USA > Indiana > Historic Indiana : being chapters in the story of the Hoosier state from the romantic period of foreign exploration and dominion through pioneer days, stirring war times, and periods of peaceful progress, to the present time > Part 5
USA > Indiana > Historic Indiana : being chapters in the story of the Hoosier state from the romantic period of foreign exploration and dominion through pioneer days, stirring war times, and periods of peaceful progress, to the present time, centennial ed. > Part 5
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1 Extract from Memoirs.
2 Dunn, J. P., History of Indiana, page 146.
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American Conquest
Clark modified his terms of an unconditional surrender, and required that they surrender as prisoners of war with all stores and supplies.
The fort capitulated ; the little army of frontiersmen had conquered with the wounding of only one man. The weary march and unequal task had ended in extinguishing the claim of British dominion on the Wabash. On February 25, 1779, the American flag floated over the post; and two days afterward The Willing, ladened with the other troops, arrived. They were too late for the storming of the fort, but in good fighting trim for the very exciting seizure, two days later, of the British re-enforcements coming down the river from Detroit. This picturesque encounter of the British fleet of canoes, filled with red-coated soldiers and their naked savage allies, surprised at a bend of the wilderness stream by the hardy band of Kentucky pioneers, clad in buckskin and armed with their own keen rifles, was a dramatic scene that has never been surpassed on the Wabash. The surprise was complete, and when the British surrendered it meant that they gave up the whole vast interior of the United States. It was Colonel Clark's great desire to push on and capture Detroit, and perhaps secure Canada; but his own handful of troops were worn out, and con- gressional scrip, wherewith troops were paid, was held at half its face value. No re-enforcements were sup- plied from the East, and the expedition, greatly to his sorrow, was never resumed. Had he been allowed to gain possession of Canada, the United States could have held it when peace came.
There was great rejoicing in Virginia and all of the Eastern colonies when the news finally travelled over the mountains that the Western outposts were in the
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hands of the American forces. The results of this campaign were far-reaching in the settlement with Great Britain four years later, when the final treaty of peace was ratified. As a consequence, all the ter- ritory between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes be- came United States possession. In his desolate old age General Clark said, "I have given the United States half of the territory they possess, and they suffer me to remain in poverty."
Colonel Clark returned to the Falls of the Ohio at the close of the victorious summer of 1779, where he after- wards founded the present city of Louisville. Until the close of the war with England he and his volunteers were hard pressed, protecting the frontier from the savages, who were still incited by the British to make raids on the inhabitants. After that war was over, he was for years at the head of the territorial forces who were still called out to contend in bitter warfare against the Indians. Indeed it was a trying time on the frontier. It is known that during the period be- tween the close of the War of the Revolution and the War of 1812, more than two thousand men, women, and children were carried into captivity from Ken- tucky and the Northwest Territory! To all these heartrending separations, and terrors that dire dis- asters were surely being visited upon the loved ones thus rudely torn from their families, there was the added sorrow of uncertainty, for only a tithe of the captured ones were ever heard of afterward by their families Many of those who were carried off were burned at the stake, after being scalped, while the savages gleefully danced around the slow fire. All of the historians concede that there was no more valuable service rendered to the nation, in the War
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for Independence, than that of these knights of the frontier and their commander. Winsor says that the conquest not only dispossessed England but ruled out the pretensions of Spain and France, who claimed all of the territory from Louisiana to Quebec. "Actual present possession prevailed," says Mr. English, "when the boundaries were finally established. But for General Clark's services, and certainly that of his little band of soldiers, the boundary of the States in the Northwest might have been the crest of the Alleghanies."
Indiana's historian, Mr. Dunn, pays fitting personal tribute to General Clark when he says: "Of all those who preceded or followed him, La Salle is the only one who can be compared to him in the wonderful com- binations of genius, activity, and courage that lifted him above his fellows." 1
Professor Hinsdale gives recognition of the impor- tance of the acquisition of this great territory of which Indiana forms a part: "Next to the planting of English civilization on the Atlantic slope in the first part of the seventeenth century, the planting of American civilization in the Great West in the second part of the eighteenth century is the most impressive event in our history." 2
1 Dunn, J. P., History of Indiana, page 176.
2 Hinsdale, Professor, The Dial, 1900.
CHAPTER VI
THE PIONEERS
W HEN the very earliest adventurers travelled westward from the Atlantic colonies in the quest for knowledge of the great unknown country, the Indians sent a "speaking bark" from tribe to tribe, passing the word westward, that a new race of pale-faces, neither French nor Spanish, was making its appearance on the western slopes of the Alleghanies.
