102 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Ragan aud J. C. Evans acting as bride and groom ; and now we can 

 point to the past 19 years in proof that the union has been more last- 

 ing and agreeable than some of those the courts have been called on 

 to dissolve. The meetings of these years have added largely to the 

 sum of our practical, useful knowledge; at the same time they have 

 tended to develop and strengthen the better impulses of the human 

 heart in the promotion of lasting friendship. 



Thirty-four years ago today I was introduced, under peculiar cir- 

 cumstances, to three aged persons. The B. &. O. R. R. was then 

 making an effort to increase its business in the west, and having faith 

 in printers' ink, arranged for a large excursion of newspaper men 

 from the west, northwest and southwest over the road to Baltimore, 

 Washington, Mt. Vernon, etc. About 9 o'clock in the morning, 10 or 

 12 cars left Wheeling, Va., loaded with editors and their wives, re- 

 porters and their lady friends ; and about 100 miles out the train 

 halted, and we were invited to take a look at one of the curiosities to 

 be seen along the road. In a few moments a large crowd gathered 

 around an old log-cabin on the bank of a small stream. The manager 

 of the excursion mounted the porch, on which were seated three old 

 persons, of whom he gave us a little of their history, on introducing 

 them. They had been in this country only a few years when the revo- 

 lutionary war began, and not being willing to take up arms against 

 their mother country, they fled over the mountains into the wilderness, 

 as they supposed, so far away that they would not be found. "This 

 old man — John Church— " said the conductor, "is 115 years old; this 

 old woman is his wife, now 109 years old, and this young lady by their 

 side — Miss Nancy — is their daughter, and has on her cheeks this morn- 

 ing the flush of youth, the red bloom of 84 Mays." Everyone had to 

 shake hands with them. The peculiarity that attracted my attention 

 was the hardness of their skin, or flesh — more like sole-leather than 

 anything else I could compare it with. 



The man who can look back over the last 40 or 50 years, and will 

 take time to think and contrast the present with what he then saw, 

 surely ought to be thankful that he is living in this day of grace. 



Great events often have small beginnings. Prof. Morse's ideas 

 about the telegraph were spoken of as indicating a mind not sound, 

 rather as that of a crank ; but when the line was completed between 

 Washington and Baltimore, the first dispatch sent over the line by 

 Miss Paulding, at the suggestion of her mother, gave credit to the 

 right source. It was : " Behold what the Lord hath wrought!" Now 

 the talking wires of the electric telegraph have spread over all coun- 

 tries, and as far as I know, equal the number of stars of the heavens. 



