The Squirrel Hunters of Ohio; or, Glimpses of Pioneer Life
Date: 2017-10-25T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Frontier and pioneer life -- Ohio; Ohio -- Social life and customs; Ohio -- History -- 1787-1865

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Title: The Squirrel Hunters of Ohio; or, Glimpses of Pioneer Life

Author: N. E. Jones

Release date: October 25, 2017 [eBook #55809]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SQUIRREL HUNTERS OF OHIO; OR, GLIMPSES OF PIONEER LIFE ***

PIONEERS.

The
Squirrel Hunters of Ohio
or
Glimpses of Pioneer Life
by N. E. Jones, M. D.

Cincinnati.
⁂ THE ROBERT CLARKE Co ⁂
1898

Copyright, 1897, by
N. E. JONES.

PREFACE.

It required long trains of complex circumstances, and peculiar conditions for each, to give to the world a Moses, an Alexander, a Napoleon, a Washington. Still greater were the pre-arrangements and preparations for the development of the coming man of the Nineteenth Century, that he might stand pre-eminently upon the summit of American manhood. The habitation selected was the most elaborate and lovely of all the gifts of nature: A domain dedicated to freedom forever, bountifully supplied with animals, vegetables, and minerals; with lakes, rivers, and running brooks, grassy lawns and fields of flowers; making a fitting place for the best blood left of the American Revolution; descendants of Anglo-Saxon kings; knights of Norman titles and heroic deeds; supporters of William the Conqueror, whose ancestral names appear in the Doomsday Book, but more imperishably written in the law of descent and transmission. With such the new environment brought forth an improved species, christened by a sovereign state, “The Squirrel Hunters of Ohio; or, Glimpses of Pioneer Life,” and to whom this volume is most respectfully dedicated.

N. E. Jones, M. D.

INTRODUCTION.

As an actor and interested witness of the marvelous changes which have occurred in the settlement and civilization of the “North-west Territory,” the author places before the reader this book, entitled, “The Squirrel Hunters of Ohio; or, Glimpses of Pioneer Life.”

Others have faithfully recorded the wars, bloodshed, victories, defeats, dangers and deaths it cost to subjugate the savage and establish the civilized. And it is as the gleaner follows the reapers and gathers in the wayward straws, that the author hopes to interest and entertain, by picking up some of the fragments, that nothing may be lost which contributed to the elevation, pleasure, subsistence and safety of the pioneer, or added attractiveness to his home during the rise of the first state in the great empire of the North-west.

It is often the little things that become the most important—things the immigrant in old age delights to recall—things that bring up associations and pleasures of former days—“the good old times,” when with dog and gun the pioneer walked the unbroken forest and made himself familiar with the alphabet of beasts, birds and trees.

At the close of the Revolution, the Eastern States were old and prematurely gray, and poverty, bankruptcy and starvation induced the patriotic soldiers to accept pay for their services in unsurveyed wild land in the “North-west Territory.” The new acquisition was lauded as a country flowing with equivalents to “milk and honey,” and would sustain a large population, make delightful homes, and furnish an easily-acquired subsistence.

As soon as the Indian dangers were no longer detrimental, the homeless poor, with guns, ammunition and land certificates, flocked in from all quarters of the world, took possession of the country, and became the progenitors of a great and pre-eminent people—“The Squirrel Hunters of Ohio.”

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Chap. I. | Ohio—Early Settlement, | 1
II. | Ohio—Educational, Social, and Political, | 51
III. | Ohio—Professions: Medical, Ministerial and Legal, | 107
IV. | Ohio—Her Beasts, Birds, and Trees: Aids to Higher Civilization, | 166
V. | Ohio—Her Coach, Canal, and Steamboat Era, | 267
VI. | Ohio—Her Railroad and Telegraph Era, | 310

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Frontispiece.
Home of the Pioneer, | 7
This is Freedom! | 9
The Gum Tree, | 12
Stray Pup, | 30
Gamer, | 33
Our Cabin, 1821, | 37
Ground Hog Club—Certificate of Membership, | 58
Ohio School-house from 1796 to 1840, | 64
School-house of 1851, in which President Garfield Taught, | 92
The Olive Branch, | 95
Hunter and Dog, | 118
Man of Special Providences, | 128
Church, Residence, and Court-house, | 131
Public School Building, Pickaway County, O., 1851, | 148
A Squirrel Hunter, | 171
A Herd of Bison, | 174
Camp Red River Hunters, | 176
Turkey River, Iowa, 1845, | 221
Sequoia Park, | 235
Conflict in Pre-emption Claims, | 250
Chillicothe Elm, | 252
Logan Elm, | 253
Map—Lord Dunmore’s Campaign, | 256
Monument, Boggs Family, | 263
Indian Raid, | 264
Spinning Wheel, | 275
Canal Era, 1825, | 290
Log Cabin Luminary, | 292
Ohio Stage Coach, | 301
Prairie Schooner, | 306
New Passenger Car on the Toledo and Adrian R’y, 1837, | 320
Pontoon Bridge over the Ohio River, | 337
Governor’s Certificate of Honorable Membership, | 343
The Squirrel Hunter’s Discharge, | 344
Draft Wheel, | 349

THE SQUIRREL HUNTERS OF OHIO;
OR,
GLIMPSES OF PIONEER LIFE.

CHAPTER I.
OHIO—EARLY SETTLEMENTS.

From the time the Mayflower landed at Fort Harmar (Marietta) in 1788 until 1795, emigration had not materially increased the population of the North-west, owing to the unstable and dissatisfied condition of the Indians.

All this time, the soldier, who had served his time in the cause of independence and been honorably discharged without pay:—the poverty-stricken patriot, unable to procure subsistence for himself and family in the bankrupt colonies, had been listening to accounts of a land “flowing with milk and honey,” and was anxious to get there. It was described as a country “fertile as heart could wish:”—“fair to look upon, and fragrant with the thousand fresh odors of the woods in early spring.” The long cool aisles leading away into mazes of vernal green where the swift deer bounded by unmolested and as yet unscared by the sound of the woodman’s ax or the sharp ring of the rifle. “He could imagine the wooded slopes and the tall grass of the plain jeweled with strange and brilliant flowers;” but there the redman had his field of corn, and would defend his rights.

The success of General Wayne in procuring terms of peace with the warlike tribes of Indians in the spring of 1795, caused such an influx of emigration into the Ohio division of the North-west Territory, that in 1798 the population enabled the election of an Assembly which met the following year, and sent William Henry Harrison as a delegate to Congress. So rapidly did the country fill up with new settlements that the prospective state at the beginning of the nineteenth century was knocking at the door for admission, with all the pathways crowded by pedestrians—men, women, and children—dogs and guns; crossing the perilous mountains to reach a country where a home was a matter of choice, and subsistence furnished without money or price.

Where all these lovers of freedom and free soil came from, and how they got here, will ever remain a mystery next in obscurity to that of the Ancient Mound Builders. They brought with them the peculiarities of every civilized nation, and continued to come until Ohio became the beaten road to western homes beyond. They were God’s homeless poor—the file of a successful revolution—the founders of a republic. As such they accepted pay and bounty in wild lands—established homes of civilization, cultivated the arts and sciences, and soon increased in numbers, until they became a people powerful in war and influential in peace.

Men and women, the chosen best, of the entire world, by causes foreordained, were made the exponents of the axioms contained in the charter founding the great empire of freedom. They were strangers to luxury—unknown to the corroding influences of avarice, and unfamiliar with national vices. Their lives were surrounded with happiness, and they lived to a good old age, enjoying the pleasures of large families of children in a land of peace and plenty. These and their descendants are the “Squirrel Hunters” of history.

Kentucky had received her baptism into the Union in 1791, but afterward felt slighted and dissatisfied, looking toward secession, if the five proposed states, outlined by the act of 1787 as the North-west Territory, should constitute an independent confederacy. The opinion seemed to exist to no small extent, that the North-west was by necessity bound to become separated from the Atlantic States; and Kentucky was lending her influence to this end. Josiah Espy, in his “Tour in Ohio and Indiana in 1805,” says: “In traveling through this immense and beautiful country, one idea, mingled with melancholy emotions, almost continually presented itself to my mind, which was this: that before many years the people of that great tract of country would separate themselves from the Atlantic States, and establish an independent empire. The peculiar situation of the country, and the nature of the men, will gradually lead to this crisis; but what will be the proximate cause producing this great effect is yet in the womb of time. Perhaps some of us may live to see it. When the inhabitants of that immense territory will themselves independent, force from the Atlantic States to restrain them would be madness and folly. It can not be prevented.”

But the inhabitants of this immense territory had a better and clearer vision of the mission of this “vast empire;” it was to be the heart and controlling center of a great nation of freemen. And when Ohio, in 1803, entered the Union under the enabling act, binding the Government to construct a national highway from Cumberland to the Ohio river, and through the State of Ohio, as a bond of union between the East and West, no more was heard of secession until the rebellion of the sixties.

In 1821, a member of the Virginia legislature (Mr. Blackburn), in discussing the question of secession, claimed there ought to be an eleventh commandment, and taking a political view of it, said it should be in these words: “Thou shalt not, nor shall thy wife, thy son or thy daughter, thy man-servant or thy maid-servant, the stranger or sojourner within thy gates, dare in any wise to mention or hint at dissolution of the Union.” Mr. Blackburn did not live to see it, but the words of the commandment came sealed in blood and “were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever.”

Many persons at the very dawn of independence felt the weakness of a union of such conflicting sentiments and interests as those of freedom and slavery, and were free in the expression that either slavery or freedom must rule and control the destinies of the nation—that the two could not, nor would not, co-operate peaceably in the same field.

Francis A. Walker, in “Making of the Nation,” says: “No one can rightly read the history of the United States who does not recognize the prodigious influence exerted in the direction of unreserving nationality by the growth of great communities beyond the mountains and their successive admission as states of the Union.” And the author apprehends “great danger” from the aversion of Western people to “measures proposed in the interests of financial integrity, commercial credit and national honor. ‘Having a predilection for loose laws regarding bankruptcies and cheap money has been a constant menace and a frequent cause of mischief.’ This, however, we may regard as due to the stage of settlement and civilization reached.”

No one, if he reads at all, can read otherwise than the “prodigious influence” of the Western States. To these the nation owes its freedom. Through this prodigious influence, slaves and slavery have been wiped out, national finance established with enlarged commercial credit, integrity and national honor. And if the history of the United States is correctly read, the country need fear no danger from any stage in the settlement and civilization of the North-west. The early pioneers of this lovely country brought with them from the South and East large stocks of patriotism perfumed with the firearms of a successful revolution; and it was prized more highly as it was chiefly all they had in a home where poverty was no disgrace, and a “poor-house” unknown in nature’s great empire. Their descendants inherited much, and increased their talents, and have under all circumstances been ready to render a favorable account and go up higher.

The residence of the immigrant was exceedingly primitive; still, it could not be said the log cabin of the pioneer made a cheerless home, by any means. Man retains too much of the unevolutionized not to find and enjoy the most pleasure in things nearest the heart of nature. Many pointers and pen pictures originating in these humble domiciles exist in evidence of the pleasure and satisfaction enjoyed by the early inhabitants, regardless of apparent privations, previous conditions or existing numbers.

Late in the fall of 1798 a revolutionary soldier wrote on the fly-leaf of his Bible that the “North-west Territory” made a delightful home, saying: “My footsteps always gladly hasten homeward; and when I pull the string and open the door, the delicious odor of roasting game and cornbread meets with smiles of hungry approbation. And with kisses for the children and blessings for a good wife, who could ask for more or a better home.”

Home of the Pioneer.

Another in 1799—“We often talk of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters and friends left behind, and wish them here. And as the holidays draw near we send them our wishes and prayers, for it is all we can do. There is no mail or carrier pigeon to cross the wilderness that takes any thing else.”

The pioneer believed in the declaration of the Ordinance of 1787, that “Religion, Morality, and Knowledge” were necessary to good government and happiness of mankind. Thanksgiving and Christmas were days of universal observation. The Star of Bethlehem was the Star of Empire, and rested as brightly over the North-west Territory as when shining on the little town in Judea.

During the first few years of pioneer life, new and interesting as it must have been, few persons, comparatively, kept a diary of social life and times; and of such accounts fewer still remain to the present. Yet the number is sufficient to show corroborating testimony or agreement with the following in substance taken from a family history of a father and mother who, with three small children, a dog and gun, and all their worldly goods, crossed the mountains on foot, by following the Indian trail—reaching the Ohio river, floated to the mouth of the Scioto on a temporary raft, and from the confluence pushed up its winding course over fifty miles in a “dugout” to the “High Bank Prairie,” near where Chillicothe now stands—making the trip from Eastern Pennsylvania in sixty-three days; arriving at the place of destination April 25, 1798—a day of thanksgiving ever after.

The first Christmas seen or enjoyed in the new home of this family would in the present era be considered out of date, but doubtless at the time was the duplicate of hundreds of others. The day, before the event, was set aside for procuring extra supplies from nature’s store-house, regardless of any signal service. A coon-skin cap and gloves—deer-skin breeches and leggins, and a wolf-skin “hunting shirt” made the weather right at all times with the hunter.

“Ay, this is freedom!—these pure skies

Were never stained with village smoke:

The fragrant wind that through them flies,

As breathed from wastes by plough unbroke.

“Here with myrtle and my steed,
And her who left the world for me,
I plant me where the red deer feed
In the green desert—and am free.”

Early in the morning on the 24th of December, 1798, this pioneer started out with dog and gun in pursuit of Christmas supplies. It was no small game day—a deer, moose, bear, or wild turkey must adorn the bill of fare for the Christmas dinner.

Before the sun had reached the meridian mark in the door-way, he returned loaded down with three turkeys and two grouse. The country made such a favorable impression, as soon as time and chance offered an opportunity, the husband sent a letter to a friend at Redstone, Penn., who had never seen Ohio, in which he recalls this hunt and the first Christmas he enjoyed in this lovely country, and which is here given in his own language:

“After dressing the game and making a present of a turkey and two grouse to a widow and two children across the river, I told Grace (my wife) that the man who got injured by the falling tree must have a turkey, and with her approbation I shouldered a dressed gobbler and delivered the kind remembrances of my wife to the unfortunate.

“When I returned, it was quite dark, but my mind was ill at ease, and I told Grace I thought we had better take the other turkey down to Rev. Dixon as he hunted but seldom, and a bird of the kind would appear quite becoming, in the presence of a large family of small children at a Christmas dinner. These suggestions met with hearty approval, and I started off to walk a half mile or more with a great dressed gobbler in one hand, a gun in the other, and dog in front.

“On arrival I found the latch-string drawn in, but a knock on the door soon caused an opening large enough to admit the procession. The presentation was made with an Irish speech, dilating and describing the virtues of the deceased; and wishing the minister, his Quaker Mission and his family a merry Christmas, I turned my steps homewards.

“On my return, Grace wished to know what I expected for our own dinner;—reminding me of the guests,—Samuel Wilkins and Benjamin James, who were looked for by invitation, I told her I had been thinking while on the way home from Mr. Dixon’s, that Dr. Hamberger and wife up at the ferry were nice folks, and the Dr. had been pretty busy in his ‘clearing’ lately, and that Jack and I would go, early in the morning, up to the beech bottom, and get a turkey for the Doctor, and one for us—I said ‘Won’t we Jack’—and Jack’s assent was at once made known by the wag of his tail.

“Christmas morning, before the breakfast hour, Jack and I returned with two gobblers, and throwing them down at the cabin door I exclaimed ‘they are heavy.’ As I did so ‘a merry Christmas’ from Grace rang out on the bare and frosty forest for the first time ever heard in that vicinity. ‘Oh! the poor birds’ (said Grace), ‘how nicely bronzed they are—who is it that paints those iridescent colors? I never saw a happier pair than you and Jack make.’ I replied, ‘they are beautiful birds, but if I’d had my wits about me, I could have shown the best woman west of the Alleghanies the nicest fat fawn she ever looked at. But I was hunting for turkeys, and did not see it quite soon enough, and let it go without a shot. Never mind,’ I said, ‘I’ll be there in a day or two’—and I was.”

The hunter states that he dressed the game, left a turkey in the doctor’s cabin, and then assisted Grace in placing a twenty pound bird on a wooden spit to roast for dinner.

Before noon the invited guests came and after pleasantly reviewing army scenes and political, social and literary prospects of the people coming to the unbroken wilderness of the North-west, dinner was announced from the kitchen dining-room and parlor; and a more intellectual and jolly company has probably not assembled at a Christmas dinner since 1798. The guests had filled important positions in the general government, and were both natives of New York; while the host was from Dublin, and hostess an English lady, a former resident of London—all educated people, and knew how to entertain and partake of social and mental enjoyments.

The good pioneer became schooled to a quiet, but heroic submission to the unavoidable; and in this virtue Grace was recognized a model throughout the settlement. Still she manifested the greatest sorrow one could well express in the loss of the souvenir she had so carefully preserved and protected from damage during the long and perilous journey to Ohio. A large English Bible, printed in the infancy of the art, containing the family coat of arms and record for over four hundred years, with a chart of unbroken line of descent for near one thousand years. All was lost in the burning of their cabin in 1812.

The pioneer and his good wife lived to enjoy with these three children and grandchildren, forty-six returns of the Star of Bethlehem, near where the first Christmas day was seen in Ohio; and the writer has often heard the aged couple recite with feelings of delightful remembrance the first Christmas in Ohio as the dearest and most enchanting of all others.

A country by nature so lovely exerted no little influence on the civilization and character of its early, but mixed inhabitants. They all were, or soon became, genial, warm-hearted, kind, neighborly and obliging, in a sense unknown to phases of civilization connected with affluent circumstances. They generally settled at short distances from each other, to better enable them to render mutual assistance, and also protection in times of danger. Much of the labor necessary to open up a new country of this character could not be performed “weak-handed” as “rolling logs,” building cabins, opening roads, etc.; and when a new arrival appeared in the settlement and announced his desire to remain, all the neighborhood would cheerfully turn out, and with shovels, axes and augurs assemble at some designated spot in the forest, and work from day to day until a domicile was completed. Although entirely gratuitous, the construction of these log-houses was a business of experience. First, trees were cut down sufficiently to make an opening for sunlight, and site to place the cabin; then logs of determined diameter and length were cut and placed in position, one above another, and by notching the corners in a manner calculated to make them lie closely together, the whole became very substantial and binding. Cross-logs made sleepers and joists, and similar logs of different lengths formed the gables, and which were held together by supports for the roof in a way truly primitive and ingenious. It was covered with clap-boards four or five feet long, split from oak timber, placing them in the usual way to turn rain, and securing their position by a sufficient number of heavy poles or split pieces of timber reaching the length of the roof at right angles to the boards. The weight pole at the eaves was made stationary by the projecting ends of the top logs at the corners of the building, and the others were prevented from rolling down and off the building by intervening blocks of wood placed parallel with the clap-boards, one end resting against the pole at the eaves and the other end acting as a stop to the pole next above; and so on to the comb of the roof. The floor, if not of earth, was made of puncheons or long clap-boards. The door was constructed of heavy pieces of split timber, joined to the cross-sections, or battens with wooden pins. One end of the lower and upper battens was made to project far enough beyond the side of the door, and large enough to admit an auger hole of an inch and a half to form part of the hinge for the door. The battens and hinges were placed on the inside, also the latch, to which a strong string was attached, and passed through a small hole a short distance above, terminating on the outside. By pulling the string the latch was raised and the door opened by persons without. At night, the string was pulled in, which made a very secure and convenient fastening, in connection with the two great wooden pins that projected on the line of the top of the door to prevent it from being raised off the hinges when closed. It is quite probable, as has often been suggested, this primitive latch and lock combination gave rise to the saying “you will find the latch-string always out.”

There were no windows; but, if one was attempted, it consisted of a small opening without frame, sash, or glass, and was covered with a piece of an old garment or greased paper. The chimney formed the most important, as well as singular, part of the structure. It was built upon the outside, and joined to the cabin some five or six feet in height at the base, and then contracted, forming a stem detached from the building and terminating short of its height. The materials used in its construction consisted of sticks and mud, and when completed resembled somewhat in shape an immense bay window, or an overgrown parasite. The logs of the building were cut away at the chimney so as to give a great opening into this mud pen for a fireplace, and which sometimes had a back-wall made of clay, shale, or stone. The crevices between the logs were filled with small pieces of split wood and clay mortar, both on the inside and outside. Numerous augur holes were bored in the logs, and pins driven in to hang articles of apparel and cooking utensils on. Two pins in particular were always so arranged as to receive the gun, and perhaps under which might be seen a pair of deer antlers to honor the powder-horn and bullet pouch.

To erect a rude cabin of this kind would frequently occupy all the persons in a neighborhood three or four days; and, when finished, made a very humble appearance in the midst of the natural grandeur of its surroundings. Even after the occupants were domiciliated, the addition of their worldly goods added but little to the unostentatious show of comfort. In the absence of facilities for transportation, the pioneer was obliged to leave most every thing behind; or, worse perhaps, had nothing but family, dog, and gun to bring with him; so the furniture of his new home consisted of a bedstead made of poles—a table from a split log;—a chair in the shape of a three-legged stool;—a bench, and a short shelf or two. The utensils for cooking were quite as limited and simple, and corresponded in usefulness and decoration most admirably with the furniture; generally consisting of a kettle, “skillet,” stew-pan, a few pewter dishes, and gourds. These with an occasional souvenir, or simple article that could be easily carried from the “Old Home,” made up the invoice of the inside of the cabin of the pioneer.

Notwithstanding the apparent scanty comforts in the house, they were more imaginary than real. It required but little exertion to keep the larder supplied with the choicest beasts, birds, and fish, which with hominy, or, still better, the corn dodger, shortened with turkey fat or bear’s oil, and baked in the ashes—or that climax, the “johnny-cake” well browned and piping hot on the board in front of a grand open fire—constituted a substantial diet that might be envied by those of the present day. In addition to these, there was no lack of pumpkins, potatoes, turnips, beans, berries,[1] honey, and maple sugar, and the early settler had little reason to sigh for the delicacies of a more advanced civilization.

Sugar making was an attractive calling and one of the pioneers’ money-making industries, although sugar groves were scattered over the entire state. The trees, by nature, were gregarious, growing in clusters from hundreds to thousands so thickly set over the ground that few if any other varieties could find room to maintain a standing. There are a few of the older crop of sugar trees still remaining; but the great “camps” that furnished sweets in abundance have, with other varieties of timber, fallen victims to the woodman’s ax.

It has been suggested that the yearly “tapping” might injure the growth and shorten the longevity of the trees; but both experiment and observation tend to sustain the opposite opinion. A tree that has been under the notice of the writer for more than seventy years, and has been tapped in three to four places every year for the period named, is still a beautiful, healthy, growing tree.

It may be correct, that “it takes more than one swallow to make a summer;” but the evidence shown in the wood made into lumber after many years “tapping” for “sugar water” (not sap), is not significant of injury or decay. The cut made by the auger is soon closed over, which, no doubt, would be different if the sugar was obtained from “the sap” or wood-producing fluid. The fluid which contains the sugar is no nearer the “sap” (or blood of the tree) than is the milk, or other cellular secretion of a gland, near or identical with the blood or life sustaining and constructive element of animal existence.

A pioneer who owned a small cluster of sugar trees made his own sugar and some to spare, while those working camps of several thousand trees made it a “profitable calling and supplied others at reasonable rates of exchange,” so no one had occasion to stint or reason to complain. It required some labor and expense to equip a camp for making sugar; but once furnished, the material lasted many years. During the time unoccupied, the furnace and kettles under the shed would be surrounded with a temporary fence—the sugar-troughs, spiles, sled, water-barrel, funnel-buckets, etc., at the ending of the sugar season would be safely housed to remain until the next year. As soon as the icy earth began giving way to mild sunshining days in the latter part of winter, it was considered by the “sugar-maker” as the announcement of the near approach of “sugar weather.” At such times, on like indications, the “sugar-troughs” would be taken from the place of deposit and distributed to the trees; the better ones getting the larger troughs. The water-barrel underwent inspection—the funnel refitted—sled repaired—the pile of dry wood increased—store-room or annex renovated—tubs and buckets soaked—shortage of “spiles” and “sugar-troughs” made good—furnace and kettles cleaned, and every thing made ready for the work.

After this, the first clear frosty morning with the prospect of a thawing day, a man would be seen with an auger passing rapidly from tree to tree, closely followed by another, with a basket and hatchet, who “drove the spiles” and set the troughs as fast as the one with the auger made the holes.

It would have astonished a Havemeyer[2] to witness the rapidity with which the “tapping” was accomplished. In a few moments the surrounding forest seemed sparkling with the beauties of the rainbow, and echoing the music of falling waters, each tree dripping, dripping with a rapidity suggestive of a race and wager held by Nature for the one that first filled the assigned trough with sparkling gems.

A “run” of sugar-water was not dependent upon a special act of Congress, nor was the product a subject for public revenue. It was limited, however, to frosty nights and warmer days; and when a number of consecutive days and nights remained above or below freezing, the “sugar-water” would cease to flow, often making it necessary to remove the “spiles” and freshen the auger-hole at the next run to insure the natural ability of the tree.

Sugar manufactured in those days was made from the black maple or sugar tree. This tree was very productive—in an ordinary season would run ten or twelve gallons each in twenty-four hours, and during the season average enough for ten to fifteen pounds of sugar—the better trees have been known to produce over fifty pounds each in an ordinary season. This, however, was before Congress suspected a trust and combine would be a good thing for the common people or got up the Luxow investigation and whitewash of the sugar business by New York. The sugar maker knows quite well the kind of days he could obtain a run of “sugar-water,” and for that purpose one or more holes were bored into the tree three to five inches deep, and “spiles” driven in to conduct the fluid into the sugar-trough.

The “spiles” that conducted the water from the tree to the trough were made from sections of elder or sumac, eight or ten inches in length, shaved down to the pith from three inches of one end, which formed the shoulder, made tapering to close the auger hole of the usual size, three-fourths of an inch. The pith in the shoulder and body of the spile was removed so as to form a channel for the sugar-water to escape. The sugar-trough was a short trough two to four feet long made of some light wood, as the white walnut, and were carefully charred on the inside or concavity to prevent the injury of the delicate flavor of the sugar. Many persons, familiar with higher mathematics and languages named in the curriculum of Yale or Harvard, as well as words and phrases used in athletic games, and manly arts of self-defense, would be turned down if asked to describe or name the uses of many very simple things to an Ohio “squirrel hunter” of three score and ten years.

No doubt there are many more persons that have seen and felt the great Congressional Sugar Trust and Combine than are now living who have seen the headquarters of one of those primitive “sugar camps,” with its row of kettles placed over a furnace—under an open shed—parallel with and near the kettles under this shed, a reservoir made from a section of a large tulip tree, to hold the excess of gathered water during the day for night boiling—the sled and mounted barrel with, a sugar-trough funnel—the annex near the furnace to obtain light and heat, with other primitive articles or things connected with and used in the manufacture of sugar.

The annex or temporary residence of those running the camp was generally a strong well-built cabin with one door, but no window. The door occasionally showed a want of confidence by being ornamented with a heavy padlock and chain. This little building entertained many a jolly crowd. It was the manufacturer’s office, storeroom, parlor, bedroom and restaurant. It was always a pleasant place to spend an evening, and, still more, a delightfully-sweet place on “stirring-off” days—to watch the golden bubbles burst in air and with noisy efforts rising to escape, driven back by their master with the enchantment of a fat-meat pill and made to dance to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy; for then was the time to dip and cool the wooden “paddle,” and taste again and again the charming sweetness of maple sugar in its native purity.

But in less than a century sugar-trees, sugar-troughs, and pioneer sugar making have been classed with things of the past, scarcely known by the many, and remembered but by a few; and shows how soon time makes abandoned words and many simple expressions of facts obsolete and unknown. When it is said, “In infancy he was rocked in a sugar-trough,” the language to many is as figurative, hypothetical or meaningless as the “lullaby upon the tree tops.” The younger generations never saw the pioneer cradle, and Noah Webster did not get far enough West to incorporate the word in his “Revised Dictionary.”

The ordinary use of sugar-troughs was to catch and hold the sweet water as it dripped from the “spile” placed in the sugar-tree. But under certain circumstances good specimens were devoted to other purposes, and not a few eminent lawyers, doctors, statesmen and divines have proudly referred to their cradling days as those having been well spent in the pioneer environment of a “sugar-trough.”

The sugar made from trees was gradually superseded by cane and beet productions; and the supply has always remained equal to the demand at moderate prices; and not until 1887 did the country discover the necessity of a “Sugar Trust” to control and regulate the trade of the United States. This combine started with a capital of seven million dollars, capitalized at fifty millions, and again was watered up to seventy-five millions. This trust controlled four-fifths to ninety-eight per cent of all the refined sugar in the United States.

The president of this trust has been receiving an annual salary of one hundred thousand dollars and the secretary seventy-five thousand. The stockholders have absorbed as dividends nearly four hundred million dollars in the eleven years of its existence, while thousands of its employes obtain but six dollars a week, working twelve hours each day in rooms at a temperature not much below two hundred degrees. The scales of justice are not often evenly balanced in trust monopolies that yield a net income of five hundred per cent profit on the capital invested.

The pioneer, however, had no use for “combines” to keep him poor, for like many facts not admitted or recognized at the time, good subsistence was so easily obtained from nature that it frequently contributed much toward creating an indifference for labor, which remained through life and kept the man of destiny no better off than when he arrived at his new home. It was no easy task to clear the land and prepare the soil for agricultural purposes. As a rule the timber was large and thickly set upon the ground; usually the best soil was covered with the greatest trees, and the labor required for their removal was not inviting to those who could subsist well without it. The white oak, burr oak, black oak, black walnut, sycamore, poplar, and other varieties, had for centuries been adding size and strength to their immense proportions. These giants, and the smaller timber and undergrowth, required great energy, perseverance and protracted labor to remove and clear the ground ready for a crop. The usual plan for their removal was by “girdling,” or cutting a circle around the trunk of each sufficiently deep to kill the tree, and then to burn by piece-meals as the branches and trunks came down by reason of time and decay. Consequently the patch of sunshine around these primitive homes, as a rule, did not enlarge very rapidly, and the pioneer too often became a man of procrastination and promise; and for all the time he had (the present) preferred the dog and gun to the maul and wedge as a means of subsistence. Some, however, opened up small fields and farms by disposing of the timber in this slow way. In the meantime, while the process of decay was going on, grain and vegetables were grown in the openings among the dead timber. The crops were generally divided pretty equally between the wild animals and the landlord. This loss, however, was of no great importance as there was no money, market, or mill; nor domestic animals to take a surplus. At a later day, and after the introduction of “movable mills,”[3] there still existed no market for the products of the soil, and to grow enough for food seemed all that could be required of the most ambitious pioneer; and if at any time the returns exceeded the estimates and insured a surplus, such overabundance seldom went to waste, as there were always enough who yearly came short in this respect, and were ready to share with the more prosperous neighbor.

The time and labor expended upon clearing the ground and raising grain met with little or no reward. The products could not be sold nor exchanged for necessaries of life. Consequently the forests remained quite undisturbed for many years and agriculture neglected, excepting for the necessary consumption of the family. The early settler, however, was not all the time free from discouragements. His domestic animals frequently became lost, or destroyed by ravenous beasts; and diseases of the country occasionally were protracted; and to the wife and children, he sometimes felt, it was not so much a paradise. But he came to stay, and this, for better or for worse, was his home, and submitted philosophically to circumstances and events he could not control.

The wife and mother endured with patience and heroism all privations and afflictions equally with the husband and father, and performed the arduous household duties; and, like the model woman of old, “sought wool and flax and worked willingly with her hands,” and the whirring spinning-wheel and thudding loom were heard in most every household. The welfare of the family depended upon the success of home industries, and consequently the wife had much less leisure than the husband. She superintended the manufacture of all the fabrics for the house and for the clothing of the family, and cut and made up the same without protection, tariff, rebate, or combine. And it is singular so little has been recorded of the good women who unlocked the resources of the new territory and gave their aid in founding a civilization that has surpassed all precedents in the history of nations.

Natives of every country and of every grade of intelligence in the new environment became alike distinguished for liberality and hospitality—ever desirous to forget the past, willing to admit the future, and ready to enjoy the present, the life of the pioneer was seldom darkened or overburdened with toil or care, and had times of good cheer, and was not without his social amusements. The violin and Monongahela whisky found way to the settlements and were accepted by many, young and old; and the dance after a quilting, shooting-match, fox-chase, bear-hunt, log-rolling, or house-raising gave all the pleasure and excitement desired.

As the population became more numerous, leisure and the desire for amusements increased; and among the many ways devised to entertain and interest, no one, perhaps, ever received more attention, higher cultivation, and obtained more general favor than the chase. Most descendants of Virginia, however destitute in other respect, had their packs of “hounds,” and the good people and the better, the poor and the poorer, some on horse and some on foot, mingled alike in the exciting sport.

The pedigrees, qualities, and performances of “lead dogs” of different owners were known over the country, and their comparative merits were frequently subjects that called forth the warmest discussions, the disputants generally ending the controversy with knock-down arguments on both sides. The owners of the dogs always manifested great pride and satisfaction in public praises and good will toward their animals, and no offense received a greater condemnation than the theft or injury of one of these “noblemen’s pets.”

Whenever a “pack” failed in having a good “leader” and “poked,” they lost their reputation at once and forever. And many trips were made on horseback through the wilderness over the mountains to South Branch, or other points in Virginia, on pretext of other business, when the real purpose proved to be “fresh blood,” or perhaps a pack of dogs that could take the front. They were brought through on foot, chained one behind another in double file, with a chain between, and horse in front, resembling the transportation of surplus of the “divine” institution in the days of John Brown. New importations, however, did not often give satisfaction. As a rule, the dogs of the finest scent and greatest endurance and speed were bred in Ohio. Such were McNeal’s “Nick,” Jordan’s “Sam,” Anderson’s “Magnet,” Renick’s “Pluto the Swift,” McDowell’s “Yelp,” Colonel Vause’s “Clynch,” and a host of others that never saw a “bench-show,” but were awarded the highest praises by men who filled their places as well in the chase, as many of them did, important public positions in after life. And in the written history of these notable contests for superiority is the circumstance, if not the day, when Colonel Vause’s little blue hound, his lead dog, “Clynch,” outwinded and distanced all the other “packs” as well as his own companions, and pursued the deer alone so inveterately, the poor animal, confused or to confuse, ran to the town of Chillicothe and into the open, empty jail, and was there captured.

Stray Pup.

But of all the dogs known to have taken part in amusing the people of destiny; or aided the advancing strides of civilization, none ever attracted such universal attention, and enjoyed that wide-spread fame as that given to “Gibbs’ Stray Pup.”

Quite early in the fall, when as yet the frosts had but slightly tinted the woodland foliage, some hunters while after turkeys, saw a dog in hot pursuit of a deer, and so close was the chase that the fatigued animal leaped from a high bank into deep water in Paint Creek and expired immediately. This dog proved to be a little half-starved, lemon, black and white pup, not more than seven months old, and having around his neck a section of dilapidated bed cord. Such a performance by a strange pup so very young and alone, attracted no little attention and talk, especially among the sporting gentlemen, who kept first-class dogs, and doted more upon their hounds than upon their lands and houses. Mr. James Gibbs was one of these, and by right of discovery, took the pup in charge and named him “Gamer.” The dog proved a stray in the settlement, and no owner could be found, and mere supposition gave a satisfactory explanation. “The pup had broken away from an emigrant wagon to get after the deer.”

At maturity, true to instinct, Gamer refused to follow deer, but became the embodiment of all the virtues and qualifications of a thoroughbred fox-hound. His fleetness, his extraordinary “cold nose,” or ability to carry a “cold trail;” his industry, perseverance, and sagacity, made him the model and marvel of all who knew him. He always led the pack far in advance, and so exact was he to hound nature, that in case the fox doubled short and came back near enough to be seen and turned upon by all the other dogs, he would continue around the course and unravel every winding step. His voice was quite as marked and remarkable as any of his other qualities: so much so, that for many years it lingered in the ears of surviving friends like the far-off echo of an Alpine horn. He could be distinctly heard across the great valley, bounded east by the Rattlesnake and west by Patton and Stone Monument Hills, a distance of more than five miles in an air line. His cry was musical, prolonged and varied, opening with a deep loud bass, and closing with a high, clear note, it would come to the listener sharp and distinct, solitary and alone, when the united cry of all the pack would be dead in the distance.

An accurate likeness with minute description of this dog has been preserved—height, above the average fox-hound; length, medium; head, long and narrow and well elevated when running; under jaw, three-fourths of an inch short, which gave a pointed appearance to the face; eye, intellectual and gamy, but of a most singular yellow color; ears, long and thin, but not wide; neck, slim and clean; shoulders, firm; chest, deep, the breast-bone projecting so as to make a perpendicular offset of two inches; back, quite straight; loins, not wide; hind legs, unusually straight; hams, thin, flat and tapering; tail, slim, medium length, little curved, and hair short towards the tip; color, white, excepting a large black spot on each side of the chest, tipped with lemon; a small black spot joined to a lemon spot on each hip or root of the tail, lemon head and ears, with small black spot behind each ear. Altogether a fine appearing dog, especially when engaged in the chase: and before two years old, was held in high esteem by the owner.

Gamer.

The popularity of Gamer was now fast gaining ground, as his performances were casting shadows over dogs of high repute, and many things were attempted to silence the repeated huzzahs that came in at the end of every chase for “Gibb’s Stray Pup.” Years rolled on, pack after pack, pick after pick were pitted against the “pup” to no purpose excepting to widen the difference by comparison.

A single incident taken from many that might be given, will sufficiently illustrate the superior qualities of this remarkable dog, as well as the usual success attendant upon the efforts to detract from his merited superiority by running picked hounds with him in the chase. A number of persons in every neighborhood kept hounds, and each owner considered himself the possessor of a small fortune, consisting at least of one animal that was considered faster and truer than any one belonging to a neighbor; and it was an easy matter at any time to summon on short notice fifteen to thirty of these favorites surrounded by a conflict of good opinions. On the 11th of November, 18—, twenty gentlemen, some of whom afterwards rose to high political and judicial eminence in the history of the state and nation, met by agreement and entered the forest at four o’clock in the morning with twelve dogs, the pick of the best packs known in the state. The atmosphere was still, white frost hung on the trees all day; the ground was but little frozen, and other things perhaps conspired to make it favorable, as hunters say, “for scent to lay.”

The dogs soon struck a cold trail, perhaps where the fox had been the previous evening, and which could be followed but slowly. Before midday, it became too cold for all the dogs excepting Gamer and two old hounds, one of which was famous for his “cold nose.” The latter dogs, however, were unable to get scent excepting in favorable places; and, by three o’clock in the afternoon, they too were out, and no longer able to render assistance. Gamer still kept at work trailing Reynard’s footsteps so closely, that on his way he entered an old vacant cabin, declaring most emphatically that Reynard had been there, showing that even on the dry ground and probably more than ten hours after the presence of the animal, there was enough found to call forth a most vigorous cry.

When more than half a mile from this cabin, the trail was lost, and half an hour was consumed, with all the dogs in circuits, to no purpose. While engaged in these efforts to strike the track, the wonderful “pup” raised his voice most significantly at the very spot where he had ceased his cry. He had discovered the track and commenced a rapid backward march in the precise line over the same ground he had passed but a short time before. When within fifteen or twenty rods of the old vacant cabin, he turned off through a “deadening” in the direction of Mount Logan, showing that, notwithstanding the fox had retraced his steps for a long distance, the sagacious hound detected the fact after going over the ground, and that, too, when the trail was so very cold that no other dog in the chase could take the scent.

From Mount Logan the trail was leading through thicker timber, and Reynard had been zig-zagging here and there, in search, perhaps, of birds and rodents for his supper the night before, walking on logs and limbs of trees whenever near his intended line of march. Here, the dog quite knowingly changed his tactics, and for two hours ran at more than half speed from log to log, right to left, with nose close to the bark and decayed wood, as he rapidly passed, would let out his encouraging cry.

In this way he followed the crooked course until the close of the day, carrying a trail for thirteen hours, which the fox had passed at no point less than ten hours before, following it, too, more than three hours after the best and most renowned dogs ever in Ohio were silent. It was now dusk, the timber sparse and logs few, making the chances seemingly more unfavorable. So, the hunters who had been on the go for fifteen hours, and without the substantials of life for twenty-four hours, concluded to quit, and, calling the dogs to follow, turned in the direction of the by-path leading toward home. All the dogs were very ready to obey, excepting Gamer, who only stopped for a moment to gaze at his retreating masters, and then resumed his work, in which he became more and more interested as the day passed on. It was thought, however, he would soon quit and overtake his companions but, before the hunters had gone a mile, Gamer’s starting cry was heard; he had winded Reynard where he had stopped to spend the day high up the mountain side. Every hound knew it was no cry on a cold trail, and turned and went off at the top of their speed. Soon Gamer could be heard over ridges and hills far away; and the hunters, thinking the run would be made in the broken mountains, went home. A squirrel hunter in that vicinity, who obtained Reynard’s “brush,” reported the fox so closely pressed, that he soon doubled, came back, and entered a hollow log near his cabin, and was captured. The time given showed the run was finished in less than an hour after the hunters left.

Our Cabin, 1821.

The sense called “power of scent” is exceedingly delicate in the dog, enabling him to follow the course of one animal amid a multitude of “tracks” made by others of the same species. This power of discrimination is frequently manifest even in the common house-dog as he traces the footsteps of his master or those of his master’s horse through crowded thoroughfares and winding ways, although hundreds of similar feet have passed over the ground after the walk of the one he seeks was made. But, to tell any one but an old foxhunter that it was possible to find perfection in a dog sufficiently, under the most favorable circumstances, to run all day on a trail ten hours’ cold, would be deemed purely chimerical.—Gamer is no more.—James Gibbs has long been numbered with the dead.—And of those who participated in and enjoyed the pleasures of that day’s chase but one remains a living witness of the facts herein stated—the old Roman—the Hon. Allen G. Thurman.—It is a notable fact, that in after years, when those Ohio boys no longer resembled the festive hunter, they always gave a smile of pleasure at the mention of those merry times; and, even in old age, when oppressed with the heavy hand of time, nothing awakened the flush of youthful pride and satisfaction like the rehearsal of the deeds of the hound that had no equal in the history of the country—“Gibbs’ Stray Pup.”

The exterior beauties of an animal are always attractive. But more than these do we admire those qualities termed intelligence, instinct, and reason in their beneficent relations to man and the external world. The dog possesses a most wonderful harmony in form and faculties. He is the type and embodiment of beauty, strength, and freedom of motion combined with endurance, courage, zeal, fidelity, constancy, and uncompromising affection. For these reasons he is of all man’s friends, the most valuable, the truest, and the best. So devoted and unchangeable is his love, that he is ever ready to sacrifice his life to save his master from threatened injury. He long remembers a kindness, and soon forgives ill usage. At an early age he obtains a knowledge of the meaning of words in the language of his master, and understands and obeys commands; and with that retentive memory which animals possess, he never falters or forgets. The story of Ulysses and his favorite is but the citation of the tenacity of memory which belongs to the species. After twenty years—

“Near to the gates, conferring as they drew
Argus, the dog his ancient master knew,
And not unconscious of the voice and tread,

He knew his lord, he knew, and strove to meet;

In vain he strove to crawl and kiss his feet;

Yet, all he could, his tail, his ears, his eyes

Salute his master and confess his joys.”

From prince to beggar, all the same—the only friend neither misfortune nor poverty can drive away. He is watchful and bold, and with delight guards his master’s house and herds from thieves and rapacious animals, and by his various services has accomplished for man’s happiness and advancement in civilization more than all other agencies combined. Without this aid, man would scarcely have maintained his existence on earth. “When he had ‘evolved’ to the ape,”[4] and “for safety lived in tree-tops with monkeys and squirrels,” his security and advancement was not so probably due to the suggestive “club” as to training of dogs, which is given by the great naturalist, Buffon, as the first art invented by man.

By means of dogs, the rapacious animals common to new or uninhabited countries are captured or driven to the rear of advancing population. Almost every emigrant in the earlier settlements of Ohio, from necessity, became more or less a hunter with dogs, not only to provide for the family, but as a profit in ridding the locality of thieving varments with which the forests were overrun. The pelts of fur animals were a legal tender, and were received as contributions and payment of debts. And the bark of the industrious dog was in this way transformed into literary and religious institutions of the country. And if not for his dogship, the “North-west” would be a wilderness still, inhabited by wild animals. The great naturalist says: “To determine the importance of the species in the order of nature, let us suppose it never had existed.” Without the assistance of the dog, how could man be able to tame and reduce other animals into slavery? How could he discover, hunt, and destroy noxious and savage beasts? To preserve his own safety, and to render himself master of the animated world, it was necessary to make friends among those animals whom he found capable of attachment to oppose them to others; therefore, the training of dogs seems to have been the first art invented by man, and the first fruit of that art was the conquest and peaceable possession of the earth.

Many species of animals have greater agility, swiftness, and strength, as well as greater courage than man. Nature has furnished them better. And the dog not only excels in these, but also in the senses—hearing, seeing, and smelling; and to have gained possession over a tractable and courageous species like the dog, was acquiring new or additional agility, swiftness, strength, and courage with a mysterious increase of power and usefulness of the more important senses. And by the friendship and superior faculties of the dog, man became permanently sovereign and master of all.

