USA > Indiana > Tippecanoe County > Past and present of Tippecanoe County, Indiana, Volume II > Part 29
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 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73
791
TIPPECANOE COUNTY, IND.
turkey were plentiful. Deer were killed from October ist to February Ist. Every neighborhood had its hunter who would usually kill from seventy-five to one hundred deer during the season. There was good demand for the hides and a saddle of venison (which meant the hams and loins together ). In the fall of the year everybody could have venison. Every cabin had its spinning wheel and loom. We raised our sheep and flax and made our own clothing. Corn and buckwheat was largely used for bread, as there was but little wheat raised at this time. There were a few horse mills for grind- ing corn scattered over the country. . Horses were fastened to a lever and driven around and around, but it would take two or three hours to grind a bushel of corn. In the fall of the year we would take a load of corn and buckwheat sufficient to last until the next April, and go some distance to a water mill. The buckwheat when ground was carried by hand to a bolt and many a time have I turned the crank to bolt the flour for our buckwheat cake. We had the satisfaction of knowing we had the pure buckwheat flour, but sometimes it was pretty gritty, being threshed on the ground and cleaned by making wind with a sheet instead of a wind mill, which was often done. The attraction for the young people was preaching, the Sunday and singing schools. Camp meetings were looked forward to with unusual interest, the camp ground being located near us in a beautiful grove. Instead of the modern cottage was the log cabin, covered with clapboards, with weight poles to hold them in place. Puncheons were split from trees for the floors of the cabins and for seats. The meetings would continue about six weeks. The spiritual feeling ran high and was demonstrated in no uncertain way in the preaching. singing, prayers and shouting. It was looked forward to as one great general meeting ground, where families and friends, separated by the demands of necessity for the greater part of the year, were reunited. It meant social as well as religious life to our forefathers. Their lives were lived along different lines than thicse of their grandchildren. They took time to live and enjoy as they went along. With laden baskets of good things to eat, the father, mother and children went happily on their way to the grove where the meeting was to be held, and once there, happiness reigned supreme. The women discussed household affairs, the men crops and politics, until the hour of service. When the speaker spoke, as a rule, it was not in the well trained tones of the modern scholar of theology, or the picturesque language of the modern cvangelist. He held forth on the iniquities of life, the dangers of hell. His voice was loud, his gestures at times uncouth, but the flame of a stern resolve blazed from his eyes. We had giants in those days, Peter Cartwright, James B. Finley, Richard Hargrave and others, and much good
792
PAST AND PRESENT
was done; each and all accepted the simple statement that, "Be good and you go to heaven-be bad and you go to hell," as conclusive, and shaped their lives accordingly. As the result of these meetings, think of the home life kept pure, the sorrowing hearts comforted, the children trained, spiritual life sustained, the moral sentiment inculcated; giving permanency to order, value to property, dignity to law, lifting the fallen, and educating the ignorant. If the shades of our grandparents attended one of our modern services, listened to the learned lecture of the preacher, heard the music of the organ, the trained voices singing the hymns, they would wonder much wherein it was an im- provement over the old days. When some sister would start singing with much earnestness some good old-fashioned hymn she thought suitable for the occasion, immediately after instead of the congregation looking around at her with shocked looks, the entire crowd would join in and sing itself into a trance of spiritual enjoyment, that made rugged faces beautiful, and lifted them upward to the plane of higher things.
In the summer of 1852 I taught a subscription school in one of the camp- ground cabins, and boarded at the homes of the scholars. In our spelling matches I was seldom beaten. I had mastered arithmetic, in addition, subtrac- tion, multiplication and division, which was all we needed at that time, could write a plain hand and was in demand as a teacher. In the winter of 1852-3 I taught a school in one of the oldest school districts in the county and taught the same school in the winter of 1853-4. In the winter of 1854-5 I was called to a new district, a large new house, and a school that averaged fifty scholars. Here was a number of grown-up ladies and men, well satisfied and considered a complete education all they needed if they could learn to spell. read and write and master the first four divisions of arithmetic. In the summer time I worked on the farm and at any extra jobs that I could get, if I could make twenty-five cents a day. The fall before I left home I con- tracted for and made five thousand rails at thirty-five cents per hundred to be ricked upon the stump. In those days we needed but little money and had less than we needed, our only money for years being silver Mexican quarters and English bits (twelve and one-half cents), and fip-penny bits, six and one-fourth cents. Sometimes we would get a five-franc French piece, worth ninety-five cents.
