USA > Indiana > Boone County > Early life and times in Boone County, Indiana, giving an account of the early settlement of each locality, church histories, county and township officers from the first down to 1886 Biographical sketches of some of the prominent men and women. > Part 8
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were still longer than the former, and would follow cows that were giving milk and suck them, and the owners of the cows had to watch them with a gun and kill the snakes to keep from being robbed of the milk.
I will of necessity have to epitomize my essay and pass by what transpired in many years and let others tell it or remain in oblivion. In the presidential campaign of 1844 the issue between the parties was annexation and war with Mexico and those who opposed that policy. I then had arrived at years of majority and was entitled to give my first vote. I was zealous in the support of the annexation party, and made a firm pledge if war was the result to be one that would go and help fight the Mexicans, to sustain what we thought was for the best interests of our country. James K. Polk was elected, and in 1846 a call was made for soldiers to go over to Mexico, as a war was in progress between the two powers. In my juvenile days and up to the time I arrived at the age of twenty-one years I had been energetic and industrious and had accumulated one thousand dollars, quite a fortune in early times. I had taken the money and gone to Cincinnati and invested in dry goods-just had set up in business with bright prospects ; but those persons who were opposed to annexation began to chide me by saying, " He will not go to Mexico to fight the Greasers," and many other opprobious epithets, mingled with reproach, werc heaped upon me. Then my Kentucky blood became warmed up, developing my patriot- ism, and I sold my goods on one year's time, only taking seven dollars in purse (and the debt is on time yet, for the man to whom I sold failed. and never paid any part of it). I have expunged the obligation, as I have been in the habit of doing all my business, at given periods wiping out all that was not settled, for fear the settlement would be too big in the great judgmen day. Walking through mud to Indianapolis, I enlisted in the United States Army to serve as a cavalry soldier for five years or during the war. The company being organized at Fort Leavenworth, that being the time the Mor-
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mons were emigrating to Utah, and a number of the men vol- unteering to go to Mexico, there was not a sufficient number of Mormon men left to guard their families across the plains through the many dangerous tribes of Indians that then oc- cupied the country, and I was one of the detail to do that service. It was the most dangerous and hardest soldiering that I did during the war, for we had many engagements with the Indians, but in due time got rid of the emigrants. I say to their credit that a better class of people than the women were for charity, virtue and good behavior I have not found since. Capturing Santa Fe and the most of New Mexico, after several engagements, Gen. Fremont crossed the Rocky Mountains, went south, subduing the Mexicans and Indians in all the region of country known as the Eastern Slope of the Rocky Mountains; crossed the Rio Grande at El Paso, marched to the city of Chihuahua, conquering the people of that state, thence westward through the states of Sonora and Durango to Lower California.
At that place, after being in many engagements from the commencement of the war, on the 26th of June, 1848, we received the news of peace being concluded between the two countries. If I were writing relative to those states, perhaps I could give a description that would be interesting, also, of the customs of the people. Orders with the news of peace were that we march back to Santa Fe and there be discharged. After being mustered out of the service, I lost no time in traveling home, being on the road all the time until a short time before the presidential election of 1848. Having received an injury to my breast that caused hemorrhage of the left lung, and other diseases contracted while in that coun- try which caused me to be confined to bed nearly an entire year, I have never enjoyed good health one month since without being unable to go about. For my meritorious serv- ice I was commissioned captain, but have never been able to find any utility in the commission. A pension was granted me shortly after the close of the war, the number of it a frac-
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tion over 8,000, and that included all that had been pensioned from the commencement of the government. I am, perhaps, the oldest pensioner in Boone County, unless there is some person of the war of 1812 drawing a pension. After recover- ing somewhat from my broken down condition, I was a cosmo- polite for several years, very dubious what course to pursue and ductile, not keeping a vade mecum, therefore could not give a correct history of affairs.
We tell of traders long time ago, With ox teams we guarded to Mexico; They of toil and danger were not afraid, While helping build up the Santa Fe trade ; But those large wagons and Santa Fe teams, And all those mule and ox drivers it seems, In the history of pioneer life hath passed, By the introduction of the iron horse are displaced. A small number of those old veterans still live, But congress a pension to them would not give; Its no falta de corage esta sombre, Quiero desdoro union comparacion expense. The vegetation in autumn may wither and fade, Many pioneers of yore it. their graves are laid. But few of the old settlers now live, The many stories to others to give.
