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(July 3, 1845 - July 25,
1935)
The following is a brief memoir
written by James David McNitt in 1931. Eighty-four years earlier, at two
months of age, he had accompanied his parents and siblings by covered
wagon from Pennsylvania to Indiana, where the family relocated to a
two-room cabin. His nine decades spanned an era that began with
horse-drawn wagons and ended with air travel. Despite his success in
business, like his Scottish forefathers for at least 1,000 years before
his birth, James was at heart a man of the soil who harvested crops and
bred livestock his entire life. His short memoir provides a remarkable
window into the way our ancestors lived in the closing hours of the
agricultural before era, before the advent of modern medicine,
electricity, mass production and electronic media.
I am writing these incidents in my life
to please my daughter Miriam, who furnished the book [for me to write
in]. I may destroy it later as it is from a long, worn out mind and
body. These things I remember while living in this grand old world for
over eighty-four years. Just some of my troubles and pleasures. First,
there were eight of my family as follows:
Father, James Glasgow McNitt, Nov. 5,
1810 - May 2, 1847
Mother, Jane Naginey McNitt, Aug. 8, 1812 - May 6, 1856
Sister, Sarah Margaret McNitt, Dec. 22, 1832 - Mar. 13, 1857
Sister, Mary Jane McNitt, Nov. 3, 1834 - April 12, 1858
Brother, Robert Glasgow McNitt, Feb. 7, 1837 - Oct. 2, 1867
Brother Charles More McNitt, Feb. 9, 1840 - Nov. 1, 1892
Brother, William Alexander McNitt, Jan. 10, 1843 -May 1870
Brother, James David McNitt, July 3, 1845 - [July 25, 1935]
In the fall of 1845, Father and Mother left their old home and their
friends with their family of six children, Father driving a big team and
the big old covered wagon, taking what belongings he could haul. Mother,
with the help of the older children, drove a lighter team with a lighter
wagon. The youngest child, myself, was about two months old. With this
outfit, they left their home in Milford Township, Juniata County,
Pennsylvania, and started West, over the mountains, stony roads and mud
holes, through Ohio and Indiana, across swamps and streams, arriving six
weeks later in the western part of Cass County in Indiana. Here they
found only two or three neighbors, but plenty of mud, ponds, wolves,
deer and ague and fever and some Indians.
They moved into a log house with one big room, a large fireplace, a
small kitchen at the back and a little porch attached to the kitchen.
There was a fine spring and a little brook running by the spring. A
wagon way, or what they called a road, ran between the barn and the
house.
I think the reason they brought two wagons was that the light wagon was
not so rough for us children. Also, there were such bad roads and so
many mud holes. When Father got stuck in a bad mud hole he would take
the team from the light wagon and hitch them ahead of his heavy team and
all four would pull him out.
This big covered wagon was very heavy. His tar bucket was hanging on the
axle underneath so he could grease it when necessary, as tar is what
they greased wagons with at that time. Everyone used the old linchpin
wagon and it took plenty of grease or tar to keep the spindle from
getting dry and to make the wagon run easily. The wagons had no springs,
as they were not made at that time, and I think that baby Jim made the
woods ring with his cries when the wagon bumped over those rough roads.
I certainly made it lively for my Mother on this trip, as I was only six
or eight weeks old.
Father died about eighteen months after landing in Cass County, leaving
my Mother alone with her six children and she, herself, were down with
ague, chills and a high fever, no one being well enough to wait on the
others. I never remember of seeing my Father.
About the first thing I can remember of importance was when two big
straight Indians came walking down the road with their feathered
decorations. They walked into the barn-lot and around the barn, looked
into the barn, stayed around perhaps a half hour then went on westwardly
up the road. We were all much frightened and fastened all the doors.
Mother received very few letters from her people in the East as it cost
10 to 20 cents to send a letter, depending on the number of sheets of
paper one used and at that time the nearest Post Office was Logansport,
which was eleven miles away. It was a big undertaking for her to go to
Logansport at that time as she had sold all of the heavy wagons and
draft horses and bought a small single horse wagon and a small old gray
mare, which the children could drive. To make the trip through the mud
and fording the creeks, as there were no bridges, leaving the children
before daylight in the morning and returning home after dark was a trial
no doubt. I suppose she received an average of two letters per year
during the first six or eight years and most of them came West by canal
boat.
