Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/122

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122
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

now at the other house. This day is the closing of the wedding festivities, which have kept both families in a state of unusual bustle and excitement for fully a week. Everything now returns to every-day order and regularity, the young couple usually taking up their abode in a small back-room in the house of the young man's parents, and putting off till the following spring the important business of setting to build a house of their own. Dancing and feasting are now at an end, and henceforward the earnest of life begins.—Blackwood's Magazine.

[To be continued.]

WILLIAM BABCOCK HAZEN.

By Professor CLEVELAND ABBE.

THE sudden death of Brigadier-General William B. Hazen, Chief Signal-Officer of the United States Army, which occurred on Sunday, January 16, 1887, deprived the country of one of its most distinguished officers, and the Signal Corps of a chief who took a broad view of its duties and relations to the world of business and science.

General William Babcock Hazen was the great-grandson of Thomas Hazen, who was born in 1719, and who was himself great-grandson of Edward Hazen, who emigrated from England before 1649, and settled at Rowley, Massachusetts, where he died in 1683.

The descendants of Edward Hazen include many names eminent in business, theology, and war; energy, industry, and strong convictions characterize the members of the family on all sides.

General Hazen was born at West Hartford, Vermont, September 27, 1830. While he was yet a child, his parents removed to Hiram, Portage County, Ohio. In 1851 he was appointed from Ohio as a cadet to the United States Military Academy at West Point, from which he graduated July 1, 1855. He was assigned to the Eighth United States Infantry, and spent the next five years in frontier service, more especially against the Indians in California, Oregon, and Texas, in which service he displayed an energy and bravery that have been characteristic of his life. His record during these years embraces constant fights and pursuits. He was twice severely wounded; and, by virtue of the latter, he was, in January, 1860, by the surgeon's order, granted a leave of absence as being unfit for duty. In consequence of this, he was at the North while his regiment was in Texas at the breaking out of the rebellion; the regiment having been captured and its officers released on parole, he alone was unembarrassed by the parole, and was able to offer his services to the Union army. He was at once assigned as temporary instructor at West Point. In May, 1861, he became captain of the Eighth Infantry, of the regular army, and in October was made colonel of the Forty-first Regiment of Ohio Infantry in the