USA > Iowa > Marion County > Down on the ridge : reminiscences of the old days in Coalport and down on the ridge, Marion County > Part 6
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Give me back the dear old days, All the boys in line. The "Boy Stood on the Burning Deck," And "Fair Bingen on the Rhine ;" "'Twas midnight in his guarded tent, " __ We spoke it high and low ; While Mary trotted out her little lamb Whose fleece was white as snow.
CHARLES N. CROUCH.
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OLD FAMILIAR SCENES.
Give us back the dear old days, The pathway through the dells, The old schoolhouse by the roadside, The sound of the cow bells Tinkling down in the woods ; The song of bird and brook,
The old McGuffey reader and The blue-backed spelling book.
While you and I and everybody like to talk over the incidents, joys, sorrows and tragedies of others days, we must not, can not live altogether in the past. To-day is ours ; yesterday is already in eternity ; while to-morrow may never come. As we have looked over these boyhood pictures perhaps tears have come, but they will do you or me no harm. The road from our youth to this night may have been long and toilsome. Perhaps it is strewn all along with mistakes, with many heart burdens, but I am sure it has done us good to go back to memory-land, back to the times that touch the heart line, back to other days of happiness, before the clouds and burdens of life were known. But after we have counted the rough and thorny places all along our life journey there are lots of good and joyful things to cheer us in this queer old world.
There are those of our little company of boys down there who have not gone down in that dreamless sleep, yet we are going rapidly over the hill. We have lived to know that this old world is not an enchanted isle in the midst of the ocean blue, where no storm can ever come. The lessons of the past have taught us to turn away from the thorns and keep our eyes upon the beautiful flowers. The past is only useful as a sweet memory and the lessons it may bring to us that make for good. Yes, boys and girls, there is lots of cheer in this big old world, and though sometimes the storm has raged all day long the rainbow comes after the showers. As for me, I know
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. not what the coming years may hold, of winter days and summer clime, but this I know, when my misspent life grows old I feel sure it shall be light at evening tide.
A little more work, a little more play, a few brief fly ing years ; a little more joy and smiles and tears, and all the little company of boys making up this story will have gone beyond the gates. Just a little more toiling in the world's fierce strife ; some years of toil along the road that leads to a loaf of bread ; some cheery words we said unthinking, that made a sad heart light and the world so bright ; while God, who never sleeps or wearies, is watch- ing overhead ; a little more of laughter and love and song, then we shall say " Good-night."
WILLIAM A. CROUCH.
CHAPTER VIII
THE AMSBERRY AND CROUCH FAMILIES. TWO UNCLE "BILLIES "
There were so many good people who were a part of the activities down on the Ridge that to take them up one by one as they appear in the old galleries of memory would, I fear, tire my readers; but I hope not. I feel, just as sure as I live to-day, that I have not drawn back a curtain revealing a single sacred spot, a stone, here and there marking a place where once stood a pioneer home in which love was so sweet, and the patter of innocent feet so full of joy ; not a single turn in the old paths over which we bounded in the glad old days ; not a girl or boy of the happy past have I brought into the bright sunshine of memory ; not an old pioneer whose toil and prayers and songs and tears were the bright jewels in the uplift of that old community down there, but has awakened a glad in- terest in every one still remembering the old homeland, as well as a reproduction of similar life pictures to those who treasure up like scenes and dear old spots, once their old homeland.
I am thinking this very minute of Uncle Billy and Aunt Polly Amsberry. Away back yonder William Ams- berry and Polly Everett lived among the stone and wood- capped hills of New York. I do not know when or where these two people were married, but I do know the very
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spot on which they lived down between two hills away back in West Virginia, whither they had gone many years before emigrating to Marion County, this state. They both sprang from splendid old families in the Em- pire land. Down there on that creek, a branch of "Little Sixteen, " which means it was sixteen miles from the mouth of the Kanawha River in the then old Virginia, these people gave to the world William F., L. N., Frank, Almira, Allen and M. J. Amsberry.
Besides tilling the soil down there on the hillsides and narrow little valleys, Uncle Billy worked at his trade as a shoemaker while the boys hustled among the clods and stones and briars and sassafras.
