USA > Ohio > Shelby County > History of Shelby County, Ohio, and representative citizens > Part 45
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tiful home. Its two and one-half acres have given him healthy employment for the last twenty-one years, furnishing him with the vegetables and fruits of the soil in abundance and to spare, while, at the same time, he has em- joyed the social and church advantages of the city.
Wyandotte chickens lay for him high toned eggs, and are at hand when- ever he feels like a pot pie, fry or roast, and grapes and pears in profusion garnish his table, while his early sweet corn has a city distinction which gro- cerymen are eager to get for the growing demand, and the probability is that corn not grown on his estate, labeled the Honnell corn, is sold to innocent pur- chasers, for it seems that in its season the supply from his acre is as inex- haustible as the widow's cruse of oil.
Being a whig in politics he had to keep mum on his California trip for the Missourians, of whom there was a large number, persisted that no whig should be allowed in California because of opposition to the Mexican war by which the golden plum fell into the hands of the United States.
Of the twelve children only three are living, Morris, Henry and Thomas, of Brown county, Kansas. In the fifties the Rev. William Honnell was em- ployed at the Kickapoo mission, Kansas, and Henry soon followed to that state and went through the perilous time when overrun by the border ruffians of Missouri which gave the name of Bleeding Kansas, and he knew old John Brown. Thomas did not go there until after he returned from the war. Each got wealthy at cattle raising and the rise in real estate and became prominent citizens. Henry is a large stockholder and director in a bank at Horton of which his son-in-law is president, and Thomas is president of a bank at Everest and has a farm of 640 acres worth $100 an acre, at one time he had over 2,000 acres.
Francis Honnell went to the army, was taken prisoner and died in Libby prison in the early days of the strife; Eli of Port Jefferson, died within the past year. Morris has voted for sixteen whig and republican candidates for president, commencing with Zacharay Taylor and ending with William H. Taft.
If the temperance question has been left to this strong and highly moral family to settle, there would have been no wet and dry agitation in Ohio nor need of the county local option law nor Beal statute. In religion they were of the Presbyterian persuasion without any higher criticism as an appendix.
The eighty-four years which so far have been allotted thus graciously to Mr. Honnell have been the most important and eventful in the world's history, excepting, perhaps, the advent of the christian era. The strides upward in the scientific, the mechanical, the educational, the moral and political world have no approaching precedent. His recollection, which is undimmed by years, as he sits in his easy chair and sees the trolley cars pass and repass his door, views the trains on the railway near by, converses with friends at any distance over his telephone engaged his reflective thought and makes him wonder what the twentieth century can possibly bring that is new. The up- lift of the people in the different nations, the crumbling of absolute monarch- ies and the restriction of oppressive despotisms everywhere, the marked ad-
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vances of Christianity and the growth of republican and democratic senti- ments, the manumission of slaves in this country and the freezing of serfs in Russia and other parts of the earth, all furnish with mental food and is a source of gratitude that he has been permitted to live through such an event- ful era and has "crowned his labor with an age of ease."
SAMUEL I. GAMBLE, the subject of this sketch, is among the oldest if not the oldest native born citizen of Sidney. He was a son of Samuel and Mary Gamble and became one of the lights of their household, November 18, 1828. The humble domicile stood on the site of James Crozier's carriage factory on Ohio avenue. At that time all north of North street and south of South street was a forest. The streets were ungraveled, the side walks but little better, and no artificial lights penetrated the gloom of night or annoyed strolling lovers. When Sammuel junior was three years old Samuel senior bought 220 acres of land in Salem township for $5 an acre and which now is comprised in the farms of Joseph P. and John Thomas Staleys farms. When old enough Samuel entered the freshman class in a log school house from which he graduated in due time completing his education in the edifice with the bark .on.
