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500 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY hospital. While they sometimes deal with contagious diseases, none are admitted in developed form. They are assigned to the detention hospital. The city hospital lacks the necessary isolation features. Tag days in the interest of the city hospital are well patronized, but the thing to be desired most is a new city hospital. The property on East Market street has served an excellent purpose in the community, but there are later ideas in construction and hospital equipment. St. Rita's Hospital, Baxter and West High streets, has capacity for 100 patients. It was opened December 11, 1918, as an emergency hospital for flu victims, the first patient being a Lima nurse who succumbed to the dread disease. It was planned to open it later in a formal way, but with contagion raging none but epidemic patients came for a time. St. Rita's is a general hospital with medical, surgical and obstetrical departments. Lima physicians and many skilled surgeons from outside Allen County practice there. There are well equipped operating rooms and an excellent medical and surgical staff. It is a Catholic institution conducted by the Sisters of Mercy. While it is under control of the Toledo diocese, in time the Sisters of Mercy plan to finance it themselves. Sister Mary Margaret is the superintendent. She had her professional training in the best city hospitals and there is an accredited nurses training department in connection with the hospital. There is a nurses' home adjoining and the hospital operates its own heating and ice plants. The engineer has a home on the hospital property. While charity patients are received, the nurses themselves do not know who pay and who do not, and all are accorded the same attention. Sometimes the patients themselves give out such information. St. Rita's Hospital finally received recognition from the American College of Surgeons, being one of twenty-five institutions in Ohio to gain such recognition. The American College of Surgeons is conceded to be the greatest medical institution in the world. It was formed for the purpose of increasing efficiency and establishing uniformity of method in the best hospitals of the United States. Its members are famous surgeons and recognition by them is considered one of the highest honors of the medical world. Sister Mary Margaret is recognized as a capable. hospital superintendent. A recent newspaper article says : "Lima has within her bounds an institution of love and mercy, the scope of the work of which none can comprehend until brought face to face with its great benefits. It is St. Rita's hospital. It was built by popular subscription, It has been declared the best institution of its kind between Chicago and Pittsburgh by skilled surgeons and learned doctors who have investigated its facilities. Protestants, Catholics and persons of no religion at all are welcome to the training school or to employment at the hospital. There are sun parlors and porches, and many Allen County citizens have endowed beds and have their names on door plates because of their generosity. None are turned away who apply for care at St. Rita's for medical assistance. St. Rita's Guild, which includes women of all religions, has provided many necessary supplies for the hospital." While there is no local Red Cross hospital, the Lima Chapter of the American Red Cross maintains three visiting nurses who co-operate with other welfare organizations, already mentioned in connection with war activities. Social workers and health boards have many problems in common and there are many advantages from federation. The welfare investigators learn many things to the advantage of the health guardians and it holds good that in the multitude of council there is wisdom. There has been some complaint that quarantine restrictions are not observed, HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 501 and the welfare representatives have an opportunity of observation. They are naturally interested in law enforcement. As Lima City health officer, Dr. J. B. Poling said the Lima Detention Hospital had capacity for fifty patients. The detention hospital is an economic industrial arrangement. In case of contagion, patients may be removed there and the family need not be quarantined. The quarantine interferes with business and in many cases stops the income. The detention hospital is a benefaction. Beside the custodian there is always an efficient nurse. Male and female nurses are provided according to the necessity. There are more patients taken to the detention hospital with smallpox than any other disease. While vaccination immunes a community, some do not resort to it. In 1920 there were some virulent cases of smallpox. In the '50s there was great loss of life from an epidemic of smallpox in Lima. The detention hospital is not a charity only in the sense of economy. The removal of the infected person relieves the necessity of quarantine. Since resistance has much to do with disease, patients in the detention hospital are furnished the best possible diet and the necessary medical attention. 0The Mennonite hospital in Bluffton has twelve beds and it is in reality a Mennonite Deaconess Home. It was opened in 1908 by Dr. J. J. Sutter and conducted as a nonsectarian institution until he sold it to the Mennonites. It is now controlled by the church but patients are received regardless of their creeds. The District Tubercular Hospital located in Shawnee is supported by taxation in the counties constituting the district—Allen, Auglaize, Mercer, Shelby and Van Wert. Dr. William Osler has said : "The battle against tuberculosis is not a doctor's affair ; it belongs to the whole public," and that idea prevailed in establishing the district tubercular hospital at Lima. The combined medical fraternity has conducted a campaign of education and not so many die from the white plague. They do not wear themselves out in search of health and strength since they understand that Allen County air properly utilized has the necessary health-restoring properties. Out-of-door living, sun parlors, sleeping porches and window tents are now understood by all, and a different architecture prevails-ventilation the dominant purpose in home construction; air and sunlight free to all. Public health measures not only prevent a great deal of suffering and prolong a great many lives, but in the long run they save money. This fact should be sufficient to give such measures some standing even in the minds of those who think of nothing but dollars and cents in connection with such movements. It is generally conceded that pulmonary tuberculosis is not an inherited disease, and that when taken in time it is curable. Fresh air, sunshine, plenty of nourishing food and proper attention are the requisites. These things, including the proper care, are provided in the district tubercular hospital. Dr. Oliver S. Steiner is the Allen County trustee, and each county in the district is thus represented on the medical board. The hospital was opened March 1, 1909, and Dr. C. A. Files is the resident physician. The five counties constituting the district share the expense pro rata as they have patients in the hospital. The administration building at the district tubercular hospital has accommodations for twenty-four patients and there are eight cottages, each accommodating two patients. There is a campus of thirty acres and fresh air is afforded, the campus reaching the bank of the Ottawa River. Both men and women patients are received and patients in the incipient stages are successfully treated there. The hospital is modern, 502 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY and sanitary methods are a requirement. No patient touches any article of food or any cooking utensil except his own portion. Patients are not employed at all. Mrs. Files, who is a graduated nurse, superintends the housekeeping and culinary department, and every precaution is taken against possible contamination of food. Although 150,000 die annually of the white plague, it is now considered a preventable disease. The difficulty is with people waiting too long before seeking knowledge and assistance. The Lima district hopital is an inviting retreat at the end of a winding cement walk and a shrubbery—flanked drive, with plenty of sunlight and air—nature's own restoratives.
The lockers are in the halls and all patients are required to spend much time in the open air. Their clothing lockers are excluded from their rooms for sanitary reasons. A current of air passes through the lockers in the hall. There is a fine sward and plenty of shade. The birds are invited to nest in boxes of ornamental design, and the patent with physical resistance need not succumb to the dread tuberculosis. The experiment with a district tubercular hospital has been satisfactory. The charge is so often made that communities are more active in conserving the health conditions of livestock than of human beings, and the district tubercular hospital is a monument to progress in humanitarianism. In 1896 such an institution was established in Massachusetts and since then it has been understood that when taken in time tuberculosis is a curable disease. Almost every family has been touched by the white plague and has seen relatives and friends waste away without understanding scientific treatment for such conditions.
The Lima State Hospital is within the bounds of Allen County, although in its government it is independent of the locality. It is a state institution for the care of criminally insane patients. An act establishing this hospital in Allen County passed the Ohio Assembly April 25, 1904, and Governor Myron T. Herrick appointed a committee whose duty it was to select the site for it. A number of sites were offered in other communities. The Hon. Walter B. Ritchie was a member of the committee and he used his influence in favor of Lima. The Lima Club was very active in its effort to secure the institution. Dr. Charles H. Clark is superintendent of the hospital. There are 576 acres in the farm and except about thirty acres of natural forest adjacent to the buildings it is cleared and cultivated land. The patients are used for the farm labor. While sometimes one escapes, as a rule they are efficient laborers. Many of them realize that they are well off in the institution. It is a shifting population—some dying, some escaping and some being dismissed as cured, although all must return to the penal institution from which they were committed for their final freedom. In some instances it would seem better if they might return to their homes, as the thought of the penal institution is a depressing influence. In December, 1920, there were 789 men and 165 women in the hospital, Some have seen better days and some have eventful life histories.
The State Hospital was opened for patients July 1, 1915, and the superintendent is allowed three assistant physicians. The percentage of recoveries from illness based on the admission is twenty-four, and death has resulted to only 4 per cent of those treated for illness. While there are some physical ailments, Doctor Clark deals primarily with mental difficulties. While illness does not often result from exposure, all the ills that flesh is heir to are sometimes apparent. There were 244 cases of flu and 8 per cent of the number died from it. Dr. William H. Verbau and Dr. Albert Pfeiffer were the assistant physicians and there was one vacancy. Visitors are admitted on Tuesdays and Thurs-
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days. Twice a year Doctor Clark entertains the Allen County Medical Society at a clinic, using rare examples of mental disturbances, and the doctors seldom miss those opportunities for investigation. Their contact is more with physical than with mental ailments.
The State Hospital farm is in Bath township north from Lima, and it was acquired by the State at a cost of $63,622, and while it was said to be the poorest land in Allen County, through systematic crop rotation and dairy farming and the use of commercial fertilizers, satisfactory results are obtained from the farming experiment there. It is now regarded as an Ohio oasis in Allen County. A four-year crop rotation is practiced, the farming being under the supervision of Charles McIntire a farm specialist who has the oversight of agriculture on all the institutional farms of the state. He pays frequent visits to Allen County. Labor-saving devices are installed and the State Hospital farm is in reality an agricultural experiment station.
While no agricultural products are sold from the State Hospital farm, everything is invoiced at market rates and the 1920 crop valuation reached $9,362.33. The farm products are all consumed on the farm. The dairy is stocked with Holstein and grade cows, and under watchful training there are men with sufficient intelligence and honor to operate the dairy. In 1920 the farm produced 433,280 pounds of milk, and 9,084 pounds of butter. A small poultry department is operated without expense for feed and the fiscal report was 762 dozen eggs. The swine department yielded 19,405 pounds of pork and 7,299 pounds of lard. The beef breeds of cattle are not kept, but when a cow is no longer profitable in the dairy she is slaughtered. In 1920 the farm yielded 4,148 pounds of beef and 1,850 pounds of veal. Only dry cows and male calves are butchered. Including livestock food products, the total production reached $14,520 on the State Hospital farm in the last fiscal year. The pro rata from the state amounted to $21,977.84 for maintenance, Allen County paying its share in it. The entire property inventory amounts to $1,833,639.83 and the equipment is valued at $82,929.30, and Allen County dealers profit from the supply of materials for the institution.
The State Hospital has its own water system, sewage disposal plant and electric lighting system. It has every comfort known to science in handling the unfortunates assembled there. It is one of many state institutions. They are : Athens State Hospital, Cleveland State Hospital, Columbus State Hospital, Dayton State Hospital, Lima State Hospital, Longview Hospital, Massillon State Hospital, Toledo State Hospital, Ohio Hospital for Epileptics at Gallipolis, Institution for Feebleminded at Columbus, State School for the Blind, Columbus State School for the Deaf, Columbus ; Ohio State Sanatorium, Mt. Vernon ; Ohio Soldiers and Sailors' Home, Sandusky ; Madison Home, Madison ; Boys' Industrial Home, Lancaster ; Girls' Industrial Home, Delaware ; Ohio Penitentiary, Columbus ; Ohio State Reformatory, Mansfield ; Ohio Reformatory for Women, Marysville ; New Prison Farm, London, and at the State Brick Plant, Junction City, near Columbus, prison labor is utilized. The Lima State Hospital gives to Allen County citizens some conception of the number of unfortunates cared for by the State. The hospital is the helping hand held out to society.
CHAPTER XLVII
WELFARE WORK IN ALLEN COUNTY
There are persons who, by reason of age, infirmity or misfortune, have a claim on society. Just as certainly as the taxpayers of Allen County contribute to schools and the higher institutions of learning, it has another coterie of citizens that receives benefits from the county and state charitable and benevolent organizations. Some live in their own homes while others live in public institutions. While some attend universities, others go to asylums. All are beneficiaries of the county and state. While some homes are more fortunate, in others there are children who are educated in the institutions for the blind, the deaf and dumb and for them munificent provision is made, several state institutions having been enumerated in the previous chapter. When such things are provided through taxation, all property owners have part in "sweet charity."
Someone has said that every great charitable institution is founded on the surplus earnings of active men who did good while earning their money and, having learned philanthropy, closed their lives with a burst of it. However, the initial welfare work in Allen County was done by the county commissioners in 1831, when they instructed Sheriff Henry Lippincott to prepare a place of confinement for Uri Martin, whose ailment was mental, and for whom they thought medical service was futile. A cell was made for him in the log court house. There was frequent need of charity in the earlier history of Allen county, and men and women dispensed it on the plan of "let not thy right hand know what thy left hand doest," but in these days of organized charity all welfare workers know of existing conditions. Thus they do not duplicate in relieving needy conditions.
It is related of T. K. Jacobs, who founded a well known Allen County family, that he always cared for widows and orphans who appealed to him. He housed seven children beside his own family at one time, and he is said to have provided a home for a whole family through the adolescent period of the children. He often furnished the money for funeral expenses. The story is told of the pioneer who had no corn for those who had money. They could get corn anywhere, but he would supply those who had no money. He was a real philanthropist.
Was the woman who was moved to charity and who gave something to a beggar in order to insure her own good luck a benevolent woman ? Those who endow beds in hospitals are doing welfare work, whether or not they regard it as charity. There is a fellowship of service, and public spirited, benevolent persons soon learn to know each other. Interests in common sometimes cement friendships, and the difference of environment is what makes the difference in humanity. The root word that used to be translated charity has been translated love by later students of the original script, and the county and state act as broadminded, public spirited benefactors in their care of unfortunates. Private individuals, in the last analysis, constitute the county and state, and there are some comprehensive citizens at the helm in Allen County and county is part of the organization of the state.
An economic critic exclaims : "Organizations for charity ; they may be found in every community watching over the apparent needs of those who are taught to expect and receive alms," but who would care for
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those unable to care for themselves were it not for organized charity ? In Lima the civic organizations—Rotary, Kiwanis and Lion clubs- and all the fraternal secret orders have charitable features connected with their organizations. Business men through their fraternal and social organizations have had definite assignments and they have relieved the needs of those less fortunate than themselves, and none but their beneficiaries knew about it.
The Lima Council Community Welfare is the federation of all welfare agencies, and members of an executive committee from each welfare agency manage the business affairs. In its 1920 organization Ralph Austin was chairman, and Mrs. Irene Mills Jackson secretary. While the organization was still in its formative stage, the details were left to the secretary. The Lima Council Community Welfare was first organized in 1918 as a war measure. The council now prepares budgets covering its expenditures, being effectually a co-operative organization correlating all the demands, thus preventing double dealing and unnecessary ..expenditures. The Lima Community Fund is thus distributed at a reduced expense for handling and all departments co-operate in raising it. The Chamber of Commerce always co-operates with all welfare movements. The Lima Council Community Welfare, sometimes designated as the Social Service Bureau, planned to raise $100,000 at Christmastide, all contributing to it, and no separate welfare organization soliciting aid alone. Welfare agencies have had competitive existence until the benevolent public is tired of it. Each agency depending on the same few generous persons rendered it a burden, but with a community budget none will be asked to subscribe a second time to charity. The community effort weeds out the unworthy causes. Unless a cause bears investigation nothing is given to it. There have been drives, tag days, markets and bazaars, and people have been importuned time and again The ways and means committee is composed of representatives of the different welfare organizations, and a judicious handling of the community fund will secure the confidence of those interested in philanthropy.
"Suppose nobody cared," was a slogan used effectively in Allen County. While the Young Men's Christian Association, Young Women's Christian Association and Red Cross had already been financed, the money raised was to be used by the Lima Council Community Welfare in aiding the Social Service Bureau, Lima Day Nursery, Allen County Child Welfare Association, Salvation Army, Hospitals, Boy Scouts of America, Lima Loan Scholarship Fund. Community Recreation Council, East Side Welfare Association, Undesignated and Emergency Relief, Administration and Campaign Expenses and for Foreign Relief Work, including American Relief Association, Devastated France, Fatherless Children of France, Near East Relief, and other worthy relief as may be approved by the executive committee.
In 1920 the Lima Council Boy Scouts of America was financed by the Rotary club, but under the Lima Council Community Welfare the civic clubs will be relieved of such necessity. Lima Council Boy Scouts had become disorganized, when the Rotary Club procured a Scoutmaster and put the organization into working condition again. It would hardly come under the head of a charity. The Scouts are husky fellows and they are utilized in so many ways in the community. They come from well-to-do families and the Scout idea appeals to them while passing the critical period of adolescence. Money expended on the Boy Scouts is in the nature of an investment in future citizenship.
When Will Carlton gave to the world "Over the Hills to the Poor House" he added to the burdens of those grown old who are dependent,
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and there is a measure of reproach attaches to life at a county institution because of it. While some who live in the county homes never may have read the poem, many have been deterred from going there because of it. People used to say "poor house," infirmary or county farm, but recently the designation is changed and county home flavors less of charity. While some people proclaim that the world owes them a living, those cared for in county homes usually have some serious physical handicap. The Allen County Home in Bath Township is an attractive site and it was established there in 1857. The contract for the original buildings was let February 5, 1857, and John P. Haller, who was the leading builder of the period, secured it. The building was accepted June 8, 1859, and the county paid $3,975 for it. In 1874 a three-story addition cost the county $12,461 and in 1890 another addition was made to it. The original board of directors was Curtis Baxter, Shelby Taylor and David Bryte. They were appointed but since 1858 those elected infirmary directors are : John B. Reeder, David Bryte, James • Chenoweth, James Baxter, John Sprott, Peter S. Metzler, Elias Everett, Richard L. Baker, John Enslen, Gabriel Hefner, Samuel Sanford, Joseph B. Chipman, Martin V. Blair, Samuel Boose, Andrew J. Chapman, S. H. Arnold, Levi Beichelderfer, William Hill, James P. Wilson, W. J. Graham, Samuel Light, J. K. Roush, J. C. Jettinghoff, Ephraim Berryman, E. F. Davis, Peter Leis, Eli Mechling, Isaac B. Steman, David Stepleton, William E. Grubb, Christian H. Mosier, J. E. Eversole, T. B. Bower- sock, G. B. Manahan, and Isaac D. Crider. The control of the county infirmary is now vested in the Board of Allen County Commissioners, and it is called the Allen County Home.
The Home superintendents who are the county's financial representatives have been : John W. Walters, Daniel Stevick, J. N. Shane, M. V. Blair, Joshua L. Dunlevy, Amos Young, David Baxter, Frank Fraunfelter, Delbert McBride, J. C. Baxter, J. M. Yant and L. C. Sigler. The passerby would think of a thrifty Allen County farmstead. The inmates are utilized about the necessary labor. The vagrant class has something to contend with under the Community Welfare plan adopted in Allen County. Wanderlust is discouraged, and there are fewer handouts at back doors than when everybody dispensed charity independently. The Weary Willies do not care to live at the Allen County Home where service is required from them. It is the duty of the Home superintendent and matron to see to it that none abuse privileges there. When men and women are unable to perform service, they are cared for by others.
