Ashland City (part 34 of 57)

The Early Mills

The first settlers of Ashland county experienced many privations and inconveniences. A majority of the first settlers were in moderate circumstances i: and had to depend upon their own strong arms and the smiles of Providence for subsistence. Their food was exceedingly plain, and their habits industrious and economical. Their clothing was generally of the most primitive character, and spun and woven by the faithful pioneer mothers.

From 1809 to 1813 there were but two grist mills within a radius of some thirty-five miles. These mills were owned by Messrs. Shrimplin and Stibbs, and were of hewed logs and quite primitive in appearance. The former was located on Owl creek, some distance below Mt. Vernon. This mill could be reached by descending the branches of Mohican to the Walhonding, and ascending Owl creek or by Indian paths through the forest. By either route it took several days. Stibbs' mill, near Wooster, was less distant, and could be reached by wagon or bridle paths. | Packhorses, ridden by small boys, generally made the trip to Stibbs' in from two to three days, depending upon the throng for their grist. These settlements being somewhat earlier in their improvements, generally had surplus corn crops, and were able to supply the new settlers on the branches of the Mohicar.

What was known as the ''horsemill'' was erected in many parts of the county. They were rude affairs, and the machinery was somewhat complicated. They were propelled by horse power, somewhat like a cider mill. Many produced very good meal and flour, and generally had hand-bolts. A description of their machinery would occupy more space than can be allotted in these notes. They were in very general use for a period of about fifteen years. The buhrs of the horsemills were made, inostly of boulders or ''niggerheads'' and fitted and secured much like the buhrs now in use in the water and steam grist mills.

An ingenious coffee-mill was invented in the days of the early settlement of the county, and it was known as the handmill. They were made from a large boulder, much after the fashion of the coffee mills of today. A hopper was drilled in a niggerhead - stone - and made in the shape of an inverted cone; a cylinder of the same material, exactly fitting the hopper, perforated through the venter by a shaft, and also regularly grooved, was placed therein, on a pivot, and propelled by the aid of a lever, by one or two hands, as necessity required. The meal was received in a box below, and sifted by hand. It operated much like the modern coffee mills, and was a great improvement to the former way of putting the coffee in a strong cloth and pounding it fine.

'"'The numerous small streams throughout the county, during the earlier settlement, furnished valuable mill sites; and a great number of enterprising pioneers erected small grist and sawmills upon them. Before the removal of the heavy forests that covered most of the county, sufficient water was obtained to propel one or two sets of buhrs, in the smaller mills, the major part of the year; but since the forests have been cut away, the water produced by heavy showers 1s rapidly conveyed by brooks and small streams to the larger ones, while the moisture left on the surface soon evaporates; the result being, that nearly all the smaller mills were compelled to suspend work three-fourths of the year. The consequence is, that while, in our earlier history, every little stream had 'a grist sawmill, the number has eradually diminished, until there are not over a dozen good mills left, and these are chiefly propelled by steam.

'It is generally conceded that the first grist mill within the present limits of Ashland county, was erected by Benjamin Cuppy, on a small stream one and a half miles northeast of Ashland, on what is now the Orange road, in March, 1816. It had one run of stones, and ground very slowly, not exceeding four bushels of corn per day. It long since has disappeared.

'About four weeks after the completion of the Cuppy mill, Martin Mason finished a small watermill upon the present site of Samuel Leidigh's mill, on the Troy road, four miles north of Ashland. It had one run of hardhead stones. It was of hewn logs. It was a convenient neighborhood mill for many years, and did fair work.

'"About the year 1817, John Raver put up a small grist and sawmill on a run about one-fourth of a mile northeast of the present site of Rowsburgh, in Perry township. It run about one-third of the time, had an under-shot wheel and one set of stones and a hand-bolt. It stood several years, and was replaced by a mili built some years later.

'Turing the fall of 1817, it is believed that Constance Lake, of Jeromesville, erected a small log gristmill, where what is known as Goudy's mill, was subsequently built. The Goudy mill was accidentally burned about 1850. It had sustained a good reputation, and was a great loss to the community. It was not rebuilt, and the site is abandoned.

''Conrad Kline, about the year 1819, built a small horsemill one and a half miles northeast of Ashland, near the late residence of John Mason. It was constructed in the usual form of such mills, had one run of stones and a hand bolt. It made good meal and flour. It long since tumbled into ruins.

'* Jabez Smith, in 1820, erected a sawmill and gristmill half a mile south of the present site of Mohieanville, in Lake township. He sold it to R. F. Chandler, who kept the mill moving until the spring of 1875, when it accidentally burned. - It was long a convenience to the farming community, and its destruction was much regretted.

"Robert Crawford, a rugged, enterprising pioneer, put up a large and expensive horsemill on the present land of Albert Tilton, in the southeast part of Orange township, in 1820-21. It had one run of stones, a fine bolt, and did a large business for those times. It was finally abandoned about the vear 1837.

'"About the year 1823 Thomas Ford put up a small horsemill near what is now known as Ford's meetinghouse, in Clear Creek township. It was a neighborhood null, and did some business for a munber of years. - It has long since given way to the march of improvement.

"It is beheved that Oliver Sloan put a saw and _ gristmill two miles southeast of Hayesville, about the year 1830. It had one run of stones and a bolt, and did a good deal of neighborhood work. It was conducted, for some years, by a Mr. Vangilder. - It is now in ruins.

'John Hendricks built a watermill on Vermillion creek, about one mile west of Savannah, in 1823. It had one run of stones, and a bolt, and did some business. Ile subsequently sold to the late Joseph Roop, who caused a deep diteh, at heavy expense, to be dug from the lower lake, in the hope of increasing

Jeromeville Mills Jeromeville Bridge

'""Conrad Kline erected a small gristmill, about two miles east of Ashland, at the foot of Roseberry hill, in Montgomery township, in 1825. It did some business, and was carried on some eight or ten years, when it was abandoned.

""John Haney built a small horsemill, on a run east of the village of Savannah, in Clear Creek township, in 1825. It was chiefly used for chopping, in connection with a distillery. It stood but a few years, and went to ruin.

"David Weitzel erected a small saw and gristmill on the present site of the Ashland woolenmills, about the year 1825. It had a pair of coffeemill stones and was used chiefly for chop work. It had also a hand bolt. It subsequently became the property of the late John Jacobs, and was by him considerably improved. It was superseded by the large brick flouringmill now owned by John Damp & Company. This mill is propelled exclusively by steam, and its work has long been classed among the finest in the county. It has a fine run of stones and can produce seventy-five barrels of flour per day.

'"'Andrew Newman built what is now known as the Hershey mill, on the Blackfork, two and one-half miles northwest of the village of Mifflin, in the year 1820. It is regarded as one of the best of its kind. It is chiefly a neighborhood mill, does fine work, and is run by water. It is now owned by Stamern Brothers.

''Silas Longworthy built a small watermill three miles southeast of the village of Mifflin, on the Blackfork,; in 1825, and sold to John Hewhey, he to Charles Lewis, and he to Daniel Kauffman. _ It was carried on until 1845, when Daniel Kauffman, a skilful millwright, tore it down and erected a valuable mill which he sold to John Charles. It is propelled exclusively by water, and is regarded as one of the best in the county. It has a sawmill attached.

''Jonathan Harvout built a small horsemill, about one mile northwest of Ashland, on lands recently owned by James Wells, about the year 1830. - It had a brief career, and was used mostly as a chopmill by the farmers.

'" Joseph Sellers put up a small watermill, on Clear Creck, two miles west of Savannah. in 1830. It struggled along a few vears and went down.

"Colonel John Murray erected, for himself, a grist and sawmill, on Mohican creek, one and a half miles north of Orange, in 1831. - It did considerable business in wet seasons, but finally became of little value, because of a want of water.

"George McCartney constructed a small watermill in connection with a carding machine - on lands since owned by the late Samuel Urie, in Milton township, in 1830. It had insufficient power, and the enterprise failed and brought disaster upon its owner.

'William Goudy and sons put up the present large gristmill at Jeromesville, about the year 1836. It passed through many hands. and is vet regarded as a valuable property. It has fine water power. It has a good sawmill connected with it.

'Armstrong Meanor erected a small gristmill three miles north of Loudonville: on the Havesville road, pear a small stream, about the year 1831. It was

'About the same time (1831), Mr. Newman built a gristmill three miles northeast of Hayesville, on a small stream in the Finley settlement. It was carried on for many years, and did a prosperous business. A new mill, not known as Smith's mill, was erected in the neighborhood some twenty years since, and the old mill is going to decay.

"Jacob Mason built a small undershot mill about four miles north of Ashland, on Leidigh's run, in 1831. It was used principally as a chopmill for a distillery. It has long since disappeared. |

"Daniel Beach built a sawmill in 1824, and a gristmill on Vermillion river one tnile north of Ruggles corners, in 1832. It run to about 1858, and is now in ruins. It passed through four or five hands.

