USA > Indiana > Hamilton County > Carmel > Reminiscences of the long ago : being a historical sketch of the early settlement of Bethlehem, now Carmel and vicinity with an account of the Indians and of the doings and makeshifts of the early pioneers who have passed away etc > Part 2
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The First Cook Stove
About 1839, the first cook stove in this immediate vicinity, an old style step-stove, was brought here from Ohio by Caleb Harvey. My father bought it of him for twenty-five dollars. Neighbors came to see cooking done on a stove.
The First Grist Mill
In very early days a grist mill was built on Cold Creek in the vicinity of Smoky Row, and was still operated up to, and sometime during the war, or later. There was more water in the creek in early days than now, but when it got low the "head gate" would be shut down till the dam was full, then they could run the mill till that head of water was ex- hausted. In the forties, perhaps, a saw mill was added, but it was not the first one.
The first saw mill was erected by Benjamin Mend- enhall on the creek east of town, and later, I believe, the Wise boys had a steam circle mill near there. William Wilkinson had a saw mill in the Mattsville Settlement, later turned into a grist mill. There was a saw mill at Gray, Poplar Ridge, Mulberry Corner, with grist mill added, Pleasant Grove, and one south of there, north of here, by the Jeffries brothers, one at one time on Old Town Run; one here, a band saw mill by Charles Wilkinson, then Buck & Crags bought and changed it to a circle mill, and later it was destroyed by fire. Then John E. Buck built another, which was finally removed from here. One by the
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Laycock Manufacturing Company, which also burned down; then the present one commenced. There was a grist mill in the Mattsville Settlement, known as the Macy Bond Mill, run by water.
The first steam saw mill here was built by Samuel Carey, Joseph Macy and Bohan Harvey in 1847. It was a sash mill, the logs being hauled up into the second story on an inclined plane, and stood near where the school building now stands. It was later known as the Gideon Newby mill, he changing it into a circle mill on the ground story. Then later, he, in partnership with Silas Beeson, added a grist mill. When this saw mill was first started they sold clear poplar lumber at 372 cents per hundred, but later raised to 50 cents.
In operating this saw mill when first built, they sometimes did not have power enough, the safety valve rising and letting steam off; so Mr. Harvey, one of the firm, got on top of the boiler and sit on the end of the lever to hold it down! When some of them were at the machine shop at the city where the engine was made, and related the incident, the first answer they received was "Jeff Davis is a liar! He said the Indiana soldiers would not stand battle. Anyone who would sit upon that lever would face the cannon's mouth."
This was in the time of the Mexican war. After the Monon railroad came, T. E. Carey and W. P. Dixon erected the present flowing mill now operated by R. J. Follett & Co.
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The Forests
At the time of first settling, the woods were much different from what they are now. The large timbers were standing-poplar, walnut, ash, oak, hickory, cherry, etc. There was an undergrowth of bushes more than now, and large bunches of spicewood which threw out arms from six to eight feet long, with smaller sprouts in the center. There were many patches of hazel and what spaces were left were covered with weeds, nettles and wild pea vines, the latter some places waist high and woe to any one whose lot it was to go through the woods just after a rain! He would get as wet as a drowned rat. Just let him touch a limb and a shower was upon him, and it seemed that the water was wetter than now.
The next thing in order, after building log cabins, was to look after clearing land for cultivation. First the bushes were cut down and small ones and sprouts grubbed up. The trees were either chopped down, or deadened by chopping around them. The best of the oaks and walnuts were split into rails, the others deadened but left standing either for future use, or when dead and dry, cut down, "niggered" off, rolled together and burned along with various other species which would be valuable saw timber now.
The tree being dead, their limbs were broken up in falling and were piled up and burned. At this distant day that looks like a waste of timber and fire-
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wood. There was some sale for poplar trees after awhile, and good ones brought fifty cents per tree. But the trees are felled and,
'Ere other forests shall rise in their stead, The most of us will surely be dead.
Sick Wheat
Until enough land could be cleared for both wheat and corn, corn bread was the rule. When the first crop of wheat came in, only think of biscuits of well kneaded dough, baked in a hot skillet over live coals and under a hot lid by a fire-place and eaten with fried ham and eggs, spicewood tea and maple molasses and with appetites sharpened by not having wheat bread for so long a time. Your finest cake would be nowhere in comparison.
