was kind and domestic. It is known that Mrs. Benton for many years was greatly afflicted with paralysis; but to enable her to enjoy the society of her friends he would take her in his arms like a child, and carry her to the parlor, and back again to her room. We have seen him do this at least a dozen times. She was a sister of Governor McDowell, of Virginia; and no wife ever received greater devotion from her husband than she received from Colonel Benton.

He died in Washington City, on April 10, 1858, from the effects of cancer in the stomach. His remains were brought to St. Louis, exhibited in state for several days, and then interred in Bellefontaine Cemetery. As the casket containing the corpse was borne from the church, at least 40,000 people were gazing at the solemn scene. All business houses were closed, public buildings draped in mourning, flags in the harbor trailing at half-mast, and a deep gloom settled over the great city of the West. It was evident that a mighty man had fallen.

Alas! when will Missouri have another Benton ?

GEORGE SHANNON.

This strange and eccentric lawyer was born in Pennsylvania, in 1787. He was of Irish descent. When a mere boy he joined the expedition of Lewis and Clark to the Rocky Mountains, and in an engagement with the Indians received a wound in the leg, and on his return down the Missouri River stopped at St. Charles and had the limb amputated. He procured a wooden leg shaped at the end like a peg, and from that time bore the sobriquet of "Peg-leg Shannon."

Lewis and Clark took him to Philadelphia, where he superintended the publication of their journal. While there. he studied law, and was admitted to the bar, and soon afterwards commenced the practice in Lexington, Kentucky. He was eventually appointed a circuit judge, which office he held for three years.

It was in his court that young De Shea, a son of the governor of Kentucky, was convicted of murder in the first degree. Judge Shannon, for reasons satisfactory to himself, granted a new trial, which greatly incensed the people, who attributed his action to executive influence. This no doubt induced the judge to leave Kentucky, for in 1828 he moved to Missouri and located at Hannibal, and afterwards settled permanently at St. Charles. For a short time he occupied a seat in the State Senate, and was also United States attorney for Missouri, and became a candidate for United States senator at the time Colonel Benton obtained his second election. Judge Shannon was a man of considerable ability, and somewhat distinguished as a criminal lawyer.

He died very suddenly at the court-house in Palmyra, while defending a man indicted for murder. He was, at the time, in his forty-ninth year.

He was very young when his father died, leaving his

mother with a large family of children to maintain among them four or five sons, all of whom in after-life became distinguished for their talents. His brother Wilson Shannon was at one time governor of Ohio, and, in 1844, minister to Mexico, under President Tyler. He also served in Congress, and was appointed governor of Kansas Territory, and when Kansas was admitted as a state the people elected him as their governor. He died in Kansas in 1877.

Another brother, by the name of James, became a distinguished lawyer, and practiced many years in Lexington, Kentucky. Judge Shannon was a strong and vigorous speaker, and was esteemed by the profession as one of the most effective jury lawyers in the state. His knowledge of men was very great, and before addressing a jury he studied the character of each juror, and adopted a line of argument calculated to win their support.

The county of Shannon, in this state, was named after him.

During the latter part of his life he became very dissipated, and when under the influence of liquor was wild, and at times desperate. Putting up one night at a country tavern, he became greatly annoyed at the loud ticking of a Yankee clock which hung over the fire-place in his room; and being in that nervous condition usually attending a spree, imagined that the noise was intended for his special benefit, and addressing himself to the clock, said: "Sir, your conversation disturbs my rest; be kind enough to suspend." The clock failing to comply with his request, he again said: "Sir, this impertinence cannot be endured; and unless you instantly cease I will blow you to h-1." But the clock was obstinate, and failed to heed the threat, whereupon he rose from his bed, and taking from his saddle-bags a large-bored pistol, sent a ball through the face of his disturber, shattering it into fifty pieces, and at the same time exclaiming, "Take that for your impertinence, you d-d Yankee son of a b-h." The next morning, upon ascertaining what he had done, he asked the landlord what he had paid for his clock, and, on receiving a reply, promptly handed over the amount.

Upon another occasion, while at Jefferson City during a session of the Legislature, and stopping at the Stone Hotel, on the bank of the 'river, he became incensed at one of his comrades, a senator, and getting the distinguished representative in a condition which offered no resistance, he led him to the river, put him in a skiff, turned the boat loose, and the unconscious senator floated about fifteen miles below the capital and landed on a sand-bar, when he was rescued in an almost perished condition.

At another time, at the same hotel, he was in a merry crowd, and one of them proposed to him that if either would do a particular act, and the other should fail to follow suit, the delinquent should treat the crowd. Thereupon Shannon took off his wooden leg and threw it into the fire; and as the other was not disposed to thus jeopardize a sound limb, he was forced to foot the bill.

EDWARD HEMPSTEAD.

By act of Congress approved June 4, 1813, the name of the territory of Louisiana was changed to that of the territory of Missouri, and at an election held on the second Monday in November of that year the subject of this sketch was elected as the first delegate to Congress from the territory.

He was born in New London, Connecticut, on June 3, . 1770, over a century ago, and came to the territory of Louisiana as early as 1804, traveling all the way on horseback.

At that period the facilities for traveling were very limited indeed, almost confined to horseback. There were no steamboats plying the western waters, and no stage routes west of the Alleghany Mountains. It is true that now and then the traveler, after reaching the Ohio River, would take passage on a flat-boat, but as a general thing he relied upon his horse traveling weeks and months without shelter, and exposed to all the dangers and privations that a new and almost unexplored region subjected him to. When night overtook him, his place of rest was upon the bare ground, with his blanket around him and his saddle for a pillow, first having hobbled his horse and turned him loose to graze upon the shrubs and grass. Such were the facilities offered Mr. Hempstead to reach the Father of Waters.

Mr. Hempstead received a classical education, and was admitted to the bar in 1801; and after practicing three years in Rhode Island, came West, remaining a brief period in Vincennes, then in the territory of Indiana, and settled in the town of St. Charles, from whence he removed, in 1805, to St. Louis, where he resided till his death.

Mr. Hempstead filled many public positions, with great credit to himself and to the entire satisfaction of the government. In 1806 he received the appointment of deputy attor