USA > Indiana > Vigo County > History of Vigo county, Indiana, with biographical selections > Part 27
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HISTORY OF VIGO COUNTY.
Benjamin F. Swofford, M. D., born in Randolph county, N. C. (time forgotten), crossed the Wabash river December 4, 1834, lived for many years in Fayette township. Sanford S. Ripley, born in Vigo county, Lost Creek township December 19, 1842; farmer. Joseph Hearn, born in Sugar Creek township, Vigo county, Ind., February 1, 1826; farmer. George Grimes, Loudon county, Va .; came to Clay county, fall of 1841; now a resident of Terre Haute. William Beale, born in Jackson county, Tenn .; came to Indiana in . 1830; lives in Terre Haute. Samuel Jones, born in Vigo county, Ind., November 21, 1842; son of Uncle Jesse Jones, an old timer; Samuel was several times elected trustee of his township, and was a candidate for county treasurer in 1884, but was defeated. Will- iam R. McKeen, born in Prairie Creek township, Vigo county, Ind., October 12, 1829; president of the Vandalia system of rail- roads. William T. Pittinger, born in Ross county, Ohio, April 22, 1824, came here in 1827 to Fayette township; farmer; post-office, Sanford, Vigo county. John W. Douglass, born in Lebanon county, Penn., December 8, 1818; raised in Frederick county, Va .; came here in 1841. William G. Jenckes, born in Lost Creek town- ship, January 7, 1836; farmer. James M. Turner, born in Spencer county, Ky., January 31, 1836; when arrived here, one year of age; father's name, John W. Turner.
Wilson Naylor, born in Adams county, Ohio, December 5 1828; came to Indiana when three years of age; family settled in Vermillion county, Ind .; came to Vigo in 1864. Charles M. Warren, born in Terre Haute (he thinks) some time in 1840; banker. Samuel T. Reese, born in Vigo county, Ind., February 22, 1824; lumberman. Henry T. Rockwell, born in Tioga county, N. Y., March 11, 1815; came to Indiana in 1820; raised in Parke county ; lived in Vigo county since 1835; Terre Haute; oculist. Perry S. Westfall, born in Parke county, Ind., at Roseville, December 18, 1834; came to this county in 1840. John B. Tolbert, born in Terre Haute, August 6, 1843. Charles B. Brokaw, born in Vincennes, Ind., September 20, 1830; came to Terre Haute in 1856; engaged all the time since with his brother, George B. Brokaw, in the carpet business. Isaac Deiter, born in Miami county, Ohio, June 11, 1834; came to this county October 10, 1835. G. Foster Smith, born in Vincennes, December 27, 1824; came to Terre Haute August 30, 1842. Benjamin F. Rogers, born in Nelson county, Ky., February, 29, 1832; came here in 1839; settled in Sullivan county; came to Vigo county in 1840; farmer; Terre Haute. Wesley H. Hull, born in Sullivan county, Ind., June 24, 1824 ; came to Vigo county in 1829; farmer. Robert A. Gilcrease, born in Washington county, Ind., May 25, 1820; came to Vigo county November 20, 1822; settled in Honey Creek township; farmer. Isaac Ball, born in Elizabethtown,
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HISTORY OF VIGO COUNTY.
August 29, 1826; came here in 1842. Mrs. Rich Hebb, formerly Harriet Cochran, relict of Rich. Hebb (who came here in 1835, from Maryland), was born in Fayette county, Penn., November 27, 1822; came here in 1838; married to Mr. Hebb in 1841; now lives in the city. Mrs. Derexa Barbour, formerly of Whitcomb; born in Preble county, Ohio, May 1, 1820; came to Clinton in 1829; married to Hon. C. W. Barbour in 1840. Residence in Fayette township. William Paddock, born in Clarke county, Ohio, near 1818; came to Vigo and settled in Prairie Creek township; formerly auditor of Vigo county; now engaged in milling. Lemuel Surrell, born in Queen Anne's county, Md., October 16, 1816; moved to Terre Haute in 1837. E. Duncan Jewett, born in this county; forty-six years old; merchant. Eli B. Hamilton, forty-one years old. Charles W. Williams, thirty years old; clerk of the Terre Haute Gas Company. John W. Smith, fifty-eight years old; an old Mexican soldier. Wiley Black, farmer; fifty-three years old. John B. Goodman, farmer; fifty-eight years old. Caleb Jackson, farmer; sixty-two years old. Jackson Cox, farmer ; sixty-five years old. Webster W. Casto, farmer; fifty-one years old. Harrison Denny, farmer; sixty years old. Mrs. L. L. Denny, fifty years old. Marion McQuilkin, farmer; forty- three years old. W. W. Watkins, farmer; fifty-four years old. James Hook, born in Pennsylvania, aged seventy years; in Vigo county forty-eight years ; contractor. O. J. Innis, born in Pennsyl- vania; came to Parke county in 1843; fifty-eight years old. Thomas Hannon, born in Pennsylvania; sixty-seven years old; been here forty-seven years. John L. Humaston, New York; sixty-five years old; been here forty-one years. H. D. Milns, born in England; farmer ; seventy years old; been here fifty-two years. George G. Boord, born in Kentucky; eighty-two years old; been here sixty-three years. H. K. Wise, born in Pennsylvania; aged eighty-three years; came to Vincennes in 1824; was here sixty years ago.
