Connected: I Am He Who Passed Me By

By Thomas James

William Harrison Parker documented his religious belief that all life is connected with the dream of one day publishing it to the world. This dream was arrested by the start of the Civil War and his death at sea off the coast of North Carolina. Unable to accept failure of his "life's mission," his spirit continued to haunt this coast line.
It was 150 years later that Joseph Stephenak, suffering his own life's crisis, stumbled upon this haggard spirit. Frightened, Joseph tried to distance himself only to be drawn back, eventually resolving his own dilemma while releasing this unfortunate soul.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469174358

Thomas James

Jeannie Thomas lives in South Carolina with her husband, Rae, and two children, James and Betsy.  She graduated form Arkansas State University in the late 80s with a degree in Radio-TV, minoring in music.  She has since changed directions and works at home as a medical transcriptionist.   She has always worked with children in some capacity since she was very young, starting out as a baby-sitter in Collierville, Tennessee, where she grew up.  Through those years, she often scratched out or made up little children’s stories and would tell or sing them to the children.  After the birth of their two children, she had new inspiration for her stories and decided to try publishing a few of her favorites.  This is the first of her published works, done with the assistance of her husband, Rae who is her best friend.  The illustrations were done by her mother, Judy Doudoukjian and her son, James.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

A face—young, freckled, topped with sandy, neatly-parted hair reflected back at William Harrison Parker as he looked out the large, soot streaked window of the train. But Parker was looking past his reflection to a building beyond, partially hidden behind a low block wall topped with a wrought iron fence. It was a small, squared-off brick building with arched windows above wide barn-like doors and a square cupola adorning its roof. Between him and the building, flecks of soot fluttered through the air like dirty snowflakes and an occasional swirl of smoke dropped to the ground obscuring his view.

A few passengers from the train were walking up the road to get a closer look at the building. William, though curious, was afraid to join them. He had never been on a train and didn’t know how, or if, those who disembarked would be summoned back. In no way did he want to get stranded so far from home and so far short of his destination.

We are in Harpers Ferry, son, a baritone voice bellowed from the bench seat across the aisle. That there is the firehouse where a Marine was killed a year ago.

William did not respond, although his focus switched from the building outside to the reflection in the window of the man across the aisle behind him. It was difficult to make out detail of the man’s reflection in the dim light in the rail car. The entire inside, from ceiling to straight-backed seats lined with deep-green velvet padding, was finished in dark, polished wood. Although daylight was breaking outside, the light coming through the large, square windows was quickly absorbed by the interior darkness.

I fear what happened here is a sign of things to come, the voice again bellowed from the other side of the rail car. This time William turned in his seat toward the source of the words. William froze when he came into eye-to-eye contact with the man across the aisle. He was a distinguished looking gentleman in his fifties, dressed in a three-piece, grey suit that sagged at the shoulders. His high collar was open and his short neckerchief untied, its’ ends hanging down to the top edge of his vest. He had a high forehead and somewhat sunken cheeks. A slightly turned down mouth and bushy eyebrows gave him a stern look. Yet, he looked directly at William with eyes that radiated friendliness.

William didn’t know what to do. Remembering his father’s words of caution, he turned back in his seat and faced straight ahead.

Hours earlier, in the dark of night William had stood in the balmy summer air with his father, Bobby Joe Parker, on the wooden platform of the train depot in their hometown of Steubenville, Ohio. The train on which William was now riding stood beside them, hissing steam, belching wood smoke and smelling of heated grease.

Bobby Joe feared for his son’s safety, but didn’t know how to express it. He didn’t want to scare the boy at a time of such happiness and excitement in his life.

There was a somber silence between William and his father as they stood on the platform in the dim glow of oil lamps hung on posts along the platform. William was going away from home for an extended period for the first time in his eighteen years. And for his father, his eldest son was going out into the world, unescorted and unprotected, for the first time in his life. William was torn between sadness on leaving home and family and the excitement of new things to come; his father was torn between pride in his son’s accomplishments and fear for his son’s health and safety so far from home.

To see them together there was no question they were father and son. William favored his father not only in hair color and chiseled facial features but also in lanky stature. They were, however, not dressed alike. Dressed for work in his foundry, Bobby Joe wore an open collared muslin shirt, tan leather vest and heavy corduroy trousers. William, on the other hand, was dressed appropriately for travel in a brown, three-button suit.

William’s father reached out a strong calloused hand of a smithy and placed it on his son’s shoulder. You look very stylish, son. I’m happy your mother insisted on getting you a suit for travel. I trust you find it comfortable.

