History of Randolph County, Indiana with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers : to which are appended maps of its several townships, Part 26

Author: Tucker, Ebenezer
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago : A.L. Klingman
Number of Pages: 664

USA > Indiana > Randolph County > History of Randolph County, Indiana with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers : to which are appended maps of its several townships > Part 26

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

Mrs. F. says: " When we ' kept house,' at first, we had a table, four cups and saucers, half a dozen plates, four knives and forks, one iron pot, one skillet, one rolling pin, four chairs, one light feather bed, two sheets, one flax-and-cotton, and one tow,

one quilt, one coverlet. I have the coverlet yet. Mother wove it herself, in old Guilford County, N. C., and she gave it to me. I have had it more than sixty years, and how much older it is I cannot tell I borrowed a straw tick of Aunt Rebecca for three or four weeks, till I could make some for myself out of tow, which I did, all but the weaving-I hired that done. For a bedstead, I borrowed an auger and made two benches out of puncheons, and lugged in nine clapboards and put across on the benches, and on this new, grand bedstead I made up our bed ; and, let me tell you, I was ' set up ' greatly, and felt as proud of my bed, all nico and neat, as of anything I ever had. My brother Edward and myself went back to North Carolina ten or twelve years ago. I was surprised, and pleased, also, to find how well I remembered the country ; I could go anywhere, and knew every hill and stream, every rond and farm, although I had been absent fifty years. I found in that ancient region four aunts and one sister, whom I had not seen since my father moved away. They were, of course, greatly rejoiced that we should be spared to meet, face to face, this side of glory land."

[NOTE .- Mrs. Jane Fisher, relict of John Fisher, deceased, departed this life at the dwelling of her son-in-law, Capt. J. R. Jackson, Union City, Ind., Thursday, February 4, 1882, aged about seventy-eight years. She had become much enfecbled, having, some months before her death, suffered a paralytic stroke, from the effects of which she never recovered.]

TEMPLE AND PRISCILLA SMITH, 1817.

"Joseph Hockett came to Randolph County, Washington Township, in 1816. The Quaker meeting was set up at Cherry Grove in 1816 or 1817; they built a double log cabin for a meeting-house.

" Bloomingsport was laid out not far from 1828, by Nathan Hockett. Alfred Blizzard built the first house; Beeson kept the first store.

" Dr. Paul Beard, Sr., was the first physician in the region ; there was none in Bloominsgport for a long time. Dr. Gideon Frazier resided there in somewhat carly years.

" Other physicians were Drs. Gore, Strattan, Kemper, etc. Messrs. Becson, Comfort, Bullard, Budd, Wyatt, Wright, Coggs- hall, Hockett, etc., have been merchants.

" There has been a potter's shop, a wheelwright's shop, a saw- mill, a grist-mill, etc.

" There are two churches, Methodist and United Brethren. At Ridgeville, fifty-four years ago, Meshach Lewallyn's daughter Polly married David Hammner. At the wedding supper, the bride's brothers were present, and one of them, dressed in buck- skin hunting-shirt and leather belt, and with a butcher knife at his waist, undertook to carve the turkey, and did it with his hunt- ing knife.

" At another wedding, the people had gathered, but the supper was not yet done; and as the women were trying to bake pones or slap jacks or something, the crowd of half-drunken fellows would snatch and eat as fast as the women would bake, till at last, one chap, not quite so drunk as the rest, took a club, and stood and watched, and guarded the women till they got enough baked_for supper. This was at the house where the boys were chopping as related below. The family was immense, a dozen children or so ; the cubin was small. They had a loom in the house but took it down and out, to make room for the ' weddingers.'"

