USA > Indiana > Lawrence County > History of Lawrence and Monroe counties, Indiana : their people, industries, and institutions > Part 43
USA > Indiana > Monroe County > History of Lawrence and Monroe counties, Indiana : their people, industries, and institutions > Part 43
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My grandmother moved here without bringing along a broom. My grandfather had bought lots here and paid a man to build a cabin for him while he went back to Kentucky after his family. When he got back the man had not built his cabin. An abandoned cabin stood on the corner of Seventh and College avenue, on the lot where now stands the Ousler home. Into that they moved temporarily. The rough puncheon floor became so dirty that she was in despair. Back of the cabin a garden had been planted, but the weeds were as high as her head. One night she dreamed that she searched among the weeds in the back end of the garden and found broom corn grow- ing. She looked the next day, finding the broom corn as in her dream, and cut it and made her first broom to use here. Brooms were then made at home, and a patch of broom corn was a necessary part of every garden. I have seen a few of these old-time home-made brooms. They were always tied into a round bunch. I never saw one made flat and fan-shaped as are the factory-made ones of today. Then there were turkey-wings spread out and carefully dried in shape, that were used not only to fan the fire, but to sweep the hearth and to brush up litter generally.
Wild turkeys were not uncommon then, and even as late as the forties the price of a fine tame turkey delivered at your door was twenty-five cents.
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Mrs. Elizabeth Dunn, known as "Cousin Betsy," had been a Miss Grundy, of Kentucky. Sometime after she and Mr. Dunn were settled in their first little home near Hanover. her brother came out to visit her. He found her taking care of three little babes put down before the fireplace in three little sugar troughs. Two of these babies were the twin sisters. Lucinda and Clarinda, afterwards Mrs. James Carter and Mrs. Joseph McPheeters, and the third one became the noted lawyer, George G. Dunn.
The primitive sugar troughs, scooped out of little logs and set to catch maple sap, have gone out of use, and the sugar trees themselves are fast dis- appearing. Sugar making, candle making, soap making, fruit drying, starch making, the curing of meats, may now all be classed with the lost arts, along with spinning and weaving, so far as family industries are concerned. I do not know that there is any flax grown in Monroe county today, but that industry made a fair beginning. The spinning and weaving of wool, both at home and in small mills, lasted much longer than the weaving of flax and cotton fabrics, which industry died out as merchants brought more and more of factory-woven cotton goods from the Eastern states. The factory-made cotton cloth was first sold under the name of "steam-loom" and also known in the market as "factory." I cannot myself see why either name is not as fitting as to call it "domestic," as is done today.
Speaking of the factories of that day, recalls an odd fact. When the college building, that burnt in 1854, was under consideration, there was some perplexity as to a plan for the building. One of the merchants had brought on some "steam-loom" with the picture pasted on it of the building where it had been woven. The men on the committee and leading citizens were so taken with the design of the factory building, that they said it was the very thing they wanted for the college. Accordingly the college building was put up to look like it, and became an ornament to the town. Another ornamental and substantial building was the court house. The gilt cup, and ball and fish that were mounted above the round tower or dome came from Louisville. I have heard that in the ball were enclosed papers of that date and a letter from the man who made them. My grandfather, Austin Seward, mounted them.
The able-bodied men of the early days were required to assemble at stated times and receive military training. I think the time was once a year -it was called Muster day. Great-grandmother Irwin, who had been a young girl in Virginia at the time of the Revolutionary war, and who had seen Washington in command of his army, would make most unfavorable comments on the drilling of the raw Hoosiers on muster day. "They are
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getting that wrong," she would say. "Washington did not do it that way." There are still living a few who remember her, though she was at the time of the war old enough to spin, weave and cook with her own hands to feed and clothe the soldiers of the Revolutionary war. But she died many, many years before I was born.
In 1832 scarlet fever made its first appearance here in a very malignant form. Every child that had the disease, but two, died. Among the children who died was my mother's baby brother, Austin, and of the two who lived, one, Mrs. Mary Maxwell Shryer, is still living.
Although at first without a church building, the preaching of the Gospel was not neglected. When my grandmother's cabin was built, meeting of the Presbyterians was often held at her home because she had so much room.