Isaac Beauchamp, born in Kentucky; eighty years old; came here fifty-seven years ago. Henry Boyll, was born in Kentucky; farmer; sixty years old; came here fifty-seven years ago. Abram Baum, was born in Kentucky; seventy-one years old; came here fifty-three years ago. Philip Staub, born in Germany; eighty- seven years old; been in America fifty-nine years. John Jackson, born in Illinois; sixty-five years old; been here sixty-four years. Stephen Hedges, born in Kentucky; sixty-four years old; been here thirty-four years. Edward S. Hussey, born in Baltimore; seventy- one years old; been here fifty-five years. Samuel Dodson, farmer, sixty-seven years old; been here forty-one years. John Ray, born in Ohio; seventy-four years old; been here sixty-seven years. A. W. Sheets, born in Vincennes; seventy-three years old; been here sixty-five years. J. A. Littlejohn, born in Kentucky; sixty-one
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HISTORY OF VIGO COUNTY.
years old; been here forty-six years. William Peppers, born in Ohio; seventy years old; been here fifty-two years. Thomas A. Reed, born in Ohio; seventy-one years old; been here sixty-nine years. James M. Sanford, born in New York; sixty-five years old; been here forty years. William H. Chadwick, born in Vermont; car- penter; seventy-one years old; been here fifty years. David W. Rankin, born in Pennsylvania; seventy-four years old; been here fifty years. T. C. Buntin, born in Vincennes; president of Terre Haute Savings Bank; seventy years old; been here forty years. Joseph O. Jones, born in New York; seventy-one years old; been here sixty-nine years. Elisha Sibley, born in New York; seventy one years old; been here sixty-nine years. Jesse Lee, tailor, born in Virginia; seventy-two years old; been here fifty-three years. Benjamin F. Havens, born in Indiana; forty-six years old; been here eighteen years. Samuel C. Preston, born in Putnam county, Ind .; thirty-nine years old; been here fourteen years. John A. Hall, farmer; seventy-four years old; been in Indiana fifty-five
years. Mrs. Bishop (widow of Cyrus W. Bishop), sixty years old; been here thirty-eight years. Mrs. M. M. Riddle, forty-six years old; been here twenty years. Peter Malcolm, farmer; seventy- seven years old; been here forty years. J. W. Smith, farmer, seventy-five years old; been here sixty-four years. H. L. Sin er, farmer; seventy-three years old; been here sixty-three years. George E. Hedges, carpenter; fifty-six years old; been here forty- five years. Peter Lyons, farmer; seventy-two years old; been here fifty-five years. William Huffman, eighty-five years old; been here fifty-six years. William Clark, barber; sixty-five years old; been here forty-six years. Charles C. Knapp, contractor; seventy- two years old; been here fifty years. Harvey Evans, farmer; sixty- seven years old; been here sixty-six years. Mrs. Alice Fischer, forty-nine years old; been here twenty-five years. Alfred Pegg, farmer; sixty-four years old; been here forty-eight years. Mrs. Ann Pegg, fifty-eight years old; been here forty-seven years. Mrs. Elizabeth N. Buckingham, sixty-nine years old; been here forty- five years.
Peter B. Allen was one of the early settlers, and soon became one of the prominent men of Vigo county. The family arrived here June 4, 1819. His children in the order of births were Catharine, Henry, Ira, Myron H., Amanda, Peter B., Adaline, Harriet and Chloe. Adaline married Britton M. Harrison, both dead; had three children: George, Porter and Edward. Amanda married Silas Hoskins; family all dead except Eliza, living in Wisconsin. Chloe married Carlton Belt; they had four children.