“The dog is the only animal whose talents are evident, and whose education is always successful.”[5]

No better picture, portraying the noble qualities of the dog could be given than that by Buffon. And why this close observer of nature should say—“Without having like man the faculty of thought,” has always seemed strange. It sounds like a misprint, or an error in translation. Thought is the exercise of the mind—reflection, meditation, consideration, conception, conclusion, judgment, design, purpose, intention, solicitude, anxious care, concern, etc.

Who is there, even with ordinary acquaintance with the animal, that has not witnessed some if not all these attributes of “thought?” Most writers on the subject have shown a desire to give the human animal some distinguishing quality or faculty above all others, but their line of demarcation between man and the rest of animal creation has not been altogether successful, as man can not claim by the high authority that he is the only species that has the something called “spirit,” which is necessary in order “to think;” for the sacred book teaches that man and beast are alike in this, but the spirit of man goeth upward, while the spirit of the beast goeth downward to the earth, and which in anti-bellum days constituted a knotty text for Southern theologians who taught that “niggers and dogs” have no souls.

An eminent Scotch clergyman, who has made a study of natural history believes that dogs are possessed of the same faculties as man, differing only in degrees. He asserts that conscience in man and conscience in the dog are essentially the same things. And Charles Dickens declares that dogs have a moral nature—an unmistakable ability to distinguish between right and wrong, which led him to believe the difference in the dog nature and the so-called spiritual nature in man was imperceptible, and that future existence rested upon like natural foundations.

It would be holding conclusions in opposition to all rules of observation to say that dogs and other animals are destitute of the faculty of “thought.” When the awful torrents came sweeping down upon Johnstown the terrible waves and debris dashed over housetops and Mrs. Kress was carried away by the wild current in an instant beyond human help, her faithful dog, unmindful of himself, jumped after her, and when he saw her dress come to the surface, seized and carried her to another housetop. Soon this house was demolished, but Romeo kept the head of Mrs. Kress out of water and battled with the raging current and floating timber for more than half an hour before he reached the roof of another house, where she was taken up unconscious with fright and exhaustion. When the dog saw the motionless condition of his mistress he barked and howled and made pitiful demonstrations of grief, for he “thought” she was dead; but when she breathed he became delighted and manifested his joy in a way that could not be mistaken.

For eight summers a little cocker spaniel (Archos) was daily with the writer in field and forest, and to his industry and sagacity is due no small part of the success in obtaining fresh specimens for the life size, hand-colored work by Mrs. N. E. Jones, entitled, “The Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio.” Many of the rare small birds build on or near the ground in thick cover, and among those he was credited with finding may be mentioned the obscure nest and eggs of the Helminthophaga pinus—Blue-winged yellow warbler, and the nest of the Geothlypistrichas—Maryland yellow-throat. He knew the object of pursuit as well as his master, and delighted in finding these little homes, and would stand firmly on a point, as it was understood between us that the bird must be shot when flushed for positive identification. He knew what his master was doing, for he understood the meaning of almost all words used in ordinary conversation, and could transact business on orders with admirable accuracy.

While out with a friend quail shooting, the sun was warm and we sat down on the cool grass in a fence corner shaded by the dead leaves on an oak bush. The little cocker was panting with heat and enjoyed the shade quite as much as his master. Soon a voice was heard from my friend, on the opposite border of a large field, calling: “Send Archos over here. I have a dead bird my dog can’t find.” The cocker paid no attention to the call, and no reply was made by the writer. And to show how much a dog may acquire of the meaning of words in a few years, I said to Archos in a conversational tone, as he ceased panting and fixed his great dark eyes on the speaker: “Ed has lost a dead bird—he can not find it; you go over and get it.” No sooner said than the little fellow started off in the tall ragweed which covered the field, and unknown to my friend scented the dead bird and brought it and laid it at my feet, all the time smiling and wagging the tail, as much as to say, “I would like to tell you how nicely that was done, but I can’t talk—dare not.”

Bab says: “Away back in some old book there is a story how dogs used to talk, and were men’s advisers. One day a great prince met a beautiful woman, and despite of the advice of the dog who was his counselor, he married her, and he made her cousin, a beggar, his prime minister. Amid the festivities, the dog warned the prince to watch the woman, told the prince that she was unfaithful, that her cousin was her lover, and that between them they would rob the kingdom and drive him from the throne. He turned on the dog and cursed him—cursed him so that this good friend, looking at the prince, said: ‘Until men are grateful and women are faithful, I and my kind will never speak again.’”

The world has grown older and better, but for the peace of society and quiet of social relations, it’s well he still holds his tongue. Professor Garner, who has devoted much time to the study of animals in this country and in Africa, has confirmed the general observation of those familiar with rural life to be true: that cattle—as horses, sheep, hogs and other animals—talk among their kind. What there is to be detected in the manner of delivery of the same sound, giving out entirely different sensations, is yet to be discovered. The squeal of the hungry pig, repeated by the phonograph, only increases the hunger and squeal of the pig that hears it; while to repeat the similar squeal of a pig in pain, at once causes manifest fear, anger and distress in all the pigs that hear it. And it must be so—all domestic animals do think and reason, and not unoften are enabled to make their thoughts known by signs and sounds to those to whom they look for help and comfort other than their kind.

Dogs are utilized extensively in Germany and other parts of Europe as draft animals. The United States consul says, in the large, wealthy and industrial city of Leige, and throughout Belgium, dogs are used for delivery of goods by all the trades of the city. While they are used as hewers of wood and drawers of water, the species is the most versatile in talents of the animal creation—and the dog makes the most accurate critic, the most successful detective, most reliable witness, best sentinel and most trustworthy friend.

Persons do not stop to think there is a world of intelligence, love and affection outside the human head and heart, and innocently ask, “What makes the dog heed every word when his master says ‘you can not go with me this time?’ What makes him place himself at the most observing point and look wistfully after his departing friends until they disappear in the distance? Why does he stay, perchance all day, at a favorable point to hear or see a returning approach, anxiously waiting and watching, and at the well-known and accurately distinguished sounds of the footsteps of his master’s horse from all others, runs to meet his master, and barks and laughs and cries with joy and gladness?” The beneficence of creation gives the answer in a world of unselfish love.

Dogs know nothing of hypocrisy—are always sincere—never lie—dislike ridicule—and never accept nor offer a joke.

The dog has been recognized as valuable property by his owner in every age, nation and people on the face of the earth; but with no staple market price any more than there is for that of the horse. The consideration is determined by amount of education, usefulness or purposes which he is capable of fulfilling.

Colonel D. D. Harris, of Mendon, Michigan, refused more than once ten thousand dollars for his famous sable Scotch Collie. He was a dog of such note, with the refined people of the world, that he was privileged to walk through the Vatican, and was entertained by the President of France—the Czar of the Russias—the King of Norway and Sweden, and other nobility of the old world. President Cleveland stroked his glossy coat, and he received the most grateful attention among all the courts visited in this and in other countries.

This Collie was never on public exhibition, but was the traveling companion of his owner. He could select any card called for in the deck—if not there, would say so by giving a whine—could distinguish colors as well as any human being; and could count money and make change with the rapidity and accuracy of an expert bank accountant. If told to make change of $31.31, or any other amounts from coins of various denominations, he could do so rapidly and without mistake. This intelligent dog lived out his allotted brief existence, dying at the age of fourteen years; but was better known than thousands of men who have lived much longer, thinking themselves quite eminent.

If dogs are not valuable property why are they exchanged at high rates in dollars and cents? Why did Mr. E. R. Sears, of Melrose, Mass., part with his twelve thousand five hundred dollars in “greenbacks” for the dog Bedivere? It may be said the one who purchased a dog at that price was “green”—if said, it would be a mistake, for Green was the gentleman who sold him.

The greater part of the early population of Ohio associated with dogs much of their time, and with good results. But the law-makers of the state, or a majority, had a penchant for self-elevation by legislating against those they feared as rivals—“dogs and niggers.” Consequently, “Black laws” and dog laws engrossed the time and talents of law-makers, who felt measurably unsafe unless the former were excluded as property and the latter deprived of citizenship.

The sensitive, if not infallible, Supreme Court has recently given the property rights and protection of the dog a bad set-back in the decision that “dogs are not property,” and outside of property it would seem there can be no ownership. But as decisions of the learned court are not required to be accepted in silence by the canine species, this one affecting their rights is enough to make every dog of high and low degree, from Maine to California, rise up with a prodigious howl of contempt.

The logic by which the high court was enabled to enunciate its decision is quite as remarkable as the decision itself. It would seem the learned court divided the animal creation into two parts—“useful and useless,” and subdivided these into “wild and domestic beasts;” and then states: “Dogs belong to the non-useful, wild animal division.” Ergo: “Wild animals, as dogs which have been domesticated, are therefore property only while in actual custody”—which means in arms, cages, or confinement. An able critic, and a very well-informed lawyer, says: “Any respectable court would laugh at the proposition that it is not theft to appropriate a diamond which has escaped from the owner’s custody.” But that is another kind of cow—the poor have dogs, not diamonds. Still the learned man is to be admired who said:

“I like dogs because I know so many men and women.

“I like dogs because they always see my virtues and ignore my vices.

“I like dogs because they are friends through good report and evil report—through poverty and through riches.

“I like dogs because they are faithful and generous.

“I like dogs because they are full of simplicity and find pleasure in very little things.”

The population of the early settlements of Ohio bought and sold dogs, and considered them as much property as horses, cattle, or other personalty. They were not purchased by the pound; neither were hogs nor cattle. Among traders of the rural districts, every thing weighing over five hundred pounds was bought and sold upon appearance and opinion, by the piece.

Where the price caused a disagreement between buyer and seller, some mutual friend, who had obtained a good reputation as guesser, would be called as an arbiter. Fattened cattle to go east, purchased by “drovers,” were never weighed, but were taken, like horses, at a given sum per head. Fattened hogs, however, were generally weighed, by request of the purchaser. Each hog would be suspended, and weight determined by the “steelyard,” and then branded with a redhot iron on the left ham. This done, the squealing prisoner would surrender his place and attentions of the audience to the next, and so on, until the whole drove became duly registered. But farmers trading among themselves, buying and selling stock, depended entirely upon their sight and judgment as to the valuation.

CHAPTER II.
OHIO—EDUCATIONAL, SOCIAL, AND POLITICAL.

Ohio is the first of the contemplated states under the Ordinance of 1787, and is the most important if not the largest state in the Union. Although geographers say there are some twenty-five states larger, yet no one has ventured to determine beyond dispute or contradiction just how large Ohio is. When the lights of education were limited to the “three R’s,” the boundary was supposed to contain about thirty-nine thousand square miles. In a short time after, the size increased to forty thousand. The area is described as the space between Lake Erie and the Ohio river; and is usually estimated to contain twenty-five million six hundred thousand acres. But some advanced information has changed these figures to forty-one thousand square miles, and has shown by the state auditor’s reports that nearly twenty-seven million acres of farm lands were returned for taxation in 1833, and the question still remains undetermined how large the state is.

The state is greatly favored in regard to water navigation, having Lake Erie on the north for two hundred and thirty miles, and the Ohio river on the eastern and southern border for four hundred and thirty-five miles, giving a natural water-way around three sides of its boundary amounting to six hundred and sixty-five miles, which is more navigable water than is possessed by any other state in the Union, except California and Michigan.

The vast territory east of the Mississippi river, of which Ohio formed a part, was claimed and controlled by France, and was known as the “North-western Territory,” or “Louisiana”, by French traders and missionaries as early as 1658. In 1679, La Salle established a sailing vessel on Lake Erie, and trading posts were designated at favorable points, and missionary work found its way among the resident Indian tribes that occupied the portion of territory now called Ohio.

France was made aware of the beauty of the meager possession on this continent, and endeavored by means of the natives and their missionaries to keep the pre-emption warm until a title could be better recognized. In 1794, Major De Celoran, an officer of the French army, with a force of several hundred men (French and Indian) landed at a favorable point on Lake Erie, and carried their boats overland to Chautauqua Lake; from thence into the Alleghany and Ohio rivers. And on the way down the Ohio river, it is said this officer buried at numerous favorable points lead plates bearing the proclamation of Louis XIV, asserting the dominion of France over the territory on both sides of the Ohio river. The titles of France were but little better than the favorite grants and charters of James I, and the American colonies soon began the establishment of claims, which, in conflict, were settled only by the defeat of the French by the British at Quebec, and the treaty of Paris in 1763, by which this territory was all ceded to Great Britain; and the present good state was annexed to Canada, and by proclamation amenable to the government located at Quebec.

After the close of the War of Revolution, the United States found the rights to the territory of the great North-west in dispute between the Indians and the colonies; and congress attempted to settle the disputes by having the colonies abandon all claims by ceding the same to the United States as the common property of all. New York set the patriotic example, and gave up all her rights to a common cause and general good, and was soon followed by other colonies until the entire domain became vested in the United States, excepting an unsurrendered claim of Connecticut, in the northern part of the state known as the Western Reserve, about fifty miles wide and one hundred and twenty miles long.

The great North-west Territory, under the supervision of the government, was divided up and known under the following heads:

1. The Seven Ranges and Congress Lands.

2. United States Military Lands.

3. The Ohio Company’s Purchase.

4. The Connecticut Reserve and Fire Lands.

5. The Military Bounty Lands.

6. The Virginia Military Bounty Lands.

7. Symmes’s Purchase.

8. Special Grants, Donation Tract, Refugees’ Tract, French Grant, Dorhman’s Grant, Moravian and Lane’s Grants, Improvement Grants.

9. Canal, Turnpike, and Road Lands.

10. School, College and Ministerial Grants.

The Congress lands are those sold by officers of the Government. The Connecticut Reserve, consisting of about 3,800,000 acres, was a claim or grant made to the colony by Charles II in 1662. The “Fire Lands” were part of the grant, and were donated by the colony to reimburse losses sustained in property by the raids of Benedict Arnold during the Revolutionary War. The Fire Lands consisted of 500,000 acres, and were located chiefly in Erie county.

Connecticut sold her Ohio lands to a “land company for $1,200,000,” and placed it securely as an endowment fund for common schools; and the income from this source is still educating the children of that highly intelligent state.

The United States Military Lands, made such by act of Congress in 1796 to satisfy claims of officers and soldiers of the War of the Revolution. This tract embraced an area of 4,000 square miles in the counties of Morgan, Noble, Guernsey, Pickaway, Coshocton, Muskingum, Perry, Fairfield and Franklin. Donation Tract is 100,000 acres in the north part of Washington county, granted to the Ohio Company by Congress. The Symmes Tract of 311,682 acres was granted to John Cleves Symmes, of New Jersey, in 1794, for sixty-seven cents an acre. The land lies between the two Miami rivers. Mr. Symmes’s daughter married General Wm. Henry Harrison, and was the grandmother of ex-President Harrison the II.

The Refugee Lands is a grant of 100,000 acres. It lies along the Scioto river, and the city of Columbus stands upon this land, granted by Congress to be given to persons driven out of the British provinces during the Revolutionary War.

The French Grant consists of 24,000 acres in Scioto county, and given by Congress after the fashion of hush money.

The Dorhman Grant is a tract of 23,000 acres in Tuscarawas county, given by Congress to a Portuguese merchant.

The Virginia Military Lands were located on the west of the Scioto river. The amount of the grant in acres has never been known. There are fifteen counties in the tract and much of it has never been surveyed. This body of land was reserved by Virginia to pay her soldiers who were in the Revolution without compensation or pay. When it was determined by Congress to pay the soldiers in land, each original settler marked his own boundaries with a hatchet, and made a good liberal guess that the area within his lines would cover the acres given in his warrant.

The Moravian Grant was 4,000 acres in Tuscarawas county. Besides, many other donations were made for roads and other purposes, making a total of over eight million acres, the greater part of which went to creditors of the Government. Land was the only thing the United States had available to cancel the war obligations, and soldiers and others gladly accepted land certificates in lieu of those of silver or gold.

Land in body was more desirable than town lots. When Chillicothe was made capital of the territory it had about twenty cabins promiscuously located among the timber, which had not yet been cut down to designate the streets. The State House was constructed in 1800 by an old revolutionary soldier, Wm. Rutledge, and remained the Capitol until 1816, when it was permanently located at Columbus, Franklin county. The removal of the capital injured greatly the prospects and business of Chillicothe for many years, and secured leisure to its citizens, who engaged in various innocent amusements for killing time—in fact, lingered with scarcely a symptom of lysis until after the “Literary, Astronomical and Natural History Society” commenced the publication and distribution of that illustrated periodical (yearly), known and remembered to the last days of the older citizens, entitled “The Ground Hog Almanac.” Since then the town has grown in population, wealth and beauty, and is now the center jewel of the cities in the rich Scioto valley.

Provisions for the education of the generations that were to inhabit the North-west were made and ratified by Congress, in 1787, giving one-thirty-sixth part of the entire public domain to be reserved from sale for the maintenance of schools, declaring “That schools and means of education shall forever be encouraged.”

When Ohio was set off and became a state, the reserve school lands were placed under the management of the legislature, the constitution of 1802 making it the duty of that body to carry out the educational clause of the ordinance, and that the schools supported by the land grants should be open for the reception of pupils. But it turned out like many public trusts; with this splendid endowment of near a million acres of good land, the children of Ohio received no benefit from that source, nor from any legislative equivalent, for near half a century after settlement. The majority of the people, it must be confessed, were indifferent to the subject of education, and were used to keep in power enough imbecile legislators, who in defiance of Ephraim Cutler, the wording of the constitution and acts of Congress, spent the sessions for more than twenty years in perverse legislation of the public school lands.

THE HISTORIC GROUND HOG CLUB.

Organized February 2, 1800.

Certificate of Membership.

The ground hog goes into his hole in the ground early in the fall, and stays there until the 2d day of February, when, regardless of the weather, he comes out; but, if he sees his shadow, winter is not over, and he goes back to stay six weeks.

It was stated by a member of the senate, at the time, that every year things were made worse—“That members of the legislature got acts passed, under pretexts of granting leases to themselves, relatives and political partisans, giving the lands away until there was little or nothing left.” One senator got acts passed giving him and his children seven entire sections. And legislation through ignorance, inability and design subverted the intention in regard to the school-land grant—squandered the proceeds, and then pledged the state to pay the interest. And for this pledge the citizen is annually taxed on a fund of over four million dollars, which exists nowhere excepting in name on the musty books of the state.

But the young Buckeye Squirrel Hunter could not be repressed; and fathers and mothers labored hard and economized to help sustain subscription schools to the full extent of their financial ability; while the State of Connecticut was supporting an expensive system of common school education from a fund arising from the sale of her lands in Ohio.[6]

The teachers of Ohio subscription schools were not examined, nor did their patrons require a very high standard of qualification. Still some were highly educated wanderers over the earth, as the literary works of H. D. Flood, John Robinson and James Kelsey show; and who were teachers in Southern Ohio from 1810 to 1825. The greater number of instructors were well-informed citizens, who accepted the opportunity in order to pursue studies that would qualify them for a more lucrative calling.

It was not customary to close the school on holidays; nor even on Saturdays. They were all hired by the month and were required to perform the duties of teaching the full number of working days in each calendar month—neither Christmas, New Year nor Fourth of July could close the door. The patrons were the sole managers of these schools, and were solicitous to obtain full consideration for the amount paid. But young America was alive, and the incentive a holiday by nature gave, could not, under the most staid rules of conduct and economy, be entirely suppressed; and it became more contagious than measles or whooping-cough, and every school in the country was soon broken out with the idea of a holiday—in parts of two days—Christmas and New Year.

There seemed to be no way to treat it other than to let it have its regular course. It always came with a specific demand upon the teacher, of which the following well-preserved pattern specimen embraces the material points of others, varying only in quantity and quality, with locality and circumstances:

“December 23, 1817.

“Mr. John Robinson (Teacher)—

“Sir:—We the undersigned committee, in behalf of the unanimous voice of the scholars of your school, demand that you treat, according to custom, to the following articles in amount herein named, to wit:

200 ginger cakes,
2 bushels of hickory nuts,
1 peck hazel nuts,
10 pounds of candy,
10 pounds raisins,
delivered at the school house, noon hour, December 25, for the enjoyment and pleasant remembrance of this school. If this meets your approbation you will please sign and return the paper to John Kelley to-morrow, December 24, at noon, saying, over your signature, ‘I agree to the above,’

“John Kelley,
James Brown,
William Smallwood,

}

Committee.”

Occasionally a teacher not fond of fun or fearful of exposure, would at once sign these modest demands, and would join in with the children at noon on Christmas, and again on New Year’s day, and have a long to be remembered pleasant jollification. But by far the greater number of teachers preferred a little preliminary skirmishing before acceding to the peremptory demand. When the above bill of fare was handed the teacher just before dismissal on the evening of the 23d, he glanced over the contents and commenced tearing the paper into small fragments. And it was said this meant defiance.

The next morning was cold, with deep fall of snow during the night; but all the larger boys were inside of the school house with a hot fire and armed with ropes and strings, and plenty of wood and provisions to withstand a siege, before it was yet light. All the openings were barricaded with the benches, which consisted of heavy “puncheons,” with wooden pins driven in on the convex side for legs. One after another of the children came and were admitted, and when the teacher arrived, he found the house (cabin) full of jolly boys and girls, but could not himself enter.

After many ineffectual efforts to obtain admission, he started homeward. This was the signal for the boys, and the yelping, whooping crowd of all sizes and ages of minors, broke camp and gave chase. Robinson is described as an athletic specimen of vigorous manhood, and delighted in sport, and concluded to give the boys a fox chase through the forest and unbroken snow. He led the gang quite easily for a short time, but after several miles’ running the boys captured and overpowered the fleeing despot. Finding resistance useless he submitted to be tied and roped down securely to pieces of timber on either side with face in the direction of the clouds. The burial ceremony was performed by asking compliance, and marching around his body, singing funeral dirges, and piling snow upon his person.

A monument of snow was soon erected with an opening for breathing and conversation. He did not hold out long, and by pledging his honor the bill of fare should be on hand, and no punishment or ill-will entertained for the usage received, the prisoner was released, and all returned to the school-house, spelled for head, and were regularly dismissed for home.

The next day at noon a cart-load of good things arrived with those specified; and children and parents enjoyed the feast, after which there was an old-fashioned spelling-match, and all went home to remember with pleasure the Christmas of 1817. And at this writing (1895) only one of that jolly crowd is known to be living, and from whom the above reminiscences have been obtained.

The country was so thinly settled it was often difficult to make up a school (fifteen), owing to distance from the school cabin, and it was the common practice for those most interested, usually two or three neighbors, to “sign” for their own children and enough more out of the range to make up the required number. And often, in order to secure them, agreeing to pay the tuition and to board them during attendance. And so far as the advantages of these schools were to be obtained, the boys and girls shared alike. But if unable to afford the expense for both, the boys generally got the schooling.

Ohio School-house from 1796 to 1840.

The school-house was usually located in the woods. The building was of round logs, and presented the appearance of very little comfort, either without or within. The floor was of mother earth; the ceiling above, the underside of the roof; a number of rude benches; a few puncheon shelves, and a huge fire-place, constituted the necessary arrangement of the interior. It was known as the school-house, although used as a place to hold elections, lectures, debating societies, and singing-schools.

But notwithstanding the loss of an endowment much needed in primitive times, and the restriction of subscription schools from existing poverty, and that the log-cabin school-houses stood empty for long periods, there was no effeminacy in the desire for knowledge, for where there is a will there is a way, and volumes might be filled with learned and illustrious names who were once rocked in a “sugar-trough,” and took their first lessons in “Brush College.”

It was in this environment the scientist, statesman, and divine obtained that self-confidence and industry which leads to high and honored stations and has made the North-west a perpetual eclipsing shadow upon all other parts of the United States.

In every department, the chosen citizen of this magnificent empire has shown himself master of the situation. In art, literature, and sciences; in war and times of peace, he has given strength to the Union and credit to a central power that will surround itself with national influences the most impregnable of any government in the world. And under all the disadvantages—the absence of public schools, and the opening up of a new world isolated from civilization, he came forth like a vision of beauty and glory from a chrysalis on which was written the destiny of future greatness.

A short time before execution, John Brown said—“I know the very errors by which my scheme was marred were decreed before the world was made. And I had no more to do with the course I pursued than a shot leaving a cannon has to do with the spot where it shall fall.” That hunger and thirst for knowledge which prevailed in the North-west seemed to contradict all theories of man’s proneness under favorable circumstances to degenerate, and favors the theory advanced by the hero of Ossawatomie in regard to power and purpose. Some of the first generation of boys of Ohio (those that lived in the territory) previous to 1796 were born elsewhere to disappoint the Indians, but were all the same shareholders of the great estate. And at the early dawn of the present century many of these young men found their way to Eastern institutions of learning, taking the front in physical and mental culture, as they did afterward in positions of national honor.

As boys, squirrel hunters, men, scholars, lawyers, soldiers, civilians, and statesmen, history shows they filled their places well as American models of superior manhood. Poor as the isolated inhabitants were in regard to worldly goods, they had an abundance of that which gave vitality, energy, and power of will to do. It was no uncommon thing for boys in this vast forest to obtain by their own efforts full preparation to enter college, and with a knapsack of luncheon, tinder-box, and scantily-filled purse, walk hundreds of miles to a seat of learning, and there remain four years without seeing home or friends until they obtained the high honors of the institution.

Ex-Governor Seaberry Ford is but the sample of many. When it came time to go to college, the family of the young squirrel hunter was living in a log cabin in the backwoods of Ohio. His ambition, however, was for Yale, and so expressed it. His father replied, “How are you to get there!” The answer was, “I can walk,” and did walk—reached Yale, where he remained the “boss” young man of the town and institution for four years, and returned to Ohio with the first diploma issued by that college to an Ohio boy. Many years without public schools papers or libraries did not dampen the ardor of the young for knowledge. The inhabitants were destitute of a circulating medium, but managed to keep apace with all the world in that synonym for power. The means employed, as given in the autobiography of one of the first two college graduates in the North-west, illustrates well the thousands of that and later dates who managed to obtain books, and worked their way to the highest standard of education.

The Hon. Thomas Ewing says—“About this time” (1803) “the neighbors in our and the surrounding settlements met and agreed to purchase books and make a common library. They were all poor and subscriptions small, but they raised in all about one hundred dollars.

“All my accumulated wealth, ten coon-skins, went into the fund, and Squire Sam Brown, of Sunday Creek, who was going to Boston, was charged with the purchase. After the absence of many weeks he brought the books to Captain Ben Brown’s in a sack on a pack-horse. I was present at the untying of the sack and pouring out the treasure. There were about sixty volumes, I think, and well selected; the library of the Vatican was nothing to it, and there never was a library better read. This with occasional additions furnished me with reading while I remained at home.

“Dec. 17, 1804, the library was fully established and christened, ‘The Coon-skin Library,’ and a librarian duly elected by shareholders.”

Five years later, at the age of nineteen, with consent of his father, young Ewing left home to procure means to obtain a collegiate education. He set out on foot and found his way through the woods from his home in Athens county to the Ohio river, and from thence to the Kanawha Salt Works, where he engaged as a day laborer, and in three months saved enough money to pay his way at school through the winter at Athens College. He became well satisfied with the success so far, and in the spring returned to the Salt Works and made money enough to pay off some indebtedness that was troubling his father, devoting the winter to the study of some new books obtained by the “Coon-skin Library.”

The third year he returned with enough to induce him to enter college as a regular student, where he remained until 1815; and, after taking the degree of A. M., returned to the Salt Works, and earned enough to aid in the study of law. Thus, ten years were spent as a necessary apprenticeship—performing the arduous and monotonous labors of boiling salt, that he might be enabled to cultivate the various talents nature had so bounteously bestowed upon him, and at the same time avoid financial embarrassments.

Many thousands of squirrel hunters since have imitated the example of this great man, and have arisen to high eminence, but none—not one—to the height of “The Ohio Salt-boiler”—the greatest man America ever produced. In stature Mr. Ewing was six feet two inches tall—well proportioned, with remarkable physical ability. It is related—that many years after athletical exercises had been lain aside for law, on passing near the old court-house in Lancaster, Ohio, he found a crowd of able-bodied men who had been trying to throw an ax, handle and all, over the building, but it could not be done. Mr. Ewing halted, and took the ax by the handle and sent it sailing five feet or more above the building and passed on.

Mr. Ewing was great from the fact he was familiar with the little things of life, as well as the greater matters in the supreme court, where he chiefly practiced. Daniel Webster acknowledged Mr. Ewing’s superior abilities in seeking his aid in his difficult and weighty cases.

In the Senate of the United States, he introduced many important bills—and opposed Clay’s Compromise—the amendatory fugitive slave law of 1850—and advocated the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. As a statesman and educated in a free state, he had none of that diffidence, timidity, and submission to slave-holding dictation so commonly witnessed among northern legislators in Congress, and before their constituents.

The influence of slavery was felt in the education and lives of the people of the North-west. As race hatred was transplanted into Ohio in the early settlements, it soon became a political element that caused many odious and unchristian laws to be placed on the statute books, and enforced as vigorously against color as if made in the interests of slavery and bonded ignorance of the state.

The first State Constitution of Ohio, adopted in 1802, in article 8, “That the general, great, and essential principles of liberty and free government may be recognized, and forever unalterably established, we declare”—

Sec. 1. “That all men are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent, and unalienable rights, among which are the enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”

Sec. 2. “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in this state, otherwise than for the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”

Sec. 3. ... “That schools, and the means of instruction, shall forever be encouraged by legislative provision, not inconsistent with the rights of conscience.”

Sec. 25. “That no law shall be passed to prevent the poor in the several counties and townships within this state from an equal participation in the schools, academies, colleges, and universities within this state, which are endowed, in whole or in part, from the revenue arising from the donations made by the United States for the support of schools and colleges; and the doors of the said schools, academies, and universities shall be open for the reception of scholars, students, and teachers of every grade, without any distinction or preference whatever contrary to the intent for which the said donations were made.”

Still the colored man, under no circumstances, excepting taxation, was recognized as a citizen. He was by Article IV of the Constitution of Ohio disfranchised by the word “white”—no other color could enjoy the rights of an elector. He was by law deprived of schools and means of instruction contrary to the spirit of the endowment as well as expressions of the constitution; and for more than forty years the colored population sojourned in a wilderness of freedom before it was discovered that manhood has rights all are bound to respect—one of which is the right of suffrage.

The greater portion of the population forming the new state were favorable to freedom, and many were known to have emancipated their slaves and settled in Ohio that they might wipe out the stains of an institution which had so truthfully been denominated the “sum of all villainies.” There were, however, others, in almost every neighborhood, who by nature were the patrons of the slave-hunter and looked upon a colored man as unworthy of an existence on earth, and delighted in tormenting, killing, or driving him from his home and neighborhood.

This race hatred in some parts of the state received so much attention and cultivation, that many well-meaning people encouraged the prejudice, in view of the peace of the neighborhood.

Cincinnati did more than all the rest of the border towns in keeping up and disseminating a violent race hatred. Free respectable colored people were looked upon, denounced, and treated as a nuisance, “having no rights a white man was bound to respect.” The city harbored if not encouraged a lot of miscreants, who made it a business to hunt and capture runaway slaves for the reward; and also to carry on the money making business of kidnaping free blacks, carrying them across the river, and selling them into slavery. Any and every unlawful treatment they received was winked at by citizens and city authorities.

The courts were open, but until S. P. Chase went to Cincinnati in 1830 the black man could procure no counsel, as a white man could easily ruin his character and standing by manifesting the least sympathy for the persecuted. When the Hon. Salmon P. Chase defended one of these down-trodden creatures in the courts of Cincinnati, after the hearing of the case, a prominent man of the city said, pointing to Mr. Chase, “There goes a promising young lawyer who has ruined himself.”

But the state outside of Cincinnati had enough of the right element to enforce, if necessary, at all times, the fifth paragraph of the eighth article of the state constitution, which affirmed, “That the people shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and possessions, from all unwarrantable searches and seizures; and that the general warrants whereby an officer may be commanded to search suspected places, without probable evidence of the fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named whose offenses are not particularly described, and without oath or affirmation, are dangerous to liberty, and shall not be granted.” Still in matters of legislation Cincinnati managed to secure her influence against the negro.

Notwithstanding the plain wording of the Constitution of the State, laws were enacted to keep the black and mulatto people out of Ohio. These were the much discussed “black laws”—

First. A black or mulatto person was prohibited settlement unless he could show a certificate of freedom and the names of two freeholders as security for his good behavior and maintenance, in the event of becoming a public charge; and unless the certificate of freedom was duly recorded and produced, it was a penal offense to give employment to a black or mulatto.

Second. Colored and mulattoes were excluded from the schools; and,

Third. No black or mulatto could testify in court in any case where a white person was concerned.

In 1848, Dr. N. S. Townshend, of Lorain county, and Dr. John F. Morse, of Lake county, were elected members of the legislature as “abolitionists.” To these two members, fortunately, holding the balance of power between the Whigs and Democrats, are due the repeal of the odious “black laws,” and the election of an “abolition” United States Senator—S. P. Chase.

To these men, in combination with the Democrats, is not only due the repeal of existing laws, but, also, provisions for schools for black and mulatto children. And Ohio became reclaimed in favor of freedom, and all was bright and lovely and prosperous—but not all happy; for there still remained a black, disgraceful, disfiguring spot on the face of the Goddess of Liberty—a spot that was causing millions to mourn.

Early in the Union of the States, slavery caste began to isolate itself from every thing denominated “Yankee North,” and, at the same time, disseminated a race hatred against the “nigger” among the ignorant white and poor people of the South. And, in the line of emigration, Ohio received a larger share of immigrants who had been taught to despise the “nigger,” and honestly believed a colored man was an inferior animal, “destitute of a soul;” and lecturers were often traveling over the state entertaining large audiences with such crude material as that—“A nigger is not human—the bones in the hands and feet are entirely different; and he is nothing more or less than an improved Orang-outang, and made to be a slave to the human race as much as a horse or cow.” By lowering the natural status of the colored man, such audiences became elevated and the space between man and the monkey widened by comparison making room for increased hatred. At all times, but most especially so, previous to the odious amendments of the “Fugitive Slave Law,” in 1850, it was no uncommon thing to see calls signed by numerous citizens inserted in popular newspapers, asking all persons in favor of “law and order” to assemble at the time and place specified to put down abolitionism, and to let their “southern brethren” know the people of Ohio were in favor of the constitution and preservation of the Union of the States.

A call for a meeting of this kind in a central county of the state, and announced in the official political paper of the time, dated October 3, 1835, is headed in large type—

“Anti-Abolition Meeting.

“A meeting of those opposed to the wild projects of abolitionists is proposed to be held at the court-house in Circleville, on Saturday, the 10th day of October next, at 1 o’clock P. M.

“All those who love their country and are willing to maintain her constitution—

“All who are friends to order and would avert the horrors of a servile war—

“All who know slavery to be an evil, but believe a dissolution of our National Union a greater evil—

“All who deprecate ecclesiastical influence in political affairs, are respectfully and earnestly invited to attend the proposed meeting, when a number of addresses will be delivered.”

This call is signed by four hundred and seventy-three names, citizens of a town having less than two thousand inhabitants. The next issue of the paper publishing the call, and previous to the time of meeting, contained an anonymous, but scathing criticism of such movements, in which the author of the article says: “It has been shown what is the real state of the anti-slavery question, and the unreasonableness and utter groundlessness of the outcry against Abolitionists.” “Further we would state for the serious consideration of our opponents that we are persuaded that the ‘Union will be dissolved,’ not if this subject be discussed, but if it be not. If it be true that the social compact was formed on the condition of slavery being tolerated by the free states, then it is such an Union as must sooner or later be dissolved.”... “Admitting the existence of a God, and that God is a being of perfect equity, can it be believed that He will suffer such a combination against the happiness of man to exist forever? And has it not already existed too long for that unity of counsel in this great republic which should ever mark the doings of a nation? And can we calculate on a much longer forbearance?” The editors of the paper, after offering an apology for publishing the article, of which the above quotations are but a small part, say: “Will some Abolitionist be so kind as to refer us to the passage in our Constitution or Declaration of Independence which asserts that all men are created free and equally; we have not seen it.”

The meeting came off as advertised, and the chairman said: “Deeply sympathizing with our ‘Southern brethren,’ we have assembled to express our most unqualified opposition to emancipation and disapprobation of the course pursued by its advocates; and to assure our fellow-citizens in the Southern States that we regard their constitutional rights as our own, and that we will to the utmost aid them in the defense of those rights.” “Therefore, Resolved,” was followed by ten long resolutions in praise of fidelity to the South and opposition to emancipation, winding up with the following:

“Resolved, That were the slave-holders now willing to abolish slavery, in our opinion the immediate and unconditional emancipation of all the slaves in the United States, without providing for their colonization, would render the condition of both the whites and blacks infinitely worse than it now is, and would be an act of palpable and unpardonable inhumanity to the slaves.”

Signed: Valentine Kieffer, President; Nathan Perrill, John Entrekin, Wm. Renick, Sr., Vice-Presidents; Elias Bentley, W. N. Foresman, A. Huston, Secretaries.

All the officers were well-known and prominent people, and it is not strange that persons of such note and intelligence should have given their approbation and signatures of approval to such a meeting, when we reflect that most pro-slavery men in the free states had been taught to believe or say: If the slaves were liberated, they would come north in swarms and “steal our chickens,” and destroy the peace of society “by marrying every good-looking white woman in the country.”

But there existed no occasion for alarm; the slave-holding states South never had an inclination to emancipate their slaves. They were the wealth of that country, and its growing greatness fostered the desire to found an aristocratic empire on slave labor. The number in bondage was rapidly increasing and their labor was becoming more and more remunerative. They had but to see the increase of this wealth and its products in fifty years, to stimulate the desire to found a government on the aristocracy of the institution.

In 1810, there were in all the states but 1,191,360 slaves; and notwithstanding New England, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania had in the meantime liberated theirs—and the African slave trade had previously been abolished—the underground railroad had been doing a lively business—and the manumissions and colonizations that were going on in the “breeding states”—in 1860 the number had increased to within a small fraction less than four millions.

Slave labor was exceedingly profitable in the cotton states, as the increase of the cotton product shows. In 1801, these states only produced 48,000,000 pounds, while 1860 returned 2,054,698,800 pounds. There were, however, two things inserted in the government plat that were unsatisfactory: “That all men are created equal” in natural rights, and the Missouri Compromise—the thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north latitude, Mason and Dixon’s line. It was not so clear as they wished it might be, that “unalienable rights,” “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” belonged only to masters; and when the failure to rescind the “Compromise” in 1853 occurred through democratic influence, of such men as Albert P. Edgerton, the possibility of peacefully enlarging the area of slavery became as hopeless as it was manifestly evident that bondage and freedom could not much longer remain peaceably in the same government. And with amendments to the fugitive slave law the Southern political bosses, who had usurped the control of the national government, knew the constitution found slavery in the states, and as a state institution left its local existence to the chances of state laws. They knew full well it was not made a national institution and that the time was close at hand when they must go to the rear or abandon their northern allies and set up a slavocracy for themselves. They had obtained sufficient to know Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Arthur Tappan and the Boston Liberator were actual facts; and the large meetings of the “dough faces” and their expressions of sympathy was not the kind of “Soothing Syrup” the South desired, although giving great encouragement to secession.

The division of sentiment existing in the free states in regard to the rights of slavery and its extension became more and more expressive, especially along the border lines of the opposing institutions. Consequently Ohio felt a full share of the evils due to political and social disturbances arising from this cause. But the intercommunications given by railroads and the light emanating from a free and fearless press—cheap postage and speedy transportation—infused new life; and mankind began thinking—thinking differently from that of past times when the postage on a letter was twenty-five cents and required four days for an individual to travel one hundred miles and return.

Slave hunting in the land of the free did not prove an agreeable or profitable occupation. The oppressed fugitive generally found friends enough in the North to secure the boon he sought. In almost every community could be found the spirit contained in the lines by Whittier, expressed for George W. Lattimer, who with his wife escaped from Norfolk, Va., in 1841, and was found in Boston. He was the first slave hunted in the North, and was arrested and proceedings began to have him returned to slavery. His cause was championed by such men as William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips and Frederick Douglass. The court ruled against the fugitive and his liberty was purchased by the good people of Boston. Lattimer gained great notoriety, and after a long and eventful life died at his home in Lynn, Mass., May 30, 1896, aged seventy-five years. And it can not well be disputed that much of the after changes in public sentiment in regard to the status of the colored man, and his rights in a free state, was brought about by the object lessons in the enforcement of the odious fugitive slave law. “All that was necessary to prove the detestable character of this iniquity and its dangers to liberty was simply to enforce it.”[7] Still the corrupting influences of trade made the evils of slavery felt in the social, moral and educational interests of the entire state; and consequently citizens, who had in their hearts the logical idea that all men are born free and equal, saw the hand of tyranny quite as much on either shore of the river, that constituted geographically the dividing line.

This was more especially true of Cincinnati, where large interests in trade enabled the sentiments of the few to dominate and regulate public acts and opinions parallel with steamboat monopoly, and the creed of the “Divine Institution,” as much as if the city had been located considerably south of “Mason and Dixon’s line;” and as late as 1836 a free soil newspaper, “The Philanthropist,” was destroyed by a mob of leading citizens of Cincinnati, and which will ever remain a historical record of loyalty to the institution on the opposite side of the river, and as penance for some manifestation in favor of freedom.

The Philanthropist was a newspaper ably edited by James G. Birney. After being published some three months, at night, July 14, 1836, the press-room was broken open by well-known citizens of Cincinnati, and the press materials all destroyed. No attempt was made to punish the perpetrators. But rather to sanction the act. A call for a meeting of the citizens was made for July 23d, stating the purpose to be, “to decide whether the people of Cincinnati will permit the publication or distribution of ‘abolition’ papers in the city.”

The decision of this mass meeting, composed of the business men of the city, was afterwards published in a leading local paper, and makes very good reading, although derived from a pro-slavery source, to wit: “On Saturday night, July 30th, very soon after dark, a concourse of citizens assembled at the corner of Main and Seventh streets, in this city, and, upon a short consultation, broke open the printing office of the Philanthropist, the abolition paper, scattered the type into the street, tore down the presses, and completely dismantled the office. It was owned by A. Pugh, a peaceable and orderly printer, who printed the Philanthropist for the Anti-Slavery Society of Ohio.

“From the printing office the crowd went to the house of A. Pugh, where they supposed there were other printing materials, but found none, nor offered any violence. Then to Messrs. Donaldsons, where only ladies were at home. The residence of Mr. Birney, the editor, was then visited; no person was at home but a youth, upon whose explanations the house was left undisturbed.... And proceeded to the ‘Exchange’ and took refreshments.”... “An attack was then made upon the residences of some blacks in Church alley; two guns were fired upon the assailants and they recoiled.... It was some time before the rally could again be made, several voices declaring they did not wish to endanger themselves. A second attack was made, the houses found empty, and their interior contents destroyed.”

Although all this kind of proceeding looked very much like an unlawful assemblage, it met with no opposition from the city authorities, and all that was ever done in a matter of this kind was to call a meeting of citizens, and “regret the cause of the recent occurrences,” and the next day would drive a Wendell Phillips from Pike’s Opera House, and seek him with a howling mob that he might be hung to a lamp-post, “the mayor refusing to allow the police to interfere.”

Cincinnati reaped a rich harvest for the examples given in “citizen” mobs. Still, at any time previous to the “salvation” of the city, it was impolitic if not dangerous for a minister of the gospel, a public speaker, press or private citizen, to mention the subject of slavery in a manner that might be construed unfavorable to its sanctity; for a black line had been drawn over the twenty-sixth verse of the seventeenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles; the tenth verse of the second chapter of Malachi, and the spirit of the gospel dispensation, as effectually in their practical theology as was ever manifest in Danville or in any Southern translation of the ten commandments.

So determined were the pro-slavery elements to hold the fort in Cincinnati and aid the South in making it dangerous for a colored man in a “free state,” that they continued to supply the South with stores until the last moment; and only a week before the bombardment of Sumter, the city permitted cannon to pass through on way from Baltimore marked

“For the Southern Confederacy,
Jackson, Mississippi.”

And the same day, or the day before, returned a fugitive slave through the commissioner, and all went well with the city, reaping the fruits of the war, until General Wallace placed it under martial law, and, suspending business, demanded the citizens to enroll themselves for defense. “Some were at once taken very sick, others were hunted up by detailed soldiers, who turned them out of barns, kitchens, garrets, cellars, closets, from under beds, and in the disguise of women’s clothing.” For the seed sown was now ripe and mid air was resounding—“The harvest is here.”

At a time, in 1858, when public sentiment was beginning to be felt, and official prosecutions for the return of fugitive slaves became more or less unsatisfactory to the owners, James Buchanan, President of the United States, gave a surprise to every one by appointing Judge Stanley Matthews—an eminent lawyer, ex-editor of an abolition paper, and leader in the anti-slavery movements in Ohio, as United States District Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio.

To politicians, this seemed not only a deviation from all known precedents, but, politically, an unfathomable mystery. But, no more remarkable was the appointment than that, a lawyer at the summit of professional ability and large income—a noted abolitionist—opposed to the fugitive slave acts, should have accepted the position. But those who knew Judge Matthews and his patriotism best, could discern in it logical conclusions—the interests of freedom could be subserved and the public mind attained by a shorter method than by arguing, speaking, or publishing—“the enforcement of the iniquitous fugitive slave law.” And for three years he prosecuted “offenders” without just fault or favor—giving such lessons in its application, that made loyalty to freedom, and magnified the blessings of the free.

