depot on the outskirts by an old lady, evidently a character. She was seated on a box; an eight-year-old boy was by her side, and she was smoking a pipe. Changes were being made in the gauge of the track, with consequent confusion at the depot, with scant accommodation for waiting passengers. She was virtuously indignant. "All the railroad men care for is to get our money," she said; then puffed away. After a little the locomotive came up drawing a single car; in a twinkling it was filled with a merry lot of rural people, laughing and chatting, exhilarated by the air of a perfect September morning, sunny and bracing. I object. While waiting for the start something was said about smoking in the car, whereupon a gentleman exclaimed: "If any person objects we must not smoke. Instantly came from a distant corner, in the shrill, screaming tones of some ancient woman: "I object." The announcement was received with a shout of laughter, in which everybody seemed to join. It was evident that every soul in that car felt that "I object had such an abhorrence of tobacco smoke, that if the man in the moon got out his pipe she would know it after a few puffs; that is, if the wind was right. My sympathy was excited for the old lady at the deprivation of her pipe-smoke, and so tried, as we started, to relieve her mind by conversation. As is not unusual with humanity, herself was an interesting topic. She was, she told me, fifty-five years old; her parents born in Connecticut, she in "York State," but from five years old had lived in Geauga county. In turn I told her what I was doing, travelling over the State to make a book. Make money out of it? inquired she. "Hope so. As I said this she dropped into a brown study, evidently thinking what a grand thing, making money! That thought having time to soak in, she broke the silence with: "My husband died twelve years ago then putting her hand on the shoulder of the boy, as if joyed at the thought, added: "This is my man; took him at five months-first time seen the kears. 66 As we were passing some sheep, I inquired: Sheep plenty in this country, madam?" "Yes. I've got some, but no such poor scrawny things as those," she said, smirking her nostrils and pointing so contemptuously at the humble nibbling creatures, scattered over a field below us, that I felt sorry for them. Soon after crossing a country road whereon was a flock of turkeys, it came my turn to point, as I said: "How bad those turkeys would feel if they knew Christmas was coming.' "What? said she. She had got a new idea: Turkeys dreading Christmas when everybody else was so glad. Burton. The ride over from the depot to Burton is a little over two miles westerly. Burton stands on a hill, and it loomed up pleasantly as I neared it, reminding me of the old-time New England villages. It was largely settled from Cheshire, Connecticut, which also stands on a hill. The prospect from the village is beautiful and commanding in every direction, takes in a circuit of sixty or seventy miles, including points in Trumbull and Portage counties; north I discerned over a leafy expanse spires in Chardon, eight miles distant; and south the belfry of Hiram College at Garretsville, fourteen miles away. As I look the one makes me think of Peter Chardon Brookes, its founder; and the other of James Garfield, for there he went to school. The county is charmingly diversified with hills and valleys. About ten miles from the shore of Lake Erie and nearly parallel to it is the dividing ridge, on which are points nearly 800 feet above the lake, as Little Mountain and Thompson Ledge; the mean surface of the county is about 500 feet above the lake. The New Connecticut People. — General Garfield in a speech at Burton, September 16, 1873, before the Historical Society of Geauga County, drew a pleasant picture descriptive of the character of the people, a large majority of whom are descendants of emigrants from Connecticut. He said: "On' this Western Reserve are townships more thoroughly New England in character and spirit than most of the towns of New England to-day. Cut off from the metropolitan life that has been molding and changing the spirit of New England, they have preserved here in the wilderness the characteristics of New England as it was when they left it in the beginning of the century. This has given to the people of the Western Reserve those strongly marked qualities which have always distinguished them." When the Reserve was surveyed in 1796 by Gen. Cleveland there were but two white families of settlers on the entire lake shore region of Northern Ohio. One of these was at Cleveland and the other at Sandusky. By the close of the year 1800 there were thirtytwo settlements on the Reserve, though no organization of government had been established. But the pioneers were a people who had been trained in the