USA > Indiana > Morgan County > The pioneers of Morgan County : memoirs of Noah J. Major > Part 1
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INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY PUBLICATIONS VOLUME V NUMBER 5
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
MEMOIRS OF NOAH J. MAJOR
EDITED BY LOGAN ESAREY, Ph. D. SECRETARY OF THE INDIANA HISTORICAL SURVEY INDIANA UNIVERSITY
INDIANAPOLIS EDWARD J. HECKER, PRINTER 1915
1198562 INTRODUCTION
These Memoirs were written during the decade preced- ing 1908. The writer was a man of wide acquaintance and keen discernment. The breadth of his sympathies and in- terests is abundantly shown throughout the sketches. He was, above all, a pioneer, but not one of that class that soured on the world when it realized the "good old times" were gone forever. For this reason his comments on pio- neer conditions are all the more valuable. Few men have had better opportunities for observation than the writer. In 1823, the year of his birth, the New Purchase, of which Morgan county is a part, was on the very frontier. Whet- zel's Trace was cut in 1818, but wild Indians roamed over the whole wilderness of what is now Morgan till after 1820. In 1832, at the age of nine, young Major came with his father to the neighborhood of Martinsville and there on a farm he continued to live till 1911, a period of eighty years. He saw the county grow, helped in its development, walking shoulder to shoulder with the four generations of men and women who transformed it from a wilderness to one of the most beautiful valleys of the State. The writer occasionally refreshed his memory by a reference to the records, but in the main he relied on his memory, which was marvelously clear. His wife did the writing, or, as she modestly puts it, the copying. She occasionally visited the State Library to verify certain facts or dates. It would be interesting to know how much of the fine literary style that runs evenly through the sketches is due to Mrs. Major's copying. The work furnished employment through many a long winter evening, and there is ample honor for two. So far as the editor knows, it is the finest tribute in existence to the Hoosier pioneers. No other county has so good an account of its settlers. When after the centuries every material vestige of their existence shall have disappeared, their descendants will be grateful for this, their most enduring monument. L. E.
Indiana University, September 20, 1915.
CONTENTS
I. THE FIRST SETTLERS Page
§1. Early Times and Early Settlers. 231
§2. Settlers of 1821-1822 235
§3. The First Couple Married in Morgan County, the First Physician, and Other Interesting Reminiscences 240
§4. Pioneer Families 247
§5. The Venerable William Parker and Wife, of Morgan 259
§6. The Matthews and Drury Neighborhood 264
§7. The Old Settlers at Home.
278
II. PIONEER HOME LIFE IN MORGAN COUNTY
§8. Marriage and Housekeeping, Then and Now 282
§9. Wooing and Wedding
287
§10.
Corn Fields
294
§11.
Anecdote and Incident of Early Farming
298
§12.
Sickness and Sorrow
303
§13.
Echoes from the Woods:
Hunting
Stories
311
III. PIONEER SOCIETY
§14. Religion 334
§15. A Summer School 348
§16. Politics
358
§17.
Election Day
374
§18.
Counterfeiters
380
§19.
Shows
385
IV. PIONEER COMMERCE OF MORGAN
§20. Exports and Transportation
395
§21. Flatboats and Boating
399
§22. The Old Canal
40
§23. Mills and Millwrights
415
V. THE LAW-MAKERS : SHORT BIOGRAPHIES OF THE
SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES OF MORGAN
COUNTY
427
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
I.
THE FIRST SETTLERS.
§1. EARLY TIMES AND EARLY SETTLERS.
When the geographical lines were run and the descrip- tions given, it was found that Morgan county contained about 450 square miles, or 288,000 acres, which, if parceled out equally, would have given 3,600 families an 80-acre farm each.
Statesmen ought to have known that homes rooted in the ground of a republican form of government gave the best assurance of its permanent existence. This they did not know, or knowing did not care, or caring could not help; for, instead of discouraging land speculation, they have greatly promoted it from the start to finish by Con- gressional enactments.