"Daniel Carter, Jr., put up a watermill two miles east of Ashland, near the Wooster road, in 1832. It did a fair business eighteen or twenty years. It is now in ruins.

'The Loudonville mill - a frame - two runs of stones, was built by Alexander Skinner in 1818; Caleb Chapel was carpenter and first miller. He died in 1821, and T. J. Bull became the owner of the mill; he sold to Thomas Carlisle; and in 1835 the mill became the property of Gray & Freeman, of Cleveland. They run it until 1845; then it passed into the hands of James Christmas and John C. Larwill, and in 1861, A. A. Taylor, who erected a new mill.''

Haney and Smith, from Rochester, New York, put up a large flouring mill on the Lakefork, three miles southeast of Mohicanville, in 1836. It had fine water power and did a thriving business.

Thomas Stringer erected a large gristmill on the Blackfork below Perrysville in 1839. He owned it but a short time. It had a stirring career and passed through many hands.

References are frequently made to the distilleries of the olden time, from which it might be inferred that the pioneers were noted for intemperance, but such is not the fact. Chopmills and distilleries were then considered necessities. There was a surplus of corn and of rye, while there was neither a purchaser nor a market for them. Transportation by wagon to the eastern markets was attended with much expense. The only way surplus corn and rye could be made available was to convert them into whiskey, which could be exchanged for groceries and other goods. The result was that many distilleries were erected, which since our improved modes of transportation -have long since gone out of commission. But whiskey is still an ''institution,'' nevertheless. It pays an enormous revenue, and is feared alike by moralists and politicians. It has been said that ''the mills of the gods grind slow but execedingly fine.'? But

Reminiscence Of Pioneer Times

In those early days when mills were distant, the pioneers often pounded corm in a hominy block. When sifted, the finest meal made bread, the next mush and the third grade was grits, or hominy. These, with butter and milk, constituted a large part of the daily food. The mush made by the pioneer women was remembered by the pioneer boys long after they became men as the best they had ever eaten, and it was a compliment to their wives if they said they made as good mush as their mothers had.

An Ashland county farmer gave an interesting account, a few years before his death, of the conditions that prevailed in his part of the county in the '40s. He said: ''I had to go as far as forty-five miles to the city of Akron to get a grist of flour. The home mills were run by water then, but owning to drought we were compelled to go elsewhere. We would drive mostly with oxen. I remember one night when I came to Huron with a load of wheat on my way to Milan, here all hauled their wheat at that time, I stopped at Ruggles' Corners. There were two hotels there, and I counted one hundred teams, all headed for Milan with wheat. I will never forget the time I walked to Savannah, a distance of four miles, through the mud, and carried butter and eggs, which I sold at the store at five cents a pound for butter and three cents a dozen for eggs.''

The late Francis Graham, father of Mrs. J. H. Black, of south Main street, Mansfield, in giving reminiscences of pioneer life, a few years before his death, stated that he located at Ashland, then called Uniontown, in 1821, and engaged in the mercantile business. | Uniontown then contained about fourteen or fifteen houses. The prices quoted by Mr. Graham were, no doubt, the same at Mansfield that they were at Uniontown. The products of the country brought low prices at that time, from the fact that there was no market or demand for them beyond home consumption. It was difficult for people to get money to pay their taxes. Wheat was twenty-five cents a bushel, oats from twelve to fifteen cents, and corn from fifteen to twenty cents. Butter from five to six cents a pound, and eggs from four to five cents a dozen. Maple sugar was an important article of trade in Ashland county, not from the high prices it commanded, for it only brought from five to six cents a pound, but from the large quantity made, some ''camps'' making a yield of from fifteen hundred to twenty-five hundred pounds a season. One season Mr. Graham bought maple sugar that filled forty-two barrels, of about two hundred and fifty pounds to the barrel. About the year 1825 John Stewart, for many years surveyor of Richland county, built a flouring mill on Bentley's Run, a branch of the Rockyfork, three miles southeast of Mansfield. Mr. Stewart advertised that he would pay thirty-one and one-fourth cents cash per bushel for good merchantable wheat delivered at his mill. The farmers for twenty-five miles around hauled their wheat to this mill, pleased with the idea they could sell it for cash. Money continned scarce until after the opening of the New York and Erie canal, after which produce of all kinds gradually advanced in price and the volume of currency increased. . Swindling, theft or robbery was of rare occurrence in northern Ohio at that time, Mr. Graham stated.

Wolves were both numerous and troublesome when Ashland county was first settled, and the pioneers had to put their sheep and hogs in enclosures at night to protect them. When driven by hunger the wolves would sometimes succeed in getting inside of these enclosures and kill pigs and sheep. Upon such oceasions they usually gorged themselves to such an extent that they could not get out of the pen as easily as they had entered, and were killed the next morning by the proprietor.

Of the wolf stories told the following are given: A farmer was riding along a path one evening and when nearing his home discovered in the gloaming a pack of wolves ahead of him. One broke from the pack and jumped at his horse's head. The frightened animal sprang so suddenly to one side that the farmer was unhorsed and falling to the ground was at once attacked by the wolf. His half wolf-dog came to his rescue and attacked the wolf with such ferocity that it turned from him to defend itself and ere the pack could come to its relief, the farmer had taken refuge in a tree, where he remained until the wolves had left. The horse did not wait to see the program through, and the. dog put in his appearance at home the next day and his looks indicated that his fight had not been a ''glove contest.''

Hogs in those days ran at large and in the fall they fattened on chestnuts and acorns, then so plentiful in the forest. And one day as the farmers were making hay a wolf chased a pig into the meadow. It was followed by the drove of hogs, which came to the relief of the pig, and, catching the wolf, tore it into shreds in a few moments.

Although those old stage days are numbered with the past, many things connected with that period are interesting to the people of today. The stage was the only public mode of travel then, and stage drivers were important personages in their time and were character readers of both men and horses. They were terse and sententious in expression upon lines of their duties and could be entertainingly loquacious in narrating events of the past and in giving the history of the country through which their line passed. They would talk to their horses, which, as a rule, intelligently obeyed the orders given them.

A story is told of a stage driver who had inherited a farm, bade good-bye to the hardships of the road and settled down to the pleasures of sheltered prosperity. After enjoying the seclusion and quietude of the farm for a week, he went out to the road to see the stage pass. The driver gave him a salute, and, snapping his whip, the horses started ahead on the gallop, the coach bounded on and disappeared. The farmer felt lonely, and as he leisurely walked back over the fields to his new home, he formed the resolution to again go on the road. Accordingly he packed his carpet bag, went to the nearest stage office, reentered the service, and two days later drove down the same road on the same coach, snapping his whip and waving a good-bye to his farm. He had one week of farm life, and that was enough for him. He preferred the excitement of the road and liked to be in close touch with the living, moving world. He left a record of having driven one hundred and thirty-five thousand miles during his stage service - more than five times round the globe.

When stages were relegated to the past in England, stage men refused to realize the fact that their occupation was gone. This was not the case in

America, where, with Yankee shrewdness, they adjusted themselves early in the day to altered conditions and obtained employment with the railroad companies, and many were advanced in position, and finally obtained wealth. American stagedrivers accepted the railroad and profited by it, and we should accept the improved utilities of our generation.

What changes a hundred years have brought. Ohio is but one of five great states that have been created from what was onee known as the '"territory lying northwest of the river Ohio.'' Our forty thousand square miles of area are covered with all the improvements, conveniences, facilities, beauties and adornments of christian civilization, and Ohio is but typical, not only of that original northwest territory, but also of that further west lying still beyond and stretching away to the golden shores of the Pacific.

The Pioneer Period

When the term pioneer is used it includes the women as well as the men of that period, for the women shared with the men the dangers, work and hardships of the early settlements, and besides their household duties often assisted in the fields and had at times to defend their homes against the attacks of the Indians.

It was not "'lady'' then, but that better word, ''woman.'' And although clothed in homespun and her hands hardened with toil, she had nobility of soul and character, her courage did not falter at the approach of danger and her deeds well deserve to be written in history and sung in song. The pionecrs are sometimes spoken of as an unlettered people. Some of them were, perhaps, while others had scholastic attainments. All classes from the Atlantie states were represented here.

It is true, that that was an age of scanty records, and yet the deeds of those who lived in it were more influential in shaping the eivilization which followed than all the other years combined. Pioneer times are as fountains in the wilderness from which rivers are formed, whose waters through all the coming ages will flow in the channels first selected. Ashland county today with slight variations is what the pioneers made it and it will thus continue through generations to come. That I do not exaggerate in my estimate of pioneer times, let us look at the facts of the case in the state of Ohio.