principles and practices of civil order, and these were transplanted to their new homes. In New Connecticut there was little of that lawlessness which so often characterizes the people of a new country. In many instances a township organization was completed and a minister chosen before the pioneers left home. Thus they planted the institutions of old Connecticut in their new wilderness homes. The pioneers who first broke ground here accomplished a work unlike that which will fall to the lot of any succeeding generation. The hardships they endured, the obstacles they encountered, the life they led, the peculiar qualities they needed in their undertak ings, and the traits of character developed by their work, stand alone in our history. These pioneers knew well that the three great forces which constitute the strength and glory of a free government are-the family, the school and the church. These three they planted here, and they nourished and cherished them with an energy and devotion scarcely equalled in any other quarter of the world. The glory of our country can never be dimmed while these three lights are kept shining with an undimmed lustre. BURTON is about 30 miles east of Cleveland, 8 south of Chardon, about 20 miles from Lake Erie, and 23 miles westerly from the P. & Y. R. R. It is a finely located village, and the seat of the county fair grounds. Newspaper: Geauga Leader, A. R. Woolsey, editor and proprietor. Churches: 1 Methodist Episcopal and 1 Congregational. Bank: Houghton, Ford & Co. Population in 1880, 480. THE MAPLE SUGAR INDUSTRY.. The peculiar industry of Geauga county is the making of maple sugar. Fortyfive counties in the State make maple sugar, but Geauga, one of the smallest, yields nearly a third of the entire product, beside very large amounts of syrup of excellent quality; but no other county in the Union equals its amount of maple sugar. The entire amount for the year 1885 was a trifle less than 2,000,000 pounds, of which Geauga produced 631,000 pounds, and Ashtabula county, the next largest, 253,000 pounds. Improvements in this have taken place as in other manufactures, and the quality here made is of the very best. Where poorly made its peculiarly fine flavor is lost. Our cut, showing the old-time way, is copied from that in Peter Parley's "Recollections of a Lifetime." The article which here follows is by Henry C. Tuttle, of Burton, who wrote it for these pages: "The undulating and somewhat hilly character of Geauga county seems especially adapted to the growth of the sugar maple and productive of a large supply of sap. Not only does it make the largest quantity, but also the best quality of maple sweet. From using troughs hollowed out of split logs in which to catch the sap and boiling it in big iron kettles in the open air to a thick, black, sticky compound of sugar, ashes and miscellaneous dirt, which had some place in the household economy, but no market value, sugar-makers to-day use buckets with covers to keep out the rain and dirt, the latest improved evaporators, metal storage tanks, and have good sugar-houses in which the sap is quickly reduced to syrup. this has been done at a large outlay of money, but the result proves it to have been a good investment, as the superior article made finds a ready market and brings annually from $80,000 to $100,000. The season usually opens early in March, when the trees are tapped and a metal spout inserted, from which is suspended the bucket. When the flow of sap begins it is collected in galvanized iron gathering tanks, hauled to the sugarhouse and emptied into the storage vats, from which it is fed by a pipe to the evaporator. The syrup taken from the evaporator is strained, and if sugar is to be made, goes at once into the sugar-pan, where it is boiled to the proper degree, and caked in pound and one-half cakes. If syrup is to be made, it is allowed to cool, and is then reheated and cooled again, to precipitate the silica. It is then drawn off into cans and is ready for market. The greatest care and cleanliness is required to make the highest grade of sugar and syrup, and the fragrant maple flavor is only preserved by converting the sap into sugar or syrup as fast as possible. If the sap stands long in the vats or is boiled a long time the flavor is lost and the color becomes dark. The groves or "bushes" vary from 300 to 3,000 trees each, the total number of trees tapped in 1886 being 375,000. The industry is still growing, and there are probably enough groves not yet worked to make a total of 475,000, which, if tapped, would increase the output about one-third. The sugar and syrup is mostly sold at home. The principal market is Burton, centrally located, and from there it is shipped to consumers in all parts of the country, the larger proportion going to the Western States." TRAVELLING NOTES. Burton