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 32
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cuts a day, besides the regular housework." If there was an out- house, the loom was set up therein, but if no out-house, it went into a corner of the cabin, even if a bed had to be pulled down to make place for it, and on that loom she wove the web of jeans, the flannels, the linseys, the tow-linen, and the table cloths, the sheet- ings, the towelings, the coverlets, not forgetting a web of linen " seven hundred fine " for her husband's Sunday and court-day shirts. If she was a good weaver she could weave three yards of jeans per day and do her housework, and five or six yards of flan- nel or linsey and do her other work.
But the spinning-and I have not mentioned the hackling and the spinning of flax-and the weaving did not bring her to the end of her toil. No, indeed; she was the seamstress and the tailoress, and before the web was finished perhaps, she has had to cut off a piece for a garment for one of the boys. Hundreds of mothers in Johnson County did this. But whether she finished her web before thus cutting, or after, the burden of cutting and making the clothes for the family fell upon her. Her husband might patronize the tailor when it came to cutting and making his Sunday frock coat, but if his wife was particularly bright, he let her do it. At any rate she cut and made all his every day clothes; she cut and made the boys' "dandys," roundabouts, jackets, " warmuses," trousers and shirts, and knit all the socks: she cut and made all her own clothes, and all her daughters', till they grew old enough to help her. What toil was hers to be sure. There was no season of the year marking the end of her labors; no days of bad weather gave her rest. Not even the night could she call her own, for long after she had put her children to sleep, she darned and patched their frayed clothes. Even when she visited, she carried her knitting or sewing. Only when her hand was enfeebled in old age or palsied in death did she rest. The times were primitive, and fashions underwent little or no changes for a generation. Every young man of conse- quence was expected to provide himself with a broadcloth suit for the event of his marriage, which was to be the suit of his life, and to last for dry weather and Sunday-wear for many years. If his wife got a silk dress on that occasion, she was pretty sure to keep it till she could exhibit it to her grandchildren. "Spring bonnets" and "fall bonnets" were unknown. On all ordinary occasions, the "sun bonnet" was deemed good enough, but in most cabins, es- pecially of church-going people, there was a box or deep drawer, smelling of rose leaves, which held among other articles of finery, " mother's bonnet." It was not the home-made, and it never went out of fashion, till the dear old head, which it was made to cover, was shut out from mortal sight beneath the coffin lid.
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JOHNSON COUNTY.
How the times have changed since the days when Johnson County was being settled! It may be doubted whether there was a vehicle in the county the first ten years other than the road wagon or cart. The first carriage taken to Union Township was in IS31. In those days both men and women walked or rode on horseback, when making neighborhood journeys. Men's and women's saddles were unusually conspicuous furniture in the entries and porches of the cabins of the well-to-do of the early days. Quite frequently, however, husbands and wives rode double -a practice, when once begun, that was quite apt to be kept up till the third child was born. It was inconvenient to ride double and carry more than two children. Even swains and their sweethearts thought nothing of riding double.
I have been asked, "How were the cabins of the pioneers lighted of evenings?" The blazing fire in the large fire place threw a flood of light all over the cabin and its inmates. By the firelight the family talked, the children cracked nuts or played games, the mother spun or knit, and the youth of an inquiring mind read in such books as came to hand. If a better light than the fire-light was needed, it came from a metal lamp of rude pattern in which grease sputtered around a burning rag wick, or from a tallow can- dle. The fire on the hearth stone was an object of more solicitude in the early days than in these. If it went out, as it sometimes did, what would the inmates of the cabin do? Borrow. There were no matches, and the flint and steel was always the last resort. There are men living, who, while yet boys, knew what it was to trudge through the snow, a half mile or more, to borrow a fire brand to renew the flame at home. In the summer season a log in the field or deadening would often be kept smouldering to keep fire in .stock, while in winter the coals and brands would be carefully buried in the embers for the same purpose.