Traveling from here five miles each way along Eel River there is not one person remaining of the first settlers. Only one near relative here now. Grandfather and mother Gibson died at about the age of ninety-five years, after living together as man and wife seventy-five years. Grandmother, on my mother's side, died shortly after coming out here. Both my parents are dead and are all at rest with many others in the cemetery on the old homestead, donated for a place of rest by the veteran pioneer who entered the land.
Many pioneers in this neglected spot are laid, By. their hardships the improvements here were made.
An addenda concludes the injucundity of the writer, and as has been the case before, and may be again, to know how
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the old settlers acquired any education, there being no facili- ties for schools in those early times. Many, like myself, graduated in one of the best institutions of the country, in which to gain a thorough education. The great Northwestern Institute, where hundreds of the most useful persons in the country graduated, using their functions with practical sense, looking over the broad surface of the earth at the mountains, rivers, continents and manner of people, and then guided their views to the aborial region, contemplating the firmament with all the Inminaries, imbibing ideas from nature's pure fountain which are correct and utilizing them in a way that will give a development of correct principles. Onnisoi it quimalopence.
RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL EVANS.
The only surviving members of our family are one brother and myself. Evan Evans came here in the spring of 1838. The next spring I came with my family. Our brother Jona- than came out in the fall of the same year I came. All looked new and wild. We had a body of heavy timber to commence in. We settled on what was known as the wander prairies, two miles south of Elizaville. They were wet most of the season unless we had an unusually dry summer. The prairies afforded pasturage as early as the 1st of March. This was a great relief to us as we had our farms to make. Our best plow was the jumping shovel. Our farm implements were few in number. The prairies furnished a good supply of hay for winter use. There was a good supply of game, such as deer, coon, turkeys, and smaller varieties. I never had the patience required to make a successful hunter. We had two of Ken- tucky's hunters, Willis West and Grandpa Baker. Our mar- kets were distant and milling inconvenient. We got our hand-mills going and soon got up a pot of mush out of new corn. Buckwheat was easier ground. We used bridle-paths for highways, for sometime if a crossing became muddy we
PHILIP SICKS.
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would soon select another place. The loom and spinning- wheel which we depended on in those days have disappeared. The neighborhood generally came together at raisings and log- rollings. We were thinly settled for awhile, and I consider that the most enjoyable time. As population increased pride began to loom up, consequently other rulings became more manifested. Several items might be inserted, but as others are contributing to your book this will be sufficient. Ages are as follows: E. Evans in eighty-sixth year; I am in my sev- enty-third year.
COMMUNICATION FROM WILLIAM H. MILLS.
I was born in Guilford County, N. C., June 9, 1815; was married to Tobitha Stanbrough, of Wayne County, Ind., October 29, 1836. She proved a worthy companion and help- mate worthy the name of mother and wife. My early boy- hood days were spent in Carolina and Virginia. At the age of ten years I accompanied my father in his trips hauling flour and bacon to South Carolina to supply the rich slave-holders and their slaves. At the age of fifteen years, I moved a family from North Carolina to Wayne County, Ind., remained there a short time, visiting friends and relatives, when I sold the wagon and returned to North Carolina with the team, over the mountains of Virginia and Tennessee. At the age of sev- enteen I hauled salt from the Ocean Salt Works to Wilming- ton, a distance of eight miles, making one trip a day, driving a good team, consisting of five good horses. At eighteen I hauled tobacco, for a rich old planter, to Petersburgh, Va. The next year I moved to Wayne County, Ind., where, in due course of time, I was married, as above stated. After our marriage, in 1836, we moved to Madison County, Ind., where we had but few white neighbors, with plenty of Indians at our side. Here, for seven years, we had a hard struggle for a start in the world, and where most of our family were born. 7
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In the year 1842 we moved to what was then called the "State of Boone," where we have resided ever since. My occupation has been farming and stock-raising. A portion of the time I was engaged in threshing grain in Boone and Montgomery counties. I believe I had among the first, if not the very first, threshers in the county. Threshing was not, at that time, done in a few days, but we often worked at it in the winter time. Six children living, one in Texas, one in Flor- ida, two in Kansas, two in Indiana, all of whom are doing well, and I am glad to say I raised them to be temperate and industrious men and women. My first vote was cast for the late Solomon Meredith, for sheriff, in 1836-a noble, good man, who stood high, not only among his friends, but on his feet, being full six feet and six inches high. I was an old Whig up to the death of that party. I have been acting with the Republican party, but of late have nearly lost confidence in parties. I want to live to see a good prohibitory law enacted in our state and nation, as it would, in my opinion, stop seven-tenths. of the evils of our good county. I am glad to say I have lived to see our county improve so much. The "State of Boone" is no more applied to us in ridicule, but we are fast climbing to the top in the way of advancement in everything that goes to make up a good county.
