USA > Indiana > Marion County > Indianapolis > Sketches of prominent citizens of 1876 : with a few of the pioneers of the city and county who have passed away > Part 4
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He had purchased a number of lots at the sale, and had paid the first and second payments, which had to be forfeited in consequence of his death.
The expense incurred in the making of brick, and the loss on the keel·boat and produce speculation, had exhausted his means, which left his family in a quite helpless condition. But thanks to the old citizens who so generously helped us in our time of need, among whom were
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THE WHETZEL FAMILY.
Calvin Fletcher, Jacob Landis, Isaac Wilson, Daniel Yandes, James Blake, and many others.
Although they, too, were poor, their countenance and advice to a family in our situation and without experience was valuable, and was remembered by my mother so long as she lived.
1333103
THE WHETZEL FAMILY.
Fifty years ago, I suppose, there was no family so well known throughout the entire west as that of the Whetzel family, consisting of five brothers, Martin, George, Lewis, Jacob and John. They, or most of them, were born in the Shenandoah valley, but with their father, John Whetzel, emigrated to Ohio county, Virginia, in the year 1769, and settled about twelve miles from Wheeling, and near where the Clay monument, which was erected by their cousin, Moses Shepherd, now stands. It was here the Whetzels called home (although their home proper was the woods, or on the track of marauding bands of Indians); this, at least, was the residence of their families, and their place of meeting and rendezvous, where were planned their expeditions against the hostile savage. The different expeditions of Lewis, the third brother, and Jacob, the fourth, are pretty generally known to the reading world.
It is with Jacob, who settled on Whitewater river in the year 1811, and his son Cyrus, now living near this city, I shall confine what I have to say. During the time the white inhabitants of that part of Virginia, now known as Ohio county, were living in a fort, near Wheeling, a turkey was heard to call every morning, about daylight, across a ravine, and about two hundred yards from the fort. One of the men went out one morning and never returned, which created suspicion in the mind of Mr. Whetzel that the turkey might be something else. He knew of a fissure in the rocks near where the sound of the turkey-call pro- ceeded, and the next night informed his comrades that he was going to solve the turkey mystery. Accordingly in the night he secreted him- self in this place, and awaited patiently the coming of day, as well as the call of the turkey. Just about daylight he heard the call, which proceeded from a tree-top just above where he was concealed, and within shooting distance. He patiently awaited the time when it should be sufficiently light for him to make no mistake of the kind of game he was seeking. After waiting about half an hour he plainly saw the form of a tall, well-proportioned Indian rise from his seat in the fork of the tree, and watching closely the path that led from the fort. Just at this
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SKETCHES OF PROMINENT CITIZENS.
time Mr. Whetzel took a sure and deadly aim, and down came the tur- key in the shape of a large and athletic Indian, which he scalped as quickly as possible, and returned to the fort, lest the crack of his trusty rifle might bring the comrades of said turkey. Although this was not the last turkey in the woods, it had the effect to stop their gobbling for a while.
After Ohio county was organized he was elected a magistrate, and then, in turn, as was the custom and law that the oldest magistrate should be sheriff and collector of the revenue, he became sheriff, and, through dishonest deputies and other causes, became involved, and, eventually, quite poor. He resolved, in 1808, to emigrate farther west, and settled in Boone county, Kentucky, where he resided until 1811, when he settled near where Laurel, Franklin county, now is, living there until he settled near the bluffs of White river.
In the year 1818 he visited the old Delaware chief. Anderson, at his village on White river, where Andersontown, Madison county, now stands, for the purpose of obtaining permission to cut a trace from his residence on Whitewater to the bluffs of White river, which was granted. Accordingly he and his son Cyrus, with some hired hands, cut the trace that summer. The next spring, 1819, he and his son came out and raised a crop, moving his family in the fall to the farm his son now lives on. This trace commenced, as I said before, at his residence in Franklin county, crossed Flat Rock about seven miles below Rushville, Blue river about four miles above Shelbyville, and where a village called Marion now stands ; and Sugar creek near Boggstown; thence near where Greenwood now stands, to the bluffs. This was the main thoroughfare for some time, to and from the settlement.
