USA > Indiana > DeKalb County > History of Dekalb County, Indiana, with biographical sketches of representative citizens and genealogical records of old families > Part 5
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DEKALB COUNTY, INDIANA.
EARLY LABOR.
Horses were very scarce in the early days, and consequently a great deal of the labor incident to farming had to be done by hand. Heavy timber was chopped, brush burned, logs rolled, rails split, and fields cleared without the aid of a team. The wife would often "pitch in" and help the husband, she clearing off the brush. The corn was planted, of course, by hand. William Mathews planted a fairly good crop of corn with a handspike, and tended it with a hoe. He inserted the sharp handspike diagonally into the soil, then dropped the seed into the aperture formed, and then pressed down the soil by stepping on it as he passed to the next hill.
Often the crop planting season came before the settler had cleared the brush from his land, and then he planted between the log heaps, frequently arranging the logs in windrows and leaving them to be burned when the crop was gathered.
FIRST EVENTS.
The first wedding to occur among the residents of the DeKalb county settlement was that of Jared Ball and Melinda Slater. The wedding did not occur in the county, but in Williams county, Ohio, near Edgerton, the home of the bride's father. Ball paid the minister his fee in pumpkins. The first marriage to actually occur in DeKalb county, was that of Nelson Ulm and Elvira Lockwood, in the summer of 1837. The bride had to be assisted to the altar, and when there was too weak to stand up. The first marriage licenses taken out in the county were those of Francis Smith and Maria Gun- senhouser, and of John Platter and Ann Emmeline Walden. Both licenses were issued on September 5, 1837, and both marriages were performed by Washington Robinson, of Concord township, the first justice of the peace in the county.
The first funeral in the county was that of a Mrs. Barker, who lived just above the present site of Newville. Judge Widney was sent to deliver the funeral oration, there being no minister close enough. The Judge sang some hymns, prayed and talked in general about the subject of death.
The little village of Orangeville was the scene of the opening of the first store in DeKalb county, in the spring of 1837. John Platter, William Rogers, and a Mr. Savage and another man contributed two hundred dollars each, and put in a stock of merchandise, consisting of the articles most needed by the settlers at that time. John P. Widney was employed to cut logs for the store house, receiving the sum of two dollars for his services, performing the job
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in half a day. The house was sixteen by eighteen feet in size, and was built of round logs.
The first grist mill, or corn cracker, in the county was built and owned by William Mathews, on Bear creek, in the east part of the school section of Concord township. The mill was a very small affair, the stones were about two feet in diameter, and were turned by means of a flutter-wheeel on an up- right post, set in a tub, through one side of which the water passed. The whole machinery was installed in a bare frame, without a semblance of weather-boarding or other protection. The corn dropped one grain at a time from the small hopper, and the best yield, when conditions were good, was eight bushels in twenty-four hours. Mr. Widney carried a half bushel of corn a distance of four miles to get it ground, and had to wait a half day.
OTHER PIONEERS.
Other prominent settlers along the St. Joseph river were: Solomon Delong, Daniel Strong, H. Fusselman, Christian and Samuel Wanemaker, Lott Herrick, who was the first probate judge of DeKalb county, Joseph E. Sawtell was the second merchant of the county, Rev. N. L. Thomas was the first to open a store in Newville, George Barney was one of the first justices of Concord, James Hadsell, Cornelius Woodcox, and Judge R. J. Dawson, who later filled many important positions in the county.
Colin Robinson and 'his brother, Henry, came to the Maumee, near Brunersburg, in 1833, and soon after their arrival, journeyed up the Maumee to where William Rogers then lived, a little below the future site of the vil- lage of Antwerp. From there they struck across the woods, guided by a pocket-compass, some fifteen or twenty miles, through the forest, to the St. Joseph river. When in the midst of the wilderness they were so unfortunate as to lose the needle from their small compass, and were forced to search for quite a time in the leaves before they found it. About dark they struck the bluff of the St. Joseph, and from there made their way, in the light of dusk, down the river for a mile. Mr. Lytle then lived in a cabin over the river, and the object of the Robinsons was to reach it and procure foor, for they had had nothing since early morning. The time was on the 24th of December, and upon reaching the river, they discovered that ice had formed about a quarter of the way across, making it necessary to camp immediately, and thus spend the night. By the side of a fallen walnut tree they "struck up" their fire and rested.