1. Our constitution and laws with all their peculiar differences from other states, are substantially what the pioneers made them, and labor as we will it is

2. Our political divisions into counties and townships, with all their distinctive names and local combinations, which so powerfully affect the daily associations of our people, were all substantially the work of the pioneers.

ue The locations of cities, county seats and roads, in which and through which the public and private life of our people must continue for the most part to manifest itself remain almost entirely as the pioneers decreed. |

4. Our religious institutions and tendencies are mainly as the pioneers made'them. Men in communities or as individuals develop according to their faith. © Unlike an animal, a man's life is the outgrowth of what he believes, and what he believes is for the most part what he is taught in his youth. Soa community develops according to its faith, and its faith in its fountain head is the faith of the men who founded it.

In accordance with this law the faith of Ashland county, not only in religion but also in politics is stamped with the image and superscription of John Wesley, John Calvin and Thomas Jefferson, the faith of the pioneers, and so it will remain for generations to come.

5. The equality of our social life with none very rich, and but few very poor, we owe largely to the pioneers. They were mostly men of moderate means and fulfilled the prayer of the Psalmist who desired neither poverty nor riches. There were no great landed proprietors to absorb the public domain and crowd our population into tenant homes, and the result is that today the average size of the farms in Ashland county is less than one hundred acres, and the great body of our farmers own the land they till, and non-resident proprietors are few and far between. The advantages of this are immense and will continue a subject of thankfulness for generations to come.

So in every direction we look we have reason to rejoice in the legacies we have received from the pioneers of Ashland county; they were wise and prudent in their generation and it is just and fitting that we should honor their memory.

The pioneers of Ohio were a different type of men from those who, for the most part, have settled the prairie states to the west of us. They were hardier and more adventurous, and for the simple reason that the dangers to be encountered and the difficulties to be overcome were greater. Ohio was a gigantic forest, which to subdue was a work in itself so enormous as absolutely to appal the average civilized man. The men in war who volunteer to lead a storming column in battle are honored for life if they survive. So it seems we should honor those who volunteered to charge upon the howling wilderness of Ohio during the early years of the present century.

No wonder Ohio stands today the foremost state in the Union. Her people are the descendants of the mighty men of valor who conquered the wilderness.

Reminiscences Of A Pioneer

Pioneer Jonas H. Gierhart gave the following account of his early life in Jackson township. He removed from Maryland to the vicinity of Polk in July, 1817. The township was then unorganized and formed a part of Perry. His nearest neighbor resided about two miles south of him, while on the north, he believed there was not a single white family between him and the lake. When he came to the county with his wife and child, he placed the two latter in temporary charge of the family of Martin Hester, (being the place owned by David and Henry Fluke,) in Orange township, about three miles distant from the tract he owned. The land above mentioned was in its wild condition, not a tree or shrub being cut, and of course without a cabin to afford him and his little family shelter. On the first day he made a small clearing, and preparation for raising a cabin. This work he done himself, although utterly inexperienced in the use of the woodman's axe, as he had never in his life chopped a cord of wood, made a fence rail, or cut down or even deadened a tree, having previously worked only upon farms long cultivated. On the second day his wife requested to visit the home her husband was engaged in preparing, and accompany him to it with their child. They accordingly set out on horseback, and in due time reached the place, when he proceeded with his work, and Mrs. Gierhart employed herself with her needle and the care of their little child. One of the mares had been belled and hobbled, and, with her mate, was permitted to range for such food as the woods afforded. Thus the day nearly passed, and toward evening the sound of the bell had disappeared, and Mr. Gierhart, taking in his arms his little child, and leaving his wife under the shelter of a tree, started in search of his beasts. His animals had wandered a much greater distance than he had supposed; but he finally recovered the one that had been hobbled, and mounting it with his child, set out on his return to his wife. He had not traveled far before he discovered that he was unable to find the blazed timber; and concluded it the safer way to make for the Jerome Fork, where he would be enabled to intersect the trail that led from Martin Hester's to his land. On his way he met an old hunter, named John McConnell, to whom he explained his situation, and asked aid in finding his way back to his wife. Mr. McConnell gave it as his opinion that he could not that night reach the place, but proposed that he remain at the house of Mr. Hester, then not far distant, until mornong. On their way to Hester's they struck the blazes which led to the place where he had parted with his wife; and committing his child to the care of Mr. McConnell, with directions to leave it with Mrs. Hester, he determined, against the protest of Mr. McConnell, who assured him of the impossibility of success, (as night was then rapidly approaching,) to go to the relief of his desolate wife. He accordingly pressed forward on his way, guided by the blazed trees, and continued until the darkness rendered the marks upon the trees undistinguishable. Here was before him a ''night of terror'' indeed - such a one as he had never passed, and never dreamed that he would be called upon to-pass. The thought of a helpless wife, in the depth of a wilderness of which the savage beast was the almost undisputed monarch, and no possible hope of affording any relief before the dawn of another day, was enough to wring any soul with agony. Despite the darkness, he plunged blindly forward a few rods in what he supposed might be the right direction, and then, impressed with the utter hopelessness of proceeding farther, halted; and, raising a voice, the power of which was made terrible by his agony, called to his wife. Its echoes reached her, and were recognized. She sent forth her answer, but her voice having less compass than that of her husband, the sound did not reach his ear. In his despair he laid himself down beside a tree, and maintained his sleepless vigils until morning, when he resumed his search, and finally came upon the trail he was seeking. Pursuing it rapidly, he soon reached Mrs. Gierhart, who had wisely maintained her position throughout the night, notwithstanding the distraction of mind which her anxiety for the safety of her husband and child her own lonely situation, and the distant howling of wolves, were all calculated to inspire. Soon after he had found his wife, and while they were yet relating to each other the experiences of the night, they heard the blowing of horns, and were soon met by neighbors, who had been alarmed by Mr. McConnell, who had started forth at the first dawn of day in pursuit of the lost husband and wife.

As Told By. The. Pioneers

The principal occupation of the first pioneers of Ashland county was clearing the land and farming. In the spring of the year considerable maple sugar was made, which was exchanged for salt and groceries. Clothing was mostly manufactured at home, as each farmer kept a few sheep, and the wool was spun and wove into cloth by members of the family, and made into clothing for winter. A small piece of ground was sown in flax by each farmer, from the lint of which the summer clothing was manufactured ; all the labor of producing this clothing being performed at home. All farm products were sold at very low prices - wheat seldom so high as forty cents a bushel, and corn brought from eight to fifteen cents. A first class cow would sell for eight or ten dollars, and all other farm products at equally low rates. Even at these rates it was almost impossible to get the cash. Money was scarce and almost all kinds of business was carried on by barter. The merchants would sell their goods to the farmers on time, the farmer agreeing to pay with wheat, or pork, when he slaughtered his hogs. The wheat and pork were again exchanged by the merchant for goods. Thus trade was carried on with a small amount of money. The wheat was made into flour and packed in barrels, the pork was also packed in barrels, and a considerable quantity of corn converted into whiskey.

The pioncers were also always ready to help each other or a stranger on any and all occasions, and for this purpose would put themselves to great inconvenience and travel great distances. Did one of them want a cabin raised he had only to let his neighbors know (and all were considered neighbors within a circle of five or ten miles) and they would be there promptly.

Log-rollings were a weekly occurrence; every settler would have one or more of these gatherings every year until his lands were well cleared. Settlers for miles around would come with their axes, oxen and hand spikes; the logs were cut, hauled together and piled in great heaps to be set on fire after drying. The younger members of the community, girls and boys, piled the brush and smaller sticks in immense heaps; the boys not yet old can remember when these heaps were set on fire at night, and how all the young people for miles around gathered and played ''goal'' and ''round-town'"' by the light of the crackling brush.

Cornhuskings are even yet occasionally indulged in by the farming community, though rarely, and will soon be entirely unknown. A night was selected for the cornhusking when the moon was full. Sometimes the corn was husked as it stood in the field, and large fields were thus cleared of corn in a single evening. At other times the owner of a cornfield would go through it a day or two before the husking was to take place, jerk the ears from the stalk and haul them to some dry spot in the meadow, where they were piled in a huge circle. About this circle, on the outside, the men would gather in the evening, and amid the rattle of husks and the general hilarity the yellow ears would flow toward the center of the circle in a continual stream, while the huskers buried themselves deeper and deeper in the husks, until they emerged and stood upon the inner line of the circle, with a great pile of corn in front and a pile of husks in the rear.

Occasionally the corn was as nearly as possible divided into two heaps ; captains or leaders were chosen by the men, who in turn choosing their men arranged themselves in opposition. Each of the opposing parties endeavored to get through first, the bottle being passed frequently, each one helping himself to as much of the contents as he desired. The successful captain was elevated upon the shoulders of his men and carried around the pile amid prolonged cheers. Sometimes the beaten party was aggravated until knockdowns ensued. after which all would repair to the house of the host and partake of the good things prepared for the oveasion.

