Jay County, Indiana - Chapter with an unread heading (no. 6 of those read), 1864

Chapter with an unread heading (no. 6 of those read)

, The first organized religious and educational eflfort, in Jay County, was made by Rev. Isaac N. Taylor, He was, emphatically, the leading pioneer in all systematic, efiectual labor in these movements. Occupying, as he did, so prominent a position in the county's early history, so thoroughly identified with her best interests, any history of Jay County would be very incomplete without a considerable sketch of his life and labors in it.

In October, 1838, he was sent by the American Home Missionary Society and Presbytery of Chilicothe, Ohio, to St. Mary's, Ohio, as a Missionary to the new settlements in that region. Early in the summer of 1840 he received a vague verbal message to the effect that somebody, thirty or forty miles west of St. Mary's, wanted to see him. lie wrote to tliis unknown person a sealed letter, directing it " To any Presbyterian west or south-west of St. Mary's, within forty miles, greeting," and confided it "to any hunter going to the Wabash." He took it himself ten miles, to the extremity of squatter sovereignity habitation. West of that, to the Wabash, was an untouched wilderness of the most dismal character, yet that letter, thus committed to the wild, reached its providential destination, and was speedily answered by Mr. Matthew P. Montgomery, who lived on the farm now owned by Peter Walter, of Wabash Township, urging him to come there, and telling him of a small community of Christian people in his neighborhood. Soon after, Mr. Taylor made his first visit to Indiana. From what is since Celina to New Corydon, there was then scarcely a sign of human existence, and the first farm south of the Wabash was that of Mr. David Adams, where he found the whole neighborhood assembled raising a double log barn. Of that event Mr. Taylor says : " The patriarch of the occasion, as he ever was till he died, was Father Reuben Montgomery. After a few salutations he led us on down the creek some three miles to the house of his son-in-law, Ii'aTowle, where, on Saturday night, our first religious meeting was held. The day following was a memorable Sabbath to those sheep in the wilderness - memorable for re- viving the sacred memories of the Sabbath, the sanctuaries of the past, and for kindling the hopes of a better future, when this wilderness might rejoice and blossom as the rose."

Six weeks afterward, Mr. Taylor returned, preached for several days at Ira Towle's, sometimes in the barn, and organized a Presbyterian church, of thirteen members, of whom Jacob Bosworth, (though living twelve miles distant,) Harry E.eed and M. P. Montgomery were elected elders.

In the afternoon, on the Sabbath, there was a meeting for the relation of personal Christian experience. Most of the male members of that gathering have gone to their eternal home. No one can paint so true a picture of these men as Mr. Taylor, who writes thus : " Father Montgomery, brought into the Kingdom in advanced life, impressed me that common sense was his great excellence. His story of his conversion showed that the truth and spirit of Christ had seized upon this ruling power in his conversion, and had ever since made this trait the chief medium of keeping him from error and preserving his piety. A memorable morsel in his prayer on that occasion illustrated how child-like sympathy may rule in company with a masterly will. It was this : ' O, Lord, thou knowest there is a great work to be done here in Jay County, and we have none to look to but Thee.' He was a famous framer.

Many houses and barns in .Jay will long be the remembrancers of his industry, though men, with noisier tool covered with board and nail his tirmly jointed workmanship. And so, I think, his strong minded counsels, though covered by noisier advovocates of moral and religious reform, will remain a part of the hidden frame-work of new society in Jay County.

"Ira Towle's hesitating yet honest manner made me say of him, to myself: There is a man that minds his own aifairs and keeps his own secrets, and wishes all others to do the same. I found him so. Never obtrusive, he was ahvays in his place, doing, not proposing or discussing, his full share towards all the interests of society. In keeping with all else, he, dying without any immediate heirs, bequeathed most of his property to the cause of Home Missions, amounting to over two thousand dollars.

"Harry Reed's account was unstudied and highly emotional. Some odd, blunt expression about God's handling him mighty rough, would make us smile, and the next minute we would find ourselves weeping with him that wept, while he was telling of the almighty love of Jesus. With him religion was an inwrought principle and law of life, that would always prevail over the transient errors of sudden impulse or hasty speech. I confided to him, more than any man in those days, all my cares. His industry, integrity, zeal and tender sensibility made him a valuable exponent of those elementary lessons of piety and charity which it was my care to instill into the heart of society in those early days. He was, emphatically, a worker in the moral as in the natural wilderness, and in both his works do follow him.

"M. P. Montgomery, a man of superior intellect and of views and aspirations wide and high, with both natural and acqnired gifts of speech, gave ns, in addition to his Christian evidences, the lively* impression that he was, all over, from the sole of his foot up, for more than six feet, to the crown of his masterly head, a Presbyterian. It was to be expected that such a man would hail with joy the hopeful begin'bing of better times. He deprecated the prevailing type of religion in the country, as contemptuous of solid knowledge, dignified forms, and practical correctness. He was chiefly instrumental in getting, at so early a date, the first meeting-house, the block house, Limberlost Chapel. Soon after the organization of the church, he attended, as elder, a meeting of the Presbytery, at New Carlisle, Ohio. It was the era of the great Washingtonian Temperance Reform. One night there was a grand meeting. Several eminent speakers were present, among them the famous Dr. Hall, of overwhelming brass bugle eloquence. Mr. Montgomery having learned that very many christian professors of that region were opposed to the Reform, delivered sucli a scathing philippic as entitled him to the lionship of the evening. He employed the bitter language of John the Baptist and of Christ resj)ecting the Jews suffering vile characters to enter the Kingdom of God before them, neither entering themselves nor suffering those that would to enter. He explained, expanded and applied the terms hypocrites, generation of vipers, etc., with resistless force. Dr. Hall was so pleased that he invited him home with him to Dayton, and sent him back to Jay with forty dollars for the completion of the little chapel.

"His stay in the county was onl}- for a few years. Indeed his stay on earth was not long, for, having removed to the vicinity of Fort Wayne, he had scarcely fixed his family comfortably on a new farm, when he was called to another sphere,"

In 184:1 Ira Towle gave the land for a church site and cemetery. Logs were hewed on four sides and a house erected that year - the first church building in the county.

The first temperance meeting in that part of the county were held in it, and, at one of these. Judge J. M. Haynes made the first public speech. The people who so long worshiped within its walls, abandoned it in 1862, occupying their new house at "Westchester.

Kev. I. N. Taylor The Limberlost Church

The memory of its dear old walls is linked with the cherished remembrance of the many loved ones who sleep near it. As the first altar consecrated to God in the new county, its appearance is rescued from oblivion for the eyes of futute generations. The church organization is now Congregational.

Mr. Taylor accompanied Dr. Bosworth to Portland, where the doctor announced him, on account of his youth, as a " Presbyterian boy preacher."

A large audience assembled at Portland, in the old court-house, "a log building, long, low and dismal," and there he preached his first sermon in that part of the county, taking for his text that first divine call after apostate man - " Adam, where art thou?" Several sermons followed, engaging the unwonted attention of the people for several days and nights.

The statements and reasonings ofDr. Bosworth's " boy preacher " was the same he had insisted on among his neighbors since they had pitched their tents together in the wilderness. But he had longed to have these truths fastened on men's minds and consciences in a professional way, and his delight on this occasion was great.

For about two years after his first entrance, Mr. Taylor made frequent visits in Jay, and, gradually, a desire sprang up within him to labor for the mental and moral welfare of the county. This was more natural, because, by reason of certain predispositions, he had cherished from boyhood the desire to help lay the foundations of society in a new country. During these visits his acquaintance was enlarged at ]^ew Corydon, Camden and in the Hawkins neighborhood, and his desire grew into a fixed intention to spend the vigor and strength of his life in this destitute and difiicult, but promising field for intellectual and religious labor.

Eev. I. N. Taylor

He moved into the county in February, 1843, and first occupied a cabin belonging to "William H. Montgomery, two miles east of Westchester. In addition to preaching to the flock he had gathered there, he preached in the Hawkins cabin for Father Philip Eusminger, then, f.s he still is, (though now in his ninetieth year,) the meek and venerable white-haired patriarch of that neighborhood. Mr. Taylor's veneration for "first things " and interest in pioneer experience was greatly gratified at Mrs. Hawkins'. The vigorous blood and daring nerve of "Old Kentuck" animated her frame as she would recount the thrilling scenes of their first year among the savage beasts and savage men that then walked curiously and stealthily around her rude earnest of a coming civilization.

Then, on the Wabash, Mr. Taylor would preach for the neighbors in the cabin' of Robert Webster, where some of the most solemn and affecting scenes of his ministry were enacted. Here he was aided by the self-denying Missionary Pogue, who, then a student at Lane Seminary, Ohio, spent a three months' vacation in Jay County, and afterward went to the Sandwich Islands, without a wife, because Miss Elizabeth Webster, the intelligent and Christian housekeeper in that cabin, had gone to her grave and her home in heaven.

In 1845 Mr. Taylor, desiring to attend theological lectures at Lane Seminar}', moved to Cincinnati. That movement he always regretted ; returned in two years and settled in Portland very early in the spring of 1847. For two years he was Agent of the American Sunday School Union, and he accomplislied a great woi*k in organizing schools and awakening in the minds of the people an interest in that most useful and effective branch of Christian labor. While living in Portland he engaged in an unprofitable mercantile enterprise with Calvin D. Searl. Late in 1850 he became Principal of the Jay County Seminary, which position he held for two years. During these years, looking forward to the founding of a school, he selected the knoll on the Salimonie by the spring as a suitable spot, and purchased the land of John Smith. The remainder of Mr. Taylor's life m Jay is inseparably connected with Liber College, and will appear in the following chapter.

Liber College

To build an institution of learning in some new region "where no man had laid a foundation," had long been a darling enterprise in the mind of I. N. Taylor. In many respects he was well fitted for the work. He greatly loved life in a new country. He has spent but a mere fragment of his mature life elsewhere than in the beginnings of society. This region of tall forests and log-cabins, wide lire places and liberal chimney-corners, its germs of society planted with plain, genial, warm-hearted pioneers, was well suited to his tastes and talents. His early settlement here, extensive acquaintance and sympathy witli the people, great influence, unflagging energy, and, under adverse circumstances, obstinate will, all aided in adapting him to the work he was 9*

" While these three men were sitting by the spring to which many scores now daily resort, the covenant of his boyhood came vividly to the mind of the Missionary, then in his twenty-fifth year, and an impression sudden and overwhelming as from the whisper or impress of a ministering angel, was settled on his |heart, that on this spot he should dwell and execute his covenant with God and a sainted brother."*

]!Tothing, however, was done toward the enterprise, then so dimly painted in the visions of the future, for ten years, except that Mr. Taylor negotiated for the land. . When he moved uj)on the ground he called the place Salem.

The first public meeting ever held to consider the subject of building a school there, assembled in the " old peeled-log meeting house," near by what was then known as the Salem Cemetery, February 5th, 1853. The persons present were Rev. I. ]N[. Taylor, Jonathan Lowe, Jacob Bosworth, J. H. Topping, Obadiah Winters, Wilson Milligan, David Hays, George W. Templer, Wiliam McCormick, Joseph C. Hawkins, John G. Spade, Augustus Bosworth and R. S. Taylor. Mr. Winters was chosen Chairman and Mr. Taylor Secretary.

" The day was bitterly cold ; the wind blew a heavy gale, and the snow drifted through the crevices of the cabin, so that not a spot could be found in the room where the Clerk could keep the paper dry. So unusually bitter was the cold storm that a large red-hot stove did not warm the ' peeled-log house.' "*

I. 'N. Taylor proposed an institution to be called Salem Academy, and argued that "such an enterprise would be more in harmony with the undeveloped state of the country and the conceptions of the people, as well as within their means. '^ Mr. Bosworth proposed a college, arguing that " no school of high grade conld be made without foreign aid, and that such assistance could be more readily obtained for a college." This proposition prevailed, and the school was named " Liber College," by suggestion of Mr. Taylor. After this the village took the same name. April 20th, 1853, a notice appeared in the Portland Journal giving notice of the first election of officers, and on the 3d of May the corporators met and organized themselves into the " Liber College Joint Stock Company." Shares were placed at $20 each, and the payment of $100 entitled the holder to a perpetual scholarship. At this meeting the following officers were elected, being the first officers of the corporation : Trustees, Jacob Bosworth, Wilson Milligan, Obadiah

Winters, "Wilbur Morelions, Ebenezer Woodbridge and Robert Huey ; Treasurer, G. W. Templer. On the same day the Board of Trustees held their first meeting and elected I. K Taylor President for four years. Afterward, A. Bosworth was elected Clerk. During that summer the Board put forth a manifesto, from which the following are extracts :

"The significance of the title may be expressed in a sentence. We established, on liberal principles, in a new woodland, an institution for the education of our children, in books of practical Science, Religion and Liberty. * * * Rarely was a College, or even a first rate High School, founded, furnished and finished in the time of one mortal generation. This we know, and are not crazed or gloomed. The growth of a good Institution is usually like that of an oak. As men in middle life and old age do not plant acorns expecting themselves to sit under the expanded and towering boughs of the embryo oak, so we are not oppressed with swollen fancies of speedy and easy maturity. We plant the acorn. It will germinate this very year. Henceforth onr children will defend the sappling, root, bark and blossom. But the broad, deep shade of the great tree we willingly consecrate to those generations who will live and learn over our graves."

Early in this year, (1858,) the Board contracted with I. IST. Taylor to build a house, suitable for the preparatory classes, for one thousand two hundred dollars. The result was that in November of that year the house was ready to be occupied.

During the lirst term Deacon Jonathan Lowe proposed to place in school a negro boy, living with him, called George Lowe, but whose real name was George Hunter. TJiis displeased a number of the stock-holders, and they became divided on the question of admitting colored persons to the privileges of the school. At once the previous harmony among the original founders was broken. The language of the Constitution of the College being that " the purpose of this Institution is to furnish to any person whomsoever the facilities of a common and collegiate education," those stockholders opposed to the admission of colored persons ceased to co-operate in the management of the College. Afterward (March 22, 1855,) the stockholders voted to reimburse those who had paid stock, not understanding that negroes could be admitted to the school. The result of the withdrawal of these persons was the founing of Farmers' Academy, of which more will be said hereafter.

The first year the school opened with twenty scholars, forty-three being in attendance during the course of the year. The entire cost of teaching and agency during the first two years was only about one thousand one hundred and fifty dollars, during which time, for teaching the Primary Department four months, Mrs. Weber received but twenty-seven dollars. Those were indeed times of " small things."

At the opening of the third year of the school Miss Sarah Jane Miller was the Primary teacher, which position she held for three years. The number of trustees was increased to twelve. During the year I. N. Taylor resigned his office as President of the Board and J. 0. Hawkins was appointed to the office. Two rows of rooms were built for self-boarding students, and several new residents came into the village and built houses. Nothing of especial interest occurred then until the fifth year, during which the teachers were as follows : President, I. N". Taylor, Principal Primary Department, Miss S. J. Miller, Assistants, K. S. Taylor, Pulaski Mills, Mattie Tyson, Edmund Lockett, "W. G. Montgomery and HattieA. Weber. The whole number of students during the year was one hundred and seventy-four.

The commencement exercises at the close of that year were distinguished by the graduation of the first class, consisting of M. W. Diggs, Pulaski Mills and R. S. Taylor. Immediately after the latter received his diploma, he stepped forward with Miss Fanny W. Wright, and the newlycrowned Bachelor of Arts lost the first part of his decree.

" In new countries there is as much native mind, of good order, in proportion to the number of inhabitants, as in old countries ; and, considering the degenerating influences of sumptuous and fashionable life in many places, there is even more. Uncouth men and women may become new settlers, but weak and cowardly men and women are not likely to brave the toils and dangers of pioneer life. Moreover, these toils and dangers invigorate the brain, and effectuate a strength of character which ease and luxury only hinder and prevent. Hence, the children of pioneers are more likely to exhibit that amount of healthy brain and active nervous organization, which we call natural talent, than any other class whatever. It is my belief, after the observation of twenty years, that among the first and second purchasers of new territory, there is a higher order of vigorous mind than in any other condition of society. In old England there is a class - the real aristocracy of the kingdom - whose very aristocracy consists in superior physical and mental development. To this they are devoted. But in America there is no aristocracy but that of wealth and fashion, whose votaries, generation after generation, diminish in physical and mental power. It is left to the perils, privations and gigantic civilization conflicts of the wilderness, to preserve a type of muscle and brain, undiminished in compass and vitality. But in such new regions as ours, this natural talent is covered up under the rubbish of mere neglect. The trees, and brush, and grass, and mud, are but the emblems of a more concealing intellectual and moral wilderness, in which the ver}^ germs of genius are buried from the world.

The Pioneer College. 19Y

" Nothing but the broad and bright glare of High School and College light, will ever reveal these specimens of mental riches, even to the consciousness of the gifted sons and daughters of the forest. For, the drudgeries of pioneer life, the paucity of books, the inefficiency of common schools, the limitation of travel and conversation, the everlasting staying at home, the absence of all sight of great men and great things, the weakness of most professional efforts in the sick room, at the bar and in the sacred desk, the raillery of the political platform, - all these conspire to show us not only the want of adequate caiises, but the existence of hindering causes, respecting the elicitation of true talent and genius. Nothing short of an actual experiment, of advancing scientific and literary learning, will draw from their retreats the best specimens of mind. But this will ; it will do it in any new country, and do it effectually. Many a brain of fine compass and vigorous pulse, throbbing under the compressure of miserable common school facilities, aches for a larger surrounding, and turns to the young College, like steel to the magnet, the very day the opportunity is given to gratify the high impulsion.

" Generally, the circumstances of new settlers, for many years, do not suffer them to send their sons and daughters abroad, to the good Institutions of other places. And besides, there is a natural, and not much unreasonable reluctance, on the part of our youth, to go suddenly from the rude paths of new-land life to the gorgeous highways of refinement.

" In view of all this, it is simply certain that hundreds of the finest minds of the section, scattered about in all our new regions, must forever remain lost to the world and to themselves, without the revealing presence and vivifymg power of the Home College.

" But plant the College : open out to view the hitherto unknown beauties of Literature and grandeurs of Science ; furnish the facilities to home-born intellect, to unfold itself to kindred and to country ; and while yon thus quicken the general pulse of society, you set on fire the best types of youthful mind, and dissolving the bonds that would otherwise have forever bound them to mammon and stupid worldliness, you redeem them to the glorious freedom and power of knowledge. With joy they hasten to the founts of truth, and drinking a little at first, then more and more, thej"^ rise to higher views of life and duty, and doom ; and vow, at the altar of truth, to spend their whole lives in helping through the earth the triumphs of wisdom. What a redemption ! No tongue can tell what an amount of personal joys and public influence are thus secured to societ}' by the Home College.

Rev. M. W. Diggs is now pastor of the Congregational Church at ,Pisgah, Mercer Connty, Ohio, Pulaski Mills has given his time chieflj to teaching, since his "graduation, and^^ in June, 1864, was appointed by the County Commissioners, School Examiner of Jay County for three years,

E. S. Taylor studied law with L. M. Ninde, at Fort Wayne, and j^is now partner in the law firm of Kinde & Taylor, He has always given much attention to music, and has acquired considerable well-deserved note as a musical composer. For several years before he graduated, the words and music for the College exhibitions were, most of them, of Ills composition. Many of his pieces have found their w^ay into the later musical publications, while others have been issued in sheet form. That toucliingly patriotic piece, " Oh, Wrap the Flag around me, boys," which has a national reputation, is of his composing. His law-partner is also a Jay Countian. L. M. I^inde, Esq., was raised on his father's farm near Camden, graduated at Farmers' College, near Cincinnati, and has since been a successful - lawyer at Fort Wayne.

In 1855 the Lib6r Glee Club was formed, of which R. S. Taylor was chorister. In the summer of 1856 it gave concerts at different places, which were the first ever given in the county.

During the summer session of 1857, Pulaski Mills was Principal of Liber College. For the year 1858-9, Miss Jane A. Montgomery was Principal of the Primary Department.

In March, 1857 Yynul Arnett was chosen President of the Board, in the room of J. C. Hawkins, resigned, which position he held for two years.

With the close of the sixth year of the Institution, President Taylor closed his official connection with it, and, in September, 1859, moved to Illinois. For a paragraph, that he may not be misunderstood, the author must speak plainly.

Thus ended Mr. Taylor's fourteen years in Jay County. During all this time he devoted his great energies and talents to the intellectual and moral interests of her people. Unambitious of wealth or fame, he gave his time and means un- reservedly to pusli forward the enterprises in which lie was engaged. Especially is this true of his labors in converting the wilderness, on the Little Salinionie, into the village of Liber, and building there a school, at which hundreds of Jay County youths, otherwise ignorant and uninfluential, have tasted the higher branches of knowledge.

Many of these youths are now the teachers of the county, many others teach elsewherC, and still others are filling various important positions in society. "With small means, great obstacles and many other discouragements, he, nevertheless, accomplished a great v/ork. But his usefulness was but beginning, had his course not been such, before his departure and since, as to deeply grieve and mortify his many former friends, and cripple his usefulness.

He was a graduate of Athens College, Ohio, possessed a clear, strong mind, and profound knowledge of human nature. This attracted to him many warm friends, and gave him, for many years, great influence. His sermons were characterized by profoundness of thought and beauty of expression, but were long, and rather quietly delivered. He now resides in Nebraska, and is a survej^or on the Pacific Eailroad.

Accompanying some statements of his early life in Jay, which have been substantially embodied in this work, President Taylor sent the following note. Thoiigli intended to be private, no harm can result, or wrong be done, in giving it here, as a farewell glimpse of the workings of that mind which planned and hoped so much for the future welfare of Jay County. It cannot fail to awaken mingled emotions in the minds of his former numerous friends in this region.

Dear Sir : I have spent my New Year's in preparing the rough sketch contained on these leaves. With much difficulty I compose my shattered nerves to write auytliing that brings up the events that so interested me in Jay - that dear scene of all my effective existence, and where my heart yet lingers in imperishable longings, but from which I am sundered forever * * * *

In 1859 the Board of Trustees invited Rev. Ebenezer Tucker, of Jo Daviess County, Illinois, to become President of the College. He accepted, and moved to Liber that year. He has since been constantly engaged in the college, preparing scores of young men and women to be teachers of common and graded schools. He was educated at Whitesboro, Kew York and Oberlin College. Prior to his residence in Illinois, he was, for eight years, Principal of the Union School, at Spartansburg, Indiana.

During the first term of the college year of 1859-60, Elihu H. Yotaw, now a student at Wheaton College, Illinois, was the Principal. Since that time the Principals of the Primary Department have been Miss Edith S. Bailiff, of Fulton, Ohio, Miss Bell A. Johnston, now Mrs. G. W. Loofbourrow, and Miss Helen M. Johnston, of Bell Centre, Ohio.

The first Musical Institute held in the county was at Liber, in December, 1863, by W. S. Montgomery, and M. Z. Tinker, of Terre Haute, Indiana.

Concerning the Liber Spring, now owned by D. 0. Baker, Esq., the following letter embraces all that need be said. It was written without the faintest idea of its appearing here, and is, consequently, as fresh and lively as the limpid waters that still rise from that dearly loved fountain under the hill. It is inserted without the knowledge of the writer, for who is so well prepared to speak of that Spring as he who, for more than ten years, made it daily visits ?

Fort Wayne, Indiana, July 18tli, 1864. Dear Friend M. : After" as much reflection as I can readily give to any one subject, with the mercury at 95°, I can think of nothing that I would particularly wish to have remembered in your history, that you would be at all likely to omit, except the old spring, at Liber. I would give the price of two copies of your history for one good swig of its clear, cold water, now. I speak of it, fearing that since the town has been built up, with a score of wells in its immediate neighborhood, and since some of the old settlers have passed away, some to other scenes of earthly toil, and some to fields where yet purer water flows, and since the war has opened its ghastly fountains, to the flowing of which all our hearts contribute in some degree, the old spring may have lost some of its ancient prestige. But it ought not to be forgotten ; it -was once famous in its way, and the very object of your book is to i)erpetuate the memory of those humble things that made up the life of the pioneers of Jay County. When I first knew it, that Spring was noted for miles around. The country was thinly settled, and good wells were rare, and good springs still more so.

The numerous veins that oozed through the banlvs of the Salimouie, and painted their way to the water's edge with a slimy green and yellow glazing, seemed almost uniformly, judging from taste and odor, to have come from some locality where sulphur much abounded. A pure, clear, cold spring as this was, was rarely found, and was highly prized. There was no house very near it ; - there had been one years before on the hill just above, but it was then a mere heap of rotten logs. It may have been a dwelling house, or only a hunter's lodge. I remember picking up some pieces of broken china near it. The painted flowers on them were as bright and fresh as new. The cheeks of the girl who washed them must have long since lost their roses. The old spring was then a mere hole in the ground ; it had not even the usual protection of a sycamore gum. There was a well-worn path leading to it, into which several others converged, and which was much traveled by those who lived up the Salimonie, on their way to and from the county seat. There was at one time a gourd supplied to it by some public-spirited person, and kept hanar- ing on a bush that overhung the spring, for the accommodation of thirsty passers-by ; but usually there were no such luxurious superfluities to be had : those who sought refreshment there had to get upon their hands and knees, like the cattle and deer, which were also equally welcome to its water.

But the circumstance most interesting to my mind of any connected with the old spring, and one which shows what little things determine the course of human affairs, is that its existence there determined the location of " Liber College" where it is. I well remember the day when my father and mother first went out to examine the land on which the College now stands, and with what glowing enthusiasm they spoke, when they came back, of the " pure, cold spring" that was there. There were a good many difficulties in the way of getting the land : the price asked was considered high, and the title was in the hands of several persons, so that it took many conveyances and considerable trouble and outlay to secure it ; and in the long and persevering eflForts that resulted in its purchase, I know that the spring was a leading motive. If you will examine the original " manifesto" of the College you will fiind the spring prominently and honorably referred to.