Our Small Town Heritage : Memories Of Main street (1974)

[Music] thank you the small town in America's Heartland may it yet have a message for America's tomorrow [Music] the story of America's small towns begins with her earliest settlers our forefathers falling off the edge of a crowded continent came looking for what their forefathers had taught them to be the source of wealth and power they came looking for land but like their forefathers they were City dwellers and they settled these hostile Shores in familiar fashion their brothers came and their children grew and soon America was filling up a land of bustling cities and neat fenced Farms the spirit of restless Adventure that pulled the first settler across an ocean to America's Frontier would pull his grandson over the alleghenies to America's New Frontier over the mountains but that Journey was a hazardous one a revolution to gain title to the land from an absentee landlord another Revolution to a Victor tenacious tenant [Music] by the end of the war of 1812 the Indian confrontation had been averted at least for a generation by resettling him across the Mississippi by that date too the land question had been resolved generally in favor of the small farmer and then the tide broke loose [Music] farmers who wish to change your Lots who spunk enough to travel beyond your native spot to the west to the west to the land of the free where the mighty Missouri rolled down to the Sea we're going west tomorrow where the promises Can't Fail or the hills in Legions boys and crowd the dusty trail and leave behind the village where manpadu stay come follow me and settle in Michigan IA where a man is a man if he's willing to toil and the poorest May gather the fruits of the soil we shall starve and freeze and suffer we shall die and tame the lands but we're going west tomorrow with our fortune in our hands we cross the Prairie as of old the pilgrims crossed the sea to make the West as they the East the homestead of the free [Music] down the rivers and up The Valleys the human Tides swept across the middle west Farmers Merchants and Traders land sharks promoters and bandits where they landed they settled proud of their rough hewn villages on the Muddy Banks through these first generation hamlets destined by geography and fate to become great cities the tide of immigrants flowed into the interior through the next generation's towns the Pioneers launched their final drive against the receding wilderness the history of the West is largely a history of these towns foreign the story of the frontier town is as diverse as the frontiersmen themselves the first settlements were located near forts as protection against the constant danger of hostile attack settlement followed the rivers and towns mushroomed on their Banks Manhattan at the mouth Grand Rapids at The Falls Defiance at the juncture Indian paths offered another route inland each Crossroad was destined for Tavern then town the wheelings the zanesvilles the chillicothes still other towns were fabricated out of the exuberant fever of speculation which infected the West or perhaps the site was located along the route of a projected Canal or National Road [Music] you'll always know your pal if you've ever navigated in the next decades the railroad held the promise of the long expected boom hundreds of towns were created by the railroad companies out of the land Grants awarded them by the federal government still other towns hit Nature's jackpot with an unexpected natural resource in northwest Ohio it was oil by the end of the Civil War the frontier was well past the states of the old Northwest thousands of towns had passed out of existence Paper Towns that never were ghost towns lost in the competition for Canal or Railway boom towns that vanished with the Boom some towns had grown into great cities Buffalo Detroit Saint Paul Cleveland Chicago Kansas City these were the favored and envied few yet other towns remained the chillicothes the vandalius the Prairie Depots not great cities not rural hamlets but viable self-sufficient small towns these towns remote and distant from the burgeoning cities were firmly planted on the soil of Valley and plain from which they had sprung as mainstream America plunged onward toward urbanization and industrialization the small town turned inward there to develop a conscience for the nation its values rooted deeply in the American past its manners learned harshly in its Frontier youth the small town in the middle west during these years after the Civil War would develop a way of life and a sense of values that would shape the national character for generations to come its hold on the American conscience would be so strong that the 20th century would spend itself in loosening the grip [Music] thank you after the Civil War small towns dotted the Midwest forest and Prairie Town and Country were wedded together by economic as well as social ties personal life and Community Life blended into one as the town celebrated the cycle of the seasons according to inherited ritual when we were youngsters on Sundays why we would popcorn and cracked nuts and your little friends would come in and that's the way you sat around and and played Flinch and dominoes and pit was an exciting game we had everything we had Athletics good football and lots of competition that was ball teams all around the country then in those it was just amateurs quite a little competition and croquet and things like that we could swim in there well I never might I never missed the music but it seemed that we did have school entertainment and they were social Church socials and box socials well a girl brought a box and then they had an Auctioneer in Yorkshire them off and the boy that paid the most and lots of times a boy knew whose box he was buying of course she would tell him my dad he was quite a dancer my mother never danced but she always went along to keep the rest of us straight I did visit my cousin Austin diebert at Millbury Ohio on Halloween I thought it was very exciting time we through corn and yelled and people threatened to shoot this and well we always had a nice Christmas and we did with our folks my folks never had a Christmas tree but Grandpa Slaughter makes death one was uh lighted candles on it beautiful thing and we hung up our stocking and got our gifts and all that when I was a boy the head of Memorial Day as the procession running from the church to the cemetery would be a half a mile long we have one of the nicest cemeteries in this part of the country this our County Fair was one of the largest ones in the state oh yes that was a big day in those days see they had good races then horse racing and batting and that just drew people from all over the state oh yes go with the team going and park your team of horses there put one on each side of the wagon have the hay and green their Farm why you just had the best time in the world all these chicken dinners and we'd lay the tablecloths down on the grass or try to avoid where the cows had been and you had a family gathering at the fair of course we took her dinner and had a picnic and usually met diapers and mortar and Fred Slaughter bankster Grandpa was down there and had her picnic dinner in the Grove and had a wonderful time the small town lived out the predictable cycle of its unhurried life year by year removed from the influence of the city but occasionally the Stillness of the Summer Afternoon was broken by the intrusion of a visitor come with horse and wagon to Pedal the Wares of the outside world The Peddler the performer the huckster could come and go year by year the small town was left amused but untouched it was untouched because it was insulated from the influences of the outside world insulated not only by distance but by a deep felt sense of right and wrong that transcended the gaudia lurement of stage temptress or Sideshow Hustler this sense of right and wrong learned on the frontier and nurtured on the Bible served as the core of a code of conduct that dominated the small town way of life the code was toured early and repeated often at home at church at school the Schoolboy absorbed the code with his daily lessons his teacher was mcguffey's readers shall birds and bees and ants be wise while I my moments waves oh let me with the morning rise and to my duty haste the kind and good are always loved little boys and girls be not like the peacock proud and vain on account of your beauty in fine clothes for humility and goodness are always to be preferred to Beauty the truant boy wretched are the parents of such a son grief and shame are theirs his name shall be stamped with a mark of infamy when their poor broken hearts shall Mulder in the grave once or twice though you should fail try and try again if you would at last Prevail try try again if we strive it is no disgrace though we may not win the race what should you do in that case try try again this Heritage of the small town of the 19th century remains deeply rooted in the soil and traditions of the Midwest each citizen had and knew his place he belonged to the community wholly and completely the price of belonging was high a narrowness of Outlook the dominance of a single lifestyle constant pressure to conform as early as 1830 Alexis de tocqueville had written I know of No Country in which there are so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America yet despite its provincialism or perhaps even because of it the small town in the 19th century may have captured a certain quality fundamental to the human spirit in Fellowship I think that in this simple basic emotion Lies by joy and living in this my Village for from my heart I felt what my neighbor felt when she told me of the donation party which the whole village had just given to Lydia Ember I declare she said it wasn't so much the stuff they brought in though that was all elegant but it was the togetherness of it couldn't get to sleep that night for thinking about God not having anybody to neighbor with [Music] foreign