In 1846 he went to Sidney to learn the cabinet makers trade of James Irwin, Sr., but in two years left for a clerkship in the store of James and Samuel Mccullough on the site of Clemens Amann's drug store. The 1849 gold fever raged worse than ever in 1850 and attacked Samuel, his brother William, his father and sixty-one others. Five persons usually accompanied one wagon. Equipped with a wagon made upon honor by the late Jacob Piper, and a yoke of oxen they started for Cincinnati, March 26, 1850, bought provisions there, good bacon at $2.50 a hundred pounds, took a boat for St. Joseph, Mo., and arrived there April 12. Mr. Gamble, Sr., took sick on the river and died in two days after reaching St. Joseph, where he was buried. The party stayed there for four weeks waiting for grass to start. Two yoke of steers and a yoke of cows were bought when the long journey was com- menced. They knew that the land before them did not abound in milk and honey so the cows were bought and furnished them with lacteal fluid but they did not buy a swarm of bees so had to forego the honey. The California trail, beaten by the immense tide of emigration, was a good road over which they averaged about twenty miles a day. The Indians were very friendly giving them no annoyance, but they saw but few buffalo or game of any kind as they did not take kindly to the stream of civilization across their domain.
They arrived in California, September 11, losing but one out of their teams, a cow while crossing a desert 40 miles wide. It was estimated that 125,000 people crossed the plains in 1850. Oxen stood the tramp better than horses. Samuel and his brother William, followed placer mining with fair success for thirteen months when they sold their claims, which subse- quently proved to be very rich and after staying in the Golden state two years they took a sail vessel on the Pacific for Panama, landing at San Juan
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and crossed the isthmus where the canal is now being excavated, then took one of Commodore Vanderbilt's sailing vessels for New York, where they arrived just six hours less than a three month's trip and as soon as his sea legs had resumed their normal condition and became land worthy, started for Sidney, finding the burg very much the same as he left it two years before, for the city had not then begun to tear off the moss and stir with growing pains and more modern ideas.
He bought a half interest in the drug store of his brother-in-law, Ben- jamin Haggott, situated where Dickensheets grocery on Main avenue now is, then moved to the room now occupied by the Elk saloon, in Poplar street. He soon bought out Mr. Haggot and rented one half the room to S. N. Todd for a book store and after nine years in the business sold out to Todd and Vandegrift. Being of horticultural taste, he engaged in fruit and vegetable raising on his little farm northeast of Sidney and followed it for several years, then moved to Sidney to the double lot near Benjamin's D. Handle factory, where he has lived for thirty years and where he indulges in the luxury of small fruits grown in this climate and which he richly enjoys.
In March, 1855, he was united in marriage to Miss Elizabeth Cunning- ham on the farm north of Sidney, latterly known as the Joseph Fry farm. Three sons were born, Wallace, now first steward of the insane asylum at Logansport, Indiana; William, now of Sidney; and John, who lately with his wife returned from a home visit to Sitka, Alaska, where he has lived about twenty years. John went there as teacher employed by the Presby- terian church industrial school, but is now engaged in mining in Chickagoff island, forty miles from Sitka.
In 1864 Mr. Gamble enlisted in the army and was at Petersburg, Virginia, during the long bombardment of that city, but escaped unharmed.
Mr. Gamble belonged to the United Presbyterian church here as an active member for forty years and then joined the First Presbyterian church. He has been identified with the Sunday school for more than seventy years and as teacher for fifty years. In politics he has always been a stalwart Repub- lican since the organization, with the outspoken courage of his convictions.
Such, in brief, is a biography of Mr. Gamble, who for eighty-four years has been identified with Sidney and close vicinity as one of its most esteemed citizens.
.JOHN E. BUSH. In 1849, the California gold fever struck Sidney. It might be termed a species of yellow fever and took off several of the resi- dents of Sidney and vicinity. There is no spot on earth, except it be the north pole, that is now so remote from our city as California was in those days. At the present time a man can go around the world in less time than it took to get a fair start on the tedious journey across the plains, and do it comparatively without peril and in luxurious comfort. The fifty-nine years have been an era of amazing world progress, and to the young generation the story of the adventurers of three score year's ago with what the forty-niners
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endured and saw sounds like a romance, and yet, instead of being an exag- geration, falls far short of the reality.
The forty-niners' names, like those of the Mexican veterans, are mostly carved on marble or granite in the cemeteries as buit few are left to relate their thrilling experience.
