140 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Feb. 23, 1905. 



out one lot of bees numbering over 800 colonies without 

 finding a dead one. 



As for honey, he has for years past been as certain of 

 getting a paying crop as the farmer has been of getting a 

 crop of anything else dependent upon the weather. During 

 his lifetime he produced a greater quantity of honey than 

 any other bee-keeper that ever lived. He found bee-keep- 

 ing depending upon luck for a passing existence ; he left it 

 a specialty founded on the rock of science, the peer of any 

 branch of agriculture. No one ever labored more, no one 



Part ol Capt. Hetherington's Bee- Yard in the fall, waiting 

 for the cellar. 



ever sacrificed more, no one ever accomplished more, toward 

 this result than did Capt. J. E. Hetherington. 



Captain Hetherington was one of the founders 

 of the Northeastern Bee-Keepers' Association (now the 

 New York State Association), one of the oldest, if not 

 the oldest, organization of its kind in the country ; and 

 after the death of Mr. Quinby, its president. He was also 

 present at the organization of the National society, and 

 later elected president. At one time he was associated with 

 Mr. Quinby in giving addresses on bee-keeping before 

 farmers' clubs in some of the towns of central New York. 

 He had a good command of language, and was a clear, 

 forcible writer and speaker, and it is to be regretted that 

 time and inclination did not permit him to make a more 

 frequent use of his gifts in this direction. 



Socially, and as a host, he had no superiors and very 

 few equals in the fraternity, and many who read this will 

 testify to the excellent treatment received at the hands of 

 himself and his accomplished wife. His naturally excellent 

 conversational abilities were improved by cultivation. His 

 stock of anecdotes was large, and drawn upon almost 

 wholly as apt illustrations of the various points under dis- 

 cussion, while his army life was so eventful, and his mem- 

 ory so retentive that from this source alone he could enter- 

 tain and instruct by the hour. 



At the camp fires of his G. A. R. Post he was looked 

 upon as chief entertainer, and he was very successful in 

 getting the old veterans to live over again, for a short time, 

 their old army experiences. At a late public gathering of 

 the Masonic Lodge of Cherry Valley, of which he was past- 

 master, he was somewhat unexpectedly called upon to act 

 as toast-master. His remarks on this occasion, the last 

 time he was at a public gathering, were said to have been 

 uncommonly brilliant and eloquent. 



The citizens of his historic, native town have long held 

 him in their highest esteem because of his sociability, his 

 high intellectual and moral worth, and particularly because 

 of his splendid military record. Nothing ever came up for 

 the benefit of Cherry Valley but that Capt. Hetherington 

 used his rare executive abilities to help it along. It was he 

 who secured the organization of the Board of Trade in the 

 nick of time to obtain the location of the most helpful in- 

 dustry of the town. He was also foremost in procuring a 

 site for a summer park and recreation ground on the shores 

 of Otsego Lake. And no one labored harder than he for the 

 splendid public water supply of this town— an honor to this 

 small village and a monumental work to those who con- 

 ceived and carried the project through to completion. 



Capt. Hetherington thoroughly enjoyed his home life, 

 while his happy, hopeful, resourceful spirit made him the 

 light of an affectionate household. He leaves a wife, a son, 

 and a daughter. The son, recently married, has inherited 

 his father's stirring activity and much of his executive 

 ability. A younger son died IS years ago, when a little 

 more than 4 years old. 



Capt. H. was an active temperance worker, and for 



many years a member of the Good Templar order. He was 

 a regular attendant of the Presbyterian Church, of which 

 his wife and daughter are members. He was also an officer 

 and worker in the Sunday-school. He believed in a religion 

 of a practical, working kind that bears immediate fruit, 

 that raises the fallen, feeds the hungry, cares for the sick ; 

 and he was a living exponent of that religion, as many per- 

 sons have testified since his death. At the same time he 

 believed in the Divine side of religion, with duties beyond 

 those to our fellowman, and with privileges and enjoyments 

 and helps not found elsewhere. One of the last quotations 

 he made was from a favorite poem — Tennyson's " Crossing 

 the Bar": 



" For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place 



The Flood may bear me far, 

 I hope to see my Pilot face to face 



When I have crost the bar." 



Eminent comrades have testified that as a soldier J. E. 

 Hetherington had few equals. It was from no boyish 

 freak, but from a deliberate sense of duty that on Oct. 12, 

 1861, he enlisted in Company D, 1st Regiment, U. S. Sharp- 

 shooters, Col. Berdan commanding. The spare time of the 

 summer before had been spent in target riiie practice, and 

 his mother had made his underclothing previous to enlist- 

 ment. His bee-business at this time was the most extensive 

 in the land, but it and his life, if necessary, were ready to 

 be sacrificed when his country was in peril. Before the 

 second year had passed, of nine intimate friends from 

 Cherry Valley who had entered the army, four were dead, 

 four discharged for disability, and Capt. Hetherington alone 

 remained in the service. "Truly, to quote Gen. Sherman's 

 epigram, " War is hell ". 



Gen. Sheridan says, " Courage measures the power the 

 mind has over the body ". The Captain stood at his post 

 in a most dangerous branch of the service, when most men 

 would have been in the hospital or discharged for disability. 

 His army surgeon has left on record the following to his 

 bravery : 



"On May 12, 1864, at Spottsylvania, he became very 

 much exhausted by reason of chronic diarrhea, but de- 

 clined being relieved from duty ; and although wounded in 

 the head, he heroically remained in command of his com- 

 pany." And, again: "On June 22, 1864, in action before 

 Petersburg, Va., he received a serious wound in the hand, 

 which disabled him from duty. At the time of receiving 

 said wound he was suffering from chronic diarrhea, and 

 was so weak and debilitated by it that he was a better sub- 

 ject for the hospital than the battle-field ". 



This was the wound he received when his sword was 

 shattered by a bullet, and a piece of the weapon driven 

 through his hand. The engraving shows this piece lying 

 by the broken sword. The portrait shows the position of 

 the sword and hand. He had thrown his rubber blanket 

 across the hilt of his sword, and that over his shoulder. 

 Providentially, the bullet, so accurately directed, found a 

 lodgment in his sword and hand instead of his heart, which 

 lay just beneath. Major Gen. Wilkenson, of the British 

 army, on seeing this sword, said that he had seen many of 

 the heirlooms of prominent British families, and the relics 

 sent home from 20 years of active service, and then added, 

 " Among them all there are none that I consider so fine a 

 personal relic as this broken sword". The Captain threw 



The Sword which saved the Captain's life. 



this away as being of no further use, but it was preserved 

 by his men. He also received a gunshot wound in the 

 shoulder in the second battle of Bull Run, Aug. 29, 1862. 



Entering the army a private he came out a captain in 

 that branch of the service where the command of a company 

 meant in some ways as much as the command of a regi- 

 ment in other parts of the army. The captain of Company 

 D was killed in the battle of Gettysburg, July 3, 1863, and 

 Lieut. J. E Hetherington was recommended for promotion 

 by Col. Berdan from the battle-field. At the close of the 



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