At some harvests the wheat would be "sick" and the bread would make one sick, except a rare few who could eat it with impunity, my father being one, and mother would make biscuits for him only. One day our good neighbor, Eli Phelps, came and stayed for dinner and took one of the biscuits, thinking that if father could eat them he could, but after dinner he was sick enough.
Ginseng, or "sang" was plentiful and was a staple article of trade after a store came, at which it was bartered at twenty-five cents per pound, washed and well dried.
The squirrels were of gray species and were so very numerous that in order to raise any corn, the
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neighbors would arrange hunting parties to thin them out and being too numerous to carry, and as they could not use so many, they strung their scalps, and the one having the most scalps was the best man. In course of time the fox squirrel came around and the grays disappeared.
The blackbirds were so numerous they had to be scared off by a "hoss fiddle" making a great clacking racket to keep them from taking up the newly planted corn.
In the autumn there was such a profusion of dry fallen leaves that when fire got started in them, woods and fences were in danger and all the neighbors had to drop everything and fight fire. There was an odor of burnt leaves and a pall of smoke hanging in the direction of the fire.
The Indians
We found aborigines, called "Indians," "First Americans." Perhaps they and the mound builders were one and the same. The author of the "Pre- historic World," after canvassing the subject, finally concluded that they and the mound builders, cliff dwellers, and the builders of the magnificent ruins of Mexico, Yucatan and Bolivia, the Aztecs, the Taltecs and Eskimos were one and the same race, but in different states of advancement.
God is in history which no man can unravel. Who can tell us who, without iron tools, sculptured the statues of Chaac Mol and Huitzilopochtli? The
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latter was unearthed in the city of Mexico. Ghost of Tenoclititlan, can'st thou tell? The Indian women strapped their papooses on a board and carried it on their backs. There was one case in which the squaw, before entering a white neighbor's house, left her papoose leaning against the outside of the house and an old sow came along and ate it. The poor woman mourned and cried, "Oh, my poor papoose, my poor papoose!"
There was one family of Indians by the name of Ketcham that lived a little southwest of Mahlon Day's residence, on the west of the little stream, and there was a good sulphur spring on a little solid spot, but the ground around it was soft and shaky. There was an ever-ready gourd hanging near out of which to drink. The marsh has been drained and the spring is no more. A few trees of the Indian's orchard are yet standing. Pieces of bright lead ore and flint darts were found in the cabin.
The Indian's given name was Charley. He made a sale preparatory to going beyond the Mississippi to the Indian Territory. After going there one of his sons became a Methodist preacher. While living here my father traded him a silver watch for furs, and did not explain to him about its having to be wound up and when it stopped running, he came back with it and said, "Watch no good; white man no good." Upon being shown that it had to be wound, he said, "Watch all right; white man all right."
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The Indians were friendly; my mother was kind to them and would give them things and talk to the squaws. My mother was called "Polly" and it hap- pened that two other white women's names were the same, and after that old Charley called all white women "Polly."
At the time of his sale he was jolly, having im- bibed too much "fire water." His squaw's name was Nancy, and he wanted to sell everything, and went around saying: "I sella my dog, I sella my Nance, I sella my papoose. Will you buy, Poll?" My father bought a few articles at the sale and went and paid for them on the day due, and the Indian said, "Good white man." He did not understand English as well as his squaw, and mother told him that people said the Indians would kill white folks, and said to him, "You won't, will you?" and he quickly ejaculated with emphasis, "Yes!" But his squaw said that he did not understand, and that he was all right.
The Ketchams, in some way, became rich after going to the Indian Territory, and drove in their coach. Not very many years ago, John F. Carey, when in the Territory, ran across and interviewed old Charley. Mr. Carey told him he was from here in Indiana, and he said, "Indiana?" and asked whose son he was, and when told said: "O, yes, Sammy Carey, good white man. Stay for dinner."
