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 33

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 33

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Mr. Cadwallader's school was liked, perhaps all the better for his attempted " new departures " and original methods. At

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HISTORY OF RANDOLPH COUNTY.

any rate, he was engaged again for the winter school, with an enormous increase of wages from $7 to $9 per month-a growth of well-nigh 30 per cent, and an increase worthy of especial notice and remembrance; conclusively showing that the employers in that backwoods school-district thoroughly understood the appropriate method and means of rendering suitable encourage- ment to corresponding merits ; and that they put their knowledge earnestly into practice, much to the satisfaction of the worthy subject of the present sketch.

"That winter furnished some interesting experience. The big boys took me at Christmas, and ducked me through a hole in the ice up to my chin, till I would agree to "treat," which I finally did. They let me out, and I sent for some apples, for the " treat." The sequel came near being tragic, for the apple boys stayed so long that the others thought I was "shamming," and had sent for no apples ; and, so they caught me, and went to duck me again. Luckily, the boys came just at the nick of time, and I was let go, and we had a gay " treat." Thus went school life (not very) long ago, when I was young and in my 'teens."

During Mr. C.'s term as Senator, an event occurred, so curious and vexatious, and so apt an illustration of the evils of hasty legislation, and, moreover, of the importance of careful and exact expression, that we cannot forbear to state it somewhat in detail. He had resolved that Indiana should have, like her sis- ter States, a law regulating the movements of railroad trains, a thing, in fact, greatly necessary. So, he drew up a bill, mostly like the Ohio law ; presented it to the Senate, and it was "tee- totally " passed in fifteen minutes ; in fact, before he sat down. It was read, once, twice, ordered to be considered engrossed, read the third time, and finally passed, all in the same transac- tion. Not an objection was raised, not a word was changed ; it went through "clean." It passed the other House much in the same way, and nothing more was thought of it. On the day in which the law was to go into effect, the whole State of Indiana was "waked up" by the unearthly screeching of every engine- whistle on every railroad of the State. Especially were the ears of our Senator, whose residence is close to the railroad depot in Union City, greeted with whistling fit to "wake the dead." When the railroad men were asked, "what does this mean ?" they replied, " Senator Cadwallader's whistle-bill requires it."

Mr. C. resolutely denied the allegation, but on examining the "Record," there it stood in black and white-" Every engineer shall, within eighty rods of any crossing of any street or public highway, sound the whistle continuously until he has passed said crossing." Cities were allowed to regulate the matter as they chose ; but as no town had done so, the law was binding in town and country alike. Here was a racket indeed. Mr. C. was non- plussed ; but knowing the bill was not so when he had it pass the Senate, he got hold of the copy thereof, and found this curious fact, to wit : The section, as he wrote it, stood thus : * * " shall sound the whistle and ring the bell continuously until, etc., i. e., sound the whistle once, at first, and then keep on ringing the bell, etc. Somebody had drawn a pencil mark across the words " and ring the bell," making the clause read, " shall sound the whistle continuously," and thus it stands on the " Record." Who made the alteration, Mr. C. has never been able to find out. But it shows very strikingly how important it is to have the words of a law just exactly right, and how great a change a slight al- teration will make. The bill, as it was presented, commanded (though the idea is not very clearly expressed), a proper and needful thing. As it stands on the Record, the thing required would be an intolerable nuisance.

Probably no man was ever greeted with such a howl of indig- nation as from every corner of the State met the astounded ears of the Senator from Randolph. Examination, however, soon quieted the clamor, and showed his intention and his action to have been proper, and that he was simply the victim of a strange and, thus far, unexplained mistake (or, possibly, of a trick on the part of some truckler to the favor of railroad corporations).

Mr. C. has had the satisfaction of witnessing the Indiana Legislature pass the " Railroad Whistle Bill" in an amended form, i. e., in the shape that he put it through the Senate originally, and of having the Senate pass, unanimously, a Resolution that the "blunder" of the previous "act" was in no way chargeable to him. One would have supposed that Gov. Williams would have seen the absurdity of the bill in the form in which it seems to have come into his hands, but it appears he did not; and "Gover- nors" are not always "sharp" in the matter of language, any more than other people, as the Hoosier State, in common with others, has had occasion to discover.

