HARRISON
COUNTY
Page 887
HARRISON
COUNTY was formed January 1, 1814, from Jefferson and Tuscarawas, and named
from Gen. Wm. H. Harrison. It is
generally very hilly; these hills are usually beautifully curving and high
cultivated. The soil is clayey, in which
coal and limestone abound. It is one of
the greatest wool-growing counties in the Union, having in 1847, 102,971 sheep,
and in 1887, 137,891.
Area about 320 square miles.
In 1887 the acres cultivated were 53,153; in pasture, 122,743; woodland,
34,105; lying waste, 489; produced in wheat, 198,991 bushels; rye, 1,465;
buckwheat, 346; oats, 196,930; barley, 575; corn, 517,601; broom corn, 1,000
lbs. brush; meadow hay, 62,708 tons; clover hay, 1,050; potatoes, 33,324
bushels; butter, 415,440 lbs.; cheese, 10,000; sorghum, 2,645 gallons; maple
syrup, 2,851; honey, 14,559 lbs.; eggs, 414,588 dozen; grapes, 8,900 lbs.;
wine, 90 gallons; sweet potatoes, 141 bushels; apples, 18,558; peaches, 8,199;
pears, 1,305; wool, 826,386 lbs.; milch cows owned,
4,993. School census,
1888, 6,529; teachers, 181. Miles
of railroad track, 55.
Townships And Census |
1840 |
1880 |
|
Townships And Census |
1840 |
1880 |
Archer, |
1,009 |
785 |
|
Moorefield, |
1,344 |
1,075 |
Athens, |
1,435 |
1,221 |
|
North, |
1,090 |
1,410 |
Cadiz, |
2,386 |
3,116 |
|
Nottingham, |
1,368 |
964 |
Franklin, |
941 |
1,216 |
|
Rumley, |
1,027 |
1,261 |
Freeport, |
1,294 |
1,319 |
|
Short Creek, |
2,023 |
1,831 |
German, |
1,349 |
1,311 |
|
Stock, |
826 |
713 |
Greene, |
1,465 |
1,659 |
|
Washington, |
1,004 |
1,211 |
Monroe, |
896 |
1,364 |
|
|
|
|
Population
in Harrison in 1820 was 14,345; in 1830, 20,920; 1840, 20,099; 1860, 19,110;
1880, 20,456, of whom 18,272 were born in Ohio; 915 in Pennsylvania; 341 in
Virginia; 54 in New York; 46 in Indiana; 17 in Kentucky; 230 in Ireland; 104 in
England and Wales; 30 in German Empire; 10 in Scotland; 8 in British America,
and 3 in France.
In April, 1799, Alex. HENDERSON and family, from Washington county, Pennsylvania, squatted on the southwest quarter of
the section on which Cadiz stands; at this time Daniel PETERSON resided at the
forks of Short Creek, with his family, the only one within the present limits
of Harrison. In 1800, emigrants,
principally from Western Pennsylvania, began to cross the Ohio river; and in the course of five or six years there had
settled within the county the following-named persons, with their families,
viz.:
John
CRAIG, John TAGGART, John JAMISON, John M’FADDEN, John KERNAHAN, John HUFF,
John MAHOLM, John WALLACE, John LYONS, Rev. John REA, Daniel WELCH, William
MOORE, Jas. BLACK, Samuel DUNLAP, James ARNOLD, Joseph and Samuel M’FADDEN,
Samuel GILMORE, James FINNEY, Thos. and Robt.
VINCENT, Robert BRADEN, Jas. WILKLIN, Samuel and George KERNAHAN, Thos.
DICKERSON, Joseph HOLMES, James HANNA, Joseph, William and Eleazer
HUFF, Baldwin PARSONS, James HAVERFIELD, Robert COCHRAN, Samuel MAHOLM, Hugh
TEAS, Jos. CLARK, Morris WEST, Jacob SHEPLAR, Martin SNIDER, Samuel OSBORN,
Samuel SMITH, and perhaps others, besides those in Cadiz and on Short Creek;
Thomas TAYLOR, John ROSS, Thomas HITCHCOCK, Arthur and Thomas BARRETT, Robert
and Thomas MAXWELL, Absalom KENT, John PUGH, Michael WAXLER, Wm. M’CLARY,
Joseph, Joel and William JOHNSON, George LAYPORT, William INGLES, Thomas
WILSON, and perhaps others on Stillwater; John M’CONNELL, George BROWN, John
LOVE, William and Robert M’CULLOUGH, BROKAW and others, on Wheeling creek.
Robert
MAXWELL, William and Joseph HUFF and Michael MAXLER were great
Page 888
hunters, and the three former had been Indian spies,
and had many perilous adventures with the Indians. On one occasion, after peace, an Indian
boasted, in the presence of Wm. Huff and others, that he had scalped so many
whites. Towards evening, the Indian left
for his wigwam, but never reached it. Being,
shortly after, found killed, some inquiry was made as to the probable cause of
his death, when Huff observed, that he had seen him the last time, sitting on a
log, smoking his pipe; that he was looking at him and reflecting what he had
said about scalping white people, when suddenly his pipe fell from his mouth,
and he, Huff, turned away, and had not again seen him until found dead.
Besides
frequent trouble with Indians, the first settlers were much annoyed by wild
animals. On one occasion, two sons of
George LAYPORT having trapped a wolf, skinned it alive, turned it loose, and a
few days after it was found dead.
One
mile west of the east boundary line of Harrison, there was founded, in 1805, a
Presbyterian church, called “Beach Spring,” of which Rev. John REA was for more
than forty years the stated pastor.
Their beginning was small; a log-cabin, of not more than 20 feet square,
was sufficient to contain all the members and all that attended with them. Their log-cabin being burnt down by accident,
a large house, sufficient to contain a thousand worshippers, was raised in its
room, and from fifty communing members they increased in a short time to nearly
400, and became at one period the largest Presbyterian church in the State.—Old Edition.
Cadiz in 1846.—Cadiz, the county-seat,
is a remarkably well-built and city-like town, 4 miles southeasterly from the
centre of the county, 115 easterly from Columbus, 24 westerly from
Steubenville, and 24 northerly from Wheeling.
It contains 1 Presbyterian, 1 Methodist Episcopal, 1 Associate (Seceder), and 1 Associate Reformed Church. It also contains 2 printing presses, 12
dry-goods, 7 grocery and 2 drug stores, and had, in 1840, 1,028 inhabitants.
Cadiz
was laid out in 1803 or ‘4, by Messrs. BIGGS and BEATTY. Its site was then, like most of the
surrounding country, a forest, and its location was induced by the junction
there of the road from Pittsburg, by Steubenville, with the road from
Washington, Pa., by Wellsburg, Va., from where the two united, passed by
Cambridge to Zanesville; and previous to the construction of the national road
through Ohio, was travelled more, perhaps, than any
other road northwest of the Ohio river.
In April, 1807, it contained the following named persons, with their
families: Jacob ARNOLD, innkeeper; Andrew M’NEELEY, hatter and justice of the
peace; Joseph HARRIS, merchant; John JAMISON, tanner; John M’CREA, wheelwright;
Robt. WILKIN, brickmaster;
Connell ABDILL, shoemaker; Jacob MYERS, carpenter; John PRITCHARD, blacksmith;
Nathan ADAMS, tailor; James SIMPSON, reed-maker; Wm. TINGLEY, school-teacher,
and old granny YOUNG, midwife and baker, who was subsequently elected (by the
citizens of the township, in a fit of hilarity) to the office of justice of the
peace; but females not being eligible to office in Ohio, the old lady was
obliged to forego the pleasure of serving her constituents.
The
first celebration of independence in Cadiz was on the 4th of July,
1806, when the people generally, of the town and country for miles around,
attended and partook of a fine repast of venison, wild turkey, bear meat, and
such vegetables as the country afforded; while for a drink, rye whiskey was
used. There was much hilarity and good
feeling, for at this time men were supported for office from their fitness,
rather than from political sentiments.
