USA > Indiana > Marshall County > A twentieth century history of Marshall County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 42
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before coming here. He was employed as bookkeeper for the firm of Pomeroy, Houghton & Barber, the principal business firm in Plymouth at that time. He was a most pleasant, genial gentleman, and has many delight- ful memories clustering around his life while a resident there.
The band began to play in the political campaign of 1854, but did not get down to real business until the memorable presidential campaigns of 1856 and 1860, and it played for most of the local entertainments and picnics, of which there were many in those days, nearly always without money, or anything else but thanks! During the wartime the band went to pieces, many of those belonging to it enlisting in some of the several companies recruited in Plymouth; the instruments which belonged to the individual members were sold or given away-at least none of them have ever been seen since. Since then many bands have been organized, flourished for a time, and gone to pieces as their predecessors have done. In 1900 Ben M. Seybold organized a band, which has developed into the best one Plymouth ever had.
Music is the grandest and most sublime of the seven liberal arts and sciences. It is the only thing earthly of which there is any account of in heaven. Shakespeare put it none too strongly when he said :
"The man that hath no music in his soul, And is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils- The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus- Let no such man be trusted."
Again he makes a lover say to his sweetheart :
"How sweet the moonlight Sleeps npon this bank. Here will we sit, and let The sound of music creep into our ears. Soft stillness and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony."
Music is the only universal language in existence. The confounding of the languages at the tower of Babel did not destroy the language of music. It speaks the same language to every inhabitant of the earth that it did when the loud timbrels sounded the grand chorus o'er Egypt's dark seas. The German who cannot understand a word of English will go into ecstacies over the playing of "The Blue Danube" or "The Watch on the Rhine," and the Frenchmen in a strange land will weep tears of joy on hearing "The Marseillaise Hymn," and our own American, when among peoples whose language he cannot understand, will shout for joy when he hears played "America," "The Star Spangled Banner," "Hail Columbia," or "Yankee Doodle," because they speak to him a language which he under- stands.
Life is motion, and motion, or vibration, is music. The whole world is full of music. . The gentle zephyrs that stir the leaves of the trees; the tornado that fells the forests in its mad career; the roar of the ocean's waves as they dash against the rock-bound coast; the cannonading and rumble and crash of the thunder; the dashing of the raindrops on the roof ; the continual hum of the great cities ; all these in one is the basis and founda-
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tion of the music as we have it in its present form. The universe is a magnificent operahouse in which the combined music of the earth and air is the grand anthem that is continually being heard by all the inhabitants of the world. The standard keynote, the "tonic" on which all instruments are keyed, is derived from the basic sound of all this music of nature and of the spheres.
Plymouth Silver Cornet Band.
This band was organized in 1868, under the control of the republican party, the money for the purchase of the instruments being contributed by that party. It was, however, refunded by the members of the band about the end of the campaign of 1868. It was composed of twelve members originally, but soon fell to ten, which kept it going about ten years. Those who composed the band after the reorganization in the '70s were: Charles Haslanger, Frank Smith, Charles Chapman, Edward Quivey, Wm. W. Davenport, Daniel B. Armstrong, James M. Confer, H. B. Miller, Thomas Noss, William Moore.
The present Plymouth band was organized out of the remnants of a former band, which had been organized out of still another band. Under the leadership of Ben M. Seybold it is considered one of the best band organizations in northern Indiana.
In an interview not long ago with the only survivor of the original members of the old band he said: "In my time I have heard many world famous bands, such as 'The Washington Marine Band,' 'Sousa's Great Chicago Band,' 'Pat Gilmore's Band,' 'The German Prussian Band,' 'The French Band,' 'The Mexican Military Band' of seventy-five pieces. And yet," he said, "in the language of our own Hoosier poet, slightly changed to fit the occasion, 'I want to hear the old band play!'"
"It's good to go back in mem'ry to the days of yore, Considerin' it's been fifty year an' more
Since then! Oh dear! I see a wonderful change; And many things have happened that's new and strange; Especially at evening when yer new band fellers meet, In fancy uniforms and all and play out on the street.
