USA > Indiana > Greene County > Biographical memoirs of Greene County, Ind. : with reminiscences of pioneer days, Volume I > Part 5
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Mrs. John Ruth, who died a few years ago, was the youngest of the family and the last to be called away. Dr. Heacock was the physician in attendance. Some of the old people about Bloomfield may have a recollection of him. Sixty-five years have made many changes.
THE PIONEER'S LIQUOR.
BY HENRY BAKER.
It froze up on him in the winter and soured on him in summer.
The worst evil we had in early times, and we have it yet, only in a more gigantic way, was that of intem- pearance. There was no beer, but whisky straight and whisky hot, whisky cold, and it served two purposes be- side making drunk. In the summer it drove the heat
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out, and in the winter it drove the cold out, but it didn't kill offhand as it does now. Cheap whisky was made at cheap distilleries, or still houses, as they were termed. and sold cheap, or exchanged for corn, two gallons of whisky for one bushel of corn, and it was considered al- most a prime necessity in every home. One old man I well knew, who loved his dram dearly, was a frequent patron of one of these cheap still houses, though he lived several miles distant. He would take a sack of shelled corn on horseback and go to the still house and ex- change it for four gallons of the one thing needful, and the amount would last him about a month. At last, tired of doing business on so small a scale, he decided to take a wagon load in the fall and get a barrel, as he thought that would last a whole year. The exchange was made and the barrel was carefully set away in his smoke house, where he could draw at his liking, but when cold weather set in, and he needed warming up every day, his hopes were frustrated, for the cheap whisky froze up and his labor and corn were gone. He was not slow in notify- ing the distiller of his loss and demanded reparation. The distiller, not wishing to have his business reputation wrecked, told him 'he would make another barrel in the spring that would be all right. Agreeable to promise, the barrel was filled again and placed in the smoke house and better times dawned once more on the old man. But alas! when the weather warmed, the whisky soured and
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the old man's hopes were again frustrated. If the same grade of whisky was made now it would be a God-send to the country.
OLD PIONEER HORSEBACK MAIL CARRIER.
BY HENRY BAKER.
James Stalcup, an old pioneer horseback mail car- rier, died at the home of Thatcher Stalcup in Washing- ton township a few years ago, aged eighty years. "Uncle Jim," as he was familiarly known, was a son of Thomas Stalcup, one of the first settlers in Washington township, where he made the entry of the land in 1818, that for many years past has been known as the Charley Harwood farm. Here "Uncle Jim" was born in 1819, when Wash- ington township was almost an unbroken wilderness and the nearest neighbor was Thomas Plummer, three miles distant .. A family now three miles away would hardly be known as a neighbor. Washington township at that time, and for many years after, was the center of attraction for hunters for many miles around, as game of all kinds was more plentiful there than elsewhere. Mr. Stalcup's family were all noted hunters, and could report the capture of more game than any other family that ever lived in the township, or perhaps in the county -except it might be Emmanuel Hatfield, whose equal was not known in the state.
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As there were several Jim Stalcups, as well as Elis and Tommys, confusion sometimes grew out of the same, and to avoid mistakes he was called "Honest Jim," or "Watermelon Jim," as he was a noted hand at raising watermelons-hence the name.
In early times mails were nearly all carried on horse- back, and "Uncle Jim" embarked in the business when quite a young man and said he would rather carry mails than to eat when he was hungry. His routes were where he got the best wages, as he hired to contractors, and this he followed many years.
About 1852 he began carrying the mail from Wash- ington to Point Commerce, forty miles, and by the way of Owl Prairie, Newberry, Bloomfield, Fair Play and Worthington. Over this route he carried until about the time of the completion of the Indianapolis & Vin- cennes Railroad, about eighteen years. In the travel be- tween the two points named he made the trip once a week each way, eighty miles, and in the time he traveled over sixty thousand miles, more than twice the distance around the world, or over six times the distance from New York to San Francisco.
