USA > Indiana > Montgomery County > History of Montgomery County, together with historic notes on the Wabash Valley; gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic sources > Part 73
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As a proper supplement to all this preparatory scholastic work,
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the Central Indiana Normal College was organized at Ladoga in September 1876, with three regular teachers and forty-eight students, having Profs. Warren Darst and W. F. Harper as principals. The de- sign of this institution, never departed from since its organization, is to provide thorough training to teachers in all the latest Normal methods, as well as to afford opportunities to acquire a regular clas- sical education. During the first year of its history the college en- rolled nearly 300 students. Prof. Darst retired from the faculty in 1877, and in the spring of 1878 Prof. Harper resigned, at which time Profs. Darst and J. C. Murray were elected to the charge of affairs. During the third year the enrollment was about 325. In the summer of 1879 Prof. J. V. Coombs, the present principal, assumed charge, since which time the attendance has largely increased ; last year 594 students were present. In 1877 there were ten graduates, in 1878 three, in 1879 five, and in 1880 there were nineteen collegiate, thirteen business and eighteen normal course graduates. Fourteen teach- ers are now employed in the college, having charge of the fol- lowing departments, namely, classical, scientific, teachers, commercial, preparatory, musical, elocutionary, engineering, and law. The school possesses a large library of miscellaneous literature, and has a fair supply of apparatus for scientific demonstration. Clark township has nine public school-houses valued at $4,100, with an attendance in 1880 of 379, out of an enumeration of 429.
Ladoga has, in addition to this, a school enumeration of 325, mak- ing the total number of children of school age in the township 754. From these data, in the absence of any census report for 1880, we may safely place the entire population of the township at nearly 4,000. S. F. Kyle, of Ladoga, is the present school trustee, and the school trustees of the incorporation of Ladoga are: David Nicholson, presi- dent ; A. M. Scott, treasurer, and Edwin Snodgrass, secretary. Mr. Nicholson has been connected with the school boards of the town and township for more than forty consecutive years, and the present prosperous condition of the schools is, for him, a matter of great pride and gratification. The school fund of the township amounts to the handsome sum of $2,761.77. Eighteen teachers were employed in the public schools during the school year of 1880. With such facili- ties provided for pupils in the township it will certainly be their own fault if they fail to secure a thorough English education.
The writer of this sketch has had the pleasant privilege of convers- ing with many of the old settlers of the township, some of whom have since departed " to that bourne from whence no traveler returns, " and he recalls with feelings of pleasure, as fresh as when first they were
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listened to, narratives of their peculiar sports and adventures. Of these genial veterans none shines more in general reminiscence than Uncle Drake Brookshire, whose jolly disposition once led him into all manner of comical scrapes, that, narrated in his incomparable man- ner, with all the adjuncts of idiomatic language and quaint North Carolina brogue, would make him the hero of any coterie of story- tellers. His stories are modestly impersonal, but with all his crafty con- cealment it is easy to perceive that he was always " on the ground " when the occurrence of which he speaks took place. He vouches for the following:
"There was a man named Herndon, who had a horse mill this side of Fredericksburg; he was a blustering, busy sort of man, rather free of speech. A customer brought some corn to be ground one day, and while they were getting ready to start the mill, a lit- tle ground-squirrel that had been sitting on the track in which the horse moved round, jumped up on the side of the hopper and then down into the mill-stones. The old miller went on with his work, and poured the corn into the hopper and started to grind. Pretty soon the meal came out mixed with strings of hide and rolls of fur and flesh, and Herndon said: "Well sir; you are the blamedest luckiest man I ever knew ; you bring corn to my mill, and here you are getting both meal and meat ! "
Circle Peffley, when a boy, went hunting after wild hogs, deer and turkeys. He killed a deer where Joel Ridge's house now stands in Ladoga, and hung it on an oak tree to keep it from being de- voured by the wolves, while he went home for a horse to carry the carcass. The tree is still standing, near where Lollis and Biddle now live in Ladoga. The first home for many of the settlers was a "lean-to camp"; made by cutting forked poles, and extending cross poles to some large tree, and covering top and sides with brush, thereby making a triangular, wedge-shaped shelter, in front of which a fire of logs was kindled for warming and cooking pur- poses. Limledge Stringer has a vivid recollection of such a camp, and still speaks, with a shiver, of the fiery wolf-eyes that used to circle the outer darkness during the winter nights of 1830.