The Allen County Children's Home on the site of the ancient Shawnee Village in Shawnee Township, had its inception September 4, 1891, when a fund was established through the sale of eighty bonds at $500 each, the proceeds to be used in securing a children's home in Allen County. The original land purchase was eighty-seven and one-half acres, which was later increased to 152% acres. The State Board of Charities co-operated by offering suggestions, more bonds were sold, and by December 10, 1892, the county commissioners appointed a board of directors-Alexander Shenk, William M. Melville and John Berryman. Those taking the initiative in securing the Allen County Children's Home were : William Bice, John Amstutz and John Ackerman, county commissioners, with C. D. Crites as clerk of the board. Later directors have been : Joseph Tapscott, D. E. Hover, W. L. Mackenzie, Elmer Crossley, Owen Francis, Dr. D. H. Sullivan, W. J. Judkins, S. W. Wright, and the present board—Mr. Hover, Mr. Judkins, Dr. Sullivan and Mrs. Sara Kipps. Mr. Hover has the distinction of having been born in the Pht
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cabin in 1837, has been a star member of the board for twenty-six years. Frank M. Blair served for six years as superintendent and since that time D. W. Higby and his wife have been superintendent and matron of the institution. With them it is missionary service and the county's unfortunate children are thus surrounded by home influence rather than institutional requirements.
Both the Allen County Home in Bath Township and the Allen County Children's Home in Shawnee Township are provided for by taxation. They are not included in the Lima Commuity Welfare budget at all. They are open to needy persons from all over Allen County. In November, 1920, the Lima newspapers said : "Inmates of state and county institutions will enjoy turkey, chicken and pork dinners along with the rest of the world on Thanksgiving Day. Chefs and cooks are preparing special menus for employes, inmates and patients. Approximately 1,500 persons—inmates, patients and prisoners in Allen County— will enjoy all the 'fixin's' that make up a regular Thanksgiving menu, including pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce. The hearts of 100 children at the Allen County Children's Home will be ,made glad when they surround a table loaded with turkey and other good things. Turkey dinner will be served to eighty-seven inmates at the county home," and the prisoners at the county jail were also guaranteed a Thanksgiving feast. The hospitals always observe Thanksgiving and Christmas with special dinners.
The 1920 report of the County Board of Institution Visitors shows flourishing conditions. The cellars were bursting with foodstuffs and the bins were filled with coal. At the county home the visitors found two barrels of cider, one barrel of dried apples, 2,450 pounds of lard, 560 cans of tomatoes, thirty gallons of catsup, fifty-six gallons of pitted cherries, forty-five gallon cans of plums, fifty-six gallon cans of peaches, seventy-four gallons of apple butter, thirty-eight gallons miscellaneous kinds of butter, and 200 glasses of jelly. On the county farm were eighty-five hogs, three of them weighing 2,000 pounds. Beside the mulch cows there were fifteen yearling heifers and five spring calves, six horses, twenty-one sheep and seventeen lambs. There were 100 bushels of wheat, 1,850 bushels of oats, eighty bushels of barley, fifty tons of hay,
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350 bushels of potatoes and quantities of beans. Everything in the county home was in good condition.
The visitors found sanitary conditions prevailing at the Allen County Children's Home, with plenty in basket and store. They found 200 gallon cans of pitted cherries, 400 glasses of jelly, twenty-five gallons of mince meat, sixty-two quarts of catsup, fifty-seven quarts of beets, 300 quarts of pickles, two cans of lard, and many other cans of fruit. There were eighteen tons of clover hay, thirty acres of corn, 1,200 bushels of oats, 1,000 heads of cabbage, ten bushels of beans, ten bushels of peas, and a variety of other garden products. The board of visitors are : Calvin Osborne, Mrs. Ida Breese, Rosa M. Lindemann, and Anna M. Vicary. It is a good thing for people to visit institutions and understand conditions there for themselves. The official visitors found satisfactory conditions. Sometimes their visits are anticipated and things are in readiness for them. Sometimes those in charge of public institutions have the real missionary spirit and are interested in the welfare of the county's unfortunates. When the taxpayer visits such institutions he usually pays his taxes more cheerfully afterward. People are cared for in the institutions that he would not want to welcome into his own home, and yet they are dependent upon others. There is a difference between institutions and home life, and children are placed in homes as rapidly as opportunity presents itself.
The Lima Day Nursery, of which Mrs. Evelyn B. Baughn is matron, was established in 1914, and it is maintained as a charity. It is for the benefit of working mothers who must maintain their families. Women who had worked before their marriage and want to return to work are not accommodated at the day nursery. Widows who must support their children or separate them avail themselves of the day nursery. They have their children with them at night, on Sundays and holidays. The children are at the nursery while the mothers are at work. They are cared for and entertained and they seem happy there. They have games, toys and all are given their dinners and put to bed in the afternoon. They are taught table manners and in turn they teach many things to their mothers. It is often said that children receive better training in institutions than in their own homes. When a mother complained that child's stocking had been torn, Mrs. Baughn said : "Blame it on the stockings and not on the child," showing that patience is necessary in dealing with children. While the mothers pay a small sum for the care of their children, the community adds to the amount and the Day Nursery is included in the budget of the Lima Council Community Welfare Organization. The Allen County Child Welfare Association is a direct outgrowth of the better babies agitation begun in 1915, and while Dr. Josephine Peirce is president, the association is included in the community budget ; it has two branches of service ; the Lima branch is included in the budget, while the rural work is taken care of by outside contributions. Miss Anna Moore is the field worker in Lima, and the rural feature is mentioned in the chapter of rural schools ; the field worker in the country reports to the county superintendent of schools. Miss Moore had her training in welfare work in Hull House in Chicago ; she co-operates with Captain Wilcox of the East End Fire Station in welfare work in that community. Mothers are advised as to nutrition and playgrounds come under the supervision of the Child Welfare Association. In an unkind criticism some welfare worker said : "If the parents sold their children by the pound as a farmer does his hogs, there would be fewer underweight children ; it is ridiculous to say a child takes after its parent and is thin because the parent is thin ; imagine a farmer saying that
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about his pigs," and it is within the province of the Child Welfare Association to educate mothers in the matter of proper diet. Statistics show that the Jews have always given attention to child welfare, and that under nourished children are not found among them. It is not from want of money, but from lack of knowledge in many instances that children are in weakened physical condition, and consequently unable to resist the encroachments of disease. The community fund in Lima is more than an expression of good will ; it is the conspicuous performance of a duty. You should give to the best of your ability.
The Lima hospitals have submitted a per diem cost plan whereby charity patients may be entered and cared for from the community fund ; the patients have their choice of hospital, and the service is rendered at actual cost ; the Red Cross budget is provided through membership dues and the Young Men and Young Women's Christian Associations have the same plan-membership drives for funds ; they are separate from the community drive planned for Christmas week. The churches are co-operating in the Lima council for community welfare, and the Christmas season has become the time for community drives because people are inclined to be liberal at such times, it is the strategical, psychological method. The church has ever cared for the poor and the unfortunate ; the early church administered to them directly ; all charity has had its genesis in the church ; from it has been born the spirit of mercy, brotherhood and justice—the motive force of all charity and social service. Special agencies with trained workers have been established to co-operate with the church ; while the church as an organization does not finance all such relief agencies, any Lima subscription list reveals the fact that the great majority of those who give are members• of the church ; they have been inspired by the church and represent it m this great welfare service ; these agencies are the right arm of the church in serving the needs of humanity. King Solomon said : "Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard."
CHAPTER XLVIII
LIBRARIES, CLUBS—INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF ALLEN COUNTY
There is no place where personality or individuality may manifest itself more than in the library ; there are chosen friends, and there are chosen books ; the library is a sanctum sanctorum where none but chosen friends presume to enter, although some families in the world fill up their shelves without thought of mental development or culture.
The Allen County Law Library elsewhere mentioned, was incorporated by the Allen County bar under the laws of Ohio, January 12, 1897; the first officers of the association were : president, Frank E. Mead ; vice-president, Cloyd J. Brotherton ; secretary, Thomas R. Hamilton, and treasurer, William Klinger. The law library is not maintained for any revenue that may arise from it ; the object is a collection of law books and kindred matter for the encouragement, culture and advantage-for the education and use of the members of the bar of Allen County ; it is for the use of county officers, and for the judges of the several courts, the county furnishing the library room in the courthouse ; the funds for the maintenance and purchase of books are from the annual dues, and from an annual contribution authorized by law from Allen County.
The policy of the Law Library Association is to place books in the library not otherwise accessible to the members ; the association first purchased the complete publication of the Western Reporter System, and the Western Reports have been kept up-to-date since the organization of the Law Library ; it has also purchased the reports of the different states ; the Law Library thus contains complete reports from every state in the Union, dating from the beginning of the Western Reporter System; it has many reports purchased prior to the beginning of such system. The Law Library also contains complete reports from the beginning of government of all States in the Union. It contains the Century Digest of many text books on the leading branches of law ; Allen County attorneys may thus familiarize themselves with statutes in other states where they may have reason for investigation ; when a lawyer removes a book he must leave the necessary information about it.
Lima is a city of civic and social clubs and club houses, and in many of these centers there are well selected libraries ; in Lima's social Four Hundred there are intellectuals who "wear horn rimmed glasses," and recognize the need of the library as a community center ; they are "positive in their statements that civilization is predominantly Aryan," and there was a sentiment for a library many years ago. In reminiscent mood, Mrs. Nannie W. Hughes, who was a leading musician in the early days, wrote : "When I think of the changes in Lima since the '60s I feel as if I had lived 100 years, and not many today want to return to those conditions," and she enumerated the absence of many social and business advantages ; people had not learned their value, and among such things they had not yet learned the advantages of a public library. There were no florists, no cabs or taxis, no street lights or improved streets, and hand in hand with all other advances in civilization came the Carnegie libraries in Lima and in Dephos.
In some newspaper accounts written by Mrs. M. J. Ballard and Miss Medora Freeman relative to the development of library sentiment, it seems that the Lima Reading Club for men and women, organized
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for social intercourse and mutual improvement, meeting frequently and reading together, discussed books and the "classics" in literature, and preparing papers on vital topics, and they felt the need of a reference library ; the public library movement nation wide was then in its infancy. When Andrew Carnegie began dotting the whole country with library buildings, at the suggestion of Herbert L. Brice of the local library board, Miss Helen Brice of New York interceded for the Carnegie gift ; Miss Brice had personal acquaintance with Andrew Carnegie, and her appeal at once met with consideration. Mr. Carnegie donated $30,000 on condition that the City of Lima furnish the building site, and finance the maintenance of the library.
In November, 1902, the first step was taken through the purchase of a site 100 feet square at the northeast corner of West Market and McDonel streets ; the castles in the air for several years were to become a reality ; for fifty years said someone in Lima, there had been a library movement on in the community ; early Lima realized the need, and as the years went by the idea had been adding momentum—gathering strength; the people used the church and Sunday school libraries, and there were some good private library collections. There was a nucleus of a public library finally, before the grant of the Carnegie fund to enable the community to properly house it.
Definite plans for starting a library were formed at a meeting of the Lima Reading Club at the home of Judge Thomas M. Robb ; the members argued for and against it, and the matter of "an attempt to establish a library in Lima" was put to a vote with the result that it was launched, and a library committee was named : Judge James Mackenzie, Olivia Meily and Martha Richardson ; this committee was authorized to "proceed in the matter as it saw fit and proper." Books and magazines were solicited from all interested parties—gifts to the association, and the books were assembled in Judge Mackenzie's office for distribution ; the demand for reading matter increased and there is still a library sentiment ; there always have been book lovers in the community. However, public library enthusiasm waned as Judge Mackenzie had no time to look after the distribution of the books, and there were no funds accruing for the purchase of more books.
When Judge Mackenzie discontinued handling the books, the library was transferred to the "Rosicrucians" Club, made up from the young men of Lima, and for a time they assumed the responsiblity. This "Rosicrucians" Club was both social and literary, and its membership included the foremost young men, among them : H. A. Holdridge, James Irvine, Dr. Cloyd Jacobs, Dr. S. A. Baxter, Capt. Mart Armstrong, Judge C. M. Hughes, Gen. L. M. Meily, James Anderson and Calvin S. Brice ; tributes are paid to all of them because of their attitude and willingness to serve the commumty ; while this library management was of brief existence, it was one of the stepping stones in library history. While they were young men with poise of character, they were young and there was responsibility connected with distributing library books in the community.
Some definite, organized effort was necessary in fostering library sentiment, and when in the '80s the Chautauqua movement struck Lima, it attracted the foremost people in the community ; it was a systematic course of study and a library was then a necessity. A representative group of Lima women ready to assume community responsibility was attracted by the Chautauqua : Mrs. C. M. Hughes, Mrs. Angerona Thrift, Mrs. J. F. Brotherton, Mrs. J. R. Hughes, Mrs. James Irvine, Mrs. Margaret Rumple, Mrs. S. A. Baxter, Mrs. Frances Mitchell Baxter, Mrs.
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C. S. Brice, Mrs. Elizabeth Freeman, Mrs. Martha J. Ballard, Mrs. J. N. Harrington, and Mrs. H. A. Holdridge. These Chautauqua women began agitating the library question again. At different times there were different groups who agitated the question ; sentiment is something that has to be cultivated in any community.
The Chautaqua group agitation resulted in forming another library association with I. S. Motter as its president ; there were various financial schemes and the money was secured for the purchase of more library books, each new association inheriting the old collection of library books. When a fund accrued, the book purchasing committee was Judge Mackenzie, Goodrich Nichols and Mrs. Brice. The new library was opened in the Allen County courthouse, but finally from lack of funds it was stranded again. When the library was again resuscitated, its management was placed in the hands of the Lima Young Men's Christian Association, which proved only a temporary arrangement. There is detail and responsibility connected with a circulating library. There was no fund with which to employ a librarian.
In 1900 there was another library community movement, the art, music and literary clubs feeling the need, and combining their efforts ; with the ushering in of the new century, the library movement was gaining an impetus in all of the towns ; some towns with smaller population than Lima were establishing libraries ; the progressive women of the community were now behind a library movement. Mrs. O. W. Smith of the Woman's Club made a strong library appeal through the local newspapers, the different defunct organizations were awakened, and the appeal as already detailed was made to Andrew Carnegie. The women secured $400 through memberships, and this fund was placed in the hands of H. L. Brice and J. W. Roby who selected the new books, and on July 15, 1901, Miss Medora Freeman was chosen librarian ; on September 1 the library was again open to the public ; there were 1,641 books in the aggregate from all sources, and with 782 newly purchased volumes, the remnanants of all the old library efforts and the additional new volumes were removed from the Young Men's Chris-
Vol. I—33
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tian Association, where the collection has been sheltered last to the Black Block, and by the end of the year there were 2,678 volumes in circulation from the new location. By purchase and donation the number of books was then increased to 3,142 and there were 1,952 different persons taking them, saying nothing about the number of persons who read each volume loaned from there.
While Judge Mackenzie had been the first person to assume responsibility for the distribution of books in Lima, the task was too onerous for one having so many business cares ; there was only one solution— employ a librarian. Miss Freeman began her duties as a salaried librarian, September 1, 1901, and since that time the public has always had access to the library books. Since Miss Freeman, the librarians are: Miss Grace Chapman, Miss Lyle Harter and Miss Martha Gamble. Miss Gamble was employed in the library under Miss Freeman, and has always remained with it. Miss Harter was librarian in 1908, when the Carnegie library was opened to the public ; a second appeal was made to the Carnegie fund, and $5,000 was added to the original grant of $30,000, making $35,000 beside the community investment in the site and the operating expense. Since 1913, Miss Gamble has been librarian ; her assistants are : Miss Veldren Smith and Miss Mildred Downing.
While there are not so many technical and trade books and magazines as the librarian recognizes the need of, there are now 15,000 volumes in the Lima Public Library. There are about 3,000 cards issued on which books are drawn, and many of the current magazines and newspapers are available there. Not as many men frequent the library reading rooms as would only that the Young Men's Christian Association, Knights of Columbus and many clubs and lodge rooms afford similar advantages. The Carnegie library is the pride of the community with its basement auditorium, and committee rooms. The literary clubs frequently use the auditorium and school teachers and school children make good use of the reading rooms. There are always some men there of evenings. In the period that books were being sent overseas to American soldiers, the Lima library was a receiving station for them; they were sent to Newport News from Lima. Groups of books have been loaned to different schools and to the Lima Telephone Company ; many references are looked up for patrons, the librarians knowing the location of books and understanding the index system. Sometimes the inventories reveal that books are missing; careful handling is urged on all who borrow books from the library. The librarians repair bindings and send many magazines to the bindery so that patrons may use them later. In 1919, the library was closed one month because of the influenza epidemic ; ordinarily the library is open every day except Sundays and legal holidays.
There are seven members of the library board when all positions are filled. The 1920 members : President, John W. Robey, and associated with him : 0. B. Self ridge, Mrs. Kent W. Hughes, Mrs. T. K. Jacobs and A. L. White ; there were two vacancies on the board. Mr. Robey and Mr. Self ridge, representing the board, placed an order for a copy of this history ; Miss Gamble had said that children were making inquiries every day, and she suggested a number of subjects she wanted mentioned ; nothing in the library told about the building itself, or many other public buildings. Just a suggestion : when in doubt as to what particular books to read for any given line of information, consult the librarian ; it is the librarian's business to be familiar with books and to know which are the best ones.
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DELPHOS LIBRARY—While there is a Carnegie library in Delphos, it happens to be in Van Wert County ; it is located in a small park that was a gift to the community in the early history of the town by Father John Otto Bredeich, who certainly had prophetic vision ; it stands in a clump of trees of nature's own planting; it was built in 1912, the community securing a gift of $12,500 from Andrew Carnegie ; it was open to the public October 1, 1912, Miss Grace Boardman being the first librarian ; she served for six years, and when she resigned the library was closed for a short time, allowing Miss Marie Rosselit time to qualify as librarian ; she had training in the library at Sidney and in the public library in the University of Michigan. Miss Rosselit is a Delphos young woman. The Delphos library has about 6,000 well selected volumes. John H. Wahmhoff deserves credit for his activity in securing the Delphos library ; when the library was opened to the public with a program of dedication, E. E. Truesdale of the building committee presented the key to Clarence Marsh of the Delphos City Council, who in turn presented it to Mr. Wahmhoff as president of the board of trustees. It has a small basement auditorium, and the community makes good use of it. There is an excellent museum collection, largely the work of Mr. Wahmhoff. The library slogan is : "Delphos our name, advancement our aim," and when Delphos people want information they visit the library. Treasured there is a flag "made by the first settlers," in the early '50s, and some of the best-known women in the community helped to make it. They were : Mrs. Sarah Smith, Mrs. Henry Lindemann, Mrs. Fred Kollsmith and Mrs. John Cowan. Mrs. Lindemann, who survived the others, had the knowledge that the flag is being preserved in the Delphos library.
