History of Johnson County, Indiana, Part 81

Author: Branigin, Elba L., 1870-
Publication date: 1972
Publisher: Indianapolis, B.F. Bowen, [Evansville, Ind.], [Unigraphic, Inc.]
Number of Pages: 981

USA > Indiana > Johnson County > History of Johnson County, Indiana > Part 81

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

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pence yearly during her life, but when the payments are done my children shall pay to my poer sister, Jerrebrey.

Witnesses,

ENGELBERT GOTT, BENJAMIN RYDER."

Roelof died at Flatlands in 1761.

(IV) Gerret or Garrett Terhune, son of Roelof and Morretje (Wyckhoff) Terhune, was born at Flatlands, Long Island, August 30, 1709. When quite young he, in company with some young cousins, sons of Albert Terhune, left Long Island and went to central New Jersey. There he met and married Alice Voorhees, daughter of Stephen Coerte Voorhees, of New Brunswick, New Jersey. He eventually located in Somerset county, New Jersey, as a farmer, where he died September 20, 1781.

( V) Stephen Terhune, son of Gerret and Alice ( Voorhees) Terhune, was born in Somerset county, New Jersey, November 27, 1735. He was married, the 5th of September, 1755. to Margaret Cornell, who was born the same day as himself. Previous to the year 1755. there is nothing to help the genealogist in the construction of this record but musty wills, deeds and long forgotten court records. But with Stephen and Marget (Cornell) Terhune it is different. Faint memories of them still linger in the minds of their descendants. It has been remembered of "Marget" that she was a large woman, of a pronounced blonde type, with fine blue eyes, a ruddy face. plenty of freckles and lot of bright red hair. The type still appears in pro- fusion among her descendants even to the sixth generation. Stephen and Marget lived on a farm near Harlingen, New Jersey. Those were the times when the French and English were fighting for supremacy in the western world. The war cloud hung ominously over Pennsylvania and New York. But central New Jersey behind its sheltering mountains was a paradise of peace. Somerset county was fertile and well improved. Highways from New York to Philadelphia spanned its full extent. Beautiful colonial houses rose on either hand. Cultivated fields were interspersed with umbrageous woodlands that cast a cooling shade and there were many refreshing springs and streams of unpolluted water. In this favored region Stephen and

Marget lived content. Their farm more than supplied their needs and that of their growing family. They took life easy. Of winter evenings they sat before their cheerful fire of logs and read their Dutch Bible by the light of tallow candles. They spoke both the English and Dutch tongues, but they attended the Dutch Reformed church and brought up their children in that faith. They had a large family and their family Bible, which is still in

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existence at Blawenburg, New Jersey, records : of birth of their ten children: Garrett, born ] born October 13, 1757; Stephen, born February 29, 1762; Marget, born January 25, 1764; Cornelius, born November 30, 1768; Eva, bor May 5, 1773; Reulef, born July 3, 1777.

This family remained intact for nearly nothing less potent than the dark days of sufficient to break into its happy circle. Ne patriotic as were Massachusetts and Virginia. ington's distressed continentals slowly straggling and without shoes or blankets, failed to rouse sense of their own responsibility in the matter consumed three weeks in crossing the province : come to his assistance. But close upon the he Americans came the arrogant redcoats and the mercenaries. They roamed at will over the pre as they went. Fences and barns were burned, 1 away, houses looted of every valuable and defens and violated. The stolid Dutch were at last against the invader was felt on every hand, and th by revenge and patriotic fervor flocked to the co the first to come was (VI) William Terhune. sent to his enlistment, so he stole away from might be a soldier for his country. He had not : there came the terrible ordeal of crossing the D the great commander in the Princeton fight and th suffered both measles and smallpox while in the iam left his father's home at midnight to be a s his mother shed tears at his departure. On a 1 Maria (Vanarsdalen) Van Nuice, widow of Jol born 1720, died 1763. Her daughter, Maria, Though she was but a child in years she had th had given to William her first virginal love. F into blossom in his sight; after he left home days dragged slowly by. At an early hour one bi 2, 1777, Maria heard the roar of cannon several 1 and she divined at once that a battle was on s wherever the fight might be there William wc

