USA > Indiana > Howard County > History of Howard County, Indiana, Vol I > Part 9
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OF HOWARD COUNTY.
children of the county might be provided a comfortable home, cloth- ing and food, and also to bring them as far as possible under the influence of good moral training, leading them into habits of in- dustry, and extending to them the hygienic benefits of cleanliness and fresh air, and finally procuring homes for them in good families. Having amassed a fund sufficient to start with, and feeling confident in the beneficial influence of an illustration of their work by opening a home, they, on the first day of November, 1873, rented a house and secured the services of Mrs. Mary A. Street as matron, who took charge with five children under her care. Miss Anna Street acted as teacher. Having put the purpose of the association into actual operation, they increased their efforts to add to its material resources. The home was first opened in the west part of the city, but its increasing demands made it necessary to secure greater ac- commodations, and a larger house was rented on North Union street, where they remained until the opening of their new home in the autumn of 1875. During the year 1874 it became very manifest that other and more extensive accommodations were needed, as de- mands were constantly coming to the managers for the admission of children. The management had also extended the sphere of their design and had now, in view of the removal of all small children from the county infirmary, regarding it as an unsuitable place for rearing the young, and also to remove from them in after years the odium of having been paupers. The association was limited in means, but determined to procure, if possible, a site on which to erect a building that would be ample in its capacity for years to come. In canvassing for this a committee called on Peter B. Hers- leb, a bachelor living alone on his farm just south of the city. Mr. Hersleb was a Dane, said to have been of princely lineage, who came to this country because of a love of freedom, with possibly a bit of adventure. Mr. Hersleb was a cultured gentleman with all
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the finer instincts of his nature well developed. The fact that he lived alone in his bachelor quarters impressed many that he was somewhat eccentric. In this he was misjudged, as all testified who came into close personal touch with him. In his den, as he termed it, he was ever affable and polite. He it was who in the campaign of 1858 came so near defeating James A. Wildman for county auditor that it required the vote of Honey Creek township to do it. Such was the man the committee called upon to ask to sell them a build- ing site at the southeast corner of the intersection of Markland ave- nue and Home avenue, that being the northwest corner of his land. He refused to sell to them. Instead he gave them an acre at that place and also three hundred dollars in money, and afterward gave them five hundred dollars more, and many other donations that were of value to the association. Mr. Hersleb's generosity stimu- lated them to greater efforts in getting the means to build with. They applied to the county commissioners for assistance. The com- missioners replied that they had no power under the law to make such donations. However, after much importuning, they gave them fifteen dollars, and at the next term twenty dollars, and at the next thirty-five dollars. Believing that benefit would accrue to the home if recognized as a county institution, they procured the services of Judge James O'Brien in the preparation of a bill to be laid before the legislature, which was passed and became a law in 1875, by which they were authorized to take orphan and destitute children into their home and receive for each child twenty-five cents per day toward its support. Another source of income was a dining hall at the county fair, which netted them two hundred dollars, P. E. Hoss giving them twenty-five dollars for one meal. The Young Ladies' Sigournean Band gave one hundred and seventy-five dol- lars, several citizens gave one hundred dollars each, and smaller donations, down to five cents for the children's treasury, were made.
