USA > Indiana > DeKalb County > History of DeKalb County, Indiana : together with sketches of its cities, villages and towns and biographies of representative citizens : Also a condensed history of Indiana > Part 27
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" A few moments after the arrival of these sufferers a traveler came in and told us that a man and a boy were out in the trail abont six miles, in a suffering condition, not being able to strike a fire, and the man so frozen as to be unable to travel. On receiv- ing this information Wesley White and William Palmer got up the pony and started for the sufferers. They found the man on section 9, township 34, range 13. (We always counted by sections, as the trail was very crooked.) They got him on the pony, and brought him in, about midnight, frozen to the knees; yet he contended that he was not cold. We got his legs into a tub of spring water, and thus drew out the frost. But the boy must be saved. The old man offered us 50 cents(!) to bring him in, which led me to administer him a severe rebuke.
"I told him if the boy was not worth more than 50 cents he was not worth bringing in. He was then ten miles ont, in snow two feet deep, among swamps filled with water, and swollen streams. " No money, however, was needed to induce us to go on to his rescue. He had kept traveling, and was thus saved from freezing. " They proved to be Mr. Graden and son, of Noble County. They had left home in pursuit of cattle. The snow commenced falling and they traveled on through Fairfield Township, and until they struck the trace, and knew not which way to turn. They were well provided for at the cabin, and in a few weeks were able to return home,
" Wesley White, who was so active in the above rescue, was a
C
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good man. He had come down from Lima to stake out some lots. " He afterward went to Sparta, Noble County. He was Deputy Clerk for Isaac Spencer, and afterward Clerk of Noble County. "After thns saving the life of others, he was drowned in Elkhart River, west of Albion. William Palmer was a rather mischievous old bachelor, and loved to play pranks on the Indians, who used to annoy ns considerably, though they furnished us with venison, bear meat, turkeys, cranberries, etc., for money or such things as we had to exchange.
"They were honest, and some of them religious, before the whites gave them fire-water, and stole their ponies and blankets.
" They used frequently to apply to me to take away ' bad Indian' whenever any of their number misbehaved. After the whites had created in them the unnatural appetite, they were very fond of whisky. One day a poor squaw came to my house and begged hard for whisky. Palmer took the pepper-sauce bottle and handed it to her; she took a very hearty drink, but as soon as she had re- moved the bottle from her lips, she began to spit, sputter, slaver and holler ' pizen! pizen!' while Bill Palmer, the perpetrator of this joke, rolled and laughed to his heart's content. ' After her suf- ferings were over, I and my good Sophia took a little laugh at her and she never troubled us again.
" SOME INDIAN CUSTOMS.
"The Pottawatomies and Miamies were the principal tribes in De Kalb County. Their manner of burying the dead was to dig a grave eighteen inches deep, put in the dead, cover with leaves, and then build a tight pen of poles over the grave. Sometimes they cut down a tree, split off a piece from the top of the log, dug out a trough, put in the body, and then covered it up closely with poles. They burnt the leaves around these burying places every fall, to keep the fire in the woods from getting to them. They disliked very much to have their dead interfered with, yet it was done by unprincipled whites. It was not uncommon to see their graves opened, the bones scattered around, and the skull of an Indian set out in the log in full sight.
"The spring of 1837 was very gladly hailed by the settlers, after stemming the storms and suffering the privations of a hard winter. During this season immigrants began to come in more plentifully, and several cabins went up in Auburn. I had given one- third of the lots to the county, receiving no compensation but the as-
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surance thatit would be permanently the county seat. In most cases, too, I gave a lot toevery settler building thereon. This year (1837) I and Mr. Ogden built the saw-mill. The town continued steadily to improve, and has been blest with good inhabitants, with but few exceptions. Much of the land in the county was taken up by speculators. This hindered its settlement to a considerable degree for some years. The crash of banks in 1837 and 1838 was severely felt, and many suffered for want of food and raiment. The years 1836 and 1837 were healthy seasons; 1838 was more sickly; 1839 still more so, and from that time till 1850 there was more or less of bilious complaints every season. Since 1850 both town and country have been generally healthy."
Thus ends Mr. Parks's narrative. If other early pioneers liad re- corded their experience, even thus briefly, the present generation woul be the gainers thereby.
