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 Thomas N. Lakin. 
 
 Reminiscences: Life of 
 Thomas N. Lakin. 
 
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 LIFE OF THOMAS N. LAKIN
 
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 It was one of the great ambitions in the life of Father Lakin 
 to "die in the harness" as he often expressed it. He stuck to his 
 post and kept up his work as editor of The Union until along in 
 January. Chafing under his enforced detention at home he want- 
 ed to be doing something. His family suggested that he write a 
 sketch of his life that would tell something of the history of the 
 time in which he had lived. This seemed to please him and he 
 eagerly set himself to the task. Sometimes as he wrote he was 
 racked with pain or so weak he could scarcely hold the tablet on 
 the arm of his chair. But he persevered and has not only given 
 the story of his own life but has woven into the narrative the his- 
 tory of his day as he saw it. The story was finished just one 
 month before he died on the 19th of March, 1917. 
 
 In addition we have given some of the funeral service, in- 
 cluding the tributes paid to his memory by Rev. C. D. Shumard, 
 Rev. S. B. Murray and Rev. N. Bascom. 
 
 In loving memory. 
 
 HIS SONS.
 
 "As we grow older, and the shadows begin to lengthen, and 
 the leaves which seemed so thick in youth above our heads grow 
 thin and show the sky beyond, and as those in the ranks in front 
 drop away, and we come in sight, as we all must, of the eternal 
 rifle pits beyond, a man begins to feel that among the really prec- 
 ious things of life — more lasting and more substantial than many 
 of the objects of ambition here — is the love of those he loves and 
 the friendship of those whose frindship he prizes."
 
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 MY EARLIEST RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 I was born in Freeport, Harrison County, Ohio, Aug. 13, 
 1843. My parents' names were Thomas Newton Lakin and Mary 
 Ann Lakin, nee Pepper. My father was a saddle and harness mak- 
 er by trade. Four children were born to these parents: Almira 
 (Allie), Albert, Malissa and myself. Malissa died before I was 
 born. Mother died when I was only seven days old and we chil- 
 dren were scattered to different homes. Allie was taken to the 
 home of Uncle Samuel Lakin and Albert went to the home of 
 Uncle Josephus Lakin, both of whom lived in Dresden, O. Uncle 
 Joshua Pepper and Aunt Catherine took me to their home near 
 New Philadelphia, Tuscarawas County, 0., Aunt carrying me on 
 a pillow over that rugged thirty miles of road. I was so puny that 
 they scarcely expected to raise me, but Aunty's careful nursing 
 brought me through all right. I was raised on cow's milk and un- 
 cle Joshua would often get up at midnight to milk the cow for me. 
 He often told me that in the first three years of my life I drank 
 thirteen barrels of milk. 
 
 My earliest recollection was of the marriage of my cousin, 
 Almira Cochran to B. C. Cochran which occurred on the Old Town 
 farm in 1846. Later Uncle Joshua moved to New Philadelphia to 
 "keep" tavern and I remained on the farm with Cochran's. That 
 summer I saw the men mowing grass and didn't give Cochran any 
 peace till he made me a wooden scythe, with which I mowed my- 
 self nearly to death. 
 
 I spent quite a good deal of my time from 1843 to 1849 on 
 the farm although I liked the hotel with uncle and aunt. Among 
 my early recollections of the farm was the McKnight maple sugar 
 •grove just across the Old Town creek. One winter I went over 
 and saw them hauling the maple water on a sled in the deep snow 
 to the kettles. Will and Hugh McKnight were several years older 
 than I and they were hauling the sugar water. Hugh is still living 
 in Ramsey, 111., aged about 80 years. 
 
 It was during this early life on the farm that I saw men 
 reaping wheat with a sickle. When the cradle came into use farm- 
 ers thought the very height of invention had been reached. Five 
 good cradlers could cut ten acres a day. But invention did not 
 {■■top here. In the early fifties the McCormick reaper and mower 
 superceded the cradle. This was a crude affair at first, the grain 
 being raked off the platform by a man walking along side the ma- 
 chine. It was my good fortune while visiting with my aunt, a cous- 
 in of her's named Baltzle near Tiffin, Seneca County, O. in 1853
 
 to witness one of these first McCormick reapers put to work in his 
 field. (It was while visiting here that I v/as indviced by the two 
 Baltzle boys to take a bite of an Indian turnip which we found 
 in the woods. I have never wanted another) , 
 
 The wheat and oats cut with a sickle and cradle was mostly 
 tramped out on a barn floor or on a clean spot of ground by horses 
 and oxen and then the grain was separated from the chaff by shak- 
 ing it in a strong wind or run through a wind mill. Some farmers 
 used flails to beat the grain out of the straw. This was the clean- 
 er way. But about 1850 the old "chaff piler" was brought into 
 vogue and was deemed one of the greatest inventions of the age. 
 It consisted of only the cylinder box as in modern machines. The 
 grain, chaff and straw were all thrown out at the rear and had to 
 be separated by men with pitchforks, scoops and a wind mill. Quite 
 a number of these machines were manufactured at the foundry 
 in New Philadelphia but were soon superseded by the Massillon 
 separator which has sinces been developed into the modern thresh- 
 er and stacker. Contemporary v^dth the sickle and the cradle were 
 the old lard lamps made by placing a wick or piece of cotton cloth 
 in a saucer or metal vessel of lard. They served their purpose in 
 homes of the poor but the wealthier used tallow dips or tallow can- 
 dles and the candle sticks or holders and snuffers were often of 
 elegant design, tin, brass or steel. The kerosene or coal oil lamp 
 did not come into use till 1859 or '60. This was considered a great 
 luxury as well as a blessing, but gas and electricity in cities have 
 driven the "coal oil" lamp out of use. But the farm homes still 
 need and use them. 
 
 In 1850 Cochran caught the "gold fever," brought his wife 
 and two children to town to live with Uncle Joshua and went by 
 the New York-Panama route to California. This ended my visits, 
 to the farm. 
 
 BOYHOOD PRANKS AND SCHOOL. 
 
 New Philadelphia was a beautiful town, the county seat of 
 Tuscarawas County ,Ohio, situated on a high plain or plateau on 
 the bluffs of the Tuscarawas river, a tributary of the Muskingum. 
 Betv/een the bluff on which the town was situated and the river 
 was the side-cut fed by a dam above tov/n to run the flour mill, 
 woolen mill and saw mill. Beyond the river and following its 
 course was the Ohio canal v/hich v/as the only means of transpor- 
 tation, except by team and wagon, from the north to the south 
 part of the state. But railroads soon relegated the canal to in- 
 nocuous deseutude. 
 
 I was too young to go to school while we lived at the hotel,, 
 but not too young to give my foster parents considerable concern 
 and anxiey. Two freaks may be mentioned. I w^anted a pair of
 
 boots but Uncle got me another pair of shoes. These I deliberately 
 hacked to pieces with a hatchet and taking them in to Aunt Katie 
 exclaimed, "Now Ollie," I called her Ollie, "See they are all 'wored' 
 out." I got the boots instead of a spanking which I deserved. An- 
 other time while carpenters were putting a new roof on our 3-story 
 "tavern" I took advantage of their absence at dinner and climbed 
 the ladder and half way up the roof before I was discovered. Con- 
 sternation seized all the beholders. They vv^ere afraid to make an 
 out-cry lest I should look down, get dizzy and fall. One of the 
 men crept up silently behind me and rescued me from my peril. 
 I was between 5 and 6 years of age. It vv^as while living in the 
 tavern that I saw the Mexican soldiers (recruits) drilling, was 
 thrilled by the martial music and inspired by Old Glory floating to 
 the breeze. The latter did not have as many stars as now to adorn 
 its blue field but I loved it just the same. 
 
 In 1849 I started to school in the old market place while 
 the high school building was being erected. I had had my feet 
 frozen and I remember one day they itched so badly that I was 
 nearly crazy with them and the teacher had to send me home. Be- 
 fore leaving Philadelphia in 1854 I had reached what was then 
 called the "grammar" department in the high school. How I did 
 it I never knew, because the lakes of ice back next the hills in the 
 winter time and the old swimmin' hole in the river in the summer 
 time were such inducements to me to play "hookey" that I could 
 not resist the temptation to spend much time on or in them. Of 
 course I was duly spanked if caught but they didn't often catch me. 
 One of my most exciting experiences along this line was as follows: 
 
 One day about 10 o'clock in the forenoon of a hot summer 
 day the temptation to hike to the old swimming hole was too great 
 and I took down the alley back of our barn. Suddenly I spied 
 Uncle and Mr. Judy coming down the alley. I ran to the buggy 
 shed and crawled back under a buggy seat to hide. What was my 
 surprise to feel them running the buggy out and hitching up! 
 They drove up town and then down to the river. Instead of driv- 
 ing across the bridge they drove down into the river to wash the 
 buggy. The water came up into the buggy and I had to crouch up 
 tight aganist the seat to keep from getting wet, but I never 
 squealed. They then drove up to the center of town and stopped 
 v/hile ihey dir:Cussed a trip to Wooster, a day's drive away. Imagine 
 my relief when they decided to put the trip off until the next day 
 and drove back to the barn, ran the buggy in and went away leav- 
 ing me still undiscovered. I never repeated the experiment. 
 
 Though the first telegraph line, from Baltimore to Wash- 
 ington was erected in 1844, it was not until 1850 or '51 that a 
 telegraph line was erected through New Philadelphia. It was a 
 wondrous marvel to us boys and to many older ones as well. We 
 couldn't understand how the message could be conveyed over an
 
 iron wire. Some thought it had to be done by pieces of paper but 
 the impossibility of such a means soon became apparent and the 
 mystery remained. I remember of having often gone into Nich- 
 ol's drug store where the telegraph instruments were located and 
 watching the tape-receiving instrument operate. Since then the 
 telegraph wires have been extended to every state and country 
 in the world and have made possible the diffusion of news through 
 the daily papers from every part of the earth every morning for 
 breakfast. 
 
