River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1895-11-07
MADE TnE STONES PREAcn.
A Maine Pioneer who Chiselod Command
n,ants and Texts Everywhere.

A Maine Pioneer who Chiselsd Commando
rsants and Texts Everywhere.
Pioneer Benjamin Edmunds made
the stones preach, and left in his barns
yard the most pious and massive fences
! post in the state of Maine, a huge,
round pillar as large as a hogshesd.
covered with the ten commandments
neatly chiseled.
/ Grandpa Edmunds hewed the first
! path into what is now the town of Rox-
bury on the Swift river. While he
cleared the path ana reared a cabin,
his wife lugged on her back all theirs
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
upo1. A friend accompanied him on
that first trip At dusk, one chilly
April night, they reached the spot
that promised best, and in the gather
/ ing gloom Mr.. Edmunds surveyed the
level river bottom from the wooded
/ hillside.
This suits me; here I settle" he
s. i'd to his companion. Both men were
weary; the tramp had been long and
tedious, and Edmund's friend proposed
to lie down and sleep. The other
pioneer protested. urging that should
they sleep 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 Edmunds stoically stood up
and pounded q tree with club all
night in order that he might keep
awake. His friend did not freeze -
death, but caught cold that ended in
fatal pneumonia
The most interesting work of bravo
old Pioneer Edmunds' life was his
! quaint stone cutting. 1t was his hob
by and diversion. There were no
churches in the region around, and so
the settler used TO put his mallet and
chisel into his pocket, slip out into the
woods and chisel passages of Scriptures
on the rocks. Pretty soon, so indus
trious had he been, that go where he
might on his farm some holy precept.
some apothegm, some stern com mand-
ment, some helpful word of spiritual
cheer confronted him. The stones had
tongues for him and others who labor
ed with him in the Maine wilderness.
One huge bowlder he smoothed and
rounded up with great pains. and CHS
eled OF Ii the ten commandments in
letters three inches high. 1t forms a
fence post in the old ba~nyard, and is
confronted by another pillar bearing
the Lords prayer. 1t is said the pres
ence of these stern monitors in the
barnyard repressed many hired mans
heated argument with a refractory
steer. Whether they availed to soothe
when Bess stepped in the milk pail
chronicles aver not
Grandpa Edmunds attempted other
feats in the stone-cutting line. He
| had little dog, of whom he was very
fond, and he carved a statuette of il
/ that interested visitors may see on the
premises
Prominently displayed near the
corner of the farmhouse is a ife-size
representation of a human head. A
retired sea captain living in the neigh
borhood had a Malay whom he had
brought home, and Grandpa Edmunds
was 50 impressed by the chaps coun-
tsnsnce that he reproduced it in stone.
The entrance to the yard is set off by
o stone arch, and over the keystone OF
this is another human head, very neat
~ 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 ne
yard to its position. when he d'opped
he figure and broke off wing.
The stone post with the ten COM
mandments was directly before his
eyes.
Scattered about the promises ara
manv other figures, all Ia boriously
/ work ed out of the stone with such rude
/ instruments as the settler possessed
All are quaint and some are quite cred-
liable.
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
soingloriously and exasperatingly shed
his pinion. Lewiston Journa1