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ETNA AND KIKKEKSVILLE

ETNA AND KIRKEESVILLE

BY

MOKKIS SCHAFF

' Great Indeed la tbe charm that
Teaming memory gives to the form of things." COLERIDOE

BOSTON AND NEW TOEK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
iS-'bt 0itiet?i6e jptejjS, Cambtibae
1905

COPYRIGHT 1905 BY MORRIS SCHAFF
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published October ZQ05

ETNA AND KIKKEKSVILLE

A SKETCH
OF ETNl AND KIRKEESVILLE
LICKING COUNTY
OHIO
CHAPTER I
There fell into my hands not long ago Isaac
Smucker's " Centennial History of Licking
County, Ohio," where, in Etna Township, De
cember 28, 1840, I was born. And notwith
standing that sixty odd years are leaning against
each other Hke turned-over furrows between
now and then, and that my life has been spent
far away from this scene of my boyhood, yet I
read page after page with the greatest pleasure.
It was like the murmur of a distant seashore.
When I laid it down, the night had worn well
along ; the wood fire that had burned so briskly
was slumbering, and I found myself gazing into
its dull, glowing embers and back in old Lick
ing- The township, as I see it, is through a boy's
eyes ; for, the last of May, 1858, in my eigh-

2 A SKETCH OF
teenth year, I left it to go to West Point. And
now my only excuses for writing this sketch are,
first, to establish the township's historic conti
nuity with the period covered by Smucker, and
second, because I wish to do for some future
son of Etna what I wish some pioneer had done
for my generation, viz., tell us of the town, its
schools, its churches, its customs and homes ; of
his family, where they came from and where
they settled, who were their neighbors and with
whom they intermarried ; the game in the woods,
where he fished, and trapped, and hunted ; what
was forest and how they cleared the fields, —
minghng his account of all these features of
early life, as Nature mingled her voices around
him, with sometimes a note peculiarly his own.
I shall try to cover these points as well as I
can in this sketch. And, perhaps, if it should
fall into the hands of some Etna or Kirkers-
ville boy when his hair is turning gray, as was
the case when Smucker's feU into mine, he will
see again, as I see now, the " Pike," the once
so famous National Koad, see the sheep nib
bling across the old town's rolling fields ; hear
again its meadow larks, its bob whites, and the
plaintive cry of the killdeers ; see Bloody Kun
or the Big Poplar and Licking winding through

ETNA AND KIRKEESVILLE 3
fields of wheat and clover and corn ; and more
distinctly than all, the old dooryard and the
swallows twittering around the barn.
A further reason and justification for ven
turing to give permanence to my boyhood
memories of Etna is, my father was one of the
founders, one among its first officers, and a jus
tice of the peace twenty-one years, — a position
in those days carrying much of the weight and
dignity of our judgeship of to-day. Moreover,
from his and my mother's lips and the pioneers
that gathered around their fire and hospitable
board, I heard over and over again the story of
Etna's pioneer life ; so that in a measure, some
of the historic value of an eye-witness may be
found in the current of this sketch. However
this may be, I shall strive, as far as lies within
me, to have the reader's eye where mine is now,
on the scene that presents itself from the bridge
of my memory.

CHAPTEE II
The township of Etna was organized in 1833,
and is in the extreme southwestern corner of
Licking County, Ohio. It is a true rectangle,
two and one-half miles wide and a little over
eight miles long, stretching due east and west
on both sides of the National Road that runs
through the middle of it. It is a part of the
Refugee Tract, a grant of 100,000 acres do
nated by Congress in 1798 to citizens of Canada
and Nova Scotia who abandoned their settle
ments in consequence of having given aid to
the colonies in the War of the Revolution, al
lotting to each " in proportion to the degree of
their respective services, sacrifices, and suffer
ings." The tract is a strip four and a half
miles wide and forty-eight miles long; begin
ning on the Scioto at Columbus, it runs easterly
almost to the Muskingum. The runs and brooks
of the western half of Etna flow into the Poplar
and Big Walnut, that bear away southwesterly
to the Scioto ; those of the eastern half, to the
South Fork of Licking and thence on to the

ETNA AND KIEKERSVILLE 5
Muskingum, all finding their way at last into
the Ohio.
Etna is a gently rolling and exclusively farm
ing country. The soU is clayey and tenacious,
and in some places inclined to be cold, wet,
and heavy. Here and there over its surface
were scattered granite, quartz, and syenite boul
ders — the people called them " nigger heads."
Some of them were of great size, and varied in
color from dark green to a light pink; doubtless
all were carried on the breasts of the moving
glaciers from their original beds in the far
North. Now after that long journey and prob
ably longer period that followed the melting
away of the glacier, before the oaks and the
beeches began to grow, after all these vicissi
tudes, the most of them are bedded in cellar
walls of barns and houses. The story of one
of them, if they could speak, would be the
most interesting of the world's history. Origi
nally there were springs in ahnost every field,
but, with the disappearance of the woods, very
few are left. On a great many of the farms
there are still clumps and reaches of aged woods,
the dreaming remnant of the majestic primeval
forest that once, in open ranks, covered the
entire township.

6 A SKETCH OP
The village itself, which reposes in the mid
dle of the township and from which it gets its
name, was laid out by Lyman Turrell, a Ver-
monter, in 1832, the lots selling at from |3.00 to
|5.00 apiece. He first called it Carthage, and,
subsequently, having learned from some source,
probably from one of the young West Point
graduates who were laying out the National
Road, that the site of his town was the highest
point between Jacktown and Columbus, he con
cluded to call it Etna. In the light of Etna's
career it might appear that he made a mistake
in changing its name; for, certainly, there has
never been even a rumble, social or otherwise,
at all volcanic, in its life, to suggest its present
name. But there seems to have been a wide
spread confidence, born possibly of a premoni
tion, — that up to this time has not been real
ized, — of something deep and startling in the
future of Etna Township ; for the name of the
only other village in it was changed from Cum
berland to Wagram, after that great field where
Napoleon's guns shattered three kingdoms.
When I was a little boy Wagram had one
or two small, unpainted houses and a decaying
tavern, kept by a man by the name of Arm
strong.

ETNA AND KIRKEESVILLE 7
The township has never had a newspaper,
a college, or a mUl or manufactory of any kind
— the only machinery it has ever heard is the
nervous clatter of mowing-machines in its lush
daisy-dotted meadows, reapers and binders in
the yellow wheat fields, and later, when summer
is taking her last look, and the swallows are
about to go, the rumble of dusty threshing-
machines — and is, I venture to say, one of the
few townships in the Ohio valley untraversed
by a railroad. If there be a place in this world
that can lay an undisputed claim to being rural
if not obscure, I firmly believe it is my native
township of Etna. And yet the clouds float
over it in beautiful colors, the stars come out
joyfully, the dew falls, the corn ripens, and the
sun shines sweetly there.
I wish I could locate definitely when and
where the first cabin was built in the township,
but I have delayed too long. Had I asked the
question in my boyhood of some of the pio
neers, of Isaac Essex, or some of my relations,
the Housers and Nelsons, of Captain Stone or
Israel Cleaves of KirkersviUe, they could have
taken me to the very spot. Now I am afraid it is
beyond determination, but if ever it be located

8 A SKETCH OF
it will be found near where a spring gushed out
of a bank or close to some run ; for it was a
spring or the clear water of a brook that always
settled the question as to where the pioneer
should build his cabin.
As throwing some light on the matter it may
be said that when the first settlers reached
Zanesville, having followed the old Indian trail
from the Ohio, or by way of the Muskingum
from Marietta, they either bore off towards
Lancaster in Fairfield County on Zane's trail
that followed the Indian trail to Chillicothe,
which in its turn had been a buffalo trail, or
they followed up the Licking. Those who took
Zane's trail as far as Lancaster struck off north
west into the woods toward the heads of Pop
lar and Black Walnut creeks, reaching Etna
Township by that route ; those who came in by
the way of Licking followed the South Fork.
Among the latter, David Herron pushed clear
up into Lima Township, near the head waters of
Licking, as early as 1805, the first settler hav
ing arrived in Newark in 1798, only seven years
previously. (The cabin Herron built I once
visited with his daughter Nancy, a large woman
who, while weaving at our house on the cumber
some loom of that day, promised me a pair of

ETNA AND KIEKEESVILLE 9
ducks if I would go home with her. Of course
I went. The cabin stood in a field surrounded
by primeval woods, about north, as I remember
it, of the DeUenbaugh farm ; and the ducks
were in a little run that meandered close by to
the west of the cabin.) The Headlys settled
farther north a few years later.
The GranviUe HiUs, only eight or ten miles
away to the northeast, were settled by a colony
of Yankees from the colder and steeper hills
of East Granville, on the eastern slope of the
Berkshire Hills in Massachusetts, as early as
1806. In 1811 Paul and Catherine Hively,
parents of my uncle, Sam Hively, who married
my father's sister Elizabeth, settled near Balti
more in Fairfield, about as far south of Etna
and KirkersviUe as Granville is north. Be
tween them was an almost unbroken wilder
ness, but the DeWeeses, the Channels, the Van
Buskirks had already come up into the rich
bottoms of the Licking, between KirkersviUe
and Hebron and Newark. So far as I can learn,
these settlements antedated the Houser settle
ment along the Fairfield line, but by how much
it is difficult to ascertain. That some pioneer
pursued his way into the wUderness beyond
these first settlers on the Licking bottoms it is

10 A SKETCH OF
reasonable to believe ; and that, following the
creek or Bloody Kun, he located somewhere on
their banks, and that his axe was the first to
startle the deer and elk in the open oak woods
of Etna. For that reason I think the first cabin
was bmlt between Bloody Kun and the creek,
not far from the present village of Kirkers
viUe. Smucker in his history has a table showing
names of townships, when settled, and names
of two or more of the first settlers ; it gives
"J. Williams, J. Crouch, Nelsons and Housers,"
as the first settlers of Etna Township, and 1815
as the date of their settlement.
I have searched in vain to find out some
thing about " J. WiUiams " and " J. Crouch,"
— where they came from and where they settled,
but have found nothing, and I am afraid they
have drifted off below the horizon of history.
The Nelsons and Housers came in from Vir
ginia, mostly from the Shenandoah country by
way of Zane's trail. My aunt MatUda HartzeU
married Lafayette Nelson of Ohio County, Vir
ginia. Their only child, my cousin, Sarah Jane
Nelson, was a most lovable woman, and inher
ited the sweetest of Virginia voices. Her eyes
were a beautiful, Uquid, dark brown, and they

ETNA AND KIEKEESVILLE 11
looked at you with the innocence of a pleased
child tiU her last days. She married Absalom
Houser, a fine man, over six feet tall, ahnost as
swarthy as an Indian, and a son of one of the
original settlers. Their children, one and all,
are an honor to them.
The Cleaves, Marshalls, Graybills, Parkin
sons, Longbrakes, Heffners, and Greens all
came about the same time as the Nelsons and
Housers ; and in my youth I saw them all.
Henry Essex settled in 1816 ; his house stood
less than an eighth of a mile southwest of the
United Brethren Church in the vUlage of Etna.
I remember going there in my childhood and
seeing an aged, strong, broad-faced man with
inflamed eyes, leaning on a cane. His wife's
face I recaU with absolute distinctness ; she was
a taU woman, with large, conspicuously large,
clear, blue eyes, and was the mother of Mrs.
Jonathan GraybUl and Mrs. WUliam Parkinson.
The Essex house fronted east, had a narrow
porch, and was surrounded with cherry, plum,
and locust trees. Behind it was the usual large
hewed-log barn.
Between 1815 and 1825 emigrants poured
like a tide into Central Ohio, and by 1830 there
were enough settlers in Etna to ask for a local

12 A SKETCH OF
government of their own. At that time they
were a part of Harrison and Lima townships,
the former organized in 1817 and the latter in
1827. In 1833, " Agreeable to an order from
the Commissioners of Licking County," so runs
the first entry in the town records and in a
bold hand, " the citizens of Etna Township
held an election for Township officers at the
house of John Henthorn on the twenty-second
day of June A. d. 1833, when 0. R. Baldwin,
John Nelson, and Benjamin Graybill were
elected Trustees for the ensuing year, John
Henthorn Township Clerk, N. R. Usher Trea
surer, WiUiam Smith and John WeUs Consta
bles, Richard Lamson, George WeUs, WUKam
Moon, and Hiram Sincebaugh Supervisors,
Thomas M. Donahue and Isaac Essex Over
seers of the Poor and Henry Spangler, Jona
than Graybill, and Dennis Smoke Fenceviewers,
who were severaUy sworn previous to entering
upon the duties of their respective offices, also
gave bonds as prescribed by law."
These, then, may weU be called the founders
of Etna Township. My father, who was then
twenty-six years old, was at this election. Mr.
Henthorn kept a tavern in the village of Etna,
and it was in his bar-room the pioneers gath-

ETNA AND KIRKEESVILLE 13
ered to found the town. Henthorn's tavern, a
long two-story house, stood on the north side
of the Pike about seventy-five yards west of
the main street leading to Pataskala.
Some of those first officers I remember well.
Henry Spangler lived just north of the town,
and through his farm ran the run called by his
name ; he was a short, stocky, broad-breasted,
and open-faced man and the father of Joseph
Spangler, who married Hannah, my father's
youngest sister. Jonathan Graybill was our
nearest neighbor, — his farm joined ours on
the west, and his children were my earliest
school and play mates. Dennis Smoke owned
the farm next south of ours. Mr. Smoke lived
in a log house off in the centre of the fields
he had cleared with his own strong arms. In
this home he reared a large and well-respected
famUy. Although I used to see him and Mr.
GraybiU almost every day, yet their faces are
too dim to describe. Mr. GraybUl had a little
wool-carding machine run by a horse treading
on a big wheel, and he used to pay his son
Henry and me five cents apiece for a peck of
honey locust tree spines, that served for pins in
bundUng his customers' wool after it was carded.
As I remember it now, we earned our money.

14 A SKETCH OF
and in aU probability it went for admission to
the first circus that happened along. Since
baugh, Lamson, and Wells were all men of
standing, and their names perfectly famUiar,
and doubtless I saw them many times as a
child, but I have no remembrance of how they
looked, nor do I know just where they Uved,
though I am quite sure Mr. Sincebaugh lived
near the Fairfield line and Mr. Wells in the
eastern part of the township.
On March 3, 1834, the trustees met in the
house of John Henthorn and divided the town
into five school districts. In April of that year
Ambrose Meeker, Benjamin GraybiU, and John
Clendening were elected trustees, Robert Crum
clerk, and Dr. Tracy Scott town treasurer. The
latter was our family physician, — a short, jolly
man with one leg a bit shorter than the other.
John Snyder was elected constable and died
some time in 1834 — the first pubHc official to
die in office — and probably by the cholera,
which was then sweeping along the National
Road. The following letter appears in the
town records, dated May 30, 1834 : —
Wm. R. Crum, Sir, if you will furnish suit
able book for the purpose of Etna Township

ETNA AND KIEKEESVILLE 15
we wiU satisfy you when the taxes is collected
this faU. Ambrose Meeker | „
Benjamin Graybill j
Either the taxes were not paid or Crum faUed
to put in his bill that faU, for it was not paid
until two years afterwards, when this appears :
" Ordered that the sum of three doUars and
twenty-five cents be aUowed to Robert Crum
for furnishing books for said Township." The
book of town records now before me bears
the foUowing trademark, on a red label in the
inner side of the back: "Manufactured and
sold by Chester Mattoon, Book Binder, Colum
bus, Ohio." As I turn the pages of this most
invaluable and interesting archive, name after
name of pioneers appears, with the mysterious
surprise of resurrected memories, for many of
them had long since been forgotten. But by
the time the records of 1846 are reached, I
recaU with vividness the faces of about every
name mentioned, including that of " Mike "
Amick, the viUage blacksmith, who was noted
for his profanity, and for whose conversion,
during a revival, the United Brethren devoted
at least a week of prayer, and then gave Mike
up as a bad case. Toward the last of the strug-

16 A SKETCH OF
gle, the Methodists came to their help, but
Michael was too much for them all. There will
be found in the appendix the names of the
trustees and justices of the peace for the first
thirty years of the township's life.
In looking over these Records, which are most
creditable in substance and appearance, my eye
has faUen on several interesting entries; for
instance, my uncle Sam Hively and my uncle
Jacob Schaff, both comparatively young men,
were elected officers, first of one kind and then
of another, in the town. The latter left Ohio
when I was a boy. Following the ever-breath
ing trumpet of the frontier, he took root finally
in Beatrice, Neb., and was the first, or among
the first, of its mayors. Well, on page 23 there
appears this entry: "November 31st (!), 1838.
Warrant returned to me by James Carney [his
son John, a mild, kind-hearted boy, was my
schoolmate] Constable of Etna Township, Es-
sued by Jacob Schaff and Samuel Hively, Over
seers of Poor, warning Ehjah A. Bivens, Ford
Warden and Marcus Parmenter, to Depart out
of Said Township forthwith. Served by Read
ing. Fees 30 cts. James A. Holtzman, T. Clk."
So far as I know, this is the first time on record
that November had thirty-one days.

ETNA AND KIEICEESVILLE 17
The next year, being 1839, this same pair
of uncles — both of them physical giants —
ordered W. F. Berry to " Depart Forthwith.
Fees, mileage 5 cts., service 10 cts." Surely
they got rid of Berry about as cheaply as one
could expect. At the same rate my father and
Henry S. Manon, overseers of the poor, got
rid of Susannah Brittain on the eighth day of
February, 1841, It is pitiful, however, to think
of poor Susannah facing the world in the dead
of winter.
Whether her tracks in the snow or the win
ter blasts haunted my father, or whether the
whole business of overseeing the poor was dis
agreeable to him, at any rate, " At a meeting of
the trustees of Etna Township held at the house
of R. C. Hand the 18th day of AprU, 1844,
present R. C. Hand, Albion Warthen [he was
the leading storekeeper and Uved just across
the street from the United Brethren Church],
they proceeded to business as foUows, to ap
point Doctor Tracey Scott as an Overseer of
the Poor for the ensuing year in the place
of Esq. John Schaff who declined serving. No
further business. John R, Griffiths, T. Clk."
The Henry S. Manon mentioned above was
a son-in-law of Joshua Palmerston. Before the

18 A SKETCH OF
National Road was bmlt he carried the mail
known as the pony express mail between Zanes
ville and Columbus, in 1840 took the United
States Census, and was a member of the con
stitutional convention in 1850-55. He was an
extensive farmer and large dealer in cattle and
sheep. His son, Martin Van Bur en Manon, a
rugged, good-natured boy, — we always caUed
him " Mart," — went to the "Creek" school with
me. The following entry has to do with Mar
tin's grandfather, Mr. Pahnerston, and pos
sesses, besides enduring local color, a suggestion
that the overseers of the poor had got the meas
ure of one pauper at least. " Warrant returned
to me by George Maxfield, Constable of Etna
Township, issued by Joshua Pahnerton and Dr.
Tracey Scott, overseers of Poor, warning John
MUler to leave the diggings about said Town
ship. Served by reading to John MiUer. Fees
25 cts. George Maxfield, Const. John Griffiths,
T. Clerk. Oct. 25, 1844."
I am satisfied that MiUer struck out mighty
lively after the warrant was read to him, for
whoever knew " Uncle " Joshua Palmerston did
not wait to have an order of this kind repeated,
Mr. Palmerston Uved just beyond the toll-gate
on the north side of the Pike, about half a

ETNA AND KIEKEESVILLE 19
mile west of Etna. He was a tall, high-bred,
dark-eyed man, and in his old age, when I went
to West Point, had abundant iron -gray hair,
and after the fashion of the day he always wore
a black silk stock and a soft, broad-brimmed,
Ught-colored hat, such as are still to be seen
from time to time on surviving Southern plant
ers. He bore the look and had the bearing of
a gentleman of the old school ; and in his class
were the Marshalls, Thomas and Sam, the Hun
ters, the Atkinsons, the Conines, the Van Dorns,
the elder Parkinsons, the Stones, the Winters,
MiUers, and many others of those pioneers whom
as a boy I saw around our table.
There is much in the town records, some
times grave and sometimes amusing, referring
to persons, but I will leave it and make men
tion of only one more feature, and that is the
record of the town roads, for there is nothing
so everlastingly and sweetly companionable as
brooks and country roads. And in the mind of
the farmer's boy who aimlessly wanders along
their winding banks, or barefooted, hatless, and
oftentimes coatless, loiters along their dusty
way, what seeds of delicious memories they sow !
He never forgets the shallow fishing-hole with
its little poising dace, nor does he forget the

