History of Vigo county, Indiana, with biographical selections, Part 38

Author: Bradsby, Henry C
Publication date: 1891
Publisher: Chicago : S.B. Nelson & co.
Number of Pages: 1032

USA > Indiana > Vigo County > History of Vigo county, Indiana, with biographical selections > Part 38

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" In order to compel a specific performance of the contract the plff. shall pay therefore in his ' Decon.' and the jury etc."

" The above 'salvo's and cures' etc. Those of viet armies in three years. Accepting of his appointment and failing to descharge his duties-or the clerk failing in 'his'n,' that is very clever indeed. He shall make out 2 fair Alphabetical lists."

The old lawmakers were serious and religious men. They were resolved upon duly punishing immorality, so they enacted:

" Any person above 16 years cursing, damming or swearing by god, christ or the holy ghost shall be fined from 50 cts. to $2." Such words as alphabet and vagrant he uses capitals as well as when speaking of the "Servant's Master " and " Bastarday "

" Judges of the genl court may suppress Taverns." But after this sentence the author puts this in parentheses (Quer: Is not this power arrested from them by the circumcission act of 1814.) This act of 1814 must have been copied from Moses.

" Persons affirming false shall etc."

" The summons shall bear teste."

Here is a sentence especially intended for law students; it is the entire paragraph :

" If so far not apig, or defg. or abiding the judgt the pltff. may by sci. fa. have judgt. and exon thereon "-page 177.

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The author deserved a patent for his labor-saving printer's in- vention.

The county seat was called " scite."

The plural for attorney is attornies all through the book.

Many cases occur where parties are fined, the fine to go to the use of the "ter." or as half to the " terry " and half to the Informer.

They were explicit on the subject of gaming:

" Causing or promoting Cock fighting by betting, Playing Bul- lets for a bet, or in any public road. Playing at Cards or any game of hazard for money or property shall forfeit and pay $3."

I don't know whether the old time way of "Playing with Bul- lets " was the same as the modern or not-possibly they " knowed it was loaded."

Murder and treason they punished with death, and manslaughter they branded in the hand "M S." They had no penitentiaries, and so they did not seem to miss these improvements very much. They whipped instead of sending to the penitentiary, and yet there were some cases where they confined culprits in the jail. They enacted that every jailer should provide separate apartments for debtors from the ordinary prisoners. So after all they had some mercy for men who could not pay their debts.

For ordinary crimes they provided a regular " bill of fare " with prices annexed. The list is a long one. Here are a few:

Rioters, $16; burglary, whipped; perjury, $60 and incapacitated; larceny, double amount and whipped; forgery, same; assault and battery, not to exceed $100; swindling, same; hog-stealing, $50 to $100; altering marks and brands, $5 and value of animal; killing wild hogs, $10; mayhem, $50 to $1,000; keeping tavern without license, $1 a day; harboring children or servants, $3; selling over the court rates, $20; millers taking extra toll, $5; bullet playing, $3; challenging to fight with fists, $1 to $5.

These are a few of the long list. They must have been very convenient. When a man felt so frisky that he must commit some crime, he could look over the list and choose his partner for the next dance.

The legislature of 1814 established circuit courts in each county, and divided the territory into three districts as follows: First circuit-the counties of Knox, Gibson, Posey, Warwick and Perry; Second-Washington, Harrison, Clark, Jefferson and Switzerland; Third-Dearborn, Franklin and Wayne; to consist of one circuit judge as president, "who shall be learned in the law, and have practiced in some court three years, be a citizen of the United States, and a resident of the Territory. And two associates who shall reside in the county" [Not compulsory to be anything] ; to have jurisdiction in the several counties over all crimes and

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causes, and hear and determine the same, etc. So far as the actual law business was concerned these associate judges were purely orna- mental. The president judge was appointed during good behavior, and his salary was fixed at $700 a year. The associates were to be paid $2 a day for each day's actual attendance.

The legislature of 1813 fixed the following rate of taxes: "First- rate land shall pay at the rate of 75 cents per 100 acres; second rate 50 cents, and third rate 25 cents, and every ferry not exceeding $10." The courts of the respective counties were allowed to levy one-half of the above on lands for local purposes.

The sheriff was required to pay over taxes collected by the first of April. This explanation will render quite lucid the following: "Failing the A (trea) at the next g. c. may motion against him."