In March, 1855, I decided to come to Lafayette and got on a steamboat at Vincennes which was loaded from Cincinnati, Ohio, for Lafayette, Indiana, arriving in Lafayette March 15, 1855. When we tied up at the wharf at the foot of Main street there were two other steamboats from New Orleans load- ing or unloading. Our entire traffic was almost entirely by water, either by
793
TIPPECANOE COUNTY, IND.
the river or canal and the traffic on the canal, both freight and passenger, was at its best. The Wabash railroad was building at this time, and when com- pleted two years later killed the canal and, in fact, all water transportation. Fowler, Earl & Reynolds had a wholesale grocery store in the north end of the Purdue block, and the country for a hundred miles east, north and west traded here. There was a hotel and wagon yard on the hill where the Oak- land House is, and also a hotel and wagon yard, known as the Fountain House, located where the Kern packing house now is. In the fall of the year these yards were crowded with farmers and movers, teams and wagons. We had four first-class hotels at this time, the Lahr, the Bramble, then new, the Jones Hotel, where the Earl & Hatcher block now stands, and the City Hotel, where the St. Nicholas now is. These all did a thriving business, usually crowded, as travel was heavy. I had a brother, Joseph K. Smith, and an uncle, Ira Smith, who lived here, and after staying a few days and not finding anything I could get at I got on a packet and went to Logansport. From there I went twelve miles northeast of Logansport and stopped with a cousin, and in the neighborhood I tock a job of clearing fifteen acres of land. It was a very thick and heavy growth of young timber and brush and I had to leave the ground ready for the plow. This was a hard job, and as I had worked many a day before at twenty-five cents a day, I thought I could do so again, and could not afford to lay idle. While here I went one and a half miles to Sunday-school at the old Bethel Methodist Episcopal church. Stephen Euritt was our teacher, and the friendship of teacher and scholar lasted for nearly fifty-four years, we having kept in touch and met frequently np until the time of his death, in February, 1909. He was well fixed in this world's goods and died rich in the prospect of a happy future.
While here I was well acquainted with a five-hundred-acre farm-little do we know of our future, as I have owned this farm for the last ten years. When done with this job of clearing, in October, I decided to go back to Lafayette, came down on a packet, landed at the foot of Ferry street at four o'clock a. m., October 15, 1855. Whatever money I had earned outside of my clothing and necessary expenses up until I was twenty-one years old I sent to my father, so that when I counted my money on this October morn- ing I had nine dollars and five cents. My brother Joseph was running a meat market in the cellar under the Barbee Bank, southwest corner of the square, now the Emsing corner. I hired to him to do whatever I could do, from May Ist to about December Ist. We attended market on Tuesday and Saturday mornings, at the market space west of the Lahr house. I tried to learn every detail of the business, and in the winter of 1856 I bought my
794
PAST AND PRESENT
brother's business, which included slaughter house, two horses and meat wagon, tools, etc., agreeing to pay one thousand four hundred and ninety- eight dollars, making two notes, one-half due in six months and one-half due in one year, notes drawing ten per cent. interest. I took possession the first day of March, 1857. I could raise about one hundred dollars, but during the year I had formed the friendship of some noble men, which was better now to me than money. Among these were Benjamin Crist, one of God's noblemen, rich in friendship and confidence. He says: "I have five good steers well fattened; I want five cents for them; you come out and the boy will help you drive them in, weigh them and when tax-paying time comes let me have enough money to pay my tax, and the balance I will get as I need it." C. M. Crist, who lives near the old home place now, was the boy. I started out to pay those notes as they became due, and I did it and had some money over. These were the days of "wild-cat" money. A large portion of the money in circulation was of this class, such money as the "Michigan Plank Road," "Logansport Insurance Company," was largely in circulation here. The State Bank of Indiana and the State Bank of Ohio had furnished a good paper money for all purposes, but their charters, which were for twenty years. having expired the legislature refused to renew them and they went into liquidation. This left us for about two years with no banking law until the winter of 1857-8, when the legislature of Indiana passed a law authorizing banks to organize and issue circulation by depositing with the secretary of state certain class of bonds. Under this law the Gramercy Bank was or- ganized and did business here in the Jones Hotel building. Two shrewd young men from New York state started this bank and issued a large cir- culation. They decided to start another bank in the south part of the state and went to the secretary of state and asked him to loan them, for a few days, the use of the bonds they had deposited for the purpose of organizing a new bank. He, wishing to accommodate them, which is liable to be the case in all elected officers, let them have the bonds, but instead of starting a new bank they came back to Lafayette, closed their bank in the evening. and between the daylights they took everything of value from the bank and left for parts unknown. The next morning the doors failed to open at the proper time, which soon drew an anxious crowd of depositors. When the safe was opened everything was gone, nothing left to the depositors or to redeem the circulation. Six or eight years afterward these shrewd young men communi- cated from Canada through an attorney here and arranged to settle with their depositors in full, by giving them their individual notes. This stopped all
795
TIPPECANOE COUNTY, IND.
