Section 35:  Settlers, Fire, and Hard Winter

I had raised some good crops of peaches and some apples. The hard winter of 1855 and 6 had killed some of my peach trees and all were badly injured. In fact, half the peach trees in the county were killed. The snow was deep. It scarcely thawed for three months and the roads were badly drifted.

I recollect one bright, star-light night in February, John B. Loomis and I came up from Brookville in his sleigh with two horses.

We started after dark and by the time we got up the hill on this side of Brookville, the horses were as white as ganders. It was the coldest night I ever traveled. When we got to Strattonville, the thermometer was twentyseven degrees below zero. We got home safe. We were both well protected by warm clothing and buffalo robes, but from my eyes up to where my hat reached my forehead was sore for day or two.

One night that winter I was waked up with the cry of "fire," and running out I saw the Great Western was on fire. Andrew Gardner was then keeping it. I went back into the house and put on my clothes, went out and turned my cow out of the stable and tied the calf to the fence in a safe place, and went back and told my wife to move nothing but to stay and watch the children and a little bag of gold I had in a drawer in the bookcase. We had neither engine nor hose but the snow was at least two feet deep and it was cold. I had no doubt when I first saw the fire that the building had to burn. The wind was blowing from the northwest. Down and across the street Mr. Niblock had a brick house built right up against the Western at the east end, and that building I knew could not be saved. Right against that was Wm. Everding's -- only one story but a frame. It was thought by tearing that down the next house below could be saved and so we went at it and in a short time let the roof down on the floor with a good load of snow on it, and with the brick wall protecting it, we had no trouble in stopping on our side and as it did not get across the street only the two buildings were burned, but the Western being a large frame building made a big blaze, and if it had not been for the snow we might have had trouble stopping it. And so the old hotel where my home had been for some six or seven years went up in smoke. With the appliances we have now, we could probably have saved the buildings.

Col. Coulter had sold the property as early as 1846 or 1847, and bought the brick up next Brimstone Corner. Some time along in 1853 or 1854 he got at me to furnish him some money to start a store. He had his money in a store over in Butler County and thought he could make money out of a store here, and he would attend it himself. At first I refused. I had no doubt of his ability or of his honesty, but his habits were not what a business man's should be. He became anxious and made solemn promises that he would never touch liquor again. I thought he might be all right, for sometimes he would abstain for six months or a year at a time, and so I gave him two thousand dollars and he was to run the store at a small salary and give me the half of what we made. He soon had five or six thousand dollars in it and made some money. The Col. broke over sometimes, but on the whole did pretty well. His wife often attended the store and I believe was quite as good at selling goods as he was. Of course I had nothing to do but furnish capital. I remained a member of the firm for five or six years and did well enough -- think I made about twenty per cent on the money invested. I was a good customer myself and while building the house I must have drawn out one or two thousand dollars for I paid my workmen largely through the store. The Col. employed Abr'm. Stull as a clerk and salesman and he turned out to be a faithful, honest boy, and about 1860 I sold out my interest to him. The store made money fast when the war came on and Abraham paid me easily and in a reasonably short time.

The town had changed a good deal. Judge Myers and Captain Barber, our two most wealthy men, had failed. James Kerr, an excellent citizen, had sold out and gone to Westmoreland County. Sutton was dead and Thomson had gone. John Clark soon after sold and went to the State of Indiana. Dr. Goe went to Meadville and from there to Wisconsin where he died. G. W. Arnold got the Wilson and Barber store. John Lyon became an iron master and went down in the panic of 1847. H. M. R. Clark rented his hotel (now the Jones House) and afterwards bought and ran it for a good many years and then sold it to Sheriff Jones who operated it till he sold out and Mrs. Beck became proprietress. B. J. Reid came here as early as 1842, I think taught school a term or was then assistant editor of a democratic paper and read law with Thos. Sutton, was admitted and went west to St. Louis and from there to California; stayed several years, came back and practiced here, got married, went to Titusville and from there to Erie, and from there came back to Clarion where he has been ever since, a successful lawyer; raised a large family of good boys and girls, has been an industrious, enterprising, but financially not a very successful man. His brother, John C. Reid, has kept a drug store in the James Kerr property which he bought, has been successful and accumulated a pretty large amount of property, but never found himself far enough ahead to get a wife. But he made more money sitting down quietly and attending to his drugs than his brother while moving all over the continent and, no doubt, working far harder.

Dr. James Ross was one of the early settlers. I think he built the back end of his house in 1842 or 1843, ten or twelve years after he built the front; had a large family -- I think six of their children died while quite small, and six survive. He was our family physician and the families were friends. He was a few months younger than I, but he died some four years ago, and his wife has followed him quite lately.

Perhaps the best and one of the most useful men of our town was the Rev. James Montgomery. He had, till the Junior years, been a member of our class at Jefferson College. He went away and taught a year and came back and graduated in the class of 1838, studied divinity at the Allegheny Theological Seminary. He came to preach for us soon after the congregation was organized. One half his time he preached in the Rehoboth Church, but lived in Clarion and preached for us one half his time till failing health compelled him to resign about in 1867 or 1868. He was not a fiery eloquent sermonizer, but was a man of ability and great force and exercised more than ordinary influence in the town. He was a wise man and though an Irishman, was eminently prudent and possessed sound judgment. His sincerity and Christianity I never heard doubted. He first married a daughter of Dr. Jeffrys who died in about a year. Some years afterwards he married Margaret Johnson of Mercer, Pennsylvania, by whom he had two daughters. His salary was barely sufficient to keep his family, but he made some prudent investments on which he realized handsomely and left an estate of some twenty five thousand dollars to his widow and young daughters besides an honored name and a fragrant memory. His family continued to reside in Clarion.