Judge Matthews resigned the office in 1861, and took the commission of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Twenty-third—afterward Colonel of the Fifty-first Ohio, and awaited the “proclamation.”

During Judge Matthews’ entire service as United States District Attorney, the slave states were secluded as pertaining to things and persons of the “North”—papers, books, teachers, preachers, and citizens were effectually ostracized; northern colleges and seminaries had their southern patronage withdrawn; and, finally, when, by the aid of the Secretary of War, they secured large quantities of United States arms and military supplies, and felt thoroughly prepared and equipped, the states stepped out of the Union with defiance, leaving poor Kentucky with a governor that threatened to chastise either of the belligerents if they dared to interfere with her “neutrality.” And it is not known to history that either the cotton states or neutral Kentucky ever gave Judge Matthews a vote of thanks for his vigorous enforcement of the fugitive law. But this is not all. In 1876, Judge Matthews ran for Congress in the Second District of Cincinnati, and his defeat, says the biographer,[8] was in consequence of an act of his while United States District Attorney—that while he had the office he prosecuted W. B. Connelly, a white resident of Cincinnati, and reporter of the Gazette, for giving to a young runaway slave and his wife “a glass of water and piece of bread”—a crime under the fugitive slave law. It was shown that the negroes were captured and were shut up in Connelly’s room, and while there they were furnished “bread and water.” It was further shown, that a letter was written by Connelly, as a Master Mason, to Judge Matthews, as a brother Mason, in which he confessed that he had “furnished the negroes with food.”

But, with all these influential relations, the offense was prosecuted—Connelly found guilty and was sentenced to serve time of imprisonment. “The publication of these facts destroyed Judge Matthews’ chance for Congress,” and that his brother Masons obtained full credit for his defeat can not well be doubted.

It is not stated that any promise had been made by Judge Matthews—none violated; and differed materially from ordinary cases, like that of O. A. Gardner, a Master Mason, arrested for robbing the mails at Minneapolis, who said in court that his confession was made to Postal Inspector Gould, a brother Mason, on the promise that Gould, as a fellow Mason, would see that he was acquitted—“that his acquittal was assured—that the judge, the lawyers on both sides, and most of the jury were Masons.”

Judge Matthews had taken the oath of office as district attorney, which to him was above all other oaths, and was not the man to play the Marshal Ney performance. And it would seem the “defeat for congress” was not “the consequence of an act of his” as much as it was his declining to “act” crooked for the benefit of a brother Mason.

If any one now thinks it impossible that a free people in the North could be so influenced, cowed, and blinded to the atrocities of slavery upon the free, let them read the biography of Southern prisons. It was a day of jubilee for the abolitionists (who had survived the horrid cruelties that made “Libby” a paradise) when the federal forces took possession of the South. The Rev. Calvin Fairbanks, after being kidnapped and serving horrible time for seventeen years and four months for being an abolitionist, was released from the state prison of Kentucky, at Frankfort, by a special order of President Lincoln.

During the last two wardens of the prison—Zeb Ward and that of J. W. South—this man received thirty-five thousand stripes on his bare body with a strap of half-tanned leather a foot and a half long, often dipped in water to increase the pain. He was often whipped four times a day, receiving seventy stripes at each whipping; one time the number of lashes was increased to one hundred and seven.

All this punishment was pretended to be inflicted on the grounds of failure to perform the daily task which had been fixed beyond possibility—requiring the prisoner to weave two hundred and eight yards of hemp cloth daily.

Early in 1864, Mr. Lincoln learned through Miss Tileston of the cruelties practiced upon Mr. Fairbanks, and sent General Fry to Kentucky with orders to make it “Fairbanks Day” at Frankfort prison.

“When released, Mr. Fairbanks says he crossed the river and kissed the free soil in Ohio,” where he met the girl who, on hearing of his misfortune in Massachusetts, came to Ohio and engaged as teacher at Hamilton, and then at Oxford, supplying him with such comforts as was within her power—worked and petitioned and watched over the border for many long years with the love of a true woman.

Slavery is no more—the dark blotch to freedom has been wiped out with the best blood of the nation. It was a contentious, political evil as well. But slavery of the colored race is not the only evil, the only danger, that can arise to overthrow a Republican form of government.

The first thirty-five years of the existence of Ohio as a state may be recognized, in an educational point of view, as the period of the “Three R’s”—“readin, ’riten, and ’rithmetic”—for state legislation made it so. There were no public schools, no academy, but one higher institution in operation, called an “Ohio University,” located at Athens, in Athens county. This was opened for students, in 1809, with the classic course; and the first class, numbering two, graduated in 1815, receiving the first collegiate degrees ever conferred under the endowment for education by the act of 1787—John Hunter, A. M., and Thomas Ewing, A. M.

This university was in financial straits all this time with an incomplete corps of professors, for the reason the legislature had manipulated the land endowments (46,000 acres) from time to time until little or nothing was received, where large incomes should have been realized. And the good intent of land grants for educational purposes in Ohio proved a signal failure in common schools, academies, and colleges.

After ineffectual efforts of mongrel state universities to supply the pressing wants of rising generations, sectarian institutions multiplied rapidly, and the state soon became honored with numerous chartered seats of learning representing all religions from Roman Catholic (down, or up, which ever it may seem) to the Free Will Baptist. Of these, Oberlin has taken the lead. It was chartered, in 1834, under the direction of the Congregational Church, with a theological seminary attached as part of the institution. Both sexes and all colors have been admitted to its classes.

During the struggle in Ohio to establish a satisfactory system of education, the good people of Kentucky claimed to be greatly in advance in regard to facilities, and sold large numbers of scholarships to those who desired to embrace better opportunities to obtain an education, before it was discovered that young men from a free state, or states, attending those seats of learning had little or no spare time for mental culture, after giving the physical enough attention to keep all its members intact; as free-state students were obliged to fight or “eat dirt.”

School-house of 1851, in which President Garfield taught.

The writer still holds the larger end of an uncanceled scholarship in one of the then leading, but now defunct, college institutions.

As late as 1837, there was no public school system operating in Ohio. But the year following a law was passed for the purpose of adopting a system on a uniform footing. Still it required that teachers should be qualified only in reading, writing and arithmetic. Amendments and improvements, however, went on, and in 1847 the “State Teachers’ Association” was organized, and deserves great credit for the good work done and still doing in obtaining beneficial legislation and raising the standard of teachers and the curriculum of “High Schools.” And at the present time Ohio compares favorably with other states in regard to her system for general and liberal education, regardless of color or previous condition.

Information derived from newspapers was measurably lost—the inefficient postal service prevented the circulation of metropolitan papers; and those published in Ohio for half a century were under the ban of slavery. And with the censorship of Kentucky and the cotton states it is not surprising they were short-lived and unattended with prosperity. The first paper published in the North-west was printed in Cincinnati, November 9, 1793, under the name of “The Sentinel of the North-western Territory.” The journal was owned and edited by William Maxwell. Newspapers in those days were comparatively small and poorly executed in presswork; and changed names, ownership or ceased to exist so frequently that not a few attempts at journalism became lost to history.

During the territorial days, and while the seat of government tarried at Chillicothe, Mr. Willis, the father of N. P., the poet, author and artist, published a literary paper for a short time. After the capital became permanently located at Columbus, Philo H. Olmstead, from 1813 to 1818, published “The Western Intelligencer”—then changed the name to “Columbus Gazette” and in due time to “Columbus Journal.”

Small as these and other beginnings were over the settled portions of the state, the press and its influence became of more and more importance, and kept pace if not in advance of many other leading departments connected with an advanced civilization. As ideas beget ideas, so inventions beget inventions, until time and space are no more, and the wild elements meekly bow in submission to the will and works of man. If John Gutenberg, Fust, Mentel or Koster, with their little inventions, could see the automatic working of one of those mammoth printing machines, which noiselessly move with such rapidity, exactness and intelligence—even putting human volition and precision to shame—any one or all of the once contesting discoverers would stop disputing in astonished wonderment long enough to set up and strike off on their own inventions a single line, in quotations, “Large trees from small acorns grow,” and abandon further contention.

Newspaper educators at an early day, like the schoolmaster, had a limited showing in a country so financially short. Editors and publishers could not conduct the business without a given amount of support. But this needful requirement was too manifestly uncertain to justify an expensive venture; for there was little or no money in the country, nor means to procure it by exchanges. Still, the experiment was occasionally made, but most generally failed even in the hands of the most economical management and moderate expectations.

The following is a brief of a four-paged paper, ten by fifteen inches in size—“No. 33, Vol. I.”—dated June 5, 1818. This paper was started at the county seat of one of the early settled localities, and in agriculture one of the leading counties in the state. This number treats of the following subjects:

THE OLIVE BRANCH

Volume I.] June 6, 1818. [Number 33.

1. Light reading. Traits in Washington City Drawing-Room. Mrs. Monroe. The President. Virginians. The Belles. Foreigners. Etiquette. Foreign Ministers. The Secretaries of Government Departments. Western Opposition. American Manufacturers. Essex Junto. Two Different Descriptions of Men that Inhabit Virginia, Contrasted.

2. Foreign News—Spain. Major-General Jackson’s Letter to Gov. Rubute, Bowleg Town, Suwanny, April 20, 1818. Late from the Army—Milledgeville and Indians. Patriots victorious—Marching on to Carraccas. The President of the United States. More Specks of War at Detroit. The Belt had passed through the Winnebago, Sack, Fox and Hickapoo Nations. Mercury at Green Bay through the Winter, 25°. Letter from “Savannaa,” April 30, 1818. Letter from Porto Rico. Letter from Upper Canada. Extract from a Vermont Paper. Expensiveness of the Ground purchased for the Bank of the United States at Philadelphia, being One Thousand Dollars per Front Foot.

3. Obituaries. Advertisements. Court Proceedings. Expulsion of Masons from the Order. Patent Pumps. Paris Papers. One Hundred and Forty Vessels perished in the late Tremendous Gale along the English Coast. Injurious Effects of Flannel. Masonic Notice. Prospects for continuing the Publication of “The Olive Branch.” Advertisements.

4. Poetry—“Absent Friends. Defense of Putnam. Improvement of the Loom for Weaving. Sheriff Sale of Accounts.” His own Included.

The deplorable condition of the press of Ohio at the time is so graphically and candidly set forth by the editors of the Olive Branch—the only paper published in the county—in their last appeal for support, is better illustrated by reproducing the article entire:

“PROSPECTS

“For Continuing the Publication of
THE OLIVE BRANCH.

“The publishers now call upon the citizens of —— county, and the country adjacent, to determine if they shall continue publishing The Olive Branch. They have fully and firmly determined to discontinue its publication, unless the number of their subscribers is considerably increased. They apprehend their present number will not pay the expense of the establishment; and they do not think themselves able, nor are they under obligations, to lose more by it than they have lost already.

“If, therefore, the citizens of the county are desirous that a paper should be published at this place, and if any think this worthy of their patronage, let them declare it by adding their names to the list of our subscribers. By this declaration, yea or nay, when fully and explicitly made known, we shall positively abide.

“Some persons ask, ‘What is to be the character of our paper?’ And what inducements we offer them to become subscribers? In a few words we will tell them: Its character shall be truly American and Republican. Americans by birth and education, we have no partiality for European institutions or policy. Republicans in principle, we will never disseminate aristocratical or monarchical doctrines. We will ever oppose, with our utmost endeavors, their progress. We do fearlessly declare perpetual war against them. Believing our forms of government infinitely superior to any ever before witnessed, we will rather perish in their defense than sit silent spectators of their destruction.

“We will ever respect and inculcate virtue, both public and private, and deprecate vice in all its dazzling forms. Nothing shall ever appear in our columns to disturb the present public tranquillity, unless we see danger lurking therein, which duty requires us to expose to public view. We hold the Christian religion in sacred veneration, and shall never, therefore, suffer an aspersion to be cast upon it through our columns.

“As the happiness of most of mankind lies in their social domestic circles, we shall hold them sacred. We will never designedly cast into them the apple of discord; nor will we knowingly cause a pang to the honest heart or a blush upon ‘the modest cheek.’

“The inducements we offer are:

“First—A weekly account of the most important events and transactions occurring in our own country.

“Secondly—An account of such as transpire in other parts of the globe affecting us; and among these, every thing important relative to our Mexican and South American neighbors will have a preference.

“Thirdly—The most important state papers and documents relating to or coming from our government.

“Fourthly—Well-written essays, either original or extracted, on political, moral and scientific subjects, and relating to the topography and geography of our country.

“Fifthly—A view of the proceedings of our state and national legislatures, and a strict examination of the laws passed by them.

“Sixthly—Literary articles which convey instruction with amusement will find a niche in our paper. We shall not, however, seek to amuse unless we can at the same time instruct. To excite or gratify the public taste for amusement alone we consider dangerous to our freedom. By such means Pericles destroyed the liberties of Athens, and Cæsar of Rome. Modern France, too, had her Pericles and her Cæsar; she followed them, and she is now ruing her folly. Similar must be our fate when we follow after the siren song of amusement. We will never be the willing instruments of thus sapping our free institutions. If our paper can not find a sufficient support without this, let it go ‘to the tomb of the Capulets.’ For we will sooner breast the torrent of public feeling on this subject, though we are swept by it into the deep bosom of destruction, than glide upon its surface and trim our barques to its course.

“Renick, Doan & Co.”

Although ably edited—containing interesting, well-written and well-selected articles, the verdict was “perpetual suspension.” The inhabitants of neither town nor country cared to become “readers of newspapers.” The agrarian element of society had not extended to business transactions. The contracted condition of the “circulating medium” was such that it became absolutely necessary to ignore every luxury that required “spot cash;” while state laws made the credit system so dangerous, honest people kept as free as possible from financial obligations. They did not wish to take the risk of seeing their names posted in public places, stating the time the indebtedness would be sold by the sheriff at public outcry to the highest bidder.

And the citizen continued on his even way, enjoying the chase—catching wolves and foxes; and hunting the deer, turkey and squirrel; and in summer tilling a few acres of corn—a small “patch” of flax—enough potatoes, beans, pumpkins, and gourds for the use of the family. The soil produced well, and with but little labor enough corn could be raised for family meal and to winter the small amount of stock—the fire-wood was secured from wind-falls in the “deadening,” and with a horse and cow, a few sheep, and a good dog, the “squirrel hunter” became wonderfully well satisfied with his environment, and had no desire for change. The amount he knew of things transpiring in the outside world was obtained by the word of mouth in the regular line of communication.

The women carded the wool and hackled the flax, and spun and wove the same; and from year to year there were no changes in household appearances or landed possessions. The “deadening,” however, was a little larger in area, in order to keep up the easily-obtained supply of fire-wood, and to increase the amount of the natural grasses and green things in summer for the benefit of the stock.

All domestic animals subsisted on what nature furnished in the woods during spring and summer, and each individual owner had an ear-mark for hogs and cattle recorded at the county-seat, which gave security against mistakes, and when animals became lost furnished information of ownership and acted as a substitute for a square in the “lost” column of some newspaper. It must be remembered that Ohio was not settled all over at once. It came into the Union an immense wilderness, and much of it remained unoccupied for long periods. The first tree cut, in Hardin county, was cut for bees in 1837—a dead black-walnut, seventy-two feet to the first limb. And as the counties became organized and settled the inhabitants all commenced at the same point—the same style of cabin and like simplicity—benches were used for chairs, earth for flooring and carpet, forked sticks driven into the ground with cross poles for bedsteads, clap-boards for bed-cords, and pond-grass for feathers, a single pot and frying-pan, with a few pewter dishes, constituted the primitive outfit, sooner or later, for every county in the state.

The immigrants who pushed forward into the interior counties suffered most for want of mills and from the high price of freight, and merchandise, as salt, flour, and other necessaries of life, all came from Chillicothe or Zanesville. Salt was ten and twelve cents a pound, calico one dollar a yard, coffee seventy-five cents, and whisky two dollars a gallon.

High prices ruled in all new settlements long after they had been reduced in and at the vicinity of Chillicothe and Zanesville; and which, too, was only partly owing to exorbitant rates for transportation. So little and so few were articles purchased, that pioneer merchants did not enter the interior counties of the state for many years, and orders for flour, and salt, and other necessaries, accompanied by the silver, would be forwarded generally by the bearer of the order, as no regular mail or line of transportation was run from one settlement to another. For want of roads the inconvenience was tolerated, as it did not detract much from the power of the inhabitants in every part of the state from living well and living easy. Still there were a few from isolation or improvidence suffered hardships and unpleasant conditions, especially in the interior counties.

In the fall of 1803, Henry Berry, a Welshman, came to this country to establish a home, and leaving his wife and smaller children in Philadelphia, Pa., took his two boys, one nine and the other eleven years old, and put up a small cabin in the interior of Delaware county, fifteen miles from the nearest one of the three families that constituted the white inhabitants. At this time the country was full of Indians and wild animals, and was distant from sources of supplies seventy-five to one hundred miles. The father was so infatuated with the country, he hurriedly erected a small cabin of such timber as he and his boys could handle; and when covered, but without floor, chimney, or fire-place, and without daubing or chinking, he fixed the children a place to sleep, started back for Philadelphia, hoping to get the rest of his family West before the cold weather set in. When he reached Philadelphia he found his wife dangerously sick with a protracted fever, and before she was able to travel Mr. Berry became sick, and winter came on, and he was unable to return until the June following.

The boys had not been heard from; the winter had been unusually severe, and they had been left with but a short amount of provisions, without a gun, surrounded by Indians and wild beasts, and were compelled to live upon such animals as they could capture; and with no fireplace or chimney they passed a cold winter in that open cabin. And when the father returned with the family, he found the boys had cleared enough ground for a large garden and had vegetables growing from the seeds they had brought with them from Wales. Of course the boys suffered much, but like the one on the burning deck, they heroically stood their ground regardless of consequence.

But the man who would refuse cornbread and carry a bushel of wheat seventy-five miles on his shoulder, to get it ground, is not properly a subject of pity or sympathy.

Before the state had reached its fortieth anniversary, almost all parental heads establishing homes in this country, prior to the opening of the Erie Canal (1825), could, at the sound of a dinner horn, call in a large family of well-grown children, numbering a “baker’s dozen,” more or less; and oftener than otherwise, without the loss of a single addition.

The ratio of natural increase of population was satisfactory, and death rate was small. The climate was healthful; living simple and easy; house-keeping uncomplicated and destitute of style. Rural homes were all alike unostentatious, and early marriages were seldom, if ever, deferred on account of immaturity or financial circumstances; and large families became fashionable. Seldom less than ten, and only occasionally more than twenty children, were added to the household.

People may have been poor in accumulated wealth, but it was not felt or despised. A father with eight or ten robust sons had a sure foundation for a hope to see the destruction of the surrounding forest, cultivation of the soil, and the transformation of a portion of the wilderness into fields of waving grain, fruits and flowers.

It is possible, and has been no uncommon thing for heads of large families to live to see their great-great-grand-children; for it would seem true, as in history, longevity and children are very nearly related. As a rule, large families are healthy, having inherited a full measure of vital resistance. Records of centenarians show that both males and females of those who have gone into the second century have been nearly all parents of large families; and read quite similar to the following: “Alexander Hockaday has just celebrated his one hundred and twelfth birthday. His wife, a few years younger, is still living. They were blessed with twelve children, eleven of whom are living near the aged couple with their numerous posterity.”

No doubt the existing conditions of a desirable new country, and the exemption from avarice, penury or speculation, with the enjoyment of that happy state unknown to wealth, want or war, were favorable to longevity and natural increase. States of the mind and existing impressions, like acquired habits, are transmissible as certainly as that of the resemblance of physical and moral qualities. And with the pioneer posterity, much of that strong manifestation of character and mental endowment was due to the multiplicity and salutary combinations of causes. Blood will tell, but in addition to descent, posterity had all the winning influences of a quiet, simple and easy mode of living—pure air, earth and water, filled with inspiration to greatness and dispensed by nature to those who delight to worship within her temple and partake wisdom from beasts, birds and flowers.

CHAPTER III.
OHIO—PROFESSIONS: MEDICAL, MINISTERIAL, AND LEGAL.

“The subject of practical education has occupied the attention of every enlightened nation, and has ever been one of intense interest to the reflecting portion of this country. It has been a universally-received axiom, that the foundations of a republic must be in the information of its people.”[9]

In the general desire for knowledge and a steady advancement in the things pertaining to civilization the professions were in harmony with that honesty, simplicity and zeal which constituted the foundation structures of pioneer society. The doctor, the clergyman and the lawyer occupied respectively their inviting fields, and each became alike interested in the ever new book of nature, and read aloud the wonders of the New World. The calling of the physician was not very remunerative. He seldom refused to obey a call for reason of the inability to pay. Still, he had but little to do. It was not fashionable to send for a doctor and have the temperature taken for every little indisposition. The people, from instinct or circumstances, had great faith in Nature as a healer. They discovered that persons recovered from most all diseases; and that cool spring water and a little catnip or bone-set tea served to amuse the patient to a satisfactory termination quite as well as the visits of the physician.

And, it would appear, the doctors were generally honest enough to encourage this reasonable confidence to so great an extent that the good physical inheritance required very little medication; and many pioneer fathers and mothers reared large families of children without the loss of a single member, as well as without having a doctor called for any occasion whatever. And the rate of mortality remained astonishingly low until the innovation of “cross-roads” medical colleges, and proprietary nostrums received the patronage of the public.

The great danger in a free country of the learned professions being made up of evil, ignorance and corruption, gave timely warning to the medical men of Ohio, who, with the aid of the legislature, endeavored to protect the growing community against quacks and mountebanks.

The state was divided into districts of several counties each, in which censors were appointed and duly qualified “to faithfully perform and impartially discharge their duties as censors” in the examination of the qualification of applicants to practice medicine and surgery. A certificate of qualification from the Board of Censors was insufficient of itself to entitle the holder to practice, and required a license from the court of common pleas, certified by the secretary of the medical district, and placed on record in the county in which the applicant proposed to practice medicine and surgery.

The following forms were used:

“CERTIFICATE OF QUALIFICATION.

SEAL

“State of Ohio,
Medical District No. 3.

“To Whom It May Concern.

“These presents certify, That Giles S. B. Hempstead, of Portsmouth, in the county of Scioto, appeared for examination, and is found to be duly qualified to practice physic and surgery.

“In testimony whereof, I, President of said Board, have hereunto set my hand and affixed the seal of said Board at Marietta, this, the fifth day of November, 1818.

“E. Perkins, President.
Columbus Bierce, Secretary.”

“LICENSE.

“Know all men by these presents, That I, ——, President of the Second Circuit Court of Common Pleas in the State of Ohio, by the authority in me vested, do license Giles S. B. Hempstead to practice physic and surgery within this state.

“In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and official seal of the County of Scioto this, the twenty-third day of November, A. D. 1818.

SEAL

__________________________
“President Court Common Pleas.

“I do hereby certify the above to be a true copy of the license granted to Giles S. B. Hempstead.

“Columbus Bierce,
Secretary Third Medical District.”

Each medical district kept a record of all certificates and licenses issued within the area designated for public inspection, that all might know who were qualified to assume the responsibility.

The censors and members licensed composed a list of the learned and able men of Ohio. Almost every one licensed brought with him a certificate of qualification from state censors of some state east, which was copied into the records kept by the censors in Ohio.

These “Diplomas” were quite similar in character and expression, the following being a fair sample:

“DIPLOMA.

“We, the President and other officers of the Incorporated Medical Society of Dutchess County, in the State of New York, having received from our censors full assurance of the competent knowledge of Columbus Bierce in the theory and practice of medicine, and from Doctor John Cooper and others, his former preceptors, the like assurance of his standing and moral deportment, do by the powers vested in us confer upon him, the said Columbus Bierce, license to practice physic and surgery and midwifery in any part of this state, and recommend him to the confidence of our fellow-citizens, and the friendly attention of our brethren, as a person of good morals and liberal attainments.

SEAL

“In testimony whereof we have subscribed these presents with our names and caused our seal of incorporation to be annexed.

“Done at Poughkeepsie, this, the 15th May, A. D. 1816.

“John Thomas, President.

“Attest: John Barnes, Secretary.

“I certify the above to be a true copy from the original.

“C. Bierce,
Secretary Third Medical District, Ohio.”

The censors and society of the third district met semi-annually, alternately at Athens and Marietta, and the place of meeting was generally at the residence of some citizen, who volunteered in advance to entertain the doctors. An applicant for a certificate or license to practice medicine was required by law, to file with the Board of Censors a certificate of good moral character and a fee of ten dollars.

A diploma from the censors, approved by the court in the county where the practitioner resided, entitled the holder to a membership of the medical society in his district, auxiliary to the state society. Any member failing to attend a semi-annual meeting subjected himself to a fine, notwithstanding many were obliged to ride horseback more than two hundred miles to make the round trip. The attendance of these meetings, as the records show, was good, and the proceedings compare favorably with those of the present day.

Among the standing resolutions, members were “requested to exhibit specimens of indigenous medicinal plants for inspection,” and “Dr. S. B. Hildreth to procure and keep on hand at all times genuine vaccine matter, and to furnish the same to members of the society on their application and payment therefor.”

At one of these semi-annual meetings the following met unanimous favor, viz:

“Resolved, That each individual member of this society, at the next meeting, furnish in writing an account of such remedies as are known and used by the people in their several vicinities, not hitherto generally employed by the faculty.”

The import of this resolution was of much more significance than it would seem at the present time. Then, domestic medicine, or use of indigenous plants, by a poor and sparsely inhabited country, was general for diseases incident to locality. And to receive written statements on the subject from various parts, covering a large portion of a great state, by men of science, constituted an instructive record in diseases, remedies and results.

Another resolution seems to have been adopted as the rule of the society, “to report all accidents requiring surgical interference.” This may have been from the fact there has always remained a suspicion of the dual character of things coming under the law of accidents, and from which probably originated the saying that “trouble never comes singly.” This dual character of odd occurrences has been noticed, and noted more frequently by physicians and surgeons, perhaps, than by those of any other calling.

This may not have been uppermost in the mind of the Doctor when he announced to the society that he wished to report two unusual cases of “stuck balls” that came under his notice at the same time, happening to two squirrel hunters in the same neighborhood. A young man after squirrels, became confused in regard to the order in which the loading materials should be used, and put the ball down first. The ramrod, however, was provided with a remedy for such loss of memory, and the screw in the end of the rod was firmly fixed in the body of the ball; but no adequate force seemed at hand to withdraw the ramrod, as the end projecting beyond the muzzle was so short the operator was obliged to apply force by means of the teeth. After making many unsuccessful efforts a happy thought seemed born with the necessity, and he felt assured if he had the ball once started it could be withdrawn. On this theory he worked just enough powder in at the “touch-hole” of the “priming-pan,” as he judged, to give the ball a slight impetus in the right direction. And with the end of the ramrod between the teeth, and great toe upon the trigger, applied full force, adding that of the powder by means of the toe, which, to his surprise, lost the ramrod and left an ugly looking hole in the neck at the base of the skull. Treatment for gunshot wound—recovered.

The other “stuck ball” was caused by a lad of German extraction failing to close the “priming pan” to his flint-lock before loading, and consequently the powder nearly all went out at the “touch hole” as the ball was pushed down the barrel. Enough, however, remained with the “priming” to drive the ball about half way out. At this point it remained fixed, and the amateur gunner could neither get it out nor push it down.

Like a dutiful son, reverencing parental wisdom, returned to the house with the gun, and gave a statement of the facts. After being equally unsuccessful in the removal of the obstruction, the father looked carefully over the make of the gun, and said, in bad English: “Shon, oh, Shon! did you cshoot de gunne mid a zingle drigger ur mid de double drigger?” John replied that it was shot with a single trigger, which so enraged the father that he disremembered the commandments, and with irreligious prefixes declared any fool might know, to shoot a double-triggered gun “mid a zingle drigger, the ball would go only half way out.” The case was considered hopeless.

These short reports bear the only appearances of matter for levity that the writer has found in looking over volumes of manuscript proceedings of the biennial meetings.

At a subsequent meeting of the Medical Society, in 1819, an accident is given, as stated, “not for the surgery there was in it, a simple fracture of the left clavicle, but on account of the odd manner in which it occurred and the instructive sequel. The patient was but recently from New York City, an estimable young man, but not versed in the ways of the Western world,” ... “A squirrel he killed lodged in another tree on its way to the ground. The branch that held the unfortunate animal was an offshoot of an ancient sycamore which had in some past age of the world been broken off about thirty feet from the ground; but, like most sycamores, it was not willing to give up the ghost, and threw out incipient branches along the remaining section of the trunk; and at the top or point of fracture a crown of short limbs adorned the mammoth stump. It was one of these top branches that held the squirrel.

“After failing to dislodge the animal by the usual methods, he went up the tree, and on the top of the stump he found a good place to stand and bring the game in reach above his head. In the act, the decayed wood on which his feet were placed gave way and let the hunter down to the base, in a dark tube, six feet in diameter, without door or window, and no possibility of returning by the opening he entered.

“As soon as he recovered from the shock, and took in the situation, he began making voice signals of distress; but the caliber of the horn of his dilemma was too large and long to be blown effectually by an excited and injured asthmatic. He did, however, the best he could, thinking if those on earth could not answer his prayers, ample facilities had been obtained for being heard from above.

“Fortunately a fisherman had not proceeded far up the river before he heard groans of distress, that seemed to come from the water beneath his boat, and badly frightened, pulled ashore. Still the muffled cries of human distress were unceasing, and apparently in all directions among the trees—soon a man was located imprisoned in the interior of a sycamore. Friends were notified, axes procured and the hunter relieved, who gave many thanks, requesting that nothing be said about it.

“He soon recovered from the injury and to show there is no disposition in the human mind so universal as that which ‘locks the stable door after the horse is stolen,’ long after, his friends smiled but said nothing, as they looked upon a hatchet suspended to his hunting belt.” And circumstances make it highly probable that no one connected with those meeting with the accidents named, were in any way related to the enrolled men of renown, known in history as the “Squirrel Hunters of Ohio;” all are not Jews that dwell in Jerusalem.

Doctors were mostly hunters, consequently the hunter was not necessarily an ignorant man, still, in a population of many thousands, the exceptions might have appeared quite numerous. As a rule he became a man of extensive information, and hunted, not as a primitive Darwin-tailed quadruped “making a struggle for life with a club,” yet it was to supply the necessities of existence all the same. Subsistence was, however, easily obtained, and did not tax much of his time, and he had abundance of leisure to devote to experiment and observation. He was a worker in the vineyard, with the naturalist, geologist, botanist, biologist, archæologist, etc., and the aggregate co-operative labor accomplished became manifestly incalculably great. With object lessons daily before him, in due time he became familiar with the habits, instincts, intelligence and peculiarities of beasts, birds and insects, as well as acquainted with the geology, mineralogy and botany of the district in which he resided. Nothing escaped observation, from a spear of anemone to the spreading oaks of the forest. The names of all beasts, birds, plants and minerals with characters, habits and qualities could be given by the accurate and extensive observers and investigators who were found among resident squirrel hunters.

Hunter and Dog.

The man with dog and gun could answer all questions; was the only encyclopedia the collector had to consult; the formulator of scientific facts desired no other, could ask for no better. The Doctor in early days, was a man of science and literary attainments. And his avocation brought him in contact with the hunter and his valuable collections, observations and investigations, and in this way became the safety deposit of facts relating to natural history and collateral branches; in fact, the medical profession constituted a small army of zealous collectors and investigators—such men as Doctor Ezekiel Porter, president of the first medical society in Ohio; Doctors Eliphas Perkins, John Cotton and Samuel P. Hildreth, of Washington County; Doctors Ebenezer Bowen, Chancy F. Perkins and Columbus Bierce, of Athens County; Doctors Robinson and James S. Hibbard, of Meigs; Doctors Felix Reignier and J. G. Hamlin, of Gallia; Doctor Giles S. B. Hempstead, of Scioto; Doctor Alexander M. Millan, of Morgan; Doctor Joseph Whipple, of Hocking; Doctor Joseph Scott, of Madison; Doctor Ezra Chandler, of Muskingkum; Doctor Jared P. Kirtland, of Cuyahoga, and others equally well known and respected in other parts of the country and who were equally identified with the history of the state.

To Dr. Samuel P. Hildreth we owe the first extended and connected account of the geology of the Ohio Valley. His published notes on the salt springs and interesting observations on the coal deposits, with descriptions of the rocks, fossils, organic remains, illustrated by drawings of plants and shells, constitutes one of the most comprehensive documents that has ever been made of the geology of the state. And it was through his influence the legislature took steps for a geological survey, which was ordered March 27, 1837, with a corps composed of doctors chiefly—Professor W. W. Mather, Dr. S. P. Hildreth, Dr. Jared P. Kirtland, Dr. John Locke, Dr. C. Briggs, Col. T. W. Foster, and Col. Charles Wittlesey.

Dr. Kirtland was a model specimen of those noble men with great hearts, clear heads and diligent hands. He was no closet naturalist, but a student of nature in its full degree. In 1829, while studying the unios or fresh-water mussels, he discovered that authors and teachers of conchology had made nearly double the number of species which are warrantable. Names had been given to species in which was only a difference of form due to males and females of the same species. The fraternity of naturalists in the United States and Europe were astonished because of the value of the discovery and the source whence it came. There were hundreds and probably thousands of professors who had observed the unios and enjoyed the pleasure of inventing new names for the varieties. “A practicing physician in the backwoods of Ohio had shattered the entire nomenclature of the naiads.”[10]

At the Cincinnati meeting of the American Association in 1852, Professor Kirtland produced specimens of unios of both sexes, from their conception through all stages to the perfect animal and its shell. Agassiz was present and sustained his views, and said they were likewise sustained by the most eminent naturalists of Europe.[11] And it is worthy of remembrance that it is only those who base their conclusions on observed nature that make permanent reputations, and show that theory and discussion do not settle any thing worthy a place in science.

The field was long and wide as it was inviting to the man of science. And the large corps of medical men dispersed over the state, working in concert with each other, and in daily contact with the observing hunter, constituted an academy of science that will not likely ever find its parallel in enthusiasm, character and efficiency. The country was so healthy that the practice of medicine was limited and unremunerative, and the doctor who carried a gun and whistle for a dog often had much of his time and attention taken up with things other than squirrels. He conversed with intelligent hunters, and listened attentively to all they had to say, and then investigated their statements of every thing in turn, from the habits and life of the black ant, that relieves the beasts and birds from annoying ticks, up to the most perplexing questions in natural history. His shelves were loaded with mineral and archæological specimens; his cases glistened with the bright plumage of rare taxidermic birds; his drawers filled with oological information; and every rare plant, tree and shrub accurately drawn and classified, with the fruits and flowers indigenous to different parts of the state, received attention and preservation.

And the question may be suggested, Where did all this wealth of thought and investigation, scattered over the state, go to?

The answer is found in the collections of nearly every natural history society in the United States—in the geological surveys of the state, and in the everlasting records made by Thomas Nuttall, John J. Audubon and Alexander Wilson. These noted authors with pens, pencils and brushes were in the new world collecting facts—each independent of the other. Nuttall, to make a compendious and scientific treatise on ornithology, hoping to produce it at a price so reasonable as to permit it to find a place in the hands of general readers. Audubon marked out his designs on a much larger and more expensive scale—to give the exact size, coloring, etc., of the birds and botany indigenous to the country. This required double elephantine sheets, three feet three inches long, by two feet two inches wide, to accommodate figures of the large birds. Exactness was a prominent feature in making this descriptive history. The eye was never trusted for size; every portion of each object—the bill, the feet, the legs, the claws, the very feathers as they projected beyond each other, were accurately measured. These full-size drawings were engraved and artistically colored by hand, according to the pattern drawings and colorings made by the author’s pencil and brush. Collecting and formulating the material for the four hundred plates, required six year’s labor in the unbroken forests, and the publication handicraft twenty more in a foreign country. It was nevertheless completed and will forever remain as pronounced, by the immortal Cuvier, “The greatest monument ever erected by Art to Nature.”

Alexander Wilson also contemplated nature, as nature is, and communed with her in her sanctuaries. In the forests, mountains and shores, he sought knowledge at the fountain head.

The observations and records made by these collectors are the corner stones of natural history of the United States, and their writings and illustrations will be consulted when other books on the subject have passed to oblivion. Still it can not be claimed that all valuable observations have been or ever will be registered; nor that collectors did not obtain much of their vast stores of information from pioneer residents, as the acknowledgment of this fact is so often met with in their works. These authors compliment the medical profession, who in turn refer to the pioneers, students and professors in natural history—the “Squirrel Hunters.”

Dr. Coues, the standard authority on ornithology of the present time, was told incidentally by a reputable woodsman, that the “wild goose” often nested in trees along large water-courses. The Doctor could scarcely believe it, and was led to investigate, and found the circumstance to be a matter of common information among the residents of localities where the bird rears its young. Captain Bindere, of the army, stationed in Oregon, states that one year it was dry and the geese all nested on the ground; and the next year proved wet with high waters, and many nested in the trees, and asks if this is instinct or reason. Other birds that usually nest on the ground, for some reason during the wet season, occasionally build in trees, showing an architectural ability entirely different from nests constructed on the ground. The writer has known the chewink, or ground-robin to build five feet from the ground a well-constructed nest, during wet seasons only.

It is the observing man who resides for many years among beasts and birds that obtains full knowledge of their habits under various circumstances. It is the patient man to whom nature reveals her secrets; and the half-clad hunter is often a man versed in these hidden things, and can even tell how to “feed tadpoles to make them all females” as correctly as a Professor Drummond.

Through the knowledge of such men have come the great educators—the natural history societies and associations of the north-west. Is there one of these institutions of civilization that owes not its origin to the collections, accomplishments, observations and will of the Squirrel Hunter? Not one. He not only collected scientific matter, but was also the man the future looked upon as the one to open up farms, build school-houses, churches, highways, water-courses, mills, manufactures—to carry on commerce, make laws and to enforce them. He kept his gun clean, his powder dry and bullet pouch full, ready to put down rebellion or subdue invasion, or perform any other duty assigned him.

All this is no fancy sketch nor pen-picture—history written and unwritten will forever stand with his honorable mention. In the war of 1812, Ohio sent out more of these men as volunteers than she had voters; and in addition to this—when it was known General Hull had disgracefully surrendered the fort at Detroit, the Squirrel Hunters in the northern counties of the state did not await an invitation, but with their own guns, ammunition, blankets and rations marched to Cleveland, and made General Brock and his Indians feel satisfied to have the big pond of water between them and these determined men.

The following year (1813), at the time Fort Meigs was under hot fire and siege by General Proctor and his mixed army of British and Indians, the besieging general, it is said, was informed “ten thousand ‘squirrel hunters,’ called ‘Hardy Buckeyes,’[12] were on their way and near at hand to tell his army to get out of the country without delay!” On receipt of this, “not another gun was fired,” and the general with his army took the nearest and most expeditious route to Canada.

In the absence of the love of gain that comes with higher civilization, the pioneers were in favorable condition to receive literary and religious instructions. And the teachers found the people always as ready and anxious to hear the words of inspiration and eternal life as are those of the present time to learn the last quotations of the market.

The strictly moral and religious elements seldom, if ever, took part in such amusements as “shooting-matches,” “horse-racing,” ball-dancing, card-playing, or drinking whisky. And for the first forty years of the Nineteenth Century, the social condition, in regard to loading vices, had perhaps less evil than at any period since.

The majority of resident citizens were a Sunday-observing, church-going people. Although the inhabitants were sparse, the congregations were generally very large—whole families would walk six, eight, and ten miles or more to hear a Lorenzo Dow, Jacob Young, or Bishop McKendree.

Sectarian influences were but little felt. The people encouraged all denominations, though differing in confessions of faith and church discipline; each had in view the making mankind better here, and happier hereafter. “And for forms of faith, let graceless zealots fight, holding that his ‘can’t be wrong’ whose life is right.” And with a people who had many reasons to believe in special providences it was but consistent they should cultivate a submissive sincerity and desire to follow the paths of rectitude, with faith and assurance—“to such all ends well.”

In looking back upon the records made by Squirrel Hunters in early days there may be seen a most wonderful faith in the providences of practical religion—that religion which stays with the individual throughout his daily occupations of life. A simple instance of this old-fashioned piety is sufficient to illustrate its meaning and spirit of the times, taken from the biography of one born in the Quaker Church, written by himself:

“I owned two hundred acres of choice land, heavily timbered and well watered with springs and brooks. Of this, only five acres were cleared for cultivation. My family consisted of wife and two small children. Of domestic animals, I had two horses, a cow and a dog. One evening, in the spring of 1813, the cow failed to come home. Her pasture was an unfenced wilderness. The bell could not be heard, and search beyond its sounds was impractical after night. Three days were ineffectually spent without obtaining the least clue to her location; and bodings of bad luck seemed standing in the high way to prosperity.

Man of Special Providences.

“I gave the cow up for lost and resumed the work of grubbing and burning brush to enlarge the five acres a little. In the afternoon, while busily engaged with my thoughts in smoke and brush, my wife and two children appeared on the ground. She came to tell me there was a man at the house with a sad story. He had been burned out, and lost everything, and wanted help to start again. I told her we were too poor to help any body; that the half dollar in the house was all the money we had, and I did not think it best to part with the last cent; that he should go to work and earn something and not spend his time begging of people who have nothing. My good nature had got around on the north side.

“As my wife turned toward the cabin, she observed, ‘The man looks much distressed.’ And either her words, spirit, or something else, brought before my eyes in large capital letters the creed or motto of my life, ‘Do right and all will come right.’ And I called her, saying, ‘Give the unfortunate man the half dollar, and tell him we feel for him.’ The beggar left rejoicing. And while at supper the sound of the cow-bell was at the door—the lost had returned, and we were all happy again.”

Pioneer preaching was most satisfactory and successful, and piety appeared quite as lasting in members of the Methodist Church as those in churches holding “once in grace, always in grace.” It was remarkable, as stated, that in a sparsely settled country congregations would assemble in numbers so great no house could accommodate more than a small fraction of the multitude. And out-door preaching became a necessity; and camp-meetings held in “God’s first temples” were inaugurated in the very commencement of the settlements, and a meeting of the kind in the pleasant season of the year would bring together the inhabitants from a large area of country. And under the supervision of such eminently spiritual divines as Bishop Asbury, McKendree, and others, it was not strange the old lady entertained the opinion that “dogfennel and Methodism were bound to take the country.”

Methodism and its methods were better adapted to the religious wants of the people than any of the many sects that found missionary encouragement in the North-west, and it was well said by Warren Miller, of New York, recently, at the Methodist Social Union, held in Chicago in honor of John Wesley—“that Methodism has exercised a greater influence for good over the institutions of our government, from its origin, and over the lives and character of the masses of our people than any other branch of the Christian Church, can not be questioned by any one who has carefully studied the inner history of our government and of our people.”

Religious and educational interests were not neglected, and where the population was too sparse and poor to afford a week-day school, children were taught to read and write in Sunday-schools, which were open in summer in most every neighborhood. Church buildings were few, but preaching and religious services were seldom overlooked, and in warm weather were held in the groves, and in winter in private houses, bar-rooms, country taverns, school-houses, courtrooms, and other places obtained for the occasion. Protracted, tented, or camp-meetings increased, following the settlements, and becoming very popular with preachers and people—usually lasting over a week—attended by large congregations and great revivals.

Stated preaching places were free to all denominations.

Church, Residence, and Court-house.

Of the numerous log-cabins used for this purpose, only a few have been preserved as familiar objects in the history of early settlements. A house that served as a family residence, hotel, church, court-house, and school-house—a humble log cabin, of which the above drawing is a faithful likeness—is still standing.

Dwellings, school-houses, churches, “meeting-houses,” hotels, and court-houses, resembled each other so closely, it required a knowledge of the purpose to apply the correct name. And quite frequently cabins were dedicated for general purposes, but without change of pattern.

The Methodist Western Conference comprised in 1802, Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, Mississippi, and missionary fields in Indiana, Illinois and Michigan. The ministry traveled on horseback, and after conference each member would have his field of labor designated on a map or drawing. On arrival at point of duty the minister arranged his own circuit and engaged his own preaching places, so he might travel and preach each day in the week.

Bishop Asbury devoted all his time and talents to this large field of religious instruction; traveled and preached, and was so devoted to the religious or spiritual welfare of the people that he often remarked to Mr. Kendree that his work was so arduous that he “never had time to marry a wife, buy a farm or build a house.” And it can not be said that he or those in his charge had either an easy or lucrative calling—the bishop’s salary being sixteen dollars per quarter, or sixty-four dollars per annum. But he lived to see that for which he and other Christian denominations labored—ten years of the most remarkable revivals of religion that ever occurred in the United States, and of which Ohio and the North-west received a full share of the good and lasting results.

