“Uncommon Friends”

James D. Newton, Uncommon Friends. Life with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alexis Carrel & Charles Lindbergh.  With a foreword by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986.

Speaker and author Danny Cox, whom the author thanks in the preface, sent this book to me via Springhouse magazine for which I write.  I was very pleased to receive and read it.  Then I began noticing it in bookstores.  Here is a book review I wrote for the February 1995 issue of Springhouse.

The five men recalled in this book are major twentieth-century figures, and many people will recall their respective accomplishments. Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) was the inventor and industrialist who invented the phonograph, electric lighting, and the moving picture camera. Henry Ford (1863-1947) was chief engineer of the Edison Illuminating Company in 1891 and resigned in 1899 to manufacture automobiles. He established the Ford Motor Company in 1903 and his Model T Ford automobile (first sold in 1908 for $825) was resoundingly popular for its assembly-line production and affordably low price. Harvey Firestone (1868-1938) organized the Firestone Company in 1900 to manufacture sold and pneumatic tires, a company which expanded after Ford’s 1906 volume order. Alexis Carrel (1873-1944) won the Nobel Prize in 1912 for his revolutionary technique for suturing blood vessels. He and Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974) collaborated in the 1903s to develop a perfusion pump by which organs removed from the body would be kept alive. Carrel also wrote scientific and philosophic books and articles. Lindbergh made the first successful trans-Atlantic solo fight in a heavier-than-air craft in 1927. Although an anti-war activist in 1939, Lindbergh worked with Ford to produce B-24 bombers and few civilian combat missions during World War II.  Later he was a consultant for Pan Am Airlines and a conservationist.  His wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh authored a number of popular reminiscences.

As for the author of Uncommon Friends, according to the jacket “James Newton born in 1905 has had a long career as a real estate developer, conservationist, cowboy, soldier, corporate executive, labor dispute negotiator, and friend par excellence. He and his wife Ellis live in Fort Myers, Florida.” [Newton died in 1999. In 1993 he established the Uncommon Friends Foundation, uncommonfriends.org.] As told in the book, Charles Lindberg was best man at his and Ellie’s wedding. Familiar accounts of these people (Edison’s early years when he was chided as “different,” the kidnapping and murder of the Lindberghs’ son, etc.) are not described. Nor are the people’s shortcomings and flaws help up for scrutiny.  Newton’s purpose for this reminiscence is to record the stories of friendship, including the faith, values, humor, and deepest convictions of these men and their wives, as revealed to a close friend like him. In this warm and readable memoir, he is successful in his aim.

Newton did not ask to meet any of these people, nor took any money from them for he help he provided to them (except for his brief career with Firestone).  He met them via business contacts or overlapping friendships, forming a long and interrelated story. He was a twenty-year-old head of a Flordia real estate company when he met the Edisons. First he met Mrs. Edison when, prudishly it seems, she protested the statue of a naked Greek maiden which was to adorn the entrance of Newton’s neighborhood development project, Edison park. The maiden was veiled with powdered marble, and Newton and the Edison’s became fast friends. Henry Ford lived next door to the Edisons, and Newton became friends with him when the Edison’s recommended Newton for a building project.  Also through the Edisons, Newton met Harvey Firestone, who was impressed with Newton’s precocity, business acumen, and integrity. Firestone soon hired him to do management, sales, troubleshooting, and a variety of “right hand man” tasks around the country. He spent several intense years with the company until, collapsed from overwork he made the mature decision to take a leave of absence to let his soul catch up with his body, in his words (p. 91). During that time of reflection, and shortly before Firestone’s death, a fellow businessman introduced Newton to Carrel, who was creating a stir in the scientific community for writing words—books and also essays solicited by Reader’s Digest—on prayer, psychology, and spiritual matters.  Carrel and LIndbergh were already friends; the death of Lindbergh’s sister from then-inoperable heart disease created his interest in Carrel’s research in cardiac and vascular surgery.  Carrel arranged the first meeting of Newton and Lindbergh. “I want you to tell hi how God came into your life,” Carrel had said. “He respects my beliefs, but I don’t think he’s found a satisfying faith himself yet. Possibly you can help him” (p. 152). Newton shared with Lindbergh some of his beliefs and religious discoveries, and the friendship proceeded from that foundation. Because Lindbergh lived many years after the other four men, the second half of the book deals with that friendship as Newton marries Ellie and the two couples enjoy times together.

The story of the various overlapping friendships makes for enjoyable, inspiring reading, and so, too, are the examples of the convictions of these people.  We see Edison refusing to become discouraged during years of experimentation, and we see him allowing a young man to carry a light bulb (which took many, many hours for Edison and his assistants to make) to another room—the same young man who had accidentally dropped and broken a bulb a few days before. Newton wonders what this act of trust meant to the young man, downhearted from his earlier carelessness.  Carrel, honored for his scientific research, grappled with issues of God, faith, spirituality, the meaning of psychic power, and issues of character. He was interested in Zen and meditation three decades before these things became popular in Western countries.  Having an intuition, Firestone sold $60 million of his own company stock in 1929 in order to have capital for other products, and he didn’t feel right, as the saying goes, having all his eggs in one basket.  Five days later the stock market crashed.  Although as concerned about products as any businessman, Ford one year doubled his employees’ wages to $5 a day, realizing the financial risk would improve productivity and product loyalty.  In opposing America’s entry into World War II Lindbergh paid a price in public criticism, then was grieved but supportive when intervention became inevitable after Pearl Harbor. Altogether, these men gave examples of their character: Edison never let failed experiments prevent him from pressing on to success; Firestone refused to conduct his business according to mere expedience; Ford struggled with new ideas and sometimes took serious business risks (like perfecting the already failed V-8 engine) in order to advance the industry; Carrel was interested in the whole of human experience beyond the merely empirical; though pressured by fame, Lindbergh sought new challenges.

Newton sadly concludes that, in spite of the conveniences and dynamic tools which these men bequeathed to us, and perhaps because of these things, our modern life is in peril as never before. I think about the era which Newton describes, when notions like “company loyalty” could be deeply esteemed, more so than in our era of public cynicism, fallen heroes, and corporate downsizing.  I think of people for whom character is a concern and are very individualistic in that concern; they neglect to see how character can be undermined in our present-day economic and corporate reality. Even our talk of “virtues” reflects our desire to regain something we’ve lost, and Newton’s book reminds us that not only virtue of faith, talent, risk-taking, creativity, common sense, and the willingness to swim against the stream for a greater principles—qualities he respected in his five friends—are values and principles that seem scare these days.  Newton’s book made me think about such things again, and the benefit of such a memoir is its ability to elicit such thought.

I realized, too, how important is the simple gift of friendship. “To Jim, personal relationships come first,” said Lindbergh of Newton (p. xiii).  Got a hold of this book if you’d like to be inspired to enrich your own friendships and values!

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That Hope and Change Stuff

I first heard of the contemporary artist Shepard Fairey on a program on the Ovation network. His socially-engaged art, first manifested in his street art (especially his Andre the Giant sticker), has been collected in gallery shows and books like E Pluribus Venom, Mayday, and Obey: Supply and Demand. He became known, as well, because of his “Hope” poster widely published during the 2008 presidential campaign. A few weeks ago, while taking a writing break at “my” Barnes and Noble cafe, I noticed a book which Fairey and Jennifer Gross edited, Art for Obama: Designing Manifest Hope and the Campaign for Change (Abrams Image, 2009).

The book collects a variety of paintings, collages, computer-generated art, prints, and other works from and inspired by Obama’s campaign. One by Ron English, “Blue Abraham Obama,” in which the famous 1863 Alexander Gardiner photo of Lincoln, wherein he looks directly into the camera, is rendered with Obama’s features. Another Lincolnesque painting is Scott Siedman’s “The Man from Illinois,” in which Norman Rockwell’s painting “Lincoln the Railsplitter” (depicting young Lincoln walking, reading a book, and saying an axe) is remade with Obama in the role (holding a hoe instead of an axe). There are several prints concerning America’s lack of universal health care; a very forceful print in which a 1950s-era water fountain marked “Colored” is pouring rainbow colors; numerous renderings of the promises “hope” and “change,” and art connecting Obama to Dr. King and Gandhi.

Not all the art is painting, collage, and print. There is a dress, designed by Lisa Anne Auerbach, with the slogans “Chosen People Choose Obama” and “My Jewish Grandma is Voting for Obama” woven into the fabric. Sculptures and furniture are also artworks responding to Obama’s campaign. I highly recommend this book if you appreciate examples of socially-involved contemporary art (which makes me wonder if politically conservative people are also producing artworks today: I just don’t know).

Exploring this book, I thought, not unkindly, “What happened to all that hope and change?” (or, as former Gov. Palin put it, unkindly, that “hopey, changey stuff”). Then, serendipity! As I sorted files from recent projects) I found a 2010 Time magazine that I’d saved in a pile of research from last year. Peter Beinart’s article, “Why Washington’s Tied Up in Knots,” gave me some answers to my question (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1966451,00.html). I enjoy pieces like this which help me make historical connections.

Beinart argues that the two major political parties were, until the mid-1900s, diverse with outlooks and vying interests. One force that caused a change for both parties was the support of civil rights, environmentalism, abortion rights, and “a more dovish foreign policy” among liberal Northern Democrats in the 1960s and 1970s. The Republican party grew more conservative in response, as conservative Southern Democrats became Republicans and Northern liberal Republicans became Democrats. As this process continued, Beinart writes, “Washington politics became less a game of Rubik’s Cube and more a game of shirts vs. skins.”

He notes that after Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush left office, “congressional Republicans realized they could use political polarization to stymie government — and use government failure to win elections. And with that realization, vicious-circle politics started to become an art form.” By the 1990s, “a new breed of aggressive Republicans — men like Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay and Trent Lott — hit on a strategy for discrediting Clinton: discredit government. Rhetorically, they derided Washington as ineffective and conflict-ridden, and through their actions they guaranteed it.” These congressmen used the filibuster, previously a rare devise, to force the failure of legislation. Meanwhile, conservative Republicans discredited moderate Republicans as traitors to the party. “The Gingrich Republicans” used the “vicious circle” because it worked—and in particular, it worked because (1) Americans dislike political fighting, and (2) American voters tend to blame the party in charge. “By 1994, trust in government was at an all-time low, which suited the Republicans fine, since their major line of attack against Clinton’s health care plan was that it would empower government. Clintoncare collapsed, Democrats lost Congress, and Republicans learned the secrets of vicious-circle politics: When the parties are polarized, it’s easy to keep anything from getting done. When nothing gets done, people turn against government. When you’re the party out of power and the party that reviles government, you win.”

To return (in my mind) to the outcome so far of Obama’s “hope and change”: Beinart further notes that this vicious-circle politics have become even more pronounced during the Obama administration than during the Clinton administration. Democrats who were thrilled at the Obama victory (as well as the Democratic majority in Congress) neglected to appreciate the resultant hardening of the Republican minority–and their unwillingness to cooperate and compromise. “In 2009, Senate Republicans filibustered a stunning 80% of major legislation, even more than during the Clinton years. GOP leader Mitch McConnell led a filibuster of a deficit-reduction commission that he himself had demanded. The Obama White House spent months trying to lure the Finance Committee’s ranking Republican, Chuck Grassley, into supporting a deal on health care reform and gave his staff a major role in crafting the bill. But GOP officials back home began threatening to run a primary challenger against the Iowa Senator. By late summer, Grassley wasn’t just inching away from reform; he was implying that Obamacare would euthanize Grandma.” Beinart further notes that Republicans have, during Obama’s term, not only helped to thwart his goals but to foster the “rising disgust with government not just to cripple health care reform but also to derail other Obama initiatives.”

He continues that there is no guarantee that Democrats might not use these tactics, although the Republicans currently use them better. And the tactics don’t always work: for instance, when the government is “handing out goodies.” But when the government wants people to make sacrifices, this is the point where people are called upon the trust their government: “It’s when the pain is temporary but the benefits are long-term that people most need to believe that government is something other than stupid and selfish. Which is exactly what they don’t believe today.”

In a more recent issue, I found an article even more relevant to the Shepard Fairey book: Anthony Romano, “Wanted: A New Messiah,” Newsweek, Oct. 10 & 17, 2011. (http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/10/02/the-search-for-bold-leadership.html)

He writes that “America is desperate for a messiah. Christie Fever would seem a little more remarkable, for instance, if conservatives hadn’t already contracted Bachmania, Donalditis, and Restless Perry Syndrome, then cast aside each of their would-be saviors as soon as he or she showed the slightest earthly imperfection. Meanwhile, on the left, and in the center, the very voters who fueled President Obama’s landslide 2008 victory are now awarding him the lowest job-approval ratings of his career. Christie summed up popular sentiment in his speech. ‘If you’re looking for leadership in America,’ he said, ‘you’re not going to find it in the Oval Office.’ Never mind that the administration just assassinated yet another Al Qaeda kingpin, Anwar al-Awlaki, out-Bushing Bush and further discrediting the old canard that Democrats can’t protect America. The belief that there’s someone better out there—someone who can lead us not into recession, but deliver us from unemployment—now extends to both sides of the aisle.”

Romano reminds us that FDR and Reagan served during economic crises, but their leadership style (according to the research of Yale’s Stephen Skowronek,” is “reconstructive”: in Romano’s words, “both of them blamed the crises they presided over on the failed, un-American ideology of the previous regime and relentlessly positioned their sweeping proposals as part of a grand project to undo the damage and revive real American values.” This is a “resilient model” for a president “because it serves as a one-size-fits-all justification for everything the White House does. FDR had high hopes for his central New Deal agency, the National Recovery Administration; to him, it was ‘a supreme effort to stabilize for all time the many factors which make the prosperity of the nation.’ Two years after the NRA was created, however, the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional. While this setback may have deterred a nonreconstructive president, Roosevelt simply cited it as further evidence of the old regime’s intransigence and again started ‘promising to reconstruct the very terms on which American government operated,’ as Skowronek puts it. By 1936—after forcing Congress into the summer session that produced Social Security, the Wagner Act, and the Banking Act, among other reforms—he had. He won reelection with 523 electoral votes. ”

Romano notes that although Reagan’s approval rating was very low in the early 1980s, when unemployment was over 10%, he stuck to his script of less regulation, lower taxes, and other policies a way to return (in Reagan’s words) to “the dream conceived by our Founding Fathers.” Romano writes: “Eventually, the Fed rejuvenated the economy by manipulating the money supply and lowering interest rates. But Reagan got the credit because he kept harping on his reconstructive storyline (tax cuts = growth), which provided the public with a more intuitive explanation. In 1984 he carried every state but Minnesota.”

Unfortunately, he writes, “Obama ran as a reconstructive leader, but he has governed as something else entirely. It’absurd to say, as Christie did in California, that the president has been ‘a bystander in the Oval Office,’ or to claim, paradoxically, that he’s a socialist bent on ‘transforming’ America into France part deux. As Obama’s advisers often remind us, he has accomplished a lot of unradical things as president (preventing another Great Depression, passing private-health-insurance reform, saving Detroit).” But Obama has tended (in Romano’s words, “to look for policy proposals, like the stimulus or health-care reform, that respectfully weave opposing viewpoints into some sort of pragmatic whole. As president, Obama has assumed the role of the bipartisan realist—the leader who prides himself on seeing the world as it is, with all its political limitations, and doing the best he can within those constraints.”

Unfortunately, Obama has also needed to communicate a reconstructive vision which (as it did for FDR and Reagan) “gave meaning to their victories, kept them buoyant during dry spells, and defined the opposition before the opposition could define them. The approach also assured voters that Reagan and Roosevelt shared their deep dissatisfaction with the way things were.” To me, the fact that the Tea Party emerged and forcefully voiced a Reaganesque vision during debates about bailouts and health care reform is an example of the opposition doing the defining, rather than vice versa.

This past week, another article by Beinart caught my eye: “Occupy Protests’ Seismic Effect” (The Daily Beast – Mon, Oct 17, 2011, http://news.yahoo.com/occupy-protests-seismic-effect-062600703.html) He writes about the demonstrations “against unregulated capitalism” that had just taken place in 900 cities. He addresses the topic of the hopefulness exhibited in the Obama campaign, and shows how it is taking a slightly different direction.

