John Malster

 Marietta Register, November 16, 1889

John Malster of Waterford died at the residence of Moses Malster in Waterford Township, Wednesday, and was buried at the Palmer cemetery yesterday, November 15.

He was the son of Christopher Malster who came to Palmer Township in 1795, tow years in advance of his wife who made the journey from Pennsylvania with a two year old child on horseback. 

John was born in Palmer, September 2, 1800, and was therefore past 89 years of age. His life has been spent in this county and through all his active years was one of hardship. As early as 1822 he made a trip south on a flat boat and had he been at the recent reunion would have outranked James Stowe and Christopher Greene in years and ante-dated them as flatboatmen.

He was a farmer and stock-raiser, though a man of a business turn of mind. He sold goods in Palmer for Col. Stone 55 years ago and afterwards clerked for Chapin and Fearing in Beverly.

In his diary he noted that he "had raised and bought wheat and made twenty-five barrels of flour which he sold to Col. Stone at $2.50 a barrel and trusted him six months without interest. I have bought and sold wheat for 28 cents a bushel and oats for 12-1/2 cents and hauled them to Harmar."

He never married. He was a genial and kind-hearted man. A supporter of his county paper and quite a reader. Since the announcement of the Tri-Weekly, his letter was received at this office asking for this edition. He was scrupulously honest and thoughtful in business matters and allowed no debts to stand against him. In his death a pioneer and old-time citizen is gone.

Watertown, Palmer, Wesley, and Barlow

The Marietta Intelligencer, June 2, 1858

In a flying trip a few days since through the townships of Watertown, Palmer and Wesley and Barlow, we found grass and wheat everywhere to be doing finely; no complaints were made except occasionally that a field was found to be slightly affected with the fly. 

But murmurs, loud and deep, were heard constantly about the long-continued rains and their effect on the corn land. Comparatively little corn has been planted. None but high and sandy land would do to plant with any prospect of the corn's coming up. Many farmers had not planted a hill. The five days we were out fortunately proved pleasant and without rain, and almost every farmer we called on was found either planting or preparing to plant corn. There has been very little drying weather within the last week, and the heavy rains of yesterday have made planting impossible for at least another week. The present prospect is certainly not the most flattering to the farmers, with the low prices for produce on hand and so poor a show for another crop.

Of peaches and cherries there seemed to be a fair prospect of an average crop. We observed now and then an orchard of apple trees that gave earnest of a respectable yield, but most of the trees were without fruit. What few apples there are, are of the more ordinary kinds, the grafted fruit being most easily killed by the frost.

One very noticeable feature of the farms through the townships above mentioned is the uniformly good barns with which they are provided. More regard seems to be had for the comfort and welfare of the quadrupeds than for themselves, for in numerous instances we saw good framed barns for the cattle and rather inferior log houses for the family.

With few exceptions, the farms are in good order and well improved - fences strong and trim, implements ready for use and housed, the brush cut down in the fence corners and other out of the way places, gates and bars in good order, &c. 

There is only one fault, a very general one by the way, which we wish to complain of. It is that the front yard is too often enclosed with a rail fence and made into a pasture, a vegetable garden, or a pig pen, instead of being surrounded by a neat board or picket fence and adorned with shrubbery and flowers. There is very little, too little, attention paid to the surroundings of dwelling houses. We believe that every farmer's wife would thank her husband for a little spot in the front yard which she might have the control of, and that should be held sacred against the incursions of calves, pigs, or the plow, where the taste for flowers, so proverbial to the sex, might be cultivated, and where some relief might be obtained from the toil and drudgery of everyday life. That it would contribute immeasurably to the happiness of the wife there can be no doubt.

Every means for the development and cultivation of purity of taste, refinement of feeling, and nice perception of the beautiful ought to be improved, and none are so easily obtained at so cheap an expenditure as in the arrangement and care of shrubbery and flowers.

  

Census Items

The Marietta Register, August 25, 1870

Palmer Township returns:
  White males - 281
  White females - 303
  Colored males - 3
  Colored females - 1
  Total - 587
  Loss in ten years - 34

Fairfield Township
  White males - 403
  White females - 421
  Colored - 0
  Total - 824
  Loss in ten years - 19

Decatur Township
  White males - 622
  White females - 595
  Colored males - 112
  Colored females - 108
  Total - 1,437
  Gain in ten years - 215

Wesley Township
  White males - 646
  White females - 660
  Colored males - 106
  Colored females - 112
  Total - 1,524
  Gain in ten years - 20

We have before given Union - total 862; Barlow - 1,190; Watertown - 1,458. Muskingum was largely taken from Union Township, since 1860, so that no comparison of gain or loss can well be made there. The net gain in the other six townships is 197.