I trust you will have good success in your laudable under- taking of writing up the "Early Life and Times of Boone County."
Mr. Mills resides three-fourths of a mile west of Thorn- town.
COMMUNICATION FROM JAMES A. RICHARDSON.
I was born in Owen County, Indiana, on March 17, 1827. My father moved to Boone County on the 31st of February, 1837, and this county has been my home since that time. There has been a great change in the county since that time. There were but two roads laid out in the eastern part of the
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county, viz. : the Michigan and the Lebanon and Noblesville road. The few settlers that lived in this neighborhood lived in log cabins, in the woods with a small patch of ground par- tially cleared. The manner of clearing in those days was to grub the small bushes and chop the small trees and logs with axes. Piling them up in large heaps they would be left to dry until they could be burned. After deadening the re- mainder of the trees the fields then looked more like woods than cornfields. This, however, was the best we could do, as to have chopped all the trees in this thick forest with its un- ditched and overshaded land would have been an impossibility. We had no implements but the maul, wedge, Carey plow and the old-fashioned single shovel plow. The Carey plow was very scarce then, not being more than one to every half-dozen settlers. Such a thing as a carriage or buggy was never heard of. We lived on corn bread, hog, hominy, potatoes, pumpkins and wild game. There was an abundance of small game, such as deer, wild turkey, pheasants, quails, raccoons, opossums, grey squirrels and rabbits. There was an old water mill on Eagle Creek that ground a little corn meal in the rainy part of the year, but it being very slow was not to be depended upon. A hungry hound could have eaten the meal as fast as it was ground. We carried our corn on horseback to Dye's and Sheets' mills. The distance was eight and eleven miles. In a few years we raised a little wheat which we had to take to Indianapolis to get ground for flour. As for market, what wheat and hogs we raised we took to Lafayette, on the Wabash, or to the Ohio River. The price of wheat in those days was from forty to fifty cents per bushel. The hogs were sold to hog merchants, who bought as large droves as they could buy. The price the settlers received was from $1.50 to $2.50 per 100 pounds. We had to have some things, such as salt, leather and spun cotton for chain for jeans and linsey. Those arti- cles were indispensable, and if they could not be had any other way the deer and raccoon skins were resorted to to supply the want. The women spun the wool, wove the jeans and made
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by hand all the clothing the men wore in the winter, and spun flax and tow and wove into linen, which they made into shirts and pants for their summer wear. There was but little dress goods bought in those days. All this work the fair ones had to do without the aid of machines save the big and little wheels and hand looms. There was not a cook-stove, sewing machine nor washing machine for ten or fifteen years after the first settling of what is known as the Big Spring neighborhood. The women had to do their cooking by the fireplace, and one room was parlor, sitting-room, bedroom, dining-room and kitchen. I am of the opinion that if the women of to-day had to go back and endure the privations of that time there would be some bloody snoots and black shins. We had to eut our wheat with the sickle and threshed it with the flail or tramped it off on a dirt floor with a horse in the field on the ground. To separate the wheat from the chaff, we made wind with a sheet in the hands of men, one at each end to riddle the downs to them. We cut our meadows with the poorest kind of scythes ; I think they were all of iron with a crooked stick fastened to them. We had no steel pitch-forks in those days, but had to go to the woods, hunt out forked bushes and peel them to handle our hay with. We did not raise a great amount of hay. Our stock cows lived most of the winter without hay. Cattle and sheep were very unhealthy at that time. The cat- tle died with what was called bloody murain or dry murain ; but it is now thought to have been leeches that were in the. sloughs and ponds. The sheep died from eating wild parsnips which grew abundantly in the low, wet land. Hogs did well, living almost the year round without corn. Just enough was. given them to keep them from growing wild. There were a great many wild hogs in the woods at that time. We had no school houses and no churches. The first school house in this neighborhood was built on the land of Jonathan Scott, on the. east bank of Eagle Creek, one quarter of a mile west of the little village of Big Spring. This house was built about the year 1838. The first church organization was a class of the-
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M. E. Church about the year 1837. In the summer or fall of that year the class was organized at Caleb Richardson's, and for a few years most of their meetings were held there and at John Parr's. Finally their society grew strong enough to build, which they did about the year 1840. They gave it the name of Big Spring. This name was given it because of its nearness to a very large spring of water. This church was a large and commodious hewed log building and served a good purpose as a church until the year 1866, when it was super- ceded by a neat frame building, which stands there to-day. But where are the old pioneers who broke the first sod, cleared the brush, felled the large oaks and built the first school houses and churches ? They are all gone except two that I know of, and those are old Uncle Johnny Parr and old Aunt Anna Richardson.
