HISTORICAL COLLECTION OF OHIO, By Henry Howe, LL.D. 1898 TRAVELING NOTES "You must see Gen. Eckley when you visit Carrollton," said various parties when I was in the counties adjoining. "He can tell you everything." He was, they said, "a man of great public spirit and large intelligence." On the evening of my arrival, Friday, June 11, I found two old gentlemen seated on a dry-goods box on a street corner -I may say two old boys -engaged in a social chat; and one of these was Capt. John Beatty, the first sheriff of Carroll county,; the other Gen. Ephraim R. Eckley, who was a judge before he was a general -a man of law before a man of war. His first greeting was, "You've grown old since I have seen you." I did not remember to have ever seen him, but must have done so when formerly here -when I took the old view shown on an adjoining page -took it as one told me he remembered seeing me seated on a wheel-barrow in the centre of the street. Gen. Eckley has lived almost the entire period of the history of the State; was born in 1811. Having been long in public life, he has witnessed many changes. Among his experiences was his being in at the death of the Whig party in 1854; the Free-Soil party, in nautical phrase, had "taken its wind." He was then the Whig candidate for the United States Senate, which was the last effort of the Whigs at organization. In 1861 he served in the Virginia campaign under Rosecrans; later, under Sherman, had command at Paducah; in April, 1862, was elected to Congress, where he remained until 1869. He gave me these interesting items, illustrating the morals of the people here, viz: that the jail was generally empty, and when used at all it was largely for violation of some police arrangement; and that from 1842 to 1863, a period of twenty-one years, Carroll county had not supplied a single inmate for the penitentiary. Other counties in Ohio, I find, can give a like record. Such, however, have mainly rural populations. GENERAL HARRISON AND THE HONEST GERMAN. -On July 4, 1838, Harrison addressed a Whig meeting at Massillon, and the next day came here and "put up" at the tavern of David J. Levy. In the evening he made an impromptu address from the hotel steps. Next morning he arose early to take a walk before breakfast, the ostensible purpose being to get a drink from John Young's spring, a spot on the outskirts where Mr. Young had a tannery with a bath-house and fine spring of water. On his arrival there he met Jonas Miller, an honest, simple-hearted German, on his way to town. Harrison bade him good morning, and observing he had his hand done up in a bandage, asked him "What was the matter with it?" he replied he had a felon on it and was going to town to get a drink of whiskey; thought it would ease the pain. Harrison advised him kindly not to drink, it would be only the worse for him, gave him a receipt for its cure and the twain walked into the town together. Harrison was dressed in a plain suit of fustian, and, after parting from Miller, some one asked the latter if he knew whom he had been talking with? He replied "No." When told, he was so overcome that he sat down and cried like a child. Miller had been a strong Democrat, but thenceforth was an enthusiastic Harrison man. In speaking of this event he would say in broken English; "Mein Gott, it was the great Gineral Harrison that walked down the street and talked with me and cured my felon." RURAL SIGHTS. -Having slept upon the General's chat I took a walk the next morning. There is an advantage in these small towns; a few steps take one into the country where the green earth, and the blue sky have an open chance to look at each other square in the face and exchange notes; and there, too -and it is not a small matter -are the cattle on a thousand hills, peaceful, patient and picturesque; chewing the cud and whilom keeping the fly-brush agoing and often with a rhythm so well pronounced that some painstaking, head-scratching poet might pause there for a hint, if so disposed. Carrollton is on undulating ground and the country around a series of beautiful swells. Each house is generally on an ample home lot and the people live mostly in cottages. The gardens of the villagers, rich in flowers, were yet moist with the dew of morning, while the sunlight, stealing in long, slanting ribbon-bands across their beds, illuminated them in richest glory of color and in sweetest blending of light and shade. And the thought came upon me, now this very morning, all over this broad land, there are multitudes of just such villages as this with just such scenes and with just such worthy, virtuous people as these. And with this grateful fact upon the heart, should we question is life worth living? Whatever man might answer, the bee, flitting on golden wing from flower to flower, would reply, "Yes; don't I get honey?" THE OLD LADY AND HER FLOWERS -On coming to one of the cottages I saw an old lady on her knees with a wet cloth in hand wiping her porch. She was surrounded by the pots of flowers which she had nursed through the winter and had brought them out alongside of those that kind mother Earth had put forth from her bosom in the open air. "Good-morning," said I. With that she turned her head, lifted her sunbonnet and arose to her feet to see who it was that had greeted her. I then continued, as she still held her cloth in her hand with her arm limp by her side: "Do you know Madam, what a favor you confer upon every passer-by by your display of flowers?" Upon this she smiled and said, "Why I never thought of that; I cultivate them because I love them." "You people," I rejoined, "appear to live very pleasantly and the country around looks very sweet to me as I see it rolling away in graceful swells of grassy fields interspersed with clumps of trees." "Yes," she rejoined, "and it is now in all its beauty." Yes! she was right. It was the beautiful month of June that had come, and had she felt like quoting the poetry she might have started straight for Longfellow, as he thus speaks for June: "Mine is month of roses; yes, and mine The month of marriages! All pleasant sights And scents, the fragrance of the blossoming vines, The foliage of the valleys and the heights Mine are the longest days, the loveliest nights; The mower's scythe makes music to my ear; I am the mother of all dear delights, I am the fairest daughter of the year." "You people," I continued, "appear to live in this village in a great deal of comfort and freedom. "I don't like it," she replied. "There is too much style for me! Until I was forty years of age I lived on a farm, and I pine for its open, free life. There is so much to interest one, and the animals are a continued source of gratification. Then your neighbors run in and out without any formality and we all seem as one great family. This village life has too much restriction. If one's gate gets open and your cow happens to get out she is taken up and put in the pound, and there is seventy-five cents or a dollar to pay to get Muley out." "Trouble everywhere," I said. "Yes, she rejoined, and opening wide her mouth, displayed a full set of perfect, pearly white teeth. God bless the dentist, I then thought, whose inventive art permits a refined old lady like you to give full play to her merriment without compelling her, when the hinges of her mouth relax for a good hearty laugh, to hide it with her hand. A moment later I met a young mother happy as a lark. Instead of turning over her children to the care of Bridget and lolling on a luxurious couch, absorbed in reading the details of the make-up of Mrs. Cleveland's wedding-dress, she was leading by the hand, amid these rustic surroundings on this bright June morning, her own little girl, perhaps her first-born. I watched as I came up the slender limbs of the little one alternately stealing in an out from beneath the folds of her blue dress and said, "Good-morning: I see the blue birds are out." "Yes, sir; this one." |