USA > Pennsylvania > Crawford County > Pioneer sketches : scenes and incidents of former days > Part 14
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I conveyed him do my sister Addie's,
There comfortably seated the old laddie;
Hours were spent in rehearsing early scenes in life
When Rit took the cars for Erie to see his darling wife.
One mile north Springboro is located the Powell Brothers, Who have proved to be remarkable fellows, Celebrated stock dealers in nearly every brand As fine-bred stock as in the land.
Reader, if perchance you come this way, 'Twill pay you to stop over a day; You will be pleased, I well know, In looking at Powell's famous stock show.
From the time at Shadeland you have first alighted, With courteous treatment you'll be delighted; Before leaving there you'll come to halt And say, if you don't buy 'twont be Powell's fault.
This people of Spring I think I know their worth; This is the place that gave me birth, Here I began "Pioneer Sketches" in prose and verse, Here I end it for better or for worse.
CHAPTER LIIL.
TRAGIC DEATH OF ORSON CHAPMAN.
Y INTELLIGENT, worthy young man. son A of 1. K. Chapman, who was reared at Sringboro, Pa .. met a sudden death at Rome, Ashtabula County, in 1876. He was employed by the P., Y., & A. R. R. C'o. as brakeman, and when in the act of making a coupling at the place aforesaid he lost his life in the following manner: The train was making a running switch at a lively rate when Orson had to make a coupling between a box car and an open coal car, which was loaded with wood. The wood stuck out over the ends of the coal car, which in the hurry of the moment, in all probability, was not noticed by Mr. Chapman until too late. When the cars came together there was not room for him between the projecting wood and the box-car, hence the wood struck him on the back of his head and literally scalped him. Falling to the ground, the car wheels mangled his legs and arms in a horrible manner, and death was instantaneous.
Mr. Chapman was a promising young man, and held the esteem of all who knew him. He was 23 years of age, and was to have been promoted in a few days to conductor for meritorious service. It appeared, and was thought at the time, that the company should have atoned, in some measure, for that butchery; but the father of the dead boy thought it would not be the means of bringing back to him his beloved son, and the matter rested.
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I happened to be at the depot when the train brought the remains to Ashtabula, as also was O. W. DeGrovelt, being the only ones who knew the victim. We at once telegraphed his parents; also his sister Mary, who was attending the medical institute at Cleveland. In the mean- time the gentlemanly Superintendent McCoy, of the P., Y. & A., did everything in his power to aid us on the occasion, procuring a fine casket, etc., and later to get the clothing and effects,, which, of course, to the family had a double value.
When Mary, the sister, arrived from Cleveland the scene was most affecting. The brother and C. Fisher, from Springboro, having arrived, the cortege proceeded with the body to Spring Cemetery, its resting place.
The father, L. K. Chapman, empowered the writer to settle up the affairs of his deceased son, which was soon accomplished, through the aid of the noble Superintendent McCoy.
CHAPTER LIV.
RETURN OF SPRING.
HIS fine April morn doth bring With it beautiful spring, And the robin sweetly sings Upon the same old maple limbs.
The linnet songster, singing everywhere, Let's up and hear it and breathe the morn- ing air,
And travel on our journey-don't despair. But hope, and try, and we will get there.
Thus advancing nobly along the way, Presently brighter will become the day: At last our journey is ended, hope and pray To have a bright eternal day .
CHAPTER LV.
TO THE AGENT.
OULD you like to undertake Some money yourself to make The easiest way you ever undertook- To sell an excellent book.
"Pioneer Sketches, Scenes and Incidents of Former Days," All about the new and the good old-fashioned ways.
Hundreds of copies soon to be complete,
Which, they say, are hard to beat.
As to that, I leave it for others to decide
Who read it through the country far and wide.
Back to the boyhood days of Washington and others, You'll find this book contains many valuable treasures.
Agent, to you a fair commission I will allow To sell my book, if you start in now. "Now is the accepted time."
For I don't mean to wait for 1899.
Respectfully, M. P. SARGENT, Ashtabula, Ohio.
CHAPTER LVI.
EDMUND SARGENT-CHARACTERISTICS.
HE SUBJECT of this sketch is the second son of Charles and Polly Sar- gent, of a family of thirteen children. He attended the district school in win- ter, was one of the oldest scholars attending and was looked up to by the younger ones in their ont-door sports, and to see that matters were fairly adjusted inside the school house by the teacher. He stood six feet high, straight as an arrow, naturally good natured, but combative from head to foot. The big meadow in the rear of the school house, containing 100 acres with two gullys running about equal parallel distances through it, afforded a nice play ground for the game of deer and hound.