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thick of it. Her heart sank and for several hours her anxiety and suspense were almost more than she could bear. At last came the blessed news that relieved her heart. William, sure enough, had been in the forefront of battle, but had come forth unscathed. After four years he came home from the war and he and Maria were married March 23, 1781. They lived at Harlingen, where William owned a farm, and their family Bible records the birth of the following children :

I. Stephen, born April 15, 1782; died February 8, 1833, in Henry county, Kentucky ; married Polly Montfort in 1802.

2. John, born August 19, 1783; died March 28, 1860, in Mercer county, Kentucky; married Anna Comingo, March 1, 1806.

3. William, born November 3, 1786; died October 20, 1845, at Green- wood, Ind .; married, first, Rachel Lowe, November 27, 1806, and, second. April 2, 1821, Anna Salter, who was born March 8, 1799, and died August 23, 1851.

4. Martha, born January 23, 1789; died August 13, 1822, in Mercer county, Kentucky; married Allen Raines, October 19, 1811.

5. (VII) Garrett, born November 15, 1791; died January 24, 1875; married, first, on August 15, 1813, Nancy Davis, who was born April 9, 1794; died February 14, 1851 ; second, Mrs. Jane Forsythe, August 3, 1851, who was born September 30, 1787, died February 2, 1856; third, on September 4, 1857, Mrs. Nancy Pickerel, who was born February 3, 1794; all died at Trafalgar, Johnson county, Indiana.

6. Isaac, born March 17, 1796; died March 13, 1869, at Vermillion, Edgar county, Illinois; married Elizabeth Shepherd, March 18, 1815.

7. Margaret, born July 13, 1797; died July 21, 1812.

8. James, born January 14, 1801; died May 31, 1884, married on January 11, 1823, Parthenia Pancake, who was born November 2, 1798, died April 2, 1884; both died in Brown county, Indiana.

9. Ruloff, born June 23, 1803; died June 13, 1872; married first on August 26, 1824, Mary Vermillion, who was born September 8, 1808; died July 1, 1864; second, on February 9, 1865, Margaret Brown, who was born · March 7, 1806; died September 18, 1867; third, on May 28, 1868, Lydia Comingore; all of Ruloff's family lived and died in Mercer county, Ken- tucky.

As their family grew in numbers a desire to give the children better opportunities caused William to decide to seek a new home in that beautiful new world beyond the mountains, wonderful stories of which had been afloat

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ever since the close of the Revolution. In May, 1793, occurred a great migration from New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the woods and hills of beautiful Kentucky. William and Garrett Terhune and their families were among the number who went. Their families and household goods were placed in great canvas-covered wagons drawn by horses or oxen and ac- companied by droves of cattle, sheep and hogs. In this way they crossed the mountains to Pittsburg, where they took flat boats and drifted down the beautiful Ohio to Limestone (Maysville), Kentucky. Here they landed, transferred their possessions once more to .the wagons and completed the overland journey to Harrod's Station in Mercer county, Kentucky. This migration was but one hundred and twenty years ago, yet the change in the country since that time has been inconceivable great. There was not a bridge nor a steamboat on the whole course of the river. Marietta was a little village only five years old; Cincinnati contained some two hundred and fifty lawless spirits living in squalid log cabins. The journey was made in June, the most beautiful season of the year. The river was yet flush with the spring rains; wild roses bloomed in profusion along its banks; bold hills to the right and left stood clothed to their summits in the gleaming verdure of spring. Occa- sionally Indians peered from the thickets in idle curiosity, or in more hostile mood exchanged shots with the riflemen on the rapidly drifting boats. Three months were required to complete the journey from Harlingen to Harrod's Station. At night the caravan halted at some spring or stream of water. On Sabbath they rested. Hunters helped to supply the company with food. When the cows were milked in the morning the milk was put into tea pots and by night the rough jolting of the wagons had produced butter ready for use. Soon after his arrival at Harrod's Station, William Terhune bought a tract of land on Harrod's Run, where he and his sons built a house and cleared some fields. Here the family lived for twenty-seven years and here the four younger children were born. But before much of this time had elapsed the little community had felt the need of a house of prayer. "Indeed the serious and religious nature of these people was the heritage of the ages. Re- ligious liberty was cradled in the Netherlands. It means something to be of the blood of those who fought at Ivry or perished in the butchery of St. Bartholomew; it means much to be the children of those who suffered the horrors of Haarlem and Leyden, and who cut the dykes to let in the wild North Sea upon their homes, sooner than prove false to their religion. Of such ancestry were the Bantas, the Brewers, the Rikers, the Terhunes, the Van Nuyses, the Van Arsdales and the Voorhees." Though they were (53)