Allusion has been made elsewhere to the frequency of evening visits among the pioneers. To light their pathway through the gloomy forests, the leader usually carried a firebrand, which he waved back and forth over the path: or, if the night was extremely dark, he carried a torch made of hickory bark or of dry oak splin- ters: though some carried lanterns. A gourd bored full of gimlet holes and fitted with a socket within, to hold a candle, made a lan- tern that was sometimes seen, though the favorite lantern was the tin lantern, so aptly described by Longfellow, the poet, in "The Theologian's Tale":
Pierced with holes, and round, and foofed like the top of a lighthouse, Casting into the dark a net work of glimmer and shadow.
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Much has been said and written of the want of markets in the early days. Perhaps that want has been unduly magnified. The people had so little to sell that the want of a market could not have been greatly felt. As late as sometime in the 40's, very little sur- plus produce was grown in Johnson County. All the corn pro- duced was fed therein, and there was oftener too little for that purpose than too much. The first market for which there was any substan- tial demand, was the hog market, and it was not deemed any par- ticular hardship in those days, to drive hogs in droves to the river towns. After a few years a little surplus wheat was produced, and the farmer who hauled to Madison or Lawrenceburg, receiv- ing 25 cents, 3712 cents, or 50 cents per bushel, found little profit in it. But for many years there were few farmers who had more than one wagon-load to spare for the market. The majority found after setting apart the seed wheat and wheat for bread, that there was less than a load, and as a conse- quence, it was quite common for two neighbors to unite their teams and make up a joint load, and go together to the river town. About 1844, the wheat crops of the county began to increase to such an extent, that its marketing became an object of interest to the farming community. The railroad from Madison was slowly being built towards Franklin, and its ultimate completion was anxiously looked for. Between the Ist and 30th of October, 1846, 14,494 bushels of wheat were bought in Franklin at 50 cents per bushel, all of which was hauled to Edinburg. The cars did not reach Franklin till sometime between the 17th and 24th day of August, TS47.
For many years dressed pork in the county was worth $1.50 and $2.00 per cwt., although it sometimes sold as low as $1.00. Good work horses were worth from $25 to $50 each; milch cows from $5.00 to $10.00. Joab Woodruff bought twenty head of one and two-year-old cattle, when he came to the county, for $50, which was $2.50 each. Chickens sold for 50 cents to 75 cents per dozen. Fat turkeys, tame or wild, from 15 to 25 cents each; butter, 5 to S cents per pound; eggs, 3 to 5 cents per doz- en : saddles of venison, from 25 to 50 cents; maple sugar, 614 to 10 cents per pound; coon skins were worth from 20 to 40 cents, de- pending on quality: deer skins, 20 to 30 cents. but about 1824 or 1825, Samuel Herriott bought 500 at 6 cents each. Farm labor was worth from $8 to $10 per month. while 25 cents per hundred was the customary price for cutting timber and making rails. In IS25, Henry Mussulman made rails for a bushel of meal per hundred, and the meal was worth 25 cents per bushel. Jacob Banta paid $3.00 per acre for clearing land eighteen inches and
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under. Corn brought from 10 to 20 cents per bushel: oats, from Sto 12 12 cents, and ginseng, 25 cents per pound. This last article was for many years one of the chief articles of exportation. All ages and sexes hunted for, and dug, ginseng with great persever- ance and industry, sure of a certain sale of all they could find, at a good price for that day.
