USA > Ohio > Brown County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 39
USA > Ohio > Clermont County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 39
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39
Through twenty years his life was through such throngs as never gathered around the thrones of earth. In East or West, in North or South, and round the world, men forsook all other mirth, and mothers held their babes aloft to see the hero pass. Of all that is told of the most romantic of actual careers. few are so wonderful for brilliant victories and diverse fortunes as Grant of Clermont and Brown. And when he was dead the Nation buried him in the center of the world, where the Hud- son meets the sea and where gratitude for his service has built the finest of American tombs.
The sentiment that would ignore and forget the unpleasant objects to any attention to the mocking horseplay at Bethel. But the great General thought otherwise and gave immortality to the incidents by a circumstantial account in the second chapter of his "Personal Memoirs," where he explicitly states that he never recovered from the impressions made by the af- fair. Justic to him and to many personal friends about Bethel requires that still farther mention should be made in proof of his fine nature in both giving and taking a joke.
Amid all the complexities when he came to Chattanooga to change the reverse at Chickamauga into the wonderful vic- tories of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, Grant's all but intuitive grasp of detail soon included the Fifty-ninth Ohio, with many familiar Brown and Clermont names. Among these was the sounding combination of William Harrison Scott, which caused the successor to the suggested glories of the
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name to take thought. An orderly was sent with an extra horse to bring the said Scott to headquarters, forthwith and without explanation. When the mysteriously arrested and badly bothered Scott was ushered before the famous ,General, the ex-hostler found himself alone with the victim of his fool- eries, that ceased to seem funny as the majesty of the change was realized. But the amiable. officer doffed the iron mask, re- newed an old acquaintance, asked questions about comrades, and the folks at home, and incidentally heard a private's opin- ion of the situation in general, and the particular lack of ra- tions, that had put the regiment on half allowance and even less. "Where is your haversack?" said Grant. "Haversack !" said the private. "Yes, haversack ; where is it?" sternly spoken as if something was wrong. "Oh, I never wear that when I call on the Commander-in-Chief," was the ready answer ; for, as stated in the "Memoirs," the hostler was "possessed of some humor."
"Well, you'll wear one when you leave." and so, one was filled with what could be furnished at headquarters and proudly worn away as he was taken back to the regiment. Having noted that the man was failing, the General ordered an examination that resulted in an honorable discharge on November 20, 1863. which sent Scott back to Bethel to do penance for his pranks and alternately hymn the praise of Grant the rest of his days.
As he came to power, Grant was neither remiss nor lavish, but judicious in remembering his Brown and Clermont friends. His most notable appointment from the region, and one be- yond reproach, was that of his father's attorney, Philip B. Swing, as a judge of the United States Court at Cincinnati.
As long as men are curious about those who achieve great- ness, travelers will come to the Pleasant Point by the mouth of Indian Creek and muse upon the fascinating story of Grant. But intelligent interest will change to wonder at the bounty of fate in adding more to the historic note of the rustic locality. From attendance at the birth of General Grant, Dr. Rogers was called directly before returning home to attend the birth of Mary Ann Clark, of Irish ancestry, who married Shadrach Corbin, born April 4, 1816, and a son of Nicholas and Nancy Corbin. Nicholas Corbin, born in 1784, came with his parents.
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John and Mary Inlow Corbin, from Wales to Maryland in 1790, and in 1800 to Monroe township. On September 15, 1842, and somewhat back among the farms near Point Pleas- ant, a son was born to Shadrach and Mary Corbin and named Henry Clark Corbin. Henry grew up as a farmer boy, went to the district school and then to Parker's Academy. Need- ing money for the study of law, he taught school and, while so employed at Newtown, in Hamilton county, enlisted thirty men for the Eighty-third Ohio, but, in the muster of the regi- ment, he was rejected to make room for a favorite of other offi- cers. Thus put upon his mettle, he recruited another detach- ment, with which he entered the Seventy-ninth Ohio as a sec- ond lieutenant, and did such service that, on March 13, 1865, when but twenty-two and a half years old, he was breveted a brigadier-general. Upon the disbandment of the Union Army, the young general entered the regular army, on May II, 1866, as a second lieutenant of the Eighteenth infantry, and by hard won promotion through forty years, on April 14, 1906, was ap- pointed lieutenant-general-the highest rank in the military service of America. Thus is one township and in what was one rural school district of Clermont county, two commanders in chief of our army were born.