I should not do justice to my feelings were I to omit to state that Mr. C. is himself an eminent specimen of an honorable and high-minded citizen. Though economical, he is not penurious; though desirous to make money, he is not oppressive to the poor and unfortunate ; though not, in name, a professor of religion, yet in heart he delights in all things good and lovely, and assists liberally in building up every worthy enterprise. He is a hearty and earnest friend of the temperance reform, and an active and uncompromising Republican. He possesses the unqualified re- spect of all his fellow-citizens, and is an honor to the town in which he resides, and to the county which, for well-nigh fifty years, has claimed him for her own. Although highly honored, thus far, by his fellow-citizens, the State will never know,what she has lost by neglecting to advance him to the post of State School Superintendent, for a genius so decidedly fresh and vig- orous when in the incxperience of untutored youth, as shown by his original inventive powers, in the way of penalties for violation of school law, would infallibly have wrought out radical and thor- ough reformation in all school appliances and methods, so that lads and lasses both in the near and the remote future would have revered and blessed his name as the ceaseless ages roll.

WILLIAM TAYLOR.

" William McKim laid out Spartansburg. William Dukes lived in the house where Taylor now lives. Elias Godfrey and Thomas Hart kept a grocery in the house now occupied by John H. Taylor. Mr. Fires built the house where John Wiggs now lives, and sold it to Stephen Barnes, who completed it, and occu- pied it till he died. In the war of 1812, many men went from our region to Norfolk or Portsmouth. We lived 200 miles from Norfolk. People used to drive their hogs thither to market. The country where we lived was level and sandy. The upper counties were broken, and the soil was good for wheat and tobacco. We lived east of Raleigh forty miles. We could hear the cannon roar at Raleigh on the Fourth of July. We were six weeks and two days on the road coming West. My oldest son and myself walked nearly all the way. We camped out every night but one. Jesse Jordan had come to Indiana, and stayed three or four years, and returned to Carolina for some money that was due him, and he came back to Indiana with us. We were well and enjoyed the trip first rate. We had two one-horse carts to haul our luggage in. We had a tent, and would throw our beds down on the leaves. We slept one night at the foot of the Blue Ridge. We started the last Sunday of April, and arrived at Arba June 8, 1836. We came the mail stage route a long way, then through Powell Valley, Cumberland Gap, etc. We crossed the Blue Ridge at Good Spur and Poplar Camp, and came through Crab Orchard, etc. We traveled nearly a week on the Blue Ridge. We could see houses on points of hills and away down in valleys where we could not guess how anybody could ever get to them. One place called Dry Ridge had no water for a long distance: We crossed the Ohio at Cincinnati, which seemed to me to be quite a large town, the largest I had ever seen. We did not stop long there, but drove through, and camped for the night. As we came through Raleigh, they were building the new State House. Jesse Jordan had $1,500 in North Carolina currency that he had to exchange because it would not pass in Indiana. He got United States

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HISTORY OF RANDOLPHI COUNTY.

bank notes, the only bills that would pass. I had my money in gold. I paid for my land in half-eagles-seventy half-eagles. I had in North Carolina 125 acres. I went back to Carolina once and stayed six weeks. Jesse Jordan's widow also went back a short time ago. She said the people seemed to be doing very well."

BRANSON ANDERSON, 1833.

" Settlers when we came, in 1833, were Jacob Chenoweth, in Ohio; Hezekiah Locke, on the Bailey place; Mason Freeman, on the Marquis place. John Foster came on the Griffis place a year or so after we came. [This is not the Joshua Foster who was in that vicinity many years before.] Mr. Farms had just put up a cabin on the James Ruby place ; had not moved into it yet. Smith Masterson lived on the Downing place, north of Dismal. James Griffis lived on the Williamson farm, and moved not long afterward to the Griffis place, on the Greenville State road."

ELISHA MARTIN.

" In June, 1832, in a race, molding brick with Silas Connell, I molded, from sun to sun, 25,148 brick, and he, 23,365. 1 was about twenty years old. My father-in-law scolded me; told me I should not have tried it, and that I could not stand it. He stood by me and kept me from working full speed, till 2 P. M., when he told me to "go it." Silas led me all the forenoon. A great crowd were looking on, and they bet two to one on Con- nell. By and by, the tide turned, and the bets became five to one for me, and I beat. People after that offered to bring men to beat me, but they never did. I had a man on his yard and he on mine. They set their watches just alike, and we begun to a second. We worked till dinner. I had my dinner brought to the yard ; took a few bites and went to molding again. Men said I molded forty-eight brick the last minute. They carried me to the house, washed me in whisky, and would not let me lie down till near morning. I went to work the third day after. The bet was only $10 on a side. Isrum Engle, of Union City, and Ezekiel Clough, of Jackson Township, lived at Cincinnati at the time, and know that I did what I claim to have done."

