YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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WILLIAM COOPER HOWELLS.

RECOLLECTIONS OF LIFE

IN OHIO,

from: 1S13 TO 1840,

BY
WILLIAM COOPER HOWELLS.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HIS SON,
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS.

CINCINNATI:
THE ROBERT CLARKE COMPANY,
1895.

Copyright, 1895,
By The Egbert Clarke Company.

INTRODUCTION.

It was at my suggestion that my father hegan, ten
or twelve years ago, to set down the facts of his early life.
At first the record was meant for his family only, but
when I came to read it over I found it so full of expe
riences and observations of general interest, that I urged
him to continue it, with a view to its final publication,
and yet keep it as simple and informal as he had origi
nally intended. This will account for its appearance
and character in the present shape. He was never able
to finish it, and the work of revision fell to me after his
death. In doing this work I felt that the value of his
reminiscences to the public was, of course, in the per
spective they afforded of times and conditions long past
away, and I have tried to free them from all personalities
not essential to this.
Necessarily, however, they remain very personal, as
far as the writer and his immediate family are concerned.
These, indeed, constitute the background of a picture,
which could not have had due relief without them. A
middle-class English family, coming to Ohio early in the
(iii)

iv Introduction .
century, could see the primitive American life more or
less from the outside. They would be in it, but not of
it ; and their point of view would have distinct advan
tages for the study of its peculiarities. My father was
always a very close and critical observer, both of nature
and of human nature, and I may say that he was equally
a lover of both. When I first began to make my ob
servations of him, I used to think, with that wisdom of
youth which we are not so sure of later, that he was
easily deceived in people ; but I have since come to see
that he understood quite well the character of such peo
ple, and that what he trusted in them was human na
ture, which in the long run did not deceive him. There
was that in him which appealed to the better qualities
of those he came in contact with, and made them wish
to be as good as he thought them capable of being. He
was not a poet in the artistic sense, but he was a poet in
his view of life, the universe, creation; and his dream of
it included man, as well as the woods and fields and their
citizenship. His first emotion concerning every form of
life was sympathetic; he wished to get upon common
ground with every person and with every thing.
But he had the philosophic rather than the imagin
ative temperament, and what he sometimes thought he
wished to do in literature and in art (for he used, when
young, to write verse and to draw), he would probably
not have done if he had enjoyed all those opportunities

Introduction. v
and advantages which circumstances denied him. In
the things which vitally pleased him, circumstance de
nied him nothing. All his long life he had full
scope for the contemplation, serene and wise and gentle,
to which this world and the world to come wore mostly
a hopeful aspect. The real hurt which adverse fortune
did him was to make him contented with makeshifts in
the material and sesthetic results he aimed at. In the
conditions that hampered him through the whole of his
childhood and earlier manhood, a makeshift was the ut
most he could achieve, and the perfect thing must be
always postponed until the habit of makeshifts became
confirmed with him. Consequently, he was not a very
good draughtsman, not a very good poet, not a very good
farmer, not a very go'od printer, not a very good editor,
according to the several standards of our more settled
times; but he was the very best man I have ever known.
I say this with a full sense of his faults, both of tem
perament and of character. I knew them, and they
serve now to make him all the dearer to me, for I re
member that he knew them, too, and used them as the
materials of his endeavor for that perfection which he
did not expect to achieve, but which always shone before
his eyes. I do not believe a more genuinely modest
and gentle person ever lived. Any sort of rudeness or
"violence was inconceivable of him ; and if sometimes a
natural lightness of heart elated him with an undue

vi Introduction.
sense of his own powers or performances, nis unfailing
sense of humor restored him to a more critical mood.
But his optimism, which included the whole frame of
things, did not leave his own being out, and he never
took a morbid or despairing view of his failings. Every
day was the beginning of the world with him ; if he lay
down old, he rose up young, as long as health and
strength lasted with him.
I suppose that each of us frames for himself a re
ligion out of whatever creed he professes ; and certainly
my father did this with the doctrine of Swedenborg. It
was the delight of his life, after that long struggle with
other persuasions, which his children came too late to
witness — a tranquil joy, a peace that passed understand
ing. It was easy for him, whose being was in some sort
a dream of love and good will, to conceive all tangible
and visible creation as an adumbration of spiritual real
ity ; to accept revelation as the mask of interior mean
ings; to regard the soul as its own keeper, and the sover
eign chooser of heaven or hell, but always master of the
greatest happiness possible to it. To his essential meek
ness and unselfishness it was natural that he should
think of himself as nothing in himself, and only some
thing from moment to moment through influx from the
Lord. He had a profound belief in this philosophy,
which served to answer every question and satisfy every

Introduction. vii
need of his spirit. He did not try to make it equally
sufficient for others. He scarcely urged it even upon his
children ; and for the rest of the world he believed that
each man in it had the religion best adapted to him for
the time being ; though he was sure that such as sought
the final truth could find it only in Swedenborg's inter
pretations of the Word.
The narrative that follows is the story of the first
thirty -three years of a life that stretched to eighty-seven.
It deals mainly with simple and common things in con
ditions whose present remoteness may well lend them
an air of romance. Such as he depicts the early life of
Eastern Ohio, the early life of America was every-where
during the whole pioneer period. But I think his ac
count of it is of peculiar value because he brought to
the study of persons and things his peculiarly genial in
telligence. It is not merely that he saw them clearly,
but that he saw them kindly. The unfriendly eye al
ways loses what is best in a prospect, and his eye was
never unfriendly. He did not deceive himself concern
ing the past. He knew that it was often rude, and hard,
and coarse ; but, under the rough and sordid aspect, he
was aware of the warm heart of humanity in which,
quite as much as in the brain, all civility lies. The past
was endeared to him by the associations of childhood,
and he loved it, although he was framed by tem-

viii Introduction.
perament and character for the easier circumstance
of the present; and he has written of it with a ten
derness which does not fail him in his most critical
moods. W. D. HoWELLS.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
Birth — Welsh Ancestry — Quaker Origin — Boyish Martyrdom for
Religion — Birthright — Emigration to America — Law against
Emigration of Manufacturers — Family Castles in Spain  1
CHAPTER II.
Various Enterprises — Experiences in New York State — Earliest
Memories — Sight of the First Steamboat on the Hudson —
Removal to Virginia — Emigration to Ohio — Accounts of the
New Country — Singing Fish in the Ohio River — Road Wag
ons — The Family as Freight — Accidents and Adventures in
the AUeghenies — Down the Ohio by Keelboat  6
CHAPTER III.
The New Country and New Home — Setting up the Woolen
Mill — Drowning of the Pony — Boyish Pleasures and Accom
plishments — The War with England — English Sympathies —
Removal to Mount Pleasant — More Woolen Mills Set Up — A
Good Offer — Removal to Steuben ville  14
CHAPTER IV.
Again among the Quakers — Relation of the Author's Parents to
them — Sketch of Quaker Usages and Customs, Religious and
Social  21
CHAPTER V.
Study at Home — Scanty Schooling — Early Private Schools —
Peaches and Wild Fruits — First Abolition Society — The
Peace with Great Britain — Political Parties— Boyish Ad
ventures  31
(ix)

Contents.

CHAPTER VI.
A Quakerless Community— Youthful Persecutions— Abundance
of Nuts and Wild Fruits— At School— School Books Used-
Paper— Ink— Whipping in School— Methodist Meeting— An
Epidemic of Typhoid— A Religious Enthusiast— Hunting
Ginseng — Bonfires and Buckeyes  • •  38
CHAPTER VII.
Buying a Farm — A Log Cabin — Lighting and Ventilation — The
Cabin Chimney — A Neighbor's Family  47
CHAPTEE VIII.
Moving the Cow and the Pig — Sugar Camps— Game — The Old
Mill — Peach Brandy — Peach Leather — Woodmanship — Old-
fashioned Axes — A New Pony — Going to Mill — Ghosts and
Panthers  53
CHAPTER IX.
Amateur Farming — Wheat Harvest — Threshing with the Flail —
Winnowing— Snakes — Killing a Copperhead — Pigs Killing
Snakes— Pigs in the Woods — Their Voracity and Ferocity —
Pigs Naturally Decent — Birds — Gunning — Pheasants — Their
Habits and Tricks— A Family Dog — A Brown Smell  62
CHAPTER X.
River Islands — River Encroachments — A Family Fresh from
England — Early Steamboats — Excitement of a Boat's Ar
rival— 'Size and Shape of Steamboats — Fuel for Boats.. . .... 71
CHAPTER XL
Immense Crop of Peaches— Kiln-drying Peaches— Building a
Kiln— Process of Drying— Making Peach Leather— Methods
of Cookery— Out-ovens for Baking— Making an Out-oven. . . 76

Contents. xi

CHAPTER XII.
Mistakes in Farming — Plowing with a Pony — Cattle in the
Woods — Memorable Fog — The Boatman's Horn — Rafts on
the River  81
CHAPTER XIII.
Helping Move to Coshocton County — Transportation — Driving
the Stock — The Movers' Room at the Tavern — Homesick
Horses — A Long Ride Back — Camp-meeting in the Rain —
Dismal Experience — Another Camp-Meeting — One of the
Mourners — Desire for Conversion — Unbelief  86
CHAPTER XIV.
The Wills Creek Place Given Up — Unfitness of the Family for
Farm Life — A New and Better Farm Bought on Mingo Bot
tom — Want of Schooling — A Night Grammar School — Gram
mar and Plowing — Making Sugar — The Scotch-Irish — A
Scotch-Irish Neighbor — A Character — Psychological Expe
rience  95
CHAPTER XV.
Schism among the Methodists — The Newlights — Their Theory
and Practice — Their Great Success — Washing of Blue Feet —
A Curious Convert — An Enemy of Marriage— Final Conces
sion  103
CHAPTER XVI.
Death of the Author's Grandfather in Wales — A Small Legacy —
Buying another Farm — A Sad Bit of History — Moving Out
to the New Farm — Sticking in the Mud with the Ponies —
Pulling Through  109

xii Contents.

CHAPTER XVII.
Method of Clearing the Land — Deadening — Burning Logs —
Trees on Fire — Opening Up a New Country — Hewn-log
Farm-houses — Log Barns — Character of the Settlers — Preva
lence of the Religious Sentiment — Calvinism — No Politics
Talked — Religious Controversies  116
CHAPTER XVIII.
Social Conditions — Neither Rich nor Poor — Dress — Spinning and
Weaving at Home — Stuffs Produced — Prices of Cloth — Dis
tilleries—Prevalence of Whiskey Drinking — No Temper
ance Societies  122
CHAPTER XIX.
Absence of Game — Wild Fruits — Cultivated Fruits— Supply of
Snakes — Copperhead Bites — Exciting Adventure — Remedies
of Copperhead Poison — Planting an Orchard — Tobacco Rais
ing  127
CHAPTER XX.
Going to Mill— Water Mills— Horse Mills— Scarcity of Money —
Cash Articles — Grain Basis — Price of Wheat — Wages — Ohio
Canal and Work on it — Methods of Travel— Taverns and
Tavern-keeping— Travel by Carriage— Travel on Horseback, 136
CHAPTER XXI.
The Author Opens a Grammar School — Not so Popular as Sing
ing Schools— How Singing was Taught— Social Occasions-
Dancing Sinful — Substitutes for it — Raisings — How the
Cabins were Built— Mutual Help— Jolly Gatherings— Corn
Huskings  142

Contents. xiii

CHAPTER XXII.
Religious Meetings and Privileges — Walking to Meeting — Hospi
tality and Simplicity — Farm Buildings — Log Barns — Thrash
ing Grain — Use of the Flail — Primitive Method of Winnowing
— Farm Work for the Whole Family — Two Oddly Balanced
Families — Law Suits  152
CHAPTER XXIII.
Failure of the New Farming Experiment — Removal to Wheeling
— Author's Efforts to learn the Printing Business— Schism in
the Society of Friends — A Quaker Fight in Meeting — Hick-
sites and Orthodox — Six Cents Fine and Five Minutes in
Prison — Employment with Alexander Campbell, Founder of
the Sect of the Disciples — Rural Printing Office — The Author
Starts a Magazine  159
CHAPTEE XXIV.
Starting a Weekly Paper — Difficulties of the Author's Position —
Eclectic Observer — A Visionary and his Book — The Author's
Marriage — Removal to St. Clairsville — Early Married Life —
The Whig Party Founded— The Author's Employer  169
CHAPTER XXV.
A Local Poet — Removal to MountPleasant — Working for Elisha
Bates, Orthodox Quaker — A Character — Cholera — Geograph
ical Limits of a Pledge — Removal to Chillicothe — Journey
Thither— Buckeye Festival  175
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Scioto Gazette and its Editor — A Gifted Man — Universal
Genius — The Political Situation — The Author Favors Wm.
Henry Harrison for President— Election of 1836— The Thur-
mans at Chillicothe  182

xiv Contents.

CHAPTER XXVII.
Farming Again — Studying Medicine — Public Executions — Slave
holders' Panic in Wheeling — Broken Health — Building a
House — The Painter's Trade Tried — Financial State of the
Country — Traveling by Carriage to Dayton — The Author
buys the Hamilton Intelligencer — Position of Political Par
ties — The Slavery Question  188
CHAPTER XXVIII.
[conclusion by W. D. HOWELLS.]
Support of Harrison in 1840, and Clay in 1844 — Opposition to
the Mexican War — Refusal to Support Taylor, and Removal
to Dayton — Business Failure — A Year in the Country — A
Winter in Columbus — Removal to Ashtabula County — Con
genial Political Surroundings— Election to the State Senate
— Appointment to Consulate at Quebec — Promotion to
Toronto— Resignation— Farming in Virginia— Return to Jef
ferson — Declining Years — Death  196

RECOLLECTIONS OF LIFE IN OHIO,
FROM 1813 TO 1840.

CHAPTER I.
Birth — Welsh Ancestry — Quaker Origin — Boyish Martyrdom for Re
ligion — Birthright — Emigration to America— Law against Emi
gration of Manufacturers — Family Castles in Spain.
I was born in the village of Hay, on the river Wye,
in the county of Brecon, in South Wales, on the 15th
of May, 1807. My father, Joseph Howells, was a native
of the same place, and (as I have heard) was born in the
same house and same room as myself, in 1783, in the
month of June. His father, Thomas Howells, who was
by trade a watchmaker, had followed his business in
London, where he also married He soon after settled
in Hay, which was near his native place in the adjoining
county of Radnor, and engaged in the manufacture of
Welsh flannels, a favorite style of woolen goods at that
time. In this he seems to have been very successful,
and to have accumulated considerable property, which
gave him the means of maintaining a good social posi
tion. He and a brother, William, when young men
left Radnor and went to London to begin life as watch
makers. Their father was also a watch and clock-
maker, and it is probable that a genius for mechanics,
that is active at this time in the family, may have
descended from him. (1)

2 Recollections of
My grandmother, being a Londoner, I suppose was
Enghsh. Otherwise the family is all Welsh. Her name
was Susannah Beesley. She was a superior woman,
with strong religious sentiment and a taste for poetry,
which father inherited in a great degree. My mother's
name was Anne Thomas. She was a native of Pont-y-
Pool, in Monmouthshire, and her family were Welsh,
though educated in English and speaking both lan
guages, as was common on the border. Her father,
John Thomas, was a school teacher; her mother
died of consumption when the family were young,
and she was brought up by an uncle and aunt — un
married brother and sister who lived together and kept
up their household till both died at advanced age —
for they were the uncle and aunt of her mother, whom
they also brought up. They were members of the " So
ciety of Friends " — Quakers — in which faith mother was
educated, though she never became a member. Their
names were William and Anne Cooper, which names
were given to me and my eldest sister.
Father was a Quaker by Convincement, as they
express it — that is, he joined the Society after he had
grown up, as a matter of choice, and did not hold his
membership by birthright as is most common. This
was the case with his father, but his mother was a mem
ber of one of the Methodist societies organized by Rev.
John Wesley. As my mother was not a member of the
Society of Friends, their rule requiring them to marry
within the Society worked father's expulsion, for a
breach of discipline, and left them both outside of the
Society, though they adhered to its faith and customs.

lAfe in Ohio, 1813-1840. 3
However, this expulsion was attended by no other dis
abilities than exclusion from the " Meetings of Busi
ness," and it was so small a privation that they did not
take the pains to acquire a membership. Till I was
ten years old, I was taught to regard Quakerism as the
true faith, and I very well remember wearing a new
shad-breasted coat, in the streets of Steubenville, and
accepting the appellation Quaker with a feeling of cheap
martyrdom, when applied to me by irreverent boys,
who, just at the close of the War of 1812, regarded
Quakers as cowards, and wanting in patriotism, because
their faith required them to "bear a testimony"
against war. I had further to stand the test of my per
sonal courage, on this account, in sundry scuffles, in
which my combativeness got the better of my Quakerism.
At my birth a certificate was given by those pres
ent, according to the custom of Friends in England,
where it was made to serve, in some degree, the pur
pose of the parish record. It is a queer looking docu
ment, now, being printed on parchment, in blank, and
filled up with the pen. It is in these words :
Qn tiie fifteenth da.Y ot the fifth Month, One Thousand.
Eight Hundred, and Seven, was born in the town of Hay
in the Parish of Hay, in the County of Brecon, unto
Joseph Howells and Anne, his -wife, a son, -who is named
William Cooper.
We who -were present at the said birth, have
subscribed our names, as witnesses thereof.
John Charles Taylor, (TheDoctorj
{Signed) Susan Sweatman, (Father's sister)
Susan'h Howells, (Father's mother)

4 Recollections of
My father and mother were married in 1805. Their
first child was a son, who died at birth, making me the
second of eight in all — six sons and two daughters.
In April, 1808, before I was quite a year old, father
concluded to emigrate to America. At that time the
manufacture of wool was a most promising and profit
able business in the United States ; and as there was then
a prospect of war between the two countries, it opened
a wide field for any one skilled in the business, or who
could direct the construction of machinery as my father
could. Though he had not served an apprenticeship
to the trade, he had incidentally learned it in all its details
in his father's mills. There was then a statute in force
in England that prohibited certain skilled workmen in
wool and cotton manufacturing from emigrating to any
foreign countries, and especially to the United States.
Accordingly, when father took passage in London he
was registered as " gentleman," a term that indicated
a cabin passenger of no particular trade or profession.
But he was nevertheless arrested under this statute,
and detained in London, or rather carried back from
Gravesend. As there was no evidence of his having
served an apprenticeship, he was decided to be a gentle
man and permitted to join the ship and a most anxious
wife in the offing. This was a happy relief for mother.
They made a- pleasant passage and landed at Boston,
after being only twenty-one days out of sight of land.
It was father's third trip across the Atlantic, the two
previous ones being shorter. He visited this country in
1801, and made a few months' experiment at farming, in
Chester or Delaware county, Pennsylvania.

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 5
I have often heard that my grandfather made a
journey to this country, during the presidency of Gen
eral Washington, bringing with him a quantity of Welsh
flannels, which he sold to good advantage. He landed
these at Philadelphia, where he made the acquaintance
of the President, who recommended him to settle in
Virginia, near the new City of Washington then just
founded. He fell in with this project, so far as to bar
gain for a large tract of land near the Potomac, for
which he was to pay an English shilling per acre. But
after returning to England he gave it up. I have never
learned exactly where the land was, but if the tract was
as large as I have heard it was — several thousand acres —
there is no doubt that much of it is not worth a shilling
an acre now. Some members of grandfather's family
have fancied that we had " castles in Spain " on this
land. But I could never learn that he ever acquired
any title to the land ; and I think his good business
habits forbid the supposition that he laid out money
in such a speculation. Had he then come to this coun
try, I incline to think he would have made a handsome
fortune ; for he had more tact and skill in matters of
the world than my father.

Recollections of

CHAPTER II.
Various Enterprises — Experiences in New York State— Earliest
Memories— Sight of the Eirst Steamboat on the Hudson— Re
moval to Virginia — Emigration to Ohio — Accounts of the New
Country— Singing Fish in the Ohio River— Road Wagons— The
Family as Freight — Accidents and Adventures in the AUeghe
nies — Down the Ohio by Keelboat.
Father came to America, armed with letters of in
troduction, mostly to Quakers, and an acquaintance with
American Quakers who had visited England. By this
means he was directed to the various settlements of
these people in neighborhood of New York and Pough-
keepsie. Several of the more enterprising Quakers on
the Hudson and elsewhere were about going into man
ufacturing, for they seemed inclined to make the most of
a profitable business that was likely to result from the
war then expected. With some of these father made
engagements to put woolen factories in operation, con
tingent upon certain events. The delays and un
certainties of these enterprises soon used up his ineans,
which were considerable, but not sufficient to stand his
manner of living as he had learned it in his Welsh
home. It was not long therefore till he found himself
very poor, and obliged to accept any market for his
skill that might offer. _^His time had been taken up for
over a year after his arrival in traveling from place to
place, looking about for business, and dancing attend
ance upon large-talking men at different points. At

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 7
one time he made a trip to Washington to meet a
brother-in-law of President Madison, who invited him
there to consult upon the prospective advantages of
manufacturing in Virginia. This ended in a decision
to wait till war should be declared, and a heavy bill of
expense to father, who was being crushed between pride
and poverty After three weeks' stay in Boston, a place of which
mother always spoke in high terms, from what little she
saw of it (her admiration, I suspect, was largely in
spired by the fact that several young ladies of the family
where they boarded took a great deal of notice of me as
the darling of a young mother, teaching me to walk, etc.),
father went to Dutchess county, Ifew York, and made
his temporary home at or near New Cornwall. From
this point he journeyed in search of business. Here also
he put in operation one or two small factories — one, I
believe, at Pleasant Valley. Removing soon after to
Manhattanville, now within the city limits of New York,
but then seven miles from the city, he started a factory
for John Barrow, a Quaker, in which enterprise he was
engaged till the spring of 1812. Of this place I have
pretty distinct recollection, as to the shape of the ground,
the rocks glistering with mica, the forests near the Hud
son, and both the rivers, which were in sight from the
house we lived in. I remember the great quantities
of shad that were cleaned and packed every spring,
on the edge of the " Harlem river," as it was called,
which, I suppose, must have been caught in the Hud
son. I recollect going to the shore of the Hudson with
my father and others to look at a steamboat which

8 Recollections of
landed there, and which, from the date, must have been
one of the first ever built, and it may have been the first,
as it was then in use on that river. At this place I
learned to read, my mother being my teacher, and she
has told me that I could read very well before I was four
years old, though it seems to me as if I could always
read, for I have no recollection of learning.
In the early part of 1812 father moved to Water-
ford, in Loudon county, Virginia, where he had been
engaged by Thomas Moore, also a Quaker, to start a
woolen factory for him. This occupied a year, and, per
haps, was the end of his engagement. I remember that
the mill was put in operation before we left. The coun
try and village, and the people of the region fill a sunny
spot on the page of my memory. Here father made an
engagement with a Quaker by the name of Joseph Steer
to build a factory and start it for him at his mills, on
Short creek, Jefferson county, Ohio. Up to this time
father's business engagements had been chiefly with
Friends, and his moves were made from one Quaker
settlement to another. Though their settlements were
often great distances apart, this peculiar people seemed
to keep up a constant intercourse, like the members of a
family (and such they were in a manner) that reduced
distance, and greatly facilitated the changes of residence
necessary in that early day.
This engagement opened a new era in our history
and settled us in the then new West, in the State of
Ohio, which, I remember, mother pronounced Ohoyo,
and I followed, believing it to be right because mother
did. The winter before we started every body that had

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 9
been over the mountains was invited to call and tell us
of the country, and to these descriptions I listened with
hope and delight. Among the glorious things I remem
ber hearing of Ohio, the making of maple-sugar was prom
inent. I also heard them talk of singing fish in the Ohio,
which so impressed me that I listened for the song of
the fish as soon as we reached the Monongahela. I
have since heard these singing fish, which are said to be
the white perch, making a low and very musical hum,
just about sunset of a June evening, when they would
gather beneath a ferry flat-boat, and follow it backward
and forward across the river. The sound they give forth
is very sweet, but varied by only two or three notes,
and much like the sound made by a silk string fixed
in a window.
The journey from Virginia to Ohio is quite clear in
my meniory, though it was just at the close of my sixth
year. At that day the roads over the AUeghanies were
in a very rough condition, though the National or Cum
berland road was partly made, and in the spring of 1813
there were considerable stretches of it used by the
wagoners. For ' emigrants and the transportation of
freight there was no mode of conveyance but the large
" road wagons," as they were called, usually drawn by
five or six horses, and carrying sixty or seventy hundred
weight. There were several routes by which these
wagons approached the mountains, but after passing
Cumberland they followed the one road, known as Brad-
dock's trail, which struck the Monongahela river at
Brownsville, or Red Stone Fort, passing down the
Laurel Hill, near Uniontown, then called Beesonstown.

10 Recollections of
The wagoners usually traveled in groups for company
and to assist one another by doubling teams on the steep
hills, and to help in case of accidents. I remember that
there were three wagons in our company or caravan.
Father had engaged Thomas Birchard, who owned
a five-horse wagon, to take what household stuff he de
signed to move — which was, of course brought down to
the narrowest limits, and was made up chiefly of cloth
ing, bedding, books, and the various smaller articles,
including cooking utensils (these did not embrace a
stove), that could not be replaced in the new country — ^to
Brownsville, for a given price per hundred ; my impres
sion is that it was between three and four dollars a cwt.
(112 lbs.). The freight included my mother and the chil
dren, who were duly weighed before starting. Father
had brought a pony mare, which he was to ride. Of
course, at the slow rate we traveled, one portion of the
freight walked more or less of the way. I know I did,
and sometimes rode the pony behind my father. We
did not take up much space in the wagon, for mother
was quite a small woman, I six years old, my sister four,
and my brother a little over one year old. The wagon
had been mainly loaded at Baltimore or Alexandria, and
our establishment being added to what was already
a pretty fair freight, there was very little room for pas
sengers. I very well recollect how my mother and we chil
dren sat upon the top of the load, just under the canvas
covering of the wagon. Our beds and softer packages
were placed so as to improve the situation as much as
possible ; but it was a trying experience for my mother,

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 11
who had been delicately brought up and accustomed to
the comforts of English traveling. Perhaps the younger
people now might ask why my father did not get some
light carriage in which the pony could have drawn my
mother and the children. The answer is, there was not
such a thing in the whole country; for all the light
carriages of the present, such as buggies, spring wagons,
dearborns, etc., were wholly unknown. To have pro
vided what would now be called comfortable going for
them, would have required the purchase of a pair of
horses and a carriage worth five hundred or eight
hundred dollars. There were no vehicles between
wagons and very fine carriages and two-wheeled gigs
or chaises, so that the manner of travel we adopted
was the only one that could have been used by any
one of the small means to which my father was re
duced. To add to our difficulties and discomfort, the
day after we started the measles made their appear
ance on me, and ran through the family on the journey ;
though we reached Brownville before the other children
were taken down. Fortunately, at this point, we left
the wagon and came the rest of the way by water ; and
we were hospitably entertained by one of our Quaker
friends in his house till the children were recovered and
we could get a boat.
One of the wagons that traveled in company with
ours was an inferior concern with four horses, and had
taken in, on top of its load, a family of negroes. As
the wagons went very slowly, we mostly walked where
the roads were rough, and especially down hill, where
there was the greatest danger of upsetting. This mother

12 Recollections of
and the children were doing as we came down Laurel
Hill, one of the principal mountains on the way, which
our wagon descended safely; but that with the negro
family upset, tumbling the darkies — who insisted on
riding — in every direction, though none were seriously
hurt. The wagon had to be unloaded and taken for
ward to a blacksmith's at Tomlinson's, then the great
stopping place and tavern, at which the wagoners put
in before ascending the mountain and after coming
down. Here we stayed all night, and I remember
mother telling us to listen to the howling of the wolves
in the mountain as we stood in the door. On our route
we passed through Charlestown, now famous from the
name of John Brown. We stopped there over night,
and I remember, when walking along the street, seeing
a whipping-post, which father explained to me.
To shorten his trip, Mr. Birchard, the wagoner, un
loaded and returned from Brownsville, and as the
Monongahela was in good boating stage, we took pass
age on a flat-boat for Pittsburgh, which was a delightful
change in our mode of travel. This boat, I think, must
have been an empty one on its way to Pittsburgh to
load, for I remember that we had plenty of room in it,
and that we had to leave it at that point, where, after a
short delay, we embarked upon a keel-boat to proceed
down the Ohio on our voyage — which was to terminate
at Warrenton, a point fourteen miles below Steubenville —
to the mouth of Short creek, in Jefferson county. I sup
pose the boat must have made a coasting trip, for we
stopped at Beaver, Steubenville, and other points, taking
three days to make the eighty-five miles from Pittsburgh.

Life in Ohio, 1818-1840. 13
This brought us to within three miles of the end of our
journey, which was finished in some conveyance sent
down from Steer's Mill. I can well remember my mother's
delight at getting through with the tiresome trip, which
had been to me a panorama of delightful novelty ; but to
her — who still pined for the home she had left in Wales
— it was an added four hundred miles in the distance
of her exile, and was marked at every mile with in
creased care and fatigue and lessened hope.

14 Recollections of

CHAPTER III.
The New Country and New Home— Setting up the Woolen Mill-
Drowning of the Pony — Boyish Pleasures and Accomplishments
— The War with England — English Sympathies — Removal to
Mount Pleasant— More Woolen Mills Set Up— A Good Offer —
Removal to Steubenville.
The part of Ohio into which we came, in 1813, was
one of the best improved in the state. The country was
well cleared up and settled by thrifty, and, in some in
stances, wealthy farmers. The excellent mill-stream of
Short creek — then much better than now — on its whole
twenty-five miles of length, had a good flouring mill at
every available site, and one respectable paper mill. Mount
Pleasant, the town where we went to meeting and for
what little trade we did, was a larger and more prosper
ous place than it is now, after fifty-five years, and had six
or seven hundred inhabitants, while Steubenville boasted
of two thousand and extensive manufactures. Still it was
a new country and life in it was attended with number
less inconveniences. As soon as the family was settled
in a good hewed-log house, with shingle roof, my
father set about his preparations for manufacturing
wool, according to his engagement. But while we
were on the way from Virginia, Steer's flouring mill,
which was an extensive one, was burned down, and on
our arrival they were busy rebuilding it, and building
a house for the woolen mill also. This retarded father's

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 15
work, as the fire had crippled the means of the propri
etor. But father had the direction of mechanics, who
built machinery from his drafts and explanations, in a
very primitive way. A blacksmith near by, who made
axes, did the work in steel and iron — including the forg
ing of the spindles, which was a rather particular job,
as they had to be made round with the file — as well as
other work by hand that would have been properly done
on a lathe. The summer was taken up with the building
of the house and machinery, and it was pretty well into
the winter before the factory was started. So far as I
know it did well enough as a small concern ; but for
some reason that I did not understand, father gave it up
at the end of his first year's engagement and moved to
Mount Pleasant.
At these mills we lost the little mare that father
brought from Virginia, by an accident that impressed
me very sorrowfully. Father had taken two of the
children of the black family that came with us over the
mountains as apprenticed servants — a boy named Zacha-
riah (for short, Zack) aboutfourteen years old, and eminent
for laziness and stupidity, and his sister Delilah, both of
whom we let off on easy terms in a few months. It
seems that father had to collect wood for burning as the
winter came on, and he put poor Peggy in a cart, with
Zack to drive, and haul some wood from the creek
bank, and as a small boy I went along. The cart was
loaded and Zack started to drive home, when he got one
wheel of the cart into a rut ; father lifted at the wheel
and Zack whipped up and hallooed, when the mare pulled
out of the mud, and ran so near the edge of the bank

16 Recollections of
that one wheel went over, and the cart and door little
mare turned upside down into the water, where it was
deep enough to drown her in that situation. I can now
see father in the water making frantic efforts to turn
her over, and then trying to hold her head up while he
sent Zack for a knife to cut the harness. I ran hastily
to the nearest house for one, but Zack went double the
distance home for it. I was first back with the knife,
though it was of no use as poor Peggy had been
drowned. It was a loss of some sixty dollars to father
and of many a ride to me, beside the pain of losing a
favorite animal and a family pet.
The situation at the mills was, I should think,
a rather pleasant one to persons who felt at home, but
it was not so with my poor mother. She was proud and
we were poor ; and I have no doubt she suffered from
home-sickness pains which I knew nothing of, and
which father could soothe only by pleading his ne
cessities. I enjoyed our life, of course. The house
stood close to the mill race where I caught my first
fish — three, I remember one morning, as fast as I
could put in the hook and throw them into the
kitchen door. This charmed hook I lost soon after
ward by getting it fast in some driftwood in the creek.
From a little stream that tumbled down the hill into the
creek opposite the house, I observed and settled in my
mind the fact that water always ran down hill and never
up. Though only six years and a half old, I was very
proud, as were my parents, of my acquirements, for I
could read well and had committed to memory a num
ber of Watts's hymns and some of Cowper's poetry,
including the whole of John Gilpin.

