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REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. {81}
THE CHANGES TIME HAS WROUGHT
Tendencies Toward the Centres of Population
Mercersburg Fifty Years Ago
Talks Upon Questions of the
Day with Parker McFarland,
W. D. McKinstry and Seth
Dickey.

A few days ago an attache of PUBLIC
OPINION paid a visit to Parker McFarland,
Esq., at his delightful home in Peters township,
a short distance from Mercersburg.
There are few citizens of Franklin county
more widely and favorably know than
Mr. McFarland and none more highly endowed.
His views on any subject would
attract the attention of those who have
been brought into contact with the man and
disposed to recognize not only his impressive
personality, his keen insight into men
and things but his unswerving adherence
to his convictions. There is about him an
indefinable expression of inborn dignity
which commands respect. His eye is piercing,
his voice incisive, his words well chosen
and his manner forcible. The OPINION
representative found him in somewhat of a
reminiscent mood. In response to an inquiry
as to the length of time he has spent
on his farm he stated that he was born
there, that his father owned the place before
him and with the exception of a few
years in the West he had there passed his
life. Born in October, 1814, marked
changes had taken place not only in the face
of the surrounding country, but in the character
of the population. The descendants
of the original Scotch-Irish settlers, within
his recollection, owned most of the land in
that section of the county. Among the
names of his father's neighbors he mentioned
the Bards, the ancestors of the late
Robert M. Bard, and a host of others, whose
memories he tenderly cherished. In the old
countries one of the outgrowths of pastoral
life was a deep attachment to the old homesteads,
simplicity in living and an aversion
to what was regarded as the "fashionable
follies" of town life. The Scotch-Irish were
an adventurous and migratory race, and
from their advent into this country were
the pioneers of civilization – transcontinental
exploreres. It is impossible for the present
generation, born and reared in these
days of safety, peace and plenty, of steam
and electricity and their nameless accompaniments,
to realize the difficulties our
great grandfathers encountered when they
first came to this country. It is needless to
say that those who braved the dangers and
hardships of pioneer life and participated
in the stirring scenes and events that attended
the transformation of this wilderness
into hives of industry and homes of
comfort and luxury, seldom kept diaries.
The scenes depicted in "Border Life," and
kindred publications, afford only partial
glimpses of the perils and privations and
he ruthless scourgings to which the pioneers
were subjected. It is the subduing of
the ground that precedes all progress. Solomon
three thousand years ago said that
"He that tilleth the land shall be satisfied
with bread." It was only by sturdy blows,
letting the sunlight in upon the wilderness,
clearing farms, ploughing, sowing, reaping,
the women spinning and weaving, that life
could be supported in this county less than
a century and a-half ago. All through
those years conditions and influences were
preparing men for self-government and
when the crisis arrived they proved themselves
equal to it. Brief allusion was made
to the part borne by heroic men of that section
in the struggle for separation from the
mother country, to the assistance rendered
by others in organizing States in the Union
west of the Mississippi river and the effective
ways natives of Franklin county, since
its organization had signalized their careers
in various spheres of activity.

