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            Geauga County was formed in 1805 from Trumbull, since which its original limits have been much reduced. It was the second county formed on the Reserve.  The name Geauga, or Sheauga, signifies the Indian language Raccoon. It was originally applied to Grand river, thus: "Sheauga sepe," i.e., Raccoon river.  The surface is rolling and the soil generally clay. Its area is 400 square miles.  In 1885 the acres cultivated were 62,698; in pasture, 103,077; woodland, 45,541; lying waste 2,703; produced in bushels, wheat, 148,178; oats, 383,891; corn 253,691; potatoes, 171,760; hay, tons, 41,393; butter, 460,807 pounds; cheese 1,550,382.  School census, 1886, 3,984; teachers, 240.  It has 25 miles of railroad.

 

 

 

            The population in 1820 was 7,791; in 1840, 16,299; in 1860, 15,817; in 1880, 14,251, of whom 10,380 were Ohio-born; 1,241, New York; 372, Pennsylvania; 719, foreign born.

 

            This county, being at the head-waters of Chagrin, Cuyahoga and part of Grand rivers, is high ground, and more subject to deep snows than any other part of the Reserve. In its early settlement it was visited by some high sweeping winds or tornadoes, but perhaps no more than other counties around them. In August, 1804, John MINER was killed at Chester. He had lately moved from Burton, with part of his family, into a log-house which he had built at that place. A furious storm suddenly arose, and the timber commenced falling on all sides, when he directed his two children to go under the floor, and stepped to the door to see the falling timber. At that instant three trees fell across the house and killed him instantly. The children remained in the house until the next morning, when the oldest made her way to a neighbor, about two miles distant, and related the sad tidings.

 

            The first settlement in Geauga was at Burton, in the year 1798, when three families settled there from Connecticut. This settlement was in the interior of the country, at a considerable distance from any other. The hardships and privations of the early settlers of the Reserve are well described in the annexed article from the pen of one who was familiar with them.

 

 

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 expense of time, and, in many cases, the only safe guide to direct their course were the township lines made by surveyors.

 

                The want of mills to grind the first harvests was in itself a great evil. Prior to the year 1800 many families used a small handmill, properly called a sweat-mill, which took the hard labor of two hours to supply flour enough for one person a single day. About the year 1800 one or two grist-mills, operating by water power, were erected. One of these was at Newburg, now in Cuyahoga county. But the distance of many of the settlements from the mills, and the want of roads, often rendered the expense of grinding a single bushel equal the value of two or three.

 

            The difficulties of procuring subsistence for a family, in such circumstances, must be obvious. Often would a man leave his family in the wilderness with a stinted supply of food, and with his team or pack-horse go perhaps some twenty or thirty miles for provisions. The necessary appendages of his journey would be an axe, a pocket compass, fireworks, and blanket and bells. He cut and beat his way through the woods with his axe, and forded almost impassable streams. When the day was spent he stopped where he was, fastened his bells to his beasts, and set them at liberty to provide for themselves. Then he would strike a fire, not only to dissipate, in some degree, the gloom and damps of night, but to annoy the gnats and mosquitos, and prevent the approach of wolves, bears, and panthers. Thus the night passed with the trees for his shelter. At early dawn, or perhaps long before, he is listening to catch the sound of bells, to him sweet music, for often many hours of tedious wanderings were consumed ere he could find his team and resume his journey. If prospered, on reaching his place of destination, in obtaining his expected supply, he follows his lonely way back to his anxious and secluded family, and perhaps has scarce time to refresh and rest himself ere the same journey and errand had to be repeated.

 

            Geauga suffered much from the "Great Drouth" in the summer of 1845, the following brief description of which was communicated to Dr. S.P. Hildreth, by Gov.Seabury FORD, and published in "Silliman's Journal."