There was another set of Indians between Edmond Graves' and William Morrows' homes. They had tents
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and many hounds for hunting. Mother went some distance to a white neighbor's and left my brother with them till she came back, and the squaw gave him a piece of dried venison, which was so salty that he could not eat it, and he was afraid not to eat it for fear they would kill him. He chewed at it till he got into a patch of high weeds and then threw it away. The Indian woman told of their singing their songs and mother asked her if they sang good songs and she answered: "Do you think we'd sing bad songs?" She told the Indian woman that before they came to this country they were told that the Indians could track white folks by their scent. The answer was: "Are white folks fools, and think Indians are like dogs?"
The Indian and white boys ran foot races, but the former generally outsprinted. They were experts with bow and arrows and showed how they made their flint darts, and fastened them on the arrows with the tendrils of deer's legs. Sometimes they would come begging and say, "Indian wants" so and so.
There was another Indian southeast. His name was "Johnny Cake." That sounds good. In one In- dian grave was found a silver breast pin and in another a gun barrel.
I will wind up the Indian history by telling a soup tale. In those days a squad of these aborigines likely returning from an unsuccessful hunting or fish- ing expedition, and hungry, passed by a white set- tler's who happened to have been butchering hogs,
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and asked for the entrails, which they carried with them, and upon stopping at another house begged their dish water and the use of a large kettle.
With the entrails for a body, and the dish water for the broth, they had a kettle of hot soup. Then each one got a piece of cornstalk which they sopped in the soup, as they squatted around the kettle, and sucked the "goody" from it till the soup was thus licked up. Reader, how would that kind of a menu strike your copperosity?
Log Rollings
When the logs in a "clearing" were all burned or chopped into lengths, it was very common to make a "log rolling," inviting neighbors enough to roll into "log heaps" a whole field in a day, and in order to get good work by the young men, the women folks would have a quilting or wool picking the same day, the young folks knowing that so soon as the day's work was over a party was to take place, and at its close the boys would see the girls home. In like man- ner they had house and barn raisings.
Legal Tender
Foreign coins were legal tender and there were more of them in circulation than our own, mostly Spanish and Mexican, consisting of dollars, halves, quarters, eighths and sixteenths. The quarters were called shillings, or bits, the half quarter or eighth, twelve and half cents was called "lebenpence" (eleven
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pence) and the sixteenths, six and one-fourth cent pieces, fips, or "fip and a bit." I suppose the quarter of the cent was the bit. In the days of fips we had very hard times and a fip was about as hard to catch as a dollar is now. A man's wages for covering corn at planting time was twenty-five cents, and a boy, if an expert at dropping corn, got ten cents.
Wheat brought thirty-seven and a half cents per bushel, but had to be hauled in a wagon to Lawrence- burg or Cincinnati and a team would be on the road about a week, bringing back a side of sole leather, barrel of salt, etc. Salt was about ten dollars a barrel. They would finish out the load coming back with salt, iron, etc., for the home merchant. Corn was as low as eight cents per bushel.
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There was a wedding not in Cana of Galilee, but near Bethlehem, now Carmel, and money being scarce and groceries, etc., for the dinner being high, the parents of the bride tried to get them to "put it off" for awhile, but it is not necessary to add that it would not "put off."
First Church and School House
It was the Friends log "meeting house," then called Richland, on the south side of the cemetery, then called "grave-yard." It was also used for a school house, and was built about 1833. A sheet was hung up for a door shutter till they could get lumber for one. An addition, the same size, was built to this house in 1835.
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For fire they had boxes of clay and mortar in the center, in which they burned charcoal, till later they put in plain box stoves. These had plates near the top to draw the blaze to the back part and then for- ward again to the pipe in front. The plate of the one in the school room, getting so it would fall down, school would have to adjourn until it was set up again and it got to behaving so badly that one day, at the noon play time, the teacher sent for, not the seven grave cardinals who compelled Galileo to recant, but Isaac Rich, one of the strict gallery overseers of the church, to come with his rifle and shoot it! After that they had no more trouble with it, as he shot holes in the sides of the stove, through which iron rods were in- serted to hold the plate up.
Before this log building disappeared, a new frame one was built south of it in 1843 and 1845, but was torn down after the location of the present one. On the south of the above removed building was the brick Carmel Academy, later condemned and torn down. Before the Academy, there was a frame school building east of the above mentioned torn down church, used in the fifties, and which was removed into Clay Township and finally sold.
