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LICKING COUNTY--Continued

 

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Top Left: SHEPARDON’S COLLEGE FOR WOMEN Top Right: GRANVILLE FEMALE COLLEGE

Center: DENNISON BAPTIST UNIVERSITY, LITERARY INSTITUTIONS, GRANVILLE, 1890

 

Bottom

Drawn by Henry Howe.

LITERARY INSTITUTIONS, GRANVILLE, 1846

 

On left lower is the Baptist College; on the right lower Male Academy; on the

 

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admission only seemed to require evidence of snakeship. Besides various turnouts to kill them, the inhabitants had one general hunt. Elias GILLMAN and Justin HILLYER were the captins, who chose sides, and the party beaten were to pay three gallons of whiskey. Tradition is divided as to the number killed that day. Some say 300. They killed that year between 700 and 800 rattle-snakes and copper-heads, keeping no account of the black and other harmless serpents. The young men would seize them by the neck and thrash them against the trees, before they had time to bite or curl around their arms. The copper-head, though smaller, was much more feared. The rattle-snake was larger, sooner seen, and a true Southerner, always living up to the laws of honor. He would not bite without provocation, and by his rattles gave the challenge in an honorable way. Instead of this well-bred warfare, the copper-head is a wrathy little felon, whose ire is always up, and he will make at the hand or foot in the leaves or grass before he is seen, and his bite is as poisonous as that of his brother of the larger fang. The young men tested his temper, and found that in his wrath he would bite a red-hot coal. Very few were bitten by the rattle-snake, and all speak well of his good disposition and gentle-manly manners; but so many were bitten in consequence of the fractious temper of the copper-head, that he has left no one behind him to sound a note in his praise.

 

The limb bitten became immediately swollen, turned the color of the snake, and the patient was soon unable to walk. In some cases the poison broke out annually, and in others the limb was exposed to frequent swellings. After all that was suffered from poisonous reptiles, it was proved to a demonstration that no animal is so poisonous as man. Carrying more poison in his mouth than any other creature, he can poison a venomous serpent to death, quicker than the serpent can him. Martin ROOT and two other young men, chopping together, saw a rattle-snake, set a fork over his neck, and put in his mouth a new quid from one of their mouths. They raised the fork, and the poor creature did not crawl more than his length before he convulsed, swelled up and died, poisoned to death by virus from the mouth of one of the lords of creation. Deacon HAYES and Worthy PRATT tried the same experiment upon copper-heads, with the same results. Many others killed venomous reptiles in the same way, and one man pretended that, by the moderate use, he had taught a copper-head to take tobacco without injury.

 

AN EARLY TRAVELLER’S VISIT TO GRANVILLE.

 

From the narrative of the visit to the American churches by the divines, REED and MATHESON, deputies from the Congregational Union of England and Wales, published in 1835, we make an extract descriptive of the religious state of Granville as they found it. It was certainly an unique community: it is doubtful if in the entire Union then–and much less so now–was there another like it. The writer of this account was Rev. Dr. REED. The pastor of whom he speaks was the Rev. Jacob LITTLE, the author of the foregoing historical sketch, who ministered here from 1828 to 1864, over thirty-seven years, as we learn from Rev. Henry BUSHNELL’S valuable History of Granville, recently published.

 

Some of the new-made towns present a delightfully religious aspect. Of these, I might name Columbus, Zanesville and Granville. The first has 3,000 persons, 3 churches, and 5 ministers. The second has 3,200 persons and 6 churches; and Granville is a small town, which I believe is wholly religious. As a settlement it deserves notice.

 

It was made by a party of ninety persons from New England. On arriving at this spot they gave themselves to prayer, that they might be directed in choosing their resting-place in the wilderness and enjoy the blessing of God. At first they rested with their little ones in the wagons; and the first permanent building they erected was a church. The people retain the simple and pious manners of their fathers.

 

They all go to church, and there are four hundred in a state of communion. They give $1,000 a year to religious institutions. One plain man, who never allowed himself the luxury of a set of fire-irons, besides what he does at home, gives $100 a year to religious objects. The present pastor is a devoted man and very prosperous in the care of his flock. Some of his little methods are peculiar, and might be objectionable or impracticable elsewhere. He meets his people in districts once a week in turn for instruction. He keeps an alphabetical list of the members, and places each name opposite a day of the month throughout the year, and on that day all the church are to pray for that member.

 

He has overseers in the districts, who are to make an entry of all points of conduct under separate heads during the year, and to furnish full reports to him at its close. This report, and the names of the parties, he reads from the pulpit, with rebuke or commendation, and the year begins afresh.

 

 

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breaker, are not found here; and what is yet better, on the last report there was only one family that had not domestic worship.

 

THE GRANVILLE RIOT.

 

In 1834 the anti-slavery movement was first agitated in Granville township. Theodore D. WELD, after a narrow escape from death by drowning, arrived in Granville, Friday, April 3, 1835. He had been an agent of the American Colonization Society in Alabama, an inmate of Judge BIRNEY’s family, and was one of forty-two young men, who, influenced by the reputation of Dr. BEECHER, had gathered at Lane Seminary to study for the ministry. Not satisfied with the position taken by that institution on the anti-slavery question, they had left in a body.

 

He lectured at the conference-room of the Congregational Society, and the mob pelted him and his audience with eggs, not sparing the ladies. On another occasion he was addressing an audience from a window of a private dwelling-house–every public building in the village being closed against him–the male portion of his hearers were in the enclosed yard about the house, when a man in the crowd was heard muttering threats against the speaker. One of the WHITEHEADS, of Jersey, a man of great strength, stepped quietly up to the disturber, and grasping him under one arm, lifted him over the picket-fence and set him down in the street, saying, “There, my little man, keep quiet! We do not allow such language in the yard. Do not make any noise.” The meeting proceeded without further disturbance.

 

Thursday, April 27, 1836, the Ohio State Anti-Slavery Convention held its anniversary in Granville. No room could be obtained for it in the village. A remonstrance was signed by seventy-five men–including the mayor, recorder, and members of the council–many of them prominent citizens and of two classes: those who abominated abolition and those whose motive was to avoid a disturbance of the peace.

 

The anti-slavery party yielded so far as not to meet in the village, and gathered in a large barn owned by Mr. A. A. BANCROFT. This they named “The Hall of Freedom.”

 

The day of the Convention the village was crowded with men of opposing factions. The anti-slavery faction was headed by such men as President MAHAN and Professor COWLES, of Oberlin College; Hon. J. G. BIRNEY, of Cincinnati, and kindred spirits. The other, numbering about 200 men, was a miscellaneous mob gathered from all parts of the county and without definite plan or leaders. They tried to get a militia captain to organize and lead them, but failed; they spent the day in harangues, in bobbing abolitionists’ horses, and in drilling by squads.

 

The mayor purposely absented himself that day, and the constable declined to act until the afternoon brought violence.

 

The abolitionists quietly assembled and proceeded with their business. Word was sent to them that if they did not adjourn by a given time, they would be assailed. They determined on self-devence, if attacked, and Mr. BANCROFT, with a log-chain, secured the gate leading to the barn, thus making it necessary for assailants to scale the fence. A load of hoop-poles was brought from James LANGDON’s copper-shop; each one was cut in two, affording an abundant supply of shillalahs in case of necessity.

 

At 2 P. M. the Convention had finished its business and adjourned sine die. In the mean-while the mob had gathered in the village, at the corner of Prospect and Broad streets, and were prepared to meet the members of the Convention as they came up the street in procession, with the ladies’ school of Misses GRANT and BRIDGES (which had suspended for the day to attend the Convention) in the centre.

 

The two crowds came in collision. A part of the mob gave way and allowed the procession to move partially through its outskirts; but the mass of them resisted, and the procession was crowded into the middle of the street. As the excitement increased the mob began to hoot and cry for Samuel WHITE and William WHITNEY–abolition lecturers conspicuous among the escort.