Gabriel S. Davidson is authority for a squirrel hunt that deserves historic embalmment in these pages. A weary tramp of twenty miles during all the hours of a long day is now thought well rewarded by the sportsman if he bags half-a-dozen squirrels; but at the time of which Mr. Davidson speaks that game was so abundant as to be a decided and destructive nuisance. The young corn of the settlers, planted with great pains and severest toil among the numerous
Johne Rem ley
THE NEW YORK BIA I BAZRÝ
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stumps of their little clearings, had scarcely got into the milk stage before the squirrels and coons discovered that as an edible green corn was better and more toothsome than anything they had tasted before. In consequence they came by thousands, uninvited, to the tempting feast; the squirrels by day and the coons by night. Worn out by desultory slaughter, the settlers joined forces for an organized battle upon the invaders. For fifteen days all other pur- suits were abandoned, and every offensive weapon in Clark town- ship was directed upon the foe. The forces were divided into two parties. The one making the largest bag was entitled to receive one quart of whisky per capita from the other party. the evidence to be the largest count of coons' tails and squirrel scalps. Never was there such wholesale destruction. When the tales came to be counted there were more than 3,000 squirrel scalps, and nearly 1,500 ring-tails. The general result was a glorious spree and, what was better, a good crop of corn. Charles Lewis tells of the killing of a bear by some honey hunters on his father's land in the township. His father was a professional hunter, and made sad havoc among the furred and feathered denizens of the big woods. Wild honey was abundant, and domestic swarms were not thought of in those days. Bee-trees were as easily found then as a lawyer is now. Other sweetening came from the sugar trees in the shape of maple molasses and sugar in an abundance commensurate with all of na- ture's kindly gifts to the pioneer.
As an admirable picture of frontier life viewed by a boy's eyes, we present the following extracts from an address written by Joel Peffley, Esq., and read on the occasion of the golden wedding of his parents, John B. and Mary Peffley :
"Our company emigrating from Botetourt county, Virginia, was made up of father's family (five persons, one wagon, and four horses) ; Jacob Harshbarger's family (nine persons, two wagons and six horses); Samuel Britts' family (seven persons, one wagon, one buggy and five horses) ; McCormic's family (ten persons, one wagon and one horse) ; J. Fletcher's family (three persons, one wagon and one horse), and J. Barber's family (three persons, one wagon and one horse), making a little company of forty-one persons leagued to- gether for safety and convenience. We traveled nearly three hun- dred miles over the mountains, and about the same distance across land where mud and water were equally distributed. In six weeks and five days we arrived one and a half miles east of La- doga and occupied an old log cabin. In the spring of 1832 our family moved into a log cabin that still stands on the lot near our
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home; it was then considered a fine and comfortable dwelling. It was a regular Hoosier cabin, with clapboard roof, clapboard door, clapboard loft, and puncheon floor. That spring we were obliged to eat bread made from corn so mouldy that even the horses refused to eit it. We had no meadows from which to procure hay, so we fed our stock with bushes upon which the leaves had dried. I helped to roll logs by day, and made clearings by night lighted by the blaz- ing log-heaps ; on one occasion I cut a small sapling across a large mossy rock, thinking it was a big chunk of rotten wood, and ruined my axe, which was then no insignificant matter. In 1834 we raised some wheat ; we threshed and separated this, our first crop, by beating it out with clubs, and fanning the chaff with a sheet worked by two men, while the third stood upon a bench, and dribbled it down from a half bushel. John Myers built his mill at Ladoga in 1836, which saved us many a trip to Crawfordsville to get our grist ground. During this year movers were as thick as possums in a pawpaw patch ; corn-huskings and gum-sucks began to be fashiona- ble. We