SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 525 Since 1915 basketball has been supervised and encouraged as a high school pastime and there are many good teams in Clark County schools outside of Springfield. The girls are active in basketball and among them are some good players. The Springfield high ,school gymnasium is a busy place, the classes having their turns under supervision and all having the same privileges there. Basketball teams are organized in the grades and they become expert players by the time they reach high school. The gymnasium is open Saturdays and it is an agency for occupying the time of boys that would otherwise be, spent on the streets. Professor McCord has the idea that playing together teaches children the art of living together—makes them live-with-able—that nowhere do they recognize the rights and privileges of others quicker than when engaged in supervised sports. SPORTS AT WITTENBERG While baseball has not enthralled Wittenberg at any time, since 1895 football has been under supervision, James Townsend being the coach who started it. Dr. A. F. Linn of Wittenberg is sponsor for athletics and E. R. Godfrey, the present coach, had his athletic training at Ohio State University, and he has been training some winners. Zimmerman athletic field is the scene of many games and Wittenberg shows up well, many of the athletes having been stars in their high school days. Coach Godfrey hopes for engagements with the big eastern colleges, thereby bringing Wittenberg into recognition. Since 1915 basketball has been popular at Wittenberg, there being teams among the girls as well as boy's, and for two years the lead basketball team had not been defeated, but when it was announced that "A staunch admirer of the Lutherans would present the player scoring the greatest percentage of points during the season with $10," there was a storm of protest, saying: "When it becomes necessary' to offer inducements to spur athletes to put forth their best efforts then you rob the game of its greatest asset." The Wittenberg girls are winners in many contests and b some close games are played, Doctor Linn of the faculty arranging all engagements. Springfield, St. Raphael and St. Joseph high school basketball players meet all challengers in basketball contests and visiting teams are frequently seen in Springfield. While trainers are maintained on the golf courses, it is a personal arrangement and is not classed as supervision, but the first steps toward the organization of a public recreational committee to have charge of all athletic work in Springfield were taken at a joint meeting of the public playgrounds committee and the golf commission in the office of City Manager Edgar E. Parsons, the plan embracing the centralization of control of all public recreational activities, the employment of a recreational director and the expression of public recreational activities, the board of education donating the use of school grounds as playgrounds in different communities. There are municipal golf links in Snyder Park and municipal swimming pools in Cliff Park are under. consideration. In 1921 the municipal golf links netted more than $5,000 and members of the park board feel that anything that will get the people out into the open air for healthful exercise is a good thing. Wrestling matches are staged in Springfield and for years it has been a horse race center. Some of the best track horses in the United States are trained on the Clark County Fair Grounds and in the past the fair 526 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY association has offered purses that bring out the best horses. A public riding club is a possibility, enough persons becoming interested to insure a stable in Springfield. Horseback riding is an invigorating pastime and the country roads offer variety in the vicinity of Springfield. A riding academy may be a reality. In summing up Springfield attractions, a local writer says : "Old King Winter has done his best to provide a season of good old-fashioned snow sports this year (1921-22), and everywhere one meets gay parties of coasters. "Snyder Park has been thronged with numerous devotees of the skating art for the last few days. Every afternoon and evening the last week the hills surrounding the picturesque country club have been ringing with the laughter of innumerable coasters. * * * Quite a few bright colored skating and coasting costumes are worn by the fair devotees of sport. While there are tweed knickers, the bright colored knitted sweaters, hats and scarfs, oftentimes with wool hose to match, predominate. Then there are the old-fashioned bob, sled parties which were such gala events in mother and grandmother's day. These sturdy old horsedrawn sleds are hard to find and the man who possessed f ore-thought enough to stow his away was wise, for groups of young and older people are scouring the country for them. Several bob sled parties are scheduled—provided the snow " but the pioneers had that same contingency, when mud boats and bob sleds were found at every f arm house. The amusements change with the times—each amusement has its day, and the only objection to sleighing ever voiced was that it came in January instead of July. The pioneers had little need of athletics when they were felling the trees in the forests and the town boy who sawed the four-foot wood into stove lengths had sufficient exercise, and it seems to hold true : "Sufficient unto the day are the 'special requirements and opportunities,' " the "evils" no longer being under consideration in Clark County. CHAPTER LX YARNFEST IN SPRINGFIELD CHAMBER OF COMMERCE The day after Thanksgiving, A. D. 1921, the weather man was considerate of the aged men and women of Springfield and vicinity, invited to assemble that afternoon in the rooms of the Chamber of Commerce. It rained on Thanksgiving but Old Sol was benignant on Friday, although Jupiter Pluvius was in the saddle again on Saturday. The fair weather seemed to be sandwiched in on Friday because of rheumatism and ailments incident to age, when such persons overcame their human limitations. Sometimes the "wind is tempered to the shorn lamb" and "Friday the fairest" was a benediction. Many men and women who do not of ten quit their homes were guests of the Chamber of Commerce and had part in a reminiscent meeting. They remembered Trapper's Corner ; they recalled when the first pavement was put down in front of Maddux Fisher's store ; when it was nothing uncommon to see horses and wagons driven to the doors of the homes in Springfield when there were no lawns in front ; they remembered when Springfield was noted for its muddy streets ; they knew all about Mill Run and its relation to the industrial community. Those invited to the Yarnf est were to secure elevator passage to the ninth floor of the Fairbanks Building by saying : "Three-Score-and-Ten" to the women operating the elevators, and while the hours were from 1 :00 till 4:00 the guests began arriving bef ore 12 o'clock. One of the elevator operators said : "We are all strong for the party" and another said : "We did not know that there were so many lovely old ladies in the world as were in Springfield that day. Some of them trembled and some would squeak when the elevator started, and it was the longest ride straight up any of them ever had taken." The Springfield News said : "One of the most unique parties in the history of Clark County took place in the Chamber of Commerce rooms Friday afternoon when the old folks of the county held a party." Some topics suggested were : Who ever saw a deer in Clark County ? Did you ever serve wild turkey to your family or guests? Who ever "water witched" for a well? Who ever located a bee tree ? Who ever cooked bef ore the fire ? Who ever came to Springfield by stage? Were you ever lost in the woods ? Would you like to live it all over again? Some of them remembered the Good Samaritan sign at the Ludlow drug store; they remembered the coverlet weaver by the name of Myers near Medway ; they remembered going to a neighbor's house to borrow fire; they remembered pioneer conditions in Clark County. While the settlers remained in their own neighborhood, their sons and daughters wander far—become globe trotters—although "See America first" influences some of them and in these days of rapid transit and automobile transportation, the Three-Score-and-Ten class are having their vacation periods, and seeing more of the country. The twentieth century was just rounding out its twenty-first year at the time of the Yarnf est and at the beginning of the century the people at the meeting had heard nothing of the aeroplane, wireless telegraphy, motion pictures, the automobile or the submarine, and they realized the swiftness with - 527 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 529 which time was carrying them toward eternity. There is nothing new under the sun and people at the Yarnfest told of a similar meeting when 0. S. Kelly invited the aged men to be his guests at the Arcade Hotel some years ago. Those who came to the Yarnfest were "strangers in a strange land" because they were nine stories above terra firma, and they were not used to being so high up in the world. Some one writes : "Bridge Time's swift river with a span, Whose arch shall hide his waves from sight. Glide back to where your lives began, Let past and present reunite," and that feat was accomplished at the Yarnfest. The guests remembered all about a deep water pond at High and Market streets, when the storekeepers and residents went about in boats, the overflow of Mill Run being the difficulty. They remembered the cyclones and the hurricanes, although Springfield has had few destructive fires. They remembered the log rollings, the clearings, the wool pickings, the apple cuttings, when they peeled, cored and quartered the apples for drying, and called the finished product snits. They remembered when girls were called Tomboys who were the "flapper" type of today, and some of them do not condemn the short skirt with sensible limitations, although women of that age have not conformed to the more recent styles ; nor "Would they want to go back to the days of yore, When girls wore skirts of a dozen gore." "Early to bed and early to rise" had been the life rule of many who came to the Yarnfest and the program began half an hour early. Why wait for a crowd when the invited guests had assembled? While there may be older persons than those who attended the meeting, there are few more cheerful folk. Those who were able-bodieid and remained at home may take cold comfort in the fact that those who responded to the invitation enjoyed the meeting. How do men and women know when they are growing old? Because somebody calls them father and mother, grandfather and grandmother, and when they notice gray hairs in their heads, when some one offers them a seat in a crowded car or auditorium, when young people try to shield them from responsibility. While all octogenarians and golden bridal pairs were asked to write their names with the necessary statistical information, many who were born since 1841 enrolled and it made a task for the tellers, C. E. Hansell and A. R. Altick of the Chamber of Commerce, who determined the prize winners from those entries. It was necessary to consume a good deal of time in completing the records of others who failed to give exact information. First, second and third prizes were offered and a pfourth man was twenty-one days younger than the third oldest man present and a bridegroom was a winner until it developed that his wife had not accompanied—a condition set forth—the awards being for those in attendance. One golden bridal pair had penciled a border of yellow on the envelope containing their names, and another indicated : "The male is seventy-six while the female is seventy-five." One man aged eighty-one had penciled the word "Single" and another said in a note: "I am a Republican and a Methodist." Vol. I-34 530 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY The octogenarians who enrolled at the Yarnfest were : Mrs. Elizabeth Coberly, Mrs. Eliza Trout, Mrs. Eliza McMillan, John Cord, George Braley, Peter Overhulser, G. W. Billow, Mrs. Billow, Robert Botkin, George Krapp, Mrs. Krapp, Elihu Hiatt, Mrs. Jacob Steiner, George W. Coffey, Thomas H. Pearson, S. W. Nelson, William Wise, Samuel Sparrow, Gen. J. Warren Keifer, Henry A. Swartzbaugh, Benjamin F. Walters, Mrs. Dorcas A. Husted Hill, Mrs. Rebecca P. Townsend, Daniel B. Morris, Mrs. Clarinda Mitman Serf ace, Mrs. Mary S. Campbell, S. T. Russell, Mrs. Jane H. Metcalf, Mrs. R. Florence Welsh, Mrs. Mary F. Wymer, Mrs. Elizabeth Allen, Mrs. A. C. Weaver, Mrs. Thomas Osmond, Samuel Deitrick, William Myers, T. B. Morton, T. H. Nicewanger, H. E. Bateman, Mrs. Samuel S. Taylor, Benjamin F. Prince, William E. Cromwell, J. L. Ferris, Rills, David King, Isaac M. Evans, Mrs. Helen S. Hoppes, Thomas S. Hess, L. M. Hartman, Mrs. Frances C. Vance, Mrs. Margaret Catharine Rhodes Berry, Mrs. Margaret Moore and John N. Austin. While those past seventy were invited, they were not asked to enroll at the meeting. Seventy is denominated as the "dead line," and when men and women cross it safely they frequently attain to four score years—become octogenarians, nonagenarians, and sometimes centenarians. Some one writes : "When they pass ninety-five these dear old people are keen to live to the hundredth birthday," but Mrs. Coberly, who one Sunday in the previous August had dropped nine dimes, a nickel and a penny in the birthday box at the M. E. Sunday School in South Vienna, and who was proclaimed the oldest person at the Yarnfest, having been born August 29, 1825, said she was "old in body but young in spirit," and that was a happy condition. They crowded her so in the elevator coming to the Yarnfest that she did not have any chance to get light-headed, and she said afterward : "I do not know when I enjoyed myself so well as there among all those old folks." She never had seen General Keifer, but she recognized him from having seen his pictures. Mrs. Coberly never had heard the song, "Swing low, sweet chariot, coming to carry me home," and it was in her mind frequently. John Cord was the oldest man present, although a short time later the newspapers carried the story that Rev. John Hunt, a member of the I. 0. 