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HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO - 13 HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO. CHAPTER I. HISTORY is the Letter of Instruction which the old generations write and posthumously transmit to the new. All knowledge is but recorded experience and a product of history.—Carlyle. WHILE it is indisputably true that the division of time known as the present challenges the paramount thought of the human mind, and that it is the prerogative of no man to solve the future, it may safely be affirmed that no man desires to be wholly unconscious of the past, or deaf to the voice of its lingering memories. That community which would not by " the art preservative " perpetuate its traditions, register its experiences and chronicle its events, would be anomalous in the natural world, and a sterile, profitless and skeletonized theme for the pen that would seek to trace or define its existence. The disposition, in some manner or way, to embalm or rather transmit the past, to erect it into history, organize it into tradition, or cause it to live in the embroiderings of Fancy, has been and is a characteristic of all ages, classes and races of men. The natives of Ashango-land are fortified and grow garrulous over the charm-working and superstitious myths of their black pro- 14 - HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO. genitors, and the savage Indian has his repertory of hoarded legendary story, and is as familiar with the traditionary annals of his ancient tribes as was Herodotus with the Persian invasion, or Tac itus with the Forum. It can be maintained, then, not as a fact or an abstraction, but as a principle entrenched in a sound and practical philosophy, that nothing can more interest a people or a community than a history of the times in which they have lived-a reproduction of the drama in which their fathers were the actors. The faithful transmission of worthy deeds is one of the ennobling emanations of man's nature, and has been to some degree exhibited since the earliest dawn of his existence. Long anterior to the time of the discovery of the art of printing, memorable events were painted upon parchment and engraven upon stone, that they might live otherwise than in traditionary story or the song of bards. Many of the nations of antiquity adopted this method of perpetuating important events, as the ruins of Thebes, Persepolis, Nineveh, and other demolished cities of the Eastern world abundantly testify. Cicero has well remarked that History is the truth of Philosophy. As to the truth of history, however, it is particularly reliable when it is written at the time the facts recorded are fresh in the recollection of the people where they have occurred. Written in any other way it becomes legendary, precarious and romantic, without the proper indorsement of its authenticity. With this view I have written a History of Wayne County, Ohio, from a period long antedating its present organization— from its first settlement to the present time, and before its early annals have become, entirely a myth. |