USA > Indiana > Northwestern Indiana from 1800 to 1900; or, A view of our region through the nineteenth century > Part 6
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ago, how much was accomplished by what would now be called the dim light of those "tallow-dips." The writer of this, a pioncer child once, remembers well when giving in his youth, to a small but cultivated audience, one of his carliest public addresses, and be- ing then closely confined to his manuscript, how on one side of him stood "Deacon Luce" and on the other "Deacon Cushing," each holding in his hand a candlestick with a tallow candle to shed light upon the written page. (It was a different kind of light that went forth that night from that written page.) A picture of that room, the young reader, the au- dience, and the candle bearers, would be amusing now. There was no humor about the reality then. Those two noble, Christian men have gone, and the pioneer days have gone; but to a few gray-haired nien and women now, Ossian's words may be true, that the memory of days that have passed is like the music of Cary!, pleasant but mournful to the soul.
Home life is an important part of true life, and so we have looked into those early homes to see that warmth and light and industry and thrift were there. The light of love was surely there. The cards and spinning wheels and the scissors and needles in expert hands, are doing their proper work, and the boys have bullets to inold and whip lashes to braid and axe handles to make. There is employment for all.
It is now 1837; and wild as is all this region still, there are families scattered over it who are to build up civilized institutions and civil and religious life. The smoke that now goes up into the sky, curling above the tree tops on a clear, frosty morning, is no longer from Indian wigwams and hunting parties
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alone, but from the cabins of white men, mainly, who with their women and children have come "to pos- sess the land." Social life has commenced. With so- cial life ,the families becoming acquainted and neigh- borhoods forming, school life also begins. Some of the carliest schools were held in the homes; but log school houses were soon erected, having the stick and clay chimneys, large fire-places, and windows without glass. The public school system of Indiana was quite in its infancy then, but persons were ap- pointed by the State to examine teachers. These ex- aminations were private or might be so. There was no law to the contrary. One could be examined alone whenever or wherever he could find the ex- aminer. Each examiner asked his own questions and these were not generally many or difficult. The ex- aminations were short. One half hour was time enough. The public money paid to the teach- ers was correspondingly sinall in amount. Some- times one dollar, sometimes two for each
week, the teachers boarding in the different families free from expense. This feature of the teach- er's life had its advantages and pleasures, and also its inconveniences. It insured an acquaintanceship be- tween the teacher and the parents of the pupils, and was probably some help in the matter of school gov- ernment. The inconveniences need not be named .*
*One young teacher had an experience of more than in- convenience. Perhaps it was her first school. The time came to board a few days with a certain family. She went home with the children to the house. The dog was cross, but the children kept him off. When bed-time came the woman of the house, a widow, the mother of the children, showed the teacher to a little room well enough furnished
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There were in these earliest schools some well educated and accomplished teachers. There are no more thoroughly educated teachers now than were some of them. Yet many of them, probably, had not received much special training. Those thoroughly educated did not teach long. They were required in other lines of activity.
Connected with the early schools was a part of the social life of those pioneer years. The young people felt the need of society of some kind, and those of some intellectual and literary aspirations sought this in the spelling schools held evenings at their school houses, other exercises besides spelling being introduced. And then literary societies were formed, the exercises helping to educate the ambitious; the going to and from these gatherings, sometimes on horseback, sometimes in sleighs, giving to all the in- fluences of social intercourse, leading to the forming of acquaintances and of friendships, some of them proving to be life-long.
In these early days there were two varieties of people among the comparatively few inhabitants, as
and not specially lacking in neatness; but before leaving she very unwisely said to the teacher that no one had slept in that room since her husband died there with the small- pox. It did not matter, so far as the imagination of that young girl was concerned, that months had passed since then, or that the room, which was somewhat probable, had been fumigated, washed, cleansed. She begged to be allowed to stay somewhere else, to lodge with the chil- dren, anywhere other than there. But no. There she must lodge. The door was closed upon her. That teacher said she prayed all night. Prayer kept reason on its throne. But it was a night of terror. She did not return to that house again. She has daughters now teachers in our schools. They have no such experiences.
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nearly always in every community there will be, those of strong, abiding religious principles, and those car- ing more for pleasure and for the enjoyments of the present. Of this latter some, from the very first, so soon as social life may be said to have commenced, sought their social enjoyments in little dancing par- ties, whenever there were homes in which they could meet. For literary exercises and intellectual enjoy- ments they had not much relish.
The families of the other variety of settlers, who came from eastern homes of culture and of church life, whose children did not attend these little dancing parties, commenced religious meetings, organized Sunday schools, and gave opportunities to all for at- tending to the higher and grander interests of hu- manity. Thus among the earliest of the pioneers the foundations were laid for the schools, the literary life, the intelligence, and the church life of the present.
Those early religious gatherings were quite dif- ferent from most of the staid church life of the pres- ent. An appointment was made for preaching at some dwelling house or school house, and at the time ap- pointed a true pioneer community gathered. Some came on foot, some on horseback, some with ox teams, their styles of dress various, and if in the summer time not only the children but some of the men barefooted, their dogs coming with them, yet, all, the dogs excepted, giving an earnest attention to the services. There was no organ and no choir, but some one would lead in the singing, and, as books of the same kind were scarce, the hymns were often "lined," and a variety of voices would join in the sing- ing. If there was not so much harmony or melody in the singing then as now, there was probably quite as
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much real devotion. There were, too, among these pioneers some accomplished singers, and when a few of these met, as occasionally they did, there was rich music, harmony, melody, devotion.
The pioneer preachers, as a rule, were well in- structed men, men who were not brought up in the "back-woods." And they were devoted to their duties and to the interests of the people. The names of some of them will be found in other chapters.
The singing schools were another interesting and characteristic feature of those early days. As social gatherings they were very enjoyable, and some of the teachers of vocal music in Porter and Lake coun- ties, as Mr. Beach, of Beebe's Grove, and W. H. Mc- Nutt, of Yellow Head, and Professor Tyson, of Bos- ton, were accomplished masters of their art.
Among the social gatherings were conspicuous also the Fourth of July celebrations, quite different from the observances of these days.
Let us look now, for a few moments, more mi- nutely at the everyday life of these settlers. After erecting their cabins the first great work was, to make rails. They needed to become rail-splitters so as to build fences. It took no little work and hard work to open up a farm, even on the prairies, much more in the woodlands and in the heavy timber. It re- quired more than ten thousand rails to put a good fence around a quarter of a section of land, one hun- dred and sixty acres. All the early fences were what is called the Virginia or worm fence, two lengths for each rod. The cost of splitting rails in 1840 was fifty cents for a hundred.
The first plowing, called "breaking," which was turning over the prairie sod, required a large plow
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and a heavy team. Six or even eight yoke of oxen were used, and such a team was called in the lan- guage of the pioneers, a breaking team, and the large plow with its wooden mold-board and sharp coulter was a breaking plow, used only for "breaking up" prairie. The furrows were wide-eighteen or twenty inches-and the green sward of the prairie turned over smoothly and beautifully. When the time came for the second and third plowings of this fertile land, it was found that the soil would stick to the mold- boards of all their plows, which rendered the next turning over of the furrow difficult. The earth was crowded out from its place the width of the plow, but was not fairly turned over. The farmers longed for a plow that, in their language, would "scour."
The following reminiscence was given by a writer in a secular paper soon after the death of David Bradley, founder of the great agricultural manufactur- ing company located somewhat recently near Kanka- kee, Illinois. The writer says: "While visiting Jack Spitler's famous farin in Newton County, Indiana, he witnessed the trial of a Bradley plow. It was rep- resented that the new fangled implement would scour, and the trial drew a crowd from miles around. Much to the delight of the farmers present the plow did the work as represented, and they imagined that the zenith of agricultural implement invention had been reached. "Up to this time," the writer adds, "no manufacturer had succeeded in making a plow that would scour in heavy black or clay soil." The year of this trial is not given, but it was not far, prob- ably, from 1848. The farmers then had no idea of the improvements that would be made in agricultural implements in the coming fifty years. In those early
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days, before 1850, the plowmen largely were obliged to stop every little while and clean off the earth sticking on the mold-board, either with the heel or, better, with a little paddle which they carried along with them. And when they began to hold plows that would throw all the black soil off and remain bright and clean it is no wonder they were delighted.
While this home work of fence building and break- ing was going on, some of the men were busy build- ing dams, and erecting saw mills and then grist mills. They imitated the already extinct beaver in making dams, but from them they had not learned skill, for many times these man-made dams would give way. But the mills were very useful, very need- ful. Each man took his grain to the mill, waiting sometimes many hours for his turn to come, and re- ceiving at length, if he took wheat, flour and shorts and bran. Every farmer could then cat bread from grain of his own raising.
After provision was thus made for the first phys- ical wants, carding mills also having been erected, blacksmith shops built and furnished with tools and iron, shoemakers and a few tailors commencing their work, stores having been opened for both dry goods and grocerics, in a few years, for all this pioneer work took time, attention began to be given to the erection of frame houses, the burning of brick, and then the erection of church buildings. In Lake County brick kilns date from 1840, six years after the first few families built their stick chimneys.
The first church building in La Porte County commenced about 1836; in Porter about 1842; and in Lake in 1843.
A few words ought to be given to the earliest shel-
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ters for domestic animals erected by the pioneers. The axe was the great tool before the saw mill could be built, and for the first stables posts were cut, set upright in the ground, poles were laid upon these, posts with natural crotches having been selected, and then cross poles or rails laid over all, and these were covered with green grass or hay. Grass was one thing which the pioneers had in abundance. For the sides, slanting poles or rails were set up and covered with hay. These stables were sufficiently warm, but they were dark, and so not good for the horses' eyes when the sun shone on the snow without. Before grain was raised to furnish straw the hogs provided their own beds by gathering leaves in their mouths and placing these in some sheltered nook.
From 1830 to 1835, except in La Porte County and to some extent in White County, not many fami- lies settled in among the Indians. But from 1835 to 1840 settlements, here and there, were made over all the region north of the Kankakee River, hundreds of families coming in and taking up claims before the land sale of 1839. Yet the population was not large when the census of 1840 was taken.
Steadily along, yet not rapidly, improvements took place from 1840 to 1845, many Gerinan families com- ing in and some of other nationalities, seeking homes on new, unbroken land, or buying the improvements of the true frontier families who were ready to pene- trate into the wilds of the more distant West. Along in these years some private schools were commenced and several churches were built and frame houses were erected with brick chimneys. And then the closing portion of pioneer life, from 1845 to 1850 rapidly passed. The railroads were coming; and from fron- tier to railroad life the change was very great.
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On the whole, notwithstanding some privations, this early life was pleasant. Such freedom from con- ventionalities, such hospitality, such equality, such freedom from the tyranny of fashion, from corrup- tion in civil government, from millionaire influence, such an aspect everywhere of true American citizen- ship, such an abundance of wild game and of wild fruits free for all, although there was even then some wrong-doing, it is no wonder that some look almost regretfully back to those good old days.
Pleasant and some thrilling recollections of the wild animals of the early years belong to those who were pioneer children then. It took these wild ani- mals, especially the quails and grouse and wolves and deer, so abundant in those days, some little time to learn that some new occupants were taking posses- sion of their haunts, and when the wolves would come suddenly, in the day time, into a field of corn, and the deer would come suddenly upon a settler's cabin, while the children were delighted, these animals were certainly surprised.
It was for the children a thrilling experience of this rich life, when in the evening, returning home from some spelling school or literary society, they heard the sudden, quick, sharp barking of the wolves. While the pioneer children were not generally timid, two or three wolves could do enough howling to quicken the flow of their blood and hasten their foot-steps. Yet it was a sound which some of the New England born children loved well to hear.
The pioneers sometimes had large "drive" hunts. A good example of these was one in White County in 1840, in Big Creek Township. The boundaries of the hunting ground were, on the north, Monon Creek ;
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on the east, the Tippecanoe River; on the south, the Wabash; on the west, the county line. At eight o'clock in the morning the men and boys started along the outskirts of this large area, with no guns in their hands, as they were only to scare up the game and send the deer and the wolves, from grove and prairie, inward to the center. They were to meet at two o'clock at Reynold's Grove. There scaffolds had been erected, and on those were the sharp shooters with rifles and ammunition. As that afternoon hour approached, from each direction the startled deer and frightened wolves began to appear, and soon the sharp reports of the rifles reached the ears of the distant boys and men. On every side of those elevated stands the deer fell, and when the riders and footmen reached this central place they collected fifty deer as the result of that day's chase, and found many dead wolves stretched upon the ground. How many broke the ranks and escaped no one could accurately tell.
In some of these hunts, when not carefully con- ducted, most of the enclosed game would escape .*
The common mode of hunting deer was not what is called driving, but what hunters called "still hunt- ing" or sometimes called "stalking." No noise was made, no dogs were used to track them up. But some-
*Deer will rush quickly by the excited hunter. I came near being run over, in my youth, by a large drove of startled deer, as I chanced to be, one day, in their run- way in the West Creek woods. There was no time to count their number, but had they been crowded together like buffalo they would have trampled the young hunter under their feet. It was a beautiful and a thrilling sight, as, one after another, they bounded by, almost within reach of one's very hands. T. H. B.
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times a man would mount a horse from the back of which he could shoot, and having on the neck of the horse a bell, would start up a herd of deer and follow them up with his horse and bell as best he could. The theory was, and a fact it proved to be, that the deer would in a few hours become so accustomed to the sound of the bell and the sight of the horse that the hunter could approach near enough to make a sure shot. Then he could strap the deer on his horse behind him and return to his home.
The time may come, in another generation or two, when no eye-witnesses are living, that the large num- bers of deer which traditions will say were often seen together, will be counted only as hunter's tales, and not entitled to belief ; but that those beautiful creatures that added so much life to the woodlands and the prairies were here in large numbers, is now beyond any question. There are some living who have seen them.
It is a well attested fact that when men were putting on the roof of what for many years was known as the "Rockwell House," in Crown Point, they saw coming out from Brown's Point, two miles north- ward, and passing across the open prairie to School Grove, one mile southeastward, a herd of deer, num- bering, as well as they could count them, one hun- dred and eleven.
In 1843 and in 1844 as many as seventy deer, it is claimed, could be seen at one time on the prairies in Newton and Jasper counties ; and Mr. David Nowels, one of the substantial citizens of Rensselaer, says that he has seen as many as seventy-five at one time. While not a noted hunter, as his father was, he has
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killed as many as five deer in one day. He is au- thority also for the statement that, in those earlier years of pioneer life, good raccoon skins, black, would bring from two to three dollars each, and a good, large mink skin would sell for seven dollars, and a large otter skin would sometimes bring ten dollars. Musk- rat skins were not in so great demand .*
The facts are well attested that others have seen, some of whom are yet living, from twenty to forty and fifty deer in a single herd or drove, either quietiy feeding, or in that beautiful and rapid motion which has given to us the comparison, one "runs like a deer."
Some few noted hunters were among the pioneers, equal, probably, in their success, to Ossian's "hunters of the deer." One of these was V. Morgan, of Pulaski County, Jefferson Township. The number of deer that he killed is not exactly known, but it was esti- mated at four hundred. The last deer killed in that township, according to the traditions, were shot in the winter of 1880 and 1881. Of these there were only three or four.
There can be no exaggeration in asserting that some sixty and seventy years ago there were deer here not only by the hundreds but by the thousands ; as there were the prairie chickens or pinnated grouse here thousands upon thousands, and wild ducks and wild geese and wild pigeons, surely by the millions.
*Conversation in a visit October 16, 1899.
CHAPTER VI.
COUNTY ORGANIZATIONS.
I. By an act of the Indiana Legislature, approved January 9, 1832, a certain area was to be from and after April 1, 1832, known as La Porte County. This area, according to the copy of the act examined, was thus described : "Beginning at the State line which divides the State of Indiana and Michigan Territory, and at the northwest corner of township number thirty-eight north, range number four west of the [second] principal meridian, thence running east with said State line to the center of range number one west of said meridian; thence south twenty-two miles ; thence west, parallel with said State line, twenty-one miles ; thence north to the place of beginning." The northwest corner of La Porte County, it thus appears, like that of the State, is in Lake Michigan, and it also appears that the Legislature formed into a county some land, a strip twelve miles in width which had not then been purchased from the Indians. Since that time an addition has been made to the southern part of the county and a small area has been added on the east, so that now the Kankakee River forms most of the southern and a part of the eastern boundary.
Commissioners of the new county were soon elected, Chapel W. Brown, Jesse Morgan, and Elijah H. Brown; also George Thomas was elected clerk, and Benjamin McCarty, sheriff. The commissioners
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met May 28, 1832. They divided the county into three townships, and made of each a commissioner's district.
A Circuit Court, probably in 1832, commenced its jurisdiction and its sessions. The judges until 1851, when the new Constitution was adopted, were: Gus- tavus A. Evarts, Samuel C. Sample, Jolın B. Niles, Ebenezer M. Chamberlain, and Robert Lowry.
In 1833 Benjamin McCarty was probate judge.
No record of the proceedings of the first court have been found for this work, but for some sixty- eight years civil and criminal cases have been dis- posed of, year by year, for the most part, it is to be hoped, not only according to law but equity.
The judges of the La Porte Circuit, after 1851 to 1880, were: Judges Stanfield, Dewitt, Osborn, Stan- field, and Noyes.
2. Next, as to its organization, in the order of time, was White County, organized by act of the Leg- islature July 19, 1834. On that day county commis- sioners already appointed met at the house of George A. Spencer, and formed four townships and three commissioners' districts. These townships were called Prairie, Big Creek, Jackson, and Union. Elec- tions for justices of the peace, those necessary officers in civil government, were ordered to be held at the houses of William Woods, George A. Spencer, Daniel Dale, and M. Gray, in August, 1834.
On September 5, 1834, the county seat was lo- cated by three commissioners, and, evidently rement- bering Thomas Jefferson as the carly American "sage," the place was named Monticello. The first term of the White County Circuit Court was held in October, 1834, at the house of George A. Spencer.
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Only the associate judges were "on the bench." The sheriff was Aaron Hicks; clerk, William Sill. No cases were tried. Business postponed till the April term in 1835. John R. Porter was then present as presiding judge. Seven indictments were returned. One was for retailing intoxicating drink to Indians; one for illegally marking hogs; and one for setting fire to a prairie.
In these years were three judges, two called asso- ciate or side judges, and these, having little to do, were not required to be lawyers or to have much knowledge of law. Their opinions as to justice and right were of value.
The county thus commencing its civil life was named after Colonel Isaac White, an Illinois soldier, who was killed in the noted battle of Tippecanoe. Its area is five hundred and four square miles. There were, at its first settlement, oak openings; some tim- ber land; and, in the southwestern part, prairie. It contained some limestone rock, and some shale of what the geologists call the Devonian age, and "un- derlying lime rock of the upper Silurian." The fall of the Tippecanoe River is said to be about four feet to a mile, and the river furnishes much water power, as well as containing many fish.
3. The third of these counties to have a civil or- ganization was Porter, over the area of which as well as of that which became Lake County, the county commissioners of La Porte County seem to have ex- ercised some jurisdiction, having in March, 1835, divided it into three townships, Waverly and Morgan extending to the center of range six, and Ross includ- ing all that lay west of the line running through the center of range six. These commissioners also or-
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