raised flax, pulled it, pounded off the seed, put it to rot, broke, scutched or swingled it, and then mother spun it and wove our wearing apparel. The every-day clothing of boys of our age (twelve years) was a long tow-linen shirt, and it was regular tor- ture to break in a rough new linen shirt. Our Sunday clothes were tow trousers and vest, with home-made pewter buttons, and a buck- eye hat; for winter we wore linsey-woolsey clothes and untanned coon-skin caps with tails flying to the breeze. For our pocket- money we were allowed to dig ginseng, and manufacture wooden pitchforks and hickory scrub-brooms. The sang we sold green for six cents per pound,-if dried, for twenty-five cents per pound,- and our brooms and pitchforks brought us a shilling each. The only hay-forks used then were made out of the fork of a buslı. Mother spun, wove and made all of our clothing, platted and braided our straw hats, and made caps from ground-squirrel, mole and coon skins. She raised silk-worms, and spun from their co- coons all the sewing thread used in making up the garments for the females of the family. We made in one season over fifteen hun- dred pounds of sugar from 500 sugar trees on our place, which was hard work, only relieved to us boys by our nightly horse-shoe pitch- ing, egg-roasting and chicken feasts by the furnace fires, which, be- ing illicit pleasures, were sweeter than the syrup we manufactured, to our boyish tastes."
John N. Hays remembers quite distinctly a visit made by a surly Indian of the Miami tribe to his father's house. when the family sat
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down to dinner with their savage guest. A favorite dish with young John was a part of the menu consisting of sliced cucumbers and onions dressed in vinegar. The presence of the noble red man had completely paralyzed the tongue of the boy until he saw his beloved dish about to be devoured by the Miami, when his stomach-courage compelled him to enter a loud protest, against which not even the stoicism of the Indian was able to stand. Mr. Hays heard the ec- centric Lorenzo Dow preach a sermon upon the farm where he was raised ; Dow came, after the services were concluded, to his father's house for dinner. He would not take time to dine like other men, but ate in the sinoke-house, bolting alternate hunks of break and meat until his voracious appetite was satisfied, when he mounted his horse and departed, as mysteriously and peculiarly as was his custom.
Jacob M. Harshbarger (now one of the board of county commis- sioners) may justly claim the palm as a hard-working pioneer from Clark township. When he came to the county he was only twelve years of age. For eighteen years he engaged in that hardest of pioneer labor. making clearings in heavy timber-lands. During his life he has reclaimed from the forest, fenced with rails of his own splitting, and set in blue-grass, nearly 400 acres of what is now the best land in the township, and has, beside this herculean task, aided to clear 400 acres of land belonging to his neighbors.
He mentions a singular fact concerning sheep that were killed in early days. When the sheep were killed by wolves, if their slayers had not time nor appetite to eat their quarry they would bury the carcasses between trees and by the side of logs; while if the sheep had been killed by dogs, the carcasses would be left lying where they were killed.
In gathering elder blossoms, while a boy, he was so badly stung by hornets that were gathering the honey from the flowers, that he lay for two days at the point of death. His first school teacher was John Barnet, after whom came William Nofsinger, Parker Howard, and David Shannon, who were the pioneer pedagogues of the town- ship. The first preachers to whom he listened in his boyhood were Daniel Miller (Dunkard) and Jonathan Keeney (Methodist). He never attended school after he became sixteen years old, but after his years of toil, having accumulated an abundance of this wor'd's goods, he is free to indulge his long repressed taste for reading, and is much better informed than the majority of persons who have had the amplest opportunities. Such indeed is the common characteris- tic of the pioneer mind, and if they cannot themselves enjoy the full luxuries of learning, they at least have honest pride and gratification in viewing the attainments of their children.
