Temperance > Autobiography and personal recollections of John B. Gough

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN B. GOUGH.
a few months after he had left, he wrote me that my
father was alive and well, and sent me his address. I felt
as Joseph did, when he said, “Is the old man of whom ye
spake, your father, yet alive ? and they said, He is alive.”
I immediately wrote to him, and received his reply, which
I have inserted in a previous page. My “ Autobiography”
had been published in England by Barton & Co., of Hol-
born Hill, London, and my father had obtained a copy of
it. As he was desirous of coming to the United States, I
sent him the means to accomplish his desire; and he
came, bringing with him a little son, my half-brother, about
five years of age. Such a pleasant episode in my life, as
meeting a father I had not seen for nineteen, and had not
heard from for nearly eight years, could not be permitted
to pass without an alloy. For my part I cannot under¬
stand the cruelty of some people. This article appeared
in the papers,—not exactly correct, however: “Mr. Gough
and his Father.—John Gough, the father of John 11.
Gough, has arrived in this country. He first learned that
his son was in America, from being asked by a travelling
agent to purchase his history.”
The Boston Chronotype published this article, with the
following comments: “ His son must have been still more
surprised to learn that his father was in America, for he
used to tell, as one of his most pathetic tales, how he fol¬
lowed his father to his grave, in a sort of Potter’s Field.
Does not John B. Gough owe it to a curious and generous
public, to explain to them how he came by his resurrec¬
tion ? ”
This was copied very extensively, with various com¬
ments. A Hartford paper commented thus: “Probably
the story of his father’s death was manufactured to order,
like the drugged soda-water which stole away his brains
in New York. John B. Gough is a great natural orator,