USA > Indiana > Boone County > History of Boone County, Indiana : With biographical sketches of representative citizens and genealogical records of old families, Volume I > Part 13
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seemed to understand the dog and after setting the cabin in order, trusting in her faithful guard she sought slumber. Very little came to her. Fearful thoughts drove restful sleep away, she only caught cat-naps.
About midnight Tige became very much excited. He would growl and whine around, look at Betsy and then at the door. Betsy seized a firebrand from the hearth and urged Tige to his duty. She heard the coarse growl of a Bruin and soon Tige got such a blow that he was whirled into the middle of the floor. He soon recovered himself and went for the bear and Betsy vigorously brandished the firebrand to get the singe on him, so that Sir Bruin thought it safe to beat a retreat. The fight over, both Betsy and Tige kept up their vigils till break of day, and on William's return she had a wonderful story to rehearse of the terrors of that lonely night in the cabin in the woods.
The father of this brave pioneer girl who helped to lay the foundations of this county and deliver it from the wilds of the woods to its present happy condition, Thomas Simpson, was the brother of John Simpson, who was the father of U. S. Grant's mother.
BOONE'S OLDEST MALE RESIDENT.
Isaac Bellis, of Thorntown, is probably the oldest male resident of the county. He is according to the records in his family Bible, over ninety-nine years of age, having been born February 22, 1815.
Mr. Bellis is a native of Ohio, having been born in Hamilton county, that state, on a farm. He was married to Amanda May in 1834. To this union twelve children were born, six of whom are still living. The three daughters reside in Thorntown and are, Emeline, Mary McCorkle, and Alethia Bee Jaques. The first named is the oldest, her age being seventy- five. She is housekeeping for her father. The sons are: Clark and Theo- dore, living at Indianapolis and Alva C., residing at Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Mr. Bellis moved to Boone county in 1855 and settled on a farm in Washington township. He lived on that farm until 1909 when he moved to Thorntown, where he still resides.
Mr. Bellis' first presidential vote was cast for William Henry Harrison
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and when the Republican party came into existence, he joined that party and has been a consistent supporter of its tenets ever since.
REMINISCENCES-TALKS OF THE OLD DAYS.
J. Webster Johnson, who was visiting Thorntown, having resided here years before, in discussing old times stated the following :
"In the plan of the home-coming of the old boys we have found the biggest reunion combination we have ever met if judged by the real and enduring enjoyment resulting. To my sister and I it means a review of our birthplace, scenes of our childhood, school days, Sunday school and early church life. Uncle Jay McCorkle was superintendent of the Presbyterian Sunday school. Here I visit the scenes of my first efforts at business; from here I went to the war of the rebellion, serving in the Seventy-second and later in the Forty-fourth Indiana Volunteers.
"Thorntown has spread over perhaps twice its size in the time I have resided at Iola, Kansas, my present home. Here people seem to enjoy the good things of life rather than going at the strenuous rush that kills. The tone of morals and the temperance here is indeed refreshing to one who loves humanity.
"Of the old citizens, those who were on the active list from 1854 to 1869, we have met but very few. Isaac Bellis, Thomas Gregory, Robert Laverty and James Davis are still here [now deceased.] I recall a host who have passed to their reward: Uncle Jay, Samuel and Milton McCorkle, E. Kinkaid, several of the Crose family, Johnnie Hughes, six of the Taylor family, Louden and his sons, the Clouds, Moffitts, Browns, Pickets, Whites and in the Dover and Shannondale neighborhoods the elder Caldwells, Corys, Hills, Mounts, Thompsons, Burrises and Irwins.
"Of my old army comrades, many are gone to the other world: D. Laverty, Milt Millikan, L. Garret, George Ewbank, Robert Matthews, Jasper McCorkle, W. Pyke, Coletraine and scores of others; and school mates by the score. But of those who remain and who have greeted us, a number so great I fear you will take it as a Kansas bluff if I would mention at least two hundred individuals with whom we were acquainted in 1869 when I left for Iola, Kansas."
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WESTWARD HO!
By Joaquin Miller.
What strength! what strife! what rude unrest! What shocks! what half-shaped armies met!
A mighty nation moving west,
With all its steely sinews set
Against the living forests. Hear The shouts, the shots of pioneer,
The rended forests, rolling wheels, As if some half-check'd army reels,
Recoils, redoubles, comes again,
Loud sounding like a hurricane.
