History: The Town of Lima; Fayette County, Iowa ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES PROJECT NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net/ ************************************************************************ The USGenWeb Archives provide genealogical and historical data to the general public without fee or charge of any kind. It is intended that this material not be used in a commercial manner. All submissions become part of the permanent collection. This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Adelaide McBride December, 2002 ____________________________________________________________________________ NOTE: For more information on Fayette County, Iowa Please visit the Fayette County, IAGenWeb page at http://iagenweb.org/fayette/ ____________________________________________________________________________ Premission is given by Pat and Charles Baumler, the Treasure and President of the Lima Cemetery Improvement Association to put the following information in the Fayette County Archives. Taken from notes compiled by the late Elizabeth Oelberg Dickinson, Fayette, Iowa and the late Merl Durfey. Originally called "Lightville," laid out as "Volga City" and the name changed to "Lima" by an act of the legislature, because there was already a Volga City. The first to settle was Erastus A. Light and Harvey Light; hense the name Lightville. The Lights built a saw mill on the Volga River in 1849-1850. A. J. Hensley built a flour mill with stone burrs at this same place in 1852 and soon sold it to P.H. Durfey and son. This structure was twenty six by forty feet, two stories high with a stone basement. The property was reverted to Mr. Hensley in 1878 and later sold to Oelbergs. In the early days quite a lot of wheat was raised on farms around Lima. This mill was equiped with a special stone burr and bolter to separate the flour from the bran or hulls of the wheat. The top burr is in West Union at Paul Oelberg's old home and the bottom burr is at the Lima Cemetery, put there by Russell Dickinson. The saw mill was also kept running. A lot of logs were sawed into lumber for farmers to use for buildings. There were several men who ran the mill. A.R. Oelberg, Bob Durfey, George Abbot, and Harry Stephens. The mill was located on the north bank, west of the bridge which spanned the river. It was abandoned in 1900, because there was not enough water to keep it running. An iron bridge originally spanned the Volga River at this point, but was swept away by the flood of June 1, 1875. The second structure was taken in the flood of 1947. The cement bridge there now was built in 1979. Prominent farmers who farmed in the vicinity of Lima were as follows: To the south was Charles Whitley who was a breeder of full blood horses and cattle. T. R. Parker, general farming. The Graf farm and ten acre orchard. They shipped apples by car loads. To the southeast was G.P. Gage, general farming, the P.H. Hastings farm which later was run by a son, John Hastings. J.J. Oelberg and S.C. Bass. To the east was W.O.Lewis, G.W.Jones, C.H.Wilson, George Kuhens, Frank Follenbee, Del Kuhens, James Davis, Joe Lewis, Jehiel Warner, Andrew Shepherd, George lambert, Al DeNier and T.W. Potter who lived just to the east of the Lima Store. To the north was Walter Pritchard, C.C. Harrison who later moved to Missouri, Robert Barthlomew, Smith Landas, T.D. Lewis, N.F. Henry and Charles Oelberg. Eli Meyer, John Davis and Thomas Pritchard and Wlill Sloan. William Carmachael and Sam Carmachael, Frank Helms and Sam Helms who later moved to Redgeway, Iowa. A Congregational Church was started in 1857, but was discontinued. A United Brethern Group was formed a little later but it too, disbanded. In 1882, a group of 67 people of the community under the name of Lima Union church Builders Association was formed and the main part of the present church built. (Until this time church had been held in a cabin near the present sight.) An addition was built in 1914, and the belfry and bell added. Sheds for about 10 teams were built in 1911, but were torn down when cars became common. The land where the church stands was deeded to the Lima Union church trustees by Winslow Stearns for $1.00 and had been kept to use as a court house square when they thought Lima might become the county seat. A cemetery was laid out in 1865 by the Lima Burial Group Association. A ladies Aide group was formed about 1890 - the original records were lost when the Lima store burned. There are now 20 active members, most of whom being members of other denominations but working together to keep up the church as a community center where Memorial Services, dinners, weddings, funerals and club meetings are held each year. No record of when the first store was opened but believed the Light Bros. were the first. later a store was operated by Frank Matzell who sold to J.J. Oelberg in Oct. 1883. After belongingj to several Oelberg brothers it was sold to Rufus Warner in 1932 who then sold to Leonard Anfinson in 1943. He sold to Aaron Loucks in 1965 who continued to operate it until the Conservation commission took over