About
one and a half miles west of Cadiz, on the northern peak of a high sandy ridge,
are the remains of what is called the “standing
stone,” from which a branch of Stillwater derived its name. The owner of the land has quarried off its
top some eight feet. It is sandstone,
and was originally from sixteen to eighteen feet high, about fifty feet around
its base, and tapered from midway up to a cone-like
top, being only about twenty feet around near its summit. It is said to have been a place of great
resort by the Indians, and its origin has been a subject of specu-
Page 889
lation with many people. It is, however, what geologists term a boulder, and was brought to its present
position from, perhaps, a thousand miles north, embedded in a huge mass of ice,
in some great convulsion of nature, ages since.—Old Edition.
CADIZ,
county-seat of Harrison, 125 miles northeast of Columbus, is on the Cadiz
branch of the P. C. & St. L. Railroad.
County Officers in 1888: Auditor, George A. CREW; Clerk, Martin J. McCOY; Commissioners, M. B. FREBAUGH, Robert B. MOORE,
Andrew SMITH; Coroner, Charles McKEAN; Infirmary
Directors, John B. BEADLE, John BARCLAY, John W. McDIVITT;
Probate Judge, Amon LEAMMON; Prosecuting Attorney,
Walter G. SHOTWELL; Recorder, Albert B. HINES; Sheriff, Albert B. QUIGLEY;
Surveyor, Jacob JARVIS; Treasurer, Samuel A. MOORE. City Officers in 1888: A. W. SCOTT, Mayor; W.
H. LUCAS, Clerk; William McCONNELL, Treasurer; Walter
WHITMORE, Marshal; John C. BAYLESS, Chief of Police.
Newspapers:
Flambeau, Prohibitionist, C. B.
DAVIS, editor and publisher; Republican,
Republican, W. B. HEARN, editor and publisher; Sentinel, Democratic, W. H. ARNOLD, editor and publisher. Churches: 1 Presbyterian, 1 Methodist
Episcopal. Banks: Farmers’ and
Mechanics’ National, Melford J. BROWN, president; C.
O. F. BROWN, cashier; First National, D. B. WELCH, president; I. C. MOORE,
cashier; Harrison National, D. CUNNINGHAM, president; John M. SHARON, cashier;
Robert LYONS, Richard LYONS, cashier. Population, 1880, 1817.
School census, 1888, 592; O. C. WILLIAMS, school
superintendent. Capital invested
in manufacturing establishments, $20,000.
Value of annual product, $28,000.—Ohio Labor Statistics, 1888.
TRAVELLING NOTES.
Came last evening (June 7) from Steubenville by the P.
C. & St. L. R. R., and thence by a short line of railroad eight miles to
Cadiz, which I found much as I left it in the last days of February, 1847. The old county buildings looked as of
yore. They were the last things I had
sketched in Ohio on my tour of 1846-1847, and two days later I was in a
stage-coach going over the mountains on my way home. I am told Cadiz has a large proportion of
colored people; on the cars were some finely dressed people of color. The place it is claimed contains more wealth
than any other of its size in the State.
The banking capital is especially large.
Here reside families who having accumulated fortunes from prosperous
farming, largely wool-growing, and tired of the isolation of farm-life make it
their permanent home. Among its good
things is a public library of 4,000 volumes, which speaks well for the
character of its population, and especially so for Mrs. Chauncey DEWEY, its
founder.
Eminent Characters.—Cadiz is on a hill,
as it should be, for it has been the home of some eminent characters. Bishop Simpson, whom Abraham Lincoln said was
the most eloquent orator he ever heard, was born here. Secretary STANTON began his law practice in
Cadiz, and it has been long the residence of John A. BINGHAM, the
silver-tongued orator of national fame.
Prof. David Christie, author of “Pulpit Politics” and “Cotton is King,”
was born in this county, edited a paper here, the Standard, and afterwards was a professor at Oxford. He and Simpson in their younger days were
great friends, and vied with each other in the writing of acrostics. I knew Christie in the anti-bellum days—a
somewhat tall, large man. He had shaved
his beard and dyed his hair, and he told me, because, in the eyes of the
public, a man had about outlived his usefulness if he showed sings of getting
“snowed up.” Judge John Welch (see p.
275) is also a native of this county.
Mr. BINGHAM has recently returned from
Japan, where he has been twelve years our ambassador. I called upon him at his residence early this
morning, a plain, square brick house with a hall running through the
centre. He personally answered my ring,
and I made an appointment to meet him again in the afternoon. But we stood on the porch and talked some
time. He is seventy-one years of age, a
rather large gentleman, a blonde, with mild, blue eye and kindly face—an
elegant, easy talker, scattering unpremeditated poetical similes through his speech. To illustrate, I had passed some compliments
upon the beauty of the country around, whereupon he replied:
“Mr. Howe: if you can sketch for your book the hills which girdle this village and
the fields of green and primeval forests, all seen under your eye from my door,
you will have a picture of quiet beauty scarcely surpassed anywhere, certainly
not in any part of this great country of ours, so far as I have seen, and I
have seen much the greater part, nor in that foreign land, Japan, the ‘Land of
the Morning,’ famed for its landscapes.”
Page 890
Top Left: BISHOP SIMPSON
Top
Right: JOHN. A. BINGHAM
Bottom Picture
Drawn
by Henry Howe in 1846.
COUNTY BUILDINGS, CADIZ.
Page 891
Thinking that this speech of beauty about Cadiz from
this eminent man should be preserved for the gratification of its people after
he had passed away, I wrote it from memory and presented it for his inspection
on my second call, when he went on to thus comment: “The Japanese had called
Japan the ‘Land of the Rising Sun,’ but the expression ‘Land of the Morning’ I
believe is original with me. We cannot
tell from whence thoughts come. They
drop from the brain like rain from heaven.
I used the expression in a speech I made at Yokohama in the fall of
1873, which was reported by an English gentleman, Mr. DIXON, and printed both
in Japanese and English. Five years
later Mr. DIXON published a work upon Japan and entitled it ‘The Land of the
Morning.’ The expression pleased the
Japanese, and now it stands for all time.”
He
thought he could improve his little speech to me, and at my request, after some
reflection, thus wrote in my note-book:
“Dear Mr. Howe:
“The hills and primeval forest and green
fields which girdle this village make a picture of quiet beauty which, I think,
is scarcely surpassed in any part of our country which I have seen, or in
Japan, the Land of the Morning.
“JNO. A. BINGHAM.
“CADIZ, OHIO, JUNE 8, 1886.”
I
give both for the benefit of the young, to illustrate the respective qualities
of amplification and terseness in composition.
Animal Intelligence.—I now return to an
incident in my morning call. As we stood
at the door, in the mild rays of the early sun, two house-dogs came up to
welcome me, Jack and Jake. Jack was a smart
little black-and-tan, and observing my evident
pleasure in their approach, Mr. BINGHAM said: “He has made the half circuit of
the globe. I brought him from Japan, but
he is a native of London; his ancestry known way back to the time of Queen
Anne. The other dog, Jake, is a
Newfoundland, with a cross of the St. Bernard.
As for him,” and he said it with evident pride at the thought, “he is a
native of this great State.” Then he continued: “It was a mystery to me
how he got into the yard when the gate was closed, it swinging outward, and
asking my little grandson, he replied, ‘Why, grandpapa, don’t you know there is
a knot-hole near the bottom; he puts his nose in that and backs with it.’ ‘Then how does he get out?’ ‘Oh, he pushes!’” I might have told him, if I could have
foreseen the fact, that one day I was to own a dog that would open a door with
a latch or one with a knob—the first by striking, the other by placing his paws
on each side of the knob and rubbing.
And he is yet living, answering to the name of Black Ear, but we do not
consider him as extra intelligent—that is, for a dog.
The
intellects and passions of our animals, as far as they go, I believe, are
identical with our own; and it is certainly enlarging to us to study their
qualities and be pleased with their joys.