Mrs. Smith says : " When I was twelve years old, my sister and myself went to help one of the neighbors pick wool. They baked a great " pone," and turned it out on the floor. The ducks came in, waddlling and quacking, and fell to pecking away at the " pone " till they had broken it badly. The woman had her milk set under the bed, and in scaring the ducks away from the "pone," they scattered and ran under the bed, and went floundering and plunging and paddling " slapdab " through the milk. As the ducks went out, the sheep came in, 'ban-baaing ' all over the room. We went home without eating, and said to

HISTORY OF RANDOLPHI COUNTY.

mother, ' If those folks wish us to pick wool, they must bring the wool here; we can't stand such living;' and our picking wool there among the sheep and ducks was at an end.

"The boys would come in and stamp the mud off their feet upon the floor until the dirt was so thick that they had to scrape it from the floor with a hoe to let the door shut. One of our neighbors told us to be sure to call on a family of "new-comers," who, he said, were "upper crust," neat, stylish people, and that we must fix up our best. So one day sister and I fixed up in our " nicest," and went over there, a little afraid that we were not slick enough. When we got there, lo, and behold, a sight indeed ! Four boys, brothers, from eight years and upward, were at the wood-pile chopping wocd, with their shirts on and-nothing else ! We were taken aback, and thought we must have got to the wrong place. But no, this was the very house. We went in ; they set us some stools, black and greasy from having had meat chopped on them. Hardly knowing what to do, we spread some handkerchiefs on the stools and sat down. It was winter, and the creeks were frozen. The boys went out to the ice to slide barefooted, and when they came back their feet were as red as lobsters. "Are not your feet cold ?" "No, they burn," was the reply. And such times the folks had, and such things were done by young and old in days of 'auld lang syne.'"

PAUL BEARD, JR., 1817.

"Settlers, about the same time with my father, were James Frazier, east of Lynn ; Francis Frazier ; John Pegg, three miles southwest of Beard's; Obadiah Harris, Cherry Grove ; . Stephen Hockett, Cherry Grove; Edward Thornburg, Cherry Grove ; Travis Adcock, Curtis Cleny, Jesse Johnson shortly after, and perhaps others."

[Paul Beard, Jr., and his wife are both living at this time, 1880.]

MRS. PAUL BEARD, DAUGHTER OF BENJAMIN COX, 1817.

" Mother was greatly afraid of the Indians ; father was not afraid of them at all. They would come at night ; father would get up and make a fire, and let them sit and smoke and stay all night if they wished. Sometimes they would come late in the night and wish to warm, and when they were warm they would go away. Father had to go to Richinond for grain and for mill- ing ; this was too much trouble, and they used to pound corn for bread.

"Father made a sweep with a maul at the end, and a pin through the maul ; two men would take hold of the pin, one on each side, and thus work the maul to pound the corn into meal in a trough or mortar below. We took the finest for bread, and the coarse for mush. We raised a kind of squash that was excellent for baking; many a meal has been made on baked squash and milk and butter.

Benjamin Cox was a great hunter, and killed abundance of deer. He has shot as many as five and six deer in a day. A prairie was near and also a spring; he would sprinkle salt around the spring, and the deer would come to lick the salt. He made a scaffold, ten or twelve feet high, in the forks of two elm trees, and from that he watched the deer, and shot them as they came. Ile has killed scores of deer from that scaffold. Mrs. Beard thinks her father was the first settler on White River, east of Winchester.

"John Cox, father of Benjamin Cox, came in the spring of 1818; Joshua and John Cox, sons of John Cox, came in the fall of 1818.

"Thomas Ward and Joseph Moffatt came shortly afterward ; Jonathan Hiatt, Zachariah Hiatt and Jehu Robison came not long after.

" White River meeting-house was built of logs in 1820 or 1821. It was warmed by a box filled with dirt, with coals or bark on the top for a fire."

" Mrs. Paul Beard, Jr., is the daughter of Benjamin Cox.

She was born in 1813 ; she married Paul Beard, Jr., in 1º33. They have had nine children, eight are living and seven married."

ELIHU CAMMACK, 1817.

