USA > Indiana > Dearborn County > History of Dearborn County, Indiana : her people, industries and institutions > Part 11
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THE EARLY CIRCUIT-RIDER.
The spiritual side of the pioneers' natures, too, was not entirely neglected. Churches were not to be found, but the traveling circuit-rider came around
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once or twice a year and held religious services in some of the houses central in the locality ; whereupon the whole countryside for miles around would turn out to hear him and, incidentally, to meet their neighbors and get acquainted with the new emigrants. The menace of the Indian was yet about the set- tlers, and the watchful pioneer had his trusty rifle on its pegs over the wide- mouthed fireplace. A supply of powder and ball, too, was indispensable. As the years passed the danger from either the Indian or the wild beasts grew less and less. The clearings were growing, the forests growing less. It is related in the Dearborn county history, written in 1885, that in 1806, shortly after Ephraim Morrison arrived at where Aurora now stands, the notorious Simon Girty was sometimes seen in this region, and that on one occasion Blue Jacket, an Indian chief, borrowed a saddle from Morrison in order to accom- pany Girty to Detroit. The saddle was brought back according to promise. It is said of Captain Hayes that when he lived at the mouth of the Miami he explored the Big Bottoms from Tanner's creek to Whitewater, and with his unerring rifle killed many a bear, deer and elk. The little creek that drains the hillsides by the residence of F. M. Burkam is called Elk run on account of Mr. Hayes killing a gigantic elk on the run. The day following this ex- ploit there was preaching at one of the cabins. When the services were over, Mrs. Hayes announced to those present, "All of you that want meat come to our house; father has killed an elephant." The story goes to illustrate the genial, open-handed kindness that existed in those days. If one neighbor killed a deer or bear, a hog or a sheep, the neighbors all shared. A story Captain Hayes told of one of his hunting trips was that he had killed a large deer on Double Lick run. The place he shot from was the bluff bank of the run which was breast high and completely concealed him from the lick as he stood in its dry bed. After waiting, as he thought, a sufficient length of time, after the report of his gun, for Indians to make their appearance, if any were about, he laid his gun down without reloading it and dragged the deer into the bushes, where he bent a sapling to hang the deer on to prepare it for packing on his horse. On his return to get his gun it was gone; an Indian had been watching him and when he was engaged with the deer, slipped up and stole his gun, but as it was empty no injury could be done with it. Droves of deer were common and the captain said he always took his pick, never kill- ing a doe unless it was necessary. An early surveyor told that in the course of his work in the forest he had counted as many as sixty elks in one drove. He judged there were as many as one hundred in the drove.
There was little use for corn except for family use. The cattle fed off
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the range and the hogs fattened off the mast, which was plentiful. It is to be very much regretted that the traditions of the early pioneers, giving their homely but true picture of the everyday life, were not preserved. A truthful account of their mode of living would be both interesting and instructive. As these backwoods scenes recede into the dim past they increase in interest. An account of the hardships encountered by a family crossing over from Philadel- phia to Pittsburgh, and the trip down the river in an open or covered boat would be quite a different story from coming over in these days in a palace car with sleeper and diner. Yet that was the route; and where the family was large it was the custom for the boys and girls over six or seven years of age to trudge the entire distance. Nothing was thought of it, for it was ex- pected and they were prepared to endure the hardships.
A PRIMITIVE DOMICILE.
It is possible that the first few months in the rude cabin after reaching their destination were the most trying of any of the experiences encountered by the pioneers. The first residence, if it could be called such, was generally made of round logs; the cracks filled in with sticks and this daubed over with clay. The roof was of clapboards held in place with poles reaching across the roof, called weight poles. The floor was made of split pieces of logs called puncheons. Straight-grained logs were chosen and these were split slab fash- ion; after which the upper side, or the side intended to form the floor, was hewed off as smooth as possible. The fire-place was a picturesque affair, but not as comfortable as a modern grate fire. It was made of logs lined with clay; or, if stone were convenient, it was built of undressed stone and was at least six feet wide to enable the settler to roll big back logs in that would keep fire for several days if necessary. Sometimes the chimneytop was fin- ished off with sticks plastered over with clay. This crude affair often got on fire and it was not an uncommon thing for these quickly made cabins to get on fire and be consumed. The door of this abiding place was made of split timber, much the same as the floor, and was stout enough to withstand hard pounding. It was generally hung on wooden hinges and fastened with a wooden latch. The latch was on the inside with a hole through the door and a string or thong of buckskin hanging on the outside, whereby the door could be opened from without. Hence the hospitable term: "My latch-string is always on the outside," which meant that the family always welcome peo- ple to the best they had.