The itinerant preacher had always a welcome in Monroe county in the pioneer days that Eggleston has in the "Circuit Rider" well called the "Heroic Age." The work of the early preachers will come up for review in connection with the different religious denominations, but I wish to recall that in the late twenties the famous and eccentric Lorenzo Dow in his travels stopped in this place and preached. I cannot give his church connection, if he had any.
Later, in the forties, Alexander Campbell, in his old age, was here twice, and Henry Ward Beecher, at the beginning of his public career, addressed Bloomington audiences. I think they spoke in the chapel of the old college building that burned down in 1854.
Water for these early settlers was first obtained from springs. An old well on West Seventh street, out in the street, and called in my childhood the public well, was, I think, perhaps one of these springs walled up and made deeper. The well at the Slocomb House on the corner of Third and Wal- nut was dug in 1820 and later the town became fairly well supplied with wells. Three of these early springs deserve special mention, Dunn's, Hester's and Stone's. What child ever grew up in old Bloomington who never went to one of these springs? For they were all favorite places for picnics. The first picnic in this place that I have heard of was one at Hester's spring. It was for Mr. Perring's school, and the girls marched up what is now Walnut street, two by two, wearing white dresses, with pink muslin sashes, or per- haps they were blue, fastened over their shoulders. Hester's spring was later known for many years as Labertew's spring. The name LaBoyteaux was corrupted into Labertew by the people of the town. Judge Creaven B. Hester was perhaps one of the first trustees of the Monroe County Seminary. This school for a considerable part of its history was wholly given to the
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education of girls, during the most of Mr. Perring's administration and per- haps all of Mrs. McFerson's, but boys went there at first and during the last years of its history. One of the first, if not the first, churches of the place was a log building which was built on what is now the home of Mrs. Nancy Blair McQuiston ; I think one of the foundation stones can still be located in her yard. In this building, with oiled paper fastened over openings in the logs for windows, was taught one of the first schools of the county. The name of the teacher I cannot give, but I understand that spelling was the chief thing taught.
On the corner of Eighth and Walnut, now the home of Henry Gentry, once stood an old brick house where a school was taught, or at least started, by a woman who lived in the house, but her name I cannot give. My mother was sent to this school. The first day she seeded cherries. The second day she filled candle moulds. The third day her mother kept her at home. There is mention made in the "New Purchase" of a school for girls which I cannot tell anything more about than is told here. but the facts given in that book are true, so I have been told.
At the time the first edition of that book came out, my grandfather had inflammatory rheumatism. He lay on a trundle-bed in front of the fire- place in the parlor of his home, and my mother read the book aloud to him. He laughed heartily at the hook, and said the incidents related were true; in many cases, he could relate a good many more points to the stories. I once heard a great aunt speak of a party when a pig was put into a window by some of the uninvited. who resented the drawing of a social line of division. This is a tale that will be recalled by those who have read the New Purchase. I have heard this same grand-aunt tell of a singing held at a farm house east of town ; it must be now seventy-five years ago. Some interest appears to have been taken in music from the very first. The history of the Bloom- ington Band will, no doubt, be written out so far as known. I think I may claim for W. B. Seward that he has the distinction of being the youngest member ever belonging to a band in the state, serving as he did as a drummer boy when he was so little that he still wore dresses. Once, during a political campaign, he was taken, much against his mother's judgment, to another town with the band, where it was thought amazing that a baby could beat a drum for a band and keep time, which he could do. The piano was taught at the seminary during Mr. Perring's time, but how early introduced I cannot tell. Miss Kate Baugh was something of a celebrity in that she "played the fiddle." Singing schools I know were common and popular, meeting "at early candle-light." the pupils each taking along his own candle. I can give the
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names of none of these old time singing-masters before Mr. Saddler. His singing schools were perhaps the most noted of any ever taught in this county, but they were too late to be classed with the pioneer singing schools.
I wish to refer to one old-time song that my father would sing for me, not for its elegance, but because it positively settles a much disputed historical question. The song ran, "Humpsey dumpsey, Colonel Johnson killed Tecum- seh."
