USA > Indiana > Johnson County > History of Johnson County, Indiana > Part 17
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The next year, James and William Gillaspy, William Spears, Curtis Pritchard, Louis Pritchard and Richard Perry, Kentuckians, and Jeremiah Dunham, an Ohioan, and Elijah DeHart, from North Carolina, moved in.
In 1824, Robert Moore and Aaron Dunham, of Ohio, arrived, and Isaac Walker, Perry Bailey, George Bailey, Joseph Thompson and Robert Forsyth, all from Kentucky. Forsyth was delayed at the driftwood by high water, but when he did cross, Mrs. Nancy Forsyth, his wife mounted upon the back of a horse, with a bag of meal under her, rode out to their new home, carrying her child, James P., who was two years old, in her arms, and he carried a house-cat in his. It was late when they reached their place, but John S. Miller, Henry Musselman and some others "whirled in" and helped clear four acres of corn ground, on which a fair crop of corn was raised, and the bean vines grew so luxuriantly that they mounted into the lower branches of the trees.
The year before that, David Trout was prostrated by a long and severe sickness, but his neighbors did not neglect him. On stated days they met at his place, and his corn was planted and plowed with as much care as any man's in the neighborhood.
. In 1825, Daniel Pritchard, John Parkhurst, William Irving and Amos Mitchel, from Kentucky, and Jesse Young, from Ohio, moved in, and, in the year following, came Thomas Elliott, Prettyman Burton, William Keaton, Clark Tucker, Daniel Hotto, John Hall, John Elliott, all Kentuckians, and
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Thomas Griffith, Samuel Griffith, Richard Wheeler, James McKane, James and John Wylie, Ohioans.
In 1827, of those who came, John Kindle, Aaron Burget and the Calvins (James, Luke, Thomas and Hiram), Milton McQuade, John Dodd, Robert Works and, as is supposed, George Harger and Jeremiah Hibbs, are all be- lieved to have been from Ohio, and James Mullikin, David Forsyth and James Hughes, from Kentucky. The next year, Joseph Featherngill, Gabriel Givens, Mrs. Sarah Mathes and James White came, followed by Hume Sturgeon, in 1829, and by Walter Black, David Dunham, John Wilks, Aaron Burget, in 1830. Sturgeon was from Kentucky, Mrs. Mathes from Virginia, and the others from Ohio, save Black, whose native place is uncertain.
It is not pretended that these were all the men who moved into Nineveh up to the last year mentioned, nor is it claimed that the true date is given in every instance. The list and dates are only approximately correct.
The first election held in Nineveh township was at the house of John Henry, in August, 1823, and nineteen votes were polled, but as all the territory comprised in the present townships of Franklin, Union and Hensley, as well as Nineveh proper, comprised Nineveh then, and as some voters came from Sugar Creek to vote, these nineteen votes do not measure the strength of Nineveh at that time. On the 25th of September, 1825, an election was held for the election of a justice, at the house of Daniel Musselman, and thirty- nine votes were cast. Of these, David Durbin received twenty, and Jesse Young nineteen. On the 12th of November following, another election for justice was held at the same place, when thirty-one votes were cast. Joab Woodruff receiving twenty-four, and Edward Ware seven. In 1827, at an election for justice, Curtis Pritchard and Amos Durbin were voted for, and each received nineteen votes, and thereupon lots were cast, and Pritchard declared elected. In 1824, the like thing happened in White River township, Archibald Glenn and Nathaniel Bell each receiving seventeen votes for justice. Lots were cast and Glenn won.
The early residents of Nineveh were fairly divided between Ohio and Kentucky men. While the Kentuckians constituted a majority in nearly every township. there were but few Ohioans in any one save Nineveh.
Williamsburg, laid out by Daniel Musselman, was, during its infancy, a rival of Edinburg. Joab Woodruff brought an assortment of dry goods to his house and sold them at an early date in the township's history, and in 1830 the record of the board of justices shows that Daniel Musselman was licensed to vend foreign and domestic groceries, and that Woodruff held a license to sell at the same time. In 1831, Henry Musselman procured a
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license to keep a grocery, and in the next year A. H. Scroggins & Company went into the mercantile business in the place. Glancing along the pages of the old records, the further fact is disclosed that, in 1838, Thomas Mullikin was licensed to vend "domestic and foreign merchandise," and, in the year following, James Mills obtained a permit to sell whisky and dry goods.
