There was a Good Samaritan living along the highway near Shandon when the Journal-News was born. He went by the name of John Evans and he owned a section of land outside the village on the way to Venice. For many years he had watched weary farmers drive loads of grain and livestock to the Cincinnati market.  There was a spring along the road on his farm and tired man and beast always stopped there for a refreshing drink and to rest.

Tradition says that there always was a place for the traveler in the Evans home.  There was an early breakfast ready for them, if they cared to stop in about five or six o'clock in the morning.  The Evans household was the household of neighbors and passerby.

Today there is a fountain out of which gushes water from the spring.  This was built by Mr. Evans in 1887 and he had inscribed upon it the famous Biblical text:  "And now abideth faith, hope, and charity and the greatest of these is charity."

There was a place for cattle to drink and for horses and there was a drinking cup for man.  The controlled water of the spring served man and beast for half a century.  Mrs. Ralph Jeffries, a great granddaughter of Mr. Evans, recalls today how he told of the pilgrimages of farmers along the highway to the market and the joy with which they approached "John's house."

 © 2000 by the Butler County Historical Society