Here is another: "The court shall lay a tax on persons of color from twenty-one to fifty-five of $3, and this tax in Knox county shall be appropriated by the court to some public school."

On the subject of schools these men showed a commendable pub- lic spirit to carry out the provisions of the Virginia grant, and the acts of congress in reserving one section in each township for school purposes. The legislature provided for leasing these lands, but the lessee was not permitted " to cut or destroy sugar trees nor waste timber," and then a clause provides: "The nete proceeds of leases to be applied by the c to the use of schools."

Something of the financial affairs of the early day may be gained by again referring to the taxes then levied and collected.

Every slave servant of color from twenty-one to fifty-five years, $3; horse, mare, mule or ass, 372 cents; retail store, $20; town lots, 50 cents on the $100; tavern, not exceeding $20; billiard table, $50.

Each sheriff, in 1807, was made by law county treasurer, and once a year he was required to make a statement of all the trans- actions of the treasurer, and paste a copy on the court-house door during a term of the court. His fees as county treasurer were $6 per annum, and he was to be fined $100 if he neglected the duties of treasurer.

Imagine the treasurer of to-day with his whole force of depu- ties pasting their books on the court-house door.

These are some of the striking items that appear in General W. Johnston, Esq.'s book, entitled the " Compend," probably the first law book ever published in Indiana. That the author assures us in its publication he only desired "to be of some service to my country, and not pecuniary reward, has been my excitement," and in looking carefully over the quaint old volume one could not but realize in part the warning in his preface that " we often find sweet and nour- ishing meat under homely feathers."

For many years this little book has been " out of print."; It will

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never be reprinted, because the trade has not the type for a fac-simile, especially in the curious black-faced capitals that are so oddly used as noted in a paragraph above referring to profanity.

I sincerely hope every reader will heartily join me in the great- est respect to the memory of "General W. Johnston, Esq.," for his inestimable little book, the Compend.

Some of the conditions of society in the early day is given in a joint resolution of the general assembly of 1818, on the subject of " persons claimed as fugitives from labor," which recited among other things, that there were sundry persons " destitute of every prin- cipal of humanity are in the habit of seizing, carrying off, and selling as slaves, free persons of color who are, or have been for a long time, inhabitants of this State," etc., and then they proceed to say, " therefore most solemnly disavowing all interference between those persons who may be fugitives from service, and those citizens of other States who may have a just claim to such service, whenever such claim is legally established we deem it our just right to demand the proofs of such claim to service according to our laws," etc.

This item refers to two things: The return of fugitive slaves to their owners in free States, in which the State solemnly dis- avowed any interference, and a species of man-stealing, more profitable and somewhat less risky than horse-stealing, that was at one time carried on by thieves quite successfully. This was to simply go at night and arrest as a fugitive from labor a negro, carry him across the Ohio river, and then south to New Orleans or some southern market and sell him into slavery. There were, of course, men in the South, as there are to-day everywhere, who would buy such slaves, as some men now buy stolen horses, because they could get them cheaper. Hence one of the first laws of Indiana was launched against man-stealing.

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HISTORY OF VIGO COUNTY.

CHAPTER XXIV.

REMINISCENT.

[N the chapter preceding there is much said of the people of Vigo county, those who were here at the beginning as children and young men, who, fortunately, had strong marks of that part of our nature that is more or less in all good men and women, in old age to turn in their musing upon the past, and write letters in their old days, and make excellent copies in words of the pictures that have remained upon their minds when their young eyes first beheld the Wabash, Vigo county and Terre Haute. Some of them have writ- ten out these recollections, and, in rare instances, diaries were kept. These, all, to the compiler of the local history of this section, are, in miner's phrase, rich pockets, where the virgin gold gladdens the eye of the patient digger and delver.