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Elicum Boggs, deceased, bequeathed eight hundred dollars, six hun- dred of which was in city bonds. After securing these funds the association felt justified in commencing their building. They let the contract to J. W. Coffman in the spring of 1875 and during the summer it was built and completed so that it was occupied October. 1875. The building was a two-story and basement building, forty by forty-six feet, containing thirteen rooms, all heated by a furnace in the basement : the total cost of the building, including the heating plant, was four thousand dollars. In 1876 the home had been in practical operation for three years, and this statement was given out : "During the three years this home has been in operation six- ty-seven homeless children have found refuge there; several have been returned to their friends; thirty-three have had homes fur- nished them in the country, and but three have died. The expense of the home for the past year, 1876, was eight hundred ninety dol- lars and fifty-nine cents." In 1883 this statement was made regard- ing the work of the home: "The number of children now in the home is twenty, and the average number is about twenty. In the ten years of the home there have been over two hundred children provided with good homes, in good families, thus securing them from want, neglect, ignorance and possible pauperism and degrada- tion. We are justified in saying that through the efforts put forth by this organization it was that the present law was enacted by which young children are taken from the county poor houses and cared for properly until good homes can be secured for them, thus saving many from becoming not only paupers, but criminals. With the twenty-five cents a day given by the county for each child they are enabled to keep the home in active operation, paying the matron from twenty to twenty-five dollars per month and a governess twelve dollars per month and the cook two dollars per week. Peo- ple from the country often bring them donations of eatables. and
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sometimes articles of clothing. The most active and continuous workers in promoting the interests of the home from the beginning are Mrs. Emma E. Dixon, Mrs. Eva Davis, Mrs. Jane Turner, Mrs. Dr. Dayhuff, Mrs. Hendry, Mrs. Mariah Leach, Mrs. Lizzie Has- ket, Mrs. L. B. Nixon, Mrs. J. Coffman, Mrs. L. W. Leeds and Electa Lindley. Others that have come into the association since and have been active workers are Mrs. A. F. Armstrong, Mrs. Sarah Davis, Mrs. N. R. Lindsay, Mrs. T. C. Philips, Mrs. Dosh, Mrs. Dr. Mavity, Mrs. Kraus, Mrs. Rosenthal and Mrs. Dr. I. C. Johnson. In June, 1902, after twenty-seven years' service, bids were submitted for the repair and improvement of the building. Both bids were above the appropriation for the purpose, and the commissioners of necessity rejected them. The next year, 1903. the county council appropriated six thousand dollars for a new orphans' home building. In September of that year two bids were received; the lower one proposed to build complete the home, with a heating plant, for seven thousand, eight hundred forty-seven dol- lars, and without a heating plant for seven thousand, four hundred ninety-seven dollars. This, being in excess of the appropriation. was rejected. At the October term of that year there is the fol- lowing record of release and consent: "Whereas, No suitable build- ings or equipment have been prepared or arranged for the orphans' home of Howard county, Indiana, and it is impossible for the Howard County Orphans' Home Association, for said reasons, to continue its work at the present time, and said association is, because of the lack of proper buildings and equipment and the failure of the county to provide the same, compelled to give up its work of caring for the orphans at present, the said association does there- fore hereby consent to the temporary abandonment of the orphans' home in Howard county, Indiana, and does, under the present cir- cumstances, release to the board of commissioners the children now
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in the orphans' home of Howard county, Indiana. Signed by the president, Mary S. Armstrong." Whereupon the board ordered the children in the home transferred to the White Institute at Treaty, near Wabash, in Wabash county. Since that date Howard county has had no orphans' home and the orphan and homeless children of our county have been kept at the White Institute at a charge of thirty cents a day for each one. The present expense to Howard county and her citizens is about thirteen hundred dollars annually. From the best information at hand it appears that the White In- stitute is a corporation founded and managed under the control of the. Friends church for the care, training and instruction of orphan and homeless children.
MILITARY HISTORY.
Sixty-one years had passed after the close of the war of Inde- pendence when Howard county was organized, in 1844, and if any soldier of that war ever made his home within this county, he must have been an old man. It is not definitely known that any soldier of the Revolution lived within our county. Tradition says that an aged man named Barngrover, who died many years ago and whose solitary grave is in a pasture field just off the New London gravel road about two miles southwest of Kokomo, was a hero of that war.
The soldiers of the War of 1812 had a fair representation among the early settlers of our county. From the "Military History of Howard County," compiled by John W. Barnes, we gather that the following were once residents of our county. Their names and lives, as preserved in that sketch, are: Alexander G. Forgey settled in Howard county in 1842 and made a home just east of Poplar Grove, and died in 1855, aged seventy-five years.
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Israel Ferree was born in Virginia about the year 1775. He was stationed for a considerable part of his enlistment at Norfolk, Virginia. He came to this county in 1850 and died in 1863.
