USA > Ohio > Darke County > History of Darke County, Ohio, from its earliest settlement to the present time, Volume I > Part 23
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I don't know where the folks kick up their heels in Green- ville of late years, but when I lived there, Weston & Ullery's hall was the most popular assembly room in the town. It was as cold as a barn in the winter, although two stoves were kept red hot all the time. Still, everybody enjoyed themselves, whether the ocasion was a dance. church festival or magic lan- tern exhibition. I was most interested in the dances, for my girl was always there-about six of her. But I couldn't dance at all compared to "Yune" Bowman, Bill Studabaker and Jim Devor (Big Jim). Taylor Fitts was an excellent dancer. and
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so was Alf Hyde, John Deardourff, Pete Lavin, Lew Elliott, Tip King and several others. Among the girl dancers were Mollie King, "Node" Craig, Susan Minser, Mary Scribner, Julia Burge, Susan Gorsuch, Nettie Martin and Molly Sebring. Of course there were many others, but I name the above as the constantly "engaged" set.
Then take the dances in Ullery & Emrick's hall. Those were the jolliest dances ever held anywhere. The Greenville "Crumrine Club" was composed of men of mark, viz .: Moses Hart, Michael Spayd, Ed Putnam, Charley Calkins, Eli Helm, Jack Sweitzer, Eli Hickox. Henry Horning, Dan King, John King, Enos Shade and General Spiece. Soup for everybody. Toasts and speeches. Frogs' legs and catfish. "Yum, yum." I wasn't old enough to be a member, but I was old enough to eat at many of their feasts.
Circus Lore
Nearly every circus that came to Greenville in those days came from Winchester, Ind., and we boys would get up early in the morning to see the elephant. Sun-up generally found a dozen or more of us (no breakfast, mind you, for boys in those days hadn't time to eat on circus day) out on the pike by John H. Martin's setting on the fence waiting for the procession to form. We followed close to the elephant and when he got to the Mud Creek bridge he would refuse to cross it, but pre- ferred to wade through the water instead. When he got in the middle of the stream he would stop and squirt water for several minutes and then meander up the bank and into the procession. We boys would trail after the elephant or band wagon all over town and then hurry back to the show ground and ride the horses to water. This would insure us admis- sion to the show. We all "belonged to the show" for that day at least. The next morning we would be on the ground bright and early hunting for money, which we never found. I have never found any since.
The Buckeye Hotel burned down in 1856. The following year Spalding & Rogers' circus and Van Amburgh's menagerie exhibited in Greenville on the same day. The circus was given on the corner of Main and Elm streets, on the corner where the late Michael Miller erected his residence. The menagerie canvass was stretched on the ground where the high school stands on Fourth street.
(17)
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With one of these shows was a side-show that opened on the lot where the Buckeye Hotel had stood and on the present site of William Kipp's Sons' drug store, Broadway and Public Square. The first Japanese I ever saw was with this show. His "Skit" was to throw a number of daggers and stick them into a board close to the neck and head of a man who stood up in front of the board.
The man had his back to the board and the Jap would take up a dagger and throw it and stick it "Ker chuck" close to one side of the man's neck. Another dagger was stuck into the board close to the other side of the man's neck. A third and fourth dagger was fastened into the board above the man's ears, while the fifth dagger was driven into the board close to the top of the man's head. Eli Bowman, the legless man, was another feature of the show, and the third one was John Allen, the armless man who wrote with his toes.
Rowdyism.
Another important event took place in Greenville, a year or two after the completion of the Greenville & Miami Railroad. A crowd of Dayton roughs came up to Greenville for the pur- pose of licking the "backwoodsmen" of Darke county. In- stead of licking them they got most beautifully pummelled themselves. Theodore Beers. Ed. Potter and Bill Dewire licked about 16 apiece and sent them back to Dayton with black eyes and sore bones. About 17 or 18 years later the "Dayton Rounders." headed by Lum Cathcart, came up to get revenge. Cathcart got shot in the neck, and a stray shot hit Dave Wise (proprietor King's Hotel) in the neck also.
A third important event took place when several soldiers were at home on a furlough, and taking umbrage at the atti- tude of the Darke County Democrat on the war question. threw the material of that office out of the window on to the sidewalk in front of Weston & Ullery's hardware store, corner Third and Broadway.
