I recall very distinctly one day in September, when I was about fifteen, John and I were returning from brother Sam's, at Johnstown, where we had been sent on an errand.  They had put something like a half bushel of turnips in the wagon for us to bring home.  When we arrived in Newark, school had just been dismissed in the building which stood in the rear of the First Presbyterian church.  As the boys rushed out, we recognized Dan and Will Darlington.  We knew them well, as they often had visited us.  We therefore gave each a turnip.  I've looked upon scraped turnip as well worth eating.  With that, the rest of the boys demanded turnips.  We knew that we hadn't enough for them and have any left to take home, so we drove off.  Then they began to pelt us with stones.  That made me mad, so I got down from the wagon and ran every one of them into a yard around the old brick house that stood on the present site of the John Swisher home.  I dared any one of them to come out, but they did not venture.
     The following spring, brothers Clark, John and I went to the reservoir, now known as Buckeye lake.  We drove them in a big wagon hitched to two horses.  Two other young fellows joined us at Newark.  We readied our destination in the afternoon and at once started to try our luck, the Newark boys for frogs, we for fish.  It was not long before we had nearly filled the tub we had brought with us with cleaned fish.  We placed it under the wagon and went away some distance to try another place.  Upon our return we found, to out dismay, that some hogs had made their appearance and eaten all our fish.  We regretted having placed the tub under the wagon rather than in it.  I was discouraged, but John, having greater patience, set about catching morn, so that we had a few to take home, after all.  That happened sixty-four years ago, and I did not again visit the reservoir until within the last four years.  Upon my first visit the canal portion only was free from timber.
     A great many of the early settlers in the country east of Newark had emigrated from Virginia. My father came with his brother Henry and their father from Staunton in 1810.   Through the third brother, Samuel, who was a circuit preacher of the Baltimore conference, traveling in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, Henry had heard of the Grimes family of Greenbrier, Virginia.  Having laid his plans to go west with his father and brother, Henry started in advance of the wagons, his purpose being to visit the Grimes family.  He traveled on horseback, following the emigrant road to the source of the Greenbrier river, where he turned into a mountain bridle path which brought him, after a hundred-mile journey, to the home of Felix and Catherine Grimes, where he presented an introductory letter from his brother Samuel, their pastor.  They looked upon him favorably and be was able to persuade Mary, the second daughter, to become his wife and journey with him to share the trials and perils of a home on the frontier.  Both on horseback, her dower of household goods in pack saddles, they returned the way he had come, two of her brothers accompanying them to drive her four cows.  They met my father and grandfather, and then together the four took up their journey over the Alleghenies, crossing the Ohio River at Marietta, following the Muskingum to Zanesville, and the Licking to Newark, then but a very small village.  They had expected to continue up the North Fork of the Licking to where Utica now stands, as they had friends there who had preceded them from Virginia, but finding the stream swollen and learning that corn was scarce there, they decided for the time to rent a log cabin of Mr. John Channel, on the south side of the Licking.
     There we can picture this brave woman in her new home, meeting its discomforts and privations with true pioneer spirit.  Fortune, however, favored their efforts, and at the end of three years, with the combined accumulation of the father and two sons, a tract of land was purchased on the Bowling Green, four miles east of Newark.
     The year preceding war had been declared against the British, and news of it came as regularly as the irregular mail service would permit.  The greatest anxiety was felt for fear of Indian raids, as reports had reached them of their depredations at Fort Dearborn.  It was my delight, as a small boy, to have father tell how be removed the clapboard on the roof of their cabin and kept his gun by his head, thinking in case the Indians came they could make their escape through the roof.
     William Montgomery, my father, enlisted in the war during the summer or 1813.  His company toiled through the dense forests of northern Ohio to Sandusky, where they had been but a short time when news of Perry's victory was received, which virtually ended the war.  So they saw no active service, but marched back by the way they had gone, to Mount Vernon, where the company disbanded, and those who lived in Newark, not caring to take the circuitous route of the highway, made their way through the woods "straight as the crow flies" and were soon at their homes.  It was in October of that year that my father returned to Virginia and presented himself at the Grimes home and found favor with the youngest daughter, Margaret.  When his visit was over, and he turned his face to the west again and rode out into the bright October sunshine, he had his life companion at his side.
     It is easy to picture the reunion of the sisters and to understand the close friendship that then existed, and always has, between the two families of ten and eleven children, respectively. 
     Samuel Montgomery, the oldest brother, came to Licking county with the third Grimes sister in 1820.  He continued to preach during the forty-seven years that he resided in this community.  His eyesight completely failed him fifteen years before he died, but he had been such a student that his mind had been richly stored, and no one drew larger congregations than he.
