USA > Indiana > Adams County > Biographical and historical record of Adams and Wells counties, Indiana : Containing portraits of all the Presidents of the United States from Washington to Cleveland, with accompanying biographies of each : a condensed history of the state of Indiana : portraits and biographies of some of the prominent men of the state : engravings of prominent citizens in Adams and Wells counties, with personal histories of many of the leading families, and a concise history of the counties and their cities and villages, pt. 1 > Part 19
USA > Indiana > Wells County > Biographical and historical record of Adams and Wells counties, Indiana : Containing portraits of all the Presidents of the United States from Washington to Cleveland, with accompanying biographies of each : a condensed history of the state of Indiana : portraits and biographies of some of the prominent men of the state : engravings of prominent citizens in Adams and Wells counties, with personal histories of many of the leading families, and a concise history of the counties and their cities and villages, pt. 1 > Part 19
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The last half century has doubtless wit- nessed changes quite as great as those set forth by onr Illinois historian. The chronicler of to-day, looking back to the golden days of 1830 to 1840, and comparing them with the present, must be struck with the tendency of an almost monotonons uniformity in dress and manners that comes from the easy inter-
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communication afforded by steamer, railway, telegraph and newspaper. llome manu- factures have been driven from the house- hold by the lower-priced fabrics of distant mills. The Kentucky jeans, and the cop- peras-colored clothing of home manufacture, co familiar a few years ago, having given place to the cassimeres and cloths of noted fatories. The ready-made clothing stores, like a touch of nature, made the whole world kin, and may drape the charcoal man in a dress-coat and a stovepipe hat. The prints and silks of England and France give a variety of choice and an assortment of colors and shades such as the pioneer women could hardly have dreamed of. Godey and Dem- orest and Harper's Bazar are found in our modern farm-houses, and the latest fashions of Paris are not uncommon.
FAMILY WORSHIP.
The Methodists were generally first on the ground in pioneer settlements, and at that early day they seemed more demonstrative in their devotions than at the present time. In those days, too, pulpit oratory was generally more eloquent and effective, while the gram- matical dress and other " worldly " accom- plishments were not so assiduously cultivated as at present. But in the manner of conduct- ing public worship there has probably not been so mueh change as in that of family worship, or " family prayers," as it was often called. We had then most emphatically an American edition of that pious old Scotch practice so eloquently described in Burns' " Cotter's Saturday Night:"
The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face
They round the ingle formed a circle wide; The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, The big ha' Bible, ance his father's pride; His bonnet reverently is laid aside,
llis lyrat haffets wearing thin and bare ; Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide ;
Ile wales a portion with judicious care,
And " let us worship God," he says with solemn air.
They chant their artless notes in simple guise;
They tune their hearts-by far the noblest aim ; Perhaps " Dundee's" wild warbling measures rise, Or plaintive " Martyrs," worthy of the name ; Or noble " Elgin " beats the heavenward flame,- The sweetest far of Scotia's hallowed lays. Compared with these, Italian trills are tame ; The tickled ear no heart felt raptures raise: Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.
The priest-like father reads the sacred page,- How Abraham was the friend of God on high, etc.
Then kneeling down, to heaven's Eternal King The saint, the father and the husband prays; Ilope " springs exulting on triumphant wings," That thus they all shall meet in future days; There ever bask in uncreated rays,
No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise, In such society, yet still more dear,
While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere.
Once or twice a day, in the morning just before breakfast, or in the evening just before retiring to rest, the head of the family would call those around him toorder, read a chapter in the Bible, announce the hymn and tune by commencing to sing it, when all would join; then he would deliver a most fervent prayer. If a pious guest was present he would be called on to take the lead in all the exercises of the evening; and if in those days a person who prayed in the family or in public did not pray as if it were his very last on earth, his piety was thought to be defective.
The familiar tunes of that day are remem- bered by the surviving old settlers as being more spiritual and inspiring than those of the present day, sneh as Bourbon, Consolation, China, Canaan, Conquering Soldier, Conde- scension, Devotion, Davis, Fiducia, Funeral Thought, Florida, Golden Hill, Greenfields, Ganges, Idumea, Imandra, Kentucky, Lenox, Leander, Mear, New Orleans, Northfield, New Salem, New Durham, Olney, Primrose, Pisgalı, Pleyel's Hymn, Rockbridge, Rock-
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ingham, Reflection, Supplication, Salvation, St. Thomas, Salem, Tender Thought, Wind- ham, Greenville, etc., as they are named in the "Missouri Harmony."
