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AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 395 CHAPTER XXIII MISCELLANEOUS Singing Schools—The Old Shoemaker - Some Well Known Citizens, John Blakeley, John E. Bush, S. I. Gamble, Morris Hornell, Nathan Moore, Philip Smith, Dr. Hezekiah Stout, Dr. J. A. Throckmorton, Silas D. Young SINGING SCHOOLS I do not know much about singing schools in the country in Ohio, for I did not spend my. youth in the rural districts of the Buckeye state, but I did in Vermont, and have a most distinct recollection of them in the Green Mountain state. How fondly the boys and girls looked forward to winter, when singing schools would be held in the various temples of learning, the only place for entertainments. There was no loitering of the youths on their way home from school when the singing occasion arrived; chores had to be done and there was no lagging in filling up the wood-box for the night, feeding the pigs and watering the horses, and no grumbling about so many duties to perform. Faces were as radiant with smiles as if Christmas was at hand and not a complaining word was uttered at the table, lest the contemplated fun should be given a back-set by our parents for our unseemly conduct. We did not dress especially for the event, for our winter wardrobe was on our backs, with exception of a dickey and a neck ribbon for Sundays. Our hair, barbered by our mothers in a style of Quaker severity that underwent no change, in its Puritan exactness was oiled and combed to amazing sleekness and parted with not a lock out of place. In those days oil was profusely used to make each hair keep in order. Bear oil, supposed to be the best, could be bought in bottles, but as the marrow from beef bones served the purpose just as well it was carefully saved and tried out like lard from pork to be utilized. As it was generally scented with bergamot, a room full of boys emitted an odor like a sachet bag. If the night was only clear or not outrageously blustering we were not deterred from being present. Ten or twenty degrees below zero were not minded if the sleighing was good, as buffalo robes were plenty, and with mufflers and mittens, knit at home, with caps drawn down over our ears and the girls wearing quilted hoods, the weather was joyously defied. Thick blankets were taken to cover the horses, as they stood hitched to a fence - 395 - 396 -HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY while we were ostensibly learning to sing. There was no singing teacher in our town for many years, so one had to be procured from some outlying village, to whom the princely sum of two dollars a night was paid, which some thought was exorbitant, as he only had to drive his own turnout but seven or eight miles. The instructor could usually fiddle, as well as sing, so the instrument was brought along to get the right pitch and assist the rustic warblers in keeping on the tune. Lamps had not generally come into use and gas and electricity had not stirred in the womb of the future. Candles, homemade, were brought for illuminants, set in auger holes in pine blocks and snuffed with the fingers. They shed a feeble light—and some tallow, when not held vertically. As nine-tenths of the attendants forgot to bring them, the room was not a blaze of glory, and a half dozen or more would crowd round each luminant of several lightning-bug power, to sing out of the church singing-book. The repertoire was not large and the pieces were so often repeated that the words as well as the music were soon learned and given with a gusto in the dark corners that figuratively raised the roof. It was a contest of strength and endurance without regard to sentiment. Not being well equipped with books or light, the boys at each lull in the proceedings, would slide out of the cavernous gloom to wrestle, play tag and fox and geese in the snow, and when recess came the girls would join them and forget to return for the second part, as hills were numerous and coasting fine, so it was not strange that the singing schools were well patronized by the youths for miles around. The tingling air painted the cheeks of the happy maidens and imparted a glow to their sparkling eyes so entrancing that obdurate was the boy who did not experience palpitation of the heart under their bewitching glances. How chivalrous we were and even glad to see one of the mischievous hoydens slip down, or purposely give out, in ascending a hill, and how we would scramble to be the first to render knightly assistance. It was prudent to keep an eye on the schoolhouse, in order to start home when the rest did, lest the folks at home would surmise we had been playing truant and call us to account for not improving our physical talents when we had such a favorable opportunity. The horses, gingered by exposure to the biting temperature, were on their mettle and the jingle of the resonant sleigh bells with laughter and song. flooded the air. It was permissible to sit close for sundry reasons, only one of which is here given, that it was a self-sacrificing necessity for health and comfort. Those happy years were not many, but they are treasures in the album of memory and afford a pleasure as they are recalled in the sober hours of waning life. THE OLD SHOEMAKER The generation which can recall from the dim mist of years the old shoemaker has not all faded from earth. Here and there one remains, and no one stands clearer in the recollections of his youth than that unique char- HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY - 397 acter who, with his kit of tools, used to make his annual visits to the homesteads of the farmers to make the boots and shoes of the families and mend the footgear which was no dry dock for repairs. In New England—and no doubt the same custom prevailed herethe head of the rustic household took to the tannery, a cow hide, kip skin and calf skin, to be tanned to furnish leather for family needs. The latter was for shoes for the female part of the household ; the kip for the boys who had commenced to attend winter parties and shave ; the cow hide for the men of sturdier growth, whose line of travel lay through barnyards, muddy roads and plowed fields. New boots had to serve at least six months for handsome, as they termed it, meaning by that that they were only to be worn to church, donned on training and election days, and other state occasions. The old footgear had to perform the menial service, be tallowed to turn water, twice a week, and in Connecticut, where extreme frugality prevailed, boots were deemed but half wornout when the soles could be kept on by willow withes. Perhaps the advent of the shoemaker was not looked for with such yearning anxiety by the elder members of the family as by the children, but, it can be truly said that to them he was the most important personage, cheerfully considered, who entered the home during the year. He was usually a gossipy character, read little, but knew much, and had a way of getting on to the inside of the social secrets of the community which he took infinite pleasure in revealing. To the children, if not to all, this gossip broke the monotony of intensely rustic life and his tales were devoured with insatiable eagerness. The shoemaker who comes to my mind was old Dan W. Smith, whose tongue seemed hung in the middle, that both ends might play, who sang like a steaming tea kettle, knew an endless variety of songs, and could fiddle like the "Arkansaw traveler." With what wonderment we stood around and watched him take his ball of shoe thread, break it the required length, wax it, roll it on his leather apron until the numerous strands were made one and strong enough for an effective lasso, and then deftly introduce the bristles into the wax ends. How we did enjoy chewing the black wax which he would give us. With what promptness and alacrity we took our places when our time came to be measured for a pair of new boots, and how plainly I can hear my father's injunction to old Dan W. to make them big enough to allow at least for a two years rapid growth of our pedal extremities without pinching them. The extra room the first year was occupied by hat soles in the bottom and cotton in the toes—in fact they just got ready to fit our feet when they were worn out. We used to kick, in common parlance, as vehemently as we dared at the extravagant allowance of room, but kicked in vain, as probable expansion had to be considered by the powers that were. The old shoemaker is a thing or personage of the far away past. Machinery, the concentration of capital, enterprise and energy in huge factories, cheapening and beautifying the product has destroyed his profession, yet he 398 - HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY lives in the memory of all who have had my experience and will be cherished as long as the days of youth are remembered. The following sketches of old and prominent citizens, were written within recent years by the Editor of this volume and contain some interesting reminiscences, together with historical facts. SILAS D. YOUNG, the twentieth child of Philip Young, whose family consisted of twenty-two children, was born east of Anna September 11, 1837. Handicapped in the race of life with Mr. Ludwig by ten years he has never been able to overtake him. His youth was of the uneventful one of a farmer boy before machinery had lightened labor, and to be horny handed and horny footed was the rule not the exception as now. After amusing himself until twenty years old clearing land, burning logs and brush he concluded that he should take life more seriously, and with fear and trembling made a proposition to Miss Mary Jane Munch which was favorably considered and March 19, 1837, the double bow nuptial knot was tied. Mary was an orphan from birth as her father died before she was born and her mother also when Mary was six months old, so she never knew the care and fervor of parental love. Six children, all girls, blessed this union, four of whom are living, Ella, now Mrs. William Shuter, of Delaware; Minnie, now Mrs. John Manning, of Anna ; Myrtle, Mrs. Richard Curtner, of Anna ; and Berth, Mrs. Edward Zaigler, of Medina. When the Civil war broke out and President Lincoln called for troops, Silas, fired with patriotism so intense as to induce him to leave his wife, two small children and his home for the privations and perils of the tented field. Being the 20th child he enlisted in the 20th regiment on the eighteenth day of August, 1861, under Col. J. C. Fry, serving three years and one month. At the hot fight at Champion Hills, Mississippi, though he sought protection of a tree, he could not entirely screen himself from a sharp shooter who seemed to have a desire to pick him off and shattered the bark of the tree several times. Unfortunately a small buck shot struck the bridge of his nose at the corner of one eye passing through his nose. This "doused his glim" and for two months he was in the hospital as blind as a mole. When he recovered the surgeon wanted to give him a ward in the hospital to superintend, but Silas demurred, as the buck shot put