JOHN HOULTON'S NARRATIVE.
John Houlton, the first settler in Franklin Township, and perhaps in the county, wrote a series of reminiscences for Mr. Widney in 1859, of which we will give the most interesting portion. He was more accustomed to handling the rifle, ax and handspike, than the pen, and was also very old, at that time; yet the interest contained in the circumstances themselves, together with his blunt, honest way of relating them, cannot fail to repay attention and perusal. He begins:
" Mr. Widney: Since you are writing sketches concerning the early settlers of the various townships of this county, for the benefit of posterity, I feel it a duty to add my mite; so please have patience as I must go out of the bounds of the county, and also note some things that happened before auy settlement of De Kalb, though they are inseparably connected with its settlement.
" Samuel Houlton, my oldest brother, and Isaiah Hughes went into copartnership to build a saw-mill, in the wilderness of Fish Creek, in February, 1827. The firm hired David Williamson, John Kilgore, Francis A. Blair and myself to work for them. They gave us axes, a little provision, and fire-works, and started us where Brunersburg now stands to sut a road through northwest to the Indian village on the St. Joseph (the present site of Den- mark). We started, and the firm was to follow with the team the next day. We cut on till dark; and when we stopped to build a fire, behold the flint, which I had put in my pocket to strike fire,
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was not to be found. We were all wet to the knees, and, it being very cold, we all expected to perish without fire.
" The boys threatened to whip me, as they said it was d-d carelessness losing the flint. Said I, ' Boys, the night will be dark as Egypt; we must make fire or perish. Let us all hunt, and if possible find a stone to strike fire with.' They said I was a fool to think of finding a flint in those swamps. We had worked hard all day, and were tired and hungry, but I well knew there was not a moment to be lost; so I started to hunt for stone, while they went to eating. It was growing dark rapidly.
" I struck a small ravine, followed it, and at last found a little stone nearly round, with no sharp edge. Feeling along awhile, and finding no other, I went back, got the ' spunk' and knife, and after a few strokes had the satisfaction to see it take fire; and soon we had a good blazing fire. The boys, who cursed me and were almost ready to kill me for losing the flint, now, with tears rolling down their cheeks, asked my pardon. Such is the instability of poor feeble man!
"We cut the road to the mouth of Fish Creek, and the team came on. We then went to work and made a pirogue of about two tons burden, and, crossing the river, built a cabin twenty feet square. When our provisions began to fail Samuel HIoulton took Blair and went down the river in the pirogue. They started to go east of the State line on the Maumee. Hughes, Williamson, Kilgore and myself staid. The boat was to be back in eight days. Twelve days passed and no boat appeared. It had rained heavily; the river rose high, the weather turned quite cold, and our pro- visions entirely failed, except a half bushel of dried peaches.
" Williamson and Kilgore concluded to leave for the settlement. We all made a raft of logs for the boys to cross the river, and the next morning they started with empty stomachs. Hughes and I went to see them cross. They went aboard the raft, and started across the river, the water being high, and the slush ice running. At first the raft bore them up; but before they got across they were three feet deep in the freezing water. They had flint and spunk, but the latter getting wet in their pockets was of course useless. They scrambled up the other bank, and there they were, their clothes freezing in two minutes, twenty-seven miles from the settlement, without food in their stomachs, without any means to strike fire, and the snow four inches deep. I shuddered for their fate, and told them to start at a good ' turkey-trot,' so as not
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to freeze, and not too fast, lest they should tire out before getting through; and, on the peril of their lives, not to sit down. They got through, but so exhausted that Judge Perkins had to help then into his door.
" Hughes and I stayed fourteen days after the boys left, during which time we had nothing under the heavens to eat but a few dried peaches. We had a gun, and went out often with it to try to kill something; but there was neither animal nor bird to be seen; no, not even so much as an Indian. On the morning of the fourteenth day I told Hughes I would make a raft of logs that day and leave the next morning. I did so. Next morning Hughes accompanied mne to the river, to see me start. We both felt sure that Honlton and Blair were coming up the river with the pirogne, and I was in great hopes to meet them in two or three hours. The river was yet high, and the slush ice running very thickly.