Ed. being a good runner, starts off as the deer; some three or four of the longest legged boys quickly start out after him. Some good running is done, but after a half- hours' run the hounds give up the chase, when the deer returns, victorious. This fellow would run during recess an hour, seemingly, rather than to eat his dinner, and if occasion required, would rather fight than eat.
The teacher who taught our school, a Mr. Coats, whom the boys called for short "Old Coats of 1840." I, being a lad of eight years of age, had occasion to ask the teacher:
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"Please to let me go out ?" "No !" was his answer. Presently I asked again to go out; "No!" was his surly reply, and added: "If you ask again I will punish you." Something had to be done. Later "Old Coats" started for me with a willow gad about six feet long, when Ed. quickly arose from his seat and told him not to strike me. Sim. Skeels too, was on deck and Coats did not lick me, and he was told by these young stalwarts that he ought to be ashamed of himself. What followed I leave for another chapter.
While Coats stood between me and the door, But he had to clean up the floor.
On New Year's morning Ed, Sim Skeels and most of the scholars were in the school room early and locked the door. When the teacher came he couldn't get in, and after making several fruitless attempts he went to the side win- dows, but found them nailed down. He then resorted to threats, but to no avail ; whereupon the boys told him it was New Year's morning and that he must treat them to a bushel of good apples before they let him in. Coats being satisfied that the demand was imperative and that their appetites were fixed for apples, sent for these at once and they were placed along the counters. The scene that fol lowed eating those apples for an hour was ludicrous. This wasthe only time I ever saw a grin or smile on old Coats' face.
"Twas enough to make a mule grin To see the scholars take them apples in; When Coats opened up with prayer, And every scholas who was there
Got their books and studied well, and Coats proceeded with his regular routine of classical duties, reading, writing, Cobb, Dayboll and Kirkham, making and repairing goose-
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quill pens, until roll-call, the finale of the New Year's school day of 1840.
Well, we soon found that we could not always have Ed with us. When about 17 years of age he started for the west. He was young, but vigorous, and was a fine specimen of physical manhood-
And off he sails like a ship at sea, Not knowing what his fortune was to be.
In Indiana he brings up and labors for a while; got married, embarked in the stock business, dealing in cattle, sheep, hogs and poultry; subsequently in the lumber business and during a good portion of the time kept hotel. At the outbreak of the war he enlisted in the service; was at Shiloh, Nashville, Chattanooga and other battles. Returning from the army he engaged in his former business, and is now keeping hotel in Indiana.
Surely Ed has paddled his own canoe From boyhood all the way through AAdverse, prosperous, varying strife, Through the rough and placid stream of life.
CHAPTER LVII.
THINGS THAT ARE QUEER.
OME THINGS queer that have been seen, Blackberries red when they are green, Garter snake swallowing big warty toad, Little donkey carrying half ton load.
Drove of monkeys bridging a stream, The queerest thing ever seen, From tree tops, each side, suspended by the tail, Swinging to and fro through the dale.
From this bridge young monkeys hanging down, Snarling, chattering, hopping all around, When over this bridge scampered dry shod, Never the like since the day of gods.
Past centuries of creation, When Darwin made his estimation That the monkey should progress Onward to man and nothing less.
I here leave the transfiguration For Darwin to make the enumeration, Content that the monkey bridge is all right, And to a novice would be a novel sight.
Darwin's monkey and the donkey Are mischievous and very cranky. The former is up to tricks of every kind, While the latter will kick up behind.
While in our land exists the monkey and the ass, We'll step aside and let 'em pass, And give Darwin full swing to operate With his monkey-ing at any rate.
CHAPTER LVIII.
J. F. WOODARD.
J F. WOODARD was born at Spring, Pa., in 1825, (Idest son of John and Mary Woodard, who were among the pioneer settlers of Spring. While young he attended the district school and developed a desire for mathematics, and in this branch he was one of the first in school, relieving his teacher of the oft repeated request, "Please show me about this sum." Young Woodard did not call on his teacher to show him, but worked out his own problems, and this was a characteristic of him through life, to work his way through.
