new buildings in other localities, while some were allowed to decay and fall to pieces. Long dead Versailles, our first county seat, Bowling Green's neighbor and bitter rival for that honor, met the same fate.
Today only a stone marker shows where the once flourishing village stood. Visitors might find if they searched carefully enough the splintered pilings of an old distillery. Some three dozen pioneers and their children sleep in the Bowling Green cemetery about a quarter mile north of where the town once stood, but it is now a tangled bramble patch with only three or four markers remaining to be read. One of these is that of Aaron A. Richardson, Sr., who died at the youthful age of forty-six.
Around these scenes of pioneer activity the steep wild hills still stretch out like couchant lions, and the seasons come and go with the same cosmic precision. Panther Creek and the Mackinaw River continue on their centuries old courses, but Bowling Green is gone.
GABETOWN
Not quite so robust nor history flavored as Bowling Green but nevertheless playing a roll in the writing of history was Gabetown, located six miles northwest of El Paso. It was presumably named after Gabriel Wood, a lieutenant in the Civil War and a pioneer of uncertain origin who operated a store there and later moved to Mississippi. Others like the Pleasants family, say it was named for Gabe Gish, another storekeeper there when William H. Pleasants entered Greene Township land for taxes in 1854. Perhaps the two men with Gabe as their nickname made it certain the place would be called Gabetown.
Records indicate that there were a feed mill, a saw mill, a blacksmith shop and in course of time a total of three stores, for William Crosley and Isaac Hammers Sr. ran a store there also. With at least a half-dozen houses, Gabetown perhaps never had a population of over fifty. Walter Pleasants, who lived in El Paso for many years was born in Gabetown in 1858. Nearby settler William Williamson of Ohio, father of George Williamson and Mrs. Della Kridner was often in Gabetown on shopping trips with his own father and mother, Mathias and Amy Williamson. He often spoke of the recreational activities there on Saturdays when men of keen eyes and steady nerves sighted down the long barrels of muzzle loading rifles, enjoying nothing quite so much as a spirited shooting match with a little harmless wager on the side. Wrestling was another popular sport in those rough and tumble days. Hunting and trapping were time honored diversions for outdoor men and were indulged in both for business and pleasure. This focused attention on Gabetown as a good place to sell and trade furs.
The homes and business establishments of Gabetown were atop Panther Creek's high west bluff, while the mills were on the stream bank where the dam backed up the water to provide power. The little cemetery in which the Patrick boys were the first to be buried was just
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