ginger into him and he vowed he would be revenged but was not pacified until after the battle of Atlanta where he killed as many rebels as they did of him if not more. He did not go with Sherman to the sea and when his term of enlistment expired returned to the bosom of his family. In Cincinnati he was offered $1,500 to enlist again as a substitute but he deemed that Mary Jane, whom he had promised to protect and who had been on the anxious seat of dire apprehension for three years and the two children had a prior claim and he was not to be diverted from its fulfillment. He is a live member of Neal Post of Sidney and few are the grand encampments that he and Mrs. Young have not attended and he stands at the head of the list or about there of the Red Chair enterprises which have been in vogue for twenty years or more. Many years ago five AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 399 chairs were presented to veterans or their widows in one day at the Kah house in Anna where 325 took dinner. Knowing that W. D. Davies, of Sidney, was billed to speak at Botkins, the soldier boys went to the station a few rods distant and called out Mr. Davies to the platform of a north bound car. When he appeared they kidnapped him and bore him to the Kah house where he became the orator of the day and sent word to Botkins that not today, but some other time, he would be in Botkins and that they 0ught to have known better than to have started him out by way of Anna, filled as it was with buccaneers, without a guard. Few farms as so delightfully situated as their home place of seventy-three acres. The corporate limits of Anna have been extended until it embraces part of the farm, a cement sidewalk extends to his very door and with a few steps he can enjoy the delights of country life or the bustle of an . embryo city. This gives him polish on one side and the glow and appetite of rustic health on the other. When fourteen years of age he was Converted, joined the Methodist church and never got over it. He frequently led prayer meetings when in the army. Out of such sterling material it would be impossible to fashion anything but a republics of fast colors and that is what Silas is, a shining example worthy to be followed. A. B. C. H. DR. J. A. THROCKMORTON was born in old Virginia several moons ago, if not more, and if the Mother of Presidents had not suffered from being sliced on account of being too strongly democratic, there is no telling how differently his career might have been shaped. As luck would have it, he was on the piece snipped off which put him three miles from the dividing line between Old and West Virginia on the west side. Of course this snuffed out whatever ambitious flame he may have had in the white house direction. It was such as he that occasioned, by their loyalty, the division of the old state for a love of the common country and lofty patriotism which thrives and abides in mountain air kept the western part true to the old flag. The merciful amputation was painless and ever since the new state has had a healthy growth. The Doctor was small for his age, and is not huge yet, but his avoirdupois deficiency has been fully compensated for by his being a bundle of activity which years have not stiffened. When the slogan of war sounded, he donned a uniform of blue, pr0bably made especially for his light and lithe form, and marched with patriotic stride to the front and was as good as new in the closing carnage of Petersburg and around Richmond and joined in the glad huzzas when the Appomattox episode was known. He was a difficult mark to hit and even the sharp shooters had to give him up as a hard proposition, with the odds all the time in his favor. Not having forgotten what he learned in his youth, he taught school for a time and then emigrated with his parents to Ohio, settling on a farm bought in this county a few miles north of Hardin in Turtle Creek township. The bottom land in that vicinity was crowded out by knolls and knots not tractable 400 - HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY to manage and at that time had to be subdued by main strength and awkwardness, commodities of which he did not have a surplus, and the vocation sort of went against the grain. He concluded that he had served a full term in fighting for his country and did not relish another prolonged conflict by an attempt at warfare with mother Nature, especially at small wages with no prospect of a pension as a reward for his endeavors. Looking over the catalogue of possibilities he settled on dentistry as a profession, packed his trunk, and with somewhat scanty accumulations bade the obdurate farm a tearless good bye for an education and finished at Ann Arbor with the honorable degree of D. D. S. and located in Sidney, where lie has resided plying his profession for thirty-two years. Previous to graduation at Ann Arbor the Doctor attended the Baltimore College of Dentistry in Maryland and subsequently took a post graduate course in Chicago. Upon returning from the war, he stayed on the farm in West Virginia for awhile and being of a mechanical turn of mind and having a distaste to being blistered by the sun when driving a mowing machine or harvester, he constructed a device that would hold an umbrella whose grateful shade protected him in comfort and did not hinder his efficiency as a harvest hand. This was something new to the rustics, who shook their heads and remarked that Mr. Throckmorton had the laziest son in those parts. They had not subscribed to the idea that if work must be performed a man had the privilege of doing it in the most comfortable way possible; but the Doctor had, and if bread must be earned by the sweat of the brow, the less sweat the better, especially where one was not over juicy. Their gibes did not in any way disconcert him and the umbrella was kept raised. Being brought up in that hilly and mountainous region he early learned to ride a horse, of which he was extremely fond, if it was a good one and his taste seemed to increase with his years, for lie has two Kentucky thoroughbreds as tractable. as kittens and which he has taught to so amble under the saddle that it makes equestrianism a delight. In 1844 he married Miss Nannie R. Thomas, of West Virginia, who is an equestrienne of rare grace and accomplishment which seems to be indigenous to the rugged state of West Virginia and perfected by continual practice. At one. time Doctor Throckmorton had branch offices in Chicago and San Francisco and did considerable laboratory work in Sidney, having impressions sent here for plate work. DR. HEZEKIAH STOUT AILES. The patronymic surname, Ailes. the subject of this sketch, of course, is ancestral, but christening of the hopeful to designate him in a family of fifteen children was out of what may be deemed an excessive regard for their family physician, Dr. Hezekiah Stout, but notwithstanding this handicap he has survived, flourished, and is now our esteemed and prominent townsman, Hezekiah Stout Ailes, and has led an eventful life in peace and war. Hezekiah was born at Lost Creek, Harrison county, now West Virginia, May 19, 1840, so that his infantile prattle mingled with hurrahs. for "Tippecanoe and Tyler too." AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 401 His father sold the rugged home farm in 1842 and moved to the northeast corner of Franklin township, this county. Of this numerous family of fifteen children Hezekiah is the only one living and none lived, not even his parents, to be so old as he is now though they outlived all their children but him. The farm was purchased of Daniel Baldwin, now dead, who was known in Sidney as Sassafras, for each spring his bent form carried a basket of it to purify and thin the blood of our people grown thick and sluggish by too substantial food and lack of exercise. The mansion into which they moved was a round log house well chinked and warm, one story high, but the barn was more pretentious, being two story. In that sparsely settled time people were considered neighbors two or three miles distant and in the absence of those diversions which now prevail were neighbors in fact willing to assist each other in any emergency. The round log schoolhouse not crowded with conveniences nor ease-inviting seats was one and three-quarters of a mile distant and he had to start alone, but was joined by the children of two other families on the way across the fields and through the woods. His a, b, c, teacher was Eli Bruner and his second Miss Elizabeth Allen, who afterward married William Edwards. He gradually absorbed the intellectual pabulum of the menu furnished in that crude temple of learning and when sixteen or seventeen years old, with two other boys, aspired to better things and as Sidney had just completed what is now the central school building, hired the front room over Thompson and Christian's drug store, boarded .themselves, and slept three in a bed. They went home every Friday night and early Monday morning could be seen returning with loaves of bread and a pound of butter. They would occasionally buy some ginger cakes at the grocery and when feeling convivial and careless of expenses would indulge in a glass of spruce beer at Washington Carroll's emporium, but refrained from taking enough to get boisterous. Hezekiah went one term when the schoolhouse was first opened in 1857. His teacher was Miss Harriet Chapin, who subsequently married John Frankerberger. Being sufficiently advanced to have confidence in his ability to teach school he obtained a certificate and thus armed and equipped as the law directed, procured a school near home and his pedagogical pin feathers soon became fullfledged plumage for taking his experience both' before and after the war embraced a period of fifteen years. When he had taught two weeks of his fifth term he resigned and enlisted in Company C, 118th regiment with Edgar Sowers, superintendent of schools at Port Jefferson as captain, and W. H. Taylor, of Sidney, now of Mansfield, as lieutenant. At the battle of Resaca, Georgia, he received the only wound he got in the war. He was shot in the shoulder and lay on the ground by the side of George Murray Thompson, brother of Mrs. E. T. Mathers and H. W. Thompson, of this city. George's was a dangerous and painful one in the foot and he returned home and never went back. Hezekiah was reported dead, but pleasantly surprised his people by appearing clothed in his right mind and arm in a sling. Upon recovery he went back and was promoted to sergeant-major. In that engagement 112 soldiers out of 220 of that 402 - HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY regiment were either killed or wounded in five minutes time. Upon returning, as his corps did not go with General Sherman to the sea, they participated in the battles of Franklin, the severest one of the war, and the struggle around Nashville which destroyed General Hood's army. They were also in the East Tennessee campaign and were forty-six miles from Knoxville when Burnside was bottled there. As the rebel army was between them and Knoxville they were powerless to give assistance. When