N. E. Jones

“ It is more to be regretted that in the general destruction the grandest bird in the world—indigenous alone to America—and whose love for “liberty” exceeds all other species, should be denied room enough among a liberty-loving people for a home. It seems a pity Benjamin Franklin had not been more than “half in earnest” when he suggested this bird as the emblem of our national independence. But as it is, in other ways he has advanced civilization and been a benefactor to the human race. ”

“ The whole is depicted and for the time preserved in bronze and granite; and as generations of the future stand before this consecrated record, it will extort thoughts of the pioneer—his pleasures and his sufferings—with venerated admiration for those whose lives marked out the pathway of our civilization.
Every nation, every country, and every town has historic trees. They are not without influence on the destiny of individuals, societies, and nations. They are objects of reverence—works of time—homes of generations—and the manifest wisdom of creation. ”

“ With canals, railroads, turnpikes, large crops, quick and cheap transportation, growing cities and increasing knowledge, wealth and happiness, to Ohio the sky was clear overhead, and every thing prosperous, West, East and North, until 1860. Something was transpiring South—Northern men were returning from the slave states with the belief the country was on the verge of a civil war—a gigantic insurrection. Some, to whom such opinions were rendered, believed, but most Northern men made light of the idea of the South seceding, as there appeared no justifiable cause for secession or rebellion. ”

“ The dog possesses a most wonderful harmony in form and faculties. He is the type and embodiment of beauty, strength, and freedom of motion combined with endurance, courage, zeal, fidelity, constancy, and uncompromising affection. For these reasons he is of all man’s friends, the most valuable, the truest, and the best. So devoted and unchangeable is his love, that he is ever ready to sacrifice his life to save his master from threatened injury. ”

“ No men in this state have been so useful in building up society, in making us a moral and truly religious people.
“Their disinterestedness and benevolence; their kindness, forbearance and charity, zeal, industry and perseverance in well-doing, merit and receive the respect, gratitude and affection of all good men. They have labored zealously and faithfully and long, and their pay has been but trifling. We name them not, though we know them all. They have always been the true friends of liberty, and they would be the very last men in the nation to wish to overturn our free institutions.” ”

“ The expressed will of the people is the law of the land. It has made and amended constitutions; by it black has become white; the bond free; slaves, citizens. It has erected monuments; built towns and cities; and in war and times of peace has accomplished much for the good of all. It has muzzled many of the national vices, and given civilization long strides in the right direction. ”

“ And with a diversified and wild section of country large enough to accommodate and furnish annually thousands of game, beasts, and birds, some are entirely extinct, and others scarcely known within the limits of the state. Such destruction is truly an injustice to a beneficent creator that fed the hungry, clothed the naked, made pioneer homes happy and a savage wilderness a desirable habitation for the pilgrims of a better civilization. ”

“ The pioneer saw the necessity for the promotion and advancement of true civilization, that every citizen [309] should own a home—a place he might call his own—a place to live and labor for the good of himself and others. And not until the introduction of the railroad president, private palace cars, trusts, combines, and transformation of the public service into party machines for becoming suddenly rich, did the more observing recognize the true estimate and sound brotherhood existing with the gold bags of the nation. ”

“ Natives of every country and of every grade of intelligence in the new environment became alike distinguished for liberality and hospitality—ever desirous to forget the past, willing to admit the future, and ready to enjoy the present, the life of the pioneer was seldom darkened or overburdened with toil or care, and had times of good cheer, and was not without his social amusements. ”

“ In the tree is beheld in perfection [266] an enduring living principle, exceeding all other forms of life—beginning in the morning of creation and ending only with the end of time. When moth and rust have corroded memorial in bronze, and years of the unseen future have crumbled the granite to dust, there will still be standing noble, historic trees, with all their lessons fresh and green. ”

“ Few, if any, of those timbered reservations failed to be occupied by every species and variety of nature’s household. Some locations from time immemorial had been the favorite and undisputed habitation of that most wonderful American [183] bird, the wild turkey. For he is not migratory, nor an aimless wanderer of the forest. His instincts and attachments to place, the home of his ancestors, are so great that generations after generations live and die in the same selected site of wild territory. No persecution can induce him to abandon his accustomed haunts. ”

“ Fairbanks says he crossed the river and kissed the free soil in Ohio,” where he met the girl who, on hearing of his misfortune in Massachusetts, came to Ohio and engaged as teacher at Hamilton, and then at Oxford, supplying him with such comforts as was within her power—worked and petitioned and watched over the border for many long years with the love of a true woman.
Slavery is no more—the dark blotch to freedom has been wiped out with the best blood of the nation. ”