The great old wooden clock brought here by Peter Allen now is in the printing office of George M. Allen, The Express. It is
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HISTORY OF VIGO COUNTY.
not only a curiosity, but it has an interesting history as well as any of the other pioneers. By canal and flatboat and packhorse it made the long trip successfully, and was one, if not the first of its kind in the county. It is quite tall, and if there had been houses there with ceilings to the rooms it would have had trouble in finding one tall enough in which to stand. But the early cabins ran to the roof as a rule, and by putting it under the low peak it could in this way be put up. It told the time in Mr. Allen's house faithfully until he died, when it was sold at the sale, and for years it did duty for strangers, until Edward Allen, grandson of Peter, became grown and heard the history of grandfather's clock, and went and purchased it, giving in exchange a new, high-priced brass clock, and now back in its old family it merrily is ticking away, no doubt good yet to keep the time for Ed's children, grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren.
When that clock came west, few as were the people here, clocks and watches were comparatively fewer then than now. If the sun would shine men could look at it and know very closely the time of day. The women had marks, generally at the door by which they counted the time and regulated their meals, and the blowing of the dinner horn. At night or cloudy weather they had to guess at it the best they could. Nothing was then, as now, cooked " by the clock." In the night watches, in extreme cases of sickness, they would roughly estimate the time by the burning of the tallow dip, if they could afford one, if not, they made out the best they could. It was probably quite a time after the original settlement before there was a man in the county who carried even a bull's eye watch, with its silver case upon case that from the size of a small saucer would peal off something like a hard boiled egg. At the beginning of this century watches were scarce and expensive as well as cumbersome and crude.
Fifty Years Ago .- While the story of Gen. Peter Allen's old clock goes back over seventy years ago it induces the following reminiscences that run back only half a century :
Fifty years ago the flint and steel were used in many a farmer's household for kindling the fires. Matches, not so plentiful as now, were called " locofocos," a name also for a time applied to the Democratic party.
The spinning-wheel hummed and buzzed in many houses. Far- mers raised flax and hemp and wore their own "home-spun " and home-dyed.
Gentlemen wore ruffled bosoms, "stocks " in place of cravats and high shirt collars. False bosoms, termed "dickeys" tied on with strings, served such as would make a pretense of wearing a shirt.
The " stock " was a collar of steel encircling the neck, covered with silk or satin and having a permanent bow in front.
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HISTORY OF VIGO COUNTY.
Shoemakers in the country made everybody's shoes and never kept their word. The village tailor sewed baggy trousers and black coats, generous in creases, and our fathers wore them with contented and placid minds. A suit of clothes a year was the aver- age limit.
Pantaloons were strapped under the boots; buttoning pantaloon straps was a hard and irksome and unclean business.
Pantaloons and boots were frequently, when worn with straps, taken off and put on together to save time and trouble. The boots were "Wellingtons." The gaiter was little worn,
Long, heavy cloaks, reaching quite to the heels, were worn by our elders. Such a cloak lasted almost a lifetime. Jesse Lee, the tailor, is, we believe, the only person still wearing one in this city.
No male attire was perfect without a big " fob chain " and seal dangling from the waist-band. Gold watches were scarce.
Silver watches were large in dimensions. The vulgar called them "turnips." They were wound up with a key, which was al- ways getting lost, and in the winding the machinery was noisy.
Some of the styles and changes in cut and fashion were even more marked than those of to-day. At one time gentlemen wore a summer garment called a " blouse," though very unlike that of the French workman. It was of linen, reaching to the knee, belted at the waist, buttoning in front from the skirt to the bosom, and pleated above and below the belt. It resembled the old-time American hunting-shirt, and was a very comfortable and becoming garment. At another period men wore white duck-linen jackets, much shorter than the present sackcoat.
Gentlemen put their feet in pumps, or low slippers, at balls and dancing parties. Dancing then in shoes or gaiters would have been deemed as great a lack of propriety as would be going to an even- ing party now in a pair of rubber boots.
The ballrooms were illuminated by candles stuck in sockets on the walls. Or, if more pretentious, in a chandelier suspended from the ceiling. The candles would drip, and the ladies' and gentle- men's apparel frequently testified to that fact. " Round dances " were barely tolerated-waltzing was scandalous.
Some of the " steps " peculiar to that period required no small degree of agility on the part of the gentlemen. The " pigeon wing " and the " double shuffle " lifted a man quite off the floor, and would startle a modern ballroom. The ladies lifted their skirts so as not to interfere with their freedom of pedal locomotion, and were not adverse to the display of well-turned ankles. Striped and colored hosiery were unknown.
