INSCRIPTIONS IN KOONTZ'S GRAVEYARD, ONE MILE SOUTH
OF LANCASTER
(Page 61)

    "Emanuel Carpenter, died in 1832."  [Mr. Carpenter came into the county in 1802, and built his first cabin where Salem Wolf recently resided, near Lancaster]
     "Isaac Kuntz, died in February, 1861, aged 75 years.
     "John Carpenter [father of Mrs. John Van Pearce], died in 1807, aged 64 years.
     "Mrs. Susana Carpenter, wife of David Carpenter, died in 1840, aged 66 years."
     "Robert F. Slaughter, died in October, 1846, aged 77 years."
     "Sarah Slaughter, wife of Judge Robert Slaughter, died in March, 1858, aged 63 years.

A GHOST STORY
(Page 61)

     The mental and intellectual status, as well as the social constitution of society, was about the same throughout the whole of the north-western territories, at, or during the log-cabin era.  The emigrants at first brought with them from the old States their religion, their social habits, their manners and customs; but residence for a few years in the wilderness, far away from the more densely populated and better conditioned ultra montane lands of their birth, created by a kind of necessity, a state of society peculiarly western, which, passing into history, constitutes an era.  The times are referred to as pioneer life, frontier life, backwoods life, the log-cabin era, and the like.  The prejudices and superstitions were about the same everywhere; they belonged to the age; they were not peculiar to backwoods life; old and aristocratic, and what it is common to call refined and more enlightened countries, have had their ghosts and witches; Fairfield County ahs had its ghosts, and apparitions, and witches.  The story I am about to tell did not belong to this county, but to a western county of Ohio, and it reflects the times of its occurrence.
     It is more than half a century since - three-fourths of all the people concerned are dead; three-fourths of all the people of our settlement believed in apparitions, witches and supernatural omens.  Salem Witchcraft, so-called, had infused itself over the entire country, and there were few neighborhoods that had not had, at one time or another, their ghosts, and witches, and occasional visitants from the land of "Deepest Shade."  Sounds and appearances now well understood, and that disturb nobody, were then supernatural.  Several volumes would scarcely suffice to narrate all the sings and wonders and incidents that during that more diffused dominion of superstition, held the people in awe.  The celestial realms, as well as the land of demons were represented on earth occasionally.   But as the fogs and miasmas of the wilderness have lifted, so has the mind been cleared of much of its superstition by the brightening rays of science.  But neither have the fogs nor the mental sombre quite all gone, though the luminaries seem well up from the horizon.  But no matter for all that, our neighborhood had its ghost, which the writer never saw but once, and we shall presently see how.
     A majority of all people within a radius of five or six miles around had seen the apparition at some time; it usually assumed the size and form of a human being, and always clothed in pure white.  It was seen by persons returning from night meetings and other gatherings, and sometimes by solitary persons who chanced to be abroad after night.  There were two small graveyards in the settlement, and two or three waste cabins by the road sides that had been once occupied, and afterwards vacated.  These were the points where his ghostship usually chose for his materialization as mortals passed by in the dark.  The neighborhood had been in the utmost terror at ties during more than two years, and it came at last toa be, that only a few could be found brave enough to undertake to pass either of the graveyards or waste cabins alone in the dark.  Even those who assumed to ridicule the stories that were told about the ghost, would always prefer to have company when their business required them to pass those places in the night time.
     Two theories were canvassed, the first of which was, that a peddler had previously disappeared from the settlement, and under the dark apprehension that he had met with foul play, it was believed that his troubled spirit was hovering about.  The other theory was, that a company of North Carolina explorers who had penetrated the county before the settlement began, had foully murdered one of their number, and buried his body in the forest not far, as was believed, from there, and that his perturbed spirit could not go to rest unavenged.
     My father's farm was separated from that of neighbor H. by a partition fence, ours being situated on the north side.  The distance between the two houses was about one-third of a mile.  On their side was a stubble-field and peach-orchard; on ours was a cornfield.  At the crossing of the partition fence was one of the little graveyards before referred to.  It was grown up with scrubby bushes, which partially concealed a few mossy palings and log-pens that were placed over some of the graves.  Altogether, the graveyard was a neglected spot.
     There was a corn-husking and quilting at the house of our neighbor.  It was the latter part of October, and the weather was mild, and of that kind commonly spoken of as Indian Summer.  At about two o'clock in the night the work had all been finished, and the supper over, and the folks were beginning to depart for home.  Two brothers, two sisters and myself, with half a dozen other young folks were going to cross the field, which would take us directly past the graveyard.  We were strongly fortified, and believed we should not be much afraid of ghosts; still, all of us, I think, would have preferred daylight for the walk.  We had got as far as the door of the new house, where part of the young people were going to finish the night with a dance, and were halting a little to listen to the fiddle, when, by accident, I chanced to turn my face in the direction of the old house, same three or four rods distance, when I caught a glimpse of three chaps as they came out of the kitchen door, and whipped around the corner to the right.  But their movement was not so quick as to prevent me from seeing a roll of something white under one of their arms by the aid of the burning candles in their rear.  It occured to me at once that the scamps, knowing that we were starting, were intending to anticipate us at the graveyard and give us a fright.  I plucked the boys to once side and whispered my discovery and my suspicions.   We called the girls, and hurried across the peach-orchard to where the stubbles set in.  Here we left them under cover of a peach tree, while six boys of us hastened across to the fence.  The would-be-ghosts we knew would have about three times our distance to go, and we knew we were ahead of them time enough to complete our plans.
     One of our number stood six feet in his stockings.  He was, moreover, not much afraid of spirits, either in or out of the body, and he at once volunteered to take the role of ghost.  He wore at the time white pants, and when divested of coat and vest, was white all over.  He then went in among the bushes and laid flat down by the side of one of the little log-pens, where he was entirely hid from view, while the balance of us prostrated ourselves snugly in the fence.  They advanced exactly opposite to where the figure lay, and having halted, began to unroll the sheet.  I could easily have put out y and and grabbed one of them by the calf, but I waited.  Presently an awful groan issued from the bushes.  The scamps were instantly transfixed and petrified.  Another groan, and with it a white form began to rise up apparently from the little log-pen; slowly it ascended, until it had probably attained the altitude of twenty feet or more, in the enlarged imaginations of the boys who were standing in breathless awe.
     Then a voice, solemn and sepulchral, was heard.  It said: "Why, vain mortals, do you come at this silent hour to disturb the peaceful sleepers of the grave?  Retire and pray, for where we are, you too soon will be;" and then the apparition sank back apparently into the ground.
     The fence was eight rails high, and without stakes or riders.  I believed my time had come, and so I reached out from my dark corner and laid hold of a leg, and in the twinkling of an eye the fence rails began to tumble about us with such fearful profusion as to require the greatest activity on our parts to escape with sound skulls and bones, while three pair of long legs were seen making the quickest time on record across the stubble-field, to where the forms disappeared under the peach trees.
     It is about fifty-three years ago, but from that day to the present, so far as I have ever heard, no ghost has been reported in that settlement.
     There was but one wonder in the matter, and that was, how these boys had so long escaped detection.

