USA > Ohio > Champaign County > History of Champaign County, Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I > Part 110
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THOMAS SIMS M'FARLAND.
Thomas Sims McFarland, one of the most prominent local historians and newspaper correspondents of the county, was born in Concord township, July 14, 1832, and died on March 19, 1914. He lived his entire life in Champaign county and was known not only in this county, but in many other counties as well. He was the son of Robert McFarland, a pioneer resident of Champaign county, who settled in Concord township when it was still inhabited by the Indians. T. S. McFarland was one of a family of nineteen children.
Mr. McFarland gained much of his wide acquaintance and reputation through his work as a newspaper correspondent of different Champaign county papers, as well as of metropolitan papers. He began his newspaper career as a contributor to the old Citizen and Gazette during the days of Joshua Saxton. He adopted at the beginning of his newspaper work the nom de plume of "Specs, Jr.", under which he always wrote. He adopted
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this from an older writer whom he knew and admired and who wrote under the nom de plume of "Specs"-the late James B. Armstrong.
Mr. McFarland did much historical work and was the author of a com- plete history of Concord township which was published several years ago. He also wrote a history of the McFarland family, which was published. He always took an active interest in pioneer meetings held in Champaign county and adjoining counties, and many of these meetings were held at his own home. At many of these meetings he often had men of state and national prominence and on one occasion had as the speaker of the day the speaker of the national House of Representatives.
JOHN FRANKLIN GOWEY.
John Franklin Gowey was born in North Lewisburg, December 7, 1846, and died in Yokohama, Japan, March 12, 1900. His father was Hartland C. Gowey, a native of New York, who settled with his parents in Licking county in 1837. In 1844 he removed to Champaign county and settled in Lewisburg, where he remained until his death in 1909. His wife was Eliza A. Willey, and to them were born two sons, John F. and Marcus C., of whom the former was the elder.
John F. Gowey received his early education in the common schools of North Lewisburg, but as he grew okler he realized that his ambition was fettered by the lack of a higher education. Accordingly, he entered Ohio Wesleyan university at Delaware. It is quite probable that he received encouragement, both pecuniary and moral, from his parents, for his father understood the value of adequate preparation, since he had taught school for twenty years. After John Gowey left the university, he studied law and was admitted to the bar. May 10, 1809, and attained marked prominence in his profession. His father, before him, had been active in the public life of his community, for he had been postmaster for thirty-three years, and mayor of North Lewisburg for ten years, hence it was altogether natural for Mr. Gowey to have aspirations to public life. He was elected to the state Legis- lature in 1873 and served one term. As he had such recognized ability as a barrister. the people of Champaign county conferred upon him the office of prosecuting attorney in 1876: and, as he performed the duties of the trust with impartiality and exactitude, he was re-elected in 1878.
In obedience to the well-known admonition of Horace Greeley, who advised young men to go west, Mr. Gowey went to Olympia, Washington Territory, where he was registrar in the United States land office from 1882
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to 1886. He soon entered the public life of the territory and was elected a member of the Washington territorial Legislature in 1887. He not only attained prominence in political circles there, but also in business life; for in 1888 he was chosen president of the First National Bank of Olympia. Later, after the federal Congress had passed the enabling act which author- ized the territory to frame a constitution, John F. Gowey, because of his pre- eminent ability in the legal profession and as an impartial moderator, was closen president of the constitutional convention.
On April 25, 1867, Mr. Gowey married Clara McDonald, a daughter of James and Rachel McDonald, of Woodstock, Champaign county, Ohio. They had one son, Franklin Gowey, who was born on June 4, 1869. Mr. Gowey was married the second time on November 3, 1886, to Georgiana Stevens, who was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, September 23, 1852.
On account of his prominent place in affairs at Washington, Mr. Gowey was appointed consul-general at Yokohama, Japan, in 1897. He faithfully performed the duties of this office until his death in 1900. His body now lies at Olympia, Washington, in the state whose fundamental law he had no small part in forming.