SCENE IN NEW RICHMOND, OHIO, DURING THE FLOOD OF 1913.
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SCENE IN NEW RICHMOND, OHIO, AFTER THE FLOOD OF 1913 HAD RECEDED.
CHAPTER XXII.
AFTER THE GREAT WAR.
The Care of the Unfortunate-The World is Growing Kinder- The Progress of Charity-The Old Poor Houses-The Mod- ern Infirmaries-The Children's Home-Free Pikes-The Toll Gates a Fading Memory-Agitation for a Central Rail- road-The Gore Route-The Stimulating Effect of the Cin- cinnati Southern Railroad-The Narrow Gauge Era-Sam- uel Woodward-Two Roads or None-The Cincinnati and Eastern-The Cincinnati, Georgetown and Portsmouth- Branch Roads and Traction Lines-The Telegraph and Telephone-Men Careless in Pursuit of Pleasure-Peace and Plenty Accepted Without Wonder-Disaster Causes Amazement-The Circuit of the Rain-Water in Geologic Times-Floods Avoided by the Mound Builders-Shanoah Town-The Flood of 1773-Modern Floods-The Flood of 1913-The Ohio Hundred Year Book-U. S. Senators and Members of Congress from Brown and Clermont-Ceme- teries-The Highest Value of History-Our Absent Pop- ulation.
Since men began to plan, power has provided palaces for the mighty, religion has pierced the skies with airy spires, and selfish wealth has lolled in soft array. Greed still guides the way of empire. But true philanthropy brings gladness where hope has ceased to smile. No feature of our age is more indic- ative of worthy progress than the care of the unfortunate Whoever has read history with profit knows that the world is growing kinder. The kindness of the performance measures the progress of society. There may have been a state of orig- inal happiness, when all loved each other as themselves, but, if so, it did not last into historic time. The emergence of ev- ery race from the obscurity of savagery is a disheartening story of pitiless neglect for the weak. In the swift chase for food, the feeble were left to perish, and in the fierce strife of hunger only the strong could get a gorge. There was no law but force.
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In the forecast from dire experience, even maternal instinct shrank from the hateful future and gave a puny child a quick relief from a hopeless life. In dim belief it seemed better to die quick than starve long. The bloom of charity is found on a plant of slow growth that is still budding with promise.
A few of the oldest can remember when the unfortunates, re- gardless of age or sex, were sold at public auction. If there was a prospect of profit from the victim, the bidder paid the price for a chance. But if the case was helpless and hopeless, the charge was given to the one who would or could bid the lowest. It was a species of slavery, and the system was so scandalous that only the neediest or greediest would bid. The anti-slavery agitation growing out of the discussion of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 caused comparison between the black slaves of the South and the "white slaves" of the North. Meanwhile, the laws that made a debtor liable to imprison- ment were made odious and swept away in Ohio, by a move- ment largely urged by Thomas Morris. At last on March 5, 1842, Ohio took a long step forward by authorizing a board of directors to look after a "poor house." The first decided move in Clermont was thade in 1854 by the purchase of a farm about a mile out from Batavia on the pike to Williamsburg, which was exchanged for the present farm of one hundred and twenty acres, where a house was built in 1857 and another for the insane in 1867, which were lost by fire in 1877. Then in 1883, at a cost of forty thousand dollars, the county completed the present building, which is a credit to the State. The move- ment for a permanent provision for the unfortunate in Brown county began as far back as 1828 and has continued with in- creasing comfort. While the buildings are not so elaborate as in the sister county, the individual receives the essentials of food, warmth and clothing, with liberal judgment. But in the provision of a "Children's Home," Brown has so much to her credit, that Clermont has contracted there for the care of her needy children, rather than try to give them equal care within her own borders. In that home the weak and deserted are revived and restored for the march of life, and society is doubly blessed in the mercy that is learned and the good that is gained.
As the Civil War passed by, civic advance required better roads, and the era of free pikes began. Once, when few in
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number and short in extent, such improvements could be easily named as notable examples of public enterprise. They have at last become so numerous that the subject can be more read- ily presented by telling where other pikes are needed; and a period has been reached when maintenance is a larger prob- lem than construction. Free pikes probably had a larger de- velopment at first in Brown than in Clermont, where the toll pikes had the priority, and controlled the important bridges. The toll roads, with few exceptions, were in the direction most convenient for markets. That was mostly to and from the river in southern Brown, or north and south. But in Cler- mont the trend was to and from Cincinnati, or east and west. In the decade of 1870 this was bettered here and there. Dur- ing the next decade the pikes from the Clermont towns were extended eastward to the county line, which united the sys- tem's of the two counties into a gratifying convenience. The cross pikes in both counties have been added year by year and every stream and water bridged until an enumeration of the various improvements, however brief, would fill pages, and not conform to this work. At last not a toll gate can be found in the region, and the full meaning of the word will soon be ob- scure.