Next thing I remember well was when my Uncle Charles and Uncle John
Naginey (Mother's brothers) came out from Pennsylvania to see us. They
came by stage, boat and on foot. When they went home they each bought a
horse and went home on horseback. I remember Uncle Charles making me a
fine, large bow and arrow, such as Indians used. He wrapped the point of
the arrow with a piece of tin. It was fine sport for me.
Jane Naginey McNitt's cabin beside the Old White Post Road in
Jefferson Township near Logansport, Indiana. Photo taken in 1898
by her grandson Robert Joseph McNitt with a home-built plate glass
camera.
Many families traveled this road in covered wagons on their way to
the western states. They frequently camped in her clearing and frail
women,
infants and the sick were invited to sleep inside with Jane and her
children.
Early School Days
My sister Mary thought I should go to school with her one day. A
neighbor's boy was teacher. It was in an old log house, standing in the
woods about one and one half mile from home. There was a big fireplace,
one window, slab seats so high that my feet would not reach the floor by
six or eight inches. The old log house was still standing in 1929. I
guess my sister thought I would get hungry so she filled my pockets with
apples. We went to the school house and they seated me by the right side
of the fireplace where I would get warm. I suppose I was especially
attractive or made it so. It was the habit of the teacher to sit up in
one corner of the room and have the little ones come and stand by his
knee, one at a time, and see if they could say their A.B.C's. After
quite a little while he asked me to come over to him and say my A.B.C's,
but I did not go. After trying for some time, he thought he would come
and sit down beside me and see what I knew, but when he started toward
me I did not know what he meant to do, so I showed fight and as fast as
I could get the apples out of my pockets I let drive as straight and as
hard as my little arms would let go. Then I got frightened and sister
Mary had to take me home. John Renberger, the teacher, referred to this
incident after I was 35 years old.
The next school I remember was in a log house about one mile from home.
I think I was about eight years old. This old log house had a fireplace
and slab seats. One log had been sawed out of one end to make a window
and I think there was oiled paper instead of glass. I think I had no
apples this time and had lost my grit as a fighter and got along better.
Then for about six or seven years after that, the only school was about
three miles from home. This I attended when it was not too cold and
stormy, perhaps one or two days a week and the school only lasted two or
three months a winter depending upon how much public money they could
raise. When I was about fifteen years old a school house was built about
one mile from home, and we had school three months during each winter,
but on account of work, I went only part of the time. But I struck a
good job when school began in the new school house, as the teacher hired
me to sweep out the room, dust, carry enough wood in out of the snow to
last all day, build a good fire early and have the school room warm when
the school took up. For all of this work, cold and warm, I received the
fine salary of five cents per day and never complained, as I was glad to
get it. I studied hard at night and did my chores at home and there were
plenty of them. I kept up with my classes, such as they were, pretty
well.
When I was about eighteen or nineteen years old, I wanted something a
little better and when a summer and fall Normal School opened up at
Idaville, about eight miles from home, I with my brother Robert, who was
an excellent man and like a father to me, but never had a chance for
much schooling, went to Idaville and made arrangements for me to attend
the Normal School.
With two neighbor boys I rented a small room upstairs and we set up
three beds and did our own cooking. When the school ended I had worked
too hard and the food was too poor, so that I went home with a bad case
of dyspepsia, from which I suffered a great many years. I think it was
the next year that I attended the old Seminary in Logansport. I still
felt that I wanted a better education so I started in and completed a
course at Hall's Commercial School in Logansport, and I think this
helped me very much through the remainder of my life.
When I returned from Normal School at Idaville I was elected to be
teacher in our home school. I succeeded very well, but squirm when I
think of the children being taught by such an uneducated man. This job
gave me a little money so that the next fall I attended the Short Course
at the Old Seminary in Logansport. Then I taught the next two years,
very pleasant, happy three months each winter. The last school was at
the old Penn School about three miles east from home. I had eighty-four
scholars on my school register and taught A.B.C. Primer; 1st, 2nd, 3rd,
and 4th Readers; Spelling, Arithmetic; Geography; Grammar and a little
History. I kept this old Register until the Logansport Flood in 1913 and
think it was washed away or lost when we moved to the new home on the
hill in Clay Township. It was over fifty years old when it was lost.
When I was President of the Logansport Loan and Trust Company I had many
of my old scholars come in and tell me what a good time we had,
describing many incidents which occurred at the time I taught school.
