xt7ns17sng25 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7ns17sng25/data/mets.xml Walker, James Barr, 1805-1887. 1881  books b92f518w1718812009 English Sumner & Co. : Chicago, Ill. Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Frontier and pioneer life --Ohio River Valley. Experiences of pioneer life in the early settlements and cities of the West. text Experiences of pioneer life in the early settlements and cities of the West. 1881 2009 true xt7ns17sng25 section xt7ns17sng25 
    
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   EXPERIENCES

OF

PIONEER LIFE

IN

THE EARLY SETTLEMENTS AND CITIES OF THE WEST.

BY

/

JAMES B   WALKER.

chicago.

SUMNER & CO. 1SS1.

140997 
         1 4

Copyright, 1881, by SUMNBR & Co. 
   PREFACE.

experience of a pioneer in the  frontier   settlements and cities of the west.

The chapters that are to follow will contain a true statement of incidents occurring in the life of a man who lived from childhood to old age in the forests, villages and cities of the Great West. The history will be an egoism, of course. It can be nothing else. Those who read the first chapters will be interested in the last. The first, although widely different in spirit and purpose from the last, are a part of the whole, without which sketches of the life of a western man would not be complete.

Few persons living in the world have passed through so varied an experience as the writer of the chapters which are to follow. This 1 am sure will be the opinion of the reader who follows the series to its conclusion. But I will not anticipate. The common incidents of life are not often impressed upon the memory; but sometimes incidents which would seem minor to others are of deep interest to the individual who experiences them. Such incidents are not omitted in the following narrative. 
    
   CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

page.

The Cabin and the Clearing,      ------ 7

CHAPTER II.

Schools and School Discipline,      -      -      -      -      -      - 20

CHAPTER III. The Factory Boy,      --------- 28

CHAPTER IV.

The Store Boy on the Frontier,      ------ 39

CHAPTER V.

The Printer's Apprentice, ------- 50

CHAPTER VI.

The Traveling Printer,   -------- 64

CHAPTER VII. The Clerk and the Schoolmaster,......77

CHAPTER VIII. Editor, Politician, Student-at-Law, 94

CHAPTER IX.

The New College and the New Life,       -      -      -      -      - no CHAPTER X.

Various College Experiences,       ------ j26 
   6 CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XI.

Agent of the American Bible Society, 135

CHAPTER XII. Editor and Reformer,                     ...      -      -      - 162

CHAPTER XIII. First Pastorate and Professorship,    - 179

CHAPTER XIV. Author and Preacher, ....... igo

CHAPTER XV. Author, Evangelist, Editor and Publisher in Cincinnati, 214

CHAPTER XVI. Preacher and Pastor   Mansfield,           -      - 234

CHAPTER XVII. Chicago in the Early Day,.......243

CHAPTER XVIII. Mansfield and Abroad,.......248

CHAPTER XIX. Sandusky,.........- 256

CHAPTER XX. Benzonia and the College,    ------- 262

Notes, Thoughts and Incidents,.....271 
   PIONEER LI FE.

CHAPTER I.

THE CABIN AND THE CLEARING.

My father and elder brother both died before I was born. I have never known what may be peculiar in the love of a brother or sister. I have no record of my father's history except a marriage certificate preserved by my mother, and some masonic regalia, indicating that he was a master mason. My widowed mother returned to the home of her father, and soon after removed with my grandfather's family from the city of Philadelphia to a new farm in a region which was then the western frontier   twenty miles from Fort Pitt   now the city of Pittsburg. My first recollections are of a log cabin   the "clearing" in the woods, and the struggle of a family from the city to live in a new settlement.

The region west of the Allegheny Mountains was then called the "Indian Country."   The names of 
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PIONEER LIFE

Brady and Poe, and others who led the pioneer settlers in the border warfare with hostile Indians, were the honored names with those who came first into the new settlements. In the neighborhood gatherings of the men, and the visits of the women to each other's cabin, tales of peril with the Indians, or of adventures in hunting the game which then abounded in the forests, were familiar, and often exciting subjects of conversation.