criminal proceeding and ended the chapter, as the depositors never received anything on their notes.
The State Bank of Indiana had branch banks located in some of the best towns of the state. Cyrus G. Ball, whose first wife was a daughter of Uncle Ira Smith's, was president of the bank here during the years of its existence. The bank was located at the southwest corner of Sixth and Main streets, now occupied by Kienly's drug store. The bank building and Judge Ball's residence were built together and part of the residence as it then stood adjoins the drug store on the south. The style of these bank buildings was the same all over the state, four large columns, twenty or twenty-five feet high, forming an alcove in front. In the spring of 1859 I bought a house and lot of John L. Reynolds at the southeast corner of Fifth and Wall streets. This I remodeled by making it from a one-story to a two-story house, ar- ranging it for a future residence. On the first day of June, 1859, my wife and I were married. Her maiden name was Melissa E. Johnston, and she lived with her mother, a widow, in New Carlisle, Ohio. Her father and mother were pioneer settlers on Donnel's creek, and owned a farm a short distance from father's farm.
The year 1860 brought with it the most exciting political campaign that has ever occurred in this country. The Republican party in the West had such known leaders as Lincoln and Logan, of Illinois; Indiana had its Henry S. Lane, Oliver P. Morton, Schuyler Colfax, James Wilson, member of Congress from this district and brother to the late William C. Wilson. of this city. Lafayette had its Dan Mace, Godlove S. Orth, William C. Wilson, Albert S. White and others. We fully realized that a crisis was imminent, but the North had fully decided that the time had come when the slavery question should be settled, and voted accordingly. The result of the campaign was that Lincoln was elected, having carried every northern state. Secession of the extreme southern states followed. When the telegraph came saying that Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor had been fired on, here in La- fayette the court house, church and fire bells rang, excited, determined men paraded the streets led by the martial music, business was suspended, such men as H. T. Sample, Thomas T. Benbridge, Jo Hanna, Martin L. Pierce, Adams Earl, Moses Fowler, Gen. J. J. Reynolds and the Reynolds brothers. John L. and William F., the Heaths, Pykes and others, headed the procession. Such scenes as this occurred all over the North, and when the first call was made for volunteers the ranks were filled and hundreds turned away. A re- cruiting office was opened in a small frame building about where the Gillian Fating House is. The Packard brothers played the fife and drum, and for
796
PAST AND PRESENT
the next three years from daylight until midnight you could hear that martial music. Four or five regiments were recruited here as headquarters, and their camping ground was on the hill south of the city. If Third street was ex- tended south over the hill, it would strike the camping ground. When a regiment was filled the country and city would turn out to see them leave for the front. It might be that nearly every one in the crowd had a relative or a friend in that regiment, well knowing what it meant when they said good-bye, but there was no flinching in those days. In the summer of 1862 I had saved money enough to pay for and I bought eighty acres of land at fifty dollars per acre, and had enough money left to buy teams and tools for farming. The land was located about the center of the Wea plains. I moved on the farm and put out a crop of wheat that fall. During the winter I bought one hundred and forty acres adjoining me on the north, of the Ellsworth heirs, giving fifty dollars an acre, and giving my notes at eight per cent. interest. Soon after, I bought eighty acres more at fifty dollars per acre. This gave me three hundred acres of land lying in a square farm, and now owned by William V. Stuart. I had on two occasions tried to en- list, but it was at a time when the government could not arm the men as fast as they offered their services, but now I was situated to do much more good for the cause than I could have done in the ranks. I was elected trus- tee