in the Volga Lake Project. In 1907, the store was remodeled and enlarged, it burned in April the same year. Another was built with residence attached. During the time of rebuilding the store was operated from the mill building east and south of the store site. Several blocks west of the store in the early days was a second store run by F. T. Pilkington. It was also operated at one time by Ebenezer (Bob) Nefzger and was later used as a residence. In 1912, a building 12x24' was built east of the creek bridge on the south side of the road to store ice. Tlhe ice cut on the pond under the Albany bridge. Some cutting and loading, others with teams and sleds hauling, others packing the ice in sawdust, those helping were to have free ice. A Gleaner hall, west of the store and north of the old store was built in 1912 - burned and rebuilt in 1913. Two stories with a basement was declared unsafe for dancinjg. It was abandoned and was sold to Arthur Herman who tore it down and used the lumber to build a house on highway 56, not far from the Clayton County line. Later a building, just west of the store was built with a full basement. The first floor was used as a warehouse and a barber shop and an apartment in the basement. In 1878 the railroad came through from West Union to Turkey River Junction. It was planned to be joined west of Lima with a track coming east from Sumner and some of these gradings can still be seen. P. H. Hastings was depot agent in Lima for many years and many car loads of cattle and hogs were shipped from this point. The railroad was abandoned in 1938. The last train running in February of that year. The track was torn up in 1938 and a road for cars was constructed on the railroad site. In 1915, on February 22, it rained all day and on the 23rd , the river flooded carrying large ice cakes downstream and not a railroad bridge was left undamaged from Lima to Turkey River Junction. It was three weeks before a train came through, mail came by way of West Union and brought down by hand car. There was lumber yard run by P.H. Hastings. It closed about 1910 and a Commission Company was formed and stock yards built where the lumber yard stood. F. T. Jones was manager of the company. A warehouse was built here. The Lima Union Church and Sunday School was organized in 1882 with a Mr. Richmond as Superintendent. Norton Henry sawed the lumber for the original building and Mr. Beardsley finished the lumber and made the pews. John Elston did some inside work and Winslow and Wheeler Stearns, A.J. Hensley, S.D. Helms and many others donated labor; Reuben Hensley, Sam Helms, J. Davis, Andrew Shepherd and George Earl. The original members donated from $5.00 to $150.00 toward the building. Forty three names were recorded when the addition was added to the east side in 1914. Four stained glass windows contributed by early members; A.J. Hensley, Sam Helms, Winslow Stearns, Norton Henry. A cord wood furnace was installed about 1908. A School House was built on the north bank of the river and the first classes held in the winter of 1850, taught by E.H. Light. After the flood of 1878, the school was abandoned and later moved to the Tom Potter farm and used as a grainery. A black board was still intact, when the building was destroyed because of the Volga Lake project. About 1878 another school house was erected on high ground south of the river. An addition was built in 1905. EARLY SETTLERS Earliest settlers at Lima were the Light brothers, Harvey and Eurastus, who came in the early 1840's.The town, first named Lightville, was later called Volga City. Then because there was another Volga City farther down the river, the name was changed to Lima. The Lights built a saw mill and later added a set of burrs for grinding corn in 1849-50. A.J. Hensley built a flour mill in 1872. The saw mill was sold to P. H. Durfey and his son, Follett. In larter years Follet and sons, Robert and Merl, operated the mill. At that time the flour mill was owned by Albert R. Oelberg, who also owned and operated the general store. The mill was abandoned around 1900 when the river could no longer furnish power except for a short time in the spring and fall after heavy rains. The first store in Lima was started by Frank Matsel in the 1840's. In 1883 the store was purchased by J.J. Oelberg who was also the postmaster. He was joined in business by his brother James, and the store continued, as Oelberg Brothers until 1932 when it was purchased by Rufua Warner. In 1878 another store was started by Simon Nefzger just west of the first store. At the time that the store was destroyed by fire about 20 years ago, it was being used as a home. The nearby blacksmith shop also burned and was rebuilt. About ten years ago it burned again. Lima's first school house was built in 1850, its exact location not being known. It is now a part of the grainery on the T.W. Potter farm sold recently to George Smith of Cedar Rapids. The present school house on the south bank of the Volga was built in the 1860's and is still being used for storing machinery. The first church organized in Lima was Congregational, started in 