Agitation for a railroad through, instead of along or by, Brown and Clermont. began before the Civil War. Much was expected from the direction of Hillsboro, when that town was seeking a way to Cincinnati. An elaborate preliminary survey was made that came down through Williamsburg, but could not be bent to include Batavia. The plan was called the "Gore Route," from the name of the engineer in charge, and was much discussed until the Hillsboro road took a line of less resistance and went by Lynchburg to the Marietta road at Blanchester. After that, even hope offered no relief to the "pocket," which was the term sometimes used to describe the position of Adams, Brown and Clermont counties. Now and then a rumor started talk about the Gore Route, but no one did or could do more than talk. Hope looked eastward, but the resolution in 1869 of that city to build the Cincinnati Southern, and the progress of the work, fixed much attention and made the thought of building railroads familiar. One of the popular fashions of that time was the construction of
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narrow gauge roads, by which steam transportation could be obtained in smaller degree at much reduced rates. Other things had been cheapened. People were willing to believe that a previous failure to get a high priced road was fortunate, when something good enough could be had much cheaper. After that theory had started and before it had been tried out, the trackless region east of Cincinnati was chosen for an ex- periment. In the fall of 1875 the field was inspected. The visit may have been sooner. In late November and through December, 1875, the people in Clermont were given a fine course of instruction on the merits and cheapness of narrow gauge construction as compared with the demerits and great cost of the broad gauge plan. The teachers of the opportunity were Samuel Woodward of Morrow. Ohio, and George Wil- bur; and all that they said and more was told to willing be- lievers. A meeting was called for New Year's, 1876, at the court house in Batavia. That meeting comprised citizens from the Round Bottom road, from Donnell's Trace east and west, and from the old State road, by Clough Creek. No, the people of those localities would not have known what was meant by a railroad meeting or by broad or narrow gauge. And the real difference between the two systems was not much plainer to those who came from Perintown, Mt. Carmel, Amelia and Mt. Washington, with Batavia in suspense and Williamsburg in wonder. There was no lack of spirit, but much need of harmony, for each and all of the scattered points wanted a nar- row gauge through their place and by their door. When the fact developed that some must do without, the hills of Dis- cord almost fell and filled the valley of Progress. . The fact soon appeared that the question was not one railroad, but whether there should be two roads or none.
Mr. Woodward stated that he would have nothing to do with a road feeding into the Little Miami road, his road must go into the city, with wheels on its own track. Then the hill people said they would have nothing to do with him, and the meeting dissolved into two. The difference between no rail- road and two was long and apparently fatal, but Clermont reached the decisive step on that afternoon.
The first company was formally begun on January 10, 1876, by Samuel Woodward, Milton Jamieson, George W. Hulick.
Courtesy of Booso & Green, Milford, Ohio.
IN LOVELAND, OHIO, AFTER WATE MARCH 25 AND 26, 1913. RECEDED. FLOOD OF
Courtesy of Booso & Green, Milford, Ohio.
TRACTION BRIDGE, MARCH 26, 1913. LITTLE MIAMI AT MILFORD, OHIO.
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William Mansfield, George H. Wilbur, W. B. C. Sterling, George WV. Gregg, Peter F. Swing, Charles H. Thomas, By- ron Williams and W. A. Kain, who incorporated to build the Cincinnati, Batavia & Williamsburg Railroad, along the East Fork route. Soon after the charter was extended to Ports- mouth, and the name changed to the Cincinnati & Eastern. The construction was so energetic by this rural company, with a subscription secured along the line that the narrow gauge trains were brought from the junction with the Little Miami road to Batavia on October 18, 1876, and to Williams- burg on March 1, 1877. Moving steadily eastward the track approached the Brown county line on Saturday, March 24, 1877, and at about four p. m. Charles H. Thomas and Henry C. Kain laid the first rail and I drove the first spike of the first railroad in Brown county. With the mutations of such enterprise, that road is now the Cincinnati division of the Nor- folk & Western, one of the great railway systems of Amer- ica, which is fully redeeming Brown and Clermont from the old reproach of not being on the railroad maps.