J. F. Woodard has done as many hard day's work as any man I know of his age. Soon after reaching. his ma- jority he struck out for himself, buying a tract of land ad- joining the old homestead, he set to work getting out saddle trees, hoops, and clearing up his lands. Afterwards he purchased a tract of timber land, on which was a large quantity of whitewood and white ash timber. He married a Miss Huntley, of Erie County, Pa., an estimable lady, and removed to his new farm, on which he built a saw mill and engaged actively in the lumber busmess. He made his own ox yokes, sleds and axe helves, and did considerable of his millwright, house and barn building work, and he never flinched when hard work loomed up on all sides around him.
His hard labor soon brought him a cash surphis. A leather firm at Springboro thought they had a place for it, and got some three and a half thousands of the money,
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with a promise to repay the same with interest at a future day. One fine day the news was heralded that the leather firm had failed. Mr. Woodard thought, and so did his at- torney, that by an attachment on the leather some of the purchase money could be recovered. But the hides were too slippery, and he and several others lost everything. He sustained another loss by a lumber sale.
I do not speak of these transactions in the light of a large or a small affair, but simply in the light of money earned by hard knocks by a man who had no speculative ambition and who went right straight ahead unceasingly in his hard toil to recover this loss and to sustain himself and family in old age.
Mr. Woodard bought the old homestead, improved the same, erected good buildings, and in a few years sold it and removed his family to Spring. His boys were all girls- five in number, and he gave them a good education. He purchased a farm in Girard Township, Pa., near Miles Grove, to where he removed and now resides. One of his daughters is married, and the others reside at home. They are intelligent ladies, and have lucrative positions.
J. F. Woodard is a good farmer, and is still an indus- trious, hard-working man; is respected in the community in which he lives, and has the consolation that he earned his dollars and has a competency for himself and family.
CHAPTER LIX.
R. H. AND BYRON SARGENT.
HE ABOVE named gentlemen are about the same age and size. The former the eldest son of Anson Sargent, who was a strong, muscular man; the later the fourth son of Charles Sargent, the great hunter. In the family of Anson were nine children; in the family of Charles were twelve children. The subjects of this article were born at Spring, Crawford County, Pa., in 1829, attended the same school, at the country school house, and there and elsewhere were much in company with each other on most all occasions, until they had grown up to manhood. R. H. was muscular and active, Byron strong and wily, and many a lively set-to had they, with- out arousing their anger, in order (as they used to say) to try the muscle and keep in good trim the exercise of the manly art. Good natured, temperate, never abusive, but the man who attacked them found bad medicine and quit the business satisfied. It seems that they have taken good care of their avoirdupois, as each one tips the scales at 230 pounds at present age of 61. As I write my memory carries me back to boyhood days and the many pleasant hours passed in their company and others. R. H. is lively, witty and musical, and with our fiddle and song we fre- quently had our own time.
The combative Byron would come up with a different line of music and tap on the rib, and the best thing I could
17
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do with him on the occasion was to stand up and sling out right and left. I hadn't as much fat on the rib as he, and sometimes I thought he tapped rather hard; but as for him apparently the harder I would tap him the better. One day afterwards, however, I thought I got even with him. I called at his house. He proposed to have some fun, and took down his father's gun and we went out gunning. Game did not appear very plenty in the woods that morning, but the wily Byron must have some sport anyhow, and when out in a cleared field he proposed that we shoot at each other's hat at a distance of 25 rods. A stake was driven to hang the hats upon. Mine was a broadeloth cap, made by my mother; his was a straw hat, braided and made by his mother, and I thought them too valuable souvenirs to be shot to pieces. He blazed away at my cap, but never hit it. I then drew a bead on his, the bullet striking one edge of the crown, entting off every braid to the rim. He went to the stake, picked up the hat and put it on his head, and facing me said, "Never touched it ;" but turning his head around, the hair of his head from crown to ear was sticking out of the hole made in the hat.
He became a boatman on the Erie & Pittsburg Canal ; was master of the boats, James, Bird and Napoleon. In 1851-2 he explored Black Hawk County, Iowa, the Cedar River and Black Hawk Creek, accompanied by Obed Wells, and finally settled there, being one of the pioneer settlers of Black Hawk County. I saw him where he and his family now reside, he being engaged in a commission grain business at Hudson, Iowa. He possesses self-reliance, habits of industry and temperance, which have left him in a good pecuniary condition.