O bearded, stalwart, westmost men, So tower-like, so Gothic-built !
A kingdom won without the guilt
Of studied battle, that has been Your blood's inheritance * * Your heirs
Know not your tombs: the great plowshares
Cleave softly through the mellow loam Where you have made eternal home, And set no sign. Your epitaphs Are writ in furrows. Beauty laughs While through the green ways wandering Beside her love, slow gathering White, starry-hearted, May-time blooms Above your lowly leveled tombs; And then below the spotted sky She stops, she leans, she wonders why The ground is heaved and broken so, And why the grasses darker grow And droop and trail like wounded wind.
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Yea, Time, the grand old harvester, Has gather'd from you wood and plain. We call to you again, again ; The rush and rumble of the car Comes back in answer. Deep and wide The wheels of progress have passed on; The silent pioneer is gone. His ghost is moving down the trees, And now we push the memories Of bluff, bold men who dared and died In foremost battle, quite aside.
"What strong uncommon men were these, These settlers hewing to the seas! Great horny handed men and tan; Men blown from many a barren land Beyond the sea! Men red of hand, Men in love and men in debt, Like David's men in battle set ; And men whose very heart had died,
Who only sought these woods to hide, Their wretchedness, held in the van: Yet every man among them stood Alone, along that sounding wood And every man somehow a man They pushed the mailed wood aside They tossed the forest like a toy That grand forgotten race of men-
The boldest band that yet has been Together since the siege of Troy."
These were some of the men, the braves and stalwarts who hewed down the forests and laid the foundations of the state of Indiana. We owe them a debt of gratitude that we ne'er can pay save in kind and reverent remem- hrance of their sacrifice and heroic work for us. Whenever and wherever you see a log cabin greet it as an altar, where sacrifice and toil was offered for the upbuilding of the state, that we might have a heritage of peace and happi-
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ness. It is meet and proper and our bounden duty to so remember those who poured out their lives in toil and suffering for our comfort. They have finished their arduous work and gone to rest. It is our duty to rever- ence and honor them.
INTERESTING INFORMATION.
Pertaining to Boone County People, Places and Historical Events.
New Brunswick was laid out in 1850.
Isaac Snow platted Mechanicsburg, in 1835.
The town of Fayette was founded by Edmund Shirley and William Turner.
Volney L. Higgins, of Harrison township, is the oldest active teacher in the county.
Boone county has more iron bridges spanning its streams than most other counties of the state.
Clinton township was first settled 1832 by James Downing, William Nelson and Isaac Cassady.
Farmers' Institutes are held annually at Lebanon, Thorntown, Zions- ville, Elizaville and Fayette.
The price of farm land in Boone county ranged from forty dollars to sixty dollars per acre and now from one hundred and fifty dollars per acre and up.
Ward is a namesake of Thomas B. Ward, congressman from this dis- trict when the postoffice was christened.
There are forty voting precincts in Boone county-two new ones being created at the sitting of the commissioners in June, 1898.
Osceola was formerly the name by which Advance was known, the name being given to it by Sol Serring of Jackson township.
Lebanon, Thorntown, Zionsville and Elizaville are supplied with natural gas from the region of Sheridan. Local capitalists own the Zionsville plant.
The first resident of Lebanon was Abner H. Longley, who some years ago returned to this city on a visit from his home in Kansas. He settled here in 1832.
Residents of Boone county, at one time, were the subjects of much ridi-
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cule and were often referred to as being web-footed or with moss on their legs, but it is so no more.
Uncle Davy Caldwell, living one-half mile west of town, is the next oldest resident of the county, being born March 21, 1804. He entered four hundred and eighty acres of land where he now resides, November 2, 1833, getting same for one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre. He sold one black walnut tree for enough money to pay for forty acres.
Dr. Thomas H. Harrison, once the editor of the Pioneer, was one of the leaders of the free gravel road movement in Boone county.
The first child born in this county was Mary Sweeney, in 1827. The first marriage was John Pauley to Emily Sweeney, in 1828, and the first death was Mary Ann Westfall, in 1829.