20 A SKETCH OF
silent, outstretching old road with its barways
leading into quiet pastures, its roadside bushes
and persistent flowers, the vagrant thistle with
its royaUy tinted and girded bloom where bum
ble-bees, idler than himself, bury themselves in
dreamy sleep, and where the little yellow-bird
feeds when autumn comes on, mounting thence
as he draws too near, and throwing back cheer-
Uy to him. its delicately undulating notes. Yes,
brooks, lanes, and country roads, you carry man
kind's sweetest memories ! When my eye fell
on the history of the road that runs south from
Etna village, I found myself especially inter
ested, for over it was made my first journey of
childhood, a trip with my elder brother John to
see my Aunt MatUda, who lived over a mile and
a half away in the Houser settlement. We were
sent around by the village, my mother being
unwilling to let us take a short cut through the
woods, for fear we might get lost. For, but a
few years before, a boy by the name of John
Kline, Uving near the schoolhouse in Etna and
subject to epilepsy, wandered off into the woods
and was lost several days ; the poor feUow was
found down toward Basil. The trip was made
in June, for a rosebush bloomed at the door
of my aunt's cabin, and while I was near it, a

ETNA AND KIEKERSVILLE 21
bumble-bee stung me on the lip, and I remem
ber distinctly having bellowed well. It may
interest those who live alongside of this road to
read this brief account of its history from the
town records, copied just as it is written. It
shows that " Business " has been a stumper to
spell for many a day. "Trustees met on the
18th day of April Instand present George Max
field and Joshua Palmerston, and proceeded to
Buisness as foUows — Emploed J. C. Knowles
to Survey and Ritify the line of South Road
Leading South from the Town of Etna to
county line of Fairfield. Staked it off accord
ingly to be opened By Supervisors of Said
Road on correct line. No further Buisness and
ajourned. J. A. Holtzman T. Clk."
Mr. Knowles, subsequently a justice of the
peace, was from New England. He was a tall
man with snowy hair and complexion, blue eyes,
and a ministerial air due probably to an habit
ual white necktie and gold spectacles. He lived
north of the village on the Pataskala road, and
was a most worthy, public-spirited, and high-
toned gentleman, and prominent member of the
Presbyterian Church.
In 1842 the road in the extreme northwest
corner of the town was laid out, "beginning

22 A SKETCH OF
at the S. E. corner of land owned by David
Church and the N. E. corner of land owned by
Josiah Midbury, running due west to the County
Line." James Harner, James Connel, and Alan-
son Schofield were appointed viewers. All three
of these men were leading citizens, but Mr.
Schofield is the only one I remember. I stayed
over night at his homestead when on furlough
in 1860, and see now across the forty odd
years the hollyhocks and old-fashioned flowers
abloom in his garden.
The tracing of the original survey of the
National Road, made in 1823 or 1824, gives the
names of settlers at that time on its immediate
location. Those living on the dirt road, known
as the Hebron road, and the one over which my
parents came, are not given ; as boy and man I
have pondered dreamily over the grassy founda
tions of more than one of them as I have wan
dered along it. The history of this old road that
ran, as the map shows, close by the National
Road, first one side and then the other, from
east of LinnviUe to just west of Etna, when it
bore off to the south, striking Black Lick sev
eral mUes below Reynoldsburg, is beyond re
covery. But in thinking the matter over I wonder if

ETNA AND KIRKEESVILLE 23
the foUoAving considerations offer the explana
tion of its origin.
In the first place, long before a pioneer trav
ersed the woods, the Indians were going and
coming from one hunting-ground to another ;
and before them the mound-builders, and be
fore the mound-buUders, the buffalo. Starting
then with the latter, we have the prairie mead
ows on the Darby plains west of and about
Columbus, and at Gratiot and along the Musk
ingum salt weUs or salt licks, where the buffalo
and elk would go in great numbers from their
feeding groimds. Would they not naturally
follow the South Fork, going east after cross
ing the divide of Black Lick? Besides, it is
the very shortest line of travel. Again, the
early surveys of the National Road show an
ancient mound on the east bank of the Big
Walnut, where it is crossed by the National
Road. This mound was buUt and the country
around it occupied in aU probability about the
same time as the celebrated works at Newark.
Would not the people of these communities
visit back and forth, and would they not fol
low the trails the buffalo had already made
through the forest ? Furthermore, the beaver
dam on the Heffner, now the Essex farm, to

24 SKETCH OF ETNA AND KIEKEESVILLE
be mentioned more particularly later, would it
not draw the Indians going from Black Lick
and Big Walnut to the hunting-ground around
the great Bloody Run swamp ? And what was
more, Flint Ridge, in the eastern part of the
county, lies almost due east and on the very
line of the old road, where for ages the Indians
got the material for their flints ; would it not
draw them for many a mile, just as the salt
licks on the other side of it drew the buffalo
and elk ? Moreover, and above all, for man
and beast it offered the only easy passage be
tween Bloody Run swamp. Bloody Run, and the
South Fork of Licking. These are all mere
guesses, but I think fairly well based on plau
sible theories. But however all this may be,
the most of the pioneers of Etna came in over
this old " Hebron " dirt road, a glorious pas
sageway beneath majestic timber.

CHAPTER III
In the winter of 1829 or 1830 my father made
a prospecting trip on horseback, through Lick
ing, Franklin, and Pickaway, from Belmont
County, where he had left his young Virginia
wife with one chUd, and, after declining to buy
what is now a part of the great city of Colum
bus, bought a farm in Etna. Here was a young
man with a heart fuU of hope, courage, and en
ergy, looking for a home ; and the spirits that
were at his side tolled him away from Colum
bus, where two or three blocks are worth more
than the entire township of Etna, to a spot
seventeen miles to the east, — to a little clear
ing of a few acres in the midst of primeval
woods ! Were they good or were they bad
spirits? But however this may be, there he
bought and contracted with some one for the
construction of a cabin, and toward the end of
a November day, just as a light snow began to
fall, his two-horse wagon, containing all his
worldly goods, drew up to the cabin door. The
house was not finished, and I have often heard

26 A SKETCH OF
my mother say that more than once that long
first night she saw the stars gazing down on
them through the loosely laid clapboard shin
gles. I have indicated this spot on the map
with six diverging arrows, for there six boys
were born ; my mother had eight all together,
seven of whom lived to man's estate. The Na
tional Road was not buUt, and they foUowed
the old Hebron road, whose outline can stUl
be seen through the Heffner woods that he be
tween Bloody Run and the Beaver dam. They
brought with them two cows driven behind the
wagon, one named Cherry and the other Blos
som; and there were Cherries and Blossoms,
their descendants, still jangUng the same old
bell, in the family when I was a smaU lad.
Our next neighbors west were the Jonathan
GraybUls. His daughters, Angeline and Han
nah, I hated most bitterly, for they with an
other girl, named Edith Parker, used to nag
me most unmercifully on our way home from
school about my appearance, and especially my
freckles. In a dream at West Point I saw
Angeline — and a beautiful girl she was, by
the way — in her coffin so vividly that I wrote
at once to my mother about it, and her next
letter told me that she had just died. She lies

ETNA AND KIEKERSVILLE 27
with my parents and hers and many of those
feUow schoolchildren in the lonely Etna grave-
yard. The Marshalls and the Hunters, both from
Virginia, were next east of us. The Marshalls
belonged to the great Chief -Justice's famUy, and
there was a goodly-sized weeping wiUow that
drooped fountain-like before their door, which
the elder Marshall had used as a riding whip
when he came to Licking. Mr. Marshall was
very, very kind to my mother. On one occa
sion, just after she had moved into the cabin,
she was sitting alone and crying when he en
tered suddenly. " Why, why, Mrs. Schaff," he
exclaimed, " what in the world are you crying
about ? " " Oh, nothing, nothing, Mr. Marshall,
— I am only homesick, I reckon." " Cheer up,
Uttle woman, we wiU all be kind to you," said
the big-hearted Virginian, and so he was till
the end. James, one of the Marshall boys,
went to the Mexican war in Captain Duncan's
company, and I remember the famUy's distress
when the news reached home that he had died
in Vera Cruz. His sister Nancy Marshall, about
my mother's age, and her dear friend, brought
the letter telUug them of his death. Tears fell
in our home, for his grave seemed so far away.

28 A SKETCH OF
The next neighbor beyond the MarshaUs'
was Judge WilUam Hunter, for whom Hunter's
Run was named. He was one of the associate
judges of the county from 1844 to 1852, and a
man of great natural dignity. I do not recall
his face distinctly, but I do see a black mare
with a stumpy tail trotting resolutely up and
down the Pike, and the judge holding the reins.
Then on beyond were the Lightigs, George
and Maria. The former died with smallpox,
and the latter, when exhumed a few years ago
in a churchyard down near the Bloody Run
swamp, was found petrified, all save an arm.
Late one night while sitting before a wood fire
smoking, one of the party who had exhumed
Maria told me grimly that they propped her
up against the back of the church while they
refilled the grave, — the only instance, so far
as I know, of Nature giving a monument life
size to any citizen of Etna, and of a corpse,
after being in the ground fifteen or twenty
years, taking an easy attitude against the
church, witnessing the operation of the filling
of its own grave and surveying the graveyard
and the fields around in broad daylight.
Beyond where this somewhat fateful Lightig
family lived, following the National Road as it

ETNA AND KIEKEESVILLE 29
leads on to the east, were the Abraham Gray-
biUs, then the Pitchers, both with low, white
frame houses and substantial great hewed-log
barns. It is not of any consequence, or proba
bly of any interest, at the present time whether
the barns were framed or of logs; but it is
Etna of sixty years ago that I am describing,
and those structures, which in most cases were
built on the side of a hUl so as to bring the
threshing floor on a level with the ground, the
basement being used for stabling horses and
sometimes cows and sheep, — those great barns
with holes in the gables for the swallows stand
out in fuU quiet Ught across the intervening
years. Moreover, when they were raised one
of the primal social events in frontier life took
place, the antecedent of modern receptions,
lunches, dinners, and dances.
For by the time the last log was up the tables
were set and the pioneer girls of the neighbor
hood, robed in dresses with stripes and squares
colored with the dyes of madder, butternut, and
peach leaves, and aU blooming with health,
smUes, and unconscious good manners, would
serve the hearty supper. When that was over
the table was carried out into the yard, and
then they danced to a fiddle, aggravated to the

30 A SKETCH OF
last degree, with jig after jig, ending with the
Virginia reel, just as the roosters in the plum
trees and cherry trees along the garden fence
began to crow for the reddening dawn.
The first large frame barn was built in Etna
about 1849 or 1850 by Henry Warner, who
kept a tavern midway of the vUlage. The barn
was located on his farm north of and some
distance away from the Pike, and when it was
raised all the people of Etna, men, women, and
children, were gathered about it ; and to this
day I can see one of the carpenters walking
on a purlin, while every woman and child gazed
in breathless attention, fearful that he would
fall. I do not suppose it was over twenty-five
or thirty feet high, but to my boyish eyes it
looked as if he were way up, walking in the
sky ; he was the hero of us all. After the barn
was roofed, a great Sunday-school celebration
was held in it. My uncle, Samuel Hively, one
of the best of men and the first and only
Abolitionist in Etna when the party was or
ganized, in 1835, a Virginian, over six feet
tall, was the marshal.
Over on the Creek were the Atkinsons, the
Bairds, the MiUers, families of weight and well
merited distinction ; while up on York Street

ETNA AND KIEKEESVILLE 31
were the nearest and dearest of all, the Abra
ham and Jacob Winters. On the other hand,
off to the north, south, and west, were the
Smokes, Yeomans, Palmerstons and Van Dorns,
Conines, Harts, Housers, Maugers, and Snyders
— aU, aU, were our friends ; and any boy or
girl who can trace his or her lineage back
to any of them may well feel proud of the
blood. It would be difficult to portray the simplicity
and naturalness of society as it was in Etna
when I was a boy, say in 1845 to 1850. There
was no class founded on wealth, no one distin
guished by either learning, ancestry, achieve
ment, or pretentious estate, — we were all on
the same level, wore the same home-made
clothes, read or studied in dimly Ughted rooms
or by the Ught of wood fires, looked each other
in the face when we met at each other's doors,
aU unconscious of that restless kingdom known
as society, and in blessed, happy ignorance of
what is now called refinement and culture, and
in a perfect freedom from the weakening, tor
menting, pessimistic fastidiousness that afflicts
modern life. It is true there were the asperi
ties and crudeness of uncut marble about all
social life, but viewed in the light of philosophy

32 A SKETCH OF
born of experience and close observation of this
drama caUed life, the conditions might almost
appear ideal.
The Marshalls, Hunters, Atkinsons, Millers,
Winters, the De Weeses and Larimores and
Hands, lower down on the South Fork, — all
these were f amiUes of the best breeding ; that
is, families who had natural, not acquired, good
manners. The men on pubUc occasions bore
themselves with great dignity toward one an
other, and, toward all women at all times, with a
courtliness of address which they had inherited
from their Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Vir
ginia ancestors, and which would have graced a
gentleman at any period of the world. Hospi
tality was a natural and every-day virtue. The
stranger found the door wide open, and no
one felt embarrassment if he arrived just as
dinner or supper was ready. As a matter of
course his horse, if riding, was taken at once
to the stable and fed, and he joined the famUy
at the table. When there was a wedding —
the engagement was never announced or ac
knowledged — all turned out to the feast ; and
when there was a funeral a long procession of
buggies, wagons, and persons on horseback fol
lowed the dead to the graveyard, there joined

ETNA AND KIEKEESVILLE 33
in hymn and prayer, and when aU was over,
escorted the sorrowful back to their home on
the farm or the cabin in the woods. It is need
less to say that they borrowed anything and
everything from each other, from a coffee-pot
or spinning-wheel or plough up to a wagon, and
were never in a hurry about returning it.
On Sunday everybody went to church, the
women sitting on the right and the men on the
left side of the house ; the men in linsey-wool
sey with stiff black stocks, the women in open
flaring bonnets and their hands covered with
black lace gloves. The grandmothers were gen-
eraUy in a row up next the pulpit, aU looking
sweetly benign and charitable. The whole con
gregation kneeled during the prayers and sang
loud enough to be heard for miles when they
struck a favorite hymn. One of my relations,
Abraham Houser, mentioned heretofore, when
he opened up " On Jordan's stormy banks I
stand and cast a wistful eye," was heard, I am
inclined to think, by the most distant settler on
the other side of this famous stream.
My father was one of the charter members of
the United Brethren Church, and our house was
the rendezvous for all the preachers, among
whom were some very able and distinguished

34 A SKETCH OF
men, like Bishops Edwards, Hanby, Davis,
Montgomery, and many others whose names
glitter in the sky of the church's history.
The Methodists had the first church in Etna,
of course; for Methodism grew as naturally
among the frontiersmen, with their ever ready
to bloom, emotional natures, as wild grapes
grow in thickets or the sanctimonious elder
berry in the fence corners. If ever there was
a reUgious organization whose informing spirit
represented the genius of the American people,
it was and is that church, and in my judg
ment it can fairly be claimed that to that body,
with its inherent and spontaneous democracy,
the West and Southwest are indebted for their
strength, their contributions in men who have
been leaders in the affairs of the country, and
who, in fact, have shaped its destiny.
None of my people were Methodists. But in
my boyhood I heard a great many most ridicu
lous controversies over the relative merits of
the United Brethren, our people's church, and
the Methodist Church, and they were sometimes
so heated as to threaten friendly relations. And
aU over what ? Why, because the Methodists
closed their doors to the members of other
churches when they had an experience meeting.

ETNA AND KIEKEESVILLE 35
— too often a meeting when member after
member would get up and dismaUy teU of his
journey along the road of Christian Ufe. The
real difficulty was, the Methodists would not
give the other frontiersmen a chance to tell
their experiences, thus debarring them from the
enjoyment of the most prized of aU American
institutions, namely, the opportunity to address
their feUow citizens. For it does not make
any difference whether it be a political caucus.
Knights of Pythias banquet, a town meeting,
or a meeting of the New England Historical
Society, it is only reaUy enjoyable to this day
so far as it gives the average member a chance
to have an audience look at him while he talks.
I was present at the dedication of the German
Reformed Church in the German settlement in
1854 or 1855. It was a beautiful sunshiny day
in midsummer ; the church stood in the woods,
facing south a few yards from the Fairfield
Une ; and with the boys of the neighborhood I
wandered among the teams and saddle horses
standing under the trees and heard the great
German voice pour out of the open windows
as they sang their mighty hymns in their old
home language. My father was there a special
guest ; for, being able to speak German, he was.

36 A SKETCH OF
besides being a justice of the peace and mak
ing all their deeds, the interpreter, counselor,
and friend in aU business matters. The services
were in German, and to the surprise and amuse
ment of the family, he was discovered singing
away in German with the rest of the congre
gation, when it was notorious that he did not
know one tune from another.
I was present also at the dedication of the
Disciples, commonly known as CampbelUte
church, that stands on the north side of Lick
ing, in the angle formed by York Street and
the Refugee Road, in 1856. It was a great
occasion ; for Alexander CampbeU, the founder
of the church itself, was present, and hundreds
of people, old and young, from far and near,
came to see that wonderful man. He was very
tall, had bristling white hair, worn in the An
drew Jackson style, and very dark, Uvely black
eyes overarched with mantling white eyebrows.
My father as a boy had heard him preach his first
sermon in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, and
renewed an early acquaintance. The services
continued practicaUy all day; and to accom
modate the multitude long tables supplied with
abundant food were set on the bank of the
creek in bowers made of willow and pawpaw.

ETNA AND KIEKEESVILLE 37
The moving spirit, the founder and life, of
this church was Jacob Winter. He was spare,
with furrowed cheeks, bUnd in one eye, above
the average height, and, Uke his brother Abra
ham, widely known and well beloved. Both he
and his brother were men of unfailing courtesy,
genial and open-hearted, and of engaging nat
ural refinement. No young man ever met them
— and they had a friendly welcome for every
one — who was not the better for it. In sun
shine and in shadow they were always the same,
and it was my fortune, although Jacob Winter
was many years my senior, to have his active
friendship tUl death overtook him. Both have
long since gone to their reward.
There were a great many men, women, girls,
and boys there that day whose faces and figures
are stUl clear to me. God bless the living; I
hope that the dead are in a land where streams
are flowing and where the birds sing as sweetly
as they sang on the banks of the Licking.
The Presbyterian church, farther up the creek
and near Pataskala, was dedicated some time
between 1840 and 1845. In the cemetery
alongside of it lies the clay of John S. Miller,
a gentleman and one of my best friends. Its
clergyman was Rev. Timothy Howe, a tall, spare

38 A SKETCH OF
man, with kindly deep blue eyes. He was from
New England, and in learning, public spirit,
social acquirements, wide acquaintance and es
teem was easily the leading citizen of Etna town
ship. His son, Brainard, was my first warm
school friend, and his wife was one of my
mother's Ufe-long friends. Their house stood
on the right-hand side of the road in the viUage
of Etna and at the very crest of the hill. Be
yond it stretched great fields dotted here and
there with stumps, but carpeted all over with the
low, steely, blue grass, where very long-horned
steers grazed, owned by Thomas Mathews, a
red-faced, burly Englishman who lived across
the road from Mr. Howe. Those fields are over
looked by the little cemetery knoll that rises
out of other fields on the south of the Pike, a
half-mile west of the village.
It is a fact of some historic interest that the
last time I went to this graveyard with my
mother, save when I followed her dear clay, I
read aloud the names and inscriptions on the
tombstones as we walked up to the family lot.
When I came to that of a Fanny Ward, my
mother, who was leaning on my arm — she was
almost eighty years old — stopped, exclaiming,
" Is that Fanny Ward's grave ? She was the

ETNA AND KIEKERSVILLE 39
first woman buried here, and I remember the-
day well, Morris."
In this Etna graveyard my grandmother
Schaff, who taught me my letters, my grand
mother HartzeU, my father and mother, all
Ue, on that little knoll from which undulating
green fields, checkered with fences and dotted
with grazing sheep and cattle, spread gently
and silently away. A tranquil spot, and not es-
peciaUy lonely, — it never gave me that im
pression, — somehow or other it always seemed
to have a mysterious union with the sky ; but
a spot where sleep promised to be deeper and
more undisturbed, it would be hard to find.
When I was a boy it was surrounded by a rail
fence, and blackberries grew here and there
among the graves, all covered with taU grass
in summer, and over which rabbit tracks broke
the snow in winter.
In my early boyhood, about the time of the
Mexican war, there was a miUtia company in
Etna. The hat they wore was very much like, if
not an exact copy of, the one we wore at West
Point, except that it had a white and red pom
pon somewhat larger than the black one worn by
the cadets. In my eyes, as this company paraded
west of the schoolhouse in Etna viUage, they

40 A SKETCH OF
looked like warriors of many a bloody field ;
and when they camq marching along with their
flint-lock muskets with savage-looking fixed
bayonets, — keeping step to two screaming
fifes, the fifers swaying proudly, and a bass
drum beaten in lofty style by Henry Neff, a
heavy-browed Pennsylvanian, one of the vU
lage carpenters, — where is the rustic heart
that would not beat fast at such a spectacle
of martial glory ? Thumping away with great
flourishes and casting from time to time a fierce
look at us small boys chasing along in bulging-
eyed awe, Mr. Neff was something immense.
I have seen Generals Scott, Grant, McClellan,
Sherman, Sheridan and aU the great generals
who led the gaUant old Army of the Potomac,
but none of them were ever half so grand, in
my eyes, as Henry Neff marching at the head
of the militia company. Captain James Conine
commanding. When the Mexican war ended, this company
faded away. Neff's big drum dreamed from a
peg in his carpenter's shop, the old flint-lock
musket took its place with the long squirrel
rifle and shot-gun on the gun rack; and, instead
of tramping down the dog fennel of the parade
ground, its members foUowed the plough and

