INTRODUCTION
In 1876 a revival of interest in local history was manifest
throughout the United States. The Centennial of the Na-
tion-the Exposition at Philadelphia, exhibiting trophies
of the Revolutionary period, while much attention was bestowed
upon Colonial relics, and regard for Colonial ancestry. The
older class of people had been retired from public observation,
especially in the Western States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and
Michigan. The first settlers-the earlier emigrants-had
braved the Indians, the wild beasts, the privations of a new
country, had toiled to open up the primeval forests for culti-
vation, and broken in health, dispirited often by adversity,
they had grown old before their "three-score-years and ten,"
and the generation following them had been unwittingly push-
ing them aside. Theywere in the way of modern progress, and
they had retreated to the back rooms of their children's mans-
ions. But in 1876 it was seen that the country could not
celebrate her Centenary without bringing into honorable rec-
ognition the fathers and mothers, the soldiers and statesmen,
whose achievements had wrought such evident prosperity for
the country-such high rank among the Nations. So it came
about that old records, old furniture, old tales of early days,
old people tottering on their canes, were subjects of especial
attention.
The Revolutionary soldier, old and gray, was escorted to
a seat on the platform where jubilant oratory proclaimed his
deeds of heroism. It was at this time that Stillman C. Larkin,
Aaron Stivers, H. B. Smith and a few others, awakened to
the fact that Meigs county had a past worthy of record, and
in looking around discovered that the founders,. the early
emigrants, were gone! Not a representative left of the days
of St. Clair, of men who came into this part of the county be-
