MSSRS. EDITORS:--Some of the readers of the Press may be looking for something from Kernersville, but your correspondent has been transferred to the regions beyond, and is at this time luxuriating upon fresh (?), in the Indian land. On the 17th of May I left Kernersville and got to Washington next morning, and so far, had Mr. H. Fries, of your place, for a companion; but he left me for New York, and I was turned loose to shift for myself. I made some inquiries of the manager of the depot, who by the way is a gentleman. He recommended me to go to the Young Men’s Christian Association Building, and gave me a written recommendation. With his name, I started out to find it, and had gone about a square, when up stepped a man and said: “How do you do, Mr. Thompson, glad to see you.” I said, “I am not Mr. Thompson.” He said, “is it possible. You must be Mr. Thompson.” “No, I said, my name is ______. I am from Kernersville.” He said. “I beg your pardon. I see I was mistaken.” And away he went with the politest kind of a bow. I continued on about half a square, when I met another young man, and as soon as he came up, he extended his hand and said: “How do you do, Mr. R., I am glad to see you.” I said, “I do not know you.” He said, “Well, my name is Dewy, my father lives in Raleigh, and I have been in Kernersville and know you. Which way are you going?” I said, “to the Young Men’s Christian Association building.” “Oh”, he aid. “I know where that is, and will go with you.” And away we went. We came to the place, I presented my paper to a young man at the door, and was received all right. He took me up into a large hall, asked me to be seated, and answered every question asked. Among the rest, at last I asked him if he could tell me where A.N. Zevely & Son had their office. He procured a Directory and gave me the information, and I started out to find it; and when I came to the door there was my Raleigh friend waiting for me. He had not gone in, and I thought he was gone. Again he asked me where I was going, and said he would go with me. We went and found Mr. Z.’s place of business, but it was too early in the morning, he was not there yet. “Now” he said, “what are you going to do?” :I am going to see what I can see.” “Well” said he, “I am a stranger, but I have been over the city some, and if you have no objections, we will go together.” So I said, “All right, come along, now for the Capitol.” “Just so,” he said. “But one thing. I have a little matter to attend to down the street here, and if you will go with me, and that is disposed of, I am your man for the rest of the day.” Accordingly, on we went to the corner of the next street, when up stepped a man and said, “Why, howdy John, when did you get in?” “Just awhile ago from New York, and I am going to Raleigh, tonight, and John introduced our new friend as Mr. Jones, from Raleigh too, but at that time occupying a position in the Treasury Department. Well, we walked on, and our new friend pulled out his watch and remarked, “ I am sorry, it is most ten o’clock, and I must go to work, but John, you bring your friend round to a certain place after four o’clock, and I will go with you anywhere you want to do,” and he left us, and after going a block or two more, he stopped and said, “here is the place.” His business was to buy his Railroad ticket to go home, as he said he could buy it at a reduced rate there, and was only sorry that I had my ticket for St. Louis as he could have saved me several dollars. When we came to the door, he said, “will you wait below or go up with me, I may be gone some little time.” We went into a room where it seemed considerable business of some kind was done, but nobody was in. We sat down, and somebody came to another door and said, “There will be somebody in directly,” and my friend said, “very well, we can wait.: I quietly picked up a newspaper and began to read, when in came a rough looking fellow and asked my friend for a Railroad ticket to go to some place. I have forgotten the name of the town in Tennessee. John said he was not the man, but he would be in directly, and he wanted to buy a ticket to Raleigh. “Well,” said Tennessee, pointing to me, Is that man going there too?” “No,” he said, “he is going to St. Louis.” John asked him where he was from, and he said from Baltimore where he had sold a drove of horses. John asked him how he liked Baltimore. He said it was a nice place, but there were too many rascals there for him to get along. He said they got about $500 out of him in less than ten minutes. John seemed to be perfectly astonished at such depravity, and concluded it was something unheard of, and became very much interested to know how it was done. He said he went into a place where a man was sitting at a table, and had three cards lying before him and he handed them to me and said. “You may look at these cards and hand them to me, and I will lay them down, and you can’t tell which to pick,” and I said, “I bet you one hundred dollars on that, and we tried it and I got his money slick, and we tried it again and he kept on until he got $500 out of me.” “And that cleaned you out?” said John. “No sir”, and he put his hand in the breast pocket of his coat and pulled out a roll of money that looked like it might have been several thousand dollars. “Well,” said my friend John, “I would like to see what kind of looking things those cards were.” Said Tennessee, ‘”I have some in my pocket now, I grabbed them up when I left, and intend to take them home, and show up the rascality of those Baltimore fellows.” He got his cards out, John examined them, and at last the man proposed to show him how it was done. Just so, and John won every time, then they bet $10 and John got it. Now John proposed to bet $100 and I go his halves. I said, “No sir, you have got the wrong man. I don’t gamble and you are a set of sharpers and scoundrels, good bye.” And I worked my way out and left them, and then I took the hint that the Treasury Office man was the one who called me Mr. Thompson, and got my name and residence.