Still another "important event" might be mentioned. The old "Butternut Corner," a building on the corner where Weis- enberger's drug store now is, was the rendezvous of the Darke County "Copperheads." A lot of soldiers went out "skylark- ing" one night when it occurred to them that it would be a good idea to "bombard the fort." Preliminary to the attack a line of boxes was extended across Broadway, from Jim Sum-
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mierville's corner (now Koester's block, Third and Broadway ) to Moore's corner. The sharpshooters crouched behind the boxes and at the word of command the fusilade began. Brick- bats, stones, clubs, and tin cans were fired at the "fort" until those on the inside began to escape by twos and threes. An occasional shot was fired into the air by some fellow for pure devilment, and some cuss had the audacity to scalp wound Bill Barwise with a half spent bullet. It was fun for the soldiers but it was a close call for Barwise.
Fall Pastimes.
In the fall of the year we hunted red and black haws, hick- ory and walnuts, yes, and hazelnuts galore. The roof of our kitchen was covered with nuts laid out to dry. The walnut stain stuck to our hands until the "cows came home" and longer.
Cider making time was here, and often we would walk out to Billy Bishop's and suck cider through a straw. Then came applebutter making and more cider to drink. When corn cut- ting season was over and the pumpkins were gathered, we would go to the woods with our little wagon and gather hick- ory bark for morning kindling. I yet can hear it cracking under the back-logs. Soon the apples, potatoes, cabbage and turnips would be unloaded in my father's garden, and us boys were put to work burying them for winter. But when we saw load after load of wood being corded up in the lane we would become seriously afflicted with mental rheumatism. Oh! the excuses we did make! The sawbuck was always broke and the saw needed filing. New saws, new bucks and new axes every fall, and still it was a difficult job to get us to saw enough wood at one time to cook breakfast and to keep the family warm during the day.
Cabbage enough was always saved out to make a barrel of sourkraut, and the man that made ours was "Old Dutch Thomas," as we boys knew him. That work done, "Pap" as we called our father, was ready to kill his hogs. He never failed to kill from two to four every year. When the butch- ering was over then came sausage making and the salting down of a barrel or two of meat. The hams were "smoked" in the smoke house near the well. We boys who helped (?) do so much (?) work scrambled hard for the pig tails. These we roasted on the stove and the feast of eating them was
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most enjoyable. When there wasn't pig tails enough to go around, the thought would come to me that if ever I became a farmer I wouldn't raise any pigs but two-tailed kind.
Butchering time was when mother saved up fat for soap. We had an ashhopper in our yard and a big iron kettle to boil the fat out of the meat. Then came the "cracklings." I am not so fond of them as I once was, but many is the crack- ling I have "scratched," as mother used to say. Soft soap was all the go in those days and our folks always made enough to last a year.
Children's Pastimes.
The children in those early days who were too small to at- tend the revivals were left at home sitting in front of the old fireplace, cracking nuts and eating apples.
Methinks I can hear those little tads singing at times :
"When the north winds do blow, Then we shall have snow, Oh! what will the poor robin do then, poor thing? It will sit in a barn To keep itself warm." etc., etc.
Or they may sing :
"I want to be an angel And with the angels stand ; A crown upon my forehead, And a harp within my hand."
That was about the only religious song children knew in those days.
When we got tired of singing we'd play "Button, button, who's got the button," or we'd recite some pieces. "Mary had a little lanib" was a good one. "Albert Ross and his dog 'Dash'" never failed to bring down the house. "Jack and Gill went up the hill" was never lost sight of.
Another one of our "classics" was:
"I wish I had a little dog. I'd pat him on the head, And so merrily he'd wag his tail Whenever he was fed."
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Next a boy and girl would stand out on the floor facing the others and the boy would take a sugar kiss (3 for a cent) out of his pocket and slowly unwrap the paper and pick out the little verse and read to his girl this beautiful two-line stanza :
"As the vine grows 'round the stump, You are my darling sugar lump."
Then the little girl would blush and wiggle her body a bit and take a verse from her sugar kiss and read it :
"If you love me as I love you- No knife ean cut our love in two."
That was a clincher. Every boy in the room was envious of that one boy.
Then would come this, that and the other until bedtime.
The other would be:
"Monkey, monkey, barrel of beer, How many monkeys are there here? One, two three-out goes he!"
Then this :
"Hick-o-ry, Dick-o-ry, Dock The mouse ran up the clock, The clock struck one, The mouse ran down, Hiek-o-ry, Dick-o-ry, Dock."
