| Note |
- Washington Burrell, who now resides in Grove township, relates a story that amply illustrates some of the difficulties the pioneers were called upon to encounter, although in this instance the hardship was not so very great. Almost any full grown, healthy man would have been happy under at least a portion of Mr. Burrell's ill luck. He was then living at Hayden Grove, in Holt township. One evening he concluded that a wooing he would go. His dulcinea welcomed him most royally, and a most happy evening was passed. But just before the "wee sma' hours" set in, when a fellow has got no business to be up with his girl, a cloud blacker than Egyptian darkness covered the land, and wind, rain, thunder and lightning made a pandemonium of the outside world. In going to the home of his inamorata Mr. Burrell had been obliged to cross the One Hundred and two River on a "foot log". This was a very easy thing to do in droughty times, but if there should be a rise in the stream of a foot or more, the log would be under water, and passage exceedingly dangerous and difficult in such pitchy darkness. So there was no getting home that night, and he and his sweetheart "sparked" on until day dawned. He then set his face homeward. Arriving at the river he found it bank full, and his log several feet under water, even if it had not been washed away. Dutifully he returned to his lady love, for there was no other alternative. And, parenthetically, this historian would remark that it must have hurt Washington's feelings amazingly. We've been there ourself, or, at least had we been Mr. Washington Burrell, this little picture illustrates the course we should have taken. He did nothing of the kind. He disrobed, to use a polite figure of speech, and tying his clothing into a neat bundle, the pantaloons of which contained some sixty dollars in gold, he undertook to breast the angry stream with his bundle hanging to his teeth. The bundle proved to be so much of an obstruction upon reaching the rapid current in the middle of the stream that either he or the package must go to the bottom. Washington loved his life, and he didn't want to break his girl's heart. So he let the gold and the unmentionable's of a man's toilet go, and he pulled to shore safely. When he got there he was just as clean as Adam ever was in the Garden of Eden, and he had just as many garments on, barring the fig-leaf. But he was equal to the emergency. At a pace that would make Maude S. open her eyes, he started for Uncle Jesse Lair's where boys were numerous. Uncle Jesse didn't believe in girls, and there were none about the premises. Arriving within hailing distance Washington got behind a stump, and yelled lustily for the boys, who finally came to his relief with the necessary apparel. Mr. Burrell never found his bundle, but he says that within a few years he has learned that some laborers, while excavating for the foundation of a bridge near the scene of his loss, found a package of man's - well such articles as a man wears. It confused the laborers very much, for to their excited imaginations it meant that a foul murder had been committed. Thus much for the bundle. The gold was never heard of by Mr. Burrell, who oughtn't to have gone "sparking" at all, in those early days. He should have waited till now, when the One Hundred and Two and all the streams of the county are bridged at stated distances, and by structures that defy the elements that cost him his gold and clothing. In this at least, in its bridges, Taylor county can claim preeminence. In its roads too, and Grove township especially.
BURRELL, WASHINGTON, farmer and stock-raiser, post-office Lenox. Among the many old settlers of this county our subject is worthy of mention. He was born in 1836 and is a native of the Buckeye State. While but a child his parents died, and at the age of six he left the person with whom his guardian had placed him, and after a series of wanderings became a "tow path" boy on the Wabash Canal, which business he followed four years. He then came west and engaged in mining until the breaking out of the rebellion, when he enlisted at Buckskin Joe, Colorado, in the First Colorado cavalry and served three years and three months. His service was mainly in Colorado, New Mexico and Kansas. After his discharge from that regiment he reenlisted in the Ninth United States veteran volunteers, with Hancock's veteran reserve corps, served one year and was discharged. He then came to Taylor county and was married to Miss Loretta Baker, daughter of one of Taylor county's first settlers. Came to Grove township in 1873 and bought the farm on which he now resides. It consists of eighty acres of well improved land, with all the conveniences necessary to a pleasant home. His family consists of five children: Richard, Morning Ann, Mary E., Elihu and Dora. Two are deceased: John and Andrew.
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1836 - 1894 (57 years)
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