And as for the insect world, we are of those who can stoop down and
watch with solid satisfaction a procession of ants, bringing up huge stones
from out their underground habitations.
Furthermore,
if one could not come into this world as a human being but could as an ant, he
should be advised to embrace the opportunity, as thereby he could act as a
teacher, illustrating, as an ant certainly does, the good effects of systematic
industry which, in the case of the ant, seems cheering. For if not, after having deposited his stone,
why should he hurry back, fast as his little legs can carry him, for another?
An Old Contributor.—I called to-day upon
Mr. W. H. ARNOLD, editor of the Sentinel,
who remembered my former visit; his age at the time six years. His father, Mr. William ARNOLD, who died in
1874, aged seventy-six, contributed about all the historical material for my
article on Harrison county. He was a native of Fayette county,
Pa.; came here at the age of twelve; was justice of the peace thirty-three
years, during which time he married 300 couple.
In the war of 1812 all his brothers were in the army, and he, being too
young for service, made gunpowder for the soldiers during every winter of the
war. Powder was then very scarce, and as
the government seized it wherever they could find it, and he could get a higher
price for it in Steubenville, he took it there and sold it. The hut where he made it was about half a
mile north of the town. He was a
remarkably fine rifle-shot; one moonlight night he shot eleven wild turkeys
near his powder-mill.
Bishop Simpson’s Early Days.—On inquiry, I learn that the house in which Bishop SIMPSON
was born (June 20, 1811) stood on the site of the National Bank. He derived his name, Matthew, from his bachelor
uncle, Matthew SIMPSON. He was a State
Senator for many years, and by profession a school-teacher and a man of
superior acquirements; a walking encyclopædia;
unprepossessing in appearance; small head and body. He lived to a great age, dying somewhere in
the nineties. To eke out a living he
manufactured reeds for the old hand-loom for home-made linen and jeans, and
sold them to the country people, who wore homespun. The BISHOP’S father died when he was two
years of age, and his uncle became his foster-father and took great interest in
the lad. To his care the Bishop got his
intellectual bent.
An
old citizen, Mr. H. S. McFADDEN, says to me: “The
Bishop was an awkward, gawky, barefooted boy, and, when about seventeen, so shy
that he was afraid of society, and so miserable in health that it was supposed
he would soon perish of consumption; tall of his age and round-shouldered. He wrote acrostics for the Harrison Telegraph, and was fond of visiting the
printing office. The people here were
astonished at his success in life.”
The Itinerant’s Nest.—On
a corner near the
Page 892
border of the village I was pointed out a long, low, old
cottage, in which Bishop Simpson passed many of his boyhood days. It was then the home of William TINGLEY, his
mother’s brother, a man of note in his day.
He was for forty years clerk of court, was prosperous, had excellent
sense, and some sheep-raising man—it must have been—told me he was in his day
the “bellwether” of the Methodist church here.
The
sight of an old time weather-beaten structure like this, brown as a rat too, is
always picturesque. This was
particularly so, from its associations; attached to it and facing the street
was another cottage of a single room in front, overgrown with vines. This the good man built solely for the
accommodation of travelling Methodist ministers, a
nest for itinerants. As I entered it, I
felt, from its peculiar moral associations, I was more blessed than to have
entered a palace. Here many a brother in
Israel, in the olden time, after ambling for many a weary mile through the
wilderness on his little nag, often eating parched corn for his sustenance, and
preaching the same old sermon a thousand times, has looked forward to this
little nest provided for him by Brother TINGLEY as one of the choice havens,
where he could rest under the protecting wings of a brother’s love, and smoke
his pipe in peace.
Comic Anecdotes.—This
advent of the itinerants to the cabins of the pioneers, in the lonely
wilderness condition of the country, was always a great blessing aside from
their especial mission as spiritual messengers.
They were eminently a social body of men, and were welcomed with a
hospitality that knew no bounds. Of
course they had bouncing appetites.
Their outdoor lives insured that, especially with their occasional
fasts, when lost or belated in the wilderness.
To feed them well was the pride of the log-cabin dwellers; whenever they
tarried forays were invariably made upon the
poultry. So certain was
this that the term “chicken-eaters” was often applied to the circuit
riders. Many comical anecdotes were told
in this regard, and none enjoyed them better than the circuit riders
themselves.
One
of them, whom one may call Brother BRANNEN, as the story goes, who used to
amble on his nag through Eastern Ohio, early in the century, was especially
favored with gastronomic powers. His
voice and person were huge as his appetite, and he seemed proud of his eating
capacity. He used to say that “a turkey
was an unhandy bird—rather too much for one person and not quite enough for
two.” On one occasion he stopped at the
cabin of a widow, who was of course all aglee to give
him the best she had. After a little the
good brother, going out to attend to his nag, was
attracted by the sound of a child crying, and tracing his way by it found the
widow’s son, and he perhaps her only son, seated behind a corn-crib with a
chicken under his arm. “What’s the
matter, sonny?” said he, in tender tones.
“I am crying,” he replied, “because mother sent me out for this chicken, and what between the hawks and the circuit riders
it is the last chicken left on the place.”
A WALK AND A SHEEP TALK.
Last
evening, June 9, near sunset, I took a walk with Mr. Stewart B. SHOTWELL, and
ascended Boyle’s Hill, half a mile west of the town. As we neared the summit a flock of sheep in
their timidity descended the other side.
We could see over a large part of Harrison county. Cadiz loomed up pleasantly on a companion
hill. Under our eyes was the great
dividing ridge, on one side of which the flowing waters descended and made
their way into the Tuscarawas, on the other into the Ohio. The view was a succession of rolling
grass-carpeted hills interspersed with forests.
A warm rain had clothed them in the richest green, on which flocks of
sheep were grazing. Down in a little
modest valley a train of cars was approaching Cadiz on the short junction
railroad. Dwindled by distance and our
height, it seemed as a little toy affair, a child’s plaything, playing bo-peep as it dodged in and out from behind the hillocks
that at times hid it from view. The sky
was somewhat overcast and the setting sun was reddening a mass of striated
clouds over a scene of pastoral beauty.
Bah!—As we stood there on the very
summit enjoying the scene to the full, and talking largely about sheep, there
was a pause in our conversation, and we were about to leave, when I was
astonished by a loud Bah! I then saw what had before escaped my
eye. The sheep, which had fled at our
approach and got out of sight, had taken courage and again mustered to the
number of hundreds in a huge triangular mass on the grassy slope below us. At its very apex, and not sixty feet away,
was the bellwether of the flock, all of which had stood in silence looking up
at us, and apparently listening to our conversation; and I could not help
thinking that this startling bah! from the bellwether
was expressive of his
Page 893
contempt at our conversation upon wool. By this time the shadows of evening were
settling upon Cadiz, but I could discover nothing Spanish in the air.
Sheep
Statistics.—Harrison, by the
statistics of 1880, to the square mile leads all other counties in Ohio in the
number of sheep and production of wool; the number of sheep was 209,856 and
pounds of wool 1,090,393. Licking
county, Ohio, which has nearly double its area, exceeded it about one-quarter
in sheep, having been 251,989. Venango county, Pa., had 461,120 sheep and produced 2,416,866 pounds
of wool. This we believe is the largest
sheep-producing county in the Union, while Harrison ranks the third. Ohio is the greatest sheep-producing
State. Its number in 1880 was 4,902,486,
sheep clip 25,003,756 pounds; next was California, 4,152,349 sheep, clip
16,798,019 pounds; Texas 2,411,633 sheep, clip 6,928,019 pounds; Michigan
2,189,389 sheep, clif 11,858,497 pounds; New Mexico
2,088,831 sheep; clip 4,019,188 pounds.
Missouri and Wisconsin next lead each with less than a million and
one-half of sheep. The entire number of
sheep in the United States exclusive of spring lambs was, in 1880, 42,192,074,
or a little less than one sheep to one person.
