loneerkozi.et1ion; - ScholarsArchive at Oregon State University

50
TYRUS HIMES.
vania. At that period, his birth place was almost a frontier settlement. The
admirable system of common schools, for which his native State has since be.
come so noted, had not then been inaugurated. The subject of this sketch, in
his youth, lived in a neighborhood where schools had not been introduced.
Still he did not fail to acquire knowledge. While it was his great misfortune
that there were no schools for him to attend, yet was he a close observer, rendered
himself well informed, and in his later years became an extensive reader.
At the age of 15, he was apprenticed to learn the trade of shoe-making, after
which he acquired thorough proficiency in harness-making, tanning and currying.
He was a worker. Throughout his long life, when not physically incapacitated
by painful disease, it was impossible for him to be idle. During the
hours assigned to daily labor, he was ever on the go. Mr. Himes was a man of
iron constitution, great will, and in his early manhood of powerful physique
and endurance, At the age of eighteen, he severely cut his knee with a drawing
knife. He neglected the wound, took cold in it, and severe rheumatism
followed. He suffered through a lingering illness of eighteen months, most of
which time he was confined to his bed. He at length recovered health sufficient
to get about. Reduced by long illness and acute bodily pain to a shadow of
his former self his weight decreased from 175 to 135 pounds ; he was no longer
the man of erect habit and perfect limb, enjoying perfect health. His right
knee had become bent nearly at right angle, and the joint permaneutly stiffened.
Henceforth he was doomed to be the subject of chronic rheumatism.
On the 1st of May, 1843, he married Emeline Holcomb, of LeRoy, Bradford
county. In 1845, returning and contipuing ill health having disqualified him
for work, he was induced to make a tour through the Southern States. The
succeeding winter he remained at Bayou La Fourche, about eighty miles south
of New Orleans, upon the sugar plantation of an older brother. The next
spring, renewed in strength, he went to RckIsland, on the Upper Mississippi;
thence, after a short stay, to Chicago, then in its infancy. In that now great
emporium and centre of bustle and business, he was afforded the opportunity to
purchase a quarter section of land just outside of that city, for the sum of $800.
His trip had reduced his capital to $300. In this emergency, he appealed to
an older brother to advance him the required $500. Tyrus had faith in the
Westin that investment. His brother thought him will and visionary, and,
as he thought to save Tyrus from being sacrificed by what he termed a "wildgoose
speculation," refused him. The rebuft disappointed Mr. Himes, but he
was not one to be disheartened. If he could not buy land near Chicago, he
could elsewhere. He located a claim at Lafayette, Stark county, and then returned
to Bradford county, Pennsylvania. In the spring of 1847, with his little
family, then consisting of himself, wife and infant son, (George H.,) then two