Conspicuous among those who made mental notes in very young life, and, in long-after years wrote them out, only too scanty, but, so far as they do go, every word and sentence is a nugget of pure gold, was Capt. William Earle, the first-born male white child in Terre Haute, the real boy, the boy with his Indian pony, stocky, stubborn, full of tricks, and that could gallop all day under his boy rider and then throw the next boy that got on him to ride him around to the stable, and stop and wait for the lad to get on again, and, as plain as pony lan- guage could say it:

" What did you fall off for?" And he was that kind of a boy that nearly always had his dog with him, an ugly, mangy cur, with coarse long hair and big tail, that traveled, as a rule, on three legs, until a rabbit would appear in sight, and then down went the lame leg, and a race would follow that was the supreme delight in life to the boy. No chariot or horse race in history ever gave such infinite pleasure as that three-legged dog after the white-tailed rabbit did to that boy that had a preternat- ural relish for little knotty green apples, or little sickly-looking watermelons about as unripe as the best of the apples he would pick nearly as soon as the blossom fell off. The love of a healthy boy for his ugly dog and stubborn pony are nearly measured by the ill looks of the one and the ill nature of the other. They, however, understand each other-they quarrel and fight, but it is like brothers, and, in the hottest engagements, let any third party say a word, and how instinctively they drop hostilities at home and turn upon the com-

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mon enemy. The healthy real boy, not omitting the cur and pony, is a great and glorious Anglo-Saxon institution-a western " plant," in the commercial sense of that term, a Wabash masterpiece, in short. Here is a combination worth its weight in gold. As one of the brace-pieces in the framework of society, there is no other such bundles of possibilities as the robust real boy, cur and pony. He never needs but one suspender, but the larger his one pocket the better; his only troubles in life are getting at the sugar on the sly and nursing his stone-bruises on his heel. If he is a farmer's boy he is apt to cut off all the pigs' tails and enjoy the fun of see- ing them wiggle the bleeding stumps, and he has been known to learn to chew twist-tobacco in order to slip up on the sleeping big hogs in the shade of the fence corner and spit in their eyes, and then wait and see the fun when it finally oozes through the closed eye-lids and they are roused to quick movement. Such a boy never

walks down the stairway, but slides on the baluster railing head foremost, and the faster the better, as it increases the chances of his heels going over his head at the end and breaking his neck in the tumble to the floor. If, in time, he can get the broken-off end of an old black umbrella handle, this fixes him off for a pistol to run down his waistband and be a fierce cowboy, or Jesse James, to hold up imaginary trains and gallantly come to the rescue of imaginary frightened girls. In his contact with all real girls he is apt to de- spise them-they can't play, ride his pony, play "marvels," or go swimming-they are simply great big babies, or dolls, in his esti- mation. The real boy prefers the hired hand. He is willing to run his legs off waiting on him. He has long since despaired of. ever, in all the eternity of time before him, becoming old enough to be a man, or even a big boy who can go to town by himself, smoke, or go to see the neighbor's girls. And so he lives by proxy in the hired man-a kind of pupilage that every real boy goes through. His father, of course, is the greatest man in the world, and he and the hired man soon speak of him between themselves as the " gov- ernor," and, when enraged at him, as " the old man." He is apt to do a little sneaking for the hired man, especially if that individual has sense enough to play him to do all the waiting on him that his little short legs enable him to perform, and has paid for everything in advance by putting his fish-hook on the line, or letting him ride the horse, while he would lead the animal and hold him on. The real boy is a thorough barbarian. He kills birds with stones until big enough to be allowed to take the old smooth-bore shotgun and go out and shoot a meadow lark or a dove, and, in shooting these poor birds, he creeps on them as close as possible and literally blows them to pieces. He is as merciless toward the little birds as he was toward the poor flies and " lightning-bugs." After he gets about

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big enough to dislike his sister thoroughly, then he begins to like some other "feller's " sister-generally a cousin to commence on.

It is clear from Capt. William Earle's writing in his old days, of his boyish times in Terra Haute, that he was a typical Western boy with all that term implies. The things that he writes about as a much-traveled weather-beaten old tar, are the true index of those mental notes that he "plastered" on his mind as a boy.