 

                The district of country which suffered the most was about one hundred miles in length, and fifty or sixty in width, extending nearly east and west parallel with the lake, and in some places directly bordering on the shore of this great island sea. There was no rain from the last of March, or the 1^st of April, until the 10^th of June, when there fell a little rain for one day, but no more until the 2d of July, when there probably fell half an inch, as it made the roads a little muddy. From this time no more rain fell until in early September. This long-continued drouth reduced the streams of water to mere rills, and many springs and wells heretofore unfailing became dry, or nearly so. The grass crop entirely failed, and through several counties the pasture grounds in places were so dry, that in walking across them the dust would rise under the feet, as in highways. So dry was the grass in meadows, that fires, when accidentally kindled, would run over them as over a stubble-field, and great caution was required to prevent damage from them. The crop of oats and corn was nearly destroyed. Many fields of wheat so perished that no attempt was made to harvest them. Scions set in the nursery dried up for lack of sap in the stocks, and many of the forest trees withered, and all shed their leaves much earlier than usual. The health of the inhabitants was not materially affected, although much sickness was anticipated. Grasshoppers were multiplied exceedingly in many places, and destroyed every green thing that the drouth had spared, even to the thistles and eldertops by the roadside.

 

                The late frosts and cold drying winds of the spring months cut off nearly all the fruit, and what few apples remained were defective at the core, and decayed soon after being gathered in the fall. Many of the farmers sowed fields of turnips in August and September, hoping to raise winter food for their cattle, but the seed generally failed to vegetate for lack of moisture. So great was the scarcity of food for the domestic animals that early in the autumn large droves of cattle were sent into the valley of the Scioto, where the crops were more abundant, to pass the winter, while others were sent eastward into the borders of Pennsylvania. This region of country abounds in grasses, and one of the staple commodities is the produce of the dairy. Many stocks of dairy cows were broken up and dispersed, selling for only four or five dollars a head, as the cost of wintering would be more than their worth in the spring.

 

                Such great losses and suffering from the effects of drouth have not been experienced in Ohio for many years, if at all since the settlement of the country. As the lands become more completely cleared of the forest trees, dry summers will doubtless be more frequent. In a region so near a large body of water we should expect more rain than in one at a distance. The sky in that district is, nevertheless, much oftener covered with clouds than in the southern portion of the State, where rains are more abundant; but the dividing ridge, or height of land between Lake Erie and the waters of the Ohio lacks a range of high hills to attract the moisture from the clouds and cause it to descend in showers of rain.

 

TRAVELLING NOTES

 

 

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 depot on the outskirts by an old lady, evidently a character. She was seated on a box; an eight-year-old boy was by her side, and she was smoking a pipe. Changes were being made in the gauge of the track, with consequent confusion at the depot, with scant accomodation for waiting passengers. She was virtuously indignant. "All the railroad men care for is to get our money," she said; then puffed away. After a little the locomotive came up drawing a single car; in a twinkling it was filled with a merry lot of rural people, laughing and chatting, exhilarated by the air of a perfect September morning, sunny and bracing.

 

I object—While waiting for the start something was said about smoking in the car, whereupon a gentleman exclaimed: "If any person objects we must not smoke." Instantly came from a distant corner, in the shrill, screaming tones of some ancient woman: "I object." The announcement was received with a shout of laughter, in which everybody seemed to join. It was evident that every soul in that car felt that "I object" had such an abhorrence of tobacco smoke, that if the man in the moon got out his pipe she would know it after a few puffs; that is, if the wind was right.

 

                My sympathy was excited for the old lady at the deprivation of her pipe-smoke, and so tried, as we started, to relieve her mind by conversation. As is not unusual with humanity, herself was an interesting topic. She was, she told me, fifty-five years old; her parents born in Connecticut, she in "York State," but from five years old had lived in Geauga county. In turn I told her what I was doing, travelling over the State to make a book.  "Make money out of it?" inquired she. "Hope so." As I said this she dropped into a brown study, evidently thinking what a grand thing, making money! That thought having time to soak in, she broke the silence with: "My husband died twelve years ago; then putting her hand on the shoulder of the boy, as if joyed at the thought, added: "This is my man; took him at five months – first time seen the kears."

 

                As we were passing some sheep, I inquired: "Sheep plenty in this country, madam?" "Yes. I've got some, but no such poor scrawny things as those," she said, smirking her nostrils and pointing so contemptuously at the humble nibbling creatures, scattered over a field below us, that I felt sorry for them. Soon after crossing a country road whereon was a flock of turkeys, it came my turn to point, as I said: "How bad those turkeys would feel if they knew Christmas was coming." "What?" said she. She had got a new idea: Turkeys dreading Christmas when everybody else was so glad.           