* * What's come of old Dave Vinnedge and the sax horn fellers-say? I want to hear the Old Band play.
"What's come of Alex Thompson, an' Mert Brown, an' where's Bert Capron at? And Platt and John McDonald, Charley Reeve, Gene Hutchinson an' that Air Doe Brown who played the drum twiet as big as Jim; An' William Henry Salisbury-say, what's become o' him? I make no doubt yer new band now's a compenter band An' plays their music more by note than what they play by hand, An' stylisher and grander tunes; but somehow-any way, -- I want to hear the Old Band play.
"Such tunes as 'John Brown's Body' and 'Sweet Alice,' don't you know, And ' The Camels is A-comin',' and 'John Anderson, My Joe, '
And a dozent others of 'em-' Number Nine' and 'Number 'Leven' Was favorites that fairly made a feller dream o' heaven. And when the boys 'u'd serenade I've laid so still in bed I've even heerd the locus-blossoms droppin' on the shed
When 'Lilly Dale,' or 'Hazel Dell' had sobbed and died away- I want to hear the Old Band play.
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"Your new band ma'by beats it, but the old band's what I said- It allus 'peared to kind o' chord with sumpin' in my head; An' whilse I'm no musieianer, when my blame eye is jes' Nigh drowned ont, an' memory squares her jaws an' sort o' says She won't an' never will forgit, I want to jes' turn in An' take the light right ont o' here and git back West a'gin And stay there, when I git there, where I never ha'f to say- I want to hear the Old Band play."
LVIII. WEIRD AND STRANGE HAPPENINGS.
"There are stranger things, Horatio, than were ever dreamed of in your philosophy." -Shakespeare.
Old Pierce, the Horse Thief.
The Marshall county watchmen ran down and captured a horse thief, who first gave his name as Pierce, but it turned out afterwards that his real name was Henry Walters, or at least that was the name under which he was indicted, tried and sentenced to the penitentiary at the October term of the circuit court in 1877. In that year Charles Palmer, one of the pioneers of Plymouth, resided at his country residence a mile or so west of town on the La Porte road. On the twelfth day of May of that year, as shown by the indictment, there was stolen from his barn on the premises a black horse of the value of $100. The matter was made known to the watchmen and the sheriff, who immediately went in pursuit of the thief. They got track of him somewhere in La Porte county, and after a hard struggle, in which the thief was shot, he was captured, brought back to Plymouth and placed in jail. He was indicted by the grand jury in the name of Henry Walters, and at the October term of the court was tried, convicted and sentenced to twelve years in the penitentiary. From the time of his arrest until his case was heard in the court, the wound he had received when he was arrested grew worse and worse until, at the time of his trial, he was barely able to appear in court.
A peculiar incident in connection with the length of his sentence was the fact that a man was tried at the same term of court before the same jury for murder, to which he plead guilty, and was sentenced to only two years in the penitentiary. Walters, or "Old Pierce," as he came to be known, had been under the doctor's care for some time before his trial, and after his conviction gradually grew worse and finally died in jail without the sentence being executed. Before his death, knowing that he could not live, he told the doctor that he wanted to do some good to humanity as a slight recompense for all the harm he had done, and he wanted him to have his body for dissecting purposes. There was no law at that time authorizing a proceeding of that kind, and so the township trustee took charge of the remains and buried it in the potter's field in Oak Hill cemetery, Plymouth.' That same night the doctor employed a couple of men who went to the graveyard and dug up his remains and car- ried them back to town and put them in a room on the second floor of the Corbin building, on the corner of La Porte and Michigan streets, which had been used as a photograph gallery, having a skylight in the roof.
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Not long after this one of the lights of glass in the skylight was broken, causing the rain to leak down through the floor. A tinner was sent on the roof to make the needed repairs, and when looking down through the glass he discovered the remains lying on a table, cut and carved to a finish. The tinner was badly frightened and hurrying down as fast as he could go, gave the alarm, and soon there was a general furore of excitement and all sorts of speculation as to who had killed the man and how he got there. It was not long, however, until it was surmised that it was a "stiff," and that some of the surgeons about town could explain the matter satisfactorily if they would, but they did not. The township trustee was sent for and, suspecting whose corpse it was, took the remains over to the cemetery and buried them in the same grave from which they had been resurrected. By the time night came around the facts became generally known and the excitement died down.
