McKnight Family

Henry Dustin McKnight: An Autobiography – Written in 1892

Submitted by Rosie Stierwalt

I was born at Millers, Lawrence County, Ohio, in Rome, Tp., on the rise in a log cabin just below where the present school House stands. My Father’s name is William F McKnight, son of Joseph and Fanny McKnight. My mother’s name is Margaret, and she was the daughter of James and Delores Higgins. Her mother was a Doddridge, a descendant of the Rev. Philip Doddridge.

My Father’s family consisted of nine children, viz.:

• Henry Dustin was born on April 4, 1844
• Alice
• Ellen Amanda
• Viola
• Charles Thomas
• William Gallatin
• Fannie Trumbo
• George
• Maggie

At this date, six are living. Alice died. George died in 1865, and Maggie died in 186_.

My Father has always been a poor man. My first recollections are associated with hard times and the close economy. When very young, I remember the old-fashioned Methodist Episcopal Church services and the preachers for whom I held a reverence I cannot describe. I remember going to Sunday and day school in warm weather barefooted wearing nankeen breeches and a five-cent straw hat, and in winter wearing homespun jeans and stogor shoes. I had to work from my earliest recollections at such work as I could do. I was allowed very little time to play.

In 1854, my uncle Elijah Rolph bought a carding machine at Millers, Ohio, run by a horse or oxen treading an incline tread wheel. He used two oxen, one at a time, changing them about every hour. One of them learned how to brace his feet when he got tired and stop the wheel; it required someone to watch him to prevent this. My uncle hired one for this work and gave seventy-five cents-a week, and I boarded myself, or my parents boarded me.

I was proud of this promotion and saved up “lots of money” that summer. While the other ox who had not learned to stop the wheel was on his turn, I was required to make myself useful upstairs in the machine room at such work as I could, running wool through the “picker,” cleaning up “flyings,” etc. In the spring of 1855, my Father bought the machine, and then hard work began for him, my mother, and myself in earnest.

 From spring till Fall, except Sunday, we toiled from daylight until dark, and three, with the machine and two horses, had to work hard to earn four dollars a day. Out of these four dollars, the expense of keeping up the machinery, feeding the horses, and all other expenses had to be paid out four dollars, and as money was so very scarce, we had, in my case, to take our pay in rolls and depend on selling them to get money or “trade.” I usually went to the Winter district school for three months. The winter of 1855/6 was a very hard one.

My Father had paid out every dollar of the Summer’s income on the debt he owed for the machine and how to live through the winter we hardly knew. We had homemade clothing rolled to spin into yarn by our mother, who knit our stockings. We had a cow and some corn for a meal, but getting shoes and groceries was a question.

Father was honest and industrious, but there was nothing to do from Nov to the next May that – he could earn anything. I was barefooted, and school was soon to begin. The merchant at Miller refused my father credit. I used to sit indoors when too cold to get out barefooted and “wish” for “good things to come.”

Things looked gloomy enough. My Father tried to be cheerful and appeared to try to conceal our poverty. My mother often shed tears when she thought we did not see her. Finally, Squire McCown secured the Districts school, which was too large for one teacher, and my Father was hired for three months as an assistant for $18.00 a month and $54.00 for the term payable after the closing of the term. We felt rich now, and I remember how bright and cheerful mother and Father looked and how we sat around the big old-fashioned wood fireplace and talked of our good fortune on the evening and night father came home with the good news.

The next day father went the “back way” to John Tiernan’s store at Athalia, Ohio, two miles below. We then lived in the old log house at the foot of the hill back of Millers. Mr. Tiernan heard my Father’s plea for a credit of necessary articles until “school was out” and “trusted” him. Mother and I watched the anxious hours of that – eventful day almost away and had nearly despaired as it was getting dusk, and Father had not returned.

I watched down through the fields for him as long as I could see and was feeling blue when Father appeared at the back door with a load of “store goods” in a new “meal sack,” and the best of all, he had for me a new pair of coarse heavy boots. I cannot describe the joy and real pleasure I experienced at that – moment.

