USA > Indiana > Pioneer history of Indiana : including stories, incidents, and customs of the early settlers > Part 36
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BIRDS OF PREY, NATIVE TO INDIANA.
THE EAGLE.
The eagle is not only the largest bird native to Indiana, but is the most powerful and courageous of all birds of prey. It has a very strong beak, which is of considerable length, being straight most of the length and curved near the end, making it the weapon for tearing the flesh on which they live. Their legs are strong and covered with feathers to their toes, which have a strong, crooked claw. The bald eagle, the most common in Indiana, the male bird is three feet long and the female three and a half feet. When the wings are outstretched it measures about eight feet across. The female is not only larger, but possesses more courage, if that is possible.
The eagle will soar to great heights. Their enormous strength enables them to withstand the severest storm of
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wind. This great bird, with its bold and defiant glance, proud aerial flights and strength of limb, combines so many of the qualities which are esteemed noble that it was called by the ancients "The Celestial Bird," and in their mythology was the messenger of Jupiter and the bearer of his thunder- bolts. Its figure in gold or silver upon the ends of spears was the military ensign of the Romans and Persians. Young America followed their example and the figure of the eagle was accepted as an emblem of power. It is not a common bird, but it has its home in all parts of the world, building its nest on high rocky craigs, where it is almost impossible to reach them. It makes a very crude nest out of long sticks and Jimbs covered over with long grass and moss. The mother bird lays two eggs, sometimes three. The young birds are fed on the flesh of rabbits, birds, lambs, fish and all sorts of animals. The young birds remain near their nesting place and are cared for by the parent bird until the next nesting season comes around. Then they look out for their own food and it is three years before they obtain their full growth. The eagle has one redeeming trait which is not followed by the bird family generally; that is, they choose their mates for life.
THE HAWK.
There are a great number of the hawk family that are native to Indiana, but only three varieties that are the most conspicuous of that great family are here given. The largest of the hawks are what is known as the hen hawk. This bird is of a grey color, with a red tinge about its wings and tail. Its breast is of a red brick color; the under part of the body is of a lighter color, with dark spots over it. These large hawks are very common in all parts of our state. They make their nests in trees, using brush and sticks for that purpose. The young birds are fed on the flesh of birds and small animals. The young rabbit is their most common food. These hawks will carry a full-grown chicken away with perfect ease. They will catch a rabbit and carry it to the nest. If the young are large enough they will hold the live rabbits
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and have the little hawks practice learning how to kill their prey.
A man who raised a variety of rabbits had among them a great many small white rabbits. The hawks began to prey upon them, catching one of his favorite ones every day. He tried in many ways to kill the hawk, but without success. He finally adopted the following plan: He secured several white cats and put them in place of the rabbits. The hawk made its usual trip. Catching one of the white cats in its talons, it started to fly away. All went well for awhile, but presently there was seen a commotion in the air. Hawk feathers were flying in every direction. Finally hawk and cat fell to the earth, the hawk with its throat cut.
THE CHICKEN HAWK.
The chicken hawk was so named because it was so won- derfully adept at catching chickens. These hawks are about half the size of the common large hen hawk, of dark color on their back and wings, and of a light mottled color on their bodies. These hawks can fly very fast and are very brave and determined in their attacks upon chickens and young tur- keys. In their attempt to catch young birds, the mother chicken and turkeys have many a battle with them. They knock them down, flop them with their wings and feet, but the hawk seldom fails to secure the young fowl. These birds live on all sorts of small animals and birds and make their nests in the tree tops, living through the winter months sheltered in the timber.
THE SPARROW HAWK.
This bird is of a slate color except on its back, which is a chestnut color. The lower part of its body and under its wings are of a beautiful light-grey color. It can fly very swiftly and lives on field mice and small birds. It will catch any sort of young fowl. As the country grows older they become more plentiful; as they are so small they are hard to hit with target rifles.
THE HORNED OWL.
The great horned owls have large grey eyes, long feathery
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ears, and are very pretty mottled birds of brown color. The under part of the bird is white, barred with black stripes. The eyes are large, as are those of all owls, and are so con- structed that they cannot see in the daytime, but can see at night.
The home of these birds is in the dense forest. From there it visits the farms in the neighborhood around its home and is regarded as a great poultry thief. This bird catches its prey on the wing, and when visiting the old-fashioned hen roost where the chickens roost in the apple, peach and plum trees, it could not strike the chicken while flying on account of the limbs, but would light in the tree and sidle up to a hen and crowd her off the limb and as she fell or flew would catch her. These large birds build their nests in the hollow trees and in the daytime remain in these warm homes. This bird's note of challenge is Who! who! who !- sounded at short in- tervals. Aside from this noise it can scream very loudly.