 OUR JOURNEY TO ILLINOIS OVERLAND. 
 
 October 2, 1854 closed my career in New Philadelphia, 
 Ohio, for on that date I bade adieux to the playmates and school- 
 mates of my eai-ly boyhood and with Uncle Joshua and Aunt start- 
 ed for Illinois, the then far West. We rode in an elegant tv/o 
 seated carriage with glass doors, drawn by a magnificent team. 
 Our route was via, Newark, Columbus, Springfield and Dayton, O., 
 Richmond, Indianapolis, Greencastle and Terre Haute, Ind., and 
 Paris, Charleston, Mattoon and Shelbyville to Taylorville, 111., ar- 
 riving at the latter place Oct. 22nd, having been 20 days enroute, 
 including a four days stop with Major Blake in Indianapolis and 
 a visit to Columbus, Ind., to see Brother Albert and to Flat Rock 
 near there to see Sister Allie, who were living with their uncles 
 at these places. Our trip to Columbus was over the railroad 
 running from Chicago to Cincinnati and v/as my first experience 
 on a railroad train, a primitive affair indeed compared with the 
 palace cars of the present day. The season had been a remark- 
 ably dry one through Ohio, Indiana and Illinois and the crops 
 had been so poor through Indiana that it was often difficult to 
 obtain feed for our team. Our route from Columbus, O. to 
 Terre Haute was over the National road, splendidly piked through 
 Ohio but moslty planked through Indiana. On these planked 
 roads we had frequently to pay toll. In passing from one state 
 to another Uncle Joshua had to have all his money exchanged 
 for the state bank money of the state we were entering. That 
 was when money of one state was not current in another state. 
 Quite a contrast from the present (1917) when our national 
 paper money is not only good in every state of the union, but 
 in nearly every country of the world. 
 
 Soon after leaving Shelbyville we came upon our first 
 view of a really grand prairie, reaching from near Shelbyville 
 to the Flat Branch timber just east of Taylorville. It took us 
 nearly a half a day to cross it. What was then called Tacusa, 
 but is now Assumption, was situated about half way across on 
 the Illinois Central and was then a village of a fev/ houses. The 
 Central had been graded to Tacusa but the track had not quite 
 reached there yet.
 
 TMurray, Rev, Naaman Bascom. 
 
 Song Selections: "Abide With Me," "Saved by Grace," 
 "Lead Kindly Light." 
 
 Choir: Miss Castilla Sayles, Miss Celia Chandler, Mr. C. F. 
 Easterday, Mr. Chas. L. Rummel. 
 
 Pall Bearers: William Mull, Elmer E. Mull, Al Wilson, 
 Royal Cheney, Al Hunter, Charles Hunter, all 
 nephews of the deceased. 
 
 Floral Offerings: Forty-three bouquets and pieces. 
 
 Interment: South Hill cemetery. Masonic Fraternity offi- 
 ciating. 
 
 TRIBUTE BY REV. C. D. SHUMARD. 
 
 "I have fought a good fight. I have finished the course. I 
 liave kept the faith." I do not quote these words this afternoon 
 as the basis of a sermon for I am not going to try to preach, but 
 I use them because of their true application to the life of our 
 brother in whose memory we meet at this hour. If I have ever 
 stood beside the casket of one in which I felt the assurance of 
 the propriety of using these words I feel it this afternoon. "I 
 have fought a good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept 
 the faith." And yet somehow there comes to my mind now the 
 thought that I ought to use that in the third person, singular, 
 rather than in the first person; he has fought a good fight; he has 
 finished the course; he has kept the faith; for those who have 
 known Brother Lakin during the years of his life, know his ex- 
 treme modesty and how very loath he v/ould have been to apply 
 those words to himself; how slow he would have been to say, "I 
 have fought a good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept 
 the faith." And yet, you who knew him best, who have been so 
 closely associated with him during the years of his residence 
 here, know how true and how applicable these words are to 
 him and to that life; how earnest and faithful and conscientions, 
 and true to his sense of principle he has been; how loyal he has 
 been to that which he believed to be right, and yet at all times 
 how thoughtful he was of the feelings of others. In my four 
 years, nearly, of close associatibn with him, and sometimes 
 under very trying circumstances, I never heard him use a word 
 that would have wounded the feelings of another. I have to 
 admit this afternoon that I am not always that thoughtful and 
 that careful, and sometimes when I v.'ould use language that was 
 just a little strong his quietness of reply would modify the words 
 that I had used and over and over again was I impressed not only 
 ■with the honor and his thorough application of the principles 
 which he believed yet of his thoughtfulness of the feelings of 
 others. 
 
 If ever I had a feeling in my heart that I should chide him 
 it was because of that. It v/as rather because of his intense 
 
 /
 
 tenderness, and unwillin^ess to use a word that possibly might 
 wound another, and this afternoon, that which sometimes seemed 
 to be just a little weakness stands forth as the strength of the 
 man ; as the work of the principles that controlled him. Never 
 lacking in loyalty to God; never lacking in kindness to his 
 fellowmen. This has been characteristic of him through the 
 years that I have been permitted to be associated with him. I 
 notice in the facts given to me for the obituary of his election 
 to the county as Superintendent or President of the County 
 Sunday School Association back there in 1894. It was either 
 in that year or the following one that I first met Brother Lakin 
 because it was in the conducting of that work that I was first 
 associated with him, but our acquaintance in reality began with 
 my coming as Pastor to Vandalia. I found him as Superintend- 
 ent of the Sunday School when I came here and it was with 
 intense regret that I finally recognized the necessity under his 
 pleading to permit him to retire from that position. So capable, 
 so faithful, so kind, so practical in his conduct of the school that 
 I questioned the advisability of a change and it was only when 
 he pleaded his own health needs and the duty which he owed to 
 his family to care for his health the best he could that I finally 
 consented to entertain for a moment the thought of his re- 
 tirement. Long years he gave to that service and the Sunday 
 School today in this church is built upon the sure foundations 
 layed by our brother who lies within the casket. Truly with 
 regard to this work, and with regard to all other phases of his 
 life we can say, he has fought a good fi^ght, he has been faithful 
 to the interests that have been committed to his care, he has 
 proven himself a true soldier of Jesus Christ. He has proven 
 himself an efficient worker in the Master's Kingdom, and his 
 passing from this life leaves a vacancy here that will take time 
 to heal. I did not say it would take time to fill for we know not 
 which way to turn to find another that can take his place in the 
 church work but the church will feel the hurt for many days yet 
 to come. 
 
 For fifty-five years he was an active, earnest servant of 
 his Lord. For fifty-five years he gave himself with all the in- 
 tensity of his manhood to the service of Jesus Christ. Surely 
 with almost three score years we are at perfect liberty to use 
 the words, "he has fought a good fight, he has finished the course, 
 he has kept the faith." His business life, his touch with this 
 town, this community, and this county, and the larger sphere 
 as he came in touch with it, as an editor of a paper, has left its 
 impress upon that larger field, and while sometimes it may be he 
 did not see as you did, sometimes it may be that you did not see 
 as he did, yet I believe I am safe in saying that always and at all 
 times our brother has stood true to what he believed to be right.
 
 across the trackless prairie toward his goal. Ever and anon along 
 the branches, (creeks), dry, only in time of freshets, snatches 
 of willows and few stunted elms might be found. With these 
 exceptions the prairies were treeless. 
 
 The prairie sod was broken for tillage with a ten foot 
 beam twenty-four inch plow, with cvitter, and drawn by four or 
 five yoke of oxen. To the front of the plow beam were at- 
 tached two wheels, one running in the furrow. The plow beams 
 were lowered or raised by a long lever reaching from the front 
 gear to the plow in the rear. With such an outfit one man 
 could "break" from two to four acres a day, owing to the length 
 of the furrow, sometimes a half a mile. 
 
 I FALL IN LOVE AT ELEVEN. 
 
 We had no school or meeting place till 1857-8 when the 
 Buckeye school house was built, but we youngsters would gener- 
 ally arrange to get together at one of the homes on Sunday 
 
 afternoons in good weather and have a good time. It was on 
 one of these occasions that we met at McCunes in the spring of 
 1855. Between their home and ours a branch (creek) ran which 
 at that time had quite a number of pools of water in it. McCunes 
 had a lot of ducks. A little nine-year-old, black haired, black- 
 eyed lass, with rosy cheeks and a ringing, cheery laugh that was 
 an inspiration, and I conceived the idea of driving those ducks 
 back and forth through the water, she from one side and I the 
 other. She was my affinity. It was a case of love at first sight 
 and it never waned and eventuated in our marriage in later 
 years. It is said that true love never runs smoothly and by that 
 sign I know that our love must have been true. She had a num- 
 ber of other lovers and they frequently crossed our path but 
 each reconciliation oniy served to strengthen our love for each 
 other. 
 
 Rebecca Hunter was born May 26, 184G on Sugar Creek 
 just acoss and up the river three miles from New Philadelphia. 
 Her parents were William and Susan Hunter. In 1853 Mr. Hunt- 
 er and several others from that community came overland in cov- 
 ered wagons to Illinois. There were ten wagons and a jolly crowd. 
 When they arrived at Terre Haute the Wabash river was on a ram- 
 page and they had to wait two or three days before they covild 
 ford it. Finally father Hunter determined to make the effort. He 
 blocked his wagon bed up between the standards as high as he 
 could, placed his smaller children in the wagon, closed the cover 
 as tight as possible and plunged into the raging torrent with his 
 four-horse team, he astride of the near wheel horse. Although 
 the team had to swim part of the time they got across safely. The 
 others then followed. They arrived here the latter part of Oc-
 
 tober 1853 and settled in what was known as the Frailey neigh- 
 borhood until Mr. Hunter could build the house on Buckeye Prairie 
 before mentioned. From that time on the Hunters were intimately 
 and prominently connected with the settlement and history of 
 Buckeye Prairie. 
 