of the township and served in this office four terms. We organized our township of Wayne to fill cur quota of men for the army at call. After the first battle of Bull's Run, where the Union army met a reverse and in fact was meeting reverses on every hand, volunteering became very slow, and the government had to resort to a draft to fill the depleted ranks. Every able-bodied man between the ages of twenty-one and forty-five was subject to draft. The draft was for three hundred thousand men, divided among the states, giving each state its quota, the state divided into counties, the counties to townships, so that each township knew the number of men it had to raise. Here our township organization came in. Tippecanoe county had appropriated three hundred and sixty-three thousand dollars to be used to support the families of those that went to the army, and the trustee of each township had this in charge. The government had offered a bounty of four hundred dollars for any that would re-enlist, whose time had expired ; say. Wayne township's quota was twenty men, so by taking the four hundred dol- lars of government bounty and adding from five to eight hundred dollars to it with the provision that the county would support their families, we had no trouble in filling our quota of the draft for three-year men from men who had seen service and were drilled. A man that was drafted if he pre-
797
TIPPECANOE COUNTY, IND.
ferred to go and take the bounty could do so, but we had cases where men were drafted who had large families or some one dependent on them, and in these cases a substitute came in. These years of the war were the farmer's harvest. It was an easy time to pay debts, as crops were good and prices high. I have had the honor and pleasure of shaking hands with and hearing speak six of our Presidents, namely : Lincoln, Grant, Mckinley, Harrison, Roosevelt and Taft. I have also shaken hands and heard Fremont and Blaine, candidates for the presidency. I have cast fourteen votes for Presi- dent. Three of these votes were lost, Fremont, Blaine and one for Harrison. In 1884 I was nominated by the Republicans for county treasurer and Blaine was the candidate for President. He carried the county by one hundred and eleven majority, and I was elected by about the same majority. I was nominated for a second term two years later and was re-elected by between thirteen and fourteen hundred majority. September 1, 1885, we moved back to Lafayette, as I went into the treasurer's office August 25, 1885. We had spent twenty-three years on the farm. In the summer of 1890 the Lafayette National Bank, John W. Heath president, arranged to close out their busi- ness on account of the death of Mr. Heath. This left an opening for a new bank, and at the instigation of James Murdock, Charles B. Stuart. John B. Ruger, William C. Mitchell, John Wagner, Sr., S. C. Curtis and W. W. Smith early in October met in the office now occupied by Brockenbrough as an insurance office to talk in regard to organizing a national bank. The result of that talk was the organization of the Merchants National Bank with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars. A board of directors was elected, including the above names, to which was added William Horn. The directors organized by electing James Murdock president, W. W. Smith vice-president, these officers being continued up until the death of Mr. Mur- dock. The bank opened its doors January 1, 1891, and had only gotten a good start when the panic of 1893-4-5-6 came on. From a high state of prosperity which we had, for three and one-half years came one of the worst depressions this country has ever had. A horse that ordinarily would sell for two hundred dollars would bring forty or fifty dollars; wheat was forty cents, corn fifteen to eighteen cents, and I sold oats at eight cents a bushel. Land dropped one-half or more. These prices did not fully reflect the effects of the panic, as there was no demand for anything. On July 4, 1887, through the efforts of James Murdock, natural gas was piped into the city and a demonstration was made at Columbian Park. We had the benefit of this fuel for about sixteen years. Through the efforts of Mr. Murdock an interurban line was built from here to Logansport, connecting with Ft.
