History of Hamilton County Indiana, her people, industries and institutions, Part 45

Author: John F. Haines
Publication date: 1915
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1051

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AN UNRELISHED LUXURY.

There was another set of Indians between Edmond Graves' and William Morrow's homes. They had tents and many hounds for hunting. Mother went some distance to a white neighbor's and left my brother with them till she came back, and the squaw gave him a piece of dried venison, which was so salty that he could not eat it, and he was afraid not to eat it for fear they would kill him. He chewed at it until he got into a patch of high weeds and then threw it away. The Indian woman told of their singing their songs and mother asked her if they sang good songs and she answered: "Do you think we'd sing bad songs?" She told the Indian woman that before they came to this country they were told the Indians could track white folks by their scent. The answer was: "Are white folks fools, and think Indians are like dogs?"

The Indian and white boys ran foot races, but the former generally out- sprinted. They were experts with bow and arrows and showed how they

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made their flint darts, and fastened them on the arrows with the tendrils of deer's legs. Sometimes they would come begging and say, "Indian wants" so and so.

There was another Indian southeast. His name was "Johnny Cake." That sounds good. In one Indian grave was found a silver breast pin and in another a gun barrel.

I will wind up the Indian story by telling a soup tale. In those days a squad of these aborigines, likely returning from an unsuccessful hunting or fishing expedition, and hungry, passed by a white settler's who happened to have been butchering hogs, and asked for the entrails, which they carried with them, and upon stopping at another house begged their dish water and the use of a large kettle. With the entrails for a body, and the dish water for the broth they had a kettle of hot soup. They each one got a piece of cornstalk which they sopped in the soup, as they squatted around the kettle, and sucked the "goody" from it till the soup was thus licked up. Reader, how would that kind of a menu strike your copperosity?

LOST IN THE FOREST.

In the early pioneer days in this country when settlements of white people were few and frequently very far apart, and whilst soldier barracks, forts and fortifications were still in use, the necessaries of life, including powder and lead, were frequently transported from government stores or trading points to these settlements on "pack horses." The country being full of roving bands of Indians, it frequently happened that parties engaged in this business on private speculation or for the government, joined their forces and traveled in company through the forests.

On one occasion John Emerson, together with others, was transporting supplies in this way. The weather being warm, John, as he afterward said, became very thirsty. As the party was passing a spring or a place where Emerson supposed he could get a drink, he quietly left the company to look for it. Thinking that he would have no trouble in finding his companions, he allowed his horse to be taken on with others. After finding the water he started on what he supposed was the route taken by the others, but he failed to overtake them. Soon he discovered he was not following the right trail and that he was lost in the forest. He wandered aimlessly for sixteen days, during which time he did not see a human being. At the end of that time, worn out and exhausted, he laid down to die. An Indian out on a hunt, dis- covered him in this condition. The Indian had killed a wild turkey and had

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picked the feathers off of it, but was not ready to return to camp. Telling John that he would return for him and take him to the camp, he left the turkey there and pursued his game. On his return he found that Emerson had eaten all the raw flesh from the wings of the turkey, which made him very angry, but he took him to the Indian camp and fed him. Emerson then told the Indian where his home was and that if he would take him home he would pay him a certain sum of money for his services. The Indian, true to his supposed friend, and trusting him for the money, consented to do so. Arriving there, to the disgust of the Indian and the shame and disgrace of all white men, Emerson refused to pay the Indian one cent. The Indian being alone and sixty miles from his home and in a settlement of white people, had no remedy, but returned to his people to add another chapter of perfidy against that class of white people who were base enough to give the red man evil for good. As Emerson was a Yankee, his own people snubbed him and called him the "mean Yankee" or the "lost Yankee!" The Yankee would not in this case compare in honesty and nobleness of character with the red man, who cared for him and saved him.

About the year 1842, a man afterwards a citizen of this town, planned to extract one of his molar teeth. Going up stairs and tying a cord to the tooth and an iron wedge to the other end of the cord, he threw the wedge out of the window ; he landed the tooth and it was well for him that he had a large strong neck, for he said it came so near breaking his neck, he never would do that way again.