William Smith was a noted character in the early history of the town. He was the third white settler of the town and cut and rolled the first logs off the square. He says that he had killed three deer with his rifle inside the present boundaries of the court house park. He was the first tavern keeper in the town and was noted as a foot race runner. It is told that he once caught a deer and killed it in a race over what was once an open prairie but now the site of the city of Chicago.
The town of Whitestown was laid out in 1857 by Ambrose Neese. It was originally called New Germantown, but afterwards changed to its pres- ent name in honor of Hon. A. S. White, ex-congressman and the first presi- dent of the I. C. & L. Railway, now Big Four.
Aris Pauley laid out the town of Dover in 1850, and called the place "Crackaway," afterward called Dover. The postoffice is now designated by the government as Cason in honor of Judge T. J. Cason, who represented the district in congress at the time the change was made.
Andrew Cliffton, aged ninety-six years, is an old resident of the county. He lives in Harrison township.
Mrs. Phariba Lane, widow of Levi Lane, came to Boone county in 1835 and settled in Lebanon in 1836.
As a sample of what this county was prior to its redemption and trans- formation, it is reported that in an early day a man and his team sunk in the mud near where Mrs. Martha Daily's residence on Main street now stands, and passed out of sight and was never heard of again.
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The first jail of the county was a one-story log house, about ten by twelve feet, without a window and with but one door. It stood where the gas regulator now stands in the northeast corner of the court house yard. This gave way later to a more modern structure built on the back part of the lot where Castle Hall now stands, at that time in the rear of the court house. This building was two stories high, built of logs and had neither windows nor doors in the lower story. Prisoners were taken up stairs from the outside and let down through a scuttle hole in the floor of the upper story by means of a ladder. The size of this building was about twenty-five feet square and twenty-five feet high. This gave way, in later years, to a little brick jail in front, where the court house had stood, which afterward gave way to the present magnificent jail spoken of in another column.
"Uncle Jimmy" Dye, of Northfield, the venerable father of county recorder, James M. Dye, delights in telling the younger generation of the time when he killed deer and bear on ground now covered by the Boone county court house. He and his brother, Jacob, were solicited to clear the grounds for the public square, because of their superior ability in that line.
The Boone county cottage at the Soldiers' Home at Lafayette, Indiana, has six rooms with bath and all other conveniences sufficient to accommodate twelve persons or in other words six old soldiers and their wives, and is so occupied now. It was completed in 1897, the building of which was author- ized by the county commissioners of this county who appropriated one thou- sand two hundred and fifty dollars for that purpose. It is well located and, while it is not so large as some of the buildings erected by other counties, none are better equipped, or furnishes more conveniences.
The first court house in Lebanon was a log structure fronting on the street, where the Castle Hall building now stands. The second building of this kind was on the site of the present building; this was torn down in 1856 to give place for the new building. During the interval between the tearing down and the building anew, court was held in the various churches of the town, especially the old Methodist church. The county offices were mainly on the west side of the square in the upper story of a frame building, which stood where the Lebanon National Bank building now stands. It was here that a fire destroyed most of the records of the county, entailing for many years no end of trouble in securing titles to real estate.
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AN ESSAY WRITTEN BY W. H. MILLS AND READ AT THE OLD SETTLERS MEETING AT SUGAR PLAIN ON SEPTEMBER II, 1883.
Ladies and Gentlemen and Old Friends :
Being bashful, unassuming and modest, I have little ability to address you as others, yet with your permission and with the assistance of a friend to read for me, I shall present you an essay on this occasion. I do not feel that I was really one of the old settlers of this locality. I have not seen three score years and ten, nor shaken hands with Daniel Boone. Neither did I see Dick Johnson kill Tecumseh. I do not claim these honors. Yet I have seen some serious things in ye olden times, the reminiscences of which may not be uninteresting.