MISCELLANEOUS
(Page 65)

     While we are chronicling what the world denominates the dead past and the living present, it will be well if we take plenty of time to think the time all over and see if we can consent that all the claimed advancement of the age is in fact, in every respect, advancement to a higher and better condition of mankind.  The world is surely growing wiser (the world of man), but is it growing better?  We ought to try to satisfy ourselves whether, in getting wisdom, we are getting good hearts.  I am impelled to introduce this suggestion because I fear that morals and religion and secular governments are not as good as they were when the world was not as wise as it is to-day.  The art of war, and the art of getting rich are controlling forces now.  Are these forces civilizing?  I know it is a common belief that civilization and religious faith are growing rapidly in this second half of the nineteenth century.  I do not contradict the claim, but let us pause and consider whether we are not leaving behind the essential maxims, and let me say good manners, good sense, and the golden rule.  Where is the golden rule in war and the race for riches, and other popular movements of the age.  These are all subject for grave thought and more earnest and candid consideration than men, in their hurry, are in the habit of thinking.  We ought never to lose sight of the fact that there is such a thing as educating the intellect far in advance of the heart and the moral and religious sentiments.  And I think none who are careful observers can say, that such is not the present course of training the rising generations.
     We demand of our orators and writers now elegance of expression and diction, and hence more attention is given to brilliancy and finely-uttered sentences than to truth and humanizing thought and practice, and the really useful lessons of life.  If more pains were taken in the matter of speech than the manner, higher wisdom would be displayed. Teachers should labor more to instruct than to please or amuse.  Ambiguity, it seems to me, has usurped the place of simplicity and unostentatious words that convey understanding and useful thoughts.  The world will condemn a man more for a blunder in grammar, or orthography, or elegance of expression than it will for gross immorality, ofen, or for the violation of the rule of good manners.  To be scholarly is to be correct in grammar, and to be able to quote fine sentiments from popular authors.  But he is not fit to be an educator who cares more to please his auditors by brilliancy that he may gain popular applause.  And I shall insist that, with all our learning, we can profit much every way by reverting often to the old maxims and usages that we have run away from.
     There are some beautiful maxims in the old school books of sixty years ago that the world has discarded, mainly.  At least they are no more printed.  But they are not forgotten by the old people, who, in their school days, were familiar with Webster's Spelling book, "the easy standard of pronunciation."  They will be easily recalled, and will bring the mind back to he little log school-house with its slab benches and oiled paper windows, and to pleasant scenes and joys departed, never again to return.  The book has long been out of print; scarcely a copy of it can be found in existence; but its precepts live in the memories and hearts of those who were in school sixty years ago, and are still living.  I quote from memory the following, which were the first reading lessons, my older readers, you and I learned.  How delightful to pass over the lines which bring back fond recollections, and group around us delights we once felt, but which we shall feel no more.  The mind at once takes in teh twenty or thirty boys and girls and the teacher, every one of whom we knew so well, and we instinctively ask:  where an they all now?  Here is the very first reading lesson:

GRAPE CULTURE
Pg. 68

     I am indebted to Mr. J. F. Bovring, of Lancaster, for the following appreciative synopsis of the grape culture of Fairfield County.  It is in place here to say, that a large proportion of the surface of the county is adapted to the grape, but most especially the south part.
     Mr. Bovring estimates, from facilities at his control, the number of acres now planted in vineyards within the county, more or less productive, at three hundred; others place the number higher.  He thinks grape growing, as a business, began in the county about the year 1864.  Average product to the acre, in a fair season, 2000 pounds, equal to 200 gallons of wine.  The leading varieties grown in the county are, Catawba, Isabel, Concord, and Ives' Seedling.

STATISTICS OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY
Page 69

     Below is a tabulated statement of the valuation of real and personal property within the county, as returned for taxation for four consecutive years.  This, however, does not represent the true valuation, as property is never, or seldom, placed on the tax duplicate at its selling value.