Uncle Billy was very popular, and knew everybody for miles around. A public road wound its way from over on the "Big Sixteen " and other places as well, down the little creek, passing alongside of the old woodyard in front of Uncle Billy's house.
In those days back there everybody traveled on foot or on horseback. Young men taking their girls to church or other places took them on behind and sometimes rode up the steepest hills so the girls would have to throw their arms around them to keep from slipping off behind. Very few young men down there had not been severely hugged while on one of these journeys. The first horse- back ride I ever enjoyed was behind my mother on the way from my Grandmother Hayes' place, a few miles below Uncle Billy Amsberry's home, down on the rim of the river valley. This journey was made on "Old Charlie, " the gray horse brought to Iowa afterwards by Uncle Wil- liam Crouch, about both of whom I shall have something to say in this series of reminiscences.
As I was saying a moment ago, Uncle Billy was very popular ; so much so, one after another riding by on the
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road described above would rein up his fiery steed and hail Uncle Billy with "Hello !" while he pounded and pegged away on an old cow-hide boot. This hailing him so often while at work got to be a sign of distress, so he gathered up his bench and tools and went out and sat down by the roadside, where he stitched and pegged and pegged and stiched, ready for the next "Hello !" man that came that way.
In 1855 Uncle Billy, Aunt Polly and all of the family ( except Frank ) were happily situated in the Ridge neigh- borhood. Uncle Billy built a home which is now a part of that recently owned and occupied by the late Lud Reynolds, out near the brow of the hill overlooking the valley of the Des Moines. Uncle Billy and part of his family and Uncle William Crouch and his little family came together from Virginia to Iowa, bringing with them old Mike and old Charlie, two faithful gray horses. Charlie was the larger of the two, and, besides being a pacer from away back was addicted to the colic, which seiz- ed him about every third day. Old Mike was a little trim- mer made and as tough as an old pine-knot away back in Virginia land. I remember how with old Mike, before the advent of the real threshing machine, they used him to tramp the wheat from the bright golden straw laid like a big wheel on the ground, on which the old gray horse went around and around. The wheat and chaff were then gathered up and the chaff separated from the wheat by the aid of the windmill. This was just a little northeast of where Lud's house now stands.
Uncle Billy continued his work at the bench in his new home in the Hawkeye state. This bench, in the win- ter season at least, was situated in the southeast corner of the living room near the old fireplace. Looking over that great stretch of years to the way back there I see an old home picture. I see the bright, red blaze flitting here and there through the spaces in the old log fire ; I hear a
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stray cricket under the warm hearth singing his good-night song. Aunt Polly, with snow-white frilled cap, sits knit- ting by the light of the fire in the fireplace ; Uncle Billy is pegging away on the sole of a shoe, working by the light of a tallow candle. The old gray cat lies curled up on the warm hearth near Aunt Polly, and while her fingers are keeping time with the dancing needles the old cat purrs and dreams and sleeps and purrs. This old cat was peculiarly favored, having ingress and egress through a half-circle hole made in the bottom of the door.
. H. A. Amsberry went back to Virginia, and, return- ing, brought with him Mary Blain as his bride, and soon was in his own home down in the Ramey neighborhood, which place he still owns, where he and his good wife have grown old and scarred in life's terrible fight.
"Jimmie" Amsberry with his parents lived in the old home place, where he and old Mike with God's help made corn and hominy, while Uncle Billy pegged and stitched away. My father would send me to Uncle Billy to have my boots repaired. I would sit by the old log fire and wait while the repairing was being done. I would draw my boots off in the old bootjack made to fit both little and big boots, and hand them to him. He would look at them and exclaim, "Humph! Burnt, burnt under the forestick ! Nice way for a boy to do!" and it was scold at me until the job was completed.
I was at his place one time on a similar er- rand, when I found Pratt Coffman having his boots repaired. He had snagged a hole in one while running after a rabbit across a piece of breaking full of hazel roots; and with Uncle Billy it was growl, growl, while he pegged away, "To think a boy could be so thoughtless as to snag holes in his boots!" Poor old man ! He didn't mean anything by his scolding, but simply wanted to impress upon the minds of the young-
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sters to be careful, as a matter of economy to their fathers. But we could not see it that way then, so we always approached Uncle Billy with fear and trembling when on these errands.