 THE FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE ON BUCKEYE PRAIRIE. 
 
 As stated the Buckeye school house was not built until 
 the latter part of 1865. Stephen Balliet and John Baltzy were the 
 contractors and builders. While other school houses, mostly log, 
 built around the skirts of the timber had slabs for seats and a 
 plank against the wall for a writing desk the Buckeye school house 
 was fitted with nice desks and seats, home-made of course. Oh, but 
 we Buckeyes were proud of our new school house. In the mean- 
 time a number of other Ohio families had come into the neighbor- 
 hood, some of them with good sized families and the first school 
 was largely attended. Henry L. Mull, a former teacher in Ohio, 
 had come here the year before and was employed to teach, and 
 remained the teacher for several successive terms. He was an 
 excellent teacher for the time but many of his methods would not 
 pass muster today. But we urchins having been deprived of school 
 so long, felt the need of an education most keenly and bent our 
 every energy toward acquiring it. Some of the boys, notably the 
 Larges and the Overholtz became prominent, some eminent in the 
 business and social circles of the county and state. 
 
 The Buckeye School house was the neucleus up till after the 
 Civil War for all kinds of public gatherings, chief and most in- 
 teresting and helpful of which was the debating society. In this 
 society which held its meetings in the winter time old men and 
 young took an active part and many important questions were dis- 
 cussed and forever settled. People came from miles around to 
 hear these debates and listen to the official organ of the society, 
 The Clarion, which often bawled people out as badly as the 
 modern yellow journals. 
 
 It was here where the first preaching services were held by 
 the Methodist people and great revivals resulted in the conversion 
 of many young men and women. It was during a revival in the 
 Buckeye school house in 1860 that Rebecca Hunter and many oth- 
 ers including the v/riter, were converted. Rev. D. P. Lyons was 
 the preacher in charge. A Sunday School was instituted at once 
 and continued a force in that community until the Buckeye Meth- 
 odist church was built in 1867, when the Sunday School as well 
 as the church services was removed there.
 
 THE SETTLEMENT EXPANDS. 
 
 The little Buckeye settlement was not left long alone in 
 its glory. It soon began to grow. Those who moved into the com- 
 munity were nearly all Ohioans and a warm fraternal feeling ex- 
 isted. Everybody was a neighbor of everybody else, no matter 
 how many miles intervened. The first settlement, other than the 
 Buckeye colony already mentioned, was made at what was called 
 "The Mound" four miles west of the Buckeye school house and 
 bordering on the South Fork timber. The "Mound" school in the 
 early sixties was a competitor for educational and social honors of 
 the Buckeye school, but it could never reach the high place in the 
 esteem of the people that the latter enjoyed. Soon the section in- 
 tervening began to settle up but it remained for Uncle Joshua Pep- 
 per to pilot the way still further out into the bleak prairie, hav- 
 ing purchased a tract of land two and a half miles southeast of 
 the Buckeye school house on which he built the first brick house 
 ever built on Buckeye Prairie or in Rosemond township. In fact, 
 the first in the county outside of Taylorville. In 1855 B. C. Coch- 
 ran built himself a log house on his farm and mvoed into it, leav- 
 ing us in possession of the Overholtz house. The following winter 
 Henry Mull and I went to the timber five miles north, every day 
 that wias fit, to cut cord wood with which to burn a kiln of brick 
 for uncle who was a practical brick layer. The latter part of the 
 winter 1855-'56 was quite cold and deep snows covered the ground. 
 It fell to my lot, now 13 years old, to haul the cord wood home on 
 a sled drawn by a yoke of oxen. That I often came near freezing 
 seemed to make little difference. 
 
 The following summer, 1856, we prepared a brick yard for 
 the drying of brick, about half way between where we lived and 
 the MeCune home. We had an old fashioned mud mill propelled by 
 a horse attached to a long lever. Uncle moulded the brick and 
 I off-bore them in the moulds to dry on the yard. In the fall we 
 burned the brick and on opening the kiln found that about two- 
 thirds of the brick were good and fit to use. The clay was not 
 good brick clay. 
 
 It was with these brick that Uncle built his home, in what 
 afterwards became Rosemond township, in the fall of 1856. In 
 1871 he built a two-story brick addition to the original house. The 
 brick for this addition were hauled from Pana. 
 
 March 2nd, 1857, we moved from the Overholtz house near 
 the Buckeye school hovxse to the little brick. The day was mod- 
 erately nice but that night there came up a big snow storm, fol- 
 lowed by a sleet which froze on top of the snow and at night would 
 produce a cracking sound almost like gun shots. This snow lay on 
 for one or two weeks and made getting around almost impossible. 
 Fortunately we had laid in a supply of dry wood and logs and on 
 these I had splendid exercise with an axe and saw. The house was
 
 unplastered and only loose boards formed a ceiling. It kept us 
 busy keeping warm. 
 
 We had no neighbors within two miles and a half, until 
 Jerry Murray built his house, the first two-story frame erected on 
 the prairie. He had a large family of boys and girls some of 
 them nearly grown. These with the Larges, the Eberts, the Grin- 
 lins, the Rosenberrys, the Simpsons added greatly to the social 
 side of Buckeye life. Before leaving the period between 1855 and 
 1857 there are several things of interest that might be mentioned. 
 
 Game was quite plentiful, particularly deer, prairie chick- 
 ens, sandhill cranes, wild geese and ducks. Bill and Joe Durbin 
 and Jim Painter of the Locust creek settlement and Tom Voss of 
 the Mound were the great deer hunters, but the deer became ex- 
 tinct three or four years later as the settlements grew. Sandhill 
 cranes, of which there were large numbers, were wild and inter- 
 esting fowls. They were of a grayish white, large body and long 
 neck. Their heads, when standing up, were four or five feet from 
 the ground. Of a cold, frosty morning they could be seen dancing 
 around the corn shocks or in the wheatfield; but they v/ere always 
 alert and difficult to shoot. They became extinct about forty years 
 ago. Where their hatching resorts v/ere was never learned. Prairie 
 chickens were numerous but they, too, are almost extinct. 
 
 In the fall of 1856 Uncle Joshua had a very narrow escape 
 from death. While breaking some prairie sod up near our new 
 home for a garden spot, he holding the plow and I driving the ox 
 team, he imagined there was something wrong v/ith the off ox's 
 bough and stepped between them to adjust it. This scared the 
 oxen and they started to run. The ox chain wrappped around his 
 ankle and he fell backward alongside the plow. The oxen ran about 
 a quarter of a mile dragging Uncle and the plow, with me after 
 them as fast as I could run. I thought he would be dead and I had 
 the fright of my life. I got the oxen stopped finally and found 
 Uncle pretty badly bruised but much alive. I got him rolled onto 
 a sled and hauled him that two miles over the rough prairie. lie 
 recovered fully in about two weeks. 
 
 THE FIRST MASSILLON SEPARATOR. 
 
 It was in 1856 that Wm .Hunter and sons brought the first 
 Massilion separator to Buckeye Prairie, in fact the first to Chris- 
 tian county. It v/as driven by horse pov>'er. They did threshing 
 all over Buckeye Prairie, over the South Fork, Locust and Flat 
 Branch neighborhoods and going nearly to Springfield. Thej' 
 had a monoply of the business for several years. The first thresher 
 force was composed of Mr. Hunter, John Hunter, Phillip Baker 
 and Joe Crothers. Mr. Hunter died in 1858 and Mrs. Hunter in 
 1859. After that Thornton Hunter, who had come from Ohio in
 
 1856, went with the machine and Jacob Hunter went as driver of 
 the horse power. 
 
 My first introduction to Thornton Hunter was in the spring 
 of 1856 and was not a very dignified affair. I was raking corn 
 stalks with an ox team and only had a plank on the running gears 
 of the wagon on which to stand and operate the big twelve foot 
 stalk rake with a lever. A dog scared the oxen and they ran, 
 throwing me down in front of the rake. John and Thornton 
 Hunter and Abe Halterman happened to be passing and came 
 to my rescue. I was unhurt but badly scared. 
 
 BROTHER AL ACCUSED OF PASSING COUNTERFEIT. 
 
 Another little incident might be mentioned. My brother 
 Albert had come from Columbus, Ind. to visit us in the summer 
 of 1855. The latter part of August he wanted to go to Rockford, 
 111., where Uncle Josephus, with whom he lived, had moved during 
 his visit to us. It fell to my lot to take him horseback to Pana, 
 a place we had never been and which was a small hamlet on the 
 Illinois Central. We took a bee line for what we supposed was the 
 location of Pana. Our route was through the trackless prairie, 
 with no object in front to guide us, but we found Pana. The 
 ticket office was in the old freight house near where Penwell's 
 coal mine is. Albert bade me good bye and went to get his 
 ticket and I started back home, leading the horse he had ridden. 
 I had scarcely arrived home and gotten down to a late dinner 
 when in walked Albert, carrying his valise and soaked with 
 perspiration from head to foot. O. H. Paddock was the I. C. 
 ticket agent and drunk as a loon. (He afterwards reformed and 
 became a strong temperance worker and Sunday school man.) 
 V/hen Albert handed Paddock a ten dollar bill (state money) Pad- 
 dock pronounced it a counterfeit and started as though he was 
 going to get an officer to arrest him. Albert took time by the fore- 
 lock, skipped out over the prairie afoot and very nearly beat me 
 home. Plis visit v/as protracted somewhat longer, much to my 
 delight. 
 