1857. Member- ship grew from seven in that first year to about 20 in 1878. A United Brethern Church was organized but soon disbanded. The first building used as a church was either moved or torn down. Then the congregation was reorganized as the Lima Union Church which exists today. The building constructed in 1882, was added to in 1914. Four stained glass windows were installed on which were inscribed names of some of the first members. Hensley, Helms, Henry and Stearns. According to old-timers land was set aside for a court house with the hope that Lima might become the county seat. However, in the election in 1851, the site in West Union won by 35 votes. The Milwaukee Railroad first ran into the county in 1878. The last train ran Februarty 7, 1938, and the tracks were torn up on July 14 of the same year. A lumber yard was established in 1890 southwest of the store and was operated for many years by P. H. Hastings, who was also the depot agent. The lumber yard was later discontinued, and stock yards were started. Many loads of hogs and cattle were shipped out on the railroad from Lima. Gleaner hall was built in 1910. It burned, was rebuilt and was finally abandoned after being used for living quarters and storage. The structure was sold and moved to a location on Highway 56 where it was rebuilt into a house by Arthur Hermen. The Lima Cemetery Association incorporated in 1865. It is in the cemetery that the life-size statue of John Crawford and his beloved dog stand. The statue was erected by Mr. Crawford's employer Libbie Harrison, in appreciation for his many years of faithful service as a farm hand. The statue was paid for in great part with the unclaimed wages Mr. Crawford had earned. JAMES DAVIS In 1842, James Davis, 33 year old, a dark-haired, young United Brethren minister, packed his saddlebags with provisions, clothes and "traveling library" and rode out along the autumn colored trails of Warren County, Indiana, on a 500 mile journey to Wisconsin. His mission had been assigned by the Wabash Conference. Before the end of 1842, he had established Wisconsin's first first United Brethren congregation near Monroe in Green, County. In 1835 he became a charter member of the newly-formed Wabash Conference in Indiana and rode circuits between Terre Haute and Logansport in the Upper Wabash Valley. By 1844 Rev. Davis was elected Presiding Elder to supervise the entire United Brethren work in Wisconsin. He served in this capacity for three years, but he had driven himself so hard and endured so much that his health began to fail. He served as a member of the General Conference of 1849 and then was forced to retire in 1850, broken in body but not in spirit, and still in his early 40's. Rev. Davis went into retirement in Fayette County, Ia., and died there April 11, 1854 at the age of 45 leaving a widow and seven children. It is thought that he was buried in the Lima Cemetery, but the Lima Burial Group Association with some graves already there wasn't formed until 1865, so no record has been found. Rev. James Davis, a United Brethren preacher, with his family, came to the county in August, 1849, and settled in Dover Township, but in the Spring of 1850 removed to Lightville (now Lima), having rented Harvey Light's place, his son William cutting out the road from West Union to Lightville. During the Summer, Mr. Davis built a log cabin about a mile below Light's Mill, on the south side of the Volga, on Section 19, Township 93, Range 7 (Illyria Township). The only other house in the vicinity was that of Andrew Hensley, built the previous year. Mr. Davis died April 11, 1854, and in 1856 his widow married Rev. John Brown, the pioneer preacher of this region, well known as a United Brethren preacher in Delaware, Clayton and Fayette counties. Mrs. Davis was his third wife. Mr. Davis was among the earliest ministers to settle in Fayette County, and is said to have preached the first sermon in Dover and West Union Townships. In the fall of 1850, after Mr. Davis had moved into his new cabin, his sons William and Ambrose D., the former about 17, and the latter six or seven years old, started to go to the river about a quarter of a mile distant, fishing. Ambrose the little shaver, was carrying the bait and was several rods behind his brother, when he came to a large basswood tree that had blown down. William had passed around it, but Ambrose clambered over it. While standing on it, he noticed a peculiar depression in the bark toward the top of the tree, and running along until he came to the place, he broke through and fell into the tree which was hollow, as the wood had decayed and fallen away from the bark. In falling, the boy's feet struck something inside that frightened him. The tree was so large that he couldn't get out alone, and he yelled, William came running back, fearing that a snake had attacked his little brother, and lifted him out of the trap into which he had fallen. Upon further examination, the boys found a two-gallon jug about half full of whiskey, a nice Indian tomahawk, three fishing spear heads - made of iron and about twelve inches long - and a large stone