On this trace and near where it crossed Flat Rock, an Indian named " Big Buffalo" was butchered by his comrades, in the summer of 1819. " Buffalo" had, twelve moons before, killed an Indian called " Old Sol- omon." The usual time of twelve moons was given him, to either pay one hundred dollars, one hundred buckskins, or forfeit his life. The band were encamped at this place when the time expired, and he was accordingly butchered and left lying in the trace, and was buried by some whites who found him.
In the fall of 1819 a party of Indians visited Mr. Whetzel at his house, one of whom was a very large and powerful man, named "Nosey," from the fact that he had lost a part of his nose. This Indian proposed shooting at a mark with Mr. Whetzel's son, Cyrus. · The young man beat him very badly; but soon discovering that the
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THE WHETZEL FAMILY.
Indian was very angry, and disposed to be quarrelsome about it, young Whetzel proposed to shoot again, letting the Indian beat him as badly as he had previously beaten the Indian, which had the effect of pacify- ing him, at least for a while. The Indians then left Mr. Whetzel's cabin, and had gone only about two miles when " Nosey" killed one of his comrades. It was supposed the anger engendered by being beaten by Mr. Whetzel's son had not yet cooled. "Nosey" was also given the usual twelve moons to pay the price of life, which he had failed to do, and in the fall of 1820 (about the time the writer of this came to Indianapolis, for I remember that the cruel manner of the butchery was talked about), "Nosey" was killed by the friends of the man he had murdered. At the expiration of the twelve moons he gave himself up. He was taken to a tree, his arms drawn up to a limb, his legs parted, his ankles fastened to stakes driven in the ground, and then he was stab- bed under the arms and in the groin with a butcher-knife, and tortured in other ways until life was extinct.
.
In the spring of 1820 the body of a man was found about one and a half miles above the bluffs, and a man by the name of Ladd was sus- pected of the murder. He was arrested by a set of desperate men, who had banded together, styling themselves "Regulators"; but he was soon released, as there was not a shadow of evidence against him. He then sued the men for false imprisonment, and they were taken to Con- nersville for trial. This was the first case of litigation in the "New Purchase," and a very expensive one it proved, as the case occupied some time, resulting finally in the plaintiff getting nominal damages. This man, no doubt, was murdered by a desperate and notorious Dela- ware named Hiram Lewis, as the Indian was in possession of his horse, saddle and bridle, pistol, and a red morocco pocketbook, containing some money on the Vincennes Steam Mill Company.
In the Indianapolis Journal, of the 3d of July, 1827, I find the death of Jacob Whetzel announced as taking place on the 2d instant. The Journal says :
" Captain Whetzel emigrated to the western part of Virginia when but a very small boy, and took a very active part in all the Indian wars in the west of Pennsylvania, Vir- ginia, and what is now the State of Ohio, and carried many testimonials of his bravery, in the numerous wounds he received in the various combats with the savage foe.
" While in the army, under Generals Harrison and St. Clair, and several other com- manders, he performed very laborious duties, and rendered signal service as a spy, which duties he preferred, and for which he was most admirably adapted by his former life."
He left a numerous and respectable family to mourn their loss.
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SKETCHES OF PROMINENT CITIZENS.
The writer, although young at the time of Mr. Whetzel's death, re- members him very distinctly as a square-built, broad-shouldered, mus- cular and powerful man, five feet eleven inches in height, about two hundred and fifty pounds in weight, without any surplus flesh, but a fair proportion for such a frame. He died at the age of sixty-three.
Of his seven children, five daughters and two sons, but two are liv- ing ; his eldest son, Cyrus, and youngest daughter, Emily, now the wife of one of our most respected citizens, William H. Pinny, Esq. Cyrus Whetzel was born on the first day of December, 1800, in Ohio county, Virginia, and is now one of the few living that belonged to the eighteenth century. Before age began to tell on him he was as straight as an arrow, full six feet in height, hair as black as the raven, with an eye equally black and as keen as a hawk. As has been said before, he came to where he now resides ( near Waverly, in Morgan county ) with his father, in the spring of 1819, and has resided there, on his father's old farm, ever since. He has been very prosperous and has accumulated a fortune, not by speculation of any kind, but by in- dustry and economy ; in fact, he literally dug it out of the ground, and now owns several of the finest cultivated as well as largest farms in the White river valley.
