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From: MRS GINA M REASONER< >
Subject: CARROLL COUNTY - PART 2
Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1999 10:58:16, -0500


HISTORICAL COLLECTION OF OHIO, By Henry Howe, LL.D. 1898

TRAVELING NOTES
"You must see Gen. Eckley when you visit Carrollton," said various
parties when I was in the counties adjoining. "He can tell you everything."
He was, they said, "a man of great public spirit and large intelligence."
On the evening of my arrival, Friday, June 11, I found two old gentlemen
seated on a dry-goods box on a street corner -I may say two old boys
-engaged in a social chat; and one of these was Capt. John Beatty, the
first sheriff of Carroll county,; the other Gen. Ephraim R. Eckley, who was
a judge before he was a general -a man of law before a man of war. His
first greeting was, "You've grown old since I have seen you." I did not
remember to have ever seen him, but must have done so when formerly here
-when I took the old view shown on an adjoining page -took it as one told
me he remembered seeing me seated on a wheel-barrow in the centre of the street.
Gen. Eckley has lived almost the entire period of the history of
the State; was born in 1811. Having been long in public life, he has
witnessed many changes. Among his experiences was his being in at the death
of the Whig party in 1854; the Free-Soil party, in nautical phrase, had
"taken its wind." He was then the Whig candidate for the United States
Senate, which was the last effort of the Whigs at organization.
In 1861 he served in the Virginia campaign under Rosecrans; later,
under Sherman, had command at Paducah; in April, 1862, was elected to
Congress, where he remained until 1869. He gave me these interesting items,
illustrating the morals of the people here, viz: that the jail was
generally empty, and when used at all it was largely for violation of some
police arrangement; and that from 1842 to 1863, a period of twenty-one
years, Carroll county had not supplied a single inmate for the
penitentiary. Other counties in Ohio, I find, can give a like record. Such,
however, have mainly rural populations.
GENERAL HARRISON AND THE HONEST GERMAN. -On July 4, 1838, Harrison
addressed a Whig meeting at Massillon, and the next day came here and "put
up" at the tavern of David J. Levy. In the evening he made an impromptu
address from the hotel steps. Next morning he arose early to take a walk
before breakfast, the ostensible purpose being to get a drink from John
Young's spring, a spot on the outskirts where Mr. Young had a tannery with
a bath-house and fine spring of water. On his arrival there he met Jonas
Miller, an honest, simple-hearted German, on his way to town. Harrison bade
him good morning, and observing he had his hand done up in a bandage, asked
him "What was the matter with it?" he replied he had a felon on it and was
going to town to get a drink of whiskey; thought it would ease the pain.
Harrison advised him kindly not to drink, it would be only the worse for
him, gave him a receipt for its cure and the twain walked into the town
together. Harrison was dressed in a plain suit of fustian, and, after
parting from Miller, some one asked the latter if he knew whom he had been
talking with? He replied "No." When told, he was so overcome that he sat
down and cried like a child. Miller had been a strong Democrat, but
thenceforth was an enthusiastic Harrison man. In speaking of this event he
would say in broken English; "Mein Gott, it was the great Gineral Harrison
that walked down the street and talked with me and cured my felon."
RURAL SIGHTS. -Having slept upon the General's chat I took a walk
the next morning. There is an advantage in these small towns; a few steps
take one into the country where the green earth, and the blue sky have an
open chance to look at each other square in the face and exchange notes;
and there, too -and it is not a small matter -are the cattle on a thousand
hills, peaceful, patient and picturesque; chewing the cud and whilom
keeping the fly-brush agoing and often with a rhythm so well pronounced
that some painstaking, head-scratching poet might pause there for a hint,
if so disposed.
Carrollton is on undulating ground and the country around a series
of beautiful swells. Each house is generally on an ample home lot and the
people live mostly in cottages. The gardens of the villagers, rich in
flowers, were yet moist with the dew of morning, while the sunlight,
stealing in long, slanting ribbon-bands across their beds, illuminated them
in richest glory of color and in sweetest blending of light and shade. And
the thought came upon me, now this very morning, all over this broad land,
there are multitudes of just such villages as this with just such scenes
and with just such worthy, virtuous people as these. And with this grateful
fact upon the heart, should we question is life worth living? Whatever man
might answer, the bee, flitting on golden wing from flower to flower, would
reply, "Yes; don't I get honey?"
THE OLD LADY AND HER FLOWERS -On coming to one of the cottages I
saw an old lady on her knees with a wet cloth in hand wiping her porch. She
was surrounded by the pots of flowers which she had nursed through the
winter and had brought them out alongside of those that kind mother Earth
had put forth from her bosom in the open air. "Good-morning," said I. With
that she turned her head, lifted her sunbonnet and arose to her feet to see
who it was that had greeted her. I then continued, as she still held her
cloth in her hand with her arm limp by her side: "Do you know Madam, what a
favor you confer upon every passer-by by your display of flowers?" Upon
this she smiled and said, "Why I never thought of that; I cultivate them
because I love them." "You people," I rejoined, "appear to live very
pleasantly and the country around looks very sweet to me as I see it
rolling away in graceful swells of grassy fields interspersed with clumps
of trees." "Yes," she rejoined, "and it is now in all its beauty." Yes! she
was right. It was the beautiful month of June that had come, and had she
felt like quoting the poetry she might have started straight for
Longfellow, as he thus speaks for June:
"Mine is month of roses; yes, and mine
The month of marriages! All pleasant sights
And scents, the fragrance of the blossoming vines,
The foliage of the valleys and the heights
Mine are the longest days, the loveliest nights;
The mower's scythe makes music to my ear;
I am the mother of all dear delights,
I am the fairest daughter of the year."

"You people," I continued, "appear to live in this village in a
great deal of comfort and freedom. "I don't like it," she replied. "There
is too much style for me! Until I was forty years of age I lived on a farm,
and I pine for its open, free life. There is so much to interest one, and
the animals are a continued source of gratification. Then your neighbors
run in and out without any formality and we all seem as one great family.
This village life has too much restriction. If one's gate gets open and
your cow happens to get out she is taken up and put in the pound, and there
is seventy-five cents or a dollar to pay to get Muley out." "Trouble
everywhere," I said. "Yes, she rejoined, and opening wide her mouth,
displayed a full set of perfect, pearly white teeth. God bless the dentist,
I then thought, whose inventive art permits a refined old lady like you to
give full play to her merriment without compelling her, when the hinges of
her mouth relax for a good hearty laugh, to hide it with her hand.
A moment later I met a young mother happy as a lark. Instead of
turning over her children to the care of Bridget and lolling on a luxurious
couch, absorbed in reading the details of the make-up of Mrs. Cleveland's
wedding-dress, she was leading by the hand, amid these rustic surroundings
on this bright June morning, her own little girl, perhaps her first-born. I
watched as I came up the slender limbs of the little one alternately
stealing in an out from beneath the folds of her blue dress and said,
"Good-morning: I see the blue birds are out." "Yes, sir; this one."

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