USA > Indiana > Delaware County > A twentieth century history of Delaware County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 7
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY
lle opened it as a tavern, and as such it passed through many hands-a Colonel Sayer, Hoon, Hunter, Jo Davis (and it was long known as the Jo Davis House). In December, 1844, a Muncie paper calls it the Eagle llone, "formerly kept by Col. Sayer, lately by William Russey, and at this date leased by S. Giffin."
From Delaware also came one of Muncie's early merchants, John Jack, who was born at Wilmington in 1804. It will be profitable to notice, during this study, the great number of Delaware county settlers who made Wayne county, Indiana, an intermediate place of residence between the far east and this county, or entered this county through the Wayne county gateway. Mr. Jack came to Wayne county in 1825, where he followed his trade of tanner and currier several years, and in 1836 moved to Muncie. Perhaps a very few of the oldest Delaware county citizens can remember the store and trading establishment kept by the successive firms of Bloomfield and Jack, Bloomfield, Jack and Russey, and Jack and Russey. For a time he and associates conducted the woolen mill established by Mr. Gilbert. His enterprises were among the largest in Muncie during that period of its his- tory. At one time he was engaged in pork packing, an industry then in its infancy, and he is said to have lost heavily by these transactions.
John Jack died in 1859, leaving a widow who continued to reside in the house at the northwest corner of Washington and Mulberry streets for a third of a century. Mrs. W. L. Little, Mrs. J. M. Kirby, Mrs. J. E. Howe were daughters of Mr. Jack.
Thomas Kirby had the thrift, the trading instincts, the energy, and withal the sympathy and thorough helpfulness of a typical son of Massa- chusetts. Born at Stockbridge in 1804, attending school between his duties in a woolen mill, in 1827 he came west to Wayne county, and at Richmond began trading in furs, skins and ginseng. Only comparatively few people of this generation know what ginseng is; though within the last few years the demands of the export trade to the orient for this article have increased its culture in many localities. In the period when the lands of eastern Indiana were first being turned over by the plow, ginseng grew wild through- out this region. In the market reports of that time ginseng was quoted alongside of butter and flour and other staples. Mr. Kirby is said to have bought about six thousand pounds of the root every year, so that it was no small item in the commerce of the country. When Minus Turner located in Muncie in 1829 Thomas Kirby was peddling goods over the country about Muncie, representing a firm in Dayton, Ohio. His increasing pros- perity was indicated by his selling goods at first from a pack on his back, then going about on horseback, and finally using a horse and wagon. He also had a general store on Washington street, west of High. His energy and keen business ability made him money. He bought large amounts of
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY
land, some of it being now covered by the city, and was soon estimated as one of the wealthy men of the county. He was a trustee of his township, gave large sums for the building of turnpikes, railroads and other enterprises of public or semi-public nature, and was an influential figure in Delaware county history up to the time of his death, on August 14, 1879. He was the oldest, in years of residence, of the pioneers still living, fourteen of whom bore his remains to their last resting place; most of these a few years later had found rest in Beech Grove. Of the concrete memorials of his career, such as people see daily but which convey only superficial estimates of life, the best known is the Kirby House, which was erected by Mr. Kirby in 1871 and which more than a generation of citizens and travelers have known as one of the central points of Muncie.
In the valleys of the Miami rivers in southwestern Ohio, about the beginning of the last century, William Brady had found a home. William Brady participated in the expedition against the Indian villages along the Mississinewa during the war of 1812, as previously described, and as a result of the hardships endured lived only a short time after that event. His pio- neer home in Warren county, Ohio, was the birthplace, in 1803, of John Brady, whose career and that of his family has been prominently and closely identified with Delaware county and castern Indiana for three quarters of a century. When a boy John Brady learned how to make saddles and har- ness, and at the age of twenty-one advanced nearer to the frontier, and lived for some years at Richmond, Wayne county, Indiana. He came to Muncie in 1836 and until his death nearly fifty years later was a citizen whose sup- port was considered necessary in all public enterprises and whose influence was never refused in promoting the city's progress. He died January 14, 1884, and his memory was honored by the closing of all business houses and a temporary cessation of the ordinary vocations. For years he had been honored with public office, having served as associate judge, postmaster, mayor, member of the council and township trustee, and was always a Democrat, a leader of the local party. His wife, who died August 30, 1884. was Mary Wright, who had moved to Wayne county from Maryland.
