Now and Then – Reminiscence
By Rev. B.F. Lawler
Page 1

Reminiscence:
In 1854 there was a drought prevailing in the county, coming on a little later in the year than this drought began.
There was much talk of famine among many people. Late in the summer a general rain came which brought out fresh corn silks in many corn fields. Joe Fowler was a day laborer who felt so keenly the situation that when the rain began to fall late in the night he left his bed and sat in the door of his house so glad was he to see the rain. He visited the neighborhood telling of the prospect for bread. He said Fount Delozier had corn enough to support twenty five families with bread. Fount Delozier’s farm was then a fine producing farm adjoining below where Gerster now is. Joe Fowler had no family nor was he educated except that he read or had heard read some United States History and would for hours hold the attention of groups of boys and men while relating the story of Jasper and Newton recapturing the citizens being carried away by the British. He was graphically descriptive and would have made a capital writer of fiction. The British with the prisoners had stopped for dinner near a spring and had stacked their guns. Fowler now began to speak in low voice. Jasper and Newton were in hiding near the spring. When the captors began their dinner Jasper said. “Newton, now’s our time” and sprang to the guns, recapturing all without firing a shot, being in possession of all the guns. Many stories of McDonald and others regaled the off-hours of farmer men and boys being told by Joe Fowler, the man who was so much concerned about the drought. Was there not a cause for him to be concerned?

Reminiscense:
Seventy years ago most girls in St. Clair wore sun bonnets when out of doors to give them fair complexion and if a girl persisted in going bare headed with tangled hair she was called a “tom-boy”. When they become Misses and young ladies they wore hats on Sundays, or fashionable parasols keeping the sun off their fair faces. A sleek horse, a lady’s saddle, a long, riding habit or skirt and a lady’s horse whip equipped a lady well for a fine appearance on horse back.
They were experts in letter writing, making small letters slanting a little to the right at the top, the grammar, the diction and punctuation being of a high order. Their essays in those days were called “Compositions”. Their epistolary communications introduced them into any society if they had been give opportunities and good training.
Very few young ladies were arithmeticians or mathematicians of a note in those days, but grammar, composition, geography and botany could not be neglected.
L.R. Ashworth could write in lady’s first-class handwriting.
Very few women taught school then and few were expected to do business, no salesladies then, no collectors or financiers as such. Only one man I knew who had a piece of land in every child’s name, girl or boy, but few women held land in their own right. In one case I knew the father-in-law to deed land to his son-in-law instead of his daughter’s name alone, it is not so done now. Then, however, the law protects her interest by requiring her name in transferring the land.
I never knew a woman to make a public address in that early time. After the war ladies spoke to ladies in public, later our missionaries addressed mixed assemblies on great occasions, but always with her usual head-dress upon her as the Bible instructs her, 1st Corinthians 11:4.
Many women rode elegant horses and presented a splendid appearance. They seldom rode to church alone, for many young fellows thought it a great honor to escort them, not so much to protect them as to be gallant and polite to them. Engaging their company might be quite informal but a young man who wished to be sure, engaged his company before hand.
Sometimes a lady had good reasons for declining the attentions of young men and some of those young men had to look well to their standing in the community.
It was an honor to assist a lady in mounting her horse and for this purpose stile-blocks were placed near the front gate of the home and were called “upping blocks”. I have seen long columns of ladies and gentlemen riding in double file from or to the places of great meetings, some coming from a long distance away.
Often, before returning to their homes they would be invited to dinner by some of the near by neighbors.
It may be a surprise to some as to how late the Mary Lyon college was opened especially for women and that great Universities were slow to admit women to equal grades with men in mathematical and scientific studies in which women are excelling in a good degree. Why they were kept back from mathematics and the sciences so long is not easily understood. B.F. Lawler

