USA > Indiana > Wayne County > History of Wayne County, Indiana, from its first settlement to the present time : with numerous biographical and family sketches > Part 4
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The neighbors joined the next season in blazing out a bridle way to Stillwater, O., for the purpose of packing breadstuff from there on horseback, and Jerry, the son, and one or two others, made one or two trips in that way. But his father thought this too slow a way to supply his large family with bread, and conceived the idea of sending wagons through on the " Quaker trace," as it was called. Jerry took his father's small four-wheeled wagon; and the two fore wheels of their large wagon were " rigged up" for his uncle James Morrisson. Thus equipped, with an ax and three or four days' provisions, they set out on their journey. After a tedious drive over weeds, chunks, logs, and saplings, they reached their place of destination. They procured their lading of good, sound corn ; but, to their great disappointment, they were unable to get it ground without staying longer than was deemed expedient ; and they accordingly started homeward.
Having heard that there aws a water mill at New Lexington, and that there was a road cut out from Dayton to Eaton by way of New Lexington ; and Cox dreading the grinding of so much hard coru by hand, he insisted on getting it ground before they returned; to which his uncle Morrisson very reluctantly assented. They traveled from place to place, winding, back- ing, and turning, to almost every point of the compass, until they found the looked-for Dayton road. Traveling along in cheerful mood, they met a man who told them they presently would come to an old " hurricane," through which there was only a bridle way, and there was no possible way round. [The reader perhaps understands, that the word hurricane is
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FARE OF THE EARLY SETTLERS.
here used to signify a thick second growth of small timber, and not the storm itself, by which the earlier growth had been pros- trated.] The hurricane was soon reached, the saplings stand- ing thick on the ground. They went vigorously to work, and cut their way through, a half mile or more. It was near sunset ; and soon coming to a house, they put up for the night.
Early the next morning they were on their way-reached Nesbit's mill at Lexington-got their corn ground, and started for home. But before they had got to Eaton, they sunk into a slough, which, Cox says, answered the descrip- tion Bunyan gives of the "slough of despond." They could extricate themselves only by unloading their wagons, and carrying their sacks of meal on their backs through the swamp to firm ground. To do so, Cox took off his shoes and laid them on a log. After a good deal of splashing in the mud, they got their wagons out; but, like the poor " pilgrim," they were much " bedaubed with the filth of the slough." They reloaded their wagons and started on their way. But in the hurry and confusion of the moment, Cox forgot his shoes, and never heard from them afterward. Without any further difficulty, they safely reached home with a good supply of well-ground meal, which was a luxury indeed to the family, after having been fed for some time on meal none too fine, and from corn not sound. They had overstaid their time about two days. Many other cases might be given, showing the difficulty in obtaining this indispensable article of food.
But the first crops of the earliest settlers, however abun- dant, gave only partial relief. There were no mills to grind the grain. Hence the necessity of grinding by hand power, as in the case mentioned by Cox. Few families, however, it is presumed, were even thus poorly provided with the means of cracking their bread corn.
Ano her way was to grate the coru. A grater was made of a piece of tin, sometimes taken from an old worn out tin bucket or other vessel. It was thickly perforated, bent into a semi-circular form, and nailed, rough side upward, on a board. The corn was taken in the ear, and grated before it had become quite dry and hard.
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HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY.
As early, however, as the fall of 1807, Charles Hunt started a mill on the Elkhorn, a mile above its mouth, which did grinding for the people in the vicinity of Richmond, until Jeremiah Cox built his mill near the present site of Jackson, Swaine and Dunn's Woolen Mills, below the National Bridge. This, like Hunt's, was a tub-mill. The stones were 23 feet in diameter, and ground 2 bushels in an hour. Wm. Bulla built the next mill a short distance north of Richmond. These mills were covered by planting in the ground stout poles with forks at the upper ends, in which were laid poles to support the roof, which was made of split clapboards, after the manner of covering log cabins. "This," says Jerry Cox, "sheltered the hopper and the meal trough pretty well, when the wind did n't blow." A few months after Bulla's mill was built, Cox built one himself where he now lives, six miles north of Richmond. This he sheltered with a log house similar to a log cabin, 20 feet square, covered with a cabin roof in the usual style. In a favorable stage of water, this mill would grind two bushels of frost-bitten corn in an hour. He judges the three last mentioned mills to have cost, in the aggregate, about $500.
