Fayette County History & Genealogy

History of Fayette County

From R. S. Dills' History of Fayette County

OLD TIMES

The following is from the Fayette County Herald of September 8, 1881

An old friend from the country, who has lived in the county from the time of its organization, was sitting in our office the other day, and looking across the street at the old Parvin building, which was made of hewed logs and weather-boarded up, noticed that the boards were torn off and the old logs exposed, said that his mind was carried back sixty years or more, when the old log house was occupied by the late John Popejoy as a tavern; and, said he, "when we youngsters used to come here to muster, we used to buy whisky of John and pay him in Piatt shinplasters, and he would stick the currency into a crack between the logs, and the mischievous young soldiers would take the same currency from its depository and buy more whisky with it from John."

This is the last old log relic of pioneer times we know of in town, and it is now taking its departure from the ground it has so long and so honorably occupied. It is an innocent old relic, but if it could give a history of the varied scenes that have occurred in it as the pioneer hotel of Washington, it might be of interest to the generations of these modern days. Probably there may be found some of Piatt's shinplasters yet remaining between its ancient timbers. We understand that when the weather-boarding is entirely removed from it, it is to be photographed.