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 36
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The first death in the township was Virginia Lugar in 1838. The first marriage was Elam Hiatt and Louisa Patterson on October 25, 1838. Q. B. Jacks and Cinderella Cole were married on September 6. 1839. The first village was Farmington, laid out in 1848 by Andrew Patterson and Benjamin Hillman. Isaac Tritax and Elam Hiatt were the first merchants. Later on Truax sold out to Hiatt, Hiatt to Boek- ford, Beckford to Daniel Hiatt, Hiatt to Alfred Hiatt, then to Sanmel Patterson and the latter closed out the mercantile business and the lots have long since been vacated and the village of Farmington has lost its identity.
The village of Monroe was platted by John Ratliff in 1852. The main streets were called Washington street, running north and south, and Thompson street, running east and west. The writer has the plat. The first building was a frame containing two rooms, twelve by sixteen, and the first school in the district was taught in the west room, the teacher lived in the other room. The first teacher was William Harrison. The house was on the southwest corner of section 10. The first school was in 1850. The patrons got together the pext fall and built a howed log schoolhouse about eighteen rods east of the above named corner on the north side of the road, labor donated. In that log schoolhouse in the
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good old by-gone happy, happy, happy school days, the writer grad- uated under the following instructors, to-wit: William Harrison, two terms; William Chapman, one term; Bennet Spencer, one term; Jacob Mewmaw, one term; Stephen Harrison, one term; Allen Forquer, one term; Robert Tedrick, one term; Miss James, only two months; Lafayette Ayers, one term; George W. Roush, two terms; Rebecca Oren two, the terms being sixty and sixty-five days.
The plat later on was abandoned and upon the establishing of a postoffice in 1852 the name was changed to Arcana, as there was another postoffice in the state by the name of Monroe, and to the rising genera- tion the name of Monroe has lost its identity. The first store was owned by William Harrison and he sold out to Robert Gilbert and he was the first man to establish a trade with the country people in butter, which dates back to 1852. His successors were Zimmerman, Barley & Line, Daniel Patterson, Bonham & Overdizer, Tate, A. Thompson, Boles & Ferguson, George Strange, Jr., Adamson & Green and Ferguson & John- son. Patrick Gregan established a tannery on the northeast corner of section 16 and sold to John King. Samuel Thompson operated a tannery one-half mile west of Arcana in the forties on the branch west of the house. We built the first brick house in the township.
In the township's early history there were three trustees. Some of those that filled a position on the board of trustees were David Wall, George Leonard, Mark Gage, George Strange, T. J. Hults. About Isol the law was changed to one trustee and George Strange succeeded himself for eleven years out of twelve years. Hugh Woody served one year and then came E. Oren, Jantes Boller, J. B. Strange, F. A. Fleming, William Gage, L. B. Oliver, Henry J. Connelly, William Hayes and Alva Nesbitt.
Among the early teachers of Monroe township were Pearson E. Rob- erts. Fornshell J. Bugher, Harrison Mumaw, Chapman Patterson, Alex MeMillan, A. Goodykoontz and John Embree. In those days "lickin' and lamin' " went as bosom companions.
The style of the early schoolhouses was not very artistic, usually made of round logs with long open fire places, with about six feet of a front opening and made of mud and sticks and a log cut out large enough for an eight by ten glass in a row between the logs to light the house. The seats were made of poles split in the middle and legs put in the bark side and the split side turned up to sit on. Holes bored in the wall and pins about two feet long put in and boards put on for a writing desk, and to lay books and slates on. Teachers in those pioneer days were called "masters."
Those pioneer schoolhouses were used for a double purpose and school grounds were occasionally donated for church as well as for school purposes. Church business and services in the main were held in the school houses, but in some instances regular preaching was at private homes. The writer has attended church at private residences. Among the pioneer ministers of local talent were James Hults, Sr., George Gillespie, Mathias Statler, Silas Parks, who laid in a trance for three days, and Phineas Roberts, Thomas Maddox and Joseph Meredith, transient.
The first church house was Rama, built about 1868 by the Motho- dists and was constructed of hewed logs on the Cumberland and Warren road on section 1, abont cighty rods north of the Marion and Eastern gravel road. The second was Oak chapel, built in 1876 on the Cumberland road fourteen miles south of Jadden on the Cumberland and Warren gravel road at the cemetery in section 13. At the raising of this church when the structure was partly up, the frame collapsed and fatally injured George Robb, seriously
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injured David Wall and slightly injured some others. This was built by the United Brethren. Later there arose a difference between the church over a secret organization and the church became divided, and were styled Liberals and Radicals, the Oak chapel property was held by the Liberals and the Radicals built a church on the northeast corner of see- tion 15 in the year of 1896.