is a pleasant place for a few days' rest. It has a ten-acre square with homes, churches and academy grouped around it, and on it is a band-stand where, on evenings, the village band gives excellent music. The place has had some noted characters. Here lived, at the time of my original visit, two especially such, Gov. SEABURY FORD, born in Cheshire, Connecticut, in 1801, and Judge PETER HITCHCOCK, born in the same place in 1781. Mr. Ford came here when a child. He was educated for the law, was long in political life, serving as speaker of both branches of the State Legislature, and was governor of the State in 1849-51, and died soon after from paralysis. He was an ardent Whig and greatly instrumental in carrying the State for Henry Clay. In 1820, with a companion, Mr. D. Witter, he travelled through an almost unbroken wilderness to New Haven, Conn., for a four years' absence to obtain an education at Yale College. They both graduated, and were the very first to do so from the young State of Ohio. While there he was elected the college "bully. This was an office for which the physically strongest man was generally chosen, to preside at class meetings and to lead in fights against the "town boys," so called, the rougher elements of the city, with whom there were sometimes conflicts. On one dark night, the latter, a mob of town boys, went so far as to draw up a cannon loaded to its mouth with missiles, in front of the college and applied the torch. It simply flashed, having been secretly spiked on the way thither. The office of "college bully" has long since become obsolete from the absence of a low-down class of people to cherish enmity against students. Seabury Ford was one of the most efficient men known to the legislative history of the State. He gave an excellent piece of advice in a letter to his son Seabury, so characteristic of the man and so likely to be of use to some reader, that I know nothing more fitting for a close here than its quotation: "Avoid pol itics and public life until, by a careful and industrious attention to a legitimate and honorable calling, you have accumulated a fortune sufficiently large to entitle you to the respect and confidence of your fellow-men as a business man and a man of integrity, and sufficiently large to render you thoroughly and entirely independent of any official salary walked about a mile from the village on I the Chardon road to visit the old home of Peter Hitchcock, who has been defined as Father of the Constitution of Ohio,' SO largely was his advice followed in framing it. I wished to see how this man of mark had lived, and was greatly pleased to find it was with full republican simplicity. It seemed like an old-time Connecticut farmhouse set down here in Ohio. Vines nestled over the attached kitchen building, and a huge milkcan, tall as a five-year-old urchin, was perched on the fence drying in the sun preparatory to being filled against to-morrow morning's visit of the man from the cheese factory. Both are shown in the engraving. Peter Hitchcock, in 1801, graduated at Yale at the age of 20, was admitted to the bar, and in 1806 moved to Ohio and took a farm here and divided his time between clearing the wilderness, teaching and the law practice. Four years later he went to the Legislature; in 1814 was speaker of the Senate; in 1817 a member of Congress; in 1819 was a Judge of the Supreme Court, and with slight intermissions held that position until 1852, part of the time being Chief Justice. He was a leading member of the Constitutional Convention of 1850. In 1852, at the age of 70 years, after a public service of over forty years, like Cincinnatus, he retired to his farm and died in 1854. He is described as having been finely proportioned, erect, strong-chested, with a large head full of solid sense; his expression sedate and Puritanic. He was profound in law, his judgment almost unerring, in words few but exact to the point. He was revered by the bar and beloved by the, people, and his decisions considered as models of sound logic. Unconscious of it himself, he was great as a man and a judge. The history of MORTIMER D. LEGGETT, one of Ohio's efficient generals in the rebellion, is identified with this county. He was born in Ithaca, New York, in 1821, and in 1836 came with his father's family on to a farm at Montville. He worked on the farm and studied at intervals, then went to the Teachers' Seminary at Kirtland, later studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1844, but did not until six years after begin the practice, for he became deeply interested in the subject of common schools and labored arduously with Dr. A. D. Lord, Lorin Andrews and M. F. Cowdry for the establishment of Ohio's present system of public instruction. These three gentlemen, with young Leggett, stumped the entire State at their