01: My Native Hills

Copyright © 2007¹

Chapter 1 of the book
Boyhood Memories & Lessons
by
Isaiah Reid

This article is also available in the complete paperback version.

The above words of the poet Hood² tell with simplicity and ever fresh­ness just a few things which draw after them memories ev­ery heart weaves into its own life story. The following from our own Bryant³ no less touch the deep memories of life’s first years.

I stand upon my native hill again,
Broad, round, and green, that, in the southern sky
With garniture of waving grass and grain,
Orchards and beechen forests, basking lie;
While deep the sunless glens are scooped between,
Where brawl o’er shallow beds the streams unseen.⁴

One cannot well escape certain en­vi­ron­ments of birth and early life. There are landmarks which locality leaves as a kind of permanent im­press on the nature itself. Our early associations with nature have much to do in the bent given to future taste, thought, feeling, and char­ac­ter. Geo­graphy is a factor in the development of certain lines of character. Moun­tain, sea, and plain all have their asso­ci­ations, necessary oc­cu­pa­tion, and voicing of the unseen Maker.

I have never been sorry that I was born among the hills, big hills, too. I might have enjoyed the mountains more, perhaps, but the hills greet­­ed my early vision with their grandeur, sug­gestions, and beauty. The childhood home was in the hill country of Southern Indiana, lying the second county back from the Ohio River. Those who understand that country will remember that there is a spur of the mountain range in Vir­ginia, Eastern Kentucky, and Tennessee that breaks from the rest of the chain and strays off in a northwesterly direction, skirting along south of the Ohio River till it comes to Louisville, where the river breaks through, forming the “Falls of the Ohio.” This stray spur of mini­a­ture moun­tains is called the “Knobs.” They extend into Southern Indiana in a northwesterly direc­tion for some distance, as far as the Muscaiatuck River, if not to White River also. Here these moun­tainous hills are still call­ed Knobs, and maintain a char­acter­istic distinction from the ordinary hills of the frequent streams. They are, in fact, miniature mountains.

Some ten or twelve miles away from this range, on the hills of Rush Creek, some eight miles from Salem, Washington Coun­ty, my eyes first saw the light break over the forest-clad hills, the giant trees decking them as God’s clothing for their broken surfaces. They were then in their beauty. They did not look as they do now, all denuded, washed-down, and poverty-strick­en. They were far less than the Knobs, but nonetheless beau­tiful. At that day the forests were but partly remov­ed. The valleys as a rule and the up­per plateaus on the highlands ranging back from the hills had mostly been converted into farms. Only occasionally did one see much of the hillsides cut away. The general view was a panorama of beauty—beautiful fields of grain and grass, then a strip of dense woods, then an open vision from some hilltop down a valley clad with corn and waving fields. From the crest of the north side of the Rush Creek range, back for a number of miles, lay a long strip of land called in the early days Walnut Ridge. In the days of the early settlement of the country it was con­sidered a choice section of land. Here Grandfather Reid⁵ settled in 1815, coming from South Carolina. It was all native wilds then. The splen­did forests were unbroken. Like as Boone⁶ found the hills of Kentucky, so Grandfather found these hills.

The permanent house he built, or commenced to build, in 1819, is stand­ing yet, though within a year has been almost deserted owing to the death of its owner. I have several photos of it taken last year. It was built of the choicest yellow poplar logs, well selected, and closely hewed to the line for this special purpose. It is full two stories high, with old-fashioned stone chimney outside, standing firmly today and apparently good for sev­eral generations yet. Afterwards the house was sided with rough yellow poplar siding, sawed with a whipsaw by my father⁷ and his brother Isaiah.⁸ This siding, never paint­ed, still remains largely on the house. It is hard to find such trees now. That kind of poplar seemed almost indestruc­tible, save as time wore it out. There was an “L” kit­chen, and a good-sized “entry” between, with a porch in the angle. In that house Grandfather died. In it I was born, and spent the first ten years of my life.⁹

West and southwest of the house spread beautiful fields, as they did to the north and somewhat to the east. But there was much broken land on the farm. South of the house was room for quite a garden, before the land broke down into quite a deep “hollow.” West of the house in my early days there was a fine orchard. Eastward the ground sloped off for a number of rods to the spring, with the “springhouse” over it. There was quite a large plat of bluegrass “yard” east and north of the house. South­ward, between house and garden, were several old-fashioned locust trees. In the garden were grandmother’s old-fashioned flowers and herbs in the middle of the garden, on either side of a walk, with the vegetables beyond on either side. It was there I learned to love cultiva­ted flowers, peonies, daffodils, tulips, roses, honeysuckles, sweet williams, snowdrops, columbines, pinks, poppies, hollyhocks, and many others. The thrushes used to build nests in the coral honey­suckle. Grand­mother would not allow us to touch the eggs, though we might look at them as much as we pleased. North, and a little west, stood the high old two-story barn. East, and north of it, was an L-shaped open space, where the ori­ginal trees had been allowed to stand. There were fences on two sides of it, one end opening to the woods on the east and south, and the north closing in a lane through which lay our path to the old log schoolhouse back of the fields.

Over, or rather up, a slight elevation to the east and south, stood the old church, not more than a quarter of a mile away. It was a very humble, prim­itive affair, and yet crowded with sacred memories. It stood in the cor­ner of a plat of ground clear­ed and set in grass, the south end (or side, rather) being used for a cemetery. Here lie today most of my ancestry. My aunt told me a few years ago that, when her father was laid there, as he was the first of the family to die, and among the first in that neighborhood, no tree was cut on that ground when his lonely grave was dug. I have often wondered how Grand­moth­er and the children bore the sadness and the sorrow. But the grand old trees stood guard, and in autumn gar­ni­tur­ed¹⁰ his grave with their choicest trea­sures. In spring­time they tasseled and bloom­ed above the sleep­ing clay, and fill­ed the air heavy with the evening incense of their perfume, acting as the high priests of nature, and never failing in their ministry.

Later, when the church was built, the Sabbath Psalms rang a more spo­ken word of service around his tomb, and I used to wander and play around his grave, wondering at the marble bearing his name, with an impression on me, solemn and sacred, which I could not understand, but with no sense of fear. Now I am satisfied that the service, the grave, and all the associations marked my life for good, perhaps a thousandfold more than I am able to trace out. Beside him now lie a great host.

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