 

The procession closed in together and quickened their pace as the mob pressed upon them. One prominent citizen was heard to shout, “Egg the squaws!” Eggs and other missiles began to fly. Efforts were made to trip the ladies in the procession.

 

 

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places of safety, when one of them sank to the ground from fright, but soon gained courage enough to flee to a place of refuge.

 

The march had changed to the double-quick and almost a rout. But the ladies all reached places of safety, as did most of the men. Individual abolitionists were caught and assaulted. Eggs were thrown and there was more or less personal injury. Mr. ANDERSON, the constable, came upon the scene of action on horseback, and sought to use his authority. He was very unceremoniously dragged from his horse and treated with indignity. The closing scene was the ride of Judge BIRNEY past the mob, now re-assembling at the hotel. He started from Dr. BANCROFT’S, on his awfully bobbed horse, rode slowly by the mob, while they pelted him on every side with eggs; and when past the reach of their missiles, he put spurs to his horse, and in that plight rode out of town. An immediate reaction followed this out-break, and the citizens were filled with shame that such violence should be done in their midst. The same evening an abolition meeting was held in the stone school-house on the Welsh Hills, without molestation. The abolition party received great accessions as a result of the day’s work, and soon Granville became a well-known station on the Great Northwestern Underground Railroad.

 

TRAVELLING NOTES

 

Granville is, perhaps, the most peculiar, unique village in the State. It was for a long period “a chunk” of the old-time New England set down in Central Ohio. There is much in the place to remind one of those ancient days, especially in the graveyards. Granville, at this hour, is a spot where learning welcomes you as you enter, looks down upon you from the hills as you pass through, and bids you farewell as you leave at the farther end. In other words, at each end of the main street is a female seminary, while on a hill, overlooking all, stands Dennison University.

 

I came over from Newark Thursday afternoon, June 17^th, in a hack–a ride of six miles through the board and beautiful valley of the Raccoon. I noticed some fine elms on the margin of wheat-fields; one of perfect symmetry, shaped like a weeping-willow. The Ohio elm has not the height nor the grandeur of the New England elm. Entering the village about 4 P.M., I found it to be class-day at the greeting institution. The exercises were over, but on the lawn, under the trees, was a bevy of maidens in white, with one gray-bearded patriarch among them–probably the teaching sire of the flock. The village street was ornamented with the moving figures of the nymphs, and entering a photograph gallery, I found it filled with them, looking their prettiest for their sun pictures.

 

Granville is mainly on a single street called Broadway, 100 feet wide from curb to curb. It is well lined with trees, while the dwellings stand well back, half concealed in masses of shrubbery. The village has a peculiar air of refined neatness and purity, rendering it one of the sweetest spots I know of anywhere. The Baptist Church in its centre is a structure of unusual beauty; it is in Gothic architecture, and built of light-blue limestone from Sandusky. The Welsh Baptists and the New England Congregationalists alike got a good grip upon this favored spot when the century was young.

 

The next morning, by a gentle-winding path, I went up the hill that overhangs the village, on which stands the University, and resting under some trees enjoyed the scene. I looked down upon the nestling village below me with its rising spires, and then stretching for miles away the broad and beautiful valley of the Raccoon, a rolling landscape of gentle hills, with here and there golden wheat-fields in a setting of livid green–there were farms, forests and sentinel trees upon the slopes and in the meadows of the valley, while over all was the tender blue sky and floating cumulus snowy-white clouds to flit their shadows. And life was around me, the moving figures of refined-looking youths and maidens on the grassy hill-side, their laughing voices gladdening the air as they passed by me to the college chapel. Presently the sound of music arose from therein, then died away, and the day wore on, calmly wore on over a picture of earthly beauty. The strange, unknown people who built the ancient works knew the superlative attractions of this favored valley, and from here to Newark, for a space of six miles, have left numerous monuments of their labors, showing it was once densely populated.

 

A DAY AMONG THE GRAVES.

 

 

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village, contains three acres, and is partly enclosed by a stone wall. I visited it June 18, in company with Mr. Chas. W. BRYANT, President of the Granville Historical Society.

 

The dead who lie buried here are about 2,000 in number, thus nearly doubling the living population of the village. The spot is thickly dotted with grave stones, largely sandstone slabs, many of the older ones with elaborately carved artistic, eccentric devices and quaint inscriptions. Many of the stones are leaning over and in varied directions, making it evident that their friends, whose duty it is to keep them in order, have also passed away or gone hence. Sunken graves abound densely carpeted with myrtle, concealing the treacherous hollows beneath, and rendering careful footsteps in certain places a necessity.

 

I here copy from my notes while among the graves. “This is a spot for melancholy and purifying emotion. Such a graveyard with its relics of the past is invested with tenfold the interest of a modern, ornate cemetery. Here the fathers sleep under their sculptured monuments, which not only preserve the art of their time, but give the theological ideas and the simple-hearted culture which guided their lives and made them a strong, heroic people. This place, with its never-ending lesson of the brevity of life, with its dilapidated leaning stones and time-eaten inscriptions, should be held sacred by the villagers with the same sort of veneration as that which puts a continued watch over the most famous of all graves–that of Shakespeare.

 

 

 

 

 

“Such are the thoughts I pencil upon the spot in the sun of a fine June morning, with a persistent robin singing from a cedar hard bye, joined in with an occasional note from a Baltimore oriole, whose whereabouts I am unable to learn. I write seated upon the edge of the base of an overturned slab, which is elaborately carved in alto-relieve on top with vase and cloth. The slab lies buried flat in the grass and myrtle growth, and with all due respect to the memory of her who lies buried here I rest my feet upon the inscription which reads:

 

“‘Sacred to the memory of Mrs. Abigail BOARDMAN, relict of Moses BOARDMAN, who departed this life Feb. 1^st, 1820, in the 51^st year of her age.

 

“‘To the grave her children resigned her consoled with the assured hope that her departed spirit is at rest with Christ, and that in the resurrection of the dead she will be raised and appear with him in glory.’

 

“The tears shed for her demise have long been exhaled. The grass of sixty-six successive years has come and gone from over this spot. That of the present year now dots the graveyard in picturesque cones of fragrance, while a tethered cow six rods away is busy swinging her tail and gathering sustenance from the cropped herbage in the little vale on the margin of the place. Blessing upon old muley, who teaches by example the virtues of meekness and humility!

 

“In this venerated spot lie buried not only several soldiers of the American Revolution, but a least one of the old French and Indian war who, for aught we know, was with Wolfe at the storming of Quebec. On his stone is inscribed:

“‘Jonathan BENJAMIN, died August 26^th, 1841, aged 102 years, and 10 months, and 12 days.–Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labors and their works do follow them.’”

 

This ends my notes in the graveyard. Mr. BRYANT, who was the Old Mortality of this region, had copied into a book all the inscriptions that could be deciphered, and therein they are numbered, 928 in all. Among them are those of the parents of HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT, the historian of the Pacific coast.

 

We copy a few inscriptions from his book. The first is that of Deacon ROSE. It gives interesting personal items. The old style graveyards are rich in history and biography, for the lack of which the modern cemetery is shorn of one great source of interest and instruction.

 

“Erected to the memory of Deacon Lemuel ROSE, who died September 13, 1835, aged 71 years and 4 months. Born in Granville, Mass. A Revolutionary soldier. Emigrated with the first company of settlers. Drove the first team on the town-plot. Led the devotions of the first Sabbath assembly. Was twenty-two years deacon of the Granville Congregational Church. Was faithful, consistent, generous. His graces shone with a brighter and brighter lustre till his death.”

 

A large number of the inscriptions are of children, some of which I copy entirely and others only their elegial verse.