The night was a very uncomfortable one to the travelers. On the next
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morning, which was Christmas day, 1833, they cut down a dry stump of a tree, which broke in twain when it fell. The men lashed the two pieces to- gether with basswood bark, and launched it, after breaking the ice at the margin of the river. On this crude buoy they crossed the river, expecting to find a warm fire at the cabin. No one was at home at the Lytle cabin but the children, and nothing to eat but a single rabbit, which the men devoured, after losing half of it to the family cat. The Robinsons were there with the purpose of entering land, but finding provisions so scarce, returned to their starting point.
In the summer of 1834 or 1835 Solomon Delong and John Platter crossed this same wilderness, and losing their way in the midst, without water, were forced to camp for the night. They dug a hole in the swamp with their axes and discovered water, but it had such a disagreeable taste that they could scarcely drink it. The mosquitoes descended upon them in droves, and made sleep an impossibility. Delong and Platter cut bushes and covered them with green leaves. The men then crawled under these, and were comfortable for the rest of the night.
A PIONEER HONEYMOON.
In the winter of 1836-7, in the month of January, Colin Robinson, re- cently married, started on a bridal tour from the Maumee to the cabin built on his land along the St. Joseph, the bride on horseback and Colin on foot. Arriving at the "Mer-del-arm," a large creek between the rivers, running through cottonwood swamps, he found it swollen by rains and melted snow, until it had overflown the swamps for a mile on each side. He waded through the water, his wife following on horseback, until they came to the main channel of the creek which he found covered with thick ice, and raised up sev- eral feet by the high waters. Mr. Robinson persuaded his wife to dismount and stand upon a stump, while he made the horse mount the ice and cross to the other side. He then, by means of a pole placed from the stump to the ice, got Mrs. Robinson on the ice, and from the ice on the other side to her saddle again, he wading out as he had entered. The following summer Robinson and his brother went down the St. Joseph to Fort Wayne, and then down the Maumee to where Defiance now is, for the purpose of getting seed wheat, and corn to get ground. They traveled in a large pirogue; loaded it with sixty bushels of grain and started back, but, being green hands at piroguing, they had considerable difficulty. Reaching Bull Rapids, near the state line, about eight miles below Fort Wayne, they ran on the rocks and stuck fast. The wind had ruffled the water so that they could not see bottom, consequently
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had impaled themselves on the rock shelf. They were forced to crawl out of the pirogue and push the boat from the rocks. Once more they started in the normal fashion, and succeeded very well until they reached Cole's dam, one mile below Fort Wayne. Here they had to unload the boat, and carry the grain on their shoulders up a steep bank about thirty feet high, go more than a half mile after a rope, and tying it to the boat, pulled it over the dam, very nearly losing it in the execution of the job. They reloaded, and again were on their way, but were halted again by the coming of night, at the mouth of the St. Joseph. From there to John's mill they had much trouble from the darkness and shallow water. They finally reached the mill, and unloaded their grain. Their lodging that night was made upon the bare ground, with no covering but the canopy of stars. On the final leg of the journey, to their home, they had to stop at every ripple and unload the boat, so that it would cross, then reload. Colin Robinson was seized with a violent sickness as the result of this hazardous trip. This was the pleasure of pioneering.
FAMILY MILLS.
