USA > Indiana > Grant County > Fairmount > The making of a township, being an account of the early settlement and subsequent development of Fairmount Township, Grant County, Indiana, 1829 to 1917, based upon data secured by personal interviews, from numerous communications > Part 33
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These were the figures given to me by the quiet old man whose life's journey was nearly run. There was no trace of boastfulness. The exact accuracy of the distances could not, of course, be depended on. They were probably measured by a short ruler, and the measure- ments were taken from heel to heel, instead of the present method of measurement, and this would reduce each record six or eight inches. Moreover, the ground may not always have been exactly level. But if an untrained farmer lad. wearing heavy shoes which his father probably made, could jump such distances, what records he could have made under one of our great athletic trainers in a college or university.
James Scott also gave me these historical facts about Fairmount :
"Old David Stanfield laid out the first lots of Fairmount and named the place. Stanfield's barn was in the exact location of John Dickey's home. The house was northeast of the barn. It was at the place where Harmon Buller now lives, back of Mattie Wright's home. I was then Justice of the Peace. Stanfield made the plot and sold lots before having the plot recorded, and I came near having trouble. He sold James Cammack a few acres to build a mill where Jap Wheeler's mill now stands. The lots sold for five, ten and fifteen dollars apiece. Joseph W. Baldwin bought a lot from Jonathan Baldwin, just north of Flanagan's store, and built there the first store ever built in Fair- mount.'
From all of the men interviewed I gained the following informa- tion regarding my great grandfather, Azel Rush. Azel was light com- plexioned, tall, slim, and a little stooped. He had blue eyes, a strong voice and was autocratic. He was an old-fashioned Quaker.
In 1848 he sold the larger part of his North Carolina farm for $3,000, and, after paying his debts, he hid $500 of the money in a barrel and started to Indiana with the barrel. The money was in the form of notes. As he became fearful that it would be stolen he took each note and cut it into two pieces. He then took two envelopes and
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The Making of a Township.
put a part of each note in each envelope and mailed the money to Indiana, paying the customary postage of ten cents a letter.
Apparently the notes were redeemed all right. for he bought the Henry Doherty farm and paid six dollars an acre for it. He then returned to North Carolina and the next year brought his wife and three youngest sons. The boys drove a big four-horse Carolina wagon, and Azel and his wife rode in a carriage.
Elwood Rush was one of the boys. He told me that they left Caro- lina on September 15. 1849, and arrived on October 21, and that they crossed but one railroad track in making the trip. Uncle Elwood laughed when he quoted John Plasters as saying that "Azel Rush was smarter than any of his boys."
Bernard McDonald also told me interesting things about Azel. I have this in my note book :
"I remember once he came to me while I was working in a field. It was just before he made his last trip to Carolina. He wanted to borrow twenty dollars. I gave it to him and asked no security. During the course of our conversation he spoke of the fact that William Henry Harrison was for a time a medical student under his cousin, Dr. Ben- jamin Rush, of Philadelphia. He also spoke of Zachary Taylor, whom I knew well. having boarded with him for two or three years. I knew William Henry Harrison quite well. and I also knew Benjamin Harri- son as a slender-legged boy."
It may be of interest to know how the Rushes came to have the Rush Hill farm. This is the way my uncle, Calvin Rush, told it to me twenty years ago :
"When my father. Iredell Rush, came to Indiana, he stopped one year in Henry County, where he made Sioo, which he saved. He then came to Grant County and paid the Șioo for eighty acres, which are now a part of the Frank Presnall farm. One year later he decided to enter the eighty acres just south of his farm, the land on which Rush Hill and the Academy are located, but he had no money. Hearing that a man by the name of Dempsey Bailey was planning also to get the land. Iredell hastened to the home of a friend by the name of Hiatt. who lived. I think, in Henry County. Hiatt took down the family Bible, which was his bank, gave grandfather the money which lie needed and told him to hurry. Grandfather rode all night and reached Fort Wayne early in the morning. The land was quickly secured and the money paid, and as he was leaving the court house, Dempsey Bailey walked in. His first log house was sixteen by twenty feet, with a stick and clay chimney. The first year he cleared a few acres, belled the
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Personal Recollections.
horse and turned him loose and he and Seth Winslow hunted venison, bear and wild honey all winter."
CALVIN C. RUSH.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 28, 1917.