Reminiscense:
The best biscuits of all, to me, were baked in a skillet on a hearth in front of a log fire, coals being under the skillet and on the skillet lid. This was common in the rich mans kitchen as well as in the poor mans house. The oven was deeper than the skillet and was handled with pot hooks. Corn bread baked in the oven was called pone, (Mexicans call it bread pon) and was excellent food; happy the boy whose mother would give him a slice well buttered between meals and then say: run along sonny and do what your Father says; he could afford to run.
The first lights in a pioneer home consisted of lamps holding so much as a blacking box, not round and having a lip like a pitcher the wick being kept in the oil in the lamp. These lamps were often hung up by a little chain on or near the wall close by the fire place.
Then came the “tallow dip”, then the molded candle. W.W. Shaffner of this city showed me a candle yellow with age, and a candle stick and snuffers, these being so familiar after fifty years that they seemed just like the ones we had in the olden time.
I know of no one who has preserved so many curios as has Mr. Shaffner.
Our water vessels consisted of tubs, keelers, pails and piggins.
Tubs and keelers were made of oak staves while pails and piggins were made of cedar.
Some men who owned small farms were Coopers and it would surprise our young readers to see a wooden hoop they had lock-lapped to hold their vessels together in the absence of iron and brass hoops.
The pails had one handle, one of the staves being much longer was carved into a convenient handle.
Water was carried from the spring in these pails, mainly by the women, negro women and some white women carried these pails of water on their heads. I should be sorry to see this now.
When men carried the water they carried it in front of them spilling much of the water.
After a while buckets with balls came into use and some men would bring a bucket of water in each hand from the spring before going to the field, and then was counted quite good if he brought several buckets of water on wash days, but the good wife or daughters aimed to have fresh water from the spring for the thirsty farmer when he came home at noon, night water! Whose duty was it to see that no water had to be brought from the spring after night in the dark of the moon? Whose?
Ah well, we have no spring paths now and if we did we could have a lantern to help us find the way.
I remember the first lantern I saw; it was all of tin, the light of the candle coming through the many holes made for the purpose – too many for windy nights. Well do I remember that lantern, but none of such relics survived the war with me, even the life of Dr. Franklin my first book, slipped away from me in the war.
But the moonlight on the spring path still shines in my vision and it seems I can still hear the negro songs as they carried those pails of water on their heads along the well beaten spring path.
Only a few had servants of their own or hired servants from their neighbors, so most households in the early days of St. Clair county were cared for by the mothers of that time.
Added to all of this the spinning, weaving, and cutting and making garments for the family fell on them and their daughters when old enough.
Are you surprised that I sing in honor of the women of that time? Many were not recognized then who were worthy to be sung by Homer or Virgil and whose graves are unmarked and whose families are wasted away and gone.
But Angels watch the places where they sleep. B.F. Lawler

Reminiscense:
Among the many things I remember which occurred in the early days in St. Clair county it is not easy to decide what is best to write.
I am told that many children read these stories and I am very sure I wish to please them, if I can do so, and, at the same time help them to a little understanding of life’s responsibilities.
Two things were impressed upon most every boy and every girl.
The first was they must obey. The second, that they must work.
Obedience and Service.
A few white children did not take a regular place on the farm or in the kitchen, but they were exceptions.
The rule was that white boys and black boys worked together in the fields and that white girls knew how to work, not on the same conditions, perhaps, as were the colored girls governed, but all had to obey and all had to work.
For misdemeanor the white boy and the black boy had the same punishment, and punishment was not a farce such as being put to bed in day time and not permitted to play with neighboring boys, or shut up in a closet under the winding stairs, but stripes well laid on with firm hand. I have in mind as if it were yesterday a black boy and white boy about the same age demolished some bee-hives one night having a great feast as they thought. But next day they were drawn up for the trial by the father of the white boy and who was also the master of the black boy.
It is said he gave them severe punishment, no coats to shield their backs. Today the sheriff would arrest boys for theft and it might be serious business with them for a time.
But in that day a short court and a long switch cut from a tree settled the difficulty.
I saw the white boy a few days afterward – he had nothing to say and seemed to have felt his punishment to a great degree but soon was a happy rollicking school boy and when he was a man he married one of the finest young ladies in the country.
In the late fifties a young man, very young man came from the old country but found no one of his age idle, all had work and he asked one young man where were the “gentlemen”.
“What do you mean”, said our busy young man.
“O”, said the stranger, “I mean, those who do not work, but spend their time in seeking pleasure”.
“O”, said the American boy, “I understand you now but we call them tramps in this country”.
Without thinking much about it St. Clair county was then training the main supports of all that is called sacred and good in state, in society and home obedience and industry.
The President himself must obey and he must work.
Most of all our criminals today began by disobeying their parents or teachers or both.
Service promotes to great honor while talent alone may fall.
No man can uphold law while he is a law breaker. All our Governors have been trained to obey, hence they know how to govern.
Even school masters in the “forties” in St. Clair county had to be obeyed. Some boys had been in bad business on a Sunday who were punished on Monday by the school master, though, I knew only one case like this one.
But children in the early settlements in St. Clair county had to obey and they had to work, and without these two things we can have no country. God works all the time and he observes the strictest order of all things. B.F. Lawler

