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 62

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 62

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Many came from the Old Country with only a solitary pack- horse, and that horse supplied their need for weeks, and some- times for months. A settler would often lose his only pony and would be obliged to dig along with none, because he would be too poor to get another one.

Often settlers would move into the woods in the winter, so as to take advantage of the sugar-making season before deadening the splendid sugar trees, which were so abundant in many places. One family who moved into Stony Creek Township nearly at its first settlement, consisting of a young man and his active, robust wife and her young brother, a lad of sixteen years, had a very serious misfortune almost at their first coming. Only three or four days after their arrival, while he was splitting clapboards with a "frow," it glanced into his knee and gave such a fearful wound that he was helpless on the puncheons of their camp floor for six weeks or more. They had come in February, and the heroic wife and her helpful brother, no wise dismayed, set to making sugar. They had brought with them four large kettles on purpose for that very service, and, by the coming of warm weather, the woman and the lad had succeeded in making four or five barrels of excellent tree sugar, which answered a splendid purpose during the coming summer months in exchange for corn and other supplies. Their only horse, also, died shortly, but one was obtained of an uncle in Wayne County, with which they contrived to pass the summer. The husband is dead, but the heroic wife is still alive to tell the tale of their early trials.

Another settler some years before that made a great quantity of sugar, and, on taking it to Cincinnati, found the market over- stocked and had to bring part of it home again, and, being a mechanic, he set a barrel of sugar open in the shop for anybody to eat when he chose to do so, and in that way he contrived to get rid of his surplus sugar.

Many of the vory earliest residents were merely transient,

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making no "improvement" beyond barely a cabin for temporary occupancy, opening no clearing, but subsisting by hunting and trapping, living on the flesh and bartering the hides for such nec- essaries as had to be purchased. It took little to do such fami- lies. Johnnycake and hominy and venison and other wild game furnished them an ample subsistence. And, when permanent settlers began to plant their stakes and build their cabins, these "squatters " would "pack up their traps" and " shove out" for some newer region. One of the Western pioneers declared that he would not live nearer to any neighbor than fifteen miles, and another, that he wished to be so far from settlers that he had to "camp out" at least one night in going to visit them. A neigh- bor only three or four miles distant was "close by," and a woman thought it no hardship to start out of a morning on foot, with a babe in her arms, and two or three others trotting and prancing along by her side, to meeting, three or four miles, or to visit a neighbor at the same distance.

For instance, when the Peacocks and the Hills settled in Jeri- cho, in the spring of 1818, Mr. Kennedy was living near Mt. Zion Meeting-honse, south of Nathaniel Kemp's. They were the nearest settlers to the Jericho people, and so they would " neigh- bor" together upon a path marked by blazed trees through the woods. When Rev. Thomas Wiley first settled near New Lisbon, north of what is now Union City, their nearest neighbor, outside of their own group, was Mr. Fowler, one mile south of Union City, and those "neighbors" used to visit back and forth, because they lived so close together, you know.

And it is the uniform declaration of all early settlers that the society of acquaintances was much more highly prized, and wel- comes were far more hospitable in those days, than is the case in these later years.

But when men " came to stay." the next thing after building & hous?, or, oftener, a camp, was to make a "clearing." and plant a field of corn. The man and larger boys would set promptly to girdling the larger trees, "twelve inches and over," and under that size, to cut down and pile and burn. The woman and the girls and younger boys would pile brush and grub, and fire the heaps, and in a few weeks, by the time for corn planting, early or late, a sightly clearing would appear, and the precious Beed would be buried in the earth, forerunner of the golden har- vest. Sometimes seven acres of ground would be prepared and planted at the first planting, by a single family. With the "buying " propensities implanted in the present artificial gener- ation, these methods would seem almost like starvation, but wants were then few and easily supplied. There were no roads and nearly no markets. The towns were few and small-mere log hamlets in the vast and endless forest. When the first settlers came to Randolph, Cincinnati was a little straggling town; Richmond was a hamlet of perhaps twenty houses; Newport, Winchester, Muncie, Indianapolis and hundreds of other places, now fresh and thriving iowns, had never yet been thought of. Nineteen-twentieths of the whole State of Indiana were still vir- gin forest, and to get into or out of these new settlements was a task indeed. Iron and salt must in some way be gotten, and they were obtained, but it was "by the hardest." One resident, still living, declares that his father once paid $18 for a barrel of Balt. Another one, now an old man, says that a barrel of salt which he once got from Dayton stood him in $11.