The first church organized in the township was at the house of Daniel Musselman, by Elder Mordecai Cole, a Baptist preacher, and it was named the "Nineveh Church."
It is probable that Aaron Dunham taught the first school, soon after he came, in 1824. In 1826, Benjamin Bailey was teaching in a cabin with an earthen floor, near the Vickerman place.
In 1831, William Vickerman moved in and built the first wool-carding factory that was successfully run in the county.
The first death in the township was a little child of Daniel Musselman, that was burned to death. Shortly after, James Dunn and Nancy Pritchard both died; and in twenty-two months after the arrival of Thomas Griffith, on the 21st of October, 1826, he died, leaving a widow with a family of little children. Griffith was the first blacksmith in the township.
About half the original settlers of Nineveh township were Ohioans; the others were mainly Kentuckians. Nineveh was the Ohio settlement of the county.
FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP.
In 1822, in the first half of the year, as is supposed, William Burkhart, from Green county, Kentucky, and Levi Moore, built the first cabins in Frank- lin township. They came by way of the Indian trail, and Burkhart built his cabin on the banks of the little creek, where Michael Canary afterward lived and died, while Moore went out as far as the Big Spring, and then turning to the east, located at the knoll, a few hundred yards west of Young's creek, where John McCaslin's house stands. Moore afterward moved to the farm now owned by Aaron Lagrange and there built a mill, the third built in the township; but he moved to a newer country within a few years, leaving an unsavory reputation behind him. Moore's creek commemorates his name.
In the spring of 1823, George King, Simon Covert and David W. Mc- Caslin, accompanied by Isaac Voris, a young man, moved from Kentucky and began clearings near the mouth of Camp creek, or, as it afterward came to be known, Covert's creek, after which, it took its present name of Hurricane. There was no road cut out beyond John Adam's place, now Amity, and the movers, being joined by Robert Gilchrist, "bushed" the way out to their future
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home. On the afternoon of a day in March they reached Camp creek, but, finding the stream high and not knowing the fords, they encamped for the night on the high ground where stand the college buildings. All returned to Adams, save Covert and Voris, who, when night came, milked the cows, milking into and drinking out of the cow bells that had been brought for use in the range. The next morning, the pilgrims crossed over the turbulent stream and at once began the building of King's cabin on a knoll west of the present crossing of the Cincinnati & Martinsville railroad and Jefferson street. That being up, McCaslin's was built on the south side of Young's creek, and Covert's on the east side of the Hurricane.
During the following summer Franklin was laid out and made ready for settlers; but it was not until the spring after that a house was built within the plat. At that time, a man named Kelly put up a house on the west side of the square and kept a few articles in the grocery line for sale, chief among which seems to have been an odd sort of beer and cakes. He was for some reason unable to get whiskey, and at the end of a year he left and went to Indian- apolis.
In the summer of 1824, William Shafer built the court house, and in the fall he built himself a house on the southeast corner of the square. The same year, John Smiley put up a log house of two stories, on the northwest corner of Main and Jefferson streets, where Wood's drug store now is, and, moving into it the same year, he hung out a "tavern sign." At the same time, a cabin was put up adjoining Smiley's house on the west, and into this Daniel Taylor, from Cincinnati, brought a stock of dry goods and groceries. Edward Springer, that year or the next, built and operated the first smithy in the township on the west side of the square. In 1825 or 1826. Joseph Young and Samuel Herriott, partners in business, erected the first frame building in the town and township, near to Shafer's house, and in the south side a tavern was opened under the immediate supervision of Young, and in the north side was opened a general store under the care of Herriott. In 1828, George King built a brick house on Main street, in which he lived until his death, in 1869. The somewhat elaborate beadwork on the door and window casing, which many will remember, was cut out by the carpenters with pocket- knives. Among the early settlers was Thomas Williams, who came in 1823 or 1824; John K. Powell, a hatter ; Caleb Vannoy, a tanner ; Pierson Murphy and James Ritchey, physicians ; Fabius M. Finch and Gilderoy Hicks, lawyers ; Samuel Headley and Samuel Lamberson, tailors.
