Russell’s Place – Some Chips Gathered in Old Windsor

EDITOR REGISTER.

Russell’s Place – Thirty or forty years ago, the caption of this article was the proper name for this place, for then it was owned by Frank Russell – the store, the tan yard, the mill, the farm on which the village now stands – he directed everything.

He is gone; some of his children are gone; others of his children and grandchildren are here, but no man can truthfully assert that he controls this village now. Instead of one store, there are three now, Snyder & Betts’, Waldeck & Booth’s, and Mr. Hamilton’s, each firm getting its share of the business, which is considerable for a country village. The tan yard has taken its departure since Mr. Russell’s death, and the mill is owned by Snyder & Betts but is run by Andrew Russell, a son of the previous owner of the mill.

The mill has had sufficient water to do its work throughout this summer season thus far. It is a good thing for the owners of the mill as well as for the people that this is the case because the Rockcamp and the Holschew mills both have shut down for repairs, which makes it very convenient for the people that this mill should be able to do the custom work regularly this season. What a change in the appearance of the corn since the rain! But Mr. Waters tells us that there will not be more than a fourth of a crop of early potatoes compared to last year’s crop and that the chintz bug is working on the late potatoes.

Getaway, as this place is popularly called, is the only village in the county known to your correspondent that had the wisdom to set out a grove in which to hold its picnics, public meetings, etc. Yet, all will admit the desirability of such a grove and the great convenience of having one, but it takes so long to grow one large enough to be used. Such reasons given for non-action remind one of the answers received by the Arkansas traveler when he interrogated the cabin owner as to why he didn’t roof it.

Getaway has a conveniently located grove of its own making, and it is fenced in and seated so that let whatever kind of meeting comes that will – political, quarterly, picnic, or whatnot- Getaway opens the gate to her park and says, “Come, for all things are now ready.” Your correspondent called on the model fruit grower of this county, Nelson Cox, who lives three miles from the village.

Here is an orchard of 130 acres, with more Rome Beauties than all other kinds combined, and yet Mr. Cox says that he does not think that there will be a bushel of Beauties in the orchard. He said three peaches had been gathered among all his peach trees. Here Mrs. Cox interposed to say that he (Mr. Cox) had gathered one himself; hence, the crop consisted of four peaches. Mr. Cox is pleasantly situated back on the hill there and has his farm under cultivation to gather some other crop when his orchard fails.

As your correspondent crossed the ridge between Ice Creek and Leatherwood, he was reminded of the fact that there is a road badly needed to connect the Getaway Pike with the Marion Pike. As he drove up the branch towards the Williams settlement, where the road crosses the ridge, he was accosted by one who remarked that when a man drove along that road, generally he was leading, looking back all the while, presumably saying to himself, “This is my last trip through this way.”

John Williams remarked to your correspondent that he didn’t suppose one could even get up the main road across the ridge with a horse. There ought to be a road built connecting the two roads mentioned above. Let it extend from the mouth of the branch, where Manuel Brammer lives, up by John Brammer’s and across the ridge through John Williams’ and Jas. Lambert’s farms, and down Rockcamp branch to Rockcamp. It would be a better route to Ironton from this place than the one (___________sentence missing_________) a way for those living on both sides of that ridge to get out either way to market or the mill.

The way the roads are now is sufficient “to ostracize” some in that section. Your correspondent was told of one man living in there who has probably been at most two miles from his home for the last ten years. The informer didn’t say that the roads were what kept him at home.
STANTON.

Unionville, Lawrence County, Ohio, Recorders Office,
Plat Map Book 1 page 82