RIGEL & RIGEL Chiropractic office

Not olny for srmat poelpe

      I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was
rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a
rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the
ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and
lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you
can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos
not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?
Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!   Dvae

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• Julius Hermann Moritz Busch – the author
• The Legendary "Johnny Appleseed”
• A Walk in the Swamp
• Justice in the Black Swamp
• The Sharpshooters
• The Black Swamp Hotel
• Westward Ho! – “The Movers”
• 1851 – A North-western Ohio Train Ride
• Through the eyes of Thoreau
• The Demoniac Pleasure of Extermination

Filed by Administrator at 7:12 pm under b. Stories from the Black Swamp
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The Eyewittness Testimony of Moritz Busch

Another rider had joined us at a farm. Hung over his shoulders he wore a leather bullet pouch and a powder horn, and he carried a long rifle. He accompanied us over the ridge and down into a second basin where, behind a large blockhouse, we found several other riflemen gathered. We dismounted with him and tied our horses to a fence. The Major wanted to pay a short visit to the families living here, and we wanted to watch for a little while the shooting match which was about to begin. The group consisted of ten young and old men, all of them tall and well built.

They had set up a four-cornered target on a half charred stump that stood in the cleared field. In the center of it a three-inch nail had been hammered in up to about two-thirds of its length, and the skill which was being tested here was to hit the nail so that it would be driven into the board up to its head, as by a well-placed hammer blow. A shot that bends the nail counts for less; a shot that doesn’t touch it at all is greeted with great laughter. The distance from the fence upon which the rifle was rested to the target might have amounted to sixty paces. Surprising was the small amount of powder used in loading. I saw no one take more than just enough to cover the small ball placed in the left hand, and I was told that even at a distance of a hundred yards no greater quantity was required. The results proved the correctness of this assertion, for already at the second shot the nail was driven into the board. This seemed to be regarded as nothing extraordinary, for a dozen more nails were ready, and Westfeld remarked later that on the average, one out of three shots would hit in this manner. When all had fired, those who had been successful fired a second round among themselves, and as soon as the winner had been determined, the amount of the entry fee was handed over to him (usually a small amount), and he treated the group to whiskey or brandy.

Filed by Administrator at 6:40 pm under b. Stories from the Black Swamp
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As recalled by Moritz Busch, 1851

Walking along the muddy forest road was rather difficult, and it was already growing dark when we reached Medary (located five miles north-west of Leipsic). We were now in the heart of the Black Swamp. A sad picture, this forest village of Medary, particularly at the time of year when I saw it. Gloomy old trees with mossy beard and grim-looking knothole eyes push out from the forest galleries and across the fences, along with a thicket of bushes, vines, and broad-leaved weeds that rise up from the rotating tangle at the feet of the trees to twine over them or to reconquer the area lost to cultivation by them. They form a steep-walled, giant basin in which twenty to thirty poor, gray-roofed little houses stand grouped about the center of the town, a towering steam sawmill constructed of wood. A doleful, almost depressing sight, the impression of which, augmented by the cloudy sky, the approaching twilight, and the prevailing dense air mixed with the vapor of decaying foliage and rotting trees, soon led us to think about corpses. Not a soul was to be seen in the street, and if the chimneys had not been smoking and if the gnawing of the sawteeth in the mill could not have been heard, one might have taken the place to be deserted-so mysterious and inhospitable, so disconsolately melancholy appeared the town in this stiff, scrubby, fallow desert.

Undecided as to whether or not we should remain here, we were frightened on our way by the unpleasant interior of the hotel which we finally entered. An enormous fireplace beside which a rifle was leaning, a rickety rocking chair in which an ashen-colored, sullen landlady was sitting, and a bar with a whiskey bottle and two dirty glasses-these were the complete furnishings of which this uncomfortable shack boasted. Although it was a severe test of endurance to drag along with my blistered toes for another 2 1/2 miles over a corduroy road that had just been completed, I should rather have walked twice as far as to spend a night here. We did not regret our decision. The supper and the beds that we found at Heischberger’s Farm at the end of that martyrs’ road across those logs recompensed us abundantly, and at the same time it proved that even in the middle of the Black Swamp one could live cheerfully and comfortably.

Filed by Administrator at 5:47 pm under b. Stories from the Black Swamp
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