0. F. Home, was ninety-nine years old, and that he was said to be the oldest college graduate in the United States. In 1842 he graduated from Brown University. He was born October 17, 1822, at Lowell, Massachusetts. While Mrs. Coberly smokes, and said she did not care who knew it, Mr. Hunt never used tobacco or liquor in any form—so tobacco had nothing to do with longevity in either instance. The mother of Mr. Hunt had attained to 102 years, although she never lived in Clark County. When she was past ninety-five years old Mrs. Coberly cast her first ballot, saying : "I voted her straight," and when a war chest drive was on in the community, she volunteered her subscription, saying she had lived through two previous wars, and she was pensioned as the widow of Samuel Coberly, who was a Civil war soldier. When seen in her home after the Yarnfest Mrs. Coberly said the Lord had been good to her ; she was attending revival meetings every night—Methodist and Christian union service—saying: "We're putting our meetings together, and it just works fine," and she had just entertained the two ministers at dinner, saying: "It was not so much the dinner as that the oldest woman in Clark County cooked it for them; SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 531 not many of my age could cook that dinner," and it should inspire others to greater activity. "Tales of the prodigious feats of centenarian and near centenarian ancestors have been handed down in many families for generations until now they are accepted only as fanciful dreams," but many people will vouch for the truth of Mrs. Coberly's activities, knowing that the woman lives alone. She has her "second sight," and reads the newspaper without glasses. In registering the golden bridal couples in attendance, two persons entered into the consideration ; those present were: Mr. and Mrs„ George Krapp, Mr. and Mrs. G. W. Billow, Mr. and Mrs. George Braley, Mr. and Mrs. David Sheets, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas M. Hess, Mr. and Mrs. George F. Jones, Mr. and Mrs. T. J. Miranda, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas H. Pearson, and Mr. and Mrs. Peter Overhulser. Most of the golden bridal pairs were also octogenarians ; they all seemed "happy though married" fifty years. Springfield merchants who had offered premiums in the different classes all report pleasant visits from the winners, although only Mr. and Mrs. Krapp, and Mrs. McMillan went from the meeting to claim the articles given them. The others were worn out and went to their homes, taking another day for claiming the premiums ; however, all presented their credentials—an order signed by Mr. Hansell of the Chamber of Commerce, and given them at the meeting. At the Home Store A. J. Sutton waited on Mr. and Mrs. Krapp, who were accompanied by relatives, and he said : "Mr. dear sir, they were pleased ; they went out as happy as if they had just established their love nest, and it were their first pair of. blankets." They had been married sixty-six years, and the blankets were offered to the oldest bridal pair at the meeting. They have separate bank accounts, and the oldest golden bride collects her own rentals, and makes her own deposits. She inherited money from Germany some years ago. Mr. Krapp was a bandmaster in Germany, Louisville and Springfield ; he conducted a grocery store in Springfield, and acquired considerable property. When Mrs. Eliza McMillan of South Charleston claimed the house slippers given by the Horner Shoe Store to the third oldest woman at the Yarnf est, she wished she might live eighty-nine years longer and note the changes in the world ; she told them about stage coach days in Springfield. When Mrs. Coberly had rested a few days she came to the Boston Store. C. E. Dahlgren, who had offered a shawl to the oldest woman at the meeting, waited on her himself. He introduced her to customers in the store, and she entertained them all. He said : "I never saw such an active woman so near the century mark ; it was worth the donation to meet the woman," and Mrs. Coberly said of the shawl : "This streak of gray matches my hair, and while I have another shawl I wear this one." Mrs. Eliza Trout called at the Petot Shoe Store within a day or two, and arranged with R. W. Pickering for a return date, when she had more time. She was ninety-one years old, and claimed the prize offered the second oldest woman ; she walked from her home a mile and a half from the store. When Mrs. Trout came again, Mr. Pickering fitted her in shoes, saying she was a woman to be admired although a woman of few words. When Peter Overhulser of Lawrenceville finally called at the John MacKee Store to claim the gloves offered the third oldest man, he was accompanied by relatives. He was two years old when he came to German Township where he had lived more than eighty-six years, and it 532 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY developed that L. M. Hartman, who was born October 9, 1840, had lived continuously in one place, still lacking five years of attaining to the record of Mr. Overhulser. However, the oldest woman present—Mrs. Coberly—had lived ninety years in Clark County. When Mr. and Mrs. G. W. Billow called at the Hadley Store to receive the blankets awarded the second oldest bridal pair in attendance, they remained for a short visit and all enjoyed it. Their son, N. K. Billow, of Billow and Firestone in Columbus, had business relations with the Hadley Store Company. When Mrs. Billow missed a social gathering later, she was charged with remaining home to enjoy the blankets ; the whole thing was a mystery to her. When John Cord claimed the hat awarded the oldest man in attendance by the Buckeye Hatters, it was a case of "Actions speak louder than words." He said little, having never won a hat before, and he was pleased with it ; he was six years younger than the oldest woman. George Braley was winner in two classes ; he was the second oldest man and the third oldest bridegroom, and when A. C. Flora of the Arcade Shoe Store was fitting Mr. Braley with shoes, for the first time he heard about the log cabin : "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too," being constructed in Springfield. At the Kresge Store, Mr. Braley had no trouble at all ; a dozen towels would fit either Mrs. Braley or himself. In the picture of the eleven prize winners, Mr. Braley could not be in two places and he was seated with Mrs. Braley. While twelve persons were supposed to be winners, the nine prizes offered were won by eleven persons, since Mr. Braley doubled as the second oldest man and the third oldest bridegroom. One man aged eighty-eight years was heard to say he did not expect recognition, when so many older persons were at the meeting. It was urged that if prizes had been offered for the handsomest men and women others might have been winners, and a Springfield milliner did covet the privilege of giving a bonnet to some aged woman, but when she made known her desire the list of prizes had already been announced ; then she wanted to give a bonnet to a spinster, but "bachelor maids" do not usually announce their ages—are sometimes sensitive about it. The Davis trio—quaint and ancient garb—attracted much attention ; the sisters are daughters of Jacob Davis, who was a Mad River Township pioneer, and Mrs. Clarinda Mitman Serface was an octogenarian, while Mrs. Mary R. Hain and Mrs. Anna F. Cost were younger, Mrs. Cost wearing the wedding gown worn by their mother. The 1920 census enrolled 3,500 persons in the United States who had passed the centenary, and while every community has its "oldest inhabitant," there was no record of a centenarian in Clark County. It is estimated that the average man who reaches four score years wastes two years putting on and taking off clothes, while a woman spends ten years dressing herself and undressing—full ten years before her mirror—but there must be exceptions. It was the wise man, Solomon, who said : "Boast not thyself of tomorrow," and yet those old persons assembled seemed to have been provident—no worry about the future. Some one writes : "They call it going down the hill when we are growing old ; They speak with mourning accents when our tale is nearly told ; They sigh when talking of the past—the days that used to be, As if our future were not bright with immortality." SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 533 E. P. Thornton who attended the Yarnf est had known Griffith Foos, had seen him often ; they sawed wood together, and Mr. Foos said : "We are the only industrious boys in town." He had long, gray hair and told Mr. Thornton about the time when buffaloes and deer roamed along Buck Creek. While the people were assembled to tell stories : "Many a deed a while remembered, Out of memory needs must fall, Covered as the years roll onward, By oblivion's creeping pall," and a quotation from Judge Alfred Ellison, and given by Miss Elva Wilson before the Harmony Township Sunday School Convention, follows : "J'ever notice how, when the house gits still, An' yer feelin' sad an' lonesome, like yer sometimes will, 'Pears as of the f aces of yer boyhood days, Was looking out upon you from the black log's blaze ; The flames leap in a hurry, just like you used to do, When a neighbor boy would whistle outside the door for you, An' yer can't help sayin' : 'Tell you what it is, I want to go back wher' the old folks is,' " and that describes the feelings of many at the Yarnf est, who said they would like to attend another meeting. The audience sang "America," and the invocation was by Dr. J. W. Gunn, who was a nonagenarian and known to all. When C. C. Williams arose to sing "My Old Kentucky Home," inquiry was made as to those present who were of Kentucky ancestry ; while there was a showing of hands, the percentage was not so large as 120 years earlier when James Demint, Col. John Daugherty and Griffith Foos established the bounds of Springfield ; then it was unanimous, although they never heard the song. N. E. Deaton sang "Old Black Joe," and Mr. and Mrs. Deaton pleased all with their rendition of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," and Mrs. R. W. Murray sang "Ben Bolt." When Samuel Deitrick, who had brought a violin, played "Nellie Gray," all joined in singing it—sang it like they used to sing it, and they enjoyed it. While one aged Springfield woman did not attend the Yarnf est because she did not want to see so many persons with only a few more years to live in the world, none who were present were gloomy about it. It is known that Clark County maidens still have hope boxes ; they still walk in the footsteps of their grandmothers, although when those who came to the Yarnf est were young they did not wear galoshes, nor were they called flappers. The water wave was an aquatic term, although now it is tonsorial—permanent waving admitting girls into select society. In grandmother's day : "Tying her bonnet strings under her chin, The pretty girl tied the young man's heart within," and a present day writer says : "Let us go back to the boys and girls of fifty years ago ; except for a few silver spoon