State, the buckeye was very ably discussed, its botanical classification given, its peculiar characteristics and distinctive properties referred to, and the opinion expressed that the name was at first applied as a nickname, or term of derision, but has since been raised into a title of honor.

This conclusion does not seem to be altogether warranted, for the name is not only of Indian origin, as stated, but the first application of it ever made to a white man was made by the Indians themselves, and intended by them as an expression of their highest sense of admiration.

S. P. Hildreth, the pioneer historian of Marietta, to whom we are indebted for so many interesting events re-. lating to the settlement at the mouth of the Muskingum, tells us that upon the opening of the first court in the Northwest Territory, to-wit: on the 2d day of September, 1788, a procession was formed at the Point, where most of the settlers resided, and marched up a path that had been cut and cleared through the forest to Campus Martius Hall, in the following order:

1st. The High Sheriff with drawn sword.

2d.

3d.

4th.

5th.

The citizens.

Officers of the garrison at Fort Harmar.
Members of the Bar.

Supreme Judges.

6th. The Governor and clergymen.

7th. The newly appointed Judges of the Court of Common Pleas, General Rufus Putnam and Benjamin Tupper.

There, the whole countermarched and the judges, Putnam and Tupper took their seats; the clergyman, Rev. Dr. Cutler, invoked the divine blessing, and the sheriff, Colonel Ebenezer Sproat, proclaimed with his solemn O yes! that a court is opened for the administration of evenhanded justice, to the poor as well as to the rich, to the guilty and the innocent without respect of persons, none to be punished without a trial by their peers, and then in pursuance of law; and that although this scene was exhibited thus early in the settlement of the State, few ever

equalled it in the dignity and exalted characters of the actors; and that among the spectators who. witnessed the ceremony and were deeply impressed by its solemnity and. seeming significance, was a large body of Indians collected from some of the most powerful tribes of the Northwest, for the purpose of making a making a treaty with the whites. Always fond of ceremony among themselves, they witnessed the parade of which they little suspected the import, with the greatest interest, and were especially impressed with the high sheriff who led the procession with drawn sword; we are told that he was over six feet in height, well proportioned and of commanding presence, and that his fine physical proportions and dignified bearing excited their highest admiration, which they expressed by the word "Hetuck," or in their language "big buckeye." It was not spoken in derision, but was the expression of their greatest admiration, and was afterwards often jocularly applied to Colonel Sproat, and became a sort of nickname by which he was familiarly known among his associates. That was certainly its first known application to an individual in the sense now used, but there is no evidence that the name continued to be so used and applied from that time forward, or that it became a fixed and accepted soubriquet of the State and people until more than half a century afterwards.

During all of which time the buckeye continued to be an object of more or less interest, and as immigration made its way across the State, and the settlements extended into the rich valleys, where it was found by travelers and explorers, and was by them carried back to the East and shown as a rare curiosity, from what was then known as the "Far West," possessing certain medicinal properties for which it was highly prized. But the name never became fully crystallized until 1840, when in the crucible of what is known as the "bitterest, longest, and most extraordinary political contest ever waged in the United States," the name Buckeye became a fixed sobri

quet of the State of Ohio and its people, known and understood wherever either is spoken of, and likely to continue as long as either shall be remembered or the English language endures.

The manner in which this was brought about is one of the singular events of that political epoch.

General William Henry Harrison having become the candidate of his party for President, an opposition newspaper said "that he was better fitted to sit in a log cabin and drink hard cider than rule in the White House." The remark was at once taken up by his friends and became a party slogan of that ever-memorable canvass. Harrison became the log cabin candidate, and was pictured as sitting by the door of a rude log cabin through which could be seen a barrel of hard cider, while the walls were hung with coon skins and decorated with strings of buckeyes.

Political excitement spread with wonderful rapidity; there was music in the air, and on the 22d of February, 1840, a State convention was held at the city of Columbus to nominate a candidate for Governor. That was before the day of railroads, yet from most of the counties of the State, large delegations in wagons and on horseback made their way to the capital to participate in the convention. Among the many curious devices resorted to to give expression to the ideas embodied in the canvass, there appeared in the procession a veritable log cabin, from Clarke county, built of buckeye logs upon a wagon and drawn in the procession by horses, while from the roof and inside of the cabin was sung this song:

"Oh what, tell me what, is to be your cabin's fate?

Vol. II-12