The second Trans-County Railroad Company was incor- porated in the winter of 1876 by Thomas Donaldson, Benne- ville Kline, John Carlisle, Chilton A. White, Henry W. Kim- ball, Joseph Clare, Paul Mohr, J. D. Kyle, Josiah Kirby, and H. W. Wellman, for the purpose of building a railroad from Cin- cinnati, through Mt. Washington, Mt. Carmel, Amelia, Bethel, Hamersville, Georgetown and Russellville. After changes, this road is known as the Cincinnati, Georgetown & Portsmouth Railroad. While of immense local advantage, the importance of through connections is delayed. The Old Cincinnati & East- ern Company built a branch to New Richmond, that after a few years was abandoned. Another branch was projected be- tween Hillsboro and Georgetown through Sardinia that has been extended to Ripley. During the narrow gauge fever of 1876, a road was projected from Milford through Newtonville to Fayetteville and Hillsboro, that brought a locomotive to the Goshen Pike crossing, and then failed. Ten years later, the Chesapeake & Ohio brought their great railway along the Ohio on the Kentucky side.
All this convenience of steam railways was supplemented during the first decade of the twentieth century, by the exten-
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sion or completion of electric traction lines, of which the most western runs through Milford to Blanchester ; another through Milford by Fayetteville to Hillsboro; a third from Cincinnati through Mt. Washington and Amelia to Bethel ; a fourth over the Cincinnati, Georgetown and Portsmouth track to Rus- sellville, with one branch to Batavia and another from Bethel to Felicity ; and still another from Cincinnati to New Rich- mond. With the probable extension of the lines eastward along the Ohio, and from the present terminals at Batavia and Rus- sellville, no other rail tracks within reason are left to be imag- ined for either county. The telegraph has followed and even preceded the railroads and every desiring home with the price can have the accommodation of the telephone.
While individuals are prone to repine at personal prospects, the great throng of mankind is intent upon pleasure though the path goes by the brinks of danger. The most mirth provoking wine gains it flavor from volcanic dust and the richest food is gathered where the waters return after the rain. Geology teaches that torrents have surged where rivulets only murmur now. All life is blessed or blasted as the shifting currents mass the clouds for rain or scatter them for drouth-so much and we are glad-a little more or less and we perish. A genera- tion is passed in peace and plenty without wonder. The dis- aster of a day causes amazement. Yet the trouble flows from only a waver in the balancings of a ceaseless change. The creative force that lifted the Laurentian land and smoothed its gentle slopes for the happiest clime between torrid heat and frigid cold, also fashioned those fruitful slopes with the finest circuit of life sustaining vapors that blesses any equal area of our wind swept world. The waters rising from the steaming sea and floating away to refresh the thirsty land, when touched by the condensing wand that scatters the pearly drops of plenty on the smiling plain have only reached the turn in the appointed journey whence they must go back through soaking fields and trickling springs, and be gathered by the babbling brooks for a flow to the sea.
The circuit without which all design must fail begins with a flight through the measureless fields of upper air and closes with a fall to an all engulfing deep. Where so much must be done so soon, experience knows that the flight of the clouds
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must often swirl in tempests, and the return of the rains must be piled in floods. Still, with each repetition, men wonder and make comparison and prophesy more evil. For many resent ."The sweet influences of the Pleiades" and lift up a voice to the clouds against the abundance or lack of waters." All such opinion is as futile now as when Job darkened counsel by words without knowledge. Science and history agree in teaching that a lack of water is more probable than the re- verse. Geologic investigation is rife with evidence of the once terrific flow of floods. Every wave worn hill or bed of gravel tells a tale of primeval floods. The Mound Builders kept well above the modern limit. Among those on the low- est level known are two or three on the rim by Newtown, which seem to have been outposts of the much higher village at Red Bank.