I will tell a cat tale. In the long ago some parents went from home, leaving the children alone, and they, having a grudge against the old cat, thought that the opportunity to get rid of it had come. Not knowing how hard a cat is to kill, one held it up by the hind legs while another struck it with a club, and it jumped with a big meow, and ran under the house. They were watched by their little sister, who so soon as their parents returned, ran and met them and said: "We killed the old cat and she didn't die!" That "let the cat out of the wallet."

A YANKEE TRICK.

Jirah Smith, was a Yankee and one day a jocular farmer meeting him at the store asked him to play a "Yankee trick." "No," he replied, but said he would swap horses with him. So they repaired to the Smith residence to see his horse, and going around to the back yard, he said: "There he is."

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It was a wooden "shave horse" used to sit astride, and to hold shingles, etc., to be shaved with a draw-knife! And that was the Yankee trick.

Many years ago a man of this vicinity, since becoming a citizen of Carmel, and now not living, went hunting and took his gun along. Spying a squirrel on the side of a tree, he fired, killing it, and the bullet glancing from a tree, struck and killed a red headed woodpecker on another tree! Should a man have made a business of hunting from the time of the building of the great Pyramid down to the digging of our "big ditch," he probably would never have made such a "hit."

Another incident was that of a young man with a fine rifle, steel barrel, curly maple stock, ornamented with thirty pieces of sterling silver. He was not much of a marksman, and meeting with his first squirrel on the limbs of a tree, placed the already cocked rifle on the limb of a bush and was in the act of getting his eyes down to take sight when he accidentally pulled the trigger before taking sight, and lo! and behold! the squirrel fell to the ground, kicking till dead, and the young man stood awhile amazed. He hunted no more that day and went home with his game while his credit was good as a marksman.

There is one old citizen yet living in Carmel who in the past met with so many accidents. I will relate them. The first was about 1834, when a little boy, sitting barefooted on the clay hearth of the log cabin before a large log fire, with the old cat in his lap, when the top log with its live coals rolled down upon one side of his feet. His mother pulled his foot from under the log, leaving some of the skin of his foot adhering to the log and some live coals to his feet. He said to his mother: "It is a fine thing it did not roll on the old cat."

After this, in walking near the edge of the floor where it was lain only partly across the room of the second story of a building, and looking upward at some object, he accidentally stepped off with one foot, falling head fore- most on the edge of an upright barrel on the lower floor and cutting his head so his skull bone could be seen, and leaving a pool of blood on the floor. A few stitches brought the gash together. Next he fell from a mulberry tree, and was not much hurt. Another time he had his hand severely burned.

While yet a boy he stepped upon a rusty nail and took cold in his foot and lay abed quite awhile. Then in 1853, he again stepped upon a rusty nail, causing quite a painful wound. In 1847 he was accidentally shot in the hand with an iron-pointed arrow from a cross-bow. In 1853 a piece of tim- ber flew out from a twining lathe, striking him on the mouth and breaking a front tooth out.

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In the late fifties, he was experimenting with an empty two-gallon tin can, from which alochol had just been emptied. By holding a match above it, the alcohol adhering to the gummy inside of the can would catch and burn; then he held a match over it, and lowering it slowly to see how far away it would catch, not thinking of the fact that sitting on the stove hearth it had become hot. A mass of flames shot up to the ceiling, burning his face, locks, mustache, eyebrows and eyelashes off. Wasn't he a pretty looking aspect? His wife was across the street and when she came in she cried : "Moral-Don't monkey with a hot alcohol can."