I next encountered an Agent for a California Tea Company who wanted me to go with him to his boarding house and he would give me some samples of tea. I got tired of him at last, and told him I did not want anything to do with him or his tea either and he left me.
I went to the Capitol and looked around and the Hall of Representatives contains the noisiest crowd I ever saw, and how they can transact any business amidst such confusion, is a mystery to me. The Senate seems to be a dignified body, and quite in contrast to the other end. I climbed up the steps to the top of the dome, as far as we are permitted to go, and had a magnificent view of the city and the Potomac. The Capitol grounds too, are just now in all their beauty.
From the Capitol I went again to Mr. Zevely’s place of business. He received me very kindly, and we spent some time reviewing the incidents of the past, and he asked me many questions in reference to Salem.
From here I took the street cars and went to the White House, and new buildings for the Navy and War Departments. The grounds around the President’s mansion are beautiful, and I spent a considerable time wandering over them. I happened to get on the White House grounds just a little after four o’clock and Mr. Zevely told me if I did I could not go in, which I regret very much, not for mine, but for the President’s sake, as he missed very much by not seeing me.
At any rate, my day in Washington was a busy one, and I had the fun pretty much all to myself. Several times I got lost, and I took care, after my morning experiment, to ask information of persons whom I took to be citizens, and never failed to getting what I wanted, and in one case, an old gentleman turned round and went with me a whole square to set me right, and at 10 o’clock I took the express train on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and bowled away at the rate of 40 miles an hour for St. Louis.
C.L.R.
FARMERSVILLE, COLLIN CO., TX July 14, 1880
MESSRS. EDITORS:--This morning finds me at the hotel of my old friend, Mr. Robert Reich and his lady, formerly from Salem, m.n. Griffin. “Uncle Bob,” as he is universally called, is an institution, not only in Farmersville, but is known throughout the entire country, and seems to be popular with everybody. And her I wish to make a correction. In the last Press that I saw, in my communication from Spring Place, I ought to have said that the appropriation for bread money, made by Congress, was Three Million Dollars, which gives about Fifteen Dollars per head to every man, woman and child, and the amount I gave is what will be distributed in Spring Creek District, where my son lives.
After I came into the Nation I received several communications from Uncle Lewis Sides, another old Texan; in fact his the pioneer of the North Carolina element in this country, as he came out, I think in 1847, several years before Mr. Reich. Well, Uncle Lewis, in the name of North Carolinians, urged me to come, and as my work in the Nation was finished, and it was only about a day’s travel on the Railroad from Muscogee, I made up my mind to go, and on Tuesday, July 6th, I left Wood Mount, in company with my son, Rev. T.M. Rights, in a buggy with “Selim” and “Dave”, as “Toby” had conveyed himself away on the prairie and could not be found. When we came to the Arkansas River we found it was up and quite a different affair from five weeks ago. It took three men to convey us over and yet the charge was only 25 cents here, while higher up on the Grand River they charged one dollar a trip. We drove into Muscogee at sundown, and here I formed the acquaintance of Mr. Sam Sixkiller, the United States Marshall for the Cherokee Nation. He was for a number of years High Sheriff, and that is no sinecure in this country, it is a post of danger all the time.
On Wednesday morning at 6 o’clock I took leave of my son, and took the down train for McKinney, the county seat of Collin County. Our route is through the Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw Country to Red River, where we cross into Texas; from appearance there is quite a difference in point of progress between the Cherokees and these other tribes. Red River has the right name, and while crossing I asked a passenger the name and he replied, “why can’t you see from the looks of the water it is Red River;” but I saw something just on the other side, that interested me a great deal more, and that was some regular old fashioned North Carolina red gullies, and big ones at that,--it put a kind of home feeling all over me. Down here, in the Chicasaw Nation, Mr. Henry Reich, the oldest son of Uncle Robert, born in North Carolina, was waylaid and shot on the 15th of May last, by a Mexican and two Indians. He was Postmaster and lived at Fort Washington, 25 miles from Caddo, on the Railroad. On Saturday morning he went to Caddo and carried the mail with him, returning in the evening. They made a blind near the road, from which they shot at him; they broke his right arm and put five balls in his body. His horses ran off and carried him home, and he died next day, Sunday, May 16th. He left a wife and four children and they have been brought back to Farmersville. The Mexican, it seems, had an old grudge against the deceased and influenced the others to aid him. He is now in Prison at Fort Smith.
