THE CARDIFF GIANT -1869 -1870 467 



tion of the best sort the sort which made Thomas Jef 

 ferson believe in democracy. It is largely of New Eng 

 land ancestry, with a free admixture of the better sort 

 of more recent immigrants. It was my good fortune, dur 

 ing several years, to know many of these dwellers in 

 the valley, and perhaps I am prejudiced in their favor 

 by the fact that in my early days they listened very le 

 niently to my political and literary addresses, and twice 

 sent me to the Senate of the State with a large majority. 



But truth, even more than friendship, compels this 

 tribute to their merits. Good influences have long been 

 at work among them : in the little cemetery near the val 

 ley church is the grave of one of their early pastors, a 

 quiet scholar, the Eev. Caleb Alexander, who edited the 

 first edition of the Greek Testament ever published in 

 the United States. 



I have known one of these farmers, week after week, 

 during the storms of a hard winter, drive four miles to 

 borrow a volume of Scott s novels, and, what is better, 

 drive four miles each week to return it. They are a peo 

 ple who read and think, and who can be relied on, in the 

 long run, to take the sensible view of any question. 



They have done more than read and think. They took a 

 leading part in raising regiments and batteries for the 

 Civil War, and their stalwart sons went valiantly forth 

 as volunteers. The Onondaga regiments distinguished 

 themselves on many a hard-fought field; they learned 

 what war was like at Bull Run, and used their knowledge 

 to good purpose at Lookout Mountain, Five Forks, and 

 Gettysburg. Typical is the fact that one of these regi 

 ments was led by a valley schoolmaster, a man who, 

 having been shot through the body, reported dead, and 

 honored with a public commemoration at which eulo 

 gies were delivered by various persons, including my 

 self, lived to command a brigade, to take part in the 

 &quot;Battle of the Clouds,&quot; where he received a second 

 wound, and to receive a third wound during the march 

 with Sherman to the sea. 