 The farmers had no means of transporting their stock 
 and produce to St. Louis, the nearest market, except to drive 
 their stock and haul their grain. After driving their hogs to St. 
 Louis they would only get about 2% cents a pound for them. 
 Wheat was worth 50 to 60 cents and corn and potatoes could 
 hardly be sold for 10 cents a bushel. This condition was during 
 the "Wildcat Currency" period (state banks) and lasted up to the 
 civil war, when state bank currency was superseded by the 
 ■"greenbacks," "shin plasters" and all.
 
 A DOUBLE WEDDING IN 1856. 
 
 In the spring of 1856 Henry Mull married Mary Hunter 
 and John W. Hunter married Martha Vermillion. It was a double 
 wedding at the Hunter home. Mull built a little home in 
 1858 just a mile north and three quarters east of where we now 
 lived (in the brick). In 1859, after Mother Hunter's death, Re- 
 becca Hunter went to live v/ith Mull's. I mention this fact now 
 to show how fate shaped our destines. 
 
 The improvement of our new farm and trying to raise and 
 hai-\'est crops to keep things going kept us busy and I learned 
 what hard work meant. While living in the Overholt house near 
 the Buckeye school house I was enabled to attend school one full 
 term. When we moved to the brick it became different. Our 
 corn had to be gathered before I could start to school and that 
 generally took us till New Years. I then would have only two 
 months as business on the farm began generally about March 
 first. But I made most of my time and thought little of my two 
 and a half mile walk through storm and sunshine over the bleak 
 prairie to get a common school education. There was often a 
 "silver lining" to the cloud, however. Rebecca (I now called her 
 Bettie) Hunter was spared part of the time from the hard work 
 of the Mull home to attend school at Buckeye and on such occasions 
 we would generally walk to and from school together. She was 
 then a buxom, mischevious, beautiful girl, merging into her teens. 
 My last term of school at Buckeye was in the winter of 1860-61. 
 That fall I started to college at Normal where I attended two 
 years. During the winter of 1862-3 I contracted catarrahal fe-ver 
 and lay sick in our boarding house room with no one to look after 
 me except my roommate, Bacon, a senior, when he was home from 
 school. I was too poor to hire a nurse or attendant. This sickness 
 and my subsequent effort to bring up my grades so broke my 
 health that when the spring term closed I went home a mere 
 skeleton, and never returnd to Normal. 
 
 UNITED IN MARRIAGE. 
 
 August 1863 the wedding of myself and Rebecca Hunter 
 took place at the home of Henry L. Mull at nine o'clock on a 
 beautiful Sunday morning. Rev. D. P. Lyon was the officiating 
 minister. The wedding was a quite one, only the immediate 
 friends being present. It was at 9 o'clock in the morning so that 
 we could attend church services at Buckeye — the observed of 
 all observers. Rev. Lyon let us ride in his top buggy, the only one 
 at hand. So we went "in state" for it was our only honeymoon 
 trip. The minister rode with Mulls to "church" in the big wagon 
 and returned with them to the wedding dinner which Mary and 
 her assistants had prepared for us.
 
 From 1855 up to 1864 or 5 there were no carriages in the 
 community and of course, automobiles were undreamed of. Peo- 
 ple either rode to church or town in big wagons with board seats, 
 some drawn by oxen, rode horse back or walked. It was no un- 
 common thing to see us young fellows with our best girls rid- 
 ing behind us horseback, especially to parties or dances. It v/as 
 about this time, 1857 to '60 that street cars, propelled by horses 
 or mules, were first run in the cities. These were in time replaced 
 by the cable cars and these later by the splendid electric system in 
 vogue today, 1917. 
 
 MY FIRST SCHOOL. 
 
 Beginning with our marriage, life became very real to my 
 young wife and me in our struggle to build a home. That fall 
 we began life in a little two room brick house v/hich I had built 
 on an eighty acres of land adjoining Uncle Joshua's that I had 
 purchased of the Illinois Central Railroad Company for $12 an 
 acre. In Septmeber I began teaching my first term of school at 
 "Locust," one fourth of a mile north of where Owaneco now 
 stands. It was in an old log school house, almost chinkless, heat- 
 ed by a stove long enough to take in a piece of cord wood. There 
 was no blackboard and the seating was a very primitive sort. How- 
 ever, we had a large school and closed it the following spring with 
 what was said to be one of the best exhibitions ever held in that 
 section of the country, and they were quite common then. Dur- 
 ing September, October and part of November I walked that five 
 miles to school and back but, the weather becoming rugged and 
 bad, my little wife v/ent to Mull's to stay and I boarded with Dry- 
 den Vermillion's near the school house, always going to Mull's 
 Friday night and staying till Monday morning. Christmas day was 
 warm and beautiful but the day before New Years a blizzard set 
 in and a foot of snow fell and drifted the snow in many places 
 several feet high. New Years day was the coldest I have ever 
 known since coming to Illinois. The mercury went down to 32 be- 
 low zero. That night turkeys and young chickens and young stock 
 froze to death. It was on Friday and we were to have a treat that 
 day. That brought about all the scholars to school, but we could 
 do little but stand around the stove and almost freeze. Few reci- 
 tations were heard. That evening I started to walk to Mull's, 
 much against the advice of friends who said I could never wade 
 the drifts and would freeze to death. After two hours of v/ading 
 snow, climbing or plunging through snow drifts, puffing and blow- 
 ing, I reached Mvill's, much to their surprise and joy. The very 
 exercise saved me. That night, January 1st, 18G4, was so cold in 
 the South that our soldiers nearly froze. 
 
 Before my school was out our first baby girl. Lulu, was 
 born at the Mull home. Other children followed in due time, as
 
 follows: Minnie in Spring of 1866, at the old Hunter home where 
 we were living after our return from Princeton; Ara, Jan. 1868, 
 in the old Foley house in Rosemond where I was clerking in the 
 Copeland store; Willie in November 1869, in our new home on 
 the school section in Rosemond township; Ira in the white house 
 near Uncle Joshua's in 1875 and Jessie in August 1876 at the 
 same place. 
 
 THE OLD SHERMAN SCHOOL. 
 
 In 1864 the Sherman school district in which I lived was 
 organized and the building of an up-to-date school house was be- 
 gun but v/as not finished till late the follov/ing winter. In the 
 meantime I was employed to teach the first term in that district. 
 I taught the school in the front room of our own little brick house. 
 I had about thirty scholars. How we housed them I never can tell. 
 Wife and I would take the furniture out in the morning and fix 
 temporary benches for the scholars. The bed formed a receptacle 
 for their wi'aps. It was quite a successful school in spite of this 
 handicap. Among those who attended this school were Nettie 
 and Will Mull, Dow Mull, Billy, Cal and Laura Hunter, Fred and 
 Charlie Ebert, Albert Young and others. 
 
 A MERCHANDISING VENTURE. 
 
 February 1865, I sold my farm for $35 an acre and de- 
 cided to move to Chicago where I shipped our goods but finding 
 the city too big for me and myself too much of a greenhorn or 
 "country jake" to combat the wiles of the city I decided, after a 
 two weeks stay in the city, to go to Princeton, Bureau County, 111., 
 where my wife had stopped off on a visit to her uncles and cousins, 
 the Rosses, on North Prairie, ten miles north of Princeton. Through 
 the influence of Uncle Jimmie Ross, who was a wealthy patron of 
 the store, I secured a position in Chris Stoner's store, situated near 
 the depot and the largest dry goods store in Princeton. There 
 were nine clerks, all Germans but Bob Oakford and I. I learned 
 the trade rapidly and v/as offered quite an advance when I quit 
 the store in the fall to join my brother, who had been discharged 
 from the army after three years service, and had come to Prince- 
 ton with George Knox to purchase another dry goods store of 
 Dr. Mercer, who wanted to quit. The new firm was Knox & Lakin 
 and although we soon built up a big trade it was on the heels of 
 the war and all kinds of goods declined in prices so rapidly that it 
 proved a losing venture. In the spring of 1866 I sold my interest 
 in the store to Knox and my brother, they assuming all liabilities, 
 and wife and I moved back to Buckeye to begin life over again. 
 
 That summer I farmed the old Hunter place and the fol- 
 lowing winter I taught school at Buckeye. In the Spring of 1867,
 
 we moved to Rosemond where I clerked in Copeland's store. Dur- 
 ing the winter of 1867-8 I bought eighty acres of raw land on 
 school section 16 in Rosemond township and built a comfortable 
 story and a half frame house into which we moved in the Spring 
 of 1868 when my year was up with Copeland. I broke the entire 
 eighty myself and was doing quite well in the crop line when in 
 the Spring of 1870 Uncle Joshua persuaded me to sell the farm 
 and move down on to his land so as to be near them in their old 
 age. 
 
 A LONG TEACHING RECORD. 
 
 In 1868 the Grant school district was organized, a school 
 house was built and I was employed to teach the first term. In 
 1869-70, because of a rupture with county superintendent Gorrell, 
 I refused to teach the second term at Grant and Dias Butts was 
 employed, he boarding at our house. Billy Hunter also stayed 
 with us that winter and went to school to Dias. It was a pleasant 
 winter for us all. I taught the next two terms, 1870-'71 and 
 1871-'72 at Grant, riding from our home on Uncle's place. 
 
 In the spring of 1870 we moved in with Uncle Joshua's and 
 took care of his place while he and aunt visited in Ohio and while 
 our new house was being built. In the fall we moved into our 
 new hom.e and were happy again. 
 
 My subsequent teaching record is as follows: Sherman 
 1872-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-80, Durbin 1880-1-2-3, Buckeye 1883-4-5-6, 
 Sherman 1886-7-8-9-90, Pike 1891-92-93. March 29, 1893 closed 
 our career on Buckeye Prairie when we moved to Vandalia. 
 
