USA > Indiana > Madison County > Historical sketches and reminiscences of Madison county, Indiana : a detailed history of the early events of the pioneer settlement of the county, and many of the happenings of recent years, as well as a complete history of each township, to which is added numerous incidents of a pleasant nature, in the way of reminiscences, and laughable occurrences > Part 21
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" Mr. Fever on his return to Wayne county was full of admiration for the Noland land and particularly for a remark- able spring which burst from the ground before the house. Isaac Busby went to Indianapolis and entered this land at the Government land office. Mr. Noland was anxious to go to law about the matter, but he and Mr. Busby made an amicable settlement, and Noland took his household goods and went to Union township, where he lived for many years .
"Mr. Busby was deficient in education, but the goodness of his heart made up for all shortcomings in that direction. A very promising family grew up around him, and his respected
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wife, 'Aunt Sallie ,' was beloved by everyone who knew her. He often expressed his feelings in regard to his lack of education, saying that it was his hope, if opportunity offered, to give his children a good education. He was true to that purpose. If Fall Creek township has deserved well of her faithfulness to education and to all that the term implies, the honor thereof belongs pre-eminently to three men, Isaac Busby, John J. Lewis and Neal Hardy. They gave a tone to public thought that caused an impetus to the proper training of the young in the community, of which they were the leading spirits, which is felt to this day and which will be manifest through an indefinite future.
"Mr. Busby was a devoted follower of the political ban- ner of Henry Clay from early youth, and continued to be an ardent Whig until the organization of the Republican party. He naturally hated slavery and the Democratic party. It was therefore impossible for him to be anything else but a Repub- lican, and so he remained through all the long years of the momentous struggle which closed with the recognized equality of all men before the law. Several years before his death he sold his farm and retired from business and spent the evening of his days in well-earned repose. He died on the 12th day of April, 1874, and sleeps in the cemetery which overlooks the lovely country which was once the scene of his labors and joys."
THE FIRST CLERK OF MADISON COUNTY.
Moses Cox, the first clerk of Madison county, was certainly an oddity. The old citizens who knew him have related many incidents in relation to him that are laughable.
He was a sturdy backwoodsman, possessed of a noble dis- position, and a kind heart. A man with limited education, but possessed with a store of good " horse sense." Cox was a man of convivial habits and a " knocker " of no small pre- tentions. In his day the man that passed the lie expected a fight, and one who would take it without resenting it was no. man at all.
During Cox's term as Clerk in 1822 and 1823 the record showed a number of cases against him for assault and battery where he had punished the hardy pioneers in royal style.
It is said that he would read the minutes of the court in such cases with much pride and satisfaction.
Mr. Cox was also a great lover of a game of " Old Sledge " or seven up. It was.his delight to entertain his friends during
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court time in this way. One time when court was in session at Pendleton, the Judge convened the session and no one ap- pearing behind the clerk's desk, inquiry was made as to the absence of the clerk, and a search was made for him, when he was found behind a log heap in the woods in the rear of the court grounds sleeping off a night's debauch after an indulgence in his favorite game with some friends. He was aroused and made his appearance in court with his hair disheveled and one side of his coat tail burned off by getting too near the log-heap.
After a slight reprimand from the Judge for his absence from duty, the court went on in its usual manner and Moses Cox kept the minutes in his peculiar way.
It is said that Mr. Cox was very popular with his fellow- men, a hale fellow well met, and a man hard to cope with in a political contest.
While he had his faults, with all his shortcomings he was made of the stern stuff of which all pioneers were composed, and filled a position in the rank and file of men of his day, better perhaps than many others would have done with the means at hand and his surroundings.
JOHN ROGERS AND MOSES WHITECOTTON.
The Kingmans, in writing their history of Madison coun- ty, merely made mention of such a man as John Rogers, with- out any further account of him or his early adventures. Harden, in his book, issued in 1875, simply refers to him. The subject of this sketch was beyond doubt the first white man who made his way into the wilderness of this county. A brief description of him is given by a correspondent to the Herald, of August 26, 1881, whom we take to be J. B. Lewis, a prominent and well-informed citizen of Fall Creek town- ship. In this statement he gives a long account of Mr. Rog- ers, together with some reminiscences relating to his life.
