USA > Indiana > Indiana miscellany : consisting of sketches of Indian life, the early settlement, customs, and hardships of the people, and the introduction of the gospel and of schools ; together with biographical notices of the pioneer Methodist preachers of the state > Part 7
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16
--
121
POLITICS.
They had spent some two weeks in Madison county, speaking every day except Sunday. All this time Chapman had not changed his linen, and it had become so much soiled that even he could not endure it any longer. He told Walpole one evening that he would be under the necessity of going home, in order to get a clean shirt, and could not be with him the next day. Walpole objected, and proposed to lend him one. Chapman said, " That will not do. Your shirts have ruffles on them, and you know I am fighting the 'Ruffled- Shirt Gentry.'" Walpole said to Chapman, "You can button your double-breasted vest over your bosom, and hide the ruffles." He consented, and the next morning put on one of Walpole's shirts. That day it was Chapman's turn to speak first. In his speech he reiterated the old charge of "Ruffled- Shirt Gentry," and pointed to the ruffles protruding from Walpole's bosom. When he closed his speech, Walpole arose and with great indignation referred to the abuse he had received from Chapman during the canvass for wearing ruffled shirts. Said he, " Fellow-citizens, I do wear ruffled shirts; you see them now in my bosom. I am an honest man. I do not try to conceal them. I abhor a hypocrite. What character is so much to be despised as that of a hypocrite? This dishonest, hypocritical op- ponent of mine has been abusing me from day to day for wearing ruffled shirts, and I have borne it patiently, refusing to expose his hypocrisy. I will
II
122
INDIANA MISCELLANY.
expose him now, and prove to you that he wears ruffled shirts as well as I." At that moment he caught hold of Chapman's vest, as he sat near him, and tore it open, when out popped a bosomful of ruffles. At this, the audience raised a tremendous shout. Chapman was so much surprised and con- fused that he did not dare to get up and confess that he had on Walpole's shirt. This trick gained several votes for Walpole.
On the Saturday before the election, which was to come off on Monday, they were speaking in a cer- tain neighborhood in Hancock county, where some vote Walpole had given in the Senate, the Winter be- fore, was very unpopular. Chapman labored to make all the capital he could for himself out of the vote. In order to avoid the force of the arguments Chapman made against him, Walpole positively denied having given such a vote. Chapman pledged himself to the people, that if they would meet him in Greenfield on Monday, the day of the election, he would, by the journal of the Senate, prove that Walpole did give that vote; if he did not he would decline the canvass and not ask them to vote for him. The next day he rode to Indianapolis and procured a copy of the Senate journal; on Monday morning he came into Greenfield and put up at Gooding's Hotel; he went into the room he usually occupied, laid the journal upon the table, and walked out on the street. Walpole, seeing him pass out, went into the room, and taking up the journal, found the page where the
123
POLITICS.
hated vote was recorded, tore it out, put it in his pocket, laid down the journal and went out. When the citizens had generally gathered in town, Chapman returned to the hotel, got the journal, went out, mounted a block and commenced making his speech. Referring to the dispute between himself and Walpole, he renewed his pledge, telling the people he would prove that Walpole had given the vote and was then mean enough to deny it. Turning over the pages of the journal he could not find it, not re- membering upon which one it was recorded. He became so much confused that he did not discover that the journal had been mutilated. He at last gave up the search under much embarrassment. Walpole then mounted the block, denounced Chapman as a liar and a slanderer, and demanded that he should decline being a candidate, and called upon the people to vote for him.
The result was Walpole was elected. They were both shrewd, talented men, well matched. In the cases related, Walpole obtained the advantage of Chapman.
Political parties tend to corruption. Whenever the people allow themselves to be compelled to vote for a candidate because he has been nominated by a party, their liberties are greatly endangered. No man should vote for a candidate simply because he belongs to the party. Honesty, purity of character in a candidate, is of greater value to the people than the mere profession of a certain set of political
124
INDIANA MISCELLANY.
principles. Whenever the moral men of the coun- try let the party-political wireworkers know that party politics alone can not command their votes, then those who control and manage political nomi- nating conventions will give them moral men to vote for.
125
MRS. SARAH SMITH.
CHAPTER XVII.
MRS. SARAH SMITH.
WE present the following sketch of Mrs. Smith, written by Rev. G. C. Smith, of the South-Eastern Indiana Conference, and published in the Western Christian Advocate in 1854, it being better than any thing we can write :
Sarah Smith was born October, 1776, in the State of Virginia, and died January 10, 1854, in the seventy-eighth year of her age. For more than fifty-two years she was a faithful, consistent, and devoted member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and lived in the conscious enjoyment of the com- forts of Divine grace.
How agreeable soever it might be to surviving friends, and how desirable soever for the instruc- tion and encouragement of others, that the pious and useful life and high Christian character of this now sainted "mother in Israel " should be spread out in detail before the public eye, the writer may decline the office of furnishing such desideratum. She was his mother; but for the praise of God's glorious grace he can not forbear to offer the follow- ing brief outline, deeming this as slight a tribute as a grateful son may well consent to pay to the
126
INDIANA MISCELLANY.
memory of such a mother. "A woman that fear- eth the Lord, she shall be praised." "Her chil- dren shall rise up and call her blessed."
When a small child she was left an orphan with an elder sister, by the death of both her parents. She was then taken by a kind uncle, who brought her up as one of his own family. When a little over twenty years of age, she was united in mar- riage to George Smith. The marriage was solem- nized on New-Year's day, 1797, in Union district, South Carolina, where they both then resided. With him she had lived, at the time of her death, more than fifty-seven years in uninterrupted harmony and conjugal felicity. She was indeed a helpmate. Never did woman more nobly and fully sustain that office. Through all the vicissitudes of life-in the gloomy paths of adversity, and in the sunny walks of prosperity-she was ever the same sympathizing, affectionate, and devoted companion. With grace and ease she could enter into the cares and recrea- tions, the joys and sorrows of her husband. In her domestic relations she made it her study to smooth the asperities and enrich the felicities of life.
Some five years after her marriage she became re- ligious, and joined the Methodist Episcopal Church. She was one of the happy thousands who were brought to experience salvation in that wonderful revival of religion, which occurred about the close of the last and the beginning of the present century, and which extended all over the Southern and then
127
MRS. SARAH SMITH.
Western States. During that remarkable period of re- ligious excitement, camp meetings were introduced- those public means of grace by which, in modern times, so often hundreds, if not thousands, as on the day of Pentecost, have been " turned from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God," and "added to the Church in one day."
The first of these meetings held in that part of the country was in 1802. The spot selected was a pleasant grove in the valley of Inoree River. Here, in the midst of the most picturesque scenery, the hundreds who came pouring in from every direction, some from the distance of fifty miles, pitched their tents in irregular clusters. Soon were gathered to- gether a vast multitude; people of all grades and conditions, high and low, rich and poor, black and white, Methodists and Presbyterians. Here, far from the noise and bustle of the crowded city, sur- rounded by a landscape clothed in nature's richest drapery, midway between those lofty hills which rose along on either side of the river, and overlooked the valley; and while, as introductory, the songsters of the grove were chanting their mellow notes, the congregation of religious worshipers commenced their devotions. Fervent prayer was offered up. The Word of God was delivered at three different stands at the same time, in living thoughts and burning words, " in demonstration of the spirit and of power ;" and soon the groans of the sin-sick arose, and min- gling with the shouts of the redeemed, went booming
128
INDIANA MISCELLANY.
up the valley, and echoed from hill to hill. The voice of joy and praise broke forth from the taber- nacles of the righteous, and the noise was heard afar off, while the placid waters of the gentle river glided by in silence, as if listening at the sound. Had Balaam stood on some one of those hill-tops which skirted that valley, looked down upon those tents as they stood spread out through the grove, and heard the joyous sounds of salvation as they rose from the encampment, and rolled along the banks of the quiet Inoree, surely he would have exclaimed, as when, on the hights of Pisgah and Peor, he stood beside the son of Zippor, and saw the camp of ancient Israel spread over the plains of Moab, "How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob; and thy tabernacles, O Is- rael ! As the valleys are they spread forth : as gardens by the river side! The Lord their God is among them, and the shout of a king is among them."
At this camp meeting hundreds were smitten by the power of Gospel truth, and fell to the ground under the preaching of the Word; hundreds, too, receiving the spirit of adoption, were then and there happily converted to God.
At this meeting the husband of the subject of this sketch was powerfully convicted, and was con- verted on his way as he went home. She, with him, soon after, joined the Methodist Episcopal Church. Some time after this, while her husband was at family prayer, she experienced converting
129
MRS. SARAH SMITH.
power; 't was bright as noon ; she was unspeakably happy. Then she realized what Wesley sung :
" My God is reconciled, His pard'ning voice I hear; He owns me for his child, I can no longer fear."
These lines she ever afterward held in the highest estimation, and often repeated them with all the deep emotion and holy confidence with which their author was inspired when first he sung them. From that happy hour she never doubted her acceptance with God. Through all her Christian warfare, which lasted over fifty-two years, she " fought a good fight, and kept the faith." Though she passed through scenes of trial and conflict, she never wavered in her attachments and fidelity to the Church and the cause of religion. Her trust in God was strong and steady. It is confidently believed that she never spent a day in all her long life, after her conversion, without some bright manifestation of Divine grace. She seemed always to be conversant with death, and in sight of heaven, to stand day by day on Pisgah's top. She was exceedingly fond of singing such words as, "O Jesus, my Savior, I know thou art mine." "Sweet rivers of redeeming love lie just before mine eyes."
The resurrection of the body was a subject which she contemplated with the most triumphant emo- tion. Often has she seemed to exult in such un- earthly ecstasy in anticipation of that glorious con-
130
INDIANA MISCELLANY.
summation of Christian triumph, as utterly to con- found the unbelievers. When, singing one of her favorite hymns, she came to the words, " Arrayed in glorious grace shall these vile bodies shine," her soul would sometimes take wing, and, rising from the world, would soar for awhile amid the scenes of the upper sanctuary.
In prayer she was truly gifted. In this she pos- sessed uncommon power. Though she was not an educated woman, her prayers were remarkably fluent and often eloquent. She was wonderfully successful at the altar among penitents. If their convictions appeared not sufficiently pungent, she would lead their minds in a train of such full and earnest confession and loathing of sin and wicked- ness as to make them shrink and cry for mercy; then pouring forth her intercessions in their behalf, she would raise them on the arms of faith, and standing at the very throne would present them for mercy with such assurance in the appeal, "Jesus, Master, now fulfill thy sacred word, as thou hast said, Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted," as rarely failed of success.
Many happy souls will rejoice in eternity that they ever met this saint of God at the altar of prayer. Often at the social prayer meeting, when all seemed cold and lifeless, she has been called on to lead in prayer, when soon the Holy Ghost has been shed upon the people, and the shout of victory has gone up from God's altar. Her prayers at the
131
MRS. SARAH SMITH.
family altar will never be forgotten by her children. Many, many a time have they wept under her im- pressive prayers, while parents and children kneeled together at the domestic altar.
For many years before her death she enjoyed the blessing of perfect love. She loved the Lord and she loved the Church. She would sing with pecul- iar zest as expressive of the feelings of her heart:
" I love thee, my Savior ; I love thee, my Lord ; I love thy dear people, thy ways, and thy Word."
A true and warm friend to itinerant ministers, her house was, for fifty years, their home. She was always glad to see a minister of the Lord Jesus enter her habitation, and felt unfeigned pleasure in ministering to his comfort. Many a weary itiner- ant has found a cordial welcome at her threshold. Never was she frustrated or confused in her domes- tic arrangements by the unexpected appearance at her door of these men of God, but she always con- tinued to render them easy and comfortable, as if their visit had been in pursuance of a special invi- tation. Indeed, it was with her substantially as with the Shunamite, who, in the days of Elisha, had a chamber on the wall furnished with a bed, and table, and stool, and a candlestick, for the prophet of the Lord as he passed that way, that he might turn in and rest. Among those who enjoyed her Christian hospitality may be mentioned a Crume, a Finley, (Robert,) a Strange, a Cummins,
132
INDIANA MISCELLANY.
a Bigelow, a Griffith, a Wiley, etc. These are some of the sacred and honored dead, but many yet live in whose hearts her memory is embalmed by the recollection of the itinerant's home.
In the Spring of 1809 she, with her husband and five children, emigrated from South Carolina to Indiana, in the then far West. They settled in Wayne county. Their residence was on the very borders of civilization, being just one mile from the Indian lands. Hundreds of wild savages were
roaming through the neighboring forests. These were frequent guests, generally very troublesome- often terrible to lonely families on the frontiers. When hungry they would call and demand some- thing to eat, and the family that neglected to sup- ply their demands was almost sure to incur their displeasure, sometimes their revenge.
During the British and Indian war of 1812- 1813, the white inhabitants for some miles around united together and constructed a fort at her resi- dence for their common protection against the vio- lence of their savage neighbors. The fort consisted of a small piece of ground inclosed by a thick line of palisades in the form of a square. These pali- sades were made of the trunks of trees, split into slabs three or four inches in thickness, and twelve or fourteen feet in length, set upright, with one end in a ditch cut three feet deep, thus furnishing a wall some ten feet high. Within this inclosure a suitable number of houses were built for the accom-
133
MRS. SARAH SMITH.
modation of the resident families. Into this fort the neighbors repaired in time of alarm and danger. Though the tribes in that part of the country were not professedly engaged in the war which was being waged against the country, yet considerable mischief was done in the neighborhood of the fort, such as stealing, and even murder.
Religious services were kept up in the fort. Oc- casionally they had circuit preaching. Once in a while the itinerant minister would find his way to this fort. Sometimes he bore upon his shoulder a musket to defend his life against the savages. Some- times he carried in his hands a hatchet to mark his way, that he might subsequently retrace his steps.
The subject of this sketch was remarkable in her attentions to the sick. These she did not suffer her- self to neglect. Around the couch of the afflicted she would linger with the most unremitting care, glad to do a kindness, ever ready to minister to their comfort and spiritual instruction. Being her- self feeble in her constitution, and much afflicted during her life, she knew well how to sympathize with the sick. She saw six of her children laid in the grave, four of them in infancy. She murmured not. She believed that her Savior took her in- fants, and she saw the adult ones enter Jordan in the triumph of faith. The four children left behind her cherish in their hearts a sacred reverence for her pious life.
About twelve years before her death she made a
134
INDIANA MISCELLANY.
request of her youngest son, in relation to her fu- neral. She asked him to see to having sung at her burial the hymn commencing,
" And must this body die ?"
and to have her funeral sermon preached from the words, "Be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh." These cir- cumstances considered alone may seem to possess no interest, but when viewed in connection with her life and death, they present coincidences which are somewhat remarkable. Her life was distinguished for that constant readiness which befits one whose departure from the world was to be sudden and un- expected. She died at the residence of her son of whom she made the request, just six weeks from the time she arrived at his house, and her remains are interred at Orleans, Orange county, Indiana. She died without a moment's warning, in the presence of several of her friends. She left without a sigh, not even a long breath. Thus sweetly and swiftly she passed from earth to the paradise of God.
135
GEORGE SMITH.
CHAPTER XVIII.
GEORGE SMITH.
OF the subject of this sketch, the following has been furnished us by a friend :
George Smith was born January 21, 1777; he died July 11, 1857. The place of his nativity was Union district, South Carolina. His ancestors were of the purest Anglo-Saxon blood. Their distinctive religious faith was that of the "Society of Friends," commonly called "Quakers." Some of the more remote ones were among the earliest members of that religious society. According to the best gen- ealogical and biographical data available, they emi- grated from England to America in company with the famous William Penn, and originally settled in Pennsylvania. After some years, that branch from which George descended removed to South Carolina. His father and mother were both zealous and prom- inent Quakers, the latter of whom was a reputable preacher in that denomination. In the time of the American Revolution, his parents, in common with many of their countrymen, suffered much from the predatory incursions of the numerous Tories who infested that part of the country. More than once their residence was assailed and plundered by those
136
INDIANA MISCELLANY.
political banditti of the most valuable portable ar- ticles. On one of these occasions, in the absence of his father, his mother's life was providentially pre- served from the violence of these military robbers. Having entered the domicile and commenced their depredations, one of them, an officer, seized a favor- ite household article which she held in her hand, and after a short, ineffectual struggle to wrest it from the grasp of the brave woman, he aimed a furious blow at her head with his sword, which struck the upper ceiling and glanced aside from its object.
Both his parents died, the one a few years after the other, while he was only fourteen years of age. Left thus so early an orphan to struggle through life, without the protection and guidance of parental hands, he found in his own native energy and firm- ness of purpose the elements of power sufficient, under the Divine blessing, to sustain him and to conduct him triumphantly through that most critical juncture, his minority. In the true spirit of do- mestic heroism he went to work, took the younger members of the family under his care, and made all necessary provision for their temporal comfort during the time of their needed guardianship.
Having arrived at a suitable age, he was married to Sarah Kennedy, with whom he lived in the hap- piest union for fifty-seven years and ten days. She went before him to the spirit-land about three years and a half. Her death was the great bereavement
137
GEORGE SMITH.
and affliction of his long life; but the grace of God sustained him. After he-grew to maturity he apos- tatized from the religion of his fathers, or, rather, declined personally to embrace its peculiarities ; yet he never ceased to adhere, with the greatest tenacity, to the great moral principles of the Gospel, as held and taught by them. Consequently, he never ranged among the profane and wicked of that day.
In 1802 he was converted to God, and became a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. At the first camp meeting held in that country, and the first which he ever attended, he was deeply con- vinced of sin. He mourned as a penitent, and sought the Lord with prayers, strong crying, and tears. During the services the power of God was displayed in a wonderful manner, particularly on the holy Sabbath. On that day the people-hundreds of them-lay prostrate on the ground, like men slain in battle, insomuch that the scene appeared awfully grand.
Under a sense of the wrath of God abiding on him, his feelings became so intensely excited that he could not consent to remain all the day upon the ground, but in the evening left for home. On his way thither he turned aside to pray, and while alone, agonizing in prayer, the Savior spoke his sins forgiven and his soul rejoiced in the conscious en- joyment of acceptance with God. He never after- ward doubted his conversion. On his return home the same evening he erected the family altar, whose
12
138
INDIANA MISCELLANY.
fires he never suffered to become extinct for a day, nor even to decline, till, after the lapse of more than fifty years, he became so aged and helpless that he was unable to stand upon his knees to pray. A short time after his conversion he had the joyful pleasure of witnessing the clear and happy conversion of his companion while he was leading the devotions of family prayer.
In the Spring of 1809 he took his family, which consisted at that time of his wife and five children, and emigrated to the then far West. He stopped his team and unpacked his goods in an almost un- broken wilderness, at a point a little north and about two miles west of where the ctiy of Rich- mond now stands, in Wayne county, Indiana. That was then on the very outskirts of civilization, all the lands west of him being claimed and occupied exclusively by the red men of the forest. Here he pitched his tent and commenced opening out a farm, little he and the few neighbors around him thinking of the vast and rapid tide of population and enter- prise which was to sweep over the western wilds within fifty years from that day. But he lived to see, in less time than that, the wilderness give way and the flourishing capital of Indiana standing seventy miles west of the spot where his frontier tabernacle stood, with her twenty-five thousand in- habitants, her grand State-house, her noble asylums, and her spacious and beautiful churches. He lived to see the boundary of civilization, which lay within
139
GEORGE SMITH.
a mile of his habitation, rolled westward till it reached the shores of the Pacific. In the place of his border settlement he resided for many years.
After some brief arrangements for the temporal accommodation of his family, his next great care was to seek for the enjoyment of Christian privi- leges. During the first Summer after his arrival in that wilderness land, the pioneer Methodist preachers found their way thither, and preached a few miles from his log-cabin. At the first news of their ap- proach he started and met them at the place, intro- duced himself, gave the names of himself and wife as members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and invited them to his humble dwelling. They came, and it was not long till his own cabin was made a preaching-place; a class was formed and he ap- pointed leader. Many years from that date his house was constantly and emphatically the itinerant Methodist preacher's home. There many a weary minister rested, and rallied his recuperative energies for further toils in his Master's vineyard.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.