Of course larger boys and girls-girls who were big enough to have beaus-would sing one or more of the following : Ben Bolt, Suwanee River, Nellie Gray, Mocking Bird, Annie Laurie, Comin' Through the Rye, Little Brown Jug, The Last Rose of Summer, Willie, We Have Missed You, Paddle Your Own Canoe, Swinging in the Lane, The Girl I Left Behind Me, Wait for the Wagon, etc., etc.
When it came to recitations the big boys and girls could beat us little folks every time. Their favorite pieces were : The Burial of Sir John Moore, Cassabianca, Old Grimes is Dead, That Good Old Soul, Charles D. Moore's Remorse, Lord Ullom's Daughter, etc., etc.
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Sunday Observance.
What a quiet town Greenville used to be on Sunday! There was nothing to do but drink whisky, play poker, fight roosters, go fishing, swimming or skating (according to weather), run horses, pitch horse shoes, or-go to church. I almost forgot the latter. And yet the churches were well filled-more so than they are today, considering population. After the roads were graveled there was considerable buggy riding. In the spring, Sunday was a great day to gather "greens," and at other seasons of the year go to the woods for haws and wild plums.
Sassafras diggers were also plentiful at times. I suppose that the mania today is auto-riding.
Games.
Townball used to be a great game. The "commons" was the ball ground. "Anthony" over was another game, the "mumb- bly" peg. quoits, seven-up in the hay mows. matching big cop- per cents, plump for keeps, hully gull, hop-scotch, and jumping the rope. At school it was "Ring around the rosy," "Black- man," "King William was King James' Son." and "Come Fil- ander."
I pine for just one minute of those old days again.
Drinking.
Whisky in the '50s was very cheap-only twelve and one- half cents a gallon-good whisky at that. Farmers bought it by the barrel-especially in harvest or log rolling time. The best of whisky cost from $5.25 to $8 a barrel.
In those days Darke county had a large crop of drunkards. For ten cents a man could stay drunk a whole week, but now a "week's drunk" would cost from $25 up. I don't think there were as many "crazy" drunkards in early days as there are now, because whisky in those days was pure, while the whisky of today never saw a still house.
The Old Band.
There are some things about Greenville that I never fail to recall with a recollection born of boyhood sentiment. Take the old band, for instance: There was none better in Ohio. Henry Tomlinson was the leader-great big-hearted, noble
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man. Alf Hyde, his assistant-good as they made cornet players in those days ; Tip King, Major Hickox, Dan Zimmer- man, Isaac Leonard, Ike Lynch, Billy Waggoner, Ed Tomlin- son, John Deardourff, Les Ries, John Fryberger, Dave Vantil- burgh. Abe Huffman and the writer. Ah, me, but those were happy days! Sometimes Jack Sweitzer and Colonel Frizell would meet with us in the room over Hufnagle's store, and then out would go the big water-can over to King's Hotel (now the Wagner House) and when it came back we would sing, "Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot," etc.
Early Fairs.
It hardly seems a fact, but it is, that the first "Darke county fair" was held forty years ago. What an insignificant thing it was then, compared with the exhibits of the present day! Then a few hundred people made up the attendance ; now they come by thousands. Then the sheds, halls, stables and fences were made of wide pine board and sold to the high- est bidder after the fair; now everything in that line is of a permanent nature, and in some instances the buildings are substantial and becoming. Then the cattle were of the "old brindle cow" stripe ; now the exhibit contains the finest in the land-Shorthorns, Herefords, Jerseys, Gallaways, Polled An- gus, Holsteins, Durhams, etc. The old elm-peeler hog has been superseded by the Poland-China, the Berkshire, Ches- ter White, Victorias, Duroc Jerseys, Essex, Suffolk and other breeds. Sheep likewise have been wonderfully improved since the days of 1855. The chicken flocks have undergone wonderful changes, especially in varieties, but it is doubtful whether any of the new breeds surpass the old "dunghill" for eggs and good meat. The rest of the fowl creation has kept pace with the improvement spirit in other lines, and contrasts most admirably with the "bloods" of forty years back.
In farm implements the advance has been astonishing. From the old man-killing cradle mode of harvesting advance was made to the reaper without a rake-off ; then came the auto- matic rake-off, followed by the wonderful self-binder. The sulky corn plow, the revolving and various other styles of har- row, corn planter, hay baler, hay carrier, hay loader, and many other like improvements for the farmer. The improvements in grain, in fruits, in potatoes, etc., have been as great, but in nothing has improvement and genius been so extensive and so surprising as in farm implements and machinery.
