MEDICAL PROFESSION.
Page 16 - 32

      In like manner it was claimed, that at that time Lancaster had the right to boast of a highly eminent board of practicing physicians.  Following are the names of the principal men who were practicing in the place at that time:  Paul Carpenter; J. M. Bigelow, James White, M. Z. Kreider, Dr. Wait, George Boerstler, Dr. Saxe, and Thomas O. Edwards.  Of these only two are living, viz:  Paul Carpenter, still remaining in Lancaster, and Dr. Bigelow, at Detroit.  I am unable now to give the names of all other physicians then practicing in the county.  In can however recall the names of Dr. Ide  of Rushville, Dr. Daughterty of Amanda, Dr. Evans of Bremen, Dr. Paul of Royalton, Dr. Minor of Lithopolis, Drs. Helmich and Gohegan of Baltimore, Dr. Brock of New Salem, Dr. Talbert of Jefferson, Dr. Turner of Rushville, and a few others.
     The dry goods merchants then doing business in Lancaster, were, Ainsworth and Willock, Reber and Kutz, Myers Fall and Collins, Levi Anderson, Lobenthal and Reindmond, Rochol, Neigh and Culbertson, Samuel F. McCracken and Alfred Fahnastock.  There were then tow hardware stores; Bope and Weaver, and the proprietors of the other I do not now recall.  The tailors were, Isaac Comer, and Smith and Tong.  Robert Reed and Joseph Work, Sen., and Joseph Work, Jun., carried on the shoemaking business.  There were two tin and stove establishments, viz: Connell & Work, Mr. Bliss.  Smith & Avery, and Gilbert Devol were in the iron foundry business; and George Ring was the proprietor of the Woolen Factory at the south end of Broadway.  The principal hotels were the Phoenix, now the Talmadge House, the Shaeffer House, and the Swan Hotel.  The Phoenix was kept by G. Steinman and the Shaeffer House by F. A. Shaeffer; and the Swan by Mr. Overhalser.  The Shaeffer House has been changed into a business house, the first floor of which is G. Beck's Drug Store.  William E. Williams at that time kept a small hotel, known as the Broadway House; and there were two small inns on Columbus street, kept by two men by the name of Myers.  In 1839 there were two Drug Stores in Lancaster - one kept by George Kauffman, and the other by Bury & Beck.  The former is now continued by Dr. Davidson, and the latter by Beecher White.  William Bodenheimer and George W. Claspill were gunsmiths, the former also a manufacturer of spinning wheels.  Mr. Bodenheimer has deceased, and Mr. Claspill has discontinued the business.  The canal mille was then in operation, and was owned, I believe, by John T. Brazee and George Kauffman.  There were two tan-yards - James M. Pratt owned one of them, and Gideon Peters the other.  David Foster was the chair-maker of the place, and is still, in connection with his son, carrying on the place, and is still, in connection with his son, carrying on the business at his old stand at the corner of Wheeling and Columbus streets.  Luman Baker and Henry Shultz were cabinetmakers; and Henry Orman and Mr. Vorys were the principal builders.  These were the principal industries of Lancaster in 1839, though there were others on a small scale, such as weavers, coopers, and the like, which I cannot take space to particularize.  I must not, however, omit to mention Hunter and Edingfield, and Adam and Jacob Guseman, blacksmiths.  Groceries and saloons, as such, were almost unknown groceries were principally sold at the dry goods stores, and drinking was principally done at the taverns.  There was not then a shoe and boot-store, or a merchant-tailor in the place; cloth was purchased at the stores, and made to order by the tailors.  This was a little less than forty years ago; and when Lancaster is written as it is now, in 1876, the difference will appear.

COMMERCE OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY.
(Page 18)