He writes: “In a great many countries, especially in the West, the political grass is dry. Huge numbers of young people are unemployed, governments are launching harsh and unpopular austerity programs, and the financial elites responsible for the global economic meltdown have almost entirely escaped justice. Millions of articulate, educated, tech-savvy people are enraged and desperate. And they have time on their hands.” This movement is quite fertile, he notes, and something like this hasn’t been seen since the 1960s. He notes that those movements did not push American politics to the left because, among several reason, “many ordinary Americans were starting to chafe against taxes and regulations that had been growing since the New Deal. Although few realized it until Ronald Reagan’s election, the relationship between government and the economy in the late 1960s and 1970s was actually more conducive to right-wing than left-wing change.”

Although the anti-globalization movement of the 1990s was a precursor to what we’re seeing now, that movement had more to do with “globalization’s impact in the developing world” while the current movement is, according to Beinart, primarily focused on what unregulated capitalism has done to their own societies [i.e., America and Europe]—societies where there is much greater anger and pain than there was 15 years ago. Therein lies the movement’s greater potential to create political change.”

But—to return to my interest in the Shepard Fairey book—Beinart argues that a more recent and more important precursor is Obama’s 2008 election! He traces the beginnings of the “netroots” activism in Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign and the beginning of sites like DailyKos and MoveOn. “But,” Beinart writes, “in retrospect, the netroots movement’s focus on candidates as a vehicle for change left it unprepared for the aftermath of Obama’s election, when Obama failed to articulate a story about why the financial meltdown had occurred—and why America’s regulatory system and welfare state needed to be rebuilt—that could compete with the Tea Party’s narrative of a government grown so large that it was stifling both economic growth and personal liberty.”

He continues: “What we are witnessing in Zuccotti Park actually represents an improvement over the Obama campaign. That campaign was largely about faith in one man. The Occupy Wall Street movement, by contrast, represents a direct reckoning with the most powerful forces in American life, forces that are not voted in and out of office every two or four years. And it represents a belief that young Americans must force that reckoning by themselves. No politician will do it for them. Those instincts are exactly right, and we’ve never needed them more.”

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Programs and Taxes and Debt

Every once in a while I like to take notes from news articles and columns, to help me think through ideas and topics. The Bible calls us to care for the needy and so perhaps I can do “my little bit” for voicing concern for those in society who are struggling—as I also seek to do “my little bit” in other ways.  (I do realize that many of the articles I enjoy come from the Huffington Post, although I’m also focusing on GOP positions, which interest me as one who taught aspects of the party’s history in undergrad classes.)

“God so loved the world,” as the Gospel teaches, but what’s happening in that beloved world at the moment? Big economic issues and the accompanying politics are “what’s happening,” among other things. Steve Thorngate, writing for The Christian Century, laments that there wasn’t serious policy debate in the debt-ceiling negotiations of this past summer. The president wanted to “get to yes,” while the GOP leaders are keen on preventing Obama’s reelection, while Reps. Boehner and Cantor want control of the House republicans. This is, as Thorngate writes, all about “zero-sum electoral politics.” He criticizes the way the mainstream media (for instance, an article in Time that week) conflates policy talks with the trope that leaders should “just compromise.” In reality, there are no liberal extremists parallel to GOP hardliners who refused to budge on raising the debt ceiling and letting Bush-era tax cuts expire for the sake of increased federal revenue. Democrats have already compromised concerning cuts to what the Time article called“cherished entitlement programs like Medicare”, but GOPs will meanwhile (in Thorngate’s words) “feign disappointment when agreeing to cut tax expenditures.” (http://christiancentury.org/blogs/archive/2011-07/compromise-compromise)

Coming from the conservative perspective, David Frum, a CNN columnist and former assistant to President Bush, complains that “[o]nly about one-third of Republicans agree that cutting government spending should be the country’s top priority. Only about one-quarter of Republicans insist the budget be balanced without any tax increases. Yet that one-third and one-quarter have come to dominate my party. That one-third and that one-quarter forced a debt standoff that could have ended in default and a second Great Recession.” Frum offers several ideas. One is to borrow money at less thant 3% interest in order to help people get out of unemployment, because “Unemployment is a more urgent problem than debt.”

He makes other points. Second: “the deficit is a symptom of America’s economic problems, not a cause,” because government spending increased and revenue declines when the economy weekends. Third: “The time to cut is after the economy recovers.” Fourth: “The place to cut is health care, not assistance to the unemployed and poor”; the US, he says, “provide less assistance to the unemployed and the poor than almost any other democracy” and yet health care is more expensive here and with “worse results.” Fifth: he argues that federal income could be increased not by raising tax rates but by, for instance, higher taxes on energy to encourage conservation or eliminating certain deductions (like state and local taxes) from taxable income. Sixth: he argues that the “frenzy of rage and contempt” among Republicans toward Obama “satisfies the emotions of the Republican base” but are undercutting their own good judgment via pinning all the responsibility for our economic problems on Obama. Finally, he worries that some GOP leaders are going to ruin our economic system in order to prove that the system is in trouble. (http://www.cnn.com/2001/OPINION/08/01/frum.debt.republicans/index.html).

Speaking of Obama-hating, I’m honestly not aware that liberalism has ever produced such a cottage industry of angry media; liberal-hating authors fill an entire shelf at my nearby Barnes and Noble, which to me is creepy. One thing that urks me badly is when my churchgoing Christian friends start to sound hate-ful and snarky like some of these authors and broadcasters; aren’t we called to kindness, patience, and compassion, even as we teach and debate?  I personally have found only one book (there may be others) that aims to persuade in a more irenic manner: Patrick M. Garry, Conservatism Redefined: A Creed for the Poor and Disadvantaged. New York: Encounter Books, 2010.

There is a lot of talk about taxing the wealthy these days, especially with regard to retaining earlier tax cuts and the need for national debt reduction. I worry that some of the rhetoric give a one-sided picture. In my own little world, I know well-to-do people who are extremely generous, concerned about social issues, and hopeful to improve the common good, and I know of large companies that contribute notably to beneficial efforts. In current discussions of taxes and federal revenue, Charles Hugh Smith, writing at businessinsider.com, notes that we tend to lump the wealthy together. That’s mistaken, he notes: many wealthy people (Steve Jobs is his example) “created value” and benefited millions of people, while other wealthy people (those connected with Countryside and Enron) deserve condemnation.

Smith clarifies some of the issues. Smith cautions that “the debate over tax rates is pointless, because as long as the super-wealthy own the levers of Federal governance and regulation, then they will buy exclusions, loopholes, rebates, subsidies etc. which relieve them of whatever official tax rates have been passed for public consumption/propaganda purposes.” He cites the sociologist G. William Domhoff who distinguishes “the net worth held by households in ‘marketable assets’ such as homes and vehicles and ‘financial wealth.’ Homes and other tangible assets are, in Domhoff’s words, ‘not as readily converted into cash and are more valuable to their owners for use purposes than they are for resale.’ Meanwhile, “[f]inancial wealth such as stocks, bonds and other securities are liquid and therefore easily converted to cash,” and Domhoff calls these “non-home wealth.” Smith cites 2007 statistics that “the bottom 80% of American households held a mere 7% of these financial assets, while the top 1% held 42.7%, the top 5% holds 72% and the top 10% held fully 83%.” I direct people to this interesting article for Smith’s several graphs and analysis. His conclusion:

“Beneath the happy surface of Federal transfers and spending funded by debt, earned incomes for the bottom 95% are falling and wealth is accumulating in the top 1%. (Emphasis in text.) The Federal Reserve’s project of goosing stocks and bonds has greatly enriched the holders of those assets, while doing essentially nothing for the bottom 90% except increasing their government’s debt load.
“It’s painfully obvious that the Federal government and the Fed are the handmaidens of the politically powerful Financial Elites. Why spend your own money on bribes, bread and circuses when you can arrange for the Central State to borrow the money? Why, indeed. ‘Austerity’ is of course a modest reduction in the amount of money borrowed and spread around to keep the masses safely passive, but a few trillion trimmed here and there over a decade won’t change the Great Game.” (http://www.businessinsider.com/made-in-usa-wealth-inequality-2001-7)

Taxes, by their very nature, do impede economic growth by taking money from businesses and consumers. The author of Naked Economics, Charles Wheelan, notes that when government is “doing the things that it is theoretically supposed to be, government spending must be financed by levying taxes, and taxes exert a cost on the economy.” In his opinion “supply-side economics” is a “chimera” because “we cannot cut taxes and have more money to spend on government programs.” Basically if we pay more taxes, we get more government services, and if we pay fewer taxes, the government will have “fewer resources to fight wars, balance the budget, catch terrorists, educate children,” and other traditional government functions. So how do we have strong services and security from our government while also doing things that encourage economic growth?[1] (I wish I knew!)

Another notion in the news is “class warfare.” Two articles I found are worth reading, one is “Classlessness in America: the uses and abuses of an enduring myth,” in The Economist, discusses the reality of class in the wake of Rep. Paul Ryan’s remark about ‘class warfare.” (http://www.economist.com/node/21530100/) Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott’s “Class Warfare?” which argues that although a “millionaire’s tax” does not solve all problems, but that it is a significant way to raise revenue, but President Obama “hasn’t made out [the] moral case to the American people,” and that his critics are wrong to argue that it is not a serious possible solution to our economic struggles. “More and more citizens believe–and rightly so–that we aren’t all in this together, and that there isn’t a level playing field…. Intergenerational income mobility is lower in the United States than in many European countries…The rich get richer, and so do their children, while the great majority struggles. It is the winner-take-all economy, not taxation, that is the moral problem threatening our democracy.” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-ackerman/class-warfare_3_b_982888.html)

Yet another article, by Joshua Holland for Alternet, is “The real ‘class war’ in America: Six narratives wealthy elites are using to destroy the nation’s poor.” All his points are worth reading. One of the false narratives he lists is “unemployment benefits have created a ‘nation of slackers.'” He quotes the hard words of Rep. Steve King (R-IA), “The 80 million Americans that are of working age but are simply not in the workforce need to be put to work. We can’t have a nation of slackers… We’ve gotta get this country back to work and get those people out of the slacker rolls and onto the employed rolls.” But Holland points out that America has one of the “stingiest unemployment benefits” among developed countries, and that unemployment benefits are not discouraging people from finding work—because “[t]here are no jobs!” We have nearly 7 million fewer jobs than in 2007, and to that you can add many millions more people who are working part-time and would like a full-time job, so “you get 25.4 million workers vying for 3.2 million full-time job openings. King, comments Holland, takes an assertion that there are millions of people not in the work force, and derives from that the conclusion that they’re all “slackers.” Similarly, Holland argues that food stamps do, indeed, help people and in fact discourage starvation for many people! But the stigma attached to SNAP, perpetuated by critics who equate nutritional assistance with perpetuating instead of helping to curb poverty, causes some people to not seek this assistance despite eligibility. (http://news.salon.com/2011/09/27/wealthy_class_warfare)

In a couple of other “news round-ups” (http://paulstroble.blogspot.com/2009/10/christian-love-part-1.html and http://paulstroble.blogspot.com/2010/03/not-funny-but-interesting-part-2.html), I thought about the need for conservatives to create a compelling vision for the common good rather than being a “party of No.” Recently, Vice President Joe Biden noted “You’ve got audiences cheering at the prospect of somebody dying because they don’t have health care and booing a service member in Iraq because [he’s] gay. That’s not reflective of who we are. This is a choice about the fundamental direction of our country.” As the article author noted, too, the “histrionics of a small minority of the GOP debate crowd … continues to present a lasting problem for a Republican Party struggling to come off as inclusive.” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/27/biden-on-gop-debate-boo-gay-soldier_n_983263.html)

Unfortunately, the possibility of a positive, inclusive political vision emerging on the national scene seems hopeless right now in the wake of numerous political changes that have arisen over the past fifteen or so years, as discussed in another article, “Why Congress is So Dysfunctional” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/02/congress-dysfunction-long_n_991010.html)

A few weeks ago, an article from Religion News Service indicated that conservative Christian leaders were praiing Governor Rick Perry and his presidential candidacy. Former Focus on the Family leader James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jr., of Liberty University, and other evangelical leaders supported Perry’s style, policies, and faith. Falwell even admired Perry’s “guts” for suggesting Texas might secede from the Union. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/22/rick-perry-praised-by-evangelicals_n_976674.html)

Still another article author, Karl Giberson, explains some of the background to this (to me lamentable) position of these evangelical leaders. “Widespread rejection of human-induced climate change by evangelical Christians, of the sort we have seen recently from Rich Perry and others, is a bit of a puzzler. There is no obvious reason why evangelical faith commitments should motivate the faithful to reject climate science.” But he comments that “one of the strategies employed most effectively by evangelicals in their crusade against evolution, which does pose real, although soluble, biblical and theological problems, has been to undermine the entire scientific enterprise. If science is a deeply flawed, ideologically driven, philosophically suspect enterprise, then why should anyone care if almost every scientist supports the theory of evolution [and by extension, climate change]?” And the anti-science polemic by, for instance, the Discovery Institute, characterizes science as a kind of left-wing ideology which one can reject. This is very sad, as is the way some evangelical Christians will, nevertheless, become attracted to “faith-friendly” but “indefensible views in many areas: American history (the Founding Fathers intended America to be a Christian nation), sexual orientation (you can ‘pray away the gay’), climate change (not happening), evolution (never happened), cosmology (Big Bang is a big joke) and even biblical studies (the bible tells us what is about to happen in the Middle East.” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karl-giberson-phd/evangelicals-and-science_b_975821.html)

Another article, “Rick Perry and Republican Magical Thinking” by Lincoln Mitchell, points out that Perry does “project an image of strength and independence” as well as “a record and some relevant experience while also legitimately presenting himself as a political outsider.” The “magical thinking” part is a fuzziness of some Republicans’ thinking “that cutting taxes can magically solve all economic woes,” as well as the contention “that global warming is a conspiracy by liberal scientists.” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lincoln-mitchell/rick-perry-chris-christie_b_983140.html)

Yet another article, by Eric Sapp of the Eleison Group, criticizes Gov. Perry for his combination of belief in God with his determination to cut government programs for the poor. This is interesting not only from a political position but it also speaks to the role of church and government in fostering the social common good. Gov. Perry, like many conservatives, believe the church can care for society’s need better than government programs. Sapp notes that progressives tend to lose this “Church can do it better” argument, which in turn supports the conservative argument that government isn’t supposed to solve all problems. Sapp argues, “What we should be saying is that it doesn’t matter whether the Church could do a better job caring for the poor or not because the Christ isn’t doing it. We wouldn’t need Section 8 housing if we had enough Habitat homes. We wouldn’t need food stamps or school lunches if we had enough soup kitchens. The way to ensure better care for the poor than government can provide is not to hobble government programs but for the Church to make these programs unnecessary.” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-sapp/rick-perry-tithing_b_975723.html)

The more I’ve thought about this particular issue, the more I think it’s not a simple either-or. I think that the Tea Party, with its anti-taxation and small-government rhetoric, has raised this issue afresh. But there can be possibilities of government working along side of faith-communities for the common good, and of persons of faith working as citizens and civic leaders in order to serve the common good through government.

