USA > Ohio > Champaign County > The history of Champaign and Logan counties : from their first settlement > Part 14
USA > Ohio > Logan County > The history of Champaign and Logan counties : from their first settlement > Part 14
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It was his custom, when he had been welcomed to some hospita- le log-house after a weary day of journeying, to lie down on the wuncheon floor, and, after inquiring if his auditors would hear ""some news right fresh from heaven," produce his few tattered books, among which would be a New Testament, and read and ex- pound until his uncultivated bearers would catch the spirit and aglow of his enthusiasm, while they scarcely comprehended his lan- guage. A lady who knew him in his later years writes in the foi- Lowing terms of one of these domicilary readings of poor, self-sac- rificing Johny Appleseed : "We can hear him read now, just as he slid that summer day, when we were busy quilting up stairs, and he lay near the door, his voice rising denunciatory and thrilling- " trong and loud as the roar of wind and waves, then soft and sooth- ing as the balmy airs, that quivered the morning-glory leaves about hi- gray beard. His was a strange eloquente at times, and he was undoubtedly a man ofgenius." What a scene is presented to our Emagination ! The interior of a primitive cabin, the wide, open fire-place, where a few sticks are burning beneath the iron pot in :which the evening meal is cooking ; around the fire-place the at- centive group, composed of the sturdy pioneer and his wife and children listening with a reverential awe to the "news right fresh from heaven ;" and reclining on the floor, clad in rags, but with This gray hairs glorified by the beams of the setting sun that flood through the open door and the unchinked logs of the humble build- 'ng, this poor wanderer, with the gift of genius and eloquence, who believes with the faith of the apostles and martyrs that God has appointed him a mission in the wilderness to preach the Gospel of Love, and plant apple seeds that shall produce orchards for the ben- eft of men and women and little children whom he has never seen. if there is a sublimer faith or a more genuine eloquence in richly « decorated cathedrals and under brocade vestments, it would be worth a long journey to find it.
Next to his advocacy of his peculiar religious ideas, his enthusi- asm for the cultivation of apple trees in what he termed "the only proper way"-that is, from the seed-was the absorbing object of his life. Upon this, as upon religion, he was eloquent in his ap- meals. He would describe the growing and ripening fruit as such Ja, rare and beautiful gift of the Almighty with words that became pictures, until his hearers could almost see its manifold forms of
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bogaty prosent before them. To his eloquente on this subject, as "all :- to his actual labor- in planting nurseries, the country over which he travelled for so many years is largely indebted for its ma- moron- orchard -. But he denounced as absolute wickedness all do- vi of bruning and grafting, and would speak of the act of cutting a tree in if it were a ernetty inflicted upon a sentient being.
Not only is be entitled to the fame of being the earliest cot- porteur on the frontiers, but in the work of protecting animals from : huse he preceded, while, in his small sphere, he equaled the call of good Mr. Bergh. Whenever Johnny saw an animal threeI ur heart of it, he would purchase it and give it to soup more human. senter, on condition that it should be kindly treated ud property cared for. It frequently happened that the long jour- my into the wilderness would cause the new settlers to be encu- "red with lame and broken-down horses, that were turned loose Iodic. In the autumn Johnny would make a diligent search for all -nch animals, and, gathering them up, he would bargain for their food and shelter until the next spring, when he would Had them away to some good pasture for the summer. If they re- covered soas to be capable of working, he would never sell them- but would lend or give them away, stipulating for their good I-age. llis conception of the absolute sin of inflicting pain or leatn upon any creature was not limited to the higher forms of animal life, but every thing that had being was to him, in the fact of it- life, endowed with so much of the Divine Essence that too vound or destroy it was to infliet an injury upon some atom of Divinity. No Brahmin could be more concerned for the preserva- tion of insert life, and the only occasion on which he destroyed a Venomous reptile was a source of regret, to which he could never refer without manifesting sidness. He had selected a suitable place for planting apple -reds on a small prairie, and in order to prepare the ground he was mowing the long grass, when he was bitten by a rattlesnake. In describing the event he sigheu heavily and said, "Poor fellow, he only just touched me, when I, in the Let of my ungodly passion, put the heel of my scythe in him. and went away. Some time afterward I went back; and there lay the poor fellow dead." Numerous anecdotes bearing upon his re- -peet for every form of life are preserved, and form the staple of pioneer recollections. On one occasion, a cool autumnal night, when.