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With all this for the present day, the people enjoyed the "Darke county fair" of forty years ago quite keenly. 'Twas the best they had ever witnessed, and the exhibits were up to the times-better, perhaps, considering the comparative ad- vantages, than those of today. The two-forty trotter was a wonderful nag in those days, and he was groomed and praised as must as the two-ten horse is of today. .
The forty years have not diminished the ambition among the people for county fairs in the least. The season is one of recreation and pleasure to farmers especially, and they enjoy these annual exhibitions, and they come, regardless of the weather. They have kept pace with the world of improvement, and their lands, their crops, stock, farm implements and build- ings evidence the universal ambition to keep up with the pro- cession.
Log Rollings and Hooppoles.
It won't be many years before the timber will be thinned out so that the wild game will be scarce. Go into the country in any direction and you will see gangs of men at work burn - ing down trees so as to get them out of the way. Timber is an awful nuisance in this county, and it's so thick down around Arcanum that cattle and hogs get lost for days at a time. Then it's awful muddy down there, too, but they will have good roads one o' these days, for I understand they are cutting down all the small trees and making corduroy roads with them. There is some talk of the sawmill at Sampson doing nothing but saw heavy boards to pin down along the roads, and then there will be nothing but plank roads all over the county. There is a nice corduroy road between Dallas and Lightsville. It was thought here at a time that there was plenty of gravel to be had in this county, but it was all they could do to get enough to build the Winchester and Gettys- burg pikes. There is timber enough in this county to make plank roads everywhere. They will be much "smoother" and cheaper than gravel.
Was you ever at a log rolling? Well you ought to go once and see what an amount of work neighbors will do for one another. When a settler gets hold of a quarter section, or even forty acres of timber land and wants to build a house or a barn, or both, all he has to do is to let his neighbors know it, and they will come even ten miles to help him.
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Nearly all the log houses in Darke county were built in that way-neighbor helping neighbor.
Look yonder! There comes a half dozen teams down the hill over there by 'Squire Doty's, every wagon loaded with hoop- poles. They are taking them to Cincinnati to the big cooper- shops where they make the pork barrels for the big packing houses there. Those hooppoles come from away up in Mis- sissinawa and Allen townships, where young hickory trees are so thick that a deer can't get through them. Those teams will all be driven into Mark's barnyard, corner of Fourth and Broadway, and rest up tonight, and early tomorrow morning resume their journey. They will drive to Eaton tomorrow, and the next day to Hamilton, and the following day they will land in Cincinnati. They could easily make the trip in two days if they could travel on corduroy roads, and if on plank roads they could do it in less time. I expect to see the day when there will be a plank road from Greenville clear to Cincinnati. There is timber enough in Darke county to do it, and it wouldn't be missed. A good plank road from Greenville to Cincinnati would bust up that railroad that was built from Dayton up here a few years ago. Railroads will never amount to much in this country. They are very unpopular and ex- travagant ; besides the whistle on the engine scares all the horses, and not long ago the engine ran into a drove of cattle belonging to the Studabakers and killed about $100 worth of steers.
An Old Huckster.
You see if we had plank roads in this county, Huggins' huckster wagon (he has four of 'em) could travel all over Darke county and gather in eggs, tallow, beeswax, calamus root, coon skins, deer hides, sassafras bark, and leave with the settlers coffee, tea, sugar, thread, pepper, salt, calico, and other store goods in exchange. With plank roads running all over the county we won't have any use for railroads.
There comes a four-horse team down Main street. The wagon is loaded with lumber. It came all the way from Spar- tansburg, Indiana. The fellow sitting on the saddle horse jerking the rein is J. Wesley Clemens, from near Tampico out in the colored settlement. He is hauling that lumber down to the fair ground (you can see it yonder in that bunch of oak trees on the Jefferson road) to build the fence. Allen LaMotte has the job of building the fence, and when the fair is over
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they sell the lumber to Nick Kuntz who has that saw mill you see yonder on the banks of Greenville creek.
Kerosene and Telegraph.