“ As the result of war corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people, until all wealth is aggregated into a few hands, and the republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicion may prove groundless. ”

“ The number of your inhabitants at the next census will probably exceed a million. Cultivation of the soil has advanced with gigantic strides—your fruitful country is teeming with plenty, and has a vast surplus beyond your consumption of all the productions of agriculture. Villages, towns and settlements are springing up and extending in all directions, and the very ground on which we stand, but a few years ago a dreary wilderness, is now a political metropolis of the state, and the residence of knowledge, elegance and hospitality. ”

“ It can not be said that the Ohio Squirrel Hunters were not in the war, for not a few of them were pensioned long before the ex-secretary surrendered his arms of rebellion against the Government he now fosters. The oppressors of slavery in their wicked attempts to destroy the Union, induced a war that brought with it incalculable sorrow and suffering—a war that words and figures fail to give an approximate realization of its magnitude. ”

“ It is quite amusing to witness the changes that come over the amateur sportsman when he fails to put up his birds. He knows where they are, at least he thinks he does, for he “marked them down” in the meadow of short grass within a few yards of a stump or tree. Then, it is such a commentary on his dogs, for he knows they are all right—never better, truer noses; still they go over and over, round and round, without winding a bird, or coming to a point. There! that dog has flushed a bird! Now he is assured the whole covey are within twenty feet of that spot ”

“ When we recount the miseries and misfortunes of the eight hundred million people that meagerly subsist on the products of irrigated, treeless lands, it makes an irresistible hope that the government of this nation may never be induced by ingenious descriptions of co-operative systems of economics, nor less perceptible but more powerful influences of speculators in western water-ways, to adopt a policy that will make any part of this country and nation, a Spain, a China, an India, or an Egypt, for want of forests. ”

“ This is a cause in which every citizen and every state in our country is deeply interested; for the work will be a great centripetal power that will keep the states within their federal orbits—and an adamantine chain that will bind the Union together in the most intimate connection of interests and communication. It therefore secures, not only the prosperity of Ohio, but the union of the states and the consequent blessings of free government ”

“ Small as these and other beginnings were over the settled portions of the state, the press and its influence became of more and more importance, and kept pace if not in advance of many other leading departments connected with an advanced civilization. As ideas beget ideas, so inventions beget inventions, until time and space are no more, and the wild elements meekly bow in submission to the will and works of man. ”

“ The greater portion of the population forming the new state were favorable to freedom, and many were known to have emancipated their slaves and settled in Ohio that they might wipe out the stains of an institution which had so truthfully been denominated the “sum of all villainies.” There were, however, others, in almost every neighborhood, who by nature were the patrons of the slave-hunter and looked upon a colored man as unworthy of an existence on earth, and delighted in tormenting, killing, or driving him from his home and neighborhood. ”

“ If it be true that the social compact was formed on the condition of slavery being tolerated by the free states, then it is such an Union as must sooner or later be dissolved.”... “Admitting the existence of a God, and that God is a being of perfect equity, can it be believed that He will suffer such a combination against the happiness of man to exist forever? And has it not already existed too long for that unity of counsel in this great republic which should ever mark the doings of a nation? ”

“ Its character shall be truly American and Republican. Americans by birth and education, we have no partiality for European institutions or policy. Republicans in principle, we will never disseminate aristocratical or monarchical doctrines. We will ever oppose, with our utmost endeavors, their progress. We do fearlessly declare perpetual war against them. Believing our forms of government infinitely superior to any ever before witnessed, we will rather perish in their defense than sit silent spectators of their destruction. ”

“ OHIO—HER COACH, CANAL, AND STEAMBOAT ERA.
At the close of the Revolution, a majority of the people cheerfully trusted to the wisdom and integrity of those who led the way to a country and conditions on which to found a republic. The patriots who unfurled the Declaration of Independence were glorified in the name of “United States of America.” And with thirteen stars, the red, white, and blue came forth a government strong and vigorous, honored and respected, amidst an epidemic of European wars. ”

“ This source of subsistence to a numerous and poor people, and immense wealth to the nation, was wantonly destroyed by the “pot-hunter,” who is in no way related to the “squirrel hunter,” but stands in about the same relation to the sportsman as does the “missing link” to the species he disgraces. He is a destructive animal, and it is as useless to hope any species of game, beast or bird, will ever exist in numbers too great for this wily loafer to destroy, as it is to expect legal enactments and penalties will ever prevent him doing evil. ”