The years of these two old people were long and busy and useful. When God had numbered his days and the door in his life's highway was closed to the stream of golden sunlight that kisses the dewdrops from the rose- bud and the tender blade of grass, when Uncle Billy's speechless form lay in the center of a large gathering of neighbors and friends down in that old home, the Rev. Mr. Whitehead stood up and read, "Man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. He cometh forth as a flower and is cut down. Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months is with thee." Then they laid him away in the most forlorn, God-for- saken spot in Marion County, where a rabbit never dared to go nor even the song birds with their notes of cheer ever came to sing the gloom away. In a few more years Aunt Polly was carried down to the same deserted spot, and there the bodies of these two good old people went back to the dust from whence they came. The last time I ever saw those two graves down there, side by side, an old rail fence and a well-worn cow path ran diagonally across the sunken roof of their narrow homes.
W. F. and Harriet Amsberry, early settlers on the Ridge, were actively interested in church and school and other useful activities in the community. I remember when this family lived in a little log house in the shade of a big cottonwood tree just back and a little north of the new frame house built later, nearer the road which ran in front of this home. I know of no family in that vicinity who entertained the minister preaching for the Coal Ridge Baptist Church so often as those people. Many, and many a time have I known of Will going and
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returning with the Rev. E. H. Scharff, of Pella, while that good man preached the glad word in the little old schoolhouse by the road. Few places down there seemed so near to me as this good Christian home.
Will Amsberry did not care to join the mad chase for gold, yet he looked carefully after the temporal needs of his family. In the role of a Nimrod he was in his glory. I believe he killed the last deer ever slain by a hunter in Marion County. This was long after deer hunting was abandoned down there. He heard or knew of the haunts of one of these fellows, south of where Bussing's mill used to be, down on English Creek, so he got down his old rifle and went after him and brought him home. His good wife, Harriet, remembered my father's family and sent a liberal supply of this luxury for our table.
In addition to his hill farm, Will owned one of the first river bottom farms wrested from the deep forest of native timber which then covered that entire valley, with the exception of here and there a little "clearing," in which stood a small log house, a little field of corn surrounded by a high rail fence, "staked and ridered." Here and there could be heard the familiar tinkling of a cow bell, and then a bunch of "razorback " hogs could be seen busily engaged in piling high the rich black soil in their search for nuts and sweet, tender roots ; then a band of sheep at rest on the green rug of nature, while the lambs skipped and hopped about in joyful glee, and wherever the old bell-wether went the sheep were sure to go.
What wonderful changes down there have the tooth of time, the white man's axe, the firebrand and the plow wrought! Now that entire stretch of bottom land once so dense with grand old trees is one vast farm, rich and fertile as the valley of the Nile.
William F. Amsberry was, without any particular effort, prosperous until the lean years following the panic
EMILY CROUCH.
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of 1873, during which time the low prices of land and products made many men poor, and robbed not a few of their little homes purchased at a fearful cost of labor and human sweat. This old pioneer, already marked with the scars of pioneer strife, now standing on the western slope of life's strenuous old hill, found his home mort- gaged fornearly its then value, left the old place which had sheltered him and his loved ones so many years, bade a long and forever farewell to the sweet and joyous associa- tions of the years gone by, and with his family went to Custer County, Neb. There after a few more years of toil and tears and tragedies these two good people laid themselves down in that sweet, sweet sleep from which none ever wake to weep.
L. N. Amsberry and Jane Coffman Amsberry, his good companion, were two more of the grand people of the olden time down on the Ridge. I was young, and probably for one of my age over-observant, but neverthe- less honestly so. But, to-night, floating back in the old swing of time to the days down there, pausing for a moment under that family tree, it seems that the rays of domestic sunshine never shone with a more dazzling brightness than that which kept the blaze of love burning so brightly upon the altar of these two hearts. Amid all the joys that came to them, their hands and their hearts were scarred with the cruel instruments of conflict all along the way of life.