He had a constitution that never showed defect until he passed the meridian of life. High water was all that ever prevented him from delivering mails on time. One time on the way from Washington to New- berry in time of high water he came to a stream that
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was full and beyond the banks, and, not knowing the exact route, he decided to try his horse's swimming faculties, so he plunged into the water and swam across without wetting the mail, and upon arriving at Newberry, wet as water could make him, the postmaster, seeing his situation, asked him how it happened that he didn't get the mail wet, to which he replied that he carried the mail bag on the top of his head while his horse swam across the stream with him on its back.
"Uncle Jim" was a bachelor and an honest man. His memory will long be revered by all who knew him.
COFFINS IN EARLY TIMES.
BY HENRY BAKER.
The first white inan buried in Eel River township was John Banyan, who was buried in a poplar trough made expressly for the occupant. Mrs. Josephine An- drews, widow of the late William C. Andrews, one of the founders of Worthington in 1849, a daughter of James Stalcup, one of the first settlers in Greene county, tells how her father said many of the first coffins in the county were made of hickory bark, if at a time of the year when the bark would peel, which was May, June and July. The bark of the hickory is very thick, and by chopping the bark off around a tree of sufficient size,
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about a foot from the ground, and again about six or seven feet up the tree, to suit the height of the corpse, and then, by splitting the bark up and down the tree, the bark could be taken off in a whole piece. It was then placed in the grave with the open side spread open enough to lay the corpse in, when the bark was closed up and the hickory bark coffin was completed and the grave was ready to fill up. It will be remembered this was before the days of a hearse or of embalming or of high-priced burial outfits such as are now common.
Other times of the year troughs were dug out of solid logs or boxes were made out of clapboards riven out of the finest white oak tree the world ever produced. This, too, was before the days of sawmills of any kind where lumber could be had, al- though the price of lumber was very low. Often it was the case that many were not able to pay for the lum- ber in a coffin so were compelled to take the cheap kind of coffins, bark, clapboards and troughs, as above men- tioned. About the first sawmills in the country were at Terre Haute, Indianapolis, Bloomington and Vincennes. A few years later mills sprung up on the streams farther out in the wilds, which were hailed with approval of all the early pioneers, whose lot it was to encounter many hardships and privations incident to the settlement of a new country.
About the first water power saw and grist mill in
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the county was built about 1820 by Col. Levi Fellows on Plummer creek in Plummer township, so named after the building of the Fellows mill. The writer's father was a cabinet maker by trade and made many coffins along in the forties from lumber sawed at the old Fellows mill when prices ranged from fifty cents for a child's coffin to one and two dollars for large sizes. The cost of the material used in the making was from fifteen to twenty-five and fifty cents each and it was found that the prices, were about all that could be paid, as times were hard, and money scarce.
Contrast the prices as compared with the present prices. A plain, flat lid covered the whole coffin. A lot of fine, soft shavings was generally put in the bottom of the coffin for the body to lie on. Sometimes before screw- ing the lid on, a little piece of cheap muslin was tacked over an extra lot of shavings in the head of the coffin for a pillow, and it was a very nice pillow indeed. The screws used were the common wood screws, and often in their place nails were used. As an extra the coffin was lined from the head down to the bend. The corpse, where the family could afford it, was always dressed in a white shroud or winding sheet made by the women or girls of the neighborhood, who always donated this work, as did the neighbors in digging the grave.
Sweet milk and venitian red applied with a rag made a very nice finish for coffins, after a vigorous rubbing
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with a handful of fine soft shavings. Sometimes, when this cheap paint or stain couldn't be had, a very good substitute was found in summach berries bruised in water and applied with a cloth, which gave a violet color. The first raised lid coffin I ever saw was made by my father in 1848 for Alexander Gault, one of our old-time teach- ers, who gave orders for my father to make his coffin and not to spare any pains or expense. It was of white walnut, and was said to have been the nicest coffin ever made in the neighborhood, or, perhaps, in the county, and the cost was six dollars. Six dollars now wouldn't pay for a pauper's coffin.
