The Corners

The Marietta Register, September 14, 1865

William Corner of Cornerville is one of the oldest residents of this county and is one of the prompt-paying subscribers to the Register - prompt also, every other Corner. He was in our office the other day to "pay in advance," as usual, and after the Yankee style, we asked him a "power" of questions. He will be 77 years of age, Feb. 3d next - and is now a "sounder" man than the majority who are fifteen years younger. It is pretty certain that no "life insurance" will give us his length of years. He is "well kept" because he has lived as a man should live - although he didn't tell us this. Next Sunday it will be seventy years since he arrived in this county, with his mother - coming on Sept. 17, 1795.

Seventy years! A long time to look ahead. Who of us will see that day, seventy years hence? That would make one now in the prime of thirty an even century of age. Too old, by considerable, yet 69 years less than the reputed age of the English Henry Jenkins. The child now of ten would then be advanced into the "seve and yellow leaf" of fourscore. But before then, one after another of us, now so full of life and energy, will drop off, and only for a day, shall we be missed!

To look back seventy years - it was then the Administration of Washington, the first President of the United States - who has been "gathered unto his fathers" almost sixty-six years. Now it is the Administration of Andrew Johnson, our seventeenth President. And what changes within that seventy years! The great Napoleon had just then commenced his career, but has now been dead more than forty-four years. Our great Generals Grant and Sherman were born a quarter of a century since that. Steamboat navigation was then unknown; the railway had not seen the light by thirty years; and the telegraph so wonderful, but now so common, was nearly a half a century later than the day when the Corners arrived at Marietta.

Gen. Rufus Putnam had planted the first colony in Ohio, here in Marietta, only a little over seven years before that; but he died over forty years ago, at the age of 86. Return Jonathan Meigs, Jr., then lived in Marietta, but it was fifteen years thereafter before he became Governor of Ohio; and he lived still fifteen years after that, nine of those years as Postmaster-General, still since his death, a generation and over one-third of another have passed.

Hold! We began to talk about the Corners. They came from Cheshire, England. The heads of the family that came here were George Corner and his wife. Their sons were William, Matthew and George - we do not know the order of their ages. William was the father of the present William Corner, and died at Bedford, Pennsylvania, on the route here. His wife married the second time in this county, to Col. Israel Stone, the father of our venerable fellow-citizens, Col. Augustus Stone and Benjamin F. Stone. John B. Stone, of McConnelsville, is the son of this second marriage.

The family of William Corner, Sen., consisted of George, Sarah, Mary, William, Maria, and Edwin. Sarah married a Mr. Flagg, and still lives in Delaware, this state. Maria married Richard Miner and died over fifty years ago. Mary married a Mr. Woodward and died in this county. Edwin, long a citizen of McConnelsville, now lives in Columbus and was born in Pennsylvania on the route here.

George, it will be seen, is a favorite name with the Corners - the oldest that came here being George Corner; and he had a son George; a grandson George; and George S. Corner is his great-grandson. How many little Georges there are is more than we know; and the Georges to be goes still further beyond our knowledge.

Of the character of the Corners as citizens - well, we know that they pay promptly, and, of course, honestly for all they get, and that proves all other things to be about as they should be, in nine cases out of ten. Besides, one of them sold us some bushels of potatoes, once upon a time, that had just come out of the pit, and before any of them had been used in his own family; but when they did begin to use them it was discovered that they had become, some of them, internally bad, and he came to make reparation before we had well found it out! Not every man who brings articles to market is quite that particular.

We beg pardon of the Corners for thus meddling with their affairs - a quiet people, too independent to seek notoriety. It is due perhaps, to say that this is a dish of our getting up, not theirs.