A native of Vermont, where his grandfather had settled after coming from England during the colonial period, John Smith began moving west- ward soon after reaching his majority, and after tarrying awhile in the mountainous region of western Virginia and on a farm in the Muskingum valley of Ohio, he came to Delaware county in 1829. Throughout the active part of his lifetime lie lived in Liberty township, an industrious and pros- perous farmer, rearing a large family, some of whom are still identified with this county.
To the notable group of men from the northeastern states, who did much of the essential pioneer work in developing Delaware county, was
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY
added. in 1831, a young man of nineteen years, born and reared in New Hampshire, and destined, by his remarkable energy, business ability, and thorough integrity, to become a permanent influence in this county's his- tory. Charles F. Willard was born at Charlestown, New Hampshire, in 1812. Hle received a good home training from his guardian (his father having died when the son was two years old) and had more than ordinary olucation, although he left the academy at Meriden in order to take up the active duties for which he early . howed preference. At the age of fifteen 'he became a clerk in a store at Rochester, New York. In 1830 he moved 10 Dayton, Ohio, and entered the employ of the same house with which Thomas Kirby was then connected, and in February, 1831, was sent to Muncie to assist Mr. Kirby in buying furs, ginseng and other products for the Dayton house. His aggressive business ability was shown when a few months later he bought the business of the Dayton merchant, and at the age of twenty years became junior partner in the firm of Kirby and Willard. During the greater part of thirty-five years Mr. Willard continued in busi- ness in Muncie, and the family and estate established by him have remained in Muncie to the present time. He spent his last years with his son at Painesville, Ohio, where he died in 1871. His brother, Dr. William C. Wil- lard, was one of the carly physicians of Muncie, and his activities in the city are mentioned in another chapter.
In the long march from pioneer times to the present the old settlers have been dropping off one by one, and of those who actually took part in the battle against the powers of the wilderness hardly any remain. And yet only a few years ago there were many who had seen the county when farming, trade and industry were in their crude beginnings. Although his death occurred in Muncie at a ripe age, on August 20, 1890, there are hun- dreds of persons who remember Volney Willson, who spent more than half a century of his lifetime in this county. His career and character were such as to make an impress on the community in which he lived. The family in the previous generation was from Vermont, but Volney was born in Wash- ington county, New York, in 1816. He had a good education, measured by the standards of the time, and taught several terms of school while a young man. During the first two years of his residence in Muncie, where he located in 1837, he taught school in the village, and for some years he gave part of his time to this work. Seven years after settling in the county he was clected county treasurer, and held the office three terms. Farming was his principal business, however, and he not only conducted a large estate but conducted it in a progressive and systematic manner that made him suc- cessful above the average. He had interests in several turnpikes of the county and also in several of the railroad lines. traversing the county, and his assistance was lent to many enterprises of local importance or value at the
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY
time, but which are now forgotten. He was likewise one of the influential Republicans of the county. His wife was Elizabeth, daughter of John A. Gilbert.
From the South Atlantic States.
As elsewhere stated, the men who developed Delaware county did not own any particular section as their previous home. The settlers were per- haps as cosmopolitan as those of any county in the middle west. Here were united in society and often in family ties those whose lives had been molded by Puritan New England and those who had known no influences and cus- toms outside of Cavalier Virginm. Yankee thrift and southern liberality became valuable elements in the new social order growing up in the middle west. So far as the several recognized sections of the United States have produced cach a somewhat different type of people, Delaware county has received samples from cach of those types, and has developed a thoroughly American civilization, equally removed from the dominating characteristics of the north or the south, and from the peculiarities popularly ascribed to the eastern and to the western people.