“Wool,”
said Mr. BINGHAM, “is the prime clothing for man. As sheep increase civilization
advances.” Beside
carrying a blessing in the way of warmth and clothing, there is a good moral
thought in the fact that wool is the natural outgrowth of an animal divinely
chosen as the type of innocence and amiability.
“Feed my lambs.” And then the
care of sheep seems to have a reflex action upon the owners in the character of
their visitors and the things they see, as is illustrated by the old hymn:
“While
shepherds watched their flocks by night, all seated on the ground,
The angel
of the Lord came down, and glory shone around.”
Job,
I take it, is an especially interesting character to this people, he owned so
many sheep: in the early part of his life 7,000, and in the latter part 14,000,
and they tell me he ought to have lived in Harrison county, for the climate is
so healthy that he would have escaped at least one of his evils—boils.
Great
as were Job’s possessions, there are to-day in Australia sheep ranges, the
property of single owners, whereupon are raised over 150,000 sheep; 20,000 is
but a moderate sized range. Three acres
there is generally allowed for a single animal, sometimes ten acres. Sheep are not seen there in flocks, owing to
the scant herbage; there sheep consequently are scattered over vast areas, a
range for a flock of 200 requiring as much land as an Ohio township. What may seem strange, one may travel over a
station whereupon are tens of thousand of sheep, and not have over three or
four of the animals in one view in any place.
The
great drawback to Australia has been the terrible drouths
by which in entire districts the sheep all perish. Of late years this evil has been lessened by
the sinking of artesian wells and extensive tree planting, by which the annual
rainfall has been increased. The lives
of the wool-growers there are desolate from the vast size of their ranges, their
nearest neighbor often being fifteen or twenty miles away. In 1888 Australia had about eighty millions
of sheep, and the United States about fifty millions, so the former is now the
greatest wool-producing country on the globe, we ranking second, South America
third and Russia the fourth.
Profits of Sheep-raising.—As our talk upon the sheep industry in Harrison county began
on Boyle’s Hill, it was finished in Mr. SHOTWELL’S office in the evening, of
which I took notes, and here repeat verbatim. “I do not know,” said he, “a single farmer
who has followed for life the growing of sheep, without diversion to other
crops, but what has become wealthy. Land
pastured by sheep improves year by year from their droppings. The tendency of sheep in summer is to seek
the highest point of a hill to get the cool breezes. In winter they also get near the summit, but
on the leeward side if there be any wind; the coldest air, being the heaviest,
always sinks into the valleys. The
result is that the rain distributes their manure from the top to all the lower
parts of the field.
“Some
years ago the late Judge BRINKERHOFF, of Mansfield, was riding with me in this
region, and inquired, ‘Why is it that your hills are all so fertile? Our hill-tops are generally poor soil; our
best lands are the valleys.’ ‘Because,’
I replied, ‘we raise sheep.’ The
products of the hill soil—hay, grass, corn, oats, etc.—are of a more nutritive
nature than those of the rich bottom lands of the Tuscarawas and Ohio valleys,
although the growth is not so rapid. Our
experienced farmers therefore pay five cents more a bushel for our hill corn
than for that raised elsewhere. This
hill land will produce from twenty to forty bushels more to the acre than the
alluvial soil. I own valley lands on the
Tuscarawas and Stillwater, and I get nearly twice the quantity per acre of
corn, grass, etc., from the hills, and the richest of butter and cheese is made
from hill grass.
“As
I have spoken of the profits of sheep-raising, I will give you some statistics. On a farm of a quarter of a section, 160
acres, 325 sheep can be conveniently pastured.
Such a farm would be valued at about $5,000. The value of such a flock now would be about
$650. With proper care
and feeding corn and hay, all of which one man alone could do, the annual
clipping would be about seven pounds per sheep; total, 2,275. At 33 1/3 cents, the present price, this
gives $758.33 for the wool. Then the
increase of sheep is
Page 894
double at the end of the year, which, at $2 each, is
$650. This added to the product of the
wool, gives $1,308 as the annual production of the farm. There is still another item of profit. With a view to avoid over-stocking, the
farmers select in the fall their largest, strongest sheep of the older class,
and fatten them over winter, and in the spring, after clipping, they are sold
East for mutton purposes. About 200,
generally wethers, are annually sold on such a farm,
at $5 each, thus enhancing the total profits to $2,308.
“The
more you feed and care for a sheep in the winter, the heavier and better in the
staple will be his fleece. Just after the war wool brought as high as $1.10 per pound. The very old ewes are sold in the fall at
fair prices—say $2 each—are shipped eastward to the neighborhood of the cities,
and then sold to a class of farmers who manage to have them drop their lambs
early in February, feed the ewes on milk-producing slops, which rapidly fattens
and increases the weight of the lambs.
These lambs are tender and delicious, and often bring $5 each. The ewes are then clipped and slaughtered,
the carcass thrown to the hogs, and the pelts turned over to the leather
men. The large bank deposits in our town
are mostly from the wool-growers of Harrison county.
“The
sheep, as his coat shows, belongs to a cold climate; hence he flourishes in the
mountain countries of Europe north of the 40º latitude, or in Australia south
of the 40º latitude, where it is alike cold.”
Sheep-raising
in Texas is comparatively a failure. To
find there the proper climate, elevation is required, and then grass is
scant. On the warm lowlands his wool is
not required, and nature allows him to grow hair.
The
most certain productive crop in our county is the corn, which
averages seventy-five bushels to the acre—have known 120 bushels. The average wheat is twenty-five bushels—have known forty.
Oats average from sixty to 100 bushels; hay, one and a half to two
tons—often have the heaviest hay on the summit of the hills.
We
append to the sheep statistics from Mr. SHOTWELL, some items from an article,
“The American Wool Industry,” by E. H. Ammidown, in
the North American Review, August,
1888.
The American wool-clip amounts to about 300,000 pounds
per annum, and varying in value from $75,000,000 to $95,000,000. It stands sixth in value as an American
agricultural product, being surpassed only by corn, hay, wheat, cotton and
oats. Our 50,000,000 of sheep are worth
over $2 each, say in all $100,000,000.
If the annual product of mutton for food, and the increase of the
flocks, were added to this, it would totalize $125,000,000. Sheep husbandry is the only great farm
industry in which every section of our country shares. The annual gain from the fertilization of the
soil by the droppings of the sheep is estimated to be fully $50,000,000.
If
this industry was abandoned, the decline in value of the sheep-farm lands,
comprising 112,000,000 of acres—much of which would be then unused and all
deteriorate in fertility—at $2.50 an acre, would be $280,000,000. So the advantages of continuing the industry
seem imperative to the well-being of the country. We now supply one-sixth part of the wool
produced in the world, so far as is statistically known.
REMINISCENCES OF EDWIN M.
STANTON.
Edwin
M. STANTON, the great war Secretary, had his beginning
in Cadiz as a lawyer. The great example
of his life was intensity of purpose.
Not another member of Mr. LINCCOLN’s Cabinet,
not even Mr. LINCOLN himself, could perhaps here compare with him. He was a giant in will, with mighty passions
to enforce it. To crush out the
rebellion at all hazards absorbed his full powers. Governor MORTON, in acknowledging on a
certain occasion receipt of money from Mr. STANTON, wherein authority was
assumed to meet a great patriotic end, wrote him: “If the cause fails, you and
I will be covered with prosecutions, and probably imprisoned or driven from the
country.” To this STANTON replied: “If
the cause fails, I do not wish to live.”
Whatever he undertook he went in to the death. If death was to come, it would be for him no
more than for others; he could die but once.
His care was in what he engaged, and, as a lawyer, never undertook what
he thought was a bad case. The cause
succeeded, but his intense labors, under the might of an intense patriotism,
killed him as effectually as ever soldier was killed by bullet.
It
has been our privilege to make the acquaintance here of Mr. Stewart B.
SHOTWELL, attorney-at-law, who was a student two years in the office with Mr.
