Fact has ousted fancy from the legend of "Old Ironsides," and the Widener Library proved to be the means of authentication, according to an article in the current number of the Golden Book Magazine by Rear-Admiral Eliot Snow of the United States Navy.

While writers of three generations have been spinning yarns on the epic of the fighting frigate that captured the British vessel Guerriere, and motion pictures of this generation have aided in immortalizing it, the tale of a seaman eye-witness of its greatest victory has lain hidden in an old yellowed pamphlet in the College Library.

The story of its discovery, as told by Admiral Snow, is a record of a quarter-century's search for truth in regard to the famous battle of the Constitution and the Guerriere. He learned from an old newspaper clipping some years ago that the bell of the Guerriere was supposed to be still in existence somewhere in New England, and while hunting for the elusive bell he came across an unpublished manuscript giving a complete history of "Old Ironsides." In a footnote to this manuscript the author mentioned a hitherto unknown work, "Scenes in the Last War," by Moses Smith.

The Rear Admiral, in his mad will-o wisp game with this long-dead Smith, resorted to various attempts to find the latter's book. After advertising without result in the query columns of the Boston Evening Transcript, he learned that the Library of Congress had no record of it, nor had the British Museum or any of the public libraries of the United States.

The Admiral relates the story of the find as follows:

"Oddly enough, the missing object was found near the city from which the inquiries first started, at the Harvard College Library. In one sense disappointment was experienced, for Moses Smith said nothing about the bell. In a different sense I was elated.

"The Moses Smith narrative proved to be a real historical find, as it is the only record I have even seen of the 'Ironsides' engagement written by a seaman and an eye-witness."