An interesting feature of pioneer life, showing the versatility of the early settler, was the family mills. The regular grist mills were very far and with long distance between, so it behooved the settler to provide some way to grind his own corn. Every settler, in time, came to own a small family mill, which was built along the following lines: A log of beech or cedar, some twenty inches in diameter, was first secured. This log was sawed off to about three feet in length. The log was placed on end, and an inch augur bored diagonally from the circumference toward the center. This operation was continued around the circumference, with all the holes meeting in the center. With a chisel, the block bored under is pried out; it was shaped like a cone. The funnel-shaped hole was trimmed out with the chisel, and a fire of coals built therein to harden the wood. A thick stick, with an iron wedge inserted in the end, was used as a pestle. The corn was beaten until as fine as possible, and then was sifted, leaving corn-meal. The bran was blown out of the balance, and then it was used as hominy.
EXTRACTS ON EARLY HISTORY.
J. E. Rose, one of the pioneers of DeKalb county, writes the following : "The pioneer merchants (store-keepers as we called them) were N. L. Thomas, of Newville, whom we familiarly called 'Uncle Ladd,' and Thomas
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DEKALB COUNTY, INDIANA.
J. Freeman, of Auburn; both men, of some consequence in their time, have long since gone to that country from which no traveler returns. The pioneer store in the eastern part of the county, the one kept by Ladd Thomas, occupied a room about fifteen feet square, and two hundred dollars would have purchased every article he had to sell. He made his regular trips to Fort Wayne at stated periods, riding an old black horse, familiarly known as 'Old Jack' by all the early settlers, and carrying with him his pur- chases of produce, consisting of deer and coon skins, beeswax and ginseng roots. These he exchanged for such articles as he kept for sale, and freighted Old Jack with his purchases on his return trip.
"I said Old Jack was familiarly known to the settlers. Uncle Ladd, as he was called, was a Methodist preacher, and, in addition to his business as a merchant and his services in the pulpit, he preached funerals and solem- nized marriages for all the settlers in the east part of the county, and when he went from home to attend to these duties Old Jack was his only mode of conveyance. The old horse seemed to have the ability to determine the difference between a funeral and a wedding, and it is not strange that he had, when we consider the fact that when Uncle Ladd attended a funeral he went alone: but when called to officiate at a wedding the whole family went with him, and Old Jack's burden, like Job's, was grievous to be borne, and like one of olden times, he might have exclaimed: 'It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting.' I have often seen Old Jack, on Sunday mornings, passing my father's cabin home, on his way to a wedding, with the whole family, consisting of Uncle Ladd, his wife, two sons (David, who died at early manhood, and Newton, afterward a prominent lawyer in a western city), all perched upon his back. Pardon my digression, but as the old horse will be remembered by so many persons, he deserves a passing notice.
"The store-keepers in the pioneer days were required to procure a license from the county commissioners before commencing business, and in their applications for their license they were required to enumerate the articles they proposed to sell, and state the amount of capital invested in the business. And in compliance with the law, Thomas J. Freeman, the first merchant of Auburn, on March 7, 1838, applied for a license to sell foreign merchandise and domestic groceries, with a capital of $175; and was required to pay for that privilege the sum of $5; and his traffic in time-pieces was restricted to one dozen for the year. The opinions of the people have changed greatly since then, for at that time Mr. Freeman was permitted to sell intoxicating liquor without a license, but was not allowed to sell tea, coffee and sugar with-
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out a permit. Now the dealer may sell the latter without a license, but must pay for the privilege of engaging in the liquor traffic.
"Then the shoemaker, following the example of the itinerant preacher, went from house to house with his kit of tools and made the shoes for the several families comprising his list of patrons. The ladies had not then ac- quired the habit of crowding a number four foot into a number three French kid shoe; but the shoes were manufactured to fit the foot and not the eye, and were made of substantial material, impervious to wet and cold. And equipped with a pair of these shoes, the pioneer's wife could walk a mile through the snow without being placed under the doctor's care for weeks following. But these pioneer customs together with the log cabin homes and log school houses have passed away and now live only in the fond recollections of the few old settlers who survive. The wilderness we then loved for its native grandeur has disappeared, and in its stead the cultivated fields with their waving grain, the beautiful homes and pleasant little towns have sprung up.