At Denison we changed cars and soon after passed Sherman and came to McKinney about 4 o’clock P.M. Here I remained till next morning and took the daily mail hack for Farmersville, 16 miles from McKinney. As I left the town I saw something that made me mad. A man with a rope around a beautiful dog’s neck, dragging him off to kill him. They have a dog law that everybody who keeps a dog must pay tax, if not, the dogs are to be killed, and this man is the executioner, and gets a dollar for the job; but here he had picked up a country man’s dog that had followed his mast to town, and they told me it was an every day trick.
Years ago the late Bishop Bahnson came in a private conveyance on an official visit to the Cherokee Nation, accompanied by your worthy Sheriff, Mr. A. Fogle, and coming through the State of Missouri they stopped at a country house to stay over night. The landlady became very much interested in the Bishop, his noble physical bearing filled her with profound admiration and at last she broke out with “O, what a pity that you are not an ox teamster, I tell you, you could swing a whip to kill,” and the good Bishop replied,--God forbid.” I don’t know, I may get down very low in the Scale of humanity before I die, but when it comes to being a public “dog-killer”, I too say,--God forbid.
McKinney is a lovely place, they claim, I believe about 3500 inhabitants. I saw any number of water mellons on the street, fine ones, weighing 40 pounds; yesterday, coming down, I bought some fine peaches. The pavements in McKinney are laid down with narrow plank; and from appearances, I guess, if it were not so, it would be bad walking in wet weather, the ground looking as black as if a coal kiln had been burnt, as with us at home, and is said to be terribly sticky; still, from what I have seen, it seems to me, I would like to live in McKinney, the people seem so clever to a stranger. After leaving town some distance we crossed what is to be a prong of the Trinidad, but there was very little water in the bed.
Crops in Texas this year promise to be fine. Corn is about made, and cotton, if a rain or two more come, will be as good as it ever has been made in this country. Wheat too, has been a fair yield, say 15 bushels to the acre. Coming along I saw the famous picket fence of this country. It is made of stakes of the Boisdarc wood, pronounced Bodark, in other words the Osage Orange, which grows here to be two and three feet across the stump. The stakes are split out 5 ½ feet long and sharpened at one end; then they take a plow and run a deep furrow and put down the sharp end of the stake in it, and fill it up and nail a bord at the top or cross them with strong wire, which is mostly done now, and they say you have a fence that will last for fifty years, and nothing tries to get through or over it, they are generally four feet above ground.
I came on in the hack 12 miles to where Mr. Owen Reich, Jr. lives and there I got off, ( he is the son of “Uncle Robert”). I told this lady who I was and when I looked round there stood Mrs. Phoebe Jane Thomas m.n. Snyder, and said, “I wonder where you come from.. I know you if you are Texas.” I staid there till after dinner and then Mr. Reich hitched his horses to the wagon and carried me three miles across the country to Uncle Lewis Side’s. They received me very kindly; and here too I met Jacob Sides, and Lewis Faw, both North Carolinians. Sides has three children, all sons, and good looking young men at that, they asked if I thought they could stand any chance with the young ladies in North Carolina. I told them they had better go and try for the ladies were there. Next day we went to a Sunday School picnic, about 8 miles from here. There were about a thousand people there. Ten years ago there was not a Sunday School in the county, now there are ten schools, and 1500 children attending. There were addresses by gentlemen, essays read by the ladies, and as good singing as I ever heard any where, with plenty to eat of everything that was good. Going home we went round by Farmersville and I saw “Uncle Bob” and he promised to come for me next Tuesday which he did in a buggy with two fine horses and we rode back to town, about six miles, in about half an hour. You can see the church steeples in Farmersville from Uncle Lewis Sides’ yard. On Saturday I went to see Harrison Craver, Junius Spaugh, Joseph Craver, Lewis Snyder, Frank Rominger, Madison Thomas and Mrs. Jno. Wright. I staid over night with Frank Rominger. On Sunday I preached at a Schoolhouse in the neighborhood, morning and night, had good congregations. Took dinner with Virgil Harmon. They have George Fry’s two little girls, his wife having died some time ago. George was with me all day. Here too, I met Alexander Hartman, he married Lydia Petree. I never would have known her any more. I said, “Hurrah for Texas, you look ten years younger than you did when you left North Carolina.” She said, “Never mind, you wait will there is a big rain, and you get about fifty pounds of this black mud on each foot, and you will hurrah another way.” On Monday I went to see Mrs. Morrow, m.n. Ketner, widow of the late John Burkhard, from North Carolina, and yesterday I met Mr. Frank Reich and his wife, m.n. Boyer. He is the son of Daniel Reich. I also saw John Hartman. So you see there is quite a sprinkle of North Carolinians here, and so far as I can see, they are doing well. Last night I preached to a large congregation here, in Farmersville, in the Missionary Baptist Church, and am perhaps the first Moravian that has ever preached in Texas. They want me to preach every night during the remainder of the week, and twice on next Sunday, and on Monday I start back to Missouri. C.L.R.