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 17
The war with England was now fairly begun ; and
I recollect the news of battles and victories were much
talked of by men at the mills. Father, as a Quaker,
disliked the war, and, in addition, had an affection for
his native country that checked any interest in such
news. One of the men once told him of a victory over
the British and asked him very gleefully if he was not
glad. Father indignantly told him. No ; he was not glad
to hear of any battle, and still less could he rejoice over
the killing of so many of his countrymen. I fell in with
this spirit, and, as a child, said what I thought, and was
of course called a Tory and British by older ones who
thus amused themselves at my childish earnestness. On
one occasion some young men were teasing me, and pro
posed to hang rne as an enemy to the country. I was
terrified to some extent, but kept up a brave exterior,
and told them I was only sent over from England as a
show of what Englishmen were. This precocious piece
of national vanity struck them as funny, and they
laughed loudly over it ; and the next day, when I was
present, some of them told father, seeming to regard it
as smart. Father frowned and reproved me for talking
such nonsense. I began to see that my remark was
silly, and was sadly mortified, and felt so disgraced that
I always after avoided the subject.
Father having made arrangements to go to Mount
Pleasant, he joined two brothers of the name of Hunt,
Samuel and Jonathan, who owned a large horse-power
mill, which they converted into a factory for woolen
work; but it took a good while to get it ready, and
we were delayed in moving till late in the spring.

18 Recollections of
After getting to our new place, father went to work in
great spirits; and soon after, he and the Hunts were
joined by a Scotchman, Thomas Donaldson, whom we
had known in Virginia. He introduced the spinning
of flax as an addition to the business. This required
new machinery, which they set about building. My
recollection is that it was well into the winter before
they got ready to spin any flax, and when they tried it
they failed, because the flax required to be kept moist,
and the house was so open that they could not keep it
from freezing. On some mild days they made very nice
thread of flax, and with a coarser machine they made a
good deal of tow twine, which they wove into some
coarse fabric. But they were, as I suppose, compelled
by poverty to give it up, and the partnership was dis
solved. After this, which exhausted another year of fruit
less labor, father began alone, being assisted by credit
from John Hogg, an enterprising Englishman, who kept
a store. Under this arrangement father built a house
for a factory, in a part of which he finished off rooms
for us to live. He got together machinery for carding
and spinning wool for country customers, they being
mostly satisfied with the carding, from which they spun
it at home. This carding brought in some return for
work — a thing that did not happen to any great extent
to the four partners the year before. The delay in build
ing must have exhausted all father had of means before
any thing was earned; for I can well remember the
straitened manner of our living, and the distress of
father and mother under the circumstances. He worked

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 19
hard ; and I, who was in my ninth and tenth years, did
what I could to help in tending the carding machine
and splicing the rolls for the spinning machine, a pro
cess now gone out of use. The mtachines were propelled
by horse power, which was supplied by a blind horse
that we called Charley, whose duties extended to carry
ing us when not at the wheel. My brother Thomas,
though very young, was sometimes detailed to drive
Charley when at the wheel. It was early in 1815 when
father began to build, within which year he got started ;
but this kind of life continued till June, 1816, when one
day John Arthur, one of the hands who worked under
father at Steer's factory, came as a messenger from a
Steubenville factory, where he then worked, with an
offer to father to come and take charge of the carding
room (which contained eight or ten machines attended
by boys) at a salary of five hundred dollars a year. This
was an unexpected turn of affairs. Father's business
was neither very prosperous nor promising, and he was
deeply in debt, chiefly to John Hogg. He told Ar
thur that he would want a short time to consider the
proposal he brought, and he could occupy it in feeding
his horse. A family council was called, in which I took
part, and it was decided that the offer should be ac
cepted, and the next day or so he started, leaving a
large lot of wool to be carded. A well -grown boy, who
knew something about the business, was employed ; and
he and I, with mother to look after the business and ac
counts, flnished up the carding to the satisfaction of the
customers. This took up a few weeks' time ; but the
family was removed to Steubenville in August. Mr.

20 Recollections of
Hogg befriended father, took the concern off his hands
at a tolerably good price — perhaps all it was worth — and
assumed all the debts that the balance over his own dues
would pay, though many troublesome ones remained to
haunt us for some years afterward.

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840, 21

CHAPTER IV.
Again among the Quakers— Relation of the Author's Parents to
them — Sketch of Quaker Usages and Customs, Religious and
Social. Our life in Mount Pleasant must have been a try
ing one to father and mother ; for there was much time
lost for them in non-paying labor, and they both had
constant hard work to do, with very little return for the
labor they performed. Years were used up in getting
ready to do something, while the expenses of living
went on. It was a great mistake here that father did
not take to school teaching, as any Yankee would have
done, and for which he was well qualifled, and at which
he might have been well employed. But he had very
httle genius for adapting himself to new scenes and new
circumstances. Our social position in this place was as
good as the best, in spite of our poverty ; but neither
father nor mother would presume upon it or use it in the
least, and in their discouraged state of mind they even
neglected advantages that fairly belonged to them by
virtue of it. The people were neighborly, and our
Quaker friends did much to make it agreeable to us.
At this time neither father nor mother belonged to any
church, but they regularly attended the meetings for
worship of the Quakers or " Society of Friends," as
they called themselves. They treated us socially as if
we belonged to them, and we observed their manners in

22 Recollections of
dress and used "the plain language" — that is, we ad
dressing each other in the second person singular, and
not the plural, you; though it was ungrammatically
done' by using the objective form of the pronoun, thee,
for the nominative, which left it without the warrant of
correctness, on which they defended that departure from
custom. The Quakers in an early day bore a testimony, as
they expressed it, against the fashions of their time in
dress and language. To do this they adopted the cos
tume well known as theirs every-where, which was
simply continuing the use of the plain style of the
period. In language they carefully eschewed all com
plimentary forms of address, insisting that all men were
equal, and that none were entitled to titles or terms
of address indicating any superior position. They said
these titles were always false in their application, and
that the use of the plural pronoun you was a like false
pretense that the person addressed was of more conse
quence than a single individual, though in this they
were mistaken, for' the complimentary use of you grew
rather from an intent to avoid an improper familiarity
with the person addressed, for we find that obhque form
of address expressed in other languages by other words.
But the Quakers stoutly insisted upon the use of our
solemn style in this respect, and said thou, thy, and thee
scrupulously in every case of singular address. But
there was a stiffness about the use of thou instead of you
that bothered the off-handed among them, and they, not
disposed to keep up the strain of the solemn style, would
substitute thee for thou, and say thee is, thee does, etc.; and

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 23
this became so established that thou was rarely heard ;
but they steadily avoided you; for this was the great
point with them. In England they addressed the king
as George, and would not take off their hats on entering
his presence. They would not address a man as Mister
or a woman as Mistress, because this was bestowing
upon them homage that was due only to God. The
Friends also bore a testimony against judicial oaths, in
sisting that they were unchristian, and that a solemn af
firmation of a fact was all that ought to be asked of a
man when giving evidence. Indeed, they rather bore
the same testimony against all civil governments that
enforced their authority or defended their nationality
by war. They sturdily refused to pay military fines
or assessments, and would suffer their property to
be taken for such purposes rather than resist by any
force. Against slavery they also came to bear a testi
mony, and we find Benjamin Lay and John Wool-
man constantly preaching against the evil of holding
slaves among Friends in their day. Within my memory
they have been anti-slavery as a Society. The very
earliest Quakers, like the Puritans, did not hesitate to
fight, and were no doubt equally prudent in keeping
water from their powder. Indeed, they appear at first
to have made their stand against the absurd and un
christian formalities of the Church, dress, manners, etc.
They came to take the like stand in after years against
evils greatly prevalent, like slavery, war, and the mak
ing and use of intoxicating drinks. Their discipline
forbade their selling or giving grain for distillation, or
even making whisky barrels or bottles. Religiously,

24 Recollections of
they rejected all forms and ceremonies, and particularly
they denounced a hireling priesthood. They held that
Baptism and the Supper were to be received spiritually.
In their meetings for worship, certain persons were
recognized by common consent as ministers, who, if
moved by the spirit, might preach, or pray publicly — as
the Presbyterians say, " lead in prayer." The custom is
for their meetings for worship to " gather," as they say,
at eleven o'clock A. M. on Sunday and Wednesday — that
is, every First day and Fourth day — for they call the days
of the week and the months by their numbers, and not
the common names, which they say are heathenish
terms. They enter the house very quietly, the ruen
seating themselves on the right and the women on the
left side of the house, in free seats, all alike. Two or
three seats, rising like a gallery, are placed at the back
of the house, that is, farthest from the entrance door,
and facing the congregation, or meeting, as they call it.
On these are seated any ministers present, and certain
ones who have been designated as Elders. After taking
their seats, all sit in perfect stillness and silence, with or
without their hats on, as they prefer, and, as they ex
press it, " wait." If no one is moved to speak, in about
an hour, the Elders turn to each other and shake hands,
and then the "meeting breaks." If any one' is moved
to speak, he or she — for women preach as well as men —
rises, uncovers the head, and begins, very slowly at first,
and then warming up into more rapid utterance, in a
sort of a chanting or half-singing tone. If the remarks
are short, there will be silence for a time, when the same
speaker or another may rise again and coi^tinue the sub-

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 25
ject. But the silence may be followed by a prayer,
when the one uttering the prayer solemnly rises,
pauses till attention is obtained, then kneels down,
when all the congregation rise (the men uncovering
their heads) and remain standing till the prayer is
closed. There is no such thing as singing or music tol
erated by them at any time. If distinguished " public
Friends " — that is, preachers of note from abroad — are
present, they usually preach and pray. At their week
day meetings, business of the Society is transacted, at a
session after the worship, when the members only re
main in their seats at the adjournment. At these busi
ness meetings the men and women transact their busi
ness separately, and for this purpose their meeting
houses are usually so constructed that the two sides of
the house can be divided by sliding partitions. Their
church polity is very simple and yet well arranged. A
convenient number of Societies is grouped together as a
" Monthly Meeting," having a session on some week
day, when matters of a more general nature are disposed
of than at the Society's meeting. Here all marriages
take place, though I believe they are announced at the
weekly meetings. Special meetings are sometimes
called for marriages, though this is very seldom.
Monthly Meetings are grouped into Quarterly Meetings,
where business is managed by the Elders, and these
again are grouped into Yearly Meetings, which consti
tute the event of each year within their limits. The do
mestic affairs of families and neighborhoods are mate
rially affected by their recurrence. The farm work is
adjusted to the occasion so as to leave leisure for attend-

26 Recollections of
ing the Yearly Meeting, to say nothing of provision for
entertaining "friends from a distance," the buying and
making up of new clothes, etc. Even trade is subject
to the period. All through a Quaker neighborhood
Yearly Meeting makes stir and lively times on its ap
proach, and equivalent dullness on its departure. I
recollect a characteristic remark of a young Quaker
printer, who had just stepped over the Society's bounds
for the first time to look for work, and was talking with
me (in Wheeling, W. Va.) about traveling as a journey
man. I said something about New Orleans, then nearly
the only place where printers found work and good
wages, remarking that I heard it was dull there. " Oh,
yes," said he, " Yearly Meeting is over, and there won't
be much doing."
Any member in good standing is entitled to a seat in
these meetings, except those sessions known as " Meet
ings of Ministers and Elders." " The Meeting for Suf
ferings " is a curious term they have for what is their
committee of ways and means, sitting as a committee of
the whole. All the decisions of questions arising in any
of their meetings are regarded as unanimous if no ob
jection is made. The voice of the meeting is expressed
by silent approval or stated objection to the question : Is
the measure approved ? If objection is made the ques
tion is further discussed or laid over for another time,
or finally dropped. But there is a practice among them
of deferring to the opinions of the aged and experienced
or confessedly influential members, whom they know as
" weighty Friends," that stands very much in the way of
opposition in any manifest manner.

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 27
Their marriages are mutual ; the legal license is dis
pensed with, and the marriage is announced at some
public meeting some time before hand. The ceremony
takes place in meeting, when the man and his attend
ants take their seats in the Elder's gallery, on the woman's
side of the house. At the close of the meeting for wor
ship, it is given out that so and so will then be married,
when they rise, and each declares that the other is then
taken as a partner for life, each pledging love and faith
fulness till death. A marriage certificate is then made
out, and voluntarily signed by friends, and the marriage
duly recorded.
Of the religious doctrines of Friends, there is not
much certainty. Their old books that treat of this sub
ject are very vague, and deal more in pious experiences
and protests against ceremonials and extravagances of
living and dress, rather than any particular forms of
doctrine. They held to the freedom of the will and
consequent moral responsibility. Judging from some
tracts by William Penn and others of his time it is
doubtful if they accepted the doctrines of the English
Church respecting the Trinity or Vicarious Atonement.
They are now divided into Orthodox and Hicksites ; and
this division has nearly been the death of them. The
Orthodox, since that division, which became final in
1828, hold pretty much the same doctrine as the so-called
Orthodox Churches, or more properly the Methodists.
Their confession of faith was formulated by Elisha
Bates, who had a personal difference with Elias Hicks,
a man of much distinction and a rival of Bates in many
respects. I knew Bates pretty well, having worked for

28 Recollections of
him as a printer about a year, and I never could escape
the impression that Bates was led to push this distinc
tion of doctrine to a point that would give Hicks the
appearance of heresy from a feeling of personal antag
onism to the man himself. The Hicksites at this time
pretty generally resemble the Unitarians ; and they are
about as destitute as ever of any well defined religious
ideas. As neither party uses any doctrinal tests on
points of faith, each individual has his own view, and
holds it at his own convenience.
It ought to be borne in mind that the Quakers
really never called themselves a church, but were known
from the first as " The Religious Society of Friends."
They began by protesting against the vanities, pride, and
social exclusiveness that prevailed in their early day, about
two hundred years ago, among those who professed to be
Christians, and particularly against the abuses in the es
tablished religion of their times. They were Puritans
who outwent the Puritans in every thing but their in
tolerance. They denounced evil and sinful practices
with great vehemence ; but they observed charity toward
those whom they regarded as misled. Taking their rise
in the seventeenth century, they shared the severity of
manner that marked all the earnest men of that time,
and did many very extravagant things. They were re
ligious enthusiasts, in antagonism to the rank infidelity
prevaihng at that period even in the Church itself; and
they insisted that the Holy Spirit guided every con
scientious individual through life and influenced him
and his conduct — that this spirit became an inward
monitor, directing his impulses, and as such was entitled

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 29
to obedience. They held that every man born into the
world was given a light to guide him. They accepted
the Bible as of divine authority, but did not believe
that all inspiration was confined to it. In short, they
held that when they preached or prayed, the Spirit of
Truth guided them. This was the confessed belief of the
Church of that day ; but it was the actual belief of the
Quakers. After the first heat of their early enthusiasm was
dissipated, they settled down into a most orderly and
prudent fraternity — practically religious, while free from
all doctrinal controversies. Their labor, socially, was
divided between their religious duties of devotional
piety and worship, and the religious duties that em
braced all works of charity and kindness to men at
large, and the care of the spiritual interests of their own
members. They were bound to each other as one fam
ily ; and they held it as a primary duty to assist each
other in all cases when assistance was needed. The sick
and poor among them were always saved from want;
and they observed the wiser policy of assisting any one
who was ' badly off to help himself. They fully recog
nized the idea of man's equality, and recognized it prac
tically by discarding all distinctions among men, not
based upon some use or duty. Their scrupulous regard
for the feelings of each other, and the care with which
they considered the self respect of the poor or the un
thrifty, bred among them a spirit of earnest though
plain politeness, that was really beautiful. As each one
was born a member of the Society, they came under
training pretty early in life ; and there were very few

30 Recollections of
exceptions among them to genuine good breeding. And
yet I have met with some exceptions, and they were
intensified specimens of brutal rudeness. Bred care
fully from early life to good morals they were exemplary
as a body, and the grosser sins were little known among
them ; though absolute purity of morals did not charac
terize them of later years more than other professedly
religious people. This sketch of the Quakers may cast
some light upon our mode of life in Mount Pleasant.

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 31

CHAPTER V.
study at Home — Scanty Schooling — Early Private Schools — Peaches
and Wild Fruits — First Abolition Society — The Peace with Great
Britain — Political Parties — Boyish Adventures.
My recollections of life in Mount Pleasant are very
pleasant, though tinged with the shadow of our pov
erty. The first year or too, I did little beyond going to
school a short time, and taking lessons from mother in
the usual school studies ; I made about as good progress
at home as at school. I think that my school going
must have been limited in all to about one quarter —
three months — some four or five weeks to fill out a
term to a mistress that my sister had begun, and a
couple of months in the winter to a master. This, with
two quarters in 1816-17, in Steubenville, and sixteen
evenings at a school specially for grammar, made up the
entire amount of my schooling. Whatever else of edu
cation I received was at home with mother as my teacher,
or studying by myself. I do not speak of father as
teaching me. It was not because he was not so capable
to teach as mother, but he seemed to hand it over to
her as something she took more interest in. I gath
ered a great deal of information from him, but it
was mostly in conversations. And indeed, I learned the
half or more of all I did learn when a boy, in the course
of conversations with men. I was in the habit of talk
ing to all who would talk, and never scrupled to ask a

32 Recollections of
question if the answer was to bring information ; and I
found, too, that men were rather disposed to encourage
me, and delight in answering questions that were not
personal or impertinent. I read some of the books we
had, and borrowed others, and always talked up any
thing I read, when I found any one ready to talk. It is to
be remembered, that the common school system of Ohio
was not even provided for by the first act for its estab
lishment till ten years after my school days, and fully
ten years were spent in getting it into operation through
out the state. It was commenced about 1825-6. Before
it became general the schools were supported by private
subscriptions. School-houses were built in villages and
country neighborhoods as churches are built, by public
union of private contributions.
In this sunny period of childhood, over which a
cloud now and then brooded, my sister and I wandered
about the fields and woods adjoining the village and
gathered flowers along with her playmates. Among
the glories of the place I remember unlimited crops of
peaches that, at that period, grew to great perfection in
the new soil of the country. The lands there had been
taken up or bought in small lots of forty, eighty, one
hundred and sixty, or very rarely three hundred and
twenty acres, the owners of which settled upon them
and built log cabins and planted little orchards. These
orchards were set with apple trees as the principal crop,
but the rows were interalternated with peach trees, which
grew more rapidly and were expected to die out by the
time the apple trees came into good bearing. At this
time the peaches had reached their prime, and almost

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 33
every year they bore abundant crops, of which any one
could gather for the asking. Cherries were of slower
growth, and had not come forward every-where, but
they were planted along the fences on the roads and
soon became common property. Besides these there
were wild plums, grapes and nuts, that helped to make
the country charming to a boy.
As a less agreeable incident of our life there, I re
member my sister getting her arm broken, with great
risk of being killed. They were hauling timber for
our new building, dragging one end of the log on the
ground, while the other rested on the wagon. She got
on the log to ride, and falling off, was drawn under it,
and was saved from death by father's lifting the log as
it passed over her.
About this time there were frequent meetings of an
" abolition society " that father attended. I well recollect
hearing him talk of it to mother, and of its object, which
was not accomplished till 1865, flfty years later. Among
those who attended were Benjamin Lundy and Charles
Hammond, the latter then editor of the Ohio Feder
alist, at St. Clairsville, and afterwards of the Cincinnati
Gazette. The war with England closed in the beginning of
1815. We got news sometime in the winter of the bat
tle of New Orleans, at which all who were not Quakers
rejoiced and illuminated their houses and paraded the
streets, making joyful demonstrations. The Quakers
kept dark and dumb, and were abused for it, of course.
The account of the battle was soon after followed by
the news of peace, which had been concluded before the

34 Recollections of
battle was fought, though neither party knew it. This
was also an occasion of rejoicing, in which the Quakers
were expected to take part, as some of them did, though
most of them held that they ought not to take any part
in it. Father, though earnestly rejoicing in the peace,
held this view of it ; and when the hilarious crowd came
by our house they hallooed, " Dark house again !"
The political parties then were, the Democrats, who
were the war party, and the Federalists, who were op
posed to it, and were for peace. The Quakers, so far as
they took part in it, were Federalists, as a matter of
course. I was a Federalist because we were against the
war, and this was my first political position.
After father left for Steubenville he would remain
there about two weeks at a time, coming home each
fortnight. The distance was twenty-one miles — seven
to Warren, on the bank of the river, and fourteen up
the bank from that point. The day he was first to re
turn, I was started off very early to meet him with a.
horse, which he and I were to ride back. I was a little
over nine years old; the horse was much older, and safely
lazy. It was a great enterprise for me, and my direc
tions were to go fourteen miles of the way, which
brought me to Wellsville (then Charleston), where I
was to wait for father at the tavern and ferry house.
The people here happened to know him, and treated
me very kindly and talked encouragingly. I waited
until afternoon and then began to grow very uneasy. I
fretted, and looked up the road till two o'clock, and
then got out the horse and went a mile or so up the
river bank, where the hill and rocks came down almost

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 35
to the water, and it was then gloomy and wild enough
to add much to my perturbed state of mind. But he
was not in sight as I looked wistfully through my tears,
and in my despair I concluded father would not come that
day and started back, taking a hearty cry as I passed
back along that narrow road, lined on each side with
paw-paw thickets, where I had the whole forest to cry
in by myself. I jogged on home alone (with many a long
look behind me), and arrived at dark. I had hardly
got fairly housed and eaten my supper, when father
came, having walked the whole way. Had I been told
properly to wait at the tavern till he came, and that it
would be late, I should have managed well enough.
The Monday following I went with him about the same
distance and returned alone very well.
When he returned the next time I went the whole
way to Steubenville to meet him, and found him ready
to start back with me. When just above Mingo Bottom,
about two and a half miles below Steubenville, I came in
sight of the town, which was prettily built and showed
well from that point. It is quite fresh in my memory that
it was really beautiful, and as I thought, the most splendid
view of my experience. But I met a little difficulty as
I entered the town. The road divided at the bank of
the little mill stream below, one fork of it turning to the
river bank, and the other, which I followed, starting for
ward through a lane into Third street, and up a hill that
hid the town from me. Here I was attacked with
doubts, and I supposed I was on the wrong road. But
reasoning that if I kept near the river I must come to
where I had seen the town, I turned into an open gate

36 Recollections of
and followed the carriage road then leading into the
very handsome grounds of Bezeleel Wells. The place is
still kept up, and may be seen from the river or railway,
surrounded by a fine maple grove. I soon came to the
end of the avenue and in sight of the town ; but I saw
no way to it, except to cross that ravine upon a slight
foot bridge that was thrown across on very light tim
bers, and floored with inch boards. Upon this frail
structure I turned the old horse (which by the way, was
blind and could not see his danger) and went over in
safety. Whether any body saw me or not I do not
know, as I never heard it spoken of, and when I came
to understand it, I said very little about it myself. I
suppose the feat of crossing that bridge on horseback
was never performed by any one else. I pursued the
pathway to a gate where I had to dismount to open it,
and so found my way into the west end of Second or High
street. Here I met a man who gave me directions, tell
ing me that I should know the woolen factory by its
having a steeple with the figure of a merino ram on the
spire. I was all right then, and after putting the horse
to feed at a tavern, I walked bravely up to the factory,
and to my great joy found father. We got home nicely,
and I brought him out the next week.
The last time that I went for him, it was arranged
that I should stay at his boarding place, where I was
acquainted with the family, till our family should move
back with him. I accordingly went to Steubenville on
Thursday, and father returned, expecting to bring the
family and all the household belongings there by Mon
day evening. I was at liberty now with two or three

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 37
whole days before me, to look at the town, which was
a very busy place for that day, and I made the most of
them. On Friday morning I started and went to every
manufactory there was in the place, except the woolen,
the first being the paper mill — now in operation on the
same site — then the iron foundry, the cotton factory, the
steam mill, the brewery, the watch maker's (mender's),
the printing office, and I do n't know what besides ; for
as they were all new to me, I went to see them all.
At the printing office I looked with admiration on the
undistributed forms of the Western Herald and Steuben
ville Gazette — then a great Democratic organ, and con
ducted by James Wilson, who continued it from 1808
till 1844. It was a medium sheet — ^that is, 19 x 24.
The editor seemed to be interested in me, and asked me
my politics, etc.; I told him with a feeling of independ
ence that I was a Federalist, and he laughed, perhaps
at the manner in which I said it. He showed me some
thing about the printing and made explanations in which
I was interested. One small room sufficed for the office.
On Sunday I walked into the country with the boys
who had been at work the two days before ; and on
Monday I made another round of sight seeing, till
the afternoon, when I began to look for the family,
as I was very homesick to see mother. About the
middle of Tuesday forenoon they came ; and my trouble
was at an end. This was some time in August, 1816.

38 Recollections of

CHAPTER VE.
A Quakerless Community — Youthful Persecutions — Abundance of
Nuts and Wild Fruits— At School— School Books Used — Paper —
Ink— Whipping in School — Methodist Meeting — An Epidemic
of Typhoid— A Religious Enthusiast— Hunting Ginseng— Bon
fires and Buckeyes.
Though a small boy, and disposed to be adaptable,
it took me some time to get settled in this new place.
From a community nearly all Quakers I had come where
there was not one ; and there was such a change of
manners, with young and old, that I was some time
becoming reconciled to the situation. And then, I was
a stranger to all the boys ; and as I was very Quakerish,
and wore a little " shad-bellied coat," I was esteemed
fair game for those disposed to play the bully, while I
was a curiosity to others. I had to run the gauntlet of
constant challenges to fight, which I had to accept or
run, followed by jeers and cries of coward! I did not
want pluck, but I had a principle against fighting, and
was under a constant injunction from father not to strike,
whatever the provocation. I compromised this matter
towards the last by kicking the shins of a few of the
more troublesome ones; and this brought me peace.
As I became acquainted I got to like the place and
what seemed to me its advantages. For the winter
comfort of the children, father got a cartman to go
with me one Saturday afternoon along the bank of the
river, near Mingo Bottom, where in a short time we

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 39
filled the cart with butternuts — so abundant were they
and so little were they cared for. By going into the
country in almost any direction we could get wild
fruits — especially grapes — and nuts in great abundance.
But these have long since disappeared.
As soon as the winter set in I started to school.
The teacher, then called master (for we had no " prin
cipals " to schools then), was John Finley, a brother of
Father James B. Finley, well known among the Meth
odists as a preacher of great zeal and piety, for which
he was more distinguished than for learning. John
Finley was also a Methodist preacher, and as such su
perior to his brother; but he had left the itinerant
service of his church to devote himself to teaching,
which he seemed to prefer. He was regarded as an
excellent teacher, and his school was large — including the
sons of the leading men of the place. Among them were
the sons of Bezaleel Wells, Martin Andrews, Judge
Benjamin Tappan, and John C. Wright, who led society
there. These, and a large number of poorer boys got
along democratically together. I was among the smaller
set of boys ; but I usually associated with the older ones,
as was my practice all through my youth. Though
fond of the sports and habits of boys, I had the faculty
of talking with men in such a way as to be recognized
and conversed with ; which I made available as a source
of information. At school I could learn all I wanted ;
for my memory was very good ; but my point of failure
was in application. In the short days of winter I had
some chores to do after breakfast, such as getting in coal
and carrying water, which was scarce there, and doing

40 Recollections of
errands; and this almost invariably made me late at
school, where above all places I loved to be. The
penalty for this tardiness was to be put at the foot of
my class in reading. But I soon got up again, and was
certain to be at the head half the time. If I got down
on Saturday I was sure to be placed head on Monday
for the recitation of poetry that I committed on Sunday.
In this way I committed to memory nearly all the poetry
in Murray's English Reader, and many other pieces. For
one of these tasks I learned and recited Gray's Elegy
entire. Our studies at this school were spelling, reading,
arithmetic and writing. We used the United States
Spelling Book, a Pittsburgh book, the Western Cal
culator, also a Pittsburgh work, Murray's series of
reading lessons, the English Reader, and the " In
troduction" and "Sequel" to the same. Grammar
and geography were not taught in the common schools
then, nor for many years after. The paper used in
writing was a pretty good article of foolscap, made
in the country, but unruled. So we had to rule it for
ourselves; and each boy was armed with a wooden
rule, furnished by some friendly carpenter, to which was
tied a pencil made of crude lead. With these we ruled
our paper to all desirable widths, by which we were
guided in learning to write; for it was expected that
any one who had learned to write would not need such
a guide. Our pens were all made of quills ; and making
a good pen was part of the art of writing, and an indis
pensable one at that. Our ink was usually made from

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 41
ink powders, or from oak and maple bark with copperas
added to the boiled decoction of these.
One of the most efficient agencies in education in
that day was thrashing ; and every master scrupulously
availed himself of it. Mr. Finley understood it, and it
was reasonably well dispensed in his school. My neg
ligence, or talking frequently brought me under this
discipline ; but I know that there never was any necessity
for it. It was the custom, and it saved words. To me
it was so mortifying that I took my books home the
first time, resolved that I would not endure it. But
I was sent back ; and I well remember how my appear
ance in the afternoon was received by the other boys as
a thing of course, of which they had had experience.
My nice sense of honor and self-respect was broken down
then, and I, like the others, learned to care but little
about it — the main point afterward being to stand it
without crying. The second quarter I made up my
mind that I would so behave as to escape, which I did
till near the end, when I caught it almost without cause.
The house where this school was kept was a one story
frame about eighteen or twenty feet square — a mere box
with doors and windows. It stood where the gas reser
voir of the city now stands. When I was in Steubenville
in 1851, F. A. Wells, then postmaster there, one of my old
schoolmates, and I made a very reverent pilgrimage to
the place where the house stood —
— " The school boj' spot
We ne'er forget, though there we are forgot.
I only went these two quarters ; and with them closed
my period of attendance at school — about the time

42 Recollections of
I was ten years old, and now (1872) fifty-five years ago.
I afterward attended an evening school to learn gram
mar, and at times got private instruction in arithmetic,
in exchange for which I gave instructions in grammar.
" Chill penury repressed," etc. At this grammar school
my seat-mate was Edwin Stanton, Lincoln's secretary
of war. I do not remember meeting with him since;
but I remember him a boy delicate physically, grave
and studious. As there were no Quakers at Steubenville, father
joined the Methodist church and attended it with his
family. He has since told me that during his outside
relation to the Quakers he had become very skeptical and
he was quite unsettled upon religious subjects. I re
member the elder David Powell, one of the pioneer
Swedenborgians of Ohio, labored very hard with him,
and father read some of Swedenborg's works. But the
Methodist system in its then fiery enthusiasm seemed to
suit him best. The fact that his mother was a Methodist
may have had something to do with it; and then I
suppose the effect of a large congregation of Methodists,
in the absence of any regular New Church Society, had
much to do with it. So we went to Methodist meetings,
which were the very antithesis of the silent Quaker
worship. I shall never forget the terror with which the
"exercises" inspired me. At the first prayer I knelt
down with others ; while the tone of supplication of the
man who prayed waxed louder and louder. I knew that
amen was said at the end of a prayer; and as I was
shaking till my knees rattled on the floor with fear, I
thought those around me were likewise affected, and were

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 43
crying amen as an inducement for the brother to stop ;
when in fact they were only encouraging him. I re
garded it as an awful time, and was very thankful when
he said amen. It was not long till I got used to it and
learned to regard it as what was just right.
Typhoid fever of a very malignant form was epi
demic in that region during the winter of 1816-17, and
great numbers died ; people in the country were alarmed
to such an extent that they would not come to market
or on business, and the place was almost desolate.
Father spent much of his time of evenings visiting
these sick persons, and often watching all night with
them. He would talk over the cases at home, and he
always discussed with mother the spiritual state of each
with great earnestness. He became enthusiastically re
ligious at this time, and appeared to live in a Methodis-
tic atmosphere night and day. At least, he thought and
talked of nothing else. It must have absorbed all his
mental powers, and I think it unfltted him for the busi
ness of life. He was a constant attendant at all the
prayer, class, and band meetings he could reach— that is
to say, he attended one or other of these meetings nearly
every night in the week, besides a continual round of
them on Sunday.
Mother was of a different turn, and never took hold
of this religious work in harmony with him. She was
more practical and more prudent or, as it seemed to him,
more worldly. She joined the church with him but
never partook of his enthusiasm. He became a shouter,
and was affected by all that extravagant enthusiasm that
would at times prostrate the physical powers. I have

44 Recollections of
seen him, a few years later than this time, lie for hours
without motion, and so long as to alarm me, although I
knew it a common experience, always recovered from, and
regarded as altogether " regular." As his hfe was or
derly, and he was gifted in prayer, and soon learned to
sing the hymns with great spirit, and select them with
taste, speaking well in class meetings and love feasts, he
became a leading spirit, and was looked to as a valuable
member, and consequently urged and invited into greater
extravagances of " devotion to the cause." This neces
sarily threw an undue portion of the care of the family
upon mother, who really had a hard time with her house
work and the instruction she had to give the children.
Engaged as father was in the church, it was utterly out
of the question for him to improve our secular condition.
He had no mind for it and no time to think of it, beyond
the hours of labor. In the summer of 1817, he gave up
his berth as superintendent of the cardiug-room in the
factory, and took the position of sorter of wool, that is,
assorting it into the different grades of quality, for which
he was paid by the pound ; and as I could help him in open
ing the fleeces and carrying away the heaps of assorted
wool, I was taken to work with him, at which I continued
off and on about two years ; though I was not confined so
steadily at this as to prevent me from having consider
able leisure, when I was put to help mother part of the
time, to make garden, take care of the cow, and go of
errands. We had to get flour from the mill nearly a mile out
of town, and I was usually sent for it, that is to buy it
and watch for an opportunity to have it brought up.