The settlers exercised a good deal of ingenuity in making traps to secure the wild animals of the forest. This was one of the principal occupations and sources of pleasure for the boys. In certain localities it seemed almost impossible for the pioneers to raise sheep or hogs on account of the.depredations of wolves and bears; the latter invariably preferred pork to mutton, but the wolves always attacked the sheep in preference. The state offered six dollars each for wolf scalps; this and other considerations stimulated the efforts of the settlers to destroy them. Many of the young men devoted their time almost exclusively to this business. For the purpose of catching them, a wolf pen was constructed of small logs, six feet long, four feet wide and three feet high. It was formed like a large box, with puncheon floor, the lid was made of heavy puncheons, and was removed by an axle at one end made of a small round stick. The trap was set by the ordinary figure 4 combination, and baited with any kind of meat except wolf meat. the animal preferring any other to his own. Upon gnawing the meat the lid fell, enclosing the unwary native for the benefit of the trapper.

Steel traps were generally used for the mink and muskrat, but for the coon the figure 4 arrangement was often used. The habits of this animal (as well as of all others) were taken into consideration. It is well known that the coon frequents swails, swamps and stagnant pools in search of frogs, of which he is very fond, and upon which he subsists largely when roastingears are not at hand. In his search for frogs he will traverse the logs that are always to be found in the swamp. The trapper understands this, and places his trap upon the log upon which the unwary animal must enter the swamp or make his exit therefrom. The trap is simply a small log, placed lengthwise of the log which the coon must walk, and held up by the figure 4, to the treadle of which three or more strings are attached and stretched along between the two logs in such a way that the coon must come in contact with them in his passage, and thus spring the trap, letting the small log fall upon him. This small log must be made sufficiently heavy by weights to crush him.

Wild pigeons were once very numerous, and were caught in large numbers in traps. During the season when the mast was ripe and plenty, millions of these birds frequented the country. The flocks were so great that they would sometimes be hours in passing over a given spot, and it is said that they would occasionally obscure the sunlight, and bring on twilight in midday by their im- mense numbers. For the last twenty years these birds have been gradually disappearing until at present only small flocks are oceasionally seen. Probably the clearing up of the country and the gradual disappearance of the mast-bearing trees has caused them to seek other feeding grounds. They were here slaughtered in great numbers, both by gun and trap, and were considered a great table delicacy.

When the white settlers first touched the borders of this country, a great variety of wild animals contended with the Indian for supremacy. Some of the native animals of this primeval forest had gradually given way to the general westward movement of the white race.

The elk was gone when the pioneers came, but the numerous wide-spreading antlers he once carried, were found profusely scattered in the forest, showing conclusively that he had once been here in considerable numbers, and at no remote period; but probably no living wild elk was ever discovered here by the pioneers.

Panthers were not numerous, but occasionally one was seen or heard, and a few were killed during the first ten or fifteen years after the first settlement. They disappeared from this section about 1812.

Bears were more numerous and remained longer, an occasional straggler being seen at intervals of many years, until 1846, or later. Bruin was hard on young domestic animals, pigs particularly, he had a good appetite for, and it was with great difficulty that the pioneers were able to raise their own pork.

Wolves were found in great abundance, and long continued to be a great annoyance to the settlers. The legislature encouraged their extermination by laws which authorized the payment of liberal sums for wolf scalps, both old and young. The records of the county commissioners show that large sums were paid the pioneers of the county for wolf scalps, four dollars being the price for full grown and two dollars for those less than full size. They have long since disappeared.

Deer were very abundant, and for many years after the first settlement, supplied the pioneers with most of their animal food. The pioneers were mostly hunters, and the chase yielded them much profit as well as amusement. So numerous were the deer in early times that an hour's hunt was generally sufficient for securing a fine buck or the more palatable doe or fawn. So plenty and tame were they, that they were killed frequently with a shot gun charged only with squirrel shot.

Gray foxes, raccoons and ground-hogs were plenty, and hunting them afforded fine sport. The two latter of these are yet found in limited numbers, but the first has, probably, entirely disappeared.

Red foxes, catamounts, wild-cats and porcupines, were found in large numbers, but they early disappeared, except the first named, which may, perhaps, even yet be occasionally found.

Rabbits and squirrels, if not here before the settlement of the county, came soon after in great numbers, and still remain. They seem to follow rather than precede the settlements.

The beaver and otter were here in considerable numbers, and were much sought after by the trapper for their valuable furs. The former has long

Wild turkeys were also very abundant in pioneer days, and so continued for many years, affording no inconsiderable portion of the food of the early settlers. They were so numerous and tame that they could be procured by the hunter on very short notice. They are yet occasionally found in the woods.

Quails are not natives of the wilderness; neither are crows, blackbirds, bluebirds nor turtle doves, but they all became plenty after the settlement of the county, and still remain in moderate quantities.

Birds of prey, such as turkey buzzards or vultures, hawks, ravens, owls and eagles, were very numerous, but have been -slowly disappearing, particularly the eagle, which is now seldom seen.

The streams abounded in fish of large size. The pike were from two to five feet in length. It has almost, if not entirely, disappeared from the waters of the county.

The catfish were plenty and of large size, but there were no eels. The white perch and sucker were numerous and of large size; the black jack and clear jack were here and grew large, but have long since disappeared. The streams, no less than the forests, contributed to the support of the early settlers. Indeed, so plenty were game, fish, fur animals and the fruits and other spontaneous productions, that it was hardly necessary to till the ground to procure subsistence.

Serpents were of many varieties and in great abundance. Especially numerous were the rattlesnake, the copperhead, the viper, blacksnake, the garter and watersnake. They were often found in the cabins of the settlers, and even in their beds. It was not unusual for the settlers to be bitten by them, but few, if any deaths occurred from this cause, as the settlers understood the treatment of snake bites. |

The flax was grown in the summer, scutched in the fall, and during the long winter evenings was heard the buzz of the little flax-wheel, which had a place in every cabin. Even those who are not pioneers can remember this flaxwheel, for it was in use as late as 1850, or later. It stood in a corner, generally ready for use by having a large bundle of flax wrapped around its forked stick, a thread reaching to the spindle, and a little gourd filled with water hanging conveniently at the bottom of the flax-stick, and whenever the good pioneer mother had a little spare time from cooking for a dozen work hands, caring for a dozen children, milking a dozen cows, and taking care of the milk and butter, besides doing all the housework and keeping everything clean and neat as a pin, she would sit down to this wheel and with foot on the treadle and nimble fingers, pile thread upon thread on the spindle, to be reeled off on a wooden reel that counted every yard with a snap, and then it was ready for the great loom that occupied the loft. This loom was a wonder - it would be a w onder today, with its' great beams, larger than any beams they put in the houses of today - its treadles, its shuttles, etc. Day after day could be heard the pounding of that loom, the treadles went up and down, the shuttles flew swiftly from one hand to another through the labyrinth of warp, and yard after yard of cloth rolled upon the great roller, And then this cloth was to be cut into little and big clothes and made up with the needle, and, remember, this and a great deal more than any one can think of was to be gone through with every year. Wool went through about the same operation, only it was spun on the large wheel, colored with butternut bark and other things, but woven on the loom and made up for winter clothing.

The cultivation of domestic animals, both beasts and fowls, for the purposes of food, began early. Cows for milk, butter, beef, and leather, and swine for pork, were bred, ear marked and turned into the woods to browse. '' Root hog or die,'' was the Jaw for man and beast, but the woods were prolific and the hogs vrew fat. The young pigs were exceptionally a sweet morse] for the bear. Bruin always singled out these young animals in preference to any other meat; but the pigs were often successfully defended by the older hogs, who, upon the least signs of distress from one of their number, would go boldly to the rescue and fiercely attack the foe, however formidable; often the pig was released and bruin, or the panther, compelled to ascend a tree for safety.

The boys often found wild turkeys' nests in the woods, and would bring home the eggs, and place them, to be hatched, under a trusty old hen, in an outside chimney corner, where they could assist the hen in defending the eggs and brood from the opossum or hawk. A flock of turkeys sometimes originated in this way, but more often, as they grew to maturity, they would fly away into the woods and never reappear. This grandest of birds is identical in civilized and savage life, and is the peculiar production of America. The wild ones were always a dark brown, like the leaves of their native woods, but when ane or ''civilized"' the diversity of color becomes endless.

When cornbread and milk were eaten for breakfast, hog and hominy for dinner and mush and milk for supper, there was little room for tea and coffee; and at a time when one bushel of wheat for a pound of coffee and four bushels for a pound of tea, were considered a fair exchange, but little of these very expensive articles was used.