Last year, while working on a research project about faith and citizenship (purchasableright now! http://congregationinpubliclife.org/DVDcurriculum.htm), I found an interesting book Doing Justice in Our Cities by Warren R. Copeland, professor of Religion and Director of Urban Studies at Wittenberg University, and also a several-term mayor and civic leader in Springfield, Ohio. He notes that, after he and his wife became the legal guardians of a teenaged girl, people remarked, “You are such good Christian people to take this girl into your home.” But he wonders why people don’t say they’re “good Christian people” because they participate in the public life of their community! “Being legal guardians for a teenager is not significantly less complicated than being a good citizen,” but he wonders “why is the direct relationship of a legal guardian so often seen as more of an act of faith than the principled participation in a community’s public life?” He adds that “Those who have served on the board of a voluntary association know that that can be just as difficult as government,” since voluntary associations, like local government, “shape our communities and understandings of the issues we face” in public life.[2]

Similarly Copeland wonders if people avoid public service because (to use his example) building a house for Habitat for Humanity is somehow more clearly a “good cause” than dealing with local and federal laws about, for instance, housing. During one year of his elected service, Copeland voted to support construction of over 200 housing units for medium- and low-income families via a federal tax credit program. In addition, his city’s public housing authority supports nearly 2000 housing units. In twenty years, he notes, Springfield’s local Habitat chapter constructed forty homes.[3] “Voluntary organizations provide a human touch and often a spiritual dimension that may be missing from government programs. However, we are not about to meet the huge needs of our urban communities through volunteerism.” He also uses the examples of public schools. He notes that people make personal decisions about their children’s education, sometimes by moving to new communities or removing children from public schools, but “[g]enerally this only makes things worse for the vast majority of our children and makes the overall education system less just” Individual and volunteer errors cannot address all the problems of school quality, funding, and so on.[4]

“Both [government and voluntary groups] are essential to a democratic society.” This is, to him, a matter of faith. “I believe that the fundamental values of real freedom and real diversity are essential to the experience of full humanity in our human communities. I believe that the ethical principles of respect for the integrity of other human beings, recognition of the just claims of our neighbors, and concern for the common good deserve our commitment.”[5]

Words to ponder—and to end this little “news round-up”!

*****

Notes:

1. Charles Wheelan, Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science (New York: W. W. Norton, 2010), 94, 97.

2. Warren R. Copeland, Doing Justice in Our Cities: Lessons in Public Policy from America’s Heartland (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 124.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

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9/11 Reflections

The news has been filled lately with 9/11 remembrances.  Many news stories have updated us on the families of victims and the dreadful events of the day.  My wife Beth and I are attending two different events Sunday afternoon and evening.  Many communities, colleges, and universities are holding remembrance events.

Beth was in Manhattan on business that morning.  With no Tuesday classes, I was home watching a VHS tape of the movie “Finding Forrester,” so I didn’t know what was happening until Beth’s secretary called and asked if I’d heard from Beth.  By that time, both towers had fallen.  Unbeknownst to me, Beth had actually seen the second tower fall as she and her colleague stayed at their hotel several blocks away.  Of course, phone service was dodgy but we finally got through to each other.  Beth and her colleague left the city on Saturday, when the LaGuardia flight that had been optimistically scheduled was, in fact, cancelled, and the two of them rented a car to drive out of the city and across New Jersey and Pennsylvania, finally to our home in Ohio.  It was a bad week, but so much worse for many, many people.

The evening of 9/11 I did something well-intentioned,  which was to take daughter Emily to the animal shelter to look at cats.  We had already discussed the possibility of adopting a second cat, and I thought that merely looking at cats would be pleasant for her as we both worried about Beth’s situation.  Of course, we found the perfect cat, a little 8-year-old part-Siamese, black and white kitty named Domino.  I should’ve waited, but in my distress I decided we could adopt Domino.  Unfortunately, our cat Odd Ball—one of the most patient and placid cats on the planet—reacted very negatively to the interloper, and I was up most of the night dealing with the situation.  It wouldn’t have been a restful night anyway.  I can imagine that very strict British woman on the show “It’s Me or the Dog” sharply criticizing me for the situation.  Happily, Domino settled in, Odd Ball settled down, and we loved Domino for four years until he suffered a disease and had to be put to sleep. Emily wrote a contest essay (which though excellent didn’t win) for “Cat Fancy” magazine about our 9-11 friend.

Beth and were going to lead a community project this year, including interviews of people about how 9-11 changed their lives. The project never developed amid the many other, good projects happening around our community, but the question is still pertinent: how did 9-11 change your life?  I think for Beth and me, our normal efforts to try to promote inclusiveness and understanding increased.  I was privileged to write a short study book on world religions which also promoted understanding and mutuality. My editors hoped the book would be well-timed following 9/11,  and the book went on to sell over 20,000 copies.

I always wonder what happened to a student enrolled in my European history class that semester.  He had gone to Manhattan to help with efforts.  When he returned, he was quite shaken up and asked if I’d give him some leeway with his assignments.   Of course I told him to take care of himself.  But then he stopped attending class altogether and made no further contact.  I hope he found help for his difficult experience.

******

Not surprisingly, both Time and Newsweek and other magazines feature cover stories this week on 9/11.  I picked up a USA Today issue called “Remembering 9/11: A Tribute to Heroes.” I was interested in the article therein, “Good News in America,” which tries to balance our current gloomy mood with positive things: a record number of foreign students attended American colleges in 2010; employment is up in Silicon Valley and the tech sector; there are more jobs in clean energy than ever; farm exports are up; we have a growing number of national parks; there are more women entrepreneurs; and although he’s controversial, Obama is of course our first African American president, significant amid our legacy of slavery and racism.

Looking for a balanced analysis of our national policies of the past ten years, I found an article in the journal Foreign Affairs (Sept.-Oct. 2011).  Melvyn P. Leffler of the University of Virginia reflects on “9/11 in Retrospect: George W. Bush’s Grand Strategy, Reconsidered.”

He concludes that “It seems clear now that many of [Pres. Bush and his advisers’] foreign policy initiatives, along with their tax cuts and unwillingness to call for domestic sacrifices, undercut the very goals they were designed to achieve” (p. 37).  Their goal of U.S. primacy, analogous to the expansion of U.S. global policy after the Korean War, was hurt by other things. One was the flawed efforts in both Afghanistan and Iraq which, in combination with America’s support of Israel, caused increased hostility toward the U.S. in the Muslim world, while the cost of both wars—now well over $1 trillion—also hurt American primacy in the world, added to the increase in domestic spending, and increase in U.S. debt held by other countries, as well as Bush-era tax cuts.  Thus, both American position in the world as well as its economic strength have declined since 9/11.  Unfortunately, too, the U.S. war on terror, including our two long wars, have possibly increased the number of jihadists (pp. 37-39).

However, the war on terror has had positive outcomes, too: it has possibly thwarted new attacks, gained successes in Libya (e.g., its abandonment of a nuclear program), kept ties strong with India, China and Russia, and, as Leffler puts it, “reformed and reinvigorated foreign aid, exerted global leadership in the fight against infection diseases, tried to keep the Doha Round of trade talks moving forward, and raised the provide of democracy promotion and political reform in ways that may have resonated deeply and contributed to the current ferment across the Middle East” (pp. 39-40).

Leffler helpfully goes on to show how the Bush Administration’s strategies were not at all something new and unprecedented but were rooted in strategies, presidential rhetoric, and bipartisan national policies going back to the Monroe Doctrine.  Even our unilateral policies after 9/11 are rooted in Americans’ “instinct to act independently, and to lead the world while doing so,” going back to Washington’s farewell address” (p. 42). I recommend this article for anyone thinking with these issues.

Our current partisan atmosphere in the U.S. isn’t new, either, but it is still lamentable, especially in light of the commonality and mutual care following the 9/11 attacks. As I watched the NBC news this morning, Doris Kearns Goodwin remarked that our time of political goodwill changed into an extended time of political rancor.  What I wish for is, unfortunately, not going to happen, because it’s not the nature of politics: a kind of soul-searching and bipartisan problem-solving among our elected leaders regarding the plusses and minuses of our recent foreign and economic policies.

For instance—-to go on a tangent for a moment—I supported recent efforts at health care reform, as well as the use of stimulus funds to help the faltering economy.  (This is a debated point among economists and columnists, but writers in The Economist magazine have argued that these funds did save the country from potentially disastrous economic depression and, in fact, additional stimulus money might have hastened an economic recovery).  But unfortunately the timing and the way the efforts were handled by the administration and Congress (while not unlike the way the Medicare prescription drug legislation was handled several years ago) created a “vacuum” of public discussion that has resulted in the posturing and lack of cooperation among national leaders who do share responsibility of addressing economic mistakes and advancing beneficial economic policies.  I go on this tangent because one big issue right now, seemingly lost amid the rhetoric about cutting domestic spending, is the plight of injured and troubled veterans of our recent wars—as well as the circumstances of the poor and the struggling middle class, who continue to be stigmatized in political rhetoric about “entitlements.”   But our economic challenges include not only domestic “cushions” but also foreign aid, major military expenditures for our long wars, and the current need for tax reform.

What we need is a very strong injection of a sense of shared responsibility into our political discussions and into our everyday thinking as citizens.  9/11 has, after all, become a powerful symbol for American resilience, mutual help, and hope for the future.

As I thought about these topics, I found a discussion of Thomas Friedman’s new book, That Used to Be Us: How American Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back (by Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum). The authors argue that America’s turning point came not with 9/11 and its aftermath, but a decade earlier, when the Cold War ended. Friedman states that “[w]e shifted from [the] greatest generation that really operated on what we call in the book ‘sustainable values’ — saving and investing — and we handed power over to the baby boomer generation who really lived by ‘situational values’ — borrow and consume.”  One wonders if this is one reason why we, as a country, did not mind so much when we did not have to make many domestic sacrifices at the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were waged.  He also notes that, with globalization, American-based companies are no longer contributing as much to the well-being of society.  Friedman notes that “We are missing the voices of those CEOs in our discussions — national discussions on education and infrastructure — because if they can’t get the workers, the infrastructure, the opportunities that they need here, they can just go somewhere else… And that’s a huge problem.”

Friedman continues, “We’re having an economic crisis and the politicians are having an election and it’s like they don’t even overlap in many ways. The incentives of politics today — money, cable television, gerrymandered districts — are so misaligned with the needs of the country that they become like a closed circle, operating on their own,” he says. “What we argue for is an independent, third party that actually can show that there is a huge middle in this country that demands different politics.”[1]

Recently, I was the principal writer for a lesson series about “faithful citizenship.”[2]  In those lessons, we cited the noted author Robert Bellah who has commented that contemporary conservatism, with its strong free market component, and welfare liberalism both tend to focus upon individual rather than the common good; both outlooks stress that “[t]he purpose of government is to give individuals the means to pursue their private ends” and differ only “about the means by which to foster individual self-reliance, not about the ultimate value of fostering it.”[3] Furthermore, we tend to lose sight of our commonality–as individuals, families, and workers–when we frame stories in terms of individualism. Researching the lessons I found a wonderful comment by columnist Ellen Goodman, who takes the current slogan of the Home Depot company, “You can do it. We can help,” and says that, in our current moment of overpaid CEOs, individualism, and misplaced stress on “personal responsibility,” we’ve lost the second half of that slogan, “We can help.”[4]  We Americans want to help each other, but somehow we often lose sight of that when we discuss broader economic and foreign policy issues.

If conservatives tend to emphasize personal responsibility and discipline, the liberal answer of providing government relief to the needy also misses a huge sense of what the ethicist Eric Mount calls “shared membership in a national community or a global community.”[5]  What Americans still need is a “story” of shared national and global membership wherein we do not frame our view of one another as “us and them,” but rather of “being in this together.”

Mount writes: “Learning to tell better stories about ourselves as Americans and as members of the global community will not occur if we cease to remember the stories that we tell around the tables of our familial and religious communities and of our various voluntary associations and fail to advocate the virtues embedded in these stories. Nor will the better stories emerge if we lack the willingness and ability to hear the stories of other…The virtues of faith as openness to the other, love as affirmation of the other and compassion toward the other, hope as the expectant patience to keep public discourse alike, and generous public-spiritedness as the manifestation of gratitude are essential to the process of table talk that sustains civil society. If our covenantal religious traditions are worth their salt, they will season civil discourse to make it more inclusive, more respectful of difference, more attentive to the well-being of the entire community, and more constitutive of shared identity that does not subsume all other identities.”[6]

Can politics be loving and inclusive?  It’s hard to imagine!  Do we need a new, third party that can better articulate the needs of the political and economic “middle”?  We’ll see how such an idea plays out historically.  But for now, the legacy and heroism of 9/11—powerful in its tragedy, as well as its commonality among our families, religious communities, and organizations—can be a reminder to us that Americans’ first reaction to a crisis is to pull together and bolster one another.  I’ve low expectations about writing letters to national leaders, but we can at least pray that some of our common spirit of mutual care can extend to the vision of our national leaders as well as to our personal political and economic opinions.[7]

Notes:

1.  “Thomas Friedman on ‘How American Fell Behind,’ NPR Books, Sept. 6, 2011, http://www.npr.org/2011/09/06/140214150/thomas-friedman-on-how-america-fell-behind

2.  “Faithful Citizen,” http://www.congregationinpubliclife.org/DVDCurriculum.html

3.  Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, Steven M. Tipton, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkley: University of California Press, 1985), 262-266.

4.  Ellen Goodman, “Bob the Un-Builder, The Washington Post Writers Group, January 11, 2007:

5.  Eric Mount, “Storytelling and Political Leadership,” The Progressive Christian, 182:5 (Sept.-Oct. 2008), 19.

6.  Eric Mount, Jr. Covenant, Community, and the Common Good: An Interpretation of Christian Ethics (Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 1999), 156.

7. We Christians aren’t always as careful as we should be in communicating Christ’s love and Christian kindness while also communicating our political opinions.  I admit that I rage (and sometimes shamefully swear) in private while watching the evening news, although I try to be kind while discussing politics with others.  Feeling angry and discouraged about politics is entirely normal; it’s a sign that we’re engaged citizens!  But then we church people need to be careful that we don’t sound like certain angry, divisive political commentators when we talk politics, otherwise we might fail badly in sharing the Gospel of God’s love.

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My Family, the Carsons and Colburns

Mac and Alice Carson, in about 1896: Janie and Lonnie in front, Ross and James in back

I’ve a sheet of paper about 60 years old, which I had framed in an acid-free matte. I don’t display it, however, because I don’t want the sheet to yellow.  The handwriting is my father’s (a big, intimidating truck-driver, he had pretty handwriting), and he records the family of his maternal grandparents, Wesley (“Mac”) and Alice Carson, including him and his sister Gladys.  All of the information is in pencil, except for what I’ve placed in bold type, which is in blue pen.  I assume thereby that he wrote out this information before 1953, although he doesn’t add Alice’s 1951 death.  I’ve added “b.” and “d.” whereas Dad’s sheet has the columns “Name, Birth, Town, Death, Town” across the top.

Wesley McDonald Carson b. May 18, 1855 d. July 18, 1924 Vandalia

Mary Alice Colburn b. July 6, 1866 Married July 7, 1886

[Their children:]

Mary Alice b. April 17, 1887 Loami d. April 28, 1887 Loami

James Taylor b. August 6, 1888 Loami d. March 11, 1909 Vandalia

Permelia Jane b. March 22, 1890 Beecher City

Harry McDonald b. July 12, 1891 Beecher City d. August 6, 1892 Beecher City

Eldon Ross b. October 23, 1892 Beecher City d. June 11, 1953

Roland b. Sept.3, 1894 East of Ramsey d. Sept. 4, 1896 Ramsey

Lonnie b. Feb. 6, 1896 Ramsey

Lennie b. Feb. 6, 1896 Ramsey d. Feb. 8, 1896 Ramsey

Floyd b. Jan. 25, 1898 Ramsey d. Aug. 6, 1902 Vandalia

Millie Ellen b. Jan. 28, 1900 Vandalia

Lile b. Oct. 16, 1902 Vandalia d. Sept. 28, 1903 Vandalia

Lela Bella b. Feb. 8, 1904 Vandalia d. Feb. 3, 1956 Mich. Utica

Kitty Pauline b. June 28, 1906 Vandalia

Roy Wayne b. July 5, 1912 Vandalia

Andrew Christian Stroble, Permelia Jane Carson, married Dec. 27, 1908

Their children

Paul Edward b. July 21, 1912

Paul Edward Stroble and Mildred Abagail Crawford, married in St. Charles, Missouri, July 12, 1941

Mary Gladys b. May 17, 1914 married Paul Houck

Dad died in September 16, 1999.  His sister Gladys, though, is still alive.  [She died September 2, 2011, not long after I posted this.] To think she was born prior to the beginning of World War I!  For geographical identification: Vandalia is my hometown, in Fayette County, Illinois. Ramsey is a few miles north of Vandalia (my grandfather Andy’s family are buried there). Beecher City is east of Ramsey, but in the northwest corner of Effingham County (and between Ramsey and Beecher City is the village of Herrick, near where Mac Carson’s father and grandfather are buried in the Lorton Cemetery).  Loami, meanwhile, is in Sangamon County, near Springfield, where the Colburn family had settled.