The ground was covered with six or eight inches of snow, and my feet were red and sore from having gone barefoot for so long in cold weather. Mother had supper, “bread and milk,” ready, which she and Father ate heartily, but I could not eat for admiring my boots and realizing how I could now go out of doors like the other boys. I did not sleep much at four o’clock the next morning. I was up and out of doors, “getting wood.”

This is one of many incidents connected with my early life, which I remember with a distinctness that – I cannot now remember, which happened yesterday. We had many sad and pleasant experiences, always poor and hard up, yet I now remember that none of us complained. We seemed to accept it all as a matter of course.

In the spring of 1857, my Father traded his carding machine at Millers to Andrew Griffith at Scott Town for his House and lot, and store there. We moved in Feby 1857. William was sick, and Father and mother could not go when our “things” went. Although only 13 years old, on April 4″ 1857, I took charge of the store and conducted it for several weeks until Father came.

Times were hard and money scarce, and country merchandising was uphill work. I clerked in the father store and went to district school in winter till Nov 1861. In that month, Nov 1861,

I went on my last day to school to J. F. Rodarmour in the old log school below Scott Town. July 1, 1861, father’s House and store with all they contained was destroyed by fire with no insurance.

All our clothing and household goods were burned. It was in the middle of the night, and we had hard work to escape and get the children out alive.

After the excitement, I found that all the articles of clothing I had on was an old check shirt—no hat, pants, coat, or shoes. I borrowed a pair of pants two sizes too large and some friend gave me a hat. As the weather was warm, I got along very well until my mother made me a pair of pants out of cotton cloth I worked at and bought at 25 cents a yard. Father was not at home. He is called with others to protect the border at Millers against the supposed invasion of rebel troops over in West Va.

It seemed now that the hardest trial in our life was at hand. There were now eight children, I being only seventeen and the oldest. All the rest were girls, and the boys were too small to help. My mother almost broke down under the misfortune and gloomy prospect. We were now entirely destitute and without a roof to cover us.

The only possession father now had was a vacant and almost worthless lot with an uninhabitable Wearhouse in one corner. That had escaped the fire. A few people owed Father accounts, but as all his books, notes, and papers were burned, he had no evidence of the accounts, and all he could get was what people would agree they owed him.

We fixed the old warehouse shell up and lived in it the best we could. Father and all the rest of us that could go to work rented lanes, sowed wheat, and did everything we could to get along.

After the Fall work was over, I started school with the calculation to learn all I could during the three months it was to last. At the end of the first week, I went into Millers, where my uncle John T. McKnight was keeping a store, having been forced away from Kentucky because of the War. I hired him as a clerk for $8.00 a month and board. I was now seventeen years old. My Father bought 40 acres of land and a log cabin on tick ridge in Rome Township and moved there.

 There are many interesting incidents that I can remember that transpired between the time I remember and the date I left home in Nov 1861. I remember the cholera year of 1852 when my grandmother Fanny McKnight died, as did many others. I remember that one pair of shoes or boots were all that was allowed me for a year. I always went barefooted from early spring “till frost” in the fall.

Our winter shoes were never bought till frost. I remember when the steamboats burned wood, and my Father kept a wood yard. As a boy and the oldest, I remember how I had to churn, wash dishes, set a tale, sweep, mind baby, and numerous like occupations for a mother. My Father served as a constable for several years while I was a small boy.

I distinctly remember one Christmas day when I was nine years old, and I was particularly fortunate as I then considered it. I had a new suit of homespun jeans and a new pair of coarse stoga shoes. My Father bought me a new fresh reader with pictures and six sticks of common candy. My uncle Mack Higgins gave me ten firecrackers to complete my happiness.

Mother had baked sweet cakes out of flour and molasses, and uncle Elijah Rolph’s children had divided apples with us children. I remember this Christmas day as the happiest of my life to date. I remember going to school before moving to Scott Town to S. McCown, father of Monroe McCown, D. G. Dawson, Mr. Green, Mr. Norris, and Aunt Mary McKnight.