the war was drawing to a close the army to which he belonged came north to Columbus and were transferred in box cars to Washington where they arrived dirty and ragged, as they had drawn no clothing nor had not received a dollar for six months and were lucky if they got enough water to drink, much less to wash in. Their dilapidated appearance prov0ked sneering remarks from some of the brass buttoned parvenues at Washington. Their commander hearing them responded through a newspaper that they were no feathered soldiers but had come east to help the feather-bed army around Washington. In a few days they boarded vessels on the Potomac, went down the river to the ocean, around Cape Hatteras, to Fort Fisher at the mouth of Cape Fear river and then to Fort Anderson. They celebrated Washingon's birthday in 1865, by taking Wilmington, North Carolina, and after ten days made a forced march of 100 miles to Kinston where the rebels delivered 8,000 men who had been prisoners at Andersonville and Salisbury and were living skeletons. Many were demented and would voraciously devour any eatable handed them in their insatiate hunger. Mr. Ailes was ordered to detail ten men from his regiments to act as nurses, among whom was Fred Doody and John H. Kessler, of this county, who were unable to make the forced marches. Of these all died but two of swamp fever. The army marched to Goldsboro and to Raleigh to meet Sherman's army coming from Savannah through the Carolinas. Soon the news came that Lee had surrendered and the joyful news was carried along the lines with huzzas and tossing of caps in the air. A part was retained for a while as an army of occupation so he did not take part in the grand review at Washington. After resting for a season and burnishing his education which had got a trifle powder burnt in the years of patriotic conflict, he entered again the school room and taught in Montra and vicinity for ten years more, or fifteen years in all. Among his early pupils was Miss Jane Elliott, then twelve years old, an attractive and amiable girl, whose charms in Hezekiah's eyes had grown so irresistible as to occasion heart trouble in his bosom and again she became his pupil from which she graduated, her diploma being a marriage certificate of lifeling duration. This remarkable event happened October 11, 1866, but did not interfere with his pedagogical avocation. In 1867 Milton E. of Washington, D. C., appeared in their household and was succeeded by Eva, now Mrs. John H. Taft, and Ada, now Mrs. Hugh Wilson, both of Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Eugene, of late years of Nome, Alaska, but part of the time in Washington; Lulu, Olive, Chesley and Adrian of this city. Of their ten children two died while young. On October 28, 1875, Mr. Ailes moved his family to Sidney to the house AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 403 now owned and occupied by Mr. George Moeller in West street. The monumental building was then in process of construction. The children were all educated in the public school here and received graduating diplomas, with the exception of Adrian, who has graduating symptoms, as he is a member of the senior class and is probably cudgeling his brains for ideas in the oratorical display to come off the first of June. A little over twenty years ago Milton, through General LeFevre, then congressman, received an appointment in Washington and became a messenger boy for General Sewall and Charles Chesley, government officials. He performed his duties with such fidelity and despatch that Mr. Chesley. who was an eminent lawyer, advised him to utilize his spare hours in studying law, a thing he had determined upon, and offered to be his preceptor. This proposition was accepted and he finally graduated with Bachelor of Arts honors and subsequently with Master of Arts distinction. His promotion was rapid and at length culminated in being appointed assistant secretary of the treasury under Lyman Gage, and two years under Secretary Shaw, a position which Milton resigned to accept the vice-presidency of the Riggs national bank, of Washington, a position he now holds. Eugene went to Washington, studied chemistry, became an expert assayer and for several years has been employed at Nome, Alaska, by a banking firm that makes a business of buying gold from the miners. Lest it be thought that the subject of this sketch is lost in the family shuffle, a return to the considering of Hezekiah will be made. Since Mr. Ailes came to Sidney he has been elected three times as mayor of this city, became deputy county auditor under Orlando 0. Mathers and subsequently served two terms as auditor and was the first county official to occupy the new courthouse. After his terms he again became deputy county auditor under Knox Cummins, now of Washington, thus serving for fifteen years in the courthouse. He is now president of the sinking fund trustees, was appointed by Judge Hughes a member of the board of monumental trustees to succeed the late Andrew J. Robertson and was for six years a member of the board of education. Before coming to Sidney he was clerk of Jackson township for four terms. Hezekiah now has an office of justice of the peace which keeps him out of mischief in his serene and happy age. Few can look back upon a busier and more blissful domestic and public life replete with honors and with a family of children who reflect radiance upon the name. When Mr. Ailes returned from the war the time of his pre-soldier certificate had expired and a new one had to be procured. He came to Sidney to brighten up under Ben McFarland, one of the county examiners. Examination day and the democratic county convention came off the same day. The candidates for nomination to the state legislature were Jason McVay and Gen. Ben LeFevre, McFarland, though a republican, was very anxious to have the General nominated as he was his particular friend and asked Hezekiah whom he favored. The reply was, "the General, for we were boys together." Hearing this McFarland said, "I know your qualifications for 404 - HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY teacher and I want you to put in the day working for the General and when the polls close come and get your certificate." Since this sketch was written Mr. Ailes has died. PHILIP SMITH. If the oldest inhabitant in Sidney, or any number of them were asked to name the man who is entitled to the premium card for remaining in the manufacturing business the longest time without a break in the chain, the unanimous answer would be, Philip Smith. This hustling, bustling, pushing bundle of incarnate hope who lined every cloud with silver and whose elasticity put him erect upon his feet after each reverse was never before in so prosperous condition as now, and it would take a stiff adverse wind to shake him. Showers of discouragements that would have disheartened most men he shed as easily as the proverbial duck's back does water, and financial straits, dull times and lack of orders merely made him blow his nose a little louder, which, in his case was a trump of defiance while he spit on his hands to get a better hold, and he invariably did get a better hold and hung on. Philip was born September 7, 1838, near Harrisburg, Pa., where he spent his boyhood and was for a time servant boy for Judge Heaster at the capitol. When in his teens his parents moved to Connersville, Ind., where they stayed two years and then moved to Dayton for two or three years and where he finished the molders trade at the foundry of Thompson, McGregor and Callahan. In 1859 the family came to Sidney, and commenced in a small way the manufacture of stoves and in due time farm bells, kettles, lard presses, etc, across the canal when their factory burned. They rebuilt on Main avenue when there were but few houses on the north side of the canal. Hollow ware was also added and the first iron scrapers made in Sidney were fashioned in their shop. While in Dayton he became acquainted with Miss Anna Silzell and she so lingered in his memory and had such a hold on his heart that he felt that if she did not come to Sidney he would have to go to Dayton. He did go and returned with her as Mrs. Philip Smith in the early sixties and of this union ten children were born, seven of whom are living. Mrs. Smith died in the eighties and on Thanksgiving day in 1885, he• married Mrs. Mary M. French, of Champaign county. Looking over his business career, with its so many ups and downs, pinched financially most of the time requiring all his wits and his indomitable energy to pull through he reminds one of the man who rolled down a hill with his arms around a log and when he got to the bottom cheerfully remarked that the log did not get any the best of him for he was on top half of the time. His last venture, the formation of the incorporation of the Philip Smith Company of which he is president and which was launched on the sea of marvelous prosperity throughout the country was the best he ever made and put him, figuratively speaking, on easy street with an income far more than ample for life's necessities or luxuries, as he is now uppermost on the log. which has quit rolling and his many bruises are permanently healed without leaving so much as a scar. Sidney has no character that has weathered so AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 405 many vicissitudes as he. A few years ago he and Mrs. Smith took a pleasurable outing through the far west to the Pacific, a most enjoyable trip, the only one of the kind in his busy career, In politics he has always been a democrat, but did not work at it to hurt much, as he had not time, though he did serve a term or two on the city council. Mrs. Smith, his second wife, being a pronounced Baptist, and Philip, not having serious, religious convictions nor church going habits, accompanied her to the house of worship, became interested and joined the Baptist church and ever since has been a pillar of strength in the congregation. Such, in brief, is a sketch of the pioneer living manufacturer of Sidney who is now enjoying the fruits of a most industrious life among the scenes of his labor. NATHAN MOORE. Sometime during the twenty-four hours of January 30, 1823, Nathan Moore, in faint, yet unmistakable tones announced that he had come from the mysterious realm of the unknown to stay in the household of his parents, board and lodge with them without the formality of a previous contract. Curious as it may seem the expectant was made welcome. His food for a year or more had been prepared and like manna was fresh every morning and warm and ready at all hours. After some family consultation the good old Biblical name of Nathan was settled upon by which to designate him and he was so registered on the blank leaves between the Old and New testament. This was the custom in those days when the bible comprised about all there was of the family library and which was perused much more than now. Though the account was not inspired, there was nothing apocryphal about it, for that he had appeared was as true as anything between the sacred lids and no one, not even