Foreign stuffs were of high price. Samuel Herriott bought four pounds of coffee at 50 cents per pound, as he came through Mad- ison to this county, in 1820, and when George King moved out in IS23, he paid 62 1/2 cents per pound in the same market. On the authority of the late Thomas Williams, it may be stated that Daniel Taylor, the first merchant in Franklin, sold two and a half pounds of coffee for $1, but the quality is not known. From the books kept by Daniel Mussulman, of his mercantile transactions in 1835 and 1836, it appears that prices ruled at that time as follows : coffee, 20 cents per pound; tea, $1.50; pepper, 25; salt, 212 ; sugar, 1212 to 1623 ; indigo, 161/2 per ounce: iron, 10; nails, 912 : sugar ket- tles, 5 cents per pound: book muslin, 75 cents per yard; calico, 3772 to 4012 cents; flannels, 75 cents, and blue jeans, 3772 ; wall paper (for window shades), 12 12 cents per yard; bed tickings. 30; domestics, 1623, and shirtings, 25 cents; tin cups, 614 each; alma- nacs, same price : meal sieves, 75 cents : grass scythes, $1; sickles, 621/2 to 75: wool cards, 3712 to 43: paper of pins, 12 12 ; paper of tacks, 25: foolscap paper, 25 cents per quire: letter paper, 3712 ; saddle blankets, $1.50 each; a "Leghorn bonnet," $2.25, and "trimmings for same," $1.43. The natural result of men's sur- roundings was to foster a spirit of industry and economy. The scarcity of money and the great difficulty of getting it, made men thoughtful in spending it. Luxurious living was not thought of, and extravagant expenditures were seldom indulged. And men were careful to look after their just dues. Not a few instances ap- pear in the old records, of claims being filed against the county for 1272 cents, 1834 cents and 25 cents. It is in memory that a custo- mer at a store was found on settlement indebted to the merchant in the sum of 1834 cents, and had not the money wherewith to pay. The merchant wrote a note which the customer signed and after- ward paid. With the habits of industry and economy appertaining to the pioneers of this county, there could be but one result. They improved the county and accumulated wealth, and their well im- proved farms, and the great material wealth of to-day, are the nec- essary outcome of all this primitive toil and thrift.
The scarcity of money goes without saying. There was next to no money in circulation for many years after the first settlements were made. An era of speculation followed the close of the war,
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the evil effects of which began to be felt about ISI9. Then it was the banks began to weaken, and in no state were the results more serious than in the new State of Indiana. "The bank of Vin- cennes, which had become the State Bank of Indiana, with branches at Corydon, Vevay and Brookville," failed, leaving for that day a large sum of worthless paper in the pockets of the western people. The money in circulation in Indiana consisted mainly of depreciated bank bills and silver, mostly of Spanish coinage. The fips, nine- pences and quarters were kept in circulation till worn out, while the half dollars and dollars were cut into halves and quarters usu- ally denominated " sharp shins."
For many years after the state government was organized, its fiscal officers annually reported the depreciation of the state's money in the treasury, for which the General Assembly authorized the proper credit. One such instance occurs in the history of Johnson County, and doubtless there were others. In IS26, the board of justices allowed John Campbell, the county agent, a credit of 1312 cents for depreciation of money in his hands belonging to the county library fund.
This scarcity of money was not as serious an evil as it may seem to the reader of the present. The pioneers were less depen- dent, in a certain sense, than the people of to-day. Almost every thing that went into the living of the people, was produced in the country, and out of the want of money, a system of exchanges arose, which made its want unfelt. The taxes were next to noth- ing, and but little money was needed. A man out of debt could get along quite well with an exceedingly small sum during the year. The ginseng that was dug by the family was readily bart- ered for coffee or calico, at 25 cents per pound. His deer hides and venison saddles, the merchant took likewise in exchange for " store goods." If he had one horse more than he needed, he gave it in exchange for clearing and rail making, and the little money he found in his pocket toward the end of the year, he paid out in taxes and for leather to make shoes for his family, not forgetting himself a hat, and once in a long while, his wife a shawl, or an ex- tra Sunday dress. Many a pioneer has been compelled for want of the necessary postage, to leave his letter in the postoffice for weeks. To all the other obstacles that the Johnson County pioneer encountered, add the scourge of sickness incident to the new coun- try. For forty years the autumnal fevers withstood the skill of the physicians throughout central Indiana. These fevers, of both inter- mittent and remittent types, appeared oftentimes in their most ag- gravated forms, and occasionally neighborhoods would almost be depopulated by them.
