USA > Indiana > Johnson County > History of Johnston County, Indiana. From the earliest time to the present, with biographical sketches, notes, etc., together with a short history of the Northwest, the Indiana territory, and the state of Indiana > Part 30
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In 1820, a man with his family, came to Johnson County from Tennessee, whose earthly all, was a "rifle-gun and fifty cents worth of powder and lead, a little scant bedding and a skillet and piggin." Another man had a "straw tick, a broken skillet, a bucket, a rifle- gun, a butcher knife and a steelvards." Still another man's outfit of culinary ware was a coffee pot and a few pewter dishes. And one man after clearing his little field for corn planted the seed with his axe, He had neither horse, plow or hoe, nor money with which to buy them. James and Moses McClain, who moved to this county from Oldham County, Ky., in 1827, brought their two families and their
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worldly goods in one two-horse wagon. Moses had no money and James had 25 cents. Garrett Terhune, as we have seen, paid all his money to the man who moved him. He had a wife and ten children to maintain, besides two horses and a dozen head of cattle. The story of the hardships endured by this man and his family, as told by a son who survives, presents a most pathetic picture of the times. 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 to," said James, the son, "but I ate acorns because I was hungry." The meal was low in the barrel and the corn pone was cut into twelve pieces of equal size at each repast. The father without money went to the hawpatch to buy bread, where he met a distant relative who sold him the needed gram and waited for the pay. Thus they tided over their day of distress till the new crop came.
William Keaton had a somewhat similar experience. Being out of breadstuffs, he left a sick wife and a family of little children, and went to the neighborhood east of Edinburg to buy corn, with- out money. But, unacquainted as he was, everyone refused to sell to him, and then he went to Tannehill's mill. It had so hap- pened that as he moved from Kentucky, he had brought a few pounds of wool which he had left at Tannehill's carding machine. The wool was still there and uncarded, and, in his extremity, he persuaded the miller to hold the wool as security for a grist of corn, and was thus enabled to return home with meal for his hungry family. Sometimes, during the first few years, breadstuffs could not be had at any price. The years 1824 and 1825 were exceedingly hard ones. The raccoons and the squirrels destroyed the corn patches to such an extent, that many who would have been provided otherwise by their own crops, had to work elsewhere. John Doty's family, living on White River, subsisted for weeks on dried venison, and his was not the only family reduced to this ex- tremity. Twelve miles north of Indianapolis, on Connor's prairie, was an abundance of corn, and to that Egypt, many went from all parts of the country, and were supplied. On one occasion, Peter and Samuel Doty, John's sons, set out with their axes on their shoulders, and a few dollars in their pockets, to buy corn at the prairie. After they had gone four miles, Daniel Etter, a neighbor, overtook them. He left at home a wife and nine little children. Etter was without money, but he had a butcher knife - probably
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one of his own make (for he was an expert blacksmith) and a steelyard that would draw 300 pounds.
At their journey's end the men found work, and in due time the Dotys, with the money they had and, with that earned, announced their intention of returning; but Etter was not ready to go. He had earned only twelve bushels and had his butcher knife and steel- yard still on hand. Never had the outlook seemed to him quite so full of gloom before. He had made a hard struggle to maintain his family, and it seemed as if every year the difficulties became greater. " I cannot," said he, " return to my wife and children with only twelve bushels of corn. It is useless to try to live in this coun- try any longer, and the sooner my troubles are ended the better." His friends, assuring him they had no intention of leaving him behind them, proffered to take his knife and steelvard and try their luck in the corn trade. That same evening they found a man who wanted a steelyard, and with that and the knife, thirty more bushels of corn were bought, and Daniel Etter was fairly beside himself with joy. The men at once went to work on two large dug-outs, into which the corn was laden, and after being lashed together they were floated down the river and landed at the mouth of Honey Creek, whence the precious grain was distributed among the neighbors.