(Editor's Note .- This article is contributed by Dr. Calvin C. Rush, son of the late Nixon Rush, and grandson of Iredell Rush. Iredell Rush entered land in Fairmount Township March 16, 1831. Dr. Rush is a successful physician, now located at Philadelphia, the home of a distinguished relative, Dr. Benjamin Rush. In this contribution one of Indiana's athletes of pioneer days is introduced. The late James Scott, father of O. R. Scott, was for many years prior to his death a citizen of Fairmount.)
MEMORIES OF THE PAST.
I have been reading "The Making of a Township" and have been quite interested in many of the letters and notes, as they bring to my mind many circumstances which I well remember, and others which I have heard older persons relate.
I remember the house raisings, the log rollings, the quiltings, the wool pickings, when we spun, colored and wove much of the cloth for our clothing, when most of the cooking was done by the fireplace, with which all the houses were provided (many families not owning a cook- stove), when we dropped all our corn by hand and covered it with the hoe, when the grain was cut with scythe and cradle and bound by hand, and many other customs of early days.
Many things were not convenient, but in looking back upon those times I always think of them as the good old days when neighbors were much more congenial and helpful to each other than at the pres- ent time. One of the undesirable things was the bad roads.
I remember well the corduroy bridges, which consisted of small logs laid across the road as close together as possible in the worst places, sometimes lasting for quite a distance, making very rough trav- eling, but beat being stuck in the mud.
Another thing was the ague, as I have good reason to remember, being a victim myself, missing the chill only a few weeks in more than a year. Then there were the swarms of mosquitoes that infested this country in those days, when some of the ponds of water never dried up. We had to make smoke at the doors of our homes summer eve-
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The Making of a Township.
nings to keep the mosquitoes out of the house, screens being unheard of at that time ; but all these, like the log cabins, are things of the past.
Well do I remember the stirring events at the beginning of the Civil War, when many of our bravest and best young men responded to the call of Uncle Sam, going away, many to return no more; of how we anxiously awaited the coming of the old stage coach, bringing the mail in those days, and how later on its coming brought to some of our hearts the greatest sorrow we had ever known.
I knew Rev. Isaac Mcek well for years. Have heard him preach many a sermon at Howell's school house and other places. I think he was a pioneer. I have been told that he was a friend of the Indians. hunted with them, could speak their language, and they said he was the only white man they ever knew who always told the truth.
I remember hearing an Indian minister preach at Wesleyan Back Creek, Rev. {Meek interpreting the sermon. That has been more than forty years ago. Later Meek moved to Towa, with his good wife, Ruth, where he passed to the better land several years ago.
CATHARINE BULLER.
Fairmount, Indiana, March 5. 1917.
CHOLERA IN 1849.
Charles Baldwin sat head of Back Creek meeting for a short time about eighty-four years ago. He also taught school at Back Creek in 1833. Grandfather Baldwin moved from New Garden, Wayne County. this State, and settled on the Crabb farm, later known as the John Himelick farm, opposite the McCormick graveyard, where he lived one year.
The McCormick graveyard is where people were buried who died of the cholera in 1840. David Weesner, who was the father of Mrs. Lacy Ann Knight, Mrs. Seth Thomas and Micajah, Elihu and David Weesner, died of this disease. Alex Dolman was another man who died of this disease. Altogether a dozen died of cholera and everybody in the settlement was alarmed and panic-stricken for fear of the spread of the epidemic, which might take everybody before it.
David Weesner ran a tanyard at the time of his death above Jones- boro, on the river, at what was known as Weesner's ford.
WILLIAM BALDWIN.
Marion, Indiana.
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Personal Recollections.
DISAPPEARANCE OF TOM WINSLOW.
I now remember that J. P. Winslow had a son, Tom, who went away with me when I went to the army. He was too young to be enlisted, but he went with our company till we reached Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where we were surrounded by Forrest's Cavalry and were under fire for several days. On the first day that firing began, Tom left us and said he was going to make his way back to Nashville. I understand he has never been heard from since. I am sure I have neither seen nor heard from him since, and have often wondered what became of him. J. M. HUNDLEY.
Summitville, Indiana.
THE M'CORMICK PLACE.
With many others, I am interested in the articles you are publish- ing about Fairmount and Fairmount Township and will add a mite to them.