I remember some of these people.  My great-aunts Millie Ellen (“Peg”) and Pauline lived in Decatur, IL when I was little, and we’d visit them from time to time. I don’t remember visits to Pauline’s house as clearly, other than a general feeling of family love and warmth. Supposedly, while visiting Aunt Peg and her husband on one weekend when I was quite small, I tried to fold a live cat in half and put it into a toy dump truck—one of those stories you don’t remember about yourself but your relatives revisit it many times over the years, so that you’re perpetually a small child who did something funny.

I remember Uncle Lonnie more vaguely–I think he died in the late 1960s or early 1970s–but he came to our house a few times.  Ross died prior to my birth but over the years I knew and enjoyed his family, including his widow Lydia (“Pidge,” as everyone called her) and several of their children and their children. Among his uncles and aunts Dad seemed close to Ross.  But he loved his aunts, too, and was fond of his uncle Roy, whom you’ll notice is only sixteen days older than Dad.  In other words, in 1912, my grandmother (aged 22) and her own mother (aged 46) were pregnant at the same time.

I remember my grandmother, who went by “Janie,” and who died in 1991 aged 101. She was only 45 when my grandfather Andy died in 1935.  She remarried, but my dad was estranged from his stepfather, who was always referred to as “the goddamned bald-headed son of a bitch” and variations thereof.  My mother selflessly did them many favors over the years and made sure I knew not only Mom’s mother, to whom I was very close, but “my other grandmother.” They gave Mom their 1963 Chevy which became my first car; I’ve told that story elsewhere in this blog.

My mother’s care of her mother-in-law–who could be hot-tempered and uncooperative–gave me a lifelong lesson in the goodness of caring for people whether they “deserve” care of not—and I’ve told Mom this.  Her caring efforts were among my chief early influences.

The greater sadness of this list is apparent as you look at the dates, and you realize of course that six of Mac and Alice’s fourteen children died in infancy or young childhood.  James died at age 21 from an accidental gunshot during a hunting trip—a tragedy even more haunting because Mac’s father also died young the same way, in 1859, and was also named James Carson.  To think that Alice outlived seven of her fourteen children (not to mention her son-in-law, my grandfather Andy) is also so tragic, I have a hard time conceiving such a thing. I’d guess that the loss of one child is unspeakably horrible. I write this feeling despair.

Mac and Alice, and their oldest son James, are buried together in a pretty area of Vandalia’s South Hill Cemetery. If you enter the cemetery from Sixth Street, turn right along the military graves, and proceed straight south, the road forks and, to the left, provides a lovely view of the Kaskaskia River bottoms.  I’ve a friend who wants her ashes scattered in this area.  My family members are buried down the slope just as you turn left on that loop.  I vaguely remember Mom, Grandma Janie, and me visiting the graves with flowers in the springtime.  Mac’s father and grandfather, James Carson (1819-1859) and John Carson (1794-1844) are also buried in sight of the river valleys.  In the

“front” of the Lorton Cemetery, their graves are side by side, marked by stones that have sunk into the ground but are readable. I’ve a happy memory of a Sunday road trip with my dad, not
long before he died, as we visited that cemetery and then drove over to Ramsey to visit the graves of his Strobel grandparents.

******

I think I’ll post a few 19th century accounts of the family, which Uncle Roy gave me forty years ago.  He gave me copies from Past and Presnt of the City of Springfield and Sangamon County, vol. 2, by Joseph Wallace (Chicago, 1904), History of Sangamon County, Illinois (Chicago, 1881), and Early Setttlers of Sagamon County (1876). 

Here is an excerpt from the 1881 history, page 938. Paul Colburn was my great-grandmother Alice’s great-grandfather.  He and William and other relatives are buried in Loami, IL’s cemetery.

“Paul Colburn, one of the first permanent settlers of Loami, was born about 1761, in Hillsboro county, New Hampshire.  He subsequently moved to Massachusetts, where hew as united in marriage with Mehitable Ball. In 1809, the family moved to Grafton county, new Hampshire, where they remained until September 1815; went from there to Ohio.

“In March, 1821, Paul Colburn, this daughter Isabel, William Colburn, wife and three children, the four orphan children of Isaac Colburn, and a Mr. Harris, started in a wagon drawn by four oxen for Morgan county. They traveled through rain, mud and unbridged streams for about five weeks, which brought them to the south side of Lick creek, on what is now Loami township, where they found an empty cabin. From sheer weariness, they decided to stop, and Mr. Harris, the owner of the wagon and oxen, went on to Morgan county.

Power’s “Early History” from 1876, and the 1881 history.

“Soon after their arrival, Wm. Colburn gave a rifle gun for a crop of corn just panted, and in that way began to provide food. He scoured a team and went after his brother Ebenezer, and brought him and his wife to the settlement, arriving in October, 1821.

“Having succeeded in bringing so many of his descendents to the new country, and witnessed their struggles to gain a foothold and provide themselves with homes, Paul Colburn died February 27, 1825, near the present town of Loami. The other members of the family lived for many years.”

Sangamon County was established by Illinois law on January 30, 1821, so the Colburns were among the first settlers of the area and very early settlers of the formally-designated Sangamon County.

The 1876 Early Settlers of Sangamon County gives an even more full account of Paul’s travels and hardships (p. 211).

William and Achsa Colburn’s grave in Loami, IL, with a plaque for William’s father Paul

“In 1809 the family moved to the vicinity of Hebron, Grafton county, N.H., where they remained until Sept. 1815, when Paul Colburn and his wife, his son Isaac with his wife and two children, his son William and his wife, they having been married but a few days, and his unmarried daughter, Isabel, started from Hebron in wagons to seek a new home in Ohio, at that time the ‘far west.’ On reaching Olean, at the Alleghany river, they found the river two low to bring all their goods on boards, as they had intended. They sold their wagons and teams, put the remaining good sand their families on a raft, and started down the river, reaching Pittsburg on the evening of December 24, 1815. ice was forming in the river, and they were compelled to stop there for the winter. While they were in Pittsburg, Paul Colburn was joined by his son Ebenezer, who had been serving in the United States army in the war with England, then just ended. In the spring of 1816, Isaac and Ebenezer went up the Alleghany river and made a raft of logs suitable for making shingles, and partially loaded it with hoop poles. They expected to have gone down the Ohio river in June, but the whole season was one of unusual low water, and December arrived before they reached Pittsburg with their raft. The whole party went down on the raft to Marietta, O., where they engaged in farming and other pursuits. Ebenezer was married in Marietta, and in the spring of 1820 Paul Colburn and his wife, Isaac and his family, and Ebenezer and his wife, embarked on a raft, leaving William to close up the business at  Marietta. They landed their raft at Louisville, Ky., and left Isaac there to work up and sell their lumber. The other members of the family continued down the river to Shawneetown; Paul Colburn, his wife and daughter remained there. Ebenezer and his wife went on to join some relatives of her’s in Monroe County, Ill., about fifty miles south of St. Louis.

“In August of that year Isaac Colburn and his wife died at Louisville within days of each other, leaving six children among strangers, and on the first of November Mrs. Mehitibel Colburn died at Shawneetown. About the time of her death William Colburn embarked with his family on a boat at Marietta, floated down to Louisville, and took on board four of his brother Isaac’s children, one having died, and another been placed in a good home. He went to Shawneetown and joined his bereaved father and sister, arriving Dec. 24, 1820.

“In March, 1821, Paul Colburn, his daughter isabel, William Colburn, wife and three children, the four orphan children of Isaac Colburn, and a Mr. Harris, started in a wagon drawn by four oxen for Morgan county. They traveled through rain, mud and unbridged streams for about five weeks, which brought them to the south side of Lick creek on what is now Loami township, where they found an empty cabin. From sheer weariness they decided to stop, and Mr. Harris, the owner of the wagon and oxen, went on to Morgan county.

“Soon after their arrival Wm. Colburn gave a rifle gun for a crop of corn just planted, and in that way began to provide food. He secured a team and went after his brother Ebenezer, and brought him and his wife to the settlement, arriving in October, 1821.

“Having succeeded in bringing so many of his descendants to the new country, and witnessed their struggles to gain a foothold and provide themselves with homes, Paul Colburn died Feb. 27, 1825, near the present town of Loami.” The source then lists his children and their information.

That book also gives an account of William and Achsa Colburn:

“COLBURN, WILLIAN, brother to Issac, Abel and Ebenezer, was born June 3, 1793 at Sterling, Mass., married Aug. 15, 1815, at Hebron, N.H. to Achsa Phelps, whow as born at that place July 9, 1796. They came to Sangamon county, Ill., arriving April 5, 1821, in what is now Loami township. THey had three children before moving to Sangamon county, and even after, the youngest of whom died in infancy. [The text gives information about those children. Of those, my great-great-grandfather, John T., is indicated as

Two extant photos John T. Colburn, one with his wood carvings, the other taken as he worked.

being born November 23, 1840, married to Martha J. Beck, born April 9, 1845 at Loami. Two of their children, jaquetta and Lillie died in infancy, but Mary A.—my dad’s grandmother, discussed above—and Millie A. lived at home]… “William Colburn died June 10, 1869 at Loami, and Mrs. Achsa Colburn resides at Loami, on the same place settled by herself and husband, one year before the land was brought into market. William and his brother Ebenezer entered land together, and cultivated it for several years. About 1836 they built a steam saw and grist mill at the north side of Lick creek, and machinery for griding was soon added. it was the first mill of the kind within a radius of ten or twelve miles, and around that mill the village of Loami grew up. They continued in that business for many years, three mills having burned on the same spot. They were not always the owners, but their families were always connected with such enterprises. The sons of Wm. COlburn are now—1874—the owners of a mill within one hundred yards of where the first millw as built. one mill has burned where the new one stands. “The hardships endured by them and their families would be difficult to relate. Mrs. Achsa Colburn, now seventy-eight years old, has an unlimited fund of reminiscences connected with their advent into the county, and the difficulties of raising a large family. A loom was an indispensible article where all were dependent on the work of their own hands for the entire clothing of themselves and families. Mrs. Colburn tried all the men in the settlement, those of her own family included, in order to find some person who could make a loom, but all declined ot undertake it, some for want of skill, and all for want of tools. Mrs. C., then procured an axe, a hand saw, a drawing knife, and auger and a chisel, and went to work. She made her with her own hands a loom, warping bars, winding blades, temples for the lateral stretching of the cloth and for spools she used corn cobs with the pith pushed out. With these appliances she wove hundreds of yards of cloth, and made it up into garments for her family. This she did while caring for her family of fourteen children” (pp. 212-214).

Here is some information about the Carsons, from the 1881 History of Sangamon County: 

“John Carson… was born in South Carolina, August 8, 1794. He was in the war of 1812, also in the Black Hawk War; he followed farming, and died November 19, 1844. [See him tombstone above.] His wife was Margery Parkerson, for in Carter county, Tennessee, October 19, 1799. She was a member of the Baptist Church, and mother of nine children; five are living—three boys and two girls. Mr. Carson has now two hundred and ninety-three acres of land, all under good cultivation, in Loami; he also has forty acres in Effingham county. He is a Democrat in politics, and cast his first vote for Frank Pierce in 1852. His father came to Illinois in 1814 and settled on Shoal creek, in Madison county” (p. 942).

And here is a little more, from Past and Present of Sangamon County (p. 1370):

“… John Carson, a native of South Carolina, was born in 1794 and was a son of James Starrett Carson, who was also born in South Carolina. The great-grandfather was John Starrett Carson, Sr., a representative of a family of Irish and Scotch

Lawn of Fayette Co. IL Courthouse. Thanks to my Facebook friend Gloria for taking this photo.

ancestry that was established in the south at an early period in the colonization of America. Six brothers of the name came to the United States prior to the Revolutionary war, establishing their homes in North and South Carolina. James S. Carson.. was a soldier of the Revolutionary war. He joined the army when but a bo and was in the battle of Kings Mountain, of Ramstard Mill and of Cowpens. Subsequently he removed to Tennessee, where he reared his family. [John Caron] spent his boyhood days in that state and became a soldier of the war of 1812. When his military service was over he found that his father had sold the farm in Tennessee and had removed to Illinois. John S. Carson then followed the family to this state and in 1818 established his home in Madison county. He was married there to Marjory Parson, whose birth occurred in Carter county, Tennessee. Soon afterward the young couple took up their abode upon a farm in Morgan county, Illinois, and about 1820 came to Sangamon county, when Mr. Carson purchased land which was then wild and unimproved, but which he developed into one of the productive farms of Woodside township.”

But James S. Carson eventually moved to Fayette County, Illnois, where I was born and raised. He is buried there in an unknown location, and he is honored on the monument to Revolutionary War soldiers buried in the county. The monument was dedicated on the grounds of the Fayette County Courthouse as part of the local Bicentennial celebrations in 1976.

*****

Altogether, here are the relationships of some of these forefathers and mothers to myself:

My dad was Paul Edward Stroble, 1912-1999

His parents were Andrew Christian Stroble (1882-1935) and Permelia Jane Carson Stroble (1890-1991), who later married Mike Plinke.

Jane’s parents were Wesley McDonald Carson (1855-1924) and Mary Alice Colburn (1866-1951), married July 7, 1886. I list their fourteen children above.

Mac Carson’s parents were James Carson (1819-1859) and Permelia Swanson. James Carson’s parents were John Carson (1794-1844) and Margery Parkinson (b. 1799). These two men’s tombstones are photographed above..

John Carson’s father was James S. Carson, and in turn his father was James Scarrett Carson Sr.

Then Alice Carson’s parents were: John T. Colburn (1840-1918) and Martha J. Beck (1845-1926). John T. Colburn’s parents were William Colburn (1793-1869) and Achsa Phelps (born 1796), and William’s parents were Paul Colburn (c. 1761-1825) and Mehetibel Ball (b. about 1757)

As a bit of happy serendipity: when I decided finally to update this essay (first posted three years ago), I realized it was the anniversary of Mac and Alice Carson’s marriage, July 7, 1886, 128 years ago today.

(For earlier family history, see my post: https://paulstroble.wordpress.com/2024/02/05/the-colburns-and-king-philips-war/ )

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Oscar Micheaux

Old—really old—movies are so fascinating.  I’m just beginning to discover some of them as I flip through the weekly lineup on Turner Classic Movies.  I was going to write about the compelling new restoration of Metropolis, which I saw on TCM and then purchased on DVD, but not surprisingly I found good reviews online, like http://deepintomovies.blogspot.com/2010/07/film-review-metropolis-1927.html and http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/?p=7652, plus Roger Ebert’s review at his website.

Recently, TCM showed the 1920 silent film Within Our Gates. I saw the end of this film a few years ago, as I was flipping through channels and came to a disturbing image of a black man being hanged. Eventually the channel showed the movie again and I got to see the whole story, which concerns a black woman trying to raise money for a school; but a man who loves her accidentally learns her shocking past.  To say this movie pushed the envelope in 1920 is an understatement. Writer Patrick McGilligan, in his biography of director Oscar Micheaux, writes “Within Our Gates was Micheaux’s most explicit rebuttal to D. W. Griffith and The Birth of a Nation….Even the new title was a reference to the epigraph that introduced Griffith’s 1919 film, A Romance of Happy Valley: ‘Harm not the stranger/Within your gates/Lest you yourself be hurt.’…” (p. 137).  Here is an article about the film and filmmaker: http://www.albany.edu/jmmh/vol3/micheaux/micheaux.html

Coincidentally, the same week as TCM showed Within Our Gates, my daughter had to write a report about an 1800s play, “The Octoroon,” about a light-skinned black woman and a white man in love.  It seemed like a good time to get out McGilligan’s biography which I’d purchased but hadn’t yet read.  Micheaux (1884-1951) was the first African American to produce a full-length film; in fact, he also directed and wrote films as well as a few novels. Among Micheaux’s several films this is the earliest that has survived. McGilligan writes, “Micheaux was a unique storyteller, using film methods that were as idiosyncratic and modern-minded as anything being tried in Hollywood at that time. One of his unusual techniques was repeating scenes from different subjective viewpoints to reveal the crucial missing pieces of a puzzle.” In the case of this film, for instance, the killing of the landowner is twice shown, once to tell the basic story and again to show the truth about the killing (p. 142).