own expense in favor of free schools. Those two warm friends of education, years of age, went thither and organized the first system of free graded schools west of the Alleghenies, under what is known as the "Akron School Law." The good Judge Worcester, whom I well knew-and who, by the way, was the brother of the scholar who made the dictionary-passed away many years since. Harvey Rice I found at his home in Cleveland in 1886, and although born in the last year of the last century, he was then erect, his hearing perfect, and his vision so good as to enable him to read without glasses. Moreover, he was active in instituting measures for the erection of a monument to the memory of the city's founder, now accomplished. Gen. Leggett is to-day a practising lawyer in Cleveland. His example of what a young man without experience, but enthused with a beneficent idea, can do for the public welfare, is too valuable not to have a permanent record. In Burton I made the acquaintance of an ex-soldier of the Union army, MR. E. P. LATHAM, whose history is a wonderful example of pluck and will power. He was early in the war in the Cumberland mountains, under the command of Gen. Morgan, where, while assisting in firing a salute from a cannon, both of his arms were blown off above the elbow. Yet Mr. Latham feeds himself, drives a fast-going horse in a buggy around Burton, keeps the accounts of a cheese factory, writes letters, manages a farm, and superintends a Sabbath-school. At table his food is prepared for him, and he feeds himself with a fork or spoon strapped to his left stump, his right stump being paralyzed; he drives with the reins over his shoulder and back of his neck, guiding his horse, turning corners, etc., by movements of his body; and writes with his mouth. As he wrote the specimen annexed in my presence I describe it. 1. He placed himself at the table, and with his stump moved paper and pen to the right position. 2. Picked up the pen with his mouth and held it in his teeth, pointing to the left. 3. Dipped it in the ink. 4. Brought his face close to the table and wrote, dragging the pen across the E. P. LATHAM, EX-SOLDIER, O. V. paper from left to right. He had such control of it that by the combined use of his lips and teeth he turned the point so as to bring the slit to its proper bearing for the free flow of the ink. In the engraving it is reduced one-third in size from the original. His right stump is useless, being without sensation; he cannot feel a pin prick. It is, indeed, an inconvenience. In winter," said he, before retiring I am obliged to heat it by the fire, otherwise it feels in bed like a clog of ice-chills me. I have not been free from pain since my loss; I don't know what it is not to suffer; but I won't allow my mind to rest upon it--what is the use? I have now lived longer without my hands than with them, yet to-day I feel all my fingers." Then he bared his left stump and showed me the varied movements necessary for picking up and grasping things in case the remainder of his arm and hand had been there. I persuaded him to give me a specimen of his handwriting, saying that he ought not to withhold the lesson of his life from the public; that it would be of untold benefit to the young people as an illustration of the principle never to despair, but to accept the inevitable and work with what was left; that these seeming disasters were often of the greatest benefit. "Yes," said he, "I know Burton whic Got 2nd 1886 Mr Henry Howe Howing My Dear Sir the war for the Wizard each fust above the elbow I acquired writing by pulling this halding my the art of writing peu in which Respectfully pfathan Late of the 9th Ohio Battery SPECIMEN OF WRITING WITH A PEN HELD IN THE MOUTH, BY E. P. LATHAM, AN ARMLESS EX-SOLDIER OF THE UNION ARMY, NOW OF BURTON, OHIO. it; but for this, I might to-day be in the penitentiary." Mr. Latham is rather tall, erect, slender, with an intellectual and somewhat sad expression, the result I presume of never ceaseing pain. I once met while travelling a young man, a stranger, whose every breath was in pain, one of his lungs having when diseased become attached to his ribs; his expression was like that of Mr. Latham's. Mr. Latham has a family and enjoys life because his mind is fully occupied with pleasant duties. A French author, in writing a book entitled "The Art of Being Happy," finally summed it in three words, "An absorbing pursuit ;" and this Mr. Latham has. Then he can pride himself on being original; does things differently from anybody else. A lady said to me, "I was one day walking behind Mr. Latham, when a sudden gust of wind blew off his hat; with his foot he turned it over, bent down and thrust in his head, arose and then walked away independent, as though he felt that was the proper way to put on a hat." And it was for Mr. Latham. |