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 45
These trips, in consideration of the fact that there were
two orchards to go by, and fishing to be done in the
creek at the mill, and swimming to be done in the river,
usually took a good while and often spoiled a day's
work. There was a belief at that time among the coun
try doctors that the ginseng root was the " sovereign-
est thing on earth," for the lungs ; and as father com
plained at that time of a cough, I undertook to hunt
ginseng in the woods, where it then grew pretty plenti
fully. But as I did not know it by the leaf, two boys
who did n't know it either undertook to show it to me.
We spent two or three days in most delightful rambling
over the hillsides ; but I discovered the boys were hum
bugs, and as I wanted to find something as well as hunt
for it, I got another guide, of whom I learned to find the
plant very well, and enjoyed the woods vastly ; for I sup
pose to the " natural man," in boyhood, the forest is of all
places the most delighful. The season of ginseng was
succeeded by nuts, and as I was usually allowed to go
nutting I had a pretty good season of it.
One of our great sports in the street, at that time,
was bon-fires made of shavings from the new houses
building. To add to the excitement some boys were en
gaged to gather a great quantity, that is to say, sundry
hatfuls of buckeyes — ^wild horse chestnuts — that grew in
great abundance along the river. These were saved up
till Saturday, when the carpenters would throw out the
rubbish for the bon-fire. When the fire was nearly
burned down, and the flame began to lose its splendor,
the buckeyes were thrown into it by the boys who sur
rounded the flre, when, as they became hot there was a

46 Recollections of
gas generated in them that exploded them with a report
like a pistol ; and thus a fusilade would be kept up as
long as the supply lasted ; after which sticks and stones
would be thrown into the coals to brighten them up. It
was wonderful what a crowd of boys would gather, and
how little mischief would be done.

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 47

CHAPTER VII.
Buying a Farm — A Log Cabin — Lighting and Ventilation — The Cabin
Chimney — A Neighbor's Family.
It had always been a doctrine in the family that we
ought to move onto a farm, and father had looked for
ward to the time when he could buy a farm, and devote
himself to the cultivation of it. Why he thought of
this I can not guess, unless there is a natural feeling in
the civilized man that always regards a farm as an es
tablished home, and seeks to fix itself to the soil some
where. Father was always talking to us about it, though
I know if he had had a farm given to him, ready stocked,
he would scarcely have been able to live on it. Yet he
would seriously talk of leasing a quarter of a section of
school-land in a state of nature, and clearing it up. In
pursuance of this idea, he bought on credit — making a
first payment of all he could rake and scrape together —
forty acres of land for six hundred dollars. It was situ
ated on the point of a hill, above a little stream called
Wills creek, about five miles from Steubenville. Twenty-
five acres was the extent of the available land in the lot,
the rest being stony hillside on which nothing but trees
would grow ; and being one of the first places settled in
the country, the land was worn out and hopelessly poor.
The man who had cleared it had_ planted an apple
orchard and peach orchard of five or six acres, so that
when there was a fruit season there was plenty of apples

48 Recollections of
and peaches. He had improved it with a log barn and
two log-cabin houses, but he had cut every stick of tim
ber off the land that could be worked into staves and
shingles or rails. The two former he sold in town, and
the latter he omitted to make after his first fences ; so
that his successors had little else than the ground to work
with. Father bought it of a man who lived in town,
and had taken it on a poor debt ; and the man then on
the place was about to leave because he could not pay
for it, nor even pay the rent after he became a tenant on
it. Some time in September, as I remember, father and
I went one afternoon to see the place, which made for
me a most delightful trip. The tenant was living upon
it. On that day he was away from home, and we only
saw his family. His wife entertained us with a descrip
tion of the place, and treated us kindly, but she evidently
felt the humiliation of their situation at being obliged
to leave it, though it was not worth their while to stay.
They were to leave in the spring, and as we wanted
to move out that winter, it was agreed that they should
take one of the houses and we the other. Father got some
repairs done on the one we were to occupy, so as to
make it a little more habitable, by the addition of glasff
windows ; for it had previously been lighted by leaving
the door open in addition to a four-light window
with greased paper for glass, and the opening of the
great chimney at the end of the single room, down which
the daylight flowed in goodly quantity. It may seem a
strange way of living now, but it was very common for
the log-cabins to have no windows whatever. In ex
tremely cold weather the door would be closed, and

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 49
likewise at night, but mostly by keeping a good fire the
door could be left open for light and ventilation ; and the
chimneys were so wide and so low, very often not as
high as the one-story house, that they afforded as much
light as a small window. These chimneys were always
outside the house at one end, and it was very common
for them never to be finished or built up beyond the
fire-place. The manner of building them was to cut
through the logs at the gable end, a space of six or eight
feet wide and five or six feet high ; and logs were built
to this opening like a bay window ; this recess was then
lined with a rough stone wall up as high as this opening ;
from that point a smoke stack was built of small sticks
split out of straight wood and laid cob-house fashion to
the height desired, and then plastered inside and out with
clay, held together by straw. A very common event
was for these chimneys to take fire, in which case it was
necessary to use water bountifully or pull them down.
Ours had so settled away from the house that we steadily
expected it to pull itself down. But like the tower of
Pisa it stood against all the gravity that affected it, I
suppose, till the house went also. The repairs delayed
our moving till after New Year's, 1819.
From the time of the purchase till we moved, I
made frequent trips to the farm, always on foot , but I
was never tired of going. I stayed some times over
night, and was greatly taken up with the people I would
meet there. I could talk about town to the boys, and
their and their mother's stories of the country were
charming to me, while the nearly grown-up girls, one of
whom was very pretty, could talk most entertainingly.

50 Recollections of
The second daughter had a fund of stories that belong
to the north of Ireland— that land where the Irish and
the Scotch characters are so wonderfully blended — about
witches, wizzards, ghosts, and fairies, that she never
wearied of telling nor I of hearing, and when we moved
out to the place I was sure to be at our neighbor's every
evening if mother would let me, hearing these tales, till
I would be afraid to go from one door to the other.
Father still remained in town working in the fac
tory, coming home on Saturday afternoons. My duties
consisted of feeding the cow and getting wood for the
fire, which in very cold weather was about all I could
do, as I was not quite twelve years old nor over the
average size. I had this wood to carry, or drag on a
small sled, from the woods and up hill at that, though I
availed myself of all the broken rails along the fences
for what supply they would yield. Hard work as this
was, I was greatly delighted with the country.
Just before we moved out, my Uncle Powell (a
brother-in-law to father) and his family, who had
stopped on their way from England near Richmond,
Virginia, long enough to spend all the money they had,
came to Steubenville ; and as he had engaged a farm
that he could not enter upon till spring, he took the
house we lived in. He, however, had a team of horses
and an old stage coach, in which the family had traveled
from Virginia, that still bore the lettering, " Richmond
and Staunton Mail Stage," which was rather a stunning
thing in itself, while it served them some of the purposes
of a wagon. When we moved, we used this to trans
port the family and most of the goods, by making re-

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 51
peated trips. On the last trip out, as it was late at night,
the man who drove the wagon stayed till morning.
After unhitching, he left the coach standing in the lane,
where it terminated on the brow of a very steep hill.
It had not stood there long till an enterprising old sow,
making a survey of the machine, got her nose under a
wheel, when it started down the hill. We heard the
rumbling, and just got out in time enough to see it go
ing over a grade of thirty-five degrees, and landing in a
thicket of bushes. The next day, after great labor, the
running gears were got up, but the body was a wreck,
and was left there, in which situation we children made
many imaginary trips in it between Richmond and
Staunton. The precaution of putting a chock under
the wheels of this coach would have saved it, of course.
This was in midwinter, and very disagreeable
weather, under which the new place could have had but
little charm for my poor mother. Her heart must have
sunk as she encountered the labor of reducing to order
the dirt and confusion that reigned in the place, and
novelty lent it no charm for her, however we children
may have enjoyed it.
As showing the character of the country at that day :
our neighbor was in debt, and largely for drink. He had
but little, and was sued for something that he could not
pay, while he did not want his house stripped ; and as at
that time it was the practice to imprison for debt, when
the execution came, he refused to give up his property,
and went to jail. In a quiet way, soon after, one of the
neighbors, who was comfortably off, took away most of
his goods that were subject to execution and kept them

52 Recollections of
out of sight. As father and I were coming out of town
the Saturday after that, a tavern-keeper by the name of
Haughey, who kept a public-house on the way, stopped
father to inquire about our neighbor, and remarked that
he had a claim against him for drink, which he meant to
try and collect. Father hinted that the man had no money.
" No," he said, " but they have some feather beds that
will sell ;" and the children, he thought, could as well
sleep on straw. This I told the wife as soon as I got
home, and the next day I found a feather bed hid in the
bushes. The whisky bill was not collected. Our neigh
bor remained in jail till the creditor, who had to board
him, got tired of his share of it.

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 53

CHAPTER Vin.
Moving the Cow and the Pig — Sugar Camps — Game — The Old Mill —
Peach Brandy — Peach Leather — Woodmanship — Old-fashioned
Axes — A New Pony — Going to Mill — Ghosts and Panthers.
Our moving was done pretty leisurely, and occupied
several days ; and it seems to me now that I did a pretty
good share of the labor, considering my age. Father,
though skillful enough in his business, or with his ma
chinery, was much wanting in the contrivance which is
one-half of work, and nearly all planning was left for
mother and me. In the way of live stock we had a
cow and a pig. These were removed on two different
days, and the performance was about all I was equal to.
The cow I undertook first ; but she would not be driven
more than a short distance out of town till she would
turn on me and run back. After one or two trials, I
put a rope on her horns, and led and drove her as the
case required. Even then she would try to run back,
and it put me to my utmost effort to get her over the
five miles I had to take her. Several times she started
to run, when she and the rope and I might have been
seen flying over the ground at a fearful rate. I could
run nearly as fast as she could, at any rate, and with her
help, when holding on to the rope, I could keep upon
my feet for a pretty good race, at the end of which I
would bring her up or turn her on the route, and keep
her going till she would catch me unawares and run

54 Recollections of
into a lane or a piece of woods. With fences on both
sides, I got along finely ; but if a fence was wanting, as
was common then, it was hard work. I had one long
hill to go down, where the road was through the natural
forest ; and here Bossy, or Sukey, and I had it " nip and
tuck." She would start for a run, and I would make
for a tree, against which I would draw the rope, and, if
possible, make a turn and thus snub her. If I could
throw myself past the upper side of the tree and swing
round below it, I had her completely in my power.
After she would quiet down, I would loosen my hold,
and start on. Along the creek bank, I got on pretty
well, except that the creek had to be forded five times,
and I had no alternative but to wade through it, and
thoroughly wet my feet. As the cow was tired as well
as I, she went up the hill to our house, with commenda
ble moderation — after we had nearly doubled the dis
tance in the many races we had.
The pig, which was pretty well out of pig-hood,
and attained that indefinable stage of swine life known
as " shoat," was transported on another day, by the
same process, as far as it would apply. But the pig,
having no horns, I tied him on the Irish plan of a noose
drawn upon his hind leg just above the knuckle. By
this I could hold him and guide him after a fashion ;
though having a will of his own, he would run through
all the holes and corners, and under the sloping stakes
of the Virginia fences. In this case the fences were my
dread, for it seemed as if he ran under every stake he
came to, compelling me to let go the rope, and pass it
under the stake into my other hand, which had to be

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 55
done carefully, lest he should escape. Take it all in all,
this mode of driving a pig, which is the orthodox mode
in Ireland, is not the most delightful labor by the side
of an American stake-and- rider fence ; and for a small
boy it is provocative of ill-tempered expressions and
many tears of anger.
The country where we lived is very hilly and rough,
and the land generally poor. The prevailing timber was
oak of various kinds, with occasional strips of maple
forest, on the creek bottoms and on some of the hilltops,
where the land was rich and fertile. The prevailing
rock is sandstone, which pretty well covers the hillsides
with its fragments, while the heavier rocks outcrop
along the ravines and precipices. Coal is abundant, and
near it is limestone and marl, where the land is rich and
where the maples grew. Our place had no sugar -trees ;
and thus one great source of happiness was cut off",
though I found frequent occasion for visiting the camps
of the neighbors. To a boy from a town, hardly any
place could be more enchanting than a sugar-camp,
where the big boys stay all day and boil the sugar water,
having their meals brought to them, and sleep at night
in an open-faced camp, before a big fire, on a heap of
straw. I looked upon boys whose fathers owned sugar-
tree land as thrice blessed, and longed for the change
that should give us a camp. But our rough place had
the advantage of being surrounded with hemlock and
pine trees and laurel thickets, where there were pheas
ants — ruffed grouse — and rabbits, that I would hunt
most enthusiastically, trying to kill the pheasants with
stones, for they would sit on the trees about as long as I

56 Recollections of
was disposed to throw stones at them, if I only kept up
a noise by singing or whistling. Rabbits I did manage
to catch after a while ; but the first one I caught with
my hands as it was running, which was a rare feat and
not likely to be repeated in a lifetime. A dog was after
it, and, as it was doubling on him, it ran past me, when
I sprang at it, and in a few jumps caught it. This was
an event of vast importance.
At the foot of our hill was a saw-mill and flouring-
mill, where we got flour and cow feed, and where I
made acquaintances, and heard many a long story of
hunting in early times, and of voyages down the river.
But the charm of the region was the old mill, a short
distance above the others. The house, mill, and old
still-house were all empty, and of course subject to end
less investigation in day time ; while they were a terror
at night, by reason of the ghosts that were said to harbor
in them. Two fields adjoining the mills were also aban
doned, in which the cows, not fenced up, would run,
and from which we would sometimes drive them after
night-fall, at the imminent risk of being attacked by
ghosts. My sister Anne, as next in age to me, was fre
quently my companion in my adventures over these odd
places and the hills and valleys through which the cattle
would stray; and it is wonderful what strolls we would
have, and how we clambered over rocks and through
thickets. In one of these fields there was a large patch
of thyme growing, that had spread from an old garden.
In summer, being long in bloom, it was very pretty,
and with its flowers and fine odor, it remains a picture
to me yet. I often go back to Castner's old mill, on a

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 57
little bunch of thyme, and never see any without going
there. At the old still-house there was a great heap of
peach-stones, amounting to many bushels — ^the refuse
from the manufacture of peach brandy, an article which
in that day was abundant and cheap. When the country
was new, peaches were the easiest fruit to raise. They
came forward very quickly, bearing in three or four
years from the planting of the stone ; and they produced
so abundantly when the frost did not kill them, that
they were freely given away to those who would eat or
dry them, and sold at ten or twelve cents a bushel to the
distillers, who worked them up into brandy, thus assist
ing to keep up the supply of spirits, then regarded as a
necessary of life almost as much as bread. The first
year we went to the farm the frost destroyed the entire
crop of fruit, especially peaches ; but the second year,
1820, we had an unlimited supply. To dispose of some
of them, we got a neighbor to take a four-horse wagon
load of them to the Steubenville market. These I man
aged to nearly sell out, some for twenty-five and more
for eighteen cents a bushel, the transaction yielding a
mere trifle over expenses. We dried them, however, and
worked them up into " peach leather " — a very nice
preparation of the pulp of the peach spread on a board
and dried in the sun — and ate them from morning till
night. The finest varieties of budded peaches now
known do not exceed in quality the common natural
growth from the seed of that time, without any particu
lar culture. There then grew in the woods an abundance
of wild grapes, that were mostly of good quality, and

58 Recollections of
some very superior in size and flavor. I believe some
excellent varieties might have been brought forward from
them, but that opportunity has gone by.
During the remainder of the winter of 1819, after
we moved, there were some weeks of rather hard
weather; and though when the weather was mild I
could manage pretty well, with what help my brother
Thomas and sister Anne could give me, to keep up the
fires, it came rather hard upon us when there was a deep
snow to contend with, and the dry, light limbs and bark
were covered and wet, and the old rails in the same condi
tion. So I undertook to keep up the supply by cutting
down trees. Of those that were near the house, almost all
were too large or too tough for me to manage. Among
them I found one that was hollow, and that I set about
cutting down, thinking it would be easily handled. But
it was tougher than if solid, and a fearful spell of
" beavering " I had with it before it was down, so that I
could get at the tops. To add to my difficulty, the ax
was a poor one, very heavy and very dull. Such an ax
as we could now buy for a dollar, ready ground and
light, was unknown then ; they seldom weighed less
than five pounds and were ill-shaped besides. For a
boy of less than twelve years, this was really too much ;
for it was as much as I could well do to swing the ax in
a horizontal direction ; still less could I add force to the
blows and sink the ax beyond what the impetus of its
own weight would do. I can yet remember how hard it
was and with what labor I cut that hollow tree down.
The first day it was only partly down, when I adjourned
to grind the old ax at the mill. My brother, a hopeful

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 59
and willing little chap, went with me to turn the grind
stone. If I held on the ax so as to grind it he could n't
turn, and if I turned he could n't hold the ax ; but I
held it on pretty steep, and, as I thought, put a good
edge on it ; it was really so blunt that it would n't cut
any thing; though in order to make it perfect I had
whetted it up with father's razor strop. But somebody
assisted me, and I got it so that I could cut a little ; and
we got the tree-top niggled into such pieces as we could
drag home up the hill-side. For some reason that I do
not remember, I took the ax to town and got a black
smith to upset or dress and temper it. After this was
done, it was so thick on the edge that it took two days
to grind it to what we thought sharp. Thus we worked
along through the winter, and with an occasional con
fiscation of a rail, we made out to keep up our fires.
With the opening of the spring of 1819, I entered
upon a most delightful round of novelties. We had the
ground of one or two fields plowed, and we planted them in
corn and other spring crops — including garden making,
which father took to himself as his specialty — working
at it on Saturdays, when home from town. Father
bought a black pony, bearing the name of Paddy, that
was about as tough and lazy a lump of horse flesh as
I ever saw. He was one of the ponies that the boatmen
who made trips down the river in flat boats to New
Orleans, and returned over land, were in the habit of
buying of the Choctaw Indians, to ride home on. This
one had been ridden home by a man who was prepared
to sell him cheap ; and I think father bought him for
twenty-eight dollars. But he served me as a horse, and

60 Recollections of
for hacking about and going to mill he did very well,
as he would carry three bushels of wheat and me on
the top of it, or as many of the children as we could
pile on. And, as it turned out to be a very dry season,
it fell to my lot to go to distant mills to get grinding
done ; and Paddy and I made many a mile of moderate
travel in Jefferson county. At the mills we had to wait
our turns ; and often we would have to leave our grist,
and go after it another day, by appointment — sometimes
more than once. The weather was fine, the roads were
good, there were plenty of apples in the orchards and
nuts in the woods by the way, where they were always
free to the passer-by ; and, all in all, I really enjoyed
going to mill, till the cold weather came on in the fall.
Then Paddy took his time, and neither coaxing nor driv
ing would move him beyond a slow walk ; and the fact
that I was almost freezing never gave him any concern.
My only resource, therefore, was to get off and walk by
his side. I was often benighted in getting home, when
I had to run the guantlet of various terrors — a grave
yard or two, the many stories of ghosts and goblins
fresh in my memory, besides a story, vouched for by
several big boys, that a panther had been heard screech
ing in the woods and laurel thickets. If I had a load,
I proceeded in utter silence, of which Paddy took ad
vantage by choosing his own gait ; if light, I would
make all the speed I could. One night my brother Tom
and I had been to town together, riding double on
Paddy. When we reached the top of Sugar Hill, we
had to get off and walk down, as it was too steep for
both to ride down in the dark, and we were in danger

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 61
of slipping over the horse's head. It was a frosty
autumn night, and the saddle had got very cold while
we were off, so that neither of us wanted to sit on it,
preferring the horse's warm back. We drew Paddy up
by a big log that we could just find in the starlight, and
instead of getting upon him — while standing on the
log — we opened an argument as to which should ride
behind. The panther story was usually present with
us, but we had forgotten it just then, and we grew pretty
loud in our dispute, when, as Burns says, something
" Gat up and gie a croon," or, more properly, a
yell — not very far from us. It was an owl, as I now
suppose, but then it was a panther. The argument
dropped in a second ; Tom vaulted into the saddle, as .
the place of safety, and I took the warm seat behind
with all the dangers of an additional passenger unin
vited. "Short and few were the prayers we said," and
Paddy was put to his best paces up the creek, which we
had to cross five times ; but at the first crossing he per
sisted in drinking, regardless of all the terrors of our
situation.

62 Recollections of

CHAPTER IX.
Amateur Farming— Wheat Harvest— Threshing with the Flail— Win
nowing— Snakes— Killing a Copperhead— Pigs Killing Snakes-
Pigs in the Woods— Their Voracity and Ferocity— Pigs naturally
Decent— Birds— Gunning— Pheasants— Their Habits and Tricks
— A Family Dog — A Brown Smell.
The fall before we moved out father got a man to
put in five acres of wheat, which did tolerably well and
aftbrded us a supply for bread immediately after harvest.
This wheat we had to harvest in July, and to us it was a
• new thing to have the gathering of the ripe grain as our
task. But then we did it like the rest of our farming —
hired the most of it. Father thought it best to get this
wheat all cut in one day ; so he got force enough to do it
had not a thunder storm come up, which broke in upon
the time so that there was work for two men the second
day. But we had all the work of a harvest day, as if it
had been a manorial estate. We had one man to cradle,
another to rake and bind, and two to reap with sickles.
We had a big dinner and lunches in the forenoon and
afternoon, and the longest imaginable stories told at in
tervals of rest and during the thunder-storm. But we
got the wheat duly housed, after which came the thresh
ing and cleaning. The usual way of threshing then was
with a flail, and the tenth bushel was the common price
for that work. We got most of ours threshed, and I
pounded out some of it myself, as well as giving my head
sundry polts. Our manner of cleaning the wheat from

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 63
the chaff was very primitive. It consisted of passing
the wheat and chaff" through a coarse sieve or riddle
upon the barn floor, while two persons took a sheet be
tween them, and by a particular flapping of the sheet
produced a breeze that blew the chaff away. It was
very laborious, but was the only method in use, except
by the larger farmers, who trod out the grain with horses
and cleansed it with a fanning mill.
Among the features of the country and place where
we lived sn akes were prominent. The stony soil seemed to
favor them, as it was warm and dry and afforded shelter.
Rattlesnakes had pretty well disappeared, but black-
snakes, a kind of small anaconda, were plenty, and in
the streams were water snakes beyond count — a terror
to boys, who would not bathe in them unless it was very
warm, when snakes were risked, as they would have
been if they had been alligators. But the copperheads
were the really dangerous serpents of that time and lo
cality. They were numerous too, and great care was
necessary to avoid them. They harbored under logs and
stones, in stumps and among weeds — rarely in the grass —
but always around barns or stables. I killed several of
them close by our house, and one in the garden, where he
had made himself comfortable under the dry pea-holm.
Mother happened to see him when she was gathering
peas and called me. I came with a hoe, and after raking
the stuff off him, where he lay coiled and quiet, I let
drive, cutting him into several pieces, and spattering my
hands and face with his blood and juices, which I sup
posed to be poisonous, and washed off in mortal fear of
soon following the snake. One morning my brother

64 Recollections of
Joe, who was a little fellow, stood by mother as she
was milking near the barn and told her there was
something pretty there. She looked around and was
horrified to see him gently touching a sleeping copper
head with his toe. This fellow was waked up with a
club. They were most dangerous in the harvest fields,
where they would get under the shocks of grain, among
the stubble, and even into the sheaves. It was customary
then to cut oats with a cradle and leave them lying in
the swarth a few days to make them thresh easy. Under
these swarths the copperheads were sure to gather, where
they would frequently bite men who were taking up the
oats. Hogs were the natural enemies of all kinds of
snakes, and they devoured them with a relish. They
never seemed to hesitate as to what kind of snakes they
were, either, and would take a copperhead " on the half-
shell," and squirming, with the most perfect nonchalance,
and never appeared to suffer any inconvenience from their
poison. Whether they handled them too adroitly to be
bitten, or the bite failed to hurt them, I do n't know.
When a pig got a snake it was not long till he would
get one end of the serpent in his mouth and the other
end under his forefoot. We had one old sow that had a
tooth for all sorts of eatables, dead or alive, whether it
was a nest of eggs, a brood of young chickens, a family
of goslings or a lamb. Snakes appeared to be a special
weakness with her, and I supplied her with many a one.
The pigs of that day were a kind of wild beast.
The breed was very different from any thing we have
now, they were active, enterprising, and self-reliant ; and
all they asked was a free range of the woods, though

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. • 65
they could, at all times, be tamed by food. Indeed, their
stomachs got them into most of the tight places they
ever got into, even to the slaughter pen in the fall. It
was quite common in favorable seasons, for them to be
come fat enough Ar meat in the woods on acorns and
nuts, without any corn, though it was deemed advisable
to pen them up and feed them corn for a few weeks be
fore killing. The growing stock always boarded them
selves, except in winter, when they would get corn
enough to bring them home. The usual practice was
to build them a hut of logs, outside the fields, where
they would sleep and shelter from storms. Here they
were fed and trained to rendezvous, so as to keep them
within reach. The young ones were always marked by
notches or crops on the ear, each farmer having some
' special way of marking them. They were never fattened
to weigh any thing like the hogs now raised. The meat
was thought to be sweeter when not fed so highly; this
is probably the case, as they were nearer to the state of
the wild boar, which is so very delicate. They were
much smaller animals, rarely weighing over a hundred
pounds. In their habits they were ravenous to an ex
treme, and even ferocious ; their voracity knew no bounds,
and they would kill and eat up the young poultry and
lambs on a farm without any scruple. The worst were
the old breeding sows. Our snake eating sow would
seize a lamb at any time she could get at one. Some
times another sow's brood would make a light meal for
her. The pigs' redeeming virtue was faithfulness to each
other, and they would gather for the common defense,
wherever one of them was in trouble, and never deserted

66 Recollections of
him as long as he could squeal, though they might utilize
his remains if he died in the struggle. In this half nat
ural state the pig is rather respectable in his general
bearing. He is cleanly, social, faithful, and if well fed
is well behaved. I often noticed their habits of sleeping
in the general bed, that they packed very closely, and
alternated nose and tail, and if it was cold and rainy,
the question as to which should sleep inside or under
most usually occupied the night.
Birds were not very plenty — at least the kind
known as game. The jays in winter, were numerous
and busy around barns and houses. Robins were few,
woodpeckers plenty, as the dead trees afforded them
refuge and grubs. They were unjustly persecuted, as
they are now. We had the redbird in moderate numbers
among the singing birds. The best of this class was
the brown thrush, and his music was never wanting in
summer, and delightful music it was too, for he is very
little inferior to his cousin, the mocking bird. At night,
the early summer was enlivened by the whip-poor-wills,
that seemed to fill the air. These birds of night appeared
to fasten on my affections, and I never tired of hearing
them. To this day their notes fill me with a melancholy
pleasure, to enjoy which I would stand for hours in the
cold spring nights. They carry me back to " life's morn
ing march when my bosom was young," and on the
sound of their plaintive cry there arise before me in long
review, all the sweet memories of boy and childhood.
The drumming of the pheasants, as we called them — the
ruffed grouse — affects me in like manner, but not so
fully, as the whip-poor-will only sang to me and set me

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 67
to contemplating in my own dreamy way, the silence of
the night or th§ glory of the starlight, while the pheas
ant stirred up my destructiveness in the thought of
game. In the winter, when the snow was on the ground,
the pheasants would come up from the woods to pick
the buds off the peach trees, often a dozen of them at
a time. They would come about four o'clock in the
afternoon and disappear at dusk, and a good shot
could get almost any desired amount of them. But I
had no gun and had not learned to shoot, though I was
sure I could have killed meat enough to have kept the
family if I had. But when I did get a gun I never got
many of the pheasants. They were not so plenty then,
or I missed when I shot.
One of my greatest privations was the want
of a gun ; as father did not think he could afford to
buy one, or was not very deeply impressed with the im
portance of having one, I had to wait a long time for the
consummation of a powerful desire. At last I achieved a
permanent loan of one from a man in town who had
discovered that a gun was of very little use. This was
an old shot-gun — flint lock, of course — and one that
made a prodigious noise when it went off, besides kick
ing in a manner that made it nearly as dangerous to the
sportsman as to the game. It also had the habit of
snapping an infinite number of times before it would
make fire enough to go off — a feat that the game was
very apt to perform first. I was constantly subject to a
fear that the gun might burst, and between this dread
and the excitement known to hunters as " buck fever,"
I would tremble terribly when about to shoot at pheas-

68 Recollections of
ants. But the old gun came to my relief, and long be
fore I could get through with the preliminary snapping
and picking the flint, I was perfectly at ease, and free
from the tremor. The explosion would come at last,
and then away the birds would go — leaving me full of
the belief that they were wounded. But the flrst winter
I never had the luck to kill one of these pheasants. It
was a long time before I learned how to shoot game and
manage a gun. One day, when returning from a long
and fruitless hunt for squirrels, I came upon an old
pheasant, with a brood of young ones. With the hunt
ing instinct above all other feelings or thoughts, I banged
away at the bird, which was within a rod of me. Of
course I missed her, for the load of shot at that distance
would require as nice aim as a bullet, and she, as such
birds always do, when they have a nest or young, began
to flutter and roll on the ground, to divert me from her
brood. I pitched at her to take her up, when away she
flew, far enough from me. 1 then concluded to get
some of the young ones and rear them. But, though
there were a dozen of them around my feet, a minute
before, there was not one to be found now. They were
nearly the size of newly-hatched chickens, and the color
of the dry leaves, and they have a faculty of hiding that
bafiles all search for them almost anywhere, and espe
cially in the woods. Some years after, when I got to
understand them, I caught two or three young pheas
ants, but they were like drops of quicksilver to hold ;
and, after I got them home, they vanished I never could
tell how. After this old bird had disappeared, and I got
none of the little ones, I went on home, through the

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 69
twilight, an hour, when at the age of thirteen, I was
greatly inclined to muse and reflect on matters in hand.
My belief was pretty well , settled that I had wounded
the old pheasant and deprived the little ones of her care ;
so remorse took hold of me, and I went on in deep sor
row and humiliation. I remembered John Woolman's
storj'^ of killing the robin, and shared his sentiment,
though it was a full century since he was conscience
smitten for a like act. I was far from being hard-hearted
or cruel; but the brutal love of hunting game is so
strong in man, and is so natural and so overpowering,
that the boy who can withstand is a prodigy indeed.
Another acquisition after getting into the country was
a dog. This I procured in the shape of an ungainly half-
breed hound — whose other blood was " mongrel, puppy,
whelp, and cur of low degree " indeed — and called him
Bull. He was expected to bring large supplies of game,
which he never did, though he was pretty good at run
ning squirrels up trees, and barking below till I could
get a shot at them. The first winter we had him, how
ever, he found game one night, of the character of which
there was no question, as the odor of it woke the family
up at midnight. He killed it near the house ; and next
morning it was viewed by the family as a curiosity, and
discussed as to its many qualities and habits, prominent
among which we decided to be a relish for poultry, and
what my brother Tom called a brown smell. This thing
was thrown down the hill, where it lay all winter on the
snow ; and in the spring, if it was moved at all, it smelt
as brown as ever. Poor Bull was in bad odor for a long
time also ; but it passed off; and he went forward in the

70 Recollections of
many duties of a dog's life, and acquired skill in digging
after chipmonks, woodchucks, and rabbits, and treeing
squirrels in the fields where they could be made to jump
to the ground, when he would catch them in his mouth.
But his great feat was hunting opossums, which would
fight fiercely if need be. Bull's plan with them was to
snap them and shake them helpless. This was also his
plan with snakes. If he found one, he would bark at it
fiercely till we would come up, and hiss him on, when,
the next moment, the snake would be seen flopping on
each side of his head, till shaken to bits.

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 71

CHAPTER X.
River Island— River Encroachments — A Family Fresh from England
— Early Steamboats — Excitement of a Boat's Arrival — Size and
Shape of Steamboats — Fuel for Boats.
My Uncle Powell, whom I spoke of before, took our
town house, and occupied it till the opening of spring,
when he rented a farm on the famous Mingo Bottom, the
place where Colonel Williamson's men rendezvoused
when they started on their infamous expedition against
the Moravian Indians of Gnadenhiitten. It is about
three miles below Steubenville, where the tracks of the
Pan-Handle and River Shore Railroads meet or separate.
Mingo Bottom was in that day really much larger than
now ; for the river has washed away many valuable acres
from it since I first knew it. The last time I saw it, the
loss of land within my own observation was probably
fifty acres — besides a great part of the island, which is
now very little more than a sand-bar and tow-head of wil
lows. Then it was covered with large trees, and a voy
age to that island, which was not cultivated, and was out
of the reach of cattle, afforded a regular Robinson
Crusoe adventure. I always thought there, "I am
monarch of all I survey ;" for if there was a gleam of
poetry or romance in any thing it usually affected me.
Among the natural growths of this island, I remember
hops, which seemed identical with the cultivated kinds,
running over the bushes and brush of the drift-wood.