In 1788, Congress sold in the Northwest Territory six million acres of land to speculators, for a price not exceed- ing 66 2/3 cents per acre. In the case of John Cleves Symmes, the real cost was not more than 10 cents per acre; while at the same time, Congress would not sell to an actual settler less than 640 acres at $2 per acre. The above transactions consisted of one and one-half million acres to the "Ohio Company," three and one-half million acres to the "Scioto Company," and one million acres to John Cleves Symmes. This sale was in the State of Ohio and included the ground on which Cincinnati now stands and was then nowhere surpassed in value as wild land.
We have called attention to the above business trans- action of Congress to show that from the beginning that
232
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
august body has often been "sidetracked" by the lender and seemed to have forgotten the borrower of money. It is interesting to study the arguments of the average Con- gressman for the wholesale squandering of the public do- main and playing it into the jaws of "land sharks." They said: "Small buyers are poor men, and poor men want credit. If we sell to them, in place of revenue, we will, by such a system, gain debtors. Men who can make cash pay- ments must be rich, or, at least, 'well-to-do.' For the 'well-to-do' a section is none too large. For the rich a township (twenty-three thousand and forty acres) is none too much." Poor men, it was argued, "cannot expect to buy of the government; they must have credit and must go to the speculator. Poor men, if allowed, will pick the best tracts here and there and will deprive the speculator from locating his land all together."
We cannot pursue this line of argument without experi- encing supreme contempt for the men who made it. It was as yet but five years since the close of the war for independence, in which war, as is always the case, there were fifty poor men to one rich man, and tens of thousands of them to one millionaire. Poor men who marched and countermarched, weary and footsore, half naked and half fed; men whose wives and children were left under the providence of God to eke out a bare, hard living ; poor men who stood like a stone wall between the rich in property and British confiscation, and between their necks and a British halter. The poor man was most certainly entitled to an opportunity to secure a little home in the public domain he had helped to win from the British crown.
But Congress was slow to recognize his rights in the matter, and not until William Henry Harrison was sent as a delegate from the Northwest Territory to Congress was he placed on anything like an equal footing with the "land-
233
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
grabbers." Mr. Harrison showed the injustice to the real settler by such enactments and secured such amendments to the law as would enable the settler to purchase from the government one-half section. The law was finally so amended as to allow the purchase of forty acres.
The love of speculation seems inherent in the minds of men, and there has been no greater field for its operation than land sales in new districts and in and about towns and cities. As the lands of a new country were first offered to the highest bidder at the land office of a given district, commonly called the land sales, there was often lively bidding. Here again the man of small means was at a disadvantage. After all his trouble and privation in building his cabin, clearing his ground, and moving to his intended new home, he might lose it on the day of sale for lack of a few dollars, for the speculator was there in per- son or by proxy, and did not scruple to turn down and out any "camperdown" who stood in the way of his plans.
Father James Parks, the well-remembered centenarian, so often seen in Martinsville near the close of his life, re- lated an instance that happened in Lawrence county, where a "shark" named Bullslit [ Bulleit] attended the sales and, having plenty of money, over-reached a whole settlement, bought all the land and compelled the settlers to move on, which they did, Mr. Parks being among the number. Com- ing to Monroe county, they again began the arduous task of building other cabins and clearing other grounds, which they were more fortunate in retaining as permanent homes.
Fortunately, our county was never "exploited" by land speculators. It appears that from 80 to 160 acres was as much as most men were able to buy at the start, though many men added several more acres to their farms before they "went the way of all the earth."
It appears that the Cutler Brothers once owned a large
234
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
tract of land at Martinsville and north of it, running as far up the river as Cox's High Rock Mills.
The first suit in the Morgan Circuit Court, 1822, was Cutler vs. Cox, in chancery. This probably grew out of a land transaction. Whether they bought at the land sales or of private parties, or entered at government prices, is not known to the writer. They were men of more than ordinary enterprise. They bought at Martinsville the largest assortment of goods (value $1,000) that appeared at any one time before the year 1825. They donated forty acres of land for the county seat, and were largely instru- mental in establishing it on the present site. They helped in the county organization and were among the first county officers. The first court was held in Jacob Cutler's house in Martinsville on the 25th day of March, 1822.
William Fair, himself a very early settler and who was well acquainted with the Cutlers, told the writer that they were about to get into serious trouble, the nature of which he did not reveal, and they quietly closed up their business affairs, disposed of all their lands and moved away.
