The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-01-15

 | in some places that we had to cut it with a scythe. Another year remem- Der killed one hundred head of hogs. The wheat field spoken of extended from Main street along the river bank toward the rolling mill. Where the bus ] mess center of the East Side is now To- cated was in those days a marsh and a good place to shoot grass pike. Fish in the river were very plentiful. I re- member while living on the river bank that one morning I thought we would like fish for dinner, so I threw line in , the river, attaching the other end to a tree on the banks, and went to my labor of sitting rails in the woods. Not long afterwards my wife noticed the line moving; she tried to pull it in, but it was too much for her; a man came along and helped her and they landed a twenty-five pound catfish.
 'In 1852 MT. Bissell commenced to sell off lots from his farm in Utah, and as the fences were continually let down, causing trouble, built the house on the corner of Starr and Euclid (since moved on Seventh street) and in 1852 gave up the farm and worked my eighty acres which extended a little east of Euclid along Starr avenue to East Broadway, down East Broadway to Navarro ave- nue.
 T did great deal of timber contract ing in the early days. I had a contract on the Ohio railway which was to run from Sandusky to Toledo, which was built on piles; this was a failure. Then had large contract to furnish tim Der for the Lake Shore when the road was first built. For six years I bought slaves for a firm on the West Side. There were many Indians on the East Side in the early days, and many I times when travelling through here they would stop at my house and beg shelter for the night, which I never refused. lOf course, the house would need fumi- gation the next day after the floor had lbeen covered with Indians all night, but we did not mind that.
 "We were not troubled much with Iwild animals, but in 1S42 bear killed land ate a young steer belonging to Je- rome Smith, who was then living in the vicinity of where Sixth street and Starr lavenue now is. The next day my hired jman and myself made a bear trap and lset it near the corner of Euclid and lGreenwood, but the bear never came lback. Occasionally we heard of one be- ling killed, and one panther was killed by Robert Navarro and an Indian"
 During the days of slavery, previous to the war, there was an organization of people who aided slaves to escape from their owners in the south, which ] system was termed the underground railroad It consisted of passing the negro on from one member to another, and extended from Kentucky through lOhio to Sandusky, where boat took them to Canada, but after the Fugitive Slave bill was passed by congress im- posing fine of two thousand dollars and three years Imprisonment for aid ing slaves to escape, it dampened the ardor of the abolitionists engaged in this work, but some came through af- later the bill was passed, and as Sandus- ky was watched by officers, other means were used and some came through To- Iledo. While MT. Woodruff was not an abolitionist, and did not belong to this lsociety, he never failed to help any poor Islave who was directed to him for help, land secreted and fed many of them in the underbrush on this side of the riv- Ter while officers were here hunting them. until he could pass them on to friends on the west side, who forward led them to Detroit, where they crossed the river to Windsor.
 While MT Woodruff has not been a politician, as the term is applied now he has always taken deep interest in politics.
 The first president that I voted for was John Qincy Adams, and I have never missed voting at presidential Tor gubernatorial election since One time remember was sick in bed and William Consaul and Robert Denman carried me on the bed to boat on the river and took me to the polls held in g lprivate house, where voted Before the republican party was organized ] was a Whig, and since then Republi- lean, though I have often voted for Dem ocrats for county and city offices where knew they were good men,"
 MT. Woodruff remembered the war oi 1872, the burning of Moscow by the Russians before the advance of Napole. on, also the battle of Waterloo.