Champaign county can well be proud that it is the home of a man so exemplary in his personal morals and so clean in his business, professional and political relations as John Gowey: for in this respect he is without a superior among the many prominent men the county has sent out to do their duty in the world of men and affairs. Moreover, it must be said that the county has produced no man who has achieved so high a place in the service of the nation and in that of another state as did John Franklin Gowey.
JULES GUTHRIDGE.
The late Jules Guthridge may be counted as the most distinguished newspaper man the county has ever produced. Born at Fairfield in Greene county, Ohio, he came with his parents to Urbana when he was only a few weeks old and it was in the latter place that he was educated and reared to manhood. At the early age of sixteen he learned telegraphy in Urbana in the office of D. T. Bacon, then superintendent of the United States Tele- graph Company, but stationed at the time in Urbana. He enlisted as a member of Company A, One Hundred and Thirty-fourth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and had the unique distinction of having been the only member of that regiment not to lose a day's service because of illness or for any other cause.
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After the war Mr. Guthridge entered the journalistic field and during the course of the last half century had been employed on some of the largest papers in the country. He served on the Cincinnati Gazette, Chicago Times, San Francisco Examiner and the New York Herald. He then became iden- tified with the United Press Association and was thus employed until he became secretary of the Indianapolis monetary committee, an organization which came into existence to further the gold-standard movement in 1896. About 1905 he became the manager of the Washington office of the New York banking house of Henry Clews & Company. His long residence in Washington and his wide reputation with the leaders in the Republican party throughout the nation led Mckinley to select him to manage the press bureau at the Republican national headquarters in New York City during the campaign of 1896. He was employed in a similar capacity in the presi- dential campaign of 1904, his appointment being made at the suggestion of President Roosevelt.
Mr. Guthridge made his home in Washington, D. C., from 1881 until his death in the spring of 1917. He died of apoplexy in his apartments, the funeral services being held at the residence of his brother-in-law, Dr. J. J. Little, in Washington. He was sixty-nine years of age at the time of his death.
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CHAPTER XXXIX.
SIDELIGHTS; OR LIFE IN OTHER DAYS.
A description of early life in Champaign county may very properly be included in this chapter. The early churches, schools, industries, organiza- tions and many other phases of life have been treated in separate chapters, but there are a number of things, not of much general importance, and yet throwing a flood of interesting light on the way our forefathers lived.
CLOTHING.
Everything the early settlers wore was made in the home: Shoes to headgear, socks to mittens, pants to shirt. The clothes were made of wool, flax, hemp and cotton, or a mixture of linen and wool. Many a pioneer had breeches (or pants, the word trousers never being used), made of leather, sometimes tanned and sometimes not. And instances are on record when the Spanish-needle ( bidens bipinnati) was treated as flax and a very sub- stantial cloth made from its fibre. Nearly all classes of people of both sexes wore moccasins of buckskin in the winter, while the summer season saw the entire population barefooted. Judges sat on the bench in their bare feet, and one instance is on record where court did not convene on time because the judge was engaged in the important duty of trimming an obstreperous toe nail.
Everyone of the period prior to the Civil War can recall three kinds of cloth-linsey-woolsey, jean and flannel-made on the old homemade loom. Jean was given its beautiful brown color with the juice of the walnut and the famous "butter-nut" shirt was known throughout the Mississippi valley. The "pepper-and-salt" woolen cloth was made by using white wool for the warp and black wool for the woof. Every family had its spinning-wheel, reels, looms, warping-bars, winding-blades and all of the necessary para- phernalia for carding, spinning and weaving. For at least a quarter of a century after this county was settled, every household carded the wool for the family clothing on little cards ten inches long and four inches wide. The children picked the wool and helped card it, but it was left to the mother and her daughters to do the weaving.
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There was one man in Urbana, Joseph Clark, who was engaged in the manufacture of spinning-wheels and other weaving instruments until the lat- ter part of the thirties. With careful use a spinning-wheel would last through generations; in fact, many of the spinning-wheels were brought to this county in 1805 and could be used today-if their owners knew how to manipulate them.
