HORACE J. ROLLIN Four generations of the Rollin family have occupied the picturesque homestead, midway between Piqua and Troy, where Horace J. Rollin resides. Josiah Rollin, with his aged mother, settled there in 1815, after some service in the war of 1812. His canteen still adorns the ancestral hall. With him came his son, Isaac, then a lad old enough to reap wheat and pull flax, and who, in time, became a representative farmer. He was among the first to use the reaping machine and to manufacture molasses from cane, but the great civil war stopped southern production. One of those supporters of Fremont who was called an "Abolitionist," he long perceived the rising tide which was to overwhelm the institution of slavery. Mr. Rollin was public-spirited and he wrought for the welfare of the People. He belonged to that class of citizens which made Miami county what it is. He was connected with the Presbyterian society of Troy, and died in 1890, aged eighty-six years. Five of the six sons, including Horace, then scarcely grown, served in the Union army. The eldest, Charles, who was among the first to enlist, in April, 1861, with the Eleventh Regiment, and among the last mustered out, in January, 1866, with the Seventy-first Regiment, commanded a company in the latter part of the war. At his burial recently, the Hon. E. S. Williams, a fellow officer, in his eulogy, said: "What is rare, he respected the private soldier as much as the officer, and his men loved to serve under him. I knew this man in the camp, on the march. and on the battlefield; Charlie Rollin was every inch. a soldier." The mother, Eleanor H. Rollin, who died in 1895, aged eighty-seven, came to Troy, in 1812, with her father, a member of the patriotic Hart family of New Jersey to which belonged the signer of the Declaration of Independence. This stock has given good soldiers, including notable officers, to the Federal army and to civil service. The name Rollin was early identified with the Northwest Territory. Jonathan, elder brother of Josiah, after campaigning with Wayne and St. Clair, was one of the first to settle here, in 1797. He located just north of the present infirmary farm. And so of the name, it is among the oldest appearing in the annals of America. James Rawlins came from England with the Ipswich settlers, in 1632. It has been a fixed surname there for six hundred years; some representatives were knighted, and these are the arms of the Cornwall family, granted by Edward IV., to which belonged old James of Dover: "Shield sable, three swords paleways, points in chief, argent; hilts and pommels gold. Crest, an armored arm, elbow on wreath, holding in gauntlet a falchion." Similar arms were granted the ancient Hertfordshire and other branches, denoting consanguinity. In America the spelling of the name was changed before the Revolution to Rollins, and some now drop the "s." In England it has been Rawlin and Rawlyn, and still more anciently probably Rawle. In 1656 James Rollin was persecuted for neglect of coming into "ye public meeting and sentenced to pay courted fees, two shillings and six pence." He apparently found the church narrow, for he was before the general court at Boston, among the "persons it entertained ye Quakers;" but he, being more ingenious than the rest in his replies, "was ordered to be only admonished by ye honored governor, who was done." Joseph, the great-grandfather of Horace, was a soldier of the Revolution, and was at Saratoga. A cousin, Lieutenant Rollins, was at Warren's side when he fell at Bunker Hill; and it is said that twenty of the name served in that war. Recently, in the Union army, there were enough of the descendants of old James to have made a large battalion, comprising some distinguished officers, probably including Grant's chief-of-staff, and later secretary of war, General Rawlins, as the name had not been changed in his district. The present governor of New Hampshire, Frank Rollins, belongs to this family, as did the late United States senator and other notable persons. Mrs. Horace J. Rollins was Nancy E. Bridge, formerly a teacher in the Cincinnati schools. She is a descendant of the John Bridge who came from England in 1631 and settled at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on land that includes the site of Washington's headquarters and the home of Long-fellow. He induced Thomas Shepherd, the founder of Harvard College, to join the colonists. Cambridge has a fine bronze statue of John Bridge, which faces the college grounds. He was the ancestor of many noted in war and peace, President Garfield being one of his descendants. The long line includes many distinguished soldiers, educators and ministers--Unitarians chiefly. The annals of the Revolution. show noble patriots. "John Danforth was hit just in Lexington street, John Bridge at that lane where yon cross Beaver Falls. I took Bridge on my knee, but he said, - Don't mind me; Fill your horn from mine--let me lie where I be--Our fathers,' says he, 'that their sons might be free, Left their king on his throne and came over the sea; This man was a major and was at Bunker Hill. Colonel Eb. Bridge commanded a regiment and served through the war. Rev. Mathew Bridge was among the first chaplains and died in the Revolution. Mrs. Rollin is eligible also on the mother's side to membership in certain colonial and Revolutionary societies; her great-grandfather Gates was a soldier. Her grandmother Bridge was a Morse, to which family belonged Professor Morse, inventor of the telegraph. Mr. Rollin is a painter, and his works are found in some of the best mansions of America, including that of Hon. Whitelaw Reid, editor of the New York Tribune. His pictures have been honored in great exhibitions, and his "Old Lane" was favorably noticed by the metropolitan press. He is the author of "Studio, Field and Gallery," published by the Appletons, a book that received such fine reviews from the great journals that Mr. Appleton sent to Mr. Rollin a letter of congratulation. Recently from his pen has appeared "Yetta Segal," a story with a deep, peculiar motive, as the publisher's announcement indicates: "This work embodies a new and comprehensive theory concerning race blending. Mr. Rollin is doubtless the first to formulate a philosophy showing the movement to be evolutionary, universal and destined to culminate in the cosmopolite of the future. But while he shows it to be based on purely biological laws, he warns pioneer movers of the dangers of them." It is remarkable that the great encyclopedias and the text-books of biology omit the subject, although there are doubtless several hundred million racial composites, including the beautiful and intellectual; moreover, the movement is increasing the world over, and in an age of increased intelligence. Therefore, science and reason must decide whether the movement is abnormal, morbid and temporary, or normal and inevitable. Mr. Rollin declares the latter, and the keynote of his philosophy is the compensative; in racial interchange needed values are given and received, even the more undeveloped type has some element of strength peculiar to itself to impart, either mental, physical or psychical; the more advanced type has deteriorated, or may be naturally lacking, in certain qualities necessary to the future symmetrical man. It is simply a phase of evolution. In reviewing this work the Popular Science Monthly quoted certain paragraphs, and Dr. Youmans has written to the author, calling his utterances "thoughtful and on an interesting subject." Remarkably encouraging reviews have appeared in the great journals of America, some of them agreeing with Mr. Rollin; for instance, the New York Mail and Express, in a long review, in which the author is said to show "rare originality," concludes with the declaration: "Despite the prejudice, amalgamation is inevitable."