It is said The Tale of Woe is found in every library, and that steeplejacks refuse to climb them because of the number of stories ; the two Carnegie libraries are the only library buildings in Allen County, and the one in Delphos would not be counted only that legally Delphos belongs to Allen County. The parody on Henry Clay's saying: "I had rather be right than president," has been paraphrased : "I had rather be Harold Bell Wright than president," because as a literary man he has reached the point where the income from his publications exceeds that of the President, and yet not many Lima people are aware of the fact that Mr. Wright was one time a clerk in the Baxter-Trevor bookstore ; he had not yet become the world-famous writer of fiction. Dr. Shelby Mumaugh gave the information. There never have been such voluminous writers living in Allen County as New England once produced, came the answer to an inquiry about local literary folk.
When Mrs. James Pillars asked Professor John Davison to write a paper on the literature of Allen County and read it before the Historical Society, he replied : "Why write about what aint ?" but his graphic answer caused him to think further about it. After saying that the Hoosier Poet, James Whitcomb Riley, was for three years a resident of Lima while associated with Dr. C. M. Townsend as a patent medicine vender, and that the doggerel he recited was composed while he was employed by the medicine man, Professor Davison said that it was while the poet was visiting Donn Piatt at his castle in Logan County that he wrote his famous autumn epic : "When the frost is on the pumpkin, and the fodder's in the shock." It was in the '70s that Mr. Riley was in Lima.
It is urged that there never have been dreamers in Allen County because its citizens have always been "too busy keeping the wolf from the door" to write fiction or poetry. Allen County people have been
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so busy making a living, that they have had little time for literature. While they have built few air-castles, most of them have been busy with temporal things—have built some splendid castles—every man's home his castle. There are few "dreamers of dreams" in Allen County. While not many people begin new things in their old days, it is possible that Allen County may yet develop a coterie of writers ; someone has exclaimed :
"But when old age came creeping on, With all its aches and qualms, King Solomon wrote the Proverbs, And King David wrote the Psalms,"
and mayhap someone will yet take up his goose-quill in Allen County.
A little inquiry brought out the following facts : Mrs. B. F. Welty (Cora Miller Welty) wrote Marguerite ; it is a story of the Amish community ; Mrs. Welty has written many short stories. Job Taylor who was a school boy in Lima wrote : "Broken Links," which is a story of the Pennsylvania coal mines.
Chauncey Bogardus wrote a volume of poetry : "Varied Verse," most of which appeared originally in The Republican-Gazette. Mr. Bogardus has written many campaign songs, especially in the wet and dry contests ; while he is a printer his friends call him a writer.
The Rev. R. J. Thompson, one-time minister in the Market Street Presbyterian Church, had many short stories published, both in the sacred and secular press.
The Rev. Franklin A. Stiles of the Lima Baptist Church, while not an Allen County product, has written : "Helps to Happiness," which is a volume of poems he characterizes as "a message of sweet and tender love to those weary in body and mind," and it is on sale in the book stores.
Herbert H. Brown of Lima wrote : "The Little Girl I Used to Love," and other poems ; he was styled the Lima Lyrist, his poems dealing with love, hope, faith and fidelity—the great elemental traits that concern all of humanity.
N. W. Cunningham of Bluffton, who has traveled in the Orient extensively, has written two volumes covering his observations : "One Hundred and One Days Away," and "Over the Seas with Me." Many Allen County folk have enjoyed the armchair journeys with Mr. Cunningham ; the prospective world tourist will find these two volumes valuable as handbooks of travel.
There is a booklet, an official souvenir of Lima Municipality, for the benefit of the Fire and Police Reserve Fund collated by Dr. Samuel A. Baxter, and bearing the date 1897, from the press of The Republican-Gazette Company, that contained much valuable information that was utilized in the pages of this history.
It is said that the best genealogical library in the United States is in Boston because of the Pilgrim history there ; while popular demand for the knowledge of ancestry was once restricted to the reputedly wealthy, since the middle of the nineteenth century others have interested themselves in it ; less affluent families have gone hunting for the blood lines connecting them with early history ; the oracle, "Know thyself," also implies a knowledge of ancestry. The Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution have had trouble with their grandfathers and grandmothers, too, because of insufficient records about them ; a livestock specialist must understand science in order to write pedigrees,
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and the genealogist encounters the same difficulties ; a good biography means a great deal to a family ; there is always someone who cares to know his origin, and who is not afraid of the theory of evolution.
Through an effort to "know himself," Mayor Franklin A. Burkhardt of Lima has performed a priceless service f or all who are descended from the original Boucher family ; in his genealogy : "The Boucher Family," Mayor Burkhardt not only shows the evolution of the name : Bowsher, Bauscher, Bausher, Bousher, to Boucher, but he has developed the genealogy of the related families—the branches, as: Strawn, Harpster, Tedrow, Cryder, Reichelderfer, Critchfield, Stahl, Straw, Brant and other families knowing themselves to be descendants of Daniel Boucher of Albany Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania; it also includes notes of some other Boucher families ; a brief history of Ohio reunions of the family is included in the genealogy.
By way of an introductory, Mr. Burkhardt says: "This volume is dedicated to our God-fearing ancestors, the knowledge and memory of whose toils and privations may better fit us to inherit the fruits of their love and labor ; may these footprints garnered from their sturdy lives grace the treasure places of their posterity." The author says, further : "A desire for personal enlightenment regarding the advent and career of our family in America, led the writer to institute an inquiring search among near relatives which soon led to the realization that our people were vaguely informed in the matter of our family ties and genealogy." Mr. Burkhardt has had inquiry from a number of librarians who realize the importance of genealogies in public libraries ; when families become widely separated, it is possible that some wanderer may learn his own identity from consulting a genealogy in a library. Some of the cuts appearing in this volume are from the Boucher Genealogy. In the volume Mr. Burkhardt shows his own relation to the Bouchers.
It is urged by some that the evident lack of literary talent as a written asset in Allen County has been offset in the work of the platform speakers ; there have been political spellbinders and pulpiteers who were strong in platform orations ; through three generations the Allen County bar has furnished platform speakers, and Professor J. S. Davison still fills lecture engagements from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rocky Mountains; in his travels among strangers the professor has been mistaken for both John L. Sullivan and William Howard Taft, although his lectures are educational in their nature.
ALLEN COUNTY HISTORIES—Bulwer Lytton says: "There is no past so long as books shall live," and Dean Swift exclaims : "Books the children of the brain." In the pages of a well-written history, it is possible to live one's life all over again ; the past becomes the present in the preservation of many things of interest to the future citizen.
While the idealist is never at his best in the field of realism, the student of economic conditions in Allen County knows that the increase and advance along the line of achievement has been much greater since Henry Howe's second tour of Ohio, than what he records between the '40s and '80s when he traversed the country. While other and more recent volumes of Ohio History are on the shelves of the public library, none are so well known to the public as Howe's History.
In the preface to his second History of Ohio, Mr. Howe, who was a native of Connecticut, living finally in Columbus, writes : "We don't know what is before us." He then details something of his adventures traveling on horseback throughout the state in 1846, and again in 1886, adding this comment : "Not a human being in any land that I know of has done a like thing." While some have regarded Howe's History in
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the same light as they think of garden seeds, because for so many years free copies of it were distributed by the members of the Ohio Assembly, the state having acquired the ownership of the plates from which it was printed, it has always been near the hearts of those fortunate enough to own a copy of it. The thing that has endeared Howe's History to the people is the number of now imperishable personal incidents in it.
D. H. Tolan from whom much Allen County information has been gained, knew Henry Howe in Carrollton in 1846, and he watched him sketch a picture from the street corner that later appeared in the Ohio History. It is elsewhere related in this volume, that when Mr. Howe visited Lima in 1846, he sketched a picture from the lawn at Blue Bird Hill which was incorporated in the history. Mr. Tolan met Mr. Howe again in Allen County forty years later. Mr. Howe himself says that in the time intervening between his two pilgrimages over Ohio, the population had more than doubled itself, while no arithmetical calculation could estimate its advance in material resources and intelligence.
What this veteran historian, Henry Howe, says of Ohio as a whole applies admirably to Allen County, but almost as much time has elapsed since he said it as had elapsed between the time of his two visits ; were he to return to earth and tour the state again, he would find the strides in advance had been greater since his second visit to Allen County ; the age of electricity dawned since then, and any Rip Van Winkle would have difficulty adjusting himself today. The log-rolling and the wool- picking social epoch is so far in the dim distance of the past, that many either never have heard, or have forgotten those stories and incidents of the long ago. The one who writes the line saw Mrs. Henry Howe in Columbus, when she was a woman eighty-eight years old; she survived her husband by several years. She said her husband was always a student of history. The Howe History is in the Lima library.
In northwestern Ohio there is quite a group of local writers who have "gotten" between lids, and mention is made of Horace S. Knapp, who wrote the Allen County data in The World Atlas ; it appeared in 1875, and is illustrated with maps ; there are farm pictures in it, the art conforming to the period, before the deyelopment of the accurate photograph. Mr. Knapps' most important work was "A History of the Maumee Valley," which is standard and treats both the romance and historical development of the locality, including Allen County. While writing the Maumee Valley sketch, Mr. Knapp came into the office of The Delphos Herald when Mr. Tolan was its editor ; he tarried to write down some memoranda.
In 1880, there was a Historical Sketch of Allen County in which Dr. G. W. Hill of Ashland wrote the Shawnee story ; it had no local editorial representation.
In 1885, there was published A History of Allen County that was widely distributed, and while it had no local editorial supervision, it has been highly prized by many who regard it as an authority.
In 1906, there appeared A History of Allen County by Professor Charles C. Miller, who was at the time connected with the Lima public schools ; he was not a permanent citizen of Allen County ; he was assisted by Dr. Samuel A. Baxter, who contributed a number of reminiscent chapters. Many Allen County families own it.
In the public library in Lima are copies of all the Allen County publications, and of the different Ohio histories ; these books are also found in many private libraries.
The Book of Ohio, wholly pictorial, and Picturesque Northwestern Ohio, and the Battle Grounds of the Maumee Valley (pictorial) are found in some private libraries.
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Northwest Ohio, by Nevin O. Winter, includes twenty counties, and in it the Allen County chapter is written by Ezekiel Owen. Mr. Winter has written many historical books, and some of them have been translated into the languages of the countries described in them. He has written the initial chapters in this Allen County History. He was recently the travelogue speaker at a dinner given by the men of Christ Episcopal Church in Lima, speaking of his own observations while visiting Russia.
There is a Portrait and Biographical Record of Allen and Van Wert Counties for which there was good Allen County patronage ; it has no local editorial representation, and does not purport to be a history.
The present publication : "A Standard History of Allen County," might well have been styled Centennial, and beginning with the f ourteenth chapter it is written with the thought of covering the development of a century. N. O. Winter writes the preliminary chapters, and the history of Allen County proper is under the editorial supervision of William Rusler, "The Sage of Shawnee," who has directed the publishers' representative, Rolland Lewis Whitson, in assembling historic data for it. Mr. Rusler had long wanted to have a comprehensive History of Allen County. Now that this volume has made its advent in the world of books, it is hoped that those who are bent on research may be able to find in it all they had hoped for—that it may "fill a long felt want" in the community. Mention is already made of it in the Foreword. The men securing local orders for the history were : F. H. Moore, Roy Ferguson and W. A. High. It is only through the patronage plan that such an enterprise is a financial possibility.
The Lima business man who refused to buy a dictionary, saying he already knew where all of his customers lived, had confused it with a directory ; the first Allen County Directory was issued in the '70s by Hazelton Brothers. It was from the bindery of Gale Sherman. O. B. Self ridge published directories later, and Attorney F. E. Mead has made a collection of Allen County directories since 1891, although some other collector has secured his 1918 copy. Ezekiel Owen has a copy of the 1876 directory, and F. E. Harmon of the 1878 issue ; when the first directories were issued, Allen County citizens were suspicious ; it was so soon after the Civil war, and they were afraid to give out information ; there were no daily papers educating them in such things. Mr. Mead has frequent use for his back number directories ; sometimes legal questions are settled by reference to them. Who's Who in Allen County in those old directories presents a different list from the one found in a recent directory.
It is said that books "go under the hammer first" when adversity overtakes a family ; sometimes a county history is sold at auction, and there is always someone who wants it ; men say they wanted the county history in a division of property because the family story is in it, but someone else secured it-usually the oldest brother. It has been charged that no one is mentioned in county histories only those who buy them ; who wants "something for nothing"? The biography volume in this edition is in the interest of subscribers wholly, but the history is written without knowledge of who are the patrons ; the men and the women who developed the community are part of its history ; they are mentioned as far as it has been possible to gain information about them, and their relation to the community. Some people are not sufficiently public spirited to be entitled to mention in the annals of the community ; they are not even mentioned in the newspapers.
While tarrying in Allen County the publishers' representative employed a newspaper outlet to induce its readers to supply historical
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data, and it was "bread on the waters," many stories thus secured that had not been found on the printed page at all. People are not always certain of themselves, and sometimes give out the wrong information. The librarian often has to play the role of interpreter when patrons are seeking information in reference to volumes ; just as the tree is known by its fruit, library patrons are judged by the books they read ; as a rule, the older patrons of the library ask for the classics ; they read the standard novels, and literature that has stood the test of time.
The woman who read Shakespeare as it came out in the magazines is a library patron, as well as the one who read the Waverly newspaper, but failed to understand why a book should be made of it. While one patron was asking for "The Four Horsemen of the Erysipelas," another wanted some jazzy poems ; a college student at home on vacation, asked for "European Civilization of Criminals," and when a woman asked for "Speckles," the librarian supplied her with "Freckles." Is this a true statement—wholly true: "Among the most patient and obliging persons in public service, and among the least appreciated are the library attendants, who will give anyone references for information." Usually one in quest of information appreciates such service. The writer found the Lima library force most willing and efficient.
Charles Kingsley said: "We ought to reverence books, to look at them as useful and mighty things ; if they are good and true, whether they are about religion or politics, farming, trade or medicine, they are the message of Christ, the maker of all things, the teacher of all truth." Emerson says : "Books are the best things, well used; abused, among the worst." Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote : "I like books. I was born and bred •among them, and have the easy feeling when I get in their presence, that a stable boy has among horses." Stevenson said : "Every book is a circular letter to the friends of him who writes it," and Socrates sums it all up, saying : "Employ your time in improving yourselves by other men's documents." While some depend on the public library, others are book collectors, and here is a suggestion :
"When you buy an edition de luxe, Be sure and examine the buxe ; Make sure they are just so Ere you pay out your dough, And don't buy de luxe Buxe from crux."
WOMEN'S CLUBS 1N ALLEN COUNTY—Since the Woman's Relief Corps was organized within three years after the close of the Civil war, it is unmistakably the oldest woman's society in Allen County; its appeal is to the families of soldiers in all wars. Since intellectual life may suggest the school, the church or the press, it is a safe statement that the club attracts the wives of educators, pulpiteers, editors and advance thought women in all spheres ; an hour spent together in study, means more to them than just to "run in with a sunbonnet on," as was once the universal custom in many communities.
Under existing conditions, when formal visits are made cards are left as witnesses-a card for the husband and a card for the wife, but better leave it to those who have distributed them—the rules governing the card question; when formal visits are made the time is limited to a few minutes, and reputations are comparatively safe under such arrangements. A generation ago a woman brought her needlework or her knitting; she had not thought about cards as a necessity, in order to
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impress upon her hostess the fact of her visit. Instead of study and research, the time was spent in the exchange of news, and the discussion of any possible rumors circulating in the community ; a liberal education had not yet revolutionized society. There were not so many newspapers and magazines, and the neighborly visit with its attendant conversation was then a physical necessity..
The women of today have an environment different from that surrounding their mothers, and why should not their individuality assert itself differently? The hospital in the community has relieved them from ministering to the sick, and the daily newspaper brings to them the news of the world; the telephone relieves them from the necessity of street dress in planning social functions; there are those who lament the passing of the old-fashioned hospitality and sociability, while others welcome the change as a forward movement ; under the new order of things women have more time for self improvement. While the first trial of woman's suffrage contributed largely to the republican majority in Allen County, it was also a factor in delaying the count ; the triumph of nationalism over internationalism was the keynote of the 1920 election, all political parties receiving support from the club women of Allen County.
Since women are a force to be reckoned with in future elections, and the suffrage is largely the result of their efforts, women who are leaders in thought recognize the fact that womanhood must measure up to the high standards-that public servants must not be guilty of blunders, and they are fitting themselves for future opportunities of usefulness. Query : Is the loss of femininity a distinctive loss to society? Since women are men's equals, should they demand that men doff their hats to them? Self-respecting women do not demand such things, but they see no reason for the decline of masculine gallantry because of the ascendancy of womanhood. Someone remarked that when women voted, men devoted themselves to ridicule of the voteresses ; many things are said that are unwarranted, and the club woman by pursuing the even tenor of her way will soon forget such things.
The T and T Club of Lima is unique—both men and women hold membership in it, and it is the only federated club that includes men; it is federated in both city and state; it is a coterie of married persons who meet fortnightly for informal intellectual profit in a measure, but especially for the pleasure following from informal discussion and intimate conversation. N. W. Cunningham of Bluffton is its president. The T and T Club was organized in 1893, and it is limited to thirty-two members ; this club has sponsored many community movements.
While the Allen County Historical and Archaelogical Society is not federated, men and women are admitted to its membership and it has a kindly interest in all; it has elsewhere received attention. It has no membership limitation at all. Only those who hark back to the past in Allen County care to affiliate themselves with it; the sons and the daughters of pioneers attend the meetings.
The first literary society—the forerunner of the club, met in Sanford's Hall on Wednesday evening, December 1, 1858, and Judge B. F. Metcalf was the speaker ; lectures ensued for a time, and then it seems that the society lapsed until February 16, 1861, there is mention of it again, when Miss Love Meily read an original essay entitled Edgar Allen Poe, which was a tribute to America's most gifted and most unfortunate poet.
In 1857, there was a dramatic society organized by the young people of Lima, and all the town turned out for the programs. It must have been a forerunner of the Thespian Club, organized November 30, 1860,
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which put on its first play on Christmas eve ; its literary and dramatic aspirants (see Chapter on Theaters) were active for many years ; some of the most prominent people in the community were Thespians. Another account says the Lima Dramatic Club was active in the '70s, and that April 10, 1874, it put on a home talent production that aroused enthusiasm.
In the spring of 1868, when there was just one school building in Lima, a reading club including the eight school teachers and the school superintendent was formed; it was called the Dickens Club and it met every two weeks at the homes of the members ; the club read David Copperfield, and refreshments were a feature of each meeting. Under the leadership of this club, school exhibitions became popular ; when an exhibition was being staged in Ashton's Hall with Miss Ella Hanson as the Goddess of Liberty, there was a fire, the stage caught from the tableaux lights ; the hall was crowded and pandemonium reigned ; they had a "Dickens" of a time, but finally subdued the fire and finished the play.