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 41
harrow, thinking deeply, wondering what those
fires meant which were just kindling along the
slopes of the future, and which in 1861 broke
out into the conflagration of the great Rebel
lion. It would be a hopeless undertaking in these
days of curbed emotions and over-developed
fastidiousness to try to convey an adequate
idea of the intensity and extravagance of politi
cal opinions of Etna township in my boyhood.
Then the individual, unconscious of restraint,
did his own thinking and expressed his con
clusions with bold and rugged freedom. He
was Nature's realist. Now he is lost in the
multitude ; no one cares for his opinions ; the
color has all vanished from his views ; and he
is only an atom of the tarnishing gilt on the
Temple of Mammon. However this may be, in
those early days nine out of ten of the heads of
famiUes in Etna dropped everything whenever
one of the party orators held forth ; corn to be
cut, potatoes dug, ground ploughed for wheat,
— nothing could keep them at home, especially
during the presidential campaigns. When the
poUtical tide ran high, there were processions,
men and women on horseback, barbecues, and
pole raisings, foUowing one after another, week

42 A SKETCH OF
upon week, till the campaign was over. As an
illustration of the prevaUing poUtical extrava
gance, we Democrats built a platform of young
hickory at our house, mounted it on a wagon,
and with a taU pole carrying a flag and a roos
ter, set off between three and four o'clock in
the morning, drawn by six horses, for a big po
Utical meeting in Newark, sixteen miles away.
There were thousands of people from all over
Licking, packing the square about the court
house, while the streets were filled from curb
to curb with teams. There I heard the famous
and picturesque Sam Houston of Texas and
General George D. Morgan of Mt. Vernon,
Ohio. The township up to the time I went to West
Point, in 1858, like all the county, was strongly
Democratic, and so also was the congressional
district from which I was appointed. It was
made up of Licking, Franklin, and Pickaway
counties, and was represented in Congress by
Samuel S. Cox of Columbus, — a smaU, alert,
always attractive, dark-haired man, with a cumu-
lous white forehead; one of the wittiest and
one of the most brilliant men of his day. My
indebtedness to him is great. For he opened
the gates for an obscure boy to other fields

ETNA AND KIRKEESVILLE 43
than those of the old home, — the fields of
Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness,
and Spottsylvania ; and on some of them the
boy tried to do a soldier's duty.
In my boyhood I do not remember a single
serious crime to have been committed in the
town of Etna, or KirkersviUe, or within a
radius of fifteen miles of either of them, save
the mortal stabbing of Longbrake, in a quarrel
over wages, by the German, Stingley. Horse
stealing, however, was not uncommon, and a
professional horse thief reared in the town had
the foUowing rather interesting relations to our
famUy. His father was one of the pioneers, a
large landholder ; his mother was a rather gen
tle woman, who in her widowhood met about
every blast of adversity. This boy, her young
est, was spare, yellow-haired, and of medium
height, and almost a perfect type of what is
known in the South as mountaineer white
trash, and yet his mother was a dark-eyed and
respectable Virginian. Well, he began his
career of horse thief about the time he was
twenty-one, but was wise enough not to do
his stealing near home. He came and went, to
be sure, rather mysteriously, but he had no
intimates, and could easUy account for him-

44 A SKETCH OF
self. After a long absence, during which I
think his mother had died, or at any rate had
removed to a distance from the neighborhood,
much to my mother's surprise he one summer's
day appeared at the door and asked her if she
remembered him. He had always borne a
marked face, a certain wild, natural distrust in
his steady blue eyes, which, after looking into
her face, revealed him to my mother, who ex
claimed, " Is this you, WUliam ? " and gave
him her hand. In the course of his visit, for
so it happened my mother was alone that after
noon, he told her that he had just been re
leased from the penitentiary, where he had
served a long sentence for horse-stealing, and
claimed, when she hoped he would reform, that
he had few other weaknesses, meant to reform,
etc., etc. She probably beUeved him; at any
rate she gave him a dinner, and, as it turned
out, cast her bread upon waters that at last
returned. For, some years later, the title of
the homestead was attacked and this same man
was the sole depository of the key that settled
the difficulty. After a long search he was
found on the border of a Western State (there
possibly for convenience in evading the law),
and wiUingly gave his testimony, stating that

ETNA AND KIRKEESVILLE 45
my mother had treated him as no other woman
had treated him, save his own mother, who knew
his history. I never knew what became of him
finally, but have no doubt that his dust lies off
in some lonely Western graveyard, and perhaps
unmarked ; but, wherever it is, there rests with
me a mysterious interest about his memory.
Litigation, judging from my father's dockets
as justice of the peace, was confined chiefly to
suits on notes, leases, ownership of stock that
had gone astray, and disputes about land bound
aries. Commonplace as many of these cases
were at times, they enlisted the best lawyers of
the country. I remember appearing as coun
sel before my father, Mr. Justice WilUam B.
Woods, late of the Supreme Court, Mr. Charles
FoUett, Mr. Case, Mr. Kibler, and others, lead
ing members of the Licking County bar.
I am satisfied that my father, like most of
the old-time " squires," knew mighty little law,
yet he and they were all endued with a liberal
aUowance of what is known as " horse sense,"
— that faculty which, without blazed paths,
finds its way through a wUderness of testimony
to the sunny clearings of justice.

CHAPTER IV
I DOUBT if the spirit of wisdom ever mingled
with a people on closer terms than with our
forefathers ; and, as a result, all the roots of
our country's glory, towering like an oak, so
to speak, are found, on final analysis, running
down into and drawing their sustenance from
the system of public schools. And, as a proof
that this spirit had penetrated the wilderness,
the very first official act of the pioneers, after
the town was organized, divided the township,
beginning at the eastern end, into four school
districts. I cannot definitely locate the school-
houses except in Etna, the Snyder settlement,
and our own district ; but the little country
schoolhouse where a boy first goes to school
stands in the same old spot, weathers all time,
and the grass in its playground and in the
fields about it grows greener as old age comes
on. At least that is true of mine, — and yet
every one of them has joined the eternal and
irresistible procession of earthly things, and has
long since disappeared.

A SKETCH OF ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 47
The first one I went to was in Etna, on the
north side of the village and west from the
Methodist Church. Back of it lay some open
fields, and in the middle of one of them, with
a mulberry tree near it, stood a log barn that
always, for an especial reason, had a weird
lonesomeness about it in my eyes. The rea
son was this. When WUson Shannon, one of
my father's early acquaintances in Belmont
County, was on his way to Columbus to be in
augurated as governor in 1838, his trunk was
stolen from the boot of the stage, as the horses
slowed up at the ascent from Hart's Run on
the east edge of the viUage, by a man of the
name of Chris Scherer, who carried it off
through the darkness, and hid it in this barn.
The governor, on missing his trunk at Rey-
noldsburgh, told the driver that, although it
contained aU his wardrobe, yet i£ the thief
would return the shirts which his wife had lov
ingly made with her own hands, and which he
was to wear while governor, he might keep all
the rest of the contents of the trunk. The ex
quisite needlework was so particularly described
that a few weeks after, when Scherer, arrayed
in some of the governor's clothes, mounted
the stage for Columbus, the driver noticed his

48 A SKETCH OF
shirt, and when they reached Columbus turned
him over to the town marshal, who took him
to the capitol. The governor recognized his
Unen and clothes at once, and Scherer, who
was a stupid Dutchman, confessed on the spot,
and told where the trunk could be found, in
that old deserted barn. After Scherer had
served his sentence in the penitentiary, he
broke stone along the Pike, and to us little
schoolchUdren as we passed him going to and
from school, seated alone day after day on
an old sheepskin, his left hand protected by
a piece of cast-off boot leg, his eyes by large
blue goggles, he was always an object of dread
and of pitiful interest.
West of the schoolhouse was an open lot
where the geese gathered, the town cows grazed,
and the mUitia paraded. The public square
was near by, a lot set off in the heart of the
town by the founder, with a vain hope that
a new county might be formed, and Etna be
the county seat. Down through this lot ran a
little ditch which was a favorite spot for all
small boys, with breeches rolled up as high as
possible, to wade in at recess after a rain. One
summer the teacher, a Mr. McClellan, a middle-
aged man with a gracious, luminous counte-

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 49
nance, forbade our going near the brook, as
several of the smallest boys had fallen in and
got thoroughly soaked. But on one occasion
the brooklet was hustling along brim full, and
the temptation was too great; up went our
little breeches, and in we went. One of the
waders fell, got wet all over, and went back to
the schoolhouse, bawling at the top of his
lungs. The result was that we were called up,
one by one, and publicly spanked over McClel-
lan's knees, and I remember distinctly my sense
of humUiation ; when I got back . to my seat,
with head down on my desk to hide my tears,
I vowed that I would whip McClellan just as
soon as, yes, the very day, I had grown up. I
do not believe I was the only little fellow who,
after like punishment, made similar dire resolu
tions, but up to this time I have never heard of
any of them being executed ; they all lie with
many a Uttle hope and many a boyish love
under the greened-over ashes of youth.
In 1849 my father sold his farm near Etna,
and bought the Longbrake and Mellenberg
farms, two miles east along the Pike and nearer
KirkersvUle, which became our post-office ad
dress and the centre of neighborhood relations.
That brought my schooldays in Etna to an end.

50 A SKETCH OF
for thenceforth we belonged to another district,
known for a long time by our family name.
The schoolhouse stood facing south, near where
the present one stands, but on the westerly side
of the small, neglected, and practically aban
doned graveyard, which is older, as a matter of
fact, than the one west of Etna vUlage. The
schoolhouse itself was a very small affair, a
building not over eighteen or twenty by thirty
feet, resting on round blocks; and the sheep
that roamed the unfenced woods, and fed along
the Pike on the blue grass that carpeted its
dusty sides, would crawl under the schoolhouse
to enjoy its cool shade when the sun began to
beat down, lulled into dreams, perhaps, by the
drawUng recitations going on above them. As
soon as they heard the commotion of recess,
however, they would begin to scuttle out, and
it was then a great question whether they or
the boys would get out first, for it meant a race
to the woods well understood by both parties.
I can hear the beUs jingUng and see the long
tails bobbing yet, as over the Pike they went
and out into the open primeval woods that
reached to the Refugee Road.
To this school went the Parkinsons, Rudolph
and John Henry, grandsons of Isaac Essex, the

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 61
Crows, KeUars, Zellars, Moores, Shanks, Rick-
leys, and MiUers. Another of the scholars
was Amos Hefner, who always wore a brown
ish " wammus " with fringed borders. This ar
ticle was a sort of roundabout made at home,
and the last of the pioneer garb. He was a
lusty, broad-shouldered, thin-lipped, smUing fel
low, whose family, Uke many of the pioneers,
foUowed the frontier with the deer, and disap
peared in the wUderness of Indiana.
At one time we had a teacher by the name
of Whitehead, who used to thrash us boys with
a whitethorn stick — " gad," as we called it —
which was very tough, and four or five feet
long, and, when not in use, reposed in full view
on top of his desk, seasoning. He had a way
of calUng us up for whispering, or some simi
lar boyish misdemeanor, and giving it to us
warmly, yes, mercilessly, around the legs ; and
when one realizes that drawers in those days
were the exception, some idea can be formed
of what such a thrashing meant. And yet it
was good fun for everybody except the fellow
who was catching it. Whitehead was small,
stunted, and cruel, with bristling black hair,
and a blotched, cloudy face.
We had another teacher there by the name

62 A SKETCH OF
of Fink, who had been a soldier in the Mex
ican War, a big-hearted Virginian. As was
customary in those days, he boarded around
with his pupUs, and before the fire told us
many a story of his soldier life, and so viv
idly and naturally that we could almost hear
the guns of Cerro Gordo and Chapultepec. He
had heavy, black, united eyebrows, and did not
know as much as Whitehead, but he carried
an honest face and a soldier's heart.
The schoolmaster who taught longest, and,
perhaps, was the best ; who, as teacher and
as justice of the peace, was known and remem
bered kindly by a larger number of the people
of Etna than almost any other citizen of the
town ; and who for a great many years was
almost an inmate of our famUy, was Andrew
J. Shohoney. He was of middle size, firmly
and compactly built, with a full, kind, serene
face, thoughtful gray eyes, darkish, smoth
ered red beard, and a broad, high forehead
of marked distinction, bordered with thin,
deep chestnut hair. His movements were all
deliberate, and yet he was an athlete with
nerves and muscles like steel ; but what opened
the door of everybody's heart was the cloud
less, June-day-like sweetness, the calming mod-

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 63
erateness and charity of his nature. He taught
nothing beyond arithmetic, reading, geography,
and elementary grammar ; he had never had
the opportunity to fit himself to teach more.
But he had walked the upward winding ways
and paths of many virtues, — virtues whose
paths and ways are greener than the ways
and paths of abstract sciences ; he taught us
all to tell the truth, to have patience, to have
courage, and to be respectful to our elders.
He won many a boy's heart, and he won mine.
I used to write to him when I was at West
Point, and more than once, as I walked my
post in the dead hours of night, I remembered
him, and wished that, when the day came for
me to graduate, he might be present and share
my pleasure. He was the oldest son of James
Shohoney, who lived on our Mellenberg farm,
and he had two brothers, James and Edward,
The latter died at Vicksburg, in the war. His
father played and hunted with the last of the
Shawnee Indians in BowUng Green Township.
May the wind ever breathe softly over " Andy "
Shohoney's grave !
In the basement of the Disciples' Church
was kept a private school, the first of its kind
in all that region, and known as the Creek

54 A SKETCH OF
school. Its first master was an elderly man
from Virginia, by the name of Best, who was
followed by a prim, tall, narrow-shouldered
young man, a graduate of Oberlin, by the
name of Browning. Both were most exem
plary, genteel men, but naturally sombre, rarely
smiUng, and neither ever knew what it was to
laugh. Moreover, Browning had a very un
comfortable habit of watching one put of the
corners of his black eyes.
I went to this school a part of two winters
before going to West Point, and many a good
fellow went there to school with me, — Joseph
Atkinson, Clay Miller, the Charles, Colson,
Jones, Morrow, and Kellar boys, and among
others WUUam White, who, much to my sur
prise, called out, " Hallo, Morris ! " from the
line of battle at Spottsylvania Courthouse,
while I was riding by with an order from
Grant's headquarters to White's corps com
mander. General John Gibbon, for one of
those deadly charges that were made on that
field, I never heard my name so unexpect
edly. I reined up as soon as I could, and there
stood " Bill " of the old Creek school, with his
dark eyes and daring, open countenance aglow
with boyish friendship. I looked down into

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 65
his face and clasped his hand with a grasp that
showed, I hope, that our schooldays were not
forgotten. That gallant fellow, along with
other KirkersvUle boys, was in the 4th Ohio,
and in one of its bitter engagements was seri
ously wounded. Surely the Creek school turned
out one hero at least.
The first class that ever studied algebra in
Etna township was composed of Joseph At
kinson, Clay Miller, David Kellar, Martin Van
Buren Manon, Colonel Morrison Youmans, and
myself. Manon I have lost sight of, but, so far
as I know at this writing, aU my other class
mates are alive. Atkinson and Miller are pros
perous and respected farmers on the Licking,
KeUar a lawyer of distinction in Newark, Ohio,
and Colonel Youmans a prominent citizen of
Columbus. There was not a library in the township,
and books were very, very few ; but those we
had were read and re-read, and doubtless with
as much benefit as we get from the vast
numbers to which we have access now. Some
worthless yet thriUing Indian stories, the his
tory of the United States, Lives of Washington
and Marion and other Revolutionary generals,
Webster's old blue-bound spelling-book, with

66 A SKETCH OF
its four Ulustrated fables, and McGuffy's Read
ers about completed the list. But with the ex
ception of one family, the McGuires, aU were
Protestants, and the Bible was in every house,
and in that day it was read and read again,
till every story and aU of its lofty, vibrating
poetry was known and more or less appreciated
by all. In ours, the family, servants, and farm
hands having been assembled, it was read every
morning by my father, and after he closed the
book, we all knelt and he made a prayer.
I remember with great distinctness, and with
moistened eyes, his prayer the morning I left
for West Point. Up to that time not a boy in
the town had been more than twenty mUes
away from home. The journey I was to take
seemed long, and I was to be gone for two
years. I merely mention this incident because
it throws some Ught, not on the ranges of hu
man nature, but on a day when the world was
not lighted up and connected as it is to-day,
and when Religion held a seat in the hearts of
men along with manliness, simplicity, and love
of country, and above wealth, and was an ac
tive, formulating, pervading influence.
About every family took a weekly news
paper, — there were no dailies. We took the

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 67
" Ohio Statesman," the " Newark Advocate,"
and the " Religious Telescope." The " Advo
cate " and the " Statesman " were Democratic
organs and violently partisan ; while the
" Telescope," then as now, always pointed se
renely and lovingly to the Heavenly Kingdom.
Away in the early fiifties " Uncle Tom's Cabin "
appeared. Did the people beUeve in the story of
Uncle Tom ? Yes. And slavery never recov
ered from that surprised, penetrating, disapprov
ing look that sprang into the eyes of the North.
The sports and amusements were of the
simplest character, — corn-huskings, fox-hunt
ing, log-rollings and quUtings, with now and
then a trip to KirkersviUe or Reynoldsburgh
to a circus, or to a horse race at Pickerington,
the county fair at Newark or Lancaster, or to
camp-meetings. In addition we had singing-
schools, and of all my memories of those days
none are greener or sweeter to linger over;
especiaUy of one held on York Street at a
little schoolhouse that stood by the roadside
near where Abraham and Jacob Winier Uved.
The voice of one of the girls who sang there I
heard at times mingling with the bugles of the
Army of the Potomac, and I stiU hear it. The
way we sang and what we sang would not, I

68 A SKETCH OF
fear, meet with the approval of the delicately
strung music teachers of to-day ; we did as
' well as we knew how, and if it was very bad
we were happy in not knowing it ; but over
us all the stars decked the heavens with as
much smiling, mysterious beauty as now, while
we walked home with girls as beautiful as those
of to-day. Oh, what would youth be if it had
to bid fareweU to moon and stars ; and oh,
could the voices of home-going groups from
those singing-schools break again, as from time
to time they broke under starUght and moon
light, into songs that floated over the fields and
through the listening timber !
The interiors of the houses were often very
bare, varying with the means and cultivation
of the famUies, In the early days, of necessity,
there was but Uttle furniture, — a table, a bu
reau, a small, inexpensive looking-glass, and a
few chairs, all wretchedly uncomfortable, with
here and there a glaringly cheap colored print
on the waUs, But they were not aU so meagre
in comforts and appointments ; in more than
one the door opened on a scene of simple, nat
ural refinement. A well cared-for, open, wide
fireplace, with its fender and massive andirons,
ornamented at the top sometimes with a tip

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 59
or sphere of brass, and sometimes throwing
out a prong to hold the huge poker ; windows
draped with white curtains decorated with bor
ders of little dangling white tassels; corner
cupboards with glass doors revealing pink and
blue china; and I recall in this connection two
most cordial-looking decanters, one plain and
the other with a twisted and fluted neck, with
some glasses suggesting the spirit of hospitality
and good cheer. Then, in the chambers there
were rag carpets ; and the spreads on the beds,
many of them carded, dyed, and woven in the
house, or brought from Pennsylvania and old
Virginia, were beautiful to look upon and im
parted a sweet air of refinement to the room.
In a good many of the houses also were to
be seen wooden clocks with weights dangling
from iron chains. Our old wooden clock I Uke
to think about, for it had a picture on the
door of a stately young woman in a sweeping
red dress, her hair plastered down on her
temples, and her hands clasped before her, toy
ing with a Uttle white fan. Beneath in black
letters was her name, " Lauretta " ! A smUe
gathers as I recall her, she was so proper and
coldly weU bred as she surveyed us boys ! And
upon my honor, I always stood in awe of her.

