Reminiscent—Our Kingston Correspondent is carried back to the days of his youth.

October 21 was the birth-day of your humble correspondent and I have been rather indisposed today as the wife and daughter gave me rather too heavy a bill of fare for dinner, but I trust with care I will survive. It looks rather scary to look back to the date of my birth. I cannot tell you the year but will only say I was born the year before the first railroad was built in the United States.

My life has been an eventful one. I remember distinctly of starting from Ashville, N. C., October 25, 1844, with my father and mother and three brothers. We traveled by wagon via Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana, stopping at Santa, Ill., now Farmer City, where in that mild climate, we spent the remainder of the winter. I went to school to Rev. D. White, now a resident of Lawrence , Kan. In the spring of ’45 we started our wagons and teams for Texas, crossing the Father of Waters at St. Louis, crossing the Red River at Fort Towsen, in the Cherokee Nation, into the Republic of Texas, stopping in Fanning county Perters colony, now Collin county, April, 1845, and it will sound strange in this time of railroads when I can say I did not see a railroad during the long journey. I was in Texas when it was annexed to the United States; was passing through Kentucky at the time of presidential election of Polk and Dallas, democrats, and Henry Clay and Freelinghusen, whigs. My father was a great admirer of Henry Clay but was not permitted to vote. I was a citizen of Texas when it became the Lone Star State. [Article continues with reflections on modern Bartow County—the author is not named.]

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November 14, 1895, Page 8

“Over the County— Kingston.”

The first railroad was built in 1830, and, as some friends wish to know my age, I was born the year before. I did not wish to tell my age but now I have come so near it I fear it will be guessed at. [See October 1895 entry]