In a Directory of the Lima Federation of Women's Clubs, is the statement that the Woman's Club organized in 1879, and federated in the state in 1894, and in Lima in 1905, is probably one of the oldest in the United States, growing out of a reading circle of 1861, although in its development it has changed its name several times ; Mrs. Josephine Smith and Mrs. Matilda Moore are charter members. It may be inf ormation to some that the oldest woman's club in the United States is in Posey County, Indiana ; this statement is found in the book : "The New Harmony Movement." While not all the women's clubs in Allen County are federated, some of them had federated in the state and nation before there was a Lima Federation. Mrs. Luah M. Butler, as president of the Lima Federation of Women's Clubs, reports that some clubs have federated since the publication of the directory.
The Lima Federation of Women's Clubs secured its splendid directory through its co-operation with A. W. Wheatley, district chairman of the. Salvation Army Home Service Fund ; he would finance the publication on condition that Mrs. Butler as president of the Federation would act as chairman of Doughnut Day, and that the representatives of three organizations turning in the most money from doughnut sales should have their pictures in the directory. The Salvation Army thus realized more than $1,000 on the sale of doughnuts, and paid $200 for the publication of the directory. The women whose pictures appear in it are: Mrs. George Hall, Mrs. Claudia Stewart Black and Miss Mary Conrath. The Federated Clubs Directory includes the names of more than 1,000 women who are identified with different kinds of club work in Lima and vicinity.
The Lima Federation of Clubs belongs to the Northwest District of the Ohio Federation through which it belongs to the General Federation of Women's Clubs. Mrs. John W. Roby of Lima is district vice president of Northwest, including: Allen, Defiance, Fulton, Hancock, Henry, Lucas, Paulding, Putnam, Van Wert, Williams and Wood counties. Besides Mrs. Roby, who is recognized in the Ohio Federation, Mrs. Kent W. Hughes is a member of the State Board of Education, and Dr. Josephine Pierce is state chairman Board of Public Health.
Women who have served Allen County are : Mrs. Lena B. Davis, Mrs. J. K. Bannister and Mrs. J. E. Sullivan, as executive committee of Women's Work Allen County Chapter American Red Cross ; Mrs. Irene Mills Jackson, executive secretary of Home Service Section American
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Red Cross ; Mrs. J. B. Poling, supervisor of hygiene courses, and chairman of the Juniors, American Red Cross ; Mrs. Wallace King, chairman Women's Division Victory Loan, and Mrs. H. H. Starrett, chairman American Committee for Devastated France. Mrs. F. H. Creps is president War Mothers' Society ; Mrs. Grace 0. Enck, chairman Home Nursing Department, American Red Cross of Lima ; Mrs. Nettie Williams Miller, probation officer of Juvenile Court ; Mrs. W. E. Crayton, chairman of knitting, American Red Cross ; Mrs. Katherine Reilly, milk and housing inspector, and Mrs. E. C. Powell, chairman of publicity American Red Cross.
The Federation of Clubs is on record as desiring streets repaired promptly and cleaned constantly ; the outskirts free from rubbish and the alleys kept clean ; smoke consumers placed on large chimneys ; war declared on rodents as carriers of disease ; a Young Women's Christian Association with modern improvements, a club home that will accomodate 1,000 women; an Americanization home where old and new Americans can meet for mutual benefit ; a Salvation Army citadel and home ; a modern athletic field for sports ; restrictions against unsightly buildings; public preservation of trees ; enforcement of pure food laws ; employment of a woman food inspector, and a nutrition clinic for underfed children. Many things above enumerated have already become realities in the community. In enumerating reasons why women want to live in Lima, the directory seems to have listed all the advantages found in any city in the world. The Federated Club members are Lima Boosters.
Some social critic writes : "The club of the modern woman is not a thing to be ridiculed and scorned, as were many of the literary, sewing and bridge clubs of a few years back ; the club of the modern woman is a boon ; the home woman does not neglect her home for the club ; she seeks her club for relaxation. The modern club is almost home for the business woman ; this is particularly true in the larger cities which have club rooms in the downtown sections. * * * The club of today offers something of permanent value to both its members and the community." As Federation president, Mrs. Butler says : "The club women have been tried and not found wanting, for one and all have done their 'bit' in war work ; realizing that many need to rest, the present administration has tried to bring into the ranks of workers many young women, and new comers who seem qualified to do constructive work along lines of Americanization, Community, Industrial and Social development ; loyalty and support is all that is needed from those who have helped in former years, as well as from all new members." All clubs are urged to have their year books of uniform size, to leave copies at the library and at the different newspapers, and to read the daily club announcements.
An alphabetic list of the Lima Federated clubs follows : The Altrurian Club-the welfare of others, was organized in 1900, and Mrs. W. F. Booth, Mrs. D. J. Cable and Mrs. Lizzie K. Price, who were charter members, are still active members of the club twenty years later.
The Arbutus Club was organized in 1890, and its object was the mutual improvement of its members ; it studied history, literature, art, science and current news ; its membership is limited to thirty.
The Bayview Club, organized in 1892, took its name from the course of study pursued; its purpose is mutual improvement along cultural and educational lines.
The Chautauqua, organized in 1895, adopted the Chautauqua course of study ; this club was active in agitating the library question.
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The Child Welfare, also mentioned under the head of charities, is a county association in which many club women are prominent workers ; it promotes all issues which have as a purpose child betterment, or the health and happiness of the children of Allen County.
The Clionian Club is devoted to literary study.
The College Women's Club was organized in 1914, with the purpose of drawing together the alumnae of the different schools ; it fosters an interest in higher education, and maintains a scholarship loan.
The Day Nursery Association which is federated is described elsewhere as a charity.
The Delphian Club, organized in 1914, pursues a line of study aimed to cultivate the art of conversation.
The Domestic Science Club was organized in 1918, with twenty as its membership limit ; this club works along culinary lines.
The Floral Guild was organized in 1908, for charity and to bring sunshine into the lives of unfortunates ; its motto is : "Scatter your flowers as you go; you may never go over the road again."
The Girls Welfare League of the Lima Central High School was organized in 1914, and its object is to furnish milk for sick and poorly nourished children whose parents are unable to provide the proper food ; all high school girls are eligible to membership in this league ; an annual event is a penny carnival, the proceeds of which are used to carry on the work ; the girls work under the direction of the faculty.
Home Nursing Department American Red Cross, elsewhere mentioned, has been of untold service since its organization in 1919; it is managed by loyal club women.
The Hawthorne Club, organized in 1912, meets for social intercourse and civic uplift ; the collections are given to the Red Cross.
The Jewish Ladies Club, organized in 1901, holds monthly meetings; they sew and give funds to local charities, they contribute to the Day Nursery, Salvation Army and the hospitals.
The Lotus Club, organized in 1886, brings together women interested in art, historical and literary studies, and current events.
Mercy Circle of King's Daughters, organized in 1916, is a branch of the International Order of King's Daughters ; it was established to stimulate and assist in all charities.
The N. B. B. O. O. was organized in 1910, and is active in the support of Visiting Nurse and other organizations.
The Philomathean Club was organized in 1890 as a Chautauqua Reading Circle ; its aim has been to keep abreast with the problems of the day, as well as to enjoy the social features of club life; two charter members : Mrs. Helen Hadsell and Mrs. Frank Holmes still live in the community, and Miss Jean Stoner is in Brazil, and Miss Mary Thomas is in India ; four charter members are living thirty years later.
The Players' Dramatic Club was organized in 1913, to further the cause of dramatic art.
The Political Equality Club is federated, but no data is given.
The Round Table was organized in 1890, and its motto is "Remembrance." The aim is culture, encouraging habits of regular reading and systematic study, to develop the power of thought and cultivate a literary taste, thus increasing the capacity for intellectual and social enjoyment.
The Shakespeare Club was organized in 1905, and was immediately federated in City, State and General Federation.
The Sorosis Club was organized in 1894, for mutual intellectual benefit to its members.
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The Social Service was organized in 1912, its object being to promote a higher standard of living for women and girls.
The Twentieth Century Club was organized in 1889, as a C. L. S. C., but in 1896 it changed its name.
The Woman's Club, organized in 1879, has been mentioned as among the older clubs in the United States.
The Woman's Music Club, organized in 1891, is mentioned in detail in the chapter on music. Woman's Board of Managers Lima City Hospital was federated in 1919, and it is mentioned in the chapter on hospitals.
Since the publication of the Lima Federation Year Book, Mrs. Butler reported the Frances E. Willard Women's Christian Temperance Union, 300 strong, and the Girls' Welfare Club of the South Side High School, and all clubs having definite prupose and outlined programs are invited to affiliate with the Federation. "In union there is strength," and through concerted action more can be accomplished than through any group working alone.
It was in the late '90s that Professor B. F. Biery of the Bluffton public schools established the first lecture course for Bluffton and the surrounding community ; in time it was known as the Bluffton lecture course, and it brought some of the best American and European platform talent into the community ; the town hall capacity was sold out each year before the beginning of the course ; lectures were always held m the town hall until there was a new high school auditorium.
After the coming of President S. K. Mosiman to Bluffton College, he started a series of Artist Recitals at the college which resulted in establishing the college course in music ; this effort was later combined with the Citizens' Lecture Course, and the College Music and High School Picture Course grew out of it. The lecture talent is selected by the high school administrative officers, and the artists are chosen by the College Choral Society executive committee ; since 1916, the course has been financed by the College Choral Society.
The Bluffton Travel Club, organized in 1902, with Mrs. N. W. Cunningham as president, is limited to twenty-five members ; weekly meetings are held at the homes ; it was organized at a time of general prosperity in the country, and the members wanted to express their gratitude for existing conditions ; this club participates in all community movements, and is active in music circles. Mrs. Cunningham has had unusual advantages in the way of travel, and she is able to conduct armchair journeys through books of travel.
The Century Circle in Bluffton is of recent organization ; its membership is limited to thirty ; it is a study club including many representative women. The Bluffton College faculty women affiliate with both the Travel Class and Century Circle.
Since Delphos is a "Border City," its social relation is divided between other communities. The Sorosis Club was organized in Delphos in 1895, having the motto : "Excellence is never granted to man, but as a reward of labor." It is a literary club given to research and self improvement. Its Year Book is on file at the public library.
The Delphos Tourists Club was organized in 1900, and is interested in the study of general literature ; the programs indicate that Delphos women have studied the franchise question, although they are of the German domestic type of womanhood that is inclined to leave some things to the men; they are content to become the mothers of men. The Delphos Club women are good patrons of the public library. The Corn-
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munity maintains a Chautauqua lecture course, and the profits go towards the support of the library.
The Excelsior Club in Spencerville was organized October 22, 1896, with twenty members and after twenty-four years some of the charter members sustain active relation to it ; the programs are of miscellaneous character, interspersed with current events and timely topics. The members seldom fail to bring up their work ; the club has affiliated with the Spencerville Civic League, and when war activities were at their height all Spencerville club women went to the Red Cross work rooms. The same is true of club members all over Allen County.
The Clio Club of Spencerville was organized March 27, 1898, on the basis of twenty members ; its programs include studies of literature, art and music ; it meets at the same time the Excelsior Club is in session, and one woman cannot be a member of both organizations ; both the Clio and Excelsior clubs "did their bit" at surgical dressings, knitting, etc., in the Red Cross workshop in Spencerville.
The social life of Lafayette, Westminster, Harrod, West Newton, Beaver Dam, West Cairo, Gomer and Elida as well as the different farm communities, manifests itself in lodges and in church activities ; the Grange has long furnished country women the social privileges enjoyed by others in clubs and guilds.
In the Lima Federation of Women's Clubs Year Book, Mrs. Butler congratulates all club women for their activities in the Red Cross workshops ; while clubs were not abandoned, they were a secondary consideration when the women of the country were combining their forces to alleviate distress on the battle fields of the world.
While it is a patriotic rather than a research society, its membership necessarily limited to those who are descended directly from Revolutionary soldiers, the Lima Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution was organized February 11, 1907, and it holds monthly meetings ; the year book shows a varied program, many of the members also being affiliated with other societies ; the local chapter has members in Delphos and Spencerville within the county, and its non-resident members are from many parts of the country. While there is no local organization of the Sons of the American Revolution, a number of local sons hold membership in Columbus and in other cities. Lima Chapter Daughters American Revolution and local Sons American Revolution were active in connection with the ceremony of unveiling the monument at Fort Amanda, July 5, 1915, elsewhere mentioned in this history. Lima Chapter Daughters American Revolution secured a government marker for the grave of Sergeant William Chenowith in Tony's Nose Cemetery, and it furnished the flag that floats on gala days at Fort Amanda. The Chapter may yet mark Wayne's Trace along the Auglaize river through Allen County. It was active as a Chapter in Red Cross work in the war period. A number of Allen County women are active in state committee work in the Ohio Chapter, of which Lima Chapter is an auxiliary.
The Art Department of the Lima Federation of Clubs has brought many exhibits to Lima, and there is an oil painting in the public library done by Thomas Parkhurst that has been purchased as a basis for a collection of pictures to be known as the Lima Museum of Art ; this picture is held in trust by the Art Committee of the Lima Federation of Women's Clubs until the formal organization of a Lima Art Museum Association. Miss Gamble is glad to have the picture in the library reading room as many visitors admire it.
Miss Matilda Badeau is mentioned as a china decorator, and as an artist who sometimes makes out-of-door sketches. In the lobby of the
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Lima Young Men's Christian Association building there was a collection of pictures made by Franklin A. Burkhardt, in which there was excellent perspective ; his only training had been in the Young Men's Christian Association night school, and the collection was shown to induce other amateur artists to qualify as students ; in a community like Lima it would be impossible to list all who have done amateur art work, or who have decorated china. Art is taught in the public schools, and in many homes are some of the best pictures.
While some admire portraits, and perpetuate their own family group in that way, the favorite scheme in pictures is the landscape. It manifests itself in snow-clad hills, tree-clad hills, mist-wreathed hills and night- shadowed hills ; there are hills to the left, hills to the right, and sometimes hills at the top of the picture, and always at the bottom of it ; the hills are eternal in pictures. Between the hills there are meadows, flower- studded fields or perhaps a river ; a picture is an expression both of the painter and of the collector ; the patron of art buys a picture because it means something to him.
There is art in hanging a picture ; connoisseurs of art study the lights and shadows as well as the artist; sometimes a picture is hung in a bad light and buyers are not attracted toward it. When the light is right and the picture is shown to advantage, people want it. Connoisseurs have pictures sent to their homes on approval, and when the light is unfavorable they do not invest their money.
The boy is the picture of his father ; the girl is the image of her mother. "So God created man in His own image ; in the image of God created He him ; male and female created He them," but some of the the critics say that the "works of art" seen on the streets are not included in this picture gallery.
CHAPTER XLIX
LEFTOVER STORIES-THE OMNIBUS CHAPTER
The old Southern Mammies who were reputed to concoct such "toothsome" viands in the line of foods, did not always follow formulas in their culinary processes ; they used a "little o' this and a little o' that," and their leftover dishes were sometimes their best productions. An Omnibus Chapter always catches incidents that did not properly belong somewhere else, and stories that would have been incorporated in other chapters had the material been available when they were written ; a platform speaker once said that what he thought of afterward was more worth while than the thoughts that came to him when he was speaking and many stories would have fitted themselves in elsewhere had the material presented itself before the "elsewhere" door was closed against them. The old fashioned Whatnot had a little of everything on it, and the Omnibus Chapter has a little of everything in it.
There was a period of fifteen years dating from 1840, when the sugar camp on the McDonel farm at the corner of West Market and McDonel streets was the mecca of all the young people in the community. From 1840 until 1855, there were young people at the McDonel farm, and the sugar camp was at its best ; when the sap started to flow every spring the camp was the rendezvous and there were frequent wax parties there ; the whole community was given to the picnic habit, and there was no place for courting like the sugar camp. The McGuire home was another place where the young people went early and stayed late—they all liked Aunt Jane McGuire; at those dinner parties they used to have roast pig, leg o' mutton, turkey, chicken, duck—nine kinds of pie with preserves and everything else gastronomic ; there were no war measure restrictions and everything was made at home, and they say there were no "dyspeptics" in that day and age, but with so much "high living," they must have been laying the foundations for later ailments. Those were "the days of real sport."
John Meily who died at Christmas in 1883, was a tapestry artist and many people have coverlets and carpets that were woven by him. Some of the coverlets he made now rank with the most beautiful tapestries ; he used complicated patterns and sometimes fashioned his own designs ; he always wove the name and the date into the fabric when he made coverlets to order for others ; his daughter, Olivia Meily, became the wife of Lima's most widely known citizen—Senator Calvin S. Brice. When John Meily was a weaver in Lima there were not so many wheels of industry. The Meily coverlets are highly valued today.
The ashery was a financial asset to the Allen County settler, that the active men and women of today know nothing about only as a story that is told ; when the settlers were clearing the land they found a market for the ashes from the oak and walnut timber that was burned in such prodigious wastefulness-would have been wastefulness had there been any market for timber ; the ashes from the clearing brought two cents a bushel while house ashes from the hearth brought three cents-the quotations always meaning "in trade." The ashery operator never paid the money ; he always conducted a trading post in connection with the ashery. From the wood ashes thus collected from the settlers large quantities of black salts, pearl ash and soda were manufactured ; it was
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done by leaching, burning, grinding and mixing, but none ever understood the process except employes of the factory.
It was before the visit of the city girl at a farmstead who inquired, when she saw honey on the dinner table : "Do you keep a bee?" that the Allen County settlers used to roam the forests in search of wild honey. The expert bee hunter would watch the course of the "busy bee," and trace it to the hollow tree where the colony was laying up its store for winter. An old account says "Joseph Ward's father," used to take two barrels of wild honey to market at one time ; he would get fifty cents a gallon for wild honey at Urbana. Usually the settler cut the bee tree m order to secure the honey. It was necessary to strain it because the comb would be injured in the tree when falling and in its wild state the bees were not supplied with frames by an apiarist with commercial instinct ; oftentimes bee trees were cut with immense stores of honey in them.
The city girl who asked the farm family if they kept a bee was as unfamiliar with country life as the woman from the city who visited in the country. While she was used to milk "bottled in the country," she was alarmed when she saw the farm woman take off the cream, and she asked about the "yellow skum" on it. However, that story is offset by another—the farmer who visited in the city saw the hostess combine so many things in a dish for his breakfast, that when he asked if it were hash, she said it was the "review of reviews."
In these days of war time saving when people are economizing on fuel, someone suggested that the poet, William Cullen Bryant must have been facing an empty coal bin when he penned the lines : "The melancholy days have come, the saddest of the year."
The Lima Rabbit and Cavy Breeders Association was organized March 11, 1917, with Eugene O'Keefe as president and E. A. Enslin as secretary ; it has forty-five members some of whom live outside of Allen County ; only the breeders of rabbits and guinea pigs are interested to become members. The local association is affiliated with the Ohio State Breeders and Fanciers Association, and with the National Breeders and Fanciers Association of America. On November 30, 1920, it opened its first championship show in Memorial Hall, and rabbit sandwiches were served to some of the favored guests. The members say there is a future for the rabbit breeding industry. The meat of the rabbit is regarded as a table delicacy.