 
   

The Gard Graveyard in Palmer Township

The Marietta Register, March 30, 1876

Palmer, Ohio, 1876

Editor Register:

I have seen a good many pieces in your paper about cemeteries and graveyards.  By request of many friends, I will write on the subject. 

I wish to say to all those that have friends buried in what is called the old Gard graveyard, in Palmer, that it is in good repair, free from brush and briers.  About five years ago there was a committee appointed to repair it.  The friends and neighbors threw in their mite liberally and raised about one hundred dollars, purchased more land, built a good substantial board fence, with locust posts.  Since then the Trustees levied a tax to keep up the repairs and from that time I have kept it in good order.

The first person buried in it was a daughter of David Gard, in 1817, fifty-nine years ago.  The next was Benjamin Danley, a brother of mine who died in 1820.  The next, I think, was Nathan Gard, in 1821. 

There are two hundred and fifty-six buried in it, an average of four and a fraction a year.  Of the two hundred and fifty-six graves there are one hundred and sixty tombstones, one hundred and four marble, fifty-two sand stone, four Louisville marble, one marble memorial for J. M. Danley and ninety-six without.  There are some others ready for setting.

I wish to state that I live within eighty rods of the cemetery, and have for twenty-nine years, and only half a mile from my birth place.  Am sixty-two years old, was at the first burial and out of the two hundred and fifty-six burials I don't think there were over ten I have not attended.  I always made it a rule to help take care of the sick, go to funerals, dig graves, etc.

I will mention some of the old pioneers who are buried here who followed the old Indian trails with their old flint lock guns, tramping down the pea vines with their moccasins, hunting the bear, wolves, deer, wild cats, turkeys, etc.  John Danley, Sen.; Joseph Palmer, Sen.; Jesse Pugh, Henry Corns; J. F. Palmer; Samuel Brown; Cornelius Gard; David Gard; William Corns; Christopher Malster; John Hurlbut; Salmon W. Cook; Benjamin Baker; Nathan Gard; Benjamin Pugh; John Nulton; Timothy Hyatt; James McMannis; and B. M. Brown, who was Sheriff over forty years ago in this county, father of C. A. and J. A. Brown of Belpre; Evan Jenkins, father of E. J. Jenkins, who studied law under Melvin Clark, now living in Kansas. 

There are but few of my old schoolmates left.  I will mention some who live near me:  Hiram Pugh; George Gibson; O. M. Cook; James M. Palmer; and Sheldon Palmer, besides several women.  Several older men who are living near have been old neighbors to me:  John Breckenridge; William Malster; John Malster; Thomas Malster; William Legget; Elias Murdock, father of J. M. and Jesse G. Murdock.

The following are incidents of the Danley family:  My father, an old pioneer, emigrated from Hampshire county, Virginia, in 1797, landed at Marietta and lived there two years, removed to Round Bottom where he remained three years, and then to Wooster, now Palmer, where he died in 1858 in his 84th year.  His wife died in 1849 in her 72d year.  They raised nine children, five sons and four daughters, and of that number, two, myself and sister Betsey, five years older than I, who married Joseph Leonard, now living in Waterford.  Five of the seven are buried in this cemetery - Benjamin; John; and Joseph.  Joel lies in Bary, Pike county, Illinois, "peace to his ashes."  Eliza and Amy lie with the rest.  Polly, who married John Corns, was buried on a farm now owned by Robert Greenlees. 

I married over forty years ago the daughter of Edmund Perry, who learned the tanner's trade in Marietta with Mr. Bartlett.  We raised three lovely children, two sons and one daughter, but the higher power saw fit to take them from us in the prime of life.  Charles, aged 19, died in 1854; Sara, aged 18, in 1862; and John in 1862, aged 13.  We live alone waiting for the messenger to call us home to meet our children and friends gone before.  May those who read this, interested in our welfare, think how pleasant it is to be remembered.

Robert I. Danley