Most of the Johnson County settlers brought domestic animals with them to the new country. In the beginning these were left mainly to shift for themselves. Men who were hard pressed to get corn to make bread for their families, made little effort to secure it for their beasts. There was no pasture, however, according to the present signification of that word, but the range was boundless, and a pioneer cow, hog, sheep, and even horses, soon learned to find a living in it. Probably most of the animals brought to the country were woods wise when they came, but if not, they soon became so. All soon became "rangers, learning to go where the picking was the best. The readiness with which the domestic animals adapted themselves to their environments was often a subject of comment among their owners. Some curious stories are told relat- ing to the early domestic animals. The pioneer describing his moving was apt to speak of " driving " his cattle and other stock, but he was not always accurate in the use of the word. After a few days' travel there was usually no driving, the stock following close upon the teams of their own accord. When Charles Dun- gan came from Washington County, Va., he brought two cows. For a few days they had to be driven, but after that they followed the teams as faithfully as the dogs, and although the roads were lined with movers, never once did they make a mistake in wagons.
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They knew their owner's wagon, and when the camping place was reached at night they lay down, and were ready to resume the journey in the morning.
Amid the Johnson County forests, hickory, beech, oak and wal- nut trees grew in great abundance, and seldom failed to bear a bountiful mast. The strain of hogs common in that day, was a shifty one, and usually kept in good condition the year round. Dur- ing the fall season when the new mast was falling, they became fat and were killed out of the woods for bacon. As early as IS24, wild hogs had become quite numerous along the border, and there were few men of the county who did not kill their meat in the woods. So wild were some droves that it required as great, and indeed sometimes greater, skill, to hunt them down than even the deer. The habit of the drove of returning at night to their usual bed enabled the hunter to creep up and get one or more shots in the morning. Not uncommon was it for the pig hunter to dig a hole in the earth, and filling it with water, drop in heated stones till a temperature was reached suitable for scalding, after which he dressed his meat and hauled it home.
The fat hog of the early days, it must be borne in mind, differed much from the fat hog of these days. It never became so fat it could not run with great swiftness, and if a ranger, as most were, it was sure to be more or less wild. Indeed, the tendency of the hog to relapse into a wild state, was more marked than in any other animal. Perhaps it was because the hog was less looked after than any other domestic animal. The writer remembers a barn- yard fowl that had been overlooked by a moving family and left to shift for herself on an unoccupied farm. At the end of three months she was wilder than a quail, and at the approach of man would fly into the top of the tallest tree. The first lot of hogs that were driven through from central Indiana to an Ohio River town, was in 1824 or 1825. They were purchased in the vicinity of the bluffs on White River, by a man from Ohio, by the name of Jacob Lowe, and were turned into a large field on the old Whetzel farm, and men were employed to drive them back and forth for several days in order to train them for driving on the road.
The farmer's anxiety concerning his hogs was less for their food than for their safety. If they did not turn wild and thus escape him, they were liable to be killed or stolen. The foxes and wolves preyed upon the young pigs, while a bear did not scruple to pull down a full grown hog on occasion. But the owner feared the hog thieves more than the wild animals. The thieves infested every quarter of the county. Amid the dense woods, and far be- yond the hearing of the nearest settler, it was no hard matter to
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run down with trained dogs young swine and mark them with the thief's own mark. It was still easier to go into the woods and shoot a fat shote. Joseph Voorheis, who settled about three miles north of Hopewell, hearing a shot in the woods, went in the direc- tion of it till he came to a couple of men who had killed and were skinning a hog. They appeared quite friendly, and affecting great admiration of his gun, one of them took it as if to look at it. No sooner was he disarmed than their demeanor changed. They threatened his life and the man really thought his end had come. The hog thieves reminded him that " dead men tell no tales," but finally relenting, they made him swear never to reveal what he had seen, and true to his oath, he never told it till after he moved to Iowa about thirty years ago, and after both thieves had long been dead. One of these men was a son of Nathaniel Bell, the first representative Johnson County had in the state's prison. Bell had long been suspected of hog stealing.
