The herald., 1895-05-06


swamp and ''the Virginia line' were
nigh, and in his you:h my grandfather
heard great deal of what was done i'll the
world By George Washington and Napo-
leon Bonaparte, but he did not personally
know either of the distinguished cote1n-
poraries
The blue grass lands of Kentucky had
great fame in the southern states 100 years
ago. and my grandfather made the journey
by way of Cum berland Gap and found the
land of promise difficult, because the land
titles in Kentucky were doubtful. Ho had
keg of silver in his wagon, that was fore
ordained to buy a farm and concluded to
cross the Ohio which he did at Cincin
natl, and he had hard pull up the high,
steep and muddy bank and would not
have traded his silver for tine village and a
horse to boot. 1t was, he said q 'misera
bic place, I" He kept on and crossed the
Great Miami near the mouth of one of the
FORKS about ten miles from the Ohio
river. There he built Il cabin in the
woods He knew nothing of the capricous
character of rivers, with the exception of
those in which the tides of the ocean rose
and fell and his house in the woods was
on the big bottom of the Big Miami. A
freezing rain fell, glazing the earth; then
a dotP SHOW, tiiSil q hCeANy lam, dllu liz
heard the horses sounding an alarm III the
night and "curious noise about the
house"
When he got out of bed to see what was
the matter, he stepped into water, and
then he got the horses and wife and chill
dren together, and as soon as daylight ap-
peared they sought higher ground. The
keg of silver was also saved, and it was de-
termined that there was no sense in living
near a river that had the freak of freshets
that could not be controlled or calculated,
and so my ancestor bought land on Pad
dy's Run, a stream about Is miles in
length draining beautiful valley and
bordered by rich land An adventurous
Welshman-anyb ybody would know he was
Welshman from his name, Morris Jones
had 'entered a section of land"-that
is, took up square mile-and found
it too much for him. so he sold the north
half of it to John Halstead, the special
merit of it being that it was about evenly
divided between hill and bottom land, the
hills covered with fine timber, and the
bottoms giving assurance OF rich fields far
beyond the swelling floods of the Miami.
There were also two springs about quar-
ter of "a mile apart, each gushing with wa
ter that was clear as if distilled, but touch
6U WIFI llIl6. OIS WAS WluHll lOO ydIuS
of the northern border of the farm, and
the other was central to 1.-THE place."
These springs were at the feet of the hills.
There was "a third one that came out.in
higher ground, and the three sent forth
threads of silver that when joined formed
brook.
Beside the central spring under a null
berry tree, that long hourished and drop
ped berries as large as IA mans finger and
sweet as honey in the honeycomb, my
grapdfather's wagon was stopped, and the
long Journey from tide water by way of
Cumberland Gap. and Cincinnati and the
Great Miami river was at an end. Near
the mulberry tree were several red oaks, a
beautiful ash, hickory and a group of
slippery elm and persimmon trees There
were papaws and hazel bushes and sassa-
fras and spice bushes, red buds and dog
woods and sweet gum and honey locust.
and there were wild raspberries and black
berries and dewberries and May apples
and ginseng and strawberries. one OF the
stories that travelled over the southern
mountains and beguiled the North Caro-
iinians was that when the surveyors rode
through the Ohio woods their horses legs
were stained to the knees with the blood
of tho rawberries know about the wild
borries for have gathered them from the
"hushes" and eaten them on the spot, and