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BIOGRAPHICAL.
S. F. Ashby, grain dealer and farmer, Ladoga, was born in Shelby county, Kentucky, December 25, 1828, and is the son of S. and Nancy (Radford) Ashby, who were natives of Shelby county, Ken- tucky. The father was born in 1797, married in 1819, and died June 24, 1854; his wife was born in 1797, and died in 1855. They removed to Indiana in 1829, and lived in Montgomery county for a short time after settling in Putnam county, where they lived till their death. The subject of this sketch was raised on a farm in Putnam county, and is the owner of 216 acres of well improved land located within two miles of the beautiful village of Ladoga. He is also quite an extensive dealer in grain, the firm handling from sixty to seventy thousand bushels of wheat yearly. He is an active business man, and takes part in all improvements. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, No. 187, which meets at Ladoga. In 1860 he married Miss Ella McNay, daughter of Samuel MeNay, and a native of Ken- tucky. By this union they have three children : Cora E., Eugene C. and Edgar C.
S. S. Mills, farmer, Ladoga, is probably the oldest born citizen of Clark township now living, where he has resided since his birth, in 1829. He is the son of Lewis D. and Rebecca (Fitzpatrick) Mills. The father was born in Fleming county, Kentucky, December 7, 1791, and was married August 6, 1812. His mother was born March 10, 1794. In 1827 they came to Montgomery county, Indiana, and settled in Clark township near Ladoga. They both died in this county, the father December 19, 1847, the mother July 22, 1843. The father served in the war of 1812. Mr. Mills, the subject of this sketch, was married July 29, 1852, to Miss Rebecca Stoner, daughter of Jacob and Barbara (Gharst) Stoner, who were natives of Virginia. Mrs. Mills was born October 28, 1831, and died July 22, 1866. May 18, 1871, he again married, this time to Lydia Stoner, sister of his first wife. Mr. Mills' family by former wife are John W., Claria E., Mary C., William M., Emma E., and two deceased, Sarah E. and Nettie J.
Drake Brookshier, farmer, Ladoga, is one of the leading farmers of Clark township. He is a native of Randolph county, North Caro- lina, and was born in 1819, and is the son of Joel and Sarah (Slock) Brookshier. His mother was born in Hagerstown, Maryland, in 1790, and his father was born in Randolph county, North Carolina, in 1782. They both died in this county, the latter in 1869 and the former about 1856. They came to Montgomery county with their
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family as early as 1830, and settled in Scott township. Mr. Brook- shier has been a resident of the county since 1830, and was reared on his father's farm till twenty-three years of age, when he married Miss Sarah Graves, daughter of Leonard and Mary (Calicott) Graves. She was born in Randolph county, North Carolina, in 1823. Their family are Andrew G., Allen, Alexander M., Mary E., Elizabeth V., Joel, Thomas D., Calvin W., Lee, and one deceased, James. Mr. Brookshier is the owner of a fine farm of 292 acres. He is an Odd- Fellow and a democrat.
Jacob M. Harshbarger, farmer, Ladoga, was born in Botetourt county, Virginia, March 10, 1828, and is the son of Jacob and Sa- lome Harshbarger. The father was born in Lancaster county, Penn- sylvania, June 24, 1792, and the mother in Botetourt county, Vir- ginia, May 17, 1796. They moved from Virginia to Montgomery county, Indiana, in 1831, and settled in Clark township, where they lived an honorable and respectable life. He died February 8, 1875, and his wife about 1872. Mr. Harshbarger, the subject of this sketch, is one of the energetic and respected citizens of the county, and has taken an active part in its early improvements. April 13, 1848, he married Miss Mary Myers, daughter of Henry and Hannah, (Arnold) Myers. She was born in Botetourt county, Virginia, Octo- ber 28, 1826, and came with her parents to Montgomery county in 1833, and settled in Scott township. They were among the respect- ed pioneers of the county. The father departed this life February 25, 1875, in his seventy-eighth year, and the mother January 7, 1876, in her sixty-ninth year, both having died of paralysis. Mr. Harshbarger's family are Salome E., wife of H. Davidson ; Aman- da and George W., and two deceased, Marion M. and Henry M. Mr. Harshbarger is a member of the Masonic fraternity, and is a stalwart republican. He owns 500 acres of land, and Mrs. Harsh- barger owns 650.