pipe, cut out of some kind of red stone and nicely polished, and the fragments of a blue blanket. The boys carried the articles to the house, and Ambrose says his father thought they had been deposited by Indians who had got drunk, wandered off and forgot where they left them. From appearances, they had been hidden in the old tree for several years, and the more probable explanation is that the redskin who left them there took a dose of lead, laid down and died suddenly, leaving his estate to be settled by the Davis boys. It is thought that he was buried in the Lima Cemetery, but no record has been found of that fact. He died April 11, 1854 and the cemetery was laid out in 1865 by the Lima Burial Group Association with some graves already there. LIMA COMMUNITY CHURCH As we attempt a little story about the Lima Community Church, earlier known as the Lima Union Church, it is with keen regret that we did not take some written notes years ago, when our grandfather Reuben Hensley, and other Lima locality pioneers were here telling their stories of the "early days". But we shall do the best we can with our limited and uncertain data, and our own early boyhood memories. The Lima church has four tinted memorial windows, Helms-Henry-Hensley-Stearns. We believe it to be correct that the Helms window is in memory of "Elder" Helms, the first preacher of this church. The Henry window is in memory of the late Norman Henry's father, Millwright of the early Lima water-power mill, where the native lumber for the church was sawed. The Hensley window is in memory of A.J. "Jack" Hensley, who gave the first one hundred dollars toward a new church. The Stearns window is to commemorate Winslow Stearns, carpenter-foreman of the church building work crew. Norman Henry and George Kuhens, young men at the time, (1879, as we calculate it) helped haul the saw-logs to the Henry mill. Here let us digress for a paragraph. The Lima water-power mill was a short distance on the upstream side from the present Volga River bridge, south of the Lima Store. The dam was made of logs and stones. The mill pond was not so very deep. Some of the year the water was too low to provide power for either the saw or the stone burrs. Some of the time the mill yard was flooded. And one local wit said, so the story goes, "when the river was right, the millwright had to file the saw and sharpen the burrs". The first pulpit and seats were handmade by John Elston, Mrs. Laura Shepard, Henry's uncle, and the finishing and varnishing was done by Mrs. Shepard's brother- in-lawm, Joseph Beardsley. Reverend Taylor and Reverend McCormick were two of the earliest ministers. Another pioneer minister, Reverend Israel Shaffer, grandfather of I.F. Shaffer of Fayette, preached his last sermon at the Lima Church. He unhitched, put his horse in the barn at the "Jack" Hensley farm, near the church. After his sermon he returned to the Hensley barn, and was hitching his horse to his carriage in the Hensley farm- yard, when he suffered a fatal heart attack. Among the young people who attended social functions at Lima Church was Marion Shepard, who later in life as a Township Constable was shot and killed by "Ike" Barber of the Barber Brothers, whom Constable Shepard was attempting to arrest for horse stealing. The church was rebuilt, the east addition added, in 1914. The late Albert "Chub" Oelberg, proprietor of the Lima general store, furnished cement, hardware and other supplies at cost. Most of the work was donated. George "Gunner" Earle was the finishing carpenter. Later a large shed was built northwest of the church, as a shelter for the horses and buggies or surreys. This shed was razed quite some time ago. Through our boyhood years the church was affiliated with the Methodist Conference, and usually had a student pastor from U.I.U. Some of them were very able and a few were mediocre and tactless indeeed. For a time in the 1940's the Lima group were very fortunate in having Reverend G.W. Ukena of West Union as a pastor for evening church service. During recent years the church has served as a community center, and is the site of a few annual events, as the Cemetery Improvement Ass'n. chicken dinner, and the pre-Memorial Day memorial service. As we revive our boyhood memories of those faithful farmer Christians, we would summarize it in these words...Their Sunday suits were not custom tailored, their shirt collars were perhaps not always wrinkle free. But their moral and religious concepts were very good indeed. ALLIE BASS Allie Bass was born south of Lima, Iowa on June 16, 1900 and died March, 1947 in Sacremento, California. Her father was Sion Bass; mother was Alice Della Dean Bass. She had four sisters, Carrie, Bertha, Lottie and Minnie and two brothers, Thomas and Farrell. Allie went to elementary school near Lima. In 1925 she received her B.A. Degree in Education at Iowa State Teacher's College in Cedar Falls. She received her Masters Degree from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa. She was a Methodist Missionary in India for many yuears, and was an instructor in a Methodist boy's school in India for sixteen