STANTON. To us, in conversation, he made
the following statement:
Page 895
Drawn
by Henry Howe in 1886.
PORTRAIT AND BIRTHPLACE OF GENERAL G. A. CUSTER.
Page896
STANTON I knew intimately. He first studied law in Steubenville with
Daniel L. COLLIER. He came to Cadiz in
1836, and went into partnership with Chauncey DEWEY, and remained here until
1840, the partnership existed until 1842.
DEWEY was an old lawyer of the Whig persuasion, and shortly after his
coming, STANTON was elected prosecuting attorney on the Democratic ticket—an
office he held three years.
DEWEY
was a man of very decided ability, had been educated at Schenectady, a pupil of
the celebrated Dr. NOTT, was a thoroughly read lawyer, and had especial ability
with a jury. STANTON was then but
twenty-two years of age, with broad shoulders, but light in person, weighing
about 125 pounds, and height five feet eight inches. He was very near-sighted. The people here at first called him “Little
STANTON.”
He
appreciated the ability and skill of his senior partner, at once placed himself
under his tutelage, and owed much of his early success to him. He would often say to us, “Well, we are all
DEWEY’S boys.” Often, in coming into the
office in the morning, DEWEY would say, “STANTON, what do you think about this
case?” After STANTON had expressed his
ideas, DEWEY would take pen and put the points as he thought they should be
presented, and hand the paper to STANTON, and STANTON invariably followed his
guidance: he was his mentor. Mr. DEWEY
was then forty years of age; he died in 1880, aged eighty-four.
STANTON
was very methodical, kept his papers and office in perfect order, and his
industry was marvellous. He would read law sixteen hours a day and
keep it up ever. I never saw a man with
such capacity for work. I have known him
to work all day in court and until nine o’clock at night, trying cases and then
filing them. Then he would get into his
buggy, ride to Steubenville for some paper or authority bearing on the case, be back at court-time next morning, after riding a distance
of fifty miles, and work all day fresh as ever.
He was physically compact; put up exactly for the labor a lawyer has to
endure.
Ordinarily
he cared nothing for society of women, but he was exceedingly attached to his
first wife. When she died he shut
himself in his room and spent days in grief.
Then seeing it was breaking him down, he rallied and plunged into
business.
He
seemingly was of a cold nature; never any gush.
He was thoroughly upright; and if he had an important case he would make
full preparation to win, even eating in reference to it, so as to have full
possession of his powers. He was
temperate; but sometimes, if he had a tight place to go through, would take a
little stimulus. He spoke with ease,
voice on a high key, and monotonous in manner, but strong and combative,
hanging on with a bull-dog like tenacity, brow-beating and ridiculing
witnesses. He did not care if the whole
public was against him. He would face
them all, and feel he was their master.
I
once heard this anecdote, which illustrates how everything had to bend to his
main purpose. He had travelled
into the then wilderness of Illinois, in pursuit of evidence in an important
case, when, in a cabin where he had put up for the night, he found the family
were originally from Steubenville and neighbors, living within a square of
him. They had known him in his child
days; he had been playmate with their son, but he had outgrown their
recollections. Any other man, in the
glow of feeling consequent upon such a discovery, would have made himself
known, but he refrained, from the thought that it might in some way militate
against his success in the main object of his journey, if it should be known he
was in the country, and so left as he came—an entire stranger.
Ordinarily
men would wilt under his denunciations; sometimes feel like retorting with
physical violence. He knew this, and
sometimes, when the court adjourned, asked the sheriff to take his arm and
accompany him to his office, as I believed for protection. This was not from cowardice, but because he
felt it was wise to avoid a physical combat.
He stood in awe of no human being.
Every man was alike so far as that was concerned. His moral courage was immense. His likes and dislikes were very strong, and
with his especial friends he was exceeding social and courteous. He was profound in legal principles, a safe
lawyer in a good case; but if he thought a case was desperate, would not go
into court. The stories of his rough
language to the people who came to the war-office are true. Simon CAMERON, his predecessor, when he sent
for Gen. McCLELLAN, would wait for hours; when
STANTON summoned him there was no delay.
TRAVELLING NOTES.
VISIT TO THE BIRTHPLACE OF A HERO.
After
Cadiz, my next objective point was New RUMLEY, a hamlet high on the hills,
three miles northeasterly from Scio, at which last I arrived by the cars about
noon. New RUMLEY is a spot of historic
interest, for here was born, Dec. 5, 1839, Gen. Geo. A. CUSTER, the famed
cavalry leader of the war. I wished to
sketch his birthplace and learn of his beginnings. I had scarcely got off the cars at Scio, and
was standing on a narrow platform running from the depot on a line by the
railroad track, when a young man at my side cried, “Look out!”
Page 897
It was the Pittsburg and St. Louis express
coming at forty or fifty miles an hour, and close on to us. In a twinkling I saw an object coming for me,
end over end. I gave a spring and as it
came threw my entire weight on my right leg, and as it passed it struck the
other a stinging but glancing blow on the inner side. Then I saw it was the Scio mail-bag.
I
limped up to the village tavern, dined and then found a farmer who was going
within two miles of New RUMLEY, and would take me in his wagon there for a
consideration. I got in,
we turned round a little hill, left Scio behind, and went up the valley of
Alder creek, Thursday, 1 P.M., June 11, 1886.
My companion was a little man with black hair and little black beads of
eyes set back far in his head, his face thin and shrivelled,
and, what is rare for a farmer, he wore glasses. He said his age was forty-three years, his
name G. M. TOUSSAINT and that he and Gen. Pierre Gustavus
TOUSSAINT Beauregard, of the Confederate army, were second cousins, their
grandfathers having been brothers. It
enhanced my interest in him to thus learn he was of French Huguenot stock, for
I have a sprinkling of the same blood in my veins.
A Ride with a Farmer.—The wagon we were
in was on springs, drawn by two mares, each having a little colt trotting lithe
and pretty by its side, so we counted in all six, two of a kind, two men, two
mares and two colts. He was anxious to
know my business; thought I had something to sell. Upon telling him, he said his wife went to
school with CUSTER. He was quite a
dressy young man, and when he came home on furlough from West Point, brought
home among other things full twenty pair of cadet’s white pantaloons for his
folks to wash. My companion was a
horse-fancier, and bragged about his horses; they were of an honored ancestry,
and he went on to give their pedigree.
On naming over their ancestors, he was astonished that I had never heard
of them; he doubtless would have been more astonished if I had told him what was a fact, that in my entire life I had never put a horse in
a carriage, nor had buckled on a curry-comb. The colts as I looked down upon their petite,
graceful-rounded forms, each trotting by the side of its mother,
looked very sweetly. I asked him about
how much each would weight. He replied
two hundred pounds. I could scarcely
believe this until he told me he had failed only a few days before in an effort
to carry one of them into his barn.
A Bit of Natural History.—The valley we were passing up was perhaps a third of a mile
wide, with bounding hills of some two hundred feet high. We passed some sheep grazing. At one place they stood still and in silence
in a ring, perhaps fifty of them, their heads down to the ground and noses
together; their bodies ranged like the spokes of a wheel from a centre. I inquired, “What is that for?” There had been a slight shower, and the sun
had come out warm. “The flies bother
them, stinging their noses,” he said. In
the fence-corners were other sheep and their noses were also to the
ground. I subsequently learned it was an
instinct of nature. There is a peculiar
fly, the Oestrus
ovis, which
crawls into the nostrils of a sheep and deposits an egg. This hatches a worm which makes it way into
the brain, and invariably kills the sheep.
From this doubtless originated the expression as applied to a human
being, “He has got a maggot in his head.”
Everything
that has life, man, animal or vegetable, appears to receive injury from some
other life. The innocent sheep are not
the only victims to the winged enemies.