Among my first recollections is a story told of one of the earliest settlers, whose cabin was occupied before the incursions of hostile Indians had ceased. The husband had gone a day's journey to Fort Pitt, to obtain food necessary to the subsistence of his wife and child, which he left alone in the cabin to watch and wait, in fear, until his return. Before he left, the cabin was made to look forsaken    as though the family had suddenly removed from it. Cooking utensils and such other implements x as they possessed were hid in the woods. No fire was kindled. The slabs, split out of logs with the axe   called puncheons   which had been laid down as a floor, were taken up and thrown confusedly around   principally piled in one corner of the building. Under these an excavation was made in the ground, and some bed clothes thrown down, where the woman and her child might be concealed if she saw signs that Indians were in the vicinity. Here this brave pioneer woman had slept, or rather watched one weary night. Early the next morning as she looked out stealthily through the chinks of 
   IN THE NEW WEST.

9

the cabin, she perceived Indians lurking upon the edge of the clearing. She hastened with her infant child to her place of concealment under the floor. The Indians, when they supposed they had satisfied themselves that the cabin was forsaken, came in arid examined the premises to see if any thing was left worth appropriating. While they remained, the woman lay nursing her child to keep it from movement and noise. Once or twice the movement of the little one, it seemed to her, would surely betray her; but the talk and tramping of the Indians prevented their quick ears from catching the sound from beneath. In a short time they hastened away, fearing, perhaps, an ambush or attack by the settlers. The husband returned, heard the story of his wife's peril, and removed his family to the nearest "block house," or frontier fort, and hastened to give warning to the pioneers that Indians were prowling upon their border.

The first families in Western Pennsylvania and Kentucky subsisted in a good measure, during the first years, upon corn bread, and the game which they procured in the forests. The deer, the wild turkey, and other game were plentiful; and almost every family had a rifle or two hanging over the cabin door, on buck horns, by which they supplied themselves with venison. The skins, which they seasoned and tanned themselves, were made into moccasins and breeches for the men and boys, or they were bartered at the nearest market town for supplies of ammunition and whiskey for the men, 
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and occasionally a quarter of tea for the women.

Soon after the removal of my grandfather to his cabin, a company of three hunters called to see the new-comers. As yet there was no door in the cabin. A bed-quilt was hung up where the door should have been, until a single board was brought twenty miles to make a door. This board was the only one ever used in the cabin. The hunters, (without the ceremony of knocking,) put aside the quilt, perhaps with the muzzle of their guns, and walked in. The incidents which followed, rendered vivid by frequent recital, are still distinct in my memory. They were dressed in the hunter's costume of the times. A cap made of a fox or raccoon skin, with the tail attached behind; a hunting-shirt (as the outside garment was called,) which consisted of a butternut colored linsey-woolsey frock, with a small fringed cape; pantaloons of dressed deerskin; a leathern belt, with a large knife attached, and moccasins tied with leather strings upon their feet. As these three men entered the cabin, they were saluted with a loud scream by my mother and aunts. The women had heard of the Indians with terror, and supposed that they were now to be scalped or carried captive by these supposed savages. There was a second floor   what was called a loft   in the cabin, reached by a ladder. The young women sprang up the ladder and crouched together trembling, and perhaps praying for deliverance. After the hunters had a little recovered from their surprise, words of inquiry and explanation, spoken in 
   IN THE NEW WEST.

their own language, assured the affrighted women that their scalps were safe, at least for the present; and after a little delay to compose themselves they ventured down the ladder, and shook hands with the grinning hunters.

A sorrowful tale was told in the frontiermen's settlement of a frozen hunter found near the decayed trunk of a fallen tree, against which he had laid his rifle. There were marks of his fingers upon the tree where he had attempted to detach dry bark and material to make a fire. His lint or flint had failed him. He had probably lost his bearings in the woods; or he may have followed some valuable game away from his accustomed track. The night had come on, and with it intense cold. Feeling chilled and drowsy as those do who die by freezing, he had lain down beside the fallen tree. The death chjll had imperceptibly stolen over him, and he slept his last sleep under the stars in that trackless forest. There were sorrowful hearts in one lonely cabin during that winter. When the snow was gone in the spring, the hunter's body was found and interred by the few settlers of the border. Long afterwards the story of the "lost hunter" was told, and his finger marks were shown upon the tree, where failing to kindle a fire, he had laid down to sleep the sleep that knows no waking.

My grandfather's family consisted of two young men and two daughters beside my mother. All these labored by day and by night to reach a self-sustaining condition in their new home. Within 
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PIONEER LIFE

the period of three years the desired end was gained and the deprivations and sacrifices of pioneer life were greatly abated. During those first years the woods around the clearing were often lit up at night by the blaze of burning log heaps ; and from the cabin door my grandfather and uncles could be seen revealed in the light, or flitting like spectres through the lurid smoke, rolling the logs and piling the brush upon the blazing heaps.