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R. H. Sargent while quite young was, by the death of his father, left to manage the affairs at the homestead, which he did in a very acceptable manner for so young a lad. In 1852 he accepted a clerkship in a store at Conneautville ; married, became postmaster at Conneautville, was quite a politician, though in a poor county for a Democrat to win. In 1854 he was an oil refiner at that place, then at Petro- leum Centre on the W. Mcclintock farm, where he became a successful oil producer, and about the year 1870 removed with his family to Titusville, where he now resides.
CHAPTER LX.
SPARKS OF HUMOR.
E WAS taking her home after the theatre and a little supper at Waldeck's. "Dar- ling," said he, suddenly, as he gazed dreamingly at the silvery dise overhead, "why am I like the moon?" "It isn't because you're full, is it?" she asked as she edged away from him. "No," said he, sadly ; "I'm on my last quarter."
Backwoods-What's that ring worth ?
Jeweler-I couldn't sell you that for less than $7; the setting is a genuine cat's eye.
Backwoods-Seven dollars for a cat's eye! Say, Mis- ter, I'll sell you a whole cat and seven kittens for that.
Farmer, hiring help at Castle Garden-Pat, if you want to work for me I'll give you $25 a month and your board.
O'Flynn, just landed-Faix, is that same the highest rate of wages they be paying in this country ?
Farmer, facetitiously-Well, they're paying about $15 a day in Congress.
Patrick-Thin, begorra, oi'll go to Congress.
Sniggins, angrily-Do you know that your chickens come come over in my yard?
Snooks-I supposed they did, for they never come back again.
CHAPTER LXI.
WILLIAM S. ALDERMAN.
RAISING THE LOG HOUSE-AN INCIDENT-AN UGLY ELEVATION-BOAT- ING-CLEARING UP LANDS-SETTLING ON HIS LANDS-MARRIAGE.
WOULD like to sketch all of my old school mates, but time and space will not permit. But I cannot pass on without a mention of William S. Alderman, who was born in Brightstown, now Harmonsburg, Crawford County, Pa., in 1832. His father, William Alderman, married Polly Sargent, who with her husband kept a hotel at the place. Two children were born to them, Marietta and William. William was an infant at the time of his father's death, and his mother with her two infant children was unable to keep hotel and removed to Spring Township and lived with her parents, Phineas and Mary Sargent, in an adjoining part of their house. William was thus left fatherless with his poor widowed mother, who struggled hard to raise her two children, plying the needle until mid- night to make garments for people for a small pittance, to keep the wolf from the door. Money was scarce in those days and a dollar was as big as a cart wheel.
I will relate an incident of Aunt Polly, who said that at the time she was struggling for a subsistence for herself and little ones, she devoutedly prayed one night that some aid might come to them. At a later hour she heard a wagon coming furiously down the hill, and when at the top of the hill, opposite her house, she heard a wrangling, apparently
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of intoxicated men, who soon drove on. After daybreak she went out on the road where this wrangling took place and picked up a five-dollar bill and several pieces of silver. This she said was an unscrutable act of Providence to aid the widow in distress, and her prayer was answered.
William S. Alderman attended our district school, and during the first 28 years of his life he and the writer passed much of the time together, felling trees, sawing logs, clear- ing land, haying, harvesting grain, etc., and he was a man who would always do a good day's work at whatever he engaged.
At the age of 20 he bought 50 acres of the Chew lands of John Reynolds, of Meadville, the agent, and went into the woods to clear away the trees at first sufficient to erect a log house for a home for his mother, sister and himself.
In the spring of 1852 a dozen or more men and boys met to help William erect liis log house. In felling a smooth, stately beech, it lodged firmly against another large tree which we did not want to cut, and the only way to bring down the beech tree was to cut up slanting on the stump on which it rested and let it slide back on its stump, which it did and came back with great velocity, ploughing the ground in its course. Several of us standing there could not move aside, for the building was on one side and timber on the other, and we had to run for our lives in the same direction the tree was coming. Alfred J. Sargent, Jr., being in line nearest to the tree, which was so close to him that when it balanced on the stump the butt of the tree flying up with great force, struck him astern and sent him skyward ten or twelve feet, his eyes protruding from his head. 'Twas a fearful sight for a moment, but he came to the ground in nearly a perpendicular position and placing
GOODARD.
AN UGLY ELEVATION.
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his hands upon his hips found that no bones were broken ; but he got an ugly elevation and had a narrow escape.