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Johnny, who always camped out in preference to sleeping in a house, had built a fire near which he intended to pass the night. le noticed that the blaze attracted large numbers of mosquitoes, many of whom few too near to his fire and were burned. He inmedi. ately brought water and quenched the fire, accounting for his con- duct afterward by saying, "God forbid that I should build : fire for muy comfort which should be the means of destroying any of his ercatures !' At another time he removed the fire he had built near a hollow log, and slept on the snow, because he found that the log contained a bear and her cubs, whom, he said, he did not wish to disturb. And this unwillingness to inflict pain or death was equally strong when he was a sufferer by it, as the following swill show : Johnny had been assisting some settlers to make a road through the woods, and in the course of their work they acci- ciently destroyed a hornets' next. One of the angry insect- von found a lodgment under Johnny's coffee-sack cloak, but although Et stung him repeatedly he removed it with the greatest gentle. De>>. The men who were present laughingly asked him why he «lid not kill it. To which he gravely replied that " It would not Eve right to kill the poor thing, for it did not intend to hurt me."
Theoretically he was as methodical in matters of business as any merchant. In addition to their picturesqueness, the locations of Exis nurseries were all fixed with a view to a probable demand for the trees by the time they had attained sufficient growth for trans- planting. He would give them away to those who coukl not pay for them. Generally, however, he sold them for old clothing or a supply of corn meal; but he preferred to receive a note payable at se indefinite period. When this was accomplished he seemed to think that the transaction was completed in a bu-ine --- like way ; but if the giver of the note did not attend to its payment, the hole- er of it never troubled himself about its collection. His expen-es for food and clothing were so very limited that, notwithstanding his freedom from the auri sacra fames, he was frequently in por- sion of more money than he cared to keep, and it was quickly di? posed of for wintering infirin horses, or given to some poor family whom the ague had prostrated or the accidents of border life in- poverished. In a single instance only he is known to have invested Lis surplus . . ms in the purchase of land, having received a down from Alexa ler Finley, of Mohican Township, Ashland County dwajo, for a part of the southwest quarter of section twenty-six ;
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but with his en-tomary indifference to maters of value, Johnny failed to record the deed, and Lost it. Only a few years ago the- property was in litigation.
We must not leave the reader under the impression that thi- man's life, so full of fordship and perils, was a gloomy or unhappy one. There is an element of human pride in all martyrdom, which .. if it does not soften the pains, stimulates the power of endurance .. Johnny's life was made serenly happy by the conviction that he- was living like the primitive Christians. Nor was he devoid of" a keen humor, to which he occasionally gave vent, as the follow -- ing will show. Toward the latter part of Johnny's career in Chies an itinerant missionary found his way to the village of Mansfield. and preached to an open-air congregation. The discourse wa- tediously lengthy and unnecessarily severe upon the sin os extravagance, which was beginning to manifest itself among the. pioneers by an occasional indulgence in the carnal van- ities of calico and "store tea." There was a good deal of the; Pharisaic leaven in the preacher, who very frequently em- phasized his discourse by the inquiry, "Where is therea man who,, like the primitive Christians, is traveling to heaven barefooted anek. clad in coarse raiment?" When this interrogation had been re- peated beyond all reasonable endurance, Johny rose from the log en which he was reclining, and advancing to the speaker, he- placed one of his bare feet upon the stump which served for a pul- pit, and pointing to his coffee-sack garment, he quietly saich, "Here's your primitive Christian!" The well-clothed missionary hesitated and stammered and dismissed the congregation. His pet antithesis was destroyed by Johnny's personal appearance. which was far more primitive they the preacher cared to copy.
some of the pioneers were disposed to think that Johnny's hu- Dior was the cause of an extensive practical joke; but it is gener- ally conceded now that a widespread annoyance was really the. result of bi , belief that the offensively-o lored weed known in the West as the dog-fennel, but more generally styled the May-weed .. passed valuable antimalarial virtues. He procured some seeds of the plant in Pennsylvania, and sowed them in the vicinity of every house in the region of hi- travels. The consequence was- that successive flourishing erop of the weed spread over the whole. country, and caused alnost a- mich trouble as the disease it was
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intended to ward off; and to this day the dog-fennel, intro- duced by Johnny Appleseed, is one of the worst grievances of the Ohio farmers.