 

Burton— The ride over from the depot to Burton is a little over two miles westerly. Burton stands on a hill, and it loomed up pleasantly as I neared it, reminding me of the old-time New England villages. It was largely settled from Cheshire, Connecticut which also stands on a hill. The prospect from the village is beautiful and commanding in every direction, takes in a circuit of sixty or seventy miles, including points in Trumbull and Portage counties; north I discerned over a leafy expanse sprires in Chardon, eight  miles distant; and south the belfry of Hiram College at Garretsville, fourteen miles away. As I look the one makes me think of Peter Chardon BROOKES, its founder; and the other of James Garfield, for there he went to school. The county is charmingly diversified with hills and valleys. About ten miles from the shore of Lake Erie and nearly parallel to it is the dividing ridge, on which are points nearly 800 feet above the lake, as Little Mountain and Thompson Ledge; the mean surface of the county is about 500 feet above the lake.

 

The New Connecticut People. — General Garfield in a speech at Burton, September 16, 1873, before the Historical Society of Geauga County, drew a pleasant picture descriptive of the character of the people, a large majority of whom are descendants of emigrants from Connecticut. He said: "On this Western Reserve are townships more thoroughly New England in character and spirit than most of the towns of New England to-day. Cut off from the metropolitan life that has been molding and changing the spirit of New England, they have preserved here in the wilderness the characteristics of New England as it was when they left in the beginning of the century. This has given to the people of the Western Reserve those strongly marked qualities which have always distinguished them.

 

When the Reserve was surveyed in 1796 by Gen. Cleveland there were but two white families of settlers on the entire lake shore region of Northern Ohio. One of these was at Cleveland and the other at Sandusky. By the close of the year 1800 there were thirty-two settlements on the Reserve, though no organization of government had been established. But the pioneers were a people who had been trained in the principles and practices of civil order, and these were transplanted to their new homes. In New Connecticut there was little of that lawlessness which so often characterizes the people of a new country. In many instances a township organization was completed and a minister chosen before the pioneers left home. Thus they planted the instructions of old Connecticut in their new wilderness homes.

 

The pioneers who first broke ground here accomplished a work unlike that which will fall to the lot of any succeeding generation. The hardships they endured, the obstacles they encountered, the life they led, the peculiar qualities they needed in their undertakings, and the traits of character developed by their work, stand alone in our history.

 

 

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planted here, and they nourished and cherished them with an energy and devotion scarcely equalled in any other quarter of the world. The glory of our country can never be dimmed while these three lights are kept shining with an undimmed lustre.

 

Burton is about 30 miles east of Cleveland, 8 south of Chardon, about 20 miles from Lake Erie, and 2 ½ miles westerly from the P. & Y. R .R.  It is a finely located village, and the seat of the county fair grounds. Newspaper: Geauga Leader, A.R.WOOLSEY, editor and proprietor.  Churches: 1 Methodist Episcopal and 1 Congregational. Bank: Houghton, Ford & Co. Population in 1880, 480.

 

OLD-TIME WAY OF MAKING MAPLE SUGAR.

 

 

THE MAPLE SUGAR INDUSTRY

 

 

Page 686

 

copied from that in Peter Parley's "Recollections of a Lifetime." The article which here follows is by Henry C. TUTTLE, of Burton, who wrote it for these pages:

 

"The undulating and somewhat hilly character of Geauga county seems especially adapted to the growth of the sugar maple and productive of a large supply of sap.  Not only does it make the largest quantity, but also the best quality of maple sweet.  From using troughs hollowed out of split logs in which to catch the sap and boiling it in big iron kettles in the open air to a thick, black, sticky compound of sugar, ashes, and miscellaneous dirt, which had some place in the household economy, but no market value, sugar-makers to-day use buckets with covers to keep out the rain and dirt, the latest improved evaporators, metal storage tanks, and have good sugar-houses in which the sap is quickly reduced to syrup.  All this has been done at a large outlay of money, but the result proves it to have been a good investment, as the superior article made finds a ready market and brings annually from $80,000 to $100,000.

 

The season usually opens early in March, when the trees are tapped and a metal spout inserted, from which is suspended the bucket. When the flow of sap begins it is collected in galvanized iron gathering tanks, hauled to the sugar-house and emptied into the storage vats, from which it is fed by a pipe to the evaporator. The syrup taken from the evaporator is strained, and if sugar is to be made, goes at once into the sugar-pan, where it is boiled to the proper degree, and caked in pound and one-half cakes. If syrup is to be made, it is allowed to cool, and is then reheated and cooled again, to precipitate the silica. It is then drawn off into cans and is ready for market.

