CHAPTER XIX.
One of the early settlers in Onondaga Co., N.Y., was Rev. Mr. R——. He was a highly educated clergyman, and a popular preacher. The church in the rural township of F——, where he owned one of the best farms in the county, would have been glad to secure his services as pastor, but having property sufficient to maintain his family, and a wife who was capable of managing his affairs, he determined to devote himself to missionary labor in the far South. No recollections of my childhood are more vividly and distinctly marked in my memory than his portly figure, firmly seated in his saddle on his great chestnut mare, with immense saddle bags stuffed to their utmost capacity with changes of linen, children’s toy books, tracts and Testaments, and the delight with which, after an absence of half a year, all the children in the settlement greeted his return, and listened to his wonderful stories of his adventures, missionary labors and providential escapes from wild beasts in the wilderness and alligators in the rivers. When he described the growing cotton, indigo, rice and sugarcane, it seemed to us children that he must have been half around the world since we saw him last. There were in those days no missionary societies, therefore he was selfappointed and self-sustained, paid his own expenses, thought his own thoughts and spoke his own opinions,