In the winter of 1855 and 1856, when I was barely in my 'teens, I visited an uncle and family who then lived near New Cumberland. While there I went with a cousin to mill at Jonesboro and passed the Robert McCormick place. I have always remembered it from the fact that across the road from the buildings-north-were traces of fenc- ing for a deer park. As I remember the fencing it was of stakes or light rails standing at an angle of about forty-five degrees. Whether it was built that way or leaned from decay I did not know. I also got the story some way that the east line of the enclosure was a steep creek bank, down which the deer could jump, but could not jump out-mak- ing a kind of deer trap.
I also remember seeing a railroad bridge across a creek or ravine south of the road we traveled-I think in the McCormick neighbor- hood. It was for a proposed road from Cincinnati to Chicago, but never completed. The work on that line was, doubtless, the first rail- road work ever done in Fairmount Township. Probably some one can give further facts concerning it.
Years later, while I was a resident of Marion, and Joseph W. Baldwin lived near, I heard him say that he had the honor of giving Fairmount its name. He was then living in the embryo town, and the question of a name came up. He had been reading of the Fairmount Water Works, at Philadelphia, and the word "Fairmount" had struck his fancy and he suggested it as a name, and it was adopted.
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The Making of a Township.
Since writing the above paragraph, I thought there might be a mistake in it, and that Fairmount derived its name from the Township. I, therefore, got my Grant County maps and history, published in 1876. I found from them that the original plat of the town was filed on De- cember 28, 1850, and that it was then in Liberty Township; and in the year 1855 the Township was formed by taking from Liberty the terri- tory east of the line between Ranges 7 and 8, and a small Township on the east called Union, and the new! Township was named Fairmount, and that the Township name was derived from the name of the town. I also notice that the naming of the town was credited to William Neal. Joseph W. Baldwin was then the only "merchant prince" of the new town, and William Neal doubtless surveyed and made the plat, and doubtless both had a voice in giving the name.
In looking up this matter, I was surprised at the number of changes made in township boundaries of the county before they settled down to present shape. I doubt if many people now living in Grant County know that once there were Townships known as Union, Madison, Grant and Knox. M. F. TINGLEY.
Wabash, Indiana, January 25, 1917.
(Editor's Note .- In September. 1867, Mr. Tingley purchased the only printing office then in Grant County and commenced the publi- cation of The Marion Chronicle. He was an active and resolute friend of public improvements. Not only with his pen, but with his means, he assisted in the good work. With but one exception he was an origi- nal stockholder in every gravel-road company organized in the county since he became a citizen of it. He was a persistent and indefatigable advocate of the movement to secure the Cincinnati, Wabash & Michi- gan and the Toledo, St. Louis & Western railroads. Under his editor- ship The Chronicle stood out boldly for honesty and efficiency in mu- nicipal and county government, the policy of the paper exerting a marked influence upon the wise and economical expenditure of public funds. Mr. Tingley disposed of his newspaper property in 1884.)
SALOON DID NOT COME.
I remember the hardships of my father and mother in Fairmount Township, when the woods were full of squirrels, deer and wild turkeys. Those dear old pioneers suffered much without a murmur. No sacri- fice was too great for those dear old people.
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Personal Recollections.
I remember when nobody was rich and nobody was poor-every- body good and nobody bad. I do not now recall a single crime that was ever committed in the old neighborhood.
I remember the first horse thief I ever heard of. He stole Uncle Iredell Rush's horse. But the horse thief did not live in Fairmount Township. The men of the neighborhood got their horses and started on the trail .. Some of them got as far as Anderson and others a little farther, then became discouraged and went back. `My father, Nixon Rush, Sr., and Micajah Wilson went to Noblesville, I think it was, and found the horse in a feed stable. Father told the sheriff about it and said :
"I will go and call the horse by name, and if he nickers I shall claim the horse."
So father called : "Tobe! Stand around!"
And the horse jumped around and nickered.
The horse knew father's voice.
The sheriff then arrested the thief and they took him to Marion and put him in the lock-up.
Robert and Ruth Brazelton were the first colored people I ever saw. My father had great respect for the colored people. One time we had a colored woman by the name of Celia Brown to work for us, and she would always eat at the table with us. One day we had company. The man was not fond of the negro. When dinner was ready father told all to come to dinner, but Mr. - did not come. Father asked why. Mr. - said :
"I will not eat with that negro."
Father said :
"All right. Thee is worse than my hogs, for the white ones will eat with the black ones and will not growl. So thee just wait until we get through."