W. F. Bolender of Allentown exhibits a tracing wheel that had been made in the blacksmith shop by his father and used in setting wagon tires. Now that the automobile is in such general use, he does not often have use for the tracing wheel. The "chariot of fire" sounded the knell of the blacksmith repair industry.
"Don't that jar you," said a nervous little woman operating an elevator in a Lima office building ; she was "going down," when some impatient tenant on the top floor began an incessant ring, and all she could do was endure it. The elevator was full of passengers and all were in sympathy with the operator. She must listen to the ringing on the return trip while they escaped it. Someone explained the condition as a result of the pressure of twentieth century civilization.
The story is told of Isaac McGrady, who was a celebrated hunter among the Shawnees, and one day in the fall of the year in the early '40s, he went hunting with another pioneer known as Uncle Ben ; they carried their grub and were away for all day. About 2 o'clock in the afternoon they were crossing the Auglaize in a canoe and while McGrady was rowing the boat Uncle Ben carelessly allowed his powder horn to
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fall in the water ; they were at the middle of the Auglaize when the accident happened ; the loss of the powder was serious and McGrady was displeased about it. Uncle Ben said that if McGrady would "sit still in the boat," he would dive and get the powder horn ; after a while McGrady became anxious about Uncle Ben in the water. When he looked over the side of the boat into six feet of water, there sat his friend on the bottom of the stream taking his own time in transferring the powder from the McGrady powder horn to his own, thinking all the while that he was shut off from view because he was under the boat. While Uncle Ben seemed to "trust in God," he had never heard the rest of the story- "and keep your powder dry."
In the annuals of the Welsh settlement is the story that one time when James Nicholas was away for the night, leaving his wife and her babe alone in a cabin that as yet had no door shutter other than a bed quilt, the wolves came howling about the place ; it was her first night alone. Mrs. Nicholas had the courage born of despair, and with her babe in her arms she climbed to the joists and spent the night in safety. While the pioneers were seldom afraid of the daylight dangers, it required courage on the part of a woman to spend the night alone. Mrs. Nicholas died in Sugar Creek township, January 7, 1894, and the Gomer school closed for her funeral. "She was grandma to all of the children in the community ; they all knew her and loved her." The first funeral in the Welsh community was of a child named Mary Roberts who died October 1, 1833, and Mrs. Nicholas made the shroud from the wedding dress of the child's mother. While she was a little bit timid alone in a cabin without a door when the wolves were howling around it at night, Mrs. Nicholas was for many years a useful woman in the community.
When the story is told again that Col. William Crawford who was tortured in Wyandot County had his last drink of water from a spring on the Lippincott Pure Bred Stock Farm near Beaver Dam, turn to the story and read it. An unknown informant said : "It's no kind of an Allen County history if you don't have that story," and when appealed to for corroboration, Eugene Lippincott said he had always heard that while in the hands of his captors, Colonel Crawford had been allowed to drink from an unfailing spring, the water found within three feet of the surface, which still supplies water at the farm.
As inspector of weights and measures m Allen County outside of Lima, the work of R. E. Neidhardt of Spencerville is similar to that of John Sharffey at the Lima City Market. Mr. Neidhardt's work is performed under the direction of the county auditor ; he tests scales for their accuracy and inspects measures as to accuracy and sanitation. A little grit collected on scales sometimes throws them out of balance when the dealer does not mean to practice deception. The inspection of weights and measures is as much a protection for the dealer as for the customer ; sometimes scales get out of adjustment and weigh heavy as well as light. Mr. Neidhardt finds that ninety per cent of the scales that need adjustment cheat the merchant himself. In adjusting scales he always explains certain mechanisms, and the dealer is glad of his visit. Gasoline pumps and measures come under his supervision, and accuracy and cleanliness are the requirements. There used to be stories told of subterfuges in weighing—balancing the scales with a few grains of shot, thus changing the weight in favor of the dealer, but with an inspector coming around at inopportune times, there is little opportunity were there any inclination to subterfuge. It is a standing joke about the dealer buying on one scale and selling on another, but the inspector relieves him of such embar-
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rassment. Mr. Neidhardt finds that dealers welcome his visits, and cooperate with him in his examinations.
It is the practical thing to have scales at home, and thus the customer has some check on the dealer ; stockmen prefer selling livestock from their own scales and thus escape the shrinkage occurring from driving animals to market ; who knows a story about a farmer salting his sheep or cattle and allowing them to drink water before weighing them. A buyer went into the pasture with a farmer to look at some calves, and insisted on taking them along thinking to escape from buying several gallons of water by not allowing the farmer an opportunity to water them. The buyer did not know the location of the cement water trough back of the barn, and the farmer lured him into the garage to see a new automobile ; when they rounded up the calves again the water line had been lowered several inches on the immense tank back of the barn ; the buyer had been thrown off his guard and he bought the water. The shrewd stock buyer always watches the salt and water question. They used to say the dairyman always forded the stream when bringing his milk to town. The stories told about the pioneers sometimes reflected on their honesty ; it is one thing to tell a story and another thing to prove it ; sometimes those who related such stories did not believe them.
While she was housebound with rheumatism only a short time bef oe her death, Mrs. Elizabeth Ann McDonel-McClain-Roney exhibited a cane which she used in getting about the house that was made from a piece of the timber taken from the second Allen County courthouse. It was made by Barney Bowers who brought it to her husband, J. L. Roney ; she prized it and said that when she was done with it, she would be glad to have it added to the curio collection in the rooms of the Allen County Historical and Archeological Society.
While Senator S. D. Crites of Elida is a fearless hunter, and frequently goes into the "big he is modest about it. While a dozen deer heads are mounted and on exhibition at the Farmers bank, there are many things in his curio collection that were found in Allen County. Mr. Crites has the horn of an elk that was found in a depression on the Pfeiffer farm near Ash Grove cemetery ; it is a suggestion that elk were at one time found in the Allen County forest ; they were extinct before the advent of the Allen County settlers. Deer stories are frequently told, but the elk is prehistoric in Allen County. The antler was plowed up in 1910, and Mr. Crites has the theory that in prehistoric times an elk had been crossing a body of water on the ice that must have filled the depression there.
In his curio collection in Elida, Mr. Crites has the root of a wild cherry that is coiled as a reptile ready to spring upon its victim ; it was obtained while grubbing on one of his farms; while the coil remains unchanged, W. P. Furry had fashioned the mouth with a pocket knife, making it slightly more realistic ; he used beads for the eyes, and one instinctively shudders who sees it. He has an extensive Indian relic collection, showing that the Shawnees did not all live in Shawnee. Many of the Indian relics were found on the Crites farm in American township. Mr. Crites has homemade tools—axes, hammers, etc., with the name Cy Crites set into them with a die, and bearing the date 1840, showing that blacksmiths once made such things instead of buying them.
There was an exhibit of apples, A. D. 1920, in the Farmers' bank at Elida that resembled a display at a Horticultural Society meeting ; while the story of the Swedenborgian, John Chapman—Johnny Appleseed, has already been given, Mr. Crites has a seedling apple tree in his own door yard from which he exhibited the apples ; his exhibit attracted others,
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and in a little while there was a great collection of apples and seed corn on exhibition. The tree in the door yard is a graft from a seedling tree developed in the Crites family in the early history of Allen County.
Mrs. Harriet Bowsher Shappell of Shawnee who was born in 1836, was the first white child born in Shawnee—the undisputed home of the Shawnees, while they lived in Allen County. As a child she played in the Indian huts which then so thickly dotted the community ; while the Indians had been removed to the reservations four years before her birth, many of their homes were still standing there ; in 1917, when the Centennial log cabin was standing in the Lima public square, Mrs Shappell frequently spent some time in it ; he was an honored guest at the cabin. Her parents are shown in "quaint and ancient" costume in the history. Mrs. Shappell relates that the first Lucifer matches she ever saw were used by some cattle buyers who came along in 1839, and they lighted their pipes without the necessity of securing a coal of fire from the hearth ; the settlers always kept fire alive because they knew nothing about matches ; sometimes when 'the fire went out they were reduced to the necessity of borrowing fire ; sometimes they would fire a gun, and the flash would ignite shavings or straw, and they would be more careful the next time.
With everybody interested in sports and the Hon. B. F. Welty, famous for his attack on Federal Judge K. M. Landis of Chicago because of his relation to National baseball, it is of interest to know that there was a baseball club organized May 4, 1865, in Lima and that in 1867, there was a Lima Gymnastic Association ; now there are all kinds of ball games, and there are athletic teachers in public schools.
In his Boucher Family Genealogy, Mayor F. A. Burkhardt tells of a "porch party" in 1866, at the Bowsher homestead in Shawnee ; it was the first big porch in the rural community, and the neighborhood assembled there for a porch warming party ; the affair was given out "word of mouth" in advance, and it attracted visitors from long distances ; they almost all came on horseback, and it was a great social opportunity. In modern society porch parties are nothing unusual at all.
There are always persons who will do things "on a banter," and it is related that one time when it was raining hard all day, Cole Pangle, who was a moving spirit in the business community of Lima, said he would pay $1 to any one who would sit on a chair in the rain in the center of the public square for one hour. Joshua Hover, who would always "take a dare," offered himself. He filled his pipe with fresh tobacco and went out to earn the money. The incident is still a "bright spot" on the mental horizon of some of the "oldest inhabitants" who tell about it. It was a "wet rain," and one said, "a peculiar soaking drizzle," and while Mr. Hover was the only one who received the money, he was not the only one who got wet that day ; they all watched him.
It was m August, 1850, that the traveling circus caused the first flutter of excitement in Lima ; one summer morning the advance bill posters came in without warning upon a village of 1,500 to 2,000 people, and by night everybody had seen the flaming poster banners covering the town ; there were hand bills distributed, and every available wall was plastered with lithographs—something never before seen in the community. The blending of riotous colors left nothing to be desired ; it was wonderful if not harmonious—a reproduction of the period half a century, aye, threescore and ten years ago. The circus was in advance of the railroad, and all the young men who could secure a mount joined the circus at Allentown. It was a motley crowd when from instinct the elephants refused to cross a bridge,. and drew the circus wagons through the
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Ottawa river ; in the 1906 history, Dr. Samuel A. Baxter describes the circus, and the article is worth reading because it reflects the atmosphere of the period. In 1852, when Rivers' circus was in Lima there was a riot started in which Rivers was struck on the head, and his death resulted from it. Lima has always been visited by circuses since the beginning, seventy years ago. Lima adults have always been able to find children who wanted to go to the show.
The first sewer of any magnitude was built through Main street from North street, having its outlet in the Ottawa river ; when digging this sewer through the public square, workmen found logs in a good state of preservation, and while some argued that they might have been fallen trees that once grew there, others said they must have been placed there as corduroy because of the mud in the public square ; the sewer was five feet in diameter, and John P. Haller who was the contractor walked through the length of it from North street to the river ; it was his final inspection of it. Mr. Haller was the builder of the county infirmary and of the second Allen county court house ; a man's works do not always live after him ; he died June 3, 1886, and the Doric columns of the courthouse that had been his pride did not long survive him. In 1920 there was a great deal of sewer work being done in Lima.
Saw mills, grist mills, molasses mills, cider mills-the settlers had all kinds of mills when water power was used in propelling them ; there were more mills along the Auglaize than along the Ottawa. There was once a flax mill where the Shawnee road splits one form of it coming into Lima at Baxter street, and the other at West street ; there was a flax mill on one fork, and a brewery on the other "fifty years ago." The Shawnee trail was always a feeder for Lima, and the flax mill was a landmark known to all. While the pioneers raised flax and made their own linens from it the youngsters of today would not know what it was if they saw a whole field full of it. No doubt there are famihes in Allen County who treasure linens that were made by their ancestry from flax grown in Allen county. The same thing is true all over the country.
When Governor James M. Cox was conducting his presidential campaign in 1920, he said at Middletown : "I count it always a happy day that brings me back to the soil of Butler County ; you know we always like to ramble in the gardens of the past ; we like to browse about m the pasture of yesterday, and it is always an infinite satisfaction to live over again in part the days I spent in Middletown," and that is the feeling that comes to anyone with sentiment, who visits again the places once sacred to him ; that is the feeling that comes over one in reading about the things of the long ago ; that is why some persons enjoy local history.
"Well now, that's funny," said a Lima business man, unable to find a charge account in looking through his records ; the customer had come in to pay for an $11 pair of shoes, and no one remembered selling them to him, and there was no charge against him ; the man did not remember who had waited on him ; it had been about one year ago. The dealer thought himself a careful business man, and always sent monthly statements of accounts ; there was no record of such a transaction, and all the customer remembered was that he owed $11 for the shoes. It was not conscience money ; the man had neglected payment, but supposed there was an account against him. Moral : Never be certain of anything.
While the fair ground race tracks are elsewhere mentioned, a group of Lima citizens said there was once a quarter of a mile race track along the Shawnee road that was never part of any county fair, but was the scene of many races ; it was a straight course and they used to try out running horses there ; the speed of many a colt was tested on this track ;
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its promoters were John Bashore and Benjamin C. Faurot ; the races on this short track attracted many spectators. One of the men remarked : "It seems like I can see John Bashore's spotted horse going down that track as plain as if it had been yesterday," and they wanted it mentioned in history again.
It was one cloudy Sabbath morning in May, 1853, that three children belonging to Daniel Jones on Leatherwood Run were lost in the woods ; they were Evan, Elizabeth and Mary. They went after the cow and found her, but she escaped from them again ; in the chase the children became bewildered and wandered into the dense forest; the little one was only three years old, and it was a case of "babes in the wood." They encountered swamps, and waded water and "cooned" the logs ; they were frightened at every forest sound ; the boy carried three-year old Mary on his back until all were exhausted, and when they found a dry place they stopped to rest and darkness caught them there ; they had come into the edge of a clearing where there were some friendly brush- heaps, and they crawled under one and spent the night there. A hard rain came down and the famished children were without food or shelter ; they did not have much stored up vitality with which to resist the elements.
They were afraid and they were hungry ; they were soaking wet when morning dawned ; without much attention to toilet, they moved on again ; they heard the voice of a man, but they could not see him ; they went toward the voice, and when they came to the Bucyrus and Delphos trails they were soon overtaken by three members of the searching party, Godfrey and Henry Chamberlain and Rufus Kearns. They placed the older children on a horse and carried them along, but the baby was so exhausted they left it at the home of David R. Jones nearby, where they found it, until it was nursed back to strength again. The children had heard the voice of Wesley Riley, who was driving a yoke of oxen hauling wood. While it was a welcome sound to them, he did not realize what cheer he was giving them. When the parents were unable to locate their lost children they organized a searching party at once, but the three little ones had an all night experience in the woods. When they were found there were blasts from all the dinner horns in the community. Men and women were still searching for them. It was a time of rejoicing in the frontier community. Evan Jones was later a well known citizen of Delphos and a Civil war soldier. Elizabeth became Mrs. J. R. Williams of Lima, and Mary married and lived in Cincinnati.
When is a Boy Scout not a Boy Scout? While there have been Boy Scouts for years in Allen county, the Lima Council Boy Scouts of America was organized January 1, 1920, with R. L. Stalsmith scout executive. While it was financed for one year by the Lime Rotary Club, it was included in the community budget at the time of the Christmas drive. In war time there were seven separate Allen County troops, and since the war there are three outside of Lima, and the plan is to affiliate them. The Rotary Club came to the rescue of the Lima Council and it reorganized with fifty-five members, soon increasing to more than 200, and the adolescent period is when the boy needs careful guidance at the hand of an older brother. There is no effort to teach religion or politics ; it is citizenship that is instilled into the mind and heart of the boy. When he is older he settles such questions for himself. There are Boy Scout Councils in Delphos, Spencerville and Gomer who report directly to headquarters in New York, and it is hoped they will affiliate with Lime Council. The motto of the Boy Scouts : "Be prepared," is a good one, and first aid is a thing they .study. There are twelve laws controlling
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the organization, and leading the boys into a splendid manhood. They are : A scout is trustworthy ; a scout is loyal ; a scout is helpful ; a scout is friendly; a scout is courteous ; a scout is kind ; a scout is obedient ; a scout is cheerful ; a scout is thrifty ; a scout is brave ; a scout is clean, and a scout is reverent. Boy Scouts are taught scoutcraft, woodcraft and camperafts of all kinds, and they stand committed to do some one a kindness each day. The Boy Scouts of America is a corporation founded by a group of men who are anxious that boys should be built up in all that goes to make character and good citizenship.
The following reminiscence is contributed : Away back in the '70s, when U. S. Grant was President, Col. C. N. Lamison of Lima was representative in Congress from the old Fifth Ohio District. It was during his term that a large increase in salary was passed, giving the President and each member of Congress an increase in pay. This aroused a great deal of indignation among the people, and it was known as the "salary grab." It was condemned in the newspapers, and by resolutions in all of the political gatherings that year. Some time during the following summer, there was held in Wapakoneta a District Democratic convention for the purpose of nominating a candidate for common pleas judge. The usual committees were appointed, and among them was a committee on resolutions of which Col. William Sawyer, living in St. Marys, was made the chairman.
Colonel Sawyer had served as Congressman from this district in an early day. He was a very economical man and believed in cutting down expenses. One day while discharging his duties in the House of Representatives, when the noon hour came he produced a lunch, spread it on his desk and proceeded to the "main question." As part of his lunch there was a fine length of sausage. A newspaper correspondent of one of the leading dailies saw the layout, and the next day his paper gave a long and amusing account of how the country member from the hoop- pole district of Ohio, who lived on hog and hominy when at home, had brought with him to Washington the necessary sausage to make him a lunch every day in order to save expenses. The story went all over the country, and from that time on the colonel was known as "Sausage Sawyer."
In due time the committee on resolutions, appointed by the Wapakoneta convention reported to its chairman, Colonel Sawyer, and in scathing terms denounced the "salary grab," and the member from the Fifth Ohio District who voted for it, and took the increase allowed him. The chairman of the committee had hardly concluded when Colonel Lamison was on his feet, demanding recognition and getting it. Colonel Lamison was a very eloquent man and being thus challenged, he was at his best with a voice that filled every corner of the court room, making a splendid defense ; in the closing of one of his orotund periods, he exclaimed : "What shall I do?" At the top of his voice, Colonel Sawyer answered : "Resign." Colonel Lamison paused for a moment, looked "Sausage Sawyer" squarely in the eye, took a couple of steps forward, and then said : "Resign ! be d d ; I'd see you in h— first," but the eloquence of Colonel Lamison, although highly enjoyed by the delegates, availed little, as the resolutions went through with a whoop that made the walls ring. These two old time colonels, notwithstanding all this, were always the best of friends, and each was always a power for good m his own community.
While the following story is similar to material used m the chapter on Allen County Highways, it is printed again by request. It is from the pen of Horace S. Knapp, historian of the Maumee Valley, and in
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the '70s it appeared in The Delphos Herald. The writer had been m Columbus on business. He returned home through Allen County to Kalida in Putnam County, taking his family with him from Kalida to Defiance. A rain occurred in June of that year, 1842, flooding all the water channels of Northwestern Ohio. At the date above mentioned no one except him who was at the time living here, and had been "to the manner born," could comprehend the difficulties of transportation. To say the truth, there were no roads. Some roadways had been under- brushed, but the tall timbers, the old monarchs of the forest, stood their ground and defied the woodman's ax. Neither were there any bridges over the rivers.