In 1825 Moses Freeman, Daniel Covert, Joseph Voris, Thomas Hender- son and, probably, John Davis, moved into and not far from the Covert neigh-
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borhood, at the Big Spring, near Hopewell. Henry Byers settled near the west side, and about the same time Joseph Hunt came in by Burkhart's, and Isaac Beeson over on Sugar creek. John Smiley, in 1822, had settled on the same creek and had built a mill. John Mozingo and Squire Hendricks were living on the east side, as heretofore stated.
The same year Franklin was located, Cyrus Whetzel ran a line and marked it, with a compass, through the woods from the Bluffs to the new town, and in 1824 the Bluff road was cut out, and this afforded movers easy access to the northwest parts of the township. In 1825, Isaac Vannuys, Stephen Luyster and David Banta moved in, and the year after Peter La- grange and his sons, Peter D. and Aaron, all then settled in what is now known as the Hopewell neighborhood. Following at intervals, during the next few years, we find coming into the same vicinity John Voris, Simon Vanarsdall, Zachariah Ransdall, Cornelius Covert, Melvin Wheat, John P. Banta, John Bergen, Peter Demaree, Samuel Vannuys, Theodore List, Stephen Whitenack, Joseph Combs, Thomas Roberts and Peter Banta. On the south and west sides and southwest corner of the township, we find that Thomas Mitchell, Michael Canary, Robert McAuley, Jacob Demaree, Ebenezer Perry, James Forsyth came in quite early, and then, passing up the south side, are the names of Major Townsend, John D. Mitchell, John Gratner, Joseph Ashley, John Harter, Alexander McCaslin, James McCaslin, John C. Good- man, John Gribben and Jonathan Williams. In the central and northern parts were William Magill, Garrett Bergen, Peter A. Banta, Milton Utter, the Whitesides brothers (Henry, James, John and William), and Stephen and Lemuel Tilson, Thomas J. Mitchel, John Brown, Elisha Dungan, Edward Crow, David McCaslin, Harvey McCaslin, Robert Jeffrey, John Herriott, Middleton Waldren, Therrett Devore, Travis Burnett, David Berry, Jesse Williams, Simon Moore, John High, Samuel Overstreet, John Wilson, David, Thomas and George Alexander, William and Samuel Allison and John Wil- son; while upon the east side, in addition to those mentioned previously, may be named Landen Hendricks, William Garrison, Joseph Tetrick, Jesse Beard, Thomas Needham, Jacob Fisher, Samuel Owens, David Wiles and J. C. Patterson.
The next mill built in the township, after Smiley's, was by John Harter, on Young's creek, two miles below Franklin. Harter bought his mill-irons from John Smiley and agreed to pay him in corn, two bushels being due on Wednesday of every other week until paid for; and in this connection, it may be stated as an evidence of the straits to which men were put in those days,
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that Jefferson D. Jones had a supply of bacon, but no meal, while Harter had the meal but no bacon, and that they made an arrangement whereby Jones took a half-bushel of meal every other week, and gave Harter of his bacon, in payment therefor at the same intervals of time.
About 1827, Levi Moore got a little mill in operation on Young's creek, at the mouth of Moore's creek, and, still later, Cornelius Covert built a mill on the same stream higher up.
In 1826, a little child of Joseph Young died, the first in the township. In 1829, a school was taught in the log court house. John Tracey, of Plea- sant township, was a pupil, walking not less than five miles night and morning. James Graham was the teacher. About 1825, Thomas Williams married, as is now believed. the first couple in the township. Their names have not been remembered, but the groom, having no money to pay the Squire, proffered that he would make rails and his wife work in the kitchen for Williams in lieu of money.
WHITE RIVER TOWNSHIP.