higher criticism, has questioned its authenticity or attempted to give it a theoretical or twisted meaning. The bibles in those days were big affairs, probably so that the birth page should be ample to record the names, as it was a pioneer custom to endeavor to fill a page, a pocket edition would not serve the purpose. It seemed to be a christian duty to multiply and replenish the earth and there was no shirking of that supposed duty, but that the command meant just what it said. The advent of Nathan was made ip Springfield township, Portage county, now a part of Summit county, in the northeastern part of the state then known as New Connecticut, as the inhabitants of the Nutmeg state spiced the region. Here the sturdy little Buckeye took root and flourished in the native soil for nine years but was uprooted by his parents when they moved to Wood county, and transplanted him there. But the removal probably stunted him some, as the animate Buckeye never grew to a lofty height but it was compensated for by muscles and a frame of iron actuated and directed by a brain of pluck and energy that has characterized him for four score and five years and which has not abated in intensity. Such capital was necessary in those pioneer days when the rigor of mother 406 - HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY nature had to be subdued. None were born with a gold spoon in their mouth. Mr. Moore, senior, entered a section of land on which the thriving city of Bowling Green now stands. Transportation was not very direct in any way unless a person footed it or rode on horseback for there were no through lines nor even sides ones. The Ohio canal to Cleveland was in operation for which place they embarked. Lake Erie was there and had been from time immemorial but no regular lines of navigation were in vogue, but they found a sailing smack for Detroit, procured passage and landed there. After a few days delay they took another sailing boat for Perrysburg, the head of navigation, on the Maumee. It was a brisk little place but Toledo had not been thought of outside of Spain. It did not have even a Blade nor a Bee. Bowling Green being on an undulating sand ridge was selected because it was above high water mark and had a surplus of gnarled scrubby oaks, stubborn to a provoking degree. The outlying prairie, now the garden spot of Ohio, was inhabited by frogs, turtles and such amphibious brutes and was a paradise for mosquitos. The citizens were Indians principally and the M0ore family was about the first white people that settled in that section. Neither schoolhouses nor churches dotted the landscape on this outlying post of civilization. There- were no idle hands, so Satan did not have to find them employment. The facilities for book education were few and slim, but Nature's volume lay open and Nathan took delight in reading it, for he found that the very trees had a language and that there were sermons in stones and running brooks. Having a taste for arboreal culture and as trees take kindly and cheerfully respond to intelligent cultivation and are ready to surprise any one with results when they work in accord with the unwritten law which govern them, for the same development is possible in inanimate nature as there is in animal life, including man, he turned his attention to the cultivation of trees, fruit and ornamental. and has made nursery business his life work with marked success and is at present, at the ripe age of four score and five years, engaged in raising ornamental trees and shrubs to beautify the lawns and parks of Toledo of which his son, Milton L. is superintendent, and has been for years. Few men in the state are better authority, if as good in the nursery line, as he, with his seventy years of experience with his eyes wide open. A volume of fiction is dull if there is not a thread of love romance running through it and the actual life of a person who has had no heart throbbing with the tender sentiment is barren of flowers, even though, they did not fructify into any thing serious. The environments around Bowling Green, at that early day, were by no means crowded with the softer sex, with the exception of Indian maidens, but Mr. St. John moved into that vicinity with his family with a daughter., Julia, who awakened the tender sentiment in the breast of Nathan and his thoughts were divided between arboreal study and Julia. He was very much in the condition of Adam in the Garden of Eden, it was Eve or nothing. He wanted something to round out his life and so on December AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 407 25, 1846, Miss Julia E. St. John, became Mrs. Nathan Moore, and it may be well to casually state right here that if Nathan had had a thousand females from which to make a selection the chances are he would not have got so companionable a help-meet as Julia who walked by his side and adorned his home for almost sixty years, but who left him for permanent rest in Graceland September 25, 1904, her seventy-eighth birthday. She was accustomed in her youth to the privations as well as the sweets of pioneer life and was unmurmuring in their early struggles as she was in the ease and comfort of her closing days. Eight children, evenly divided, four boys and four girls, were born to gladden their household, Mrs. J. D. Geyer. wife of Dr. Geyer, of Sidney; Mrs. Frank Fruchey, of Marion, Ind. ; Ida, wno died in Sidney many years ago, little Carrie who died when two years old, Ezra in the nursery business at Toledo; Milton L., superintendent of all the parks in Toledo ; Albert, chief teller in the Northern National Bank, and Charles on the free mail delivery force in the same city. All inherited the sturdy industry of their parents and are true to those high moral principles which make valuable citizens, and the world better for their having lived in it. It was and is a family flock with no black sheep in it, as none possessed moral obliquites to pain a parent's heart or cloud their lives with dismal apprehension. In the early fifties, having become acquainted with Philip Rauth, father of Mrs. Mary Wagner and Mrs. John E. Bush, and who was engaged in the nursery business in Sidney, he was induced to move to this town in 1855 as the Big Four railway was in process of construction and the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton railway was pushing its way northward from Cincinnati to Toledo which had sprung into existence and was sapping the life out of Perrysburg and had already given promise of becoming a great commercial city, the emporium of northwestern O. and one of the chain of beautiful cities on the great lakes. Sidney being at the intersection of these trunk lines of railway, would afford good shipping facilities when finished and this fact, made plain by Mr. Rauth, was an additional incentive to Mr. Moore to pitch his tent in Sidney. He, with J. C. Coe, bought what was known for years as the nursery farm across the river of John Mills, agent for the Big Four that owned it. The late George Hemm became a partner and subsequently Mr. Coe sold his interest to William McCullough and the profitable business was continued for many years. Mr. Moore is the only surviving member of the firm. The children of the Moore family were all educated here and the writer of this article had for a time Ezra and Albert for diligent pupils, and hence has a warm spot for them, especially in his heart, and is gratified to know of their marked success and sterling worth. Nineteen years ago Mr. Moore sold out his business here and moved with his family to Toledo with the exception of Mrs. Geyer and Mrs. Frank Fruchey, and resumed the nursery business in which he is still engaged. Mr. Moore has been a life long republican, not offensive as a partisan, for that is contrary to his nature, but so strong in his political conviction as not to 408 - HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY admit of variableness or shadow of turning. While here he was with Mrs. Moore, a member of the Presbyterian church in this city, and will die in the faith. Such, in brief, is a sketch of his busy life and few can look back over an interval of a career, now verging 0n a century with fewer misgivings. MORRIS HONNELL.—Eighty-four years ago, December 3, 1908, Morris Honnell, the third in a family of twelve children enlivened his parents household in Greene county, Pa., where his boyhood was spent until. ab0ut nine years of age when Mr. and Mrs. Honnell turned towards Ohio with their hopeful in a large wagon, the only means of transportation known in those times between the two states. The progress was not swift but sure and the vehicle not as ease inviting as a Pullman palace car nor did it run nights. It had a commissary department for man and beast. The leisurely gait gave ample time to take in and enjoy the rugged scenery on the way. In fact it often became monotonous rendering a more rapid transit desirable. But that was in the days when heroic patience characterized people and no one was in a hurry as now, consequently nervous diseases were not as fashionable as at present. In due time they reached the pan handle of Virginia, crossed it to Wheeling and half forded and half ferried the Belle Riviere int0 the Buckeye state and finally brought up in Dingmansburg on the east side of the Miami where they remained for three years. One night when Morris was nine years old Morris' eyes flew open and was amazed and frightened to see meteors falling like snow flakes, making it as light as day. He aroused the household and Mr. Honnell alarmed the neighborhood. The celestial fire works of meteoric dust was the most awe inspiring panorama he ever beheld and the end of the world was thought to be at hand. Those who had clean robes donned them so as to be as presentable as possible when their wings should be pinned on to meet the angels in the upper air. The woods in the vicinity were all lighted up. The wonderful pageant lasted from 2 o'clock in the morning until daylight and extended all over the United States, the Caribbean islands and Mexico. The meteors seemed to start from the zenith like sky rockets or Roman candles and shoot in all directions athwart the arch of the sky in all directions to the horizon. While the luminous dust and fire balls with a train of white or blue light descended in a shower they seemed to fall at some distance from the observer and the illusion was as perfect as the ostensible ends of a rainbow. In the South the superstitious negroes threw themselves upon the ground and rolled in mental agony crying to God for mercy, deeming the judgment day at hand. No meteoric stones were found in this vicinity though they were hunted for. The astounding phenomena has never been accounted for even by the most astute astronomers and scientists. It is said that the shower continued for eight hours but was not noticed by ordinary persons after the sun ar0se. In any event nothing like this was ever observed before or since of which there is any record. The Honnell family farmed the 0ld Fielding place for three years and AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 