Daniel Heaton was born in Pennsylvania August 27, 1780. While quite young he formed a strong liking for frontier life, and leaving his home, came westward and purchased land in what is now Preble county, Ohio. The town of Eaton, the county seat of this county, was afterward named in his honor. Here he married Mary Furgeson, who bore him eleven children. It is probable that he resided at this place at the time of his enlistment. Whether he was captain of the company to which he belonged at its first organi- zation is not known, but that he held this office afterward, and by successive promotions was finally made colonel, is well known. He was stationed part of the time at Fort Wayne and participated in the battle of Tippecanoe with General Harrison, to whom he was ever afterward greatly attached. After the war his desire for Western life brought him to Indiana, where he engaged in hunting, trapping beaver, and trading with the Indians. In this pursuit he made sev- eral trips as far westward as Iowa on horseback. In 1841 he came to Howard county and settled on Little Wild Cat creek, in Harrison township, a short distance east of West Middleton. He was a mem- ber of the Masonic Order and at the time of his death he was the oldest member in the county, having belonged to the order nearly fifty years. The sword that he carried during the War of 1812 he presented to the Masonic lodge in New London. He was an ardent and enthusiastic Union man during the war of the Rebellion and a great admirer of Lincoln. He firmly believed that the admin- istration would be finally triumphant but did not live to see it. The Tribune of April 23, 1861, has this to say of him. "Colonel Heaton. the veteran soldier, eighty-one years old, was in town on Sunday. He wants to volunteer. He says a man had better say his prayers,
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make his will and prepare to go to hell, than to speak against our country in his presence."
Colonel Heaton was small of stature, energetic and active, posi- tive in his nature and a great reader, especially of the current litera- ture of the day. He was married three times and had sixteen chil- dren, eight boys and eight girls. On the 14th day of January, 1863, when the rebellion had grown to gigantic proportions, when the fierce winds of winter were howling without, and all nature seemed agitated, his life went out with the storm. His funeral rites were said by the Rev. Mr. Keeler, a Baptist minister, and his remains were laid forever at rest in the little burial ground at Alto.
Samuel Giles was born in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1792. He enlisted in his native state and served under Colonel Richard M. Johnson. He was in the battles of Tippecanoe and the Thames. He came to this county in 1861 and died in 1866.
Robert Morrison, also a soldier of 1812, died in 1868.
WERE AT FORT ERIE.
John Miller was born in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, October 13. 1794. His father died when he was seventeen years old. He, in company with his brother, George Miller, moved to Warren county, Ohio, near Lebanon, about the year 1811, which was then almost a wilderness. In 1814 he helped to organize a company, which was being recruited at the military post at Dayton, Ohio. This company was sent to Fort Meigs, on the Maumee. He was sent from this place to Hamilton, Ohio, as a recruiting officer. His regiment was transferred to the command of General Brown, and took part in the battle of Lundy's Lane. He also helped to defend Fort Erie against the repeated attempts of the British to take it. The siege lasted more than six weeks, when the British
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were repulsed. After the war Miller resided for a time in Darke county, near Fort Jefferson, famous in history as the place where St. Clair retreated after his defeat by the Indians at Fort Recovery. In 1826 he married Sarah Broderick. In 1850 he moved to How- ard county, three-quarters of a mile north of Jerome, where he resided until his death, which occurred February 22, 1873. His wife survived him five years. The ashes of both repose in the Jerome cemetery, on the banks of Wild Cat, where rest many of the pioneers of Howard county. John Miller was an industrious citizen, identified with all of the early improvements of the county and a firm friend of education and free schools.
William Apperson was born in Culpeper county, Virginia. April 12, 1786. When the war was declared he was living in Washington county, Virginia. He enlisted in Captain Byer's com- pany and served his full term. He came to Clinton county. Indiana, in 1843, moved to Howard county in September, 1844, and settled on and pre-empted the farm owned by the late Elbert S. Apperson, but now owned by the Apperson brothers of automobile fame. He died December 20, 1874.