They went to school early one day just before Christmas and locked the
door against me and I had to treat the school with cider and apples. I
think this last term which I taught was one of the happiest winters I
ever spent in my young days, with the old fashioned spelling schools and
the singing schools.
In the first school I taught there were two big boys, who in the
preceding term had whipped the teacher out, and he had to close the
school near the middle of the term. When I started to teach at the
beginning of the next year they tried the same game with me. I gave one
of them a sound whipping with a good young hickory. He got up and left
school but came back about two weeks later. I treated him just fine and
we had no more trouble and he was one of my best scholars. This boy's
family moved west and I did not see until I was walking down 4th street
to the Court House, nearly fifty years later when a man coming toward me
stopped and asked if I was Mr. McNitt. When I said that I was, he said,
"Do you know me?" I said, "I believe that I have seen you
at some time, but I am unable to name you." He then said, "Do
you remember giving a bad boy a devilish hard whipping when you taught
school at the old Vernon Schoolhouse?" Then I said, "Yes, I do
and you are Samuel Small." He said that whipping was the best thing
which ever happened to him as he needed it. We had a very pleasant
visit.
About the year 1927 at a funeral a lady came up and shook hands, saying,
"You do not remember me, but when I was a little girl I went to
school with you. You came from your home on horseback and one wet, cold
evening you told me to wait and you would take me home. You rode up to a
stump and I climbed up behind you and rode home safely." I said,
"Oh yes, I know you now, that was Hetty Hendrick."
"Yes", she said, "but it is Hetty Weaver now and, oh,
what a jolly time we all had that winter." A very happy meeting.
Going back to my early life I shall mention some happenings which I
remember from my childhood.
First, I want to state that I had a fine, noble mother; a kind,
Christian woman, coming from Scotch-Irish ancestors and of strict
Christian raising. She had unusual executive ability, and was a strict
observer of the Sabbath Day. All the work, such as cutting firewood,
splitting kindling, etc. was done by us children and had to be brought
in the house on Saturday evening so that we were all in good clean shape
for Sunday morning. There were very few Sundays that Mother did not get
her little ones around her knee and read the Bible or some Bible story.
I only wish I could have had her with me longer that I might have had
her counsel and advice later in life.
She was a very courageous woman. She took my brother and me, when I was
about five or six years old, and went down through the barn lot, then
along the road about three quarters of a mile to a neighbor's house.
When we went in, the neighbor woman exclaimed, "Why, Mrs., McNitt,
did you meet not a meet a mad dog? One just left the gate and went up
the road your way." She said it was slobbering at the mouth and she
knew it was mad. Mother said, "If that is so, I must go back at
once as I left the girls at home." She found a big club and took us
back home. When we got in the barn lot the girls were watching for us,
as they had seen the dog come into the yard and fight our two half-bull
dogs.
They called to Mother, saying that the dog was somewhere about the
house. other put my brother and me up on a high fence and went up beyond
the orchard, where two men were cutting wheat. They came with Mother to
the house, put us inside, then went to the barn returning soon with
pitchforks and located the mad dog under the porch floor behind the
kitchen. Lifting the loose boards, they killed the dog. Our dogs had
been wounded and Mother was afraid to keep them. The men chained them
for a day or two and then killed them. They offered protection for
Mother and her family and she found it hard to part with them. There
were wolves as well as thieves and Indians in the country and we often
saw Mother leave the house on the darkest nights to help the dogs chase
away some marauder.
Mother always had a fine garden and once in a great while she would have
my oldest brother hitch the old mare to the little wagon and drive to
Logansport with her and the wagon loaded with butter, eggs, berries,
currents and garden truck to be traded for tea, coffee, sugar, muslin
and such supplies. They would start before daylight (3 A.M.) and return
an hour or two after dark. We would stand at the door and listen for
first sound of the rattle of the wagon wheels and would be very happy
when we heard the first rattle in the still night as the wagon came
through the woods, a mile or two away. These were hard trips in the
little wagon, with no springs to soften the rough places in the road.
Besides the fine garden, we had a good orchard with apples and cherries.
Mother was a good cook and we always found at least cakes and doughnuts
in our stockings on Christmas Morning.