 

The greatest care and cleanliness is required to make the highest grade of sugar and syrup, and the fragrant maple flavor is only preserved by converting the sap into sugar or syrup as fast as possible. If the sap stands long in the vats or is boiled a long time the flavor is lost and the color becomes dark.

 

The groves of "bushes" vary from 300 to 3,000 trees each, the total number of trees tapped in 1886 being 375,000.  The industry is still growing, and there are probably enough groves not yet worked to make a total of 475,000, which, if tapped, would increase the output about one-third.  The sugar and syrup is mostly sold at home.  The principal market is Burton, centrally located, and from there it is shipped to consumers in all parts of the country, the larger proportion going to the Western States."

 

TRAVELLING NOTES

 

Burton is a pleasant place for a few days' rest. It has a ten-acre square with homes, churches and academy grouped around it, and on it is a band-stand where, on evenings, the village band gives excellent music. The place has had some noted characters. Here lived, at the time of my original visit, two especially such, Gov. Seabury FORD, born in Cheshire, Connecticut, in 1801, and Judge Peter Hitchcock, born in the same place in 1781. Mr. FORD came here when a child.

 

He was educated for the law, was long political life, serving as speaker of both branches of the State Legislature, and was governor of the State in 1849-51, and died soon after from paralysis. He was an ardent Whig and greatly instrumental in carrying the State for Henry Clay.

 

In 1820, with a companion, Mr. D.Witter, he travelled through an almost unbroken wilderness to New Haven, Conn., for a four years' absence to obtain an education at Yale College. They both graduated, and were the very first to do so from the young State of Ohio. While there he was elected the college "bully." This was an office for which the physically strongest man was generally chosen, to preside at class meetings and to lead in fights against the "town boys" so called, the rougher elements of the city, with whom there were sometimes conflicts. On one dark night, the latter, a mob of town boys, went so far as to draw up a cannon loaded to its mouth with missiles, in front of the college and applied the torch. It simply flashed, having been secretly spiked on the way thither. The office of "college bully" has long since become obsolete from the absence of a low-down class of people to cherish enmity against students.

 

 

Page 687

 

itics and public life until, by a careful and industrious attention to a legitimate and honorable calling, you have accumulated a fortune sufficiently large to entitle you to the respect and confidence of your fellow-men as a business man and a man of integrity, and sufficiently large to render you thoroughly and entirely independent of any official salary."

 

I walked about a mile from the village on the Chardon road to visit the old home of Peter HITCHCOCK, who has been defined as "Father of the Constitution of Ohio," so largely was his advice followed in framing it. I wished to see how this man of mark had lived, and was greatly pleased to find it was with full republican simplicity. It seemed like an old-time Connecticut farmhouse set down here in Ohio. Vines nestled over the attached kitchen building, and a huge milk-can, tall as a five-year-old urchin, was perched on the fence drying in the sun preparatory to being filled against to-morrow morning's visit of the man from the cheese factory. Both are shown in the engraving.

 

Peter HITCHCOCK, in 1801, graduated at Yale at the age of 20, was admitted to the bar, and in 1806 moved to Ohio and took a farm here and divided his time between clearing the wilderness, teaching and the law practice.  Four years later he went to the Legislature; in 1814 was speaker of the Senate; in 1817 a member of Congress; in 1819 was a Judge of the Supreme Court, and with slight intermissions held that position until 1852, part of the time being Chief Justice. He was a leading member of the Constitutional Convention of 1850. In 1852, at the age of 70 years, after a public service of over forty years, like Cincinnatus, he retired to his farm and died in 1854.

 

He is described as having been finely proportioned, erect, strong-chested, with a large head full of solid sense; his expression sedate and Puritanic. He was profound in law, his judgment almost unerring, in words few but exact to the point. He was revered by the bar and beloved by the people, and his decisions considered as models of sound logic. Unconscious of it himself, he was great as a man and a judge.