OAKLAND, LECLEDE COUNTY, MO July 23rd, 1880
MESSRS. EDITORS—My last to the Press was from Farmersville, Texas. On Saturday, July 17th, I went into the country about 3 miles from town, where our Cumberland Presbyterian friends are holding a protracted meeting, and preached to a good congregation, and then went and ate dinner with Mr. John Hardman. His wife was a Boyer and are both North Carolinians.
On going back in the evening, I fell in the company with a young man by the name of Copeland, who was going to town too. He said, “You are the first Moravian I ever heard, and I believe that some of my relations belonged to that church in Georgia. I heard my father say that he had an uncle and aunt that joined a denomination different from any that had ever been about here,” but he had forgot the name. He said his father’s aunt’s name was Polly Copeland. I told him there had been people of that name baptized at our Indian Mission in Georgia and I suppose they were the one.
At night I had the church will filled in town. At preaching two Methodist ministers were present this evening, Rev. Mr. Manning, the pastor of the Methodist church, and Rev. Mr. Edwards, who has a school here. They both took part in the meeting tonight, and at the close Mr. Manning said that he would have no preaching in his church next day, but expected to attend there, and asked all his people to come too. The pastor of the Baptist church whose house I had occupied I never met, as he was away holding a meeting. One reason why the church committee allowed me to use was, when they were building, Mr. Reich gave them a good round sum to help them on their way.
SUNDAY, JULY 18TH—Today was set for the funeral of Mr. Henry Reich, who was shot on the 15th of May and died on the 16th, and the house was crowded. Rev. Mr. Manning also took part, and the following may interest some of his relations in North Carolina: Henry Augustus Reich, oldest son of Robert and Maria Reich m.n. Sides, was born Nov. 27th, 1844 in Forsyth County, N.C. and in 1850 his parents removed to Texas, and settled near what is now Farmersville. They had one neighbor within three miles and another twelve. The deceased married the 23rd of May 1866, Miss Mary Warden, and they have four children. Five years after their marriage he moved into the Chickasaw Nation and settled at Old Fort Washita. There he engaged in farming and trading in horses and cattle, and had at the time of his death, over one hundred ponies on hand, besides his cattle. He also was Post Master at the Fort, and had the contract to carry the mail from Caddo on the Railroad, to his home, 25 miles. Some time ago he caught a Mexican trying to steal one of his ponies and he made him give it up and some sharp words passed between them, when the Mexican said, “Never mind, I’ll get even with you some time.” And there the matter dropped, and he appeared to be as friendly as before.