In 1898 he melted a lot of scraps of solder in a ladle on the cook stove, and the solder inadvertently contained a cartridge. He was bending over it after the solder melted when the cartridge let go, scattering the solder all over the room, his spectacles saving his eyes. He was knocked down and run over by a buggy at two different times here, and was struck by a street car in Indianapolis, and by an interurban car here without being hurt. Also, at one time, returning from the city, he was sitting on goods piled above the top of the wagon bed, when the wheels struck an obstacle as they were com- ing down a hill and he was thrown forward to the ground without being hurt and not even letting go hold on a bottle of Damar varnish.

Later than this he came so near being run over by a freight engine at our Monon station, that before he jumped from the track the cow catcher almost struck him. The engineer reversed the engine, and Thomas Carey shouted, "Look out!" either of which not having been done, he would have been struck. But when a small boy he climbed to the top of the ladder serv- ing for the stairway in the log cabin and fell through, breaking an arm-but it was the arm of his mother's flax spinning wheel !

THE LOST CHILD.

In the fall of 1828 a family of movers from the East came to Nobles- ville and stopped for supplies. They were on their way to the Wea Prairie, between the present site of Kirklin and Lafayette. After their supplies had been purchased they proceeded on their way over the route known as the Lafayette trace. They camped that night either on the east or west bank of Cicero creek. There was a large family of them, children ranging from two years of age upward. The country about where they camped was very heavily timbered. All went well with the emigrants during the night, and after feeding and caring for their team and partaking of their frugal meal, in the morning the horses were harnessed and hitched to the wagon, and as the

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heads of the family of the family supposed, the children loaded into the wagon. The team was started on its journey. After traveling two or three or probably four miles, the discovery was made that a little girl five or six years old was missing. The party immediately retraced their steps to the camping ground of the evening before, carefully searching on both sides of the dim wagonway for their little one, but no trace of the child was to be found. At that time it was dangerous for grown people armed to the teeth to be lost in the woods after night, as bears were numerous and the woods in this country was full of wolves, catamounts and wild hogs. The father of the child returned to Noblesville at once and sounded the alarm and run- ners were sent in every direction among the settlers. The greatest excite- ment existed. A council was at once called and under the direction of the most experienced of backwoodsmen and hunters a thorough search was insti- tuted. A point at which they should all meet at sundown of that day was fixed and signals were agreed upon in event of the finding of the child, but no such signal was heard during the day, and at sundown the party met at the designated place, very much crestfallen at their ill luck. Men were there who had been able to trace the bear, the wolf and the deer, in fact anything, as they thought, making tracks in the woods. Their wallets of venison and corn bread were hastily drawn and supper eaten, and preparations made for a night hunt. The determined men roamed the woods in search of the missing child. The sun rose on the following morning in all its splendor upon that disappointed and unhappy family. After again partaking of their scanty meal and a thorough canvass of the situation and a full understanding as to the day's work before them, and in the firm belief that their labor would be crowned with success, the search began again. All day long those determined men searched the woods in every direction, examining every hollow log, every ravine, every treetop, pile of brush, in fact every conceivable place where the child may have wandered to or been taken by the wild beasts. About sundown of the second day, and when the party were about to stop work for the day, the booming of a cannon, as it seemed to the men, was heard at some distance from where the child had lost its way, and as this was the signal agreed upon in case the child should be found, the signal went forth almost simultaneously from the gun of every hunter of that party. But now the absorbing question was, did the child live or had its mutilated remains been found. The party proceeded to the point at once from whence the signal came. When in sight, the successful hunter was found standing upon a large log, his gun resting against the same, and in his arms he held the child. He had found it by the side of the log covered with leaves when

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he was attempting to cross over the log in his search. His quick ear detected a slight movement of the child, and he quickly removed the covering of leaves to find that the child was naked and almost dead from hunger, fatigue and fright. They proceeded at once to the restoration of the lost one to the afflicted family, who at once, with the assistance of their kind friends, ad- ministered to the child's wants, after which they proceeded on their journey.

CATCHING A THIEF.