When Terra Haute was a cow-path town, with a little fringe of log houses along the banks of the Wabash, and there were then here the native sugar trees of the forests; when the dense and graceful willows bordered heavily the water's edge; when in those days there were the sparkling springs of delightful cool water bursting out from the foot of the hill, near the water's edge, and every cabin had its separate path to these springs, both where they secured all their water for domestic purposes as well as where the women and girls regularly repaired to wash and " beat" the clothes each week, and gossip without the proverbial "tea" that writers of all fiction esteem so essential to all female conversation; the separate paths from each cabin to the spring and looking eastward were the cow paths toward the broad and flower-covered prairie that extended before the vision to the distant bending horizon. These were the surroundings amid which William Earle was born September 22, 1818. When he was quite an old man, writing on board his ship which tossed on the waters at the opposite side of the globe, it would seem that he can very nearly remember how he first mastered the intricacies of learning to walk. A child is a good judge of the character of people it is thrown with, even when very young. Gen- erally a far better judge then than when full grown and is ready to listen to the song of the siren. And when grown he has forgotten completely those better judgments he had even when in his cradle. In this respect Capt. Earle was an exception, and hence his descrip- tion of those who were grown here when he was a mere child are often the best pictures of those that could be transmitted from one generation to another.

There have been the fewest men who in mature life carried out to the full the dreams of their boyhood. As a rule it is this or that trivial circumstance that shapes all our lives, the merest accident that has brought men and women together, whose whole lives were linked as that of husband and wife. And similar accidents fix our mature pursuits often as well as the place where we make our homes, and finally where we sleep in the unbroken silence. But with Capt. Earle this was not so. He as a young boy would a sailor be, travel and see the world-go everywhere upon earth; this was his dream, and he lived to carry it out to its fullest extent. He was but little more than grown when he went to sea, before the . mast, and

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after he had become the master of his own vessel he was on one whaling voyage that lasted nearly twelve years. He had long since become the veritable "old sea dog," and like the stormy petrel, had been driven before the storm on every sea.

Once more upon the waters,

Once more; and the waves bound beneath me like the steed that knows his rider.

When he left Terre Haute, his birthplace, it was never to return to visit here. One or two short visits, impelled by the sentiment of the poet who said and sung, "How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood," and in lieu of visiting the place, in the realization of the fact that the most of those he remembered had passed away from earth, he did the next best thing possible, namely, sat down at his ship's desk and wrote something of his recollection of Terre Haute and Vigo county as the picture he had carried with him all over the wide world.

Capt. Earle had made his home in New England, near the sea shore, and to this place he finally retired when age and declining life had admonished him that the end was not far off. He died in 1888.

In 1871 he wrote on board his vessel in the South Sea a com- munication to a Terre Haute paper, which is in some respects so much a part of the early history that it is here transcribed nearly entire:

Bark "Emily Morgan." At Sea, Lat. 0° 16' S. Lon. 121° 17 W., March 25, 1871.

May I be allowed to recur to olden times? May I lift the veil that conceals the past and peer down the long, dark vista of by- gone years ? May I again feel " the touch of a vanished hand," or hear " the sound of a voice that is still?" As I wander over the realms of memory my feet again thoughtlessly crush the wild flowers of the prairie or rustle amid the fallen leaves of the prime- val forest. "All the hopes and joys, the cares and sorrows of child- hood return. My playmates crowd before me again with their happy faces. But the wild flower lies crushed forever; the fallen leaves have moldered away; many of the companions of my youth have long since passed away, and the hearts that beat so wildly are now but as clods of the valley. My home has been upon the mount- ain wave; my sails have whitened on every sea, from the frozen regions of the north to the ice-bound shores of the Antarctic world. I have tasted the bitterness of death from cold and hunger; beneath a burning sun I have suffered with thirst till my parched lips cracked and blood flowed from them in streams. I have battled with the mightiest creatures, the hughest monsters of God's creation. Through a thousand perils I have been safely brought. From the

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puny, sickly boy I became the strong and hearty man; from the green backwoodsman I became what I am-a sailor. Pardon this egotism I could not help falling into it while remembering that so many of my old-time companions have passed away and that I am left.

I like to bring back the olden days for their pleasant memories -there were so many good people when I was a child; they must have been good for they were good and kind to me. This retro- spect is like a ship sailing along a line of coast, passing bold prom- ontories that throw their overshadowing cliffs far out to sea; deep, receding bays; low, sandy capes; green and beautiful islands; huge black rocks of fanciful form; the low reef, partly submerged, partly above water, with fragments of wreck washed hither and thither, and wild breakers dashing foaming, roaring, while light- nings gleam and thunders rave; then through tranquil waters with pleasant breezes passing gently ; rolling hills covered with verdant foliage; meadow lands reaching to the waters' edge, and fair flowers blooming in garden and lawn. Looking farther and farther along, the outlines become more dim and indistinct, till at last nothing can be seen but a blue haze hanging above the horizon; beyond is the long gone-by, as fathomless as the past eternity.