Next to water, the drink of the pioneers -was whiskey - copper-still rye whiskey. | Everybody drank it. It was supposed to be indispensable to health, to strength and endurance during the labors of the day, and to sleep at night. It. was supposed to be absolutely indispensable to warmth and animation in cold, chilly winter weather. It was the sacrament of friendship and hospitality ; it was in universal use; yet there was probably less drunkenness in those days

At a little later time, say from 1820 to 1840, the pioneers were living a little easier. Their farms were partially cleared. many of them were living in hewed log houses and many in frame, and even brick houses. Most of them had barns and innumerable out-houses. They generally had cattle, horses, sheep, hogs and poultry, and were living in comparative comfort. Their neighbors were near, and always dear. Their schools and churches had improved somewhat. yet even at a later day there were hundreds of log schoolhouses and churches. | About three months in a year was all the schooling a farmer's boy could get. He was sadly needed at home from the age of five years, to do all sorts of chores and work on the farm. He was wanted to drive the cows to water and to pasture; to feed pigs and chickens and gather the eggs. His duties in the summer were multifarious; the men were at work in the field harvesting, and generally worked from early morning until late at night, and the boys were depended on to ''do the chores ;'' hence it was impossible to spare them to attend school in summer. There was no school in spring and fall. In winter they were given three months' schooling. Their books were generally anything thev happened to have about the house, and even as late as 1850, there was no system in the purchase of school books.

Parents purchased for their children whatever book pleased their faney, or whatever the children desired them to purchase. A geography was a geography, and a grammar a grammar, regardless of who was the author. | This great confusion in school books made trouble for the teacher, but that was of small moment. He was hired and paid to teach whatever branches, out of. whatever books the parents thought were best. The branches generally taught in the early schools, however, were reading, writing, spelling and arithmetic, and later, geography and grammar. Boys attending school but three months in a year made but little progress.

There were always three or four classes in spelling, and this exercise was the last before school was dismissed in the evening. The old books were conned over year after year, until they were worn out and the children grew up to manhood and womanhod, and never knew, and perhaps do not know to this day, what was in the back part of them. This was the kind of a start many a great man had.

There was always much competition in the spelling classes as to who should get the ''head mark.'' In the later schools it was the custom that the best speller might stand at the head until he missed, when the one who spelled the word correctly should take his place, and he then stood next to the head; but they did things differently in the earlier schools; the head of the class once gained and held until the last spelling at night, the headmark was received and the lucky scholar then took his place at the foot of the class, to again work his way gradually to the head. These classes sometimes contained thirty or forty scholars, and it was something of an undertaking to get from the foot to the head. Spellingschools were the beauty and glory of school-days. The scholars were always coaxing the teacher to appoint a night for a spellingschool, and were usually gratified one or two nights in a month or oftener. <A night was chosen when the moon shone, and the sleighing was good, and then the entire neighborhood and perhaps the adjoining neighborhood would turn out to the spellingschool; whole families came on the great two-horse sled, including the old lady and gentleman, all the children, little and big; even the baby and the dogs came. Schools in adjoining districts sent their best spellers to try and earry off the honors.

Upon the theory that the traditions of a place are a part of its history, we give the traditions of the locality in the eastern part of Ashland county known as Katotawa, cépying the following from the Times:

''Your correspondent has received numerous inquiries as to the correct pronunciation and spelling of Katotawa. My own way of spelling is as. I have always spelled it and pronounce it Ka-tot-a-waw. There is no real authority for spelling the word and every one can spell it his own way if he chooses. Will give some of the numerous ways of spelling: Catotaway, Katatawa, Katotowa, ete. or if you wish you can grind it out thus; Cha-tacht-a-waugh and still be correct. Believing with Josh Billings that the easiest way of spelling a word is as it is pronounced I think my way as near correct as any other. Perhaps a sketch of the tradition of Katotawa will be interesting to the readers of the Times. Old Katotawa was a chief of one of the many tribes of Indians that once populated this - then wilderness. Through our valley runs a small stream which has its source near Polk and flows: southward, unites with the creeks east of Ashland and flows into what is called Jeromefork. On the banks of the former stream Old Katotawa or 'Cha-tacht-a-waugh' often pitched his tent and fished in its waters which are always cool being fed by fresh water springs and small tributaries, and once well stocked with river trout. When advancing civilization reached this point, as usual, the 'noble red man' was significantly pointed toward the setting sun and given Horace Greeley's advice 'Go West.' The. Indians were steadily crowded back from the frontier but not however, without several desperate fights of which the History of Ashland county gives sketches. Katotawa, then a very old man, remained alone in his hut on the banks of the stream, the few remaining days of his life. Some say that he was killed - beheaded ; and the superstitious claimed that his ghost - the ghost of a headless body wandered along the river on dark and foggy nights. | Your correspondent never had the pleasure of seeing his royal ghostship or any one who ever did; yet this is part of the tradition of Katotawa. The stream has ever since been known by that name which it is said was given by this old sachem and the prosperous valley along the Katotawa stream we call the Katotawa valley.''

There are traditions that are not historically correct. For years past, it has been generally believed in these parts that Lyons' Falls. were named for the old Indian chieftain, Captain Tom Lyons.

It may seem like uncalled-for iconoclasm to dispel belief in such a mythical personage as Lily Pipe, or to rob Lyons' Falls of Indian traditions. But history should be accurately given, and its correct narration is more instructive and can be as entertainingly told as though its warp were woven with the woof of fiction.

Lyons' Falls are situated about fifteen miles southeast of Mansfield. There are two falls, and the place, which has been a noted picnic resort for many years, is wild in its primitive forest and grand in its rugged picturesqueness. During the past summer a party of ladies and gentlemen, whose names are conspicuous on the list of Mansfield's ''400,'' took a day's outing at these falls, and a grave was pointed out to them as that of the ''noted Lyons,'' and like many others they inferred that the Lyons buried there was the celebrated Indian chieftain of that name. Upon their return to Mansfield they told entertainingly of the wooded hills and sylvan dell, of the overhanging rocks and of the eighty-foot leap of the waters from the edge of the precipice to the basin at the bottom of the chasm, casting its sprays into the cool grottos which the hand of nature chiselled out of the everlasting rocks. And the further fact that the party had seen the grave of a great warrior, lent additional interest to the story and to the locality.

With such allurements it was not long until another detachment of the '*400"' also visited these noted falls, and the gentlemen of the party fired volleys over the grave, danced a war-dance and gave Indian funereal whoops and came home satisfied that they had held suitable commemorative ceremony over. the earthly resting place of the body of an Indian chieftain.

Tom Lyons, the Indian, who took a prominent part in the Wyoming massaere (1778), and was afterwards a noted character in the early history of Richland county, was killed by a young man named Joe Haynes, to avenge the murder of a kinsman and he buried the old chief in Leedy's swamp in the southern part of Jefferson township.

The Lyons buried at the falls was Paul Lyons, a white man. He was not a hermit, as one tradition states, for he took to himself a wife, who bore him a son, and he did not particularly shun his neighbors, although he did not admit them into his confidence.

What Paul Lyons' object and motives were for leaving the civilization of the east and seeking a home amid the rocks and hills of that wild country are matters only of conjecture, for he never gave his antecedents, and refused to explain or to give reasons for hiding himself away in the forest and leading such a retired life. He had 'squatted' on land too rough to till, and never attempted to clear off the timber nor to cultivate the rocky soil. He simply built a cabin amid the trees and passed his time principally in hunting and fishing, but as the country became settled around him, and farmers needed help to harvest their crops, he often assisted them in such work. He never made any exhibition of money, yet always paid cash for what he bought. He has been described as a large man, and that he had ability and education is shown by the statement of a lady now living, who says that he was an intelligent and entertaining conversationalist and that at the funeral of a neighbor he read a chapter and sang a hymn, and that was the best reading and singing she had ever heard.

'he late Rosella Rice had a headboard, painted and lettered, put up at the grave, but visitors shot at the board until it was riddled into slivers by bullets, id later the body was exhumed and the skeleton mounted by a physician. A slight depression in the ground is the only sign showing where the body had been interred.

Lyons' wife was not an intellectual woman and it is said that she was sent away and died in an asylum. It is also reported that the boy was taken to an eléemosynary institution after his father's death, and that when he grew to manhood he went west and prospered.

The most noted personage for the past twenty-five years in the region of the falls was Lewis M. Lusk, the fiddler who played for hundreds of dances. In past seasons there were dancing floors at the falls, and Lusk furnished the music with his ''fiddle and his bow,'' while the dancers kept step to its enlivening strains.

Mr. Lusk is now dead, but tourists will long remember seeing him sitting in the door or in the yard of his cabin, playing his fiddle, while the ripples of the waters of the Mohican seemed to echo the refrain of the music as the current of the stream swept around its graceful bends in front of the humble dwelling, the rugged rocks forming a rustic background to the picture framed by the encircling hills, all combined to impress the passerby with the thoughts, how sweet is the music, how dear is home and how inspiring is all the handiwork of the Creator.

Old Tom Lyons

Tom Lyons, an old Indian of an infamous character, who had taken a bloody part in the Wyoming massacre, (1778), was killed in the southern part of Ashland county in about 1820, by a young man named Joe Haynes to avenge the murder of a kinsman. The killing oecurred on the outskirts of the Leedy swamp, in the southern part of Jefferson township, Richland county. He was wn ugly looking savage, and was known to all the pioneers.