The grasses now common on every farm, were not indiginous to the soil. Blue grass, timothy, red-top, are all interlopers, and came after the settlements were begun. In the nature's deadenings, and along the margins of the open swamps, wild grasses grew scantily in patches. There were not many of these places to be found, however. Wild pea vines afforded a more bountiful and nutritious herbage than the wild grasses of the country. As the " deadenings " increased in acreage and age, the pasturage grew better. But the pioneers had to wait a good many years for the grass in the deadenings. In the autumnal season, the cattle fed on the acorns, like the deer. and at all seasons the thick underbrush af- forded a nutritious browse on which cattle, horses and sheep " picked for a living." During the inclement winter weather when stock were loth to leave the clearing. the farmer felled lin, ash, maple and other trees that his stock might browse on the twigs. He, whose animals ranged the woods in quest of food, faced a con- stant fear of their loss by straying. The habit of wandering was apt to grow on all ranging animals, unless they were driven back to their homes at stated intervals. Statutes were passed providing for the return of straying beasts by the finders, but so common was the evil, that at one time hardly a farm could be found on which the recent loss of an animal was not lamented, or a posted one could not be pointed out. Every farmer had his " ear-mark," and every hoof of stock he owned, save his horses, bore it. This mark was made of public record, and by means of it, many a wandering beast was reclaimed. Upper and under-bits, smooth crops, half- crops, slits, swallow-forks, holes, and the like, at one time, disfig- ured one or both ears of every cow, hog, or sheep in the country.
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The hardships from the straying propensity of animals was felt in its greatest severity by the new-comer. We know that he and his wife and children suffered from home-sickness. So severe was the attack now and then, that families moved back to the old home, to return to the new after the spell was over. Most families visited the old home in a year or two, and thus tided over the spell. Among the early settlers was a wide-spread belief that their domes- tic animals not infrequently suffered the pangs of home-sickness. At times an irresistible desire would seem to overcome a horse, a pig, and sometimes a cow, to return to the old place, and much trouble came to the settler in consequence. Samuel Owens had a horse that repeatedly went back to the old home in Clark County. Some curious stories have been told, illustrating this disposition to return, the following two of which are well vouched for:
Daniel Covert moved to the county in September, 1825, bring- ing with him horses, hogs and cattle. His horses becoming dis- quieted, set out for their old Kentucky home, but he overtook them near Columbus, and brought them back. Next, his hogs disap- peared, but he recovered them all save one sow and eight shotes. These, after a vain hunt, he gave up for lost. Sometime dur- ing the winter, business called him to Kentucky, where he re- mained for a few weeks, and then set out for his Johnson County home. On his way back, a short distance south of Graham's Fork, in Jennings County, and not less than fifty miles from home, he met his sow and eight shotes, and a new litter of pigs, on the march southward. On inquiry, he ascertained where she stopped on the way for her new progeny to be born and to grow in strength sufficient to bear the hardships of the further journey. In the early part of January, 1823, Daniel Pritchard moved to the Blue River settlement, from Henry County, in Kentucky. Among other domestic animals he brought a sow with a family of pigs, six weeks old. In a day or two she and her pigs were missing, and after much hunting he gave them up as lost. But in a few weeks a letter came from his old home, announcing their safe return. The entire journey they had made, of over a hundred miles, swim- ming the river on the way, and not one was missing.
Central Indiana, at the time the first settlers came, abounded in wild animals, some of which, the deer, notably, was a blessing, while the most of the others proved a curse. Of all, the most ma- levolent was the wolf. He was a prowler and a thief. He hunted singly and in packs. The pioneer who killed a deer, dare not leave it in the woods over night, unless he sprung it to the top of a sapling. John Smiley, while living on Sugar River Creek, left his meat hanging under a shed at the end of his cabin, far above the
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' reach of the most active dog, but the wolves came, and leaping up to it, dragged it down and devoured it. Young calves found by them in the woods they were sure to devour, and on one occasion, a pack ran down a full grown cow, belonging to Garrett Terhune, and killed her. When found, they had chewed one leg off, and eaten other portions.