These prices are, of course, vory extreme cases, yet $4 and $5 per barrel were only ordinary prices. And iron, too, and articles made of iron, were very expensive. But the products of the farm were much of the time excessively low. Pork and wheat and corn and cattle, almost the only things available to a farmer, were so low as scarcely to repay the cost or trouble of hauling or driving to market. A pioneer of Central Ohio, who came from Eastern New York as late as 1839, had, in the fall of 1841, two crops of corn and of oats on haud-the oats in the stack, and the corn, one crop in the shock and the other in the crib. When asked by an Eastern visitor why he did not market his grain, " What's the use? " he said; "eorn is only 10 cents at Columbus and oats 12 cents, forty-five miles away, and that will not pay for hauling them to market," which was probably the fact.

In a neighboring county, as late as 1842 or 1843, in a diary

kept by an observant citizen, facts are noted from time to time, to wit:

"Eggs are very scarce and hard to get-6 cents; butter ie scarce and rising rapidly-8 cents: corn high, hardly any to be got-price, 15 cents; pork (net), brisk, good business doing -- $2 a hundred."

Early settlers of this county have sold pork at Richmond at $1 a hundred net, and half trade at that. A resident who came in about 1842 was offered pork, good and well-fatted, at, 75 cente cash per (net) hundred, and declined to purchase, because, as he said, he could do better. Another who was born in Randolph, and is still a citizen, says that he has hauled hams and shoulders to Cincinnati and sold them for $2 a hundred. An ancient resi- dent of Wayne County assured the writer of this article that he had tried and tried in vain to sell as good wheat as ever grew for 123 cents per bushel to obtain money to pay his taxes.

An emigrant to Randolph County as late as 1846 bought a cow with a calf ten weeks old, fat and fine (which now alone would almost or quite bring the money), for $10.

He bought a dressed hog, weighing 212 pounds, for $4.25. A year or two before that (fall of 1844), the same man bought an excellent cow (which, if he had now, he would not sell for $50) for $9, and he sold the same cow for $7.

Beef during those times was sold at 13 to 2 cents per pound. It is a curi us fact, however, that tallow was even then 8 to 10 cents a pound, whereas now, while beef is anywhere from 5 to 15 cents, tallow only is from 5 to 6 cents a pound-lower than beef ribs! The quantity of tallow has vastly increased, but the de- mand for it has decreased still more. Then tallow was from two to five times as high as ordinary beef in the large, now the tal- low is the very cheapest part of the whole animal.

For many years, the farmers of Randolph did, not as they wished, but as they could, and labor-saving inventions and other improvements were but slow in finding their way into what was then the far West. And in the stock. too, the settlers had to be satisfied with the commonest cattle, sheep, swine, etc. "Elm-poel- ers" for hogs. that, when fattened, would weigh 150 pounds, were good enough, and a 200-pound hog was splendid. There were many wild hogs in the woods, and it was one of the diversions of the time to go out on horseback, with gun and dog, to chase and shoot their winter's pork, with a horse and boy, moreover, to hitch to the gambrels of the dead hogs and haul them to the open road, whence the wagon or the sled would take several at once to the dressing-place at home. And the cat- tle and the horses were of the commonest kind. Many, in- deed, did their best with the "common stock," and not a few fine specimens of the " native breeds " were to be seen, showing what care and feeding will accomplish. But, as time rolled on, men saw what ,older settlements in Ohio and elsewhere had done, and gradually "improvement " began to be the order of the day in Randolph, as well as in other places. It is, in fact, true that but few of the Randolph farmers have at any time been noted for extensive handling of improved breeds, most preferring to go to Wayne County or to Ohio to get what animals they wished. But the result of the gradual movement has been that the whole matter of domestic stock has, in the course of years, been almost wholly revolutionized, and the elm-peeler hog and the scrub cat- tle are rarely, if ever, seen. The farmers of Randolph, moreover, have kept pace to the full with the onward march of things, and the fields, and the sheds, and the dwellings, of the thrifty and wide-awake residents are filled with all manner of machinery and implements without number or end, to make labor easier and more productive.