 SOME OBSERVATIONS IN PASSING. 
 
 In these memoirs I have not attempted to follow a strict 
 chronology, but have followed each line of thought to an approx- 
 imate finality. A few observations relative to the period up to 
 our leaving the farm may not be out of order. Farm life in those 
 days was a pretty strenuous life, devoid of the many advantages 
 enjoyed by the rural population today. True the mower had sup- 
 erseded the scythe ; the reaper, binder and header had taken the 
 place of the cradle and sickle ; the hay rake and hay stacker had 
 made the hay harvest easier and speedier than the old hand-rake 
 and pitchfork, but we had no telephones for rapid transmission of 
 news or gossip and if a doctor was needed in a hurry a messenger 
 had to be sent for him, often having to ride miles; no rural mail 
 delivery furnished our mail daily and often a postoffiee was miles 
 away and daily papers because of the delay in getting mail were 
 practically out of the question; no pianos, graphphones or vic- 
 trolas, the last two unthought of as yet, graced the homes to fur- 
 nish music from the masters and enliven the long winter even-
 
 ings, the violin and guitar supplying the need and occasionaly an 
 organ could be found in the better homes and such a thing as an 
 automobile was deemed an impossibility if thought of at all. Yet 
 despite these handicaps we farmers were happy and moderately 
 prosperous. 
 
 October 26, 1886, a deep sorrow came to our families in 
 the death of Leroy Hunter who was killed at a Republican Rally 
 in Taylorville by a drunken wretch named Donner. I happened 
 to have been drawn on the grandjury that indicted Donner. He 
 was tried, found guilty and sentenced to fourteen years in the 
 penitentiary. 
 
 In August 1887 Aunt Katie Pepper, who had been stricken 
 with paralysis in November previous, died, aged 87 years and 
 Uncle Joshua came to live with us. 
 
 In August 1856 my father, v/ho lived in Portland, Ore., and 
 whom I had not seen since 1851, came to visit us and stayed a 
 month. An unusual coincidence may be mentioned in this con- 
 nection. In 1865 while visiting him in Normal my grandfather, 
 Thomas Lakin, nursed our first born, his great granddaughter, 
 Lulu. In 1886 father nursed Lulu's first born, his great grand- 
 daughter, Leela, and in 1P06 I nursed Leela's first born, my great 
 granddaughter, Eleanor, thus completing the line. 
 
 A VISIT WITH ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 In October 1860, Uncle Joshua and I and a neigPibor named 
 Gerrarhity, an Irishman, of course, made a trip in a wagon over- 
 land to Jacksonville to attend the state fair which was held there. 
 On our return trip we stopped in Springfield to call on Abraham 
 Lincoln, Republican candidate for President. We found him alone 
 in his office and he treated us very cordially. The other two were 
 Democrats but I was leaning toward Republicanism. Mr. Lincoln 
 expressed himself as quite confidant of his election in November 
 following. Before we left Mr. Lincoln placed his hand on my 
 head with his blessing and said he hoped that I would grow up to 
 be an honorable and manly man. I have tried to justify his hope. 
 I was only 18 past and could not vote for Mr. Lincoln then but in 
 1864 I voted for him good and hard and have never since departed 
 from the principles which he advocated. The rag baby craze, the 
 "free silver" movement, or the Populistic propaganda never had 
 any influence over me. 
 
 In 1867 the B. & O. railroad, then called the "Springfield 
 & Southeastern," running from Springfield to Shav/neetown 
 through Taylorville and Pana, was completed and Owaneco and 
 Millersville were founded. This made much closer and more 
 convenient markets for the Buckeye farmers' produce and closer 
 postofiices for their mail.
 
 WE MOVE TO VANDALIA. 
 
 March 29th, 1893, after thirty-eight years of farm life, we 
 moved to Vandalia and from that time to the present, January 
 1917, my life has been a very contented and happy one, as well 
 as a moderately prosperous one. I had previously purchased The 
 Vandalia Union and Ira D., then a lad of eighteen summers, as- 
 sumed the control of the paper March 10, till I, with the rest 
 of the family, could arrive. None of us knew anything about 
 running a newspaper, but fortunately we had a good editor and 
 foreman in Angus Wahl, for four months and Ira learned the 
 printer's art rapidly. The next year Jesse L. became a partner 
 in the firm of Lakin & Sons and to those two noble boys and to 
 Norman Jones, who is now a member of the firm is due largely 
 the wonderful success of the paper. 
 
 In 1895 I built our delightful home in which we still hap- 
 pily and comfortably live. 
 
 In 1907 I received the appointment of United States Bank 
 receiver from Comptroller Ridgely, through the efforts of Shelby 
 M. Cullom, Congressman Dickson, J. J. Brown and L. L. Emer- 
 son, as a sort of postoffice contest compromise and in March 1908 
 had orders to leave at once for Bisbee, Ariz., to take charge of the 
 First National Bank which had failed. Here my wife and I spent 
 two pleasant years. Within three months of my arrival there I 
 was elected superintendent of the Methodist Sunday School and 
 within six months was elected one of the trustees of the Y.M.C.A. 
 both of which positions I held until my departure for home in 
 February 1910, having closed the receivership. 
 
 DEATH INVADES THE HOME. 
 
 April 3, 1909 occurred the death of our beloved son-in-law, 
 Isaac G. Law at their home in Milton, Kan. He was brought here 
 for burial and lies in the Lakin-Law lot in South Hill cemetery, 
 the first of our immediate family to be laid away, except our lit- 
 tle granddaughter, Mabel Robinson, who died in the winter of 
 1894-5. After his death Minnie, his widow, and daughter Mar- 
 cella, as soon as arrangements could be made, came to live with 
 us and have ever since remained in the home to bless it with their 
 congenial presence. Jun 29, 1913, the grim monster removed our 
 beloved oldest son, V^'^ill G., after an operation in Peoria for can- 
 cer of the stomach. This broke for the first time our own family 
 circle of beloved children and was a sore bereavement. 
 
 Upon our arrival in Vandalia we immediately placed our 
 church letters with the First M. E. church and became active 
 members of the Sunday School in which I was soon made a teach- 
 er of the young men's class. In that class among others were Jolin
 
 W. Schenker, Gus Walter, John Bolin and J. R. Myers. In the 
 spring of 1896 I was elected Assistant Superintendent of the Sun- 
 day School and served seven years in that capacity with John J. 
 Brown as Superintendent. At the April board meeting in 1903 
 I was elected Superintendent of the Sunday School, in which ca- 
 pacity I served five years or until my departure for Bisbee. In 
 1913 I was again elected superintendent and served two years, re- 
 tiring because of increasing age. 
 
 In the fall of 1893, though just a new comer, I was elected 
 county president of the Sunday School Association and served 
 three years. Among those who accompanied me most frequently, 
 besides my wife, to the different township conventions were the 
 late lamented W. M. Fogler and his talented wife. 
 
 On St. Patrick's day 1898, the old First Methodist church 
 was destroyed by fire. This entailed the building of the present 
 church edifice on the site of the old church. During this priod I 
 was a member of the board of Trustees and its financial secretary. 
 No money could be paid out for the construction of the church, 
 which cost $26,000, without my signature. During the building 
 of the church which was completed in 1900 the church services 
 and Sunday School were held in the Armory Hall. 
 
 August 9, 1913, was our golden wedding anniversary, but 
 owing to the recent death of our beloved son. Will, v/e could not 
 celebrate it as we would have liked with all our children in the 
 home, but our children, ever thoughtful of our pleasure as well 
 as our needs, supplied us with a purse of gold and sent us on an 
 extended visit with our daughter Lulu in Indianapolis, with my 
 nephew, Phil Palmer, in Kokomo, Ind., and with our granddaugh- 
 ter Leela and little granddaughter Eleanor in Chicago which we 
 greatly enjoyed and shall never forget. 
 
 MASONIC AFFILIATION. 
 
 Thus far I have not mentioned my Masonic relations. I 
 was made a Master Mason in Pana Lodge No. 226 in 1867. I 
 became a charter member of Locust Lodge, No. 673 in 1874 and 
 filled all the chairs and was finally elected Worshipful Master 
 and served in that capacity for four years, rarely ever missing a 
 meeting though I had to go five miles. 
 
 In 1870 I was made a Royal Arch Mason in Pana chapter. 
 Coming to Vandalia I immediately affiliated with Temperance 
 Lodge and Vandalia chapter. I filled all the chairs in the lodge 
 but W. M. which I refused to accept, also nearly all the chairs in 
 the chapter and also served two years as High Priest. 
 
 Melrose Chapter O.E.S. v/as organized the night v/e ar- 
 rived here by a Pana team but wife and I did not join till in the 
 fall. I served one term as Worthy Patron.
 
 OUR SERIOUS ILLNESS. 
 
 Soon after our return from Bisbee in 1910 my wife took 
 seriously ill and lay for six weeks in a precarious condition, but 
 by careful nursing by the nurse Miss Henninger and medical 
 treatment by Dr. Moray she ultimately pulled through. Again in 
 February 1916, she and I were taken with the grip and she suf- 
 fered from tonsilitis. She just began to recover from this when 
 she took the smallpox, contracted while caring for the poor Smith 
 family. The attack was a mild one but it kept her, Minnie and 
 I in quarantine for six weeks. In August following my wife was 
 again taken seriously ill and came near dying but is about herself 
 again, January 1917. My spell of grip in February resulted in 
 an attack of diabetes and in less than six months I lost over forty 
 pounds in flesh from the disease and starvation diet. September 
 13, the day of the primary, I was taken down with an aggravated 
 case of bowel trouble and wife and I both lay seriously ill at the 
 same time. It was then that our dear children here showed their 
 love for and devotion to us by their kind and merciful ministra- 
 tions. We needed no other nurses. I am still suffering from the 
 diabetes and a growth in my side or bowels which may need a 
 surgical operation. What the end may be I cannot tell, but I am 
 trying to be very patient and ready for whatever may occur. 
 