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Sometimes the house was graced with windows, but more frequently not. If windows were made they were small, generally not more than two feet square, the aperture being closed with paper, greased with lard or bear's oil. Such a domicile was frequently erected in a single day, all the neighbors turn- ing out to assist; at least this would be the case if there were any neighbors. A neighbor, within the meaning of those times, was anyone who resided within a range of six or eight miles. Such furniture as might be found in such a house would be riven out by the settler with his ready axe. Dishes were few and highly prized. The cooking was done in front of the fireplace in stewpan and skillet; corn pone being the staff of life. By care and thrift the settlers. after their first winter, generally were well provided with the bare necessaries of life.
THE PIONEER'S EVENING AT HOME.
A description written by Rev. William C. Smith in his "Indiana Miscel- lanies" is herewith given, as illustrating the manner of lighting the homes dur- ing the long winter evenings. "During the day the door of the cabin was kept open to afford light and at night, through the winter season, light was emitted from the fire place, where huge logs were kept burning. For a few years candles and lamps were out of the question. When these came into use they were purely domestic in their manufacture. Candles were prepared by taking a wooden rod some ten or twelve inches in length; wrapping a strip of cotton or linen around it, then covering it with tallow pressed on with the hand. These 'sluts,' as they were sometimes called, answered the purpose of a very large candle and afforded light for several nights. Lamps were prepared by dividing a large turnip in the middle, scraping out the inside quite down to the rind, then inserting a stick, say three inches in length, in the center, so it would stand upright. A strip of cotton or linen cloth was then wrapped around this stick, and melted lard or deer's tallow was poured in until the rind was full, when the lamp was ready for use. By the light of these primitive lamps during the long winter evenings the women spun and sewed, and the men read, when books could be obtained. When neither lard nor tallow could be had, the large blazing fire had to be turned to, to supply the needed light. By these great fireplaces many cuts of thread have been spun; many a yard of linsey woven, and many a frock or buckskin pantaloons made.
"The cabin raising and the log-rollings were labors of the settlers, in which the assistance of the neighbors was essential and cheerfully given. When a large cabin was to be raised, preparation would be made before the appointed
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day; the trees would be cut down, the logs dragged in and the foundations laid and the skids and forks made ready. Early in the morning of the day fixed, the neighbors gathered from miles around; the captain and the corner men selected, and the work went on with boisterous hilarity until the walls were up and the roof weighted down."
PROGRESS OF THE PIONEERS.