In response to the question whether he
discovered any deterioration in the manhood
of the county since he became a voter,
Mr. McFarland dwelt at some length upon
the changes time had wrought, not only in
the character of the population, but in the
methods employed in filling positions of
trust. While intelligence is more generally
diffused now than half a century ago,
what are regarded as the learned professions
do not contain at the present day as high an
order of learning and intellect as characterized
them during the past generation.
Within his time three Presbyterian congregations
were maintained in that immediate
locality, the one at "White Church;" or as
it was sometimes called, "Church Hill,"
and the others in Mercersburg. The former
has long since been disbanded. The German
element has steadlity supplanted the
Scotch-Irish. The latter were not as successful
farmers nor as provident as the Germans,
and as a consequence when beset
with pecuniary difficulties or moved by the
spirit of adventure, "went West." Fifty
years ago, although Mercersburg was then
the seat of a prosperous institution of learning,
farming was considered a profitable
pursuit, and those ingaged in it were apparently
content with its rewards. That is
all changed. The tendency is now toward
the centres of population – to get rich fast,
honestly if possible, but, nevertheless, to
get rich – and the indications are that this
incentive will grow rather than diminish
in the time to come. It is only a question
of years when New York will bear the same
relation to the United States that Paris does
to France, overshadowing and dominating
the Nation by its monied weight. Respect
for the "methods of the law" is gradually,
though perceptibly, lessening. While it
cannot be disguised that there has been a
lamentable deterioration in the character
and attainments of the interpreters of the
law the expense attending the execution of
all legal business has increased to such a
degree as to excite public distrust in the integrity
of the blinded diety. It is a serious
calamity to any nation or people when faith
in the efficacy of the laws is forteited
through the bad conduct of those entrusted
with the machinery of justice, as was demonstrated
recently in New Orleans. The
exorbitant fees charged by lawyers, as reported
by some of the public prints, would
consign a layman to an imprisonment in a
penal institution for a term of years were
he thus to avail himself of the opportunity
to appropriate the property of another.

The effrontery of men of both parties in
forcing themselves into nominations for
offices of emolument was discussed with
considerable warmth by Mr. McFarland.
He averred that had such a course been
pursued in the county in the early years of
his manhood public scorn would have driven
the offending parties into hopeless obscurity.
Things have arrived at such a
pass, in the unseemly scramble which annually
occurs in the hunt for every official
trust, from county auditor upward, that a
deserving, self-respecting citizen shrinks
from the contest. The post of honor is most
decidedly the private station. How the
evil is to be remedied is a problem, but the
sooner the importunate patriots who traverse
the county from year to year in quest
of office are treated as they deserve to be
the sooner will the abuses complained of in
positions of public trust be remedied.

In regard to the share of the farmer in
maintaining the institutions of the State
government, Mr. McFarland contends that
the agricultural class are burthened more
than any other. He thinks that the citizens
of the towns use the public highways as
much, if not to a greater extent, than the
rural population and should bear equally
the expense of keeping them up. He
thought that any debt resting against a
farmer or property-holder should be deducted
from the amount subject to taxation. To
illustrate the injustice of imposing taxes
upon incumbered property he instanced the
case of a widowed woman of his acquaintance.
She was borne down by debt, with a
family dependent upon her toil, yet the
State and county taxed her home equally
with those of her more prosperous neighbors.
Many of the States in the Union did
not do so, and Pennsylvania is too wealthy
to acquire revenue by oppressing any of her
inhabitants.

Reference being made to the charge of
heresy against Dr. Briggs, Mr. McFarland
feigned ignorance of theology, but suggested
that the arraigned clergyman would
have inspired more respect among the masses
for his peculiar views in regard to the
Scriptures had he stepped down and out of
the Union Theological Seminary and started
a church on his own hook.

Mr. McFarland has committed the cultivation
of his farm, containing some three
hundred acres, to the hands of his son, T.
F. McFarland, an energetic, worthy young
man who is making a specialty of raising
blooded horses. Several of his sons, upon
attaining their majority, located in the
West. One of them is a successful business
man at Lincoln, the most prosperous city
of Nebraska. Mr. McFarland lost his wife
less than a year ago, but he is fortunate in
the possession of daughters who anticipate
his every want and watch over him with
more than filial devotion. A brother of our
venerable friend, Thomas Bard McFarland,
who went from this county to the Pacific
Coast early in life, has for a number of
years been a member of the Supreme Court
of California. Had the subject of this interview,
with his superior mental gifts, become
a disciple of Themis he would unquestionably
have attained marked distinction.
May his last days – amid the familiar
shadows of the high trees, green meadows and
running brooks – where nature's sweetest
tones fill the air – be his happiest and best.