"The floor of the barn on my father's farm near Arba was made of lumber sawed by hand with a whip-saw, done in this way : . The log was put on a high frame, and one man stood above on the log and the other below, and they sawed somewhat as with a cross-cut saw. The work was slow and very tedious, but there was no other way then and there. That barn was covered with shingles, and was reckoned the best barn in all that region.

"The meeting-house was warmed by a dirt box. They would have a great log heap fire out of doors, and take the box out to the fire and shovel in coals enough, and then take it back into the house, and set it in the middle of the room, and people would get round it and warm themselves as well as they could.

" The cabin in which I was born sixty-three years ago is still standing and in good repair. The roof has been renewed, but the logs are sound, and a family occupies it now. The cabin was " scutched down," i. e., scored and hewed down after the build- ing was put up.

"I have hauled to Cincinnati many winters ; the price for hauling was 50 cents per hundred ; the trip took a week. A man would make from $6 to $9 a trip. Teamsters on the "pikes" would have big Conestoga wagons, and four to six horses, and take tremendous loads-equal to a small ship. Dealers would pack meat in " bulk," and teamsters would haul it " loose," and some- times, when they would get " stalled," they would throw the load of meat out on the ground, like a pile of wood, and come back afterwards and pick it up again. The first wagon I ever owned myself, about 1841, I bought the iron for in Cincinnati, and got the money to pay for it with by selling (hauling) bacon, smoked, ' hog-round,' good, sweet and nice, to Cincinnati from near Arba, at $2.12 per hundred. The iron was $3.50 per hundred. I have hauled wheat to Eaton, selling at 373 cents a bushel. I have fattened hogs and sold the pork, net, at Spartanburg for $1.25 under two hundred, and $1.37, two hundred full. This was done about 1842-43. Henry Peacock, of Jericho, now dead, has told me that since he settled in Jericho, he has paid $18 a bar- rel for salt, and paid for it in pork at $2 a hundred.

"I must give you a story told me on himself by Judge W. A. Peele, at Indianapolis, when he was Secretary of State. When he was a boy just old enough to turn the grindstone, his father and himself went to my grandfather's to grind an ax. They went into the house ; grandmother had lately made a rag carpet, perhaps the first in the county. His father walked in, and stepped on the carpet. William thought the carpet was some nice cloth spread upon the floor. and that his father had done very wrong, so he tried to better the matter by undertaking to jump across it. He failed, and stumbled upon it, and got dirt on the carpet, and was scolded and laughed at besides for all the pains he took to keep off the wonderful and mysterious thing."

WILLIAM DIGGS, JR., LATE OF WHITE RIVER, 1816.

" I was born in Anson County, N. C., December 17, 1793. In the year of 1816, I came to Indiana to seek a home for my- self. Paul, Ilenry H., William and Robert Way and I catne across the country from North Carolina in a road wagon, crossed the Ohio River at Louisville, Ky .; came to Blue River, but not being pleased with the country, we came to Wayne County, made our temporary abode at Charlotte Way's (afterward my mother-in-law), and looked around for suitable places. We finally selected our lands and built our camps about two miles west of Winchester. I remained there till the latter part of Au- gust, when the Indians became so numerous that our friends ad- vised us to abandon our claims and seek safety in the settlements.

" I was married to Charlotte Way October 6, 1816, and re- turned to my claim in February, 1817. At that time there was only one white settler nearer than twelve miles.

HISTORY OF RANDOLPII COUNTY.

" We moved into a camp and lived in it till I could cut the logs and build a small log house, which seemed a palace to us then. We saw no white man's face for eight weeks after settling there. But Indians were plenty, yet peaceable.

" The first year, I cleared four acres of ground, and planted it in corn, but it did not ripen, and we had to go to Richmond, where settlers bad been living for twelve or fifteen years, for all our breadstuffs. Wheat was then 75 cents a bushel, and corn $1.