favorities in the few resi- 534 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY dence avenues in a few cities, the young folks were not acquainted with luxuries. * * * Rural communities were not organized for recreation and entertainment in those days. No chautauquas, no band concerts, no intertown ball leagues, no community coliseums, no basket-ball games, no high school track meets ; far apart were the county fairs, and one circus a summer. Christmas tree at the church ; fire crackers on the Fourth, a magic lantern show at the Town Hall. * * * For weeks at a time every country lane and every town street would be a mush of mud, or a jumble of frozen ruts ; the speed rate of wheel vehicles was three or four miles an hour ; the town ten miles away was off in another world." Those who came to the Yarnf est understood all about it ; the pioneer women did not have the matinee habit, nor did they waste money on cut flowers and jewelry ; that is why their husbands accumulated, and were enabled to "buy all the land that joined them." These women attracted to the Yarnf est knew all about an early breakfast, and hanging their clothes on the line before their neighbors were ready. The fathers and the mothers of the past saved and planned economy for years, and their children scatter money to the four winds in shorter periods. Somebody rakes up the leaves before there is a bonfire, and the pioneers did it—did it gladly—they left fortunes in the broad acres in all parts of Clark County. The Chamber of Commerce has this saying: "Agreeable acquaintance is a great asset," and it is demonstrated in Springfield every day that activity contributes to longevity. Dr. B. F. Prince, who presided at the Yarnfest, met his Wittenberg College classes every day, and Gen. J. Warren Keifer was in his office—neither was finding any time to grow ,old, notwithstanding the poet's invitation : "Come, grow old with me; the best of life is yet to be," and it is said that those who retire from activities invite dissolution. Both Doctor Prince and General Keifer are like Edward Everett Hale, who was "eighty years young." When Jacob's character and manner of life changed he was known as Israel, and when Simon became Peter he assumed a different personality, and were that true of men and women today it would be most confusing to history and directory publishers ; however, many Clark County people have experienced change of heart and retained the same nomenclature. While it is a good thing to look forward to a mirage of rest across a desert of work, and the man is fortunate who does not have to quit his bed when he has grown old at the call of an alarm clock, it is the consensus of opinion among scientific investigators that the man who retires at three score and ten practically signs his own death warrant ; goes to pieces soon after his withdrawal from routine activities, and Doctor Prince and General Keifer are local examples classed with Luther Burbank and Thomas A. Edison, who keep themselves young by their close application to their chosen pursuits. No doubt there are other outstanding examples in Springfield, as may be noted in the list of octogenarians—Mrs. Coberly preparing a repast for guests when she was known to be the oldest citizen of Clark County. A local merchant sold one old man his last pair of boots several times, and when they were worn out he would take a new lease on life—invest in one more pair of boots. A woman who had her burial muslin ready for several years, would bleach it every changing season ; it would "soon be one way or SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 535 the other" with her, and when spring came she laid the muslin on the grass again, determined to be "ready for the bridegroom."   In a published interview, Deacon Jonathan Dickinson Baker, who is the third generation in the deaconship of Knob Prairie Christian Church at Enon in a period covering 116 years, says : "Those who think the past is best, and who live in it are now old folks ; we are living in the present with the young people of the village ; we are young," and the man who said it was already seven years "on borrowed time," since the dead-line is placed at three score and ten years. It was John Kendrick Bangs, whose "Line 0' Cheer" was published daily in Springfield, who said.   "When you have had your coffee, your oatmeal and your steak, Your dainty omelette souffle, and daily buckwheat cake, Just pause for say a minute—"   and some one else says longevity is superinduced by lying awake half an hour, and planning the day's activities while in bed. However, that rule was not followed by Clark County pioneers.   The Yarnfest was an afternoon devoted to the folklore of the community—Springfield and all Clark County—in their "younger days" the people present had been clever, they could pat their head with one hand and rub their stomach with the other, but now they are the people referred to when the Clark County Fair advertises a "Great gala day for old folks, admitting persons sixty-five years old and upward residing in Clark County, to attend Springfield Fair free one day," and the 1921 catalogue urges them to bring any relics or curiosities, as if the Clark County Historical Society had not already corraled all such things. They are specially urged to bring instruments of husbandry that were used long ago, but they were invited to the Yarnf est simply to revive the traditions and hitherto unpublished stories about Clark County. The Springfield News says : "More than 250 old folks of Clark County well beyond the three score and ten mark assembled and enjoyed an afternoon which brought back to them memories of the days when this county was infested with Indians."   AN INFORMATION BUREAU   There is a shoe shop at 45 West Washington Street, operated by David Frey, where men of three score and ten years assemble f requently. It is a discussion clearing house ranging from shoestrings to steam engines ; from peanut stands to bank robberies, the men gathering there all have unf ailing memories. They talk about overshot water wheels when Mill Run furnished the water power for Springfield industries. There was an overshot wheel at a starch factory on the site of the Regent Theater, and the children from a school on the site of the Warder Library came there to wash their slates ; the water came from the wheel with such force that many slates were lost, the force of the water dashing them from the hands of the children. A paper mill, hominy mill, the starch mill and a table factory all had overshot water wheels, but the starch mill had the biggest wheel in Springfield. It was burned in 1858, and was a distinctive loss to local industry. E. W. Simpson was one of Mr. Fry's daily visitors, and he had told the story of Mill Run at the   536 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY   Yarnfest. The Simpson saw mill and flour mill both had been operated with power from Mill Run.   There were hearsay and definite stories at this shoe-shop information bureau, one man having seen the bullet marks made by Daniel Boone as a sharp shooter along Mad River, and another antedated the Dary surveyor story, saying John Paul was a chain man with a Government surveying party. There were pioneers who left no descendants—none to rescue their names from oblivion, save these aged men who frequently meet and discuss them. While the community is full of tablets commemorating prominent personages, the shoe-shop bureau of information paid tribute to many others ; while some would not talk before an historical society, they perpetuate many memories in limited circles, and it seems that sometimes men without local forebears—men who are their own ancestry, have often been community builders. They are closer sometimes to fundamentals than the sons of their fathers, who at the same time are the grandsons of the settlers. They say fortune runs out in the third generation, and that some in Springfield are in the sixth generation, and the fortune is "petering out again."   In a booklet recently publisihed in connection with a church anniversary at New Carlisle, W. H. Sterrett writes of the settler, saying his cloth was homespun unless he had a pair of leather breeches considered in the nature of a luxury ; the deer skin properly tanned was pliable when worn as trousers, and when a man attending the quarterly conference used suspenders to support his buckskin trousers charges were preferred against him. When Elder McKendree opened the conference, he asked the question : "Are there any complaints ?" One of the stewards said : "I have a complaint to make against Brother Cartwright (Peter Cartwright once preached there, and Elder McKendree asked him to specify, the steward answered : "Brother Cartwright is corrupting the morals of our young men in following the fashion." When Elder McKendree inquired "What fashion ?" the steward of the church answered : "He is wearing a pair of galluses." Because of his own rotundity, the elder recognized the benefits of wearing "galluses," and the charge was not pressed against Cartwright.   CHAPTER LXI   LEFTOVER STORIES—THE OMNIBUS CHAPTER   The old-fashioned Whatnot had a little of everything on it, and the Omnibus Chapter has a little of everything in it. A platform speaker once said that what he thought about afterward was often more worth while than the thoughts that came to him while he was on his feet and some of these stories would have fitted themselves in elsewhere, but were overlooked until the "elsewhere" door was closed against them ; for instance, the high school auditorium was packed to hear the Lincoln address by Paul C. Martin, Springfield attorney. While the high school orchestra furnished the music, the outstanding historical feature, "The Gold and the Blue," the assembly song, was written by an alumnus, Mrs. Lucinda Hayes Cook, and the music was by B. D. Ackley of the Billy Sunday organization, who once visited Springfield. The fact should have been noted in the school chapter or in the chapter on music.   The old Southern mammies, who were famous cooks, did not always follow f ormulas in their culinary processes. They used "a little o' this and a little o' that," and their leftover dishes sometimes were their best productions. An Omnibus chapter always catches incidents overlooked in their proper connection, as the 1921 second crop of Hickory Jack, a toothsome fungus known as mushrheum very much relished in the spring. In November it was being used in Springfield.   As proof of the unusual winter, on January 9, 1922, when the gleaner accompanies W. W. Keifer to Fort Tecumseh battlefield, a toad was hopping about among the rocks on that hillside. While it seemed sluggish it was inclined to self-preservation. On February 11, while en route to Selma with Farm Bureau President E. W. Hawkins, people were fishing in the Little Miami. It is not polluted by the discharge from factories and anglers get results. The two incidents indicate that exiles from Clark County had not gained much by escaping local weather conditions.   Albert Reeder tells of the South Charleston boy who was sent to market with eggs. His mother instructed him to get twenty-five cents a dozen for them. The grocer offered him thirty cents, but he remembered his mother's admonition. When he returned he told her about it, saying he held out for twenty-five cents. Another egg story : When the South Charleston practical jokers were assembled in a grocery store, Joseph Winslow came in and Dr. Washington Atkinson said to him : "Uncle Joe, if you will suck three dozen eggs I will pay for the eggs and give you a quarter." Winslow answered : "Come on with the eggs," and without moving from his seat he performed the feat and collected the money.   With Wittenberg bridge the scene of holdups, it was recalled that in 1807 when the Indians were creating so much disturbance and a rifle-ball whizzed through the sunbonnet and grazed the throat of a Mrs. Elliott, who was getting firewood, a number of Clark County families went back to Kentucky to escape the reign of terror. It seemed that people avoided Wittenberg Bridge and Snyder Park because of banditry—still Indians there.   - 537 -   538 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY   The oldest silver service owned in Clark County was brought to Mad River in 1804 by Mrs. Peter Smith. An old account says : "She had carried it around in all their wanderings as a memento of fine living in Jersey. She lived in the Carolinas and many other places before locating on Mad River. For every-day use in cabin life she found pewter more serviceable. Mrs. Smith died in 1831, leaving her silverware to her daughter, Mrs. Mary Keifer, the mother of Gen. J. Warren Keifer." When asked about it, W. W. Keifer said there were some solid silver spoons with that bit of history.   