In the period from 1800 to 1810, or during the height of the great religious revival that swept over the western and southern states, there existed a singular manifestation, called the “jerks.” It appeared to follow and to be in some way related to religious excitement; to be no respecter of persons, and made victims of all classes and conditions of society. A noted divine in his autobiography says: “I have often seen the ladies take it at the breakfast table, as they were pouring out tea or coffee. They would throw the whole up toward the ceiling, and sometimes break both cup and saucer. They would then leave the table in great haste, their long suits of braided hair hanging down their backs, at times cracking like a whip. For a time it was the topic of conversation, public and private, both in and out of the church. Various opinions prevailed. Some said it was the work of the devil, and strove against it. Sometimes it almost took their lives.”[13]

The Methodist and Presbyterian ministers were working together in the revival very harmoniously. But in due time it became whispered around that the Methodists were making more noise than necessary; that shouting was a matter under the control of the will, and should be moderated. All this reached the ears of a young minister, who, at a camp-meeting in 1804, and before an audience of more than ten thousand people, concluded it a fitting moment to set matters right and explain or give the philosophy of the “jerks,” and that of shouting, and of which he says:

“On Monday morning I preached. I was preceded by the venerable Van Pelt, who, having preached a short and pithy sermon, sat down, with the congregation bathed in tears. There was no appearance of jerks. I took the stand like most of men who know but little and fear nothing, and undertook to account for the jerks. The preachers behind me looked as if they were alarmed, the audience seemed astonished at the young man. I viewed it as a judgment on that wicked community. This led me to take a compendious view of nations, to show that God’s providence was just, as well as merciful. Though He bore long, His judgments were sure to come.... I took occasion to dwell on the rise and progress of Methodism in this country, and the cruel persecutions its professors had met from their neighbors. I quoted their taunting language: ‘How, the Methodists are a pack of hypocrites, and could refrain from shouting if they would.’ I made a pause, then exclaimed, at the top of my voice: ‘Do you leave off jerking if you can?’ It was thought more than five hundred commenced jumping, shouting, and jerking. There was no more preaching that day. One good old mother in Israel admonished me, and said I had just done it in order to set them to jerking.”

The “jerks” have never been satisfactorily accounted for. Some persons have attributed the manifestations to the influence of witchcraft. But this superstition failed to fasten itself upon Western civilization as it unfortunately did on the Eastern States; and the witches imported into the North-west were so few and insignificant in character that none of the tribe ever reached recognition to an extent sufficient to obtain more than a mere mention in the statute books of Ohio. They made but little public history.

In 1828, there was a court case in Lawrence county, involving the individuality of those operating the “black art,” growing out of an action to recover on a warranty given in a bill of sale of a horse. The horse proved unsatisfactory, if not unsound. And it was claimed the horse was docile and all right, excepting for frequent periodical “spells,” in which he would stop in the midst of routine work, and, after a short pause, would rear, kick, plunge, and strike out right and left, uttering unearthly cries, foaming at the mouth, and trembling, showing great fatigue and fear. All these alarming symptoms would pass off in a short time, and the animal would again resume its normal condition and in all respects a docile and well educated beast.

It was during one of the animal’s normal periods that the defendant sold it to the plaintiff, making the usual warranty. Soon after, while the animal was quietly drawing the family to a country church, he commenced kicking and screaming, until he demolished a new wagon and tore down the “worm fences” in the vicinity of the transaction, and suit was brought upon the warranty to recover the money.

The witnesses for plaintiff showed conclusively that there was something wrong with the horse; and defendant frankly admitted all that had been testified as to the singular “spells” or waywardness of the animal, and related others more startling, but declared that this was not because of any unsoundness, but owing to the horse being bewitched from time to time by a gang of witches under control of an old lady who lived in seclusion of the mountains and fastnesses for which Lawrence county is noted.

The defendant stated to the court that this gang were in the habit of taking possession of horses and cattle, and sometimes of men and women, riding and worrying them almost to death in the night-time. That the horse he had sold (and causing this suit) was one of the victims of this witchery, and that he sold the horse to his neighbor hoping the evil spirit would not pursue it when it had passed into other hands—adding, “If witches could be driven out of the neighborhood the horse would be all right, and the people would be better off.”

Upon mature deliberation, the court went far enough in the direction of the views of the defendant to render a conditional judgment, to wit, “that the defendant should either repay the plaintiff the price of the horse, or relieve the animal of the witches.” Upon receipt of this optional decree, the defendant went up to the head waters of Little Beaver, in Pike county, and consulted a noted witch doctor who resided in that neighborhood.

After obtaining a statement of the case, the doctor concluded it was necessary to visit the locality and make a careful and mysterious study of the situation. On arrival in the affected district the doctor soon discovered that the old woman on the hill was at the head of a gang of witches, and prescribed an old-time remedy—that she be at once seized and burned at the stake.

It is reported that even the victims of the witches thought this to be rather heroic, and insisted that some milder remedy should be adopted. After several days study of the case, the doctor so far modified the prescription as to substitute the first animal that fell into the clutches of the witches as a vicarious offering at the stake.

“It was only a few days until one of the defendants’ cows was taken possession of by a battallion of witches, which apparently showed indications of complete recovery. Defendant lost no time, but called his neighbors together to assist him in tying the cow with ropes and leading her into a neighboring clearing, where there were plenty of dry logs and brush.

“These were piled around and over the bellowing animal and fired. Then began a supernatural battle. The cow refused to be burned to death and gave vent to the most piteous and unearthly moans. More brush and logs were piled on her, and blue flames leaped high in the air, assuming grotesque shapes and uttering guttural laughing sounds.

“As sunset approached, the struggles and moans of the animal began to subside and the flesh and bones began to yield to the consuming fangs of the flame; the doctor and the defendant in the law-suit, stood by watching for the denouement with absorbing interest, while the awe-stricken neighbors stood farther back in the gathering folds of the approaching night.

“There was a lurid outburst of flames, demoniac cries and gibbering as a cloud of sparks rose upward, on the crest of which were a score of witches, each with a firebrand in its hand. Up and up they rose, then sailed away over the hill and past the hut of the old lady, and finally disappeared from sight.”

The bewitched horse recovered his wonted docility, and the purchaser never again had any complaint to make. The old lady ceased to commune with witches, joined the church, and when she passed away was mourned by the entire community, and so far as known, the witch doctor never had another case, and the court records officially attest that there once were witches in this part of Ohio, but were most effectually expelled by fire and the doctor, and fled shrieking across the Ohio River, into Kentucky, where they still exist among white politicians and the aged colored population, who once served under the previous condition. All of which is a pointer as to variety, or that Ohio can show enough merely to make up a fair assortment and pattern of most every kind of people, with room for improvement by further advances in civilization that will end the least barbarous act in the attempt to diminish crime by the horrors of electrocution, the rope, or the stake and fagots.

But the “jerks,” as well as witchcraft, soon gave way before the ministers of the gospel, who were a social body of men, welcomed always at pioneer homes: although many stories have been circulated in regard to their love for barn-yard poultry. In early days wild game was common, and when a preacher called, something extra was sought in honor of the guest, and generally a chicken was sacrificed for the occasion. At one time, the minister who said “a turkey was an unhandy bird—rather too much for one, and not quite enough for two,” called to dine with a widow woman and sister in the church, who was noted for her willingness to put the “best foot foremost.” After a short time the clergyman went out to look after his horse, and heard a boy crying, and soon located him back of the corn-crib, with a chicken under his arm. “What is the matter, sonny?” said the divine in his most soothing manner. The boy bawled out “Matter! between the hawks and circuit-riders, this is the only chicken left on the place.”

Early in the nineteenth century a citizen and observing author[14] says: “There is a prejudice against all preachers in this (Ohio) and all other states is certainly true; but, so far as we are acquainted with them, and we know them well, we are compelled to say that our clergymen in Ohio, especially those who have lived here ever since our first settlement, deserve unqualified praise for their zeal and good works. No men in this state have been so useful in building up society, in making us a moral and truly religious people.

“Their disinterestedness and benevolence; their kindness, forbearance and charity, zeal, industry and perseverance in well-doing, merit and receive the respect, gratitude and affection of all good men. They have labored zealously and faithfully and long, and their pay has been but trifling. We name them not, though we know them all. They have always been the true friends of liberty, and they would be the very last men in the nation to wish to overturn our free institutions.”

The work of the clergy, though differing from that of the doctor, often caused them to meet on common ground, and they were alike fast friends of humanity and of each other. As a financial success neither could boast the superior; but in the good works in which they were engaged the minister of the gospel held the longer and stronger lever. With the doctor “death ended all;” but the lessons of the man of inspiration established a faith in a higher and everlasting existence, which shed its influence from the departed to the living, and placed in view another and higher kingdom.

For many years the learned profession of law was a mere form, and practically remained on the statute books. Few indeed were the causes justifying legal investigation. Parties having grievances preferred to settle them in the primitive way.

A single recorded instance so fully represents the infant scales of justice in Ohio that we quote the proceedings of the first court held in Greene county, in a public “tavern” with all the accommodations for man and beast.

The first court-house in this county was not located within the area of the present city of Xenia, and it was by no means as pretentious as the present structure. A primitive log cabin with a single room, in a “clearing” of a few acres, some five miles west of the present county seat, a little off the road which leads from Xenia to Dayton, with Owen Davis’s mill on one side and a block-house on the other side of the stream, was the place where the blind goddess first set up her balances.

The building was constructed by General Benj. Whiteman more than a century ago, and shortly after became the property of Peter Borders, and was selected by the “court” as the seat of justice in 1803, when the first session was held to complete the county organization. The first term of court was synonymous with a meeting of the county commissioners of the present day. The presiding, or law, judge, Hon. Francis Dunlavy, was not present, and the associate judges, William Maxwell, Benjamin Whitman and James Barrett, with John Paul, clerk, met at the Borders cabin on the 10th of May, 1803, and duly dedicated it. The session lasted but a single day, and the business dispatched was the organization of the townships. This done, the court adjourned until the next regular session, which convened some two months later.

This was a more imposing court and was convened for trying such causes, civil and criminal, as might come up for consideration. The court opened with a perfect, clean docket, and for a short time it looked as though there would be nothing to do. Judge Francis Dunlavy, then one of the most distinguished citizens of the new state, and who had served in the territorial legislature, from Hamilton county, presided, with associate justices Maxwell, Whiteman and Barrett on the bench, and Daniel Symmes, of Hamilton, performing the duties of prosecuting attorney. The grand jury was composed of William J. Stewart, foreman, John Wilson, Wm. Buckles, Abram Van Eaton, James Snodgrass, John Judy, Evan Morgan, Robert Marshall, Alex. C. Armstrong, Joseph Wilson, Joseph C. Vance, John Buckingham, Martin Mindenhall and Henry Martin, who were duly sworn and impaneled.

Chief Justice Dunlavy (as recorded) delivered a forcible charge to the grand jury, directing it to diligently inquire into and make a true presentment of all infractions of the law within its bailiwick. Duly impressed with the solemnity of the charge to which they had listened, the jury retired a few yards distant from the cabin, where they began the first grand inquest, but the most diligent inquiry failed to discover a single case requiring their attention and action.

The court, as it seems, would have proved an absolute and inglorious failure had not Owen Davis, the miller, come to its rescue. People far away as the Dutch settlement in Miami, had taken advantage of court day to come to the mill with their grists. Among the number from a distance was a Mr. Smith from Warren county. Mr. Smith had the reputation of helping himself to pork wherever he could find wild hogs in the woods, and Mr. Davis, after having turned out the grist for his Warren county friend, concluded to administer a little “pioneer law” on his own account, while the court was proceeding in a more conventional manner. Accordingly he gave the unfortunate Smith a good drubbing, and as he was an expert Indian fighter, the job, no doubt, was well done. Having finished it, he burst into the primitive courtroom where the judges sat around the deal table in solemn state and awful dignity, with the exclamation—

“Well, I’ll be blanked if I haven’t done it!”

“Done what, sir?” inquired associate justice Whiteman.

“I’ve whipped that blanked hog thief from down the country, Ben, and I’ve made a good job of it. What’s the damage, anyhow? What’s to pay?”

Whereupon he pulled out his purse and counted down a handful of silver coins, while the court looked on with horrified surprise, but said nothing.

“Oh, it’s a fact,” he went on, “I’ve whipped him, Ben, and blank you if you’d steal a hog, I’d whip you, too!”

This was altogether too much for the court, and the sheriff was ordered to go out and get the witnesses to the affray and take them before the grand jury. The miller’s pugilistic performance, however, had proved contagious, and when the sheriff got outside, he found a free fight going on in all directions, and the grand jurors watching it through the openings in the little out-house.

Everybody who had a grievance was settling, or trying to settle it in the regular way, in backwoods fashion, and the grand jury and prosecutor Symmes at once had their hands more than full of business. A score or more of witnesses were examined and by the middle of the afternoon, nine indictments for affray and assault and battery were presented in court, and the offenders, including the owner of the court-house, were arraigned. All plead guilty, beginning with Davis, the first offender, who was assessed a fine eight dollars, and the rest four dollars each. All paid their fines upon the nail, so that the court, owing to the fortunate visit of the Warren county man, found itself in funds to the amount of forty dollars before early candle lighting.

The rest of the business of the court, including a license to Peter Borders, to conduct a “tavern” in the court-house, with all the word implied, for which he was taxed eight dollars, was finished before bed time, and the court was ready to adjourn at an early hour next morning.

Daniel Symmes, the prosecuting attorney, had come from Cincinnati, making the fifty miles’ journey on horseback along the Indian trails, and the court awarded twenty dollars out of the proceeds of the fines as compensation. But when it reassembled in December following, it decided that the payment had been illegally made, and Mr. Symmes was required to refund it. This so discouraged the prosecuting attorney, he decided that thereafter he would not appear in that court as prosecutor. He was partially remunerated, however, when, a few years later, he was promoted to the supreme bench.

The first session of the Supreme Court was hold in this old log-cabin, on the 25th of October, 1803, the judges present being Samuel Huntington and William Sprigg. The third judge, Jonathan Meigs, was unable to be present, but Arthur St. Clair, of Hamilton county, attended the sitting in all the glory of a cocked hat and other military paraphernalia. The only business transacted by the court was to admit Richard Thomas to the practice of law.

The descendants of pioneers cling with tenacity to the memories of olden times, and are proud of the historic struggles made by their ancestors to establish schools, churches, and good government in a wilderness known only to savage life for untold ages. Although there was little cause for litigation, it was necessary to hold the courts of justice open, as it was to encourage schools and churches that directed society in the enlightened paths of virtue and higher plane of civilization.

Workers in religious denominations met with more or less encouragement, and mapped out their fields upon a large scale for future operations. And fathers and mothers, doctors, ministers, and lawyers worked harmoniously together to instruct, educate, and elevate coming generations, and many lived to witness the fruits of those exertions with pride and satisfaction.

Colonel Charles Whittlesey, in an address before the “Northern Ohio Historical Society,” November, 1881, says: “If our representative men are prominent, it may be a source of honorable state pride, for, while great men do not make a great people, they are signs of a solid constituency. Native genius is about equally distributed in all nations, even in barbarous ones; but it goes to waste wherever the surroundings are not propitious....

“Cromwell was endowed with a mental capacity equal to the greatest of men; but he would not have appeared in history if there had not been a constituency of Round-heads, full of strength, determined upon the overthrow of a licentious king and his nobility....

“Washington would not have been known in history if the people of the American Colonies had not been stalwarts in every sense, who selected him as their representative. In these colonies the process of cross-breeding among races had then been carried further than in England, and is now a prime factor in the strength of the United States.

“I propose to apply the same rule to the first settlers of Ohio, and to show that if she now holds a high place in the nation, it is not an accident, but can be traced to manifest natural causes, and those not alone climate, soil, and geographical position.”

No doubt, the admixture of races has in some cases added something favorable to the physical and mental powers of manhood; but, perhaps, in regard to the superiority of the men of the North-west, more must be attributed to the natural conditions and surroundings which secured freedom from all corroding influences of avarice, added to the alert outdoor life among Indians and savage beasts, with the rifle and attendant athletic exercises, that gave mental stimulation without subsequent exhaustion of mind or body. The rising Squirrel Hunter is no drone; he represents a bundle of activities that scorns a leisure that breeds an indolent stupidity.

First School-house in Circleville, Ohio. Cost $10,000 in 1851. In 1879 was remodeled by the School Board at a cost of $39,300.

The facilities for the physical culture were greatly in advance of those for the development of the mental; and it is remarkable what the key to education has in its turn accomplished—the Bible, “Buckley’s Apology” and “Pilgrim’s Progress.”

Most of the present educational influences were unknown to the generation that has given to the United States so many great men. In their youthful days libraries were exceedingly few, and books were expensive and not easily obtained; and little reason had any one to anticipate that the boys living in the backwoods of Ohio, shooting squirrels and hoeing corn, spring and summer; catching rabbits, foxes and coons in the fall and winter, and occasionally attending a “subscription school” in some abandoned log cabin two or three months, would ever become stars of the first magnitude in the literary canopy of the United States.

From the Atlantic to the Pacific—in every city, in every town—boys of the rural districts of Ohio have marched to the front. Even in the National Metropolis it need not be asked: “Whence came Murat Halstead, Whitelaw Reid, John A. Cockerill, Charles J. Chambers, William H. Smith, Bernard Peters, William L. Brown, and others.” The New York Tribune, Herald, World, Associated Press, Times and Daily News, and the evidences of success resulting from ability, integrity and business capacity, give the answer, “Ohio.”[15]

Whatever the cause may now be attributable to, there can be no question of the inherited capacity and natural and acquired ability which has enabled the “Squirrel Hunters” of Ohio to give to the nation greater and more useful men during the present century than all the other states combined.

In every channel of advancing civilization the Ohio man is found over the entire world, and is known by the stamp he bears—“none other genuine”—“O.I.O.” It may be excusable to name a few of the many national characters which an Ohio man is ever proud to recall with an admiration unknown to egotism—of such—Thomas Ewing, Rufus P. Ranney, George H. Pendleton, Joseph Medell, Richard Smith, Donn Piatt, Ed. Cowles, Samuel Medary, W. McLean, E. D. Mansfield, James G. Birney, Swayne, Springer, Scoville, Chase, Simpson, McIlvaine, Thomas Cole, Hiram Powers, Wm. H. Beard, Quincy Ward; the great inventor, Edison; the arctic explorer, Dr. Hall; the Siberian traveler, George Kennon; the astronomer, Mitchell; geologists, Hildreth, Newberry, and Orton; humorists, Artemus Ward and Petroleum V. Nasby; as popular writer, A. W. Tourgee and William Dean Howells. The latter found “Squirrels” in the spring, where they resorted for “the sweetness in the cups of the tulip-tree blossoms;” and in boyhood made “impressions” with his bare feet in the snow on the cabin floor, and in after life more lasting ones with his pen on the hearts of those who have been favored with his literary productions.

Why was it said on the 4th of March, 1881, the nation was enabled to see “three men of fine presence advanced on the platform at the east portico of the Federal Capitol? On the right, a solid, square-built man, of impressive appearance, the Chief-Justice of the United States (Morrison R. Waite). On his left stood a tall, well-rounded, large, self-possessed personage, with a head large even in proportion to the body, who is President of the United States (James A. Garfield). At his left hand was an equally tall, robust, and graceful gentleman, the retiring President (R. B. Hayes). Near by was a tall, not especially graceful figure, with the eye of an eagle, who is the general commanding the army (Wm. Tecumseh Sherman). A short, square, active officer, the Marshal Ney of America, Lieutenant-General (Phil. Sheridan). Another tall, slender, well-poised man, of not ungraceful presence, was the focus of many thousand eyes. He had carried the finances of the nation in his mind and in his heart, four years as the Secretary of the Treasury, the peer of Hamilton and Chase (John Sherman). Of these six five were natives of Ohio, and the other a life-long resident. Did this group of national characters from our state stand there by accident? Was it not the result of a long train of agencies, which, by force of natural selection, brought them to the front on that occasion?”[16]

While this painting from life will ever stand as a most worthy compliment to Ohio, it must be looked upon as but a detached part of the great picture of the North-west, in the center of which may be seen the full measure of a wise man crowned with six stars untarnished with slavery—Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, 1787.

The Ohio State Journal says of the 4th of March, 1897, that, “This is a great time for Ohio at the National Capital. The Buckeye State is very much in evidence. The President is from Ohio; the Secretary of State is from Ohio; Mark Hanna is an Ohio man; Secretary Alger was born and bred in Ohio; ... Senator Foraker, who is expected to be one of the leaders in the senate, is an Ohio man; the First Assistant Secretary of State ... is an Ohio man. In short, Ohio politicians will be in the saddle as far as national affairs go, and, compared with them, the Republicans of the other states are small potatoes, so to speak.

“Ohio has for the last quarter of a century been a great state for presidents. But it never occupied a more conspicuous position in the sisterhood of states than to-day. The Ohio man comes very near being the whole thing.”

Ohio has made her mark politically high, and still manifests a modest willingness to furnish the nation with presidents and other high officials, although the New York World thinks the kissing of the words of Holy Writ by the last favorite son assumed a rather extravagant and monarchical appearance; that it cost only five thousand dollars to seat Thomas Jefferson, while the ceremonial bill for William McKinley and the tenth verse of the first chapter of the Second Chronicles footed two million five hundred and fifty-five thousand five hundred dollars; and bannered the fifteenth verse of the same chapter, for the time being at least. For with that “wisdom and knowledge,”—“the king made silver and gold at Jerusalem (Washington) as plenteous as stones.”

And in this line, not of boasting, but of greatness, it is not thought strange, after supplying the nation with a large ratio of leading statesmen, artisans, scientists and men of letters, the state should have had in readiness for the occasion—one general, U. S. Grant; one lieutenant-general, Mr. Tecumseh Sherman; twenty major and thirty-six brigadier generals; with twenty seven brevet major-generals and one hundred and fifty brigadier generals; a secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton; a secretary of the treasury, S. P. Chase; a banker, J. Cooke, with a contribution of three hundred and forty thousand armed men and twenty-six independent batteries of artillery, and five independent companies of cavalry.

Ohio had the men—had the will—and when the call came, went into the war to fight, and of which she did her share, as the eleven thousand two hundred and ten killed and mortally wounded on the battle-fields, attest.

The finances were so ably managed by the secretary and his advisor, Jay Cooke, that a rebel leader declared the treasury, and not the war department, had conquered the South. To take an empty and bankrupt treasury and agree to find, equip and pay the immense federal army was the portion assigned to secretary Chase. And when Mr. Cooke asked the amount required daily to meet demands—the reply was “two millions, five hundred thousand dollars. Can you raise the money?” “I can,” was the reply.

Mr. Cooke organized a plan for popularizing the loan, and soon had receipts coming into the treasury, averaging over four millions per day. It must be admitted that brains, as well as bullets, gave strength and success to the federal forces, and it can be truthfully as well as modestly assumed, that Ohio furnished her share of both, with honest scripture measure.

Ohio people are not given much to foolish pride, although considered sensitive; and those familiar with the resources, industries, wealth and learning, were surprised that the glorious first-born of the family of the “North-west Territory,” should come so far short of expectations at the World’s Columbian Centennial Exposition, at Chicago. The state was all right, however, and deeply interested. But political favoritism and incompetency often supplants meritorious ability, and determines adversely what otherwise would claim admiration and give general satisfaction.

Ex-Governor Campbell, in an address recently, would mislead a stranger, when he says, “The State of Ohio was at Atlanta in 1864, under Sherman, but is not now at Atlanta as part of the great exhibit of industrial products held there, because, under, and by virtue of the last general assembly, the state credit was reduced so low, and its coffers so depleted, that not money enough could be found for this purpose. The only official representation from our state at Atlanta, in the year 1895, is on the part of a few lady commissioners, who have the freemen’s privilege of paying their own expenses.”

Does anyone believe Ohio is poverty stricken? Has anyone known the state or people to be so since the squirrel hunters traded coon-skins for books, that it could not turn Lake Erie into the Ohio River—the army of the “Southern Confederacy” face about—or make a first-class exhibit in any competitive exposition? As a statement, it is true, “Ohio is not at Atlanta.” But the absence is not due to the causes assigned, and the wonder is, she is as rich and powerful as she is, after being forced so frequently to play the part of the individual that journeyed from Jerusalem down to Jericho.

Ohio is an agricultural state, populated with those who hold the handles of the plough and fear not poverty, discontent and strikes. The native inhabitants inherited a love of liberty and independence from an ancestry who came to a wilderness to secure homes for themselves and posterity. And it was in these homes a permanent foundation for a superior civilization was laid; and through the providences of a people with homes and families, supported by natural and cultivated resources, that has transformed unbroken forests into fertile fields and developed an intelligent, happy and prosperous people.

It is an old and well-founded belief that the earth was not made in vain, but is capable of fulfilling all the purposes for which it was created—now as at any other period in its history. It is also worthy of thought that the interest in the well-being of man by creative and governing intelligence is not less than that extended to the beasts of the fields, and that his title to a share of subsistence on the earth is quite as good as that of the cattle that graze upon a thousand hills.

Every one can, and every one should, secure a share in this inheritance while living. His heirship is indisputable, and on which no mortgage ever found a right, room or reason to rest. If every cast-off from the seductive trusts, combines and monopolies—every one of the millions begging bread—had a definite home upon the soil of the earth, there would be room for millions more, and bread riots and starvation would be unknown in all the land.

Natural civilization—that made in accordance with the laws of nature—does not consist in aggregating the products of labor into the hands of a few and distributing poverty broadcast to the many, but in cultivating intelligence, securing homes, families, subsistence, comfort and happiness, by every man owning and controlling the products of his own labor.

During the first half century of the settlement in the Buckeye State, the equality and advancement of true civilization of the people have never been surpassed in the history of the world. Although their land estates were small, and with that prohibition nature had thrown around the state against all foreign imports, it might readily be imagined the living and populating a great empire on its own developed resources would naturally entail much want and distress. But such was not the fact. They all had enough and to spare, and vagrants were as unknown to public provision as were paupers or want among the sparrows, or the innumerable millions of buffalo that were provided for on the western plains.

Those who had homes they could call their own, with families and friends, plenty to supply the necessities of life, were singularly exempt from avarice, or that which since the world began has been denounced “the root of all evil.”

The first organized money power of serious import, endangering a republican form of government, was the monopoly termed “The Bank of the United States,” incorporated by act of Congress in 1816, for the term of twenty years. And with its millions of easily earned profits, it soon controlled legislation in the interests of wealth and the corporation, causing suffering and disaster to the business of the nation by making prices unstable through contractions and expansions of the mediums of exchange, so that the State of Ohio raised objections to the contemplated establishment of branches of the monopoly within her borders.

After much political discussion of the matter, a legislature was elected largely opposed to the money power, and the state in 1818 passed an act in the nature of a high protective tariff, “taxing each branch of the United States Bank located in the State of Ohio fifty thousand dollars.” The bank refused to pay the assessments when due under the act, and, like most monopolies in sight of a supreme court, disregarded the act of legislation and defied the authorities.

The law-makers in Ohio, even in that early day, had seen enough to understand the defiant insubordination of wealth, and in the act for collecting the tax from the branch banks due the state, authorized the collector to employ an armed force, if necessary, and to enter the bank and seize money sufficient to cover the claim and costs of collection.

This was done by the collector for the “Chillicothe branch,” and the state became defendant, returning with interest the money taken at the end of the usual course of litigation, by an order of the supreme court. It has often been related by those who took part in the great struggle for supremacy of law, or will of the majority of a producing population, as against the tyrannical usurpations of a money power, with its revolving satellites, that the contest threatened the peace, prosperity and safety of the whole nation.

As stated by Hon. Brisben Walker, the institution “quickly became a political power; established branches and agencies throughout the country to control votes; spent money freely for political corruption;” and when it went down, was reported in 1839, by a committee of its own stockholders, to have given “such an exhibition of waste and destruction, and downright plundering and criminal misconduct, as was never seen before in the annals of banking.

“Thirty millions of its loans were not of a mercantile character, but made to members of Congress, editors of newspapers, politicians, brokers, favorites, and connections.” And it continued to rule until the will and wisdom of President Jackson put an end to the great monopoly. He removed the government deposits, prevented a re-charter, and in 1833 made a statement to Congress, giving the grounds on which his action was based toward the bank, saying “it was for attempting to control the elections, producing a contraction of the currency, and causing general distress.” The funeral went off quietly, with but few mourners, and the American people were liberated from the bondage of aggregated wealth, and Ohio obtained a lease for a number of prosperous decades. But the war of the Sixties came, and moneyed combines grew in power and audacity, until many persons expressed fears for the laws, labor and liberties of the common people.

Taking into consideration the small number of wealthy persons among the great mass of the people, it is rather remarkable that so many patriotic men in this country, from the days of Washington up to the present time, have expressed emphatically their fears for the welfare of the republic should it fall under the destructive power of concentrated and organized wealth.

President Jackson declared it was “better to incur any inconvenience that may be reasonably expected than to concentrate the whole money power of the republic in any form whatsoever, or under any restrictions.” He had seen the arrogant influences under all the restrictions law could give, and gave the warning statement that what he saw were but premonitions of the fate that awaits the American people should they be deluded into sustaining institutions of “organized wealth.”

President Lincoln said, at the close of the sanguinary struggle: “It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood; ... but I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of the country. As the result of war corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people, until all wealth is aggregated into a few hands, and the republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicion may prove groundless.”

These and other prophetic warnings carry with them a vast degree of thoughtful solemnity, due to our knowledge of man and the signs of the times. When the successful candidate for office is made to depend upon the size of the campaign fund, and party success more or less assured in proportion to the length of figures beyond a dollar mark, the liberties of the common people are fraught with danger, if not already destroyed.

Wherever the corrupting influence of money has been permitted to enter politics, it has become more successful than just and salutary announcements, and has been used aggregatingly by the wealthy in amounts sufficient to secure their own interests, regardless of party lines or the welfare of the public. This may appear severe in statement, but it is nevertheless true to the experience of one who has seen nearly four score years of our republican form of government. The writer would gladly soften the roughness with charity, had he ever witnessed a compensating virtue or redeeming excuse for permitting the money power to run the government, make the laws and rule the people.

So great is the apparent fear, too, by the money power that the government may pass into the hands of the common people, and those less than multi-millionaires may aspire to political preferment, that organized leagues are spread over the entire Northern states, like political fly-traps, with plenty of the “sticky stuff,” in order to hold the ignorant and indifferent to the support of the rich and their party alliances. The organization of wealth for increasing its influence on legislation, or other purposes, under the title of “The National Business Men’s League,” is not looked upon in any very commendable light by the average American, and has been pronounced “unsavory” by many honest men.

“The promoters of this league,” says Senator Quay, “invokes a class against the masses and all other classes. No league of business men, based upon wealth, can erect a government class in this country. In the United States Senate we have millionaires and business men enough to serve all legitimate purposes. Senators are needed who have no specialties, but who will act for the interests of the country in gross, without special affinities.

“The people most deserving of a representation, and most in need of legislative protection, are the farmers, the small store-keepers, the artisans, and the day-laborers, and I stand by them, and against this ‘league.’ I go into the barricades with the bourgeoisie and the men in blouses.

“There must be less business and more people in our politics, else the republican party and the country will go to wreck. The business issues are making our politics sordid and corrupt. The tremendous sums of money furnished by business men, reluctantly in most instances, are polluting the well-springs of our national being.”

It is unpleasant to look upon the dark side of any question, and especially that of our lovely country, and still go on ignoring the lessons given us by the fathers of the nation. When we compare the administrations of Washington, Adams, and others, with the present ravening greed for place by those who look upon official position as the gateway to sudden wealth, the inquiry suggests itself, and the desire to know the points of compass the nation is drifting, and at what port the ship of state is expected to enter if continued on the dark lines of the present chart?

History is full of object-lessons—storms, wrecks and disasters that have ended all attempts to perpetuate a republican form of government by the power of organized wealth. Money is powerful, and may govern for a season. But legislation that concentrates the wealth of the nation into the hands of a privileged few causes the government to rest upon a sandy foundation. The common people will eventually tire, become restless and revengeful.

The money interests of the United States and those of Europe are the same. And when the accumulation becomes so great it can not satisfy personal greed for gain, it finds its way into landed investments, chiefly in the United States. At the present rate of concentration and transfer into realty, the period can not be far in the future when all the valuable lands in the United States will be owned and controlled by a few immensely wealthy families in this country and in Europe. The “money power,” with its “trusts,” “combines,” high fences, barb-wired, armed police on the outside and bulldogs within, may smile at the success giving financial control of the profits of all kinds of labor necessary in the development and manufacture of the resources of nature. Still, the aristocratic pyramid is incomplete until the soil and profits from cultivation are owned and controlled by the “systematic and satisfactory management of a ‘land trust.’”

It is manifest now that wealth is seeking unusual investments in farming lands by the money kings of Europe and America, when a single lord of England can own three million acres in the heart of the most fertile section of the United States, and have his rack-rents sent to Viscount Scully, in Europe. Sir Edward Reid owns two million acres; the Marquis of Tweeddale, one million seven hundred thousand acres, and several others of the titled aristocracy of Europe own farms ranging from forty thousand to three million acres each, making in the aggregate an area of several states. And quite recently fifty million acres more have passed into the hands of the English stockholders in the distribution of the land grants to the Northern Pacific Railroad. These large bodies of land owned by aliens—lords of Europe, with the syndicates and American monopolies and railroad grants,[17] and special gifts by Congress of one hundred and ninety-seven million six hundred and ninety-nine thousand acres to the rich monopolies in this country and Europe, amount to an area greater than the sum of eleven states of average size, and which may ere long be considered sufficient to constitute a respectable nucleus for an “American Land Trust.”

CHAPTER IV.
OHIO—HER BEASTS, BIRDS, AND TREES: AIDS TO HIGHER CIVILIZATION.

BEASTS.

In the absence of native beasts, birds, and trees, a country is unfitted for the habitation of man. Nature had given to Ohio these supports to life and aids to civilization in great abundance.

The Indian was not inclined to improve his “talents,” still he was exceedingly kind, through instinct or wisdom, in preserving in nature’s superlative beauty things necessary for the coming man.

Of the various wild animals in Ohio, no one species has ever shown greater numerical strength than the gray squirrel. In the early settlements, he often annoyed his new neighbors with his mischievous habits and petty larcenies; nevertheless, the pioneer was generally pleased to see him, as at all seasons he was good for a savory meal.

At times these little animals became so numerous and destructive to crops they were more to be feared than is the rabbit in California or grasshopper in Kansas. For many years, settlers were obliged to guard their fields when planted with corn, or droves of foraging bands would dig up the hills and eat the growing grains; when the crops matured, they were still more destructive, and boys when quite young were taught to handle the rifle, and when employed as guards became expert marksmen. Most every one old enough to use a gun could put a ball through the head of a squirrel three times in five or better on the topmost boughs of the lofty hardwood timber which covered the face of the country.

The amount of forest was so extensive and undisturbed that the squirrel at times increased to a degree which made him disastrous to crops in spite of guards, guns, traps, and “deadfalls,” and caused him to become a subject for legislation, encouraging his destruction by obligations and rewards. When becoming too numerous, and subsistence scarce, they migrate to other parts, and often in numbers so great it would require many days for the marching column of several miles in width to pass any given point. The Ohio river was a favorable place to capture and kill them, as they arrived on shore weak and wet. Many were drowned in the attempt to swim. The inhabitants along the river at such times made it a business to kill them by wagon loads to feed and fatten hogs.

The country through which an army of this kind marched left nothing out doors in the way of subsistence. The first migration of this kind causing serious alarm occurred in 1807 directly after corn-planting; and in all the southern counties of the state, it became impossible to guard the fields, and continued so long that the corn crop was a failure over a large extent of country, and farmers were obliged to buy grain for bread.

The legislature was appealed to, and a statute enacted the same year, making it imperative for every person within the state, subject to the payment of tax, to furnish a specified number of squirrel scalps, to be determined by the trustees of the township, whose duty it was to give the lister the number required from each individual. This was intended as a tax in addition to other taxes, making the penalty for refusal or neglect the same as that of a delinquent tax-payer. And a non-tax-payer, and tax-payers furnishing scalps in excess of the required number, were entitled to two cents per scalp, to be paid from the funds of the county. But, with all the boys and guns and other devices for destruction to keep the number down to a minimum, the usual amount seemed but little changed, and squirrel raids continued, occasionally, all the same.

A good story is told by an old lumberman, who, in the early days of steamboating on the Ohio river, contracted to deliver on board of steamboat one hundred thousand shingles at a “wood-landing” of one of the river counties in Ohio. The shingles were stacked on the bank of the river ready for shipment. A few days after, the lumberman heard most of his “stuff” had been stolen, and that it was probable it had gone to Pittsburg. On receiving this unwelcome news, he drove down to the river to look after the condition of things. Before he reached the place he found the woods alive with squirrels marching toward the river.

On his return the workmen asked what discoveries were made. The reply was, “The shingles never went to Pittsburg;” “they all went down the river, and it is useless to look in Pittsburg or any other place for them.”... “I got to the river just in time to know all about it. You see, the squirrels are marching and crossing the river at that point; and the commanding general is not much on a swim, and he carried one of my shingles down to the water and rode over on it, and every colonel, captain, lieutenant and commissioned and non-commissioned officer did what they saw their general do, and finally the rank and file made a raid, and I got there just as an old squirrel came down to the water dragging a shingle, which he shoved into the river, jumped upon it, raised his brush for a sail and went over high and dry; and when near enough the other shore leaped off and let his boat float down the stream. As soon as these observations were taken in, I went up on the high bank where the shingles had been stored, and found there was not a shingle left—they are down the river, gentlemen—down the river, sure.”

This story receives a shadow of support from the learned and cautious Buffon, who observes: “Although the navigations of the grey squirrels seem almost incredible, they are attested by so many witnesses that we can not deny the fact.” And in a note on the subject says: “The grey squirrels frequently remove their place of residence, and it not unoften happens that not one can be seen one winter where they were in multitudes the year before; they go in large bodies, and when they want to cross a lake or river they seize a piece of the bark of a birch or lime, and drawing it to the edge of the water, get upon it, and trust themselves to the hazard of the wind and waves, erecting their tails to serve the purpose of sails; they sometimes form a fleet of three or four thousand, and if the wind proves too strong, a general shipwreck ensues ... but if the winds are favorable they are certain to make their desired port.”[18]

The squirrel is an industrious and sagacious animal. He lays up stores of provisions for future use, and conceals them where others of his kind are unable to find them. And his memory is so perfect, and location of place so unerring, that in dead of winter, and short of a meal, he will quit his warm nest in the hollow limb of some tree, plunge into deep snow and go direct a long distance to the exact spot where months before he had buried a walnut or an acorn, and dig down and get the treasure and return with it to his home.

The Squirrel Hunter.

It was once said, “To number the Bison would be like counting the leaves of the forest”—so, too, the myriads of squirrels that inhabited the unbroken forests of Ohio evidently approached in number the incalculable hosts of buffalo that in the grandeur of their numerical strength swept over the western plains.

The rabbit multiplies six times as fast as the squirrel, yet he has never appeared in such multitudes as that of his bushy-tailed cousin. Happen what may he is, however, always on hand. He loves civilization and prefers the grassy fields, standing corn and sunny hillsides to the wilds of the forests, and is always as ready to care for the waste apples in the orchard as he is to bark around the young trees. He is an annoying tenant—timid by nature and easily captured. Millions are sold in the markets every year, but can not come up in numbers with the squirrel in his palmy days. The “one day’s rabbit shooting” at Lamar, Colo., by two hundred guns, December 31, 1894, resulted in the capture of five thousand one hundred and forty-two (5,142); but compared with a squirrel hunt in Franklin county, Ohio, August 20, 1822, it does not appear so large; when a less number of guns killed nineteen thousand six hundred and sixty; and evidently not a “very good day for squirrels to be out either.”

No part of the North-west, in a state of nature, was so well adapted to the propagation and preservation of game beasts and birds as that within the geographical limits of Ohio. To show the immense amount of large game which also existed long after settlements had been made, it is but necessary to give the results of a single day’s hunt, confined to one township of five miles square, in the county of Medina, December 24, 1818, and which is authentically described by Henry Howe in his “Historical Collections of Ohio,” Vol. II, pages 463 to 467, inclusive: “The accurate enumeration of the game killed at the center (of the drive) resulted as follows: Seventeen wolves, twenty-one bears, three hundred deer, besides turkeys, coons and foxes not counted.” The wolf-scalps were good for fifteen dollars each, making a draw on the treasury for two hundred and fifty-five dollars. Many counties in Ohio were not formed nor settled for nearly a quarter of a century after becoming part of the state, and a few much later, the last being that of Noble, in 1851, making in all eighty-eight counties.

Consequently, game of all kinds remained in abundance in Henry, Hancock, Hardin, Lucas, Marion, Noble, Williams, and some others. As late as 1845 two men in Williams county made an effort to see who could kill the greater number of deer, each confining his operations to a single township of his own election. One selected Superior and the other Center township; the hunt to last sixty days.

At the expiration of the time, one had killed ninety-nine and the other sixty-five. The success of neither caused remarks of admiration among the “squirrel hunters,” a few of whom boastingly declared they could show a much greater list in the given time if they were inclined to hunt for quantity.

When the “Reports, Explorations and Surveys” were made to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi river to the Pacific ocean, under the direction of the Secretary of War, in 1853 to 1856, the vast public domain was shown to be rich in herds of buffalo, elk, deer, and smaller game of both beasts and birds. It was at this time the bison swarmed over all the Western plains and hills, from the great rivers to the ocean and from Canada to the Gulf in numbers beyond the power of computation.

A Herd of Bison.

Of all the quadrupeds known to inhabit the earth, no one species ever marshaled such innumerable armies as that of the American bison. As late as 1871, it was estimated that south of the Union Pacific Railroad line there were between three and four million head. As soon as the road entered the territory the destruction began, and by the reports of the Smithsonian Institution, the miserable “pot-hunters” in 1872 killed over a million and a quarter; and during the first three years after the road was completed this band of thieves and murderers slaughtered over three millions of these valuable animals, taking the hides of some and tongues of others, but leaving untouched where they fell more than half of this immense number. As American game the bison exists no more. The only few remaining out of captivity are at Yellowstone Park.

It is to be regretted that the policy of the government in regard to the natural wealth of the “public domain” has ever shown such a lack of wisdom, forethought, and power as to permit the immediate exhaustion leaving nothing for the legitimate heirs. And it seems singular that such a well known and immense storehouse of national wealth, as that of the buffalo, the annuity of which supported more than thirty thousand natives of the country, should have been left unprotected against those who have destroyed the forests and killed the cattle on a thousand hills.

Governor Isaac I. Stevens, in his report of estimates of the Pacific Railroad in 1854 to Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War, says: “The supplies of meat for all the laborers on this line east of the mountains ... will be furnished from the plains. The inexhaustible herds of buffalo will supply amply the whole force till the road is completed.”

Camp Red River Hunters.

There were at that time twenty-seven known tribes of Indians west of the Missouri river, of which the greater part subsisted by hunting the buffalo; and he says of the hunters from Mouse river valley to the Red river of the North: “They make two hunts each year, leaving a portion of their numbers at home to take care of their houses and farms: One from the middle of June to the middle of August, when they make ‘pemican’ and dry meat, and prepare the skins of buffalo for lodges and moccasins; and again from the middle of September to the middle of November, when, besides the pemican and dried meat, the skin is dried into robes.

“I estimate that four months each year two thousand hunters, three thousand women and children, and eighteen hundred carts are on the plains; and estimating the load of a cart at eight hundred pounds, and allowing three hundred carts for luggage, that twelve hundred tons of meat, skins, and furs is their product of the chase.[19]

“These people are simple-hearted, honest, and industrious, and would make good citizens. Each year they carry off to the settlements at Pembina at least two million five hundred thousand pounds of buffalo meat, dried, or in the shape of pemican.” Large tribes, as the Gros Ventres, Bloods, Piegans, and others, had hunted and feasted for ages without diminishing the number or strength of “the inexhaustible herds of buffalo,” described by Governor Stevens in 1854.

This source of subsistence to a numerous and poor people, and immense wealth to the nation, was wantonly destroyed by the “pot-hunter,” who is in no way related to the “squirrel hunter,” but stands in about the same relation to the sportsman as does the “missing link” to the species he disgraces. He is a destructive animal, and it is as useless to hope any species of game, beast or bird, will ever exist in numbers too great for this wily loafer to destroy, as it is to expect legal enactments and penalties will ever prevent him doing evil.

The selfishness that exterminated the buffalo—“might makes right”—runs through the veins of the white man. In the same report to the Secretary of War in which Mr. Stevens calls attention of settlers to “many pleasant valleys” that are occupied by “friendly Indians—in some instances described with log houses, cultivated fields, barns, flocks and herds, mills and churches, with good morals and observance of the Sabbath day—that many tribes live in a rich and inviting country, and are wealthy in horses, cattle, and hogs.” He closes by saying: “Laws should be passed for the extinguishment of the Indian title. Posts are recommended with half regiments of mounted men, with a battery of horse artillery, and one of mountain howitzers; that all the Indians west of the mountains ‘should be placed in reservation,’ and the country opened to settlement.”

It is stated that with a small distribution of presents and “prudence, judgment, and display of a small military force, no difficulty will be experienced in accomplishing these arrangements so essential to the construction of the road.” And it does not appear that the government protected the rights of those in possession of the “fertile valleys” any more than it did the game it knew gave support to the people inhabiting the country. If the same careless indifference and love of greed that wantonly destroyed the game beasts which existed upon the vast unoccupied domain west of the Mississippi had in like manner forestalled the settlement of the “North-west Territory” by killing all the game, population and civilization would have been suspended if not made improbable within the past century.

The area of Ohio was well supplied with a variety of the most attractive game, fed and marked by Nature as her own, free for all—which made the early settlements contented, independent, and observing. No means of education gives the mind so much satisfaction and confidence in truth and reality as the study of the object lessons received while living in a garden of Nature, an invited guest.