On Easter Morning, Mother would sew a bit of calico print around some
eggs and wet them. The fading dyes produced fantastic colors on the
eggs. If the snow no longer covered the wheat, she would pull off some
of the tender green blades and put them in the water when she boiled the
eggs. They would cling to the eggs and produce beautiful stripes. These
were simple home customs, but I missed them terribly after the death of
my Mother.
I am wondering and thinking of her this last day of August, 1925, while
Carrie and Ethel have gone to the teacher's institute. I have wondered
why such a good, kind, and loving Mother should be called to leave a
family of six children when there was no Father to care for them. It
certainly was hard for her to go and leave them. She was so brave, so
noble, such a kind face, so cheerful always with her children, in spite
of so many things to make her sad. The day they carried her out of that
old log house was a very sad one for me. It seemed that I had lost
everything, and when our kind neighbors shoveled the earth down on top
of that rough wooden box in the grave, the rattling was the most
horrible sound I have ever heard. I am thinking now that the Mother of
my own children was so much like my Mother. She was a blessing to our
children and God was kind to let them spend so many happy days together.
I always thought I was a good husband, but today as I think back I see
where I could have brought more happiness into her life. I only wish I
were able to write and leave a verse or two in memory of those two good
women. my only hope is that God will help me to so live that I will be
fit to meet them in that house where these sad tears will not be shed
and where parting will be no more.
I had good, kind brothers and sisters. I had many happy days with
brother Will as he was near my own age and size. We spent many a
moonlight night around the straw stack, scuffling and wrestling for
hours to see which of us could throw the other down, or in winter
sliding down hill on our homemade sleds. I think this is what gave me
strong arms.
I remember there was quick sand at one place in the creed near our cabin
and any creature walking on that spot would sink in. The day after a
very heavy rain the fresh sand washed over the spot making it appear
firm and to try it out I walked on it with bare feet. The sand and water
oozed up between my toes and looked nice and felt good, so I kept
working my feet and toes until I found that I could not pull them out.
Of course, I began to holler to Mother, but did not succeed in making
her hear me until I was almost under. I think she got boards somewhere
and walked in and pulled me out.
Mother met her death by fighting a prairie fire on a very windy day. The
fire burned all our West fences and was coming down to the buildings.
Mother took off her heavy woolen underskirt and soaked it in a little
spring branch near the cabin. With this wet skirt she put out the fire
near the cabin. She was very tired and warm and went to the spring and
drank too much cold water, with the result that she took her bed and
died in a few days. When she knew the end was near she called all of us
children to her bed and asked us to continue living in the home as long
as possible and to be fair and kind to each other, avoiding quarreling
and strife. I have always thought God granted my Mother's wish. During
all my life I cannot remember any bad feelings among us brothers and
sisters. We were associated in many partnerships and business deals
without argument or strife. There was always a spirit of giving rather
than taking.
Brother Robert was a dear, good brother and father to me as long as he
lived, a noble man giving me good advice. He taught me how to use the
old grain cradle so that I learned how to swing it into the heavy golden
grain and draw in a full swath and do it easily. I think he made me one
of the best cradlers in our neighborhood. He taught me how to judge a
good horse or cow and many other useful things.
Sister Sarah died about one year after my mother and sister Mary went
about a year after Sarah. Robert was married about this time and made a
home for William and me. Charles was teaching school and going to
school. He went east to teach. Brother Will and I lived with Robert
until he died in 1867, then we were without a housekeeper until Will
married. Then he made a home for me until he died in 1870. Then I did
the best I could until about 1872 when I married one of the best and
sweetest girls that ever lived and from that time on, for over fifty
years, she made me the happiest years of my life except those when my
Mother was living. And now I have the noblest and kindest children I
think ever lived and the credit for this is due to the good, kind mother
they had.
My Business Career
At first I was helping on the farm and attending winter school, such as
we had. Later I went to Normal School at Idaville, holding the small
interest I had in the old farm. (Worth about $1,000.00 at that time.)
After my brothers Robert and William died, I rented a part of the land
and paid my board and farmed the remainder myself. About 1868 or 1869, I
rented all of the farm and went to Logansport and attended Hall's
Commercial School, boarding with brother Charles. During one year, I
clerked and kept books in a small grocery store.
