Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1858-10-19
MORNING LEADER.
THE HINCKLRY HUNT----A POEM.

MORNING LEADER.
THE HINCKLEY HUNT---A POEM.
BY Riley ROVER, ESQ.
Twas in the town Of Hinckley
A week or two ago,
And heard the early settlers tell
The tale / write below
The scene that in the tale appears,
You will please remember,
Lies in the paat just forty years
From our next December.
Cleveland was then a field of stumps,
With cabins here and there,
And deemed by many eastern gumps
The borders of despair.
The paths that TO the forest led
Were few and far between,
Unit for wagon, cart, or sled,
The yilest ever seen.
Traced out by spots upon the trees,
Full Of bogs, roots, and crooks,
Where oxen wallowed 'bove their knees
Through mud holes, swamps, and brooks
Then Eastern Mali thought it wrong
For men to come this way,
And bring their families along
Designedly to stay.
In dreams they saw way down in time,
A thousand years, or more,
This land become a goodly cline
With plenty shadOw'd DER.
But waking dared not tell the dream
Lest they appear unwise,
And judged 1t doubtful in extreme
If e'eE the State would rise.
And when they saw men come along,
With wife and children hale,
With sturdy cattle, sleek and strong,
They lifted up the wall:
Why will you wander to the West
Why to Ohio gol
10 perish there IN want DISTRESSED,
Or struggle back in woe!
They hung up pictures on their walls
To mock the noble men,
Who dared to leave the eastern halls
And seek these forests then.
They pictured out the parting scene.
Mid comforts cast away,
Of men in health, with raiment clean,
Refusing there to stay.
They painted then the sad return
OF men in dire distress,
Whose quaking bones with fever burn,
And filthy rags for dress.
They pictured horses fat and fair,
With wagons strong aud sound,
And men with wives Of beauty rare,
All for Ohio bound.
Then pictured horses old and vile,
With crows a croaking round;
And men with wives of woe, the while,
Back from Ohio bound;
Hoping by such sights appalling
To stop the hardy fools,
Whom the mighty God was calling
To plant Nations schools
Fools perhaps the old settlers were,
Let history decide:
Twas God who kept them from despair
While He their patience tried.
He had a work for them to do,
Work by himself laid out;
That work he wisely led them through,
And brought his plans about.
The sad fears Of eastern sages
Kept fainting towards there,
And gave the settlers IN hard stages
The courage Of despair.
They were a set of stalwart men,
And had their pastimes bold:
Wild beasts were in the forest then
As on the plains of old.
They had Old Nimrod's work to do, Cd.
That work TO them was fun; t-
They wildly swept the forest through,
And NimrOd's work was done.
Twas but an item in their task,
They did not deem 1t toll;
And no reward they thought to ask,
The dens Of beasts to spoil.
When they this lesser work has done,
Unlike that ancient Fool,
They laid aside the deadly gun,
And foTm'd the district school.
And bio its howlings cease;
Their skill against the desert turn,
And elothe its hills with peace.
1 sing song Of by-gOne days,
The scene will not return:
We now must win in other ways
The laurels that we earn:
Must win our sports from other scenes
Than those our fathers knew:
Heis an idler now who CLEANS
The fields they hunted through.
Now look back forty years and see
The woods as then they were;
Hinckley had scarcely lost tree
There was one settler there.
It was famous place for shack
Acorns and nuts untold
But not a single wagon track
Had ever mark'd the mould.
Ages on ages It had lain
Basking in rain and sun,
While all the beasts that forests train
Through all its wilds had run.
In all the towns that lay around
The settlers had crept in,
And broke the forest with the sound
That settlements begin.
The township was favored haunt
For game Of every kind,
Where hunters rarely made Jaunt
Their quiet lairs to find.
As taught to shun the settlers door,
They from his cabin fed,