Sept. 13, 1909, Monday

GERMAN ASTRONOMER IS THE FIRST TO SPOT HALLEY'S COMET ON ITS RETURN TRIP: Astronomers can now begin to track the return of Halley's Comet. After being absent from view for about 70 years, the comet has been spotted by "Prof. Wolff of Heidelberg", according to a brief item in today's Globe. This news came to Boston on Sept. 12 via a dispatch received by the observatory at Harvard. The Globe needlessly added an f to the last name of Prof. Max Wolf, the keen-eyed astronomer.
The news is accompanied by information that is sure to confuse most of the globe readers. Here goes:
The sight was obtained Sept. 11 5642, in R.A. 6h 18m 12s; declination 17 (degrees) 11 (minutes) N.
The Globe translate the astronomical time to Sept. 11 5642 to "about 9 p.m. standard time, Sept. 11."
The image above can be found here. The comet's next visit? Don't hold your breath. I think it's in 2061.

TAFT WILL SOON LEAVE BOSTON FOR A HISTORIC TOUR, WHICH INCLUDES A VISIT TO MEXICO: After spending much of the late summer weeks on Boston's north shore, President William H. Taft is getting ready to leave the area. He leaves Wednesday for a train tour that will cover about 17,750 miles and cover 30 states, according to a front-page story in today's Boston Globe. His trip will reach El Paso in mid-October. Preparations are underway for what will be a historic meeting between President Taft of the U.S. and President Diaz of Mexico at that time. Other planned highlights include a trip through Royal Gorge and a night trip across the highest passes of the Rockies, a visit to a huge irrigation project in Montrose, Colo., to smelters in Butte, Mont, a two-day stay at the Alaska-Yukon exposition in Seattle, a three-day visit to California's Yosemite Valley and a day at the rim of the Grand Canyon.

PREP SCHOOL USES ASBESTOS TO PROTECT ITS FOOTBALL PLAYERS: A small item in today's Globe previews the upcoming football season for Phillips Exeter Academy. The team will be playing on a new field. The Globe points out that the goal posts are noteworthy:
The goal posts are of iron, painted white, and at the bottom wrapped with asbestos and duck to prevent injury of players.
There you have it: Asbestos promotes health.
The "duck" is fabric.

Sept. 12, 1909 (Sunday)

CONTROVERSY ROILS OVER POLAR EXPLORATION: Today's Globe keeps the dispute right in front of the readers. The Cook-Peary controversy has lasted a while. Some insight comes from key information provided by the Library of Congress.

VERMONT TOWN HAS A HUMAN NEWSPAPER: Meet the leather-lunged Morris Green (right). He lives in Ryegate, Vt., (the picture above shows South Ryegate in 1909) and works at the village story. He has a reputation of being the go-to-guy for information. For him, it's apparently too much to bear to live in a town that's too small to have a newspaper. So, according to today's Globe, "He cries the news from the door of the store, and this weekly instruction is expected by the people and enjoyed by them."
He explains:
"I do it for pure love of humanity, and I want to make the place I live in interesting. To do this I feel that it is part of my duty to interest the people and here, where they are so busy with their toil that they get little time to read and study, I find it delightful to condense news and happenings and to cry it for that benefit."
He adds, "So far as I can learn, I am the only HUMAN NEWSPAPER in the world."
That, of course, isn't quite true. It's a tradition that goes way back. But there's something a little BLOGGISH about it, I think.

AT&T HEAD PEEKS INTO THE FUTURE: Today's Globe has a fascinating interview with telephone industrialist (and president of AT&T) Theodore Newton Vail. He makes predicts that coast-to-coast telephone conversations are coming. The reporter asked: "Will it be possible in the future to talk by telephone from Boston to San Francisco?"
Vail's answer:
"I think so. Our engineer told me the other day that he now believed I should have the privilege of talking from my office in New York, over a straight wire, so some one of our representative in San Francisco... I hope to see the serviced established within two or three years. The wire is already up, and we have sent telegrams over it from ocean to ocean."
One of the follow-up questions dealt with WIRELESS conversations.
It's a concept that Vail had a hard time envisioning it. He drew a circle on a pad of yellow paper for the reporter. He explained, "Here is a pond. You drop a stone into the water on one side and a man on the other side, if his vision is good, counts the little ripples as they come to shore. But if a dozen persons were to drop stones into the pond at the same time and at different places there would be great confusion among the ripples, and no one could count them. However, wireless telephony will have its uses."
I'll say!
He also wondered about video-phones, which has captured the imagination of many for years. He said it would be quite difficult. However, he added: "No man is safe in saying that anything is impossible."

Sept. 11, 1909

EXPLORERS PEARY AND COOK RACE TO NYC TO MAKE THEIR CLAIMS:
In the few days since the news exploded on the world that Robert Peary evidently got to the North Pole -- in April-- Globe readers are being treated to two unfolding stories. One is the tale of Peary's trip, in which he covered the final leg of his trip with his longtime companion Matthew Henson (the "Negro" mentioned in the headline above). The paper also includes stories about the efforts Peary and fellow explorer Frederick Cook are making to describe their respective journeys to the pole to authorities in the United States. This dispute will linger for a century.
The sketchy news report about Peary's trip is based on wireless reports emerging from Canada as Perry makes his laborious return along the Canadian coast.
The reports don't directly say but clearly imply that Henson (right) was with Peary when he made his last dash to the Pole. A caption under a photo of Henson in the Globe identifies him as the "Colored Man Who Appears to Have Been Only English-Speaking Person with Peary on His Final Dash."
An article about Henson quotes from Peary's description of his longtime companion, as contained in his book, "Nearest the Pole," which came out in 1907. Here's the excerpt:
"Matthew Henson, my personal attendant was a colored native of the district of Columbia, 29 years of age, 5 feet 6 1/2 inches high, and weighed 145 pounds. In my employ in one capacity or another most of the time since I took him to Nicaragua with me in 1898 and a member of all of my Arctic expeditions, his qualities and capabilities were fully known."
The map below -- a modern one -- shows the routes of the explorers.

EVIDENCE PINS BLAME FOR HOUSE FIRE ON BIRDS: About $2,000 damage was done to the home of Maj. H.B. Philbrick on Sept. 9 in Harford, Conn. Initially, authorities thought faulty electrical wiring was to blame. Now, the city's building inspector and electrical inspector have a new theory -- which is totally for the birds.
They announced the the trouble is the work of "birds who built their nests under the eaves of [the]house in large numbers and MUST HAVE CARRIED UP A MATCH, WHICH, in the HOT SUN of yesterday, became IGNITED" [emphasis added].