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in the wilderness and without a pastor, they kept up their Sunday services. The colonists who founded Boonesborough, Harodsburg and other early settlements did not introduce public worship. But the Dutch Reformed did not neglect their rigid observance of worship. They were a praying people. After the pioneers were provided with homes to shelter their families they set actively to work to build a house of worship. Henry Comingore, a son- in-law of Garrett Terhune, was sent to New Jersey to solicit funds. He made the trip on horseback-a ride of six weeks either way-collected the money and brought it home in his saddle bags. Land for the church site and ceme- tery was bought from David Adams, and a large church of logs, plastered with mud, was erected on the dry fork of Salt river about four miles south of . Harrodsburg. This. church, built in 1800, and known as the "Mud Meeting House," is still standing. The members of the Dutch Reformed church, among whom were William and Garrett Terhune, built this house of God with their own hands. It was their place of worship as long as they lived, and it yet stands as a monument to the piety and religious zeal of its founders. A few more lines will complete the earthly career of William Terhune. In the year 1820 he bought a tract of land of Christian Ludwick, five miles south of Harrodsburg. Here he died June 18, 1828, the owner of two hundred and seventy-five acres. He was laid to rest in a little ceme- tery surrounded by a stone wall, on a beautiful eminence near the west bank of Salt river, in Boyle county, Kentucky. His wife, Mary (Van Nuice) Terhune, followed him to their long home August 4, 1848.

(VII) Garrett Terhune was born at Harlingen, New Jersey, Novem- ber 15, 1791, and was brought by his parents to Kentucky when he was only eighteen months old. He grew up on his father's farm and married Nancy Davis on the 15th day of August, 1813. She was the only daughter of Ed- ward and Sarah Davis, and was born in Tennessee April 9, 1794. They were the parents of the following children :

I. Sarah, born August 10, 1814; died April 21, 1896; married on October 25, 1833, Fielding Utterback, who was born November 23, 1809, died July 31, 1881 ; both died in Mills county, Iowa.

2. Mary Anne, born August 25, 1815; died August 5, 1842; married Henry Utterback, May 13, 1832, who was born September 11, 1805, died November 21, 1836, in Johnson county, Indiana.

3. Harvey, born March 22, 1817; married on October 31, 1839, Susan Wilson; went to Missouri, no further trace.

4. William, born March 22, 1819; died February 3, 1880; married Deborah Zook, who was born March 1, 1822, died April 10, 1895.

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5. James (VIII), born February 3, 1821 ; died January 21, 1892; mar- ried on March 17, 1842, Eusebia Neville Nay, who was born October 11, 1825, died December 19, 1892; both died in Johnson county, Indiana.

6. Martha, born July 3, 1822; died January 9, 1908; married on September 26, 1839, William Robert Hunt, who was born December 14, 1818, died August 20, 1886, at Trafalgar, Ind.

