The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1904-10-21
HOW UNCLE "JOE"
CANNON GOT
HIS WIFE
WON BRIDE FROM cANFIELp, IN
THIS STATE.
A Story OF Human Interest That viii
Please People Of This Part
of Ohio,

The following from the Pittsburg
Sunday Dispatch under a Winfield,
Kan, date is of more than passing
interest to people of this part of the
state:
THE story OF how Uncle Joe Cam
non got his wife, as related by Colonel
S. f. Fink of this city is full of in
terest. Colonel Fink was born at Cam
field, Ohio. the seat of Mahoning acad-
emy, where Molly Reed, who later be-
came the devoted wife Of Speaker
Cannon, was school girl. The
charms of this young woman, who was
the flower of that then western set
tlement, are interestingly described
by Colonel Fink in his "reminiscences
of Northwestern Ohio.
I'm the early Cos while stirring
events were being enacted and these
mighty men were on the stage" said
Colonel Fink, Molly Reed was a
school girl in Mahoning academy at
Garfield, on the southern border of
the flrelands, ten miles south of where
Mckinley first saw the light of life
and seven west of where he spent his
school boy days and put on the blue
of a soldier.
"Cantfeld was then a beautiful lit
tie city set on a hill, with broad
streets, thickly set with trees, the
home Of cultivated, intelligent peo-
pie, an ideal school town. Molly
Reed was a beautiful, bright, rosy
checked, cherry-lipped and happy girl.
Admirers came and went with
Molly's smiles or her frowns. Her
beauty and her winsomeness made
her the master and her pathway was
strewn with sad and broken hearts.
I'm the summer Of the great cam
paign while the black clouds of dire
disaster hung low over the nation,
Molly went to the then far away
prairies to visit her cousin and her
aunts. The gods gather whom they
will Uncle Joe Cannon, then a boy
lawyer, stood by her pathway, and
her beauty and her smiles, her sweet
ness and her gentleness fascinated
Joe, while his manly bearing won
Molly's heart and the entangling
meshes of love entwined and bound
them forever. Their plighted faith
only awaited the consummation which
time has consecrated and made holy.
with the shortening days Molly
returned to her Yankee home to await
the coming Of her Joe in the spring
time. One by one her companions
learned, in confidence, of her betroth-
al until it became the village story
that Molly had been won by another
and lost to all the anxious Yankee
boys
THE delightful day had been set,
and the time of the coming of her
Joe was as widely known as that of
her betrothal. But Joe did not come.
1t was before the days of railroads
and telegraphs for Garfield, and news
from afar crept slowly. Some Penn
sylvania Dutch were sprinkled among
the Yankees, and one Of these in SYM
pathy and wonder said Molly,
vwat you dink he cum still?' and with
her candor and frankneess she an
swered, I still entertain a hope
speaking after the manner of her
church, for Molly was a Methodist.
Soon It became known that Joe
was making his first political cam
paign, and as candidate for district
attorney, and when the battle was
over he came to Canfeld and carried
away his Yankee girl. There was
sadness in many hearts when Molly
and Joe left their far western abode.
Away on the distant prairies Joe
and Molly built their home Since
then over forty years have come and
gone into the never-returning past,
bringing prosperity, happiness and re-
nown, and with their joys the coming
of three lovely daughters to make glad
the household. With smiles come
tears as we'll for Molly has passed
over the river to the house not made
with hands, and left her Joe and the
daughters to strew flowers OF sweet
mamnryo