Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-10-31
COMMERCIAL USE FOR THE BRANDYWINE
Stream Riley Made Famous to
 Be Changed Into Ditch.
DRAINING ITS MARSHES PROPOSED

Land Wf1l Be Able to Raise Bounti-
 full Corn Crops-HoOsier Poets cold
 Swimmin' Hole" Not What It Used
 to Be-Old Rail Fences Gone.
 They are going to commercialize the Brandywine-to market the ripples of '"The Old Swimmin' Hole'' at so much a ripple, or, in other words, make the stream earn it's ''board and keep says a Greenfield Qnd) correspondent of the Indianapolis News. Instead of happy little wonderland wanderer it is to be imprisoned and desecrated with the name of "ditch.'
 It was James Whitcomb Riley that gave the world a heart interest in the Brandywine. The poet of Lockerbie street spent many days of happy boyhood on its tree bordered banks. The Brandywine is only a creek, q wild, crooked, go as 1t pleases creek. It begins it's journey toward the sea somewhere above the little town of Maxwell Hancock county, and winds around toward Greenfield, passes there on the eastern side of town and squirms and twists until the Blue river claims 1t some twenty miles below Greenfield. Its bed Is of mosses, swamp grasses and is much more son. Der than any child of Africa. But the crystal goblets of the gods could not be clearer than the waters of the Brandywine. It is one of natures mir TOTS. The shadows of the saplings and the sycamores dance upon the nipples. The water grasses wave to and fro at the will of the varying currents, and the whole family of woodland crea- lures seems to be constantly picnic on the Brandywine.
 't The creek has changed little in char acter since Riley was boy, although there are those who say that the CT ratio stream has changed its course just enough to leave "The Old Swim min Hole' of Riley's day forty feet ashore However, it is still the Bran dywine, the trees still shade its wa ters as of yore and altogether it is about the same as when they called him Jimmy" But the old rail fences are gone. Instead there are long strands of barbed wire, and along the Brandywine they seem as one of the curses of progress.
 Riley's "Old Swimmin' Hole" was about a quarter of a mile back of Kit Kirkpatrick's barn "a landmark in Greenfield = and something like a mile east of the Hancock county courthouse It was marked by an old "sickamore" that stood about hundred yards be- low what is now the Park avenue ford. In Riley's day 1t was simply "the ford" treacherous spot on the Bran dywine where more than one venture some youth has been cast into swirl ing torrent in attempting to drive across the stream when it was out of humor.
 The "0ld Swimmin' Hole" had only a local reputation prior to June IT, 1882. On that date Riley, writing under the homely nom de plume of "Benj. F. Johnson of Boone" gave to the old h. dianapolis Journal the poem that brought the Brandywine to fame.
 The Brandywine flows for a consid- erable distance through a marsh land. Hundreds of acres of ground that is in its present state unfit for agricultural purposes borders the creek on both sides. and it is for the purpose of re- claiming this land that the farmers of Hancock county propose to deepen and straighten it's channel. Several months ago ten owners of property along the Brandywine filed a petition with the county commissioners asking that the creek be deepened to drain the marsh lands. Immediately there was an out cry of disapproval, and thousands of names were affixed to a remonstrance. The matter has gone through numerous court procedures. but by virtue of a trivial legal technicality the petitioners have won their fight thus far, and it is practically settled now that the BTandywine is to lose it's poetry and to become a ditch.
 The improvement will cost the farm CTS of Hancock county and the prop erty owners of Greenfield more than S40.OO0. In fact. there are those who say that before the work is completed it will reach into six figures. The argu- ment is made by the petitioners that Greenfield will be benefited by the deepening of the creek because it will serve to carry of the city's sewage. Greenfield has almost unanimously spoken against 1t. yet the petitioners appear to have the better of the argu- ment. Every property owner in Han cocks capital will be assessed to pay for the work.
 According to the figures of County Surveyor Monger. the ditch will drain 3S4OO acres of land. The surveyor and his men are already at work making estimates and placing stakes that will show the Amount of fall The dredge will begin its wrecking of the poetic Brandywine about six miles east of Maxwell. Hancock county. and eontin- ue to the south county line, a distance of more than twenty miles. Every wagon bridge that crosses the stream will have to be removed. It is possible that only one bridge will be allowed to remain during the progress of the wOrk-the Pennsylvania bridge east of Greenfield mentioned In Rilev's poem. It is thought that the dredge will be able tO pass under ft The bridge gues- ton is one of the strong points of dis- VEIte. as # is charged by the a1tidredge