White River township originally extended across the north part of John- son county, but is now restricted to its northwest corner. It includes forty- eight sections of land. Its length, which lies north and south, is eight miles and its breadth six. It is situated in the basin of the White river, and about one thousand acres lie on the west bank of that stream. Three or four sec- tions in the southeast corner are included in the valley of Young's creek. The valley of White river. through and over the gravelly and sandy stratum of the drift, is about twenty miles wide, and has a depth of about sixty or seventy feet. There are only two terraces to the river, the nearer being about twelve feet above low water and a mile in width, and overflows to a depth of about three feet. The farther is still fifteen feet higher and of equal breadth. With this terrace the level portions of the valley cease and are succeeded north of the bluffs by sandy and gravelly ridges a mile or more in width, and which extend for long distances parallel with the river, having an elevation often equal to the greatest depth of the valley, proving to any observer that they were formed by moving waters confined to the valley of the river, and which were then equally extensive with its whole width and depth. Across this in- clined plane, with its great fall throughout the whole township, except half a dozen sections in the southeast corner. situate in the basin of Young's creek, Pleasant run, Honey creek, Bluff creek, Crooked creek and other smaller streams rush down to the river. thus giving an unsurpassed drainage to the
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township. The township has a greater variety of soils than any other in the township, and of unequaled productiveness. When Whetzel, in cutting his trace with the purpose of going still further, looked down into the rich valley of the White river, he said, "This is good enough for me," and there erected a permanent camp. And those who have resided in White River township and, having left in search of other eligible points, have sought in vain for its equal. Its rich, dry soil attracted emigration at a very early day, which con- tinued to pour in until the township was soon densely populated. The greater part of the emigrants were from the Southern states, three-fourths at least from Virginia, a few from Kentucky, North Carolina and Ohio. The emi- grants were men of small means, seldom able to enter more than eighty acres of land, and dependent entirely upon personal efforts for the improvement of their lands and for the subsistence of themselves and families. And this one feature, that is, the slenderness of the means of the emigrants-although at first thought it seems paradoxical-accounts for the rapid advancement of Indiana more than any other. There were no idlers. The men worked, the women worked, the children worked.
The first emigrants were a body of select men, who came to a county covered with a heavy forest, to better their condition by conquering its wild- ness and developing its agricultural resources. Their capital was in their ability to perform hard service, and in a will and purpose to do so. The heavy forest, with its tall trees and with its dense shrubbery, was sufficient to deter irresolute men from undertaking so arduous a task as its removal, and, except a few wandering hunters, there were none here. Every man needed assistance, and every man stood ready to render it. If an emigrant but cut a new road through the brushwood, and erected a camp. a half dozen men would find it out and be there in twenty-four hours, not by invitation, but voluntarily to assist him in building a cabin. Often a cabin was built in a single day, and covered in, and the family housed in safety and comfort at night beneath its roof. If food was needed by the new-comer, that was car- ried along, and often half the meal for those assisting was supplied by the neighbors, and the good old kind-hearted mothers went along to help prepare it. The furniture of the cabin consisted often of a fixed bedstead in each of the four angles. One bed-post only was used, set up four and one-half feet from one wall, and six and one-half from the other, with two large holes bored into it two feet from the floor. Then two holes were bored into the walls, and into these were inserted, smoothed with a bowie knife, two poles, four and one-half feet, the width, and six and one-half feet, the length of the frame work. On the long way, rails were laid, and into the space between the logs
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of the wall were inserted the usual split boards, and thus this indispensable piece of furniture was completed. A man could make one in an hour. They answered every purpose with the finest bedstead, except they were not suffi- ciently stable for restless sleepers, who often found themselves descending through misplaced boards to the floor.
In every cabin, suspended to the joists, hung a frame-work of nicely smoothed poles a foot or two apart. On these, in the fall season, hung, in thin sections to dry for long keeping, the rich, golden pumpkin.