" I got some fire and wood on the raft, Hughes loosed the cable, and was in the act of handing it to me, when lo! my brother, Samuel Houlton, called to us, about a hundred rods up the river. He knew we must be starving, and came across from the Maumee with a yoke of oxen and sled. He tried hard to reach ns the day before, but lacked five miles when darkness overtook him. He drove on till he could follow the road no longer, and then struck fire and camped for the night. It was fortunate indeed for me that he came just when he did, for if I had got one hour's start, I should as surely have lost my life as I now live, for there was no human habitation till within four miles of Fort Wayne. The slush ice would have so adhered to the raft as soon to render it entirely unmanageable; so that it must have stove, and I would have been compelled to swim, or drown. Had I swam out, I must have frozen to death very soon.
"Now, kind reader, you would think it pretty hard fare to have nothing to eat for fourteen days but dried peaches. I tell you it kept soul and body together, and that was all it did.
" Hughes, Samnel Houlton and myself staid abont two weeks, then Samuel took an Indian canoe and went down the river to get his pirogue load of pork, flour, potatoes, corn and whisky (for Hughes must have his dram). At Fort Wayne Samuel hired a man by the name of Avery, and went a little below where Antwerp now is, where they loaded the pirogue and returned without any- thing happening worthy of note. We four worked on some time,
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and in May got the mill ready to raise. Without any further help we went to putting it up, without ropes or tackle. The size was 18 x 45 feet. There were five swamp oak sills forty-five feet long and thirteen inches square, and two plates ten inches square; but the middle bent, with the fender beam fourteen inches square, was the heaviest.
"UNWELCOME VISITORS.
" At that time there was a large Indian village where Denmark now is, and some traders came among there with whisky and made them drunk, so they came to rob us. We had worked hard all day until nearly sundown, when we went to the house to eat supper. The Indians came yelling and soon filled the house. They then drew their knives, bows and arrows and tomahawks, stuck their hands into our supper pot, and our supper was gone in a trice. Samuel Houlton drew a large poker and was abont to strike, when Avery exclaimed, 'Don't strike, Sam, or they will kill us all!' Hughes also told him not to strike, but let them take what they wanted, and he would go to the Indian Agent at Fort Wayne and make them pay for it. They then acted as true lords of the soil.
" They poured out the whisky into their camp kettles, knocked in the head of a flonr barrel and also of a pork barrel, and in fif- teen minutes flour, pork and whisky were gone. They crossed the creek about twelve rods off and camped for the night. While they were making their fires and drinking the whisky, we rolled out our last barrel of flour and hid it in a brush heap. We had also about thirty pounds of pork up in the chamber that they did not get, and that was all that saved us from starvation. The 200 Indians fought and screamed all night. A better sample of the in- fernal regions never could be gotten up in this world.
" As soon as we had secured our barrel of flour, we next re- solved that when they had generally got drunk we would alight on them with a vengeance and kill the last one of them. So we loaded our four guns with slugs and then got two tomahawks and two hand axes, and waited until they would become more drunk. In this, however, we were disappointed. They did not seem to get more intoxicated. After drinking twenty gallons of whisky, eating 230 pounds of pork, and using up 250 pounds of flour, witlı several bushels of potatoes, they started off about eight in the morning well satisfied with what they had done.
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" We made application to the Indian Agent, at Ft. Wayne, but never got any compensation for the articles taken. Every time I think of the Indian tragedy I feel thankful that we were prevented from imbruing our hands in their life blood. It was the traders, with their whisky, that made all this trouble.
" Whisky, whisky, bane of life,- Spring of tumult,-source of strife ;- Could I but half thy curses tell, The wise would wish thee safe in hell.
" TRIP TO THE PRAIRIES.
" I will now give you a narrative of another danger that I and three others passed through. The escape was almost miraculous; and do not forget that all this has something to do with the settle- ment of De Kalb County.
"In the summer of 1831 Samuel Houlton sent me, and the Widow Fee sent her son, John Fee, with me, out to the prairies with two yoke of oxen and a large Pennsylvania wagon, to buy a load of provision. They let Moses Fee, a boy seven or eight years old, go with us. Before this Sarah and Cynthia Fee were working on the prairies to help support the family, and the old lady sent word for the girls to come home. So we went ont and got onr load ready to return, when John Fee got a good chance to work awhile and accordingly staid, leaving me and the girls and little boy to get home through the woods and swamps, with the teams and wagon, as best we could.