Members of other orthodox denominations also had their family prayers in which, how- ever, the phraseology of the prayer was some- what different and the voice not so loud as characterized the real Methodists, United Brethren, etc.
HOSPITALITY.
The traveler always found a welcome at the pioneer's cabin. It was never full. Although there might be already a guest for every puncheon, there was still "room for one more," and a wider eircle woukl be made for the new-eomer at the log fire. If the stranger was in search of land, he was doubly welcome, and his host would volunteer to show him all the " first-rate elaims in this neek of the woods," going with him for days, showing the corners and advantages of every "Congress tract " within a dozen miles of his own cabin.
To his neighbors the pioneer was equally liberal. If a deer was killed, the choicest bits were sent to his nearest neighbor, a half- dozen miles away, perhaps. When a " shoat " was butchered the same custom prevailed. If a new comer eame in too late for " eropping" the neighbors would supply his table with just the same luxuries they themselves enjoyed, and in as liberal quantity, until a erop could be raised. When a new-comer had located his elaim, the neighbors for miles around would assemble at the site of the new-comer's pro- posed eabin and aid him in " gittin'" it up. One party with axes would ent down the trees and hew the logs; another with teams would hall the logs to the ground; another party would " raise " the cabin; while several of the old men would " rive the elapboards " for the roof. By night the little forest domicil would be up and ready for a " house-
warming," which was the dedieatory oeenpa- tion of the house, when musie and dancing and festivity would be enjoyed at full height. The next day the new-eomer would be as well situated as his neighbors.
An instance of primitive hospitable inan- ners will be in place here. A traveling Methodist preacher arrived in a distant neighborhood to fill an appointment. The honse where services were to be held did not belong to a church member, but no matter for that. Boards were raked up from all quar- ters with which to make temporary seats, one of the neighbors volunteering to lead off in the work, while the man of the house, with the faithful rifle on his shoulder, sallied forth in quest of meat, for this truly was a " ground- hog " ease, the preacher coming and no meat in the house. The host eeased not to chase until he found the meat, in the shape of a deer; returning he sent a boy out after it, with direetions on what " pint " to find it. After services, which had been listened to with rapt attention by all the audience, mine host said to his wife, " Old woman, I reckon this 'ere preacher is pretty hungry and you must get him a bite to eat." " What shall I git him?" asked the wife, who had not seen the deer; " thar's nuthin' in the house to eat." " Why, look thar," returned he; " thar's a deer, and thar's plenty of eorn in the field; you git some corn and grate it while I skin the deer, and we'll have a good supper for him." It is needless to add that venison and corn bread made a supper fit for any pioneer preacher, and was thankfully eaten.
TRADE.
In pioneer times the transactions of com- meree were generally carried on by neighbor- hood exchanges. Now and then a farmer would load a flat-boat with beeswax, honey, tallow and peltries, with perhaps a few bushels
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of wheat or eorn or a few hundred elapboards, and float down the rivers into the Ohio and thence to New Orleans, where he would exchange his produce for substantials in the shape of groceries and a little ready money, with which he would return by some one of the two or three steamboats then running. Betimes there appeared at the best steamboat landings a number of " middle men" engaged in the "commission and for- warding " business, buying up the farmers' produce and the trophies of the chase and the trap, and sending them to the various distant markets. Their winter's accumulations would be shipped in the spring, and the manufactured goods of the far East or distant South would come back in return; and in all these transactions scarcely any money was seen or used. Goods were sold on a year's time to the farmers, and payment made from the proceeds of the ensuing erops. When the erops were sold and the merchant satisfied, the surplus was paid ont in orders on the store to laboring men and to satisfy other creditors. When a day's work was done by a working man, his employer would ask, " Well, what store do yon want your order on?" The answer being given, the order was written and always cheerfully accepted.
MONEY.