I visited him a few days since at his farm, as has been my wont to do for near fifty years, and was shown in one pasture fifty bullocks ready for the butcher's block, the lightest of which would weigh at least twelve hundred pounds ; indeed, I do not think there is a better stocked farm, for its number of acres (about five hundred), in the State of Indiana, if in the entire great West.
He is a man of very general information, warm and devoted in friendship, has represented his county in the lower branch of the legis- lature, was a good and efficient member, was an old line Whig, and most sincerely devoted to the party and its measures, and, with the most of his associates in politics, when the party was disbanded, went into the Republican ranks, and during the rebellion was a strong Union man, and advocated the prosecution of the war with great warmth and zeal. The only one of his household capable of bearing arms was his son-in-law, the husband of his only daughter, Wm. N. Mckenzie, who volunteered the first year, and served three years ; was taken prisoner, and a portion of the time served in Libby Prison, at Richmond, Vir- ginia. There is no man more respected among his numerous friends and acquaintances than Cyrus Whetzel. He is well known in this city, which has been his principal trading-place since the first log cabin trad-
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JAMES BLAKE.
ing-house was established here, in the winter of 1821. He is a man of great firmness and determination, and no person can mistake the ground he occupies on any subject after conversing with him five minutes. He advocates his opinions with great earnestness and fervor, and is never at a loss for language to make himself distinctly understood.
His hospitality is as generally and favorably known as that of any man in the State; his house has been the stopping-place for public men and politicians of all parties, in their electioneering tours, for nearly fifty years, all of whom have received kind and courteous treatment at his hands, and from his estimable lady, now deceased. From his door no weary traveler was ever turned away hungry, no beggar empty-handed, no friend without an invitation to " call again."
As he is one of the links that connect the past with the present gen- eration, so is he of many pleasing reminiscences connecting the past with the present. And when he shall be taken from among the living the country will have lost one of its best men, this city one of its most liberal patrons, his children a kind and indulgent father, and the writer, if living, a warm personal friend.
Since the above was written and published in the " Early Reminis- cences of Indianapolis," Mr. Whetzel died suddenly of heart disease, in December, 1871, since which time his son-in-law, William N. Mckenzie, has conducted the business for the benefit of the heirs in a manner that has advanced their interest very materially. The Mckenzie farm, or farms, as they are now known, are the model farms of the State. Mr. Mckenzie is from the land of Robert Burns, and a great admirer of the Scotch bard. He is a man of fine intellect, and coupled with the fact that he is a great reader, renders him an agreeable and entertaining com- panion and a fit representative of the once hospitable proprietor. Long may hẹ live to emulate the example of his worthy father-in-law.
JAMES BLAKE.
When I come to write of this venerable and good man, I am carried back in memory nearly half a century, to my childhood's tender years, when he, as my Sabbath school teacher, taught me to lisp the A, B, C, at the school first organized and kept in Caleb Scudder's cabinet-shop, on the south side of the State House square, in the year 1823. Mr. Blake came to this place on the 25th day of July 1821. A single man, but rather on the bachelor order, he soon became a great gallant of, and
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SKETCHES OF PROMINENT CITIZENS.
a favorite with, the young ladies and belles of the day. The late Calvin Fletcher told many anecdotes of his early gallantry.
He was an inmate of my father's family soon after his arrival here. The first year of his residence nearly every person was down with fever and ague. Indeed, in many families there was hardly one able to hand another a drink of water. It was a time just such a man as Mr. Blake was useful, although shaking nearly every other day himself with ague. He would employ the well days in gathering the new corn and grating it on a horse-radish grater into meal to make mush for the convalescent. Indeed, our family, as well as others, would have suffered for food had it not been for his kind offices in this way, not only because the mush made from the new corn was more palatable, but the old could not be got, as there were no mills nearer than Good Landers, on the White- water river.
Mr. Blake has ever been hand-in-hand with Mr. James M. Ray, Dr. Isaac Cox, and others, in all the benevolent and charitable associations of the day, as well as such public enterprises as would be beneficial and calculated to add to the prosperity of the place. He was never osten- tatious in his acts of charity, many of which were unknown to all save himself and the recipient.
