LIFE in the RURAL REGION of SOUTHEASTERN OHIO _________________ BEALLSVILLE MONROE COUNTY, OHIO AS A PLACE OF RESIDENCE ________________ THE GROWTH AND ITS PRESENT CONDITION DESCRIBED, WITH INCIDENTAL SKETCHES OF ITS BUSINESS MEN AND AN ACCOUNT OF WHAT THEY ARE DOING, ETC. "How bless'd is he who leads a country life, Unvex'd with anxious cares, and void of strife! Who studying peace, and shunning civil rage Enjoy'd his youth, and now enjoys his age." The country villages of eastern Ohio are, for the most part, picturesque. Planted among hills of endless variety, no two of them are alike in their surroundings, yet each resembles all the rest. As a place of residence for those who prefer the quiet of rural life to the noise and hurry of the city almost any of them offer all the comforts of modern civilization along with unrestrained social intercourse with a people of superior average intelligence. Daily papers drop in on these places with regularity, so that sitting where you can look on the green pastures spotted with dandelions and nipped by flocks of sheep and cattle, the silence only disturbed, or its effect heightened by the bleating of lambs, you read undisturbed what has happened in all parts of the noisy world, apparently so far away, during the past day. No social barriers are set up, so that if you are for a few days a stranger it is your own fault if you are not soon received into society and made to feel that you are a welcome addition to the social life of the village. The old men delight to regale you with reminiscences of the early settlement of the country, rapidly hardening into tradition but not yet so remote but that the older ones have from first hands many entertaining stories of those rough days that preceded the introduction of the steamboat, the locomotive and the telegraph. These well dressed young ladies you see everywhere can talk books, paint in oil or water colors, or treat you to classic music rendered in fine style on the piano or organ that adorns almost every home. As you stroll the quiet streets of a summer evening through the open windows floats the words of a sacred hymn or a popular song, the stately measures of "Smith's March" or the classic combinations of the masters in music, all rendered with precision. Then if you have leisure and have the taste for hunting or fishing you can find squirrels in summer and rabbits and quail in winter and from the creeks an occasional bass is brought forth in triumph but furnishes more food for invention than for the human stomach. Tramping over the hills and inhaling the pure air amidst the forests that still line, the hill-sides begets an appetite that renders you capable of doing justice to the good things indigenous to the soil of these fertile hills and valleys. When it rains in summer or winter, there is difficulty in getting about without soiling your shoes, but then you can stay in-doors on such occasions, or select a town where there are sidewalks. It is amid such surroundings as these, that to live is a luxury, and life oftenest reaches it utmost limit. Beallsville has the sidewalks with the other advantages. Situated as it is on the watershed between Captina Creek and Sunfish, it is an easy matter to reach some wild scenery along these creeks where pines and cedars rooted among the rock on precipitious hill-sides give out the fragrance that is healing. Bass sport in these streams, and old sports seated on the banks, angle for them with indifferent success. The broad ridge on which the town stands is in a high state of cultivation. The surface is rolling, not rough, and the farms fringed with timber, dotted with orchards and good farm houses show careful keeping and are, to all appearance, the most desirable in the county. Here are raised spendid crops of wheat, corn, tobacco and vegetables. The site of the town on the broad ridge is between the heads of two small streams, one tributary to Captina creek and is called Piney fork of Captina; the other which has its head in the south suburbs of the village is Piny fork of Sunfish. these streams heading near together, the one running south the other north, cause a narrowing of the ridge at the spot where the town was built. South the descent into Piny fork valley of Sunfish is rapid, but not so steep as on the north towards the waters of Captina. The hills south-east, and east of the village slope of gently for some distance and are adorned with clusters of farm houses, while in the distance they arise to greater height, one ridge that shuts off the view in the distance to the east, terminates in an abrupt descent to the north while its bald sides, skirted with timber at the south resembles a mountain in the distance. West of the village a short distance a slight timbered elevation shuts off the view of the broad ridge in that direction, but beyond it lie beautiful fields diversified with orchards and white farm houses. The railroad climbs the hill from Crabapple north-east of town and passing through north of town, cuts through the cross ridge just west of the village, and so follows the broad ridge to Ozark where it plunges down the hill and crosses Sunfish. Half a mile across the valley, the white Pabtist Chruch on the ridge is visible through the bare boughs of the intervening grove of oaks that surrounds it, and that white frame house to the left on the hill is the residence of N. J. ISRAEL. Beallsville is built on two streets running north and south and two running east and west. Main and Washington Streets, in their southern course meet in the suburb, where the road leads down the valley of Piny fork of Sunfish. Ohio street, which is the longest, and is one of the original streets, crosses the railroad in the western suburb, and after a gentle descent again ascends the slope, and passes east over the slight swell,which is the site of the original town and so leads the way to Powhatan Point. The other street is a new one in the north part of the town near the depot. Near the crossing west of the town stands the Methodist Episcopal Church, on elevated gound; and by it is one of the cemeteries. The Presbyterian church is located on a natural mound on the west side of North Washington Street, which is the west street running north and south, and has the depot at its northern end. Here the view is down the steep hill that leads to the valley of the Piny fork of Captina. The Disciples church stands well towards the south end of this street, which has on its west side, in that neighborhood, some of the best residences in the town, the last one in that direction being the old HILL residence, a substantial, old fashioned brick building, standing just at the brink of the little bluff down which the street descends into the valley. These houses are shaded by evergreen or deciduous trees; the gounds are enclosed with neat fence and adorned with various sorts of shrubbery. Main street running parallel with this farther east, is one of the original streets of the town, and some of the dwellings strung along its sides give evidence of age. The school house stands at the crossing of this and Ohio street, on the top of the ridge. Part #2 to follow