THE WHO! WHO! WAH! OWL.
This bird inhabited all sections of Indiana in the or- chards and woods and at times would get into the barn-lofts. They would commence their notes with a screaming sound something like Yi! yi! yah! who! who! wah! These birds are not so large as the horned owl. They catch all sorts of birds and prey at night, the field mice and rabbits. They will light in a tree near a chicken roost and set up that screaming noise, which sounds very fierce. They are not large enough to carry away a full-grown hen, but can easily carry off a half-grown chicken. They have been known to light among the chickens and kill a hen, eating what they wanted of her and then flying away to their nest in the valley. They make their nests in hollow trees, the same as the horned owl, and remain in them during the day, only in very dark for- ests-they hide in the thick foliage of trees and come out at night.
THE SCREECH OWL.
This is a very common night bird of a red hue. It flies at all hours of the night, but remains in its den in some hol-
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low tree during the day. These little birds have tufts of feathers which look like small ears on the side of their head, which, with their big round eyes, give them a very comical look. They sound a whistling note, and if their nests are approached at night, will fight to the last. They catch all sorts of insects, mice and small birds, but are regarded as. harmless and are encouraged to nest in barns.
CHAPTER XVIII.
SCHOOLS OF EARLY INDIANA.
HOUSES-BOOKS-DANGER FROM WILD ANIMALS-OPPOSI- TION TO FREE SCHOOLS.
The Legislature of 1821, both houses concurring, raised the following committee-John Badollet and David Hart of Knox County, William W. Martin of Washington County, James Welch of Switzerland County, Daniel I. Casswell of Franklin County, Thomas C. Sereal of Jefferson County, and John Todd of Clark County, for the purpose of drafting a bill to be reported to the next Legislature of Indiana, providing for a general system of education. They were particularly instructed to guard well against any distinction between the rich and the poor. The report of this committee was incor- porated in the first general school law of Indiana which is a part of the statute of 1824.
There has been a deep interest in the people of the state from its very first organization for the education of rising generations. In one form and another this educational ques- tion was before every legislature from the first in territorial days, either asking aid to establish schools or in carrying out the provisions of the incorporated acts by the National Con- gress for the government of the Northwest Territory or for special privileges to build academies and seminaries in many parts of the state.
Education was a favorite theme with all our legislatures and always commanded attention in both houses of our Gen- eral Assembly.
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The following description of the schools, school-houses, and the school teachers is probably as nearly correct as could be given at this later period. The incidents connected with this chapter were gathered from the personal experience of the author and from incidents which he well knows to be true.
The first schools taught in Indiana Territory from 1805 up to 1815 were very primitive. The country was sparsely settled, in fact in only a few places were there any people. A half dozen settlers located two or three miles apart were considered at that time quite a settlement. In that number of families there was usually some one qualified to give in- struction to the children in the first principles of reading and spelling and sometimes could teach writing and the four sim- ple rudiments of arithmetic, addition, subtraction, multipli- cation and division.
The first few years of this period the teacher was em- ployed to go to the houses and spend about one-third of the day with the family instructing the children. In this way with six families he could give three lessons each week to all the children. These circulating teachers as they were called did a good work.
When it became less dangerous from the Indians and wild animals the children would congregate at the home of the family most centrally located in the neighborhood, in a lean- to built at the side or end of the pioneer cabin.
Late in the twenties many neighborhoods became strong enough to support a subscription school of two or three months in the year. The patrons of the proposed school would meet at a site which had been selected if possible near a good spring of water and as convenient to all as possible, and build a school house. These first school houses were very simple and easily built structures and at this date would be a curiosity, but they were up to the times in which they were built.
Round logs were cut and hauled to the site and a rectan- gular pen usually sixteen by eighteen feet and about eight feet high was raised and covered with four foot boards held in
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place by weight poles tied to the ridge poles with strong hickory withes. The only opening was the door and about two-thirds of the length of a log cut out of one end of the building for a window. Cross slats were put in that opening and greased paper was pasted on the slats. This kept out the wind and gave light to the room.
A puncheon was hewed out as thin as needed to fit in the window opening. This puncheon rested on pins which were put into the log below the one cut out, and slanting, thus. making a good rest to write on, but was usually covered with baskets and reticules in which the scholars had brought their dinners. This puncheon or shelf was made so that it could be fitted into the window opening and when pinned there nothing could get in at it. If the school ran into the late fall or winter months, the openings between the logs were chinked. with the hearts of the board cuts and then daubed with clay mortar.