Corn was caten in various ways. The earliest mode of baking, (cast iron ware being scarce,) was to put the dough on a smooth board, two feet long and six or eight inches wide, placed on the hearth slanting toward the fire. When the upper side was baked, the bread was turned over for baking the other side. When lard was plenty, the bread was well shortened, and called johnny-cake. Some baked in a Dutch oven, when that article could be obtained. Some- times the dough was made into lumps, which, when baked, were called corn-dodgers. Others raised the dough with yeast, and baked it in a Dutch oven. This was called pone, and was a decided improvement. Mush, or hasty-pudding, eaten in milk, was then a common article of diet, especially for supper. In its green state, corn was boiled in the ear, and sometimes roasted before the fire. Before there were mills near to grind the corn, hominy was much used as a substitute for bread. The corn was soaked in lye made from ashes to loosen the skin, and then pounded in a wooden mortar with
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FARE OF THE EARLY SETTLERS.
a wooden pestle till the skin was peeled off. This was called lye hominy. This mortar is said to have been a piece of a solid, dry log, in one end of which was burned a cavity or hollow of sufficient depth to hold the corn.
A story is told of an old settler who had on his farm a small stream with a considerable fall, on which he placed a water-wheel, to which he attached a contrivance for raising a heavy piece of timber and dropping it into the mortar holding the corn. Tradition (not always reliable authority) says this mill one day played havoe with its owner's sheep. Leaving the mill at work during a short absence, his sheep, putting their heads into the mortar to cat corn, were struck on their heads by the pestle, and several of them killed.
Our aged friend Cox, among the numerous incidents he has furnished us of "life in the woods," gives the following " bill of fare" of the settlers. It differs less in the number than in the kinds and quality of the articles in the lists on the tables of our best modern hotels :
" We had our large hominy and small hominy, large pone, johnny-cake, hoe-cake, and dodgers, boiled dumplings, and fried cakes, all made of corn meal. Of meats we had hog's meat, venison, opossums, raccoons, and squirrels. Of fowls we had wild turkeys, pheasants, wild pigeons and ducks, all of which were cooked in divers ways to suit the taste, or in ac- cordance with the customs of the times. There were in use several kinds of coffee ; as, bread coffee, ernst coffee, meal cof- fee, potato coffee, and, after wheat was raised, wheat and flour coffee. Those who used the imported had to pay 33 to 50 cents a pound. In the spring we had many kinds of wild weeds boiled for greens to eat with our meat. And for dain- ties on particular occasions, as weddings, quiltings, house rais- ings, and log rollings, we had custards and firmities [boiled wheat], with milk stirred in and sweetened to taste. With maple sugar, this was deemed quite a dainty. For tea, we had sassafras, spicewood, beech leaf, sycamore chips, etc. In the sunner and fall we had Irish potatoes ; for fall and winter use, pumpkins and turnips in abundance. The pumpkins were dried for winter use, by cutting them in rings and placing
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HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY.
them on poles, and hanging them on the joist in front of the fireplace.
" My father contracted with Ewell Kendall for several bushels of wheat, the first I knew of being raised on White- water. I do not remember the price paid for it. I was sent for it, and recollect George Holman's being present and remarking to Kendall, that he was "a money-making man." This wheat we ground in our hand-mill, and sifted the flour through a meal sieve of horse hair. Out of this flour we had many excellent breakfasts."
Corn was the principal grain crop of the settlers. The soil was adapted to its production, and the yield was abundant. Yet the farmers found one serious difficulty in its cultivation. Vast injury was done to cornfields by birds and quadrupeds, both by picking up the seed and taking the grain from the ear. Farmers, sometimes, unaware of the secret working of these little depredators, found their planted seed corn nearly all picked up by crows and squirrels. Blackbirds, in large flocks, would light upon the ears before the grain was hard, and in- jure it badly. And in the fall the squirrels and raccoons would diligently carry on the work of devastation. Squirrel hunts were frequent, and prizes awarded to those who killed the greatest number. These hunts were often got up in the spring to protect the planted cornfields. A subscription paper was circulated, and subscriptions were taken payable in corn to be distributed as prizes among the hunters. On the day set for counting the scalps, the men and boys of the neighborhood would attend, eager to learn the result. Some of these hunt- ers, it is presumed, were stimulated no less by the expectation of a, "good time" and the honor of being the best hunter, than by the prizes offered.
Native Pastures; Wood Tanges ; Hog Hunts.