I remember that a German neighbor, who lived on the adjoining farm, and who had "settled" before we built our cabin, had the first wheat flour in the neighborhood. My grandmother having dieted for a long time on corn-bread and potatoes, either borrowed, or she received a present of two cupfulls of wheat flour, which, no doubt, was to her more savory food than are costly confections to the debilitated victims of fashionable life.

Our people were of the Scotch Covenanter stock, and at that time there were no churches of their own persuasion in the region. At the distance of about six miles a frontier Presbyterian minister, Rev. Mr. Bracken, was endeavoring to gather the pioneer families into a congregation. The meeting house was of logs, and the floor was not yet laid down. The congregation for a time sat on the cross logs which were designed to sustain a floor, when material could be procured to make one. A little incident which occurred about this time evinced the unsophisticated character of the youth in the woods. The younger members of the family frequently 
   IN THE NEW WEST.

   3

walked to meeting, while those who remained observed sacred time with a degree of strictness and reverence unknown in this day. Nothing was read but the Bible on the Sabbath. I was permitted to indulge in no excited movement, nor even free laughter during the Day of Rest; and in after years, although reverence and faith were, in a general sense, lost, there was still something in my mind that reluctated against Sabbath profanation.

On one occasion as a party journeyed on foot to the church, they were accompanied by my youngest aunt, who had scarcely reached womanhood, and a youth who was one of our neighbors. The young woman accidentally lost her garter, which becoming known to the party, the young man took out his jack-knife, stepped aside into the forest, and separated the pensile bark from a bass-wood bush; and having cut a band of it about the length of the lost garter, he tendered it, with kindly suggestions, to my youthful aunt. The incident was reported in the family circle before sun down on that Sabbath day, and the loud and prolonged hilarity that followed, at the expense of aunt Mary, could be restrained by no rules of Sabbath decorum. Whether it were reprehensible or not, the casuist may determine. For myself, I have no doubt the intention in the act was as pure and more benevolent than that of the royal gallant, whose like courtesy is perpetuated from age to age by a brotherhood of knights, whose escutcheon bears the significant device, "homo soit que maly pense." 
   PIONEER LIFE

The early times families had not the facilities to supply themselves with raiment which those possess who now emigrate to the West. The people clothed themselves almost entirely in material of their own manufacture. Flax was sown, prepared, spun and woven in our own family; and when a few sheep could be kept on the farm, wool was mingled in the fabric, and an article called linsey was produced, which was commonly worn, both by men and women.

When wool became more plentiful and flannels were manufactured, there were no fulling-mills such as existed in later years. Necessity was the mother of invention more frequently in early days than now; and one of the methods of fulling flannels was sufficiently primitive; while at the same time, it was excessively exhilarating to those engaged in it, and those who witnessed it. The woolen web was saturated with soap and water and thrown down in an emulsient mass upon a clean space in the centre of the cabin floor. The men of the neighborhood,    especially the young men   rolled their pantaloons up to their knees, and with bare feet sat in a circle on the floor around the woolen web in the centre. At a given signal each one commenced kicking vigorously upon the web, and his kicks were met by equal ones from the opposite operator. It became a matter of muscular endeavor by each one not to be kicked back on the floor by his antagonist; hence quick, prolonged, and spasmodic kicking was paid out upon the web in the center, which was occa- 
   IN THE NEW WEST.

sionally plied by the laughing house-women with additional soap and warm water. The result was that the flannel was thoroughly fulled, the operators thoroughly saturated with sweat, soap and water ; and a general, and somewhat vociferous laughter was induced, which shook the sides of all present, and promoted appetite for the homely but wholesome meal which followed. Gatherings for the purpose of fulling by this primitive process were called by the pioneers, "kicking frolics." Since then I have seen fulling mills pushing and pounding the woolen web with their wooden instruments, but I think I never observed the process without smiling when the old recollection of the "kicking frolic" was suggested to my mind. And I think it doubtful whether any fulling mill ever did the work more thoroughly than it was done in the cabins of the first settlers in the "Indian Country."