“All self-educated persons,” says Doctor Newman, “are likely to have more thought, more mind, more philosophy, than those who are forced to load their minds with a score of subjects against an examination—who have too much on their hands to indulge in thinking or investigation.... Much better is it for the active and thoughtful intellect ... to eschew the college and university altogether than to submit to a drudgery so ignoble, a mockery so contumelious.

“How much more profitable for the independent mind after the rudiments of education to pursue the train of thought which his mother-wit suggests! How much healthier to wander in the fields, and there with the exiled prince to find

‘Tongues in trees, books in running brooks.’

How much more genuine an education is that of the poor boy in the poem—

‘As the village school and books a few supplied,’

contrived from the beach, and the quay, and fisher’s boat, and the inn’s fireside, and the tradesman’s shop, and shepherd’s walk, and smuggler’s hut, and the mossy moor, and the screaming gulls, and restless waves, to fashion for himself a philosophy and poetry of his own.” Sir Walter Scott long ago declared: “The best part of every man’s education is that which he gives himself.”

This was the nature of the school system in Ohio. The young population grew up among the beasts and birds and trees; each of which in turn served as teacher. Not only the burley bear and nimble deer, but even the pestiferous vermin, were aiders and abettors in education and the rise of the new civilization. The coons, the foxes, the beavers, the otters, minks, muskrats, and skunk, carried legal tenders with them and furnished the chief circulating medium known to the country for many years.

With the trained dog, the boys in the wilderness were enabled to secure pelts to send to Boston for books, which erected the superstructure of more great men than can be found as the production of any other state or country in a single century. And to-day the intelligent squirrel hunter makes a respectful bow to the little animals for the honorable part they so successfully performed in creating the new species and placing Ohio permanently in the lead of a nation of the best informed people in the world.

BIRDS.

“For wheresoe’er your murmuring tremors thrill

The woody twilight, there man’s heart hath still

Conferred a spirit breath, and heard a ceaseless hymn.”

The number of species of birds found at various times in Ohio amount to two hundred and ninety-two; while the number breeding in the state is placed at one hundred and twenty-nine; and if the probable summer residents are counted the number would be increased to one hundred and seventy-one. An eminent ornithologist says in a recent work: “To cast the horoscope of the bird-life of the future is uncertain work, and perhaps without profit; but the stars certainly predict utter extermination of the finest of all game birds—the wild turkey—and the diminution to the point of extermination of the ruffed grouse, the quail, the wood duck and wild pigeon.”[20]

Game birds as well as song birds would from natural causes alone diminish in number, as their selected homes or breeding places become destroyed by clearing up the country. But in addition to this, the unseasonable and inhuman destruction by means of firearms has become so alarmingly great as to foretell that at no distant day most of the desirable species of birds that are permanent residents will have been destroyed.

It is generally known by the older “Squirrel Hunters” that from their first knowledge of the North-west to beginning of the railroad era, 1855, Ohio was a paradise for the sportsman with dog and gun. The fields abounded with covies of quail; the forests with wild turkeys, grouse, pigeons and squirrels; and the streams with ducks and geese. Up to the period named the conditions of the country underwent but few changes detrimental to the propagation and preservation of game, and the abundant supplies afforded amusement and subsistence equaled at present nowhere within the limits of the United States.

The settlements as yet contained many reservations of continuous tracts of undisturbed forest, wild ranges, islands along the larger water-courses, overflowing lands, unmolested parts of large estates, military and school reservations, etc., often embracing sections of rich soil heavily timbered and densely covered with an undergrowth of bushes, and in topography well adapted for resorts and homes of game birds and beasts.

Few, if any, of those timbered reservations failed to be occupied by every species and variety of nature’s household. Some locations from time immemorial had been the favorite and undisputed habitation of that most wonderful American bird, the wild turkey. For he is not migratory, nor an aimless wanderer of the forest. His instincts and attachments to place, the home of his ancestors, are so great that generations after generations live and die in the same selected site of wild territory. No persecution can induce him to abandon his accustomed haunts. Nothing but death or the removal of his forest ends his family.

The area of his home requires several square miles, and includes a nursery, feeding grounds, ranches, roosts and places of refuge in times of danger. And if by pursuit he is obliged to flee beyond the limit of his range, he returns to his associates, to his familiar trees, rocks and mountain streams.

The turkey is indigenous to America, and not found wild in any other part of the world. He resides in unsettled sections of timbered countries, from Mexico to the forests of Canada, and is the wildest, most intelligent and untamable of all the birds. When taken directly from the shell, and reared either by hand or with domesticated turkeys, he will, when grown, separate from friends and accustomed comrades, and instinctively seek the more attractive life of the forest. No care and kindness can in one or two generations overcome the fear of man and love for the wilds, and it requires many generations of skilled schooling to extinguish the desire for roving and give to him that contented and confiding disposition which characterizes the domesticated bird. The writer does not believe it possible for a bird that has been reared in a state of nature, and felt the charms of the wilderness, to ever become reconciled to any other conditions of life. He once brought down a young full-grown female bird and captured her. When she found resistance useless, she cried most pitifully. She had suffered no injury excepting a broken tip of one wing, which was amputated and dressed. The bird was kept in a large cage in the back yard for two years, remaining concealed during the day and partaking of food and water late in the evening, and then in the absence of every object of fear. In due time she was removed to a garden overgrown with bushes of currants, gooseberries, raspberries, etc., interspersed with strawberry plants, and with her a pair of tame turkeys. Here she remained over two years without manifesting the least indication of making the acquaintance of her civilized relations. A misplaced board on the fence gave her the boon so much desired—freedom. It was the beginning of summer when she escaped and was searched for, but seen no more until the following spring, when she was noticed several times near the tame turkeys, and this always very early in the morning.

That she could get there at that hour, or get there at all from the timbered land near a mile distant, through farms and fences, seemed remarkable, as she could not fly. After harvest of that year she frequented the stubble fields near the timber, with four well-grown half-breeds, as wild as herself. The next spring she commenced visiting her old acquaintances again, but, unfortunately, fell in sight of a pot-hunter, and was brought in as a great prize. But those who had kindly cared for the misfortunes of the bird, and now looked upon her lifeless form, had feelings which the word indignation failed to express.

The turkey propagated in foreign countries soon becomes degenerated, and in every way much inferior to the American type, the high standard of which in this country is kept up by infusion of wild blood and liberal forest ranges adapted to the nature of the bird.

The wild turkey has many peculiarities not found in any other species. Other birds elect certain localities to spend their nights, while the wild turkey puts up wherever night overtakes him; for his range is his home, and he is at home any-where in his range. When roosting in considerable numbers, the flock is dispersed over an extensive area of forest. He seldom, if ever, roosts two consecutive nights in or near the same place. When the leaves are on the trees he goes to the topmost twigs of the highest trees, and lets his heavy body down upon the foliage and small branches, and fixes himself for the night so he can not be seen by enemies from above nor from below. When the forest is bare he is still more careful to withdraw from observation, and for this purpose selects large, rough and broken trees—trees with ugly, crooked limbs, with knots and deformities—and places himself near some bump, crook, or place where the addition of his body will be readily overlooked; for well does he understand that the ordinary pot-hunter expects to see him perched upon a small limb far out from the body of the tree, standing on his legs, with outstretched neck and elevated head. But, instead of making a show, he always does the best he can to conceal himself, and if nothing better appears at hand, he will take to a large horizontal limb, and near the trunk of the tree flatten his body down on the upper part and stretch out the neck and legs on line with the limb, so to resemble closely a slight enlargement on that part of the growth.

He knows so well how to conceal himself when roosting that he laughs at the possibility of being seen and captured by the marvelous hunters who have killed so many by moonlight! The arrival of man and gun in his forest is scented and signaled at once. The birds most exposed fly far in advance of the hunter, and those that feel safe keep still and are safe from observation.

The writer admits, after testing this mode of hunting after night, many times, many seasons, and with many persons, that he has never been able to find a turkey on a tree while roosting. He has seen, however, and measured the credibility of the individual who insists that he has captured a great many snipe in cold, dark winter nights, by holding a light at the open mouth of a bag while other persons drive them in, but has never been able to find the individual who shot a wild turkey while sitting on the roost.

A friend who had become infatuated with the idea of night-hunting, insisted that turkeys could be seen on bare trees when the moon was as light and bright as then; and the reason he had not been heretofore successful was owing entirely to the “if.” As soon as the moon was declared all right we were on the grounds; could hear birds flying off the trees in advance of us as soon as we entered the border. Every tree in our pathway was scanned, without seeing an object resembling a turkey. The writer soon tired of the amusement and retraced his steps some distance, and sat down upon an old log lying on the sand in the deep-cut bed of a creek.

After waiting a reasonable time and hearing nothing from the friend, the writer called—waited and called a number of times; but all remained silent. Thinking the hunter had become bewildered and wandered beyond the range of vocal sounds, fired one barrel of the gun off, pointing it in the direction of the moon, which was partially obscured by some of the small branches of a large sycamore tree, standing on the bank of the opposite side of the creek.

The gun made a loud report, and so did a large gobbler as he came flapping down through the branches into the creek, having received a mortal charge of shot. The signal gun soon brought in the absent member of the expedition, who, on feeling a twenty-pound bird and hearing the explanation, moved it be made unanimous, as the only successful way to shoot wild turkeys by moonlight.

Another peculiarity of this bird may be mentioned. In the spring of the year the female birds straggle long distances from the flock, and seek temporary separation in the more open but unfrequented parts of the forest, where the male birds seldom, if ever, resort. Here they nest and rear their young. When the offspring is well grown the mother birds, with young, return to the flock, after which old and young, male and female, remain together as one family during fall and winter.

In-door naturalists and authors have given to the world many singular and absurd statements respecting the habits, sagacity and instincts of the wild turkey, since the truthful descriptions penned by John James Audubon, F.R.S., S.L. and E. And it is singular that the eminent naturalist, Thomas Nuttall, A.M.T., L.S. and C., should say he is not gregarious.

Charles Hallock, the able editor of “Forest and Stream,” author of “Camp Life,” “Sportsman’s Gazetteer,” etc., states that in the spring wild turkeys “pair off” (like blue-birds), “and after the young are hatched both parents take great interest in the growth and progress of the young family;” that they are “easily tamed; are slaughtered by moonlight while roosting; that it is rarely a wing-shot can be procured; that they are killed by sportsmen in various ways,” most of which is not much less at variance with facts in nature than the statement of Mr. Burrell Symmes, who claimed that he had outwitted the sagacity of the bird, and killed at one shot, with a rifle, a large flock that infested a wheat-stack near their range. “The turkeys would gather around the stack, every few days, as close as they could crowd their bodies, pulling out wheat-heads to eat;” and, taking in the situation, says he bent the barrel of his gun to the segment of a circle corresponding to the diameter of the area of the base of the stack. And well loaded with powder and leaden ball, concealed the weapon at the proper adjustment, placing himself in view of the situation, with a cord attached to the trigger. The turkeys came, and unsuspectingly crowded around the stack, and began their accustomed repast. Now was the moment for action—“the cord was pulled, and the gun fired, which sent the ball round and round the stack, until it mowed down every last turkey in the flock.”

Respecting the habits and peculiarities of the wild turkey, the author turned up a slip from the lips of an old North Carolina negro, who gives the best pen-picture of the home-life of the bird that has fallen to the notice of ornithologists. The authography is somewhat objectionable, but the whole story is well told. Among other things he says the wild turkey is a “mighty peert fowl;” that he can sometimes teach a fox how to be smart, while at other times a sucking calf is not half so big a fool as he makes of himself; that he had known gobblers to outwit all the hunters in the country, and then walk into some ordinary colored man’s “pen” and stay there, “a cranin he neck, an’ tryen to get out at de top w’at been all roof over, wile de hole in de groun’ w’at he came in at stans wide open.”

The “pen” was a fatal device, capturing annually thousands of those birds during early settlements. Before the extensive forests disappeared turkeys lived well in the fall and winter and fattened on the mast. But owing to the love for Indian corn they were by a moderate display of this food easily enticed into traps, called “pens,” when placed in secluded sections of forest where the birds were known to seek subsistence.

Pens were usually constructed of windfalls—old limbs of various sizes—making an inclosure of ten or twelve feet square, four feet in height, and covered with similar limbs weighted down with other limbs placed across the covering. A trench, eighteen or twenty inches deep and about the same width, cut to enter the pen two feet, terminating abruptly slanting upward. Over the part of the trench next to the wall were secured a number of small poles forming a bridge a foot wide. Outside of the pen the trench extended, rising gradually, until it reached the level of the surrounding ground.

When finished, the trap would be well-baited with corn in the center and in the trench. Small quantities were scattered off in different directions from the pen, and a few grains here and there for a mile or more. After the birds would find a few grains, the entire flock would engage in search for more, and soon the trail of corn leading to the pen would be discovered, and rushing along in haste would enter the trench unawares, and forcing the front birds in the trench under the bridge and up into the pen before danger was suspected. As soon as those in the inclosure discovered the situation, they would try to force their way through the openings in the pen, passing and repassing around and over the bridge with heads erect, never observing the opening by which they entered—their comrades would soon disappear, leaving the unfortunate birds to be taken out by the trapper.

In a good location a single pen would furnish one hundred or more turkeys during a winter. One year, J. J. Audubon kept an account of the produce of a pen which he visited daily and found that seventy-six had been caught in it, in about two months. Seven was the highest number he had ever succeeded in taking from a pen at one time, but knew of as many as eighteen being captured by others. The average success of a pen, per capture, ranged from four to five. The writer has known fifteen to be the fruits of the first visit, and no more caught that season.

To make the pen a success, required great care and attention. The timber necessary for the construction was gathered from windfalls showing woodland decay; any marks of the axe, or civilization were considered objectionable. The earth taken out to make the trench, leading to and into the pen, was carefully removed to other parts; old leaves were thrown into the trench and about the pen, making every thing in the vicinity look ancient and accidental.

In many settlements the success of trapping pens was of short duration. As the country soon furnished easy access of the birds to large fields of their favorite food, they no longer could be induced to enter the baited pens. Notwithstanding the number captured by means of pens—“slaughtered by moonlight”—“by baiting”—“by treeing with dogs,” turkeys remained quite plentiful for more than sixty years after the settlement of Ohio. They were to be found in the woodlands all over the state, and for half a century remained the king-bird of the sportsman. When frightened, he seeks cover and lies well to a point. Early in the morning is the most propitious time to find him. When a flock is flushed and frightened by the rapid motions of a dog, some will fly and others run in the direction of security and cover; it may be a mile or more distant, and if so the sportsman will most surely pick up a straggler or two on his way, if he and his dog understand their business.

If any have taken to the trees, it will be lost time to look after them—they have made another fly in the direction taken by the leaders, who prefer the use of feet to wings. The dog must now keep close to his master, who moves so cautiously and quietly, that he talks to his companion by signs and motions altogether. The birds are so wonderfully fearful of a dog, and are now so frightened that some, while on the way to the place of refuge, will drop down in a secure looking spot to regain composure or to await till all is quiet. It is these the sportsman is after. Old logs, fallen tree-tops, piles of old brush, blackened limbs, tufts of weeds and spots of dead prairie grass grown in small openings among timber, afford attractive points for concealment, and are all remembered with reverence and respect as monuments of departed birds, at the death and obsequies of which the writer had been present.

The hunter must be prepared to find a bird anywhere on the line of march. The dog carries the scent and his every movement determines the distance the birds are off. Now he moves with cat-like stealth—he stops with tetanic muscular tension, quivering in every fiber, stands elongated—a fixed immovable figure—his marvelous nose has caught the image and measured the distance, which in silence says, stop!—move not, as eyes and nose direct to the place some twenty or thirty yards distant. The bird is there, and the canine head knows the result of another step in that direction—the hunter summoning all his skill and coolness, takes a step or two forward, and the bird is flushed, and starts off with the velocity of a grouse, testing sporting ability and rapidity of motion that rewards in hearing the monster fall; and a second later the quiet salute by the faithful and well-trained dog, showing he is elated equally with his master.

Quite often a turkey will carry a mortal charge a long distance and drop dead. Remains of dead birds are so frequently found during the hunting season, that there can be but little doubt many shot at and get away, die from their wounds. And the hunter should not despair of success if his shot on the wing does not come to the ground immediately. Instances in great numbers are before the writer, some of which are marked by more than ordinary singularity, where the recovery of the bird has taken place, quite unexpectedly, after a pronounced miss. One bitter cold afternoon, while out with a friend, who shot at a bird as it was flying through the timber; it continued on its course and was observed for a long distance to fly naturally but to go down too abruptly. The locality where observation ended was hunted closely and easily, as there was a crusted snow on the ground, but without finding as much as a feather. As we were returning, and within a few rods of the spot where the bird we had been searching for was shot at, another turkey came sailing over with tremendous velocity, going in the direction taken by the first one. It was given a barrel loaded with Ely’s Green Cartridge, No. 5 shot. The bird went on and down, but this time we marked the locality more accurately and were soon at the place and found two turkeys, dead and warm, within a few feet of each other. Some years before this, while standing in a little opening, early in the morning, listening for turkey sounds, the report of a gun was heard near half a mile distant, and in a moment a large gobbler fell dead at the writer’s feet.

While out with two young dogs, a bird was flushed on the bank of the Scioto river, and received a shot when near the opposite side, which so injured and confused him that he came back and fell upon the side of the stream from which he started. The heavy body came down with a thud, close to the shore, among some weeds and bushes near a large pile of drift-wood. The dogs were at the place in quick time, but could find no turkey. Thinking it had crawled into the drift, we tried to have the dogs hunt the drift. But they knew better and took no heart in spending time at that point, and required constant restraint to prevent them from taking the forest. After an ineffectual examination of the cover afforded by the drift, the superior judgment of the dogs was taken, and with management, their noses kept the course of this wounded bird and followed his meanderings one and a half miles in an air line from the drift to the point where they came to the bird on a stand. Walking up, expecting a flush, I was surprised to find a dead turkey, warm, muddy, and wet with the dew of the morning.

While it is quite common for a turkey, when mortally wounded, to continue his flight considerable distances before falling, and equally, if not more so, to fall dead at once from the shot, it is not often one will, while on the wing making his escape, change his course of conduct and come down and give himself up without being touched by shell or shot. Still, it is not impossible, for he has been known to do so, but not, perhaps, for the reason said to be entertained by Captain Scott’s coon.

One still, warm afternoon in December, 1860, with dog, the writer visited the “Fenced-in Wilderness.” On arrival in the woods a concealed position was selected and the dog sent out to look up the birds. Soon a large male bird came so near, on foot and unseen, that he scented the hunter, and rose within less than twenty yards of the writer, who fired after him one of Ely’s green wire cartridges, one and a half ounces No. 5 shot, driven by three drachms of Hazard’s electric powder. The bird was up in the air about thirty feet, going off directly in line with the shot. When the gun reported the turkey did not limber nor tumble like a bird shot, but came down precisely like a paper kite—full spread of wings and tail, with outstretched neck and legs. When the writer came up he was lying upon the ground, spread out like a bat, and the captor placed one foot and weight of the body on his neck, and commenced reloading the empty barrel. Before this was half accomplished it became necessary to suspend reloading and attend to the customer by changing his neck from the foot to the hand, in order to keep him long enough to cut his throat. During the time required to open the knife and perform this little surgical operation he used his legs and toenails most vigorously and effectively, and the operator came out of the fray bleeding and lacerated, with loss of the greater portion of coat, vest, shirt and pants. The wounds, however severe, were as nothing compared with the knowledge demonstration revealed—that this turkey was knocked down by the generation of some force, without making a scar, mark, or sign of traumatism, external or internal. A critical examination revealed no injury whatever, except the cut made by the knife. The explanation is for the scientist.

It requires a good gun, a good load and a good shot to bring down a full-grown, well-feathered turkey. Seldom they rise short of thirty yards distant; then, by the powerful motor assistance of the legs at the start, the next thirty yards are made with such velocity that by the time the gunner has “spoken his piece,” the bird is off so far that loose No. 5 shot and a fair charge of powder will not be effective unless by mere accident. This became manifest at the beginning of the Fifties. Having flushed a very large flock of turkeys near town by means of a little cocker, that made a terrible ado after them in the standing cornstalks, near the Scioto river—after hunting them unsuccessfully in the timber, a strip of prairie grass was entered, full of “nigger-heads,” extending parallel with the river for a full half-mile. The grass was tall, and the freezing weather had stiffened the ground and frozen over the pools, so it could be walked over with safety. As the grass was entered the little dog became invisible; but it was soon discovered where he was by the flight of a turkey out of range, and before the cocker could be brought under control he flushed several more. It was not long, however, before a good wing shot was obtained, and the writer started home with a load. This success and the close proximity to town induced a number of amateur gunners to try their luck, and they were directed to the locality; for it was certain, if the turkeys were concealed in the grass, they would remain there if undisturbed until their time for moving—the dusk of evening.

From what was subsequently known, it would appear that the whole flock, consisting of forty or fifty birds, still frightened, had found their way back to this place of security and concealment, and, without the aid of dogs, were walked up and shot at by the party, but without capturing a single bird.

The hunters returned with sorrow and disappointment. One of their number, a prominent lawyer and ex-member of Congress, came in with the loss of one eye and otherwise disfigured for life by the explosion of his gun.

At the close of the War of the Rebellion a large amount of uncultivated, wild land, owned by non-residents, was sold in small farms to settlers; and a general disposition prevailed, from high prices of produce, to improve much of the better class of timber lands every-where, underbrushing for pasture, or deadening the large timber for corn, and this had some influence in decimating game. Still the game resorts, uninhabitable in this way, amounted to little compared with influence and facilities increased railroads gave the pot-hunter to go on with his work of extermination in those mammoth parks of forests in the eastern and southern borders of the state, where the deer, turkey, grouse, and wild-pigeon should have found protection and a home to the end of time.

And with a diversified and wild section of country large enough to accommodate and furnish annually thousands of game, beasts, and birds, some are entirely extinct, and others scarcely known within the limits of the state. Such destruction is truly an injustice to a beneficent creator that fed the hungry, clothed the naked, made pioneer homes happy and a savage wilderness a desirable habitation for the pilgrims of a better civilization.

It is more to be regretted that in the general destruction the grandest bird in the world—indigenous alone to America—and whose love for “liberty” exceeds all other species, should be denied room enough among a liberty-loving people for a home. It seems a pity Benjamin Franklin had not been more than “half in earnest” when he suggested this bird as the emblem of our national independence. But as it is, in other ways he has advanced civilization and been a benefactor to the human race. His surpassing size, tender, juicy, and gamey-flavored flesh, places him far above all other gallinaceous birds; and his goodness and greatness are known over the world, and those who occupy his native country have secured for his name a place among the saints, to be chanted annually on a day set apart for thanksgiving and praise.

Railroad facilities enabled pot-hunters to flood the country, to shoot for eastern saloons and cold-storage houses, until the rapid decimation of valuable game gave reasons for serious apprehension that both birds and beasts will become exterminated or taken from the sources of food supply. An annual depletion of the quantity of game in a given locality is generally borne well, and is, to a limited extent, beneficial. They usually stand assessments of numbers much better than encroachments upon their borders. And it is sometimes singular where they all go to, when the woods in which they have always lived become cleared up, so they are obliged to transfer their possessions. An estate in the Military District, consisting of two thousand acres, remained wild until 1862. The agent at this date had the land cleared of the young growth of trees and bushes and put in grass.

Two years after, while riding along a road that led through this piece of timber, the writer saw a stately wild turkey, with head erect and measured steps, marching through the open timber, occasionally stopping, as though looking and listening for former companions. On the same road, after several hours, we again saw the disappointed bird on his way back to tell the sad story.

The wild turkey is now exterminated in Ohio, and the indications are he will soon be as little known as the Dodo. During his stay in the aid and interests of civilization, thousands of Squirrel Hunters were made happy, and for nearly three hundred years he has been placed at the head of the feast with all the compliments bestowed upon him in 1621 by Priscilla Holmes: “The foremost of all delicacies—roast turkey—dressed with beech-nuts.”

The quail, another valuable game bird, has, until within a few years, been an abundant, permanent resident of the state. It is scarcely necessary to say a word in his praise, for Bob White is a smart little fellow, an early riser, and worth millions to agricultural interests while living, and unequaled on toast when dead.

At the date of the first settlements in the territory the bird was undoubtedly very retired, as well as few in number. The extensive and dense forests, covering almost the entire country, made it ill adapted to his nature; and those which were enabled to perpetuate existence occupied some of the limited open tracts of land found here and there over the country. Bob White is really a bird of civilization. He flourishes most near the abodes of man. The cultivation of the soil and settlement of the country increases his numbers. In support of these conclusions we will here refer to the fact contained in a statement made by a gentleman who, with family, settled in Ohio in the spring of 1798, and located on the border of a small prairie—seemingly a favorable situation for the bird. He resided several years in that locality, raising wheat, corn, and other kinds of produce, without hearing the voice of the quail. He had about abandoned the anticipation of quail shooting, and questioned if it would ever be recognized as a sport in Ohio.

One day in early summer of 1802 he thought he heard the recognized though suppressed sound, “Bob White.” Somewhat doubting the sense of hearing, he immediately made observations and procured additional evidence—that of sight. Yes, he actually heard and saw the bird for the first time in Ohio. Elated with the good news, he proceeded to the cabin and told his discovery with so much excitement and enthusiasm that it created a laugh at his expense. He excused his manner, however, by saying, “It was sufficient to excite any one to know that a highly-esteemed and familiar friend had found the way through such an interminable wilderness, and announced his arrival in that modest and meaning way, ‘Bob White.’” Since then he has been known as a permanent resident.

The greater portion of the year the old birds, with the family increase, remain in coveys. In early spring this general attachment is broken up by pairing, each pair selecting a locality, where they remain during the breeding season. When mating and selection of locality has taken place, it is known by the demonstration of the male, who gives the whole neighborhood due notice of his domestic intentions by frequent repetitions of his cheerful and well-known notes, “Bob White! Bob White!”

When paired the two are constant companions, ever watchful and devoted to the welfare of each other, sharing equally the duties and responsibilities of wedded life; and from the appearance of the first offspring to their settlement in the world, as faithful father and mother, remain unceasing protectors and providers for the family. This extraordinary strength of attachment and exhibition of natural affection has attracted the attention of all their friends.

While living on a farm the writer discovered a nest, nicely concealed by tufts of grass after being constructed, under the projecting end of a fence rail. At the time there were in it five eggs. This number increased daily until twenty-three eggs filled the nest, and incubation began. All went on happily, until one morning there was evidently great distress in that little household. The male bird was sounding his anxious alarm—going hurriedly from one part of the farm to that of every other—sometimes flying, sometimes running; stopping a moment here, a moment there; calling at the top of his voice for his mate, in his peculiar tone of distress. His unanswered cry soon told the tale—some accident, some ruthless hawk, some sneaking cat, or some other enemy, had captured and destroyed his faithful companion.

He kept his calling for several hours, sometimes coming quite near, making a low chittering noise, as if suspicious something could be told—that the writer could tell him where his love had gone. Far from it, he too was in search of anything that could give a clue to the whereabouts of the unfeeling wretch that had done the bloody deed—he too was excited, and would have executed the severest penalty known on the guilty one, if found.

The nest was occasionally observed during the forenoon, with merely the thought she might be testing the affection of her lord, or playing him a practical joke; but no, the eggs were, at each visit uncovered. About noon-day, his lamentations ceased, and hoping his mate had returned, the nest was again visited, and was surprised to find Bob on the nest, keeping life in the prospective family.

For several days he left the nest frequently to make further search for his missing sweetheart. One morning, as usual, I called to see how the little widower was getting along, and found nothing but a bundle of shells—every egg had been hatched. Not far from the nest was heard a crickety sound—“chit, chit, chit”—and soon discovered Bob with his brood. He continued to care for the motherless young, as the writer can testify from frequent meetings, and reared a fine, large covey, which received protection and sympathy during the following fall and winter, of all the farm hands and sportsmen, who knew him and his well-behaving family.

Quail are not strictly granivorous. In autumn and winter they subsist chiefly on grain, berries and weed seeds. But in the spring and summer their food is almost exclusively composed of worms and insects. While Henry William Herbert extols the benefits the agriculturist derives from the consumption of weed seeds by these birds, he does not seem to have been aware the quail is the greatest worm and insect enemy of all the birds of North America, and are of more valuable service to crops and trees than all other birds combined. A few coveys carefully preserved would protect the farmer against the ravages of many destructive insects, which are more to be feared than the “rag-weed, the dock, or the brier.” The writer examined one accidentally killed, several years ago, in the month of June, and its crop contained seventy-five “potatoe-bugs,” besides numerous smaller insects. And, if for no other reason, the farmer should protect the bird as his best and most reliable exterminator of worms and insects, which, if undisturbed, accumulate to the great detriment of growing grain and grass, and to orchards and gardens. The quail regards man as his friend, though a stranger to his sympathy and protection. If not for ill-treatment and general manifestation to exterminate his species by those whose friendship he courts, he would soon become quite as domestic as the barnyard poultry. In fact, he frequently presses his claims perseveringly in this line by establishing partnership and social relations with domestic fowls. It is not uncommon to find a hen and quail occupying the same nest, until the complement of eggs are deposited by each, at the end of which time the quail usually submits the incubation to her partner.

Quail are pursued by man, beast, bird, and reptile; but with a fair opportunity and timely warning they manifest a wonderful faculty for evading their foes; and, excepting the “pot-hunter,” they are provided with ample means for self-preservation. He who steals upon a covey while enjoying the sunshine by some stump, log, or fence-corner, seated in a space less than the circumference of a half-bushel measure, and betrays a confidence by firing upon them in this unsuspecting attitude, filling his bag with the dead, and marching off with the brand of “sneak-thief” upon his brow, is a “pot-hunter.” He, too, who, with a show of indifference, rides about, pretending to be overseeing his own affairs, whistling around until the poor unsuspecting birds, in order to get out of his way, unconsciously walk into a net prepared for them, and as a reward for this confiding friendship triumphantly mashes their heads, is a pot-hunter. Against such the bird has no protection.

When coveys have warning of danger, and wish to evade detection, they will conceal themselves from their enemies, in a most magical manner, by a singular concerted action, seemingly, withholding their “scent,” so it is often impossible for the best dogs to detect them, even in the most favorable cover. It is quite amusing to witness the changes that come over the amateur sportsman when he fails to put up his birds. He knows where they are, at least he thinks he does, for he “marked them down” in the meadow of short grass within a few yards of a stump or tree. Then, it is such a commentary on his dogs, for he knows they are all right—never better, truer noses; still they go over and over, round and round, without winding a bird, or coming to a point. There! that dog has flushed a bird! Now he is assured the whole covey are within twenty feet of that spot; and he renews his search, and keeps his dogs going over and over the same locality, until both dogs and gunner, disgusted, quit the place.

How they got away, and where they all went to, and why that single bird remained where the covey went down, and why the dogs did not point that bird, all passed through the mind of the hunter, as he marched on in search of better luck.

The amateur perhaps meets his experienced friend, to whom he relates his disappointment, and who in reply proposes to return to the meadow of the “marked down” covey. After a time they do so, and every dog at once winds his bird; and each come to point—these are flushed and shot at. The dogs are made to move cautiously, and again the trio stand, each having a bird under point. This is repeated until every bird has gone the gauntlet.

Quail shooting has been, but is no longer, an interesting field sport in Ohio. Wing shooting, while diminishing the aggregate number, by subtracting from each covey, does not often destroy the entire family, and under proper legislation, has its benefits and advantages, and generally insures the preservation of an abundance to propagate another season. The sport, also, to some extent, draws from the destructive spoils of the pot-hunter and trapper, making the birds coy, suspicious and not easily seen. True, there is a possibility that the sportsman with dog and gun may destroy a whole family by shooting on the wing. A chapter of this kind occurred to the writer. While riding along the road in a buggy with a friend, our pointer companion came to a stand some distance in front, with nose and tail paralleled to the line of fence. The birds rose by concert in line along the fence, while the rear bird, or first to rise was covered and fired at. The atmosphere was so the smoke obscured results, excepting that of a wounded bird crossing the road for a sorghum field. An effort was made to intercept and capture it, but failed. The friend who sat in the buggy and had a good view of the situation, declared every bird fell. A walk over the ground proved it true, as from the first to the last in the distance of about twenty yards or more, eleven dead birds were picked up. The next day on passing the spot, the dog came to a point on a wounded bird, which was captured and killed as a kindness. Here the whole covey was exterminated; but as the perpetrator felt “sorry” for the act, and did not intend it, and would never do it again, it should not be considered unpardonable.

The quail is a bird favorable to the happiness of man and advancement of civilization, is of inestimable value as a permanent resident, for the reason he is independent of forests for the maintenance of existence and perpetuation. He is the bird of field and farm and the only one from which a single pair can produce and rear to maturity more than half a hundred young in one season, to present as choice morsels of food for the weary farmer and protector.

It is comforting to the sportsman to feel assured there is one resident game bird the iniquity of the pot-hunter can not exterminate. So long as forests and mountains last, the Ruffed Grouse will be able to maintain an abiding place. And many are the pleasant reminiscences of the hunter connected with the pursuit of this wary bird; it is a sport once enjoyed can never be lost from among the sunny associations of the past. Even the name brings to view the ragged mountains, rocky ravines, shady dells, babbling brooks and quiet streams in forests, ripe with every shade and tint of autumn colors, quiet secluded places where nature reveals her sweetest charms in inimitable splendor that mocks the artist’s pencil and poet’s pen—the home and haunts of this beautiful bird.

It does not seem reasonable that the indifference of the people should permit the depopulation of the earth of all its birds! It is sorrowful to contemplate a place where no bird exists excepting the “English sparrow.” Of the known species, amounting to over five thousand, that once glorified the life and beauty of the earth, more than one-half the number has already disappeared forever.

The Chicago Tribune, of August 11, 1895, on the “Destruction of Birds,” tells the truth, a horrible truth, when it says: “If masculine greed and cruelty, and feminine vanity and thoughtlessness, are not in some manner restrained or punished, it is only a question of time, and very short time at that, how soon the earth will lose its birds.” That the Seattle Argus called attention to the danger of the utter extermination of game birds by the destruction of their eggs on the Alaska breeding grounds—ducks, geese, swans, and other migratory birds, seek the low lands along the Yukon river for their nesting places. The egg-hunters gather their eggs by millions in these as well as other localities in South-western Alaska, where the birds resort, and sell them for the purpose of manufacturing egg albumen, a commercial article. The destruction of these millions of eggs every spring and summer is rapidly reducing the number of game birds, and the flocks every year grow smaller and smaller. Senator Mitchell, of Oregon, introduced a bill at the last session of Congress for the protection of these game birds, but of course it did not come to vote, and it probably never will. The game birds will share the fate of the four-footed game; grow fewer every year, and finally disappear altogether.

“When one remembers that thirty years ago the skies were almost darkened by flights of pigeons across Indiana and Illinois, and that branches of trees were broken by their weight and numbers, and that the other day a wild-pigeon shot in Southern Indiana was regarded as rare a curiosity as a white blackbird, it can be realized how rapidly game birds are disappearing. The game birds which are not migratory are also hunted down in spite of game laws, and every year grow scarcer and dearer in the markets. If nothing is done to protect (more effectually) there will soon be an end of game birds. The greed of gain will end their existence.”

Of all the birds in Ohio and the North-west, the wild pigeon was by far the most numerous. Those who have witnessed their flight, from early morn until approaching night, all going in one direction, without cessation for a number of consecutive days, were ready to believe pigeons were as the sands of the sea, innumerable, and could never be exhausted. But, alas! inventions came, the foes of bird-life: railroads and telegraphs. And for many years, winter and summer, the pigeon was traced, pursued, netted and trapped, at feeding places, by gangs of pot-hunters, keeping tons of dead birds all the time in transit to the large cities. Year after year, from coast to coast, this bird was followed, invading the breeding places and destroying the young and old, until the wild pigeon now exists in history, and may be seen mounted by the taxidermist.

The birds that are not game, the women in their vanity and thoughtlessness are rapidly destroying those having an attractive plumage, and millions of humming-birds, orioles, bluebirds, starlings, indigo-birds, redstarts, redbirds, and many others, are annually slaughtered to gratify an inhuman and uncivilized fashion. For more than ten years this destruction has been increasing, and birds are diminishing in this and other countries until extermination is near at hand. Jules Forest says of the bird of paradise: “They are so industriously hunted that the males are not permitted to reach full maturity, and the birds which now flood the market are for the most part young ones, still clothed in their first, plumage, which lacks the brilliancy displayed in the older bird, and are consequently of small commercial value.” As to the tuft of delicate plumes which are so much in demand by milliners, and sold by them as real, are often mixed with ospray tips, which, to the shame of womanhood, have so long been in fashion and are still used. I may state on trustworthy authority, that “during the last season one warehouse alone has disposed of no less than sixty thousand dozen of these mixed sprays.” And the question comes: Is there no way to stop it? Must bird-slaughter go on to gratify a weak and cruel vanity, that should be met not only with public scorn, but also by the strong arm of the law, to reach the possessor or the hat, as it does the fisherman and his net or the hunter and his gun.

As the country became partially settled and the larger game supply diminished by unseasonable killing, clubs of squirrel hunters organized and laws wore enacted protecting beasts and birds with a close season. The good, the social and intelligent, became members for what there was in it. These clubs entertained no secrets, and did not pattern after any of the ancient orders with which the United States appear overblessed, nor were they given to boasting of their pedigrees. No one ever claimed King Solomon was “the father and founder,” although he might have been; and members were satisfied and sanguine that Mr. Nimrod, the mighty hunter, for a saint, was in morals as good as any of them.

These clubs had also many improvements over ordinary societies. A candidate for membership was not obliged to ride a goat to get in, nor with bandaged eyes go down into a dangerous pit to search for the tables of stone that Moses brought home the ten commandments on. Neither had the clubs any use for a catechism of secret signs to let the brethren know when a member had been guilty of something unwelcome to society, and needed assistance. They were all Squirrel Hunters, and members recognized each other by the absence of society pins and want of superlative adjectives at the front end of their names. The only thing recorded in which these clubs resembled any other order or society was in having a great many glorious banquets. They cultivated the social and democratic principles, owing allegiance nowhere, to no one or any thing, but the government and country covered by the American flag.

The objects of these clubs were the study of natural history and to secure and enforce all laws for the preservation of game beasts and birds, as well as the summer songsters that give life and happiness to forest and field.

These clubs labored hard to enforce legislative enactments against pot-hunting and thoughtless destruction of birds, but found it more difficult to capture the violator and public opinion than to subdue British and Indians or frighten an army. People generally had embraced the idea that birds, beasts and trees could never become seriously decimated, and it was useless to offer them protection, which made it troublesome to obtain a verdict against offenders by either judge or jury. The motives of such prosecutions were generally misconstrued, or plaintiffs made subjects of sport or ridicule.

The following is taken from the records and proceedings of one of the earliest organized and most worthy game clubs in Ohio. It appears the offender was a lawyer, who enjoyed fine grounds and an elegant garden, and amused himself shooting little birds that came to share his bounty, or obtain a pittance by way of interest for the good they had by nature rendered. The club gave the lawyer notice and request to desist such cruelty, or it might become necessary to call the attention of the officers of the law to the matter.

To this the club received the following reply, worthy of preservation for its wit, humor, and literary ability:

“To N—— E——, Secretary of Branch No. 3, Ohio Game Club:

“My Dear Sir—Your esteemed favor of yesterday has been received, and at an early date I hasten to reply, not knowing just what punishment would await me should I fail to be prompt in my responses. As to the ‘birds of various kinds’ of which you speak, I move to amend in order to make more specific and certain, by stating what kind of birds, what number, when killed, and by what means. If required to plead to the general charge, I would enter a plea of ‘not guilty.’ Permit me to say that I only killed birds of prey, and I only pray that I may kill more of them. I always bury all I kill; I berry them before I kill them, and bury them afterwards.

“I am exceedingly sorry that my fancied misdeeds have rendered necessary a special meeting of the ‘club,’ or to have been the innocent occasion of the least trouble to either the officers or members of that useful and ornamental body. Be kind enough to say, with my compliments, to the association of which you have the honor to be secretary, that the doors of the Temple of Justice, like ‘the glorious gates of the gospel of grace,’ stand open night and day, and the ‘club’ will please consider itself invited to enter and become ‘involved in the intricate meshes of the law.’

“Allow me further to say that I expect tomorrow morning to be on my premises, near the city, engaged in my usual and ordinary amusement of destroying birds of prey; and as it is the ‘early bird that catches the worm.’ I would suggest to members of your valuable association, through their secretary, that they meet at an early hour, say half-past five in the morning, either at Dodson’s store or at the well-known grocery stand of John L. King, and proceed in a body, in full uniform, to the premises alluded to in your correspondence. It might be well to have music, and march to the tune of ‘Listen to the Mockingbird,’ or such other appropriate music as your orchestra may select.

“One other suggestion: I am constitutionally and proverbially careless in the handling of firearms, and it may be well to make that statement to the members of your organization, so that should a stray shot fall wide of the mark at which it was aimed, they may feel a sense of security behind such intrenchments as nature or art shall have provided. Ice-water and sponges will be furnished free to each and every member who attends, but no gin cocktails will be given.

“Very truly yours, H——.”

It seems an unanswered question, how the natives preserved the forests from fires, and maintained the numerical strength of the species of animals on which they subsisted. The countries in which Indians have been found subsisting by hunting, are known to have forests undisturbed by fires for thousands of years, and containing a full complement of all kinds of game indigenous to the locality. This country, at the time surrendered, was fully endowed with all the gifts of nature. Love had preserved the forests from fires, protected the game beasts and birds, and shown natural wisdom enough not to kill the goose to obtain the golden egg.

How these wise results were accomplished are unknown to civilization. But it can be stated as a fact, new countries have never suffered from forest fires or the destruction of their game at the hands of the Indian hunter. Even in limited and crowded reservations he manages to preserve the forests, and in some way to keep on hand a supply of animals to the full extent the conditions of nature will admit. The instinct to kill no more than enough for present use, though he may suffer from hunger the next day, probably has had a favorable influence on game and its preservation.

While practically a resident of an unsettled Indian country (the northern portion of Iowa Territory), in 1845, it was noticeable that there existed no lack of game, nor variety, although pretty densely populated with Winnebagoes, Sioux and Fox Indian, who derived their meat chiefly from the yearly increase of game furnished within a limited territory.

Soon after the close of the treaty with those tribes, made by General Dodge in the summer of 1845, at Fort Atkinson, the writer, with a friend, passed through the hunting grounds for more than one hundred miles, and saw a number of large flocks of wild turkey and larger game in abundance. We followed the deep-cut channel of the romantic Turkey river for sixty miles in the Indian country, and during this ride the young birds were seen flying from bluff to bluff, crossing the river on their daily round in search of food.

And we believe it is true: No game laws enacted by white man can prove as effective in the protection of game as those enforced by Indian hunters. The red man never scares game from the region in which he hunts. He steals upon the deer or wild turkeys with the soft tread of moccasined feet, and dressed in accord with the tints and tones of plain and forest, the animals are satisfied with trying to avoid his presence without quitting the region selected as their home.

Turkey River, Iowa, 1845.

An old-time hunter in the West makes the statement that ever since the general adoption by Indians of firearms for hunting, it has not been found that game has diminished in regions where the white man is an infrequent visitor. It is when white hunters invade their haunts, with the tread of booted feet, their clothes alien to surrounding nature and with dogs and bluster, that all kinds of game are bound to be killed or driven away. And as Sir Samuel Baker, the explorer, asserts of African game and predatory creatures: “Animals can endure traps, pitfalls, fire, and every savage method of hunting, but firearms may be used to clear them out from extensive districts.” Still, under prudent use known to Indians only, game of our forests and plains may be preserved indefinitely and in abundance of all kinds.

TREES.

“Half the mighty forest

Tells no tale of all it does.”

“Individual avarice and corporate greed will soon cause all the mineral lands to be stripped of their forests.... Wealthy companies have been organized, mills erected, and the most valuable timber accessible is being rapidly cut off. That which is every one’s property is no one’s care, and extravagance and waste are the natural consequence of negligent legislation.”[21]

The increasing destruction of the timber belts of this country is certainly enough to alarm the nation. The Census Office prepared for distribution a bulletin bearing upon this subject for the consideration of the people of the United States. The lumber production—which means tree destruction—in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan in the last decade increased twenty-nine per cent in quantity and seventy-five per cent in value, and according to the eleventh (last) census, the capital invested in the milling business in the three states named shows an increase of one hundred and fifty-seven million five hundred and thirty-one thousand dollars.

United States Senator Henry M. Rice, who spent considerable time in Northern Minnesota treating with the Indians, says: “This timber cutting is going on for fifty miles up the Baudette, North and South Fork rivers, and that the Indians declare that it has been going on for more than a dozen years by Canadian lumbermen.” It is stated on good authority that more than two hundred million feet were floated through the Lake of the Woods in 1894. And Senator Rice says: “So bold have these timber robbers become that they have built dams in the tributary streams for the purpose of backing up the water and floating out their logs.”

When these extensive thieving operations were conveyed to the authorities, one lone “timber inspector” was sent up in this vast district and made his headquarters in the wilderness one hundred and fifty miles from the nearest point from which he could obtain any assistance, and it is generally believed, in Minnesota, that the “timber inspector” failed to “hold up” several thousand Canadian robbers, who were engaged in floating American timber across the line and filling their pockets with gold.