 THE MARRIAGES OF OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 It may not be amiss in closing these memoirs to mention 
 the marriages of our children. 
 
 Lulu, our first born, was married to J. M .Robinson, April 
 17, 1884, while we still lived on the farm. They went immed- 
 iately to Janesville, 111., where he and Dr. Wilson were running 
 a drug store. Robinson also taught school there and later on 
 Buckeye. In October 1889 he went on the Pennsylvania Railroad 
 as a mail clerk. He moved to Vandalia that fall and later to 
 Indianapolis where they now reside. 
 
 Will G., our oldest son, was the next to jump into double 
 harness. He was married October 19, 1892 to Ida May Patter- 
 son, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Patterson. The wedding 
 took place at the home of her brother-in-law, William Hunter, on 
 Buckeye Prairie. They continued to live on the farm for several 
 years, spent a year in Canton, Kan., and then came to Vandalia 
 to live. He was mailing clerk in the postcffice when he died June 
 29, 1913. 
 
 Minnie C. was married to Isaac G. Law of McPherson, Kan., 
 January 14, 1897. The wedding was celebrated in the home here 
 and they immediately departed for McPherson where Mr. Law was 
 county superintendent of schools for twelve years. His health 
 breaking down, they moved to their farm in Sumner county. Later
 
 they moved to Milton, Kan., where he became postmaster which 
 position he held at the time of his death. 
 
 Ira D. was married to Nellie Doyle, daughter of Mr. and 
 Mrs. H. C. Doyle, September 10, 1899. Little Lakin Robinson and 
 Hazel Doyle were their waiters. The same evening they depart- 
 ed for McPherson, Kan., on their honeymoon trip. They located 
 in Vandalia where they have a beautiful home. He has been as- 
 sociated vidth the Vandalia Union m.ore or less ever since its pur- 
 chase, March 10, 1893 and is now, upon my retirement, editor in 
 chief and general manager. 
 
 Jesse L. was married to Laurene Wahl, daughter of Mr. 
 and Mrs. Edward Wahl, May 14, 1902. They too, took their honey- 
 moon with his sister, Mrs. I. G. Law, in McPherson, Kan. He has 
 also been associated with the Vandalia Union since 1894 and is 
 now manager of the business and mechanical department of the 
 paper and is superintendent of the Presbyterian Sunday School. 
 
 It remained for our baby girl, Ara Jeanette, to be the last 
 to launch on the matrimonial sea. On March 3, 1907, she was 
 united in marriage with Adolph Frederick Prahm, They departed 
 at once for St. Louis where he was emlpoyed in the Hanlon Mfg. 
 plant. They are now living happily in their little home 6130 Su- 
 burban Ave., and near which he is employed in the Wagner Elec- 
 tric plant. 
 
 Our children were all happily married and there are no 
 "in-laws" in our family. Those coming into our family by mar- 
 riage have so endeared themselves to us that they seem like our 
 very own. 
 
 For over fifty-three years wife and I have struggled along 
 together always happy in each other's love and always hopeful 
 for the best. Beginning life with comparatively nothing we have 
 cheerfully braved the hardships encountered and which come to 
 most people. We were blessed with a lovely family of children 
 and our ambition always was to give them the best we could under 
 the circumstances. 
 
 We have been amply rewarded in the warm love and de- 
 votion accorded us by them in our old age. Our lives have been 
 crowned with joy and happiness. 
 
 T. N. LAKIN. 
 
 Vandalia, 111., Jan. 18, 1917. 
 
 The End.
 
 jMcmori^L 
 
 Thos. N. Lakin died at his home on North First street in 
 Vandalia, Illinois, Monday evening, March 19th, 1917, at five 
 o'clock. In the issue of The Union of March 22nd there appeared 
 a brief summary of his life and the account of his death, written 
 by his son, Ira D. Lakin, from w^hich the following excerpts are 
 taken : 
 
 "The sword of the Almighty at one stroke has severed the 
 three-fold tie which bound father and sons, business associates, 
 and intimate friends and companions. We have lost all in one. 
 
 Only the consciousness that hundreds of sincere friends are 
 grieving with us, and would willingly share our burden, strength- 
 ens us at this hour. The written word is a weak vehicle for the 
 emotions that sweep over the soul and flood it in a sea of inex- 
 pressable grief. 
 
 In the death of our father, which occurred at his home in 
 this city Monday evening at twenty minutes past five, this com- 
 munity has lost a valuable citizen, the wife and family a devoted 
 and loving husband and father. 
 
 His whole life has been given, freely and gladly, to the 
 service of his fellow-men and to his family. We cannot under- 
 stand why his last illness, which extended over a period of six 
 months, had to be attended with such extreme suffering, but we 
 remember that his Christ suffered, and our father bore his suffei"- 
 ing with groat Christian fortitude and died a glorious death, sur- 
 rounded, as he would have it, by his loved ones, all. 
 
 No finer tribute could be paid to a man than was that paid 
 our father upon the occasion of his funeral, which occurred at the 
 First Methodist church Wednesday afternoon, when the people of 
 this town and community so generously closed their places of 
 business and assembled in such large numbers to pay their last 
 respects to his memory. 
 
 The wonderfully beautiful flowers offered in such profusion 
 symbolized the love and affection of his hosts of friends. The 
 tender, sympathetic words of the ministers. Rev. C. D. Shumard, 
 Rev. N. Bascom and Rev. S. B. Murray, were the portrayal of 
 his pure life and character. The attendance of the Masonic fra- 
 ternity, and their impressive burial service were the highest mark 
 of respect that could be paid to the departed. 
 
 No words of our, either written or spoken, will be adequate 
 to express the deep appreciation of the family for this great out- 
 pouring of sympathy and friendship on the part of this beloved 
 people. Perhaps in the years to come our effort to, in some little 
 
 degree, emulate his example, will give expression of this gratitude, 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Their home on Buckeye Prairie was the center oi the so-
 
 cial life of the community. It was there the young people gath- 
 ered on many a joyous occasion. As his children grew, he grew 
 with them. He shared their sorrows and their joys. Throughout 
 his life he had the rare faculty of winning and holding the friend- 
 ship and love of children and of finding pleasure in their pleasures. 
 It was this faculty that kept his heart ever young. 
 
 His home life and his devotion to wife and children was 
 beautiful beyond words to describe. Rarely, even in their younger 
 days did he find it necessary to rule by harsh word or method. Love 
 was the guiding instinct of his life. 
 
 In March 1893 he came to Vandalia and took possession 
 of the Vandalia Union, having leased the paper from J. F. Sayles, 
 with the privilege of buying it at the end of the year. The paper 
 was pui'chased and for 24 years father and two sons, Ira and 
 Jesse, have continued the business, having associated with them 
 Norman F. Jones, who they trained up in the business. 
 
 His life and activities here are as an open book. Interested 
 always in every public enterprise that was for the good of the 
 community, he has been a valuable factor in molding the religious 
 and moral life for nearly a quarter of a century. 
 
 He served his Church in an official capacity continuously 
 and was superintendent of the Sunday School for several years. 
 He was president of the County Sunday School Association for 
 three years. 
 
 On March 23, 1908 he was appointed receiver of the First 
 National Bank of Bisbee, Ariz., and with his wife lived there two 
 years while closing up the affairs of that institution. He had on- 
 ly been there three weeks when he was made a teacher of the 
 Woman's Bible Class and the second year was elected superintend- 
 ent of the Sunday School and served as a member of the Board 
 of Directors of the Y. M. C. A., an organization of 1,000 members 
 and costing $17,000 a year to maintain. 
 
 He was made a Mason in Pana lodge in 1867 and two years 
 later was given the Royal Arch Degree. 
 
 In the lodge he was an intelligent and leading spirit. In 
 public affaii's his counsel was much sought after and he could al- 
 ways be depended upon for solid and helpful advice. In his church 
 afliliation he had that deep Christian experience and lived a life 
 that reflected an influence which will live on through the years to 
 come. But it was in the home, with his family, and with the 
 friends and relatives who assembled there, that the svv^eetest spirit 
 was manifest. In all of these places he will be sadly, sadly missed." 
 
 0—0—0—0 
 
 FUNERAL SERVICES. 
 
 First Methodist Episcopal Church, Vandalia, 111. 
 Officiating Clergymen: Rev. C. D. Shumard, Rev. S. B.
 
 "We arrived in Taylorville the evening of October 22nd 
 snd stayed all night with Uncle Albert Pepper who had pre- 
 ceded us to Illinois by several months. Taylorville at that time 
 had a population of probably 1500 or 2000 souls and was a de- 
 cidedly primitive town. I don't suppose there was a brick side- 
 walk in the town. Concrete walks were undreamed of. The old 
 frame court house has since been twice superseded by brick struc- 
 tures, the first in 1855 and the last in the early nineties. Few 
 brick houses were in the town then, and the old Long House was 
 the principal hostlery. Stages from Shelbyville to Springfield 
 afforded means of travel. The Vandiveres, the Andersons and 
 the Shumways were the leading families and were quite wealthy 
 as wealth was rated then. 
 
 BUCKEYE PRAIRIE A SPARSELY SETTLED COMMUNITY. 
 
