Our early Pioneers in Putnam County followed the rules of conduct prescribed by their predecessors in frontier life in Kentucky, Virginia and Ohio, and followed the lines of least travel resistance, generally along watercourses—by way of Eel River, up Big Walnut and Deer Creeks—and thus throughout the County. Once located, and having few and distant neighbors, and with communication more or less difficult, a barn-raising, log- rolling, quilting bee or spelling match was an event of some moment and not of such common experience as to be ignored.
As time wore on, roads were established; settlements became thicker; mercantile trade followed barter, and money began to circulate and to be offered and accepted in payment; wagons and buggies replaced saddles and saddle bags; railroads were built; newspapers and postal service became more numerous and easier; the telegraph and later the telephone annihilated distance; churches and school houses sprung up; the regular preacher took the place of the circuit rider; factory-made shoes drove out the "pair of fine boots"; power looms and hole-proof socks (in name only) routed knitting needles; and so on, until now Sears-Roebuck is trying to rout everybody and everything.
All these and many, many, more advances have been inaugurated within the memories of many of you here today. Those among the oldest of you have had the extreme good fortune of living within the period of the last 75 years or more, when greater progress along scientific lines has been made than was achieved in the 4,000 years preceding your time. Think of it my friends! . . . What great good fortune has been yours!
What progress the future has in store I cannot know. Time only can tell, and time goes on, while you and I dwell here for comparatively only a day. And yet, if I were required to hazard my judgment, I should be compelled to admit I firmly believe you have seen more beneficial progress than will fall to the lot of any individual to be born in the future. . .
To you Old Settlers this day has been set apart by the folks of this community for your enjoyment and retrospection, and for our education and benefit. . . And when those of us here on the programme have finished, we want to hear you, by word of mouth, recall those early experiences that will forever be lost unless you impart them, that we, in turn, may hand them down to the generations yet to come. They will soon be most valued traditions. Books, paper, diaries and records have a most useful place, but some of the things of greatest human interest are not set down in the books or records—those little touches of color and everyday heart interest, those daily privations and abstinences—they never break into chronicle, and yet furnish a large part of our romantic history.
I have at home a chair—a plain, hand-made wooden chair with a wooden seat, with rectangular and cross red stripes, and on one panel in the back is a hand-painted bouquet of flowers in colors— all showing the hand of a careful, neat and skilled workman. Underneath the seat is a faded and torn paper label on which is printed "Black and Sons, Chair Makers, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania."
Just a plain straightback wooden chair. A more elaborate one could probably be bought now for $2. And yet, my grandfather brought that chair to my grandmother for her parlor on horseback from Philadelphia to Russellville, in this County, some 80-odd years ago, piled high on top of a big horseback load of goods. Think of the effort it took! Think of the space it took away from profitable calico! Think of the many, many times on that thousand-mile horseback ride that grandfather looked back and felt to see if it were coming along with the balance of the load. Think of the many times it slipped to one side or the other and had to be retied. Think of the many nights it had to be unloaded, and the many mornings it had to be tied back on again. And lastly, my good folks, think of the joy it gave that little old woman up at Russellville—how she showed it to the neighbors; the care that was subsequently given it; the wonderful pleasure it gave her; and the proud feeling it secretly gave him. . . It was she who told their children the story of that little chair.
That, my friends, is the kind of heart throb we are gradually learning to ignore in these days of financial struggles. There are those among you, who by denying yourselves, have given your wives, sons and daughters saddle horses, pianos, automobiles and even farms—and at great sacrifice—and there are also those among you who have given your families their first iron stove, a candle mold, calico dresses, and perhaps a little straightback wooden chair.
Therefore, today let us go back. Let us forget the things to which we have applied ourselves too assiduously, the things that modern conditions have forced us to adopt and strive for. For the day, at least, let us turn back to the days when you were young and this community was young: To the days when you courted and were courted in the chinked log house before the stone fireplace; back to the time when catnip, tansy and peppers hung from the rafters; back to the days of the smoke-house with its pungent tang of hickory bark and corn cobs; when tomatoes were grown for ornament and thought to be poisonous. Let us again go down to the spring house and get a bucket of water to set under the gourd on the kitchen table. Let's stir up the fire in the fireplace, hang the pot on the crane or test the heat in the Dutch oven; carry the ashes out and put them in the hopper. Let's you and I and all of us go up and see how the dried apples are holding out, and then look the hams over to see if they have any worms in them. Let us hie back to the days when all debts fell due at Christmas time; when mortgages were useless and practically unknown, and when every man's word was his bond. Let's eat a dinner of bacon, corn bread, milk and honey, and other wholesome things of those days, on the back porch or in the summer kitchen, while the younger girls shoo the flies off the table and the chickens off the porch. And then tonight, after supper, let's gather around the candle on the table, with Mother in the little chair knitting and mending with her hands, and rocking the cradle with her foot, while Father takes down the family Bible and piously reads a verse. Then, on our knees, and with heads bowed, let us hear that hallowed voice of Father, from whose nerveless grasp have long since dropped the working tools of life, rise in fervent prayer to Almighty God to protect us and keep us all safe from harm.
GRANDPAP'S BOURBON COUNTY BILL
By Everett A. Mahrug