The Minneapolis Journal has done much to call the attention of the people of that state, and the Nation, to the unparalleled destruction of this greatest gift of nature, and quite recently says:

“The reservations which have been ceded by the Chippewas in this state to the government embrace the heaviest white pine forests now available as a source of lumber supply. These forests are largely contributory to the retention of the moisture which feeds the streams and lakes that make the sources of the Mississippi river.

“Already there is much said about the great commercial value of these pine lands, and there is not the slightest doubt that as soon as the region is opened by the government the work of destruction will commence, which will speedily lay bare the soil and subject it to the drying influences of the sun and wind, or to the forest fires, which will kill every young growth which appears, and destroy even tree seed, which has been borne there by the winds. The result of this will be the diminution of the sources of the supply of the Mississippi, which will be felt by every water power company from Itasca to Fort Snelling.

“These are grave consequences, and the question is: Shall the denudation of this new region be allowed to go on without some regulations as to cutting and forest renewal? There would seem to be a good opportunity to bring to bear the world’s experience in forestry. This reckless cutting and selling the forests will bring temporary gain to the lumbermen, but will ultimately destroy agriculture and water-power interests as well as the healthful conditions of the country.

“In France, whole communities were ruined by the denudation of their lands; and obliged the government to enter upon the work of restocking this ruined section of country with young trees at a cost of many millions of dollars; all to regain what had been lost through indifference. But how is it now? The region of the Landes, which fifty years ago was the abandoned country of little value, inhabited by a few sickly shepherds, who wandered over the country with their meager flocks, is now the most prosperous part of France. It has been made so by the planting of forests, and has now saw-mills, charcoal kilns, turpentine works, thriving towns, and fertile agricultural lands, and a growing and increasing valuation, and the net gain to the government by the expenditure amounts to over two hundred million dollars.

“Not until the sheltering influence of trees has disappeared, the climate made variable with sharp and sudden changes of temperature, successions of thaws and freezings; not until springs and brooks become dry in summer, and a failure of all kinds of crops and plants, does the improvident ask or even wonder what the matter is.

“Every reserve of timber in this country ought to be sacredly guarded by the government, and timber cutting be put under stringent regulations, looking to the continued protection of the streams. Unless this is done the Mississippi river will surely change its character. It will become a shallow, sluggish stream, unable to carry off impurities, and useless for navigation or water-power. It will not take very long to effect this change, if the forests are destroyed in the northern part of its source. A present gain in lumber will mean very great injury to all other material interests.”[22]

A special from St. Paul says—“From Rainy Lake to the Lake of the Woods, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, the entire country is covered with a heavy growth of timber and is mostly pine, and is totally uninhabited save by scattering bands of Chippewa Indians. That these two great lakes are connected by Rainy Lake river, one of the finest navigable streams in North America; and on which its branches and the Lake of the Woods, no less than twenty steamers and tugs ply from early spring to late in the fall, conveying stolen timber from the United States to Rat Portage, Keewatin, and even to Winnipeg, where it is manufactured and sent wherever a market can be found.

“Keewatin and Rat Portage are the centers of the timber depredations and act as a base of supplies for the depredators. Nearly all the numerous fleets of steamers plying on the lake find their home in these two towns. The Dominion Government considers its side of the line important enough to demand a station at Hungry Hall, on the Canadian side of the mouth of Rainy Lake river, as well as at several other points between the Red river of the North and the head of Lake Superior, but the United States Government, though knowing the amount of valuable timber in the district desirable, has no port between St. Vincent and Lake Superior.

“When it is realized that all this timber belongs to the wards of the United States, the Indians, or to the Government itself, it is hard to see on what principle the states can so neglect this great timber belt. Not a foot of this timber can be sold or in any way disposed of until it has been appraised and surveyed. And it was asked that the Minnesota delegation in Congress take steps at once to have Congress pass a measure authorizing the placing of a revenue cutter on the Lake of the Woods, and equipping two posts, one near Rainy Lake, and the other directly across from Hungry Hall, where one lone timber inspector is supposed to be. But has any thing been done? The State Senatorial Committee of Minnesota, in an investigation of frauds against the state, found the timber pirates responsible for most all the calamities from fire which have befallen the timber lands of the state. After stealing millions of dollars worth of timber belonging to the state, in order to cover the theft, have started fires which have resulted in those terrible losses of life and property. Firing the lands they had fraudulently cleared in order to render the measurement of stumpage impossible, and thereby shut off any suits a commission might attempt to bring against them. In putting the torch to the ‘toppings,’ every thing is destroyed—stumps, young trees and frequently valuable timber, to the amount of many million dollars.”

In all the pine belts in the western country there is a loud demand by honest citizens, that the manner of cutting timber be severely regulated. It has been clearly shown from time to time that this forest destruction in the United States without restitution, is still going on at the enormous rate of over ten million acres annually, and must soon land the country in all the ills due to forest famine.

Senator Paddock, of the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, reports that the United States Government retains somewhat less than seventy million acres of public domain, which is designated as timber or woodland, mostly situated on the slopes and crests of the western mountain ranges. The above estimate may be too low, but if not, the entire forests of the Government are scarcely sufficient of themselves to supply the vast demands of the country another decade.

In 1889, it was estimated that Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming contained fifty-three thousand square miles of forest—Colorado and New Mexico, thirty thousand; and that other portions of the public domain were covered with large and valuable belts, and of which the Hon. Secretary of Agriculture says in his reports: “We are wasting our forests, by axe, by fire, by pasturage, by neglect. They are rapidly falling below the amount required by industrial needs, by our water supply, by our rivers, by our climate, by our navigation and agriculture. It is high time to call a halt. The devastation of the axe will probably go on in the forests owned by private parties. Other forms of devastation can and should be stopped by vigorous measures on the part of the Government.”

“Our only hope,” says Secretary Rusk, “is to save what forests we have still in public possession, ... not allowing them to be cut except under such conditions as will insure ample reproduction.”

Six years have passed since the above important declarations were made, still nothing has been done to deter the thieves or ward off a pending calamity.

For future forest supplies the people of the United States must look to the general government which controls the national domain, holds the keys of the public treasury, and is responsible for this source of national wealth.

From various authentic sources, it is stated of the once-timbered countries in Southern Europe, Northern Africa and from the Russian Empire to South India, which are now uninhabited barren wastes, has been due to changes of climate, soil and water-fall, from the loss of forests. The once fertile valleys of Syria, with springs and brooks, and fields of grain and grass, are as parched and dry, and water as scarce as it is on the desert or staked plains—summer suns have scorched the unprotected soil—hot winds absorbed the last vestige of moisture—the air is filled with clouds of loose dust, and the naked mountains stand as monuments of departed glory, of the Roman provinces from the Caucasus to the archipelago.

Look at the wasted peninsulas of Southern Europe. What has reduced to skeletons the inhabitants of the garden lands of the nations of classic antiquity? Greece has become a barren rock, and Sicily, “the pearl of the Mediterranean,” a hospital of famine, typhus and purulent ophthalmia!

Has not the desolation in each been due to one and the same cause?—the destruction of forests.

Why then should history repeat itself on this subject in America?

As early as 1832, the wisdom of Mehemet Ali saw the cause of the poverty and distress, and applied the only remedy that ever has or ever will restore life-sustaining conditions, and commenced re-establishing forests on the sand plains of upper Egypt—Abyssinia and the slopes of the mountains—at the rate of one hundred thousand acres annually.

Trees, like beasts and birds, at one time existed in such vast and apparently incalculable numbers that it seemed improbable their presence could be diminished sufficiently to give them importance or value. To have trees removed by any means was looked upon by the owner of the soil as a favor; and those having charge of the public domain felt pretty much the same way. But to the man of three-score and ten years it is astonishing how soon the great forests have disappeared, or become so valuable and inviting as to tempt the mercenary to steal and the rewarded public official to permit. Trees have a value to every form of life—a value above the lumber they may produce or the moneyed wealth they may bring the possessor. It has for thousands of years undergone practical demonstration that forests determine the climatic conditions of any given country, and for this reason forests form an indispensable basis for agriculture, manufacture and commercial industry. They also bear a near relation to the health, wealth and prosperity of a nation.

These facts being so universally admitted, it may seem strange that a government which has from its inception been so interested in the welfare of its subjects, and which has assisted and encouraged in various ways so many sources of wealth and industry, should have overlooked the forests, from which the nation is drawing larger amounts than from all other natural sources combined.

The government has ever been devoted to the interests of agriculture and manufacturing; and by premiums, by exemptions, by protections, by model farms, by grants, by bounties, by patent rights, by technical schools, and by introduction of superior animals and improved machinery, has fostered well these industries. It has not been at fault, either, in donating large sums in the construction of canals and railroads and for the improvement of rivers and harbors. It has even taken an interest in the clam and oyster, and has stocked the rivers and lakes with young fish, that the devastation of these natural sources of wealth may be compensated thereby, and perpetuated as a national trust; while the springs and brooks and streams, the climatic causes of disease, the necessary conditions for national wealth and national health—in a word, the importance of forests for the nation, for the land, for agriculture, for the perpetuation of rivers—has received little or no official recognition. Few persons are so destitute of foresight as not to see that the fires and thieves, and increasing consumption, if continued at the present rate, can not fail to make this a treeless waste, a desolate, uninhabitable country, at no very distant date. Is there no way by which the remaining beasts and birds and trees can be preserved? Must the civilization of the North-west permit the pirates of destruction to take and hold possession of all its natural endowments? The clubs have been after the pot-hunter with legal enactments, and have crippled, but never as yet have they succeeded in exterminating him. He is still destroying the remnants of game, and is at large in the public domain, seeking something to devour.

The general government should no longer postpone a definition of its policy regarding forests, rivers, and its millions of acres of arid lands. The American people have been slow to realize the drifting of this country toward a forest famine and its destructive results. On the subject of forestry, until recently, representatives have been politically dumb, and, no doubt, would have remained so much longer had it not been for the inspiration of a few men. In January, 1872, ex-Secretary Morton presented a resolution before the Agricultural Society of Nebraska to set apart one day in each year and consecrate it to planting trees. This day was christened “Arbor Day,” and is now observed by law and proclamation in thirty-one states; has entered our schools and colleges, and forestry forms part of the curriculum.

Wherever Arbor-Day has been observed it has awakened a sense of inquiry; has taught the children the names, nature, and usefulness of trees, with a lasting admiration and love for them. From the influences of Arbor-Day, Nebraska has more than a million acres of planted forests, and Minnesota, Kansas, Iowa, Wisconsin, and other Western States fast following the good example. With laws, plantings, and premiums; with books, schools, and colleges; with the hearts of workers in it, forestry has built up a healthy public sentiment that must be felt. The Eastern States are also awake and glistening with law officers to protect their woods from fires and thieves; and by large premiums and exemptions from taxation, have greatly promoted the interest of forestry in their respective states.

Even the state that sold her birth-right—one hundred and fifty billion feet of standing forest for nine hundred million dollars—is not without influence for good. All these noble acts of the states and of the people will be heard in time; for the government of the nation is not given to disregard the will of the people, and has ever shown a readiness to take the front and co-operate with the states in every good work. But there is something more required of a government—the representatives of the people must do more than simply respond to petitions. In a free republican government the people are both sovereigns and wards, and they expect those who assume legislative and executive powers of the nation to understand political economy sufficiently to manage correctly the finances and the natural wealth of the nation with intelligence and superior wisdom. And in this direction it would certainly prove a most laudable act to withdraw from sale or entry for a long period, if not perpetually, all remaining forests and all arid lands where the rain-fall is below twenty inches, and place the same under the management of the Secretary of Agriculture, with ample powers and appropriations to build up a grand system of forestry, surpassing in extent and wealth all similar institutions belonging to the monarchies of Europe combined.

Governor J. J. Stevens, in his final report of surveys for a railroad across the Rocky Mountains, called the attention of the government, in 1855, to the arid lands west of the Missouri river, between parallels forty degrees and forty-nine north latitude. He compared it in extent, climate, rain-fall, and other features, to the Steppes, which occupies about one-fifth of the Russian Empire, and quotes the “Commentaries of the Productive Sources of Russia” to sustain his statements:

“Among other peculiarities of the Steppes a very prominent and distinctive one is the absence of timber, ... and opinions differ greatly as to the possibility of wooding it anew.”

Since 1855, the Russian Government has arrived at one conclusion, and adopted a policy of reforesting this two hundred and forty thousand square miles worthy of imitation.

Let the Government of the United States do as Russia has been doing, and the steppes from the Missouri river to the mountains will be reclaimed and made to “blossom as the rose.” According to geological surveys there are seven hundred and fifty million acres of arid, treeless lands, incapable of successful cultivation without irrigation—but where trees can be grown—for experiments have shown that trees will grow where the rain-fall is insufficient for grain or grass.

According to J. W. Powell, director of the United States Geological Survey, on the water supply in the arid regions, it would seem if all the water run off could be impounded and appropriated to irrigation it would be insufficient to supply one-tenth of the arid districts. And it might be asked if the arid land in the Dakotas, Montana, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, California, New Mexico, Texas, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Indian Territory, only about “one hundred million acres” can be irrigated and made productive, what is to be done with the remaining six hundred and fifty million acres?

Could the area entire, or any part of the arid lands be made productive on the most economic plan yet devised by irrigation enterprise in this country, the cost of such lands and their products could never become profitably utilized in commerce so long as the vast area of cheap productive soil of the United States, or even that of the North-west lies out doors, ready to receive the showers of Heaven.

When we recount the miseries and misfortunes of the eight hundred million people that meagerly subsist on the products of irrigated, treeless lands, it makes an irresistible hope that the government of this nation may never be induced by ingenious descriptions of co-operative systems of economics, nor less perceptible but more powerful influences of speculators in western water-ways, to adopt a policy that will make any part of this country and nation, a Spain, a China, an India, or an Egypt, for want of forests.

Every country should have a just proportion of the total area in timber to make it healthful and productive. It is far better to have a portion in timber than to have all the country clothed with herds or covered with corn. It is the order of nature, the necessity of civilization, and the only true basis for a happy, powerful and independent population.

As the source for national revenue, it is an interest ranking first in importance, even in dollars and cents; and certainly, if for no other reason than for the wealth there is in it, the subject demands the attention of the government sufficiently to enforce protection and perpetuation. Every year it comes—“Once more the forests of the far west are aflame,” and it is not only the loss in money, but such sections of country are ruined for all purposes beyond the power of generations to repair.

It may seem expensive to maintain an army of officers and employes to protect and perpetuate the forests of the public domain. But notwithstanding it would require large appropriations, it would repay the outlay many thousand times in national wealth, for this great army would not be idlers. Nothing short of an organized department of forestry can protect and maintain this source of national wealth. The appropriation for this department in France has been five million dollars, and is returned with good interest.

Austria, not larger in extent of territory than the States of Illinois and Iowa combined, maintains thirty-two thousand forestry officers or employees and receives a large net income from this source; and reports show that Germany has an annual income of fifty-seven million dollars from an area of thirty-three million acres of timber, and it is estimated that no more is harvested each year than is compensated by growth and reoccupation of wasted ground. For, forest preservation does not mean that trees shall not be cut down, but that they shall be used, while all the conditions for their reproduction are steadily maintained from year to year, using if necessary, an amount equal to the production by growth. This requires planting, and tree-planting and forestry mean labor in this country as it does in Europe. The United States without Alaska, is, I believe, about nineteen times larger in area than Germany, and to be proportionately equal with this foreign power, the United States should have under control of the government an area of six hundred million acres as a reservation for timber to supply the public necessities of the near future. And it should be done without delay; the arid lands and forests along the streams and lakes that make the sources of the Mississippi and other navigable streams, should be dedicated forever to the cultivation of timber.

And here the labor question is solved. Every government that is able to sustain itself, must have something for idle hands to do. The increasing supply of labor has alarmed many thinking people. Labor is wealth, but how can all find employment? Which means bread. And various suggestions have been made simply to furnish subsistence. But in forestry there is something better—a necessity, a demand for labor, giving profitable employment to a vastly greater number than any other public necessity; for the labors of a department or bureau of this kind would be as immense as indispensable; and could end only with the end of the race.

A forest of six hundred million acres, thoroughly organized and officered under the Secretary of Agriculture, would sink the post-office department and its patronage into insignificance, and would be the brightest star in the civil service solar system to those who elect a life in the service of the country. But this is not all—it would make the climate more healthful, the rain-fall more regular and abundant, the soil more productive, and in due time would exceed all other sources of revenue combined.

The immensity of the consumption of forest supplies can not be measured accurately; but some idea can be formed of its vastness, when it is known that the one hundred and eighty-seven thousand miles of railroads and one hundred and thirty-seven thousand miles of telegraph lines in this country consume each year the annual growth or a forest equal to one hundred and fifty million acres. And nothing short of a large area of well-managed forest will prove adequate to future demands. What else can the nation expect when at present statistics show the annual consumption, or crop, exceeds in value seven hundred million dollars?

This is more than the yield of all the gold-mines and silver-mines, coal, iron, copper, lead, and zinc combined; and if these are added to the value of all the steamboats, sailing vessels, canal-boats, flat-boats, and barges in American waters, the sum would be still less than the value of the forest crop by an amount sufficient to purchase at cost of construction all the canals, all the telegraph and telephone lines in the United States. The value of the forest income exceeds the gross income of all the railroads and transportation lines, and is an interest ranking in importance far above all others in the United States.

If this country ever becomes a Dalmatia—changed from a healthful, fruitful and salubrious habitation to a sterile, sickly waste, with decayed cities and crumbling greatness, history will not say “the Romans did it.”

Man should ever remember prevention is better than cure. The worst of evils is prevented by the removal of the cause. And when the apathy and improvidence which now threaten the destiny of a rich and prosperous nation are removed, then, and not till then, can it truly be said that the lost Paradise of the Eastern Continent has been regained in the New World of the West. The people should understand, also, the inspired influences of living forests—trees—those musical mutes, upon those who breathe their sweet ennobling influence.

The finest agricultural climate, perhaps, in the world, fell to the lot of Ohio. But this state will soon be obliged to do something to offset the destruction that is still going on with the little groves. When it came into the Union, it presented the grandest unbroken forest of forty-one thousand square miles that was ever beheld on this continent. A forest interspersed with hills and valleys, springs, brooks, and rivers; with a soil most inviting to the aspirations of agriculture.

The natural conditions of things were such that the possessors of this inheritance soon desired occupation of the soil, and looked upon its trees with less favor than they did upon those who disputed their titles with the tomahawk. Indians could be induced to move out of the way, but trees were all disposed to stand their ground and take the consequences. Both were considered too numerous for easy advancement of civilization, and in the contest both got the worst of it.

Forests may flourish independent of agriculture, but the latter can not prosper without the former. This was not so evident, however, to the early inhabitant, who felt he had thrust upon him more than his share of perpetual shade, and every owner and occupant of the soil combined with his neighbor in a warfare of destruction upon trees, and millions, the best of their kind ever produced were killed by cutting a circle around the trunk and left to decay. These deadenings were to be seen all over the country, as fast and as far as settlements were made or contemplated. And now, in less than a hundred years, more than eighty per cent. of this great forest has disappeared, and only small clumps in agricultural sections can be seen in any part of the state.

The older trees that occupied their places in these remnants of woods have nearly all fallen by the hand of the axman, and the younger growths are being appropriated for various purposes, greatly in excess of possible reproduction to the remaining stock; and the time is not far distant, if things continue without change for the better, when the salubrious climate, with summer showers and productive soil, will become changed to one of uncertainty. The entire North-west is now on the very border of forest limit. Still thousands of portable saw-mills are moving over the states, destroying the remaining needful trees, and the rural districts will discover, when too late, that private interest is insufficient to protect forest lands in quantity enough to maintain climatic and sanitary influences without the aid of state government.

Some years ago the legislature of Ohio passed a law, now in force, which lost the state many millions of growing forest trees that stood on the public grounds. The act reads: “Supervisors shall cut down all bushes growing within any county or township highway, the same to be done within the months of July and August of each year.” Thus a clean sweep was made of every tree, bush and plant, as the word “bushes” was legally defined to mean places “abounding in trees and shrubs.” Trees of all kinds, sizes and ages, bordering and within the legal limits of the highways, met their doom under this act. And every growing scion that dared since to raise its head along the border lines of Ohio roads has met a similar fate in the months of July and August of each year.

If laws can be enforced to destroy trees along the borders of public highways, it is reasonable to suppose laws may be made and enforced to restore and protect them in such locations. Ohio has approximately forty thousand miles of good public highways and ways that could well subserve the use of trees along their borders, at sufficient distances to give them room and opportunity to grow. A tree on either side at thirty feet distant would make in the aggregate a forest of ordinary distribution of several million trees, that could be owned, cultivated and protected by law. At the same time, an act of this kind would maintain the lawful width of roads and prevent encroachments by adjoining land-owners, and make all highways and byways avenues of beauty, health and pleasure.

A fraction of a mill added to the tax assessment as a “forestry fund,” and expended in planting and protecting trees, would soon accomplish the work. Trees similarly arranged along railroads, canals and water-courses, and around district school-houses, with a law exempting from taxation all lands devoted exclusively to woods, would, in the combination, form an important factor in preserving the true ratio of timber to farming lands, the humidity of the atmosphere, and the healthful condition of the country.

Trees are to be prized for many reasons, and admired for their longevity. There is, perhaps, no limit to the life of a tree. No inquest has ever rendered a verdict “caused by old age.” They are not dependent upon the heart for their systemic vitality. The potency of the living principle lies near the periphery and most distant roots and branches from the surface of the ground; and grow on and on, subject only to accidents that may end life. The expression may have seemed extravagant for even an enthusiast, when that slip from a cypress tree of Ceylon was planted, to say it would “flourish and be green forever.” It is now the historical and sacred Bo-tree of two thousand one hundred and eighty-three years, and still green and growing.

While the Bo-tree is perhaps the oldest tree found in human records, it is not likely by any means, that it stands at the head in longevity. For trees keep their own books, and write their own history, in which may be found an account of passing years, from the beginning to the ending of life—a true autobiography—the eucalyptus of Senegal, the chestnuts at Mount Ætna, the oaks of Windsor, the yews at Fountain Abbey, the olives in the Garden of Gethsemane, or the mammoth trees in California are much older, making it quite probable that some of the first seedlings that grew after the last remodeling of the earth took place, are still green and growing.

Sequoia Park.

It is stated on good authority that one of those ancient Jumbos blown down at Sequoia Park, California, was forty-one feet in diameter and showed six thousand, one hundred and twenty-six annual rings, or yearly growths.

In the explorations and surveys, under act of Congress, 1853 and 1854, Dr. J. M. Bigelow, in his report says: “It required five men twenty-two days,” with pump augers, to get one of these Sequoia Gigantea down—costing for labor at California prices, $550. “A short distance from this tree was another of larger dimensions, which, apparently, had been overthrown by an accident some forty or fifty years ago.... The trunk was three hundred feet in length; the top broken off, and by some agency (probably fire) was destroyed. At the distance of three hundred feet from the butt, the trunk was forty feet in circumference, or more than twelve feet in diameter, ... proving to a degree of moral certainty that the tree, when standing alive, must have attained the height of four hundred and fifty or five hundred feet!

“At the butt it is one hundred and ten feet in circumference, or about thirty-six feet in diameter. On the bark, quite a soil had accumulated, on which considerable-sized shrubs were growing. Of these I collected specimens of currants and gooseberries on its body, from bushes elevated twenty-two feet from the ground.”

Ohio abounded in large forest trees of many varieties—the sycamore, oak, poplars, chestnut, black walnut, etc. The writer made partial notes at the time, of a large yellow poplar that was cut down in 1844, and taken to a saw mill, receiving from it over eleven thousand feet of lumber, which was sold at the mill for one hundred and two dollars. The tree was large at the base, measuring three feet above the ground, forty feet in circumference. The axemen built a scaffold twelve feet in height to stand upon, and by means of the axe and saw, they made a stump fifteen feet in height. Some distance above this point the center was decayed and when down, ten feet was discovered as unsuitable for boards. Four sound logs of ten feet each were cut below the two branches, and each branch made also a good saw-log. The four logs cut from the trunk of the tree were, on the average over seven feet in diameter, and were obliged to be quartered in order to handle them, and consequently there was more than ordinary waste at the mill, as well as where the tree stood. The outside appearance of the tree bore no evidence of decay and those who had taken the contract to cut it down were greatly rejoiced to find over four feet of the diameter useless as support.

Many coon-hunters had followed tracks in snow for miles to bring up at this tree, which was selected for safety or other instinctive reason; probably from its long standing it became a favorite resort or stopping place for traveling raccoons. A portion of both main branches of the tree was hollow. One was occupied by coons and the other by “the little busy bee.” But neither the bee-hunters nor hunter for coons could be induced to cut the tree for what it contained, and for forty years it defied the axemen of the surrounding settlement.

Another of the first crop of trees that has passed away without mention is a sycamore that stood on the banks of the Scioto, in Pickaway county. It became quite noted and familiar to generations of hunters, who used the interior for camping purposes on hunting excursions for nearly half a century. It was also known and visited by others, from the fact, in 1872, a newly married couple commenced housekeeping in its spacious quarters, and enjoyed the seclusion amidst a forest of other mammoth trees. July 4, 1855, the dimensions of this sycamore were taken, which showed—Circumference three feet above ground, forty-five feet, and diameter of the hollow chamber, fourteen feet; door-way, three feet wide at base, terminating in a point seven feet above.

The large trees existed in abundance in many portions of the state, showing ages of four to five hundred years. Trees sometimes are found in such close proximity as to be termed “wedded,” as those shown in the following page, which are near the line of the towing path of the canal in Miami county—an elm and sycamore—girt six feet from the ground measures twenty-four feet.

Conflict in Pre-Emption Claims.

One of the surveys of the Military District, in Pickaway county, is known as the “Seven Oaks.” In 1793, while Nathaniel Massie was making surveying tours in the country yet covered by hostile Indians, his assistant, Duncan McArthur, ran around a tract located in Pickaway county, covered it with warrants, and named it, “The Seven Oaks.” The trees were said to be large one hundred years ago and still growing. From measurements made June 21, 1895, the circumference of the main undivided trunk, three feet from the ground measured twenty-five feet ten inches; height of common trunk, three feet six inches. At the top of the common trunk is an opening eighteen inches wide into a circular inclosure, with a floor thirty-six inches in diameter, formed by main trunk and surrounding trees. The four trees, forming the west and north portions of the circle, remain united for ten feet, while those forming the south and eastern portion separate at six feet from the ground. Each of the seven trees is one hundred feet in height, and measures a little over eight feet in circumference at bisections.

“Grandeur, strength, and grace,
Are to speak of thee. This mighty oak—
By whose immovable stem I stand and seem
Almost annihilated—not a prince,
In all that proud old world beyond the deep,
E’er wore his crown as loftily as he
Wears the green coronal of leaves with which
Thy hand has graced him.”

Great trees and great men and women are too numerous to obtain more than a mention. Every thing in Ohio has shown a tendency to superiority. It may seem almost fabulous, though true, a grape-vine near Frankfort, in Ross county, was cut down in 1853 that measured sixteen feet in circumference, ten feet from the ground; twenty feet up it divided into three branches, each measuring eight feet in circumference; height, seventy-five feet, and spread one hundred and fifty feet; and when cut up made eight cords of fire-wood.

Chillicothe Elm.

It has been shown by actual measurements that the “big elm” of Walnut street, Chillicothe, Ohio, is much larger than the famous Boston elm, or any one at Cambridge, New Haven, or the great tree at Wethersfield. The Chillicothe elm measures twenty-eight feet six inches in circumference three feet above ground, with boughs covering an area of fifty-five square rods. As late as 1840 the remnants of this olden forest crop could be numbered by the dozen on an area of almost any square mile of woods. They were left because it meant work to get them off their pre-emption claim. But an advance in lumber and improvements soon diminished the number having a lumber value, leaving those unfitted for boards to the destruction of campfires and girdling, or to be utilized as houses of various kinds and purposes. A large, hollow sycamore in Pike county, near Waverly, made a commodious blacksmith shop and horse-shoeing establishment for many years.

The Logan Elm.

“The Logan Elm” is the most interesting historic tree in Ohio, testifying of thrilling incidents in colonial times—military achievements of Lord Dunmore, unsurpassed ability of the red man, and the trying period of the earliest pioneers—each giving great interest to the spot where stands this living monument.

During the fall of 1774 Lord Dunmore fitted out an expedition of three thousand men, hoping to destroy the Indians and their numerous towns along the Scioto valley. His army moved westward in two sections. The larger division, commanded by Dunmore in person, crossed the mountains by way of the Cumberland Gap, and arrived at the Ohio river near where Wheeling now stands, and the smaller corps, under command of Colonel Andrew Lewis, followed the Kanawha to its confluence. Before reaching the villages of the plains and along the borders of the Scioto river, in Pickaway county, the divisions had planned to form a junction.

Colonel Lewis arrived on the Ohio river at the point designated October 6th, and encamped on the grounds now occupied by the town of Point Pleasant, awaiting dispatches from Lord Dunmore. After remaining three days without intrenchments or other works of defense, he was, on the 10th, attacked early in the morning by one thousand chosen braves of the tribes belonging to the confederacy, under the great chieftain, “Cornstalk,” hoping to destroy his enemies before they should have an opportunity to unite their forces. The battle lasted all day and ended with the cover of night. The Indians felt they received the greater disaster, having two hundred and thirty-three killed and severely wounded. Here Colonel Charles Lewis lost his life, with the lives of half of the commissioned officers.

Chief Cornstalk felt the failure, and to save the towns and people of the Scioto valley, something must be done immediately, and hurried to Lord Dunmore with petitions for peace. Previous to this, and in ignorance of the bloody battle, Dunmore had transmitted orders to Lewis to move on and enter the borders of the enemy’s country on the Scioto.

Elated with the idea of slaughtering the “redskins” in their camps and country, the enraged Virginians marched eighty miles through a rough, trackless wilderness, without bread or tents, and on the 24th day of October encamped on the banks of Congo, under the spreading boughs of the historic tree, and within less than four miles of the great town of the Shawnees, located on the west bank of the Scioto river, now known as “Westfall.” Chief Cornstalk had been scouting Colonel Lewis’s movements, and he, with the chiefs of other tribes, were beseeching Lord Dunmore to stop Colonel Lewis and save their towns and women and children.

LORD DUNMORE’S CAMPAIGN.

Thrice had Lewis received orders to halt, but on he went; and when near the Indian town, he was intercepted by Dunmore, who drew his sword upon Lewis and threatened him with instant death if he persisted in any further disobedience, and marched the army back to Camp Lewis, where the treaty went on to a satisfactory conclusion, in the presence of two thousand five hundred troops and all the confederate chiefs and their warriors.

There was one chief absent whom Dunmore much desired present—Logan, the great warrior of the Mingoes—who felt his people had been very unfortunate in their attempts at peaceful relations with the whites; and in order to secure his presence, John Gibson, an interpreter and friend of Logan’s, was detailed as messenger with dispatches to the chief, who resided at Old Chillicothe (Westfall), about four miles distant from Camp Lewis.

Of this matter Captain Gibson says, under oath, he found Logan at his home, but refused to attend the council, and that at the chief’s request they walked out some distance into the woods and sat down. Logan appeared much affected, and after shedding many tears and showing other manifestations of sorrow, told his pathetic story in reply to the request from Lord Dunmore, and which Gibson translated into English and delivered to Dunmore in the council assembled under the boughs of this noble tree on the banks of the Congo—and was read as follows, to wit:

“I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan’s cabin hungry and I gave him not meat; if ever he came cold or naked and I gave him not clothing.

“During the course of the last long and bloody war Logan remained in his tent, an advocate for peace. Nay, such was my love for the whites that those of my countrymen pointed at me as they passed by and said, ‘Logan is the friend of the white man.’ I had even thought to have lived among them, but for the injuries of one man—Colonel Cresap—who last spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, cut off all the relations of Logan, not sparing even my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any human creature. This called on me for revenge—I have sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country I rejoice at the beams of peace. Yet do not harbor the thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.”

The authorship of this message has been doubted and disputed by reason of its greatness. But it is well known that many of the native men of America have shown an ability for expression of thoughts surpassed by no people or nation in the world. Who could have thought it—who could have said it so effectively, by every gesture and living fiber—as it was expressed by Tecumseh, after finishing a speech at Vincennes holding, contrary to the United States Government, that no one or two tribes could make treaties conveying away lands without the consent of others equally interested? When done speaking, an aide of Governor Harrison, pointing to a vacant chair, said to Tecumseh, “Your father requests you to take a seat by his side.” Drawing his mantle around him, the chief proudly exclaimed: “My father! The sun (pointing upward) is my father, and the earth my mother; on her bosom I will repose,” and seated himself on the ground where he had been standing. And it is unusual, at least, that one with learning and general acquaintance with the high standard of natural ability of the Indian, and after so many years, should enter into a voluminous correspondence to prove that he (Jefferson) did not write “Logan’s reply.”

Some years since, a partial investigation of the papers of Lord Dunmore was made. While the original Gibson translation was not discovered, there was much to confirm the statements here given.

The expedition of Dunmore with an army of three thousand men into the heart of an Indian country, with mountains and wilderness hundreds of miles between him and supplies, at that early date, with that existing animosity between the Indians and his Virginia soldiery, makes it appear now, as it did at the time to many of his soldiers, of singular significance. When the military expedition reached the point of destination it found the enemy praying for peace. And while the chiefs were entertained in council, and the braves and soldiers were listening to Virginia oratory, small bands of maddened and vicious troops stole away and murdered Indian women and children, fired their towns, and with stolen horses discharged themselves from the army and fled the country.

The Indians were helpless, and the treaty fixing the Ohio river the boundary line went on, while the soldiers put in the time making speeches and passing resolutions. The following should be ever preserved as the thoughts of men in a far country, by a captain:

“Gentlemen—Having now concluded the campaign, by the assistance of Providence, with honor and advantage to the colony and ourselves, it only remains that we should give our country the stronger assurance that we are ready at all times, to the utmost of our power, to maintain and defend her just rights and privileges.

“We have lived about three months in the woods, without any intelligence from Boston, or from the delegates at Philadelphia. It is possible, from the groundless reports of designing men, that our countrymen may be jealous of the use such a body would make of arms in their hands at this critical juncture. That we are a respectable body is certain, when it is considered that we can live weeks without bread or salt; that we can sleep in the open air without any covering but that of the canopy of heaven; and that we can march and shoot with any in the known world. Blessed with these talents, let us solemnly engage to one another, and our country in particular, that we will use them for no purpose but for the honor and advantage of America, and of Virginia in particular. It behooves us, then, for the satisfaction of our country, that we should give them our real sentiments by way of resolves at this very alarming crisis.”

Thereupon the committee presented the following resolutions, which carried, and ordered printed in the Virginia Gazette:

“Resolved, That we will bear the most faithful allegiance to His Majesty, King George the Third, while His Majesty delights to reign over a brave and free people; that we will, at the expense of life and every thing dear and valuable, exert ourselves in the support of the honor of his crown and the dignity of the British Empire. But as the love of liberty and attachment to the real interests and just rights of America outweigh every other consideration, we resolve we will exert every power within us for the defense of American liberty, and for the support of her just rights and privileges—not in any precipitous, riotous or tumultuous manner, but when regularly called forth by the unanimous voice of our countrymen.

“Resolved, That we entertain the greatest respect for his excellency, the Rt. Hon. Lord Dunmore, who commanded the expedition against the Shawanese, and who we are confident underwent the great fatigue of this singular campaign from no other motive than the true interests of the country.

“Signed by order and in behalf of the whole corps.

“Benjamin Ashby, Clerk.”

All of which shows political and personal resolutions have maintained a due degree of hypocrisy to the present, without material change.

Captain John Boggs and family located on this place in 1798, before the lands were surveyed or in market. And from Captain Williamson, an officer under Lord Dunmore, Captain Boggs procured many important facts in regard to Camp Lewis, Logan, and the noted tree. This large and valuable tract of land, on which the tree stands passed from the United States into the hands of Captain John Boggs, and is still owned by his descendants.

Monument of the Boggs Family.

In memory of the family settlement and historic events of the spot, John Boggs the third erected a handsome monument where stood the cabin in which three generations were born. The monument is within one hundred and fifty feet of the Logan Elm, is of pure granite, twelve feet square, base six feet, shaft fifteen feet, tapering. On each side are cut letters in commemoration of events connected with that spot. On one side is firmly set in the granite a bronze tablet, thirty by fifteen inches, bearing the picture of the capture of Captain Boggs’ son, William, in bas-relief. The figures depicted represent a thrilling and vivid scene which on that spot actually once occurred in view of the agonized family.

Indian Raid.

The landscape is an exact representation of the surroundings. In the left-hand corner is a log cabin, at the corner of which is the figure of an Indian with a gun to his shoulder; to the left, and fronting the cabin door stands an Indian. At the right of this is a field of wheat surrounded by a rail-fence. Several panels have been thrown down in the night, and the cattle are in the field eating the grain. Near the fence is seen a boy running up a slight ascent, making his way to a palisade on the elevation beyond—after him are two Indians in hot pursuit.

The Indians, under cover of darkness, had torn down the fence and turned the cattle upon the growing grain; then secreted themselves for events that might occur in the morning. The decoy was successful. The boy, awakening early, found the destructive scene, and, unsuspecting the authors of the mischief, proceeded at once to drive out the herd and to restore the fence. Suddenly an apparition of a hostile foe rises before him. He at once retreats toward the cabin, but there too he sees a redskin awaiting his approach. He turns, and, with the speed of dying fright, vainly endeavors to make the palisade on the elevation; but his course is beset with increasing pursuers on all sides, and at length, exhausted, is overcome and made captive to Indian cunning.

All this time, Captain Boggs stood sentinel at the cabin’s corner, guarding the family, while the son is relentlessly pursued by the hostile enemy. The whole is depicted and for the time preserved in bronze and granite; and as generations of the future stand before this consecrated record, it will extort thoughts of the pioneer—his pleasures and his sufferings—with venerated admiration for those whose lives marked out the pathway of our civilization.

Every nation, every country, and every town has historic trees. They are not without influence on the destiny of individuals, societies, and nations. They are objects of reverence—works of time—homes of generations—and the manifest wisdom of creation. In the tree is beheld in perfection an enduring living principle, exceeding all other forms of life—beginning in the morning of creation and ending only with the end of time. When moth and rust have corroded memorial in bronze, and years of the unseen future have crumbled the granite to dust, there will still be standing noble, historic trees, with all their lessons fresh and green.

CHAPTER V.
OHIO—HER COACH, CANAL, AND STEAMBOAT ERA.

At the close of the Revolution, a majority of the people cheerfully trusted to the wisdom and integrity of those who led the way to a country and conditions on which to found a republic. The patriots who unfurled the Declaration of Independence were glorified in the name of “United States of America.” And with thirteen stars, the red, white, and blue came forth a government strong and vigorous, honored and respected, amidst an epidemic of European wars. In the formation of the republican government, so few precedents were at hand that could be used as guides to the organization, the work was rendered herculean in character. But with General Washington, John Adams, Jonathan Dayton, Alexander Hamilton, and other patriotic Federalists, at the head, the people had no fears for the accepted Constitution. Still, the first President and his advisers were not blind to the dangers that surrounded the new republic. The First Congress (1789-90) assembled with but a small and uncertain majority favorable to the Constitution as adopted; and the combination of disaffected and opposing elements wore loud in their denunciations of the President and “that instrument;” and it required great wisdom, moderation, and concession to obtain the necessary contemplated amendments[23] and acts of Congress necessary to carry on and regulate the working operations of the several departments of the new government.

The citizens of the South, and those of the North were equally jealous of their interests. New England demanded a protective tariff, and the South “free-trade.” That which suited one locality was the policy not desired in another. Consequently, some states felt they were treated unfairly in this, and others in that, and a Congress failing to legislate special benefits to all found denunciations common with a disregard for law and order, occasionally amounting to open rebellion.[24]

At the very commencement of President Washington’s second term, things became stormy and taxed the wisdom of the man who had crowned a successful revolution, to manipulate the new machinery of a complex government into satisfactory running order. The cabinet and both branches of the legislative department were pretty evenly divided on the distracting questions of the times. France and England were at war—the French Republic expected reciprocal help from the United States. The Secretary of State (Mr. Jefferson) and Mr. Randolph, Attorney-General, contrary to the views of the President, espoused the cause of France, and were suspected of aiding Genet, the French minister, in issuing commissions to vessels of war to sail from American ports and cruise against the enemies of France.

Notwithstanding this, and the violent opposition of both houses of Congress, the President remained firm, that the people of the United States, under the circumstances, should not become involved in a war with Great Britain, and issued his neutrality proclamation, had the French minister recalled and accepted the resignation of the Secretary of State. Congress, however, persisted in doing all it could to strengthen the opposition to the President and bring on a war with England. When foiled in this, attempted by resolution to adopt the substance of Mr. Jefferson’s final report—“to cut off all intercourse with Great Britain, and as good republicans or democrats, either wear the ‘national cockade’ as evidence of opposition to neutrality and friendship for France.”

The resolution passed the House but was defeated in the Senate, by the casting vote of Vice-President John Adams, and saved the nation from disgrace. The common people had been partially persuaded by the doctrines of Jefferson that federalism meant the establishment of a limited monarchy, and want of confidence in the people. This was giving the position of Washington and his followers a coloring much below their patriotic conceptions. They held a government of laws must have principle of energy and coercion; and it was the concentration of this energy in a federal government which the convention gave, and which, to carryout into perfection, induced the Washington policy.

Had it been otherwise, had Mr. Jefferson’s ideas of government been placed in his own hands for organization, with his unlimited confidence in the virtue of the people, and their capacity for self government in the final experiment, the Constitution would have crumbled to pieces in his own hands. At the end of eight years of Washington’s administration, 1797, the nation was at peace at home and abroad—all disputes had been settled amicably excepting that of France—the credit of the government was never better—ample provision had been made for the payment of the public debt—“commerce had experienced unexampled prosperity—American tonnage had nearly doubled—the products of agriculture had found a ready market—the exports had increased from nineteen millions to more than fifty-six million dollars—and the amount of revenues from imports exceeded the most sanguine expectations, and the prosperity of the country was unparalleled, notwithstanding great losses from belligerent depredations.” How different the story when Mr. Jefferson turned the high office over to Mr. Madison, March 4, 1809, as given in the report of a committee of the legislature of Massachusetts, January previous to the close of Mr. Jefferson’s administration.

“Our agriculture is discouraged, the fisheries abandoned, navigation forbidden; our commerce at home and abroad restrained, if not annihilated; our navy sold, dismantled, or degraded to the service of cutters or gunboats; the revenue extinguished; the course of justice interrupted, and the nation weakened by internal animosities and divisions, at the moment when it is unnecessarily and improvidently exposed to war with Great Britain, France and Spain.”

The most peculiar and damaging political view held by Mr. Jefferson was that appropriations by the government for national internal improvements were unconstitutional. This was enforced as a cardinal principle of his “Republican-Democratic” party, and so influenced his party successors, Madison and Monroe, that during their administrations, appropriations and surveys were refused on constitutional grounds. However good, influential and honest the actors may have been, it is quite evident the political influences of those in power, from the commencement of the administration of Thomas Jefferson in 1801 to the end of Monroe’s in 1825, blocked the wheels of progress in civilization under the pretext of reverence for the Constitution.

It was generally rumored in Ohio politics that the Jeffersonian party were opposed to expenditures for national internal improvements, and before entering the Union the state presented her influence with the Eighth Congress for a national highway, from Cumberland, Maryland, to the Ohio river at Wheeling, Virginia, and from Wheeling westward across the proposed State of Ohio. The measure passed Congress and was approved by President Jefferson as “a war measure and bond of union,” instead of an “unconstitutional improvement.”

This, however, was not considered, by Mr. Jefferson nor his party, binding in policy as a precedent; but Ohio politicians thought differently, and from necessity and importance of the subject kept it agitated in and out of Congress. And in 1816, after an able and full discussion of the constitutionality and expediency of a system of internal improvements by the general government, both houses of the Fourteenth Congress passed a bill appropriating the bonus which the United States Bank was to pay the Government for the charter, to purposes of internal improvement; but the bill was returned to Congress by the President (Mr. Madison) with his veto involving constitutional scruples, and the measure failed to become a law.

Notwithstanding both houses of Congress were at times favorable to improvements, the majority was not often found conservative, and in 1822 killed a small appropriation to repair the Cumberland road, built and controlled by the Government.

A small majority of the Eighteenth Congress, in 1823 and 1824, came around partially to the grounds occupied by the Ohio people on the subject of improvements, and made an appropriation of thirty thousand dollars, authorizing the expenditure on surveys, plans and estimates of such roads and canals as the President might deem of national importance.

President Monroe, after mature deliberation, gave the bill his approval. At that date, a portion of the New York and Erie Canal was in operation, and as an orator was very convincing and converting. This could not justly be called a “war measure,” nor a “bond of union;” and was universally accepted as a second precedent in favor of “internal improvements,” and ended the Jeffersonial dynasty as far south as the City of Washington; and in 1829 Andrew Jackson, in direct opposition to his supporters in the South, New England, and in New York, followed the precedent of Ex-President J. Q. Adams, indorsing the action of the Twentieth Congress, which declared the constitutionality and expediency of such improvements.

This fixed the policy of the Government for all future time, Ohio, feeling proud in the active part she had taken, having the honor of bringing about the first national internal improvement in the United States.

Spinning-Wheel.

