History of Gallatin County, Part 34
The day of long journeys over bad roads to obtain political knowledge had passed. Fast automobiles, even airplanes carry speakers to every section of the country. But it is not even necessary for us to leave the family fireside in order to hear the opinions and explanations of the acknowledged leaders of the different schools of thought. In millions of American homes, the twist of a dial brings in, through a radio reproducer, the speech of some famous man. The inflections of his voice, often so important in the interpretation of a statement are faithfully transmitted through the air.
It was not so in the old days. Let us revert our thoughts to the early 1850's, when our Gallatin county representatives rode horseback to Frankfort to attend every session of the legislature. The writer has a letter handed in by a relative of one of Gallatin County's representative to his wife in which he gave directions in regard to the farm work and what he wished her to have performed during his absence. High up among the hills probably two miles from Eagle Creek are a few remaining two story frame homes of antebellum days, that once housed the early well-to-do farmers of the early 1850's and 1860's among them being the one owned and occupied by Ira Jones and known s the :Old Dorman home" and another as the Jackie Howard Hotel, now owned by a grandson, W. P. Crouch. Here stands the houses where the latchstring hung out.
The Howard house was a haven of rest for the travelers, clad in a hickory-shirted, leather booted woodsman outfit. Here after the evening meal upon the lawns in friendly wrestling match, they would break away from a clinch to stride across the wide spacious room to measure out a ration of chewing tobacco for a coon-capped driver.
Shadows of romance and business look back at each other. They will view each other across shadow decades that will slip into the centuries without dimming. Farther along where the road meets the Boone Trail near the present site of the Oakland Church, half hidden in a corner of a garden on the farm lands of Mr. Dell Ayers, we come to a small country graveyard where more than a hundred years ago Mathews Dorman, a native of Accomack Co., Va., settled and reared his family, died and was buried in this little neglected spot in 1852, at the age of 81 years. His son Peter Dorman became Gallatin's representative in 1854, and served in that capacity for many years.
June 21, 1930, from the Gallatin County News. I've only reproduced half of this column - the second half is a long letter from Peter Dorman to his wife, and I found it boring and irrelevant.