St. Paul daily globe., 1892-03-19
IN PIONEER DAYS.
The Kind of Life Senator Palmer
Saws Had No Hardships.

Saws Had No HardShipS.
Senator Palmer belongs to group of
statesmen of whom but few survive. 1t
is the group of which Lincoln and Ste
phen A. Douglas and Zach Chandler
were types. Men whose lives began in
immediate contact with the rough and
virgin soil; whose early days were
filled with hard, wrenching, muscle
striving work-work that made the hands
broad and thick and hard and which
filled the frame with un-Delsartean out
lines, and stamped the features with the
course marks of rugged strength, which
no after years Of thought or softer sur
roundings ever quite smoOthed away.
MY father and my grandfather on
my fathers side were Baptsts; it ran
in the blood to be Baptists." said Sen
ator Palmer the other evening. They
were very religious men, but either one
of them would have taken down his
rifle to shoot red-coat as cheerfuliy as
he would shoot squirrel"
The fiery spirit of '76 had danced
through the veins of Grandfather Palm
er just as it had through the veins of
the thousands Of other Virginia patriots
whose sentiments came out in the ring
ing words of Patrick Henry. Through
all the long revolutionary struggle Sen
atOr Palmer's grandfathet fought, and
through all the second war with Eng
land did his father fight. He was not
yet married, Johns father, when he
Shouldered musket in the war of 1912.
He took no back seat in that struggle.
He served under Winchester and among
other warm scenes in which he bore his
part was the bloody battle OF the RalSin.
1t was before the breaking out of the
1912 wa. that Palmer pere had left his
old Virginia home and moved to Ken
lucky. Why he picked out as the place
In which to settle about the most broken
country and that having about the poor
est soil of gny in the state is mystery.
But he did. He went to the Eagle hills.
The Eagle hills are still among the
widest spots in the state.
81 was saying to an old friend of
mine, also Kentuckian," said Senator
Palmer yesterday, that l thought [
would go down to Scott county and see
the place where | was born, for | never
have been there since my father moved
away while l was boy. Don't you
do it, said my friend; they would
shoot a bluecoat down there now as
quick as they would in '62.' They are
still fighting out the war in the Eagle
hills, hear"
Louis Palmer made stubborn fight
for living in the Eagle hills, but the
hills were more stubborn than he. He
labored like plough horse, but he got
next to nothing in return. In the mean-
time the brood of young Palmers, all
with mountaineer appetites, was stead
lily increasing. John was the fourth,
and it was written in the Fate
books that three more were to
I%
of starving to death or pulling up
Louis pulled up stakes. The southwest
ern part of Kentucky wrs then talked of
as a sort of promised land, and thither
Louis moved, settling in Christian
county, down on the Tennessee line.
The present senator was then chubby,
toW-headed youngSter, who had just
abandoned all fours as means of loco
motion, and fairly taken to his heels i'll
the race OF life.
The life in Christian county was more
prosperous than in the dreary Eagle
hills. The country was a wilderness,
to be sure, but the soil was fertile. The
family lived in good hewn-log house
and had plenty to eat.
The schoolhouse was built of unhewn
logs. Crevices were stopped with mud.
LII Was Ill GillS SCuUOl dllu uHucI IOUuSG
Parson Boone that Senator Palmer be-
gan his education. When the parson
passed the circular-letter around, Johns
father had signed for 1.-TWO scholars and
half" that is to say, for two scholars
who would attend regularly and one
who would go only part of the time.
Parson Boone was paid in farm produce
and lived in his own log cabin. In
this last respect he was decided swell
as compared with Woodward, the school
master who succeeded him. In pleas
ent weather Woodward slept. wrapped
up in his blankets, in the woods; in
bad weather he slept, wrapped up in
his blankets, in the school house. In
both woods and school house he cooked
his own meals from the food the schol-
ars brought him.
Continued on Ell gath Page.