Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1909-10-20
Looking Backward Fifty Years.
HERMAN BUCHNER.

HERMAN BUCHNER,
This article is written for the boys
and girls of the Herald subscribers
and for those who ware boys or girls
fifty years ago. 1t is not written for
critics or the highly educated beings
who disdain the erroneous construc-
tion of sentence, nor for those who
float in an upper strata of attenuated
atmosphere for those whose sensitive
souls would be shocked should you call
spade spade or leg a leg. But
if you are one OF those critics and
should find nything in the following
lines that you don't like, keep on
earth, go TO your closet where you
should say your prayers and swear at
the imbecile who is trying to enter
tain for a few weeks the boys and
girls old and young. It was intimat-
ed to me years ago, that the idiom
of my English language was faulty.
l know it, always knew it. But had
that individuals parents died in a
foreign country before he was ten
years old, and he been deprived of at
tending any school before he was
twelve years old, and from that time
on, alone. fight the battle of life, had
ne survived, be might now be in COM
petition with the wood saving ma
chimes Of CassvilIe or Lancaster.
Critics are cruel, inhuman, damnably
inhuman. A wise man once said.
''Tf you buy picture you will place
it in a most favorable light, to give
the best effect of its beauty. So treat
all men. all are your brothers. For
it was only an accident, when and
where and by whom you were born.
A few weeks ago l paid visit 10
my old friend George Fl. Lewis
and to Joe his estimable wife
living IN Potosi Linked with their
names are the most pleasant recollec-
tion of my life While enjoying
dinner with them it occurred to me,
that fifty yeals ago on the coming 18th
day of April myself and friend,
now dead, arrived by the Dunleith
stage at the old Potosi sawmill, then
owned by Simon E. Lewis, George
Kinney and | think Mir Augustine.
We stopped at the spring which sup
piled the mill with water, and took
our first drink of water in Wisconsin.
Then drove up that charming old
Quaker Hollow to the village of
Potosi and stopped at the hotel then
kept by Uncle Frank Neavil. We
were guided in to the dining room
where a we'll served dinner of ham
and eggs helped to make life comfort
able, The building has since been
reftted and is perhaps the cosiest
house in Potosi and has been occupied
by my friend Lewis for some years
Yess there | was in the same base
ment in the same dining room. Now,
when a fellow gets to be three score
and ten and then some, ard it is
brought to him that he mad been
somewhere fifty years ago. his mind
will recall wildly how he happened
to get there. About the middle of
April 1860. three young people met
on a New York and Erie r. r.
train on its way to Chicago. Their
destination was uncertain. Finally
one of them said he would go to
Hannibal, Mo. There was talk of
Wisconsin, but there was no parti
cular reason why all could not go to
the same place 1t is said "the
breaking of straw may p1ecipitate
nations into war. - We agreed to
disagree but it was agreed that it
should be left to flip of a copper
Jour copper cents at that time were
about as large a silver half dollar, J
l Tipped the copper, Heads and we
go to Missouri with John r. Walsh.
Tails and Gotleib Geisenheimer and
I would go to the mines in Wiscon-
sin. Our destiny, or better the flip of
a copper, decided our future. Tails it
came up and friend Geisenheimer and
your humble servant cotton our way
TO Wisconsin.