The mode of travel was either on foot, on horseback or by pirogue, the latter being the popular water craft of the few inhabitants dwelling upon the Maumee and its tributaries. This rain promised more than abundance, and it precipitated my departure from Kalida. Hastily gathering up my wife and child, my umbrella and some other things we were soon on our way, conveyed by a horse before a buggy. That was the only buggy of the country, and the property of a dear friend, Winch- ton Riley, whose name, next to those of my own wife and kindred; will ever be green in my memory. We struck the Auglaize just below Sam Myers' dam. (The reader will understand I do not use the word "dam" in a profane sense.) We got over, under or through somehow, but narrowly escaped drowning. We finally. amid much tribulation, reached the point where Blanchard's Fork mingles its waters with the Auglaize, and here, by reason of our immersion in the streams, and the rapidly increasing volume of water, and the sorry plight of my wife and infant, we halted at the house o f Peter Myers over night.
When the next dismal morning hour greeted my vision, it became evident that with our conveyance I could neither advance nor retreat. I was surrounded by water. I did not like the thought of surrender. I never did, in fact, surrender. Rev. John Tussing resided then a short distance below the place where we had remained over night, and being a friend I applied to him in the morning to devise some means of relief. This gentleman was and now is a Baptist of the ancient regime, formerly known as "Hard Shell." He was even, to use his own expression, a "regular water fowl." In early life my good friend became ordained as a minister. I never enjoyed much conversation with Mr. Tussing upon doctrinal points, but if I remember rightly he once said baptism succeeded circumcision, and that he believed in baptism all over. My friend suggested the only rational expedient for our relief was to obtain a pirogue, but after a diligent search up and down the river none were to be found. The joint inventive genius of Tussing and myself here came in, and finally suggested the construction of a raft. So selecting a dead tree near the bank, we soon brought it down, cut it into convenient lengths, lashed the sections together, and launched it upon the angry flood, Tussing following in after it.
But we soon discovered that the raft would not float the required tonnage the total of which would be made up of my precious wife, our dear baby, their baggage, which consisted of a trunk, a carpet bag or two, Captain Tussing in command and myself as mate. So the craft with difficulty was moored in a sort of eddy or bayou, and the captain's fences were robbed of several cords of rails which, before the commencement of that protracted rainy season, might have been denominated "dry rails." This timber was adjusted underneath the raft to aid in buoying it up. Then brush was cut and placed on deck, and on this was deposited the baggage and seated upon it was all the wealth I then possessed in
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the world, my wife and child. Thus arranged we floated out into the broad current of the Auglaize, and drifted on our downward way.
We had not been out from shore to exceed half an hour before I discovered the fact that must have been equally apparent to my wife and Mr. Tussing, that our treacherous bark, the main support consisting of wood with the shell dry, but the heart would absorb water like a sponge, and that it was rapidly sinking. The wretched craft in a brief space had become so water. logged that the seat occupied by my wife was already half submerged, and the water extended above her feet. She, however, had as brave a heart as anyone on board and although the greatest sufferer, and fully comprehending the peril, uttered no word of complaint. I had no doubt of our ability at the most critical juncture to reach one of the shores, but in my eagerness to get forward I closed my eyes to all danger and continued on, but at a moment when I had concluded to make for land while there was yet time, we discovered ahead and crossing the broad river a pirogue in which was seated the young man who in those days carried the weekly mail on horseback between Sidney and Defiance, when the condition of the country would permit him to do so. His name was John Crossley and he was well known to Tussing and myself. We hailed him, and I rather imperiously demanded that he come alongside, which demand he obeyed. I said to him : "John, we must have your pirogue to take these passengers and cargo to Defiance. This sorry craft you discover is sinking very rapidly, and you cannot afford to be guilty of the responsibility of allowing my dear wife and baby to be drowned," and the appeal was effective.
"I reckon not," replied the good Crossley. "I rather suppose not," and so the passengers and their baggage and the gallant crew were transferred to the pirogue, and John was landed on the west shore of the river, and the relieved party were not quite so rapidly on their downward way, as they had been a few minutes before. Within fifteen minutes after we had parted from the doomed craft we witnessed its disappearance below the surface of the river. Reaching Charloe, then the seat of justice of Paulding County, we disembarked for the night, where my wife, saturated, chilled and exhausted, toiled until near midnight before a fire to arrange from her damaged baggage proper raiment for herself and child. In the morning, amid continued rain, the volume of the Auglaize or Grand Glaize, as General Wayne, in his dispatches in 1794, wrote it, had largely increased, presenting more the appearance of an inland sea than a river, where the "Junction" became established after the Miami Extension Canal was made. The Wabash and Erie Canal running from Maumee Bay westward to the Indiana line was opened, but no packet lines had at this time been established. Here I concluded to abandon the pirogue and complete our journey to Defiance by canal route.
The distance as I recall it from where our craft was moored to the "Junction," was about one mile. How to overcome this mile now became an object of deep solicitude. My faithful friend Tussing tried to secure a team by which my wife and baby might be transported, but at that time there was not a horse, an ox or a wagon in the region. He returned, however, accompanied by two or three stalwart men who generously proffered their aid in our dire extremity. This intervening space between the Auglaize River and the canal bank was covered by woods, and except the ground occupied by the trees with water from three to eighteen inches in depth. My wife, declining all assistance to carry her resolved to wade through as she did, myself carrying in my arms our baby. Reaching the junction, finally we obtained shelter in
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one of the three or four log cabins located there, and here was my young wife, not a dry shred upon her person, tenderly reared, of a delicate frame and in this plight! I have often wished in recurring to this scene that she had evinced a tone of fretfulness, made complaint, scolded or something of that sort. It would have been a positive relief to me, but no word but what was gentle passed her lips. After a while a boat, a line boat, came along and we made the distance eight or nine miles to Defiance.
It is really a marvel to myself now, when I recall the events that that trip did not speedily terminate the existence of my wife and child. During several weeks, however, at C. J. Freedy's hotel after our arrival at Defiance, she required the best skill and attention of Dr. Jonas Colby. Years have passed and though misfortune has sorely tried her, and made sad changes externally upon the girl wife since the matters occurred, the heart brave and pure and true as of old has never become fossilized, and I am quite sure will ever beat until its last pulsation in sympathy with husband, children and friends.
William Rusler appends the following note concerning the man who assisted the Knapp family in their journey by water down the Auglaize river. The Rev. John Tussing, who so ably assisted Mr. Knapp, shortly afterward removed to Perry Township, and he became one of the pioneer citizens of Allen County. He reared a large family, who are now among our foremost citizens, some of whom professionally rank with the very best. The name Tussing appears in the annals of Perry Township.
CHAPTER L
YESTERDAY AND TODAY IN ALLEN COUNTY
As men and women grow older they always multiply their yesterdays. When they begin living in the past, it is an unfailing index that their todays mean less to them than their yesterdays. It is true that the people of yesterday in Allen County discussed the weather, and their prospects for crops about as readily as men and women today "rake over" such things, never failing to give attention to the needs of the poor among them, but again : 'The shadow moveth over the dial plate of time," and the personnel of the community is different today. The pioneer gentleman in full dress was a handsome picture, saying nothing about society in Allen County today.
An old account says : "Then as now the follies and foibles of womankind were themes of never dying interest, and the bustle and hoop- skirt (farthingale) were alternately laughed at and frowned against. The first hoopskirt hung up for an advertisement in a Lima store window was taken to be a squirrel trap," and the men and women of today who see them are unable to recognize—women sometimes intuitively guess, and there are amusing comparisons. The women of 1920 could not wear the hoopskirt with the scant dress skirts. There is just one rule for the length of a skirt, and that applies to sermons-must be long enough to cover the subject, but the men of Allen County all declare they are not slaves of fashion. They do not wear furs in summer and lace in winter. In the present generation there are no knee breeches and high collars, and few men who attract more than passing attention because of any garments worn by them. The costumes worn by women excite a great deal of comment in every community. The woman with a long skirt also attracts attention—different from the others.
The reason there are more observations in this chapter belonging to rural rather than urban life is because when home made devices were in general use, the most of the population lived in the country. There have not always been more people in Lima than in the country. At one time the production was more than the consumption, and cheap prices prevailed in the community. By and by the trend to the city changed the industrial situation, and people paid more for their food products. Everybody raising corn, nobody buys it.
"Some of us have been here a long time, stranger, and we have witnessed many changes," said a venerable looking old gentleman. To him the yesterday and today in Allen County show great strides in human progress. Yesterday the simple life lulled all into peaceful anticipation, while today the world is one vast whispering gallery with international problems confronting it. Today the sons of yesterday must meet and master the difficulties as they present themselves. The Methuselahs in every community unite in asserting things that seem improbable today. They used to take their guns and shoot squirrels in the woods covering the sites of the populous centers—witness the story of Daniel Musser, who killed a deer in the streets of Lima, and the evolution in mdustrial conditions is a problem m economics seemingly beyond solution. Time was when there was a factory before every hearthstone, the father making the shoes and the mother weaving and making the garments.
An old account says the pioneers furnished the leather and the linen shoe thread, while the shoemakers furnished the pegs and the lasts,
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but where would the family find the leather today? The wild animals are gone from the Allen County forest—they went with the forest. While they may not have been exactly foot-form shoes, they were always durable. It required skill to make the last, and when youngsters see it they understand something about the ingenuity of the family shoemaker of the long ago. While thick soles are humane and sensible, those addicted to the flexible, hand-turned soles of today would not wear them. The man or woman who stands on hard wood or concrete floor all day knows the advantages of the thick-soled shoe. The brogan shoe is never comfortable to one who has worn the hand-turned variety.
Yesterday the saw mill was here and the grist mill was there, and both are almost unknown today. The portable saw mill serves the immediate requirement, and they grind feed in many places. They grind it themselves. Who knows the story of the mill boy with the corn in one end and a stone in the other end of the bag to balance it on the horse? What has become of the sway-backed beast astride of which the boy went to the mill with the bag of grain ? What has become of the horse that raised the family ? What has become of the mill boy himself ? The footfall of the ages answers the question. The stories of today differ from the stories of yesterday. Automobiles, airplanes, ditching machines, cash registers, the moving picture show. Who says : "Backward, turn backward, oh time, in your flight ?" Most people would like to be children again, but would they want a repetition of their own childhood conditions?
There was an era when the young men of Allen County thought they were dressed up to the last minute, if they wore a bright colored double breasted vest with the handle of a tooth brush sticking out of one pocket, and a gold tooth pick in the other. They were all supposed to wear long trousers, and if they happened to be too short, as was of ten the case, somebody said "high water" about them. Long stemmed cake stands were in use then, and everybody had his own napkin ring. Every young man had a drinking cup inscribed : "For a good boy." All were taught :
"Early to bed and early to rise, Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise,"
although it is understood today that one following that advice would seldom meet any of the social leaders. When the settlers went out in the evening they carried torches to light their way home again. The automobile headlight lights the way for those who ride, and the electric light has changed the conditions for the pedestrian. There were trails blazed through the woods, but now elaborate signs mark the highways and the stranger is never uncertain about his course in passing through Allen County. Just note the procession—buggies, carriages, automobiles, and then lift the curtain to witness the ox team and the jolt wagon of other days. Those who "cooned" the fences, and stepped from log to log half a century ago when there was a "Black Swamp" in Allen County would not recognize themselves or the country under changed conditions. While some had vision they would be surprised at every step along the wayside today.
The Allen County settlers all knew the process of pounding corn on a stone or in a mortar, and those who know the story of the hearth loaves—the bread the grandmothers baked before the fire—unite in declaring that nothing better has supplanted them under present day conditions of civilization. They would be content with a half loaf today if they were just as certain of the quality. While the men and women of
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the past made the most of the opportunity afforded by their day and generation, and the viands prepared by the loving hands of the grandmothers were of excellent quality, what would they accomplish under present day environment ? Would those men and women be able to adapt themselves to the changed conditions ? Does not education enter into it? Would the men and women of today be able to cope with their difficulties? What about the affairs of yesterday as compared with human relations today ?
In the formative days of Allen County history the average family had a box stove that would burn a four-foot stick of wood or a fireplace that would accommodate a back log, and a f orestick of mdeterminate length. The people who knew what it meant to burn one side and freeze the other, also knew what it meant to have burned leather in drying their feet before the fire, and they knew what it meant for amber tobacco spittle, to "sizzle" on the side of the stick of wood. The furnace heat of today, the register or the radiator, would have alarmed them. They were used to open fires and roaring chimneys. The bath room was an unknown quantity to them. The methods of agriculture would dumbfound them. The cattle on the Allen County pastures would remind them of the Bible narrative. While the tractor is in use, the horse is still a domestic animal, and there are flocks and herds the settler would little suspect were he to come this way again.
While the corn pone of the past would be consumed with relish by the men and women of today, there are among them some who tired of substitutes and the bread made from corn as a war measure recently. Unfortunately the corn was of an inferior quality just when this measure was incumbent, and only as a patriotic duty did some Allen County people use it at all. How would they have survived the log cabin period in local history? Only yesterday you sat down to a meal table de hote, and your chair was manipulated for you by an attendant. The napery was spread across your expanse of shirt front, and everything suggested the tip which was the universal custom. Today you run the gauntlet at a cafeteria, and if your money holds out you secure a meal, prepare your own table and "tip" yourself if pleased with the service. While the settler once went to the woods with his gun and thus provided the meat for his dinner table, the citizen of today depends upon Armour and Swift for sugar cured hams and bacon, or if he has a smoke house there is usually a lock and key for it. No, the settler did not steal the meat. He only held the smoke house door open while the dog carried it out for him.
While the more thrifty Allen County pioneers sometimes had potatoes on the dinner table, they could live without them. The transition from wilderness conditions to the cultivated fields and their products meant self-denial of the strictest nature to the settlers in any frontier community. Conditions imposed by the War of the Nations have caused people of today to understand the privations of yesterday. Time was when the Allen County housewife went to the woods for her brooms, sometimes making them herself from hickory saplings. That long ago most families swept their door yards, and they wore out a lot of hickory brooms. The settlers used to dig sassafras roots for the family beverage, and from them the housewives would brew a tea that served as an excellent spring tonic. Who has not heard the stories of how sassafras and spicewood tea thinned the blood after the families had consumed salt pork and but few vegetables all winter? The town people know that spring is coming again when they see sassafras on the market.
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In the days when Allen County pioneers lived on salt pork, there was little said about balanced rations-there were no discussions of diet, and printed menus were an unknown quantity. While it requires an epicure to order a dinner from, the modern bill of fare, the chefs of today understand the digestive requirements and dinners are planned with some consideration of the stomach and its duties. There was always better health conditions in some families than in others. Here and there a pioneer mother varied her cooking by serving something from the kitchen garden, instead of a continued meat diet. In other households it was heavy diet all of the time, and under these conditions sleepers had dreams and they usually told them. While in some households there was plenty of protein in the bill of fare, nothing was ever said about balanced rations for man or beast. It is just as necessary for humanity as for the lower animals. While people have not always understood about it, vegetable diet always has given them better digestion.
While the pioneer doctor prescribed medicine for others, many times he only ordered vegetables for his own household. The law of balanced rations is not new at all. People simply did not understand it. There are men today who follow it in the care of livestock, who are very indiscriminate in what they eat themselves. When one thinks of the heavy diet of the settlers in winter—always ate meat to keep them warm, it is little wonder the blood used to run thick in the spring time, and there was need of the quinine bottle on the shelf where all could help themselves. Diet had a whole lot to do with it. When the settler's diet was always the same, "Yesterday, today and forever," he wondered why so many ills overtook him. In the light of domestic science as it is understood today, there are not so many ailments of domestic character.
It is generally understood that the best spring tonic is plenty of fruit and green stuff. The doctor is seldom consulted because of improper diet. As long as the U. S. Government expends a quarter of a million dollars annually for garden seed, every Allen County family with a plot of ground available should appeal to the local congressman for a supply, thus defeating the medical man in the community. Some of the medical men advise diet instead of writing prescriptions. When nature is given a chance it corrects its own mistakes. "An apple a day keeps the doctor away," and the same thing is true of vegetables. While some political economists aver that government seeds is a waste of money, and they always manage to have good gardens and the necessary variety in food products, there is no gainsaying the fact that the best spring tonic is a variety of early vegetables. How is your garden ? Are you thinking about the welfare of your immediate household in these twentieth century days when the world is full of economic problems?
The day was in Allen County, although in the beginning of this second century in local history the earmarks are not quite so distinct, when the passerby recognized the Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York or New England farmstead because of the character of the improvements upon it. This settler came from Pennsylvania and that one from New England, but the passing years have amalgamated conditions. While some of the landmarks remain unchanged, intermarriage has removed the lines of demarcation, and little is said in Allen County about where a citizen came from. The topic uppermost today is whether or not he is making the best of his opportunity. It is said that when dreams come true all the human family will come again to the house where it was born, and while some foreigners have become naturalized, the majority of Allen County citizens have not wandered far from the place of their nativity. While most of its residents are 100 per cent American, some
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have claimed citizenship without a proper understanding of American institutions.
In a survey of nationalities while standing in the doorway of this second century of local history, it is evident there is a greater percentage of foreign born population today than at any time in the preceding century. There are people in Allen County today who have not acquired sufficient knowledge of English to speak it-a citizenship requisite of the U. S. Government not many years hence, if this country is to preserve its traditions-one country, one flag and one language, and the hope of the future is the language of the country. The Welsh in Allen County were among its pioneers, and theirs is a commendable example. They are not hyphenated Americans, and English is their tongue as they cross the threshold of this second century in local history. One always enjoys a visit where he may remain only as long as he wishes, and leave when he is ready and some of these aliens are having a good time in this country without thought of assuming citizenship.
President Benjamin Harrison said : "The gates of Castle Garden never swing outward," and there is an universal sentiment that foreigners be required to communicate only in the language of the community. Yiddish is not American, and yet men and women in Allen County continue to speak it who reared their families in this country. While there were not many overseas citizens in Allen County in its first half century, at the end of 100 years it had a cosmopolitan population. "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin," and besides its native sons and daughters there are: English, Welsh, German, Irish, Norwegians, Swedes, Jews, Slays, Poles, Italians, Greeks, Lithuanians, Hungarians, Russians, Austrians, Japanese, Chinese, French, Belgians, Bohemians, half breed Indians, and from time out of mind that old riddle :
"Black upon black and black upon brown, Three legs up And six legs down,"
has had local significance. The negro riding a brown horse with a black kettle on his head seems to have tarried indefinitely in Allen County.