CHAPTER V
The most important event in the life of
KirkersviUe and Etna Township was the buUd-
ing of the National Road, known famUiarly as
the Pike, and officiaUy as the Cumberland and
United States Road. The present generation,
save those reared along it, never having heard
of it, are completely ignorant of its history,
and therefore cannot realize how great a part
this highway played in the nation's early life.
To fully appreciate its national importance,
it must be borne in mind that in the early days
of our country the commerce of the Mississippi
and Ohio vaUeys, obeying the law of commer
cial gravity, was finding its markets down the
Mississippi, and that there was wide and deep
political discontent over the indifference of New
England and the middle coast States to the
welfare of the West ; and so rapidly were these
alienating forces increasing, that the chances
are that, had its construction been delayed
twenty years, the West would have broken
from the East, and organized an independent

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 61
government with the capital at Louisville, St.
Louis, or New Orleans,
The credit for foreseeing and providing for
this fateful contingency is due to Albert Gal
latin, member of Congress from Pennsylvania,
afterwards Secretary of the Treasury from 1801
to 1814. Through his influence Congress ap
pointed a committee to report on the question
of " laying out and making roads from the
navigable waters emptying into the Atlantic to
the river Ohio." This committee reported De
cember 19, 1805, and Congress immediately
passed an act to " regulate the laying out and
making a road from Cumberland, in the State of
Maryland, to the State of Ohio." It authorized
the President to appoint "three discreet and
disinterested citizens of the United States " as
a Commission to lay out the road. Jefferson
appointed Thomas Moore of Maryland, Joseph
Kerr of Ohio, and EU WUUams of Maryland.
These Commissioners, starting at Cumberland
on the Potomac, foUowed, in their location of
the new National Road, the Une of the old
Braddock Road, which, in its turn, had foUowed
the old Indian trail. When Braddock started
on his ill-starred march from Cumberland, Sir
John St. Clair preceded him with six hundred

62 A SKETCH OF
pioneer choppers, making a track ten or twelve
feet wide for Braddock's train. It was a May
morning when they set out, in the year 1755.
The National Road foUowed this road tUl it
reached Laurel HiU, beyond the AUeghanies.
There the roads parted, Braddock's bearing off
toward Pittsburg to its fatal field, the National
Road striking westward through Uniontown to
Brownesville on the Monongahela, and thence
on to the Ohio at Wheeling.
In 1807 the President got permission of
Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania for au
thority to build the road through their domain,
and in 1811 a contract was made with Henry
McKinley, for the building of the first section,
at the rate of |21.25 a rod.
The location wa s eighty feet wide, to be cleared
of all timber and stumps, and the road-bed it
self thirty feet on top, " to afford suitable secu
rity," so say the specifications, " in passing on
a way to be frequently crowded with wagons
moving in opposite directions with transports of
emigrant famUies and droves of cattle, hogs,
etc., on the way to market." The road was a
government undertaking, and was built under
the supervision of the War Department ; it was
macadamized with from seven to eleven inches

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 63
of broken stone, aU its bridges and culverts of
cut stone, its grades low, and appointments in
every way substantial and worthy of its builders
and its great and serious purpose.
In 1818 it reached the Ohio. It is evident
from a letter of Gallatin's, written in Septem
ber, 1808, in regard to its location, that he
expected that after crossing the Ohio it would
foUow the old Indian traU to ChUUcothe and
Cincinnati, but poUtical influence swung it to its
present location, directing that it run through
the capitals of Ohio, Indiana, and lUinois, then
at VandaUa. It began its great march at once,
and in 1825 was located as far as Columbus ;
Joseph E. Johnston, the famous Confederate
general, then a young graduate of West Point,
being one of the party of engineers to make
the preUminary surveys along the route of Kir
kersviUe and Etna. After reaching Columbus
in 1833, it was pushed on rapidly to Indian-
apoUs, and thence to VandaUa; there the rail
roads overtook it in 1852, and its day was
ended. It had traversed seven hundred miles,
the longest macadamized road that ever was
built by any government in the world.
At once on its completion as far as the Ohio
River, a mighty tide of emigration set in, as

64 A SKETCH OF
though a magic bugle had been heard from the
river's banks, or from the top of the AUeghanies.
High and low, and everywhere among the moun
tains and down over the misty Blue Ridge of
old Virginia, the people heard it, and with a bet
ter faith than that of the Crusaders, teams were
harnessed, the household property of manor-
houses as weU as of many a cabin was packed,
a good-by was waved to the old home, and
off they started for the National Road. If one
might, in imagination, take the peak of Laurel
HiU where it crossed the Allegheny as a look
out, say in the month of May or June, 1825,
— John Quincy Adams was President of the
United States, — off to the northwest would Ue
Lake Erie, from whose shore to Belvoir on the
Gulf of Mexico, the home of Jefferson Davis,
the trees interlaced their limbs over every foot,
save the channels of the Ohio and the Tennes
see, — from that overlooking standpoint a vast
procession of wagons, sometimes two abreast,
would greet his eye, pressing on toward the
Ohio ; whUe dashing through the stream, he
would see stages drawn by four horses, the
leaders here and there decorated with stream
ing banners, carrying the United States maU.
Now it would be the Boston, now the New

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 65
York, and now the New Orleans mail. The
nation's destiny lay in the hopes and the char
acter of the men and women who formed that
procession, and every day's march was the march
of the wealth and power of the world west
ward. Built as it was by the government, brushing
the mighty trees out of its path as though they
were reeds, carrying its level high over ravines
and marshes and surging creeks, cutting boldly
down through the hills, marching on mile after
mUe, it possessed then, as it possesses now, the
mysterious power of statehood ; making every
one who traveled it feel that in no sense was he
an intruder, but inspiring him, on the contrary,
with a f eeUng of self-respect and a lofty national
pride. It was caUed the National and United
States Road, and brought the government as a
concrete reaUty for the first time to the immi
grants, and sons of the Revolutionary soldiers.
It is interesting to imagine the expression on
their faces, as, emerging from some narrow,
winding, grass-grown, muddy country road,
this great highway broke on their vision for
the first time.. Its royal breadth; its bridges of
cut stone spanning the runs and creeks, their
guards carried up three and a half feet, with a

66 A SKETCH OF
wide, heavy coping; its defiance of every ob
stacle, and the obvious thoroughness of its con
struction and disregard of expense, must have
made their simple hearts beat fast. The fall
ing in, too, with people from aU quarters of the
country must have had a quickening effect on
the natures of these children of provincialism,
born in Uttle, isolated, secluded cabins. It must
have been like a draught of champagne to
them when they met the stages, heard their
echoing horns, and caught for the first time
that look of superiority and indifference which
personages of average importance are likely to
assume when traveling on stages or in Pullman
cars. Surely, as they trudged on in their sur
prise and exultation, the National Road must
have seemed to them, not an ordinary highway,
but something endowed with might. But a
youthful spirit, the genius of the land, was
walking at their side, and as the stages dashed
westward, with kindling hopes and animated
faces they foUowed on.
Is it not reasonable to say in view of the vast
and rich country that it opened, and of the
wealth and power now seated there, that the
National Road marks an epoch in the country's
history just as the Appian Way marked an

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 67
epoch in Roman history, long after the columns
of her temples had fallen and her great men
had sunk into oblivion ? And here let me quote
from Searight's " Old Pike," a history of the
National Road, and a monument to its patient
and indefatigable author : —
" The Appian Way was a great road, and is
invested with much classic and historic interest,
but, unlike the National Road, it did not yield
its place to greater lines of progress and im
provement. The Appian Way was designed to
gratify the pomp and vanity of consuls and
pro-consuls, kings and princes, emperors and
empires. The National Road was designed to
meet the wants of a free and progressive people,
and to aid in building up and strengthening a
great and growing republic. The Appian Way
had more vitality than the government that
buUt it. It outUved its country. The National
Road served its purpose grandly, was a com
plete success, the pride and glory of its day and
generation, and when it lost its place as a na
tional thoroughfare, the government that made
it was aU the stronger because it had been made.
The average width of the Appian Way was
from eighteen to twenty feet, so as to admit of
two carriages passing each other, and the ex-

68 A SKETCH OF
pense of constructing the first section of it was
so great that it exhausted the public treasury
of Rome. The National Road was sixty feet
wide, and eight carriages could pass each other
within its borders, while the cost of its con
struction, although a very large sum of money,
made so light a draught upon the resources of
the public treasury of the United States, in
comparison with subsequent appropriations for
other objects, as to be scarcely worthy of ob
servation. The Appian Way derived its name
from Appius, who was consul of Rome at the
time of the undertaking. Its initial southern
terminus was Capua, distant from Rome one
hundred and twenty-five miles, very nearly
the same as the distance from Cumberland to
Wheeling. It was subsequently constructed as
far as Beneventum, and ultimately to Brundi-
sium, a seaport town of the Adriatic, distant
from Rome three hundred and seventy-eight
miles. We are informed by Anthon that the
city of Beneventum derived great importance
from its position on the Appian Way, and the
same can be truthfully said of the towns and
cities which were so fortunate as to be located
on the National Road."
If Beneventum and Brundisium derived great

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 69
importance from the Appian Way, how about
KirkersviUe and Etna? Would the world ever
have heard of either of them had it not been
for the National Road ? There are pretty strong
reasons for believing that it never would, but it
wUl not do to adopt a hasty conclusion. For
fame, like the dew, falls widely, but it gathers
and sparkles in glowing spheres on only a few
leaves and little blades, and yet who knows how
soon it will fall on KirkersviUe ? But however
this may be, the old road and the little, quiet,
dreaming towns will go down the stream of life
together. It was buUt through them — both
were laid out after it was located, and about the
same time — in the years 1831, 1832, and 1833.
Brigadier-General Gratiot, the head of the
Engineers Corps, had control and supervision
of its construction under the War Department.
There was a little town named after him, on
the Une of the road, about fifteen miles east of
KirkersvUle ; its residents, and in fact all of us,
called it " Grayshot." The young army officers
with him — most of whom were graduates of
West Point — were Captains Delafield, McKee,
Bartlett, HartzeU, Mansfield, Bliss, Colquit,
and Cass. Of these officers, Delafield was su
perintendent at West Point when I was there,

70 A SKETCH OF
— a small man with gray reddish hair, heavy
eyebrows, and a fierce eagle-like Roman nose,
Bartlett was professor of philosophy, — a tall,
spare man, his face a network of wrinkles, and
his gray hair brushing upward in every direc
tion ; one of the few professors at West Point
who ever had any friends among the cadets
while I was there, I used to see him walking
arm in arm under the drooping elms with Jef
ferson Davis, another man with a fine, spare
face and manly bearing. They were old and
dear cadet friends. That was in the summer
and faU of 1859, and little did he, or his friend,
or the cadets, dream of what lay ahead of us all
in the next five years. Bartlett's son, William,
was in my class ; so was George, the son of
McKee, who was killed at Buena Vista ; and so
was Samuel, the son of Mansfield, who was
kUled at Antietam, HartzeU was one of my
mother's family, I have always felt that it
was an interesting coincidence that sons of the
officers who built the road before our door
should have been my classmates, and that two
of the officers themselves, Bartlett and Delafield,
should be at the head of West Point when I
reached there. In addition to all this, the name
of the horse that I drew in my first year, and

ETNA AND KIEKEESVILLE 71
that I rode in my last cavalry charge before
I graduated, was " Pike," — a brown horse,
named after the celebrated Zebulon Pike. He
was a rangy, ewe-necked, high-headed, big-
footed brute, and could not run very fast, but
could sail over ditches like a bird.
As soon as the road was located, the land all
along it was rushed into the market in lots to
suit purchasers. Some bought whole sections,
others a few acres, and with almost magical
speed the woods were peopled. The building of
the road itself gave employment for many men
and teams, as aU the stone for the bridges and
for macadamizing had to be hauled from quar
ries eight and ten miles distant. It must have
been a busy scene, as the road made its way
between KirkersviUe and Etna. The axemen
went first, cutting a swath eighty feet wide
through the timber ; others, as fast as the trees
fell, cut them into logs which teams dragged
off to one side. Men then grubbed around the
huge stumps tUl they could be pried up, when
they followed their magnificent trunks, to rot
under the shade of their more fortunate fel
lows. Then came ploughs and scrapers, till the
grading was done. Hundreds of men found em
ployment, and under their labor the road almost

72 A SKETCH OF
walked across the land. Often when we boys
could get our mother into a reminiscent mood
(how provoking aged people are who have
had thrilling experiences ; and sailors and sol
diers, too, who have seen real war and have
behaved with courage, — how provoking they
all are to children in letting go only little drib
lets of what is so interesting in their Uves!),
when we could induce the dear old lady to tell
about those days, how delightful was her story !
She would tell us how the camp-fires of the
workmen Ughted up the night all along the
line ; about the bustle, the teams coming and
going, and on Sundays the drunken carousals
and rioting ; and finally the awful death of so
many of them by the scourge of cholera which
swept the entire country. WeU, we never wanted
to hear much about the funeral processions that
were remembered so distinctly, while our mother
never remembered half enough about the fights
to suit us.
As fast as the road was completed the stream
of emigrants — we called them " movers " —
began, which, for over thirty years, poured
along it. My remembrance begins about 1845
or 1846, and at that time and till 1852 the
stream that had set in in 1830 poured on.

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 73
I do not believe that from the last of March
tiU the snow began to faU, a farmer's boy
ever looked off from the fields to the road
that his eye did not fall on the white canvas-
covered wagons of the movers. I remember
them almost with tenderness ; for how often
with the listlessness of childhood did I sit by
the roadside or on the doorstep and watch them
file by. The head of the house, or one of the
grown-up boys, drove the team, the women and
children walking sometimes ahead and some
times behind the wagons, sometimes driving a
few cows and smaU herds of sheep ; sometimes
a pen of fowls swung under the hind axle, and
often whole famUies would sing light-heartedly.
At night they camped in the woods or by
the roadside, and when morning broke they
were astir and soon gone. Here and there in
the procession were parties on horseback ; in
autumn the riders always had their legs wrapped
with a strip of green baize, securely tied with
a red tape, to protect their trousers. Then along
would come heavily loaded freighting wagons,
with four or six horses, many of the teams with
bells suspended from an iron arch resting on
the hames, — the sweet jingling of the bells at
each step of the powerful horses gave the team

74 A SKETCH OF
and the driver a high place in our eyes, and the
bells sound sweetly now across all the years.
And then would appear the stages at a swing
ing trot, full inside and out with passengers,
the driver holding the reins proudly over four
horses which dashed on with open nostrils, as
if each one knew he was carrying the United
States maU, There were roan teams, bays,
blacks, chestnuts, and grays. I remember one
roan team especially, for more than once I saw
the great leader — he was then and is now my
ideal horse — with a long streamer from his
hames, indicating that Mr. Clay, or Mr. Ben
ton, or President Polk, or some other great man
was on board. And as for the driver, I hon
estly beUeve that had the choice been given me,
or any other small boy, between taking his place
and that of the President, we would not have
hesitated a moment, — the driver was the great
est, the most envied man in the world. I always
thought that even my father felt deeply honored
when any one of them — he knew them aU —
would caU out bluffly, " Good-morning, Squire,"
or give a little friendly wave of his whip. It is
needless to say that this same whip was let fly
more than once at the squire's boys when caught
tagging on behind. These drivers were, as a

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 75
rule, middle-aged, imposing, silent, red-faced
men ; wind and storm (and possibly now and
then a little brandy lent its kindling touch) had
wrought warmth of color into their rugged
faces. They generally wore caps and yellow
buckskin gloves ; in winter a buffalo robe was
closely wrapped around their knees.
There was the night Boston mail, the St.
Louis, the Southwestern, the Great Eastern, and
the Great Western maUs. The latter left Wash
ington at 9 p. M. and Baltimore at 7 p. m, —
reached WheeUng in thirty hours, Columbus in
forty-five and one half, Indianapolis in sixty-
five and one half, VandaUa eighty-five and one
half, St. Louis in ninety-four hours. It left
WheeUng in the early morning, and passed our
house with almost the regularity of a clock
about 3 A. M. the foUowing morning, arriving
at Columbus at 5 a, m.
On one occasion — it was a dark, misty
February or March night — the family was
aroused by loud calls. The stage had upset
near by, midway between the milestone and the
bridge over the Uttle run that comes down out
of the woods and then winds through the fields
west of the barn. Of course it was a very excit
ing moment for us boys as we hurried through

76 A SKETCH OF
the darkness to the scene. The passengers and
horses were gathered on the road, the stage lay
helpless on its side down at the foot of the slope,
which it had reached after rolling over several
times, for there is quite a fill at this point. Every
body had been well shaken up, and several peo
ple were almost killed, who in due time were
carried to our house. It seems, so at least the
driver said, that something broke, and away
went the leaders in a dead run, unmanageable,
and the first the passengers knew, over went
the stage. Among those on top was a Uttle, nar
row-chested man on whom a big one had fallen,
and when we got there the poor Uttle man was
bleeding at the mouth, a picture of the hardest
luck. The driver, for once, became voluble, but
his language was chiefly addressed to the off
leader, and I am inclined to believe that the
recording angel had a very busy hour that
morning. AU along the road those leaders
attained great notoriety as the runaway team,
and we boys were ready to bet that they would
do it again.
A time-table of 1835-36 for the winter
arrangement announces : —
" The Mail Pilot Line leaves Columbus for
Wheeling daily at 6 a. m., reaching Zanesville

ETNA AND IQRKERSVILLE 77
at 1 p, M. and Wheeling at 6 a. m. next morn
ing. " The Good Intent Line leaves Columbus for
WheeUng daily at 6 p. m., through in 20 hours
to WheeUng (127 miles), in time for stages for
Baltimore and Philadelphia."
Then there was the Defiance fast line from
Wheeling to Cincinnati, run by Weaver and
Company, G. W. Manypenny and John Yontz,
Both the latter were friends of my father. But
one of the largest and strongest of the stage
Unes was that of NeU and Company, — " Bill "
Neil as he was known familiarly from one end
of the road to the other. The Neil House in
Columbus is named for him ; and he was the
father-in-law of Governor Dennison, whose son,
Neil Dennison, was an officer in the regular
army ; an attractive, handsome, gallant fellow,
with whom I passed many a happy hour in the
Army of the Potomac when that intrepid old army
was encamped on the banks of the Rapidan.
There was another feature in the life of this
old road which no boy who was reared beside
it wiU ever forget, and that was the great
droves of cattle, hogs, sheep, horses, and mules
that were driven over it on their way to Pitts
burg, Baltimore, and Philadelphia markets. The

78 A SKETCH OF
cattle made about fourteen miles, the horses
and mules something over twenty, the sheep
between ten and fifteen, and the hogs rarely
over seven a day. Before the latter a man
walked scattering from time to time shelled
corn to bait them along; the mules were al
ways loose, following some motherly old mare
usually ridden by a boy. The horses were tied
by halters, in pairs, to a rope running from the
axle of a buggy back to another buggy in the
rear. Turkeys also were driven along in good-
sized flocks.
There was a toll-gate about every fifteen or
twenty miles, — low smaU houses built by the
government. One was a mile west of Etna, and
was kept by Edward Thomas and afterwards by
Daniel Winter, The rates in 1845 were : —
Cents.
Hogs and sheep by the score .... 6 and 10
Cattle  20
Horses or mules led or driven .... 3
Horse and rider  5
Every sled or sleigh, one horse ... 5
Every dearborn, sulky, chair, or chaise . 10
Every chariot, coach, ooachee horses . . 18|
Every vehicle tire under 2^ inches . . 10
Every vehicle tire under 4 inches . .
Every horse drawing same  5
Wheels exceeding 4  4
Every person occupying seat in mail stage 2

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 79
No toU was charged for " persons going to or
returning from public worship, muster, common
place of business on farm, woodland, funeral,
miU, place of election, common place of trading
or marketing within the county in which they
reside. This included persons, wagons, carriages,
and horses or oxen drawing the same. No toll
was charged school children or clergymen, or
for passage of stage and horses carrying United
States mail, or any wagon or carriage laden
with United States property, or cavalry, troops,
arms, or miUtary stores of the United States,
or any single state, or for persons on duty in
the miUtary service of the United States or of
the mUitia of any single state."
Every mUe there were mUestones of cut
sandstone which bore, in black letters, Colum
bus so many miles, ZanesviUe, WheeUng, and
Cumberland so many miles. There was a fine
for defacing them, but every schoolboy made
them a target, and whenever a boy wanted to
be especially mean he would threaten to tell
the teacher that the other feUow had hit the
milestone, and that always brought up visions
of being carried to jail in Newark or Columbus.
From the Memoirs of John Quincy Adams,
who was on his way to Cincinnati to lay the

80 A SKETCH OF
corner stone of the Astronomical Society buUd-
ing, we extract the following : —
" Nov. 4, 1843, eight mUes from Hebron we
came to KirkersviUe, where we dined, and, just
as we were sitting down, in came Mr. WUliam
Greene, one of the committee of three sent by
the Astronomical Society to Cleveland to ac
company me to Cincinnati. They arrived at
Cleveland Wednesday evening after we had left
that place. They returned by land to Columbus
where Mr, Greene came out with a somewhat
more representative stage coach to meet us.
To this we were transferred and in it we made
our entry into Columbus about four in the
afternoon." What would I not give to witness once
more the arrival of the stage at " Kirk " ! Lo !
the vanished Past is beckoning, and behold, I
am on the broad porch of the old KirkersviUe
tavern, and I hear the rumble of a stage com
ing through the covered bridge at the east end
of the town. There the horn blows and it is
coming at a round gait. The seats on top are
full, and a young lad, one about my own age,
sits up there, on easy terms with his elders.
What a fortunate boy ! It is the great south
western mail. A fresh, glistening team — the

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 81
big roans — emerges from the wide-open door
of the old, low, whitewashed, broad-fronted
tavern barn, and steps grandly forward, ready
to replace the incoming team. The usual crowd
of stable boys and idle loungers are standing
around ; townspeople and those who have come
in to trade gather also, for the arrival of the
stage is the one important event in the life of
KirkersviUe. Uncle Davy Neiswonder, a mid
dle-sized man with rubicund, attractive counte
nance, his hair as white as snow, contrasting
weU with his rosy cheeks, appears, hat in hand,
to welcome the guests or exchange greetings
with the passengers. The stage rolls up at a
swinging trot, the driver, Frank Jackson, grim
and dignified, draws up his leaders ; their breasts
are white with foam from champing bits, and
from their panting sides perspiration rises in
feathery steam ; he throws down the Unes, stable
boys fly to unhitch, the bay team moves off
proudly, the fresh relay team wheels into their
places, the Unes are tossed up to the driver,
who gathers them and caUs out, "Let them
go ; " and the superb roan leaders^ that have
been prancing, waiting for the word, dash off.
Had I been on the porch in Augustj 1848, I
might have seen a tall, plaintive-faced man

82 SKETCH OF ETNA AND KIEKEESVILLE
among the passengers, one of the members of
the House of Representatives going home from
Washington at the end of the first session of
the Thirtieth Congress ; and when he visited
the Army of the Potomac, after the disastrous
battle of ChanceUorsviUe, I might have recog
nized Abraham Lincoln.
I never go home without taking long walks
along this old road. In some ways it is mel
ancholy enough ; the woods are gone and the
friends of my youth are gone, but whether I
go east or go west, the old road with a sad
dened smile greets me, for it knows that I re
member its vanished greatness and love it stiU.