 

No. 928. An infant son of Eliza and Clarissa ABBOT, died October 21, 1824.

Joyless sojourner was I.

Only born to gasp and die.

 

_____

 

 

No. 694. Norman William, son of Aaron and Phoebe BEAN, died July 13, 1828, aged 18 months and 13 days:

The Saviour called me from the earth

 

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Top

From Photograph by Elliott, Columbus

PORTRAIT OF T. D. JONES, SCULPTOR

 

Bottom

S. P. Treize, Photo., Granville.

 

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To sing with saints in ceaseless light,

Around the throne with cherubs bright;

Where babes like me are ever blest

And in the arms of Jesus rest!

 

_____

 

 

No. 547.

The Gardener came and with one stroke

He from the root the offspring took,

Took from the soil wherein it grew

An hid it from the parents’ view.

 

_____

 

No. 557.

Oh, William, dear, my darling child,

The treasure of my heart;

Why was it that I should be called

With thee so soon to part?

 

_____

 

No. 597.

Time is winging us away

to our eternal home;

Life is but a winter day.

A journey to the tomb.

 

No. 763. Sereno WRIGHT also talks from the grave:

O poor worm of the dust and food for worms!

Reader! The same, the same fate awaits thee too;

And soon, too soon, that such a being ever lived

Will not be known.

 

_____

 

No. 871. To the memory of Samuel THRALL, Jr., who died February 10, 1830, aged 42 years:

 

Oh, think not that you are safe when in your health: The kick of a horse was the means of my death.

 

_____

 

No. 668.

To home, my friends; dry up your tears;

For I shall rise when Christ appears.

 

From the old burying-ground Mr. BRYANT drove me to the WELSH HILLS CEMETERY. What is called the Welsh quarter comprises the northeastern part of Granville and goes under the general name of the Welsh Hills. Mr. BRYANT told me that the Welsh were fast losing their national characteristic: the young people go much to other churches. The Welsh I have met seemed to me a wiry people with thoughtful faces, and with a capacity for the best sort of things. A fat, pussy, flabby Welshman is a rara avis.

 

The artistic work on the Granville sandstone monuments was largely done by two Welsh stone-cutters, one HUGHES and my old friend “Poor Tom JONES,” whom, from his genius, Donn PIATT called “an inspired stone-cutter.” He began on monuments before essaying busts. Mr. BRYANT showed me a statuette, the first work of art by JONES other than on monuments. It is the bust of an old man out from a block of sandstone, wearing spectacles, cravat, and hat, and quite comic in character.

 

It is an interesting historical fact that in this very township were two such diverse colonies as Yankees and Welshmen, each equally strong in religion, only differing in the use of the kind of words in which they expressed their ideas and the use of water in church ministrations, for these were Welsh Baptists. Alike in their hearts, they could but acknowledge the force of the truth so touchingly told in the verse of LONGFELLOW in the last utterance of Sir Humphrey GILBERT:

 

“He sat upon the deck,

The book was in his hand;

Do not fear: ‘Heaven is near,’

He said, ‘by water as by land.’”

 

Hitching the horse at the gate we entered the cemetery, whereupon myrads of grasshoppers arose at every step and literally came “as grasshoppers for multitude,” and such that no man could number. They appeared to have been holding a levee just there, which was a sandy, sun-exposed spot. I know of no creature that gets so much hilarity out of short jumps as the grasshopper; the toad is altogether too solemn and contemplative, and when at last he decides to go it is but a feeble accomplishment.

 

In the old style graveyards of our fathers at the East, they being generally located upon poor sandy soil, grasshoppers, I found, used to abound. So that the grasshopper has naturally a graveyard association, even if we did not find it scripturally so.

 

“And the GRASSHOPPER shall be a burden, and desire shall fail; because man goeth to his long home and the mourners go about the streets.”

 

 

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from the looks of the country around me I could well believe it.

 

We early came to a large marble slab, six feet by three feet, one end upon the ground and the other resting upon a pile of stones, about four feet high, sloping like a roof. On its upturned face was this inscription:

 

On this spot was erected in 1809 the first meeting-house of the Welsh Hills Baptist Church. Here also was organized in 1811 the Muskingum Baptist Association. The church was organized some forty rods east in the cabin of David THOMAS, September 4, 1808, with the following members, viz.: Theophilus REES, Elizabeth REES, David THOMAS, Mary THOMAS, Thomas POWELL, Elizabeth JAMES, David LOBDELL, Joshua LOBDELL, Nathan ALLYN.

 

Near this is the monument of the Deacon Theophilus REES, the pioneer of the Welsh colony of whom is given a pleasant ancedote on page 329. The inscription is as follows:

 

In memory of Theophilus REES, who died February 16, 1814, aged 67 years. He was a native of Caermarthenshire, near Mildrem, South Wales.

 

“Poor Tom JONES,” the sculptor, died in Columbus, and was brought here for burial among the scenes of his boyhood. Near the summit is his burial spot, his monument, a huge granite boulder, his own device, with the simple inscription, as shown: “T. D. JONES, sculptor, 12-12-1811; 2-27-1881.” His father, a farmer, had several sons. He gave each the middle name of David.

 

The best known work of JONES is the LINCOLN MEMORIAL in the rotundo of the State House at Columbus, for which he was commissioned by the Ohio Monument Association. It was unveiled January 19, 1870, and is fourteen feet in height.

 

On its centre face is carved in alto-rilievo the scene of the surrender at Vicksburg, July 4, 1863, of PEMBERTON to GRANT, each of whom are shown accompanied by their principal officers. It is surmounted by a colossal bust of LINCOLN of pure white Carrara marble. On its base stands forth LINCOLN’s simple grand request:

 

Care for him who shall have borne the battle and his widow and his orphans.

 

Tom JONES truly was “an inspired stonecutter.” I knew Tom well. He was a fellow-townsman of mine in Cincinnati for many years. In person he was rather short, powerfully built, with dark complexion, strong features, and walked the streets with a quick, firm, well-accented tread, showing he meant to “get there.” He sculptured more busts of our eminent men, such as CHASE, SEWARD, LINCOLN, etc., than probably any other artist, and his work was masterly. His nature was eminently social. He was an amusing, interesting talker, enjoyed a good laugh, and was replete with anecdotes of the noted characters whom he had for sitters and whose lips he managed to unseal for the outpouring of words of wisdom and humanity.

 

Our early artists had generally but a sorry time, and Tom was no exception. To wed Art was to make one a polygamist, for he had to take with her another bride, Poverty. Tom’s struggle for existence rendered his last days melancholy and he died a poor, broken-hearted man.

 

There were some graves on this Welsh ground that rather surprised me, evidently those of young people. They were bordered with clam shells, the rounded sides upwards. Others were framed with bits of white marble, with gravel stones over the graves instead of turf or flowers. Still others there were sprinkled over with bits of marble. It is common in Wales to adorn graves with bright stones and shells from the sea, disposed in the form of a cross and otherwise. The soil in rocky places on the coast is often too scant for even flowers, and their bloom is at best but transient, while stones and shells abound there to please the eye the entire year around.

 

The inscription below from a neat marble shaft was the last one I copied. While so engaged I was interrupted by a visit from a slender, nimble little black dog, a stranger, all joy in this sad place, who came up to be petted, and, succeeding, then rolled over just once in the grass and so suddenly disappeared I think he must have been a spirit.

 

John V., Son of John and Catherine PRICE. Born July 26, 1843. Died March 24, 1867. Aged 23 years, 7 months, 28 days.

