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REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS

REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS

PREPARED BY JOHN PHOENIX

Life and Times of Joseph Bowers the Elder. Collated from Unpublished Papers of the Late John P. Squibob. BY J. BOWERS, JR.

Hyde & Seekim, 1854.

Vallecitos:

MANY of your readers will doubtless remember to have been occasionally mystified when, struck by the remarkable beauty of some passing female stranger, or by the flashes of wit sparkling from the lips of some gentlemanly unknown, on making the inquiry, "Who is that?" the reply has been given, "Oh, that is one of old Joe Bowers's girls," or boys, as the case may have been; and they will also remember that when about to propound the naturally succeeding question, "Who is Old Joe Bowers?" they have been deterred from so doing by a peculiar smile and an indefinable glance of the eye, approximating to what is vulgarly termed a wink, on the part of their informant.

Such persons, and indeed all who seek to improve

their minds by indulging a wholesome curiosity as to the private history of the good and great of earth, will be glad to hear that this question of "Who is Joseph Bowers?" is about to be definitely answered.

Through the kindness of Messrs. Hyde and Seekim, of Vallecetos, we have been permitted to glance over the proof-sheets of their forthcoming work, the title of which is given above, and to make therefrom such selections as we may deem sufficient to interest the public in promoting the filial design of the younger Bowers, to transmit the name and virtues of his honored sire to posterity.

Joseph Bowers the elder (or, as he is familiarly known, "Old Joe Bowers "), we learn from this history, was born in Ypsilanti, Washtenaw County, Michigan, on the first day of April, 1776, of "poor but honest parents." His father, during the troubles of the revolutionary struggle, was engaged in business as a malefactor in western New York, from which part of the country he was compelled to emigrate, by the prejudices and annoyances of the bigoted settlers among whom he had for many years conducted his operations. Emigrating suddenly, in fact, with such precipitation," says the narrator, "that my grandfather took nothing with him of his large property but a single shirt, which he happened to have about him at the time he formed his resolu

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tion," he found himself, after a journey of several days of vicissitude and suffering, upon the summit of a hill overlooking a beautiful valley in the fertile State of Michigan. Struck by the beauty of the surrounding scenery, he leaped from the ground in his enthusiasm, and cracking his heels twice together while in the air (" by which," says the narrator, with much naïveté, "my grandfather didn't mean anything, it was just a way he'd got "), he uttered the stirring cry of "Yip!-silanti!" from which memorable circumstance the place thereafter took its name. Here he finally settled, and marrying afterward a young lady whom the author somewhat obscurely speaks of as "one of 'em," had issue, the subject of this narrative, and finally ended his career of usefulness by falling from a cart in which he had been standing, addressing a numerous audience, and in which fall he unfortunately broke his neck.

Our limits will not permit us at present to do more than glance hastily over the stirring incidents in the life of the elder Bowers. He appears to have been connected in some way with almost every prominent event of the times in which he lived. We find him a servant and afterward a confidential friend and adviser of General Cass; consulted on matters of religion by General Jackson; an admirer of one of Col. Dick Johnson's daughters (by the way, it was

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