But it was in the destruction of sheep that the wolves did the greatest injury to the pioneer settler. To the wool he looked for his winter clothing. It made jeans for his own coat, and flannels and linsey woolseys for his wife's dresses; and it was therefore next in his economy to bread. Levi Moore, as written elsewhere, penned his sheep under his cabin; a few pioneers joined the pen to the cabin, while the greater number built a sheep house more or less remote from the dwelling place. If. by any chance, the flock was left unhoused over night, its decimation was probable be- fore morning. On the occasion of a great storm of wind and rain that arose late one afternoon, John Doty's sheep failed to reach shelter. That night the wolves assailed them, but the leader of the flock, an old ram, made such a valiant defence, that he brought home early the next morning, every ewe and lamb unscathed. Un- fortunately, however, for the hero of the occasion, his injuries were so severe, that after a few days he died. Of ten sheep taken to the ยท Indian Creek neighborhood by Richardson Hensley, in 1824, seven fell victims to the wolves within three weeks.
Let us approach the pioneer's new home. We find his cabin in the heart of the green woods. If a creek flows in the neighbor- hood of his location, we will be quite sure to find him living on a bit of high ground near that creek, for there he will find natural drainage; but if no creek be near, on the highest, dryest knoll, he could find on his purchase, has he built. Hard by his cabin site is al- most sure to be a spring of running water, which he imagines will flow forever, but which he will be quite sure to see dry up about the time his farm is cleared. Look which way he will, green trees lifting their stately columns skyward, are crowned by an inter- woven mass of branches that, when the vernal foliage puts out, ob- scures the sun till the autumnal frosts cut it down. Beneath is a dense thicket of spice-wood, hazel, green briars, young saplings and other underbrush, and underneath that, down trees scarcely less numerous than the standing, lie rotting in the dank soil.
Amidst this thick, moist woods, the new-comer must chop and grub and burn out his fields if he would eat bread of the corn of his own tilling. No sooner is he settled than he begins the labor- ious work. Marking out his proposed field, with a strong arm he begins the toil. Every thing " eighteen inches in diameter as high
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as the knee," is felled, which, with all the down logs, save the great oaks and poplars, is made ready for rolling into heaps. All trees over that girth are left standing, and about their roots, sticks and brush are piled and burned to ensure speedy death and consequent failure of the next summer's foliage. The big logs he leaves till a more convenient season - a season that will hardly come ere the scorched trees rot and fall, and make the second clearing but little less laborious than the first.
This was the general plan, and diligent was that man, who, dur- ing his first fall, winter and spring, prepared, unaided, his five, six or seven acres for rolling. Now and then a man cleared smooth. The late Theodore List had one such field of nine acres cut in the green, and he told the writer that a man could have walked all over his field on the logs without touching earth, before they were rolled. It required four days' hard work with a large force of hands to roll those logs. How destructive to human muscle must have been the log-rollings of the early days! One day, two days, the log-roller might have endured without any material depletion of bodily strength, but when it came to six, eight, twelve, twenty, thirty, and in some instances even more days than that, year after year, rolling into heaps, both green and water-soaked logs, there was such a draft on the vital powers as made men grow old before their time. John Tracy rolled logs " from fifteen to twenty days every year until the country was cleared up." John Carson, as late as IS40, rolled logs twenty-two days in one year. James Ware rolled for thirty days one year. Peter Vandiver rolled " from twenty to twenty-five days every year, and went from one to five miles." Theodore List rolled twenty-four days in one year; Melvin Wheat twenty-two; George Bridges "over twenty"; Taylor Ballard " thirty days in common," but "rolled in one year thirty-five days," and Samuel Herriott thirty-six days, but he. was a politician. But the pioneer farmer did not always have his logs rolled before plant- ing and tilling his crop. Not infrequently he was so hard pressed that he was fain to plant amid the down logs. He found it all he could do to grub and burn the brush. The first crop of corn Simon Covert raised he planted amid the logs. Serrill Winchester felled his trees in winrows, and planted in the open spaces between. John Henry, of Nineveh, planted with the hoe amid the logs, and tilled his corn with the same implement.
