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AURORA CITY

PAGE 384  Here is to be seen the splendid mansion of the Hon. Henry Walker, 
my early and my personal friend.  A gentleman of great moral excellence and 
literary fame.  He is usually noticed by journalists as "the great western 
orator."  Mr. Walker's manners are peculiar to himself; he apes no man, and 
so far as  I know, no public speaker ever attempted to ape him.  He is an 
original oddity, and must be seen and heard to be rightly appreciated.  
He would, perchance, exceed the expectations of some, and fall below that 
of others,just according to the tastes and fancies of his auditors. He has 
a vast library of books, which his addresses show have not been altogether 
neglected. His father being the first settler, he, of course, is one of the 
oldest inhabitants of the county, and has received many public honors at 
the hands of his fellow-citizens. His good lady  is a native of Maine, 
whence I hail.I know her family and friends to be highly honorable and 
respected.
  Messrs. Haynes and Holman, attorneys at law, and of eminent distinction, 
will please appropriate to them- selves the kind sentiments and 
remembrances tendered to gentlemen of the bar at Lawrenceburgh.  Here was 
the residence of that sainted and good man, the Rev. Judge Jesse L. Holman,
the honored father of Wm. S.Holman, so extensively known and respected as 
a man, an attorney, and a politican.
  The eminent Dr. Sutton and Dr. Bond, and Dr. Haynes, my kind personal 
friends, reside here, justly loved and highly appreciated.  Here, too. 
reside the Hon. Judge Emory, Wm. R. Green, and Wm. T. Harris, Esqrs., T.
and J. Taylor Chambers and Stevens, the Gaffs, Cobbs, and Lozier, merchants 
of fame and fairness - all my kind personal friends.  Nor can I possibly 
pass unnoticed Messrs. Sewall and Samuel Plummer, and Wm.Jipson, and their 
good ladies and interesting families, formerly my kind and excellent 
neighbors and fellow- townsmen, and ever loved and cherished friends.  
I have known them long, and love them dearly.
  Here, as before noticed, is the beautiful residence of my good and worthy
friend, Stroder Cheek, and the home of the venerable old Mother Cheek, the 
oldest person in the county, and, for aught I know, in the State, Here 
George Cheek, the father of Stroder and brothers, was found to be missing. 
Every possible search was made in vain, a liberal reward offered for his 
discovery, dead or alive, and after many months of painful anxiety, he was 
discovered in the creek - recognized by his apparel, and forthwith found a 
decent and appropriate burial.  My lamented friends, John R. Watkins, a 
Mr. Bailey, and a Mr. Squibb, were horribly mangled by the explosion of a 
powder keg, on a pleasure and celebration trip on the St. Louis railroad, 
survived a short time in great pain and died.  Perhaps five perished, and 
several others were slightly injured,among whom was a Mr. James Reading. 
Aurora lost some of her best citizens, which she deeply deplored.
  A man fell through the bridge, and was found a corpse.  Another one 
walked out into the river, then put a pistol into his mouth, and fell a 
bleeding and mutilated corpse in the beautiful Ohio.  Another man, after 
trying to both to hand and shoot himself, but was discovered and arrested, 
deliberately threw himself into the river and perished.  A Mr. Green, 
having personal difficulty with a Mr. Hancock, I believe, was shot, and 
died suddenly.  Old Charley Vattier deliberately shot Elias Conwell, now 
of Napoleon - put a heavy charge of large shot into his hop and thigh, 
that had well-nigh proved fatal.  It, however, crippled him for life, for 
which he recovered a heavy damage.  Henry Vanmiddlesworth struck a Mr. 
Morehead, I believe, upon the head, with a grubbing hoe, and broke his 
skull; but by the surgical skill of Dr. Percival, he survived.  Van-
middlesworth and another man perished, on the Fourth of July, by the 
untimely discharge of a cannon, as per acrostic. Indian, wolf, bear, and 
panther stories are too numerous to mention, but in keeping with all 
other accounts.
  The steamboat Metcalff descending the river in a thick fog, the pilot,
mistaking the smoke of Gaff's distillery for an up-river steamboat, 
sheered suddenly to pass it on the right, according to usage, run square 
into a high bank, just above the mouth of the creek, which resulted in the 
total ruin of the boat, and the loss of many precious lives of men, women, 
and children; who, with an awful shock and fearful outcry, were suddenly 
aroused from a comfortable berth, sweet repose, and happy dreams, to 
struggle and perish in the waters of death.  How sudden, how painful, how 
melancholy the scene. That mammouth distillery has been twice consumed by 
fire, and two men perished in the flames.  My eloquent friend, the Rev. 
Mr. Miller, is "far-famed" and dearly loved.  A Mr. Caldwell, a notorious 
horse-thief and plunderer, in territorial times, was pursued by a body of 
armed men, overtaken, ordered to halt upon his peril.  Sham shots were 
given to bring hiim to in vain; then a deadly aim brought him to the 
ground, a bleeding corpse, and his grief-smitten wife sold his body 
to Dr. Percival, to be anatomized, for a calico dress.  Companions in 
crime, O how affectionate they are! Our agricultural friends, Messrs. 
White and Lane, must not be overlooked, as gentlemen of distinction, and 
moral excellence and worth.  Old Father Cozine and Daniel Bartholomew, 
deceased, my early friends, msut be embalmed in the pages of my little 
book.  Mr. and Mrs. Bartholomew, who still survives, made their house my 
happy home, when therem in days "land syne." How sweet the memory still - 
O how sweet!  Hugh M. Allen, blowing into the muzzle of his gun, received 
the full charge into his head, and fell a mangled and bleeding corpse.



     Barb Boese     barbwire@midusa.net