A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
Columbus of the land!

Who guided freedom's proud career
Beyond the conquer'd strand;
And gave her pilgrim sons a home
No monarch's step profanes,
Free as the chainless winds that roam
Upon its boundless plains.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
The muffled drum resound!

A warrior is slumb'ring here

Beneath his battle ground.

For not alone with beast of prey
The bloody strife he waged,
Foremost where'er the deadly fray
Of savage combat raged.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
A dirge for his old spouse!
For her who blest his forest cheer,
And kept his birchen house.
Now soundly by her chieftain may
The brave old dame sleep on,
The red man's step is far away,

The wolf's dread howl is gone.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
His pilgrimage is done;

He hunts no more the grizzly bear
About the setting sun.

Weary at last of chase and life

He laid him here to rest, Nor recks he now what sport or strife Would tempt him farther West.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
The patriarch of his tribe!

He sleeps, no pompous pile marks where,
No lines his deeds describe.

They raised no stone above him here,

Nor carved his deathless name

An Empire is his sepulcher,

His epitaph is Fame.

-O'Hara.

Society of the Cincinnati.

Because of the resemblance of the Society of Sons of the Revolution to the Society of the Cincinnati, after which it was patterned; and because of the fact that a considerable number of the charter members of the New York, Pennsylvania, and District of Columbia Societies, by which our General Society was formed, were also members of the Cincinnati, it has been thought proper to incorporate into this Year Book a condensed sketch of the Cincinnati and a list of the original members of this society (as far as their names have been preserved) in seven of the thirteen original States of the Union.

This institution, moreover, is so intimately connected with affairs at the close of the Revolution, and with preparations for the return of the country to the pursuits of peace, after emerging from the conflicts of an eight years' war, that some account of it, in this connection will not be out of place.

It has been beautifully said that "Providence moves through time as the gods of Homer through space-it takes one step and ages have rolled away;" and though it has rolled twenty-three centuries between the illustrious farmer of Rome and our own immortal farmer of Mount Vernon, yet, in the night-march of the former to the aid of the despairing army of Minutius, and in that of the latter, over the storm-lashed and icy billows of the Delaware, on the Hessian encampment at Trenton, the same "Arcturus, Orion, Pleiades, and the chambers of the South," known also in the days of the patient man of Uz, still perpetuated by the same moving Providence, enlightened both armies; and the gaze of both generals has rested upon the same constellations, so that time, by similitude of circumstances and character, seems to have been so far annihilated as to bring the two to stand con temporaneously on the great platform of human liberty, and to a personal recognition of each other in the great Society of Peace, bearing the name of the one and presided over by the other, whose valedictory proclaimed, that, “Having finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of action, and bidding an af

fectionate farewell to this august body, under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my commission, and take leave of all the public employments of life"-and of whom it was said, when the "clods of the valley" were about to cover all of him that was mortal: "Our virtuous Chief, mindful only of the common good, in a moment of tempting personal aggrandizement, hushed the discontents of growing sedition; and, surrendering his power into the hands from which he had received it, converted his sword into a ploughshare, teaching an admiring world that to be truly great, you must be truly good."

In an address delivered by Hon. Hamilton Fish, PresidentGeneral of the Cincinnati, on March 22, 1889, he said:

"I regard the Society 'Sons of the Revolution' as a younger brother of the Cincinnati, laboring to perpetuate the same principles and inheriting the same memories which belonged to the Cincinnati."

The Society of the Cincinnati was founded May 13, 1783, at Temple Hill, near New Windsor, New York, at the last cantonment of the American Army, five years prior to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, by Washington, Knox, Steuben, and other officers of the Revolutionary War.

The Institution of the Society adopted at the cantonment of the American Army, on the Hudson River, May 13, 1783, contained the following provisions, viz.:

"It having pleased the Supreme Governor of the universe, in the disposition of human affairs, to cause the separation of the colonies of North America from the domination of Great Britain, and, after a bloody conflict of eight years, to establish them free, independent and sovereign states, connected by alliances, founded on reciprocal advantages, with some of the greatest princes and powers of the earth:

"To perpetuate, therefore, as well the remembrance of this vast event, as the mutual friendships which have been formed. under the pressure of common danger, and in many instances cemented by the blood of the parties, the officers of the American Army do, hereby, in the most solemn manner, associate, constitute and combine themselves into one society of friends, to endure as long as they shall endure, or any of their eldest male posterity, and in failure thereof, the collateral branches, who