G. W. Clark, farmer, Ladoga, was born in Shelby county, Ken- tucky, in 1813, and is the son of William and Betsy (Blades) Clark, who were natives of Kentucky, and removed to Parke county, Indi- ana, in 1825; thence to Montgomery county about 1831, and settled in Clark township, where they lived till their death. Mr. Clark was born October 26, 1791, and died September 5, 1846. Mrs. Clark was born February 20, 1793, and died about 1864. On December 23, 1838, the subject of this sketch married Priscilla Manners, daughter of James and Lettice (Hight) Manners. Her father was a native of Maryland, and mother of Kentucky, and came to Monroe county, Indiana, in 1819; thence to Putnam county, and about 1830
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they removed to Montgomery county, where they both died. Her father was born March 30, 1793, and died March 19, 1871, and her mother was born July 19, 1793, and died February 3, 1870. Mrs. Clark taught school for a number of years in this county in an early day. She has been a devoted member of the Methodist Episcopal church for forty-two years, and Mr. Clark has been a life long repub- lican.
John Barnet, farmer, Ladoga, was born in Butler county, Ohio. June 7, 1813, and is the son of James and Hannah Barnet, who were natives of Washington county, Pennsylvania, and removed to Montgomery county, Indiana, in 1832, and settled in Clark town- ship. Mr. Barnet now lives on the same farm, and has ever since he came to the county. He has taken an active part in the early improvements of the part of the county in which he lives. In 1841 he was elected to the legislature, and served in the session of 1841 and 1842. In 1832 he married Miss Jane Creason, a native of Pre- ble county, Ohio, who was born in 1813, and departed this life in 1862. He married again, in 1863, Rebecca Gregg, formerly Re- becca Watkins, daughter of George Watkins, who came to this county in 1831. Mr. Barnet has thirteen children by former wife and three by present wife. He is a stalwart republican.
J. B. Pefley, farmer, Ladoga, was born in Botetourt county, Virginia, March 19, 1813, and is the son of Samuel and Annie Pef- ley, the father being a native of Pennsylvania. They removed to Montgomery county, Indiana, in 1835, and settled on the farm where Mr. Pefley now lives. Here they lived till their death, he dying May 10, 1860, in his eighty-fifth year, and she died August 5, 1864, in her eighty-second year. Mr. Pefley married, in 1834, Miss Sally Mangus, a native of Botetourt county, Virginia, who was born De- cember 10, 1816. Their family are Daniel. Isaac, David F .. Anna, wife of W. R. Harshbarger ; Samuel J. and George M .; three deceased : Mary F., Esther E., and one in infancy.
Z. F. Mahorney, farmer, Ladoga, was born in Washington county, Indiana, August 8, 1818. He is the son of Benett and Mary (Fisher) Mahorney, who were natives of Shelby county, Ken- tucky. Mr. Mahorney's father was a ferry keep at Westport, Ken- tueky, and was accidentally drowned when Mr. Mahorney was about seven years of age, after which Mr. Mahorney and mother removed to Shelby county, Kentucky. Here he remained and received his education, and in the meantime learned the tailor's trade. In 1836 he came to Montgomery county, Indiana, and worked by the day until he earned money enough to buy eighty acres of land in Put-
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nam county. In 1840 he married Miss Catharine Harshbarger, a native of Virginia, and by this union has raised a family of eleven children : Jacob W., Zachariah W., Sophia A., wife of D. Myers ; Byron T., Jacob I., John C., James P., Phoebe L., David D., Mary L., Martha J., Daniel M. Mr. Mahorney is the owner of a fine farm, with good improvements, located near the town of Ladoga. He is a member of the I.O.O.F., and is respected by all who know him.