Mr. Martin was a brick molder, and has been for many years. He owns a good farm south of Winchester.

THOMAS SHALER. [BY JOSEPH C. HAWKINS. ]

" I had to go to mill at Ridgeville, from near Antiochi, Jay County, Ind., generally on horseback. I had to do the milling, while the older boys carried the mail from Winchester to Ft. Wayne. Thomas Shaler, who used to live near, but had moved to near Camden, came to mother's on his way to mill with a wagon and oxen. Ile persuaded her to have me go with him and get fifteen bushels of corn, and said he would bring home the meal for her ; so she sent me. Brother Ben had raised the corn at Joab Ward's, and I shelled it; got a horse there and took it to mill, and had the meal all ready. But Shaler had been getting drunk and fooling round, and he stayed three days. I determined to walk home and bring a horse and get my grist that way. But at last he got ready and started. (See Arthur McKew's Reminiscences.) He left my meal at William Welch's, and I took the grist home from there (John Adair's place south of Liber). Shaler was away about nine days, and his wife and family were at home starving. He was a drunken, shiftless fellow, boasting of being half-Indian. His wife was an excellent woman, with four chil- dren; all girls. She was there in the woods, ten miles from any settler. Their cabin had no fire-place, floor, nor chimney, no daubing nor chinking, and the snow was eight inches deep; everything was frozen up, and they had nothing to eat. She had burned some coal in one corner of the shanty, had made a sled, and was intending to take an ox, the sled, her four children, and a kettle with coals in it to keep the children from freezing to death, and to start for Mrs. Hawkins' cabin fifteen miles off, the nearest settler she knew. But her husband and young McKew

got to the cabin that night about midnight, with the provisions. Shaler and McKew cut the ice and crossed the Big Salamonie, near Judge Winters', but there was a stream called Big Branch, up which the water had set back from the Big Salamonie, over a wide space. The water had suddenly frozen, and then had sunk away, leaving the ice, and they could not get the oxen across in the night."

[NOTE .- This Tom Shaler was the same that James Porter found " squatted " on the land that Porter entered afterward, northwest part of Jackson Township, Randolph County. Shaler moved from there near to Liber, and soon after that to near Camden. This incident took place about 1833. Joseph Hawkins' father moved to Jay County in 1829. He died in 1833, and they were "roughing " it up there in the Jay County woods, a poor widow with a large family.]

JACOB JOHNSON, 1833.

" The first resident of Jackson Township is supposed to have been Philip Storms. He " squatted " on a piece of land east of my farm ; but a Mr. Fager entered the land from under him, and he then moved to Mississinewa crossing and remained there several years. It is also said that another person entered Mr. Storms' land there ; that he was very angry and threatened to shoot the intruder, but that they finally settled the matter amicably and that he moved elsewhere. He was living in the region in 1830, how much later is not now known, and if he had lived elsewhere in the township several years, he was certainly the first comer. Mr. Jacobs is thought by some to have been the first permanent settler in the township, but these things are " mighty hard to find out." Ishmael Bunch was a very early pioneer also.

" I (Johnson) lived in e rail-pen from May 3 to June 22. Our family were myself and wife and nine children, and we were as happy as need be. We made the floor of the rail-pen of bark, and renewed it twice. When the water would splash up through the bark, I would put in a new floor of the same sort.

The State road to Portland was laid out about 1838, only forty feet wide !

The first Justice in Jackson Township was James Wicker- sham.

The first couple married were David Vance and Sally Smith by Esq. Wickersham.

The first mill was erected by Jones, on Lowe's Branch, one and a half miles above me.

I built a horse-mill, then a water-mill, and afterward a saw- mill.

The grist-mill was run twenty years and the saw-mill ten years, but they are all rotted down now.

The graveyard on my place was begun about 1840.

The Indians were all gone but one, " Old Duck." He hunted and trapped and took his skins and furs to Greenville. JIe used to stay with Jacobs, at Harshman's, and with Andrew Debolt."

NOTE .- This " Duck " is spoken of in Jay County History as being familiar with the early settlers of that county. He seems to have been a clever, civil, honest Indian. At one time he was at a church trial, and when the witness began to testify " crosswise," he rose to leave, saying, "Me go; no much good" here, too much lie."