Father made one of the first coffins, if not the very first one, ever made in Fairmount Township. It seemed to us children that everybody would die at night, for away in the night we would hear someone call :
"Nixon! Nixon! We want thee to make a coffin" for so and so.
They would bring a measuring stick in and set it up in the corner of the room where we children lay in our trundle-bends. Father would get up and go to work. He always prepared his own glue, planed and sandpapered the boards, stained them, and sometimes lined the coffin. (I well remember he lined Uncle Jonathan Jones's coffin.) Then he would take the coffin to the home and stay and help until after the burial, and never charge a cent. Those were days of long, long ago.
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The Making of a Township.
The first frame house I ever saw, my father built it-the one at Rush Hill where Walter W. Rush now lives. He built several other frame houses in Fairmount Township.
I was one of the crusaders. Well do I remember when we heard a saloon was to come to Fairmount. So, to give the alarm when the man was seen driving into town, the bells were to ring. The key of the Methodist Church was at my house, across the street from the church, and some one came running up and said :
"The saloon is coming !"
So I took the key, went to the church, and commenced to ring the bell. In a few minutes a dozen or more men and women were there to help me. Martin Crilley. I think, rang the Wesleyan Church bell. All the bells in town were soon ringing. There were only two church bells in town then. Walker Winslow and Jonathan P. Winslow rang their dinner bells. So the saloon did not get very far in town then.
My first school teacher was William Neal. He used the whip most always on the boys. One day Millie Morris and I were getting our "heart lessons," as they were called in those days. We had to say them on Friday afternoons, each week. We were saying ours out too loud, and William threw the ruler at us. He told me to put one end in my mouth and Millie to put the other end in her mouth, and we carried it up to him. He gave us a hit on the hands with it and told us to go sit down and not say our "heart lessons" and get our school lessons.
MARGARET E. RAPER.
Indianapolis, Indiana, March 31, 1917.
(Editor's Note .- This communication is interesting in that the writer refers to school management in the early days, and also reveals the strong sentiment existing from the very first against the liquor business. )
WANTS HIS PANTS BACK.
I recall incidents from hearing my father relate them. ( This is his birthday anniversary. He was born the 30th of March, 1810, in South Carolina. ) His father. Charles Baldwin, moved to New Garden, now Fountain City, Wayne County, Indiana, in 1814. My father, when a boy, learned the hatter's trade in Richmond. His father accumulated some cattle and other personal property, and on account of a shortage of feed, in the spring of 1830. he moved, with his large family. consist- ing of Susannah, who married Jesse Dillon: Thomas, my father :
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Personal Recollections.
Mary, who married Lancaster Bell ; John ; Sarah, who became the wife of Vernon Stanfield ; Jane, who married a brother of Vernon Stanfield, I forget his name ; Lindsey : Hyra ; Abigail, who married Nathan Mor- ris, and Quincy-ten in all. On the 30th day of March, 1830, the day my father was twenty years old, they struck camp on the shores of Lake Galatia to get feed for their cattle, as there was some prairie grass around the edge of the lake.
As soon as he gained his majority father walked through the woods by aid of a compass and the numbers of Townships and Sections blazed on the trees to Ft. Wayne, as that was the location of the United States Land Office, and entered eighty acres of land, now known as the McDonald farm, south of Fairmount. He afterwards entered eighty acres just south of Fairmount, where John Rhoads lives.
I remember when I was a small boy we lived in Jonesboro. I went up to visit my uncles, Henry and Phil Davis. I took my Sunday pants along. I was to start home in time to get there before night. I stopped in Fairmount to play with Micah Baldwin's boys. They were "wild and woolly and full of fleas and hard to curry below the knees" when it came to a rough-and-tumble play. I forgot it was getting late. It was sundown when I left the boys and started down the pike afoot, with my extra pants tied up with a strap swung over my back.
I got along fine until I came to Back Creek graveyard, where now is the resting-place of my father and mother, grandparents on both sides, also of some of my sisters and brother, and many other relatives and friends. I saw the white tombstones loom up in the dark ; also a white cow lying down close to the fence. I shied over to the east side of the pike, keeping my eye on the white cow, but did not see a black cow lying on the east side, and ran up against her and fell over her, when she jumped up and bawled. I thought the devil had me sure. I threw away my pants and have not seen them to this day. If you know of anyone finding them please send them to me, as I am in need of a good pair of Sunday breeches.