 

 

 

In my youth in my historical tours over the different States of the East it was my habit to visit the old graveyards and copy inscriptions. It was a melancholy sort of pleasure, but refining and instructive. One exceeding common was:

 

 

 

This inscription is not to my knowledge in any place in Ohio, excepting on a grave-stone in Serpent Mound Park, in Adams county, and to that some profane wag as added:

 

 

 

 

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ist Burying-Ground at Worthington, which was settled in 1803 by the same sort of people as Granville. My attention was called to it by one of Ohio’s ancient inhabitants, Gen. Joseph GEIGER, of Columbus, whose funny speeches on the stump in the Whig campaigns of 1840 and later made him laughingly known all over Ohio. Mrs. PEARCE’S inscription was copied direct from the stone by Mr. J. M. MILNE, July 19, 1890, and it is now put where her memory will last longer than her monument.

 

 

 

Dismissing the line learned in childhood that came obtruding into my mind while I was there, viz., that “Taffy was a Welshman,” I left with Mr. BRYANT to see the Alligator. It is a mound so called from its form. It is about a mile below Granville, on a spur of land on the south side of the valley of the Raccoon. It has been thus described:

 

“Its extreme length is 205 feet; average height is 4 feet, part of it being 6 feet. The greatest breadth of body is 20 feet and the length of legs or paws is 25 feet, the ends being broader than the links, as if the spread of the toes was indicated. The superstructure is of clay, which must have been brought from a distance. Upon the inner side of the effigy and about 20 feet from it is a raised space covered with stones which have been exposed to the action of fire, denominated an altar, and from this leading to the top is a narrow graded way now barely traceable.”

 

Prof. WILSON, in his work on pre-historic man, describes this effigy and says “that it symoblizes some object of especial awe or veneration, thus reared on one of the ‘high places’ of the nation, with its accompanying altar on which the ancient people of the valley could witness the rites of their worship, its site having been obviously selected as the most prominent natural feature in a populous district abounding with military, civic and religious structures.”

 

SQUIER and DAVIS say it is analogous to the Serpent Mound in Adams county.

 

We walked up to the summit of the rounded hill by an easy ascent, and there again before us was the same magnificent valley I have before described, its patches of golden wheat in the soft repose of the lengthening shadows of the June afternoon. As my eye took in the peaceful scene I felt I was enveloped in the glory of our world.

 

There was little to be seen of the Alligator, the place was so overgrown with herbage, especially hoarhound, “enough,” said Mr. BRYANT, in a professional way, for he was a druggist, “to cure all the colds in the United States.” Hoarhound is in some places cultivated by old ladies in their gardens. It is about two feet in height and looks not unlike catnip, indeed, belongs to the same family. It was in blossom. It blooms earlier than the catnip, is about two feet high and has a leaf only about half the size of the other, but has no such startling exhilarating effect upon puss.

 

From the Alligator we passed to Maple Grove, the new cemetery near the village, laid out about 1864, a very pleasant spot, with handsome monuments, a profusion of evergreens and luxuriant junipers full fifteen feet in height and in perfect graceful symmetry. Also a new feature–low, bush-like trees, say twenty feet in height, completely enveloped in an outer garb of wild grapevines, hanging to the ground and affording underneath an enticing arbor from the noon-day heat.

 

Thus ended my day among the graves. Shortly after my visit my obliging, gentlemanly companion, in the very prime of his life, fell sick unto death, when he, too, became a tenant of a grave.

 

BIOGRAPHY.

 

HOMER, near the north line of the county, has produced some much-noted characters. From Homer went ZENOPHON WHEELER, a Judge of the Supreme Court of Tennessee. At Homer were passed the boyhood days of the ROSECRANS–the General and Bishop ROSECRANS. The father of these two eminent men was Crandall ROSECRANS, of Amsterdam ancestry; the name in Dutch signifies a “wreath of roses.” Their mother was Jemima HOPKINS, of the family of the Timothy HOPKINS whose trembling signature appears on the Declaration of Independence. They emigrated from the Wyoming valley to Ohio in 1808. The family lived in a double cabin.

 

 

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to also adopt that faith. The latter graduated at Kenyon with distinguished honor, and died at Columbus in 1878, at the age of 51 years. “Bishop ROSECRANS’ life was one of great simplicity and self-denial. All that he had he gave to the poor, and he was often obliged to walk long distances, even when in delicate health, because he had not the money to pay his car-hire. All the money that was in his possession at his death was two silver half-dollars.”

 

In Homer, for a term of years, lived the CLAFLIN family, out of whose loins came those two women of strange, inexplicable career, then known respectively as Victoria and Tennie C. CLAFLIN–the one now Lady Bidulph MARTIN, and the other Lady Frances COOK, and Viscountess of Montserrat as well, who live to-day in London in great wealth and high social distinction. No one could have anticipated such an outcome for two poor girls from a small Ohio village.

 

A lady of high respectability, now living in Newark, who was a school-mate with the daughters, and a neighbor breathing the same Homeric air, upon who we called for information, said to us:

 

“The parents were originally, I believe, from Pennsylvania, the children born in Homer. The father went by the name of Buck CLAFLIN. He was a lawyer in a small way, and owned a saw-mill. The mother was a German woman and a religious enthusiast. At revivals she was accustomed to walk up and down the aisle of the Methodist Church, of which she was a member, clap her hands, and shout, ‘Alleluiah!’ At other times she dropped down on her knees in her garden and prayed in tones that went out over the neighborhood. This was about the year 1852. The children were curiously named–Queen Victoria, Utica Vantitia, Tennessee Celeste; a babe that died Odessa Malvina, and two sons respectively Malden and Hebron. The last became a cancer doctor, travelled, and placarded the towns as Judge Hebron, the great cancer doctor. Victoria was then about 14 and Tennessee about 8 years old. There was nothing especially marked in these girls in intellectuality, that I could discover. The family were considered as a queer, slip-shod set; never did anything like other people. To illustrate: They used sometimes to send to our house for milk; instead of a bucket, they brought a green glass flask, which provoked my mother, who found it difficult to pour milk through a nozzle. The family were disliked exceedingly, when there came a catastrophe–the saw-mill, which had been insured, was burned. How the fire originated was a mystery. Upon this, the clamor against them became so strong that one night they left the town.”

 

Another and a good authority, writing to us from Homer, says:

 

“Buckman CLAFLIN and family came from Pennsylvania about the year 1844. He was a man of much native genius, and became postmaster at Homer, and built a large, splendid grist-mill, and his daughters, Victoria and Tennessee, were ladies of unusual charms.”

 

There died in Homer, April 28, 1889, WILLIAM KNOWLES, at the age of 83 years, where he had long been a resident. He was born in England, emigrated when a young man, and was always poor in purse, but rich in Christian faith, and for a long time brightened the toilsome labor of making brooms for the support of a large family by venturing on airy flights in the realms of poetry. One of his poems, “Betsy and I are One,” a sequel to Carleton’s “Betsy and I are Out,” appeared in the Toledo Blade, and received wide commendation. In a volume preserving the results of his winged excursions is another, wherin he epitomizes his own thoughts in the way of the desirable.

 

 

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A portrait of Mr. KNOWLES, before us, fully bears out the concluding verse of his poem. It is the full front face of a happy old man, looking directly in yours; at peace with earth and heaven, and who feels to his inmost heart–

 

 

 

JUSTICE WILLIAM BURNHAM WOODS, of the United States Supreme Court, who died in Washington, May 14, 1887, was born in Newark, Ohio, August 3, 1824. He graduated at Western Reserve College, Hudson, Ohio, in 1841, and from Yale in 1845, being the valedictorian at Yale. Two years later he was admitted to the bar and his oratorical powers attracted such attention that he was elected mayor of Newark in 1855, and sent to the Ohio Legislature in 1857 as a Democrat, being speaker in 1858-9. As the leader on the Democratic side, April 18, 1861, he succeeded in supporting the war loan to put Ohio on the defensive and had the vote made unanimous. In the following November he became lieutenant-colonel of the Seventy-sixth Ohio regiment. He served until the war closed, when he was mustered out with the rank of brigadier-general and brevet major-general. He was mustered out in Alabama, where he located and was a leading Republican. Returning to legal duties and political life, he was chosen a state chancellor for six years, but after serving in this position for two years was appointed circuit judge of the United States Court for the Fifth district, which office he held while residing in Mobile for a number of years. His promotion to the United States Supreme Court was made by President HAYES in 1880, and this position he filled most satisfactorily. He participated in the battles of Fort Donelson, Pittsburg Landing, Chickasaw Bayou, Arkansas Post (in which he was slightly wounded), Resaca, Dallas, Atlanta (July 22 and 28), Jonesboro, Lovejoy Station and Bentonville, and in the sieges of Vicksburg and Jackson and in many minor affairs and skirmishes.