 

The history of Mortimer D. Leggett, one of Ohio's efficient generals in the rebellion, is identified with this county. He was born in Ithaca, New York, in 1821, and in 1836 came with his father's family on to a farm at Montville. He worked on the farm and studied at intervals, then went to the Teachers' Seminary at Kirtland, later studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1844, but did not until six years after begin the practice, for he became deeply interested in the subject of common schools and labored arduously with Dr. A. D. Lord, Lorin Andrews and M. F. Cowdry for the establishment of Ohio's present system of public instruction. These three gentlemen, with young Leggett, stumped the entire State at their own expense in favor of free schools.

 

Those two warm friends of education, Judge Worcester, of Norwalk, and Harvey Rice, of Cleveland, fortunately were in the Legislature, and uniting their efforts in the fall of 1846, accomplished the passage of a special school law for the village of Akron, whereupon Leggett, then but 25 years of age, went thither and organized the first system of free graded schools west of the Alleghenies, under what is known as the "Akron School Law."  The good Judge Worcester, whom I knew well—and who, by the way, was the brother of the scholar who made the dictionary—passed away many years since. Harvey Rice I found at his home in Cleveland in 1886, and although born in the last year of the last century, he was then erect, his hearing perfect, and his vision so good as to enable him to read without glasses. Moreover, he was active in instituting measures for the erection of a monument to the memory of the city's founder, now accomplished. Gen. Leggett is to-day a practising lawyer in Cleveland. His example of what a young man without experience, but enthused with a beneficent idea, can do for the public welfare, is too valuable not to have a permanent record.

 

In Burton I made the acquaintance of an ex-soldier of the Union army. Mr. E.P. Latham,  whose history is a wonderful example of pluck and will power.  He was early in the war in the Cumberland mountains, under the command of Gen. Morgan, where, while assisting in firing a salute from a cannon, both of his arms were blown off above the elbow.  Yet Mr. Latham feeds himself, drives a fast-going horse in a buggy around Burton, keeps the accounts of a cheese factory, writes letters, manages a farm, and superintends a Sabbath school.

 

At table his food is prepared for him, and he feeds himself with a fork or spoon strapped to his left stump, his right stump being paralyzed; he drives with the reins over his shoulder and back of his neck, guiding his horse, turning corners, etc., by movements of his body; and writes with his mouth.

 

 

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the ink. 4. Brought his face close to the table and wrote, dragging the pen across the paper from left to right. He had such control of it that by the combined use of lips and teeth he turned the point so as to bring the slit to its proper bearing for the free flow of the ink. In the engraving it is reduced one-third in size from the original.

 

His right stump is useless, being without sensation; he cannot feel a pin prick.  It is indeed, an inconvenience. "In winter," said he "before retiring I am obliged to heat it by the fire, otherwise it feels like a clog of ice—chills me.  I have not been free from pain since my loss; I don't know what it is not to suffer; but I won't allow my mind to rest upon it—what is the use? I have now lived longer without my hands than with them, yet to-day I feel all my fingers." Then he bared his left stump and showed me the varied movements necessary for picking up and grasping things in case the remainder of his arm and hand had been there.

 

I persuaded him to give me a specimen of his handwriting, saying that he ought not to withhold the lesson of his life from the public; that it would be of untold benefit to the young people as an illustration of the principle never to despair, but to accept the inevitable and work with what was left; that these seeming disasters were often of the greatest benefit. "Yes," said he, "I know it but for this, I might to-day be in the penitentiary."

 

Mr. Latham is rather tall, erect, slender, with an intellectual and somewhat sad expression, the result I presume of never ceaseing pain.  I once met while travelling a young man, a stranger, whose every breath was in pain, one of his lungs having when diseased become attached to his ribs; his expression was like that of Mr. Latham's.

 

                                           E. P. LATHAM, EX-SOLDIER, O.V.

 

SPECIMEN OF WRITING WITH APEN HELD IN THE MOUTH, BY E. P. LATHAM, AN

ARMLESS EX-SOLDIER OF THE UNION ARMY, NOW OF BURTON, OHIO

 

 

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Chardon in 1846 – Chardon is the county-seat, 170 miles northeast of Columbus, and twenty-eight miles from Cleveland. It was laid out about the year 1808, for the county-seat, and named for Peter Chardon Brookes, of Boston, then proprietor of the soil.  There are but few villages in Ohio that stand upon such an elevated, commanding ridge as this, and it can be seen in some directions for several miles; although but fourteen miles from Lake Erie, it is computed to be 600 feet above it. The

 

Drawn by Henry Howe, in 1846

VIEW OF PUBLIC SQUARE IN CHARDON.

