a colored man. Old Mrs. Reilly, who was the wife of
famous old Barnum's Hotel hackman Reilly, used to say that some years
after the two Frenchmen had departed there came another mysterious
Frenchman, who sat beside the monument for weeks, pleading to the then
owners for permission to dig in a certain spot hard by. He was refused.
Nothing daunted, he waited an opportunity and, when the coast was clear,
he dug up a stone slab, which he had heard was to be found, and carried
away the remains of a pet cat which had been buried there.

Frequent inquiries were made of Mr. Samuel H. Tagart, who was the
trustee in charge of the estate of Zenus Barnum, in regard to the old
Frenchman. Antiquarians all over the country made application for
permission to dig beneath the monument, and to remove the tablet from
the face of the shaft. He felt, however, that he could not do it, and
refused all requests.

Early in the present century the Samuel Ready estate was owned by Thomas
Tenant--in those days a wealthy, influential citizen. One of his
daughters, now dead, became the wife of Hon. John P. Kennedy. Another
daughter, who lived in New York, and who is supposed to be dead, paid a
visit in 1878 to the old homestead, and sat beneath the shadow of the
Columbus monument. She stated that the shaft has stood in her early
girlhood as it stands now. It was often visited by noted Italians and
Frenchmen, who seemed to have heard of the existence of the monument in
Europe. She repeated the story of the wealthy Frenchman, and told of
some of his eccentricities, and said he had put up the monument at a
cost of L800, or $4,000.

The old land records of Baltimore town were examined by a representative
of the _American_ as far back as 1787. It appears that in that year
Daniel Weatherly and his wife, Elizabeth; Samuel Wilson and wife,
Hannah; Isaac Pennington and Jemima, his wife, and William Askew and
Jonathan Rutter assigned to Rachel Stevenson four lots of ground,
comprising the estate known as "Hanson's Woods," "Darley Hall,"
"Rutter's Discovery," and "Orange." Later, in 1787 and 1788, additional
lots were received from one Christopher Hughes, and in the following
year the entire estate was assigned by Rachel Stevenson to Charles
Francis Adrian le Paulmier, Chevalier d'Amour, the French consul, the
eccentric Frenchman, and the perpetuator of Columbus' memory in
Baltimore.

The property remained in his possession up to 1796, when Archibald
Campb