William forced a smile and raised a hand to feel the neckerchief tied loosely about the open collar of his shirt. Looking down, he brushed his hand across the front of his suit.

All aboard!

The conductor’s call startled William. He quickly bent over and picked up a large-handled, soft leather satchel that lay on the platform at his feet. The bag contained what belongings he would need for the next month. Spreading the handles apart, he checked the contents. Stuffed in with his shirts and socks was a foot long tube his father had made for him. Constructed of reeds sealed with resin, the tube contained papers that represented his young life’s dream.

William’s father reached across his son’s shoulders and gave him an embrace from the side. As soon as you let your mother and me know where you are staying in Philadelphia, he told his son, we will send on your trunk.

William nodded, but said nothing. He didn’t know what to say or how to feel.

When the man across the aisle spoke the second time, William remembered his father’s words of caution not to speak with strangers on the trip. Remember, Will, his father had told him. Don’t let anyone divert you on your way; and go directly to Saint Mark’s when you get to Philadelphia. Father Bradley has written Father Kinsley of your coming and has been assured that he will find you a place to stay and help you get enrolled at the university.

Don’t worry, pa. I have the information written down in my pouch, along with the money I will need in route. The rest of my money is hidden in my money belt. I’ll be alright. I’ll write as soon as I have an address.

William’s father was not completely at ease with his son’s reply. These are troubled times, Will, he cautioned his son. "There are considerable ill feelings, and even hostilities, between factions in our country. I’m sure you will be fine when you reach Philadelphia. People there, as I have heard, are of similar mind, politically, as we in Steubenville.

But, you’ll need to be especially vigilant in Baltimore. You’ll be out on the streets as you transfer to the other rail station for your ride to Philadelphia. It is not enough that pro-slavery factions throughout the State of Maryland have threatened our national security; thugs in the city of Baltimore have taken it beyond verbal threats on northerners passing through their city.

As William sat in the rail car looking at the buildings of Harpers Ferry outside and the reflection of the man behind him, he became more nervous. People of Maryland, his father had told him, are not at all happy with the anti-slavery positions of most people in the North, and especially the Republican party. And residence of Baltimore are darn right hostile over the issue. William knew that the state of Maryland lay on the other side of the Potomac River just ahead of where the train now rested. Even the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad had concern for its passengers’ safety. They alerted passengers of the situation, but stopped short of assuring safe travel. Still here he sat far from home on this B & O train, which at any moment would start across the Potomac River bridge and enter into the state of Maryland, heading for Baltimore.

Both the stranger within the rail car and the building outside were representative of what his father had been talking about. Danger and hostilities can come from anyone or any direction these days. In fact, hardly a year earlier William read in the Western Herald and Steubenville Gazette, of John Brown. An abolitionist from Kansas, along with some thirty anti-slavery radicals, took hostages and barricaded themselves in that very firehouse looking to raid this armory of weapons. Brown’s plan was to free black slaves throughout Virginia, lead them against southern slaveholders, freeing more slaves. It was ironic, William thought, that the first person Brown’s band of abolitionists had killed was a free black; a watchman at the armory.

Army Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee had been dispatched by the Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, to command any available troops in facing down Brown and the insurrectionists. Lee had been on temporary leave from his post with the 2nd Cavalry in Texas when 1st Lieutenant James E. B. JEB Stuart delivered the Secretary’s order to Lee’s home in Arlington, Virginia.

Army regulars at Fort Monroe, on Virginia’s most southern peninsula, were also put in motion by Secretary Floyd. However, a full two days of travel from Harpers Ferry, their route would have taken them up the Chesapeake Bay by ship to unstable Baltimore, then west by rail to the site of the trouble, giving uncertainty of their timely arrival at Harpers Ferry.

In the essence of time, the Secretary of War petitioned the Secretary of the Navy, Isaac Toucey, to deploy Marine Corps personnel from the Marine Barracks in southeast Washington. This was authorized and Marine Corps Commandant, Colonel John Harris, issued orders for a contingent of Marines to report, in all haste, to the senior officer on location at Harpers Ferry.

Traveling by rail, the Marines made good time reaching Relay House on the B & O rail line and connecting with the train west just as it arrived. Only one combat seasoned officer was in the group, a Lieutenant. The ranking officer in charge was a Major from the finance office. Also in the unit were two drummers, a fifer and seventy-four Privates. Lee and Stuart delayed their departure from Washington while they conferred with Secretary Floyd and the President of the United States, James Buchanan, for specific instructions and a written order of Martial Law to be used if needed.

As instructed, the Marine unit waited for Lee at Sandy Hook, Maryland out of sight of Harpers Ferry just before a