Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes County, Ohio) 1856-1865, 1858-12-30
NO. 10:
Death of n once Noted Circus
Perf0rmeP

n. P. Willis has been on visit to the
Northern Neck of Virginia, and writes
some Interesting letters 10 his "Home Jour-
nal. - One of them contains a very pretti-
Fly written incident attending lis visit to
saw mill in Middlesex county. He says:
The miller was a very sickly, grave, in
communicative man; who crossed over
from the tumble-down shanty under which
his rough machinery was doing its work,
and, applying key to the paddock Of a
stone hut near by, invited me in. The
single room was of wigwam size and pro-
portions, and the furniture consisted of one
long and rude bench, a few, ragged bed
clothes, bundled up in the corner, tea
kettle, one plate, a knife and fork, and
broken frying pan. 2 A gun stood In the
corner, and on the floor lay wild duck,
which had been shot that morning on the
mill pond. A question as to the number
of kinds of this bird so plentifully in the
region round about, (of which he said
there were thirty, naming among others,
the blue wing, the canvass back, the dipper,
the black duck, the ball-cott, the red-head;
and the mullard,) led to conversation as to
the climate, etc., ETC., and | was very much
struck with the quiet justness of his re-
marks, and their phraseology, and, withal.
"a knowledge of the world which is only
got commonly by much travel and obser-
| vatlon.
Under his slouched hat was physiog-
noniy very nobly cut, and his frame, spite
of his heavy tattered clothes, showed the
very finest of herculean proportions. |
took very great fancy to my new friend
as we sat over the smouldered logs of the
huge fireplace, and speculated not little
as 10 his probable history. And who do
you suppose he was9 No less person
than Mcknight. the once famous Hercules
of "Turner's Circus" who, some years
ago, used to astonish the world by resist
ing with his own legs and arms the pull
of four horses, letting forty-two FOUNDER
be discharged upon his breast, lifting un-
heard of weights, and many similar wond-
ers of skill and strength. In of these horse
encounters he had strained some vital por-
tien of his loins, and had come to Virgin
ia to 60 into sickly retirement as the over
seer of saw mill.
But the sight of that magni6cent1y
moulded man, as he lay stretched, the
next morning, on The rough bench where
he sat and conversed, flor as we passed,
on our return, we learned that be had died,
few hours after we had left him,) was
the impressive picture in which these in
troductory remarks will explain my pecu-
liar interest.
Think moment of the poetry-I may
even say the sublimity-of such a scene.
The saw mill, half in ruins, stood in the
heart of an, oyergrown pine wilderness;
the winding road for miles on either side
seeming, to the Traveller, like the interne-
diate aisles of a tall columned and dim
| lighted cathedral. With the death cf the
miller the wheel bad stopped, and the ab-
soute hush was depend by the unruffled
stillnes of the large pond, which reflected
like the reality ITSELF the overhanging
woods enclosing it-one single sign Of
life alone visible; the pull of the caught
fish upon the dead mans pole which, with
its baited hook and line, be had left stuck
in the timbers of the bridge! 1t was day
of Indian summer, without cloud in the
sky or breath of wind and the intense
light which struggled down through the
tops of the immense trees, looked, amid
the deep shade, like the sharp-edged frag-
ments Of broken mirror.
And, amid these effective surroundings
stood the old stone, with its door open and
its fire gone out, and, its long slender
bench of rough plank, the fine hermit-liks
tenant-his team and their black drivers
remaining for that day at their remote
homes, and he lying cold and alone in the
solitude of the wilderness.
My friends, Ike myself, were struck
with the exceeding nobleness and beauty
of the dead mans features as he lay asleep.
The clear sallowness of the skin gave the
face an aspect Of. ancient marble, and the
projecting forehead, and the finely chiseled
nose with its expanded nostrils, and the
firm and well cut lips below, aided in pro-
ducing the effect of some admirable con-
ceptiou of statuary-the homely circum-
stances of the laying out, in that rude and
deslate looking hut, adding not little to
its impressivenes. And then the heigth
and breadth of the enormous chest of the
dead man, as he lay on his back, clad only
in his torn shirt and rough trowsers, his
feet tied together with coarse rope, and
his hands crossed carelessly upon his
breast, completed a picture, whic, acciden-
tally as it formed part of the sights upon
the road in days journey, will hereafter
be one Of the most vivid in my recollec-
ton. ' Si @
Mcknight if I was rightly informed,
was Rhode Island man, and has left
wife from whom he has been separated
some years. As he was living here in ap-
parently forgotten obscurity and seclusion.
it is possible that this may carry, to his
family also, the first news of his death
(the result should state of suffocation in
the congestion of fever.) And so ended
the life of a man who was gifted with
points of superiority, which, to knight in
the davs of chivalry, would have been an
inheritance no gold could outweigh. That
he was well endowed, also, in disposition
and natural powers of mind, should pre-
sumo from his countenance, the formation
of his head, and his conversation. Peace
to his remains.
waMike, what kind of potatoes are
II.