When we moved to Scott Town, Ohio, one Anthony H. Windsor (now a superannuated M.E. Church minister) taught in a log school house on the hillside below Scott Town. General W. H. Enochs, then a boy a little older than myself, was a scholar. He afterward taught school, and I went to him for a term. I also went to school in Wm. Betts, A. J. Dennison, Miss Ann Hague, and finally and lastly, as stated to J. F. Rodarmour.

My sister Alice was soundly converted in the old log school house where all meetings were held, one day during a weekday meeting. She shouted all the way home about one mile. I shall never forget it and how I hid to keep from showing my agitation. In the spring of 1861, a company of militia was organized of which my Father orderly Sergh. I raised a company of boys ranging from fifteen to seventeen years of age. Vincent Dillon Jr. was my orderly Sergh. We regularly drilled whenever the men did and could beat them. Returning to the time of leaving home to clerk for my uncle John T. McKnight hard work begun in earnest for clerking in a country store in those days meant hard work.

A store had a cooper shop connected with it and bought all kinds of country produce to be barreled, packed, sacked, and shipped. Stores were to be ricked and sorted in the yard, Barrels shipped, produce barreled, and gotten to the river for the boats. All this kind of work was a large part of the duties of a clerk in a country store.

I “clerked” for my uncle from Nov. 1861 to the summer of 1862, when I was hired by D. H. Clark to clerk in his store at two hundred dollars for one year and board. My duties there were a little more indoors than at my uncle’s, but one day in the week, I had to help have barrels from the shop to the river to ship, and several times during the week, Rick Staves, when I “had time.”

When my year with Mr. Clark was up, I hired in August 1863 to William Reynolds, a merchant for one year at two hundred and forty dollars a year and board. He did hot have a cooper shop, and my duties were all together in the store. During this, the militia was required by law to organize and drill. James L. Terry, a private soldier in the 6th Regt, Ohio, Infty. and discharged for disability, was Capt. Dr. G. W. Trumbo, First Lieutenant.

 I was elected Second Lieut and duly Commissioned by Gen. David Todd. This suited me exactly as I was much inclined to military from the first gun at Fort Sumter. It was only for the opposition of my parents that I did not enlist in the first call for three months and three-year troops. Capt. Terry was not strong enough to do much drilling, and Dr. (L.T.) Trumbo was generally engaged professionally on drill days, so my ambition to Command the Company was most gratified, and I enjoyed it.

In the fall of 1864, I determined to enlist in the straight U. S. service, quit Mr. Reynolds, and went to Ironton to enlist in the 173rd Regt. Ohio Vols. Miles L. Blake of Co. F, who was then courting my sister Alice did, at the request of her and my parents, coax me out of the notion, and much chagrined and feeling deeply humiliated, I returned to Millers and again took up the yardstick, in the store of Knight and Thomas. I felt dissatisfied and discontented and condemned that the War was drawing to a close and I was to have no part in it except the office of 2nd Lieut in the militia,

 In Feb. 1865, I thought if my name would ever appear on the war records as having served in the War of the Rebellion, it must be done quickly, so on Feby 13″ 1865 disregarding the tears and entreaties of my parents and sisters and, another then not a relation, I left my yardstick and on Feby 16″ 1865, enlisted in Co. A 188th Ohio Vol. Infty, I was honorably discharged on September 26, 1865 (See Vol 10 Roster of Ohio Soldiers).

During my short term, I served as a private soldier, and for a greater part of the time, I was a clerk in the office of our Regimental quartermaster and the Brigade Headquarters of Genl. Dudley at Tullahoma Tenn, and Genl. Van Cleve at Murfreesboro, Tenn.

Before enlisting, I had become deeply attached to a sweet girl who was only fourteen years of age. Emma C. Johnson (peace to her dear memory) and despite her being so young, I loved her as I have never loved another, and never will, or can and corresponded with her regularly until discharged.