A Reminiscent Sunday:
Fifty years ago Coon Creek Baptist Church sang the old songs, such as “All is vain unless the Spirit of the Holy One comes down”, and “How tedious and tasteless the hours when Jesus no longer I see” and many others which were repeated last Sunday with great devotion and spirituality, the melody was very inspiring and uplifting.
It was a great surprise to learn that so many books used in the long time had escaped the fires of the war and that many of the hymns can be sung so accurately by the children’s children and their friends after the long silence of the voices attuned to those upper registers of the human voice.
Mrs. Sarah Higgins is perhaps the only one who is a member now, who was a member fifty years ago, though many old people are among them.
One hymn had to be sung without using the organ as the music could not be found.
More people recollect what was done in the church fifty years ago than one would think, but the vast army of Christians now are young people.
Old people were given front seats and the occasion was very inspiring.
A copy of the “Southern harmony” was in use in the programme and was as familiar as an old friend, in appearance, the shaped notes in common use then.
The house where the church worshiped beginning about 1842 was a short distance above Ben Nance’s home, the place now covered with great trees, the house having long since disappeared; it was built of logs the building being about 18x32 feet in size, having two doors in Southside and one in North.
In fine summer days the service was conducted out of doors under the great trees and the congregations were often so large that the people farthest away could scarcely hear the preacher.
Water was brought from the great spring and people would be helped or help themselves to water while the good man continued.
Many of the people had ridden ten miles to the meeting, some, more.
After the long and intensely interesting services were closed many of the nearest homes to the church were filled with guests for dinner and the horse lots had sheaves of oats strewn in them for the hungry horses before returning to their own wild pastures many miles away.
Husbands and wives, friends and lovers rode upon horses, the man always at the right hand of the woman and sometimes these double files would be half mile long on some of the roads leading away from the church.
About two hundred feet from the old church building a new foundation was laid of hewn stone and pine lumber of an excellent quality had been hauled from White river in the southern part of the state to build a new house for the Lord. Half an acre of land had been purchased and the great congregation would soon have been housed in a great new building had it not been hindered by the great war. The fine lumber was taken and even the foundation stones except one, went from the devoted owners without their consent.
B.F. Lawler

Reminiscence – 15 January 1914:
My early impression about Lawyers are also hard to define. I did not know one who claimed to be a practical Christian, but as custodians of the law I had a higher estimate of them and especially of the judges of the courts. McGuffey’s school books aided young people more in the understanding forensic matters than they could learn from legal sources. I think our present District Judge sustains himself quite up to my early impressions of what a judge ought to be. As pleaders I read of Rufus Choate and Caleb Cushing and especially about Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. I have seen old men who heard those men in their early years and they gave graphic accounts of some of them. John Marshall I could only read of, not seeing any man who had seen him.
Alex McClain, John T. Crenshaw and Charles P. Bullock were lawyers in the early days of St. Clair County, while Waldo P. Johnson, whom many of you have seen, rose to Judgeship and then to the Senate U.S.A., at the beginning of the war, others were more or less prominent. My father’s conduct in the court house as I followed him set the pace for me, as when he took off his hat, my little cap came off also. In listening to great pleadings in courts the sheriffs have usually given me a seat within the bar where I had great opportunity to see and know. In criminal cases the face of the prisoner is often the book I study most, next to him the impression made by the judge. But a mighty lawyer has held a front place in my thinking ever since I read “Paul’s defense before Agrippa”, see Acts 26:1.
Law students are not all Bible Students, but some great lawyers have made their most telling arguments from quotations from the Bible. I sat in a court room in Nebraska at the time a man was on trial for his life, said to be the ablest lawyer in the state closed the argument for the defense, beginning thus: Gentlemen of the jury, you are not here to guess – you are here on oath to decide on facts. Then there was a painful silence. Then began a prelude which seemed for the time to carry every man off his feet. My own feelings for a wonder were against the prisoner, but I declare that when that lawyer said: “ever since they hounded our Savior to the cross crying, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him! ever since that time vox populi has cried for blood.” I admit that that ancient scene rose like a spectre in that court room. Excuse me for brining in matters outside of St. Clair County. But permit a word on the other side. The jurymen were sturdy farmers who had come from Iowa and Illinois and had settled in the new country. Notwithstanding the great ability of the lawyer, it was not long before those sturdy men straightened up and seemed to say: “We know a few things ourselves”, and after retiring they voted “guilty” according to the evidence.
I am happy to say for St. Clair county that no trials for murder came to the early courts here to my recollection, though there might have been. B.F. Lawler

