MEMPHREMAGOG 



3731 



MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY 



to its year-round deep-water navigation' and 

 its location in a rich cotton and lumber belt. 

 As the largest interior cotton market of the 

 United States, and one of the largest in the 

 world, it handles more than 1,000,000 bales 

 annually. It is also one of the largest hard- 

 wood lumber markets, producing one billion 

 feet a year, a great cottonseed-oil producing 

 center, and one of the most important mule and 

 horse markets of the South. There are three 

 stockyards and a meat-packing house. Ex- 

 tensive wholesale houses annually distribute 

 more than $24,000,000 worth of groceries, food- 

 stuffs, clothing and drugs. 



Among more than 600 manufacturing estab- 

 lishments are wood-working factories; foun- 

 dries and car shops ; machine shops ; cooperage, 

 fiber, pulp and paper mills; rice mills; harness 

 factories; engine and boiler works, and manu- 

 factories of cotton gins, pottery, stoves, ranges 

 and cider presses. 



History. The earliest explorers'found Chicka- 

 saw Indians on and about what is now the site 

 of Memphis. Here they lit their council fires 

 and embarked to cross the river. During the 

 seventeenth century the place was visited by 

 Marquette and Joliet, La Salle and De Tonti. 

 In 1739 the first French fort was built, but 

 throughout the eighteenth century the Spanish 

 contested the French claim to the lower Mis- 

 sissippi. In 1797 Fort Adams was built by 

 United States troops, and soon after the Indians 

 were expelled. General Andrew Jackson, Judge 

 John Overton and General James Winchester, 

 owners of the property, organized a small set- 

 tlement in 1819, which was incorporated as a 

 town in 1826 and received a city charter in 

 1849. 



Epidemics of yellow fever in 1855, 1867, 1873, 

 1878 and 1879, during which time thousands 

 died and thousands more fled for safety, so 

 impoverished the city that to avoid bankruptcy 

 the state legislature, in 1879, repealed the city 

 charter and created the Municipal Taxing Dis- 

 trict of Shelby County. A complete system of 

 sanitation was installed, the indebtedness was 

 bonded, and in 1893 the city charter and name 

 were restored. The city water supply is ob- 

 tained from artesian wells owned and operated 

 by the municipality. In 1909 the commission 

 form of government was adopted. J.M.T. 



Consult Young's History of Memphis. 



MEMPHREMAGOG, memfrema'gog, a pic- 

 turesque small lake on the boundary between 

 Canada and the United States, about one-third 

 of its area being in the state of Vermont and 



the remainder in the province of Quebec. It 

 is about thirty miles long from north to south 

 and from two to five miles wide. Memphrema- 

 gog is noted for its attractive scenery and its 

 excellent fishing, and its shores are dotted with 

 summer resorts and private villas. Newport, 

 Vt., at the southern end, and Magog, Quebec, 

 at the northern, are the principal settlements. 

 Through the Magog River the lake discharges 

 northeastward into the Saint Francis River, 

 which reaches the Saint Lawrence at Lake Saint 

 Peter. 



MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY, JAKOB LUD- 

 WIG FELIX (1809-1847), commonly called Felix 

 Mendelssohn, a famous composer, was born at 

 Hamburg, Germany. His parents were con- 

 verted from the Jewish to the Christian faith 

 when Felix was but two or three years old, 

 and he himself was baptized in the Lutheran 

 Church. The family was wealthy and cul- 

 tured, and there was never a day in Men- 

 delssohn's life that he lacked those things 

 which money and broad education could give. 

 When he was two years old Hamburg was cap- 

 tured by France, then at war with Germany, 

 and the Mendelssohn family fled to Berlin, a 

 city which he never liked, but which he always 

 considered his home. 



He began to receive music lessons from his 

 mother when he was but four years old, and 

 five years later was composing short pieces 

 for the family or- 

 chestra, consisting 

 of his brother, 

 two sisters and 

 himself. When 

 he was sixteen 

 the family moved 

 to a beautiful 

 mansion in Ber- 

 lin with a seven- 

 acre park about 

 it, and there in 

 a garden - house 

 seating several 

 hundred people 

 concerts were held that were the admiration of 

 the whole city. In the course of time thousands 

 of visitors from many parts of the world at- 

 tended these entertainments, and the photo- 

 graphs sent by distinguished persons who had 

 enjoyed the music filled forty-seven volumes. 



When the boy was but fifteen years of age 

 he composed and directed a three-act opera 

 of such beauty that the most crabbed musician 

 in Berlin, called, for his spitefuiness, "Old 



MENDELSSOHN 