 

CHARLES ROBERT WOODS, his brother, was born in Newark, February 19, 1827, and died there, February 26, 1885. He graduated at West Point; served on the frontier till the outbreak of the war. He was appointed Colonel of the Seventy-sixth O. V. I., October 13, 1861; was at Fort Donelson and Shiloh; commanded a brigade at the siege of Corinth; led a brigade at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. He was promoted for bravery at Arkansas Post, and mustered out of the volunteer service in 1866, a brevet major-general. He was familiarly called “Susan Woods” by the cadets at West Point, a sobriquet which clung to him in the army. He was a gallant and faithful officer and participated in every skirmish or battle in which his command was engaged. General SHERMAN once spoke of him as a “magnificent officer.”

 

JAMES EDWARD ROYE (colored) was born in Newark, February 3, 1815, and was educated at the high school and at Ohio University at Athens. He kept a barber shop in Newark, but emigrated to Liberia in 1846, where he became a wealthy merchant and was the first Liberian to make shipments in his own vessel to the United States and Europe.

 

He was elected to the Liberian house of representatives, chosen speaker in 1849, was chief-justice 1865-68, and in 1870 was elected president. He attempted to usurp the office for a second term, but was condemned to imprisonment. While attempting to escape he was drowned, February 2, 1872, in the harbor of Monrovia.

 

 

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toward the school-house and run until his feet became very cold, when he would lay his hot board down and stand on it until his feet became comfortable; then he would start again. There was a half-way house at which he stopped to warm up his board before arriving at the school-house. It would be safe to predict that such a boy would not go through life without an education.”

 

In 1831 he was the first student to enter Granville (now Dennison) University, but left this institution to complete his education at Oberlin, on account of his views on the slavery question. In 1838 he began the practice of law. He became one of the editors of the Newark Gazette. Was elected to the Legislature in 1843; was a Whig candidate for Congress in 1844, but died at Delaware, Ohio, July 28, 1844, and Columbus DELANO, who took his place on the Whig ticket, was elected. Mr. SMUCKER says: “Sam WHITE was a man of remarkable force and power as a public speaker; he was fearless, independent, outspoken, frank, honest, never giving utterance to opinions he did not believe, and always ready to give expression to thoughts that he entertained without fear, favor, or affection.” In the famous crusades of his time against slavery, intemperance, and the abridgment of freedom of speech he was always in the front ranks, playing the part of Richard, the Lion-hearted, and playing it best when and where the fight was hottest.”

 

On one occasion, in the western portion of Hartford township, “he, an overpowered, helpless victim, fell into the hands of a satanic, inhuman mob, who rode him on a rail, and inflicted upon him other indignities accompanied by circumstances of humiliating degradation; many of the mobocrats even favoring the proposition to blacken him with lampblack and oil, and threatened to inflict still other and more offensive indignities upon him, which, if those fiendish mobocrats had not relented and moderated their ferocious temper, would have ended in murder.”

 

HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT was born in Granville, May 5, 1832. He entered the book-store of his brother-in-law at Buffalo, in 1848, and four years later removed to California and established a branch store. While there he gathered an immense amount of valuable books and documents relating to the early history of the Pacific coast. He also preserved much pioneer and other valuable historical matter, which was dicated to him or his assistants, by pioneers, settlers, and others. His valuable library numbers nearly 50,000 volumes. His business affairs were prosperous and in 1868 he retired from the management of his business, and has since been engaged on a series of publications, embracing the history of the whole Pacific coast from Central America to Alaska. This completed work will consist of thirty-nine volumes, about half of which have already been published.

 

SAMUEL RYAN CURTIS was born near Champlain, New York, February 3, 1807, and died in Council Bluffs, Iowa, December 25, 1866. His parents removed to Ohio the year of his birth; graduated from West Point, in 1831; resigned from the army the succeeding year, and studied and practised law in Newark. From 1837 to 1840 he was chief-engineer of the Muskingum river improvements. In 1846 he was made Adjutant-General of Ohio, for the special purpose of organizing the State’s quota of volunteers for the Mexican war. He served in that war as Colonel of the 2d Ohio, acting as Military Governor of Camargo, a large military depot, which he held February 18, 1847, against a large force of Mexicans, under General URREA. In 1855 he commenced the practice of law in Keokuk, Iowa, and was three times elected to Congress; resigning in 1861, he became a major-general. He was a member of the Peach Commission in 1861. From September, 1862, till May, 1863, he was at the head of the Department of Missouri, and that of Kansas, from January, 1864, till February, 1865. He aided in the pursuit and defeat of General PRICE’S army in 1864. From February to July, 1865, he commanded the Department of the Northwest.

 

His elder brother, Henry B. CURTIS, who died in Chicago, November 5, 1885, was an eminent lawyer of Mount Vernon, active in public works, and an authority on banking and monetary affairs. He was instrumental in the selection of the site and founding of Kenyon College in Knox county.

 

ISAAC SMUCKER ranks among its early settlers, and one of the best known and most respected citizens of Newark. He was a native of the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, born in 1807 and removed to Newark in 1825. He attended the common schools, and also had the benefit of a brief academical course of instruction. He has written many valuable articles for county histories and other publications of a historical character; also, for the Ohio Reports of Secretary of State, and for numerous scientific and miscellaneous periodical publications.

 

Mr. SMUCKER has served in public offices in the interest of common schools, and classical education as well. He was for several years a member of the State Legislature; also, a member of the City Council and Board of Education. He was one of the GRANT presidential electors in 1872, and since its organization, in 1867, has been secretary of the “Licking County Pioneer Historical and Antiquarian Society.”

 

TRAVELLING NOTES.

A DAY WITH A PIONEER PASTOR, AND HIS GOLDEN WEDDING.

 

 

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Timothy Winter HOWE, the Nestor of the Presbyterian ministers in this part of Ohio, whose golden wedding he had three years before attended, and read a poem which he had written for the occasion.

 

Pataskala is a pretty name. It is one of the good things that came down to us from the ancient inhabitants. It is a name that can be sung; the last syllable, “la,” is especially musical. The name does double duty–designates a branch of the Licking, and a village which has about eight hundred people. It is on the B. & O. and Pan Handle Railroad, half-way between Newark and Columbus.

 

I got off the cars at Pataskala, Wednesday morning, June 23, 1886. The name of the spot was so pretty that it made the alighting doubly pleasant; and as I walked off in the midst of the sunshine and green things, it seemed as though every step sung a syllable–Pa-tas-ka-la! In two minutes I had pa-tas-ka-la’d to the cottage. It stood in the midst of its own home acre, one hundred feet back from the road. A huge black walnut was on duty as sentinel at the gate; as I approached it presented arms. Its leaves rustled in welcome. Then behind and around the house was the orchard and garden with small fruits, which a good old lady there, three hours later, said to me, “are a great comfort to us.”