Henry Jackson, born in Fleming county, Kentucky, in 1795. enlisted in his native state in 1813, serving nine months and par- ticipating in the battle of the Thames. In 1843 he emigrated to this county and settled in Clay township. He died in 1853 and was buried in the Barnett graveyard, about eight miles west of Kokomo.
Peter Gray was born in Kentucky in 1780 or 1781. He en- listed in his native state and served five years in the regular army. He was under General Jacob Brown and helped to gain the brilliant victory at Lundy's Lane. In this fierce contest he received three wounds, one in the forehead and one in the breast by saber strokes, and one a musket ball, in the leg, which he bore with him to the grave. He died and was buried at Russiaville in 1879.
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OF HOWARD COUNTY.
John Rivers was born in North Carolina September 5, 1795. He enlisted when only seventeen years of age as a soldier from that state. He came to this county about the year 1841 and settled two miles southwest of Russiaville.
Captain John Harrison, a veteran of the War of 1812, should not be omitted from this list. He came to Howard county in 1839 and settled in the southeastern part of Ervin township, building a two-room log house, using one room as a store and various pub- lic uses, as a polling place, the commissioners' meeting place, etc. At the election in 1844, held at his house, he was elected as the first sheriff of Richardville county.
THE WAR WITH MEXICO.
In 1846, when war was declared with Mexico, this county was very sparsely settled and there was no attempt at raising a com- pany here. The sentiment of patriotism was very strong among the settlers, though they were scattered and few and were waging a mighty contest in making homes in the forests and swamps of this new country. While no opportunity presented itself for them to volunteer for this war at home, they sought and found it in another county. Captain Milroy was organizing Company A of the First Indiana Regiment at Delphi, in Carroll county, and the following persons from our county went there to join it: Barnabas Busby, Boston Orb, Andrew J. Forgey, Thomas Kennedy, William Gearhart, George Ervin, John Gearhart, Edward Irvin, Andrew Gerhart, James A. Forgey, Samuel Gerhart, Isaac Landrum, Daniel Isley, Thomas Landrum, William Harrison, Samuel Yager, John Barngrover, Samuel Gay, James Barngrover, William Judkins and Anthony Emley. Andrew Park also went from this county, but probably not in the same company.
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Of the Mexican war veterans who have since made their homes in this county may be mentioned B. F. Voiles, Pollard J. Brown, John Myers, James A. Haggard, John Twinum, Charles M. Fifer, Irvin Tennell, Job Tennell, Michael Craner, Williams S. Reeves, Norvell Fleming, Paul Miller, Daniel Barnhart, Calvin Carter, James L. Bailey, William Vandenbark, David Randall and Philip McDade. Of those who went to the war from this county only six served their entire term of enlistment and these were Barnabas Busby, Andrew J. Forgey, John and James Barngrover, William Judkins and Anthony Emley. The others either died or were dis- charged. John Gearhart was the first man from this county to die, as he also was the first of his regiment.
It may well be noticed that these soldiers and veterans of the War of 1812 and of the war with Mexico were not men actuated solely by a spirit of adventure, or men who were out of settled employment, or men who had not found their place in the work of life and who went into the army because they had nothing else to do. They were the useful citizens of their several communities, and when their work was accomplished in overcoming the nation's foes and peace was restored these men returned to their homes and took up again their civic duties and began again their useful lives of peace. The citizen soldiery of our county is its great safeguard.
HOWARD IN THE CIVIL WAR.
The great war of our country and perhaps the greatest of all countries and of all times was the war of the Rebellion, sometimes called the war of the States, but more correctly the war for the Preservation of the Union. Those who began the war did it for the purpose of establishing a separate government, another nation whose chief cornerstone was to be negro slavery throughout its
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entire territory. The North and the South were to be separate but neighboring nations, with no natural boundaries; only state lines should separate them.
Governments thus located, because of their different adminis- trations and conflicting interests and close proximity, would be sub- ject to much friction, leading to wars and national hatreds. In the course of events the time would come when the East or the West would conclude, because of some local interest, that it would be best for them to form a separate government, and thus disintegration having commenced it would go on until this mighty Republic would be separated into many jarring republics or kingdoms. Thus the war of the Rebellion was a war by the Government of the United States for its own preservation.
