USA > Indiana > Posey County > History and directory of Posey County [Indiana] : containing an account of the early settlement and organization of the county : also a complete list of the tax-payers, their post-office addresses and places of residence, together with a business directory of Mt. Vernon and New Harmony also biographical sketches of prominent citizens of the county > Part 12
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who invariably gave a ball and had gingerbread and cider. The mer- ry laughter of the rosy-cheeked, strong-lunged lasses, and the heavy steps of the brawny young beaus, as they kept time to the music of the cracked violin, evinced the fact that the event was a source of joy unalloyed to them. Although they had worked industriously all through the day, they would dance from dark until they were warned by the dawn of the following day, to leave. Very few of them proba- bly resided any nearer than ten miles from the scene of their mirth, yet they would mount and cheerily give spur to their animals and ride away, with their sweethearts behind them. A collection for the vio- linist was always made, and none of the assemblage was respected or loved more than he. Candy pullings, apple parings and spelling bees were prominent features in social government in those "good old days." How very different are the social scenes of this period from those of that time! Then buxom beauties, clad in linsey or home- spun, fresh as a " lily kissed by the morning dew," in perfect health, would appear at the ball room and dance the quadrille, with a double shuffle, or the pigeon wing, with its more graceful movement, beside her stalwart male partner, until the morning sun showed his broad and luminous face above the Eastern horizon. Fatigue was unknown to them, to which their ignorance of new fangled ideas of fashion is at- tributable. Then they wore gloves of their own making, and the more aristocratic among the fair sex appeared in buckskin moccasins. Sin- gular as it may seem, the maidens of those days, notwithstanding all the obstacles they contended with, enjoyed better health than the average lassie of this time. Artificial means, alas, that are used nowa- days, to improve upon the handiwork of nature, have rendered Hy- giene powerless to perfect her work of physical structure.
It will be seen by the following incident that outlawry, although crime was quite common in the early periods, was not tolerated when justice could be vindicated. In the year 1820, Humphrey Barnett, an old bachelor from Kentucky, where he served a term in the peni- tentiary, (which did not seem to have the effect of improving his moral condition, as he was known to be a very bad man after he came to this county, ) stole a horse from one of the McFaddins. He was pur- sued very closely, and when on the eve of capture ran the horse into the river, at Mt. Vernon, cut its throat and pushed it into the current, with which it floated down the stream. He was taken by a posse of citizens, among whom were Jefferson Dunn and one of his brothers, and John McFaddin. Barnett was tied with a rope and plunged into the river until he was nearly drowned, but the confession that was ex- pected of him from this treatment would not be made. When he had sufficiently recovered from the ducking, anothor means was instituted to draw from him the verification of the suspicion as to his being the
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one who had stolen the horse. He was taken to a place just below the farm kown as the " Oatman place" and whipped with black-haw twigs until he made a full confession of the theft and the disposition he made of the horse. After this he complacently turned to his arbiters, and said : " Boys, cold water will never bring it, but black-haw limbs are an infallible truth extractor." Shortly after this occurrence, Barret left this region and never returned.
In very early times, about the year 1820, John Weir, North McFaddin and James Culbertson, three young and vigorous men, went in search of wild fowls that used to sport in the waters of the pond which occupied the territory now bounded by Fourth, Fifth, Main and Store streets in Mt. Vernon. By some reason the two first named be- came separated from their companion, who lingered behind, it was thought, for the purpose of taking his "stand" at the South end of the pond. Only a short time intervened, however, before his companions heard him give utterance to screams which plainly indicated pain and danger. Rushing to the spot whence the sounds came they discovered their companion lying on the ground, bleeding from terrible gashes in his face, throat and body and stiff in death, while the retreating steps of a panther in the thicket were audible. It was at once understood that the unfortunate young man had met his death while under the large locust tree which a few years ago stood on the corner of Fourth and Main streets. The marks of the animal's claws could be seen in the bark of the tree, and it was evident to the young men that it sprang upon its victim from the branches.