In the other end of the room a very large fireplace was. made. In building the house, when the wall at that end was. about five feet high a log was put across about three feet from the end wall and short logs were put from this log to the end wall and carried on up to the comb of the house. These short logs were about eight feet apart, making the throat of the chimney, which was drawn in as it was raised higher, so that at the top it was about four feet. Along the end wall under the opening made for the chimney, a back wall of clay was made up about four feet high, then the cracks in the chimney and wall were chinked and daubed. For a floor, sometimes split puncheons were used, but oftener it was made out of mother earth.
The dirt was put inside the room until it was up to the middle of the first side logs that lay on the ground. The dirt was pounded with a mall until it was well packed. For the last two or three inches, clay was made into a thick mor- tar, then put over the floor and evenly smoothed down. This. soon dried and made a good, substantial floor. For seats, a. log ten or twelve inches through at the top end and about twelve feet long was split in the middle and the split sides.
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were hewn so as to take the splinters off. Then two auger holes were bored at each end on the round side of the slab and solid hickory pins for legs were driven into the holes, thus making a substantial bench.
I can yet remember that some of the hewing to take the splinters from the top of these benches was not perfectly done, as the seat of many a boy's pantaloons gave unmistak- able evidence. The door shutter was made out of split pieces of white oak fastened on hinge buttons.
·The teachers were often men of families that had im- proved the opportunity for an education in the older settled sections before coming to the wilderness of Indiana. Some were young men. The teacher, unless he had a home in the neighborhood, would board around among the scholars, stay- ing a week at a time at one place.
The subscription school was the only kind then taught. Each family would subscribe as many scholars as they thought they could send during the three months that the school was in session. The time that each scholar attended was kept, as some families, having subscribed two scholars, would, part of the time, send three. If, at the end of the term, they had sent more than they had subscribed, the extra time was paid for.
The usual price per scholar, if the teacher boarded around among his patrons, was one dollar and seventy-five cents a term. If the teacher boarded himself, he got two dollars and fifty cents.
The school teachers of that early period deserve more than a passing notice. Many who write about the pioneer schools and their teachers, indulge in unwarranted criticism, asserting they were unqualified and cruel monsters. No doubt, there were exceptional cases, but as a class, these old teachers were a blessing to that generation, and they did the best they could with the very limited advantages it was pos- sible for them to have. They left their impress on the chil- dren of the early pioneer who transmitted life to a generation now passing away which has done so much for the betterment of the country in which they have lived and for the advance-
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ment in every way of the generation they leave in charge.
The first several years after schools were taught in school houses, books were very scarce, high-priced and hard to get. In many cases where there were several members of the same family who went to school, some of them did not know their letters, others were commencing to spell in one and two syllables, and still others were farther advanced. The parents would take Webster's spelling book and, cutting the leaves out of the first part of it, paste the letters on a board made for that purpose and the words of one and two syllables on another board for the younger members of the family, and then give the balance of the book to those further advanced. In this way many children were taught the first principles of an education.
Many sorts of books were used for readers -the New Testament, the Bible, the English Reader (the hardest to read of all), Grimshaw's History of England, Flint's Natural History, and Emma Willard's History of the United States.
When any of the scholars were far enough advanced and the teacher could teach it, Kirkham's grammar was used. Smiley's Arithmetic was used, but the complicated rules in that work were very hard for a beginner in that science.
Lessons in penmanship were given by the teacher setting a copy at the head of a sheet of fools-cap paper. For this purpose he used a goose quill pen, as they had no other. The ink then used was made from the ooze of different kinds of bark that in that day were used to color thread and cloth black. The ooze from the maple bark was the most used.
In that day every scholar was in a class by himself. If there were twenty-five scholars, there were twenty-five classes, from A, B, C, to those studying Kirkham's wonderful grammar. When one pupil had recited, the teacher called the next, and so on until the entire school had recited. It never seemed to dawn on the teacher's mind that he could group his pupils and that several could learn the same thing at the same time and learn it better by being in a class and hearing each other's recitation.
The spelling lesson in the latter part of the afternoon
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was engaged in by all the pupils who could spell. Sometimes they had a large and a small class. In studying the spelling lesson the scholars were permitted to "study aloud." At times when this lesson was being learned the noise was so. great that nothing outside the school house could be heard.
I here submit a contribution from a friend. With the ex- ception of the Christmas treat, the crazy teacher and the fam- ily quarrel, gives a very good description of the schools as. they were in the early forties:
"The door was usually on the south side of the building,. so as to have the advantage of the sun's heat when the door was open, and that was most of the time, A very large fire- place was in one end of the house. There was a detail of pupils made each day by the teacher to cut and carry wood. for the fire when it was cold weather. Wood was very plen- tiful near the school house. Those detailed were the larger . boys, and they looked forward to this recreation with pleas- ure, glad of a little time away from their arduous studies.