Money was an article little known and sel- dom seen among the earlier settlers. Indeed, they had but little use for it, as they could transaet all their business about as well with- out it, on the " barter " system, wherein great ingenuity was sometimes displayed. When it failed it any instance, long credits contrib- uted to the convenience of the citizens. But for taxes and postage neither the barter nor the credit system would answer, and often letters were suffered to remain a long time in the postoffice for the want of the 25
cents demanded by the Government. With all this high price on postage, by the way, the letter had not been brought 500 miles in a day or two, as is the case nowadays, but had probably been weeks on the route, and the mail was delivered at the pioneer's postoffice, several miles distant from his residence, only once in a week or two. All the mail would be carried by a lone horseman. Instances are related illustrating how misrepresentation would be resorted to in order to elieit the sympathies of some one who was known to have " two bits " (25 eents) of money with him, and procure the required Governmental fee for a letter.
Peltries came nearer being money than anything else, as it came to be enstom to estimate the value of everything in peltries. Such an article was worth so many peltries. Even some tax collectors and postmasters were known to take peltries and exchange them for the money required by the Govern- ment.
When the first settlers first came into the wilderness they generally supposed that their hard struggle would be principally over after the first year; but alas! they often looked for "easier times next year" for many years before realizing them, and then they came in so slily as to be almost imperceptible. The sturdy pioneer thus learned to bear hardships, privation and hard living, as good soldiers do. As the facilties for making money were not great, they lived pretty well satisfied in an atmosphere of good, social, friendly feeling, and thought themselves as good as those they had left behind in the East. But among the early settlers who came to this State were many who, accustomed to the advantages of an older civilization, to ehnrehes, schools and society, became speedily home-sick and dis- satisfied. They would remain perhaps one summer, or at most two, then, selling what-
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PIONEER LIFE.
ever claim with its improvements they had made, would return to the older States, spreading reports of the hardships endured by the settlers here and the disadvantages which they had found, or imagined they had found in the country. These weaklings were not an nnmitigated curse. The slight im- provements they had made were sold to men of sterner stuff, who were the sooner able to surround themselves with the necessities of life, while their unfavorable report deterred other weaklings from coming. The men who stayed, who were willing to endure privations, belonged to a different guild; they were heroes every one,-men to whom hardships were things to be overcome, and present privations things to be endured for the sake of posterity, and they never shrank from this duty. It is to these hardy pioneers who could endure that we to-day owe the wonder- ful improvement we have made and the development, almost miraculous, that has brought our State in the past sixty years from a wilderness to the front rank among the States of this great nation.
. MILLING.
Not the least of the hardships of the pio- neers was the procuring of bread. The first settlers must be supplied at least one year from other sourees than their own lands; but the first erops, however abundant, gave only partial relief, there being no mills to grind the grain. Hence the necessity of grinding by hand-power, and many families were poorly provided with means for doing this. Another way was to grate the eorn. A grater was made from a piece of tin, sometimes taken from an old, worn-ont tin bueket or other vessel. It was thickly perforated, bent into a semi-circular form, rough side upward, on a board. The eorn was taken in the ear,
and grated before it got dry and hard. Corn, however, was eaten in various ways.
Soon after the country became more gen- erally settled, enterprising men were ready to embark in the milling business. Sites along the streams were selected for water- power. A person looking for a mill-site would follow up and down the stream for a desired location, and when found he would go before the authorities and secure a writ of ad quod dumnum. This would enable the miller to have the adjoining land officially examined, and the amount of damage by making a dam was named. Mills being so great a public necessity, they were permitted to be located upon any person's land where the miller thought the site desirable.
AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS.
The agricultural implements used by the first farmers in this State would in this age of improvement be great curiosities. The plow used was called the " bar-share " plow; the iron point consisted of a bar of iron about two feet long, and a broad share of iron welded to it. At the extreme point was a conlter that passed through a beam six or seven feet long, to which were attached handles of corresponding length. The mold- board was a wooden one split ont of winding timber, or hewed into a winding shape, in order to turn the soil over. Sown seed was brushed in by dragging over the ground a sapling with a bushy top. In harvesting the change is most striking. Instead of the reapers and mowers of to-day, the sickle and cradle were used. The grain was threshed with a flail, or trodden out by horses or oxen.
NOG KILLING.
