FREDERICK CHRISTIAN BAUMAN
Page 4
Obstacles on every side were in my way. I was the only help, my only brother being ten years old. The timber land just bought had to be paid for, although years of time were allowed to pay for it at a low interest. The land had to be cleared and tilled to make it profitable. To leave home on a course of study meant to leave a heavy burden on the shoulders of my parents, and especially my father. I was conscious too that I was lacking in natural gifts, and my timid nature was a clog which I have never been able altogether to overcome. Some of my best friends told me that I lacked the gift to speak in public.
All this I fully recognized and fully decided to give up the idea of preparing for the ministry, while at the same time I longed to do so, and thought that I ought. I confided my change of purpose to my mother and told her that I had decided to stay at home with them and what I earned beyond my own need I would give toward the education of some other young man for the Reformed ministry. My parents, who until then were undecided as to what I ought to do, now were fully satisfied that I should go to school, and they would get along as best they could without my help. It was a plain matter of fact that they could do nothing for my support at school.
The Synod of Ohio about that time had decided to locate the college of the Reformed church in the west at Tarlton, Ohio. An academy had already been in successful operation there under the efficient management of Rev. S. Rickli. It was decided by my pastor, Rev. R. R. Salter, and others, that I should pursue my studies there until the Theological Seminary was established, and I was ready to enter upon my theological course.
It required but little preparation to get ready to go. There was no outfit in the way of clothing. The plain suit I had been wearing was all I was to take except underwear. I needed a coat and a hat but it was thought best to buy them when I got to my destination as it would save the trouble of carrying them with me. Seven dollars of money was all I had to go with, and to walk the distance, 215 miles, was the only way for me to get there. I had a round leather bag of the form of a mail bag, only considerably smaller, into which I put my books and a few articles of clothing, which according to my judgment weighed about fifteen pounds or more. I left home on a Monday morning in the early fall of 1849. Two men from our neighborhood started the same morning to go to nearly the same place on a visit.
Our way led through Evansport, Defiance, Kalida, Lima, Urbana, Loudon, and Circleville. For fully one-half of the way we three stopped at the same places in the evenings. The only way for me to do so was by starting early and walking late and buy something to eat at noon or get permission to sit down to table with them. Most usually I bought a slice of bread and butter for dinner for which most places the people would take nothing. In the evening I would walk late, usually nine 0'clock, and get my supper as I did my dinner. I soon learned that it was necessary in the evening where I stopped over night to be allowed to go to bed at once for by sitting an hour before I went to bed, my lets would become so stiff that I could scarcely move from my place. The same I experienced in the morning for fully the first mile or two, after which I would limber up, and so could be on my feet all day.
One day after leaving Urbana after a heavy rain during the night, and the pike very slushy, having started from the hotel quite early, and that before breakfast for the sake of economy, and finding no place to get anything to eat, a spell of discouragement overtook me. I felt for a time like the prodigal son. I sat down on a log to rest. But more than that I seemed to realize with him when he came unto himself of what I had left and the meager hopes before me. I never studied harder in my life than I did that fifteen or twenty minutes whether I ought to go on or return. The future seemed especially dark, not a ray of light or encouragement, and to return had this in my favor, I knew that I would meet with a welcome at home. But the thought of lacking in bravery and failing in my purpose: I felt that I could never do that, and so I mustered courage and went on. In Circleville I bought a coat for $6.00, being the last of my funds, for it took $1.00 to pay my way. I reached to within a mile or two of Tarlton on the forenoon of Saturday, thus averaging 40 miles a day in making the journey.
I soon realized what it meant to be without money to pay board and tuition. The best I could do to earn a little was to accept an offer of husking corn for a Mr. Noble, whose wife was a daughter of Rev. King, who had been Reformed pastor at Tarlton. I found both kind hearted, and found their place home during my stay with them.
In the meantime Mr. Andrew Foust*, who had been elected to the Ohio Legislature and was soon to leave for Columbus, leaving his home of wife and two grown daughters, needed someone to take care of his stock, made me an offer to board me for my work on the farm morning and evening. I accepted the position, but found during the winter that I was paying dear enough for the whistle. It was not only to take care of the horses, but to carry the fodder out of the field to the cattle yard, besides cutting the wood for the house. The time required to do up the chores took up so much of my time that I had not sufficient time for study, and I seriously felt it then and afterward.
My studies were the common branches, including my first lessons in Latin. There was but one room and about forty or fifty students in the various branches. A few had special recitations in higher mathematics and in the study of Latin. Prof Rickli was popular as a teacher, and kept up a good deal of enthusiasm in the school. About fifteen or twenty minutes were spent each morning in singing in the song book of the school and was followed by prayer. Much interest was felt in these exercises and a number of excellent voices, male and female, made it quite pleasing, to which I look back now with a great deal of pleasure. The school closed in the spring, 1850, and with that closed also Prof. Rickli's relation to it.
During the winter at a special meeting of the Ohio Synod the proposed college was re-located from Tarlton to Tiffin. A large lot of building rock on the ground for the building was by a committee disposed of and a remuneration of several hundred dollars given to the contractor.
During the winter quite a revival meeting was carried on in the "New Measure" style in one of the two Reformed churches in which Rev. Jacobs and Jesse Schlosser were prominent. One feature of which was to speak disrespectful of the "old dead church," and her ministers. One instance was stated by the Rev. Jacobs of a Reformed minister in the northwestern part of Ohio who was called to see a young man under deep conviction of sin, and in an agony to know what he must do to be saved. The minister, as stated by him, went, and with a smile of ridicule tried to laugh it off, and seeing a book on the table nearby opened it and gave it to the young man under conviction and told him to read it and that his case would be all right, and then added, "from such ministers Lord save the church." At that time I knew only one Reformed minister in the active ministry in the Northwest Ohio, and that was our Pastor Salter, and I felt that the charge was a slander and had no foundation as a fact. The assertion made an impression on the audience, and was the kind of material on which the New System largely fed. The revivalists were lost to the Reformed Church and also with them their work. Their influence, however, on individuals was more lasting, as I sadly learned afterwards, in the case of one family in the far west, who had grown up under that system near that locality.
*The mother of Andrew Foust was Christina Alspach, who was a cousin of Edgar Alspach, the man that would marry Frederick's daughter, Blanche Estella Bauman.