years. She was a Social Sience instructor in a Junior College in North Carolina. In 1945 she was a business manager in a college in India. She also taught in Central High School in Ames, Iowa. In letters to friends, Allie said that at first the new missionaries in India were depressed with the poverty and afflictions of the people, but as time went on the missionaries became so interested in ways to help the people to better living that they had no time to get depressed. She told about visiting the Taj Mahal, which is a beautiful tomb built in the 17th century. She said it was considered the most perfect piece of architecture in the world which took 20,000 men 17 years to complete. Allie told about the children in India giving a school program, it was a small group of children in a large non-Christian city. They would stand up and sing songs of Christ and his love, repeat scriptue and Apostle's Creed, and offer prayers. They gave this program in their native tongue and then would repeat it in English for the English speaking people. The children would go to different sections of the city and through their singing and Bible stories, influenced many people to become Christians. When growing up she attended Sunday School and Church at Lima. In April, 1933, she spoke to the Lima Church congregation about her work in India. At this time she gave the Lima Church a baptismal bowl, which is here today, but is kept in the Lima Room at the Historical Center, in West Union. Rev. D.M. Parker was present that day at the Lima Church. That same day Rev. Parker baptized Ronald Lambert, using the baptismal bowl for the first time, while Alllie Bass was present. That same day Allie told the congregation that she had been in the oldest church in the world, the most beautiful church in the world, and many others, but none gave her the thrill she received when she came in sight of her little home church at Limla, where she received her first religious training and gave her heart to God. SUSAN COLLINS Susan Collins was born July 3rd, 1851 and died June 12, 1940 and was buried in the Lima Cemetery. She was probably the only person residing in Fayette County who was born to slave parents. Susan was born in Madison County, Illinois, where her father had been taken from Virginia as a slave but was freed under Illinois law. Later the family moved to Wisconsin where Mr. Collins served in the Union Army. My grerat grandfather Humphry settled in Wisconsin when they came from England. He hired some of the slaves as they came north through Wisconsin. Mother remembered one proud man (Uncle Billy) who served great grandfather as a hostler for his very fine horses. I don't know how my family came to know the Collins but it possible they knew each other in Wisconsin. Perhaps Uncle Billy was Mr. Collins. In any case I knew Susan when I was a little girl. My great grandparents came to Iowa in 1862, The Collins family came in 1865 and I believe they too settled east and north of Lima. Susan would have been 14 years old when they came to Iowa. Susan worked in the home of Jason Paine of Fayette. He made it possible for her to attend four terms at Upper Iowa Prepartory School. In 1882 Susan took up a claim in Huron, South Dakota, and started a laundry. From a piece of newspaper wrapped around some laundry she learned of a Bible Training school in Chicago. She sold her laundry and enrolled in the Bible school in 1886. In 1887 she accompanied Bishop Taylor to Angola, Africa as a missionary. Susan served there for thirteen years without salary and would have suffered greatly had it not been for gifts from the natives and especially from the friends in Fayette. When she was home on furlough she spoke to the Pacific Branch of the Women's Foreign Missionary Society. They were so impressed with her energy and knowledge of the African people that they sent her back to Africa with a small salary this time. The church had felt she was too old at 50 years of age to return to Africa. The two missionaries who had preceded her had died of fever. For years and years Susan thrived alone as head of a girls school. She sometimes shared her four room house with 25 girls. In 1920 she returned to Fayette and bought a house on the east side of town near where we lived at the time. Her health failed and she lived with Mrs. Harriet Lewis and her sister, Atrus Stepps' mother for the last six years of her life. Her grave is to your right below the second spruce tree as you go east on the upper road of the Lima cemetery. We think it is her Mother and a sister and brother who are buried there too. When I was a very little girl, my sisters and I visited my grandmother Foxwell. Susan was there. She was a good friends of my Aunt Mary Ann. She loved children and "made over" my sisters and me. I sat on her lap for a long time. I loved that and told my father about it. He said, "Bertha, if you grow up to be as fine a lady as Susan Collins, you will do all right." as told by Bertha Yearous --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- JOANNA DAVIS Joanna Davis, the oldest of eight children, was born in a log house on the Davis