The subject of this biographical effusion, John E. Bush, of Orange township, one mile south of Sidney, on Sulphur Heights, is a Pennsylvanian by birth, as the little Bushwhacker put in an appearance in the home of Henry Bush, in Monroe county, September 30, 1828, so he is now four score and four years. The family came to this county near where John now resides in 1838. He had just entered the legal status of a man when the news came that our new possession of California was just sparkling with gold and its streams rippling over auriferons beds. The intelligence was enough to give almost anyone the yellow jaundice and John, being of an adventurous spirit, had it violently. Giving way to the impulse of feath- ering his nest in that far off region, he, with his brother, Dr. C. W. Bush, and Morris Jackson, got their possessions together, rigged out a schooner on four wheels, canopied for protection, with a propelling force of a team of horses, and set sail, figuratively speaking, for St. Jo, Missouri, April 19, 1849, and arrived there in about four weeks. St. Jo was the outlying point of western civilization where additional supplies were laid in for the long journey across the plains, the deserts and over the Rockies and Sierras, from time immemorial the undisturbed abode of the Indians, buffaloes, deer, ante- lopes, wolves, bears, jack rabbits, prairie dogs, and gophers. Bridges over perilous rivers were a commodity and convenience not encountered, so the dangerous streams, many with bottoms of shifting sands, had to be forded, and many were the fatal disasters in the attempt. Twenty miles in a day was deemed rapid progress throughi dust shoe top deep and those in good condition walked rather than rode, though there was no likelihood of a head end collision as the trains were all moving in the same direction. Even if they had been going in an opposite way the impact of a collision would not have been serious when the velocity was not over two miles an hour, and rarely that. The jolt would have been a good deal like rolling off a sheet onto the floor. Water being scarce, the weather hot, and the dust thick, the weary travelers were some distance from godliness, if cleanliness is next to it. If the pores were closed at night they opened the next day with exuding sweat. The panorama did not change rapidly at the rate they were going so the journey would have been a trifle monotonous if some episode did not happen almost daily to relieve it. Buffaloes by the thousands and hundreds of thousands were seen and one night their horses, which were turned out to graze around the camp, were seized with the idea that they would enjoy the freedom of the plains better than pulling a wagon, even though in good society, so they took after the buffaloes and were never re- covered. John started after thein and pursued them for about eight miles. Almost famished with thirst a little lake of about twelve acres came into view but when he got to the banks he found the buffalo and other animals
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had converted it into a pool of filth and he could not drink a mouthful He managed to get back to camp in a most distressed condition but the recollection of that day's experience may dissuade him from voting dry when the question comes up.
At Salt Lake they paused for a while but not long, as Prophet Brigham Young had preached a sermon in which he counseled the saints to not furnish any eatables or other necessities to the weary, worn visitors for love or money. Not all the wives of the much married Mormons were happy, as the party was implored by two or three females to take them along to Cal- ifornia, a request that could not be granted. Before they got to their desti- nation their food supplies gave out and with starvation staring them in the face John fortunately shot a duck and a hawk with a squirrel in its talons. These gave them a lease of life and John devoured the squirrel. The duck and hawk were parceled out among the others. In September the Sacra- mento valley in all its native loveliness was seen from the mountain summit, and Canaan could not have looked more entrancing to the manna surfeited Israelites than did this valley to them. Their money was running low and as flour was over a dollar a pound and other necessities on the top shelf the emergency to "hurry up" and stir themselves was strenuous. A cradle for rocking the auriferous sands was quickly constructed from the wagon bed and operations were commenced on Feather river with reason- able success from the start, but living was so high that their surplus or sink- ing fund did not accumulate to the full measure of their hopes. Placer min- ing was followed by Mr. Bush for four years and then a vessel was taken at San Francisco for the Isthmus of Darien, which he crossed, sailed for New York and then he set his face for Ohio. His brother, Dr. Bush, re- mained and eventually settled in Los Angeles, where, with the practice of his profession and read estate deals in that thriving city, he accumulated a fortune, which he enjoyed singly, as he never married and died there two or three years ago. Of all the forty-niners that went from this section Mr. Bush and Mr. Jacob Shanly are the only living. Returning to the home farm on Sulphur Heights he dwelt in fancy free as a bachelor until September 17, 1863, he joined fortunes with Miss Christiana Rauth and ever since the old home- stead and the adjoining acres in the delightful spot on the pike where he now lives has been his residing place. A family of eight children were born in their household, six of whom are living: Charles, John, Will and Fred, of Sidney, and George and Bertha at home with their parents. Edward died in a hospital in California several years ago at the age of twenty-six years, and Maud two or three years since at home, aged eighteen.