 

 

village is scattered and small.  In the centre is a handsome green of about eleven acres, on which stands the public buildings, two of which, the court-house and Methodist church, are shown in the engraving. The Baptist church and a classical academy, which are on or face the public square, are not shown in this view.  Chardon has six stores, a newspaper

 

E. D. King, Photo, Chardon, 1887

BUSINESS BLOCK ON PUBLIC SQUARE, CHARDON.

 

 

printing office, and in 1840 had 466 inhabitants–Old Edition.

 

 

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 in 1888; Auditor, Sylvester D. HOLLENBECK; Clerk, Brainard D. AMES; Coroner, Will J. LAYMAN; Prosecuting Attorney, Leonard P. BARROWS; Probate Judge, Henry K. SMITH; Recorder, Charles A. MILLS; Sheriff, Wm. MARTIN; Surveyor, Milton L. MAYNARD; Treasurer, Charles J. SCOTT; Commissioners, David A. GATES, Lester D. TAYLOR, Joseph N. STRONG.  Newspapers: Republican, Republican, J. O. CONVERSE, editor and proprietor; Democratic Record, DENTON Bros. and KING, editor and proprietors. Churches: 1 Methodist Episcopal, 1 Congregationalist, 1 Baptist, and 1 Disciple. Bank: Geauga Saving and Loan Association, B.B. WOODBURY, president, S.S. SMITH, cashier.

 

            Population in 1880, 1,081. School census in 1886, 321; Chas. W. CARROLL, superintendent.

 

The term "Cheesedom," as applied to the Western Reserve, has led strangers to suppose that the dairy was the great source relied upon for the support of the farmers. This is an error, for in no part of the Union is mixed husbandry more prevalent, and when grass fails the farmers fall back upon their cultivated crops and great variety and abundance of fruits. It is true cheese and butter making are the most important industries.

 

The pioneer women were skilled in cheese-making in their Eastern homes, and when the settlers had enclosed and seeded their pastures, cheese making increased. In the Centennial year 1876, the dairy productions of the county were butter, 672,641 pounds; cheese, 4,136,231.  Only three counties in Ohio made more, but those were much larger in territory. In 1885, in this county was made, butter, 686,207 pounds, and cheese, 1,550,832 pounds. Ashtabula, Lorain, Portage, and Trumbull now exceed it in cheese-making, though none of them come up to within three-quarters of Geauga's figures for 1876.

 

            In 1862 began the great revolution in the manufacture of cheese, dairymen sending their milk to factories to be worked up by the co-operative system. In a few years every township had its one or more cheese factories, until they summed up about sixty in the county – a wonderful relief to the domestic labor of the women. Butter and cheese is now shipped direct from this county to Liverpool.

 

            Process of Cheese Manufacture. – The milk is brought to the factory at morning and evening of each day.  Here it is weighed and strained into large vats surrounded by running spring water. It is cooled to about 60° F. and a sufficient quantity of rennet added to set the curd.  The curd is then cut with knives made for the purpose, into small cubes and heated by steam to 90° F. Then the whey is drawn off and the curd salted, two and a half to three pounds of salt to 100 pounds of milk.  The curd is then put into hoops and pressed for two hours, then the bandages of cheese cloth are put on and the cheese again goes to press for twenty four hours, when it is taken out and goes to the curing-house, where it is rubbed and turned every day for thirty to forty days, when it is ready for market.

 

TRAVELLING NOTES

 

 

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 is the favorite home of the maple and its maple sugar industry the greatest in the Union, and the sugar excelling in quality.

 

                Trout Streams. – Geauga has, with Erie, the distinction of being the only one of two counties that I know of in Ohio that has a stream of water so pure and cold as to be the native home of the speckled brook trout. In Erie the source is a cold spring at Castalia gushing forth from a prairie. In Geauga it is in the vicinity of where we are passing to-day, below the conglomerate rock, at the base of which the filtered pure water gushes forth in streams, forming the head-waters of Chagrin river.