"John Rogers was a tall, raw-boned man of Irish lineage, who came from North Carolina to Fall Creek township and settled there December 29, 1818, on an eighty-acre tract of land, now known as the Thomas Wilhoit farm, about one and a half miles from Pendleton, near the turn-pike road leading to New Castle. He cleared some lands, but when the United States survey was made, shortly after his settlement, he found himself on land, a part of which he did not like or wish to en- ter from the government, so he removed a few hundred yards . to the south-east and settled on the land .afterwards known as
ET
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the Edward B. Vernon farm. Here Mr. Rogers lived until 1838, when he sold the land to Abraham Vernon, the father of E. B. Vernon, after which Mr. Rogers removed to Iowa, where he died at an advanced age some years since. The late Lewis W. Thomas stopped over night with him at his lowa home a little more than a quarter of a century ago. In pass- ing, it is worthy of note to remark that the Vernon farm still remains in the hands of the family to which it was transferred by the first holder, something which is true of but very few lands in the township.
"John Rogers had four sons and two daughters, like him- self, stalwart. James died in early manhood. Hugh and Henry worked together at the carpenter trade in Pendleton fifty years ago, Hugh remaining there until 1846. Polly, one of the daughters, married Alfred Kilgore, brother of the late Judge David Kilgore. Alfred Kilgore was himself an at- torney. He was a man of brilliant parts and was well be- loved by his neighbors, but he had rather convivial habits and a love for strong drink. He died young and his widow mar- ried Enos Adamson, a man of ability and energy, and once owner of the Aimen Mill, at Huntsville, and who removed to Iowa about the time that his father-in-law, John Rogers, went there. Mr. Adamson was at one time County Commissioner in Madison county.
" Mr. Rogers had the shrewd wit of the Irish race and many anecdotes of him were formerly current about Pendle- ton. It is said that a neighbor once spoke to Mr. and Mrs. Rogers about inducing Alfred Kilgore, their son-in-law, to subscribe for a paper, when Mrs. Rogers broke in, 'Och, don't do that, for papers are Polly's chafe pestherment,' allud- ing to Alfred's law books and papers.
" Another old citizen of Fall Creek township related that he at one time met John Rogers on a very cold day on his way to Pendleton, and when he spoke to him, Rogers said : ' I have just been to town, where I was owing a friend a little money, and I heard he was very sick and I knew that if he died he would want to take it with him, so I went down to pay him off.'
" Even now the face of this tall personage, with his gray locks and his shrewd look, rises before me as I write and as he appeared to my childish eyes, and so having rescued him for a moment from the oblivion to which the historian has
·
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consigned him, I dismiss him again to that silence and peace which is the lot of almost all of the human race."
Moses Whitecotton was also an early settler in Fall Creek township, and a neighbor of John Rogers. Moses was one of the first Justices of the Peace in that locality. He was a nat- ural poet and kept his docket in rhyme. The old record would be a curiosity if it could be unearthed. At one time he got out of provisions and was in limited circumstances on account of continued sickness in his family. He appealed to his neigh- bor, Mr. Rogers, in a way that would melt a heart of stone. His petition was as follows :
" My family is sick, with nothing to eat, I pray you the loan of two bushels of wheat ; This favor, if granted, shall ne'er be forgotten, As long as my name is Moses Whitecotton."
The good-hearted Mr. Rogers complied with the request and supplied the wants of the afflicted family, like a pioneer of those days naturally would, and in payment for the accom- modation Whitecotton executed his note therefor in the fol- lowing strain :
"One day after date I promise to pay To old John Rogers, without delay, One hundred weight of hemp when I make it and break it, One dollar in cash I shall not deny ; Witness my name, this 4th of July, " MOSES WHITECOTTON."
He also at one time went to Kentucky and purchased a "jack " and brought him to the county, and in giving his pedigree he started out by giving his name " Daniel Boone :"
"Old Daniel Boone was a man of strange facts,
But this Daniel Boone is the jack of all jacks."
Whitecotton is remembered by some of the old-timers and his queer ways will long linger in their memories.
REMINISCENCE OF JUDGE ADAM WINSELL.