As the people found means to clothe themselves in fabrics of their own manufacture, the old and worn apparel which they had brought with them from their former residence, could be cut up and made into clothing for the youngsters. I remember well a suit which my aunt manufactured for me out of a worn garment which belonged to my mother. Buttons were scarce in those days, and the expedient was adopted of cutting slices off from the corks of bottles, and covering them for button-moles. When the job was finished, I was dressed in my new suit, and sent on an errand to our nearest neighbor, John Henry.   I have a distinct remembrance of a feeling 
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PIONEER LIFE

of pride, strong to exultation, that possessed me, as I entered the cabin door. My excitement was so apparent that the family noticed it, and some of them made a remark which I remember to this day, that

little James-was proud of his new suit. I

have had various suits since then of various textures, but I have no recollection of a feeling of self-gratulation so strong as that which possessed me, when clad in that new suit made out of my mother's old one.

Schools in the early years of the settlement were few and sometimes distant from our dwelling. The first school which I attended was kept by an old gentleman whose name was Ashton. He had been a militia officer in the time of the Revolution. He married a young wife, and removed from the old settlements into the new, where he taught a school in the same room in which he and his wife lived and lodged. His successor was a young man of fine personal appearance, but a great rascal, who made it his business to try the hearts and the virtue of the young women in the country around. The pleasantest face in our neighborhood was that of Sally Otto, a daughter in a German family of the better class of pioneers. The first pleasant impression ever made on my mind by woman's face was made by Sally Otto. I remember standing   a little boy   at her knee, and looking up at her pleasant features, while she talked, and her large blue eyes beamed smilingly upon me, as I tried to answer her questions. 
   IN THE NEW WEST.

17

It was not long before it was whispered in the neighborhood, that the school-master was to be married to poor Sally Otto. I write "poor Sally," because these were the words of affectionate regret used by the neighbors, when Sally's hard fate became known to them. They were married   he in a coat borrowed of a young man who had come in from the old settlements   she in the rustic garb of a pioneer maiden, with what little adornment my aunts and other friends could grant her. Soon after their marriage she was removed to a remote neighborhood, where her husband again taught a school, and where he proved unfaithful to his marriage vows, and broke the heart of poor Sally Otto. Even in his recreancy she clung to him with imploring affection, until he left her to do a villain's work in other places. The remembrance of her benign countenance and her sad fate has frequently recurred to my mind during a life time ; and seldom without claiming the tribute of a sigh. The young and the fair in the rural districts should be admonished to trust nothing to the professions of prepossessing strangers. "A man may smile and smile and be a villain."   Remember Sally Otto.

In a few years our family became acquainted with many families in the older settlements near Pittsburg. About the time that the family removed to the West, an elder sister had married in Philadelphia, and removed to Fort Pitt, (afterwards Pittsburg.) Her husband was a mechanic and purchased lots in the new town, which afterwards, with other 
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PIONEER LIFE

accumulations, made him a wealthy man, of whom we shall hear more hereafter. During the visits of the family to their friends in Pittsburg and the adjacent neighborhoods, they found suitors and were all married but the two younger. My mother married a second husband and removed to his home upon the Allegheny river, eight miles above Pittsburg. About the same time that these changes were taking place, my grandfather was visited by an agent of the first iron and nail factory established in the West. It was located at Pittsburg; owned by Mr. Cowan, and subsequently purchased and enlarged by Whiting & Co., of Boston, Mass. My grandfather had been a worker in iron in the city of Philadelphia, and now his services were sought to aid in the construction and working of the new mills. He accepted the invitation ; left the farm ; and removed to what was then the borough of Pittsburg. .

I should not be true to my memory of this period if I did not relate, that on the night when my mother was married, previously to the removal of the family, I had a dream which so impressed me that it has often been suggested by incidents in subsequent life. I dreamed that a large ball, so large that it filled the room, was revolving in the cabin where I slept. It rolled on its axis with some noise. I observed it intently and noticed upon it lines and traces as of chalk, indicating paths of travel. I was then a lad some seven or eight years of age, and knew nothing of the rotundity of the 
   IN THE NEW WEST.

19

globe ; and, there were no geographies or maps in the family or in the schools of that period. When at a subsequent time I learned that the world was round, and revolved on its axis, and noticed its figure in the geography, it recalled my dream ; and I thought of it with some degree of curious inquiry in my mind. At a later time I was discussing the philosophy of dreaming with a most excellent man, now deceased, president of one of our western colleges. We agreed in adopting the prevalent exposition of the subject, that the "stuff of which dreams are made" is the ideas and fragments of ideas which had previously existed in the mind. Of these are composed the pictures, sometimes fantastically and sometimes regularly constructed, which the mind sees in dreaming. We supposed various ways in which the archetype of the dream might have been thrown into the mind. We were satisfied;   and yet something seemed to say to me,   that is not all!

