USA > Indiana > Boone County > History of Boone County, Indiana : With biographical sketches of representative citizens and genealogical records of old families, Volume I > Part 11
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WHY CALLED HOOSIER STATE.
"The night was dark, the rain falling in torrents, when the inmates of a small log cabin in the woods of early Indiana were aroused from their slum- bers by a loud knocking at the only door of the cabin. The man of the house, as he had been accustomed to do on like occasions, rose from his bed and hallooed, 'Who's here'? The outsiders answered, 'Friends, out bird-catching. Can we stay till morning'? The door was opened, and the strangers entered. A good log fire soon gave light and warmth to the room. Stranger to the host, 'What did you say when I knocked'? I said, 'Sho's here'? 'I thought you said Hoosier.' The bird-catchers left after breakfast, but next night re- turned and hallooed at the door, 'Hoosier,' and from that time the Indianians have been called Hoosiers-a name that will stick to them as long as Buck- eyes will to Ohioans, or Suckers to Illinoians."
Thus the Hon. O. H. Smith, in his early Indiana trial, accounts for the name of Hoosier as an appellation to the people of this great commonwealth.
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There are, however, other explanations of the same term, although they may not be as authoritative. There was an early traveler in this state by the name of Sulgrove. Meredith Nicholson, in his excellent book, The Hoosier School- master, gives the following story :
"Sulgrove related the incident of an Irishman employed in excavating the canal around the falls at Louisville, who declared after a fight in which he had vanquished several fellow laborers, that he was a 'husher,' and this was offered as a possible origin of the word. The same writer suggested another explanation, that a certain Colonel Lehmanowski, a Polish officer who lectured through the west on Napoleon's Wars, pronounced Hussar in a way that captivated some roystering fellow, who applied the word to him- self in self-glorification, pronouncing it 'Hoosier.' Lehmanowski's identity has been established as a sojourner in Indiana, and his son was a member of an Indiana regiment in the Civil war. The Rev. Aaron Woods is another contributor to the literature of the subject, giving the Lehmanowski story with a few variations. When the young men of the Indiana side of the Ohio crossed over to Louisville, the Kentuckians made sport of them, calling them 'New Purchase greenies,' and declaring that they of the southern side of the river were a superior race composed of 'half alligator, half horse, and tipped off with snapping turtle!' Fighting grew out of these boasts in the market place and streets of Louisville. One Indiana visitor who had heard Lehman- owski lecture on "The Wars of Europe" and been captivated by the prowess of the Hussars, whipped one of the Kentuckians, and bending over cried, 'I'm a Hoosier,' meaning, 'I'm a Hussar.' Mr. Woods adds that he was living in the state at the time and that this was the true origin of the term. This is, however, hardly conclusive. The whole Lehmanowski story seems to be based on communication between Indiana and Kentucky workmen dur- ing the building of the Ohio Falls canal."
This could hardly have been the origin of the time because the canal was not built until 1830. Much earlier than this; in fact, 1828, a man by the name of John Finley, a Virginian, came to Indiana and lived in the state several years. He had been here at least seven years, when he published a poem known as The Hoosier Nest, in which he uses the word Hoosier. Evi- dently it had been in use for some time, because Finley himself could scarcely have originated the term. Finley is describing an early Indiana life when he says :
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"I'm told in riding somewhere West, A stranger found a Hoosier nest ; In other words, a Buckeye cabin, Just big enough to hold Queen Mab in. Its situation low, but airy, Was on the borders of a prairie ; And fearing he might be benighted
He hailed the house, and then alighted. The Hoosier met him at the door, Their 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.
Where half a dozen Hoosieroons,
With mush and milk, tin-cups and spoons,
White heads, bare feet and dirty faces,
Seemed much inclined to keep their places."
SLAVERY QUESTION.