On a few occasions he related his achievements. He had been in many battles on the border, and had taken many scalps. He related some of his acts of extreme cruelty, and a few of his barbarities inflicted upon the wives and children of the border settlers. He was with the other Greentown and Jerometown Indians in the battle of the Fallen Timbers.

An Indian Hunter

John McConnell was called an Indian hunter as well as a beast hunter, for the reason that his kindred had suffered more from the murderous assaults of Indians than from the wild beasts of the forests, had an encounter with a couple of Indians on the Wabash which is worthy of record. At an Indian camp he was visiting, his hunter's knife had attracted their attention, and he was importuned to sell it. When he positively declined their propositions, his wary eye detected mischief in their looks. He took his leave of them, and had not traveled many miles, before he became convinced that he was being pursued by the Indians. To confirm his suspicions, he suddenly quit the trail after crossing a prairie, and took observations from behind a tree - the result being to fully establish in his mind that their designs were against him. This was in the afternoon of the day, and he resumed the trail and pushed forward rapidly until the shades of night began to gather, and he had left his pursuers some distance in the rear. Again quitting the trail he hastily kindled a fire, a few rods distant, within a few feet of the fire he arranged an effigy on a log by adjusting his blanket in such a manner as would lead one to suppose that it covered its owner; and then concealing himself at a proper distance, awaited the progress of events. He had not long remained in this situation before a rifle ball from a concealed foe entered his blanket, and soon the two Indians were hurrying towards the effigy with uplifted tomahawks. The progress of the larger Indian was instantly arrested by a ball from McConnell's unerring rifle; and the smaller Indian reversed his movement and escaped in the woods before McConnell could reload his gun.

Simon Girty

The notorious renegade, Simeon Girty, was the son of a notorious drunkard, who had emigrated from Ireland. The old man was beastly intemperate, and nothing ranked higher in his estimation than a jug of whiskey. His sottishness turned his wife's affections, and she vielded her heart to another, who knocked Girty on the head, and bore off the trophy in his prowess. Four sons remained behind, Thomas, Simon, George and James. The three latter were taken prisoners in Braddock's war, by the Indians. George was adopted by the Delawares, and died in a drunken fit. James was adopted by the Shawnees, and became a bloody villain. Simon was adopted by the Senecas, and became an expert hunter. In Kentucky and Ohio, he distinguished himself as an unrelenting barbarian. It was his constant wish that he might die in battle. This was gratified. He was cut to pieces, by Colonel Johnson's mounted men, at Proctor's

Johnnycake And His Wife

The Indian was well known to the early settlers by the above name. He was a tall, wellbuilt, finelooking man, of genial temper, good moral habits, and enjoyed much the society of his friends.

Tlis wife was a half-breed - the daughter of a white woman who had been taken prisoner by the Indians, near Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Her mother, after having endured several years of captivity. made her escape, and returned to her white friends, leaving her little daughter among the Indians. - This infant child remained among the Indians - attained the condition of womanhood _married - and became an exemplary and faithful wife and mother, and remarkable for shrewdness and tact.

Mr. Knapp refers to the residence of J ohnnycake in Clear Creek township at alate date. In 1824, in the spring, Johnnycake had a wigwam in the vicinity of the present site of Savannah.

Johnnycake died on the Delaware reservation, in Kansas, leaving two or three sons. In the war of the Rebellion of 1861-5, three grandsons of Johnnycake served in Company M, Sixth regiment of Kansas Volunteer Infantry, under Captain John W. Duff. Their names were: John, Benjamin and Philip Johnnyeake. Captain Duff says they were excellent soldiers.

A Pioneer Talk

There is a vast store of rich material almost untouched lying waiting for some writer who will hold the mirror up to nature and give us pictures of the people and the manners and customs of early times. What a royal book could be made! We grow so weary of polities, the sham side of religion; the ruthless clambering after high places; the desperate struggles for riches and fame and honor ; men standing on other men's necks to elevate themselves. Oh, sometimes, if it were not so sentimental and so like twaddle, or the talk of whispering lovers we could cry out in the language of Moore:

""O, had we some bright little isle of our own, In a blue summer ocean, far off and alone, Where a leaf never dies in the still blooming bowers, And the bee banquets on through a whole year of flowers.''

There is not half the material nowadays for the manufacture of readable stories and sketches there was in pioneer times. We are surprised when we the field over. How fresh and charming and breezy were the stories written by Eggleston, the only writer who has ever ventured into this broad and beautiful field.

The stories that are the simplest and most natural and that cuddle the closest to Nature's great warm, true heart are the best. Their narration brings the quick, hearty laugh and the sudden mist of tears the soonest. Bret Harte may, in his strange, bold way, bring out wonderful words, pictures of heroism, history may tell of great men who sacrificed their lives in a fury of enthusiasm, forgetting everything only fame that was to follow after. But in our own humble opinion we do believe God and the angels have looked down and beheld the truest heroes in the lowliest walks of humble life. Oh, we bare our heads in the presence of our grandees; we bow graciously, we smile and fawn upon them because they are great. The richest carpet is spread for them to walk upon from the doorway to the glittering carriage in the street; we beg for their autographs; we look after them adoringly and we sigh when they are gone and we read glowing accounts of where they go and how they are received and the honors that are heaped upon them, and our hearts warm with exultation. We call these our heroes. We believe the heroism hidden in the commonest walks of life, and perhaps not known beyond the horizon's rim, not read about, nor sang about, nor talked about, and scarcely known or dreamed of by the nearest neighbors, is the grandest example of brave courage and devotion that there is. In pioneer times such heroes were found in every neighborhood. They were not shrined, neither did they stand on pedestals. They sat on benches at their looms, and on rickety chairs close up to their little wheels, and from early dawn until bedtime they made music; the music of the flying shuttle and the banging of the lathe, the buzzing of the flyers, and the fine metalic ring of the sharp teeth of the hackle. They dressed in clothing that they had manufactured themselves, and they clad their husbands and their children in the same. The heroism of these wonderfully energetic women will never be known, because they know it not themselves. We may talk of the spirit of our missionary women and laud them, but no need of theirs can compare with the self-denial of these managing, planning, contriving, overtasked, active foremothers of ours. Their creative ability was marvellous. Their generalship was splendid. Their strategy and maneuvers and devices without parallel. And yet, revering their memory as we do, cherishing the bold, brave, beautiful examples they have left us, we cannot but lament the sad heritage they bequeathed likewise.

These noble grandmothers and mothers wrought with hands and brain; they toiled beyond their strength; they used up the vitality that they should have shared with us - their defrauded bodies. They robbed us, and the consequences abide with us today. We have white faces and flabby muscles and are short of health, and we have to coax ourselves to walk up hill, and then we hold a hand on our side and gasp. _ Instead of springing out of a wagon or off the side saddle, or from the top rail of the fence, we creep down as though we carried a set of china or a basket of imported eggs. They would have run up stairs three steps at a clip if they'd only had the stairs. As it was, they tripped up the ladder that stood in the corner, carrying a bushel of corn or twelve dozen skeins of flax thread with the ease that one of us would carry a glove box. We know one mother who died at middle age with a flush as of roses on her lips and her cheeks and a sunny sparkle in her eyes, and her glossy brown hair smoothed back from her white forehead. She lay down to sleep and to dream at night and the sleep came in the twinkling of an eye, but it was the dreamless slumber of death, and the word went forth that she died of heart disease - a very pretty name by which to designate such sudden calls of death, such untoward freaks of Providence. But her bereft family knew the limits of a life spent in overwork, an energy that knew no boundaries at all. She had said, ''Now I will make fifty linen sheets for ourselves and then I will quit spinning and weaving.'' That was two hundred and fifty yards of linen. Any one who has raised flax and carried it through the stages prescribed, will know what that means. Raising, pulling, spreading, ratting, gathering into bundles, then breaking, scutching, hackling, spinning, boiling the skeins in ashes and water, spooling, warping and weaving. Then comes the bleaching out on the grass in March and April and the web is ready for use. Besides the stores of family and bed and table linen she wanted the fifty homemade linen sheets to lay aside for herself and husband in their old age and after the children were all married and settled in life. Poor, short sighted woman! She died before half the number were made. Ter husband, a young man, was left disconsolate with five little children between the ages of fourteen and four. What an absurd mistake she made! And the linen sheets. The cold, clinging, clammy things. Well, the daughters-in-law cut them up and used them for baby linen and tea towels and dish rags, with never a thought of what they cost. And the sons-in-law wipe their bearded faces and tidy about their ears with the towels made out of them, and instead of thinking that the life of a noble but unwisely energetic woman was twisted up into the nicely spun woof and warp, and the tine gold of it beaten up into the flossy fabric, they serub diligently, thinking of the sharp bargains they make in swapping horses. perhaps getting a good, two year colt for an old crowbait with its bony back thatched over with newspapers.