I have known him to provide for the wife and family of an intem- perate man (who had deserted them) for some time, until they were able to take care of and provide for themselves. This circumstance had slipped my memory entirely until reminded of it a short time since by the man himself.
During the time there was so much sickness in the summer of 1821, my father was suffering for water, and no one able to draw a bucket. He crept to the door of the cabin and sawa man passing. He beckoned to him and requested him to draw a bucket of water. "Where is your friend Blake," the man inquired. "He, too, was taken sick this morn- ing," was the answer. "What on earth are the people to do now ?" said the man. "God had spared him to take care of the people ; they would now suffer as they never had before."
He acted upon the precepts of the Bible, and did good and dispensed his blessings as he went along. The first house of worship I ever at- tended in this place he was there, a young man in the pride and strength of manhood, and in the last (at this writing), where the Rev. Mr. Hammond was officiating, I saw him with his religious zeal unabated, although the frosts of forty-eight additional winters have fallen heavily upon and whitened his head. It was a silent but impressive rebuke to
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JAMES BLAKE.
the writer of this humble tribute to his many virtues. It will require no flowers strewn upon his grave to make his memory fresh in the minds of his many friends, who will rather bedew it with their tears.
The late Calvin Fletcher told an anecdote of him. Mr. Blake had employed a young lady, of the upper ten of that day, to make him a pair of pantaloons. They were finished and sent home. On examina- tion they were found all right, except that the waistband buttons were sewed on the wrong side. He showed them to Mr. Fletcher, who told him the young lady intended he should wear them as "Paddy from Cork " did his coat, i. e., buttoned up behind.
Mr. Blake was one of the company that built the first steam mill in this place. He brought the first piano and the first pleasure carriage. It was a two-horse barouche, with leather springs hung over steel, which he drove through from Baltimore with his bride the same year. He was the president of the first State Board of Agriculture, organized in 1835. Was a partner with Samuel Henderson in Washington Hall. He afterwards founded Blakesburg, in Putnam county. He established a factory for clarifying ginseng, buying the article in different parts of the State, and shipping it east in large quantities. He was one of the foremost in establishing the present rolling-mill. He was the first to propose the celebration of the Fourth of July by the different Sunday schools, and was the marshal of the different processions as long as the custom was kept up-thirty years. Indeed, there are but few enter- prises, either public or private, that he is not identified with.
Although he has had a goodly share of earthly prosperity he has never been avaricious, but used the means God placed in his hands to accomplish good, thereby laying up treasure where thieves could not reach it, nor moth nor rust destroy.
" Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side ; But in his duty, prompt at every call, He watched, and wept, and prayed for all."
Such is James Blake, one of the first settlers of Indianapolis.
Mr. Blake died on the 10th of November, 1870, and had one of the largest funerals ever witnessed in Indianapolis. No man ever lived more esteemed by our citizens or died more regretted. Mrs. Blake and three sons, James, John and William, are yet citizens of the city. The reader can form an idea of the true character of Mr. Blake by the venerable looking portrait that accompanies this sketch.
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SKETCHES OF PROMINENT CITIZENS.
FISH, GAME AND SKUNKS.
At the time of which I am now writing (1821) White river abounded with fish of great variety and choice quality. Its waters were as clear as crystal, and the fish could be seen at the bottom in shoals, and a person could almost select from the number and capture any one de- sired. If a minnow was cast into the stream, a number of bass would dart at it at once. The people from "in yonder on Whitewater " came out in the fall, when the weather began to get cool, with seines ; and, provided with salt and barrels, would load their wagons in a short time with the finest-the refuse would be left upon the bank, or given to the settlers to feed their hogs.
The river abounded with a fish called gar, which was unfit for any- thing but feeding hogs. John McCormack, with a gig or spear, would load a canoe with them in a short time, sufficient to keep his hogs sev- eral days.
When the river was frozen over people would supply themselves with fish, when they would find them up next to the ice, by striking on the ice over them, which would stun them until a hole could be cut and the fish taken out. After the day's work was over, my father often, with hook and line, would catch enough to supply our family for sev- eral days.