Although the Government had changed its policy, the political education of the people had been such that many good citizens had little or no desire for changes or improvements that might destroy or disregard the sanctity of the constitution; nor could it be claimed they were much in favor of improvements of any kind—things were good enough. They did not expect to have every thing in the world, and were satisfied if things would remain as they were; they did not want any thing better than the easy routine in which they had spent much of their lives. The New York Canal was talked of as a private enterprise; but for what purpose above the cost of labor could not be stated, as there were no surplus productions in the country calling for a market, and so far Ohio people were “high protectionists of home industries,” and did not favor the introduction of “cheap foreign goods, nor imported labor.” They raised flax and wool, and, with the spinning-wheel and loom, manufactured the wearing apparel and household goods, and so sure as

“Man wants but little here below,

Nor wants that little long,”

the average citizen felt amply supplied with the necessaries of life, and could not well ask for more. He plowed his little piece of cleared ground with a “bull-plow,” having a wooden mold-board and cast-iron share; harrowed in his wheat, rye, oats, and turnips with a wooden-toothed harrow; dropped his corn by hand, and covered it with the hoe. Every spring he made enough maple-sugar for home consumption, and to exchange for tea, coffee, and salt; and if he had a few spare bushels of grain, they were taken to some one of the many copper-stills scattered over the country. And to him there was no encouragement for the improvement in wealth of state by establishing a commerce or trade that would sap the foundations of its home industries. And he feared for the future prospects of the North-west should the existing prohibitory tariff be removed between the East and West by cheap transportation, believing it would destroy home manufactures, diminish the price of labor, and produce “panics and paupers” beyond state ability and charity to maintain. The “flax-breaker’s” occupation would be gone; carding-machines, spinning-wheels, and looms, would no longer be manufactured or used, and the vast multitude of laborers carrying on these “infant industries” would be thrown out of employment and be “obliged to steal or starve.” Even the young woman, who makes an honest living by spinning sixteen “cuts” daily, at fifty cents a week and boarded, would be thrown upon the cold embraces of the world, and thousands of other honest poor would be ruined for want of protection against such an influx of “pauper labor and foreign manufacture.” And the man of one idea considered the condition of “home industries,” under contemplated internal improvements, as discouraging, as a “prospective repeal of a protective tariff.”

As early as 1807, Jesse Hawley conceived the idea of a canal from the Hudson river to Lake Erie—a distance of three hundred and fifty miles—believing it would be a profitable investment for the state and nation, that it would populate the North-west and establish important commercial relations with western states. But the newspapers pronounced Jesse “a crank,” and refused to make public his thoughts upon the subject. But this did not change the opinions of practical business men, whose talk of canals and intersecting canals did not meet with much favor among legislators, which, perhaps, represented the sentiments of their constituents. And it took nearly half as long as it did the people of New York to build the Erie canal, for those of Ohio to understand that a canal, commerce and free trade, would increase labor and enrich a state. And for the timely commencement of the great work the people of Ohio are much indebted to W. Steele, of Cincinnati, for his trial surveys and intelligent letters upon the subject at an early day, when few persons entertained the practicability of such an undertaking.

The following extracts from a letter published in the Olive Branch, February 27, 1821, on the “Project of a Canal,” is but a fair specimen of the philanthropy of the times, and says:

“Nothing can be of more importance to the State of Ohio than the making of a navigable canal from Lake Erie to the Ohio river. That it is practicable to make such canal admits not of a doubt. Were it made, and the Hudson and Erie canal finished, we should have an easy and cheap highway on which to transport our surplus produce to the New York market. I have had the level between the Scioto and the Sandusky bay at Lower Sandusky. From the summit level on the most favorable route for a canal that I am acquainted with, to Lower Sandusky, the descent, agreeable to the report of Mr. Farrer, whom I employed for the purpose of taking the levels, is 318 feet.... And by the report of the engineers employed by the State of Virginia, they make the Ohio river at the mouth of the Great Kanawha river 83 feet lower than Lake Erie. If those levels are to be relied on, and we ascertain what is the amount of descent in the Ohio river from the mouth of the Great Kanawha to the point where the canal is intended to communicate with the Ohio, we will then know what will be the whole amount of lockage required. If we allow 50 feet for the descent, the lockage will be as follows: From Lake Erie to the summit level, 318 feet; and from summit level to Ohio river, 433 feet; making the whole amount, 751 feet. I do not know how near this estimate is to the truth, but I am satisfied in my own mind the lockage would be between seven and eight hundred feet.

“The estimate of the commissioners for making the New York canal is $13,800 per mile. Owing to the reduction in the price of labor it is found it can be made for much less money. The ground for making a canal across the State of Ohio is much more favorable than that over which the New York canal is now making. Although there would be more lockage on the Ohio canal than on the New York, yet it is believed it can be made at less expense than an equal distance of the New York canal. When we take into consideration the low price at which labor can be had, and the advantage to be gained by the employment of experienced engineers now employed on the New York canal, I think I hazard but little in saying that a canal can be made across this state for $12,000 a mile.”... “I am aware that some will say that ‘the State of Ohio is too young and too poor to undertake this mighty project.’ But I deny that the State of Ohio is either young or poor. She contains at this time more than 500,000 souls, and ranks fourth or fifth state in the Union. Can a state with such a population (of industrious people, too) be poor? It has been justly remarked, ‘That population is power; and industry is wealth,’ so I contend that we are both powerful and rich.

“The inquiry of some will be, how is the money to be raised to dig this ‘mighty ditch?’ Raise it in the same way New York does—borrow it on the credit of the state. Many there are, I have no doubt, who will doubt whether money can be borrowed on the credit of the state. To such I would say, go and try. If we stand at the base of a hill and look up, without making an effort to ascend, we will never reach its summit....

“Although it cost $2,400,000 (to make 200 miles), it might not be necessary to borrow any thing like that sum. The distribution of the sum required would go to the people of the state, and give more relief from their present pecuniary embarrassments than can be had from any laws enacted for that purpose. As the lands in the vicinity of the canal belonging to the general government would be greatly enhanced in value, I think it not improbable that Congress will make a donation to the state of a body of land in the vicinity, so far as it passes through their territory; if so, it would aid very much in making it.

“A member of the House of Commons once asked an eminent engineer for what purpose he apprehended ‘rivers were made.’ His answer was ‘to feed navigable canals.’ Such was the opinion of a great man, and such indeed must have been the opinion of many others, for we find canals in Great Britain in many places running parallel with navigable rivers. Persons unacquainted with the cheapness at which goods are transported on canals, are surprised when they learn that a ton weight can be transported at the rate of one cent a mile. The illustrious Fulton, but a short time previous to his death, gave it as his opinion that goods could be transported on the New York canal, when completed, at the rate of one cent a ton per mile. We find him supported in this by Col. C. G. Haines, corresponding secretary to the New York association for the promotion of internal improvement.

“Mr. Phillips, in the preface of his history of ‘Inland Navigation,’ says: ‘All canals may be considered as so many roads of a certain kind on which one horse will draw as much as thirty horses do on ordinary turnpike roads, and the public would be great gainers were they to lay out upon making every mile of canal twenty times as much as they expend upon making a mile of turnpike road.’ And Sutcliff, in his treatise on canals, says: ‘That within the last twenty-five years there has been expended on canals in England more than one hundred and thirty million dollars.’ A country is never made poor by making internal improvements, even if the people are taxed to make them. If money be taken from the people, it is again paid out among them, and kept in circulation.

“When the canals through Ohio and New York are finished, I have no doubt but that two-thirds of the surplus produce of all the country watered by the Ohio and its tributary streams above the falls, would pass through them to the New York market. That it would be to the interest of every shipper to give the preference to New York is obvious.... The amount of produce that perishes on the way and at New Orleans every fifteen years, would itself more than pay for building a canal across the State of Ohio. During the spring tides, when the principal part of the produce of the western country is carried to New Orleans, that market is glutted, and the shipper is very often pleased at being able to return home with half the money his cargo cost him.

“If Mr. Fulton’s estimates as to the expenses at which goods can be transported on canals be correct, the expenses of transporting a barrel of flour to the City of New York (allowing ten barrels for a ton), will be as follows:

From Ohio river to Lake Erie, 200 m. | 20c
Down the lake, 260 m. | 20c
New York canal, 353 m. | 35c
Down the Hudson, 160 m. | 15c

“Total nine hundred and seventy-three miles for ninety cents. To this must be added the tollage of both canals. The lowest rate at which flour at present is freighted to New Orleans from the falls is $1.25 per barrel. Nor is it probable that the price will be reduced, as the boat which cost $100 to $150 is generally thrown away at New Orleans, or sold for a sum not exceeding the tenth part of their cost.

“It will be recollected, that while our produce is carried to New York at the cheap rate quoted above, that our foreign goods can be brought through the same channel at the same rates, from sixty-seven cents to one dollar and twelve cents per ton. More or less of these goods the people will have, and the cheaper the rates at which they can be furnished, the better for the country. And besides, it must be recollected if they are brought across the mountains, by way of Pittsburg, or from New Orleans by way of the Mississippi and Ohio, that the expense of transportation is paid to citizens of other states; if brought over the Ohio canal, the money saved in the state thereby, would, in twenty five years, amount to more than the whole cost of the canal.

“It must be admitted that the risk on the canal and lake is much less than on the Ohio and Mississippi, and the time required to carry the produce that way much less. By turning the trade from New Orleans to New York, we would save thereby the lives of many of our most enterprising and useful citizens, who would otherwise fall victims to the diseases of the lower Mississippi. The State of Kentucky has lost more of her citizens by the New Orleans trade within the last fifteen years than she lost by the late war, and it is known she bled at every pore.

“Lateral canals may be made from the main canals in many places, which will serve to collect to the main canal the rich products of the soil through which they pass, and at the same time afford means of furnishing the country with many of the necessities of life at prices greatly below what they now cost without the canal. I will only name the article of salt, which by means of the canal may be furnished to people in the interior of the state from the salines of New York at a price but little, if any thing, exceeding fifty cents per bushel. It is impossible to calculate the benefits that may be derived to the people of this state by the making of the canal. In its progress it will, no doubt, lay open rich beds of minerals. It will lay us, as it were, alongside the Atlantic. It will, in short, elevate the character of the state, and put it half a century in advance of her present situation....

“It only remains for the legislature of Ohio to apply the means within their reach to accomplish this desirable object. When accomplished, there can be no doubt but that it will produce a sufficient revenue to defray the expense’s of the state government.

“W. Steele.
Cincinnati, Ohio, 1820.”

The arguments made for internal improvements were good; but to the child of nature such talk became a source of alarm. To destroy the forests would diminish the game supply, and he soon began to feel the country was becoming too highly civilized for good and easy living; that buckskin breeches and tow trowsers were already being discarded for imported goods. And when the spirit of advancing civilization came within sight, he who had no fence around his cabin, or little else besides sunflowers or a peach tree to indicate manual labor near the unbounded premises, sold his land at a small advance, and, with family and dogs, moved out to “Ingianny.”

Previous to 1820 the inhabitants of the North-west had very little prospect that agriculture would ever be the “road to affluence.” The natural barriers to transportation were viewed as permanent obstacles. A water-way was ridiculed by high authority, which pronounced it little short of madness, and the newspapers in the East had shown the impracticability; and the Western land-owner manifested but little dissatisfaction. He found his way to this country in order to live, and was happy in finding enough to make it easy. He anticipated but little from agriculture as a source of profit. In the Eastern states it had not given satisfaction. But with the population increasing and foreign demand improving, and facilities for transportation better, things showed they were undergoing a change in the older states; and the markets were becoming better, with better management of farms and farming, than at any period since colonial times.

In 1823 Charles A. Goodrich, of Hartford, Conn., wrote: “Until within a few years agriculture, both as a science and art, is receiving much of that attention which its acknowledged importance demands. It is beginning to be regarded, as it should be, not only as the basis of subsistence and population, but as the parent of individual and national opulence.”

At this date corn was selling to feeders at six cents per bushel in Ohio, and wheat at twenty-five cents. But a few years later agriculture in the North-west was beginning to be regarded as the “basis of subsistence and parent of individual and national opulence,” also.

The idea of a prospective market for the products of the soil, that would well remunerate the labor of production, was already being felt, and creating an enthusiasm and preparation for farming on a larger scale. Labor was plenty and wages fair, and the work of destruction of timber and increasing the acreage for cultivation went on rapidly. Large areas were deadened to facilitate the removal, and the sunshine in many places found its way to earth, where it had been excluded for ages. And the common squirrel hunter soon underwent an expansion of character that led on to eminence in agriculture, art, science, commerce, courts, congress, and cabinet. The things said and done caused the legislature, in 1822, to pass an act authorizing the employment of engineers to examine and report the “practicability of making a canal from Lake Erie to the Ohio river;” and in 1825, after four years of the most arduous labor and discussion, the work was determined upon, and Governor De Witt Clinton and others, among whom were Solomon Van Rensselaer, of Albany, and United States Judge Conkling and Mr. Lord, of New York, were invited to be present at the commencement of the great work, which was to have its beginning three miles west of Newark, July 4, 1825.

The people of the entire state were under high excitement at the new era which seemed approaching so rapidly, and acted quite differently from what they likely would at the present day on the commencement of a public enterprise. Then many thousands assembled to see “The Father of Internal Improvements,” and to hear what “the best-looking man the nation had ever produced” had to say on the subject of which he was the reputed father.

The time was near at hand, and on the arrival of the great Governor of New York at Cleveland, the ovation was grand; he was welcomed by Governor Morrow, state legislature, officials, military organizations, and by the people. And flags, and guns, and noisy display were beyond the power of description. And before the sun had risen, July 4, 1825, every thoroughfare to Newark was crowded with all kinds of loaded vehicles; men and women on horseback, and men, women, and children on foot—many of whom had traveled all night in order to reach the appointment on time. And the wonder was, where all the immense, uncounted, and unaccountable mass of human-beings came from.

The day was fair and the air cool and balmy, as Ohio atmosphere is after recent July showers. Newark at this time had less than one thousand inhabitants, but the country surrounding was amply large to accommodate the crowd which desired to pay their respects to the man whose influence, energy, ability, and perseverance were able to advance civilization, at once, half a century, by the magic wand of public improvements. And when Governor Clinton’s carriage appeared on the public square at Newark, thousands of voices rent the air with loud and long huzzas of welcome; and to which was added, the firing of one hundred guns. And the immense procession at once began moving for the spot prepared for the ceremony of the “spade and barrow,” three miles in the country. Governor Clinton took the first spadeful amid the enthusiastic shouts of thousands. The Ohio Governor, squirrel hunter, statesman, and farmer, next sunk the implement its full depth. And so from one to another the spade passed, until the wheel-barrow could hold no more, and was taken to the designated dump by Captain Ned King, of Chillicothe, amid one wild, indescribable, and continuous cheering.

Hon. Thomas Ewing was orator of the day, and when the Governor of New York attempted his reply, the bursts of applause were so great he was obliged to pause, “and being unaccustomed to such demonstrations and tokens of respect, shed tears in the presence of his worshipers.” After the addresses the entire audience, estimated at not less than ten thousand, dined in the shade of the wide-spreading beech trees, the underbrush having been cleared off from several acres for the purpose, and seats arranged and tables spread with a sumptuous dinner for all, furnished by the liberality of one man, Goetleib Steinman, of Lancaster, Ohio.

The regular toasts were limited to thirteen, but the volunteers were still going on when the editor of the Olive Branch retired late in the evening.

1. General George Washington.

2. The President of the United States.

3. The Governor of Ohio.

4. The man who guided by the unerring light of science with vigorous and firm mind, has led and now leads his countrymen in the splendid career of “internal improvements”—our honored guest.

5. The great State of Ohio.

6. Legislature.

7. The Canal Commissioners.

8. Ohio Canal—The great artery of America, which will carry vitality to all the extremities of the Union.

9. State of New York—She has given to the world a practical lesson what freemen can do when determined to secure their own happiness.

10. Henry Clay—the able supporter of “internal improvements.”

11. General Bolivar—The Washington of South America.

12. The power of free government.

13. The fair sex of our country—In prosperity the partners of our joys, and in adversity our greatest solace.

Volunteer—

By De Witt Clinton—The Ohio Canal—A fountain of wealth, a chain of union, a dispenser of glory.

By General Van Rensselaer—The memory of General Wayne—By his sword, the way was cleared for the settlement of the country.

By I. Johnston—National Improvements—A fit subject for national pride.

By Wm. Lord—Thomas Jefferson—A man with one mistake.

Canal Era. 1825.

The 4th of July, 1825, only a few months prior to the completion of the New York Canal, machinery was put in motion to revolve until the end of time. On this day the policy of the state government in favor of internal improvements was permanently inaugurated. Even the few opposing minds of those who had never seen the walls of China, but wished to maintain the state secluded from the commercial world by means of the high tariff (the barriers nature had vouchsafed to the inhabitants), weakened in their ideas of “home protection,” or at once became favorable to the doctrine of reciprocity, which at that early date was the “soft” or synonym for free trade. And when it became satisfactorily demonstrated that improvements would increase the amount and price of labor, as well as the values of its products, such individuals changed to vociferous advocates of a canal, saying: “If the canal can secure such prices for the products of the soil, and in return furnish foreign cheap supplies, we can afford to abandon looms and spinning-wheels, and let supply and demand take care of themselves.” And the energetic boards of construction were unanimously supported by the people, and soon completed eight hundred miles of canals and one thousand miles of toll-roads, with a disbursement of over fifteen million dollars, borrowed money. The state, however, suffered no inconvenience on this account; its credit was good, and all that was necessary to obtain funds as fast as needed was to call upon the Lord who came to Ohio with Governor Clinton at the opening.

Log-Cabin Luminary.

Among the multitude of great men assembled on this occasion, no one did more or was nearer and dearer in the hearts of the people than the man who mastered mathematics, Greek, Latin, and law, while a “hireling” at the Kanawha Salt Works; the man who did his reading at night by the light of the furnace or a “log-cabin luminary,” a lard lamp; the man who received the first collegiate degree of A.M. ever issued in the North-west; the orator of the day, Hon. Thomas Ewing. No such universal and intense enthusiasm was ever before, or again will be, so overwhelmingly manifested in Ohio as that of the opening of the canals; no other object for public demonstration is likely will ever approach it in importance.

Governor Clinton and party were escorted from Newark to Columbus by the state militia, legislature, county and state officers and eminent citizens. And in reply to Governor Morrow’s reception, Governor Clinton said:

“I find myself at a loss for language to express my profound sense of the distinguished notice taken of me by the excellent chief magistrate of this powerful and flourishing state, and by our numerous and respected fellow citizens assembled in this place, I feel that my services have been greatly overrated, but I can assure you that your kindness has not fallen on an ungrateful heart—that I most cordially and sincerely reciprocate your friendly sentiments, and that any agency I may have had in promoting the cardinal interests to which you have been pleased to refer, has been as sincere as it has been disinterested.

“When Ohio was an applicant for admission into the Union, it was my good fortune to have it in my power, in co-operation with several distinguished friends, most of whom are now no more, to promote her views and to assist in elevating her from a territorial position to the rank of an independent state. This was an act of justice to her and duty of high obligation on our part. At that early period I predicted, and indeed it required no extraordinary sagacity to foresee, that Ohio would in due time be a star of the first magnitude in the federal constellation; that she contains within her bosom the elements of greatness and prosperity, and that her population would be the second, if not the first, in the confederacy.

“The number of your inhabitants at the next census will probably exceed a million. Cultivation of the soil has advanced with gigantic strides—your fruitful country is teeming with plenty, and has a vast surplus beyond your consumption of all the productions of agriculture. Villages, towns and settlements are springing up and extending in all directions, and the very ground on which we stand, but a few years ago a dreary wilderness, is now a political metropolis of the state, and the residence of knowledge, elegance and hospitality.

“I have considered it my solemn duty in concurrence with your worthy chief magistrate, your very able canal board of finance and superintendence, and other patriotic and enlightened citizens of this state, to furnish all the resources in my power in aid of the great system of internal navigation so auspiciously commenced on the fifteenth anniversary of our national independence.

“This is a cause in which every citizen and every state in our country is deeply interested; for the work will be a great centripetal power that will keep the states within their federal orbits—and an adamantine chain that will bind the Union together in the most intimate connection of interests and communication. It therefore secures, not only the prosperity of Ohio, but the union of the states and the consequent blessings of free government; and now I think it my duty to declare that I have the utmost confidence in the practicability of the undertaking, and the economy and ability with which it will be executed. In five years it may, and will be completed, in all probability, and I am clearly of the opinion, that in two years after the construction of this work, it will produce an annual revenue of at least a million dollars, and hope this remark may now be noted, if any thing I say shall be deemed worthy of particular notice, in order that its accuracy may be tested by experience.

“I beg you, sir, to accept the assurance of my high respect for your private and public services, and to feel persuaded that I consider your approbation and the approbation of patriotic men an ample reward for my service, that a benevolent Providence may have enabled me to render to our common country.”[25]

From Columbus the party was escorted to Springfield, Dayton, Hamilton, and Cincinnati, receiving public dinners and the most extravagant and enthusiastic demonstrations of appreciation and respect by thousands of citizens. At Cincinnati the party were invited guests to an entertainment given in honor of Henry Clay.

While Governor Clinton was in Cincinnati, he yielded to the pressing invitation to go to Louisville and render an opinion on the question then in dispute between Kentucky and Indiana, as to which side of the river was the better adapted for a canal around the falls. His decided opinion was in favor of Kentucky, to which all parties assented, and the canal was constructed accordingly.

On returning home, the Governor passed through Portsmouth, Piketon, Chillicothe, Circleville, Lancaster, Summit, and Zanesville, via Pittsburgh, receiving every-where the most distinguished attention.

All business for the time was suspended. He and his party were every-where treated as Ohio’s invited guests; and the Governor was attended by all the county officers, eminent citizens, and multitudes to the next county line, where a like escort was in waiting with the best livery the country could produce; halting at each county town, for a grand reception, ornamented with speeches, toasts, flags, and firearms.

Thus the benefactor of the nation passed from one county to another, across a great state, and as soon as the advance-guard came in sight of any town, the bells of all the churches, public buildings, and hotels, gave their long and merry peels of welcome—the cannon roared and a vast crowd of waiting citizens of town and country marched forward with huzzas and banners of “Welcome—welcome—to the Father of Internal Improvements.”

The following extract, written at the time by a cool-headed representative of the state, is expressive without coloring or exaggeration:

“The grave and the gay, the man of gray hairs and the ruddy-faced youth; matrons and maidens, and even lisping children, joined to tell his worth, and on his virtues dwell; to hail his approach and welcome his arrival. Every street, where he passed, was thronged with multitudes, and the windows were filled with the beautiful ladies of Ohio, waving their snowy white handkerchiefs, and casting flowers on the pavement where he was to pass on it.”

No king, emperor, president, or statesman; no manufacturer of personal or political enthusiasm, even of palace-car order, ever obtained that intensity and spontaneous manifestation as was shown “The Father of Internal Improvements,” on his passage through the state.

And it is yet a sorrowful reflection to memory, that such magnetism, ability, and influence for good did not live to see the Lake Erie and Ohio Canal completed; that his life’s sacrifices, in physical and mental efforts for the advancement of civilization in the North-west, have been so soon almost forgotten. But more; that his good works should have been so cheaply recognized at his death by a state he had enriched by making himself so poor. But it is never too late to be just, nor too long to right a wrong.

About this time, an era of “prosperity” had already dawned in the East, and was heralded from mouth to mouth—from the Ohio river to Lake Michigan—that the “Erie Canal” was completed, and the first fleet of boats left the Hudson, October 26, 1825, laden with emigrants for the North-west.

On the banners this fleet carried were the significant words, “The Star of Empire Westward Takes its Way,” and the cannons were heard and answered from Buffalo to New York City.

This canal proved a success even beyond the expectations of the most sanguine; and a line of commerce was at once established from tide-water to the western chain of lakes, and soon filled the new states with population and their ports with merchandise. And the Ohio protectionist, who had been so fearful of an influx of “pauper labor” and the products of “foreign industries,” found his own state, while discussing it, ready to disburse fifteen million dollars for day labor in the construction of internal improvements. And the Squirrel Hunter, whose life was one of education, development, power, and progress, hailed with delight the opportunity to work on the Lake Erie canal, twenty-six dry days of twelve hours each, for the sum of eight dollars. It was the first privilege ever offered in Ohio to obtain so much money in so short time, without encroachment upon his store of squirrel and coon skins.

In 1824, the year before the completion of the Erie canal, prices of produce still ranged low: twenty-five cents for wheat and six cents for corn, with no market or demand excepting for making whisky with copper stills. But when the Erie canal was finished and the Ohio and Lake Erie under way, prices on all kinds of produce advanced more than two hundred per cent, with such an unlimited demand that the improvements converted every body into favor with public works. And times became better in Ohio than ever before—corn advanced to forty and fifty cents and wheat to seventy-five and one dollar per bushel; and with the state distribution of millions of money, and her rich and productive soil, she was lifted out of the groove of idle content into the bright sunshine of prosperity and improvement.

It soon became manifest that internal improvements increased the demand and prices of the products of the soil, with a diminution in value of most all kinds of manufactured articles used in exchange. The salines of New York killed the salt manufacture in Ohio as effectually as free trade did the business of the wheelwright, the reelwright, the manufacturer of looms, reeds, flyers, hackles, plows, nails, and other “infant industries.” All were ended by the canal; and a man or boy who desired a new hat had, no longer than 1825, to go to a “hat shop” and have his head measured with a tape-line, and diagram registered, with full directions of minor matters—material, color, and price—and then wait the making.

By means of the New York canal, peddlers were offering for sale almost every thing enjoyed in the East, “at unprecedented low prices;” and even the meridian mark in the south doorway was of no use any longer, except to regulate a Yankee clock. These Connecticut time-pieces were distributed to nearly every resident landholder in the state at sixty dollars or less, on a year’s credit, in the form of a note with six per cent interest—a clock that cost the peddler two dollars and fifty cents at a New England factory.

Traveling merchants of all kinds flocked into the North-west like squirrels at moving time, and the epidemic struck Pennsylvania so disastrously that the Hon. John Andrew Schultz, at the time governor of that state, is reported as having memorialized the legislature for a law preventing this class of non-residents from perambulating the country, selling articles of no value, and often base counterfeits of things of domestic use, saying that in his neighborhood, “They were palming off counterfeit basswood nutmegs, when every body knows the genuine are made of sassafrac.”

The opening of the canal trade gave interest and amusement to thousands of persons. On the day appointed citizens came long distances to witness the filling of the ditch with water, and the floating of boats as they came along in the pride of the names they bore in honor of favorite citizens living along the line, as “The James Rowe,” “The Dr. Coats,” “The James Emmitt,” “The Sam Campbell,” “The General Worthington,” etc., lettered in gold, all of which was purely complimentary to the individual, and not thought of as an advertising dodge, although it may have suggested afterwards its advantages in this line to members of the Board of Public Works.

The remarkable advancement in the prosperity of the state resulting from the canals exceeded the expectations of their best friends so far that it will probably ever remain as the most notable era in the history of the state. Increased prosperity and rising civilization advanced step by step. From the pack-saddle to the freight-wagon, stage-coach, canal-boat, steamboat and railroad, each served or is serving a good purpose in the elevation of the social, intellectual and moral faculties of American citizens.

Ohio Stage Coach.

From the organization of the state until the introduction of canals and railroads, inland transportation of merchandise and travel was done by means of stage-coaches and freight-wagons. The coaches were stoutly constructed, with leather suspensions for springs, with inside dimensions for nine persons, and somewhat like a Chicago street-car—enough room outside for all who were able to find a place to “hang on.” At the rear each coach was provided with a capacious boot for the accommodation of Saratoga trunks and U. S. mail-bags. The driver had an elevated outside seat in front, and proudly pulled the strings on four spirited horses, which were driven in relays of ten miles, and under favorable circumstances would, in this way, make eight miles an hour, including stops for changes, and times of arrival and departure at the stations were very punctually made on good roads.

Often it became amusing to see how easy a good-hearted driver who loved his team, as many drivers did, could favor it by letting the horses walk up each little ascent, but when in sight of the change would blow the horn and crack the whip, and go in flying, with a mark “behind time” for the next driver and relay to make up. But the “make up” seldom came, and it was nothing unusual in a distance of two hundred miles to find the coaches fifteen to twenty hours behind the schedule time.

There were no improved roads north of Columbus for nearly fifty years, and during the wet season, or thawing of the frozen road-bed, staging became slow and laborious. If not mixed with pleasure, it was the only means of inland intercourse of a public character the inhabitants could look to.

Charles Dickens, on his way from Columbus, Ohio, to Buffalo, N. Y., via Sandusky City, in 1842, accurately describes the roughness of traveling by stage-coach and the jolting of the corduroy roads over bogs and swamps, and says: “At length, between ten and eleven o’clock at night, a few feeble lights appeared in the distance, and Upper Sandusky, an Indian village, where we were to stay till morning, lay before us. They were gone to bed at the log inn, which was the only house of entertainment in the place, but soon answered our knocking, and got some tea for us in a sort of kitchen or common room, tapestried with old newspapers pasted against the wall.

“The bed-chamber to which my wife and I were shown was a large, low, ghostly room, with a quantity of withered branches on the hearth, and two doors without any fastening, opposite to each other, both opening upon the black night and wild country, and so contrived that one of them always blew the other open, a novelty in domestic architecture which I do not remember to have seen before, and which I was somewhat disconcerted to have forced on my attention after getting into bed, as I had a considerable sum in gold for our traveling expenses in my dressing case. Some of the luggage, however, piled against the panels, soon settled this difficulty, and my sleep would not have been very much affected that night, I believe, though it had failed to do so.

“My Boston friend climbed up to bed somewhere in the roof, where another guest was already snoring hugely. But being bitten beyond his power of endurance, he turned out again, and fled for shelter to the coach, which was airing itself in front of the house. This was not a very politic step as it turned out, for the pigs scenting him, and looking upon the coach as a kind of pie with some manner of meat inside, grunted around it so hideously that he was afraid to come out again, and lay there shivering till morning. Nor was it possible to warm him, when he did come out, by means of a glass of brandy, for in Indian villages the legislature, with a very good and wise intention, forbids the sale of spirits by tavern-keepers.”

For want of roads, traveling by coach was slow and laborious, in all the north-western states. In 1840, the writer was treated to a five cents per mile ride across the State of Michigan, from Detroit to New Buffalo, now Benton Harbor, on Lake Michigan, a distance of two hundred miles. It was mid-winter, but not frozen hard, and required nearly three days and two nights of joltings and fatiguing monotony. The joys felt on arriving in sight of steamboat navigation are still fresh in the recollections of the past.

Stage coaches had their centers for distribution in Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati, and were used in the principal mail lines over the state. Here too, the African skin became a perplexing question. The dictum of slavery had to be respected. If a colored person desired to be carried to a given point, he could prepay to such—his money was never refused on any account but for his color there was no time-table of departure or arrival. If no objections were raised by a passenger, he would at once be started on his way as an outside incumbrance. But if at any time while on the route, at a station or “change,” a passenger should be added who objected to riding in the same coach with a “free nigger,” as was no unusual thing, the colored passenger would be obliged to stop off and wait for a coach containing more liberal sentiments, or take the road on foot. This treatment on all the coach lines was witnessed so frequently that it ceased to call forth marks of disapproval. The principle in a milder form appears to have been transferred from the old stage-coach to the great railroad Cincinnati built South, by ignoring the constitution of the state, and as some thought at the time, subsidizing the Supreme Court. On this road the American born citizen with African blood, however remote the descent, or great the admixture, is refused admittance to coaches accorded to all other nationalities. Why? it is not necessary to state.

The wagons for freight were large and strong, and, having a cover of white canvas, gave them the name of “Prairie Schooners.” They were usually drawn by six horses, and on long routes traveled in companies; and trains could be seen moving slowly along in line, all laden with merchandise of the East, or on their way East, carrying the products of Ohio industry to an eastern market. The style of the “schooner” and the wagons themselves have “been out of print” so long, not one appeared on exhibition at the Centennial World’s Fair. They were all of the same pattern, and as “near alike as peas;” differing in every respect from the emigrant wagon of later date.

Prairie Schooner.

The bed or body of the “schooner” was formed by a stout frame-work of the best seasoned bent-wood, and put together as immovable and durable as any railroad coach body of the present day. The shape, covering, etc., is shown by annexed illustration. The teams were composed of large draft-horses. The “near” wheel-horse carried a saddle, in addition to his harness, for the accommodation of the driver. This saddle-horse, with the near front animal, or “leader,” constituted the managing horses of the whole team. All orders were given, as required, to these; they were always wakeful, watchful, and obedient. A good leader and a reliable near wheel-horse were boastful prizes of their owners; and most teamsters in those days owned their entire outfits, and were exceedingly kind to their animals.

What may seem peculiar, whether having four or six animals in the team, the driver used only a single line—one string attached to the “leader,” and to him, with the aid of the “saddle-horse,” safety and correct actions of all the members of the team were assured.

Many were the thousands of tons these lines carried over the mountains. But the tread of the caravan and the crack of the “black-snake”[26] were no longer heard on the Alleghanies after the completion of the Erie Canal (in 1825); and ceased entirely as a system of transportation on the operation of the Ohio Canal (in 1832). The “schooners” and “Branches of the United States Bank” wound up and quit business in Ohio about the same time. It was an off year for political speculators. President Jackson vetoed the bill to renew the charter of that monster monopoly entitled “The United States Bank,” an institution owned and controlled by a few wealthy foreign and American citizens, who were receiving exclusive privileges, favors, and support from the government.

Ohio did not feel the suspension of this great monopoly with its thirty-five millions so severely. Millions of money had just been distributed over the state for labor in the construction of internal improvements, and with canals, coaches, and steamboats, and agriculture in a nourishing condition, the prosperity that seemed lost in the ruins of speculation and bankruptcy, proved a small impediment in line of progress or march of empire.

The people did not become idle or discouraged; farming interests were increasing all the time, and more attention was directed to schools and education than ever before; and civilization was manifestly and permanently on the advance. Still the conditions of trade suffered serious embarrassments connected with the unstable condition of the currency or money of the country. Bank-notes of one state were at a heavy discount in every other. This, with bank and individual failures, caused much inconvenience for a time, but things soon grew better. Population and aggregate wealth of the state increased, and in 1847 gave the greatest yield of produce ever previously harvested, and which, owing to the “Irish famine,” was disposed of at speculation prices, and the state went on to prosperity and comparative excellence and influence.

The mass of descendants of pioneers in Ohio looked forward to agriculture as the source of subsistence and independent competency. “Millionaire,” in early days, was a word seldom used, and entirely unknown in biography. The pioneer saw the necessity for the promotion and advancement of true civilization, that every citizen should own a home—a place he might call his own—a place to live and labor for the good of himself and others. And not until the introduction of the railroad president, private palace cars, trusts, combines, and transformation of the public service into party machines for becoming suddenly rich, did the more observing recognize the true estimate and sound brotherhood existing with the gold bags of the nation. Nor did the poor suspect that combined wealth would ever dream as did the thirsting Turk at midnight hour—“that Liberty, her knee in suppliance bent, should tremble at its power.”

CHAPTER VI.
OHIO—HER RAILROAD AND TELEGRAPH ERA.

The canal era proved so satisfactory that people took their steps more rapidly than ever before, and began measuring the hours by dollars and cents, and the value of life by the amount of labor performed. The feeling that something should be done to increase time and diminish space became universal, and not a few prospectors had their eyes open for the “old stone” that turned all it touched to gold.

The application of steam as the coming motor power for transportation and travel was pictured in the minds of many inventors in this country and in Europe; and trials of engines and their working abilities became the all-absorbing subject of the times, and as early as 1835 it could be seen that provincialism was passing away and that the citizens of Ohio felt that coaches, wagons and canal-boats were too slow and insufficient for advanced civilization.

The opening of a road between Manchester and Liverpool, September 15, 1830, and one in South Carolina the following January, gave the subject increased interest, although the efforts were exceedingly crude, and often bordering on the ridiculous. It was, however, a problem that had to be worked out, and every one having a mind for construction became a model maker of locomotives and railroad tracks. Even Peter Cooper built an engine and named it “Tom Thumb,” and in his attempt to test its superiority over horse-power was beaten owing to that “if” which always catches the rear contestant. It appears that in 1830 the Baltimore & Ohio road had a double track finished from Baltimore to Ellicott’s Mills, a distance of fifteen miles, and was utilized by means of horse-power. Mr. Cooper, who had built a small locomotive after his own mind to demonstrate to his own satisfaction the possibilities of steam as a motor power on roads, after making a number of successful trips to the mills and return, a race was proposed between “Tom Thumb” and its light open car, and a car and one horse of those run by the company occupying the road. The race was to start at the Relay House and end in Baltimore, a distance of nine miles.

On the 28th day of August, 1830, just seventeen days before the Manchester and Liverpool Exhibition, the start was made, and, as reported at the time:

“At first the gray had the best of it, for his steam would be applied to the greatest advantage on the instant, while the engine had to wait until the rotation of the wheels set the blower to work. The horse was perhaps a quarter of a mile ahead when the safety valve of the engine lifted, and the thin blue vapor issuing from it showed an excess of steam. The blower whistled, the steam blew off in vapory clouds, the pace increased; the passengers shouted, the engine gained on the horse; soon it lapped him; the silk was plied; the race was ‘neck-and-neck, nose-and-nose;’ then the engine passed the horse, and a great hurrah hailed the victory. But it was not repeated, for just at this time, when the gray’s master was about giving up, the band which draws the pulley which moved the blower slipped from the drum, the safety-valve ceased to scream, and the engine, for want of breath, began to wheeze and pant. While Mr. Cooper, who was his own engineer and fireman, lacerated his hands in vain attempts to replace the band upon the wheel, the horse gained on the machine and passed it, and although the band was presently replaced and steam again did its best, the horse was too far ahead to be overtaken, and came in the winner of the race.”

The numerous excursions, trial trips of engines, and public demonstrations made in the interests of improvements, from 1830 to 1840, on roads chartered in 1825-26-27-28, did not inspire confidence as good investments. They were looked upon chiefly as curiosities, mixed with great discomfort and danger, and received huzzahs and new patrons at each juncture, those making the trip one day surrendering their places with admiration to others, much after the plan of those who took in the curiosity show of the horse “having his tail where his head ought to be.” A railroad excursion of governors, senators, judges, lawyers, divines, doctors, and other good people—special guests of several hundred—to ride on strap-iron rails, housed in old coach bodies or on open platform boxes, with the bumping and jerking of trucks attached to each other by abundance of slack chain, a beer-bottle engine and pine knots to make steam, enables the imagination to see the likeness of the unfortunate colored fireman with respect, though a slave, for the exhibition of a sense of comfort before, if not after, he “punched up the fire and closed down the lever to the safety-valve and sat upon it to keep the steam and smoke out of his eyes.”

While great enthusiasm existed in favor of railroads every-where during the thirties, the moneyed man and the man who desired to travel with comfort regardless of time did not take much stock in the enterprise. And the gentleman who wrote the following in his diary was one of a large class who viewed the present as complete, and that they could not endure pleasantly any discomfort that might repay to others in the future great pleasure:

“July 22, 1835.—This morning at nine o’clock I took passage in a railroad car (from Boston) for Providence. Five or six other cars were attached to the locomotive, and uglier boxes I do not wish to travel in. They were made to stow away some thirty human beings who sit, cheek by jowl, as best they can. The poor fellows who were not much in the habit of making their toilet squeezed me into a corner, while the hot sun drew from their garments a villainous compound of smells made up of salt fish, tar and molasses. By and by, just twelve—only twelve—bouncing factory girls were introduced, who were going on a party of pleasure to Newport. ‘Make room for the ladies!’ bawled out the superintendent. ‘Come, gentlemen, jump up on the top, plenty of room there.’ ‘I’m afraid the bridge knocking my brains out,’ said a passenger. Some made one excuse and some another. For my part, I flatly told him that since I belonged to the Corps of Silver Grays, I had lost my gallantry, and did not intend to move. The whole twelve were, however, introduced, and soon made themselves at home, sucking lemons and eating green apples. The rich and the poor, the educated and the ignorant, the polite and the vulgar, all herd together in this modern improvement in traveling. The consequence is a complete amalgamation. Master and servant sleep heads and points on the cabin floor of the steamer, feed at the same table, sit in each other’s laps as it were in the cars; and all this for the sake of doing very uncomfortably in two days what would be done delightfully in eight or ten. Shall we be much longer kept by this toilsome fashion of hurrying, hurrying, from starting (those who can afford it) on a journey with our own horses, and moving slowly, surely and profitably through the country, with the power of enjoying its beauty, and be the means of creating good inns? Undoubtedly a line of post-horses and post-chaises would long ago have been established along our great roads had not steam monopolized every thing.

“Talk of ladies on board a steamboat or in a railroad car—there are none. I never feel like a gentlemen there, and I can not perceive a semblance of gentility in any one who makes part of the traveling mob. When I see women whom, in their drawing-rooms or elsewhere, I have been accustomed to respect and treat with every suitable deference—when I see them, I say, elbowing their way through a crowd of dirty emigrants, or low-bred homespun fellows in petticoats or breeches in our country, in order to reach a table spread for a hundred or more, I lose sight of their pretentions to gentility, and view them as belonging to the plebeian herd. To restore herself to her caste, let a lady move in select company at five miles an hour, and take her meals in comfort at a good inn, where she may dine decently. After all the old-fashioned way of five or six miles, with liberty to dine decently in a decent inn, and be master of one’s movements, with the delight of seeing the country and getting along rationally, is the mode to which I cling, and which will be adopted again by the generations of after times.”[27]

Information in regard to railroading in its true sense, was circumscribed to experiment, which retarded the progress of improvement. The belief in lasting solidity, making the expense of building the road-bed more than necessary, so much so that it was estimated in the Eastern States, that about ten miles a year were all one company could properly construct.

Most engineers at first fell into the same error—making heavy stone walls for the road-bed. The blocks into which the wooden plugs were driven for the spikes to hold the rails were frequently resting upon solid masonry, four feet high and two and a half feet wide. After done, it was discovered a mistake; that an inelastic road-bed and speed were incompatible and disastrous to the machinery, and the intelligent State of Massachusetts, from the time the first locomotive was put upon the track (March, 1834) until 1841, had shown little advancement in the proper application of steam, as well as construction of road-beds and rails.

Robert Fulton expected his discovery would find its highest usefulness as a motive-power on railroads, as it has done; but his brother-in-law and partner did not deem the thing practicable as long as the insuperable objections named existed, and all attempts were passed to others, as the following letter shows, with day and date:

“Albany, March 1st, 1811,

“Dear Sir: I did not until yesterday receive yours of February 25th; where it has been loitering on the road I am at a loss to say. I had before read of your very ingenious proposition as to the railway communications. I fear, however, on mature reflection, that they will be liable to serious objection, and ultimately more expensive than a canal. They must be double, so as to prevent the danger of two such bodies meeting. The walls on which they are to be placed should at least be four feet below the surface and three feet above, and must be clamped with iron, and even then would hardly sustain so heavy a weight as you propose moving at the rate of four miles an hour on wheels. As to wood, it would not last a week. They must be covered with iron, and that, too, very thick and strong. The means of stopping these heavy carriages without great shock, and of preventing them from running on each other—for there would be many running on the road at once—would be very difficult. In cases of accidental stops to take wood and water, etc., many accidents would happen. The carriage of condensing water would be very troublesome. Upon the whole, I fear the expense would be much greater than that of canals, without being so convenient.

“R. R. Livingston.”

Ordinary business men, and even accomplished engineers, manifested as little knowledge in regard to the principles of science in railroading as they did in regard to the telegraph. Both were new fields for experiment, and both operators made many ridiculous mistakes.

When William D. Wesson announced he would demonstrate the practicability of sending and receiving messages over his wires stretched on poles from Chillicothe to Columbus, and vice versa, many persons had business into the city on that day, but ostensibly to witness the wonderful performance.

Early in the morning advertised for free messages, an honest patron of science living on the line a short distance out of town went up one of the poles and hung a letter on the wire, and secreted himself in view of the missive and in vain watched it all day, that he might obtain the secret of the process.

Another individual of inquiring mind on his way to the city boasted he intended to know before he returned how the thing was done. On his way home he was accosted by a neighbor who wished to know how it was possible to send a message to Columbus with safety on one of those little wires. The Squire said to himself it was no longer a mystery—he was a justice of the peace, and above the average as a lawyer—saying: “You see, they have a machine that rolls and compresses a letter into a little bit of an oblong roll, which just fits into a little brass cylinder, and when ready to send it is pushed up to a kind of machine all full of cog-wheels and ticking clock-work, and the man at the head says, ‘All ready—go’—and he touches a button, and the electricity runs out on the wire, and strikes the head of the cylinder in which the letter is placed, and it goes, chebang, to the other end of the wire, and drops into a basket.”

All this was worked out by the mental process of the Squire, who actually believed he had solved the process of telegraphing, as much as the engineers did that of railroading when they constructed the track of solid masonry.

In 1837, the horse-car running from Toledo to Adrian, Michigan, on oak rails was remodeled, road-bed improved in grades, rails strapped, an engine to take the place of horses, “and a beautiful new passenger coach to supply that of the old coach bodies.” It was also advertised the road would be “running regularly on and after October 1, 1837,” and that the “speed would be greatly increased, and would be able to carry passengers and the United States mail at the rate of fifteen miles an hour, making the entire distance, thirty miles, in two hours.”

New Passenger Car on the Toledo & Adrian Ry. 1837.

