r Tw9LnTLHMAiasyi'Tiii-MAiDB CIIT. ..*.- CHRONICLES QF GYNTHIANA OTHER CHRONICLES liV MRS. L. BOYD CINCINNATI UOBEKT CLAKKK & CO ]8i)4 COPYRIGHT, 18D4, BY MRS. L. BOYD PREFACE. I have made it a rule tlirough life veccr to read u preface, and have often wondered why they were written. Noiq I know, since a certain brain eliihl has been born, wliose mother, you know, and wlio.se father is Necessity. They are written to introduce the siiiri-tual wanderer to the world, to beg mercy of the critics, or to say a last word, as I am about to do now. This town was settled before 1703, but the second general assembly of Kentucky granted the charter that year, and the town was named and then the corner­ stone of Cynthiana was laid. Fronl a few houses it has grown to the proportions of a city, and her chil­ dren think that here is the loveliest spot on earth. They may wander, but their love for her abides, and draws them to her a^fain, even froni foreign ligids. May God bless her always. (iii'i CONTENTS. CIIAPtKK i: ()l,l) ClTIZKNS, ETC ^ 5 {'IIAITKU II. li/WVYKKH—PAST AND PKKSKNT ii(i ("IIAPTKK III. I'll YSICIANS—P.VST AND PuRSKNT. .r. r,A (;IIAITI:K IV. TKACIIKKH AND SCHOOLS—JIIXISTICHS 101 (UIAI'TEIi V. Ol.mtKS Olf Tills {^OURT.S 107 PIIAPTKH VI. .VllDAl.l.AII PAUK.. '» > H7 CIIAPTKIt Vll. ("llOI.KRA Ilil ClIAI'TKU VIII. DAVID .*^Hi;i:f.Y AND MIS (iimsT rJ2 CIIAPTKIJ IX. Tun UNI-OHTIXATH DUTCHMAX l;i.') rilAPTKK X. THK HAIUIICITH OK 1S44.... , i;iS CHAPTKU XI. PiM.l.v's .\fCOlINT OK MOKIJ AN'.S UA II) VS) VI CONTENTS. JSt^fii CHAPTKR XII. FRANCES AND KAiTiiFtri .• 150 niAPTKIl XIII. MARiiAUin^ (i(iri)v , 177 CHAPTKH XIV. Iliciii Hon AN 180 CHAPTER XV. TlIK A HOI. IT ION ISTS IN CvNTlriANA . 2()(i ClIAPTKk XVI. BEHAVIOR OK XEOROE.S WHEN KREED 200 CIIAPTHK xyii. "Po' UAIIIEL" 215 CIIAPTEU XVIII. Oi,D FAMILIES ; i':)7 OIIAPTKB XIX. MEN HORN HERE nuTjiisTiNcii'iNiiED ELSEWHERE 241 OIIAPTEU XX. CVNTIIIANA CEMETERIES .V. -'4.) CHAPTER XXI, THE GHOST'S WALK 250 CHAPTER XXII. OLD UA LKADS 25:? CHAPTER XXIII.: THE IILSTORIAN OK 180;i: GKEETING 258 CHRONICLES OF CYNTHIANA AND OTHER CHRONICLES. CHAPTER I. CM) CITIZENS, ETC. NESTLED among the fVirtije hills of Harrison county. Kentucky, is the little city of Cynthiana. Hither came actors, a hundred years ago, to " Frot their little hour upon the stage, And tlien be seen no more.'' Few stones remain to mark the place where they played their last act—when death extinguished the footlights, and the weary actors crossed from Time to Eternity. If Ahrara Crossdale, who died and was buried in the old cemetery, in 1812, could rise from the dead and sit on his moss-grown tonibstone, how would he (»e surprised to see the cars thunder past his resting- jdace! And if he might interrogate " Young Amer­ ica " (he would n't be afraid of the " Old Ghost," not he), he might learn that since he fell asleep, eighty years ago, steamboats and steamships have been made (5) 6. CURONICLKS OF CYNTIIIAXA. to sail all tlje rivers and seas, and that they and steam cars had brought all the wonders of oiico unknown lands to our very doors; that a man iii (\viithiana can reprove, by word of mouth, his son who is in Cin<nn- nati;, that a woman can scold her liusband, through the telephone, from Boston to New York! Aiid, equally strange, that telegraph wii'cs bolt the globe, and that by lightning we send messages to the uttor- nu.'st parts of the earth. lie "niay loaru also that we still njouru for '.'The toueii of » vanished hand, But not for the souiid of a voice Hiat is Htill;" For Edison has invented a machine to catch and hold for ages the sweet low voice of wonmn or the stirring tones of man's eloquencc^-that ouce uttered in tinu's past were lost forever. And that dear to the human heart as any discovery of any age is the one made by Dagucrre, who used the sunbeams as pencils with which to draw a perfect likeness of the human face, now woman's beauty may live after her. l>nt when Abram learns what is patent to the older members of this ge'licrati.on, namely, that when boys and girls now arrive at the ages of .sixteen ai^d soveiiteen years they cause the sun of authority to stand still, and begin to bring up their parents in the nurture and admo­ nition of Young America, he shall just turn around and crawl into his " moldy bed,'" pleased to await the summons of Gabi'iel. Every school-boy knows that Xerxes invaded (irreece nearly .500 years n. c, and that he saw from a liigh hill a plain below covered with 2,000,000 soldiers; and the sea, as far as the eye could reach, covered OLD CITIZEXS, ETC. 7 with his ships!. As the sun, in its western course', touched the waving pluiujcs and all the glittering niunimeiits of war belonging to that Vast array—the largest history r)i?c(4rds-^he wept to think that in a hundred years every soul before him woidd be dead. Alexander the Great conquered the world, and wept that there were no more worlds for him to conquer. .