Whether it be
morning, and they are clearer and more liquid heard through the
misty aisles of the forest, or evening when quiet pervades the
atmosphere, giving a more fitting back-ground for their pure
notes, they are alike full of rarest melody. How often we have
paused, deep in some lonely forest glen, to listen to those
clear golden notes, following one another at rare intervals so
melodiously, thrilling with their ethereal sweetness the weary
heart, and floating away through dark, gloomy aisles and faint
purple shadows till our ears seem to catch the more remote echo
of some spirit message of the wood.
Leaving the land to its peerless vocalist and quiet repose we
made our way toward Highland county. The road wound among green
pasture slopes, from the summits of which a wide sweep of
rolling country was visible. On reaching these heights, almost
invariably new and surprising vistas opened before us. The hill
roads dropped down to peaceful valleys over which we looked for
many miles. Northward the hills sank into gentle undulations,
robed with golden wheat fields, orchards, and meadows, and now
and then we beheld old villages. Westward they towered into
higher ridges which stretched away until their green faded and
stood gray against the horizon. How amply spread were the
numerous valleys with many trees to diversify them and how
grandly planted were the higher hills with forest!
HILLSBOROUGH
It was dusk before we reached the town of Hillsborough, where we
spent the night. Hillsborough is Ohio's Rome, for like that
Imperial City, it stands on seven hills. The quaint old mansion
home of Allen Trimble, one of Ohio's early governors, is located
here. It later became the home of his daughter, Eliza Jane
Thompson, who is known the world over as the Mother of the
Woman's Crusade, one of the most remarkable temperance movements
of history, which had its origin here in 1873.
"Hillsborough is reached by two macadamized roads, which pass
through a section of the state unrivaled in picturesque beauty.
It is just in the fringe of hills which in the direction of the
Ohio become almost mountainous."
We left our modern Rome in the morning swathed in its dreamy
charm. What could be more beautiful than to pass through the
country in July when every turn on the highway discloses a
picture of rarest beauty? What a vast volume of divine verse, of
sonnets, lyrics, and idyls, is opened before you, wrought out of
meadows, groves and sparkling streams! The valleys with their
broad green meadows, fields waving with golden grain or dark
green corn that bent and tossed in the morning wind, was an
inexhaustible delight. A few exquisitely white fleecy clouds,
pushed across the deep blue sky by a southern breeze, made
running shadows of rhythmical motion.
WILMINGTON
At Wilmington we were greatly impressed with the charming, well-
kept homes and the fine class of people. As we noted the noble
bearing, the fine, intellectual countenances and strong physique
of these people, we thought of the early temperance movement
here, and realized we were beholding the fruits of that early
sowing.
GRADED WAY
We passed along the graded way near Piketon, where the ancient
people of an unknown race laid out a graded ascent some ten
hundred and eighty feet long by two hundred and ten feet in
width. From the left hand embankment, passing up to a third
terrace, there could be traced a former low embankment running
for fifteen hundred feet, and connected with mounds and other
walls at its extremity. It was evidently built in connection
with the obliterated works on the third terrace.
Here many a passing traveler goes unawares over one of the most
ancient highways in the world. Our trip over it was more
memorable than any journey over a Roman road could have been. We
paused awhile to speculate who these ancient people were who
passed this way centuries before us. What ceremonious
processions may have moved over this ancient causeway! From the
branch of a maple that sent its roots into the more defined
grade came the dreamy notes of a mourning dove, from a walnut
tree a cuckoo uttered his queer song that perhaps was the same
as these strange people listened to; indigo buntings sent their
high pitched breezy song from the tops of the trees, while the
warbling vireo seemed to be saying, "who were they?" and the
clear, melodious call of a quail rang from the highest part of
the embankment, with just enough querulousness in it to appear
as if he too were trying to recall this lost race. The grassy
slopes were still used by the meadow lark for nesting sites
whose "spring of the year" still resounds among the hills
speaking of the eternal freshness and youth of Nature. It
appeared to be a work of defense where the people may have
congregated for protection in times of danger. A hole in the
side of one of the embankments told that it was still used as
such, for a woodchuck had burrowed in under the roots of a maple
where he was safe not only from his enemies but from winter
itself. Thus we left this memento of a vanished race, thinking
that, beginning our journey over a road so romantic, the day
would hold much in store for us.
ON THE ROAD TO BAINBRIDGE
Whoever wishes to spend a few hours of unalloyed delight amid
the most charming and picturesque scenery of Ohio, should visit
Highland county. Here both Nature and history have done
everything to make this a journey never to be forgotten. The
round browed hills lift themselves in "bold bastions" and
parapets of green that seem to beckon to you to come up higher.
Sometimes you see a wide plain with its far flashing stream and
homes here and there, or clusters of wooded heights with now and
then a single pointed summit rising above and behind the rest.
The roads are made up of innumerable loops and curves, every
twist and turn of which unfolds a picture worthy of an Innes or
a Rembrandt.
