The Ohio Infair

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This file was contributed for use in the OHGenWeb Ross County by: Dick Coyner

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This letter was written to Paula Coyner Goertzen by her father, Silas Crawford Coyner, the son of David Silas, the son of Judge Robert Coyner, of Buckskin Township. He used to say that he must have been born in Ohio during the war of the states. The best approximate date of his birth is June 16, 1863.

My earliest horizon of life consisted of a radius of four to five miles in the first twelve years of my life. It was three miles to Greenfield on the west, four miles south down Buckskin Creek to Bethesda. Two miles southeast to Old South Salem. We could see the cupola of the South Salem Academy over the tops of the chesnut, walnut, maple and burdak trees. It was one mile east to Lyndon Station, two miles further east to Harper Station . Four miles north to Pisgah Church. This was my kingdom that I knew. When I was 12 years old I had hunted squirrels, rabbits, wild turkeys, and quail over I think every acre of the 8 or 10 miles square. There were no section corners. It was all meets and bounds. The land was very level being originally a forest. It required clearing and drainage and having a clay subsoil, it was sometimes drained by a mole, which was a cone fastened to the end of a blade in such a manner that the blade cut through the ground with the point of the cone pointing forward as it moved forward. It left a hole in the ground three inches in diameter which carried the water for several years. The other method by taking this clay and moulding into tile of various sizes and burning it in the tile kiln same as brick were burned. These tile drains were supposed to last forever when properly laid. Digging ditches was boy's play but it seemed to me no harder than cutting corn or binding wheat.

Oh say, we did not like to shuck corn out of the shock. . It was all right to shuck corn when we shucked every fortieth shock to get an average of a field. Chopping wood was a man's job with a double bit ax. So was splitting rails when cutting stove wood. We selected good splitting timber. When we splint rails we selected the brashest hickory. But for lime brick and the tile kiln we could use any kind of timber.

In the business world the first and best friend I ever had was my grandfather. He was a soldier of the war of 1812. He asked me one day to cut down some burdocks in his barnyard. When I had done this work, being seven or eight years old, he asked me what I thought it was worth. I told him I hardly knew, so he gave me a shinplaster . Now in all of our business, I based the charge on the burkocks job and the shinplaster. I am quite sure that I always dealt square with him. But, if he ever thought I jipped him, he never let on.

There were seven boys and three girls in our family. My oldest sister, Mary, having died with the sore throat when a little girl. We were never taught to talk when we were small. We were not taught to work,to grow, we were taught to mind but we did all these things. We were never taught to fill our shirtails with Rambo apples,never taught to raise an acre of watermelon in the cornfield,no one ever showed a boy or girl in Buckskin Township where to find the worms or where to find the best fishing in old Buckskin. No sir, everybody always did know that.

In corn cutting time, each year of a Buckskin boy added five shocks of corn, twelve hills square per day. Now the boy was recognised in the cornfield until he could and did put up fifty shocks per day which he was expected to when he entered his teens. So, when he was out of his teens he should be able to put eighty-five shocks. When he was 21 he was a man, could get married to a girl of his caste, receive fifteen hundred dollars, team of horses, 2 cows and proper household goods, and go forth where he wished.

This was the law of Buckskin Township while Mother lived Then there was no more of this. So, when Henry was of age, Guin was 21, Dan got married, and Fred and Clara became engaged I reached my majority on the 16th day of June, 1884. My mother had been gone nine years. Those nine years had been bitter years. There was my youngest brother John, and my youngest sister Hattie with Fanny. There was my older brother Fred four years older than I.

My mother was possessed of three thousand dollars which she received from Germany that she inherited f rom her parents. This money she gave to her husband to invest in a home for the benefit of her children. It was a simple verbal agreement, made before any of the children were born, but was known by mother's brothers and sisters, which agreement was kept secret for fifty years, and finally proved and admitted by my father before the common court at Chilocothe in the year 1898.

The full agreement was that when each child became 21 this child was to receive 1500 dollars and necessary things to set up housekeeping when he or she settled down and got a home of his own.

My oldest brother became of age in 1872, received his fifteen hundred dollars. He went to Tolona, Illinois, and he went into business with my father's brother, Uncle John. While he was in Tolona he married the sweetest little girl whose name was Cecelia, and brought her back to Buckskin Township. Oh say, it was a great reception that my mother gave to her new daughter. There were hundreds of guests. This I think (was) in the fall of 1873.

It was in the fall of the year about 2 years before my dear grandfather died. It was some doings. The receptions supper, or as we boys called, the Infair, was down in the old orchard. On one side was a row of sweet cherries and on the other side of the tables was the June apple tree and the younger Maiden Blush apple trees. The cherries were, of course gone.

They were always gone before June, and the dear old June apples were gone too, but the Maiden Blush were there. The trees were full and the ground was covered, right along side the tables. There cherry trees grew right along side of the old Ohio State Turnpike. The limbs reached out over the picket fence which was four feet high, the pickes 3 inches wide and 1 inch thick, made of oak pickets split verticle with the grain and sharpened on the top end to keep trespassers from getting over the fence and rabbits from getting through.

On the other side, on the North side, of the June and Maiden Blush, were the twenty ounce Pippens, Wealthies and Talpuhulkas that weighed two pounds each. My mother saw to it that all the bad and knotty apples were gathered and everything was nice and clean before the tables were set. The rows were fifty feet apart each way. Each year the old orchard was plowed, paralell with the pike. All the time the earth was turned toward the trees which left the ground slope gently towards the center between the trees. Every spring the orchard was reseeded to timothy and red clover.

The tables were set three abreast and one hundred feet long! My father sat at one end and my mother at the other of the middle table. Every 10 feet on the tables was placed a roasted turkey and a five pound Infair cake. In between were mince pies, custard pies and all the good things that my mother knew how to prepare.

The guests, at a signal from my mother, would all take their seats. The new daughter beside my father and the son, which was my oldest brother Sam, beside my mother on her right. With my brother, who was the second son, on her left. Henry did not have a girl, so Maggie, my sister, sat on the left of my father.

After my father had asked the blessing, my mother rose from her seat and all through the Infair Supper saw to it that everyone was waited on. In this way my mother would give a supper to five or six hundred guests. It all seemed so informal and yet so formal.It seemed to me that there was no more formality about this Infair than there was at a regular meal.

I remember that there was no one there that was not some buttonhole kin, even to the forty-second cousin. There was no on there that was not of our caste. It seemed strange that in all of our relative's families there was here and there a simple one. I don't remember that any one was violent, just simple or batty.

One of these, while supper was in progress, was Fred Ware, whose grandfather my brother Fred was named after, said after first looking from my father then to mother, Say, Matilda, you and Silas are looking more alike every day.

My kinfolks were the Parrots, Klines, Wrights, James, Hogsheads, McLains, Wilsons, Stinsons, Toves, Storps, Andersons, Hardings, Harpers, Wares, Coiners, Commeans, Heizers, Kerrs, and many more of whom I can remember many incidents just like it was yesterday. But, their names I cannot remember.

The only buttonhole kin of importance that we had were the Stinsons. They were first cousins to us. They were of our caste. It was this family that connected us up with the Great Commoner (William Jennings Bryan). We understand that it was the Mrs . Connoner that brought free silver fame, not the Mrs. Commoner

Silas