It seems that the all-inclusive word Buckeye means all things to everybody, and just why a native of Ohio should be called a "Buckeye," and how the name originated are queries that Allen County residents have talked over and wondered about. In his "Memoirs of the Early Pioneer Settlers of Ohio," published in 1884, by Dr. S. P. Hildreth, among the early settlers of Marietta, we are told : "Col. Ebeneezer Sproat, who had been appointed sheriff, opened the first court ever held in Ohio, September 2, 1788, marching with his drawn sword and wand of office at the head of the judges, governor and secretary, made an imposing and august spectacle. Mr. Sproat was a large and dignified looking gentleman, and he was at once christened by the large crowd of Indian spectators as `Hetuck,' or 'Big Buckeye.' From this no doubt originated the name of 'Buckeye,' now applied to the natives of Ohio, as the phrase was familiar to all the early settlers of Marietta."
While only natives of Allen County are designated as "Buckeyes," the foreigners now living in the community are peopling it more rapidly than the American born families, and there are all kinds of propogandaa veritable melting pot of republicans, democrats, prohibitionists, socialists and laborites with all of the isms including rheumatism, and yet it does not follow that homespun necessarily means homebrew notwithstanding the 1920 crop of dandelions in Allen County. From the earliest dawn of Allen County history, its inhabitants have been governed by the Bible
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injunction that men should marry, and that women should be given in marriage ; that they should multiply and replenish the earth. Sometimes family relations have become a mathematical equation with which the thirty-second problem of the Euclid is an easy comparison, and the gossip must either hold her tongue in polite society or run the risk of talking about somebody's relatives. Men have been several times married, and there are combination families—mixed sets of children, examples of "your children and my children imposing on our children," and all have been inclined to make the best of it.
After all, what generation of the past has been more abreast of the times—more up-to-date and progressive, than the men and woman of today ? What is the matter of Allen County as it enters its second century of local history? Does the slogan : "Allen County never failed," mean anything to you? The character and nature of the improvements, now that all the descendants from the pioneers have become bona fide citizens of Allen County, indicate the degree of thrift and the lines :
"Go make thy garden as fair as thou canst, Thou workest never alone ; For he whose plot lies next to thine, May see it and tend to his own,"
is a safe rule in any community. As he did yesterday, the passerby of today will comment on the surroundings, and the careful husbandman will see to it that his farmstead is free from negligent criticism. What is said of the husbandman applies to the business and professional man.
In the old days when there were livery barns in every town, and the well-to-do families all maintained driving horses, people traveled leisurely along the highways and byways of Allen County. However, Dobbin was too slow and the speed maniacs seem to have the right-of-way on all the public highways today. They whiz by the farmsteads so rapidly that they do not seem to see the details, and yet if a place is in deshabille everybody notes it. The livery barn has long since been converted into a garage, and there are all descriptions of cars and trucks at your service. The child of the future will know as little about the livery barn of other years as of the American saloon, and yet there was no sorrow on its trail. The livery barn, the saloon, the rural community centers— well, civilization has changed its methods today. While the twentieth century method of cross-country travel is different today, and some people seem to hold their breath in passing, the average tourist usually has a rather comprehensive idea of wayside attractions.
While in the architecture of the past the cabin roofs were held in place by weight poles, and the primitive American dwelling was constructed without nails, and there were stick-and-clay chimneys everywhere, that kind of domicile long since had its day. It exists only in memory and in souvenir form as in Lincoln Park today. With increased wealth came more commodious homes, and the hardwood floors of today are in decided contrast with the puncheon floors split from native timber. Even the time honored hod carrier who did nothing but carry brick and mortar up a ladder has been supplanted in the sky-scraper buildings, where even the wheel barrows are taken up by lifting machinery. Before the building is finished the hod carrier puts in his appearance. The hoisting machinery cannot do it all. In the architecture of yesterday the bathroom was an unknown quantity, and only when boys went swimming did they bathe at all. In most families they washed their feet when compelled to, and a washrag for the "neck and ears" was brought into
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requisition when clean underwear was given them. In some of the yesterdays no underwear was worn, and there was just as little bathing- Allen County not being unlike the rest of the world.
When the grandmothers of the present generation used to scour their kitchen tables with the daylight streaming through greased paper windows, nothing was said about home sanitation. Instead of the sanitary plumbing of today the dishwater was thrown out at the kitchen door, creating constant danger of diphtheria and yet the children survived it—did they ? With diphtheria thus invited, were there not more deaths from that dread disease ? Then people never had heard of antitoxine treatment for it. With the open fire place form of ventilation, there was less tubercular trouble, but there was more diphtheria. Home sanitation had not been taught in school and in society. The children of today have no conception of the hardships of the pioneers. They did not say hardships because they knew nothing better. They underwent privations cheerfully. What does the present generation know about the chinked and daubed log cabin of other days?
What do the youngsters of today know about the broad fireplace and the mantelpiece where the grandfathers and grandmothers always looked for their pipes and their spectacles, and where they kept the family Bible ; while the fathers and sons visited the woods with their chopping axes when these mammoth fireplaces must be kept aglow, the time came when there was no more fire wood and today they haul coal from the towns, and furnace heat is another story ; when they stand over a hot air register they no longer freeze one side while scorching the other ; some would not care to reverse the sun dial record of their years and return to such primitive conditions. A lot of heat units went up the chimney with the smoke when there were wood fireplaces in all the houses in Allen County. If there were plenty of wood who would sacrifice the straigbt saplings for cabin logs today? Whose tongue does not trip and become twisted in repeating half a dozen times : six long, slim, slender, slick saplings ?
While the stick chimneys frequently caught fire, there was always someone at home to bring a pail of water, a precaution rendered necessary because of the intense heat going up the chimney from the old- fashioned fireplace, both the backlogs and the f oresticks asserting themselves in an effort to warm the room, and thus insure the comfort of those sitting in the firelight. Aye, when the father made the shoes while the mother knit the stockings for the household, they had the full realization of sitting before the fire and freezing one side and burning the other-cold chills running up their backs. With registers and radiators all over the modern house, there is little suggestion of the old time methods of warming the cabin, and yet there are some who would gladly turn back and live the old days over again. If Rip Van Winkle were to come again he would miss a lot of things m Allen County. He would miss all of the old time industries. He would miss both the homespun garments and the homespun characters who made them. While the mothers and daughters remain, the spinning wheels and looms are gone the way of the world. There is no household today where all the food is prepared on the hearthstone as it is brought by the men and the boys from the clearing or the forest.
Where are the industries of the past in Allen County as well as in the rest of the world ? Ask of the winds, and ask of the older men and women in the community. From them you will hear of the changes wrought by the onward march of civilization. In the reconstruction period following the Civil war the changes became apparent. The
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shackles had been removed from the slaves and they were removed from the household. The spinning wheel and the loom were left in the distance by the factory and the industrial combinations in the commercial world. The slow but sure processes of the past have all been supplanted by the rush and bustle of the present, and as people have had need of them inventions have met every necessity and overcome every difficulty. There have always been seed time and harvest in Allen County. However, the methods of preparing the seed beds and of planting have changed, and the care of the products is different from the days of the forefathers, when the reaping hook accomplished what is done with improved harvesting machinery today.
Who remembers when the dealer weighed commodities over the counter to you with the old time steelyards, instead of using the computing scales of today? They said the butcher always put his hand on the scales, and the customer paid for something not delivered to him when the grocer or the butcher handed him the package, Some one says :
"The sugar prices still remain, Both lofty and unstable ; We'd bring them clown by raising 'Cane,' If only we were 'Abel,' "
and again the World war reconstruction period presents even worse difficulties. The high cost of living, the profiteer and the "rent hog," are economic terms unknown at the close of the Civil war. However, some of the economists say the present high cost of living may be reduced when the men and women of today are willing to return to the simple life of the pioneers.
Query : Is it the producer or the consumer who regulates the price of commodities ? Politicians say the law of supply and demand always will control the situation. When the grandmothers cooked before the fire they knew how to get along without commercial commodities, and yet in these days of high prices the people seem to pay them without protest, and the profiteers have their own way about everything. The Arkansaw Traveler may have been improvident, but he was not alone in the world. When it is raining one cannot repair the roof, and at other times it does not require attention, although an enterprising manufacturer of patent roofing has put it into the mouth of the field robin to sing, "Lee-ke-ruf, lee-ke-ruf," and there are fewer makeshift methods today. The man of today knows that "A stitch in time often saves nine," as well as the modern woman knows that it frequently saves exposure, and the thrifty twentieth century citizen is inclined to take time by the forelock, and look after such trivial things.
The Lord Byron quotation about truth being stranger than fiction, says if the truth "could be told, how much would novels gain by the exchange? How differently the world would men behold? How often would vice and virtue places change?" And while the passerby along the Allen County public highway only yesterday saw the farm boy pumpmg water for cattle or expending his energies turning the grindstone, today power is applied to everything. It is an easy process to attach a gasoline engine and put into motion all sorts of machinery. While the boy used to turn the corn sheller, or pull one end of a cross-cut saw with someone at the other end, adjuring him not to ride it, the boy of today escapes it. The farm boy of the twentieth century hardly comprehends what was required at the hand of his counterpart a generation ago. When a boy had $1 a month spending money he appreciated it, and applied it
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on his personal expenses. Some boys had no money at all. The boy on the Allen County farm is no longer a slave to his environment. The element of drudgery has been removed from it.
Time was when homemade bread figured in family life. There used to be biscuits for breakfast, but today the farm boy asks for town bread. He is no longer ridiculed by his city cousins-perhaps because he has his hair cut oftener by an up-to-date barber. What has become of the old fashioned mother who used to invert a milk crock over her boy's head while she trimmed his locks at the edge of it? They called it bobbing the hair. When the farm boy appears on the street today his garb is the same as that worn by the boys in town. There are no longer any fights between the town and country boys. When the country boys used to come to town they often had to "clean up" on the town boys. The old line of social demarcation between town and country has pracically disappeared from the face of the earth. One time the question as to who was the best man always had to be settled with the clenched fists. Ruffians pulled their coats at the slightest provocation. When the bullies used to form a ring and fight to settle the question of manhood there were always abettors, but since liquor has been eliminated, such things do not occur in the community, and people are forgetting about them.
While farmers used to fence against outside livestock now they are in no danger from it ; they must fence to keep their own stock in bounds or difficulty follows ; a woman in a town complained about her neighbor having open post holes and her chickens fell into them ; the neighbor reminded her that the post holes were on his own ground, and that if her chickens had been at home they would not have fallen into them ; what was the poor woman to do about it? The bees' from an apiary went to a neighbor's well for water ; the neighbor killed them because they annoyed him ; he told the apiarist to halter them and restrain them.
While there were 576 persons credited to 'Allen County 100 years ago when it was given its name and outline, it included four townships now in Augliaze County, and the population was not sufficiently congested for the question of rights and privileges to be questioned in Allen County society ; through the process of shifting bounderies the county lost its earliest development, but it retained its determination and the Allen County of today is the result ; the trees and the wild life of the forest knew nothing of political boundaries, and what is common history in Amanda is true in Monroe or any other township ; it was the prime purpose of the settler to lay the ax at the root of every tree, and there was none to constrain him ; none with a vision of the future.
When Allen County was an unbroken forest the settler went forth chopping down trees or girdling them, thus interfering with the circulation of the sap and ultimately causing their decline, but all of that is so long ago that the youth of today does not understand the meaning of deadening, and of the cabin in the clearing so common in the early history of Allen County. There were lease fields on many of the older farms, some one camping in the woods long enough to clear them and taking the crops from them until they were paid for their labor ; they would cut all kinds of timber without discrimination, not even sparing shade trees near their humble dwellings although those who came after them would have appreciated such forethought ; then ref orestration would not have been such a prime necessity. It is a case of hindsight being better than foresight, and reparation will not come in the next century. Black walnut and white ash timber was frequently used in making fence
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rails, the splitters of the past having no thought of future scarcity ; they were prodigal in destroying it.
Today in some parts of the country connoisseurs are visiting old farmsteads, and carrying away walnut fence rails from which artistic and rustic picture frames are made, and artistic and rustic are the words that describe them; sometimes the fungous growth is left on them. Trees of all sizes and varieties were regarded as encumbering the ground, and the ambition of the settler was to rid the earth forthwith of its earliest product, not taking into the account the wisdom of the Almighty in thus clothing it ; he must have a place to grow his food products. There are bureaus of forestry now, and every effort is being put forth in State and Nation to perpetuate the life of the native trees ; in the log-rolling days of Allen County history, the settlers burned up many fortunes although at the time there was no market for the splendid timber that must be removed in order that the pioneer might tickle the bosom of Mother Earth, and coax from it his sustenance. From the twentieth century vantage ground it looks like profligate waste, but the Allen County settler is exempt from censure since there were no transportation agencies opening to him the markets of the world, such as are vouchsafed to his posterity just now beginning the second lap in the century run in Allen County history.
In the mind of the settler, he must rid the ground of its encumbrance, and the cultivated field would then become a possibility ; the pioneer lived up to the light he had, and his problem was to rid the land of the magnificent forest that had been accumulating through the ages; his interpretation of the Bible injunction about earning his bread by the sweat of his brow was its appeal—he must enter the forest with his ax and grubbing tools ; he must overcome the wilderness and the Black Swamp in Allen County. While the settler was confronted with the gigantic trees of the forest, the question confronting his posterity and not many generations removed from him is where the next cord of stove wood is coming from ; in the meantime the average Allen County farmer visits a coal yard in town ; in war times the fuel administrator ruled against him, and the miners' strikes are of vital concern to him. The settlers were busy from morning till night, their work always crowding them ; while the same conditions prevail today, it is less laborious and machinery does the most of it.
While men and women may be happiest when they are working hardest, it holds good in Allen County as in the rest of the world, that "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," and the farmer as well as his city friend has respite today ; they sometimes visit pleasure resorts, while drudgery was all that either of them knew a generation ago. In the old days of back-breaking hard work, men and women of Allen County had little time or inclination to plan intellectual improvement, but for many years the Grange has been a mitigating influence in the rural communities, and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the study clubs have relieved the situation in the towns ; everywhere people are recognizing the benefits from recreation. There are social advantages undreamed of a generation ago ; the daily mail, the telephone and the automobile have revolutionized living conditions. and isolation no longer characterizes the rural communities ; the traveler seeing Allen County by automobile or areoplane gets an eye-full in a day's ride and when one notes the atmosphere of prosperity everywhere, it is difficult to reconcile some of the stories of the long ago ; the daughter in the home has studied the piano ; the son no longer plays the fiddle, but draws his bow
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across the strings of the musical violin, and all of this within the memory of men and women not yet old in Allen County history.
The fact may be emphasized again that there were hardships and privations when every home was a factory, and besides the hearthstone sat the family shoemaker. There were no shoe stores, and there were no ready to wear garments ; while some young men visit tailors, where is the youth who has ever visited a shoemaker and left his measure ? The fathers know all about the copper-toed, red topped split leather boots of year's. ago ; the French heel had not yet been seen in the community. What has become of the bootjack of the long ago? When the spli leather boots became water soaked, the boys could not remove them without it. The boot jack now consigned to oblivion was once part of the family history. Perhaps there is not so much change in the leather today, but drainage and improved highways have brought about many changes noticeable to those who look backward over the lapse of half a century ; were it not for these changed physical conditions the bootjack would still be in requisition ; the boys are still inclined to wade in the water ; however, many of them would not recognize a bootjack if they saw it.
The full evening dress suit of the cabin epoch in Allen County history was donned in the early morning ; it was buckskin breeches and a flax shirt, with home-made moccasins for the feet, and all were products of home industry-home tailors and shoemakers ; the women cut their garments by guess and experiment, since fifty years ago they could not buy those marvelous patterns in stores ; they sewed by hand until the first rude sewing machines were on the market ; when the hand sewing machines of the first model were introduced, a woman would go on horseback many miles to have ruffles hemmed on those chain machines that would ravel when a stitch was broken, and sometimes all her trouble would be for nothing. Although they covered honest men and women, there was not much design to the garments of the long ago ; today the clothier carries all sizes and textiles, the mothers are no longer the home tailors, some not even making their own kitchen aprons ; the woman who can knot a sewing thread on one hand is the exception.
While those who are willing to pay more money still visit good tailors, there are many men in Allen County who are content with hand- me-downs except perhaps for one good suit a year, and misfits do not distress them ; there are good furnishing stores in all the towns. The pleasures of horseback riding render that old-fashioned measure of travel a pastime today for those who can afford it, but there are men and women still living who witnessed the transformation. It has been a long time since any one borrowed fire in Allen County, nor are there any coals kept alive on the hearthstones ; while sometimes "coals of fire are heaped on the heads" of others, the woman who lighted her pipe with a coal has long since gone the way of the world. When sickness overtakes the family today, it is a trained nurse who comes into the home instead of the friendly ministrations of some neighbor woman. The woman of today finds time to go to her club, while the pioneer mother always ironed every dish cloth on both sides, and when she had finished the ironing she set herself some other task ; she was always busy with much serving, regardless of the fact that Mary of old had chosen the better part while Martha neglected nothing at all.
There are Marys and Marthas in Allen County today, and Mary seems to get the most out of her life because she omits some of the unnecessary details ; the minister's wife who unblushingly admitted that she had rather read a book than shine a cook stove was perhaps a truthful woman. However, times are changed ; there are mothers who pat their
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pickles as they can them while sometimes their daughters are inclined to hurry through such operation ; they find time for magazines and books, and who is right-mother or daughter? On account of her much serving, Martha sometimes becomes little more than a bundle of nerves, while Mary escapes the thralldom of servitude by asserting herself in the club and intellectual life of the community. Martha has need of the family physician much oftener than Mary, who has learned the value of respite from the daily round of unnecessary drudgery.
When the Cincinnati cheap buggy was first on the market in the '80s, the changed social life was soon apparent ; while all the horses were trained to "carry double," and bridal parties had often traveled that way, the well-to-do people went away from their own homes oftener, and they soon adopted many hitherto unknown customs ; while the pioneer mother had an up-on-block outside the front yard fence when the chip-pile was at the side of the road, and there was a hitching post in front of every house in town, the Cincinnati buggy was the beginning of the tranformation and the automobile is the last word in family travel ; the surplus farm products are brought to town in an automobile. While some Allen County families still have breakfast, dinner and supper, some only have a cup of coffee m the morning with a noonday luncheon, and the formal dinner in the evening makes up for what the others lacked in variety. The story is told that the pot once called the kettle black, and there are still men and women in Allen County who insist on the right names for things.
Nevertheless, it behooves the citizen of the twentieth century and who is stepping over into the second century in local history, to make obeisance to those who operated the spinning wheel and looms ; who stood at the forge or sat on the cobbler's bench ; the women who knew so well the secrets of good cookery before the fire ; the men who knew all about self denial under wilderness conditions ; the experiences of the fathers and mothers would be a revelation to many who are on the firing line of civilization today.
CHAPTER LI
GOD'S ACRE—ALLEN COUNTY CEMETERIES
"There is a Reaper whose name is Death," and he has been abroad in Allen County the same as in the rest of the world, and yet there are some who linger so long they wonder if God has not forgotten them ; there are some who have been spared beyond the allotted years of man they have lingered so long they feel the import of the song: "The last rose of summer left blooming alone," and there are some who more or less impatiently await the summons from the Messenger reputed to ride the pale horse, and they say : "0 death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory ?"