If there is one thing in this life that we sorrow over more than another, it is to see energy - that great lever that moves the world - misspent, poured out wastefully. Our possibilities for accomplishing good and great works are wonderful and we have no right to trifle them away and spend our time making overmuch provision for our perishable bodies. | Why, the very time devoted to making pies, if spent out in the woods under the gracious roof of gold and green, when days are long and skies are bright, and woods are green and fields are breezy, would tend to make one fresh and active and interesting, and to grow mellow in a kindly way. So many lives dwarfed and disappointed, and in complete owe their failure to the wearing of the shackle that they impose upon

Sometimes we wonder if our own township is an exception in its wealth of story making material. | Every old cabin hearth stone holds a story, sometimes wonderful, sometimes tragical and sometimes stranger than fiction. Away off in the woods on our way to and from the school we taught long ago we used to sit and dream and rest awhile on a heap of old hearth stones. the birthplaces ' i row 'he thplaces of a poor little boy who, when he came up to manhood, received the appointment of Foreign Minister. His father made baskets and trays and half 1 i pti : 2 half bushels, and his mother spun sewing thread and 1ackled flax and colored copperas and rocked her babies in a sugar trough.

What to them was poverty? Contentment disarmed of its sting. Their wants were few. There was no aristocracy in those early days. When the women wanted to visit neighbor Prudence and have a good social time and not tax the poor family, they took provisions with them. One would take half a quarter of tea and a pitcher of cream, another a loaf of bread and a roll of butter, another some maple syrup or wild honey, with venison or pork or raised cornbread or doughnuts, always carrying a good deal more than was needed, and then the woman whose honored guests they were could get up a plain meal without any embarrassment whatever.

At the time we used to indulge in these dreams, William was abroad an honor to the nation he represented, and perhaps many a time in his far-awav political home, there came up before him the shady little nook in the wildwood, with its rich undergrowth of cool ferns and mosses and leaves mingling in wild luxuriance. Oh, such examples are so encouraging to poor boys. Energy and perseverance with a. character based on good sound principles can accomplish anything. And how true and full of exaltation comes to such the ringing song of the sweet minstrel girl, Alice Carey. Her own soul alive with the inspiration that thrilled herself and others when she sang

But one hearthstone there was that could have told a boss story, as the boys say. Just the man and his wife and her sister comprised the family. It was the bleak November time, when the rains seem to have a sobbing sound and the winds ery about the leaves, and the dead vines swing mournfully, and the waters drip like tears from the dead leaves. The husband was away at the mill down at Shrimplins, and would not get home till late that night. |The two women sat conversing over the embers. One subject only was in their thoughts, and that was ''There will be no dress for the baby.'' Now did anybody ever hear of a wideawake woman who couldn't see her way through or over or under or around the obstacles in her path? Surely not. The husband came home late, ate his corn bread and milk, buried the glowing coals and went to bed. Away in the night the young wife woke her sister with ''Bet, say Bet, I've studied it out. Hark'ee! Early in the morning he will kill Old Nan, for what's the use 0' keepin' just one sheep, poor, lonesome creetur', and me and you'll go to work and we'll make a bit 0' flannel out 0' the fleece, an' that'll be very daddle for a good, warm, soft baby dress. Don't ye see, Bet?'' Poor, sleepy Betsy. We don't know whether she saw it or not, but she acquiesced with a drowsy ''eh, heh.'? He killed the sheep bright and early the next morning. The two sisters picked off the wool nicely carded, spun, put the infantile web into the loom and wove it that day and evening, and at night they cut out the dearest little coatie and made it before they went to bed. There wasn't much margin left to boast.of, because the next day's dawn found a sturdy little man child taking the tailor out of the brannew coatie. A little sprout of a pioneer with round, red fists and heels that tested the new flannel vigorously. And this was the stuff that pioneer women were made of in the long ago.

Sixty years agu a poor boy in Green township used to get up very early winter mornings, when the snow lay deep and white upon the ground, and as he flipped his homeknit suspenders over his shoulders he peered out lak the eracks of his cabin home and whispered through his chattering teeth, Jinks, do b'lieve I see tracks!'' Then despite the cold he clad his feet in his father's old boots and sallied out to hunt rabbits. That boy wanted an education. He needed one of the first requirements - a spelling book. If it had been summer time he could have dug ginseng or columbo roots and sold them. But the winter season locked up this only resource, and all he could do was to catch rabbits and sell the skins for one cent apiece. Forty rabbit skins would buy a spelling book, a nice one with a good wooden back to it. That man died worth one hundred thousand dollars. And this was the stuff that pioneer men were made of. Those were close times when rabbit skins and ginserig roots and wolf scalps and whiskey were currency. We often take down from the top shelf in the library a homely old leathercovered account book of our grandfather's and father's, and look over the items of trade. In the way of a deal, our dear old ancestors once obtained a barrel of the currency of those times, whiskey, which he used to deal out, we presume, to the best advantage. This was over sixty years ago. One page in a clear, bold, graceful style of penmanship runs thus: Dr. John Smith, dr.

And then the mother and wife came, a palefaced sad woman and her tears stopped the flow of currency. And our heart is glad when we look the old book over and follow the track of that barrel of whiskey, peddled out and discover that. not the man who sold it nor one of those who bought it are represented today by one bloated face or pussy form, or red nose, or blear eye. We thank God for that signal favor. If ever our dead grandfather helped to foster the love of strong drink in any one whose tainted blood was inherited today by a weak son or grandson, we'd root out and wash out the foul curse, with our prayers and our tears. The John Smith referred to has three sons, elderly men, and because of the father's bad example, and the mother's tender watchfulness, her careful early training and early teaching, every man of them is a strictly moral man, advocating total abstinence. So we sit down and look the old book over as calmly as we would turn through Watt's hymns; but if he'd had a distillery and one of our beautiful springs hidden in a green gush in a hillside had been perverted to such a base use, its sweet gushing waters made accursed and instramental to the degredation of his fellowmen, our poor shamed face would have been bowed today with marks of Cain on the forehead.

There always was a charm to us in the relation of the incidents of pioneer life. It is so good to hear about those who have passed away, and are passing away - people, just like ourselves in all their loves and hates, their hopes and fears, their aims and aspirations. How often we hear these people say: ''we never were so happy as when we lived in the cabin. I can't make such corn bread as I used to make, and oh how I would like to taste of the nice corn cake I used to bake, on a clean shingle, tilted up before the fire with a flat-iron back of it. What a sweet crisp cake it was and how nutty the fine flavor.'' No elegant parlor can have that air of cosiness that had the one room in the cabin home. How high the beds did puff up. How neat the pile of bed clothes looked heaped upon an old arm chair, or box, or something between the windows folded just as evenly as possible. The little mirror was the one nice thing in the. house. Across its top wound a string of the shells of bird eggs, and a spray of asparagus drooped over like dainty mist. Under the glass hung a snow-white towel ironed in the most perplexing and abstruse folds and checks and diamonds and octagons. A very precise pin cushion hung over the white towel so as to show to the best advantage; sometimes the bullet pouch hung inside of it. The dresses and skirts turned-best side out hung on pegs around the walls. The old bureau if there was one had a cloth netting and fringe around it, and the bandbox containing the Sunday bonnet held its place of honor on the top of it. The gun lay in hooks upon a joist over head. If there was a fiddle in the family it dozed in a green baize bag from a nail beside the window. The dresser stood in one corner with a scant supply of delf; one whole shelf devoted to the cups and saucers which were ranged in a row, every cup standing on the bottom of a saucer. The ladder stood in the other corner, and a wide fire place filled almost one end of the cabin. Overhead hung bags of seeds and hops and roots, and the poles suspended by leather thongs above the heads of the family, had socks hanging on them, and dried pumpkins and choice seed corn and wallets of dried plums and dried cherries.

Sometimes a knotty branch of a hickury was cut off and hung up and strung full of tallow dips. But you all remember these old time things. Some of you women will recall the satisfied feeling you had at night, after a hard day's work, when you sat with the baby on your lap, swaying in the easy old chair that creaked out a weake-wock-weake-wock, and you sat and sang little aimless odds and ends of camp meeting songs, your thoughts far away and as you looked up and surveyed the little stores, you felt gratified that everything was in order, kept with an eye to economy and neatness. Oh, not riches nor fine clothing, nor grand furniture, nor any of these things can bring back that sweet sense of enjoyment that was yours in your humble little home.