Ilogs were always dressed before they were taken to market. The farmer, if fore- handed, would eall in his neighbors some
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HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.
bright fall or winter morning to help " kill hogs." Immense kettles of water were heated; a sled or two, covered with loose boards or plank, constituted the platform on which the hog was eleaned, and was placed near an inelined hogshead in which the scalding was done; a quilt was thrown over the top of the latter to retain the heat; from a crotch of some convenient tree a projecting pole was rigged to hold the animals for disemboweling and thorough eleaning. When everything was arranged, the best shot of the neighbor- hood loaded his rifle, and the work of killing was commenced. It was considered a dis- grace to make a hog " squeal " by bad shoot- ing or by a " shoulder-stick," that is, running the point of the butcher-knife into the shoulder instead of the envity of the beast. As each hog fell, the " sticker " mounted him and plunged the butcher-knife, long and well sharpened, into his throat; two persons would then catch him by the hind legs, draw him up to the sealding tub, which had just been filled with boiling-hot water with a shovelful of good green wood ashes thrown in; in this the carcass was plunged and moved around a minute or so, that is, until the hair would slip off' easily, then placed on the platform, where the cleaners would piteli into him with all their might and elean him as quiekly as possible, with knives and other sharp-edged implements; then two stout fellows would take him up between them, and a third man to manage the " gambrel " (which was a stout stiek about two feet long, sharpened at both ends, to be inserted between the muscles of the hind legs at or near the hoek joint), the animal would be elevated to the pole, where the work of eleaning was finished.
After the slaughter was over and the hogs had had time to cool, such as were intended for domestie use were ent up, the lard " tried "
out by the women of the household, and the surplus hogs taken to market, while the weather was eold, if possible. In those days almost every merchant had, at the rear end of his place of business, or at some conven- ient building, a " pork-house," and would buy the pork of his customers and of such others as would sell to him, and ent it for the market. This gave employment to a large number of hands in every village, who would eut and pack pork all winter. The hauling of all this to the river would also give employment to a large number of teams, and the manufacture of pork barrels would keep many coopers employed.
Allowing for the difference of eurreney and inanner of marketing, the price of pork was not so high in those days as at present. Now, while ealico and muslin are 10 cents a yard, and pork 2 to 4 eents a pound, then, while ealieo and muslin were 25 eents a yard, pork was 1 to 2 cents a pound. When, as the country grew okdler and communications easier between the seaboard and the great West, prices went up to 23 and 3 cents a pound, the farmers thought they would always be content to raise pork at such a price; but times have changed, even con- trary to the current-ey.
There was one feature in this method of marketing pork that made the country a paradise for the poor man in the winter time. Spare-ribs, tenderloins, pigs' heads and pigs' feet were not considered of any value, and were freely given to all who could use them. If a barrel was taken to any pork-house and salt furnished, the barrel would be filled and salted down with tenderloins and spare-ribs gratuitously. So great in many cases was the quantity of spare-ribs, etc., to be disposed of, that they would be hauled away in wagon- loads and dumped in the woods out of town. In those early times mueh wheat was mar-
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keted at 25 to 50 eents a bushel, oats the same or less, and corn 10 cents a bushel. A good young milch eow could be bought for 85 to $10, and that payable in work.
Those might truly be ealled "elose times," yet the citizens of the country were aceom- modating, and but very little suffering for the actual necessities of life was ever known to exist.
PRAIRIE FIRES.
Fires, set out by Indians or settlers, some- times purposely and sometimes permitted through carelessness, would visit the prairies every autumn, and sometimes the forests, either in autumn or spring, and settlers eould not always succeed in defending themselves against the destroying element. Many in- teresting ineidents are related. Often a fire was started to bewilder game, or to bare a piece of ground for the early grazing of stock the ensuing spring, and it would get away under a wind, and soon be beyond control. Violent winds would often arise and drive the flames with such rapidity that riders on the fleetest steeds eould scareely escape. On the approach of a prairie fire the farmer would immediately set about "cutting off supplies " for the devouring enemy by a " baek fire." This, by starting a small fire near the bare ground about his premises, and keeping it under control next his property, he would burn off a strip around him and prevent the attack of the on-coming flames. A few furrows or a ditch around the farm constituted a help in the work of protection.
