Letter from a Former Resident

Dear Sir: I have thought for some time of writing you as by this means I can write to many of my old friends in “Sweet Owen,” with whom I could not correspond, as I do not know their addresses. I have been away from Kentucky twenty-seven years this last February, and while I like my adopted home, sweet memory carries me back to the halcyon days of yore when I was a boy and grew up to manhood and how I used to “spark” some of the prettiest girls within a radius of forty miles, etc.

I remember in the later part of the 1850's such men as Humphrey Marshall, J. C. Breckinridge, Thomas A. Berryman, Uncle Tommie Brown (my wife's grandfather), Marcus Clark, the founder of the “Owen News” and kind lady. Dr. Farmer Rees used to be my family physician in the middle '70's, also Mr. Wm. Teal, Judge Martin, Judge Lige Nutall, Circuit Judge who lived in Henry County and came to Owenton on horseback to hold court.

Before I left Owen County in 1878 I lived near the McHattons, Tancey's and Mr. Weedon Sleet and others who were the best of neighbors, and a few of the younger set with whom I was more personally acquainted - such as lawyer Will Lindsay, J. C. Hartsough, Isaac and John Wes Suter, and my heart was saddened when I visited my old home four years ago, to think that the majority of the old timers had gone, and since then Judge Greene, and T. J. Brown, Mr. and Mrs. A. M. Adams and several others have gone to the “silent shore.”

I first saw the “light” about one mile from the dear place Pleasant Home, September 16, 1846, and I have many pleasant memories o=f the relatives and friends with whom I was privileged to associate. I feel as though my story would be incomplete if I did not mention some of the noted “jokers” of Owen County - such as Frank Thomas, Frank Barnes, Dr. J. P. Nutall and mention many others but will not now.

When I was a boy, most of Owen County was covered with heavy timber and I used to go to “log rollings” and “house raisings” and always got a good dinner and and supper, but I was not at Uncle Wash Perry's big “corn shucking” when he had 300 white man and 400 Negroes and it took three days and nights to eat supper after they were through shucking the corn - but enough of this.

The News-Herald has become a welcome visitor to my house ever since I landed here, and it is always like a latter from home for in its dear columns I read of the marriages and deaths of friends and loved ones.

You will remember the trial and hanging of Dick Shuck for the murder of his father-in-law. It was my misfortune to be one of the 12 who tried the case. It was a bad rainy day in the fall of 1877 that he was hung ad I never saw such a crowd in Owenton

I will now say something about Pueblo and surroundings. Farming, or ranching, as it is called here, is successfully carried on by irrigation, but the principal industries here are mining, railroading and steel plants. Pueblo has a population of about 50,000. Teel works pay-roll is about $250,000 per month, and the smelters where gold, silver, copper and lead are smelted pay out monthly about $150,000, and the New Zinc Smelter about $25,000 per month. We have several wholesale houses and a few commission houses, and several large stores, besides a great many small ones, and to wind up with we have the finest all-the-year round climate in this latitude.

With best wishes for the success of the News-Herald and its readers, I remain,

Yours Sincerely,

W. B. Long
1124 Pine St.
Pueblo, Colo.

from the Owenton News Herald March 5, 1905