 

The cottage has four rooms on the ground-floor, also a summer kitchen. The doors stood invitingly open. I entered, and was invited to a seat by a tall, fresh-looking grandmother, who had enjoyed her golden wedding and was three years on her way to the diamond. Her face was yet all golden; more than fifty years of a beautiful wedded life filled with good works had made it to shine as an angel’s. I did not tell her who I was, but said I wanted to see Mr. HOWE. Three minutes later a side-door to a bedroom opened, an aged head, with a part of a coatless body, was thrust through, and the words fell upon my ear; “If you have any business with me you will have to be quick, for I am dressing to go to the cars to meet an old friend I’ve not seen in thirty years.” I replied, “I’ve no business; take your time; see your friend. I’m in no haste; have the entire day.”

 

In a few moments in he came, a slender, wiry old gentleman, eighty-two years old. I passed my card. He read it; his face broke into a smile; “Why, I’ve heard that you were travelling the State, but I did not suppose you would call on me.” But I did; he was just the man I wanted to see–a venerable father in Israel, who had set up his tabernacle in the wilderness, a great moral light, and had ministered to the same people for thirty-seven years, in joy and in sorrow, from the cradle to the grave. I told him I would leave him for a while. He could go to the cars for his friend; that I wanted to see the village and look upon the shining face of the Pataskala. I made my way to the little stream. It wound around the remote border of the village and frisked by gardens and flower-beads, where the people were at work poking in the earth and tying up the vines. I found it scarce three rods wide and crossed by a covered bridge. It ran clear over a pebbly bottom, and in places was so shallow that shining pebbles glinted in the sun.

 

A Witty Guest.-- Returning to the house I found the old friend present, Rev. Dr. J. D. B. He was a very learned devine and professor from Madison, Wis.–could talk I don’t know how many languages; could talk good sense in each of them, while most people have a hard time of it to always talk good sense in one. He was on his way to meet his old classmates in Middlebury, from whence he had graduated fifty years ago. Such a visitor, full of learning and abounding in apt quotation and in cheery wit, would indeed have been an acquisition anywhere. He helped to make it a field-day in this open cottage of the orchard and the lawn. He told me one thing that was of especial interest, which if I had known I had forgotten; that is, the inscription which is in Latin on the tombstone of Col. David HUMPHRIES, the aide of WASHINGTON, which is in the Hillhouse Cemetery, at New Haven, Conn., was written by Prof. Jas. L. KINGSLEY, of Yale College. HUMPHRIES, while minister to Spain, introduced the Merino sheep into the United States and thereby rendered an inestimable service. Mr. KINGSLEY, in this inscription, celebrates him as having imported the sheep with a vellere vere aures, I. E., “a fleece truly golden.”

 

We sat down to the noon meal. I need not say how appetizing everything was: meats tender and brown, and vegetables and fruits fresh from the very grounds around, and with that indescribable flavor which will never keep long enough for use on any city-spread table. With two divines present it would have been unpardonable not to have had a blessing; and so one of them raised his voice on high. I took occasion to speak of the decadence of the custom even in so-called Christian families, whereupon the professor expressed his regrets: such might be expected among swine who always eat without looking up, for, said he, this is according to the English proverb, “A pig has no prospects.” A moment later the professor dropped another good thing. “What you leave on your plate is a sacrifice to Satan.

 

 

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pleased with this we copy some other scripture for his edification and adoption. “There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job.” And this man of Uz said, “For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.”

 

The verse-repeating finished each kneeled before his or her chair; a short prayer of thanks went up and then all adjourned to the sitting-room adjacent, when to my request my venerable host gave me the following facts in his history which I repeat essentially as he related it, arranging them in the form of a personal narrative. It is valuable as illustrating the life of a class of men, now mostly passed away, the old-time country-settled-for-life pastor.

 

The Pastor’s Story.–My father, Amasa HOWE, was a soldier of the American Revolution, and in the beginning of this century was living in Highgate, Vermont, where I was born, Saturday, May 12, 1804. In 1813, when I was a lad of nine years, he removed to Granville, this county, and there I was brought up and became a school-teacher. In 1828, when twenty-four years of age, I went into Virginia to teach school; but I was soon caught up and educated for the ministry of the Presbyterian church, in the Prince Edwad Theological Seminary, where I graduated in 1832. I preached for several years in Amelia county. In the fall fo 1833 I came north and married, on November 15^th, Chloe HARRIS. She was the daughter of the Rev. Mr. HARRIS, the first minister of Granville. We had known each other from childhood and I took her back with me.

 

Slaveholders’ Timidity.–After a while, consequent upon the Southampton insurrection in Virginia, by which many persons were killed by the slaves, and the continued growth of the anti-slavery sentiment, and agitation of the abolition project at the North, my situation became unpleasant. Rumors were prevalent among the common and more ignorant class that the abolitionists were coming south to kill the whites and free the negroes. I had been accustomed to preach to the whites in the morning and on Sundays and then after a short recess to the slaves. After a while rumors of dissatisfaction came to me for this and a talk of ornamenting me with a coat of tar and feathers reached my ears.

 

On a certain Sunday morning an elder asked me if I was going to preach to the slaves after service? I replied, “Yes.” He rejoined, “This must be stopped; it wont do for the negroes to assemble; they will plot mischief.” I replied, “My appointment is out to preach and I shall keep it, and you must stay here and hear me, for I want you as a witness.”

 

It was the last time I preached to them in a body. I sometimes preached on single plantations to whites in presence of their negroes, some of whom were anxious to have their servants taught the gospel. Some of the planters were at heart anti-slavery like myself, but singly felt they were powerless to help the matter. Mrs. HOWE and myself liked the Virginia people exceedingly, they were so social, frank and kindly.

 

Slave Children Yearning for Knowledge.–It was against the law to teach the negro children to read. Often they would come to Mrs. HOWE with the torn leaf of an old spelling book and request her to teach them the letters. While instructing her own children the young negroes often listened carefully, heard the word, and then without seeing a letter spelled it out carefully to themselves; this too while sweeping the room or making a bed or doing some other work. It seemed hard not to be allowed to teach them.

 

Driven from Virginia.–Finally the opposition to me became so strong that we were obliged to leave Virginia, and on October 13, 1838, I began preaching in Pataskala in the church being then just organized. My parish extended twelve miles east and west, and five miles north and south, an area of sixty square miles. For seven years there was no church-building. With a single exception every member of my church lived in a log-cabin. I preached in log school-houses and barns; administered the sacrament three times in barns. In 1845 the first church was built; it was at Kirkersville and later at Pataskala, and I preached at each place alternately. My ministry extended over thirty-seven years, until I was obliged to discontinue it from the infirmities of age. I have married 415 couple, buried 588 persons, and baptized I do not know how many. My salary from the beginning was $400 per annum, never more, never less. I have always had food in abundance. The clothes question was sometimes a puzzle. My golden wedding was on November 6, 1883.

 

The little room in which we sat was joyous with the insignia of that famous golden wedding that had rounded out so completely the fifty united years of this venerable couple. I cannot describe the various things that loving hands had made for their joy.

 

The most prominent object was a banner of brown satin. Fifty golden links worked in gold thread, each representing a year of their wedded life, extending from the bottom to the top, “1833 to 1883.” Roses were worked on the side with four buds, each representing a child. Four gold crescents, each enclosing a gold star within its horn, carried the same idea. They were enclosed in a ring and the rings were suspended from the banner and finished with tassels. Another was a placque hanging from the wall and thereon was painted a drear November landscape representing the month of their wedding. There on a dead branch in the foreground rested two birds mated surveying the scene, turtle-doves of course they were, happy in each other irrespective of the sombre season in which they had mated, knowing that spring-time must come, and fruits and flowers follow in due season.

 

 

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Top: “THE ALLIGATOR” near GRANVILL LICKING CO. OHIO.