Stock Improvement .- James Moorman is thought to have brought nearly the first bull to Randolph County of blooded stock from Kentucky, in 1853. Benjamin Hunt, west of Lynn, is known to have handled Durham blooded stock on his farm about 1840 or 1842. Hle had also black Berkshire hogs even earlier than that. William D. Frazee had fine blooded cattle. He exhibited, in 1858, a splendid Durham cow, which, with only poor keeping. gave nine gallons of milk per day, and whose calf at a year old, without ever having eaten an ear of corn, was estimated at 1,000 to 1,100 pounds' weight. Other

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HISTORY OF RANDOLPH COUNTY.

cattle-owners were Charles Stevenson, below Huntsville; Isom Sedgwick, near Huntsville; John Brooks, west of Winchester; Anthony Way (one of the leading stock men), etc. William Starbuck and Nelson Pegg, near Buena Vista, have dealt in shorthorns. James Branson, of Stony Creek, first had Jersey cattle. In sheep, Joshua Johnson, of Buena Vista, and Isaac Farquhar, of Huntsville, have owned fine stock. As to swine, Benjamin Hunt was one of the very earliest. Nelson Pegg, Buena Vista; Elza McIntyre, Maxville; Messrs. Graves, Morton and Kennon, Bartonia; - Botkin, Farmland, and others have been noted. Thomas Smith Kennon has dealt in fast horses, and has a private track on which to test and train and show the speed and mettle and bottom of the horses which he may own. In 1882, Samuel Conkling, living west of Union City, had one bull and a cow and some heifers and the finest mare in the county. She took, afterward, the first premium at the Ohio State Fair; the cattle were shorthorns.

The first improved swine were "black Berkshires." Who first introduced them or when is not now known. Peter Stidham, of Greensfork; Esquire Graves, of Bartonia, as also George Parent, near Union City, in Ohio, have been prominent in deal- ing in blooded swine, as also in sheep. Messrs. Morton and Kunkel, near Bartonia, have also done something in that line.

The first nursery in the region was by Joseph Cole, in Darke County, Ohio. Afterward, George Gephart, south of Union City, established a nursery, and after him, Benjamin Buckingham, west of Union City. Levi Hill, of Greensfork, south of Spar- tansburg, is carrying on the nursery business to a considerable extent. Mr. Woodbury got his trees in Wayne County.

Among stockmen Jeremiah Middleton, William M. Camp- bell, Wilson Anderson and James Ruby, of Greensfork, deal largely in swine.

Joseph Hewitt, near Neff; Gallaher, south of Neff; Israel Smith, son of Amos Smith, in Stony Creek, have handled much stock, some of them having been engaged in raising and selling for twenty-five years or more. Armfield Thornburg, in 1839, owned what was judged to be the best horse then in the county. He kept the animal two years, charging $8 per colt, and clearing $450 the first year. The horse was taken into Iowa to Black Hawk's Pur- chase, and afterward to Illinois, and sold for $265. The horse was of the Bertrand stock, raised in Clinton County, Ohio.

Samuel Amburn and Isaac J. Smith, east of Windsor, are good farmers. Smith especially raises great numbers of swine, owning sometimes twenty-five brood sows in a single year.

Stony Creek, as also Nettle Creek, is a good township, finely watered by streams and springs, and well suited both for stock and grain. At the present time, Calvin Hinshaw, north of Lynn, is very prominent among owners of swine. He has a large herd of very fine animals of the Poland-China variety, selling them at high prices.

Among farmers who have handled fancy stock in years past have been Jonathan Johnson, Nathan Johnson, William Johnson, Anthony Way, Benjamin Hunt, David Clevinger, Frank Crunor, Paul Beard, Lemuel Wiggins, besides others not known.

Nathan Johnson used to deal extensively in improved stock, mostly short-horned cattle. Joel A. Newman was engaged con- siderably in the cattle business, but he has mostly quit. Daniel Engle owns a large stock of cattle and swine. Jonathan Johnson and Elijah Nichols were stockmen thirty years ago. Isaiah Hockett dealt in Berkshire hogs thirty or forty years ago; he was one of the very earliest to deal in improved breeds. Lemuel Wiggins, at Losantville, has been a large cattle-owner; he owns twelve orchards on his various farms. John C. Clevinger brought twelve head of cattle (males and females) from Warren County, Ohio, about 1855; he sold them for $60 to $100 each before the war. Henry C. Thornburg, Mr. Driscoll and Thomas W. Reece bought one each at $100. Mr. Reece had improved stock later, from Wayne County, Ind. William Adkins brought swine, chiefly Poland-China, from Butler County, Ohio. One male, three years old, was sold by Adkins for $58. A. J. Day, in later years, sold many pigs. Marion Hewitt has fed fifty to sixty head of swine in a year. William Hewitt raises 100 to 120 head; J. C. Clevinger often has 100 head, etc.

These men deal also largely in cattle. Horses and sheep throughout the region are about on an average. The stock of horses is good, and there are many splendid animals owned. Sheep are but few, and of but moderately improved stock.

