USA > Indiana > Grant County > Centennial history of Grant County, Indiana, 1812 to 1912 : compiled from records of the Grant county historical society, archives of the county, data of personal interviews, and other authentic sources of local information > Part 24
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Cartoons have always been effective agencies in Grant county pol ities, a sweeping glance at a caricature telling all in an instant that is carried in a whole column of carefully written editorial matter. and Willis G. Borne and Andrew E. Bodine have both injected virus into the local situation by their clever chalk plate efforts, Music, 100, no difference how young the "heavenly maid," has always had a potent influence in local campaigns, and who does not remember Dudley's band, and how when the music died away it went back to Johnstown to hibernate until another campaign, and Andrew Jackson with his drum corps and a long time ago the Indian band. and all the bands ever organized in Grant county-all of them stood ready to fill political engagements. "Marching Through Georgia," and "John Brown's Body" will always quicken the pace of the slow-going populace in cam- paign years. People used to carry torches and march to the rhythm of "Steele, Steele, George W. Steele," and Andrew Jackson with his fife and drum corps was part of every parade for many years if it. happened to be a Republican occasion, but one day Andrew Jackson died and no one has as yet faken his place in the political campaign procession. He always came in front the "settlement." and his drum corps was part of every campaign.
Always back in the days of the Back Crock Quaker meeting house it is said that when John Flinn, who laid the brick in that old strne ture for $50, had finished the job he daneed a jig on the wall and a 1 . presence of some of the sedate old Quakers. Years afterward. when
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he was asking their suffrage patronage. they remembered the incident against him, and he did not seenre a coveted county office from their opposition, superinduced by that fact, and thus discretion is always the better part of political valor in Grant county. While many of the Quakers, who were nearly all Repubbeans, later affiliated with the Pro- hibition party, others also belong to it, and they still stand on decorum in high places. While it used to be designated as the "Democratie Aid Society," because it weakened the Republican vote, it has drawn con- scientious voters -- men who vote as they pray, from all sources, and the Prohibition party expresses the political sentiment of many persons. Just as diferent churches represent different religions convictions, different political parties are adapted to different natures.
While the Prohibition party as a national issue was organized in 1882, it was first recognized in Grant county in 1884, when Nathan Coggeshall, Eli Coggeshall, Bennett 1. Shugart. Denny Jay, A W. Jay, John Ratliff, John Q. Thomas and others began voting the ticket, and in the 1912 election there were about 900 in the "water wagon" in Grant county. The Grant county Prohibitionists and the W. C. T. U'. have always worked hand in glove, and the women have dietated its policy -- morality the issue at stake. Eli Coggeshall asserts that it costs him $100 a year to have a conscience in politics, and the Nathan C'ogge- shall descent has controlled the situation in both the Prohibition party and the women's political wing of it ever since its organization. Grant is the bammer Indiana county from both the Prohibition and W. C. T N'. standpoint, the strong Quaker population having mich to do with it, and Quakers lead all other denominations in both organizations. The Phalans and Patriot along with the Union Signal and Message have excellent patronage in Grant county.
While the Democrats. like the poor, are always with you, they ante- date the county, going back to Thomas Jefferson. When the pioneers rame along they brought their polities with them, saying nothing about their religion, and there were some early day Democrats among them. James Sweetser, Dr. James Shively, James F. McDowell. Andrew .1. Harlan, Colonel Asbury Steele, Wiley Wood. George Strange, Samuel R. Thompson, Frank and JJames Thompson, Henley James, and there were others who were early day Democrats, but when the war cloud overhung the country they came over to the Lincoln point of view and changed their political relation. The local Democratie organization centers about the Jefferson Club, and from that center goes out most of the political significance and influence to the entire county. The Jefferson Club had its inception with Guy Hanna, at the time a teacher in the Marion Normal College, but later president of the Indiana Boys' Reformatory at Plainfield. After its organization Grant County Dem- ocrats were mited in a way never known before in the history of the county, and what has been accomplished as a party has been through the ageney of the Jefferson Club, which affords a social as well as political meeting place, and where the "political pot is always boiling." M. M. Kilgore was first president, but official honors are distributed and no one holds continuons office -- the Jefferson Club in the interest of Grant county Democrats. When T. II. Banks was a Republican political speaker in Grant eounly, he used to amuse his andienees by saying that a wrangle never meant the disruption of the Democratic party. but always evolved more Democrats. The love of peace and harmony was not in the best interests of the Democratic party -- that it flourished best under adversity.