In 1838-thirty-seven years after his appearance on Licking Creek-Johnny noticed that civilization, wealth, and population were pressing into the wilderness of Ohio. Hitherto he had easily kept just in advance of the wave of settlement; but now towns and churches were making their appearance, and even, at long intervals, the stage-driver's horn broke the silence of the grand old forest-, and he felt that his work was done in the region in which he had labored so long. He visited every house, and took a solenm farewell of all the families. The little girls who had been delighted with his gifts of fragments of calico and ribbons had be- come sober matrons, and the boys who had wondered at his ability to bear the pain caused by running needles into his flesh were heads of families. With parting words of admonition he left then, and turned his steps steadily toward the setting sun.
During the succeeding nine years he pursued his eccentric avo- cation on the western border of Ohio and in Indiana. In the sum- mer of 1847, when his labors had literally borne fruit over a hun- dred thousand square miles of territory, at the close of a warm day, after traveling twenty miles, he entered the house of a settler in Allen county, Indiana, and was, as usual, warmly welcomed. He declined to eat with the family, but accepted some bread and milk, which he partook of sitting on the door-step and gazing on the setting sun. Later in the evening he delivered his "news right fresh from heaven" by reading the Beatitudes. Declining other accommodation, he slept, as usual, on the floor, and in the early morning he was found with his features all aglow with a supernal light, and his body so near death that his tongue refused its office. The physician, who was hastily summe , pronounced him dying, but added that he had never seen a mien i 1 = > placid a state at the approach of death. At seventy-two years of age, forty six of which had been devoted to his self-imposed mission, he ripened into death as naturally and beautifully as the seeds of his own planting had grown into fibre and bud and blossom and the matured fruit.
Thus died one of the memorable men of pioneer times, who never inflicted pain or knew an enemy-a man of strange habits,
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in whom there dwelt a comprehensive love that reached with one hand downward to the lowest forms of life, with the other upward to the very throne of God. A laboring, self-denying benefactor of his race, homeless, solitary, and ragged, he trod the thorny earth with bare and bleeding feet, intent only upon making the wilder- noss fruitful. Now "no man knoweth of his sepulchre;" but his deeds will live in the fragrance of the apple blossoms he loved so well, and the story of his life, however crudely narrated, will be a perpetual proof that true heroism, pure benevolence, noble vir- tues, and deeds that deserve immortality may be found under meanest apparel, and far from gilding halls and towering spires.
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LORENZO DOW.
HIS VISIT IN 1826.
In May, 1826, Lorenzo Dow visited Logan and Champaign counties, and I think this was the only visit he ever made to those counties. The first that I now remember of hearing of his move- ments on this journey was at Sandusky City, then called Portland. The people of Portland at that time were almost wholly irrelig- ious and extremely wicked. Religious meetings were almost un- known amongst them. Not long before Lorenzo's visit, a Metho- dist minister had appointed a meeting at Portland, and while en- gaged in prayer, a sailor jumped on his back and kicked him, and cursed him, and said : " Why don't you pray some for Jackson ?" and the meeting was broken up in much disorder. Lorenzo had an appointment at Portland early in May, 1826, and of course his name and fame attracted a large crowd at the hour of meeting : the meeting was held under a large tree near the bank of Lake Erie. At the appointed time Lorenzo came walking very fast, dressed in a plain manner, with straw hat and white blanket coat. He rushed into the midst of the company, pulled off his hat and dashed it on the ground, pulled off his coat and dashed it down the same way, as though he was mad, looked very sternly, and immediately began to preach ; his text was pretty rough ; he be- gan with the words: " Hell and damnation ; " he then uttered a string of oaths enough to frighten the wickedest man in Portland. He then made a solemn pause, and said : " This is your common language to God and to one another - such language as the gates of hell cannot exceed." He then preached a solemn, warning ser- mon, and was listened to by all present with much attention, without interruption.