How difficult it is to sketch a picture of life in early days, and leave out none of the lights and shadows. The pioneer's little field cleared and fenced according to the fashion of the times, the next step was to plow it and plant it in corn. Let the farmer of to-day, in imagination, enter such a field, with his well-muscled, full-fed
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team of horses encased in the best harness the most skilled work- man can make, and hitched to a steel plow, the like of which the fore-fathers never dreamed, and how disheartening his work would be amid the array of green stumps and trees, and the ret- work of green roots! And yet how superlatively more difficult it was for the pioneer than it would be for the farmer of to-day. His team (if he had one) was small and weak for the want of proper food: his gears, home-made, even to the hames, to the tow-cloth, back-band, and to the single rope plow line. He was well off if his horse collars were not made of corn husks, by his own or a more skillful neighbor's hands. His plow was a shovel pattern, or a bar- share, the former of which has survived in a modified form, while the latter has long since disappeared. " This last was a bar on the land side with a broad flat share running to a point at the forward end, attached to a coulter, with a steel nose in front. 'The coulter ex- tended up through the wooden beam of the plow; two wooden handles are attached to the beam and to the bar of the land side of the plow, the other handle connected with a wooden mold board, which pressed out the dirt and partially turned it. It was connected with the other handle by wooden pins or rounds." *
The bar-share plow was a cumbersome and unsatisfactory im- plement. It had a long beam, six feet or over, the bar was often three feet or more in length, and the handles raked far backward. The distance that intervened between the ends of the handles and the noses of the horses, when in motion, would, if seen in a modern field, lead to a good deal of jovial criticism. Plowing with the bar-share was laborious work, and when the point of the long bar struck a root, the kick-up of the long geared machine was never to be forgotten. It was a standing joke among the pioneer farm- ers, that "a bar-share would kick a man over the fence and kick him after he was over." In a few years the bar-share was super- ceded by the "Cary" plow, an implement approaching in its gen- eral shape the modern plow, and that in turn gave way sometime during the 40's, to the cast-iron plow. The shovel plow was the pioneer farmer's favorite. With it he broke up his corn ground and tilled his corn. His breaking shovel plow had a coulter filled to the beam, which dropped to the point of the plow at such an angle that whenever the plow struck an impediment, it automat- ically "jumped out of the ground and over the root and into the ground on the other side." During the first years little or no har- rowing was done, the rough condition of the fields forbidding it. All grain sown broadcast on fallow ground was brushed in.
*Dr. Philip Mason's " Autobiography," 105.
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The pioneer farmer depended as much on the hoe as on the plow in tilling his corn. It was the rule with nearly all, to give the corn at least one good hoeing, which meant that the field must be gone over row by row, and the corn be hoed hill by hill. The new ground, after two or three years of cultivation, was prolific in weeds, which. with the plows in use, it was next to impossible to keep down; hence, the resort to the hoe. Of wet years, "pulling weeds" was a common mode of cultivation -a mode of culture that might have been designed by the evil one for the special torment of boys. The farmer of the early times owned but few implements, and nearly all of these were home-made. There was usually about one hand- saw, one cross-cut, one broad-axe, one auger, one chisel and one drawing-knife to the neighborhood, and these came from the "east," and if not kept to loan, they might almost as well have been, for everybody borrowed. If the farmer had a knack at working in wood, give him an axe and an auger or burning iron, and he could make almost any machine he was wont to work with. From the roots of an ash or an oak he could fashion his hames and sled- runners. He could make his own whiffle-trees, stock his plows, half-sole or make his sled, make an axle-tree for his wagon, if he had one, make a rake, a harrow, a scythe-snath, a grain-cradle, a hay-rack, a loom, winding blades, a wash-board, a stool, a chair, and in a pinch a table, a bedstead, a " dresser " and a cradle in which to rock his baby. If he was more than ordinarily clever he repaired and sometimes made his own cooperage, but he usually patronized the cooper, and always the blacksmith, the tanner and the wheelwright. He had little use for the shoemaker because he mended all his own shoes and made most of them, and less for the fuller and tailor, because his wife spun and wove all the cloth and cut and made all the clothes, and none at all for the house carpen- ter, because, with his axe, he could do about all the carpenter's work needed.
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