USA > Ohio > Butler County > Hamilton in Butler County > The centennial anniversary of the city of Hamilton, Ohio, September 17-19, 1891 > Part 21
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And the old wooden bridge is gone, and with it many a pleasant reminiscence. Far be it from me to stay the hand of Progress; for you who have, for so many years, viewed its weather stained sides, and tra- versed its dust covered floors, I can conceive how, with feelings of pride, you saw the old structure replaced by the new. But ah! quite sadly do I lament its going.
Oft has memory recalled the dear old town, and dwelt long and lov- ingly o'er the picture, and ever in the panoramic view was the wooden bridge. On one side of its entrance, the toll-gate keeper sitting astride a chair, resting his head upon its back; on the other, the old mill, with its busy wheel ever dashing the pacific waters of the Great Miami into angry, turbulent waves, that in my mind rivaled in grandeur the great Niagara Falls.
Surely lovers sigh, as they recall the quiet walks within its walls, se- cure from the eyes and ears of the multitude; and the laborer, as he thinks of its kindly shelter from the ruder elements without. I had thought sometime in the future I would again stroll through its familiar aisles, and listen to the measured tread of horses' feet, as their own- ers, obeying the injunction of the ordinance, guided them slowly through, and, for the once, be a child again, hurrying with a band of light- hearted girls over to school; for hark! the mellow tones of the dear old town clock, even now, strike the hour. *
But, on the wings of Time, come to me tales that the old Court House, too, is gone; and that hushed is the tongue of the dear old bell, whose musical cadences for years so faithfully proclaimed the hour. The old Court House, so big with events of historic interest; so big with mem-
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ories of forensic triumphs; the witness of human victories and defeats. Who does not recall the old chamber, where gifted minds met in peaceful encounters and won victories more renowned than those of war? Gone- and a new edifice has arisen from the ashes of the old; but is it in the emerald setting that surrounded the old structure, and do the honeysuckles and sweet syringas still send forth rich aromas from their shady corners into the dusty streets ?
Yes; one by one the old landmarks that identified the past with the present, are drifting away. Even the old fort is gone; nor has decay's effacing fingers left scarce a trace behind.
What a transformation from the old to the new; from the simplicity of the past to the splendors of the present! Wonderful, indeed, has been the material progress; a marvelous stride in the arts; in wealth; in intel- ligence; in fact, in all that gives dignity, and fame, and honor to a city.
When this city first claimed my childish admiration, about three thous- and slept within its gates; to-day, they are twenty thousand strong. Then, the landscape eastward was flecked with fields of waving corn; and the golden-rod, and flowering shrubs bordered the dusty roadside, where little huts, rude and primitive in architecture, were stretched in straggling aban- don, even to the gates of the mushroom suburb of Debbysville.
In those early days-not so long ago either-I saw flocks of quail on Fourth street, and witnessed, with pitying eye, the frightened hare fleeing before a pack of dogs and wild urchins in full chase. Long before this the bear and deer had abandoned the hills and sunny slopes, and sought refuge in deeper forests, as civilization pressed onward toward the set- ting sun.
Some among you, recollect how the waters of the river were seduced into a vast hydraulic, and enticed into sluices and chutes; and how the tamed element was utilized to set thousands of pulleys revolving, hammers beating, and " wheels going round." And I remember how, in later years, I viewed with childish wonder these innovations, and joined with my el- ders in the boast that our rapidly growing city was distancing all others, in its race for supremacy.
The æsthetical was not then as now a leading factor in the city's pro- gress. Those busy people had no time to hear metaphysical disquisitions, to fly balloons, or to play croquet. The boat, and plow, and contrivance for saving labor, were articles of real, practical utility; and it was deemed
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profitable to let genius and mechanical talent spend their energies in this direction, for there were "millions in it." This, to the empirical reason- ing of that epoch, was as plain as a pike-staff; but to chip statues from blocks of marble, write epics or pastorals, or be rapturous over polemical chaff, was not in accordance with backwoods notions; it was not their style. They had no Boston jubilees, nor musical soirees; nor did they think it requisite to have an organ accompaniment to the yell of an In- dian warrior, or a piano solo to a country corn-shucking. They erected a cabin in a day, without the flourish of a speech, or putting copper coins in a corner stone; and if a church was to be built, they did not improvise a lottery to raise funds, or an oration to move men to con- tribute, or a poem to be read, or a lyric sung, to "raise the wind."