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The years 1820, 1821, and 1822, were attended by more fatal sickness in the southern border counties than has ever been ex- perienced since. Whole communities in some instances fell vic- tims to the prevailing diseases. So alarming did the mortality become, that by an act of the General Assembly passed December 31, IS21, Friday, the 2nd day of the following April, was set apart as a day for public prayer to "God Almighty, that He may avert the just judgments impending our land, and, that in His manifold mercies, He will bless the country with fruitful seasons, and our citi- zens with health and peace." That same year, 1821, an epidemic of intermittent and remittent fevers set in during the latter part of July. in the new town of Indianapolis, and continued until some time in October, during which nearly every person was more or less in- disposed, and seventy-two, or about one-eighth of the population, died .*
The fall succeeding the first settlements in the spring, the scourge broke out on Blue River, and prevailed to such an extent, that there were hardly enough well people to attend to the wants of the sick ones. In the eighteen families living in that neighbor- hood. two adults, one the wife of Joseph Townsend, and the other, Richard Connor, died. There were no sawed boards in the place suitable for making a coffin, in which to bury Mrs. Townsend ( whose death is beiieved to have been the first white person's in the county), and in the emergency, Allen Williams knocked the back out of his kitchen cupboard, and with the lumber thus ob- tained, made a coffin. About the same time a man by the name of Mills, died in the Whetzel neighborhood, near the Morgan County line, and his coffin was made of boards hewn with the broad axe out of wild cherry wood. The same fall Thomas Beeler. while en- deavoring to found a settlement in the White River bottom, above the Bluffs, fell a victim to the scourge of the country. Up to 1836, there was little or no abatement in the malignance of the pre- vailing fevers. After that time there was a perceptible diminution of sickness throughout the county, which lasted up to about 1843, when the tide turned again, and for a period of five or six years, in- termittents and remittents again scourged the land.
About 1859, the first draining tile manufactory was established in the county, and it marked the beginning of the era of the final disappearance of the autumnal fevers. Since the wet lands of the county have been cleared and drained. a case of fever of the types, common in the early days, rarely is developed.
How to be feared, and how inexpresslbly gloomy the sickly seasons were to the pioneers, their descendents can never know.
* Drake's Diseases of the Valley of North America, 311.
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An attack of bilious fever, or of fever and ague, might run its course in a few days, and the patient be " up and about " again. Indeed, with the " fever and ague " a great many were in bed only while the paroxysm lasted. And yet, apparently, the most innocent form of autumnal sickness might at any moment, develop into a malignant type of disease, requiring instantaneous and the most heroic treatment, to save the patient's life. One might have two or three chills in as many days, each followed by fever, and there be no cause for alarm; but if a " sinking chill " set in, the experienced ones knew how important it was to have medical attention at once. Unless a re-action could be brought about, the patient's death was quite sure to occur within a day or two. As soon as the doctor reached the bed-side of such a sick person, he began at once a course of treatment calculated to bring about the desired re-action. Stimulants such as brandy, capsicum and quinine were given in large doses, and applications of mustard were freely made. In- stances are given, where, during fourteen hours 100 grains of quinine and one quart of brandy have been administered before a re-action could be brought about. On one occasion, a man had a sinking chill, which was followed by a sweat that lasted two days and two nights. At midnight a doctor visited him, and among other things, prescribed a dose of rhubarb. His wife got the medicines mixed, and instead of the rhubarb, administered 120 grains of capsicum at one dose. The next morning when the doctor returned, she met him at the gate with the tears streaming down her face, and lamenting that she was the unfortunate cause of her huaband's death. After examining his patient, and finding that he had passed the crisis, the doctor re- lieved the wife of her anguish by saying, " Madame, your mistake has saved your husband's life."
Doctors' services were hard to secure in the beginning, and the medicines known to the people, were powerless in bad cases of sickness. Elisha Adams, who died in the fall of 1823, was visited by a doctor who came from Columbus. Not infrequently the doctors themselves succumbed to the prevalent diseases. At one time, in the town of Franklin, of five physicians, only two, Drs. Donnell and Ritchey, were able to ride, and so extensively were their services in demand, that they rode from place to place on a gallop, each riding daily not less than fifty miles. Judge Franklin Hardin gives the following graphic description of the condition of affairs during the sickly seasons :
.. Death numbered his victims by hundreds. The land was filled with mourning, and the graveyards filled with the pioneer dead. Many persons seemed to die from pure stagnation of blood in the veins. The doctors, by following the old system, only
23
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accelerated the crisis. Active stimulants only were found to be suitable. A quart of whisky in a night, with large doses of qui- nine, once more restored life and mobility to the blood and saved the patient. From the first of August to the first of October in each year, no business requiring labor was set apart to be per- formed. Sickness was the rule, and business was despatched, medicines provided and preparations made to meet the sickly sea- son. After this was over, in any assemblage, one-half the members at least, wore pale faces. This was the age of quackery and quack medicines. After the quinine in the shops was used up, which was often the case before half the sickly season was over, the people had no remedy except in the use of boneset and gentian. The sick, therefore, readily fell in with any promised relief. Sap- pington's pills and others, with big names, heralded by along list of curative virtues, found a ready sale. Against the walls of every cabin, suspended from nails, hung two or three dozen small bottles already emptied of their contents, but with little, if any realization to the sick, of the promised benefit. A cart-load could have been gath- ered in a day, and such a collection would present to our children now an interesting and strange display of old curiosities, and form a long catalogue of quack nostrums."