TCM has also shown The Symbol of the Unconquered from 1920. This films concerns a black man who owns land on which oil is discovered, but racists–including a black man who passes for white–try to intimidate him out of his land. “Micheaux’s central motif” in this story, as in other films, “was ‘passing,’ and the sexual tension that transpires between a man and a woman of seemingly different races torn by their love for each other.” Unfortunately the film is now incomplete and is missing compelling scenes, like the defeat of the Klan!  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a complete or nearly-complete copy could be found, similar to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis a few years ago!  (Several of Micheaux’s films are no longer extant.)  But even in both the complete and fragmentary scenes of Symbol, McGilligan notes that one can see Micheaux’s knowledge of German Expressionist style and avant-garde film techniques (pp. 155-156).

Micheaux grew up in Metropolis, not Fritz Lang’s visionary city but the historic Illinois town near which I once lived.  That Metropolis honors Superman but I don’t know if it honors Micheaux, who nevertheless moved away when he was 20.  Micheaux isn’t so well known today but awareness of his work is growing, and he has become recognized as a pioneering figure. His films give us a truthful look at race relations of the early 20th century. In fact, Micheaux realized he was not going to get rich making provocative films with racial themes, often banned in certain parts of the county like the South, and yet he continued to churn them out, using favorite actors, financing his own efforts, and living a life of drama, showmanship, and conflict as he addressed censors and racial barriers.

McGilligan’s biography traces Micheaux’s interesting career and provides information about Micheaux’s lost and extant films. The author writes on page 3, “Indeed, Micheaux was the Jackie Robinson of American film. No, a Muhammad Ali decades before his time, a bragging black man running around with a camera and making audacious, artistic films of his own maverick style, at a time when racial inferiority in the United States was custom and law.”

(After I posted this short piece, I was alerted to this website:  http://www.staceengland.com)

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Chester Loomis’ “Journey on Horseback through the Great West in 1825,” parts 5-6

Chester Loomis’ “Journey on Horseback through the Great West in 1825”
Transcribed by Paul Stroble

Here are the fifth and sixth of the six chapters of A Journey on Horseback through the Great West in 1825 by Chester A. Loomis, (1789-1873). The 27-page book was printed by Plaindealer Press of Bath, NY and is subtitled “Visiting Allegany Towns, Olean, Warren, Franklin, Pittsburg, New Lisbon, Elyria, Norfolk, Columbus, Zanesville, Vermillion, Kaskaskia, Vandalia, Sandusky, and many other places.” Loomis had business in Illinois so on June 1, 1825, he set out from Rushville, NY and recorded his observations as he rode through “the “great west,” that is, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. He returned home on August 24, eventually publishing his account in this now-scarce little volume.

In chapter 5, Loomis continues his descriptions of the countryside. We should remember that in 1825, Missouri had been a state for only four years, Illinois for less than seven years, and Indiana nine years. Loomis first describes Ste. Genevieve, MO and then begins his return trip. He describes the southern-born settlers, comments on their meager diet, and is astonished by a meteor which he finds near the Vermillion saline. He visits the site of the battle of Tippecanoe, as well as other Indiana locations. Once he lost his way, then calls the Indians “stupid” when he needs them for food, water, and directions. He is awakened in the forest when his horse becomes frightened, but he does not know what is approaching. Later in his trip, Loomis visits Delaware County, Ohio (unknown to him, future president Rutherford B. Hayes was a three-year-old boy there) and he describes the planning and sad demise of the village of Clarendon, Ohio. Finally he passes through several important communities, including Cleveland, and at last he arrives at his home on August 24^th, “after having traversed an immense extent of country and endured many hardships and privations within a period of about three months.” From his account, we obtain a interesting picture of the lives and hardships of American people 185 years ago.

In the short final chapter, Loomis speculates on the geological background of the countryside he visited.

*****

Chapter V

Missouri.

Its Inhabitants–Grape Vines –1200 Miles from Home–The Start Back–A Fallen Metor [sic]

St. Genevive [sic], upon the western bank of the Mississippi, is an old settlement very similar in appearance to Kaskaskia. Its population is less than that village, but very similar in character. Black, white, and all the intermediate grades promiscuously connected.

July 9^th, I spent this way in viewing the country and ranged several miles from the river towards the lead mines, but without observing any thing unusual except the immense growth of grave vines, which among some parts of the timbered lands load every tree and connect whole forests. The principal part of the inhabitants here are a miserable race. Every man of property owns slaves, and nearly all the labor done is by them. Nothing like enterprise or industry is observable here. The same inexhaustible fertility of soil as in Illinois prevails, and the same unhealthy atmosphere produces sickness and disease, which now exists throughout this country.

July 10^th. My course is no longer westerly. I this day commence my return, and recross the river. At a distance of more than 1200 miles from home, in a sickly country, among strangers, and in the most sultry season of the year, the apprehensions of sickness or disaster force upon the mind the most unpleasant sensations. But with good health and good resolution I trust I shall be able to meet the hardships and inconveniences which are unavoidable.

From the 10^th to the 15^th, I pursued a north-westerly [north-easterly?] course, through a rich open country, in which is a few scattered habitations. Here are no beaten roads. The only paths are the ancient traces of the Indians. In traversing this tract of country I have been exceedingly annoyed by prairie flies; have suffered much from heat, and the want of water. The few inhabitants generally use what is called “Branch Water” in the language of the country; that is water obtained from the brooks and creeks. This might be tolerable if the brooks contained running water; but such is rarely the case at this season; most of them have ceased to run, and water is obtained from the deepest holes, where it stands stagnant, and filled with every thing noxious and offensive.

In the section of country which I have traversed within the last five days the few inhabitants residing are almost without exception Southern emigrants. Many peculiarities are observable among them. Their plantations are generally located on the edge of the prairies. They commonly enclose a field of corn of from ten to thirty acres and which is the only enclosure they have. Their cabins are miserable log buildings, placed in open commons, generally from 50 to 100 rods distant from their cornfields. Every man owns an excellent rifle, and has from three to five dogs. Appurtenant to every house is a log smoke house, in which all their meat is smoked,–a hovel or stable to shelter their horses from the flies, and two or three corn cribs which will hold from 500 to 1000 bushels each. Their bread is made of corn meal in a manner very similar to the New England “Jonny cake.” The small loaves thus baked, they denominate “dodgers.” These they eat with butter and honey; usually a tin pint cup filled with sour, curdled, milk, is placed before each one at table, and dodgers, fried smoke pork, sour milk, butter and honey, commonly constitutes their meal at morning, noon, and night. The emigrants from different states have each their local designation. Thus the Virginians are called “Tuckehoes,” the North Carolinians, “Buckskins,” the South Carolinians, “Brown Backs,” and the New Englanders, “New Yorkers,” Jerseymen and Pennsylvanians are all “Yankees.”

On the 16^th, I reached the Vermillion Saline,” in the vicinity of which I remained until the 22^nd, inst. While making an excursion eastwardly from the Saline on the 18^th, at the distance of two or three miles from the works, and in an extensive plain, I discovered a more singular and remarkable curiosity. Upon the surface of the ground is a body of stone, clay, iron pyrites, and melted sand, or glass, with some other substances–equal in bulk to a common cock of hay,–and weighing probably more than 1500 pounds. The whole mass has evidently been subjected to the action of fire. It is not solid, but is loose, spongy, and porous, and exhibit’s the appearance of various substances having been exposed to an intense heat, and when in a state of partial fusion, promiscuously thrown together, half-melted—and in that state having hardened by cooking, so firmly as to have adhered in one mass when it fell or was thrown to this place; for it is perfectly evident that it must have been thrown or have fallen here;–and yet there are no hills or elevated land within many miles from which it can have fallen or have been thrown by the force or volcanic fires; nor is there any evidence of any extraordinary fire every having existed here. Notwithstanding its weight and bulk, it was but slightly embedded in the earth, and I succeeded in rolling it from its bed. Grass, leaves, and decayed vegetables were under it. There is not probably within two miles any coal, iron ore, clay, or even a pebble stone of the smallest size. How then came this body here? After the most careful examination which I have been able to make, I have come to the conclusion that this is one of those meteoric stones, which sometimes fall to the earth, and that this must have fallen within two or three years past.

On the 22^nd of July, I traveled a north eastwardly course, and near night reached the Wabash river, and on the 23^rd and 24^th, continued to ascend in left bank, until I arrived at Tippecanoe, famous for the bloody battle fought here in 1811, between the American Army, commanded by General Harrison, and the combined Indian tribes who then inhabited this quarter. The country here is mostly open; prairies of great extent spread from the Wabash–glades of beautiful timber are occasionally interspersed,–and it was upon one of the most pleasant and delightful spots which I have ever seen, that this sanguinary conflict took place. Between the Wabash and Tippecanoe, about a mile from the entrance of the latter stream into the former the strife of battle raged, and the exulting war-hoop of the savage warrior resounded. But it is now the silent and peaceful; the savage has disappeared, and civilized man has not yet established himself in his place.

On the night of the 23^rd, I rested in an extensive prairie, without fire or any kind of shelter. The country is uninhabited except occasionally a squatter upon the banks of the Wabash.

On the 24^th, I entered the state of Indiana. I find it necessary to bear to the south for the purpose of finding inhabitants, and I have determined to direct my course for Crawfordsville Prairies are no longer seen—a dense forest overspreads the country.

July 26^th, I this day reached Crawfordsville about noon. It is a small village of log houses,–and the inhabitants seem to be industrious. The place is quite new,–and probably not more than 50 acres is yet cleared of timber.

In the afternoon of July 26^th, I went on toward Thorntown, and at night struck up a fire and lodged in the wilderness, and near the banks of Sugar Creek. In the night I saw a brilliant light, resembling a flambeau. It seemed to approach slowly by following the winding course of the creek. For a few moments I was much startled, but I soon perceived that it was in reality a flambeau carried by an Indian, who was wading down the creek on a night hunt. I had previously been informed that at this season of the year the hunters follow the creeks of float down them in canoes–and shoot the deer which are in the habit of standing in the waters at night. The Indian passed on and was soon out of view. At an early hour on the 27^th, I went on and arrived at Thorntown in the forenoon. Here I lost the trace, and for some hours was in great perplexity. The Indians of this settlement were all absent, and from the squaws, who remained, it was impossible to obtain the least information. They furnished me however, with some corn for my horse and some victuals for myself, and upon my offering them money and making signs of wanting refreshment. After an ineffectual search of more than three hours for the trace or path which leads form this place to the head of White river, I gave up the attempt, and returned to the lodge–and endeavored once more to make the stupid wretches understand my wishes. I succeeded at length in hiring them to point out the place where the path enters the forest–and pressing forward with diligence until evening I encamped probably 18 or 20 miles east of Thorntown. Having built a fire, I tied my horse to a sapling near, wrapped myself in my coat, and lay down. About midnight I was aroused by the jumping and snorting of my horse. He seemed to have his eye upon something in a northern direction, and was extremely frightened. The night was very dark; upon listening I could distinctly hear the foot steps of something as well as the rustling of bushes in that direction, apparently fifteen or twenty rods distant,–and I was soon convinced that it was approaching. I had ever cherished a confidence in my own personal courage, and that I could meet any necessary danger with fortitude and resolution; but now they were put to the test; and I must admit that I was here excessively disconcerted and alarmed. My first impressions were that I had been followed by Indians, and plunder was their object. I hastily primed my pistols anew, and advanced a few paces into the shade of the thicket and listened. The occasional crackling of brush was still heard, and was still approaching; its approach was slow, but it was now evidently within ten rods of my fire, which was burning brightly, giving light nearly that distance into the forest on all sides. At this moment I hallooed loudly, at the same time discharging one of my pistols; a wild animal of some kind gave a sniff or snort, and bounded off in an eastern direction, and I presume was heard distinctly for more than forty rods, and my horse in his fright broke his halter, but was caught without difficulty, and the remainder of the night was spent without sleep.

July 28^th. At daylight I went onward, and near night found inhabitants on the banks of the White river. During the last two days I have suffered extremely from thirst–not having seen a drop of water in traveling fifty miles, excepting in two places where trees were turned out by the roots in clay, grounds and rain water had settled in. Had I anticipated so much trouble as I have encountered for the last seventy miles in the wilderness, I should have preferred a circuit of 200 miles to avoid it.

August 1^st. From the 28^th of July to the first of August nothing important occurred. On the 30^th of July I entered Ohio–passed through Piqua, and on the 31^st, Urbana. These are flourishing villages,–superior to any I have seen in this state except Zanesville and Columbus. A heavy rain set in and continued through the day. The roads were rendered miry, and the swamps filled with water–and as the country is new and principally unsettled, the traveling is tedious and fatiguing. From Urbana my route was easterly through Milford and Delaware,–thence north through Norton, Clarendon, Bucyrus, New Haven, Monroeville to Portland or Sandusky City, on the lake.

Aug. 2^nd. Delaware is a beautiful and flourishing village, and is the capital of the county of the same name. Clarendon is situated on Whetstone Creek, and is near the summit level, or dividing ridge which separates the waters which flow into the lake from those which fall into the Ohio in this state. The history of this village is a melancholy evidence of the instability and unhealthiness of this country.

Aug. 4^th. About four years since a village was projected on Whetstone Creek, and called Clarendon. Its site was pleasant and beautiful, on the borders of the immense plains which extend form east to west nearly through the state of Ohio. On one side a heavy forest of fine timber; on another, open plains level as far as the eye can reach–with occasional groves of timber interspersed–and upon another, a small but clear and durable stream of water—this village was located. Great expectations were had and great efforts were made by the proprietors, and during one or two seasons much labor was done and money expended. About 30 or 40 families had settled here in high hope and expectation of wealth, but the hand of Providence has fallen heavily upon them. Sickness assailed them; disease in its more fatal forms, swept off its population. The houses were depopulated and those who survived disease, fled from the fatal spot. At this time the melancholy spectacle is exhibited of a village beautifully situated; laid out with taste–and embellished with art, but no longer the abode of man; a solitary family remain, and from their pale and haggard countenances, I should judge that the hand of death was already raised to strike its last victim here. The site of this village will soon be lost in the rising growth of the forest; and such I am afraid is the history of many of the projected villages in this section of country.

Aug. 6^th. From Clarendon my course was northerly across the plains to Bucyrus. The soil of these plains is clay. Glades country is level–”Sag Holes” abound, in which the waters settle and gradually dry away in the heats of summer, rending the atmosphere impure with the mot anxious and unwholesome exhalations.

From the 6^th, to the 15^th, of August, I progressed on my journey, generally traveling the ridge road. Portland on the lake is a flourishing place. Monroeville, Norwalk, Illyria [Elyria], &c., are new but thriving villages. On the morning of August 10^th, a tremendous thunder shower hung over the lake for several hours The streams of lightening were frequent and uncommonly vivid–and the peals of thunder were unusually heavy and appalling. The sound of thunder is undoubtedly greater over large bodies of water than when passing over land; and at this time the view was grand and sublime. A vessel under sail was on the lake, distant a few miles from shore. It seemed to pass under the black masses of clouds which hung over the western part of the horizon and suddenly was lost to the view. Cleveland is a fine village–is rapidly growing into importance, as is also Erie, in Pennsylvania. The enterprise and industry of the inhabitants is apparent in this quarter.

On the 15^th, of August I again entered the State of New York, and on the 18^th, reached Buffalo; remaining at this place two days, I again pursued my journey via Lockport and Batavia, and arrived home on the 24^th, of August, 1825, after having traversed and immense extent of country and endured many hardships and privations within a period of about three months.

*****　

CHAPTER VI

Some conclusions formed from the observations on the trip.