I can see her now just as plainly as if she were before me as the sweet child, charming girl, glorious young woman, charming bride, beautiful patient mother, virtuous Christian example, ever kind patient, forgiving and indulgent wife, daughter, and neighbor, and finally the patient sufferer from that dread and fatal disease quick consumption.

She was the daughter of Benjamin and Nancy Johnson (nee Wood). Her Father and mother were strict members of the M. E. church, and she, Emma, was brought up a true Christian. She never knew aught else. She was an angel and is now in glory with God and the other angels where I will, God keeping me, meet her.

I have made many crooked steps and have not always been perfect. Still, I have truly and sincerely repented of my past sins, imperfections, and mistakes and trusted in a just God who will fulfill all these promises and in no wise forsake all who call upon his name and are faithful unto death as I intend to be by His help. I believe I shall join her in the Heavenly world when I leave this world of affliction, sorrow, joys, and comforts. The expectation of this going to God is an anchor to the soul. God help me to be faithful to the end.

After My discharge from the army in Sept. 1865, I went to my Father’s home on the little hill farm on Tick Ridge, where after recovering from sickness contracted in the army, I helped to gather corn and grubbed out a thicket of underbrush for farming. About Nov 1865, while I was at home, my little brother George five years old, died of croup. My Father was clerking for George Clark at Ironton, Ohio, and as the water was low and no boats were running, my Father walked home starting at about 9 am and arriving at about dusk a distance of 30 miles.

He got home only a few minutes before the child died, and I can remember how completely heartbroken he was. Words can’t describe it. It was the first death in our large family. The little pet was hauled in a two-horse jolt wagon over the rough hill roads to the Cemetery at Millers and tenderly laid away. I shall see him bye and bye.

On December 24, 1865, I again left home, went to Ironton, Ohio, and engaged as a clerk in the grocery store of R. W. Magee one door north of the northwest Cor. 2d & Centre streets. Early in the spring of 1866, Magee sold out to Richey & Richards, and I again went back home. My Father was now conducting a branch store for Mr. Reynolds of Proctorville, Ohio.

I had little or no money. Mr. Reynolds wanted me to clerk in his store at Proctorville, and after remaining at home only a few days, I went to Proctorville walking, the distance being ten miles. I remained with a few months only with Mr. Reynolds when I went back to Ironton and engaged in writing in the office of Wm. P. Bartram, then clerk of the Common Pleas Court.

In the fall of the same year, 1866, R. W. Magee bought out the store of D. T. Davis’s second door below where Second National Bank now is on 2nd street. I again engaged with R. W. Magee as a clerk and stayed with him until the fall of 1870, when I engaged with the lumber firm of M. Wise Hy as a bookkeeper to begin Jany 1871.

During the four years, I was with Magee, he did a large business and had no other clerk. I worked hard and opened the store early and closed late. On October 7, 1868, I was married to Emma C. Johnson, with whom I had corresponded for five years and whom I dearly loved and honored. I had not seen her from the 4th day of July until the morning of our marriage.

We were married at her mother’s home in Millers, Ohio, by Rev. H. Berkstrosser. Her Father, Benjamin Johnson, enlisted as Sergh. in Co. K 2nd Regt, Ohio Cav. Vols, on September 15, 1862, was wounded June 28, 1864, in action at Stony Creek, Va, and died July 16, 1864, in Libby Prison Richmond, Va. The place of his burial is unknown. After our marriage, her mother married Elijah Rolph, who died about 1882. Her brother James died about 1863, and her brother Owen died at my House in Russell, KY, in Sept 1879.

This is all of her Father’s family except Clara, the wife of Girard C. Varnum, who is the sole survivor of a once-happy family of six. When I was with Magee, my sister Alice who was married to Miles L. Blake, died about 1867, leaving two small children, Alice and Gertie. My infant sister Maggie whom I never saw alive, died about 1863.