CHAPTER VI
When I was a boy three fourths of Etna
Township was covered by a noble primeval
forest. And now, as I recall the stately gran
deur of the red and white oaks, many of them
six feet and more in diameter, towering up
royally fifty and sixty feet without a Umb ; the
sheUbark hickories and the glowing maples,
both with tops far aloft ; the mUd and moss-
covered ash trees, some of them over four feet
through ; the elms and sturdy beeches, the
great black walnuts and the ghostly-robed syca
mores, huge in limb and body, along the creek
bottoms, I consider it fortunate that I was
reared among them and walked beneath them.
I have been through some of the famous
parks in England, yet the English oaks, de
prived of their magnifying historic and poetic
associations, look puny when compared with
those of my quiet old town. Nature has many
moods, but she was in her grandest when she
ordered the woods of Ohio to rise up. Manas-
seh Cutler, in his description of Ohio, 1787,

84 A SKETCH OF
says : " General Parsons measured a black wal
nut tree near the Muskingum whose circum
ference at five feet from the ground was 22
feet. A sycamore near the same place mea
sured 44 feet in circumference at some distance
from the ground."
It may be said that the prevaiUng timber was
beech, the trees being from twenty to thirty-
six inches in diameter ; but maples equally as
large, and some taller than the beech, were
very common. The black walnut, now so rare
and valuable, was so plentiful where my cousins,
the Housers, settled that the neighborhood
was known as the Black Walnut section. Most
of those great trees were cut down and split
into rails. Here and there through the woods
were gums whose waxy leaves caught the first
blaze of autumn. Scattered everywhere through
the timber were patches of pawpaws, and now
and then a Uttle group of wild plums, the
most untamable of all trees. They have long
since disappeared. Among the other small
trees was the dogwood, and a prettier sight
than one of them in full bloom nowhere greets
the eye ; and I think Nature's yearning for
beauty must have been realized in the bloom
ing of the dogwood and the hawthorn. Then

ETNA AND KIEKERSVILLE 85
there was the ironwood, out of which were
made wedges, caUed gluts, for splitting ash and
walnut, red elm and wild cherry into rails for
fencing. Besides the trees already mentioned
there were Uns, or lindens, whose wood was
used for sugar troughs to catch the maple sap,
and their bark for tying the shocks after the
corn was husked. When they were in bloom,
they hummed with wUd bees as the linden
trees along our sidewalks do now with tame
ones. And here I may say that there may have
been many wUd bee trees, but only a few of
them were found when I was a boy. The only
one I ever saw cut down was a large oak that
stood between the Pike and Bloody Run, only a
Uttle northward from where my brother Frank
lin's house stands on the Mellenburg farm.
When it fell, smashing its way down through
the trees to its fate, the upper trunk burst
asunder, displaying a lot of old, blackened
comb, over which the remnant of a starving
swarm crawled decrepitly, beating their wings
in distress. It was truly the last hard blow
of Fortune. There was scarcely a teacupful of
the laboriously earned honey left in aU their
princely storehouse.
The buckeye was common, the mulberry was

86 A SKETCH OF
rare; there were one or two of the latter on the
edge of the Black Walnut section, and several
north of Etna, standing in an open field, the
spared monuments of their race. The honey-
locust was not very numerous, but its thorns
were very useful to many a pioneer instead of
pins and buttons. There were water beeches,
now and then an aspen, and, in the western
part of the town, here and there a poplar, but
aU comparatively rare. On the banks of all
the runs, the borders of the swamps, and along
the creek were intermingling famiUes of wil
lows and bushes of all kinds, the haunts of
tuneful catbirds and proud cardinals. There
was one little bush, known as the spice bush,
which I have never met with elsewhere, whose
twigs and leaves I used to nip off and chew
when wandering through the woods. This
little, wide-branching bush — its limbs were
feebly slender — grew about five feet high and
only on damp and heavily shaded ground. It
bloomed early in the spring with a small yellow
flower. The only ones I ever saw, although
I am sure it was to be found all over the town,
were up near the head of the little run that
rises in the Keller woods, and which, after loi
tering along as if it did not want to leave its

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 87
playgi'ound beneath the big oaks and beeches,
comes out smiling at last into the open fields
of my old homestead. (When I was a little
fellow I used to dam this brook near the or
chard and set a cornstalk water-wheel agoing.)
The haw, another most interesting bush, was
to be met with now and then. And where do
red, pink, black, and ivory white — you will
find aU of these colors in the same umbel of
fruit — mingle with such harmony? But every
Uttle bush knows how to dress for the glory of
the seasons.
There are woods of primeval trees stiU left,
chiefly beech and maple, but they are all slowly
dying. The way that majestic forest was sac
rificed is painful to recaU. As an example of
its slaughter, the largest red oak on our farm
was cut down for shingles when the new barn
was buUt, This monarch — it was almost seven
feet in diameter — carried its top over all
around it. It stood up in the woods not a
great way from the little brook I have men
tioned, and when it fell the ground trembled,
if it did not groan. As an iUustration of the
utter waste of primeval timber, when a Uttle
boy I accompanied my father and several men to
gather hickory nuts somewhere between Etna

88 A SKETCH OF
and Cumberland, or rather Wagram, as it is
called now. Not finding as many as they hoped
under a group of four or five trees, permission
was asked to cut down the largest one, at least
three feet in diameter, which was readily
granted as the owner wanted it for rails. I saw
it tremble under the last fatal stroke — down
it came with a tremendous crash, A great tree
whose life spanned centuries, whose very pre
sence had a royal dignity appealing to every
high sentiment sacrificed for a half bushel of
hickory nuts !
Save now and then a thicket of leafy young
oaks and beeches, the woods were open and
free. The views off through them over the car
pet of dead leaves, lit up here and there with a
splash of sunshine, and now and then some
bush in bloom ; the grand uplifting trunks
silent, and yet every one speaking ; the fallen
trees lying mute, some this way and some that,
the moss weaving their last shroud ; the wind
traveling through the high tops, and now and
then breaking into a sigh ; the squirrels, some
frisking, some sitting up on Umbs with their tails
proudly arched over their backs and barking
huskUy in complaining tones ; the birds, some
like the woodpeckers chattering at their labor,

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 89
and now and then a sudden flash of living color
as a jay bird or a redbird came by, now and
then a faint parting trUl, the falling nuts, and
the evoking sUence as the leaves came down,
— aU these were given to me to enjoy again and
again in the primeval woods of Ohio, I wish
there was some way that a just idea could be
transferred to this page of the splendor of those
woods, when on every hand there rose those
stately oaks, ash, sycamores, and black walnuts,
all Uf ting their heads like kings far up into the
sky to greet sun and moon and stars.
Along the runs there flowered in spring, as
I dare say they flower now, violets, blue and yel
low. And among the warm brown leaves of the
woods spring beauties followed with their faint,
pleading, Uttle pink tracing; hepaticas, — we
called it Uverwort, — colonies of dogtooth vio
lets, plantations of May apples, Uttle clumps of
Dutchman's breeches, the pure short-lived blood-
root, the friendship-encouraging anemones with
their childlike, surprised air, and many other
wUd flowers, bloomed everywhere through the
woods. Later in the season, along the creek,
the elecampane threw out its open, flaring,
golden-yellow flowers, and alongside of them
were many strong, tall ironweeds carrying a

90 SKETCH OF ETNA AND KIRKEESVILLE
small, odorless, deep blue flower. On the edges
of the Beaver Dam and other marshes the iris
and cardinal flower bloomed. The former we
always caUed the blue flag, the latter, autumn's
first torch. Blackberries and elderberries were
abundant, whUe here and there in the thickets
were wUd grapes, whose perfume at blooming
is very sweet.

CHAPTER VII
All the noble game, beaver, buffalo, elk, bear,
and deer, had disappeared before my time, and
probably in the order they are mentioned. In
the early days, say from 1775 to 1800, buffalo
ranged widely over Ohio and well up into the
AUeghany Mountains of Virginia, as is well
estabUshed by the diary of Croghan and the
foUowing extract from Washington's Journal
of a tour to the Ohio in 1770 : " Nov. 2 " —
the party was then camped near the mouth of
the Big Kenhawa — " Killed five buffaloes and
wounded some others, three deer, etc. This
country abounds in buffaloes and wUd game of
all kinds; as also in aU kinds of wild fowl,
there being in the bottoms a great many smaU,
grassy ponds or lakes which are full of swans,
geese, and ducks of different kinds." Accord
ing to Dr. Hildreth, an historian of Marietta,
" Two buffalo were kiUed in the sandy forks of
Symme's Creek, near the southwestern corner
of Jackson County, in the year 1800, which
are the last that have been heard of in this

92 A SKETCH OF
state." One was killed in the Kenhawa region
of West Virginia as late as 1835.
Elk, too, in great numbers roamed the woods,
and were kUled as late as 1838 in Ashtabula
County. When I was a boy I used to hear
some of the pioneers express their wonder as to
what became of the great antlers that the elk
shed yearly, for they never found any of them.
The reason they did not find them, I think I
discovered while hunting in that wild country
which lies between the Big Black River and the
Mississippi, west of New Madrid, in Missouri.
There I found one of a pair of deer antlers
— of great breadth, carrying seven or eight
prongs — near a large faUen tree ; the bone was
gnawed to a thin shell in places by wood mice,
and the sharp marks of their little bladed teeth
were so fresh that they might have been at it
when they heard my approach.
Black bear followed the doom of the elk in
a short time, but deer were common even when
my parents moved into the township. My
mother once saw five of them cross the road
just west of their cabin ; all were headed north.
Near the little run, so often mentioned, and
near where it comes out of the woods, a doe's
head was ploughed up when I was a boy, and

ETNA AND KIEKERSVILLE 93
what was very singular, the hair was still on it
as if it had been buried only a few years, while,
in fact, at least twenty-five or thirty years must
have gone by since the doe fell. The ground
where it lay had just been cleared of a thicket,
and my theory of its preservation is, that some
frontiersman, perhaps the one who built the
Longbrake cabin, — the homestead was known
as the Longbrake farm before it came into my
father's hands, — that was in the same field a
few hundred yards to the eastward, had killed
the deer, and that his dog carried off the head
and buried it for a future meal, and forgot his
cache. WUd turkeys, the most royal of aU the
feathered game, were very plentiful when our
people moved into Ohio ; they were everywhere
through the open woods, and their gobbling
the pioneers heard every spring morning.
Washington in his jom-nal, already quoted,
says, " The wild turkies were innumerable."
My father found one of their nests in the Mar-
shaU woods, not a third of a mile from the
house, and put the eggs under a tame turkey.
The brood grew up, but were always half wild,
and when the next spring came, there came
with it a longing for the woods, so, when they

94 A SKETCH OF
heard their feUows, they joined them. The first
one I remember to have seen was while hunting
for our cows. At this period all the cattle, sheep,
and hogs ran in the woods from early spring
until the snow feU. And at this point, as weU
as anywhere, I may say that, when the last of
them came home, not infrequently there would
be strays among them whose owners would
never be known. As a rule, it is true, the stock
were all marked by mutilating the ears, each
farmer having his own mark, which in the early
days had to be recorded. Ours consisted of a
hole about half an inch in diameter in the left
ear and a crop of the right. There were all
sorts of marks, some consisting only of a hole
in one ear, some of a hole in each ear, some of
one or more underbits (a V-shaped excision on
the under side of the ear), some of a hole and
an underbit. These were in all sorts of com
binations. Both ears clipped was known as the
rogue's or rascal's mark, for, of course, the one
who used it could efface all the other marks and
stiU be within the law. These strays, owing to
the open character of the woods, often got far
away from home ; bulls were known to wander
for miles, and one of our steers was traced be
yond Poplar Creek in Fairfield County.

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 95
The milch cows usually came home, but after
the calves were weaned they sometimes failed
to do so, and then some one had to go to look
for them. On the occasion referred to, I was
aUowed to go with my older brother, Isaac, to
find them. It was a great privilege. Together we
struck off into the big woods which stretched
from the Pike to Licking Creek; these were
known as the Atkinson Woods, It was my first
journey into the heart of this big timber. The
hickory and beech nuts and acorns were faUing,
the woodpeckers and squirrels were busy laying
up their winter store, or playing from tree
to tree ; the sunshine sifted down, setting the
woods a-dreaming. The expectancy, the halting
now and then to Usten for the " kling-klung "
of the cow bell, the sense of being away off
where everything was wUd, had a glory and
splendor about it beyond speech ; it was fine,
and as exhilarating as champagne. Suddenly
Isaac stopped, exclaiming, " Look at that wild
turkey ! " And there on the other side of an
open swale, overgrown with yellow sedge, and
close by a large oak, stood a wild gobbler with
head upstretched, as much surprised as we
were. He gave us but one glance, and then
broke with the speed of a race-horse. I saw

96 A SKETCH OF
the beautiful iridescent glitter on his neck,
which fades out so quickly after they are killed.
I have seen it begin to pale within a half hour
after they are shot.
We heard bells and found cattle, but did not
find ours ; they came home themselves, late in
the afternoon, their legs covered with swamp
mud, so that we concluded they had wandered
in the swamp toward the head of Hunter's
Run. Later I saw a flock of wild turkeys near
the head of this Run, on what was known as
the Yeoman Farm. The last of this wUdest and
best of our game birds was kiUed in Bloody
Run swamp as late as 1853 or 1854,
Another bird has long since disappeared that,
like the wild turkey, loved the freedom of the
wilderness ; this was the log cock or pileated
woodpecker, a most interesting, beautiful, and
naturally very wild bird. His family was not
large, rarely more than two ever seen together,
and when the woods began to go he, like a true
frontiersman, left also. But while he was there
he was never idle for a moment, and his chat
tering could be heard at intervals from daylight
till dark. One of his amusements was to mount
up to the top of some lofty elm, or ash, or syca
more, that had a hollow, dead limb, and then

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 97
break the silence by hammering on it with his
powerful bill. The last one I saw was dangling
from the hand of Isaac Winter, who had shot
him in the woods, north of where Hunter's Run
crosses the Pike.
Squirrels, black, gray, and flying, were in
every wood, but the latter were not so com
mon as the others, and no one ever harmed
the Uttle creatures. A black or gray squirrel
running on an old log or on the top rail of a
Virginia fence is a fine dream breaker. Rac
coons and opossums were numerous, while along
Bloody Run and Licking muskrats abounded.
Mink were to be found in every run and swamp,
and otter tracks were often seen in the snow
as they crossed to and from the Reservoir to
the creek. Gray foxes had disappeared, but red
foxes we used to hunt on horseback with packs
of hounds, the MUlers, Charles, KeUers, Mor
rows, Cunninghams, and Whites making up
the hunt. The practice I then got in jump
ing ditches, logs, and fences stood me in good
stead at West Point when I had to take hur
dles and ditches in the cavalry drill. Many
of the foxes we started on Licking led off to
the Granville HiUs, and gave us more than one
long run up around the head of Grass Lick. All

98 A SKETCH OF
the song birds of that latitude were to be heard
in Etna, and I wish I could give the names of
every one of them, from the sweet little war
blers, whose breasts are not as large as the ball
of a farmer's thumb although their little throats
can fill his blooming orchard or the thicket
near his garden with a stream of heavenly mel
ody, up to the gifted thrushes, whose clear,
wide-reaching, impelling notes ring down the
evening over his blading corn, the shocked
wheat, and the thistle-dotted pasture. I say I
would like to mention them all, for how many
a time did they, from patches of willow and
fence corners overgrown with bushes of one
kind and another, lighten what seemed then
such a hard Ufe, and what seems now the hap
piest and most fortunate of all lives !
There is one, however, that I must mention,
and that is the redbird, the cardinal, who re
ceived his cap long before St. Peter threw a
fish-net into the Sea of GalUee, They used
to buUd aU along Bloody Run and flash from
thicket to thicket. But it is not his color I
remember ; it was that bold, defiant song of
" Cass Ward ! Cass Ward ! Sit down ! Sit down !
Sit down ! " The last three notes were repeated
in quick succession. When he mounted a beech

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 99
tree and sang, you knew spring was not far
off. Then there was the little pewee that used
to build under the bridges of the National
Road. Nature had given it no plume, or voice
for that matter, and yet its unaffected, tremu
lous notes of " Pee-wee, Pee-wee " were sweet
to hear, and, as I recall them now, they bring
back spring sunlight glittering on the runs,
and the grass in its early green.
KiUdees appeared about corn-planting time
and nested in the fields, diverting many a tired
and hungry boy, as he hoed or ploughed corn,
by flying ahead and around him repeating their
shrill note of " Killdee, Killdee." Nature must
have been fond of the killdee, for his disguise
is so perfect that unless you see where he lights
you cannot distinguish him among the clods;
and when you discover him, he has such a sly,
provoking way of watching you, with his head
stretched out near the ground and so abso
lutely motionless that one always feels like
throwing a stone at him. He has a black rib
bon around the base of his neck and little
bands of mottled white on the under side of
his wings, which, as in all the plovers, were
light and broad. Turtle-doves, those most

100 A SKETCH OF
unobtrusive and gentlest of birds, crooned
sweetly, but rather mournfully, on every farm.
I never knew one of them to be shot. Quails
— we generally called them partridges — and
larks, and sparrows of all kinds, made every
wheat-field and every meadow joyous. What
a comfortable fellow the Bob White is, as he
rings out his clear whistle, seated on the top
raU of a fence with a meadow on one side of
him, waving its clover and daisies and tall tim
othy, whUe on the other, down among the
wheat or rye with bearded heads bending
under the weight of the ripening grain, sits
his mate. Later, he and she will lead the brood
among the stubble, picking up the seeds that
have fallen. And then the meadow lark ! What
a voice ! — one that seems to be drawn from
the blue upper sky ! And how richly he protests
when you approach his nest ! Many a time in
harvesting have I seen the grass left around
his nest. I trapped a great many quails, and
many a muskrat I caught in Bloody Run.
Wild ducks, mallards, the shy pintails, and
the little soft-voiced blue-winged teal were to
be found every spring along the creek and in
the large ponds, but they only stayed with us
a few days when they bore off to the north.

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 101
The wood duck, that brUUantly feathered gem,
nested in the hollows of leaning trees on the
banks of the creek that then flowed through
primeval timber from Moon's sawmiU up in
Lima Township, with only now and then a clear
ing tUl it crossed the Pike near Luray, a dis
tance as it wound of at least fifteen miles. They
were also in the swamps at the head of Bloody
Run, WUd geese came and went with the sea
sons, wintering, when our people first went to
Ohio, on the Scioto and at the Reservoir. Now
they travel across the AUeghanies to Currituck
and Albemarle sounds. Blue cranes could be
seen almost daily, flying high, foUowing the
course of Licking. It was said they nested
about the swamp. The small heron was not
uncommon, while hawks of all kinds, from the
broadest winged down to the Uttle chittering
pigeon hawk, were very common. Hoot owls
called to each other from wood to wood as soon
as night was fuUy on, and the little pitiful
shivering-voiced screech owl was often heard on
starry autumn nights. There were no phea
sants in Etna when I was a boy. Nor do I
remember to have ever seen an eagle, although
they may have been there. Arctic owls and the
snow-bunting would sometimes be driven down

102 A SKETCH OF
to US from the north. The latter would feed
around the haystacks and on the seed of the
ragweed where its top lifted above the snow.
Apropos of this pretty inhabitant of the north,
which we always pitied for his hard lot amid
the bleak region of snow and ice, the follow
ing extract from the Second Annual Report of
the Geology of Ohio, printed in 1838, may be
interesting : " A late voyager gives an account
of his having examined a burial crib contain
ing the body of a dead infant, deposited, ac
cording to the customs of some of the Northern
Indians, A white snow-bird had constructed
her nest on the neck of the corpse and was
quietly sitting on her eggs. No one who has
read that account can see this delicate-lookina:
bird shivering in our winter blast without
bringing the impressive incident to mind."
The common snow-bird slept in the hay and
straw stacks, and it was great fun for us boys as
we played " wolf " in the twUight around those
stacks, to see the little fellows scurry out of
their warm beds and disappear in the darkness ;
but I am sure they were back and asleep before
their disturbers had gone to bed.
Blackbirds, the red-winged as well as his
larger but plainer brother, were very numerous.