The first steamboat that ever passed down the Ohio river was con- structed at Pittsburgh, in the year 1811. It left that city in October of the same year on its trial voyage, taking no freight or passengers, a Mr. Roosefelt, under whose direction the steamer was built, his wife and family, Mr. Baker, the engineer, Andrew Jack, the pilot, six hands and a few domestics forming the whole of her burden. The absence of wood yards along the banks of the rivers in those days made de- lays unavoidable, as the steamer was compelled to "lay to" until a supply of fuel could be obtained from the dense forests that skirted the streams. The steamer came down to Louisville, and owing to the small depth of water on the falls, the persons in charge found that they could pursue their course no farther. Having that spirit of enter- prise which characterizes the Yankee, Mr. Roosefelt determined upon plying between Cincinnati and Louisville until a sufficient depth of water would permit him to pass over the rapids. " The novel appear- ance of the steamer and the fearful rapidity with which it made its passage over the broad reaches of the river excited a mixture of terror and surprise among many of the settlers along the banks, whom the rumor of the invention had never reached." The unusual noise and
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sight of the vessel at Louisville, as she steamed to the dock at that place, produced considerable alarm, and many arose from their beds to ascertain the cause. After three weeks of confinement to the river above the falls, the steamer was favored by a rise in the Ohio, and she passed safely over. When the steamer (called the New Orleans) came into full view at the head of the bend six miles above McFaddins Bluff, the residents of that place were so frightened that they fled to the woods, supposing that the devil was out on a lark and would do them some injury should he come in reach of them. It was at night, and as they had retired, a great many were found shivering in their night clothes at a very late hour and sometime after the vessel had passed. Some of the more adventurous, however, when their fright had worn off, viewed the craft from the hill with considerable astonishment. The boat was one of 410 tons burden and travelled at the rate of five miles per hour. The boat encountered trouble at New Madrid during the severe shocks of earthquakes of that period, but finally reached New Orleans without sustaining any very great damage.
Wm. Hunter, in 1810, at the present site of the town of New Harmo- ny, built and launched the first flatboat that ever carried produce to a Southern market. It was built for John Gresham, but who, on account of his great fear of the earthquakes referred to above, sold it to Wm. McAdoo, his father-in-law, who went South with pork and corn in the winter of the year 1811.
KIDNAPING WAR.
Among the early settlers along the borders of the Ohio river was found a class of men who were regarded by the honest backwoods- men of the time as thieves, counterfeiters and murderers. This very rough and desperate element was chiefly made up of fugitives from justice from the more thickly populated and civilized districts of the East and South, while some of them, by their adventurous natures, had been induced to locate on the frontier by the motive which was born of the belief that it offered a secure field in which to carry on their nefarious operations. The relations which these outlaws and desperadoes bore to each other created the supposition that they were bound together by a devout compact, sealed by an exacting oath and strengthened and systematized by secret signs. This opinion was strongly confirmed by the fact that these characters associated with no one but representatives of their class, and as they were constantly going and coming, it is safe to state that the organization composed all of that disreputable clan who committed heinous crimes all along the Mississippi, Ohio and Wabash rivers. There are, at this date, many highly esteemed and honorable families living in this community who
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are descendants of some of that gang, and it would be improper, for that reason, to mention the names of the individuals dishonorably associated with this narrative. This fact is established by strong circumstantial evidence which leaves no room for doubt that, at an early period, their remote ancestors were members of that part of the organization which existed in this County, and who resided above West Franklin and along the Ohio river from that point to and below Mt. Vernon. It is a matter of history that members of this same band were numerous at Shawneetown, Ills., Ford's Ferry, Ky., Cave-in-Rock, Ills., and at points on the Ohio river as far as Cairo, Ills. It is also well known that the rendevous of these lawless men was at Metropolis, Ills., where, in later years, they were divided and their respective factions were called the "Regulators" and "Flatheads," between whom a bitter feel- ing of jealousy and hate was, more lately, engendered. The most prominent of this gang of adventurous, desperate men was Acquilla Ford, who sojourned in this County, at different periods, sixty years ago.