From the states south of Mason and Dixon's line came not a few of the families whose activities have been recognized as important in the county . for two generations. Old Virginia was the mother of colonies as well as the mother of statesmen, and even before the Revolution her sons had advanced into and across the Alleghany and parallel mountain chains, found- ing homes, clearing the forests, and forming settlements that owed allegi- ance to the mother colony until they became strong enough to be erected into separate states. Naturally, the bulk of this migration was south of the Ohio river or in its valley, but during the early decades of the nineteenth century a great many homeseekers pushed their way into the country lying midway between the great lakes and the Ohio. In addition to the usual incentives that led pioneers into new countries, some of the Virginians and settlers from other southern states were influenced to locate in the states formed from the Northwest Territory by the absence of slavery from that region. A number of examples could be found, of men who had become convinced of the moral and perhaps the economic wrong inherent in negro slavery, and had removed to northern states to practice their new ideals under favorable conditions. This was especially true of the Quakers from the Carolinas who settled in such large numbers in Wayne county and also overspread into Delaware county.
A conspicuous example of the early settlers who came from the south was Dr. Samuel P. Anthony, one of the most successful business men and one of the best citizens that the county ever had. Why he left Virginia and came into the Ohio valley is an interesting point in the history of emigration. He was born in 1792, at Lynchburg, then as now in the heart of the great
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY
Virginia tobacco industry, and doubtless the tobacco crop had largely sup- ;demented the family's yearly income ever since it located in the state. In iSiz, when he was twenty years old, he and his father moved to Ohio, and after a period of the service in the army, they located in Cincinnati, in 1814, and there established the first tobacco manufacture west of the Alleghany mountains. The availability of the Ohio valley for tobacco culture drew not : few tobacco planters from Virginia, the original home of the industry, and vi it was that the Anthonys first became located on the western side of the Meghanies. While at Cincinnati, Samuel P. Anthony applied himself to study of medicine, and following several years' practice in various parts of Ohio he located in Muncie in 1831, where he was to spend the remainder of his life, which was brought to a close in 1876, when he was almost eighty- " ur years old. Besides practicing medicine he sold merchandise, and, as an examination of the land entries will show, purchased great quantities of and in the county. He amassed a fortune, and the estate which he founded The Buckles family had left England in the eighteenth century and Wanted in Virginia before the Revolution. In the years of dissent from de established church and while the seeds of discord with the mother " entry were bearing their first fruit, the Buckles family were active in the fath of the Baptists. Before the close of the century the family had removed 'o Ohio, where in 1799 was born Abraham Buckles. Thirty years later he was ordained a minister of the Baptist church, and shortly after coming to Mancie, in the fall of 1833, organized the first Baptist church. He achieved "!« remarkable record of serving over forty-five years as its pastor, without werwing any salary for his services. He died in 1878, when nearly eighty wars of age. His son, Joseph S. Buckles, was a prominent lawyer and man Iaffairs in this county, whose career is outlined on other pages. Isic Branson was born in Virginia in 1794, and, following a common action if migration, crossed the mountains into Kentucky, moved to High- "od! county, Ohio, in 1818, and the following year to Randolph county, hana. He came to Delaware county in 1828, where he died in 1856. The records of the Heath family also go back to the southern states. 'x carliest American ancestor came from London to Maryland, but at '- time Delaware county was in process of formation the family lived in North Carolina. Ralph Heath, the grandfather of the present generation : 53 HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY in this county, came from North Carolina to Wayne county, Indiana, in 1828, and the following year settled in Salem township, this county, so that for more than three quarters of a century members of the family have been identified with the county. (See sketch elsewhere.) The second physician in Muncie was a Virginian by birth. Dr. Levi Minshall, born in Berkeley county, Virginia, in 1804, and educated for his profession in Ohio, came to Muncie in 1829, married the daughter of one of the merchants at that time, and engaged in a successful practice until his death in 1836. It would be easy to name many families that lived in the southern states before permanently settling in this county. Stephen Hamilton, son of the Stephen