"I will not attempt to describe the school house, but will give some details of the way the first two or three schools. which I attended were conducted. They were all what was termed 'loud schools,' the scholars studying their lessons out loud, making a singing sound all over the house-so loud one could scarcely hear one's own voice, especially when it came time to prepare our spelling lessons.
"One Christmas morning our teacher brought a jug of whisky. to which he added some eggs and sugar; he then shook it up and called it 'egg-nog." When noon came he made us a little speech and said that the egg-nog was his. treat to us; that we must not drink too much of it and must be good children while he went home to take dinner with his. wife and some invited friends. We were good, but we did not leave any of the egg-nog for the teacher and his friends. who came to the school with him in the afternoon.
"There were sometimes family feuds which grew out of some things that took place at school. I remember of two families meeting at a school house in front of the door when the school was in session and hearing one of the most terrible
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quarrels I ever heard. There were several members of each family and they all took part in the fight.
"At another school house another boy and myself were sent for a bucket of water, which we had to carry from a creek a half-mile away. We overstayed the time the teacher allotted us, He was very angry and when we got back gave us a terrible whipping, raising welts on my back as large as my finger. I thought he was very cruel .. The teacher was a seceder preacher, who was crazy at that time and afterwards became very violent, burning up several of the scholars' hats."
Mrs. Nancy Gullick related to the author the following incident, showing the danger from wild animals:
In the Major David Robb settlement near where the town of Hazelton now stands, they had built a school house not far from White river and school was being held there: One of the patrons of the school had started out hunting and gone by the school to see one of his boys at the time of noon re- cess. While there the hunter's dogs treed a young panther, not far from the school house. The children went out to see what the dog was barking at, and the hunter, on coming up, saw it was a panther kitten about one-third grown. He shot it out of the tree and told his boy to drag it near the school house and when school was out in the evening to take it home and save the hide.
A short time after "books were taken up" the teacher and pupils were startled by the awful scream of the old mother panther, as she came bounding along the way the young one had been dragged. They had forethought enough to close the door and put the window bench in place and fasten it there. The furious animal rushed up to the carcass or her kitten and when she found it was dead she broke forth in terrible screams and howls of lamentation. Looking around for something on which to avenge its death, she made a rush for the school house, ran two or three times around it and then leaped on top of and commenced tearing across the roof from side to side as if hunting some place where she could get in to the imprisoned teacher and scholars. After a while she gave three or four most terrible screams; presently
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the answering screams of another panther were heard some distance off. It was but a short time until her mate came rushing up and the two went to the dead kitten and seemed to be examining it. They then gave several screams, one after another, and made a rush for the building, bounded on top of it and for the next half hour kept up a screaming such as the helpless scholars and frightened teacher had never heard before.
Major Robb had several men working for him at that time. They heard the fearful noise, and by the direction were sure that it came from near the school house. Three men took their rifles and hurried to the rescue. Several dogs had followed the men and they set up a loud barking and Jushed at the school house. A panther could easily kill the largest dog with one stroke of its terrible claws, but for some reason they are dreadfully afraid of a dog and could be easily treed by a small feiste. The panthers jumped to the ground and ran up a large tree which stood near the school house and were soon shot to death by the hunters.
The teacher was a full-blooded Irishman, but a short time from Ireland. He had wandered out into the wilds of Indiana. Coming into that neighborhood and learning that Major Robb was from Ireland, he had been staying at his house for some time. Having the necessary qualifications, he was employed to teach the school. After the panthers were killed he dismissed the school and went back to the Major's, but refused to teach any longer. He said he would not live in a country that was on the frontier of "hades" and was inhabited by such pesky, screaming, screeching varmints as this country possessed.
In 1825 a young man by the name of Joseph Breeding, from the city of Philadelphia, came to Indiana, hoping to re- gain his health. He had been rambling over the wild coun- try hunting and trapping for a livelihood. He made his home at Henry Hopkins' for a time. While there he was employed to teach school in the neighborhood two or three miles southwest of where Lynnville, in Warrick County, now stands.
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The school house was not quite finished when Breeding commenced to teach. It had a puncheon floor. One night an old bear and two young cubs were hunting around the house for scraps of food left by the school children. The little bears got under the house and in hunting around smelled some meat scraps which had been thrown down by the children in the house. One of the cubs pushed a puncheon up far enough to get inside, when the puncheon fell back into its place, thus imprisoning the cub. The next morning when Breeding came near the school house he heard a noise in the building. Slipping up, he could see the little bear through a crack. About that time he discovered the old mother bear coming for him in a hurry, and he had only time to climb a small tree a little way from the house. Fortun- ately the tree was too small for the bear to climb. The teacher kept a good lookout for the children, and when he could see or hear any of them he would call to them, telling them of the danger. Finally one of the large scholars came with his gun and killed the old bear. The cub in the house was killed, as was its mate.
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