Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1895-08-08
A PIONEER WHO cHlseLED.


He Carved the Commandments on the
Rocks and Texts Everywhere.
Pioneer BENJAMIN Edmunds made
the stones preach, and left in his barn
yard the most pious and massive fence
post in the state of Maine, huge pillar
as large as hogshead, covered with
the Ten Commandments neatly CHS
seled.
Grandpa Edmunds hewed the first
path into what is now the town of Rox-
bury. on the Swift river While he
cleared the path and reared cabin,
his wife lugged on her back all their
earthly possessions
Early in the spring of 1870. or there
about, he had prospected in the region
and picked out the pretty intervale
that he afterward cleared and settled
upon. A friend accompanied him on
that first trip. At dusk one chilly
April night, they reached the spot that
promised best, and in the gathering
gloom Mr.. Edmunds surveyed the level
river bottom from the wooded hill
side.
This suits me; here / settle.' he
said to his companion. Both men were
weary; the tramp had been long and
tedious, and Edmunds' friend proposed
to lie down and sleep The other pio-
neer protested, urging that they might
never awake in that atmosphere,
chilled with April's snow.
The man was tired, however, and
was bound to sleep. He did so, and
Grandpa Ednunds stoica1ly stood up
and pounded tree with a club all
night in order that he might keep
awake. His friend did not freeze to
death, but caught cold that ended in
fatal pneumonia.
The most interesting work of brave
old Pioneer Edmunds' life was his
quaint stone cutting. It was his hobby
and diversion. There were no ch urcheS
in the whole region arouni, and so the
settler used to slip his mallet and
.chisel into his pocket, sly out into the
woods and chisel passages of Scripture
on the rocks.
Pretty soon, so industrious had he
been, that go where he might on his
farm some holy precept, some apo
thegm, some stern commandment,
some helpful word of spiritual cheer
confronted him. The stones had
tongues for him, and others who Ia
bored with him in the Maine wilder
ness.
rounded up with great pains, and
.chiseled on it the Ten Commandments
in letters three inches high. It forms
a fence post in the old barnyard, and
is confronted by another pillar bear
ing the Lords Prayer. It is said the
presence of these stern monitors in the
barnyard repressed many a hired
mans heated argument with refrac-
tory steer. Whether they availed to
=soothe when Boss stepped in the milk
pail chroniclers aver not.
Grandpa Edmunds also attempted
other feats in the stone-cutting line.
He had little dog, of whom he was
very fond, and he carved a statuette
of it that interested visitors may see
on the premises.
Prominently displayed near the cor
ner of the farmhouse is 1ife-size rep
resentation of a human head. A re-
tired sea captain living in the neigh
borhood had a Malay whom he had
brought home, and Grandpa Edmunds
was so impressed by the chaps coun-
tenance that he reproduced it in stone.
The entrance to the yard is set off
by a stone arch, and over the keystone
of this is another human head, very
neatly executed. The old gentleman
had finished up, at great expense of
time and patience, life-size American
eagle, as an ornament for this stone
portal. He was Juggling it across the
yard to its position, when he dropped
the figure and broke off a wing.
The stone post with the Ten Com
mandments was directly before his
eyes.
Scattered about the premises are
many other figures, all laboriously
worked out of the stone with such
rude instruments as the settler pos
sessed. All are quaint and some are
quite creditable.
Though Pioneer Edmunds has been
laid away in his grave many years, his
stone treasures are still carefully pre-.
served, even that American eagle who
so ingloriously and exasperatingly shed
his pinion.-Lewiston Journal.
From q Reliable Eyewitness.
A small tent blossomed on the village