     In 1839, when the writer's acquaintance with the county began, the Hocking Valley canal was the commercial thoroughfare.  There were fronting on its eastern bank as it passes along the western border of Lancaster some nine or ten warehouses, thronged with goods and produce the year round.  Through them passed the entire surplus wheat crop of the county, as well as the merchandise for all the stores of Lancaster and the villages of the county.  To handle this large amount of freight required a great many clerks and hands.  In addition, a great number of teams were in constant demand to bring in the produce from all parts of the county, and to wheel away the merchandise to its destinations.  The days of wagoning goods across the mountains in four and six-horse wagons were past, the canal being the Eureka of transportation.  The wheat trade alone of Lancaster, at that time, was immense.  On a single day, in the month of September, the writer counted one hundred and twenty-five wagons pass down the hill on Main street, freighted with wheat for the mills and warehouses on the canal.  This was about the year 1846.  The canal was at that time, during most of the navigable months, lined from end to end with boats passing both ways, and freighted with goods and produce, as well as coal from the Hocking mines, which were chiefly developed after the opening of the canal, three or four years before.
     Following the same line of history very briefly, we will see what Lancaster is in 1876, thirty-seven years later.  The leap is wonderful - so wonderful that if one, after having become familiar with the place and its business in 1839 and 1845, could have closed his eyes and remained oblivious to passing events until the present year, he could find no recognition of either persons or things.  In the first place, he would scarcely recognize a building in the place, if the old market-house and residence of Samuel Rudolph on Wheeling street be excepted.  The few remaining citizens he would at last recognize would be so changed as to appear somebody else.  More than a full generation have been born and died within the time.  He would not hear a song sung he heard then, scarcely a tune.  If he should enter a Methodist class-meeting, he would not hear a familiar voice or see a familiar face, and all the congregations of the place would be new congregations to him; new scenes would meet his eyes on every hand, and new strains fall upon his ears; he would not find a single merchant on the streets he left there, except Joseph Reindmond and John Reeber.  Of mechanics left, Robert Reed and John Pierce, shoemakers; David Foster, chair-maker; Jacob Guseman and Stephen Smith, blacksmiths; and Henry Orman carpenter, only remain, so far as the writer remembers.  Of physicians, only Dr. Carpenter remains; and of the bar, not one, and only two of them are living - John T. Brazee, near Lancaster, and Henry Stanberry, now residing in Kentucky.  Judge Whitman and Wm. Slade are living away from here, but neither of them were in Lancaster in 1839.  The Arney and Devol foundries have been turned into machine-shops; and if the returned citizen, after nearly forty years' absence, should take a stroll along the canal, instead of beholding eight or ten warehouses teeming with life and business, he would not see one that deserved the name, and only now and then a solitary boat laden with coal.  The warehouses have been converted to other uses.  This change in the commercial affairs of Lancaster has been brought about by the two railroads passing through.
     In August, 1876, five dry goods stores could be found, and all situated on the north side of Main street, and on the same square, viz.: between Broad and Columbus streets, as follows: Reeber and Ulrich, Charles Kutz, Beck Brothers, Wren Brothers, and Philip Rising.  Four clothing stores, viz.: Peters & Trout, Rising & Siple & Miller, Jacob Hite, and Moses Levi.  Seven drug stores, owned by George Beck & Son, A. Davidson, Beecher White, Daniel Sifford, Richey & Giesy, Mr. Wetzel, and Crider Brothers.  Five shoe and boot-stores, namely: Robert Reed, James Work & Brother, Myers & Getz, Richards & Webb, and Showers Brothers.  Two hardware and stove establishments: James McManamy, Sturgeon Brothers, and _____.  Three banks, viz.: First National Bank, Hocking Valley National Bank, and Fairfield County Bank.  One wholesale grocery and some dozen or more retail family groceries and provision stores.  Five bakeries, as follows;  A. Bauman, Sleekman & Huffman, Klinge, Blank and Sliker.  Five dentists, viz.: H. Scott, H. L. Creider, Doctor Von Bonhorst, Dr. Palmeter, and J. C. Scott.  Four livery-stables, as follows: Christian Rudolph, Thomas Henderson, Johnson & Straley, and Alex. Cunningham.  Two furniture dealers: Stroble & Bledsicker, and Williams & Wiley.  Three jewelers: L. Butch, Sieber & Co., and Frank Blaire.  Three book stores: John L. Tuhill & Son, A. Branemen, and Wynkoop.  One queensware store, by Wm. Stuart.
     The following are the practicing physicians of Lancaster in 1876: M. Effinger, Dr. Turner, Dr. Jackson, Dr. Lewis, Dr. Flowers, Dr. Harmon, Dr. Chas. Shawk, Dr. Geo. Boerstler, Dr. Goss, Dr. Meisey, Dr. P. Carpenter, and Dr. Long & Son.  The practicing attorneys in the same year are: J. M. Connell, C. D. Martin, John S. Brazee, John Reves, Samuel Kistler, Clay Drinkle, Charles Drinkle, C. F. Shaeffer, Wm. Davidson, Reese Eversole, Kinnis Fritter, Mr. Dolson, Mr. Hite, John McNeal, and Wm. Shultz, Tallman Slough, J. S. Sites, David Clover, Newton Schleich and John McCormick.  Builders and lumber dealers; Orman Brothers, Vorys Brothers, Denton & Sons, and others.  Coal dealers: J. V. Kinney, H. Carter, and others.  Agricultural works:  Hocking Valley Works, Theodore Mithoff & Co., Eagle Works, Whyly Brothers & Eckert.  Woolen factory: McAnasby & Co.  Hotels at present are: Talmadge House, Mithoff House, Bauman House, Wetzel House, Columbus Street House and the Broadway Hotel.  There are three marble-monument shops, as follows: Mr. Blum, Mr. Findley, Pool & Co.  Here are also the machine-shops of the Cincinnati & Muskingum Valley Railroad.  There are likewise three carriage and buggy establishments, run by Sears & Mahoney, Shutt Brothers and Geiser Brothers.  All minor mechanical arts are respectably represented in the place.