When the Centennial History copy is ready for publication there are still a few John C. Fremont Republicans in Grant county, men who
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east their first Republican ballot in 1856, and who were already lined up when the opportunity offered in 1860 to vote for the "Great Eman- cipator." The name of Lincoln has ever since been a watchword in the Republican party in Grant county, although other political parties have filched some of the reflected honors. While the Republicans have long wielded the balance of power, the "big stick" is not exclusive property and party leaders have sometimes lined up elsewhere when they could not control the situation. "The Knights of the Golden Cir- ele" seemed to be a special concern with Republicans, and they have always controlled the negro vote in Grant county. "Turn the rascals out," has always been the cry of the party asking favors, and since the Republican party has had the balance of power in Grant county that war ery bas usually been directed at it. There are people who claim that whatever of reform and progress has come to the community has come through the Republican party, but people no longer follow blindly in the wake of any leader, and the divided municipal vote in Marion. November 4, 1913, may be considered as the straw winch indi- cates the way the political wind is blowing in Grant county. When unrest possesses a people the political strongholds are sometimes over- thrown, and the G. O. P. is looking well to its moorings. The elephant and the rooster have had many political contests, but not much is said about tariff any more, and the bull moose and clasped hand, the workers of the world united, and the old-time third party rising sun emblem are dividing the honors and enlisting the sympathies of the people until the past is no longer any forceast of the future in Grant county. You work for me and I will work for you may not always hold good, but "damned if you do and damned if you don't" is likely to remain the political reward for unselfish effort.
While the Grant County W. C. T. E. has long been considered as a political machine in conjunction with the Prohibition party, the Woman's Franchise League, which came into existence locally only a few months ago, has as its avowed purpose the ballot in the hands of women. Mrs. Marion M. Keller is its first president-an honor thrust npon her, and yet she admits that the ballot is the objective purpose, and the constitution needs attention at the hands of the women. Leaders among men admit the need of organized effort, and the women have entered the ring with a determination. While men sometimes wander after strange gods, the women, are apt to have a singleness of purpose-a definite end in view; and while organization is essential, there is a prerequisite- there must be something to organize, and women are at home when it comes to creating sentiment. There is no question abont sentiment being the motive power in the political machinery, and education at the helm is the best sentiment- and women do stand for the educated ballot. That a policy is right is not enough-the poo ple must be shown that it is right, and positive, active sentiment in behalf of the principle involved must be created, and that is certainly the field for the women. Figures show that the voters change that a score of years ago there were many active politicians who have ended their careers, and two decades hence the seed sown by the Woman's Franchise Leagne may be bearing fruit and women may be shaping the destiny of the Nation-the hand that rocks the cradle may be moving the world.
XXVI. REMINISCENCES OF PIONEER SCHOOLS By Thomas D. Tharp.
Within the life of one now living, the strides of the work in edu cation have been marvelous, but not more so than modes of travel.