72 Recollections of
Since that I have often found them in places not much
disturbed by cattle, and where the ground was rich.
They are doubtless indigenous to this state, or the south
ern parts of it.
My uncle's family then consisted of five boys and
three daughters. They, being recently from England,
were strange in much of their manners and notions of
things ; and it fell to me show them American ways,
which I taught rather authoritatively when we were to
gether. They had to learn the customs of the country,
that I understood, while their foreign customs were no
equivalent, not being applicable here. For this reason
they always deferred to me, and I sometimes took on airs.
But I was very fond of my cousins, and we never quarreled
or diff"ered unless they differed among themselves and
obliged me to take sides. My uncle, as a new comer, was
so unacquainted with the habits and manners of the peo
ple, in which I was at home, that he took me into associa
tion as an equal on this account. My aunt was very kind
to me, and as she had come out of the world into the
rustic West, later than our family, she had more of the
air of the world about her, and cultivated a regard for
it, that father from his religious scruples had set at
naught. Her manners had a charm for me, and what
she reflected of English life was so much romance to
my view. Of course I need not say that I was fond of
going to the Powells whenever I could, though they
lived nearly eight miles from us ; and they were equally
fond of visiting us. To me there was the additional
charm of their living on the bank of the river ; and
when there I improved every opportunity of rowing on

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 73
the water, swimming, and, above all things, of going
to the island. In early times there had been frequent
skirmishes with the Indians at this point, and it was
quite a common thing for us to find bullets buried in the
bank of the river, where they had apparently been shot
from boats, indicating some sharp contests.
This was the period when steamboats were begin
ning to take their place in the navigation of the Ohio,
and when the stream was full they made occasional trips
up and down the river. Their appearance would create
a great excitement along the banks, and at the towns and
villages their arrival and landing were great occasions.
The citizens turned out, and civic ceremonies were ob
served between those in command of the boat and those
in command of the town. At Steubenville they had a
a little cannon, with which they always fired salutes on
these occasions ; and the steamboats also carried a gun,
with which they announced their arrivals and purpose
landing. On the departure of a boat the like ceremony
was observed. I remember, on one occasion, I was in
town, in 1820 (in March, I suppose, from its being cold
weather), when a steamboat was said to be seen far down
the river, and the people were gathered in groups to dis
cuss the subject. At one tavern where there was a kind
of lookout upon the roof, a man was stationed with a
spy-glass to report progress. He announced the ap
proach, which was very slow, as there was a strong cur
rent, with the opinion that there was something wrong
with the machinery, as she was about to land. This
cast dismay over the crowd, and there was a general
rush for the river bank, to see what could be learned

74 .. Recollections of
there. But she crept along up the shore till about a
mile and a half below town, where she stopped ; when
there was a grand rush of men and big boys through the
mud down the river bank to see the steamer, as if there
never had been and never would be another. Prom the
landing several salutes were fired, but received no an
swer. The engine was out of order, and when the cu
rious crowd arrived the steamboatmen threw out a cable,
by which the people towed the boat into port.
These steamboats were a queer style of water-craft,
as they had not assumed the forms that were afterward
found to be suited to the river navigation. Their builders
copied the models of ships adapted to deep water, and
the boats all drew too much water to be available in the
dry season, so that they really could not be used on the
upper Ohio more than about three months in the year.
They looked just like a small ship without masts. Some
of them were of peculiar models, and all had very little
power in comparison with later boats. Very few of
them could make over two or three miles against the
stream when it was strong. When Fulton commenced
steamboat building, he patented the side paddle-wheels,
and held a monopoly of that form of boat. This led to
an evasion in many of the western boats, which con
sisted of placing a wheel on each side of the keel at the
stern of the vessel, so that the wheels were out of sight
except from behind. The present stern wheels on river
boats are a later and very different invention, and
served a different purpose, being designed to place the
wheel out of the current and clear the boat of the drag

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 75
of its eddy. The first boats had no more decking than
a common sailing vessel.
The business of the country was then very small,
and few boats served the purpose. The habit of carry
ing off the produce of the country to New Orleans in
flat-boats continued for a long time after the steamers
were introduced, as being cheaper and better adapted
to the seasons of shipping. It was only after steamers
had become very common, growing in numbers with the
country, that they took the business. It was some time
before boats could obtain a proper supply of fuel. They
all burned wood, and it took time to establish wood-
yards. It often happened that crews of boats would
have to land and cut wood, and it was very common for
them to buy a piece of fence on the banks and use the
rails for fuel.

76 Recollections of

CHAPTER XI.
Immense Crop of Peaches— Kiln-drying Peaches— Building a Kiln-
Process of Drying— Making Peach Leather— Methods of Cook
ery — Out-ovens for Baking — Making an Out-oven.
The period of which I write, as that in which we
lived on the farm on Wills Creek, was from February,
1819, to April 1, 1822 ; and for convenience I group
these years together, as easier than to be restricted to
exact dates.
The spring of 1820, our second in the country,
passed through without frost, and we had a fruitful
season. The peach crop was too great for us to manage,
and much of it went to waste. After what we could
sell, the only way of saving them was to dry them,
which it was customary to do on a primitive kind of
kiln that was made of stones and clay. Two, and some
times three, parallel walls were built, about eighteen
inches high, and the same distance apart. Broad, flat
stones were then laid upon these walls, so as to cover
the walls and space between them, thus giving a surface
of three to four feet wide and eight or ten long ; the
spaces between the walls were used as flues, one end be
ing left open for fire and the other having a little chim
ney to it. The whole kiln was covered to the depth of
three inches with clay mortar, into which cut straw or
grass had been mixed, smoothed down and left to dry.
When dry, fire was built in the flues, and they were

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 77
made ready for use ; the kiln was mostly covered with a
shed roof supported with posts. The broad stones,, when
subjected to the action of fire, were very liable to crack
and break down, and sometimes to explode ; if this hap
pened when they were covered with peaches, as it did
once with us, it was decidedly startling and unpleasant in
its effect upon the fruit.
After the kiln was ready and the peaches ripe, we
gathered them to the amount of several bushels, and cut
them into halves, dropping out the stones. They were
then laid evenly upon the kiln, with the rind down, and
subjected to the fire, which through the stones and clay,
gave off a very gentle and steady heat. As the peaches
shrank they were moved closer together, and fresh ones
put on to cover the space. In this way a succession was
kept up of fresh and dried peaches till the week was out,
which in that Presbyterian country was scrupulously
ended at midnight on Saturday. When the peach dry
ing season came on, the entire family, big and little, was
brought into requisition and all learned the art. A very
large amount of fruit was thus preserved. It was the
only way then known of preserving peaches, except in
sugar, for this was thirty years before canning was thought
of. We dried some in the sun, which was reckoned a
nicer way than on a kiln, but it was very slow and ex
posed to trouble from wet weather.
The peach leather, which I have already men
tioned, was made by peeling very ripe peaches, and
after taking out the stones, mashing the pulp to an
even consistence and spreading it on a clean board,
sheets of tin, plates, etc., from a quarter to a third

78 Recollections of
of an inch thick, and placing it in the sun. It would
dry down to about one-half its thickness, and become
tough enough to remain in sheets, when it was rolled
up and put away. This, I think, is the nicest preparation
of peaches I ever knew ; but it seems never to have come
into very general use. We made all we could of this
leather, which stood us good stead in the winter.
As in that day there were no cooking stoves, all
cooking was done on an open fire — ^that is, frying, broil
ing, boiling, baking, and roasting — and these were pretty
well and conveniently done, with properly constructed
utensils, though we knew nothing of the English spit
and jack. Mother did occasionally roast a pair of fowls,
or a turkey, or joint of meat, by hanging it up in front
of the fire by a strong cord, and having one of the chil
dren to watch and keep it turning steadily till it was
done, and at intervals of a few minutes basting it with
the gravy caught in a dripping-pan beneath. This made
a delicious roast, and I can not believe that any other
style of roasting would equal it. Baking, in emergencies,
was done in a kind of flat-bottomed pot, called a Dutch
oven, which stood upon three legs of three inches long,
and had an iron lid. Into this bread or meats were
put, and baked, by placing it on the hearth with a
quantity of coals under it and upon the lid, which was
made with a rim to keep the coals upon it, and a loop
handle to lift it by. It also had a bail like a pot, by
which it could be hung over the fire. Spiders or skillets
and frying pans were used for frying meats and cakes,
and especially ham and eggs. The spiders usually had
covers like the Dutch ovens, and were used for baking

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 79
biscuits, etc. The fire-places were furnished with cranes
and other contrivances for hanging things over the fire.
But the baking proper was done in an out-oven,
which was made of bricks or clay, some of the clay
ones being extemporized in a very primitive manner. As
we had no oven on the place, I undertook to make one
of clay; and I succeeded pretty well — that is, made
an unsightly thing that did good baking. I had to
build several ovens, for the storms would destroy them
through the winter because we had no shed over tbem ;
and as I was only thirteen years old when I built the
first, I guess I did not do so badly. I began by build
ing up a cob-house of little logs to the proper height;
then I fioored it with rough boards, on which I put a
good layer of clay mortar, covering a surface of three by
four feet, which was left to dry. I then built up the
doorway, with small flat stones, as I had no bricks, lay
ing them in clay mortar, using a large stone for the arch
of the door. Back of this doorway I piled old wood
and chips in a heap of the general outline of the oven,
smoothing it up with bark of old logs and other small
stuff", with a coating of straw. Upon it I put well mixed
clay, into which straw had been worked, to the thickness
of three or four inches, covering the whole evenly and
smoothing it with a wooden trowel, and thus forming
the arch and walls of the oven. A hole was made in the
top of the back part for a smoke vent, and then it was left
to dry for a few days, when I put on another coating of
clay. When this was dry I had only to set fire to the
wood inside, which burned out, leaving the clay of the

80 Recollections of
oven baked and about the consistency of soft bricks, well
arched and smooth inside. It was now ready for use,
and twice or thrice a week a fire of light, dry wood
would be kindled in it, by which it was heated for
baking. Then the coals would be raked out, and the
bottom swept with a wet broom or mop ; the loaves were
shoveled in, the hole in the back plugged up, and the
door closed. If pies were to be baked they were put in
after the bread was about half done. For meat it was
made extra hot, and this it baked splendidly. As my
sister was delicate for her age, it fell to me to help
mother a good deal, and thus I became familiar with
these details. The neighbors had their clay ovens, and
I saw how they were made ; but the first I saw made I
made myself. I have still a prejudice that neither bread
nor pies can be baked to taste so well as those baked
in ovens of this kind, either brick or clay; and as to
peach pies, they have never been baked to suit me since
such ovens went out of fashion.

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 81

CHAPTER XII.
Mistakes in Farming — Plowing with a Pony — Cattle in the Woods-
Memorable Fog — The Boatman's Horn — Rafts on the River.
About the time we had got our forage together for
the first year we really had scarcely enough for the cow
and horse, but father had a strong notion of raising
sheep; and so he made an arrangement with some of
the sheep growers of Steubenville to take a lot of sheep
of them in the fall, and in payment for these he was
to give them back the same number of lambs the next
fall, or as soon as he raised that many. Of course he
took ewes, for the sake of the increase and the means of
paying for the flock. But the wool growers took good
care to give us old ewes. The result of this was that we
had the care and expense of keeping more sheep than
the land would sustain, and realized nothing but the
wool, which was low in price. We increased the num
ber of our cows also, and soon had too many of them.
I remember that father bought one cow, two years old,
and calf, for six dollars. The cow was small, without
horns and milk-white. This kind of hornless cows was
common in that country, but, though they had no horns
to hook with, they were not usually good tempered, and
if angry would butt with the top of the head.
The second year I set about plowing with an old
plow we had, which was one of the most unpromising
things in its way I ever remember seeing. I think it

82 Recollections of
was the longest of all farm implements. As we had but
one horse, my plowing was conflned to plowing between
the rows of corn, and as Paddy was a beast with a will —
indeed, the very strongest part of him was his will — I
could not guide him with a line, so my brother Tom had
to ride and guide him. When the corn was small he
would get out of the rows and trample the corn, and
when it had grown to some size he would stop to eat it
in spite of all the efforts we could make with loud hal
looing on my part and vigorous thrashing on Tom's
part. The harness we used was rather primitive, con
sisting in toto of bridle, collar, hames, back-band and
traces. The hardest thing to manage was to get hame-
strings that would stand a hard pull, or the jerking
Paddy was given to. It was not an uncommon thing,
when we were going through a corn row, for the point
of the coulter to strike a root or stone, when the hame-
string would break and the harness and Tom would come
flying off over the horse's rump, Tom in a high state
excitement and Paddy walking off to the first good bunch
of grass with the most profound indifference to the state
of aff"airs. We had no buckles to the harness, and with
our little hands we could not tie a knot that would stand.
It was the same when we hauled wood, which we mostly
did by the process called " snaking." We would tie a
chain around the end of a log, and thereby drag it on
the ground. If the log was small, or there was snow,
we got along pretty well ; but if the load was heavy, we
usually had a scene of balking and harness breaking
trying to my patience and unpleasant to Tom if he rode.
Paddy was a safe horse — that is, he was small, and it did

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 83
not hurt any one to fall from him, and if he did n't stay
in his tracks he _ was always to be found where there
was something to eat. But this is my observation re
specting ponies, donkeys, and boys — there is almost in
variably too much expected of them ; and they are re
quired to do more than they can. In the matter of
horses, "get the best." You want a horse for his
strength, therefore get a strong one. Father made, or
rather caused his boys (and me as the oldest) to make a
miserable failure in farming, by getting first one and
then two ponies, and expecting them to do the work of
horses. In the summer our cows ran in the woods, which
were unfenced, and so they had to be hunted up in the
little valleys whither they would stray. Usually they
would come up in the evenings and stay till morning
near the house, but if they failed to come up, and stayed
out over night, we would have a long hunt for them.
This was an excuse for a ramble in the woods that was
never without some kind of adventure. Though I felt
the importance of having the cows milked regularly, I
never failed to enjoy searching after them, and the more
as it led me into new places, or to great distances. The
land there was made up of so many small valleys
and their intervening hills and rocks, that there was
constant change of scene ; and when these were still
covered with their native growth of rather small timber,
including pitch-pine, hemlock and the flowering laurel,
which is a variety of the rhododendron, and the trees
often draped with wild grape-vines, they were most
charming places for enjoying my turn for the romantic.

84 Recollections of
The fall of 1819 was marked by the prevalence of a
dense fog mixed with the smoke of the clearings of the
forests that made it impossible to see any considerable
distance for many days. From the boats on the river
the banks could not be seen, nor the boats from the banks.
It was customary for the boatmen to carry tin horns with
them, from which they sent forth a wild music through
the fog that still sounds to me most enchantingly. The
notes were all on a minor key, soft and weird, and when
its source was unseen it seemed like the wail of a spirit.
I do not wonder that General Wm. O. Butler made that
horn the burden of his only poetic effort, and sang :
" 0, boatman ! wind that horn again,
For never did the listening air
Upon its ambient bosom bear
So soft, so wild, so sweet a strain.
What tho' thy notes be sad and few,
Yet, boatman, wind thy horn again I
Tho' much of sorrow mark its strain,
Yet are its notes to sorrow dear,
Yet is each pulse to nature true,
And melody in every tone."
As all navigation of the rivers that could be was done
by floating, the lumber from the upper river was all
rafted, and in the spring and early summer, when the
water was flush, the rafts were a leading feature of the
river life. They were made up through the winter on
the small branches of the Alleghany, and floated out on
the first spring freshet. Sometimes several rafts would
be joined together, till they would cover an acre of space,
or even more. On these were built shanties for the men,
and vast heaps of shingles and lath in bundles occupied

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 85
a part of the space. As the lumber region of Penn
sylvania and New York, drained by the Alleghany, was
a pretty good place to emigrate from, families were con
stantly leaving for the countries down the river, and they
made these rafts available as the means of moving. In
deed, for the purpose nothing could be more convenient,
for the movers could build themselves a comfortable
shanty of the loose lumber, a shed for their horses or cows,
if they wanted to take them along, and be quite at home
during a journey that would often occupy three or four
weeks. I have seen the shanties of two or three fami
lies, with wagons, horses, cows, and even poultry, all
snugly situated, with room for the children to play out
side. Often I have seen the women washing, and a
clothes-line hung with the linen, as if in the door-yard
they had left. Perhaps there never was so complete a
picture of the voyage of life as one of these raft emigra
tion journeys presented in this way. To the young chil
dren it must have had an incomparable charm. I know
I often watched them from the bank of the river with
longing envy. To think of being always on the river,
where there was no conflnement to close quarters, and
where you could stand on the water's edge and fish, and
watch the passing shore, with all its changes of scene, to
me was enchantment. Perhaps the children on the rafts
did not see it thus. The parents who felt all the anxiety
of the emigrant did not, most certainly.

86 Recollections of

CHAPTER Xm.
Helping Move to Coshocton County — Transportation — Driving the
Stock— The Movers' Room at the Tavern — Homesiek Horses — A
Long Ride Back — Camp-meeting in the Rain — Dismal Expe
rience — Another Camp-meeting — One of the Mourners — Desire
for Conversion — Unbelief.
In the spring of 1821, my uncle Powell left Mingo
Bottom to settle in Coshocton county, on the Tuscarawas
river, near White Eyes Plains, then a wild and only par
tially settled country. He was not able to buy land, but
took a lease of a tract for seven years, the conditions of
which were, that he was to reduce the land to cultivation
and have the produce for his compensation — the quan
tity of land that he should clear being a matter of his
own choice. The occasion of their family's moving was
an event for me, particularly as I was engaged to assist
in driving their farm stock a part of the way, and they
had the use of our pony, Paddy, to help get their wagons,
of which there were two, over the hills. The starting
of this expedition was very elaborate ; and as the distance
to be traveled was about eighty miles, it took on the
character of an overland journey to strange lands.
Preparations were fully made for victualing the forces,
and the commissary department was active for days be
forehand. As they were going to a new country, they
sold off nothing, but took all they could of household
or farm utensils. Consequently, the transportation was
heavy. They hired a wagon besides their own, and left

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 87
much stuff for subsequent transportation. The loading
up of the wagons occupied nearly the whole day of start
ing, and it was late in the afternoon when we mustered
the cattle, sheep and pigs in the rear of the wagons. In
this service, besides my cousins and me, there were two
boys who made it the occasion to visit the new set
tlement, and an additional volunteer force from the
neighbors. To start off such a mixed drove of animals was no
trifling affair, for, though they would drive pretty well
after getting used to the road and a day or two's expe
rience, their obstinacy and contrariety at flrst was with
out parallel, and a boy to each animal was little enough.
First, a pig would dart back and run like a deer till he
was headed and turned, by which time the others would
meet him and all have to be driven up ; while in the
meantime a cow or two would be sailing down a by-lane
with elevated head and tail, and a breathless boy circling
through a field or the woods to intercept her career ; and
then the sheep would start over a broken piece of fence,
the last following the first and leaping higher over every
obstacle till they were brought back to the road.
We worked along till night, when we put up, about
seven miles from the starting point. We stopped at a
tavern, as was then the custom, only hiring the use of
one room, on the first fioor, known as the movers' room,
and the privilege of the fire to make tea or coffee or fry
bacon. It was very much like camping out, and, except
that we were housed, was soldiers' quarters. This night
two of the horses were taken with homesickness and, as
they were not well secured, went back to the old place.

88 Recollections of
The wagoner started after them at daylight, but it was
noon before they were brought back, after which the
line of march was taken up. This was Sunday, and
though they were very strict about the Sabbath in that
Presbyterian country, movers were tolerated in traveling
on that day from an admitted necessity. With my uncle
and his assistants there was no matter of conscience
about it. All they asked was, not to be fined. One of
the wagons was disabled directly after we started by the
breaking of the king-bolt, for which a wooden pin was
substituted till we could reach a blacksmith shop, three
miles further on, and it was a question whether he would
mend it. But he was found to be sufficiently utilitarian,
or sinful, to light up his fire and weld the bolt, after
which we moved up a long hill to our stopping-place,
fifteen miles on the way.
The next day we got along pretty well and reached
Cadiz, in Harrison county, about three o'clock ; and here
they concluded to let me return with Paddy. I was then
twenty-three miles from home, and it was a long ride on
a lazy horse to make so late in the day. My uncle
thought it best that I should go on and stay with them
that night, but my aunt insisted that, though it would
be a long, lonely ride for me, I would not suffer as much
as she was sure my mother was suffering from anxiety,
for I was more than a day beyond the time they expected
me home. So I bade them good-by and mounted Paddy,
with a rather heavy heart, for I hated being out in the
night, and set off on a slow trot. I stopped once to feed
him, but otherwise lost no time. It was very dismal
and pretty cold (April 2lBt), and about midnight I

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 89
reached home, to the great relief of mother, who could
in no way account for the delay in my return. My aunt
was right in sending me back that night.
In 1820, about the first of October, there was a
camp-meeting in the west part of Jeff"erson county, near
a place called Springfield. On Sunday morning of this
meeting father and I set out to attend it, walking the
whole distance of twelve miles, which, for a boy of my
age, was a pretty good walk, especially as we wanted to
make it in time for morning preaching. I was very tired
when I got there, and also pretty hungry. We had
a lunch with us, but I was very bashful about eating be
fore people, and still more so at a strange table. The
brethren invited father to eat, including me, but I would
declare I was not hungry, and went without, except as I
could sneak a cake from my pocket, and thus stay my
appetite. In the evening it came on to rain, and rained
steadily till morning. The cloth tents afforded but poor
shelter, and there were but very few wooden ones, or
wood-covered huts ; and, at any rate, I was too timid to
go into any of them. Father was lost to me in the crowds
of those who were singing and praying in the tents or
at the altar, and I did not want to go into these crowds,
as I should be beset by those who were pressing every
uncomfortable looking person to be prayed for ; and I
know I must have felt that, as to apppearance, I came
within that rule. I was wet, hungry and tired, and did
not know anybody. My resort was to stand under the
platforms on which they had fires burning for lights,
until I got cold, and then go to one of the big log-heap
fires and warm and dry my clothes a little, though it

90 Recollections of
took pretty steady roasting in this way to keep ahead of
the rain. There were many other like untrained chaps
who put in the night in this way, and we kept in a kind
of gang of miserables who were company for each other.
We could hear some fellow of a poetic turn occasionally
allude to the rain in his prayer in a favorite formula,
which was in this wise : " While thou art watering the
earth with refreshing showers, pour out showers to re
fresh our thirsty souls," etc. This for one who had a
roof over his head would do, but we who stood outside
utterly failed to appreciate the beauty of it. That night
the presiding elder preached a pretty stirring sermon
from the text : " Say unto the righteous it shall go well
with Mm, and unto the wicked it shall go ill with him,
for he shall eat the fruit of his doings." I remember
very distinctly that I followed him attentively till the
rain drove me from my seat ; and I suppose the sermon
was an eff"ective one, for there was a lively time in spite
of the rain. On the way home father asked me if I did
not feel aff"ected by it. I said, very truthfully, in view
of my physical discomfort, that I felt badly. I was glad
to say this, for I hoped it would close the conversation
on that topic ; but he stuck to it, and, as I think, very
imprudently intimated to me that he should expect me
to become religious if I remained in the family. The
effect on me was not good, but it was short, as it would
be with one so young. I can not even now understand
what effect he expected ' to produce on me. He must
have been led away by his enthusiasm. I really did not
feel indiff"erent to the importance of trying to live prop
erly, but there was a kind of sanctity attached to all re-

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 91
ligious experience, in my mind, that overawed me, and
kept me away. It seemed as if some setting of me aside
from the rest of mankind was to be passed through, and
this deterred me, when I might have been led, in a com
mon sense way, to be quite religious.
But once at home from this camp meeting, I was
not disturbed on the subject for some time, and relapsed
into the ordinary routine of such life as the country af
forded, of free and easy boy's pursuits in the woods or
fields — sinless enough in themselves, but in father's
view, worldly and wicked because not specially religious.
I really was quite orderly, never swore, was not cruel or
unkind, and never lied unless closely pressed, or tempted
by the love of the marvelous. I suppose if I had
chopped down a cherry-tree I should hardly have hur
ried to say I did it, unless the chopping of the tree was
an achievement in the way of woodmanship. Things
wore on in this way till the June of 1821, when I was a
little over fourteen years old. Father then took me
with him to another camp-meeting, which was held
about ten miles from Steubenville, near the line of the
now so-called Pan Handle Railway, and some six miles
from where we lived. We started on foot, on Saturday
morning, with an arrangement ahead for our lodging
when there. I do not remember a more delightful walk
than we had that bright summer morning. Nature was
in her loveliest attire, and
" The day so mild, seemed Heaven's own child.
With Earth and Heaven reconciled."
The song of one thrush by the side of a field is
ringing in my ears yet. We reached the ground in

92 . Recollections of
good time in the morning, and were comfortably fixed
for tent room, with several young men and women in
the tent family, who made it pleasant for me, so much
their junior as not to be considered a young man, before
whom it was necessary to be dignified ; and the mistress
of the tent took me under her protection. It was a nice
thing for me to sit in the tent or go about the ground at
will, while father plunged into the depths of the meet
ing, and I escaped his importunities for a time. But
through Sunday two or three of the young women and
one young man were " converted." They soon beset me
with their zealous exhortations, which, with the sphere
that they established in the tent, so affected me that I
yielded to their entreaties to be prayed for among " the
mourners." So I became a regular attendant at each
prayer-meeting for " mourners," and spent the intervals
moping about in a very doleful condition of mind, till
Monday night, when after a time the meeting in " the
ring " broke up, and all dispersed to the tents. In the
tent where I was there were no special mourners, and
they were singing some lively hymns, in which I joined
with a good deal of spirit. Here a very happy sphere
prevailed, and I seemed to be so involved in it that I
sang most joyfully and felt very happy. This change of
feeling I supposed was the so-much-talked-of conversion,
and accepted it as such. Believing that I had " experi
enced a change of heart," and was thus in some way
introduced into a new state of life, and by it lifted to a
superior, as well as safer condition, as to my spiritual
aft"airs, I felt a freedom from the sorrow and repentant
mood I had been in, and was in an altogether ecstatic

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 93
state. I had been taught to believe that my sins had
been forgiven by the Divine favor or grace, and that I
was a new creature, born again and converted. I acted
according to this instruction, and regarded myself as set
apart or sanctified to a holy life ; and with this I ac
cepted a new responsibility, and I earnestly set about the
task of curbing my temper, avoiding by -words of a pro
fane tendency, — I never was in the habit of swearing,
as I said, — and carefully telling the truth. For many
weeks it is wonderful how rigidly I lived, considering
my youth and natural inclinations, adding to these sup
pressions of evil, a great care to be serious, and not in
dulge in any play or " light and trifling conversation."
But this earnest living, or trying to live righteously, was
not regarded as the evidence of my being religious. In
common with others, I understood religion to mean a
certain amount of enjoyment at meetings and at private
devotions, which was known as " an answer to prayer,"
after a certain amount of " wrestling." In the first flush
of my enthusiasm, I thought I experienced this two or
three times ; but as it was something that I misunder
stood, and perhaps others misunderstood too, the " en
joyments of religion" soon failed me, and I began to
think I was backsliding and " falling away from grace."
I labored hard in all the appointed ways to regain it. I
assiduously attended all the meetings, prayed in secret
many times a day, and procured the prayers of others ;
but that peculiar experience never returned to me. I
kept along in the church as a regular attendant of all
meetings, etc. As a youth, I was fond of company and
naturally fond of fun and hilarity ; and in time I man-

94 Recollections of
aged to loosen the bands of restraint under which I first
set out, and so share reasonably in the pleasures of life.
But in the midst of it I was haunted with the fear that
I fell entirely short of living a Christian life, and my
religious career of nearly seven years was marred with
the weight of a sense of short-comings and backslidings ;
in fact, I didn't enjoy religion at all.
When I first set out, my confidence in the idea that
I was born again, and thence saved, gave me a kind of
self-righteous bigotry toward the unconverted herd of
sinners. This did not last long, and I soon came to
think that I was a frail mortal with the rest of them.
All this time I received very little instruction in doc
trinal matters; and my faith, or belief, was extremely
vague ; and when I did come to investigate it, and ana
lyze it, I very soon fell into unbelief, so that by the time
I was twenty-one years old, I was really without a re
ligious faith of any kind, doubting all revelation, or even
spiritual existence ; and this in a religious family, with
daily prayers, and constant church going. But I became
somewhat scrupulous about retaining a connection with
the church, when I could not yield it my credence, so I
allowed myself to be expelled from the Methodist
Church for an off'ense — not now regarded as one — the non-
attendance of class meetings, after a membership of over
seven years.