 

                Past and Present on the Reserve. – Travelers by rail see comparatively little. My ride by hack was a refreshing change, an eye feast. In my original journey on horseback through the Reserve I was continually reminded of the Connecticut of that time by the large number of red houses, red barns and little district school-houses by the roadside, also red.  Gone are these red things, and gone mostly are the people, and gone the country taverns with their barroom shelves filled with liquor bottles. The boys and girls of that time now living are largely grand-parents.  Now the farmhouses are white or a neutral tint, many of them ornate, the creations of skilled architects; all of those hereabouts have porches either upon the main building or upon the addition.  Labor-saving machines and implements and conveniences, both on the farm and in the dwelling, have saved much untold back-aching drudgery and given leisure for the more delicate things. Farmer's wives can any time pick up Harper's Weekly or Monthly and read an article on entomology, maybe an instructive one on the habits of the bumble-bee, and not feel as though they were committing a sin – encroaching on valuable time that ought to be given to melting snow in a huge kettle hanging over backlogs, whereby to get water and worry through the week's washing.

 

                The dreadful isolation and loneliness of farm life is a thing of the past.  Good roads have overcome this and brought town and country together shaking hands. Most families have representatives in some neighboring city or on farms farther west, and they often visit the old homestead, bringing their children, and renew the old ties.  The cricket still sings somewhere around the premises, the doves still coo from the eaves; the clover, fragrant as ever, finds them out and steals into their noses.  Books, magazines are in every dwelling and education general; and social intercourse has changed and broadened their lives.  Noah Webster lies alongside the Family Bible with the photographic album, wherein are absent friends and the lastest arrival by the "limited express" – limited by the capacities of maternity. "Was there ever such a pretty baby?" The genus gawkey is no more and no longer one hears uncouth speech and expressions, such as: "I want ter kneow!" "Dew tell," "I kinder reckon," "Stun wall!" "Pale the keow!" etc.

 

                Stage-Coach Talk. – Nearing Painesville our way over the height of land was through winding ravines with their running streams, and one spot was pointed out to me by a gentleman by my side, where was nestled in a nook a homestead that seemed as a sort of paradise. "I had rather live there," he said, "as those people live in these surroundings than on Euclid avenue." He was of the law, a large man from Chardon; reminded me of Tom Corwin, whom I knew, and like him had a dark complexion and run to adipose; and , as Corwin would have done, bequiled the way with amusing stories, and his budget was running over.

 

                As we started out of the village, he said: "Some of us have been making a sort of social census of Chardon; the result is: three bachelors, four old maids (that is, counting girls over 35 as such), five widowers and seventy widows."  Thought I, if that is a quiz, I admire your ingenuity. If a fact, it is astounding as an earthquake. My courtesy led me to apparently take the shock, and so I put in, "Why does Chardon so run to widows? Was the town gotten up for them?" "No," said he, "not exactly that; they all have children and come from the country around to educate them, the schools and morals of the people are so excellent and it is such a healthy pretty spot, with such abundance of everything and living so cheap."

 

                Dropping the widows, we launched on to other subjects; one was the false idea that young and inexperienced people have of men and of high station and reputation. "I was," he said, "bred on a farm and knew nothing of the world. When a young man I journeyed to Columbus and called upon the Governor in his audience chamber in the State House. Ushered into his presence, I trembled as an aspen. He invited me to a seat, and I was in the act of sitting down in a chair, when a leg slipped out of its socket. "Hold on," said he, "let me fix that." Then he stooped to his knees and slipped the chair leg in its place. In a twinkling my awe vanished. I saw the Governor of Ohio, kneeling before me, was as other men; so when he arose I was as calm as a May morning. The governor was R. B. Hayes.

 

 

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 Nothing is so dreadful to man as man.  It is the world of intellect that at times awes the strongest. Intellect is of God, and its possession makes man godlike. One who had been a cabinet minister, a governor of a great State, and a soldier of national reputation, recently to a question of mine replied: "Yes, to this day I at times suffer from sensitiveness, even just before I begin such a simple duty as questioning a witness in court." As he thus spake, my regard for him, which was high before, increased.

 

                If the young nervous boy, who shrinks on hearing his name called in school, could realize the grand truth, that when a sense of duty impels, that with action timidity vanishes, and that he of all others will prove the most capable of heroic things, a great point would be gained for the world into which he has arrived for the express purpose of developing himself and helping to make it better. "Why do you tremble so?" said an old officer to a young lieutenant of Wellington's army just at the opening of a battle. "Do you feel bad?" "Yes, sir, I do," he rejoined; "and if you felt as bad as I do you would run away."