But, in time, true culture began, and grew apace, so that the cen- sors and Eastern Magi looked in blank amazement, and marveled at the rich promise of these children of the West.
Nature, too, was generous in her gifts, and they were scattered, thick as leaves, on every side of this enchanted ground. Sycamore Grove was then a somewhat tangled paradise, a beautiful shade, where the nymphs and fairies must have carnivaled long before the white man rudely broke the spell of privacy, or before the Indian made his debut upon the scene. Who knows what weird figures floated in the shades of this Arcadian grove, or what types of dark-hued maidens kept time, with flying feet, to the music of the rude cymbal and castanet? One can readily conceive how the red man, in the days long gone, wooed his dusky mate in the soft light of noon-day, and the speech of Indian brave fired the hearts of his followers, in the light of the dying camp fire.
What child did not then know that Sycamore Grove was the home of elves and fairies, and the trysting ground of the gentle and the brave, in times long gone? And Delorac's Island! Why, what Hamiltonian has forgotten the romance and mystery that hovered o'er that spot; the whis- pers that filled the air at twilight, and the echoes that drifted, like in- cense on the summer air?
" Willows whiten, aspens quiver, Little breezes dusk and shiver Thro' the wave that runs forever By the island in the river."
JOHN W. SOHN.
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Connected with its history, I listened in childish awe, to tales as wild as Robinson Crusoe's sojourn on the island in the sea. × × *
And so, the pen never wearies with recitals of romance, and remin- iscence, flung around the home where childhood's happy days ran on, and on.
The old, it is true, has been replaced by the new. Beautiful edi- fices have arisen like exhalations, and the dawn of a new life, and a greater prosperity is apparent to all; but the outlines of the old are there ; the hills on the east and west are there; it is the same, in a new garb, with the sun shining as of old; with the spring rains and dews refresh- ing the land. The old fort, too, is there, in the memory of many, with its stockades and gallant defenders, looking out on the river, the beauti- ful river, that laves the feet of the city, and sings, in an unknown tongue, on its journey to the sea.
The hills, and dells, and groves away off from the river, are now drifting before my eyes-a panorama of beauty. Fields of corn, and the trophies of the husbandmen lying beyond the suburbs, tell of affluence and the gifts of peace; while busy hands and brains, within the gates, evi- dence thrift, industry, wealth and wisdom. I see, too, the river; the site of the old fort; the goodly city; the orchards and barns in the distance ; the sun shining upon the windows and housetops, painting the landscape with a saffron hue. I hear the roar , of a thousand hammers, and the whirl of many thousand spindles; the noise of the mills; the rumbling wheels, that bear away the handiwork of the busy toiler and artizan.
I see it, and hear it, as I did when last I drifted by the dear old city at sunset ; the city
With the glinting sunbeams on its steeples, Its windows robed in flaming red, The clouds above it, fringed with silver, The groves with tints of gold o'erspread.
Very respectfully, LAURA B. PALMER.
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The following communication from Mrs. Mary Ann Keck, for many years a resident of Hamilton, contains an authentic account of the death and burial of General Arthur St. Clair:
Letter of Mrs. Mary Ann Keck.
KENTLAND, Ind., September 7th, 1891.
Israel Williams and others, Centennial Committee, Hamilton, Ohio:
DEAR SIRS: I thank your committee for the kind invitation to be pres- ent at the Centennial Celebration, of the location of Fort Hamilton and the first settlement of your city, of which I was so many years a resident.
I shall be present at the celebration, but cannot promise much active participation in the exercises, as I am now in the 88th year of my age. I very well remember in my girlhood days to have seen Gen. St. Clair at my grandfather, Thomas Fisher's, hotel in Westmoreland county, Penn- sylvania. The circumstances that particularly impress my recollection were these : That great attention and deference were paid to the old General, and the fact that I found one of the glasses he lost out of his spectacles, and that I found it and gave it to him and received his generous and most sincere thanks. At that time he wore a cue tied with a black ribbon. When his death occurred I was living in Greensburg. I was married June 20th, and in August of the same year Gen. St. Clair died. They buried his re- mains in the Presbyterian Cemetery not far from Greensburg. I under- stood that he was a mason. A band accompanied the remains to the cemetery, and my husband, who was a mason and a member of the band was present. The General died at his daughter's, Mrs. Robb, who lived on Chestnut Ridge, and as that was an out of the way place the funeral was small. No services were held in the church, but the procession moved directly from the house to the cemetery. The toll-gate near Greensburg was draped for the occasion with black muslin. The masons erected a monument over his grave and placed a suitable inscription on it. I might say much more, but as I suppose you desire brevity, I close by again thanking you for your kind invitation, and subscribe myself
Very truly yours, MARY ANN KECK.
