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His grandson, Col. John W. Ray, describes it as a log cabin in the woods with a chimney of sticks and mud, with fireplace so wide and doorway so broad that once a week during the winter a horse dragged in a big back log for the fire. It was here that Ralston lived while surveying the capital. It was one of the traditions in Col. Ray’s family that his mother, Sarah Anne Nowland, then a girl of thirteen years, carried the chain for the surveyors laying out the streets because men and boys were so busy clearing out the woods they could not be obtained to help the surveyors.
Who Preached the First Sermon and Where Was It Delivered?
The discussion has never waxed as warm as that concerning the first settler, Pogue or McCormick, but Rev. Rezin Hammond, whose congregation sat on logs rolled together by the surveying party near the Circle, claims first place; there are those, however, who make the same claim for William Cravens, grandfather of Mrs. Ann Woodburn and Mrs. Jane Patterson.
His sermon was delivered on a warm summer day; Mr. Cravens, who weighed two hundred and fifty pounds, consequently suffered from the excessive heat. Spying a young girl in the congregation fanning herself with a turkey’s wing, and looking to it for relief from his discomfort, the preacher paused in the midst of his sermon; leaning from his improvised pulpit he beckoned to the girl, saying “Come here, darter, and fan your grandpap while he preaches.”
To return to the diary, “I was very much engaged in trying out my tallow; next day I dipped candles and washed. Tuesday, December 25, 1821 (first Christmas day in the settlement), My husband went to the river and found at {{hws|Mc|McGeorge