I am a North Carolinian by birth and the reason that I did not have the pleasure of the acquaintance of Sir Walter Raleigh, who settled that state, or he the honor of shaking hands with me is, that he died one or two hun- dred years before I was born. I left my native state at eighteen years of age, and came to Wayne county, Indiana, fifty years ago this fall. Like most other emigrants from the south we had but little money, or fine clothes, but we found the people of Wayne much in the same fix ; and as misery likes company, there was very little pity exchanged either way. I worked about by the day much of the time at thirty-seven and one-half cents per day, although for quite a time I got fifty cents per day driving a log team, four or six horses at a time, a thing the other boys of the neighborhood could not do. I thought I was a little smart for a Carolinian and the neighbors may have thought so too. I cut cord wood for quite a while at twenty-five cents per cord, that was for charcoal for smithing purposes. Thus time moved on for about three years and I found I was old enough to vote and I began to think I was old enough to do some other way than drag around in this style. Although we had our fun, we made sugar and of course we had to have our maple wax and candy pullings, and it seems to me yet, like the girls then were sweeter with a mouth full of maple wax, than the girls of the present day would be with all the sweet things you could give them. So as I thought some of them were rather smitten with me, I would take one of them, and as Greeley said, "go west and grow up with the country."
We went up to the northwest part of Madison county, and there located.
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I had saved twenty dollars and by the assistance of a friend I borrowed thirty more and entered forty acres of land, and built a camp of poles and boards. And last July, forty-seven years ago, we went into it. We had a pretty rough time of it generally. I went to mill twenty-four miles on horse- back and what would you suppose was in the sack-wheat? Not much, there was not a patch of wheat for miles around. We had on the north the Indians and a few white neighbors on the other side of us. We did not prefer to neighbor with the Indians, but we did not have our way about it. They were great beggars and they would steal our horses and ride them off. My brother had an excellent fine black pony and about the time he needed him worst they took him along. His mettle was up, the neighbors sympathized with him; and I was tender hearted in that case. So a company of us con- cluded to pick our flints and go for pony, Indian blood, or anything that crossed our path. Well there was not much path; they had a dim track part of the way in coming to our settlement and going to Strawtown to buy whiskey. Their headquarters was where Kokomo now stands; we found the village and likewise the pony. They had his mane and tail close shaved and had his fore legs tied together with hickory bark. We did not think any more of them for that. They said, no take him, but we did take him. I will not tell you how, and I will not say I was bad scared, but there was something the matter with me; on reflection it might have been the bump of caution on my head expanding, and to this day I don't like Indians any better than white folks. The pony and his old master went to Iowa and the pony lived about thirty-three years and his master could yet be my witness of this little unpleasantness.
Before leaving the hunting grounds of Madison county, I wish to relate a little of my experience in speculation. After living there five or six years, some of us began to feel a little important; we were the owners of quite a quantity of hogs. They were not Berkshire nor Poland Chinas; they were Elm Peelers, a species of animals that like the mastodon had their day and disappeared. We had a big mast that year and they were in fine fix for ye olden times. We were a little green about prices as we didn't take the papers, and a buyer came along and said if he could get about all in the neighborhood, he would give us a cent a pound for them. Several of us consulted and came to the conclusion that we knew the way to Cincinnati about as well as he did, and that we would drive our own hogs. Then after
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buying enough to make about five hundred, including what we raised, seven of us fixed for the journey. We hired four hands to help drive, making I think eleven in all. Then there was an old Virginia wagon with the top of the cover about twice as long as the bottom of the bed. We put four horses to it, and as they had learned that I could drive more than one horse and a Carolina cart, they detailed me to drive. I thought if there was any fun I would have my share riding that big saddle horse and looking down on the boys and hogs. Pretty soon a big hog refused to walk, so I found myself trying to lift one side of him into the wagon and if ever I saw stars without looking up it was lifting those muddy hogs.
We had a blue time generally, getting to the city and having them slaughtered and delivered, and what would you suppose we got for them- one dollar and seventy cents net. The next thing was to see how rich we were; we figured one afternoon and nearly all night and concluded next morning to guess it off and go home. We had one very smart man and a great peacemaker with us, and had it not been for him, all the lawyers and friends we had could not have got us out of that scrape. We sent him to the Legislature for his services that long night and other good things he done. The rest of them I believe walked home. I had a load of goods to haul back or I would have been broke. That cured me of speculating in hogs.
It is not worth while for me to say much about the state of Boone; there are a few of the old ones left that can tell it better than I can. It is solemn to think how few are left that were here forty-one years ago. I think nearly nine-tenths of them have disappeared, mostly gone where we are all fast hastening. I will name a few of them and close my remarks: Our old friend Oliver Cravens is perhaps the oldest settler; Isaac Gibson, John Higgins, Allen Kenworthy and perhaps half a dozen others, among them was Doctor Boyd. When I first saw him, down the road with his pill bags going to see a patient, he looked like a beardless boy, but time has wrought many changes and his locks are now silvered with gray. Hoping to meet with you on similar occasions, I bid you all adieu.