COMMUNICATION FROM T. P. MILLER, OF INDIANAPOLIS.
Statement by Thomas P. Miller, who was born in Dickson County, Tenn., on the 1st of December, 1812: When I was about one year old my father, Wm. Miller, moved to Butler County, Ohio, where he remained long enough to raise one crop. He then moved to Union County, Indiana, five miles southeast of Liberty, eight miles west of Oxford and three and one-half miles southwest of the College Corner, where we re- mained until April, 1831. Father had sold his farm the win- ter before and entered eighty acres of land in Boone County, where he afterwards laid out the town of Eagle Village. In the meantime he went to Cincinnati and purchased a stock of dry goods, groceries, hardware, queensware, etc. He hired my cousin, James McClelland, to haul his goods from Cin- cinnati to Boone County. With three yoke of large oxen and a large wagon, James brought the goods from Cincinnati to our house. With our household goods loaded into a wagon, we all started together for Boone. We got along tolerably
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well until we passed Rushville. It had been raining consid- erable and finally turned up with a blustering sdow storm, which compelled us to stop. We stopped at the farm house of Rev. James Haven, who kindly gave us the use of a school house near his residence. The next day, continuing our jour- ney, we came to the Little Blue River, where we remained all night on account of high water. The next day we came on to Big Blue. There we crossed in a ferry boat by making several trips. Our next drawback was at Big Sugar, where we were compelled to unload our goods and cross in a large canoe. The wagons were taken to pieces and the horses and cattle allowed to swim across. Crossing White River at Indianapolis in a boat we arrived at Uncle Frank McClelland's and Uncle Thomas Martin's, seven miles west of Indianapolis. We were now but fourteen miles from our destination. Cousin W. B. MeClelland, brother John and I started ahead with our axes. From David Hoover's we cut our road through the thick woods and underbrush, crossing Eagle Creek to a point about two hundred yards south of the line of the Michigan Road. We then built a camp, enclosing three sides. The roof, which extended several feet farther than the open front, was covered with elap-boards. The next day our household goods were unloaded in the camp. Our next mis- sion was to build a store-house. This we built of logs scratched inside and out with the broad axe. The size of this large and commodious store room was about sixteen feet square. When we were ready for the goods it was not long before we heard brother Jim hallooing "Mike and Jim; Duke and Darby," more than a mile away. When he came up the re- marks he made about the new road we had cut were not very flattering. Of course it was not an air line. It was a singular and lonesome looking place for a dry goods store, but it was not long before the men commeneed to drop in through the woods, generally with a gun on their shoulder. Our next work was to build a double log house for a family residence, which was of the same architecture as the store room.