After the woolen-mill was opened at Urbana in 1816 many families got their yarn from the mill and of course some of them bought their cloth from the mill. All socks, mittens, wristlets and some other articles of clothing were knit. and it was not uncommon for the boys of the family to be taught to knit. Tradition has preserved a number of instances where the boys of the family were as deft with the needle as their sisters.
FOOD.
Food was plenty. Game of all kinds was to be had for the shooting and every settler had a rifle and knew how to use it. Corn was easily grown and there was always an ample supply of it, even though it had to be eaten at times when only half ground. "Pone" and "dodger" were the staple pastry products and were about the same in make-up. Both were made out of corn- meal, baked in a Dutch oven, or on a slab of wood or sometimes on a hot stone. The batter was composed of three ingredients, meal, salt and water, and as long as salt could be obtained the family was happy. Meal and water were always to be had, but sometimes salt was very difficult to get. There were times when it took five bushels of wheat to get one bushel of salt. Some women mixed pumpkin in the meal batter and thus concocted some kind of a meal-pumpkin bread. the name of which seems to have been lost. Corn was also dried in season and was also converted into hominy.
The use of wheat came in several years after the county was settled. Some families had wheat bread once a week, usually in the form of biscuits. but most of the wheat was sold.
Venison, bear meat, squirrel, and other forms of game were to be had all seasons of the year. Deer meat was frequently dried, as was beef, but for many years there was such an abundance of game available that there was little necessity for laying in a supply of meat. The friendly sugar tree furnished the only sugar the first settlers had and it was also the means of furnishing many families with a commodity to barter for articles which could not be made at home. Maple sugar always commanded a good price and many settlers derived a larger revenue from their sugar crop than from any-
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thing else on the farm. Molasses was plentiful and there are people yet living who do not dislike corn cakes and genuine maple molasses. Wild honey was also abundant and many a bee-tree yielded several bucketsful of honey.
Of garden vegetables and berries there were but few for several years. There is no reference in the early writings of the pioneer to many of the commonest of our garden vegetables being in use in the early days of the county. Beets, peas, sweet potatoes, cauliflower, cabbage, cucumbers and several others were not to be found in the first gardens. Even the humble potato was not as common as might be thought, but the friendly pumpkin and a kind of a bean familiarly known as "cornfield bean", grew on the first cornstalks in the county.
It is not certain when the first stove came into use, but there were few stoves in use in the county until the latter part of the forties. The first stoves were crude affairs and from the pictures of the stoves for kitchen use which appear in the local newspapers in the forties they must have been hard to handle. Even after stoves came into use, many housewives still used the fireplace for boiling. The family washing was usually done in the yard, the water being heated in a large kettle. The washing-machine was as unknown as the flying-machine, and the clothes were cleaned with the use of a wash- board. The same kettle that heated the water for the washing was used in the spring in making the family soap for the year. Soap-making time was always dreaded by the small boy of the family. For some days he was kept busy keeping the kettle boiling, carrying lye and taking his turn at stirring the saponiferous mixture in the kettle. The ash hopper was found in every well-regulated backyard and every woodshed had its barrel into which every fragment of fat found its way. It was the judicious mixture of the leach and fat meat that produced the finished product.
ODD GLIMPSES OF OUR FOREFATHERS.
The early settlers had some distinctive fashions that would look queer today. For several years after the county was organized many of the men wore their hair long and often wore it in a queue. Even as late as the thirties men of the older generation still clung to their "shad-belly" or "pig-tail", and there were even some young men who paraded in the old-fashioned queue. Some wore their hair tied back with a ribbon and ribbons were seen up until the thirties. By that time the style had changed and the "dudes"- the name was not then in use-combed their hair straight back-pompa-
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dour fashion, but still let it long enough to reach to the top of the coat collar. The forties saw a new style in vogue. The hair of the men was cut very short behind from ear to ear, often fairly clipped, while the front part was left long-even as long as six to eight inches-and this mop of hair was then combed straight back, those not affecting the style derisively calling it "soap- locks."