But often the emigrant did not wait to build a cabin, but if he came in the spring, he built a camp, leaving the cabin to be erected during the summer and fall. The first indispensable object was bread, and to reach it required long days of patient labor. But the pioneer came fully advised of what was to be met and overcome. His bread was in the ground beneath the forest trees. He did not sit down and repine, or reload his wagon and return whence he came. He was a man. The first thing was to remove the small undergrowth. It was the universal practice to cut down everything "eighteen inches and under." When felled it was cut up into sections twelve to fifteen feet in length, and the brush piled around larger trees for the purpose of kill- ing them by burning. Ten to fifteen settlers had an understanding that they would act together and assist one another. It mattered little if ten miles apart, that was not too far to travel to assist or to be assisted. Every man had his day, and when that day came, rain or shine, none of the expected as- sistants were absent. They did not wait till the dews were dissipated, they came as soon as the sun rose and often sooner. I yet see them, and how I regret that we do not have a photographic view of the company, our fathers and mothers, just as they were then. True, they were not fashionably dressed, for in nine cases out of ten, each man wore a pair of buckskin pants, partly from necessity and partly from convenience, for a man dressed in leather moves through brush and briers with little inconvenience Each wore moccasins instead of boots, and old hats, coonskin or buckskin caps made up the head gear. There was no time lost. Each man was a veteran and hastened on to the work to be done with precision and skillfulness. If the company was large enough it was divided. Eight men made a good strong company, and quite as many as could act together. Every squad had a captain or leader, not by election, but he was such by pre-eminence and skill in the business. And now the work begins. The leader casts his experienced eye over the logs as they were fallen by accident, or more probably, by design, and at a single glance takes in the situation over an acre. A half dozen logs are lying a few feet apart, and in a parallel position. They can be readily thrown
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together and constitute a nice pile for burning. The leader speaks, and they seem to have suddenly acquired locomotion, and are in a pile. And thus on and on for fifteen or twenty days every spring, before each man has had his day. The mothers were there also assisting, in cooking, not in patent metal stoves, with a half dozen compartments to stow away everything nicely, but in Dutch ovens and sugar kettles before a hot burning log pile. If anything was wanting, and the want was made known, it was kindly contributed, and a rich, hearty meal was provided, and then eaten with a zest unknown to the present lazy shadows of manhood. And thus the day was spent in useful necessary labor and friendly chat. But the pioneer, during the busy season, did not go home to rest and to sleep from a log rolling, but to his own clear- ing, where he continued to heap brush on the burning heaps till the snapping and uproar could be heard in the distance, and the light lit up the heavens for half a mile away, then retiring to snatch from labor a few hours of rest, he soon found the coming day, bringing with it the busy scenes already described. But there was a good woman, a faithful mother, left behind, and so soon as the morning meal was over, she did not while away the day in reading novels or fingering a piano, but she took all the children to the clearing, and securing baby in a safe position, she and the older ones continued to pile on the brush and combustibles, and thus the work went on by day and night. ,In early spring, when the trees were being felled to be cut up for piling and burning on some elevated place in the midst of a pioneer settlement, my attention has been often arrested by the busy scene around me. In old age the mind wan- ders back to brighter days, and often finds pleasure even in youthful sports.
"How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood, When fond recollection presents them to view; The orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wildwood, And all the loved scenes which my infancy knew."
When we travel over the "New Purchase," and see it as it now is, and compare it with its condition fifty years ago, the exclamation forces itself upon us; How changed! Everything is altered! It is another world! But what wrought the change? Come, travel back with me to its condition as it was fifty or sixty years ago and learn the cause, and see the busy scenes around. It is a pleasing one to me, and was then, although repeated over and over for three months during every spring. It is now the Ist of May, and fifty years ago since those good men, the pioneers, stimulated by the recollec- tion of the scanty supplies of the last year, were straining every nerve to clear
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up more ground to supply the deficiency. Here with their bare, brawny arms, they swung high in the air their sharp glittering blades, that effectively fell in unceasing blows amid the trees and brush of the jungle, click! click! just at hand and faintly heard in the distance; click! click! twenty or thirty axes are heard in rapid fall. Every man and every boy is at work.
"Deep echoing groan the thickets brown, Then rustling, crackling, crashing thunder down,"
the forest trees. And the ponderous maul forced down with the power of a stalwart pioneer, shakes the forest for a mile away; and the loudsounding monotones of twenty bells, at least, on the leaders of cattle and horses, like telephones, tell the owners where to find them, as they roam at large and feed on nature's wide pasture.
And now gaunt want, with his emaciated form and hateful, shrunken visage, who had forced himself into every cabin in spite of the efforts of its inmates, when he heard the crashing, falling trees, and saw at night the lurid glare of burning logs and brush, was alarmed and fled, but afterward often returned and cast a wistful eye within, but seldom entered.
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It was thus the improvements in Johnson county were begun. It is thus the work has been carried on and the consummation reached in the grand development of its resources in every department of our industries. Among the pioneers were some immoral, bad men; there were, however, but few entirely destitute of all good. In this history, it is the gold and not the dross that we would preserve. Not only in laborious duties, but, also, in moral and social qualities, the pioneers generally were a noble and select class of men and women. Their ears were open to every call of aid and assistance. I would to God that I had the skill to paint in proper colors, and to describe their kindness and sympathy, and their vigils around the couches of their suffering. dying neighbors, but I am powerless to do them justice.
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