After General Clark and his company of southern . pioneers had wrested the west from the British, many of his little band of soldiers returned to the Territory, and took up lands, which later were granted them by the government for their services. Following them down the Ohio, or on up the Wabash, came others from the South. These men selected homesteads along those rivers, or their tributaries, wherever there was a sightly spot that could be reached by water transportation.
This process was not rapid. In 1787, there were only four hundred Americans within the borders of what is now the State of Indiana. The lands were not ceded by treaty, until 1804. But every little while a quaint flatboat would come floating down from Fort Pitt, or be poled over from the Kentucky shore, and land a family, with its handful of household goods
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6I
The Pioneers
and bare necessities of life, on the banks. Then they would walk, until they found a site that answered their purpose, and another home in the wilderness would be begun. The French settlers had always clustered around the military posts, but each pioneer of English speech built his solitary cabin on his own homestead, in the forest.
Knowing all that they afterwards passed through, it impresses us as a pathetic picture, this, of the primi- tive craft, drifting down the wilderness rivers, ladened to the water's edge with their nondescript freight and their groups of courageous humanity. They were ex- posed at any turn in the stream, to the danger of the merciless arrows of savages in ambush, or pursuing canoe. If the newcomers journeyed overland, and most of these walked the entire way, the road was even more perilous. A pioneer said that he knew of few forms of exertion that so thoroughly tested the mettle of men, as journeying across the wilderness. There was nowhere visible the slightest sign that others had ever preceded them, it was all an unbroken virgin forest. The trees were veritable monarchs of the ages. The wind moaned through them; and their dead leaves, of the years before, rustled uncannily under the tread, as they went on and on. Or, warned by native guides, they descended into dark and gloomy ravines, dank with decaying vegetation, to escape the observation of a passing band of savages. It was surely no holiday jaunt. Only the brave started, and only the brave and strong got through. When a newly married couple, or a family, had decided to go to the frontier, their departure meant a long fare- well and occasioned many heartaches. As the time really arrived, and the dear ones were to leave, the
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kinsfolk and neighbors assembled, prayers were said, and hymns sung, such as:
" When shall we meet again, Meet ne'er to sever? "
Then heart-rending good-byes were said, and the wagon creaked off over the trail toward the west. Doctor Ezra Ferris, minister of the Duck Creek Church, has left a graphic account of the journey of his father's family from New England. He says:
"A short time before my father started on his journey to the west, and after he had determined to do so, a ser- mon was preached at his home on the occasion, from Gene- sis xii., I: "Now the Lord said unto Abraham, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee." On the twentieth of September, 1789, according to previous arrangement, my father left his native village (Stanwick, Conn.); and separated himself and family from all the associations and endearing ties which had been formed during a life of fifty years, to seek for himself and them a home in the western wilderness. Though I was a boy of only six years of age, I have a very distinct and vivid recollection of the affecting occasion. The enterprise at that time was so novel and daring, it drew together a vast crowd of people to witness the parting scene. Some feared we would fall a sacrifice to savage cruelty; others predicted that we would all be drowned in descending the western rivers. We went down the road on the north side of Long Island Sound to the City of New York. Thence we passed over into New Jersey, travelled through that State and Pennsylvania, over the mountains, down the Youghiogheny, thence down the Monongahela to Pittsburg, thence down the Ohio to Fort Miami, at which our family arrived two months and twenty days after starting on the
M.GOTH
A Typical Pioneer Scene. Redrawn by Marie Goth from an old print.