Late in the summer there is a large fly, the Oestrus bovis, large as a bumble-bee, which
annoys cattle, punctures the skin, and deposits an egg along the spine. Under the spring sun that egg develops into a
grub with an ugly black head, and makes his way out of the hole to the infinite
annoyance of the animal. The grub is
thus occupied for weeks, while the itching at times is so intolerable that the
animal runs around the field with tail out, perfectly frantic. Then the common expression among the farmers
is that it has “the warbles.” Often
twenty or thirty grubs will at once make their way out. When an animal has largely been infected with
the pests, it injures the hide for the purpose of leather.
Having
come out, the grub goes into the ground and after a little he puts on
wings—they are not angel wings—and some day he starts on his aerial flight,
becomes the great ugly fly we have described, to follow the same egg-hatching,
egg-depositing business of his illustrious ancestors. The fly from which the horse gets into his
greatest trouble is the Oestrus equi. He often alights on the front of the horse,
where stinging him the animal nips at, catches and swallows the fly. That is just what the fly was after—to be
swallowed. Housed in the stomach of the
horse, he then proceeds about his business, to lay eggs. These hatch grubs sometimes to the number of
a hundred or more, which attach themselves to the coats of his stomach and feed
thereon and often to the death of the horse. This affliction is called “the bots.”
Friend TOUSSAINT opened upon another
topic dear to his heart—religion. A neighbor of his was far gone in
consumption; notwithstanding, seemed as worldly-minded as ever
Page 898
“I told him,” said he, “he ought not to be thinking
about driving sharp trades—that he ought to go and get religion, for in a few
weeks probably, he would have to meet his God.
For ought he knew, it might be no more than two
weeks.” Then he dwelt upon the influence
of religion here on earth, illustrating it by the story of a travelling man he once read of, who stopped at a strange
house in a wild, lonely spot, and he didn’t like the looks of the people, was
on a sort of tremble; was afraid he might be robbed and murdered in his sleep. But when bed-time came, his ferocious-looking
host opened a little cupboard, took out a book and said, “Let us pray,”
whereupon a load was lifted from the heart of the travelling
man, and he slept that night “like a top.”
Thus my friend with interesting talk upon
horses, sheep, CUSTER and religion, beguiled the way.
New RUMLEY appears.—A mile or more
before reaching New RUMLEY I saw in the far distance, on the top of a very high
hill, a cluster of trees, roof tops, and a church spire, and that my companion
pointed out as New RUMLEY. I looked at
it with intense interest, the birthplace of a hero; ached to be there. When we had ascended nearly to the top of the
hill, the horses rested for a few moments, while the colts kneeled down each
beside its respective mother, and rested also, while I made notes. Another short pull up hill, then a sudden
turn to the right, and we were in New RUMLEY.
The first objects at its entrance I found to be two churches, just
alike, facing each other as sentinels, on opposite sides of the road. They were freshly painted, and white as
snow. It was pleasant thus to have the
gospel greet one at the very threshold of the place. I couldn’t help thinking so, but the huge
white forms, spread out to the right and left of me so broodingly, somehow made
me think of angels’ wings, ready to bear people up to heaven. On one side of the street it was done after
the manner of the Methodist brethren, and on the other of what they speak of abridgingly as the “You Bees,”—and spell out “United
Brethren.”
New RUMLEY is little more than a name—a
hamlet set on a hill—a single street with a single store, that of T. H.
Cunningham, and a few scattered dwellings, of which only three or four can be
seen at one view. The highest part is
where they put the angels’ wings, and the birthplace of him whom Sitting Bull
called the “Yellow Hair.” From thence
the street descended; there was a sort of hollow spot in the wavy ground and
then it ascended in a lesser wave, and where its farther course was hidden by
trees. Where it went then I know not,
only I was told the followers of Martin Luther had a sanctuary somewhere
there. I went into the store, a little
room, and made the acquaintance of Mr. CUNNINGHAM, an elderly person. Some barefooted boys seeing me, a stranger,
go in, entered and stood in silence listening.
Where they came from I don’t know, but men and women lived together
around in little, half-concealed cottages, and where that happens, boys and girls
will spring up fresh and healthy as daisies in an old cow-pasture. I inquired if there was a General CUSTER
growing up among them; got no reply. The
boys seemed to think with the poet.
“Das Schweigen ist
ihr bester Herold.”
That is—“Silence is golden.”
Custer’s birthplace in the early part of
this century, 1820, was a log tavern, kept by one Andrew Thompson. It was clapboarded fifty years ago. It is brown, going to decay, some clapboards
off, and others hanging by a single nail.
Locust trees stand before it; their fragile leaves tremble in the
softest zephyrs. I borrowed a backless
chair and drew the pretty scene shown, with the conical spire of the “You Bees”
in the distance.
Having
made the sketch, I went to the house.
Some women were sitting in the front room, sewing and chatting, passing
away their lives in simplicity and comfort apparently, with little possessions
and little cares. They were simply
clad. There was no bric-a-brac about to
dust, no card basket for calling visitors.
No splendid equipage with liveried footman and gaily attired visitors
had ever called to inspire jealousy and create heartaches up to that door, but
the air was pure, and on June days it oft came in laden with the fragrance of
new-mown hay.
The
place seemed as the top of the world, and the eye possessions
of its inhabitants vast. From it to the
west I could look down the pretty valley through which I had come with friend
TOUSSAINT of pious frame and sprightly colts, and then all around met my eye a
leafy world of hills for miles and miles away; and in one spot far to the
north, a little village peeped forth in the vast outspread of living
green. A Sabbath-like calm rested upon
all things. This was the high spot of
earth, where the “Yellow Hair” first opened his eyes; where the wintry winds
have a high old time, and silvery toned bells wake the echoes on Sabbath day
mornings. A Sabbath in
the country. How beautiful it
is! Rest, music,
prayer and thoughts of the heavenly choir. Glory Hallelujah!
The
high places of earth like this are the glory spots for the lifting the heart of
man. Earth and sky are there full spread
before his vision to bring his spirit into the very presence of the
Infinite. At night the stars pass over
him in their grand procession athwart the mighty dome, and by day the bright
sun moves over the vast expanse, the sun, blessing mother of morning, noon and
night, which in its day’s journey typifies the life of man.
Page 899
And cloud land is all above him, ever moving between
earth and sky, and ever changing in its forms, its lights and its shadows,
which it runs over the whole earth; often throwing all around in gloom while
the far distant peaks stand out like hope, bright in the light of a heavenly effulgence.
Clouds seem as if from the hands of God while dispensing refreshing
showers, and by their beauty oft fill the sensitive heart with gratitude in its
sense of possessing such an exquisite source of joy; and this sense will
sometimes give expression as here in my verse.
Summer Clouds. The gorgeous Alps of summer
skies In softest tints oft mass in view, Where seraph forms in
fancies’ dreams Recline beneath the tender blue. And floating on their beds
of fleece, Those spirits of the azure deep Look down upon our earthly
fields, Where Time his generous harvests reap. While we in Fate’s
remorseless chains May hapless seem in vales of woe; Still onward float the
beauteous clouds, Still cheer us with their genial glow. O summer clouds! our hearts
like thee But take their beauty from on high; The light that gives the charm to life, The love
that soothes us when we die. Parting Day. By the patriarch’s dying
couch Some angel hand the curtain lifts; While parting day’s
celestial tints Enchanting spread beyond the rifts. Then grandly glows the
might dome, While silence rests on earth below; Save where the distant
tides of life In dying murmurs faintly flow. Then soft and sweet, bright
isles of bliss Seem floating in an ocean sky; A spirit realm of light and
love— The happy immortality. In mantling night the
vision melts, While worlds afar their glories spread; And thus alike through
mists and stars The soul of man is upward led. The wondrous orb, great
source of light, To other lands glad morning brings; Day never ceases with his
work, Nor Time to speed with aging wings. |
Ride with a Doctor.—The
next point was to get back to Scio, so I took the ridge road; thought I could,
notwithstanding the lameing blow of the mail-bag,
manage to walk there. In a few minutes I
was overtaken by a gentleman in a buggy, with a little two-year-old girl on his
lap, and I accepted his invitation to the seat beside him. It was Dr. George LYLE, a country physician,
educated in Cincinnati, and I found knew some of my medical friends there. He told me he had been a schoolmate of
CUSTER. He described him as an apt
scholar, a leader among the boys, mischievous and full of practical jokes;
withal very plucky.