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Darius Greene was a pioneer in the "flying machine" business. And there has been many a hearty laugh over the observations of his brother as he looked in through a crack in the barn where Darius was working out the great invention and testing it. A man said to me : " My father never saw an electric light or an electric car." And some now living may say-1 have no picture of my father or mother. They died before pictures were taken. And what a wonder of the world the phonograph and the new ship Imperator! They may well be named the eighth and ninth wonders of the world, and we might add scores to the old " Seven Wonders of the World." Compare Franklin to Edison and it is a spark as the coal oil lamp to the burning of Chicago, as a point to an infinite line. In this brief writing for the new history of Grant county, I can institute a limited number of comparisons, only. of the knowledge either from observation or gathered from elders, of the status of the school work in our country. My father, Alfred Tharp, came to the county before I was born. He had ten chil- dren. I was next to the youngest. Hence Ilearned much from my sisters' and older brothers' experience. My chance was better. To our advantage our father had somewhat of an education and gave his chil- dren a start. The first school my youngest sister and I attended was taught in a cabin on our farm by Malley Willentts, our consin, a half sister of the late Clark Willentts, a son of Clark Willentts, senior, who owned at one time a large part of the land our county seat city is built on a real pioneer and benefactor of our county. As our neigh bors I may name: Ziba Marine, William Jones, Caleb Morris, Thomas Pyatte, Francis Jones, Richard Jones, William Webb, William J. Smith Jonathan Willeutts, Jesse Bogue, Barney Bogue, David Hill, Sampson Reeves; a little later, Daniel Dwiggins, Feltey Hann and Spencer Brinkley. All of these Roosevelt kind of families attended our school, the Fairfield by name. Ours and the Quaker school ( Mississinewa ) were the best in the county, not excepting the town school. Willis Davis was one of the first teachers in the Friends school and most of my sisters went to him till ours was started. They walked two miles and back. A son of Willis Davis ( Clarkson ) became principal of Spice- land Academy, and a noted edneator. of the state. Another one of our boys, Louis Jones, become even more noted, for he had charge of Indian- apolis schools, then of the Cleveland ( Ohio) schools at the highest salary paid at that time -- $10,000. Later Joseph Jay tanght the Mississinewa school a number of years, drawing to him a large attendance, and built up many noble characters in his work and by his example. He had a fine personality. I seem to hear his well modulated voice and see his kind look and natural easy manner in his work. Personality in a teacher or in a preacher is a basic factor in success. Having returned home one vacation. I attended a grove meeting in Washington town- ship held by the Wesleyaus, and at cleven on Sunday, Leah Moore preached from the text "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord." Freedom, treated personally and nationally, was the line of thought. It was in the days of our slavery agitation. I have never forgotten the text, or manner and power of the speaker, so adapted in her personality. She was the mother of our Debbie Moore, a teacher well remembered by many in our county, and of such fine personality. She became the wife of our Doctor Wall. "Though dead she spraks." About this time Robert Morgan became teacher of our school and gave it a great uplift. He was a scholarly Christian man. He planted good seed that yielded an abundant crop. Mr. Morgan became a physi- cian and served his country in the Civil war. A coincidence-his com- pany "F" was next to mine-"D." Our next teacher was Daniel
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Ilockett, who had been under Horace Mann's instructions. Daniel came to us with all the fundamentals of teaching, and warmed up the enthusiasm of this great man that aroused the thought and energy of students. He was a born and finished teacher. He was a teacher far in advance of what we had known, and would stand in the front line to-day. He would go to the board and introduce new subjects and show us how to proceed, and then send us to the board. Hle would draw maps. Under this Daniel the dawn of a new, bright hori zon began to appear. The teacher usually boarded at our house. This was good for us. I must not forget to refer to the ball games at our school in our woods across the road from the schoolhouse, and how the bell in the hand of the teacher would call us from play to work. And then the spelling matches -choose up and give an afternoon where a week to spelling and see who could stand at the head of the column. Both of the schools named often met and spent an evening in spelling. Our late Dr. Milton Jay was among our best spellers, and Mrs. Samuel Barrier was often seen at the head of the column. And then the debates and exhibitions. Once the writer essayed to declaim a comie piece, and someone called out at close -- "small potatoes " I never entertained the thought subsequently of becoming a clown, but let. "Little Ben" Wallace have that part of the exhibition. In my next time I tried a turn ou an extract from Daniel Webster and the audience cheered me. Well, back of this period of reform and progress was the "Lond School" where you could hear the uproarions noise on your approach a good fraction of a mile away. Our late Nelson Turner taught our school one term in the days of "Loud Study, " and often heads would be stuck out at windows but the chimes kept agoing. and the teacher heard to ery out, "Take in your heads." This custom was eliminated in time and the schools became quiet. There was a spiritual power and eloquence in the silence