Whiskers and mustaches have undergone some radical changes. In the twenties and thirties few men wore whiskers and certainly no Democrat could be loyal to Jackson and permit hair to grow on his face; likewise, the Whigs showed their loyalty to their leader by eschewing all hirsute adornment and Henry Clay was the idol of the Whigs of the county for two decades. In the forties the men of whiskers were associated with poker players, cut- throats and thieves. A man with a long mustache who would have come into Urbana in the forties would have been looked on with suspicion. The Civil War was responsible for a marked change in whiskers and mustaches. Because it was practically impossible to keep shaved while at the front it soon became the fashion to have a full beard, and the custom then inaugurated spread throughout the country. But the old pioneers who lived through the days of the Civil War always kept themselves smooth shaven. Those who recall Governor Vance, Judge John Taylor, John H. James, William Patrick, John Earsom, Jacob Minturn. Robert M. Woods, John Enoch, Samuel Humes, James Mclean, John Hurd and Simon Earsom will recall that they were always clean shaven.
SOMETHING RELATING TO DRESS.
The men wore short breeches until in the twenties, especially the older men. The three-cornered hat, the famous Continental coat, with its fancy facings and gaudy lapels, the silver-buckled slippers, silk stockings, and other evidences of wealth were not unknown in early Urbana. There was a sharp distinction between the dandies of the county seat and the rural folk who were not able to wear gold braid on their clothes. The dandy was held in contempt and the man from the country districts never failed to express his hearty disapproval of his city brother.
It is recorded that Martin Hitt wore to the day of his death the "shad- belly" queue, short breeches, gaiters, stockings, silver-buckled slippers and the Continental coat. Colonel Ward also retained all the old styles as long as he lived. Solomon Vause held to his queue to the end, although he dis- carded the rest of the old styles.
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And the women. How did they dress? Their styles fluctuated with such regularity that it would be impossible to describe them with any degree of accuracy. Homespun was the common dress material of the great major- ity. Hats were unknown for several decades. Girls wore their hair in a knot tied up with a string, and everyone wore a sunbonnet in summer. In winter they wore hoods and shawls over their heads, but later a headgear called a "fascinator" came into use. Hats of straw were sometimes made at home and colored to suit the whim of the wearer, but the use of straw and felt hats for women did not come into general use until after the Civil War. Dresses were very plain; lace was unknown to most women; one dress for "good" (the words "good" and "common" were curiously applied to dresses used for "meeting" and Sunday, and for those worn every day, respectively), was known to be worn for ten years-and then "made over" and worn for another indefinite period. Of course, there were a number of women who wore the finest of silks and satins, but they were few in number compared to the great majority who had nothing but linsey-woolsey and flannel. Most of the dresses, naturally, were cut in order to save as much of the goods as possible ; that is, to make it go as far as possible. It is on record that the largest women in the county, a Mrs. Lafferty, required only six yards for a dress-"and left a remnant for repairs." History does not state how many yards were in the remnant.
AMUSEMENTS OF THE PIONEERS.
The amusements of the early settlers were very simple. There were no moving-picture shows to attend; no shows of any kind, and the thousand and one games we have today were unknown. The neighborhood gather- ings engaged in shucking corn, peeling apples, stirring-off sugar, log-rollings, house and barn-raisings, and the like, all of which were events of material benefit to the community. It must be understood that a log-rolling was as much fun for the young men of that day as a baseball game of today, and the same may be said of the house-raising. Corn-shuckings were mixed affairs, attended by both the young men and the young women and where there were plenty of red ears of corn the affair was a decidedly "bussing" affair, the lad who found a red ear being entitled to the privilege of kissing the girl of his choice. Apple-peeling parties were of the same general nature as the corn-shuckings and were participated in by both sexes. There also were quilting parties and threshing.parties, all of which, it will be noted, were concerned with work which had to be done on the farm. But the people of
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the early days enjoyed these semi-work-play affairs with all the zest which we of 1917 feel for any of our social parties.