I don't think my father ever received cash in full for a coffin of any kind. Payment was generally made in a few bushels of wheat or corn, or perhaps work, as best he could get, and very often getting nothing. The coffins for my father and mother, who died in the fall of 1861, only three weeks apart, were made of walnut and cost four dollars each and were considered nice, and were made by a regular cabinet maker, whose trade it was to make coffins. Coffins required but little skill in the making, as they were generally very plain. About 1855 the first hearse was brought to the county, and embalming was many years after, and it was many years later on be- fore any one thought of making a charge for digging graves without it was in the cities or large towns. And the neighbors kindly tendered the use of their wagons
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and team to go for the coffins and also conveyed the coffin and corpse to the grave free of charge, so it will be seen that funeral expenses were very light as compared with the present times. In the spring of 1842, when the mud was knee-deep and roads almost impassable, two men came four miles through the mud with an ox team hitched to a sled to my father's shop and wanted a cof- fin made as quickly as possible. The order was filled in two hours or less time and placed on the sled and the team waded through the mud as best they could to the house where lay the corpse, and after placing the corpse in the coffin, the coffin and corpse were placed on the sled and followed to the grave by the sorrowing relatives and friends, most of whom were on foot, as the roads were almost unfit for travel in any other way, as was often the case in early times.
THE REVOLUTIONERS.
BY W. D. RITTER.
Of the Revolutioners that resided in Greene county I give the following reminiscences, with such other facts as are obtainable : ·
JOHN ABBOTT.
From "Simp" Osborn, the old Mexican soldier, and his brother Jesse, I learn that John Abbott, their grand-
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father, was raised near Chesapeake Bay, in Maryland. They don't know where or under whom he served in the Revolution, but very likely he was a member of the "Maryland" line. By courtesy of Frank Pate, in show- ing me his abstracts of land titles, I learn that he bought of James Warrick, Sr., on September 13, 1834, the eighity acres of land which comprises the Bloomfield cemetery. He gave the first ground for the purpose of burial there and was one of the early ones himself to be laid there to rest. Mr. Abbott was a good citizen, and was com- monly known over the county as "Jack" Abbott. I heard the name often in my childhood. I knew his sons, Alum- by and George. The former lived many years near where Joe Leavitt now lives. George was a soldier of the War of 1812. "Markers" have been placed to their graves. Many of the descendants are in this county. A large number of the Osborns, part of the Skinners and "Abe" Spainhower's children in Worthington are among the number. Three of "Simp" Osborn's sons all lay dead at once in his house many years ago.
JAMES BLEVINS
lived in the neighborhood of Scotland, and very likely died there. We know no more about him than that he was a soldier of the Revolution. Blevins was one of the fourteen I saw march on the Fourth of July in the long ago. He was a large man physically.
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JOSHUA BURNETT,
the father of Morris R. Burnett, now deceased, late of Taylor township, who lived and died in the same town- ship, was a native of New Jersey. He had a conspicuous natural "mark" that covered one of his temples, but did not injure his looks. He had been a man of very fine physical structure-neither too much nor too little flesh ; nice, manly, rugged proportions and appearance. He lived nearly a hundred years and was buried in old Plum- mer (now Taylor) township. We know nothing about his services in the war, save that he was an honored sol- dier in it.
FRANCIS CHANEY
was a South Carolinian, and when a boy his father took him to see Lord Cornwallis when he raised the "royal standard" in South Carolina under which to swear the people to allegiance to the British crown, the "royal stand- ard" being the great national ensign of England, a flag a hundred feet long. Mr. Chaney's father had gone to see the general for a purpose I have forgotten. Corn- wallis persuaded the boy to enter the British army. He said he was extremely ignorant of the cause of the war and would have done so in a minute, but he was under age and his father would not let him. Cornwallis gave them each a bottle of wine. On their way home they
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drank the wine and threw the bottles away. Afterwards General Sumpter (after whom Fort Sumpter was named) sat on a log all day and explained to him so that he en- listed in our army. He was in the siege of Ninety-six, battle of Eutaw Springs and elsewhere. He was a black- smith by trade and worked in the shop with Francis Ma- rion in that ever to be remembered making of swords out of mill saws. At Eutaw Springs he saw the use of his own swords when a battery was playing on the "Maryland Line." So highly was that body of men prized that great exerti ns were made to save them. There was one thing about these old veterans that can never be told-the heartfelt reverence the people had for them wherever they were seen. A man in Greene county sued Mr. Chaney for twelve and one-half cents ( that was before the day of dimes), and on trial Mr. Chaney proved that he had already paid it twice. This was then sup- posed to be the meanest trick in the world.