In 1872, I married and in 1873 I went into partnership with my
father-in-law, Joseph Uhl, in a wholesale and retail grocery, handling
also wool, flour and feed. This was very successful but I worked too
hard and broke down in health. Old Doctor Fitch told me that I must get
out of doors, or I would go to the graveyard. Then I bought more land
and went to farming, but spending a part of my time in buying live stock
and shipping to Chicago or Eastern markets and buying wool and shipping
to Baltimore and Pittsburgh. I did this for about ten years.
I took over contracts for digging large ditches in Cass and Carroll
Counties with large steam dredges which were just coming into use. After
the ditches were dug we had to collect the assessments from the
individual farmers who had been benefited by the improvement, so the job
ran over four years but took only part of my time.
Then I bought more land and carried on the feeding of live stock along
with my farming very successfully until 1902, when I bought some stock
in a new bank being organized in Logansport and was elected its first
President. Called the Logansport Loan and Trust Company, this bank
started with a capital stock of $100,000.00 fully paid in. I served as
President until late in 1923 when I resigned because of the critical
illness of my wife. This bank was very successful, considering that
there were already five banks in that small city. Its assets grew to
more than $2,000,000.00 while I was President.
In looking over my records I found that our Trust Department was
Administrator or Guardian in over forty Estates and I personally looked
after this part of our business. Most of my banking years were happy
ones, we were helping so many people and knew that the bank was growing.
A short time after I left the bank I was in the hospital for an
operation and since that time have been taking life easy. My good
daughter Carrie is taking good care of me and now in August, 1925, I and
my daughter are living in a very comfortable house on the bank of Eel
River where I have the pleasure of taking care of a very nice flock of
black face sheep and a good cow, and where my kind children come and
enjoy the old home frequently, which makes us very happy.
And yet, while counting up the present and the past I can call up so
many happy as well as sad things that happened as my memory calls back
seventy-five years and then forward, when Father died about 1847. How I
wish I could remember seeing his face, but how sad I feel when I think
of it. But he was a good, kind husband and father, but it was not to be
so and we pass it. Then the more happy days come to me when I see my
good Mother with her family of six, sitting around the large old
fireplace eating apples and she telling or reading us some story, and we
surely had our fun. Mother made fun with her children when she could
forget the day she had to part with our Father, and she enjoyed the
children's fun. We had many a play on the old oak floor in the big room,
with the big, bright fire. Then the fire would get low and Mother or my
oldest brother would roll on another big backlog and perhaps it would
partly burn up, leaving a big pile of chunks and coals and Mother would
say that we must go to bed. Then she would pull out the trundle beds,
which were kept under the large beds, and if the night was cold and
frosty she would warm a blanket and lay it in the bed for us little ones
and wrap us up good and warm. Then she would cover the big bed of coals
with ashes.
Next morning she was up first and having kindling and wood ready, she
soon had a good fire for us to get up and dress by. She would then go
out into the cold kitchen and soon have a good fire in the cook stove.
Then we would smell the good fresh sausage gravy and the buckwheat
cakes, and soon we were around the big table enjoying breakfast while
Mother baked more of those nice light cakes.
Perhaps the next night we were all out sliding down the hill with our
homemade sleds in the moonlight, trying to see which one of us could go
the farthest. Once it rained hard when the ground was frozen and then it
turned cold quickly so that a large area of very smooth ice was in the
field. Will and I were in our teens and decided to make a flying jack.
We went into the woods and cut a pole about twenty-five feet long. Then
we made a hole in the ice and drove a large stake through the hole and
on down into the soil. We bored a hole through the pole at the large end
and also bored a hole into the top of the stake, then placed the pole on
the top of the stake and put a pin of iron through the hole in the pole
and on down into the hole in the top of the stake. We tied our sled to
the small end of the pole and taking turns, one of us rode on the sled
while the other pushed the large end of the pole around, making the sled
and its rider go wonderfully fast. We then decided to do better by
hitching the mare to the short end of the pole. She was rough shod and
had no difficulty walking on the ice. With the sled tied to the other
end of the pole we went a flying but almost met with disaster when the
string drawing the sled broke while it was swirling around at the speed
of about thirty-five miles per hour and we shot off at a tangent towards
the rail fence at the edge of the ice. Three rails rose above the ice
and when I saw the danger I raised myself up as I neared the fence and
slid over the top without injury, while the sled was smashed. We had
great fun that day.
Mother was so happy when she got a letter from her folks, perhaps two or
three in one year. They would come by canal boat, stage or by someone
who was moving out to our part of Indiana. Sometimes a letter would tell
of the death of a member of her family which had occurred two or three
months before the letter came to her. I would watch her face as she
opened a letter and if I saw the tears start I knew that it brought her
sad news.
