The Perrysburg journal. [volume] (Perrysburg, Ohio) 1853-1861, 1856-09-18
RAIDROAD VILLAGES.

Railroad villages are comparatively re-
cent feature IN village building. They usual
ly begin with depot, follow by post office,
blacksmith shop, and the contents of a
couple of pedlars' packs duly distributed up
on half dozen shelves, and then they are
born, and chrstened, and waiting to grow.
The trains run to and fro, and the passcn
gers see The little group clustered round the
track, and wonder what they do there. and
why they do not go on with the train.
By and by houses get to be an epidemic,
and up they 90, here and there, and all about.
Streets are staked, and lots are measured
and public square is reserved, and they have
a Justice, and Doctor, and young Law
yer, and "stated preaching once in two
weeks, That's pretty good beginning, but
L's only beginning A young sophomore,
out of funds, and looking for place to teach
a winter school, gets off from a struggling
train some day. Everybody knows he is
there. He reached there at two O'Clock, and
at quarter past three, every body kl ows who
aud What It'll and where he is, and the Squire
sees him, and the doctor shows him round
the town-waves his hand towards the prairie
and dilates upon its resoucts-toward the
town, and proncunces eulogy upon its en-
terprise, and the young man is charmed, and
over the store lie climbs at once up one flight
OF stairs into High School,"
Things go bravely On, and a public spirit
ed individual, who, as he says, has more
room than he wants, gets the painter-for
meanwhile such an artisan has taken passage
in the village en- roHte TO greatness-to en-
blazon his name in large, black letters, upon
a very broad board, and there is general
n ioicing at the new " Hotel" where the lav
yer argues with the storc-keeper nightly,
while the doctor completes tie triangle, and
the dopot-dom in particular.
Whit they lack now is newspaper. By
, and by, an old press is for sale in n ighbor-
ing town, and q tramping jour" has strand
ed upon their beach, and the lawyer promises
to write the leaders, the doctor will contribute
the obituaries, the schoolmaster do the puz-
zles and the poetry, while the blacksmith and
the merchant promise to be liberal patrons in
the way Of advertising. The paper appears
like the village it is small, but loith the viii
lage, it grows.
The trains used to whistle and ring, and
barely stop their speed. Now they stop al
together, for there are more TO get off and
more to get on.
The tavern keeper takes State map of a
pedlar who happens to be his guest of rainy
Sunday, and discovers that DepUtdom is the
geographical seat OF the county. There is an
immediate agitation. The seat of Justice,
Justice herself, scales and all, must be re.
moved thither. They work at it, electioneer
about it, and get it.
Now the huddle is village, now the vii
lage is town now the town shire town,
now the shire-town is city. The black.
smith shop has grown into half-a-dozen
factories the lawyer is multiplied by ten, the
doctor by six, the storekeeper knocks down
his prices ten per cent, to compete with nine
teen new corners.
And all this is accomplished through the
agency of railroads and locomotives, within
the space of two or three years.
The lawyer is county judge, the doctor
has grown rich, the blacksmith is Mayor, and
the Sophomore is married and settled. They
have Lyceum and Library, and little
daily that rcgales its readers with a column
Of city items. How they talk of "our city,
they are no longer villagers and pagans.-
| They are citizens ChicOgo Journal