We can not trace the early history of Indiana, without alluding to the slavery question. It was the dominant political issue all through our terri- torial history. The ordinance of 1787 prohibited slaves and involuntary servitude; yet in the same ordinance there was a conveyance of property that carried the right of property in slaves, At the time of the adoption of this ordinance, there were in the bounds of Indiana approximately, two hun- dred slaves in what is now Indiana. As slavery was abolished by the ordin- ance, many of the slave owners moved into the Spanish possessions. A few remained and claimed a legal right to their human chattels, on the ground that when the northwest territory was conveyed to the United States there
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was a provision that the French and Canadian inhabitants and other settlers who have possessions as citizens of Virginia, shall have their possessions secured to them wherever they go. Negro ownership was considered a pos- session and the immigrant that brought his negro to the territory of In- diana was guaranteed the right to his property. In that way the institution of slavery was planted and continued as long as the slaves that were brought within our bounds lived. According to the returns of the United States census of 1820, there were one hundred and ninety slaves in Indiana. In 1840 there were only three slaves, two in Rush county and one in Putnam. In 1843 there was only one and the institution perished at his death. Slavery agitation was the dominant question in politics, although not always to' the front. In 1802 there was a convention at Vincennes that asked Congress that the sixth article of the compact of the ordinance be suspended for ten years, on the ground that the slaves were needed to develop the new country, and American citizens who could ill be spared were being driven to the Spanish dominions because of their slave holdings. This convention was composed of delegates apportioned among the counties and Governor Har- rison presided over its sessions. The territorial Legislature of 1805 re- quested the repeal of the restricting clause. In the Legislature of 1807 Con- gress was memoralized in behalf of slavery. No attention was paid by Congress to these petitions ; but the agitation continued to stir Congress and there were many that sympathized with the sentiment. A counter agitation arose in 1807 and it must have been the first meeting in the territory of In- diana against the slave institution. A number of citizens met at Springville on the roth day of October of that year and formed a memorial vigorously protesting against the extension of slavery or any violation of the ordin- ance of 1787. From that day the fight in Indiana never ceased until the slave institution was killed by Abraham Lincoln January, 1863, as a war measure in the suppression of the rebellion. The election of congressman in the years 1809, 1811 and 1813 Jennings and Randolph were lined up as opposing candidates for and against slavery. In each of these campaigns Jennings was elected on the anti-slavery principle. Still the advocates of slavery clung to their cause and made a vigorous fight in the constitutional convention in 1816, where they met their defeat by the adoption of the clause in the constitution of the new state of Indiana. There shall be neither
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slavery nor involuntary servitude in this state, otherwise, than for the punish- ment for crime. This ended the question in the state of Indiana, but the. institution remained until the death of the last slave that was brought here by the settlers until the last one died in 1843, and the institution in the nation was ended by the amendment of the constitution of the United States in the year 1865 as the resultant of the Civil war.
UNDERGROUND RAILROAD.
One of the great agitators that led to the war and the overthrow of the slave institution was what was termed the underground railroad. Slav- ery got into Indiana through the principle tenaciously adhered to by the advocates of slavery wherever any other property could be carried. This principle climaxed in the Dred Scott decision that made no distinction be- tween slave property and other possessions. In a word, a slave owner should have the right to hunt and recover his property in a slave, wherever a northern man could hunt for and recover his horse. The anti-slavery ad- vocates denied this right. They instituted the underground railroad to avoid the law and assist the fleeing slave from bondage. The organization for this purpose established routes with private homes as stations to secret the fugitives by day and from which the fugitive could be transported by night while dark and stormy to the next station in safety. Many a thrilling story of narrow escapes from pursuing masters were known by those that con- ducted the clandestine escape. In the early settlements of the state there were many of these roads and they were well known by all those let into the secret and by the fleeing slaves. Boone county came in too late to have these roads, and we do not know that one ever existed within her bounds. There may not have been any well defined roadways or perfected organiza- tion, yet there was plenty of warm sympathy for the slave and also pro- slavery sentiment. Many of the early citizens of Boone county came from the southern states. Some in search of freedom and free institutions and others still in sympathy with the slave institution. These two sentiments. grew here side by side, as they had grown in the nation at large, and when the great struggle of life and death came on in the sixties, the sentiment manifested itself and the slave issue had a following until the war ended the controversy. There was an organization of the Knights of the Golden
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Circle in the south portion of the county that made a few drills and a slight demonstration. It was of short duration and when the war closed it passed away and has been forgotten. It is presumed that there never was a slave by law in this county and very few that have been in bondage. There are. but few of African descent in the county, perhaps as few as in any other county in the state of Indiana.
CHAPTER VII.
EARLY LIFE-EARLY RECOLLECTIONS, EARLY TRIALS-HARDSHIPS-ROAD BUILDING-EARLY GATHERINGS.
"Thought like the tide swings within fixed limits, with ages for systole and disastole, ebb and flow, and to know today you must be a student of all the past."
The story of the early life in Boone county has never been told. It would make volumes of interesting literature. Glimpses of the story have been given in the record of the different settlements, as they have come up in the various settlements in the county but we deem it proper to give a general outline of the life of the white man in the woods.
HOW DID HE GET HERE ?
One hundred years ago there were no white men in this section of coun- try for miles unless it would be now and then an adventurer passing through the land on a discovering expedition, or on a trade with the Indians for some pelts. At an early date there were no dwellers of the white race in the land; no home builders. There were no roads by which they could come. There was nothing but the Indian trail winding through the dense woods from Indian village to village, or from spring to spring, and now and then over the hunting ground. There was no way by which a horse or vehicle could travel about over the country. It was nothing but one continuous tangle of woods and underbrush all over the county, and during the wet season covered with bogs and morasses, and in many localities with lakes of water with no apparent flow in any direction.