In the home of Miss Mary Spinning on Belmont Avenue are samples, slippers, vases and decorated china brought from eastern markets by Pierson Spinning in the early days of Springfield history. There are family portraits of the Knickerbocker style that are highly prized for their antiquity. There is a picture of Miss Harriet Spinning who died the promised bride of Griffith Foos, Jr., the two pioneer families being social leaders in Springfield.   The dread of the settler was the horse thief, while the bandits now steal Fords and other automobiles. When a farmer had a horse stolen in the spring, he could not plant his crops until he located the stolen horse or bought another. It was a hardship to lose a horse. Years ago there were horse traders drifting from one town to another, and swapping was practiced on the streets. As a boy, Samuel S. Miller was riding to Cincinnati with a man who traded horses three times en route, and the last horse died the day he traded for it. The man gave a silver watch to a farmer for another horse, finally reaching Cincinnati. When there were hay markets there were horse traders, but parking places are now infested with automobile thieves, crime adapting itself to changed conditions. The book, David Harum, describes the horse trade epoch in history.   In 1840, when Gen. William Henry Harrison was to deliver a political address in Springfield, word reached him that caused him to leave the Werden Hotel, where he had dinner, and go to his home at North-bend. It rained that day and when the boys in the line of march broke ranks they were given a free dinner in the Springfield market house. Granny Icenberger was still in business and many bought cakes from her. A log cabin was built in the streets and other speakers were secured when General Harrison, who rode out of town in an open barouche, was not available. In 1921 Gen. J. Warren Keifer was the speaker when a monument was unveiled in honor of General Harrison at Northbend.   When William Palmer of Mad River Township heard some wolves among his sheep, he took down Old Cad, his trusty rifle, and loaded it. He fired it, killing two of his own oxen, but why grieve over spilled milk? As he loaded the gun again, he consoled himself, saying : "Old Cad always fetches them."   Adam Reid of Mad River Township was the first Clark County farmer to have rag carpet in his house and later on he was the first to have upholstered furniture. He came by water to Sandusky in 1826 and overland from there to Springfield.   Years ago when William Pretzman made candy in Springfield, he allowed a group of men who wanted something to occupy their time to wrap it, and eat as much as they wanted of it. They did it for pastime. Mr. Pretzman knew human nature, for in a short time these men swapped stories while wrapping candy and did not eat any of it. There   SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 539   were no labor unions nor civic clubs, and wrapping candy brought the men together in a social way.   While the mill boys were reputed to balance the grain with a stone when going to mill with the sway-backed horse, it remained f or a Pleasant Township farmer to balance harrow teeth with a stone, when he was taking them in a bag to the blacksmith to have them sharpened. When a school teacher married her recipe made such a large cake she could not use all of it. When a neighbor told her to divide it she asked whether it were long or short division—she could do either, but dividing a recipe perplexed her.   The first circus visited Springfield in the middle '30s and pitched its tent on Mill Run east from Market street, the circus space extending from the site of the Arcade east to Limestone Street. There was horseback riding by the "limber boys" and strong men supported the 1,000-pound cannon. The ringmaster told the ladies not to be too alarmed when the cannon was fired and although assured of its harmlessness, the explosion frightened everybody. After the smoke cleared away four men came into the ring with spikes and carried the cannon and the frame outside. When the strong man changed from "all f ours" to an upright position, it was the wonder of the show—the topic of conversation—but the people then had not seen the three-ring circus, the thrills of which are forgotten immediately, and a year later they go again.   When the Van Amburg show visited South Charleston the first time the people all went to look at the wild animals. They fed cakes to the monkeys and apples to the elephants and when General Harrod thought to be generous with a hatful of apples for the elephants, one took the hat and all into his trunk. The laugh was on the soldier. While the circus now has its special train, those early shows were drawn by the elephants and sometimes they refused to cross bridges until they tested them. An elephant would lean against a barn and if it could not push it over it would draw the wagon in out of a shower.   When Waitstel Cary was a Springfield hatter, he had a sign that represented an Indian in the act of shooting a beaver. He used a bow and arrow, and the suggestion was that beaver hats were made in Springfield. His hats were of the latest fashion and of superior quality. They were stiffened with glue and napped with coon, mink or rabbit fur, and sometimes when the glue melted it run down on the wearer's face, causing trouble for the hatter. On May 10, 1825, Cary, the hatter, left Springfield with his family in covered wagons to try his fortune farther west. The citizens gathered to see him start and since the Cary children walked to drive the cows along, Springfield children accompanied them to the edge of the town.   The Cary family followed the trail which is now the National Road, and June 5, 1825, they stopped in Indiana, where they acquired land, and when he laid off the town he called it Knightstown in honor of Captain Knight of the United States Army, who surveyed and established the location of the National Road through Ohio, and whom Mr. Cary had seen in Springfield. There was demand for lots in Knightstown and the poverty-stricken Springfield hatter soon became a rich man in Indiana.   When George L. Wingate was a boy at Catawba, he one time engaged to drive a carriage for Nathan M. McConkey and wife to Urbana. They were going away and the boy was to bring the carriage back to Catawba.   540 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY   It was sheltered under a shed where the hogs wallowed in the dust to ward off the flies and the carriage was full of fleas from the swine. The boy was sensitive to fleas and squirmed all of the way to Urbana, too bashful to tell Mr. McConkey what troubled him. Since one flea is enough to drive a dog to distraction, how about a small boy and a carriage full of fleas. Under changed conditions a story like that is unusual ; barnyards are more sanitary today.   In the Todd genealogy is this line: "We can scarcely realize what a vast difference exists between Clark County and the whole country Grandfather and Grandmother Todd knew at the time of their wedding, January 28, 1819," and that was one year of ter Clark was an organized county. "Springfield was a straggling village and the country round about was a wilderness save for the few clearings about the farm houses. They used to come to Springfield on horseback. * * * They did not have to go far to find deer, and until recent years a number of antlers were lying about the premises."   A Springfield man says : "The flag should be hoisted at sunrise and taken down at sunset ; it should never be permitted to fly after dark." A Sun editorial reads : "The flag passed by. On the sidewalks f ewpitif ully few—paid any attention. A soldier was being buried and the flag passed by. One man stepped to the curb, removed his hat and held it across his breast. He was one among hundreds. He was not the only patriotic man on the street as the flag with forty-eight stars went by, but he was the only one not too preoccupied to think what the flag meant and to salute it. * * * Hats off, men, the flag."   When W. W. Hyslop had chicken thieves the bandits suffered a loss in excess of the value of the stolen property. When he missed the hens he found a purse with $200 in it, and since only fifty hens were stolen the price left for them was satisfactory. When strangers came later to buy chickens, Mr. Hyslop said they were "sold," but the would-be buyers asked the privilege of seeing the poultry. They looked at the ground more than at the chickens they had left, but the purse had been removed to a place of safety. They had returned for the money.   Clark County is making war on homeless dogs, a deputy touring the country in search of dogs held without license by their owners, and it is reported that before the "dog catcher" was on the trail Springfield was full of dogs, and a clipping reads : "The man swears that he has seen dog after dog either maimed or killed, sitting in the most dangerous spot on the street, right where all the automobiles and street cars and other vehicles cross and recross a million a minute."   A stray horse was "officially discovered" October 11, 1921, and it was the policeman's duty to leave it in a livery stable where it was given hay and oats, and had a life of ease. It had been found wandering aimlessly about the streets. When no one claimed it the liveryman was instructed to sell it. He received $3 for it. He sent a bill to the city for $12, the balance due for feeding the horse fifteen days at $1 a day, and it developed that Chief R. E. O'Brien had written on the bill : "Horse was poor in flesh and old," when sending it to the city manager, E. E. Parsons, for settlement. What would the Springfield Humane Society have done with the horse?   What kind of a history would it be that did not carry a haunted house story? Such a house once stood in the woodland foot path along the Valley Pike near the Snyder homestead. It was a deserted log cabin.   SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 541   Wild tales were told in the neighborhood about the dismal sights and the hideous noises. When passing the cabin after night, people approached it with fear and hesitation. They heard strange noises and to their sharpened ears they were like groans as if violence were being done and often long detours were made to escape the sounds.   One night William Overpack ventured along the path and when he heard the noise he summoned courage and approached the cabin. The noises were distressing and he hesitated, then advanced again, wondering why departed spirits should wrangle in a place deserted by all save the bats. Not believing in the supernatural, Overpack determined to find out what material cause created the disturbance. He secured a cudgel and approached the cabin. When he looked in at the window he found that a dozen hogs from the woods had found shelter. They came every night, but hitherto none had investigated the situation. The nocturnal noises were terrifying to the community, who believed in goblins and were shy of haunted houses.   While there were fiddlers among the pioneers and people used to hold neighborhood dances on the cabin floors, the public is now taught to "trip the light fantastic toe," and since 1904, when a dancing school was established in Springfield, W. E. Goodfellow has trained 21,500 students in the terpsichorean art. Polite and modest dancing is taught and there are beginners every month. The social dances each month include students and graduates, and "dancing school" is recognized in polite society as a necessity.   CHAPTER LXII   YESTERDAY AND TODAY IN CLARK COUNTY   As men and women grow older they multiply their yesterdays ; when they begin living in the past, their todays mean less to them than their yesterdays. The people of yesterday in Clark County discussed the weather and the prospect for crops as readily as today, never failing in their compassion for the poor among them, but again : "The shadow moveth over the dial plate of time," and the personnel of the community is changed today. "Some of us have been here a long time and have witnessed many changes," said a venerable gentleman to whom yesterday and today 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.   The pioneer gentleman in full dress was a handsome picture, and his name was legion, saying nothing about the rest of Clark County society. Then, as now, the f allies and foibles of womankind were themes of never-dying interest, and the bustle (a Springfield invention) and the hoopskirt (farthingale) were alternately laughed at and frowned against and the abbreviated skirt has had the same attention. The hoopskirt as an advertisement in a store window was called a squirrel trap and when men and women see it today they do not recognize it. Sometimes women intuitively guess it and compare it with the scant dress skirt of 1921, and wonder which is the extreme of fashion. While women continue to wear lace in winter and furs in summer they need not be surprised at anything decreed by fashion.   