" We were three days and a half getting home, ' miring down' several times on the way. The road being narrow and very crooked, I got fast frequently against the trees, and finally told the girls that one of them would have to drive the forward cattle, so Sarah came and drove the team. As we were thus driving along, we came to a dead cherry-tree that had partly fallen and lodged on another tree. The wagon ran over one of the large roots of this dead tree, and it broke suddenly about fifty feet from the root. The top part fell back on the wagon, within about six inches of the heads of Cynthia and the boy, smashing the boy's hand se- verely.
"The body of the tree fell along the road in the direction in which we were driving. By suddenly throwing myself back, I got barely out of its way, and having screamed to Sarah when I first saw it coming, to run for life, she ran with all her speed, the top
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of the broken tree just brushing her head and clothes. Cynthia Fee married William Bender, and she and the little boy mentioned above are living within a few miles of me, and are parents of large families. I married Sarah, the girl that drove the oxen and out- ran the falling tree, on the 5th of February, 1833.
" In September of the same year I took three hired men, a yoke of oxen, a cross-cut saw and fro, and came on to forty acres I had entered , and in four days we four cut the logs for and raised and covered the house where I yet live, in Franklin Township, De Kalb County. I also hauled ont and buried twenty bushels of potatoes on my land and left them till we moved on, about a month after, and, though the Indians were thick around, my potatoes were not disturbed-proving that they were more honest than some of their white brethren.
" And now I want to show how the Hughes and Houlton mill, though in Williams County, Ohio, had a bearing on the settlement of De Kalb County. When the mill had been in operation some years, the people began to settle on the St. Joseph, and would come and get lumber, often on credit, to build with, and thus the mill aided greatly the settlement of this county, though a few miles over the county and State line." Mr. Houlton here gives a de- tailed account of a trip through the wilderness to Highland County, Ohio, in the summer of 1834, when the streams were all foaming high, exposing him to death by drowning; and of a narrow escape from being murdered for money it was thought he had, and from which untimely death a supposed pistol (which existed only in sup- position) saved him, etc., etc.
JOHN FEE AND HIS BIG TRACK.
Mr. H. goes on to say: " In 1834 John Fee entered the large and excellent farm of 500 or 600 acres on which he now lives, and which lies on each side of the line between Steuben and De Kalb counties. Indulge me in telling an anecdote of him. He had been out to the prairies for grain, and froze his feet badly, so that for a long time he could not wear boots or shoes. So he got the Indians to make him a very large pair of moccasins which he wore. One day, after his feet got better, he went out hunting, and after sauntering through the woods awhile, he crossed the largest mocca- sin track he ever saw. He looked with astonishment at the mon- ster track, and said to himself: ' What an almighty big Indian has been along here! It's the d-dest big Indian that has ever been in
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these woods.' Abont the time that his astonishment and curiosity got to its highest, he chanced to look behind him, and lo! it was his own track!"
INCIDENTS BY M. M.
"We had a large fire-place in one end of our cabin, and the main thing for us in the winter was to get in a big back-log every evening to last all night and the next day. and then make a big fire. After the rest of the folks had gone to bed I would stay up and parch about a peck of corn in the big skillet for the next day. I could live on it, honey and jerked venison, and call it ' high life in America.' A hunter can live longer on parched corn, without water, than on anything else. Sometimes when parching corn or baking Johnnie-cakes on a smooth clapboard, I would play Daniel Boone, and imagine myself camped ont in the woods by a big fire and living on roasted coon. We moved to this country in a cov- ered wagon and camped out and that is when I first fell in love with camping out and running wild; and it is hard for me now to go back on my first love and keep from following off every covered wagon that comes along.
" We had a new comer who had moved so often that he declared that whenever a covered wagon drove up or passed his cabin his chickens would fall in line, march over the fence, lay down and cross their legs ready to be tied, thinking that they were going to move again.
" At night after we had gone to bed the ground squirrels would come up through the puncheon floor, and it was fun to see them play hide-and-go-seek, blind man's buff, or whatever their innocent games are, in their language. They were so plenty that we had to watch our corn patch when it was first planted, or they would dig it all up and eat it.