     My father and mother returned to Virginia to visit in 1819, taking with them brother Charlie, a baby of nine months.  To make this journey they drove in a wagon to the Ohio river, taking their saddles with them, and the remainder of the trip was made on horseback.  They returned by the same method.
     Again to the subject of the early settlers.  Among other Virginians were Solomon and Jonathan Wood.  Solomon brought with him his bride, who was said to have been a descendant of Chief Justice Marshall.  Their sister, Mary Wood, married Nathan Fleming before leaving Virginia, and they settled at Irville and were the parents of my wife's mother, Margaret Fleming.
     Colonel Nathan Fleming was born in Marion county, West Virginia, January, 1783.  He was in the mercantile business in Irville, one of the early shippers to few Orleans, frequently going to that place himself.  He was commissioned in the militia of Ohio Apr. 3, 1812, by Governor Return Jonathan Meigs, and promoted to major Oct. 29, 1812.  He held this rank until Oct. 15, 1818, when he was again promoted, this time to the rank of lieutenant colonel.  His daughter, Margaret Fleming, married Beverly Lemert, whose mother, Elizabeth Glasscock, laid out the village of Elizabethtown.  Lewis Lemert, father of Beverly, had power of attorney from George Washington to collect his rents on certain tracts of Virginia land.  The document, made out by General Washington's own hand, is still intact.
     Others that I remember well were James Stump and Levi Claypool, Cornelius Sidle and Eliphalet Vandenbark, all men of great integrity, cleverness and hospitality.  Their homes were built of hewn logs and contained large fireplaces and chimneys, Having brought considerable means with them to this new country, they lived well for that day.  They had pieces of furniture made by local cabinet-makers and would also occasionally have china and furniture brought from the east.  These articles were spoken of by their less fortunate neighbors as "far sought and dear bought," but the appreciation shown at the present day of these antique articles proves at least that they were a good investment to band down to their posterity.
     Every man in those early days devoted considerable time to hunting.  It was not a mere matter of passing the time, but a necessity.  The rifle was kept in a convenient place at all times and frequently used.  During my boyhood many deer were killed at the salt licks along the Licking river.  The hunter would hide all night, as it was in the early morning that the deer would come for their salt.
     I recall a story repeatedly told me in my boyhood, of some white men and Indians who were hunting near Black Hand, and their supply of lead having become exhausted, the Indians requested the white men to wait; that they would procure more.  After several hours they returned, bearing lead ore.  There was much speculation as to where the ore was procured, and repeated search was made for it.  One man, Tom Moody by name, with others, devoted days to the search for it, and, failing to find it, they were inclined to the belief that it might have been found in the bed of the creek.
     A "husking" was one of the prominent social episodes and, as well, a decided bit of assistance to the host with his work.  It was held in the early fall, on a moonlight night.  The corn having previously been hauled in and clumped into a large half circle, captains were chosen who alternately chose their side until the crowd was halved.  The half circle of corn was divided into two portions equal in quantity, and each lot of participants, under the leadership of their respective captains, proceeded to husk.  As the corn was husked it was tossed to the center in a pile, and the first side to complete its task proceeded to fall upon the opponents, man for man, in one grand wrestling match.  "Bully" men were so called because of their reputation as wrestlers and huskers throughout the neighborhood.  Other profitable pleasures were log rollings and quiltings, of which descriptions are numerous.
     In 1844 I went into the mercantile business at Elizabethtown.  My stock of goods had to be transported from Baltimore, where I went to select it.  To go to that city I went by stage from Zanesville to Cumberland, Maryland.  The Baltimore & Ohio railroad was completed from Baltimore to that point and it was not then thought possible to build it further over the mountains.  My purchase of goods was brought to Cumberland via the Baltimore & Ohio railroad.  It was carried by wagons across the mountains to Brownsville, Pennsylvania, and put aboard a steamboat on the Monongahela river, which went to Pittsburg and from thence down to Ohio river to Marietta, and from that place up the Muskingum to Zanesville, where the goods were again placed on wagons and hauled twenty miles to their destination.  The freight rate, now fifty cents per hundred from New York to Newark, was then two dollars and fifty cents per hundred pounds from Baltimore to Zanesville.  Calico sold at from  twenty-five cents to thirty-seven and one-half cents per yard.  On the other hand, we paid but six cents per pound for butter, three cents for ham and from three and one-half cents to five cents per dozen for eggs, and many a dozen of the latter have I relegated to the garbage pile, having been unable to dispose of them at any price.