. Among modern Indians, the first and only known occupa- tion of the Ohio river below the vicinity of Pittsburgh was made by the wandering Shawnees and Delawares, near the mouth of the Scioto, where Gist came in 1751 and named their recent settlement Shanoah Town. Fourteen years later, Sha- noah was swept away and the Shawnees went up the Scioto to the safety of the Pickaway Plains. In June, 1773, the Mc- Afee brothers, James, George and John, of Botetourt county, Virginia, came on an exploring expedition down the Ohio, then in flood that reached from hill to hill. They had intended to explore the Miami country, but the wild waste of water changed their purpose and they eventually went back into Kentucky from Louisville. By tradition that flood exceeded all that is known of the Ohio by some three or four feet. The settlement of Columbia and the plans of John Cleves Symmes at North Bend were changed by a "freshet" in January, 1789. After that only the lower lands were much disturbed until February, 1832, brought a flood of sixty-four feet and three inches. That was approached in December, 1847, by an- other of sixty-three feet and seven inches. No great diffi- culty was met for thirty-two years. Then the trouble began in February, 1882, with a little flood that was followed in Feb- ruary, 1883, by one that rose to sixty-six feet and four inches, and then on February 14, 1884, by seventy-one feet and three- fourths of an inch, the highest yet accurately measured at Cincinnati.
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A study of the reports from other localities showed varia- tions that resulted from different tributaries. What was greatest in one time or place was not so in another. People learned that the trouble of one region passed on to become the sorrow of another, as the floods of the Ohio joined others from the North and from the West and formed the vast vol- umes of the Mississippi, which is being leveed as a National necessity. The subsequent almost annual repetition of the annoyance here or there in widely distant regions has much apparently inconsequential attention. Men will not desert their richest fields because of occasional disaster. Such sug- gestion is not creditable to American enterprise, and all dis- cussion that is not comprehensive is apt to be disappointing. Meanwhile, a most recent experience has added much to local disquietude.
On Easter Sunday, March 23, 1913, and in the equinoctial season, as was noted by some who believe that nature suffers then, a week of fine weather gave place to a heavy and lengthy fall of rain that in westward regions, especially in Omaha, was.ushered by a fearfully fatal cyclone. The people of the old Clermont region were glad with the possession of an al- most hourly steam and traction service for most of the town- ships, and the expectation of a speedy extension of the con- venience to all. The rural neighborhoods were rejoicing in the promised improvement of the two main central highways east and west under the fostering care of the State, and all were pleased with the general prospect of better things for the public. Amid such felicity the pitiless rain fell upon all Ohio in a sheet of water that reached a depth in many gauges of eight and a half inches. By Tuesday the word went that cities along the smaller rivers were being ruined by torrents, and that thousands of lives were lost or in danger. Then the State was wrapped in the silence and suspense of no trains, no mails, no newspapers, no telegraphs, no telephones and bridgeless roads.
Locally the disaster fell upon the Miami Valley from Love- land to the mouth of the East Fork, where the damage from the rushing current included bridges and homes that had been free from any previous danger. As the water receded from the tributaries, the flood in the Ohio began and all but
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Courtesy of Booso & Green, Milford, Ohio.
MILFORD, OHIO, ON "THE ISLAND" WEDNESDAY MORNING, MARCH 26, 1913. FLOOD AT ITS HEIGHT.
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CATHOLIC CHURCH, CORNER OF MILL AND ELM STREETS, MILFORD, OHIO, DURING HEIGHT OF FLOOD, MARCH 26, 1913.
Milford. 0. 1913
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Courtesy of Booso & Green, Milford, Ohio.
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Courtesy of Booso & Green, Mitford, Ohio.
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SCENE IN LOVELAND DURING FLOOD. MARCH 26, 1913.
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DEBRIS ON "THE ISLAND" AFTER FLOOD OF 1913, MILFORD, OHIO.
urtesy of Booso & Green, Milford, Ohio.
ON "THE ISLAND" AFTER WATERS RECEDED, MARCH 26, 1913.
ON "THE ISLAND" AFTER WATERS HAD RECEDED AT MILFORD, OHIO, FLOOD OF 1913.
>urtesy of Booso & Green, Milford, Ohio.
EBRIS ON "THE ISLAND." MILFORD, OHIO, AFTER WATER RECEDED, MARCH 26, 1913.
ttesy of Booso & Green, Milford, Ohio.
REAR OF BARN AND HOTEL AT MILFORD, OHIO, AFTER WATERS HAD RECEDED. Water came on floor above basement of barn and flowed out of front doors like a river. Water about five feet in basement of hotel. Current was about twenty-five miles per hour. Guests l up all night March 25, 1913.
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· reached the record height of 1884. At some points the former marks were exceeded, and all insist that the damage along the Ohio was greater than ever before, because of the waves from untimely winds. The one thing to be remembered with pleasure is the fine sympathy which hastened to help the peo- ple that suffered all along the river front from Loveland to Aberdeen.