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 103
They nested in the swamp and in tussocky
marshes and roosted after their young were
reared in Bloody Run swamp. When the corn
was in the roasting-ear stage — and a prettier
sight than a field of tasseled corn with its
gracefid, streaming, bending blades, it is hard
to find — the blackbirds would gather, I might
say, in thousands, and, stripping the husk at
the end of the ear, feed on the milky corn,
meanwhile chirking as though it were their
own field and not the farmer's.
The barn swaUow that builds under the
eaves did not come north of the Ohio till after
1815, and appeared in Licking County about
the time I was born.
But the game bird that overshadowed all
others in its numbers, and left the greatest gap
by its sudden and, I fear, complete destruction,
was the wild pigeon. The fate of this strong-
winged, far-ranging, and tameless bird is pa
thetic. They are all gone. Once they darkened
the sky. MilUons of them flew over Etna Town
ship as they traveled to and from their feed
ing ground to their roost in Bloody Run
swamp. The head of this swamp, now practi
cally aU cleared fields, when I was a boy was
about a half mile east of KirkersviUe and

104 A SKETCH OF
reached to the old bed of Licking Creek, a dis
tance of two and a half miles. It was about a
half mile wide and was a thickly matted growth
of wiUows, young elms, water beeches and al
ders. In the middle were several islands cov
ered with big timber where the last of the
wild turkeys roosted. Except in winter, when
it was frozen over, it was difficult, and when the
Bloody Run was high, it was dangerous to
penetrate it, so deep and treacherous was the
mud, I have no doubt that it was made origi
nally by beavers damming Bloody Run, and
later widely extended by the accumulation of
heavy drifts in Licking,
Christopher Gist, the first white man, except
captives among the Indians, passed by the
swamp in 1751. In his diary he says he
camped at the Big Lake, now the Reservoir,
and on the 15th of May " set out from the
Great Swamp," In 1773 David Jones, a roving
Baptist preacher, with a trader named Duncan,
went from Lancaster, then called Standing
Rock, by the " Great Swamp," or " Big Lake,"
as the Indians called it.
The pigeons set toward the roost about an
hour before sundown, often lighting in the in
termediate timber for a while, and then passed

ETNA AND HRKEESVILLE 105
on in a broad stream as far as the eye could
reach. After arriving at the swamp they cii'cled
round and round tiU dark, when they settled
down, covering every Umb and twig. I never
went there but once, and then in company with
some of the farm hands. It was late autumn,
and a fleet of heavy clouds was saiUng across a
full moon. We entered it from the north side,
about opposite the big island. The party was
equipped with single-barrel shot-guns and old
percussion muskets, with the barrels cut off to
shot-gun lengths. We all went in together, but
not more than a few rods, when the men began
to shoot. The birds would rise in throngs, with
thundering noise, but would soon come back,
for there were hunters, apparently, aU along the
margins of the swamp, and the firing was like
that of a closely engaged skirmish line. When
the pigeons returned they would Ught aU over
and around us, and no aim was necessary, or
possible, for that matter. We carried away two
large three-bushel bags fuU by nine o'clock,
and doubtless did not get one half of what we
kUled. The owls and minks that infested the
swamp lived on what we left. By ten o'clock
the firing ceased, and the poor creatures could
then find peace for the rest of the night.

106 A SKETCH OF
Captain James Stone, one of Licking's best
citizens, and one of my father's closest friends,
who settled near there in 1815, or perhaps
earUer, told me that when he was a boy they
killed all they wanted by waving back and
forth a long, slender pole, heeled in the ground
near the edge of the swamp, as the birds came
in to the roost. At that time they flew directly
into the swamp, and did not circle over it, as in
my day, up out of range of shot-guns.
The pigeons left the swamp about daylight
in vast columns several miles in length, and
would fly off to their various feeding grounds,
distant from one to over two hundred miles.
Those going west, after clearing the swamp,
moved up Bloody Run, and, obliquing to the
left, followed the woods that reached in almost
unbroken stretches along the south line of
the township to the bank of Black Lick, south
of Reynoldsburgh ; or they would cross the
Pike about a mile east of KirkersvUle, and
follow the creek, which was lined with timber.
They flew well up above the tops of the trees.
When migrating long distances they flew very
high. When I was stationed at Rock Island
Arsenal in 1870, they crossed, going northwest
in broken droves, and were up almost to the

ETNA AND IQEKEES VILLE 107
level of sand hill cranes, which, as is weU known,
lift higher than any other bird in migrating.
They fed all through the beech woods, and
it was most interesting to see them feeding.
If they were approaching, there would be the
appearance of a blue wave four or five feet
high rolUng toward you, produced by the
pigeons in the rear flying to the front. When
startled while feeding, their sudden rise would
sound like rumbUng thunder. The last time
they nested in Licking was about 1845 or 1846.
I fix that date, for my visit to their nesting
grounds in the big woods with my father is
about my first remembrance. The woods covered
about all the country between the creek and
what is now the town of Jersey. The nests
were constructed of small twigs laid up loosely
and very carelessly, apparently ; and yet I used
to see the remains of some of them when fox
hunting through these woods, eleven or twelve
years after they were made.
If there were no beechnuts, the wild pigeons
did not appear ; but let there be some, then first
a few in little flocks of a dozen or more would
be seen flying about, which, I am sure, were
scouting parties ; and soon after they had re*
ported back, on came the vast army from we

108 A SKETCH OF
knew not where. If the snow fell, covering the
leaves for some time, they went beyond the
reach of snow. When the beechnuts were all
gone, they frequently came into the fields for
grass seed, and then was the boys' chance to
trap them ; for, once they found wheat or any
kind of grain there, they would come day after
day. I had many a close view of them, for I
trapped a great many and kept them in pens,
sometimes a hundred or more. No bird ever
had a bolder, more unflinching eye. He was
beautiful. And here let me say that I doubt
if there be any pleasure in Ufe equal to that
which attends the making, setting, and visiting
of traps. The zeal and intentness of a boy
laying up the laths of a bird trap, or sawing
and nailing boards into a box trap for musk-
rats, whittUng out the triggers, carrying off the
trap and setting it, scattering corn or oats or
buckwheat, are the very acme of boyhood life.
And then the first visit ! How his heart beats
when his eyes fall upon it and he sees it is
down, and when, running up, as he will mighty
fast, he hears the quail or pigeons fluttering !
Manhood has nothing that gives so keen a
pleasure. I had a good share of it, and I hope

ETNA AND KIEKEESVILLE 109
every Uttle fellow in Etna, or the boy, wherever
he lives, who sets a trap in some rabbit hamlet,
or the edge of a cornfield for quail, will have
good luck.
From 1860 to 1870 the destruction of the
wild pigeons went on at an astounding and de
plorable rate, chiefly by netting ; and by 1880
they had almost disappeared. Little flocks were
seen scattered here and there over the country,
some even as far east as Berkshire County,
Massachusetts, where, as late as 1878, I saw
them myself. But since then I doubt if one
has been seen this side of the AUeghanies, and
perhaps not one in Licking. Their sudden dis
appearance started the inquiry everywhere over
the West, as to what had become of them and
where had they gone. No one could answer it.
The Geological Survey of Canada, vol. vii,
1895, reports the finding of wild pigeon eggs
at Fort George in 1887. Fort George is at the
mouth of Big River, which flows into James
Bay from the east, rising among the bleak
and almost treeless and frozen wastes of Lab
rador. The last flock I saw was in the primeval
woods of southeastern Missouri, near the Ar
kansas line, between the Black River and the

110 A SKETCH OF
Cache. It was in 1887 or 1888. I was hunt
ing in this most fascinating of all wildernesses,
about two miles east of Gillis Bluff on the Big
Black, where we camped. While seated on a
fallen tree, quietly interested in the life of such
a solitude, suddenly a flock of perhaps seventy-
five or a hundred lit near by, and soon were
down picking up the Uttle acorns of the water
oak that grew in the swale. After they had
fiUed their crops, they flew up, and, bunching
their heads on their breasts, dozed, apparently,
untU something startled them, when, with their
old-time speed, they disappeared among the
treetops. Thus, away on the sunk lands of the
Lake St. Francis country, I saw for the last
time the bird I had known so long, and whose
numbers had been the wondering amazement
of my boyhood. Had any one standing under
a broad flight in 1850 predicted that in less
than fifty years not one would be left, he would
have been set down as a dismal crank. But so
it is ; and now with the fate of the wild pigeon
in view, we are compeUed to beUeve that the
doom of the wild turkey, swan, woodcock, the
upland plover, the most innocent of aU birds,
is sealed. In the light of this slowly approach
ing calamity, a hunter who comes in with more

ETNA AND KIEKERSVILLE 111
than two of any of our game birds should be
looked on with aversion.
While the hunting was of the very best, yet
the fishing was about as poor as it could be,
and what there was of it, and the way it was
done, would, I fear, be scorned by the modern,
scientific, and costly equipped fisherman. What
fishing there was, was wholly confined to the
creek, at least for the smaU boys ; the large
boys and men went to the Reservoir six or eight
mUes away. But I have always thought we
youngsters had the best of the sport. At any
rate, there was a cheek-reddening pleasure in
getting ready, digging the bait, etc., and then
hurrying across the fields and through the
woods to the creek. The best fishing was gen-
eraUy found at the big drifts which were caused
by some old sycamore or buckeye or wide-limbed
elm having faUen, spanning the stream from
bank to bank. Against it would lodge aU that
floated down, ¦ — saw logs, fence rails, slabs,
boards, sugar troughs, corn stalks, swamp grass,
stumps, and brush, damming the water and
always making a deep hole. With a pole we had
cut in the thicket we would perch on the bank
and, after expectorating duly on the bait, would
throw in our lines and watch the big cork (usually

112 A SKETCH OF
out of the family vinegar or, in some rare cases,
I have reason to believe, whiskey jug). When
the first nibble came (and what a pleasure it was
to see the first little rippling wave !) we braced
ourselves ; our eyes, lit with excitement, fixed on
the cork. " Keep stUl, boys, I 've got a bite ; "
and when it started down — well, up it came
with a mighty yank, and a Uttle yellowish sun-
fish or a shiner dangled at the end of the line
that generally caught in some Umb away above
our heads. Now and then we caught a catfish
ten or twelve inches long, and with true fisher
man's exaggeration, declared it pulled mighty
hard. Sometimes our hooks, if we threw too
near the drift, or some black, rooty stump,
would get caught, and then there was lots
of trouble tiU we got them released; or, as
happened very often, our patience would be
come exhausted and we would jerk snappishly
in our desperation, break our lines and lose our
hooks, and then charge the " danged " turtles
with our bad luck. Now there was n't a great
deal of skill in this sort of fishing, but to sit
there in the quiet highway of kingfishers, and
now and then of a tall blue heron, catching a
view of a pair of wild ducks from time to time,
catbirds and redbirds singing in the blooming

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 113
wild grape vines all around you, — I say this
was to taste the very elixir of Ufe.
Suckers were very plentiful in the spring,
and the boy who could snare them was looked
up to as a chief among fishermen. Of course,
there were dace and chubs and minnows of all
kinds in the shallow quiet holes in the runs.
My boyhood companion on fishing excursions to
the creek was a schoolmate and friend, Jacob
Winter ; and many was the cloudless day we
sat on the banks of the creek below Monett's
sawmiU, whose up and down saw, eating its way
through oak and beech and black walnut, we
could hear from time to time, our poles hanging
listlessly over the deep hole, while above at the
long riffle the water crinkled and flashed in the
sunlight. We were a happy little pair. My
partner feU gallantly in the Great Rebellion,
somewhere on one of those terrible fields near
Atlanta, Among the natural features of Etna, pro
bably the most interesting was the Beaver Dam
on the Hefner, now the Essex farm adjoining
the homestead. There may have been, and
doubtless were, other beaver dams in the town
ship, but I never saw or heard of any besides
this one. It is at the west end of a sedgy marsh

114 A SKETCH OF
about a quarter of a mile long and two or three
hundred yards wide, covering perhaps between
seven and ten acres. The dam itself was about
three feet high and seventy-five feet long. In
my day, and perhaps it is still visible, was an
other dam much smaller, not a great way to the
west, where the little run falls rapidly through
the woods to the creek.
The belt of woods that one enters in going
from our home to the Beaver Dam extends east
and west the entire length of the home farm,
as well as a part of the neighboring farm to
the west, now owned by Rudolph Parkinson,
whom I remember as a little, smiUng-faced
schoolboy. All of the giant primeval timber,
save here and there a big elm, is gone ; but it
offers beautiful open vistas, the ground undu
lating toward the dam. About midway of this
belt you come to the old road which, as I have
said elsewhere, is still easily traced, its old bed
carpeted with leaves and delicate long-bladed
grass, obstructed in places by trunks of faUen
trees, overshadowed here and there by clumps
of tall, leaning blackberry bushes and now and
then a solitary pokeberry. All along it and
through these woods is a great place for blood-
root and spring beauties, with many a colony of

ETNA AND KIEKEESVILLE 115
May apple. There were several shocky white
thorns in the open, near the west end of the
woods — and that reminds me that Whitehead,
the Uttle blotched-f aced school teacher who used
to whale us so unmercifuUy, Uved somewhere
north of the creek, and on coming to school
crossed through these woods and selected his
gads from these trees. As this is the last time
I shaU mention the little devil, I wUl say that I
hope some of the sweet beauty of the blooming
thorn may now embelUsh his world wherever
he may be.
On the north side of the marsh, in my boy
hood, was a stately battalion of primeval white
oak, several ranks deep, and the ground beneath
them covered with blue grass. The bark on
these trees was the whitest I ever saw on an
oak, and with a fuU moon throwing her spec
tral Ught on them, they looked Uke draped
figures pondering over the silent marsh. I used
to hunt coon aU through these woods, and have
looked at them and the old home of the beaver
under aU kinds of sky, in aU seasons of the year,
and almost every hour of day and night.
In my boyhood it was easy to see that if the
beavers had raised their dam but a little above
its then present height, the water would set

116 A SKETCH OF
back through the woods till it struck the decline
to Bloody Run. There are indications at the
head of the marsh that this had occurred, and
perhaps many a time. Beaver, otter, and mink
coming up from the swamp, it is reasonable
to believe, left Bloody Run about the point
where this overflow entered, to cross over into
the Beaver Dam swamp, and thence follow its
water down into Licking.
The early settlers, after somebody had cut the
dam and let the water off, discovered quite a
layer of bog iron ore here and there over the
pond, and made use of it for the backs and
jambs of their fireplaces by cutting it into bricks
twelve to fifteen inches long and six to eight
inches broad. The fire in due time welded those
bricks together, making the most satisfactory
and durable of all fireplace lining. Ours in the
old homestead was made of this ore.
I never heard from any of the first settlers
whether there were beaver in the pond or not
when they came to the country, but I am in
clined to think they had disappeared with the
Indians and perhaps sooner. For as soon as fire
arms were substituted for bows and arrows, and
steel traps for simple wooden devices and dead
falls, the destruction of game must have gone

ETNA AND KIEKEESVILLE 117
on rapidly. The Indians, according to Smith's
narrative of his captivity with Ohio tribes, had
steel traps as early as 1755. Possibly, too, the
beaver had exhausted aU the wood supply and
were forced to abandon the ground. There are
no indications that soft wood such as they Uke,
or poplar, birch, water ash, ever was abundant on
the margin of this pond.
Often in rambling around this interesting old
dam, or seated on a fallen tree overlooking it,
— I never have gone home without paying it a
visit, — I have pictured to myself as well as I
could the conditions when it was covered with
stiU water, and the beaver and wUd ducks made
it their home. I could see fawns playing under
the oak trees ; soUtary elk and buffalo in the
water up to their knees feeding, or drowsing,
in the hazy sunhght of October, with now and
then a blue jay throwing a beam of richest blue
across a ripening haw ; and from time to time
could hear the duU thunder of pigeons rising,
and now and then, too, the long plaintive howl
of a wolf. As a rule, only the sweet freedom
and peace of the wilderness come to us in such
reveries in the woods ; we do not think of this
or that living creature ; it is eternal life mak
ing its argument with consoling tenderness.

118 A SKETCH OF
The last time I was there, the little field, on the
north, between the marsh and the creek, was in
corn, and over the ground I saw a good many
spawls and some broken arrows of the flint, such
as were used by the Indians ; establishing be
yond question that at least for a portion of the
year this was a customary camping ground. The
beaver on one hand, and not three hundred yards
away the creek with its fish, must have made
this a favorite spot. About a mile southeast of
this camping ground, in one of the fields of the
homestead, indicated on one of the maps with a
little flag, there must have been another camping
ground ; for every time a plough turns a fur
row it will uncover black, and white, and flesh-
colored flint spawls and broken arrows ; in the
early days, the arrows were perfect. I can think
of no reason for the selection of this spot for a
home, for there were no ponds or runs beside
it, — in fact, it was at about the very top of the
highest ground, — unless it was for the walnuts
that were to be had from some trees that stood
near by. It must have been an open country,
for, judging by the stumps, it was overtowered
by mighty oaks, and perhaps offered the clear
spaces required for their games. At any rate,
on this long knoll their camp-fire smoke curled

ETNA AND KIEKEESVILLE 119
and their children played. But large and beau-
tifiU arrows were to be found aU over Etna, so
that I am sure game was plenty and the Indians
knew every foot of its gently rolling surface.
So far as I know there is but one prehistoric
relic in the town, and that is in the Plampton
woods, on the Fairfield Une, and marked by a
circle on the map. It is a small circular fort,
with waUs about three feet high and about thirty
feet in diameter. In my day it was in the heart
of heavy oak timber, just on the divide between
the waters flowing north to the Licking valley
and those bearing off to the southwest to find
their way into Poplar Creek, and then on to the
Scioto. It is easy to speculate over its location,
and the reasons in the minds of its buUders
and defenders ; but it has occurred to me that
perhaps the mound buUders of CircleviUe, on
their way to the old fort at Newark, came up
the Scioto to the mouth of Big BeUy, thence
up the Walnut to the mouth of Poplar Creek,
which they foUowed in their canoes to the
swamp at its head, within a few mUes of this
spot. Somewhere on their line of portage to
Licking a defense of some kind may have been
necessary, and maybe that was the reason for
its location ; or it may have been thrown up

120 SKETCH OF ETNA AND KIEKERSVILLE
during a campaign by some Uttle body that
found themselves in the presence of a large
number of their enemies. However aU this
may be, there it stood, and time has in its
keeping the fate of its builders.