That night after midnight the same parties that had resurrected him in the first place took him up again, and this time placed him in the back room of the doctor's office, where his remains were subjects of the surgeon's skill for several weeks without molestation. When the flesh had all been taken off the skeleton was taken apart and carefully placed in a barrel with the head fastened tightly, into which and in the bottom auger holes were bored for the purpose of letting water pass in and out. The barrel was then taken to the mill dam north of town and fastened underneath the water that flowed over the dam, so that the skeleton in due time would be thor- oughly cleansed of every particle of flesh that might have adhered to it.
After a time the barrel in some way broke from its fastenings and floated down the river, lodging in a tree top near the old brewery. One day a man was fishing down there and, happening to spy the barrel, con- cluded to make an investigation of its contents, and when he did so and found they were human bones, he ran off to town as fast as his legs would carry him, sounded the alarm that he had found a man that had been mur- dered and put in a barrel and sent floating down the river, where he had accidentally found him.
The barrel was brought to town and placed on exhibition, and after the scare and curiosity had subsided, the doctor and others let the secret out, and after a short consultation the barrel and contents were turned over to the doctor, who had the bones properly mounted and put on shelves in his private office, where they remained until his death, when they were divided among his medical friends in various parts of the county, the skull remaining in Plymouth. The writer has seen it many times, and as he has looked upon this "striking memento of mortality" he could not help but recall the many tragic scenes and incidents through which he whose vitality was encased therein during life had passed.
A Terrific Explosion.
The most destructive boiler explosion which ever occurred in northern Indiana took place on the farm of William Johnson, in Green township, on Saturday, October 1, 1876. A steam threshing machine, known as the Feary machine, but which at the time of the accident was the property of John J. Thompson, exploded, carrying death and sorrow to many homes. The machine had been set and about sixty bushels of wheat threshed when
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the explosion took place. A belt had broken, and after it had been repaired and the word had been given to start up, Feary turned on steam, and while in the act and before the motion was obtained, the explosion took place with a noise and a crash which no pen can portray or imagination picture. scattering death and destruction in all directions. The only one killed outright was a boy named Isaac Jones, aged fourteen. He was standing near the firebox of the engine, warming himself, the day being cold. He was blown a distance of 110 feet against a rail fence, the top of his skull down nearly to his eyebrows being blown off, and his brains running off on the ground. His clothing was nearly all torn from him and his body badly scalded.
Standing by the boy near the engine was William Hughes, about thirty- five years of age, who was blown the same distance that the boy was, being found near where he lay. He had one arm and one leg broken, was injured internally and was badly scalded. He died on Monday following the acci- dent. Thomas H. Wirt, band cutter, was struck by one of the heavy wheels of the engine and so badly injured that he died in about two hours. W. W. Johnson, son of William Johnson, the owner of the farm where the acci- dent occurred. was pitching sheaves from a stack. The boiler struck the stack in its course through the air, throwing Johnson about 100 feet, break- ing his skull and otherwise injuring him. He died about six hours after the explosion, having been in an insensible condition all the time. Joseph Dudgeon was on the stack with Johnson at the time the boiler struck it. He was thrown about fifty feet, had both bones of the right leg broken and the right hip bruised. David Logan, the feeder, had an arm broken and was otherwise injured. S. P. Feary, the engineer, had his arm broken in two places. Ezra Jones, father of the boy killed, was badly scalded and otherwise injured. Clem Newhouse had his arm broken in two places. Marvin Louden was slightly injured. William Johnson received internal injuries, not of a serious character, however.
No imagination could picture the scene of the disaster as it really was. The boiler, with engine attached, was thrown a distance of 160 feet, alight- ing on the ground in a reversed position from that in which it started, having gone through the side of a wheat stack, thirown two men fifty and one 100 feet, stripped the harness from a span of horses and smashing a two- horse wagon. It was said by some who were present that the engine turned three and a half times round while flying through the air. An examination of the boilers showed that the material was of the very best. The explosion was undoubtedly caused by lack of water.