7. Margaret, born August 7, 1824; died August 17, 1911 ; married on March 16, 1843, Henderson Ragsdale, who was born November 9. 1823, died March 29, 1913, at Trafalgar, Ind.

8. Lucinda, born March 8, 1826; died February 22, 1901 ; married on December 26, 1844. Harvey Ragsdale, who was born May 13, 1825, died August 9, 1904, at Trafalgar, Ind.

9. Ida Riker Terhune, born October 5, 1829; died February 9, 1894: married on July 13, 1848, James A. Nay, who was born March 3, 1828, died March 4, 1902, in Boone county, Indiana.

IO. Davis Terhune, born September 23, 1831; died October 5, 1877; married first on January 27, 1854, Cynthia J. Riker, who died October 2, 1854. at Trafalgar, Ind .; second, on October 19, 1858, Mary Jane Ter- hune, who was born September 16, 1833, died March 8, 1908, at Providence, Indiana

II. Minerva Jane, born January 10, 1834; died June 30, 1906; mar- ried on December 27, 1854, Joel H. Hoback, who was born July 25, 1835, ' who died at Dickson, Okla. Mr. Hoback was captain of Company H, Fifty- seventh Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry.

Io. Obadiah Terhune, born April 10, 1836; died July 26, 1837.

Garrett Terhune lived on a farm near Nevada, Mercer county, Ken- tucky, from August, 1813, to September, 1830, when he came to Johnson county, Indiana. At the time of his removal from Kentucky he had a wife and nine children. He had found life impossible upon the limestone hills of his native state and he braved the hardships of the wilderness that his chil- dren might have the advantages which he knew could never be theirs in the old neighborhood. Banta's History of Johnson county, says: "In the fall of 1830 Garrett Terhune and his brother, James, arrived from Kentucky and settled on the east side of Union township, a mile west of Peter Vandi- vier's place. Garrett Terhune had a wife and ten children to maintain, be- sides two horses and a dozen head of cattle. He paid a man thirty dollars -all the money he had-to move him out. No preparation for shelter had been made and when the end of the journey had been reached the movers' goods and their families were literally turned out in the woods. The brothers

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at once built two open camps, ten feet apart and facing each other. In the space between they made the camp fire at which the meals were cooked and around which both families gathered of nights, listening to the moan of the autumn winds in the tree tops and the howl of the prowling wolves. At the end of six weeks they abandoned their camps for a double cabin which they had erected in the meanwhile." The story of the hardships endured by Garrett Terhune and his family, as told by a son who survives, presents a most pathetic picture of the time :

"The first and second planting of corn failed. and the third which came was ruined by the frost. There was no grain for the cattle and many of them died. The horses were so poor that they could not work in the plow beyond two hours at a time, but had to be turned out to graze. Before the second year's crop came Mr. Terhune had to have corn for bread. 'I never ate acorns because I had absolutely nothing else to eat,' said James, the son, 'but I often ate acorns because I was hungry and had not enough of other things.' The meal was low in the barrel and the corn pone was cut into twelve equal pieces at each repast. The father without money went to the 'Hawpatch' (a settlement in Bartholomew county), to buy bread, where he met a distant relative who sold him the needed grain and waited for the money. Thus they tided over their day of distress till the new crop came."

The tract of land on which Garrett Terhune lived was an eighty-acre · tract six miles southwest of Franklin, on the Franklin and Martinsville road. In the year 1839 he removed to an eighty-acre tract of land on the "Three Notched Road" about one mile northwest of the present site of Trafalgar, Ind. His first wife, the mother of his children, died there February 18, 1851. On August 3, 1851, he married Mrs. Jane Forsyth, who was born September 20, 1787, and died February 2, 1856, and on September 4, 1857, he married Mrs. Nancy Pickerel, who was born February 3, 1794. He died January 24, 1875. He was a member of the Christian Protestant church, as was also his wife. Politically he was a Democrat.