We finished the erection of the body of the house that day and ere long he finished it and had his mother and sister comfortably domiciled therein.
He boated on the Erie & Pittsburg Canal several sum- mers, cutting timber in winter preparatory to elearing up his land. He married an excellent wife, who proved a great helpmate to him, and in the course of a few years had an excellent, well-stocked farm, good buildings, a comfortable home for his pioneer mother to enjoy, also the satisfaction of knowing that her daughter Marietta had been fortunate in marriage, and now living in Chicago. Their good condition in life was a consolation to her. She died in 1880. William S. Alderman died in 1884.
The high and low are compared to the dust of earth,
We must not underrate those of humble birth; Lincoln, Garfield and General Grant
Were of humble birth, yet noble, solid as the adamant.
CHAPTER LXII.
THE CLEVER BEARS OF CALVERAS COUNTY -THEIR SAGACITY-THE PIG STY.
NIMALS throughout the animal kingdom are more or less sagacious and none perhaps more cunning in planning and executing their designs than bruin. Knowing his strength instinctively, but few animals care to meddle with him, and the caution and intelligence ex- hibited sometimes appear wonderful.
A short time since a Mr. Mathews over in Calveras County, missed froui time to time some of the nice fat pigs from his pig pen. He took precautions, and searched throughout the neighborhood, and laid in wait until near midnight for the thieves, but to no avail, and occasionally a pig would disappear.
At last he determined to build a pig sty that no thief could get into. He set posts and girts and built a strong picket fence around the enclosure, twelve feet high, so that no thief could get through it or over the top of it. He then rested from his labors with the assurance that his pigs were safe. In a couple of days he discovered to his sur- prise that the nicest pig from the sty was gone. So that night, with his Winchester in hand, Mr. M. secreted him- self between his house and the sty (a little back from the path leading thereto) and was determined to watch, if neces- sary, all night for the thief. One o'clock came, and he began to think that the thief would not put in an appear- ance that night.
C . M. C.
THE CLEVER BEARS OF CALVERAS COUNTY.
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Just before 2 o'clock he heard something stepping in the direction of his house. There were two large bears, the male bear advancing uprightly to a position in front of his house ; the she bear followed, faced about and took po- sition alongside, both standing on their hind legs, surveying the premises and their surroundings. Presently half a dozen young cubs came seampering up, halted a moment, passed on and scampered up a large scrub oak tree, the branches of which extended over the pig pen. The she bear moved on and elimbed the tree, taking her position about fifteen feet from the ground. Then the old sentinel moved toward the tree and climbed up to the first large branch, which extended over the pig pen ; then he crawled along out on the big limb, followed by the she bear, to hold the limb down, as it bent down by the weight of the bear into the pig pen.
A furious squealing was heard in the pen, and the old sow rushed at the bear, but one cuff from the paw of bruin laid her out, and he proceeded to pick out his pig and then crawled up the massive branch, the she bear retreating to the body of the tree, followed by her mate with the pig. At this juncture Mathews fired into the tree. The pig dropped to the ground unharmed, the cubs scampered down the tree and took the back track for the woods, followed by the mother, at a slow gait. Her mate stopped near the pen, seemingly for a sort of an understanding with the pig owner, who said, "Well, this is pretty well done, anyhow, and I will let you go this time, but if you come monkeying around my pig pen any more I will hurt you." At last account from Mathews he was doing well in the pig busi- ness. His clever treatment with those elever bears of Cal- veras had a salutary effect. His pig sty has not since been molested.
MORAL .- If kind treatment had a salutary effect on the bruin family, it certainly ought to have on the human family.
CHAPTER LXIII.
ASAPH SARGENT.
B ORN IN Spring, Crawford County, Pa., in 1832, the fifth son of Charles and Polly Sargent; habits of industy and frugality were soon to be seen cropping out, and in his youth the great Paas Day in April, by him was always hailed in sacred memory; to lay by the biggest lot of eggs, especially the goose eggs, for that occasion. Their big flock of geese wandering o'er the big pastures and meadows, it required pretty sharp hunting to find all their nests, secreted among the old stumps in the field. Ace was expert in this and apparently could smell a goose egg as far as a ferret could a rat, therefore he hunted successfully their nests and stayed by the goose and would hurry her up to get her last egg, and always came out with the biggest pile of eggs for Paas Day, of which he was mighty fond, as most people are, especially the spring crop.
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