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The following agreeable expression of patriotic loyalty to his place of nativity is from the pen of Chief Justice Elliott, of the Indiana Su- preme Court, who was born in the city of Hamilton :
Letter of Judge Byron K. Elliott.
INDIANAPOLIS, Aug. 24th, 1891.
Hon. Thomas Millikin, Dr. Cyrus Falconer, Rev. E. WV. Abbey, James II". See, Esq., Israel Williams, Esq., Committee :
GENTLEMEN : I am profoundly grateful to you, and those you repre- sent, for your cordial invitation to unite with you in celebrating " Hamil- ton's Centennial." It has given me a deeper and truer pleasure than words can express to know that I am not altogether forgotton in my dear old home. In my boyhood I was proud to be known as a " Hamilton Boy" and that pride has not died with manhood's years. It would give me heartfelt pleasure to meet my schoolmates and my early friends, and it is only stern and unrelenting duty that impels me to deny myself that pleas- ure. It is with the keenest and bitterest regret that I yield to the impe- rious demands of duty, and decline your invitation.
" Hamilton Boys" in the history of a century have been conspicuous actors, for they have won fame in war, in the literary world, in political affairs, and in the world of law, medicine and mechanics. One who writes the biographies of "Hamilton Boys" will have no lack of material nor will he write of men known only to a locality, for many of them are known to the nation, and some are known on the other side of the Atlantic.
It grieves me sorely that I cannot join with you in celebrating the hundredth anniversary of my birthplace.
Very truly yours, BYRON K. ELLIOTT.
The following letter is from the pen of a colored gentleman who for many years resided as a much respected citizen in the city of Hamilton. Although born in the domain of slavery, by studious industry he acquired a liberal knowledge, especially of politics and history. His qualification was many years ago recognized by appointment to an important office in the government service at Washington, D. C., where he yet remains :
SCHOOL BUILDINGS
ST STEPHENS CHURCH LOOKING WEST
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Letter of Alfred J. Anderson.
No. 1922, IIth St., N. W., - WASHINGTON, D. C., Sept. 9th, '91.
To Hon. Thos. Millikin, Dr. Cyrus Falconer, Rev. E. W. Abbey, Prof. J. W. See and Hon. Israel Williams, Committee :
GENTLEMEN : I feel greatly honored by your kind invitation to be pres- ent and take part with you in celebrating the coming Centennial of the settlement of Hamilton. It would be particularly interesting for me to do so especially as my own personal recollections are associated with its his- tory and growth for over a half century, beginning at a time when most of the participating pioneers were young and the streets of the village green with grass.
In those sleepy old days no one ever dreamed of the spirit of the age that has since awoke into activity the new life and latent forces which are making Hamilton the Birmingham of the great Northwest. I regret to have to add that the state of my health will most likely prevent my attendance.
With many thanks, I am with great respect, &c., ALFRED J. ANDERSON.
Rev. J. G. Monfort, for many years a resident and minister in Ham- ilton has briefly added his recollection of the pioneer days of the people of Hamilton in the following communication:
Letter of Rev. J. G. Monfort.
CINCINNATI, Aug. 26, 1891.
Thomas Millikin, Esq., Chairman Hamilton Centennial Committee :
DEAR SIR: I received with great pleasure your invitation, and I hope to be able to be present. I went with my father, Rev. Francis Monfort, to Hamilton 71 years ago, and lived there 20 years. I knew a large pro- portion of the early settlers who were living in 1820 at Hamilton, Ross- ville, Oxford, Millville, Venice, Black Bottom, Chester, Princeton, Monroe, Middletown, Trenton, Elk Creek, Four Mile, Seven Mile, Darrtown, Paddy's Run, Jacksonsburg, Riley, &c. Nothing could give me more pleasure, now in my 8Ist year, than to meet friends I knew from 50 to 71 years ago.