Nort, no man ever made a fight more noble than he. He was resourceful in methods. If one failed he buckled on his armor and went again into the fierce battle, stout- hearted and brave. His heart went out in deep sympathy, and his hand and arm were nerved for action in times of sickness, trials and tribulations which came into the homes of his friends and neighbors. He fought too hard in life's battles, and one day, all pierced and bleeding
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with wounds, he fell. I stood by his side for a few moments that day, although I knew it not, -it was a strange presence to me, God's heavenly ambulance came down, attended by angels who, with tender hands, bore his body to that sweet hospital in the skies, where every wound is healed and every tear is kissed away. A few years afterwards Jane with her family of boys and girls went to Custer County, Neb., where they all live save one, Greene, who died a few years ago. Poor Jane, -she who used to give me a nice big red apple or a cookie back in the faded past, -weighted with years and sorrow, is only awaiting the beckoning call over yonder.
Jimmie, as he was known so long, several years ago sold his Ridge land and home and bought a farm in War- ren County. He has since retired from active farm life, and lives in the little town of Milo. To Jimmie the tragedies and trials and afflictions of this world have come thick and fast. Into few homes have the arrows of deso- lation been shot with such sad results. Adeline, I re- member the very day she came to his home a bride. I know of the sweet ministrations that came from her kindly hands through all the years until the "great white plague " turned out her life lamp. With a very grateful heart I look back over the eventful years now gone, and pay a loving tribute to her memory for the many loving ministrations and kindly help and cheer so freely given my poor afflicted sister, who long years ago went into that silent land and was tenderly laid away in the Garrison cemetery, north of Knoxville, where she sleeps under the grass and the dew.
My simple little story of those who down in that old, old home land builded for home, for humanity and for God would not be complete without a feeble tribute, at least, to the memory of that godly and kindly man and woman, William Crouch and Emily Hayes Crouch, his
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faithful helpmeet down through all the years of joy and tears which came to them since those two hearts were joined, away back near where the chasing waters of the Kanawha join with the babbling song of the Ohio on its journey to the sea. More than sixty-three years ago these people side by side began the journey into a long and unknown future. They were full of youth and strength and vigor and hope. If they could have lifted the curtains that shut out the view of the coming years with all their heaping load of toil and care, they still would have been brave. Never, like Saul, king of Isræl, would they have thrown their bodies upon the keen sword of disappointment and fear. Two human hearts so com- pletely and so sweetly united as were these could and would have found, as did theirs, sweet content in the midst of angry storms and rolling waves on life's old ocean, because none of these could obscure the bright sunshine of domestic bliss which, in these two hearts, every day and all the time stood at its meridian height, which is the glory and beauty of every true home. The highest tribute I can pay my old uncle and aunt is this: Though not blessed with an abundance of this world's goods, their long married life was truly one grand sweet song.
William Crouch with his wife and little family, came to Iowa in company with Uncle Billy Amsberry, having made the trip on a steamboat from West Virginia, landing at Keokuk, from which place they came by wagon route to Marion County in the year 1855. He brought with him the old gray horse Charley, an all-round animal for every- thing, -a good saddle horse, easy pacer, trusty in every respect ; this old fellow was possessed of one defect and that was purely physical,-he had periodical and severe attacks of colic.
Uncle lived then in a little log house west of the Everett home, standing near the road then running
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diagonally across what is now the east part of the Poffen- barger farm, beginning at the northeast corner near the Aunt Mary Everett home and crossing Competine Creek west of the old Caldwell place. On the southwest corner of this little pioneer house extended a log probably two feet from the wall. This projecting log was used some- times for hanging hogs for dressing when the butchering season was on, and during the intermediate period was used for "drenching " old Charley in his colicky spells, by drawing his head up by the aid of a rope thrown over the projecting log and then applying the various remedies through a long-necked bottle kept for that purpose. During one of these spells this good old horse, on whose friendly back I rode, away back in Virginia, laid down and went where no colic ever comes.
