The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1907-09-12
OF Ye Olden Times Furnished by
One Who Grew UP in a
Pioneer Home.
Incidents Illustrating Customs Of
the Early Settlers OF the
County are Entertainingly
Recounted.
tcontinued from last week

second one In that wnOle ulstrlCt'
Our married brother also built him
self good brick house about the
same time, where be lived for a few
years and then sold 1t to our grand
father, and he removed to 1t from his
farm near Hillsboro, and he and
grandmother spent the balance of
their long lives on this farm which
adioined fathers
soon after my parents moved into
this new house was born, in the year
1888 1t is for the purpose of showing
our young people the great difference
between the time when | was child,
and now, that these sketches are
written, believing that by comparison
they will more fully realize and appre
ciate their many advantages and be
happy 10 learn that their ancestors
were 81 happy and contented with
what youths of this day would likely
consider hard lot indeed. You who
have grandmothers go odd years OF
age, who where born and raised in
Highland County, go ask them, and /
believe they will tell you that my un'
eventful life and work and common
place amusements, haps Ind mishaps,
during childhood aud young woman.
hood were similar to theirs, no matter
in what part of the county they we're
born and raised.
1t would be we'll If all could be
brought to standstill long enough,
in this day of such mad rushing for
wealth and pleasure, in order that
they may be happy to contemplate
seriously the simple lives of our
ancestors, and try to find out, If they
did not obtain, what is so eagerly and
earnestly sought to-day, true happi-
ness, in a much easier and less expen.
sive way, than do their descendants
In the removed, little book of Chas
Wagner's, "The Simple Life" he
says:
"Home life, and the domestic way
must be resumed. Pious solicitude
has sanctified some monuments; the
sole fragments of the past. In the
same pious way hands ought to cherish
the olden costume, the rustic dialects
and ancient ballads, before they dis
appear. How handsome 1t will be of
us to preserve these remnants of a
grand past, vestiges of ancestral
souls Let us do the same with family
traditions, save and cause to last as
long as possible all that fingers still
of the patriarchal, under no matter
what shape"
A great deal fingers with me still
of my childhood home and will while
memory lasts.
An old lane, an old gate, an old house by a
tree,
wild wood, wild brook, they will not let
me be,
In childhood knew them and still they call
tor me.
This dear home of my childhood
and youth l love. to think about ;
though the recollection of 1t takes
me back into the early forties re.
minding me of "springtime fed"
This little unpretentious home! A
farm in Highland county, far removed
from seaside, mountain or lake, and
not near any city or river or even a
railroad at that time; as our Balti-
more IL Ohio, near the home now, was
not get built. The only turnpike
Except one), in the county, the one
from Chillicothe to Cincinnati, ran
within about a half mile of fathers
house, but there was an unfinished
gap in it, near our home, of about
seven miles, which was not finished
until / was grown.
Surrounded, dear children of this
day, as you are, by SO many evidences
OF wealth, culture and refinement ;
and by the wonderful improvements,
brought about by the inventive genius
of man, which seems almost super.
natural, doubtless you can scarcely
believe but what these conditions
have always existed, which seem GO
necessary to your comfort and happi'
mesa; and 1t can hardly be pictured
to your imaginations, by your being
told of the different conditions which
were no further back than sixty OF
seventy years ago, when your grand
parents were little children and were
happy without them.
suspect you wonder what children
did for amusement, when there were
no good roads, for the use of pony
carts, and no asphalt pavements, such
as you now have, for roller skating
and bicycle and tricycle. riding. And
you will no doubt wonder more, wher
l tell you that we had never heard Of
roller skates, bicycles or tricyclei