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 95

CHAPTER XIV.
The Wills Creek Place Given Up— Unfitness of the Family for Farm
Life — A New and Better Farm Bought on Mingo Bottom — Want
of Schooling — A Night Grammar School — Grammar and Plow
ing — Making Sugar — The Scotch-Irish— A Scotch-Irish Neighbor
— A Character — Psychological Experience.
The foregoing experience was begun when we
lived on the hill above Wills Creek. Near the end of
the three years we lived there father gave up the hope
of making the final payments on the land, and compro
mised with the former owner by surrendering the pay
ments he had made, as so much rent, and giving up his
bargain. In that respect he lost nothing, though labor
bestowed upon the place was a great loss, for it never
yielded back any thing beyond the cost of culture.
After deciding to leave this place, it seemed that the
idea of living in the country and trying to farm, stuck
by father with the tenacity of an affection for a good-
for-nothing child. It never seemed to enter his head
that having utterly failed to gain any advantage in the
support of the family out of the farm, it would have
been the sensible course to have gone into town where
we should have had the social advantages, as well as op
portunities to make the labor of his boys available in
assisting him in the general support of the family.
Instead of this course, he looked about to find a small
farm to rent, near enough to town for him to be home
at least two or three times a week, and for us to go to

96 Recollections of
meeting in town every Sunday and occasionally oftener.
After some search he found a place of twenty -three acres
of tillable land, and log-cabin, barn, etc., in a small way.
It had some conveniences, as a good spring, a log spring-
house, timber privileges, a small number of sugar-trees,
from which to make sugar and molasses. The soil
was tolerably good, and it was a better place than the
old one. I think he rented it all for forty dollars a
year. The situation was also better, though less pic
turesque ; and it was nearer to town, being three miles
around the road, and about two by a near route up steep
hills and across fields. It was straight up the hill from
Mingo Bottom, and about a mile from the river, over
looking a very fine view of it, reaching several miles
down the stream and across the hills into Virginia.
Altogether it was rather pleasant, and just enough bet
ter than the old one for farming to waken in us a remote
hope of success in that business, and settle the family in
it, so that when we received a small legacy from my
grandfather's estate, it was devoted to the purchase of
a farm, on which we worked out the problem of being
farmers in entire failure.
The great difficulty with the family was that we did
not belong to the farming class. Our tastes and social
ideas were all in another direction ; and we were just
near enough to town to keep alive this feeling, which
stood in the way of success in the country. Mother's
and father's standards of manners and tastes were
above those of the people with whom we would have
associated in the country, and the effect with the chil
dren was to foster in them a haughty notion of superi-

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 97
ority to our neighbors, which they could not fail to ob
serve, and did not omit to despise, especially as we were
far inferior to them in the business on which we de
pended. The consequence was : we belonged to neither
the country nor the town ; we were of the one, and in
the other. In this state of things, I managed to be tol
erably popular with the young people of the country,
from my naturally social turn. So far as the work was
concerned, the boys learned to do it, and my mother and
sister got to be handy in whatever there was to do, and
worked hard, without any thing to make it pleasant for
them beyond the mere comfort of the situation, out of
the crowded town. For my part, I had a great taste for
rural life, because it was free, romantic and poetic ; and
I liked the work that was to be done ; but the quantity
of the work to be done, and the constant devotion it
required, made it slavish to me and irksome, in that it
cut me off from the gratification of my taste for books
and letters.
The worst feature of our life was its waste of our
time, and the loss of that kind of education we should
have had. The family got comparatively no schooling;
and had it not been for the home-teaching and study,
we must have grown up in the most deplorable manner.
But father had good taste, with which he inspired us,
and mother was fond of teaching us in such studies as
she could, which fortunately were those afforded by the
common schools of that time and locality. The younger
children did go to school part of the time while we lived
in the country, but I never did. After we moved to the
place nearer town, I took some night lessons in writing

98 Recollections of
and attended an evening school where grammar was the
only study, and in which I made good progress. I
studied hard, and followed it up after the lessons were
through, so that I acquired a pretty thorough under
standing of the subject. But two things could not be
well done at one time, and while I was learning gram
mar I did not make the most of the time at work. I
carried my book in my pocket, and kept up my lessons
by frequent reference to the text, often stopping the
plow to see if I was right in my recollection of a point.
This grammar class that I attended, was managed
on a plan then quite popular, and deservedly so, as it
gave to young men, and even those advanced in life, an
opportunity to learn such sciences as were not taught in
the common schools, or such as they had not learned
when young. The plan was to make up a class, which
was usually instructed by some traveling teacher, the
members studying the lessons at leisure times and reciting
and practicing at a stated hour, together, usually in the
evening. At the time I speak of I remember as mem
bers of the class men of fifty and boys of thirteen or
fourteen. Perhaps the youngest of the class was Ed
win Stanton, the well-known secretary of war. The
oldest was a justice of the peace and leading man in the
town. It was otherwise made up of a young lawyer or
two, an old shoemaker, a student of medicine, and sun
dry mechanics. The teacher was a hatter.
At our new place I set to work with new spirit and
a good deal of enjoyment. The soil was so much better
than the Wills Creek farm that we expected to raise
good crops, in which we succeeded tolerably. But the

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 99
great feature in this place was the sugar-camp, wnich,
though small, gave promise of some sugar-making. We
boys looked forward to the next spring for this novelty
to us, and it was with the greatest difficulty I could mus
ter patience to get me through the winter. I built a hut
for shelter, and a furnace of stone in which to set the
kettles for boiling the water, and then gathered wood for
fuel, and made ready as far as I could. But the winter
hung on, till in January there came a fine spell of soft
weather, which I supposed might last a week or two ;
and as the sugar-water would run as well then as any
time, I got ready and tapped a part of the trees. I
gathered a little water in the evening, and looked for
ward to a fine run the next day, but that night there
came a fall of snow that was half leg deep. This checked
up the business, for it soon froze up and all was solid
winter. I boiled down my little supply of water, and
left it to go to the house, with a good fire to keep it
simmering. But it boiled dry and burned up clean. I
had nothing left but to begin again when the winter
broke, which was near the first of March, when I went
at it in earnest and made some very good sugar, of which
I was very proud. The quantity, however, did not ex
ceed one hundred pounds. We made a small quantity
each year while we stayed there, but it was rather un
profitable. At this place we had a neighbor by the name of
James S., who was from the neighborhood of Belfast,
Ireland, and was of Scotch descent — one of a race of
people with which that part of the country was nearly
all settled. Indeed, a very large extent of country in

100 Recollections of
South-western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio, covering
the greater part of the upper end of the Ohio Valley, was
first settled by the Scotch-Irish. They were of a stock
of Scotchmen who, a few centuries back, settled in the
north of Ireland, whence they emigrated to the United
States, and chiefly this part. It seems as if a touch of
the Irish soil makes a man easy as to the cares of the
world, and takes from him all that character for prov
idence that so marks the Scotchman, under the term
"canny." And these Irish immigrants were thus af
fected. They were light-hearted and jolly, though more
prudent and thrifty than the pure stock of Irish. They
were of the Presbyterian faith in religion, very demo
cratic in politics, and took kindly to whisky, of which
they made and drank large quantities, different indi
viduals usually doing the making and drinking. Of this
people was James S. To whisky he bore the latter rela
tion, and was usually under its influence when it was
handy. He had been pretty well brought up in Ireland,
being of a clergyman's family, I believe. He was intel
ligent and well read, and besides, he was well versed in
the politics of Ireland of the period succeeding the
revolution of 1798, and their relation to English politics.
He had taken part in the rebellion, perhaps from the in
nate tendency of Irishmen to rebellion at all times, for
he hated the Papists most cordially ; but he had escaped
any consequences. He was poor, because he had a large
family, and could not provide for them and drink the
whisky he wanted and save money. As we had to
hire help in our farming, he frequently worked for us.
At' any rate, I was a good deal in contact with him, and

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 101
we always talked when we were together on all manner
of subjects, he as a man of fifty and I a boy of fifteen.
He would retail what he had read, and I would inquire
and get from him his descriptions of Ireland and his de
tails of experience or tradition. Or, we would discuss
some book we had read, or one that he had lent to me or
borrowed from nae. The books he read were largely theo
logical, of the Presbyterian school, and were generally
solid works. So our conversations were seldom useless,
and to me they were often a source of a good deal of in
formation. I think it is not saying too much to put to his
credit a stock of information equal to many months of
school training. Looking back now, it seems to have been
a valuable association, though the contact of a boy with a
drunken Irishman would not usually be so regarded.
But his taste for whisky was a physical weakness, from
which he and his family were the suff"erers. I never
knew him to lead any one to drink, and his family grew
up to be steady and respectable.
My plan of pumping Mr. S. and absorbing his in
formation soon became a settled one with me, and I ap
plied it to all my associates, and made it the source of
much valuable knowledge. It was a convenient way of
coming at facts and history in a pretty weU digested and
compact form, and was a great saving of time.
About the time we moved to this place I had a
curious experience that I can not well account for by
the association of ideas. There is a little valley near
Steubenville, to the south-west of the town, and in it I
found a near cut from one place to the other, through
which I could drive the cows, sheep and pigs without

102 Recollections of
going through the town, as we should otherwise have to
have done, and thus shorten the distance and escape the
trouble of keeping them together in a strange place.
Whenever I entered this valley, at either end of it, I
was invariably aff"ected by great dejection of spirits,
which lasted until I passed out of it, and whether alone
or in company this was always the case. The distance
through it was a little less than two miles. There was
nothing about this valley, of tradition or peculiarity of sit
uation, that could call up associations, to me at least, of an
unhappy kind. But to me it was always a place of mel
ancholy shadows, and it was the only locality that ever
so affected me.

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 103

CHAPTER XV.
Schism among the Methodists — ^The Newlights — Their Theory and
Practice — Their Great Success — Washing of Blue Feet — A Cu
rious Convert — An Enemy of Marriage — Final Concession.
Our new place suited father better than the other
place, as he could come home almost any evening from
his business in the town, whilst it enabled him to go with
the family every Sunday to meeting.
Among the Methodists at that time there was a very
steady succession of meetings of one kind or another,
and those who belonged to the church found abundant
entertainment, if nothing else, in the continual round
of preaching, class and prayer meetings. There were
then very few public entertainments, and religious
meetings took the place of these for nearly all the peo
ple, A consequence of this was, that meetings were
carried to an extreme, and religious enthusiasm and ex
travagant experiences were cultivated at the expense of
propriety. There was a class of people who really made
a dissipation of their religion, and were never satis
fied unless going through the most powerfully agitating
experiences. The more thinking and less feeling of the
Methodist Church came to see that it was neither orderly
nor desirable to keep things at this state of high pres
sure all the time, and were disposed to moderate affairs
and take it more calmly. These were soon denounced
by the enthusiasts, who chafed under what they called

104 ¦ Recollections of
" a prevailing coldness," and they warred upon their spirit
as one of pride and worldliness. They complained that
they could not enjoy religion when controlled, and in
sisted that their quieter brethren did not enjoy it at all.
There was a number of ambitious brethren fond
of leading in the various meetings, who in this way
found a gratification of their spiritual pride, as well as
earthly vanity. They were always clamoring for author
ity to preach or exhort, holding that they had a spiritual
.call to exercise these functions, which, they contended,
overrode all want of talent, education or intelligence.
They said if a man was called to preach or exhort, words
would be put into his mouth, and he would not be want
ing because 'he lacked worldly education; and besides,
they held that " grammar and dictionary words " were
hard for the poor and ignorant to understand, and en
gendered pride and haughtiness. In fact, cultivated men
were at a discount. The Methodist Church at Steuben
ville, which was the largest church there numerically,
was rent and distracted with controversies between those
who wanted to preach, and those who did not want them
to do any thing of the kind.
This state of things was soon scented out by some
preachers in the adjoining country who were known as
Newlights, but who called themselves Christians. In
the way of doctrines they had little to say, though, so
far as I can gather, they taught a kind of Unitarian! sm.
But those fellows that came down on Steubenville about
1824 were a most unpolished and uncultivated set. They
ranted and roared and shouted to the entire satisfaction
of the most enthusiastic of the meeting-goers ; and, as a

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 105
prime article of their faith, they taught that every man
or woman who wanted to do so had a right to preach,
and was at liberty to preach, though I remember that
two or three of them managed to do it all themselves ;
and they got rid of the clamorous aspirants by conceding
them the privilege without insuring them a congregation.
It was not long after the Newlights made their
appearance before they had large meetings, filling such
rooms as they could get to overflowing, and generally
raising a noise that could be heard half over the town.
Of course they drew to them the Methodists who desired
to preach, or, at least to have shouting meetings. These
insisted that the Newlights had the " real heartfelt re
ligion " among them, and went to their meetings, to the
scandalous thinning out of the old congregations. And
they did not fail to denounce their former friends as
" dead in the love of the world," as proud and uplifted.
The brethren who took no interest in the new state of
things were soon affected by a spirit of jealousy, and
they fell into the indiscretion of persecuting the New
lights by denouncing the preachers as ignorant and
wanting in good standing before the world — they were
really a little shaky in this respect — and particularly as
teaching false doctrines. The result, of course, was the
detachment of a large body of the Methodists, who went
directly over to the new-comers, making up at once
quite a respectable society, as to numbers at least. Thp
Methodists, who were the losers in the conflict, were ex
asperated to such a degree that they expelled the mem
bers who had left, and talked violently against their ri
vals, the Newlight preachers, and treated them in a most

106 Recollections of
unchristian manner. This soon reacted in favor of the
Newlights, and though they were admitted to be a rough
set, there was soon a strong sympathy with them among
outsiders. They rapidly increased, and took in many
from the class of " wicked sinners" whom the Methodists
had failed to reach. Among these were a lot of pretty
hard boys from the woolen factory. From working in
the newly-dyed wool, these boys became colored in hands
and face, and especially they were at times extremely
blue. But the boys, when they became interested in the
meetings, cleaned their hands and faces, and became very
presentable. They were regular and zealous members
of the new church, one of the ceremonies of which was
" the washing of feet." This ceremony was announced
one evening unexpectedly, and took the boys, who had
been working all day in the blue wool, quite unawares.
The array of blue feet was astonishing to the elders with
towels girded round their waists, and no small source of
amusement to the irreverent lookers-on. But the boys
were in earnest, and endured the trial of their mortiflca-
tion most manfully ; and a trial it was, for their fellow
apprentices did not fail to allude to it many a day after
wards. These Newlights picked up and deyel6ped a num
ber of queer cases, and as they had frequent experience
meetings, at which every one present had the privilege
of voluntarily saying all that he could put into the
shape of an experience, the speeches on these occasions
were often very singular. Among the converts was a
chap by the name of  , who, with his father,
pursued the business of trading in paper and paper

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 107
mill stock. This brought them into contact with every
country store keeper and every one that dealt in rags or
any thing in their line ; and the  s had the reputa
tion of being incorrigible cheats — particularly the old man.
The son, however, was more quiet in his manner, and
excited less remark. But he became a convert to the
new faith, and was in dead earnest ; and one of the first
things he did, was to go round among those with whom
he had dealt, and open up his accounts, and repay them
the full amounts out of which he had previously cheated
them; in a few cases, when his money ran out, he
acknowledged his indebtedness. This transaction he re
peated in detail at the first succeeding experience meet
ing, to the surprise as well as amusement of the general
public. He read off" the accounts from his memoranda,
all of which were verified by the parties concerned.
With all this he was profoundly pious, and from that
time forward he bore a reputation the reverse of his
old one. He was, however, very eccentric in his ways on all
religious subjects; he was awfully solemn, never laugh
ing or taking any kind of pleasure ; and in every thing
he tried to apply the scriptural injunctions literally. He
therefore very readily adopted the notion that he ought
not to marry ; for he said they neither married nor were
given in marriage in the kingdom of heaven. He loved
a fine buxom sister in the church, who reciprocated the
sentiment, but did not adopt his notions about marriage.
His proposition was that they should live together, but
not be married, for that would be like the angels. They
had a long time in settling this affair ; and my father in

108 Recollections of
whom they both had great confidence, was consulted on
both sides, and advised with very often. The man was
as solemn as an owl, or a dozen of them if you please,
and would argue the matter with father, who contended
against it, and urged every kind of reason, but without
eff'ect. So did others of his friends, as well as his
sweetheart, who engaged every one she could to persuade
him to act like " any other man," and be married. All
had confidence enough in him to trust his word to live
with her and to be faithful to her ; and at last, knowing
that a public promise that he was going to live with her,
would bind him legally, they gave in to him, and he
took her home to live with him ; of which he made an
nouncement at meeting. They lived that way till they
had several children, and then they were married. Sev
eral years afterward I met with him in a pretty sound
condition of mind.

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 109

CHAPTER XVI.
Death of the Author's Grandfather in Wales — A Small Legacy —
Buying another Farm — A Sad Bit of History — Moving Out to
the New Farm — Sticking in the Mud with the Ponies — Pulling
through. In the summer of 1824, my grandfather Howells
died rather suddenly, in Wales. This made a sort of
revolution in our affairs, for with his death father had
expected to get a legacy of about six hundred pounds or
$3,000; which was a great aff"air at that time. This
legacy had been left by a will, which prescribed that
certain specific property was to come to father, subject
to incumbrances of the estate, which incumbrances
proved to be heavier than was expected, and when it
was settled up, the legacy netted father only about |500.
This was a sore disappointment in many respects, for
some of the other heirs received fixed sums in money, free
from the debts of the estate and cost of settlement,
while the particular property yielded next to nothing.
But whatever the sum was to be, it was a settled affair
that it was to be laid out mainly in buying a farm — the
farm to be in proportion to the amount, in quantity and
eligibility. As soon as the news of grandfather's death came,
the family began to grow ambitious, and we were also
treated with increased consideration by others. But we
had prudence enough to make no foolish spread. So far

110 Recollections of
as I remember, the serious mistake we made was in not
going far enough to get land, and buying it at a cheap
rate and of better quality than we could obtain near
Steubenville, with the means we had. We heard of va
rious places for sale, and made many journeys to look at
them. These visits were mostly made by father and me
together, and we had many a pleasant ride in the fall, in
various directions. Father made no decisions in these
matters without my opinion, and to a great extent, when
I was eighteen years old, he deferred to my decisions in
all matters relating to a farm. Mother was averse to
going into a very new country, and for a long time we
tried to find a farm such as we could manage to buy
within a short distance of town, but in this we failed.
At last we settled upon one in Harrison county, about
twelve miles west of the county seat and thirty-seven
miles from Steubenville. The place consisted of one
hundred and sixty acres, or a " quarter of a section,"
and was tolerably good land, but was very hilly, there
not being one level acre on the whole. For this father
paid six hundred dollars, or three dollars and seventy-
five cents an acre.
He bought the land of a moneyed man in Steuben
ville, who had got hold of it in a way that had a sad
story connected with it. There was a large family of
the name of M  in that county, Scotch-Irish people,
who were characterized by the inherent love of whisky
that belongs to that compound race. They were among
the first settlers and had some property. Among them
was a doctor, who had a large family of boys, then
mostly grown up. The doctor was past the middle of

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. Ill
life. He had the reputation of having been an able
physician with an extensive practice, when he first came
in from Pennsylvania. When we came to know him,
he had drunken himself out of practice and into pov
erty. His sons had grown up without trades or pro
fession or business, and the eldest son was eminently
worthless. He spent money, traded and drank, and got
into scrapes, and helped to use up the doctor's means.
As the old man was running down he bought this quar
ter-section of land, and moved onto it and cleared it up
in part, and had been on it ten or twelve years. It was
first entered under the old land system of annual pay
ments, which he made, and went on getting himself a
home for his old age. When the last payment was to be
made, he gave his son the money to go to the land-office
and get out the patent for it. But the son had got into
trouble, and to raise money he paid off the land in his
own name, and mortgaged it to the man of whom
father bought it. The poor old doctor supposed he
owned the land till he was notified by the mortgagee.
He was never able to redeem the farm, though the mort
gagee would have favored him, and it was finally sold to
father, who bought it when he found the doctor could
not and did not expect to keep it. I remember his wife
one day gave mother a pitiful history of their case with
many tears. Thus we succeeded a broken down family
a second time.
Father bought this place in the fall, and we made
ready to move out in the spring. The distance we had
to move was above thirty-five miles, over very rough
roads — hilly and muddy — and in some places they were

112 Recollections of
scarcely passable. We set about moving in March, 1825,
the winter then being broken up, but the roads very far
from settled. Our preparation for moving was poor.
We had a wagon, which was new, but not a light one,
and we were still affiicted with our brace of ponies —
Paddy and Gin — for which the wagon alone was not a
bad load. For a pioneer load we filled the wagon with
a number of articles, till we found we had too much for
the ponies. Then we hired a third horse, and father and
I set out with him. Our plan was to make the trip out
in two days, which would have made less than twenty
miles a day. But by the time we got started it was past
noon. We set out, hoping to make a point twelve miles
off", but it was very muddy, and the hills proved to be
much steeper than we anticipated. When we got to the
first big hill, we found our ponies and the third horse did
not work well together, except they all three balked in
concert. We rested them, coaxed, whipped and hallooed
for a long time, till at last we got up, in a most discour
aged condition of mind. It then began to rain, which
softened the mud so that it would not stick to the
wheels, and we got along two or three miles further, and
night came on. We then had a stretch of down hill,
which indicated a corresponding ascent to make; and I
well remember, as the mud seemed to get deeper every
rod we went, how I dreaded that ascent. It came at
last, and at once we stuck. We urged on the horses,
but in vain. There we were, in the dark, the mud
and the rain. So father went on to a house at the top
of the hill, and got the farmer to come with two horses
and help us out. At his house we stayed the night.

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. HE
and made a pretty good start the next day; and the
horses working a little better, while the weather im
proved, we got through on the third day, having passed
through deep mud and sore tribulation.
We returned without a load and pretty easily, and
forgot the trouble of the trip. About a week after,
a farmer living on the place adjoining our new one,
brought his wagon and team of three horses for a final
move, we supposing that we could, with our team and
his, take what there was to move. But this proved a
mistake, and a pretty good load was left behind to come
after, some other time. It was a great job to get loaded
up and every thing packed into the wagons ; but we were
ready to start on the morning of Wednesday, I think it
was, and we got through by Saturday. Take it all in
all, it was a dreadful journey. The weather was change
able, and part of the time it rained and the roads were
terrible — so bad that we could hardly get up any long
hill without doubling the teams. Then there were
the cattle and sheep to drive. My youngest sister
was only a baby then, and poor mother had to ride in
the wagon with the goods. It was the best that could
be done, and there was no complaint. The rest of the
family very gladly walked, and it was a light task to
keep up with the wagons. The man who moved us took
us to his house, where we stayed to rest till Monday.
Then we had an experience in the way of crowding.
The cabin on the place in which Dr.  lived, was
small and dilapidated, and not where we intended to live.
The neighbor who moved us had contracted to build us
a house, which he had raised and covered, but it had no

114 Recollections of
floor, doors nor windows, so we had to go into the old
house till it was finished. But the place the doctor was
going to was full, and he could not move for several
days. We had accordingly to go into the cabin along
with his family. My recollection of this cabin, which
was logs, of course, is that it was about eighteen by
twenty feet square, with a sort of porch, the length of it,
and perhaps six feet wide, and a loft over head, in the
highest part of which you could make a bed on the floor.
Into this shelter the two families crowded for the time
they staid — say four days, at the least. We were then
nine — ^that is, father, mother, and the seven children. I
was eighteen years old that spring, 1825 — all the rest
younger. Of the M — — s, there were the doctor and his
wife, two boys and a daughter, all grown up. Here
were fourteen, to be accommodated with shelter night
and day. As I write this in a house where there would
be a room for each, I do not myself see how it was
managed. But that was fifty years ago, and people put
up with worse things. The fact is, there was no al
ternative, and when it is that or nothing, we can do
many odd things.

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 115

CHAPTER XVII.
Method of Clearing the Land — Deadening — Burning Logs — Trees on
Fire — Opening Up a New Country — Hewn-log Farm-houses —
Log Barns — Character of the Settlers — Prevalence of the Re
ligious Sentiment — Calvinism — No Politics Talked — Religious
Controversies. As soon as the M  s got away, we straightened
ourselves out a little and put things in shape to live till
the new house was done, which was larger and had an
upper room of some capacity. Then the spring work
came on, and we were kept pretty busy, for in addition
to the plowing, the fences were to be repaired and the
fallen trees to be cleared up ; and of the latter there was
plenty to do. In that part of the country where the
oak — mostly white oak — prevailed, the land was all
cleared by the process of "deadening": that is, the small
stuff was grubbed out by the roots ; that too large to
grub, and less than a foot in diameter, was cut down and
burned up on the spot ; and the larger trees were girdled
by chopping them round with an axe, cutting through
the bark and sap-wood (which killed them so that they put
forth no leaves, or if in leaf, withered), and left standing.
This was an easy way to clear the land and get in a
crop of almost any grain. To have cut down the trees
and cleared them off the ground, would have cost more
labor than the new settlers could have afforded, and with
their means it could not be done. After they had
grubbed the bushes, chopped off the small trees and

116 ' Recollections of
deadened the large ones and burned off the brush, they
plowed and put in the crop. From that time forward
there was a continual dropping from the deadened trees,
first of leaves, twigs and bark, then of the larger limbs,
and lastly the trunk, which would fall in any way the
wind or its weight threw it.
These dead trees would not all disappear from a
field in less than fifteen or twenty years. Our place had
been cleared about ten or twelve years, and the dead trees
were just in the condition to cover the fields each winter
most plentifully. The winter before we got there had
brought down a great quantity, which we had to clear up
before we could plow. The clearing-up consisted of gath
ering the limbs and chunks and laying them at intervals
across the fallen trunks, so as to burn them off". This
was easier and quicker than chopping the trunks into
lengths, as by attending to them well two or three boys
could burn off" more logs in a day than a man could
chop in a month. The burnt-off logs were afterward
rolled together and with the rubbish of other kinds
burned up. The burning had to be done when the logs
were dry, and it required care to keep the fire under
control. If it was windy it was liable to get into the
fences or the dry leaves of the adjoining woods, on the
grass or stubble of fields, and do great mischief.
We went to work on our old stuff and got along
pretty well, for it was hot and dry ; but on a Saturday
night, a wind sprang up, and started the dying log heaps
that were nearly burned out. On Sunday morning we
were dismayed to see that the wind had spread the fire
into the standing dead trees, where it was beyond our con-

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 117
trol. The dry, half rotten bark and sap-wood of the old
trees was like tinder, and if a spark lodged in them it
would set the tree in a blaze which would creep up to the
top and along the branches, and the wind would blow it
to other trees, the fences, forests and every-where. We
might have cut them down, and we tried to do that,
but we found it unavailing, and all we could do was to
guard the fences, and other property, which was no light
task, for we had to tear the fences down and scatter the
rails, as the only way of saving them. We worked hard
all day, in the wind and smoke, and a fierce sunshine
that was only tempered by the smoke. In the afternoon
the fire started in the dry leaves in the woods, where it
seemed to lick up the very ground. This was soon
stopped by some neighbor boys, who raked a line clean
in front of the fire, and left it nothing to burn. When
night came on and the wind settled with a prospect of
rain, so that we felt no fear of danger, we found a com
pensation in the illumination we had, for every one of
these dead trees stood out against the darkness like a
giant candelabrum of most fantastic design, with the
little tongues of flame starting from every point of the
branches, looking as if it held a thousand tapers of va
rying size. The fields were full of them, and the scene
was grandly fairy-like. It was a very common thing
for the fire to get into the dead trees in the spring time
where it would burn for several days and nights together.
The sight of a field of these burning trees was always
beautiful — usually a little more so in your neighbor's
field than your own ; you had the advantage of the dis
tance and the safety.

118 Recollections of
The whole of this season had the charm of novelty
about it. We were amongst a new people, and a much
newer part of the country than before. All around us
they were opening up new farms, building cabins on them
and thus continuing the customs and habits of the early
settlers. Out of the villages or small towns there were
very few houses not built of logs. The best farm houses
were made of hewn logs, that is, logs flattened to a reg
ular thickness. These were notched together, so that
they nearly touched each other in the wall. The inter
stices were filled with pieces of wood, in a rough way, and
then, for a good house, this " chinking " was plastered
over with a good mortar of lime and sand, on the inside
and outside of the wall. The mortar-joint between the
logs, where it became dry and white, gave the house a
good appearance, and eff"ectually shut out the weather.
The corners of the house were trimmed down, and doors
and windows cut through the logs and cased up, so as to
give them quite a respectable exterior. A good house
would have a shingled roof, a brick chimney and well
laid floor above and below. A very common house floor,
as well as barn floor, was made up of what were called
puncheons — that is, thick slabs split out of logs, hewn
on the face and edges and cut to a level beneath. They
formed a very stout and solid floor, and sometimes they
were as good as boards. Our new house had this kind
of floor. It was of hewn logs, but had a clap-board
roof. It was clean and comfortable, and when we went
into it was a great improvement on the old one, which
we abandoned. This summer we also built a barn of logs, and as

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 119
hickory timber was plenty, we made it of hickory logs
peeled of the bark. In this way they were very durable,
looked well and were easily hauled, which was done by
the process called "snaking" that is, dragged on the
ground by a chain tied around one end of them. The
logs were cut twenty-four feet long, so that they formed
a pen of twenty-four feet square, when raised. There
were two pens put up twenty-four feet apart, and raised
on one foundation, which was twenty-four by seventy-
two. They were in this way carried up to a proper
height, when they were connected by logs and a com
mon roof. This made a double barn, with stabling and
more room at each end, and a barn floor and wagon-
shed in the middle. Such was the universal style of
barns in that country, and it was as good as could be
made of logs. Many of them are yet to be seen all over
that part of Ohio, but they are mostly out of use.
The settlers were mainly from western Pennsyl
vania, though many had come in from the western
part of Maryland and Virginia, and the prevailing na
tionality was the Scotch-Irish of the second generation.
Their religious persuasion was the Presbyterian — that
is, it was their ancestral faith, though the Methodists
had recruited their membership almost wholly from this
element of the population. There w^ere three or four
sects of Presbyterians, who had divided on minor mat
ters, but the larger body was that known as the " Gen
eral Assembly " church. They were all Calvinists, and
their confession of faith was the same, and all used the
"Longer and Shorter Catechisms" of the Scottish
Church, and the Westminster Confession of Faith was ac-

120 Recollections of
cepted by all of them. A chief point of difference was
the singing of hymns and the Psalms of David. A small
portion of them adhered to the old Scotch Covenanters.
The rehgious feeling pervaded the whole community
intellectually, and all accepted the general orthodox
standard of faith. Those who were regarded as religious
had joined themselves to some of the communions.
The rest were material for missionary effort of the sev
eral sects. The public mind was more largely employed
with religious subjects than in later years, and it was
the subject and object of nearly all public meetings to
consider religion in some of its relations. Politics oc
cupied the people much less, and they talked less about
it than in after times. This, however, was before the
great Jackson era, whose poison has so thoroughly per
meated the practical politics of the country.
I speak of a locality removed from the county
seat. There politics was always active, though now it
occupies less general attention in the larger towns than
in the country. The discussions at the time I speak of
were nearly all religious, and there were sometimes
fierce controversies that did any thing but promote
charity. The leading question at issue was at all times
the freedom of the will and the Calvinistic doctrine of
predestination. The Presbyterian sects all accepted this
doctrine in its strong sense, and qualified it with no con
ditions. They insisted that God is all powerful and can
do as He sees fit ; and as He knows all things, present
and future. He of course determines the arrangement of
every thing. The free will side of this question was
taken by the Methodists and Quakers and their adhe-

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 121
rents. They usually admitted the premises of the other
side — not knowing what else to do, and invariably had
the logic and the conclusions against them. They main
tained their position more by a conscious conviction that
man has freedom of will, than by any argument. These
controversies were unending, of course!, and nearly as
fruitless as unending.

122 Recollections of

CHAPTER XVin.
Social Conditions— Neither Rich nor Poor— Dress— Spinning and
Weaving ,at Home— Stuffs Produced— Prices of Cloth — Distil
leries-Prevalence of Whiskey Drinking— No Temperance So
cieties. The social condition of the people was rather primi
tive and very simple. None of them were wealthy.
The possession of a quarter section or two of land,
pretty well cleared up — that is, about a third or half of
it under culture — with a log-house and barn, was thought
to make a man well off. The money value of the
wealth of the average of farms, would not be over $2,000,
including the improvements. Nearly every man lived
on a piece of land of his own, and this was usually in
eighty or one hundred and sixty acre tracts. Their
stock was small, and mostly their families were large.
Almost every man was the son of a farmer in an older
settlement who had come in to this to have a farm of
his own, out of what his father could spare; or some
man who had been a farm laborer or renter in an older
place, had bought land and was opening out a home.
Among such a people there were no rich, and none very
poor. Most of them lived very plainly. They usually
had enough to eat, though they were liable to run short
a while before harvest. All that would bring money
was sold to provide for taxes and such payments as only
money would make; and those who had payments to
make on their land were pretty sure to sell themselves

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 123
bare, and were often hard put to it to maintain them
selves in provisions.
, As for dress, that was very plain, and fortunately,
there was but little temptation to extravagance in this
way. The women of the family, in almost every in
stance, produced something to wear. Besides the knit
ting and sewing, which was the work of the older
women, the wool of the few sheep each farmer kept was
spun in the family. So also was the flax that grew on
the flax-patch, which was regularly cleared off in the
winter, sowed with flax in March, harvested in June,
and immediately planted with potatoes — ^yielding two
important Irish crops in one year. The wool was some
times carded at home, but usually it was sent off" to one
of the carding machines that would be put up in a
mill, for the purpose of preparing the wool for spinning
by carding and making it into rolls, that were about a
yard long and three-fourths of an inch in diameter, light
and soft, and from which an even thread was easily
spun, either on a large spinning-wheel or the little
treadle- wheel used also for flax. The quarter acre flax
patch and the few sheep would, almost without noticing
the expense or labor, produce the material for clothing a
large family. The women pulled the flax, or at least
helped to pull it, and helped in dressing it, and
always spun it up. One or two grown up daughters
would dispose of a large supply of flax and wool. The
best flax was spun into a fine thread for linen, of
which shirts and like wear were made ; a coarser quality
was made into sheeting and summer pantaloons. Sum
mer coats were never worn, for when it was too warm

124 Recollections of
for a cloth coat, men went in their shirt sleeves. The
same short method was adopted as to summer shoes —
omitting the shoes and stockings. The wool was
spun into an average grade for cloth and flannel.
A mixed cloth was made with a linen warp and woolen
filling, which they called linsey, that was worn mostly by
the women and children. It was made lighter than
cloth, and cost less than flannel. Very often it was
woven in plaid figures, and when new looked well, and
was esteemed quite a desirable article for every-day
dresses. The young women always thought themselves
well dressed in a new linsey dress for winter, which,
when new, would be worn to meeting, singing schools
and " frolics," as they called all social gatherings where
the young people made merry together. As the colors
faded the dresses came into every-day wear, and they
were so durable that they lasted till the next year's
manufacture was brought in. Sometimes people made
their flannels in plaids, which were nice and wore well.
Fulled cloth was made at home till it was woven, when
it would be taken to the fulling-mill to be finished. This
was worn by the men and big boys, and made excellent
clothing, though it was not fine, and the color was apt to
fade. There was hardly a family of girls where one of
them did have a loom and weave all the plainer kinds of
stuff for themselves and for others, so that the spinning
and weaving was practically done at home. The prices
of these manufactures are worthy of remark when com
pared to other produce. The stuff was woven one yard
wide, which was the width when finished, except the
fulled cloth, which shrunk to three-fourths. This cloth

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 125
was estimated at one dollar and twenty -five cents to one
dollar fifty cents per yard ; linsey was about fifty cents ;
flannel, seventy -five ; flax linen, fine, fifty; coarser kinds,
twenty-five to thirty-seven and a half. At the same time
wheat was very rarely over thirty-five cents a bushel ; corn,
twenty -five ; and oats, twelve and a half. This was a
great disproportion, in comparison with the present rates,
when the quantity of wheat that would buy that coarse
cloth would now buy broadcloth of the finest quality
worn. Another manufacture of these times, and which flour
ished through all changes, was whiskey. No diff'erence
if grain was scarce or dear, or times hard, or the people
poor, they would make and drink whiskey. And the
number of little distilleries was wonderful. Within two
miles of where we lived there were three of them. They
were small concerns, but they produced enough. They
were commonly fitted up with a twenty-five or forty-gal
lon still and half a dozen tubs. They might, perhaps,
have produced a barrel a day, if pushed to their capacity.
The distillers would exchange a gallon of whiskey for a
bushel of corn or rye, and when the whiskey-jug was
empty, a boy would be sent on a bag of grain, perched
on an old horse, to the still-house to make the exchange
and renew the supply. People were not particular about \
the age of their liquor, and it was often drank on the day
it was made. The custom was for every man to drink
it, on all occasions that off"ered ; and the women would
take it sweetened and reduced to toddy. At raisings,
huskings, log-rollings, and all manner of social gather
ings, it was used as an invigorator and a sign of hospi-

126 Recollections of
tality ; and the manner of taking it was from the neck
of the jug, each man swallowing as much as he wanted.
The custom was a sore trial to father, who had practiced
the total abstinence principle, and who tried to do so
in this neighborhood ; but no amount of talk or protest
ing would satisfy his neighbors that it was not stinginess
that induced him to refuse to furnish whiskey at raisings
and on other occasions when he called upon the neighbors
for the usual gratuitous assistance. With this pressure
he gave way and furnished it at such times, under pro
test. At that day there were no temperance societies,
though they soon after came in vogue. But none of the
early temperance societies pretended to take a stand on
total abstinence. The most they aimed at was limited
use.