     The county was full of produce for which there was no available market, and as cold storage was then an unheard-of institution, the risk of handling perishables is clearly evident.  I attempted to handle butter in quantity, shipping to Cincinnati by hauling to Zanesville and thence by boat to the larger city.  I shipped one hundred kegs of butter, each keg containing one hundred pounds, for which I had paid six cents per pound, to Cincinnati by the route described.  The product not selling readily, I went over land, driving over the National road to Springfield, which was the terminal for a railroad out of Cincinnati.  All of my efforts to dispose of my stock of butter were without avail.  I returned here and it was not until February, four months after having shipped to Cincinnati, that I disposed of the stuff, needless to say at a loss, selling it as grease to be refined into oil for lighting purposes.
     The store room occupied by me in Elizabethtown was afterward familiar to the younger children as Aunt "Dithas" house, one door west of the Methodist church.  Notwithstanding such experiences as above related, I conducted this business for a period of five years at a modest profit, but, estimating at the expiration of that time, my most valued asset acquired while in business was my wife.
     I met my wife after her return from the Granville Female Seminary in the spring of '46.  We were married on the 12th day of January, 1847, my mother's birthday.  Those who witnessed the ceremony were Ely Beckwith and Rebecca Smith, the latter a sister of William Phillip's wife, who were our attendants; my brothers, Charlie and Clark; a brother-in-law, James Taylor; a sister, Emily; the wives of Abner and Leroy Lemert; Elizabeth, the next younger sister, who came home from the Granville seminary to witness the ceremony, and the younger brothers and sisters.  The only surviving witness of the ceremony is Mrs. Julia Lemert Bradfield.
     We had expected to make a trip to Columbus via stage from Newark, but the roads having thawed and then frozen during the week just preceding our marriage, I decided, after driving from Elizabethtown to Newark and return, the Sunday preceding our marriage, that it would not be a comfortable or pleasant journey.  We came directly to my mother's house, which was located where Carey Montgomery now lives.  At the dinner that day, given in our honor, were present Mr. and Mrs. Thomas O'Bannon, Mr. and Mrs. William Seymour, sister Nancy and husband, brother Sam, wife and daughter, Mary Jane, and Mr. and Mrs. William Moore, the latter a Darlington.
     We went to housekeeping opposite the present Methodist Episcopal church in Elizabethtown and lived there while we built on the hill opposite, now the parsonage, and into which house we moved the following October.  Our first baby was born there in November.  Its life was a short one, dying the following June.  In the spring of 1849 we moved to Newark.  At this time, had I a better education, it would have been my desire to study medicine.  It is a source of satisfaction that our son, Edward, born on the 15th of May of that year, inherited my ambition and has reached a degree of success far beyond the ken of my then limited vision.
     At the time we came to Newark there was great excitement concerning the discovery of gold in California.  I seriously considered becoming one of a party  under the leadership of Ben Brice to go to California to seek my fortune.  This project was abandoned, however, though quite a number from this community really did go.  Cholera menaced the health and peace of mind of Newark's population throughout the two years that we resided there, in consequence of which business was much affected, for which reason, together with our own fear of the disease, we returned to our former neighborhood in the eastern part of the county.  The physicians of the town, together with the town council gave directions as to diet, and advised, where possible, moving out on to the hills surrounding the town.  Dr. Cooper, who built the house now occupied by Charles Follett, died of cholera, as did Joshua Mathiet, a prominent attorney and former mayor of the city, in whose office Jerome Buckingham had but lately entered for the study of law.
     I bought three acres of ground on the Granville road, having a frontage of two hundred feet, later built upon by the late Daniel Wilson.  We lived in a house which, strange to say, still stands on Granville street, unchanged in any way, notwithstanding the fifty-eight years that have elapsed.  This we rented of Mr. and Mrs. Ells, who have lived across the street, and were the grandparents of Mrs. Charles Hempstead.  Other neighbors were Mr. and Mrs. Colemen, grandparents of Dr. William Baldwin.  I recall the names of still others who moved away, and I know of no connections of theirs now living in Newark at present.
     The Sandusky, Newark & Mansfield railroad was completed while we lived here, and I well remember taking my wife to see the first engine in Newark, which I believe was made in New York and brought here by canal boat.  It was a great curiosity to the majority of the inhabitants.  I have previously spoken of my first railroad ride, which was from Cumberland to Baltimore.  I took my wife to Mount Vernon as soon as the road was in running order, that she, too, might have the experience of being carried in this novel manner.