Besides the Military Roster, Ohio has published an exhibit of those who have served the State in civil positions. That work, known as the Ohio Hundred Year-Book, is so ample and elaborate as to preclude the need of such tabulation in these pages. But a look through the rolls of Congress will furnish names that have been familiar, and should be remembered. Much mention has been made of United States Senators, Alex- ander Campbell and Thomas Morris. They are the only citi- zens of Brown or Clermont who have held that exalted dignity.
The first member of Congress from Brown was Thomas L. Hamer, also frequently mentioned. He was followed in 1839- 40-41-42 by William Doane, of Clermont. Jonathan D. Mor- ris, a son of Senator Morris, was a member in 1847-48-49-50. Andrew Ellison, of Brown, served in 1853-54. William How- ard, of Clermont, served in 1859-60. The next was Chilton A. White, of Brown, in 1861-62-63-64. R. W. Clark, of Clermont, followed in 1865-66-67-68. Twenty years later W. W. Ellsberry was a member in 1885-86. The next was John M. Pattison, of Clermont, in 1891-92, and the last was George W. Hulick, of Clermont, in 1893-94-95-96. Their united service in Congress amounted to nineteen terms, or thirty-eight years in all. All of those honorable men served both counties as one, except Dr. Ellsberry, of Brown, then in another district, and all have ceased from effort.
The care of the departed, as well as the homes of the living, is a test of the means and taste of a time. When the people · were few and lonely, and before a denser settlement gathered them in groups, the graves were made near by where sorrow could keep a constant vigil. As others came, mourning was healed with the thought that those who had lived in love should be together in death, so family burial places were set apart. As churches were fixed, grief brought its dead to rest where piety had taught eternal hope. As communities grew
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· stronger, society combined in selecting desirable cemeteries for which, and for all graves, benign laws have provided' care and continuance. Thus spots consecrated by long-gone sor- row have become the scenes of much monumental attention. An example of such development is found where Green Lawn Cemetery has succeeded the pioneer Gatch burial ground, which in turn before was a part of a stupendous scene in the Mound Builders' age-a scene which is eloquent with warning that we are as shadows in a sweeping whirl of change.
Milford has much but not a monopoly of such suggestion. The highway along the valley by Stonelick, Marathon and Fayetteville to Chillicothe, and the course by the Ohio have similar spots replete with reflection upon the heedless waste of natural wealth-the waste that is extirpating instead of cherishing the Blue Grass, which was and should be the nat- ural, bountiful and fittest food for flesh in the Land of the Blue Limestone. Adverse critics rehearse the ravage of floods, deplore diminished crops, and cite that population does not increase. They arraign nature. They wail ills that can be cured. They distort truth.
The highest value of history depends upon the lesson learned. All pride in the past, however glorious, is vain that does not incite to noble purpose. The floods come from rain. And rain is the divinest blessing that has made the Ohio Val- ley a garden of the earth. With floods unused Egypt could not have been. With floods controlled the valley of the Nile was the cradle of civilization. No doubt the damage was great at first and many perished. But man learned and conquered. And man must learn again. Strife is the inexorable condition of progress. In the scramble for fickle coin instead of the stable wealth of fertilizing herds, the verdure has been with- ered in cruel crops of baleful hay, and the richest loam has fled from the blasting blight of tobacco in. order to feed the teams and solace the fatigue of an all-devouring and little re- turning city. Wisdom warns man to love the future and cease to waste the land for selfish gain. Those sated with the lust of the city must be coaxed to bring their gain and revel on fruited hills and along clover bordered paths. The population of Brown and Clermont is not at a standstill, but growing wide and far. The tens of thousands born and bred
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rtesy of Booso & Green, Milford, Ohio.
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AR END OF HICKEY'S LIVERY BARN AFTER ALL THE NEW ADDITION HAD BEEN WASHED AWAY, MARCH 26, 1913.
Courtesy of Booso & Green, Milford, Ohio.
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Cross shows where three-story livery and undertaking building of Mr. Motsinger stood. It was washed away at midnight of March 25 and 26, 1913. It hit the bridge across Little Miami.
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but not counted there are not lost but only away-some at a desk or pulpit, some ranching or mining, some marking new ways for commerce or bearing the Flag, some ruling a school or queening a home, but all turning at morn, noon and night to look from mountains or peer through clouds toward the Land of their Youth.
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