" When we were getting out of bread, I would start on horse- back for the White Water, buy a sack of corn, get it ground, and take it home. In this way we lived till more settlers came. Not long after, small hand-mills were introduced into the county, and as soon as the corn became too hard for roasting. we would take a small jack-plane, shave the corn off the cob and dry it. We would take this corn to a hand-mill and grind it into meal. The nearest mill to my house was three miles.

" Often I have worked hard all day, and then taken a sack of corn on my back to the mill. and gone home with it to furnish bread for my family next day.

"In this manner we lived till the country settled up so as to afford better accommodations. We brought up nine children ; all but one are living yet, and they were all born in Randolph County, and on White River. The eldest, Fannie, now Mrs. Matthew Hill, lives at Jericho, Randolph Co., Ind. ; Anna, now Mrs. Jesse Reynard, lives east of Buena Vista, Randolph Co., Ind .; Eunice, now Mrs. Thomas Moorman, of Winchester, Ind .; Pleasant W., married Anna Peacock, and now resides at Earlham, Madison Co., Iowa ; Agnes, not living ; Henry H., married Sarah Wright (now deceased), and afterward Lois Ann Carpenter. Their home is at Nora, Jo Daviess Co., Ill. An- thony Diggs, married Elvira C. Thomas, daughter of George. and Asenath Thomas, and they reside at Earlham, Madison Co., Iowa ; Ruth, married Matthew W. Diggs, and they live at Farm- land, Randolph Co., Ind. After our children left us, we sold the farm which had been our home so many years, and moved to Poplar Run, to be near some of our children. We remained there some years when my wife's health became poor, and the children had all left that neighborhood. We sold that farm also and moved to Winchester. In about sixteen months my beloved companion died. Since then I have made my home with my children, and am now residing at Earlham, Iowa. My age is now eighty-nine years."

Paul W. Way. Henry H. Way, William Way, and Robert Way and myself, came in the summer of 1816; Henry H. Way and myself were both single, and we married during the winter of 1816-17, he taking for his wife Rachel Manlove, of Wayne County, Ind .; Robert Way stayed, as did all the group but Paul Way, who returned to Carolina and brought back a large company in the spring of 1817. During the spring or summer of 1817, William Way went to the South and brought his father and mother to White River.

Paul Way and his company got to White River in the spring of 1817, crossing the Ohio River on the ice with their wagons. [NOTE .- That winter was very cold].

" Henry, William and Robert Way built cabins for themselves and the rest. Persons from Williamsburg, fifteen miles away, came and helped raise the cabins.

Fanny (Diggs) Hill is the first white child born in White River, her birthday being September 11, 1817; she is living still. My wife died January 31, 1877. I went to Jo Daviess County, Ill., in May, 1877, to visit my children, stayed there three months, went on to Iowa, and am in Iowa still.

My health is good, I can walk around town and to church, etc. I am an Orthodox " Body Friend," never having gone with any "separations."

I have voted at every Presidential clection since I was old enough to vote, casting my first Presidential ballot for James Monroe in 1816, and having voted for President in all seventeen

times. I was a Whig in the days of that party, and have since been and still am a Republican.'

FANNY (DIGGS) HILL, 1817.

" I went to school first at Williamsburg, in Wayne County, Ind., when eight or nine years old. I attended school also un- der Henry D. Huffman in a log schoolhouse three miles west of Winchester. For a wonder, that house had window sash and glass !

When my mother was getting me to sleep one day, she heard a noise outside the cabin door. Hurrying to the door, she looked eut, and lo! there stood a bear!

She scared it away, and it went to the milk-house, and tore the cloth off the milk-strainer, etc., but shortly went away.

Father for years had but one horse ; mother has many a time gone ont and cut an armful of wild grass to feed the horse.

My mother's father, Henry Way, of Wayne County, Ind., was killed by lightning.