farm two miles east of Lima, on October 14, 1866. Her parents were James and Naomi Smith Davis. Her father bought and homesteaded the first 80 acres of the farm about 1854 and it is still the home of members of the Davis family. The Davis family came to America from Wales. During the time she lived at Lima, she and her brothers and sisters attended Sunday School and Church Services at the Lima Church. Joanna taught the Lima school and other rural schools in Fayette County, also in Elgin and Fayette. She attended Upper iowa University and the Methodist Training School in Chicago. She was a Misssionary in India for 20 years, beginning in 1902, leaving sooner than she wanted to because her hands became crippled. She continued her correspondence with the use of her portable typewriter. She told many stories about her life in India. She would ride on a camel or travel in a two wheeled cart pulled by a native. She told about washing clothes. Tlhey used a large stone trough full of water, holding one end of the clothing and beating it on the side of the trough or on flat rocks along the river. Buttons were made of cotton thread as other kinds would break in the beating process. Years ago, when she was a guest at Volga Valley Club, she told the ladies that the missionaries were not allowed to do any manual labor, that was for the coolies and servants to do. The "caste system' being very strict in India. Her last years were spent at Thoburn Terrace, a retirement honme for Missionaries at Alhambra, California. She died July 4th, 1954 and was buried in Live Oakes Memorial Cemetery, Monrovia, California. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- JESSE & AMY BUCKMASTER Jesse and Amy Buckmaster, a South Dakota farm boy and a Missouri farm girl respectively who settled in Iowa years ago, live in a small house between the cemetery and the church. Summers are cool and pleasant in their one story home; thanks in part to the protective shade offered by groves of tall trees all around. Winters are a different story. Water must be carried into the home from an outside, backyard well and restroom facitities are a one room shack also located out back While his wife Amy washes the noonday dishes in early afternoon, Jessie Buckmaster enjoys walking in the woods. Sometimes he takes along his rifle to practice shooting skills that at age 76 remain sharp, other times he just walks. Invariably to Lima Cemetery where the stories tombstones tell have no equal. Jesse said "I used to make 20 cents an hour working here. I took care of the grounds, cut the grass and fixed-up the tombstones." Statue of Hired Man Done in Granite By Unknown Sculptor Beauty Spot at Lima. The little village of Lima in Fayette county boasts one of the finest pieces of sculptural art in the state of Iowa. It is in the form of a life-size statue erected in the memory of a man noted for nothing more than his faithful execution of the ordinary duties of a farm hand. The statue stands in the little cemetery on the edge of town and is the likeness of Jim Crawford, a farm hand who lived in the community several years ago. JIM CRAWFORD An interesting history is connected with the statue, an authentic version of which is as follows: For sixteen years Jim Crawford had worked faithfully on the farm of Crit Harrison, a farmer living near Lima. One night he came home intoxicated. It wasn't the first time and his employer took him to task. Crawford was told in a forceful manner that any more drunkenness would not be tolerated, but that if he would reform, his wages would be raised, for he had been a most valuable worker. This was in 1903. Never Left Farm Crawford took the talk to heart, and for two years faithfully did more than his share of work, not even leaving the farm to go to town. When he died of tuber- culosis in 1905, his two sisters living at Wadena insisted that he would have a fine monumnet. They contributed a sum of money for the purpose and combined it with the money that their brother, himself, had saved, together with a contribution from Harrison. They gave the money to Lib Harrison, a sister of Crit, and asked her to purchase a granite monument. The stipulations were that the monument was to be a life-size likeness of Crawford in a favorite pose with his dog and gun. He had been an ardent follower of the hunting sport in his leisure hours and his dog had been his constant companion. Accordingly Miss Harrison made a trip to the granite quarries of Hollowell, Maine, but was told there that the project was impossible. Greatly disappointed but not discouraged, she then went to a firm in Barre, Vermont, but was again informed that the undertaking could not be accomplished. She was about to come home when a stone worker, who had recently come to Barre from Boston told her that he believed that he could persuade the firm to try the project. Tlhey did, with the result that the first block was broken in the attempt. A second effort, however, was successful, a skilled sculptor from Italy being employed to do the work. Sculptor Unknown The name of the Italian sculptor is not known to the people of the Lima