E. G. Squire and E. H. Davis Surveyors.

 

Bottom Left: JOHNNY CLEM, The Drummer boy at Shiloh.

Bottom Right: J. N. Bradford, del, O. S. University

 

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cesses. I judged him to be a perfect workman at that business, and there would be no slipping. But I once did of another of like great experience, and that other laughingly replied: “Not exactly; for I once married a couple in the morning and in the afternoon the bridegroom ran away.” Whereupon I had to tell him of one I knew that was not even that lasting.

 

On the conclusion of the ceremony, at which I was present, both went out of the minister’s house together, parted at the door without a word or a look, turned their backs to each other, when the woman went east and the man went west; and I felt sure if they should meet again it would be after a half circuit of the globe, each coming in opposite directions, and that meeting-spot must naturally be on the great plain of Gobi in Chinese Tartary.

 

Another case I knew, that would be funny if it was not sad. On the morning after the marriage the groom turns to his bride, and says: “Sally” –perhaps Sally at the moment was doing up her back hair–“Sally, what are you going to do for a living?” Upon this the poor creature wilted, and soon went to grass.

 

Luckily in her case, eventually came along an honest man, and she again entered the bonds of felicity–

 

“No goose so gray and none so late

But at last she finds an honest gander for a mate.”

 

The noted “NARROWS OF LICKING” are in the eastern part of the county. “This is a very picturesque spot; cliffs of sandstone rock, fifty feet in height, line the sides of the canal, especially on the left bank of the stream. In some places they hang over in a semicircular form, the upper portion projecting and defending the lower from the rains and weather. In one of these spots the aborigines chose to display their ingenuity at pictorial writing by figuring on the smooth face of the cliff, at an elevation of eight or ten feet above the water, the outlines of wild animals, and among the rest the figure of a huge black human hand. From this circumstance the spot is known to all the old hunters and inhabitants of this vicinity by the name of ‘the black hand narrows.’ It is the scene of many an ancient legend and wild hunting story.” In quarrying for the Ohio Canal the black hand was destroyed.

 

THE WAR EXPERIENCES OF MAJOR N. BOSTWICK.

 

An officer of the 20^th Ohio Volunteer Infantry giving the details of his capture by the Confederates, imprisonment and escape through the mountains as related by his commander, Col. Charles WHITTLESEY, in his “War Memoranda.”

 

Enlists in the Army.–In 1861 Major N. BOSTWICK was a farmer in Licking county, and an active member of the County Agricultural Society. His farm was well stocked with high-bred cattle, horses, hogs and sheep. He was not subject to military duty, but his ancestors had fought in the army of the Revolution, and he was inspired to do the same in the Southern rebellion. One son was of military age, another was not; but both joined the company raised by their father for the 20^th Ohio Volunteers. Mrs. BOSTWICK and the younger children were left in charge of the premises and stock.

 

Sun-struck.–At the battle of Champion Hills, on the 6^th of May, 1863, the 20^th Ohio was compelled, by the exigencies of the day, to lie on the ground in a hot sun several hours, awaiting the order to charge. A number of the men and officers were sun-struck, from which cause they fell out as the regiment moved up the hill on the rebel line. Capt. MELICK died, with several men, and Major BOSTWICK was so much prostrated that the effects remain to this time.

 

 

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Inhuman Treatment.–Before reaching the rebel guard a soldier shot at him, the ball striking a corner of one eye. A piece of the ball went inside of the socket, the main part making an ugly and painful wound on the cheek, cutting an artery, which bled profusely. He had just received a new outfit, including a beaver hat, a twelve-dollar pair of boots, and a sword. The captain took his hat, sword and watch, and said: “Damn you, I want those boots.” “You can’t have them while I am alive.” The officer then threatened to kill him, and stooped to seize the boots. Major B. gave him a kick in the breast, which sent him several feet, sprawling on the ground. The major, expecting to be killed, gave the Masonic grand hail of distress, to which the rebel captain responded, “Well, keep your boots.” He then put his own hat on one of his soldiers, whose ragged and worthless had he jammed on the major’s head, down over the wounded eye. It was ten days before the fragment of lead was taken out.

 

Taken to Charleston.–They were marched about ten miles, and lay down. Among them were Capt. HUMISTON, Lieut. COLBY and Lieut. RUSH, of the 20^th Ohio. They had nothing to eat until the 24^th, when they received a tincup of corn-meal. The men were taken to Andersonville, the officers to Griffin. Col. SHED, of the 30^th Illinois, and Col. SCOTT, of the 68^th Ohio, were with them. The latter leaped from the train at night, but was caught by hounds and brought to Macon.

 

MAJOR BOSTWICK’S OWN STORY.

 

Here were about 1,800 officers, with no shelter for two weeks. The captains and field-officers were ordered to Charleston, S. C., the lieutenants to Savannah. At Charleston we were put in the old workhouse, where I had bilious fever. Col. SCOTT nursed me until he was sent away. Our rations were mouldy cakes of rice and bad pork. Dr. TODD, a brother of Mrs. LINCOLN, was our surgeon, who treated us kinkly, but could get little medicine, and no proper hospital rations.

 

Plans for Escape.–We planned an escape, making a saw of an old knife, to cut away the bars. I also got an impression of the key to the lock of a door on the second story. Cols. SHED and SCOTT opened the door with my key. I went again with Capt. PEASE, and the key would not work. Some of the Georgia men on guard favored our escape. I might have been exchanged with Cols. SHED and SCOTT, but was too sick to travel. Capt. MCFADDEN, of the 59^th New York, nursed me. At 8 A.M. of October 6^th we were put into cattle-cars that had not been cleaned, and started for Columbia, S. C. I sat against the side of the car sick all day and night. The next morning we were left in a field, in a pouring rain, under guard of the provost-marshal.

 

A Mere Skeleton.–The next day the prisoners were taken across the Combanee river. I could not walk. The guards cursed me, and pushed me with their bayonets. There were others as bad as myself. About 1 P.M. we reached camp. I was a mere skeleton. For three weeks we had neither medicines nor medical attendance; our rations the same as at Charleston. At last Dr. LADRONES came as our surgeon; a kind, cheerful man, who placed me and twelve others on stretchers, and put us in a tent. We were almost eaten up by lice. He said: “You shall not die; don’t think of escaping; I will get you paroled.” He gave me fifteen grains of quinine at a dose. I had also lung fever, but in about three weeks could walk, and went to the Saluda river, where there was a Union family, who gave me milk, butter and biscuit. Every day our men would lie down and die; there were about 1,100 left. Some escaped through the vaults to the river. I determined to escape. The good Union women brought good cooked food to our hospital tent.

 

 

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any of them, their wives or families. Our gratitude to them all is as great as there are words to express, but we might do them an injury by relating their acts of kindness toward us. There was Capt. MCFADDEN, Lieut. H. C. PAINE, myself, and two officers of the Army of the Potomac, who determined to take the risks of reaching the Federal lines. For many days we made haversacks, collected provisions and clothing, got directions as to the route, and laid our plans to get out of the stockade one by one.

 

The Escape.–There was a rumor of a change of prisons, which caused us to leave one day earlier and before we were entirely ready. On the 1^st day of December, 1864, by many stratagems and the help of many true friends, we succeeded in scattering through the woods. Our rendezvous that night was near the farmhouse of a Union friend, who was to put us across the Congaree in a dug-out. This was eleven miles from Columbia. We made about twenty-five miles that night. On the night of the 2d-3d the two lieutenants of the Army of the Potomac left us and started for the coast. We never heard of them afterwards.