Fish were not the only game taken from White river at that day. The more substantial and valuable was the fine fat deer with which the forest abounded, and most generally taken at night in the river. The process was called "fire-hunting." In warm weather the deer would wade in the shallow water at night, to get the long grass and cool them- selves, and could be approached very near, at least near enough to make sure of one of them. The bow of a canoe would be filled with dirt in such a way as to prevent any damage to the craft by the fire which would be made on it. The motive power would be a person in the stern of the canoe, who understood the business and the use of the paddle. The hunter would stand just behind the fire, and completely hid from the view of the animal, which would be almost blinded by the light. In this way I have known two persons to take several in one night. Just opposite the mouth of Fall creek was a great resort for deer, and they could be found there at almost any time in the night.
When the squirrels were emigrating, which was nearly every fall, they could be taken in the river without trouble. So the reader will see
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FISH, GAME AND SKUNKS.
that White river furnished a bountiful supply of the finest game that was ever set before an epicure.
Nor was this all ; the woods were filled with turkeys as "slick and fat " as Henry Clay's negroes (see his reply to Mendenhall ). Although they were rather harder to capture than the deer in this way, yet they could always be taken by a hunter that understood the business ; in- deed, I have known the hunter to sit behind a log and call them within ten steps, near enough to select the largest and finest of the number.
Among the most successful hunters was Mr. Nathaniel Cox, who never failed to have his larder and that of his friends well stored with the choicest game of the woods.
In the year 1825, and during the session of the Legislature, a fine turkey was shot from the top of Hawkins' Tavern. A flock had been scared in the north part of town; two lit on the house, one of which was killed. It was no uncommon thing, about the years 1846-47, for tur- keys to be killed on the northern part of the Donation. About this time a bear was killed near where the Exposition building now is.
In 1837, a panther or catamount, measuring nine feet from the nose to the tip of its tail, was killed by Zachariah Collins on Fall creek, near Millersville. In earlier years one frequented the island opposite the graveyard, and was often heard to halloo at night; that deterred some from pasturing their horses there on Sundays.
Another kind of game was plenty, but of no value to the white man-the porcupine. The quills with which its back was covered were very sharp; and I have often seen the mouths of dogs that caught them filled full, which gave them great pain, and they had to be drawn out with tweezers or bullet-moulds. These quills the Indians valued highly, as they were useful to them for ornamenting their moccasins and other handiwork of the squaws.
There was another animal that the dogs never failed to let it be known when they met with them in the woods; although they were not so plenty as the others, a few of them would go a great ways, and generally supply the neighborhood with all they required, and when one was killed either by dogs or hunter there was plenty to go around. This animal was known by the name of skunk, or generally, by the settlers, as pole-cat ; and many was the laugh and jest at its expense. In the summer of 1821, a young man from Kentucky, named Mancher, visited his brother-in-law, Robert Wilmot. While in the woods he met one, and thought it a very pretty thing to take to Kentucky with him as a pet. He tried to capture it alive ; but the first fire from the form-
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SKETCHES OF PROMINENT CITIZENS.
idable battery of the animal convinced him that it was useless to attempt to take him to Kentucky, unless he had a larger supply of eau de Cologne on hand than could be purchased in this market. He concluded to not cultivate the acquaintance of the pretty creature any further, although his friends well knew when he returned to the house that he had made it. 4
Those persons who had not the time or inclination to hunt could procure game at almost nominal prices from the Indians. A saddle of venison for twenty-five cents ; fine fat turkeys, of the largest kind, for twelve and a half cents, or three for a quarter; indeed, the Indians were not very close traders, and would take almost anything offered them, especially if it was paid in trinkets or brass jewelry of any kind.
Turkeys were often caught by means of pens constructed for the purpose-a small log pen, about eight feet in length and four wide, made of poles, something like a cabin, and covered tight. A trench was dug about fifteen feet long, and leading under the bottom log into the pen. This trench was of sufficient depth to admit the largest sized turkey. Corn or other grain was scattered along the trench, and into the pen. The turkey would feed along with his head down until inside before he was aware of it. He would never think of going out the way he came in, but seek egress from the top. I have known five or six found in a pen at one time.
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