There are no knee breeches and high collars worn and Springfield men do not attract attention because of garments worn by them, although they are guilty of looking back at some of the costumes effected by the women. The woman wearing a long skirt attracts the same attention—different from the others. The Dr. Mary Walker costume has been seen in Springfield and people soon reconcile themselves to anything. Today the sons of yesterday meet and master all difficulties as they present themselves but more of the observations are rural in character because history had its beginning in the country.   At one time the Clark County rural production was more than the local home consumption, and cheap prices prevailed in the community. When home-made devices were in general use, most of the people lived in the country. By and by the trend to Springfield changed the industrial situation, notwithstanding the high percentage of farms in Clark County still operated by those who own them. When the producer becomes a consumer he helps reduce the surplus and to increase the prices and the "oldest inhabitants" all discuss the cost of everything. They used to take their guns and shoot squirrels in the woods, but now they buy the food they eat and pay well for it.   Someone asks: "Do you remember way back when farmers did all their trading at the store and paid their bills at the end of the year, and the storekeeper would give the man a hat and the woman a calico dress?" They do not follow that custom today. The merchant turns his money oftener and sells on a smaller margin of profit and discusses   - 542 -   SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 543   his overhead expenses with the thought of reducing them. In the old days the clerks were on duty at 7 :00 o'clock and off at 9 o'clock in the evening, but there are different regulations today. Time was in Clark County when there was a factory before every hearthstone, the father making the shoes and the mother knitting and weaving, and making all the garments, but that changed when the soldiers came back from the Civil war. They found they could buy ready-to-wear garments cheaper than they could make them and where would the farmer obtain the leather and the linen thread were he inclined to sit on the shoemaker's bench again?   Instead of gasoline filling stations in every town and crossroads, there used to be water troughs arid roadside drinking places for man and beast, but what has become of the well and the old-fashioned pump sometimes characterized as the one-armed bartender ? Yesterday the sawmill was here and the grist mill was there—Mad River was lined with both—but they are almost unknown today. What has become of the mill boy and the sway-back horse? The footfall of the ages answers the question. The stories of today differ from the stories of yesterday. The things that seemed improbable yesterday are facts today—automobiles, airplanes, cash registers, ditching machines, the moving pictures. Who says "Backward, turn backward, oh time in thy flight. Make me a child once more for tonight." -While some would like to be children again, would they want a repetition of their own childhood conditions?   There was a clay when the young men of Clark County thought they were well dressed when they wore bright colored, double-breasted vests—a tooth brush sticking out of one pocket and a gold toothpick in the other. They were supposed to wear trousers long and if they   544 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY   happened to be short somebody said "high water" to them. Everyone had his "individual" napkin ring and every young man had a drinking cup inscribed "For a good boy." Long-stemmed cake stands were in use and a caster with salt, pepper and vinegar occupied the center of the table. Yes, Clark County folk used to put clean straw in the bed ticks after threshing and before the straw was weatherbeaten—not so long ago—they would lift the parlor carpet and put fresh straw under it. They had not thought about rugs and hardwood floors.   Only a generation ago children were taught:   "Early to bed and early to rise Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise,"   although today it is well unnderstood that one following that admonition would seldom meet the social leaders of Springfield. That long ago strictly nice people had upper and lower limbs—nothing so ordinary as arms and legs—and the youngsters shooed the flies from the dinner table with peach tree limbs or brushes made from newspapers. Slate-rags were still in vogue—spit on the slate and polish with the rag—and it was a mark of quality to have pen-wipers made from bright-colored material—young men got penwipers for Christmas presents. The young men wore stiff-bosomed white shirts that buttoned on the shoulder and a fellow was considered wealthy when he wore leather gloves. A penny then was as large as a fifty-cent piece today.   On the last day of school a mark of respect was shown the teacher when the whole community brought basket dinners and listened to the "pieces" in the afternoon. They "passed the hat" when taking up the church collection, and whenever a white horse went by everybody looked around for a red-haired woman—not the chemical variety. When the settlers went out in the evening they carried torches to light their way home again, but now the automobile headlight serves the purpose and the electric light has come to the rescue of the pedestrian. There were trails blazed through the forests but now signs mark the highways and the tourist never is uncertain about his course in passing through Clark County. Just note the procession—buggies, carriages, automobiles, and then lift the curtain to witness the ox team and the jolt wagon.   Those who "cooned" the fences and stepped from log to log half a century ago, would not recognize Clark County under changed conditions. While they were men of vision, they would be surprised at every step along the wayside today. The Clark County settler 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—all united in declaring that nothing better has supplanted them under present-day conditions of civilization. They would be content with the half loaf if they were as certain of the quality. While the men and women of the past made the most of their opportunities, what would they accomplish under present-day environment? The types develop to suit the needs of their day and generation. Circus men say that the fat woman, the midget, the human skeleton have had their day. They no longer appeal and if Barnum were alive today his side show would have mechanical marvels instead of human freaks. While people were once interested in the human being, they now care for his accomplishments.   SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 545   Housewives in Springfield thought the butcher a swindler when he asked them eleven cents a pound for a Thanksgiving turkey but now that he has multiplied the price by seven they pay it cheerfully, but would the men and the women of the past have adapted themselves to the changed conditions ? Would the men and the women of today be equal to their difficulties? What about the affairs of yesterday as compared with human relations today? What does education have to do with it?   In the formative days of Clark 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 backlog with a forestick of indeterminate length. They knew what it meant to burn one side and freeze the other, and they knew what it meant to have burned leather when the split leather used in shoes became water-soaked, and they must dry it. They knew the "sizzle" of tobacco spit on the side of a log of wood being burned, but the furnace heat of today—the register or the radiator would have alarmed them ; they were used to open fires and roaring chimneys. Along at that time the well-to-do citizens—Springfield and other communities—had bright colored ingrain carpet in the "best room," hanging lamp and a marble topped center table—sometimes marble topped bedroom furniture—and there was an easel in the corner with a portrait of some ancestor on it. There was a large Bible on the center table, with the family genealogy written in it.   The bathroom with sanitary plumbing was an unknown quantity to the settler, and the present day methods of agriculture would have dumbfounded him. When the naked trees and brown meadows proclaimed that all nature would soon take a rest, there were hickory nuts, walnuts and apples with which to pass the winter evenings, and while the corn pone of the past would be consumed with relish by the men and women of today, there are some who tired of substitutes and the bread made from corn as a war measure recently. 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. The cattle in the Clark County pasture fields would remind him of the Bible narrative—the cattle on a thousand hills, etc.   Only yesterday you sat down to a meal table d'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. Today you run the gauntlet of a cafeteria, and if your money holds out you secure a meal, find your own table and tip yourself when pleased with the service. One time the boy with a blacking outfit—his own individual kit—was seen on the street corner and while you "took a lean on the bank," he would spit on his brush, spit on your shoe, and give you "such another polish," but today the Greeks have a monopoly on the "shines," with a "hole in the wall" called a shining parlor. The bootblack was a newsboy certain times in the day, but he has been off the street for several years.   While the settler went to the woods with his gun when in need of meat for his dinner, the citizen of today depends upon Armour and Swift for sugar cured hams and bacon ; if he has a smoke house, there is a lock and key to it. While the more thrifty Clark County pioneer sometimes had potatoes on the dinner table, they could live without them. The settler dug sassafras roots for the family beverage, and his wife   546 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY   brewed a tea that served as an excellent spring tonic. Who has not listened to the stories of how sassafras and spicewood tea thinned the blood after the pioneers had consumed salt pork and but few vegetables all winter ? The Springfield housewives know that spring is coming again when they see sassafras in market.   The transition from wilderness conditions to the cultivated fields and their products, meant self-denial of the strictest nature to the settlers along Mad River. Time was when the Clark County housewife went to the woods for her brooms, sometimes making them herself. When brooms were made from saplings the families swept their door yards, a thing almost unknown today. However, conditions imposed by the World war—the war of the nations—have enabled people of today to understand something of the privations of yesterday. In the days when the Clark County pioneer lived on salt pork, there was little said about balanced rations—there were no discussions of diet—children ate what was given them, 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 have studied the digestive requirements, and dinners are planned with some consideration of the stomach and its duties. However, there were better health conditions in some families than in others ; here and there a pioneer mother varied her meals by serving something from the kitchen garden, instead of a continued meat diet. When one thinks of the heavy diet of the settler in winter—always ate meat to keep him warm; he did not say to create animal heat —and it is little wonder the blood would run thick in the springtime, rendering the quinine bottle on the shelf, where all could help themselves to it, a necessity. When the pioneer doctor prescribed medicine for others, many times he only ordered vegetables for his own household.   In some households, it was heavy diet all of the time ; under such conditions sleepers had dreams, and sometimes they told them. While not all the people have understood it, vegetable diet always has given them better digestion. 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 ; however, it is quite as necessary for man as for the lower animals. The law of balanced rations is not new, but the pioneers had not studied it. There are men who are governed by it in the case of livestock, who are very indiscriminate in what they eat themselves. When the settler's diet was always the same : "Yesterday, today and forever," he wondered about the ills of the flesh, not knowing that diet had a lot to do with it.   