USA > Indiana > DeKalb County > History of Dekalb County, Indiana, with biographical sketches of representative citizens and genealogical records of old families > Part 6
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"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 severely.
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"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 of the broken tree just brushing her head and clothes. Cynthia Fee later married William Bender. I married Sarah, the girl that drove the oxen and outran 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, DeKalb county. I also hauled out and buried twenty bushels of potatoes on my land, and left them until we moved on, about a month later, 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 DeKalb county. When the mill had been in operation some years, the people had begun 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.
JOHN FEE'S TRACK.
"In 1834 John Fee entered the large and excellent farm of 500 or 600 acres on which he later lived, and which lies on each side of the line between Steuben and DeKalb 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 moccasin track he ever saw. He looked with astonishment at the monster 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 these woods.' About the time that his astonishment and curiosity got to its highest, he chanced to look behind him, and lo! it was his own track!
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INCIDENTS OF HUMOR.
"We had a large fireplace 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 anything else. Sometimes when parching corn or baking Johnny- cakes, on a smooth clapboard, I would play Daniel Boone and imagine myself camped out in the woods by a big fire, and living on roasted corn. We moved to this country in a covered wagon, and camped out, and then 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 newcomer 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, blindman's buff, or whatever their innocent games are in their language. They were so plentiful 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 perhaps I was dream- ing about Aladdin and the wonderful lamp, or Cinderella and the glass slipper, 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 al- ways 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 anaconda, and that I had saved the whole family. The snake was 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 the thicket, and we rushed in to see what was the matter, and found that they had come across the den of young
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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 around for a fellow's fingers and would snap at you like a steel trap. 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 home with our menagerie, when all at once 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 min- utes 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 investigate 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.'
"One morning he came up missing. He was out and gone, chain and all. I did not care anything about him, as he had eaten most all of our chickens, except an old setting 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 could never tell if it was a case of intentional suicide or he had 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.
A SEARCHING PARTY.
"It was in the spring, the time to plow for corn, and in the dark of the moon, when you could not see your nose before you. One evening some of the 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 goes there?' An answer, in a musical voice, said, 'Mingo.' On opening the door in stepped an Indian boy well
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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 gotten 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 calling for Mary, the lost child.
"There were two or three women with her, trying to console.her. The men were all out looking for Mary, 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 anyone brought in any news or found the child the horn should be sounded. It appears that on the morning that 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 grand- son, had come over to Mr. Tobby's, and while he went out to hunt for the child sent Mingo over after us.
"Just then Obbenobbe came in with a little piece of yellow calico that he said he had found on a bush about three miles east of there. Mrs. Tobby said at once that it was a piece of the dress that Mary had worn, and it had been torn off by the bush. That gave her some hopes; but the terrible thought was whether she was alive or not. The country was then full of wolves and the chances were against her, but we hoped and hoped ever. We then made the woods and prairies ring with the old horn, and then we agreed that not a gun should be fired until Mary was found, dead or alive, and broke for the place where Obbenobbe had found the piece of her dress. We made good time and soon reached the spot, and began to look for more signs. After looking around for a long time we found her little footprints in the sand and also in the mud, going from home. She was barefooted and from that day to this I have never forgotten those little tracks in the sand and mud. We hunted all day and found no other trace and our hearts began to sink. We were tired and hungry, having had nothing to eat all day. We could have killed deer, but had resolved not to fire our guns off. We had a large grey- hound that could catch a deer any time and two coon dogs. As night was
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coming on we prepared to camp. While we were fixing our camp two dogs barked up a hollow tree and we supposed there was a coon in it. We made an Indian ladder and Obbenobbe climbed up and put some fire in the tree and came down. As the tree was dry it soon began to burn, and made a bright light from the top.
"At last two coons rolled out, pretty well singed. We killed and skinned them and were getting ready to roast them. It was not dark yet and we heard a noise, and looking up we found that something had scared two deer, and they came running right to camp. We put the dogs after them and a short distance from us was the creek. In jumping in, one of the deer fell back in the creek; in a minute the dogs were on him, and we ran in and pulled him out and killed him, and in fifteen minutes from the time we first drew blood everyone of us had a piece of the meat on a stick and roasting it, and such a feast we did have. The body wanted more food than the soul did, and for the time being we forgot our troubles.
"Night came on and a dark one it was and the wolves were howling around us. The worst of all, it began to rain, and our only thought was, 'Where was Mary Tobby?' We had listened all day for the big horn or the report of a gun, but all in vain. Remember, my dear friends, that this is a true story. Remember, too, that this was the second day and second night that she was lost, and how could the heroine live so long among the wolves with nothing to eat and nothing to protect her from the weather but a little calico dress. We did not sleep much that night, and were up early and started on our search. We hunted all day up and down, backward and forward, as the grasses and bushes were very thick, calling and listening, but all in vain.
"At last, about three o'clock, we gave it up and hope died within us, and we turned out faces homeward with heavy hearts. There is something in man called the dormant or latent powers or energies. For instance, I had been hunting all day and was returning tired and weary, hardly able to lift one foot before the other, and game would start up before me, and I could run for hours and forget that I was tired. Now hold your breath. We had given up and started for home, and away off north of us we heard a gun's discharge. So then our dormant powers and hope went up, and we all broke and ran, and reaching the edge of a prairie we saw a man on horseback in his shirt sleeves with something wrapped up in his coat before him. It was Bridge Ward, and he had found Mary Tobby in this way: He, too had given up and started home in despair. As he was riding along he saw a grove north of him, in the bend of the creek, and somthing told him or influenced him to take a last look there. He turned his horse to the right and through the grove, and
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then on the edge of the creek, and there he found Mary Tobby, who had lain down for her last sleep; but thank God, she was still alive.
"Her little feet, limbs and hands were all torn and bleeding from the briars and grass, and her golden hair was all matted together. He picked her up gently and wrapped her in his coat and started for home. But how had she lived and escaped so long from wild animals? Although Obbenobbe was the oldest, he was still the best runner, and we started him on the wings of wind to carry the glorious news to Mary's home, that she was found and still alive. It was not long before we heard the guns firing and the horn blowing, as the rest of them had all given up and retired to the house. As Mary was weak we had to go slow, and as we neared the house they all came out to meet us, and the mother was frantic with joy. I thought she would kill the child by hugging and kissing it. Mary was very weak, but after careful nursing soon got strong again, grew to womanhood, married and raised a family.
BEAR HUNT RESUMED.
"Now for the bear. After going north, we turned east, and killed a couple of hogs in the neighborhood of Brunks and then turned northwest and killed a calf near Stephen Jons's, the bee hunter. We sounded the tocsin, called in our forces, and with the Forrence and Hollenback boys, started on the warpath, resolved to do or die for the rising generation. We were pro- vided with guns and five dogs, including the big greyhound given to my father by Samuel Matlock, of Lancaster, Ohio, which money could not buy. We soon got on the bear's track, crossing the sand ridges and soft places in the prairie. He was a smasher, and made a track more like the human family than any animal we had ever seen. We were almost led to believe in Darwin, who teaches that man came up from the lower orders of animals, and this bear's track did look as if he might be a connecting link between man and the monkey. The bear had a kind of elephant trot and traveled fast. The dogs would run way ahead of him for miles and then come back pretty well 'chawed up.' They at last became frightened and would not follow him. The greyhound was game and wanted to pitch in, but we kept him back, as we did not want him to get hurt. Several times we got sight of the old fellow cross- ing the prairie, from one side ridge to another. He made good time and we had hard work to keep anywhere near him.
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A DIVERSION.
"While crossing a ridge we saw a deer coming right toward us, with tongue out and very tired. One of the boys was going to shoot, but I told him to hold on as there was something the matter with it. We kept. the dogs in and it came right up to us. Just then five or six big grey wolves, and a big black one, the only one we ever saw, came running after it. We opened fire on them and killed the black and one grey one, and wounded another, which got away with the rest. As we had heard that a black wolf skin was very valuable, we skinned them. While doing so we heard a noise, and looking around, saw an old she-wolf and four young ones coming in on the home stretch, to be at the death and feast of the deer. We fired at them, but without effect, and they ran one way and the deer another without saying good-bye.
"We hung up the wolf skins in a safe place and followed up bruin, who had gotten the start of us and had come across bees in an old hollow tree and tore the honey out; he had made a mess of it, but had left enough for us. Bears are great for honey or anything sweet, and do not mind the sting of bees more than we would a mosquito bite. Along toward night his tracks became most too fresh, and we were afraid; so we concluded to camp on his track. While preparing to camp a couple of the boys went out to get some game for supper, and in about an hour came in with a fine, fat buck, from which we had a feast. We sat by the camp fire and ate roasted ribs and broiled venison, and thought how the old fellows who dressed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day, but had lost their appetite and digestive powers and got the gout and dyspepsia, would give a million if they could eat just such a meal as we did. There are some who live only to eat, but in those days we ate to live and keep soul and body together and were happy. I long for those days again. The night was dark and we made two big fires, one on each side of us, as we had heard that wild animals would not go through fire for a meal of victuals. Several times we were badly fright- ened in the night and even our dogs were afraid. We kept out a picket guard, but it was hard to get anyone to leave the fire very far, as we were afraid that the bear would make a raid and gobble us up before we could say our prayers.
"The morning came and found us with our scalps all right, and we were soon off on the trail. He had turned east and gone north of Fletcher's Lake, and by Mud Lake, and then west near the Indian camp, where Obbe- nobbe and Mingo were. Through the day we found where he had made a
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meal off a dead or wounded deer, as bear cannot catch a sound deer. As it was nearly night we concluded to stay with the Indians, and they agreed to go with us in the morning. After a good night's sleep we were off early, with Indians, guns, and a new supply of dogs, and with their aid soon found the trail. After following him until almost noon we saw him go into a swamp filled with thick elbow brush. The Indians said he would make his last fight there. We prepared to give battle, surrounded the swamp, and then sent the dogs in.