The first highway leading into the county was the Michigan road which ran from Indianapolis to Lake Michigan, entering Boone county at the south-
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east corner and passing through the eastern part of the county. This was the first thoroughfare leading into the county. It was the first cutting away of the underbrush and hewing down of timber to make way for travel by vehicles. Eighty-six years ago this work was begun. Later came the state road leading from Indianapolis to Lafayette, which entered the county near the southeast corner at Royalton, and passed through the center of the county and out near the northwest corner. One other road leading from Indian- apolis to Crawfordsville was constructed in the early day, which cut across the southwest corner of the county.
By these three highways the pushing pioneer was able to find his way into the woods of Boone, by overcoming the greatest of difficulties. We would not call them roads in this age. They were just gaps in the dense woods so you could see daylight. They were full of stumps which the team would have to wind around and now and then an impassable bog that at times became impenetrable. Yet these were the great thoroughfares that led into the wilderness over which swarms of immigrants worried their way in the search of their Eldorado of a home. These roads soon became the stage- way into the new country, over which sightseers and home seekers traveled in the lumbering stage coach drawn by four or six prancing steeds. The stage stations where the horses were changed, were of more importance that day than railway stations are in this age; and the merry notes of the bugle, that announced the coming of the stage, and echoed through the woods was vastly more thrilling and exciting than the shrill whistle of the approaching steam train of our day. What a hustle there was at the Ho-tel de Ville at Eagle Village on the approach of the stage. Everybody was on the run. The hostlers ready with fresh horses, prancing in their eagerness to go. The stage was no sooner stopped, the driver winding up his long lash, dismounted, perhaps with some expletives not admissable today. Then the jaded horses were removed and fresh ones in their stead were prancing eager to be off. The driver would remount, cry out all aboard, unfurl his long lash and snap it at the leaders. with such vigor, that they danced to go, and off they went on a fly around the corner with a whirl.
Say, fellow-traveler from the woods of seventy-five years ago, do you remember the old stage coach? Do you remember what aspirations rose in your breast to become a stage driver? There was something fascinating about it that carried a boy off his pegs. He desired above all things to leave
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the brushy farm and be a stage driver and learn the art of whirling the long whip with such skill as to knock a fly off the tip of the left ear of the off leader, without touching the horse. Do you wonder at the fever that would seize the early Boone boy under such exciting circumstances? You might as well expect a boy to fly over the tall trees as to expect a live boy to have no fever on such occasions.
The first roadways leading into Boone county from the settled sections of the country were the Michigan road, the State road from Indianapolis to Lafayette, and the road leading from Indianapolis to Crawfordsville. It was upon these roads that the white man found his way into this county. Who were the people that came? They were mostly native-born Americans. Very few foreign people ever found their way to this county, even in its later history. The trend of migration in the central part of Indiana was along about the same parallel following the national road to Indianapolis, thence northwest following the Michigan, Lafayette or Crawfordsville road. Either of these roads would land the traveler within the limits of Boone county. The people that traveled along these lines were generally from Pennsylvania, Ohio and eastern Indiana. Some of our people came from Kentucky, Tenn- essee, the Carolinas and some from the Old Dominion.
How did they get here you ask ? There were no roads until the people were here to make them, so that the first that came had to make the road as they came. The very first came over the Indian trails. This was nothing but a winding path through the woods for one to tread on foot, or possibly on horseback. The first man that came by wagon had to hew a path wide enough for his team. The next that came could get along easier, and so on, in this way the early settlers pushed their way into the wilderness, the roads growing as the country became settled. It was a long difficult struggle, con- suming two generations before the present development was effected. It would be a very difficult matter for those enjoying the comforts of this day to comprehend the hardships that our forbears had to endure. Felling the timber, rolling the logs to the side of the road, removing the stumps, not by dynamite but by main force, and last and hardest, corduroying the bogs and morasses so that they would not mire in the mud of that day. The people came at first afoot, on horseback, in ox-carts and in great wagons drawn by oxen and horses. Each would make a picture and furnished our own Hoosier poet with his dream of home.
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By long struggle and much hard work, the weary pilgrim reached the point where he concluded to drive the stake for his home. He found a high place near a spring of water if possible and cut away the timber for his home. A few neighbors gathered in and helped him raise his round log cabin. It was very crude at first and scarcely sheltered him from the storm and the beasts of the forest. We will not stop here to describe what has so often been told. It served the pioneer family for a home and they were content and as happy and in fact more so, than the dwellers in a palace of later days. As soon as the crude shelter was established, the entire family go to work to enlarge the home. The daily avocation is to cut trees, pick brush, cut and roll logs to widen the clearing around the home. This was the process of developing every pioneer home in the county. By toil the clearing widened into door-yard, garden, orchard and into fields until there was a little farm. It was considered a great blessing when neighbors could begin to see each other's homes in the winter. It was not so lonesome.