The Methodists built in the year of 1896, fourteen miles west of the center of the towuslup in section 16 and the Friends church built in section 35, north side, in the year of 1887. All of the above named church houses are kept in good condition and regular church services maintained except at Rama, which has been abandoned for many years and the house obliterated.
Dr. William MeKinney was the pioneer doctor and lived on the range line in section 7 on the banks of Lugar creek. Dr. James lived at Arcania about 1860. Dr. Lacy lived for a time at Monroe in 1879 and after that at Jadden and Dr. Ranson lived at Jadden and treated Joseph Mills and wife for smallpox, of which both died and afterwards the doctor's child died with it. Drs. Morris and Lacy practiced medicine in the north- west part of the township, Drs. Blaze, Folk and Runnion at Farmington.
Mrs. Nellie Holloway Moon was a pioneer midwife and would travel the byways at all hours of the night alone. Many times you would see her riding on horseback and knitting and she would carry a hickory bark torch at night.
The underground railroad extended from south to north through the township and Charles Atkinson maintained the main office and was the chief conductor. Some of his assistants were Daniel Dwiggins, David Wall, and some others of less note. It was the concealing and aiding of runaway and stolen negro slaves to escape from their masters to C'anada.
Spiritualism flourished about 1852 and continued for several years with rather an exciting but brief existence, coupled with some amusing and other incidents and deceptive practices.
[Editor's note-In the multitude of counsel there is wisdom, and after reading his paper the Monroe historian added several names, at the suggestion of friends, to his soldier list which follows : ]
Almer Holloway, William Schooley, Morgan Maleom, William Sharp, Samuel E. Haines, George W. Hults, Barney Mills, Amos Holloway, John O. White, Asbury Fleming, James W. Bruce, Jesse C. Hollaway. Elias Mills, John B. Hults, Asa Capper, Michael Capper, George W. Fanning, Martin Keefer, John Leonard, Robert Maleom, Isaac Holloway, Mahlon Malcom, Milton Marshall, William Shoemaker, Thomas G. Shoe- maker, David Capper, William M. Dollar, Hallet B. Jacks, Adisson Keever, Linus Marshall, Joseph Maddox, Martin Shannon, David Koever, Elias Ritter, Joseph Rhodes, Eli Wright, Robert Jenkins, Thomas Ben- bow, Jacob Carroll, Robert Lugar, John Timmony, Thomas Coram, Wal- ter Maddox, Elias Johnson, J. D. Moon, Sam Huffman, Isaac Holloway, Jolin Dilly, Stephen Strange, Zenora Woody, Grey Woody, John King, Martin Nelson, Harrison Oliver, James Parker, James Rock. Dan Rock, Martin F. Kimmer, Mills Wall, Harry Oren, John Smith, Allen Pahner, Wesley Smith and Stamen Noe.
The political status of the township has been Democratie but not at all times having Democratic officials. At the presidential election in 1840 the township vote stood: For Van Buren, Democrat, nineteen ; for Harrison, Whig, four. The county cast only 861 votes.
Date, 1844, Democrat, Polk, votes, 21 ; Whig, Clay, votes, 11 ; Liberal- ist, Berney, votes, 5.
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Date, 1848, Democrat, Case, votes, 38; Whig, Taylor, votes, 1; Free Soilers, Van Buren, votes, 47.
Date, 1852, Democrat, Pieree, votes, 39; Whig, Scott, votes, 1.1. The county only east 1,431 votes.
Date, 1856, Democrat, Buchanan, votes, 70; Republican, Freemont, votes, 86; American, Fillmore, votes, 1; County cast 2,970 votes.
Date, 1860, Democrat, Stephen Douglas, votes, 79; Republican, Lin- coln, votes, 84; American, Breckenridge, votes, 4. County east 2,785 votes.
Date, 1864, Demoerat, J. B. MeClellan, votes, 89 ; Republican, Lincoln, votes 86.
Date, 1868, Democrat, Seymour, votes, 135; Republican, Grant, votes, 98.
Date, 1872, Greeley, votes, 107; Republican, Grant, votes, 89.
Date, 1876, Democrat, Tilden, votes, 146; Republican, Hays, votes, 100.
Date 1880, Democrat, Hancock, votes, 163; Republican, Garfield, votes, 121; Nationals, Ben Butler, votes, 11.