The author of Jay County History says (in substance) :

All early settlers are familiar with the name of the old In- dian, Doctor Duck, who remained in the county a long time after his tribe had moved to Kansas. He showed much skill in the treatment of diseases. * * He was religious and often ap- * peared to be praying to the Great Spirit. He attended meeting for preaching at Deerfield and the church trial afterward, which he left as stated above. He tried to cure John J. Hawking, a pioneer of Jay County, but did not succeed, though he lived with Mr. H. six months. About two weeks after Mr. H. died (March 15, 1832), the Indian visited his grave and spent

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nearly half a day there alone, apparently preaching and perform- ing wild ceremonies."

Settlers (that Mr. Johnson remembers) when he came were : Daniel B. Miller, Ward Township; Jacob Harshman, two miles west of Johnson's; Abram Harshman, same neighborhood ; Reu- ben Harshman, same neighborhood (died lately in Union City, Ohio) ; Andrew Debolt, Mount Holly, dead ; James Reeves, near Castle P. O., dead ; Amos Smith, near New Lisbon, gone long ago ; Samuel Skinner, near New Lisbon, gone long ago; John Skinner, near New Lisbon, gone long ago; James Willson, James Wickersham, etc.

John Johnson, his brother, came when he did, dying a year or so ago, aged eighty-eight years.

William Warren, James Warren, James Simmons, came soon after Mr. Johnson.

James Porter was living near New Pittsburg, and others had settled near Allensville, on the Mississinewa River.

ANDREW AKER.

" My trade as a merchant was extensive and various. I used to buy every commodity that was salable at that day. I bought produce of all kinds and shipped it on flat-boats down the Mis- sissinews, sending sometimes two or three boats at once, loaded with flour, bacon, apples, etc. We went to Logansport, Lafay- ette, etc., selling mostly, though not entirely, to Indian traders. Sales would be made on credit, and then we would go down at the time of the Indian payments, which were made once a year, generally in August or September, and get the money for the goods sold to them. The last time I went we had three boat loads. The boats were made by Joab Ward, who kept a boat-yard near what is now Ridgeville. He would make a boat all complete for an amount varying from $25 to $30, which would carry about one hundred barrels of flour.

"I lost my sight about 1836, and sold goods till 1838. I worked twenty-five years at pump-making. I had worked at it when young, and, trying it again after blindness came on, I found that I could do the work with success, and resumed the business. I have made and sold great numbers of pumps, work- ing all through the country, making forty at one time at Re- covery.

" Thomas Hanna kept a store at Winchester when I came there. Esq. Odle had owned a store before that ; Hanna's store was quite an extensive establishment for those days.

Paul W. Way set up a dry goods store afterwards, and Will- iam and Jesse Way began also. Michael Aker bought out my stock and followed me in the business, though he did not continue long.

The court house was up and covered when I came to Win- chester; David Wysong furnished the brick, and the lime was obtained at New Paris, or at Middleboro ; lime was not burned in this county till afterwards.

Joseph Hanchy had made pumps, hauling his tools with an ox team, and making them from farm to farm. He is the same man who planted nurseries in various places through the coun- try.

"Soon after I came here I bought 108 acres of John B. Wright and 100 acres of Charles Conway. I bought the Daniel Petty land east of town, of Oliver Walker, as also a lot in every square in town. I traded the lot in the north front with a build- ing on it for the farm I now live on (108 acres).

I traded 180 acres with s good house and barn and orchard and 50 acres cleared for 400 acres, and sold that in four or five years to Joshus Bond for $1,100.

"Ernestus Strohm began a cabinet shop, and I was in partner- ship with him for awhile. We made & sideboard worth $175 about 1838, the first costly piece of furniture made in the county. It is a splendid article-large, square, rather low, with a large framed glass at the middle of the top. I have it yet in & good state of preservation ; in fact, almost as nice and good as new.

It was the first thing that was made in that shop, and it was made to show what kind of work the shop could furnish.

"Some amusing. things would take place in those primitive times. Some such incidents occurred in my own experience.

Curtis Voris and a half-brother of his had moved out here from Greenville. He had some money to spare and he asked, " Who would be safe ?" The person told him, " Andrew Aker." So he came to me : "What per cent ?" "Six." "How long time ? " " A year." " All right," said he, "and I will trade out the interest." "Better yet," said I, "I will take your money. How much can you spare ?" " Two dollars and a half," was the rejoinder. That I was astonished is simply the truth. However, I took his money, the whole of it, and he kept his bargain by trading out the interest, all of it.