In the light of domestic science as it is understood today, there are not so many ailments of digestive character. It is generally understood that the best tonic is plenty of fruit and green stuff, and the doctor is seldom consulted because of improper diet. Some one given to imagination scribbled these lines :   "See that lovely country family—why, the sparkle of their eyes, Shows they're dreaming of turkey, and of pumpkin pies,"   but that was the yesterday viewpoint ; today paterfamilias says :   "We'll find a place to eat—we'll have to take a chance— Mother's at a party ; grandmother's at a dance,"   SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 547   but as long as the United States Government expends a quarter of a million dollars annually for garden seed, every Clark County householder with a plot of ground should appeal to the local Congressman for his supply, thereby defeating the medical man in the community.   Some of the Clark County medical fraternity advise diet instead of writing prescriptions. They are employed to keep people well, and when nature is given a chance it corrects its own mistakes. "An apple a day keeps the doctor away," and as much may be said for vegetables, that onions keep even your friends away, and yet there is nothing better as a diet. While some political economists aver that Government garden seeds are a waste of money—they prefer their own selection of seeds—when they produce the necessary variety of "garden sass," there is no gainsaying the fact that they have the best tonic in the world. Are you thinking about the welfare of your own household when the world is full of economic problems?   While the passing years have amalgamated conditions, and there was a strong undercurrent of Kentucky blood in pioneer history in Clark County, the time is not so distant when the passerby recognized the Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, New York or New England farmstead because of the character of the improvements upon it—the earmarks of the settlers. While some of the landmarks remain unchanged, intermarriage has broken the lines of demarcation and in the melting pot of local civilization, no questions are asked—certain groups of foreigners maintaining their identity—the topic uppermost today is whether or not one is making the most of his opportunity. When dreams come true, the whole population returns to the place of its birth and many in Clark County have not wandered at all.   President Benjamin Harrison said : "The gates of Castle Garden never swing outward," and while a survey of nationalities would reveal a greater percentage of foreign born population today, there is a growing sentiment that they be required to communicate only in the language of the community. Yiddish is not American, and the overseas citizens in Springfield are rapidly acquiring the English tongue. The all-inclusive word Buckeye means all things to everybody, and while natives of Clark County are designated as Buckeyes, the foreigners now living in Springfield are peopling the community more rapidly than the Americans. There are all sorts of propaganda—a veritable melting pot of republicans, democrats, prohibitionists, socialists and laborites with all the isms including rheumatism—and yet homespun does not necessarily mean homebrew in Springfield.   From the dawn of Clark County history, its inhabitants have been governed by the Bible injunction that men should marry, and that women should be given in marriage ; that they should multiply and replenish the earth. Sometimes family relations become mathematical equations with which the thirty-second problem in Euclid is easy in the comparison, and the gossip must either hold her tongue or run the risk of talking about somebody's relatives. Men have been married several times, and there are combination families—your children and my children imposing on our children—and all are inclined to make the best of it. After all, what generation in the past has been more abreast of the times, more up-to-date and progressive than the men and women of today ? As he did yesterday, the passerby today will comment on the environment,   Vol. I-35   548 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY   and the careful husbandman will see to it that his farmstead—and the same rule applies to the business or professional man :   "Go make thy garden fair as thou canst ; Thou workest never alone, For he whose plot lies next to thine, May see it and tend to his own."   In the old days when there were livery barns in every town, and the well-to-do families in Springfield all maintained driving horses, they traveled leisurely along the highways and byways, but the livery barn is little more in evidence now than the saloon—but banished from a wholly different reason—the automobile transformed the livery barn into a garage, while prohibition was the undoing of the saloon. Dobbin was too slow, and the speed maniacs have the right-of-way along all of the highways today. They whiz by the farmsteads so rapidly that those in transit do not seem to note the details, and yet if a place is in dishabille, they all—with cars and trucks available, everybody sees the country. While the twentieth century method of cross-country travel is different —the tourists seeming to hold their breath in passing, after all they get rather comprehensive ideas of wayside attractions.   While in the architecture of the past, the cabin roofs were held in place by weight poles, that sort of domicile only exists in memory- Skibo Castle .a modified suggestion of it. With increased wealth came more commodious homes, and hardwood floors are in decided contrast with the puncheons 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 sky-scrapers where even the wheelbarrows are elevated with lifting. machinery ; the hoisting machinery cannot do it all, and finally they send for the hod carrier again. Before the bathroom was installed, children washed their feet when compelled to, and the wash rag for the neck and ears was brought into service when clean underwear was given them; it was only when boys went swimming they knew the luxury of a bath. In some of the homes of the yesterdays no underwear was worn, and there was just as little bathing—Clark County not unlike the rest of the world today nor yesterday.   When the grandmothers of the present generation used to scour their kitchen tables with ashes, the daylight streaming through greased paper windows, nothing was said about home sanitation; the dishwater was thrown out of the kitchen door, and diphtheria thus invited used to reap its toll ; then people had not heard of antitoxin. With the open fireplace there was less tuberculosis, but there was more diphtheria. Home sanitation was not then taught in school nor discussed in society. What do the youngsters of today know about the open fireplace and the broad mantelpiece where the grandfathers and the grandmothers always looked for their pipes and their spectacles, and the shelf under the clock just the right size for the family Bible? What do they know about paterfamilias reading it through every twelve months? When -he read three chapters every day and five chapters on Sunday, there were two Sundays when he need not read it. However, in 1921, one Clark County woman read the Bible through five times.   While the fathers and sons visited the woods with their chopping axes when their mammoth fireplaces must be kept aglow, the day came   SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 549   when there was no more firewood, and today they haul coal from the towns. A great many heat units went up the chimney with the smoke, but then Clark County people had not learned conservation ; they would not sacrifice the straight saplings for cabin logs today, nor would they cut green timber for the fireplace. Six long, slim, slick, slender saplings —can you twist your tongue and repeat the line today ? Repeat it three times, rapidly. While the stick-and-clay chimneys frequently caught fire, there was always some one at home to bring a pail of water ; a precaution rendered necessary because of the intense heat going up the chimney, both the backlogs and foresticks 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 and the mother knit the stockings they had the full realization of sitting before the fire, burning one side and freezing the other, but with registers and radiators, the heating problem offers little suggestion of the old-time methods of warming the cabin ; while the thermostat regulates the furnace, there are some who would gladly chop the firewood again. Were Rip Van Winkle to happen along, he would miss a lot of things in Clark County ; he would miss all the old-time industries, the homespun garments, and the homespun characters who made them. While the mothers and daughters remain in changed relation to the fireside, 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? 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 shackles were removed from the slaves and 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. As people have had need of them, inventions have met every necessity and overcome every difficulty. Who remembers when the dealer weighed commodities over the counter with the old-time steelyards, instead of using the computing scales ; they used to say the butcher put his hand on the scales, and the customer paid him for it. Some one says :   "The sugar prices still remain Both lofty and unstable, We'd bring them down by raising 'Cain,' If only we were 'Abel.' "   and again the World war reconstruction period presents even worse difficulties than that foreshadowed in the wartime ditty.   The high cost of living, "rent hog," and profiteer are economic terms unknown at the close of the Civil war when civilization was less complex ; however, the economists say conditions may be remedied when men and women are ready to return to the simple life of the pioneers ; it is the cost of high living at the bottom of the difficulty. Query : Is it the producer or the consumer who regulates the price of commodities? Politicians say the law of supply and demand still functions, but when the grandmothers cooked before the fire they knew how to get along   550 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY   without commercial commodities ; in these days of high prices people pay them without protest, and the wartime profiteers continue to have their own way about things. While the Arkansaw Traveler may be improvident, he is not alone ; when it is raining one cannot repair the roof, and at other times it does not require attention.   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 ; the Clark County citizen of today does seem to "Take time by the forelock" and look after such trivial things. The Lord Byron quotation about truth being stranger than fiction : "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 !" has not lost its virility today. While only yesterday the, passerby saw the farm boy expending his energies pumping water for the livestock, today power is applied to everything; it is an easy matter to attach a gasoline engine and put into motion all sorts of machinery. While the boy used to turn the corn sheller or the grindstone, and "ride" one end of a cross-cut saw with some one at the other end scolding about it, the farm boy of today hardly comprehends what was required of his counterpart a generation ago.   When the boy had $1 a month spending money he appreciated it, and many boys had no money at all. However, the boy on the Clark County farm is no longer a slave to his environment ; the element of drudgery has been eliminated from it. While he used to ask for biscuits at breakfast, home-made bread does not hold the same place in his life ; sometimes he asks for town bread, and he is no longer ridiculed by his city cousins—perhaps because his hair is cut oftener and by an up-to-date city. barber. What has become of the old-fashioned mother who used to invert a milk crock over her boy's head while she "bobbed" the locks at the edge of it ? The flapper seems to have inherited the "bobbing" process. When the country boys used to come to town, they of ten had to "clean up" on the town boys, but there are no longer fights between the town and the country boys ; when the f arm boy appears in Springfield his garb does not mark him, and the old line of social demarcation between town and country has disappeared from the face of the earth.   