 The next morning, October 23rd, we drove out to what 
 was already known as Buckeye Prairie, a distance of 12 miles 
 from Taylorville in a southerly direction. This prairie is the 
 southern extremity of the grand prairie, spoken of before, reach- 
 ing from the South Fork of the Sangamon river and the string of 
 mounds extending from the head of South Fork to where Pana 
 now stands, to nearly Bloomington. Here we found B. C. Coch- 
 ran and family located in a two room frame, unplastered house, 
 they having come west the year before. The house was on 
 Jacob Overholt's land. Only two other houses were within several 
 miles. Martin Overholt had built a home half a quarter north- 
 •east of the Cochran place and near where the Buckeye school 
 house now stands. John McCune and family occupied a new one 
 and a half story log house just a quarter west of Cochran's. Wm. 
 Hunter was erecting a frame house on his land one mile east. 
 These constituted the first community established so far, five miles, 
 out on the prairie, as all the earlier settlers, mostly Tennesseeans, 
 Kentuckians and Carolinans, settled along the timber belts, be- 
 lieving the prairies could never be tamed and settled, and were 
 afraid the winds would blow them away or the prairie fires would 
 burn them up. 
 
 The Cochrans, the McCunes, the Overholts v/ere all Buck- 
 -eyes from Tuscarawas Coimty, Ohio, and this fact gave rise to 
 the name of Buckeye Prairie. At that time there were three in 
 the Pepper family, four in the Cochran family including daugh- 
 ter Amanda and son Joshua born in Ohio; twelve in the McCune 
 family including seven girls and three boys; six in the Overholt 
 family including four boys, James, David, Corwin and Orville, 
 all now dead, and the Hunter family who moved into their new 
 home from near Taylorville in the early part of the wdntcr 
 1854-5. This family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Hunter, four
 
 boys, John, Jacob, William and Leroy (the baby) and four girls, 
 Mary, Isabel, Rebecca and Jane. Thornton, having married 
 Catherine Priest in Ohio did not come to Illinois till 1856. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that in the winter of 1854-5 our little 
 community consisted of thirty-six souls all old. It was a terribly 
 cold winter and the snow drifts often covered the stake and ridei'- 
 ed fences. We did little that winter but visit. We had to haul 
 our wood from the timber five miles away. 
 
 We had shipped our goods via the railroad to Terre Haute, 
 that being the terminus of the east and west railroad line, and 
 Philip Baker and B. C. Cochran hauled them from there in 
 wagons, taking them about a week to make the trip. 
 
 The Terre Haute and Alton (now part of the Big Four) 
 was not completed through till 1857. The Illinois Central had 
 been graded but the track was not laid through Pana till in De- 
 cember 1854. Pana then consisted of only a few shanties, a store, 
 post office, small hotel near the railroad crossing, the station and 
 freight depot. Rosemond, on the T. H. and A. railroad, was 
 founded by B. R. Hawley in 1857 and settled almost entirely by 
 Yankees. 
 
 Returning to our little Buckeye colony and our new life 
 on the prairie many unique and interesting things recur to my 
 mind. I had been used to the big hills, the fertile valleys and 
 plains, the rivers, creeks and heavily wooded lands of old Tus- 
 carawas county. I had been used to the gathering of chestnuts, 
 beech nuts, walnuts, butternuts, elderberries, and huckleberries, 
 ("Oh, those huckleberry pies."). I had been used to swimming 
 in the beautiful river or meandering with my playmates through 
 the woods, to watching the canal boats as they plied their course 
 through the locks or on the placid waters, propelled by a horse 
 or two on the tow path, attached to a long rope. I had been used 
 to town life and all that that implies, but now all that was 
 changed. Before and around us lay the boundless rolling 
 prairies, no rivers, no vales, no woods, just prairie, but it was 
 ever changing. In springtime a mass of green, in summer time 
 a garden of flowers, in fall covered with tall grass and rosin 
 weeds of endless variety, and in the later fall and early winter 
 scenes of indescribable beauty were beheld when great seas of 
 prairie fires swept over its surface, threatening destruction to 
 everything before them. At night these prairie fires were gi'andly 
 imposing and beautiful, as well as terrible to look upon. Against 
 these prairie fires our only portection was to back fi.re. This 
 was done by plowing several furrov/s around our homes, and hay 
 stacks and then starting fires outside these furrows against the 
 wind. 
 
 Only once in a while could a big cottonwood tree be 
 seen standing like a solitary sentinel, and guiding the traveler
 
 And in that larger sphere of touch with mankind he has proved 
 Just as true to the cause of what a christian man should be as 
 he has in his sphere of Sunday School and church work. 
 
 There is another phase of life; that tender phase; that 
 close intimate relationship that I almost hesitate to enter. It 
 seems almost as though it was holy ground upon which you and 
 I should not tread. You know I refer to the home life, to the 
 family life of our brother. As was said to me by Brother Bas- 
 com as we were coming from the house here, that scarcely had 
 he ever known a home more affectionate than this was, at which 
 each one seemed to vie with the other in striving to take his place 
 and do his part and be the one in that home that he should be. 
 I did not wonder. It was no surprise to me as we stood beside 
 the casket in the home just a little while ago, the outbreak of 
 sorrow, subdued, but yet the more intense because it was subdued, 
 of the loved ones, and heard the cry well up from heart to heart, 
 how he loved us, how he loved us. It was not strange. It would 
 have been strange if we had not heard that. With his whole heart 
 centered upon that home circle and with the wife and children 
 that made it up it would have been strange, and yet when the 
 words were first used the thought came to me when they said, how 
 he loved us, no more than you loved him, and just a moment later 
 the daughter used that expression, how we loved him. And his 
 life was given to them, just as he gave his life to Jesus Christ 
 through all the years, just as he gave his life to the church that 
 he loved so much, just as he put the whole of his manhood into it, 
 so he put all of the sanctified manhood into the care, and inter- 
 est, and love, and welfare of the home that meant so much to him. 
 
 I leave you there dear friends. I would not say more. I 
 only ask you that you cherish the love of the Father. Not the 
 father that lies in the casket; that is only the form. The father 
 whose spirit has v/ended its way and is at the right hand of the 
 throne of God today. That you look away from this time of sor- 
 rov/ to that glad time of rejoicing that will come to you just a 
 little while off. 
 
 We have a num.ber of brothers with us today. Brothers of 
 the Masonic Order. A good many years ago he became one of 
 your number, pressed his way on up until he had taken the Royal 
 Arch Degree and you are here out of respect and veneration and 
 love for this brother who has passed on. I look into your faces 
 today brother Masons. I know something of the teachings of 
 your Order. I know what it means to listen to the words of those 
 lectures fraught v/ith so much meaning, and so much power and so 
 much influence; I know your teachings. I v/ant to say to you 
 that they meant to our brother what they did mean because first 
 he had accepted Jesus Christ as his Savioi% and the teachings of 
 Masonary simply came and seconded the power of Jesus Christ
 
 in the heart of this Brother of ours to make him the man that he 
 has proven himself to be during all the years. And brother Ma- 
 sons I recommend to you today the very foundation of his char- 
 acter, Jesus Christ as your Lord. I love the teachings of Mason- 
 ary; I venerate all that it means, but brothers, it means what it 
 does mean to me today because of vi^hat Jesus Christ is to me, and 
 you will understand the teachings of Masonary and it will mean 
 more to you than it could mean to you otherwise, if you will only 
 take Jesus as your Lord, as your Savior. Let him be the founda- 
 tion and then let the teachings of your beloved order come in 
 and, resting upon that sure foundation, make of you the man that 
 he was, in whose honor we speak today. 
 
 The next verse continues to say, you know where it says, "I 
 have fought a good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept 
 the faith, and because of this henceforth there is laid up for me 
 a crown of righteousness which the Righteous Judge shall give 
 me that day." 
 
 Oh, brother, without any question, without any thought 
 otherv/ise, our brother has received from the hand of that Judge 
 Eternal, that crown, because of a finished course, and a kept 
 faith, and a life that was loyal to him. Dear Sister, dear children, 
 dear friends and neighbors, dear brother Masons, emulate his life, 
 and God's blessing be upon you. 
 
 TRIBUTE BY REV. S. B. MURRAY. 
 
 When it was suggested that I should say a word this after- 
 noon I hesitated. First of all because a life is more eloquent al- 
 ways than a speech and to me nothing more befitting the presence 
 of death than silence, that our hearts may speak and also that our 
 ears may listen while God is speaking, and I have wanted so many 
 times, and this afternoon I have wanted to simply sit and think, 
 knowing that in my thoughts I would surely hear the voice of the 
 infinite speaking, and again I hesitated because I wanted this 
 afternoon to sit as a friend who had lost a friend, for such was 
 this man to me, and anything that I may say v/ill simply be a 
 tribute of a friend to a friend. Oh, not to a friend who has gone 
 but to a friend who has stepped on a little way before, but whom I 
 shall overtake in the swiftly passing years and join again. The 
 words that I bring to you this afternoon represent simply the tri- 
 butes of one who valued the friendship of this life and is genuine- 
 ly sorry that the threads of that friendship have been snapped 
 for a time. I have been thinking very much as you have been 
 thinking very much of this life and that v/hich I bring to you I 
 select as the teachings of that life that have appealed the most to 
 me. I have been thinking today of the beauty of this life. There 
 are lives of which we can fittingly say, the life was beautiful, and 
 such was this life. Beauty was in the very essence of this man's
 
 soul. He loved the beautiful; it was a part of his inner life; the 
 blooming of the flowers and the singing of the birds and the prat- 
 tle of little children, and all the world's accumulated mass of 
 beauty which God has poured forth so lavishly was a part of this 
 man's heritage and he loved beauty and beautiful things and as 
 I think of the way in which that sense of the appreciation of the 
 beautiful spilled itself out until it became manifest in the man 
 himself. I think of this life then as a thing of beauty. I am glad 
 and I think we have a right to be glad that we can still think of 
 this life in terms of beauty. I have looked at him in times when 
 I have thought I have seen the heart of the boy still there, I 
 have seen him at times when I have caught the dancing lights of 
 mischief in his eyes. These things are all a part of a life of beau- 
 ty, and I rejoice this afternoon that when God called, when the 
 step began to hesitate a bit, when the hand began to grow a bit 
 more feeble; that when God called, he called swiftly, and in all 
 the beauty of his life without it being robbed of that; without 
 passing through all the strain and stress and decrepitude of sick- 
 ness and old age ; that in the full flush of a life of beauty he passed 
 on to be with God. 
 