The cabin of round logs was generally succeeded by a hewed-log house, more pretentious and much more comfortable. Indeed houses could be made of logs as comfortable as any other kind of a building, and were erected in such a manner as to conform to the taste and means of the person building. For large families a double cabin was common; that is, two houses ten or twelve feet apart, with one roof covering the whole, the space between as a hall for various uses. Henry Clay, in an early speech, on the public lands, referring to the different kinds of dwellings sometimes to be seen stand- ing together, as a gratifying evidence of the progress of the new states, said: "I have often witnessed this gratifying progress. On the same farm you may sometimes behold, standing together, the first rude cabin of round and un- hewn logs and wooden chimney; the hewed log house chinked and shingled, with stone or brick chimneys; and lastly, the comfortable stone or brick build- ing, each denoting the different occupants of the farm or the several stages of the condition of the same occupant." The wearing apparel of those days was chiefly of home manufacture. The flax and the wool necessary for clothing were prepared and spun in the family, cotton being hardly known. The flax to be prepared for spinning called for much work. It was first pulled and allowed to stand out in the weather until it was sufficiently weather beaten for the stem to break easily. Then it was taken and hackled or broken into pieces, the parts hanging only by the fibrous outside bark. After being hackled, it was "scutched," generally on a piece of timber or board with one end made like a comb. By this "scutching" the pieces of broken stem or the woody portion was combed out and nothing but the soft bluish fibre left which was tied up in hanks to be spun. The labor of spinning was generally done in the evenings during the long winter, affording something to while away the time in the unseasonable weather and at the same time prepare the material for the weaver's hands. The wool was taken from the sheep, washed and the burs picked out, which was quite a job. Then it was carded by hand. The family in those days knew little of the divisions of labor, as things are accomplished
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in these days. The wool-carding, spinning, dyeing and weaving were all done under the same roof and most generally the tailoring, too. The wool was dyed with walnut bark or butternut or with the hulls of the walnut. Lin- sey-woolsey was common for men's wear, and generally was of a light blue indigo color.
DIFFICULTIES OF EARLY HUSBANDRY.
Horseback riding was the common and, indeed, the only feasible means of travel. Corn was taken to the nearest mill in this fashion, a bag containing some corn being placed on the horse with one of the boys on the bag was the everyday way of procuring the corn meal from the nearest horse or water-mill. Mills at first were not to be found and the early settler would re- sort to temporary devices to grind his own meal; but as the years went by water-mills became common. The streams, fed by the uplands covered with vegetable mold and decayed leaves, held back the streams so that mills run by water were much more dependable than they would be in these days.
The breaking up of the ground was at first attended with great difficulty and labor. The great trees threw out their roots in every direction, some varieties very close to the surface and the labor involved in securing sufficient loose dirt to cover the corn and potatoes was great. The bar-share and shovel- plows were in common use. The "jumping" shovel-plow, with a coulter in front so it would not get fast under the roots, but would dig and cut its way among the smaller roots, was a very useful and common utensil. Wooden mould-boards were the kind used for a breaking-plow and the horses were equipped with "shuck" collars, with traces made of rope or stout leather, home tanned. The harvesting was done with the scythe for the hay harvest and the sickle in the wheat. In threshing the wheat, either a flail or horses were used. A place was cleared off, made level and the ground wet and pounded hard. The bundles of wheat were then laid down in a circle, with the heads sticking up'; in the center was placed a pole, fixed in the ground, and at the top of this pole arms were fastened so as to revolve, to which the horses were tied and driven around until their tramping threshed the wheat from the heads. Then the straw was cleared off, the wheat and chaff gathered up and a fanning-mill of home-make was used to separate the chaff from the wheat. If no machine of the kind was at hand the wheat was winnowed until the chaff was separated from the wheat. The harvesting of hay was a simple matter, the hay being cut, cured and stacked in the field much like it is done today in many places.
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To have a store of food for the winter was a task that required skill and forethought. To the thrifty families of that day the winter's provender was a test of the capacity of the family to be self-supporting and forehanded. Pota- toes were dug and "holed" up for the winter and spring. Cellars were made close to the house, on top of the ground, frost-proof, with heavy wooden dou- ble doors. Sometimes cellars were dug under the house and one of the pun- cheons in the floor kept loose so the vegetable could be secured at any time. Turnips and cabbage were plentiful. Once in awhile a wild apple tree was found on which was fruit. These wild apples were carefully laid away for the winter. Hogs, fattened on the mast, were soon plentiful and they were killed and the meat cured by salting and smoking. Berries were dried in the sun and brought out in the winter as a luxury. In most neighborhoods whisky was made in some fashion, or secured in some manner. It was kept in every household as a necessity. It was counted as good for snake bites, stomach or bowel trouble, sprains, or colds; indeed, it was used as a remedy for most any ill the settler was heir to and nothing was thought of it. At the log- rollings, house or barn-raisings, shucking bees, wood-cutting bees, or even at the quiltings, it was not an uncommon beverage. Excess it its use brought the same results as now and was denounced just as vigorously. The environ- ments, however, and the constant struggle against nature made the people much more pugilistic than in these days. A quarrel, trivial in its nature, was frequently settled by the parties taking off their coats and fighting it out. After the battle was over they would separate good friends.