" A man from out North was trading one day, and having made a bill of (perhaps) $2, offered in payment a $5 bill. It was a base counterfeit, and I told him so. "Why," said he, "it is good; I got it from Hell." "Take it back there, then, it will not pass here." He meant a man with that name.

" One day, Old Samuel Emery, from the Mississinews (who died only a short time ago), came in with a roll of deer-skins. He was truly a rough-looking customer. His pants were buck- skin and ripped up nearly to the knee. He wore a straw hat, with the rim half torn off; his shoes were ragged and tied up with hickory bark ; and altogether he was as forlorn as one often sees. He wished to " trade out " his roll of buckskins. He got several articles, I reckoned up the account and the trade was nearly .even. He then said, "I wish to get a few more things, powder and lead and some flints, and I would like to get trusted." I spoke to Charlie Conway at the back end of the stove. "O," said he, " Sam Emery is all right, he is one of the substantial citizens out on the Mississinewa." He got his powder and things on credit and paid for them promptly according to agree- ment. After that time he did a large amount of trading at my store, always dealing fairly, like the honorable man that he was. But when I first set eyes on him as he entered the store with his roll of buckskins on his shoulder, he was a strange-looking cus- tomer indeed !

" The same man who loaned me the $2.50 also bought a cow of me for $8. He agreed to pay me for the creature in two or three months. He paid me, though it took a much longer time than that. He made the payment in small sums, sometimes as low as 123 cents, and never more than 37} cents at any one time. But he paid me fully after a while.

Shortly after I came to Winchester I built a brick house, getting the brick of David Wysong at $2.50 per thousand deliv- ered. Mr. Wysong died only two or three years ago, about eighty years old.

The pump business is carried on at present by my sons-in- law, Knecht and Thomas. They do not make now, but buy and sell, purchasing sometimes as high as 4,000 pumps at one time."

MRS. JESSIE ADDINGTON, 1834.

"Joab Ward and Meshach Lewallyn lived near Ridgeville. There were no houses from here to Winchester. Thomas Add- ington (not Rev. Thomas) occupied a cabin near where George Addington now lives. William Addington had come on in March, and had settled one mile north. There were no settlers east or west that I know of.

Benjamin Lewallyn and a Mr. Jones, as also James Addington (uncle to Jesse), had settled on the Mississinewa, below Ridgeville. That town was not begun till long afterward. People used to bring flour, bacon, apples, potatoes, apple-butter, etc., to Ridge- ville to Ward's, and buy of him a flat-boat to send them down the river to market. Mr. Addington has bought of Mr. Ward apples supposed to be spoiled for trade by being frozen. We had to go to White River or Mississinewa to get help in raisings or log-rollings.

"Thomas Addington (cousin of Jesse, son-in-law of Joseph

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IHISTORY OF RANDOLPII COUNTY.

Addington, on Sparrow Creek) had moved out here just before, had built him a cabin and his family (and we, too) moved in with- out chimney or floor. We stayed there, cooking outdoors, for a month, till ours was built. We moved in as soon as our cabin was covered, having nothing but log walls and a clapboard roof. We cooked by a log-heap fire for several weeks, till a chimney was built, some time in August.

" Religious meetings used to be held in private dwellings around the settlement by the Methodists. There was no school for several years. There were several other Addingtons, father and uncles of Jesse Addington."

ROBERT MURPHY.

" The county was new. Very few settlers were here in 1834. James Griffis lived on the Williamson place; Smith Masterson lived west about a mile; William Kennon lived on State road, near Bartonia (father of Thomas S. Kennon); John Dixon lived one and a half miles northwest of me; Green resided on the State road. Kennon and Griffis had been here two years. Masterson came the same year but earlier than I did.

There were no roads, only "blazes." There were paths, tracks and "blazes." Hill Grove and Spartansburg both were towns, but few houses in either.

For milling, we had to go to Richmond or Stillwater. There was a mill at McClure's, which is standing yet. In dry times, the water would fail. We had to go to Piqua, or Trcy, or Dayton, for salt. Andrew Kennedy (Congressman) once said that the time would come when a bushel of wheat would bring a barrel of salt. No one believed him, but the day has come.

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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 33

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