 And again I have been thinking of this life the past day 
 or two in terms of our common humanity and our common bro- 
 therhood. I have already said that I valued this man as a friend 
 and I think I can safely say this afternoon that he was a friend to 
 man, that that v.^as one of the characteristics of his life. His Pastor 
 has already spoken of the places of prominence that he occupied 
 and the way in which his work pushed him out into public view, 
 and the share that this life had in shaping public sentiment. And 
 again, friends, no man lives a full, complete life without creat- 
 ing antagonisms, it may be. It is only those lives that are lived 
 a vacuum that never create antagonism. But with all the intens- 
 ity of feeling which was possible to this life; with all the intens- 
 ity with which possibly he held his views, his theories, his con- 
 ceptions, yet essentially at heart through it all he was a lover of 
 his fellowmen. I was glad for the tribute that was paid to him 
 because of a tender spirit, for that is my thought this afternoon. 
 I found him tender, I found him charitable, I found him rather 
 hesitant about criticism of men's motives, though he might differ 
 from men's words and men's deeds, and I think of this life as the 
 life of a man who lived by the side of the road and measured the 
 pulsating stream of humanity that flowed by his life and kept 
 himself warm and tender and sympathetic with his fellowmen. 
 
 The other thing that I have been thinking and of which I 
 am going to speak for a brief moment was the man's vital faith 
 in God. I suppose that I have voiced the common experience of 
 the ministry when I say that it is our task to share other men's 
 burdens, to help to bear the sorrow and the trials of other lives. I
 
 care not how occupied the ministei' may be in the teachings of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, continually the stress and burdens and pain and 
 the sorrow of other lives are on him, and there comes to us who 
 are in the ministry a genuine need and a desire that we in turn 
 share our innermost lives and our secret longings and aspirations 
 ■with other lives. The deepest and tenderest point of contact that 
 I was permitted to have with this life was that he was one of the 
 men, few in number, to whom I felt free to go with intimate prob- 
 lems of my own spiritual life and with friendly intercourse talk 
 these things over. He was an older man than I. He had been 
 longer on the road. He had tried and tested God's goodness and 
 God's guidance through many vicissitudes and I found a joy and 
 satisfaction and a pleasure in going to this man and in talking to 
 him about the infinite things of life, and oh, the thing that comes 
 to me with full strength this afternoon is the real vital faith within 
 the heart of this life. He believed and trusted God. He believed 
 and trusted Jesus Christ and Christ to him was more than a name — 
 a reality, a living, daily companionship. Christ to him was closer 
 than a friend, closer than hands or feet. You will pardon me if 
 I use an illustration to point to what I am trying to say. It was 
 late in the last summer season that I walked into his office about 
 five o'clock in the afternoon and pulled my chair over near his 
 chair and said I have come in to talk with you a little while. With 
 a smile that warmed my heart he said. What have you on your 
 mind. I said, I have been thinking for several days that I would 
 come in and have a little talk with you. I said, do you know that 
 as a man passes through his youth and earlier manhood, comes 
 down toward the middle gateway of life, eternity and eternal 
 truth mean more to him ; he begins to think less of the present and 
 more of the future. Immortality, I said, means more to a man 
 at that time than in the days of earlier youh, and I said, I have 
 always wanted for the last year to ask you, as an older man, as 
 one who had passed the meridian and growing near the westerning 
 of life's sun; I wanted to ask you, as an older man, if you ever 
 had any doubt or uncertainty as touching the life beyond and 
 all that it means to us. 
 
 I shall cherish that afternoon as long as I live. One hand 
 was laid upon my knee as I sat there and as nearly as I can quote 
 his words he said: "Mr Murray, last evening I lay upon the porch, 
 you remember the thunder storm of last evening? and I was think- 
 ing along that very line" and he said, "I want to say to you, if God 
 had called to me out of the midst of the storm and if God should 
 call me this present moment of time and my life here should stop, 
 I have not the slightest doubt but that there is a larger, fuller, 
 life beyond. I have not the slightest questioning about God's 
 goodness and God's provision for the future." Men and women 
 that's a vital, living faith, and that's the thing I like to remember
 
 most of all about this brother who was a friend of yours and mine. 
 
 Will you pardon me if I say just one more word? When I 
 think of such faith as that I wonder sometimes if it is not slip- 
 ping a little bit from our grasp. I wonder sometimes as we think 
 of our fathers and mothers and those who are older than we, if 
 after all they have not had something finer in their religious ex- 
 perience than is coming to many of us who are younger. I wonder 
 sometimes if to those of us who are bearing the stress and burden 
 of present day life God and Jesus Christ are the realities in our 
 living that they might be. I wonder sometimes if the present is 
 not leading the future instead of the future leading the present 
 but by all that you live for, by all that yovi hope for, the one thing 
 in life most worth striving for is just such a simple faith in God 
 and in Jesus Christ as that. 
 
 To the family and for the near circle of friends and for 
 you all I think of this life and these words, "At eventide it shall 
 be light." "At eventide it shall be light," and oh, the light, such 
 a light as never shined on land or sea illuminated this man's soul, 
 lighted the pathway before him as he slipped from earth, and bore 
 him, went all the Vv^ay with him even into the presence of God. 
 These simple things about this life that we all think of and we 
 all recall make this life imperishable. Hold him very close to 
 you in memory and as long as we shall live he shall live too in our 
 thoughts and our hearts. 
 
 PRAYER BY REV. NAAMAM BASCOM. 
 
 We come to Thee, our Heavenly Father, this afternoon 
 depending upon Thee for strength and for light. We are here 
 today down in the shadows of death. We are surrounded with the 
 gloom and the mystery of death. We are here in sadness and 
 sorrow, this afternoon, because one of our number, one of our 
 friends, is gone away from us and we feel that we have been left 
 almost alone. We do not know what to do. We do not know 
 which way to look. Of our own selves we know nothing. Oh, we 
 do thank Thee, our Heavenly Father, this afternoon that when 
 we come into just such places as we are this afternoon, v/hen 
 clouds and thick darkness surrounds us on every side, that we 
 can look to Thee, the one that has all knowledge, the one that is 
 the light of the world and is able to shine away all the dark clouds 
 of life. We are glad we can come in the name of Jesus Christ on 
 these occasions and feel that we have somthing that holds us amid 
 all the storms and difficulties of life. We thank thee for the 
 power, and inspiration, and hope, and the joy of the religion of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ. We are here this afternoon, and while 
 we are sad, and while tears of sorrow are flowing, when we re- 
 member that just the other evening it was not evening anymore to 
 our brother but the gates of Heaven were opened and another one
 
 of earth's children after wandering here in this world for seventy- 
 three years, was admitted into the presence of the great I AM. 
 Oh, when we think of this and realize the life that our brother 
 lived among us and the hope that he entertained of life and eternal 
 joy when done with this life ; when we think of all this and think 
 that today he is beyond the clouds of darkness and he is over on 
 the other side in the sunlight of eternal truth; the sunlight of 
 eternal joy, in that land where the flowers never wither, where 
 one eternal spring abides. He entertained that hope that he 
 had sung often; there everlasting spring abides. He felt in his life 
 there was such a place planned for him in the other world. 
 
 We thank Thee, our Father, that we believe that just be- 
 yond, somewhere, we do not know just where, but just beyond, 
 over in the sweet forever, over in the land of the blessed, there 
 our brother is today. Brother Lakin lives. Thank God that we 
 believe this; that over there on the other shore he is living, happy 
 in the presence of his Lord and Master. Oh, God help us this 
 day as we stand over his remains. Help us our Father, that we 
 may catch something of the inspiration of his life, something of 
 the hope that upheld him along the pathway; something of the 
 faith that grasped the realities of the future, and made them 
 his joy in his lifetime. Oh, Lord, help this day as we are here 
 at his funeral, his friends and neighbors, that we may feel that 
 we have not lost our friend; that he has just gone before us. And 
 now. Lord, we pray thy blessings upon us. We pray Thee to help 
 us to realize how soon, perhaps, we will be called. Only a few 
 more days. "Death rides on every passing breeze, it lurks in 
 every flower; each season has its own disease, its peril every hour." 
 Oh, God, help this great congregation that is gathered here this 
 afternoon to pay tribute of respect to our brother; help us every- 
 one to realize how much it means to live, how much it means to 
 pass into that eternal state where our destiny is forever fixed. 
 
 Now Father, we come to Thee and ask Thee to help these 
 sorrowing ones. Here is Sister Lakin with her children and they 
 feel the sorrow of this event. Oh, Lord, we pray that Thou would 
 help them to realize not what they have lost but what they have 
 gained. One of the family today is safe on the evergreen shore 
 and they can go to him. They can enjoy his company. Oh, today 
 Father, sustain them by thy grace. Today may they be able to 
 see something of what they have to look forward to in the future. 
 Cheer and comfort them, Father. 
 
 Somehow out of this darkness, do Thou bring the light of 
 eternal truth and eternal joy. We ask Thee to take us. Be with 
 us; bless this people; bless this order that has met here as a bro- 
 ther of this our friend. Lord help them. Bless them, and guide us 
 all, and when our work is done bring us to thy self, we ask it in 
 the name of Jesus, our Redeemer. Amen.
 
 IISTCRICAL SURVEY
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLIN0I8-URBANA 
 
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