Negro slavery was the principal cause of the war. In the Southern, or slave-holding states, a large majority of the white peo- ple regarded negro slavery as a useful institution, without a moral wrong; their education and the custom of their country had con- firmed them in the belief that the negro was an inferior race and as such was designed for service for their masters, the whites. The laws of the land had made property of the slaves and thus the slave- owner not only looked on his negro slaves as useful burden-bearers and toilers, but as his individual property. This domestic condi- tion had produced in the South a class of idle, proud aristocrats who looked on the laboring classes, whether negro or poor whites, as inferiors. So strong was this feeling at the beginning of the war that they boasted that one Southern gentleman could whip five Yankees.
On the other side there was a large number of people in the Northern states who believed that negro slavery was morally wrong. and that it was a national sin to tolerate it, by enacting laws regu- lating it and recognizing property rights in human beings. The Fugitive Slave Law was especially odious to these people.
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This class of people were especially numerous and active in Howard county. There was another and a conservative class who contended that advancing civilization and time would solve the slavery question in the gradual emancipation of the slaves; that the bitter agitation of the ultra pro-slavery people of the South and anti-slavery people of the North was exceedingly dangerous and unwise ; and sought. by all manner of compromise suggestions, to quiet the public feeling.
During the presidential campaign of 1860 John C. Brecken- ridge was the candidate of the pro-slavery people, Abraham Lincoln of the anti-slavery people and Stephen A. Douglas of the conserva- tives. Every element was wonderfully stirred, and public feeling ran high. Breckenridge received some votes in Howard county, Douglas a large number, but Lincoln had a majority. When Lin- coln was declared elected the pro-slavery people felt that a crisis had come: that the end of their cherished institution, slavery, was in sight, and they immediately began preparations to resist it. And though Lincoln had been lawfully elected President, they declared they would not submit to his government, and began to pass seces- sion ordinances in the Southern states and to organize another gov- ernment in the South.
SOUTHERN SYMPATHIZERS.
Their pro-slavery friends of the North sympathized with them and thus almost all sections of the North had "Southern sympa- thizers."
The friends of Douglas saw the impending storm and sought. by every means, to avert it. They predicted it would be a long and bloody war; that the flower of the manhood of the North would be sacrificed before the war would be successfully ended ; and
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that it would cost an enormous amount in treasure and war sup- plies. They contended that the freeing of four million negroes would not near justify such a war. They pleaded with the vic- torious anti-slavery people to give the pro-slavery people of the South guarantees that their rights would not be interfered with and that the national government would not interfere with what the Southern people denominated their domestic affairs. They pleaded with the Southern people, saying it would be ruinous to dissolve the Union and to engage in a fratricidal war. Foreseeing that war was inevitable unless the antagonistic elements could be reconciled, John J. Chittenden, a senator from Kentucky, a man universally respected for his patriotism, his ability and great moral worth, on the 18th of December, 1860, presented in the United States Sen- ate a series of Compromise Resolutions, which were long debated and finally rejected by nineteen votes for and twenty votes against.
Early in February the famous Peace Conference, called on the initiative of Virginia, met at Washington ; only twenty states were represented. For twenty-one days this conference deliberated be- hind closed doors, but it was learned afterwards that the sole matter debated and considered was the slave question. The question fore- most was, how much could the North yield to the South on the slave question to avoid war?
The final conclusion of the conference was really a surrender by the North on all the points in controversy ; providing, first, that Congress should never interfere with slavery in the District of Columbia, over which, by the Constitution, Congress held exclusive jurisdiction without the consent of the slave-holding state of Mary- land and the consent of the slave-holders of the District: second, that Congress should not forbid slave-holders from bringing their slaves to Washington, nor abolish slavery in any of the dockyards, fortresses, or territories under the jurisdiction of the United States where slavery then existed.
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Third, that Congress should not prohibit and should so amend the Constitution that the states should not prohibit the transporta- tion of slaves from and through any of the states and territories where slavery then existed, either by law or usage.
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