AN EARLY INCIDENT- About 1820, some years before I was born, there came into Lenox, as pioneer settlers a man and wife who were some thirty-five years of age. The husband was, in several ways, a character, and had many peculiarities which soon became generally known, and rendered him an object of dislike to all. Among his other bad qualities was the love of strong drink; and on all occasions, when some other party furnished the whiskey, he made freer use of it than any other of the men. So great was his penuriousness, he was never known to treat a friend "to a drink," either at his own home or at the bar of the pioneer tavern. This stinginess was most severely criticized, and close watch was kept for an opportunity to even up the score of his delinquencies. The time came. He must have a barn to house the products of his farm. A mechanic had been employed to hew the timber and prepare the frame. Invitations were sent in all directions, into all the nearby towns, to the men to come to the raising on a specified day. Along with the invitations went the information, furnished by the mechanic, that the owner of the barn had just bought and got home a full barrel of whiskey. This fact, alone, was sufficient to induce everybody to accept the invitation, and many were on hand who had received no bid. In some mysterious way I shall not attempt to explain, the agreement seemed to have been unanimously reached that the barn should not be erected until the barrel of whiskey was completely exhausted. For three days and two nights the Pioneers of several of our now prosperous townships, wrestled with that 30 x 40 foot barn and their neighbor's whiskey, and history declares that the whiskey was gone before the rafters of the barn were in place. When more whiskey was demanded, the owner of the barn is said to have responded: "You have robbed me of my full year's stock of whiskey, you have eaten the last morsel of food my wife had cooked in the house, and now if you go to your several homes and leave us alone, my wife and I will try to put the rafters on our barn and put the building in shape to shelter our crops. I look upon myself as the victim of a cruel joke."