In the Northeastern part of the County, at that time, resided a man by the name of Goddard, whose wife, a white woman, who by an unnatural and disgraceful yet sad misstep, was the mother of a pair of twin boys, then six years of age, one a bright mulatto and the other of very dark com- plexion. Goddard was a very dissipated and intemperate man, who on a day in 1822 was absent from home, when Acguilla Ford rode up to his house in a hurry and, with an assumed look of excitement, informed Mrs. Goddard that her husband had sustained fatal injuries by being thrown from his horse six or eight miles distant, and who desired to see her before he died. There being no one at the house in whose custody she could leave the children, she asked Ford what she should do with them, when he told her to place one of them in front of and the other behind him on his horse, and he would take them to a neighbor's, where she could get them when her errand had been attended to. This arrangement was readily entered into by the unfortunate woman, and she immediately set out for the scene of the supposed accident, following the road that Ford had taken, hoping to overtake him. She hurried onward as rapidly as she could until she reached the house of the neighbor where Ford was to leave the children, where she learned that the miscreant had not been; and it was then that she entertained the terrible opinion that her boys had been kidnaped. Wild with misgivings, and already greatly fatigued from walking, she hurried forward with as much speed as possible, and had gone but a few miles when she met her husband, well and uninjured, returning home. What should she do? Her husband was a weak and dissolute charac- ter, while Ford was known to be a resolute desperado, whose friends were numerous and equally desperate, and who would defend him at the peril of their lives in all his villianies. The couple went to their
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home, he to wear off the effects of a debauche, and she to mourn over the loss of her ill-conceived progeny. The news of the high-handed outrage spread like wild fire, first in the immediate neighborhood, and then throughout the entire Northern portion of the County.
A band of twenty-seven men was immediately organized, some of them armed with guns, some with clubs, who were led by Patrick Cal- vert, William Rogers and Joe Cater, down through the County, intent upon securing the stolen children. Ford and his friends about West Franklin were soon apprised of the move and made preparations to meet it ; first by dissimulation and dissuasion, and, this failing, to op- pose by force the rescuers. The party of deliverance advanced and occupied a house near West Franklin, where Ford and a man named Inman (who lived in that place at the time) met the company. With honeyed words and fair excuses they represented that the children were gone beyond their power of recovery, and that it would be useless for the band to attempt a rescue. But Cater, Calvert and Rogers were not to be dissuaded from their object, and they boldly asserted that they believed the boys were secreted in the neighborhood, and insisted on a thorough search of the premises being permitted. This proposition highly incensed Ford, Inman and their sympathizers, as well as many of the more reputable residents in and about the village, and after a somewhat lengthy and heated discussion over the matter, a conflict en- sued between the parties. Jack Lynn and several other sympathizers joined the Ford-Inman gang, increasing their number to seven well armed, fearless men. The company of rescuers seeing this sudden change in affairs, and fearing that the entire neighborhood might rein- force them, gave way to their apprehensions and retreated,-Goddard being the first to do so-leaving Rogers, Calvert and Cater to resist the attack. This desertion was not only cowardly but untimely, and it was afterwards condemned in the strongest terms. Under the ex- citement of the moment one of the kidnapers got possession of Cater's gun and carried it off, leaving that gentleman nothing save a club as a weapon 'of defense. Some of the men who ran away got as far as an old cornfield, at a safe distance, where they mounted stumps, from which they witnessed the sanguinary and unequal contest between their three comrades and the seven ruffians. Guns and clubs were freely used by both parties, and two of the Ford-Inman gang received serious wounds, while Calvert only of the rescuers had been hurt. He had been very severely beaten and was supposed to be dead, but the affray continued furiously between the five of the kidnaping crew and the two rescuers, when Dann Lynn appeared upon the scene as a peacemaker. Dann Lynn-he always wrote it so-was one of the very earliest set- tlers of the County, had been a member of the Constitutional Conven- tion that framed our first Constitution, had been honored by having a
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township named after him and was for two terms a member of the State Legislature. He was not above suspicion, even in his palmiest days as a politician and speculator, but he was a man of great prominence and influence, and by reason of his popularity with all parties concerned he was enabled to stop the fray and prevent further bloodshed.
