USA > Indiana > Whitley County > History of Whitley County, Indiana > Part 34
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For a while there was a probate court in this county. It met at the house of Rich- ard Boughan on Monday, November II, 1839. Hon. Christopher W. Long, sole judge, Richard Collins, treasurer, Abraham Cuppy, clerk. Charles W. Hughes, father
of this court and in 1848 Price Goodrich was its judge.
A common pleas court was established in 1853 and continued until its abolition by the legislature in 1873. The judges of this court were Stephen Wilman, James C. Bod- ley. H. J. Stoton and William Clapp. Con- cerning the latter judge, Colonel McDonald has an amusing story which upon occasion, he can be prevailed upon to relate.
It will be a surprising fact to many peo- ple to know that the town of Coesse once elected officers as an incorporated village, but the records in the clerk's office show that on September 13, 1867, an election of offi- cers for the incorporation of Coesse was held, resulting as follows: Marshal, John B. Imsie: treasurer. M. E. Doane; assessor. William Greene; trustees, W. L. Barney, Fred Smith, Elijah Depew, Robert Steele and J. H. Root.
We cannot close this article without reference to the only execution of a murderer in the county. In the latter part of 1883. Charles W: Butler, of Columbus, Ohio, fol- lowed his wife, who had fled from his brutality, to Pierceton and there shot her dead, as he had threatened if she left him.
After being confined in the Warsaw jail for a time he secured a change of venue and was brought here. He with others broke jail but was recaptured near his home. He was put on trial Monday, May 12, 1884, before the following jury: Jacob A. Baker, Josiah Archer, Jacob W. Nickey, John F. Depoy, Joseph J. Pence, Lewis Deem, Alexander More, David James, James Blain, James Cordill, Thomas Jellison and Elijah Depew. Judge Van Long presiding. Michael Sicka-
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foose, assisted by William F. McNagny, of Columbia City, and Lemuel W. Royse, of Warsaw. prosecuted. The prisoner was de- fended by Joseph W. Adair. of Columbia City, Lee Haymond, of Warsaw. H. J. Booth, of Columbus, Ohio, and Thomas E. Powell, of Delaware, Ohio.
He was convicted and sentenced to be
hanged on the roth of October, 1884, and at exactly 12:08 p. m. of that day he was swung into eternity in an enclosure built in the jail-yard. Frank P. Allwein, sheriff, personally attended to the details and sprung the trap. The law was soon after changed so that executions now take place in the state prison.
HISTORY OF SMITH TOWNSHIP.
BY DR. FRANCIS M. MAGERS.
Some time previous to 1827 a squatter in the person of Andrew Mack built a cabin near the Fort Wayne and Goshen trail on section 4, where now stands the frame house owned by Martin Kocher. Andrew Mack was no doubt the first white settler in the then almost impenetrable wilderness which abounded with bear, deer, wild turkeys. wolves, wildcats and many other smaller ani- mals. It appears that Mack was a great hunt- er and spent most of his time in hunting, trap- ping and fishing. His cabin frequently gave comfort and shelter to the wayfarer during his lonely journey from Fort Wayne to Go- shen, Elkhart and the interior. It was for some years the only haven of rest between these villages separated by a distance of almost eighty miles. The "table d'hote" of this primitive hostelry consisted of ven- ison. bear meat. potatoes and squash. If the epicure should ask for pie he would be po- litely invited to "go way back and sit down." If he asked for devil's food or angel cake he was told that the generation that got up such food and pastry was yet unborn and that his fastidions taste must be satisfied
with corn mush and the dodger roasted in hot ashes.
It is to be regretted that the place An- drew Mack came from and whither he went are unknown, but that he did locate at the above place is abundantly verified by Jacob Baker and Jehn1 Skinner, both of whom fre- quently related that they had partaken of his hospitality. Alpheus B. Gaff, a man of extraordinary memory and unquestioned in- tegrity and who had the great honor of holding the office of justice of the peace for thirty-six years in this township, has fre- quently related to his neighbors the fact that the above named Skinner and Baker, with whom he was well acquainted, had told him of stopping at Mack's cabin as the only honse between Fort Wayne and Goshen and Elkhart and that Baker had partaken of Mack's hospitality as early as 1827 and Skinner in 1831.
During the very early settlement of Ohio. Indiana. Michigan and Illinois the French- Canadian settlers and traders spread over nearly all that vast territory as traders and merchants among the Indians. Knowing
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the wants and propensities of the Indians, they sold them powder, lead and whiskey. John Baptist Godfroy, a Frenchman, was the second white man to settle in Smith township, came about the time Andrew Mack left and no doubt occupied the cabin Mack had vacated and with a small stock of goods that were in demand established a trading post. Godfroy and wife were not blessed with children, but an adopted son named Gregory Bundy, a tall and well pro- portioned young Frenchman, lived with them and afterwards kept tavern and sold whiskey on section 2, near the Fort Wayne and Goshen road on land now owned by Val Brown and known as the old Boggs farm. Godfroy in a few years found his business had outgrown the capacity of the Mack cabin, erected a more commodious one on the north side of the Goshen road, where now stands Martin Kocher's barn. Numer- outs settlers coming in, it became necessary to provide more room for his increasing trade and he built the most elegant and stately house in all "this neck of woods." The building was a hewed log house which some years afterward was weatherboarded with three-quarter inch poplar boards and in after years, up to about 1866, was occupied by James S. Craig, who razed it to the ground and built a substantial modern house on its site.
It has been the gossip of many that J. B. Godfroy was possessed of many eccentricities and that in his later years he lived as a recluse.
The facts are, as told the author by Aunt Katie Gordon, nee Hull, that Godfroy be- came insane and for several years retired to a room and was under the watchful care of
his devoted wife. The Hull family were very early settlers on Eel river in Allen county and visited back and forth with the Godfroys. Adam Hull, a brother of Aunt Katie Gordon, especially being a frequent visitor of the Godfroys to procure his sup- plies of powder and lead, became almost a confidant of the Godfroys and during his visits was always admitted to Godfroy's room. The antecedents of Godfroy and wife, like those of Mack, are unknown. They died in 1845 and were taken to Fort Wayne and buried. Godfroy once traded horses with Daniel Geiger, father of Wil- liam A. Geiger. Geiger had a very fine spotted pony and Godfroy said he wanted it for the express purpose of riding it to heaven. Whether he traveled from this vale of tears on the spotted pony is not related by his neighbors.
During the decade from 1830 to 1840 cheap land and good soil began to attract many settlers to this territory and the sturdy pioneers began settling here and there with their families, rearing their pole cabins by the united effort of wife and children, who were helpmeets in all the interpretation of the word.
Absalom Hire, the third settler, reared his cabin in the virgin forest in 1833 on section 5 on lands now owned by Mrs. Da- vid W . Nickey. The following year ( 1834) Francis Tulley, Richard Baughu, Jesse Long, John More, Samuel Nickey, Sam- utel Smith and Nelson Compton cast their fortunes in the wilds of this township. John W. More and Otho Gandy were companion home seekers with their families through the unbroken wilderness of western Ohio and eastern Indiana. but unfortunately Gandy
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became swamped near Monmouth and was obliged to remain there with his family till the following year. On arrival at his des- tination he was greatly surprised to find some one had raised a patch of corn for him and that there were a couple of well filled potato holes, all grown on his own prospec- tive ground. William Vanmeter and Jesse Briggs, companion home seekers, came in 1835 and Zachariah Garison came in 1836.
At the close of 1840 the few families who had settled previous to 1835 found themselves surrounded by many neighbors, whose presence was frequently revealed by the crack of the rifle or the sound of the ax in felling trees and sometimes by the clang of a strange cowbell. In those early days the pioneer was familiar with the sound of his neighbor's cowbell as well as his own.
David Wolf, James Zollman, James Gordon, George Pence, William Cleland, James Crow and Jesse Spear took up their abode in the wilderness in 1836. Daniel Miller probably came the same year. Then came Jacob Nickey in 1839. Appleton Rich, George W. Slagle and Patrick Maloney, 1840.
John Blakely, David Gordon, James Ma- son, Simeon and Cinda Nott were also among the earliest pioneers of Smith town- ship. Those early settlers who had the cour- age to hew out their fortunes in the wilder- ness left a progeny of honorable descend- ants scattered over the township and sur- rounding country. Many of them in after years went west and cast their lot as pio- neers in reclaiming the prairies beyond the Mississippi river. There is probably not a state in the Union and but few countries in the world that are not represented by a de-
scendant of some of the early pioneers of Smith township.
In 1835 one Bryant entered that part of section No. 22 known as the Jerry Krider farm and now owned by Josiah Wade. Mr. Bryant, more fortunate than many of the early settlers, brought with him three grown- up children, who assisted him in raising his pole cabin and clearing up his farm. In a few years the old folks died and were buried in Hull's graveyard on the south side of Eel river, where Mr. Hull and several of his family and others were buried.
The young people went away after the death of their father and mother and left a vacant cabin and some cleared land as a memorial of their unfortunate bereavement. Enoch Magart, with his wife and children, moved into the vacant cabin and took pos- session. Mr. Magart, like Mr. Bryant, did not long endure the joys and hardships of pioneer life.
Talcot Perry settled in Union township just across the south line of Smith town- ship on the Fanny Vanmeter farm. The bill of fare in those early days did not con- tain apple pie or apple sauce and other deli- cacies to please the fastidious taste of the pioneer or to diversify the routine of pork. venison, wild turkey, cabbage, potatoes and corn pone. Soon, however, they were sup- plied with maple sugar and wild honey, and wild blackberries, raspberries, gooseberries and cranberries were the sources from which the delicacies of the pioneer came.
One bright and joyous Sunday morning. with hearts light in the anticipation of the enjoyment of cranberries and wild turkey. Mr. Perry and Mr. Magart set out in quest of cranberries, which grew abundantly in a
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marsh in section 23, on lands owned now by L. F. Metsker, Mr. Perry on horseback, carying his rifle, as was the custom, and Mr. Magart on foot. Arriving at a point near a swamp in section 22, through which a road now runs about midway between B. F. Krider's farm house and William Deems's residence, a twig caught the hammer of Perry's rifle and drew it back sufficiently to discharge the gun, the ball entering Ma- gart's back and making its exit in front. Perry moved him near to a poplar tree and by the assistance of Brinton Jones and other neighbors he was hauled on a hand sled back to his humble home to his grief stricken family. Magart suffered great agony surrounded by his family and aided by the kind hands of his neighbors until night. when death released him from his terrible suffering and left a widow and orphans in a lonely cabin in the wilderness where howl- ing packs of wolves kept vigil with the heart broken widow. Kind neighbors she had, but like "angels' visits" they were few and far between.
Talcott Perry ever kept the sad incident vividly in his memory until November II. 1845, he died and was buried in Concord cemetery, where a marble slab marks his resting place.
The pioneers lived in peace and harmony although surrounded by many privations. yet crime was hidden in the secret recesses of some breasts. In 1837 a Mr. Bowls, who had settled on the west side of Blue Lake, murdered his wife with a hand spike. Mrs. John More, who lived on that part of sec- tion 27 now owned by J. W. Jones, known as the John Jones farm, acted as the good Samaritan and prepared her body for burial.
Mrs. More found upon examination that the body was so terribly bruised as to arouse suspicion which finally culminated in the ar- rest and trial of Bowls. Similar to many other cases of the kind in the then wild west. 110 autopsy was held.
Mrs. More and Mrs. Francis Tulley, led by the hand of friendship and charity, took a prominent part in the preparation and burial of Mrs. Bowls and saw and heard all that was to be seen and heard by any one ex- cept the guilty conscience of the murderer, and were therefore subpoenaed as witnesses at the trial in Huntington, then the county seat.
Being matured in hardships, as all pio- neer woman must be, and determined to do their part in bringing the guilty to justice, they mounted their sure footed horses as the rays of the rising sun began to appear and turned their faces toward Huntington. thirty-five miles distant, through an almost unbroken and impenetrable forest and no road to lead them to their destination. But those noble women. unmindful of wear and weariness of mind and body, guided their horses over logs and brush, through streams and bogs, alert always to the growl and snarl of wolves and the shrill snort of the nimble deer that often crossed their path. they wended their lonely way to the temple of justice, which consisted of a log cabin in Huntington. Who can imagine the dis- appointment and chagrin of those women when they learned at the close of the trial that the evidence was not sufficient to con- vict Bowls.
They consoled themselves by the knowl- edge that they had done the part allotted to them and if the guilty went unpunished
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it was not their fault. Bowls soon after took his children and left for parts unknown. William Blair about this time, 1837, settled on the east bank of Blue Lake and was a noted trapper and hunter and followed the occuptaion of trapping and hunting and dis- posing of his products to J. B. Godfroy until about 1840.
About this time an old trapper came and stayed with Blair. For some time each one followed his usual occupation. One day when Blair was perambulating through the woods and marshy thickets looking after his traps he saw the old trapper taking and ,skinning animals taken from his (Blair's) traps and a quarrel ensued.
Exasperated at the treachery of the man whom he had taken in and befriended, Blair killed him with a club. After sinking the body in the river near a log, Blair confessed to the crime and fled the country.
At this time the reins of justice were loosely held, as is usual in all new countries, and legal proceedings were of difficult ma- nipulation and no effort was made to bring Blair to justice.
Some time after this a great flood came and is memorable by the early settlers as the "biggest rain that ever fell." The body of the trapper was washed out from its hiding place. Dogs and wolves had devoured por- tions of the body when found, which was reinterred by the neighbors. The sudden disappearance of Blair from the neighbor- hood excited a great deal of comment among the neighbors, among whom was Alexander More. then a boy whose curiosity prompted him to ask his mother one night while watching at her bedside during a spell of sickness what was the cause of Blair's sud-
den disappearance. She told her son Alex that Mrs. Blair told her that Blair had killed the old trapper.
While reciting these sad accidents and heartless crimes we must not imbibe the no- tion that crime and wickedness was in ad- vance of the progress of good. The children of early settlers were growing up and schools were to be provided for them. The first schoolhouse reared and dedicated to school purposes was on the northeast corner of Christ Long's farm now known as the De- vault farm and the first teacher to call "books" was Ira Wiznar. Wiznar. being human and like other teachers, had his troubles and tribulations, taught in Francis Tully's kitchen the next winter on account of petty disagreements among his patrons. The second schoolhouse reared and dedi- cate to purposes of showing "the young scion how to grow" was near the corner of section 25-26 east of William S. Nickey's house. This temple of learning, a log cabin, was built by the voluntary aid of surround- ing neighbors. Jacob Nickey, Otho Gandy, Jesse Long, Nelson Compton, Absalom Hyre and Mr. Fellows and others united 'in building the cabin and furnishing it with puncheon floors, a clapboard door, puncheon writing desks, slab benches and a magnifi- cent and extensive fireplace in one end, and lighted by eight by ten window lights. Sawmills and sawed lumber. it must be re- inembered, were merely heard of but not in actual existence at this stage of the de- velopment of the country. The first teacher was Joseph Fellows, who afterwards be- came a doctor.
Previous to the building of these school- houses, however, schools had been taught
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in different parts of the township and were called "subscription schools." A subscrip- tion paper was taken around the country by some one interested in school work and ob- tained subscription for one or more scholars at a stated sum per month. Sometimes the prospective teacher wielded the "subscrip- tion paper" among the parents of the neigh- borhood and afterwards wielded the "birch" among his scholars.
These schools were taught in vacant cabins wherever found, one of which was located in Churubusco on the west side of main street near where the Vandalia Rail- road crosses, another on Main street in a log cabin situated on the lot where Misses Nettie and Annie Keichler now reside. Al- exander Craig taught in J. B. Godfroy's kitchen.
All of the schoolhouses were primitive and supplied with the crudest paraphernalia and the ingenuity of the teacher was taxed to its utmost. Corporal punishment was in vogue those days and the teacher put in a good deal of his time wielding the gad across the backs and legs of the recalcitrants. His morning hours before school took up or "books" were called were occupied with his keen edged penknife in making and re- pairing goose quill pens and "setting cop- ies." A popular one was "Command you may, your mind from play." Steel pens were unobtainable and the goose quill was always on the market and in good demand during the winter months.
Isaac Claxton, who taught near the crossing of Main street and the Vandalia Railroad, was the first to introduce the teaching of geography by singing. He es. tablished geography singing classes in the
schoolhouses of the neighborhood and taught these at night, using "Pelton's Key to Geography" as his guide. It must be remembered that in the building of dwell- ings and schoolhouses and their equipments nails were not a necessity and many inge- nious shifts were made by the early settlers.
Window glass and other hardware were procurable at Piqua, Ohio, more than one hundred miles away. Doors were hung on wooden hinges, whose squeaking was gen- erally prevented by an application of a little soft soap and supplied with wooden latcli with a buckskin string always hanging on the outside. Clapboards riven from a near- . by straight grained tree by an instrument called a "frow" were carefully laid on "ribs" and held in place by "weight poles" extend- ing the full length of the roof, formed the covering of the cabin.
The seats or benches for schools were slabs split from a log and smoothed with a broad-ax and writing desks of the same mna- terial supported by pins driven into auger holes in the logs on one or two sides of the schoolhouse. It was considered by the smaller scholars quite an honor to occupy a seat at the "writing desk."
The third schoolhouse was on the Harter farm, now owned by L. F. Metsker and the fourth on the Joseph Pence farmn.
About this time the movement of taxa- tion for public schools was agitated and be- came a political question that was very bit- terly discussed between all classes. The Democrats in opposition and the Whigs in favor. The Democrats claiming it wrong to tax property owners who had no children for the benefit of those property owners who had children and for the benefit of
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those children whose parents had no property.
The Whig's claimed the property of the country should be taxed for the benefit of the country and that free education was the greatest benefit to the country. The Whigs won and public schools were established and supported by taxation. This movement was of great benefit not only as an educational procedure but was of vast help to the man of moderate means in procuring a home. Great tracts of land at that time were held by speculators, who refused to sell the land they had entered at one dollar and a quarter per acre at a reasonable advance.
The tax for school purposes being as- sessed on their lands in addition to other taxes for general improvements, caused many to sell their lands in small tracts for prices ranging around five dollars per acre. Thus the Whigs were building better than they knew, for that aspect of the question had not been agitated.
From this period on the structure of school houses took on a more pretentious appearance and a frame schoolhouse occa- sionally appeared here and there as a mon- ument of the improvement of the country.
The congress of the United States had granted section 16 to each township for school purposes and about this time section 16 became renowned as the guidepost for the home seeker.
These were the days of old-fashioned spelling schools, when to be the best spellers and the "last one down" was the highest ambition that could possess a boy or girl.
The tallow dip for lighting purposes was a voluntary donation. A block with a hole bored into it served for a candlestick. The
chandeliers-their description is one of the lost arts. The teacher with a greasy tallow candle in one hand and the Elementary Spelling Book in the other pronounced the words. O, how the young man's heart would throb with joy when the school ma'am would ask him "please snuff my candle?" but how humiliating when he would snuff the light out, sometimes inten- tionally. Spelling schools were the prin- cipal entertainments and attended by the parents, who generally kept good order.
The fond mother anxious to protect her children from disease and sickness pro- vided them with the magic charm in the form of a little sack of sulphur or asafoetida sus- pended from a string around their necks. This talisman, however, did not ward off the omnipresent itch mite nor the voracious louse. The itch was as fashionable a disease as lagrippe or appendicitis of to-day, but . afforded much more pleasure to the square inch than either of the latter. The per- sistent enjoyment of scratching was contin- nous day and night until life became a real torture, mixed with less and less of pleasure. Its possessor was shunned and abused, yet heartily pitied. No one shared his seat nor played with him. He was lonely and for- lorn, with everybody's hand against him. The pugnacions louse afforded less enjoy- ment but was as persistent in attracting one's attention to his specialty, which consisted in burrowing into the scalp by means of his proboscis, armed with three sharp claws on each side.
Who does not remember the ordeal of the fine-toothed comb in the hand of his mother, while he reluctantly and irreverently knelt at her feet with head bowed between
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her knees and firmly held as in a vise, while she, intent upon catching every living thing upon the hair or under the hair, upon the scalp or. under the scalp?
The squirming and writhing and cry of pain unheeded. the process went on, and with unerring presure of the thumb nail pro- duced a report that sounded the death knell of the pesterous "pediculus capitis." No church bell's funeral toll could sound it bet- ter than that familiar "snap." Like the buffalo, the itch mite and the louse have about become extinct, and we should appoint a day of thanksgiving.
The old "town ball," "bull pen." "sock ball." "three or four hole cat" and "shinny on your own side," were plays of the larger boys. Anxious to get at the ball game. every one swallowed his corn bread, cold buckwheat cake, sometimes, about "butcher- ing time" the meal was diversified with a piece of frozen mince pie, spare ribs, back- bone and maple syrup, which was carefully placed in the dinner basket by the thought ful mother.
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