“Some person has sent to me at this late date a copy of your paper of June 11, 1887, containing reproductions from the Western Times of 1826, sixty-one years ago. Many of the occurrences mentioned are as fresh in mind as if they had taken place yesterday; and although you are about as old a citizen of Portsmouth as any other one of your age, the name of Mr. Gunn being “Harilla,” instead of “Havilla,” using two letters instead of a letter V, proves clearly that you cannot go back that far, and that you were not personally acquainted with that gentleman. He was the oldest son and perhaps the oldest child of Samuel Gunn, who was the grandfather of William and Milton Moore, of your city. Some time in the thirties he was either mayor of Portsmouth or justice of the peace, as trials were had before him.”
“The Western Times was printed by Julias A Bingham, in the west room of the second story of a house on the south side of Second, and on the east of the first alley east of Market street, from what was then known as Whitney’s corner. Of that house there is a more interesting history than there is attached to the Times. My understanding is that it was moved to another part of the city, and during the last highest of all floods, it was carried away by the water.”
“William Carey was elected sheriff of Scioto county in 1824, and that announcement in the Times was for his re-election at the October election of 1826. Moses Gregory was Carey’s deputy. Carey’s health was very much broken and he visited his father at or near Hillsborough with the hope of regaining it; but the reverse was the result, and he died only a very short time before the election. The friends of Carey brought out Moses Gregory for sheriff, who was elected over Washington Clingman.”
“Your correspondence aided in making the Auditor’s books spoken of. There were three books made each year; one for the State Auditor, one for the county Collector, and the third one to be kept in the Auditor’s office. The first one was made from the Assessor’s slips, and the other two were copied from it and were called duplicates. I read aloud from the first one, while my father wrote what I read.”
“Samuel M Tracy was elected prosecuting attorney of Scioto county time after time for a great number of years, almost if not entirely as long as John R Turner was elected clerk of the court, and they were both very good officers. At length the sons of four or five of the prominent and influential men of Portsmouth appropriated a bee hive, for which suit was brought against them and they were prosecuted by Tracy, which incurred the displeasure and caused the enmity of the fathers of those boys to that extent that Ransom Odle (links to son) of Turkey creek, was run against Tracy for prosecuting attorney and came nearer beating him than any other opponent ever had. Odle was brought out and supported as a burlesque only. He made an honest living by manufacturing hickory scrub brooms and baskets, digging ginseng, picking whortle berries, gathering wild grapes and chestnuts, making tar from pine knots, supplying James Salsbury, Dr. Andrews, Anthony Miller and others with pine knots for fish gigging purposes by torch light, and so on. He sometimes preached on the streets of Portsmouth, and was though by some to be addle brained.”
” I have repeatedly taken the position through papers that I have printed, that the many inventions and boasted labor saving machines, railroads, telegraphs and other improvements and progress made within the past fifty years are an injury instead of a benefit; and your comparison of the times and the prices of different articles then and now, proves the correctness of that position. Then everything was hand-made, honest, warranted and serviceable. Now everything is machine-made, dishonest, shoddy, made to decline and sell and not for service. Young men who have not witnessed the unfavorable chance can form no correct idea of the greatness of the contrast; yet notwithstanding all of that, there is a hidden something in the American people, apparently inbred and natural, that causes to reluctantly if at all, to relinquish those detrimental improvements and to rush headlong even into the jaws of death.”
“I read in one of the Portsmouth papers an account of the golden anniversary of John Waller‘s wedding, which was a brilliant affair. Fifty years ago both he and his wife Mary Jane, were frail looking creatures, and no one would have thought that either one of them would live twenty years. She was an enthusiastic worker in and for the Methodist Church during Foster’s revival, when Robert and Thomas Reid, Octavius Hall and many other of my associates joined that church.”
“I also read in the same paper of the death of Mrs. Ludgate, at Cincinnati. Ludgate came from England. He was the first white barber that raised a striped pole and opened a barber shop in Portsmouth. His shop was in the basement of the hotel on the west corner of Front and Market street, which was known as the John H Thornton corner, the building being put up by John Peebles, father of the president of your national bank.”
“I have no home here in the city, but am visiting a brother-in-law. In fact just now I have no home on earth, and with the psalmist can sing,”
“Heaven is my Home.”
“My household goods are packed and boxed, ready for shipment but I have not yet determined where to ship them to and make my earthly home.”1
–John Gharky