Mother used to tell me that we were the first family on White River, and that our cabin was fifteen miles away from any other dwelling, and that for six weeks she saw no white per- son's face but that of her own husband. She used to tell me that the Indians told her when they were at her cabin how casily they could have killed her and sister while the girls were milking, as the Indians lay hid in the brush."

FRANCIS FRAZIER, LYNN.

"I used to kill many deer. Really, I was too fond of it. My friends tried to get me to quit. George Sugart, with a committee of Friends, undertook to visit me to give me advice. I managed to shun them three times, but the fourth time they caught me at home, and I could not dodge them. They talked kindly and urged me to lay aside my gun. I tried to do so for awhile, but ' what is bred in the bone, will break out in the flesh.'

"One day a bey told me that some swine needed attention out in the woods. I went, taking my gun. Tying two pigs to- gether with my suspenders, I slung them across my shoulder, and started for the house. Along flew the hound, chasing some deer; pell mell they went and I after them. I tossed the pigs between some legs and laid off my shot pouch ; had my coat on my shoulder and lost it. I shot one deer, and chased the other a mile and a half, but could not get it. I came back and found the dead deer, a splendid buck, three snagged, three years old. I-hung it up, hide en, entrails out, and went to hunt for my pigs. They were gone, so were 1Dy " gallowses," and I have never seen them to this day, though that was fifty years ago, or more than that.

BEAR STORY.

" One damp, drizzly day I was out hunting, and heard a hog squealing terribly. I ran toward the noise, perhaps half a mile ; came to a thickety pond and started into it. I saw nothing, but still heard the squealing, and also the bones 'craunching,' and knew a bear was killing the hog. As I pushed through the thicket, the thought struck me, " What if I shoot and she takes after me? There is nothing for me to climb, and I shall be & goner.'

" I turned and went home, and get my two brothers on horse- back to come. The dog ran in, the bear bit him, and he bounded 'out yelling for dear life. The bear bounced out too, and we after him, jumping logs, and tearing through the bush screeching like a thousand Indians. The dogs treed the bear, I shot him, and down he came tearing through the branches, and James rode up just as the bear fell. We skinned it and took the meat home, but it was too fat to eat. Once William Kiff came to our house, and wanted some venison ; so we went out to hunt. The day was cloudy and misty, and I was not in humor to stay long. I said to myself, " I will go home ; Kiff may hunt venison for himself.". All at once a red deer stood near me ; I shot and down he came. It was a grand, four snagged buck, right " in the velvet ;"; horns

HISTORY OF RANDOLPHI COUNTY.

drop off in winter. In the spring they begin to grow, and the horns will come with " points " or snags on, one (on each horn) for every year of the deer's age. I have seen a deer with thir- teen snags, seven on one horn and six on the other. I dressed the deer and carried it in, and " jerked " the meat, i. c., cooked it in strips over a slow fire. Kiff filled his pockets with the veni- son and went home satisfied.

"We used to wear shoes and leggings to keep the snakes from biting ns. I have killed nine rattlesnakes in one day. The woods had plenty of plums and grapes.

"One morning I started toward White River Prairie. Seeing something run into a hollow log. I stuck my rifle into the log and let fly, but the recoil of the rifle came near knocking me down. As I went home, I came to a " maple flat," and saw a great gray wolf coming. I whistled and she stopped, and I shot at her. I went to the house and got father and Samuel to go back with me. The old sinner had tried to run, but she had made five or six beds as she went, and vomited mutton at each place. After awhile we found her nearly dead. We used wolf- skins, instead of saddles, like blankets on a horse.

"On 'Fifth Day,' as we were going to meeting, I said to James, " Let us kill a deer as we go home." "All right," said he. James' wife spoke up, " If any deer is killed, James will have it to do." We went after the deer, and the women went home. We went to a pond and saw deer tracks. There was a sloping tree with the roots turned up, and James sat there watch- ing for deer. The bushes crackled, and out sprang two bucks. One threw his head up, and I shot it between the eyes and the nose, and down he dropped. "Hallo," cried James, "is the deer down ?" " Yes." - We tied the feet and carried it home on a pole. "Well," said James' wife, " who killed the deer ?" " Francis," said James. She hated it that I had shot the deer instead of her precious husband.