409 then moved to the north part of Sidney where they lived for three years more when Mr. Honnell bought 100 acres lying on the Russell pike a mile northwest of Sidney. In due time a round dozen children made their appearance in the following order : Archibald, Maria, Morris, Eli, William, Jesse, Henry, Catherine, Cynthia, Thomas. Martha and Francis. Mr. Honnell did not clamor for the markets of the world as his home demand was about equal to his supply until the older ones left the parents' nest and partook of the provender from some other table. Morris did farm work until 1848 when he broke out into the wide, wide world having been hired to take four horses overland to Vermont for Almon Hitchcock who had bought them in this county. This trip was made on horseback at a rate of thirty miles a day, riding one and leading three. It took the biggest part of a month to reach his destination but he delivered the goods all right and after remaining a few days so that he could occupy a chair without sitting straddle he took a packet at Whitehall on the Champlain canal for Albany. and then one on the Erie canal to Buffalo. Here he engaged passage on Lake Erie for Sandusky. then came to Bellefontaine by rail and completed his trip to Sidney on foot as the Big Four railway was an after consideration. In 1850 he was seized with the California fever which literally took him off to the Golden state, leaving Sidney for St. Jo, Mo., March 26, in company with the late N. R. Wyman, Harvey Guthrie and some others from this city. At St. Jo an outfit of ox teams, wagons and provisions were procured and daily, for several months, they pursued the sun in its course. The overland Californians of 1850 had to undergo trials far worse than the forty miners experienced unless they were in the advance of the immense army of adventurers as the grass along the trail was consumed faster than it grew so that the oxen had to subsist frequently by browsing on the brush. He immediately went to placer mining with fair success, then was employed for a time at seven dollars a day to superintend a gang of miners, and subsequently he ran a saw mill. He remained in the Golden state for four years then returned to this county by the oceans to New York and bought 160 acres in Washington township which he still owns though at one time he had over 200 acres. He did not farm it long until he realized that a wife was a commodity that a bachelor needed to make a desirable home, and at this dire juncture Miss Martha MacDonough, of Lebanon visited a neighbor in Washington township. He looked upon her visit as a providential event as in his eye she filled the bill, and as his advances were looked upon with favor by her they were married in Lebanon, May 15, 1855, when his successful career corn- menced and a happy married life set in and continued until about four years ago when she was laid to rest in Graceland, leaving two daughters, the only children that were born to them, Emma, now Mrs. I. N. Woodcox, of Piqua, and Olive, his affectionate stay in his declining years and the light of his bean- 410 - HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY tiful home. Its two and one-half acres have given him healthy employment for the last twenty-one years, furnishing him with the vegetables and fruits of the soil in abundance and to spare, while, at the same time, he has emjoyed the social and church advantages of the city. Wyandotte chickens lay for him high toned eggs, and are at hand whenever he feels like a pot pie, fry or roast, and grapes and pears in profusion garnish his table, while his early sweet corn has a city distinction which grocerymen are eager to get for the growing demand, and the probability is that corn not grown on his estate, labeled the Honnell corn, is sold to innocent purchasers, for it seems that in its season the supply from his acre is as inexhaustible as the widow's cruse of oil. Being a whig in politics he had to keep mum on his California trip for the Missourians, of whom there was a large number, persisted that no whig should be allowed in California because of opposition to the Mexican war by which the golden plum fell into the hands of the United States. Of the twelve children only three are living, Morris, Henry and Thomas, of Brown county, Kansas. In the fifties the Rev. William Honnell was employed at the Kickapoo mission, Kansas, and Henry so0n followed to that state and went through the perilous time when overrun by the border ruffians of Missouri which gave the name of Bleeding Kansas, and he knew old John Brown. Thomas did not go there until after he returned from the war. Each got wealthy at cattle raising and the rise in real estate and became prominent citizens. Henry is a large stockholder and director in a bank at Horton of which his son-in-law is president, and Thomas is president of a bank at Everest and has a farm of 640 acres worth $1 00 an acre, at one time he had over 2,000 acres. Francis Honnell went to the army, was taken prisoner and died in Libby prison in the early days of the strife ; Eli of Port Jefferson, died within the past year. Morris has voted for sixteen whig and republican candidates for president, commencing with Zacharay Taylor and ending with William H. Taft. If the temperance question has been left to this strong and highly moral family to settle, there would have been no wet and dry agitation in Ohio nor need of the county local option law nor Beal statute. In religion they were of the Presbyterian persuasion without any higher criticism as an appendix. The eighty-four years which so far have been allotted thus graciously to Mr. Honnell have been the most important and eventful in the world's history, excepting, perhaps, the advent of the christian era. The strides upward in the scientific, the mechanical, the educational, the moral and political world have no approaching precedent. His recollection, which is undimmed by years, as he sits in his easy chair and sees the trolley cars pass and repass his door, views the trains on the railway near by, converses with friends at any distance over his telephone engaged his reflective thought and makes him wonder what the twentieth century can possibly bring that is new. The uplift of the people in the different nations, the crumbling of absolute monarchies and the restriction of oppressive despotisms everywhere, the marked ad- AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 411 vances of Christianity and the growth of republican and democratic sentiments, the manumission of slaves in this country and the freezing of serfs in Russia and other parts of the earth, all furnish with mental food and is a source of gratitude that he has been permitted to live through such an eventful era and has "crowned his labor with an age of ease." SAMUEL I. GAMBLE, the subject of this sketch, is among the oldest if not the oldest native born citizen of Sidney. He was a son of Samuel and Mary Gamble and became one of the lights of their household, November 18, 1828. The humble domicile stood on the site of James Crozier's carriage factory on Ohio avenue. At that time all north of North street and south of South street was a forest. The streets were ungraveled, the side walks but little better, and no artificial lights penetrated the gloom of night or annoyed strolling lovers. When Samuel junior was three years old Samuel senior bought 220 acres of land in Salem township for $5 an acre and which now is comprised in the farms of Joseph P, and John Thomas Staleys farms. When old enough Samuel entered the freshman class in a log school house from which he graduated in due time completing his education in the edifice with the bark on. In 1846 he went to Sidney to learn the cabinet makers trade of James Irwin, Sr., but in two years left for a clerkship in the store of James and Samuel McCullough on the site of Clemens Amann's drug store. The 1849 gold fever raged worse than ever in 1850 and attacked Samuel, his brother William, his father and sixty-one others. Five persons usually accompanied one wagon. Equipped with a wagon made upon honor by the late Jacob Piper, and a yoke of oxen they started for Cincinnati, March 26, 1850, bought provisions there, good bacon at $2.50 a hundred pounds, took a boat for St. Joseph, Mo., and arrived there April 12. Mr. Gamble, Sr., took sick on the river and died in two days after reaching St. Joseph, where he was buried. The party stayed there for four weeks waiting for grass to start. Two yoke of steers and a yoke of cows were bought when the long journey was commenced. They knew that the land before them did not abound in milk and honey so the cows were bought and furnished them with lacteal fluid but they did not buy a swarm of bees so had to forego the honey. The California trail, beaten by the immense tide of emigration, was a good road over which they averaged ab0ut twenty miles a day. The Indians were very friendly giving them no annoyance, but they saw but few buffalo or game of any kind as they did not take kindly to the stream of civilization across their domain. They arrived in California, September 11, losing but one out of their teams, a cow while crossing a desert 40 miles wide. It was estimated that 125,000 people crossed the plains in 1850. Oxen stood the tramp better than horses. Samuel and his brother William, followed placer mining with fair success for thirteen months when they sold their claims, which subsequently proved to be very rich and after staying in the Golden state tw0 years they took a sail vessel on the Pacific for Panama, landing at San Juan 412 - HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY and crossed the isthmus where the canal is now being excavated, then took one of Commodore Vanderbilt’s sailing vesselS for New York, where they arrived just six hours less than a three month's trip and as soon as his sea legs had resumed their normal condition and became land worthy, started for Sidney, finding the burg very much the same as he left it two years before, for the city had not then begun to tear off the moss and stir with growing pains and more modern ideas. He bought a half interest in the drug Store of his brother-in-law, Benjamin Haggott, situated where Dickensheets grocery on Main avenue now is, then moved to the room now occupied by the Elk saloon, in Poplar street. He soon bought out Mr. Haggot and rented one half the room to S. N. Todd for a book store and after nine years in the business sold out to T0dd and Vandegrift. Being of horticultural taste, he engaged in fruit and vegetable raising on his little farm northeast of Sidney and followed it for several years, then moved to Sidney to the double lot near Benjamin's D. Handle factory, where he has lived for thirty years and where he indulges in the luxury of small fruits grown in this climate and which he richly enjoys. In March, 1855, he was united in marriage to Miss Elizabeth Cunningham on the farm north of Sidney, latterly known as the Joseph Fry farm. Three sons were born, Wallace, now first steward of the insane asylum at Logansport, Indiana ; William, now of Sidney; and John, who lately