(VIII) James Terhune, fifth child of Garrett and Nancy Davis Ter- hune, was born in Mercer county, Kentucky, February 3, 1821. At the age of nine he was brought to the dreary wilderness of Johnson county, Indiana. The country was devoid of the comforts and advantages of civilization and the boy thus grew up face to face with all the hard phases of pioneer life; its toil, its sickness, its gloomy solitude; its utter lack of books or of educa- tional advantages of any kind. In his boyhood the only schools were taught in miserable log houses with greased paper windows, enormous fire places and mud plastered walls. His opportunities to attend these schools were few

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and there were no books at his command. In the absence of any text books he learned to read and spell in the "Testament." Upon reaching his majority he married Eusebia Neville Nay, March 17, 1842. She was the daughter of Asa B. Nay and Lucinda (Whitesides) Nay, and was born in Oldham county, Kentucky, October 11, 1825. Her father, Asa B. Nay, in early life, was a teacher and later a minister in the Primitive Baptist church. He was born in Oldham county, Kentucky, November 30, 1799, and died in Boone county, Indiana, December 1, 1876. He was a son of Samuel and Nancy Nay. Samuel Nay was born in Culpeper county, Virginia, March 9, 1763, and died in Johnson county, Indiana, September 30, 1848. He was a soldier in the Revolution. After his marriage, Mr. Terhune bought a farm and went to work with great energy. Farming was his life work. He finally owned and beautified a farm of one hundred and fifty acres two miles west of Trafalgar. Retiring from his farm in 1882, he lived for eight years in Franklin, and two years in Trafalgar before his death. He was energetic, industrious and progressive in his ideas. He donated both money and labor in 1866 to the rebuilding of the Cincinnati and Martinsville railroad from Martinsville to Fairland. Ind. He was a man of the highest moral worth and his whole life was above reproach. He and his wife were both faithful members of the Bethel Primitive Baptist church. He died January 21, 1892. and she fol- lowed him December 19, 1892. They were the parents of the following children :

I. Thomas Linval (IX ), born April 17, 1844: died February 15, 1903; married, on December 7, 1865, Caroline Vories, who was born August 30, 1844, and died July 29, 1896.

2. Asa Garrett, born September 29, 1846; died March 17, 1898; mar- ried, on May 21. 1869, Nannie Williams, who was born on July 11, 1851, in Boone county, Indiana.

3. William Davis, born August 11, 1849; married, first, on Septem- ber 16, 1873, Sarah Forsyth, who was born December 22, 1851, died Septem- ber 24, 1902: second, on January 25, 1908, Mrs. Alpha T. Clayton, born July 15, 1859.

4. Lucinda Margaret, born November 18, 1852; married, on October 23, 1872, Samuel Nelson Schuck, who was born December 22. 1849, died February 22, 1896.

5. John Walter, born May 5, 1856; died October 18, 1879.

6. Erminie Addie, born January 5. 1861 ; married James R. Shank, who was born May 18, 1858.

7. Dillard Webster, born January 7, 1864; died November 7. 1865.

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(IX) Thomas Linval Terhune, the eldest son of James and Eusebia '(Nay) Terhune, was born in Johnson county, Indiana, April 17, 1844. At the time of his birth the county had not been inhabited by white men for more than twenty years. Swamps with their noisome exhalations covered much of the land and the dark wilderness was hardly broken. The environment of his early years lacked many of the elements that are contributory and almost essential to the highest mental and spiritual development. The schools of that time were poorly taught in dismal log houses. The homes were devoid of musical instruments, of pictures and of books. The churches were dreary and uninspiring. The only music to be heard in them was the uncultured con- gregational singing of hymns that were drawled out a couplet at a time in broken meter and with a nasal intonation. The sermons were hard, doctrinal and denunciatory. Truly these were not the pleasant lines for a sensitive, eager-hearted little lad to fall upon. But fortunately, he had honest, pious, God-fearing parents who, by precept and example, kept his young and tender feet in the pathway that led to higher things. When he grew in years and stature he went to the country school nearest his father's home and learned as best he could from the poor, unlearned teachers of that time. And so he grew up, despite his crude environment, to be studious, gentle and refined. When he quit the country schools he went to the Edinburg high school and to the "Old Academy" at Franklin, and supplemented this by a private course of instruction under Dr. John H. Martin, of Franklin, who was then the leading educator in Johnson county and afterwards became president of Moore's Hill College. In the winter of 1862-3 he taught his first school and then began a career of teaching in the country schools of Hensley township, which continued for more than thirty years. Those little roadside structures with four bare walls were more than school houses to him. Each one was to him a sanctuary ; each one a studio where he might take the plastic, rebellious clay of childhood and mould it through the years into forms of goodness and usefulness ; a place where the rough diamonds picked up from the filth and rubbish of the world might be chased and wrought in that slow and gentle way of his, patient and forbearing, into gems of exquisite worth and beauty.