A. J. BALDWIN.
Salem, Oregon, March 30, 1917.
(Editor's Note .- The writer of this communication is best known to the older residents of Fairmount and 'Marion as Anan or "Specs." Anan has always been known for his humorous bent of mind, and this letter will be recognized by his friends and relatives as very char- acteristic.)
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The Making of a Township.
LOST IN THE WILDERNESS.
Upon the earnest solicitation of her son, Dr. Calvin C. Rush, Mrs. Louisia (Winslow) Rush, in 1904, wrote for the benefit of her children and grandchildren brief reminiscences of her early life. A few extracts are here given :
"My grandfather, Joseph Winslow, and family of eight children came to Fairmount Township in 1829 direct from Randolph County, North Carolina. They took farms along Back Creek, so named by them after their old stream at home in North Carolina.
"The journey through the timber was very difficult. There were no roads and no bridges.
"Reaching the Mississinewa, near its source, the party made a raft and came down the river as far as where Jonesboro now stands. Trav- eling south a short distance, they came to a cabin occupied by John Russell. Here they stopped for the night.
"Living in the midst of relatives, and having no reason to rove, I was never outside of Grant County until I was eighteen years old.
"In my earliest recollection there were deer, wolves, bears, coons, wild cats, lynx, panthers, 'possums, groundhogs, squirrels, otters, beav- ers, muskrats and many other native animals.
"On one occasion my grandmother, Peninah Winslow, was at the home of her daughter, Caroline Newby, to assist her during sickness. They lived only one hundred rods apart. About sundown grandmother started home. She got turned around and was lost. As the timber and underbrush were very thick, she knew that it was useless to go far- ther until it should get light again, so she climbed some bushes draped in grapevines, and there she lodged for the night.
"No one was uneasy about her, for her folks at home supposed she had remained with her daughter, and her daughter supposed she was at home. So, amidst the biting of mosquitoes and the growling of wolves, she lodged, rather than slept, that night. The next morning the sun and the creek gave her an index to her home, where she arrived a little later.
"Once my mother was riding horseback near the same place. Her horse became a little restless. Looking up, my mother saw a panther in a tree, eyeing her and the horse, just ready to spring. But it didn't attack them.
"One night our young dog treed a panther resting on some low bushes a few rods from our house. As soon as it was light my father took a gun and shot the animal.
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Personal Recollections.
"The next morning my father, Daniel Winslow, went to the spring to wash, before breakfast. He had on neither hat nor coat and there was a little snow on the ground. Secing some wild turkeys in the trees, my father ran to get his gun. When the turkeys flew he chased them, and thus lost his bearings. By this time the snow was melting and he could not retrace his steps. So, in the immense forest, he took notice of the moss on the north side of the trees. Going in a northwest direc- tion about four miles, he came to the stream now known as Deer Creek. Naturally supposing that it would empty into the river, he followed it to its mouth, then went up-stream to where they had left the raft, and from there back to the cabin, reaching his destination at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, quite ready for his breakfast. The folks were just starting out to hunt him.
"The woods furnished gooseberries, plums, wild onions, crabapples, nuts, as well as sassafras, for variety. Had it not been for climatic conditions, which caused ague and fever before the country was cleared and ditched, we would have had many blessings."
ANIMALS AND BIRDS OF THE FOREST.
Before 1841 wolves had been so bad farmers did not venture to keep sheep. Now they began to want them. Father was a lover of sheep and he bought a flock of about thirty. We had to corral them every night. I soon learned my business to go after them and put them in their pen, which was not large, but high, so a wolf could not climb over. One night they strayed out and wolves got among them, play- ing havoc. Six were killed outright, others crippled. Farmers organ- ized in companies and killed the wolves, and thrilling stories and won- derful adventures would be repeated over and over. About this time an old bear and cubs were discovered a few miles west. A company of men went to the Big Woods, and soon found it was not a joke. The bears had just left their den in search of food. The two cubs were fat, yet outran the men, who shot as they ran, without effect-a flight of that kind for about eight miles, the old mother staying along with her cubs. At last they came to a large oak tree and the bears climbed to the top. About twenty-five men were now on hand, keeping reasonable distance. They began to shoot. Father, with his old flintlock, had a good aim. The cubs fell. The mother, in view of the situation, opened her mouth, gnarling her teeth and drawing herself in a bunch, fell to
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