 I went to keep the House a few days after my marriage in a little one-story house standing on Olive Street, now Park Ave., between Front and Second Streets. In 1869 I bought a lot on 7th St. Where Lewis Shepard now lives and built the House now standing there. On November 9, 1896, our first child was born in this House. We named him Rufus Dustin.

In the fall of 1870, after I quit R. W. Magee and before going with M. Wise & Cy, I was appointed Deputy Clerk of the Common Pleas Court for Wm. A Campbell was a clerk as he was compelled to attend U.S. Court at Cincinnati. Hon. W. W. Johnson was Judge. He was a friend of mine always.

In December 1870, my wife and child visited our parents in Millers, Ohio. When the last days of Dec. came, and I needed to report to Wise & Cy for duty, the River was full of ice, and on December 31, 1870, my brother Charles started to walk to Ironton. We walked to South Point, where we fell in with George Bradshaw and Benj. Chinn in an express.

They kindly invited us to ride. When we alighted at home, we were so stiff and sore we could hardly walk. We kept “batch” till the River opened, and my wife came home. In the meantime, I had sold my home and lot to give possession in the spring of 1871 and bought a lot in the newly laid out town of Russell. Ky opposite Ironton, Ohio.

I moved to Russell, Ky Feb 1871, where I lived till March 19, 1885. This move was unfortunate as it was unhandy and inconvenient, and I bought the lot and built my House mostly on credit. The panic of 1873 and my endorsing notes of M, Wise & Cy, who broke up, caused me to lose all my Russell property except one small House and lot and one vacant lot.

Matters went tolerably well initially, but misfortunes and bad management crushed me. However, we spent many happy days during the first few years at Russell. On September 15, 1871, our second child was born in Russell, Ky. We named her Clara Ellen.

 I planted trees and did other work to make our home comfortable and pleasant, and it was, but alas, another is now enjoying the fruits of my labors. In 187-, our third child was born, and we named him Benjamin Kile. On June 187- he died, and thus our first real sorrow came. We were brokenhearted yet comforted with the thought that although we could not call him back, we could go to him.

On May 15, 1877, our fourth and fifth children were born, twins, a boy, and a girl, who we named Halsey Burr and Hattie Burr. In the meantime, Wise & Cy had been assigned, and I was out of employment from Nov. 1878 to the spring of 1879.

In the spring of 1879, I got some help from John Kyle and started a small store, an unfortunate venture as times were hard and I ran behind. The winter of 1878 – 79 was the hardest I ever experienced. I was out of any employment, had no income, and not a dollar.

My Uncle John trusted me for groceries and other necessities we did without. Our children were too young to realize our distressed condition, and good angel Emma (wife) never complained amidst it all. We lived through it all and loved through it all, however, until times brightened a little. Creditors pressed me for debts I could not pay, and I was harassed by Means, Russell & Means through their agent John Russell to pay for my lot or give up and move off the premises. I could do neither, for I had no money to pay and was too poor to move and rent a house.

In the fall of 1879, Owen Johnson, my wife’s brother seventeen years old, died at my house, and the same fall, I quit and closed up my little store and went to keep books and clerk for McKnight & Amos at Ironton, Ohio. Mr. Amos was going to manage Bloom Furnace. I got $40.00 a month for this work which was hard and long hours. On March 1880, our sixth child was born.

My ______ was in delicate health, contracting what terminated in quick consumption. We call this child Owen, after her dead brother, as it was evident it could not live but a few weeks. It died on May 1880.

My wife was now too sick and weak to go to the funeral, so alone I took the little ones’ remains to Miller, Ohio, for burial, where little Bennie was buried. I was now in hard lines. My income was not sufficient to meet expenses. My wife was failing fast. I ought to have been with her all the time, but circumstances compelled me to work.

I worked all day, and for the last month before her death, I only slept a few hours during the latter part of the night. About a week before her death, I let everything go and stayed by her side night and day. She suffered no pain and never once complained. Her disease seemed painless.

