POST-OFFICE
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Peter Bowermaster made application for the position of Postmaster, December 23, 1847,       and received his commission February 12, 1848, at which time the Bowersville postoffice was established. Mail was carried from Sabina, via. Bowersville, to Jamestown once each week,   by Christopher H. Stewart, who traveled on horseback. At the, death of Bowermaster, his    son, Reason A., applied for an Appointment to the vacated office, and received his commission December 12, 1859. John Haughey, Christopher H. Stewart and Lockart, have  held the office at various times. At the completion of the railroad to this place, arrangements were made for the transportation of the mail once each day. It is also brought from Reeseville thrice each week by carrier. R. H. Wolf is the present Postmaster.                              

CEMETERIES.

   North of Bowersville is a primitive cemetery, laid off in 1812. In it the remains of Christopher H. Hussey, the pioneer of the township, repose; his body was the second buried there. Many of the old settlers lie in this burying ground. There is another cemetery which was laid out at a more recent date. Both may truly be called "beautiful cities of the dead."

CHURCHES AND SOCIETIES.

   Religiously the village is represented by three churches, the Protestant Methodists, Methodist Episcopal, and Campbellite, all boasting of a strong membership. There are two secret societies, Otto Lodge, No. 559, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and Magnolia Lodge, No 129, Sisters of Rebecca. These various organizations are mentioned at length in the township history. A literary society, having for its object the mental improvement of its members, meets at the school house every Monday evening.

RAILROAD.

The township is crossed by one railroad, the Columbus, Washington and Cincinnati Narrow-Gauge, which is now finished, and in running order, from Allentown, in Fayette County, to New Burlington,-in Clinton County, a distance of twenty miles. This part of the road is known as the "Grasshopper," and is doing quite a lively business, connecting, as it does,. with the Dayton and Southeastern, another narrow-gauge. It will connect with the Cincinnati Northern at Waynesville, when completed. From Allentown to Mount Sterling, which is with twenty miles of Columbus, the grading is finished, and it is confidently expected that the line from Cincinnati to Columbus will soon be completed.

THE REBELLION

   Jefferson furnished her quota of men, who went forth and offered their lives at their country's call. Her soldiers belonged to the various regiments, the history of which appears in another part of this work. We will not attempt to particularize; it would simply be impossible to refer in detail to the services performed by each individual. That the coming generation may form some idea of the terrible sufferings to which some of the soldiers were subjected, we append the following prison experience of David Ervin, Esc., told the writer by Mr. Ervin. It was with much difficulty that lie could be persuaded to relate these tales of prison life "for," said he, " the story seems so exaggerated that no one will believe it." He says: "I was captured at the battle of Chickamauga, September 20, 1863, by Bragg's command. I was then a sound, healthy man, of one hundred and fifty pounds in weight. During fourteen months of prison life, I never had food enough to satisfy, the cravings of hunger no, not one-fourth enough; at present I eat more in one day than was given me in a week then. While in "Dixie's Prison," we had a little soup made of black peas, which was frequently covered with bugs, parasites of the pea, swimming over the top of the bucket of this we received one pint per day to the man. It may have been seasoned with pork, but no one ever saw pork. Occasionally, we were regaled with two ounces of meat, so strong that a well fed dog would not have touched it. Of bread, we were given two ounces per day, and this constituted the daily bill of fare in prison, Virginia, in the capital of the boasted chivalry of the south.
   At Danville prison, we fared no better than at Richmond; here we spent what is known as the "odd new-year's," without coats, some without shoes, one thin blanket to three men and without fire. This was only a foretaste of the bliss (?) yet in store. The culminating point of the good things the confederacy had reserved for us was reached at Andersonville, Georgia. If the rebels could not conquer the hated Yank,they could at least starve him to death which was a surer, if not as manly a method of depriving him of his life. Our daily bill of fare, consisted of two ounces of corn-bread bran without any seasoning; we either got soup or_____with our meat. I often wondered if the meat they served to us, was not some Noah prepared for his family on their journey on the world. They must have a race of hogs there, noted for longevity and the staying qualities of their meat. The dead house was made of brush; and there was hauled away daily, one or more wagon-loads of the dead martyrs of freedom, victims of starvation at the hands of their boasted chivalry__God save the name. From one hundred and eighty to one hundred and ninety deaths occurred each day, and the bodies of the deceased were hauled off on common board racks drawn by four mules, the dead being laid on cross-wise so long as a man would lay on. Whether the, chivalry took the trouble to bury all of them or not I do not know.
   I saw men shot there for crossing the dead line, when they were bereft of reason by starvation. A report was current in the prison, that the guards were offered thirty days furlough for shooting prisoners, a chivalrous (?) method of fighting; this was their idea of civilized warfare. Once saw a prisoner shot fifty yards inside of the dead line; who was candy smoking his pipe, doing nothing contrary to the regulations of the prison. Our stockade was on the little stream of water running from the camp of our guards through our prison; they used it as a cess pool, and the filth of their camp was conveyed to us; green flies and maggots were thick on the banks of that blissful stream which furnished us water until we dug wells. The tents in which they slept, in the prison yard, were made of canvass, stretched over perpendicular poles stuck in the ground or sand; the latter was so full of "gray-backs" as to make it appear alive. The bodies of the prisoners were covered with wounds, caused by being bitten by the vermin."

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