Quiltings were popular social entertainments of those early times, the women coming early and getting the quilts out of the frames if possible by supper time, when the men came in for supper, and "saw the girls home." Society was divided on the subject of dancing. Some regarded every kind of dance with abhorrence, while the dancers derided the dullness of what they called a "settin' party." Mrs. McFerson, who was progressive and up- to-date in her ideas, introduced callisthenics into her school. These simple exercises were laughed at and called the Presbyterian sheepdance, Mrs. Mc- Ferson being a Presbyterian.
The itinerant shoemaker was an important person, going as he did with his tools from house to house where he stayed till he had fitted out each mem- ber of the family with shoes, though by no means were all shoemakers itin- erants.
One of the early families of the place was that of James Clark, whose farm on South Walnut street, now perhaps within the limits of the town, was the same afterwards so long known as the Roddy place. The old log house, the home of the Clark's, was known to be one of the stations on the underground railroad. The Clarks moved away to Iowa, the Hester family to California, and the Baughs to another part of the state, if my memory is accurate. All were influential in the early building up of this community. Disagreement between Dr. Wylie and Rev. Baynard Hall also led to the removal of the Hall family, to some town in Connecticut, I think. When they left they rode by my grandfather's house and stopped to bid good-bye, and my grandfather gave Mr. Hall, as a parting gift, a gun he had made for him, which he said was his masterpiece of work, mounted as it was with silver trimmings which he had made out of silver dollars. Mr. Hall used to write to him, but it would seem miraculous if one of those old letters could be found.
I hardly think that these pioneers who brought to the wilderness the Bible, and the industrial arts, who established churches and schools and courts of justice, fully realized the value of the work they were doing in
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laying the foundations of a great state. A leading citizen in this work was Colonel Ketcham. I will close with a characteristic story about him .
In August, 1833, my grandfather McCollough died of the cholera. The January following my grandmother McCollough died. This left a family of five orphan children to be scattered among kin in Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri, and the household effects were sold at auction. As my father, a ten-year-old boy, saw the family horse sold and led away, he cried so hard it moved Colonel Ketcham to pity. He tried to quiet him and told him when he grew up to be a man he would give him a horse of his own. And when my father grew to manhood, one day Colonel Ketcham camne bringing him a horse. My father did not wish to take it. "Why," asked the Colonel, "don't you remember my promise at your father's sale?" My father said he did remember, but he did not expect a promise made years ago to quiet a crying child to be kept. But the Colonel said that he meant to keep the prom- ise when he made it, and that he made it a point to keep his word, and he made my father take the horse.
Aukellettice
BIOGRAPHICAL
NATHANIEL USHER HILL, SR.
Indiana has been especially honored in the character and career of her men of industry and public service. In every section have been found men born to leadership in the various vocations, men who have dominated because of their superior intelligence, natural endowment and force of character. It is always profitable to study such lives, weigh their motives and hold up their achievements as incentive to greater activity and higher excellence on the part of others. These reflections are suggested by the career of one who forged his way to the front ranks and who, by a strong inherent force and marked business ability, directed and controlled by intelligence and judgment of a high order, stood for over a quarter of a century one of the leading men of the state. No citizen in southern Indiana achieved more honorable men- tion or occupied a more conspicuous place in the public eye than Nat U. Hill, whose earthly career has been ended, but whose influence still pervades the lives of men, the good which he did having been too far-reaching to be meas- ured in metes and bounds. Success is methodical and consecutive and it will be found that Mr. Hill's success was attained by normal methods and means -determined application of mental and physical resources along a rightly defined line. To offer in a work of this province an adequate resume of the career of this great man would be impossible, but, with others of those who have conserved the civic and commercial progress of Bloomington and this section of Indiana, we may well note the more salient points that marked his life and labors. He was long a prominent and influential factor in public affairs of his state, as well as in the business enterprises with which he was connected, having gained his success through legitimate and worthy means, and he stood as an admirable type of the self-made man.