The next owners of these lands were Sammy Elliott and his son, Jacob Elliott, Larkin Reynolds, Thomas and James Clark, Thomas Hendricks (father of the late Thompson Hendricks), and the two brothers, Joel and William Wil- son. In 1832 these men owned the land between the town border north, and the south line of Sec. 16, T. 12, R. 1 E. The above named Clarks must not be confounded with the name of John Clark, who bought the Tommy Clark farm and moved to it in 1836.
235
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
§2. SETTLERS OF 1821-1822.
In these sketches we write of the men and women who gave character and standing to our county in its earliest development, who left their impress for good on the next generation, who stood in the front rank of the army of progress in educational and church work in the moral and spiritual elevation of the rising generation-men of whom we may say, "They builded better than they knew," even though they well knew how to build, of whom and their sons and daughters we write in general terms, accounting them all well worthy to be remembered by every true and loyal son and daughter of the commonwealth.
We would that their names were written on a granite shaft instead of this perishable page, that the men and women in time to come-when this Republic will far sur- pass all that has yet been dreamed of its future greatness -might, at least, read the names of those who first came to make their dreary little cabin homes in the green wilder- ness of Morgan county.
As we write many of the names almost entirely from memory and at an age when this faculty ofttimes shows unmistakable signs of decay, we trust the indulgent and interested reader will supply our lack, by calling to mind the names of those we have forgotten or never knew. It is practically impossible, at this late date, to give all the names of those who took part in the first settlement of the county or to do full justice to those who, from time to time, were sedulously engaged in the moral, spiritual, and intel- lectual advancement of the community at large-princi- pally at their own expense; for in those days teachers, preachers, and moralists were usually the poorest paid of all the professionals. For fifteen years the schools were paid by private subscription ; term, sixty-five days, at $1.25
236
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
per scholar ; with an average of about twenty-five scholars. Payments were often made in "truck and turnover."
Local preachers were treated to a Sunday dinner by some liberal brother and sister and that squared the account to date.
Itinerants received from $100 to $300 per annum. But the power behind the great "White Throne" of truth and light was, and still is, the Christian life lived out every day at home as well as abroad. Christianity is life in the highest, truest sense, and nothing else is. Preachers may talk long and loud and bang the bindings off their Bibles, the laity may possess more zeal than knowledge, and sound may, in many instances, take the place of sense, but only the steady, constant firing from the battery of faith, hope, and love can drive the rank and file out of the enemy's entrenchments. If it be true that love laughs at locksmiths, so does Satan at empty professions.
A first settlement is somewhat like a net cast into the sea,-it catches alike the good, bad, and indifferent. The bad may soon be weeded out, but the indifferent, like the tares, grow with the wheat. However, there is generally enough salt in every settlement to save it from utter putre- faction.
We call attention to the names-nothing else-of the families who were "homed" in the county prior to the last day of December, 1822. And here we acknowledge our in- debtedness to Mr. Blanchard for many tabulated statements found in his history of the county.
Township 12 N., R. 2 W., was surveyed in 1816 by William Harris, and was therefore the first land measured by a surveyor's chain and compass in the county. This land had been ceded by the Indians prior to that year ; but this township was resurveyed by Thomas Brown in 1819, who also made the original survey of five other townships
237
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
the same year. John Milroy surveyed three others, making nine townships surveyed in 1819.
In 1820, three townships were surveyed by B. Bentley and one by Stephen Collett. Charles Beeler was the first county surveyor, but William Hadley did most of the sur- veying for fifteen or more years.
The exact date of the arrival of the first settlers cannot be given, though it was probably in 1818. Ten or fifteen families came in 1819 and many more in 1820. All who came prior to the 4th day of September, 1820, and indeed many who came after that date were "squatters," not own- ing the land on which they lived until they had taken out preemption papers under the Ordinance of 1787, and later Congressional enactments granting and modifying the right.
It is estimated that fifty or sixty families were living in the county on New Year's day, 1821. On the 4th of Sep- tember, 1820, the lands of the county were formally thrown on the market for the first time. Those who had come in previously hastened to the land office at Brookville and entered the claims they had squatted on, or preempted. And many others, who had not been in the county, came in the search of homes.