In other places in this volume we have spoken of Judge Adam Winsell in connection with the courts of Madison county. In Kingman's history the Judge was dismissed with a very brief comment. It seems from his prominence in this county in the early days that he should have had at least proper mention. In looking over the files of the Herald of September 22, 1881, we find from the pen of Joseph B. Lewis
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HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY, INDIANA.
a very good account of this once distinguished gentleman, in which he says : "Adam Winsell came to Madison county in 1819. He was, at the first term of the Circuit Court, held in 1823, one of the associate judges. He entered the west half of the northwest quarter of Section 22, Township 18 north, Range 7 east, also an eighty-acre farm just east of this. He gave out to his neighbors that he had entered it himself, rather than run the risk of having it entered from 'under him,' for more than ten years before he procured the title from the United States. Judge Winsell was a blacksmith, and it was he who made the irons and placed them upon the men who had committed the Indian murders, in 1824. He said that he had put them on so tight that no ' corpus' could take them off without his consent. At one time he came to Anderson to live and remained one year, and then returned to his farm. On one occasion, when about to gather the corn from his field, he found that he had been anticipated by the squirrels, who had eaten it all up. The county, at the time referred to, swarmed with migratory squirrels, which were as voracious as lean kine, and who devoured everything in their way. They were as destructive as the Kansas locusts, which made such a memorable record in that State only a few years ago.
Caleb Williams, one day during this squirrel visitation, made a lot of bullets and went out on the edge of his corn to shoot squirrels. He stood in one place and killed fifty-one of these little animals, but missed his fifty-second shot.
Judge Winsell remained upon his farm until 1837, when he sold it to Joseph Weeks, and went " west." He was as well qualified for the absurd position of associate judge as was the average citizen.
The Judge for many years had a lot of hogs that ran wild in the woods south of Lick creek, in Fall Creek township, and his neighbors jokingly charged him with claiming all the hogs in those parts. One day in front of the court house in Anderson, during term time, an old man by the name of Samuel Morley, one of the Madison county pioneers, re- marked : "There's a hog running wild in the woods by my place and he has the strangest marks on him that I ever saw. He is perfectly white except a large heart on his right shoul- der, which is as red as blood." Judge Winsell, who was pres- ent, listened with the greatest interest. " Why," said he, " that is my old white hog ; he's been gone all summer." At
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this Morley burst into a loud laugh. "There's no such hog there ; I just wanted to see if you would claim it." The joke was on the Judge, and he was compelled to treat the crowd.
The late J. J. Lewis once met Judge Winsell in the woods. Both were hunting squirrels. Mr. Lewis was about to shoot at a squirrel in the top of a tree. " Hold on," said the Judge, "you'll strain your gun if you shoot it so far." And no argu- ment could convince the Judge that he was not right. He always obtained religion at camp meeting, just after the har- vest times, and continued in good standing in the church until the shooting matches began in the fall, when he would get drunk, and, as a necessary consequence, be expelled from the church and remain outside until camp meeting time came around the next year. It is due to truth, if not to the dignity of history, to say that the Judge was a good shot and a boon companion of the boys at these shooting matches.
Justice to this brave old pioneer also requires us to say that his good nature was boundless, and that he was never known to have been cross to his well-beloved wife, "Aunt Sallie," or the children.
Of course, such a character as this would be very popular in those early days, and the good Judge was so to the fullest extent. After living in this county many years he departed for Iowa-a fact which was very much regretted by his neigh - bors. He was a much better man than many of those who make higher pretentions. His memory, although associated with some grotesque happenings, will be long cherished for his many kind deeds.
DEATH OF AN OLD WAR-HORSE.
.Colonel G. W. Parker, of Pendleton, was for many years a resident of Indianapolis, during which time he was elected to the high office of Sheriff of Marion county, and served in this capacity for two terms. Colonel Parker is a man of a very genial disposition and was popular with his fellow men, which aided him largely in his success as a politician. Dur- ing the war he served as a Colonel of an Indiana regiment. When he retired from the service he brought home with him his old war-horse, upon whose back he had ridden through the battle of Stone River and many other engagements. He kept him upon his farm near Pendleton until he died, the Colonel having removed to that locality from Marion county. He was very fond of his old comrade-in-arms and kept the horse
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as a remembrance of the many days of happiness and sorrow spent by him during the war marching through the South, where he had given his services in defense of the flag of our country. The horse died on Friday, the 28th of February, 1885. His remains were kindly cared for and decently in- terred on the Colonel's farm near the beautiful Falls of Fall Creek.
ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS-AN ODD SUICIDE.
In the year 1838 a man of the name of Fox took his own life about one and a-half miles north of Huntsville by hang- ing himself. He was a single man in the employ of a man of the name of Gunn, who had died a few dayspreviously. Mr. Gunn was a man very highly respected and his death was the cause of much regret. The eulogies pronounced over him by his neighbors together with the assertions from the piously in- clined that all his troubles were over, and that he had gone to a brighter and better land above, where all was peace and happiness, and where the wicked came not and where there was everlasting joy, sounded in the ears of Fox until he had grown very much excited and finally determined, as it is sup- posed, to go to that beautiful land himself, the quickest route.
The Sunday after Gunn's funeral the family all went to church leaving Fox at home. When alone he placed a halter strap around his neck and threw the other end over a joist in the room and then kicked the chair on which he stood from under him and swung himself into eternity. When the fam- ily returned from church and opened the door of the cabin the ghastly and horrible countenance of Fox stared them in the face, his body having swung around facing the door. The horror of the people was indescribable. As soon as possible the remains were removed and the family got out of the house and could never thereafter be induced to reside there.
THE MOBBING OF HON. FREDERICK DOUGLASS IN 1843.
Much has been said and written about the mob which assaulted Frederick Douglass, the great colored orator, in Pendleton, a brief account of which appears in Samuel Har- den's book, published in 1875. The people who lived in the neighborhood of the occurrence have differed as to the correct date when it transpired, but this we shall give beyond a rea- sonable doubt. Although a stain has been cast upon Madison county because of this outrage, it cannot be considered to have
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had its origin in politics, because at that early period neither of the then existing parties had espoused the cause of the abolitionists, who desired to witness the down-fall of human slavery. To call a Whig in those days an abolitionist meant about the same thing as if the "epithet " was applied to a Democrat. This episode came about through hatred for the negro, regardless of political affiliations. Not until the great war of the Rebellion had spent its force, and had ended in victory for the Union cause, were many people found who would squarely confess that they were abolitionists. How- .ever, there was one sect of people in this land of ours who gloried in this name. They were the " Friends," or " Quakers," many of whom resided in Fall Creek township in the days when Douglass was mobbed, and many of whose descend- ants are yet to be found in that vicinity. These people, however, were not numerically strong enough to give much aid or comfort to either party.
The Hon. Frederick Douglass, just before the assault upon him, had been making a tour through the Western States, and it was his custom to stop at such places as Fall Creek town- ship, where there was a settlement of Friends or abolitionists, and deliver addresses in behalf of the freedom of his colored brethren.
The meeting which he addressed on Fall Creek was held in the woods, and had been under way but a few moments when an interruption of its proceedings was made by a man named Rix, who deliberately walked up to the stand and set to one side a pitcher of water standing there, at the same time urging some others that were with him to make an effort and " they would clean him out."
Among others prominently connected with Rix were Peter Runnels, Duke Scott and Thomas Collins. Mr. Douglass, seeing his perilous condition and recognizing the evident in- tent of the assailants to do him bodily harm, attempted to escape by getting over a fence in the rear of the platform. While in the act he was struck with a stone and knocked to the ground, receiving a severe hurt. He was taken care of by kind friends, who rescued him from the angry mob, and kept by them until such time as he could make his way out of the neighborhood with safety to himself.
Inasmuch as so many different stories have been put into circulation about this event, we have taken the liberty to use . : the following extract from a letter written by Joseph B. Lewis,
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of Pendleton to the Indianapolis Journal in the spring of 1895, on this subject. Mr. Lewis was familiar with all the circumstances and we believe his statement to be nearer the truth than any account of which we have knowledge. Mr. Lewis was a resident of Fall Creek township at the time, and being a facile writer, a close observer of facts, and a man of undoubted veracity and integrity, his statement cannot be ques- tioned.