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The next account I can give of Lorenzo on this journey, wasat 'Tymochtee, I believe now within the bounds of Hardin county. He stopped at the house of Eleazer Hunt, and Phineas Hunt, father of Eleazer was there with his wagon, and was about starting to his home in Champaign county, and Lorenzo rode in his wagon. It seemed that Lorenzo had sent an appointment to preach at Bellefontaine, at 11 o'clock, of the day that he expected to arrive there. About the appointed time he arrived at Bellefontaine, riding in Phineas Hunt's wagon. I am informed that the people were looking earnestly for him. Judge N. Z. McColloch and others met the wagon in which Lorenzo was in, and inquired, "Is Mr. Dow here?" he said, "Yes, my name is Dow." Judge Mc- Colloch then kindly invited him to go to his house and eat dinner. as there was sufficient time before the hour of meeting. Without saying a word, Lorenzo directed the driver to go south a little far- ther, where he alighted from the wagon and laid under the shade of a small tree, and took some bread and meat from his pocket and ate his dinner in that way. Soon meeting time came, and there was of course a large attendance. In the course of his sermon, Lorenzo pointed to an old lady who sat near him and said, "Old lady, if you don't quit tattling and slandering your neighbors, the (evil will get you !" Pointing directry at her he said, "I am talking to you !" There was a young man in the meeting, that Lorenzo probably thought needed reproof ; he said, "Young man, you esti- mate yourself a great deal higher than other people estimate you, and if you don't quit your high notions and do better, the devil will get you too!" Pas-ing out of the meeting he met a young man and said to him, "Young man, the Lord has a work for you to do. He calls you to labor in his vineyard." It is said that young man became a minister of the Gospel. I think the meeting at Bellefontaine, was held on seventh day, or Satuaday. After meeting, he came with Phineas Hunt, to his home, -a brick-house- now on the farm of William Scott, in Salem township, Champaign. County. Lorenzo held a meeting at Phineas Hunt's house, that evening, at 5 o'clock, P. M., which was not large as no previous notice was given. My father attended that meeting. Lorenzo's text was: "But the hour cometh, and now is when the true wor- shippers -hall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father speketh such to worship him. God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."
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Next day being the Sabbath, Lorenzo had an appointed meeting at Mt. Tabor, at 10 o'clock, A. M., which was generally known in the neighborhood. About 9o'clock, on Sabbath morning, Lorenzo saw some people passing by, enquired where they were going ; was told they were going to his meeting ; without saying another word he picked up his hat, and started in the direction of the meet- ing ; overtaking some persons on the way, he walked with them apiece, and took a by way leading from the main road, when one of the company said, "this is the road to Mt. Tabor," he said "yes that is your road ; go on." He passed on to N. W. until he came to the Bellefontaine road, about 3 of a mile north of Tabor, and walked south to the meeting house. The people had assembled in the grove, west of the meeting house, where seats had been pre- pared. Lorenzo passed right by the assembly, and went down the hill into the bushes and timber S. E. of the meeting house, where he immediately began to preach, the people following him, carry- ing benches and chairs, &c., but mostly stood on foot during the meeting. He was preaching when I arrived at the meeting, and perhaps hundreds came after he had began to preach.
His manner in preaching was earnest and impressive, he never he-itated, but seemed to have words at command that suited the case. His doctrine appeared to be the same as held by the Metho- dists ; he spoke of a call to the ministry ; he said it must be a di- vine call, that it would not do to preach as a trade or profession. He spoke with much severity and keen sarcasm against proud and deceitful professors of religion. His appearance was remarkable : he was a spare man, of rather small size; his beard was long, reaching to his breast, his hair was a little gray, parted in the middle on his head, and reached down to bis shouklers; his dress was very plain, and appeared to be cleanly and neat. He wore a straw or palm-leaf hat, a black over-coat, which appeared to be all the coat he had on ; he rested on a cane while preaching ; his eye was calm and serone, yet piercing. Notwithstanding his ec- centricitie-, his whole appearance and manners indicated that he Was an extraordinary man -a great and good man. He did not sing at this meeting ; after preaching about one hour and a quar- ter, in which he seemed to mention almost everything connected with religious subject-, giving a history of his life, and of the sol- emn parting with his father and mother, brothers and sisters, when he -fartel out -I think at about seventeen years of age -
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to preach the gospel, he knelt and offered a short and beautiful prayer, and then dismissed the audience.
As he was ascending the hill westward from the place of meet- ing, a venerable Methodist preacher, on horse-back, met him, and being very anxious to talk to Lorenzo, rather rode before him, and held out his hand. Lorenzo took his hand, and said : "Don't ride over me, it's not good manners."