R. H. Lane, farmer, Ladoga, was born in Montgomery county, Kentucky, in 1818, and is the son of Robert G. and Elizabeth (Hackley) Lane. The father was a native of Virginia, and the mother of Kentucky, and they came to Putnam county, Indiana, in the fall 1842, and to Montgomery county in 1843, where they both lived till their death. Mr. Lane, the subject of this notice, was raised on a farm and has been a resident of this county since 1843, and by hard work and close attention to agricultural pursuits he has become the owner of a fine farm containing 180 acres. In 1849 he married Miss Sarah Ashby, daughter of Silas and Nancy (Radford) Ashby, who came from Kentucky to Putnam county, Indiana, in 1829. Mrs. Lane was born in Shelby county, Kentucky, in 1826. Their family are Robert S., Bladen O., Mary E., Dora B., Emma C., Rosa H. and Minnie; three deceased : James H., Anna E. and Nancy C. Mr. and Mrs. Lane are members of the Reformed church, and Mr. Lane is a member of the Masonic fraternity, No. 187, which meets at Ladoga.
A. W. Daugherty & Bro., proprietors of the Model Mills, La- doga. There always seems to be room in any locality for wide-awake business men in whatever line of business they may choose to en- gage. A practical demonstration of this fact has been made by A. W. & J. Daugherty, proprietors of the Model Mills, of Ladoga. They were born in Green county, Ohio, Andrew W. in 1831 and Josiah in 1836, and are the sons of James and Mary A. (Cramer) Daugherty, who were of Irish and German decent. They removed with their family to Montgomery county, Indiana, in 1841, first lo- cating at Darlington, thence removed to Crawfordsville, and to La- doga in 1844. The Daugherty brothers were raised to the milling business, there father being a linseed oil maker and roll carder, which he followed in this county for a number of years. He died in 1877, being about sixty-six years of age, and his wife died in 1868 at the age of fifty-eight. The long experience the Daugherty Bros. have had in the mill business enables them to know the wants of the public, therefore they have added all the modern improvements to
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their mill and are able to compete with other mills in the county. They are prominent members of the fraternity of Odd-Fellows, and are staunch republicans. Josiah married, in 1867, Miss Rachel Kiser, a native of Wayne county, Ohio, and has two children : Harry, aged ten ; Annie, aged six.
M. C. Drake, physician and surgeon, Ladoga. In every profession there are those who by years of hard study, constant practice, and a close attention to business, are the recognized in their profession. This position has been honestly attained by M. C. Drake, M.D., of Ladoga, who for years has been a practicing physician and surgeon. He was born in Montgomery county, Ohio, June 19, 1834. He received his early education at Delaware, Ohio, and in 1854 began the study of medicine, and in the session of 1856-7 graduated at the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia, and in 1872 graduated at Belleview Medical College. He came to Montgomery county, Indiana, in 1854, and began practicing at Fredericksburg, continuing until the break- ing out of the rebellion, when he entered as a physician and surgeon the 15th Ill. reg., in which capacity he faithfully served for three years. In 1870 he came to Ladoga, where he soon entered into a lucrative practice. He started in life with nothing but that of his profession, but by close attention to business he has become the owner of a fine home and a well-established drug business. He has attained a high standing in Masonry, in which he is a York-Rite and Scotch-Rite member, and has taken the thirty-second degree. In 1858 he mar- ried Miss Jane J. Vanarsdall, a native of Harrisburg, Kentucky. Their family consists of a son and daughter, James E .. aged twenty, and Fannie, aged eighteen.
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