Hamilton after whom Hamilton township was named, was born in Monongalia county in what is now West Virginia, in 1825, and four years later was brought to this county. Job Swain, for many years well known in Muncie and at one time mayor of the city, was identified with the settlement south of the Ohio, having been born in Tennessee in 1806. The family were Quakers, and in 1815 moved to the chief settlement of that sect, in Wayne county, Indiana, and from there Mr. Swain came to Muncie in 1828, where he lived nearly half a century until his death in 1877. An- other Tennesseean, Jonathan Mills, was the first settler of Monroe township, coming there in 1821 from Wayne county, where he had located in 1819. John Barley, one of the early settlers of Niles township, who died there March 12, 1884, was a native of Frederick county, Virginia, born in 1812. Another Virginian, one of the most prominent and successful business men that Muncie ever had, was the late Jacob II. Wysor, who was born in Pulaski county, Virginia, in 1819, and came to this county in 1834 (scc sketch elsewhere). October 2, 1888, occurred the death of A. M. Klein, Muncie's pioneer jeweler, who was born in Loudon county, Virginia, in 1817. He had moved to Ohio in 1837, and the following year to Muncie, where, in order to make a living by his trade, he became an itinerant jobber, and continued this until the county was better settled and a permanent estab- lishment became profitable. Old Letters. Letters are often suggestive commentaries of the time in which they are written. A number of the letters written to Thomas Kirby while he was a merchant in Muncie during the thirties have been preserved. They prove unconscious witnesses of some features of pioneer Indiana life that can no longer be readily understood. In 1835 Thomas Kirby imported a stove to Muncie, paying fifty dollars for it. It is likely that the stove was an object of curious interest here. Some pioneer accounts make no mention of stoves of any kind, the old fire- 53 HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY place, with open hearth, crane, pots and bake-ovens, being the characteristic icatures of the pioneer house. But stoves were by no means unknown, and were used in Muncie as this letter shows. The stove was sent from Cincin- ruti, and the manufacturer writes: "I have sent you at the request of your Mother one of the improved Franklin Alterable Cooking stoves, same as he has in use. He did not know whether or not you would want the con- venience of altering it into an open stove, for which purpose the Franklin Sead and wings are sent, on condition that if not wanted they may be Returned. . . You will find it a great convenience if you should set the stove where you could make a dining room of it in the winter." The tive as pictured on the letter head was not an ungraceful utensil. The wen was opened when the stove was transformed into a heater, and by affix- ing the "head and wings" above mentioned was converted into an article of comfort and ornament. The following letter and its request from Mr. Thomas Kirby's brother n Cincinnati piques our curiosity at the present time as much as it must have caused the former to wonder when he received the letter: "You will laugh at the purpose of my now writing. Can you procure say at $1 or $1.50 and send me say one quart of pure bear's oil when you send down your four !undred deer skins etc? I want it for a particular purpose if pure. If it will be the least inconvenience, don't do it. Should you send it through any . ther person don't let it appear outside what it is and direct it left at my home." This was written in February, 1831. In Dayton Mr. Kirby had been connected with the business house of William Stone, and shortly after his arrival in Muncie he receives a letter of moragement from his former employer, who then goes on to say : "We had a letter from Mr. Noble on Sunday. He wrote us that he started goods town New York on the 17th of this month (Sept., 1830), by the way of the Lakes, and it is probable that they will be here by the Ioth of next month. i suppose you will be here by the 20th for new goods." It was a long way en transport goods up the Hudson, the Erie Canal, and from some point on Lake Erie by river and overland to Dayton. Writing from Detroit, Zebulon Kirby, another brother, states, under Die Sept 18, 1831, that "Red Deer skins Indian handled are worth 25 cents per pound here, quick at that-they might probably fetch something more." Hlin asks, "Are your skins taken off and handled by the Indians? Skins which are handled by whites or Yankees do not sell as high." During the early years of this county's history deer skins were an important article of o mmerce. Here is a copy of a handbill printed more than seventy years a>> and doubtless displayed in many public places in this county: "Cash fund for Ginseng and Red Deer skins. The subscriber will pay the highest market price in cash or goods for ginseng well washed and dried and for : 54 HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY Red Deer skins, delivered at his store in Muncietown, Ind., until the first day of November next [ 1835] .