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The Pioneers
journey. In approaching the shore we were met by a crowd of smiling faces, to bid us a hearty welcome, and offer us all the assistance circumstances would admit of. An apartment in the fort (of about sixteen feet square) was assigned each family, in which for a time they resided. There were about thirty or more families. Rest was only temporary. Much was to be done to provide for coming wants, and that too in the face of danger. The difficulties were, however, all overcome; who dares to prescribe bounds to what human industry and enterprise may accomplish." 1
This was a typical journey from the south and east, to the Wabash country. They camped under the stars when night shut down, and often wolves howled about them. Well-to-do families, coming over the mountains from Virginia and Carolina, moved all of their household goods on pack-horses ; even bedsteads and bureaus were thus transported. Occasionally a settler would bring out a cow, which must also walk all the way by the wagon side; as at least one maiden did from Carolina, who was too energetic to be content in the slow-moving wain.
Many little bands were surprised by skulking savages, and murdered or scalped by their own camp- fires.
The forest through which they journeyed afforded them plenty of game, and beautiful fish were caught in the streams. In the fall, wild turkey, ducks, and pigeons swarmed in the sky. As the emigrants went, they "blazed" their way by chopping the bark from one side of the trees to guide their return, or mark the way for any one who should come after them. Upon reaching a desirable location, the new 1 From an old letter.
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Historic Indiana
settlers camped out until they felled trees for a cabin home.
With the help of neighbors, the logs were laid up, notched, and saddled; hand-riven clap-boards were laid on for the roof, and fastened down by weight poles and wooden pegs, never a piece of iron to be had for construction. Nails and hardware were entirely lack- ing on the frontier. The great fireplaces, five to eight feet wide, and the "cat and clay" chimney were built of stones or sticks, and plastered with clay, and a wide clay hearth was made. The door was rived out of logs, by hand, and battened together with similar boards. This strong barricade was then hung on wooden hinges, and fastened by a heavy wooden latch, which was lifted from the outside by a leather thong made of buffalo or deer hide. This was the latch- string which proverbially hung out, as a token of welcome, and was pulled to the inside only at night, or when Indians were lurking about. At such times the strong door served as a real protection from the invaders.
A puncheon floor was hewed and laid, and the shelter considered complete. Later the chinks be- tween the logs would be filled up before winter set in, and when it was safe from Indians the window openings were cut in the logs and they were " glazed " with greased paper or deer hide. Some of the log taverns and homes were built two stories high, but this was unusual. The rustic logs often put forth leaves, and the outside of the cabin would be covered with green, making a fine screen from the Indians.
John Finley, a pioneer poet, in terms as old-fash- ioned as his theme, is always quoted as giving in his
The Spinning-wheel was the Stringed Instrument of the Household.
١
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The Pioneers
Hoosier Nest the most vivid description of the sur- roundings of the "squatter" on new lands:
"The emigrant is soon located- In Hoosier life initiated- Erects a cabin in the woods, Wherein he stores his household goods. Ensconced in this, let those who can Find out a truly happier man. The little youngsters rise around him, So numerous that they quite astound him. I'm told, in riding somewhere west, A stranger found a Hoosier's nest, And fearing he might be benighted He 'hailed the house,' and then alighted.
The Hoosier met him at the door, The salutations soon were o'er ; He took the stranger's horse aside And to a sturdy sapling tied. Then having stripped the saddle off, He fed him in a sugar trough.
The stranger stooped to enter in The entrance, closing with a pin, And manifested strong desire To seat him by the log-heap fire.
Invited shortly to partake Of venison, milk, and johnny-cake, The stranger made a hearty meal, And glances round the room would steal. One side was lined with divers garments, The other spread with skins of varmints; Dried pumpkins overhead were strung, Where venison hams in plenty hung;
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Historic Indiana
Two rifles placed above the door, Three dogs lay stretched upon the floor. In short, the domicile was rife With specimens of Hoosier life.
Erelong the cabin disappears, A spacious mansion next he rears; His fields seem widening by stealth, An index of increasing wealth; And when the hives of Hoosiers swarm, To each is given a noble farm. 1
In this crude fashion the best of the settlers were obliged to begin life in the wilderness, for the distances were so great, and means of transportation so primitive and slow, that no one brought much with him.
There was, at an early period of the settlements, an inferior kind of land title, which was known as a tomahawk right. This claim was designated by dead- ening a few trees near the head of a spring, and marking the bark of some of the trees on the boundaries with the initials of the person who thus set up a claim to the tract. Sometimes these rights had to be verified, or paid for, if they were very desirable; but it is certain that they were bought and sold, for a long time. The entry price of regular government land was generally $1.25 per acre.
