MEMORIES OF THE 



office. He would not buy votes with either mone}^ or whiskey. 

 He was an abolitionist, and the town was a pro-slavery one; 

 consequently he was unavailable as a candidate. Notwith- 

 standing this, he was for quite a while poormaster of the town, 

 for which office he was considered to be specially adapted, as 

 he well knew who among the applicants for relief were meritor- 

 ious and entitled to help. The poor expenses of the town were 

 very light, and few families required or got any relief. Sickness 

 or starvation were about the only grounds therefor. 



There were in the southeast part of the town some people 

 known as '' Millerites," who were looking for the end of the 

 world at given times. Some of these were so certain one fall 

 that the end was coming that they failed to dig their potatoes. 

 The world did not end as advertised, and along in the dead of 

 the winter the head of one of these families came to father as 

 poormaster to help him out, showing that he had no work and 

 no food in the house for his family, who were on the verge of 

 starvation. Instead of the help he expected, he got one of the 

 liveliest lectures on the "Sinfulness of Sin" and the "Foolish- 

 ness of the Darned Fool " that I ever heard. After he was 

 gone, mother asked father if he proposed to let the woman and 

 children suffer on account of the man's foolishness. He said, 

 "It would do them all good to fast and pray over night," and 

 that he would go up the next day and look into the matter. 



In the town was a man by the name of Philander Smith. 

 He was the wealthiest man in town, and was also a man of fair 

 education, high standing and influence — a man to whom neigh- 

 bors less successful in the affairs of the world went for advice; 

 in short, he was looked up to by the townspeople as an oracle, 

 and what he said "went" in matters of law or business. A 

 shiftless fellow, whose reputation was way off for either habits 



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