When a little boy I was passing a sugar camp in company with a man driving a wagon in which Mr. Cha- ney was riding. He said he wanted one more good drink of sugar water before he died.
The man who drove the wagon and myself got over the fence and brought a trough of sugar water to the wagon so he could drink out of it. As we were climb- ing the fence with the trough, a difficult task, the man said with an earnestness I never heard equaled, "I do love to wait on the old man."
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Mr. Chaney was a good workman and he had helped to make anvils and many other articles of the highest use- fulness. One of his specialties was the making of cow- bells. He knew how to "tune" his bells. No bell of any kind can sound at its best without being in tune. He was very intelligent in regard to the chemistry of metals, tem- pering, brazing and soldering, as well as making the combination of chemicals for the purpose he understood well. He was buried near the old Olley mill on Rich- land creek.
WILLIAM CLENNY,
the father of "Alec" Clenny, who lived and died north of Bloomfield, was a Virginian and fought in the Revolu- tion with the highest and best leaders-both Washington and Greene. . Washington always said if he was lost he wanted Greene put in his plac .
Mr. Clenny was at the closing scene of Yorktown. He remembered well the names of the French officers who served there, and to hear him pronounce them as he did was a rich literary treat to any one. He was an ex- cellent citizen all his long life and made his own living by patient, useful labor, tanned his own leather, made his own and family's shoes, raised wool, cotton and flax, of which their clothes were made, and made his hand-mill on which was ground their breadstuff. He had an almost match- less figure, showing an exquisite model of perfect man-
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hood, rugged and stalwart. In his last years he was entirely blind. His dust lies in the Bloomfield cemetery.
WILLIAM CONWAY
was a native of South Carolina. When a little boy he was kidnaped on the seashore and taken to Cuba and kept there three years, then brought back. While there he picked grapes. He said the pickers were allowed to eat at the first and last pickings, but at no other. When making tree sugar the children were allowed to eat at the first and last makings, but at none else. He was a natural mechanic and made his own pocketknives; would use no other. He made excellent rifles, locks, triggers and all. The only lock of those days was the flintlock, much more complex than any lock of the present.
Mr. Conway's locks had to be double-bridled inside and out and have a "fly" on the tumbler-all these of the best type; then the shooting of his gun must be so good that, to use his own words, he could hit a twenty-five- cent piece a hundred yards.
He served eight years in the army of the Revolu- tion. He helped bury so many of his comrades that he said, when he was at the age of eighty-six, he wanted to be buried soldier fashion; that is, to be wrapped in what- ever he died on, like the soldier in his blanket, and laid in the grave, and yet he had made a great many coffins
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for others, for which he never would take a cent of pay. Whether the wish was complied with at his burial I do not know. He never took a cent of pension. His rea- sons were that he considered the risking of life in war to be above money.
He was in good health all the time during the war. was never wounded, and thought the service to be but the debt that the able, capable men owed to their coun- try-that he was as able to make a living as anybody, and was willing to do it.
He was a pioneer frontiersman, a hunter, farmer and general mechanic. He put his time to making arti- cles of the highest usefulness-the axe, plow and all other tools used in that day. He could build a cabin in all its parts, then make everything that was used in and about it.
He made everything used in making clothing- spinning wheels, looms, etc. To name all would include things that people of the present (many of them) could not understand. He was low of stature, a little stooped in the shoulders, quick in action, united the quietest mind to the most dauntless courage.
In the wilderness of Kentucky, where Mr. Conway would push out alone to hunt a new home, he was calm, though surrounded by ravenous beasts and savage men. His health was perfect, even when sleeping on the ground in all kinds of weather. He did an incredible' amount of work with the uttermost patience and method. He died
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at the age of eighty-eight years. When alone in the wil- derness of Kentucky, here is a supper from Mr. Con- way's own cook book: Stick a piece of fat bear meat before the fire on a stick to broil. Just under it a piece of fish on another stick. As the bear meat broils the grease drops on the fish; then stick the hunter's knife in the fish, work it around to let the grease down in. Pew- ter dishes, plates and spoons, as well as the moulds they were run m, were among the articles of his production. He was buried at Ooley's mill on Richland creek.
