Wm. Garver is also growing hoary as a member of this bar. He has long maintained the reputation of being an able jurist, and by his invincible energy he has won a distinguished reputation.

Gen. David Moss, as a wheel-horse at the bar, is well known through the county and over the State as one of the best lawyers in it. Bold, decided and conscientious, his devotion to his profession has grown to be a passion, and he figures away with assiduous interest in his office as well as in the courts, as if the issues of the eternal fates hung upon his efforts. Of course he is successful.

J. W. Evans holds the empire of an intellectual power over the courts of the county, and his eloquence in criminal cases is said to excel all others. His genial spirit has only to be known to be appreciated.

Thomas Jefferson Kane, a cion of Pennsylvania, stands high as the key-stone member of the Hamilton Bar. What he is in legal power and forensic abilities has placed him in the front ranks of his county as a lawyer, and it is somewhat of a wonder to us that his party has not introduced him in some way to the State at large.

Of our young friends Frank M. Trissall and Richard R. Stephenson, members of the bar of this county, we might say many things both honorable and commendatory. The future of their

histories however will tell the story much better than our pen, and we therefore leave them to their fate with the most compla

cent assurances.

Having said this much of the Bar of the county, we would be pleased if we had any proper data to speak as freely and as liberally of the ministry of the county, but our information in regard to the first preachers is limited, and might be termed even excedingly indefinite.

Rev. James Scott, a Methodist circuit rider, was the first

preacher of the gospel, who, in the year 1822-3, under any circumstances, held forth among the denizens of the wilderness in these parts. He was followed by Jesse Haile in 1823-4, and by John Miller in 1824-5. The Baptists were the first denomination to preach salvation to the people along up White River, but who the preachers were among the Baptists, save Elder Martin, seems not to be remembered, even among the oldest inhabitants. This fact is perhaps not a strange one, for the pioneer preacher who passed through the early settlements preaching "a free gospel," it seems soon passes out of mind everywhere, and those only appear to be remembered who have come among us when the foundations of the churches have been laid, and the salaries have been brought up to a reputable standard. Doubtless many interesting stories might be told of the self-sacrificing men of all churches who visited the pioneers in their humble cabins, and told them the simple story of the cross with the eloquence of a primitive sincerity. The spirit of these grand old itinerant ministers often carried with it the power of the day of Pentecost, and what they did and said would be treasured up as the sacred relics of the better days of an apostolic evangelism.

In giving a history of so rich and prosperous a county as this of Hamilton, it would be out of place not to name its court house and jail. They may both be classed with the venerable of the olden years. The latter now stands under consideration as being unfit for any human purpose, while the former, like "the ruins of Palmyra," makes one feel melancholy even to look upon it. The gentlemanly county officers who at present still occupy it deserve a better official domicile, and we are glad to learn that the county commissioners are moving to erect such edifices as will reflect appropriately on the wealth and wellknown liberality of the county.

The Ledger is at present the only organ of the county, and as

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it is edited with ability and faithfulness, it should receive a large

county patronage.

If space had been allowed we could and would have noticed many other things, and paid a tribute to many other citizens of the county whose talents and enterprise deserve the public respect.

What our own fathers have done in the common walks of our advancing civilization is often treated as commonplace, if it is not wholly forgotten. But few men make any record of it, and if any of it ever goes into history it is only in broken fragments, or in very indefinite if not apocryphal installments.

The history of the first settlements of the west has as much living interest in it, if it could only be gathered up, as that of any other people, either ancient or modern.

Even the cabin history of our churches, our courts, our schools, and of thousands of our men and women who were born in them, would be read in the coming years with an interest which no romance could excel.

The stories of such life might be simple, but the narratives, if properly told, would flash with native sparks from the fires of the higher attributes of humanity, and it would be seen that our race can develop themselves in as true a civilization in the humble life of the cabin as in the marble halls of wealth and pride and ostentatious greatness.

NOBLESVILLE TOWNSHIP,

Being the central township of the county and the seat of justice-Noblesville being in its centre-it is prominent among the other townships of the county in many respects. The residence of many of the most distinguished citizens, and the chief place. of business as well as of judicial decisions, as might be expected, as a township, it is in the best state of cultivation, and contains many of the best residences, and also the largest manufactories of any township in the county.

It is the old age home of a few of the early settlers, of whom we have spoken in the history of the county. More than the half of a century ago they saw the Aborigines of the land as they retired before the footsteps of the white man's civilization, and they lived to see nearly all of their comrades put away in the grave. From decade to decade the township has grown in agricultural resources and beauty, while its chief town of Noblesville has gradually advanced in commercial and manufacturing importance until it is now a well built up and beautiful locality.

In county enterprise, however, it would be doing injustice to the facts in the case to say that they had kept pace with the rapid movements of the age. The county is rich, but their court house and jail are poor, and in justice should have been "put on the township" years ago. Why they have been so slow in their improvements the present deponent knoweth not, but if he was left to guess he would say that the County Com