While this work was being done schools were provided for the children, very crude at first. Mills were established and churches and roads leading toward them, so comforts began slowly to multiply, and the blessings of civic relations began to develop and the pleasures of life multiply. The early social features among the men were log rollings, cabin raisings, foot races, wrest- lings, and for side shows, huntings, shooting matches, bear fights and the like. The youth had their spelling-bees, apple-parings, huskings and the women quiltings, spinning and weaving tests, so that there was joy all around and as much delight and real social enjoyment in that early day as there has ever been since. There have been great changes in seventy-five years but very little improvemnt in the social and real pleasures of social, religious and intellectual life and enjoyment. Oh, the joys of the sugar-camp and the ecstacies of cider and apple butter days. Hundreds of pleasing stories could be recited of real incidents along these pleasure lines, of the life of our fath- ers, without exhausting the store. By such toil and hardship, homes, roads, schools, churches and beautiful farms were developed, by draining out our swamps and morasses. The chief product of the land is what is known by the race of men that preceded us-by the name of "Mondamin" and by our name of corn. We submit here a little story of each :
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MONDAMIN (Indian.)
You may not know just what is meant by this title word, but the boys and girls that lived here one hundred years ago knew it well. It was their principal food. They raised it just north of Thorntown. It took all summer for it to grow. Our people raise it today. It is our principal crop and has become a great source of revenue. We live in the part of the world that is fitted for the growth of this plant. You can't raise it all over the world like wheat, but there are certain belts where it thrives. It requires rich soil, plenty of moisture and warmth. It is natural for us to feel badly when our goods are damaged by rain or storm or drouth, and the heart often sinks within us at weather disasters. If we would just have faith and trust and work on, things will even up by the time the year will round up. Good old Mondamin is now doing its best to even up matters, and it bids fair to make this a boun- tiful year. It is pouring in millions every day into our bins. Just watch the great armies of plumed knights lined up in the fields by the roadside, with millions of waving green banners to salute you. If you but listen you can hear the joyous laughter as they are bringing plenteous food for man and beast. Go a little deeper and listen down in the heart, and you can hear the wave offering of blade and plume as it softly sings praises to the bountiful Giver of all good. We ought to bow our faces in shame when we complain of too much or too little rain in this goodly land. God has always fed us bountifully. He knows what is for our good and he knows how to manage the elements much better than man. The Indian that lived here before our fathers came had their patches of Mondamin. They did not raise great fields of it as we do. This country then was a vast forest with only a little clearing here and there. The people thought more of game than they did of grain. Our fathers changed things. They cut down the forest and made fields. They changed the name Mondamin to corn. The women did the work in raising Mondamin while the men hunted; now men do the work in the fields. Then they produced a little for food for man, now we aim to feed the world bountifully. Less than one hundred years has wrought this wonderful change upon the face of this land. This is the work of culture and refine- ment. It shows what man can do when he uses his God given powers. A mixture of brain with muscle and heart makes a good compound, a trinity in man that can produce a God-like power to do. This great change has
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been brought about gradually. Our children scarcely perceive it. They were born in the lap of our luxury and think it always existed. They do not know how to appreciate the present blessings, and yet they have been de- veloped in the life time of our worthy citizen, Mr. Bellis. From Mondamin to corn represents one of civilization's cycles. From a wilderness of path- less swamps to fruitful fields, roads and happy homes, all in less than one hundred years. What will our children do in the next century? Will they uproot the weeds of sin, cut down the Upas tree of licensed wrong and make of this land a very Eden? Will they change corn to manna and fill the land with flowers, fruits and celestial delectables ?
CORN (White Man.)
There is no plant that is more common or better known to our boys and girls than this cereal. Here we only apply this name to one species of grain, but over the world's history and in books it is the general name of any kind of grain that is used to make bread. The term corn in its broader sense means wheat, barley and other grains, but in our country it only means Maize or Indian corn. If the world knew anything about it before Columbus discovered this country it had lost sight of it, and it is commonly put down as being a native of this country. If it was ever cultivated in the old world it went out of use and was not known in western Europe until the new world was discovered. Columbus introduced it into Spain in 1520 and it spread rapidly over the old world because of its great productiveness. We all know it so well in this country that it is not necessary to describe it here. It might be well for us to learn the names of the different parts and their uses. It is called Zea, a genus of grasses. When full grown the top or tassel, as we call it, is termed the male flower. It is a loose panicle or plume at the top of the culm or stalk. The female flowers are axillary spikes that shoot out from the base of the blades or leaves. The spikes which form the cob are covered with tough husk and from underneath come very long styles or silken tassels. There is one of these silken threads for each grain that is formed. The process of formation and growth is a very interesting study and is be- coming more so to the growers of corn. If you will plant a grain of corn and watch its growth from start to finish you will find it very interesting.
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