with his wife returned from a home visit to Sitka, Alaska, where he has lived about twenty years. John went there as teacher employed by the Presbyterian church industrial school, but is now engaged in mining in Chickagoff island, forty miles from Sitka. In 1864 Mr. Gamble enlisted in the army and was at Petersburg, Virginia, during the long bombardment of that city, but escaped unharmed. Mr. Gamble belonged to the United Presbyterian church here as an active member for forty years and then joined the First Presbyterian church. He has been identified with the Sunday school for more than seventy years and as teacher for fifty years. In politics he has always been a stalwart Republican since the organization, with the outspoken courage of his convictions. Such, in brief, is a biography of Mr. Gamble, who for eighty-four years has been identified with Sidney and close vicinity as one of its most esteemed citizens. JOHN E. BUSH. In 1849, the California gold fever struck Sidney. It might be termed a species of yellow fever and took off several of the residents of Sidney and vicinity. There is no spot on earth, except it be the north pole, that is now so remote from our city as California was in those days. At the present time a man can go around the world in less time than it took to get a fair start on the tedious journey across the plains, and do it comparatively without peril and in luxurious comfort. The fifty-nine years have been an era of amazing world progress, and to the young generation the story of the adventurers of three score years ago with what the forty-niners AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 413 endured and saw sounds like a romance, and yet, instead of being an exaggeration, falls far short of the reality. The forty-niners’ names, like those of the Mexican veterans, are mostly carved on marble or granite in the cemeteries as but few are left to relate their thrilling experience. The subject of this biographical effusion, John E. Bush, of Orange township, one mile south of Sidney, on Sulphur Heights, is a Pennsylvanian by birth, as the little Bushwhacker put in an appearance in the home of Henry Bush, in Monroe county, September 30, 1828, so he is now four score and four years. The family came to this county near where John now resides in 1838. He had just entered the legal status of a man when the news came that our new possession of California was just sparkling with gold and its streams rippling over auriferous beds. The intelligence was enough to give almost anyone the yellow jaundice and John, being of an adventurous spirit, had it violently. Giving way to the impulse of feathering his nest in that far off region, he, with his brother, Dr. C. W. Bush, and Morris Jackson, got their possessions together, rigged out a schooner on four wheels, canopied for protection, with a propelling force of a team of horses, and set sail, figuratively speaking, for St. Jo, Missouri, April 19, 1849, and arrived there in about four weeks. St. Jo was the outlying point of western civilization where additional supplies were laid in for the long journey across the plains, the deserts and over the Rockies and Sierras, from time immemorial the undisturbed abode of the Indians, buffaloes, deer, antelopes, wolves, bears, jack rabbits, prairie dogs, and gophers. Bridges over perilous rivers were a commodity and convenience not encountered, so the dangerous streams, many with bottoms of shifting sands, had to be forded, and many were the fatal disasters in the attempt. Twenty miles in a day was deemed rapid progress through dust shoe top deep and those in good condition walked rather than rode, though there was no likelihood of a head end collision as the trains were all moving in the same direction. Even if they had been going in an opposite way the impact of a collision would not have been serious when the velocity was not over two miles an hour, and rarely that. The jolt w0uld have been a good deal like rolling off a sheet onto the floor. Water being scarce, the weather hot, and the dust thick, the weary travelers were some distance from godliness, if cleanliness is next to it. If the pores were closed at night they opened the next day with exuding sweat. The panorama did not change rapidly at the rate they were going so the journey would have been a trifle monotonous if some episode did not happen almost daily to relieve it. Buffaloes by the thousands and hundreds of thousands were seen and one night their horses, which were turned out to graze around the camp, were seized with the idea that they would enjoy the freedom of the plains better than pulling a wagon, even though in good society, so they took after the buffaloes and were never recovered. John started after them and pursued them for about eight miles. Almost famished with thirst a little lake of about twelve acres came into view but when he got to the banks he found the buffalo and other animals 414 - HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY had converted it into a pool of filth and he could not drink a mouthful He managed to get back to camp in a most distressed condition but the recollection of that day's experience may dissuade him from voting dry when the question comes up. At Salt Lake they paused for a while but not long, as Prophet Brigham Young had preached a sermon in which he counseled the saints to not furnish any eatables or other necessities to the weary, worn visitors for love or money. Not all the wives of the much married Mormons were happy, as the party was implored by two or three females to take them along to California, a request that could not be granted. Before they got to their destination their food supplies gave out and with starvation staring them in the face John fortunately shot a duck and a hawk with a squirrel in its talons. These gave them a lease of life and John devoured the squirrel. The duck and hawk were parceled out among the others. In September the Sacramento valley in all its native loveliness was seen from the mountain summit, and Canaan could not have looked more entrancing to the manna surfeited Israelites than did this valley to them. Their money was running low and as flour was over a dollar a pound and other necessities on the top shelf the emergency to "hurry up" and stir themselves was strenuous. A cradle for rocking the auriferous sands was quickly constructed from the siwagon bed and operations were commenced on Feather river with reasonable success from the start, but living was so high that their surplus or sink- Mg fund did not accumulate to the full measure of their hopes. Placer mining was followed by Mr. Bush for four years and then a vessel was taken at San Francisco for the Isthmus of Darien, which he crossed, sailed for New York and then he set his face for Ohio. His brother, Dr. Bush, remained and eventually settled in Los Angeles, where, with the practice of his profession and read estate deals in that thriving city, he accumulated a fortune, which he enjoyed singly, as he never married and died there two or three years ago. Of all the forty-niners that went from this section Mr. Bush and Mr. Jacob Shanly are the only living. Returning to the home farm on Sulphur Heights he dwelt in fancy free as a bachelor until September 17, 1863, he joined fortunes with Miss Christiana Rauth and ever since the old homestead and the adjoining acres in the delightful spot on the pike where he now lives has been his residing place. A family of eight children were born in their household, six of whom are living: Charles, John, Will and Fred, of Sidney, and George and Bertha at home with their parents. Edward died in a hospital in California several years ago at the age of twenty-six years, and Maud two or three years since at home, aged eighteen. Mr. Bush has crossed the continent to California nine times, but the first in his Pullman palace car propelled by oxen with no extra charge for a sleeping birth left a taste in his mouth which the others have not supplanted and a spot in his memory more vivid than all the other trips combined. Being a natural Nimrod there are but few animals native to this country that have not succumbed to his unerring rifle. As a taxidermist he is an expert, and having a taste for curiosities, relics and rare specimens, his home is a museum AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 415 not equaled outside the cities in the state, for he has gathered them from New Brunswick to the Pacific. Last Sunday I accepted an invitation, without urging, to take dinner at the Bush residence and a little after 11 o'clock John, Jr., was at the front door with his Reo automobile which whisked us to the homestead in ten minutes, where I was greeted by the veteran, wife and family. Dinner was soon announced, for outside the corporation sun time is in vogue, which puts the country folks about half an hour ahead of the urban population. After dinner a look was taken at three wild geese in an enclosure that have one wing clipped to prevent them from joining a flock should it happen to fly over the farm in its migration. Two wild ducks with a brood of •sixteen, a day old, were sporting in a little artificial pond. The little balls of animated feathers do not have to go through a training process to teach them to swim, but perform with all the grace of connoisseurs from the very start. John, being somewhat of a crude artist, painted on the white barn, in jet black, some alleged bears, deer and other wild animals and his son, Will, said that when the horses first got a glimpse of these caricatures it was with difficulty they could be got near the barn, but eventually their timidity was overcome, for a horse can get used to almost anything however frightful. Returning to the house I was taken through the apartments and made a note of some of the specimens. In the sitting room a huge moose head, nine inches across the nose, and with fan-like antlers, looked down from the wall. Mr. Bush and son, Fred, killed the animal on the north shore of Lake Superior a few years ago. The animal was six feet and six inches high and weighed about 1,200 pounds ; the horns have twenty-two points. To the left was a magnificent pair of elk horns of twelve points, five feet and seven inches high with four feet spread, a fine deer head and another of one killed in Minnesota. A center table with legs of three elk horns, another center table, three stories high, with moose and deer feet, a sideboard, hat rack with a split fawn head and hooks of deer feet, a Columbus chair made by Mr. Bush, who is handy with carpenter's tools, from sixty pieces of hickory and covered with the skin of a bear he killed in Wisconsin. In the hall is another hat rack with deer feet hooks, a score or so of beautiful canes and a badger skin. In the parlor is a diamond willow stand, the material of which he got on the upper Missouri, a stool with deer feet and elk horns for railing, corner parlor chair which Mr. Bush fashioned from hickory and ash, a much prized photograph of eight deer suspended and killed in Maine with the hunters standing near, Joseph and Jess Laughlin, James Wilson, William Kingseed, Frank Brewer and Mr. Bush. Four of the deer he killed. There is also a photograph of two wild turkeys and one of himself taken in California in 1853. Barbers being a scarce article there his black hair covered his shoulders and a fringe of whiskers gave him the solemn look of a Dunkard preacher. From the parlor we went up stairs to a large front room devoted entirely to specimens and relics which are there by the thousands, collected in different parts of the country, to which are added countless queer and beautiful shells gathered by Mrs. Bush and daughter, Bertha, on the shore of the Pacific. 