After hostilities had ceased, the company, now with only Rogers and Cater as their leaders, collected together and departed for their homes. Dann Lynn had Calvert removed to his house, administered to his wants and in a few days afterward restored him to his friends and family. But the affair did not end here. Joe Cater soon orga- nized another company, this time of forty well-armed, picked men, whose reputation for fearlessness was well known. With this picked band Cater revisited West Franklin, and upon this occasion he not only thoroughly searched that neighborhood, without opposition, but he actually crossed over into Kentucky and searched over a vast area of territory, but his efforts to find the boys were in vain-they had been taken far beyond recapture. And so the second company re- traced their steps homeward, without even the excitement of an encounter with the enemy. For a time the matter was forgotten. In or about the year 1824, glowing accounts from parties who had gone to the Red river country, in Arkansas, came back, and the descriptions of the fertile soil had the effect of inducing a company of twelve or fifteen residents of Posey County to emigrate to that section, with the view of locating and entering lands. Patrick Calvert, who was a man of considerable means accompanied them, expecting, however, to return when he had seen that distant land The party, after looking at the country, concluded to return with Calvert, who had been there a fortnight. On their journey homeward they put up for the night at an inn in a small village in Arkansas, called Fulton. After supper, in conversation with the host, Calvert chanced to speak of his home in Indiana and spoke, among other things, of his experiences while engaged in the kidnaping war of Posey County. When he had finished, the landlord sat meditating for a short time and then said : "Stranger, about the time you mention two mulatto boys, answering your description exactly, were brought here and sold to-, in the neighborhood."
The next morning Calvert went to see the boys, and was so entire- tirely certain of their identity that he at once set about to recover their persons in a regular and legal manner. This he did by testing their memories in reference to their abduction and other matters, and by these tests the authorities, before whom the case was taken, were so thoroughly convinced that these were the children abducted by Ford that they delivered them into the custody of Calvert, and he brought them back with him to their former home in this County.
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Although the most degrading works of illegitimacy covered her offspring, like dark clouds of night obscuring the face of the moon behind them, it seems that Mrs. Goddard's motherly heart rejoiced as much over the return of her unbleached boys, in rags from a Southern plantation, as many a more fortunate mother would over the return of her boys, in broadcloth and fine linen, from a Northern College.
In gratitude the boys were bound to Calvert, by the mother, who said they should serve the man who had been wounded in their de- fence, and who, by the hand of Providence, (probably somewhat as- sociated with a desire to see the Red River country !) had miraculous- ly delivered them from a life bondage of serfdom. The boys served Mr. Calvert faithfully until long after they attained their majority, and what became of them, or their mother, or their alcoholic, carousing step-father, after that, no one living seems to know. Old Dann Lynn and all the other Lynns of that family are dead. There is nothing certain kuown what became of Inman. Acquilla Ford proba- bly emigrated to the more congenial clime of Arkansas or Texas, and whiled away many of his leisure hours in concocting various plans of villainy before he passed away naturally or by the course of summary vengeance. Cater and Rogers died in this County, and there is prob- ably not one of the sixty or seventy persons living who actively par- ticipated in The Kidnaping War.
While the "Flower House" (now occupied by Theodore Hudnut as a hominy mill) was in process of constsuction, in 1835, David Mills, in a fit of daring, rode his horse up an incline plane which led to the scaffold used by the mechanics. The scaffold was above the floor of the second story, and when the horse and rider reached it the discovery was made that there was not sufficient room in which to turn, though an attempt was made. which resulted in their precipitancy to the ground. Strange to relate, nothing more serious than the breaking of the horse's tail was sustained, although the distance was nearly fifteen feet. David Mills was the father of Mrs. Joseph Welborn, Felix and F. N. Mills, and a man of prominence in his time.
On the 8th of January, 1862, in Mt. Vernon, while celebrating the event of General Jackson's victory over the British in the battle of New Orleans and which terminated the "war of 1812," Mr. Charles Hovey, a brother of General Hovey's, was killed by the accidental discharge of a six-pound gun. The accident was attributed to the failure of the "thumber" to keep his thumb upon the touch-hole while Mr. Hovey was engaged in ramming the charge into the piece, but the act was excused when it was known that his thumb was severly burned. The ramrod in its passage from the gun entered the side of the un- fortunate man and wounded him most frightfully, from the effects of which he died on the following day.