There was a common school house on the road south, on the northwest corner of J. W. Moffitt's pres- ent residence farm which was finally sold and re- moved. There were also other log school houses, one with one door and one window of four eight by ten panes on the farm since owned by Jonah Fertig. The
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patrons met here to make the improvement of a long window and a plank for writing lessons. They sawed out one log, and pasted newspapers in its place and then smeared soap grease on the paper, making it translucent enough to let in a little light.
The old M. E. Church building on South Main Street was finished in the fall of 1855, and was sold and removed after the completion of the present new one, which was dedicated March 4, 1906.
Tinkers, Clock Repairers and Peddlers
In the early days the above personages passed through the country, and mostly on foot. The tinker carried a budget on his back in which was his melting ladle and moulds for melting up and recasting the pewter ware, basins, dishes, plates, spoons, etc., which were used in those days, and perhaps some stock of pewter for casting additional ones. This ware would get bent out of shape and tarnished, but when recast was nearly as bright and nice as silver, and would shine nicer than a "pewter dollar in a mud hole."
The clock repairer was looked upon as a person of more than ordinary ability, being able to pile up the wheels of a clock, and then get them all back to their places. A clock you can buy now for two or three dollars cost about twenty then.
The foot peddler came along occasionally, and they could buy combs, buttons, thread, needles, pins, Jews harps, red handkerchiefs, etc.
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Five Dozen Eggs at One Meal
I can record a case in which a family of ten ate five dozen boiled eggs at one meal and at another time ate a pile of pumpkin pies about ten inches high. Pump- kins were plentiful, and eggs sometimes, when any sale for them at all, brought one and a half cents per dozen. One farmer brought a bushel basket full to the store, and being no sale for them at any price, threw them against a stump one at a time.
Soft Soaping
It happened that Jonas Hoover was about to start to see his neighbor, Barnaby Newby, and it being wash day, his wife wanted him to take off his shirt to be washed; but refusing, she thought to fix him, and smeared his shirt while on him all over with soft soap so he would be compelled to take it off, but he was stubborn and went to the neighbor's in that plight.
Showing New Boots
Once upon a time it came to pass that some of the young men actually had boots and on a Sunday after- noon and just after a heavy rain, a party of them were walking over a pasture field and one had 'boots and wished it to be known. A little piece ahead a small pond of water had spread out, and he ran and jumped in it thinking to make a big splash and show that he had boots, he went entirely under water and
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came up the second time before being rescued. He had jumped into an old well overflown by the heavy rain.
State and County Roads
Somewhere about 1835 the state road, now Main Street, was hacked out from Indianapolis to Kokomo, and the county road, now our Main Cross Street, a little later. The bushes were cut and some trees most in the way. Big logs were in some places left to be gone around. A little north of L. J. Small's drug store was a large log lying across the road and they put fire and a chunk on it, burning enough away for one on horseback or afoot to pass through, but a wagon had to go around it.
Starting a Town
In 1837 my father set about starting a town here, being the intersection of the roads and where four farms cornered, the southwest being his own. Two others, Alexander Mills on the northeast and John Phelps on the southeast, were willing to have land platted and sell lots, but on the northwest the owner was unwilling. My fathered offered him one hundred dollars for an acre, enough for four lots. That being such a big price he accepted it. Then the grounds were platted and recorded under the name of Bethle- hem.
There were a plenty of tadpoles then, and my father meeting a neighbor who was opposed to having
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a town, told him that we had a town and its name was Bethlehem, and his answer was "Yes, Tadpoles Glory."
My father sold lots at whatever he could get for them in order to start the town. One he sold for five yards of home-made jeans of indifferent quality, and the purchaser was to build a house on it and did of small round logs, the cracks filled with clay, and about large enough for a poultry house; but it filled the contract.
The postoffice was named Carmel, because there was one in the state by the name of Bethlehem. In the early sixties when the town was incorporated the name was changed to Carmel to accord with the name of the postoffice.