Mr. Bush has crossed the continent to California nine times, but the first in his Pullman palace car propelled by oxen with no extra charge for a sleeping birth left a taste in his mouth which the others have not supplanted and a spot in his memory more vivid than all the other trips combined. Being a natural Nimrod there are but few animals native to this country that have not succumbed to his unerring rifle. As a taxidermist he is an expert, and having a taste for curiosities, relics and rare specimens, his home is a museum
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not equaled outside the cities in the state, for he has gathered them from New Brunswick to the Pacific.
Last Sunday I accepted an invitation, without urging, to take dinner at the Bush residence and a little after II o'clock John, Jr., wa's at the front door with his Reo automobile which whisked us to the homestead in ten minutes, where I was greeted by the veteran, wife and family. Dinner was soon announced, for outside the corporation sun time is in vogue, which puts the country folks about half an hour ahead of the urban population. After dinner a look was taken at three wild geese in an enclosure that have one wing clipped to prevent them from joining a flock should it happen to fly over the farm in its migration. Two wild ducks with a brood of sixteen, a day old, were sporting in a little artificial pond. The little balls of animated feathers do not have to go through a training process to teach them to swim, but perform with all the grace of connoisseurs from the very start. John, being somewhat of a crude artist, painted on the white barn, in jet black, some alleged bears, deer and other wild animals and his son, Will, said that when the horses first got a glimpse of these caricatures it was with difficulty they could be got near the barn, but eventually their timidity was overcome, for a horse can get used to almost anything however frightful. Returning to the house I was taken through the apartments and made a note of some of the specimens. In the sitting room a huge moose head, nine inches across the nose, and with fan-like antlers, looked down from the wall. Mr. Bush and son, Fred, killed the animal on the north shore of Lake Superior a few years ago. The animal was six feet and six inches high and weighed about 1,200 pounds ; the horns have twenty-two points. To the left was a magnifi- cent pair of elk horns of twelve points, five feet and seven inches high with four feet spread, a fine deer head and another of one killed in Minnesota. A center table with legs of three elk horns, another center table, three stories high, with moose and deer feet, a sideboard, hat rack with a split fawn head and hooks of deer feet, a Columbus chair made by Mr. Bush, who is handy with carpenter's tools, from sixty pieces of hickory and covered with the skin of a bear he killed in Wisconsin. In the hall is another hat rack with deer feet hooks, a score or so of beautiful canes and a badger skin.
In the parlor is a diamond willow stand, the material of which he gut on the upper Missouri, a stool with deer feet and elk horns for railing, corner parlor chair which Mr. Bush fashioned from hickory and ash, a much prized photograph of eight deer suspended and killed in Maine with the hunters standing near, Joseph and Jess Laughlin, James Wilson, William Kingseed, Frank Brewer and Mr. Bush. Four of the deer he killed. There is also a photograph of two wild turkeys and one of himself taken in California in 1853. Barbers being a scarce article there his black hair covered his shoul- ders and a fringe of whiskers gave him the solemn look of a Dunkard preacher. From the parlor we went up stairs to a large front room devoted entirely to specimens and relics which are there by the thousands, collected in different parts of the country, to which are added countless queer and beautiful shells gathered by Mrs. Bush and daughter, Bertha, on the shore of the Pacific.