A fair likeness of the new passenger coach is here given, which, in days of primitive railroading, was looked upon as a step in the right direction. But this road was soon obliged to again suspend operations, temporarily, for other changes—many discouragements stood in the pathway to prosperity. Strap-iron rails on parallel timbers and stonemasonry and solidity proved failures, and the locomotive added no advantage over the horse, as existing conditions would not tolerate great velocity, the very thing in chief that would insure supremacy over a canal.

And England was twenty years in search of an adjustment of road and machinery by which velocity could be increased without an increase of danger. But the discouragements were so numerous, many hopeful workers abandoned the field. Only six years previous to George Stephenson’s locomotive, “Rocket,” making twenty-nine and a half miles in an hour, a book was published on “Railways,” in which the author says: “That nothing could do more harm toward the adoption of railways than the promulgation of such nonsense, as that we shall see locomotive engines traveling at the rate of twelve, sixteen, eighteen, and twenty miles an hour.”[28]

This may have been intended for Americans as well as Mr. Stephenson, for the “promulgation of such nonsense” did not cease, and power and speed increased with the increase in size of the parts of the machinery insured. So rapidly was this increase, that strong attempts were made from time to time to fix a legal limit at some point below twenty miles—in England.

In the United States, however, the faster the better, and from five rose to fifty, and then began looking around for rails and road-bed that would withstand the racket.

All the expense and experiments were not thrown away; true, investments and results failed for many years to inspire that confidence which opens the money vaults of the capitalists, but, not in the least discouraged, artisans, scientists, and genius, under any and every name, worked on and on, and when asked gave the coalminer’s answer to the House of Commons: “I can’t tell you how I’ll do it, but I can tell you I will do it.” The engineers, machinists, and model-makers kept at work, and so many improvements had been suggested to Peter Cooper’s locomotive that the first thing of the kind that had ever been made in the United States became transformed from a little competitor of the horse into a mammoth institution breathing impatiently for a track on which might be tested its speed and wondrous power.

The locomotive came—the heavy iron rails were in sight—but no one had yet suggested a satisfactory road-bed and rests for the rails. It had baffled the attempts of engineers. At this critical juncture a voice was heard from the wilderness—an axman, an Ohio “Squirrel Hunter”—one who had constructed many miles of substantial wagon roads through new sections of marshy country by means of “corduroys”—placing pieces of split timber, or sections of a younger growth, sixteen feet long, in close contact at right angles to the line of intended road-bed, then pinning long pieces of split saplings on the upper surface near the ends of the cross-ties on either side, and filling the interstices with earth, gravel, rotten wood, or other material, making a substantial and elastic track.

At a meeting of the president and directors of a section of unsatisfactory strap-iron road, this man appeared before the board with a model showing the relations of road-bed, cross-ties, and rails as now in use, claiming the plans proposed would insure the desirable essentials to safety, speed, cheapness, and durability, by giving elasticity and securing an absolute gauge at high rates of speed.

Seeing the model, and hearing the common-sense arguments and practicable philosophy of the “Squirrel Hunter,” all present clapped their hands and cried—“Eureka!”

Before the close of the session, a resolution was adopted in favor of “cross-ties and heavy iron rails.” With the correct idea for construction, it required but little time to satisfy the most credulous that velocity and power could be obtained with safety, and time saved; for time was fast becoming an important factor in the prosperity of the state. Charters were granted for roads in every direction, and each important village had aspirations for “a railroad center;” and capital, by millions, flowed into the state, and in a short period Ohio found herself with eight thousand five hundred miles of railroad, representing a capital of more than five hundred and fifty million dollars.

The officers of the first railroads felt or seemed to feel and act like ordinary people. This, however, was long before the procuration of a prohibitory tax on foreign steel rails. On one occasion, in 1849, the passengers on the line of coaches from the South, bound for Cleveland, Ohio, found on arrival at Columbus that “a new and expeditious route” had just been opened to Sandusky City, and thence to Cleveland, Buffalo, and other points east and west.

This “new and expeditious line” consisted of stage-coaches from Columbus to Mansfield, from Mansfield to Sandusky by the new railroad, and thence by boat to all other points. The railroad was part of the incomplete first through line from the lakes to the Ohio river, and was completed from Sandusky to Mansfield, fifty miles. The writer was one of the second installment of passengers sent over the new route. Four coaches left Columbus at an early hour, loaded with passengers and baggage, to make the connection at Mansfield, nearly seventy miles, over rough mud roads.

All went well until the Delaware county corduroys were reached. Here the leading coach got off the track and was down, with one wheel in the mud up to the hub. Getting out of this difficulty caused the time-table to be broken, and on reaching Mansfield in the evening we found the train to Sandusky had just left—so recently that the smoke of the motor was still visible in the direction of the lake.

The arrival of this caravan created no little excitement in the small town of Mansfield (Secretary Sherman’s home). Thirty angry passengers to be detained until the next day at a fifth-class hotel, destitute of accommodations, was not considered in the storm of invectives that were hurled in every direction, after taking in the situation. Accusations were publicly made that the landlord and the directors of the railroad were in partnership to rob the public by assertions enticing them into this trap.

The party was in no mood to remain idle, and at once took possession of the large room called “the parlor,” elected a chairman, adopted resolutions, and made a report and placed it in the hands of the printer, headed with familiar English epithets, warning the public to shun this impious swindle—making the most imposing specimen of literature, on large sheets, ever printed in that highly-intelligent town.

Before eleven o’clock that night the bill-posters had finished their work, as no more space could be found on which to spread the attractive sheets. About this time four good-looking, elderly gentlemen appeared and announced that they represented the president and directors of the road; that they were sorry the break of connection had occurred; that such a thing would not occur again, and asked, if they should reimburse all the fares paid at Columbus and give each a through ticket to place of destination, and pay the hotel expenses while detained in Mansfield, would the party surrender all the posters in their possession and call it even?

This was agreed to—posters surrendered and fares adjusted, and the whole party invited to a well-prepared but unexpected supper, which wound up with a jolly good time, and the dissatisfied were sent on their way next morning in full praise of the “new arrangement,” which became the most popular and best-patronized through fare route of any previous combination of the kind ever made in Ohio.

Railroads developed their importance rapidly, as did also the officers and employes. The systematic training and experimental management of roads have accomplished wonders in nationalizing the people of the United States. And by the reports of the Commissioner of “Railroads and Telegraph,” no necessity exists any longer for Ohio roads to compromise or give drawbacks to patrons in order to hold their influence and business. At least it would seem so, when the roads within the state, in 1894, carried twenty-seven million, two hundred and thirty-one thousand passengers, and fifty-nine millions, six hundred and thirty-nine tons of freight—earning sixty million, one hundred and forty thousand, eight hundred and thirty-one dollars; giving employment to fifty-four thousand, seven hundred persons, whose salaries amounted to a fraction less than thirty million, six hundred thousand dollars in aggregate. All this great wealth and industry has arisen from exceedingly small and crude beginnings.

Profitable private enterprises resulting from railroad investments in the states, at the commencement of the fifties, awakened a dozing Congress to the national importance of the subject, and in 1853, the Government commenced a road at an estimated cost that would have made the head of a Thomas Jefferson swim with constitutional objections—involving an expenditure of one hundred and thirty millions, with an additional five millions for engineering. It proved a success; the expenditure of labor enriched the people, and the road helped save the United States as a nation.

With canals, railroads, turnpikes, large crops, quick and cheap transportation, growing cities and increasing knowledge, wealth and happiness, to Ohio the sky was clear overhead, and every thing prosperous, West, East and North, until 1860. Something was transpiring South—Northern men were returning from the slave states with the belief the country was on the verge of a civil war—a gigantic insurrection. Some, to whom such opinions were rendered, believed, but most Northern men made light of the idea of the South seceding, as there appeared no justifiable cause for secession or rebellion.

But there was that quarrel about the black spot on the face of the Goddess of Liberty, which had grown large and was giving pain and mortification to all her Northern friends. It was evident the disease was destroying the life as it had the beauty, unless something was done to remove or check its growth.

Consultation after consultation had from time to time been made by the wise men of the nation, ending in disagreement in regard to the etiology, pathology and treatment. Still it was evident, to both North and South, that something must be done. And the South, claiming the patient, assured the country the affection and disaffection could be removed by the law of nature Samuel Hahnemann made—“similia similibus curantur,” and retired with the intention to capture Washington before the North could make resistance, and then proclaim the slave-power, the true and lawful friend of Liberty, and insist upon a hasty recognition of the Government of the United States, by the foreign ministers at the federal capital and the leading powers of Europe. But the Southern blood could not be restrained, and the premature overt acts defeated the scheme, saved Washington, and led to the recovery of universal freedom in the United States through a prolonged and bloody law.

General Sherman says in regard to the cause of the War of the Rebellion, that “The Southern statesmen, accustomed to rule, began to perceive that the country would not always submit to be ruled by them;[29] and they believed slavery could not thrive in contact with freedom; and they had come to regard slavery as essential to their political and social existence. Without a slave caste they could have no aristocratic caste.... That the northern politicians, accustomed to follow the lead of their southern associates generally, believed that the defeat of Fremont, in 1856, as the Republican candidate for the presidency, had insured the perpetuity of the Union; the southern politicians, generally, believed that the date of its dissolution was postponed during the next presidential term, and that four years and a facile President were given them to prepare for it. And they began to do so.

“Accordingly, during Mr. Buchanan’s administration, there was set on foot throughout the Southern States a movement embodying the reorganization of the militia, the establishment and enlargement of state military academies, and the collection of arms, ammunition, and warlike materials of all kinds.

“The Federal Secretary of War, Mr. Floyd, thoroughly in the interests of the pro-slavery conspirators, aided them by sending to the arsenals in the slave states large quantities of the national arms and military supplies; the quotas of the Southern States under the militia laws were anticipated in some cases by several years; and he caused large sales of arms to be secretly made, at low prices, to the agents of those states.[30]

“The pro-slavery leaders then began, quietly, to select and gather around them the men whom they needed and upon whom they thought they could rely.

“Among the men they fixed upon was Captain Sherman.... It was explained to him that the object of establishing the State Military Academy at Alexandria, was to aid in suppressing negro insurrections, to enable the state to protect her borders, ... and to form a nucleus for defense in case of an attack by a foreign enemy.”

Captain Sherman did not remain long in his high salaried office before he saw enough to convince an intelligent mind war was near at hand, and on January 18, 1861, he sent in his resignation to the Governor, as follows:

“Sir: As I occupy a quasi-military position under this state, I deem it proper to acquaint you that I accepted such position when Louisiana was a state in the Union, and when the motto of the seminary, inserted in marble over the main door, was: ‘By the liberality of the general Government of the United States—the Union—Esto Perpetua.’ Recent events foreshadow a great change, and it becomes all men to choose. If Louisiana withdraws from the Federal Union, I prefer to maintain my allegiance to the old Constitution as long as a fragment of it survives, and my longer stay here would be wrong in every sense of the word. In that event, I beg you will send or appoint some authorized agent to take charge of the arms and munitions of war here, belonging to the state, or direct me what disposition should be made of them.

“And furthermore, as president of the board of supervisors, I beg you to take immediate steps to relieve me as superintendent the moment the state determines to secede, for on no earthly account will I do an act, or think any thought, hostile to or in defiance of the old Government of the United States.”

Up to this date, Captain Sherman was not much known as a lawyer or statesman, and as a military genius, the South found they had mis-measured his patriotism and that which constituted his make-up. Few, if any, had heard the reply of the little fatherless boy to the minister who hesitated to give him the name of “a heathen,” (Tecumseh,) in baptism.

“My father called me Tecumseh, and Tecumseh I’ll be called—If you won’t, I’ll not have any of your baptism.”

This was the character of General Sherman, whose talents were as bright as was his life, pure and courageous. At the commencement of the war he was assailed on all sides, by the petty jealousies indigenous to public life; but nothing could retard his progress to the front, any more than it could his march to the sea—one of Ohio’s legitimate “Squirrel Hunters” born with his hand on Esau’s heel.

The war came, and on the 12th day of April, 1861, the first gun was fired. The Government was not alarmed, but was firm in the determination to preserve the Union at all cost, and looked upon the prospects of final success of secession as impossible against the will of the vast population and resources of the North-western States, and held to the truth of General Jackson’s answer to Calhoun: “Secession is treason, and the penalty for treason is death.”

At the outbreak of the Rebellion, the State of Kentucky had a governor named Beriah Magoffin. He had by some unknown means escaped the familiar Kentucky military title, and was known simply as “Beriah Magoffin, the Secessionist.” Beriah concocted a brilliant scheme, and gave out a manifesto that “Kentucky will not sever connection from the National Government, nor take up arms for either belligerent party, but arm herself for the preservation of peace within her borders, and a mediator to effect a just and honorable peace.”

But when the President of the United States called on Kentucky for volunteers to defend the Union, he received the reply: “I say emphatically that Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States.” On hearing of the reply of Governor Beriah Magoffin, the Governor of Ohio immediately telegraphed the War Department, “If Kentucky will not fill her quota, Ohio will fill it for her.” And within two days, two regiments were on the road to the credit of Kentucky, and other regiments came in so rapidly, that within a few days after the announcement of quotas, the Adjutant-General stated the offers of troops from Ohio were enough to fill the full quota of seventy-five thousand men allotted to the entire country.

The people of Ohio, and especially some in Cincinnati, became indignant at the muddle in which Kentucky had placed herself, causing Cincinnati to occupy an extra-hazardous position. The Governors of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois foresaw the tempting prize Cincinnati would be to the Confederates, and early urged the policy of seizing Louisville, Paducah, Columbus, Covington, Newport and the railroads. But this wise suggestion was postponed in its execution for want of troops, until the opportunity became lost. Columbus was strongly garrisoned, Buckner had committed his treason, Bowling Green was fortified, Tennessee was gone, and Kentucky held back all the armies of the West until March, 1862.[31]

Still, for the kindness, Kentucky came near getting Ohio into trouble during the second year of the war. And this, too, at a time when the Union forces were scattered and disseminated by disasters, disease, and desertions until the War Department showed an inability to maintain many important positions, especially in the border states. Rebel raids were moving in several directions. John Morgan, with his cavalry, found the City of Cincinnati defenseless and virtually besieged. Rough secession citizens were rioting, mobbing, and destroying property of peaceable persons of African descent, requiring “one thousand” extra policemen to save enough of the boodle to make an inducement for rebel raiders to call that way.

The cultivated hatred and unlawful acts toward the colored race prevailed to such a large extent by Cincinnati rebels and sympathizers, that the sentiments of officials were so uncertain that, when danger was in sight and the city came under the management of men who had actually taken side with the Federal Government, the police were required to take the oath of allegiance in a body as their official certificate of loyalty.

The rebel element was disappointed that John Morgan and cavalry did not attempt to take the city, which was joy and gladness to the Union portion of the inhabitants. But new and more alarming trouble to the loyal citizen was approaching. The Union forces had just met with disaster at Richmond, and General Kirby Smith had entered Lexington with Morgan and started an army for Cincinnati.

Bragg was just crossing the Kentucky line for Louisville, and no time could be lost. Cincinnati was without preparation or means of defense, and all was literally blue around recruiting offices; government troops were powerless, for want of time, and the emergency was great, for the rebels were near at hand.

If the Federal forces were ever at any time subject to despondency and discouragements it would have been excusable during July and August of 1862. General McClellan had been recalled from the Peninsula, Pope driven back and forced to seek refuge in the defenses of Washington, raids were menacing the borders of the free states, and many were claiming the war “a failure.”

General Wallace had been placed in command for the protection of the cities of Cincinnati, Covington, and Newport, and arrived in Cincinnati at nine o’clock at night, September 1st. And after consultation with Governor Tod and the mayors of the above-named cities, wrote his proclamation of martial law, and after midnight sent it to the city papers.

While this was going on, the Governor was busily engaged at the telegraph station. He knew the power and the loyalty of the “Squirrel Hunters.” As one of their number, he asked them to come—to come without delay, and to come armed—and then telegraphed to the Secretary of War, that a large rebel force was moving against Cincinnati, “but it would be successfully met.” He had faith in the expected troops. Though fresh from the rural districts, they all knew how to shoot; all fellow “Squirrel Hunters,” never known to turn their backs to the enemy with the trusty rifle in hand.

History tells the result. Whitelaw Reid says of the next morning:

“Before daybreak the advance of the men that were thenceforward to be known in the history of the state as the ‘Squirrel Hunters’ were filing through the streets.”

The citizens knew little or nothing of what had been transpiring throughout the night, and when aroused by the tramp, tramp, tramp, and as they gazed out upon the dimly-lighted streets, the greater their wonderment grew. Armed men, with all shades, colors, and kinds of uniforms! No one, awakening from sweet slumber, could say from what country, place, or planet, such a vast multitude could have dropped during the night. It could be seen the army was not blue enough for federals, nor gray enough for rebels; and “good Lord, good devil,” was about all that could be said.

In due time the morning papers came, announcing the city under martial law and protected by the “Squirrel Hunters” of Ohio, and the excitement became so great that many expressed themselves much after the fashion of “the little woman who went to market all on a market day.”

For patriotism, executive ability, and business talents, Governor Tod had few equals. With him the line of duty was always clear. Before General Wallace had written his proclamation of martial law the Governor was on his way to Cincinnati. From this point he at once telegraphed to the people, press, and military committees, saying: “Our southern border is threatened with invasion.... Gather up all the arms and furnish yourselves with ammunition for the same.... The soil of Ohio must not be invaded by the enemies of our glorious government. Do not wait. None but armed men will be received.”

“From morning till night the streets resounded with the tramp of armed men, marching to the defense of the city. From every quarter of the state they came, in every form of organization, with various species of arms. The ‘Squirrel Hunters,’ in their homespun, with powder-horn and buckskin pouch, ... all poured out from the railroad depots and down toward the pontoon bridge. The ladies of the city furnished provisions by the wagon load; the Fifth-street market-house was converted into a vast free eating saloon for the ‘Squirrel Hunters.’ Halls and warehouses were used as barracks.”

Pontoon Bridge, Ohio River.

As soon as it was known the city was under martial law, the sounds of hammers and saws came up from the river, and in a few hours a pontoon bridge was stretched across to Covington, and streams of wagons loaded with lumber and other materials for fortifications were passing over; and on the 4th of September Governor Tod telegraphed to General Wright, commander of the department: “I have now sent you for Kentucky twenty regiments. I have twenty-one more in process of organization,” and the next day said to the press:

“The response to my proclamation asking volunteers for the protection of Cincinnati was most noble and generous. All may feel proud of the gallantry of the people of Ohio. No more volunteers are required for the protection of Cincinnati.”

The exertions of the city were, however, not abated. Judge Dickson organized a colored brigade for labor on the fortifications. This with the daily details of three thousand white citizens, composed of judges, lawyers, merchant princes, clerks, day-laborers, artists, ministers, editors, side by side, kept at work with the ax, spade, pick, and shovel, and all promised the same wages—a dollar per day—went on most enthusiastically.

The engineers had given shape to the fortifications. General Wallace was vigilant night and day, as the rebel forces gradually moved up as if intending an attack. The Squirrel Hunters were drilled during the day and manned the trenches every night, and it was no longer a possibility that the forces under General Kirby Smith could take the city. But, owing to a few skirmishes, Major-General Wright, commander of the department, thought it prudent to call for more “Squirrel Hunters,” as it was believed a general engagement was near at hand. The papers of the city, September 11th, announced that before they were distributed the sound of artillery might be heard on the heights of Covington, and advised their readers to keep cool, as the city was safe beyond question.

It was under these circumstances Governor Tod sent the following telegram to “The Press of Cleveland”—“To the several Military Committees of Northern Ohio:

“Columbus, Sept. 10, 1862.

“By telegram from Major-General Wright, commander-in-chief of Western forces, received at two o’clock this morning, I am directed to send all armed men that can be raised immediately to Cincinnati. You will at once exert yourselves to execute this order. The men should be armed, each furnished with a blanket and at least two days’ rations. Railroad companies are requested to furnish transportation of troops to the exclusion of all other business.”

The expected attack did not come. “General Wallace gradually pushed out his advance a little, and the Rebel pickets fell back. By the 11th, all felt that the danger was over. On the 12th, General Smith’s hasty retreat was discovered. On the 13th, Governor Tod checked the movements of the Squirrel Hunters, announced the safety of Cincinnati, and expressed his congratulations.

“Columbus, September 13, 1862.
Eight o’clock A. M.

“To the Press of Cleveland:

“Copy of dispatch this moment received from Major-General Wright, at Cincinnati: ‘The enemy is retreating. Until we know more of his intention and position, do not send any more citizen-troops to this city.’” And the Governor’s dispatch to the Cleveland Press, accompanying the good news from Major-General Wright, says: “The generous response from all parts of the state to the recent call, has won additional renown for the people of Ohio. The news which reached Cincinnati, that the patriotic men all over the state were rushing to its defense, saved our soil from invasion, and hence all good citizens will feel grateful to the patriotic men who promptly offered their assistance.”

The clear-minded Governor Tod, without troops, guns or works of defense, telegraphed the Secretary of War that a large Rebel force was moving on Cincinnati, “but it, would be successfully met;” thirteen days after wired the following:

“Columbus, September 13, 1862.

“To Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War,
Washington, D. C.

“The Squirrel Hunters responded gloriously to the call for the defense of Cincinnati—thousands reached the city, and thousands more were en route for it. The enemy having retreated, all have been ordered back. This uprising of the people is the cause of the retreat. You should acknowledge publicly this gallant conduct.”

The entire North-west resounded with praises for Governor Tod and his thoughtful and successful expedient. To the “Squirrel Hunters,” it was not an entirely new thing; they had often heard of the times when their fathers were the actors at Cleveland, Fort Meigs and the Miamies, and bore their honors with a degree of modesty becoming their military equipments. When Lewis Wallace, Major-General commanding, bid these gallant men farewell, he said: “In coming time, strangers viewing the works on the hills of Newport and Covington, will ask, ‘Who built these intrenchments?’[32] You can answer—‘We built them.’ If they ask ‘Who guarded them?’ You can reply—‘We helped in thousands.’ If they inquire the result, your answer will be—‘The enemy came and looked at them, and stole away in the night.’ You have won much honor; keep your organizations ready to win more. The people of Ohio appreciated this noble act of the ‘Squirrel Hunters,’ in saving the City of Cincinnati, by turning back the Rebel army and prevented the destruction of property by a dissolute and desperate army.”

And the Ohio Legislature, at its next session adopted the following resolution:

“Resolved, By the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Ohio, That the Governor be and he is hereby authorized and directed to appropriate out of his contingent fund a sufficient sum to pay for printing and lithographing discharges for the patriotic men of the state who responded to the call of the governor and went to the southern border to repel the invader, who will be known in history as ‘The Squirrel Hunters,’

“James R. Hubbell,
Speaker of the House of Representatives.
P. Hitchcock,
President pro tem. of the Senate.
Columbus, March 11, 1863.”

Governor’s Certificate of Honorable Membership.

To this joint resolution of the legislature the governor responded with a handsome souvenir entitled

THE SQUIRREL HUNTER’S DISCHARGE.

Honorable Discharge.

A year after the services were performed, fifteen thousand seven hundred and sixty-six were issued to Squirrel Hunters, which, however, did not embrace more than one-third of the number that responded to the call and took part in the defense of Cincinnati and the Kentucky cities.

Those with certificates and those having none, but who responded to the call, are no less “Squirrel Hunters,” descendants of the Spirit of ’76—a chosen people to maintain and perpetuate the model government of the world.

From the Declaration of Independence to the present time the power of this free people has been as manifestly directed by unseen forces as ever was that of the favorite nation which came out from Egypt under a cloud; and the influences which dictated the dedication of the North-west to freedom will not likely permit the purpose to be compromised or changed.

That which was considered a long duration of the war, with frequent calls for troops, became exceedingly discouraging. And it was evident, after two years, that the strength of the federal army was inadequate for successful offensive operations. At the beginning of 1863, it required nearly four hundred thousand recruits to fill the companies and regiments then in service up to the standard enumeration. Death, disaster, and desertion begat inactivity, with an apparent exhaustion of former volunteer supplies; and secession was becoming more noisy and defiant in all the loyal states. This condition of things brought out the conscript act, and under it the Provost-Marshal General’s Bureau was organized June 1, 1863, by James B. Fry, and early in 1864, this efficient officer and his assistants had the loyal states well canvassed, and thoroughly organized, to obtain all the men necessary to put down the Rebellion. Each state was divided into districts; each district was placed under the management of commissioned officers, termed a Board of Enrollment, consisting of a provost-marshal, commissioner, and surgeon, whose business it was to make a full and exact enrollment of all persons liable to conscription under the law of March 3, 1863, and its amendments, showing a complete exhibit of the military resources in men over twenty and under forty-five years of age, with the names alphabetically arranged, with description of person and occupation in each sub-district.

The enrollment being cleared of persons having manifest disability of a permanent character, each sub-district (township or ward) was required to furnish its assigned quota under calls for men, whether the able-bodied individuals enrolled continued to reside in that sub-district or not. Unless it could be shown such person or persons were correctly enrolled in another sub-district, were in the service uncredited or credited to another sub-district, the removal of residence could not relieve the obligation of the sub-district where such person or persons were enrolled.

This new arrangement at first was exceedingly unpopular with rebel sympathizers in the loyal states, but the bureau soon established a business that impressed a belief in secession circles that it was an energetic war measure that would soon end the unpleasantness. This system of furnishing soldiers showed many advantages over that of voluntary enlistments. Large demands for men could be met immediately, and at the same time it made every citizen, whether loyal or disloyal, equally interested in having the quotas filled by means of bounties in order to avoid sub-district drafts.

And from an enrollment of two million two hundred and fifty-four thousand persons liable to do military service, the bureau, in a brief period, forwarded under calls of the government one million one hundred and twenty thousand six hundred and twenty-one able-bodied soldiers, and with these, and those already in the field, the would-be Southern Confederacy crumbled before the federal power.

It cost the government for raising troops from the commencement of the war until May 1, 1863, the date the recruiting service was turned over to the Provost-Marshal General’s Bureau, forty-six million one hundred and twenty-four thousand one hundred and sixty-two dollars, or thirty-four dollars for each man, exclusive of pay or bounty, while putting soldiers in the service under the conscript act cost the government nothing. The Provost-Marshal General neither asked nor received an appropriation, but under the law he made the bureau pay all attendant expenses, and after paying out sixteen million nine hundred and seventy-six thousand two hundred and eleven dollars for recruiting over one million men and capturing and forwarding seventy-six thousand five hundred and twenty-six deserters (now wards), General Fry turned into the Treasury of the United States, to the credit of the bureau, nine million three hundred and ninety thousand one hundred and five dollars, all of which proved a matter of great economy to the government, while the recruiting of the army cost less than one third as much as that adopted previous to the organization of the bureau, and that without cost to the government.

The draft-wheel and its uses were not the most pleasant things to contemplate, and to soften down the enactment Congress authorized recruiting in Southern states, regardless of color or previous condition, that by means of agents and liberal bounties very little drafting would likely be necessary. And it was soon discovered that blue suits and muskets were quite becoming to the colored man. “The shape of the cranium, the length of the forearm, thinness of the gastrocnemius muscles, and flatness of the feet,” all disappeared at the War Office, and for which was substituted, “He can be made a mechanical soldier to great perfection, skilled in the use of arms, and the machinery of tactics; and, by reason of the obstinacy of his disposition and the depth of his passions, may become most powerful in a charge or in resisting the onset of an enemy.”

Draft Wheel—Twelfth District, Ohio.

BOARD OF ENROLLMENT:

CAPT. GEO. W. ROBY, Provost Marshal.
A. KAGY, Commissioner of Enrollment.
DR. N. E. JONES, Surgeon Board of Enrollment.

The race was tried and showed the better predictions true. Slavery had woven prejudices around the name and color, until the government, under Lincoln, Stanton, Chase, and a Congress of loyal states, could find no place or mustering officer (previous to the operation of the Provost Marshal General’s Bureau), short of Massachusetts, that could make the man of color ready to obey orders and use a gun. Nothing in history gives a clearer view of the height and depth of the degrading influences of the institution upon those who were free than the treatment of the loyal colored man and citizen during the efforts of the government to save the Union. Through fear or cowardice his proffered aid was rejected at government recruiting offices, while Massachusetts was procuring colored credit from the loyal states at unusually small bounties.

It may have been so ordered; the diet may have contained enough meat to offend. Still, the colored troops got to the front before the war was over, and did much in reinforcing the wasting armies and lifting anxious sub-districts out of the draft, as well as covering their race with glory by their bravery and efficiency.

Persons placed in the service by means of the draft-wheel generally procured substitutes—persons not liable to draft—aliens and under-age individuals, who, for three years’ service or during the war, commanded one thousand dollars, while the bounty for enlistments of those liable to draft varied from three to five hundred dollars. During the war much of the territory of Ohio was unimproved woods, though thickly settled with cabin civilization. These new settlements were made by the descendants of original Squirrel Hunters—persons born in the state, and with this legacy generally established homes in new counties, in the woods, with like primitive beginnings to those of their ancestors. At the announcement of secession they were ready to serve their country, and it was from these newer and poorer sections that Ohio obtained her volunteers—from a hardy and efficient class of young men, accustomed to active life and the use of the gun.

The recruits from Ohio were chiefly volunteer enlistments. This was manifestly so in the Twelfth district, in which the author was personally and officially interested. The district was composed of Ross, Pickaway, Fairfield, Hocking, Perry, and Pike counties, embracing sixty miles in length of the fertile Scioto valley, containing in 1860 one hundred and thirty-nine thousand four hundred and fifty-six inhabitants, with a corrected enrollment of eighteen thousand three hundred and seventy-one persons liable to military service. Of this enrollment, thirteen thousand six hundred and twenty-eight were farmers, and the remaining four thousand seven hundred and forty-three comprised persons of other occupations.

Taking this district as an average of the other districts in the state, it shows the volunteers sent to the front from Ohio were chiefly young men born in the state—hardy and well-developed Squirrel Hunters. Of seventeen hundred and fifty-five volunteers forwarded by this district, from July 4, 1864, to April 30, 1865, one thousand, two hundred and twenty-nine were Ohio boys, with an average of 23.77 years—the remaining five hundred and twenty-six were from twenty-four states and fifteen foreign countries, with an average of 27.13 years. Notwithstanding the more favorable age of the latter group for physical development, the measurements stand decidedly in favor of the Ohio born, and if adding to the latter the nine hundred and eighty-seven drafted men, natives of Ohio, the favorable difference becomes still more apparent.

The Provost-Marshal General, in his report to the War Department, states there was not a single district in all the loyal states in which the board of enrollment was free from the annoyance of evil disposed persons hostile to the Government, who were ever ready and willing to embarrass its operation by stimulating resistance to the draft or discouraging enlistments. It was when the disloyal element experienced the firmness and earnestness of the boards, and felt the power behind them for the enforcement of the law, that they became co-laborers and most successful recruiting agents. This was exceedingly gratifying to the Government, and caused the Provost-Marshal General to say to the Secretary of War: “I am confident there is no class of public servants to whom the country is more indebted for valuable services rendered than the District Provost-Marshals and their associates, comprising the Boards of Enrollment, by whose efforts the army of the Union, which suppressed the Rebellion, was mainly recruited.” Still, Hon. Hoke Smith, ex-Rebel and Secretary of the Interior, published the information that these recruiting officers are not pensionable under the disability act of Congress, June 27, 1890, for the reason “these officers were not in the war,” and so says the present Commissioner of Pensions, Hon. Henry Clay Evens. Autocratic decisions are sometimes quite at variance with sound sense as well as suggestive of one of ex-President Lincoln’s best stories.

It can not be said that the Ohio Squirrel Hunters were not in the war, for not a few of them were pensioned long before the ex-secretary surrendered his arms of rebellion against the Government he now fosters. The oppressors of slavery in their wicked attempts to destroy the Union, induced a war that brought with it incalculable sorrow and suffering—a war that words and figures fail to give an approximate realization of its magnitude. Dollars can be measured by millions, but the tears, heart aches and loss of two hundred and eighty-seven thousand, seven hundred and eighty-nine loyal men who gave their lives for liberty, and are historically represented by head-stones that whiten the national cemeteries, can no more be estimated than can the good that must forever flow to the United States in wiping out the iniquitous chattel slavery.

Some persons are inclined to look upon the evils following the war—dissolute legislation, moral turpitude, and political party profligacy, as neutralizing much if not the entire national benefits acquired at the enormous cost of the Rebellion. While it is possible, the corruption following in the wake of protracted wars with large armies may more than counterbalance the good accomplished by successful military achievements, it is to be hoped that the subjugation of southern rebels, giving freedom to millions of slaves, and showing to credulous monarchs the ability of a republic to coerce obedience to the constitution and laws, may ever for good outweigh the evils following the war that accomplished such everlasting benefits. That the laxity complained of has greatly increased within the last three decades can scarcely be questioned. Every department of the government has been more or less criticised for want of faithful performance. No department has perhaps suffered more in the confidence of the people than that political plum styled “The interior.”

The just and honorable cause for pensioning disabled soldiers soon became merged into politics, and from head to foot the distance was made short from fact to fraud. Noah’s Ark did not exceed in variety with all the species of beasts, birds, and creeping things, that of the contents of the Pension Building with a single species of ex parte creation. Applications of all kinds, shapes, and forms. This has never appeared unsatisfactory to that unscrupulous, unmentionable, who is paid per head by the bureau for the art of filing claims. He knows by experience the wonderful ability of the institution and its consulting politicians to overcome objection and get the most angular cases through the hole that leads to the public treasury.

If stated, it would scarcely be believed that absolute fraud could find unrequited favor in an office devoted to the most deserving of the nation—cases as groundless as the following: After enlisting, a soldier changed his mind, and when called upon to report forwarded a joint affidavit of himself and physician, in which was stated said soldier had before and at the date of enlistment permanent disabilities (naming them), which disqualified him for military service, and that he should have been rejected. (Soldiers at that date were sent forward without regulation examination.) Soldier received a discharge on the affidavit and was happy.

In due time an application was made under the arrears act, giving the diseases named in the joint affidavit as having “occurred in the service in line of duty.” In days of honest administration, in looking up the history of the applicant in the War Office, the affidavit was found and placed with the file in the Pension Office.

This ended the case, and under several administrations it slept with attempts at fraud. Perseverance is said to be the road to success, and by the stimulant of contingent fees intercession was secured, and by management of good legal advice the case was placed in the hands of a “special examiner,” and went through without the loss of a dollar, securing a small fortune in arrears, but claiming the rating too low, and making immediate application for increase.

It would seem improbable for the heads of the bureau not to know and fully understand some of the many instances of perjury and fraud that passed current through the office. It is the old rejected or suspended cases with large arrears that are attractive and are thoroughly investigated for new evidence. In this attempt parties generally receive the courteous assistance of those officially connected with the office. Even a medical referee has been known to show great interest in barefaced fraud, and give tips to aid in getting such through the bureau successfully. General Phil Sheridan, who was well informed in regard to the contents of the great Pension Office, was told the contents were safe, as the building was fire-proof, and could never burn down, replied: “That would be my serious objection to it.”

Notwithstanding reports of corruption, fraud, avarice, and greed for public plunder, which may slow the advancing pace of civilization, there are enough common people to preserve the nation—people who worship not at the feet of the God of Aaron; poor people; people who pay legal tribute to the government; honest, stalwart standard-bearers of morality, intelligence, and patriotism; supporters of common-schools and churches; people who are ever watchful of the interests of the nation, protect the sanctity of the ballot-box, and direct the legal machinery for the protection of virtue and suppression of vice, possessing salt with the savor of moral honesty that passes current in business and social life.

The expressed will of the people is the law of the land. It has made and amended constitutions; by it black has become white; the bond free; slaves, citizens. It has erected monuments; built towns and cities; and in war and times of peace has accomplished much for the good of all. It has muzzled many of the national vices, and given civilization long strides in the right direction. And the spirit of the age should by law hasten the end of growing political struggles for place regardless of qualification.

It has become a matter of common report, and one that is generally believed, that successful applicants for office by the suffrage of the people are but seldom as much interested in the welfare of their constituents as they are in their own sycophantic obedience to selfish bosses, who, under party cover, willingly contribute of their wealth to perpetuate a party power that assures the gratification of their own greed for ill-gotten gain.

Qualification is recognized as essential by law, and lies at the foundation of civil and military service. State laws require that teachers of common schools furnish legal evidence of qualification for the position. The commander of an army must have a military education and qualification; so, too, every appointment made through the civil departments of the government, for a short distance up the base, requires of the applicant a certificate from a qualified board of censors, stating that said applicant is in all respects fitted to perform the duties of the position applied for. This is termed Civil and Military Service, and has been declared constitutional.

If so, why may not the people demand more? If a little civil service meted out to those filling subordinate positions is a benefit, why may not the like treatment be accorded to all candidates seeking national positions, by appointment or directly from the people? It is admitted that civil service is a matter of safety and efficiency in subordinate civil positions. If so, it is not unreasonable to suppose the salutary effects would be infinitely greater if applied to the more responsible positions. Education and qualification for all positions is the law of military government; and most certainly similar requirements might be made equally advantageous to the civil government. Military government could not long sustain existence without the service of prescribed regulations. The commanding general of the army obtains the high honor of the position from his education and certified ability, and efficiency as master of the science of war. The President of the United States, being over all as commander-in-chief, should be thoroughly versed in the civil and military, as Master of the Science of Government, not only of our own, but that of every nation on earth.

There does not appear to be any sufficient reason why a government civil service should not exist and be as open to the election of coming generations as that of law, medicine, literary or other pursuits; and it is not saying a word too much to urge the necessity for an institution adapted to the civil as West Point is to the military power, where persons having taken the degree of A.M. may matriculate and qualify themselves for the civil service, and obtain a certificate of such qualification from the institution, having a prescribed curriculum, requiring four years of study to entitle one to examination for the honors of graduation.

Individuals highly educated in the science of government and the art of governing, fitted for a field exclusively their own, would promote an agreement upon the complex questions that now agitate and endanger the peace of society by keeping at fever heat party differences that are magnified by designing politicians.

The high authority of the teachings of the court of instructions, would define the policy and give stability to the Government, and would remove party press for office by incompetency. It would also determine the exact relations between the several departments of the Government, especially how far the President has power to involve the country in war against the will of Congress by recognizing belligerency or independence in cases in which Congress refused such recognition.

As the nation increases in population and number of states, it requires increased wisdom and knowledge to rule and make the people prosperous and happy. The great central region lying between the Ohio river, Lakes and Mississippi will ever be the heart of the Republic. Within it are the life springs of three-fourths of our country’s whole area. Nowhere in the United States is there a basin of such vast extent, capable of feeding so great a population. “Hence its destiny is to hold the balance of power between East and West, hence it is truly regal.”[33]

When the first-born of the states of this great basin came into the Union (Ohio), it brought with its baptism the inauguration of National Internal Improvements—a policy that has enriched the nation by liberality of expenditures, improving harbors, water-ways and roads, in building custom-houses, post-offices, and in assisting the states in many laudable undertakings, while like the miser, in all its vast wealth has been wearing old, unbecoming, unfashionable clothes and doing the business of the nation in rented and other ill-begotten shops, located here and there, as best suited real-estate sharks and speculators in a sickly city.[34] But the dawn of day is coming by which the people of the North-west now see it is high time the Government should make for itself a permanent home—a place of security for all the valuable records of the nation. A spot for the Government alone, called “The Capitol of the United States,” near the center of population controlling representation, free from private property. A capital with capacious senatorial, representative and judicial halls, contiguous to the several departments, with state dwellings for senators and representatives of the several states, and other necessary buildings, all to be owned and controlled by the Government, each constructed with reference to the intended uses, large enough to accommodate an ordinary peaceable assemblage of American citizens, with room to spare.

The most celebrated speaker now living in America, on reciting a visit to the present capital during the sitting of Congress, states: “Another thing that impressed me was, that the hall of the House of Representatives was built in defiance of all laws of acoustics. There are more echoes than can be counted to play havoc with a speech, and turn the finest oratory into a senseless gabble.” A capital situated on the border of an inland sea, with large grounds, parks, lakes, lagoons, gardens, and fountains, in beauty all that art and nature is able to make one place on this continent fitly dedicated to the keeping of the charter of the best government on earth. And, then, if the crowned heads of the world have a desire to see the majesty of a Republic, owned and preserved by the people, let them come and look upon “The Capital of the United States”—where just laws are made and interpreted alike for all the people.

A capital with the architectural requirements of so great a nation, bristling with “peacemakers” and a floating navy in sight, would increase American pride and attachment, and do more to advance the arts, sciences, and sound civilization than all other national improvements combined. It would “copy the Monroe Doctrine into international law,” and secure peace over the entire world.

The Squirrel Hunters
of
Ohio and North-west will do it.
Good Night.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Native fruit: cranberries, huckleberries, blackberries, raspberries, service berries, paw-paws (custard apples), persimmons, plums, grapes, cherries, haws, crab apples.

[2] Mr. Havemeyer is the autocrat of the Sugar Trust of America after the fashion of Mr. Arbuckle, the Coffee Baron. Under the chairmanship of a committee the New York legislature, Senator Luxow investigated the Sugar Trust and found Mr. Havemeyer controlled four-fifths of the entire output of sugar in America.

[3] Mills erected on two boats, separated at an angle, with water wheel near the bow. The natural current of the stream passing between the boats turned the wheel that moved the machinery of the mill, which would grind twenty to forty bushels of corn in twenty-four hours, according to the current of the stream.

[4] Prof. Drummond.

[5] Buffon.

[6] History United States, by C. A. Goodrich, 1823: “This fund, in May 1821, amounted to one million seven hundred thousand dollars—the yearly income of which, together with twelve thousand dollars of the public taxes, is annually devoted to the maintenance of common school masters in every town in the state. The amount paid to the towns from this fund, in 1818, was more than seventy thousand dollars—a greater sum by twenty-two thousand dollars than the whole state tax amounted to in the year preceding.”

[7] Mathews.

[8] “The Builders of the Nation.”

[9] Dr. R. Dunglison.

[10] Charles Whittlesey.

[11] Charles Whittlesey.

[12] “Ohio Valley,” by Samuel Williams, p. 40.

[13] “Autobiography of a Pioneer,” by Rev. Jacob Young.

[14] Atwater, “History of Ohio.”

[15] Note—1895.—“Out of eight new Republican United States Senators just sworn in, four were born in Ohio. There are now eleven Ohio-born Senators. Ohio does a good business in ‘raising men,’ to say nothing about the good women.”—Chicago Inter-Ocean.

“True. It might be added that the managing editor and chief political writer of the Inter-Ocean are Ohio men. And, according to Mr. Dana and Mr. McCullagh, to be an editor is ‘greater than a king.’”—Exchange.

[16] Howe’s Hist. Coll.

[17] Minnesota, with an area of 46,000,000 acres, gave 20,000,000 acres to 3,200 miles of railroads.

[18] Barr’s Buffon, Vol. VII, page 175.

[19] Stevens’s Report.

[20] Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio.

[21] Hon. J. M. Rusk, Secretary Agriculture Report, 1889.

[22] Minneapolis Journal.

[23] Sixteen articles of amendment to the adopted Constitution were approved by Congress, September, 1789, ten of which were approved by the states.

[24] Excise act in Pennsylvania in 1794. This revolt required fifteen thousand armed men to quell, and cost the United States $1,000,000.

[25] Editor “Olive Branch” (No. 2).

[26] Whip.

[27] Recollections of Samuel Brock, pp. 275-7.

[28] Wood’s book on Railroads, 1825.

[29] Sherman and His Campaigns.

[30] W. T. Sherman.

[31] “Ohio in the War.” Reed.

[32] Ten miles in length.

[33] “The Making of the Ohio Valley States.”

[34] The death rate per 1000 of the inhabitants of the present capital is nearly double ordinary mortuary statistics of other cities. A single fatal disease—consumption—shows a death ratio per 1000, seven times greater than any city west of the Alleghany Mountains.—Hess.

Transcriber’s Notes:

Footnotes have been moved to the end of the text and relabeled consecutively through the document.

Illustrations have been moved to paragraph breaks near where they are mentioned.

Punctuation has been made consistent.

Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Captions were added to illustrations for text in the illustration as follows:

p. 95: THE OLIVE BRANCH
p. 109: SEAL
p. 110: SEAL
p. 111: SEAL
p. 256: LORD DUNMORE’S CAMPAIGN.

The following changes were made:

p. 40: ” inserted (had existed.” Without)

p. 47: Scoth changed to Scotch (sable Scotch Collie)

p. 219: Lo changed to Love (nature. Love had)

p. 333: deciminated changed to disseminated (and disseminated by)

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Table of Contents

- The Squirrel Hunters of Ohio

- PREFACE.

- INTRODUCTION.

- TABLE OF CONTENTS.

- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

- CHAPTER I. OHIO—EARLY SETTLEMENTS.

- CHAPTER II. OHIO—EDUCATIONAL, SOCIAL, AND POLITICAL.

- CHAPTER III. OHIO—PROFESSIONS: MEDICAL, MINISTERIAL, AND LEGAL.

- CHAPTER IV. OHIO—HER BEASTS, BIRDS, AND TREES: AIDS TO HIGHER CIVILIZATION.

- BEASTS.

- BIRDS.

- TREES.

- CHAPTER V. OHIO—HER COACH, CANAL, AND STEAMBOAT ERA.

- CHAPTER VI. OHIO—HER RAILROAD AND TELEGRAPH ERA.

- FOOTNOTES:

- Transcriber’s Notes:

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE