History of Franklin County, Indiana : her people, industries and institutions, Part 52

Author: Reifel, August J
Publication date: 1915
Publisher: Indianapolis, Ind. : B.F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 1648

USA > Indiana > Franklin County > History of Franklin County, Indiana : her people, industries and institutions > Part 52

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In June, 1852, at Brookville, these prices prevailed : Flour, per barrel, $3.25 ; corn, per bushel, 22 cents ; coffee, 12 cents per pound; sugar, 6 to 8 cents per pound ; butter, 12 to 15 cents per pound ; eggs, per dozen, 6 cents ; hams, per pound, II cents; fresh beef, 6 cents ; wheat, 55 cents per bushel ; potatoes, 45 cents per bushel ; lard, per pound, 7 cents ; nails, per pound (by the keg), 3 to 4 cents ; bar iron, per pound, 3 to 4 cents.

Market quotations in April, 1869, showed the following: Wheat, $1.45 per bushel ; corn, 63 cents ; oats, 63 cents ; rye, $1.40; barley, $2.00 ; sugar, II to 13 cents per pound ; clover, 16 cents a pound; timothy seed, $3.50 per bushel; subscription to the Brookville American, $2.50 per year in advance.

In December of the year last named prices were: Hogs, $9.75; wheat, $I.12; new corn, 80 cents; old corn, $1.00; gold was then quoted at $1.12, that being before the resumption of specie payment.

The Laurel Woolen Mills of this county in May, 1850, advertised the products of their looms as follows in prices current : "E. Macy & Co., Card- ing, Fulling and Spinning Wool-make and offer for sale Jeans, blue mixed, 371/2 per yard; Jeans, steel, 32 cents; Satinet, 37 to 56 according to color ; Cassimere, 62 to 75; White Flannel, 15 to 25; Blankets, per pair, $2.50."

Prices of the staple articles of the present time (spring of 1915) are as follows: Cut and wire nails, 3 cents per pound ; iron bar and rod, 3 cents ; coal oil, per gallon, 15 cents for best grades; International Harvesters, $150 each; good farm wagons, $90 each; cotton cloth (sheetings), 8 to 13 cents

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per yard; calico (prints), 5 to 9 cents ; seamless A grain sacks, 24 cents each ; sugar, 5 cents per pound ; coffee, 20 to 35 cents ; tea, 40 to 70 cents per pound ; flour, per hundred, $3 to $3.25 ; corn, per bushel, 72 cents; wheat for May delivery, $1.53; pork, per barrel, $18 to $20; cattle, from $7 to $8.50 per hundredweight; hogs, $6.00 to $7.00.

EARLY MILLS OF FRANKLIN COUNTY.

In the absence of newspapers covering the early history of the county, it is difficult to ascertain the early history of the grist and saw-mills of Frank- lin county. That there were many such mills from the earliest history of the county is evidenced from numerous references to them in the records of the county court (1811-17), the commissioners' court (1817-24), and the board of justices (1824-27). In reading these old records it is interesting to note that many of the early roads were laid out with a view of reaching these mills, although in very few instances is their location definitely given.

It has been found that the following men operated either grist or saw- mills, or both, before the state was admitted to the union (December 12, 1816), although the old records state in very few instances whether they were grist or saw-mills. These names are given in the order in which they appear in the records: Amos Butler, John Whitworth, Garner, Hyde, John Ward and John Dunlap (located probably in what is now Union county), Henderson, Nichols (owned by John Dunlap after 1819), Joshua Buller (owned by Henry Fry after 1819), Col. John Miller, John Arnold, John Vance, Joseph D. Clement, Foster, Richardson, Van Meter, Grisler, Gliper, Allen Simpson, Osborne, French, John A. Piatt and Tinbrook and Gregg. Some of these mills were undoubtedly located in what is now Fayette and Union counties, since Franklin extended nine miles farther north into the present Fayette county until 1819 and a similar distance into the present Union until 1821. All of these mills were built along White Water, one of its forks, or on one of the many streams of the county, which would afford ample water power. Those in and near Brookville were the first to use steam power, but the great majority of these first mills were always dependent on water power.

There were other mills which are mentioned in the records at a later date, but it is impossible to determine when they were established. Among those men whose names appear as being mill owners or proprietors prior to 1835, may be mentioned the following: General Rose, Bennett, Jonathan Wright, Samuel Urmston, Thomas Powers, Joseph D. Reed, George Adams

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(Wolf creek), Lee & Shroyer, Clendening, James Alley (Pipe creek), Cary, George W. Kimble, Robert W. Halstead, Gideon Jenks, Adam McNeil, Thomas Sherwood (Duck creek), Henry Davis and Girton.

The early mills were very crude affairs and were usually operated only a few months each year. Their owners usually combined farming with their milling and operated their mills on certain days in the week. The establish- ment of the mills was determined by the density of population, and when it is recalled that the county had between eight and ten thousand people by 1816, it is readily seen why so many mills were established early in the history of the county. As a matter of fact, there were several times as many mills in use in the county one hundred years ago as there are today. The daily output of the first mills was small, and one flouring-mill in the county today turns out a larger amount than the combined output of all the mills of 1815.

SOME INDIAN STORIES CONNECTED WITH FRANKLIN COUNTY AND FRANKLIN COUNTY PEOPLE.

The following episode relates to a family which has been prominent in Franklin county since an early day. Several versions of this tale are to be met with here and there, but none of them seems to have a better foundation than that which is an heirloom in the Stout family, and which runs as follows :

About the year 1620 a Dutch trading vessel, "The Good Hope," bound from Holland to New Amsterdam, stranded on the outer shoals of Sandy Hook. A heavy gale was blowing and the vessel soon went to pieces, under the hammering of the surf, but not before passengers and crew had gotten safely off in the long boats and were landed on the beach. The heavy gale was still at work and here they waited until the wind and sea went down, and then set out in their boat to find the Dutch settlement on Manhattan island. Two of their number, however, were left behind. These were a young burgher of Amsterdam and his eighteen-year-old wife, whose maiden name had been Penelope Van Princess. The man, a consumptive, had suffered severely during the long voyage and the exposure incident to the shipwreck had reduced him to a state bordering onto collapse. When the others began preparations for a new launching, he protested he could bear no further travel until he had recovered something of his strength, and if they were not willing to wait for him a little longer they must leave him where he was. His comrades did their best to dissuade him, finally saying that in any case nothing could induce them to stop longer in that lonely place than strict necessity demanded, because of the great danger from

Stone Age Relics, White Water Valley, Franklin County. Seen in Museum of T. L. Dickerson, Brookville.

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Indians, who might at any moment discover their presence and make a murderous descent. But the young man was to be moved no more by alarms than by persuasion. And Penelope, seeing him so resolved, de- termined, like a faithful wife, to stay and share his fate.

Some of the sailors then made a stretcher of green boughs, on which they carried the invalid across the brook to the bay, on its inner curve, now known as Spermaceti cove. In this comparatively sheltered spot they established him in what comfort they could, and then left him to Penelope's ministrations, with a final promise to send help from New Amsterdam directly they themselves should leave the place.

The fears that had inspired the ship's company soon proved to be only too well founded. Hardly had the Dutchmen disappeared when a party of Indians came down on the sands to bathe. Seeing the two whites there, they promptly dispatched the man, most barbarously cut and mangled poor Penelope and left them both for dead.

A HUMANE INDIAN.

But Penelope was not dead. Coming to her senses after the Indians quitted the spot, she bound up her wounds as best she could with her apron and crawled to the woods at the beach's edge, where she hid in the hollow of a gum tree. Here she lived three days on roots and berries within reach. By the end of that time the situation had grown so in- tolerable to her that a final tomahawking seemed preferable to more pro- tracted suffering, so that when a deer, with arrows sticking in its shoulder, darted past her hiding place she welcomed the sight, and, creep- ing out, lay exposed to her fate. Presently two Indians came dashing through the woods in hot pursuit of the wounded deer. They saw Pene- lope and she hoped her last hour had come. This would have been the case had the matter rested with the younger one alone, who was decidedly in favor of finishing her at once. But the other, a man of middle age, was opposed to it. They argued and at last they fought. The elder won, and catching Penelope up, carried her home to his wigwam, which stood near the present village of Middletown. There he cured her wounds, succeed- ing so well that they were almost healed before the relief party from New Amsterdam appeared. The Indian, during the interval, learned to look upon his patient with decided favor, and when her countrymen ar- rived he offered her the choice of returning to them or staying in his

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wigwam. She chose to go. The Dutchmen left a horn of powder and silver bullets to console her savage preserver.

At this time there was living in the little village of Gravesend on Long Island, one Richard Stout, an Englishman of respected family, who had sold his land and cast his fortune with the new country. A few generations back the family name had been Staught, it was said, but one of Richard's progenitors having the good fortune to save the life of the Duke of York, and refusing knighthood as a reward for the service, was given a title to land instead, with a command to call himself henceforth not Staught but Stout, in commemoration of his deed.

This Richard Stout met and married Penelope. But Penelope never forgot her Indian friends and often visited them. One morning in the summer of 1655, or perhaps earlier, the old warrior who had befriended her came to her home in a state of unusual perturbation. Penelope asked him the cause of his excitement and he told her he had come at the risk of his own life to save hers-that an Indian uprising had taken place. He begged her to lose no time in fleeing to New Amsterdam. Penelope ran to her husband, who was at work in the field. Warning was sent to the neighbors and the whole settlement suddenly decamped. `It was not until 1664, when New Amsterdam became New York, that Stout and his friends dared to return to their Middletown farms.

Penelope's career, after all of these vicissitudes, had still long to run, for she lived to the age of one hundred and ten years. Five of her seven sons were pall-bearers at her funeral. One of her direct descendants, who owns land where the Middletown home once stood, points out the approxi- mate place of her burial.

The descendant of Penelope, Job Stout, was a Revolutionary soldier and held the position of express rider and bearer of dispatches under Gen. George Washington, and was present when Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown. He emigrated to what is now Louisville, Kentucky, in 1788, and in 1812 came to Franklin county because of his opposition to slavery. He resided on his farm just south of Big Cedar Grove Baptist church until his death, which occurred in the year 1828. He was buried in .the ceme- tery adjoining the church, and on a tablet marking his last resting place is inscribed, "A Revolutioneer of Seventy-Six." He was the great-grand- father of the present generation of Stouts and Shirks living in Franklin county.

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REMINISCENCES BY MRS. BRACKEN.

Mrs. Bracken's step-grandmother, who was also own grandmother to Mrs. James Buckley, lived many years and was buried in Fairfield, Indiana. Her father and mother came to the southern part of the state and settled near the present site of Madison. A brother, eleven, and a sister, six, were playing in a clearing not far from where their father was working, when suddenly an Indian sprang out of the bushes, caught the children, and carried them away. Before the neighbors could be summoned together to search, the Indians had gotten far on their way, but in following the trail they found the boy dead in the path. But they could not find or hear anything of the girl. Eleven years later the government made a treaty with the Indians whereby all the white captives must be returned. The mother of the girl being sick, neighbors volunteered to go and look for the daughter. They did not recognize her when they saw her, but brought back the one which was not claimed by others. She recognized her father and mother, but they did not know her. She had been so long with the Indians she had forgotten how to speak English. But her mother finally thought of a scar of a burn she remembered and in this way was assured that it was her long-lost daughter. The latter always loved out-door life and never quite forgot her Indian training.

When the block house stood on the farm that is known as the Wiley farm, Mrs. Sarah Hackleman, with her young baby, waited for her hus- band to come home to take her to this place of safety, where all the neigh- bors had already gone, hearing that the Indians were likely to attack them in the night. Mr. Hackleman was lost and did not find his way home until morning, and his poor wife suffered terror through the night, but the Indians did not come. The baby was the mother of Miss Vina St. John.

Mrs. Andrews remembers her uncle, Thomas Powers, tell of the In- dians coming to his home, which was the Graham Hanna farm, when the family were making soap. The Indians, mistaking the soap for maple molasses, motioned that they wanted some. When given some to taste, the Indians were so mad and made such threatening motions that the family feared vengeance for some time after.

INCIDENTS CONCERNING AMOS BUTLER.

Amos Butler, grandfather of Amos W. Butler, was the first settler of Brookville. He came to the "Big Bottoms" above Lawrenceburg in

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1803 and stopped to visit with some old friends from Chester county, Pennsylvania, who had settled there, among them being the Hayes family. He located some land. That fall he returned to Pennsylvania and the fol- lowing spring made his way back to the Big Miami valley, where he found his land under fifteen or twenty feet of water. He decided he did not want such land. He made his way to Harrison, Ohio, and to the site of Brookville, along Indian trails. He selected land at Brookville, partly be- cause of the location and partly because these were tracts where the tim- ber was smaller, evidently old Indian clearings that had grown up with second growth. He entered his land, and, with Jesse B. Thomas, laid out the original town plat. He built the first mill, bringing his mill irons and mill stones from Cincinnati on pack horses. He induced persons to come to his colony, among whom were the Vincents, parents of Aunt Sallie Stoops, Harry Stoops' grandmother. William Butler was born in 1810. He could remember having seen five hundred Indians encamped at one time near the site of the old pulp mill and within the limits of the present town. A relative took him and his sisters, when he was quite small, four or five years old, to the encampment. He described the trip and remem- bered seeing the Indians high up in the trees of the cottonwood grove, where they were pealing off the bark, the outer part of which was used for their huts and the soft inner bark used for weaving into clothing and other purposes. The squaws took quite a fancy to his sister and him. They called the former in their broken tongue, "Pretty pappoose."

Mr. Butler says, "In connection with the uprising of the Indians pre- ceding the battle of Tippecanoe they ranged over the region north of the Ohio river. One day when my father was probably less than a year old, the alarm was spread by settlers that the Indians were coming. Every settler gathered together his family, such stock as was at hand and his little property and started for the block house, some miles down the White Water. In the case of my grandparents, one of them must have been de- layed, for when they were'several miles on their way, they discovered that the baby (William Butler) was not there. Forgetting their alarm, they returned to the cabin, where the boy was found as he had been left, asleep in the cradle, which was a large sugar trough. Seeing no signs of In- dians, my grandfather proposed they should stay at the cabin and not return to the block house. This they did and the next day the other settlers returned to their cabins. The Indians came no farther than the

Stone Age Relics Seen in Museum of T. L. Dick- erson, Brookville.

Select Specimens in Wall Case of Antique Relics of the Stone Age. Collected by T. L. Dickerson, Brookville.

Unique Chert Hoes Found in Moraine, Twelve Feet Below Surface, Surround- ing Skeleton of a Prehistoric Giant, Height Seven Feet Six Inches. Seen in Museum of T. L. Dickerson, Brookville.

Wall Picture in Museum of T. L. Dickerson, Brookville.

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northern end of the county, where they attacked some settlers and drove off some stock."

About the year 1817 or 1818 Indians were annoying the settlers and committing depredations in parts of Franklin county. Something had to be done. A small company was organized to put a stop to their depre- dations and Andrew Shirk, Jr., was one of the number. When pushing through the forests, he espied an Indian crouching behind a log and point- ing his gun at him. In a flash, Mr. Shirk drew his gun and the Indian dropped dead with a bullet through his head. Soon after this the other Indians disappeared from the county.

Andrew Shirk was one of the deacons of Big Cedar Grove Baptist church, and at the first meeting after his adventure with the Indian he appeared before the church and told what he had done and begged for- giveness for having killed the Indian. It is needless to say he was forgiven and entirely exonerated.

Soon after the Big Cedar Grove Baptist church was organized its pastor, Rev. William Tyner, who was also pastor of the Little Cedar Grove Bap- tist church, was going to fill his appointment at Big Cedar church. About a quarter of a mile down Big Cedar creek from the church was a salt spring and deer lick. As Rev. Tyner was approaching this spring he observed an Indian sitting in the forks of a sycamore tree above the spring with a gun in his hands. The minister drew up his gun, which he always carried on his horse with him, and was about to shoot the In- dian. Then he watched the Indian for a few moments and decided he was harmless. He put down his gun and rode on past the Indian unharmed, to his appointment.

UNIQUE PRIVATE MUSEUM. 1

Theophilus L. Dickerson, of Brookville, Indiana, has one of the most remarkable private museums in the state. The writer has visited many col- lections while visiting the counties of Indiana in the capacity of historian and can cheerfully say, that the Brookville display excels all others we have visited. Mr. Dickerson has been over fifty years collecting it and has ex- pended over four thousand dollars and a vast amount of research and labor in securing unique specimens for his museum.

It is no secret that the White Water valley is rich in mementoes of a

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race of people dating back to the Stone age. Scientists, realizing this fact, have made long journeys and some investigations. The bureau of American ethnology, of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C., will make a sur- vey of the mounds, earthworks and artifacts found, the ensuing summer months in Franklin county.

The collection of Mr. Dickerson literally fills a sixty-foot room in length by eighteen feet wide, and is not only methodically arranged in glass show cases, that take up the floor space, but the walls are utilized in quite an attractive manner, the specimens being grouped in ingenious designs that show skill and vast patience.

One or two specimens we will mention specifically. There is an eagle, with spread wings made from arrow and spear points. Another splendid specimen is a Democratic rooster, large as life, and most realistic in the make- up, constructed from selected chert points; still another is the swastika, an emblem of great antiquity, found in every country on the globe, not only among civilized nations, but barbarous and heathen natives, who revere it as an emblem of friendship and good will. On the west wall, in a large gilt frame, is a beautiful design, made from chert, of the Holy Cross, revered not only by the Catholics, but other religious denominations.

The archeological collection is particularly fine, there being more than two thousand relics of a vanished race, classified according to the plan of Prof. Warren K. Moorehead and other scientists, who are authority in this special field. This collection includes a great number of stone arrow points, spear heads, axes (grooved, perforated and ungrooved), celts, fleshers, cere- monial implements and ornaments, wands, shuttles, bird-stones, pendants, gorgets, discoidals, beads, pipes and hundreds of problematic forms whose use can only be guessed. In looking through this remarkable and rare col- lection, we were astonished to note that the fine finished artifacts were made from banded and metamorphic slate, chalcedona, agate, obsidion, rose quartz, hornstone, dirorite, jasper, granite and many colors of chert. The latter is called by some, flint, but the true flint, we believe, is found only in the chalk beds of Europe; but it is possible at some remote period reciprocity took place with European natives.

In this museum can be seen, not only archæological curios, known to many as "Indian relics," but historical, mineralogical, conchological and geological bric-a-brac, including petrified wood and plant life, found in Indi- ana, Illinois, Ohio and other states of our Union, showing that, at a remote period, this was a tropical climate.

We saw in this collection a molar tooth of a mastadon, now extinct, that

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weights ten and one-fourth pounds, which was exhumed in Fayette county, Indiana; a specimen from a group of ten human skulls discovered near Windsor, in Randolph county, Indiana, in a moraine (or gravel bank) twenty-two feet beneath the surface; a "mysterious" bronze ball found in 1836, when the canal basin at Brookville was being dug, deposited in the hard pan eight feet beneath the surface.

In the historical department is a snuff box made from copper, that came from Wales three hundred years ago, with hieroglyphic pictures of the Prodigal Son and the swine family. Also pioneer relics of the Revolution- ary War, pewter ware and queensware made one hundred and fifty years ago, knives, forks, spoons, candlesticks, cards for wool, and hackles for flax, of the pioneer period.

As the majority of mankind are "skirmishing" to get money, will state that in Mr. Dickerson's museum we saw a particularly rare collection of United States script, complete of the five issues, that were crisp and bright, and it is possible that it could not be duplicated by any bank in Franklin county.

In another wall picture, under glass, is the colonial money of 1776, bearing date April 25, printed in New Jersey one hundred and thirty-nine years ago. There is also an autograph letter of Thomas Jefferson written to Gen. Robert Hanna in 1820, with a quill pen.

In addition to numerous pioneer relics, we will mention a sword once the property of a colonel in Tarlton's British troopers, captured by Gen. Robert Hanna and now highly prized as an heirloom by his numerous descendants.

POETICAL ADVERTISING.

The following advertisement appeared in the Brookville American, without change, from April 24, 1851, to January 30, 1852:

STILL THEY COME.

Just opened, and for sale designed, A stock of goods of every kind; For men and weman we've supplies, And children too of every size.

We've drillings and muslins, bleached and brown, The cheapest and best in our town; We've Satins, cassimeres, clothes and jeans, Tweads, sattinetts and beaverteens.

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We've cottonades of every grade, And linen too the best that's made. Our stock of hardware is complete, Our queensware too is hard to beat.

We've bonnets, fans and parasols,

Bareges, Silks and fancy shawls;

We've lawns and ginghams, figured and plain, Prints, alpacas and delaine.

We've rugs and dyestuffs, groceries too, Hats, Caps, Boots and Shoes, not a few ; And if it suits the people's mind, We will take produce of every kind.

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History of Franklin County, Indiana : her people, industries and institutions, Part 52

Author: Reifel, August J Publication date: 1915 Publisher: Indianapolis, Ind. : B.F. Bowen Number of Pages: 1648

Author: Reifel, August J
Publication date: 1915
Publisher: Indianapolis, Ind. : B.F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 1648