Date, 1884, Democrat, Cleveland, votes, 198; Republican, Blaine, votes, 132; Nationals, St. John, Prohibition, vote, I.
Date, 1888, Democrat, Cleveland, Republican Harrison.
Date, 1892, Democrat, Cleveland ; Republican, Harrison.
Date, 1896, Democrat, Bryan, Republican, MeKinley.
Date, 1900, Democrat, Bryan, Republican, Mckinley.
Date, 1904, Democrat, Parker, Republican, Roosevelt.
Date, 1908, Demoerat, Bryan; Republican, Taft.
In the 1838 September term of court there were fifty-two indiet- ments for betting, and among these were John Lugar of Monroe. The fine was twenty-five cents. The Grant county jail had a dungeon at that time and a man could be imprisoned for debt. It is claimed that George W. Stackhouse taught the first school in Monroe township. Others claim the first school was taught in Shaw's gun smith shop. Green B. Jaeks was the second or third teacher and in 1840 a hewed log schoolhouse was built at Farmington out of public money and the first in the township. John Carrell taught the first school in it. The next schoolhouse was built in 1845 on the Charles Atkinson farm. Other early teachers were William Beckford and Howell D. Thompson.
Barney Lugar in the good old days, assisted in cutting a large chi tree for a coon and when the tree Fell, a black bear came out of a large hole and beat a retreat and was soon out of sight, but in another hole further up were two coons. The next day the bear was pursued and killed. Sometime after that as Washington Hults was going along the road leading from ( Monroe) Areana about a mile and a half west From Monroe, on the north side of the road, he spied a bear up in a hickory tree.
I have heard George Leonard relate that soon after he came he en- countered a lion a little south of the southwest corner of his farm. It was a little ways to the west of the road leading to Farmington lying down. At his approach it arose and turned and looked at him, and the suspense was the greatest of his life while they stood and looked each other in the eyes. Finally he gave a shrill "holler" and it turned and walked off. He returned and got his gun, but it had completely dis- appeared. Leonard's contentions were always that is was a lion.
On August 27, 1847, the writer was playing with a stump-tailed, spotted bull pup at the east of his father's cabin, and sungly coiled up close to the corner lay a rattle snake also enjoying the sunny side of the cabin. It was about nine o'clock in the morning and in the play-
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ful mood the rattler was not discovered until he gave the warning that he was going to bite. When I heard him rattle I had my back to him and instantly glancing over my shoulder, I saw him make the leap at me and I dodged him and he fell Full length where I was standing. I ran around to the front and told my mother and when we got around where we could see him he was circling around and going under the house. Mother went in and took the fire poker, which, in those days was a small hand spike, and pried up a puncheon and there lay Mr. Rattler in a coil, ready for the fray, but one rap with that poker set- tled him. It was the largest of its specie ever killed in that region. That is just how near I came to disappointing you and not being here. I was a little less than three years of age then. But a few days ago my mother asked me if I remembered the circumstances and I pointed out to where the log-heap was that she threw the snake on, and she confirmed it.
Charles Atkinson would start as likely at any time on a trip in the evening as in the morning. Ile would start to Fort Wayne with a four horse team and a load of wheat in the evening, and would, it is said, drive all night. In person he looked like the venerable Santa Claus; exemplary, honest, prompt and of a kind disposition.
The Lundays, A. Wickersham and Joel Green and the Goodykoonts moved to lowa in 1852. A son of Lisander Noe's was bitten by a rattle snake that was under a sheat of wheat and died from the effect. It was later learned that whiskey was an antidote for the bite and when freely used soon after the bite it would counteract the poison.
Thomas Smith sold goods at Walnut creek at his farm home and the Jadden postoffice was kept there. Frame Love, Sr., was the first mail carrier. Carlos Goodwin carried the mail for many years to Arcana and Jadden. Jadden was moved to the village of Jadden. In 1902 the R. F. D. was established and Areana and Jadden postoffices were abandoned.
William Enekspringer built a hewed log honse on the northwest quarter of section 16 early in the forties and lived there awhile and then moved to New Jonesboro. Once when out turkey hunting he was calling like a turkey and another party thinking it was a turkey and looking for it, saw Mr. Enekspringer's head over a log. Taking the head to be that of a turkey's he shot Mr. Enspringer in the mouth. The ball came out at the back of his neck, knocking out one tooth, but he recovered from the wound.