The following persons entered lands after the 4th of September, 1820, in township 11 N., R. 1 E .: Philip Hodges, Joseph Townsend, George Matthews, Benjamin Freeland, Benjamin Hoffman, John Case, Jacob Cutler, Jacob Lafever, John Gray, Joshua Taylor, Joshua Gray, Thomas Jenkins, Chester Holbrook, Jacob Case, John Reed, Nancy Smith, Isaac Hollingsworth, and Presley Buckner.
Those who entered land the same year in township 12 N., R. 1 E., were John Butterfield, David Matlock, Enoch and Benjamin McCarty, Jonathan Lyon, Martin McCoy, Samuel Elliott, Jonathan Williams, Devault Koons, John
238
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
Conner, Andrew Maymore, Larkin Reynolds, Thomas Jen- kins, Joel Ferguson, Reuben Most, and John Graves.
Francis Brock, William Ballard, Thomas Lee, Charles Vertreese, James Hadley, Eli Hadley, William Rooker, Charles Reynolds, Josiah Drury, and Benjamin Barns entered land at the same time in township 12 N., R. 1 E. William Pounds located in township 14 N., R. 1 E.
In township 11 N., R. 1 W., James K. Hamilton, John Burnett, Samuel Newall, Fred Burkhart, Daniel Stout, John Kennedy, Rice Stroud, Isom Stroud, Anthony Ver- non, Presley Buckner, and Thomas Hodges entered at the same time, 1820.
The above fifty-four persons were the only ones who entered lands in the county in that year.
Perhaps there is no date in the county's history that can show so large a per cent. of owners of their homes as on the 31st day of December, 1822; but there were still thou- sands of acres of vacant lands, many tracts of which were as good as those that had been entered, and immigration continued to flow into the county for several years at a rapid rate. Marvelous have been the changes since the first settler pulled in and unloaded his household goods (if he had any) in Morgan county.
The following persons entered land in 1821: Samuel Scott, James Clark, Jacob Cutler, Thomas Hadley, Henry H. Hobbs, Charles Reynolds, George Matthews, Jonathan Lyon, W. W. Drew, Elisha Hamden, Thomas Irons, James Stott, Jonathan Williams, John Hodges, John But- terfield, James L. Ridds, Edward Irons, David Allen, Jacob Chase, John Marker, Edward Jones, Jacob Case, Joseph Henshaw, Abner Cox, David Matlock, Thomas Dee, Joseph Frazier, William McDowel, Samuel Jones, Thomas Beeler, John Leavill, Jesse McCoy, Christopher Ladd, Joseph Bennet, Samuel Blair, David Price, Joseph
239
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
Sims, John Hamilton, John Barnes, George A. Beeler, Joseph Beeler, Benjamin Mills, Robert Stafford, William Gregory (father of twenty-nine children), Cyrus Whet- zel (first settler), Jesse Tull, Henry Rout, John Paul, Thomas Ingles, Joseph Bennet, Thomas Gardner, William Goodwin, James Burch, Ezekiel Slaughter, John McMa- han, Jacob B. Reyman, John W. Reyman, Christopher Hager, Thomas and Benjamin Cary, George Moon, Sam- uel Dodds, Joseph Tomlinson, Eli Hadley, Abner Cox, James Curl, and John Sells, all of whom located east of the second principal meridian; and David Faln, Hiram Stroud, Thomas Hodges, Philip Hodges (the first to enter land in the county), Wiley Williams, Abner Alexander, Samuel Goss, William Anderson, Joseph Ribble, James Mckinney, Thomas Thompson, and Reuben F. Allen, on the west side of the meridian.
The following entered land in the year 1822: Allen Gray, John Gray, Alexander Rowland, Isaac Gray, Wil- liam Townsend, Josiah Townsend, Presley Buckner, James Reynolds, John Cutler, Joshua Carter, Benjamin Cuthbert, Martin McDaniel, Isaiah Drury, William Bales, Elias Hadley, Jehu Carter, Moses Anderson, William McCracken, B. F. Beeson, John A. Bray, Jesse Overman, Charles Vertreese, Jacob Jessup, Andrew Clark, Richard Day, William Ballard, Stewart Reynolds, Eli Mills, Isaac Price, John and Enoch Summers, Charles Ketchum, George Crutchfield, John Martin, Levi Plummer, David E. Allen, Benjamin Mills, Hiram Matthews, Abner Cox, William Landers, Thomas Ballard, Harris Bray, John Kennedy, Abraham Stroud, Fred Burkhart, John Buckner, and John Mannan; all locating east of the meridian line except the five last named.