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At that time there were a few families about three or four miles east of us on Williams Creek and McDuffey's run, in Hamilton County. There were also several families on Crooked Creek, in Marion County about five miles from us. There were quite a number of families in Marion County on Eagle Creek, below the Boone County line, who were our neigh- bors and traded at our store. The rest of our neighbors were in Boone County, on Eagle Creek above the Marion County line. I believe I can give the names of nearly all of them. Squire, Jacob Sheets, grown sons, Andrew and George, John Sheets, Patrick Sullivan, John Sargent, David Hoover, first clerk of circuit court, sons Jacob and Isaac, Elijah Cross, Austin Davenport, first sheriff, Jesse Davenport, one of the first county commissioners, Wesley Smith, first county treas- urer, James G. Blair, John King, Rev. Benj. Harris, Captain Frederick Lowe, sons John and George, Wm. E. Lane, Jesse Lane, Samuel Lane, Elijah Standridge, Jacob Johns, John Robert Johns, Henry Johns, Johns, Renny Johns, Rev. George Dodson, Elijah Dickerson, Aaron Phipps, Ruel Dod- son, Thomas Dodson, George Walker, Thomas Walker, Texes Jackson, Edward Jackson, and perhaps a few others whose names I have forgotten. The above were all, or nearly all living on Eagle Creek, above the Marion County line, a distance of eight miles. There were two or three families living on Whitelick, near the edge of Hendricks County-I believe one by the name of Dollerhide and one Specklemuir. There was another small settlement at James- town and one at Thorntown, which made up the inhabitants of Boone County at that time. The next year the emigration to Boone County increased rapidly. Dozens of families had settled within three miles of us on the west side of Eagle Creek. I will give a few of their names: Abram Phillips, Lewis Dale, Noah Byrket, Jesse Harden, Joshua Foster, James and Rob- ert White, Wm. Beelar, and many others. I remember well of Joshua Foster asking me to hew a set of house logs for him. I think it was the same year we came to Boone County that
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Austin Davenport was elected representative to the state legis- lature from Boone and Hamilton counties and a scope of territory north and east of Hamilton County, beating William Conner, of Noblesville. The voting precincts at that time were from ten to twenty miles apart. On election day I went to Jamestown to electioneer for Mr. Davenport, bought a quart of whisky, and in the language of Captain Rice, "gin a treat." Mr. Davenport got about all the votes at the precinct. Bro. Wash went the same day to a precinct at or near the falls of Fall Creek and done some electioneering for Mr. Davenport, which precinct is now a part of Madison County. I believe at that time there were only three voting precincts in Boone County ; one at David Hoover's, on Eagle Creek, one at Thorntown and one at Jamestown. The same year Austin Davenport, James McClelland and I, took a trip to Lafayette on horseback via Thorntown. We passed through the place where the city of Lebanon now stands but did not see a house from the time we left Eagle Creek till we came to Thorntown. We saw several deer but no Indians. Between Thorntown and Lafayette we saw several houses, many gopher hills, prairie chicken, sand-hill cranes and sod fences. Mr. Davenport stopped 'at his brother-in-law's, Samuel Hoover, while James and I crossed the river, going about four miles in the country to Uncle Moses Meek's. Jim was riding a pretty fair looking white horse which he was praising to Uncle. "Yes," said unele, " I know that to be a good horse; I knew him twenty years ago. He belonged to a man by the name of Harter who lived near College Corner, in Union County. The only objec- tion any one had to him at that time was that he was a little too old."
The Michigan road was cut out from Madison, Ind., to South Bend in the years 1829, 1830 and 1831. When we came to our camp in Boone County the road was cut as far as the top of the hill at White River, five and a half miles from Indianapolis. About a year later the cutting and grubbing was finished through Boone County. The road is one hun-
-
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dred feet wide. Thirty feet of the center the trees were grubbed out by the roots, leaving thirty-five feet on each side that was cut off nearly level with the ground. Thousands of dollars worth of fine walnut, poplar, oak and other valuable timber was literally ruined. When one of those fine, large trees was grubbed out by the roots it would leave a hole as deep as .a man's head. As soon as a tree would fall two men would jump on it with axes, both on one side, about six or eight feet from the roots, cutting right and left. As soon as one side was ent half through they would turn to the other side, cutting in the same manner the timber in such lengths as suited them to haul out of the road. Those large tree roots, logs, brush and rubbish hauled out on each side of the road made it almost impossible to get either in or out of the road. Thos. Martin, of Marion County, and Jas. Sigreson, of Hendricks County, had the contract for cutting and grubbing seventeen miles of the Michigan road, from Indianapolis north, which extended about four miles into Boone County. As soon as the Michi- gan road was cut out, Wm. Miller laid out the town of Eagle Village, which was surveyed by Geo. L. Kinnard, of Marion County. T. P. Miller, a son of Wm. Miller, carried one end of the chain to lay off the town, although only eighteen years old. Wm. Miller, in 1836, sold his farm, including all unsold lots in Eagle Village, to Daniel M. Larimore, who afterwards laid off an addition to the village. Wm. Miller was the first postmaster, Fielden Utterback the second postmaster, Thos. P. Miller was third postmaster. He was then serving as jus- tice of the peace, holding that office ten years and the office of postmaster nearly nine years. Jos. F. Daugherty was fourth postmaster, Nathan Crosby the fifth and last postmaster, the office having been abolished. As soon as the cutting and grubbing of the Michigan road was finished, the contracts for grading were let to the lowest bidder. The sale took place at Indianapolis. Austin Morris was the auctioneer and Robt. B. Duncan clerk. J. C. Walker got most of the contracts on this part of the road. When the grading was finished and the
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