In taking a retrospective view of the country which I have traversed during the trip just completed, the conviction cannot be resisted that it is distinguished by features of a striking and peculiar character. The inquisitive mind will involuntarily be led to indulge in speculations and conjectures, with respect to the causes which have produced those features and from which those peculiar characteristics may in the lapse of ages have arise.

Without pretending to go into a critical inquiry or examination of the subject, for which I am fully sensible that I am altogether incompetent and unequal, I nevertheless propose to give my impressions as formed from the most deliberate consideration which I have been enabled to bestow upon it; and in doing this I shall state the theory which I have embraced and the reasons which have led me to its adoption. The leading views only can be give. A volume would not be sufficient to contain a full and detailed view of every consideration attached to the subject proposed briefly for examination, I have adopted the following views, viz:

1^st. That at some remote period, the whole tract of country extending in length from the Gulf of Mexico to the Icy Sea, and in width form the Allegany to the Rocky Mountains, was the bed of the ocean;

2^nd. That the ocean when it receded, receded suddenly to its present boundaries;

3^rd. That the waters of that immense chain of lakes, west of the Niagara River, once flowed through the valleys of the Illinois, and the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico;

4^th. That by some tremendous convulsion of nature, the mountain ride separating Lakes Erie and Ontario, became broken and the current of the waters of the upper lakes was thereby reversed.

With regard to the first position, viz: That at some remote period the whole tract of country, extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the Icy Sea, and in width from the Allegany to the Rock Mountains, was the bed of this ocean: It may be observed:

That the whole face of country within these bounds is nearly level. Occasionally a small inequality of surface if found, and every elevation of ground or ride of fifty or a hundred feet in height, is composed of coarse gravel, smooth pebble stones, or marine shells, I think evidently deposited by long continued currents of water–while the intermediate country–between these elevations is entirely alluvial,–resembling precisely that kind of land found on the flats of rivers which annually overflow and deposit the sediment of their waters. Alternate layers of fine and course sand may be seen from the surface to the depth of several feet. The plains are entirely destitute of small stone. Sandstone, lime stone, and slate are sometimes found in the ridges and–the banks of rivers–and upon the prairies in the northern parts of Illinois and Missouri, scattered here and there an isolated rock of a peculiar kind is seen. It is said that a similar kind of stone is not found nearer than Iceland, Greenland, or the shores of the Icy Sea. Did these rocks come from those regions? It is known that immense ice bergs break off from the shores of those countries and frequently with large rocks imbedded in them–are floated by the currents of the ocean at the present period, to the latitude of 40 or 45 degrees on the Atlantic. The glaciers of the Norwegian Alps and the immense masses of ice which annually accumulate upon the summits of the mountains of Iceland and Greenland descend in frightful avalanches into the deep abyss of waters with which they are surrounded and carried by the currents which are known to exist into lower latitudes are gradually dissolved in a warmer atmosphere, scattering over the bed of the ocean, where the masses dissolve; and the rocks and stones thus borne from the mountains where they are formed. Such we know to be fact at the present period; and who will undertake to say that similar operations of the laws of nature did not take place in the earlier ages of the world.

With respect to the 2^nd, position, viz., “That the ocean when it receded, receded suddenly to its present boundaries;” It is only necessary to observe that almost all the ridges and elevations of land between the Allegany and Rock Mountains run in a direction from North to South. These were formed I apprehend by the prevailing currents of the ocean. If the waters had gradually receded and at long intervals of time ridges and embankments running in a direction from East to West would undoubtedly have been formed by the action of the waves. Such not being found, the inference to my mind is conclusive that if the ocean ever overspread this part of the western continent, its waters suddenly receded to their present boundaries.

3rdly. “The waters of that immense chain of lakes west of the Niagara River, once flowed southerly through the valley of the Illinois and Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.” Is this possible? The subject offers an interesting field of inquiry.

4thly, It has been an acknowledged observation of Geographers that rivers and streams which empty themselves into lakes, generally point in the direction they run toward the out-let of the lakes into which they respectively fall.

THE END.

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Chester Loomis’ “Journey on Horseback through the Great West in 1825,” part 4

Chester Loomis’ “Journey on Horseback through the Great West in 1825”

Transcribed and introduced by Paul Stroble

Here is the fourth of six chapters of A Journey on Horseback through the Great West in 1825 by Chester A. Loomis, (1789-1873). The 27-page book was printed by Plaindealer Press of Bath, NY and is subtitled “Visiting Allegany Towns, Olean, Warren, Franklin, Pittsburg, New Lisbon, Elyria, Norfolk, Columbus, Zanesville, Vermillion, Kaskaskia, Vandalia, Sandusky, and many other places.” Loomis had business in Illinois so on June 1, 1825, he set out from Rushville, NY and recorded his observations as he rode through “the “great west,” that is, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. He returned home on August 24, eventually publishing his account in this now-scarce little volume.

Recently I drove across Ohio on I-70 and smiled as I recognized landmarks that Loomis discussed in chapter three, especially the Mad River and the Sciota River. In chapter four, Loomis provides us observations of central and southern Illinois. He describes the Vermillion river area, including the salt works. He obtains another horse. He comments on the heat, flies, and unhealthiness of certain areas and observes that during unhealthy seasons people are sickly and gaunt: “The blooming, buxom, animated, and animating appearance of the ladies, so common in the eastern states, is not seen here.” He lodges with a destitute Irishman and his family. He also praises the fertility and beauty of the countryside. He does not think much of my hometown, Vandalia, at that time the state capital; he doesn’t like the buildings and location and is pessimistic about its importance. Nor does he have a favorable impression of the previous capital, Kaskaskia. He is, however, impressed with the Mississippi River and its seasons of flooding.

In the next post, I’ll conclude this transcription with Loomis’ short chapters five and six, wherein he visits Missouri, describes the lives of southern-born settlers, meets more Indians, returns home to New York state, and reflects upon his three month odyssey.

*****　

Chapter IV

“Vermillion Saline.”

Coal and salt–Game and snakes–Why the Indians Abandoned the Wabash–His Horse Gives Out

On the 27^th, of June I visited the salt manufactory of the Vermillion river. These works are situated about twelve miles west of the Wabash, and eighteen miles from the mouth of the Vermilion. The manufactory is yet conducted on a small scale; perhaps yielding 100 bushes per week. There is but one arch, of 20 kettles,–and the water is obtained from wells of 15 or 20 feet dept. Its saltness, I should judge from taste, to be about the same as sea water. This water is found immediately below a layer of copperas stone and stone coal, and is said to be obtained by digging for 20 miles along the banks of the river. An enterprising individual by the name of Whitcomb, formerly of Phelps, in Ontario county, N. Y., has for some time been engaged in boring for water of greater strength than is now obtained from the wells. He informed me that he had penetrated about 400 feet in rock; that he has found that the water at that depth is much stronger than near the surface. He is still engaged in boring, and has great confidence that he shall soon find water in great quantity and value. Several large wells and reservoirs have recently been sunk at a hundred rods distance from the present works. In digging them, they found the same strata of coal about ten feet below the surface, as at the old works. In fact coal abounds in this region. It is found in the banks of rivers, and even in the immense prairies, I have noticed it. This will furnish the country with fuel when the small portion of timber which grows in this state, shall fail.

The Vermillion river is a beautiful stream of clear water. It takes its rise in the “Grand Prairie,” and running a south-easterly course for 40 or 50 miles, falls into the Wabash. This stream is boatable to the salt works. Above the Saline it divides in three parts, and has some fine mill seats. Fish in great numbers are every where swimming in its waters. Some of them of 15 or 20 pounds weight. Along the banks of the Vermillion in many places, I saw ledges of excellent stone for building and other purposes, and banks of copperas stone, inexhaustible in quantity.

There are few inhabitants in this quarter. Many townships have not as yet a single family. The country for a great extent, seems to be new. Game is abundant. The forests are filled with deer, and the prairies with turkeys and prairie-hens; prairie wolves and opossums are numerous. Of reptiles, they have rattle-snakes, of two kinds, large and small; black snakes, copper heads, and the glass snake. The latter is a curiosity. Upon striking a slight blow with a small stick it will generally break into pieces.

The timbered lands here border the streams and water courses. Every creek is lined with valuable timber from half a mile to two miles in width, and generally extending from its mouth to its source. An astonishing growth of vegetation is also every where prevalent, except in the dry prairies, where the wild grass holds the ascendancy. This wild grass in the dry prairie grows thick at the bottom, but not more than two feet high; but in the wet prairies the grass and weeds grow to the height of seven or eight feet, and so thick and close as to impede the progress of a horse, and thus rendering traveling slow and disagreeable. I have observed that on the western edges or borders of all the large prairies a thick growth of young timber is springing up, whereas on the eastern borders no underbrush is found within many rods of the open lands. This is undoubtedly caused by fire divisions by those westerly winds which prevail in October and November, when these immense plains are annually burnt over. The heat and fury of the flames driven by a westerly wind far into the timbered lands on the opposite sides destroying the under-growth of timber, and every year increasing the extent of prairie in that direction, has no doubt, for many centuries added to the quantity of open land found throughout this part of America.

June 28^th, I spent this day in exploring and examining the country near the Vermillion. Prairies of unknown extent spread to the west. The plains, with or without timber, are alike in the surprising richness and fertility of their soils. The few inhabitants in this quarter who have fields of wheat are now harvesting. Their crops are as good in quantity and quality as crops in New York. Flax and oats grow here equal to any produced in any eastern state; corn is almost spontaneous, and cotton indigo, and sweet potatoes, are cultivated. The extensive prairies here, covered with blossoms a great part of the year are peculiarly favorable for bees, and as might be expected, the timbered lands are filled with them. Wild honey is of course abundant, and every inhabitant easily obtains a supply.

The Indians were numerous on the Wabash, until recently,–but it seems they have abandoned their country on the approach of the whites. It is said that a singular circumstance hastened them away. A trader employed a steamboat to ascend the Wabash with merchandize. Several hundred Indians, having heard that a huge vessel which emitted fire and smoke, was ascending the river, and stemming its strong current without either oars or sails, collected at their lower towns to witness the phenomenon. Upon its approach these sons of the forest watched its motion with fearful admiration. The boat was about to anchor, and accordingly, the steam was let off. The loud hissing noise thus produced, alarmed the natives. They instantly took to their heels, and fled in consternation and dismay; hundreds of them pressing tremulously up the river to escape from the horrible steam engine; and it is affirmed that they never recovered from the panic thus created, until they abandoned the country.

June 29^th, My horse having failed, I was obligated to leave him at the Vermillion, at which place I hired another to perform the remaining part of my journey west. During this day I rode southwardly in the Grand Prairie upwards of thirty miles. The heat was excessive, and prairie flies assailed my horse as if they would destroy him. These flies are not found in timbered lands, and I found it necessary to avoid the open country as much as possible. In the course of the day one or two cabins were seen and I passed a few cultivated fields of corn and wheat without any kind of fence or enclosure. Near the borders of the timbered lands, immense numbers of wild turkeys, deer, &c. were feeding.

June 30^th. I continued a southerly course, and passed through Paris and Darwin to York, on the Wabash. These are here called villages. They are county seats, and contain from five to ten log cabins, each. In the afternoon I reached Allison’s prairie,–a tract 10 or 12 miles long and three wide. It is well settled–the corn fields are fenced. The soil is a deep black sand, of inexhaustible fertility, and there is a greater growth of corn than I have ever seen hitherto. I measured many stalks more than 16 feet in height. The face of the country is delightful; but the inhabitants generally agree that all the sand prairies are unhealthy. These prairies are too level. No undulations or swells, but a perfect level for an immense extent, like the smooth surface of the ocean. No rapid streams or currents of clear water, but a few dead muddy brooks or creeks. The finest fields of corn, wheat, cotton, sweet potatoes, &c, are found here. Wheat is generally harvested, here for this season.

July 1^st, I rode to Union Prairie. At this place are some grist mills constructed with inclined wheels and carried by the weight of oxen An object of curiosity which attracted my notice is found here. It is a plough used in ditching the flat lands in this quarter, and from an accurate measurement which I have taken I found its dimensions as follows,

Length of beam . . . . . . . . . . . 12 feet

do “ chip . . . . . . . . . . . 4 “ 8 in

do “ handles . . . . . . . . . . . 10 “

Size of the beam . . . . . . . . . . . 8 by 6

do “ chip . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 by 8

do “ handles . . . . . . . . . . . 4 by 4

Height f’m bottom chip to top beam 2 feet 8

Plow has 2 turf cutters 22 inches apart w’g 60 lbs.

Plowshare (say) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 “

Bolt and other irons . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 “

_____

Pounds of iron 250

Its usual furrow is 22 inches wide and 18 inches deep. Twelve yoke of oxen usually draw this plow and two men hold it. This is truly a mammoth plow.

July 2^nd, I continued a southerly course–passed through Palestine, and towards evening, reached the Embarrass river, at the Shaker Mills (here called the Ambraw river.) This stream was too deep to ford with safety, and with much difficulty I hired a man to lash two canoes together and ferry me across. After passing the river, I again entered a flat and open country, and followed obscure traces in a south-western direction until dark without finding a house. At this time I was attempting to cross a low marshy plain, which for ten miles in length and two in width was covered with water from six inches to two feet deep, and grass six feet in height. I soon last the trace or path, in which I entered this marsh, but continued to urge my horse forward for two or three hours without the least appearance of finding dry land, and apprehending that I had lost the true course, as the evening was clouded. I at length gave up the hope of extricating myself from my unpleasant situation before morning. I halted, but it was impossible to dismount without sinking knee-deep in water, and drawing my great-coat around me, I endeavored to protect myself from the cold and damp chills of night and the noxious exhalations of the morass, with which I was surrounded. After having remained an hour in this situation attentively listening to every sound, the distant barking of a dog was heard. No music which I have ever heard was so delightful or enlivening as the hoarse howl which resounded through these plains and which now sainted my ears. Instantly directing my course to the sound, I had the gratification to reach dry land within a mile and soon found the cabin of an Irish emigrant.

Upon approaching the cabin, several large dogs came furiously toward me, and one of them, in particular, was so daring, that I found it necessary to halt. The owner of the mansion was aroused, and after having silenced his dogs, very hospitably offered me such accommodations as he was able to give, and which I certainly felt grateful in receiving, under the circumstances in which I was then placed. On reaching his cabin, I found it to be the very abode of poverty itself. The cabin was built of small poles–about 12 feet square—so low that I was unable to stand erect; without any other floor than the earth–was covered with bark, instead of shingles, and entirely without a chimney or a widow of any kind. The door or entrance was closed by setting split plank on end on the inside. This establishment has sheltered a family during the last three years, consisting of the man, his wife and seven children. Within the house there is neither bed-stead, chair or table, a long bench serving for the latter.

The man of the house was a small, ill-shapen, withered Irishman; the woman a perfect gipsey [sic], tall, lank, and lantern jawed, with long-flowing black hair, and with a skin which seemed to have been smoked, until she had the hue of a tartar or a Creole. One of their children was sick at this time, and all of them were almost entirely destitute of clothes, altho’ some of them were girls of 10, 12 or 14 years of age. Having been without refreshment from morning, and feeling much exhausted and hungry, I inquired for something to eat–but their poverty in this particular, corresponded with their situation in other respects. They had neither bread, flour, meal, meat, butter, nor cheese,—and were only able to furnish me a cup of sour milk, of which I partook, and lay down upon an old mat spread upon the ground in front of the fire, but it was impossible to sleep–fleas innumerable, kept me in torment until daylight, when I again mounted my horse and pursued my journey after paying “mine host” a half dollar for his accommodation.

July 3^rd, during the day of the 3^rd, I rode about 40 miles towards Vandalia, sometimes pursuing the obscure paths made by Indian travel, and sometimes, directing my course without regarding any former tract, through an open and perfectly level country. A few habitations only seen excepting on the banks of the Little Wabash, which I this day passed.