On the night of June 30, 1880, she passed away without a struggle, peacefully falling asleep in Jesus. God bless her. Amen. Brother James Gardner of Spencer Chapel came to see her often during the last few days of her life, and late in the evening, just before she died, when she could only whisper, Brother Gardner tenderly asked her how she felt. She quietly and composedly whispered, “I am almost home.” Blessed words. Blessed experience for those she left behind. She quietly went to God. Oh, how lonely and desolate I felt.

My life seemed to almost go out with hers, and if it had not been for our children, I would have gladly kept her company to the other world. I cried over Dustin, who was then asleep, all unconscious that his mother was in the better land. I mourned then and do yet, and I can truly say that I have never forgotten her for one day since.

That is why I have daily thought of her kindly, lovingly, and reverently. I seem to commune with her at times, and her looks and appearance as a girl, woman, and wife are ever before me. I need no picture of hers to remember her or her looks. Her memory is so sacred that I never mention her name but in reverence as I would the name of God.

Now came days of trial, of the struggle of hardship, and my physical and mental affliction was great. I had been troubled for years with bleeding piles, and this disease seemed to grow rapidly. I still kept books and worked in McKnight & Amos store and had to get up early and go to my work and stay until eight or nine o’clock at night, having to cross the River in a skiff in all kinds of weather.

Clara Johnson, my wife’s sister, and Alice Weeks, my cousin, were with me, and both stayed until I remarried on January 19, 1882. Clara went away a little before and Alice a little after. I had four children, Rufus Dustin, aged 10, Clara E, aged 8, and the twins Halsey B and Hattie B, aged three years, at their mother’s death. My wa(ge)s was only $40.00 a month, and my expenses were large. I had to and did undergo many personal sacrifices to keep up.

My children will never know or realize the sacrifices and privations, and struggles I have undergone at different times to provide for their wants and make them comfortable and happy, for I love them and promised their dear mother to take as good care of them as I could and not separate them so long as they could practically remain together. I sometimes think that they do not love me as I love them. I hope I am in this mistaken.

In the Fall of 1881, I became an agent for the Big Sandy Packet Cy at $50.00 a month and an agent for the Big Four R.R. and made about $60.00 a month. This work was a little easier. I had practically lost hope of ever being able to pay for my property and Means Russell & Means, although a wealthy firm would give me no how and were constantly harassing me for money or wanting me to leave. I never had a day’s rest, and my mind was never free from worry and anxiety.

About Dec 1881, Clara Varnum left me, and the Oct. previous, Alice Weeks, was married, and I knew she would soon leave me. I became acquainted with Miss Hattie Honaker and believed I was doing for the best. We were married on January 19, 1882, at Ironton, Ohio, by Rev. James H. Gardner. I found her a good Christian woman, and then and now (1892) considered her one of the most discreet and naturally inclined women I ever saw.

I would trust her to any extent as I would trust an angel. I found her a helpmate in deed and truth. I verily believe that if it had not been for (her), I would have gone to ruin, for I sometimes resorted to drinking (which I and ashamed to say), imagining that it would drown my trouble. She restrained me from this dangerous habit which I quit, and my acquaintances have known my habits since 1892. (1882) I dearly love the taste of whisky, wine, and beer, and if I should go according to my natural inclinations, I would never draw a sober breath, but thanks to God for willpower that enables me to not ever taste it. Well, after my second marriage, we struggled the best we could.

The wolf seemed to be at the door many times, for, in Dec 1882, I lost my position as Agt. for the Packet Cy. and was out of employment. In Jany 1883, I secured the work of E. J. Walburn of Ironton, Ohio, a pension Atty, who also had my pension claim filed in the Bureau. This was the worst of all, as he only gave me one dollar a day and only permitted me to earn three or four dollars a week.