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 127

CHAPTER XIX.
Absence of Game — Wild Fruits — Cultivated Fruits — Supply of
Snakes — Copperhead Bites — Exciting Adventure — Remedies of
Copperhead Poison — Planting an Orchard — Tobacco Raising.
There was not much hunting or fishing on this re
gion. The country was too well settled for game, and
the streams were too small for fishing. Occasionally I
saw some deer and turkeys in the woods, but I never
got a shot at them. Of the wild fruits the variety was
not great, being almost confined to wild plums, grapes,
service berries, etc. The plums were in great abun
dance and most delicious in quality. I never saw as good
before or since. The service-berries were more plenty
there than I have seen them elsewhere ; and we could
often get enough of them to be of some use. The cul
tivated fruits were in tolerable supply, and peaches were
as plenty as could be desired — so plenty that no one
thought of buying or selling them. They were to be
had for asking, when to be had at all. They were dis
tilled and plenty of brandy made of them; but their
season was short ; and they were scattered as to locality
and time of ripening, so that it was not a very great
business. The grapes that grew wild there were not so
large as I have seen, but they were good and of a pleas
ant flavor — some quite sweet.
One of the natural features of the country was a
good supply of snakes — ^the worst ones being copper-

128 Recollections of
heads and rattlesnakes. The prevalent rock of that
country was a flne-grained sand rock, that lay about on
the surface of the ground almost every-where, in the
form of flat stones, usually so thin that the sun would
warm them through. This made comfortable quarters
for such serpents, and they throve in the fields and' open
woods to a troublesome extent. And what was worse
about it, was that they would stay under or on these
warm stones long after night-fall, or stretch themselves
in the smooth pathways, at nights, if the weather was
warm, so as to be really dangerous to the boys, who
nearly all went barefooted. The first summer we were
on this place my youngest brother was playing among the
weeds in the garden, when some snake, which we sup
posed to oe a copperhead, bit him and disappeared. He
was terribly poisoned by it, and suff"ered a great deal of
pain. The bite was on his foot, which was swollen and
extremely painful. We got some remedies from a doc
tor, consisting of sweet oil and some kind of purgatives ;
but he was not free from the effects of it for many weeks.
He was then only five years old. This was in June, a
season when the snake is not thought to be so poison
ous as in warmer weather. Later in the summer, about
the first of September, one night we heard the dogs
barking at something in the woods a short distance from
the house. Like boys, who are always ready for any
sort of game, four of us went nearly a quarter of a mile
into the thick underbrush, down a hillside, to find the
dogs barking under a tree, where some animal had
climbed up. The most we could possibly have caught
would have been an oppossum or woodchuck or rabbit.

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 129
neither of which would have been worth the catching in
the summer. But we could not forego the opportunity
to get some game, ever so worthless. Finding nothing
we struck across to a path leading to the house ; but we
had scarcely reached the pathway, when my brother
Tom leaped into the air and screamed with fright
and pain. It was only starlight, but he insisted that
he saw a snake glide away from his feet. There was
no doubt that a snake had bitten him ; and we knew it
was either a rattlesnake or copperhead, for the pain he
was suffering was terrible, and the foot was swelling
rapidly. We had heard it said that it was a good thing
to cut the skin around the bitten part and wash it with
water, and as we happened to be near a spring we went
to it. I gave Tom my knife, and he cut his foot, and we
washed it in the water as long as he could endure the
pain. But the poison soon began to affect his mind, and
he was crazy with the belief that he was surrounded by
thousands of snakes. So we suspended the washing,
and I took Tom on my back and started for home, the
others running by me and holding to me. While we sat
by the spring, though there might have been snakes in
plenty, we had no dread of them ; but the moment we
started home we were seized with a panic, and we ran,
increasing the speed as we went. I remember that be
fore I got to the house, which was more than forty rods
away, and up hill — not very steep — I leaped every step
as far and as high as I could ; for, being barefooted, I
was in dread of snakes at every step, and really I should
think, if I had come down on a snake at one of those

130 Recollections of
leaps, it would have been bad for him, and he would
Mave had to bite quick to hurt me. They met us from
the house with a light, which relieved us of the panic.
Tom was taken in-doors and his case looked to. By that
time the swelling had reached his body, and the symp
toms were alarming. We had heard that whiskey was
useful in such cases, but we had not learned that it was
to be drunken as an antidote. I was sent off to the
nearest tavern for a supply of whiskey, with which we
bathed the part affected with the swelling. How much
good it did I can not tell, but after a few days the swell
ing went down. He was kept on as much milk diet as
possible, and, beside that, got a goodly share of all the
cures for snake-bites that the neighbors would mention.
The chief remedy of this kind was a plant of the wild
lettuce family, which grew in the woods. It was there
called lion's heart, as it had a heart-shaped leaf. It was
an opium-bearing plant, which exuded a thick milk from
the stem and root. This was mixed and boiled with
sweet cow's milk, and poultices made of it, which were
kept to the foot and leg. We consumed a vast amount
of this plant, whether it did any good or not. I think
it quite likely that the opium it contained was the useful
quality in it. It seems to me now that Tom was laid up
over a month from this, and was unable to do any thing
till fall. For several years afterwards he complained of a
return of the symptoms at the same time of the year.
The clearing for an orchard was pretty heavy work,
as the trees had to be cut off" entirely. We had never
been very good farmers, but when it came to clearing
land, it put us to our best efforts. Father was no axman

Life in Ohio, 1818-1840. 131
at all, and I was not stout of my age, and only moder
ately skilled in the art, though I improved afterwards.
The hardest labor to me was the grubbing ; that is, dig
ging out the bushes by the roots, for they were large and
very firmly set. They were dug out with a mattock
which had to be sharp enough to cut the roots, and yet
thick-edged enough to stand striking the stones. The
bushes were awfully tough on this ground, and had it
not been for the help we hired I guess the clearing would
scarcely have been done at all. A new enterprise helped
us out of this job.
For two or three years the people in and near this
neighborhood had been raising tobacco of a particular
variety, which proved a profitable business, and helped
materially to supply the farmers with articles they
needed, and to pay for their lands, for the crop would
mostly bring cash. The kind of tobacco raised was a
variety that had been raised in Maryland, and was known
as light or yellow tobacco. It differed from the Virginia
crop in being a lighter and finer plant, and being cured
by the heat of fire, instead of the air of a shed, as was
the heavier kind. It was left for the leaf to ripen or
turn yellow upon the stalk, when it was gathered and
dried over great fires in a close house, so constructed as
to confine the heat around the leaves until they were
thoroughly cured. The manner of producing and pre
paring this tobacco was as follows :
The finest quality was grown upon newly-cleared
land for the first crop. The land chosen was light soil,
somewhat sandy — mostly a chestnut ridge was deemed
the best, and was cleared off in the winter. There was a

132 Recollections of
ridge of thin land near our new house that was suitably
situated for an orchard, on which we decided to raise a
crop of tobacco the second year, which was 1826 ; and so
we set to clearing and fencing it in the winter. It was
pretty well timbered, and a sturdy undergrowth of young
oaks, hickories, iron wood, and any thing that was tough,
covered all the ground. To grub these out was no fool of
a job, and it made very hard work; with some hired
help we got it done, but we could not cut off the timber
as we should have done, and had to deaden a great part
of it. By the time, however, that we had it about
cleared, a man by the name of J. H. proposed to raise
the tobacco in partnership with us, which proposition
was accepted, and we were left free to put in our sum
mer crops on the farm. The bargain with H. required
us to help in planting the tobacco, which had to be done
with dispatch. Very early in the season — say the latter
part of February — H. came and burned a great brush-
heap on a rich spot of ground, about a rod square, for a
plant bed. The burning of the brush was to kill all the
weed-seeds and grubs in the ground, which was in its
primeval condition. When it was cooled off, it was
raked well and the tobacco seed sown in it ; and then
the whole was covered with light brush, to keep the
hens off", as they were likely to scratch it to pieces. In
about six weeks the plants were to be seen, and about
the last of June we set them out, as cabbages are planted,
each plant in the ground singly. The ground, after be
ing plowed, was marked with furrows of two feet apart,
into which we set the plants, about one foot apart. This
had to be done when a rain was coming on, and the

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 133
ground was wet ; it was also common to plant while it
was raining. H. and I did the planting in one or two
days, I don't now remember which ; but I do remember
the kind of feeling I had in my back afterwards. The
tobacco grew very well, but as it was never our luck to
have our dishes turned upwards when it rained porridge,
the market value of the tobacco was greatly reduced by
the quantity likely to be produced. H. got to under
stand the fact, and he persuaded father that the crop had
better not be divided, and proposed terms of dissolution,
father to pay so much when the crop was gathered, and
take it all, or to pay him so much and finish the crop.
Father chose the latter, which was a grave mistake, as
nearly all the work was still to be done. So we had the
tobacco crop on hand, which fortunately came on after
the harvest, but sadly interferred with putting in a crop
of wheat for the next year. At least it made the work
harder. To cure the tobacco, the first thing was to build a
house to cure it in. This we built of logs. It was put
up in one high story — say fifteen or sixteen feet to the
square. It had no windows, was covered in tight and
chinked and daubed between the logs. A door was cut
in one end which was made to shut tight. On the
ground was built a stone flue, open at one end, outside
the house, into which the wood was put for heating it ;
the inner end of the flue was left open for the smoke and
heat to ascend through the inside of the house. Then
the space was fllled with tiers of beams about four feet
apart, on which the tobacco was to be hung. As soon
as the leaves began to turn yellow, we gathered them by

134 Recollections of
stripping the ripest from the stalk. These we tied into
convenient bunches, and, parting each bunch, hung them
astride a stick, made by splitting like laths, four feet
long. When this was full, it was taken to the top of the
tobacco house, and the upper tier of joints filled with
rows of these sticks, care being taken not to have the
green leaves so close as to mold or sour. When the
house was filled we lighted a fire in the flue. The fire
was raised by degrees, and kept at a moderate heat till
all the tobacco turned to a bright yellow, by perfecting
the ripening process. After this, the heat was raised till
it was hot enough to bake bread in any part of the
house, and continued till the leaves were thoroughly
dried — the object being to cure them dry, before they
turned brown, or lost the bright-yellow, which was reck
oned the perfection of the quality. This firing took
eight or nine days, and it had to be kept going con
stantly, or the tobacco would spoil, by becoming
spotted. When cured it was stowed anywhere under
shelter, till damp weather would come on, when the
leaves became pliable and could be tied into bunches
called hands, each of which would weigh about half a
pound. We sold ours in this condition, for a price
greatly below what we had expected to get for it, and at
considerable loss of time and labor. The price of the
yellow tobacco had been very high, some of the lots
bringing as much as half a dollar a pound for the newly
cured leaf. There was great speculation among the
people who cultivated it, as to what it was used for;
though the general conclusion was that it was sent to a
German market, and used in dyeing. But I never really

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 135
found out the object of curing tobacco in this way; nor
do I know whether it is so cured now. We never re
peated the cultivation of tobacco. It was introduced
into that part of the country by settlers from Maryland,
who had been used to it in their homes.
One of the hardest things about curing the tobacco
was watching the fires, which were kept up night and
day for over a week, and when there was not sufficient
help to keep the fires going it was very trying. For my
own part, I was nearly worn out by attending our to
bacco fires; and I became so sleepy that I could hardly
keep awake on my feet. I remember once, that I act
ually went to sleep walking along the road, and walked
several rods till I fell into a ditch, and thus awoke.
This was on the way home from mill, when one of
the boys was along, who enjoyed the fun of seeing me
stagger. We lightened the labor of watching the to
bacco fires by roasting corn and eating peaches, which
were just in season ; but this did not supply the place
of sleep to growing boys.

136 Recollections of

CHAPTER XX.
Going to Mill— Water Mills — Horse Mills— Scarcity of Money — Cash
Articles — Grain Basis — Price of Wheat — Wages — Ohio Canal and
Work on it — Methods of Travel — Taverns and Tavern-keeping —
Travel by Carriage — Travel on Horseback.
Going to mill was one of the features of our kind
of life, and it was far from being unpleasant. In all that
country there were small streams, which though they
had some kind of mills upon them, were sure to go dry
or freeze up when grinding was wanted. One of the
difficulties was that the new farmers generally ran out
of grain, just before harvest, when there was plenty of
water ; and as soon as the wheat ripened grinding had
to be done, by which time the water was dried up.
Steam-power had not been introduced in a small way,
and there was no substitute for water but horse-power.
Accordingly they used it for mills, and every here and
there some thrifty fellow built a horse-mill. A big shed
was put up, and covered in, to protect a single pair of
very light and cheap mill-stones — sometimes second
hand, from a water-mill — and a great wheel on an up
right shaft, to which four sweeps were fixed, for the at
tachment of horses. The wheel was overhead and
armed with cogs to transmit the power to the mill.
Sometimes they would have a cheap bolting apparatus,
extemporized from book-muslin, and sometimes they had
none, and if you ground corn it had to be sifted at home.

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 137
And these mills, though they punctually took toll, did
not furnish their own power. Each customer took a
couple of horses with harness on, and hitched them on
to the mill to make the power. Sometimes they would
meet others at mill, when they would unite their teams,
putting on six or eight horses, and then it would go
pretty merrily. But it took about so much power, either
in time or teams to run the mill, and if you joined you
had to wait till the united grists were ground. I always
had a good idea after my horse-mill experience, how
much power it took to run mill-stones. Two horses
could turn a mill if the horses were stout and the mill
was light, but if it was otherwise, it was of no use to
talk of the mills of the gods grinding slowly — these
were slower still, and they ground exceedingly coarse.
But the mills were a wonderful place to gossip, for you
had to be there all day to get a moderate grist done ;
and there was time to hear and tell a great deal. I
found our small horses very unpopular, and when there
were good teams there, it was hard to join with others.
We had another resource, which was to go a long dis
tance away to a water-mill, on a large stream. This took
more time, but it was far more agreeable.
When I look back to those times I am struck with
the scarcity of money, and the difficulty of getting it,
and the expedients of barter that were resorted to. For
instance, at the stores there were articles that they
called cash articles, that you could not buy without
money. These were mostly tea, coff"ee, etc. Leather,
iron, powder, lead, and like articles were also of this
class. These things could not be bartered for with the

138 Recollections of
produce of the country, except a few products that were
treated as of cash value. Among them were linen,
cloth, feathers, beeswax, deerskins, and furs, which
were not too heavy to transport, and would be taken by
wholesale dealers in payment for goods. Among the
people in the country trade was conducted on a grain
basis. Thus, a day's work in harvest was paid with a
bushel of wheat or a bushel and a half of corn or rye
or buckwheat. The shoemakers, tailors, blacksmiths,
etc., took their pay in grain — the customer always find
ing the leather, cloth, or iron, and the mechanic doing
the work. We were thirty-five miles from the Ohio, the
nearest point where there were merchant mills, and
cash was paid for wheat. Consequently, the price of
wheat with us was the cost of transportation less than
the price of the river. Fifty cents a bushel was a great
price for it at the river ; and, as two horses and a man
were required for four days to make the journey, in
good weather, with thirty -five or forty bushels of wheat,
and a great deal longer if the roads were bad, it was not
to be expected that we could realize more than twenty-
five cents in cash for it. But there was no sale for it in
cash. The nominal price for it in trade was usually
thirty cents, and the storekeepers took it at that rate,
putting enough on the goods to make it up. I remem
ber once taking a load of wheat to the store, in our
wagon, for a man who had worked for it, which he sold
for twenty-five cents, and took his pay in iron at twelve
and one-half cents a pound.
We were situated half way between the Ohio river

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 139
and the Ohio canal, when it came to be made, which was
in 1825-6-7-8. That part of it nearest to us was in
process of building in 1826-7, and this afforded work
and money to the men who could do it during the
winter, at prices they seemed glad to get and thought
they were doing well to take. Hands were paid eight
to ten dollars a month for chopping, digging, etc., re
ceiving board and lodgings in addition ; but every wet
day was counted out, the laborer losing his time and the
contractor the board. In this way, it would take all
winter to make about two months time. It was hard
earned money, but it was esteemed worth the labor.
There were certain things for which money was required
to be raised, the. chief of which were taxes; and to
these the ready money was applied.
It also took money to travel with, if you went in
good style, but if a man had to go somewhere and had
but little money, he would carry his provisions with him
and apply his cash for shelter or a part of his fare.
Journeys were made on horseback or on foot, and sel
dom extended more than a few days, mostly being
within a hundred miles, which could be made with only
one night out. For taxes but little money was needed,
as the assessments were light. The cost of travel in our
part of the country, was about sixty-five to seventy-five
cents a day for a man, and a dollar for a man and horse.
This included every thing but drinks, which, being only
whiskey, were pretty cheap — say six and one-fourth
cents a dram. For a sober looking man the bottle
would be set ou the table at dinner, or off"ered to him

140 Recollections of
after he paid his bill, without extra charge. The toper
was not so indulged.
Tavern keeping was reckoned a good business then ;
and it was so, for it was likely to command a certain cash
income which, even though small, was valuable. At the
low prices of the time there was profit in it, as the fare
was plain, usually consisting of ham, eggs, chickens, tur
keys, game, and now and then beef, with potatoes, com
and wheat bread, maple sugar and molasses, honey, etc.
The victuals were generally well cooked, and sometimes
accompanied with good tea and coffee, but at times these
were horribly bad. The taverns were small, and well
strung along the road, for night overtook travelers at all
places, and they seldom wanted to travel far after dark,
on roads that were mostly through the forest. Farmers
who lived by the road sides would always keep travelers
at a cost a shade below the taverns, and many of them
made it a point to keep such as called for the sake of the
ready money it would yield.
Traveling then was a peaceful and unpretentious af
fair. If a man had a carriage he traveled in that, and
was a kind of nabob if he could do so. On some routes
there were stage coaches, but very few of them in Ohio ;
and it was a princely proceeding to travel in them. The
well-to-do citizen put money in his purse, took his horse,
well saddled, rolled up his overcoat in a portmanteau,
which was tied at the back of his saddle ; put his change
of clothing and the like into a pair of leather saddle
bags — a kind of wallet that balanced on the saddle by
having the ends filled. If he kept a servant, the serv
ant similarly accoutered, rode a horse behind the master.

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 141
after the old English fashion. The less consequential
traveler took his own horse and waited upon himself.
A more independent way was to walk, or, as the Scotch-
Irish people always called it, travel. A hearty man, in
the habit of walking, would go as far in a day as a horse
would carry him, and on a long journey, forty miles a
day was not reckoned at all extraordinary.

142 Recollections of

CHAPTER XXI.
The Author Opens a Grammar School — Not so Popular as Singing
Schools — How Singing was Taught — Social Occasions — Dancing
Sinful — Substitutes for it— Raisings — How the Cabins were
Built — Mutual Help— Jolly Gatherings — Corn Huskings.
As the common school course of that time did not em
brace grammar as a study, it was made a specialty by lec
turers, who would impart a very good idea of the science
to a special class in a short time, particularly as their
pupils were mostly persons of maturer minds than school
children. In the fall of 1825, 1 got up a class in gram
mar at the nearest village, and another at a school-house
near where we lived, in the country. The classes met in
the evenings of certain days twice a week, and became
tolerably proficient ; and I made some acquaintance and
got a little practice, but it was not particularly profitable
in the way of payments of fees, for, according to custom,
I had to take pay in trade, which was of little value by
the time I got it worked into shape. Some of the young
men who attended the country class paid in work at
thirty-eight cents per day, which was the current trade
rate for work, though it could be obtained for twenty-
five cents in cash at almost any time. Young men
would engage in farm labor very cheerfully for five dol
lars to five dollars and fifty cents a month. I did not
follow up the business of teaching beyond that winter.
My grammar classes were regarded, like singing and

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 143
spelling schools, as an occasion for young men and wo
men to get together, and as such they were rather dry
and uninteresting to most of the young people. This I
saw after my experiment. The singing schools took
much better, as the music was more generally interesting,
and those who attended to take part in them without
much study. Indeed, the science brought into use at
these schools was very limited, and consisted mostly in
a few of the crudest rules of notation, with practice in
singing, which was nearly all by ear ; while the music
produced was entirely church music, such as they heard
at all places of public worship. The principles of mu
sic were never learned by many who sung tunes from
the books in use. The singing was either in words of
hymns where each note had its syllable printed under it,
or, as they called it, by note, which consisted in singing
in unison the notes of the tune by the syllable me, faw,
sol, law, for at that time do, re, si, were not used in
English psalmody. As it was very difficult to fix these
syllables to the right notes, the books were printed in
what they called patent notes, or, in ridicule, buck
wheat notes. Instead of having the note-heads round,
they were made of different shapes, the seven notes
of the scale being made up by repeating three of the
notes. With this arrangement they could sing slow tunes
very readily, and as for rapid ones, they managed it by
ear. There was nothing but vocal music taught at
that time. They had no pianos out of the large towns,
and the violin was played by ear; playing the fiddle
was rather a sinful affair, at best.

144 Recollections of
The attraction to the singing schools was the social
one of the young men and women getting together
and having a pleasant time, for it was understood that
the girls, who could generally come out with their
brothers or family friends, would accept the company of
some young man to go home, as an escort. In this way
they made acquaintances and sometimes matches, as
well as having a pleasant time. The spelling schools
were attended on the same principle and largely for the
same object, as indeed were evening meetings, and
meetings generally.
I was decidedly fond of attending all such gather
ings, because they were occasions of sociability, that in
the monotony of country life were very desirable. They
were extremely rustic and democratic socially. But
I was not aff"ected by that, though mother looked
upon them as rather common, and father objected be
cause they were too worldly and not solemnly religious.
This was especially the case with regard to the frolics,
as they were called, that is, parties for huskings, house-
raisings, etc., where there would be a female side of the
party in the shape of a quilting, sewing or spinning bee.
They were almost sure to dance ; and dancing was es
teemed one of the deadly sins. I made up an opinion
for myself that dancing was not wrong, and did not
hesitate to be present at a dance, if it was in the way ;
but, in deference to father's orders, I never tried to
dance, and thus lost the opportunity of learning that
valuable art. At pious houses, where dancing was for
bidden, if they had a party, the case was compromised
with plays and the like, where the forfeits were largely

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 145
paid in kisses — a very acceptable currency with young
sters, the too free use of which was certainly not
good. Like an over issue of any currency, it materially
depreciated the value without enriching those who re
ceived it. In short, the moral tendency of the plays
was far worse than the dancing, and they ought not to
have been allowed to displace it.
I can hardly realize how greatly things have changed
since that period, and what a primitive and simple kind of
life prevailed. Particularly remarkable was the general
equality and the general dependence of all upon the neigh
borly kindness and good offices of others. Their houses
and barns were built of logs, and were raised by the col
lection of many neighbors together on one day, whose
united strength was necessary to the handling of the logs.
As every man was ready with the ax and understood this
work, all came together within the circle where the raising
was to be done, and all worked together with about equal
skill. The best axmen were given charge of the placing
of the logs on the wall, and some one of experience took
the general direction. The logs of the width and length
of the house were usually of different lengths. Those
intended for the two sides were placed in a convenient
place, some distance from the foundation ; those for the
ends, in another place. The first two side logs were put
in place at the back and front ; then the end logs were
notched down in their places ; then two side logs would
be rolled up on skids, and notched in their places. At the
corners the top of the log, as soon as it was put in place,
would be dressed up by the cornerman ; and when the next
logs were rolled up they would be notched, which notch

146 Recollections of
would be turned downwards upon the saddle made to
receive it, when the cornerman would saddle that log
ready for the next. This kept the logs in their places
like a dovetail and brought them together so as to form
a closer wall. The ends of the skids would be raised on
each new log as it was laid down to make a way for the
next. The logs on these skids would be rolled as long
as the men could handle them from the ground; but
when the wall got too high, then they would use forks,
made by cutting a young notched tree, with which the
logs would be pushed up. By using a fork at each end
of the log, it could be be pushed up with ease and safety.
The men understood handling timber, and accidents
seldom happened, unless the logs were icy or wet, or
the whiskey had gone round too often. I was often at
these raisings, because we had raisings of the kind to do,
and it was the custom always to send one from a family
to help, so that you could claim like assistance in return.
At the raisings I would take the position of cornerman,
if the building was not too heavy, as it was a post of
honor, and my head was steady when high up from the
ground. In chopping on the corners we always stood
up straight, and it required a good balance.
This kind of mutual help of the neighbors was ex
tended to many kinds of work, such as rolling up the
logs in a clearing, grubbing out the underbrush, splitting
rails, cutting logs for a house and the like. When a
gathering of men for such a purpose took place there
was commonly some sort of mutual job laid out for
women, such as quilting, sewing, or spinning up a lot of
thread for some poor neighbor. This would bring to-

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 147
gether a mixed party, and it was usually arranged that
after supper there should be a dance or, at least, plays,
which would occupy a good part of the night, and wind
up with the young fellows seeing the girls home in the
short hours ; or, if they went home early, sitting with
them by the fire in that kind of interesting chat known
as sparking. The flax crops required a good deal of handling, in
weeding, pulling and dressing, and each of these pro
cesses was made the occasion of a joint gathering of
boys and girls and a good time. As I look back now
upon those times, I am puzzled to think how they man
aged to make such small and crowded houses serve for
large parties, and how they found room to dance in an
apartment of perhaps eighteen feet square, in which there
would be two large beds and a trundle-bed, besides the
furniture, which though not of great quantity, took some
room. And then, if these were small houses, they often
contained large families. I have often seen three or
four little heads peeping out from that part of a trundle-
bed, that was not pushed entirely under the big bed, to
get their share of the fun going on among the older
ones, while the big beds were used to receive the hats
and bonnets and perhaps a baby or two, stowed away
till the mothers were ready to go home.
One of the gatherings for joint work, which has
totally disappeared from the agriculture of modern
times, and one that was always a jolly kind of affair,
was the corn husking. It was a sort of harvest home
in its department, and it was the more jolly because it
was a gathering with very little .respect to persons, and

148 Recollections ' of
embraced in the invitation men and big boys, with the
understanding that no one would be unwelcome. There
was always a good supper served at the husking, and as
certainly a good appetite to eat it with. It came at a
plentiful season, when the turkeys and chickens were
fat, and a fat pig was at hand, to be flanked on the table
with good bread in various forms, turnips and potatoes
from the autumn stores, apple and pumpkin pies, good
coffee and the like. And the cooking was always
well done, and all in such bountiful abundance, that no
one feared to eat, while many a poor fellow was certain
of a "square meal" by being present at a husking.
You were sure to see the laboring men of the vicinity
out ; and the wives of a goodly number of farm hands
would be on hand to help in the cooking and serving
at the table. The corn husking has been discontinued
because the farmers found out that it was less trouble to
husk it in the field, direct from the stalk, than to gather
in the husk and go over it again. But in that day they
did not know that much, and therefore, took the original
method of managing their corn crop, which was this:
as soon as the grain began to harden, they would cut
the stalks off, just above the ears and save these tops for
fodder, and if they had time they stripped all the blades
off the stalks below the ears, which made very nice
though costly feed. Then, as barn room was not usually
over plenty, they made a kind of frame of poles, as for
a tent, and thatched it, sides and top, with the corn
tops placed with the tassel dow'nward, so as to shed the
rain and snow. This was called the fodder-house, and
was built in the barn-yard. Inside they would store

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 149
the blades in bundles, the husks, and the pumpkins
that were saved for use in the winter. The fodder-
house was commonly made ten feet high, and as
long as was necessary, and it was used up through
the winter by feeding the fodder to the cattle, begin
ning at the back, which would be temporarily closed by
a few bundles of the tops. It would thus serve as a pro
tection for what might be stored in it till all was used up.
The fodder-house was of all things a favorite place for
the children to hide in and play. When the season
for gathering the corn came, the farmers went through
the fields and pulled off the ears and husks together,
throwing them upon the ground in heaps, whence they
were hauled into the barnyard, and there piled up in a
neat pile of convenient length, according to the crop,
and say four or five feet high, rising to a sharp peak
from a base of about six feet. Care was taken to make
this pile of equal width and height from end to end,
so that it would be easily and fairly divided in the mid
dle, by a rail laid upon it.
When the husking party had assembled they were
all called out into line, and two fellows, mostly ambitious
boys, were chosen captains. These then chose their
men, each calling out one of the crowd alternately, till
all were chosen. Then the heap was divided, by two
judicious chaps walking solemnly along the ridge of the
heap of corn, and deciding where the dividing rail was
to be laid, and, as this had to be done by starlight or
moonlight at best, it took considerable deliberation, as
the comparative solidity of the ends of the heap and
the evenness of it had to be taken into account. This

150 Recollections of
done, the captains placed a good steady man at each
side of the rail, who made it a point to work through
and cut the heap in two as soon as possible; and
then the two parties fell to husking, all standing with
the heap in front of them, and throwing the husked
corn onto a clear place over the heap, and the husks be
hind them. From the time they began till the corn was
all husked at one end, there would be steady work, each
man husking all the corn he could, never stopping ex
cept to take a pull at the stone jug of inspiration that
passed occasionally along the line ; weak lovers of the
stuff were sometimes overcome, though it was held to
be a disgraceful thing to take too much. The captains
would go up and down their lines, ancj rally their men as if
in a battle, and the whole was an exciting affair. As soon
as one party got done, they raised a shout, and hoisting
their captain on their shoulders, carried him over to the
other side with general cheering. Then would come a
little bantering talk and explanation why the defeated
party lost, and all would turn to and husk up the rem
nants of the heap. All hands would then join to carry
the husks into the fodder-house. The shout at hoisting
the captain was the signal for bringing the supper on
the table, and the buskers and supper met soon after.
These gatherings often embraced forty or fifty men. If
the farm house was small, it would be crowded, and
the supper would be managed by repeated sittings at
the table. At a large house there was less crowding
and more fun, and if, as was often the case, some occa
sion had been given for an assemblage of the girls of the
neighborhood, and particularly if the man that played

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 151
the fiddle should attend, after the older men had gone,
there was very apt to be a good time. There was a tra
dition that the boys who accidentally husked a red ear,
and saved it, would be entitled to a kiss from somebody.
But I never knew it to be necessary to produce a red
ear to secure a kiss where there was a disposition to
give or take one.