On Saturday, May 15th, Mr. Reich having business at Caddo, took the mail himself, and coming back, about four miles this side of the office, he was driving down a slant in a brisk trot in his buggy, he noticed about 15 feet from the side of the road a blind made by cutting down some bushes, and just as he got to the end he saw the Mexican jump up and fire at him, and before he got past he saw three more men, and all fired. The first ball shattered his right arm and his lines fell and caught over the dash-bord and they shot five more balls into different parts of his body. His horses began to run and ran to his brother-in-law’s house, Mr. Chief Warden, one mile this side of the office, and about three miles from where it happened. Mr. Warden had gone to the Post office, and with others, were waiting for him, to get their mail. When the horses stopped he was lying crouched down in the buggy, and his sister-in-law came out; and when she saw him she began to scream, and her husband and others, heard her at the office, and he jumped upon some one’s horse, rode back and found him as described, and said, “My God, Henry, what is the matter;” and his answer was “Chief, they have done the work for me; they have killed me;” and he said “Who?”—his answer was, the Mexican and others, naming the parties. They took him in the house there, and when it became known the whole neighborhood came and staid with him through the night. He called his wife and brother-in-law to his side, and told them he must work fast, for he had but a short time to live. He then arranged his temporal affairs, and gave directions how to dispose of his property; told his wife to go back to Farmersville and do the best she could to raise and educate her children, and that his father and brothers would help her. Having these matters adjusted he then addressed himself to the business of his soul. He prayed earnestly to that God who hears and answers prayer, for the forgiveness of his sins, and expressed the belief that God had answered his prayer and that his sins were forgiven. He then prayed for his wife and children, that the Lord would care for them, and keep them in the way they should go and told his wife not to grieve for him.
Next morning, after day-light, he requested to be taken to his home, as he wanted to see it once more and die there. The neighbors took up the mangled body, all shot to pieces, and placed it in the buggy, and drew it over by hand, and his request in this respect was fulfilled. He lingered, perfectly conscious, until Sunday evening at 7 o’clock, when he ceased to breathe. His age was 36 years, 5 months, and 19 days. He was temporarily buried at Caddo, by the Masons and Odd Fellows, as he was a member of both Orders. It was his wish that his remains be finally brought and laid beside his mother in the family burying ground on the old farm where his early years were spent, and that request was carried out. His widow and children are now living in Farmersville, where a house has been bought for them.
Mr. Reich said to me, “the cowardly rascals, they murdered my boy, but a braver man never trod the ground, and if he would have had half a chance, he would have been even with all of them.” The parties have been arrested and are at Fort Smith awaiting trial.
On Sunday afternoon I administered the rite of baptism to the three little daughters of Mr. Reich and his present wife, Mrs. Martha Reich, m.n. Griffin. She came from Salem, N.C. and still retains her membership in the Moravian Church in that congregation and has been patiently waiting and hoping that one of her kind of ministers would come along, and her children be brought in a covenant relation with God, through the ordinance of baptism and it was accordingly done.
At night, I closed my labors by preaching the last time to a full house, and took leave after preaching to a number of my North Carolina friends from the country, and it was hard to part.
My son said I should come down here from the Nation and rest a bit. I was here ten days, and in that time preached eleven times, took part in a Sunday School picnic, where there were about one thousand people, visited 25 families, mostly North Carolinians, and baptized three children. But I like that kind of rest, and wish I had more of it.
But I must not forget to tell you of “Uncle Bob’s” pets, two black bears, “Pierce” and “Darkey”. We became good friends, and when I left they put their paws through the cage and gave me good buy, and seemed sorry to see me go. C.L.R.
HOPE, INDIANA 1 o’clock A.M. August 4, 1880
MESSRS; EDITORS—The early hour finds me at the residence of my brother, Wm. L. Rights, on my homeward way; and having taken a several hours nap and being restless I thought I would spend an hour or so in writing, and then try to go to sleep again.
I came up from Columbus yesterday forenoon and had quite an number of acquaintances to see me, and I began to think Jasper Shields meant what he wrote me in a postal card when I was in the Nation: “Be sure and come by for all Hope is looking for you.”
Among those that called was Rev. F.R. Holland, Rev. Wm. H. Rice, from Brooklyn, NY., Messrs. Levin Rominger, Shields, Dr. Alexander Butner, Uncle Peter Rothrock (the last of the old race of Rothrocks), Thomas Fetter, Joseph Holder, George Fray, Sen. Francis Rominger, Rev. Warren Tyson (formerly of Waughtown), and some strangers that wanted to see the “Press” man. And, by the way, the last Press I ran across was at the house of my old school mate, at Good Spring, Jeremiah Clodfelter, who lives near West Salem, Illinois, and who is a brother-in-law to Uncle Sandy Snider; and he says he wants Uncle Sandy and Joseph Knaus to come out to his house, and he will show them more rabbits than they ever heard of. And here, in Illinois, I met Uncle Daniel Painter, Horatio Earnest, Scales Earnest and Mrs. Angeline Reich m.n. Earnest. At Albion, Illinois, I spent a very pleasant day with Mrs. Emma Steward and her here sister, Mrs. Scroggs, m.n. Senseman, and we conversed about Salem and old time in general; and Mrs. Scroggs, (who by the way does not look a bit older than when she left Salem), said to me, “Pray tell me who is the President of the Southern Provincial Conference of the Moravian Church in Bishop E.A. DeSchweinitz’ place?” And my reply was, “Madam, you have him before you.” And she looked so comical, as much as to say, not much of a President; but it was nevertheless a fact.