"The winding wagon road, meandering around the swamps and creeks, through the woods, can no longer be traced by the oldest inhabitant. The old Indian trail can be no longer found, but the commodious highways permeating every part of the county furnish a comfortable route for every man to travel upon. Th mail carrier, with his horn and saddle-bags, bringing us the news of important events, at the rate of three miles per hour, has been supplanted by the elegantly equipped mail coach, carrying the news of the world at the rate of sixty miles per hour. And not contented with even that rate of speed, science now supplies us with the telegraph; and later with the telephone, by which we may converse with our friends at a distance of what was in pioneer days, a four days' journey."
JOHN HOULTON'S TALE.
John Houlton was the first settler of Franklin township, and accredited with being the first in the county. He penned a series of reminiscences in 1859, for Mr. Widney. Houlton was a fine type of the hardy pioneer, and naturally was not a literateur, but his significant and poignant manner of stating the facts lends unusual interest to the reading of them. The following is a portion of his memoir :
"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 any
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DEKALB COUNTY, INDIANA.
settlement of DeKalb, though they are inseparably connected with its settle- ment.
"Samuel Houlton, my oldest brother, and Isaach Hughes, went into co- partnership 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 later stood, to cut 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 a fire was not to be found. We were all wet to our knees, and it being very cold, we all expected to perish without fire.
A DANGEROUS PREDICAMENT.
"The boys threatened to whip me, as they said it was my d-d care- lessness for losing the flint. Said I, 'The night will be dark as Egypt; we must make our 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 flint in those swamps. We had worked hard all day and were tired and hungry, but I well knew that there was not a moment to be lost ; so I started to hunt for a 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 near the ground, 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 satis- faction 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.
LACK OF PROVISIONS.
"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 of about twenty feet square. When our pro- visions began to fail, Samuel Houlton 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 stayed. 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 provisions entirely failed, except a half bushel of dried peaches.
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"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 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 them 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 that I would make a raft of logs that day and leave the next morning. I did so. Next morning Hughes accompanied me to the river to see me start. We both felt sure that Houlton and Blair were coming up the river with the pirogue, 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 from about a hundred yards up the river. He knew we must be starv- ing and came across from the Maumee with a yoke of oxen and sled. He tried hard to reach us the day before, but lacked five miles when darkness over- took him. He drove on until he could follow the road no longer and then struck fire and camped for the night. It was fortunate for me, indeed, 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 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
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to eat for fourteen days but dried peaches. I tell you it kept body and soul together and that was all it did.
"Hughes, Samuel Houlton and myself stayed about two weeks, then Samuel took an Indian canoe and went down the river to get his pirogue load of pork, flour, potatoes, corn and whiskey ( 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 anything happening worthy of note. We four worked on some time, 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 eighteen by forty-five 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 them with whiskey, and made then 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 about to strike when Avery exclaimed, 'Don't strike, Sam, or they will kill us all!' Hughes also told him not 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 their whiskey into their camp kettles, knocked in the head of a flour barrel, and also of a pork barrel, and in fifteen minutes flour, pork and whiskey were gone. They crossed the creek about twelve rods off, and camped for the night. While they were making their fires and drinking the whiskey, 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, they did not get, and that was all that saved us from starvation. The two hundred Indians fought and screamed all night. A better sample of the infernal regions never could be gotten up in this world.
"As soon as we had secured our barrel of flour, we next resolved 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
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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 whiskey, eating two hundred and thirty pounds of pork, and using up two hundred and fifty pounds of flour, with several bushels of potatoes, they started off about eight in the morning, well satisfied with what they had done.
"We made application to the Indian agent at Fort Wayne, but never got any compensation for the articles taken. Every time I think of Indian tragedy, I feel thankful that we were prevented from imbruing our hands in their life blood. It was the traders, with their whiskey, that made all this trouble.
"Whiskey, whiskey, 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 the narrative of a 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 settlement of DeKalb county.
"In the summer of 1831, Samuel Holton 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 provisions. 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 out and got our load ready to return, when John Fee got a good chance to work awhile, and ac- cordingly stayed, leaving me and the girls and the little boy to get home through the woods and swamps with the team and wagon as best we could.
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