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I am invited to attend the inauguration of the President of Miami Uni- versity the same week, and I hope to compound the two occasions. I am in good health and hope to be able to carry out my purpose, but in these days of my physical vis inertia, I sometimes foreordain things that do not come to pass. I have had you under my eye with pleasure since 1831, nearly 60 years ago, when I began to teach you hic, heac, hoc, though I have seldom seen 'you.
Yours very truly, J. G. MONFORT.
Among the eminent authors of America is numbered W. D. Howells, who in his boyhood days was a resident of Hamilton, and the scene of whose " Boy's Town" was laid in this city. The following characteristic letter is from Mr. Howells in answer to a request to attend the Centen- nial Celebration :
Letter of W. D. Howells.
INTERVALE HOUSE, INTERVALE, N. H., Aug. 6, 1891. My Dear Mr. Millikin:
Your name was once very familiar to me, and I hope you are one of the boys whom I used to play with in Hamilton forty-odd years ago; for if you are I feel that I need not accuse you of any great regret that I cannot come to the Celebration of the town's Centennial. Any of the boys would know that I was sorry without being told. This is a doubly busy year with me, and I cannot even write a poem for the time, the good and great time, you are all going to have next month. I shall be with you in spirit, and in proud affection for the old place, which was the home of my happiest years, and which I have never ceased to revisit in the dreams of long exile. I am told the place is greatly changed; that it is a city, and all sorts of a centre; and I ought not to be surprised that it should have a Centennial. But the fact does come to me with a shock of astonishment, for I knew it when the log-cabins still basked in the deep cornfields about it. I have tried to tell elsewhere what an in- comparable town it was for a boy to be boy in; and I shall ever think it the largest and most populous place of 3,000 inhabitants that ever was.
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Its present merits and glories your orators and poets will sing and say for you; but I cling fondly to its past, and if I could trill a verse, it should be in praise of the Hamilton that flourished between 1840 and 1850. At that period I am quite sure there were men ten feet high in Hamilton ; there were boys who could whip those men, if they had a mind; the Justice on the Court House was so high above the earth that her head pressed the clouds; from the Big Reservoir to the Little Reservoir it was as far as it now is from the Big to the Little Dipper. Everything was on the grandest scale. The summer days were each a week long, and if a fellow was kept in after school his hair had a chance to turn gray be- tween four and five o'clock. The modern citizens of Hamilton can readily have an idea of the magnificence of the place in that fairy decade, but if you were a boy there then, you can remember it. I can; and now that I come to think of it, I only wonder that it is not your town's millen- nial you are going to celebrate. For me, Hamilton was before Rome was; and to tell you the truth, when I came to see it I found no comparison between the Tiber and the Miami except that they were both liable to freshets. Yours sincerely,
WV. D. HOWELLS.
Mr. George L. Andrew, a prominent citizen of Laporte, Indiana, is another native of Hamilton who retains a patriotic interest in the city's welfare, as shown in the following reminiscent communication :
Letter of George L. Andrew.
LA PORTE, Ind., Oct. 9, 1891.
Thos. Millikin, Esq., Chairman, Etc .:
DEAR SIR: I thank you for the request of the Historical Committee to write something appropriate to the recent celebration of the Centennial of the erection of Fort Hamilton. I wish I could adequately express the throng of thoughts and memories that crowd upon me, but that cannot be.
The celebration was a fitting "rounding up" of Hamilton's first hun- dred years. It was my good fortune to be born just across the river from the old fort when the town was a little more than thirty years old, and the first 23 years of my life were spent there and in Oxford. It was then my fate to become a citizen of another city and State, but my heart
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has never ceased to turn to Hamilton as its home. And this I believe is the experience of all whose youth was spent there. Its peculiar situa- tion, starting as two rival towns separated by a river and connected by a bridge, its varied feature of river, dam, tail-race, basin, canal with its far- off first lock and its Ultima Thule the second lock, its old river now the Reservoir, its wooded hills and beautiful scenery ; all these and more, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the "Boy's Town," and what is better, in the hearts of thousands scattered over this wide world ? Then hail to the dear old town-city now, as she enters with "strength renewed as the eagle's," upon her second century! Thankful for her past, we look forward with hope and trust to the future that has in it yet greater things for her. God bless her !
Yours very sincerely, GEO. L. ANDREW.