Most men are fools enough to believe in dreams; But wise enough to keep their inward thought A secret from each other. 
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PIONEER LIFE

CHAPTER II.

SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL DISCIPLINE.

My grandfather's family having removed to the borough of Pittsburg, my time was divided for four or five years between such school studies as were common in that day, and labor in the nail factory. During this period the first Sabbath-school taught at the West, was opened in an upper room of a store on Wood street. Of this school, at my own request, I was permitted to become a member. There were doubts at the time, whether the Sabbath-school were not a charity institution, and whether on that account it was proper for me to attend. Our family, although in humble circumstances, were self-sustaining ; and would have resented as an insult any intimation that they would receive a benefit of any sort without rendering an equivalent. During a visit to Scotland and the North of Ireland at a later period, I found this feeling of personal and family independence prevalent everywhere among the Protestant laborers of the "old country." It was supposed likewise that it would be a violation of the sanctity of the Sabbath, to attend a school upon that day.   And as the Sabbath-school was first con- 
   IN THE NEW WEST.

21

ducted it would still seem so to many good people.

The Superintendent of the school was Mr. Lowry. He was a member of a good family in Pittsburg, which has since been distinguished in the Presbyterian church for its devotion to missions and other benevolent efforts of that denomination. We were taught in the school to read, write and cypher, in the first rules of Arithmetic ; our books, paper and other requisites being provided for us. The first strokes that I ever made with a pen were made in the Sabbath-school, under the tuition of "Squire Lowry." I well remember his kind expressions as he leaned down over my desk, and taught me to make straight lines and crooked ones; or strokes and pot-hooks, as they were technically called. These early forms of the Sunday-school were soon superseded by more Scriptural instruction. Verses of Scripture were learned by the pupils, and for a certain number committed to memory, a New Testament was given by the teacher. I was one that recited the required number and procured the first Testament I ever owned. And many of the verses learned at that period are more distinct in the memory of an aged man to-day, than that of any other portion of the Scriptures. I have taught Sabbath-school myself since then, and the large portions of Scripture thus early stored in my memory, have been a blessing and an unction to other minds as well as my own.

During these years a Sabbath-school missionary came from Philadelphia and preached to the chil- 
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PIONEER LIFE

dren in Rev. Mr. Swift's church, on Diamond Alley. He had the 13th part of the 119th Psalm, Watt's version, printed, and desired all the children present to commit it to memory. I did so, and although it lay dormant in my mind for years, yet subsequently, traveling on business through many counties of the State of Ohio, I sang on horse-back hundreds of times   when no one but God heard :

" O that the Lord would guide my ways,

" To keep His statutes still; " O that my God would grant me grace

" To know and do His will,"   &c.

The teacher of the day-school that I then attended was doubtful about my committing to memory one of Watt's Hymns. He was a rigid adherent of the Associate Reformed Scotch Church, and thought it sinful, as the same church still does, to sing any but "inspired psalmody," as they called Rouse's version of David's Psalms. To commit one of Watt's hymns, the good man no doubt supposed might give me a bias in favor of profane singing. He perhaps did not understand as well as christians do now, the relation of the introductory dispensation of Moses to that of Christ; and that, if the psalms of the Old Testament were inspired to suit the principles and the worship of the darker dispensation " that made nothing perfect," they would be deficient in the superadded truth and grace which came by Christ under the Gospel.

The instruction and school discipline under master McClurgan, would seem peculiar at the present day.   Our reading books after Murray's Introduc- 
   IN THE NEW WEST.

23

tion, were the New Testament succeeded by the Old. Passages of David's Psalms, and some pages of the Assembly's Catechism were learned each week, and recited on Saturday forenoon the afternoon being a holiday. The discipline was rigid and solely by corporeal infliction ; great care being taken to ascertain correctly the degree of malfeasance, and to administer castigation in proportion to the offence. The old man used a rod, and for grave offences, what was called the "taws;" which consisted of several thongs of leather fastened upon a round stick for a handle. A small edition of what is called in sailor phrase -"the cat-o-nine-tails." I passed under the rod several times, but, more fortunate than many of my companions, I experienced the infliction of the "taws" but once. That occasion, of course, I shall not forget.