Nat U. Hill, Sr., was born in Clay county, Indiana, on June 21, 1851, and was the fourth son in a family of six children born to Abel and Almira (Usher) Hill. His early education was such as the common schools of that day afforded until he became a student of the Ladoga Academy under that
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eminent scholar, teacher and educator, Milton B. Hopkins, and by whose teachings he was inspired to greater things, and for whom he always enter- tained the greatest admiration and respect. For a short time he was at How- ard College, Kokomo. In the spring of 1872 he became a student in Indiana University, where he graduated in June, 1875. In 1876 he received his de- gree from the Law School and, being admitted to the bar, he entered actively into the practice of his profession in Brazil, continuing until July, 1879, when he came to Bloomington and took charge of the settlement of the estate of his father-in-law, the late Judge George A. Buskirk. He was at once elected a director of the First National Bank of Bloomington, the controlling interest of which was held by the estate, and in January, 1881, he was elected vice- president of the bank and in January, 1889, was elected president. That he possessed abilities of a high order was abundantly demonstrated in his ad- ministration of the affairs of the estate, which he successfully settled to the entire satisfaction of all concerned. His association with the bank was for- tunate for the institution, for, taking it in its weakened condition, occasioned by the financial panic, the stock having depreciated until it was worth only eighty-five cents on the dollar, he, by untiring energy and industry, succeeded in bringing it to a position in the front rank of the leading banks of this sec- tion of the state. He was president of this bank until elected state treasurer. As president of the bank Mr. Hill exerted a large influence on the business life of the community and, though cautious and wisely conservative, he contributed greatly to the progress and stability of business and to the suc- cessful outcome of many enterprises of magnitude and importance. His death, which occurred in a hospital at Indianapolis on May 8, 1908, re- moved from Indiana one of her most substantial and highly esteemed citizens and the many beautiful tributes to his high standing in the world of affairs and as a man and citizen attested to the abiding place he had in the hearts and affections of those who knew him and of his work and accomplishments.
A life-long supporter of the Republican party, Mr. Hill was for two decades one of the most prominent and influential workers in that political organization, having rendered efficient service as county chairman, district chairman and as a delegate to the Republican national conventions of 1892 and 1896. In 1896 he was nominated as representative to the state Legisla- ture, but the district, comprising Brown and Monroe counties, being over- whelmingly Democratic, he was defeated by a few votes. However, he exerted a large influence in the advancement of masures for the welfare of the community and the people at large and contributed in a very definite degree to
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the passage of the first legislative endowment bill for the State University. In 1902 Mr. Hill was placed in nomination by his party for the office of state treasurer, to which he was elected in the ensuing fall, and so satisfactory was his administration of the duties of that responsible office that in 1904 he was renominated by acclamation, and was elected, thus serving two terms. At the expiration of his second term, he was urged by many to become a candidate for governor, but declined, preferring to give his attention to his business interests in Bloomington. Mr. Hill enjoyed a wide acquaintance among the prominent politicians of the state. He was a shrewd and sagacious manager of political campaigns and was frequently sought for advice by his party as- sociates. "I never knew a more tenacious fighter than Nat Hill. There is not a Republican in Indiana who will not seriously regret his death," were the words of one of his political friends, on hearing of his death, and State Chair- man Fred A. Sims said: "Nat Hill has always been a fighter in politics, and he has stood by his friends to the last ditch." Mr. Hill was a man of magnif- icent physique, standing six feet tall, broad shouldered and strong, and at- tracted attention in any gathering. His nature was genial and social, and he provoked no one to enmity, for the simplicity and cordiality of his nature and manners invited friendship and forbade or disarmed enmity. Hospitable by nature, he was cordially responsive to all social claims, and his home was at- tractive to all who were numbered among his friends. The death of such a man is a great public loss, and not alone his intimate associates, but the people of the city and community, felt the sense of distinct personal bereavement. e left to his family the rich memory of an unstained name, and to the city he loved so well the record and example of a long and well-spent life.
On December 31, 1878, Mr. Hill was united in marriage to Anna M. Buskirk, the daughter of Judge George A. Buskirk, and to them were born two children, Nathaniel Usher, who is referred to elsewhere in this work, and Philip Buskirk, who is assistant superintendent of the Empire Stone Com- pany. Mrs. Hill still resides in the old home on College avenue, Bloomington.
