Arizona republican., 1910-05-04
SEVENTY YEARS OF
 LIFE EXPERIENCE
interesting "Reminiscences Recalled to the Mind of Silas St. John, by the Receipt of
 Post Card.

Silas St. John of 709 West Wash ington street, is one of the most inter esting persons in the city to meet especially in a conversation lnhlhs moosrn American life with the days of a period antedatins the birth or mos people of the present day. MT St John is well along in the 'os thol gh he is so well preserved lew people would think of placing him be-
 youd the early eos and his recollec- tious of earlier times are quite vivid, both as concerns events in the great
 west and along the Atlantic seaboard. Mu,h of his life has been spent m the west and he is quite familiar with II from ehe northern to the southern line his first residence in Arizona De ing in the sos before most of the pres ent Arizona people were born. At the sane time until late years he spent much Of his life in the east and was born and brought up in the old mother state of Connecticut.
 A conversation with him yesterday followed his exhibition of a post card picture that carried him back to other days and which he had just received T Connecticut The picture was re- production on q post card of picture of the old school house in which he learned "readin'. 'ritin and 'rithmetic.
 in I840-4l, or over seventy years ago The school house was torn down ab ut twenty years ago to give place to q more modern structure, the old building dating back almost to the birIh of the republic. The building was an old-fashiGned frame structure of hewn chestnut logs and covered with chestnut shingles and when torn down the wood was almost as sound as when the school house was built
 incidentally Mir St John said the letter enclosing the postcard vas re- sponse to one he wrote not long ago and the writer Of it informed him that his letter had been received on the llIth birthday of Aunt Sally" MT St John says the census of 1900 showed | that that and the two adjourning counties in Connecticut ten years ago held the record as the section of the 1 United States in which there was the greatest percentage of elderly people On that point says Mir. St John there is an old saving in the east of a humorous nature, that ac- counts for the condition. The Connec- ticut people are reputed to be very economical and the ground is almost all of it covered with layers Of granite stuck in edgewise. Those inclined to joke concerning the long life of people in those counties, say it is due to the fact that grave digging is so expensive IL. f.a..f that they can afford to die.
 one thing suggesting another Mr. St. John also spoke of three other | facts that ought to take the starch out of the egotistical twentieth cen | tury folk who cherish the idea that | all the great ideas now worked out | are of very modern discovery. He | says that the truth is that himself and [ his school boy associates used to tele i phone each other as far back as lS46 | using as a transmission wire Prof l Morse's first telegraph '. re from New | York to Boston, which ran through ! their rural settlements. Satur- days evere holidays and the boys in | niddlesex and Short Rocks used to get together in parties and go fishing ar hunting or engage in some other diversions. TO save the trouble of spending good time hunting each oth- rr up Saturday mornings they devised n code of signals and the leaders in thr two settlements would visit the telegraph line near their homes Sat urday mornings. and by series of raps on the telegraph poles would advise each other of their meeting places. It was crude but 1t worked
 Speaking of wireless telegraphy Mir St. John says that while it has been wonderfully improved in recent years. it has been utilized in crude way for generations, nobody knows how long. by those who. were skilled i. woOdcraft. He says that when his fathers oxen used to stray away one ar more of the beasts always carry ing q bell, the practice was to go to the nearby wood and selecting the tailest tree put the ear close to it and the sound of the bell could be heard a | great distance, the sound waves being caught at high altitude by the tree and passed down through its trunk. By little skill and practice they