The wild grass and other herbage with which the woods abounded, made them for several years good pasture grounds. Horses and cattle were "belled" early in the spring and turned into the woods. Horses were hunted when wanted to work, and cows at milking time. The concert of half a score of bells and the songs of an equal number of the various
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NATIVE PASTURES, ETC.
feathered tribes, furnished no mean entertainment to those whose musical tastes had not been formed by the artistic per- formances of modern trained melodists. Hunting the cows was a part of the daily labor of every family ; and it was done by boys if there were in the family any old enough to go without getting lost, or were able to carry the rifle; for it was not safe to go far without this weapon of defense. A boy by the name of Wm. Raines, whose father ha : settled a few miles from where Cambridge City now is, was one of these cow- hunters for the family. Starting as usual, just before night, and having gone about half a mile, he heard a noise behind him, and, looking back, saw two wolves on his track. He drew up his rifle and fired, wheeled, and ran home for help. . On returning to the place, one of the wolves was found dead with a bullet hole in his head.
The woods were valuable also for the meat they furnished. While the clearings were yet small and corn was scarce, the forest furnished subsistence for hogs, which would often fatten on beech nuts, hickory nuts, and acorns. But running in the woods, they soon became wild, and when wanted for meat, were not easily taken. Some would escape for years, until their tusks had grown to nearly the length of a man's finger. These old hogs were formidable resistants to their pursuers. In defending the younger ones of the gang when seized by a dog, they have been known to spring at the dog, and rip out his entrails with one flirt of the snout. Men without guns to defend themselves, have been compelled to climb trees to avoid their attacks. Neighbors joined at killing time to hunt their hogs with dogs and guns. Their hope of success depended chiefly upon first shooting the old ones.
An old settler, [II. C. T.,] says he was one of about a dozen who went on one of these hog-hunting expeditions. Being told that the hogs were young, and that only dogs and knives were needed, all went without guns, except one, a weakly man, who, being unable to run, fortunately, as it proved, took his rifle. After an hour's hunt, the hogs were discovered and overtaken. Being stopped by the dogs, they huddled together with their noses out, ready for a fight. Two were caught by the dogs, and knifed; after which, an old hog, which was among them,
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HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY.
would, when the dogs caught a hog, fight them off, until he was shot by the man carrying the rifle. After a chase of about three miles, the last hog was captured.
The forest was also of no small value as a hunting ground for deer and other game. Deer hunting in the winter was a common business. Much of the meat of deer was sometimes lost. The hunter, if alone and far from home, would shoulder the more valuable part-the hams and the skin-and leave the rest for the wolves, or, as was sometimes done, hung up to a sapling or a large limb of a tree, which had perhaps been bent down for the purpose, and which, springing back, would raise the meat beyond the reach of the wolves. Having delivered his first load at his cabin, he would return, though perhaps not the same day-conducted to the spot by his tracks in the snow, and bring home the remainder. If two hunters were in com- pany, the legs of a deer would be tied to a pole, and the animal carried away, cach hunter taking an end of the pole on his shoulder.
But the principal meat of the early settlers did not long con- sist of game. Pork and poultry were soon raised in abund- anec. The common fowl furnished both meat and eggs. Geese, though sometimes caten, were raised chiefly for their feathers, with which the settlers replenished their old bed-ticks and filled their new ones. Doubtless, many still repose on beds made by their mothers or grandmothers more than half a century ago.
Wild Animals.
The wild animals inhabiting this region at the time of its settlement, were the deer, wolf, bear, wild cat, fox, otter, porcupine or hedge hog, raccoon, woodchuck or ground hog, skunk, mink, muskrat, opossum, rabbit, weasel, and squirrel. Several of these animals furnished the early settlers with incat, but chiefly the deer. None were much feared except the bear and the wolf. The former was the most dangerous to meet; the latter the more destructive to property. The bear is generally ready to attack a person ; the wolf seldom does so unless impelled by hunger, or in defense. For many years it was difficult to protect sheep from the ravages of the wolves. They had to be penned every night. Many were
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WILD ANIMALS.
destroyed even in the day time near the house. It is the nature of the wolf to seize a sheep by the throat and suck its blood, and leave the carcase as food for other carniverous animals ; provided the number of sheep was sufficient thus to satisfy the hunger of their destroyer. Pigs and calves also were sometimes victims to these pests of the early settlers. Their howlings in the night would often keep families awake, and set all the dogs in the neighborhood to barking. Their yells were often terrific. Says an old settler : " Suppose six boys having six dogs tied, and whipping them all at the same time, and you would hear such a noise as two wolves would make."