152 Recollections of

CHAPTER XXn.
Religious Meetings and Privileges— Walking to Meeting— Hospitality
and Simplicity— Farm Buildings- Log Barns— Thrashing Grain-
Use of the Flail — Primitive Method of Winnowing — Farm Work
for the Whole Family— Two Oddly Balanced Families— Law Suits.
At this time the Methodist church was supplied at
the neighboring towns of Moorefield and Freeport, and
other preaching appointments near by circuit preachers,
who traveled the round of the circuit once a month.
There were two preachers on the circuit, which brought
the preaching times every two weeks. At the villages
the appointments were fixed for Sundays, and when
there was a local preacher in the neighborhood the in
termediate Sundays would be allotted to him, if he
chose to preach. In this way preaching was kept up
every Sunday, most of the time. At Freeport there was
a Presbyterian, Methodist and Quaker congregation;
but the Presbyterian preaching was only occasional, as
they could not raise enough to support a regular min
ister. The Quakers held meetings whether there was a
minister or not, and the Methodists had about thirty
preaching places on the circuit, each of which contrib
uted something for the support of the two preachers,
whose salaries were very small, perhaps not over three
hundred dollars apiece. It was poor pay, and generally
it was equally " poor preach."
The very monotony of country life was an induce-

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 153
ment to go to any gathering of people. For this reason
churches are better attended in the country than in
towns, at all times. I thought nothing then of walking
five miles to meeting, and returning a mile or two out
of the way for the sake of company. Though we had
horses, I, as most young men did, walked in preference.
It was a freer way of going. Accustomed to the exer
cise and active life of the country, a walk of a few miles
did not tire me, and I could come and go as I liked,
while a horse would have been a care and burden. I
could walk about as fast as I would want to ride, and I
could take advantage of all near cuts and shorter way.
I was particularly fond of going near ways through the
woods; and miles from home, I would strike across
somewhere, and cut off" distance, or explore a new route.
This I could do on foot, and for the pleasure of doing
that alone, I would have walked. That country being
the dividing land at the head of several streams, it was
full of ridges, the tops of which were pretty free from
underbrush, and overlooking the valleys, were ' rather
pleasant to walk on, especially when the roads were
muddy. At that time there was not over a fourth of the
land cleared ; and though there was no great danger of
missing the way, through the wildness of the forest, it
required some skill to get and keep a course from one
distant point to another. This I took great delight in
doing, and would invariably go through the woods if
the journey would permit.
The people of the region were very hospitable, and
were always ready to welcome any one who would call
on them or even make them a visit. As is the custom

154 Recollections of
in all country districts, whoever called near meal time,
was expected to eat. The farmers lived simply. They
were all in about the same social condition, and nearly
equal as to wealth. Most of them owned the land they
lived upon and all worked with their own hands, whether
they hired help or not. The houses and improvements
depended upon the length of time they had been on the
place. A man who had just settled was not expected to
have much of a house, or other buildings. The first
care was to get up what would do, and this was usually
a good sized log cabin of round logs, covered with clap
boards ; that is, split pieces, four feet long and six inches
wide, and weighted down on the roof with logs. A
barn of the same materials was built, as soon as possible,
for the protection of the crops and animals. Such barns
as I have told, already, were mostly made by putting up
two log pens — say eighteen feet square, that is, all the
logs eighteen feet long — at a distance of about eighteen
feet apart; the pens were carried up to about twelve
feet high, when logs were placed so as to connect the
two pens under one roof, which would cover a building
of eighteen by fifty-four feet on the ground. The in
tervening space served for the barn, or thrashing-floor,
and was usually closed, as soon as it could be done
with large double doors at front and back.
The barns were, of course, very open, which, for
stowing grain, was no inconvenience, since the openings
afforded ventilation and prevented the grain or hay
from being mow-burnt. In the intermediate space
the grain was usually thrashed by hand with a flail,
until the farm was large enough to make it necessary

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 155
to use horses to tread it out. It was the custom,
also, for laboring men to thrash grain for the tenth
bushel, as their compensation ; and it was pretty hard-
earned grain at that. Ten bushels of wheat was a hard
days' thrashing, though rye, barley and oats were easier
done; and a good hand would knock out twenty to
twenty-five bushels of oats.
The flail was a peculiarly made instrument, and
very hard to get the hang of. It was formed of two
sticks, one about like a broom-handle, and four feet
long, the other near three feet long, with a hole in the
end of it, round, and an inch and a half in diameter.
The handle was very smooth and made with a button
like knob on the end, away from the hand, and a groove
around it to receive a cord, which was tied arou^id the
handle so that the handle would turn in it. The thrash
ing part, or blade, as they sometimes called it, having a
hole in the end was tied to the handle by a link of cord.
This made a loose and changeable joint, which allowed
the whole length of the blade to strike the grain at
once. It might be compared to a whip with a club for
a lash. The handling of it required skill, and to hit
yourself on the top of the head with it was the easiest
thing imaginable.
The lower part of the two ends of the barn were usu
ally fitted up for horse and cow stables, and the upper part
as well as the space over the thrashing-floor was used
for mowing away hay and grain. When the farms
were small, this room would suffice. If not the sur
plus would be stacked up in the barnyard. The
thrashing was mostly done in the winter, and, if possi-

156 Recollections of
ble, on cold, dry days. In wet weather the grain was
hard to beat out of the straw. Thrashing was good,
hearty winter work, and it had to be very cold, indeed,
if you could not keep warm at it. The winnowing of
the grain from the chaff was mostly done in a primitive
manner, for it was only a well-to-do farmer who could
aff"ord a fanning mill. A very common method of clear
ing grain was to rake out all the short straw and lighter
chaff" after thrashing ; then two persons would take a
sheet, which they doubled into an oblong shape, and
each standing opposite to the other, they took hold, one
with the right hand uppermost and the other with the
left up, and with the other hands they clutched the edge
of the sheet about two-thirds of the width from the top
as it hung from the upper hands. They would then give it
a motion a little like the blade of an oar in rowing. This
produced a good blast, before which the grain and chaff
was shaken down from a coarse sieve, when the chaff
was blown away, and the clean wheat fell on the floor.
This winnowing with the sheet was hard work, and if
there was much to be done, hands were changed ; the
women of the family would be called on to assist, and if,
as was often the case, there were two or three lusty girls
about the house, and big boys, they would soon do up a
thrashing of grain, and have a jolly time besides.
Where the country had only been a few years set
tled, and where the farms were still being opened up,
the families were mostly young ; that is, the children
nearly all in their minority, so that the farmer himself
and one or two big boys made up the laboring strength of
the farm ; and for an extra lift at any time, the wife or

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 157
older daughter would be called on to help, and some
times they would assist in planting and hoeing the corn ,
raking the grain or hay in harvest. The rule was, that
whoever had the strength to work, took hold and helped.
If the family was mostly girls, they regularly helped
their father in all the lighter farm work.
There were two familes living about three miles east
of us, who curiously balanced each other. A Scotch
man had nine sons and one daughter, and next to him
was a Marylander, who had nine daughters and one son ;
the daughters nearly all measured six feet. The boy of
this family was not so stout, and was younger than most
of his sisters. He was spared at work, and the girls
regularly worked with their father at almost any of the
farm work. The Scotch girl got off with very little out
door work, but the Maryland girls worked in-doors and
out, while the boy had a good time of it. Some of the
young people of these families intermarried, but how
many of them I do not now remember.
It was a fault of people in that region that they
were intolerably fond of lawsuits. The obstinacy of the
Scotch in them, combined with the Irish irritability,
seemed to fit them for constant quarrels. The justices
of the peace and the higher courts were kept busy with
suits, and the churches always had some case in the secu
lar departments. These offered a way of going to law that
was inexpensive, and on the whole about as satisfactory
as the courts to the litigants, perhaps more so, as it left
them to stick to their side of tl^e question. But the
costs of lawsuits were not so great as they are now, and
the lawyers charged less ; so the luxury of a suit was

158 Recollections of
more within the reach of men of small means. A lead
ing cause of lawsuits was slander. There was a great
disposition talk freely, and some one was sure to think
he was slandered to the extent of great damages, for
which he would go to law ; or, he would seek redress in
the church if the off'ender happened to belong to a
church. If he got the offender turned out of the church
and pretty thoroughly disgraced, he might by mollified ;
but if the church authorities were not fully convinced,
and did not punish the accused brother or sister, he was
as ready for a lawsuit as ever. The trials served to
break the monotony of the country life, and sometimes
spiced it to a high degree.

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 159

CHAPTER XXIII.
Failure of the New Farming Experiment— Removal to Wheeling —
Author's Efforts to learn the Printing Business— Schism in the
Society of Friends— A Quaker Fight in Meeting — Hicksites and
Orthodox— Six Cents Fine and Five Minutes in Prison — Employ
ment with Alexander Campbell, Founder of the Sect of the Dis
ciples — Rural Printing Oflice — The Author Starts a Magazine.
After the routine of finding out the country and
getting acquainted with the people, the life we led was
decidedly monotonous. Few changes occurred in it.
We went to town — that is, to the two villages of Moore
field and Freeport — went to meetings, and occasionally to
distant places, though seldom. The farming operations
were a failure here, because we were not expert farmers,
and still worked with our rats of horses, that stuck by
us like any other affliction. The great matter was for
us to be convinced of the failure, and to acknowledge it.
At last we decided. Father engaged in the business of
grading wool for buyers, and was employed in Wheeling,
Virginia. So we concluded to leave the farm, which
was improved from what it was when we got it ; but it
could not be sold at once, and had to be rented. Father
found a tenant in a smooth-tongued Irishman, who
agreed to pay a certain rent, and stipulated that he was
to be allowed for repairs. At the end of the year he
had us in debt, without paying any rent. Then father
sold the place and wound up the aft"air.
When we made up our minds to leave the country.

160 Recollections of
father made arrangements to move into Wheeling. By
the time the farming was wound up and settlements
made, we were rather poor. The family was large, and
what was worse, there was no employment secured for
any but father, and his compensation was not more than
would suffice to find us in the barest necessaries of life.
We did the best we could to find something to do that
would lighten the burden. I had all along wanted to
learn the printing business, but had found no oppor
tunity, till now I was twenty-one years old or nearly so,
and my age was an impediment. There was a contingent
opening for a learner in the office of the Virginia States
man, a new paper, just begun in Wheeling, which had
been engaged by a young fellow who was not certain to
come. I took this place, and set about the work with
enthusiasm. My natural mechanical gift enabled me to
take hold of the art very successfully and perform any
part of it readily and understandingly ; but it required
time to acquire the necessary speed at setting type.
I was a little too late in beginning, and I was des
tined to disappointment in my work. The young man,
who was my junior by three years, and thus had an ad
vantage, came to take his place after I had begun. This
made one too many in the office force, and I had to give
it up within the second month. Thus I was obliged to
look after another situation, and for a time I had to be
at home, with nothing to do but the little assistance I
could render father in handli-ig wool.
After the struggles of the first year, father did
pretty well in Wheeling, and when he sold the farm, he
put the proceeds into a house and lot, which increased

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 161
in value. There was a large and respectable society of
Methodists in the town, and by means of these he found
himself in a congenial atmosphere, and we had many
pleasant acquaintances outside. The family lived in
Wheeling till the autumn of 1834, when father bought
a farm near Chillicothe, and moved to it.
Meantime, I was put to it to get a chance at print
ing. I had learned to set type slowly and to work at press,
but after I was superseded at the office of the Virginia
Statesman, it was sometime before I could find a place,
and a dreary time it was for me. I went to Mount
Pleasant, across in Ohio, where we had lived twelve
years before, and where Elisha Bates, the leader at that
time of the Orthodox Quakers, had a printing office ; but
his office was full, and at any rate he was doing little
more than looking after his controversy with Elias
Hicks. So this effort to get work failed. I found the
place in a general ferment the day I was there. The
Yearly Meeting of the Quakers was in session. The
sect had not yet divided, and they had endeavored to ig
nore the fact that they were composed of two irrecon
cilable parties, and go on together, each, however, striv
ing for the ascendency. When they came to organize
the meeting by the election of a Clerk, who is the pre
siding officer, and who really controls the proceedings if
he will, the two factions came into collision, and a strife
ensued, which, with any body but Quakers, would have
been a fight. Instead of striking, they gave vent to
their passions, and sought to conquer by pushing and
jamming each other as they pressed towards the Clerk's
table with their respective candidates. In this way

162 Recollections of
some of them got pretty badly hurt, and Jonathan Tay
lor, the Bates, or Orthodox candidate for Clerk was
nearly killed by being jammed against and under the
table. The accident broke up the meeting, and to this
day it is not known which candidate was chosen. As
soon as the antagonists got out of doors, it was generally
conceded that the prevailing frame of mind was not
what became a " Meeting of Friends." The Orthodox
party decided that it was a riot — from which no one
particularly dissented — and appealed to the civil law,
complaining against the prominent Hicksites as rioters,
and sued out warrants for them. The Hicksites and
their friends pursued the true Quaker policy of keeping
quiet, and out of the way, when they saw an officer of
the law in search of them. They knew the officers by
sight, and fought shy of all the world's people whom
they did not know. The sheriff" of the county had been
sent for to make the arrests, but he could never get near
them, till the Orthodox party adopted the strategem of
putting a shad-bellied coat and broad brimmed hat upon
him, under which deceptive appearance he nabbed five
or six of the Hicksites, and with them a disreputable
renegade Quaker, well known then as a manufacturer of
vegetable toothache drops (the chief ingredient of which
was muriatic acid), by the name of Thomas White. He
was made very happy by the arrest, as it saved him many
dollars in advertising. I think Bates had a purpose in
the arrest of White, for all knew that he did not take
part in the riot, beyond shouting — " Hurrah for Jack
son !" as from that time forward Bates never vrrote or
spoke of the affair without naming two or three of the

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 163
most respectable Hicksites, and adding, " Thomas White
and others." The prisoners were all. convicted of riot,
fined six cents each, and imprisoned for five minutes.
After this farce, the Society of Friends were two societies.
There were at that time but few printing offices in
the country, and they employed but few hands. At the
county towns there would be found one or two papers
for the local business, or the support of party interests.
They were small aff"airs, and conducted in a very primi
tive manner. The owner was mostly a printer by trade,
who edited his own sheet, and was the chief workman
upon it, often doing the half of the work himself. Some
times an office — ^that is, a press and a small quantity of
type — ^would be got together by some one who had a
mission of some kind, or wanted to enlighten the world
in literature. There was an abundance of monthly mag
azines, and each one of them made about work for one,
or at most, two men. This was the kind of printing
office that Elisha Bates had. He had a mission of his
own and used a periodical to forward it, though the is
sue was not regular. At the same time, Alexander
Campbell, the leader of the " Disciple " sect, was issuing
a monthly that he called the Christian Baptist, and occa
sionally a volume of some kind. He had a handsome
farm in the valley of Buffalo Creek, a stream that runs
through Brooke county, in West Virginia, and empties
into the Ohio River at Wellsburg. His place was in a
fertile but hilly region, ten miles from Steubenville,
eight from Wellsburg and sixteen from Wheeling. In
this out-of-the-way place he had fitted up a printing
office, in a little frame box of a house, just sixteen feet

164 Recollections of
square. After I had sought for work till discouraged, I
walked out to Campbell's place to see what the chance
was there. I found the office on the bank of the creek,
so near the water's edge that the pressman wet the pa
per for presswork by dipping it directly into the stream,
selecting a big stone to lay the paper board upon and
another for the dry paper, while he stood half-leg deep
in the water, which gently played over his bare feet.
The printing office, as I have said, was a single room,
about sixteen feet square, unconnected with any other
building, and it had in it two double composing stands, a
bank and a hand-press. This made it pretty close quar
ters ; and in the latter part of the summer I was there,
when Mr. Campbell printed his debate with Owen, the
little office overflowed, and they put up stands for three or
four printers to set type out of doors under sheds. The
pressman was a character in his way. He worked
at press, set type, made verses, led in the Camp-
bellite meetings, sang hymns and sentimental songs,
and wrote letters to the postmasters of numerous vil
lages or new towns to inquire if they did not want
him to start a newspaper in the place, and if there
was any body so anxious as to advance the ex
penses of starting it. On one occasion he wrote to
Sharon, in Pennsylvania, a place he had no knowledge
of, but he was impressed with the aptness of Rose of
Sharon as a title for a paper. Some time after I first
knew him, on the strength of my acquaintance, he came
to Wheeling and quartered himself at father's for several
days, with very little indication of ever going away.
But one morning father disposed of the matter in a way

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 165
that did credit to his humor, while it was effective.
After breakfast he turned to his guest in a nonchalant
way, saying, "I suppose you will not be here when I
return, so I wish you good-by," and shook hands with
him. He took the hint and left in the course of the
morning. The printing office at Buffalo Creek was in the cor
ner of a field, some distance from Campbell's own house,
but near to one occupied by a tenant, where any tran
sient printers boarded. As the tenant was of Mr.
Campbell's then new church, or brotherhood, and as
Mr. Young was a good natured and poor man, and Mr.
Campbell rich and sharp at a trade, these boarding ac
counts were a source of great discomfort between them,
and a good deal of heart-burning, at least on Mr. Young's
part, whose only relief was found in complaining. What
ever opinion the people with whom Mr. Campbell came
in contact away from home may have had of him, at
home and among his neighbors he was regarded as
greatly disposed to lord it over his poor and dependent
friends. He was pretty hard in dealing, as I found out,
and had little natural sympathy with those who had not
or could not acquire a worldly competence. Still his
manner was amiable, and socially he was always accessi
ble to the man who understood the conversational art of
listening, especially if that man liked to hear Mr. Camp
bell talked of. I boarded with Mr. Young while I was
there. Mr. C. took the amount of the board out of my
wages, and Mr. Y. grumbled and said that was always
the way. After many efforts to get a situation in some print-

166 Recollections of
ing office, where I could learn the business more thor
oughly, I was induced, by my own vanity and the flat
tery of some with whom I was acquainted, to start a
monthly periodical. It was the favorite way of doing
then, to set up a monthly sheet, or little magazine of,
say sixteen pages, to be filled with contributions and se
lections. The country was full of them, such as they
were. Every man who had a mission or hobby, or was
beset with the idea that he had " a call" to literary work,
would get together a few printing materials and start a
monthly. This I did; and it is really wonderful how
cheaply I set up a printing establishment. After issu
ing a prospectus and soliciting subscribers, and appoint
ing agents in sundry places, and authorizing all post
masters to act as agents, by the autumn of 1828, I was
ready to issue the first number of "The Gleaner" — "a
monthly periodical devoted to literature and miscella
neous selections — price one dollar a year in advance." I
do not remember, now, how many subscribers I had ; but
the list was very small, while my hopes were large.
There was no doubt in my mind but I could get along
with such an enterprise, and I could really have man
aged to print it or edit it alone ; but to do both and also
manage its business so that I could live by it, was more
than I could do. Yet I did not see this. I pushed on
and got out the first number — sure that the subscriptions
v/ould pour in, though they did not. I made a tolerably
fair issue, using up a ream and a half of paper, which
gave me an excess of copies for future subscribers. It
was well spoken of and sometimes praised, and received
many kindly notices from "the press," which, in that

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 167
day, was not up to the present standard. I had, I may
safely say, no money, though plenty of confidence, a
quality that bankers turn into money, but by very differ.
ent appliances from what I used. Still I succeeded in
starting this paper better than I should do now, with all
the experience of fifty years added. I got a hundred
pounds of new bourgeois, and a home-made press, a
part of which I constructed. It was a clumsy affair,
after the style of hand-presses of that day, and made
largely of wood. The cases and stands I made myself,
as also I did a composing stick of iron, and it was not a
very bad one. It was before composition rollers were in
troduced in that part of the country, and I followed the
old fashion of making balls of buckskin, stuffed with
wool, wherewith to ink the type. As I had but a small
font of type, I had to work the forms half-sheet wise, or
eight pages at a time. I set the type, and when I had a
form up, I worked it off and distributed it. I worked
away in this manner till the year was nearly out, when
I gave up the idea of keeping it going. Still I had
hope, and felt that success would come ; and though this
was manifestly a failure, I thought if I had a larger
sheet and took more of the general features of a news
paper into my plan, it would prove a triumph finally.
The " Gleaner " was intended as a kind of ladies'
paper, and I thought the young people who had a taste
for writing would support and contribute to it, in the
way of essays, verses and the like. My sister Anne
joined me in so far as to have her name appear as the
editor ; but though she felt anxious for me to succeed,
she had no real interest in it of her own. Indeed I

168 Recollections of
should not have trusted myself to undertake it, if I had
been a proper judge of my own abilities. At all events,
the " Gleaner " went the way of gleaners, into the ob
scurity of the poor, and its memory excites but little
pride in me.

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 169

CHAPTER XXIV.
starting a Weekly Paper— Difliculties of the Author's Position —
Eclectic Observer — A Visionary and his Book — The Author's
Marriage — Removal to St. Clairsville — Early Married Life — The
Whig Party Founded — The Author's Employer.
Having got started in publishing, and having
nothing else that I could turn to, I was the more easily
tempted to try a weekly issue. At this time I was beset
with the idea that the world was on the eve of some
great social, political and civil revolution, in which the
"ills that flesh is heir to" were to be all cured; and as I
was not attached to any political party, and belonged to
no church, I was pretty well prepared to launch forth in
a radical as well as independent journal. I was encour
aged by a few who were making war upon certain forms
of sectarianism in the church, and by all who were dis
satisfied with politics and the world in general. There
was then in Wheeling , quite a number of admirers of
Robert Owen's system of social economy, and his com
munity at New Harmony, in Indiana. These were very
free to encourage me with an abundance of fair words,
but very few dollars.
I had but poor support for my enterprise when I
began, and I ought not to have undertaken it ; but my
constant tempter, Hope, led me on to risk the chance of
better support as I progressed. But it did not come. I
committed the grave mistake of addressing my efforts to

170 Recollections of
the promotion of negative interests. Since I was of no
church and no party, of course I failed to enlist any one
warmly in my behalf, beyond those who temporarily
wanted some interest attacked, and my fate was that of
the bat in the fable, who was not accepted by birds or
beasts. ^
I had a consciousness of meaning well ; I had grit
and strong hope ; and I pushed ahead. Accordingly I
got some more type, enlarged my plan and commenced a
weekly issue of a sheet known then as super-royal size,
twenty-two by twenty-eight inches square, which I called
the " Eclectic Observer." The paper was well received and
well spoken of, but it lacked the " sinews of war." I kept
it going six months with great effort. I worked hard
and spent no money foolishly, not even so foolishly as to
buy clothes. I really went shabbily dressed and denied
myself comforts of every kind. At the end of six
months I suspended the paper temporarily, as I an
nounced, but in fact, forever.
I next used my printing materials on behalf of a vis
ionary old gentleman, of the name of William Matthers,
who had taken it into his head that he had a mission to
write a book, which was to cure the disorders of the world.
He was a Presbyterian in his religious training, but what
his exact belief was, I do n't think he knew. He was from
the north of Ireland, but had been brought up in Balti
more. He had settled in Ohio just before the state was
organized, but was of a restless turn, and traveled a great
deal over the then new territory of Louisiana and Illinois.
He was familiar with the prominent actors in the Burr
conspiracy and their movements, as well as the transac-

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 171
tions in the transfer of Louisiana to the United States,
and familiar with the leading men of the new states. He
was altogether a most interesting man to talk with when
he made his experiences his subject. On other subjects
he was visionary and uncertain. He was ultra demo
cratic in his views, and ascribed all the woes men suf
fered to aristocracy, which he rather regarded as the
antichrist that was to unite with the Pope in getting the
world ready for the general break-up before the millen
nium. His notions of society were communistic, and he
was very severe on corporations and banks. I thought
that he had money enough to pay for printing his book,
which I found to be a mistake when he got it done. He
called his book " The Rise, Progress and Downfall of
Aristocracy." It was a queer compound of politics and
theology in which things were mixed up in a most Quix
otic manner. Of his book he was sanguine beyond
measure, and was sure people would go mad after it and
make him rich at once. I found that, comp red with
him in his hopefulness, I had the coldest of common
sense. With his book closed my printing business in
Wheeling. I began the publication of the "Gleaner" in De
cember, 1828, and in December, 1829, 1 began the issue
of the " Eclectic Observer," which was suspended in June,
1830. I did a little work in various ways, till Mr.
Matthers got ready with his book, late that fall. In Jan
uary, 1881, I became acquainted with Mary Dean, a
young woman of the same worldly expectations as my
self. But I loved her for the qualities that belonged to
her, and that I felt were valuable, and she returned my

172 Recollections of
sentiment. The prospect for our getting married was
not encouraging, but we thought that the printing of the
book would put me in a position to warrant it, and we
fixed on the time of its publication when Mr. Matthers was
to be in funds. We were, accordingly, married on the
tenth of July, in the year 1831. The book was got out in
a few days after, and put upon the market. It brought in
nothing, and Matthers failed directly after, leaving me
"sans everything." We had then to make the best
of it. " The world was all before us," for we were em
phatically a long way behind. I had to look about for
a situation, which I found soon after in the form of a
foremanship in the printing office of the " National His
torian," the paper now succeeded by the " Belmont Chron
icle," at St. Clairsville, Ohio. The wages I was to receive
for this service were ridiculously small, being less than
$300 a year. I ought to have had more, but I despaired
of getting it, for printers then thought a dollar a day
excellent pay. Of course, we had to make a small be
ginning. There were but two of us ; and in that day
and time people, who were quite respectable^ put
up with little furniture and little room. We took a
single room on the second fioor of what had once been
a hotel. All was clean and tidy, and the room, when
" set to rights," looked about as well as if it had been a
room in a hotel where we might have been boarding.
As I look back to it now, I see the sun shining there,
while the clouds— for there were some clouds— are all
gone. But that was a little world of ours that only re
mains a tender memory.
We went to St. Clairsville to live, on the first of

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 173
August, 1831, when we had been married but a few
weeks. We were strangers here, and lived pretty
much to ourselves. In the summer evenings and on
Sundays, we took long walks in the country round, en
joyed the fine prospects from the hilltops, or the shade
of the forests, and altogether made the most of the lim
ited sphere that w^e filled. As I was only a workman, I
had no mental labor to perform in my calling, and
therefore found recreation in reading or writing — mostly
in reading aloud some book that was new to both of us,
or something that I wished to enjoy over again with her
as a listener. The time went by delightfully in our own
little nest, and we regarded very little what was of the
outside. We made some acquaintances among quiet
people, but few intimate friends. Particularly this was
the case with myself. 1 was poor and proud and timid,
and such a man is not apt to make friends. In the
printing office I knew those who came with articles to
be published, or to read the exchanges.
Of the politics of that county I knew but little then.
I had come in from another state, and only knew the
general divisions into Jackson or anti-Jackson men, the
former being much the same as the Democrats of the
present time. Locally this division was not so close, as
in the fall of 1831, there were seven or eight candidates
for the legislature, of whom three were to be elected.
The choice was made from the anti-Jackson men. At
that time the Whig party was not organized, nor till
about three years later. In the summer of 1834, the
New York " Courier and Enquirer," under the manage
ment of James Watson Webb, called the anti-Jackson

174 Recollections of
men the Whig party. The term was immediately ac
cepted, and continued to designate that party till it
died at a respectable age, from the force of circum
stances, and an unhappy effort to wear a doe-face, in
1854, just twenty years later.
My engagement in St. Clairsville was for one year,
and only amounted to employment and bread. When
that time was out, I was not inclined to renew it, and
my employer, who had bought the paper on a specula
tion, and was a medical man, who knew nothing about
printing, was exacting and hard to satisfy. He had
some other plans in view, and did not propose to con
tinue the engagement — really, I suppose, because he
could get the work done at less cost by boys. He was a
Scotchman; a man of education and a good scholar,
practical, with a turn for mechanics, and could do almost
any thing in that way; and, indeed, there was hardly
any thing that he would not undertake. He was an
avowed materialist, and took especial pleasure in ridi
culing all religious ideas, and he was looked upon by
the community generally as a terrible fellow. He was
a man of taste and extensive reading, and really talented,
but extremely lazy and very selfish. He had considera
ble wealth, which he lived upon when he was not mak
ing more. The last I knew of him, he was living at
Bridgeport, opposite Wheeling, where he put in his time
with a little job-printing office, doing any work that
came to hand, and letting the world take care of itself.

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 175

CHAPTER XXV.
A Local Poet — Removal to Mount Pleasant — Working for Elisha
Bates, Orthodox Quaker — A Character — Cholera — Geographical
Limits of a Pledge — Removal to Chillicothe — Journey Thither —
Buckeye Festival.
The year was without any event in our little life. I
I got temporary employment with Horton J. Howard,
who started the "National Historian," and was then car
rying on a small printing office, and printing any books
he could get to do. At that time he was printing an
epic poem, called the " Napoleon," after the style of the
Eneiad, being the story of Napoleon Bonaparte, in the
ponderous blank verse of the heroic pattern of Milton.
The author was Thomas H. Genin, a very eccentric law
yer of St. Clairsville, who had money enough to spare
in printing a book that was never to be sold. This
Genin was an uncle to the hatter Genin, of New York,
who made himself famous by buying the first ticket to
Jenny Lind's concert, at $500. Though T. H. Genin
had two very promising sons, he outlived them, and his
property was willed to the nephew, who discharged the
obligation by printing the memoirs and posthumous
papers of his uncle, and erecting a life-size statute of
him in marble, which is the chief ornament of the cem
etery of St. Clairsville, at this time.
I continued to work for Howard, mostly at press, on
an old Ramage machine, and by working very hard, I

176 Recollections of
could make one dollar a day. The price was twelve and
a half cents a token, and Howard furnished a boy to roll
and wet paper, etc. It was not very steady work at
that, and not likely to last long after the book was done.
I made a prospective engagement to work for Elisha
Bates about this time, and arranged to begin in Sep
tember. Towards the latter part of the month we moved to
Mount Pleasant, in Jefferson county, where father had
lived just sixteen years before. Here I went to work
for Elisha Bates, on his monthly periodical, which he
called the " Repository." This was about steady work for
one man, and would have kept me very closely, but
there was another printer engaged on it who did a good
deal of the work, and might have done it all, except that
there was some extra printing to be done for the Friends'
Yearly Meeting, under the direction of Bates. The work
was expected to keep us going, but Bates was traveling a
good deal, and the " Repository" was reduced to occasional
issues. My fellow-workman, whose name was William
McG  , was much my senior, and was a terrible
drinker ; that is, he would drink whenever he could get
whiskey, and would resort to the usual expedients to
get it. He was always ready, as one of a convivial party,
with songs, stories and jokes. He sang remarkably well,
and knew all of the popular songs of the times, which it
was then customary to sing ballad-fashion, without ac
companiments. He would go straight through More's
Melodies, and any of the collections of the songs of
Campbell, Burns, Tannyhill, Dibden and the like, always
including the Star Spangled Banner, Hail Columbia,

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 177
The American Tar, the Pillar of Glory, and the patriotic
songs that sprung up with the War of 1812. He was
also a Free Mason, and invariably drew upon the breth
ren, wherever he went, for good cheer and relief from
his personal necessities, which were usually pressing.
He was so free hearted and generous in his manner that
every body put up with his many weaknesses, and if he
was at all sober he was generally respected, and tolerated
even when half drunk. If any body was sick he was
ready to nurse them ; and no matter how disagreeable
the task might be, he was faithful to it ; and when death
came he was as ready, and seemed to take a pleasure in
doing the last services for the dead. On such occasions
he would do any thing that was to be done, and would
put on a shroud or dig a grave, give notice of the funeral
and take a hand at the bier. With it all he was cheer
ful and lent some of his brightness to all about him. Of
course he was acquainted with every family in the vil
lage, and made himself at home at every house, where
he would enter at any time without ceremony and often
without knocking. Of his poverty he made no conceal
ment, and if he was in want of something to eat at home
he would ask for it, saying that it -was a duty for us to
help one another, which he was ready to perform when
he could. He was never humiliated by a gift of any
thing he could eat, drink or wear; and as there was
hardly a family for whom he had not done some neigh
borly service, his supplies in this way were pretty good.
The consequence was that he did very little steady work,
and was in the printing office only occasionally. He was

178 Recollections of
away on a spree, or looking after some body who was
sick or had died, three-fourths of the time.
It happened that cholera appeared in the country in
1832, while I was engaged here, and this seemed just to
suit McG  . There was a Quaker family in Mount
Pleasant, of the name of Planner, one of whom was a
Dr. Planner of Zanesville, who was looked upon as a
leader in his profession. He was deputed by the medi
cal men of Zanesville to go to Wheeling, where the
cholera was raging and see it, and otherwise prepare
himself to treat it when it should appear in their town.
The doctor performed his mission, and on his way back
came to Mount Pleasant to visit his friends, and particu
larly three unmarried sisters, who lived by themselves and
with whom he made his home. He arrived in the afternoon,
and received several calls and made some, expecting to
go on speedily. The next morning the whole village
(then of perhaps six hundred or eight hundred) was ter
ror-stricken to find Dr. Planner attacked with cholera.
The fact fell upon them with all the horrors of a pesti
lence. Doors were closed and men walked in silence
along the streets, except as they went solemnly to ex
change information or conjectures as to the case in hand.
It seems as if I could see them now ; and how still and
weird the day was. It was near the end of June. To
the inquiry, "Who is taking care of the Doctor?" the
ready answer was : " Oh, McG  is with him and has
been, all night." In fact, the sisters, McG  and the
physicians of the place were all that saw him till he died,
which was in about twenty-four hours after the attack.
This was a triumphant time for Mac. He was the hero

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 179
of the day, and was referred to as a man who could do
more than others dared. He got all the whiskey he
wanted free, and that without reproof for drinking it.
One of the sisters was attacked with the disease, and
Mac. had to remain as nurse.
A year or two before I went to St. Clairsville, Mac.
subsisted on newspaper prospectuses. His plan was to
print a prospectus, and circulate it for subscriptions,
taking all the pay he could get in advance, and in the
country farmers did n't mind giving him some kind of
produce on this account. If they knew him they un
derstood it, and if they did not know him, they fancied
they would get a paper some time — which they did not.
But he was not alone in the use of this expedient. The
times were favorable to it, as they would not be now.
Poor Mac ! He has got through it all. The last time I
saw him was in 1838, when he came to Martinville and
called on me. He said he had taken the pledge, but ex
plained the condition he was in by saying he was " out
of the township."
The work at Mount Pleasant grew more and more
slack till the fall of 1833. Elisha Bates went to Eng
land, on some kind of a mission, and closed or suspended
his publication, which was never revived. Having
nothing to do, we moved to Wheeling, where both our
families lived. I got a situation as pressman in a print
ing establishment, where I worked on " Webster's Spel
ling Book " — stereotype plates. The press had a rolling
attachment, so that I worked the press alone, making
$1.50 a day ; but it was hard labor, and after the winter's
work, I found that it was too hard for me, and I had to

180 Recollections of
give it up. At that time, my brother Thomas was liv
ing in Chillicothe. He here made an engagement for
me, with Dr. B. O. Carpenter, who had just bought the
" Scioto Gazette," one of the oldest papers in the state ;
but it was only a weekly and a small sheet. Still it was
an important paper, and exerted a good deal of influ
ence in the politics of the state. About the first of
April we moved to Chillicothe. To get there we took
steamboat at Wheeling to Portsmouth, and thence canal
boat to Chillicothe. The distance is three hundred
and fifty miles by river, and fifty by canal. The jour
ney was a very interesting one to us (because it was
new and in a new country) particularly on the canal,
where we had the boat nearly all to ourselves, and
spent twenty-four hours in making the fifty miles ; we
thought this a speedy mode of travel. We left Wheel
ing one evening about the last of March, when the
spring had scarcely appeared, and no blossom had put
forth. The next morning, when we woke up, a little
below Marietta, the peach trees were in full bloom and
vegetation forward in proportion. It was like dropping
into fairy-land. But as we returned northward by the
canal, the spring disappeared, and at Chillicothe the
blossoms were yet to come. Yet it was an early spring,
and that year, as I remember, the buckeye trees were in
full bloom on the seventh of April.
About that time Dr. Drake, of Cincinnati, had
worked up a sort of Ohio furore, by pubhshing a sketch
of Ohio history and the settlement of the state. He
took pains to weave into this a description of the buck
eye, which is a wild horse-chestnut, and indigenous to

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 181
Ohio, and present it as the emblematic tree of the state,
and to fix upon the state the term Buckeye, as a pet name.
Several celebrations of the anniversary of the settle
ment of the state, on the seventh of April, took place
that year, few of which were repeated. This was done
at Chillicothe in quite a romantic fashion. They had,
of course, an address and toasts and resolutions, and a
procession, with a ball at night. They planted a buck
eye tree in a public square, to which the procession
marched, each man bearing a branch of the buckeye,
which was then in full leaf and bloom, where they ob
served further ceremonies, and surrounding the tree
dispersed to meet at the ball and supper. The report of
all this was given at length in the "Buckeye," a paper
started on the idea of an Ohio nationality, by William
Carey Jones, who was then not twenty years old, though
unusually precocious. He afterward became noted as
the son-in-law of Thomas H. Benton, and as an advent
urer in the West.