of Friends' meetings in earlier days, but subsequently these meetings became loud in their worship. Under "Loud schools" many corollaries may be reckoned with as "unnecessary noises." as treated in an open letter by President Grover Cleveland, in which he names some "unnecessary noises" of engines, fireworks and others. In the old country across the ocean the railroads do their business without much noise. No whistle for a start or a stop. So one must be alert, or he may be left off, or left on when he wants off. There may be extremes reached in the quiet, as I never heard a hoy whistle or anyone start up a spontaneous song in the old country. We do not object to harmony of sounds-"the music of the spheres," whatever that may be-but we do object to "unnecessary noises," as Mr. Cleveland suggests. Deleterious results often come to wrak. nervous persons along railroad tracks and near machinery in their localities. Thunder comes in the slapping together of the air split by electricity, and we are often startled, but purification of air results and the beautiful flash of light. Thunder never kills; electricity may and often does kill and destroy by fire. There was a kind of varied or multiplied intonation in this "Loud School" as well as in the ont burst of silence into utterance with the Friends. Most of my relatives were of the Friends church and Iused to drop into their sittings and Jater into their worship. The elatter of the " Loud School" may be com pared to the concert ringing of many bells where some are cracked or imperfect in make. As my wife and I went from Mt. Blane and de- seended from the mountains into Switzerland, at the base we came into a chestnut grove, carpented with luxuriant grass, and a man was starting a herd of cattle home at sunset. Each one From the little calf to the old mother eow had a bell on varying in make and size and
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material, according to grade of the wearers, from the silver tinkler on the calf to the brass composition on the cow. So it was a mingled variety of sounds from various metals and grades of bells. There was a kind of modulated harmony in it all. Switzerland is a land of bells. We do not forget the Swiss herd.
Not long after this renaissance in our school some of us attended the County Seminary under Nathan Doan as principal and John C. Harlan as assistant. Here we took up the more advanced branches: Algebra, Geometry, Latin, etc. You must not confound the County Seminary with the Marion Academy held in the same building years after, a private school with J. R. Sperbeck as principal and closed up at the opening of the Civil war. Most of the young men students entered the army. In the fall I needed some money. So I got my two years' certificate and taught the Howe school, four miles east of Marion, a twelve weeks' term at a dollar a day, and paid a dollar a week for my board, net $48, as you see. This was my only country school, and at the age of sixteen years, and many of my scholars were twenty years of age, and some more. I enjoyed the winter and had a fine place to board, at Jackey Pierce's, and Mrs. Pierce was well versed in the Bible and accepted Alexander Campbell's interpretations of the serip- Inres; she also knew poetry and history. She had two daughters that attended school, Sarah and Susan, good students, and a son Winhorn, a lawyer, and once a partner of our late Howell D. Thompson. Here I met many of the Christian preachers, as this was headquarters for them when they came around, and they often joined us in our debates. The late lleuly James, Kersey Pyle, "back" Oren, Abram Goody koontz, Jerry Cross and others were members of our debating elub. Mr. Cross taught the Burson school. Ihave a picture of this old log schoolhouse with its shed to shelter the wood at one end. John Hart sock took the picture. I sent one to the Contemdal at Philadelphia. We held our school in the large new Christian church after three works in the little old shack near Mr. Howe's house. Our attendance was large and our spelling matches filled the room to overflowing. They would come in as far as Farmington, where the late Dr. William Seott taught the school. What a change! Now you go into one of our country schools. You find regular grade work, and the best modes used by the teacher, a graduate of one of our normals. Our state has the largest school fund with maybe one or two exceptions, and our public schools stand as high as in any other state. The seating of the room in former times would be a wonder now, long benches without backs. The feet of the small children could not reach the floor. As the makers had no thought of grades so they let their feet swing, book in one hand, one arm around comrade, and so a whole bench full would sway back and forth, spelling or reading at top of voice, and eyes not on books part of time. Such as had pommanship and arithmetic sat at a long board put up at the wall and a long bench to sit on. To reach a seat here was a great promotion. Their faces to its wall, their backs to the teacher and school. The stove stood in the center of the room. Our late John Ratliff put the first blackboard into the schools of the county when he taught the school at JJoneshoro. Before that time those that studied arithmetic had a large blank book into which they copied the "sums" and the full form and answer appeared there, and these books were public property in a way, under the hand of the owner. Not many original solvers of problems. My father had one covered with a fawn skin. This cover and the pemanship and the artistic order made the book a thing of beauty. As my brother needed it I never got the use of it. The teacher went around and sat with
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this class of students, giving them a lift when they got into a hole. The small scholars he called to his side, one by one, giving one or two minutes to each.