 

Travels at Night.–With my pocket-knife I cut each of us a stout hickory stick, which were the only weapons we had. These we carried through to Knoxville, Tenn. We travelled only at night, and in single file within sight of each other. As the day began to dawn we turned into the woods and lay during the day, but dare not make a fire. On the 5^th, near Newberry, just before morning, we met a colored man. He told us to go up one of the forks, where he had a brother. MCFADDEN mistrusted this man and would not go with us, but PAINE and myself went. That night he brought us some cooked spare-ribs, coffee and milk, and showed us the way to his brother’s. This man’s wife was tickled to death to see us, and he wanted to go with us. He put some red pepper and onions into a bottle of turpentine, and said if we rubbed this on our feet and legs the hounds would not follow us. He kept watch outside the cabin and went eight miles with us on the way, but refused to take any pay from us.

 

We kept to the east of Greenville, S. C., because there were troops at that station. Being out of rations we ate turnips and stumps of cabbages, which made us sick. I went to a negro cabin where they got us a supper and cooked a peck of sweet potatoes to put in our haversacks. Perhaps I shall not place everything in the right order, for I lost my memoranda before I got to the lines.

 

Captures a Guard.–At Tyger’s river, on the waters of the Saluda, we came to a bridge where there was a guard, all of whom appeared to be asleep. The stream could not be crossed except at this bridge, and one sat near one end with his head on his knees. I was to strike him on the head with my cane, and all of us to spring on the other two. My man fell off into the water. We seized the muskets of the others and bound them with their knapsack straps. We hurried along the road with them about two miles. They begged so piteously (promised not to tell and told us about the roads) that we did not kill them. We bound them to some trees and hurried on. By daylight we thought we had made twenty-five miles and were in the vicinity of Hendersonville.

 

Bloodhounds on their Track.–At the Saluda pass of the Blue Ridge was a fire ahead of us on the road, and there appeared to be men standing around it. We went back up a mountain and got into a rock shelter. The next day we saw there were no pickets, but only stumps around the fire. In that shelter I left my diary, knife, fork and spoon. Soon after we saw a tent and some men at a bridge, about 9 P.M. There was a fearful storm. We crossed the stream among the rocks below the bridge, climbed a precipice over one hundred feet high by grasping the laurels, and got into the road beyond. About this time, towards morning, we heard the bloodhounds bellow. Then horns began to blow and other hounds to answer in all directions. We crept along a fence into a brook, and went up it in the water. As we lay on our blankets two hounds attacked us, whom we killed with our clubs.

 

Challenged by a Rebel Picket.–We wished to get on the west side of the French Broad river, and believing we were on the wrong road, came out of the woods that night, when we heard a halloo. I went into the road and saw a rebel picket, who called halt, “Where do you belong?” said he. “Charleston.” “Where are you going?” “To Flat Rock.” “You are deserters.” “That’s so.” “Well, I would desert too, but I have a wife here. You can pass.” We came upon a number of houses, and went behind a large elm log, from which the bark had partly slid off. In the morning we thought it was the town of Asheville. It rained and snowed three inches deep, with a strong wind. Our pains were dreadful, but we dared not stir that day. The place was Hendersonville, thirty-five miles from Asheville.

 

Friendliness of Negroes.–That night we had so nearly perished that we went to the negro quarters of a fine house to dry our blankets. The man was not at home, but his wife said it would not do to stay in their cabin. She was the most sympathetic person we had met, and went to the still house, built a fire, gave us a bottle of apple-jack, gave me a pair of socks, made a pouch for me, and when her husband cam home he offered to pilot us to the house of a Union white man in the mountains, who had charge of the underground railroad.

 

 

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was midnight when we found his house, with great difficulty. He doubted us, and held a parley through the door. I convinced him by showing a letter from home. He said they were watched day and night; it would not do for us to be seen there, but his colored man would show us to the stable; they would send us something to eat and this man would show us the way to Mr. _____, twelve miles. He said it was reported that Col. KIRK’S Federal Rangers were on the French Broad, and that the rebel pickets had withdrawn to Asheville.

 

I do not give the name of this heroic man and family, for fear there may be yet in that region some rebel devils who would retaliate.

 

Reaches the Union Lines.–He gave us his sign manual on a piece of paper, a peculiar scrawl which all the underground white men of the mountains understood, and helped the prisoners forward. At Mr. _____’s were only his wife and daughter; he was obliged to stay in the woods, or be shot. We showed our sign manual. We stayed two nights in the centre of a hay stack. They directed us to _____’s; and he to _____’s. From there we crossed the French Broad, in a dug-out, to Painted Rocks, where the Federal pickets were. There were nineteen escaped prisoners there. PAINE started alone for the next station in the night. He met a sentinel, who fired at him in the dark, but did not hit him. The prisoners went on without guns or a guard. Near night, when we thought all danger was past, about a dozen guerillas rose up in the bushes and fired at us. Only one man was hit, whose under lip was entirely carried away. They stripped us of our blankets and all other valuables. It was the last day of December when we reached Knoxville.

 

In the southeastern part of this county, commencing about eight miles from Newark and extending eastward toward Zanesville, and into Hopewell township, Muskingum county, is what is called “THE FLINT RIDGE.” It was the principal source of supply for Indian arrow-heads and other flint implements, not only for the aborigines of Ohio but for a large extent of country beyond the present limits of this State.

 

The flint forms the cap-rock of this ridge, which for a distance of almost ten miles is scarred with trenches and pits, left by the aboriginal diggers, while surrounding fields and farms are covered with large quantities of chippings where the flint was dressed.

 

The stone, varying greatly in different parts, is mainly buhr-stone, jasper, and chalcedony. Much of it is very beautiful, capable of a very high polish; certain kinds of it are sometimes mistaken for moss-agate. It is found in many colors, as white, red, blue, brown, yellow, green, black, and some of it translucent.

 

The stone is found at varying depths from the surface of three to eighty feet; the aborigines would remove the superincumbent earth, and then build fires, which cracked and loosened the rock, pieces of which suitable to their purpose were then removed to some adjoining field or camp, and by means of stone hammers dressed to convenient shape and size for transportation. In many instances these dressed stones were carried great distances before they were worked into their finished shapes, as is evidenced by the finding of large quantities of flint chippings hundreds of miles from the “Ridge.” This “Flint Ridge” must have been as valuable to the Indians and other aborigines as the coal and iron mines of Ohio and Pennsylvania are to the white men of the present day.

 

 

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census, 1888, 261. Population about 800.

 

UTICA is fourteen miles north of Newark, on the B. & O. R. R. Newspaper: Herald, Republican, H. E. HARRIS, editor and publisher. Churches: 1 Presbyterian, 1 Methodist Episcopal, 1 Reformed Presbyterian, 1 United Presbyterian, 1 Christian. Bank: Utica (SPERRY & WILSON). Population, 1880, 702. School census, 1888, 233; I. C. GUNTHER, school superintendent.

 

HOMER is four miles west of Utica. It has 1 Presbyterian, 1 Baptist, 1 Methodist church, and about 300 inhabitants.

 

HEBRON is nine miles southwest of Newark, on the T. & O. C. R. R. and Ohio Canal. Churches: 1 Methodist Episcopal, 2 Baptist, 1 Disciples. Population, 1880, 489. School census, 1888, 163.

 

HANOVER is eight miles east of Newark, on the P. C. & St. L. R. R. Churches: 1 Methodist and 1 Presbyterian. Population, 1880, 302. School census, 1888, 159.

 

HARTFORD is twenty miles northeast of Newark, on the T. & O. C. R. R. Population, 1880, 349. School census, 1888, 116.

 

ALEXANDRIA is eleven miles west of Newark, on the T. & O. C. R. R. Population, 1880, 269.

 

JOHNSTOWN is sixteen miles northwest of Newark, on the T. & O. C. R. R. Newspaper: Independent, Democratic, Wm. A. ASHBROOKE, editor and publisher. Bank: Johnstown; C. DERTHICK, president; C. V. ARMSTRONG, cashier. Population, 1880, 278. School census, 1888, 163.