The following quotes are from an interview conducted with Rachel whenshe
was in her later years:
"Our family Settled in Morgan county in 1817; we were Quakers and
came from the Barnesville area of Belmont county, by way ofZanesville,
in a wagon, and settled in, what is now, Pennsville, although therewere,
at that time, only two or three cabins in the neighborhood."
"Two families, my father's and another, numbering altogether
seventeen persons, lived in a one room cabin fifteen feet square. The
country, for miles around, was one vast forest almost unbroken by the
hand of man. Bears, deer, wolves, and snakes abounded, and I often saw
deer and their fawns playing in my father's clearing, or I sat up all
night to keep the wolves way from our livestock."
After her marriage, "we commenced houskeeping in a log cabin hear
Pennsville. Furniture, cooking utensils, dishes, and cutlery were
scarce, and the housewife who had even a limited few of what aretoday's
common household items was considered very fortunate."
The first year of their marriage, one project was to collect sap on
land near the river--enough to make eighty pounds of maple sugar.Other
years meat and tobacco were the cash crops, but before they could be
counted as gain, they had to be hauled to McConnelsville in aone-horse
wagon.
These words concerning Rachel are recorded in the family Bible of her
daughter and son-in-law, James E and Anna Dewees: "Rachel Harmerpassed
away 16th of 1st 1899. As she drew near her 88 birthday there seemedto
be a decided weakening & upon that day the 23 of 12 mo she ate dinner
with the family for the last time. Once in bidding a relative farewill
she said how sweet to feel the hands that are clasped on earth may be
clasped in heaven. Thus she was calmly nearing that bourne whence no
traveler returns. Quietly & without apparent suffering she wasgathered
home at a full age. The tired hands are free and the works of her life
and the works of her life shall follow down the years to be. The
influence for good, of a true pure life cannot be measured by man. Itis
a continual sermon, a living epistle written in the hearts ofobservers."
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