In his letter to the Journal, he says: "I observe that some citizen of Pendleton has recently given his recollections of an attack by a mob upon Frederick Douglass in the town of Pendleton in 1843, in which he gives the event as having occurred in 1847 or 1848."
"The gentleman's recollection is wrong in some particu- lars as the event occurred in 1843. Mr. Douglass was at no time in or near the house of Dr. M. G. Walker, although that gentleman undoubtedly saved Douglass from death at the hands of a brutal ruffian who was swinging a heavy bar of iron over the head of the prostrate man when Dr. Walker, a very powerful man threw his whole weight against the murderous villain and hurled him away just as Neal Hardy, also a brave and powerful man, and Edwin Fussel gathered around the fall- ing orator and drove the mobocrats away.
" These fellows lived in Adams township in this county, and in the north part of Hancock county, and not in Anderson, as stated by your correspondent. They went away leaving Mr. Douglass lying on the ground in insensibility. being sure that they had killed him, and they long enjoyed that delusion."
Mr. Douglass was raised from the ground by kind hands, and placed in charge of Mr. William Lukens, who took him to the home of Neal Hardy, where he was cared for and nursed with a tenderness which he never forgot and which led him years afterwards to say, " Since 1813 Neal Hardy and family have been a part of my life."
Frederick Douglass in writing of his life has this to say on this subject : " At Pendleton the mobocratic spirit was even more pronounced than in many other localities visited by me. It was found impossible to obtain a building in which to hold our convention, and our friend Dr. Fussel and others erected a platform in the woods where quite a large audience assembled. Mr. Bradburn, Mr. White and myself were in at- tendance. As soon as we began to speak a inob of about sixty of the roughest characters I ever looked upon, ordered us
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through its leader, to be silent, threatening us, if we were not, with violence. We attempted to dissuade them, but they said they did not come to parley but to fight and were well armed. They tore down the platform on which we stood, assaulted Mr. White and knocked out several of his teeth, dealt a blow to Mr. Bradburn, striking him on the back part of the head, badly cutting his scalp and felling him to the ground.
"I undertook to fight my way through the crowd with a stick which I had caught up in the melee. I attracted the fury of the mob, which laid me prostrate on the ground under a torrent of blows, leaving me thus with my right hand broken and in a state of unconsciousness.
"The mobocrats hastily mounted their horses and rode away. I was soon raised up and revived by Neal Hardy, a kind- hearted member of the Society of Friends, and carried in his wagon about three miles in the country to his home, where I was tenderly nursed and bandaged by good Mrs. Hardy until I was again on my feet. But as the bones broken were not properly set, my hand never recovered its natural strength and dexterity."
The Mr. White mentioned by Mr. Douglass was William A. White, brother of Maria Lowell, first wife of James Rus- sell Lowell. Mr. White was a very able and prominent man, who met a tragic fate at Milwaukee some years later.
Mr. Lewis in his article further states that he has a very vivid remembrance of Mr. Douglass and his description of the mob in a speech which he made at Jonesboro, at some time subsequent to this attack. Douglass was then about twenty- five years old ; he was an athlete and in the prime of a splen- did young manhood. He was at that time a more eloquent orator than later in life. He was full of eloquent words, to which was added a bitter sarcasm, all of which made it very easy for anyone who then heard him to understand that he would become famous. The ring of his voice was quite differ- ent from that of his maturer years, when his husky voice and his soul's utterances seemed to belong to another.
The mobbing of Mr. Douglass caused great excitement in the community, and was not only severely criticised by all good and law-abiding citizens, but quite a munber of the par- ties implicated in the mobbing were arrested, taken to Ander- son and placed in the county jail.
There were two sides to the question. A number of citi- zens in the neighborhood of New Columbus, where several of
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the assailants lived, took the part of the rowdies. The excite- ment ran very high ; a company of men was formed at the village of New Columbus under the leadership of the Hon. Thomas McCallister, who was then a power among the citizens of the county. These men started for the Court House for the purpose of demanding the release of Runnels and the other prisoners in jail. Before reaching Anderson they halted their wagons a mile or so distant outside of the place and pre- pared their accoutrements of war, and ammunition for battle.
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