Discouragement was manifest, and I felt that I had almost reached the end of my string, so to speak, since wages did not meet expenses, and I was compelled to go into debt or do without the actual necessities of life. I anticipated that I would soon receive a small pension, and I could not endure seeing my wife and children suffer for necessaries. They did not, but the close economy of those days, the skimping, making over, etc., will never be realized by my children. I hope they may never have my experience.

The winter passed dreary and cheerless to my wife, who helped me with her needle and economizing, and I shall never forget her devotion and submission to what was a hard fate. We made the children as happy as we could and concealed our troubles from them the best we could. Spring came and went with its brightness but brought no cheer to me.

I finally became desperate and conceived of engaging in the pension business for myself. Still, it would take time to build up the business, and naturally, a very long time would ensue before any income could be expected.

I was physically unable to work hard, so finally, in August 1883, I rented a desk room at Shaw & Keye Corner of Front & Center Sts and opened an office. The outfit which I will describe. I sent to Washington and bought one dollar’s worth of pension blanks. I bought twenty-five cents worth of paper envelopes etc. I found in the office of Shaw & Keye an old kitchen table, which I had used for a desk when agt. for the Packet Cy. and had sold to C. S. Walker when he succeeded me as agt. for $1.50. I appropriated this relic and wrote to C. S. Walker, offering to buy it but never heard from him, and brought a pen and ink from home and three old chairs. This outfit comprised my “office.”

Now the next thing was to get business. It came slowly. I kept the correct account of receipts for the first year, which, off, told, amounted to $78.40. If this was not discouraging, I was no judge. However, I had filed considerable business and believed I should succeed.

About the spring of 1884, I received my pension, but I owed it all and more too, so in a few days, I was as poor as ever so far as worldly possessions were concerned, for I paid almost every dollar of it out on debts notwithstanding our needs for clothing, etc. about our House. I applied myself to my business, and how I have succeeded, the community knows.

On April 18, 1867, I petitioned Lawrence Lodge no 198 F.&A.M. Ironton Ohio., which was balloted on May 16, 1867. On June 28, 1867, I was made an Entered appr. On December 21, 1867, I was passed to the degree of a Fellow Craft, and on February 21, 1868, I was raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason.

I have served Lodge as Secretary, Senior Deacon, and Junior Warden, and am now (1892) serving as Senior Warden. In 1872 I joined the M.E. Church South, which was all the denomination there was at Russell, and old brother Hiram Moore was the Preacher in charge. He preached in James Rayburn’s House at first and afterward in the building in Carners pleasure grove where Carners new House now stands.

Finally, the M. E. South preaching ceased, and the M. E. Church was established in the Schoolhouse, and I joined the M. E. On March 19, 1885, I gave up the dear old home where I had lived for fourteen years and where all my children but Howard was born. I think of all the sad and depressing periods of my life aside from the death of my (wife) and children.

It was when I had to give up my Russell home and lose it all. I had planted trees and done many other acts and work to make it a home in the true sense, but alas, for earthly hopes, I had to give it all up just as I shall someday give up everything earthly and leave it. I was the last to leave the House. I managed to be there alone.

I went to the upstairs lower room where dear wife went to Heaven from, and alone in the now deserted House and this room, I reverently knelt and silently prayed to God for relief, aid, and strength, and my family. My heart was so heavy, and I felt that had I no one dependent on me, how sweet it would be permitted then and there to go from where she went to where she was, in Heaven.

It could not be, however, and I left the dear old place that I have so often looked on since but have never entered, nor do I ever care again to enter. I have made many crooked paths, done many wrong acts, paid many wicked things, and done much that was not right, but I can truly say that I have always loved God and held a holy reverence for his word, his church, and his ministers.

Many can testify that I have always been good to his servants, and although I have been unworthy and disobedient, I have repented of it all. I am trusting God implicitly, and I know if I continue faithful, he will receive me to himself when I am done with my labors on earth and give me a place with loved ones gone before. I have confidence in God. I have confidence in my Savior. It only remains for me to continue faithful to this end as I intend to be. God help me. When he says it is enough, come up higher.