In 1832-33 taverns so called were numerous on the leading highways, and the business was not, by any means, a bad business. A and B lived upon one of these highways about one and a half miles apart, each of them keeping a tavern. This was indicated to the traveling public by some kind of a rude sign board stuck up about their premises. Sometimes considerable rivalry mixed with some jealousy existed between the two houses, and it is safe to say the best of feeling did not at all times exist between the pro- prietors thereof. About half way between these two houses lived C, who was friendly to A and B, but was thoroughly honest, despising a man who would do little mean things, and hating petty thieves. Neighbor A, as he believed, was losing corn from his crib in small quantities at a time, and as that commodity was scarce, and for that reason, among others, was precious to the tavern keeper, A was very much annoyed by the discovery ;_ finally he made the situation known to neighbor C, informing him at the same time that he suspected neighbor B. Neighbor C is all attention now, making many inquiries. Finally he went to A and said, "Have you any hickory rails on your place?" A replied that he had, then C said, "Well I can tell you what to do. Saw a few blocks from the end of a rail, split them into pins very fine, then dress them down, sharpening them at both ends, then break up a lot of your corn, one ear at a time, insert one of these pins into each end of the ear, then put the corn together again. Return the corn to the crib then, placing the ears in a conspicuous place, and if you miss any of it let me know at once and I will assist you in catching the thief." A did as . he was directed. On the following morning he went to the crib before day- light for the purpose of making observations. He carried an old tin lantern and when he opened the door he found that his corn was gone. He hastened to the house of neighbor C and informed him of the fact and together they went to a grove near the stable of B to await developments. About daylight B came to his stable apprehending no danger of detection, proceeded to feed his horses, and immediately left for his house.

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Scarcely had he entered when A and C left their hiding place and entered the barn. They took the corn from the feed trough, placed therein by B and quickly returned to the grove, where they found that each contained one of the splinters placed there by A. Neighbor C went to B's house and called him out, telling him that he wanted to see him at the stable. They started in that direction, but C led the way past the stable to the grove, where A was waiting with the corn. A at once accused B of stealing his corn and produced the proof so conclusive and B confessed and begged for mercy. He was told by A and C that they had no desire to prosecute him; that if he would pledge them then and there to live an honorable life and steal no more the secret should be kept. He readily made the promise and faithfully kept it, so far as the public knew. The story was never told outside the families interested until after the death of neighbor B.

PIONEER BEAR BAITING. . (From Shirts' History.)

In 1845 Jacob Dye caught three cub bears near the Redman school house on the Patrick Sullivan farm. He took the young bears with him and undertook to tame them. He succeeded tolerably well with two of them, but the other one refused to be comforted and longed for his freedom, but Dye kept him chained. When this bear was three years old Dye offered to bet three hundred dollars that the bear could whip fifty of the best dogs in the neighborhood. The bet was taken. The time and place for the fight were fixed at Dye's mill in March, 1848. At the appointed time and place Mr. Dye was on hand with his bear, and so were the farmers. Some of them were from Hamilton and some from Boone county. The first half of the day was consumed in procuring a barrel of whisky and preliminary arrangements for the fight. The whisky was purchased with subscription money raised on that morning for that purpose. This was not much of a task as there were three or four hundred persons present. The barrel was taken to the old mill, turned on end and the head knocked out. A board was laid across the head and tin cups placed thereon. Boarding was arranged for those who intended to stay until the fight was over.

The fight was to be a finish; the bear to be killed by the dogs or the dogs to be killed by the bear, unless one side or the other should choose before the fight ended to forfeit the money staked and end the fight. This being all arranged, the ground was selected where the fight was to take place. Bruin was brought out and chained to a small tree. The dogs were mar-

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shaled in array by their several owners, and all appeared ready and anxious for the fray.

When night came quite a number of persons who had arranged to stay over night assembled at the mill and played cards, mostly for fun, but in some cases for the filthy lucre; and as usual, there were quarrels over the whisky and cards. Mr. Brock and Mr. Byrkett, I remember, who were playing cards for money, had a severe quarrel and threatened a fight, the friends of each taking sides; but this blew over and the crowd dispersed for the night.