Custom had not then sanctioned feminine skating. A girl on skates in 1843 would have been a phenomenon. So would also have been a feminine swimmer.
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HISTORY OF VIGO COUNTY.
Vegetables were far less in variety than now. Tomatoes were regarded with suspicion. They were called " love apples," cultivated as garden ornaments and suspected of poisonous tendencies. Canned fruits and vegetables were generally unknown.
Children were more respectful to their elders. Boys were required to bow and girls to "courtesy" in entering and leaving the school-room .. Boys said "sir" when addressed by a grown person, a juvenile habit now generally dispensed with and swept away by the march of progress.
Party spirit was never more bitterly demonstrative than to-day. Sworn foes existed in every village, who had not spoken to each other for years on account of political differences. Men cried like children because Henry Clay was not elected President. The old aristocratic families who had held office since the time of Washing- ton and who deemed Federal office theirs by a sort of divine right, held firmly to their hatred of Andrew Jackson until relieved by death of their capacity for hating. A congressman then had a standing in the community which, in many cases, might now be envied.
The bottle of the period was a very thick, very heavy, very clumsy, very dark green and almost black "junk bottle." That, too, has gone out of existence with the "old soldier of the Revolutionary War" and warming-pans. The common lantern of the time was of tin, pierced with many holes somewhat after the fashion of the nutmeg-grater, through which the light from a candle-end glim- mered and was often blown out by the strongest blast.
A. man returned to the east from Indiana, was deemed an adventurer and explorer.
One who had seen London and Paris was a man of note in the community.
On the schoolboy's map of that period the "Indian Territory " covered a great area, now occupied by prosperous States. California was known only in connection with hides and tallow. West of the Rocky Mountains, all save a small area of Oregon, was wild, vague and misty, and consequently mysterious and fascinating.
Straw brooms were made "round " and "flat." The round broom, for floor sweeping, is obsolete. The country wife's favorite duster for cupboards and corners difficult of access was the wing of a wild goose.
Wooden clocks were universal. "Brass clocks " were considered as "something extra," and sun-dials were occasionally seen.
Old people called auctions " vendues." Children were whipped on their birthdays-a custom of unexplained origin.
A woman or girl under the pressure of familiar rebuke was often called "a good-for-nothing trollope." This was due to Mrs.
17
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HISTORY OF VIGO COUNTY.
Trollope's book criticising so severely and justly the raw American manners and customs of that time. Our fathers swallowed criticism with a very wry face, especially when its origin was English.
All men in these days chewed fine-cut tobacco. The spittoon was found even in the family pew. Cigarettes were unknown. The richer and older families kept sideboards in the dining-rooms well stocked with liquors. The parson, making a parochial call, was still open to a cheering glass of spirits. A big jug of New Eng- land rum always accompanied a "house-raising." The whole village would turn out to help. Red-nosed deacons were not uncommon. Prosperous merchants sometimes walked unsteadily home about 5 or 6 o'clock in the evening. Such a gait and its inference was not then laid up against a man as now.
Spitz dogs, English pugs and skye terriers were unknown; so was lager beer.
A divorced woman was a social pariah and a curiosity.
Horticulture was confined to pinks, roses, sweet williams, mari- golds, sun-flowers, lilacs and hollyhocks.
Unpainted houses were plentiful; otherwise the color was a glaring white, "picked out " with green blinds. Shades of color in house-painting had not appeared.
The pump was of wood, long-handled, big-spouted, wheezy, and often out of order.
The more pretentious architecture of the time ran largely to Grecian pillars and porticoes of wood.
At the theater the entertainment commenced with a farce, was sometimes sandwiched with a pas seul by a danseuse, and did not terminate before midnight.
The coarseness of the farce and also the play would not be tolerated by the respectable audience of to-day as it was then. The "gags " were sometimes vulgar and indecent.
Church members were never supposed to enter the theater. From the moral standpoint, it was dangerous; from the religious, a " dark and bloody ground." Barnum, the showman, at last made matters easier by inventing the temperance drama and calling his theater a "lecture-room." Good people, ministers and deacons went to see this play and sugar-coated their consciences by the thought that they were learning "a great moral lesson." though had the same lesson been preached from the " lecture-room " stage instead of played on it, they would have paid no money to hear.
There were boys then ten years old and more who had never worn trousers, and in some cases the age of a youth was big enough to. go " a-courting " when he got his first pair of trousers, whether buck- skin or butternut. One man tells, and with the stamp of truth on every word, that when nine years old he was sent off a long distance
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to a high school, and on the way they stopped at a very fine hotel. He had never tasted coffee, and as the waiter gave him a cup he supposed he had to take it and the torture he endured in forcing it down, and then his hopeless horror when without asking the waiter filled it again. He had never seen plastered walls and ceiling and when his eyes fell upon it how he supposed the room had been cut of solid rock.
