DEACON TIMOTHY ROSE.

Mrs. Earle has made such pictures familiar to us in her volume concerning the Sabbath in old New England; and the life of Timothy M. Cooley in that hill town in southwestern Massachusetts was often repeated in form in other storied spots of the Commonwealth. But it was about that life that the history of the community centred, the two famous events of a century, the "Jubilees" of 1845 and 1895, being connected with thoughts of him.

The "Jubilee" of 1845 drew together more than two thousand sons of Granville, who came from all parts of the Union to rejoice over a ministry of fifty years. The speeches of

HON. MARVIN M. MUNSON.

the occasion had but one subject, and even the pen of Mrs. Sigourney found free flow in writing odes for the celebration. When the two days of rejoicing and reunion were over, an adjournment had been taken till the last Thursday in August in 1895, and a monument had been ordered erected by the wayside to serve as a reminder of the centennial celebration fifty years ahead.

In a town like Granville there is little material for stirring history. High up among the hills, with a climate of unsurpassed healthfulness, with magnificent scenery, with Nature present in her every mood, her life is uneventful. The best product has al

ways been men. One finds even so far from railroads a drum factory which employs surplus labor and maintains a reputation for thoroughness in making drums of all sorts. But in other ways than by the beating of drums has the sound of Granville gone out through all the earth. The descendants of

GRANVILLE, OHIO, CHURCHES.

the early settlers include such men as President Hitchcock of Amherst, President Austin Scott of Rutgers, Judge T. M. Cooley of Michigan, Senator Isaac Bates, the Gillettes of Westfield and Northampton, Dr. Edward B. Coe and Dr. David B. Coe of New York, Hubert Howe Bancroft, the historian, and many others. And if to this partial list of distinguished men were added the name of Rev. Gurdon Hall, the debt of the world to Granville might be calculated in vain; for when in Williams College, the prospective valedictorian of his class, he was one of the company of choice spirits who used to retire for prayer to the bottom of the valley south of the west college on Wednesday afternoons, and on Satur

days to the more remote meadows on the bank of the Hoosack, where, under the haystacks, as President Griffin put it, "these young Elijahs prayed into existence the embryo of American missions to the heathen."

But the rest of this story must be with another influence which sprang from Granville. Perhaps the interest in western emigration began when a wellknown citizen of the town, named Oliver Phelps, turned his attention to the Genesee country. During the Revolutionary War his services were so important as to win from General Washington a personal letter of thanks. The commissariat general in Revolutionary times was a man of many duties, and Granville was always proud to claim the citizenship of Oliver Phelps. In 1787, in connection with Nathaniel Gorham, he bought from the Massachusetts Legislature the preemptive rights of the state in

the extensive tract of land afterwards known as the "Phelps and Gorham Purchase." Although the partners were unable to carry out their contract, owing to the change in value of the paper scrip, yet the methods of division and arrangement planned were so satisfactory that they were afterwards adopted by others who placed land upon the market. The part of the land which was disposed of was sold by Articles, a new device of American origin, which made the farmers owners in fee simple.

Some of the Granville people were drawn to New York by this firm; and, the population increasing, the younger element began to get restive and to long for fresh fields. A tradition current in Granville, Ohio, illustrates some of the difficulties. When Alfred Avery was a mere child, his father went to the field to plant corn, and the boy, being ambitious to help, took a hoe along. Pretty soon the father noticed that there were tears in his son's eyes, and asked him what was the matter. The answer marked an epoch: "I can't get dirt enough to cover the corn." Then the father decided it was time to go where there was more dirt for corn raising, and soon afterward enrolled his name

among those who made up the "Licking Land Company."

The

In 1803 a company from Granby, Connecticut, emigrated to Worthington, Ohio. Granby adjoins Granville on the south, and many of the families of the two towns were united by friendly ties. The enterprise of the Connecticut neighbors stimulated interest in a similar project in Granville; and in 1804 the "Scioto Land Company" was formed, Samuel Everett, Jr., Levi Buttles and Deacon Timothy Rose being the prime movers. idea found favor at once, and on April 3 a meeting was held in East Granville, when a company was formed with the purpose of sending agents to Ohio to "spy out the land" for a settlement. An initiation fee of eight dollars was provided; and within three months thirty-five members were enrolled. These sent Levi Buttles, Timothy Rose and Job Case to Ohio, where they located a tract in the United States Military Lands. The enterprise being now an assured success, forty-four new members were admitted, the entrance fee being raised to ten dollars each.

In September a meeting was held, at which a constitution was adopted, the several articles relating to the future of the organization. A commit

Ireland for the unknown future in America, the words found in Exodus xxxiii. 15 furnished a most appropriate text: "If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence." And so on this occasion the loved minister, Dr. Cooley, found in the same sentiment the basis for his message of tender farewell.

The needed preliminaries have little of attractiveness for purposes of narration. The land was located, the legal arrangements were made, some advance agents were sent out, and at last, with regrets and yet with hopeful anticipations, the company was ready to start upon the long journey of

the Scioto. It was in the valley of the Licking River that the new Granville was to be built up, and so "The Licking Land Company" was chosen as a better name.

May 1, 1805, a step was taken which had tremendous influence upon the subsequent history of the embryonic colony. A council was called at Granville, and twenty-four persons. were organized into a church, which was to be transplanted bodily from the hilltops of western Massachusetts to the fertile valleys of distant Ohio. They adopted a covenant and articles of faith, and chose their officers. When the heroic Scotch-Irish people were ready to leave Londonderry in

young physicians, and even our deacons, and supply their places by others; but when the strength and beauty of the church and parish were demanded, the loss was irreparable. But, as the hand of God was in it, we said to them: 'Go, and we will pray for you.'"

In the month of September the trains of ox teams began to leave Granville. Turning to the southwest, they crossed the Hudson at Fishkill Landing or Fort Edward, thence moved westward, passing the Delaware at Easton, the Schuylkill at Read

the day of rest. It was always afterwards a source of great comfort to these first comers that the next company to arrive, one which had not rested on the Sabbath, had required forty-nine days to make the same journey, as if the Lord had blessed those who were mindful of Him even in the wilderness. On Wednesday, November 13, 1805, the largest company drove upon the village plot; and this date is properly regarded as the time of the beginning of Granville, Ohio. The state of Ohio then lacked sixteen days of being three years old.

ing, and the Susquehanna at Harrisburg. Thence they travelled through Washington, Pennsylvania, to Wheeling, Virginia, where "the beautiful river" was crossed, and at last they were "in yonder Ohio." They went west to Zanesville, and from that point a score or more miles northwestward to their new home, following through the unbroken wilderness the blazes made on the trees by the advance couriers of the colony.

The first company reached their destination Saturday, November 2, having been forty-four days on the road. These had been careful to keep the Sabbath religiously, stopping early Saturday evening to prepare for

At the Granville Jubilee of 1845 one speaker said:

"A long journey of seven hundred miles was before them. No railroads, no canals or steamboats; a mere overland journey through swamps and untrod deserts; a constant toil by day and night for more than forty days. But they were the choice spirits of New England, legitimate sons of old Granville, who shrank at no hardship and feared no peril. They saw in the heavens the pillar and the cloud; they placed their hopes and their anticipations and their all in the most high God, and thus they passed over Jordan. The walls of Jericho crumbled down before them, and with loud hosannas they placed their feet upon the promised land. Here they were like the precious hundred and one' that landed from the Mayflower two hundred years before; worn out with fatigue;