SIPPLE HARVEY
lived near Eel river, in Smith township. The place of his nativity we do not know. He was one of those who marched in the squad of fourteen on July 4th in Bloom- field in the long ago. He was a very large man. Big "Jim" Harvey, the famous flatboat pilot of old Point Commerce, was his son; also Anderson Harvey, another great pilot of the olden flatboat times, was a farmer.
HENRY HUFFMAN,
grandfather of "Dick" Huffman, was a native of Wash- ington county, Pennsylvania, and served in the French and Indian war, which lasted from 1754 to 1763. It is not known at what time, where or under whom he served
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-whether under Braddock or Forbes or whom, or whether he served in company with Washington or not.
Living where he did, it is very likely he served against Fort Du Quesne, now Pittsburg. If so, he served with Washington, for Washington was in the two expe- ditions against that place, the first under Braddock and the next under Forbes. He afterwards, like Washington, served through the Revolution, in company with Mr. Shryer, named in this sketch. They were from the same neighborhood. In 1819 he, in company with Mr. Shryer, moved to Indiana, Daviess county-that part of it which is now Greene county, Taylor township-and lived near Mr. Shryer a short time, then returned farther east and lived about two years in Ohio, dying in that state, and was buried near Lawrenceburg, Indiana, which town is just at the state line.
So far as I know Mr. Huffman outranks for length of service as a soldier any man who ever lived in this county, having fought through both these long and bloody wars. Other branches of the Huffman family live in Washington and Daviess counties. He was a woodturner, wheelwright and chairmaker by trade.
FRANCIS LANG
was a Marylander, a member of the honored famous "Maryland Line," one of the most notable bodies of men
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that served in the Revolution. He was in the siege of Ninety-six and saw a woman shot who had come out of the fort to a spring to get water. The sentinel at the spring allowed her to go away with one bucket of water, but warned her not to come again. She came again car- rying a babe at her breast. The sentinel ordered her away, telling her he was compelled to shoot her if she got water again. She filled her bucket and started to the fort, and the sentinel shot her dead, but Mr. Land and Mr. Chaney ( they were both there and saw it) differed about the babe-one said it was killed, the other that it was not.
Mr. Lang was in the battle of Eutaw Springs when the British battery played on the "Maryland Line." Such was the feeling of the partisan troops held by regulars that Mr. Lang always thought there never was such a man as Francis Marion.
Mr. Chaney's answer to this, "Sure as there is a Francis Lang, there was a Francis Marion," for, as we have seen in our article on Mr. Chaney, he (Chaney) had worked in the blacksmith shop with Marion himself, mak- ing swords of mill saws. Mr. Lang owned land, lived many years, died and was buried near old. Jerry Work- man's.
I knew him well and he was a good citizen. Our old soldier and poet friend, J. R. Corbley, says the road is cutting and wearing into his grave and that of his wife.
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By the way, the wife (Susana) was the last person wlio drew Revolutionary pension in all this county.
FIELDING OAKLEY
was a Virginian and was with Washington himself in the War of the Revolution. He lived in Taylor township, Greene county, and was the father of the noted Nancy Hatfield, the grandfather of Captain Fielding Hatfield. Mr. Oakley was a large man physically.
The last time I was at his house he told his wife she cheated him in her age when she married him-told her. she was forty years old then. She disputed his word. He then said she was thirty-nine years and seven months old at that time, which she did not dispute. Mrs. Oak- ley excused herself by saying that young men were scarce and hard to get at the close of the war; that dur- ing the war a husband was not to be got at all, and that owing to the fact that she was good to work and make a living, she thought there was no wrong in using a little strategy, a little policy and management, to get a hus- band ; said she had cleared land, made fence, plowed and raised corn, raised flax, pulled it and made it into cloth ; had raised wheat, reaped and threshed it. She was a good spinner and weaver. She lived some time after his death, and if her gravestone in Bloomfield cemetery tells the truth, for she and her husband lie there side by side,
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