An original prairie of tall and exuberant grass on fire, especially at night, was a magnificent spectaele, enjoyed only by the pioneer. IIere is an instance where the frontiersman, proverbially deprived of the sights and pleasures of an old community, is privileged far beyond the people of the present day in this country. One eould
seareely tire of beholding the seene, as its awe-inspiring features scemed constantly to inerease, and the whole panorama unceas- ingly changed like the dissolving views of a magie lantern, or like the aurora borealis. Language eannot eonvey, words cannot ex- press, the faintest idea of the splendor and grandeur of such a conflagration at night. It was as if the pale queen of night, disdain- ing to take her accustomed place in the heavens, had dispatched myriads upon myr- iads of messengers to light their torches at the altar of the setting sun until all had flashed into one long and continuous blaze.
The following graphie deseription of prai- rie fires was written by a traveler through this region in 1849:
"Soon the fires began to kindle wider and rise higher from the long grass; the gentle breeze inereased to stronger currents, and soon fanned the small, flickering blaze into fierce torrent flames, which eurled up and leaped along in resistless splendor; and like quickly raising the dark curtain from the luminous stage, the scenes before me were suddenly changed, as if by the magician's wand, into one boundless amphitheatre blazing from the earth to heaven and sweep- ing the horizon round, -columns of lurid Hames sportively mounting up to the zenith, and dark clouds of crimson smoke eurling away and aloft till they nearly obseured stars and moon, while the rushing, crashing sounds, like roaring cataracts mingled with distant thunders, were almost deafening; danger, death, glared all around; it sereamed for victims; yet, notwithstanding the imminent peril of prairie fires, one is loth, irresolute, almost unable to withdraw or seek refuge."
WILD HOGS.
When the earliest pioneer reached this Western wilderness, game was his principal
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food until he had conquered a farm from the forest or prairie-rarely, then, from the latter. As the country settled game grew searce, and by 1850 he who would live by his rifle would have had but a precarious subsistence had it not been for "wild hogs." These animals, left by home-siek immigrants, whom the chills or fever and ague had driven out, had strayed into the woods, and began to multi- ply in a wild state. The woods each fall were full of acorns, walnuts and hazelnuts, and ou these hogs would grow fat and multiply at a wonderful rate in the bottoms and along the bluff's. The second and third immigration to the country found these wild hogs an un- failing source of meat supply up to that period when they had in the townships con- tiguons to the river become so numerous as to be an evil, breaking in herds into the farmer's corn-fields or tolling their domestic swine into their retreats, where they too be- came in a season as wild as those in the woods, In 1838 or 1839, in a certain town- ship, a meeting was called of citizens of the township to take steps to get rid of wild hogs. At this meeting, which was held in the spring, the people of the township were notified to turn out en masse on a certain day and engage in the work of catching, trimming and branding wild hogs, which were to be turned loose, and the next winter were to be hunted and killed by the people of the town- ship, the meat to be divided pro rata among the citizens of the township. This plan was fully carried into effect, two or three days being spent in the exciting work in the spring.
In the early part of the ensuing winter the settlers again turned out, supplied at conven- ient points in the bottom with large kettles and barrels for sealding, and while the hunt- ers were engaged in killing, others with horses dragged the carcasses to the scalding
platforms, where they were dressed; and when all that could be were killed and dressed a division was made, every farmer getting more meat than enough for his winter's sup- ply. Like energetie measures were resorted to in other townships, so that in two or three years the breed of wild hogs became extinct.
NATIVE ANIMALS.
The principal wild animals found in the State by the early settlers were the deer, wolf, bear, wild-eat, fox, otter, raccoon, generally called " coon," woodehuck, or ground hog, skunk, mink, weasel, muskrat, opossum, ral)- bit and squirrel; and the principal feathered game were the quail, prairie chicken and wild turkey. Hawks, turkey buzzards, erows, black- birds, were also very abundant. Several of these animals furnished meat for the settlers; but their principal meat did not long consist of game; pork and poultry were raised in abundance. The wolf was the most trouble- some animal, it being the common eneiny of the sheep, and sometimes attacking other domestic animals, and even human beings. But their hideous howlings at night were so constant and terrifying that they almost seemed to do more mischief by that annoy- anee than by direet attack. They would keep everybody and every animal about the farm- house awake and frightened, and set all the dogs in the neighborhood to barking. As one man described it: "Suppose six boys, having six dogs tied, whipped them all at the same time, and you would hear such music as two wolves would make."
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