In that hewed log house in the early fifties the hogs of a large por- tion of the township were weighed, one at a time on a scale beam, every hog being caught and swung up in an old harness breeching by putting the ring of breeching of one side in the scale beam and putting the other end of the breeching under the hog and lifting the hog up and putting the other side ring in the scale hook the breeching straps being close to the front and the other on the hind legs, completely encircling the hog. If my memory serves me correctly, they were three successive days weighing the hogs that were collected there at that time and they were not little fellows as you might suppose. The largest weighed 600 pounds and belonged to Samuel Hodson. They were of all kinds and styles, typical razor back and some good porkers, and when they were weighed they were turned out in a field together and it looked like they were all on the war path to a hog. In those days that bunch of hogs was a sight. They didn't drive hogs in those days with a buggy whip or a weed. It was with a black snake whip with loaded butt or a good substantial hickory elub ready for defense against the attack Vol. I -16
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HISTORY OF GRANT COUNTY
of a vicious hog. Many times hogs were mainly fatted on the mast and fed out on the commons and reared entirely outside of any inclosure.
In those pioneer days the hogy throughout a large section would all be sold and collected at some central place and driven in large droves to some packing place, usually to Ward or Cincinnati, and sometimes packed at Muncie. One incident at that hog gathering was a little exciting. A vicions hog got affer John L. Thompson and when it was about to get him, Ezra Moon threw a club and hit the hog in its open month. The blow was sufficient to stun it and it gave up the chase. Some years later a slat erate was hung on the scale beam and a chute to push the hogs into the crate and could weigh two or three hogs at a time and then we thought we were "getting there."
" Eli, " the first platform stock scales, were made at Arcana in '64 or '65 by a stock company, composed, as I remember of George Strange. Samuel R. Thompson, E. J. Oren, Absolom Thompson, John B. Me- Arthur, David Wall, Benjamin Schooley and Jefferson Inlis. Even to a recent date the stock was principally gathered together at Arcana. The seales went down and J. Strange since 1882 has maintained private stock scales at Arcana.
The first sorghum known by the writer to be grown was by fames Haines in the early part of the fifties, and he chopped it up in short pieces and boiled it in a kettle in an effort to make sorghum molasses. Of course, it was a failure. Later the process was better understood and rollers were turned out of sugar or brech logs with wooden cogs and two of them put in a wooden frame, a long lever attached to one roller and a horse, hitched to the other end, would travel around and turn the roller. The cane stock was run between the rollers and the juices pressed out and then boiled into syrup. In operating on one of those wooden mills by Enos Johnson, where bis grandson Isaiah now lives, his daughter, Lizzie, a small girl, in feeding the cane in the mill got her hand canght between the rollers and run the hand through to her wrist, necessitating amputation between the wrist and elbow. Smiley M. Farr operated the last sorghum plant in the township of the modern plan with evaporating pans.
The old sorghum syrup reminded me as an edible of the old pump- kin butfer, which autedates the introduction of sorghum. Who of you ever ate pumpkin butter or had if spread on bread for your school days dinner or ate pumpkin syrup or saw the old pumpkin press made of a broad slab, two feet or more wide and six feet long, with pius a couple of inches apart in circular form providing a receptacle for the boiled pumpkin to be pressed ? Then the juice was boiled down into a syrup and thickened with pumpkins. Such were some of the early ways of procuring pioneer luxuries with the old corn pone made in the oven on the old dirt hearth at the fireside of which many times the corn grate was used for grating the meal from the ear of the corn to make it, or the mush for the supper meal.
Enos Johnson was one of the pioneer shoe and book makers. Griffith Jackson another and later David Bakely at Areana. Shoe cobbling in winter months was an evening pasttime in nearly every cabin by the grease lamp or later by the tallow candle. Later boots put in an appearance and the result was we didn't have to coon so many logs but nevertheless would tax them to their heights and had wet feet all the same.
In those days we obtained our leather direct from the tanner, as he would tan the hide and give you half the leather it would make. Heavy hide would make harness, and sole leather the lighter upper Weather. No such thing as split leather in those days. The farmer usually made
HISTORY OF GRANT COUNTY
his own harness with enough leather in one set to make two nowadays. Every home was a manufacturing establishment and the children were apprentices. Everybody had their fax patch and manufactured it into linen, making towels, sheets, shirts, pants, sewing thread and table linen. A tow shirt was as smooth as a rasp.
The sheep was a new innovation when the wolf was chiefly disposed of, and the manufacturing of wool was a new industry for the boys, especially of evenings and rainy days during the wool picking season. There were lots of rainy days, especially in that season for the boy. Early in the spring as possible the fleece was removed from the sheep's back and then washed and spread around over everything that was handy to dry it on, and when dry then the process of further cleaning by whipping and picking. When picked it was carded by hand into rolls, spun, colored by boiling with walnut root bark or maple or madder, usually then woven into linsey or jeans. My! My first jean suit made the other boys jealous.