The next morning the most of the crowd was dry and repaired to the old mill, and, to quench their thirst, visited the whisky barrel. Brock and Byrkett soon renewed their quarrel of the night before and determined to settle their dispute by a fist fight. A ring was formed and the friends of each prepared to see fair play. The battle began. Both were adepts in the art and both were powerful. The battle was therefore a savage one, but like all battles, it came to an end. . Then all parties repaired to the spot where the bear was chained and the preliminary arrangements for the fight were made. By this time it was noon. The arrangement was for five of the best . dogs to be turned into the ring at one time. The selection was made and each dog was held by the owner, awaiting the word "go."

One of the best of this lot of dogs belonged to George Aston, a notori- ous bully, and the next best dog belonged to a quiet farmer by the name of Norris. When the word "go" was given these two dogs, instead of attack- ing the bear, engaged each other in a battle, which soon became terrible, and which finally provoked a quarrel between the owners. This dog fight made it an easy matter for the bear in the first round. Result: Two dogs killed by the bear and one mortally wounded, and two disabled by fighting each other. The ropes were again tightened and the second batch of dogs awaited the signal. For some time the result of the second round was in doubt, but Bruin concluded to try the squeezing process. The bear picked up one of the largest dogs and without difficulty completely demolished him. This scared the other dogs and made the victory easy for the bear. This process was repeated until the close of the fifth round. When the call for the sixth round was made not an owner could be found who would let his dog go into the ring. The fight was therefore at an end and the bear was the winner.

This day wound up with a terrible fist fight between Aston and Norris. Aston, as I said, was a great bully, while Norris was a quiet farmer. Aston crowded Norris, while Norris avoided and feared him. Finally Aston cornered Norris, and the battle began in earnest. Norris, when he got fairly

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into the fight, fought for life, and Aston fought with full confidence in him- self. But he had tackled the wrong man and he received a terrible beating. This closed the second day's performance, and at night card playing and drinking were in order, but before the crowd separated arrangements were made with Mr. Dye for an old-fashioned shooting match for the bear the next day with six prizes. The writer hereof had the pleasure of eating a part of one of the hams of the bear.

ONE WAY OF SETTLING A DEBT. -

About the year 1832 James Shirts was serving an apprenticeship with F. B. Cogswell to the farmer's trade. By custom he was entitled to all the dog skins and ground-hog skins when tanned. A dog skin was tanned for a lad from the country about James' age and size. The country lad, when the skin was ready to deliver, received it on his promise to pay for it in a given time. When the time was up, James called on the lad for his money, but was put off for a time. Again demand was made and further time asked. . This proceeding was continued from time to time until James became tired of it. So meeting the lad in Noblesville, one day, he demanded his pay. Payment was not made, so James informed the country lad that he must pay then and there or take a thrashing. The lad said that was a game two could play at. They prepared for the fight and went at it. The fight was an even one for quite a while, with odds rather against James. By this time several persons had come upon the scene, and as was the custom, there was to be no interference until one or the other said enough. James finally suc- ceeded in getting one of the lad's ears in his mouth and chewed it vigorously. This was too much for the lad, so he gave the word "enough." James' teeth, however, had become set and had to be pried apart before the country lad could be released. After the fight was over James, who was about thir- teen years old, walked into a justice's office and, addressing him, said : "Squire, I tanned a dog skin for (naming him) and he refused to pay me. I have now tanned his hide and I want to pay the bill." The crowd had fol- lowed him to the justice's office. The speech was so novel and delivered with so much earnestness that the justice was taken by surprise. He said : "In view of the provocation and the youth of the offenders the said James will be permitted to go hence without bail." It was customary in those days to settle old scores in this way, but not debts, so the people looked upon it as a natural result of a quarrel. The country lad afterward became a good business man.

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History of Hamilton County Indiana, her people, industries and institutions, Part 45

Author: John F. Haines Publication date: 1915 Publisher: Number of Pages: 1051

Author: John F. Haines
Publication date: 1915
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1051