We had two fine half Bull Dogs which were likely to fight when they were
fed out in front of the porch. One day, when brother Will was about
thirteen years old he got mixed up in one of their fights and had the
flesh torn off the back of one of his hands.
I can recall very clearly that on cold winter days we would take a yolk
of oxen and hitch them to the log sled, which consisted of a heavy cross
timber fastened to two strong runners and a tongue. Going out into the
woods we would cut down a large tree, chop it into lengths about twenty
feet long, roll one end over the bolster of the sled and chain it tight.
Then the oxen would drag it on the snow to the wood lot near the cabin.
As we found time we cut the log into pieces which we were able to carry
into the house and roll back into the fireplace. This was pretty hard,
cold work, but I enjoyed it. As we had no saws large enough, all the
cutting had to be done with axes. We sharpened the axes on a grindstone.
Brother Robert was very fond of baked potatoes. He would pick out eight
or ten nice smooth medium size potatoes, dig a hole in the hot ashes at
the side of the fireplace, cover the potatoes with ashes and soon had
choice mealy potatoes for supper.
Brother Will and I got to be the same size when I was fourteen years old
and the school teacher would get us mixed up in class, calling Will,
James or James, Will. When I bought a pair of boots which were too small
and had a shoemaker sew a piece of leather into the instep, he used this
patch to identify me and was able to keep us straight.
After a few days I noticed that he looked at our feet before calling our
names, and after hard work persuaded Will to change boots with me. Then
we enjoyed the fun until the teacher discovered our trick.
When I was about eight years old I came home from school one day and
discovered a clock on the mantel over the fireplace. Mother had bought
it from a peddler. It struck the hours and was a wonder for all of us as
we had never had a timepiece. It is now on the mantle over the fireplace
in our new home on the hill, still keeping good time this twentieth day
of January, 1932. I recall the day Mother bought it as clearly as though
it were today.
The Prairie Fire Which Killed my
Mother
There had been little rain during the spring and everything in the
fields and woods was very dry. Several hundred acres of prairie land lay
West of our cabin. It was the last day of school and there was an
entertainment at the school house, which was about two miles from our
home. We children all started off, Brother Robert and Sister Mary on
horseback; Charles, Will and I on foot. Mother remained at home. We had
reached the schoolhouse and Robert was nearly half way there when a big
smoke rose up West of our cabin and we all hurried home.
Robert arrived there first and hitched the horses to the plow and tried
to plow a strip along our West fence with the purpose of starting a
small fire on our land to hold back the big fire coming from the West.
But the wind blew burning grass and leaves across the plowed strip,
burning all our fencing except that around the orchard and cabin. It was
Mother who had saved them from the flames. When she saw the fire coming
from the West, she first tried to stop it at our West fence. When she
saw that the strong wind made that impossible she removed her heavy
woolen petticoat, made it soaking wet in the little branch of the creek
which ran up into the orchard, and wet the grass and fences around the
orchard and cabin, thus stopping the fire. It surely was a dark, smoky,
black, sad evening for us all when Mother took her bed and it being her
last days work, trying to save the old log cabin.
How I Met the Girl Who Was to Become
My Wife
A Mission had been conducted at the West Side Free School. My brother
Charles and Louis Metzker served as elders at Communion and Mattie
McMasters, Mary Ellen Uhl and Nettie Stanley, also from the Presbyterian
Church, helped in the services. I went over with Charles and got
acquainted with the girls.
Bob McMasters suggested that we go down and call at Mary Ellen's home
some evening. We did so, and that kind of broke the ice. That winter I
got up a bobsled ride with Pete Walker, Will Walker, Doctor Gemmill,
Charlie Rauch and Steve Boyer, each inviting a girl, and we rode out to
the c Farm and had an Oyster Supper. I had a team of matched black
horses with a lot of spirit and Mary Ellen went with me in the sleigh
frequently that winter, and in the buggy during the spring and summer
that I clerked and kept books in a grocery in Logansport. On July 4th we
started out early, about ten o'clock, going South and returned past the
old mill where her home was. Her mother asked me to stay for dinner.
That was one of the happiest days I ever had, and we were married the
next December.
This
account was kindly provided by Jim McNitt |