416 - HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY. Gold bearing quartz, curious stones, many of beautiful moss agate with vegetable sprigs visible in the translucent stones, onyx, chalcedony, etc., in almost endless variety, condor quills, the head of a black wolf killed by William Kingseed, twenty-seven birds, many of the duck family, and a wild goose, a wild turkey, a cormorant, a bald eagle, blue winged heron, road runner, Jack rabbit, a porcupine which Mr. Bush killed in Wisconsin with a club, a bass, caught by him in the Lewistown reservoir with Joseph Laughlin managing the boat. This bass weighed eight and one-half pounds when caught, the head of a wolf killed by George Linder in "Wisconsin, thirteen deer heads on the walls, two of which got their horns locked while fighting and were found dead in South Dakota, three pair of buffalo horns and a host of other curiosities fairly bewildering in number. When in California he was attacked in the mountains by a grizzly she bear that had cubs. From the fierce indications he thought that this Bush better aspire to a tree and ascended one as rapidly as possible and so did the bear to the same one and caught his hind leg near the calf, making four holes in his boot leg. Both fell to the ground, when the bear ran to her cubs, and he, to avoid any disagreeable encounter, went somewhat hurriedly in an opposite direction, which was a prudent movement, for she returned with malicious intent but he avoided the rush by starting early. He cut off the boot leg and has it among his collection with the autograph or mark of the bear. Mr. Bush has killed over 200 deer, a moose, four bears, ducks and geese without number, and does not have to draw on his imagination for fish stories. In politics he is a Democrat though a great admirer of President Roosevelt, has served two terms as county commissioner but enjoys a deer hunters' picnic better than a political convention and prefers an outing with his gun or fish pole to a sojourn at a summer resort. In shooting contests he rarely returns without winning a prize. His philosophy in life is to enjoy the passing moment and not depend too much on an uncertain future, subscribing without mental reservation to the saying that one bird in the hand is worth two in the Bush. Mr. Bush has been honored by his party in being elected infirmary director, serving nine years, and in 1881 was elected county commissioner for three years and re-elected in 1884, but is in no sense an offensive partisan. The blankets, the knives, hatchets. etc., he has won in shooting contests at the deer hunters' picnics would give each of his children a good setting out in articles of that line, and still have enough for himself. and his wife. No other marksman of his age in this region has much show when he draws a bead on the target and the younger ones find in him a stubborn competitor. * * * P. S. One of the bears shot by Mr. Bush was a grizzly, killed in the California mountains, near Eureka lake. Another episode in his career was a fight with the Indians. They had rifled a camp and he with three others attacked about thirty braves and squaws as they were eating breakfast and put them to flight.. John's gun was a flint lock. All the heads of the deer, twenty- five in number, and other specimens, were preserved and mounted by him and sons. John and George, who were expert taxidermists. At Fort Arthur AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 417 all the hotels have saloons and there are many others also which are well patronized by whole-souled fellows, but he did not hear an oath. They were two days and nights crossing the American desert without water and many were so exhausted that they had to be loaded into wagons and their tongues were so swollen they could not talk, but their lives were saved by administering much reviled whiskey, thus showing that it is a good thing on a desert The nights were gorgeous with volcanic fireworks, which, in the distance, roared and illumined the sky and many of the springs were so h0t anything could be cooked in the water. A. B. C. H., 1908. JOHN BLAKELEY is said that nothing will polish a person and give him a careless and cosmopolitan air like travel. Observing that my wonted luster was growing dim and gaping curiosity, that unfailing indication of rustic simplicity, was getting the better of me, I resolved to take a day off or a day out and rub up against the wicked world, thus becoming a tourist at large, with the best of intentions. In accordance with this rash resolution and being sleepless over the prospect, the couch of repose was abandoned earlier than usual, an affectionate good-bye hurled at family and friends Monday morning, the trolley station sought for a ticket to Botkins, twelve miles distant toward the polar star that is always in its place and around which Ursa Major, with his celestial dipper, has been circling for ages. The day was beautiful and although the Monday before was resonant with the jingling of sleigh bells and the merry laugh of children, youths and maidens crowded into slipping vehicles or hanging to cutters, every vestige of the beautiful had disappeared and the strident honk of the automobile was heard, one of the most sudden changes in this capricious climate. This ascent to the classic suburb of Jimtown or Bennettville was soon reached and a little more power was applied as if the car was eager to get out of sight of this burg nodule which has come to stay and can not be avoided even if so desired on a northern trip. What a change has been wrought in the country within the last thirty or forty years around Sidney. The almost impassable mud and corduroy roads with their adhesive or jolting horrors have been supplanted by hundreds of miles of graded and graveled free pikes, furnishing drainage outlets and annihilating distance when c0mpared with what used to be. Dense native forests have been cleared and unobstructed vistas miles in length opened through the rich level country dotted here and there with pretty farm houses and barns environed by clustering orchards. The butting in of an era of prosperity years ago and its continuance with no prospect of abatement put farmers on Easy street, doubled the value of their real estate, fattened their bank accounts so that they are beginning to know the luxury of living rather than merely existing. With taste thus elevated and becoming alive to the possibilities which can be achieved by intelligently working with Mother Nature, what Shelby county will be in half a century more is a picture that can hardly be overdrawn. 418 - HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY The trolley line does not invade nor disturb Swanders and one might go by without knowing it, so unpretentious is it, but Anna, split into two precincts and about evenly balanced by the boundary line between Franklin and Dinsmore townships, has, in round numbers, about one thousand people, good, bad and indifferent, with a large preponderance of the good, as it is a Lutheran stronghold and their magnificent new church edifice close to the track challenges admiration for its artistic beauty and the up-to-date homes erected largely by rich, retired farmers, who have clustered there for social, intellectual and religious privileges. But I started for Botkins and will reserve Anna for future reference. Remembering Botkins, graced by the rather plebeian name of Stringtown forty years ago, I turned up my trousers and wore rubbers, for at that time it did not take more than a heavy dew to convert its rich, undrained soil into a mortar bed where, Mrs. Gutman said, her horse got stalled in the street, though she and a box of dog leg tobacco were the only freight in the buggy bound for Fryburg. The foot gear precaution based on ancient experience was entirely unnecessary as the graded streets were comparatively dry and the long lines of concrete pavement were white and clean as a new pin. Being Monday, when wash tub wrestling engages the attention of rural households and which was an ideal day for drying purified linen, there was not much business bustle in the growing village, giving a pedestrian plenty of elbow room, and the first familiar face which dawned 0n my optics was that of Adam Blakeley, a friend in good and regular standing for many years. Adam, though a stalwart Republican in a strong Democratic town, is no mere figure head, as he has been mayor and was only defeated the last time by one vote by Thomas Kennedy; is postmaster and editor and proprietor of the Botkins Herald, a luminary which sheds light in the community, suggests improvements, records the happenings and molds public opinion. As the objective point on this trip was to interview John Blakeley, his father, a pioneer veteran of eighty-four years, we together walked to the home of this retired farmer and as good luck would have it there sat Lorenzo Elliott, a relative and veteran pioneer but a few months Mr. Blakeley's junior and walked from his home two and a half miles distant to make a morning visit. He is wonderfully well preserved, while Mr. Blakeley is physically infirm, using two canes to support his bowed form, but mentally clear, is an omnivorous reader with a fund of reminiscence and a voluble tongue that enjoys a rehearsal of past events. He was born in Franklin county, July 11, 1825, and came to Shelby county with his parents when three years old, where he has since lived. July 1, 1852, he married Miss Elizabeth Elliott, the fifteenth child of Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Elliott, and became the father of eight children, of whom Adam, Mary and Margaret, now Mrs. Charles F. Snyder, of near Oran, survive. By industry, economy and judicious investments he became a large land owner but becoming somewhat weary of rural cares he moved to Botkins in May, 1883, a few days after the big snow storm. Not having a sportsman's taste he has but few bear, wolf and deer stories to tell in which he figured, as AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 419 he never killed but one deer, but he is rich in turkey and squirrel tales and once in his life he shot into a flock of turkeys with his rifle, the ball passing through the head of one and the body of another, one of those chance shots which even a novice might execute, like killing two birds with one stone. He never got tainted with the miasma of Democracy prevalent in that section, so that sin is not on record against him, and he is a Methodist with a clean title