In going back to olden times I propose to describe Terre Haute as it was at my earliest recollection-1823. I think there were then about fifty houses in the town. Commencing at the south end of Water street, half way between Oak and Swan on the west side of the street was a story-and-a-half hewed-log house. On the east side of the street half way between Swan and Poplar streets, stood a similar house; on the bank of the river in front of this house was the slaughter house. On the southeast corner of Water and Pop- lar streets, standing a few yards back from the street, stood a story- and-a-half house; one-half of it was of hewed logs, the other part was of frame; in that house, on September 22, 1818, was born the writer of this. On a line with this house, but facing on Poplar street, was "the store" which my father had occupied as such previous to his death, which occurred in 1819. Between these two houses and the street was a pleasant little flower garden with borders of currant bushes. On the southwest corner of Water and Poplar was an old, dilapidated house, of round logs, and the remains of the blacksmith shop near it. On the south side of Walnut, at the southwest alley corner, was the dwelling of Mr. George Hussey, which was part of logs and part of frame. On the northwest cor- ner of Water and Walnut streets was a small log house. On the southeast corner lot of Water and Ohio streets, at the south part of the lot, was the dwelling of Dr. C. B. Modesitt, which was a frame building, two stories high, painted white with a red roof. Front-

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ing on Ohio street, on the same lot was a long, low frame house sometimes used for a school-house. Hon. William P. Dole finished his schooling in that house. On the northeast corner of the same streets was a house similar to Dr. Modesitt's; there was a store in it, and I think it was kept by John H. Cruft. There were no other houses on Water street.

Taking the south end of First street, the first house was a black- smith shop, on the northeast corner of that street and Poplar; William Marrs worked in it. On the next lot north was a two-story frame house, occupied by Mr. Ezekiel Buxton, a painter. The next house was midway between Walnut and Ohio streets, a small frame house with the end to the street, and was occupied by a man by the name of Bacon, a carpenter by trade; a small lean-to house ad- joined it on the north. On the west side of the street, nearly op- posite Mr. Bacon's, was Mr. McCabe's hatter shop. On the south- west corner lot of First and Ohio streets was Col. Thomas H. Blake's law office; Dr. Clarke's office was in the same house, law and physic in the same room. On the north west corner of the same streets was a large frame building; Isaac C. Elston had a store in the corner room and Dr. Shuler lived in the other part. I can re- member when this house was finished, but I can not recollect any- thing in regard to its building. On the east side of the street, midway between Ohio and Main streets, was a small house with one room, occupied as a grocery. On the southeast corner of First and Main streets stood the Eagle and Lion tavern; it was built of hewed logs and weatherboarded. At the corner on two posts hung the sign representing an eagle picking a lion's eyes out-America tearing England into shreds. On the west side of First street, nearly up to Mulberry, was a small frame house occupied by James Hanna ("Jim Hanners "), a chair-maker by trade. On the south- east corner of First and Mulberry streets was quite a large two- story house, in which lived Mr. Enoch Dole, and nearly adjoining it on the south was another house of the same size, in which last named house was born, early in October, 1818, Matthew Redford. This finishes First street.

Beginning at the north on Second street the first house stood on the southeast corner of that street and Mulberry, a two-story, hewed- log house, occupied by Mr. Jacques, a wheelwright. Turning off Cherry street east, on the northeast alley corner, between Second and Third streets, stood a little square framed house, in which worked a man by the name of Charles Thompson, a shoemaker. One day, while at work on his bench, a boy by the name of Decatur Hanna (Cate Hanners) came in, and, seeing a gun in the corner of the room, said: "I am going to shoot you, Thompson; " at the same time pointing the gun at him. Thompson told him to put the

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History of Vigo county, Indiana, with biographical selections, Part 38

Author: Bradsby, Henry C Publication date: 1891 Publisher: Chicago : S.B. Nelson & co. Number of Pages: 1032

Author: Bradsby, Henry C
Publication date: 1891
Publisher: Chicago : S.B. Nelson & co.
Number of Pages: 1032