He was united in marriage with Caroline Vories, December 7, 1865. She was born August 30, 1844, and died of typhoid fever July 29, 1896. Two years after the death of his wife, Mr. Terhune closed his career as a teacher and came to Whiteland, where he lived until February 14, 1903. He was a man of high Christian character and utter unselfishness of nature. Quiet and unassuming even to the point of selfeffacement, he was not a seeker

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after gain nor worldly place, and he did not try to impress himself upon a wide circle. Not only in the little things of every day, but in the broad and enduring purposes of a life time he followed the precepts of the Golden Rule. He had a perfect self-control and poise of temperament, and the rare ease of manner that comes of culture and nobility of heart. His presence was ever kindly, serene and tender. He was not the product of his own time only, but was a composite of the best heritages of three centuries. For twelve generations his ancestors had been seriously and prayerfully con- sidering the problems of life and eternity ; of man's relation to his fellow man and to his God. In the perfection of his character, the purity of his life and the sublimity of his ideals, Thomas L. Terhune was the ultimate and highest fruition of twelve' generations of such men and women as had gone to the making of his character and his ancestry. Thomas L. and Caroline Vories Terhune were the parents of two children, namely, (X) Rufus Webster Ter- hune, the immediate subject of this sketch, and Violet Vories Terhune, who was born in Johnson county, Indiana, on July 9, 1869. She was a dutiful and helpful daughter and a kind and affectionate sister, always responsive to every call upon her sympathy and kindness.

THE BURR-ROBINSON LINEAGE

Evabel (Robinson) Terhune, the only daughter of Henry and Cynthia Ellen Burr Robinson, was born at Lemond, Minnesota, June 6, 1878. At the age of five years she was taken by her parents to Owatonna, where she was deprived of her father by death January 4, 1885. Her mother continued to live in Owatonna where Evabel was in school until October, 1892, when they went to Minneapolis to live. She attended the Emerson school and the Central high school, from which she graduated in June. 1898. She then entered the University of Minnesota, where she obtained an excellent classical education. She did special work in the languages and became proficient in Latin, French, German and English. After leaving college she spent two years in travel and then returned to Minneapolis for residence where she became a general social favorite and also an active member of the Kewaydin Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, and of the Park Avenue Congregational church. In the summer of 1906, she met Dr. R. W. Ter- hune, of Whiteland, Indiana, who was then seeking health and strength in the "land of the Dacotahs." Their acquaintanceship quickly ripened into an affection which resulted in their marriage in Minneapolis on the 11th day of August. 1909. After taking up her residence in Whiteland, she united

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History of Johnson County, Indiana, Part 81

Author: Branigin, Elba L., 1870- Publication date: 1972 Publisher: Indianapolis, B.F. Bowen, [Evansville, Ind.], [Unigraphic, Inc.] Number of Pages: 981

Author: Branigin, Elba L., 1870-
Publication date: 1972
Publisher: Indianapolis, B.F. Bowen, [Evansville, Ind.], [Unigraphic, Inc.]
Number of Pages: 981