240
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
§3. THE FIRST COUPLE MARRIED IN MORGAN COUNTY, THE FIRST PHYSICIAN, AND OTHER INTERESTING REMINISCENCES.
Of those who came early to make homes in Morgan county but few remain to tell the stories of the "back- woods." Some few sketches have been written and pub- lished in the county papers by early settlers, such as Hiram T. Craig and others, which if preserved would be valuable to the historian if we should ever have one.
For several years past at the Old Settlers' meeting aged men and women have given their experiences in the wilder- ness, much of which would be interesting to those who may live in the closing years of the next century, if not now. The thought of trying to put on record the savings and doings of the "old folks" was urged by the late F. P. A. Phelps at one of these meetings at Martinsville, five or six years ago. But, as usual, "what is everybody's busi- ness is nobody's business" came strictly to pass in this case, and so nothing has been done that is known to the writer to rescue from eternal oblivion the heroic struggles of the first settlers of this county.
If it should chance that any reader of this scrap should feel so much interest in the subject as would induce him or her to lend a helping hand by writing to the undersigned, giving names, dates, characteristics, and incidents of the early life of the first settlers, they would confer a great favor; or, if preferred, send short sketches directly to the county papers.
The prime object should be to pay a modest tribute of respect to the memories of the pioneers who, with brave hearts and mighty arms, built the first cabin homes in our county and blazed the way to a higher civilization.
Whether this higher civilization has yet contributed
241
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
much, if anything, to the solid worth of human life, is an open question. Is the sum total of human enjoyment greater now than then? Has our moral and religious worth kept pace with our moneyed and intellectual worth? If not, why not?
"Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay."
In 1884 Charles Blanchard edited and published some- thing of a history of Morgan, Monroe, and Brown coun- ties, together with some biographical sketches. It is more valuable for its collection of county records than anything else. In the matter of biographies it is quite meager as regards the first settlers. It appears that if an "old-timer" did not subscribe for the coming book ($10) his name was left out, while men not thirty-five years of age were given the usual puff. As to our old Spartan mothers, they were conveniently forgotten.
Notwithstanding all this, Mr. Blanchard is to be praised more for what he did than blamed for what he did not do. Indeed, as he says in his preface, he could and would have done much better if people who knew had not been so reticent. They seemed to wish to be subsidized for im- parting the needed information. Then again, they of the same family often disagreed as to dates and the manner of spelling names. The truth is, the old settler was a history maker more than a history writer. Fortunately we are not left entirely to guess as to how they did, for often they rehearsed to the newcomer their trials and troubles in the first years of settlement. This has been transmitted from sire to son, and, if not good history, it is pretty sound tra- dition and more worthy of belief than the story of Romulus and Remus and their stepmother wolf.
When a man and his wife resolved to emigrate to cen-
242
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
tral Indiana in so early a day as 1820, they took into con- sideration what their surroundings would be. They knew they were to be a long way from the base of supplies until they could coax the earth to yield up her fruits. Settle- ments advanced somewhat like armies move, with pickets and pioneers some distance ahead of the main body, draw- ing supplies from the nearest settlements already formed.
Monroe and Owen counties were three or four years in advance of our county in the matter of organization. This fact proved a blessing to our first settlers, as they were greatly strengthened by the help of their near neighbors for the first year or two of settlement. In those early times it was often the case that the men of the family would come in the month of March, select and clear a piece of ground and build a cabin, cultivate some corn and · vegetables, and then return and move the family in the latter part of the summer or fall. An instance of this kind was told the writer by the late Elijah Koons, son of De- vault Koons, while at his house, which stood on the very spot of ground that he (Elijah) and his father cleared and planted in the spring of 1820. This was in Sec. 16, T. 12, R. 1 E., known in the early days as "the old sixteenth," the land of corn and "punkins," squirrels and paroquets.
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