Two boys born in the city of Hamilton and educated at Miami Univer- sity, upon attaining manhood in the early fifties immigrated to the Pacific Coast and there attained eminence in literature, and now stand in the front rank as authors of important and valuable publications. The follow- ing interesting reminiscent letters are from their pens:
Letter of John S. Hittell.
1216 HYDE Street, SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 19, 1891.
Messrs. Thomas Millikin, Dr. Cyrus Falconer, Rev. E. W. Abbey, James WV. See and Israel Williams, Historical and Literary Committee :
GENTLEMEN : I regret my inability to attend the celebration of the Centennial anniversary of the settlement of the city of Hamilton. The occasion is worthy of commemoration, and I congratulate you on this demon- stration of your public spirit. After thousands of years, it will be recounted to your credit. After a hundred generations, your successors will read with interest what you are about to do, as you read what Gen. St. Clair did. Your city is a permanent possession of civilization. It will flourish till that improbable time when the globe changes its axis, or the Miami Valley disappears in some convulsion of nature. So long as men take pride in their ancestry and love their country, so long-that is to say to the re-
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motest ages -- it will be the duty and the pleasure of intelligent men to cherish their local history, as you are now doing.
Your kind invitation, for which I thank you, revives many recollec tions. It suggests to me my boyhood and youth spent in your city ; my attendance in your schools; my collegiate education in the neighboring town of Oxford; my friendships with old residents, still dear to me; and my acquaintance with John Riley, Taylor Webster, James McBride, John Woods, and other distinguished pioneers of Butler county. It recalls to me that while studying law in the office of John Woods, I attended court in your city and frequently heard and saw Tom Corwin there; that I often heard John B. Weller, Lewis D. Campbell and Wm. Bebb in political speeches; and that I went to a mass meeting at Dayton in 1840 to hear Gen. Harrison and again in 1842 to hear Henry Clay. These are noted names, but I doubt not that the proportion of able and learned men in Ohio is as large now as it was then.
Your invitation suggests to me the beautiful Miami Valley, which in fertility of soil is not surpassed by anything seen by me in long travels on this continent and in Europe; and it also suggests those magnificent forests of white oak, hickory, ash and black walnut, precious species of trees found only on the eastern part of the United States, and nowhere more luxuriant than in your vicinity. It reminds me of my frequent walks to the Mound Builders' ruins, so numerous and interesting in your county.
In the forty-three years that have elapsed since I made my home in Ohio, I have revisited Hamilton with pleasure, several times; and my in- terest in Butler county has been kept alive by meeting here some of its native sons, who became residents of San Francisco. Among these were Gov. John B. Weller and Gov. Wm. Irwin. Your county is the only one that has furnished two Governor's to California, and Charles L. Weller, all of whom have crossed over to the majority; and E. J. Baldwin, a promi- nent millionaire, and Dr. L. C. Lane, an eminent surgeon, who is my intimate friend.
By becoming a pioneer of California in 1849 and a permanent resi- dent of San Francisco subsequently, my strongest local affections were fixed on the Golden State; but I shall never cease to cherish the associations connected with Ohio. I consider it fortunate for me that I spent my early
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years in Hamilton, and I feel honored by my connection with you, even at a distance of more than two thousand miles, in your celebration.
Yours truly,
JOHN S. HITTELL.
Letter of Theodore H. Hittell.
SAN FRANCISCO, August 21, 1891.
Messrs. Thomas Millikin, Dr. Cyrus Falconer and others, Historical and Literary Committee :
GENTLEMEN: I desire to express my thanks for your cordial invitation to be present at the celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the building of Fort Hamilton. It would give me great pleasure to attend, but circumstances prevent.
My recollections of Hamilton are very vivid and very pleasant. The old fort and the old military roads through the woods, which were trav- eled by Arthur St. Clair and Anthony Wayne, were always objects of ex- ceeding interest to me; and their history, together with the history of the aborigenes and of the old settlers, has always been and is still a favorite subject of contemplation and study.
It was my destiny in 1855, after a life of twenty-three years in Ohio, to change my residence to California; and I have ever since been and am now a Californian. But I do not forget that Hamilton and the Miami and its great and glorious valley are the only "scenes of my childhood " to which I can recur; and I assure you that no one can prize them more highly, honor them more sincerely, or be more interested in their progress and prosperity than
Your obliged friend and well-wisher,
THEODORE H. HITTELL.
2990
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