Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/271

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��HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY.

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��one suspender, started off, saying : " Well, I'll o-o an" sareh, myself, an', if I don't finrt the body, I'll try an git a good mess <i jisJi.''

One of the saddest sights that comes to the old pioneer now, is to see the old orchard trees that Johnny Appleseed nurtured and cared for, cut down as worthless, and used to fill up ditches at the roadside. This is a common oc- currence in different sections of Richland County. And yet it is a law of Nature ; with her there is no death, no deca3^ everything lives anew in one form or another.

It is related of an apple-tree planted on the. o-rave of Rooer Williams, the founder of the State of Rhode Island, who died in 1G83, that the roots of the tree struck down and spread out into the shape of the man, following his legs, and arms, and trunk, so that learned men declare that Roger Williams passed into the apple-tree, and lived again on this earth in an- other form — that of luscious, red-cheeked apples. Indeed, the question has been asked, '' Who ate Roger Williams ? "

The statue of Sir Robert Peel, a very eminent British statesman, was melted over to make one for Lord Palmerston. We need not shudder at these things, for Nature first set the example. When Hamlet spoke of turning the clay of Alexander into the bung of a beer barrel, he spoke the naked truth. The heathen gods vaguely penetrated this great mystery.

A year means a hundred-fold more now than formerly. History is made rapidly in these days. The red men's trail across the valle}', and over the hills, and along the river's bank, could be traced I)}- the fewest number in this day ; their favorite haunts and play grounds are shorn of their primal charms in the sweeping aside of the grand old woodland. Tlje cattle upon a thousand hills roam over the land that they loved, and quench their thirst

��in the brooks and pools, that long time ago mirrored their dusky features. The plowman with stolid face upturn in the brown furrow the relic that their fingers deftly fashioned, and the mattock and scraper bring forth to the glare of day and the gaze of the curious, the crumbling brown bones of the chieftain and his squaw. And the contents of the Indian's grave, the moldering clay, will live anew in a pavement to be trodden under the foot of men. Ah, these old Indian graves on breezy knolls and reedy river banks — who knows but the site was selected by the sleepei'S therein ! Who knows but they dreamed in their moody moments that the tide of civilization was slowly coming nearer and nearer, to crowd aside their people and intrude upon, and finally possess, their vast and beauti- ful hunting grounds ?

It is hard to be reconciled to this natural order of things ; to see the pioneers passing away ; to see them stand leaning on their staves, dim-eyed, and with white locks tossed in the winds, dazed at the change that has stamped its seal upon the wilderness whose winding- paths they once knew so well. They beheld it slowly laying off its primeval wildness and beauty, and its grandeur of woods and waters, until now it blooms like unto the garden of the gods. How beautiful the labors of their hands ! How much we owe them ! But the olden time is passing away and bearing on its bosom the dear old men and women whose "like we ne'er shall see again." The glory of one age is not dimmed in the golden glory of the age succeeding it. And none more than the pioneers of Richland County can compre- hend its growth and its change, or more fully appreciate the sad words of the poet when he sang in mournful strain —

"And city lots are staked for sale, Above old Indian gi'aves."

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