Did you see that stuff they had at Burtch's grocery the other night for making light? It's a fluid of some kind that soaks into a wick and you get it afire and it burns very bright ; but it is dangerous and expensive stuff. There has been a great im- provement on candles here of late. They've got candle moulds down at Carter's candle factory in Huntertown that will turn out twelve candles at a pop. I understand the Studabakers and other rich people have moulds of the same size. They cost about $2.50 and poor folks who are unable to own even a four candle mould can get along very well with the tallow dip. A person can buy a dip at Allen's tin store for twenty cents that has a spout on it for the wick to come through and a handle on it the same as some tea cups have. There is an oil used in some of the big cities that is called kerosene, but it blows up and kills people. There ought to be a law against selling such dangerous stuff. I heard Thomas P. Turpen say that when he stopped in New York city on his way home from South Amer- ica that he saw lights on the corners of the streets that were made out of some kind of gas, and even some of the big hotels had it to light the dining rooms.
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Have you ever been to that telegraph office over Workman's and Daily's dry goods store? There's a machine up there that a long strip of paper runs through and it has a lot of dots and dashes on it that take the place of letters. They are getting pretty hard up when they have to use signs instead of the plain a, b, c's. I heard Dan R. Davis say that when he was in Day- ton not long ago he saw a man that could tell what message was coming over the wire just by the sound it made; he did not have to look at the strip of paper at all. Well, when they get to doing that it will be pretty near time for the world to come to an end.
An Old Fiddler.
One of the old "land marks" of Greenville yet remains in a log cabin standing at the extreme south end of Euclid avenue, a little to the east. The writer first saw the cabin forty-five years ago, and it was then an old structure in appearance. A
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family by the name of Quick lived in it, the father and two sons earning a livelihood by cutting cord wood and splitting rails for the farmers nearby, this part of the country being then a comparative wilderness. Nine-tenths of Greenville of today was at that time "in the woods." One of the Quicks. Aaron, was a "fiddler" (called violinists now), and he made the "wild west" resound with "Old Dan Tucker," "Old Rosin the Bow,". "Jennie Put the Kettle On," and the Arkansaw Traveler. Aaron was a cripple, and he done little else but play the fiddle in a genuine old backwoodsman style. He had no fiddle "larnin." but nevertheless he could find an audience of considerable size whenever he would come up to town- Greenville was then a "town." Aaron made many a quarter playing to a street audience and was in great demand at the numerous country dances of those days. The old cabin ought to be photographed as a relic before it gives way to "fate." It is not improbable that the structure is nearly, if not quite, sixty years old, as that part of Greenville is quite "aged," and was "organized" by a Mr. George Hunter, an Englishman, house painter by trade, that part of the town bearing his name to this day, as "Huntertown."
"Coonskin" Brown.
While we are sitting here in this belfry, we might as well look at some of the persons who cross the public square or come in or go out of town. We can't find a better place to see what is going on. There comes a man on horse-back around the corner at Fitts' tavern, corner of Broadway. that used to be called Mark's Tavern. That's "Coonskin" Brown; you've heard of him, haven't you? He's one of the odd characters of Darke county. I guess he's got about a hundred coonskins strapped to his horse. He traps them down there in the neigh- borhood of New Madison and when he gets one hundred or so he fetches them to town and sells them to Allen LaMotte. That's Allen's place right down there to the left on Broadway, where you see that pile of pelts. You see this county is nearly all woods and wild game is plentiful. Up around Dallas there's lots of deers and wild turkeys-in fact there are wild turkeys all over the county. Then there are lots of mink. muskrats, foxes, and a few wildcats, and as fast as the settlers can kill them off they bring their pelts into Greenville and sell them to LaMotte.
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While "Coonskin" was a great coon hunter-the most suc- cessful in the county-he was also fond of honey. "Joe" Bloom owned a good bunch of trees not far from New Madison and in one of these trees was a nest of bees. Bloom made up his mind to get hold of that honey in some way, but he was a little slow in doing it. However, the time came when he concluded to make an effort and engaged a couple of men to assist him. The three of them went to the woods to find that some one had chopped the tree down the night before and robbed the bees' nest of the honey. Bloom ripped and snorted and pos- sibly cussed a little-not because the honey was gone-but because the tree had been cut down. He had his suspicion as to who the guilty person was, but he couldn't prove it, and being a responsible man, he kept quiet for fear of a libel suit in the event he might be mistaken. One day he met Brown and said to him : "Coonskin," somebody cut down a bee tree of mine a few nights ago, and if you will find out who it was I will give you $5."
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