On the 4^th day of July I pursued my journey at a very early hour, and before 8 o’clock a.m., was compelled to stop and shelter my horse from the prairie flies, with which he was assailed in such numbers that two hours longer of exposure, would inevitably have destroyed him. It was near the center of an immense prairie at the habitation of a Yankee, who four years since, accompanied by his wife, also from the land of “steady habits,” selected this spot where an “island” of beautiful timber containing a few acres, was the only obstruction to a view of at least 12 miles of open country on all sides. His nearest neighbors are 12 miles distant–and from the nature of the surrounding lands it will be long before any person will locate their habitations nearer. This circumstance, determined him as he informed me, to select this spot as his residence. He is now in possession of the whole range, undisturbed by friends or foes. He has accumulated a stock of 50 horses, 200 head of cattle, 100 hogs and 100 sheep, and has about 300 hives of bees. He has one inconvenience however to meet, of a serious nature, and that is the want of good water. Water is found at all times in some sink holes near by, but it is unfit for use. This man is now engaged in digging a well. At six feet he struck a soft sandstone, and has penetrated 47 feet in it without the slightest indications of finding water.

At this place I spent the anniversary of our independence, dependent on myself for shelter and shade, from the intense rays of the sun during the day. At sunset I again pursued a westerly direction until a late hour at night I reached the border of this immense prairie, and found inhabitants, where I halted, having rode in the night about 15 miles. At an early hour I pursued my way on the 5^th, and arrived at Vandalia before noon. The road for three miles east of Vandalia is at this time impassable with wagons, and nearly so on horseback. It is a perfect marsh or swamp, of soft clay, extremely tenacious, into which a horse will sink at every step to his knees, and for the whole distance covered with water to the depth of six or eight inches.

July 5^th, Vandalia is the present seat of government of the state of Illinois. It is situated in Fayette county, upon the western bank of the Kaskaskia river, and in population and elegance of its buildings is inheritor to the villages of Bethel or Rushville, in New York. The surrounding country is much of it hard and sterile, covered with stunted oaks and apparently unproductive. In my opinion its location was injudicious and consequently, I think that it can never be a place of much importance.

July 6^th, I directed my course southerly, and during the day was excessively annoyed by the prairie flies. The country through which I passed is principally prairie, but many inhabitants are settled upon the borders. I have within a few days noticed several instances of a most singular method invented for the purpose of protecting horses and oxen while at work upon the plains, from the swarms of flies which assail them. A tin kettle which may hold 16 or 18 quarters, is suspended form the neck of the beast, and a smoke constantly kept up by burning cobs in the kettle. Here also I saw a bull harnessed with the common Dutch collar–bits in his mouth, and a single line to guide him. Thus harnessed, his owner was plowing out his corn regardless of heat or flies.

July 7^th, The last 150 miles of my journey has been through a tract of country which is certainly unhealthy, and the sickly season has already commenced. A pale, sallow, cadaverous countenance is almost universal, among the inhabitants. The blooming, buxom, animated, and animating appearance of the ladies, so common in the eastern states, is not seen here. A ghastly yellow complexion and enervated frame indicate the insalubrity of the climate. The rivers here are at this time without any perceptible current. Their waters of a muddy color, and the noxious exhalations which arise during the heats of summer, from them, overspread the country, rendering the atmosphere poisonous and impure.

On approaching within a few miles of Kaskaskia, I find the country becoming more broken and sterile. Some limestone ledges are here observable and many sink holes are scatted over the plains. Into one of these I descended. It was probably of more than 100 feet dept. About ten feet from its lowest point a small stream of clear cold water rushes in, but disappears among the crevices of the limestone rock at bottom. This sink hole is exactly circular and at its top may be six rods in diameter, terminated in a point at bottom. I this day reached Kaskaskia, crossing the river at a ferry directly east of town. This is an ancient French settlement. It is situated on the western margin of the Kaskaskia river, five miles above its mouth–and two and a half miles east of the Mississippi. Its site is level and low. At this time the waters of the river are nearly of the same elevation. The buildings here are with few exceptions, old and decaying. In population I should think that it might equal Geneva, in New York state. It seems to have little business, enterprise or industry. Here is to be seen every color known among the human species, and I am assured that black, white, and all the intermediate grades inter-marry. The lower classes exhibit the most conclusive evidences of wretchedness. Even in the village there are inhabited dwellings constructed by driving four posts into the earth–boarding up the sides, and making a roof of boards and slabs; the inmates are half-clad and filthy:

Black spirits and white

Blue spirits and gray,

Mingle, mingle, mingle,

They that mingle, may.

There is however a class of the population who will hold a respectable rank in community. The established inhabitants, whose property is such as to enable them to acquire a good education, and to live in good style, are generally such.

July 8^th, I this day crossed the mystic “Mother of Waters,” and entered the state of Missouri. The river Mississippi is a stream of wonderful magnitude. At this time it runs with a powerful current for a mile or more in width, filling its banks, and in many places overspreading the bottoms, and inundating immense tracts of country. Many of the corn plantations, in this vicinity are now under water and the river is still rising. The rise at this time is caused by the “Missouri Fresh,” which it seems has just reached this latitude. There is one circumstance relative to the Mississippi, which I do not remember to have seen noticed, by any writer, and which shows the astonishing magnitude of this stream, and the prodigious extent of country from which its waters flow. Below the mouth of the Ohio, there are three distant annual floods. First the Ohio Fresh pours down its waters in the month of May, and it principally subsides about the first of June. Soon after the first of June the floods of the Mississippi proper, swell the current of the stream, which again falls–before the “Missouri Fresh” from the Rocky Mountains reaches this latitude, which is usually in July. The Missouri flood pours down with much greater volume and velocity than those of the Ohio, or the Mississippi. At this time the plantations below Kaskaskia, and upon the banks of the river are inundated; and it is perfectly apparent that with the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri floods united at the same time, the river would be swelled to a magnitude which would overflow the surrounding country from hill to hill, and sweep the beautiful plantations on its banks to ruin.

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Chester Loomis’ “Journey on Horseback through the Great West in 1825,” part 3

Chester Loomis’ “Journey on Horseback through the Great West in 1825”
Transcribed and introduced by Paul Stroble

Here is the third of six chapters of A Journey on Horseback through the Great West in 1825 by Chester A. Loomis, (1789-1873). The 27-page book was printed by Plaindealer Press of Bath, NY and is subtitled “Visiting Allegany Towns, Olean, Warren, Franklin, Pittsburg, New Lisbon, Elyria, Norfolk, Columbus, Zanesville, Vermillion, Kaskaskia, Vandalia, Sandusky, and many other places.” Loomis had business in Illinois so on June 1, 1825, he set out from Rushville, NY and recorded his observations as he rode through “the “great west,” that is, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. He returned home on August 24, eventually publishing his account in this now-scarce little volume.

In chapter three, Loomis visits Columbus and smaller Ohio towns and admires the prairies of Indiana and Illinois. (It’s fun for me to think that some of my ancestors lived near Columbus at the time of Loomis’ travels.) He is more graphic than previously about the perils and discomforts of the West. For instance, he gives us some of the hazards of travel: the flies and smell of swampy area, the necessity to sleep outdoors when accommodations are scarce, and the difficulties of riding along through a violent rain. Loomis complains at length about a group of Miami Indians from whom he sought hospitality, but they treated him rudely, their food was terrible, and in general he found this tribe “ill-favored, nasty, greasy, idle, dissolute, and intemperate.” He comments on wild game, describes squatters (and their fleas and bedbugs), the uninteresting food of white settlers, and leaky cabins. In the next chapter, Loomis describes the Vermilion River area, gets a new horse, meets an Irish settler and his family, visits several Illinois communities including Vandalia and Kaskaskia, and arrives at the Mississippi River.

***** 

Chapter III

Columbus

On the 16th of June I arrived at Columbus, the seat of Government of the state of Ohio. This place, which is of recent growth, is beautifully situated upon an elevated prairie of several hundred acres, on the east bank of the Sciota river. Its public buildings are of brick, and appear to good advantage. The number of houses is said to be 400,–some of them are elegant. On the east side of the town two large springs issue and discharge themselves into the river; one on the south and the other on the north side. The river here I should judge to be 12 or 16 rods in width, and is navigable for boats of 10 or 15 tons at all seasons. A ferry is established at this place.

Franklinton, on the west bank of the Sciota, is one of the oldest settlements in the state. It is a small village, and seems not to be increasing. The alluvial flats on the western border of the Sciota are rich, fertile and extensive. Here are extensive corn plantations. In traveling westward from Columbus on the 17th and 18th, of June, nothing worthy of particular observation was noticed. Charleston is in Clark county, to which place I traveled via. London. These are both small villages in a fertile, but unhealthy part of country. At Charleston I observed a saw mill constructed with an inclined wheel and carried by the weight of six oxen. In this quarter are several large prairies.

The population of this part of Ohio seems to be principally collected in little villages, and as the fertility of the soil is such as to yield great crops with little labor, but little labor appears to be done. June 19th, I passed through Springfield to Troy, in Miami county. Springfield is a handsome and flourishing village, situated near the junction of Mad river and Buck creek. I know not why this stream is denominated “Mad river,“ unless it is on account of its running with a brisk perceptible current, a circumstance so singular among the rivers of this country that the inhabitants infer from it the “madness of its waters.“

On the 20th, of June I reached Greenville, near the western line of Ohio. Greenville is celebrated at the encampment of the American army for a considerable period during the war with the western Indians in 1793-4, and by the treaty of peace which was her concluded with them by General Wayne. It is not a village, but has the name of one. Its situation of pleasant and beautiful on the eastern bank of Greenville creek. Some fine springs of water issue from the earth nearly on a level with the plain. During the afternoon of the 20th., I crossed the state line, and entered the state of Indiana.

INDIANA.

The road by which I entered this state is that which leads from Greenville to Indianapolis, the seat of State Government. The state line is ten miles west of Greenville. Here for the first time since I have been on this journey I found some difficulty in obtaining shelter and entertainment for the night. The country is new, has few inhabitants and those few generally poor and without accommodations for travelers.

June 21st, passed through Winchester, 20 miles west of Greenville. It is the capital of Randolph county. This village consists of three log cabins and a log hovel. Near this place is a field, without cover or enclosure I saw a grist mill constructed with a large horizontal wheel, with perpendicular shaft—a strap or rope passing from the wheel around the spindle of the mill stone. The mill stone was place in a hollow birch tub, and was 19 inches in diameter. The strength of one horse put the mill in operation and it appeared to grind corn and rye well.

During the greater part of this day I have traveled on the banks of White river. The country continues level. Prairies of some extent are found on the extensive bottoms of this stream. They are covered with a vegetation which from its surprising growth indicates a strength, richness and fertility of soil, unexampled and unknown in New York. The great body of lands in this quarter yet belong to the Government. Its price of course is 41.25 per acre. A few scattered habitations only are seen, and it is generally from six to ten miles between settlements and from the dead and stagnant waters and the immense growth of vegetation, and unwholesome atmosphere must exist during the heats of summer and autumn.

On the 23rd, of June I continued to follow the course of the White river until I reached Strawtown. The waters of this stream are clear, notwithstanding its sluggish current, and in passing along its banks immense numbers of large fish are seen swimming in its waters. At Strawtown is an Indian settlement. Here too are the last white inhabitants this side of Crawfordsville, more than 60 miles distant from this place.

In the afternoon I passed Strawtown, and entered the forest by an indistinct trace or path running nearly a westerly course, and at evening encamped on the banks of a small stream called Hinkle’s creek, about ten or twelve miles from Strawton. Here for the first time on this journey we made the earth our bed, and the heavens our covering. In the course of the night a thunder shower passed over, but fortunately for us, it rained but little. Vivid and frequent flashes of lightening and loud and appalling peals of thunder, added to the impressions of gloom, with which we contemplated the surrounding forest. The morning of the 23rd of June was lowering and hazy. A drizzling rain rendered traveling extremely disagreeable. The weather was excessively war. Astonishing numbers of flies assailed our horses in addition to which the constant succession of marshes and swamps through the deep mire of which they were compelled to go, rendered our progress tedious and embarrassing.

In the afternoon of the twenty-third of June, a most tremendous thunder storm arose. The day had been cloudy, with occasional slight showers of rain, and the close and oppressive heat of the atmosphere, indicated that it was highly charged with the electric fluid. About noon the distant, but continual roll of thunder was heard low in the western horizon, and for two hours the clouds seemed to remain stationary except in extending around to the south and north. Not a breach of air seemed in motion. A fearful stillness pervaded the wilderness, and as the cloud arose the gloom and darkness of evening twilight spread around and gave rise to the most appalling apprehensions. The clouds at length suddenly closed around the horizon, and in a few moments the fury of the storm burst upon us. The wind blew with great force. Hail and rain descended with remarkable violence. Frequent and extremely vivid streams of lightening flashed around us; but the loud roll of thunder was no longer heard, as the din of wind, rain and hail was overwhelming.

The violence of the wind was of short duration and the hail ceased after a few minutes; but the rain fell in torrents for an hour. It was impossible to find the least shelter. We had made up our minds to meet the horrors of the storm with as much calmness and fortitude as we could command. We made no halt nor did we dismount during its utmost violence, and while trees and limbs of trees were falling around we rode slowly forward. A large oak tree was shattered by the electric fluid, a few rods from us. But we escaped uninjured, except being thoroughly drenched with rain.

We continued to press forward through mud and mire, without a dry thread of clothes upon us for the remainder of the day; near the close of which we reached Shorntown, an Indian settlement, twenty miles distant from Crawfordsville. As it was impossible to reach any habitation of civilized men, we were compelled to submit to such accommodations as could be obtained from these miserable savages. After going from hut to hut, endeavoring to obtain shelter and refreshment among them, without being able to make them comprehend our wants, or if they did understand, without their regarding them for some time, we at length found a Frenchman, half savage, half civilized, who was dressed in the Indian costume, and lived among them–to which we addressed ourselves. He replied to us at first in a language, not one word of which was understood, at the same time using significant gestures, and pointing to different and opposite points of the compass at the same time. Crowds of Indians, of all ages and sexes, gathered around. The scene was certainly a fine one for the pencil of a Hogarth, to pourtray [sic]. The unintelligible jargon, the strange and unaccountable gesticulations of the Indians, the merriment and laughter created among them by our embarrassment tended to produce vexation and disgust in our minds. We cursed them heartily as an inhospitable race, and was about to leave their lodge to seek a shelter again in the wilderness when the Frenchman before alluded to rose and beckoned us to follow him. We now found he could speak broken English. He conducted us to a wigwam, 80 or a 100 rods distant from the mail village, built a fire, fed our horses, and prepared supper for ourselves. Our supper was cooked in Indian style but hunger and fatigue gave an appetite which was by no mean scrupulous.

We were permitted to lodge upon the floor in front of the fire. Several Indians lodged in the same wigwam; but they behaved civilly. In the morning we attempted to partake of a breakfast prepared, but the offensive quality of their victuals, together with the nauseous cookery, prevented more than tasting. These Indians are of the Miami tribe. They are said to be extremely dissipated. Scarce a month passes in which they do not have a general drunken powow [sic]. On such occasions murders are very common. A few months since, while the men and women of this lodge were in a state of general intoxication, an Indian of the tribe who had drank sufficiently to render him mischievous, with his knife cut off the noses of seventeen of their principal warriors. We here noticed several of the number thus singularly mutilated. The appearance of the Indians of this tribe is not inviting. They appear to be, almost without exception, an ill-favored, nasty, greasy race,–idle, dissolute, and intemperate. Their situation is upon a prairie of several thousand acres. The land is rich, fertile and beautiful–and they have a few enclosed fields of corn,–and large numbers of their horses feed in droves upon the prairie. I believe they do not raise cattle, or indeed any kind of stock except horses. The Indians of this tribe are in the habit of selling their young women, like the Creole mothers of New Orleans. The price of one of them, when a permanent connection is intended, is a horse, no difference of terms ever being made on account of personal beauty.

June 24th, we reached the habitations of white inhabitants, after traveling most of the day through an open prairie country, and directing our course nearly west from Shorntown. We no longer find highways or roads distinctly marked and opened. The only roads at the ancient paths or traces of the Indians. These are in many places so indistinct and obscure, that we find it difficult to pursue them. Wild game is plentiful in this country. We, this day, saw an elk and several deer, besides immense numbers of wild turkies [sic] and prairie hens.

