CHAPTER XXI
A RETROSPECT
During the Civil War a judge in the interior of Kentucky wrote a law book. He could not agree always with the soldiers, and sometimes he had to flee for his life. In his perface lie said in a plaintive strain that his "book was written amid scenes of trouble and impending danger not favorable to that easy and regular flow of language which gives grace of style and perspicuity of diction." The practicing lawyer of to-day who essays to write a history can say as much of the troubles and anxieties incident to the practice of the law.
A history of Marion County must of necessity be a matter of local interest. The ordinary history deals with large things, but more and more the student is putting value on particulars, and consequently State and county histories furnish much of value that cannot be found elsewhere. It is unfortunate that this search, after things provincial did not begin 50 instead of .25 years ago. But while much has been lost, much yet may be gathered up and rescued from decay. In the perusal of these musty and long-neglected events, the young American will learn much of the economic and social growth of our county. We may not presume to peer into the deep unknown and attempt to foretell what is to come. But the data of the past and present are suggestive of the future.
Early in the century the forces which determined the character of the county for the next 50 years were well under way. In the '20's and '30's arrived the men upon whom for years progress was to rest. They built grist and sawmill& They were farmers, storekeepers, lumber men, hunters, traders and rude manufacturers, oftentimes all in one. One of the first considerations was the building of roads. Before the days of good roads, canals and railroads, the best economy required the local manufacture of all the necessities of life. Hence came into existence grist-mills, fullingmills, hat factories, wagon shops, distilleries and, most important of all, the production of homespun cloth.
These frontier communities were from the very first almost self-supporting. With the exception of sugar and salt, most families obtained few articles from the outside world and almost subsisted on things that the soil and their own ingenuity produced. In many instances the women were the doctors of the community, and while their remedies for wounds and diseases seem strange to modern science, yet the catnip tea and soothing herbs and elder salve were thought to work wonderful cures in their day.
It is interesting to note the prices paid in an early day for land and personal property. In 1829 Hezekiah Gorton, as auditor of Marion County, sold for taxes lots 131 and 132 in Marion to Sanford S. Bennett for 18 cents and 1 mill each, and lot 133 for 10 cents and 7 mills. The two former of these lots are
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located at the, northwest corner of Prospect .and Center streets, and the latter is now the home of J., B. Fisher on North Prospect street. The Huber Block is located on lot 131 and a valuable lesson in land values can be learned from noting its increase in value from 18 cents and 1 mill in 1829 to $25,000, without the buildings, in 1907.
The capital required when a pioneer had arrived with his family and secured his land -was small. A yoke-of oxen was valued at about $70; a cow at $15 ; farming tools at $25 ; and an ox cart at $30; making a total of $140. A log house with two rooms in it, built by hired labor, cost about $100, but as most of the pioneers-built their own cabins the cost was much less.
The story of early days in Marion County is the same as that of every pioneer settlement. Many of the first comers were rough and uncultured beyond description. Might, not intelligence, ruled. Each successful store-keeper in Marion always kept a bucket. or barrel of -whiskey near his counter, and the customer was welcome and expected to partake freely ."without money and without price." As a consequence fights were of almost daily occurrence.
By long and weary years of toil the forest was cleared away, and the marshes drained. Then came inevitably the commercial and what Carlisle bitterly terms "the mechanical spirit -of the age." As George Record Peck said recently: "The commercial spirit is with us, holding its head so high that timid souls are frightened at its pretensions. We have culture; what we need is the love of culture. We have knowledge; but our prayer should be 'give us the love of, knowledge.' Plain living and high thinking, that once went together, are transformed into high living and very plain thinking."
The indictment is good. But it was inevitable that the generation of 'Materialism and commercialism should follow the pioneers. Such wealth as a-waited the sons of those rugged characters, who cleared and possessed a fairer and far more productive land than Canaan, could not but make them disciples of Mammon. Fortunately generations, like men, are variable and progressive. The best types of character survive or perish, just as the fittest forms in animal life predominate and the weakest are subordinated. So it is coming to pass that the sons and daughters of this generation of commercialism are becoming -the forerunners of an age of culture and intellect. The advantages gained, however, will be paid for in a loss of physical strength. Nature knows no gifts, but applies to all men and every generation the law of compensation. We must pay for what we get.
While this history of Marion County is being written, the skilled workman is erecting the new Carnegie Library building in Marion His work is typical of the generation of commercialism. When he has completed his task, a finished and artistic edifice will await the coming of the student. The building will take but a few months to complete. Within its walls the choicest spirits of many succeeding years will find pleasure and profit.
In the spring of 1806 Nathaniel Wyatt and Nathaniel Brundige settled on land in what is now Waldo township. They began a structure. One hundred years of physical toil and business management have brought this edifice well on the way to completion. This generation, with characteristic American enterprise has moved in. Will it appreciate the legacy? Will it stock the rooms with the choicest products of the masters in the arts and in the sciences, in literature and in religion? Those who now go in and out of our day schools will answer within the next 20 years.
One mile south of Waldo on a bluff approaching the west bank of the Olentangy is the site of old Fort Morrow. A few hundred yards to the north is the Wyatt Cemetery, the last resting place of Marion County's first pioneers. The brick tavern that stood. within the enclosure of the fort was the last post and marked the frontier of Ohio a century ago. Beyond was woodland and prairie inhabited by Indians, renegade whites and denizens of the forest. just north of the old cemetery on
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the farm of Thomas Wyatt, the great-grandson of Nathaniel Wyatt, may be plainly seen the course of the old Military Road, where a considerable cut is made in descending the hill from the cemetery. The historic importance for Marion County of this pioneer highway does not lie alone in the fact that General Harrison and Governor Meigs marched their troops over this route in the War of 1812. Along this way came also all of Marion County's first settlers. Wyatt's Tavern was doubtless a place of considerable importance, where each newcomer tarried and discussed with the landlord the advantages of the new country. This movement was made up of a strange and motley crowd. Dutch, German and Scotch Irish, Yankee, Puritan and Cavalier, many of them religious men of every shade of belief. Many were poor, so poor in fact that they did not even possess a beast of burden. None was rich. Almost all were native-born Americans and all were seeking a new home where they might improve their social and financial conditions.
These pioneers were real heroes, whose toil and success are a rich heritage to those of this present generation. In Lincoln's words, "the world will little note, nor -long remember, what we say here," but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us to be dedicated to the unfinished work, which they who toiled here so nobly advanced, in order that those who builded here shall not have lived and built in vain.