In 1840 in the log cabin my mother m the winter days after supper, would get on that old loom bench and the last I would know that night was that shuttle spinning through the warp to and Fro and alternately the reed would whack, whack and when I would wake up in the morn- ing, whack! whack, as though it had never stopped during that winter night. Under the loom by the pedal sat an oven of hot coals to keep warm the feet that worked those pedals. My mother was only doing what other mothers were doing. What do we owe to our pioneer mothers, that cheerful spirit that none but a mother with such prix- ations could so cheerfully sing the lullaby, and that voice ringing ont in the forest. "Yoo whoo" for dinner that preceded the trumpet and bugle horn, and the bell. "'Sook cow, sook con," in the direction of the noging of the cow ludl in the forest, at the milking time, which often would be recognized and answered by a lowing of the cow that would come marching in for that tempting morset of slop or lick of salt or perhaps, more than any other thing to enjoy that companion- ship which was very strong between the pioneers in their seclusion and their domesticated animals, their servants.
David Wall built fires around in a deadening to keep the wolves from his young stock corralled on the farm where James F. Hulis now lives. He was a farmer blacksmith in the carly days. Alfred Iliatt and John Zimmerman ran a carpenter and wagon shop and also made coffins early in the fifties. They made the coffins of black walnut on orders, and they had an extensive business. James Farr was a pioneer deer hunter. Israel Jenkins built a large steam saw mill one-half mile east of Farmington, the sash saw being the only one used in those days.
There was a Masonic hall built over the school room in 1867 at Areana and later the lodge moved to Upland. Indiana. There were a number of Grange lodges organized in 1-70 to 1875. There was Monroe Grange 203, Walnut Creek, and at no time was there ever as congenial relation as a whole, among the farmers as at that time. Later the organization of the Farmers' Mutual Benefit Association was exten- sively patronized and fulfilled its time of usefulness. At this time there is a lack of organization and co-operation among the farmers of the township.
The first method of harvesting of wheat and oats was done with hand siekles; soon followed by cradles. In the early sixties came the hand rake reaper, then droppers, then self-rake, then the self-binder. The threshing process first was with fait and tramping out with horses. Early in the fifties, the chaff piler, which contained a cylinder and con-
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HISTORY OF GRANT COUNTY
cave in a frame and looked much like a taming mill, was introduced. A place was cleaned on the ground and the machine knocked the wheat out of the straw and the straw, chaff and grain all went on the ground together and a man on each side with hand rake, raked the straw back off the grain and chaff of which by drawing back formed what they called the "winnow" or winrow. This machine was in- troduced by James Wickersham and when threshing was finished at Henry Smith's there was a ground hog ( woodchuck ) found under the stack. It was thrown in the machine, while running, and broke the concave.
Following the chaff piler, which was of short duration, came the separator in its erude form, owned and operated by Martin Nelson, Sr., and would thresh about 100 bushels in a day, step by step. " It," the old fail, has resolved itself into the tine self propelling power to run the separator that euts the band, separates the grain From prac- tically all kinds of dirt, weighs and sacks it in the wagon ready to drive to the market at a rate of from one to two thousand bushels a day.
In the beginning, perhaps, the surplus wheat, as was the hogs, was marketed at Cincinnati, but later was marketed at Wabash and Lagro and when the plank road was built from Warren to Huntington, most of the wheat was hauled there, making the round trip in two days, a load being about thirty bushels but it took three days to make the round trip to Lagro or Wabash. Many times in the fall, when hauling away the wheat erop, there would be twenty or thirty wagons collected in a row. We would reach our destination and would take it by turns unloading, and the last in the row would many times be compelled to wait their turn late at night, and then go into camp.
This township has always marketed its grain outside of the town- ship and these long hauls continued until in 1866, when the Panhandle was built to Marion. In 1852 a railroad enterprise was sprung on the township, passing through the south part, and the station was to have been on the Charles Atkinson farm. The right of way was mostly cut out through the township. In other places some grading was done and James Wickersham and some others put their farms in the enter- prise and lost them, as well as the subscription of which there was con- siderable. The company issued a script which circulated as money but soon got to be worthless. Many years afterwards the project was revived and there was an influence brought to bear, that changed the route by Upland, Harrisburg, now Gas City, and Marion.
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