Remarks of J. V. Jones. 175
REMARKS OF J. V. JONES, ESQ.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:- It would hardly
be proper for
me to say " fellow-citizens,"
for the reason of having been absent
from your county for nearly fifty-eight
years. During that time
many changes have been wrought in the
city of Gallipolis and
Gallia county. Eighty-one years ago a
young married couple
might have been seen slowly wending
their way on horseback
down the slopes of the Blue Ridge and
foot-hills of the Allegheny
Mountains of Virginia toward the
beautiful Ohio River as it swept
majestically past the town of
Gallipolis, or the "City of the
French." These young people brought
all their worldly goods
with them on horseback and settled north
of this city, some-
where near what is now known as
"Kerr Station," on the river
division of the Columbus, Hocking Valley
and Toledo Railroad.
The names of these young adventurers
were James Jones and
Priscilla Jones, nee Blagg. After
remaining in old Gallia county
for about twenty-three years they, with
a family of nine children,
of whom your speaker was one, removed
northward to the great
valley lying between the Sandusky and
Maumee Rivers, and
bounded on the north by the beautiful
Lake Erie. This great
forest valley was the hunting grounds of
Indian tribes, known
as the "Senecas" and
"Wyandotts." Our evening serenades in
the grand old forests were not the
handsomely-uniformed bands
of music you have here on this
Centennial occasion, but were
the whooping of the hunting bands of
Indians, the hooting of
the night owl and the howling of the
wolves. There we lived in
the rude log cabin, and lived one corn
bread and the wild game of
the grand old forests. It was there that
we received a common
school education in round log school
houses, daubed with mud
and with greased paper for window lights
and rude benches made
from split logs. But your speaker, one
of the descendants of
that family, has lived to see the
wilderness and the solitary
places be made glad and the desert
places to rejoice and blossom
as the rose.
The Indians have gone to their happy
hunting grounds, the
bear and the wild-cat have fled from
advancing civilization, the