One time the question as to who was the best man always had to be settled with clenched fists, and ruffians pulled their coats at the slightest provocation. When the bullies assembled in Springfield and used to form a ring and fight to settle the question of manhood, there were always abettors ; since liquor has been eliminated people are forgetting about street fights. The fights were usually staged in the alleys —they call them courts today—and crap games are about the most startling amusement enacted there. The trees and the wild life of the forest knew nothing of political boundaries, and while farmers used to fence against outside livestock, now they are in no danger from it ; they must keep their own stock in bounds or difficulty ensues. When the bees from an apiary went to a neighbor's well, he complained about them ; in the complexity of civilization there are questions of privilege unknown to the pioneers.   While sometimes "Coals of fire are heaped on the heads" of others, people no longer borrow fires and the woman who lighted her pipe with a coal has long since gone the way of the world. When sickness over-   SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 551   takes the family it is a trained nurse who comes into the home, instead of the friendly ministrations of the neighbor women ; 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 busy with much serving, notwithstanding the fact that Mary of old had chosen the better part while Martha had neglected nothing at all. There are Marys and Marthas today, and Mary seems to get the most out of her life because she omits some of the unnecessary details ; why should a woman blush when found reading a book instead of shining a stove ?   While Martha pats her pickles as she cans them, Mary hurries through with the operation and finds time for magazines, books and newspapers. By her much serving Martha becomes a "bundle of nerves," while Mary finds time to improve her intellectual life. Martha calls the family doctor, while Mary has learned the value of respite from unnecessary drudgery. It is worry—not work—that reduces the vital forces, but unnecessary work seems to produce the worry. Both town and country enjoy social advantages undreamed of a generation ago ; the daily mail, the telephone and radio, the automobile have revolutionized living conditions, and isolation no longer characterizes the rural community.   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 studies the piano, and the son no longer plays the fiddle ; he draws his bow across the strings of the musical violin, and these changes within the memory of men and women not yet grown old in Clark County. The f act may well be emphasized again that there were hardships and privations when every home was a factory ; there were no shoes stores, and there were no ready-to-wear garments, but father and mother were "on the job" and never a word of complaint was heard about it.   CHAPTER LXIII   GOD'S ACRE—CLARK COUNTY CEMETERIES   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?" 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. "There is a Reaper whose name is Death," and he has been abroad in Clark County as well as in the rest of the world.   While there are some who are spared so long they wonder if God has not forgotten them ; spared beyond the allotted years of man, they feel the import of the song : "The Last Rose of Summer Left Blooming Alone," and they more or less impatiently await the summons from the Messenger reputed to ride the pale horse, and they exclaim : -"0 death, where is thy sting ? 0 grave, where is thy victory ?" They fully realize that the shadowy boatman carries passengers only one way across the river—the River of Death ; he never ferries them back again.   James Whitcomb Riley said of a friend :   "I cannot say, and I will not say That he is dead ; he is just away. With a cheery smile and a wave of the hand, He has wandered into an unknown land."   And some one else writes :   "If I should die tonight My friends would look upon my quiet face Before they laid it in its resting place, And deem that death has left it almost fair."   While Thomas Bailey Aldrich raises the question :   "I wonder what day of the week, I wonder what month of the. year— Will it be midnight or morning, And who will bend over my bier ?"   Elijah and Enoch escaped the long rest in the grave because one was carried away in a whirlwind, and the other walked with God and was not, but the tomb is a stately mansion—a dignified tribute to the souls of the departed. When James Demint first platted Springfield he was confronted with the necessity of a burial ground—a God's Acre, and what is now known as Columbia Street—an abandoned cemetery—was the result. Three ordinary city lots were set apart for the burial of the dead, and until 1844 it was universally used by the community. While the Mound Builders and the Indians buried their dead in the mounds scattered about in Clark County, the Demint or Columbia Street Cemetery was the first burial plot connected with civilized life in the community.   - 553 -   554 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY   While there was some discussion of utilizing this space for the location of Memorial Hall, sentiment was against it. The history of the community is inscribed on those antique markers—the names of early settlers—and now that walks have been constructed and seats have been placed in the shade, it seems that the dead will be allowed to rest in peace. Mention is elsewhere made of the care given Columbia and Greenmount Cemeteries by the Springfield Park Board. An old account of a funeral service of an unknown soldier, conducted by the Rev. Saul Henkle, most likely at this cemetery, says : "The coffin rested on a simple bier carried on the shoulders of four men walking to the grave ; the preacher walked before and the mourners behind the body ; the people walked from the church to the cemetery in twos and twos, and the women separate from the men. When the procession began to move from the church to the church-yard, Reverend Henkle started the solemn hymn :   "Hark, from the tomb a doleful sound, Mine ear attend the cry ; Ye living men, come view the ground Where you must shortly lie."   and all joined in the processional singing. John Lingle, who met his death in a powder mill explosion in Springfield in 1809, had a similar funeral service.   There are stories told of solitary, sequestered graves, and in early days many families had burial plots on their own land ; there are more unmarked graves in town than in rural cemeteries. Knob Prairie was the first burial plot outside of Springfield. When the population was scattered, and there were not so many buried in the Springfield cemeteries, the care of burial plots had not yet claimed attention, although it was a trait of the Indians to smooth the surf ace, thereby hiding the graves of their dead. The Paul family massacre in 1790 rendered the burial of five persons a necessity, and yet it was like the burial of Moses—there is no upturned sod along Honey Creek marking the spot where they were buried two days later by the son and daughter.   In 1842 there was agitation of the question of a new burial plot farther from the center of population than Columbia Street, and in 1845 a deal was consummated through which a tract of land along the National Road and outside the city limits was secured from Cyrus Armstrong ; it was to supplant Columbia Street Cemetery and was called Greenmount. The conservative city fathers who were party to the deal did not anticipate the growth of Springfield in that direction. While Columbia Street was abandoned as a burial plot the hallowed clay never was commercialized, and now Greenmount is in the same class with it —an abandoned cemetery. In 1921 the city began beautifying both cemeteries, rendering them attractive to the living as well as habitations of the dead, some of the leading citizens lying there.   In 1848 a hillside vault or mausoleum was constructed for the use of a family named Bell—popular story says Mayor Bell, although at the same time Springfield did not have a city charter providing for the office of mayor. Different stories are afloat ; when Mr. Bell's body had been there fifty years—another story is 100 years—it is to be consigned to earth, and a second metallic casket containing the body of a daughter was laid in the vault, but the wife left different instructions relative to   SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 555   her body. The vault is decayed and boards have been nailed across the entry, and the problem is what to do with it ; there are no relatives in the community. While Greenmount is high and dry, the growth of the City of Springfield in that direction changed its desirability as a burial plot. It was a serious consideration with leading citizens.   On June 13, 1863, William Warder brought the matter of a future burial ground before the Springfield council and a committee was appointed to investigate other sites. Columbia and Greenmount were already shrines for many families, and they must not make the same mistake again; they must anticipate the growth of the city. Both were well located in their day, but as time went by the city built around them. The time had come in Springfield when, "The names we love to hear, have been writ for many a year, on their tombs."   An old account says, in 1804 there were four graves in what is now known as the "old graveyard," one of which was the grave of Mrs. James Demint, who died in 1803 and whose name does not appear on tax-duplicates because the plat of Springfield had not become a matter of record at Xenia, and there is mention elsewhere of the death in Urbana of the man who platted the cemetery, and a second Mrs. Demint had the body brought to Springfield for burial—most likely in Demint or Columbia Street Cemetery. One account says of the early cemeteries : "On modest tombstones was inscribed the time the man came into the world and when he left it." Some Revolutionary gravestones may be seen in the Columbia Street Cemetery, but Henry Watterson says :   "A mound of earth a little higher graded ; Perhaps upon a stone a chiseled name ; A dab of printer's ink, soon blurred and faded- And then oblivion—that—that is fame."   The names in the Springfield and Clark County Directories do not coincide with the names on some of those early tombstones—even the name of Demint being unknown in Springfield today. In time many of the pioneers are forgotten, unless they are commemorated in biographical sketches by their posterity now enjoying the fruition of their labors. One enthusiastic marble dealer declares that progress in civilization is shown by the marks of lasting respect paid to the dead, and some one less sentimental exclaims : "What shall avail a man if he is principal depositor at a bank, when it comes to riding behind horses that wear plumes ?" It is related that at the height of its ancient civilization Egypt built costly pyramids for its kings and queens, and that their mummified bodies are still preserved in them. While Methuselah and Noah attained to ripe old age they did not escape dissolution, and sacred history relates that Abraham bought the cave Machpelah and had its rocky interior cut into crypts or compartments for himself and Sarah, and finally they were 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, although that form of burial has not attained to much popularity in Springfield. While in Westminster Abbey the graves are on top of one another, that condition will hardly prevail in Clark County before cremation gains in popularity or the many burial plots become more crowded than   SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 557   at present. It is a comforting thought as friends stand by the graves : "The good that men do lives after them, while the evil is interred with their bones," and when the returned traveler asks about prominent citizens of forty or fifty years ago he likes to stand at their graves, exclaiming: "0 for the touch of the vanished hand and the sound of the voice that is still," and since life is but a workshop, a preparatory school for the hereafter, why shrink from the grave ?   The community builders in Springfield were concerned about the final disposition of their bodies, the community having already outstripped two cemetery locations in its growth and development, and August 3, 1863, the committee appointed in June met and adopted plans for the organization of a cemetery association ; it was to be a stock company, the shares placed at $300 with the subscriptions regarded in the nature of loans, with Dr. Robert Rodgers, S. A. Bowman and D. Shaffer as trustees for three years ; G. S. Foos and Chandler Robbins for two years, and William Warder and Dr. John Ludlow for the one-year term—a board of seven trustees—and when $10,000 had accrued from the shares the stockholders authorized the purchase of suitable property for the future city of the dead in Springfield.   