ARBORICULTURE 



379 



The Buckeye — A Reminiscence. 



In the last number of your Magazine 

 you sent me I was much interested in 

 reading your article on the Buckeye of 

 the early days. 



It brought to my mind very vividly 

 the campaign of 1840, when William 

 Henry Harrison was elected President. 

 In fact, the Buckeye played a very con- 

 spicuous part in the election of Harri- 

 son, and especially in the state of Ohio. 

 I was in my twelfth year and was the 

 first I ever got interested in politics. 

 The excitement was so great it was con- 

 tagious. Some men in Connersville took 

 a trip down the river for two or three 

 miles, and they found a very large 

 Buckeye tree. They cut it down and 

 dug out a canoe that was forty feet long 

 and three and one-half feet wide on the 

 inside. Fifty girls dressed in white rode 

 in it. It was hauled on a wagon drawn 

 by six large horses driven by a man 

 with a single line. The girls decorated 

 the outside of the canoe by stringing 

 buckeyes on strings and hanging them 

 on the sides. There was a pole in the 

 center of the canoe about twenty-five 

 feet high and on top of that pole was a 

 live coon. The next wagon in the pro- 

 cession had a log cabin built on it, out 

 of buckeye logs. By the side of the 

 door there was a coon-skin nailed upon 

 it; on the other side of the door was a 

 barrel of cider and a man sitting on the 

 barrel drinking cider out of a gourd. 

 By the side of the cabin was a buckeye 

 tree, and in its branches were two live 

 coons, and once in a while they w^ould 

 send a live rooster up to the coons and 

 the way the feathers flew^ w^as a caution. 



The horse companies generally had 

 strings of buckeyes about their horses 

 necks. So you see the buckeyes played 

 a very conspicuous part in electing one 

 president at least. 



1 w^as in Cincinnati in '47, the time of 

 the flood your book speaks about. The 

 merchants paid men two dollars an hour 

 for getting goods out of their cellars. 

 Yours truly, 

 (Signed) C. C. MEEKER, 



Muncie, Ind. 



Ball's Poplar. 



