Pages 89-92

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Los Angeles, Cal., April12.

Editor Democrat: Not long since I wrote to Mr. H. L. Ross of Oakland to thank him for the noble sketches he is writing for The Democrat, which have been so highly appreciated by all old residents of Illinois who have seen them. In my letter I mentioned the fact that I had attended his father’s funeral (the late O. M. Ross); that Rev. Robt. Stewart of Canton came to my father’s house in Lewistown on his way to attend Mr. Ross’ funeral in Havana; that it was in mid-winter and very cold; that father hitched his horses to a box-sled, and Rev. Stewart, father, mother and myself, with sufficient buffalo robes, were soon ready for the long, cold ride, and that we crossed the Illinois river on the ice. I was then a boy of eight or nine. In his reply Mr. Ross had said many things of great interest to my relatives, and I think they will interest many pioneers. So I have his consent to print his letter. Few men have lived in Fulton county who have exerted a greater influence for good than H. L. Ross.

John W. Proctor.

MR. ROSS’ LETTER.

Oakland, Cal., March 20.

Mr. John W. Proctor, Los Angeles, Cal.

My Dear Old Friend: I was very glad to get your good letter. It carried my mind back to the days of my youth. I very well

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remember that your father and mother attended the funeral of my father in 1837. Rev. Robt. Stewart of Canton came with them and preached the funeral sermon. The Illinois river had frozen over a few days before, and was not thought to be very safe. So your father walked across on the ice and got a spike pole out of the ferry boat and tried the ice, and then drove the horses and sleigh across the river, while he walked beside the sleigh, and Mr. Stewart and your mother walked a few rods behind the sleigh. I was attending college at Jacksonville at the time father died, but came home for the funeral. My brother Lewis was at Vandalia, and did not get home until five days after the funeral. Your father and mother were a very great help to us on that occasion.

Your father, as well as mine, was engaged in merchandizing. They went to St. Louis together one time to buy goods. As they were going from the hotel to take the steamboat, my father asked Mr. Proctor if he had insured his goods, and he said he had not; that he had hardly thought it worth while to do so. My father said he had insured his, and thought it the best policy. So Mr. Proctor turned about and went with my father to the insurance office and insured his goods. The boat started out that night, and had only gone sixteen miles up the river when she struck a snag and sunk to within six feet of the upper deck. The passengers all escaped. The next day your father and mine returned to St. Louis to draw their insurance money, which was promptly paid, and then the goods belonged to the insurance company. The officers of the insurance company told them they could have half of the goods they would save from the wreck. So they hired a couple of small keel-boats at St. Louis and a few men and went to the sunken boat where they worked about three weeks and recovered several thousand dollars’ worth of goods. After an equal division of the goods and paying all expenses, they found that they had cleared above $1200 each from the enterprise, not a very bad investment after all.

While I lived in the village of Vermont in 1846 we organized a Presbyterian church with twelve members, and held our meetings in a log school house. We were anxious to buy a lot

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and build a better church; but we were all very poor, having no money to pay for the lot. About that time your father and mother came down on a visit to Mr. Heizer and family. Your father saw our condition, and very generously gave us $100 to buy the lot. Daniel Baughman, who lived ten miles north of Vermont, had a nice corner lot, which I bought of him for $65 for the church. When I left Vermont the church numbered 110 members, and their building still stands on the lot paid for by your honored father, William Proctor.

The first money I ever earned for myself was paid me by your father. My father had a large dog that got to killing sheep, and so he had him killed. So I concluded that I would skin the dog and sell the hide. I had watched my father and his men when they skinned cattle, and little as I was I thought I could skin the dog. So I got my sister Harriet to hold the legs while I did the skinning. So when we got him skinned I got a stick, and we spread the hide across it, I taking hold of one end and my sister the other, and started for the tanyard. We then lived where Major Newton Walker now lives, and it was about half a mile to your father’s tanyard [the present site of Mr. Harben’s vegetable garden in Lewistown—Ed.], so we trudged along, having to stop every few yards to rest, being such little tots. The dog skin was pretty heavy, as I had left considerable of the dog with the hide; but we finally got to the tanyard with it, and I asked your father how much he would give for it. He said as it was a large skin, and as we had worked so hard to bring it to him, he would give us a dollar, which was twenty-five cents above the price. So he paid me a dollar, and I divided it with my little sister, and I do not suppose that ever a little boy and girl went home feeling happier than we did.

When your father commenced the tanning business in Lewistown he took in two apprentices, Benjamin Scovil and John Nichols, who lived with him four years. Then John Nichols went to Galena, and from there to Los Angeles, Cal. I saw him there seventeen years ago. He was keeping a real estate office. He told me that he built the first frame house in Los Angeles; that he was its first mayor, and had held the office three terms.

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He at one time owned a very valuable ranch two or three miles from the city. He was uncle to Judge H. L. Bryant’s wife. He had a brother William, who lived five miles south of Canton on the Lewistown road. We often talked about the Lewistown people. We went to school together in the old log school house in Lewistown. He told me that he owed everything that was good about him to the moral and religious training he received from your father and mother. I thought if he was still living in Los Angeles you would look him up.

Yours truly,

H. L. Ross.

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