(acob ki.s.sed Uachael aiid wept—why, no human be­ ing, knows; but we <)f the present gei^enition weei) tliat ive may not live to see the vast stride.** art and s(!i- enjje will makt' in a hinich'ed years to coiiie. Perhaps by that time some mail sitting in. the c()urt-honse yard may look southward and see an aii'ship-comiwg from the south pole, with all her hull and rigging outlined against the sap|)hire sky'.' . fSh.e may dip-low enough to take on passengers, and then ciintiniie, on her northct'ij.wayi.as swiftly as the wild duck takes its tlight, in spring; to csca]>e the southern sun. The 7/rnvv'.yo«.v.^Tradition is.'the iipik fotuns that glimmers along the marsh lauds that divide the past from the present tinie. Wy its dim and uncertain light we must look at the pioneers who dared the wild beasts and wildi'r Indians of th'fs part of ''The 'Dark and DIoody (Jround," and founded t^yntbiana in the wilderness, it was named Cynthiana in, hoi\()r of Cyuthi^i and Anna Harrison. This passage oceurs in the "History-of Ilarnsou County:" "Tradition relates that Robert Harrison was a gay, healthv, rollicking son of the wilderness, jiist the man f()r the'times; and that his blooming young daugh­ ters, not then grown, were- the favorites of all their father's custcmiers and neighbors. The najiie Cynthi­ ana of course gave general satisfaction. But Robert" 8 CllROXICLKS OF CYNTHIANA. Harrison soon sold out his rights to the soil here, for his farm was already) in 17i)8, laid" out into convenient streets and alleys, and, be'tbre Cynthia and Anna had reached womanhood^ he removed to Portsmouth, Ohio. There lie floiirisbed in business, his family grew up, and one of the daughters, we are not informed which, married a successful young nierchant of Philadelphia, and became an honored inatron in a prosperous family in thlit city." Imagination .takes up the thread where tradition drops it, and jiictures th«se beautifiil young girls, of twelve and fourteen years of age, stan<ling by their father's, forge at nightfall, with the red light surround­ ing them like a halo, watching him slioe the horse of some belated traveler, who must continue his danger­ ous journey with wild cats screaming in the trees above him, and wild Iifdiaiis behind their boles ready to shoot him down at ai^j' moment. Robert Harrison's blacksmith shop was situated near the bridge, just about where Mr. Bower's shop is now. The ferry was where the old bridge stands at the i»resent time, and was the only means of crossing the river, until 1810, wlien the bridge was built. , Cynthia and Anna Har­ rison must have been! often seen by persons who Crossed at the ferry. Perhaps it was there that Cynthia—for she was the eldost—met this lover fmni Philadelphia, who married her, later on, and made her happy ever |ifterward. We are unwilling to believe that Anna wasted her life on tiie "desert air" of old maidenhood. She wab beautiful; slie must have married. But • what matter, since a hundred years have jiassed, if Cynthia lived and died in .splendor in J'hila- OLD CITIZENS, KTC. 9 delphia, or if Anna pined away her days in single wretchedness; a handful of ashes and dust Is all that remajnjof the beaiitiful children for whom our town was nanie'd. First House—The first hoiise that was built in Cyn­ thiana is the log cabin now owned by Anlauda Lee (colored). It is not known by "ivhom it was built, nor is there a single tradition remembered by the oldest citizen as having been connected with it. A serio­ comic affair was enacted in the back yard belonging to tlie house between two Irishmen who got into a terrible light one summer evening. The air was made hideous by their yells for some minutes, and then all was still but the moans of a woman who wandered about the yard with a flaring candle in her hand.