William Hewitt has raised considerable fruit: he sold 300 bushels of winter fruit in 1880. Marion Hewitt also sells quite a quantity of fruit. William Peacock and William A. Macy, of Wayne Township, have orchards of excellent fruit.

John T. Thernburg has engaged extensively in bee culture, but, during the winter of 1880-81, his bees died extensively, many of his hives being killed by the severity of the cold. Bee culture is low, the swarms have largely perished, and people have become greatly discouraged in the matter. William John- son, of Washington Township, is employed in bee culture, with much interest and skill and gratifying success; he has obtained Queen bees from Alabama and the " Holy Land " for the improve- ment of his stock of bees, as also whole swarms from Alabama, obtaining, in 1880, six from that State.

FRUIT INPROVEMENT.

The first orchard is thought to have been planted by Henry H. Way, near Simpletown, west of Winchester, perhaps before 1820. Many orchards were early started, very few of them, how- over, being "grafted fruit." The first nurseries were established by one Hinshaw, an eccentric genius who traveled through the country, sowing apple-seeds, making pumps and what not, akin to "Johnny Appleseed," of Jay County memory, if, indeed, he were not the same person. (He was not the same, but one of kindred spirit and similar practice.)

One of the first to undertake the improvement of fruit was William Doty, near Buena Vista, who afterward removed to Farmland. Asahel Stone began a nursery, from which several orchards were planted. John Howard, west of Buena Vista, planted several nurseries; he seemed well skilled in his business, but he did more good for the public than for himself, as he was given to drink.

G. D. Huffman commenced & fruit farm in 1873, and has now forty acres planted: 2,500 apple trees, 800 pear trees, two acres of grapes, with 2,000 grape vines, besides other kinds of fruit, are found in his grounds. The products of his orchard and vine- yard are just beginning to appear. He had 200 bushels of apples last year, and several tons of grapes. William Snyder has 500 acres of apples, begun in 1873. William Botkin has grown fruit considerably.

Several nurseries have existed from time to time in different places in the county. Levi Hill, of Spartansburg, is spending much time and money in establishing himself in the fruit tree business.

Among "beemen " may be named John Somers, near Win . chester; Benjamin Puckett, who had a large stock of bees; Thornburg, of Winchester, extensive business; Rev. Pierce, of Winchester, had a large stock; James McNeal, south of Win- chester; William Johnson, of Johnson's Station, Poultry fan- ciers have been N. H. Ward, of Winchester; Mote Mills, Win- chester, formerly with Joshua Jolinson, of Buena Vista.

William and Marion Hewitt, of Stony Creek, and Lemuel Wiggins, of Nettle Creek, have done creditably in the fruit line.

HORTICULTURE.

No horticultural society had ever existed in Randolph County, until January 14, 1881. The State association was organized in 1860, holding its nineteenth session in 1870. Several citizens of Randolph County have been connected with the State movement, Gen. Asahel Stone being, perhaps, one of the foremost. Daniel E. Huffinan has been connected with it since 1866; he was a member of the Executive Committee for years, and is now one of the Vice Presidents. Hon. W. E. Murray, Gen. A. Stone and William Botkin are members of the association from Randolph at present.

The annual meetings for the Stato are held at various points -at Dublin, in 1879; at Crawfordsville, in 1880, and the society will meet at Muncie in 1881. Though there had been no public organized movement for improvement in horticulture, flori-

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culture, etc., in Randolph County, yet much was done in a private way. The contrast between the beautiful shrubbery, creeping plants, house flowers and what not of the present day and the "old time" dark and bare honse walls and the naked dooryards of primitive days, is indeed wonderful. But still only the bright dawn of the morning of beauty and delight has barely be- gun to break over the darkness of the past. The sublime dec- laration of Holy Writ, "He has made "everything beautiful in its time," is only faintly realized.

It is a sad thought that money and labor enough to have made this world of ours a very paradise of unspeakable beauty from end to end of the civilized world have been squandered for ages upon ages upon the low and useless, and even base, human passions and propensities. A single farmer, an old settler of Randolph County, declared, not long ago, that he and his family of several boys had spent more money for tobacco alone than would suffice to pay for his farm of eighty acres. Only think of the pictures, the musical instruments, the ornaments of beauty and skill, the shrubbery, the flowers and the articles of adorn- ment of every imaginable sort, that that $4,000 would have pro- cured for that tobacco-devouring group during the past fifty years.