Some of the early settlers came over the mountains in the spring, and raised a crop of corn, leaving their families at home until a crop was assured. An old pioneer used to tell how his father had brought his wife and children with him when he first came, and the corn-meal gave out six weeks before a new crop
1 Indianapolis Journal, Carriers' Address, 1833.
1
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The Pioneers
was ripe. For that length of time they had to live without bread. The grown people told the children to call lean venison and the breast of the wild turkeys bread; the flesh of the bear was called meat. Alas! this artifice, he says, did not deceive the stomach; and for some time they were sickly, being tormented with a sense of hunger. The little ones watched the growth of the potato tops, pumpkins, and corn. They recall to this day the delicious taste of the roasted potatoes; and later the young corn, when they were permitted to pull the new ears. When the corn was hard enough to grate for johnny-cakes, they became healthy, vigorous, and contented. As soon as possible the settlers brought cattle and swine from the older settlements, either driving overland or floating down the river on flatboats. The live stock contributed greatly to their comfort.
There were few household implements, or farm tools, in any cabin home. The shovel plow was the only cultivator. The mortar, in which they pounded the corn into hominy, was made by burning out a hollow in a near-by stump. The corn, for meal bread, was crushed between two flat stones, under a weight. When the corn was still green, they grated and dried the pulp to use for hoe-cake. The trenchers and bowls for kitchen use were hewn from sections of maple logs, and then burned and scraped smooth. Long-handled gourds, of every shape and size, were raised and dried for dippers and drinking cups. Never a cool sparkling spring or cider barrel but had the useful gourd hanging by it. Many of the poorer immigrants, who had walked all of the way from their old homes, had but a single skillet in their cabin. Often they made pots of clay, with their own hands, that served until they could have
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Historic Indiana
iron ones. In the more comfortable homes, the cooking was done in iron kettles, hung from a crane, which had been built into the walls of the capacious fireplace. The baking was done in a covered skillet called a "spi- der." This utensil stood upon feet and was heated on the hearth with hickory coals piled under and over it; no flame was suffered to blaze around the baker.
The apples that were roasted before the fire, and the potatoes and corn which were "roasted in their jackets" in the ashes, had a flavor fit for an epicure. The hoe-cake or johnny-cake was baked on a smooth board, in front of the fire, and there the meat was roasted on a spit or broiled on the coals. When a family be- came prosperous, they would have a Dutch oven built of bricks, or of clay and boulders. In shape these were long mound-like affairs, and sometimes had great caldrons set in the top, for making apple butter or rendering lard. Fire was built in this oven, and when it was thoroughly heated, the fire was scraped out, the space was swept and garnished, and the rows of bread and pies were put in to bake. There were few cook-stoves, or stoves of any kind, within the State before 1825 to 1830. The furniture of the cabins was all made of riven logs, put together with wooden pins. The bedsteads were made by driving posts in the floor and pegs into the walls; from these, cords or straps of deer hide were drawn, over and across, in place of springs. This network held the pine boughs and afterwards the great feather beds, which were the pride of every housekeeper's heart. Many of the children born on the frontier were rocked in a poplar trough, such as were made for use in sugar camps, and used as a cradle. Lamps were modelled of clay, in the form of cups, fastened on a plate. These were filled with
The Heroism of the Pioneer Women, From an old print.
1
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The Pioneers
bear's-grease, and the wick was made from cotton raised in the door-yard.