and faith that strengthens with years. Lorenzo Elliott was born in Licking county in 1826 and came to Dinsmore township in 1835, married Miss Mary Bolin for his first wife and Mrs. Chamberlain, born in England in 1831, for his second wife, and who is still his helpmeet. He has plowed the land on which Botkins now stands and cradled wheat from its acres. He also laid a mile of ties on the C. H. & D. railway. The station was named, after Richard Botkin, who graded three miles of the railway but never lived to see a train on the road. Like Mr. Blakeley Mr. Elliott was not much of a Nimrod, as he despatched but one deer but he has scared as many as twenty at one time from the corn field lest there would be no provender left for the family. Mr. Blakeley related a hog sale he once made to William Marshall, of Hardin, soon after the war which overtops all accounts of recent transactions. He sold him seven Chester Whites that weighed 3,006 pounds at nine cents gross, and drove them to Anna, realizing $270.54. The fact that Botkins gave 124 wet votes to 24 dry brings a blush to Mr. Blakeley's cheeks and provokes stinging censure from the gray haired veteran and that they have just as many saloons as churches, three each, is a thorn in his side and the breaking up of a temperance meeting by a bombardment of eggs last fall rouses his indignation every time it comes to his mind, which is several times a day. It was a shame, especially at the high price of eggs. As soon as I arrived I looked for the historic house of twelve gables built by James Niemann, but learned that a few years ago it fell into the hands of W. C. Zanglein and the enterprising merchant, not thinking it worth preserving any longer as a curiosity, razed it to the earth and erected his fine three story brick department store 42 feet by 90, which is crowded from basement to roof with a limitless store of articles, including groceries. Botkins now has three dry goods and one furniture store, two warehouses, new bakery, four blacksmith shops, a large implement house now being erected by Mayor Kennedy which will be roofed this week, and a large factory employing seventy-five men owned by the Sheets brothers, and a hank. These brothers now own and operate nine warehouses at different points and by the means of the telephone do all their office work in Botkins. Frank Gutman, who has spent his forty-five years or more, his entire life, in Botkins, succeeding his father in the store close to the C. H. & D. track, has bought 3,000 bushels of clover seed so far this season. The Catholics are strong here and maintain a parochial school. Botkins draws trade from a large section of the rich farming country and the freight and express business at the station is very large. Frank Hemmert, the genial station agent who learned telegraphy thirty-five years ago in the 420 - HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY office and has been the trusted agent for thirty-three years, said the creamery at the thriving village of New Knoxille ships 4,000 pounds of butter a week from the station to Cincinnati and says it is worth one's while to visit that place and see their dairies, where the cows are kept and cared for with Holland-like neatness and gentleness. It is the garden spot of Auglaize county. One thousand gallons of cream now, and two thousand in summer, are shipped to Dayton monthly from the creamery owned by the Dayton Pure Milk & Butter Company at the edge of town. Farmers take their fresh milk to the creamery, where the unctuous richness is separated by the centrifugal process and the impoverished milk taken back home. A large amount of poultry comes to an untimely end here and they have eggs to throw at the birds—and others. That unaccountable and mysterious milk sickness used to prevail alarmingly here, destroying human lives and whole herds of cattle but nothing has been heard of it for years. Some claim that the virus in the poisonous weed has been switched into the Democratic party, but for one I do not believe it, as no fatalities have occurred, though strange actions are sometimes obvious up there. It might look as if there was a methodical design in my making the call so near noon, and perhaps there was, but then there is no place where the tongue wags with such freedom as around a dinner table. The layout indicated that though it was Monday, they were fully prepared for distinguished company. Gray seemed to be fashionable color with one exception around the hoard and we did our duty with veteran courage and fidelity. Bidding my old friends good-bye I strolled quietly around as though I were running a gum shoe campaign until the sun-down trolley car arrived and reached Sidney when the light of the new moon began to shimmer. ISAAC HARSHBARGER. Our esteemed townsman, Isaac Harshbarger, now somewhat bowed with the burden of more than four score of years, was born in Montgomery county, not far from Dayton, in 1825 and has been a resident of Salem township and Sidney for seventy-five years. He was the oldest of ten children in the family of Mr. and Mrs. Jonas Harshbarger, the former of whom was born in the year 1800 hi Rockingham county, Virginia, the latter in Franklin county, Pennsylvania. In 1838 the family left Montgomery county and after three days of continuous travel settled on a farm of t00 acres, three miles northeast of Sidney, which he had purchased in Salem township, and which is now owned by the Oliver C. Staley heirs. There were no bridges north of Piqua and the streams had to be forded. Of course most of the land was a virgin forest. Tillable farms had to be reclaimed from the shadows and Isaac did what he could to let the sunlight in. At the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to learn the tailor's trade, at which lie worked in Port Jefferson and Sidney for forty years. Port Jefferson became a booming village and after the canal was finished, being at the head of navigation, had a most brilliant prospect. Gerard and Thomas bought on the site 160 acres and laid out about 120 in streets and lots; a man by the name of Jackson laid out twenty acres and Mr. Wright AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 421 thirty acres, which he called North Salem. Three long streets running east and west were made and buildings constructed rapidly. In fact the future for Port Jefferson looked so propitious that the late Samuel Rice, who went on horseback from Buffalo to Chicago to make an investment, concluded that Port Jefferson had a brighter look and made a purchase there in preference to the Windy City, now the metropolis of the West. Soon after the canal was done, five warehouses were in operation, cooper and stave shops employed at least 150 men, there was one grist mill, two asheries for the manufacture of potash, where seven cents a bushel were paid for ashes, which was no inconsiderable revenue to the farmers as forests were burned in clearing the land. There were five stores, the father of Lot Ogden being among the first who came from Chambersburg, near Dayton, with a $400 stock and eventually accumulated $5o,000 or more. Mr. Cromer did about the same and moved back to Dayton, and Mr. Thirkield and Mr. Thompson also had general stores. The trade at this little giant of a town was immense, reaching far to the north and east. Streets were thronged whenever the roads would permit. Previous to this grain had to be hauled to Sandusky on the lake, so that the scope of country tributary in a business was far reaching. Two large hotels were built, at one of which Mr. Harshbarger boarded two years at $1.25 a week and it makes his mouth water to think of the excellent fare provided at about six cents a meal with lodging thrown in. Peaches and berries were abundant and could be had for the gathering, game fairly swarmed in the woods and numerous birds snapped up the codling moths, so the luscious apples were not bored and preempted at the center with a vermiform appendix. The bugs and flies with which the present generation has to contend had not rallied their warring forces, so living was cheap, and well that it was, as even shin plasters, which were current, did not lie around loose. Mr. Harshbarger says that there was more and finer poplar in the forests of Shelby county at that time than in any other county in the state, with abundance of walnut, both of which are now so valuable, but they were ruthlessly cut or destroyed. There were three sawmills in the vicinity and as there was plenty of snow in the winter of 1847, the sawmills were crowded with poplar logs from three feet to five feet in diameter. In January a thaw and rain set in, the water rose to an almost unprecedented height and swept them away. He says he saw logs that would cover ten acres float down the Miami. In the campaign of 1840 the Whigs got together one day and cut the monarch poplar on the south side of the river, which was over six feet in diameter and sixty feet to the first branch. The mammoth log was converted into a canoe in which four or five could sit side by side. This was drawn to Dayton and sold to a party in Hamilton and was used in the "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" stirring campaign. Two or three canal boats were built in Port Jefferson when the canal 422 - HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY got in operation and the now lonesome feeder of the Miami and Erie canal was a busy throughfare for packets and freight boats but the notes of the horn of the captain have been superseded by the steam whistle of the railway engine. A dry-dock for the repair of boats was constructed at the basin near Philip Smith's foundry. As soon as the Big Four and C. H. & D. railways intersected at Sidney, a cloud came over the business sky of Port Jefferson which has never lifted and the golden prospect of this pretty spot, still beautiful in its decay, went glimmering and Sidney commenced to boom into consequential importance, sapping the very life blood of Port Jefferson, until today there are not as many inhabitants as there were voters in 1847. Mr, Harshbarger was a life-long democrat and held local offices in Port Jefferson for many years. In 1853 he was elected coroner of the county and with Dr. Park Beeman and Dr. Albert Nelson was present at the inquest on the body of the murdered Artis girl. It was held in February with the snow fifteen inches deep on the ground. He was present at the hanging of Artis a year later in the county jail and was deputized to help Sheriff J. C. Dryden. The African fought so hard when they started from his cell that he had to be choked and knocked into insensibility before they could adjust the noose. He was four years United States marshal for the counties of Shelby, Auglaize and Mercer under Gen. Andrew Hickenlooper, and in 1868 was elected sheriff of Shelby county, serving six years. He married Miss Joanna Staley, who was a schoolmate of his boyhood, and seven children were born in their household, four of whom are living. Mr. Harshbarger bought the old home farm of 100 acres where he lived for many years but since 1902 he has been living with his daughter,