     Shortly after this the Morse magnetic telegraph line was put up through the country from New York to St. Louis by way of Newark and Granville.  It was one of the wonders of the day, and as we were living on the line of its construction, I remember well the curiosity it aroused and the doubts expressed as to the success of the undertaking.
     In June of 1850 P. T. Barnum's Great Renowned Show pitched its tents on the commons where now stands Mrs. Kennedy's home.  The parade formed on Granville street, in front of our house.  The parade formed on Granville street, in front of our house.  A feature of the show was the famous Tom Thumb, whose beautiful little carriage, drawn by Shetland pones, the outfit a gift from Queen Victoria, was standing in front of our gate.  I had our baby, Edward, in my arms and asked permission of the driver to place him in the little satin-lined cab, which was graciously granted.  After a ride of a few yards the baby strenuously object to being removed therefrom.
     When I left Newark I bought a farm one-half mile south of Elizabethtown, which was on the line of the famous underground railroad.  From that time until the opening of the Civil war it was no unusual sight to see negroes secretly transported north.  The title of this farm was defective, and involved me in a lawsuit and the loss of the greater part of the farm.  The case had so many unusual features that it has been placed on the Ohio records of the supreme court.
     Granville College, later called Denison, for one of its early contributors, passed through a period of struggle and vicissitude, and as a means of contributing to its support an extensive canvass was made at that time for subscriptions, on payment of which a scholarship was issued which was to extend to the donor's children and grandchildren.  My father-in-law, Beverly Lemert, gave the sum of two hundred dollars.  Mr. Lemert asked me to go with him to Granville at the time this amount was paid.  We drove there from Elizabethtown on a day in October, in a Rockaway buggy drawn by two horses.  The twenty-five miles were made in comfort and good time.
     The college was then on the Columbus road, two miles from town.  We drove directly there, where we were received very cordially by the president, Rev. Jeremiah Hall.  After our business was transacted we were urged to stay for supper with him, and I remember especially well the peaches and cream that were served us.  A well cultivated farm was then in connection with the school.
     We returned to the village and went to the Buxton House to spend the night.  We sat through the evening in the bar room and I distinctly recollect that the topic of conversation was the recent encounter of a prominent citizen with a rattlesnake.  This particular man had a great antipathy for snakes, and a few days before, coming upon one suddenly and without warning, he exclaimed, "God damn the snake!"  the question discussed was, did he sin in saying these words?  and after much argument it seemed to be the opinion of the majority that he did not.
     We spent a night not altogether undisturbed.  Mr. Lemert shook his clothes in the morning, saying that he did not care to take any of "those" home with him.
     On the strength of the scholarship mentioned, Thomas and Nathan Lemert attended Denison one and two years, respectively, and my son, Edward, was graduated.  As there was no provision preventing these scholarships being transferred, they were in a great many cases rented, which was a violation of the original idea in issuing them.  Their recall was asked about 1880, and almost every one was willing to return them to the institution which is now so firmly established.
     In 1858 I purchased the Beverly Lemert farm, one mile and a half northeast of Perryton, from which my children went out and to which they returned with their children and friends for forty-eight years - certainly the scene of many happy gatherings.
     In 1864 I went to Illinois to pay for cattle that John Montgomery and I had contracted for by mail.  I carried with me seven thousand dollars four thousand dollars in New York drafts and the remainder in bills, all in a case encircling my waist, made for the purpose.  I arrived in Columbus about seven o'clock in the evening and was obliged to wait until eleven for a train west.  I walked up High street, and seeing a theatre, I paid my admission and took a rear seat.  At the same moment another man took a seat directly across the aisle from my own, and throughout the evening I was annoyed by the consciousness that this man was watching me.  I left the theatre in good time to catch my train and hurried down High street, which was then enclosed by a high board fence, while the railroad station stood in the woods.  I took the place allotted me in the sleeper.  When I awakened in the morning and sat pulling on my boots I was startled to see in the next berth to my own the very man I had seen in the theatre on High street the night before.  I very promptly said to him, "It strikes me very forcibly that I saw you in the theatre, sir."  I saw no more of him after we left the train.  Perhaps the consciousness of the money upon my person made me more suspicious than I otherwise would have been, but at the time I was firmly convinced that the man had a design in following me.