At Olney, Illinois, I met Mrs. Nancy Loback, m.n. Snow, formerly from Kernersville, N.C., John Senseman, son of the late Rev. E.T. Senseman; he is cashier of the Bank here; and when I told him who I was, he fairly dragged me into the house and asked me more questions in five minutes than I could write out in half an hour. He is the very counterpart, in looks and actions, of his late departed Uncle E.A. Vogler. It almost made me cry to look at him; and like his uncle, he is very popular here. I also made the acquaintance of George White, who was born in N.C. and is the son of the late Wm. H. White, who died in West Salem. Mr. White owns a woolen mill here.
I was dressed in a suit of Fries gray mixed; he examined it very closely, asked the price, and said, “ We make nothing as good as that in this country.” His mother was Miss Lisetta Beitel. He introduced me to his wife, who is a very nice lady, and little George No. 2, all the children they have. The country around West Salem reminds me a great deal of North Carolina, more than any I have seen since I left. They are building a railroad here, and by next Christmas you can get a through ticket from Salem to Salem.
In writing this letter, I have somehow got the engine behind, and have been driving backwards all the time; and now I am running back into Texas again; I expect because the crops are so good there, which is not the case everywhere else, on account of the drouth in some parts, particularly in Missouri.
On Monday morning, July 19th, I left Farmersville, Texas with Robert Reich, in a two horse buggy. We crossed three large creek beds between Farmersville and McKinney, (as large as Middle Fork, at Salem,) and there is not a bit of water running in either of them. In driving along the road, at a descending grade there were some cattle before us, and when they went to get out of the way one cow was lying down, and before she could get up our horses were on top of her, and there was a general mixing up for a little while, but the cow got from under and there was no damage done except for the breading of a back-band.
At McKinney, and by the way it has the finest court-house I ever saw, I had just parted from Mr. Reich and Mr. Sides and was about to get on the train, when a man came running and gave me a letter from Robert Dicks, a brother of Mrs. Dr. E. Kerner, a North Carolinian living in Sherman, saying that he would be waiting for me as I came up and I must spend some time with him too before I went home; and sure enough, he was there and into his phaeton I had to get and home he carried me, and there, to my surprise and satisfaction, I found the parents of his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Stimpson, formerly of Lexington, NC., and at one time Sheriff Stimpson, of Davidson County; and a more cordial reception than I received from these good people. I have never realized before. Mr. Stimpson holds some public office here now which required his presence at the court- house part of the time; the rest he spent with me.
Towards the evening, when it became cool, Mr. Dicks accompanied me all through the city, and to the ice factory; we passed all the churches, some ten or twelve, and three or four large educational institutions, indicating that Sherman is a live place in every respect. Mr. Dicks is the lessee of “Poindexter House”, an immense building in the hotel way. He does not stay at the house, as he has a manager to tun it. He is likewise connected with a large hotel at Gainsville, Texas. Mr. Sublett, from Richmond, VA., formerly of the Central, at Winston, N.C. is manager, and is making a paying business of it. Mr. Dicks’ residence is one of the finest in the city, and is the best finished house I ever was in. It cost eleven thousand eight hundred dollars, and was built by a man who was largely engaged in the lumber business there some years ago, and he put the best lumber the country afforded into the house and then broke all to pieces and had to leave it, and Mr. Dicks got a bargain in it.
In the morning before leaving, I helped to eat one of the finest water melons I ever saw, which was grown in Mr. Dick’s garden. I then took leave of these kind people, Green and Tom included, and in company with Mr. Stimpson rode back to the depot, and started towards home. I here met a Methodist minister who lived in Missouri, and used to know the Spainhours, Daniel, Jacob and Elijah, and others that went away from North Carolina 40 years ago. He said the old ones were all dead but Daniel Spainhour’s wife; she was a sister of Daniel Hauser who died near Salem a few years ago.
C.L.R.
OBITUARIES OF SOME OF THE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE as well as RELATIVES IN THE SAME VICINITY