ENTERPRISE.
(Page 20)

     Lancaster has not been characterized for bold enterprise and adventure.  For the most part, its citizens have been of the conservative style - content to pursue a legitimate business with gradual growth.  An unusual proportion of its citizens are freeholders, and reside under their own roofs, and proportion of the renters being less than he most similar towns.  The financial and judicial management of its affairs has, for the most part, been judiciously managed.  The Municipal Officers are: One Mayor, one Marshal, a Clerk, Solicitor, City Surveyor and ten Councilmen.  I find but little recorded of the municipal affairs of the town previous to1831, at which time a special act of incorporation was passed.

INCORPORATION.
(Page 21)

     In the year of 1831, Lancaster became an incorporated village, by enactment of Legislature of the State.  During twenty years that elapsed between that and 1851, when Lancaster became a city of the third class, I have only been able to learn the name of one of its Mayors.  John Garaghty, Esq., now a resident of the State of Iowa, was Mayor two years, about 1848 and 1849.
     Here follow the succession of Mayors from 1851, in the order of their election, in all eight:
Wm. P. Cried, 1851-1853;
John D. Martin, 1853 to 1855;
Silas Hedges, 1855 to 1857;
Alfred McVeigh, 1857 to 1859;
Kinis Fritter, 1859 to 1863;
Samuel Ewing, 1863 to 1867;
Tallman Slough, 1867 to 1875; and
in April, 1875, Philip Benadum, the present incumbant, was elected.
    NOTE:  I find some difficulty I at first scarcely anticipated.  The oldest persons now living in Fairfield County, and who have spent their lives here, differ more or less in their recollections of dates and incidents.  Therefore, in matters not of record, discrepancies arise.  I have been obliged to leave out much that I would have been glad to insert, through fear of inaccuracy.  But this will not materially interfere with the general tenor of the work.

MISCELLANEOUS.
(Page 21)

     The thread of narration is here interrupted for a time, by the introduction of reference to relics of the olden-time.  A legitimate part of the history of country and age is literature, manners and customs, religion and social habits.  In writing up Fairfield County, therefore, the work would be incomplete so far as a transcript of the times of sixty and seventy years ago is concerned, if the relics of that pioneer age be not brought forward.  The people are gone, and their works are gone; and it is the same to the present age as if they had not lived at all.  All that surging throng have faded from the canvas, but their progeny live, and their virtues, examples, patriotism and good deeds never die, though the actors pass away forever and are entirely forgotten.  The present inhabitants of Fairfield County, descendants of the pioneers, can never have any conception of that frontier age.    Written words cannot convey the conception.  It was a neroism to sever from friends and neighbors and cherished association in the older States beyond the mountains, and travel hundreds of miles into the wilderness to take the chances of a precarious living - to encounter wild beasts and savage man, and the pestilential malaria, and to petition the forests and the virgin soil for bread and raiment - to be content with a square log-pen, covered with clapboards, amidst wild forest scenes.  But all this was only a part of the sacrifice.  To find a subsistence the forests had to be cleared away, and the timber burned, and a few acres inclosed with rail-fences, and then the soil broken and the seeds deposited, and left to the chances of the inclement seasons and the depredations of animals.  If the season failed, or beasts destroyed, there was little left for man; and this was a common occurrence.  But few who read these pages will have an experimental knowledge of frontier life, and even they will have lost much of its recollection.  Pioneer life here was pioneer life in all the West at the same age.  But the settlements, coming as they did from different circumstances of life, and bringing with them their religious and social habits at home, came soon, by the force and necessities of new and strange circumstances, to form new social relations.  Mutual dependencies and mutual aid became the web and woof of the new settlements.  But how they did, how they appeared, their sports and pastimes, the songs they sung, their melodies, all that belonged to the log-cabin age died with the actors, and now live only in tradition or written history.  Their narration stirs no heart, except that heart which has before had its chords struck with the living realities.  Still, there are those yet on the stage who will be thrilled with some reminiscences that follow.  The songs, and stanzas, and choruses, and plays a fresh young life sixty years ago are yet dear to those who once participated in them.  These were days of innocence and sincere friendship and rational enjoyment.  Imagination will group around the aged, dear friends and loved associations long since fled, capable, by their recollection, of making in the bereaved heart yet beating, a little heaven on earth.  I love to believe it is a foregleam of the blessed immorality that awaits us all beyond the confines of time and sense here below.  Faith pictures the family-circle re-forming on the thither bank of the poetic stream of death, and awaiting our coming.  These are hallowed and thrilling remembrances, that, cherished, make us better and happier men and women.  I am happy while I call them up.  I lived through back-woods life, and here reproduce from memory a few of the old stanzas and choruses that were sung by religious people everywhere in the West sixty years ago:

A FOURTH OF JULY.
(Page 31)

     The following story of the celebration of the Fourth of July is so characteristic of the frontier times sixty years ago, that it deserves a place here.  The story was related to me by the late General George Sanderson, some years ago, and I give it in substance precisely as related by him, he having been an eye witness of the affair:
     It was about the year 1802.  Lancaster was no more than a few rude cabins in the woods; and there were the merest nuclei of settlements along the creeks.  The country was an almost unbroken wilderness.  The fires of the revolution were, nevertheless, still burning, and the settlers took it into their heads to celebrate the Fourth of July in an appropriate manner.  The spot selected for the occasion was the knoll between Hocking and the present residence of Augustus Mithoff, and on the left side of the Chillicothe Pike.  A dinner, such as the inhabitants were able to provide at that early day, was prepared, and a barrel of whisky brought on to the grounds, which was up-ended, the head knocked out, and several tincups hung on nails driven into the staves, when everybody was welcome to come up and drink ad libitum.
     And thus it chanced, that while patriotism and corn-whiskey and general hilarity prevailed, a solitary traveler made his appearance, slowly plodding along Zane's trace, and heading to the west.  Percieving the little crow of patriots a couple of hundred yards of on his right, he turned his horses' head in that direction, and rode up to learn what was going on; perhaps as much to be in company with human beings, for he had been two days and one night entirely alone in the wilderness, since passing Zanesville, which was then settled by a few families.  He was cordially greeted, and invited to "light off" and take a dram, which being done, the usual frontier questions were put:  Where was he going? - and what for"  He was from Virginia, and was going to Chillicothe.  he had heard of the fame of the Scioto Bottoms, and if he liked the country he was going back for his family, and would settle there.
     In the common parlance of back-woods life "the best man" meant just one thing - it meant the man that could make another man "holler" enough; and the phrase "good man" signified one of strong muscles and quick motion.  The meaning attached to these words then has not yet died out, though "good" and "best" are, by the transformation, assuming a moral instead of physical interpretation.  Thus, in the former age, if one said, "I am a better man than you;" or, "he is a good man," it was to be understood that "I can whip you," and "he is a man not to be fooled with."
     The traveler was solicited to settle on the Hocking; its superiority and advantages were dilated upon and proposed as reasons why he should not go further west.  But he had his mind fixed on the settlement at Chillicothe, and thought he would go there was better men on the Hocking than on the Scioto.
     Whisky was by this time doing its work, and the traveler felt inclined to doubt the proposition, for some of his friends had gone to the Scioto.  He believed there were better men on the latter, or would be if he himself should decide to locate there.  This suited the celebrators exactly - the thing was coming to a point.  The traveler's last remark was construed into a banter, and the proposition was at once submitted to settle the question then and there.  The stranger made no objections, and several stout men volunteered to see that he had fair play.  The man to fight him was brought out, the ring formed, and they stripped and went at it.
     Rough and tumble was the style of those back-woods fights.  The combatants were allowed to strike, kick, choke, bite or gouge - anything to whip.  The "code" would not permit any one to interfere until one of the fighters called "enough." Upon that world being pronounced, if the victor did not at once desist,  the bystanders were bound to close in and part them.  It was a long, powerful, and bloody contest, but the traveler was compelled at last to call "enough."
     After the combatants were washed and dressed, whisky was handed around, and the parties drank as friends, when the new-comer remarked, that there were as good men on the Hocking as he wanted anything to do with, and he believed he would settle there.