     On another occasion I got off a train from Pittsburg, where I had just sold stock to the amount of twenty-five hundred dollars, all of which amount I had with me.  Money was not trusted in banks nor checks accepted freely at that time.  I had come through on a fast train, and it was only after much persuasion that the conductor consented to slow up at Black run.  He followed me to the platform and told me when to jump.  The station waiting-room was closed, as it was nearly midnight, so I started immediately up the lane toward the Bald Hills.  I had walked but a short distance - a few rods possibly- when a man slid down from the fence, upon which he had been sitting, and walked along with me.  I managed to keep a step or two behind him, hoping that when the foot of the hill was reached he would take the cross road, but much to my disappointment he continued up the hill.  The thought occurred to me that he must have his accomplices.  I had no weapon other than a stout stick, but I was on the alert and assured myself that I was equal to him.  When we reached the top of the hill, much to my relief, he turned off into a little lane which I afterwards learned led to his home.  He had been sitting with a sick neighbor and was on his way home when, seeing the train coming as he reached the track, he waited to see it pass.
     It was at the time of the numerous Blackburn robberies.  I was returning from Frazeyburg on horseback.  I had been there counting election ballots, and it was nearly twelve o'clock when I started for home.  I had quite a little money with me at that time.  As I came up a hill, wooded on either side, the mare I was riding stopped with a snort and I, peering ahead, saw in the bushes at the side of the road what looked to be three men in their shirt sleeves.  I debated in my mind whether or not it would be best to turn back, but knowing my horse, and that it could be depended upon for swiftness, I decided to dash by; so, tightening the rein, I gave her a hard cut with the whip, which sent her forward like a flash - to find my fright had been occasioned by a cow so striped that, as she lay among the bushes, I saw in her my three highwaymen.
     In September, 1862, I was one of four to enlist from Elizabethtown at Governor Tod's call for protection for the borders of the state of Ohio.  Fletcher Seward, Clay Lemert and my brother-in-law, Thomas Lemert, made up the number.  Having already three brothers-in-law in the service our going took the only remaining menfolk in Margaret Lemert's family.  The word was brought to us in the afternoon.  We at once set to work molding bullets, making haversacks and preparing three days' rations, and were on our way to Newark before the break of the next day.  John Follett, a younger brother of Judge Follett, and later a successful attorney in Cincinnati, was made our captain and organized the company.  We went to Covington, Kentucky, where we stayed two weeks.  Earthworks were thrown up and preparations made to meet the rebel general, Kirby Smith.  The guns we used were not the regulation guns provided for the army, but the lighter hunting rifle such as might be found in every family.  On account of our guns and the fact that it was the squirrel season, we were called the "Squirrel Hunters."  The governor recognized these services by issuing lithographed discharges to which were appended his signature and the seal of the state.
     In May, 1864, my company H, of the One Hundred and Fifty-ninth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, was called out to serve for one hundred days.  We went to Baltimore, where we were detailed to guard Patterson Park hospital, containing four or five thousand sic, wounded and convalescent soldiers, dividing the time between that station and a fort on the Fredric road to Baltimore.
     My leaving home at that time of the year left the management of the summer work of the farm for my wife and Mr. Tracy, a trusty man past middle life.  We had six children at this time.  Edward, the oldest, was fourteen, and so filled with the war spirit that it took much argument to convince him that he was much more useful at home than at the front.  My wife proved her generalship in my absence.  Twenty acres of new ground, plowed before my going, were planted in corn.  To do this the ten-months old baby was placed in the shade of a tree and amused by the small children, while those who could lent a hand to help their mother, Tracy and the hired girl to plant and cover the corn.  The sheep washing and shearing was accomplished, wool reaching a profitable figure that summer, bringing ninety-nine cents a pound.
     I have had a natural inclination - a craving, I might say - to read.  While I was in the store at Elizabethtown I read Rollins' Ancient History.  During the winters on the farm, when I was much of the time in the house, I read and reread Gibbon's Rome, Macaulay's History of England, Thier's History of the French Revolution, Plutarch's Lives, the writings of Josephus, Thackeray, Dickens and various works of fiction as they came to my hand.
     The growth of this country, the inventions and improvements that have been made during my period of observation, are wonderful indeed.  I well remember my first sight of a cradle in the wheat field.  Up to that time the grain was cut with a sickle.  After our men had watched the working of the cradle for some time, they returned to their sickles, saying that a cradle might do well on the hillside or in light grain.  The cradle soon succeeded the sickle, while the reaper and binder and other more complicated machinery have replaced the cradle- such has been the story of improvements and invention in every line of industry.
Source: Centennial History of City of Newark and Licking County, Ohio by E. M. P. Brister - Vol. II - Publ. Chicago - Columbus: by The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1909 – Page 499