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Gold bearing quartz, curious stones, many of beautiful moss agate with vege- table sprigs visible in the translucent stones, onyx, chalcedony, etc., in almost endless variety, condor quills, the head of a black wolf killed by William Kingseed, twenty-seven birds, many of the duck family, and a wild goose, a wild turkey, a cormorant, a bald eagle, blue winged heron, road runner, Jack rabbit, a porcupine which Mr. Bush killed in Wisconsin with a club. a bass, caught by him in the Lewistown reservoir with Joseph Laughlin man- aging the boat. This bass weighed eight and one-half pounds when caught, the head of a wolf killed by George Linder in Wisconsin, thirteen deer heads on the walls, two of which got their horns locked while fighting and were found dead in South Dakota, three pair of buffalo horns and a host of other curiosities fairly bewildering in number. When in California he was attacked in the mountains by a grizzly she bear that had cubs. From the fierce indications he thought that this Bush better aspire to a tree and ascended one`as rapidly as possible and so did the bear to the same one and caught his hind leg near the calf, making four holes in his boot leg. Both fell to the ground, when the bear ran to her cubs, and he, to avoid any disagreeable encounter, went somewhat hurriedly in an opposite direction, which was a prudent movement, for she returned with malicious intent but he avoided the rush by starting early. He cut off the boot leg and has it among his collection with the autograph or mark of the bear. Mr. Bush has killed over 200 deer, a moose, four bears, ducks and geese without number, and does not have to draw on his imagination for fish stories. In politics he is a Democrat though a great admirer of President Roosevelt, has served two terms as county commissioner but enjoys a deer hunters' picnic better than a political convention and prefers an outing with his gun or fish pole to a so- journ at a summer resort. In shooting contests he rarely returns without winning a prize. His philosophy in life is to enjoy the passing moment and not depend too much on an uncertain future, subscribing without mental reservation to the saying that one bird in the hand is worth two in the Bush.
Mr. Bush has been honored by his party in being elected infirmary director, serving nine years, and in 1881 was elected county commissioner for three years and re-elected in 1884, but is in no sense an offensive partisan. The blankets, the knives, hatchets, etc., he has won in shooting contests at the deer hunters' picnics would give each of his children a good setting out in articles of that line, and still have enough for himself and his wife. No other marks- man of his age in this region has much show when he draws a bead on the target and the younger ones find in him a stubborn competitor. * *
P. S. One of the bears shot by Mr. Bush was a grizzly, killed in the Cali- fornia mountains, near Eureka lake. Another episode in his career was a fight with the Indians. They had rifled a camp and he with three others at- tacked about thirty braves and squaws as they were eating breakfast and put them to flight. John's gun was a flint lock. All the heads of the deer, twenty- five in number, and other specimens, were preserved and mounted by him and sons, John and George, who were expert taxidermists. . At Fort Arthur
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all the hotels have saloons and there are many others also which are well patronized by whole-souled fellows, but he did not hear an oath. They were two days and nights crossing the American desert without water and many were so exhausted that they had to be loaded into wagons and their tongues were so swollen they could not talk, but their lives were saved by admin- istering much reviled whiskey, thus showing that it is a good thing on a desert The nights were gorgeous with volcanic fireworks, which, in the distance, roared and illumined the sky and many of the springs were so hot anything could be cooked in the water.
A. B. C. H., 1908.
JOHN BLAKELEY-It is said that nothing will polish a person and give him a careless and cosmopolitan air like travel. Observing that my wonted luster was growing dim and gaping curiosity, that unfailing indication of rustic simplicity, was getting the better of me, I resolved to take a day off or a day out and rub up against the wicked world, thus becoming a tourist at large, with the best of intentions.
In accordance with this rash resolution and being sleepless over the pros- pect, the couch of repose was abandoned earlier than usual, an affectionate good-bye hurled at family and friends Monday morning, the trolley station sought for a ticket to Botkins, twelve miles distant toward the polar star that is always in its place and around which Ursa Major, with his celestial dipper, has been circling for ages.
The day was beautiful and although the Monday before was resonant with the jingling of sleigh bells and the merry laugh of children, youths and maidens crowded into slipping vehicles or hanging to cutters, every vestige of the beautiful had disappeared and the strident honk of the automobile was heard, one of the most sudden changes in this capricious climate.
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