Larwill Items (1873)

Columbia City Post ~ Wednesday, March 23, 1870

• Sugar making has begun in earnest. Mud in the streets is not more than five feet deep.
• David Kerr, Esq., formerly a resident of this place, is here on a visit. The old gentleman looks younger than ever.
• Martin Mann, Esq., has sold his farm of ninety acres to John Tompson, Sr. Mart. contemplates embarking in trade in this village.
• We heard, the other day, that certain people would be waked up for obstructing streets and sidewalks with wood. A word to the wise is sufficient.
• The sidewalks in many parts of town are sadly out of repair, and in some places no sidewalks exist. Would it not be a good plan to give this matter a little more attention? Good sidewalks are the glory of a town.
• Messrs. John Maynard, Wm. Harrison, and Jno. Smith, have returned from a trip to Missouri and Kansas. It will be remembered that they went on a trip of investigation several weeks since. they visited Chilicothe, Mo., where they found some Whitley County boys. The same at Kansas City, Carthage and Seneca City, Mo., and Columbus, Kansas, as well as many other points, meeting with many old acquaintances, and enjoying themselves remarkably well. they left C. W. Hayden, Jeremy Franklin and Justes Burns there, where in due season they will settle, and we hope meet with good success. Judging from the remarks we overheard, they did not find Paradise or a land flowing with milk and honey, but rather returned satisfied that Northern Indiana is not the worst place in the world.
• A railroad is talked of running from Etna to Springfield, and passing through our village. It is thought that it will be let soon. It is to connect on the south with the D. & E. R. R. R. and northward with a line of hacks running weekly to all parts of the country, and eventually to be extended to Sitka, Alaska Territory. A number of persons are already preparing to emigrate to Alaska, to embark in the seal traffic.
• Harlan Rogers, the jolly, good tempered and thoroughly accomplished little jeweler and watchmaker, who has been occupying a window in the Drug Store of Kirk & Co., has taken his departure to Bourbon, where he is to embark in business. Sorry to see him go, and wish him success, and as many friends as he deserves, which is not a few.
• A good many people attended the quarterly meeting of the M. E. Church, at this place on Saturday and Sunday. Let it here be remarked that there is a screw loose somewhere in the machinery by which the concern is run. The powers that be complain of a deficiency at this point, which is doubtless true, but when it is remembered that the people here receive but about seventeen sermons in a twelvemonths, and are assessed for about one-half the whole salary due to priest and prelate, it is not a matter of so much surprise. Another fact to be taken into consideration is that the people have just built an expensive church, for which they are even now economizing and saving in order to pay; and it does not seem to set well upon the stomach of some of them, to be told that with all their liberality they have failed to give enough, and must, in consequence, put up with an inferior sermon during the years to come. If this be treason make the most of it.
• E. C. Cady left for Kansas and Missouri yesterday, where he hopes to find a "home in some vast wilderness" and carve out a fortune.
• A new saddler shop in town. Sign of the saddle. Make his acquaintance and give him a trial.