Then there were singing schools, spelling matches and ciphering con- tests. mental diversions which were more or less amusement affairs; at least, they were among the most enjoyable affairs of the young people. Some danced at their homes and others thought the dance was to be utterly tabooed. But many of the best people danced to the music of the fiddle-never to the violin. The Virginia reel, the schottische, the minuet, and the waltz were the favorite terpsichorean measures. There was a distinctive "hoe-down" and a number of jigs and shuffles which were always called for at every gather- ing, being as one old settler remarked to the historian, a "solo dances." Eliphas Meacham is one of the last of the old fiddlers. He is still living at Woodstock and during the past few years has taken several prizes in old fiddlers' contests.
Jumping, running foot races, wrestling and throwing weights were indulged in whenever young men congregated at log-rollings, barn-raisings and the like. It was a great honor to be known as the best wrestler (always called "rastler") in the community, and every young man thus honored prided himself on his ability to throw his adversary with "overholds" in what was called the "side rastle." Fist fights were common, especially where there was much drinking, but scientific boxing was unknown and boxing-gloves would have been laughed out of the county. The common expression in the local papers in the forties in describing a fight was that "they went at it hammer and tongs", which, in effect, was a rough-and-tumble fight not based on any established rules of fistic procedure.
The playing of cards was usually looked upon with worse disfavor than dancing. Many a man would drink and get drunk, but would never think of allowing a playing-card in his house. Cards were invariably associated with gambling, especially poker-playing, and many tales are told of the large sums of money lost by prominent men in Urbana in the early days-and some not so early. One judge of the common pleas court was very fond of playing poker and on one occasion lost all his money in a game carried on in a room across the street from the court house.
Before the Civil War there were a few circuses that found their ele- phantine way into the county. Advertisements in the Citizen and Gasette bear witness to the fact that "The Most Gorgeous and Spectacular Perform- ance in the World" would be in Urbana on next Saturday. Those shows were all of the wagon variety, with a few animals, and always an elephant.
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a few horseback riders and a few clowns. They were well patronized by the people, one newspaper in the fifties estimating the crowd at a circus in Urbana at three thousand.
A LEGEND OF PROCTOR CREEK.
Once upon a time a portion of the Wyandotte tribe of Indians dwelt upon the banks of Proctor creek in Rush township. Living in the vicinity of this stream was a renowned Indian chief by the name of Tzipenachoota, who had pledged his faith to a beautiful maiden of the tribe known as Shining Star. On one occasion a party of braves came into the little Indian village with a captive, an innocent pale-faced maiden. The attractiveness of this girl, "White Dove," as she was familiarly called by them, was too much for an Indian warrior's heart, thereby causing the chief to neglect his former love and pledge his vows to the pale-face.
Shining Star tried hard to retain the love of her dusky warrior. Revenge is one of the dearest things to an Indian's heart and Shining Star made her plan to wreak vengeance upon her betrayer. She induced Tzipenachoota to grant one more interview and, according to her plan and suggestion, they were to meet at midnight on the banks of the Proctor. The chief came at the appointed hour. Shining Star was not there; the chief called and while listening for a response an arrow pierced his heart. The Indian maiden's revenge was accomplished. She rushed forward, clasped him to her bosom and leaped into the dark, deep waters beneath her. The next morning their bodies were found quite a distance below the little Indian village. The usual and customary rites were performed over their bodies by their brethren and they were buried in one grave near the stream which silently witnessed the Indian maiden's revenge.
ANOTHER INDIAN STORY.
Daniel Howell, of near Woodstock, came to this section from Maine at a very early date, accompanied by his wife and two children, the latter eight and ten years of age, respectively. The exact date of their coming cannot be ascertained, but one is safe in saying that the inhabitants of what is now Champaign county were then very few. They settled here in the spring and in spite of the many dangers remained unmolested during the following summer. Rumors reached their ears of terrible outrages that were being committed by the Indian savages. Howell, taking due precautions, decided to move his family to a larger settlement on the Scioto river. Accordingly
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