In closing this review of Mr. Hill's life it is deemed particularly fitting that there be reproduced excerpts from the many tributes paid to the de- ceased at the time of his death. From the address delivered at the gymnasium of Indiana University, on May 1I, 1908, by Judge H. C. Duncan, we quote the following :
"When the life went of Nathaniel Usher Hill it went out of one of the strongest and most forceful characters in this community-in the whole state. With an intimate acquaintance, with business relations, a close per-
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sonal friendship, all extending over almost a third of a century, I think I knew him as well as was allotted to but few.
"Of the many phases of his character, and he had many, I think his loyalty in all relations of life predominated. Born in 1851, he was at the im- pressionable age of ten years when the great civil conflict for the preserva- tion of the Union began, and for the next four years he lived in an atmos- phere of loyalty and devotion to duty and country, in which all that was dear to the human heart was offered as a sacrifice to his country. All his family and local surroundings breathed the spirit of loyalty. His uncle, John P. Usher, was a member of President Lincoln's cabinet and, with him, suffered the anguish of defeat and rejoiced in the pleasures of victory. Another uncle, Nathaniel Usher, whose name he bore, was a federal judge. His parents gave three sons to the war, one of whom he, as a little boy, saw brought home from the army so stricken with wounds that he died, and, with his mother, father and sister, followed to his last resting place ; while another. so far in the enemy's country that his command had not heard of Appomat- tox, lost a leg in battle after the cessation of hostilities and the close of the war.
"With such an education-with such surroundings-he began the battle of life, and no one can say of him that he was ever disloyal to a friend, cause, an institution, his town or his country.
"His friends were legion. They were not confined to any one sect, creed, party, race, color, or condition of life. His humanity was broad enough and his soul big enough to embrace all. More than one can tell of counsel and of advice bestowed, aid given, and of a helping hand extended. Every enterprise started for the betterment of the community had his earnest sympathy and enthusiastic support, while more than one was carried forward to ultimate success only by reason of substantial aid and assistance furnished at his hands.
"His loyalty to his friends in advancement, political or otherwise, was a prominent trait in his character. For two decades he has been a factor in politics, and stood high in the councils of his party. No friend ever appealed to him in vain, and when a cause was once espoused, it was as his own. No work was too hard, no task too difficult, for him to undertake and accomplish. In the last gubernatorial campaign, when an invalid and should have been at his home, his combined energies were given to the nomination of Mr. Watson, and while he met reverses, where he should not, his labors were ultimately crowned with success. During a long, active and successful political career, when opportunity offered for his own advancement, he stepped aside
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for others. In 1894 he could have been elected to Congress if he had con- sented to make the race, but his support was promised to another, and to him he was loyal. Other positions were tendered, but by reason of aspirations of others, his friends, he stepped aside.
"But his greatest work, and for which he will ever be best known and longest remembered, was the work done for Indiana University. After he had taken his degree in 1875 he became a citizen of Bloomington in 1879. From that time to the last meeting of the board of trustees in April, 1908, its advancement was the central idea of his life and labors and around which everything else revolved and to which all else was subordinated. In the race for preferment by the colleges of the state, the university was falling behind for lack of means. Every Legislature beheld this ward of the state a sup- pliant for money, not for advancement, but for actual existence. In 1883 a law which would supply its pressing needs failed. He and a few others un- dertook the hopeless task of breathing life into a dead measure, succeeded. and it became a law. When the new college building, with library, apparatus, and museum, burned in July, 1883, rebuilding was seriously questioned. Through the efforts of a very few citizens, led by him, a donation of fifty thousand dollars was made by the county, the present site bought, and not a move was made nor an act done from the time the proposition for a donation was advanced, until the money was turned over, without his advice and co- operation, and the university was saved to Bloomington. In 1895 more money was needed to supply fast-growing demands for higher education, and the special tax bill was passed, giving this university, Purdue and the State Normal School a regular and certain income. This was done after a very bitter contest in which all the non-state colleges of the state joined, and I speak advisedly when I say, the proposition originated with him, the contest was organized and carried forward to its successful tremination under his leadership.
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