SOME LOCAL HISTORY.
LUCY ELLIOT KEELER.
[Miss Keeler of Fremont, Ohio, has been
a valued contributor to
the QUARTERLY. The following, from her
pen, is a delightful bit of
historic sentiment, which originally
appeared in Scribner's Magazine. -
EDITOR.]
I have watched numberless persons walk
around a great
stone-a round stone with a hollow in the
top, filled with water,
where the birds come to drink-and dilate
learnedly after this
fashion: "Think how it was carried
for thousand of years on the
back of a glacier, and how it was rubbed
and ground by ice and
stones till its angles were worn down
into this perfect sphere."
All very true were this stone a boulder,
but it happens to be
quite another thing, a concretion, which
grew round from baby-
hood and never had any angles to rub
off. It started perhaps
with a bit of shell or fish bone falling
into the mud of a stream.
This nucleus acted like a magnet,
attracting to itself little particles
of congenial matter which hugged it
layer after layer like an onion
while the water above, holding iron and
lime and silica in solu-
tion, percolated through the growing
concretion and cemented it
into a solid stone.
After such fashion does local history
grow up. You take a
house or bit of land, a road or a river
or Indian treaty, as a
nucleus; and as you read old books,
newspapers, and letters;
examine old maps, plans, and pictures;
and as you talk with old
residents-your facts form layer after
layer around your centre;
and as you compare and generalize and
let your imagination
flow over all, your house or bit of
land, or road, or river, or
Indian treaty grows and crystallizes
into a shapely, lasting con-
cretion of local history.
In choosing some nucleus for a study of
local history, one
cannot do better than begin with one's
house or yard. One
should trace back the several ownerships
to the original grant;
(57)
58 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.
discover what other buildings were ever
on the place, with some-
thing about the earlier people who lived
there; if Indians ever
hunted on it or soldiers ever tramped
over it; changes of topog-
raphy; when adjacent roads were opened;
and one's own family
traditions. One incident will inevitably
lead to another, fasci-
nating facts will peep from every cover,
and conversation will
follow the trend. All one's finds should
be firmly held in place
by the little rivets of accurate names
and dates.
Take, for instance, my own home in the
heart of a busy
manufacturing city of the middle West.
My garden lies about
midway between two ancient "cities
of refuge," built by the
Neutral Nation about three centuries
ago. Warring tribes of
the West might enter the Western city,
and those of the East
the Eastern, but "sanctuary"
reigned within. Later my garden
was part of a Wyandotte village; and
during the War of 1812
two companies of British regulars,
veteran troops of Welling-
ton's Peninsular campaign, attacking a
local fort, marched over
where my cardinal flowers now bloom.
Later a small French
colony used the plot for a
burying-ground. The patent for the
first sale of this land was signed by
Andrew Jackson, and be-
came a part of a family tract. Sixty
years ago my mother, from
"down East," arrived for a
visit, and penetrating beyond the
reach of railroads came up the little
river by boat. At the land-
ing-place she was hoisted to a seat on
her trunk in a wagon to
be driven into "the woods."
Three blocks from the river the
wagon stuck fast in the mud, the trunk
was dropped out on a
hummock, and she finished her journey on
foot. When she
married, some years later, and the
choice of any lot in town was
offered her for a homestead, she
selected this spot where her
trunk was thrown off in the mud. After a few years the chil-
dren of the growing neighborhood needed
a school, so a little
wooden building was erected in the rear
of the yard, and there
not a few of the younger grandfathers of
the city learned their
alphabets. Later, a pair of magnificent
eagles being given to my
father, the old school-house was
converted into a cage. All sum-
mer the birds lived there, but one
autumn day my parents opened
the door and stood watching the great
creatures as they rose and
soared off westward. These things
happened long before I was
Some Local History. 59
born, but they add inexpressible
interest to the place for me, and
are earnest of the story and tradition
which linger about your
own homes if you but ferret them out.
I like to tell the little children who
visit me how out in the
busy street where now passes an almost
constant stream of auto-
mobiles ran a clear brook in which I
used to set water-wheels
and catch minnows. Their eyes grow round
as my age presses
home, yet two generations in town still
regard me as a "girl."
Our Western towns grow rapidly. A dear
old lady in Cleve-
land, who died but a few years ago, told
me that she remem-
bered her father coming in much elated
to tell her mother that
they had just finished counting the
inhabitants, and there were
876! Ohio's largest city!
Whatever your nucleus, your concretion
will rapidly out-
grow your locality. The story of my lot
enlarges into a history
of the town and trails off down the
river to old forts on the
lake, and in the other direction along
the famous Harrison
Trail to ancient mounds, the
Mississippi, and New Orleans.
When a citizen of my town became a
President of the United
States I was plunged into the very
middle of American history.
Nor did it stop there, for I have but
just learned of a villa of
three thousand inhabitants in Paraguay,
named after this local
resident who as President acted as
arbiter in a territorial dispute
between Paraguay and Argentina. Modestly
local, however, do
I keep my collection of data, believing
that my business in the
matter is to edit just that bit of land
and lore under my own
charge, and make the most of it in the
limited time at my dis-
posal.
Thus as the annalist lovingly gleans the
harvest fields of
home, ruminating on its topographical,
climatic, and scenic
effects; fingering over the dress and
customs of earlier denizens;
wandering through rooms which birth has
gladdened and death
has hallowed, where infancy dreamed and
where each step is
on a memory; little by little she
acquires the "idiom" of the
place, finding it a far subtler
influence in shaping thought and
action than the uninitiated suspect.
There is nothing new in all this, but
the simple catalogue
of it may kindle the spark of a new
interest in other quiet lives,
60 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications. leading them to cherish the legends and customs that would otherwise be lost in historic haze. Whatever else may result from such study of "this infinite go-before of the present," it chains the student to that inspiring injunction of old Pindar which Plutarch liked to quote of those, heirs of the centuries, who "Do match their noble ancestors in prowess of their own And by their fruits commend the stock whence they themselves are grown." |
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