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On the 26th of January, 1881, Dr. E. V. Spencer, while going to his residence, at the corner of Mulberry and Fourth streets, in Mt. Vernon, was ruthlessly set upon by midnight assassins and robbed. He was struck from the rear upon the head and felled to the ground and left in an unconscious condition. Dr. Spencer recovered, and in November following prosecuted Francis Moore for the crime. The jury returned a verdict of guilty and assessed the punishment at four- teen years in the penitentiary. Benjamin Kemper, John Reed and William Morgan are held as accessories at this time. The trial is set for the April term of the Circuit Court, 1882.
On Wednesday, the 25, of January, 1882, while Mrs. Alvis Gregory was sitting at a sewing machine, in the house of her brother, who resides two miles East of Springfield, some one fired upon her through a window from the outside, the contents of the weapon entering her neck and seriously wounding her. The wound was probed by a phy- sician, who discovered that a ball had penetrated the spinal column at the base of the brain, which must necessarily jeopardize her life. The husband of the woman was suspected of the crime, and he was arrested and taken before a justice, who fixed his bond at $1,500 to await the action of the grand jury. A few days after the attempted assassi- nation, the grand jury indicted Gregory, who, upon hearing the result of their deliberations, fled the country. The Sheriff, Alex. Crunk, immediately offered a reward of $400 for the arrest of the fugitive, but at this writing (February 24,) his whereabouts has not been ascertained.
PRIMITIVE MILLS.
It is claimed by some that George Rappe and his associates con- structed the first grist mill in the County, but this is denied, and it has been stated upon good authority that John Warrick, about the year 1812, built a mill on the "cut-off " at New Harmony, and it had been in operation some time, manufacturing meal, when the Rappites bought and remodeled it. It was at this mill where the first "home-made" flour was manufactured, the honor falling to the peculiar society which located at Harmonie in 1814 and 1815. The mill was run by water- power .-
Darius North, Virgil Soaper and Andrew McFaddin constructed the first steam saw mill, at Mt. Vernon, in 1831, who afterwards added machinery for grinding corn, and it finally became a grist mill and dis- tillery. The building was destroyed by fire in 1838; was rebuilt by George Moore, Jesse Moore and - Fonda, the same year, and de. stroyed again by fire about 1853; was rebuilt again by DeWit C. James and George Mugge about 1855. This mill and distillery was four stories high and had a capacity equal to 225 barrels of flour and
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1,300 gallons of whisky per day. It passed into the hands of Her- man Munchhoff and George Wolflin in the year 1865, which, on Feb- ruary, 1873, was destroyed the third and last time by fire. The huge smoke stack which belched forth clouds of smoke of inky blackness, day and night, for many years, is still standing-a monument of indus- try and a silent spectator of the eventful spot.
Before these mills were constructed the primitive inhabitants, when they did not "grind". their meal by the use of strong cloth and heavy stones, went to the Saline, in Illinois, for their "grinding." The salt they obtained in that section was the principal inducement for making the journey, though in those remote periods a ride on horseback of twenty-five or thirty miles "to mill" was regarded as a minor under- taking. In the year 1817, James Black erected a grist and saw mill on Big Creek, near the Upper New Harmony and Mt. Vernon stage road. Its motive power was water. Wm. Wear, father of James and John, in 1820, built a grist mill on the farm now owned by the widow of James, eight miles Northwest of Mt. Vernon. Abner Coates, in 1825, constructed and operated a mill on Coates' Creek, in Lynn Township. G. W. Thomas. in 1836, erected a grist and saw mill, on Big Creek, near the present village of Grafton. It was burned and rebuilt in 1841 and which, in 1848, was destroyed again by fire. It was rebuilt again in that year. Innumerable horse mills have been constructed in the county and for years were the main source of de- pendence for "bread stuff"to the neighborhoods in which they were lo- cated. They have long since been "things of the past."
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