150 years ago

Dec. 24, 1875

The whooping cough whoops up the children here.

Now, look here. You must be at the entertainment in Marion Centre tonight. If you don’t, remorse will ever after grow at your conscience and destroy your peace, perhaps. Just think about it: One of the most eloquent suppers ever spread in the town; a whole case of fat, lazy oysters; a magnificent Christmas tree with a happy throng of little ones around it; a bevy of the sweetest old maids and most delicious old bachelors ever congregated here; marriageable young ladies of 12 winters and handsome young gentlemen of 10 years beaming smiles upon them; brides and bridegrooms; bald-headed married men, relics of connubial felicity; exhibitions of the pin-back fashion; little boys with red-top boots and tin whistles; little misses with rag dolls, &c &c &c &c &c and so forth et cetera. All these attractions interspersed with melodiffeous music. But the greatest attraction remains yet unannounced. With breathless awe, we now announce of this exhibition in this place of the great “What is it?” — or “The Darwinian Theory Ocularly Demonstrated.” Can you stay away from that?

The coal prospectors didn’t discover any new veins of that mineral, but they found great quantities of petrified wood of about a half a dozen varieties, which if not valuable are at least curious to look upon.