LITMIR.BIZ

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appearance, are after all very much alike. I believe it is the realization of this fact that makes the difference between the man who knows the world and the one who does not. After a long time, as it seemed to me, we passed out of the mountains and into a beautiful rolling country improved even in that early day with many turnpikes and exhibiting every indication of prosperity. There were negroes everywhere—many more than we had in Tennessee, and I remember hearing them singing as they worked in the fields. I now know that this country was what has since been known as the "Blue Grass Region" of Kentucky, though at the time, I thought the mountains of my old home a much better place to live.

      For a long time, even before the journey began, I had heard a great deal about the Ohio River and knew that we must cross it, and when the people along the road began to tell us that we were nearing that stream, I became filled with curiosity to see it and to know what it would be like and to see and experience the sensation of crossing it on a ferry-boat. Finally we came to the top of a long hill and away off to the north we saw the river winding through a deep valley, and some one, my father, I think, pointed out a mere speck on the surface of the water and told us it was a ferry-boat. When we reached the bank of the river we found the boat tied alongside, and to my surprise, horses, wagons and cattle were all driven upon it. I had no idea that a ferry-boat was such a huge affair. It was run by horse-power, and it took us only a few minutes to reach the farther shore, and I was disappointed that my trip was not a longer one. The landing and unloading took but a few minutes. My father paid the man and we started immediately to climb the hill on the other side. I must not neglect to mention that somewhere on the road in the northern part of Kentucky or immediately after we crossed the river, my father exchanged the "shin plasters" for which he had sold his farm for silver, that currency being at par in that locality. He received four thousand silver dollars. I saw them with my own eyes. He put them in a strong box and loaded them into one of the wagons along with the other luggage.

      I do not remember at what point we crossed the Ohio River. I did not, of course, know at the time, and if my father or any member of the family ever told me the place afterwards I have forgotten it; but the event is as vivid in my mind as if it had occurred yesterday.

      There was little in our journey across Indiana and Illinois to impress that portion of the road upon my memory. All I recall is in a general way that I could see no familiar mountains, and over parts of the journey I remember that the country appeared to me to be monotonously level. I cannot give the length of time that was required in making this journey, but I do remember when we reached the Mississippi River. We crossed at Alton, if I am not mistaken, and in place of a horse ferry we had a steam ferry, which was to me a much more wonderful contrivance than the horse ferry on the Ohio. Then the river was so much wider. I remember wondering where all that vast body of water could come from. They told us, when we landed on the opposite shore, that we were in Missouri, and I thought my journey must be nearly ended, but I was never more mistaken. Day after day our wagons trundled along, night after night we went into camp, worn out with the day's journey, only to get up again early in the morning and repeat the same experience.

      We reached Tremont Township, Buchanan County, on the 29th day of May, 1839, and straightway settled upon a tract of land about a mile and a quarter southeast of what is now Garrettsburg. A house of some character was the first thing to which my father turned his attention, and it was not long before a rude log cabin was under construction. I was too small to take much part in this work, but I remember that such neighbors as we had were good to us and came and helped. The logs were cut in the woods and dragged to the site of the house and the neighbors and friends came and helped us at the "raising." The house consisted of a single room with a wide fireplace built of rough stone extending nearly across one entire end of the room. The roof was of long split boards laid upon poles or beams in such a way as to shed the water and weighted down by other beams laid on top of them. I do not think a single nail or other piece of iron entered into the construction of the building, but we thought it a great improvement upon the tent life we had experienced on our journey, and my father was quite proud of his new home. I will not attempt to describe that country as it appeared to me in that early day. In fact the changes have been so gradual that it seems to me to be still very much the same country it was when I first saw it, though when I stop to reflect, I know that this is not so. Most of it was heavy timber. A glade or skirt of prairie passed in now and then from the almost continuous prairie of what is now Clinton County. And I remember distinctly that a stretch of prairie extended from Platte River directly across from where Agency is now located in an east and south easterly direction toward Gower, and thence around to the left where it joined the main body of prairie land. There were no fences to speak of, and deer were as plentiful as in any country I have ever seen. There were few roads and no great need for them and no bridges. The county seat of the county was at old Sparta, and Robidoux's Landing was the most talked of place in the county.

      In 1846, my father built a brick house, the first, I think, that was ever erected in the county. It stood about a quarter of a mile south of the present residence of Thomas Barton, a respected citizen of Tremont Township. The brick were made upon the ground and I was old enough at that time to have quite an important part in the work, and it was hard work, too. I helped cut and haul wood with which the brick were burned, and I "off bore" the brick as they were moulded. I carried the brick and mortar as the house was being erected and assisted in putting on the roof, laying floors and finishing the house. It was quite a commodious structure when completed and was considered by all our neighbors and friends who still lived in their log houses as quite a mansion.

      Our farming operations were not very extensive. The land all had to be cleared of heavy timber, and I have seen thousands of feet of the finest white oak, walnut and hickory burned up in log heaps, but there was nothing else to be done with it. We had to have the land and there was no use to which we could put such a quantity of timber. The few rails that were needed to fence the field after it was cleared, required only a small portion of the timber that was cut away, and as all the land except the fields was allowed to remain unfenced, there could be no profit in expending time and labor in making rails to be piled up and allowed to decay.

      Most of our work was done on the farm with ox teams. Our plows were rude, home-made implements, and the hoe, axe and sickle, or reaping hook, all home-made, were about the only other tools we had. With these and with our slow plodding oxen, we thought we did very well to produce from our stumpy ground enough for the family to subsist on. Even the accomplishment of this small result required the efforts of almost every member of the family. My mother and sisters frequently worked in the fields, and I often saw, in those days, a woman plowing in the field, driving a single cow, using a rude harness without a collar. We cut our wheat with a sickle and our hemp with a hook. We hackled the flax by hand and spun and wove it into linen. My mother and sisters sheared the sheep, washed and picked the wool, carded, spun and wove it into blankets and clothing for the whole family. They took the raw material, green flax and wool on the sheep's back, and made it into clothing for a family of ten. They milked the cows and washed the clothing besides, and then found time to help in the fields. It must not be thought that the men were idle while this was going on. They worked just as hard, but their tools were so poor and the difficulties so great, and they could accomplish so little that even with all their efforts they sometimes fell behind the women in their tasks.

      As may well be imagined, there was little time for a boy or a girl under those conditions to go to school, even if the opportunity had presented itself. We had a school in the neighborhood, however, held for a time at the homes of various members of the community, and later we built a school house. The erection of this building was the first public enterprise, so far as I know or have ever heard, that was undertaken by the people of that community. I was old enough to help in it, and I remember very distinctly the meetings the neighbors had to plan the work of building, and afterwards, I recall the meeting of the men with their teams to do the work. Each man furnished two logs which he had previously cut and hewed to the proper dimensions. These he dragged to the site selected for the building which was, by the way, upon the ground now occupied by the Stamper School House. When the logs were all assembled, the men and boys came in bringing baskets of provisions and food for their oxen and all went to work. The house was "raised," as we called it, by laying the logs one upon the other in the form of a pen, the length exceeding the breadth by about ten feet. The logs were carefully notched and fitted

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