798
PAST AND PRESENT
Wayne, and also another one from here to the Battle Ground, expecting it to be extended to Ash Grove, Brookston, Chalmers, Reynolds to Monticello. To realize the changes in the city, go back to the time when I came here, when Lafayette was confined west of Sixth street and south of Brown street. The old cemetery was still in existence where the German Catholic church now is. The fall of 1858 the county fair was held on the commons a little east of the cemetery. The towns of the county, many of them which are now wiped off the map, or are known by other names, follow: Starting up the Wabash we had Americus, Jewettsport, Harrisonville (now Battle Ground), Fulton, Kingston (now West Lafayette). West Lafayette was then located on the river bank just below the railroad bridge. On down a little above the old mouth of Wea creek on the north side of the river, was located Cincinnatus. Here was a ferry and people from west crossed here and went up the creek to the Hawkins grist mill. This town was extinct when I came here and was only referred to by the older settlers as the probable site of the old Indian town. This theory was sustained by the fact that many Indian graves were found in the bottoms opposite the town of Cincinnatus and was supposed to be an Indian burying ground. In later years the great number of skeletons that have been exposed by the washing and the plowing of the soil proves this was a burying ground. We come down the river to Gran- ville, on the south side of the river. Then on the north side was LaGrange, near Black Rock, and farther down on the south side near the Fountain county line was located Maysville, nearly opposite Independence. A great amount of pork was bought and shipped from Maysville to New Orleans by John Sherry, Asa Earl and others. We come now to inland towns. There was Middleton (now West Point), Columbia (now Romney), Baker's Corner (now Stockwell). The town of Dayton was originally platted as Marquis De Fairfield, and Dayton. The legislature in 1831 passed an atc stating that on account of the confusion of names that the town be called Dayton.
I have belonged to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows since May, 1858. Our family consists of four children, namely : Marcellus L. Smith, born in 1861, and Rosa B. Smith, his wife, have one daughter, Edith Mote Smith, aged eighteen years. Werdie P. Smith, born in 1866, and Gertrude Fort Smith, his wife, have two children, Warren W. Smith and Loretta, aged ten and two years respectively; these two families live in Oakland, California. Carrie B. Smith, born in 1863, and Adam Wallace, her husband, have two children, Kenneth and Frances, ages eighteen and eight years. Deloss W. Smith, born 1874, and Clara Lang Smith, his wife, have one daughter, Sidney M. Smith, three years old. Deloss W. Smith is assistant cashier and receiving teller at the Merchants National Bank of this city.
799
TIPPECANOE COUNTY, IND.
This article is much longer than I had thought of writing, but there are so many things in the way of reminiscences of the pioneer days and of early settlers that if I have been able to make a few of these plain, I am content.
W. W. SMITH.
MONFORD PAUL.
Owing to the fact that Monford Paul did not seek any royal road to success but began in a legitimate way to advance himself, he is today num- bered among the leading agriculturists and representative citizens of Perry township, Tippecanoe county, having reached the goal of prosperity and in- dependence because he has worked for it and deserved it. His birth occurred February 13, 1840, in Lehigh county, Pennsylvania, the son of Reuben Paul, also of that county. The latter was born October 12, 1812, the son of John and Hetty (Haupt) Paul, Hetty Haupt having also been a native of Lehigh county. The Paul family were residents of the old Keystone state for sev- eral generations. Reuben Paul's education was obtained in the common schools. He was reared on the home farm, and when twenty years of age began to learn the blacksmith's trade, which he followed with much success for twenty years. On August 3, 1834, he married Levina Haupt, a native of Allen county, Pennsylvania, and the daughter of George and Mary Haupt. Reuben Paul lived in White Hall, Lehigh county, Pennsylvania, until 1851, when, in company with Charles Moyer, Urwin Jones and Charles Miller, he came to Tippecanoe county, Indiana, this coterie of rugged frontiersmen hav- ing made the toilsome journey with one two-horse team which drew an old- style wagon. They were three weeks and three days making the trip. Reuben settled in section 26, Perry township, where he got eighty acres of land, fifty-five acres of which had been cleared, and on it stood a small frame house. For the whole he paid one thousand six hundred and fifty dollars. He made a splendid home here, built a fine brick dwelling in 1859, and had one of the best places in the township.
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.