A few dishes of pewter-ware brought from home, and some hickory chairs with splint bottoms, were possessed by the more luxurious families, but all had stools and benches, rived out of logs, to sit at table. Every household had its rude loom, and spinning-wheels. Every woman was a weaver, and each householder tanned his own leather, moulded his own bullets, and fashioned his own axe-handles. The dress of the frontier was home-made from centre to circumference. The hunting shirt, breeches, and leggins were made of buckskin, ornamented with fringe of the same. The moccasins were made of the same material, or of the heavier buffalo hide. This foot covering was always made by the people themselves, and was often orna- mented with beads in the Indian fashion. In winter the hair of rabbits, squirrels, or deer was placed inside
the shoe, for warmth. Buckskin was chosen for clothing, not only because it was available, but because it resisted nettles, briars, the bites of the rattlesnake, and was, as an outside garment, an excellent pro- tection against the cold. Even deerskin had its draw- backs and discomforts, for when it was wet, as must often be the case, the garment would draw up a third of its size, and become stiff and unwieldy. As soon as they could protect a flock of sheep from the wolves, the pioneer had woollen clothing as well. The women made their own soap, moulded their own candles, cured the meats, churned the butter, as soon as they had cows, and wove all of the garments worn by the whole household. They wove linsey-woolsey-the warp of flax and the woof of wool-for winter garments, and tow-linen for summer. The raising of flax was
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one of the earliest industries in Indiana. Cotton-seed was brought from the South, by the Carolina women, but it would not reach the perfection that it attained in the warmer States. The women spun both wool and cotton yarn for knitting the stockings of the whole household-a task which was eternally in evidence. No one could sit down and hold their hands in that time. 'Coonskin caps and buffalo overcoats formed the outer covering for the men. The women wore shawls, of their own weaving, and the head was covered with a thick quilted hood in winter, and a sun- bonnet in summer. This was universal. When a young girl was married, she put on caps, and henceforth her tresses were covered. All wore mittens made of squirrel or beaver skins, tanned by themselves and stitched by the women of the family.
Horse mills were set up in crudest fashion, as soon as wheat was raised; but as early as possible, in every neighborhood where there was available water-power, one of the settlers would build a dam, and start a mill, either for manufacturing woollens, or grinding grain, or both. The people rode from ten to thirty miles to these mills, and often had to wait three or four days and nights for their grist. The grain was brought in bags on horseback and the boys or men camped about the mill, visiting, playing games, and telling stories until their turn came. The miller took "toll" for his work, generally at the rate of one fourth of the grain ground, and every man had to bolt his own flour from the chaff. From that fact you could always tell when a man had been to mill. In An Old Settler's Story Riley gives us a graphic picture of going to mill:
"The Settlement wasn't nothing but a baby in them days, fer I mind 'at old Ezry Sturgiss had jist got his saw and
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The Pioneers
griss-millin' agoin', and Bills had come along and claimed to know all about millin', and got a job with him; and millers in them times was wanted worse 'n congressmen, and reckon got better wages; fer afore Ezry built, ther wasn't a dust o' meal er flour to be had short o' the White Water, better'n sixty mild from here, the way we had to fetch it. And they used to come to Ezry's fer ther grindin' as fer as that; and one feller I knowed come from what used to be the old South Fork, over eighty mild from here, and in the wettest, rainyest weather; and mud! law!" 1
Every settler tried to have horses, and a horse-thief was punished by beating or death, if caught. The Indians soon learned the luxury of having a beast of burden, other than their squaws, although they had never thought of taming or training the buffalo or any wild animal to work for them; but they were always stealing the horses of the white men. Where there were no roads, wagons were little known. There was only one in the Territory in 1776 and for many years horseback was the general mode of travel. There be- ing no bridges, every stream had to be forded if it was too wide for a tree to span it. In case a tree had been felled across the creek the horses must be trained to "toe the log" across the stream. The few who made themselves wagons, as time passed, made their harness of strips of deer hide and hickory bark, and the horse-collars were braided of corn husks. But horses were very scarce, and two men would often "ride and tie" on their way to town. That is, one would ride a mile or two, then tie the horse and walk on. When the other man came up, he would untie the horse and ride until he overtook his companion. When a man and his wife went on a journey, she rode 1 Riley, J. W., Pipes of Pan, page 101. Indianapolis, 1889.
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behind on the same horse; generally both carried a young child in their arms. All of these crude substi- tutions for our everyday conveniences make us realize what frontier life, of necessity, was.
In those days a new flame must be made by striking fire from two flints, or a flint and a piece of steel. The spark dropping on some inflammable material started the flame. Knots or growths taken from old hickory trees, and called punk, were treasured by every boy for this purpose. Every household had a "tinder- box," which contained pieces of flint from the creek, a bit of steel, a horn of powder, and some punk. This was to rekindle the fire; but when a fire was once lighted on a hearth it was carefully tended, and the embers covered at night, for matches were then unknown.
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