CHAPTER VIII
Our post office after 1850 was KirkersviUe
(generally called "Kirk"); in its stores the
family trading was done ; our family physi
cian lived there. Dr. FarreU, a tall, broad-
shouldered man, with large, rather cowering,
blue eyes, but a naturally happy nature ; at its
grist mill, owned by Captain Jim Stone, about
all our flour and corn meal were ground, while
all around it on the richest of farms, and amid
plenty, lived our warm-hearted neighbors, the
Stones, the DeWeeses, the Finkbones — Henry,
Isaac, and John — the Jacksons, the Wells, the
GiUs — Nicholas and John — the Charles, Buck-
lands, Whites, Larrimores, Hewetts, Stoolfires,
Cunninghams, Holmes, and many, many others.
I wUl confess, however, — notwithstanding
the Muse of History is supposed to frown on
all levity, — that I begin to write a sketch of
KirkersviUe with an involuntary smile. For,
upon my honor, from the day I gave it as my
address to the adjutant at West Point, up to
this time, I have never mentioned it as my

122 A SKETCH OF
birthplace that a smUe has not gathered on the
face of the person addressed. And generally,
after a wondering look, the foUowing question
is put mildly and apologetically, " May I ask.
General, where is KirkersviUe ? " sometimes
with manifest surprise, " Where in the name
of all that 's holy is KirkersviUe ? " and some
times with most deplorable profanity, " Well,
Schaff, where in h — 1 is KirkersviUe ? " Is
there anything unusual about the name, or is
there something inherently humorous in it?
I have long since given it up. My classmates
after our furlough in 1860 were never tired
of asking for the latest news from Kirkers
vUle, and it all came about in this way : —
One of them, TuUy McCrea of Urbana, now
a Brigadier-General, who carried his battery
commander, brave little " Dad " Woodruff,
mortally wounded, out of the fire of Gettys
burg the day of Pickett's charge, resting his
shattered body against an oak tree where, when
the charge was repulsed, the gallant-hearted
little fellow lay dead — well, TuUy joined me
at home and together we set out on our return
to West Point. KirkersviUe station on the
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad is several miles
north of the village, and in that day was no-

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 123
thing but a small, one story, unpainted, un-
plastered building standing alone along the
track with primeval woods back of it ; its only
companion a pair of scales at the gate of a
stock yard, from which hogs, sheep, and cattle
were carred. The train was late, and we had
time on our hands. The station agent was
" Jim " Outkelt, whom I had known from a
boy. Now, Jim, — somewhat sporty, rather sal
low, reticent, hair as black and straight as an
Indian's, — besides taking chances on horse
races had an eye for the show business, which
he gratified on a small scale by exhibiting a
lean, old, good-sized brown bear at county
fairs. At this time the bear was chained to an
oak tree just outside the stock yard, and was
morosely tramping around and around the tree,
mechanicaUy planting one big foot after an
other, and every once in a while uttering a sub
dued muttered growl, halting from time to time,
as some thought of his wrongs broke into flame,
to throw his small, narrow, merciless black
eyes on us. We leaned against the old Vir
ginia rail fence and took in Jim's show till the
train arrived. Soon after getting back to the
Point, while a crowd of us were enjoying our
usual smoke before caU to quarters one even-

124 A SKETCH OF
ing, McCrea got the floor and began telling
the crowd about KirkersviUe, the town itself,
the station, and finally about Jim Outkelt's
bear. And from that time on I never heard the
last of it, all of them wanting to know, with
a smile, every little while what was the news
from "Kirk." And it foUowed me into the
army. But there was one occasion in this connection
with KirkersviUe that I remember with keen
pleasure ; and as I recall it I see again a well-
appointed table surrounded by officers in full
uniform, and at its head one of the most
famous and altogether the most brilliant, in
tellectually, of American generals.
It was in the summer of 1865, just after
the end of the Great RebelUon, when I was
stationed at Watertown Arsenal near Boston.
Colonel Kingsbury, our commanding officer,
was a classmate of General Sherman ; and when
the latter came to Boston, he hurried out to
the Arsenal to see his old cadet friend. During
the visit, our Colonel gave him a fine dinner,
to which aU of us young bachelors were invited.
While at the table Sherman, who talked as
usual most familiarly and interestingly, said to
Major Shunk who sat just opposite me, " Well,

1. Lt.Gen.W.T.Sherman.
2. " " Philip H.Sheridan.
3. Maj, Gen. W. T. Rosecrans. *
4. " " Irwin McDoweU.
5. " " Samuel R. Curtis, who won the great battle of Elkhorn.
6. " " Charles Griffin, who commanded the 5th Corps at Appo
mattox, and was one of the" General Ofticers to pa-
rule Lee's Army.
" Charles K. Woods, Graduate of West Point, Commanded
a Division in Sherman's Array.
8. Brig.Genl.B.W.Brice, Graduate of West Point, Paymaster General.
9. W. B. Woods, Associate Justice of U. S. Supreme Court,
0. Allen G. Thurman, U.S. Senator, of nationalreputation.
1. Samuel S. Cox, Member of Congress, of national reputation.
2. WiUard Warner, Brigadier General in the War of Rebellion,
Senator from Alabama.
3. James F.Wilson, long adistinguished member of Congress from Iowa.
4. James B. Howell, U. S. Senator from Iowa.
5. Thomas Ewing, Secretary of the Treasury under Harrison, and of
the Interior under Taylor.
6. Ed. Koye ( colored ) , President of Republic of Liberia.

7.

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 125
Major, I knew your father. Governor Shunk of
Pennsylvania," and after some inquiries in re
gard to the Major's family, turned his emitting
dark brown eyes on me and asked in his cus
tomary du-ect manner, "' Well, Captain, where
are you from ? " Whereupon all the youngsters
lowered their eyes into their plates with the
broadest grins, for only a short time before
Major Shunk, in buying a series of maps, had
told the book agent that he would take them,
that he found them sufficiently minute in their
deUneation as they gave KirkersviUe, and they
had had the usual fun out of it. With some
embarrassment I answered, " General, I have
the honor to come from the adjoining county
to yours. You are from Fairfield, I am from
Licking ; but I don't suppose you ever heard
of my town — ^ it 's KirkersviUe." "Kirkers
viUe ! " exclaimed Sherman with enthusiasm,
" KirkersviUe ! Why, I 've been there many a
time. I know it weU ; it had the biggest pigeon
roost in the world," and he brought his hand
down with a bang. I wore a smUe of triumph
as I looked up and down the table. And now,
with some of the pride of that moment, I beg
to call attention to the map on the opposite
page. Where is there a town or city outside

126 A SKETCH OF
of Charlottesville, Virginia, Boston, and New
York and Philadelphia, that can point to as
many distinguished names within a radius of
twenty miles? I hope this display wiU clear
the brow of every son of KirkersviUe who is
asked henceforth, " Where in the world is Kirk
ersviUe?" He may well reply with dignity,
" There it is, the very centre of more great
men than any other town of its size in the
United States." However it may be, the ques
tion, where is KirkersviUe, has to be answered,
and, as I proceed to do it, its lights glimmer
again, I hear once more its Baptist beU, the
happy soliloquizing rumbling of Captain Stone's
grist mill, the long complaining creak of Cap
tain Austin's bellows and his ringing anvU. I
see the covered bridge, Davy Neiswander's old
Virginia Hotel, holding its memories of the
old stage days, and many a friend of my youth,
and there breaks out, Uke a flower reblooming
again, my love for the dear Uttle, old, light-
hearted town. No, KirkersviUe, I am proud
to say, is very far from being in the infernal
regions; it Ues on this green earth along the
National Road, about twenty mUes east of
Columbus, Ohio. The gardens of those living
on the south side of the Pike run down to

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 127
the banks of Bloody Run, while those on the
north reach the banks of the Licking. Bend
ing around it on the east is what is caUed the
" Feeder," a shallow canal, which was made in
the day of the Ohio Canal system to divert the
waters of the creek to Bloody Run and thence
to the reservoir six or seven miles to the south
east. Just below the bridge was the dam and
mUl race to the grist mUl. The water, after
doing the old miU's work, plays joyfuUy to
Bloody Run, which passes on through rich
green fields to the old swamp. The creek
swerves off to the northeast, and, after much
winding through sycamore woods, crosses the
National Road several miles to the east of the
viUage, and then bears off to the southeast,
where, near the bend of the old canal, it is met
by Bloody Run.
The town was founded about 1831 and was
named for Thomas Kirker, acting governor
in 1808. As soon as the National Road was
finished it rose into local importance, for it was
made the point where the horses were changed
on all the stage Unes. And as there were com
peting companies, three or more taverns sprang
up ; when I was a boy I remember there were
two, Neiswander's Old Virginia, and the Na-

128 A SKETCH OF
tional, kept by Mr. James O'Kane, whose
nephew. Captain James O'Kane, graduated at
Annapolis, and was aboard the Brooklyn when
it led Farragut's fleet against Forts Jackson
and St. Philip below New Orleans. My eldest
brother, David Alexander, married Hannah, the
eldest daughter of Mr. James O'Kane.
There never were two villages more unlike
than Etna and KirkersviUe, although only four
and a half mUes apart, and the settlers all hail
ing from about the same states in the East.
Perhaps there was a greater sprinkling of Vir
ginia people around KirkersviUe than around
Etna. But however this may be, there was
always a moral, sober, religious atmosphere in
Etna, — no fiddles, no gambling, no roystering,
— it seemed charged with the spirit of holiness
and ready to break out into a revival at any
moment. In "Kirk," on the other hand, from
its infancy there was always a spirit of unsanc-
tified exuberance, that every little while would
break out into quite a spree, a horse race, and
not infrequently into a rough and tumble fight.
Besides, every now and then a dancing master
would come along with a fiddle and, to the
horror of Etna, start a dancing school. Hence,
to the quiet, respectable people of Etna, "Kirk"

ETNA AND KIRKEESVILLE 129
was a sort of Sodom and Gomorrah, and it
would not have surprised Etna at any time to
learn that an angel of the Lord had come
down and smote it. But if an ano-el ever started
down with any such dire intent and, whUe
hovering for a moment before striking, heard
the fiddles at the dancing school, always held
in the dining-room of one of the taverns, or
some of the jokes of the crowd that used to
assemble about every night at Jim KirkendaU's
store, I 'm sure his , heart grew tender and he
went off smiUng. At any rate, the town was
spared, I suspect the difference was largely due to
several causes. First in influence was the halt
ing of the stages to change horses, and for the
passengers to dine. Among them were the most
distinguished men from all sections of the coun
try, senators, members of Congress, cabinet
officers, foreign travelers, members of theatri
cal companies, scholars, preachers, etc, which
brought to it of necessity an air of cosmopoU-
tanism. For its citizens were in the habit of
meeting and talking with the passengers dur
ing their short stay, and so had that easy
manner which comes from seeing and knowing
the best. Besides, there were a number of

130 A SKETCH OF
stock-dealers — all three of the Finkbones and
the Gills and Turners — who made trips to
Pittsburg, Cumberland, Baltimore, and Phila
delphia, with droves of hogs, sheep, cattle, and
horses, and they all brought back some of the
pollen of ease and knowingness of the older
and outside world. Then there were the stage-
drivers, each of them an oracle and fountain
of the news, and each a sort of fleece to which
good stories stuck Uke the Spanish needles that
used to grow up with corn on the rich sandy
bottoms of Bloody Run and Licking. Then,
too, there were the interdependent employees
of the stage lines, all lovers of horses, and horse
races followed naturally ; and with horse races,
cards and gambling followed then as they
foUow each other now with the regularity of a
law of nature. In addition to these permanent
influences the circuses, that in those days moved
in gilt wagons, all stopped in " Kirk ; " and a
traveling circus never spread its old mUdewed
canvas — but how grand and imposing it sways
up to the centre pole in a country boy's eyes !
and what mysteries it incloses, and if there be
a menagerie with it and a lion should growl
about the time the youth is buying his ticket
with the only quarter or half dollar he has in

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 131
the world, how his breath shortens and his
eyes bulge as he hastens toward the entrance
— well, no circus ever spread its canvas in any
smaU town in Ohio without a noticeable decUne
in godliness — the clown's jokes seemed to out
reach the blast of the ablest exhorter.
Moreover the great Pigeon Roost brought
hunters from aU parts of the country, and
among them were many saloon-keepers and
sporting men from the large cities, — they, too,
added cosmopolitanism to KirkersvUle, but did
not further saintUness. So the Uttle town de
veloped, getting its local color from many dyes,
tUl at last it could and did meet the gay world
with an original gayety of its own, and a keen
appreciation of the affectations and weaknesses
of men — whUe Etna pursued its humble way
along the path of holiness.
TiU the stages were taken off there was not
a Ug-hter-hearted town than " Kirk " from one
end of the National Road to the other, but so
soon as they disappeared, the unsurprised air
born of seeing the world began to fade out of
the social Ufe, the old stage stables where the
proud leaders and wheelers used to come and
go in state became silent, the stable boys lost
caste and drifted off into the ranks of inter-

132 A SKETCH OF
mittent laborers on the farms ; the jokers still
gathered, but it was easy to see that the old
town began to dream with the dreaming Na
tional Road.
It had a Baptist, a Presbyterian, and a Meth
odist Church. A large man by the name of
Hiestand preached for the Baptists, helped out
from time to time by theological students from
Dennison University, a Baptist college in Gran
viUe. Timothy Howe, the universally beloved,
already mentioned, was the pastor of the Pres
byterian Church. The Methodist clergymen I
knew at the time, but they changed so often
that I recaU scarcely any of them. When the
Baptist Church was buUt and the bell reached
town — I can hear its deep, lonely tones travel
ing up the Pike over wheat field and corn
field, borne softly sometimes by summer, some
times by autumn winds; traveUng sometimes
under dim starlight, and sometimes through
mists rising from the creek and the swamp and
the wUlow fringed valley of Bloody Rxm, and
many a time tolling for a pioneer, slowly strik
ing at the end the number of his years —
well, when it arrived, the first Saturday after
noon, all the Baptists and all the jokers, in
fact everybody, turned out to inspect it ; then

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 133
they guessed at its weight, and finaUy bet on
who could lift it. A great many tried, among
others Tom Murphy, the big miUer, and " Ike "
Finkbone, who I beUeve just succeeded in get
ting it clear of the ground. The greatest coon
hunter in all the region, a big-hearted feUow,
and subsequently a gaUant soldier in the war,
bet the drinks with " Al " Joseph that he could
Uft it. A good many side bets were made and,
amid suppressed excitement, as the reporters
say, Elbridge puUed off his coat, straddled the
bell, and made two trials, nearly bursting every
vein in his head, but lost the bet. With numer
ous suggestions as to his future diet, such as
" more ram steak, Elbridge," more rooster meal,
more fresh water mussels, and various herb teas,
such as more ironweed tea, buUweed tea, finally
less whiskey and more water, the crowd ad
journed to Uncle Davy Neiswander's and drank
to the future of the Baptist Church. When
Hiestand arrived the next day and was told
what was uppermost in the life of the town,
viz., the weight of the beU, etc., he laid off his
shining black coat just before service, bent
down over the bell, and up it came, six inches
or more clear of the ground. It is needless to
say that this feat put the Baptist preacher

134 A SKETCH OF
much higher in the public estimation and with
all the jokers than the degree of LL. D. would
have done, and in a little while a revival broke
out under his preaching, very much to the sur
prise of Etna. But there was in " Kirk " a too
keen sense of what was ludicrous in the experi
ences of the people, and too quick an ear and
eye for vanity's Uttle tricks, for any preacher,
however impassioned, or for any mood, however
religiously sweet, to suppress for any length of
time ; and it was not long before " Kirk " was
enjoying, or, as Etna would say, had " back
slidden " into, its old, cheerful ways.
Captain James Stone, so frequently men
tioned in this sketch, was easily its foremost
citizen in my day. He was about my father's
age, having been born in Licking about 1800,
only a few years after its settlement. The
Captain, like my father, was a Democrat and a
leader in his party, serving as county commis
sioner from time to time, and in other positions
of trust and responsibility, I do not know how
he got his title but doubtless for service in
some of the early militia regiments.
His acquaintance extended to the widest
limits of Licking and Fairfield. He knew their
people, their woods, their creeks, runs, and

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE 135
swamps ; and many a time, with a pleasure
that he was not conscious of, did I hear him
talk of them, the game, and the times of his
youth. It does not need to be said that this
sketch would have been immeasurably benefited
if I had realized the historic value and had
written down at the time all I heard from him
and his contemporary pioneers. For then its
path would have been through a forest of
frontier experiences with all the flavor and
color of the pioneer's speech. Now, on the
other hand, it is picking its way through an
old field, as it were, with here and there a dead
stump only, now and then a solitary mullein,
and once in a whUe a little blooming clover,
and aU viewed through the gathering mist of
years. The Captain was a short, stocky man with
a square, open face. His ways were quiet, his
eyes blue, with expansive kindness beaming in
them, his voice low, and his laugh melody itself.
He rarely told a story, but loved a good one
dearly, and although he was much older than
most of those who used to gather in the stage
tavern barroom or on its porch, and although
naturally sedate, yet he was always one of
them. I doubt if there ever was any one who

136 A SKETCH OF
heard more of Kirkersville's humor or who ap
preciated it more highly. This pioneer, good
adviser, and good friend of everybody, sleeps
in the graveyard on the graveUy knoll across
Bloody Run, almost due south from his mill
and within sound of its wheel.
This mill, its owner, and its mUler, big Tom
Murphy, — who, by the way, was a native
Scotch-Irishman, with all the humor of the
land his name suggests, — were most interest
ing in my boyhood, and now in my old age
the fondest of all my recollections of Kirkers
vUle. Whenever I was on a visit at home, while
the Captain was alive, I always went down to
see him, and many a time spent hour after
hour in the mUl. I can see now the bags of
wheat and corn standing around the pUlars
and against the side of the mill marked with
their owners' names and waiting for their turn ;
the hopper with its trickling stream of grain
as it jiggled down into the whirUng buhr-
stones, the great, noiseless, revolving bolt, and
the windows dimmed with flour dust. A favorite
lounging spot was the open window over the
tail-race ; there, with my elbows on the sill, I
would lean and watch the water that scurried

ETNA AND KIRKEESVILLE 137
off down through the field to Bloody Run,
which soon disappeared in the bulky, primeval
woods that masked the swamp.
From the miUer I heard the happenings in
KirkersvUle whUe I had been away. AU the
news drifted into the mill, and Tom knew the
funny side of Ufe and without maUce would
comment, sometimes as a humorist and some
times as a phUosopher, on the great drama as
it was played around him. He was considerably
older than I, but he had such a natural way of
meeting one that the difference of years was
lost sight of and we were the best of friends.
If there be a mill in Paradise — and for the
sake of the pleasant associations of this world
I hope that some of the celestial streams are
turning wheels — I trust that I may see Tom,
robed in white, in charge of one of them.
I would Uke to say a word of Captain Austin,
the viUage blacksmith, who dug the first big
ditch down through the swamp ; of his worthy
son, Henry, who foUowed at the forge, both
widely and justly respected ; of Mr. Kelly, who
kept the leading dry-goods store, and who,
when on a trip to New York, came to West
Point to see me, in order that, so he said, he
might be able to tell my mother how I looked

138 SKETCH OF ETNA AND KIEKEESVILLE
in a cadet uniform ; and of the DeWeeses,
Van Buskirks, Finkbones, Channels, who with
their pioneer neighbors were the founders
of KirkersvUle, and all famiUes of the best
breeding. But I shall leave them to the future
historian of the town, who I am sure wUl some
day, meteor-Uke, appear. For look at the map.
AU around the little town stand great names,
showing that there is something in the soil,
the winds, or the clouds that sail over Kirk
ersviUe, which awake, and nourish, the high
quaUties in human nature ; and why can it not
produce an historian, not to mention a poet
or an artist, as weU as generals and judges ?
Therefore I leave the dear Uttle old town to
its own home historian, in perfect trust that,
around the fire he kindles, it, and the men
I knew, will reappear in their naturalness, man
liness, and unpremeditated, boundless good-
humor.

APPENDIX

APPENDIX

TOWN OFFICEES

Trustees.
1833. O. E. Baldwin.
John Nelson.
Benjamin Graybill.

1834. Ambrose Meeker.
Benjamin Graybill.
Jonathan Clenden
ing.

1835. Henry Spangler.
Eichard Lamson.
Benjamin GraybUI.

1836. Benjamin Graybill.
Henry Spangler.
James Hanna.
1837. James Hanna.
George Maxfield.
Benjamin Golcher.

First Board of Trustees of the
township. Nelson lived on the
opposite side of the street from
the U. B. Church, but nearer the
Pike, directly in rear of a store
kept by Elliot brothers.
"Ordered that J. C. Knowles
and Ealph Eowe are appointed
Directors of School District No. 3
in said Township to fill the vacancy
occasioned by Ambrose Meeker
and Tobias Bondnot (Boudinot)
Eemoval. October, 1835."
Mr. Lamson lived in the village
of Etna, and was a justice of the
peace while the territory of the
township was a part of Harrison
Township. He lived in a long nar
row frame house on north side of
the Pike.
Mr. Hanna lived west of the
town and south of the Pike, a man
of fine character as were all who
bore bis name.
George Maxfield was a wagon-
maker, lived in a two-story frame
house on south side of the Pike,
about midway between Elliot's

142

APPENDIX

1838. Henry Spangler.
George Maxfield.
James Hanna.
1839. George Maxfield.
Joshua Palmerston.
John D. Shank.

1840. John D. Shank.
Joshua Palmerston.
George Maxfield.
1841. Frederick Mauger.
William Stone.
Jonathan Graybill.

1842. Jonathan Graybill.
Albion Worthen.
Roland C. Hard.

store and Tom Mathews's tavern.
Had two sons, James and Wesley,
and two daughters, EmUy and
Dorcas.

Mr. Shank, a stately looking
man, had shocky gray hair and
very sparkling black eyes, and
lived in the east part of the town,
owning the farm through which
Shanks Eiver flows, and was from
Virginia.

Mr. Mauger lived north of Wag
ram, and reared a family of great
worth. Jonathan was son of Benjamin
Graybill and son-in-law of Isaac
Essex. The town election of this and
the previous year was held at the
house of John Longbrake. The
Longbrakes' house stood in what
is known as the middle field of our
old homestead. It was of hewed
logs and near a spring that in my
boyhood was shadowed by a grove
of locusts. Longbrake met a vio
lent death at the hands of a Ger
man named Stingley, who fled
after stabbing him and was se
creted for days in an abandoned

APPENDIX

143

1843. 1844.1845.

1846.

1847.1848.

1849. 1850.

