HILLSBOROUGH
It was dusk before we reached the town of Hillsborough, where we spent the night. Hillsborough is Ohio's Rome, for like that Imperial City, it stands on seven hills. The quaint old mansion home of Allen Trimble, one of Ohio's early governors, is located here. It later became the home of his daughter, Eliza Jane Thompson, who is known the world over as the Mother of the Woman's Crusade, one of the most remarkable temperance movements of history, which had its origin here in 1873.
"Hillsborough is reached by two macadamized roads, which pass
through a section of the state unrivaled in picturesque beauty.
It is just in the fringe of hills which in the direction of the
Ohio become almost mountainous."
We left our modern Rome in the morning swathed in its dreamy charm. What could be more beautiful than to pass through the country in July when every turn on the highway discloses a picture of rarest beauty? What a vast volume of divine verse, of sonnets, lyrics, and idyls, is opened before you, wrought out of meadows, groves and sparkling streams! The valleys with their broad green meadows, fields waving with golden grain or dark green corn that bent and tossed in the morning wind, was an inexhaustible delight. A few exquisitely white fleecy clouds, pushed across the deep blue sky by a southern breeze, made running shadows of rhythmical motion.
WILMINGTON
At Wilmington we were greatly impressed with the charming, well- kept homes and the fine class of people. As we noted the noble bearing, the fine, intellectual countenances and strong physique of these people, we thought of the early temperance movement here, and realized we were beholding the fruits of that early sowing.
GRADED WAY
We passed along the graded way near Piketon, where the ancient people of an unknown race laid out a graded ascent some ten hundred and eighty feet long by two hundred and ten feet in width. From the left hand embankment, passing up to a third terrace, there could be traced a former low embankment running for fifteen hundred feet, and connected with mounds and other walls at its extremity. It was evidently built in connection with the obliterated works on the third terrace.
Here many a passing traveler goes unawares over one of the most ancient highways in the world. Our trip over it was more memorable than any journey over a Roman road could have been. We paused awhile to speculate who these ancient people were who passed this way centuries before us. What ceremonious processions may have moved over this ancient causeway! From the branch of a maple that sent its roots into the more defined grade came the dreamy notes of a mourning dove, from a walnut tree a cuckoo uttered his queer song that perhaps was the same as these strange people listened to; indigo buntings sent their high pitched breezy song from the tops of the trees, while the warbling vireo seemed to be saying, "who were they?" and the clear, melodious call of a quail rang from the highest part of the embankment, with just enough querulousness in it to appear as if he too were trying to recall this lost race. The grassy slopes were still used by the meadow lark for nesting sites whose "spring of the year" still resounds among the hills speaking of the eternal freshness and youth of Nature. It appeared to be a work of defense where the people may have congregated for protection in times of danger. A hole in the side of one of the embankments told that it was still used as such, for a woodchuck had burrowed in under the roots of a maple where he was safe not only from his enemies but from winter itself. Thus we left this memento of a vanished race, thinking that, beginning our journey over a road so romantic, the day would hold much in store for us.