One
evening, at some lecture where the audience were on the ground floor, a
ragamuffin of a boy unable to get in flatted his nose against the window pane
and made wry faces at George, whereupon the latter drove his fist through the
glass into his face. The next day three
boys accosted him, saying they were going to thrash him. He replied by drawing a pocket-knife,
saying—“I will fight all three of you at a time, but if you come all at once
you shall have this,” at the same opening the blade. The boys pursued the topic no further. “Das Schweigen ist ihr bester Herold.”
Presently
the road narrowed to a mere lane, now in the woods and then in the open, when
some flies lit behind the horse’s ears, when he stopped the vehicle, stood
upright, gathered the lash and stock tightly in his hand, and with the tautened
curve thus made at the end of the whip, slowly, carefully slid it under the
offending insects. They respected the
hint for the time, but came again, when he stopped the carriage, got out and
gathering twigs of leaves from the woods put them as a defence
in the trappings of the horse’s head.
Then the little one said something in its baby tones, making a request,
I did not hear what, when again went into the woods and returned with flowers
in his hands and love in his heart, and taking her in his lap we soon descended
a hill, made a turn and then were in Scio.
A TALK WITH JOHN GILES OF
SCIO.
After
supper in the tavern at Scio, I was enjoying a quiet smoke, when I heard a
voice at my side. It was that of an old
man of about seventy years of age, who had accosted me. He was in his shirt-sleeves, tall,
patriarchal white beard and hair, blue eyes, fresh complexion and expression of
great amiability. It was John GILES, of
Scio. He wanted to tell me what he knew
about the CUSTERS, and I let him. The
original spelling was Kuster. Their first ancestor in this country
Page 900
was from Hesse-Cassel,
came over in the Revolutionary war time and fought “mit
de Hessians.”
Emanuel
CUSTER, the father of the General, was a blacksmith and justice of the
peace. “My wife and Squire CUSTER are
cousins,” said he, “and he married us.”
I used to keep school, and taught George his A, B. C; his father and myself were always great friends. George was irrepressible as a boy. One thing I recollect. His father and myself were walking by a barn
yard, when we heard a child screaming; a moment later little George, then a boy
in his frock, appeared bursting through a line of currant bushes, with a huge
gander fastened by his talons to his back.
George had been attracted by the sight of young goslings, and going for
them the gander had alighted on him and was whipping him with his wings.
“About
this time we organized a military company, ‘cornstalk militia,’ in New RUMLEY,
and the child followed us about all day.
From that moment his passion to become a soldier originated and grew
with his years. His family tried in vain
to dispel this ambition. He desired to
go to West Point, but his father told him as he was personally a Democrat and
Mr. BINGHAM, the member of Congress in whose power it lay to obtain a cadet
warrant, a Whig, he would not give it to him.
How he obtained it Mr. BINGHAM had told me only two days before this
conversation with Mr. GILES.
“I
received,” said Mr. BINGHAM, “a letter from CUSTER, then at school at Hopedale,
in Greene township, asking for the appointment. This was about the year 1857. Its honesty captivated me. It was written in school-boy style. In it he said that he understood it made no
difference with me whether he was a Republican boy or a Democrat boy-—hat he
wanted me to understand he was a Democrat
boy. I replied, if his parents
consented, I would procure it for him.
“He
was at West Point but three years. Such
was the want of officers at the beginning of the war, that his class, before graduating, were commissioned; he as
Lieutenant of Cavalry in a company commanded by Captain Drummond, son of Rev.
Dr. Drummond, of this place (Cadiz). He
was in the first battle of Bull Run. The
day after I saw a young officer ride up to my door in Washington and
dismount. He had long, yellow hair
hanging like Absalom’s. He came up to me and introduced himself as
Lieutenant CUSTER. Up to that moment I
had never seen him. In the December
before he had passed his twenty-first birthday.
He said: “Mr. BINGHAM, I have been in my first battle, and I’ve come to
tell you I’ve tried not to show the coward.”
Mr.
GILES told me he was a soldier in the Potomac army, and at one time was in camp
near the command of CUSTER. “One
evening,” said he, “I heard footsteps approaching my tent; a moment later in
came General CUSTER to see me. He
inquired why I had not called upon him.
I replied, I had so desired, but I thought it would not do; he had now
got to be a great man, a General, and I was only a common soldier. “Humph,” he rejoined, “I thought you knew me
better, that I was above all such nonsense as that, especially with an old
friend, and the friend of my father.”
And then he playfully added: “I expect the old man is the same darned old Copperhead yet, aint he?” I had to
acknowledge I thought he was.
Mr.
GILES took me to his cottage, close by, and showed me finely framed and colored
portraits of the General’s parents. In his simplicity—stranger as I was—he
wanted to loan them to me. It seemed
like sacrilege to accept his offer—would not take such a responsibility of
their safe-keeping, even had I wanted them.
CUSTER’S
father had a large, strong-looking face, with a straight, firmly set
mouth. On seeing that expression one
could easily imagine how, having been born a Democrat, he had set that mouth of
his grim and defiant to die one. From
him it was that his son got his light golden hair, and the impulse that belongs
to that temperament. The portrait of the
mother was in profile. She was a
brunette. The whole air of the woman
showed a high degree of refinement, with a tinge of sadness resting upon her
countenance. “She never had,” said
GILES, “any especial social opportunities, but she was a born lady, thoughtful,
dignified and always inspiring high respect.
At the time of the massacre, with CUSTER was killed his two brothers,
Thomas and Boston, both officers, Captain CALHOUN, her brother-in-law—that is,
her sister’s husband—and Mr. REED, a civilian, on a visit to the General; also
Louis CLEM, younger brother of Johnnie CLEM, the drummer boy of Shiloh. The mother never rallied from the terrible
blow; it broke her heart, and she sank and died. The father is still living in Michigan; but
as long as I knew him, on any allusion to the death of his sons, he would swell
up and leave the room.
As
I pass these notes over to the printer, I copy from a note-book: “Died July 13,
1889, John GILES, of Scio:” that is, three years after this talk.
We
annex some items, mainly from Whitelaw REID’s “Sketch
of CUSTER,” wherein are given some of the brilliant points of his brilliant
military career. At the battle of
Williamsburg he accompanied the advance as aid-de-camp under
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Gen. HANCOCK, and captured the first
battle-flag ever captured by the army of the Potomac. . . . He was the first
person to cross the Chickahominy, which he did by
wading up to the armpits in the face of the enemy’s pickets. . . . At
Gettysburg he held the right of the Union line, and utterly routed Hampton’s cavalry.
In this battle he had two horses shot under him, and in the course of
the war eleven horses. . . . At the battle of Trevillian
Station five brigades attacked his one.
Against such odds he fought for three hours. His color-bearer was shot, when the flag was
only saved by CUSTER tearing it from its standard and concealing it around his
body. . . . At Winchester he took nine battle-flags, and took more prisoners
than he had men engaged. . . . When Sheridan arrived at Cedar creek, after his
famous ride, he said, “Go in, CUSTER.”
CUSTER went in, drove the enemy for miles, captured
a major-general, many prisoners, and forty-five pieces of artillery. For this he was brevetted Major-General of
Volunteers. It would be beyond our
limits to recapitulate his many successes; but he was the first to receive the
white flag from Gen. Lee, and Sheridan presented Mrs. CUSTER the table on which
Lee signed the surrender. . . . He never lost a gun or a color; he captured
more guns, flags, and prisoners on the battle-field than any other general not
an army commander, and his services throughout were most brilliant.
Gen.