A Bold Robbery.
During a considerable period before and after the completion of the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago railroad, the town of Bourbon was infested with a gang of counterfeiters and robbers who kept the inhabitants in a constant fever of excitement and fear. Their operations, however, were not confined entirely to Bourbon; it was simply headquarters, from which radfated the deviltry they concocted when alone in solemn conclave assembled. Their operations were confined principally to the putting into circulation of counterfeit money of various kinds. It was not thought, however, to have been manufactured in that place, but manufactured else-
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where and carried there, and from thence distributed in such manner as was thought the safest and most expeditious. The existence of this organi- zation and many of those connected with it were well known, but the evi- dence of their guilt was not sufficient to warrant legal proceedings. Some of them were, however, finally arrested on suspicion, but the law's delay and the many technicalities brought into requisition enabled all of them to escape the penalty they undoubtedly deserved.
One night in the summer of 1867 a large number of housebreakers and robbers entered the residence of Joseph W. Davis, going through the house and taking everything of value that suited their fancy. Before entering they blackened their faces and otherwise disguised themselves. They pro- cured a large scantling and, using it as a battering-ram, drove it with such force against the front door as to break it open the first blow. Two of the robbers rushed into the bedroom where Mr. Davis and wife and infant child were sleeping and laid violent hands upon them before they realized the true condition of affairs. A pistol was under Mr. Davis' head, and in making a desperate effort to procure it, he was struck several times on the head and face, making the blood run profusely. The burglars secured the pistol and holding Mr. Davis down by the throat, the remainder of the robbers went through the several rooms in the house, taking them one by one. Before they entered the house they had taken the precaution to give the watchdog, a very fine Newfoundland, a dose of strychnine, which had put him effectually out of the way. In one of the rooms they found the hired girl; in another the hired man. At each of these rooms they placed one of their number on guard, and now having everything arranged safely, they began to "rummage" every part of the house. They made Mr. Davis open his safe, from which they took all the money and papers and other valuables contained in it. They prepared an excellent supper from the supply of cooked provisions they found in the kitchen and buttery, of which they partook with evident relish. They remained about two hours, and having finished their work, bade the occupants an affectionate good-night and hastily took their departure.
When the robbery became known early the next morning the whole town was in a furore of excitement and threats of lynching suspected parties were freely made, but as nothing definite could be ascertained as to who the guilty parties were, nothing was done. Some time afterward the pocketbook and papers were found close to the railroad track near Bucyrus, Ohio, and shortly after returned to the owner. Several of the suspected parties soon left town and others were not slow to follow, and this was the last trouble Bourbon ever had with housebreakers.
A Bogus Mexican Dollar.
Some time ago Postmaster J. A. Yockey and wife, of Plymouth, were taking a vacation at the home of T. N. Peddycord, in Polk township, near Koontz's lake. Mr. Yockey, early one morning, went to dig for worms for bait for the day's fishing he expected to indulge in. He was digging under an old log near the house when, in removing the decayed leaves, he turned up a bogus Mexican dollar of the date of 1875.
There is quite a bit of local history connected with this and other similar coins manufactured in that place many years ago. In the '70s and prior to
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that time the farm on which Mr. Peddycord now lives was owned by a man by the name of Francis Hungerford. Although lacking in education, he was a man of more than ordinary intelligence, and had his efforts in life been directed in the proper channel he would have been a useful man in any community in which he might have lived.
'The place in question at that time was in the "back woods," the locality being sparsely settled and the neighbors few and far between. Seldom anyone visited the Hungerford family, and for weeks at a time they saw no one except an occasional hunter and fisherman passing and repassing that way. Koontz's lake was near there, and surrounding it were thick woods, underbrush, swamps and marshes, in which was an abundance of wild game, not counting the barrels and wagonloads of fish that were playing around the shores waiting to be taken out of the wet. It was in this sort of environment that Francis Hungerford conceived the idea of procuring dies and operating a bogus money manufacturing establishment, thus en- abling him to earn a living a good deal easier than in chopping down trees, grubbing out the roots, plowing up the sod, splitting rails, building fences and such like drudgery. Accordingly he procured a set of dies for the manufacture of various coins, the principal ones being Mexican dollars. At that time Mexican dollars were in general circulation, and as the Hunger- ford spurious dollars were a very good imitation of the genuine, they passed quite readily in the ordinary course of trade. He built a milkhouse near his residence with a lookout on top. In the floor was a trap door, under- neath which was a large cellar conveniently arranged for the purpose. Here he placed his machinery, dies and metal, and forged out his bogus coin by the bushel without let or hindrance.