"One of the Indians who had a rifle that carried an ounce ball got sight of him, fired, and broke one of his fore legs and that brought him to bay. He stood up on his hind legs and looked like a big gorilla, and I almost thought that Darwin was right. We all closed in on him, but could not fire for fear of killing the dogs, they were so close around him. After he had killed or wounded four or five dogs the greyhound broke loose and went in. The bear grabbed him with his well fore leg and was about to crush and kill him when Obbenobbe rushed in with a big knife and struck the bear under the shoulder, and that settled his case. He let the dog go and gave up the ghost.
"The Indians said he was the largest they had seen for many years. They supposed that he was a wanderer from the far north on an exploring expedition. We skinned him and gave the hide to Obbenobbe, as it was he who struck the fatal blow, and saved my father's dog. He was not very fat, and tasted like a mixture of coon, pork, shad and codfish. We took a scout around and got our wolf skins and returned home well satisfied with our bear hunt, which was the last and only one in my life."
PIONEER SOCIETY.
In those pioneer days when settlements were far apart and neighbors distant, acquaintance was widespread and neighborly offices cheer fully bestow- ed. The latch-string was always hung out and the rough cabin could always accommodate the stray traveler and the family of a settler moving to his entry. The pioneer was prompt to help in peril or need, and none so heartily enjoyed a good joke as he. While the settlers, like Isaac B. Smith and Wesley Park, kept emigrants' hotel, and the right hand of fellowship was extended to all, yet the regulators were not slow to punish the thief and blackleg who found their way into the community.
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MILLS AND MILL TRIPS.
Prominent in the history of early settlement appears the erection of mills and the trials of their patrons. Mill builders were recognized as men of prominence, and first roads were cut to the mills which were scarce and dis- tant. Primarily, the pioneers were compelled to use the family hand mill. In brief, this was a three foot piece of log from a beech or a maple, hollowed from one end by chisel and augur, in form of a cone. This hollow made smooth and hard by a fire of coals kindled therein, is scraped clean and the mortar prepared. A stick, wrist thick, split at one end, holding an iron wedge, with edge to the slit, and kept in place by an iron ring, is the pestle. Corn is placed in the mortar and beaten by the pestle. The finest sifted is corn meal; the balance, minus the bran, is hominy.
Amos Stearns, a settler in Troy township, went thirty miles to the Union mills in Lagrange county, and there are those whose experience exceeded this distance. On Fish creek, a stream second to Cedar in the county, were built several grist mills, one by A. S. Casebeer ; another higher up by Samuel Kep- ler. In time water mills at Orangeville and Spencerville, and later steam mills at Auburn, Butler and Waterloo and other points have so improved upon the olden times that a single instance of many, of hard times, in going to mill, will show a truth stranger than fiction.
PUBLIC LANDS.
The lands of which DeKalb county was formed were regularly surveyed at national expense into townships six miles square. The office for the sale of lands was located at Fort Wayne, and purchasers obtained their title direct from the general government. Much of the land was taken up by speculators, and this, for some years, operated to delay actual settlement. As a measure of justice a system of taxation was adopted by the early settlers which com- pelled a sale of land to actual settlers and a clearing of the dense forest and a utilization of the fertile soil.
LAND HUNTING.
Isaac B. Smith ranged the woods of Smithfield township to find vacant land for a home. Three times he had made a selection and gone afoot to Fort Wayne, about thirty-two miles distant, and there found his pieces en- tered. A fourth time he reached the land office only to be disappointed.
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Weary and nearly despairing, he made another fruitless journey to an entry which he found to be in a swamp, boot-deep in water. Returning to Fort Wayne, he secured as a witness to the unfitness of the entry for settlement, Wilber Powell, with whom he traced the lines of the quarter section. A sixth time at the land office he secured a new plat of the township, and with two others had just found a good tract, when they met three other men on the same quest. A race ensued between the parties. Thirty miles were traveled on a trot, and reaching the office, Smith's party found their pieces entered, but enjoyed the satisfaction of knowing that their competitors, who arrived an hour later, had raced in vain. Assisted by Wesley Park. Smith at last found vacant land, and hastened to Fort Wayne finally, after eight journeys, and secured his future home.
CYCLONE.
In the summer or fall of 1841 a dark, swift-moving, wildly-confused mass of clouds sped over the country. The wind accompanying demolished houses, scattered fences like feathers, and leveled the forests, rushing forward with demoniac fury, laying devastation in its course. Limbs of trees dark- ened the air; the timber fell with a continual roar, and bed clothing from Henry Brown's house was carried two miles. The pathway of this tornado was a half mile wide and three miles long, and passed mostly along the road from Auburn to Spencerville.
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