CUSTER was nearly six feet in height, of great strength and endurance,
broad-shouldered, lithe and active, with a weight never above 170 pounds. His eyes were blue, his hair long and
golden. At the age of twenty-three he
was made a brigadier-general; at twenty-five a major-general, the youngest man
of his rank in the army. REID says: “For
quick dashes and vigorous spurts of fighting he had no superiors and scarcely
an equal. His career was disastrously
closed in an attack, on the 25th of June, 1876, on an Indian
encampment, on Little Horn river, in Montana, when his command of 277
cavalrymen were overwhelmed by about 1600 Sioux Indians, under SITTING BULL,
and massacred to a man—not one spared to tell the tale. The old chief, a year or two later, was asked
at a conference the particulars, whereupon SITTING BULL replied, “I do not know
where the Yellow Hair died.”
Gen.
TERRY, who commanded the forces of the expedition, in all amounting to about
1,400 infantry and cavalry, and against whose implied orders the attack had
been made, arrived with the main body upon the scene a day later. He ordered the burial of the slain, and in
1879 it was made a national cemetery.
MATTHEW
SIMPSON, D.D., LL.D., was born in Cadiz, 20th June, 1811, and died
in Philadelphia, Pa., 18th June, 1884. His father died when he was two years of
age. His uncle, from whom he was named,
was a man of literary ability and gave his mind a literary bent. He graduated at what is now Allegheny
College, and at eighteen became a tutor.
He first began the practice of medicine; and then, at the age of
twenty-two, entered the ministry, the Pittsburg Conference. He preached first on the St. Clairsville Circuit; in 1837 became Vice-President and
Professor of Natural Sciences of Allegheny College, and in 1839 was chosen
President of Indiana Asbury (now De Pauw) University,
Greencastle, which position he held for nine years and gained great popularity.
Appleton’s
“Cyclopædia of American Biography” says: “His
eloquence made him in great demand on the pulpit and on the platform. His personal qualities gave him an
extraordinary influence over students, and made him efficient in raising money
for the endowment of the college. In
1844 he was elected to the General Conference, and in 1848 he was
re-elected. He appeared in 1852 in the
conference as the leader of his delegation, and at this conference he was made
bishop.”
In
1857 he was sent abroad as a delegate to the English and Irish Conference of
the Wesleyan connection, and was also a delegate to the World’s Evangelical
Alliance which met in Berlin.
His
preaching and addresses made upon this tour attracted great attention,
particularly his sermon before the alliance, which extended his fame as a
pulpit orator throughout the world.
After its adjournment he travelled through
Turkey, Palestine, Egypt and Greece. In
1859 he removed from Pittsburg to Evanston, Ill., and became nominally
President of Garrett Biblical Institute.
Subsequently he removed to Philadelphia.
His powers as an orator were displayed during the civil war in a manner
that commanded the admiration and gratitude of the people.
President
LINCOLN regarded him as the greatest orator he ever heard, and at his funeral
in Springfield Bishop SIMPSON officiated.
He made many addresses in behalf of the Christian Commission, and
delivered a series of lectures that had much to do with raising the spirit of
the people. His official duties took him
abroad in 1870 and 1875. In 1874 he
visited Mexico. At the Ecumenical
Council of Methodists, in London, he was selected by the representatives of all
branches to deliver the opening sermon.
After the
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news of the death of President Garfield, he delivered an
address at Exeter Hall. He was selected
by the faculty of Yale to deliver a series of addresses before the students of
the theological department, which were published as “Lectures on Preaching”
(New York, 1879).
In
later years his appearance was patriarchal.
His eloquence was simple and natural, but increasing in power from the
beginning to the close. It was peculiar
to himself and equally attractive to the ignorant and
the learned. One of his natural
advantages was his remarkable voice.
When he was at his best few could resist his pathetic appeals. Though his eloquence is the principal element
of his fame, he was a man of unusual soundness of judgment, a parliamentarian
of remarkable accuracy and promptitude, and one of the best presiding officers
and safest of counsellors. He was present in the General Conference in
Philadelphia in 1884. Though broken in
health, so as not to be able to sit through the sessions, his mind was clear
and his farewell address made a profound impression. Bishop SIMPSON published “Hundred Years of
Methodism” (New York, 1876), and “Cyclopædia of
Methodism” (Philadelphia, 1878, 5th ed. Revised 1882). After his death a volume of his “Sermons” was
edited by Rev. Geo. R. Crooks, D.D. (1885).
A window in his memory is to be placed by American admirers in City Road
Chapel, London, where John Wesley preached.
JOHN
A. BINGHAM, late United States Minister to Japan, sometimes called “the
silver-tongued orator,” and so long and highly eminent and useful in the
councils of the nation, was born January 21, 1815, in Mercer, Pa. In his childhood he resided four years in
Ohio; then passed two years and a half in learning printing in Mercer; was then
educated in the Mercer Academy and Franklin College, and in 1840 came to Ohio
and followed the practice of the law. In
the Harrison campaign he took an active part as a Whig orator, and twice held
public discussions with Edwin M. STANTON, having been challenged by him.
In
the National Whig Convention of 1848 he proposed a resolution which it was
thought too dangerous to adopt, but which was the key-note to his subsequent
course, viz.: “No more slave States; no more slave Territories; the maintenance
of freedom where freedom is, and the protection of American industry.” He was
first elected to Congress in 1854, and served in all sixteen years; in 1873 he
was appointed by Grant Minister to Japan, where he resided until the advent of
Mr. Cleveland’s administration.
In
the sixteen years of his service in Congress he served on the most important
committees. For four years he was
chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He
was chairman of the managers on behalf of the House on the trial for the
impeachment of President JOHNSON. He was
author of the first section to the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution,
save the introductory clause thereof. He
was appointed special judge-advocate for the trial of the assassin of Abraham
LINCOLN. He was given other important
official trusts, spending in all eighteen years in Washington, giving unwearying labor to the nation in its most eventful
period. Besides his many speeches in
Congress, he has spoken in half the States for “the Union and Constitution.”
FREEPORT
is eighteen miles southwest of Cadiz, on the C. L. & W. Railroad, and on a
branch of the Tuscarawas river. Newspaper: Press, independent, McMATH &
WILLAIMS, editors and publishers.
Churches: one Methodist Episcopal, one Presbyterian, one Friends. Population, 1880, 387.
SCIO
is on the P. C. & St. L. Railroad, nine miles north of Cadiz. It is the seat of Scio College, E. J. MARSH,
president. Newspapers: Herald, independent, Herald Printing Company, editors and
publishers; Collegian, students of
Scio College, editors and publishers.
Churches: one Presbyterian, one United Presbyterian, one Methodist. Bank: Scio (Hogue & Donaldson); R. S.
Hogue, cashier. Population,
1880, 509.
BOWERSTON
is on the P. C. & St. L. Railroad, eighteen miles northwest of Cadiz. Newspaper: Gazette, independent, Charles G. ADDLEMAN, editor and
publisher. Churches: one Methodist, one
United Brethren, one Lutheran. Population about 500.
JEWETT
is on the P. C. & St. L. Railroad, seven miles north of Cadiz. First house was built in 1803, by George
Dowell. The village was laid out in
1851, by John STALL, and called Fairview.
Name was changed to Jewett in 1881.
Churches: one Presbyterian, one Methodist Episcopal, one Lutheran
Evangelical. Population
about 600.
NEW
ATHENS, on the St. Clairsville and Cadiz pike, seven
miles south of Cadiz, is the seat of Franklin College. Bank: John DUNLAP, Jr. Churches: one Presbyterian, one United
Presbyterian, one Protestant Episcopal. School census, 1888, 156.
DEERSVILLE
is twelve miles west of Cadiz. School census, 1888, 99.
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HOPEDALE
is six miles northeast of Cadiz. It is
the seat of Hopedale Normal College; president, W. G. GARVEY. School census, 1888, 106.
HARRISVILLE
is ten miles southeast of Cadiz.
Churches: one United Presbyterian, one Methodist Episcopal, one Methodist
Protestant. School
census, 1888, 143.