On a birthday occasion, an old pioneer dined with us a few years ago. We were telling what roused our anger soonest, and with a gurgling musical laugh, the old man said, ''nothing ever made me madder than when I used to plow out in the clearings. | My shins were all bundled up with bits of sheep skins so I could endure the blows of the little roots that spring up with such vengeful force when cut off by the plow share, and yet many and many a time I swore in spite of me. . I was called a good Methodist and the Lord knows I tried to be a Christian and a good man. I had a great deal of very substantial praying to On the same pleasant occasion, another old pioneer related a drum major in the militia. He didn't know every thing. The crows were very troublesome, pulling up his corn. One day when he was plowing it, he '"<shooed'' at them and waved his hat, and threw clods, and finally a master idea entered his mind: he could get his drum and drum them away. He could sling it over his shoulder and carry it with him, and how much nicer that would be, and so genteel, too, and such a patriotic way of protecting his crop. When opportunity offered he turned his back to the old horse and struck up the strain of Yankee Doodle, just as if he were at general muster. The result was that the horse didn't concur with this new departure, and kicking up its heels it ran off and broke the plow and the harness and helped to scare away more crows than did the man with the new idea. The narrative of this incident was never drusick, but once, and then he was out on the creek in a canoe with his friends and fell overboard. The splash in the water roused him a little and he felt a touch of shame and humiliation and tried to take his own part, when they dragged him back in the canoe. He fumbled around and found one of his suspender buttons was gone. ''There,'' said he, "'ding it all, how could a fellow help fallin' in right backwards, when his gallus give way suddent?'' We used to visit at his home a good deal. Such boisterous boys and girls we never saw to play blackman, and ball, and shinny, and silly bang, and poison, and steal partner. The mother would let us all turn summersaults on her bed, and the father would let us slide all in a row down the sides of the straw stacks, no matter if the straw all scooted down to the ground. And they would let us boil chestnuts in the tea kettle, and roast potatoes in the ashes, after night, and have all the nice butter we wanted to eat with them. And in improvising plays and theatricals they allowed us the use of all the wearing apparel the house afforded. The old mare was free for any four of us to ride at one time, out on the race course, which was round and round the house. How we longed to exchange mothers with the jolly little ones of this favored family. She scolded frequently to be sure, and declared that the terrible racket would kill her, but her husband, the drum major, assurred us in homely language that ''her bark was wuss nor her bite.''

How the little mother would scold sometimes. She'd say: '' Andre Jackson you and Thomas Jefferson and Jonathan Edwards git right down off 0' that table! or Peter Cartright you're swingin' on that trammel again; first thing you know down it'll come and hurt Martha Washington or Molly Stark, or John Wesley ; or Mary Magdelene, that's not the first time I kitchece you eatin' crout by the handful right out'n the bar'l."'

When the little woman died a dozen years ago, we were glad the old drummer didn't ask us to write an obituary. No language could have expressed our thoughts. We loved her dearly. We are indebted to her.

A few days ago the men who were working with plow and scraper removing the gravelly little knoll on the bank of the creek at the edge of our village, brought to surface some human bones. There was the sturdy thigh bone, the arm, the ribs and finally the bold square jaw of the resolute old red man. the teeth worn down as though for a century he had eaten his tough venison seasoned with sand. And then came a shelly bit of a woman's skull, and her jaw tight and more delicately fashioned by far than was that of the old slumberer who had shared her dreamless couch for so many, many years. This incident impressed us forcibly. The fine quality of gravel in which lay for so long the bones of these unknown savages, was discovered to be just the thing needed on the principal streets in our village. No doubt the old chieftain selected that breezy knoll, on the banks of the then beautiful and freely flowing stream under the magnificent trees that crowned its summit, for at that time the fertile valley had not been trodden by the foot of the bold pioneer. Whoever selected that spot had an eye for the beautiful in nature, and had the same thought that comes to us when we meditate on the last sad:and closing scenes. Who knows! may be the poor old chieftain loved that pretty knoll as we did in our early years, and he may have dreamed there in saddened mood of the tide of civilization that was slowly coming nearer and nearer to crowd aside his people even as they had obliterated the mound builders, and in turn possess their vast hunting grounds.

So the little knoll is profitable and according to one of nature's immutable laws, the Indian's grave and its mouldering contents will live anew in a highway to be trodden under foot of man and hereafter whoever drives down main street, may grind his carriage wheels upon bones that are turning to dust. And the old chieftain's yellow teeth way be picked up any day and find a lodgment in the pocket of the little Arab's ragged jacket.

It is related that an apple tree planted on the grave of Roger Williams, the founder of the state of Rhode Island, who died in 1683, that the roots of the tree struck down and spread out into the shape and figure of the man, following his arms and Jegs and trunk. So that learned men familiar with the mysteries of nature and her strange metamorphoses, declare that Roger Williams passed into an apple tree, and lives again on this earth in another form, that of redcheeked juicy apples.

The statue of Sir Robert Peel, a very eminent British statesman, was melted over to make one for Lord Palmerston. We need not shudder at these things, for nature set the first example. With her there is no death, no decay, nothing repulsive. Where Hamlet spoke of turning the clay of Alexander into the bung of a beer barrel, he spoke the naked truth. The heathen gods, even vaguely, penetrated this great mystery, as those familiar with mythology will remember. But at first when the old mound was opened and its sacred treasures brought to the surface by plow and scraper, 'we' almost rebelled. We woke in the morning after, and walked out under the pines and looked down that lovely sweep of picturesque valley below us and we sighed as the words of the old quaker poet Whittier came, as though borne to us on the breath of the serene summer's dawn.

The words followed us about our work; they seemed so sad; they expressed so much. We thought of the poor old pioneers who had beheld this vast wilderness, its grandeur of woods and waters, until now it blooms like unto the gardens of the gods. How beautiful the labor of their hands! How much we owed them! But the olden time, with its white crowned patriarchial heads is passing away. The glory of one age is dimmed in the golden glory of the age succeeding it. Change stamps its seal upon all things. The trail of the redman will soon be lost in the net work of the railroad, that like great arteries stretch themselves among our beautiful hills and smiling valleys. The green graves mulitply. The old graves dimple the quietest corners of our cemeteries. And still the words, full of prophecy that makes us sadder, abide with us, and burn with our thoughts:

Miss Rosella Rice

The following sketch of Miss Rosella Rice, late of Perrysville, Ashland county, was written by Colonel Sullivan D. Harris, and appeared in William T. Coggeshall's Poets and Poetry of the West a work which appeared in 1860.

Rosella Rice is a native of Ashland county, Ohio. Her father Alexander Rice, was among the early settlers of Perrysville, and Rosella has always resided at the old homestead, where she was born, about the year 1830. Miss Rice is a born poet, and has nursed her strange wild fancies amid the equally wild hills and glens and rocky caves which she has haunted with a devotion that has amounted to a life passion. Meeting with but few associates who could appreciate the depths of her passions for such communings her spirit was wont to retire within herself except when it was called forth by the presence of the sylvan gods which she worshiped. Her early contributions to the county papers are marked by her own rude, but genuine original characteristics. Coming but little in contact with the world at large, she built upon ideal models, wherever she departed from her own original. Miss Rice has read much and well, and within the last few years she has visited the wide world considerably. She has contributed to Arthur's Home Magazine, Philadelphia, and to several of the Cleveland, Columbus and other Ohio papers. Her prose writings always attract attention and secure a wide circulation from their peculiar original vigor and directness.

In addition to the foregoing from Mr. Harris, the author adds that Miss Rice was on the regular staff of Arthur's Home Magazine for at least a quarter of a century. Miss Rice died June 6, 1888.

Early Day Sports

A commendable feature of pioneer sports was that utility was blended with amusement, social gathering being cabin and barn raisings, logrollings, cornhuskings, woodchoppings and quilting parties. Rich and poor then met upon lines of social equality and the old and the young mingled alike in these oldtime sports.

The people of those early days were helpful to each other not only in "'raisings'' and ''rollings'' requiring a force of men, but also in many other ways. If a man was incapacitated by sickness or other causes his neighbors set a day and went in force and plowed his corn, harvested his grain or cut his wood for the winter, as the season required. And when a pig, or a calf, or a sheep was killed in the summer a piece of the meat was sent to each family in the neighborhood, who reciprocated in kind, and in this way all had fresh meat the greater part of the season.

Cornhuskings were gala occasions. Frequently the ears were stripped from the stalks and hauled to a favorable place, where the unshucked ears were put in parallel or semi-circular windrows. Moonlight nights were usually chosen for husking occasions, and when the company gathered in the evening, captains were selected and the men chosen into two platoons, which competed in the husking work, each platoon trying to finish its pile or row first. At the finish the captain of the winning squad would be carried around on the shoulders of his mien, amid their triumphal cheers, after which the bottle would be passed.

Women attended such gatherings, also, and sometimes assisted at the husking, but were more frequently engaged during the early evening in quilting or sewing, or knitting and in helping to prepare the great supper feast which was served after the work was done.

There was a rule that a young man could kiss a girl for each red ear of corn found at a husking. It goes without saying that the girls all got kissed, some of them many times, for it was surprising how many red ears were found - so many that the number was prima facie evidence that some of the boys went to the gathering with their pockets full of red corn ears.