1851.1852.

1853.

1854.

1855.

1856.

Same as above.
Same as above.
E. C. Hard.
Jonathan Graybill.
Jacob Schaff.
Jonathan Graybill.
Jacob Schaff.
Joshua Palmerston.
Same as above.
Joshua Palmerston.
Jonathan Graybill.
John Green.
Same as above.
Joshua Palmerston.
Jonathan Graybill.
G«orge Smothers.
Same as above.
Joshua Palmerston.
Henry B. Harner.
Jacob Schaff.
Henry B. Harner.
Leonard Reese.
John R. Twiss.
Henry B. Harner.
Leonard Reese.
John Green.
Jonathan Graybill.
Hilary Hanna Hart
zeU.
W. J. Bishop.
Hiram C. Wait.
Alanson Scofield.
Daniel Leonard.

house on the farm of Gabriel Win-
kelman, another German, who
lived south of Etna.

The Twiss girls were famous
for their beauty, and I have often
wondered what became of them.

My uncle HUary, a reddish-
haired, refined, and most sensitive
man. My uncle Hiram, who married
my aunt Sarah HartzeU ; he was
a tall Vermont Yankee, firm, un-

144

APPENDIX

1857.

Daniel Leonard.
Alanson Scofield.
David Keller.

1858. Same as above.
1859. Daniel Leonard.
Alanson Scofield.
Jacob Slabaugh.

pretentious, and universaUy be
loved. Alanson Scofield, a joyous-
hearted and upright man.
Daniel Leonard, a stone-mason,
laid perhaps the foundations of
two thirds of all the houses and
barns in the township.
David Keller was our neighbor
on the south, a German and the
father of a large family of boys
who were my school-feUows and
playmates.

JUSTICES OF THE PEACE

Richard Lamson
John Schaff
Richard Lamson
John Schaff
Eichard Lamson
John Schaff
Eichard Lamson
John Schaff
Richard Lamson
John Schaff
Jacob F. Conine
Wm. C. Youmans
Jacob F. Conine
H. B. Harner
John Schaff
J. C. Knowles
John Schaff
J. C. Knowles
Andrew J. Shohoney
^ A son of Jamea Coney,
reigning family.

Commissioned as Justice of the Peace

Bond, $2500
" 1000

500

Bond,

500
2000

Sureties, J. C. Knowles and Wm. Hunter
" H. Brown and Nimrod Moreland
" Wm. Hunter and Samuel Hively
" James McGuire and Jacob Schaff
" Wm. Hunter and Thomas Mathews
" Isaac Winter and James Coney i
" Thomas Mathews and J. C. Knowles
Sureties, Jesse S. Green and Thomas J. Hahn
" Geo. M. Youmans and Jno. B. Twiss
" Jesse S. Green and Thomas J. Hahn

Bond, 2000 Sureties, H. B. Harner and David demons
1000 . ... . .

Oct.

19,

1835

U

7,

1837

Sept.

29,

1833

((

19,

1840

((

2,

1841

((

19,

1843

Aug.

31,

1844

Oct.

31,

1846

Sept.

18471849

Sept.

15,

1850

Nov.

19,

1852

Aug.

8,

1853

Nov.

1855

Oct.

21,

1856

Apr.

6,

1857

Oct.

12,

1859

Jime

6,

1860

Oct.

17,

1862

>acI— I
X

(This was my old school-teacher, who succeeded my father)
bearing his fatlier'B name, ran away from home, drifted to the Hawaiian Islands and married into the ,_,

146 APPENDIX

ETNA UNITED BRETHREN CHURCH
I am indebted to Mr. H. E. Eswine for the following
interesting and historically valuable account of the Etna
United Brethren Church.
The lot on which the Etna United Brethren Church now
stands was bought of Lyman TurriU by David Dellenbach
and wife in 1831 for $20. In 1838 Dellenbach and wife
sold it to the trustees of the United Brethren Church for
$18. John Schaff, Ebenezer Drake, Henry Spangler,
John Starling, and Frederick Mowers at that time consti
tuted the Board of Trustees. A frame church building,
the same still standing and in use as a place of worship,
was built about 1840. For several years the church was
occupied jointly by the United Brethren and the Presby
terians. Rev. Timothy Howe, for forty years or more
pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Pataskala, was one
of the ministers during this period. The Sunday-school
at that time was known as the Etna Union Sunday-school.
At that time, Samuel Hively, John Ridenour, Daniel Snider,
George Youmans, Sr., were with many others prominently
connected with the church society or the Sunday-school.
Later, the Presbyterians discontinued holding services here,
and since that time the building has been occupied exclu
sively by the United Brethren society.
About 1855 an addition of seven feet was built on to
the east end of the house and a steeple added. Since that
time various changes have been made in the interior ar
rangement of the audience room. One of these was the
removal of the high pulpit, so high that it was necessary

APPENDIX 147
to climb several steps to reach the top of it. This was
very tiresome for old ministers, and finally it was torn out.
The building is still in n good state of preservation and
bids fair to round out au even century of existence.

THE METHODIST CHURCH AT ETNA
The foUowing account of the Methodist Church was
submitted unsigned upon my request for information in
regard to it.
The present Methodist Church in Etna is a brick struc
ture costing $6000. At the time it was built, in 1871, on
a lot donated by James Nelson, it was the finest church in
Etna. It stands on the highest point along the National
Road, and in consequence has been considerably damaged
by storms. Twice it has been struck by lightning and a
quarter of the roof blown off, and in 1904 the south gable
was blown in, making it necessary to remodel the interior.
This was done, and the church is now in better condition
than ever before. The old church was a frame building
standing on a lot donated by the TurriU estate. It stood
on that site from the time it was built in 1840 until the
new church was built, when it was removed and after
wards used as a plough factory. Some of the members who
were prominently connected with it at that time were
Caldo Chadwick, Richard Conine, Sr., Joseph Osborne, Sr.,
Hilary HartzeU, Jonathan Graybill, Isaac Essex, J. F.
Twiss, James Nelson, P. Ford, John Parkinson, John D.
Aldred, John Flowers, Jacob F. Conine, Daniel Conine,
Clover Conine, Thomas Hughes, John Egolf, and George
Youmans, Sr.

148 APPENDIX

THE CIRCULAR HUNT IN 1826
(By Rev. Timothy Howe, written about 1870)
For this purpose, James Holmes, Esq., surveyor of
Licking County, was employed to survey, in the western
part of our county, a tract of land four miles square. The
most of this, if not the whole, was in Harrison Township.
The east line was where the road is, running north from
KirkersviUe, and the south line running west a little
north of Mr. Isaac White's dwelling house. This terri
tory was selected on account of its embracing the most of
" Gibbon's Deadening," as it was familiarly called. There
were some fifteen hundred acres in this " Deadening," and
none of it yet cleared for cultivation. It had been dead
ened some fifteen or sixteen years, and the second growth
of timber was in the very best condition to be a complete
harbor for all kinds of wild animals. So dense was the
undergrowth, that it was with difficulty that men could
pass through it on foot.
A day was appointed, and notice given in all parts of
the county for the men to meet at sunrise on that day,
ready to take their place on the line. Mr. Holmes had
run the lines and caused the trees to be blazed, so that the
lines were seen. He run lines also diagonally through
from corner to corner, so that we should have no confu
sion or blunder in gaining the centre. He gave notice
also more than any other man in'different sections of the
county, to turn out and assist in destroying those pests of
civilization. I well remember his pleasant, loud, and
cheerful voice, as he called to us to be on the ground
with promptness — bringing our own dinners, but no

APPENDIX 149
whiskey. " No whiskey," said he, " is to be allowed on
the ground."
By sunrising, on the day appointed, a vast crowd was
gathered at the " old Ward place," as it was then called,
but more recently it has the name of " the Cheese Farm,"
four miles west of Granville, on the Columbus Road. This
company was to form the east line.
Before separating and being placed on the line, horse
men were appointed who were to be stationed at equal
distances around the square, and when the lines were filled
on every side, the horsemen were to sound their trumpets,
commencing at a given point, and sound around the square
to let aU know that the lines were filled. A second sound
ing of trumpets around was the signal for all to march.
Thus the excitement commenced. The lines had advanced
but a short distance before we began to see the frightened
deer running parallel with the line, seeking a place to
escape from the terrible enemy by which they were sur
rounded. As soon as the deer were seen the guns com
menced to crack along the line. Those of us passing
through the " Deadening" could do little more than prevent
the game from passing the lines. The bushes and trees
were so thick that it was impossible to see the game so as
to shoot twenty yards. The deer before discovering the
men on the Une would come within thirty or forty feet,
and wheel and fly from us. The wolves kept at a greater
distance from the Unes ; they were not seen on the east
line until we were out of the " Deadening," and in more
open woods. Then three were seen about so often, run
ning paraUel with the lines, but so far from them that our
best shot did not bring them down. When we had gained
the open woods and the deer had formed larger flocks, the

150 APPENDIX
volleys fired at them sounded as they do when armies are
in battle. As the deer passed along the line, the firing
would be continuous, sometimes for minutes in succession.
It would be one continued roar of musketry. Thus the
day passed, and few indeed were the intervals when guns
could not be heard in one direction or another. We were
just emerging from the thick undergrowth of the " Deaden
ing," when a huge black bear was discovered, making his
way in a lazy gallop towards the southeast corner of the
inclosure. No gun was fired at him until he was within
twenty or thirty yards of the line. Then, simultaneously,
fifteen or twenty guns were fired and Bruin fell to rise no
more. From early in the march turkeys were seen flying
over the lines like flocks of pigeons. We continued our
steady march until we arrived at the lines indicating a
fourth of a mUe square. It had been anticipated that it
might become necessary to halt before we should reach the
centre ; and so it was. This one fourth of a mile had
been surveyed and the trees blazed with an axe. We halted
here, for with all the shooting that had been done, not a
single wolf had been killed, and we knew three at least
were in the lines ; they had become perfectly cowed and
now were skulking behind logs and under the bank of the
stream that runs through the centre square. Our centre
was on " Grass Lick run " or one of its branches. To kill
wolves was now the grand object. The best marksmen
were selected and sent in to do that work. No one on the
lines was allowed to shoot. We stood almost shoulder to
shoulder. I know none who went in except Mr. Leverett
Butler and Captain Timothy Spellman. But there were
three or four others. An incident occurred while dispatch-

APPENDIX 151
ing the wolves. Mr. Butler took his brother Henry with
him to carry the hatchet. Mr. Butler shot one and he
fell ; his brother sprang to the wolf, straddled him and
struck him between the ears three blows, but in the excite
ment, with the edge, instead of the head of the hatchet.
The wolf escaped from him until Leverett could shoot him
again. Three marks of the edge of the hatchet were seen
between the ears of the wolf when brought to the centre,
and soon after the skin was dressed with the hair on, and
used as a saddle cloth by General Augustine Munson.
After it was announced that there was no more game to
be kUled, we marched to the centre. Perfect order was
observed, not a single person appearing to be disguised by
intoxicating Uquor, thus evincing that the order to take no
ardent spirits to the hunt had been obeyed. No serious
casualty occurred during the day, and the highest cheerful
glee prevailed. The game had been brought along as it
was killed, and such a sight had never been seen in Lick
ing County, and never wiU be again, as was presented to
our view. There was the large black bear, three wolves,
forty-nine deer, sixty or seventy turkeys, and one owl
spread on the ground. The next thing was to prepare the
spoUs for distribution. The bear and deer were skinned
and cut up into pieces weighing about four pounds each.
The number of pieces was ascertained, and it was found
that there were only one third enough to give each man a
piece. The men were formed into three companies, and
they cast lots which company should have the spoils. AU
appeared satisfied with this arrangement, and at sunset
the company dispersed. It was the good luck of General
Augustine Munson to draw the bear skin, and he displayed
it proudly as the greatest trophy of the day's hunt. The

152 APPENDIX
General was one of Licking County's early, energetic, am
bitious, enterprising, patriotic pioneers and useful citizens,
and lived to the age of nearly eighty-five years, dying at
his residence in GranvUle Township in 1868.

LIST OF SOLDIERS FROM ETNA TOWNSHIP
WHO SERVED IN THE WAR OF THE GREAT
REBELLION
I am greatly indebted to my old schoolmate and life
long friend. Squire Samuel Hagy, one of Etna's best and
leading citizens, for a great deal of assistance in mak
ing up the foUowing list, and append his breezy letter
transmitting it : —
" Now, Gen. Schaff, I want to say if there is a spot in
the U. S. A. that can beat old Etna Township under simi
lar circumstances, I 'U be pleased to know it. Etna Town
ship, nine miles long, two mUes wide, during 1860-61-62-
63-64 one half of this township was woods, two little
towns, Etna never had a population to exceed 250 not
even at this date (1905), Wagram (Cumberland) never had
a population to exceed 50, but we sent and went 119 sol
diers. In fact, about all the young men went to war. The
old men, women, and children were left at home to do the
farming. They had a hard struggle to gather the harvest.
" Then the winter of 1864-65 was the coldest that was
ever experienced in this country.
" Besides, Etna Township sent 25 or 30 substitutes from
other parts of the state, paid from $300 to $500 each.
Your dear old father. Squire John Schaff, would go to
Lancaster, Newark, Columbus, and hire men to go and
have them credited to Etna Township. Your father.

APPENDIX

153

James ConneU, James Nelson, Lucas Humphrey, and J. H.
Emswiler were the men that took an active part, and saw
to it that Etna Township, Licking County, Ohio, stood
erect like men, with a solid front. James Nelson, Colum
bus, Ohio, and J. H. EmswUer, Etna, Ohio, are the only
ones living of the old recruiting committee."

Name.

Company.

Regiment.

Lt.-Col. Morris Yeomans

, F..

¦ Captain.
' Lieut.-Colonel.

95th Ohio.
71stU.S. Colored.

Capt. Philip Crowe,

G.

46th Ohio.

Dr. A. J. Shohoney,

Asst.-Surgeon.

5th Ohio Cavalry.

Dr. M. Valentine,

(( ((

10th

(( t(

Dr. C. Langdon,

Hospital Corps.
Lieut. James Manger,
E.
178th Ohio.
Hiram HartzeU,
A.
Killed in battle.
95th
((
Cyrus HartzeU,
C.
88th
(1
Samuel E. Hagy,
D.
It
((
William T. Hagy,
C.
'*
11
Jacob Hagy,
I.
(1
«
John Schaff,
D.
((
H
Hilary Hanby Schaff,
D.
u
11
John Keller,
E.
178th
u
Samuel Keller,
E.
(1
It
James Staples,
C.
Corporal.
27th
u
Samuel Mauger,
C.
**
((
11
Frederick T. Neff,
C
11
11
Alfred Holt,
C.
1(
(t
Edward Arnold,
E.
Sergeant.
76th
((
John Chippy,
C.
27th
(1
Henry Rodenbarger,
G.
46th
n
Samuel Yeomans,
D.
Corporal.
22d
'*
Elbridge Cleaves,
E.
((
135th
((
Stewart Plummer,
E.
10th Ohio Cavalry.
Solomon Ault,
C.
46th Ohio.
John Blauser,
F.
95th
*'
Thomas Wells,
C.
27th
It
Martin Leonard,
E.
76th
'*
154

APPENDIX

John Emjck,

C.

27th Ohio.

John W. Lytle,

F.

First

Sergeant.

95th "

John Emswiler,

A.

88th "
S. E. Hager,
F.
1st Cavalry
Jacob Rhoades,
E.
76th Ohio.
WiUiam Eswine,
B.
Corporal.
a a
Silas Giboney,
C.
KUled in battle.
27th "
Robert Moore,
B.
Died
in hospital
76th "
Albert Wells,
D.
22d "
Daniel S. Davis,
D.
76th "
Levi G. Flenner,
A.
U il
John Brothers,
E.
(C U
Andrew Meade,
I.
Died
in hospital.
95th "
Peter Perry,
I.
Sergeant.
U It
WiUiam Boyd,
I.
It ((
Allen Barb,
I.
"
Thomas Irving,
D.
10th Cavalry.
Jacob Hager,
27th Ohio.
Isaac Zellars,
C.
li U
George Haines,
F.
95th "
Frank Sturgeon,
I.
u u
Wilson Joseph,
K.
76th "
Vincent Miller,
C.
27th "
L. Clouse,
B.
Died
in hospital.
76th "
Wmiam B. JoUy,
C.
88th "
Jacob Imhofe,
E.
76th "
Jacob Rudolph,
C.
Died
in hospital.
U il
Parker Green,
D.
88th "
Benjamin F. Sutherland,
D.
(( 1(
Hiram H. Hanna,
A.
t( it
Matthias Hoover,
E.
178th "
Charles StienhUher,
E.
u ((
Benjamin Young,
F.
188th "
Jefferson Hanna,
A.
88th "
Levi Cashdollar,
D.
Died
in hospital.
12th Cavalry.
George Stover,
E.
178th Ohio.
John Phester,
D.
135th "
Robert Barb,
D.
(( ((
C. C. Neff,
D.
(( ((
Jacob Fisher,

AP F.

PENDIX Sergeant.

188th Ohio.

155

Edward Boylan,

G.

76th "

Henry L. Harner,

I.

95th "

Charles Hummel,

B.

58th "

Frederick Eiokley,

E.

Corporal.

135th "

John Parkinson,

D.

11 t(
WiUiam Shank,
E.
It a
Henry Rittenhouse,
G.
188th «
Joseph Rhoades,
G.
88th "
WUUam D. Scully,
1.
2d Heavy ArtU
Roland Shower,
E.
Sergeant.
178th Ohio.
John Shower,
E.
il ((
Oswald Raber,
E.
(C u
Frederick Herring,
E.
76th "
WUliam H. TuUy,
F.
1st Cavalry.
J. H. EgoU,
F.
188th Ohio.
Jacob Goode,
A.
Sergeant.
10th Ohio Cavalry
Jacob Miller,
K.
178th Ohio.
John Salts,
(G.
)E.
76th "
178th "
Abraham Fast,
(C.
1e.
76th "
178th «
Edward Shohoney,
G.
Died at Viohshnrg. 76th "
EU Mauger,
G.
il 11
Samuel Young,
C.
38th "
Christian Young,
C.
76th "
Henry Gierhart,
B.
38th "
George W. Moore,
F.
46th "
Peter Salts,
G.
76th "
Christian Winkelmann,
Regiment unknown
John Winkelmann,
Jackson Moore,
Noah Blauser,
Fred CashdoUar,
Henry Fisher,
George Parkinson,
V, (( (
William Strang,
James Strang,
Frank Strang,
156

APPENDIX

Regiment unknown.

B. 135th Ohio.
I. Died at Vicksburg. 76th "
Regiment unknown.

John Rittenhouse,
Jacob Wagey,
John CashdoUar,
Charles CxUley,
James Hughes,
John Hopper,
Jerry Shirey,
Edward L. Baird,
Timothy Crane,
Frank Librand,
Ambrose Leonard,
Patrick Lytle,
Frank Giboney,
Alexander Staples,

At the date of this publication, October, 1905, within a
radius of two miles of KirkersviUe, the foUowing soldiers
of the War of the Rebellion were living : —

WUliam White, Co. B, 4th Ohio.
Lemuel White, Co. F, 17th "
Alonzo Gamble,
James Gamble,
WUliam Browning,
WiUis Van Kerk,
AUred WeUs, Co. E, 135th Ohio.
WiUiam Myers,
Capt. James W. KirkendaU,
Charles WeUs,
Isaac Pugh,
Franklin Stoolfire,
Elbridge Cleaves,

John H. Wagey,
George Myers,
James Comatock, Co. A, 88th Ohio.
Jacob Anderson,
James Anderson, Co. A, 76th Ohio.
Cyrus Anderson,
Adam T. Day,
Anson McAUister,
Michael Shank, Co. E, 135th Ohio.
WUUam WeUs, "
Jamea WeUs, Co. C, 76th "
Adam Blaine,
Thomas Gay.

The following is a list of the dead, the most of whom
are buried in the KirkersviUe graveyard : —

George Alward,
Byron Evans,
Mason Palmer,

Nathan Parrish,
Stewart Plummer,
Samuel Gilbourgh,

APPENDIX

Col. Silas Austin, Mexican War.
Horace Beach, " "
John Parkinson, " "
Solomon Channel, " "
Solomon Haines, " "
Thomas Harris,
Benjamin ThraU,
Samuel MiUer, Co. F, 135th Ohio.
Samuel Palmer,
Benjamin Wilcox,
Dr. T. J. Farrel,
Isaac Strickter,
Adam Hnmharger,
Thomas Davis,

O. L. Davis,
Horace Myers,
Jacob Myers,
John McThomas,
Charles Buckland,
James Hancock,
John Keller,
Charles Hancock,
Eli Hatfield,
Byron Brothers,
Sherman D. Kelly,
James Myers,
Wesley Zelhart,
 Cummings.

^6e BitEt^itie ^tei^
Electrotyfed and printed iy H.O. Houghton &= Co.
Cambridge, Mass., U.S. A.

YALE UNIVERSITY

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