I am reminded by the voices of many now elderly women in Marion, not to forget the pioneer primary teacher, Miss Julia Norton, sister of Mr. Eugene Norton and Mr. Arthur Norton. prominent citizens and business men of our city. Miss Norton started the little girls in their edneation and helped their mothers to make them good women. She kept her school in her own little frame house, where now stands the rector's home, which she donated as the property now stands. A record in granite is made of her in Gethsemene church. She entered into the lives of many as they came to her, and what she gave them was as "bread cast on the waters to be seen many days hence." The rod was not much used in the schools named.
XXVIL. JEFFERSON TOWNSHIP IN HISTORY
By I. M. Miller and Jacob Bugher
Saturday, December 30, 1905, was Jefferson Township day before the Historical Society, and there are two Jefferson historians because the late Jacob Bugher, who was asked to follow Mr. Miller in a " Then and Now" reminiscence, misconstrued his assignment and produced an excellent history, although he forget it and left it at home, and in an extempore speech he declared the "people of today are not like they used to be. and the change has not all been within myself." The two Jefferson historians held frequent conversations -- were the best of friends, and leaving the library that day, after having listened to the words of the Rev. Almon Greenman, who, like Mr. Bugher, was an honorary member of the society, when he said in prayer: "We are met here in the interest of the history of the past, to think of the past and to talk of the past," and in his extempore address Mr. Bugher had started in to trace the religions, social and political developments, keeping the religions note vibrating until one would think of him as an evangelist, Mr. Miller asked: "Why didn't you just say that you came to Upland when the only way you could see out was straight up ?"'
While Jefferson was the first township to be considered before the ITistorical Society, no other township has been favored with two historians. Mr. Miller's paper follows :
Jefferson township was organized September 6, 1831. on the second day of the first term of commissioner's court held in Grant comity. The township originally consisted of forty sections five by eight miles. but later its boundaries were changed until it now embraces forty-two square miles or sections of land. beginning at the northeast corner and running west six miles, theure south seven miles, thener cast six miles on the Grant-Delaware line and north seven miles on the Grant- Blackford line to the place of beginning. The township is traversed by the Mississinewa river in a northwesterly dirvetion from its entrance with perhaps one-third of the township's area to the left or south of this onee beautiful stream.
The water always attracted men in unexplored country, and con- sequently the first settlements were made near the river in the vicinity of the present town of Matthews. William Case is on record as having built the first house in the township, while some accord the house to
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John McCormick. This house was built in sertion 3, town 22, the south tier of sections, now known as the C'arcins farm, in 1829. A little later in the same year Thomas Littler located north of the river and within the next three years scores of settlers had made entries and occupied their lands, including the families of Joseph Reasoner, lohn W. Milholland, Thomas Dean, Sawyer B. Fergus, John Richards, Robert Sanders, Thomas Wharton, James Needler, John Marshall, Marshall Pugh, Joseph Allen and the MeCormick and Richards families, thus founding a community unsurpassed for all that is good and great in becoming the peaceful possessors of their own homes and firesides.
The general trend of settlement was northward from the river year by year until in 1840 the remotest parts of the township had been in- vaded and the herculean task of "blocking a farm" out of the wilder- ness was a matter of necessity. The chief capital of the settlers was brawn and muscle, and there were trees to Tell. lands to clear and houses to build. There were erops to raise in order to supply the de- mands of the households, and how many have declared that the days were all too short, and many a time at night brush was picked and borned to make ready for planting.
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