It remains to take a glance at the intellectual and moral condition of the pioneers. We have seen something of the poverty of the people in general: the intellectual was as great if not greater. Bor- der life seldom promotes mental activity. The home life of the pioneer was one of hum-drum toil. The subjects of his thought and conversation were usually of the commonplace. No newspa- pers came freighted with the world's occurrences, to stir the pulses of his life. He knew, and would know, nothing of what was going on outside of his immediate neighborhood, save as he might hear from the lips of an occasional acquaintance, or stranger whom he met from abroad. He had but few books, and read little in those he had. When he talked it was usually with one whose area of knowledge was no wider than his own. How utterly dry and dull and fruitless life must have been to the many in those days. There was, however, an excepted class. The men who indulged in the chase could not help being students to some extent of natural his- tory. They studied the ways of the beasts and the birds. They learned to read the " signs " in the woods and along the streams, and became more or less experts in woodcraft. These men be- came educated in a certain sense, and in old age they, in general, could talk intelligently and instructively of what they had seen and learned of forest life.
The early pioneers, unconsciously, perhaps, felt the evil ten-
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dency of their surroundings, and longed that their children might be better. Most of them had been scantily educated in youth, and all expressed a desire to see their own children have the advan- tages of the good schooling that had been denied them. In ac- cordance therewith, whenever the number of children in a neighbor- hood was enough to fill a school-house, one was provided, and a schoolmaster employed. Those first school-houses were of the most primitive style, and the first schoolmasters were in general meagerly educated, but both served their purpose. That first generation of scholars may not have been as well trained in the rudiments of knowledge as are their great-grandchildren of to-day, but the zeal for the cause of elementary training which they de- rived from their fathers and the poorly equipped schools, they passed on down the line, and the great-grandchildren are reaping the benefit to-day.
The inquirer after the facts of the past is constantly reminded of the exhibition of lawlessness on the part of some at the begin- ning, and for several years after the county was organized. But it was mainly confined to lower grade crimes. An examination of the records of the Circuit Court of the county for a few years after its organization, discloses a state of society which indicates, at a glance, something of the moral condition of the people. At the March term of this court for 1824, the second term of court ever held in the county, of six causes on the docket, four were for bat- teries and affrays. At the September term of that year of twelve causes, eight were criminal, five being for batteries and affrays. At the March term for 1825, of fifteen causes on the docket, ten were criminal causes, seven of which were for batteries and affrays. At the September term of that year, of fifteen causes, eight were criminal and seven for batteries and affrays. At the March term for 1826, of nineteen causes in all, thirteen were criminal, and of these, eleven were for batteries and affrays. At the September term for the same year, of seventeen causes on the docket, ten were criminal, and of these, seven were for batteries and affrays. At the March term, for 1827, of thirty-seven causes in all, nine- teen were criminal, and of these, sixteen were for batteries and af- frays. At the September term for that year, of thirty-seven causes, twenty-one were criminal, and of these, nineteen were for batteries and affrays. And so on. The record shows that the fighting and quarreling prevailed to an amazing extent. The principal business of the circuit court (and we have no record of what was done by the justices ) was trying cases of assault and battery and of affrays. In 1826 there were 173 votes cast at the general election held in the county, and eighteen prosecutions in the Circuit Court for fight-
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