And yet men and women will smoke and chew tobacco and drink spirits and do abundant other similar and even worse things, lavishing money like water upon foolish, useless and hurt- ful practices and indulgences, dragging the race ever downward toward sensuality and loathsome corruption and crime. God speed the day when, as the wild prairies are clothed with end- less and bewildering beauty, so the haunts of men, where the objects of natural beauty have been ruthlessly destroyed, may come to be robed in the splendor of cultivated art spread abroad on every hand.

County Horticultural Society .- January 14, 1882, a meeting was held in the grand jury room at the court house, in Winches- ter, to organize a horticultural society. Hon. William F. Mur- ray was chosen President of the meeting, and D. E. Huffman, Secretary. On motion, a committee was appointed to present a constitution and by-laws, consisting of J. P. Lesley, Nelson Pegg and Obadiah Fields. After discussions and remarks by William Snydor, D. E. Hoffman, Jesse Willmore, E. Hiatt, etc., the committee reported a constitution and by-laws which were adopted by sections:

Name-Randolph County Horticultural Society.

Object-Horticulture, including fruit growing, shrubbery, gardening, beautifying homes, etc.

Officers-President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer and Executive Committee.

Meetings-(Annual) first Saturday in December, at 10 A. M. Other Meetings-First Saturday of each month, and at other times by adjournment or appointment.

Membership-$1 annually; women free.

Members-William Snyder, Nelson Pegg, B. F. Willmore, Obadiah Fields, Amos Lesley, Ephraim Hiatt, D. E. Hoffinan, W. E. Murray, Strother Brumfield, Jesse W. Willmore, John W. Jarnagan, J. P. Lesley.

Meeting adjourned to meet the first Saturday in February, 1882.

Society met February 4, 1882 and among other business, permanent officers were chosen as follows: President, Hon. William E. Murray; Vice President, Nelson Pegg; Secretary, J. P. Lesley; Treasurer, William Snyder; Executive Committee, Jesse Willmore, Ephraim Hiatt, D. E. Hoffman.

The President delivered a brief address, a communication was read from W. H. Ragan, Secretary of the State Horticultural So- ciety. J. P. Lesley read an instructive paper upon fruit trees; sevoral new members joined the society, and an adjonrnment was had to Saturday, March 4, at 1:30 P. M.

March 4, 1882, society met upon adjournment. A communi- cation was read from W. H. Ragan, Secretary of the State Horti- cultural Society, under date of February 20, 1882. The time of meeting was changed to the second Saturday of each month. Specimens of apples, very fine, were exhibited as follows: Roman Beauty, Uriah Davis; Wine Sap, White Pippin, Never Fail,

Newtown Pippin. Nelson Pegg; Red Romanite, Jesse Willmore. Methods of grafting were explained and illustrated by David Huston. An essay on apple culture was read by Obadiah Fields. Remarks were made by Jesse Willmore and Nelson Pegg. D. E. Hoffman presented a list of varieties for an orchard of 100 trees-three Early Harvest, two Red Astrachan, two Early Tren- ton, three Fall Wine, three Rambo, four Maiden's Blush, two Lowell, three Twenty-Ounce, two Belmont, twenty-five Ben Davis, ten Roman Beauty, ten Smith's Cider, ten Wine Sap, five Wagner, five Tallman's Sweet, three Baldwin, three Willow Twig, three Grimes' Golden, two Roman Stem. For a commer- cial orchard, fewer varieties and more Ben Davis and Roman Beauty.

David Huston presented another list-three Yellow June, two Bailey's Sweet, four Early Harvest, two Tallman's Sweet, four Red Astrachan. eight Roman Stem, two Daniel Apple, eight Wine Sap, two Fall Wine, six Roman Beanty, six Maiden Blush, six Smith Cider, six Rambo, four Wagner. three Fall Pippin, four Yellow Bellflower, three R. I. Greening, four Ben Davis, three Seek-no-further, four Never-Fail, three Spitzenberg, four Baldwin, three Red Romanite, four Tapehocken, two White Pippin. Marion Harter recommended the Esopus Spitzenberg and American Golden Russet.

A deep interest was manifested throughout, and the members were greatly encouraged. Additional members, John Commons, Harvey Hiatt and Marion Harter. Jesse Willmore was appointed essayist; subject, "Forestry and Transplanting Trees." Ad- journed till the second Saturday in April.

Society met April 8, 1882. New member, I. J. Farquhar. Essay on Forestry by Jesse Willmore, with remarks by Messrs. Farquhar, Murray, Fields, Huffman. J. P. Lesley read a paper on "Orchard Culture, " full of facts and suggestions. D. E. Hoffinan essayist for next meeting. Society adjourned to meet at the residence and in the grove of D. E. Hoffman on the second Saturday in May, 1882.

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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 62

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