Another western boy, when seventeen years old, was sent to Jef- ferson College, Pennsylvania, going by steamboat to the Ohio and up it to Pittsburgh. He reached the latter place in the night, and being alone confided his dilemma to the porter of the boat, who for 50 cents carried his leather trunk so beautified with those big brass tacks, to the noted Monongahela House, at that time by far the finest hotel west of the Alleghanies. He was told to register his name and was at once sent to his room. Here all was a new world to the excited boy's imagination. He was fresh from a western prairie farm, and had often been to the little village near by, and with wide open eyes and bated breath had seen the great old Concord stage come into town with four prancing horses, and was nearly blinded in looking upon the great man who held the lines and the beautiful long whip -- the observed of all-the glass of fashion and the mold of form. He had at one time the temerity to clamber up and look into the coach, with its brass furnishing, and leather, and what an Aladin's cave met his eyes! Could he ever hope to ride in such splendor ? He could only compare it to the ox-wagon of the farm on which he had often rode in a boy's highest pleasure. He had seen the stage tavern, the only one in the place, and envied the royal high life of its board- ers-the village lawyer, and doctor, and hatter, and a merchant and others who worked at their trade in the little town. All these were favored even great people, but their lights paled when the whip stepped forth with that peculiar swagger, now a lost art to the world, of the stage driver, chewing twist tobacco and who always wore a broad leather belt instead of suspenders. He was the man of au- thority, with whom even the school teacher would esteem it a most distinguishing honor to have been found in company with or in con- fidential conversation. It was in this western life the boy had grown up that now found himself in a splendidly furnished room, with the gas jet's bright blaze filling every nook and corner of splendors. On the door he saw a printed notice to guests, which, late as it was, he care- fully read, and stood appalled at the information that the price was two dollars and fifty cents a day for board: " The great jee - !! " and the exclamation stopped. He could go no further. He quickly slipped into bed, and with a healthy boy's appetite was soon sound asleep. As on the farm, he was wide awake with the daylight, and listened in vain to hear others moving in the kitchen preparing
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breakfast. He was soon dressed, and started with apprehension to find his way to the office; soon took the wrong route, which was cor- rected by a friendly scrub girl. Finally he reached the office with its marble floor-the magnificent clerk and the " fronts " in a row on their bench. The room-bells began to tingle and the boys scamper off, while our hero was drinking in the marvels all around him. After awhile men, each with a paper in his hand, began to gather in the reading room, and he wandered in there, too. As he en- tered the door of this room a mirror just opposite gave him the im- pression of an open door into another room, while it looked much like the room he was entering, yet its immensity was astounding. He found a seat and picked up an old paper, pretending to read, too. By this time the immensity of the building began to come to him, and he had discovered that below were steam works of some kind. Suddenly a sound came he had never heard before-a frightful, hideous sound that under the most favorable circumstances would have sent tremors to his soul, and as the crowd quickly sprang up, the hero sprang even quicker and led out into the office. There was the magnificent clerk serene, and then he knew that the steam works had not exploded. He even in his terror did not wholly betray himself, and soon found out it was the gong announcing breakfast, and the crowd were simply going to eat. He followed and soon was seated at the table. Now on the farm it was the custom to put everything on the table, and when he was seated and had stealthily looked up and down the long table the only thing he could see to eat was a small piece of stale bread at each plate lying on top of an inverted tumbler, and of course at this moment he remembered the " two-dollars-and-a-half-a-day." The abhorrence of his life was the sour light bread of that day. The gorgeous negro waiters in their clean white uniforms, and the military movements as they were directed by the tallest one of the lot by striking a glass for every movement. They came rushing down, each with a pitcher of water taking his place, and then a stroke on the glass every arm was poised, and with the precision of one machine every glass was filled with water. And there he was, two dollars and a half a day and a glass of water and piece of light bread! As the piece of bread was small the youth attacked it bravely. His training was to commence eating as soon as seated. He used the water so freely to wash down the bread that he emptied the tumbler, when the gorgeous waiter refilled it. He ate all before him, including the second glass of water, and as trained, when through he pushed back his chair and mournfully walked out. Two dollars and a half a day and that was the kind of breakfast they gave, and he wished he was back on the old farm where board was only fifty cents a week, if any charge at all was made.
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