"One night I woke up and saw something lying on the floor by the fire, that looked very bright and glistening. I thought, per- haps, I was dreaming about ' Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, or 'Cinderella and the Glass Slippers;' but come to look closer it was a huge rattlesnake that had come up through the floor to warm himself. The gun stood within reach and was always loaded, and I drew a bead on him, fired and shot his head off A gun shot off in a room makes an awful noise, and it scared the rest of the folks almost to death. Father wanted to know what in the world was the matter, and I told him that I had killed a boa constrictor or an an- aconda, and that I had saved the whole family. The snake was
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very fat, and we saved the oil for rheumatism and weak back, and always found it a sure cure.
"One day Tom and George Hollenback, father and myself were out hunting, and the dogs made a big fuss in a thicket, and we rushed in to see what was the matter, and found that they had come across a den of young wolves, and the old one was not at home. There were six of them, about a quarter grown, but very active and ferocious; and we had hard work to catch them as they had such a careless way of feeling round for a fellow's fingers, and would snap at you like steel traps. At last we got a forked stick and held their necks down while we tied them. One of the boys had a big pocket in his coat and concluded to carry one in it. We got ready and started for home with our menagerie, when all at ouce the wolf in the pocket grabbed the boy by the hind part of his leg and held on like grim death. The poor fellow ran around and howled. We tried to break the animal's hold, but it would not let go. We could not beat or choke it off, and we had to cut its head off.
"That made the boys so mad that they killed all the wolves but one, which I took home and tied by a chain to a stake in the yard. In five minutes he could dig a hole in the sand big enough to hide himself, and then he would lay with his nose sticking out and let on that he was asleep; and the chickens would come around to in- vestigate the subject, and woe unto the chickens that came within the length of his chain. He could figure on it to an inch; and then, when they got within reach, he went for them like lightning, and would gobble them up, pick them and eat them before you could say Jack Robinson.
"Que morning he came np missing. He was out and gone, chain and all. I did not care anything about him, as he had eaten up most all our chickens except an old sitting hen that he did not relish; but I did not like to lose my chain. In the fall, while out hunting in the woods, and the wind was blowing very hard, I heard a rattling noise like a horse-fiddle, and went to see what it was ; and lo and behold, there was my chain hanging to the limb of a tree with a bunch of bones to it, and the wind was making music on them. It was the remains of my wolf; but I never could tell if it was a case of intentional suicide, or he got fast and hung himself accidentally. As he was already dead, I cut him down, took my chain, and left him for the wild winds to mourn his requiem.
" It was in the spring, the time to plow for corn, and in the dark
6
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of the moon, when you could not see your nose before you. One evening some of our neighbor boys saw a big black bear going north. They came down with dogs to stay all night with me, and get an early start in the morning after the bear. We had camped out on the floor, and in the night we heard a rattle at our clapboard door, and I asked, 'Who comes there?' An answer in a musical voice, said ' Mingo.' On opening the door, in stepped an Indian boy well known to us. He said that a little girl seven or eight years old, who belonged to Mr. Tobby, living about eight miles north of us had got lost in the morning, and that they had hunted for her all day and had not found her; and that they wanted us to go over and help hunt for her.
"I told the boys that was our best hold, and that we would let the bear go until we had found the little girl. We got up long before day and made our breakfast off of a wild goose and a sand- hill crane that we had killed the day before, and barbecued them by the fire. We were off early on a trail, and arrived at Tobby's about nine o'clock in the morning; and oh, such a sight! There was the mother crying and weeping, nearly heart-broken, and call- ing for Mary, the lost child.
"There were two or three women with her, trying to console her. The men were all out looking for her, and nothing had been heard from the child up to this time, one day and one night out. They had an old-fashioned dinner horn, four or five feet long, and as big as a saucer at the lower end, and it could be heard for miles. It was understood that when any one brought in any news or found the child, the horn should be sounded. It appears that on the morning little Mary was lost her father was plowing a piece of ground for corn, and she started to go to him but never reached him; and that Obbenobbe, an old Indian from the Tippecanoe, and Mingo, his grandson, had come over to Mr. Tobby's, and while he went out to hunt for the child, sent Mingo after us.
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