William Crouch was one of the most industrious men I ever knew. His hands were never idle, and Emily kept pace with his industrious strides. I never saw two people more honest, sincere and true. Uncle William built the chimneys for many of the pioneer houses down there, and laid many of the foundations for barns and later and better homes; while Emily made the warm woolen cloth a full yard wide. and many a good, soft blanket for neighbors and friends. He laid the foundation of cut stone for the Coal Ridge Baptist Church nearly forty years ago. donating his labor. On the cornerstone he cut these letters, "W. A. C." It is said that when that old temple of worship was destroyed by fire in October 1908, most of, if not all, the stones in that old wall save this one square block cracked and crumbled with the heat. I rejoice to-day to have the promise that that stone, hewn and laid with his honest hand of toil so long ago in the foundation of the old church, will be appropriately set in the foundation of the new building rising, Phoenix-like, out of the ashes on the sight of that so full of sacred memories.
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No two people ever lived down there who, without ostentatious display but in warm, true Christian kindness loved away more tears and heart-aches than William A. and Emily Crouch. When this kindly Christian man, so full of years and toil, let fall the working tools of life I am just as certain that as the sun reclining now behind the billowy clouds in the far-away west will rise again to gild the morning with its golden tints this kind-hearted man went straight home to God and heaven and eternal rest. It was mine to witness the sadness that comes when two hearts long bound together as one are torn asunder when a life goes out. Emily never recovered from that awful blow which left her alone with her God. No child could cheer her back to joy and smiles, but one day God laid his loving hand on her pale brow, then took her tired, wrinkled hands in his and led her gently to William, in the sweet fields of heaven, that enchanted isle some- where, where no storms nor tears nor grief nor pain can ever come.
CHAPTER IX
AUNT MINERVA REYNOLDS AND FAMILY. PIONEER CHARACTERS OF EARLY DAYS.
Of all the people who were a part of the activities of the early days in that part of Marion County from whence comes my story of the far-away past, of those earnest hearts and striving, toiling hands who laid the foundation of the social, moral and religious life down there, none deserve a greater meed of praise than Minerva Reynolds and her stalwart sons and daughters.
"Aunt Minerva," as she was so long and familiarly known, was the widow of Silas Reynolds, who went into the over-yonder land away back there amid the templed hills, the rocks and rills of the western part of the then unbroken state of Virginia, ere a stream of blood drawn on the crest of the Blue Ridge mountains marked the place that divided that grand old domain into two sovereign states. She with all her children save Morty ( who had preceded her, coming to Muscatine County the year before,) came to Marion County in the early part of 1846, where they settled in the Des Moines River valley.
Most of the people making up the scattered commu- nities of that time were southern folks, and there was found in their make-up a train of hospitality not usually found now, since the chase for gold and graft and place and power have robbed men of so many of those little amenities that sweeten life and bring so much of cheer along the way.
MINERVA REYNOLDS.
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AUNT MINERVA REYNOLDS.
In those days most if not all of the doors opening into the little cabin homes dotting here and there Iowa's fair land were hung on heavy wooden hinges and fastened with a latch of seasoned hickory, which was operated by the aid of a leather or deerskin string through a hole in the door. This string was operated from the outside, and before the family retired for the night it was drawn in- side, thus leaving the home secure from intruders. In the old days when the wild Indians were on the warpath these doors were barricaded on the inside for protection from a possible attack of a war party of these dusky war- riors, and an additional strength of defense was provided by loop-holes through the heavy log walls, which not only furnished an outlook through which the enemy could be located but through which their trusty old rifles could be brought into use when occasion required. But when the tomahawk had been deep in the old earth's cold bosom buried, and sweet peace with its victories had come to these pioneer people, the barricade was removed from the door and the latchstring hung on the outside as a token of welcome to the passer-by, the wayfaring man seeking a home in the then new land.
The latchstring in the door of the pioneer home of this goodly Widow Reynolds was always on the outside. Her home was a refuge for the staggling homeseeker and a friendly hospital for the sick and homeless. One day a newcomer with his wife and little family passed that way, seeking a spot whereon to lay up three stones-one for home, one for mother and one for heaven. Aunt Minerva had known these people away back where the winding Kanawha bears upon its silvery bosom the burdens of men. Uncle John Everett, his wife and little children, were tired from their long and weary journey westward, and this widow gave them rest ; they were thirsty and she gave them drink ; hungry and she gave them food ; sick and
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