TRIBUTE TO THE EARLY SETTLER.
In the early history of Dearborn county, published in 1885, the following excellent description of the early immigrant is given : "The early immigrants may be described as a bold and resolute, rather than a cultivated people. It has been laid down as a general truth that a population made up of immi- grants will contain the hardy and vigorous elements of character in a far greater proportion than the same number of persons born upon the soil and accustomed to tread in the footsteps of their fathers. It required enterprise and resolution to sever the ties that bound them to the place of their birth, and, upon their arrival in the new country, the stern face of nature and the necessi- ties of their condition made them bold and energetic. Individuality was fos- tered by the absence of old familiar customs, family alliances and the restraints of old social organizations. The early settlers were plain men and women of
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good sense, without the refinements that luxury brings and with great con- tempt for all shams and mere pretense.
"A majority of the early settlers belonged to the middle class. Few were, by affluence, placed above the necessity of labor with their own hands, and few were so poor that they could not become the owners of small farms. The mass of the settlers were the owners in fee simple of at least a quarter section, one hundred and sixty acres, of land. Many possessed a half section or more. After the settlements were once established few persons owned large tracts of several thousand acres, while the poorest immigrant, if indus- trious and thrifty, could lease land at almost his own terms.
"The backwoods age was not a golden age. However pleasing it may be to contemplate the industry and frugality, the hospitality and general sociability of the pioneer times, it would be improper to overlook the less pleasing features of the picture. Hard toil made men old before their time. The means of culture and intellectual improvement were inferior. In the absence of the refinements of literature, music and the drama, men engaged in rude, coarse and sometimes brutal amusement and public gatherings were often marred by scenes of drunken disorder and fighting. The dockets of the courts of those times show a large proportion of cases of assault and bat- tery and affray."
HAD LITTLE TIME FOR STUDY.
While some of the settlers had books and studied them, the mass of the people had little time for study. Post roads and postoffices were few and the scattered inhabitants rarely saw a newspaper or read a letter from their for- mer homes. Their knowledge of politics was obtained from the bitter dis- cussions of opposing aspirants for office. The traveling preacher was their most cultivated teacher. The traveler from a foreign country or from one of the older states was compelled to admit that life in the backwoods was not favorable to amenity of manners. One of these travelers wrote of the West- ern people in 1802 : "Their generals distill whisky, their colonels keep taverns, and their statesmen feed pigs."
At the time Dearborn county was first settled Cincinnati was the prin- cipal market for the whole Miami country, the present metropolis then being a village of about five hundred inhabitants. A voyage to New Orleans was made by flat boats, the journey requiring several months. For the journey eastward, the primitive pack horse was beginning to be exchanged for the Pennsylvania wagon with its four and six horses. Articles of produce were
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very low. Corn would bring ten or twelve cents the bushel in limited quan- tities; wheat thirty to forty cents; beef one dollar and a half to two dollars, and pork about the same, per hundred. On the other hand, articles of foreign manufacture were correspondingly high. Coffee, fifty cents the pound; pins, twenty-five cents the paper : ginghams, fifty cents the yard; fine linens, one dollar the yard, and calicoes one dollar the yard, and flour from two dollars and a half to three dollars the barrel. Money was a scarce article with the settlers. Merchants, however, who could import articles made in the East or in foreign countries realized enormous profits on their sales. The new arrivals brought most of the money that was in circulation and most of the commer- cial transactions were in exchange. A day's labor would be paid in bacon, flour, tea or coffee, just as the man desired. A horse would be traded for several head of cattle or a lot of hogs. The necessity for home-made clothing made the raising of sheep more desirable than now. It was almost a neces- sity that each family should have a few sheep from which to get the wool for clothing in the winter. The wild animals would prey on these sheep, and it was no easy task to care for them. Bears viewed mutton as a choice article of diet for their special consumption, and the wolves were prowling about most every night.