The master was hostile to the use of marbles, and those who engaged in the game when they should have been at school, were deemed culprits liable to the penalty of the "taws." Being permitted to leave the school-room for a brief space, on some errand, I unwisely made an effort to replenish my store of marbles, by a game with a youngster whom I found on my return near the school-house. We were engaged with great earnestness, when I noticed my companion looking up with apparent surprise. I turned in the direction of his gaze, and,   alas for me !   the master was standing demurely behind me, looking with quizzical countenance and simulated interest upon my exploits in the marble ring. He 
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PIONEER LIFE

had achieved a strategy, and by a detour reached the scene of our engagement. I may not give the precise words, but I shall give the spirit of the scene which followed. There was a cessation of my performances, of course ; and for a moment I stood at a loss what to say or do in the premises. The old man assuming a peculiar look, remarked   "That was a good shot Jamie ;   ye seem to be quite a proficient in this business. When ye get through with the game, if ye have no objections, perhaps we had better walk back to the school-house." I did not, however, wait to get through with the game -nor to make objections   nor to walk back with my teacher; but making my exit suddenly, I hastened back with all speed, and arrived at the school-room some minutes before he returned. As I took my seat, I remarked to a pleasant young girl, (Sarah Trovillo,) that sat nearly opposite :

"Sarah, as soon as the master comes I shall ketch it."

"What in the world kept you so long?" said Sarah.

"I wanted to win back my marbles from Sam. Ross."

I had done what the foolish victim of the gambler generally does, trusted to winning back my losses, until my time and my stakes were both gone.

I had only time to devise and execute with some assistance, the expedient of putting my copy-book under my jacket to save myself from the sharp pain that I knew was coming, when the steps of the 
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25

teacher were heard upon the stairs. As he entered, everything was as silent as a graveyard. I was considered in the school, a favorite with the old man, and probably many were anxious to see whether the known penalty of the "taws" would be fully inflicted. But the autocrat of that school-room would have thought it as great an offence to be influenced by favoritism as would Sir Matthew Hale in his duties as Cromwell's chief justice. The heads of the scholars were bent over copy-books, slates and testaments ; but glancing down the long desk on one side of which sat a row of boys, and on the other, a row of girls, I could see most eyes turned ascant in the direction where I sat.

The teacher entered, took his place as usual, and ordered attention to lessons which they all gave but with their eyes still upon me. In a short time the rod fell before me on the desk. The master was in the habit, when he noticed any neglect or transgression by a pupil, of throwing his rod to the culprit, who had to carry it back, and stand to be adjudged and punished according to his demerits.

I carried up the rod, and the old man took down the taws, and after lamenting my depravity and expressing his regret that such an one as I should transgress in such manner   taking me by the collar with his left hand, in the other he wielded the terrible taws. The first two blows, rapidly inflicted, sounded upon the paper under my jacket with a sharp crack almost like pistol shots. The school was convulsed with laughter.   The old teacher, with 
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PIONEER LIFE

some apparent surprise, suddenly suspended the infliction. He did not at once understand the unusual sharp sound so different from the sound of the taws upon the backs of other delinquents. Perhaps he thought that the blows might be too severe for the slender, delicate boy under correction. But peering into my face, where a suppressed laugh was struggling with the effort to appear awfully hurt, he began to comprehend that some mischief had been practiced. The copy-book was soon discovered and dislodged, and then the castigation followed with a will that left in my mind no doubt of its thoroughness. I returned to my seat, and although Sarah Trovillo gave several indications of sympathy, I did not raise my eyes to look at any one for some time. The old teacher subsequently seemed unusually kind to me, and I believe that was the only grave transgression, by which I ever grieved the heart of my good old school-master, Hugh Mc-Clurgan.

During most of this period, before Sabbath-school literature existed, my library consisted of "Goody Two Shoes," the "Ballads of Robin Hood," a "Token for Good Children ;" and in later years a Song Book and yEsop's Fables. I could recite at one time some of the ballads of the "forester bold," and most of the poetry in the old Dilworth Spelling Book. And I had essayed, about the age of thirteen, to write, in Robin Hood measure, my first poetry, addressed to an absent uncle. I remember, as I write, the following verse: 
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27

Remember still I am your friend,

Remember uncle dear, I have no father to defend

Me in my youthful year.

This is juvenile and doggerel, of course, but first efforts are remembered not so much for the value as for their place in the history of the mind. 
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PIONEER LIFE

CHAPTER III.

THE FACTORY BOY.

The rolling mill and nail factory in which my grandfather labored, was owned by a Boston company   Whiting being the principal name. Workmen were brought from Massachusetts. They were mostly young men, and were known collectively by the sobriquet of "the yankees." My business, with that of several other boys in the factory, wa