Before the end of the year the board purchased seventy acres from the heirs of Henry Bechtel, and named the place Ferncliff. In 1864 there was a dedication service, at which time the Hon. Samson Mason was the master of ceremonies, and the devotions were conducted by Dr. Samuel Sprecher of Wittenberg College. When Dr. Ezra Keller, the first president of Wittenberg, died in 1849 his body was consigned to earth in a lonely spot in the northwest corner of the college campus, with a wilderness bordering it that is now Ferncliff Cemetery, and there was another burial—he found final resting place in Ferncliff. While one student who died in a college dormitory was buried on the campus, his bones were later transferred to Ferncliff.   The Ferncliff Cemetery now includes 220 acres, with fifty acres devoted to burial plots, and at the end of 1921 there were more than 20,000 lowly mounds representing the last resting place of that many persons, and while in Ferncliff and other Clark County cemeteries there are impressive monuments pointing skyward, some prefer the field boulder to mark their final resting place—a mark of beauty as well as simplicity. There are no marble monuments except the markers furnished by the United States Government at the graves of soldiers, since marble is not durable in local climate. The Cemetery Rules and Regulations bar the use of marble, and while as yet no design has been selected for markers at the graves of World war soldiers, it should be of some other stone. It is suggested that the G. A. R. mound in the center of Ferncliff is now tenanted by the third race of people since the Moundbuilders constructed it and the Indians used it. While it has been graded and made more symmetrical, there is no doubt about its use by prehistoric people ; there are other mounds in the vicinity, and there is unmistakable evidence that the hill on which the Springfield City Hospital is located was once a burial plot, but the skeletons unearthed there disintegrated so quickly when exposed to air that it was impossible to secure definite data about them.   In the chapter on Clark County mounds there is mention of the discovery of human bones, and within the last few months workmen grading in another part of Ferncliff Cemetery unearthed bones attributed   SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 559   to an earlier race. Since Ferncliff Cemetery was opened in time of the Civil war, public approval was given to this central mound as a burial plot for soldiers who died without relatives who claimed their bodies for private burial in family lots. On Decoration Day the G. A. R. mound is the center from which all graves are visited under direction of the surviving soldiers of the Civil war, Mitchell Post, G. A. R.   When war-time prosperity was sweeping the country many hitherto unmarked graves received attention :   "Graven deep on the stones that mark Proudly the tomb of the patriarch ; Naming his virtues, one by one, Stricken down ere his work was done."   And while many graves are marked, some f amilies have adopted the patriarchal custom and lay their dead in mausoleums, as : Bushnell, Bookwalter, Leffel, Gladfelter, Blee, Mast and Baldwin, in Ferncliff. There are no community mausoleums, and the Ferncliff Association does not encourage the plan, the upkeep in future remaining an uncertainty. Until crypts are filled the unsealed community mausoleums are unsatisfactory. Ferncliff has a temporary receiving vault built into the cliffs, and few transient visitors discover it. In 1918, when the ground was frozen so deep, it was used more than at any other time in the cemetery's history.   The practice of cremation is limited, and the potter's field only lingers in memory ; the single grave solves the question, and when burial is by the county there is a plot at the county farm; the rural cemeteries offer cheaper burial privileges and there is no potter's field in Ferncliff. The last report of Superintendent Stanford J. Perrott showed that twenty-two percent of those buried in Ferncliff were under ten years of age, carrying out the Bible statement that the old must and that the young may die—that there is no lease on life. Within the year 48,900 square feet of sod had been used covering new-made graves, and about three acres—Sylvan Hill, where the bones were unearthed—had been added to available burial space, and four and one-half acres had been purchased from the Moffett estate by the Association.   In 1868 a house was built for Louis Kindle, who was cemetery superintendent until his death in the '90s, having begun his duties at Greenmount and been transferred to Ferncliff. There is mention also of John Dick, who was connected with the cemetery for more than forty years in landscape capacity ; he studied landscape design in the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburg, coming to the United States in 1854, and finding employment on Long Island as a landscape gardener ; when he came to Ferncliff he developed what nature lacked, keeping the same general outline, thus combining art with nature and picturesque Fern-cliff is the result. Whether seen in winter, when covered with a blanket of snow, or in summer, with its green carpet earth—it is the spot that many wanderers think of as their place of final rest—the rest in the grave.   "I'll sing you a song of the world and its ways, And the many strange people we meet,"   and not many days go by that some one is not buried in Ferncliff that died in some other part of the country. While more than 20,000 per-   560 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY   sons now constitute the silent city, the superintendent has definite knowledge of all who make up the city of the dead; if families kept better records, burial would present fewer difficulties. None are received for burial unless full information accompanies the application ; the superintendent must have knowledge of friends or relatives. From the proceeds of lot sales the acreage has been increased from seventy to 220 acres, and the members of the original Ferncliff Association are all sleeping within its borders.   While the Ferncliff superintendent allows people the privilege of planting in other parts of the cemetery, nothing is planted on the graves ; the lot owner is part owner of the cemetery, and all graves are cared for by the Association. Shrubbery must be in conformity with the general landscape plan, and monuments and mausoleums are placed under the same regulations. Ferncliff Cemetery is the connecting link in the Springfield chain of parks along Buck Creek, and while strangers unaccompanied by friends are not admitted, the drive connecting Cliff and Snyder Parks affords a view of Ferncliff and Wittenberg. No natural scenery in the world surpasses the beauty of the cemetery and the college campus as seen from the drive, the name Ferncliff telling its own story, and who would hesitate in leaving his dead in such environment?   The Catholics have separate burial plots adjoining Springfield ; in 1853 Rev. Morris Howard secured three acres two miles east of the city along the National Road and established a place of burial, but the spot never was consecrated and in 1864 Father Thisse purchased six acres on Lagonda Avenue outside the corporate limits of Springfield, and for a time it was used by all Catholics, but now the city surrounds it and space is utilized and Calvary Cemetery is the place of burial   SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 561   from St. Raphaels and some other Catholic churches. Calvary Cemetery includes twenty acres near Locust Grove, and the site was dedicated November 1, 1889, the first person buried there being Patrick Welch. In 1878 St. Bernard's Catholic Church, under the leadership of Father Schuchardt, purchased ten acres of ground which was consecrated by the Most Reverend J. B. Purcell—this cemetery near the Springfield Country Club.   Civilization encroached on the Lagonda Cemetery as well as on Columbia Street and Greenmount, and Calvary is an outlying place. In Madison Township there are two cemeteries at South CharlestonGreenlawn and Pleasant Grove—and two Friends cemeteries. William Mattison was the first person buried at South Charleston. Greenlawn is mentioned as a beautiful cemetery.   There are burial plots in Harmony at Plattsburg, South Vienna, Fletcher Chapel, Sims Chapel, Brighton, Rags and Lisbon—no recent burials in some of them. In Pleasant the burial plots are: Asbury Chapel, Vernon, McConkey and Botkin. In Moorefield : Pleasant Hill, Walnut Hill and an abandoned plot at Bowlusville. Beside Columbia Street, Greenmount, Ferncliff, Lagonda, St. Bernard, and Calvary, already mentioned in Springfield Township are Vale. Newcomers, Emery Chapel and the Masonic, I. 0. 0. F. and K. of P. Fraternal Homes. Greene Township has one burial plot, Garlough, and Mad River has the cemetery at Enon and two abandoned plots. In Bethel the Mennonite Cemetery, Donnelsville and New Carlisle beside the potter's field at the County Home and the abandoned burial plot marking the site of New Boston near Fort Tecumseh. In Pike there are burial plots at North Hampton, Myers, New Jerusalem, Ebeneezer and Reams. In German Township there are cemeteries at Lawrenceville and Tremont City.   When the County Home, known that long ago as Infirmary, was removed from Northern Heights to Bethel, the graves were leveled and the sleepers will remain—six feet of earth being the recognized right of all, and while there always will be unmarked graves, in the Donnelsville Cemetery is the grave of Jonathan Donnel, made there in 1812, and through all the years it has been unmarked. In the rooms of the Clark County Historical Society is a tombstone sacred to his memory, with the inscription : Jonathan Donnel died April 5, 1812, and the epitaph reads :   "Depart, ye friends, and dry up your tears, Dead I must be till Christ appears,"   and while it is not a new theology it is couched in unique words. The man died of his own hand, and this tombstone was sheltered in the spring house at the Donnel farm in Bethel Township for eighty years before it was finally brought to the rooms of the Historical Society. Jonathan Donnel was contemporary with David Lowry on Mad River.   Mention has been made of Reuben Miller, who was active in the '30s, '40s, and '50s and died in the '60s, although Henry Howe, who says : "Learn to laugh time out of his arithmetic," says he died in 1880, has written his own epitaph, which reads :   562 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY   "Here lies a man—a curious one, No one can tell what good he's done Nor yet how much of evil ; Where now his soul is, who can tell? In heaven above, or low in hell? With God or with the devil?   "While living here he oft would say That he must shortly turn to clay And quickly rot— This thought would sometime cross his brain That he perhaps might live again, And maybe not.   "As sure as he in dust doth lie He died because he had to die, But much against his will ; Had he got all that he desired This man would never have expired ; He had been living still."   But if it was ever chiseled in granite no one mentioned it. By request it is published again.   There are funeral directors who speak of doing a good business—do not have money to burn but to bury—unless they are alert, and when one advertised "Sympathetic Funeral Service $50 and Up," the wag said he "would like a $100 job," and then a visitor to a cemetery exclaimed: "Here lie the dead and here the living lie," when he read some tributes on grave stones. A literary jokesmith declares :   "A little bit of Taffy, when one's alive, I say Beats a lot of Epitaphy when one has passed away,"   and in serious vein another says :   "'T is better to send a cheap bouquet To a friend that's living this very day, Than a bushel of roses—white and red, To lay on his coffin when he's dead."   The epitaph hunter would find nothing unusual in local cemeteries, love for the dead manifesting itself in the form of suitable markers at the graves. Lagonda Chapter D. A. R. did the community a service in erecting the Revolutionary shrine in Ferncliff, and when the time comes in family history that more of its members are sleeping in the cemeteries than surround the fireside—relatives and friends so many times the remnants of once large families, are impressed with the sacred duty of keeping their memories green ; to them God's Acre always will be a hallowed spot—a sacred shrine to which their pilgrim feet will turn whenever opportunity presents itself.