BELL-MAKING.

"My father was a bell-maker, and so was I. Bells were in great demand then. Cattle and horses and sheep ran in the woods, and there had to be a bell in the flock to keep them to- gether. I tended a little farm, and would plow till the flies would vex my beast, and then go and work in the shop, making bells. In that way I would make $17 to $22 worth in a single week. They soll from 25 cents to $3.50 a piece. Those heavy ox bells wore large; they could be heard easily four miles. I have heard one of them seven miles. [I questioned the accuracy of his memory, but the old gentleman rallied gallantly to the defense of his bells, declaring that his statement was simply the sober, actual fact .- AUTHOR.]

"I would take my saddlebags and stuff them with 'nests ' of bells, i. e., little bells in bigger ones, perhaps two dozen bells, and set out for Winchester. The bells were ready sale, cash down. I would trade for shoes, hats, anything needed, and tie them on my horse, and go home loaded some times to the very tail of the horse. People would joke me, " Hallo, there, got a horseback grocery ?" " Yes ; can't you see for yourself," I would say. I made the bells of the best Juniata iron. When father died, the doctor's bill was $60. He wanted his pay in bells, but I would not do it, and he took a wagon. Sometimes I used boiler iron, and sometimes sheet iron, but Juniata (or Sligo) iron was the best. People would send far for my bells. I sent $16 worth to Fort Wayne, and they said, " They are the best bells we ever saw." They sent another order for $100 worth, but I could not fill it. The demand at home and from Illinois and Iowa movers was more than 1 could supply. I made bells for over twenty years.

"I was quite wild at one time of my life, and inclined to skepticism. I had two nice horses, perfect idols to me. I would walk to Newport any day rather than ride either of them. One day as I was plowing I thought, " If there is a God, I wish he would reveal Himself to me in some way that I may know Him !"

Shortly afterward, as I was in the house, and the horses were in the stable, suddenly there came a sharp flash of lightning and a crashing thunder peal. I went to the stable and there were my beauties with their heads lying on a long trough. I spoke to them, but they made no sign. The lightning had killed them both dead. It impressed me greatly, " Turn, or the next will be thine," rang in my soul. I did turn, and since that time I have tried in my poor, weak way to serve the Lord, and I hum- bly trust my Maker looks upon my feeble service with gracious favor.

CHOLERA, 1849.

" The rise of the cholera near Lynn (1849) was very strange and striking. A cloud rose in the morning from the east, with some lightning and thunder. The lightning struck the ground at the cross roads near Isaac Palmer's, east of Lynn, and there came a terrible smell. The cholera began the same day, and ran along those roads west and south. The next day, in the morning, when I was at Newport, a neighbor came for a coffin, and said, "James Lister is dead with the cholera, sick only a few hours." I went home instantly. Henry Benson was taken also and died that night. Hodgen died also. Jesse Williams came to shave the corpse, and some one said, "Jesse, what is the matter ?" He quit shaving, went out of the door, sat down, and in a few minutes he was dead. Hodgen and Williams lay dead together. Hodgen's wife stayed all night alone with the two corpses. Hodgen's body was taken away the next morning for burial, and Williams' corpse lay there alone till the next day. Twenty- seven-died in all. Dr. Cook came down from Winchester, say- ing that he could cure it easily enough. He went into the field and picked and ate blackberries, and in two or three hours he was dead himself !"

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History of Randolph County, Indiana with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers : to which are appended maps of its several townships, Part 26

Author: Tucker, Ebenezer Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Chicago : A.L. Klingman Number of Pages: 664

Author: Tucker, Ebenezer
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago : A.L. Klingman
Number of Pages: 664