To effect the destruction of these animals, the county authorities offered bounties for their scalps. The accounts of county expenditures for many years show the payment of wolf bounties. But as wolves hunt in the night, when they can not be shot, they were more frequently caught in traps, which were made in divers ways. One kind was the " dead fall." Another was a small pen made of small log's or heavy poles, about 6 or 7 feet high, and narrowed at the top. Into this pen a bait was thrown. A wolf could easily enter it at the top, but was unable to get out. This is the kind in which Robert Morrisson "trapped" wolves when he lived in the woods above Middleborough. Jeremiah Cox, Jun., or " Young Jerry," as he was then familiarly called, having spoken of an unsuccessful search of raccoon tracks in the woods after a fall of snow, in company with his uncle Mor- risson, and another uncle, John Turner, says : " We returned homeward by way of uncle Morrisson's wolf traps, which were on the Ohio side. In one of these traps was a large black wolf. Uncle Morrisson began to devise ways and means of tying up its mouth and hamstringing its hind legs, and of taking it home to fight with his dogs, for sport. ' Blood!' said unele Turner, 'let us kill the ratched varmint,' at the same instant striking the wolf with the sharp edge of his ax through a crack of the trap, which bled the animal to death in a few minutes, thus putting an end to unele Morrisson's anticipations of sport. But some time afterward he trapped another, which he succeeded in capturing, and
.
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HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY.
had the sport. But he found the wolf a match for all the dogs that attacked it." The scalps of these two wolves were probably the ones for which he once drew from the county treasury $3.
Another kind of trap was made of split logs, about 6 feet long, 4 feet wide, and 3 feet high, with a heavy lid sufficiently raised to let the wolf in. Jumping in to get the bait, he would spring the triggers; the lid would fall, and confine him until he could be shot.
Another was the steel trap, with jaws a foot or more in length. The clamps were notched like a cross-cut saw ; and there was a stiff spring each side. Attached to the trap was a chain with hooks, not to fasten it, but to make it difficult for the wolf to drag it. Caught, as he probably would be, by the fore leg while trying to paw out the bait, if the trap were made fast, he would gnaw off his leg and be gone. Ishmael Bunch, an old hunter, who settled carly half a mile east of Whitewater, [lately Hillsboro',] had a trap of this kind set a few miles east of the Ohio line at a place called " fallen timber," which was a great resort for wolves. He went with his son " Dick," a youth of seventeen, to see the trap, but it was gone. Following the trail, they overtook the wolf on a side hill on the bank of East Fork. "Now, Dick," said Bunch, "I'ntend to kill that ar wolf with my tom'hawk." Diek set down his gun and stood to see the wolf killed. His fore leg was in the trap, his long white teeth shining, and the dogs shying around. The old man aimed a heavy blow at the wolf's head. The wolf dodged, and was not touched. But such was the momentum pro- duced by the stroke, as to whirl the old man round ; and he fell near the wolf. Being snapped at by the wolf, he made such an effort to spring away, that he soon found himself on "all fours" over the brow of the hill; and, unable to stop himself, (being a heavy man,) he bounded along to the bot- tom. IIe soon returned, however, more scared than hurt, and ordered Dick to shoot the wolf. The boy, convulsed with laughter, found the task a difficult one.
Wolves were sometimes accused of deeds committed by dogs. The following is a case : Dr. John Thomas, residing
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EARLY COOKING.
where his grandson Henry W. Thomas now lives, in the township of Franklin, was called on one morning by a neighbor who accused his dogs of having killed most of his sheep, and threatened to shoot them in his presence. The doctor, loth to part with his favorite dogs, remonstrated against so hasty redress. But the neighbor, determined to carry his purpose into effect, was about to shoot, when the doctor prevailed on him to hold on till he could ascertain whether or not the dogs had eaten mutton. Having faith in emetics, he administered one on bread to each of the dogs. The effect was a copious discharge of mutton and wool. Wm. Addleman, an old resident of Franklin, confirms the facts above stated, and says he has seen the same effect pro- duced by suspending the dog by his hind legs. After a brief struggle with his head down, the contents of the stomach were discharged.
Among the native animals of the forest which have long since disappeared, was the porcupine, familiarly called hedge hog. It was nearly as large as a raccoon, had a round head, and was covered all over with quills from an inch to two inches long, and as hard and as sharp as a needle. It was a terror to dogs. Young dogs, not knowing the consequence, would seize the animal, and get its quills stuck into their mouths. It could also, with its tail, switch the quills into the sides of a dog or other animal. It is the nature of these quills to work deeper into the flesh, and kill the dogs if not ex- tracted in season, which was usually done with a nippers. A dog once stuck with quills, would not touch the porcupine.
Early Cooking.
To witness the various processes of cooking in those days, would alike surprise and amuse those who have grown up since cooking-stoves came into use. The first thing likely to attract notice was the wide fire-place before described, some eight feet in the clear. Kettles were hung over the fire, to a strong pole which was raised so high above the fire as not to be likely to ignite from heat or sparks, the ends being fastened into the sides of the chimney. The kettles were suspended on tram- mels, which were pieces of iron rods, with hooks at both ends.
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HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY.
The uppermost one extended from the pole nearly down to the fire; and with one or more short ones the kettles were brought to their proper height above the fire. Before iron was plenty, wooden hooks were sometimes used. Being directly above the kettles, they seldom took fire.
The long-handled frying-pan was used for cooking meat. It was held on the fire by hand ; or, to save time, the handle was sometimes laid across the back of a chair while the cook was " setting the table." The pan was also used for baking short cakes. It was placed in a nearly perpendicular posi- tion before the fire, with coals under or behind it to bake the under side. A more convenient article was a cast-iron, short-handled, three-legged spider, or skillet, which was set upon coals on the hearth. Its legs were so adjusted that when, in baking cakes or biscuit, it was turned up before the fire, it kept its semi-vertical position. Some of these skillets had iron covers, on which coals were thrown to bake the upper side. But the best thing for baking bread was the flat- bottomed bake-kettle, of greater depth, with legs and a closely fitted cast-iron cover, more commonly called Dutch oven. With coals over and under it, bread and biscuit were quickly and nicely baked. Turkeys and spare-ribs were sometimes roasted before the fire, suspended by a string, a dish being placed underneath to catch the drippings.
Some of the inconveniences of cooking in open fire-places will be readily imagined. Women's hair was sometimes singed, their hands were blistered, and their dresses scorched. But frame houses, with good fire-places of briek or stone, measur- ably relieved our mothers and grandmothers. In one of the jambs was fastened an iron crane which extended over the fire, and could be drawn forward when kettles were to be put on or taken off. But the invention of cook-stoves commenced a new era in the mode of cooking; and none, the most averse to innovation, have indicated a desire to return to the "old way," which will hereafter be known only in history.
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EARLY TILLAGE.
Early Tillage.
Agriculture is a term hardly applicable to the farming of early times. The implements then used would, in this age of improvement, be great curiosities. Specimens on exhibition at our modern fairs would attract unusual attention. The plow used was called bar-share plow. The iron part consisted of a bar of iron about two feet long, and a broad share of iron welded to it. At the extreme point was a coulter that passed through a beam six or seven feet long, to which were attached
handles of corresponding length. The mold-board was a wooden one split out of winding timber, or hewed into a winding shape in order to turn the soil over. The whole length of the plow, from the fore end of the beam to the ends of the handles, was eight or ten feet. Newly cleared ground was, with this plow, broken up with great difficulty. From the tough roots bent forward by the plow and springing back, the plowman's legs would receive many a hard blow. Some used on new ground only a shovel-plow, similar in shape and size to that of the present day, but differing in workmanship.
Sown seed was " bushed in " by a sapling with a bushy top, or by a bundle of brush from a tree top, dragged, butts for- ward. As soon, however, as the ground would admit, the tri- angular harrow, or drag was used. This instrument was made of two pieces of timber, (hewed, before there were mills to saw,) about five inches square, and about six feet long, an end of one framed into one end of the other, forming an acute angle, and kept apart by a shorter piece framed into the others near the center; the instrument in form resembling the letter A. The teeth were of double the weight of those now used, in order to stand the violent collision with the roots and stumps over and among which they were to be drawn. A. harrow was sometimes made of a crotched tree, worked down to the proper size. The idea of a cast-iron plow had not yet entered the brain of the inventor, Jethro Wood, of Cayuga county, N. Y. The improvements since made in the plow and the harrow, the invention of cultivators, drills for sowing and planting, and other labor-saving implements, have wonder-
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