Establishment of the Postoffice
On the 20th of January, 1846, the postoffice was granted by the name of Carmel with service once a week horseback. Joseph W. Macy was appointed postmaster, and he served to January 4th, 1847, then Levi Haines, Sr., was appointed. Mr. Haines served until April 16th, 1850, when Isaac W. Stanton was appointed. Mr. Stanton held till October 17th, 1853, when Alfred T. Jessup was appointed. Mr. Jessup held till April 3rd 1856, when John H. Kenyon took charge. Mr. Kenyon served till February 26th, 1858, when Jonathan J. Griffin superseded him. Mr. Grif- fin's time ran up to the appointment of Alfred W. Brown, September 14th, 1858. Then commenced a
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long term when Z. Warren took charge of the office, first as assistant on the 6th of April, 1864, until re- ceiving his appointment and commission in the follow- ing July.
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At this time postage to Oregon was ten cents for a half ounce letter, and to England twenty-four cents, later re-adjusted to twelve cents, then again to five, and recently to two cents.
Z. Warren, the writer hereof, served till Novem- ber 28th, 1885, when superseded by Eli G. Binford during Cleveland's first term. Warren's whole time being twenty-one years, seven months and twenty-two days. Postoffice boxes were installed on the tenth of June, 1864, and soon after a bi-weekly and later a tri- weekly route was petitioned for and granted, via Noblesville, and a hack ran to carry passengers, and later was granted daily, and after a time was changed direct from Indianapolis, then again changed back to Noblesville, till the railroad commenced carrying the mail, June 15th, 1883. The first regular passenger train went through on June 18th, 1883, northbound.
The money order and postal note business com- menced about six months before Warren relinquished the office. His successor, above mentioned, served nearly four years, when J. W. Nutt was appointed in 1888, serving four years till 1892, when America Crags was appointed and served four years till 1896. Then George Bowen was appointed and served until resign- ing in the early part of 1909, and recommending the
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present incumbent, Alfred V. Rayl, as his successor, who was appointed and is our present postmaster, he being the thirteenth.
During the time of the horseback route, if the river was up, even enough for an excuse, the carrier would come only to Broad Ripple and leave our mail there, and sometimes after not having any mail for three weeks, we would send for it. This being the darkest year of the war, we had the postmaster at Indianapolis send our mail to Noblesville, and a club was formed here to go after it, each one taking his turn, and bringing daily papers.
The horseback carrier upon entering town blew a blast on his tin trumpet to warn the postmaster to be ready to change the mail so he could be on his way again. When the mail hack ran one had little time at the city, being on the road most of the time, and cold if in winter. Think what a change now, carried in a comfortable car by electricity in so short a time and at little over one half the hack fare and advantage of going and returning at one's convenience.
A Rattlesnake Tale
About the year 1832 when there was yet a log heap in the yard of our rail pen, or log cabin, a large yellow rattler came into the yard and crawled into the heap, and my mother was alone with the children and being fearful for their safety, besides the old grudge between the woman and the serpent anyhow, (see Genesis) she planned to extinguish him. She got a
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"big stick" and thinking, "old fellow thee'll have to come out of there" as she set fire to one end of the dry heap, and stationed herself at the other. She did not ask if it was hot enough for him, but soon he discovered that fact and came "poling" out. She struck one lick after another, hallowing at each strike just as loud as she could, and she landed him.
The First Store and Subsequent Ones
About the year 1835, it came to pass that a rumor went forth that we were to have a store in Bethlehem and soon it began to assume a reality, as a round beech-log "store-house" was actually erected and roofed with the conventional "clap-boards," and the cracks between logs chunked and dobbed with clay. By a certain Sunday it had got to this stage, no floor or shelving yet, and the young men of the neighbor- hood gathered there to discuss the great event. Among those present were my brothers, Martin Phelps and his brother John, Clarkson T. Cook, and Jesse, or Joseph P. Cook, some of Isaac Rich's boys and others in their Sunday clothes. The store stood about where L. J. Patty's milliner shop and office burned south of the bank.
A store was started in it by a man by the name of Boggs, and his clerk's name was Benson Bogus. In the fall the clerk would put a notice that he was out gathering hickory nuts, and if some one came for a spool of thread, bonnet board or wire, they would hunt him up. Some of the staple goods were New
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Orleans sugar and molasses, mackerel, blacksmith's iron, dog irons, cast iron, odd lids for skillets and ovens, calico, "factory" (coarse muslin), bandana handkerchiefs, Jew's harps, wooden combs, bonnet boards and wire, pine tar, iron lamps, snuffers, wool cards, etc.
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