N. B .- I aimed for the tone of the above remarks to correspond with my age as the circumstances occurred.
W. H. MILLS.
(II)
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A TRUE STORY.
In the early fifties far up in the bogs of Boone, where the lazy stream of Wolf creek, crept sluggishly on its way, winding through brush and fallen timber, scarcely knowing which way to go or what direction to take for the Sea, there lived a worthy pioneer family.
It was approaching Thanksgiving, the neighborhood was discussing the preparations for the feast. All nature was out in the spirit to do some- thing for the occasion; she rolled back the dark folds of her curtain and opened the very windows of the heavens and spread upon the earth a deep fluffy carpet of feathery snow. The trees were bending under its weight and stood like so many sheeted ghosts. There was hustle about this home. William, the pater familias, was busy giving orders to the household to see that everything was in line and that each was aiding to right things. He called to Cad a lad of seven or eight summers; can't you go down to the turkey-pen and see if we have a bird?
It is a nice thing if a family has a boy in it to bring up the odd ends of work. Can't have much of a family without a boy; of course girls are nice and sweet, a home would be lonesome and desolate without them; but when there is a turkey game on, and a deep snow and the pen away down in the woods, it takes a live boy to bring things around.
What is a turkey pen ?. Of course boys of our day do not know. They are smart enough and know heaps of things that a boy three score years ago did not dream of. Well, a turkey pen is a trap in which to catch wild tur- keys. That was a game of sport that boys had in those early days that those of our times know nothing about. How was it made? Well, they took small like logs eight or ten feet long-owing to how big they wanted the pen to be-split through the middle from end to end, and then placed them on each other end to end, notched so they would be close together and made four square, using sufficient logs to make the pen high enough so the boy in it catching the turkeys would not bump his head. It was then covered over with rails and brush, so the birds could not get out. How did they get in? Well, that is a joke on the turkey. You see when these great big birds are hunting for food they go about with the head down to the ground, looking closely for bugs and grain or something to eat. They will crawl
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under logs and brush in search for food. The very moment a turkey is frightened, he pops his head up as high as his long neck will let it go and he has not got sense enough in his bald pate to look down again for an escape.
Our forbears knew all about this trait of their weakness and cunningly took advantage of it. On one side of the pen they dug a trench as big as a turkey could walk in, leading out from the pen two or three yards, and into the pen under the lowest log and towards the center, placing a wide board over the trench just inside, so Mr. Gobbler could get in a bit before popping up his head. In this trench corn is scattered freely, allowing plenty to be visible around outside, so when the pride of the sylvan wilds comes with his following in search of a breakfast for all, he sees the bait and in his well- known turkey language and with as much gallantry as a cock of the roost in the barnyard, he summons all his mates to take up his trail into the ditch. In they go, picking up the corn as they progress and pressing ever on for more and more until all are enticed into the trap and when once inside, the sudden surprise causes them to lift up their heads in alarm. Seeing no way out they become frightened and try their skill and agility leaping, flopping and peeking their necks between the logs, but they never think once of look- ing down to the trench for a way of escape. They are caught.
Where is Cad all this while? Is he standing out there in the cold freez- ing? Not a bit of it. Do you suppose a boy will stand around when he is asked to see if there are turkeys in the pen? Yonder he goes as fast as his heels will fling him through half-knee deep snow. He is nearly at the trap. The turkeys see him. They are frightened still more. Every one of them sticks his head out between the logs and flops and flies about as if each was a half dozen. Cad sees them, stops, tries to count, one, three, five, seven, eleven, a hundred. He turns on his heels, starts back, looks around to see if he can believe his eyes, runs his best towards home, gets out of breath, stops a minute and then on, until he reaches home out of breath and with great effort between short whiffs stammers out I-it-it's f-fu-full-o-of-t-th-the- the-m. All the male force of the house with horse and sled, guns and dogs start out in post haste for the turkey pen and there they find it just as Cad in broken cadences had reported. If there had only been another turkey in that pen, there would have been one round dozen. It was the biggest catch ever taken in Boone at one haul. The poor unfortunate turkeys paid the price and there were Thanksgiving festivities among neighbors, and even
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