In this section of county few inhabitants are found, and those few are generally “squatters,” who locate themselves upon the borders of the prairies–live in miserable cabins, frequently without floors or windows, and exhibiting the most conclusive evidence of the habitual indolence and negligence of the occupants, whose personal appearance is but little better than that of the savage tribes, who are their neighbors. We have lodged one or two nights among these people, and find ourselves exceedingly annoyed by myriads of fleas, bedbugs, &c.

June 25th, 1825, we last night put up at the cabin of a Southern emigrant. Our supper consisted of—a plate of fried smoked pork, a cup of sour curdled milk, several small Indian cakes, something like a tea-cup in size and form–and which are here called “dodgers,” and a plate of honey. The table furniture consisted of a Spanish dirk, for a knife, a form, one or two brown earthen plates, and one or two tin pint cups. I find that this is the usual fare fore breakfast, dinner and supper, with few exceptions, throughout this section of country.

During the night of the 24th, a heavy thunder-shower passed over; –the rain descended in torrents within the cabin where we lodged, as well as without. Finding ourselves much annoyed by this rain, which poured upon our bed in large streams, I sprang up, and attempted to remove our bed, by drawing the bedstead to a part of the room which seemed better sheltered by the roof, but the effort was in vain–I found it immovable; I found that the bedstead was formed by driving two crotched posts into the earth at such distances from the walls of the house that by placing poles horizontally from the posts, between the logs of the walls, a platform was made on which a coarse bed stick, filled with prairie grass, was thrown, one or two linen sheets, and a buffalo robe, completed the lodging accommodations, with which we were furnished; and with similar accommodations every traveler who wants in this part of the country must frequently be content.

June 25th, we this day crossed the Wabash river, at a ferry opposite the mouth of Pine creek. We handed below the entrance of that stream, and were directed by the ferry-man to pursue a path which he pointed out to us, about a mile, and then cross the creek, by fording. He assured us the water was nowhere three feet deep;–and then pursue a western course for thirty miles through the Grand prairie. Accordingly we took the course directed, and arrived at the fording place described. The creek was high, and its waters ran with great force. We attempted to ford it, but soon found that our only way to cross was by swimming our horses. The force of the current was such that it was attended with great danger; and after encountering the hazard of an attempt, we relinquished the project. We now pursued and obscure trace on the southern side of Pine creek, without knowing when or where, we should find inhabitants.

After traveling about four miles through timbered plains, we reached the eastern border of the Grand Prairie. Time was about five o’clock, PM. We had ate nothing since morning, nor had we any provision with us. The “Grand Prairie” appeared to the north and west boundless as the ocean. With every probability that if we went on, we might travel a day or two, perhaps more, without finding inhabitants; we hesitated. If we retraced our steps it was extremely doubtful whether we could recross the Wabash, as the ferry-man lived at a distance from the river, on its eastern side. In addition to all, my horse began to fail, and it was difficult to spur him forward faster than a walk.

Resolving at length to go on, we pursued a south western course along the southern border of the prairie. After traveling two or three miles, we observed at our left hand some girdled trees. In the anxious hope of finding shelter and refreshment for the night, we bent our course for them, and within a mile arrived at the house of a North Carolinian. We here had good accommodations. It was most fortunate, as we learned that this was the only habitation within 20 miles; and had we missed this cabin, it was extremely doubtful whether we should have found inhabitants in traveling two or three more days.

June 26th, at an early hour, we again entered the “Grand Prairie,’ and taking a westerly direction, were soon many miles from any timbered lands, and upon a tract of country apparently as level as the surface of a lake, without a single shrub or bush to intercept the view, either to the east, north or west, as far as the eye could reach. On the south a distant view is had of the forest, which is in that direction, is the boundary of this immense plain. Occasionally a rock of some magnitude is seen, but no small stone whatever is found. The soil is deep and rich, covered with grass and lowers, which grow up, blossom and decay without affording even to the industrious Bee their sweets:

“Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
“The dark unfathomed caves of Ocean hear.
“Full many a flower is born, to blush unseen,
“And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”

As the sun arose toward its meridian its rays were felt with the same power as from the smooth surface of a lake. Our horses were here assailed by a species of fly, different from any in the eastern or middle states. They are a size less than the common ox-fly in New York; have brilliant green heads, and a quick and rapid motion. They rise from the grass before a horse as he travels along, dart upon his head, neck or breast and suck their fill of blood, almost instantly.

In the afternoon we made a few miles through a tract of the finest timbered land I have ever seen. Here are some small but durable streams of water. The land slopes gently to the south, sufficiently to produce a rapid current to its streams, which are clear and pure. Its timer is black walnut, black and white oak, maple, blue ash, buckeye, and pawpaw. The richness, strength, and fertility of soil, exceeds any I have ever seen. Here is a large body of land of the same description, entirely unsettled, and now in market, at the Government Land Offices for 41.25 per acre. After passing this beautiful tract of timbered land, we again entered a prairie of some extent, and crossing the Vermilion river, at the forks.

June 26th, arrived at township Nineteen, in Edgar County, Illinois. This is on the borders of the “Grand Prairie,” and here is a most delightful country. This township is well watered by the Vermilion River and its tributary streams, and is rolling and uneven for this country. Fine springs of durable water are common, even in the prairie. These open plains or prairies are to extensive for good settlements; yet that portion of the country which is wooded is valuable for the kind and quality of its timber as well as the surprising fertility of soil. The prairie lands however are generally deemed superior in richness and fertility to any other, and probably are so.

There are few inhabitants in this section. Occasionally a cabin is found upon the borders of the plains, generally of some Southern emigrant, whose only society is his own family, his dogs and his gun. We have frequently seen fine fields of wheat and corn in open prairie, without any kind of fence or enclosure. It seems that the inhabitants often prefer sowing their grain and planting their corn at the distance of two or three miles from the timbered land, where domestic animals never range and where of course fences or walls are entirely unnecessary.

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Chester Loomis’ “Journey on Horseback through the Great West in 1825,” part 2.

Chester Loomis’ “Journey on Horseback through the Great West in 1825”
Transcribed and introduced by Paul Stroble

Here is chapter two of A Journey on Horseback through the Great West in 1825 by Chester A. Loomis, (1789-1873). The 27-page book was printed by Plaindealer Press of Bath, NY and is subtitled “Visiting Allegany Towns, Olean, Warren, Franklin, Pittsburg, New Lisbon, Elyria, Norfolk, Columbus, Zanesville, Vermillion, Kaskaskia, Vandalia, Sandusky, and many other places.” Loomis had business in Illinois so on June 1, 1825, he set out from Rushville, NY and recorded his observations as he rode through “the “great west,” that is, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. He returned home on August 24, eventually publishing his account in this now-scarce little volume.

Chapter two concerns Loomis’ first week in Ohio, where he finds assortments of timber, generally good soil quality, towns of varying industry, “low morals,” Indian relics, an under-construction Catholic church, and the wreckage left by a tornado. In the next chapter, Loomis visits Columbus, crosses Indiana, gets caught in a storm, meets Indians and white settlers, and reaches Edgar County, Illinois and the Vermillion River.

*****

Chapter II

Ohio – Antient [sic] Mounds – Price of land – Zanesville – An Old Fort – An Aborignal [sic] Empire – A Cyclone.

On the 8^th, of June I continued my journey from Franklin through the village of Mercer, in the county of Mercer, Pa., to Newcastle, on the Chenango river, and on the next day entered the state of Ohio, directing my course for the Big Beaver, which falls into the Ohio river below Pittsburgh. The country is moderately hilly, and is well watered; the timber principally oak, and a soil of light color, somewhat inclining to clay. Fine fields of grain are seen in this section, and more industry and enterprise is observable than I had seen after leaving the state of New York.

Near New Castle I observed several mounds, evidently artificial, but of very ancient formation. They are of a round, oval form–from two to three rods in diameter, and perhaps ten feet high.

These mounds are found near the center of extensive plains. They are composed of sand and a white colored kind of marble, bearing some resemblance to the organic remains of animals, particularly of bones in a state of decomposition.

The lands in the county of Columbina [sic], Ohio, are hilly and rolling. New Lisbon, its capital, has a population equal to that of Geneva, and is a place of some business. The hills in the neighborhood of the village are filled with stone, coal and iron ore is abundant. A furnace here makes good castings.

On the 10^th inst. I reached Sandyhille, in Tuscarawas county. This place is situated on the Big Sandy River. Fifteen miles west of New Lisbon I left the hilly rolling country. Elevated plains extending many miles on a perfect level then succeed–and the face of the country generally is very different from any I had hitherto seen. The soil here is sandy, but certainly rich and productive. Price of unimproved land from $1.25, to $2.00, per acre.

Oak is the prevailing timber, but black walnut, maple and ash, are occasionally interspersed. This section of country has a scattered population. Little industry is observable. Some fine fields of corn are seen, and in many places the women are engaged in hoeing them.

New Philadelphia is the capital of Tuscarawas county, and has perhaps, 100 houses few of them elegant. It stands on a beautiful plan, near Tuscarawa river. Coal, limestone, iron ore, and freestone, are found near this place. This village, and indeed most of the villages in this state, exhibit but little enterprize [sic] or business. I have been particularly surprised in finding most of the adjacent lands unenclosed and remaining open commons. Here scarcely an enclosed field, or even garden is to be seen.

On the banks of the Big Sandy river I noticed several peech [sic] trees of most astonishing size nearly equal in magnitude to the largest oaks in Ontario county, New York.

On the 11^th, I followed the course of the Big Sandy, repeatedly crossing it by fording as the water was low.

The general aspect of the country is pleasant. Its soil is rich and fertile. For the last 50 miles which I have traveled the country is level, and both the open plains and heavy timbered bottom lands, seem to be alluvial. The price of produce here is low; wheat 34 cents, corn 20 cents, and rye 20 cents per bushel. Immense quantities of unthreshed grain in stacks, are seen, and cash seems to be extremely scarce throughout this section of country.

From the 12^th, to the 16^th, of June I continued my journey through a fine country. The afternoon of the 12^th, was spent at Zanesville, a large, rich and populous village on the east bank of the Muskingum river and directly opposite to the junction formed at the place of the Licking and Muskingum rivers.

Zanesville is a place of some business. It is a manufacturing town of considerable wealth. Some elegant and costly buildings, and a population of 6000 inhabitants.

About 70 or 80 run of mill stones are in operation here, and great quantities of flour are annually manufactured. Situated in the heart of one of the finest grain countries in the world, Zanesville has peculiar local advantages, and there is evidently more enterprise and industry among the inhabitants than at any other place nearer than Pittsburgh. Some coal and iron ore abound in the vicinity.

The state of morals is rather low. On Sunday numerous parties of gentlemen and ladies of the higher class of population were making excursions in the neighborhood, while the lower orders were collected in considerable numbers at the groceries and grog shops near the river.

A portion of the population of this place is Roman Catholic. At this time a large and splendid brick building is erecting for a chapel. Toward the expense of this “His Holiness, the Pope of Rome,” has contributed the sum of $20,000, thus showing that he is not unmindful of the interests of the “Holy Mother Church” even in the new, but growing countries of the west.

On the 13^th, of June I passed through the villages of “Falls of Licking,” Irville, Neward and Granville, to Johnstown, in Licking county, Ohio The Licking river, up which I traveled most of the day, is a stream of clear water when compared with the other rivers of this country. It has most extensive black walnut bottoms, beautiful as to soil and situation.

Near Newark are the remains of numerous ancient works and fortifications. That of most remarkable form and mathematical regularity, which I saw is a mile from the village. Its form is that of a regular Octagon, all the sides being by actual measurement, exactly equal. The walls are more than three feet high. At one of the angles, was evidently the gate or opening, opposite in which, within, is the ruins of a raised work on each side and extending some rods within the form of a parallelogram–its walls higher and terminating within in two mounds which now have an elevation of ten feet and overlook the surrounding walls. These were once ports for sentinels, out of the reach of arrows from the outer walls. From the out angle or opening two parallel walls, ten rods apart, extend in a due north direction, about twenty or thirty rods to another ancient work of true circular form, with walls form three to five feet high. In the center of this circle is another mound of equal elevation with those already spoken of. Upon digging into one of these mounds I found first, great quantities of calcined bones, arrow heads of flint, a stone axe, pieces of broken earthen, resembling stoneware, coals, and ashes. I traced the walls of this circle and found but one gate or opening, and from the height at the embankments, this was evidently once a covered way for a considerable distance. It led to a fine spring of water. At regular distances along this covered way on which side were large and high platforms,–say six rods apart–unquestionably designed for defensive ports. Both the Octagon and circle contain, as I should judge, about an equal area–perhaps 20 acres each–now covered, even the walls with the greatest growth of forest trees,—black walnut, blue ash, maple and oak, which have evidently succeeded several former generations of timber, if the expression may be allowed, of equal magnitude and age. The Lucking river once flow ed near these works–its present channel is more than a mile distant.

Near Granville, in the center of an extensive plain or prairie, I saw a mound of true circular form of an elevation exceeding 20 feet. It is composed of a light colored marble, very different in color and appearance from the soil of the adjacent lands, which seem to be composed of a dark colored alluvial soil. This mound is undoubtedly an artificial work, but it cannot have been scooped up from the surrounding earth, as the contiguous land is entirely level to its base. Indeed through a great extent of country here, every mile exhibits evident traces of an immense ancient population. Who can say that this has not been the seat of some mighty empire? Who after seeing these wonderful memorials of former ages, will affirm that some mighty Greece or Rome of the Western world, has not flourished here? Who will declare that here the human mind did not, many thousands since burst the bands of barbarism and ignorance, and exert itself in the noblest efforts of genius or of patriotism?–in taming the ferocity of barbarism, in organizing society, and inventing and sustaining many valuable arts of civilized life–and probably many to which even the present generation of civilized men are strangers?

In the town of Hartford, I noticed a Beaver dam of greater size and strength than I have hitherto seen. It runs from bank to bank, across a small but I presume, durable stream, circular in its form, six rods in length, ten feet in width and three feet high, so constructed as to flow 50 or 60 acres. It is an ancient work, but the marsh or pond favored by it is said still to be the residence of beaver.

On the 14^th of June, about six miles north of Johnstown I crossed the track or course of a tornado, which swept across this state in an easterly direction on the 18^th ult. It seems to have passed with a more irrestible [sic] force than any wind I ever witnessed.

The vein or current at this place was probably more than w mile in width, prostrating in its course every thing with which it came in contact. Trees, houses, barns and fences we equally swept away. The thickest forests of this country appear to have formed an obstacle to its force. All was leveled, and I remarked, that the edges or outside lines of this tornado are well-defined and distinctly marked; every tree in the southern part of the course was prostrated to the north; every tree on its northern side was prostrated to the south, and in the center they seem to have been whirled in all directions but mostly to the east. Scarce a vestage [sic] of the village of Burlington, near this, can now be found—a village composed of about 40 hewed log buildings, all of which were razed to their foundations and their timbers promiscuously mingle with the prostrated trees of the surrounding forests. Several of the inhabitants were killed, and a general and total destruction of every species of prosperity within the course of the wind was experienced. This hurricane is said to have commended in the state of Indiana–to have swept across the state of Ohio, and to have spent itself among the mountains on the eastern side of the Allegany river, in the state of Pennsylvania–an extent of more than 400 miles.

On the 15^th, of June I reached Bloomfield in the county of Knox. This is a new, and mostly an unsettled country here, but in point of fertility, is not surpassed by any part of this state of equal extent. The general face of the country is level. It is here, however, sufficiently rolling or undulating to give a brisk current to the streams. I[t i]s extremely well watered with durable springs of water. It has a deep rich and productive soil, slightly mixed with black sand, although it seems to be composed of vegetable decomposition, principally to the depth of two or three feet. A great proportion of the timber for many miles is black walnut, ash, maple, and oak. The woods are entangled with an immense growth of wild grape wine. The underbrush is principally paw-paw. Price of land here is from $1.25 to $2.00 per acre. This tract is about 20 or 30 miles distant from the route of the Ohio canal.

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