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Some time after this, one Eliphalet A. Nichols, an eccentric, but good man, conceived the idea that there should be a village here and he would start it and be postmaster. Being something of a promoter, he kept the matter quiet until he had bought from Amos G. Pangburn a ten-acre strip of land cornering on the church lot, the church being in the corner of John Alexander’s land. Isaac Overley owned the eighty on the other corner.

This done, Eliphalet Nichols confided his scheme to his brother, Martin. Eliphlet was then a Baptist and not connected with our church, but he offered to deed the church two acres farthest from the church for a graveyard. The deal looked so good, that Martin took the deed and had the body of a pauper buried in the plot, the poor farm not being far off, and had his first wife’s remains moved from a neighboring township. He then brought the matter before the church board. Amos Pangburn, however, was naturally angered by the procedure and the two old men of the church had soon started a church fight. Some of the meetings would have disgraced a saloon. The quarrel divided the church and families, made enemies for life, drove people from the fold, and was a very bad example of Christian brotherhood. It so happened that mother’s family were neighbors of Martin Nichols and followed him; while father followed Pangburn and there were many arguments at home not pleasant for us children. But Martin Nichols’ graveyard was adopted and is the last resting place of many of the followers of the church.

A Sunday school was held in most country churches in connection with the church services during the summer months. The children of the neighborhood were glad to attend as there were few places where they could go as a change from every day tasks.

They always looked forward to the annual picnic, usually held in the fall. One Sunday school would make the initial move and invite the other Sunday schools in the neighborhood to participate. The picnic was usually held in a grove owned by S. D. Titus in Scotch Grove Township. Some of the men folks of the different schools would go an appointed day to make preparation. They would build a platform for the speakers and make seats of planks for the audience.

Each Sunday school had a banner bearing a motto which was carried at the head of it in the grand march or procession that was a part of the day’s events. Also each Sunday school was called upon to sing a song. After a few of these preliminaries came the came the dinner which was certainly a feast fit for a king, for our mothers were very skillful in the culinary art.

Each Sunday school ate together at a long table made by spreading table cloths on the ground. I, in my young days, took somewhat of the nature of a character known as “Picnic Sam” in one of Will Careleton’s poems. I would look on while the tables were being spread and would edge in at the one that seemed to best fit my appetite.

After the dinner there was speaking and events to amuse the children. I remember that on one of these occasions Reverend Manning was asking easy questions for the children to answer. A number of us boys were sitting together in front of a tall, spectacled, cadaverous man. When a question was asked this man would prompt us and we would shout the answer at the top of our voices, to the amusement of the older people.

We all had an enjoyable time and then hurried home to see if the cows had broken into the corn field. We wore our best clothes and they were paid for as were also the things that entered into our dinner. In those days deadbeats were rare and were not tolerated in honorable society.

In 1872 the North Madison Sunday school thought it should have a Christmas tree. None of the children had ever seen one although some of them still firmly believed that Old Santa traveled with his reindeer and came down the chimney in the night. The older of the Krouses, the writer’s mother’s family, had seen trees in Germany and directed the affair.

To begin with, there had to be money to buy presents. My father, who had seen a lot of the world for those times, and Amos Pangburn, who had been in theaters in New York City, decided to have an exhibition, a sort of kindergarten theater. The matter was threshed out, after the Thursday evening prayer meeting. The few Presbyterians of the old school frowned on it and the Baptists thought it very bad taste and refused to take hold but some of their older children helped. After a few weeks practice in rehearsal and some withdrawals, the grand night came. The church had a platform across the front with a rough board floor, covered by a rag carpet in the center, there not being a “boughten” carpet in the township. The curtain was of calico cloth strung across on a wire about eight feet high. On each side of the front opening was attached a short stick by which it would be opened on command by two boys or stage hands. The sides were the dressing rooms.

The program was opened with a prayer by Samuel Y. Harmer, the circuit preacher. He was a very stout man and quite a hymn writer and some of his hymns are still in the Methodists song books.

Robert G. Lyons made the opening address. He had been a student of Lenox College, a small Presbyterian school at Hopkinton in Delaware County, and made a very commendable speech. Then John G. Krouse, the writer’s uncle started the show. He was uncle to the larger part of the school, for he and a brother, George, and five sisters all liven in the locality and had big families. Sarah Heimbaugh, the chorister, got the whole school on the stage and with the aid of Limon G. Ransom’s organ led us in singing the Evergreen Shore. There were some good singers, but most of us just spoke. Even that was a great pride to our folks and friends. There was speaking and dialogues. “The Train Tomorrow” was played by the writer’s sister, Maggie, Frank Nichols as her boy, and W. H. Alexander as a railroad man with more dignity than Jim Hill. The woman, a neighborhood nurse and very much in demand when families were large and before the modern fad of the hospital came in , wanted to go to the town the next day on a call. She was handicapped by a badly spoiled small boy, who carried rod and bait. She asked the railroad man if this was where she could take the train tomorrow. The answer was, “Yes, or any other day.”

The boy, being always hungry—like all other boys—asked for ginger bread. Opening her old fashioned carpet bag, she began to take out all the homeopathic treatments then known to science and good for all the diseases in Jayne’s Almanac. She asked the station agent if he was bothered with any of the ills mentioned to which he gave short and decisive answers. Finally the train pulled in while she had all her goods spread on the floor and she went through a great rustle to collect them and board the train.

After that there was a song and some tableaux and then the big hit, Dr. Killercure. The writer’s father was the doctor. Sarah Heimbaugh and Maggie Ransom were the two main stars. Emily Nichols, Big Emily as they called her to distinguish her from her cousin Little Emily, was the doctor’s helper. The doctor laid out the drugs for the various patients telling the nature of the diseases. The assistant could not read but she remembered what the doctor said and repeated it to each patient much to their horror. Maggie Ransom was a good Irish mimic and had good training from the railroad builders then in the country. She brought a little boy with a sore head who had been given the wrong salve. My brother, Charley, was the tot. As he was very shy and only a child, he just looked at that crowd and grinned with a face as red as a June lily, while Maggie said her boy’s head kept swelling clear to the ceiling and threatened that when her husband got in he would blacken both eyes of the doctor. With a few more stunts the show ended as a first night success with gate receipts of twenty-three dollars and some cents, and no expenses.

© Copyright 1997-2013, The Art Department, © Copyright 2014-2020, Richard Harrison.
Last updated on Friday, 16-Apr-2021 16:54:39 MST