- Charles F. Willard." A letter from Zebulon written in 1844 advises Mr. Thomas Kirby to market his pork in Detroit instead of at Cincinnati. "We were struck by the prices you name as being paid there and the prices that the article com- mands here. A Common article sells in our streets at three and a half cents and all that will weigh 300 or thereabout brings 4 cents and some has been sold higher. A barrel of good mess pork (heavy) cannot be had here now short of 12 dollars. These prices are paid by packers, and there is considerable putting up, but they all complain they cannot obtain enough at the prices paid. Now it does strike me that if you will pack as much mess pork as you can and cure hams and shoulders as you had last summer, cart it to the canal with your lard, and come up here with it at the first opening of navigation in the spring, you cannot fail to do well at least and it strikes me you will get about twice as much as you can at home, or have it net you by sending to Cincinnati." .. Court House, Muncie. CHAPTER VII. THE COUNTY AS A CIVIL ORGANIZATION. The organization of counties and the fixing of their boundaries are matters of state legislation. Wayne county was organized in 1810, Ran- dolph county about 1818, and in February, 1821, Henry county was formed. It will be remembered that previous to 1818 the region subject to settlement was limited to the "twelve mile purchase" lying west of the Greenville treaty line and lacking several townships of covering the area of the present Randolph county. But shortly after the treaty of St. Mary's, by which so much new land was acquired, all of this territory lying east of the second meridian was designated by the name of Delaware county. Delaware county, originally, therefore, was an immense country, comprising the area of half a dozen of the counties as we now know them. It is not to be under- stood that this original Delaware county was a civil organization; it was merely a name applied, for convenience, to a large and rather indefinitely bounded country which had not yet been settled sufficiently to be given county government. This territory, though without government of its own, nevertheless was under the jurisdiction of laws and courts. To this end it was provided that the organized counties lying adjacent should extend the operation of their civil government into the unorganized area. Accord- ingly the pioneers who came to the county before 1827 looked to Winchester in Randolph county or to Newcastle in Henry county as the seat of local government. When the first election was held within the limits of the pres- ent Delaware county, in 1824, the twenty odd ballots cast for the respective presidential candidates were carried to Winchester to be counted. When Henry county was organized in 1821, the act of legislature spoke of the area to be included in the new county as "the south part of Dela- ware." By successive acts of the legislature, the area of the original Dela- ware county was rapidly reduced. A county was organized as soon as the extension of population justified it, and by 1827 the settlers on the block of country north of Henry and west of Randolph counties were given a county government. In forming a new county it was the duty of the legis- lature to define the boundaries, to fix the time when independent county government should begin, to appoint commissioners to locate the seat of justice, to designate the place of meeting and the first duties of the board of justices, and provide such a schedule as was necessary to transfer govern- 58 HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY ment from adjacent counties to the new one. The act of the legislature providing these things was signed by the governor January 26, 1827, and the new county of Delaware was to begin its official existence on the fol- lowing April Ist. Muncie Becomes County Seat. The commissioners named in the act who should locate the county seat were: Elias Poston, of Rush county ; Jonathan Platts, of Wayne county ; Martin Adkins, of Decatur county; Joseph Craft, of Henry county, and William Smith, of Randolph county. The sheriff of Randolph county was instructed to inform the men of their appointment, and if he followed the usual custom in such proceedings he rode on horseback to the appointce's home in each county. The home of Goldsmith C. Gilbert was designated as the meeting place of the commissioners. On June 11, 1827, the com- missioners, or a majority of them, assembled at the Gilbert home on White river, where a few settlers had already located on the site now covered by Muncie. There can be no doubt that the meeting of the commissioners was a notable occasion in the history of the county and particularly of the little settlement which was urging its claims as the seat of county govern- ment. As strangers from other counties, and clothed in official dignity, the commissioners must have been entertained with every mark of respect, and the Gilbert home, during their stay, was the center around which all thought and activities of the settlers revolved. Need help finding more records? 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