Reminiscence:
The first physician I saw in my father’s home was Doctor D.R. Murphy who was also a preacher of the Gospel. Later doctor Beuds, Doctor Lewis of Osceola was the first regular physician in our family, followed by Doctor Harris and after he went south Doctor Dorrell was called.
My family physicians have all become personal friends to this day but it had not occurred to me until recent years how much we owe them for their work’s sake, for it has been said that they are the only class of people who “fight against their own business” in trying to cure people instead of keeping them sick, and the prophalaxis, the preventing sickness is, with them a specialty. Cuba, Portorico, Panama and our own beloved South land can all testify to the skill of our physicians in stamping out diseases once so perilous and deadly. And yet it is seldom one hears a prayer in any of our pulpits offered for doctors who have care of the sick.
It has been suggested that we cease to praise Alexander, Caesar, Cromwell, Napolean and Von Moltke for destroying human lives in war and turn our thoughts to the great army of our physicians who venture their own lives and health in saving life and fencing against disease in great skill and fidelity. Yellow fever, smallpox, cholera and other violent diseases have been conquered to a great degree by medical skill and now the dreaded “hook worm” is being “run down” and brought under control more or less.
The early people of the world must have known something of medicine and surgery. Hippocrates as early as 500 B.C. had knowledge of tradition and experience and left an extended and able practice especially on surgery which was followed up by Galen about A.D. 31. Luke who wrote the third book of the New Testament was called the “beloved physician” and was probably educated at Alexandrria which was the great center of learning. It would be interesting to know what he would have thought about medicine.
Vesalins in the middle centuries had much to do in the advancement of the healing art and the surgeon has had a large place in all civilized nations.
It is true the last hundred years have witnessed the greatest advancement in the knowledge of and remedy for human ailments and it is surprising at the readiness of young physicians to risk and even sacrifice their own lives to find the cause of so much mortality in some sections of the world and to find a remedy for the afflicted people. The regular physicians almost uniformly compliment ministers of the Gospel with their service as physicians and many of us have been to long in saying anything about it, or to mention them in our public prayers. It is my opinion doctors do more charity work pure and simple than any other class of persons. Much and severe exposure brings many a physician to an early grave, though they usually die old.
If I were able I would be glad to give them a high class entertainment and tell them how much I appreciate them for their work’s sake and for themselves; for personally, I am under great obligation to a long line of faithful and skilful physicians, some of whom now sleep their long sleep without knowing how I now feel toward them and their people. Jesus says: The whole have no need of the physician but they that are sick. No one knows this as well as those who have been near death’s gate. B.F. Lawler

Reminiscence:
I was in the first court house in Osceola before the floor was put in. Court was in session and the desk for the Judge being at the east and the main entrance at the north side of the building. This was in the early forties and I was a very small boy.
For the number of citizens in the county and their ability to pay I think they did remarkably well, many had come from older states and had seen great buildings for public utility, but they were glad to have so good a building even in its unfurnished condition.
The county clerk’s office was on the second floor and there was more convenience in office room in the building than one would suspect.
I grew to be a man before that was demolished in war together with most all the homes in the fine town that Osceola was, and many houses in the country, including my own until I felt like a man without a country.
Years passed! I craved to see the graves of my dear ones once more. Passing through I was introduced to Mr. Appler, the editor of the paper. He invited me to leave an appointment to preach in the new court house just then completed. After visiting my old neighborhood ten miles in the country it was my privilege to preach a series of sermons in the new court house. Mr. Appler is still living in St. Louis and I saw him last winter. He is the Father of Mrs. C.H. Lucas.
During that week the young men, most of them attorneys at law gave a reception in the Scobey Hotel. Fine congregations heard my sermons and compensated me liberally.
Now, a third generation from those who built the first court house lives in the county and these have been increased a thousand fold by others coming in, bringing in fresh blood and fresh thought and the taxable property has greatly increased. The school advantages are of a high order and the people wear good clothes and why is it that the “present court house lieth waste?” and must the pride of our people be stung continually when they see the condition of the building where our noble Judge has to hold court?
Shades of the father’s fall on us and remind us of their hopes for us while they battled for the welfare of the county for so long with so slight a tax roll.
Strangers pass by and wag their heads at us. Some of our own people deride us while those who have the welfare of the county at heart are mortified.
In vision and dream alone we can see.
The house we have built in the air
We have dreamed again that we might be free
From the thrall of the shame that we bear.
We hope against hope as the Spartans of old
And pray that the spirits of men
May feel the old fire of Athens so bold
As to raise their great buildings again.
A remnant from three generations ago
Watches and waits for the day
When the pride of the fathers shall kindle and glow
And the shame of our folly be taken away.
With quickened step and a lighter heart
New halls and the stairways we’d tread
And the echoes of gladness would only depart
When speeches of dedication were said.
B.F. Lawler

Submitted by Stacy Kelly
 

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