The shadowy boatman carries passengers only one way across the river—the River of Death ; he never ferries them back again. In Hebrews IX :27, it is written : "And so it is appointed unto man once to die," and Job inquires : "If a man die shall he live again?" While it is an age old question, many do not stop to answer it. In Ecclesiastes it is written : "For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything," and the grave seems to end it all. In very truth, the tomb is a stately mansion, a dignified tribute to the souls of the departed ; because the choice of a suitable family memorial is a matter for consideration and careful decision, it is becoming more and more an established custom for men of affairs to effect this decision within their own lifetimes, to "build more stately mansions" of their own selection ; that the decision so of ten rests upon a memorial shaped in Rock of Ages granite is wholly natural, and a visit to Allen County cemeteries reveals the fact that the living do pay lasting tributes to their friends who have begun the ageless life beyond the confines of earth.
One enthusiastic marble dealer declares that progress in civilization is shown by the marks of lasting respect paid to the dead, and it is related that at the height of civilization Egypt built costly pyramids for its kings and queens and that their mummified bodies are still preserved there. Sacred history records that Abraham bought the cave Machpelah and had its rocky interior cut into crypts or compartments for himself and Sarah ; they were later entombed there. The Lord Jesus Christ was laid in a rock-hewed crypt—Joseph's own new tomb, and thus it is shown that the early Christians followed the custom of building mausoleums now in vogue again ; the great men and women of history have usually been placed in mausoleums to sleep through the succeeding ages, and the public and private mausoleums so prevalent today are but the revival of an ancient custom.
While in Westminster Abbey the graves are on top of one and another, that condition will hardly prevail in Allen County before cremation gains in popularity, or the many burying grounds become more crowded than they are today. An old account says : "Where are our prominent citizens of forty or fifty years ago? You will find many of them sleeping in old cemeteries, neglected and forgotten," and the query brings the feeling : "0 for the touch of the vanished hand, and the sound of the voice that is still," but since life is a workshop, a preparatory school for the hereafter, why shrink from the grave ? It is a comforting thought when friends stand by those lowly mounds : "The good that men do lives after them while the evil is interred with their bones."
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That veteran historian, Henry Howe, displays the true philosophy and courage when he says : "Old age ! That is folly ! Live young and you will die young; learn to laugh Time out of his arithmetic ; amuse him with some new game of marbles ; then on some fine summer's day you will take a quiet nap, and when you awake maybe find yourself clothed in the pure white garments of eternal youth." It was Thomas Moore who said : "Come, grow old with me ; the best of life is yet to be," and yet old age clings to youth and few are ready to bid adieu to the world. Some one has said : "Life is just one thing after another," and a flying trip throughout Allen County reveals one rural cemetery after another ; while it is a good place to live there is no lease on the future. A recent newspaper advertisement went the rounds of the humorous paragraphers : "Sympathetic funeral service from $50 and up," and the casual observer said he "would like a $100 job," and there are funeral directors who speak of doing a good business. While some men have "money to burn," unless the funeral director is alert he sometimes "buries" his money.
Someone visiting a cemetery remarked : "Here lie the dead and here the living lie," when he read the gravestone tributes to those who were silently sleeping there ; while the proverbial six feet of earth is all the realty some people ever expect to occupy—hardly a possession after they attain it, others are cremated and thus escape the long wait in the grave. A beautiful sentiment is couched in the following:
"All over all our lives anew, Will stretch a kindly sky of blue; The tulips will come springing up To catch the subeams m a cup, And every one of them will say, `We were not dead, but just away,' "
and that is the way many people like to think of their departed friends; "They are not dead-they're just away."
When men and women have rounded out their lives in one community, they usually look forward to being buried there : "Live where you will, but after all you owe this sacred spot your bones." It is but natural that Allen County citizens look forward to being buried in Allen County ; while in life they may wander far from their native heath, in death Allen County soil suits them better than any other spot in the world. The first Allen County cemetery is now the site of the Moulton Lumber Company on East North street at Tanner or Central avenue ; since 1905, the site has been a lumber yard, freight depot, etc., and it has been built over twice since it was a cemetery ; whenever there is occasion for excavating workmen find evidence of the fact that the place was once a graveyard ; the Lutheran church that stood by the cemetery has been converted into a bottling works, and while the Elijah Stites military funeral occurred there January 6, 1843, there is no trace of the marker the place a shrine of the Revolutionary war. Nothing is known there of the "old leaning slab" that marked the grave of this Revolutionary patriot, mentioned in the Military chapter.
An old account says : "The first burying place has long since been vacated, and all but a few of the bodies have been removed to what was called the 'new cemetery,' farther out of town," and the "New Cemetery" near the Gramm-Bernstein factory is also long since abandoned as a burial plot, although many bodies still repose there ; it may never be wholly abandoned as a "City of the Dead." Just what will be done with
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one's bones is about as uncertain as life itself. Robert Bowers, who chronicled many things in his day, said : "We started a graveyard at an early date without the necessity of killing a man to accomplish this end--the State gave us one," and considerable inquiry failed to elicit any explanation. There is a National Military Cemetery at Fort Amanda established there when the ravages of disease cut down the young soldiers in the War of 1812, and the Fort Amanda Monument, erected in 1915, is sacred to the memory of about seventy-five nameless heroes ; there are government markers at about forty of the graves, it being impossible to definitely locate the others. The Dawson gravestone is the only one bearing the name of the silent sleeper there.
While this Military cemetery is now outside of Allen County, the reservation attracts many local visitors ; before the Shawnees left Allen County, they leveled all the mounds where their dead lay buried ; it is related that De Soto found burial in the Mississippi—the river that he discovered, so that the Indians might not know that the white men had lost their leader, and from some occult reason the Shawnees did not want the people who followed them to know their places of burial ; while it is understood that Pe-Aitch-Ta (Pht) whose wigwam was near the Council House in Shawnee, was buried in his own door yard in 1832, there is no trace of his grave today ; it was dug by his wife and daughter, and the bottom and sides were lined with split puncheons, and three puncheons were placed over him ; the grave with this rude coffin was only two feet deep, and from there he went to the Happy Hunting Grounds rather than go with his tribe to the Reservation ; many of the Shawnees witnessed the burial, and deposited trinkets in the grave ; a monument marking the site and inscribed : "Gone to the Better Land," would have meant nothing to Pht, who demonstrated the fact that he thought there was no better place than Allen County.
While the grave of Pht is unknown today, the records say that when he died the Shawnees killed a beef, and they had funeral baked meats and a feast ; the burial ceremony was at the Council House which remained standing for many years after the builders had taken their sorrowful journey ; it was built of walnut, wild cherry and white oak logs hewn to a nicety with a broad ax ; there were weight poles on the clapboard roof, it was two stories high and there were two doors, and there was an outside stick-and-clay chimney at the north end of the house ; it was only used for public occasions, but were it standing today it would be preserved as a monument to the Shawnees—sacred to the memory of Pe-Aitch-Ta. While Pht and Quilna were brothers, it is related that twenty-one different Indians along Hog Creek owned 500 acres of land apiece, and an Indian monument would bear the names. Pe-Aitch-Ta, On-a-was-kine, Wa-pes-ke-ka-ho-thew, Shin-a-gaw-ma-she, Pe-haw-e-ou, Ne-qua-ka-buch-ka, Pe-lis-ka, Ke-tu-che-pa, Law-et-the-to, E-pan-nee, Ka-nak-hih, Joso, She-she-co-pe-a, Le-cu-seh, Quilna and Que-das-ka-all these names are associated with the Council House in local history. While history relates that Griffith Breese and Ezekiel Hover later lived in the Council House, it remains in memory sacred to the swarthy Shawnees.
There are stories told of solitary graves sequestered in Allen County, and there are a great many unmarked graves—more in the town than in rural cemeteries ; the names in the directories do not always coincide with the names on tombstones, and in time some of the pioneers are forgotten unless they are commemorated in biographical sketches by their posterity who enjoy the fruition of their labors ; who are benefited by their early operations and investments. Some one says :
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" 'Tis better to send a cheap bouquet, To a friend that's hving this very day, Than a bushel of roses—white and red, To lay on his coffin when he's dead,"
and one of the literary jokesmiths declares :
"A little bit of Taffy When one's alive, I say, Beats a lot of Epitaphy When one has passed away,"
and better always than epitaphs :
"Let us bring to the living the roses, And the lillies we bind for the dead : And crown them with blessings and praises— Before the brave spirit has fled,"
but perhaps the epitaph hunter would never visit local cemeteries in quest of the unusual, love for the dead in most instances manifesting itself in the form of suitable markers at the graves. While every community has its "city of the dead," and some have been sent from Allen County to the crematory in Cleveland and other cities, Woodlawn and Gethsemane are as connecting links in a chain of parks at the edge of Lima ; although burial plots they are beautiful as the parks adjoining them. The arched gateway and lodge at Woodlawn is a bequest to the community from John R. Hughes who was an early citizen of Lima ; there is a small chapel and people may tarry a while with their dead before consigning them to their long rest in the tomb ; it is a Hughes Memorial in all that 'the word implies, a grateful public always recognizing the giver in the gift. Lying side by side in beautiful Woodlawn are fathers and mothers ; husbands and wives whose
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names belong to the early history of the community ; they were the men and women who carried on business activities in the little town that was laid out by them for future greatness ; it is a tribute to their enterprise and industry.
The site of Woodlawn cemetery along the Ottawa was purchased by B. C. Faurot and George G. Hackedorn ; they were men with vision sufficient to recognize its possibilities ; it was a beauty spot and a necessary institution. The Hand of Nature had already adorned it, and there was little left for the landscape artist to do in planning the driveways leading throughout Woodlawn ; the ravines were widened, and nature's lines remain to show the world the adaptability of the spot ; the first burial in Woodlawn was the mother of Mr. Faurot, while Mr. Hackedorn himself was the second person buried there ; while it is only a coincidence, it seems that the promoters recognized their own needs in opening Woodlawn cemetery. It is beautiful for spacious hillslopes and ravines, and seen on a winter day or when clothed with summer verdure, the visitor recognizes the wisdom of selecting such a spot for the sleep of the ages ; the last resting place of Lima's dead is as charming as were their homes in the community.
Some of the private mausoleums in Woodlawn are built into the hills, and they seem sheltered from the storms of winter and the sweltering heat of summer ; near the Hackedorn mausoleum is Hackedorn lake —an expanse of clear water, and all around are marble shafts as well as mausoleums, perpetuating the names of well known men and women ; there is charming simplicity in the plan of Woodlawn—the shrubbery in conformity to the driveways through the ravines, and at every turn there is some new beauty—some surprise to the visitor ; harmony is the key note of everything. On the C. S. Brice monument is the Bible inscription : "Let not your heart be troubled ; ye believe in God, believe also in me," and it rests as a benediction over the tombs of all.
While Lima has had two earlier cemeteries than Woodlawn and Gethsemane, and only a few families have ever buried in the plot adjoining Fort Amanda Military Cemetery, cemeteries used today in Allen county are : Walnut Grove at Delphos ; Hartsog is a rural cemetery near Delphos, and across the Allen-Van Wert county line is another rural cemetery used by Allen County citizens ; most smaller towns have one cemetery, as : Bluffton, Spencerville, Lafayette, Westminster, Elida, Allentown, and Gomer ; the Elida cemetery is called Greenlawn and Gomer is Pike Run. Other rural cemeteries are : Salem, Fletcher, Christy, Hartford, Shawnee, St. Matthews, Salem (in Perry and Sugar Creek— two Salems), the Sugar Creek Salem being a Mennonite cemetery ; Ash Grove, Rockport, Ward, Tony's Nose, and the Potter's Field ; while the name Tony is unexplained, no one would ask about the Nose who visited Tony's Nose cemetery, and not far from it is the Potter's Field at the county farm in Bath township. In a number of the Allen County cemeteries are private mausoleums, and in some are community mausoleums with crypts sold out to individuals, or in many instances stock holders built them. Some of the cemeteries are provided with receiving vaults where bodies rest for a short time before they are finally consigned to the final resting place.
While there are unmarked graves and some abandoned family burial plots on Allen County homesteads, the people have been inclined to mark the last resting place of their departed friends in appropriate way—in a manner in keeping with life opportunities ; "They just have an old style stone," said an aged woman in discussing a family, showing that fashions change in grave stones as in other things. The children
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used to count buttons : "Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief," and all these lie side by side in the silence of the tombs in the different cemeteries. While the mausoleums used by different families remain open, when the last crypt is filled it is the custom then to seal them ; there is a system of ventilation said to be wholly sanitary, and through the circulation of air complete mummification results in time ; the Egyptians had a secret, and a mummy may be preserved to the end of world.
While longevity is a boast of Allen County citizens, statistics and gravestones show that many have yielded to the ravages of disease in childhood and early manhood and womanhood ; the old must die and the young do die, and a conclusion reached by science is : "We are in the infancy and childhood of knowledge as to how to prevent and cure disease." On September 13, 1908, at the time of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the coming of the Welsh to Allen County, W. W. Watkins who was the first Welsh child born in Allen county reviewed his life, saying that forty-two of his relatives lay buried at Pike Run near Gomer ; he enumerated grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts, cousins, nephews, nieces, children and grandchildren and a stepmother was included, and he was looking forward to his own last sleep among them. The first burial in Pike Run Cemetery was a child—Mary Roberts ; the coffin was made from boards split from trees felled for the purpose. There is an epitaph in the Welsh tongue on the stone marking the grave of Mrs. Cadwallader Jones, the translation reading :
"Of home she was the light and life, A thoughtful mother, faithful wife ; In all she acted just and wise, And left a name that never dies.
Special interest attaches to the grave of Moses McClure in the Ward cemetery, Bath township, since he was the first white child born within the present limits of Allen County ; on the marker is the date, December 1, 1827, more than six years from the time the county was given its name and outline, thus conclusively proving that people had not yet begun coming in numbers to the community. Next to the grave of Moses McClure is the grave of his wife, Elizabeth. Moses McClure died January 12,1901, not yet having rounded out three quarters of a century. The unique monument--a miniature log cabin replica, was designed by David Wert, a Lima stone cutter for many years ; all the details of the primitive surroundings under which this man was born are worked out in the marker at his grave ; his picture has been burned into the door of the replica cabin, such an enduring monument and calculated to carry with it so much personal history ; the cabin idea is complete to the latch-string at the door, and it is said that a duplicate of it marks the grave of Griffith Thomas in Maplewood Cemetery at Christy Chapel in Amanda Township.
It is related of a pioneer whose age and physical condition did not allow of long rides and exertion, that he said : "But it gives me great pleasure to attend the funerals of my friends." It is a counterpart to the story of the woman who called where a family had just moved into a splendid new house saying : "It would be a fine place in which to hold a funeral service." Customs change in funerals as in other things, and while in some families relatives prepare the body for burial the family grief seemingly mitigated by the performance of those last sad offices themselves, in other households everything is left to the under-
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taker, even to the minutest details of the funeral service. When the time comes in family history that more of its members are sleeping in the cemetery than are surrounding the fireside at home, relatives and friends so many times the remnants of once large families, are impressed with the sacred duty of keeping their memories green, and to them Gods Acre will always be a hallowed spot—a sacred shrine to which their pilgrim feet will always turn, when opportunity presents itself.
Those who have followed friends tc city cemeteries where single graves are purchased and the spot thereafter designated by number, better understand the beauty and sacredness of a rural God's Acre, where one does not require the service of a guide in locating the lowly mound again ; there are always tired feet awaiting the rest in the grave, and those who remember the funerals along in the '80s and '90s will recall the obituary notice sent out by most families ; they were left by carrier at every house and mailed to out of town friends; they used to toll the church bell, the number of strokes indicating the number of the decedent's years, and usually everybody knew who was seriously sick in the community. While six feet of earth is allotted to every man, some find their allotments in the potter's field ; there is usually a place in every cemetery where indigent persons may be laid to molder back to earth. The Recording Angel notes their burial, since "Not a sparrow falleth, but its God doth know," and He is mindful of all.
While in some instances the church yard has survived the rural church, and the living now worship in the towns, the dead sleep on peacefully where worship was once their privilege ; in the hereafter angels may roll from their graves the stones away, and there will be further trace of them ; the passerby today is unconscious when he treads on some of those lowly mounds of earth, and why should the sleep of the ages be disturbed in the onward rush of humanity? While engaged in discussing the high cost of living some have been confronted with the high cost of dying, but when grief possesses the family the expense account seldom enters into the consideration at all. The funerals of "other days" are sacred memories ; when they were conducted from rural churches, the dead was carried by loving hands to the church yard adjoining without the body being placed in the hearse again, while today it is often a hurried trip to God's Acre, and sometimes burial is private, only relatives and chosen friends standing by the new made grave ; customs change, and before there were hearses in Allen County, farm wagons were used in carrying the dead from the homes of the settlers, and later spring wagons were used, some neighbor always volunteering his service.
The rural church is still a consideration in Allen County, and the churchyard near it is like Tennyson's Babbling Brook which seems to go on forever ; while some regard it as morally wrong to speak the praises of a man to his face lest they minister to his vanity, thereby encouraging personal pride, when kind words no longer comfort him, why extol his virtues on grave stones? And yet family sentiment is often expressed by personal tributes ; if in the interest of science bodies are removed today, the fact seems to escape the newspapers ; it used to be said that "body snatchers" robbed graves in order to supply medical colleges with cadavers, and there were some hair-raising, blood-curdling stories told about such things ; newspaper readers would stand aghast at such recitals today, although children growing up in Allen County when word-of-mouth was the only source of information frequently heard about them ; they used to say of the hyenas carried about the country in the animal shows that if one were to escape it would dig tip a
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whole graveyard in a night, and nervous children did not sleep well until the show had gone from the country.
In writing of New England burial customs, Alice Morse Earle says : "In smaller settlements some out of the way spot was chosen for a common burial place, in barren pasture or on lowly hillside," and the Quaker poet, John Greenleaf Whittier, adds :
"Our vales are sweet with fern and rose, Our hills are maple-crowned, But not from them our fathers chose The village burial ground. The dreariest spot in all the land To Death they set apart ; With scanty grace from Nature's hand, And none from that of art"
but New England conditions are not reflected in Allen County cemeteries, some of them being landscape triumphs.
In her New England description, Mrs. Earle says : "To the natural loneliness of the country burial place and to its inevitable 'sadness, is now too frequently added the gloomy and depressing evidence of human neglect ; briars and weeds grow in tangled thickets over the forgotten graves," and such spots are not unknown in Allen County. The same writer continues : "In many communities each family had its own burial place in some corner of the home farm, sometimes at the foot of garden or orchard," thus showing that Allen County settlers coming from New England patterned after older communities. Another writer says : "Truly our fathers find their graves in our short memories, and sadly show us how we may be buried in our survivors," and there are questions that concern the living today. While "Gone to the Better Land," is chiseled on some of the grave stones, there are those who think of Allen County as God's country. |