SIDELIGHTS ON THE PIONEERS.
The personal history of the most prominent of the men who first settled in the county is little known. A few have left some little word behind them as to their earlier history, but only the few. Ephraim Morrison, who settled at the mouth of Hogan creek, on February 14, 1796, was a native of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, the son of Samuel and Mercy Morrison, and he and four of his brothers were soldiers of the Revolution, he having been wounded at the battle of the Brandywine. Ephraim Morrison married Mrs. Nancy Hettick, whose maiden name was Forster, on July 1, 1787, and in 1794 they came west as far as Pittsburgh, where they stopped to await the result of Wayne's treaty with the Indians. On February 1, 1795, with several other families, they embarked on a keel-boat for Cincinnati. At the latter place Mr. Morrison met Joel Williams, whom he knew in Pennsylvania. They stopped with Captain Hayes, at the mouth of the Miami, for a short stay, then pro- ceeded to Tanner's Station (now Petersburg) whence they arrived on Feb- . ruary 9. At Tanner's Station they found a few families living, among whom were John Tanner, John Watts, a Mr. Voden, Mr. Eads, Daniel Moseby, William Caldwell, a Mr. Kirtley, Mr. Ashby, Maj. Israel Sebree, and Capt.
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William Sebree, brothers of Mrs. John Watts. A Mr. Alloway lived about one mile above the station. Mr. Morrison came over to the mouth of Hogan with his eldest son and repaired what was thought to be an old Indian hut, and the family moved into it on St. Valentine's Day, 1796. He found three or four acres cleared, both above and below the creek's mouth. There he met Adam Flake, who told him he had settled on South Hogan creek the month previous. There were numbers of Indians to be met there, the aborig- inals having a camp in the vicinity, and Mr. Morrison became acquainted with Black Hoof, Blue Jacket and Captain Bill, retaining distinct recollections of these warriors in later days. The notorious Simon Girty was with these In- dians and went with Blue Jacket to Detroit and never returned, although he had a son in the county, who grew up here and went by the name of Simon Peters. He married in the county and afterwards moved to Marion county, this state, where he ended his days, leaving a family. Mr. Morrison assisted Benjamin Chambers in surveying the public lands of Dearborn county, carry- ing the chain and making the tally of site-trees, etc. Chambers and Mr. Morri- son's wife were cousins. Ephraim Morrison cleared up, with the aid of his sons, about thirty acres of land; fenced it and built a double log cabin, stable. and sheep-house. The land sales took place at Cincinnati on April 9, 1801, and Mr. Morrison attended them. Fractional section 22 contained five hun- dred and eleven and eighty-one hundredths acres, and Mr. Morrison had suf- ficient money to enter one-half of it, two hundred and fifty-five and ninety hundredths acres, which lay on the west side of the creek, and on which were all his improvements. General Finley, the land officer, told him the treasury board had told him to sell nothing less than a whole section, and that all frac- tional sections must be sold with the whole section to the rear of and adjoin- ing it. Section 21 and fractional sections 22 and 23 contained in all one thousand one hundred and eighty-three and seventy-seven hundredths acres, by the survey ; so the whole lot was bidden off to Charles Wilkins, who took the land, improvements and all, Mr. Morrison returning home much cast down over the loss of his improvements and the choice pieces of land he had sacri- ficed so much to gain. That year Wilkins charged him rent for his own im- provements. Mr. Morrison shortly afterwards moved to Clark county, Ohio, on the Mad river, where he died on February 2, 1806. His son, Samuel Morrison, was a well-known citizen of Dearborn county, living for a long time on the farm where Dr. E. J. French now resides, his death occurring at Indianapolis. He was born where the city of Aurora now stands, on March I, 1798, and died in Indianapolis on March 1, 1888, having lived a long and very useful life.
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JOSEPH HAYES
WALTER HAYES JACOB HAYES THE HAYES BROTHERS, EARLY PIONEERS OF DEARBORN COUNTY
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