The greatest difficulty in regard to the success of the scheme was to devise ways and means of putting the bogus money into circulation. Hunger- ford started a good deal of it into circulation by paying it out for such pur- chases as he made in Plymouth and the surrounding towns. But that was entirely too slow a process, and other individuals whose consciences did not disturb them were let into the secret, and in the course of time Hungerford had several assistants who helped him to dispose of the bogus coin.
For a considerable time everything went lovely and the financial goose honked high. Nearly every business man in the towns and villages round about had his pockets full of Hungerford's dollars, most of which had been taken as good Mexican money without making any examination or without any thought that it was spurious, when upon a close examination it was easy to detect the good from the bad, and it was not long until it was hard to pass any of them in current business transactions.
It was then that the people generally began to try to find out where the spurious coin came from and who was the manufacturer of it. Suspicion finally settled upon Hungerford. A detective was sent for, who, after many difficulties, succeeded in working himself into the good graces of Hunger- ford, and finally arranged to assist him in coining the bogus money. He worked away for some time until he got all the information necessary for his arrest and conviction, when he swore out the necessary papers and the officers made a raid on the mint, arrested the old man and his son, confis- cated his dies. plates and machinery, metal, retorts, and stock in trade gen- erally, and delivered him up to the United States authorities.
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He was taken to Walkerton, where he was put on the Lake Erie & Western railroad train for Indianapolis. A trunk containing several hundred coins was left behind on account of not having room for it in the convey- ance. After taking Hungerford to Walkerton the wagon was sent back after the trunk. When it was returned and opened at Walkerton to repack it the coins were found to be missing and brickbats had been substituted. The old lady who had been left behind said the coins had been emptied out into Koontz's lake, and if the authorities wanted them they would have to go over there and get them. It is needless to say that they are probably still there.
The old man and his son were tried, convicted, and sent to the peni- tentiary. On account of his age, after a few years the old man was par- doned, after which he took up his residence in Missouri. It was not long after he settled there until the old desire to dabble in counterfeit money came over him, and he was again arrested, convicted and sent to the gov- ernment prison at Lawrence, Kansas, where it is said he died several years ago. His son probably served out his sentence, but his whereabouts since that time is unknown. Others in the neighborhood who were suspected of having a hand in the business managed to get out of the country without being arrested, and so ended the only counterfeiting manufactory known to exist in this section of the country.
LIX. CEMETERIES AND SEMINARIES.
The Stringer Graveyard.
The first cemetery in which those who died in Plymouth were buried was what is known as the "Stringer Graveyard," although its real name, as legally laid out and platted, is "Lake Cemetery," about two miles southwest of Plymouth. In the early settlement of the county, in that locality and farther west, there were quite a number of people from among whom the first death occurred in 1836, which necessitated the selection of a graveyard, as they were called in those early days. Joseph Stringer had settled on the land near there early in 1836, and on a high rise of ground a short distance east of his log cabin residence a burial place was selected, and to designate where it might be found it was named after Mr. Stringer. Many of the early settlers of Plymouth procured lots there, and they and their posterity continue to be buried in that place. It is a beautiful spot of ground for the purposes for which it was intended, and has been placed in a good state of repair. To the west and southwest it overlooks a splendid farming country covered with hills and dales, meandering in every direction, through which runs the beautiful Indian river, "Wi-thou-gan," known as Yellow river, and nestled in among the hills is the charming little Dixon lake, and still further away to the west the glassy surface of the ever beautiful Pretty lake peeps out from among the hills and tree tops, a veritable "thing of beauty and a joy forever," while to the east and northeast, Plymouth with
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