community but the statue is a work of real art. The only model available for the work was a small kodak picture which was sent for the artist's use by a friend in Dakota. With only this meager portrait to guide him, the artist included such minute details as a frayed shirt sleeve, two suspender straps fastened to one button, and the smaller tendons in the dog's legs. The statue is such a striking resemblance to the man that people who know him, immediately recognize it when they approach it. The face of the monument carries two inscriptions. The one carved in granite is simply the name of the man and the dates of his life. J.H. Crawford 1863-1905. The other is a bronze tablet and is a quotation from a speech delivered before the United States senate by former Senator George G. Vest of Missouri. The inscription is as follows: " The One Absolutely Unselffish Friend That Man Can Have In This World Is His Dog." The speech from which the quotation is taken was supposedly given as a plea for consideration for some old soldier, relative to the loss, death or injury of his dog. Each year hundreds of people visit the little cemetery which overlooks the Volga river in a region of unsurpassing beauty. One man who was a natural lover of art, said, "I have been in all the leading museums of Europe, but I would turn back to look at that statue as often as at anything that I have ever seen." Near Disaster A near disaster to the monument about the first of September of this year was averted only by an act almost of Providence. One section of a double tree in the cemetery was broken off by a strong wind, and was blown with great velocity past the monument, barely missing the statue and digging up the earth within a foot of its base. Many people have come to recognize it as a masterpiece of sculpture and a great tribute to faithful labor. JOHN THORPE A Very Large Rock John Thorpe was born August 26, 1874 and died November 29, 1903. He attended the "Frog Hollow School" which was located just across the road from the Thorpe home. John was six feel tall and weighed more than two hundred pounds. One day, in the presence of a neighbor, Lyman Tompkins, he lifted a large rock. no other man could lift it, but several men all working together lifted it. John told his shepherd dog to go and bring the cows home. The dog would start and stop and start and stop until John twisted his ear. The dog immediately bit John's hand and he had to choke the dog with his knee to make him let go. The dog ran away and didn't get the cows. The next day after having bitten John the dog followed Lydia, who had gone on horseback to Lima, back to the Thorpe home. He wanted John to pet him, but John told him to go away because he wouldn't work for him, he wouldn't pet him. The dog followed John's mother to the house, but wouldn't eat the food she gave him. He then ran away and was never found. On Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 1903, John married Belle Martin. Their plan was to live on the farm in Frog Hollow. On November 27, 1903, the next day after his marriage, John became ill with Hydrophobia. his dog had rabies and they didn't realize it. John was very ill with the terrible disease, hydrophobia. The sight of water would cause him to go into a convulsion and a black fluid would come from his mouth. They tore up and used thirteen bed sheets to catch the fluid. John was attended by three doctors, Dr. Bartlett from West Union, who was a close friend of John; Dr McLean from Fayette and Dr. Whitmore. His wife's sister, Maude Bernice Martin, was his nurse. On Saturday, November 28, 1903, John told them he knew he would die and would not see the sun set on Sunday evening. He told them all, but was really talking to Frank Oelberg, a neighbor, to put the large rock on the foot of his grave. Because John was so large and strong, they were not able to manage him during the last few hours. The three doctors decided to give him chloroform. He died quietly, but was conscious when they started to give him chloroform on Sunday afternoon. Frank Oelberg, Lyman Tomkins and others very carefully placed the large stone, which he had lifted to prove his strength, at the foot of his grave in the Lima Cemetery. The rock measures seventy eight inches in circumference. THE DINKY by Winnie Stearns Davis The oldsters called it "The Dinky" That little Rock Island train That pssed twice a day through Lima, Come sunshine, or, come rain. It was the lifeline sustaining Oelberg's General Store; And the supplies were many and varied That were unloaded at the depot door. It puffed on past the old Lima hall, Where, often, on a Saturday night, The sound of fiddles and dancing feet Made the cares of the day take flight. The Dinky rolled on through Frog Hollow And it thrilled the little folk - They loved to hear the whistle blow And see the billowing smoke. They'd rush out in the field to watch, As it sped along the track - What fun to wave at the engineer! And the engineer-he'd wave back! Now, the little train is long gone; It's usefulness is through. To ride one time to the end of the line, Was a dream that never came true.