Win. H. Fyffe had sent a handsome carriage to convey Lorenzo to Urbana, where he had an appointment to preach that afternoon, at 8 o'clock. I have been told he was kindly invited to dinner, perhaps by several persons, but did not accept the invitation, and laid down to rest on Judge Reynolds' cellar door, taking some bread from out of his pocket, and made his meal. This afternoon meeting of course was large, and I think was held in the Metho- dist Church. Lorenzo preached in a very earnest manner, became warmed and animated; swinging his hands, the hymn book slipped from his hand and struck a lady on her head; he paused and said : " Excuse my energy, for my soul is elated."
I believe I can give no further particulars of the only visit to this county of this remarkable man. THOMAS COWGILL .. KENNARD, O., 3d Month 18, 1872.
REV. DAVID MERRILL.
The writer of this became acquainted with Mr. Merrill at Urbana about forty years ago, and had the honor of hearing him deliver his celebrated " Ox " discourse.
"That Mr. Merrill was a man of no ordinary intellectual powers, is sufficiently evident from what he said and did, and the faet was felt by all who had any considerable acquaintance with him. His more prominent mental traits were, undoubtedly, such as compre- hensiveness, originality, energy, &c. Whatever subjects he investi- gated, he took hold of them with a strong grasp ; he looked at them in their various relations, and in a manner that was peculiarly hi- own. He had a power of originating and combining ideas, an
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ability to elaborate, as it were, thought- within himself, that re- minded one of the prolific and vigorous intellects of an earlier and more favored generation. He had, too, a kind of intuitive percep- tion of the propriety and fitness of things-of the bearing one action has upon another-of what is adapted to affect men in different circumstances.
The history of the "Ox Sermon," is briefly this. It was written for a temperance meeting in Urbana, and delivered to an audience of less than a hundred persons. Its first publication was in the Urbans weekly paper. A copy of this paper, sent to Samuel Mer- . rill, Esq., of Indianapolis, Ind., fell into the hands of John H. Farnham, Esq., who caused a pamphlet edition of 500 copies to be printed at Salem, Indiana. Rev. M. H. Wilder, a Tract Agent, -ent a copy of this edition to the American Tract Society, by which it was handed over to the Temperance Society. It was then pub- fished as the "Temperance Recorder, extra," for circulation in every family in the United States. The edition numbered 2,200,000 copies. Numerous edition have been published since,-one in Canada East, of, I think. W 000 copies. The American Traet Soci- ety adopted it about 1995, as No. 175 of their series of tracts, and have published 104.000 copies. The Tract Society has also pub- lished 100,000 copies of an abridgement of it, under the title, "Is it right?" It has been published in many newspapers of extensive circulation. It is undoubtedly safe to say that its circulation ha- been between two and a half and three millions of copies, What other Sermon has ever had a circulation equal to this ?
A per-on tolerably well informed in regard to the arguments used by temperance men at the present day, who reads the Ox Sermon for the first time, will think its positions and illustrations quite common-place, and wonder why anybody ever attributed to it auy originality or shrewdness. But twenty-five years have wrought great changes in the popular sentiment upon the subject of temper- ance, and positions, which are now admitted almost as readily a- the axioms in mathematics, when broached in that sermon were regarded as "violently new-school," "dangerously radical," "im- practicably ultra." Whoever originate an idea which becomes in- fluential over the belief and actions of men, commences a work which will go on increasing in efficiency long after his own gener- ation -hall have passed away. The author of the "Ox Sermon,"
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even during his own life, had the satisfaction of knowing that many by reading that discourse were so convicted in their con- sciences that even at great pecuniary sacrifice they gave up the traffic in ardent spirits, and that many more from being enemies or lukewarm friends, became earnest advocates of the temperance reformation. .
REV. GEORGE WALKER.
The above named gentleman lived in Champaign County when he joined the Methodist Episcopal Church under the labors of Rev. George Gatch. The circumstances of his joining the Church are briefly these : When Mr. Gatch was on his last round on Mad- river Circuit, at King's Creek, four miles north of Urbana, after the sermon, Mr. Gatch gave an invitation to join the Church : Mr. Walker started toward the preacher, and when about midway of the congregation his strength failed him for the first time, and he sank down on the floor. Mr. Gatch approached him as he arose to his feet, and he gave his hand to the minister, and his name to the Church. Mr. Walker married Miss Catharine Elbert, daughter of Dr. John Elbert, of Logan County. I believe she died but re- cently. The annexed sketch of Mr. Walker's life will be read with interest by his old comrades .- Ed.
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