182 Recollections of

CHAPTER XXVI.
The Scioto Gazette and Its Editor — A Gifted Man — Universal Genius
— The Political Situation — The Author Favors Wm. Henry Har
rison for President— Election of 1836 — The Thurmans at Chilli
cothe. When we had got settled. Dr. Carpenter took pos
session of the "Scioto Gazette," and I went to work.
He had bought the paper, but he knew nothing of the
business. He was a good writer, however, a nervous
and energetic speaker, and a strong anti-Jackson poli
tician. He was expected to give an impetus to this side
in politics, and the politicians, I think, looked for too
much from him. Though a capital talker he had not
the faculty of saying things so well on paper as by word
of mouth. Then, he was wanting in industry and appli
cation. Knowing nothing of newspaper work, he was
not a good editor, though he could produce good and
strong leaders. The general management of the paper
fell largely to me, and as our printing force was not
strong it made pretty hard work. What added to our
difficulty was a want of type. We had about two pages
of advertisements that stood most of the time, and
about two pages to set up each week ; but we were com
pelled to distribute the first form to set up the second.
This cramped the work and gave us no scope as to time.
With our poor outfit we went through the year, at the
close of which the Doctor sold out, thoroughly satisfied
that the newspaper business was not his mission.

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 183
Dr. Carpenter was altogether a character. He was
a man of great natural ability in a certain way. He had
a command of language that was wonderful, and he
could put words together so as to give them double
power of expression. His memory was equal to this
power of talking and the disposition to make use of both
quite as strong. Altogether he was a marvel in his way,
and he would have been an extraordinary man but for
the want of good common sense. His self-confidence
was grand, but it moderated with a turn for self-criti
cism. His forte was in conversation, where he was al
ways brilliant and witty. As a Methodist preacher he
would have been unrivaled, but he was spoiled for that by
being one of the most ardent and enthusiastic of Sweden
borgians. The doctrines of this faith he preached in sea
son and out of season, and if a man would listen to him,
the doctor was pretty sure to convert him to his view of
the subject. I am myself indebted to him for an appre
hension of the doctrines. I had been acquainted with
Swedenborgians for many years, and held them in high
respect ; but it was for the doctor to make me under
stand them. He had the courage to assert what he
believed as though he did believe it, and not in the
apologetic way that is much too common. He was free
from cant, and talked of spiritual matters as he would
of philosophy, which, in his free and easy manner, led
him to disregard the fitness of times and occasions, and
often exposed him to ridicule — in his absence ; for none
that knew him would attempt it in his presence.
My relations to the doctor were rather agreeable
through this year, and I dare say, if the business had

184 Recollections of
been good, my place would have been enjoyable ; but he
was always hard put to it, and I necessarily felt more or
less of his embarrassments. The universality of his
genius stood in the way of comfort. At times he
wanted to direct the work of printing, and would want
me to be responsible for his blunders. But he would
listen to reason, and so we got along. In politics he was
very decided, and indeed ultra, and anti-Jackson, of
course. In the summer of 1834, the middle of Jackson's
second term, the opposition party, which was sometimes
called the National Republican, was little else than a
loose association of all who were opposed to Jackson.
In Ohio it was so loose that the electoral vote of 1832
in opposition to General Jackson was known as the
Unpledged, with the understanding that the vote might
be cast for Clay, Webster, Wirt, or any body but Jack
son. Though Jackson's electors were chosen, those who
voted against him were crystalizing into a party, whose
leading features of politics were the protection of manu
facturers and a United States bank. Henry Clay was a
very well recognized leader in this party, but he had
rivals, among whom was Webster; and the election of
1832 had shown that Clay could not expect to be placed
at the head of the next presidential ticket, and there
seemed to be a tacit understanding that in 1836 the op
position would run different men, without united action,
as if to try the ground for 1840, by which time it was
expected that something could be done to defeat the
Democrats, who would then be running Van Buren for
a second term.
The subject was often talked over by the doctor and

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 185
myself, and the local politicians usually discussed it when
they dropped into the office, as was their custom. Vari
ous men were spoken of, but Clay was more commonly
regarded as the man for Ohio to present in 1836, in
training, so to speak, for 1840. Once or twice General
William Henry Harrison was mentioned, but no one
seemed to favor his pretensions or to suppose he had
any. In thinking it over, I was iihpressed with the be
lief that General Harrison possessed the elements of
character eminently favorable to his being named for the
place. There was a tendency with the anti-Jackson
people to regard with favor a successful military man,
and though it was not so strong as to amount to the hero
worship that lifted Jackson to his place, the politicians
were ready to avail themselves of the sentiment. Harri
son had made a good record in the War of 1812, then only
twenty years past, and still fresh in the minds of the
people ; and withal he was an unpretending man, whose
modesty and simplicity of character, if once brought to
view, would give him great strength with the masses,
whose sympathy could be readily enlisted for him. He
was then living on a farm near Cincinnati, and was dis
charging the duties of clerk of the court of Hamilton
county. I suggested him, one day, to General James T.
Worthington, a man whose opinion I valued. His re
ply was : " O, that cock won't fight !" and then gave his
reasons for not thinking favorably of him, growing less
positive as he went on. He did not shake my confidence
in the idea, and I talked it up to the Doctor. He heard
me through, and then roared out in his peculiar way :

186 Recollections of
" Hurrah for Harrison ! There 's euphony in that ; and
you must have euphony in any popular cry. The very
fact that the name ends in on, is of great importance.
The popular men have had such, names. There was
Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Jackson. Why
not Harrison? It is just the right name." We talked
the matter over and I found he agreed with me. I
urged him to make a declaration for Harrison, as the
candidate in 1836, and proposed that he write a leader
on the subject, and make the announcement at once.
This he concluded to do, and accordingly, I set up, in
conspicuous lines — "For President, in 1836, General
William Henry Harrison," and the next issue of the
" Scioto Gazette" was committed to Harrison.
Of course, this attracted attention, and the papers all
over the country remarked upon it one way or another ;
and, as I expected, the anti- Jackson editors did not
venture to offer any strong opposition, though they
might not indorse it. The subject was soon agitated,
and a mass meeting was called in Cincinnati, to promote
Harrison's nomination. The call for this meeting was
signed by many hundreds, professedly without distinc
tion of party, though few Jackson men signed it. A new
paper was started in . Cincinnati, the next winter, de
voted to his interest, which was conducted by Colonel
James Allen, a man of ability but of erratic habits.
The measure however, prospered, and General Harrison
was made a Whig candidate, in 1836, and got the elec
toral votes of Vermont, 7 ; New Jersey, 8 ; Delaware, 3 ;
Maryland, 10; Kentucky, 15; Ohio, 21, and Indiana 9,
in all 73 ; when Webster got 14, White 26, and Mangum

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 187
11. This placed him in such a position that the party
did not venture to nominate any other candidate, in 1840.
When I went to Chillicothe, Governor William Al
len was the representative in congress, and a candidate
for re-election. The opposition put in nomination Wm.
Key Bond, a lawyer of excellent standing, and a man of
fine education, who had handsomely represented the
district in Congress. They made a desperate effort, and
succeeded in defeating Allen by a small vote. Allen was
first elected to Congress in 1832, by one vote over Gov
ernor McArthur, whose daughter he afterward married.
Allen Thurman was, at that time, a student at law.
His father. Pleasant Thurman, was a local Methodist
preacher, who was also crier of the court and auctioneer;
his wife was a sister of Governor Allen, and his senior.
Mrs. Thurman was a woman of great family pride as
well as ability, but she was eminently practical, and
though very poor, for her social position, she managed
to bring up the Senator, her son, and the Senator and
Governor, her brother, to the distinction they have en
joyed. She, being a Swedenborgian, was a friend of
Dr. Carpenter, at whose house I frequently met her, and
found her an agreeable and interesting acquaintance.
From her character I can understand the success of her
brother and son.
At that time Chillicothe was a place of more po
litical consequence in the state than now. It had been
the capital within a short period, and the importance
then attached to it had not quite departed. Since that
it has had to depend upon trade, and has gradually
changed its relation to other parts of the state.

188 Recollections of

CHAPTER XXVII.
Farming Again — Studying Medicine— Public Executions— Slavehold
ers' Panic in Wheeling — Broken Health — Building a House —
The Painter's Trade Tried — Financial State of the Country —
Traveling by Carriage to Dayton — The Author buys the Ham
ilton Intelligencer — Position of Political Parties — The Slavery
Question. When Dr. Carpenter sold the " Gazette," I was out
of a job, and as nothing offered in the way of printing, I
tried farming. The fall before, that is, 1834, father sold
his house and lot in Wheeling, and arranged to go on to
a farm, in obedience to the long accepted destiny of the
family. I learned of a farm, in Huntington township,
in Ross county, about six miles from the town of Chilli
cothe, that was for sale on very reasonable terms, of
which I notified father, when he came on and bought it.
It was very good land, but badly shaped, being
hilly and cut up with two little streams. It was situ
ated at the head of a very pretty little valley, and was
altogether a pleasant site, if properly improved. Father
proposed that I should join him in the enterprise, to be
gin when my engagement with the doctor closed. Ac
cordingly we moved out to the farm in the spring of
1835. Some three years later father sold out and quitted
the farm and farming finally. He went to Hamilton
where he bought a drug store (my brother Joseph hav
ing studied medicine led to this business) in which he
did pretty well. I had dabbled a little in the study of

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 189
medicine, at odd times, and thought to adopt that pro
fession. I decided, therefore, I would try and acquire
such a knowledge of the science as w^ould enable me to
practice. I had a little money — very little — which I
planned to eke out by working at typesetting. I got
started in this enterprise and worked away, and studied
for a while, busily, when I was taken sick, and could do
nothing but lie in bed. It was then near the end of De
cember. Early in March I had got so much better that I
concluded I would follow up the study of medicine.
The course of lectures of the college had closed, and my
finances required that I should go to work, which I did
in a printing office not connected with any paper, where
I had worked in the early part of the winter, in setting
up the type of a murderer's confession.
This murderer, whose name was John Cowan, had
lived in Pittsburg, where he married. He drank whis
key and ill-treated his wife. One morning he took a
hand-ax and killed her and two or three of their chil
dren. For this, of course, he was tried, convicted and
duly hanged. Hanging was then one of the public
amusements that the law furnished to the depraved un
der the fiction of a great moral lesson. I was opposed
to capital punishment, and particularly to public execu
tions. By way of studying their eff"ect, I attended this,
which only confirmed me in my opinion. The respecta
ble appearance of those who made up the eight or ten
thousand who came from all parts of the country to see
it showed that morbid curiosity was mostly the ruling-
sentiment in relation to it.

190 Recollections of
The next summer, while we were living again in
Wheeling, two young men were hung for the murder of
an old man for his money. Their names were Boone
Long and Tom Wintringer, a boy I had known in Steu
benville. The executions were public and attended by
thousands. Wheeling was then controlled by Virginia
laws and influence, though the people were in sentiment
more like those of Ohio. There were very few slaves,
not, perhaps, over fifty in the city ; but the few old slave-
holding families exerted a great control over the place,
and they aff'ected the manner and prejudices of the slave-
holding part of the state, and pretended to think the
people of Ohio were inimical to them; they seemed
to think that the Ohioans were ready at any time to
stimulate a revolt among their handfal of negroes, whom
they dared not treat as the slaves usually were treated.
But this was an occasion for the masters to scare them
selves, and within the town they got up a rumor as base
less as could be, that the people of Steubenville, who
were heartily glad to be rid of Wintringer, were going
to rise en masse and rescue him. On the strength of this
they called out the citizens at large to patrol the country
¦ 'two or three nights and days before the execution, and
two military companies were called out besides. I think
I never was more exasperated than when called on to do
duty on this patrol, which I promptly refused to do.
Though threatened with consequences, I never was vis
ited with any. The executions came off, the city was
filled with people, and the taverns and grog-shops gath
ered their harvest.
But to return. My health continued feeble, and I felt

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 191
very sure that I should be taken down with consump
tion, the complaint which of all others I dreaded. The
printing business, I thought, would bring it on, though I
think diff"erently now ; , ajid I was in despair as to what
was best to do. My father-in-law had bought a lot and
was building a house at Martinville, and he proposed
that I should get a lot there, which was to be done on
pretty easy terms; and as I had a turn for painting,
it seemed to me a good plan to take up house paint
ing as a kind of work that would give me out-door
work and an active, healthful life. I returned from
Cincinnati to Wheeling in pursuit of this plan, and
joined him in the project of getting a lot. In the mean
time I got some jobs at painting, and arranged to stay
that summer in Wheeling. In the course of the summer
of 1836 I bought a lot and got ready to build a little
brick house ; that is to say, the walls, floor and roof, in
which shape it was habitable, and we went into it in
November. It was a rough dwelling, but it was a shel
ter, and we improved it by degrees till it was plastered,
papered and painted, and was a very neat little cottage
in its way. It had two rooms, with a passage between
them, and a lean-to kitchen. Here we lived till the
spring of 1840, and on the whole I got along tolerably
well. But the commercial reverses in 1838 prostrated
all business of the kind that I was engaged in. Build
ing ceased, and I found work falling off", and was led to
look for something else.
The years 1836 and 1837 were remarkable for the
great abundance of money and the reckless speculations
in trade and preposterous prices of every thing bought

192 Recollections of
or sold. I said, the abundance of money ; but, unfortu
nately, it was unsound money. Banks had been estab
lished in utter recklessness and disregard of the basis of
the notes they issued. Loans were easily obtained, and
every man of enterprise borrowed money to speculate in
real estate or invest in stocks or merchandise or manu
factures. Towns were laid out and great cities founded —
on paper — in every conceivable locality, till the markets
were filled with all kinds of fictitious values. The con
sequence was that the banks soon lent more currency
than they could keep afioat, and in due time had to sus
pend specie payments. All varieties of failure naturally
followed, and in less than one month specie as currency
disappeared, the banks refused accommodations, and not
even their poor paper money could be had. Such as did
circulate was of the worst quality, and all change was
made with due bills for goods or orders of individuals to
pay a note for a few cents (when the amount of five dol
lars was presented), in current bank notes, which were
only good as against the party that issued them. In
this condition of things there was no more to be done
than make a living, and even that was hard. I had in
curred debts in building our house and paying for the
lot. So, when building came to a stand-still, I had next
to nothing to do. In the fall of 1839 a younger brother,
who had worked with me at painting in Martinville,
went to join my father's family in Hamilton, where there
was more prosperity in trade. There he got a good
many jobs at painting, in which he was doing well till
overtaken by the ague. He then wrote to me to join
him, and at least help him through with what he had

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 193
engaged to do. Just then a brother of my mother-in-law
and one of his neighbor farmers, of Pennsylvania, came
along, on their way westward, to see the State of Ohio,
of which they had heard much, and to explore the wilds
of the Miami Valley, their objective point being Dayton.
They had traveled from Carlisle, in Pennsylvania, and
were going on in a two-horse carriage. This was an op
portunity for me to go to Hamilton, as they off"ered me a
seat with them, and I accepted. We started on a beau
tiful October morning and drove through the state, oc
cupying nearly five days in the trip. We went directly
to Zanesville; then to Lancaster, to Washington Court
House, in Fayette county, and to Xenia and Dayton. At
that season the roads were as good as they could be and
the weather fine. The journey was altogether one of the
most delightful I ever made. Much of the country was
new to me, and to them it was altogether new, and in
such strong contrast with their own state that it was like
a voyage of discovery. We reached Dayton about noon,
which gave us time to look round at the place, then an
important town, before I left by canal boat for Hamilton,
and they started on their return.
That night took me through to Hamilton, the boat
landing there at daylight. I staid there some seven or
eight weeks, and was offered the Intelligencer newspaper
establishment on easy terms. It was on the eve of the
great presidential election of 1840. I was urged to take
hold of the paper in view of Harrison's becoming the
candidate of the Whigs, and I made a conditional bargain,
to be closed when I should get home. I finally bought
the office on credit, but was a long time in paying for it.

194 Recollections of
One mistake was in not selling our house in Martinville
and using the proceeds in payment on the office, instead
of holding on to it till it ran down in value, and we
were finally glad to let it go for a song. Had I sold that
house and lot, I could have got along easier in Hamilton.
But that is far past.
In less than a week after our arrival, we had got
into shape in Hamilton, and I soon after issued my first
copy of the Intelligencer. The campaign opened very
early that year, and the excitement ran extremely high.
I launched into the middle of it, and entered into the
contest sincerely and enthusiastically, and I think I
made the paper more efficient than it had been before.
Politically, this contest was not on very high moral
grounds. The dollar had more to do with it than hu
manity. Still there was underlying the structure of the
Whig organization a principle that regarded man and
his rights. The slavery question was then just coming
up. When that question did crop out, the right side
was better supported by the Whigs than the Democrats,
though both parties affected not to care about it, and
each made it a point to deny all anti-slavery sympathy.
Still, the men who were strong Whigs, in that day, were
among the most enthusiastic Republicans in a later day.
Such was the power of the slave system then, and long
after, that nothing was to be accomplished politically by
direct war upon it. The good men, whose hearts were
arrayed against it, had to wait till an army of sufficient
strength to fight it safely was educated for the battle.
Therefore, the contest in 1840, was about something else
than slavery, except as the issues then made affected the

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 195
rights of labor and the progress of humanity. We have
lived to see this battle fought, and we have seen how
hard it was for a large portion of the very Republicans
who had arrayed themselves ostensibly on the side of
freedom, to accept the conditions upon which Providence
plainly placed the success of the North and the nation; we
have seen how long it was before slavery was acknowl
edged to be the issue of the war in which every thing
else was subordinate, before the blacks were rationally
called to their place in the ranks and their rights recog
nized in their emancipation. It was, indeed, marvelous
to realize the depths to which that evil had eaten its way
into the national heart, when a soldier would lay down
his life in such a fearful contest for national existence,
rather than accept the help of the enslaved race. The
management of American politics during the twelve
years after General Jackson's election, had been in the
hands of the so-called Democratic party, and the gov
ernment was conducted according to the most liberal
construction of the idea of that school, which was that
the people, or those whom they put into power, had
an indisputable right to do as they pleased ; or that, by
virtue of their natural sovereignty, the people could do
no wrong. The consequence of this was that the ad
ministrations of Gen. Jackson, and of Van Buren, his
successor, were arbitrary and oppressive, as well as in a
great degree corrupt.

196 Recollections of

CHAPTER XXIII.
CONCLUSION.
BY W. D. HOWELLS.
Support of Harrison in 1840, and Clay in 1844— Opposition to the
Mexican War— Refusal to Support Taylor, and Removal to Day
ton — Business Failure — A Year in the Country — A Winter in
Columbus— Removal to Ashtabula County — Congenial Political
Surroundings — Election to the State Senate — Appointment to
Consulate at Quebec — Promotion to Toronto — Resignation —
Farming in Virginia — Return to Jefferson — Declining Years —
Death. My father had meant to bring the foregoing sketch
of his life down to the present date, but various events
occurred to prevent the fulfillment of his purpose, and
it remains for me to finish the record, as I can, from
my personal knowledge of the facts and from what I
have heard him say of them.
He took an active and enthusiastic part in the great
Harrison campaign of 1840, and made his influence felt
as strongly as he could on what he believed the right
side in national politics. Of course, his sphere as the
editor of a country newspaper was very restricted, but
the country press counted for more in that day than it
does in this, and he always thought that it could be a
.greater power if it dealt more with aft'airs of general con
cern, and confined itself less to neighborhood gossip and
the chronicles of small beer. He did not neglect the

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 197
local interests, but he believed there were others, and he
preferred these: moral, religious, political interests. I
suppose that he felt the humorous character of human
aff"airs too strongly ever to be a fanatical devotee of any
cause, but he was a very earnest man, and he was at no
time afraid to do what he held right. He was opposed to
slavery and to drunkenness, but he was neither an aboli
tionist nor a teetotaler, for he did not think those evils
could be immediately dealt with, but hoped for their
gradual control and extinction.
He remained a Whig, and in 1844 he gave Henry
Clay as cordial support as he had given Harrison in
1840. No doubt he felt that even greater principles were
at stake, and under the Whig banner he fought against
the annexation of Texas, because he knew that it im
plied the extension of slavery. When this took place,
and war w^as declared against Mexico, he did his best
to make his readers feel the wicked injustice of that
war and the atrocity of the popular sentiment, " Our
country, right or wrong," in which so many good peo
ple reconciled themselves to the invasion and dismem
berment of a sister republic. His course brought him in
conflict not merely with theories and principles, but with
the men who embodied them in the little town, which
was overwhelmingly Democratic and proslavery in feel
ing, and was the scene of great martial activity. In
those days a journalist was much more apt to pay with
his person for unpopular opinions than he is now, and
the editor of the "Intelhgencer" was not always safe at
Hamilton from the hostilities so rife at Monterey and
Vera Cruz. He was never anxious for himself, being a

198 Recollections of
man so incredulous of danger that he was essentially
without fear, but I can remember the anxieties for him
at home, under the standing threats of belligerant cap
tains and majors, not yet at the front. About the time
that he was defying popular feeling in this direction he
was attacking in his paper the gambling dens of the
place, and at this distance I can not be sure of given
anxieties, whether they more concerned the leaders of
our volunteer forces or the keepers of these resorts.
There was always more or less going on in the way of
the temperance movement, which he strongly favored on
its possible side. As a good Whig, he hoped something
from its success for the Whig cause, and did what he
could to rend the solid German democracy, which -began
to be divided into the Brauhaus-Gemeinde, and the
Temperanz-Gemeinde, with the possibility that the Tem-
perance-Gemeinde would end politically in the embrace
of the Whig party. I do not know whether it did so ;
probably not ; but I recollect the amusement their dis
sensions and discussions gave him, even when they were
carried into the bosom of the Lutheran church.
He was himself a thorough Swedenborgian at this
period, and his intellectual experience was about equally
divided between politics and religion. If he had con
tinued his memoir he would doubtless have given a more
adequate impression of his devotion to the philosophy
of Swedenborg than the reader will have received from
what he has written. It became more and more largely
his life, and he joined to his activities in behalf of the
Whig party a no less eager devotion to the interests of the
New Church. He edited and published a Swedenborgian

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 199
periodical, called the Retina, which he carried o.n fbr a
year, at the usual loss, I suppose, for he had then to give
it up. But he continued always a reader of the doc
trines, and he wrote more or less concerning them.
Toward the end of his life his interest in them became
less constant, but I think not so much from failing con
viction as from the fact that he had so entirely absorbed
them. He no longer felt the need of strenuous conclu
sions as to matters which are really beyond our forces ;
or, as he once wrote me, " Youth is the time to believe,
age is the time to trust."
When the great Ohio Whig, Tom Corwin, lifted his
voice against the Mexican War, in Congress, my father
was among the very first to name him for the party can
didacy in 1848, and when the Whigs in that year nomi
nated a successful general of the war, he would not sup
port him, but gave his whole heart and soul to the hope
less cause of the Freesoil party. This course of his led
to the sale of his paper, for, without the favor of the
Whigs, he could not hope to continue it. He seems not
to have thought of compromising between his convic
tions and his interests, and his conduct in the matter was
from that unconscious courage that his life was full of.
I simply know the fact as it occurred, for I do not re
member ever to have heard him speak of it, and I doubt
if he valued himself upon it. Yet he had a large family,
and he had no immediate prospect before him; and I
fancy that, after a balance had been struck between his
debts and credits, very little ready money, if any, re
mained to him for a new enterprise. He once said that

200 Recollections of
his livelihood from the newspaper never passed twelve
hundred dollars a year.
He cast about in various ways for some months, and
at one time it seemed as if the family fortunes were
made in the discovery that a certain weed could, be
successfully cultivated for its fiber in paper-making;
I am not sure but it was the common milkweed, whose
boll is full of a silky cotton ; but at any rate it came to
nothing, and my father bought an interest in the " Day
ton Transcript," and we went to live in Dayton.
By this time. President Taylor had shown himself
averse to the proslavery tendencies in his party, and my
father again called himself a Whig, but it was for a little
while only; the Whigs under Fillmore and Webster en
acted the Fugitive Slave Law, and that made it impossi
ble for him to continue with them. The community in
which our lot was cast was scarcely more friendly than
that we had left, to the political principles he advo
cated, and he had further imperiled his chances of suc
cess by starting a daily edition of the newspaper he had
bought and was trying to pay for. We fought a losing
battle and we lost it. In two years he failed, and we
left Dayton for the country, which was always tempting
and betraying us from generation to generation. This
time, however, it was not exactly farming that called to
the latent agriculture in our blood, though there was a
farm connected with the milling property which my
uncles bought and sent my father to take charge of, until
they could wind up their aft'airs and settle their families
on it. They were druggists and doctors, and they had
bought a grist-mill and a saw-mill, which they were

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 201
going to turn into paper-mills, and conduct on a sort of
co-operative principle, at last, if not at first. The en
terprise never got beyond the earliest stage; the grist
mill and the saw-mill remained, and, after a year, one
of my uncles came to replace my father in his charge,
and we were again seeking our fortunes. My father
could turn hopefully to the newspaper life alone, and,
after much seeking, he found employment as legislative
reporter for the "Ohio State Journal," at Columbus.
This function has long been disused, I believe, but then
it afforded us a livelihood, and we remained in Colum
bus until the adjournment of the legislature.
By that time my father had made acquaintance with
some of the Freesoil representatives from the Western
Reserve, and had learned of an opening at Ashtabula,
where a share of the "Sentinel" newspaper could be had
on the only terms he was able to offer — work and hope.
We removed to that village in the early summer of 1852,
and in the following January we removed with the paper
to the county-seat at Jefferson. There my father was
connected with the "Sentinel" for twenty years, and
there his eldest son still publishes that paper.
He had always a great affection for the Eastern and
Southern part of the State where his early life was passed,
and as he grew older his mind reverted with increasing
fondness to the familiar scenes and types of those re
gions, but now for the first time he found himself in a
community fully in sympathy with his political opinions,
and so liberal to all religious opinions that he could
not feel himself ahen in the great interests of his life.
The little village of Jefferson, which then counted

202 Recollections of
y
hardly more than seven hundred inhabitants, was the
home of Giddings and of Wade, and was the center of a
most extraordinary amount of reading and thinking.
Outside of Massachusetts, I do not believe that an equal
average of intelligence could have been found, among all
sorts and conditions of men, who were there of an almost
perfect social equality. My father heartily enjoyed all
this, which was in keeping with his Quaker origin and
tradition. He gave his energies to his paper and his
party with a reasoned hopefulness such as he could never
have felt before, and he prospered with them. He es
caped from the narrowness of village life now and then
by means of a legislative clerkship, and passed two or
three winters in Columbus ; and in 1864 he was elected to
the State Senate from his district by a larger majority
than it ever gave before or since, thanks to the so
lidification of the vote by the facts and feelings of the
closing war.
As the reader of the foregoing memoir knows he was
always fond of the simpler and kinder things of life ; he
was devotedly attached to his home, and he loved the
woods and fields about it ; but after the death of a son
who was taken from him in the flower of his most prom
ising youth, he withdrew more and more from the world,
and lived in his affections in a measure which was pa
thetic to me, returning to him after a separation of
years. He seemed quite to have lost the ambitions of
his former days, and to have no interests but such as cen
tered about his own hearthstone. When our home was
irreparably shattered by the death of my mother, he could
no longer find refuge there, and he was willing to quit for

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 203
a while the scenes that death had saddened to him. Ex
cept for the wishes of his family, however, I do not sup
pose he would have sought the place which he was given
by President Grant, who appointed him Consul at Que
bec in 1874. He spent four or five years in that ancient
capital, which were among the happiest of his whole life,
brightened by agreeable associations, and the friendly
acquaintance of a wide circle of people strange to him
in every thing but their gentleness and culture. He
was afterward promoted to the consulate at Toronto,
where again he found himself in congenial surround
ings, and in the enjoyment of duties which he felt that
he usefully discharged. He resigned his post in 1883,
and bought a farm near Richmond, Virginia, where he
removed at once.
He had always fondly remembered the Virginia
country, and he gladly returned to the region and the
occupation of his early years. It was a great mistake,
however. At seventy-five he was too old to manage the
farm he had bought, and it was no more to him than a
charming home for three years. At the end of this time,
he exchanged it for a property in Jefferson, and returned
to that village, where he ended his long life at the age
of eighty-seven, on the 28th of August, 1894. His last
years were full of peace, and I think were not the least
happy of his many years. His six acres formed for him
the image of a farm which was not beyond his failing
energies, and kept him in the work that meant health
rather than profit to him. A horse and a cow repre
sented the farm stock to him, and troops of chickens,
turkeys, ducks, and most discordant guinea fowls (he had

204 Recollections of
brought the last from Virginia, and witnessed their
steady decrease with some criticism of the Lake Shore
climate), perhaps superabundantly supplied the place of
the poultry of other days. He fed them himself, and so
had a personal acquaintance with each of them, which
had its sentimental disadvantages, when it came to a
question of their transfer to the table.
He was very fond of his garden, and quite success
ful with it, planting it and tending it himself, and accept
ing with serene satisfaction whatever the superior ener
gies of the weeds left him. His orchard mostly got the
better of him in an apple-year, when he found himself
quite unequal to its magnificent yield, but he could cope
with his grapes, and he made from them every autumn
a wine that he never cared for himself, but was glad to
have approved by the more educated palate of others.
Melons were an ambition with him which he latterly
realized by having the seeds started in pots and then set
out in the bed he had prepared ; but I think he secretly
preferred the culture of pumpkins, which he admired for
their lusty profusion and vigor. He never could eat
them, of course, and he meekly accepted my censure of
him for giving so much time and space to these purely
decorative vegetables when he could just as well have
raised Hubbard squashes in their stead. He would
promise that the next year he would plant no pumpkins,
and I believe he made some vows to this effect last
spring when we were planting a melon bed together. It
was rather a hot day, and I suffered from the sun as I
set out the plants, but he followed actively after me with

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 205
the hoe, and hilled them up as fast as I could put them
in the ground.
He had then passed his eighty-seventh birthday,
and I could see that he was proud of his strength and
skill, and of the youthful spirit which he had kept so far
into his age. He once said that he rather thought he
should live to be ninety ; that he had set the limit at that
figure, and he seemed to have a pleasure in it, because,
as he recalled, his eldest daughter, no longer living her
self, used to say that she believed he would live to be
ninety. I think that it was the day when we worked
together that he spoke to me of the end, which in any
event could not be far off. He told me that a few nights
before he had found himself awake with the thought of
it in his mind. He had looked at it steadily in every
aspect until he had completely possessed himself of it,
and for the first time he had experienced no dread of it.
" Now," he said, " whenever it comes, I am resigned."
I have lost the precious words in which he expressed his
most serene and philosophic mind concerning the great
mystery, but I shall never forget the sweet courage, the
gentle seriousness of his mood.
In these latter years, he thought much upon the sub
jects that had occupied him through life, and it is a
great pleasure to me that I thought with him on nearly
every point. He could not look with content upon the
present outcome of our social and political experiment,
and he hoped, as I do, for a true commonwealth, in
which those who work shall rule, and all shall work, in
the spirit of liberty, equality, and fraternity.

206 Recollections of
On the 9th of June, he had a stroke of paralysis,
which aff"ected the left side in a measure to render him
altogether helpless. But he rallied during the months
that remained to him of life with extraordinary power.
His reserve of vitality from the years simply and sanely
spent was very great, and, when I saw him three
weeks after the stroke, I found him rapidly recovering.
His speech was distinct, his laugh was as quick as ever,
and his disposition to see his own case in a humorous
light was thoroughly characteristic. He loved, as al
ways, to have us about him, to share in our jokes, and
to take part in all our graver moods. He was impatient
to get back to the table, and, within the fourth week, he
was there again, full of the spirit of whatever was going
on, and the cheerfulest among us. As he regained his
self-control, his lifelong thoughtfulness of others returned
to him ; he tried to make himself less and less a burden ;
he was anxious that I should not give time to him that
he thought due to my own family, and almost his last
intelligible words were to his nurse, to whom he said,
with a certain habitual formality of speech, " I wish you
to understand that I am very grateful to you for your
care of me."
A week before his death, his final recovery seemed
at hand, and when he was attacked by an acute dis
order, within four days of the end, his physician thought
that he would get well.
It was not to be. The noon of a silent August day,
whose strange and peculiar beauty he would have en-

Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. 207
joyed beyond us all, found him drawing his last breaths,
and he died before the afternoon had begun to wane,
with those who were dear to him about him, elderly men
and women, but children still in their love for him, and
in their bereavement.